[transcriber's note: all items in the errata have been corrected in the text, however the errata has still been included for completeness.] [illustration: the grassmarket, edinburgh.] the covenants and the covenanters covenants, sermons, and documents of the covenanted reformation. _with illustrations._ introduction on the national covenants by rev. james kerr, d.d., glasgow edinburgh: r.w. hunter, george iv. bridge. the covenants and the covenanters. [illustration] prefatory note. the covenants, sermons, and papers in this volume carry the readers back to some of the brightest periods of scottish history. they mark important events in that great struggle by which these three kingdoms were emancipated from the despotisms of pope, prince, and prelate, and an inheritance of liberty secured for these islands of the sea. the whole achievements of the heroes of the battlefields are comprehended under that phrase of reformers and martyrs, "the covenanted work of reformation." the attainments of those stirring times were bound together by the covenants, as by rings of gold. the sermons here were the product of the ripe thought of the main actors in the various scenes--men of piety, learning, and renown. hence, the nature, objects, and benefits of personal and national covenanting are exhibited in a manner fitted to attract to that ordinance the minds and hearts of men. the readers can well believe the statement of livingstone, who was present at several ceremonies of covenant-renovation: "i never saw such motions from the spirit of god. i have seen more than a thousand persons all at once lifting up their hands, and the tears falling down from their eyes." in the presence of the defences of the covenants as deeds, by these preachers, the baseless aspersions of novelists and theologues fade out into oblivion. true christians must, as they ponder these productions, be convinced that the covenanters were men of intense faith and seraphic fervour, and their own hearts will burn as they catch the heavenly flame. members of the church of christ will be stirred to nobler efforts for the kingdom of their lord as they meditate on the heroism of those who were the "chariots of israel and the horsemen thereof;" and they will behold with wonder that "to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the face of the serpent." and statesmen will discover how princes, parliaments, and peoples united in the hearty surrender of themselves to the prince of the kings and kingdoms of the earth; and will be aroused to promote that policy of christian statesmanship which, illustrating the purpose and will of god, the father, shall liberate parliaments and nations from the bonds of false religions, and assert for them those liberties and honours which spring from the enthronement of the son of man, as king of kings and lord of lords. this volume of documents of olden times is sent out on a mission of revival of religion, personal and national, in the present times. it would do a noble work if it helped to humble classes and masses, and led them to return as one man to that god in covenant from whom all have gone so far away. a national movement, in penitence and faith, for the repeal of the acts rescissory and the recognition of the national covenants would be as life from the dead throughout the british empire. the people and rulers of these dominions shall yet behold the brilliancy of the redeemer's crowns; and shall, by universal consent, exalt him who rules in imperial majesty over the entire universe of god. for, "the seventh angel sounded, and there were great voices in heaven, saying, the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our lord and of his christ." glasgow, _december, _. _errata._ page , line , instead of " ," _read_ . page , line , instead of "crawfordjohn," _read_ auchensaugh, near douglas. contents. page prefatory note, the national covenants--_introduction_, the national covenant-- the national covenant, or confession of faith, exhortation to lords of council, sermon at st. andrews. by alexander henderson, exhortation at inverness. by andrew cant, sermon at glasgow. by andrew cant, sermon at edinburgh. by andrew cant, the solemn league and covenant-- the solemn league and covenant, act of general assembly, exhortation at westminster. by philip nye, address at westminster. by alexander henderson, sermon at westminster. by thomas coleman, sermon at westminster. by joseph caryl, sermon at london. by thomas case, sermon at london. by thomas case, ordinance of the lords and commons, exhortation by the westminster assembly, sermon at london. by edmund calamy, the national covenants-- coronation sermon at scone. by robert douglas, charles ii, taking the covenants, the acts rescissory, the torwood excommunication, act against conventicles, the sanquhar declaration, protestation against the union, secession from the revolution church, _illustrations._ the grassmarket, edinburgh, _frontispiece_ greyfriars church, edinburgh, st. margarets and the abbey, westminster, the national covenants every person who enters rightly into covenant with god is on the pathway to gladness and honour. he comes into sympathy with him who from eternity made a covenant with his chosen. he gives joy to him who loves to see his people even touch the hem of his garments, or eagerly grasp his omnipotent hand. the spirit of god on the heart of the believer draws him into the firmest attachment to the beloved. under his gracious influence, the bonds of prejudice against covenanting are as green withs and the covenanter stands forth in liberty and in power. so also, when the people of a kingdom together come into covenant with the lord. in the character of israel as a covenanted people, there shines out a special splendour. one of the most brilliant events in judah's chequered history is that in which, in the days of the good king asa, "they gathered themselves together to jerusalem and entered into a covenant to seek the lord god of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul; and all judah rejoiced at the oath." more than any other nation of modern times, the people of the british isles resemble in their covenant actings the people of israel; and scotland is the likest to judah. certainly, scotland's covenants with god were coronets on scotland's brow. at the beginning of the sixteenth century, scotland was a moral waste. the papacy, which had attained the zenith of its power on the continent, reigned in its supremacy throughout the land. in europe, indeed, there were some oases in the desolation, but here there were "stretched out upon the kingdom the line of confusion and the stones of emptiness." the chaos was as broad and deep as that of the papal states before the time of victor emanuel. by the presence of the papacy, mind, conscience, heart, were blasted; while ignorance, superstition, iniquity, increased and prevailed. but the lord that saw the affliction of israel in the land of the pharaohs, was "the same yesterday"; and his time of visitation was one of love. the first signs of the coming deliverance were the martyr fires kindled to consume those who were beginning to cry for liberty. the heroic efforts and successes of the reformers on the continent, in the presence of papal bulls and inquisitions, were a trumpet call to independence to the people of this priest-cursed land; and many responded right nobly, ready to stand amid the faggots at the stake rather than bear the iron heel that bruised them. those valiant men were led to bind themselves together in "bands," or covenants, and together to god, in prosecution of their aims. at dun, in , they entered into a "band" in which they vowed to "refuse all society with idolatry." at edinburgh, in , they entered into "ane godlie band," vowing that "we, by his grace, shall, with all diligence, continually apply our whole power, substance, and our very lives to maintain, set forward and establish the most blessed word of god." at perth, in , they entered into covenant "to put away all things that dishonour his name, that god may be truly and purely worshipped." at edinburgh, in , they entered into covenant "to procure, by all means possible, that the truth of god's word may have free passage within this realm." and these covenants were soon followed by the confession of faith prepared by knox and five other reformers, and acknowledged by the three estates as "wholesome and sound doctrine grounded upon the infallible truth of god;" by an act abolishing the "jurisdiction of the bishop of rome within this realme," and forbidding "title or right by the said bishop of rome or his sect to anything within this realme," and by the first general assembly of the church of scotland. seven years thereafter, , the parliament recognised, by specific act, the reformed church of scotland as "the only true and holy kirk of jesus christ within this realm." the young church of scotland was based on the word of god, anti-papal, free, reformed, and covenanting, and in that character acknowledged by the state. "at this time," writes d'aubigne, "the reformed church was recognised and established by the state--a triumph similar to that of christianity when under constantine the religion of the crucified one ascended the throne of the cæsars." in spite of the vacillating policy of the king and parliament, and their repeated attempts to impose the order of bishops on the church, the reformation proceeded steadily, and a great advance was reached by the national covenant of . this national covenant, or second confession of faith, was prepared by john craig, minister of holyrood house. its original title was "ane short and generall confession of the true christiane faith and religione, according to god's verde and actis of our perlamentis, subscryved by the kingis majestie and his household, with sindrie otheris, to the glorie of god and good example of all men, att edinburghe, the day of januare, , and yeare of his majestie's reigne." the immediate occasion of this memorable transaction was the discovery of a secret dispensation from the pope consenting to the profession of the reformed religion by roman catholics, but instructing them to use all their influence in promotion of the "ancient faith." though the king was still in sympathy to some degree with the policy of rome against the "new faith," he could not dare to resist the indignation of the people against romish intrigues, and their demand for a national bond as a means of defence. by the national covenant, the covenanters declared their belief "in the true christian faith and religion, revealed by the blessed evangel, and received by the kirk of scotland, as god's eternal truth and only ground of our salvation;" renounced "all kinds of papistry," its authority, dogmas, rites and decrees, and pledged themselves to maintain "the king's majesty, in the defence of christ, against all enemies within this realm or without." it was signed by the king and the privy council and throughout the kingdom, and was subscribed again in and . "the kirk of scotland," wrote calderwood, "was now come to her perfection and the greatest puritie that ever she attained unto, both in doctrine and discipline, so that her beautie was admirable to forraine kirks. the assemblies of the sancts were never so glorious." this period was the meridian of the first reformation. but the time of scotland's rest and joy was short indeed. ere the sixteenth century opened, the ecclesiastical edifice, raised by knox, the melvilles and other reformers, was almost in ruins. the monarch had been taught in his youth the doctrine of the divine right of kings, and he was now determined to assert it. both church and state must be laid in the dust before his absolute will. both had been delivered from a popedom on the banks of the tiber, now they will be confronted by a popedom on the banks of the thames; and the despotism of the pope shall be even exceeded by the despotism of the prince. scotland is now to be the scene of a struggle with issues more momentous than any ever waged on any field of battle. shall civil and religious liberty be saved from captivity by tyrants on the throne? shall free assemblies and free parliaments be extinguished in the land that has, by its people and its parliament, abolished the authority of rome and taken its national covenant with god? for nearly a hundred years this conflict was destined to continue till, at the revolution settlement, the divine right of kings was banished the realm. kingcraft forthwith commenced its work of demolition and proceeded to deliver its blows in rapid succession. summoning to its aid laud and other sycophantic counsellors, it subtly resolved to lay its hand on the very conscience of the church. mitres were offered some of her more prominent ministers, for charles i. knew that presbyterianism is the friend of civil freedom, and that prelacy in the church will more readily consent to despotism in the state. the "black acts" were passed confirming the "king's royal power over all states and subjects within this realm," discharging all assemblies held "without our sovereign lord's special licence and commandment," and requiring ministers to acknowledge the ecclesiastical superiority of bishops. the assembly was induced to adopt a proposal for the appointment of a number of commissioners to sit and vote in parliament, become members of the privy council, and lords of session; and such honours would not readily be declined. then came the court of high commission, instituted for the purpose of compelling the "faithful" ministers to acknowledge the bishops appointed by the king--a court called into existence by royal proclamation, "a sort of english inquisition," writes dr. m'crie, "composed of prelates, noblemen, knights, and ministers, and possessing the combined power of a civil and ecclesiastical tribunal." after this came the act giving full legal status to the "anti-christian hierarchy" of episcopacy in scotland; the formal consecration of the first scottish prelates; the five articles of perth; the canons and constitutions ecclesiastical--a complete code of laws for the church issued without any consultation with the representatives of the church; an act charging all his majesty's subjects to conform to the order of worship prescribed by him, and the semi-popish book of common prayer and administration of the sacraments which was imposed upon all parishes and ministers. by these and other measures, the sovereign impiously assumed that spiritual power which belonged to christ alone, as king and head of the church. here, in its worst form, was "the absolutism that had so long threatened the extinction of their liberties; here was the heel of despotism openly planted on the neck of their church, and the crown openly torn from the brow of christ, her only king." during all these years, the reformers were resisting with courage the assaults of the enemy. at times there were secessions from their ranks when, under the bribes and threats of prince and prelate, some ingloriously succumbed. but, as renwick said later in the struggle, "the loss of the men was not the loss of the cause." the champions of the reformation, led by andrew melville, feared not to arraign that monarch who once told his bishops that "now he had put the sword into their hands they should not let it rust." they tabled petitions, published protests, obtained interviews, but all proved powerless to arrest the career of those who were bent on the annihilation of the church, and the establishment on its ruins of the royal supremacy. in one of their protests, they call upon the estates to "advance the building of the house of god, remembering always that there is no absolute and undoubted authority in the world excepting the sovereign authority of christ the king, to whom it belongeth as properly to rule the kirk according to the good pleasure of his own will, as it belongeth to him to save the kirk by the merit of his own sufferings." the attempt to impose laud's liturgy gave opportunity for an outburst of the slumbering flame of discontent. janet geddes flung a stool at the head of the officiating dean, and the tumult that ensued extended far and wide. a tablet, recently erected to her memory in st. giles, states that "she struck the first blow in the great struggle for freedom of conscience." the proclamation by the council of the state, condemning all meetings against the episcopal canons and service book, brought the reformers accessions from all parts of the kingdom. could an oppressed people bear the tyranny longer? but, will they take up arms and scatter carnage and blood throughout the land? no, their weapons will not be carnal, but mighty through god to the pulling down of strongholds. they will go to the covenant god of the kingdom, and they will stand before him, saying, "thine are we, david, and on thy side, thou son of jesse." scotland will renew her covenant with god. the national covenant of was produced. an addition was made, in two parts. the part summarizing the acts of parliament, condemning the papacy and ratifying the confessions of the church, was drafted by warriston; that with special religious articles for the time was by henderson. the spot chosen for the solemnities of the first subscription was the churchyard of greyfriars, edinburgh. "the selection," writes the historiographer-royal for scotland, "showed a sound taste for the picturesque. the graveyard in which their ancestors have been laid from time immemorial stirs the hearts of men. the old gothic church of the friary was then existing; and landscape art in edinburgh has by repeated efforts established the opinion that from that spot we have the grandest view of the precipices of the castle and the national fortress crowning them. it seemed a homage to that elevating influence of grand external conditions which the actors in the scene were so vehemently repudiating." in that memorable spot the reformers gathered "the legitimate charters" of their nation into one document and presented them before heaven. johnston unrolled the parchment in which these scottish charters were inscribed, and read them in a clear, calm voice. "when he had finished, all was still as the grave. but the silence was soon broken. an aged man of noble air was seen advancing. he came forward slowly, and deep emotion was visible in his venerable features. he took up the pen with a trembling hand and signed the document. a general movement now took place. all the presbyterians in the church pressed forward to the covenant and subscribed their names. but this was not enough; a whole nation was waiting. the immense parchment was carried into the churchyard and spread out on a large tombstone to receive on this expressive table the signature of the church. scotland had never beheld a day like that." "this," says henderson, "was the day of the lord's power, in which multitudes offered themselves most willingly, like dewdrops of the morning. this was, indeed, the great day of israel, wherein the arm of the lord was revealed--the day of the redeemer's strength, on which the princes of the people assembled to swear their allegiance to the king of kings." charles i. understood well the force of that mighty movement when, on hearing of it, he said, "i have no more power in scotland than a doge of venice." the renewal of that covenant, th february, , was a thunderbolt against despotism in scotland, and the world over. "the chariots of god are twenty thousand." the covenant was transcribed into hundreds of copies, carried throughout the country from north to south and east to west, and subscribed everywhere. the spirit that thrilled the thousands filling and overflowing greyfriars church and churchyard, spread with rapidity over the whole land. it combined the "whole nation into one mighty phalanx of incalculable energy." the last sparks of the king's fury burst out in secret instructions to his followers to use all power against the "refractory and seditious," and in a threat to send his army and fleet to scotland, but these soon died away. the "refractory and seditious" king eventually surrendered to the covenanters, abolished courts, canons, liturgies, and articles, and consented to the calling of a general assembly. this was the first free general assembly of the church of scotland for the last forty two years. it was held in glasgow, on st november, ; and its work in the overthrow of prelacy and the royal supremacy and in the re-assertion of the spiritual independence of the church, was one of the most signal successes in the still progressing conflict of the second reformation. meanwhile, charles ii. was endeavouring to secure the recognition of his absolute monarchy in england. there also he rigorously demanded submission to despotic claims. by abolishing parliaments, annulling charters, appointing the star chamber, he introduced a reign of terror. in the room of those legislative bulwarks of liberty, which the nation had constructed through the skill and experience of generations, a "grim tyranny," writes dr. wylie, "reared its gaunt form, with the terrible accompaniments of star chamber, pillory, and branding irons. it reminded one of sunset in the tropics. there the luminary of the day goes down at a plunge into the dark. so had the day of liberty in england gone down at a stride into the night of tyranny." the oppressed people turned to the covenanters of scotland for sympathy and counsel. the negotiations resulted in the preparation of an international league in defence of religion and liberty. against the banner of the king they raised the banner of the covenant. alexander henderson drafted the new bond. the document breathed the spirit of the national covenant of greyfriars, condemned the papal and prelatic system, pled for a constitutional monarchy, and outlined a comprehensive programme for future efforts in extending the principles of the reformation. on september , , it was subscribed in st. margarets church, westminster. the members of parliament in england and the westminster assembly of divines stood with uplifted hands, and, as article after article was read, they took this oath to god. the commissioners from scotland to the westminster assembly united with the people of england in the solemnity of the day. thus the representatives of the two nations stood before the lord. this was the solemn league and covenant, "the noblest in its essential features," writes hetherington, "of all that are recorded among the international transactions of the world." the parliament and westminster assembly issued instructions for its subscription throughout the kingdom. the classes and the masses in england, scotland, and ireland received it with gladness. in the face of a despotism unexampled in the history of these lands, high and low, rich and poor, bowed themselves as one before the throne of god. "for at that time day by day there came to david to help him, until it was a great host like the host of god." through this league and covenant, the people of the british isles were protected by omnipotence, and were as invincible against the despotic forces that assailed them as were the white cliffs of their native shores against the huge galleons of the invincible armada. "to thine own people, with thine arm, thou didst redemption bring; to jacob's sons and to the tribes of joseph that do spring." these covenants were prepared and subscribed in a spirit of deep piety. but for the sterling spirituality of the reformers there would never have been a covenanted reformation. the work of covenanting is itself a lofty spiritual exercise, and requires a people possessing much of the spirit of the living god. every public act for the sake of christ should be the outcome of an impassioned devotion. the reading of even the scant records of those times of covenanting, telling of the prayers, and tears, and love, and courage of those who gave themselves to god, is fitted to inspire the coldest heart with noblest emotions. their inward piety made them men of power, and enabled them to bear down every barrier to the kingdom of their lord erected by the craft of prince and priest. it is when israel would call her lord, ishi, my husband, that "the names of baalim would be taken out of her mouth and be remembered no more." it was when the christians of the mearns had communion at "the table of the lord jesus," ministered by knox, that they "banded themselves to the uttermost of their power to maintain the true preaching of the evangel of christ." the historian, burton, describes the movement that resulted in the subscription of the national covenant as the fruit of "a great religious revival," and the reformation as "the great revival." and kirkton says, "i verily believe there were more souls converted to christ in that short time than in any other season since the reformation." their intense piety prepared the covenanters for the persecutions to follow and for crowns of martyrdom. in and around their whole covenanting procedure, there was the atmosphere of a paradise of communion with god. these covenants exhibited the great ecclesiastical breadth of the covenanters. the enthronement of the word of god over the church was one of the commanding objects of the reformers. if only the church would hear and honour christ, her king, speaking in that word, then would she be clothed with the sun, and have on her head a crown of twelve stars. the reformers resolutely set themselves to apply the word to the church, in all her departments; she must be such an institution as her lord had instructed. the will of priest, and prince, and presbyter, and people, must be set aside in the presence of the will of her sole sovereign. the works of demolition and reconstruction must go on together. built according to the design of her lord, her bulwarks, and towers, and palaces shall command the admiration of the world. the pattern was not taken from rome, nor "even from geneva, but from the blessed word of god." no quarter shall be given to hierarchy of pope or prelate in the government of the church, to the "commandments of men" in the doctrine of the church, or to unscriptural rites in the worship of the church. so great was their success that the reformers could say that they "had borrowed nothing from the border of rome," and had "nothing that ever flowed from the man of sin." often the battle raged most fiercely round the standard of the independence of the church, but ever the covenanters emerged from the struggle victorious. valorously did they maintain that christ ought to "bear the glory of ruling his own kingdom, the church," and fearlessly they defied the monarchs in their invasions of messiah's rights. besides, they were not satisfied with the attainment of a united church in their own kingdom alone. they were filled with the spirit of the saviour's prayer, "that they all may be one." in the present times, those who publicly contend for the reunion of a "few scattered fragments" of the reformed church are belauded as men of large hearts and liberal aims. the covenanters embodied in their solemn league and covenant an engagement to "bring the churches of god in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity;" and they also subsequently included the churches on the continent in their efforts for ecclesiastical union. for the purposes of these ecclesiastical unions, the westminster assembly sat for five years in westminster, after signing the solemn league, and framed a basis for union in the standards they produced--which still testify that the members of that assembly were in advance of their times. yes, the covenanters were not narrow, sectarian, bigoted; but large, liberal, catholic. these covenants were deeds of lofty imperial significance. the reformation of the church, however complete, would have been a limited reformation. there are two powers ordained of god and both must be reformed. the comprehensive aims of the covenanters embraced both state and church. their deeds were civil as well as ecclesiastical. a church thoroughly reformed and christian in a state unreformed and anti-christian, would never have satisfied the reformers. the state also must be no longer a vassal of the pope, it must be a servant of the blessed and only potentate. god in his word here also as in the church must be joyfully granted the exclusive supremacy. the covenanters vowed to defend the king in the defence and preservation of the reformed religion. they secured the recognition of the church by parliament. the members of parliament themselves became covenanters. in short, christianity pervaded and adorned the constitution and administration of civil government in the united kingdom. the covenanters were convinced that no power, except that provided by the word of god, could possibly resist the arbitrary claims of the monarchs, secure the safety of the state, and promote civil liberty in the land. religion in the realm of citizenship is the very crown of any realm. in the face of the despotisms of pope and monarch, it would not have been surprising had the covenanters invented and endeavoured to apply to the state the modern theory of religious equality, which denies the right of the state to even acknowledge the prince of the kings of the earth. if ever they dreamt of such a theory, their thought of the supremacy of jesus would make it vanish as a dream. much less would they ever admit the possibility of deliverance by the theory of a concurrent recognition of all religions, as this would lower a nation to the position of heathenism with its "gods many," and would soon involve the strongest empire in disaster. papalism in the state in the ascendancy, absolute monarchism in the state, secularism in the state, polytheism in the state--these are four despotisms, and must be flung with detestation out of all christian lands. the state that is not on the side of christ, and christ alone, is in antagonism to all the moral forces of the universe. its throne is against the throne of the highest. the scottish covenanters placed the crown of the state on the head of its rightful monarch, and so lifted their kingdom to imperial grandeur. there are some spots of this world that have secured undying memorials, as they have been stages for the settlement of questions of momentous importance in the destinies of nations. there is marathon in greece, waterloo in france, sadowa in austria, and trafalgar on the sea, but probably the scenes associated with these pale in glory in the presence of greyfriars and westminster, where nations won unparalleled victories in the surrender of themselves to their covenant god. these two spots were the earthly centres of spiritual movements of mighty magnitude, and possess in the eyes of the god of heaven and of the principalities about his throne a splendour not eclipsed by any that ever shone on a battlefield. when the day of millennial glory comes, the people of the new era will not look to the sadowas and the sedans, but to such spots as these where the greatest heroes of the pre-millennial times reflected millennial light and anticipated millennial triumphs. for there, by an army without sword or spear, the absolutism of monarchies and the tyranny of hierarchies were scattered like chaff before the wind. as the covenanters entered into and rejoiced in their vows to god, the imperialism of king jesus conquered the imperialism which prince and priest had been enforcing with rigour; and this imperialism shall be in the ascendancy yet the world over when the empires of earth shall crown the christ of god as king of the church and king of nations. but the covenanters have scarce time to estimate and enjoy the benefits of their conquests before a tempest burst forth suddenly and threatened the destruction of all the attainments of the past. in a moment of national infatuation the stuart dynasty was restored to the throne, and charles ii. instantly proceeded to set up once more the dagon of the royal supremacy and enforce its recognition by all his power. on two occasions he had subscribed the solemn league, and he had issued instructions in its favour, professing warm admiration of both covenants and of the reformation. but now the perjured monarch employed all his craft and power to overthrow the whole covenanted reformation in church and state. parliament, the slave of his behests, passed the act of supremacy, giving legislative sanction to all the rights he claimed. the acts rescissory followed, declaring the covenants unlawful and seditious deeds, and repealing all parliamentary laws in their favour. then came the abolition of presbyterianism, indulgences, the restoration of prelacy, the appointment of high commission courts, the ejection of all ministers who would not obey the royal mandates, and the erection of scaffolds. the monarch seemed determined to extinguish every spark of liberty in the kingdom. the reign of peace was supplanted by a reign of terror. the covenants were broken, burnt, buried, by public orders. the covenanters met to worship god in the moorlands and dells, setting a watch for the dragoons of claverhouse. thousands upon thousands of the noblest patriots were imprisoned, tortured, mangled, shot. at times their indignation burst forth through arms, as at rullion green, drumclog, and bothwell bridge. their most brilliant victories were on the scaffold when they passed triumphantly to the crown; for there was "a noble army" of martyrs, from argyle the proto-martyr of the "killing times," down to the youthful renwick, last of the white-robed throng. the ruin wrought by charles i. in england "we have likened," says dr. wylie, "to a tropical sunset, where night follows day at a single stride. but the fall of scotland into the abyss of oppression and suffering under charles ii. was like the disastrous eclipse of the sun in his meridian height, bringing dismal night over the shuddering earth at the hour of noon." "the hills with the deep mournful music were ringing, the curlew and plover in concert were singing; but the melody died 'midst derision and laughter, as the hosts of ungodly rushed on to the slaughter. "when the righteous had fallen and the combat had ended, a chariot of fire through the dark cloud descended; the drivers were angels on horses of whiteness, and its burning wheels turned on axles of brightness. "on the arch of the rainbow the chariot is gliding; through the paths of the thunder the horsemen are riding; glide swiftly, bright spirits, the prize is before you, a crown never fading, a kingdom of glory." throughout the long thirty years of persecution, the decimated covenanters still lived. the banner for christ's crown and covenant was still waved by them through the blood-stained land. oftentimes they issued declarations and protests against the tyranny of their oppressors, many of which concluded with those inspiriting words at the close of the last of them, "let king jesus reign and all his enemies be scattered." the most famous of these papers was the sanquhar declaration. on the nd of june, , twenty horsemen rode into the burgh of sanquhar, and at the market cross read their declaration, in which they "disowned charles stuart that has been reigning (or rather tyrannizing as we may say) on the throne of britain these years bygone, as having any right, title to, or interest in the said crown of scotland for government, as forfeited several years since by his perjury and breach of covenant both to god and his kirk, and usurpation of his crown and royal prerogatives therein." that courageous act of those twenty patriots proclaimed the doom of the house of stuart. "men called it rash, perhaps it was crime: their deed flashed out god's will, an hour before the time." a few years afterwards, the nations of england and scotland endorsed the action of richard cameron and his compatriots. the blood of guthrie, and cargill, and mackail had cried for vengeance, and the god of the covenanters hurled the stuart dynasty from the throne. "alas! is it not true?" writes carlyle in his _heroes_, "that many men in the van do always, like russian soldiers, march into the ditch of schwiednitz, and fill it up with their dead bodies, that the rear may pass over them dry-shod, and gain the honour? how many earnest, rugged cromwells, knoxes, poor peasant covenanters, wrestling, battling for very life, in rough, miry places, have to struggle and suffer and fall, greatly censured, bemired, before a beautiful revolution of eighty-eight can step over them in official pumps and silk stockings, with universal three-times-three!" the stedfast followers of the covenanters expected that, on the cessation of the persecution, there would be the restoration of the whole covenanted reformation in church and state. but their just expectations were doomed to bitter disappointment. neither by church nor state was any proposal ever seriously entertained of renewing the national covenants with god, as at the commencement of the second reformation. instead, the acts rescissory were permitted to remain on the statute-book, and the covenants to lie under the infamy to which the king and the royalists had consigned them. the state exerted an erastian control of the church, and the church yielded submission. her standards were assigned her before she met; her assemblies were summoned and prorogued at the sovereign's pleasure; presbyterianism was established, not because it possessed a _jus divinum_ but because the people willed it; her government was controlled through the admission into her ministry, by royal request, of many who had accepted indulgences and were supporters of prelacy. the whole period of the second reformation was almost annihilated by the settlement of the church, not according to the periods, and , but according to . the acts of the assemblies of the revolution church never once mention the solemn league and covenant. ministers who pled for its recognition exposed themselves to the censures of their brethren. an attempt by the church, soon after the revolution to assert the supremacy of christ and the church's independence under him, issued in the dissolution of the assembly by the royal commissioner. and this departure of the church and state at the revolution was strikingly and sadly endorsed when, at the union with england, scotland consented that the prelatic establishment in england should be allowed to remain "inviolable for ever." a few "stones had been gathered from the wreck of the reformation to be incorporated with the new structure, but the venerable fabric itself was left in ruins." yes! the revolution came but not the reformation. the sword was returned to its scabbard, but church and state did not return to their covenant god. into sympathy and fellowship with institutions founded on principles subversive of those they had vowed to maintain, the faithful followers of the reformers and martyrs could not enter. the banner for christ's crown and covenant had waved over the fields of scotland when the storms of persecution had raged most fiercely, and how could they be justified in dropping it now when the god of zion was pleased to command a calm. the minority who thus preserved an unbroken relationship with the pre-revolution and martyr period continued to meet in "societies" for sixteen years, when they were joined by a minister--rev. john m'millan--who was driven out of the revolution church because of his testimony for the whole covenanted reformation. some years afterwards, another minister espoused the cause then represented by mr. m'millan and the united societies, and this union resulted in the constitution of the reformed presbytery. two years afterwards, in , the members of the reformed presbyterian church engaged in the work of covenant renovation, at auchensaugh, near douglas, in lanarkshire. since that time this church has had an unbroken history, excepting a disruption in , when a majority departed from her distinctive position. but what is the bearing of scotland's covenanted reformation of three centuries ago, on the scotland of the present times? has it no instruction for all times? is the whole prolonged struggle, with all its chequered scenes, but a panorama on which spectators may gaze with but passing emotions? is it all but a story with interest, however thrilling, for the study of the antiquarian? if so then the whole contendings of reformers and covenanters and martyrs sink into insignificance indeed; they have been assigned a magnitude far beyond their desert. if the doctrines and principles for whose application in church and state they fought and suffered, were unscriptural, then let an enlightened posterity bury with shame the story of their warfare. or, if they were of mere temporary importance, then the covenanters merit no higher admiration than that accorded to those who, like the armenians now in turkey, cry out against the oppressions of the civil power. but these doctrines and principles were brought from the word of god and possess imperishable excellency. their glory was not temporal; it is eternal. and they shall yet undergo a resurrection and receive universally a joyous recognition. the obligation of these national covenants on the british nation still has been oftentimes demonstrated by indisputable arguments. the word of god teaches in the most pointed manner this principle of devolving covenant obligation. the god of israel threatened his people with chastisement for breaking the covenant he had made with their fathers four hundred years before. the covenanters themselves bound their posterity to god by express words in their bonds. the renovation of covenants at various times proceeded on this principle. in the time of persecution, the sufferers again and again declared that they and others were bound by the vows of their fathers. "god hath laid engagements upon scotland," said argyle on the scaffold, "we are tied by covenants to religion and reformation; and it passeth the power of all the magistrates under heaven to absolve from the oath of god." the scriptural character of their contents infers the perpetual obligation of these covenants. all who accept the scriptures as the word of god, must renounce the errors condemned by the covenants and contend for the truths those who subscribed them pledged themselves to maintain. no christian should ever dare to seek relief from the claims of christ; it is his honour to acknowledge and live and die for them. these deeds were as national as any in the statute-book and therefore they are obligatory still, for the nation in its corporate character is the same now as three hundred years ago. their perpetual obligation may be resisted, as it often is, on the plea that a people have no right to bind posterity. but should such a plea be declared valid, then society would be thrown into the wildest disorder and temporal ruin would overtake millions. heirs could be justified in refusing to fulfil the instructions of testators; young people could condemn the baptismal vows taken by parents; governments and cabinets could tear up the treaties of their predecessors; and the nation itself could repudiate the national debt. those who enter into the possession of valuable estates, secured for them by the toil and struggles of ancestry, do not renounce their estates because they themselves were not consulted in the execution of the title deeds. these deeds of the covenanters, and the heritage secured by them, were obtained through the noblest sacrifices. they were deeds presented before the throne, and registered in the court of heaven, and those who repudiate them incur the risk of an awful forfeiture. the present conditions in church and state throughout the british isles, force upon the minds of all who admire the reformation the facts that the doctrines and principles of those reformations are even now ignored and despised, and that the systems which were cast out by the whole nation through their covenants are now in power. the objects sought by the covenants have not yet been realized. in several sad respects, both church and state are in positions of acute antagonism to those great catholic objects. an ecclesiastical supremacy in the british sovereign rears its head over these covenanted kingdoms; for, as blackstone writes, this supremacy is "an inherent right of the british crown." the "anti-christian" hierarchy of prelacy is implanted in the national constitution and sustained by the whole prestige of the realm. under its lordly bewitchery, erastianism prevails in the established churches of the kingdom. the oath of allegiance implicates all who take it in an acknowledgment of the ecclesiastical supremacy of the sovereign as "by law established," and this oath must be taken by every member of parliament before he can sit and vote in the house, under a penalty of five hundred pounds. the basis of qualification for membership in parliament has been so much altered in recent times that roman catholics, atheists, and now idolaters are admitted--changes which have been demanded by the vast majority of the non-established churches, who are pleading for the exclusion of religion from all state institutions. the papacy, through its various agencies, is in receipt of more than a million and a quarter pounds annually from the national funds. a wide-spread reaction in favour of the romish religion is going forward, and is being powerfully assisted by the romanizing movement in the church of england, and the ritualistic in the presbyterian churches throughout the kingdom. had the two nations and their churches adhered to their national covenants and the solemn league and covenant, and to the formularies prepared by the international assembly at westminster, the lovers of the covenanted reformation would not have had these portentous conditions to deplore to-day. would their adherence to those deeds and documents have done them any dishonour? and would it not be to the lasting honour of their posterity now, if a movement were originated and carried through to reproduce with all possible fulness the scenes of the past--another greyfriars, edinburgh, and another st. margarets, westminster. but, even apart from the historical aspect of the whole matter, the question may, in the presence of these monstrous evils, be pressed upon the attention and heart of all the people throughout the land? what ought to be done to remove these evils and avert the disaster which their continuance must entail? what ought the british subject, if a patriot, do, in the face of evils which threaten the ruin of his kingdom? what ought the protestant to do, in the presence of a government and administration which are daily advancing the court of rome to power? what the presbyterian, who cannot take the oath of allegiance without committing himself to the hierarchy of prelacy? what the christian, in the presence of systems in imperial politics which have already dethroned christ and are hastening to expel him from all national institutions? is there no means by which the christian citizen can exonerate himself from national sins, and free himself of all responsibility for national calamity? must he still exercise his right to vote and give his support to governments which, in the hands of both political parties, are augmenting rather than diminishing the existing evils? if the members of one political party secede from that party, when changes they cannot accept are welcomed to their programme, and henceforth refuse them their support at the polling-booth, would it not be proper that men, sensible of the utter inadequacy of the performances of both parties to meet the evils under which the nation lies, should stand aloof from both government and opposition? the leading unionists in ireland again and again declared that they could not possibly enter into the proposed parliament under home rule which would be set up in dublin, and their declarations awakened universal sympathy. for reasons similar, should not all christian electors refuse to identify themselves with a constitution and government which are based on principles subversive of independence and liberty? protests against existing evils are not sufficient. practical political dissent is imperatively demanded in the interests of patriotism and christianity. if even one-tenth of the electors in the united kingdom prepared a paper of grievances, setting forth the present dishonours done to christ nationally, and calling for the abandonment of all that is unscriptural in the public policy, and the adoption of what is scriptural and honouring to christ, and accompany this manifesto with a declaration that they cannot violate their convictions by identifying themselves with the government till reforms be conceded, would not such a movement touch the mind and heart of the nation as no question in party politics has done for generations? their attitude of separation would carry extraordinary dignity and power. and they could plead too that the evils of which they complained were abjured by the nation universally, when the national covenants were taken in scotland, england, and ireland, and when sovereigns and members of parliament again subscribed them as a condition of the high offices to which they were called. how could they loyally support a constitution now so opposite to the ancient scriptural and covenanted constitution of the realm? the reformed presbyterian churches of scotland and ireland are the only churches within the british dominions that take this position of political dissent. their fathers took it at the revolution settlement, and they have maintained it all through these centuries till now; and they have done so not because they love the nation less, but christ more. if this position were assumed by larger numbers throughout the land, who knoweth whether they would "not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" "shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, that frameth mischief by a law?" "wherefore, come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the lord." "hope thou not, then, earth's alliance, take thy stand behind the cross; fear, lest by unblest compliance, thou transmute thy gold to dross. stedfast in thy meek endurance, prophesy in sackcloth on; hast thou not the pledged assurance, kings one day shall kiss the son." the popular acceptance of these doctrines and principles by the state and the churches at present, would imply a vast mental upheaval--a vast moral revolution. but the best hopes and wishes for the nation at large are that it will come and come soon, and the present evils, however great, must not be allowed to produce a pessimistic tone. very hopeless seemed the prospects before the first reformation, but that reformation came. very hopeless seemed the prospects before the second reformation, but that reformation came. and however dark the prospects now before a third reformation, that reformation shall come! the world is nearing the last stage of its history, as pointed out by daniel in the dream of the monarch of babylon, prior to the overwhelming and triumphant progress of the stone-kingdom, cut out of the mountain. that immense image of nebuchadnezzar, in its gold and silver and brass and iron, represented those four vast monarchies which, in their successive periods, swayed the government of the world. but in the fact that the image was in the form of a man, the spirit that actuated these four empires of earth is strikingly emphasized--the spirit of the idolatry of humanity. they were all embodiments of the man-will: babels for the incarnation of heaven-daring human aspirations, and so carried within even their colossal proportions the elements of confusion and death. a similar lust of humanity for supremacy characterises those kingdoms, represented by the ten toes of the image, into which the fourth roman monarchy parted. but soon now, therefore, must sound out the last blast of the seventh trumpet, when the idolatry of humanity in earth's kingdoms shall fall, and the spirit and will of christ pervade and beautify all the institutions, ecclesiastical and imperial, of the world. yes, the kingdom "not in hands" shall shatter yet all the usurped rights of the world-powers. there shall be a glorious reversal of the disaster in eden. that old adamic principle of a legislative sovereignty in man, which has convulsed the nations for six thousand years, shall be utterly renounced and crucified the world over. ruin irreparable shall befall the entire empire of satan, who shall be chained in his lake, as the pealing note of that trumpet of god shall swell over all the earth. the throne of god and the lamb shall be erected by public consent as the unifying source and centre for people, churches, and empires. the whole world of humanity shall be redeemed from sin and its curse, be animated by one spirit, and triumphant in one lord. may not the true christian, then, as he thinks of the idolatrous form in the dream of the monarch of babylon, and looks in the watches of the night for the dawn, when christ jesus his lord shall be honoured throughout the world, behold rising before his eyes in his dream another colossal figure; and its head is gold, and its breasts and arms gold, and its belly and thighs gold, and its legs and feet and toes gold; yea all of it "is as the most fine gold;" and the head representing the powers of the great american continents; the breast and arms, asia; the belly and thighs, africa; the legs and feet, europe, and the toes the isles of the sea--the british isles with the rest. and the form of the great earth-filling figure is that of jesus of nazareth, the man of jehovah's right hand. and lo! "i saw heaven opened, and i heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, alleluia, for the lord god omnipotent reigneth." "come, then, and, added to thy many crowns, receive yet one, the crown of all the earth, thou who alone art worthy! it was thine by ancient covenant, ere nature's birth; and thou hast made it thine by purchase since and overpaid its value with thy blood. thy saints proclaim thee king! and in their hearts thy title is engraven with a pen dipp'd in the fountain of eternal love." the national covenant [illustration: greyfriars churchyard, edinburgh.] the national covenant or, the confession of faith. _subscribed at first by the king's majesty and his household, in the year of god ; thereafter by persons of all ranks in the year of god , by ordinance of the lords of secret council, and acts of the general assembly; subscribed again by all sorts of persons in the year of god . secondly: and with ordinance of the lords of secret council, and acts of general assembly, subscribed again by all sorts of persons in the year of god . thirdly: and with ordinance of council, at the desire of the general assembly; with their general bond for maintenance of the true religion, and of the kings majesty; and now subscribed in the year of god , by us, noblemen, baronets, gentlemen, burgesses, ministers, and commons under subscribed; and, together with a resolution and promise, for the causes after expressed, to maintain the true, religion and king's majesty, according to the confession aforesaid, and the acts of parliament, the so much of which followeth:--_ we all and every one of us under-written, protest, that, after long and due examination of our own consciences in matters of true and false religion, we are now thoroughly resolved in the truth by the spirit and word of god: and therefore we believe with our hearts, confess with our mouths, subscribe with our hands, and constantly affirm, before god and the whole world, that this only is the true christian faith and religion, pleasing god, and bringing salvation to man, which now is, by the mercy of god, revealed to the world by the preaching of the blessed evangel; and is received, believed, and defended by many and sundry notable kirks and realms, but chiefly by the kirk of scotland, the king's majesty, and three estates of this realm, as god's eternal truth, and only ground of our salvation; as more particularly is expressed in the confession of our faith, established and publicly confirmed by sundry acts of parliaments, and now of a long time hath been openly professed by the king's majesty, and whole body of this realm both in burgh and land. to the which confession and form of religion we willingly agree in our conscience in all points, as unto god's undoubted truth and verity, grounded only upon his written word. and therefore we abhor and detest all contrary religion and doctrine; but chiefly all kind of papistry in general and particular heads, even as they are now damned and confuted by the word of god and kirk of scotland. but, in special, we detest and refuse the usurped authority of that roman antichrist upon the scriptures of god, upon the kirk, the civil magistrate, and consciences of men; all his tyrannous laws made upon indifferent things against our christian liberty; his erroneous doctrine against the sufficiency of the written word, the perfection of the law, the office of christ, and his blessed evangel; his corrupted doctrine concerning original sin, our natural inability and rebellion to god's law, our justification by faith only, our imperfect sanctification and obedience to the law; the nature, number, and use of the holy sacraments; his five bastard sacraments, with all his rites, ceremonies, and false doctrine, added to the ministration of the true sacraments without the word of god; his cruel judgment against infants departing without the sacrament; his absolute necessity of baptism; his blasphemous opinion of transubstantiation, or real presence of christ's body in the elements, and receiving of the same by the wicked, or bodies of men; his dispensations with solemn oaths, perjuries, and degrees of marriage forbidden in the word; his cruelty against the innocent divorced; his devilish mass; his blasphemous priesthood; his profane sacrifice for sins of the dead and the quick; his canonization of men; calling upon angels or saints departed, worshipping of imagery, relics, and crosses; dedicating of kirks, altars, days; vows to creatures; his purgatory, prayers for the dead; praying or speaking in a strange language, with his processions, and blasphemous litany, and multitude of advocates or mediators; his manifold orders, auricular confession; his desperate and uncertain repentance; his general and doubtsome faith; his satisfactions of men for their sins; his justification by works, _opus operatum_, works of supererogation, merits, pardons, peregrinations, and stations; his holy water, baptizing of bells, conjuring of spirits, crossing, sayning, anointing, conjuring, hallowing of god's good creatures, with the superstitious opinion joined therewith; his worldly monarchy, and wicked hierarchy; his three solemn vows, with all his shavellings of sundry sorts; his erroneous and bloody decrees made at trent, with all the subscribers or approvers of that cruel and bloody band, conjured against the kirk of god. and finally, we detest all his vain allegories, rites, signs, and traditions brought in the kirk, without or against the word of god, and doctrine of this true reformed kirk; to the which we join ourselves willingly, in doctrine, faith, religion, discipline, and use of the holy sacraments, as lively members of the same in christ our head: promising and swearing, by the great name of the lord our god, that we shall continue in the obedience of the doctrine and discipline of this kirk, and shall defend the same, according to our vocation and power, all the days of our lives; under the pains contained in the law, and danger both of body and soul in the day of god's fearful judgment. and seeing that many are stirred up by satan, and that roman antichrist, to promise, swear, subscribe, and for a time use the holy sacraments in the kirk deceitfully, against their own conscience; minding hereby, first, under the external cloak of religion, to corrupt and subvert secretly god's true religion within the kirk; and afterward, when time may serve, to become open enemies and persecutors of the same, under vain hope of the pope's dispensation, devised against the word of god, to his greater confusion, and their double condemnation in the day of the lord jesus: we therefore, willing to take away all suspicion of hypocrisy, and of such double dealing with god and his kirk, protest, and call the searcher of all hearts for witness, that our minds and hearts do fully agree with this our confession, promise, oath, and subscription: so that we are not moved with any worldly respect, but are persuaded only in our conscience, through the knowledge and love of god's true religion imprinted in our hearts by the holy spirit, as we shall answer to him in the day when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed. and because we perceive that the quietness and stability of our religion and kirk doth depend upon the safety and good behaviour of the king's majesty, as upon a comfortable instrument of god's mercy granted to this country, for the maintaining of his kirk and ministration of justice amongst us; we protest and promise with our hearts, under the same oath, hand-writ, and pains, that we shall defend his person and authority with our goods, bodies, and lives, in the defence of christ his evangel, liberties of our country, ministration of justice, and punishment of iniquity, against all enemies within this realm or without, as we desire our god to be a strong and merciful defender to us in the day of our death, and coming of our lord jesus christ; to whom, with the father, and the holy spirit, be all honour and glory eternally. _amen._ likeas many acts of parliament, not only in general do abrogate, annul, and rescind all laws, statutes, acts, constitutions, canons civil or municipal, with all other ordinances, and practique penalties whatsoever, made in prejudice of the true religion, and professors thereof; or of the true kirk, discipline, jurisdiction, and freedom thereof; or in favours of idolatry and superstition, or of the papistical kirk: as act , act , parl. ; act , parl. ; act , parl. , of king james vi. that papistry and superstition may be utterly suppressed, according to the intention of the acts of parliament, repeated in the th act, parl. , king james vi. and to that end they ordain all papists and priests to be punished with manifold civil and ecclesiastical pains, as adversaries to god's true religion preached, and by law established, within this realm, act , parl. , king james vi.; as common enemies to all christian government, act , parl. , king james vi.; as rebellers and gainstanders of our sovereign lord's authority, act , parl. , king james vi.; and as idolaters, act , parl. , king james vi. but also in particular, by and attour the confession of faith, do abolish and condemn the pope's authority and jurisdiction out of this land, and ordains the maintainers thereof to be punished, act , parl. ; act , parl. ; act , parl. ; act , parl. , king james vi.: do condemn the pope's erroneous doctrine, or any other erroneous doctrine repugnant to any of the articles of the true and christian religion, publicly preached, and by law established in this realm; and ordains the spreaders and makers of books or libels, or letters or writs of that nature to be punished, act , parl. ; act , parl. ; act , parl. , king james vi.: do condemn all baptism conform to the pope's kirk, and the idolatry of the mass; and ordains all sayers, wilful hearers and concealers of the mass, the maintainers and resetters of the priests, jesuits, trafficking papists, to be punished without any exception or restriction, act , parl. ; act , parl. ; act , parl. ; act , parl. ; act , parl. ; act , parl. , king james vi.: do condemn all erroneous books and writs containing erroneous doctrine against the religion presently professed, or containing superstitious rites and ceremonies papistical, whereby the people are greatly abused, and ordains the home-bringers of them to be punished, act , parl. ii, king james vi.: do condemn the monuments and dregs of bygone idolatry, as going to crosses, observing the festival days of saints, and such other superstitious and papistical rites, to the dishonour of god, contempt of true religion, and fostering of great error among the people; and ordains the users of them to be punished for the second fault, as idolaters, act , parl. , king james vi. likeas many acts of parliament are conceived for maintenance of god's true and christian religion, and the purity thereof, in doctrine and sacraments of the true church of god, the liberty and freedom thereof, in her national, synodal assemblies, presbyteries, sessions, policy, discipline, and jurisdiction thereof; as that purity of religion, and liberty of the church was used, professed, exercised, preached, and confessed, according to the reformation of religion in this realm: as for instance, the th act, parl. ; act , parl. ; act , parl. ; act , parl. , of king james vi., ratified by the th act of king charles. so that the th act, parl. , and th act, parl. , of king james vi., in the year of god , declare the ministers of the blessed evangel, whom god of his mercy had raised up, or hereafter should raise, agreeing with them that then lived, in doctrine and administration of the sacraments; and the people that professed christ, as he was then offered in the evangel, and doth communicate with the holy sacraments (as in the reformed kirks of this realm they were presently administrate) according to the confession of faith, to be the true and holy kirk of christ jesus within this realm. and decerns and declares all and sundry, who either gainsay the word of the evangel received and approved as the heads of the confession of faith, professed in parliament in the year of god , specified also in the first parliament of king james vi., and ratified in this present parliament, more particularly do express; or that refuse the administration of the holy sacraments as they were then ministrated--to be no members of the said kirk within this realm, and true religion presently professed, so long as they keep themselves so divided from the society of christ's body. and the subsequent act , parl. , of king james vi., declares, that there is no other face of kirk, nor other face of religion, than was presently at that time by the favour of god established within this realm: "which therefore is ever styled god's true religion, christ's true religion, the true and christian religion, and a perfect religion;" which, by manifold acts of parliament, all within this realm are bound to profess, to subscribe the articles thereof, the confession of faith, to recant all doctrine and errors repugnant to any of the said articles, acts and , parl. ; acts , , , parl. ; act , parl. ; act , parl. ; act , parl. ; act , parl. ; acts and , parl. , of king james vi. and all magistrates, sheriffs, &c., on the one part, are ordained to search, apprehend, and punish all contraveners: for instance act , parl. ; act , parl. ; act , parl. , king james vi.; and that notwithstanding of the king's majesty's licences on the contrary, which are discharged, and declared to be of no force, in so far as they tend in any wise to the prejudice and hinder of the execution of the acts of parliament against papists and adversaries of true religion, act , parl. , king james vi. on the other part, in the th act, parl. , king james vi., it is declared and ordained, seeing the cause of god's true religion and his highness's authority are so joined, as the hurt of the one is common to both, that none shall be reputed as loyal and faithful subjects to our sovereign lord, or his authority, but be punishable as rebellers and gainstanders of the same, who shall not give their confession and make their profession of the said true religion: and that they who, after defection, shall give the confession of their faith of new, they shall promise to continue therein in time coming, to maintain our sovereign lord's authority, and at the uttermost of their power to fortify, assist, and maintain the true preachers and professors of christ's religion, against whatsoever enemies and gainstanders of the same; and namely, against all such, of whatsoever nation, estate, or degree they be of, that have joined or bound themselves, or have assisted, or assist, to set forward and execute the cruel decrees of the council of trent, contrary to the true preachers and professors of the word of god; which is repeated, word by word, in the articles of pacification at perth, the rd of february, ; approved by parliament the last of april, ; ratified in parliament , and related act , parl. , of king james vi.; with this addition, "that they are bound to resist all treasonable uproars and hostilities raised against the true religion, the king's majesty, and the true professors." likeas, all lieges are bound to maintain the king's majesty's royal person and authority, the authority of parliaments, without the which neither any laws or lawful judicatories can be established, acts and , parl. , king james vi., and the subjects' liberties, who ought only to live and be governed by the king's laws, the common laws of this realm allenarly, act , parl. , king james i.; act , parl. , king james iv.; repeated in the act , parl. , king james vi.; which if they be innovated and prejudged, "the commission anent the union of the two kingdoms of scotland and england, which is the sole act of the th parl. of king james vi., declares," such confusion would ensue as this realm could be no more a free monarchy; because, by the fundamental laws, ancient privileges, offices, and liberties of this kingdom, not only the princely authority of his majesty's royal descent hath been these many ages maintained, but also the people's security of their lands, livings, rights, offices, liberties, and dignities preserved. and therefore, for the preservation of the said true religion, laws, and liberties of this kingdom, it is statute by the th act, parl. , repeated in the th act, parl. , ratified in the rd act, parl. , and th act, parl. , of king james vi., and th act, parl. , of king charles i.--"that all kings and princes at their coronation, and reception of their princely authority, shall make their faithful promise by their solemn oath, in the presence of the eternal god, that enduring the whole time of their lives, they shall serve the same eternal god to the uttermost of their power, according as he hath required in his most holy word, contained in the old and new testament; and according to the same word, shall maintain the true religion of christ jesus, the preaching of his holy word, the due and right ministration of the sacraments now received and preached within this realm, (according to the confession of faith immediately preceding,) and shall abolish and gainstand all false religion contrary to the same; and shall rule the people committed to their charge, according to the will and command of god revealed in his foresaid word, and according to the laudable laws and constitutions received in this realm, nowise repugnant to the said will of the eternal god; and shall procure, to the uttermost of their power, to the kirk of god, and whole christian people, true and perfect peace in all time coming: and that they shall be careful to root out of their empire all heretics and enemies to the true worship of god, who shall be convicted by the true kirk of god of the foresaid crimes." which was also observed by his majesty, at his coronation in edinburgh, , as may be seen in the order of the coronation. in obedience to the commandment of god, conform to the practice of the godly in former times, and according to the laudable example of our worthy and religious progenitors and of many yet living amongst us, which was warranted also by act of council, commanding a general band to be made and subscribed by his majesty's subjects of all ranks; for two causes: one was, for defending the true religion, as it was then reformed, and is expressed in the confession of faith above written, and a former large confession established by sundry acts of lawful general assemblies and of parliaments, unto which it hath relation, set down in public catechisms; and which hath been for many years, with a blessing from heaven, preached and professed in this kirk and kingdom, as god's undoubted truth, grounded only upon his written word. the other cause was, for maintaining the king's majesty, his person and estate; the true worship of god and the king's authority being so straitly joined, as that they had the same friends, and common enemies, and did stand and fall together. and finally, being convinced in our minds, and confessing with our mouths, that the present and succeeding generations in this land are bound to keep the foresaid national oath and subscription inviolable, we noblemen, barons, gentlemen, burgesses, ministers, and commons under-subscribing, considering divers times before, and especially at this time, the danger of the true reformed religion, of the king's honour, and of the public peace of the kingdom, by the manifold innovations and evils, generally contained, and particularly mentioned in our late supplications, complaints, and protestations; do hereby profess, and before god, his angels, and the world, solemnly declare, that with our whole hearts we agree, and resolve all the days of our life constantly to adhere unto and to defend the foresaid true religion, and (forbearing the practice of all novations already introduced in the matters of the worship of god, or approbation of the corruptions of the public government of the kirk, or civil places and power of kirkmen, till they be tried and allowed in free assemblies and in parliament) to labour, by all means, to recover the purity and liberty of the gospel, as it was established and professed before the foresaid novations. and because, after due examination, we plainly perceive, and undoubtedly believe, that the innovations and evils contained in our supplications, complaints, and protestations, have no warrant of the word of god, are contrary to the articles of the foresaid confession, to the intention and meaning of the blessed reformers of religion in this land, to the above-written acts of parliament; and do sensibly tend to the re-establishing of the popish religion and tyranny, and to the subversion and ruin of the true reformed religion, and of our liberties, laws, and estates; we also declare, that the foresaid confessions are to be interpreted, and ought to be understood of the foresaid novations and evils, no less than if every one of them had been expressed in the foresaid confessions; and that we are obliged to detest and abhor them, amongst other particular heads of papistry abjured therein. and therefore, from the knowledge and conscience of our duty to god, to our king and country, without any worldly respect or inducement, so far as human infirmity will suffer, wishing a further measure of the grace of god for this effect; we promise and swear, by the great name of the lord our god, to continue in the profession and obedience of the aforesaid religion; and that we shall defend the same, and resist all these contrary errors and corruptions, according to our vocation, and to the uttermost of that power that god hath put in our hands, all the days of our life. and in like manner, with the same heart, we declare before god and men, that we have no intention nor desire to attempt any thing that may turn to the dishonour of god, or to the diminution of the king's greatness and authority; but, on the contrary, we promise and swear, that we shall, to the uttermost of our power, with our means and lives, stand to the defence of our dread sovereign the king's majesty, his person and authority, in the defence and preservation of the foresaid true religion, liberties, and laws of the kingdom; as also to the mutual defence and assistance every one of us of another, in the same cause of maintaining the true religion, and his majesty's authority, with our best counsel, our bodies, means, and whole power, against all sorts of persons whatsoever; so that whatsoever shall be done to the least of us for that cause, shall be taken as done to us all in general, and to every one of us in particular. and that we shall neither directly nor indirectly suffer ourselves to be divided or withdrawn, by whatsoever suggestion, combination, allurement, or terror, from this blessed and loyal conjunction; nor shall cast in any let or impediment that may stay or hinder any such resolution as by common consent shall be found to conduce for so good ends; but, on the contrary, shall by all lawful means labour to further and promote the same: and if any such dangerous and divisive motion be made to us by word or writ, we, and every one of us, shall either suppress it, or, if need be, shall incontinent make the same known, that it may be timeously obviated. neither do we fear the foul aspersions of rebellion, combination, or what else our adversaries, from their craft and malice, would put upon us; seeing what we do is well warranted, and ariseth from an unfeigned desire to maintain the true worship of god, the majesty of our king, and the peace of the kingdom, for the common happiness of ourselves and our posterity. and because we cannot look for a blessing from god upon our proceedings, except with our profession and subscription we join such a life and conversation as beseemeth christians who have renewed their covenant with god; we therefore faithfully promise for ourselves, our followers, and all others under us, both in public, and in our particular families, and personal carriage, to endeavour to keep ourselves within the bounds of christian liberty, and to be good examples to others of all godliness, soberness, and righteousness, and of every duty we owe to god and man. and, that this our union and conjunction may be observed without violation, we call the living god, the searcher of our hearts, to witness, who knoweth this to be our sincere desire and unfeigned resolution, as we shall answer to jesus christ in the great day, and under the pain of god's everlasting wrath, and of infamy and loss of all honour and respect in this world: most humbly beseeching the lord to strengthen us by his holy spirit for this end, and to bless our desires and proceedings with a happy success; that religion and righteousness may flourish in the land, to the glory of god, the honour of our king, and peace and comfort of us all. in witness whereof, we have subscribed with our hands all the premises. the article of this covenant within written and within subscribed, which was at the first subscription referred to the determination of the general assembly, being now determined, on the fifth of december, , and hereby the five articles of perth, the government of the kirk by bishops, being declared to be abjured and removed, and the civil places and power of kirkmen declared unlawful, we subscribe according to the determination of the said lawful and free general assembly, holden at glasgow. the national covenant: exhortation to the lords of council.[ ] _may it please your lordship_, we, the ministers of the gospel, conveened at this so necessary a time do find ourselves bound to represent, as unto all, so in special unto your lordship what comfortable experience we have of the wonderful favour of god, upon the renewing of the confession of faith and covenant; what peace and comfort hath filled the hearts of all god's people; what resolutions and beginnings of reformation of manners are sensibly perceived in all parts of the kingdom, above any measure that ever we did find, or could have expected; how great glory the lord hath received hereby, and what confidence we have (if this sunshine be not eclipsed by some sinful division or defection) that god shall make this a blessed kingdom, to the contentment of the king's majesty, and joy of all his good subjects, according as god hath promised in his good word, and performed to his people in former times: and therefore we are forced, from our hearts, both to wish and entreat your lordship to be partaker and promover of this joy and happiness by your subscription, when your lordship shall think it convenient; and in the mean time, that your lordship would not be sparing to give a free testimony to the truth, as a timely and necessary expression of your tender affection to the cause of christ, now calling for help at your hands. your lordship's profession of the true religion, as it was reformed in this land; the national oath of this kingdom, sundry times sworn and subscribed, obliging us who live at this time; the duty of a good patriot, the office and trust of a privy councillor, the present employment, to have place amongst those that are first acquainted with his majesty's pleasure; the consideration that this is the time of trial of your lordship's affection to religion, the respect which your lordship hath unto your fame, both now and hereafter, when things shall be recorded to posterity; and the remembrance, that not only the eyes of men and angels are upon your lordship's carriage, but also that the lord jesus is a secret witness now to observe, and shall be an open judge hereafter, to reward and confess every man before his father, that confesseth him before men: all of these, and each of them, beside your lordship's personal and particular obligations to god, do call for no less at your lordship's hands, in the case of so great and singular necessity: and we also do expect so much at this time, according as your lordship at the hour of death would be free of the terror of god, and be refreshed with the comfortable remembrance of a word spoken in season for christ jesus, king of kings, and lord of lords. the national covenant. sermon at st. andrews. _by alexander henderson._[ ] "thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning; thou hast the dew of thy youth."--_psalm_ cx. . it is, beloved in the lord, very expedient, and sometimes most necessar, that we turn away our eyes from kings and their greatness, from kirkmen and men of state, and that we turn them towards another object, and look only to jesus christ, who is the great king, priest, and prophet of his kirk. the godly in former times, who were kings, priests, and prophets themselves, used to do this, and that before christ; and mickle more is it required of us now in thir days, seeing we live in troublesome times; for there is a comfort that comes to the children of god that way. the first part of this psalm expresses to us the threefold office of christ, and the second part of it expresses the valiant acts our lord jesus does by these his three offices, but especially by his princely office; whilk indeed is his worst studied office by many men in the world. we would, many of us, willingly take him for our prophet to teach us, and for our priest to intercede for us, and be a sacrifice for our sins, but when it comes to his princely office, to direct us what we should do, then we would be at that whilk seems best in our own eyes. his princely office is described unto us here three ways. . in relation to god himself; "the lord said unto my lord, sit thou at my right hand." . in respect of his enemies; "the lord sall send the rod of thy strength out of zion: rule thou in the midst of thy enemies." were his enemies never so many, and never so despiteful against him, yet he sall rule in the midst of them. and indeed this is a very admirable part of his kingly office, that even in the midst of his enemies he sall have a kingdom for himself, in despite of them, and all that they can do or say against it. . the third, wherein the glory of his kingly office consists, is in thir words that i have read to you: and that is in relation to, and in respect of the subjects of the kingdom of christ. and they are described here to be a people belonging to jesus christ; to be a people on whom god manifests his power; and they are a most willing people, a people who count holiness to be their chiefest beauty. and they are so marvellously multiplied, that it is a wonder to consider of it: there is no more drops of dew will fall, nor they will not fall any faster in a morning than the lord will multiply them, when he is pleased to do so. and although the lord sometimes multiply them in a secret manner, yet still the multitude stands to be true. that the purposes may be the better tane up by you who will take heed to them, consider of these parts in the words. . the persons of whom the psalmist speaks here. "thy people." . the properties of these people in this day: they sall be a willing people; a holy people; a people who sall be miraculously multiplied. and so their properties is willingness, holiness, and multiplication. many proofs has been of the truth of this prophecy since the beginning--that the lord's people sall be willing in the day of his power, in the beauties of holiness; from the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth. there were many evident proofs of the truth of this since the beginning of the plantation of the gospel into the world. and surely we know not a more evident and notable proof of it than this same that is presently into this land, nor think i that there be any who can show the parallel of it. the lord has made them willingly to offer up themselves, and all that they have, for him. and they are a people of holiness; albeit it is true, indeed, many has been brought to it from this quarter and that quarter of the land, since the beginning, to be more holy than they used to be. and if the multiplication of them be not wonderful, i cannot tell what ye will tell me of that is more wonderful; so that indeed it is a miracle to all who hear of it. in the time while christ was upon the earth there were two sorts of miracles to be seen;--first, christ made the dumb to speak, the blind to see, the lame to walk, &c.: this indeed was a great miracle. the second sort of miracles was of him who did see these things wrought by christ, and yet for all that, did not believe in him who did work them. even so there are two sorts of wonders in this same time wherein we live;--first, how the lord has multiplied his people, and made them to be so many, whereas, at the first, we thought them to be but very few; secondly, we cannot but wonder at these who observes not god's hand into it: and indeed we cannot but wonder that any can be so blind that they observe not the very hand and finger of god in the work. ay, we who have been witnesses to it, for the most part, we cannot but wonder at the work of god in it. it has not been man's wit has done the work, and multiply so, but only god has done it; and we cannot tell how; but only we see that there are numbers continually multiplied. i. "thy people." here is a note of property, and a note of distinction. first, it is a note of property. they are god's people--god has absolute right over a people, and there is none who has any right over them but he alone. it's true all people are under him, but he calls not all his people after this manner. all things are for god, and subordinate to him; the absolute power to rule and to command these people is in god's hand, and he will not give that power to any other over them: and he has good reason so to do. . because he was thinking upon his people from all eternity; and there was none who did that but only he. . he made us and fashioned us in time; and neither any authority or magistrate did that. . who is it that provides means for their sustenance daily, and makes these means effectual, but only the lord? a man cannot make one pyle (blade) of grass, or one ear of corn, to grow for thy entertainment, but only the lord: and when thou hast gotten these things, it is the blessing of god that makes them effectual. for when ye say the grace to your meat, say ye it to man? no, ye say it only to god. so that every way ye are god's people. and then, whilk is more, and therefore we are bound to be his people, no man can redeem the life of his brother, nor give a price sufficient for his life, let be (let alone) for his soul, and yet the lord, he has redeemed us from hell, and from the grave; and therefore we belong to him. then is it not the lord who enters in covenant with thee, and says, i will remember thy sins no more? then albeit all the world should remember thy ill deeds, yet if the lord remember them not, then thou art blessed. it is he who says, i will write my laws in your hearts, to lead you here: it is he who puts us in the estate of grace while we are here, and so puts us in hope of glory after this life. it is he who sall be our judge at that great day. and so ye are the lord's people, by way of property. and this was it that made the apostles so bold, when it was alleged that they had done that whilk was not right: they made the enemies themselves judges, and says, "whether it be right in your sight to obey god rather than man, judge ye." as if they had said, it's true indeed we are mickle obliged to man, but we are more obliged to god than to all men; for what is it that man can do to us, either good or ill, but god can do that als (also) and more? and upon this ground, in the next chapter, they draw this conclusion,--it behoveth us rather to obey god than man. and so, first, they reason with the adversars themselves upon it; and seeing that they could not deny it, upon that they draw up their conclusion. i mark this for this end, that whenever ye are enjoined to do anything by any man, that then ye would not forget this dignity and power that god has over you, and that ye are the people of jesus christ; and therefore no man ought to enjoin anything to be done by you, but that for the whilk he has a warrant from god. there is a great controversy now about disobedience to superiors, and the contempt of those who are in authority; but there is not a word of that, whether god be obeyed or not, or if he be disobeyed by any. fy, that people should sell themselves over to the slavery of man, when the lord has only sovereign power over them! i would not have you to think that a whole country of people are appointed only to uphold the grandeur of five or six men. no, they are ordained to be magistrates for your good. and sall we think that a ministry shines into a land for the upholding of the grandeur of some few persons. no, all these things are ordained for the good of god's people; and, seeing that it is so, sall ye then make yourselves like to asses and slaves, to be subject to all that men pleases to impose upon you? no, no; try anything that they impose upon you, before ye obey it, if it is warranted by god or not; because god is the only superior over you. . secondly. "thy people." this also is a note of distinction; for every people are god's people, but there is a distinction among them. all people, it's true, are god's people by right of creation: why therefore says he, _thy_ people, and not _all_ people? because all people belong not to christ. god has authority over all indeed, but in a special manner he enters into covenant with some. all people who are subject to him in his providence are not his peculiar people, his royal nation, his holy priesthood, his chosen generation, but only those of them who belong to christ; those are properly termed to be his people. and we should remember of this, that those who are the people of god, they have notable privileges; they have all things that any people should have, and, whatever we should be, they have that. where any are the people of god, there there is blessedness indeed, for they have his truth for their security, they have his love for their comfort, his power for their defence. the lord god, he takes his people into his bosom, and with every soul he does so, and says, "i the lord thy god enters in covenant with thee, and renews the covenant that before i made with thee." and then he lays a necessity upon thee, by his providence, that thou must enter into covenant with him; and then he says to thee, "i will not remember thy sins any more; i know they are heinous, great, and many, but because thou desires that they should not be remembered, therefore i will not remember them. and because when ye have renewed your covenant with me, ye will be aye in a fear to break it again, therefore i will write my law in your hearts. and so whatever i promise to you, i will perform it freely when ye are in covenant with me; and whatever ye promise to me, being in covenant with me, i sall perform it for you also, at least i sall give you strength to perform it." and therefore to the end that ye may be perfectly blessed, enter into a covenant with god; and without ye be in covenant with him, ye sall be in nothing but perpetual misery. i would have all of you to think this to be your only health, wealth, and peace, and your only glory in the world, to be in covenant with god; and so that ye are the people of god, i would not have you to count men to be rich and glorious men by their estates in the world--that he can spend so many chalders of victual yearly, or so many thousand merks. o, a silly, beggarly glory is this! naked thou came into the world, and naked thou must go out of it again. but see how mickle thou has of the knowledge of jesus christ, how far thou art forward in the work of repentance, faith, &c., and such good actions. learn to set your affections on things that are above, and testify it by your actions. ii. "in the day of thy power." this is the time when the people of god sall be willing, even in the day of his power; that is, in the day of the power of jesus christ. the day of his own resurrection from the dead was one day of his power: he says, "i have power to lay down my life, and i have power to take it again;" "destroy this temple, and i will build it up again in three days;" he meant of the temple of his body: and indeed there was none who could raise his dead body out of the grave, but only himself. a second day of his power sall be the day of the resurrection of our bodies out of the dust. but there is another day that is meant of here than any of these, and that is the day of our first resurrection out of the grave of sin, by the preaching of the gospel. and there is good reason for it, why this should be called a day of his power. first, because it is the power of jesus christ that brings the purity of the gospel into a land; and we may indeed say that it was only his power that brought the gospel into this land. it had not authority then to countenance it, for all those that were in authority were against it; and counsel and policy, and all the clergy, and the multitude, all of them, were against it; and yet, for all that, the lord brought in the purity of the gospel into this land, and established it here against all these. secondly, when the purity of the gospel is into a land, it is only the power of god that makes it effectual for turning of souls unto himself, and raising them out of the grave of sin, wherein they are so fast buried. so when the lord first sends the gospel, we are lying into the grave of sin; and the devil, and the world, and all these enemies they are watching the grave, to see that we rise not out of it; and when we are beginning to rise they are busy to hold us down. and think not that we can rise, and lift up ourselves from so base to so high ane estate, without the power of god. no, no. third. when the gospel is into a land, it is only the power of jesus christ that makes it to continue, for if the lord make not the gospel to continue into a land, it will not stay there. and there is no less power required either to bring the gospel into a land, or to make it effectual, or to make it to continue, than was required to raise the dead body of christ out of the grave, or will be required to raise ours. i would have you consider here, that all times are not alike, but there is a time of the lord's power; that all days are not alike, but there is a day of the lord's power; a time when the saints of god sall be weak, a time when they sall be strong; a time when some sall rise up to persecute the saints, a time when others sall rise up to help them; a time when the lord withholds his power, and a time when he kythes (shews it); a time when the people draws back from the lord, and a time when they turn to him again. there has been a day of defection in this land this time past, and now there is a time of the lord's power in bringing back this defection again: and indeed this very instant time that now is is ane hour of that day of the lord's power, and i will shew you two or three reasons for it. . the lord did arise and manifested his power when the enemies were become insolent, and when they had determined that they would set up such a mode of worship as they thought meet, and noways according to the pattern shown upon the mount. and indeed the lord, he uses ordinarily to do this, that even when the enemies of his people are become insolent, and they have determined that they will do such a thing instantly, then he takes them in their own snare. . to show that it is the lord's power only that works a work, he uses to begin at very small beginnings; and so the lord did in this same work;--he began at first with some few, and these not honourable, and yet now he has made it to cover the whole land through all the quarters thereof. . this is also a note of the power of god, that he has touched the hearts of people, that there was never such a howling and a weeping heard amongst them this long time as there is now; and yet it is not a weeping for sorrow, but a weeping for joy. how oft has there been preachings in the most part of the congregations of this land this long time past, and yet people have never found the power of it in working upon their hearts; and yet within this short space, when the lord has renewed his covenant with them, and they with him, he has displayed his banner, and made his power known in working upon the hearts of people. . in this the power of god is manifestly to be seen in this work, that the lord has made all the devices and plots of the adversars, that they have devised to further their own ends, to work contrair to these ends, and to work for the good of his own work. and, indeed, we may say that it has not been so mickle the courage and wisdom of these, that has been for this cause, that has brought it so far on, but the very plots and devices of the adversars that they have devised for their own good. this also is ane evident token of the lord's power. and now since the lord did arise when the enemies were become insolent, since he began at so small beginnings and has brought it so far, since the lord has wrought so on the hearts of people now, and since he has made all the plots of the enemies to work against themselves, and for his people, let us give this glory to god, and reverence him, and say that it is only by his power that the work is done, and that he has been pleased to manifest himself into the work. beloved, we may comfort ourselves in this, if all this has been done by the power of god, then we need not to fear the power of men; men can do nothing against god. the lord may indeed put his kirk to a trial, but he will not suffer her to be overthrown by any. and indeed, any who hears and knows what the enemies are doing here may see that they are not fighting against men, but against god, and that they are kicking against the pricks. iii. now, for the properties of thir people. the first of them is _willing_. the lord's people are a people of willingness in the day of his power: and indeed thir three go very well together, the people of god, the power of god, and a willing people. when the power of god works upon his people then he makes them to be a willing people. and indeed, it is no small matter to see a people willing in a good cause, for by nature we are unwilling, and naturally we are not set to affect anything that is right, except it be through hypocrisy. our hearts they are contrary to god; they are proud, disobedient, rebellious, and he who sees and knows his own heart sees all this to be in it; and he knows that it is the lord who cries upon him, in the day of his own power, and frames his heart in a new mould, and makes it to be so nimble and cheerful in any good work,--that albeit they had been before running with all their speed to the devil, yet he makes them to stand still in the way and look about them, and consider what they have been doing, and then to turn about again. albeit thou were like to paul, persecuting the church, yet he can then make a preacher of thee, and so affright thee that thou sall not know where thou art, but say, "here am i, lord:" and albeit thou were as unwilling to go as the prophet moses, yet he will make thee to say, "here am i, lord, send me," and be as elisha, when elias cuist (cast) his mantle about him, then he could not stay any longer. and when christ comes to peter, and calls upon them, they cannot stay any longer, but incontinent they leave all and follows him. i will not now begin to make any large discourse of the invincible power of god; i say no more of it now but only this for your use. if ye kent this power of god, it would make you ready and willing to give a confession to him this day, and even to confess him before men, and to forsake all and follow him. ye who are ignorant of the power of god, take heed to this,--it is the lord who commanded light to come out of darkness, who must make you to see christ; he who takes his rod in his hand to beat down the hard and humble the haughty heart, he must do this also. o if ye felt this power of god, ye would think nothing to forsake all and to follow him. he has suffered more for us nor we can suffer for him; and if we suffered anything for him, he would not suffer any of us yet to be a loser at his hand: but we cannot put him to a trial. now for this unwillingness of these people, it is well expressed here. they are called a people of willingness. and yet he thinks not this satisfactory, to call them a willing people, but he calls them a people of willingness, a noble, generous, high-minded people. and all this is to shew that when the people of god is wakened up in the day of his power, there is none who is able to express their willingness. they are so willing that if they had a thousand minds they would employ them all for him, and if they had a thousand faces, they would not let one of them look down, but they would hold them all up for the lord; if every hair in their head were a man, they would employ them all in his service. their willingness, indeed, it cannot be expressed. they cry to the lord, because they think they cannot run fast enough, "draw me and i sail run after thee:" they are flying together, as the dowes does to the holes of the rocks before a tempest come. in the canticles, christ says, "my soul made me as the chariots of my noble people;" and, indeed, to see a people running through the land, to meet together to keep communion with the lord, this is the best chariot that can be. and this willingness has been so great at some times in the children of god that they have fallen in a paroxysm, or like the fit of a fever, with it: as it is acts xvii. paul's spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city of athens given to so much base idolatry as to worship the unknown god. and lot, also, he had such a fit as this; he vexed his righteous soul with the iniquities of sodom, that is, he tortured his soul with their sins, he never saw them committing sin but it was a grief to him. and, indeed, the children of god this while past have been grieved and vexed to behold the sins that has been committed into this same land. i insist upon this the rather because i would wish from my heart that ye would be thus willing, and that ye would be as forward for the glory and honour of god as ever any was. and then, indeed, it should do good to others also, when they should hear tell that the people of st. andrews were such a willing people. and, indeed, ye have just reason to be willing now. . because it is god's cause ye have in hand, and it is no new cause to us. it is almost sixty years old; it is no less since this same confession of faith was first subscribed and sworn to. and it has been still in use yearly to be subscribed and sworn to in some parts, among some in this land, to this day. and i think it would have been so in all the parts of the land if men had dreamed of what was coming upon us. whatever is added to it at this time, it is nothing but ane interpretation of the former part; and if men will be willing to see the right, they may see that there is nothing in the latter part but that whilk may be deduced from the first. and in the making of a covenant we are not bound to keep only these same words that were before, but we must renew it; and in the renewing thereof we must apply it to the present time when it is renewed, as we have done, renewed it against the present ills. for it is not necessar for us to abjure turkism or paganism, because we are not in fear to be troubled with that; but the thing that we are in danger of is papistry, and therefore we must abjure that. . a second reason to make you willing is, because this matter concerns you in all things,--in your bodies, in your estates, in your lives, your liberties, in your souls. i may say, if in the lord's providence this course had not been taken, ye would have found the thraldom whereinto that course, wherein ye were anes (once) going, would have brought you to or (ere) now, even ye who are most averse from it. . a third reason to make you willing is, ye have the precedency and testimony of the nobility in the land to it, and of all sorts of persons, noblemen, barons, gentlemen, burgesses, ministers, and commons; and wherefore, then, should not ye be willing to follow their example? and then, i may say, ye have the prayers of all the reformed kirks in europe for you, who have ever heard of the perturbations that has been, and yet are, into this land. and, moreover, beloved, whom have ye against you in this course? all the atheists, all the papists, and all the profane rogues in the country; they draw to that side, and it is only they who hate this cause. and should not all these make you willing to swear to it, and to hazard for it? and i may say, if ye be but willing to hazard all that ye have, that may be the heaviest distress that ever ye shall be put to. and if so be that ye had been willing at first, the lord would have touched the king's heart, and made him willing also; but because he is informed by some that the most part are not willing, that is a great part of the cause why he is not willing. the second property of god's people is holiness. "in the beauties of holiness;" a speech that is borrowed from the priest's garments under the law. sometimes they were broidered with gold, sometimes they were all white, especially in the day of expiation. not that ministers under the new testament should have such garments as these, for these were representations to them, both of their inward holiness and of their outward holiness, by (beyond) others; but now all believers are priests as well as ministers are, and therefore such garments as these are not necessar. indeed, if such garments as these had been necessar, then christ and his apostles had done great wrong to themselves, who never used the like; and they had done great wrong to the kirk also in not appointing such garments to be worn by ministers. there be garments of glory in heaven, and garments of grace in the earth; that party-coloured garment spoken of in the colossians, and this holiness whilk is spoken of here. concerning whilk we will mark two things:--first, as people are a people of willingness in a good cause, so they must also be a people of holiness, or otherwise their willingness is only but for some worldly respects: therefore, i would have you with willingness to put on holiness. and, indeed, if we saw what holiness were, we needed not to be persuaded to put it on, we would do it willingly. for it has three parts in it-- . a purgation from former filthiness. . a separation from the world. if thou will be holy, then thou must be separate from the world; thou must strive to keep thyself from those whose garments are spotted with the flesh. . holiness requires devotion or dedication to the lord. when there is purgation from filthiness, separation from the world, and dedication to the lord, there there is holiness and nowhere else. now, is there any of you but ye are obleist (obliged) to be holy? ye say that ye are the people of the lord. if so be, then ye must have your inward man purged of sin, and ye must stand at the stave's end against the corruptions of the time, and ye must devote yourselves only to serve and honour god. and your covenant, that ye are to swear to this day, oblishes you to this; and it requires nothing of you but that whilk ye are bound to perform. and, therefore, seeing this is required of you, purge yourselves within, flee the corruptions of the time, eschew the society of those whom ye see to be corrupt, and devote yourselves only to the lord. yet this is not that we would obleish you to perform everything punctually that the lord requires of you; there is none who can do that, but promise to the lord to do so, tell him that ye have a desire to do so, and join a resolution and a purpose, and say to him, lord, i sall prease (earnestly endeavour) to do als far as i can. and, indeed, there is no more in our covenant but this, that we sall endeavour to keep ourselves within the bounds of our christian liberty; and, albeit, none of you would swear to this, ye are bound to it by your baptism. and, therefore, think not that we are precisians, (or these who has set down this covenant), seeing all of you are bound to do it. secondly, "the _beauties_ of holiness." consider here that as holiness is necessar for the saints of god, so all god's courtiers they are full of beauty. god himself is full of beauty, and we have no power, beauty nor holiness but in his power, beauty, and holiness. holiness, it is the beauty of the son of god, jesus christ; and to him it is said in esay, "holy, holy, holy, lord god almighty": and the holy ghost has this style to be called holy. and the angels in heaven, they are clothed with holiness; and the saints who are in heaven, this is the long white robes wherewith they are clothed. and they who are begun to be sanctified here, they strive to be more and more clad with holiness. beloved, i would have you to count this to be your beauty, even holiness; for if ye have not this beauty, then all your other beauty will degenerate in a bastard beauty. now follows the marvellous _multiplication_ of thir people. "from the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth." the words are somewhat obscure even to the learned ear, but look to the d psalm, and there ye will see a place to help to clear them. always (however) observe here, "from the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth," that as in a may morning, when there is no extremity of heat, the dew falls so thick that all the fields are covered with it, and it falls in such a secret manner that none sees it fall, so the lord, in the day of his power, he sall multiply his people, and he sall multiply them in a secret manner; so that it is marvellous to the world, that once there should seem to be so few or none of them, and then incontinent he should make them to be through all estates. we have first to learn here, that the kirk of god, she has a morning; and in the morning the dew falls, and not in the night, nor in the heat of the day. so it is not in the night of defection, nor in the heat of the day of persecution, when the lord's people are multiplied, but it is in the morning of the day. beloved, i wish you may be a discerning people, to know the lord's seasons. sall we be as those, of whom our saviour complains, who can discern the face of the sky, but cannot discern the day of the lord's merciful and gracious visitation towards them? men indeed may be very learned and know things very well, and yet in the meantime be but ignorant of this; for there are sundry gifts bestowed upon men, and ilk are has not this gift, to discern the lord's merciful visitation. and therefore happy are ye, albeit ye be not great in other gifts, if so be that ye know this; for the lord, he has some gifts of his own bestowing allanerly (only), whilk he will bestow upon the meanest, and yet he will deny them to the proudest; even as the tops of the mountains, they will be dry and have no dew, while as the valleys will be wet with it. so those who exalts themselves high, and boasts themselves of their other gifts, of their knowledge, learning, experience, &c., the lord will, for all that, ofttimes leave them void of saving and sanctifying grace. "from the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth." that is, as the dew is multiplied upon the earth, so sall thy people be. this is are ordinar phrase in scripture. hushai says to absalom, "convene the people from dan to beersheba, and then we sall light upon david as the dew lighteth upon the ground; and then there sall not be left of him and of all the men that are with him so much as one." and this phrase is well set down, is. liv., "rejoice, o barren, and thou that didst not bear, break forth into singing and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child; for more are the children of the desolate than the married wife." and therefore he uses this form of speech, v. , "enlarge thy tents, and let them stretch the curtains of thy habitations; lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes." and all these things are requisite to be done when the people of god are multiplied thus. let us observe here, if the word of god continue in this land, in the purity thereof, and the sacraments be rightly administrate, the people of god will then multiply exceedingly here. the chiefest city in this land, they are forced to marvel where the people has been in former times that are in it now, so that they cannot get kirks to contain them. and they think, if the gospel continue in the purity thereof, all the kirks that they are building, with the rest, sall have enough ado to contain them. and it is a marvel to consider how the lord has multiplied his people, at this time. this is not that we are to glory in multitudes, but to let you see the great work of god, who has multiplied his people thus. and as it was at the beginning of the plantation of the christian religion, there was three thousand converted at one preaching of the apostle, i will not say that there has been three thousand converted at a preaching here, but i may say this, that at one preaching there has been some thousands wakened up, who had not been so for a long time before. and will it not be a hard matter, seeing that it is so, that saint andrews sall be as gideon's fleece; that all the kingdom about it sall be wet with the dew of heaven, and it sall only be dry? even so, will it not be a shame, that all others sall be stirred up, and ye not a whit stirred up in this day more than if there were not such a thing? and, therefore, beloved, i would have you to join yourselves with the rest of the people of god in this cause. "thy youth." that is, _thy young men_. those that are renewed by grace they are called young, albeit they were never so old, because their age is not reckoned by their first, but by their second birth. ay, moreover, still the older that the children of god grow in years, and the weaker in the world, they grow younger and stronger in grace. secondly, they are called young, because of the strength that they have to resist temptations. before they be renewed by grace and born again that way, they are like bairns, that every temptation prevails with them; but then they are as young men, who are able to resist temptations to sin, so that sin gets not liberty to exercise dominion over them. thirdly, they are called young, because they will contend with all their power and might for the faith. i would have all of you to be young in these respects, and labour to get ane evidence of your new birth by these, that ye are growing in grace, gaining still more strength to resist temptations, and by contending earnestly for the faith; even be bold in this, especially in contending for the truth. strive for the truth, for, if ye anes lose it, ye will not get it so easily again. and this same is the covenant of truth whilk ye are to swear to; for as our covenant is renewed, so also it is exponed (explained) according as the exigencies of the time requires, and it is applied to the present purpose. beloved, i told you already that ye have no cause of fear, for i avow and attest here before god, that what ye do is not against authority, but for authority, let some men who are wickedly disposed say what they will; but what ye do is for authority. and i told you of the obligations whereby authority are bound to this. and for the words of it, because they are conceived in a terrible manner, ye need not to stand in awe for this; and it were good that ye should read them over again, and think upon this wrath of god whilk we pray for to come upon us, if we do intend anything against authority. _objection._ we have oblished ourselves by our subscription already; what then needs us to obleish ourselves over again by our oath? _ans._ it's true, i grant, many of you has subscribed it already, and so ye are bound; but now ye are to swear also, that so through abundance of bands to god ye may know yourselves to be the more bound to him. david says, i have purposed, i have promised, i have sworn, and i sall perform thy righteous statutes. there be also here sundry acts of parliament, that are all of them made within this same kingdom for the maintainance of the true religion; and for thir, they speak for themselves. and i would have these who say we do anything against law and against our superiors, to see and try if there be anything against them, and not all directly for them. beloved, i hope that it will not be necessar for us to spend mickle time with you in removing of scruples. good things i know has over many objections against them from the devil, the world, and our own ill hearts. and i know some of them who are accounted the learnedst in the land, have assayed their wits and used their pens to object against this. but truly these who are judicious, they have confessed that they have been greatly confirmed by that whilk they have objected; and the reason of it was, because they who were the most learned assayed themselves to see what they could say, and yet when all was done, they had nothing to say that was worth the hearing. for the first part of this confession of faith, there is not a word changed in it; and if so be that men had keeped that part of it free of sinistrous glosses, and had applied it according to the meaning of those who were the penners thereof, there needed not to have such a thing ado as there is now; but because they have put sinistrous glosses upon it now and misapplied it, therefore it behoved to be explained and applied to the present time. the first thing that ye swear to is, that with your whole hearts ye agree and resolve, all the days of your life, constantly to adhere unto and defend the true religion. there is no scruple here. . that ye suspend and forbear the practice of all novations already introduced in the matters of the worship of god, or approbation of the corruptions of the public government of the kirk, or civil places and power of kirkmen, till they be tried and allowed in free assemblies and in parliaments. now, i know there be some who make scruples here. how can we, say they, bind ourselves to forbear the practice of that whilk acts of assembly allows, and acts of parliament commands? _ans._ we do not herein condemn the act as altogether unlawful, whatever our judgment be of it, but this is all what we do. because such ills has followed upon these novations, therefore we think it meet now to forbear the practice of them till they be tried by assembly and parliament. and this is not a breach of the act, when all is done. because the act is not set down in the manner of a command, but only as a counsel; for so the act of the pretended assembly bears. the words is, "the assemblie thinks good," &c., "because all memory of superstition is now past, therefore we may kneel at the communion." then, if there be any danger of superstition, by the very words of the act we may gather this, that we should not kneel: and so they who practice now keep the letter of the act, but they who forbear keep the meaning thereof more nearly than the practisers. . we promise and swear against the service-book, book of canons, and high commission, with all other innovations and ills contained in our supplications, complaints, and protestations. now for the service-book, i find every one almost to be so inclined willingly to quite (be done with) it. but let me attest your own consciences, if it had gone on for a while, and been read among you, as it was begun to be, if it had not been as hard for you to have quat it as to quit the articles of perth; and therefore, do not deceive yourselves, to let such things be practised any more. it is a pitiful thing, that those who are wise otherways should deceive themselves in the matters of god's service and worship, and suffer others to deceive them also. . ye promise and swear, to the uttermost of your power to stand to the defence of the king's majesty, in the defence and preservation of true religion: as also, every one of you to the mutual defence of another in the same cause. now there be a number who says, that in this we come under rebellion against the king, and we join in a combination against him, when we join ourselves thus, every one for the defence of another. i say no more of it but this. it is not disputed here, ye see, whether it be lawful for subjects to take up arms against their prince or not, whether in offence or defence; but that we will maintain the true religion, and resist all contrary corruptions, according to our vocation. and every one of us oblishes ourselves for the defence of another, only in maintaining the cause of true religion, according to the laws and liberties of this kingdom. and indeed, this is very reasonable to be done, albeit not asked of; for when your neighbour's house is burning, ye will not run to the king to speir (ask) if ye should help him or not, before it come to your own; but ye will incontinent put to your hand, both to help him, and to save your own house. ye may not say, neither, that because we may not oppose against authority, that we may not oppose against papists or against prelates; for that were to make ourselves slaves to men. and the very law of nature binds every one of us to help another, in a lawful manner, for a good cause. . ye swear, because ye cannot look for a blessing from god upon your proceedings, except that with your confession and subscription ye join such a life as becomes christians who has renewed their covenant with god,--therefore ye promise to endeavour at least, for yourselves and all that are under you, to keep yourselves within the bounds of your christian liberty, and to be good ensamples to others in all godliness, soberness, and righteousness, and of every duty we owe both to god and man. and there is none who needs to skarre (be frightened) at this; for we are not hereby to tie any to the obedience of the law, but to the obedience of the gospel: and i am sure all are bound at least to please to (strive after) this. and therefore i would have you to labour to it; and when ye find that ye cannot get it done, then run to christ, and beseech him to teach you to do it; and to give you strength, according to his promise made in his new covenant; and so ye sail give glory to god and get good to your own souls. and, indeed, all of you are obleist to amend your lives, and to live otherwise than ye have done. and last of all, there is the _attestation_. now, i hope all these things be so clear to you, that there is not any scruple in any of your minds. and therefore, that this work may be done aright, and may be accompanied by the power of god, i would have all of you to bow your knees before that great and dreadful lord, and beseech him that he would send down the holy ghost, and the power of his spirit, to accompany the work, that so ye may do it with all your hearts, to his glory and honour, and to your comfort in jesus christ. the national covenant: exhortation at inverness. _by andrew cant._[ ] long ago our gracious god was pleased to visit this nation with the light of his glorious gospel, by planting a vineyard in, and making his glory to arise upon scotland. a wonder! that so great a god should shine on so base a soil! nature hath been a stepmother to us in comparison of those who live under a hotter climate, as in a land like goshen, or a garden like eden. but the lord looks not as man: his grace is most free, whereby it often pleaseth him to compense what is wanting in nature: whence upon scotland (a dark obscure island, inferior to many) the lord did arise, and discovered the tops of the mountains with such a clear light, that in god's gracious dispensation, it is inferior to none. how far other nations outstripped her in naturals, as far did she out-go them in spirituals. her pomp less, her purity more: they had more of antichrist than she, she more of christ than they: in their reformation something of the beast was reserved; in ours, not so much as a hoof. when the lord's ark was set up among them, dagon fell, and his neck brake, yet his stump was left; but with us, stump and all was cast into the brook kidron. hence king james his doxology in face of parliament, thanking god who made him king in such a kirk that was far beyond england (they having but an ill-said mass in english) yea, beyond geneva itself; for holy-days (one of the beast's marks) are in part there retained, which (said he) to day are with us quite abolished. thus to a people sitting in darkness, and in the shadow of death, light is sprung up. thus, in a manner, the stone that the builders refused is become the head of the corner. the lord's anointed (to whom the ends of the earth were given for a possession and inheritance) came and took up house amongst us, strongly established on two pillars, jachin and boaz, and well ordered with the staves of beauty and bands, and borrowing nothing from the border of rome. her foundation, walls, doors, and windows were all adorned with carbuncles, sapphires, emeralds, chrysolites, and precious stones out of the lord's own treasure. god himself sat with his beauty and ornaments therein, so that it was the praise and admiration of the whole earth. strangers and home-bred persons wondered. such was the glory, perfection, order, and unity of this house, that the altar of damascus could have no peace, the canaanite no rest, heresy no hatching, schism no footing, diotrephes no incoming, the papists no couching, and jezebel no fairding. our church looked forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners. then god's tabernacle was amiable, his glory filled the sanctuary, the clear fresh streams watered the city of our god; the stoutest humbled themselves, and were afraid. if an idiot entered the lord's courts, so great power sounded from barnabas and boanerges, the sons of consolation and thunder, that they were forced to fall down on their face, and cry, "this is bethel, god is here." but alas! satan envied our happiness, brake our ranks, poisoned our fountains, mudded and defiled our streams; and while the watchmen slept, the wicked one sowed his tares: whence these divers years bygone, for ministerial authority, we had lordly supremacy and pomp; for beauty, fairding; for simplicity, whorish buskings; for sincerity, mixtures; for zeal, a laodicean temper; for doctrines, men's precepts; for wholesome fruits, a medley of rites; for feeders we had fleecers; for pastors, wolves and impostors; for builders of jerusalem, rebuilders of jericho; for unity, rents; for progress, defection. truth is fallen in the streets, our dignity is gone, our credit lost, our crown is fallen from our heads; our reputation is turned to imputation: before god and man we justly deserve the censure of the degenerate vine; a backsliding people, an apostate perjured nation, by our breaking a blessed covenant so solemnly sworn. yet, behold! when this should have been our doom, when all was almost gone, when we were down the hill, when the pit's mouth was opened, and we were at the falling in, and at the very shaking hands with rome; the lord, strong and gracious, pitied us, looked on us, and cried, saying, "return, return, ye backsliding people; come, and i will heal your backslidings." the lord hath been so saving, and the cry so quickening, that almost all of all ranks, from all quarters and corners, are awakened and on foot, meeting and answering the lord, saying, "behold we come unto thee, for thou art the lord our god, other lords besides thee have had dominion over us, but by thee only will we make mention of thy name." all are wondering at the turn, and looking like them that dream, and are singing and saying, "blessed be the lord who hath not given us for a prey to their teeth; our souls are escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler, the snare is broken, and we are escaped: our help is in the name of the lord who made the heaven and the earth." who thought to have seen such a sudden change in scotland, when all second causes were posting a contrary course? when proud men were boasting and saying, "bow down that we may go over;" and we laid our "bodies as the ground, and as the streets to them that went over." but now, behold one of god's wonders! so many of all ranks taking the honour and cause of christ to heart; all unanimously, harmoniously and legally conjoined as one man in supplications, protestations and declarations against innovations and innovators, corruptions and corrupters. behold and wonder! that old covenant (once and again solemnly sworn and perfidiously violated) is now again happily renewed, with such solemnity, harmony, oaths and subscriptions, that i dare say, this hath been more real and true in thee, o scotland, these few weeks bygone, than for the space of thirty years before. i know pashurs that went to smite jeremiahs, are become at this work magor-missabib, terror round about; zedekiahs that went to smite micaiahs, seek now an inner chamber to hide themselves. tobiah and sanballat gnaw their tongues, laugh and despise us, saying, "what is this ye do? will ye rebel against the king? will ye fortify yourselves? will ye make an end in a day? will ye remove the stones out of the heaps of rubbish that is burnt?" rehum the chancellor, shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their companions, cease not to fill the ears of a gracious prince with prejudice, saying, "be it known to thee, o king, if this city be built, and the walls thereof set up again, that they will not pay toll, tribute or custom." but to these we answer, "let the king live, and let all his enemies be confounded, let all that seek his damnation be put to shame here and henceforth: but as for you, ye are strangers, meddle not with the joy of god's people; ye have no portion, right, nor memorial in god's jerusalem." if the begun work vex them, it is no wonder; it does prognosticate the ruin of their kingdom, and that haman, who hath begun to fall before the seed of the jews, shall fall totally: the lord is about to prune his vineyard, and to drive out the foxes that eat the tender grapes; to pluck up bastard plants, and to whip buyers and sellers out of the temple. the lord is about to strike the gehazis with leprosy, and to bring low the simon maguses who were so high lifted up by satan's ministry. the lord is calling the great ones to put too their shoulder, and help his work; he hath been in the south, saying, "keep not back," and blessed be god, they have not. he hath now sent to the north, saying, "give up, bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the ends of the earth:" contend for the faith once delivered to scotland. there is one lord, one faith, one cause that concerns all. though this north climate be cold, i hope your hearts are not, at least they should not be. the earth is the lord's and its fulness, the world and they that dwell therein; the uttermost parts of the earth are given to christ for a possession; his dominion is from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. come then, and kiss the son; count it your greatest honour to honour christ, and to lend his fallen truths a lift; come and help to build the old wastes, that ye may be called the repairers of the breach; and then shall all generations call you blessed; then shall god build up your houses, as he did to the egyptian midwives, for their fearing god, and for their friendship to his people israel. be not like the nobles of tekoa, of whom nehemiah complained, that they would not put their necks to the work of the lord. be not like meroz, whom the angel of the lord cursed bitterly, for not coming to the help of the lord against the mighty. neither be ye like these mockers and scorners, at the renewing of the lord's covenant in hezekiah's days, but rather like those whose hearts the lord humbled and moved. be not like those invited to the king's supper, who refused to come, and had miserable excuses, and therefore should not taste of it. we hope better things of you; god hath reserved and advanced you for a better time and use: but if ye draw back, keep silence, and hold your peace, god shall bring deliverance and enlargement to his church another way; but god save you from the sequel. nothing is craved of you but what is for god and the king; for christ's honour, and the kirk's good, and the kingdom's peace. god give to your hearts courage, wisdom and resolution for god and the king, and for christ and his truths. _amen._ the national covenant sermon at glasgow.[ ] _by andrew cant._ "the kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, who made a marriage for his son: and he sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding; and they would not come," etc.--_matt._ xxii. , , , , . i purpose not to handle this parable punctually, because it stands not with the nature of a parable, neither will the time suffer me so to do. the parable runs upon an evident declaration and clear manifestation of god's sweetest mercies, in offering the marriage of his son, his own son, his well-beloved son, the son of his love, the son of his bosom, the son as good as the father, the son as great and as glorious as the father, the son whose generation none can declare. the father offers this his son in marriage: . to the jews, as you have in the first seven verses of the parable. . to the gentiles, in the rest of the parable. . to the jews, not because of their worthiness; "but even so, o father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." this offer was the effect of no merit, neither of congruity nor of condignity in the jews; for they were like that wretched and menstruous infant, ezek. xvi. , , unswaddled, unwashen, uncleansed, "lying in its blood, its navel not cut, nor salted at all, nor swaddled at all, cast out in the open field, having no eye to pity it." . as for the gentiles, ye may see what case they were in, if ye read this same parable, luke xiv. . "go ye out into the streets and lanes of the city, and call the poor, the lame, blind and maimed," etc. some were cripple, some poor and blind, and withered, and miserable, and naked, and leper, unworthy to come to our lord's gates, let be to have them opened wide to us; unworthy to be set down at his table, let be to be admitted to his royal marriage feast, and to get christ our lord to be our match, and to be the food and cheer of our souls: and therefore let all souls, let all pulpits, let all schools, let all universities, let all men, let all women, let all christians cry, grace, grace, grace, praise, praise, praise, blessing, blessing, for evermore to the lord's free grace. fy, fy, upon the man; fy, fy, upon the woman, that is an enemy to the lord's free grace. the fullest, and the fairest, and the freest thing in heaven or earth is the free grace of god, to our poor souls: "not unto us, o lord, not unto us, but unto thy name be the glory." at another occasion i handled the parable after a more general manner, and propounded these points unto you: . who was this great king? . who was the son of this great king? . this great king is god himself, "the king of kings, and lord of lords." then for the lord's sake, stand in awe of him, love him and fear him. and i charge you all here before that great and dreadful lord, that ye humble yourselves under his mighty hand, and that ye prostrate and submit yourselves under his almighty hand, and come away as ye promised. kiss the son, and embrace him, and then shall wrath be holden off you; and a shower of god's mercy shall come down upon you. then the king is god. . the king's son is christ. then there follows a dinner, "i have prepared my dinner." yea, i have a supper also, for luke says, he "prepared a great supper." i told you in what respects it is great. . i told you it was great in respect of the author of it, god. . i told you it was great in respect of the matter of it. ye know the matter of it, as holy scripture tells. whiles it gets base, silly, simple names, and is delineated and expressed under common terms: but the most common term it gets is so considerable that our case would not be good if it were wanting. whiles 'tis called "a feast of fat things full of marrow, of wine on the lees well refined." whiles it is called "gold." whiles it is called "fatlings, and a fatted and fed calf." whiles 'tis "honey and milk." whiles it is called "oil and wine." whiles it is called the "bread of life." in a word, to tell you what this feast is, it is this christ and all his saving graces freely given to thy soul. then, . it is great in respect of the manner of its preparation: i confess, this feast, though prepared in silver, is often administered in earthen vessels, and clay dishes: and, though it be mingled with butter and honey, yet this makes the natural man, when he looks upon it, not to think much of it, because he looks on the outside of it only. but would to god your eyes were opened to see the inside of it, and not to be like proud naaman, who said, "what better is this water of jordan than the water of abana and pharpar, rivers of damascus?" as some say, what better is this feast than the feast we have at home? as the man of god prayed for his servant, "lord, open his eyes that he may see;" and the lord opened his eyes, and he saw another sight, even the mountain full of horses and flaming chariots of fire; so, i pray the lord open all your eyes, that ye may see the many differences between this feast and all other feasts; for other feasts are but feasts for the body, and they are but feasts for the belly; an esau may have them, a reprobate may feed upon them. these are nothing else but the swine's husks, whereon the prodigal fed for a time, and scarce could get them; but when he came back again to his father's house, then he fed upon the fatted calf; and then he got a feast, and then was there plenty, then did his well run over, then was his cup to the brim, and overflowing. o that ye knew your father's house, and the fatness, the fulness, the feast, and the plenty that are there, ye would all hunger after it, and would then say, alas! i have been feeding on husks too long, "now will i arise and go to my father's house, where there is bread enough." all the lord's steps drop plenty and fatness. . i told you that this supper is a great feast in respect of the great number that are called unto it. the poorest thing in all the land is called unto it: the jews are called, the gentiles are called, yea the poorest thing that is hearing me is called; such as a great man would not look on, but he would close the gates on such an one; a great man would not deign himself to look on them in his kitchen; yet come ye away to this feast, the king of kings has his house open, and his gates patent, he has a ready feast, and a room house, and fair open gates, and every body shall be welcome that will come. "whosoever thirsts; let him come, and take of the water of life freely." and now through all the nooks and corners of this kingdom of scotland, christ is sending out his servants, and i am sent out unto you this day, crying unto you, "come away, his oxen and fatlings are killed, his wine is drawn, and his table furnished, and all things ready." . i told you it was a great feast, in respect of the place where it is kept. there are two dining-rooms:--( ) a dining-room above. ( ) a dining-room below. a dining-room above, that is a high dining-room, that is a fair house, that is a trim place. o the rivers of the lord's consolations that run there: i confess, in this lower dining-room of the church, the waters come first to the ankles, then to the mid-leg, then to the knees, then to the thigh, and then past wading; but then shall ye get fulness, when ye come up to that dining-room. and when ye come there, there shall be no more hunger, no more thirst, there shall be no more scant nor want, nor any more sour sauce in your feasts, neither any more sadness, nor sorrowful days; but eat your fill, and drink your fill. and many shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down at the royal and rare covered table, with abraham, isaac, and jacob, and get their fill to their hungered--"when i awake (says david) i shall be filled with thy likeness." poor soul, thou canst never get thy fill; i wish to god thou got a sop and a drop to set thee by till then. indeed, if thou hadst a vessel, thou shouldst get thy fair fill even in this life. and i dare say, if thou wouldst seek, and seek on, and seek instantly, the lord would one day or other make thee drink of the new wine of the gospel; he would give thee a draught, a fair draught, a fill, a fair fill of the wine of his consolation, he would make you suck the milk at the breasts of his consolation; but he will aye keep the best wine hindmost, as he did at the marriage of cana. therefore, poor thing, lift up thy head, and gather thy heart; ere it be long thou shalt get a draught of the best wine in thy father's house, where there are many mansions, and many dwelling-places. "i go (says christ) to prepare a place for you:" and he will come again, and receive you to himself, where ye shall drink abundantly of the new wine of the gospel. _lastly_, this supper is a great one in respect of the continuance of it; it lasts not for one day, but for ever; it lasts not for a hundred and four-score days, but for ever, and evermore. poor thing, who possibly gets some blyth morning blinks in upon thy soul, and possibly gets a taste of this cup in the morning, and long ere even thou art hungering and thirsting again, and thou wots not where to meet thy lord, and all the thing thou hast gotten is forgotten; in the day that he shall come, then thou shalt feast constantly and continually in thy father's house, where thou shalt never want thy arms full, thou shalt never want thy lord out of thy sight, neither shall thy lord ever want thee, but he shall ever be with thee, and thou with him; thou shalt follow the lamb whithersoever he goes. "behold i have prepared my dinner." all this feast was for a marriage; and here is a wonder, a world's wonder, a behold, which notes divers things: . behold it for an admiration. . behold it for an excitation. . behold it for consolation. . behold it for instruction. behold, and be awakened; behold, and be excited; behold, and be comforted; behold, and admire; behold, and wonder, that the king of heaven's son will marry your soul! then behold, and come away to your own marriage; behold, lost man shall get a saviour, behold, the king's son will be a saviour to a slave; behold, the king's son will drink the potion, and the sick shall get health; behold, the king's son will marry himself upon thee! "i will marry thee unto me in faith and in righteousness." "thou that was a widow and reproached," like a poor widow that has many foes, but few friends; yet, says the lord, "thou shalt not remember the reproach of thy widow-hood any more." then behold, and come away to the marriage. now, "who are these that are invited to the marriage?" i told you, . the jews are invited. . the gentiles are invited; yea, you are invited; i thank the bridegroom you are invited; i shall bear witness of it, when i am gone from you, you are invited. and i thank the lord, i have more to bear witness of; yea, that which comforts my soul, by all appearance the greatest part of you are come in, and by all good appearance ye have the wedding garment. i hope god has a people among you; this i shall bear witness of, when i am gone from among you; the greatest part has lent an ear; the lord bear it in upon your hearts with his own blessed preference. . "he sent his servants forth." he gives many a cry himself, and many a shout himself. is not that one of god's cries, "come unto me, all ye that are weary and laden, and i will ease you." o but that is a sweet word, thou art a weary thing, with a sore load of sin upon the neck of thy soul, and thou art like to sink under it, and art crying, what will come of thee? he is bidding thee come away, and get a drink of the marriage-wine to cheer thy fainting spirit; and if thou be weary, he shall ease thee. _object._ alas! sin hinders me, that i cannot come; sin is so black and ugly upon me, and so heavy, that i cannot come. _ans._ "come (says the lord) i will reason with you," that is, i will have your faults discovered, and i will have you convicted of your faults; but when i have reasoned with you, will i cast you away? nay, but though your sins were red as "crimson, they shall be made white as snow or wool." _object._ . alas! but my sins are many, how can the lord look upon me or pardon me? _ans._ "let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the lord, for he will abundantly pardon; for my ways are not your ways, neither my thoughts your thoughts; but as the heaven is high above the earth, so are my thoughts, (in pardoning) higher nor yours" (in sinning). come away, poor thing, then, and get thy heart full of mercy; and because such a fair offer is hard to be laid hold on, therefore he goes to the market-cross, like an herald with a great o yes, that all men there may be awakened. it is not little that will awaken sleeping sinners, therefore he puts too an o yes. "ho, come every one that thirsteth, buy wine and milk without money, and without price. why do ye spend your money for nought?" ye have spent your strength too long in vain; ye have been feeding on husks too long; ye have forsaken mercy and embraced vanity too long. come away, and he "will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of david." . "he sent forth his servants." this is a great wonder, that he calls on his servants, and sends them to them; this is wonderful! he stood not on compliments, who should be first in the play: ye would never have sought him, if he had not sought you; ye would never have loved him, if he had not loved you with the love of christ. i would say a comfortable word to a poor soul; is there any soul in this house this day, that has chosen the lord for the love and delight of his soul? thou wouldst never have chosen him, if that loving and gracious god had not chosen thee. is there any soul in this house this day, that is filled with the love of christ? thou wouldst never have loved him if he had not loved thee first. is there any soul that is seeking unto him in earnest? be comforted, he is seeking thee, and hast found thee, and gart thee seek him. i might produce scripture for all these, but the points are plain. . lo, a greater wonder! "he sent forth his servants." ye would think, if any had wronged you, it were their part to seek you, and not yours to seek them; or if any baser than another had done a wrong, it beseemed him to be the most careful to take pains, and seek to him whom he had wronged. but behold here a wonder! the great god seeking base man! the offended god seeking offending man! and is this because he has need of you? nay, canst thou be a party for him? canst thou hold the field against him? nay, "shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus?" shall the crawling worm and the pickle of small dust fight against the king of kings? art thou able to stand out against him, or pitch any field against him? nay, i tell thee, o man, there is not a pickle of hair in thy head, but if god arise in anger, he can cause it seem a devil unto thee, and every nail of thy fingers, to be a torment of hell against thee. o lord of hosts, and king of kings, who can stand out against thee? and yet thou hast offended him, and run away from him, and miskent him, and transgressed all his commandments, and hell, and wrath, and judgment is thy portion which thou deservest, and yet the lord is sending out his servants, to see if they can make an agreement. then, for god's sake, think on this wonder: for all this text is full of wonders, all god's works are indeed full of wonders, but this is the wonder of wonders. we then are god's ambassadors, i beseech you to be reconciled to god. should not ye have sought unto him first, with ropes about your necks, with sackcloth upon your loins, and with tears in your eyes? should not ye have lain at his door, and scraped, if ye could not knock? and yet the lord hath sent me to you, and our faithful men about here, crying, come away to the marriage: come away, i will renew my contract with you; i will not give you a bill of divorcement, but i will give my son to you; and your souls that are black and blae, i will make them beautiful. behold yet another wonder! when he has sent out other servants, and they got a nay-say; yet he will not take a nay-say. ye know a good neighbour, when he has prepared a dinner for another of his neighbours, sends out his servants, intimating that all things are ready, the table is covered, and dishes set on; if once warned, he refuses, he might well send once or twice to him, but at last he would take a displeasure, and not send again: but behold a wonder! he sends out his servants, in the plural number. but behold a great wonder! after one servant is abused, he sends out others, and when they are slain, and spitefully used by these who should have followed their call, and come in; what does the lord? read the chapter before, and ye shall see a great wonder; "he sent out his own son:" when moses cannot do it, when the prophets cannot do it, when john the baptist cannot do it; well, says the lord, i will see if my son can do it; i have not a son but one, and that is the son of my love, and i will make him a man, and send him down among them, and see how they will treat him: and when he comes, they cry out, "there is the heir, let us kill him." but behold a greater wonder! that after these servants are abused, and spitefully handled; and after the son himself is come, and has drunken of the same cup, after he has died a shameful death, and after they had put their hands on the heir; yet, when all is done, the lord sends servants upon servants, preachers upon preachers, apostles upon apostles to call in the people of the jews, to see if they will marry his son. then behold and wonder at all these wonders! and let all knees bow down before god. lord stamp your hearts with this word of god: god grant you could be kind to him, as he has been kind to you, and testified the same, by putting salve to your soul, and bringing it into the wedding. "he sent forth his servants." we may learn from this, that we who are the brethren in the ministry must be servants, and not lords. i wish at my heart, that we knew what we are, and that we knew our calling, and what we have gotten in trust; for we serve the best master in the world; but i'll tell you he is the strictest master that can be. i'll tell thee, o minister, and i speak it to thee with reverence, and i speak it to myself, there is a day coming, when thou must answer to god for what thou has got in charge, thou must answer to god for all the talents thou hast got, whether ten or two; for all have not got alike. but, dear brethren, happy is the man, if he had but one talent, that puts it out for his lord's use; and lord be thanked, that he will seek no more of me than he has given me. there are many things to discourage a faithful minister; but yet this may encourage us, that we serve the best master, and that is a sure recompence of reward that is abiding us. indeed he has not sent us out to seek ourselves, or to get gain to ourselves, he has not sent us out to woo a bride to ourselves, or to woo home the lord to our own bosom only: but he has sent us to woo a bride, and to deck and trim a spouse for our lord and master. and ye that are ministers of glasgow ye shall all be challenged upon this; whether or not ye have laboured to woo and trim a bride for your lord: but i know that you will be careful to present your flocks as a chaste spouse to him. and we also that are ministers in landwart, we are sent out for this errand, it matters not what part of the world we be in, if we do our master's service; and the day is coming when thou must answer to god for thy parish, whether thou hast laboured to present it as a chaste spouse to christ. it may gar the soul of the faithful minister leap for joy, when he remembers the day of his majesty's faithful meeting and his, when he shall give up his accounts, and then it shall be seen who has employed his talent well: then shall he say, "well done, good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a few things, i will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into thy master's joy." or rather "let thy master's joy enter into thee, and take and fill thy soul with it." many a sad heart has a faithful watchman; but there is a day coming when he shall get a joyful heart. but for whom especially is this joy reserved? it is even for those "who convert many to righteousness; they shall shine like the stars in the firmament, in the kingdom of their father." it is plain this belongs not to thee, o faithless watchman. what hast thou been doing? busking a bride for thyself? busking a bride for the pope of rome, the bishop of rome, even for antichrist? becking and bingeing to this table and that altar, bringing in the tapistry of antichristian hangings, and endeavouring to set the crown on another man's head, nor christ's? but thou that wilt not set on the crown on his head, and labour to hold it on, thou o preacher, the vengeance of god shall come upon thee, the blood of souls shall be upon thee. many a kirk-man eats blood, and drinks blood; lord deliver our souls from blood-guiltiness. dear brethren, let us repent, let us repent: i trow we have been all in the wrong to the bridegroom; shame shall be upon thee that thinks shame to repent. i charge you all, before the timber and stones of this house, and before that same day-light that ye behold, and that under no less pain nor the loss of the salvation of your souls, that ye wrong not the bridegroom nor his bride any more. but we come to our point: we are servants and not lords. i see never a word in this text, nay, nor in all the scripture that the master of the feast sent out lords to woo home his bride; he "sent out his servants," but not his lords. read all the bible from the beginning to the ending, you shall not find it. daft men may dispute, and by respect may carry it away; but read all the old and new testament both, and let me see if ever this lord prelate, or that lord bishop, was sent to woo home his bride. _object._ . we have our prerogative from aaron, from moses, from the apostles, from timothy. _ans._ i trow ye be like bastard bairns that can find no father. so they shall never be able to get a father, for man has set them up, and man is their father. _object._ . find we not the name of bishop under the new testament? _ans._ yes; but not the bishop of a diocese, such as my lord glasgow, and my lord st. andrew's; but we find a pastor or a bishop over a flock. it is a wonderful matter to me, that men should think to reason this way; for in the old testament there is not an office, nor an office-bearer, but is distinctly determined in the making of the tabernacle; there is not a tackle, nor the quantity of it, not a curtain, nor the colour thereof, not a snuffer, nor a candlestick, nor a besom that sweeps away the filth, nor an ash-pan that keepeth the ashes, but all are particularly set down; yet, ye will not get a bishop, nor an archbishop, nor this metropolitan, nor that great and cathedral man, no not within all the bible. the lord pity them; for indeed i think them objects of pity, rather than of malice. christ is a perfect king, and a perfect prophet. thou canst never own him to be a perfect priest and king, that denies him to be perfect prophet; and a perfect prophet he can never be, except he has set down all the offices and office-bearers requisite for the government of his house; but so has he done, therefore is he perfect. _obj._ . but they will call themselves servants. _ans._ . the fox may catch a while the sheep, and the pope may call himself _servus servorum_, the servant of servants: and they will call themselves brethren, when they write to us; but they will take it very highly and hardly, if we call them brethren, when we write back to them again: but men shall be known by their fruits, and by their works, to be what they are, and not what they call themselves. but if they will be called servants and yet remain lords, let them take heed that they be not such servants, as cursed canaan was, "a servant of servants shall he be." take heed that they be not serving men's wrath and vengeance, and not servants "by the grace of god, and by the mercy of god," as they style themselves. . let them take heed that they be not such servants as gehazi was; he was a false servant, he ran away after the courtier naaman, seeking gifts, and said his master sent him, when (god knows) his master sent him not; at the time he should have been praying to the lord, to help his poor kirk and comfort her; the curse and vengeance of god came upon him, and he was stricken with leprosy for his pains; such servants are these men who now sit down on their cathedral nests, labouring to make themselves great like gehazi: let them take heed that their hinder end be not like his. . let them take heed that they be not such servants as ziba was to mephibosheth, who not only took away what was his by right, but also went to the king with ill tales of poor cripple mephibosheth: such servants are these who not only rob the church of her privileges and liberties, but also run up to the king with lies and ill tales of poor mephibosheth, the cripple kirk of scotland. . let them take heed that they be not such servants as judas was, an evil servant indeed; he sold his master for gain, as ill servants do. or like these that strike the bairns when they are not doing any fault: and they are ill servants who busk their master's spouse with antichrist's busking. wo unto them, and the man who is the head of their kirk, whose cross and trumpery they would put on the lord's chaste spouse. but if they will call themselves servants, and yet remain lords, let them take heed that they be not of this category that i have reckoned up. the lord make us faithful servants, and the lord rid his house of them. time will not suffer me to go through the rest of the text, only i will take a glance of some things which make for your use at this time. _quest._ how are their servants treated? _ans._ some of them get _nolumus_ upon the back of their bill: some of them are beaten, and spitefully used and slain. dear hearts, know ye not how moses was used? how aaron and jeremiah, &c., were used? how zechariah was slain between the porch and the altar? how jeremiah was smitten; and he that did it, got his name changed into magor missabib, _terror round about_? know ye not that zedekiah struck micaiah; and how his threatenings against him came to pass? always we may learn from this, that the lord's best servants have been, and will be abused, and spitefully used? this is a great sin lying upon scotland, england and ireland. many faithful servants in the three kingdoms have been spitefully used; their cheeks burnt, their noses ript up, their faces marked; some of them put into a stinking prison, where they had not an hour's health, and many of them rugged from their flocks, and their flocks from them. look over to the kingdom of ireland, the many desolate congregations that are there; many a dear one there, that would have had a blyth soul, to have had your last sunday, or seen it, or to have assurance of such a day before they come into heaven. pray for the peace of zion, and pity those poor things who would be content to go from one sea-bank to the other, to be in your place to-day. and truly the blood of these poor things is crying for vengeance to light where it should light; for the blame lies upon none but the proud prelates. if i would pose you with this question, as you will answer to god, who have been the instruments of all this mischief? i am sure the most ignorant among you can answer, none but the proud beasts the prelates. the lord give them repentance. i know not how you have handled your pastors in this town, because i am but a stranger; but trow ye that two silly men that came among you can do any thing, if your own pastors had not laid the foundations: but, for god's sake, honour and respect your pastors, i mean those of them that keep the covenant of levi. and ye that have broken it, and will not come to renew it again, shame and dishonour will be upon you for evermore. i have my message from the nd of malachi, "i will pour contempt upon them who have broken the covenant of levi." therefore let pastors and people enter both within this covenant; for it is the sweetest thing in the world, to see pastors and a people going one way. therefore come away all of you unto the wedding, come and subscribe the contract, put your heart and hand to it. blessed be god for what already ye have done. some of the servants got a nay-say, and some of them were beaten; hence we learn, that every minister will not be beaten, nor will get the stroke to keep; but if a minister get a nay-say, it will make him as sad as if he had gotten sore strokes. if a minister get a nay-say that has been travailing these many years in the ministry, and yet cannot get one soul brought unto the lord, that will make him as sad as sore strokes will do. when an honest minister has laboured many years painfully in the sweat of his brows, and has never had another tune, but, come away, come away unto the marriage; and when he walks among them, and sees never one coming in, nor never one that has on the wedding garment, what will be the complaint of the poor man? o then he will cry out with isaiah, "lord, who believes my report, and to whom has the arm of the lord been made naked? lord, i have laboured in vain, and spent my strength for nought." what will come of me, after so many years' travail in the ministry? i have not brought forth one child. the lord forbid that ye our people break your ministers' hearts. and as for you, brethren, be more watchful over your flocks, be more busy in catechising and exhorting them. and urge the duty of the covenant upon them, and when they are on foot, hold them going; lead them to the fountain and cock-eye. lead them to the well-spring; and make meikle of them; feed the lord's lambs, as christ said to peter, "if thou lovest me, feed my sheep; lovest thou me? i say, feed my sheep." minister, lovest thou me? feed my bais'd sheep: lovest thou me? feed my lambs. you must be feeders, and not fleecers; pastors, but not wolves; builders, but not destroyers; and come away, and help up the broken-down wall of jerusalem. for if one of you can bring timber here, another bring mortar, a third bring stones, and make up a slap in zion; and i hope we that came here shall go home with blyth news to our congregations, that we cannot say we have got a cold welcome; so i hope ye will think it your greatest comfort, and your greatest credit also. venture in covenant with god, and whosoever thou be, that wilt not enter in covenant, we will have thy name, and we will pour out our complaints before god for thee; for we that are ministers must be faithful to our master; and i take you all to witness, that we have discharged our commission faithfully; and i hope the blessing of the lord shall be upon them that have given us an invitation of this kind: and it may be your greatest comfort, that now ye may go homely unto the lord, being formerly in covenant with him; and your greatest credit also, for ye never got such a credit, as to lend your master's honour a lift. we come to the excuses. "but they went their way, one to his farm, and another to his merchandise." luke is more large in this, and saith, "i have bought a piece of ground, and must needs go see it;" another said, "i have bought five yoke of oxen, and i go to prove them;" and the third said, "i have married a wife and therefore i cannot come." . we learn here, that never a man refuses christ but from some by-respects, such as a farm, oxen, and marriage. i never saw a man staying back from the covenant, but from some by-respects; either some respect to the world, or to men, or to the court, or such bastard by-respects to some statesmen, or to a prelate, or to the king himself, who, we trust, ere it be long, shall think them the honestest men that came in soonest; therefore cast away all by-respects. the apostle john includes their excuses under three different expressions, "the pride of life," including the farm; "the lust of the heart," including the merchandise; and "the lust of the flesh," including the marriage. therefore let every soul that would love and follow christ, deny himself, and lay aside excuses. deny thy own wit, will, and vanities, and lay aside all by-respects, and i shall warrand thou shalt come running, and get christ in thy arms. . is it a respect to prelacy that hinders thee, o scotland? cursed be the day that ever they were born. . is it a respect to the novations already come into scotland? i may say cursed be these brats of babel. it had been best to have rent them at the beginning, for many woful days have they brought on, and woful divisions have they brought in, and woful backslidings have they occasioned. therefore away with these by-respects. . is it a respect to the king? the lord bless our king. says not the covenant enough for the maintenance of the king? as for the word which they call combinations, it reserves always the honour of god, and the honour of the king; protesting, that we mind nothing that may tend to the diminution of the king's greatness and authority. yea, i know no other means under heaven to make many loyal subjects, but by renewing our covenant. i would have had the men that made these excuses framing them another way; i would have had him that married the wife, saying, my wife has married me; and he that bought his oxen, saying, my oxen have bought me; and he that went to his farm, saying, my farm has bought me. and if ye will mark the words, ye will find them run this way. . marriage is lawful; but when a man beasts himself in his carnal pleasures, then the wife marries the man; "therefore let them that have wives, be as though they had them not, and them that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not." . buying of farms is lawful, but when a man becomes a slave to his own gain, it takes away the soul of him, the farm buys the man; likewise husbandry is lawful, but when a man yokes his neck under the world, it trails and turmoils him so, that he cannot take on the yoke of jesus. . thus also the merchandise buys the man. then, for jesus christ's sake, cast away all excuses, and come away now, and marry christ. . away with thy bastard pleasures. . away with thy bastard cares, and come away to christ, and he shall season all thy cares. . away with thy falsehood, thy pride, vanity, &c. away with thy corn, wine and oil, and come to christ, and he shall lift up his countenance upon thee. the lord give thee a blink of that, and then thou wilt come hopping with all thy speed, like unto old jacob, when he saw the angels ascending and descending, then he ran fast, albeit he was tired, and had got a hard bed, and a far harder bolster the night before, yet he got a glorious sight, and his legs were soupled with consolation, which made him run. lord blink upon thy lazy soul with his amiable countenance, and then thou shalt rise and run, and thy fainting heart will receive strength, when the lord puts in his hand by the key-hole of the door, and leaves drops of myrrh behind him, then a sleepy bride will rise and seek her beloved. but to our point. marriage is lawful, merchandise is lawful, husbandry is lawful, but never one of these is lawful when they hinder thee from the lord. neither credit, pleasure, preferment, houses nor lands are lawful, when they hinder thee from the lord's sweet presence. jerome said well, "though my old father were hanging about my neck, and my sweet mother had me in her arms, and all my dear children were sticking about me, yet when my lord jesus called upon me, i would cast off my old father, and throw my sweet mother under foot, and throw away all my dear children, and run away to my lord jesus." lord grant, my beloved, that what ye have heard of christ may sink in your souls: and when ye have seen poor things running here and there, to get a prayer here, and a prayer there, and ye wonder what they are seeking, they are seeking their beloved; and if ye ask, "what is their beloved more than another?" they will answer, my beloved is the fairest and trimmest, and the highest and honourablest in the world; he has the sweetest eyes, the sweetest cheeks, the sweetest lips, and trimmest legs and arms, "yea he is altogether lovely;" and then they will be made to cry out, "o thou fairest among women, tell us whither is thy beloved gone, that we may seek him with thee?" o if we knew him! lord work upon you the knowledge of him. o what a business would you make to be at him! lord grant that our ministry may leave a stamp upon your hearts. then had we gotten a rich purchase. would to god ye were like that marquis in italy, who fled from thence to geneva, being persecuted by the jesuits; and when they followed him, and offered him sums of gold, he answered, "let those perish forever who part with an hour's fellowship with christ, for all the gold under heaven." and sundry of the martyrs being at the stake, having this and that offered to them, they had still this word, none but christ, none but christ: and when they were bidden, have mind of your well favoured wife, and your poor children; they answered, "if i had all the money and gold in the world, i would give it to stay with my wife and poor children, if it were but in a stinking prison; but sweet christ is dearer unto me than all." then cast away all excuse. would to god we were like that woman, when going to the stake; "i have borne many children, (says she) and yet notwithstanding of all these pains, i would suffer them all over again, for one hour's fellowship with my lord." then come away, come away, cast away all excuses, come away; as the saviour says, "the storm is past and over, the winter is away, the time of singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; arise, my fair one, and come away." god be thanked, there is a sad winter over scotland's head, and our figs are blossoming, and our trees are budding, and bringing forth fruit, now is the turtle singing, and his voice is heard in our land: now is christ's voice heard, now is our bridegroom standing waiting on our way-coming; and here am i in his name, crying unto you, come away: here am i to honour my master: all honour be to him for ever and ever. come away then, for the winter is going, the summer is approaching, our vines are blossoming, in token of a fair summer: arise, arise, and come away. ver. . "go ye, therefore, out to the highways:" as if he would say, well, i see the jews will not come in; "therefore go your ways and fetch in the gentiles." yet i hope in god, there shall many of the jews come in shortly. they spake for you, when ye could not speak for yourselves; they said, "we have a little sister, and she has no breasts; what shall we do for her in the day she shall be spoken for?" now pray ye for them. always they refused to come in, as ye heard; and not being worthy, they would not come to him, to make them worthy.--always, says the lord, go out, and call in the gentiles to my table, my son may not want a wife: he is too great a king to want a spouse, and my supper is too good cheer to be lost; therefore go and fetch in the gentiles. i thank the lord that ye are come in. i know not a town in the kingdom of scotland that is not come in, except one, and i am afraid for the wrath of god to light on that shortly. always god hath his own time. but trow ye, that god will give that honour to every one? nay. i protest in my own silly judgment (howbeit i cannot scance upon kings crowns) that it were the greatest honour that ever king charles got, to subscribe the covenant. but trow ye that every minister and every burgh will come in? nay: if you will read the history, chron. xxx. , you will see the contrary; when hezekiah was going to renew the covenant, and to keep the passover, the holy text says, that numbers mocked, and thought themselves over jelly to come in; but those whose hearts the lord had touched, they came in and kept the blyth day. indeed i was afraid once, that christ would have left old scotland, and gone to new scotland, and that he would have left old england, and gone to new england: and think ye not but he can easily do this? has he not a famous church in america, where he may go? indeed i know not a kingdom in all the world, but if their plots had gone on, they had been at antichrist's shore ere now; but all his limbs and liths, i hope shall be broken, and then shall our lord be great: therefore come away in with your wedding garment, and ye that have not put it on, now put it on, and come away to the marriage: and i thank the lord, that ye are prevailed with, by god's assisting of our faithful brethren to bring you in; the lord grant that ye may come in with your wedding garment. it is but a small matter for you to hold up your hand; and yet, i suspect, some of you when it was in doing took a back-side. i tell you that it is no matter of sport, to board with god: therefore come away with your wedding garment; for the master of the feast sees you, and knows all that are come to the marriage feast. i know you not, but my master knows you every one: he knows who came in on sabbath and who came in yesterday, and who will come in to-day, and who are going to put on their wedding garment, and cast away their duds. away with your duds of pride, your duds of greed and of malice; away with all these duds, and be like the poor blind man in the gospel, who when he knew that christ called him, he cast his old cloak from him, and came away; so do ye, cast aside all excuses, and come to the wedding. and now with a word of the wedding garment i will end. this wedding garment consists of three pieces: . there is one piece of it looks to god, and that is holiness. . there is another piece of it looks to ourselves, and that is sobriety. . another piece of it looks to our neighbour, and that is righteousness. the first is holiness; i charge you to put it on: ye that are the provost and bailies, i love you dearly, and all the members of the town; gentlemen, and all gentlewomen, and all of you i love you dearly; and therefore i charge you all before god, in my last farewell unto you, to be holy, according as ye have sworn in your covenant. . be sober. howbeit i be a stranger, yet i like brotherly love and christian fellowship well; but drunkenness and gluttony, feasting and carousing i hate, especially now when the kirk of scotland is going in dool-weed: therefore be sober. . be sober in your apparel; i think there is too much of gaudy apparel among you. . be sober in your conceits. . be sober in your judgments. . be sober in your self-conceiting. . be sober in your speaking. . be sober in your sleeping. . be sober in your lawful recreations. . be sober in your lawful pleasures: and finally be sober in all respects; that it may be seen ye are the people that have renewed your covenant. . be righteous. i know not if ye have false weights and balances among you; but whether there be or not, i give you all charge, who have sworn the covenant, to be righteous. in a word, this wedding garment is jesus christ; "put ye on the lord jesus christ." i cannot give you a better counsel nor christ gave to martha; forget the many things, and choose that one thing which is needful; and with david, still desire that one thing, "to behold the beauty of the lord in his temple;" and with paul, "forget the things that are behind, and press forward to the prize of the high-calling thro' jesus christ." the lord fill your hearts with the love of christ. if thou askest, what will this garment do to thee? i answer, this garment serves, . for necessity. . for ornament. . for distinction. . for necessity. and this is threefold. . to cover thy nakedness, and hide thy shame. . to defend thy body from the cold of winter, and heat of summer. . for necessity, to hold in the life of the body. so put on jesus christ this wedding garment; and, . he shall cover the shame of thy nakedness with the white linen of his righteousness. . he shall defend thee when the wind of trial begins to blow rough and hard, and when the blast of the terrible one is arising, to rain fire and brimstone upon the world; "then he shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the day time from the heat, and a place of refuge for a covert from storm and from rain." "a refuge from the storm, and shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall." when men are pursuing, he shall be a brazen wall about thee; and when they pursue thee, he shall keep thee in his bosom. . a garment is for an ornament. who is the best favoured body; and the trimmest soul? even the poor soul that has put on the bridegroom jesus: that soul is fair and white, and altogether lovely, "there is no spot in it," because the lord hath put upon it, "broidered work, bracelets and ornaments." . a garment is for distinction. there must be a distinction among you, between you and the wicked world, because ye have renewed your covenant with god: and this distinction must not only be outwardly (for an hypocrite may seem indeed very fair) but it must be by inward application. i desire you all that are hearing me, not only to put it on, but to hold it on: put it on, and hold it on; for it is not like another garment, neither in matter, nor shape, nor in use, nor in durance. i may not insist to handle it, but it is not like other garments, especially it is not like a bridegroom's garment, which he has on to-day, and off to-morrow. therefore i charge you all your days, to hold it on. ay, that which ye had on upon sabbath last, and yesterday, and which you have on this day, see that ye cast it not off to-morrow. what heard you cried on sabbath last, and yesterday, and this day? hosanna, hosanna. and wherefore cried ye yesterday and this day, hosanna, hosanna? look that when we are away, and your ministers not preaching to you, that ye cry not, "crucify him, crucify him." i fear that many who last sabbath, yesterday and this day, have been crying hosanna, hosanna, shall, long ere the next sabbath, cry, "crucify him, and hang him up." but i charge you, o sons of zion, and ye daughters of jerusalem, that your tongues never cease in crying, hosanna, till christ come and dwell in your soul. ye that are masters of this college, if ye count me worthy to speak to you, i would have you keep your garments clean, and take heed that ye be not spotted with uncovenanted spots. ye that are scholars, take heed what sort of learning and traditions ye drink in, and hold your garments clean. we hear of too many colleges in the land, that are spotted; but we hope in god that ye are yet clean: and young and old of you, take all heed to your garments, that they be white, and clean, and beautiful. for the lord's sake, all ye that are hearing me, take heed to your garments, but especially ye that have subscribed your covenant, take heed to your garments; for blyth will your adversaries be, to see any spot on them. and therefore, for the lord's sake, study to be holy; otherwise papists will rejoice at it, and the weak will stumble at it: and so ye will wound and bore the sweet side of christ. and therefore put on your wedding garment, hold it on, and hold it clean; walk wisely and before the world. now i commend you to him who is able to strengthen, stablish and settle you: to him be glory, honour and dominion, for ever and ever. amen. [illustration: fac-simile of old title page of following sermon.] _the evil and danger of_ prelacy. a sermon preached at a general meeting, in the _black-fryar-church_ of _edinburgh_, upon the th day of _june_, , at the beginning of our last reformation from _prelacy_, after the renovation of the national covenant. by the reverand mr. andrew cant, sometime minister of the gospel at aberdeen. peter v , _neither as being lords over god's heritage: but being examples to the flock._ glasgow, printed for george paton, book-seller in _linlithgow_. mdccxli. sermon at edinburgh.[ ] _by andrew cant._ "who art thou, o great mountain? before zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain, and he shall bring forth the head-stone thereof with shoutings, crying, grace, grace unto it." --_zech._ iv. . i perceive that god will have his temple built, which had been long neglected; partly by the worldliness of the people, who had greater care of their own houses, than of the house of god; as appears by the prophet haggai, chap. i. , . he reproves them for this fault, that they cared more for their own houses than for the house of god; partly, because of the great impediments and difficulties they apprehended in the work. yet god, having a purpose to have it builded, sends his prophets to stir them up to the building of it. as for impediments he promises to remove them all, and assures them of this by haggai and zechariah; yea, he shews to zerubbabel and the people, that although impediments were as mountains, yet they should be removed. i need not stand upon introductions and connections: this verse i have read, shows the scope of the prophet; viz. god will have his work going on, and all impediments removed. these times require that i should rather insist upon application to the present work of reformation in hand, than to stand upon the temple of jerusalem, which we know well enough was a type of christ's kirk, which in this land was once built, but now hath been defaced by the enemies of christ: we have long neglected the re-edifying of it; partly, men being given more to build their own houses, nor the house of christ; and partly, because of the great impediments that have discouraged god's people to meddle with it. now, it hath pleased god to stir up prophets, noblemen, and people of the land, to put their hands to this work. and i think god saith to you in this text, "who art thou, o great mountain? thou shalt become a plain." there are two parts in this text; . an impediment removed, under the name of a mountain, "who art thou, o great mountain? before zerubbabel, thou shalt become a plain." . in the second part of the text, the work goeth up, and is finished, the impediment being removed, "he shall bring forth the head-stone thereof with shoutings, crying, grace, grace be unto it." but that ye may take up all that is to be said in order and method; there are six steps in the text, three in the mountain, impeding the work, and three in the work itself. the three in the mountain are these; . it is a mountain seen, "o great mountain!" . a mountain reproved, "who art thou, o great mountain? before zerubbabel." . a mountain removed, "thou shalt become a plain." the three in the work are; . a work growing and going up. . a work finished, "he shall bring forth the head-stone thereof." . a work praised, "he shall bring forth the head-stone thereof with shoutings, crying, grace, grace be unto it." i shall speak of all these, god willing, and apply them to the time. as for the three in the mountain. . it is a mountain seen; it is called a _great mountain_; under this are comprehended all impediments and difficulties impeding the building; all being taken together make up a great mountain, which is unpassable; the enemies who impede this work were this mountain: look and ye will see the adversaries of judah become a great mountain in the way of that work. that ye may take up this mountain the better, i find that kings are called mountains in scripture; and good kings are so called, for these three, . for their sublimity; as mountains are high above the valleys, so are kings lifted up in majesty above their subjects: some apply that place to kings, "hear ye, o mountains, the lord's controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth." . they are called mountains for their strength to guard their people. david saith, "god hath made my mountain strong." . good kings are called mountains, by reason of their influence for peace to the people: "the mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills by righteousness." i find also, that the strong enemies of the church are called mountains, because of the great impediments to the kirk's building that are made by them, as ye may see in psalm cxliv. this mountain (that i may speak more plainly) is prelacy, which hath ever been the mountain in the way of our reformation. it may be, some of you that hear me, are not of my judgment concerning episcopacy; for my judgment, i ever condemned it, as having no warrant for it to be in christ's house; yet i am sure, that all of you that are here this day, will agree with me in this, that prelacy being antichristian, is intolerable: but such is the prelacy of this kirk, it is antichristian. i may easily prove, that amongst many marks of antichrist, these two are most evident, false doctrine and tyranny in government: where antichrist is, there is tyrannical government, imposing laws upon the consciences of god's people; where antichrist is, there is idolatry, superstition and error; these two are clearly in our prelacy: their idolatry, superstition, and error may be seen in their service-book, their tyranny may be seen in their book of canons. i think there are none here, but they may see this mountain: no greater tyranny hath ever been used by antichrist, than hath been used by our prelates, and exercised upon this kirk. this mountain being seen by you all; i would have you take a view of the quality of it. i find in scripture, that the enemies of the kirk being called mountains, are so called, because of these three qualities: the first is in psalm lxxvi. . they are called "mountains of prey;" so called, because from them the robbers rush down to the vallies, and prey upon the passengers. the second is in jer. li. , babylon, a great enemy to god's kirk, is called a "destroying mountain;" the word in its own language, is called a _pestiferous_ mountain, (so called) because the pest destroys. the third is in isa. ii. , they are called "mountains of pride;" compared with the twelfth verse, you will find these mountains called "mountains of pride." our mountain of prelacy hath all these three bad qualities: . it is a mountain from which they have, like robbers, made a prey of the kirk of christ. tell me, i pray you, and i appeal to your own consciences, who are my brethren, if there be any privilege or liberty that ever christ gave us, but they have taken it from us, and made a prey of it. . this mountain is a pestiferous mountain; it hath been the mountain that hath been as a pest, to infect the kirk of christ with superstition, heresy and error; and withal, it hath been a destroying mountain; for they have destroyed the fair carved work of our first reformation. . they are mountains of pride; for greater pride cannot be, than there is upon this mountain; they rule as tyrants over their brethren, and as lords over god's inheritance. ye that are noblemen are the natural mountains of this kingdom, descended of noble predecessors who have been as mountains indeed, defending both kirk and commonwealth. these men were but low vallies, and now are artificial mountains, made up by the art of man; at first, as low as their brethren sitting there; but piece and piece, they have mounted up; at first, commissioners for the kirk, and then obtained vote in parliament, and then they usurped all the liberties of the kirk benefices, and then constant moderators to make up this mountain; and at last, the high commission is given to make the mountain strong; it is like to daniel's tree. "the tree grew, and was strong;" and from it, we that are ministers of christ have our wreck. and let me speak to you noblemen, these artificial and stooted mountains have over-topped you who are the natural mountains; and if they have not done so, what means the great seal then? and if way could have made for it, they should have carried the white wand and privy-seal also: and this is just with god, that they have over-topped you; for every one of you came with your own shovel-ful, to make up this mountain. it was thought expedient to rear up this mountain, to command and bear down poor ministers. albeit, it is true, we have been borne down by them; yet ye that are the high mountains, have not been free from their hurt: it is very like to jotham's parable, "the trees of the forest will have a king over them; they come to the olive-tree, and say, be thou king over us: the olive saith, i will not leave my fatness to be king: they came to the fig-tree, and said, be thou our king; the fig-tree saith, i will not leave my sweetness to be king: they come likewise to the vine, and say, be thou our king; the vine saith, i will not leave my strength to be king: they come to the bramble and said, be thou our king; then said the bramble to the trees, if indeed ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust under my shadow; and if not, let fire come forth of the bramble, and devour the tall cedars of lebanon." the olive-trees of the ministry would not leave the fatness of god's grace, wherewith they were endued, to rule over the kirk: the fig-trees of the ministry would not leave the sweet fruits of their ministry, to bear rule in the kirk: the vines of the ministry would not leave the strong consolations of god, whereby many souls were comforted, to bear rule in the kirk: yet the brambles have taken this, and ye helped to exalt them, upon condition to trust under their shadow; and if fire hath not come forth from these brambles upon the tall cedars of this land, i leave to your own thoughts to judge. always this is the mountain which ye see all reared up this day, and standing in the way of our reformation. . the second thing in this great mountain is this, it is a mountain reproved: "who art thou, o great mountain? before zerubbabel." when he saith of zerubbabel, it is not only meant of zerubbabel, but of the rest of god's people. there, zerubbabel, joshua, and the rest of god's people obeyed the voice of the lord; and in the th verse, all these are said to work in the house of the lord: so under zerubbabel, all the rest of the people are comprehended; even so in this work of ours, all that are joined to this work, for the building of this work, are to be accounted workers; and for them also is this mountain reproved, "who art thou, o great mountain?" who art thou, who will impede this work, or shall be able to impede it, seeing god will have it forward. it is impossible for thee to impede it, in these three respects: . in respect of the work itself. . in respect of the workers. . in respect of the impeders. . in respect of the work itself. it is god's work; for the house is his, and he is in it. the lord saith, "be thou strong, zerubbabel, and joshua, and the remnant of the people and work, for i am with you, saith the lord of hosts." if god be with a work, who is he that will let or impede it? god is with this work of reformation, as ye yourselves can witness; and by all our expectations this mountain is shaken, and (god be praised) the difficulties are not so unpassable as they were. . no man is able to impede this work, in respect of the workers. it is said, "that god stirred up the spirit of zerubbabel, and of joshua, and of the people, and they came and wrought in the house of the lord." when god stirs up men to do a good work, nothing on earth can stay it: i am sure if ever god stirred up men to a good work, he hath stirred us up to this, both noblemen, ministers and people. wherefore, "who art thou, o great mountain" before god's people, that thinks to impede such a work? . in respect of the impeders: what are they but men, and wicked men, as ye may see in the adversaries of the jews. who are they that impede our work? even men that seek honour and preferment of this world, enemies to religion, fighting against god; to whom, i may say that word in job, "who hath hardened himself against god, and prospered?" with one word more i will reprove this mountain, and go forward. "who art thou, o great mountain?" wilt thou search thyself who thou art: art thou of god's building or not? i trow you are not _juris divini_, but _humani_; god nor christ hath never built thee: thou art only a hill of man's erecting; knowest thou not that zion, against which thou art, is a hill of god's building. i will say to you then that word, "the hill of god is a high hill, as the hill of bashan: why leap ye, ye hills? this is the hill that god desireth to dwell in; yea, and will dwell in it forever." and think ye to prevail against the people of zion? she hath stronger mountains to guard her than ye have, "as the mountains are round about jerusalem, so the lord is round about his people, from henceforth and forever." . the third thing in this mountain, is, it is a mountain removed, "thou shalt become a plain;" that is, god shall remove all impediments before zerubbabel, and his people; god is able to remove all that impedes his work; even the mightiest enemies that oppose themselves to the work of god. ye may observe a fourfold power of god against these mountains. . a _determining power_, whereby he sets such bounds to the greatest mountains, that ye see they fall not upon the vallies, albeit they overtop them. the lord hath set bounds to the great kings in the world which they could not pass, when they have set themselves against the lord's people. we may see an example of this in sennacherib. "therefore thus saith the lord concerning the king of assyria, he shall not come up to this city, nor shoot an arrow against it, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it." ye are afraid of the king, that he come against you: fear not, the lord by his restraining power is able to keep him back, that he shall not shoot so much as a bullet against this city. . god removes impediments by his _assisting power_, as he promised to do before cyrus. "i will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight; i will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the iron bars." albeit for any thing we see, there be brazen gates, and iron bars, closing out a reformation: yet let not this discourage you; god is with you by his assisting power to go before you, to make all crooked places straight, and to break the brazen gates, and to cut in sunder the iron bars. . god hath a _changing power_, whereby he makes mountains plain: how easy is it with god, to make the highest mountain that impedes his work a plain? "the king's heart is in the hand of the lord, as the rivers of waters, to turn it whithersoever he will." lord make our mountains thus plain. the th way how god removes mountains, is by an _overthrowing power_: if there be no change yet, god will bring it down. "every one that is lifted up shall be brought low." by this which hath been said, ye may understand how a mountain may be made plain. god makes mountains plains, either in mercy or in wrath. . in mercy, when he takes a grip of the heart, and of a proud haughty heart, makes it toward and plain: we have seen such a change by experience. this work had many enemies at the beginning, that impeded it, whom god hath taken by the heart, and made plain; yea, he hath made them furtherers of the work. . there is another way of making mountains plain, to wit, making plain in wrath; when god overthrows the mountains that stand up impeding his work. assure yourselves, if god bring not down this mountain we have to do with, in mercy, he shall overthrow it in wrath, and make it waste. that i may make this mountain more plain, ye shall consider how it shall become a plain, and how easily it may be made a plain. . i see you looking up to the height of it, and ye are saying within yourselves, how shall it come down? ye must not think that it will come down of its own accord; god useth instruments to pull down. i find that god hath made his own people instruments to pull down such mountains: "fear not, worm jacob, and ye men of israel, i will help thee, saith the holy one and thy redeemer, behold i will make thee a new threshing instrument having teeth; thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff; thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them." mark these words, although jacob be a worm, despised by the great ones of the world, yet god will make him a threshing instrument, to beat these mountains in pieces. the professors of this land are despised by the mountains; yet fear not, for the sharp threshing instrument is made, i hope it shall beat the mountains in pieces. we think them very high, but if we had faith, that word would be verified. "ye shall say to this mountain, remove to yonder place, and it shall be removed, and nothing shall be impossible unto you." but one is saying, i have not faith, that all that are joined this day against the mountain shall continue. i hope they shall continue, i hope they shall; but if they do not, we trust not in men, that they shall bring down this mountain, but in god, who hath said, "behold i am against thee, o destroying mountain, i will stretch out my hand upon thee, i will roll thee down from the rocks, and make thee a burnt mountain; they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a foundation; thou shalt be desolate for ever." this mountain ye see so exalted, although men would hold it up, yet god will bring it down, and make it a burnt mountain: even so, o lord, do. . in the second place consider how this mountain may be made a plain: i told you it was but an artificial mountain, a stooted mountain, standing upon weak pillars; if ye would take a look of the whole frame of the mountain, it stands upon two main pillars; and upon the top of the mountain stands the house of dagon, an house of false worship, and take me the pillars from episcopacy, and it shall fall; take episcopacy away, and the house of dagon shall fall. the two main pillars that prelacy stands on are a civil and secular arm, and an ecclesiastical tongue, so to speak. . the _secular arm_ is the authority of princes, which have ever upholden that mountain: ye know secular princes uphold antichrist, and prelacy in this land is upholden by the secular power. . the second pillar i call _ecclesiastical_, that is, prelacy in this land hath been upholden by the tongues of kirkmen, preaching up this mountain, or, by their pens, writing up this mountain: and these are the two pillars whereupon our mountain of prelacy is stooted, the secular power, and the tongues of kirkmen. let the king withdraw his power and authority from the prelates, and they shall fall suddenly in dross; let kirkmen and ministers withdraw their tongues and pens from them, and our mountain (ere ye look about you) shall become a plain. as these two stoot up this mountain, so upon this mountain all false worship in the kirk is built, even dagon's house. "lead me," says samson, "to the pillars that dagon's house stands on, that i may be avenged for my two eyes." the philistines were never more cruel to samson in pulling out his eyes, than our prelates would have been to us: they pressed to put out our eyes, and ere ever we were aware, they thought to lead us to dagon's house, even to the tents of popery and idolatry. let us come to this main pillar of dagon's house, and apply all our strength to pull it down; that we may not only be avenged for our eyes, which they have thought to pull out, but also that the house of false worship, which is erected upon this mountain, may fall to the ground. i hear some say, minister, for all you are saying, the mountain will not come down at this time; ye think nothing but it will come down. i assure you, i would have it down, but ye must not think us that silly, as to think it will come down, because we have many for us; we trust not in men, but in god; and if this be the time that god will have it down, although ye should lay all your hands about their head, they shall come down: it appears they will come down, if there were no more but their pride, avarice, cruelty, and loose living to pull them down, especially when all these are come to height, as they are come to in them. and so much for the mountain; ye see we have reproved it, god remove it. i come now to the three in the work, the mountain being removed, . it is a work growing and going up; "he shall bring forth." . it is a work finished; "he shall bring forth the head-stone thereof." . it is a work praised; "he shall bring forth the head-stone thereof with shouting, crying, grace, grace, be unto it." we shall speak of all these three shortly. . it is a work going up; it was impeded, but now it is going up. there is something here very considerable; the work goes not up until the mountain be made a plain. the mountain must not be pared or topped, but it must altogether become plain, otherwise the work cannot go up, the mountain of prelacy must not be pared nor topped, something taken away, but it must be brought down wholly, otherwise the work of reformation cannot go on, neither christ's house go up. it will be said, what ails you? you shall have your desires, but the estate of bishops must stand; it is impossible to bring it down altogether; the king may not want an estate, (truly a good one both to kirk and commonwealth) ye shall have them brought within the old bounds and caveats set down to them; they shall not hurt the kirk any more. the lord knows how loath i was to speak from this place; but seeing god hath thrust me out, i must speak the truth. i say to you these quarters are not to be taken, because the mountain is not of god's making, but of man's; therefore make it what ye will, god will be displeased with it; yea it is impossible to set caveats to keep them. i appeal to all your consciences, is it possible to set caveats to their pride and avarice? their pride and avarice will break through ten thousand caveats. i will clear this impossibility by similitudes. tell me, if a fountain in the town of edinburgh were poisoned, whether were it more safe to stop up the fountain, than to set a guard to keep it, that none draw out of it, for there is hope the poison would do no harm? there is no man of a sound judgment, but he will think it more safe to stop up the fountain, than to guard it: this prelacy is the poisoned fountain, wherefrom the kirk of christ hath been poisoned with the poison of error and superstition. now the question is, whether it be safer to stop it up than to guard it? surely it is safer to stop it up; for all the caveats in the world will not keep the kirk unpoisoned, so long as it remains. i will give you another similitude: if the town of edinburgh were (as many towns have been, and are) taken and possest by cruel and obstinate enemies, who would take all your liberties from you, would not suffer your magistrates to judge, and would spoil you of your goods, and use all the cruelty that could be devised against the inhabitants, if god give you occasion to be free of such a cruel and obstinate enemy: what would you do if this were proponed to you? why may not you suffer the enemy to abide within the town? we shall take all their weapons from them, they shall never hurt you any more. would ye not think it far better to put them out of the town altogether; both because the inhabitants would be in fear, so long as they were in the town, and because the town would never be sure: for there might be traitors among yourselves, who would steal in weapons for their hands; and so they would bring you under the former tyranny, yea under a greater. even so it is in this case; the crudest and greatest enemies that ever the kirk of scotland saw are those prelates; they have spoiled us of all our liberties, and exercised intolerable tyranny over us. now the lord is shewing a way how to be quit of them: consider the condition offered. what ails you? may ye not let them abide within the kirk: we shall take all their weapons from them; as admission of ministers, excommunication, and that terrible high commission; they shall never hurt you again. this is but the counsel of man; the counsel of god is, to put them out of the kirk altogether, otherwise the kirk can never be secure; yea, i assure you, there are as many traitors among ourselves, as would steal in the weapons again in their hands; then shall our latter estate be worse than our first: if our yoke be heavy under them now, it shall be heavier then; if they chastise us now with whips, they shall chastise us then with scorpions. i think i hear men speak like that word, "hew down the tree, cut down his branches, shake off his leaves, scatter his fruits; nevertheless leave the stump of his roots with a band of iron and brass." the interpretation of that part of the vision is set down in the th verse; "thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee, after that thou hast known that the heavens bear rule." i hear men say, hew down the tree, cut off his branches, shake off his leaves, scatter his fruits; ye shall be quit of all that; but the stump must be left banded with iron. (if it were till they knew god, it were something, but there is no appearance of that.) consider, o man, who saith that. "no man, but the watcher, and the holy one, even he that made nebuchadnezzar's kingdom sure to him." if god had made this estate sure to them, it would and should stand; and if god would bind down the stump of it with iron bands, we would never fear the growth of it, nor the fruit of it; but seeing they are only bands to be laid on by men, albeit the tree were hewed down, it would grow again in all the branches of it, with all the leaves of its dignity, and we should taste of the bitter fruit of it: ye that are covenanters, be not deceived, if ye leave so much as a hillock of this mountain in despite of your hearts it shall grow to a high mountain, which shall fill both kirk and commonwealth. if the kirk would be quit of the troubles of it, and if ye would have this work of reformation going up, this mountain must be made a plain altogether, otherwise the spirit of god saith, ye shall never prosper. the second thing in this is a work finished; "he shall bring forth the head-stone thereof." when a head-stone is put on a house, the house is finished: ye who are reverend fathers in the kirk, who have seen the work of our first reformation, ye saw it going up, and brought to such a perfection, that the cope-stone was put on; purity of doctrine, and administration of sacraments, and sweetness of government, whereby the kirk was ruled; but woe's us all, we see with you now the roof taken off, the glorious work pulled down, and lying desolate. now, it hath pleased god to turn again, and offer a re-edifying of this work, as he did here to the people of this temple: seeing therefore the lord hath stirred up our spirits, to crave a re-edifying of christ's kirk, let us never take our hands from it, till christ have put the cope-stone on it. i hear some say, there is more ado ere that be done; ye sing the triumph before the victory; ye will not see it go up at leisure. ye are deceived; we sing not the triumph before the victory; some of us are afraid that it go not up so suddenly. i must say to you, if it be god's work, (as it is indeed) all the powers of the world shall never be able to hinder the putting on of the cope-stone. ay, but say ye, it will be hindered; ere ye get the work forward, ye will find the dint of the fire and sword. let it be so, if god will have it so, that will not impede the work: if our blood be spilt in this cause, the cope-stone shall be put on with our blood; for the kirk of god hath never prospered better nor by the blood of saints. fear not, beloved, this work, whether it be done peaceably or with persecution, the cope-stone shall be put on it. ye know in the beginning of the reformation, there was small likelihood that the work should go up, and be finished, because of the great power that was against it; yet the lord brought it forward against all impediments; and put the cope-stone on it: that same god lives yet, and is as able to put the cope-stone on this work, as he was then, if ye believe. the third thing in this work is a work praised; "he shall bring forth the head-stone thereof with shoutings, crying, grace, grace unto it." all ye that build and behold the work, will love the work, and will all wish it well. he alludes by appearance, who, when the foundation of a common work is laid, rejoices, and when it is finished, rejoices. ye may see this clear in ezra iii. : at the laying of the foundation of this temple, the people shouted with a great shout: if they did that at the laying of the foundation, much more shall they do it at the bringing forth of the head-stone thereof; as is said here, the words they cry, grace, grace. the phrase comprehends under it these three things: . a wish of the people of god, whereby they wish prosperity to the work. ye may see it was a common wish. "thus saith the lord of hosts, as ye shall use this speech in the land of judah, and cities thereof, when i shall bring again their captivity: the lord bless thee, o habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness." . it comprehends under it a thanksgiving; the workers give all praise to the work. when the builders laid the foundation of the temple, they set the priests with their trumpets, and the levites with their cymbals, to praise the lord, after the ordinance of david: "they sang by course, praising god, and giving thanks unto the lord, because he is good, and his mercy endureth forever." . the third thing it comprehends under it, is a faithful acknowledgment that the work is built and finished, by no power and strength of men, but by the grace of god. look the verse preceding the text, and ye will find it thus, "not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the lord of hosts:" ye may easily apply this. our work that god is bringing up, and will finish, should be a praised work, our wishes should be to it: "the lord bless thee, o habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness." our song of thanksgiving should be in our mouths, "god is good, and his mercy endureth forever."--albeit it go up, let us not ascribe any thing to ourselves, but let us ascribe all to the grace of god; and this will stop all the mouths of disdainers, who say, "who are ye, who think to finish such a work?" we answer, "it will be finished, not by might, nor by strength of man, but by the spirit of the lord of hosts." there are three sorts looking to this work, and to the going up of it: . evil-willers. . well-wishers. . neutrals. . the evil-willers are edom; and he was jacob's brother; yet in psalm cxxxvii. he cries, "raze, raze this work to the foundation." there is a number that is crying, raze, raze this work to the foundation. . there is a second sort that are well-wishers, crying, grace, grace be unto it. in those former years, the shout of raze, raze, hath been louder than grace, grace; but now, god be praised, the shout of grace, grace, is louder than raze, raze. . there is a third sort gazing upon this work, who dare not cry, raze, raze, because they are borne down with grace, grace; they dare not cry grace, grace, for fear of authority. what shall i say to these neutrals? they are so incapable of admonition, that it will be a spending of time to crave their concurrence to the work. to whom shall i speak then? my text is an apostrophe, if i may use one; that which i shall use first is god's own words from isaiah, "hear, o heavens, hearken, o earth, for the lord hath spoken, i have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me." i will next turn me to strangers and foreigners. all ye of reformed kirks (what! have i said strangers? these men who are brought up in the kirk, are strangers from the womb; but) ye are joined with us in a corporation; come therefore with your fellow-feeling, let us hear your shouts and cries of, grace, grace, be unto the kirk of scotland; and let your wishes condemn these ungrateful neutrals, who profess themselves children of this kirk, and yet will not rejoice with us for the good of our mother. now, ye have heard this text in all these six steps. . a mountain seen. . a mountain reproved and disdained. . a mountain to be removed. . a growing work. . to be finished. . with great applause of all well-willers, wishing grace unto the work. and seeing i have ado with this great mountain; both with mountains that impede this work, and all ranks of persons, removers of the work, i will direct my speech to these with the apostrophe in the text. and first, to the mountains lying in the way of this reformation: i rank them in two sorts, viz., prelates, and upholders of prelates. o prelates, if i had hope to come speed with you, i would exhort you in the name of christ, to lay down your worldly dignity, and help us to exalt the kirk of christ: but i fear ye have hardened yourselves so against the truth, that nothing will prevail with you, except ye keep your worldly monarchy; yet ye shall be forced to take up my apostrophe, "o mountains of gilboa, on whom the anointed of the lord is fallen, neither come dew nor rain upon you." ye are these mountains, upon whom christ and his anointed have been slain; the dew and rain of god's grace are not on you: ye may well receive fatness from beneath, to make you great in this world; but from above, ye are not bedewed with the grace of god, without which, whatever your bodies be, ye have clean souls. under this curse i leave you, and turn to you, o great mountains; great men, who are putting your shoulders to hold up this mountain of prelacy; i beseech you, if ye have any love to christ, to take your shoulders, and help from this pestiferous mountain the wreck of christ's kirk. and if exhortance will not prevail with you, i charge you in the name of the great god, and his son jesus christ, to whom one day ye must give your account, that ye in nowise underprop this mountain; the which if ye obey, i am sure the lord will bless you, and your posterity; but if ye will not, though ye were never so high a mountain in this kingdom, ye shall become a plain. in particular, i speak to all ranks of persons. o noblemen, who are the high mountains of this kingdom, bow your tops, and look on the kirk of christ, lying in the vallies, sighing, groaning, swooning and looking towards you with pitiful looks: if the sun of righteousness hath shined on you, let her have a shadow, as ye would have god to be a shadow to you in the day of your distress. barons and gentlemen, who are as the pleasant hills coming from the mountains (i speak to you for the relation that is betwixt you and the mountains, for by your descent ye are hewn out of the mountains) my heart is glad to see you lift your tops, as the palms of your hands reached to the mountains, that they and ye may be as a shelter for the kirk of christ. i pray you separate not your hands from theirs, till our work be brought forth with shouting. burrows (burghs), who are as the vallies god hath blessed with the fatness of the earth, and the merchandise of the sea; the mountains and hills are looking to you, and ye to them: join yourselves in an inseparable union, and compass the vineyard of christ; be to her a wall of defence, lest the wild beasts of the wood waste it, and the wild beasts of the forest devour it. ministers, and my faithful brethren in christ, whose feet are beautiful upon the mountains, say unto zion, "behold thy god reigneth." i tell you, within these two years, an honest man's feet were not beautiful upon the streets of edinburgh. we might have gone home to our houses again, and shaken the dust off our feet for a conviction against this unthankful generation; but now (god be praised) they are beautiful, and we are comely in their eyes, not for any thing in us, for we lay all down at the feet of christ; but because we are gone up upon mount zion, and as the lord's messengers, have cried, "behold thy god reigneth." i pray you, if ye have any love to the kirk of christ, withdraw both your tongues and pens from this mountain, and apply them against it; apply your wits, engines, spirits, and all your strength to beat down this mountain; yea, tread upon it, and use the sharp threshing instruments which god hath put into your hands, and thresh upon that mountain, till it be beaten small as the chaff. shall i pass you that are commons? truly my delight hath not been so great upon this mountain, as to make me overlook you. my good people, beloved in christ, have ye nothing to contribute for this work? have ye not so much power as the mountains and hills have? or, have ye not such substance as the vallies? yet something ye have, give it, and it will be acceptable, something against the mountain, and something for the work. if ye have no more against the mountain, let me have your tears, prayers, and strong cries; i am sure there is as great value in them, as in the rams' horns that blew down jericho: send up your prayers, and cry with the psalmist, "bow thy heavens, o lord, and come down, touch the mountains, and they shall smoke; cast forth lightning, and scatter them; shoot out thine arrows, and destroy them; send thine hand from above, and deliver me out of the great waters, from the hand of strange children, whose mouth speaketh vanity, their right hand is a right hand of falsehood." as ye have your tears and prayers against this mountain, lend me also what ye have for the going up of this work: if ye have no more, let us have your shouts and hearty crying, "grace, grace be unto it." time will not suffer me to speak any more, yet time shall never bereave you or me of this. let us all resolve so long as our life is in, even to the last gasp, as god will help us, that this shall be our last cry, grace, grace be unto this work of reformation in the kirk of scotland. to this grace i recommend you, and close with that wish of the apostles in the new testament. _the grace of god be with you all._ amen. the solemn league and covenant. [illustration] the solemn league and covenant: _for reformation and defence of religion, the honour and happiness of the king, and the peace and safety of the three kingdoms of scotland, england, and ireland; agreed upon by commissioners from the parliament and assembly of divines in england, with commissioners of the convention of estates, and general assembly in scotland; approved by the general assembly of the church of scotland, and by both houses of parliament and assembly of divines in england, and taken and subscribed by them_, anno ; _and thereafter, by the said authority, taken and subscribed by all ranks in scotland and england the same year; and ratified by the act of parliament of scotland_, anno : _and again renewed in scotland, with an acknowledgment of sins, and engagement to duties, by all ranks_, anno , _and by parliament_ ; _and taken and subscribed by_ king charles ii. at spey, june , ; and at scoon, january , . we noblemen, barons, knights, gentlemen, citizens, burgesses, ministers of the gospel, and commons of all sorts in the kingdoms of scotland, england, and ireland, by the providence of god, living under one king, and being of one reformed religion, having before our eyes the glory of god, and the advancement of the kingdom of our lord and saviour jesus christ, the honour and happiness of the king's majesty and his posterity, and the true publick liberty, safety, and peace of the kingdoms, wherein every one's private condition is included: and calling to mind the treacherous and bloody plots, conspiracies, attempts, and practices of the enemies of god, against the true religion and professors thereof in all places, especially in these three kingdoms, ever since the reformation of religion; and how much their rage, power, and presumption are of late, and at this time, increased and exercised, whereof the deplorable state of the church and kingdom of ireland, the distressed estate of the church and kingdom of england, and the dangerous estate of the church and kingdom of scotland, are present and public testimonies; we have now at last, (after other means of supplication, remonstrance, protestation, and sufferings,) for the preservation of ourselves and our religion from utter ruin and destruction, according to the commendable practice of these kingdoms in former times, and the example of god's people in other nations, after mature deliberation, resolved and determined to enter into a mutual and solemn league and covenant, wherein we all subscribe, and each one of us for himself, with our hands lifted up to the most high god, do swear, i. that we shall sincerely, really, and constantly, through the grace of god, endeavour, in our several places and callings, the preservation of the reformed religion in the church of scotland, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government against our common enemies; the reformation of religion in the kingdoms of england and ireland, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, according to the word of god, and the example of the best reformed churches: and shall endeavour to bring the churches of god in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, confession of faith, form of church-government, directory for worship and catechising; that we, and our posterity after us, may, as brethren, live in faith and love, and the lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us. ii. that we shall, in like manner, without respect of persons endeavour the extirpation of popery, prelacy, (that is, church-government by archbishops, bishops, their chancellors, and commissaries, deans, deans and chapters, archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical officers depending on hierarchy,) superstition, heresy, schism, profaneness, and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound doctrine and the power of godliness, lest we partake in other men's sins, and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues; and that the lord may be one, and his name one, in the three kingdoms. iii. we shall, with the same sincerity, reality, and constancy, in our several vocations, endeavour, with our estates and lives, mutually to preserve the rights and privileges of the parliaments, and the liberties of the kingdoms; and to preserve and defend the king's majesty's person and authority, in the preservation and defence of the true religion, and liberties of the kingdoms; that the world may bear witness with our consciences of our loyalty, and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his majesty's just power and greatness. iv. we shall also, with all faithfulness, endeavour the discovery of all such as have been or shall be incendiaries, malignants, or evil instruments, by hindering the reformation of religion, dividing the king from his people, or one of the kingdoms from another, or making any faction or parties amongst the people, contrary to this league and covenant; that they may be brought to public trial, and receive condign punishment, as the degree of their offences shall require or deserve, or the supreme judicatories of both kingdoms respectively, or others having power from them for that effect, shall judge convenient. v. and whereas the happiness of a blessed peace between these kingdoms, denied in former times to our progenitors, is, by the good providence of god, granted unto us, and hath been lately concluded and settled by both parliaments; we shall each one of us, according to our place and interest, endeavour that they may remain conjoined in a firm peace and union to all posterity; and that justice may be done upon the wilful opposers thereof, in manner expressed in the precedent article. vi. we shall also, according to our places and callings, in this common cause of religion, liberty, and peace of the kingdoms, assist and defend all those that enter into this league and covenant, in the maintaining and pursuing thereof; and shall not suffer ourselves, directly or indirectly, by whatsoever combination, persuasion, or terror, to be divided and withdrawn from this blessed union and conjunction, whether to make defection to the contrary part, or to give ourselves to a detestable indifferency or neutrality in this cause which so much concerneth the glory of god, the good of the kingdom, and honour of the king; but shall, all the days of our lives, zealously and constantly continue therein against all opposition, and promote the same, according to our power, against all lets and impediments whatsoever; and, what we are not able ourselves to suppress or overcome, we shall reveal and make known, that it may be timely prevented or removed: all which we shall do as in the sight of god. and, because these kingdoms are guilty of many sins and provocations against god, and his son jesus christ, as is too manifest by our present distresses and dangers, the fruits thereof; we profess and declare, before god and the world, our unfeigned desire to be humbled for our own sins, and for the sins of these kingdoms; especially, that we have not as we ought valued the inestimable benefit of the gospel; that we have not laboured for the purity and power thereof; and that we have not endeavoured to receive christ in our hearts, nor to walk worthy of him in our lives; which are the causes of other sins and transgressions so much abounding amongst us: and our true and unfeigned purpose, desire, and endeavour for ourselves, and all others under our power and charge, both in public and in private, in all duties we owe to god and man, to amend our lives, and each one to go before another in the example of a real reformation; that the lord may turn away his wrath and heavy indignation, and establish these churches and kingdoms in truth and peace. and this covenant we make in the presence of almighty god, the searcher of all hearts, with a true intention to perform the same, as we shall answer at that great day, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed; most humbly beseeching the lord to strengthen us by his holy spirit for this end, and to bless our desires and proceedings with such success, as may be deliverance and safety to his people, and encouragement to other christian churches, groaning under, or in danger of, the yoke of antichristian tyranny, to join in the same or like association and covenant, to the glory of god, the enlargement of the kingdom of jesus christ, and the peace and tranquility of christian kingdoms and commonwealths. the solemn league and covenant. act of the general assembly of the church of scotland. _at edinburgh, august th, , sess._ . the assembly having recommended unto a committee, appointed by them to join with the committee of the honourable convention of estates, and the commissioners of the honourable houses of the parliament of england, for bringing the kingdoms to a more near conjunction and union, received from the aforesaid committees the covenant after-mentioned, as the result of their consultations: and having taken the same, as a matter of so public concernment and of so deep importance doth require, unto their gravest consideration, did with all their hearts, and with the beginnings of the feelings of that joy, which they did find in so great measure upon the renovation of the national covenant of this kirk and kingdom, all with one voice approve and embrace the same, as the most powerful mean, by the blessing of god, for the settling and preserving the true protestant religion, with perfect peace in his majesty's dominions, and propagating the same to other nations, and for establishing his majesty's throne to all ages and generations. and therefore, with their best affections, recommended the same to the hon. convention of estates, that being examined and approved by them, it may be sent with all diligence to the kingdom of england, that being received and approven there, the same may be, with public humiliation, and all religious and answerable solemnity, sworn and subscribed by all true professors of the reformed religion, and all his majesty's good subjects in both kingdoms. the solemn league and covenant. exhortation at westminster. _by philip nye._[ ] a great and solemn work (honourable and reverend) this day is put into our hands; let us stir up and awaken our hearts unto it. we deal with god as well as with men, and with god in his greatness and excellency, for by him we swear; and at the same time we have to do with god and his goodness, who now reacheth out unto us a strong and seasonable arm of assistance. the goodness of god procuring succour and help to a sinful and afflicted people (such are we) ought to be matter of fear and trembling, even to all that hear of it. we are to exalt and acknowledge him this day, who is fearful in praises, swear by that name which is holy and reverend, enter into a covenant and league that is never to be forgotten by us nor our posterity, and the fruit i hope of it shall be so great, as both we and they shall have cause to remember it with joy; and such an oath as for matter, persons, and other circumstances, the like hath not been in any age or oath we read of in sacred or human history, yet sufficiently warranted in both. the parties engaging in this league, are three kingdoms, famous for the knowledge and acknowledgment of christ above all the kingdoms in the world; to swear before such a presence should mould the spirit of man into a great deal of reverence. what then to be engaged, to be incorporated, and that by sacred oath, with such an high and honourable fraternity? an oath is to be esteemed so much the more solemn, by how much greater the persons are that swear each to other; so in this business, where kingdoms swear mutually. and as the solemnity of an oath is to be measured by the persons swearing, so by the matter also that is to be sworn to. god would not swear to the covenant of works, he intended not to honour it so much, it was not to continue, it was not worthy of an oath of his; but to the covenant of grace, which is the gospel, he swears, and repents not of it. god swears for the salvation of men, and of kingdoms: and if kingdoms swear, what subject of an oath becometh them better than the preservation and salvation of kingdoms, by establishing the kingdom of a saviour amongst them, even our lord and saviour jesus christ, who is a mediator and saviour for nations as well as particular persons? the end also is great and honourable, as either of the former. "two are better than one," saith he, who knoweth what is best, and from whom alone every thing hath the goodness it hath. association is of divine offspring; not only the being of creatures, but the putting of them together. the cluster as well as the grape is the work of god. consort and harmony amongst men, especially amongst saints, is very pleasing unto the lord. if, when but two or three agree and assent upon any thing on earth, it shall be confirmed in heaven, and for this, because they gather together in his name; much more when two or three kingdoms shall meet, and consent together in his name, and for his name, that god "may be one, and his name one amongst them," and his presence amidst them. that prayer of christ seemeth to proceed from a feeling sense of his own blessedness, "father, that they may be one, as thou in me." unity among his churches and children must needs therefore be very acceptable unto him: for out of the more deep sense desires are fetcht from within us, the more pleasing will be the answer of them unto us. churches and kingdoms are near to god, his patience towards them, his compassions over them more than particular persons sheweth it plainly. but kingdoms willingly engaging themselves for his kingdom, his christ, his saints, the purity of religion, his worship and government, in all particulars, and in all humility sitting down at his feet to receive the law, and the rule from his mouth: what a price doth he set upon such? especially, when (as we this day) sensible of our infirmity, and of an unfaithful heart not steady with our god, but apt to start from the cause, if we feel the knife or the fire; who bind ourselves with cords, as a sacrifice to the horns of the altar; we invocate the name of the great god, that his vows, yea, his curse may be upon us, if we do not this; yea, though we suffer for so doing, that is, if we endeavour not so far as the lord shall assist us by his grace, to advance the kingdom of the lord jesus christ here upon earth, and make jerusalem once more the praise of the whole world, notwithstanding all the contradictions of men. what is this but the contents and matter of our oath? what do we covenant? what do we vow? is it not the preservation of religion, where it is reformed, and the reformation of religion, where it needs? is it not the reformation of three kingdoms, and a reformation universal, in doctrine, discipline, and worship, in whatsoever the word shall discover unto us? to practise is a fruit of love; to reform, a fruit of zeal; but so to reform, will be a token of great prudence and circumspection in each of these churches: and all this to be done according to god's word, the best rule, and according to the best reformed churches, and best interpreters of this rule. if england hath obtained to any greater perfection in so handling the word of righteousness, and truths that are according to godliness, as to make men more godly, more righteous: and, if in the churches of scotland any more light and beauty in matters of order and discipline, by which their assemblies are more orderly: or, if to any other church or person, it hath been given better to have learned christ in any of his ways, than any of us, we shall humbly bow, and kiss their lips that can speak right words unto us, in this matter, and help us into the nearest uniformity with the word and mind of christ in this great work of reformation. honourable and reverend brethren, there cannot be a more direct and effectual way to exhort and persuade the wise, and men of sad and serious spirits (and such are you to whom i am commanded to speak this day) than to let into their understandings the weight, and worth, and great importance of the work, they are persuaded unto. this oath is such, and, in the matter and consequence of it, of such concernment, as i can truly say, it is worthy of us; yea, of all these kingdoms; yea, of all the kingdoms of the world; for it is swearing fealty and allegiance unto christ, the king of kings; and giving up of all these kingdoms which are in his inheritance, to be subdued more to his throne, and ruled more by his sceptre, upon whose shoulders the government is laid, and "of the increase of whose government and peace there shall be no end." yea, we find this very thing in the utmost accomplishment of it, to have been the oath of the greatest angel that ever was, who setting his feet upon two of god's kingdoms, the one upon the sea, the other upon the earth, lifting up his hand to heaven, as you are to do this day, and so swearing. the effect of that oath you shall find to be this, "that the kingdoms of the world become the kingdoms of the lord and his christ, and he shall reign forever." his oath was for the full and final accomplishment, this of yours for a gradual, yet a great performance towards it. that which the apostles and primitive times did so much and so long pray for, tho' never long with much quietness enjoyed; that which our fathers in these latter times have fasted, prayed and mourned after, yet attained not; even the cause which many dear saints now with god, have furthered by extremest sufferings, poverty, imprisonment, banishment, death, even ever since the first dawning of reformation: that and the very same is the very cause and work that we are come now, through the mercy of jesus christ, not only to pray for, but swear to. and surely it can be no other, but the result and answer of such prayers and tears, of such sincerity and sufferings, that three kingdoms should be thus born, or rather new-born in a day; that these kingdoms should be wrought about to so great an engagement, than which nothing is higher. for this end kings reign, kingdoms stand, and states are upheld. it is a special grace and favour of god unto you, brethren, (reverend and honourable) to vouchsafe you the opportunity, and to put into your hearts, as this day, to engage your lives and estates in matters so much concerning him and his glory. and if you should do no more, but lay a foundation stone in this great work, and by so doing engage posterity after you to finish it, it were honour enough: but there may yet further use be made of you, who now are to take this oath. you are designed as chief master-builders, and choice instruments for the effecting of this settled peace and reformation; which, if the lord shall please to finish in your hands, a greater happiness on earth, nor a greater means to augment your glory and crown in heaven, you are not capable of. and this, let me further add for your encouragement, of what extensive good, and fruit in the success of it, this very oath may prove to be, we know not. god hath set his covenant like the heavens, not only for duration, but like also for extension. the heavens move and roll about, and so communicate their light, and heat, and virtue, to all places and parts of the earth; so doth the covenant of god; so may this gift be given to other covenants, that are framed to this pattern. how much this solemn league and oath may provoke other reformed churches to a further reformation of themselves; what light and heat it may communicate abroad to other parts of the world, it is only in him to define, to whom is given the utmost ends of the earth for his inheritance, and worketh by his exceeding great power great things out of small beginnings. but however, this i am sure of, it is a way in all probability most likely to enable us to preserve and defend our religion against our common enemies; and possibly a more sure foundation this day will be laid for ruining popery and prelacy, the chief of them, than yet hath been led unto in any age. for popery hath been a religion ever dexterous in fencing and mounting itself by association and joint strength. all sorts of professors amongst them are cast into fraternities and brotherhoods; and these orders carefully united by vow one with another, and under some more general notion of common dependence. such states also and kingdoms, as they have thus made theirs, they endeavour to improve and secure by strict combinations and leagues each to other; witness of late years that _la sainte ligue_, the holy league. it will not be unworthy your consideration, whether, seeing the preservation of popery hath been by leagues and covenant, god may not make a league or covenant to be the destruction of it. nay, the very rise of popery seemeth to be after such a manner, by kings, that is kingdoms assenting and agreeing perhaps by some joint covenant (the text saith, "with one mind," why not then with one mouth) to give their power and strength unto the beast, and make war against the lamb. for you read, "the lamb shall overcome the beast," and possibly with the same weapons. he is the lord of lords, and king of kings, he can unite kings and kingdoms, and give them one mind also to destroy the whore, and be her utter ruin. and may not this day's work be a happy beginning of such a blessed expedition? prelacy, another common enemy, that we covenant and swear against. what hath been, or what hath the strength of it been, but a subtile combination of clergymen, formed into a policy or body of their own invention, framing themselves into subordination and dependence one upon another; so that the interest of each is improved by all, and a great power by this means acquired to themselves, as by sad experience we have lately found. the joints and members of this body, you know, were knit together by the sacred engagement of an oath, the _oath of canonical obedience_, as they called it. you remember also, with what cunning industry they endeavoured lately, to make this oath and covenant more sure for themselves and their posterity, and intended a more public, solemn and universal engagement; than since popery, this cause of theirs, was ever maintained or supported by: and questionless, ireland and scotland also must at last have been brought into this holy league with england. but blessed be the lord, and blessed be his good hand, the parliament that, from the indignation of their spirits against so horrid a yoke, have dashed out the very brains of this project, and are now this day present before the lord, to take and give possession of this blessed ordinance, even an oath and covenant, as solemn, and of as large extent, as they intended theirs; uniting these three kingdoms into such a league and happy combination, as will doubtless preserve us and our reformation against them, though their iniquity, in the mysteries of it, should still be working amongst us. come, therefore (i speak in the words of the prophet) "let us join ourselves to the lord," and one to another, and each to all, "in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten." we are now entering upon a work of the greatest moment and concernment to us, and to our posterity after us, that ever was undertaken by any of us, or any of our forefathers before us, or neighbouring nations about us; if the lord shall bless this our beginning, it will be a happy day, and we shall be a happy people. an oath is a duty of the first commandment, and therefore of the highest and noblest order and rank of duties, therefore must come forth attended with choicest graces, especially with these two, humility and fear. fear, not only of god, which ought to be in an eminent measure. jacob sware by the fear of his father isaac, as if he coveted to inherit his father's grace, as well as his father's god: but also, fear of an oath, it being a dreadful duty, and hath this peculiar, it is established by the oath of god, "i have sworn, that unto me every tongue shall swear." it is made the very character of a saint, he fears an oath. humility is another grace requisite. set your hearts before god in an humble obedient frame. "thou shall fear the lord thy god, and serve him, and swear by his name." the apostle paul was sensible of this engagement, even in the very act of this duty. "i call god to witness, whom i serve in my spirit:" although it be a work of the lips, yet the heart, and the whole man must be interested, if we expect this worship to be acceptable. "accept the free-will offering of my mouth, and teach me thy judgments." also it must be done in the greatest simplicity and plainness of spirit, in respect of those with whom we covenant; we call god as a witness betwixt us, who searcheth the heart: "with him is wisdom and strength, the deceived and deceiver are his." he hath wisdom to discover, and strength to punish, if our hearts be not upright to our brethren in this matter. let us be contented with this, that the words of our covenant be bands; it may not be, so much as in the desire of our hearts, that they should become snares, no not to the weakest and simplest person that joineth with us. on the whole work make your address unto god, as jacob did to his father isaac, and let there be the like fear and jealousy over your spirits. "my father peradventure will feel me, and i shall seem to him as a deceiver, and i shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing." i take liberty with more earnestness to press this care upon you, because i have observed oaths and covenants have been undertaken by us formerly, and by the command of authority, the fruit whereof, though great, yet answered not our expectation; the lord surely hath been displeased with the slightness of our hearts in the work. i beseech you be more watchful, and stir up your hearts with more industry this day than ever before. as it is the last oath you are likely to take in this kind, so it is our last refuge, _tabula post naufragium_. if this help us not, we are likely to remain to our dying day an unhappy people; but if otherwise, "you will indeed swear with all your hearts, and seek the lord with your whole desire, god will be found, and give you rest round about." and having sworn, and entered into this solemn engagement to god and man, make conscience to do accordingly; otherwise it is better thou shouldst not vow. as is said of fasting, "it is not the bowing down of the head for a day;" so of this solemn swearing, it is not the lifting up of the hand for a day, but an honest and faithful endeavouring after the contents of this covenant, all our days. a truce-breaker is reckoned up amongst the vilest of christians, so a covenant-breaker is listed amongst the worst of heathens, but he that sweareth and changeth not, tho' he swear to his hurt, that is, he that will keep his covenant and oath, tho' the contents of it prove not for him, nay possibly against him, yet he will keep it for his oath's sake, such an one "shall have his habitation with the most high, and dwell in his tabernacle." and as for you, reverend brethren, that are ministers of the gospel, there is yet another obligation will lie upon you: let us look to ourselves, and make provision to walk answerable to this our covenant, for the gospel's sake: it will reflect a great aspersion upon the truth of the gospel, if we should be false or inconstant in any word or purpose, tho' in a matter of less consequence, as you can easily collect from that apology of paul. how much more in such a case as this is, if we should be found to purpose, nay more, to vow, and covenant, and swear, and all this according unto the flesh, and with us there should be, notwithstanding all these obligations, yea, yea, and nay, nay. that we may all, who take the covenant this day, be constant, immoveable, and abound in this work of the lord, that we may not start aside, or give back, or go on uncomfortably, there is a twofold grace or qualification to be laboured after. . we must get courage, spirits that are bold and resolute. it is said in haggai, that "the lord stirred up the spirit of zerubbabel, governor of judah, and the spirit of joshua, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people, and they came and did work in the house of the lord." the work of god's house, reformation work especially, is a stirring work: read history, you find not any where, reformation made in any age, either in doctrine or discipline, without great stir and opposition. this was foretold by the same prophet, the promise is, "he will fill his house with glory." but what goeth before. "yet once it is a little while, and i will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land," that is, all nations, as in the words following. this place is applied to the removing jewish rites, the moveables of god's house. the like you find in the apostles' times, the truth being preached, some believed, others did not. here beginneth the stir. those that believed not, "took unto themselves certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city in an uproar;" and when they had done so, complained of the brethren to the rulers, as men that turn the world upside down. in such a work therefore, men had need be of stout, resolute and composed spirits, that we may be able to go on in the main, and stir in the midst of such stirs, and not be amazed at any such doings. it may possibly happen, that even amongst yourselves, there will be outcries: sir, you will undo all, saith one; you will put all into confusion, saith another; if you take this course, saith a third, we can expect nothing but blood. but a wise statesman, like an experienced seaman, knoweth the compass of his vessel, and tho' it heave, toss, and the passengers cry out about him, yet in the midst of all, he is himself, turneth not aside from his work, but steereth on his course. i beseech you, let it be seriously considered, if you mean to do any such work in the house of god, as this is; if you mean to pluck up what many years ago was planted, or to build up what so long ago was pulled down, and to go thro' with this work and not be discouraged, you must beg of the lord this excellent spirit, this resolute, stirring spirit, otherwise you will be outspirited, and both you and your cause slighted and dishonoured. . on the other hand, we must labour for humility, prudence, gentleness, meekness. a man may be very zealous and resolute, and yet very meek and merciful: jesus christ was a lion, and yet a lamb also; in one place, he telleth them he cometh to send "fire on the earth:" and, in another place, rebuketh his disciples "for their fiery spirits." there was the like composition in moses, and in paul; and it is of great use, especially in this work of reformation. i have not observed any disputes carried on with more bitterness in men's writings, and with a more unsanctified heat of spirit, yea, and by godly men too, than in controversies about discipline, church government, ceremonies, and the like. surely, to argue about government with such ungoverned passions, to argue for reformation with a spirit so unreformed, is very uncomely. let us be zealous, as christ was, to cast out all, to extirpate and root out every plant his heavenly father hath not planted; and yet let us do it in an orderly way, and with the spirit of christ, whose servants we are. "the servant of the lord must not strive, but be gentle to all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose." we solemnly engage this day our utmost endeavours for reformation; let us remember this, that too much heat, as well as too much coldness, may harden men in their ways, and hinder reformation. brethren, let us come to this blessed work with such a frame of heart, with such a mind, for the present, with such resolutions for the time to come; let us not be wanting to the opportunity god hath put into our hands this day; and then i can promise you, as the prophet, "consider this day and upwards, even from this day, that the foundation of the lord's work is laid, consider it, from this day will i bless you saith the lord." nay, we have received, as it were, the first fruits of this promise; for, as it is said of some men's good "works, they are manifest before-hand." even so may be said of the good work of this day, it is manifested before-hand. god hath, as it were before-hand, testified his acceptance; while we were thinking and purposing this free-will offering, he was protecting and defending our army, causing our enemies, the enemies of this work, to flee before us, and gave us a victory, not to be despised. surely this oath and covenant shall be judah's joy, the joy and comfort of this whole kingdom, yea, of all the three kingdoms. jesus christ, king of the saints, govern us by his spirit, strengthen us by his power, undertake for us according as he hath sworn, even the "oath which he sware to our father abraham, that he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life." grant unto us also, that when this life is finished, and we gathered to our fathers, there may be a generation out of our loins to stand up in this cause, that his great and reverend name may be exalted from one generation to another, until he himself shall come, and perfect all his own wisdom: even so come lord jesus, come quickly. amen. the solemn league and covenant. address at westminster.[ ] _by alexander henderson._ although the time be far spent, yet am i bold (honourable, reverend, and beloved in the lord) to crave your patience a little. it were both sin and shame to us in this so acceptable a time in this day, which the lord hath made, to be silent and to say nothing. if we should hold our peace, we could neither be answerable to god, whose cause and work is in hand, nor to this church and kingdom, unto which we have made so large profession of duty, and owe much more; nor to our native kingdom, so abundant in affection towards you; nor to our own hearts, which exceedingly rejoice to see this day. we have greater reason than the leprous men sitting in a time of great extremity at the gates of samaria, to say one to another, "we do not well, this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace." it is true, the syrians are not yet fled; but our hope is through god, that the work begun this day, being sincerely performed, and faithfully pursued, shall put to flight, not only the syrians and babylonians, but all other enemies of the church of god, of the king's honour, and of our liberty and peace. for it is acceptable to god, and well pleasing in his sight, when his people come willingly in the day of his power (and how shall they not be willing in the day of his power?) to enter into a religious covenant with him, and amongst themselves, whatsoever be the condition of the people of god, whether in sorrow and humiliation before deliverance, or in rejoicing and thanksgiving after deliverance. this is it which the lord waits for at their hands, which they have been used to perform, and with which he hath been so well pleased, that it hath been the fountain of many deliverances and blessings unto them. when a people begin to forget god, he lifteth up his hand against them, and smiteth them: and when his people, humbled before him, lift up their hands, not only in supplication, but in covenant before the most high god, he is pleased (such is his mercy and wonderful compassion) first, to lift his hand unto them, saying, "i am the lord your god;" as we have it three times in two verses of the th of ezekiel: and next he stretcheth out his hand against his enemies and theirs. it is the best work of faith, to join in covenant with god, the best work of love and christian communion, to join in covenant with the people of god; the best work of the best zeal, to join in covenant for reformation, against the enemies of god and religion; the best work of true loyalty, to join in covenant for the preservation of our king and superiors; and the best proof of natural affection, (and to be without natural affection is one of the great sins of the gentiles) to join in covenant for defence of our native country, liberties and laws: such as from these necessary ends do withdraw, and are not willing to enter into covenant, have reason to enter into their own hearts, and to look into their faith, love, zeal, loyalty, and natural affection. as it is acceptable to god, so have we for it the precedent and example not only of the people of god of old, of the reformed churches of germany, and the low countries; but of our own noble and christian progenitors in the time of the danger of religion, which is expressed in the covenant itself. the defect was, they went not on thoroughly to enter into a solemn covenant, an happiness reserved for this time, which had they done, the corruptions and calamities of these days might have been prevented. and if the lord shall be pleased to move, loose, and enlarge the hearts of his people in his majesty's dominions to take this covenant, not in simulation, nor in lukewarmness, as those that are almost persuaded to be christians, but as becometh the people of god, it shall be the prevention of many evils and miseries, and a means of many and rich blessings, spiritual and temporal, to ourselves, our little ones, and the posterity that shall come after us, for many generations. the near and neighbouring example of the church and kingdom of scotland, is in this case worthy of our best observation. when the prelates there were grown by their rents, and lordly dignities, by their exorbitant power over all sorts of his majesty's subjects, ministers and others, by their places in parliament, council, college of justice, exchequer, and high commission, to a monstrous dominion and greatness, and, like giants, setting their one foot on the neck of the church, and the other on the neck of the state, were become intolerably insolent. and when the people of god, through their oppression in religion, liberties and laws, and what was dearest unto them, were brought so low, that they choose rather to die, than to live in such slavery, or to live in any other place, rather than in their own native country: then did the lord say, "i have seen the affliction of my people, and i have heard their groaning, and am come down to deliver them." the beginnings were small and contemptible in the eyes of the presumptuous enemies, such as used to be the beginnings of the greatest works of god; but were so seconded and continually followed by the undeniable evidences of divine providence, leading them forward from one step to another, that their mountain became strong in the end. no tongue can tell what motions filled the hearts, what tears were poured forth from the eyes, and what cries came from the mouths of many thousands in that land, when they found an unwonted flame warming their breasts, and perceived the power of god, raising them from the dead, and creating for them a new world, wherein shall dwell religion and righteousness. when they were destitute both of monies and munition, which, next unto the spirit and arms of men, are the sinews of war, the lord brought them forth out of his hid treasures, which was wonderful in their eyes, and matter of astonishment to their hearts: when they were many times at a pause in their deliberations, and brought to such perplexity, that they knew not what to choose, or to do for prosecuting the work of god, only their eyes were towards him; not only the fears and furies, but the plots also and policies of the adversaries opened the way unto them, their devices were turned upon their own heads, and served for promoting of the work of god. the purity of their intentions elevated above base and earthly respects, and the constant peace of their hearts in the midst of many dangers, did bear them out against the malicious accusations and aspersions put upon their actions: all which were sensible impressions of the good providence of god, and legible characters of his work; which the church and kingdom of england, exercised at this time with greater difficulty than theirs, have in part already found; so shall the parallel be perfected to their greater comfort in the faithful pursuing of the work unto the end. necessity, which hath in it a kind of sovereignty, and is a law above all laws, and therefore is said to have no law, doth mightily press the church and kingdom of scotland at this time. it is no small comfort unto them, that they have not been idle, and at ease, but have used all good and lawful means of supplications, declarations and remonstrances to his majesty, for quenching the combustion in this kingdom: and after all these, that they sent commissioners to his majesty, humbly to mediate for a reconcilement and pacification. but the offer of their humble service was rejected from no other reason, but that they had no warrant nor capacity for such a mediation; and that the intermixture of the government of the church of england, with the civil government of the kingdom, was such a mystery as could not be understood by them. although it be true, which was at that time often replied, that the eighth demand of the treaty, and the answer given thereunto, concerning the uniformity of religion, was a sufficient ground of capacity; and the proceedings of the houses of parliament against episcopal government, as a stumbling block hindering reformation, and as a prejudice to the civil state, was ground enough for their information. the commissioners having returned from his majesty without success, and the miseries of ireland, and the distresses of england, and the dangers and pressures of the kingdom of scotland, growing to greater extremity; such as were intrusted with the public affairs of the kingdom, were necessitate, according to the practice of former times, his majesty having denied a parliament, to call a convention of the estates, for considering of the present affairs, and for providing the best remedies: which, immediately upon their meeting, by the special providence of god, did receive information of divers treacherous attempts of papists, in all the three kingdoms, as if they had been called for that effect. and by the same providence, commissioners were sent from both houses of parliament, to consider with the estates of the kingdom of scotland, of such articles and propositions, as might make the conjunction betwixt the two nations more beneficial and effectual for the securing of religion and liberty against papists and prelates, with their adherents. their consultations with the commissioners of the general assembly did in the end bring forth a covenant, as the only means after all other had been essayed, for the deliverance of england and ireland out of the depths of affliction, preservation of the church and kingdom of scotland from the extremity of misery, and the safety of our native king and his kingdoms, from destruction and desolation. this is the manifold necessity which nature, religion, loyalty and love hath laid upon them. nor is it unknown in this honourable, reverend and wise audience, what errors and heresies in doctrine, what superstition and idolatry in worship, what usurpation and tyranny in government, what cruelty against the souls and bodies of the saints have been set on foot, exercised and executed for many generations, and now of late by the roman church: all which we hope, through the blessing of god upon this work, shall be brought to an end. had the pope at rome the knowledge of what is doing this day in england, and were this covenant written on the plaster of the wall over against him, where he sitteth, belshazzar-like in his sacrilegious pomp, it would make his heart to tremble, his countenance to change, his head and mitre to shake, his joints to loose, and all his cardinals and prelates to be astonished. when the reformed churches, which by their letters have been exciting us to christian communion and sympathy, in this time of the danger of religion and distress of the godly, shall hear of this blessed conjunction for uniformity in religion, according to the word of god, and the defence thereof, it shall quicken their hearts against the heaviness of oppressing sorrows and fears; and be no other than a beginning of a jubilee and joyful deliverance unto them, from the antichristian yoke and tyranny. upon these and the like considerations, we are very confident that the church and kingdom of scotland will most cheerfully join in this covenant; at the first motion whereof, their bowels were moved within them. and to give testimony of this our confidence, we who are commissioners from the general assembly, although we have no particular and express commission for that end (not from want of willingness, but of foresight) offer to join our hearts and hands unto it, being assured, that the lord in his own time will, against all opposition, even against the gates of hell, crown it with a blessing from heaven. the word of god is for it, as you have been now resolved by the consent and testimony of a reverend assembly of so many godly, learned and great divines. in your own sense and experience, upon seeking god in private or public, as in the evening of a well spent sabbath or day of fast and humiliation, the bent and inclinations of your hearts will be strongest to go through with this work. it is a good testimony that our designs and ways are agreeable to the will of god, if we affect them most when our hearts are farthest from the world, and our temper is most spiritual and heavenly, and least carnal and earthly. as the word of god, so the prayers of the people of god in all the reformed churches, are for us. that divine providence also which hath maintained this cause, and supported his servants in a marvellous manner unto this day, and which this time past hath kept things in an equal balance and vicissitude of success, will, we trust, from this day forth, through the weight of this covenant, cast the balance, and make religion and righteousness to prevail, to the glory of god, the honour of our king, the confusion of our common enemies, and the comfort and safety of the people of god; which, may he grant who is able to do above any thing that we can ask or think. [illustration: fac-simile of old title page of following sermon.] _the heart's engagement._ a sermon preached at st. _margaret's westminster_, at the publick entering into the covenant, by i. _some of the nobility, knighthood and gentry._ ii. _divers colonels, officers and soldiers._ iii. _those of the_ scotish _nation about the city._ iv. _many reverend divines here residing._ september th, anno . by the reverend mr. thomas coleman, one of the members of the _westminster_ assembly of _divines_. preached and published according to the several orders of the honourable house of commons. nehem. x. , . _the people ... entred into a curse, and into an oath to walk in god's law,_ &c. glasgow, printed for george paton, book-seller in _linlithgow_. mdccxli. the solemn league and covenant. sermon at westminster. _by thomas coleman._ "for who is this, that engaged his heart to approach unto me, saith the lord?"--_jerem._ xxx. . two things in this clause cause some obscurity: _first_, the uncertainty of the subject. _second_, the ambiguity of one phrase. . the uncertainty of the subject, or person of whom the prophet speaks here: whether of christ, by way of prophecy, or of some particular person, by way of story, or indefinitely of every one, by way of duty. . the ambiguity of that phrase, _engaged;_ which, according to the variety of its signification, is or may be variously rendered. _he adorned his heart; he applied his heart; he directed his heart; he engaged his heart._ hereupon the sense becomes various. . who is he, _viz._ christ, hath appointed his heart? can there be found a parallel to christ in the world, that hath so given himself up to god? made him and his ways his meat and drink, yea more than his ordinary food? . who hath fitted and adorned his heart? is there any that can adorn and prepare himself to approach unto god, without god? . to omit others of like nature: it may be true, that it is chiefly spoken of christ: the titles in the beginning of the verse look this way; his noble one, his ruler; but seeing christ is the head of the body, and one with his body, it may secondarily, and by way of communication, be also affirmed of his members; and to them we extend it. the clause therefore seems dependent, and as it is applied to man, hath reference to that which is an act of god, and seems to be a reason thereof. "i will cause him," saith god, "to draw nigh, and he then shall approach; for who is this that hath engaged his heart?" the force of which inference may look two ways. . shewing the impossibility in man to begin the action: "i will cause him to draw nigh; for who is this, that hath engaged his heart?" where is the man that can direct his heart, approach to me of himself, by his own power? not any, not one: "without me you can do nothing." . approving the endeavour to continue; i will cause him to draw near, that he may approach, and stay with me: he doeth his best, according to his strength; "he engageth his heart," i will help on with the work; "for who is this?" oh this is an excellent one; there are not many so; that any, that this is so, is beyond expectation, worthy of commendation. what an one is this? "who is it that hath engaged," tied, bound his heart from starting aside like a broken bow, to approach to, and to continue with me, saith the lord? in the words (to proceed methodically and clearly) i offer the sum of my thoughts, to be considered under four general heads, or parts. i. the opening of the phrases. ii. the propounding of the point. iii. the viewing of the duty. iv. the encouragement to the practice. in and through these we shall walk, as travellers, who speed their pace in those fields which yield no novelties, no fruit, no delight, but where they meet with varieties to delight the senses, fruitful places, green pastures to refresh themselves and beasts, they rest themselves and bait: so in some of these we shall only take and offer a taste, on others insist, as god shall direct; wherein an engagement of the attentions in the handling to me, may, through god's mercy, beget an engagement of the heart to god in the applying of them in order. i.--_the opening of the phrases._ for the fuller understanding of the prophet's drift, three words or phrases in this short sentence are a little to be cleared; for it containeth three parts: . an action of piety. . the object of this action. . the inquiry into both: and these are expressed in so many several particles. . the action of piety, engaging the heart. the heart may prove loose and wandering without an engagement: the engagement may be hypocritical and sinister, if it be not of the heart; but the one implying stability, the other sincerity, both together complete it as an action of piety. . the object of this action, "to approach unto me." sin may be the object pursued, and god may be beheld at a distance: in this, we do not approach; in that, we approach not to god; but either is needful. god abhors those that approach to sin: he minds not those that look to him at their distance: except then thou approach, and approach unto god, thy endeavour is either cold or cursed. . the inquiry into both, who is this? into the act of engagement, because it is not usual, into the part engaged, because it is subtile; and what we seldom see, or groundedly suspect, we have cause to inquire after. of the first; this engagement is a degree of the heart's motion towards any object, good and bad; for it was an engagement, though a bad one, when more than forty men bound themselves with an oath from eating and drinking, till they had killed paul. to this degree of engagement we ascend by these steps, and the heart of man perfects a motion towards god and good things thus gradually. . by an inclination or hankering, a propensity in the mind to this or that: this naturally is evil, and to evil; he that follows his inclination goes wrong, the whole frame of a man's disposition being continually ill-disposed. it is called in scripture the speech or saying of the heart, and used indifferently both of good and bad, yet with a notable mark of diversity in the original, though translations mind it not. eight times in the old testament is this phrase, "said in his heart," used: four times by the wicked, and as oft by the righteous; but constantly, whensoever a wicked man useth it, as david's fool, esau, haman, satan, it is in his heart; when a good man, as hannah, david, it is to his heart; and teacheth: . that the heart and courses of a wicked man are subject to his inclinations; they dictate to him; they command, and he obeys. . but the inclinations of a good man are subject to him; he dictates to them, commands them as things subdued, and fit to be kept under. both these different inclinations, different, i say, in respect of subject and object, are strengthened with nothing more than the often reiteration of suitable acts; an evil inclination with evil acts, a good with good. . sin gathereth strength by frequency of committing, and at last becomes as natural as meat or sleep. "by following vanity, they became vain." . a good inclination is furthered by good actions; frequency in performance turns to a habit: therefore the jews, to habituate their heart to mourning, do always, for the space of three days before the memorial of the temple's desolation, in their public meetings, read chapters of mourning; for (say they) three acts make a habit. and hereupon it was: that israel, above and before other nations, became a blessed people; blessings being even naturalized upon them by the holiness of the three patriarchs, abraham, isaac, and jacob, immediately succeeding one the other. . by a desire, which is an inclination augmented and actuated, carrying on the party to the thing desired, grounded on, or inclined by some external enforcements. this was in paul, who by that relation to, and interest that he had in, the thessalonians, endeavoured abundantly with much desire to see their face, which put him to the essay once and again. . a purpose, a determination to effect, to accomplish his desire. i have purposed, saith david, "that my mouth shall not transgress," which purposing, before it be taken up, should be well grounded, and, when taken up, not lightly altered. for see, how a change in such a purpose, put the apostle to a serious apology; he was minded to have visited them, he did not; he foresaw they might, they would tax him of lightness, as either not minding, or not being master of his own determinations, and so consequently his ministry, and therein the gospel might be blemished: the fear of which struck his heart, the prevention of which moved his spirit, that both they might be satisfied and himself remain without blame. . a resolve, a purpose settled; daniel was fully resolved, he had laid this charge upon his heart, that he would not defile himself with the king's meat. . a tie or obligation, whereby the heart, otherwise shifty, is bound to the work intended, sometime by a single promise, sometime by an oath or vow, and sometime more publicly by a solemn covenant. and this last and highest degree is that which the prophet speaks, at least in this sense i take it. this is that engagement of soul, whereby a man prevents his starting aside: and this is that first phrase that was to be opened. of the second; "to approach unto me." this is the object, and this approachment is threefold: . in his inward man. . in his outward man. . in both. . in his inward man; in heart, by drawing close to god, enjoying a sensible and blessed communion with him, which is comfortable in such a degree that, where it is felt, it needs no bidding to make an engagement. . in his outward man, in his person approaching to god in the practice of all duties commanded; god in his ordinances is powerfully present, man in their use stands within this presence. . in both, in all his abilities approaching to him in managing his holy cause; and therefore holy, because his. god walks in the midst of his people's armies: when thy sons, o zion, "are armed against thy sons," o greece, "the lord god is seen over them." these are those approachings of the saints to their god: the first is their happiness, the second their duty, the third their honour. it is a happy thing to enjoy god's comforts in soul; it is our enjoined duty to obey him in his ways, and it is an honour to be found standing for the way of righteousness. of the third. the inquiry, "who is this?" scripture questions are of several uses, hold forth several senses; here it seems to be an approbation of the action spoken of. who is this? what one is this, that so carefully engageth his heart? this is not ordinary among men, nor of an ordinary degree in man; few move, fewer engage themselves to move towards god. this approbation hath, . its foundation in a duty: i approve this engaging, and the man because he engageth. . its direction from the subject, heart. the engagement of the outward man may have wrong principles: that it may be right, let the heart, soul, inward parts, all that is within us be engaged to bless his holy name. . its limitation from the object, to approach unto me: to engage the heart to sin, to the creature, to vanity, is neither commendable, nor approvable; but to close with god, to come to, stay with, and act for him, this is that which the prophet, and god in the mouth of the prophet ever approves. and this brings us to, ii.--_the propounding of the point, and that in these words._ god observes with the eye of approbation, such as engage and tie themselves to him; he looks with an approving eye upon this carefulness: for such an engagement of soul is, . needful. . helpful; needful for the heart, helpful to our graces. the needfulness is evident. the heart is slow and subtile, backward and deceitful; except it be drawn with the cords of such an engagement, it puts slowly forward; and when thus drawn, it will fall quickly off. days of desolation beget resolves, times of terror produce engagements, which the heart (the storm past) will wilily and wickedly seek to evade. david suspected this cozenage in himself, when he cries out, oh! i have many good thoughts, but a naughty heart; many holy purposes, but a deceitful spirit: thou hast cause, as a creator, not to believe the tender of my obedience, nor as a just god, the promise of submission; but i call to thy mercy to give assistance. "be surety for thy servant for good:" for the performance of all good i promise. and hezekiah in his sickness was not without fear of this deceitfulness: "oh lord, i am oppressed, undertake for me;" i shall never keep my word, that word which my lips have spoken; and i have none dare pass his word for me: "do thou, o lord, undertake for me." . the helpfulness is undeniable; a heart from this engagement may fetch renewed strength continually. this engagement is a buckler of defence to arm us against satan's enticement, is armour of proof to withstand the world's inducement; it makes us without fear or failing stand upon our own ground, and renew our courage like the eagle. job was probably sometimes seduced with such foolish persuasions, to courses not less foolish, but he yielded not: what helped him? even his engagement: "i have made a covenant with mine eyes, how then shall i look on a maid?" constancy in good is well-pleasing to god; "if any draw back, his soul hath no pleasure in them." whatsoever then is needful for it, or helpful to it, he both prescribes and approves. o let us engage our hearts to this approachment, a duty enjoined, a sacrifice accepted. but there is one scripture that fully showeth the point, and the truth of it in all particulars. consider then. three things may seem necessary herein to be noted; the act, the approbation, and the reason; and here we have them all. . the act, engaging; or the persons, the engagers of themselves. thou hast avouched, set up god this day to be thy god, not only in thy conscience by the act of faith, but even by thy mouth thou hast uttered this, probably in some solemn league and covenant. "thou hast made to say:" so much the hebrew word imports. . the approbation; and god answers thee accordingly, he hath avouched, set up thee to be his people; particularly to two privileges; . to be his peculiar people, the people of his own proper possession, joined so high, united so near, that they are admitted to a participation of many heavenly privileges; the actions of the one being communicated to the other; man's prayer is called god's, "i will make them glad in the house of my prayer," god's people called man's, moses's people, moses's law: so in the law of god, and in his law, that is, the righteous man's law. . to keep his commands: this seems rather to be a duty than a prerogative, yet a prerogative it is for a christian to be holy, obedient, righteous: both directly, and accidently. . directly; the scripture teacheth so. the fruit of a christian's being made free from sin is unto holiness. "if you will fear the lord and serve him" (these are samuel's words to the people) "and not rebel:" what then? what shall we have? "then shall you and your king continue to follow the lord." solomon, setting down the recompence of a righteous person, saith, his reward shall be double, in himself, and in his posterity; in himself, "he shall walk on in his integrity," in his posterity, "they shall be blessed after him." . accidently: holiness is a privilege, as well as a duty; it is a reward, a benefit to him who walks therein. it may, and oft doth daunt their persecutors, that otherwise would have taken away their lives. the heathens observe that the majestic presence of a prince hath dashed the boldness, and so prevented the execution of some villanous attempt by a base traitor against their persons: and christians know that the power of holiness is able to dazzle the proudest spirits. herod, saith the text, "feared john," and so a long while did him no hurt. and the emperor adrian ceased his persecution against the christians of his time, when he understood of their holiness of life. so true it is both ways, that the punishment of sin is sin, and the reward of the command is the command. both these privileges are again repeated, and further are evidenced in the following verse; "thou art his peculiar people, therefore will he make thee high above all nations, in praise, name and honour, of more esteem than any; and, thou keepest his commandments, and so he advanceth thee to be a holy people unto the lord thy god:" all this evidenceth god's approbation of an engaging heart. . the reason and ground of god's approving this act, they are two. . because the matter or duties, to which by this bond the heart is tied, are such as god directly observes with an approving eye. the particulars are three here specified, and all elsewhere expressly subjected to this eye of god. _ st._ thou obligest thyself to walk in his ways, in the practice of all the duties of the second table; and upon such as depart from evil, and do good, upon such righteous ones, the eyes of the lord are fastened, not his omniscient eye, but his protecting, blessing eye, that eye the seeing whereof is of the same temper with the open ear following: "his eye is upon the righteous, and his ear open to their cry;" that eye which stands in opposition to his face, which is against the wicked. _ d._ and to observe his ordinances and judgments, reverently to practise all the duties of the first table to god, and to such also god casts his eye of respect: "the eye of the lord is upon those that fear him, and that hope in his mercy." _ d._ and to hearken to the means of both, to hear his voice: "when i counsel thee and instruct thee in the way that thou shouldst go, mine eye is upon thee, both to keep thee to it, and to bless thee in it." . because this engagement is a means to accomplish his promise: because thou hast avouched god, god hath avouched thee, and will do as he hath said, and again, as he hath said; the repetition whereof seems to argue contentedness in god, in that, by this avouchment, a way was opened for the accomplishment of his promise. "god is well pleased for his righteousness sake," delights, when he can evidence himself to be righteous and just, for the law and words of his mouth he will magnify and make honourable in the faithfulness of their accomplishment. mercy, the acts of mercy please him. god finds in a righteous man rest of spirit, because by him he sends down a full influence of his favour upon the world. "if the world knew (say some hebrew doctors,) of what worth a righteous man was, they would hedge him about with pearls." his life is beneficial to all, even in some sort to god himself; for by him mercy is shewn to the world: his death therefore is of great consequence; a greater affliction than those curses mentioned; "i will make thy plagues wonderful; thy heavens shall be brass, they shall distil no dew nor rain to water the earth; but i will do a marvellous thing, a marvellous and strange, a good man, a wise man shall be taken away; and i can send no more blessings upon you:" there remains not a heart engaged, to whom i delight to approach; whiles such were, mine eye was satisfied with seeing good, my heart with doing good; now the one is removed, the other stopped. o where is he that engageth his heart to approach to his god! iii.--_the examining of the duty._ this engagement being thus approved, and therefore to be entered on; let us a little examine the duty, and mind two things. . what particulars do engage us, by what acts or thoughts doth the heart become engaged? and, . what hinders this engagement, and stops our entrance thereupon? i. several and many ways doth the heart become engaged to god: no consideration can enter our hearts, no occurrent happen in our lives, but it offers reasons enforcing this duty. we are engaged to god by our being, by our receiving, by our doing: mind either, and acknowledge thyself engaged. . our being what we are, engageth us: _ st._ that we are creatures, and so not forgotten in the everlasting night of a not-being: that we are men, and not beasts; that we are christians, and not heathens; all are engagements. _ d._ but our being thus and thus; men of gifts and parts: placed in such callings; qualified with such endowments: interested in such privileges: these are engagements indeed. . what we have. _ st._ every thing we have received binds us; all the acts of god's providence over us; all the effects of god's goodness to us: health, food, callings, trades, friends, families, clothes, the service of the creatures; sun, rain, fruits of the earth: all, all these are bonds. _ d._ but especially, our more peculiar favours; inward experience of his love, and fruition of soul-communion with him: oh, who would not be engaged for this! . what we do, even our own actions become our obligations; and that which comes from us binds us. _ st._ our feeling prayers. who dare practise what he prays against? a prayer against the power of sin, obliges to walk in the power of that prayer; neither will any lightly omit what but late as an evil he hath confessed to god. _ d._ but especially (which is our present work) our solemn and serious vows, protestations, promises; our covenant in baptism, our particular covenants entered into, upon the apprehension of some approaching calamity, upon a day of humiliation, at a piercing sermon, or soul-searching prayer before a sacrament, or the like. if we have spoken with our lips, we cannot go back, we are engaged. ii. as for such things that may hinder, we should both note and avoid. . ignorance: "if thou knewest the gift of god," saith christ to the samaritan woman: want of praying comes from want of knowing. "have you received the holy ghost?" was paul's question, but the reply was, that could not be; we "have not so much as heard, whether there be a holy ghost, or no." have you engaged your souls in a solemn league? let this be our querry, and the answer will be, we have not so much as heard, whether there be such a duty, or no. ignorance hinders this bond. . wretched profaneness, which slights and sets at nought all duties, ordinary, extraordinary; such mind sin, and the fulfilling thereof; and bind themselves to mischief with cords of vanity; whilst in the mean time they are contented to sit loose from god. . wicked policy, both to avoid the taking, and to evade the keeping: scruples of conscience shall be pretended by such as know not what conscience means. scripture shall be alleged, by such as are little versed therein; this sentence shall be thus explained: this releasement shall be thus pretended: all is but seemingly to stop the mouth of conscience, that saith, they must both make and pay vows unto god. yet the wilfully ignorant will neglect it; the wretchedly profane will contemn it; the wickedly politic will avoid it; so the heart shall be left to its own swing, open to all corruption that breaks in like a flood. for the prevention whereof, let us come on to iv.--_encouragements to the practice._ the point thus propounded, and in several particulars described, wherein and whereby the soul may be engaged; there is nothing remaining, but the practice of it, and that is yours. up then, and be doing; disoblige yourselves, and be no longer servants to the world, to sin, to obey either in the lusts thereof; but be ye bound to serve righteousness, and the god of righteousness; for his service is perfect freedom. in this encouragement to this work, that i might do as much as i can, in this little time granted, and gained for preparation and delivery; i would advise, exhort, resolve, and so prevent irreverence, backwardness, and doubting; that neither the ignorant may profane, nor the refractory contemn, nor the scrupulous question this holy ordinance of god, as unholy needless, ambiguous. let this encouragement then be received in words: . cautionary. . hortatory. . satisfactory. . _cautionary._--let this great work be done judiciously, cautiously, and as an ordinance of god. take we heed therefore, . to the manner. . to the matter. . to the consequence. . _to the manner._ see that it be done; . cheerfully. . religiously. _first_, cheerfully and willingly; for so did the people of israel in their covenanting with god: "they swore unto the lord with a loud voice, with shoutings, and trumpets, and music, and they rejoiced because of the oath." god loves a cheerful giver, his heart is toward those that willingly offer themselves to the work of the lord. and here, let me not conceal the mercy of the lord to us, in the work now in hand; for why should not the lord have the glory of all his favours? god hath directed our hearts to this duty, cheered up our affections to this engagement. who almost sees not his hand in all this? this cheerfulness and forwardness i now call for, i did, i do, i hope, i shall see. st. _i did see._ which of us, brethren, hath not his heart yet rejoicing, but even to think upon this work, this last monday in this place? here was cheerfulness: who was not glad to see it? who was not encouraged to it? here was a willing people freely offering themselves to be bound to the lord. here was rejoicing; . in the performance: the like duty was never seen in our days within this land. it was, i am persuaded, the very birth-day of this kingdom, born anew to comfort and success; our hearts were then so elevated, they are not settled yet. . for the performance of such a duty, in such a manner, by such persons. you might here have seen the hon. house of commons, unanimously, with hearts and hands lifted up to the heavens, swearing to the most high god. here might you have seen our dear brethren, the noble and learned commissioners of scotland, willingly coming into this covenant of truth, as the representatives of, and a pledge for the whole kingdom. here might you have seen the grave and reverend assembly of divines, forwardly countenancing others, willingly submitting themselves to this bond of the lord. what i then saw, and now rehearse, most of you can attest. ask your fathers, consult with the aged of our times, whether ever such a thing were done in their days, or in the days of their fathers before them. d, _i do see;_ and believe the like now: i have ground to be persuaded, that you also come with alacrity to this service. . the order for the taking, honours you with this, that you were desirous of yourselves, without compulsion, to take this upon you: blessed therefore be you of the lord, and blessed be the lord for you. . the fulness of this present assembly, called only for this end, for this duty. the nature of your persons. nobles, knights, gentlemen, submit themselves to the yoke of the lord. colonels, captains, officers in the army, soldiers; even these also stand not off from, but close to, and for this work in hand. those of the scots nation within this city, by their willingness, do give a check to this cavil raised by some, who have nothing else to say, yet say this, perhaps the kingdom of scotland will not take it. we can instance in none, none that i know here. the ministers of the lord, that have refuged themselves to this little sanctuary, both increase and honour the number of them that swear, their own callings, and themselves. all these, as they have forwardly offered, so doubtless will earnestly repair, in their lot, the breaches made in the lord's house. here is cheerfulness. d, i hope, i shall see and hear, the next lord's day, or the next convenient time, all our people readily coming into this bond; that so, both english and scots, parliament and assembly, nobility and city, may all rejoice together. _second_, religiously: godly works must be done in a godly manner, that the act done for god's glory may be sanctified with god's presence. with what serious humiliation, and hearty prayers did nehemiah begin this duty? what a number of able men did josiah collect together? and how reverently did they read in the scriptures, and speak of the nature of the covenant? both nehemiah by praying, and josiah by reading, desired in this holy business to approve themselves followers of holiness in the sight of god. and at the last taking in this place, who was not touched with that feeling prayer, made by that man of god[ ]; that godly exhortation, which followed from another[ ]; that pithy relation by that man of name[ ]; that soul-affecting thanksgiving, wherewith a godly doctor closed the day[ ]? and, that no less piety and love of god might appear in you, after you resolved upon the work; you desired that the ordinance might be sanctified to you by the word of god and prayer; you moved me to this employment, and got it ordered accordingly: and now, i doubt not, but in the action, you will do it with such reverence of god's majesty, such awfulness of heart, that in lifting up your hands to the most high god, he may be pleased to accept the sacrifice, and make it comfortable. thus to the manner. ii. to the matter. for the matter, that it be lawfully warranted by the word of god. to examine these particularly, in all and several parts thereof, were the work of a volume, not of one sermon; that will be done by others: but to do something, and what we may for this time; it is not difficult to parallel from scripture this covenant in all the parts of it. the lawfulness of covenanting, i suppose not questionable, as a furtherance and help to a spiritual progress; we find it oft used: the new testament affords but rare instances, the church then in its infancy having little occasion, and as little need of such combining, fasting and days of prayer, which are of the same nature, we find often; and the angel "lift up his hand, (a covenanting gesture) and swore by him that liveth," (a covenanting act,) but the old testament is full. take then this as granted, and come to the particular materials, and in every part, for every article, we can find an instance. the articles in this covenant are six: the preamble sets forth, . the occasion; their aim at god's glory, their enemies aim at their ruin. . the pattern; the commendable practice of those kingdoms, and the example of churches in all ages. the close containeth their resolution against all impediments that may either stop the taking, or disable the keeping of this league, their own sins. the body of the covenant contains the articles; the lawfulness of which seems thus to be warranted. the first is the reformation of the false, and the preservation of the true worship of god, and the uniting of all the kingdoms in that truth thus reformed. such a covenant took asa, and his people. the first is for the reformation of religion decayed. he purged away all the dross, and removed all the defects. he repaired the altar of the lord, the main part of their ceremonial covenant. then for the uniting of the kingdoms in the embracing of this truth. asa gathered all judah and benjamin, this was his own people, the subjects of one kingdom; and with them the strangers, that is, the inhabitants of ephraim, manasseh, and simeon, these were the people of another land. so here are the persons covenanting, the matter covenanted to. the persons, the subjects, two several kingdoms; the matter, reformation, and to seek the god of their fathers; to this they all swear, like as the inhabitants of england, scotland and ireland, meet all in one duty, even a covenant, and that to one end, to seek and serve god in the purity of his ways, after the purity of his will; to this, as asa and his people, we swear. the second is the extirpation of idolatry and wickedness, and all things contrary to truth, not according to godliness, the proper and perpetual matter of all covenants. so did asa, so did joash, so did josiah, so did nehemiah. . asa took away all abominations. he was impartial, sparing neither sin, place, nor person: not sin, he removed all abominations; not place, from all places, towns of his inheritance, and of his conquest; not person, he deposed his mother, or rather grandmother from her state for her idolatry. . joash, or his covenanters. indeed the people of the land, (for such usually are most zealous) they ruined the altars, house and all. they broke down all the monuments of idolatry, all to pieces, thoroughly, to some purpose, priest and all. they slew matthan priest of baal with the sword. . josiah purged the whole kingdom: and nehemiah with zeal, extirpated the strange wives here is a covenant that rooted out idolatry, popery, the baalistical prelate matthan, and all his prelatical faction the chemarim, and all this, for this end, that the lord might be one, and his name one. the third is, the preservation of the liberties of the kingdom and the king, for matters merely civil. such was that covenant that jehoiada established, after their engagements for spirituals to god. he made a covenant between the king and people, that he should preserve their liberties, they his authority, and both each other mutually. the fourth, for the discovery and punishment of malignants, that increase or continue our division. without a covenant such a discovery did mordecai make of bigthan and teresh, the king's eunuchs. such a discovery made the jews of sanballat, and his fellows to nehemiah. josiah was not without his informers. but with a covenant was the punishment of such varlets settled. whosoever would not seek the lord god of their fathers, should be slain without sparing, be he whom he would be, small or great, man or woman. for why should not every one value the public above the private, the common good before his own? the fifth, the preservation of the union, and of the pacification between the two kingdoms. this is the matter of all civil leagues. such a league made isaac with abimelech, jacob with laban, david with hiram. but chiefly such a pacification doth god promise to make between israel and judah. they should both live under one king, so do the english and scots: and both dwell in one land, so do the english and scots: they shall have the same ministry and religion; so do labour the english and scots: and a pacification will god make between them, and that by covenant, and such a covenant, as should never be forgotten or broken; such a thing are we doing now, and then god's sanctuary shall be placed among us, the sanctuary of his presence, service, protection, which is our expectation and our hope. lastly, the firm adhering to this covenant, and continuance in the same notwithstanding all opposition, contradiction, dissuasion to the contrary whatsoever. all the people stood to the covenant. this was josiah's care not only for himself, but for his people; "he made all that were found in judah and benjamin to stand to it; so all his days they turned not back from the lord god of their fathers." this is the covenant, and this is a general view of the general matter; this is according to the aim of those that made it, take it, swear to it. who but an atheist can refuse the first? who but a papist the second? who but an oppressor, or a rebel, the third? who but the guilty, the fourth? who but men of fortune, desperate cavaliers, the fifth? who but light and empty men, unstable as water, the sixth? in a word, the duty is such, that god hath ordained; the matter is such, as god approveth; the taking such, as god observeth; and the consequences such, as god hath promised. and in them stands my third caution, to which i now come. iii. to the consequences. for the consequences, and issues that do or must follow upon the taking, be also cautelous; take heed that after this heart-engagement to god, none start back like a broken bow. see that you neither, . falsify the oath; or, . profane the oath. i. do not falsify the oath, making the actions of the outward man contrary to this action of the heart. an oath is one of the two immutable things, wherein it is impossible that god should lie; not fitting, that man should. the people's forementioned example teaches constancy, they stood to it. the covenants ordinary epithet [everlasting] implies continuance: neither can god, nor should man play the children, say and unsay. all our covenants in him should be yea; not yea, and nay. if we prove loose, we prove false, and lie unto god that made us. take heed to your covenant. this stone, these walls, these pillars, these seats shall witness against you, that ye denied him: to falsify the engagement, is to deny our god; his power, his revenging justice, his word, his presence, and the like; if you wilfully falsify this oath wherewith you are bound, as much as in you lies, you make god any thing but a god. keep truth and fidelity for ever. ii. do not profane it by a slight esteem, by an irreverent taking, by an unholy life. _first_, by a slight esteem, as a matter of no moment. can that be a trifle, which is the fruit of the judicious consultations of the agents of both kingdoms, as the only means to perpetuate the union? can that be a trifle, which was produced by such, who had merely the glory of god before their eyes as conducing much thereto? can that be a trifle, which is published as the main and sole preventive of all the bloody plots of god's enemies against the truth? can that be a trifle, which is now cleaved to as a means more effectual, and a degree above supplications, remonstrances, protestations, to preserve ourselves, and our religion? all this and more the preamble speaks. _second_, by irreverent taking. it was resolved on after mature deliberation. it is a lifting up of the hand to the most high god, and a swearing by his name, and god's name must not be taken in vain: such will god not hold guiltless. but of this before. _third_, by an unholy life. such a thing would mar all we have done; though defiled with former sins, yet now sin no more: our covenant forbids it: our state now stands thus. either by our sins we shall make a breach into our covenant, or by our covenant make a breach from our sins. in the close of the covenant, we resolve on the endeavour that this covenant may have its desired fruit. we desire to be humbled for our own sins, the land's sins, undervaluing the gospel, neglecting the power, and purity of it, no endeavour to receive christ into our hearts, no care to walk worthy of him in our lives. such and the like sins a godly covenanter must shun, lest he profane it. let us then prize it as an effectual means of good, take it with a reverend fear of god, honour it in holiness of life for ever. let us both verify it, and sanctify it by continuing to stand in it, by endeavouring to live by it to god's glory, that this taken covenant may be for the name, the honour, the praise of the great jehovah for ever. ii. _hortatory._ these cautions being observed; come all, and let us enter into an everlasting covenant with the lord; come on, and let us engage our hearts unto our god: we have a propensity to keep off; let a covenant keep us close: our hearts would be wandering; let a covenant bind them. will you trust yourselves without a tie? do you know yourselves? come to this work, with a heart, with a heart lifted up, as well as a hand, as high as a hand; "let us lift up our hearts to our hands;" let the ardency of our affection raise up our spirit to meet the lord, to whom we adjoin ourselves for ever. to you i cry, to whom the order speaks, to every one of you i call, come engage your hearts. _first_, nobles, both greater and lesser, think not the duty below you, too mean for you. there is but one way to heaven for all. scorn not to join with inferiors in this work. in christ there is neither male nor female, no respect of persons. the same way that the soul of the poorest is refreshed, is the soul of the richest. poor men pray, and princes must pray; common men humble their souls, and repent, and crowned kings must do so too. the people of god, they walk aright, and all men, great and small, must follow them alike: the eye of every ordinary man must be towards the lord. so as the tribes of israel are, and the same way must tyre and sidon look, though they be very wise. no largeness of parts, greatness of place, eminency in gifts, of wisdom, learning, wit, not amplitude of rule, nor any high thoughts can exempt; but he must subject himself to the condition and courses of the lowest sort. heaven regards not the goodliness of the person, looks not as man looks; for god regards the heart. _second_, soldiers, for you also are engagers. this says, you have a noble pattern; but i hope i may say, you outwrite your copy. they came to john baptist, and to the place, where he baptized. you come to the presence of god, and the place, where the heart is to be engaged. they came to be directed what to do; you to do what has been directed. ride you on prosperously in this righteous truth. it lies mainly upon you to be holy, yea, more than upon others. your adventures are more hazardous, your dangers more probable; yea, your deaths perhaps more near. therefore, . you must remove from you wickedness, and wicked men. wickedness from your hearts, wicked men from your armies. let both your persons be holy, and your companies holy. god himself commands the former, the prophet from god the latter. "when the host goeth forth, then, and then chiefly, thou shalt keep thee from every evil thing." when judah's king marched out, assisted with israelitish auxiliaries, which were idolaters; let not (saith the prophet) "the men of israel go with thee, for god is not with israel:" if thou do, thou shalt not prosper. if there were no evil sin in your hearts, no evil man in your hosts, god would be with you, with a shout, even the lord with the sound of a trumpet. and . your success depends on god's presence. when thou seest multitudes of armies encircling thee, fear not, for god is with thee, and god is with thee to save thee; he walks with thee to fight for thee, and to prosper thee. we shall be cast back, yea, quite off, if god go not forth with our armies; or, in our armies; the word bears either: when god goes not in our armies, rules not in our hearts, lives, conversations, by holiness; then he goes not forth with our armies by victory and success. . the want of godly agents, to manage a godly cause, a great lamentation. "help, lord, save, o god, for the godly fail, and the faithful cease from among men:" were there any such in being, they would bear rule with god, and be faithful for the saints, their persons and prayers would gain prevalency with god, their endeavours and constancy would show fidelity to the saints, and then in judah, our land, would things go well: and as once ezekiel of the scarcity of fit governors to rule, so we of fit men to fight, when corruption and looseness hath so possessed the hearts, and lives of our men of war, that there remains no sanctified and godly man to make a soldier; "this is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation." . what ground have we to expect good? when the sons of darkness go to cast out the prince of darkness, is this possible? can satan cast out satan? it is a satisfactory answer, that we rest in, and stops the mouths of all not incurably blinded, when we hear of protestations, and promises to maintain the protestant religion and laws of the land; when we see, that the effecting of the one is by the sword of papists, of the other, by the hand of delinquents; except we should think, that man can (as god) work happy ends by contrary means. for we say, how can satan cast out satan? so to ourselves, 'tis not very likely, that, if satan keep the hold he hath of our souls, you should dispossess him of that strong hold he hath of our land. but you know so much, and therefore by engaging your heart this day to god you first endeavour to expel satan out of your own consciences; and then shall you see clearly to drive him from our kingdom. _third_, our brethren of scotland, come you, and enter into this sure covenant. lay the foundation of such an eternal league and peace, that the sun shall never see broken: all your countrymen, your kingdom are not here. let your forwardness to this work tell us, what they would do, if they were. some having nothing else to say, yet cannot withhold to question, whether the scots will enter into it or no? as the question is without any ground, so shall it be without any other answer for the present, than this; all of that nation in town have been ready to this great work. can you instance in any that have been backward to swear unto the lord? if in none, then put away prejudicate thoughts, and entertain in their place earnest desires, that this covenant now by both kingdoms entered into, may be like ezekiel's sticks, which resembled the divided houses of judah and israel; which, as the prophet held them, became one in his hand. so this national covenant taken into the hand of god's merciful approbation, may this day, this year become one, and for ever remain one: so that (as israel and judah after this typical union in two sticks) england and scotland after this religious union in one covenant, may for ever be one people in this island of great britain; and that one king may continue king to them both; and that henceforth they may no more be two peoples, nor divided into kingdoms; that our religion be corrupted no more, as of late; but being cleansed, we may be the lord's people, and he may be our god for ever: that jesus christ may bear rule, and we both may have one ministry, and enjoy that truth, which christ, when he ascended up on high, gave as a gift to men, during our days, and the days of our posterity; we, and our sons, and our sons' sons, from this time forth, and for evermore: that the lord would plant his sanctuary among us, and make these two people his dwelling-place continually: that this covenant may be a covenant of peace, and a covenant of truth, and a covenant for everlasting. and let all that desire it, daily pray for it, and now express it, and with cheerfulness of heart say, amen, amen. _fourth_, you, my brethren of the ministry, your hearts are to be engaged too, that you also may gain god by the engagement: be not you behind the very forwardest of the lord's people; you are not an inconsiderable party in this land. the joy and happiness of israel was because of the levites that waited, that were diligent in their duties, and diligently attended upon the lord. "i will cause the horn of israel to flourish, saith god:" by what means? "i will give thee, ezekiel, an open mouth." that god may give you a heart to teach knowledge, come, engage your hearts as a gift to god. o, saith moses, "that all the lord's people were prophets!" o, say we, that all this land's people had prophets, but prophets of the lord, that might feed them with wisdom and understanding, that they all might know the lord, from the greatest to the least of them! but ah? lord god, the eye of this kingdom is distempered, dim, and dark; and then how great is this darkness! our prophets have prophesied lies, and our priests have pleaded for baal, and they have rejected the word of the lord; and what wisdom is in them? instead of standing for god, they have stood against him; and instead of being the best, they are become the basest: the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail. if god should come, as once, to seek for a man, that should stand in the gap, and make up the breach; among these he would find the fewest: in this respect our state may be like that which we find described. christ comes to make a perfect description of his church, and so consequently, a comfortable expression of himself to his church: and whereas the eyes are the chiefest seat of beauty, and therefore likeliest to be stood upon, he begins thus. "turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me." by eyes, understand the ministry; i come to speak comfortable things to my people, but set away the ministers out of my sight, for they have overcome my patience, and filled me with fury: now these being removed, the description doth lovingly go on. thy hair, thy young professors, are like a flock of goats; thy teeth, thy civil officers, like a flock of sheep; thy temples, thy ordinary and common christians. all right but the eyes, the eyes i cannot endure. but let none of us provoke this complaint, nor hold off any longer from the lord that invites. what say you? are you willing to this engagement? will you bind yourselves to the lord? let me extend my speech to all, and dispatch the remains of this point, and my meaning thus: that you may be encouraged to engage, consider two things. _first_, the seasonableness. _secondly_, the success of such engagements. _first_, the seasonableness: there is a time for all purposes, and every word and action is beautiful in his own time. a public engagement is then seasonable, . when a land hath been full of troubles: god by such troubles prepares a people for him in this duty. "i will cause you to pass under the rod, and so i will bring you into the bond of the covenant." and we know, we feel god hath chastised us sore of late; but in them he hath not given us over to death, that by them he might prepare us for himself. when a land hath been full of corruptions, and a shrewd decay hath been in spirituals: by a covenant hath such a people recovered themselves, and regained their god. after the great apostasy by athaliah, jehoiada renewed their interest by a covenant. when manasses and his son had suffered destruction from god, and advanced idolatry with or above god; josiah purged all by a covenant. our decays are evident, our corruptions destructive; our covenant therefore seasonable. come, let us engage our hearts to approach to god. . when the enemy begins to fall, and god begins to shine upon his own. asa returning from a victory, called his land to a covenant. when athaliah was slain, the league was sworn, by joash and his kingdom. since this motion of a covenant is come among us, god hath, as it were, begun to draw near, in the siege of gloucester raised, in the success at newbery, gained. god is worming out his and our adversaries, which he will do by little and little, till they be consumed. the covenant is seasonable. _second_, the success. come and see the works of the lord, what wonders he hath wrought, when a people hath thus bound themselves to be his. . a king injuriously put from his right by an usurping hand, after such a covenant was re-established, "he sat him down on the throne of the kings." . a land miserably put from its peace, after such a covenant, was re-settled, peace was re-obtained; and that as a fruit of prayer, and so acknowledged, "israel had sworn, and sought god; god was found of them: and the lord gave them rest round about." . religion craftily, and wickedly put from its purity after such a covenant, was reformed; after such a reformation continued. the engagement being made, "all josiah's days they returned not back from the lord god of their fathers." . rebels and rebellion, basely and bloodily backed and managed against the lord and his ways, against his people and their practices; after such a covenant, have been overthrown and subdued, "i will bring you into the bond of the covenant." then i will sever from among you the rebels; i will chase them from their own land, and hinder that they shall not enter into the land of israel. the lord give this success concerning ireland, sever out the rebels there from true subjects; chase them from their own land; and yet keep them from ever entering into our land, the land of the inheritance of the lord. now these successful effects of covenanting well minded, _first_, may hint to us a satisfactory reason, in case peace comes not presently. god hath some more adversaries to overthrow, to worm out; his sword hath not eaten flesh enough; neither are his arrows drunk with blood yet; with the blood of such earthly men, whom he hath appointed to destruction. the hearts of the philistines were so hardened, that they never sought after peace, "for it came of the lord, to the intent that they might be utterly destroyed." who knows, whether our peace hath been denied; our propositions cast out; our treaties fruitless, for such an end as this? it was of the lord, who hath a purpose to destroy more. god lays afflictions on his people, and they continue upon them; but in the mean space to quiet their spirits, he teacheth them out of his law, that these troubles must stay only "till a pit be digged for the wicked." _second_, may encourage us to go on. you have now armour of proof, such armour as is not ordinary, armed with a covenant: go, saith the angel to gideon, in this thy might. go (say i, to every one) in this thy might, the strength of this thy covenant, and the effect will be such, as is not ordinary. when the philistines perceived that the israelites had brought the ark of the covenant into the battle, they cried out, "woe unto us; for it hath not been so heretofore: woe unto us; who shall deliver us out of the hands of these mighty gods?" when your enemies shall perceive, that you come armed with the armour of a covenant with god, i hope they, struck with amazement, shall cry, "woe unto us; we were never so opposed before: woe unto us; who shall deliver us out of the power of this mighty prevailer?" if it will thus daunt, take it with you, be strong. again, i say, go in the might thereof, and god shall prosper thee for ever. iii. _satisfactory._ according to the condition of the person, such is the nature of the objection. one out of the malignity of his spirit, cavils against the work; another out of tenderness of conscience, scruples the taking. i shall briefly touch upon one or two, and wind up all in a few words. the queries i have met with, are such as these: two objections when i was designed to this service, were sent me in writing, which, when thoroughly viewed, i perceived nothing at all to concern our case, or covenant. _obj._ . whether by any law, divine or human, may reformation of religion be brought in by arms? _ans._ . what is this at all to the covenant, where there is no mention of arms at all? . what is this to our present condition, where reforming by arms is not at all the question? for if reformation of religion be the case of our affairs; then either the parliament are they that do it, or the cavaliers: not the cavaliers, for they are on the defensive: witness all their declarations. not the parliament, for then the cavaliers will be found fighters against religion, and resisters of god. . i answer negatively, it is not. the sword is not the means which god hath ordained to propagate the gospel: "go and teach all nations;" not, go and subdue all nations, is our master's precept. _obj._ . whether to swear to a government that shall be, or to swear not to dissent from such a future government, be not to swear upon an implicit faith? _ans._ . this is nothing to the covenant, neither can i see upon what ground any should raise such an impertinent scruple. . it is, he that so swears, swears upon an implicit faith: for one reason against the articles of the prelates was, that they forced us to swear to the homilies that shall be set out. but these things are extravagant. other objections by word of mouth have been propounded, some whereof i will here touch upon. _obj._ . one would make a stand at the phrase, [in our callings,] as if some politic mystery were therein involved, and would have it changed, [according to our callings, or so far forth as they extend.] there is an identity in the phrase, an action enjoined to be done in such a place, every corner, as far as that place extends, is that place, and no other. all is one. _obj._ how if the parliament should hereafter see a convenience in prelacy for this kingdom, were not this oath then prejudicial, either to the parliament's liberty, or kingdom's felicity? _ans._ this objection supposes, _first_, that the most wicked antichristian government may be a lawful government in point of conscience. _second_, that it is possible, that this prelatical government may be convenient for a state or kingdom. when as . they have been burdensome in all ages; what opposites in england have they been to our kings, till their interests were changed? . all reformed religions in the world have expelled them, as incompatible with reformation. . they have set three kingdoms together by the ears, for the least, and worst of causes, which now lie weltering in their own blood, ready to expire. . experience now shows, there is no inconvenience in their want; either in scotland, or in england. _obj._ but what, if the exorbitances be purged away, may not i, notwithstanding my oath, admit of a regulated prelacy? _ans._ . we swear not against a government that is not. . we swear against the evils of every government; and doubtless many materials of prelacy must of necessity be retained, as absolutely necessary. . taking away the exorbitances, the remaining will be a new government, and no prelacy. _obj._ for the discovery of all malignants, all that have been; whether, if i have a friend, that hath been a malignant, and is now converted, am i bound to discover him? _ans._ this his malignity, was either before the covenant, or since; if before, no. for then this league had no being, and a _non-ens_ can have no contrariety. if since, the discovery must be at the first appearance of malignity, whilst he is so. _obj._ what if one make a party to uphold prelacy, whilst it stands by law, must i oppose him, or discover him by virtue of this oath? doth the oath bind me to oppose legal acts? _ans._ i. quer. whether there be any particular law for prelacy? . quer. whether the making a party be legal? . quer. whether any thing, the extirpation of which is sworn by an ordinance of parliament, can be said to stand by law? these are some queries i have met with. i heartily wish that the same tenderness of conscience in all things may be seen, which if not, it will hardly be called a scruple of tenderness, but a cavil of malignity. what now remains but only prayers, that the great god of our judgments and consciences, would so clear and satisfy our souls in these leagues and bonds, that without reluctancy we may all swear to god, and, having sworn, we may have a care to keep the oath inviolable; that as once israel, so all england may rejoice because of the oath: and god may be established, and his kingdom settled; that his presence may dwell among men, and his protection among the sons of men; that he may be near in our covenanting, found in our prayers, and give us rest; and that we being engaged, may live to him, and not to others, henceforth and for ever. the solemn league and covenant: sermon at westminster. _by joseph caryl.[ ]_ "and because of all this, we make a sure covenant, and write it; and our princes, levites, and priests, seal unto it." --_nehemiah_ ix. . the general subject of this verse, is the special business of this day. a solemn engagement to the lord, and among ourselves, in a sure covenant. wherein we may consider these five things. _first_, the nature of a covenant, from the whole. _secondly_, the grounds of a covenant, from those words, "because of all this." _thirdly_, the property of a covenant, in that epithet, sure--"we make a sure covenant." _fourthly_, the parties entering into, and engaging themselves in a covenant, expressed by their several degrees and functions, princes, levites, priests. and were these all? all whom this verse specifies, and enow to bring in all the rest? where the governors and the teachers go before in an holy example, what honest heart will not follow? and the next chapter shews us, all who were honest hearted, following this holy example, verse : "and the rest of the people, the priests, the levites, the porters, the singers, the nethinims, and all they that had separated themselves from the people of the lands, unto the law of god, their wives, their sons, and their daughters, every one having knowledge, and having understanding: they clave unto their brethren, their nobles, and entered into," &c. _fifthly_, the outward acts by which they testified their inward sincere consent, and engaged themselves to continue faithful in that covenant: first, writing it. second, sealing to it. third, (in the tenth chapter, ver. .) "they entered into a curse." fourth, "into an oath, to walk in god's law, which was given by moses the servant of god, and to observe to do all the commandments of the lord their god, with the statutes and judgments. and that they would not give their daughters to the people of the land," &c: with divers many articles of that covenant, tending both to their ecclesiastical and civil reformation. i begin with the first point, the nature of a covenant. concerning which, we may receive some light from the notation of the original words; . for a covenant. . for the making of a covenant. the hebrew _berith (a covenant)_ comes from _barah_, which signifieth two things: _first_, to choose exactly, and judiciously. _second_, to eat moderately, or sparingly. and both these significations of the root _barah_, have an influence upon this derivative _berith_, a covenant: the former of these intimating, if not enforcing, that a covenant is a work of sad and serious deliberation, for such are elective acts. election is, or ought to be made, upon the rational turn of judgment, not upon a catch of fancy, or the hurry of our passions. now, in a covenant, there is a double work of election: _first_, an election of the persons, between whom. _second_, an election of the conditions, or terms upon which the covenant is entered. as god's covenant people are his chosen people, so must ours. some persons will not enter into covenant, though invited; and others, though they offer themselves, are not to be admitted. they who are not fit to build with us, are not fit to swear with us. some offered their help to the jews in the repair of the temple, "let us build with you, for we seek your god." but this tender of their service was refused. "ye have nothing to do with us, to build an house unto our god; but we ourselves together will build." what should we do with their hands in the work, whose hearts, we know, are not in the work? the intendment of such enjoining, must be either to build their hay and stubble with our gold and silver, or else to pull down by night what they build by day, and secretly to undermine that noble fabric, which seemingly they endeavoured to set up. we find in this book of nehemiah, that the persons combining in that covenant, were choice persons. the text of the tenth chapter, sets two marks of distinction upon them. _first_, "all they that separated themselves from the people of the lands, unto the law of god." _second_, all "having knowledge, and having understanding." here are two qualifications, whereof one is spiritual, and the other is natural. the plain english of both may be this, "that fools and malignants, such as (in some measure) know not the cause, and such as have no love at all to the cause, should be outcasts from this covenant." such sapless and rotten stuff will but weaken, if not corrupt this sacred band. the tenor of the covenant now tendered, speaks thus respecting the persons. "we noblemen, barons, knights, gentlemen, citizens, burgesses, ministers of the gospel, and commons, of all sorts, in the kingdom of england, scotland, and ireland." and doth not this indistinctly admit all, and all, of all sorts? i answer, no. for the words following in the preface, shew expressly, that only they are called to it, who are of one reformed religion; which shuts out all papists, till they return. and the articles pass them through a finer sieve, admitting only such as promise, yea, and swear, that through the grace of god, they will sincerely, really, and constantly endeavour the preservation of the reformed religion, against the common enemy in the one kingdom, the reformation and extirpation of what is amiss in the other two; as also, in their own persons, families, and relations. they who do thus, are choice persons indeed, and they who swear to do thus, are (in charity and justice) to be reputed so, till their own acts and omissions falsify their oaths. thus our covenant makes an equivalent, though not a formal or nominal election of the persons. _second_, there must be a choice of conditions in a covenant; as the persons obliged, so the matter of the obligation must be distinct. this is so eminent in the covenant offered, that i may spare my pains in the clearing of it; every man's pains in reading of it, cannot but satisfy him, that there are six national conditions about which we make solemn oath, and one personal, about which we make a most solemn profession and declaration, before god and the world. and all these are choice conditions: such as may well be held forth to be (as indeed they are) the results and issues of many prayers, and serious consultations, in both the kingdoms of england and scotland. conditions they are, in which holiness and wisdom, piety and policy, zeal for god in purging his church, and care for man in settling the commonwealth, appear to have had (in a due subordination) their equal hand and share. thus much of a covenant, from the force of the word in the first sense, leading us to the choice both of persons and conditions. _second_, the root signifies, to eat moderately, or so much as breaks our fast. and this refers also to the nature of a covenant, which is to draw men into a friendly and holy communion, and converse one with another. "david describes a familiar friend, in whom he trusted, to be one, that did eat of his bread." and the apostle paul, when he would have a scandalous brother denied all fellowship in church-covenant, he charges it thus, "with such a one, no not to eat." hence it was a custom upon the making up of covenants, for the parties covenanting, soberly to feast together. "when isaac and abimelech sware one to another, and made a covenant; the sacred story tells us, that isaac made them a feast, and they did eat and drink." a covenant is a binder of affection, to assure it, but it is a loosner of affection, to express it. and their hearts are most free to one another, which are most bound to one another. how unbecoming is it, that they who swear together, should be so strange as scarce to speak together? that which unites, ought also to multiply our affections. further, the word hints so to converse together as not to sin together; for it signifies moderation in eating. as if it would teach us, that at a covenant-feast, or when covenanters feast, they should have more grace, than meat at their tables: or if (through the blessing of god) their meat be much, their temperance should be more. the covenant yields us much business, and calls to action: excess soils our gifts, and damps our spirits, fitting us for sleep, not for work. in and by this covenant, we (who were almost carried into spiritual and corporal slavery) are called to strive for the mastery. let us therefore (as this word and the apostle's rule instruct us) "be temperate in all things." intemperate excessive eaters will be but moderate workers, especially in covenant-work. a little will satisfy their consciences, who are given up to satisfy their carnal appetites. and he who makes his belly his god, will not make much of the glory of god. so much concerning the nature of a covenant, from the original word; for a covenant, signifying both to chuse, and to eat. we may take in some further light to discover the things from the original word, which we translate "make"--"let us make a covenant." that word signifies properly to cut, to strike, or to slay. the reason hereof is given, because at the making of solemn covenants, beasts were killed and divided asunder, and the covenant-makers went between the parts. when god made that first grand covenant with abraham, he said unto him, "take an heifer of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old. and he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid all those pieces one against another." "behold, a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp" (which latter was the token of god's presence for the deliverance of his people) passed between those pieces. in jeremiah we have the like ceremony in making a covenant, "they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof." upon this usage the phrase is grounded of cutting or striking a covenant. which ceremony had this signification in it, that when they passed between those divided parts of the slain beast, the action spake this curse or imprecation, "let him be cut asunder, let his members be divided, let him be made as this beast, who violates the oath of this covenant." from these observations about the words, we may be directed about the nature of the thing: and thence collect this description of a covenant. a covenant is a solemn compact or agreement between two chosen parties or more, whereby with mutual, free, and full consent they bind themselves upon select conditions, tending to the glory of god, and their common good. a covenant strictly considered, is more than a promise, and less than an oath; unless an oath be joined with it, as was with that in the text, and is with this we have now before us. a covenant differs from a promise gradually, and in the formalities of it, not naturally, or in the substance of it. god made promises to abraham, gen. xii. and gen. xiii. but he made no covenant with him, till chap. xv. ver. . "in that day the lord made a covenant with abraham." and the work of the lord in that day with abraham, had not only truth and mercy in it, but state and majesty in it. a covenant day, is a solemn day. as the collection of many stars makes a constellation, so the collection of many promises makes a covenant. or, as in the first of genesis, "the gathering together of the waters, was by the lord called seas:" so we may call the gathering together of promises, or conditions, a covenant. the lord doth (as it were) rally all the promises of mercy made to us, which lie scattered up and down through the whole volume of the scriptures, and puts them together into a covenant: and we do (as it were) rally all the promises of duty which we owe unto god, and to one another, and put them together in a covenant. such a bundle of duty is tied up in this present covenant; what duty is there which we owe to god, to his churches, or these commonwealths whereof we make not promise, either expressly, or by consequence in the compass of this covenant? and how great an obligation to duly doth this contain, wherein there is an obligation to every duty? seeing then this covenant, being taken, carries in it so great an obligation, it calls for great preparation before we take it. a slightness of spirit in taking this covenant, must needs cause a slightness of spirit in keeping it. all solemn duties, ought to have solemn preparations; and this i think, as solemn as any. a christian ought to set his heart (as far as he can through the strength of christ) into a praying frame, before he kneels down to prayer. and we ought to set our hearts in a promising frame, before we stand up to make such mighty promises. "take heed how ye hear," is our saviour's admonition in the gospel; surely then we had need take heed how we swear. "let a man examine himself (saith the apostle paul) and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup;" let him come examined to the sacrament: so i may say, "let a man examine himself, before he lift up his hand, or write down his name;" let him come examined to the covenant. i shall briefly propose three heads of preparatory examination, respecting our entrance into this covenant. _first_, examine your hearts, and your lives, whether or no you are not pre-engaged in any covenant contrary to the tenor and conditions of this covenant? if any such upon inquiry be found, be sure you avoid it, before you engage yourselves in this. a super-institution in this kind, is very dangerous. every man must look to it, that he takes this covenant _(corde vacante)_ with a heart emptied of all covenants which are inconsistent with this. for a man to covenant with christ and his people for reformation, while he hath either taken a covenant with others, or made a covenant in his own breast against it, is desperate wickedness. or if upon a self-search, you find yourselves clear of any such engagements, yet search further. every man by nature is a covenanter with hell, and with every sin he is at agreement: be sure you revoke and cancel that covenant, before you subscribe this. "if i regard iniquity in my heart, the lord will not hear my prayer;" that is, he will not regard my prayers, (saith david). and if we regard iniquity in our hearts, the lord will not hear us covenanting; that is, he will not regard our covenant. woe be unto those who make this league with god and his people, while they resolve to continue their league with sin: which is (upon the matter) a league with satan. god and satan will never meet in one covenant. "for what communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath christ and belial?" _second_, before you enter into this covenant with god, consider of, and repent for this special sin, your former breaches and failings in god's covenant. "we who were sometimes afar off, aliens from the commonwealth of israel, and strangers from the covenant of promise, are made nigh by the blood of jesus," even so nigh, as to be in covenant with god. some who pretend to this privilege, will be found "such as have counted the blood of the covenant to be an unholy thing." and where is the man that walketh so holily in this covenant as becomes him, and as it requires? labour therefore to have those breaches healed by a fresh sprinkling of the blood of christ upon your consciences, before you enter this covenant: if you put this new piece to an old garment, the rent will be made worse: if you put this new wine into old bottles, the bottles will break, and all your expected comforts will run out and be lost. if you should not feel and search your own hearts, without doubt the lord will. "and if you be found as deceivers, you will bring a curse upon yourselves, and not a blessing." this is a covenant of amity with god: reconciliation must go before friendship, you can never make friendship till you have made peace, nor settle love, where hostility is unremoved. _third_, inquire diligently at your own hearts, whether they come up to the terms of this covenant? you must bid high for the honour of a covenanter, for a part in this privilege. "which of you," saith our lord christ to his hearers, "intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? lest haply after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it, begin to mock him, saying, this man began to build, and was not able to finish." we are met this day to lay the foundation of one tower, and to pull up the foundation of another; we are pulling up the foundation of babel's tower, and we are laying a foundation for zion's tower. we have seen some who have heretofore done as much, but they have done no more; when they had laid a foundation for those noble works in taking a solemn oath and covenant, they have never moved a hand after either to build or to pull down, unless it were quite cross to their own engagements, for the pulling down of zion's tower, and the building of babylon. and what was the reason of this stand, or contrary motion? this surely was one, they did not gage their own hearts before hand, neither did they sit down to count the cost of such an undertaking. and therefore when they perceived the charge to arise so high, they neither could finish, nor would they endeavour it, but left the work before it looked above the ground; and are justly become a mock and a scorn and a reproach in israel, these are the men that began in a solemn covenant to build, but could not finish; they had not stock enough either of true honour or honesty (tho' their stock of parts and opportunities was sufficient) to finish this work. let us therefore sit down seriously and count the cost; yea and consider whether we be willing to be at the cost. to lead you on in this, my humble advice is, that you would catechise your hearts upon the articles of this covenant. put the question to your hearts, and let every one say this unto himself: am i indeed resolved sincerely, really and constantly, through the grace of god, in my place and calling, to endeavour the preservation of the reformed religion in the church of scotland? the reformation of religion in the kingdoms of england and ireland? am i indeed resolved in like manner, without respect of persons, to endeavour the extirpation of popery, prelacy? am i indeed resolved never to be withdrawn or divided by whatsoever terror or persuasion from this blessed union and conjunction, whether to make defection to the contrary part, or to give myself to a detestable indifferency or neutrality in this cause of god? am i indeed resolved to humble myself for my own sins, and the sins of the kingdom? to amend myself, and all in my power, and to go before others in the example of a real reformation? according to these hints, propose the question upon every clause of this covenant. and then consider what the cost of performing all these may amount to, and whether you are willing to go to that cost. but it may be, some will say, what is this cost? i answer, the express letter of the covenant tells you of one cost which you must be constantly at, and that is sincere, real, and constant endeavour. pains is a price, i am sure real pains is. the heathens said, "that their gods sold them all good things for labour." the good things of this covenant are sold at that rate; yea, this is the price which the true god puts upon those things which he freely gives. to consent to this covenant, to wish well to this covenant, to speak well of this covenant, come not up to the price; you must do these, and you must do more, you must be doing, so the promise of every man for himself runs, i will through the grace of god endeavour. yet every endeavour is not current money, payable as the price of this covenant: there must be a threefold stamp upon it. unless it bear the image and superscription of sincerity, reality, and constancy, it will not be accepted. for so the promise runs, "i will sincerely, really, and constantly endeavour." neither yet is this all. such endeavours are virtually money; but as this covenant calls also for money formally, as the price of it, he that really endeavours after such ends, as here are proposed, must not only be at the cost of his pains, but also at the cost of his purse for the attainment of them. he must open his hand to give and to lend as well as to work and labour. unless a man be free of his purse as well as of his pains, he bides not up to the demands of this covenant, nor pays up to his own promise when he entered into it. can that man be said really to endeavour the maintenance of a cause while he lets it starve? or, to strengthen it while he keeps the sinews of it close shut up? would he have the chariot move swiftly, who only draws but will not oil the wheels? know then and consider it that the cost you must be at is both in your labours and in your estates. the engagement runs to both these: and to more than both these. the covenant engages us not only to do but to suffer, not only to endeavour but to endure. such is the tenor of the sixth article where every man promises for himself that he will not suffer himself to be withdrawn from this blessed union by any terrors. if not by any terror, then not by any losses, imprisonments, torments, no, nor by death, that king of terrors. you see, then, that the price of this covenant may be the price of blood, of liberty, and of life. sit down and consider. are you willing to be at this cost to build the tower? through the goodness of god in ordering these great affairs, you may never come actually to pay down so much, haply, not half so much, but except you resolve (if called and put to it by the real exigencies of this cause) to pay down the utmost farthing, your spirits are too narrow and your hearts too low for the honour and tenor of this covenant. if any shall say these demands are very high and the charge very great, but is a part in this covenant worth it? will it quit cost to be at so great a charge? wise men love to see and have somewhat for their money; and when they see they will not stick at any cost so the considerations be valuable. for the answering and clearing of this, i shall pass to the second point which holds forth the grounds of a covenant from those words of the text, "and because of all this." if any one shall be troubled at the "all this" in the price, i doubt not but the "all this" in the grounds will satisfy him. because of all this, we make a sure covenant. here observe: . a covenant must be grounded on reason: we must shew the cause why. god often descends, but man is bound, to give a reason of what he doeth. some of god's actions are above reason, but none without reason. all our actions ought to be level with reason and with common reason, for it is a common act. that which men of all capacities are called to do, should lie in the reach of every man's capacity. observe: . a covenant must be grounded on weighty reason; there must be much light in the reason (as was shewed before) but no lightness. "because of all this" saith the text. there were many things in it, and much weight in every one of them. and the reasons, in their proportion, must at least be as weighty as the conditions. weighty conditions will never be balanced with light reasons. if a man ask a thousand pounds for a jewel, he is bound to demonstrate that his jewel is intrinsically worth so much, else no wise man will come up to his demands. so when great things are demanded to be paid down by all who take part in this covenant, we are obliged to demonstrate and hold forth an equivalent of worth in the grounds and nature of it. hence observe . that the reasons of a covenant must be express, "because of all this." _this_ is demonstrative. here's the matter laid before you, consider of it, examine it thoroughly. this is fair dealing, when a man sees why he undertakes, and what he may expect, before he is engaged. and so may say, "because of this, and this, because of all this," i have entered into the covenant. but what were the particulars that made up the gross sum of all this? i answer, those particulars lie scattered throughout the chapter, the attentive reader will easily find them out; i shall in brief reduce them unto two heads. . the defection and corruptions that were crept in, or openly brought in among them. . the afflictions, troubles, and judgments that either were already fallen, or were feared would further fall upon them. the former of these causes is laid down in the and verses of this chapter. "neither have our kings, our princes, our priests, nor our fathers kept thy law, nor hearkened to thy commandments, and thy testimonies, wherewith thou didst testify against them. for they have not served thee in thy kingdom, and in thy great goodness." the latter of these reasons is contained in the and verses. "behold, we are servants this day; and for the land which thou gavest unto our fathers, to eat the fruit thereof, and the good thereof, behold, we are servants in it." the close of all is, we are in great distress. from this narrative of the grounds, the making of a covenant is inferred as a conclusion, in the immediate subsequent words of the text, "because of all this." as if he had said, "because we are a people who have so departed from the laws and statutes of our god, and are so corrupted both in worship, and in practice; because we are a people so oppressed in our estates, and liberties, and so distressed by judgments and afflictions: therefore, because of all this, we make a sure covenant." and if we peruse the records of the holy scripture, we shall find, that either both these grounds conjoined, or one of them, are expressed as the reasons at any time inducing the people of god, to enter into the bond of a covenant. this is evident in asa's covenant, chron. xv. , . in hezekiah's, chron. xxix. . in josiah's, chron. xxxiv. , . in ezra's, chap. x. . to all which, i refer the reader for satisfaction. and, from all consenting with this in the text, i observe: that when a people are corrupted or declined in doctrine, worship, and manners; when they are distressed in their liberties, livelihoods, or lives; then, and at such a time they have warrantable and sufficient grounds to make and engage themselves (as their last and highest resort for redress) in the bonds of a sacred solemn covenant. what engagement can be upon us, which these reasons do not reach and answer? the liberty of our persons, and of our estates, is worth much; but the liberty of the gospel and purity of doctrine and ordinances, are worth much more. peace is a precious jewel, but who can value truth? the wise merchant will sell all that he hath with joy to buy this, and blesses god for the bargain. and because of all this, we are called to make a covenant this day. truth of doctrine and purity of worship were going, and much of them both were gone. the liberty of our persons, and property of our estates, were going, and much of them both were gone; we were at once growing popish and slavish, superstitious and servile; we were in these great distresses, "and because of all this we make a covenant this day." that these are the grounds of our covenant, is clear in the tenor of the covenant. the preamble whereof speaks thus: "we calling to mind the treacherous and bloody plots, conspiracies, attempts, and practices of the enemies of god, against the true religion and professors thereof, in all places, especially in these three kingdoms, ever since the reformation of religion; and how much their rage, power and presumption are of late, and at this time increased and exercised, whereof the deplorable estate of the church and kingdom of ireland, the distressed estate of the church and kingdom of england, and the dangerous estate of the church and kingdom of scotland, are present and public testimonies: we have now at the last, for the preservation of ourselves, and our religion, from utter ruin and destruction, after mature deliberation resolved and determined to enter into a mutual and solemn league and covenant." so then, if we be asked a reason of our covenant, here are reasons, clear reasons, easy to the weakest understanding, yea, open to every man's sense. who amongst us hath not felt these reasons? and how many have smarted their proof unto us? and as these reasons are so plain, that the most illiterate and vulgar understandings may conceive them; so they are so weighty and cogent, that the most subtile and sublime understandings cannot but be subdued to them; unless, because they are such masters of reason, they have resolved to obey none. and yet where conscience is indeed unsatisfied, we should rather pity than impose, and labour to persuade, rather than violently to obtrude. now seeing we have all this for the ground of a covenant, let us cheerfully and reverently make a sure covenant, which is the third point in the text, the property of this covenant: we make a sure covenant. in the hebrew, the word covenant is not expressed. the text runs only thus, we make a sure one, or a sure thing. covenants are in their own nature and constitution, things of so much certainty and assurance, that by way of excellency, a covenant is called, a sure one, or an assurance. when a sure one is but named, a covenant must be understood. as, the "holy one" is god, and the "holy one and the just," is christ. you may know whom the holy ghost means, when he saith "the holy one and the just." so the sure one, is a covenant. you may know what they made, when the holy ghost saith, they made a sure one. hence observe, that a well grounded covenant is a sure, a firm, and an irrevocable act. when you have such an _all this_, (and such you have) as is here concentrated in the text, to lay into, or for the foundation of a covenant, the superstruction is _æternitati sacrum_, and must stand for ever. a weak ground is but a weak obligation; and a sinful ground is no obligation. there is much sin in making a covenant upon sinful grounds, and there is more sin in keeping of it. but when the preservation of true religion, and the vindication of just liberties meet in the groundwork, ye may swear and not repent; yea, if ye swear, ye must not repent. for because of all such things as these, we ought (if we make any, and that we ought) to make a sure covenant. the covenant god makes with man is a sure covenant. hence called a "covenant of salt," because salt preserves from perishing and putrefaction. the covenant of god with man about temporal things, is called a "covenant of salt, and a covenant forever." for tho' his covenant about temporal things (as all temporals must) hath an end of termination, yet it hath no end of corruption: time will conclude it, but time cannot violate it. but as for his covenant about eternal things, that, like eternity, knows not only no end of corruption, but none of termination. "altho' my house (saith gasping david) be not so with god; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, altho' he make it not to grow." and what is it that makes the covenant of god with man thus sure? sure not only in itself, but (as the apostle speaks) to all the seed. is it not this, because it hath a strong foundation, a double, impregnable foundation? _first_, his own free grace. _second_, the blood of christ; which is therefore also called, the blood of the covenant. because of all this, this all, which hath an infinity in it, the lord god hath made with us a sure covenant. now, as the stability and everlastingness of god's covenant with his elect, lies in the strength of the foundation, "his own love, and the blood of his son:" so the stability and firmness of our covenant with god, lies in the strength of this foundation, the securing of the gospel, and the asserting of gospel-purity in worship, and privileges in government; the securing of our lives, and the asserting of our common liberties. when at any time ye can question, and, from the oracles of truth, be resolved, that these are sufficient grounds of making a covenant, or that these are not ours, ye may go, and unassure the covenant which ye make this day. _application._ let me therefore invite you in the words of the prophet jeremiah, "come let us join ourselves to the lord, in a perpetual covenant that shall never be forgotten." and do not these look like the days wherein the prophet calls to the doing of this? "in those days, and at that time, saith the lord." what time, and what days were those? the beginning of the chapter answers. "the word that the lord spake against babylon, declare ye among the nations, and publish, and set up a standard, publish and conceal not: say, babylon is taken, bell is confounded, merodach is broken in pieces; her idols are confounded, her images are broken in pieces: for out of the north there cometh up a nation against her, which shall make her land desolate." then follows, "in those days and at that time saith the lord, the children of israel shall come. and they shall ask the way to zion, with their faces thitherward saying, come, and let us join ourselves to the lord, in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten." are not these the days, and this the time (i speak not of time to a day, but of time and days) wherein the lord speaks against babylon, and against the land of the chaldeans: wherein he saith, "declare among the nations, and publish, and set up the standard." are not these the days, and this the time, when out of the north there cometh up a nation against her? as face answers face in the water, so do the events of these days answer, if not the letter, yet much of the mystery of this prophecy. there seems wanting only the work which this day is bringing forth, and a few days more (i hope) will bring unto perfection, the joining of ourselves in a perpetual covenant, never to be forgotten. it is very observable, how the prophet, as it were, with one breath saith, "babylon is taken." and, "come let us join ourselves in covenant." as if there were no more in it but this, take the covenant, and ye take babylon. or, as if the taking of a covenant were the ready way, the readiest way to take babylon. surely at the report of the taking of this sure covenant, we in our prayer-visions (as the prophet habakkuk), "may see the tents of cushan in affliction, and the curtains of the land of midian tremble." or, as moses in his triumphant song, "the people shall hear, and be afraid: sorrow shall take hold of the inhabitants of palestina. the dukes of edom shall be amazed; the mighty men of moab, trembling shall take hold upon them; the inhabitants of canaan (who are now the inhabitants of babylon) shall melt away. the towers of babylon shall quake, and her seven hills will move. the great mountain before our zerubbabel, will become a plain, and we shall bring forth the head-stone (of our reformation) with shouting, crying, grace, grace unto it." why may we not promise to ourselves such glorious effects (and not build these castles in the air) when we have laid so promising a foundation, this sure covenant, and have made a perpetual covenant, never to be forgotten? the three things i shall propose, which this covenant will bring in, as facilitating contributions to so great a work: . this covenant will distinguish men, and separate the precious from the vile. in the twentieth chapter of ezekiel, the lord promiseth his people, after this manner, "i will cause you to pass under the rod, and i will bring you into the bond of the covenant." the phrase of causing to pass under the rod, is an allusion to shepherds, or the keepers of cattle, who when they would take special notice of their sheep or cattle, either in their number to tithe them, or in their goodness to try them, they brought them into a fold, or some other inclosed place, when letting them pass out at a narrow door, one by one, they held a rod over them, to count or consider more distinctly of them. this action was called a "passing of them under the rod," as moses teaches us, "and concerning the tithe of the herd, or of the flock, even of whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the lord." the learned junius expounds that text in ezekiel by this in leviticus, giving the sense thus, "as if the lord had said, i will prove and try the whole people of israel, as a shepherd doeth his flock, that i may take the good and sound into the fold of my covenant, and cast out the wicked and unsound." which interpretation is not only favoured, but fully approved, in the words immediately following, "i will bring you into the bond of the covenant, and i will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against me." a covenant is to a nation, as a fan to the floor, which purges away the chaff and purifies the wheat. it is like the furnace to the metal, which takes away the dross and shews you a refined lump. it is a shibboleth, to distinguish ephraimites from gileadites. and who knows not how great an advantage it is for the successful carrying on of any honourable design, to know friends from enemies, and the faithful from false brethren? some have thought it unpolitical to set-a-foot this covenant, lest it should discover more enemies than friends, and so holding out to the view more than otherwise can be seen, the weakness of a party may render them, not only more obnoxious, but more inconsiderable. to this i answer, in a word, invisible enemies will ever do us more hurt than visible; and if we cannot deliver ourselves from them, when they are seen and known, doubtless unseen and unknown, they will more easily, tho' more insensibly devour us. and i verily believe, we have already received more damage and deeper wounds from pretended friends, than from professed and open enemies. the sad stories of abner and amasa inform us, that there is no fence against his stroke, who comes too near us, who stabs while he takes us aside to speak kindly to us, who draws his sword, while he hath a kiss at his lips, and art thou in health, my brother, at his tongue. let us never think ourselves stronger, because we do not know our weakness; or safer, because we are ignorant of our danger. or that our real enemies and false friends will do us less hurt, because they are less discovered. i do not think, that a flock ever fared the better, because the wolves that were amongst them, went in sheep's clothing. rather will our knowledge be our security, and the discovery which this covenant makes, help on both our deliverance and our business. for as, possibly, this covenant may discover those who are faithful to be fewer, than was supposed before this strict distinction from others; so it will certainly make them stronger than they were before, by a stricter union among themselves. and this is . the second benefit of this covenant, which i shall next insist upon. as it doth separate those who are heterogeneal, so likewise it will congregate and embody those who are homogeneal. and therefore it cannot but add strength unto a people; for whatsoever unites, strengthens. a few united, are stronger than a scattered multitude. tho' they who subscribe this covenant should be, comparatively, so few, as the prophet speaks, "that a child may write them;" yet this few thus united are stronger than so many scattered ones, as exceed all arithmetic, whom (as john speaks,) "no man can number." cloven tongues were sent, to publish the gospel, but not divided tongues, much less divided hearts: the former hindered the building of babel, and the latter, tho' tongues should agree, will hinder the building of jerusalem. then a work goes on amain, when the undertakers, whether they be few or many, all speak and think the same thing. a people are more considerable in any work, because they are one, than because they are many. but when many and one meet, nothing can stand before them. so the lord god observed, when "he came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded." and the lord said, "behold, the people is one, and they have all one language: and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do." men may do as much as they can think, while they all think and do as one; and not only can such do great things, if let alone; but none can let them in doing what they intend; so saith the lord, "they have begun to do, and nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined." nothing could restrain, or let them from their work, but his power, who "will work, and none can let it." thus it is apparent that union is our strength. and it is as apparent that this covenant, through the blessing of god upon it, will be our union. to unite, is the very nature of a covenant. hence it is called "the bond of the covenant, i will bring you into the bond of the covenant," saith the lord. junius and some others render it, i will bring you _(ad exhibitionem foederis)_ to the giving or tendering of the covenant: deriving the word from _masar_, signifying, to exhibit or deliver. whence (to note that in passage) the traditionary doctrine among the jews is called _masora_, or _masoreth_. others (whom our translators fellow, and put the former sense, delivering, in the margin) others, i say, deriving the word from _asar_ to bind, render it the bond of the covenant. and this covenant is the bond of a twofold union. _first_, it unites us of this kingdom among ourselves, and this kingdom with the other two. _second_, it makes a special union of all those who shall take it holily and sincerely throughout the three kingdoms with the one-most god. weak things bound together, are strong, much more then, when strong are bound up with strong: most of all, when strong are bound up with almighty. if in this covenant, we should only join weak to weak, we might be strong. but, blessed be god, we join strong, as creatures may be accounted strong, with strong. the strong kingdoms of england and ireland, with the strong kingdom of scotland. a threefold cord twisted of three such strong cords, will not easily, if at all, be broken. they which single, blessed be god, have yet such strength, how strong may they be when conjoined? as the apostle writes, "i speak after the manner of men, because of the infirmity of your flesh:" so i speak now after the manner of men, concerning the strength of our flesh, outward means, in these kingdoms. for as the apostle peter speaks in like phrase, tho' to another occasion, "the lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness:" so i may say, no man, no kingdoms, are strong to any purpose, as the lord counts strength. and therefore, i reckon this the least part of our strength, that these three strong kingdoms will be united by this covenant. nay, if this were all the strength, which this union were like to make, i should reckon this no strength at all. wherefore, know that this covenant undoubtedly is, and will be a bond of union between strong and almighty: between three strong nations, and an almighty god. this covenant engages more than man, god also is engaged; engaged, through his free grace, in his power, wisdom, faithfulness, to do us good, and much good, tho' in and of ourselves unworthy of the least, unworthy of any good. all this considered, this covenant will be our strength: our brethren of scotland have, in a plentiful experience, found it so already. this covenant, thro' the blessing of god upon their councils and endeavours, hath been their samson's lock, the thing in fight, wherein their strength lieth. and why should not we hope, that it will be ours; if we can be wise, as they, to prevent or overcome the flattering enticements of those delilahs who would lull us asleep in their laps, only for an opportunity to cut or shave it off? then indeed, which god forbid, we should be but weak like other men, yea, weaker than ourselves were before this lock was grown, having but the strength of man; god utterly departing from us, for our falseness and unfaithfulness in this covenant. . this covenant observed will make us an holy people, and then, we cannot be an unhappy people. that which promotes personal holiness, must needs promote national holiness. the consideration that we are in the bonds of a covenant, is both a bridle to stop us from sin, and a spur to duty. when we provoke god to bring evil upon us, he stays his hand by considering his covenant. "i will remember my covenant, saith the lord, which is between me, and you; and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh." as if the lord had said, it is more than probable, that i shall quickly see as much cause, "all flesh corrupting all their ways before me," to drown the world with a second deluge, as i did for the first: the foulness of the world, will quickly call for another washing. but i am resolved, never to destroy it by water again; for, "i will remember my covenant." hence also in the second book of the chronicles, chap. xxi. where the reign and sins of jehoram are recorded; such sins as might justly put a sword into the hand of god to cut him off root and branch; howbeit, saith the text, "the lord would not destroy the house of david, because of the covenant that he had made with david, and as he promised to give a light to him, and to his sons forever." now, as the remembrance of the covenant on his part, stays the hand of god from smiting; so the remembrance of the covenant on our part, will be very effectual to stay our hands, and tongues, and hearts from sinning. a thought of that will damp and silence our lusts and passions, when they begin to move or quest within us: it will also break the blow of satan's temptations, when he assaults us. the soul in such cases will answer, true, i am now as strongly tempted to sin as ever, i have now as fair an opportunity to commit sin as ever, i could now be false to, and desert this cause with as much advantage, upon as fair hopes and promises as ever: o! but i am in covenant, i remember my covenant, i will not, i cannot do it; and so he falls a praying against the temptation: yea, he begs prayers of others, that he may be strengthened against, and overcome it. i read you an instance of this effect. before the sermon, a paper is sent to this congregation, containing this request: "one who through much passion oftentimes grievously offends the majesty of god by cursing and swearing, and that since his late taking the covenant, desires the prayers of this congregation, that his offence may be pardoned, and that he may be enabled to overcome that temptation from henceforwards." this is the tenor of that request, to a letter and a tittle, and therein you see how the remembrance of the covenant wrought. probably this party (whosoever he was) took little notice of, or was little troubled at the notice of these distempers in himself before; least of all sought out for help against them. and i have the rather inserted this to confute that scorn which, i hear, some have since put upon that conscientious desire. as if one had complained, that since his swearing to the covenant he could not forbear swearing, and that this sacred oath had taught him profane ones. but what holy thing is there which swine will not make mire of, for themselves to wallow in? i return; and i nothing doubt, but that this covenant, wherein all is undertaken through the grace of christ, will make many more gracious who had grace before, and turn others, who were running on amain in the broad way, from the evil and error of their ways, into the way which is called holy, or into the ways of holiness. every act wherein we converse with an holy god, hath an influence upon our spirits to make us holy. the soul is made more holy in prayer, tho' holiness be not the particular matter of the prayer: a man gets much of heaven into his heart, in praying for earthly things, if he pray in a spiritual manner; and the reason is because, in prayer, he hath converse with, and draws nigh to god, whatsoever lawful thing he prays about. and the same reason carries it in covenanting, tho' it were only about the maintenance of our outward estates and liberties, forasmuch as therein we have to do with god. how much more then will holiness be increased through this covenant which, in many branches of it, is a direct covenant for, and about holiness? and if we improve it home to this purpose, for the subduing of those mystical canaanites, those worst and indeed most formidable enemies, our sinful lusts: if we improve it for the obtaining of more grace, and the making of us more holy: tho' our visible canaanites should not only continue unsubdued by us, but subdue us; though our estates and liberties should continue, not only unrecovered, but quite lost; tho' we should neither be a rich, nor a free, nor a victorious people; yet if we are an holy people, we have more than all these, we have all, he is ours, "who is all in all." so much of the first general part of the application. the second is for admonition and caution, in three or four particulars. . take heed of "profaning this covenant," by an unholy life. remember you have made a covenant with heaven; then do not live as if you had made a "covenant with hell or were come to an agreement with death," as the prophet isaiah characters those monsters of profaneness. take heed also of "corrupting this covenant," by an unholy gloss. wo be unto those glossers that corrupt the text, pervert the meaning of these words: who attempt to expound the covenant by their own practice, and will not regulate their practice by the covenant. the apostle peter speaks of paul's writings, "that in them some things are hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction." we may fear, that tho' the text of this covenant be easy to be understood, yet some (who, at least think themselves learned), and whom we have found not only stable but stiffened in their own erroneous principles and opinions, will be trying their skill, if not their malice, to wrest, or, as the greek imports, to torture and set this covenant upon the rack, to make it speak and confess a sense never intended by the composers, or proposers of it: and whereof (if but common ingenuity be the judge) it never will, nor can be found guilty. all that i shall say to such is that in the close of the verse quoted from the apostle peter, let them take heed such wrestings be not (worst to themselves, even) to their own destruction. . take heed of delaying to perform the duties of this covenant. some, i fear, who have made haste to take the covenant, will take leasure to act it. it is possible, that a man may make too much haste (when he swears, before he considers what it is) to take an oath; but, having taken it upon due consideration, he cannot make too much haste to perform it. "be not rash with thy mouth," saith the preacher. that is, do not vow rashly, but, "when thou vowest a vow unto god, defer not to pay it: for he hath no pleasure in fools (slow performance is folly); pay that which thou hast vowed." speedy paying (like speedy giving) is double payment; whereas slow payment is no payment or as bad as none, for it is foolish payment. a bond, if i mistake not, is presently due in law, if no day be specified in the bond. it is so i am sure in this covenant; here is no day set down, and therefore all is due the same day you take it. god and man may sue this bond presently for non-payment: the covenant gives no day, and therefore requires the next day, every day. it is not safe to take day for payment, when the obligation is _in terminis de præsenti_, and none is given. . take heed of dallying with this covenant. it is more than serious, a sacred covenant. it is very dangerous jesting with edged tools. this covenant is as keen as it is strong. do not play fast and loose with it, be not in and out with it; god is an avenger of all such: he is a jealous god, and will not hold them guiltless, who thus take his name in vain. they who swear by, or to the lord, and swear by malcham, are threatened to be cut off. to be on both sides, and to be on no side; neutrality and indifferency differ little, either in their sin or danger. . above all, take heed of apostatizing from, or an utter desertion of, this covenant. to be deserted of god, is the greatest punishment, and to desert god, is the greatest sin. when you have set your hands to the plough, do not look back: remember lot's wife. besides the sin, this is, _first_, extremely base and dishonourable. it is one of the brands set upon those gentiles whom "god had given up to a reprobate mind, and to vile affections," that they were covenant breakers. and how base is that issue which is begotten between, and born from vile affections, and a reprobate mind? where the parents are such, it is easy to judge what the child must be. _second_, besides the sin and the dishonour, this is extremely dangerous and destructive. we are said in the native speaking, to cut a covenant, or to strike a covenant, when we make it; and if we break the covenant when we have made it, it will both strike and cut us, it will kill and slay us. if the cords of this covenant do not bind us, the cords of this covenant will whip us; and whip us, not as with cords, but as with scorpions. the covenant will have a quarrel with, and sends out a challenge unto such breakers of it, for reparation. and (if i may so speak) the great god will be its second. as god revenges the quarrel of his own covenant, so likewise the quarrel of ours. he hath already "sent a sword to revenge the quarrel of his covenant." he will send another to revenge the quarrel of this upon the wilful violators of it. yea, every lawful covenant hath a curse always waiting upon it, like a marshal or a sergeant, to attack such high contemners of it. it was noted before from the ceremony of killing, dividing, and passing between the divided parts of a beast, when covenants were made, that the imprecation of a curse upon the covenanters was implied, in case they wilfully transgressed or revolted from it. let the transgressors of, and revolters from this covenant, fear and tremble at the same curse, even the curse of a dreadful division: "that god will divide them and their posterity in jacob, and scatter them in our israel; yea, let them fear, that god will rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling wind before the whirlwind. this is (their portion, and) the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us." and if so, is not their lot fallen in an unpleasant place? have they not a dreadful heritage? to be under any curse is misery enough; but to be under a covenant curse, is the greatest, is all misery. for as the blessings we receive are most sweet, when they pass to us through the hands of a covenant; a mercy from a promise is far better than a mercy from bare providence, because then it is sprinkled with the blood of christ: so on the other side, the curse which falls upon any one is far more bitter when it comes through a covenant, especially an abused, a broken covenant. when the fiery beams of god's wrath are contracted into this burning glass, it will burn as low as hell, and none can quench it. that alone which quenches the fire of god's wrath is the blood of christ. and the blood of christ is the foundation of this covenant. not only is that covenant which god hath made with us founded in the blood of christ, but that also which we make with god. were it not by the blood of christ, we could not possibly be admitted to so high a privilege. seeing then the blood of christ only quenches the wrath of god, and this blood is the foundation of our covenant, how shall the wrath of god (except they repent, return and renew their covenant) be quenched towards such violators of it? and, as our saviour speaks upon another occasion, "if the light which is in them be darkness, how great is that darkness?" so, i say, if that which is our friend turn upon us as an enemy, how great is that enmity; and if that which is our mercy be turned into wrath, how great is that wrath, and who can quench it? it is said of good king josiah, that when he had made a covenant before the lord, "he caused all that were present in jerusalem, and in benjamin, to stand to it." how far he interposed his regal authority, i stay not to dispute. but he caused them to stand to it; that is openly to attest, and to maintain it. methinks the consideration of these things, should reign over the hearts of men, and command in their spirits, more than any prince can over the tongues or bodies of men, to cause them to stand to this covenant. ye that have taken this covenant, unless ye stand to it, ye will fall by it. i shall shut up this point with that of the apostle, "take unto you the whole armour of god, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, when ye have done all, to stand," (eph. vi. ). stand, and withstand, are the watchword of this covenant, or the impress of every heart which hath or shall sincerely swear unto it. for the helping of you to stand to this covenant, i shall cast in a few advices about your walking in this covenant, or your carriage in it, which, if followed, i dare say, through the mercy of the most high, your persons, these kingdoms, and this cause, shall not miscarry. . walk in holiness and uprightness. when god renewed his covenant with abraham, he makes this the preamble of it, "i am the almighty god, walk before me, and be thou perfect, and i will make my covenant between me and thee." as this must be a covenant of salt, in regard of faithfulness; so there must be salt in this covenant, even the salt of holiness and uprightness. the jews were commanded in all their offerings to use salt; and that is called the salt of the covenant, "every oblation of thy meat-offering shalt thou season with salt, neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy god to be lacking." what is meant by salt on our parts, is taught us by christ himself, "have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another." which i take to be parallel in sense with that of the apostle, "follow peace with all men and holiness." as salt, the shadow of holiness, was called for, in all those jewish services; so holiness, the true substantial salt, is called for in all ours. as then it was charged, "let not the salt of the covenant of thy god be lacking:" so now it is charged, "suffer not the salt of thy covenant with god and his people to be lacking." seeing we have made a covenant of salt, that is, a sure covenant, let us remember to keep salt in our covenant. let us add salt to salt, our salt to the lord's salt, our salt of holiness to his salt of faithfulness, and we shall not miscarry. . walk steadily or stedfastly in this covenant. where the heart is upright and holy, the feet will be steady. unstedfastness is a sure argument of unsoundness, as well as a fruit of it. "their heart was not right with him; neither were they stedfast in his covenant." as if he had said, would you know the reason why this people were so unstedfast? it was, because they were so unsound. "their heart was not right with him." we often see the diseases of men's hearts breaking forth at their lips, and at their finger ends, in all they say or do. god will be steady to us; why should not we resolve to be so to him? and this covenant will be stedfast and uniform unto us, why should not we resolve to be so too, and in this covenant? the covenant will not be our friend to-day, and our enemy to-morrow, do us good to-day, and hurt to-morrow, it will not be the fruitful this year, and barren the next; but it is our friend to do us good to-day, and ever. it is fruitful and will be so for ever. we need not let it lie fallow, we cannot take out the heart of it, tho' we should have occasion to plough it, and sow it every year. much less will this covenant be so unstedfast to its own principles, as to yield us wheat to-day, and cockle to-morrow, an egg to-day, and to-morrow a scorpion; now bread, and anon a stone; now give us an embrace, and anon a wound; now help on our peace, and anon embroil us; now prosper our reformation, and anon oppose, or hinder it; strengthen us this year, and weaken us the next. no, as it will never be barren, so it will ever bring forth the same fruit, and that good fruit; and the more and the longer we use it, the better fruit. like the faithful wife, "it will do us good, and not evil, all the days of its life." it is therefore, not only sinful, but most unsuitable and uningenuous, for us to be up and down, forward and backward, liking and disliking, like that double minded man, "unstable in all our ways," respecting the duties of this covenant. . walk believingly, live much in the exercise of faith. as we have no more good out of the covenant of god, than we have faith in it; so no more good out of our own, than (in a due sense) we have faith in it. there is as much need of faith, to improve this covenant, as there is of faithfulness. we live no more in the sphere of a covenant, than we believe. and we can make no living out of it but by believing. all our earnings come in here also, more by our faith, than by our works. let not the heart of god be straitened, and his hand shortened by our unbelief. where christ marvelled at the unbelief of a people, consider what a marvel followed: omnipotence was as one weak. "he could do no mighty works among them." works less than mighty will not reach our deliverances or procure our mercies. the ancient worthies made more use of their faith, than to be saved, and get to heaven by it. "by faith the walls of jericho fell down. by faith they subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, (or exercised justice) stopped the mouths of lions. by faith they quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness they were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens." we have jerichos to reduce, and kingdoms to subdue, under the sceptre and government of jesus christ: we have justice to execute, and the mouths of lions to stop: we have a violent fire to quench, a sharp edged sword to escape, popish alien armies to fight with; and we (comparatively to these mighty works) are but weak. how then shall we out of our weakness become strong, strong enough to carry us through these mighty works, strong enough to escape these visible dangers? if we walk and work by sense, and not by faith? and if we could get through all these works and dangers without faith, we should work but like men, not at all like christians, but like men in a politic combination, not in a holy covenant. there's not a stroke of covenant work (purely so called) can be done without faith. as fire is to the chemist, so is faith to a covenant people. in that capacity, they can do nothing for themselves without it; and they have, they can have, no assurance that god will. seeing then we are in covenant, we must go to counsel by faith, and to war by faith; we must pull down by faith, and build by faith; we must reform by faith, and settle our peace by faith. besides, to do a work so solemn and sacred, and then not to believe and expect no fruit; yea, then to believe and expect answerable fruit, is a direct taking of god's name in vain, and a mock to jesus christ. and if we mock christ by calling him to a covenant, which we ourselves slight, as a thing we expect little or nothing from: "he will laugh at our calamity," and "mock when our fear cometh." wherefore to close, "if ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established," no, not by this sure covenant. but, "believe in the lord your god, in covenant, so shall you be established; believe his prophets, so shall you prosper." . walk cheerfully. so it becomes those that have god so near them. such, even in their sorrows, should be like paul, "as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing." the (as) notes not a counterfeiting of sorrow, but the overcoming of sorrow. on this ground david resolves against the fear of evil, tho' he should see nothing but evil; "tho' i walk in the valley of the shadow of death, i will fear no evil: for thou art with me." in a covenant, god and man meet; he is with us who is more than all that are against us: and when he is with us, who can be against us? for then all things, and all persons, even while (to the utmost of their skill and power) they set themselves against us, work for us; and should not we rejoice? if we knew that every loss were our gain, every wound our healing, every disappointment our success, every defeat our victory, would we not rejoice? do but know what it is to be in covenant with god; and be sad, be hopeless, if you can. it is to have the strength and counsels of heaven engaged for you; it is to have him for you, "whose foolishness is wiser than men, and whose weakness is stronger than men." it is to have him with you, "who doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, what doest thou?" it is to have him with you, "who frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh the diviners mad, who turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish." it is to have him with you, before whom "the nations are as the drop of a bucket, and as the dust of the balance, who taketh up the isles as a very little thing." in a word, it is to have him with you, "who fainteth not, neither is weary; there is no searching of his understanding. he giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might, he increaseth strength." this god is our god, our god in covenant; "this is our beloved and this is our friend, o daughters of jerusalem." and shall we not rejoice? shall we not walk cheerfully? tho' there be nothing but trouble before our eyes, yet our hearts should live in those upper regions, which are above storms and tempests, above rain and winds, above the noise and confusions of the world. why should sorrow sit clouded in our faces, or any darkness be in our hearts, while we are in the shine and light of god's countenance? it is said, "that all judah rejoiced at the oath; for they had sworn with all their heart:" if we have sworn heartily, we shall rejoice heartily. and for ever banish base fears, and killing sorrows from our hearts; and wipe them from our faces. they, who have unworthy fears in their hearts, give too fair an evidence that they did not swear with their hearts. . walk humbly and dependently; rejoice, but be not secure. trust to god in covenant, not to your covenant. make not your covenant your christ; no, not for this temporal salvation. as a horse trusted to, is a vain thing to save a man, so likewise is a covenant trusted to; neither can it deliver a nation by its great strength: tho' indeed the strength of it be greater than the strength of many horses. "in vain is salvation hoped for from this hill, or from a multitude of mountains," heaped up and joined in one by the bond of this covenant. surely in the lord our god, our god in covenant, is the salvation of england. we cannot trust too much in god, nor too little in the creature; there is nothing breaks the staff of our help, but our leaning upon it. if we trust in our covenant, we have not made it with god, but we have made it a god; and every god of man's making, is an idol, and so nothing in the world: you see, pride in, or trust to this covenant will make it an idol, and then in doing all this, we have done nothing; for "an idol is nothing in the world." and of nothing, comes nothing. by overlooking to the means, we lose all; and by all our travail shall bring forth nothing but wind: it will not work any deliverance in the land. wherefore, "rest not in the thing done, but get up, and be doing," which is the last point, and my last motion about your walking in covenant. . walk industriously and diligently in this covenant. you were counselled before to stand to the covenant, but take heed of standing in it. stand, as that is opposed to defection; but if you stand as that is opposed to action, you are at the next door to falling. a total neglect is little better than total apostasy. we have made a perpetual covenant, never to be forgotten, as was shewed out of the prophet. it is a rule, that words in scripture, which express only an act of memory, include action and endeavours. when the young man is warned to "remember his creator in the days of his youth," he is also charged to love, and to obey him. and while we say, this covenant is never to be forgotten; we mean, the duties of it are ever to be pursued, and, to the utmost of our power, fulfilled. as soon as it is said that josiah made all the people stand to the covenant; the very next words are, "and the inhabitants of jerusalem did according to the covenant of god, the god of their fathers." they stood to it, but they did not, like those, "stand all the day idle;" they fell to work presently. and so let us. having laid this foundation, a sure covenant, now let us arise and build, and let our hands be strong. do not think that all is done, when this solemnity is done, it is a sad thing to observe how some, when they have lifted up their hands, and written down their names, think presently their work is over. they think, now surely they have satisfied god and man for they have subscribed the covenant. i tell you, nay, for when you have done taking the covenant, then your work begins. when you have done taking the covenant, then you must proceed to acting the covenant. when an apprentice has subscribed his name, and sealed his indentures, doth he then think his service is ended? no, then he knows his service doth begin. it is so here. we are all sealing the indentures of a sacred and noble apprenticeship to god, to these churches and commonwealths; let us then go to our work, as bound, yet free. free to our work, not from it; free in our work, working from a principle of holy ingenuity, not of servility, or constraint. the lord threatens them with bondage and captivity, who will not be servants in their covenant, with readiness and activity. "i, saith the lord, will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant, which they had made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof; the princes of judah, and the princes of jerusalem, the eunuchs, and the priests, and all the people of the land, which passed between the parts of the calf, i will even give them into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life, and their dead bodies shall be meat to the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the earth." words that need no rhetoric to press them, nor any comment to explain them: they are so plain, that every one may understand them; and so severe, that every one, who either transgresses, or performs not, who doeth any thing against, or nothing for the words of this covenant, hath just cause to tremble at the reading of them: i am sure, to feel them will make him tremble. seeing then our princes, our magistrates, our ministers, and our people, have freely consented to, written, and sworn this covenant; let us all in our several places, be up and doing, that the lord may be with us; not sit still and do nothing, and so cause the lord to turn against us. you that are for consultation, go to counsel; you that are for execution, go on to acting; you that are for exhorting the people in this work, attend to exhortation; you that are soldiers, draw your swords; you that have estates, draw your purses; you that have strength of body, lend your hands; and all you that have honest hearts, lend your prayers, your cries, your tears, for the prosperous success of this great work. and the lord prosper the works of all our hands, the lord prosper all our handy-works. _amen._ the solemn league and covenant. sermon at london. _by thomas case_[ ] "and i will bring a sword upon you that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant."--_lev._ xxvi. . since covenant-violation is a matter of so high a quarrel as for the avenging whereof, god sends a sword upon a church or nation: for which, it is more than probable, the sword is upon us at this present, it having almost devoured ireland already, and eaten up a great part of england also, let us engage our council, and all the interest we have in heaven and earth, for the taking up of this controversy; let us consider what we have to do, what way there is yet left us, for the reconciling of this quarrel, else we, and our families, are but the children of death and destruction: this sword that is drawn, and devoured so much christian protestant flesh already, will, it is to be feared, go quite thro' the land, and, in the pursuit of this quarrel, cut off the remnant, till our land be so desolate, and our cities waste, and england be made as sodom and gomorrah, in the day of the fierce anger of jehovah. somewhat i have spoken already in the former use, to this purpose viz. "to acknowledge our iniquities that we have transgressed against the lord our god." to get our hearts broken, for breaking the covenant; to lay it so to heart, that god may not lay it to our charge. but this looks backward. somewhat must be done, _de futuro_: for time to come: that may not only compose the quarrel, but lay a sure foundation of an after peace between god and the kingdom. and for that purpose, a mean lies before us; an opportunity is held forth unto us by the hand of divine wisdom and goodness, of known use and success among the people of god in former times; which is yet to me a gracious intimation, and a farther argument of hope from heaven, that god has not sworn against us in his wrath, nor sealed us up a people devoted to destruction, but hath yet a mind to enter into terms of peace and reconciliation with us, to receive us into grace and favour, to become our god, and to own us for his people; if yet, we will go forth to meet him, and accept of such honourable terms as shall be propounded to us: and that is, by renewing our covenant with him; yea, by entering into a more full and firm covenant than ever heretofore. for, as the quarrel was raised about the covenant, so it must be a covenant more solid and substantial, that must compose the quarrel, as i shall show you hereafter. and that is the service and the privilege that lies before us; the work of the next day. so that, me-thinks, i hear this use of exhortation, which now i would commend unto you speaking unto us in that language; "come, let us join ourselves to the lord in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten." it is the voice of the children of israel, and the children of judah, returning out of captivity. "the children of israel shall come, they, and the children of judah together; seeking the lord," whom they had lost, and inquiring the way to zion; from whence their idolatry and adulteries had cast them out; themselves become now like the doves of the valley, mourning and weeping, because they had perverted their way, and forgotten the lord their god. "going and weeping they shall go, and seek the lord their god. they shall ask the way to zion with their faces thitherward." and if you inquire when this should be? the fourth verse tells you, in those days. and if you ask again, what days those are? interpreters will tell us of a threefold day, wherein this prophecy or promise is to be fulfilled; that is, the literal or inchoative, evangelical or spiritual, universal or perfect day. the first day is a literal or inchoative day, here prophesied of, and that is already past, past long since; viz., in that day wherein the seventy years of the babylonian captivity expired; then was this prophecy or promise begun in part to be accomplished: at what time the captivity of judah, and divers of israel with them, upon their return out of babylon, kept a solemn fast at the river "ahava, to afflict their souls before their god." there may you see them going and weeping, "to seek of him a right way for them, and their little ones." there you have them seeking the lord, and inquiring the way to zion with their faces thitherward. and when they came home, you may hear some of their nobles and priests, calling upon them to enter into covenant; so shechaniah spake unto ezra, the princes, and the people, "we have sinned against the lord, ... yet now there is hope in israel concerning this thing. now therefore let us make a covenant with our god." and so you may find the levites calling the people to confess their sins with weeping and supplications, in a day of humiliation, and at the end of it, to write, and swear, and seal a covenant with "the lord their god." this was the first day wherein this prophecy began to be fulfilled, in the very letter thereof. the second day is the evangelical day, wherein this promise is fulfilled in a gospel or spiritual sense; namely, when the elect of god, of what nation or language soever, being all called the israel of god, as is prophesied, "one shall say, i am the lord's; and another shall call himself by the name of jacob, ... and surname himself by the name of israel." i say, when these in their several generations and successions shall turn to the lord their god, either from their gentilism and paganism, as in their first conversion to christianity; as tertullian observes after the resurrection of christ, and the mission of the holy ghost; _aspice exinde universas nationes ex veragine erroris humani emergentes ad dominum deum, et ad dominum christum ejus_. from that day forward, you might behold poor creatures of all nations and languages, creeping out of their dark holes and corners of blindness and idolatry, and betaking them to god and his son jesus christ, as to their law-giver and saviour; or else turning from antichristian superstition, and false ways of worship, as in the after and more full conversion of churches or persons purging themselves more and more, from the corruptions and mixtures of popery and superstitions, according to the degree of light and conviction, which should break out upon them, and asking the way to zion, _i.e._, the pure way of gospel worship, according to the fuller and clearer manifestations and revelations of the mind of christ in the gospel. this was fulfilled in luther's time, and in all those after separations which any of the churches have made from rome, and from those relics and remains of superstition and will-worship, wherewith themselves and the ordinances of jesus christ have been denied. the third day wherein this prophecy or promise is to be made good, is that universal day, wherein both jew and gentile shall be converted unto the lord. that day of the restitution of all things, as some good divines conceive when "ten men out of all languages of the nations, shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a jew, saying, we will go with you; for we have heard that god is with you." and to what purpose is more fully expressed in the former verses, answering the prophecy in the text. "thus saith the lord of hosts, it shall come to pass, that there shall come people, and the inhabitants of many cities: and the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, let us go speedily to pray before the lord, and to seek the lord of hosts; i will go also. yea, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the lord of hosts in jerusalem, and to pray before the lord." this i call the universal day, because, as you see, there shall be such an abundance of confluence of cities, and people, and nations, combining together in an holy league and covenant, to seek the lord. and a perfect day, because the mind and will of the lord shall be fully revealed and manifested to the saints, concerning the way of worship and government in the churches. the new jerusalem, _i.e._ the perfect, exact, and punctual model of the government of christ in the churches, shall then be let down from heaven. "the light of the moon being then to be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound." by what hath been spoken, you may perceive under which of these days we are: past indeed the first, but not yet arrived at the third day; and therefore under the second day, that evangelical day; yet so, as if all the three days were met together in ours, while it seems to me, that we are upon the dawning of the third day: and this prophecy falling so pat, and full upon our times, as if we were not got beyond the literal; a little variation will do it. the children of israel, and the children of judah: scotland and england, newly coming out of babylon, antichristian babylon, papal tyranny and usurpations, in one degree or other, going and weeping in the days of their solemn humiliations, bewailing their backslidings and rebellions, to seek the lord their god, to seek pardon and reconciliation, to seek his face and favour, not only in the continuance, but in the more full and sweet influential manifestations of his presence among them; and to that end, asking the way to zion with their faces thitherward; that is, inquiring after the pure way of gospel worship, with full purpose of heart; that when god shall reveal his mind to them, they will conform themselves to his mind according to that blessed prophecy and promise, "he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths." and that they may make all sure, that they may secure god and themselves against all future apostasies and backslidings, calling one upon another, and echoing back one to another: "come, let us join ourselves to the lord, in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten." you see by this time i have changed my text, tho' not my project; to which purpose i shall remember that, in the handling of these words, i must not manage my discourse, as if i were to make a new entire sermon upon the text, but only to improve the happy advantages it holds forth, for the pursuit and driving on of my present use of exhortation. come, let us join. to this end therefore, from these words, i will propound and endeavour to satisfy these three queries, . what? . why? . how? i. what the duty is, to which they mutually stir up one another? ii. why, or upon what considerations? iii. how, or in what manner this service is to be performed? and in all these you shall see what proportion the text holds with the times. the duty in our text, with the duty in our hands, pressing them on still in an exhortatory way. for the first. what the duty is? _answ._ you see that in the text; it is to join themselves to the lord, by a solemn covenant; and so is that which we have now in our hands, to join ourselves to the lord by a covenant; how far they correspond, will appear in the sequel. this is the first and main end of a covenant between god and his people, as i have shewed you, "to join themselves to the lord. the sons of the stranger that join themselves to the lord, and take hold of his covenant." this, i say, is the first and main end of the covenant in the text: the second is subordinate unto it; namely, to inquire the way to zion, _i.e._, to inquire the way and manner, how god would be worshipped; that they might dishonour and provoke him no more, by their idolatries and superstitions, which had been brought in upon the ordinances of god, by the means of apostate kings, and priests, and prophets, as in jeroboam's and ahab's reigns, and for which they had been carried into captivity. and such is the covenant that lies before us: in the first place, as i say, to join ourselves to the lord, to be knit inseparably unto him, that he may be our god, and we may be his people. and in the next place, as subservient hereunto, to ask the way to zion; to inquire and search by all holy means, sanctified to that purpose, what is that pure way of gospel worship; that we and our children after us may worship the god of spirits, the god of truth, in spirit, and in truth. in spirit opposed to carnal ways of will-worship, and inventions of men; and in truth, opposed to false hypocritical shews and pretences, since the father seeks such to worship him. now, that this is the main scope and aim of this covenant before us, will appear, if you read and ponder it with due consideration; i will therefore read it to you distinctly, this evening, besides the reading of it again to-morrow, when you come to take it; and when i have read it, i will answer the main and most material objections, which seem to make it inconsistent with these blessed ends and purposes. attend diligently while i read it to you. (the covenant was then read.) this brethren, is the covenant before us; to which god and his parliament do invite us this day; wherein the ends propounded lie fair to every impartial eye. the first article in this covenant, binding us to the reformation of religion; and the last article, to the reformation of our lives. in both, we join ourselves to the lord, and swear to ask and receive from his lips the law of this reformation. truly, this is a why, as well as a what, (that i may a little prevent myself) a motive of the first magnitude. oh! for a people or person to be joined unto the lord; to be made one with the most high god of heaven and earth, before whom and to whom we swear, is a privilege of unspeakable worth and excellency. "seemeth it (said david once to saul's servants) a small thing in your eyes, to be son-in-law to a king," seeing i am a poor man? seemeth it, may i say, a small thing to you, for poor creatures to be joined, and married, as it were, to the great god, the living god; who are so much worse than nothing, by how much sin is worse than vanity? yea, to be one with him as christ saith in that heavenly prayer of his; as he and his father are one. "that they may be one, as thou father art in me, and i in thee; that they also may be one in us." and again, "that they may be one, even as we are one." yea, perfect in one; not indeed, in the perfection of that unity, but in unity of that perfection; not made perfect in a perfection of equality, but of conformity. this is the fruit of a right managed covenant; and the greatest honour that poor mortality is capable of. moses stands admiring of it. you may read the place at your leisure. but, against this blessed service and truth, are there mustered and led up an whole regiment of objections, under the conduct of the father of lies; though some of them may seem to have some shadow of truth; and therefore so much the more carefully to be examined. i shall deal only with some of the chief commanders of them, if they be conquered the rest will vanish of their own accord. objections propounded and answered. _object._ . if this were the end of this service, yet it were needless: since we have done it over and over again, in our former protestations and covenants; and so this repetition may seem to be a profanation of so holy an ordinance, by making of it so ordinary, and nothing else, but a taking of god's name in vain. to this i answer. _answ._ . it cannot be done too oft; if it be done according to the law and order of so solemn an ordinance. . the people in the text might have made the same objection; it lay as strong against the work, to which they encourage one another: for surely, this was not the first time they engaged themselves to god by way of covenant; but having broken their former covenants, they thought it their privilege, and not their burden to renew it again, and to make it more full, stable, and impregnable than ever; "a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten"; which hints . and that is, there was never yet so full and strict a covenant tendered to us since we were a people. former covenants have had their defect and failings, like the best of god's people: but i may say of this in reference to other covenants, as solomon of his good house-wife, in reference to other women; "other daughters have done well, but thou hast exceeded them all." other covenants have done well, but this hath exceeded them all; like paul among the apostles, it goes beyond them all, though it seems to be born out of due time. now, if your leases and covenants among men be either lame or forfeited; need men persuade you to have them renewed and perfected? of how much greater concernment is this, between god and us, o! ye of little faith? . you receive the sacrament of the lord's supper once a month, and some will not be kept off, tho' they have no part, nor portion in that mystery, say the ministers of christ what they can; and the sacrament is but the seal of the covenant; consider it, and be convinced. _object._ . but secondly, it is objected there be some clauses in this covenant, that serve rather to divide us farther from god, than join us nearer to him; as binding us to inquire the way to zion of men rather than of god; to receive the law of reformation from scotland, and other churches, and not from the lips of the great prophet of the churches. in the article, we swear first to maintain the religion, as it is already reformed in scotland, in doctrine, government, and discipline; wherein, first, the most shall swear they know not what; and secondly, we swear to conform ourselves here in england, to their government and discipline in scotland which is presbyterial, and for ought we know, as much tyrannical, and more antichristian than that of prelacy, which we swear to extirpate; yea, some have not been afraid to call it the antichrist that is now in the world. _answ._ . to whom i first answer, beseeching them in the bowels of compassion, and spirit of meekness, to take heed of such rash and unchristian censures, least god hear, and it displease him; and they themselves possibly be found to commit the sin and incur the woe of them that "call evil good, and good evil." . whereas they object that many shall swear they know not what, the most being totally ignorant of the discipline of scotland, and very few understanding it distinctly. i would have these remember and consider two examples in scripture the one of king josiah, the other of the women and children in nehemiah's time. josiah (as the text tells us) not being above eight years of age, "while he was yet young, began to seek after the lord god of david his father; and in the twelfth year he began to purge judah and jerusalem." and this purging and reformation he did by covenant, wherein he swore, to "walk after the lord, and to keep his commandments, and his testimonies, and his statutes." which surely, at that age, we cannot conceive he did distinctly and universally understand; no more could all the men, their wives and their sons, and their daughters, that took the covenant (in nehemiah's time) understand all things in particular to which that covenant did bind them; since they did enter into a curse, and an oath, not only to refuse all intermarriages with the heathen, but also to walk in god's law, which was given by moses, and to observe and do all the commandments of the lord, and his judgments, and his statutes. surely there were in this multitude, not an inconsiderable number that were not acquainted with all the moral precepts, judicial laws, and ceremonial statutes, which god commanded the people by the hand of moses. there be two things i know, that may be replied against these instances. . that of those women and children in nehemiah, it is said in the same place, they were of understanding, "every one having knowledge, and having understanding; they clave unto their brethren, their nobles, and entered into a curse." . that there is a great difference between the laws and statutes to which they swore, and this government and discipline to which we swear in this covenant. those laws and statutes were ordained immediately of god himself; and therefore being infallibly right, unquestionably holy, and just, and good, josiah and the people might lawfully swear observance to them with an implicit faith; but not so in a government and discipline set up by man, by a church, be it never so pure and holy: for their light being but a borrowed light, and they not privileged with an infallible spirit (as the apostles) their resolutions and ordinances may be liable to mistake and error; and therefore, to swear observance to them by an implicit faith, is more than comes to their share, and as unwarrantable as it is unsafe for a people or person to do, who are yet ignorant or unsatisfied in the whole, or in any particular. to these objections i rejoin: _first_, that that description of the covenanters in nehemiah, that "they were of understanding, and knowledge," supposeth not a distinct actual cognizance of every particular ordinance, judgment, statute, and provision, in all the three laws, moral, judicial, ceremonial, in every one that took the covenant; that being not only needless but impossible; but it implies only a capacity to receive instruction and information in the things they swore unto, tho' at present they were ignorant of many of the severals contained in that oath. and so far this rule obtains among us; children that are not yet come to understanding, and fools, being not admitted to this service, as not capable of instruction. _answ._ . to the second (tho' more considerable) yet the answer is not very difficult: for, _first_, we do not swear to observe that discipline, but to preserve it: i may preserve that, which in point of conscience i cannot observe, or not, at least, swear to observe. _second_, we swear to preserve it, not in opposition to any other form of government that may be found agreeable to the word, but in opposition against a common enemy, which is a clause of so wide a latitude, and easy a digestion, as the tenderest conscience need not kick at it; this preservation relating not so much to the government, as to the persons or nation under this government; not so much to preserve it as to preserve them in it, against a prelatical party at home, or a popish party abroad, that should attempt by violence to destroy them, or to force another government upon them, that should be against the word of god; under which latitude, i see not but we might enter into the like covenant with lutherans, or other reformed churches, whose government, discipline, and worship, is yet exceedingly corrupted with degenerate mixtures. _third_, neither in the preservation of their government, nor in the reformation of ours, do we swear to any thing of man's; but to what shall be found to be the mind of christ. witness that clause, article : "according to the word of god:" so that upon the matter, it is no more than josiah and the people in nehemiah swore to; namely, "what shall appear to be the statutes and laws which christ hath left in his word, concerning the regimen of his church?" _fourth_, nay, not so much; for we are not yet called to swear the observation of any kind of government, that is or shall be presented to us, but to endeavour the reformation of religion in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, according to the word of god. in the faithful and impartial search and pursuit whereof, if scotland, or any of the reformed churches, can hold us forth any clearer light than our own, we receive it not as our rule, but as such an help to expound our rule, as christ himself hath allowed us. in which case, we are bound to kiss not the lips only, but the very feet of them that shall be able to shew us "the way to zion." so that still, it is not the voice of the churches but of christ in the churches, that we covenant to listen to, in this pursuit; that is to say, that we will follow them, as they follow christ: and when all is done, and a reformation (through the assistance and blessing of the lord jesus christ, that great king and prophet of his church) resolved on according to this rule thus interpreted, under what notion or obligation the observation of it shall be commended to us, _sub judice lis est_, it is yet in the bosom and breast of authority; we are as yet called to swear to nothing in this kind. so much in reference to the instances. _answ._ . i answer further to the satisfying of this second doubt, that by this covenant, we are bound no more to conform to scotland, than scotland to us: the stipulation being mutual, and this stipulation binding us not so much to conform one to another, as both of us to the word; wherein, if we can meet, who would not look upon it, as upon the precious fruit of christ's prayer: "that they might be one, as we are one?" and the beauty and safety of both nations, and of as many of the churches as the lord our god shall persuade to come into this holy and blessed association? _object._ . a third objection falls upon the second article or branch of this covenant; wherein it is feared by some, that we swear to extirpate that which, for ought we know, upon due inquiry, may be found the way to zion, the way of evangelical government, which christ and his apostles have set up in the church. _answ._ where lies that, think you? in what clause or word of the article? who can tell? surely not in popery; or if there be any that think that the way, i would wish their persons in rome, since their hearts are there already. is it in superstition? nay, superstition properly consisteth in will-worship, "teaching for doctrine the traditions of men;" this cannot be the way to zion, which christ hath chalked out to us in his word. no more can heresy, which is the opposition to sound doctrine; nor schism, which is the rent of the church's peace; nor profaneness, the poison of her conversation. none but superstitious heretics, schismatics, profane persons, will call these the way to zion; nor these neither, under the name and notion of superstition, heresy, schism, profaneness; for the heretic will not call his doctrine heresy; nor the superstitious, his innovation superstition; nor the schismatic, his turbulent practices schism; nor lastly, the profane person, his lewdness profaneness; tho' they love the thing, they hate the name. and this, before we go further, occasions another objection, which you must give me leave both to make and answer in a parenthesis, and then i will return. _object._ how can we swear the extirpation of these, since, who shall be judge? while some will be ready to call that schism and superstition, which is not; and others deny that to be heresy, superstition, schism, which is? _answ._ . to which i answer, by the same argument, we ought not to covenant against popery and drunkenness, sabbath-breaking, nor any other sin whatsoever, there being nothing so gross but it will find some friends to justify, and plead for it; which if we shall not condemn till all parties be agreed on the verdict, we shall never proceed to judgment, while the world stands. . the word must be the rule and the judge, say men what they please, _pro_ or _con_. . and if the matter be indeed so disputable, that it lies not in my faculty to pronounce sentence, i have my dispensation to suspend, till the world determine the controversy. i now return; if then in none of these, the doubt must of necessity lie in that word prelacy. and is that indeed the way of gospel government? is that it indeed which bears away the bell of _jure divino_? what is it then that hath destroyed all gospel order, and government and worship, in these kingdoms, as in other places of the christian world, even down to the ground? hath it not been prelacy? what is it that hath taken down a teaching ministry, and set up in the room a teaching-ceremony? is it not prelacy? what is it that hath silenced, suspended, imprisoned, deprived, banished, so many godly, learned, able ministers of the gospel; yea, and killed some of them with their unheard of cruelties, and thrust into their places idol, idle shepherds; dumb dogs that cannot bark (unless it were at the flock of christ; so they learned of their masters, both to bark and bite too) greedy dogs that could never have enough, that did tear out the loins and bowels of their own people for gain, heap living upon living, preferment upon preferment; swearing, drunken, unclean priests, that taught nothing but rebellion in israel, and caused people to abhor the sacrifice of the lord: arminian, popish, idolatrous, vile wretches, such as, had job been alive, he would not have set with the dogs of his flock; who, i say, brought in these? did not prelacy? what hath hindered the reformation of religion all this while in doctrine, government, and worship? prelacy, a generation of men they were, that never had a vote for jesus christ; yea, what hath poisoned and adulterated religion in all these branches, and hath let in popery and profaneness upon the kingdom like a flood, for the raising of their own pomp and greatness, but prelacy? in a word, prelacy it is, that hath set its impure and imperious feet, one upon the church, the other upon the state, and hath made both serve as pharaoh did the israelites, with rigour. surely, their government hath been a yoke which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear. now, that which hath done this, and a thousand times more violence and mischief to christ and his people, than the tongue or pen of man is able to express; can that be the way of or to zion? can that be the government of christ and his church? _object._ aye, but there be that will tell us, these have been the faults of the persons, and not of the calling? _answ._ . so cry some indeed, that ye like the men, as well as their calling, and would justify the persons as well as the office, but that their wickedness is made so manifest that impudency itself cannot deny it. but is it indeed only the fault of the men, not of the calling? what meant then that saying of queen elizabeth, "that when she had made a bishop, she had spoiled a preacher?" was it only a jest? . and i wish we had not too just cause to add, the man too. surely of the most of them we may say, as once arnobius spake of the gentiles, _apud vos optimi censentur quos comparatio pessimorum sic facit_. give me leave to vary it a little: he was a good bishop, that was not the worst man; but if there were some of a better complexion, who yet, _apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto_, were very rarely discovered in their episcopal see; yet, . look into their families, and they were for the most part the vilest in the diocese, a very nest of unclean birds; and, . if you had looked into their courts and consistories, you would have thought you had been in caiaphas' hall, where no other trade was driven but the crucifying of christ in his members. . but fifthly, produce me one in this last succession of bishops (i hope the last) that had not his hands imbrued more or less in the blood of the faithful ministry, (i say not ministers, but ministry) produce a man amongst them all, that durst be so conscientious as to lay down his bishoprick, rather than he would lay violent hands upon a non-conforming minister, though he had failed but in one point of their compass of ceremonies, when their great master, the pope of canterbury, commanded it, although both for life, learning, and orthodox religion, their consciences did compel them to confess with pilate, "we find no fault in this just person." i say, produce me such a bishop amongst the whole bunch, in this latter age, and i will down on my knees, and ask them forgiveness. oh! it was sure a mischievous poisoned soil, in which, whatsoever plant was set did hardly ever thrive after. . but yet further, was not the calling as bad as the men? you may as well say so of the papacy in rome, for surely the prelacy of england, which we swore to extirpate, was the very same fabric and model of ecclesiastical regimen, that is in that antichristian world; yea, such an evil it is that some divines, venerable for their great learning, as well as for their eminent holiness, did conceive sole episcopal jurisdiction to be the very seat of the beast, upon which the fifth angel is now pouring out his vial, which is the reason that the men of that kingdom "gnaw their tongues for pain, and blaspheme the god of heaven." _object._ aye, but it is therefore pleaded further against this clause, that although it may be prelacy with all its adjuncts and accidents of archbishops, chancellors, and commissaries, deans, &c., may have haply been the cause of these evils that have broken in upon us, and perhaps antichristian; yet should we therefore swear the extirpation of all prelacy, or episcopacy whatsoever; since there may be found perhaps in scripture an episcopacy or prelacy, which, circumcised from these exuberant members and officers, may be that government christ hath bequeathed his church in the time of the gospel? _answ._ now we shall quickly close this business. for, . it is this prelacy, thus clothed, thus circumstanced, which we swear to extirpate; read else the clause again, prelacy, that is, church government by archbishops, bishops, their chancellors. not every, or all kinds of prelacy; not prelacy in the latitude of the notion thereof. . and secondly, let us join issue upon this point, and make no more words of it; if there be an episcopacy or prelacy found in the word, as the way of gospel-government, which christ hath bequeathed the churches, and this be made appear, we are so far from swearing to extirpate such a prelacy, as that rather we are bound by virtue of this oath to entertain it, as the mind and will of jesus christ. and this might suffice to warrant our covenanting to extirpate this prelacy, save that only. yet some seem conscientiously to scruple this in the last place. _object._ that they see not what there is to warrant our swearing, to extirpate that which is established by the law of the land, till the same law have abolished it. to which i answer, . if the law of the land had abolished it, we need not swear the extirpation of it. . in this oath, the parliaments of both kingdoms go before us, who, having the legislative power in their hands, have also _potestatem vitæ et necis_, over laws, as well as over persons, and may as well put to death the evil laws that do offend against the kingdom and the welfare of it, as the evil persons that do offend against the laws. . who therefore, thirdly, if they may lawfully annul and abolish laws that are found to sin against the law of god, and the good of the kingdom may as lawfully bind themselves by an oath, to use the uttermost of their endeavours to annul and abolish those laws; their oath being nothing else but a solemn engagement to endeavour to perform what they have warrantably resolved upon; and with the same equity may they bind the kingdom to assist them in so doing. . which is all that the people are engaged to by this covenant. not to outrun the parliament in this extirpation, but to follow and serve them in it, by such concurrence as they may expect from each person in their stations and callings; for that clause, expressed in the first and third article, is to be understood in all. _object._ if it be yet objected, that the members of parliament have, at one time or other, sworn to preserve the laws; and therefore to swear to endeavour the extirpation of prelacy, which is established by law, is to contradict their own oath and run the hazard of perjury: it is easy for any one to observe and answer. . that by the same argument, neither may king and parliament together change or annul a law, though found destructive to the good of the kingdoms, since his majesty, as well as his subjects, are bound up under the same oath at his coronation. . but again, there is a vast difference between the members of parliament, simply considered in their private capacities, wherein they may be supposed to take an oath to maintain the laws of the land; and that public capacity of a parliament, whereby they are judges of those laws, and may, as i said before, endeavour the removal of such as are found pernicious to the church or state, and make such as will advantage the welfare of others; his majesty being bound by his coronation-oath, to confirm these laws, which the commons shall agree upon and present unto his majesty. _object._ aye, but it seems this objection lies full and strong upon them that stand in their single private stations. i answer, that if there be any such oath, which yet i have never seen nor heard of, unless the objection mean that clause in the late parliament protestation, wherein we vow and protest to maintain and defend the lawful rights and liberties of the subject; surely, neither in that nor this, do we swear against a lawful endeavour to get any such laws or clause of the law repealed and abolished, which is found a wrong, rather than a right, and the bondage, rather than the liberty of the subject, as prelacy was. had we indeed taken the bishop's oath, or the like, never to have given our consent to have the government by episcopacy changed or altered, we had brought ourselves into a woful snare; but, blessed be god, that snare is broken, and we are escaped; while, in the mean time without all doubt, the subject may as lawfully use all lawful means to get that law removed, which yet he hath promised or sworn to obey, while it remains, when it proves prejudicial to the public safety and welfare; as a poor captive, that hath peradventure sworn obedience to the turk, (while he remains in his possession) may notwithstanding use all fair endeavours for an escape or ransom. or a prentice that is bound to obey his master; yet, when he finds his service turned into a bondage, may use lawful means to obtain his freedom. but once more to answer both objections; it is worth your inquiry, whether the plea of a legal establishment of this prelacy, sworn against in this covenant, be not rather a tradition, than any certain or confessed truth. sure i am, we have it from the hands of persons of worth and honour; the ablest secretaries of laws and antiquities in our kingdom, that there is no such law or statute to be found upon the file, among our records. which assertion, if it cannot find faith, we will once more join issue with the patrons or followers of this prelacy, upon this point, that when they produce that law or statute which doth enact and establish prelacy, as it is here branched in the article, we will then give them a fuller answer, or yield the question. to conclude therefore, since this prelacy in the article, this many headed monster of archbishops, bishops, their chancellors and commissaries, deans, deans and chapters, archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical officers depending on that hierarchy, is the beast, wherewith we fight in this covenant, which hath been found so destructive to church and state; let us not fear to take this sword of the covenant of god into our hands, and say to this enemy of christ, as samuel said once to agag, (at what time he said within himself, "surely the bitterness of death is past") "as thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women." so hath prelacy flattered itself, finding such a party to stand up on its side among the rotten lords and commons, the debauched gentry, and abased people of the kingdom: "surely the bitterness of death is past." "i sit as a queen, and shall not know widow-hood, or loss of children." in the midst of this security and pride, the infallible forerunners of her downfall, let us call her forth, and say, as thy sword, prelacy, hath made many women childless, many a faithful minister peopleless, houseless and libertyless, their wives husbandless, their children and their congregations fatherless, and pastorless, and guideless; so thy mother, papacy, shall be made childless among harlots, your diocese bishopless, and your sees lordless, and your places shall know you no more. come, my brethren, i say, and fear not to take this agag, (prelacy, i mean, not the prelates) and hew it in pieces before the lord. _object._ . a fourth and main objection that troubles many, is, that in the following article there are divers things of another nature that should fall within the compass of such a covenant, as that which the text holds forth, "to join ourselves to the lord." there be state-matters, and such too, as are full of doubt, and perhaps of danger, to be sworn unto. i shall answer, first, the general charge, and then some of the particulars which are most material. in general, i answer, there is nothing in the body of this covenant which is not either purely religious, or which lies not in a tendency to religion, conducing to the securing and promoting thereof. and as, in the expounding the commandments, divines take this rule, that that command which forbids a sin, forbids also all the conducibles and provocations to that sin, all the tendencies to it: and that command which enjoins a duty, enjoins all the mediums and advancers to that duty; circumstances fall within the latitude of the command: so in religious covenants, not only those things which are of the substance and integrals of religion, but even the collaterals and subserviences that tend either to the establishing or advancing of religion, may justly be admitted within the verge and pale of the covenant. the cities of refuge had their suburbs appointed by god, as well as their habitations, and even they also were counted holy. the rights and privileges of the parliaments, and the liberties of the kingdom, mentioned in the third article; they are the suburbs of the gospel, and an inheritance bequeathed by god to nations and kingdoms, and, under that notion, holy. concerning which a people may lawfully reply to the unjust demands of emperors, kings, or states, as naboth once to ahab, when demanded to yield up his vineyard to his majesty: "god forbid, that i should give the inheritance of my father." these be the outworks of religion, the lines of communication, as i may so say, for the defence of this city; which the prelates well knew, and therefore you see, it was their great design first, by policy to have surprised, and, when that would not do, then, by main strength of battle, to storm these outworks: well knowing, that if they once had won these, they should quickly be masters also of the holy city, religion itself, and do what they listed. and, therefore, the securing of these must of necessity be taken into the same councils and covenant with religion itself. this premised in general, we shall easily and apace satisfy the particular scruples and queries as i go. . _scruple._ the most part that swear this covenant are in a great degree, if not totally, ignorant what the rights and privileges of the parliament, and the liberties of the kingdoms are, and how can they then swear to maintain they know not what? . by the same argument no man, or very few, might lawfully swear to maintain the king's prerogatives in the paths of allegiance and supremacy; nor the king himself swear to maintain the liberties of the subject, as he doth in his oath at his coronation. . but there is hardly any person so ignorant but knows there are privileges belonging to the parliaments, and liberties belonging to the subject. . and that it is the duty of every subject, according to his place and power, to maintain these; so that, in taking of this covenant, we swear to do no more than our duty binds us to; in which there is no danger, tho' we do not in every point know how far that duty extends in every branch and several thereof. . in swearing to do my duty, whether to god or man, if i be ignorant of many particulars, i oblige myself to these two things. . to use the best means to inform myself of the particulars. . to conform myself to what i am informed to be my duty. which yet, in the case in hand, doth admit of a further latitude, namely, that which lies in the very word and letter of this article (as in most of the rest) in our several vocations; which doth not bind every one to the same degree of knowledge, nor the same way of preservation: as for example, i do not conceive every magistrate is bound to know so much, no, nor to endeavour to know so much, as parliament-men; nor every member of parliament so much as judges; nor ministers so much as the lawyers; nor ordinary people so much as ministers; nor servants so much as masters; nor all to preserve them the same way; parliament-men by demanding them, lawyers by pleading, judges by giving the sense and mind of the law, ministers by preaching, magistrates by defending, people by assisting, praying, yielding obedience. all, if the exigencies arise so high, and the state call for it, by engaging their estates and lives, in case they be invaded by an unlawful power. and in case of ignorance, the thing we bind ourselves to is this, that if at any time any particular shall be in question, what the parliament shall make appear to be their right or the liberty of the subject, we promise to contribute such assistance for the preservation or reparation thereof, as the nature of the thing, and wisdom of the state shall call for at our hands, in our several places. . _scruple._ but some are offended, while they conceive in the same article, that the clause wherein we swear the preservation and defence of the king's person and authority, doth lie under some restraint, by that limitation; in the preservation and defence of the true religion, and the liberties of the kingdom. to which we reply. . it maintains him as far as he is a king: he may be a man, but sure no king, without the lists and verge of religion and laws, it being religion and laws that make him a king. . it maintains his person and estate, as far as his majesty himself doth desire and expect to be defended; for, sure his justice cannot desire to be defended against, but in the preservation of religion and laws; and his wisdom cannot expect it, since he cannot believe that they will make conscience of defending his person, who make no conscience of preserving religion and the laws; i mean, when the ruin of his person and authority may advance their own cursed designs. they that, for their ends, will defend his person and authority against religion and liberties of the kingdom, will with the same conscience defend their own ends against his person and authority, when they have power in their hands. the lord deliver his majesty from such defenders, by what names or titles soever they be called. . who doubts but that religion and laws, (wherein the rights and liberties of kingdoms are bound up) are the best security of the persons and authority of kings and governors? and the while kings will defend these, these will defend kings? it being impossible that princes should suffer violence or indignity, while they are within the munition of religion and laws; or if the prince suffer, these must of necessity suffer with him. . i make a question, whether this limitation lie any more upon the defence of the king's person and authority, than it doth upon the rights and privileges of parliaments, and the liberties of the kingdom, since there is no point or stop in the article to appropriate it more to the defence of the king's person and authority, than to the preservation of the rights and privileges of the parliaments, and the liberties of the kingdoms? . and lastly, this clause is not to be understood exclusive, as excluding all other cases wherein the kingdoms stand bound to preserve his majesty's person and authority, but only as expressing that case wherein the safety of his person and authority doth most highly concern both king and kingdoms, especially at such a time as this is, when both are so furiously and implacably encountered by a malignant army of desperate parricides, papists, and their prelatical party. these objections answered, and difficulties removed, we proceed to the examining of the rest of the particulars, in the following articles. the discovery of incendiaries or malignants that have been, or shall be, to which the fourth article binds us: doth it not lie also in a necessary tendency to the securing and preserving of this covenant inviolable with the most high god, in point of reformation? for can we hope a thorough reformation, according to the mind of christ, if opposers of reformation may escape scot-free, undiscovered and unpunished? or, can we indeed love or promote a reformation, and in the mean time countenance or conceal the enemies of it? this is clear, yet it wants not a scruple, and that peradventure which may trouble a sincere heart. _object._ it is this, having once taken this oath, if we hear a friend, or brother, yea, perhaps a father, a husband, or a wife, let fall a word of dislike of the parliament, or assembly's proceedings in either kingdom; or that discovers another judgment, or opinion; or a word of passion unadvisedly uttered, and do not presently discover and complain of it, we pull upon ourselves the guilt or danger of perjury, which will be a mighty snare to thousands of well affected people. to which i answer. . the objection lays the case much more narrow than the words of the article, which distinguisheth the incendiary or malignant, which is to be discovered by a threefold character, or note of malignity. _first_, hindering the reformation of religion. _secondly_, dividing the king from his people, or one kingdom from another. _thirdly_, making any faction or parties amongst the people, contrary to the league and covenant. now, every dislike of some passage in parliament or assembly's proceedings; every dissent in judgment and opinion; every rash word or censure, that may possibly be let fall through passion and inadvertency, will not amount to so high a degree of malignity as is here expressed, nor consequently bring one within the compass of this oath and covenant. a suitable and seasonable caution or conviction may suffice in such a case. . but, suppose the malignity to arise to that height here expressed in any of the branches thereof; i do not conceive the first work this oath of god binds us to, is to make a judicial discovery thereof; while, without controversy, our saviour's rule of dealing with our brethren in cases of offence is not here excluded; which is, . to see what personal admonition will do; which, toward a superior, as husband, parent, master, or the like, must be managed with all wisdom and reverence. if they hear us, we have made a good day's work of it; we have gained our brother; if not, then the rule directs us yet. . in the second place, to take with us two or three more; if they do the deed, thou mayest sit down with peace and thankfulness. . if, after all this, the party shall persist in destructive practices to hinder reformation, to divide the king from his people, or one kingdom from another; or lastly, to make factions or parties among the people; be it the man of thine house, the husband of thy youth, the wife of thy bosom, the son of thy loins: "levi must know neither father nor mother," private relations must give way to public safety; thou must with all faithfulness endeavour the discovery, thine "eye must not pity nor spare." it is a case long since stated by god himself; and when complaint is made to any person in authority, the plaintiff is discharged, and the matter rests upon the hands of authority. provided, notwithstanding, that there be, in the use of all the former means, that latitude allowed which the apostle gives in case of heresy; "a first and second admonition." this course, not only the rule of our saviour in general, but the very words of the covenant itself, doth allow, for, though the clause be placed in the sixth article, yet it hath reference to all, viz., "what we are not able ourselves to suppress or overcome, we shall reveal and make known." so that, if the malignity fall within our own or our friends' ability to conquer, we have discharged our duty to god and the kingdoms, and may sit down with comfort in our bosoms. that which remains in the other two articles, i cannot see how it affords any occasion of an objection; and the reference it hath to the reformation and preservation of religion, is easy and clear to any eye, that is not wilfully blind; the preservation of peace between the two kingdoms, in the fifth article, being the pillar of religion; for how can religion and reformation stand, if any blind malignant samson be suffered to pull down the pillars of peace and union? besides, it was a branch of that very covenant in the text, as well as of that in our hands. the children of israel and judah, which had a long time been disunited, and in that disunion had many bloody and mortal skirmishes and battles, now at length by the good hand of god upon them, take counsel to join themselves, first one to another, and then both unto god. let us "join ourselves," and then to "the lord, in a perpetual covenant." surely, not only this copy in the text, but the wormwood and the gall of our civil combustions and wars, which our souls may have in remembrance to our dying day, and be humbled within us, may powerfully persuade us to a cheerful engagement of ourselves, for the preservation of a firm peace and union between the kingdoms, to all posterity. and lastly, as peace is the pillar of religion, so mutual assistance and defence of all those that enter into this league and covenant, in the maintaining and pursuance thereof, (mentioned in that sixth and last article) is the pillar of that peace, _divide et impera_; desert one another, and we expose ourselves to the lusts of our enemies. and who can object against the securing of ourselves, and the state, against a detestable indifferency or neutrality, but they must, _ipso facto_, proclaim to all the world that they intend before-hand to turn neutrals or apostates? to conclude, therefore, having thus examined the several articles of the covenant, and the material clauses in those articles; and finding them to be, if not of the same nature, yet of the same design with the preface and conclusion; the one whereof, as i told you, at the entrance, obligeth us to the reformation of religion; the other, of our lives, as serving to the immediate and necessary support and perfecting of these blessed and glorious ends and purposes: i shall need to apologise no further in the vindicating and asserting of this covenant before us. could we be so happy, as to bring hearts suitable to this service: could we set up such aims and ends as the covenant holds forth; the glory of god, the good of the kingdoms, and honour of the king, to which, this covenant, and every several part thereof, doth humbly prostrate itself, all would conspire to make us and our posterity after us, an happy and glorious people to all generations. to them that object out of conscience, these poor resolutions may afford some relief, if not satisfaction; or, if these slender endeavours fall short of my design, and the reader's desires herein, i shall send them to their labours, who have taken more able and fruitful pains in this subject. to them that object out of a spirit of bitterness and malignity, nothing will suffice. he that is resolved to err, is satisfied with nothing but that which strengthens his error. and these i leave to such arguments and convictions, which the wisdom and justice of authority shall judge more proper; while i proceed to the second query propounded, for the managing of this use of exhortation; why? or, upon what considerations we may be persuaded to undertake this service? to enter into this holy covenant. and the first motive that may engage us hereunto is the consideration, how exceedingly god hath been dishonoured among us, by all sorts of covenant-violation, as hath been formerly discovered at large; in the avenging whereof, the angel of the covenant stands, as once at the door of paradise, with a flaming sword in his hand, ready to cut us off, and cast us out of this garden of god--this good land wherein he hath planted us thus long. i may say unto you therefore, concerning ourselves, as once moses in another case, concerning miriam; "if her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed?" if our father had but spit in our face by some inferior correction, should we not be ashamed? ought we not to be greatly humbled before him? how much more, when "he hath poured out upon us the fury of his wrath, and it hath burned us; and the strength of battle, and it hath set on fire round about?" should we not lay it to heart, and use all means to pacify the fierceness of his anger, lest it burn down to the very foundations of the land, and none be able to quench it? yea, secondly, a wonderful mercy, and an high favour we may count it from god, that yet such a sovereign means is left us for our recovery and reconciliation. infinite condescension and goodness it is in our god that, after so many fearful provocations by our unhallowed and treacherous dealing in the covenant, he will vouchsafe yet to have any thing to do with us, that he will yet trust or try us any more, by admitting us to renew our covenant with his majesty, when he might in justice rather say unto us, as to the wicked, "what have you to do, that you should take my covenant into your mouths, seeing you hate instruction, and cast my words behind you?" certainly, had man broken with us, as oft as we have broken with god, we should never trust them any more, but account them as the off-scouring of mankind, the vilest, the basest that ever trode upon god's ground; and yet that after so many unworthy and treacherous departures from our god, after so much unfaithfulness and perfidiousness in the covenant, (such as it is not in the capacity of one man to be guilty of towards another) that god should say to us, as once to his own people, "thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return to me, saith the lord:" oh, wonder of free grace! oh, might this privilege be offered to the apostate angels, which kept not the covenant of their creation, nor consequently their first estate, and to the rest of the damned souls in hell! would god send an angel from heaven to preach unto them a second covenant, upon the laying hold whereon, and closing wherewith, they might be received into grace and favour; how would those poor damned spirits bestir themselves! what rattling of their red-hot chains! what shaking of their fiery locks! in a word, what an uproar of joy would there be in hell, upon such glad tidings! how many glorious churches, as capernaum, bethsaida, the seven churches of asia, with others in latter times, who have for their covenant-violation been cast down from the top of heaven, where once they sat in the beauty and glory of the ordinances, to the very bottom of hell, a dark and doleful condition; and god hath never spoken such a word of comfort, nor made any such offer of recovery, and reconciliation unto them, as he hath done to us unto this day? "surely he hath not dealt so with any people." let it be our wisdom, and our thankfulness, to accept of it, with both hands; yea, both with hands and hearts. if god give us hearts suitable to this price that is in our hands, covenanting hearts, as he gives us yet leave and opportunity to renew our covenant, it will be to me a blessed security that we are not yet a lost people; and a new argument of hope, that he intends to do england good. if neglected and despised, whether this may not be the last time that ever england shall hear from god, i much doubt, unless it be in such a voice as that is, "i would have healed england, and she will not be healed; because i would have purged thee, and thou art not purged, thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more, till i have caused my fury to rest upon thee." the lord forbid such a thing: "for, how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" _thirdly_, we may be mightily encouraged to this service, in as much as it is prophesied of, as the great duty and privilege of gospel-times. you see the evangelical day, is one of those days wherein this prophecy and promise must be fulfilled. and it is the same privilege and happiness which was prophesied of, under the type of the sticks made one, in the hand of the prophet ezekiel, (ezek. xxxvii. . .) for, though in the literal sense, it be to be understood, as it is expressed, of the happy reunion of that unhappy divided seed of jacob, joseph and ephraim, israel and judah; yet in a gospel sense, it is to be applied to the churches of jesus christ, in the latter days, which tho' formerly divided and miserably torn by unnatural quarrels, and wars, yet christ, the king of the church, hath a day wherein he will make them one in his own hand: the great and gracious design which we humbly conceive christ hath now upon these two nations, england and scotland, even after all their sad divisions and civil discords, to make them one in his right hand, to all generations. and this gives me assurance, that the work shall go on and prosper, yea, prosper gloriously, it having a stronger foundation to support it than heaven and earth, for they are upheld but by a word of power. but this work, which is called the new heavens and the new earth, is upheld by a word of promise; for "we, according to his promise, look for new heavens, and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness." i say, by a word of prophecy and promise, which, it seems, is stronger than god himself; for his word binds him, so that he can as soon deny himself, as deny his promise. there shall be therefore an undoubted accomplishment of these things, which are told us from the lord. god will find, or make a people, who shall worship him in this holy ordinance; and upon whom he will make good all the mercy and truth; all the peace and salvation which is bound up in it: only therefore let me caution and beseech you, not to be wanting to yourselves and your own happiness: "judge not yourselves unworthy of such a privilege," nor "reject the counsel of god against your own souls; sin not against your own mercies," by withdrawing yourselves from this service, or rebelling against it. "god will exclude none, that do not exclude themselves." yea, further, this seems to speak an argument of hope, that the calling of the jews, and the fulness of the gentiles, is not far behind; inasmuch as god begins now to pour out his promise in the text upon the churches, in a more eminent manner than ever we, or our fathers, saw it in a gospel sense: and, surely, gospel performance must make way for that full and universal accomplishment thereof, which shall unite "israel and judah, jew and gentile, in one perpetual covenant unto the lord, that shall never be forgotten." the gospel day is nothing else but the dawning of that great universal day in the text, wherein god will make one glorious church of jew and gentile; the day star whereof is now risen in our horizon: so that i am humbly confident that the same shores shall not bound this covenant, which bound the two now covenanting nations; but, as it is said of the gospel, so it will be verified of this gospel covenant; "the sound thereof will go into all the earth, and the words of it to the ends of the world." there is a spirit of prophecy that doth animate this covenant, which will make it swift and active; swift to run: "his word runs very swiftly." and active, to work deliverance and safety not only to these two kingdoms, but to all other christian churches groaning under, or in danger of, the yoke of antichristian tyranny, whom god shall persuade to join in the same, or like association and covenant. so that, me-thinks, all that travail with the psalmist's desire "of seeing the good of god's chosen, and rejoicing in the gladness of his nation, and glorying with his inheritance," will certainly rejoice in this day, and in the goodness of god which hath crowned it with the accomplishment of such a precious promise as here lies before us: while none can withdraw from, much less oppose, this service, but such as bear evil will to zion, and would be unwilling to see the ruin and downfall of antichrist, which this blessed covenant doth so evidently threaten. _fourthly_, this hath been the practice of all the churches of god, before and since christ; after their apostasies, and captivities for those apostasies, and recoveries out of these captivities, the first thing they did was to cement themselves to god, by a more close, entire, and solemn covenant than ever. nehemiah, ezra, hezekiah, jeremiah, josiah, will all bring in clear evidences to witness this practice. this, latter churches have learned of them, germany, france, scotland. but what shall i need to mention the churches, whenas the god of the churches took this course himself; who, when he pleases to become the god of any people or person, it is by covenant; as with abraham, "behold, i make a covenant with thee." and whatever mercies he bestows upon them, it is by covenant. all the blessings of god's people are covenant blessings: to wicked men, god gives with his left hand, out of the basket of common providence; but to his saints, he dispenseth with his right hand, out of the ark of the covenant. "i will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of david." yea, which is yet more to our purpose, when the first covenant proved not, but miscarried, not by any fault that was in the covenant-maker, no, nor simply in the covenant itself; for, if man could have kept it, it would have given him life; i say, when it was broken, god makes a new covenant with his people. "not according to the covenant which i made with their fathers, which my covenant they brake.... but this shall be the covenant, ... i will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their god, and they shall be my people." because they could not keep the first covenant, god made a second that should keep them. oh! that while we are making a covenant with our god, he would please to make such a covenant with us; so would it be indeed a "perpetual covenant, that should not be forgotten." well, you see we have a covenanting god, a covenant-making god, and a covenant-renewing god; be we "followers of god, as dear children:" let us be a covenanting people, a covenant making, a covenant-renewing people; and as our god, finding fault with the first, let us make a "new covenant, even a perpetual covenant, that shall never be forgotten." a _fifth_ motive to quicken us to this duty, may be even the practice of the antichristian state and kingdom; popery hath been dexterous to propagate and spread itself by this means. what else have been all their fraternities and brotherhoods, and societies, but so many associations and combinations politic, compacted and obliged, by oaths and covenants, for the advancing of the catholic cause, whereby nations and kingdoms have been subdued to the obedience of the roman mitre? and prelacy (that whelp) hath learned this policy of its mother papacy (that lioness) to corroborate and raise itself to that height, we have seen and suffered by these artifices; while, by close combinations among themselves, and swearing to their obedience, all the inferior priesthood, and church-officers, by ordination engagements and oaths of canonical obedience, a few have been able to impose their own laws and canons, upon a whole kingdom; yea, upon three kingdoms, it being an inconsiderable company, either of ministers or people (the lord be merciful to us in this thing) that have had eyes to discover the mystery of iniquity, which these men have driven; and much more inconsiderable, that have had hearts to oppose and withstand their tyranny and usurpations. and why may not god make use of the same stratagem to ruin their kingdom, which they used to build it? yea, god hath seemed to do it already, while in that place where they cast that roaring canon, and formed their cursed oath, for the establishing their babel prelacy, with its endless perpetuity. in the very same place hath this covenant been debated and voted, once, and a second time, by command of public authority, for the extirpation of it root and branch, and the casting of it out for ever, as a plant which "our heavenly father hath not planted." and who knows, but this may be the arrow of the lord's deliverance, which, as it hath pierced to the very heart of prelacy, so it may also give a mortal wound to the papacy itself, of which it will never be healed by the whole college of physicians (the jesuits), who study the complexion and health of that babylonian harlot. in the sixth and last place, the good success this course hath found in the churches, may encourage us with much cheerfulness and confidence to undertake this service. it hath upon it a _probatum est_, from all that ever conscientiously and religiously used this remedy. it recovered the state and church of the jews, again and again, many a time, when it was ready to give up the ghost; it recovered and kept a good correspondency between god and them, all the time it was of any esteem and credit amongst them. it brings letters of testimonial with it, from all the reformed churches; especially from our neighbour nation and church of scotland, where it hath done wonders in recovering that people, when all the physicians in christendom had given them over. it is very remarkable. god promiseth to bring them "into the bond of the covenant;" and in the next verse it follows, "and i will purge out the rebels from among you." there is an [and] that couples this duty, and this mercy together; "i will bring you into the bond," "and i will purge out." the walls of jericho have fallen flat before it. the dagon of the bishop's service-book broke its neck before this ark of the covenant. prelacy and prerogative have bowed down, and given up the ghost at its feet. what a reformation hath followed at the heels of this glorious ordinance! and truly, even among us, as poorly and lamely, and brokenly, as it hath been managed among us. i am confident, we had given up the ghost before this time, had it not been for this water of life. oh! what glorious success might we expect, if we did make such cheerful, such holy, such conscientious addresses, as become the law of so solemn an ordinance! truly, could i see such a willing people in this day of god's power, as are here in the text, encouraging and engaging one another, in an holy conspiracy; "come, let us join ourselves to the lord, in a perpetual covenant;" i have faith enough to promise and prophesy to you in the name of the lord, and in the words of his servant haggai, "from this very day i will bless you." and that you may know of what sovereignty this ordinance is; take notice of this, that this is the last physic that ever the church shall take or need; it lies clear in the text; for it is an everlasting covenant; and therefore the last that ever shall be made. after the full and final accomplishment of this promise and duty, the church shall be of so excellent a complexion, that "the inhabitant shall not say, i am sick: the people that dwell therein, shall be forgiven their iniquity." the lord make it such physic to us for christ's sake. the solemn league and covenant. sermon at london. _by thomas case._ i come now to the third query, how? and this inquiry divides itself into two branches--how to (i.) acceptation and (ii.) perpetuity? for the satisfying of both which, i will fetch as much as may be out of the text, that so you may yet further behold what proportion there is between the duty there, and that which lies before us this day. in the first place, we must inquire how this duty may be so managed, that god may accept of us in the doing of it? how to acceptation? now, in the general, we must know that this service, being an ordinance of god, must be undertaken and managed with an ordinance frame of heart, _i.e._ according to the laws and rules of divine worship; and by how much the more sacred and solemn this ordinance is, by so much the more ought we to call up and provoke the choicest, and heavenliest of those affections and dispositions of spirit, wherewith we make our addressments to the holy things of god. in particular, _first_, we are to come to this service, with the most ponderous advisedness, and most serious deliberation of judgment, that may be. it is one of those grand qualifications which god himself calls for to an oath. "thou shalt swear in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness." in truth for the matter, and that we have already examined in the former sermon in righteousness, in reference to the keeping of the oath (of which hereafter) and in judgment, in respect of the taking or making of the oath, the thing which we are now about, that we should well consider what we do. and indeed, if at any time, and in any undertaking, that advice be useful, "ponder the path of thy feet," "and keep thy foot when thou enterest into the house of god;" then certainly it is most seasonable, when a people or person draw near to make or renew their covenant with the most high god. and it seems, in the latter of those two scriptures now quoted, the holy ghost doth principally refer to this duty of making vows and covenants with god; the second verse doth intimate such a business, "be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thy heart be hasty to utter anything before god." to utter what? the fourth verse is express, "when thou makest a vow unto god." so that it is clear, the purpose of the holy ghost in that place is, as in all our holy services, so especially in this of vows, to caution all the people of god, when they draw near to utter their vows unto the lord, to manage it with the greatest deliberation, and solidness of judgment that is possible; to sit down and consider with ourselves before hand, with whom we have to deal? what we have to do? upon what warrant? by what rule? to what end? "the lame and the blind," god's soul hates for a sacrifice, the lame affections, and the blind ignorant judgment. and well he may; for certainly, they that do not swear in judgment, will not, cannot swear in righteousness; they that do not make their vows in judgment, will not, cannot pay, or perform them in righteousness. he that swears he knows not what, will observe he cares not how. incogitant making, will end in unconscionable breaking of covenant; and, if need be, in a cursed abjuration of it; for rash swearing is a precipice to forswearing. and therefore, if any of you have not well weighed this service, or be any ways unsatisfied, in whole, or in parts, i advise you to forbear, till your judgments be better informed. "whatsoever is not of faith, is sin." provided, that this be not done merely in a pretence to evade and elude this service, to which god and the two nations call you, as here in the text. "come, let us join." take heed of casting a mist of willing prejudice and affected ignorance, before your own eyes; such the apostle speaks of, to no other purpose, but that your own malignity may steal away in that mist undiscovered; for be sure, your sin will find you out. an ingenious ignorance and truly conscientious tenderness, is accompanied with an ingenuous and conscientious use of all means, for information and satisfaction; and to such, i make no question, the ministers of christ will be ready to communicate what light they have, for resolving doubts, removing scruples, and satisfying conscience, whensoever you shall make your addresses for that purpose. in the mean time, if there be any that, under pretence of unsatisfiedness, do shun the duty and information too; they will be found, but to mock god and authority; to whose justice and wisdom therefore i must leave them. god tells his people, when he joins himself to them, "i will marry thee to myself, in righteousness, and judgment." how in judgment? because god considers what he does, when he takes a people or person to himself; not that god chuseth for any wealth or worth in the creature, faith foreseen, or works foreseen; but that finding it (on the contrary) poor and beggarly, and undone, and foreseeing what it is like to prove, crooked and froward, unteachable and untractable; he sits down to speak after the manner of men, and considers, what course to take, and what it is like to cost him, to make them such a people, as he may delight in, and then consulting with his treasures, and finding he hath wherewithal to bear their charges, and to bring about his own ends; he resolves to take them, and marry them to himself, whatsoever it cost him. the result of such a consultation you may read, dropped from god's own pen, "and i said, how shall i put thee among the children, and give thee a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of nations?" here is god's wise deliberation on the matter: "how shall i put thee?" that is, how shall i do this? but i must do it to mine own dishonour; for i see before-hand what thou wilt prove; thou wilt be the same that ever thou wast; as idolatrous, as adulterous, as unstable, as backsliding as ever. it is not a pleasant land, a goodly heritage, that will make thee better. well, after some pause, god was resolved what to do: and i said, hear his resolution, "thou shalt call me, my father, and shalt not turn away from me:" that is, as if he had said, i will take this course with thee, i will first give thee the heart of a child, "thou shalt call me, father:" and then i will give thee the inheritance of a child, "a goodly heritage." and when i have done; i will not leave thee to thyself, but i will knit thee to myself, by an indissoluble union. "i will put my spirit into thee." "and thou shalt not turn away from me." there is god's wise resolution; he resolves to do all himself, and then he is sure it will not fail his expectation; he undertakes it. "thou shalt call me, my father, and shalt not turn away from me." thus god, when he marrieth his people to himself, doeth it in judgment. now therefore, "be ye followers of god, as dear children." and since you come now about the counterpart of the same work; namely, to join or marry yourselves to god, do it in judgment. consider well what you do; and, among other things, since you are so poor, and nothing in yourselves, as you have seen in the opening of this precious scripture; bethink yourselves where you will have strength and sufficiency, to make good this great and solemn engagement with your god. but of this more hereafter. _secondly_, see that you come to this service with a reverential frame of spirit, with that holy fear and awe, upon your hearts, as becomes the greatness and holiness of that god, and that ordinance, with whom you have to do; remembering that you are this day to swear before god, by god, to god: either of which, singly considered, might justly make us fear and tremble; how much more may this threefold cord bow and bind our hearts down in an humble, and holy prosternation? it is said of jacob, "he sware by the fear of his father isaac." jacob in his oath chooseth this title of fear, to give unto god, to shew with what fear he came; but to swear by this god, what should we do; when, as i say, we come to swear by him, and to him? surely, when he is so especially the object of our oath, he should then especially be the object of our fear. the consideration of that infinite distance between god and us, may wonderfully advantage us towards the getting of our hearts into this holy posture. great is that distance that is between a king and a beggar; and yet, there is but creature and creature; greater is that distance between heaven and earth; and yet these, but creature and creature; and yet, greater is the distance between an angel and a worm; and yet still, there is but creature and creature. but now, the distance that is between god and us, is infinitely wider; for behold, there is the "mighty, almighty creator, before whom all the nations are but as a drop of a bucket, and the small dust of the balance." and the poor nothing creature, "vanity, and altogether lighter than vanity." and yet, this is not all; yea, this is the shortest measure of that distance, whereof we speak; the distance of creator and the creature; lo, it is found between god and the angels in heaven, and the "spirits of just men made perfect;" in respect whereof, the psalmist saith of god, "he humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven." it is a condescension for that infinitely glorious being, who dwells in himself, and is abundantly satisfied in the beholding of his own incomprehensible excellencies, to vouchsafe to look out of himself, and behold the things that are in heaven; the best of those glorious inhabitants that stand round about his throne; who therefore, conscious of that infinite distance wherein they stand, make their addresses with the greatest self-abasements, "covering their faces, and casting themselves down" upon those heavenly pavements. but, behold! upon us, poor wretches, that dwell here below, in these houses of clay, there is found that which widens this distance beyond all expression or apprehension; sin sets us farther beneath a worm, than a worm is beneath an angel. i had almost said (bear with the expression, i use it, because no other expression can reach it) sin sets us as much beneath our creatureship, as our creatureship sets us beneath the creator. surely there is more of god to be seen in the worst of a creature, than there is of a creature to be seen in the best of sin; there is nothing vile and base enough under heaven, to make a simile of sin. and now, therefore, if it be such a condescension for the great god to behold the things that are in heaven, how infinite condescension is it, to behold the sinful things that are on earth! and if sinless saints, and spotless angels do tender their services, which yet are as spotless as their persons, with such reverential deportment; what abhorrency and self-annihilation can be sufficient to accompany our approaches to this god of holiness, in such high and holy engagements, in whom, when god looks out of himself, he can behold nothing besides our creatureship, of our own, but that which his soul hates! "let us therefore have grace, whereby we may serve god acceptably," in this so excellent an ordinance, "with reverence and godly fear; for our god is a consuming fire." the acceptable serving of god, is with reverence and godly fear. the lord teach us to bring fear, that so we may find acceptation. again, _thirdly_, to that end, labour to approve yourselves to god in this service, in the uprightness and sincerity of your hearts. the want of this, god lays oft to the charge of the israelites, as in other duties, so especially in this, which is now before us, "they lied to him with their tongues: for their heart was not right with him; neither were they stedfast in his covenant." and this stood between them and their acceptance: god tells the prophet ezekiel as much; "son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts, and put the stumbling-block of their iniquity before their face; should i be inquired of at all by them?" they come with their hearts full of their lusts; so many lusts, so many idols; and for this god refuseth to be inquired of by them: "should i be inquired of?" is as much as, "i will not be inquired of." it is a denial with disdain; "should i?" or, if they be so impudent to inquire, he will not answer; or if he give them an answer, it shall be a cold one; he will give them their answer at the door; better none; "i will answer them according to the multitude of their idols," _i.e._ according to the merit of their idolatry: they bring the matter of their own damnation with them, and they shall carry away nothing else from me, but the answer or obsignation of that damnation. oh! it is a dangerous thing, to bring the love of any sin with us to the ordinances of god, "if i regard iniquity in my heart, the lord will not hear my prayer." and so may we say to our own souls; if i regard iniquity, the lord will not accept my person, he will not regard my covenant. if god see anything lie nearer our hearts than himself, he will scorn us, and our services. if, therefore, you would be accepted, "out with your idols;" cast out the love of sin, out of your hearts; and be upright with your god in this holy undertaking. it is the main qualification in the text, "they shall inquire the way to zion, with their faces thitherward," _i.e._, in sincerity, with uprightness of spirit, with the full set and bent of their souls: as it is said of christ, when he went to his passion; "he stedfastly set his face to go up to jerusalem." he went with all his heart to be crucified; with a strong bent of spirit. beloved, we are not going to "crucifying work," (unless it be to crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts) but to marriage work; "to join ourselves to the lord, in an everlasting covenant." let us do it "with our faces zion-ward;" yea, let us stedfastly set our faces reformation-ward and heaven-ward, and god-ward, and christ-ward, with whom we enter covenant this day. a man may inquire the way to zion, with his face towards babylon; a people or person may enter covenant with god, with their hearts rome-ward, and earth-ward, and sin-ward, and hell-ward. friends, look to your hearts. "peradventure, said jacob, my father will feel me, and i shall seem to him as one that mocks, and i shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing." without all peradventure, may we say, our father will feel us; for he searcheth all hearts, and understandeth the imagination of the thoughts. if we be found as they that mock, shewing much love with our mouths, while our hearts are far from him, we shall bring a curse upon ourselves; yea, and upon the kingdoms also, and not a blessing. it is reported to the honour of judah, in the day of their covenanting with their god; "they had sworn with all their heart, and with their whole desire." and their success was answerable to their sincerity; for so it follows, "and the lord was found of them, and gave them rest round about." oh! that this might be our honour and happiness in this day, of our lifting up our hands to the most high god, that god might not see in us a double heart, an heart and an heart, as the hebrew expresses it, _i.e._ one heart for god, and another for our idols; one heart for christ, and another for antichrist,: but he might see us a single, upright hearted people, without base mixtures and composition; for he loves truth, _i.e._ sincerity, in the inward parts; that he finding such sincerity as he looks for, we also might find such success as we look for; safety and deliverance to both the nations; yea, that both in respect of our sincerity and success, that might be made good upon us that is spoken to the eternal honour of that good king hezekiah, "and in every work that he began in the service of the house of god, and in the law, and in the commandments to seek his god, he did it with all his heart, and prospered." universal sincerity is accompanied with universal prosperity; in all he did, he was upright, and in all he did, he prospered. brethren, whatever you want, be sure you want not sincerity; let god see you fully set in your hearts to take all from sin, and to give all to jesus christ; me-thinks i hear god saying unto us, "according to your uprightness, so be it unto you." in the _fourth_ place, if you would be accepted by god in this holy service, labour to make god your end. it is your pattern in the text, "they shall go and seek the lord;" it was not now "howling upon their beds for corn and wine," as formerly; of which god says, "they cried not unto me," _i.e._, they did not make god the end of their prayers; as elsewhere god tells them: "when ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did ye fast to me, even unto me?" in seventy years, they kept sevenscore fasts in babylon; and yet, amongst them all, they kept not one day unto god; for though the duty looked upon god, they that did the duty did not look upon god; that is, they did not set up god, as their chief end, in fasting and praying: they mourned not so much for their sin, as for their captivity; or, if for their sin, they mourned for it not so much as god's dishonour, as the cause of their captivity; they were not troubled so much, that they had by their sins walked contrary to god, as that god, by his judgments, had "walked contrary to them." they fasted and prayed, rather to get off their chains than to get off their sins; to get rid of the bondage of the babylonians, than to get rid of the servitude of their own base lusts. but now, blessed be god, it was otherwise: "the children of israel shall come, they and the children of judah together" to what end? "they shall seek the lord," _i.e._ they shall seek god for himself, and not only for themselves; "going and weeping;" why? not so much that he hath offended them, as that they have offended him; for their sins, more than for their punishments; so it is more distinctly reported, "a voice was heard upon the high places, weeping and supplications of the children of israel; because they have perverted their way, and have forsaken the lord their god." they had forgotten god before, not only in their sins, but in their duties; "they cried not to me; they fasted not to me; not at all unto me." but now they remember the lord their god; they seek his face; they labour to atone him; yea, they seek him to be their lord, as well as their saviour; to govern them, as well as to deliver them; "they ask the way to zion;" they require as well, and more, how they should serve him, as that he should save them. "the lord is our judge, the lord is our law-giver, the lord is our king, he will save us." beloved christians, let us write after this copy, and in this great business we have in hand, let us seek god, and seek him as a fountain of holiness, as well as a fountain of happiness. take we heed of those base, low, dung-hill ends, which prevailed upon the shechemites to enter into covenant with the god of the hebrews, "shall not their cattle and substance be ours?" let the two nations, and every soul in both the nations, that lift up the hand to the most high god, in this holy league and covenant, take heed of, and abhor such unworthy thoughts, if they should be crowding in upon this service, and say unto them, as once christ to peter, "get thee behind me, satan; thou savourest not the things that be of god, but the things that be of men." you may remember how it fared with hamor, and his son shechem, and their people, to whom they propounded these base ends. god did not only disappoint them of their ends, but destroy them for them; their aims were to get the hebrews' substance and cattle; but they lost their own, with lives to boot; "for it came to pass on the third day, when they were sore, two of the sons of jacob, simeon and levi, came upon the city boldly, and slew all the males. and the sons of jacob came upon the slain, and spoiled the city; they took their sheep, and their oxen, and all their wealth." a most horrid and bloody treachery and cruelty in them, which stands as a brand of infamy upon their foreheads to this day; but a most just and righteous censure from god, and a caution to all succeeding generations, of prostituting heavenly and holy ordinances to earthly and sensual ends. oh! let it be our "admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come, to the end, that we may not tempt god, as they also tempted." for, if god so much abhorred, and so severely punished these worldly respects in the men of the world; if god was so angry with poor purblind heathen, who had no other light for their guide, but the glimmering light of nature; how will his anger not only kindle, but flame in the avenging of such baseness upon christians, a people of his own, who have the glorious light of the gospel of jesus christ, to discover to them higher and heavenly ends and references? so that such a kingdom, people, or person, that should dare to bring such base carnal ends, to so spiritual and divine a contract, should be made a monument of the wrath and vengeance of divine justice; and while they propound to themselves safety, or riches, or greatness, from such an excellent ordinance, god makes it by a strange but a righteous hand, an occasion of misery and ruin to them and their posterity, to many generations. christians, labour to set up god in this day and duty, wherein you engage yourselves so nigh unto him; and if you would have heavenly blessings, see that you propound and pursue heavenly ends and aims; lest, while you come to make a covenant with god, you commit idolatry against him. whatsoever we make our ultimate and highest end, we make our god. if therefore you cannot make god your sole, your only end, yet be sure you make him your choicest, your chiefest end; keep god in his own place; and let all self-respects whatsoever vail to his glory, according to that great rule, "whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of god." _fifthly_, to do this business to acceptation, we must do it cheerfully: as god loves a cheerful giver, so he loves a cheerful hearer, a cheerful petitioner, and a cheerful covenanter; and you have it in the text too, "come let us;" there is their readiness and cheerfulness to the work; as it was that for which the apostle doth commend his macedonians in another service. "this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave themselves to the lord." so these, they give themselves to god of their own accord, "come let us." oh! that the ministers of the gospel might have occasion to make the same boast of you, concerning this solemn ordinance before you, that they might say and rejoice, that you were a people, "that gave yourselves to the lord," and unto the work of reformation, not by a parliamentary fear, or by our ministerial compulsions; but, above our hopes, and beyond our expectations; of your own accord. see what a wonder, not only of cheerfulness, but of joy and triumph, is recorded of the jews in king asa's time, in their taking of the covenant. "they sware unto the lord with a loud voice, and with shouting; and with trumpets, and with cornets. and all judah rejoiced at the oath; for they had sworn with all their hearts." there was indeed a severe mulct, a capital censure enacted, against those that should refuse, and reject this ordinance. "they should be put to death, whether great or small, whether man or woman." a very grievous censure; but it seems there was neither need, nor use for it; "for all judah rejoiced at the oath;" the people looked upon this service, not as their pressure, but as their privilege; and therefore came to it, not with contentedness only, but an holy triumph, and so saved the magistrate and themselves the labour and charges of executing that sentence on delinquents. oh! that this may be your wisdom and honour; that whatever penalty the honourable parliaments of either nation, shall in their wisdom think fit to proportion to the grievous sin of rebelling against this covenant of the lord; (and it seems by the instance before, that whatsoever penalty they shall ordain less than death, will not be justice only but moderation) i say, whatever it shall be, it may be rendered useless and invalid by the forwardness and rejoicings of an obedient people; that all england, as well as scotland, would rejoice at the oath, and swear with all their hearts. for certainly it will not be so much our duty as our prerogative, as i have shewed you before, to enter into covenant with god and his people. it is the day of god's power: the lord make you a "willing people." and, as a testimony of this willingness and joy, imitate the people here in the text, and stir up one another, and provoke one another to this holy service. "let us join ourselves to the lord." they express their charity, as well as their joy; they would not go to zion alone; they call as many as they meet with them; "come let us join ourselves to the lord." oh, that this might be your temper! it is the very character of the evangelical church; as both isaiah and micah have described it; their words be the same. "many people shall go and say, come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the lord." oh! that while neutrals and malignants do discourage one another, and set off one another, and embitter one another's spirits; god and his ministers might find you encouraging each other, and provoking one another, and labouring to oil one another's spirits, to this (as other) gospel duty and prerogative; god could not choose, but be much pleased with such a sight. i might have made this a distinct qualification, but for brevity's sake, i couch it under this head. i come to the last. if you would be accepted, bring faith with you to this service: and that in a fourfold reference; . god. . the ordinance. . ourselves. . jesus christ. _first_, in reference unto god; "for he that will come to god," in any ordinance, "must believe that god is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." there is nothing god takes better at his people's hand, than when they come with their hearts as full of good thoughts of god as ever they can hold; such as, "lo, this is our god, we have waited for him, and he will save us; we have waited for him, we will be glad, and rejoice in his salvation." "he will save," "we will be glad," _i.e._, god will undoubtedly give us occasion of gladness and triumph in his praises. oh, sweet and blessed confidence of divine goodness! how well doth this become the children of such a father, who hath styled himself the father of mercies? good thoughts of god do mightily please, and even engage god to shew mercy to his people. "let us therefore come with boldness to the throne of grace;" even in this ordinance also, "that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help us in this time of our need." _secondly_, let us bring faith in reference to the duty; as we are to believe well of god, so we are to believe well of the duty, that it is an ordinance wherein god will be sanctified, and found of them that seek him. it is not enough, that we seek him in his ordinance, but that we believe it to be his ordinance. "whatever is not of faith, is sin;" he speaks not of a faith that doth justify the person; but of a faith that doth justify the performance; that is, a thorough conviction of conscience, that the work, whatsoever it is, is such that the word will bear me out in it, such as god himself doth approve. to do doubtfully, is to do sinfully; an ignorant person cannot please god. _thirdly_, bring faith in reference to your own persons; believe that god will accept of them in this ordinance; whatever your success shall be in regard of the kingdom, yet you shall find acceptance in regard of your persons: so the church. "thou meetest him that rejoiceth, and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways." when a people or person can say, as the church in another place, "in the way of thy judgments, have we waited for thee, o lord; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee," god will not stay till they come unto him, but he will meet them half-way; "thou meetest him," like the father of the prodigal, while they are yet half-way, he will see, and run, and meet, and fall upon their neck; and while they weep at his feet, tears of contrition; he will weep over their necks, the tears of compassion: oh! stir up yourselves, and engage your faith to believe, and expect a gracious entertainment. if god see you coming in the integrity and uprightness of your hearts, to enter into covenant with god, to take him as your god, and to give up yourselves to be his people, to take away all from sin, and to give all to jesus christ; he will certainly take it well at your hands, and say unto you, "come, my people, and welcome; i will be your god, and you shall be my people;" which that you may not miss of, in the _fourth_ place, come believingly, in reference to jesus christ; be sure you bring a christ with you; for "he hath made us accepted in the beloved." come without a christ, and go without acceptance. the day of atonement among the jews was called the day of expiation; and the word _kippurim_ is derived from an hebrew root, that signifies to cover; and so the day of atonement was as much as to say, "the day of covering; the covering of nakedness: and the covering of sin." "blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven, and whose sin is covered." in which very name of the day, the ground or reason is held forth, why it was called a day of atonement, because it was a day of covering: wherein christ was typified, who is the "the covering of the saints; the long white robes of his righteousness" covering both their persons and performances; so that the nakedness of neither doth appear in the eyes of his father; "he hath beheld no iniquity in jacob, neither hath seen perverseness in israel." why? not because there was no "iniquity in jacob, nor perverseness in israel," for there was hardly any thing else; but because their iniquity and perverseness were hid from his eyes, being covered with the mantle of his son's righteousness, the messiah, which he had promised, and they so much looked for. let us therefore in this service, as in all, "put on the lord jesus." that as jacob in the garments of his elder brother esau, so we in the garments of our elder brother jesus, may find acceptance and obtain the blessing. and thus much be spoken concerning the first branch of this third query, how to acceptation? i come now to the second branch of it, and that is, how to perpetuity? or, how may we perform this service so that it may be "an everlasting covenant, that may never be forgotten?" to that end, take these few brief directions, and i have done. _first_, labour to come to this service with much soul-affliction for former violation of the covenant, either in refusing, or profaning, or breaking thereof: the foundations must be laid low, where we would build for many generations. in what deep sorrows had you need to lay the foundations of this covenant, which you would have stand to eternity, that it may be "an everlasting covenant." this you have in the text; "they shall seek the lord, going and weeping;" weeping in the sense of their former rebellions and apostasies, whereby they forfeited their faith, and brake their covenant with the lord their god; and it was no ordinary slight business they made of it. "a voice was heard upon the high places, weeping and supplication." they were not a few silent tears: no, they "lift up their voices and wept," as was said of esau. they cried so loud, that they were heard a great way off. "a voice was heard upon the mountains;" and it was as bitter, as it was loud; "a great mourning, as the mourning of hadadrimmon in the valley of megiddon," when all judah, jerusalem, jeremiah the prophet, and all the singers, bewailed the death of their good king josiah, with a grievous lamentation, "and made it an ordinance forever." oh! that as we have their service in hand, so we had their heads and their hearts, to manage it with rivers of tears, for our former vileness: that we could weep this day together, and afterward apart, as it is prophesied, "every family apart, and our wives apart;" yea, and every soul apart, that we have dealt so evilly with so good a god, so unfaithfully with so faithful a god; that we could put our mouths in the dust, and smite upon our thigh, and be ashamed and confounded, for all the wickedness we have committed against god and his covenant, in any, or all these ways. such a posture god will see us in, before he will shew us "the way to zion;" before he will reveal to us the model and platform of reformation; for so was his charge to ezekiel, "if they be ashamed of all that they have done, shew them the forms of the house, and the fashion thereof, and the goings out thereof, and the comings in thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the laws thereof, and write it in their sight." surely, this blessed prophecy hath an eye upon our times, for this is one of those days, as i told you before, wherein god will make good these gracious words unto his people; and god hath called together his ezekiels, his ministers, to "shew the house," _i.e._, the form and pattern of the evangelical house or church, unto the house of england and scotland. "shew the house to the house of israel, that they may be ashamed." that is, shew them the outside thereof, shew them "that there is such a house," which they never yet beheld with their eyes, that they may be humbled and ashamed of their former idolatries. and thus do our ezekiels tell us, there is a way of gospel government, of such beauty and excellency, as our eyes never yet beheld, nor the eyes of our forefathers; to the end, that we may be ashamed of all our former idolatries and superstitions, our monstrous mixtures of popery and will-worship in the ordinances of christ; and that we have not sooner inquired after the mind of christ, how he will be worshipped in his house; but now, unless we be ashamed, _i.e._, deeply and thoroughly humbled, for all that we have done unworthy of christ and his worship, and the covenant of our god, we shall never see the inside, that is, the laws and the ordinances, and the forms of this house, which are both various and curious; for so the variety and repetition of the words imply. the prophets are not to reveal these unto us, unless we be ashamed; god will either withdraw them from us, or, which is worse, withdraw himself from them; so that our eyes shall never behold the lord in the beauty of holiness; we shall not be admitted to see the beauty and glory of such a reformation, as our souls long for. and as god will see us in this posture, before he reveal to us the model and platform of reformation; so also, till we be in such a posture of deep humiliation, for our former abominations, we shall never be stedfast and faithful in the covenant of god. till our hearts be throughly broken for covenant-breach, we will not pass much for breaking covenant, upon every fresh temptation. yea, till that time we be humbled, not for a day only, and so forth: but unless we labour to maintain an habitual frame of godly sorrow upon our hearts for our covenant-violations, shall we ever be to purpose conscientious of our covenant? a sad remembrance of old sins is a special means to prevent new. when every solemn remembrance of former vileness, can fetch tears from our eyes, and blood from our hearts, and fill our faces with an holy shame, the soul will be holily shy of the like abominations, and of all occasions and tendencies thereunto: "remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. my soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled within me." when old sins cost dear, new sins will not find an easy entertainment. when old sins are new afflictions, when the remembrance of them is as wormwood and gall, the soul will not easily be bewitched to drink a new draught of that poisoned cup any more. christian, believe me, or thou mayest find it by experience too true, when thou hast forgot old sins, or canst remember them without new affliction of soul, thou art near a fall; look to thyself, and cry to god for preventing grace. there will be great hopes we shall be faithful in our new covenant, when we come with a godly sense and sorrow for our abuse of old, and labour to maintain it upon our spirits. _secondly_, if you would have this covenant to be a perpetual covenant, labour to see old scores crossed; do not only mourn for thy covenant-unfaithfulness; but labour to get thy pardon written and sealed to thee in the blood of the covenant. there is virtue enough in the blood of the covenant, to expiate the guilt of thy sins against the covenant. "i will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean; from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will i cleanse you." their sins of idolatry, were sins especially against their covenant; idolatry being the violation of the marriage-knot, between god and a people; yet even from them doth god promise to cleanse them, upon their repentance and conversion. the blood of the covenant, compared to water for the cleansing virtue thereof, should cleanse them from their covenant defilements. "the blood of jesus christ cleanseth us from all sin." "thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet, return again to me, saith the lord." it is a mighty encouragement to renew our covenants with god, that he is so ready to pardon the breach of old; and the sense of this pardon is a mighty engagement and strengthening, to keep our new covenants. oh! for god to say to a poor soul, "be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee." "and i have blotted out thy sins as a cloud, and thy transgressions as a thick cloud." all thy unkindnesses and unfaithfulnesses, thy treacherous dealings against the covenant, shall be forgotten; they shall do thee no harm. this will mightily strengthen the hands, and fortify the heart, and even make it impenetrable and impregnable against all the solicitations and importunities of old temptations: see a notable instance of this, "i will heal their backslidings, i will love them freely; for mine anger is turned away from him." "i will be as the dew to israel." "his branches shall spread." "they that dwell under his shadow shall return." what follows these gracious promises? why, ephraim shall say, "what have i to do any more with idols?" he that before was so inseparably joined to idols, that he could not be divorced from them; "ephraim is joined to idols." all the blows that god gave him, tho' god should have beaten him to pieces, as he himself afterward confessed, could not beat him off from his idols; insomuch, that god at length gave him over, as an hopeless child. "ephraim is joined to idols, let him lone." yet, no sooner doth this ephraim hear of a pardon, and of the love of god to him, but the bonds between him and his idols are dissolved, and away he thrusts them with indignation. ephraim shall say, "what have i to do with idols?" or as the prophet isaiah expresseth it, "ye shall defile the covering of the graven images of silver, and the ornament of thy molten images of gold; thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth, thou shalt say unto it, get thee hence." and thus it is with a people, or a person, when once "god sheds abroad his spirit in their hearts," and makes them "hear joy and gladness," in speaking, or sealing, a pardon upon their souls; they that before were joined to their idols, drunkenness, uncleanness, covetousness, pride, ways of false worship, old superstitious customs, and ceremonies, and the like; so that there was no parting of them; or those who had long been grappling and conflicting with their strong corruptions and old temptations, and in those conflicts had received many a foil, and got many a fall to the wounding of their consciences, and cutting deep gashes upon their souls; now they stand up with a kind of omnipotence among them, no temptation is able to stand before them; they say to their idols, whether sinful company, or sinful customs, "get ye hence, and what have i to do any more with idols?" what have i to do with such and such base company? what have i to do with such base filthy lusts? "i am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine." christ is mine, and i am his. the reason of it is, because pardon begets love; "she loved much, because much was forgiven her." and love begets strength: "for love is as strong as death": yea, stronger than sin or death; "they loved not their lives to the death," and "i count not my life dear," says paul, when once the man had tasted of the free grace of god in the pardon of his sins, "who before was a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious." he could find in his heart, not only to lay down a lust, but to lay down his life too for jesus christ: "for whose sake, (saith he), i have suffered the loss of all things; and i count not my life dear, so that i might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which i have received of the lord jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of god." my beloved christians, if you would be faithful in the covenant of god, into which you are now entering, sue out your pardon for what is past; yea, entreat the lord, not only to give a pardon, but to speak a pardon, and seal a pardon upon your hearts; and never give the lord rest, till the lord have given rest to your souls. "the joy of the lord is your strength." _thirdly_, if you would make an unchangeable covenant, with an unchangeable god, come furnished with and maintain upon your hearts, an abundant measure of self-distrust; labour to be thoroughly convinced of your own nothingness and disability. "by his own strength shall no man prevail." surely, thine own treachery may inform thee, and thine own backslidings may convince thee, to confess with jeremiah, "o lord, i know (i know it by sad experience) the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." staupitius confessed to luther, that he thought in his very conscience he had above a thousand times renewed his covenant with god, and as many times broken it: a sad confession, and yet how many among us may take up the like lamentation! be convinced of it, i beseech you, and maintain the sense of this conviction upon your spirits. say oft within yourself, i am nothing, worse than nothing. this treacherous heart of mine will betray me into the breach of my covenant, if the lord leave me to myself, i shall one day fall by the hand of my corruptions. he that walks tremblingly, walks safely. in the _fourth_ place, be often renewing your resolutions. it was the exhortation of that good man to the new converts at antioch, where they were first called christians, "that they should cleave unto the lord with full purpose of heart." this covenant, i have shewed you, is the ordinance whereby you cleave unto the lord, the joining ordinance. oh! do it with full purpose of heart, and be often putting on fresh and frequent resolutions, not to suffer every base temptation of satan, every deceitful, or malignant solicitation of the world, every foolish and carnal suggestion of the flesh, to bribe and seduce you from that fidelity which you swear this day to jesus christ and the kingdoms. a well grounded resolution is half the work, and the better half too; for he that hath well resolved, hath conquered his will; and he that hath conquered his will, hath overcome the greatest difficulty: no such difficulty in spiritual things, as to prevail with one's own heart. with these cords, therefore, of well bottomed resolutions, be oft binding yourselves to your covenant, as once ulysses did himself to his mast, that you may not be bewitched by any syrenian song of the flesh, world, or the devil, to violate your holy covenant, and drown yourselves in a sea of perdition. and to that end, it would not be altogether useless, to fix your covenant in some place of your houses, or bed-chamber, where it may be oftenest in your eyes, to admonish you of your religious and solemn engagements, under which you have brought your own souls. the jews had their "phylacteries, or borders upon their garments," which they did wear also upon their heads, and upon their arms; which, tho' they abused afterward, not only to pride, making them broader than their first size or pattern, in ostentation and boasting of their holiness, our saviour condemns in the scribes and pharisees. and to superstition, for they used them as superstitious helps in prayer, which they coloured under a false derivation of the word in the hebrew, yet god indulged them in this ceremony, as an help for their memories, to put them in remembrance to keep the law of the lord. and god himself seems to use this art of memory, as it were, when, comforting his people, he tells them, "behold i have graven thee upon the palms of my hands, thy walls are continually before me." i must confess, the nature of man is very prone to abuse and pervert such natural helps to idolatry and superstition. this instance of the jews, wretchedly improving their phylacteries to superstitious purposes, their idolizing of the brazen serpent; and thereby of a cure, turning it into a plague, a snare, with the like, are sufficient testimonies. and we see how the papists have abused and adulterated the lawful use of natural mediums, to the unlawful use of artificial mediums of their own inventions; images and crucifixes, first to help their memories, and stir up their devotions in their prayers, and then to pray unto them, as mediums of divine worship. the more cautious had christians need be in the use of those mediums, which either god hath ordained by special command for the help of our memories, and stirring up of our graces, as the visible elements in the sacraments; or such natural advantages, which moral equity allows us for the help of our understandings and memories in spiritual concernments; such is this, we are now speaking of; it being the same with the use of books and tables. tertullian tells us of a superstitious custom among the ancient christians, that they were wont to set up images over their doors and chimneys, to keep witches when they came into their houses from bewitching their children; and so by a little kind of witchcraft, prevented witchcraft. but surely, to set up this covenant, where we might often see and read what engagements we have laid upon our souls, (and i could heartily wish christians would do it at least once a week) it will be an innocent and warrantable spell, to render the witchery of the flesh, world, and devil, fruitless and ineffectual upon our spirits, while the soul may say with david, "thy vows are upon me, o god: i will render praise unto thee." but _fifthly_, consider often and seriously, who it is that must uphold your resolutions; even he that upholds heaven and earth: no less power will do it; "for you are kept by the power of god through faith unto salvation." it is god that first gives the resolution, and then must uphold, and bring it into act; "it is god that worketh in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure," and therefore labour, i beseech you, to do these two things. _first_, put all your resolutions into the hands of prayer: david was a man of an excellent spirit, full of holy resolves. "i will walk in mine integrity," "and i will keep thy testimonies." and again, "i have sworn, and i will perform it, that i will keep thy righteous judgments." and yet again, "do not i hate them, o lord, that hate thee?" "i hate them with a perfect hatred." a thousand such sweet resolutions doth that precious servant of god breathe out all along the psalms; and yet so jealous the holy man is of himself, that he never trusts himself with his own resolutions; and therefore shall you find him always clapping a petition upon a resolution, as in the quoted places. "i will walk in mine integrity. redeem me, and be merciful unto me. i will keep thy testimonies, oh! forsake me not utterly." though thou hast let me fall fearfully, suffer me not to fall finally. and so when he had said, "i have sworn, and will not repent," he presently adds (within a word or two), "quicken me, o lord, according to thy word." and again, "accept, i beseech thee, the free-will offerings of my mouth, o lord, and teach me thy judgments." god must teach him, as to make, so to make good the free-will offerings of his mouth, _i.e._, his promises and vows. and so, when he had made that appeal to god, "do not i hate them that hate thee, lord?" he presently betakes himself to his prayers, "search me, o god, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts. and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." mark, i pray, "search me, try me, know my heart, know my thoughts, see whether there be any wicked way, lead me." he will neither trust himself for what he is, nor for what he shall be; "try me," he dares not trust his own trial: "lead me," he dares not trust his own resolutions: such a sweet holy jealousy of himself doth he breathe forth, with all his heavenly purposes and resolutions. oh! all you that would make an everlasting covenant with god, imitate holy david, upon every holy resolution, clap an earnest petition, say, i will reform my life; oh! redeem me, and be merciful unto me. i will set up christ in my heart, i will labour to walk worthy of him in my life: oh! forsake me not utterly, lord; leave me not to myself, i have sworn, and am utterly purposed in all my duties i owe to god and man, to amend my life, and to go before others in the example of a real reformation. o lord, teach me thy judgments: quicken me, o lord, according to thy word. thy vows are upon me, that i will, according to my place and calling, endeavour to preserve reformation in scotland, to procure reformation in england; that i will in like manner endeavour the extirpation of popery and prelacy; to preserve the rights and liberties of parliaments; discover incendiaries; endeavour the preservation of peace between the two kingdoms; defend all those that enter into this league and covenant, that i will never make defection to the contrary part, or to give myself to a detestable indifferency or neutrality. and this covenant i have made in the presence of almighty god, the searcher of all hearts, with a true intention to perform the same, as i shall answer at that great day. but now, add with david, "search me, o god, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts, and see if there be any way of wickedness in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." in a word, put your covenant into frequently renewed resolutions: resolutions into prayer, and prayer, and all into the hands of god. it is god that must gird thee with strength, to perform all thy vows. this, the close of this blessed covenant, into which we enter this day, doth teach us. "humbly beseeching the lord to strengthen us by his spirit; for this end, and to bless our desires and proceedings." and the covenant in the text, was surely inlaid with prayer, while they engage themselves to seek the lord, not only to shew them the way to zion, but to give them strength to walk in that way. let it be your wisdom and piety, my brethren, to imitate both; oh pray, and be much in prayer, and be often in prayer: pray daily over the covenant; as you this day lift up your hands to swear to the most high god in this covenant, so lift up your hands every day to pray to that god for grace to keep this covenant. let sense of self-insufficiency keep open the sluice of prayer, that that may let fresh streams of strength every day into your souls, to make good your vows; when you be careless to pray over the covenant, you will be careless to keep the covenant; when you cease to pray, you will cease to pay. if you will be watchful in praying over your vows, prayer will make you watchful in paying your vows. if you will be faithful in crying to god, god will be faithful in hearing and helping. pray therefore, pray over every good purpose and resolution of heart towards the covenant of god which conscience shall suggest, or the spirit of god shall breathe into your bosoms, at this present or any time hereafter; as david once prayed over that good frame of spirit, which he observed in his people; what time they offered so willingly and liberally to the preparing for the house of god; "o lord god of abraham, isaac, and of jacob, our fathers, keep this for ever, in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart, and prepare their heart unto thee." to every command, god is pleased to add a promise; so that what is a command in one place, is a promise in another. "circumcise the foreskin of your heart." but it is a promise, "the lord thy god will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed to love the lord." again, "make you a new heart." so saith the word of command: "a new heart will i give you:" so speaks the word of promise. once more, "little children abide in him," that is the command. which in the immediate verse before is a gracious promise, "you shall abide in him." divers more such instances i could give you; and why thus? surely, the command teacheth us our duty, the promise our weakness and insufficiency to perform that duty. the command finds us work; the promise finds us strength: the command is to keep us from being idle; the promise to keep us from being discouraged. well, let us imitate god, and, as he couples a command and a promise, so let us couple a resolution and a petition. as god seconds and backs his command with his promise, so let us second and back our promises with our prayers; the one in sense of our duty, the other in sense of our weakness; by the one, to bring our hearts up to god: by the other, to bring god down to our hearts: resolve and petition, promise and pray, and the lord "prepare your heart to pray, and cause his ear to hear." _secondly_, since god only must uphold your desires, walk continually as in his presence; stability is only to be found in the presence of god; so far we live an unchangeable life, as we walk and live in the presence of an unchangeable god. the saints in heaven know no vicissitudes, or changes in their holy frame and temper of spirit, because they are perfected in the beholding of his face; "with whom is no variableness, nor shadow of changing:" and so far as the saints on earth can keep god in their presence so far the presence of god will keep them. "i have set the lord always before me; and because he is at my right hand, therefore i shall not be moved," sang david of himself literally, and in the person of christ typically: the privilege was made good to both, so far as either made good the duty. david, according to his degree, and proportion of grace, set god before him, placed him on his right hand; and so long as he could keep god's presence, the presence of god kept him; it kept him from sin, "i have kept myself from mine iniquity." how so? why, "i was upright before him," in the former part of the same verse. so long as he walked before god, in god's presence; so long he walked upright, and kept himself from his iniquity; or rather god's presence kept him: and, as it kept him from sin, so it kept him from fear also; "tho' i walk through the valley of the shadow of death, i will not fear." mark what he saith, though he walk, not step; and walk through, not step across; and through, not a dark entry, or a churchyard in the night-time, but a valley, a large, long, vast place; how many miles long i know not; and this not a valley of darkness only, but of death, where he should see nothing but visions of death, and not bare death, but the shadow of death: the shadow is the dark part of the thing; so that the shadow of death, is the darkest side of death; death in its most hideous and horrid representations; and yet behold, when he comes out at the farther end, and a man would have thought to have found him all in a cold sweat, his hair standing upright, his eyes set in his head, and the man beside himself. behold, i say, he doth not so much as change colour, his hand shakes not, his heart fails not; as he went in, he comes out; and though he should go back again the same way, he tells you, "i will not fear." how comes this to pass? how comes the man to be so undaunted? why, he will tell you in the very same verse, speaking to god, "for thou art with me." god's presence kept him from fear, in the midst of death and horror. thus it was, i say, with david, while he could keep god in his presence, he was immoveable, impregnable; you might as soon have stirred a rock, as stirred him, "i shall not be moved." indeed, so long as he was upon the rock, he was as immoveable as the rock itself; but alas! sometime he lost the sight of his god, and then he was like other men; "thou didst hide thy face from me, and i was troubled." when god hid his face from him, or he hid his eyes from god; then how easily is he moved? fear breaks in, "i shall one day fall by the hand of saul." sin breaks in, yea, one sin upon the heels of another; the adulterous act, upon the adulterous look, and murder upon adultery, as you know in that sad business of uriah the hittite; once off from his rock, and he is as weak as dust, not able to stand before the least temptation of sin or fear; and therefore as soon as he comes to himself again, he cries, "oh! lead me to the rock that is higher than i;" to my rock, lord, to my rock. but now, the lord jesus, the antitype of david here in this psalm, because he made good this, (duty shall i call it?) "for in him dwelt the fulness of the god-head bodily." to him therefore was this privilege made good perfectly in the highest degree; for tho' he had temptations that never man had, and was to do that which never man did; and to suffer that which never man suffered; the contradiction of sinners; the rage of hell; and the wrath of god: yet, because he set the lord always at his right hand; yea, indeed was always at the right hand of god; therefore he was not moved, but overcame even by suffering. beloved, you see where stability in covenant is to be had; even in the presence of god. labour, i beseech you, to walk in his presence, and to set him always at your right hand; behold, it shall keep you, so that you shall not be moved; or, if you be moved, you shall not be removed; if you stumble you shall not fall; or, if you fall, you shall not fall away; you shall rise again. there is a double advantage in it. _first_, it will keep your hearts in awe; he that sets god in his presence, dares not sin in his presence: "god sees," will make the heart say, "how shall i do this great evil, and sin against god?" _secondly_, there is joy in it; "in thy presence is fulness of joy." it is true, in its proportion of grace, as well as of glory; and joy will strengthen and stablish, as i shewed you before, "the joy of the lord is your strength." as long as the child is in its father's eye, and the father in its eye, it is secure. "because thou hast made the lord, which is my refuge, even the most high, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee." it will hold as well in the evils of sin, as in the evils of punishment: well, the lord make you know these precious truths in an experimental manner. i have held you too long; but the business requires it. remember, i beseech you, it is god that must uphold your desires and resolutions; and therefore, . be much in prayer. and, . set yourselves in the presence of god. he lives unchangeably that lives in the unchangeable god. in the _sixth_, and last place, if thou wouldst make an everlasting covenant with god, that shall never be forgotten, look up to jesus christ, go to jesus christ. he must help, and he must strengthen, and he must keep thee, or else thou wilt never be able to "keep thy covenant;" hear him, else, "without me ye can do nothing." and as christ speaks thus in the negative; so you may hear the apostle speaking by blessed experience in the affirmative; "i can do all things through jesus christ, who strengtheneth me." observe, i pray, "without me ye can do nothing. through christ i can do all things." nothing, all things. there is a good deal of difference between two men; take one without christ, and, be his parts never so excellent, his resolutions never so strong, his engagements never so sacred, "he can do nothing;" unless it be to "break his covenant and vows," as samson brake his cords like threads scorched with the fire; and, take the other with a christ standing by him, and be he in himself never so weak and mean, unlearned and ungifted, lo, as if he were clothed with omnipotency, "he can do all things," he can subdue such corruptions, conquer such temptations, perform such duties, and in such a manner, do such things, suffer such things, (and in all these keep his covenant with god) as to other men, and to himself before, were so many impossibilities; he could not before, now he can. nothing before, all things now. all things fit for an unglorified saint to do; all things god expects from him; all things in a gospel sense; all things comparatively to other men, and to himself, when he was another man. see, i beseech you, how without a christ, and thro' a christ, makes one man differ from another; yea, and from himself, as much as can and cannot; all things and nothing; impotency and omnipotency, "without me ye can do nothing." "through christ i can do all things." if therefore you would make a covenant with eternity to eternity, study christ more than ever, labour to "know nothing but jesus christ, and him crucified." and therein these two things, _first_, labour to get interest in christ. interest is the ground of influence; union the fountain or spring of communion; so christ, "as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me." there you have the truth and the simile of it; no fruit from christ, without being and abiding in christ; there is truth: illustrated and proved by the vine and the branch; there the simile, which is prosecuted and enlarged by our saviour. and, as all communion ariseth from union, so look what the union is, such is the communion; christ was filled with the fulness of god because united to god; the saints receive of the fulness of christ, because united to christ. "i in them, and thou in me." only here is the difference. christ's union with his father was personal, infinite, and substantial, and therefore the communications were answerable, "for god gave not the spirit by measure unto him." but the saints' union with christ, being of an inferior nature; their communications also are proportional; yet such as serve poor creatures to all blessed saving purposes. and therefore with paul, labour to "be found in christ," that so you may know experimentally the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings. all the power and virtue that are in jesus christ, are only for them that are in him, as the branch in the root, as the members in the body. christ is called the covenant of god. "i will give thee for a covenant of the people." as calvin well expounds it, _sponsor foederis_, the surety or undertaker of the covenant, of that second new covenant, between god and his people, not the jews only, but the gentiles also. a surety on both sides: the surety of god's covenant to them; "for all the promises of god are in him, yea, and in him, amen." he sees them all made good to the heirs of promise. and christ again is the surety of their covenant unto god; for he undertakes to make good all their covenants, and vows, and promises unto god. "those that thou gavest me, i have kept," saith christ. "and i live (saith paul), yet not i, but christ liveth in me." so that it is christ who makes the covenant good on both sides, as god's to his people, so his people's to god; and so it follows in that place of isaiah, "i have given thee for a covenant to the people, to establish the earth;" establishment must come from christ, the undertaker, the surety of the covenant; as he paid the debt for the time past, so he must see the articles of the covenant kept for the time to come. for want of such an undertaker or surety, the first covenant miscarried: it was between god and the creature, without a mediator; and so the creature changing, the covenant was dissolved; but the second, god meant should not miscarry, and therefore puts it into sure hands; "i have laid help upon one that is mighty," speaking of christ, and "i will give thee for a covenant to the people." god hath furnished christ wherewithal to be a surety; to make good his covenant to his people, and their covenant to him. but now, he hath this stock of all-sufficiency for none but these that are his members, he actually undertakes for none but those that are actually in him; "these that thou hast given me i have kept." he keeps none but them whom the father hath given him; given him so as to be in them, and they in him. "i in them, they in me." well, if thou wouldst be unchangeable in thy covenant, get interest in christ who is the covenant; the unchangeable covenant; "the amen, the faithful and true witness." "yesterday and to-day, and the same for ever." get interest, "count all things loss and dung, that thou mayst win christ, and be found in christ." yea, do not only labour to get interest, but prove thy interest. take not up a matter of so infinite concernment upon trust: all that thou dost covenant to god, and that god doth covenant to thee, depends upon it; and therefore, "work it out with fear and trembling, and give all diligence to make it sure unto thy soul." study evidences, and be content with none but such as will bear weight in the "balance of the sanctuary;" such as the word will secure; such as to which the word will bear witness, that they are inconsistent with any christless man or woman, whatsoever; and pray with unwearying supplications that god will not only give thee interest, but clear thy interest, and seal up interest upon thy soul and thee, to the day of redemption. _second_, study influence when in christ, then hast thou right to draw virtue from christ, for behold, all the fulness that dwells in christ is thine; all that life, and strength, and grace, and redemption, that is held forth in the promise, it is all laid up in christ, as in a magazine; and by virtue of thy interest in, and union with the lord jesus, it is all become thine. hence you hear the believing soul making her boast of christ, as before, for righteousness so also for strength. "in the lord have i righteousness and strength." as righteousness for acceptance, so strength also for performance of such duties, as god in his covenant doth require and expect at the believer's hands: i have no strength of mine own, but in christ i have enough; "in the lord i have righteousness and strength." christ is the lord-keeper, or lord high steward, or lord treasurer; to receive in and lay out, for and to all that are in covenant with the father. and this is one main branch of god's covenant with the redeemer, that he gives out to the heirs of promise, wherewithal to "keep their covenant with god;" so that they never depart from him. "as for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the lord, my spirit that is upon thee, and my words which i have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the lord, from henceforth and for ever." these be the words of god the father to the redeemer, concerning all his spiritual seed; "the redeemer shall come to zion." and that spirit, and these words of life and grace which were upon the redeemer, must be propagated to all his believing seed; by virtue whereof, their covenant with god, shall in its proportion be like god's covenant with them (for indeed the one is but the counterpart of the other) unchangeable, everlasting. "i will make an everlasting covenant with them, that i will not turn away from them to do them good; but i will put my fear in their hearts, and they shall not depart away from me." now therefore, my brethren, since there is enough in christ, study how to draw it out: indeed it will require a great deal of holy skill to do it; it requires wisdom to draw out the excellencies of a man: "counsel in the heart of a man is deep, but a man of understanding will draw it out." it is a fine art to be able to pierce a man, that is like a vessel full of wine, and set him a running; but to draw out influence and virtue from the lord jesus is one of the most secret hidden mysteries in the life of a christian: indeed we may complain, "the well is deep, and we have nothing to draw withal." but labour to get your bucket of faith, that you may be able to "draw water out of this well of salvation." labour by vital acts of a powerful faith; set to work in meditation and prayer, to draw virtue and influence from jesus christ; the mouth of prayer, and the breathings of faith from an heart soakt and steept in holy meditations, applied to jesus christ, will certainly (tho' perhaps insensibly) draw virtue from him. behold, faith drew virtue from christ by a touch of his garments: shall it not much more draw out that rich and precious influence, by applying of him in the promises, and in his offices unto our souls? consider, o christian, whoever thou art, even thou that art in christ, consider, god hath not trusted thee with grace enough before hand, for one month, no, not for a week, a day; nay, thou hast not grace enough before hand for the performance of the next duty, or the conquering of the next temptation; nor for the expediting thyself out of the next difficulty; and why so? but that thou mayest learn to live by continual dependence upon jesus christ, as paul did, "the life that i now live in the flesh, i live it by the faith of the son of god." paul lived by fresh influence drawn from christ by faith, every day and hour; study that life, it is very mysterious, but exceeding precious. had we our stock before hand, we should quickly spend all, and prove bankrupts: god hath laid up all our treasure of "wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption in jesus christ," and will have us live from hand to mouth, that so we might be safe, and god's free grace be exalted: "it is of faith, that it might be by grace, to the end your promise might be sure to all the seed." wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of this heavenly calling, look up to jesus christ, who is the covenant of his father, and your covenant; lo, he calls you. "look unto me, and be ye saved all the ends of the earth." surely they are worthy to perish, who will not bestow a look upon salvation: oh, look humbly, and look believingly, and look continually; look for interest, look for influence, look for righteousness, look for strength; and let jesus christ be all in all to thy soul: thou wilt never be any thing, nor do any thing in christianity, till thou comest to live in and upon jesus christ, and him only: humbly entreat the lord, and give him no rest, that he will make a covenant with thee in christ, which shall keep thee, and then thou wilt be able to keep thy covenant: look up to christ for covenant grace, to keep covenant-engagement, and so shalt thou do this service in a gospel sense, to acceptation, to perpetuity. i have now done with these three queries; what? why? how? how to ( ) acceptation? and ( ) perpetuity? i know much more might be added, but the work to which we are to address ourselves, will take up much time; the lord set home what hath been spoken. only give me leave to tell you thus much in a word, for the close of all; as this covenant prospers with us, so we are like to prosper under it; the welfare of the kingdom and of thy soul, is bound up now in this covenant: for i remember what god speaks of the kingdom of israel, brought into covenant now with the king of babylon, to serve him, and to be his vassals; that "by keeping covenant it should stand." and the breaking of that covenant was the breaking of zedekiah and his whole family and kingdom. now was covenant-breach, or fidelity the foundation of stability or ruin to that kingdom, which was struck, but with a dying man; how much more is the rise and fall of this kingdom; yea, of these two kingdoms, bound up in the observation or forfeiture of this covenant, which we make this day with the living god? you that wish well to the kingdoms, that would not see the downfall and ruin thereof; be from henceforth more conscientious of your covenant, than ever heretofore; for surely, upon the success of this covenant we stand or fall; as we deal with the covenant, god will deal with us; if we slight the covenant, god will slight us; if we have mean thoughts of the covenant, god will have mean thoughts of us; if we forget the covenant, god will forget us; if we break the covenant, we may look that god shall break these two nations, and break us all to pieces; if we reject it, god will reject us; if we regard our covenant, god will regard his covenant, and regard us too; if we remember the covenant, god will remember his, and remember us; if we keep the covenant, the covenant will keep us, and our posterity for ever. there are a people of whom i hear god speaking gracious words. "surely they are my people, children that will not lie." my people, mine by covenant; i have brought them into the bond of the covenant; i have made my covenant with them, and they have made their covenant with me: and they be children that will not lie; i know they will deal no more as a lying and treacherous generation with me, but will be a faithful people in their covenant; and i will be a faithful god unto them; "i will be their saviour, they will serve me, and i will save them." now the lord make us such a people unto him, children that will not lie, and he be such a god to us; he be our saviour, a saviour to both kingdoms, and every soul that makes this covenant; to save us from sin, and to save us from destruction; to save us from our enemies without, and to save us from our enemies within; to save us from the devil, and to save us from the world, and to save us from ourselves; to save us from the lusts of men, and to save us from our own lusts; to save us, and to save our posterity: to save us from rome, and save us from hell; to save us from wrath present, and from wrath to come; to save us here, and to save us hereafter; to save us to himself in grace, and to save us with himself in glory, to all eternity, for christ's sake, amen, and amen. the solemn league and covenant: an ordinance of the lords and commons, _issued february , ._ whereas a covenant for the preservation and reformation of religion, the maintenance and defence of laws and liberties, hath been thought a fit and excellent means to acquire the favour of almighty god towards the three kingdoms of england, scotland and ireland; and likewise to unite them, and by uniting, to strengthen and fortify them against the common enemy of the true reformed religion, peace and prosperity of these kingdoms: and whereas both houses of parliament in england, the cities of london and westminster, and the kingdom of scotland, have already taken the same; it is now ordered and ordained by the lords and commons in parliament, that the same covenant be solemnly taken in all places throughout the kingdom of england, and dominion of wales. and for the better and more orderly taking thereof, these directions ensuing are appointed and enjoined strictly to be followed. _instructions for the taking of the solemn league and covenant throughout the kingdom._ . that the speakers of both houses of parliament do speedily send, to the lord general, and all other commanders in chief, and governors of towns, forts, castles, and garrisons; as also to the earl of warwick, lord high admiral of england, true copies of the said solemn league and covenant, to the end it may be taken by all officers and soldiers under their several commands. . that all the knights and burgesses now in parliament, do take special care, speedily to send down into their several counties (which are, or shall hereafter be under the power of the parliament) a competent number of true copies of the said league and covenant, unto the committees of parliament in their several counties; and that the said committees do within six days at the most disperse the said copies to every parish-church or chapel in their several counties, to be delivered unto the ministers, church-wardens, or constables of the several parishes. . that the said committees be required to return a certificate of the day when they received the said copies, as also the day they sent them forth, and to what parishes they have sent them; which certificate they are to return to the clerk of the parliament, appointed for the commons' house, that so an account may be given of it, as there shall be occasion. . that the several ministers be required to read the said covenant publicly unto their people, the next lord's day after they receive it, and prepare their people for it, against the time that they shall be called to take it. . that the said league and covenant be taken by the committees of parliament, in the place where they reside, and tendered also to the inhabitants of the town, within seven days after it comes to the said committee's hands. . that the said committees after they have taken it themselves, do speedily disperse themselves through the said counties, so as three or four of them be together, on days appointed, at the chief places of meeting, for the several divisions of the said counties: and summon all the ministers, church-wardens, constables, and other officers unto that place, where, after a sermon preached by one appointed by the committee for that purpose, they cause the same minister to tender the league and covenant unto all such ministers, and other officers, to be taken and subscribed by them, in the presence of the said committees. . that the said committees do withal give the said ministers in charge, to tender it unto all the rest of their parishioners the next lord's day, making then unto their said parishioners some solemn exhortation, concerning the taking and observing thereof: and that the said committees do also return to the several parishes, the names of all such as have taken the covenant before them, who yet shall also subscribe their names in the book or roll with their neighbours, in their several parishes: and if any minister refuse or neglect to appear at the said summons, or refuse to take the said covenant before the committee, or to tender it to his parish, that then the committees be careful to appoint another minister to do it in his place. . that this league and covenant be tendered to all men, within the several parishes, above the age of eighteen, as well lodgers as inhabitants. . that it be recommended to the earl of manchester, to take special care, that it be tendered and taken in the university of cambridge. . that for the better encouragement of all sorts of persons to take it, it be recommended to the assembly of divines, to make a brief declaration, by way of exhortation, to all sorts of persons to take it, as that which they judge not only lawful, but (all things considered) exceeding expedient and necessary, for all that wish well to religion, the king and kingdom, to join in, and to be a singular pledge of god's gracious goodness to all the three kingdoms. . that if any minister do refuse to take, or to tender the covenant, or any other person, or persons, do not take it the lord's day that it is tendered, that then it be tendered to them again the lord's day following, and if they still continue to refuse it, that then their names be returned by the minister that tenders it, and by the church-wardens, or constables, unto the committees, and by them to the house of commons, that such further course may be taken with them, as the houses of parliament shall see cause. . that all such persons as are within the several parishes, when notice is given of the taking of it, and do absent themselves from the church at the time of taking it, and come not in afterwards, to the minister and church-wardens or other officers, to take it in their presence before the return be made, be returned as refusers. . the manner of the taking it to be thus; "the minister to read the whole covenant distinctly and audibly in the pulpit, and, during the time of the reading thereof, the whole congregation to be uncovered, and at the end of his reading thereof, all to take it standing, lifting up their right hands bare, and then afterwards to subscribe it severally by writing their names, (or their marks, to which their names are to be added) in a parchment roll, or a book, whereinto the covenant is to be inserted, purposely provided for that end, and kept as a record in the parish." . that the assembly of divines do prepare an exhortation for the better taking of the covenant: and that the said exhortation, and the declaration of the kingdoms of england and scotland, joined in the armies for the vindication and defence of their religion, liberties and laws, against the popish, prelatical and malignant party, and passed the thirty of january last, be publicly read, when the covenant is read, according to the fourth and fifth articles: and that a sufficient number of the copies of the said declaration be sent by the persons, appointed to send the true copies of the said covenant, in the first and second articles. the solemn league and covenant: exhortation by the westminster assembly. if the power of religion or solid reason, if loyalty to the king and piety to their native country, or love to themselves and natural affection to their posterity, if the example of men touched with a deep sense of all these, or extraordinary success from god thereupon, can awaken an embroiled, bleeding remnant to embrace the sovereign and only means of their recovery, there can be no doubt but this solemn league and covenant will find, wheresoever it shall be tendered, a people ready to entertain it with all cheerfulness and duty. and were it not commended to the kingdom by the concurrent encouragement of the honourable houses of parliament, the assembly of divines, the renowned city of london, multitudes of other persons of eminent rank and quality in this nation, and the whole body of scotland, who have all willingly sworn and subscribed it, with rejoicing at the oath, so graciously seconded from heaven already by blasting the counsels, and breaking the power of the enemy more than ever; yet it goeth forth in its own strength, with such convincing evidence of equity, truth and righteousness, as may raise in all (not wilfully ignorant, or miserably seduced) inflamed affections to join with their brethren in this happy bond, for putting an end to the present miseries, and for saving of both king and kingdom from utter ruin, now so strongly and openly laboured by the popish faction, and such as have been bewitched and besotted by that viperous and bloody generation. for what is there almost in this covenant, which was not for substance either expressed, or manifestly included in that solemn protestation of may th, , wherein the whole kingdom stands engaged until this day? the sinful neglect whereof doth (as we may justly fear) open one floodgate the more to let in all these calamities upon the kingdom, and cast upon it a necessity of renewing covenant, and of entering into this. if it be said, the extirpation of prelacy, to wit, the whole hierarchical government (standing, as yet, by the known laws of the kingdom) is new and unwarrantable: this will appear to all impartial understandings, (tho' new) to be not only warrantable, but necessary; if they consider (to omit what some say, that this government was never formally established by any laws of this kingdom at all) that the very life and soul thereof is already taken from it by an act passed in this present parliament, so as (like jezebel's carcase of which no more was left but the skull, the feet, and the palms of her hands) nothing of jurisdiction remains, but what is precarious in them, and voluntary in those who submit unto them: that their whole government is at best but a human constitution, and such as is found and adjudged by both houses of parliament, (in which the judgment of the whole kingdom is involved and declared) not only very prejudicial to the civil state, but a great hindrance also to the perfect reformation of religion. yea, who knoweth it not to be too much an enemy thereunto, and destructive to the power of godliness, and pure administration of the ordinances of christ? which moved the well-affected, almost throughout this kingdom, long since to petition this parliament (as hath been desired before, even in the reign of queen elizabeth, and of king james) for a total abolition of the same. nor is any man hereby bound to offer any violence to their persons, but only in his place and calling, to endeavour their extirpation in a lawful way. and as for those clergymen, who pretend that they (above all others) cannot covenant to extirpate that government, because they have (as they say) taken a solemn oath to obey the bishops, _in licitis et honestis:_ they can tell, if they please, that they that have sworn obedience to the laws of the land, are not thereby prohibited from endeavouring by all lawful means the abolition of those laws, when they prove inconvenient or mischievous. and if yet there should any oath be found, into which any ministers or others have entered, not warranted by the laws of god and the land, in this case they must teach themselves and others, that such oaths call for repentance, not pertinacity in them. if it be pleaded, that this covenant crosseth the oaths of supremacy and allegiance; there can be nothing further from truth; for, this covenant binds all and more strongly engageth them to "preserve and defend the king's majesty's person, and authority, in the preservation and defence of the true religion and liberties of the kingdoms." that scruple, that this is done without the king's consent, will soon be removed, if it be remembered, that the protestation of the fifth of may, before-mentioned, was in the same manner voted and executed by both houses, and after (by order of one house alone) sent abroad to all the kingdom, his majesty not excepting against it, or giving any stop to it, albeit he was resident in person at whitehall. thus ezra and nehemiah (ezra x. neh. ix.) drew all the people into a covenant without any special commission from the persian monarchs (then their sovereigns) so to do, albeit they were not free subjects, but vassals, and one of them the servant of artaxerxes, then by conquest king of judah also. nor hath this doctrine or practice been deemed seditious or unwarrantable, by the princes, that have sat upon the english throne, but justified and defended by queen elizabeth of blessed memory, with the expense of much treasure and noble blood, in the united provinces of the netherlands combined not only without, but against the unjust violence of philip, king of spain; king james followed her steps, so far as to approve their union, and to enter into a league with them as free states; which is continued by his majesty now reigning, unto this day; who both by his expedition for relief of rochel in france, and his strict confederacy with the prince of orange, and the states general, notwithstanding all the importunity of spain to the contrary, hath set to his seal that all that had been done by his royal ancestors, in maintainance of those who had so engaged and combined themselves, was just and warrantable. and what had become of the religion, laws, and liberties of our sister nation of scotland, had they not entered into such a solemn league and covenant at the beginning of the late troubles there? which course however it was at first, by the popish and prelatic projectors, represented to his majesty, as an offence of the highest nature, justly deserving chastisement by the fury of a puissant army; yet when the matter came afterwards in cool blood to be debated, first by commissioners of both kingdoms, and then in open parliament here, (when all those of either house, who are now engaged at oxford, were present in parliament, and gave their votes therein) it was found, adjudged and declared by the king in parliament, that our dear brethren of scotland had done nothing but what became loyal and obedient subjects, and were by act of parliament publicly righted in all the churches of this kingdom, where they had been defamed. therefore, however some men, hoodwinked and blinded by the artifices of those jesuitical engineers, who have long conspired to sacrifice our religion to the idolatry of rome, our laws, liberties and persons to arbitrary slavery, and our estates to their insatiable avarice, may possibly be deterred and amused with high threats and declarations, flying up and down on the wings of the royal name and countenance, now captivated and prostituted to serve all their lusts, to proclaim all rebels and traitors who take this covenant; yet, let no faithful english heart be afraid to join with our brethren of all the three kingdoms in this solemn league, as sometimes the men of israel, although under another king, did with the men of judah, at the invitation of hezekiah. what though those tongues set on fire by hell do rail and threaten? that god who was pleased to clear up the innocency of mordecai and the jews, against all the malicious aspersions of wicked haman to his and their sovereign, so as all his plotting produced but this effect, that (esther ix.) "when the king's commandments and decree drew near to be put in execution, and the enemies of the jews hoped to have power over them, it was turned to the contrary, and the jews had rule over them that hated them, and laid hands on such as sought their hurt, so as no man could withstand them;" and that same god, who, but even as yesterday vouchsafed to disperse and scatter those dark clouds and fogs, which overshadowed that loyal and religious kingdom of scotland, and to make their righteousness to shine as clear as the sun at noon-day, in the very eyes of their greatest enemies, will doubtlessly stand by all those who, with singleness of heart, and a due sense of their own sins, and a necessity of reformation, shall now enter into an everlasting covenant with the lord, never to be forgotten, to put an end to all those unhappy and unnatural breaches between the king and such as are faithful in the land; causing their "righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations," to the terror and confusion of those men of blood, the confederate enemies of god and the king, who have long combined, and have now raked together the dregs and scum of many kingdoms, to bury all the glory, honour and liberty of this nation in the eternal grave of dishonour and destruction. the solemn league and covenant. sermon at london. _by edmond calamy._[ ] "truce-breakers (or covenant-breakers)."-- _tim._ iii. . in the beginning of the chapter, the apostle tells us the condition that the church of god should be in, in the last days. "this know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come." in the second verse, he tells us the reason why these times should be such hard and dangerous times; "for men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous," &c. the reason is not drawn from the miseries and calamities of the last times, but from the sins and iniquities of the last times. it is sin and iniquity that make times truly perilous. sin, and sin only, takes away god's love and favour from a nation, and makes god turn an enemy to it. sin causeth god to take away the purity and power of his ordinances from a nation. sin makes all the creatures to be armed against us, and makes our own consciences to fight against us. sin is the cause of all the causes of perilous times. sin is the cause of our civil wars. sin is the cause of our divisions. sin is the cause why men fall into such dangerous errors. sin brings such kinds of judgments, which no other thing can bring. sin brings invisible, spiritual, and eternal judgments. it is sin that makes god give over a nation to a reprobate sense. sin makes all times dangerous. let the times be never so prosperous, yet if they be sinful times, they are times truly dangerous. and if they be not sinful, they are not dangerous, though never so miserable. it is sin that makes afflictions to be the fruits of god's avenging wrath, part of the curse due to sin, and a beginning of hell. it is sin, and sin only, that embitters every affliction. let us for ever look upon sin through these scripture spectacles. the apostle, in four verses, reckons up nineteen sins, as the causes of the miseries of the last days. i may truly call these nineteen sins, england's looking-glass, wherein we may see what are the clouds that eclipse god's countenance from shining upon us; the mountains that lie in the way to hinder the settlement of church-discipline: even these nineteen sins, which are as an iron-whip of nineteen strings, with which god is whipping england at this day; which are as nineteen faggots, with which god is burning and devouring england. my purpose is not to speak of all these sins; only let me propound a divine project, how to make the times happy for soul and body. and that is to strike at the root of all misery, which is sin and iniquity: to repent for and from all these nineteen sins, which are as the oil that feeds and increases the flame that is now consuming of us. for, because men are lovers of themselves, _usque ad contemptum dei et republicæ_; because men drive their own designs, not only to the neglect, but contempt of god and the commonwealth. because men are covetous, lovers of the world, more than lovers of god. because they are proud in head, heart, looks and apparel. because they are unthankful, turning the mercies of god into instruments of sin, and making darts with god's blessings to shoot against god. because men are unholy and heady, and make many covenants, and keep none. because they are (as the greek word _diaboloi_ signifieth) devils, acting the devil's part, in accusing the brethren, and in bearing false witness one against another. because they have a "form of godliness, denying the power thereof." hence it is that these times are so sad and bloody. these are thy enemies, o england, that have brought thee into this desolate condition! if ever god lead us back into the wilderness, it will be because of these sins. and therefore, if ever ye would have blessed days, you must make it your great business to remove these nineteen mountains, and repent of these land-devouring and soul-destroying abominations. at this time, i shall pick out the first and tenth sin to speak on. the first is, _self-love;_ which is placed in the forefront, as the cause of all the rest. self-love is not only a sin that makes the times perilous, but it is the cause of all these sins that make the times perilous; for, because men are lovers of themselves, therefore they are covetous, proud, unholy. the tenth sin is, _truce-breakers_, and, for fear lest the time should prevent me, i shall begin with this sin first. the tenth sin then is truce-breakers; or, as rom. i. ., "covenant-breakers." the greek word is _aspondoi_, which signifieth three things; _first_, such as are _foederis nescii_, as beza renders it; or, as others, _infoederabilis_; that is, such as refuse to enter into covenant. or, _secondly_, such as are _foedifragi, qui pacta non servant_, as estius hath it, or _sine fide_, as ambrose; that is, such as break faith and covenant. or, _thirdly_, such as are _implacabilis_; or, as others, _sine pace_; that is, such as are implacable, and haters of peace. according to this threefold sense of the word, i shall gather these three observations. doctrine . that to be a covenant-refuser is a sin that makes the times perilous. doct. . that to be a covenant-breaker is a sin that makes the times perilous. doct. . that to be a peace-hater, or a truce-hater, is a sin that makes the times perilous. doct. . that to be a covenant refuser is a sin that makes the times perilous; to be _foederis nescius_, or _infoederabilis_. for the understanding of this, you must know that there are two sorts of covenants, there are devilish and hellish covenants, and there are godly and religious covenants. first, there are devilish covenants, such as acts xxiii. , and isa. xxviii. , such as the holy league, as it was unjustly called in france, against the huguenots, and that of our gun-powder traitors in england. now, to refuse to make such covenants is not to make the times perilous, but the taking of them makes the times perilous. secondly, there are godly covenants, as psal. cxix. , and as chron. xv. : and such as this is which you are met to take this day. for you are to swear to such things which you are bound to endeavour after, though you did not swear. your swearing is not _solum vinculum_, but _novum vinculum_, is not the only, but only a new and another bond to tie you to the obedience of the things you swear unto; which are so excellent and so glorious, that if god gave those that take it a heart to keep it, it will make these three kingdoms the glory of the world. and as one of the reverend commissioners of scotland said, when it was first taken in a most solemn manner at westminster, by the parliament and the assembly, "that if the pope should have this covenant written upon a wall over against him sitting in his chair, it would be unto him like the hand-writing to belshazzar, causing his joints to loose, and his knees to smite one against another." and i may add, that if it be faithfully and fully kept, it will make all the devils in hell to tremble, as fearing lest their kingdom should not stand long. now then, for a man to be an anti-covenanter, and to be such a covenant-refuser, it must needs be a sin that makes the times perilous. and the reasons are, . because you shall find in scripture, that when any nation did enter into a solemn religious covenant, god did exceedingly bless and prosper that nation after that time, as "that thou shouldst enter into covenant with the lord thy god, that he may establish thee to-day for a people to himself, and that he may be unto thee a god." and therefore to be a covenant-refuser, is to make our miseries perpetual. . because it is the highest act of god's love to man, to vouchsafe to engage himself by oath and covenant to be his god; so it is the highest demonstration of man's love to god, to bind himself by oath and covenant to be god's. there is nothing obligeth god more to us, than to see us willing to tie and bind ourselves unto his service: and therefore, they that in this sense are anti-covenanters are sons of belial, that refuse the yoke of the lord, that say, "let us break his bands asunder, and cast away his cords, from us;" such as _oderunt vincula pietatis_, which is a soul-destroying, and a land-destroying sin. . because that the union of england, scotland and ireland, into one covenant, is the chief, if not the only preservative of them at this time. you find in our english chronicles, that england was never destroyed, but when divided within itself. our civil divisions brought in the romans, the saxons, danes and normans; but now the anti-covenanters divide the parliament within itself, and the city within itself, and england against itself; they are as stones separated from the building, which are of no use to itself, and threaten the ruin of the building. jesus christ is called in scripture, the "corner-stone," which is a stone that unites the two ends of the building together. jesus christ is a stone of union: and therefore they that sow division, and study unjust separation, have little of jesus christ in them. when the ten tribes began to divide from the other two tribes, they presently began to war one against another, and to ruin one another: the anti-covenanter, he divides and separates and disunites. and therefore he makes perilous times. my chief aim is at the second doctrine, doctrine . that for a covenant-taker to be a covenant-breaker, is a sin that makes the times perilous. for the opening of this point, i must distinguish again of covenants. there are civil, and there are religious covenants; a civil covenant is a covenant between man and man; and of this the text is primarily, though not only, to be understood. now, for a man to break promise and covenant with his brother, is a land-destroying, and a soul-destroying abomination. we read, sam. xxi., that because saul had broken the covenant that joshua made with the gibeonites, god sent a famine in david's time, of three years' continuance, to teach us that, if we falsify our word and oath, god will avenge covenant-breaking, though it be forty years after. famous is that text in jeremiah. because the princes and the people brake the covenant which they had made with their servants, though but their servants, god tells them, "because ye have not hearkened unto me, in proclaiming liberty every one to his brother.... behold, i proclaim liberty for you, saith the lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine: and i will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth." we read also, that god tells zedekiah, because he brake the covenant he had made with the king of babylon, that therefore, "he would recompense upon his head the oath that he had despised, and the covenant that he had broken, and would bring him to babylon, and plead with him there for the trespass which he had trespassed against the lord." david tells us, that it is a sin that shuts a man out of heaven. the turkish history tells us of a covenant made between amurath, that great turk, and ladislaus, king of hungary, and how the pope absolved ladislaus from the oath, and provoked him to renew the war: in which war the turk, being put to the worst, and despairing of victory, pulls out a paper which he had in his bosom, wherein the league was written, and said, "o thou god of the christians, if thou beest a true god, be avenged of those that have, without cause, broken the league made by calling upon thy name." and the story says, that after he had spoken these words, he had, as it were, "a new heart, and spirit put into him and his soldiers," and that they obtained a glorious victory over ladislaus. thus god avenged the quarrel of man's covenant. the like story we read of rudolphus, duke of sweden, who, by the pope's instigation, waged war with henry iv., emperor of germany, to whom he had sworn to the contrary. but, in the fight it chanced that rudolphus lost his right hand, and falling sick upon it, he called for it and said, "behold this right hand with which i subscribed to the emperor, with which i have violated my oath, and therefore i am rightly punished." i will not trouble you with relating that gallant story of regulus, that chose rather to expose himself to a cruel death, than to falsify his oath to the carthaginians. the sum of all is, if it be such a crying abomination to break covenant between man and man; and if such persons are accounted as the off-scouring of men, not worthy to live in a christian, no, not in a heathen commonwealth: if it be a sin that draws down vengeance from heaven; much more for a man to enter into covenant with the great jehovah, and to break such a religious engagement: this must needs be a destroying and soul-damning sin. and of such religious covenants i am now to speak. there are two covenants that god made with man, a covenant of nature, and a covenant of grace. the covenant of nature, or of works, was made with adam, and all mankind in him. this covenant adam broke, and god presently had a quarrel against him for breaking of it. and, to avenge the quarrel of the covenant, he was thrust out of paradise, and there was a sword also placed at the east end of the garden of eden, to avenge covenant-breaking. and by nature we are all children of wrath, heirs of hell, because of the breach of that covenant. and therefore we should never think of original sin, or of the sinfulness and cursedness of our natural condition, but we should remember what a grievous sin covenant-breaking is. but, after man was fallen, god was pleased to strike a new covenant, which is usually called a covenant of grace, or of reconciliation. this was first propounded to adam by way of promise, "the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." and then to abraham by way of covenant, "in thy seed shall all the nations of the world be blessed." and then to moses by way of testament. it is nothing else but the free and gracious tender of jesus christ, and all his rich purchases to all the lost and undone sons of adam, that shall believe in him: or as the phrase is, "that shall take hold of the covenant." now you must know that baptism is a seal of this covenant, and that all that are baptised do, sacramentally at least, engage themselves to walk before god, and to be upright; and god likewise engages himself to be their god. this covenant is likewise renewed when we come to the lord's supper, wherein we bind ourselves, by a sacramental oath, unto thankfulness to god for christ. add further, that besides this general covenant of grace, whereof the sacraments are seals, there are particular and personal, and family and national covenants. thus, job had his covenant; and david. and when he came to be king, he joined in covenant with his people to serve the lord. thus asa, jehoiada, josiah, and others. thus the people of israel had not only a covenant in circumcision, but renewed a covenant at horeb and moab, and did often again and again bind themselves to god by vow and covenant. and thus the churches of christ. christians, besides the vows in baptism, have many personal and national engagements unto god by covenant, which are nothing else but the renovations and particular applications of that first vow in baptism. of this nature is that you are to renew this day. now give me leave to shew you what a sword-procuring and soul-undoing sin, this sin of covenant-breaking is; and then the reason of it. famous is that text, "and i will send my sword, which shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant." the words in the hebrew run thus, "i will avenge the avengement," which importeth this much, that god is at open war and at public defiance with those that break his covenant: he is not only angry with them, but he will be revenged of them. "the lord hath a controversy with all covenant-breakers." "the lord will walk contrary to them." first, god takes his people into covenant, and then he tells them of the happy condition they should be in, if they did keep the covenant; but if they did break covenant, he tells them, "that the lord will not spare him; but the anger of the lord and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the lord shall blot out his name from under heaven, and the lord shall separate him. and when the nation shall say, wherefore hath the lord done thus unto the land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger? then shall men say. because they have forsaken the covenant of the lord god of their fathers." this was the sin that caused god to send his people israel into captivity, and to remove the candlestick from the asian churches. it is for this sin, that the sword is now devouring germany, ireland, and england. god hath sent his sword to avenge the quarrel of his covenant. the reasons why this sin is a god-provoking sin, are, first, because that, to sin against the covenant is a greater sin than to sin against a commandment of god, or to sin against a promise, or to sin against an ordinance of god. . it is a greater sin than to break a commandment of god; for the more mercy there is in the thing we sin against, the greater is the sin. now there is more mercy in a covenant than in a bare commandment. the commandment tells us our duty, but gives no power to do it. but the covenant of grace, gives power to do what it requires to be done. and therefore, if it be a hell-procuring sin to break the least of god's commandments, much more to be a covenant breaker. . it is a greater sin than to sin against a promise of god; because a covenant is a promise joined with an oath. it is a mutual stipulation between god and us: and therefore, if it be a great sin to break promise, much more to break covenant. . it is a greater sin than to sin against an ordinance, because the covenant is the root and ground of all the ordinances. it is by virtue of the covenant that we are made partakers of the ordinances: the word is the book of the covenant, and the sacraments are the seals of the covenant. and if it be a sin of an high nature to sin against the book of the covenant, and the seals of the covenant, much more against the covenant itself. to break covenant, is a fundamental sin; it razeth the very foundation of christianity, because the covenant is the foundation of all the privileges, and prerogatives, and hopes of the saints of god: and therefore we read that a stranger from the covenant is one "without hope." all hope of heaven is cut off, where the covenant is willingly broken. to break covenant is an universal sin, it includes all other sins. by virtue of the covenant, we tie ourselves to the obedience of god's commandments, we give up ourselves to the guidance of jesus christ, we own him for our lord and king; all the promises of this life, and that which is to come, are contained within the covenant. the ordinances are fruits of the covenant: and therefore they that forsake the covenant, commit many sins in one, and bring not only many but all curses upon their heads. the sum of the first argument is, "if the lord will avenge the quarrel of his commandments," if god was avenged upon the stick-gatherer for breaking the sabbath, much more will he be avenged upon a covenant-breaker. if god will avenge the quarrel of an ordinance; if they that reject the ordinances shall be punished, "of how much sorer punishment shall they be thought worthy, that trample under their feet the blood of the covenant?" if god was avenged of those that abused the ark of the covenant, much more will he punish those that abuse the angel of the covenant. the second reason why covenant-breaking is such a land destroying sin is, because it is a solemn and serious thing to enter into covenant with god; a matter of such great weight and importance, that it is impossible but god should be exceedingly provoked with these that slight it, and disrespect it. the vow in baptism is the first, the most general, and the solemnest that any christian took, saith chrysostom; wherein he doth not only promise, but engage himself by covenant in the sight of god, and his holy angels, to be the servant of jesus christ; and therefore god will not hold him guiltless, that breaks this vow. the solemnity and weightiness of covenant-taking consisteth in three things. . because it is made with the glorious majesty of heaven and earth, who will not be trifled and baffled withal; and therefore, what jehoshaphat said to his judges, "take heed what ye do: for ye judge not for men, but for the lord, who is with you in the judgment. wherefore now, let the fear of the lord be upon you," the like i may say to every one that enters into covenant this day; "take heed what ye do; for it is the lord's covenant, and there is no iniquity with the lord: wherefore now, let the fear of the lord be upon you; for our god is a holy god, he is a jealous god, he will not forgive your transgressions, nor your sins." . because the articles of the covenant are weighty, and of great importance. in the covenant of grace, god engageth himself to give christ, and with him all temporal, spiritual, and eternal blessings, and we engage ourselves to be his faithful servants all our days. in this covenant, we oblige ourselves to do great matters, that nearly concern the glory of god, the good of our souls, and the happiness of the three kingdoms. and in such holy and heavenly things, which so nearly concern our everlasting estate, to dally and trifle must needs incense the anger of the great jehovah. . the manner used both by jews, heathens and christians in entering into covenant, doth clearly set out the weightiness of it, and what a horrible sin it is to break it. the custom among the jews, will appear by divers texts of scripture. it is said, "and i will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, which they had made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof." the words they used when they passed between the parts, were "so god divide me, if i keep not covenant." nehemiah took an oath of the priests, and shook his lap, and said, "so god shake out every man from his house, and from his labour, that performeth not this promise; even thus be he shaken out and emptied. and all the congregation said, amen." abraham divided the heifer, and she-goat, and a ram. "and when the sun was down, a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp, passed between these pieces." this did represent god's presence, saith clemens alexandrinus, and as if god should say, "behold, this day i enter into covenant with thee, and if thou keepest covenant, i will be as a burning lamp to enlighten, and to comfort thee: but if thou breakest covenant, i will be like a smoking furnace to consume thee." thus also moses makes a covenant with israel, and offers sacrifices, and takes the blood of the sacrifices and divides it, and half of it he sprinkles upon the altar, (which represents god's part) and the other half he sprinkles upon the people, as if he should say, "as this blood is divided, so will god divide you, if ye break covenant." this was the custom among the jews, amongst the romans. sometimes they make covenants by taking a stone in their hands, and saying, "if i make this covenant seriously and faithfully, then let the great jupiter bless me; if not so, let me be cast away from the face of the gods, as i cast away this stone." this was called _jurare per jovem lapidem_. all these things are not empty notions and metaphorical shadows, but real and substantial practices; signifying unto us, that god will and must (for it stands with his honour to do it) divide and break them in pieces that break covenant with him. this day you are to take a covenant by the lifting up of your hands unto the most high god, which is a most emphatical ceremony, whereby we do as it were call god to be a witness and a judge of what we do, and a rewarder or revenger, according as we keep or break this covenant. if we keep it, the lifting up of our hands will be as an evening sacrifice; if we break it, the lifting up our hands will be as the lifting up of the hands of a malefactor at the bar, and will procure woe and misery, and wringing of hands at the great day of appearing. the third reason why god will be avenged of those that are covenant-breakers, is: because that a covenant is the greatest obligation and the most forcible claim that can be invented to tie us to obedience and service. god may justly challenge obedience without covenanting, by virtue of creation, preservation and redemption: he hath made us, and, when lost, he hath purchased us with his blood. but being willing more abundantly to manifest his love, that we be the more fastened to him, he hath tied himself to us, and us to him, by the strong bond of a covenant: as if god should say, oh ye sons of men! i see you are rebellious and sons of belial, and therefore, if it be possible, i will make sure. i will engage you unto me, not only by creation, preservation and redemption, but also by the right of covenant and association. i will make you mine by promise and oath. and surely he that will break these bonds is as bad as the man possessed with the devil in the gospel, whom no chains could keep fast. when we enter into covenant with god, we take the oath of supremacy, and swear unto him, that he should be our chief lord and governor, and that we will admit of no sovereign power or jurisdiction, but that god shall be all in all. we likewise take the oath of allegiance, to be his servants and vassals, and that he shall be our supreme in spirituals and temporals. now, for a christian that believes there is a god, to break both these oaths of allegiance and supremacy, it is cursed treason against the god of heaven, which surely god will be avenged of. amongst the romans, when any soldier was pressed, he took an oath to serve the captain faithfully, and not to forsake him, and he was called _miles per sacramentum_. sometimes one took an oath for all the rest, and the others only said, the same oath that a.b. took, the same do i. and these were called _milites per conjurationem_. and when any soldier forsook his captain, he had the martial law executed upon him. thus it is with every christian: he is a professed soldier of christ, he hath taken press-money, he hath sworn and taken the sacrament upon it to become the lord's, he is _miles per sacramentum_, and _miles per conjurationem_: and if he forsake his captain and break covenant, the great lord of hosts will be avenged of him, as it is written, "cursed be the man that obeyeth not the words of the covenant." to break covenant is a sin of perjury, which is a sin of an high nature; and if for oaths the land mourneth, much more for breach of oaths. to break covenant is a sin of spiritual adultery; for by covenanting with god, we do as it were, "join ourselves in marriage to god," as the hebrew word signifieth. now, to break the marriage knot is a sin for which god may justly give a bill of divorce to a nation. to break covenant is a sin of injustice; for by our covenant we do enter, as it were, into bond to god, and engage ourselves as a creditor to his debtor; now the sin of injustice is a land-destroying sin. the fourth reason why god must needs be avenged on those that are covenant-breakers, is, it is an act of the highest sacrilege that can be committed. for, by virtue of the covenant, the lord lays claim to us as his peculiar inheritance. "i sware unto thee, and entered into covenant with thee, and thou becamest mine." "i will be their god, and they shall be my people." it is a worthy observation, that in the covenant there is a double surrender, one on god's part, and another on our part. god almighty makes a surrender of himself, and of his son, and of the holy ghost. behold, saith god, i am wholly thy god; all my power, and mercy, and goodness, all is thine; my son is thine, and all his rich purchases; my spirit is thine, and all his graces: this is god's surrender. on our part, when we take hold of the covenant, we make a delivery of our bodies and souls into the hands of god; we choose him to be our lord and governor, we resign up ourselves into his hands. lord, we are thine at thy disposing: we alienate ourselves, and make a deed of gift of ourselves, and give thee lock and key of head, heart, and affections. this is the nature of every religious covenant, but especially of the covenant of grace. but now, for a christian to call in, as it were, his surrender, to disclaim his resignation, to steal away himself from god, and lay claim to himself after his alienation; to fulfil his own lusts, to walk after his own ways, to do what he lists, and not what he hath covenanted to do, and so to rob god of what is his: this is the highest degree of sacrilege, which god will never suffer to go unpunished. and surely if the stick-gatherer, that did but alienate a little of god's time; and ananias and sapphira, that withheld but some part of their estate: and if belshazzar for abusing the consecrated vessels of the temple, were so grievously punished; how much more will god punish those that alienate themselves from the service of that god to whom they have sworn to be obedient? it is observed by a learned author, of the famous commanders of the romans, that they never prospered after they had defiled and robbed the temple of jerusalem. first, pompey the great, went into the _sanctum sanctorum_, a place never before entered by any but the high-priest, and the lord blasted him in all his proceedings, "that he that before that time wanted earth to overcome, had not at last earth enough to bury him withal." the next was crassus, who took away , talents of gold from the temple, and afterward died, by having gold poured down his throat. the third was cassius, who afterwards killed himself. if then god did thus avenge himself of those that polluted his consecrated temple; much more will he not leave them unpunished, that are the living temples of the holy ghost, consecrated to god by covenant, and afterwards proving sacrilegious, robbing god of that worship and service, which they have sworn to give him. the fifth reason why this sin makes the times perilous, is; because covenant-breakers are reckoned amongst the number of those that have the mark of reprobation upon them. i do not say that they are all reprobates, yet i say, that the apostle makes it to be one of those sins which are committed by those that are given up "to a reprobate mind." the words are spoken of the heathen, and are to be understood of covenants made between man and man; and then the argument will hold _a fortiori_. if it be the brand of a reprobate to break covenant with man, much more a covenant made with the great jehovah by the lifting up of our hands to heaven. the last reason is, because it is a sin against such infinite mercy. it is said, "which my covenant they brake, although i was an husband unto them;" that is, although i had chosen them for my spouse, and married myself unto them with an everlasting covenant of mercy, and entailed heaven unto them, yet they have broken my covenant. this was a great provocation. thus, "when thou wast in thy blood, and no eye pitied thee, to have compassion upon thee, i said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, live: yea, i said unto thee, live." it is twice repeated. as if god should say, "mark it, o israel, when no eye regarded thee, then i said unto thee, live." behold, saith god, "thy time was the time of love." behold, and wonder at it. "and i spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, i sware unto thee, and entered into covenant with thee, saith the lord, and thou becamest mine." and yet for all this, thou has sinned grievously against me. "wo, wo unto thee, saith the lord god." there is a fivefold mercy in the covenant, especially in the covenant of grace, that makes the sin of covenant-breaking to be so odious. . it is a mercy that the great god will vouchsafe to enter into covenant with dust and ashes. as david saith in another case, "is it a light thing to be the son-in-law of a king?" so may i say, "is it a light matter for the lord of heaven and earth to condescend so far as to covenant with his poor creatures, and thereby to become their debtors, and to make them, as it were, his equals?" when jonathan and david entered into a covenant of friendship, though one was a king's son, the other a poor shepherd, yet there was a kind of equality between them. but this must be understood warily, according to the text. "blessed be god, who hath called us unto the fellowship of his son jesus christ our lord." he is still our lord, though in fellowship with us. it is a covenant of infinite condescension on god's part, whereby he enters into a league of friendship with his people. . the mercy is the greater, because this covenant was made after the fall of adam. after we had broken the first covenant, that the lord should try us the second time, is not only an act of infinite goodness of god, but of infinite mercy. there is a difference between the goodness and the mercy of god. goodness may be shewed to those that are not in misery: but mercy supposeth misery. and this was our condition after the breach of the first covenant. . that god should make this covenant with man, and not with devils. . this sets out the mercy of the covenant, because it contains such rare and glorious benefits, and therefore it is called a covenant of life and peace. "an everlasting covenant even the sure mercies of david." it is compared to the waters of noah, isa. liv. . famous are those two texts; exod. xix. , ; jer. xxxii. , --texts that hold forth strong consolation. by virtue of the covenant, heaven is not only made possible, but certain to all believers, and certain by way of oath. it is by virtue of the covenant that we call him father, and may lay claim to all the power, wisdom, goodness and mercy, that are in god. as jehoshaphat told the king of israel, to whom he was joined in covenant, "i am as thou art, my people as thy people, my horses as thy horses:" so doth god say to all that are in covenant with him, "my power is thine, my holiness is thine." by virtue of this covenant, whatsoever thou wantest, god cannot deny it thee, if it be good for thee. say unto god, lord, thou hast sworn to take away my heart of stone, and to give me a heart of flesh, thou hast sworn to write thy law in my heart, thou hast sworn to circumcise my heart, thou hast sworn to give me christ, to be my king, priest and prophet. and god cannot but be a covenant-keeper. by virtue of this covenant, god cannot but accept of a poor penitent sinner, laying hold upon christ for pardon. in a word, we may challenge pardon and heaven by our covenant. god is not only merciful but just to forgive us; we may challenge heaven through christ, out of justice. and . that the condition of the covenant on our part should be upon such easy terms, therefore it is called a covenant of free grace, and all that god requires of us is to take hold of this covenant; to receive this gift of righteousness; to take all christ, as he is tendered in the covenant; and, that which is the greatest consolation of all, god hath promised in his covenant to do our part for us. therefore it is called a testament, rather than a covenant. in the new testament, the word _diatheke_, is always used by the apostle, and not _syntheke_. heaven is conveyed into the elect by way of legacy. it is part of god's testament, to write his law in our hearts, and to cause us to walk in his ways. put these together, seeing there is such infinite mercy in the covenant. a mercy, for god to enter into covenant with us, to do it with us, and not the angels; with us fallen, with us upon, such easy terms, and to make such a covenant that contains so many, and not only so but all blessings here and hereafter, in the womb of it. it must needs be a land-destroying, and soul-destroying sin, to be a covenant-breaker. the use and application of this doctrine is fourfold. . of information. if it be such a land-destroying sin to be a covenant-breaker, let us from hence learn the true cause of all the miseries that have happened unto england in these late years. the womb out of which all our calamities are come--england hath broken covenant with god, and now god is breaking england in pieces, even as a potter breaks a vessel in pieces. "god hath sent his sword to avenge the quarrel of his covenant," as christ whipped the buyers and sellers out of the temple, with whips made of the cords which they had brought to tie their oxen and sheep withal. a covenant is a cord to tie us to god; and now god hath made an iron whip of that covenant which we have broken asunder, to whip us withal. we are a nation in covenant with god, we have the books of the covenant, the old and new testament; we have the seals of the covenant, baptism, and the lord's supper; we have the messengers of the covenant, the ministers of the gospel; we have the angel of the covenant, the lord jesus christ, fully, freely, and clearly set out before us in the ministry of the word: but alas! are not these blessings amongst us, as the ark was amongst the philistines, rather as prisoners, than as privileges, rather _in testimonium et ruinam, quam in salutem_; rather for our ruin, than for our happiness? may it not be said of us, as reverend mulin said of the french protestants, "while they burned us (saith he) for reading the scriptures, we burned with zeal to be reading of them; now with our liberty is bred also negligence and disesteem of god's word." so is it with us, while we were under the tyranny of bishops; oh! how sweet was a fasting day? how beautiful were the feet of them that brought the gospel of peace unto you? how dear and precious were god's people one to another? but now, how are our fasting days slighted and vilified? how are the people of god divided one from another, railing upon (instead of loving) one another? and is not the godly ministry as much persecuted by the tongues of some that would be accounted godly, as heretofore by the bishop's hands? is not the holy bible by some rather wrested than read? wrested, i say, by ignorant and unstable souls, to their own destruction? and as for the seals of the covenant, . for the lord's supper, how oft have we spilt the blood of christ by our unworthy approaches to his table? and hence it is, that he is now spilling our blood; how hard a matter is it, to obtain power to keep the blood of christ from being profaned by ignorant and scandalous communicants? and can we think, that god will be easily entreated to sheath up his bloody sword, and to cease shedding our blood? . for the sacrament of baptism; how cruel are men grown to their little infants, by keeping of them from the seal of entrance into the kingdom of heaven, and making their children to be just in the same condition with the children of turks and infidels? i remember, at the beginning of these wars there was a great fear fell upon godly people about their little children, and all their care was for their preservation and their safety; and for the continuance of the gospel to them. but now, our little children are likely to be in a worse condition than ever. and all this is come upon us as a just punishment of our baptismal covenant-breaking. and as for jesus christ, who is the angel of the covenant: are there not some amongst us that ungod jesus christ? and is it not fit and equal that god should unchurch us and unpeople us? are there not thousands that have sworn to be christ's servants, and yet are in their lives the vassals of sin and satan? and shall not god be avenged of such a nation as this? these things considered, it is no wonder our miseries are so great, but the wonder is that they are not greater. . an use of examination. days of humiliation ought to be days of self-examination. let us therefore upon such a day as this, examine, whether we be not amongst the number of those that make the times perilous, whether we be not covenant-breakers? here i will speak of three covenants; . of the covenant we have made with god in our baptism. . of the covenant we have made with god in our distresses. . and especially of this covenant you are to renew this day. . of the covenant which we made in baptism, and renew every time we come to the lord's supper, and upon our solemn days of fasting. there are none here, but i may say of them, "the vows of god are upon you." you are _servi nati, empti, jurati_, you are the born, bought, and sworn servants of god, you have made a surrender of yourselves unto god and christ. the question i put to you is this: how often have you broken covenant with god? it is said, "the sinners in zion are afraid; who shall dwell with everlasting torments? who shall dwell with devouring fire?" when god comes to a church-sinner, to a sinner under the old testament, much more to a christian sinner, a sinner under the new testament, and layeth to his charge his often covenant-breaking, fearfulness shall possess him, and he will cry out, "oh! woe is me, who can dwell with everlasting burnings? our god is a consuming fire, and we are as stubble before him; who can stand before his indignation? who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? when his fury is poured forth like fire, and the rocks are thrown down before him. who can stand?" of all sorts of creatures, a sinful christian shall not be able to stand before the lord, when he comes to visit the world for their sins. for when a christian sins against god, he sins not only against the commandment but against the covenant. and in every sin he is a commandment-breaker, and a covenant-breaker. and therefore, whereas the apostle saith, "tribulation and anguish upon every soul that sinneth: but first upon the jews," i may add, first, upon the christian, then upon the jew, and then upon the grecian, because the covenant made with the christian is called a better covenant: and therefore his sins have a higher aggravation in them. there is a notable passage in austin, in which he brings in the devil thus pleading with god, against a wicked christian at the day of judgment. oh! thou righteous judge, give righteous judgment; judge him to be mine who refused to be thine, even after he had renounced me in his baptism; what had he to do to wear my livery? what had he to do with gluttony, drunkenness, pride, wantonness, incontinency, and the rest of my ware? all these things he hath practised, since he renounced the devil and all his works. mine he is, judge righteous judgment; for he whom thou hast not disdained to die for, hath obliged himself to me by his sins. now, what can god say to this charge of the devil's, but take him, devil, seeing he would be thine; take him, torment him with everlasting torments. cyprian brings in the devil thus speaking to christ in the great day of judgment. i have not (saith the devil) been whipped, and scourged, and crucified, neither have i shed my blood for those whom thou seest with me; i do not promise them a kingdom of heaven, and yet these men have wholly consecrated themselves to me and my service. indeed, if the devil could make such gainful covenants with us, and bestow such glorious mercies upon us as are contained within the covenant, our serving of satan and sin might have some excuse. but, whereas his covenant is a covenant of bondage, death, hell, and damnation; and god's covenant is a covenant of liberty, grace, and eternal happiness, it must needs be a sin inexcusable to be willingly and wilfully such a covenant-breaker. . let us examine concerning the vows which we have made to god in our distresses; in our personal distresses, and our national distresses. are we not like the children of israel, of whom it is said, "when he slew them, then they sought him, and they returned and inquired early after god. nevertheless they did flatter him with their mouth. for their heart was not right with him, neither were they stedfast in his covenant." are we not like little children that, while they are being whipped, will promise any thing; but, when the whipping is over, will perform nothing? or like unto iron that is very soft and malleable while it is in the fire, but, when it is taken out of the fire, returns presently to its former hardness? this was jacob's fault: he made a vow when he was in distress, but he forgot his covenant, and god was angry with him, and chastised him in his daughter, dinah, and in his two sons, simeon and levi; and at last god himself was fain to call him from heaven to keep covenant; and after that time god blessed jacob exceedingly. we read of david, that he professes of himself, "that he would go to god's house, and pay the vows which his lips uttered, and his mouth had spoken, when he was in trouble." but, how few are there that imitate david in this thing. . let us examine ourselves concerning this solemn league and covenant which we are to renew this day. and here i demand an answer to this question. quest. are we not covenant-breakers? do we not make the times perilous by our falsifying of our oath and covenant with god? in our covenant we swear to six things. . "that we will endeavour to be humbled for our own sins, and for the sins of the kingdom:" but where shall we find a mourner in england for his own abominations, and for the abominations that are committed in the midst of us? it is easy to find a censurer of the sins of the land, but hard to find a true mourner for the sins of the land. . we swear "that we will endeavour to go before one another in the example of a real reformation." but who makes conscience of this part of the oath? what sin hast thou left, or in what one thing hast thou reformed since thou didst take this covenant? we read, "that they entered into a covenant to put away their wives and children by them," which was a very difficult and hard duty, and yet they did it. but what bosom-sin, what beloved sin, as dear to thee as thy dear wife and children, hast thou left for god's sake, since thou tookest this oath? i read, that the people took an oath to make restitution, which was a costly duty, and yet they performed it. but alas! where is the man that hath made restitution of his ill-gotten goods since he took this covenant? i read, that king asa deposed his mother maachah, her even, from being queen, after he had entered into covenant: and that the people, after they had sworn a covenant, brake in pieces all the altars of baal thoroughly. but where is this thorough reformation. we say, we fight for a reformation, but i fear lest in a little time, we fight away our reformation. or, if we fight it not away, yet we should dispute it away. for all our religion is turned into questions, in so much that there are some that call all religion into question, and in a little while will lose all religion in the crowd of questions. there was a time not many years ago, when god did bless our ministry in the city, to the conversion of many people unto god; but now there are many that study more to gain parties to themselves, than to gain souls to god. the great work of conversion is little thought on, and never so few, if any at all, converted as in these days wherein we talk so much of reformation. and is this to keep covenant with god? . we swear "to endeavour to amend our lives, and reform not only ourselves, but also those that are under our charge." but where is that family reformation? indeed i read of jacob that when he went to perform his vow and covenant, he first reformed his family. and that joshua resolved, and performed it, "for himself and his family to serve the lord." and so did josiah. and oh! that i could add, and so do we. but the wickedness committed in our families proclaims the contrary to all the world. what noblemen, what aldermen, what merchants, families, are more reformed since the covenant than before? we speak and contend much for a church-reformation, but how can there be a church-reformation, unless there be a family-reformation? what though the church-worship be pure, yet if the worshippers be impure, god will not accept of the worship? and if families be not reformed, how will your worshippers be pure? . we swear to endeavour "to bring the churches of god in the three kingdoms to the nearest uniformity in religion confession of faith, form of church government, directory for worship, and catechising." but are there not some that write against an uniformity in religion, and call it an idol? are there not many that walk professedly contrary to this clause of the covenant? there are three texts of scripture that people keep quite the contrary way. the first is, "take no thought what ye shall eat; take no thought for to-morrow." and most people take thought for nothing else. the second is, "seek ye first the kingdom of god and his righteousness;" and most people seek this last of all. the third text is, "labour not for the meat that perisheth, but for the meat that endureth for ever;" and most people labour not for the meat that endureth for ever, but for the meat that perisheth. as these three texts are kept, so do many people keep this part of the oath; for there were never more divisions and differences in the church, never more deformity, and pleading against uniformity, than now there is. . we swear "to endeavour the extirpation of popery, prelacy, superstition, heresy, and schism." and yet, notwithstanding, there are some that have taken the oath that contend earnestly for a toleration of all religions. . we swear "against a detestable indifferency and neutrality in this cause, which so much concerneth the glory of god." and yet how many are there amongst us like unto gallio, that care not what becomes of the cause of god, so they may have peace and quiet? that will not be the backwardest of all, and yet will be sure not to be too forward; for fear lest, if the times turn, they should be noted amongst the chief of the faction? that are very indifferent which side prevail, so they may have their trading again? that say as the politicians say, that they would be careful not to come too near the heels of religion, lest it should dash out their brains: and as the king of arragon told beza, that he would wade no further into the sea of religion, than he could safely return to shore. in all these six particulars, let us seriously search and try our hearts, whether we be not among the number of those that make the times perilous. the third use is for humiliation. let the consideration of our covenant-breaking be a heart-breaking consideration to every one of us this day: let this be a mighty and powerful argument to humble us upon this day of humiliation. there are five considerations that are exceedingly soul-humbling, if god bless them to us. . the consideration of the many commandments of god, that we have often and often broken. . the consideration of the breaking of jesus christ for our sins, how he was rent and torn for our iniquities. . the consideration of the breaking of the bread, and pouring out of the wine in the sacrament, which is a heart-breaking motive and help. . the broken condition that the kingdoms of england, scotland, ireland, and germany, are in at this time. . the many vows and covenants that we have broken; our sacrament-covenants, our fasting-covenants, our sick-bed covenants; and especially the consideration of our often breaking our national covenant, which you come this day to renew. this is a sin in folio, a sin of a high nature: and if ever god awaken our conscience in this life, a sin that will lie like a heavy _incubus_ upon it. a greater sin than to sin against a commandment, or against an ordinance. a sin not only of disobedience, but of perjury; a sin of injustice, of spiritual adultery, a sin of sacrilege, a sin of great unkindness, a sin that not only makes us disobedient, but dishonest; for we account him a dishonest man, that keeps not his word. a sin that not only every good christian, but every good heathen doth abhor; a sin that not only brings damnation upon us, but casteth such an horrible disgrace and reproach upon god, that it cannot stand with god's honour not to be avenged of a covenant-breaker. tertullian saith, "that when a christian forsakes his covenant, and the colours of christ, and turns to serve as the devil's soldier, he puts an unspeakable discredit upon god and christ." for it is as much as if he should say, "i like the service of the devil better than the service of god." and it is just as if a soldier that hath waged war under a captain, and afterwards forsakes him, and turns to another; and after that, leaves this other captain, and turns to his former captain. this is to prefer the first captain before the second. this makes god complain, "what iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they have gone far from me?" and, "hath any nation changed their god, which yet are no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit." basil brings in the devil insulting over christ, and saying, "i never created nor redeemed these men, and yet they have obeyed me and contemned thee, o christ, even after they have covenanted to be thine." and then he adds, "i esteem this honouring of the devil over jesus christ at the great day, to be more grievous to a true saint than all the torments in hell." a saying worthy to be written in letters of gold. seeing then that covenant-breaking is so great an abomination, the lord give us hearts to be humbled for this great abomination this day. and this will be a notable preparation to fit you for the renewing of your covenant. for we read, that nehemiah first called his people to fast before he drew them unto a covenant: according to which pattern, you are here met to pray and humble your souls for your former covenant-breaking; and then to bind yourselves anew unto the lord our god. as wax, when it is melted, will receive the impression of a seal, which it will not do before: so will your hearts, when melted into godly sorrow for our sins, receive the seal of god abidingly upon them which they will not do when hardened in sin. is every man that sins against the covenant to be accounted a covenant-breaker, and a perjured sacrilegious person? by no means. for, as every failing of a wife doth not break covenant between her and her husband, but she is to be accounted a wife, till she, by committing adultery, break the covenant: so, every miscarriage against the covenant of grace, or against this national covenant doth not denominate us, in a gospel account, covenant-breakers: but then god accounts us, according to his gospel, to break covenant when we do not only sin, but commit sin against the covenant; when we do not only sin out of weakness, but out of wickedness; when we do not only fail, but fall into sin; when we forsake and renounce the covenant; when we deal treacherously in the covenant, and enter into league and covenant with those sins which we have sworn against; when we walk into anti-covenant paths, and willingly do contrary to what we swear; then are we perjured, and unjust, and sacrilegious, and guilty of all those things formerly mentioned. the fourth use presents unto you a divine, and therefore a sure project to make the times happy; and that is, let all covenant-takers labour to be covenant-keepers. it hath pleased god, to put it in your hearts to renew your covenant, the same god enabled you to keep covenant. it is said, "the king made a covenant before the lord. and he caused all that were present in jerusalem and benjamin to stand to it. and the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the lord. and all the people stood to the covenant." this is your duty, not only to take the covenant, but to stand to the covenant; and to stand to it maugre all opposition to the contrary, as we read, "and they entered into a covenant to seek the lord god of their fathers. that whosoever would not seek the lord god of israel, should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman." for it is not the taking, but the keeping of the covenant, that will make you happy. god is styled, "a god keeping covenant." o that this might be the honour of this city! that we may say of it, london is a city keeping covenant with god. great and many are the blessings entailed upon covenant-keepers. "now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me, above all people: for all the earth is mine; and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation." "all the paths of the lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant." there are three covenants, i shall persuade you in a special manner to stand to. . the covenant you made with god in baptism. a christian (saith chrysostom) should never step out of doors, or lie down in his bed, or go into his closet, but he should remember the time when he did renounce the devil and all his works. oh, let us not forget that which we ought always to remember! let us remember to keep that covenant, as we ever desire god should remember us in mercy at the great day. . the covenant we make with god in our afflictions. famous is that passage of pliny in one of his epistles, to one that desired rules from him how to order his life aright; i will (saith he) give you one rule, which shall be instead of a thousand: that we should persevere to be such, when we are well, as we promise to be when we are sick. a sentence never to be forgotten: the lord help us to live accordingly. . the covenant which you are to take this day. the happiness or misery of england doth much depend upon the keeping or breaking of this covenant. if england keep it, england by keeping covenant shall stand sure. if england break it, god will break england in pieces. if england slight it, god will slight england. if england forsake it, god will forsake england, and this shall be written upon the tomb of perishing england, "here lieth a nation that hath broken the covenant of their god." remember what you have heard this day, that it is the brand of a reprobate to be a covenant-breaker, and it is the part of a fool to vow and not to pay his vows. and god hath no delight in the sacrifice of fools. "better not to vow, than to vow and not to pay." it is such a high profanation of god's name, as that god cannot hold a covenant-breaker guiltless; it is perjury, injustice, spiritual adultery, sacrilege. and the very lifting up of our hands this day, (if you do not set heart and hand on work to keep covenant) will be a sufficient witness against you at the great day. we read "that jacob and laban entered in covenant, and took a heap of stones, and they called the place mizpah, the lord watch between me and thee," and made them a witness, and said "this heap is a witness." "the god of abraham judge betwixt us." such is your condition this day. you enter into covenant to become the lord's, and to be valiant for his truth, and against his enemies, and the very stones of this church shall be witness against you, if you break covenant; the name of this place may lie called mizpah. the lord will watch over you for good, if you keep it, and for evil if you break it; and all the curses contained in the book of the covenant shall light upon a willing covenant-breaker. the lord fasten these meditations and soul-awakening considerations upon your hearts. the lord give you grace to keep close to the covenant and a good conscience, which are both lost by breaking covenant. there are four things i shall persuade you unto in pursuance of your covenant. . to be humbled for your own sins, and for the sins of the kingdom; and more especially, because we have not, as we ought, valued the inestimable benefit of the gospel, that we have not laboured to receive christ in our hearts, nor to walk worthy of him in our lives, which are the causes of other sins and transgressions so much abounding amongst us. gospel sins are greater than legal sins, and will bring gospel curses, which are greater than legal curses. and therefore let us be humbled according to our covenant, for all our gospel abominations. . you must be ambitious to go before one another in an example of real reformation. you must swear vainly no more, be drunk no more, break the sabbath no more. you must remember what david says. "but unto the wicked god saith, what hast thou to do to take my covenant in thy mouth? seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee." to sin willingly, after we have sworn not to sin, is not only to sin against a commandment, but to sin against an oath, which is a double iniquity, and will procure a double damnation. and he that takes a covenant to reform, and yet continueth unreformed, his covenant will be unto him as the bitter water of jealousy was to the woman guilty of adultery, which made her belly to swell, and thigh to rot. . you must be careful to reform your families, according to your covenant, and the example of jacob and joshua, and the godly kings fore-mentioned. . you must endeavour, according to your places and callings, to bring the churches of god in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction, and uniformity in religion. o blessed unity! how comes it to pass, that thou art so much slighted and contemned? was not unity one of the chief parts of christ's prayer unto his father, when he was here upon the earth? is not unity amongst christians one of the strongest arguments to persuade the world to believe in christ? is it not the chief desire of the holy apostles, that we "should all speak the same things, and that there should be no division amongst us?" is not unity the happiness of heaven? is it not the happiness of a city, to be at unity with itself? "is it not a good and pleasant thing for brethren to dwell together in unity?" how comes it to pass then that this part of the covenant is so much forgotten? the lord mind you of it this day; and the lord make this great and famous city, a city of holiness, and a city of unity within itself: for if unity be destroyed, purity will quickly also be destroyed. the church of god is _una_, as well as _sancta_; it is but one church, as well as it is a holy church. and "jesus christ gave some to be apostles, etc. till we all come to the unity of the faith." the government of christ is appointed for keeping the church in unity, as well as purity. these things which god hath joined together, let no man put asunder. that government which doth not promote unity as well as purity, is not the government of christ. oh, the misery of the kingdom where church divisions are nourished and fomented! a kingdom or church against itself, cannot stand. would it not be a sad thing, to see twelve in a family, and one of them a presbyterian, another an independent, another a brownist, another an antimonian, another an anabaptist, another a familist, another for prelatical government, another a seeker, another a papist, and the tenth, it may be, an atheist, and the eleventh a jew, and the twelfth a turk? the lord in his due time heal our divisions, and make you his choice of instruments, according to your places, that the lord may be one, and his name one in the three kingdoms. _quest._ but some will say, "how shall i do to get up my heart to this high pitch, that i may be a covenant-keeper?" i will propound these three helps. . labour to be always mindful of your covenant, according to that text, "god is always mindful of his covenant." it was the great sin of the people of israel, that they were unmindful of the covenant. they first forgot the covenant, and afterwards did quickly forsake it. he that forgets the covenant, must needs be a covenant-breaker. let us therefore remember it, and carry it about us as _quotidianum argumentum_, and _quotidianum munimentum_. . let us make the covenant a daily argument against all sin and iniquity; and when we are tempted to any sin, let us say, "i have sworn to forsake my old iniquity, and, if i commit this sin, i am not only a commandment-breaker, but an oath-breaker. i am perjured. i have sworn to reform my family, and therefore i will not suffer a wicked person to tarry in my family; i have sworn against neutrality and indifferency, and therefore i will be zealous in god's cause." . let us make this covenant a daily muniment and armour of defence, to beat back all the fiery darts of the devil: when any one tempts thee by promise of preferment to do contrary to thy covenant, or threatens to ruin thee for the hearty pursuing of thy covenant, here is a ready answer, "i am sworn to do what i do, and, if i do otherwise, i am a perjured wretch." this is a wall of brass, to resist any dart that shall be shot against thee for well-doing, according to thy covenant. famous is the story of hannibal, which he told king antiochus, when he required aid of him against the romans, "when i was nine years old (saith he) my father carried me to the altar, and made me take an oath to be an irreconcilable foe to the romans. in pursuance of this oath, i have waged war against them thirty-six years. to keep this oath, i have left my country, and am come to seek aid at your hands, which, if you deny, i will travel all over the world, to find out some enemies to the roman state." if an oath did so mightily operate in hannibal; let the oath you are to take this day work as powerfully upon you; and make your oath an argument to oppose personal-sins and family sins, and to oppose heresy, schism, and all profaneness; and to endeavour to bring the church of god in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity. and let this oath be armour-proof against all temptations to the contrary. and know this one thing, that if the covenant be not a daily argument and muniment against sin, it will become, upon your breaking of it, a daily witness against you, as the book of the law was, and an "everlasting shame and reproach" unto you and yours. . let us have high thoughts of the covenant. actions and affections follow our apprehensions. if thy judgment be belepered with a corrupt opinion about the covenant, thy affections and actions will quickly be belepered also: and therefore you ought to endeavour, according to your places, that nothing be spoken or written that may tend to the prejudice of the covenant. . you must take heed of the cursed sin of self-love, which is placed in the forefront, as the cause of all the catalogue of sins here named; "because men are lovers of themselves, therefore they are covetous," etc., and therefore they are covenant-breakers. a self-seeker cannot but be a covenant-breaker: this is a sin you must hate as the very gates of hell. and this is the second sin i promised in the beginning of my sermon to speak on: but the time, and your other occasions will not permit. there is a natural self-love, and a divine self-love, and a sinful self-love. this sinful self-love is, when we make ourselves the last end of all our actions, when we so love ourselves, as to love no man but ourselves, according to the proverb, "every man for himself." when we pretend god and his glory, and the common good, but intend ourselves, and our own private gain and interest; when we serve god upon politic designs. where this sinful self-love dwells, there dwells no love to god, no love to thy brother, no love to church or state. this sinful self-love is the caterpillar that destroyeth church and commonwealth. it is from this sinful self-love that the public affairs drive on so heavily, and that church-government is not settled, and that our covenant is so much neglected. of this sin, i cannot now speak; but, when god shall offer opportunity, i shall endeavour to uncase it you. in the meantime, the lord give you grace to hate it as hell itself. the national covenants. [illustration: fac-simile of old title page of following ceremony.] the form and order of the coronation of charles ii. king of _scotland_, _england_, _france_, and _ireland_. as it was acted and done at _scoon_, the first day of _january_, . by the reverend mr. robert douglas, minister at _edinburgh_, and one of the members of the _westminster_ assembly of _divines_. chron. xxix. . _then_ solomon _sat on the throne of the lord as king, in stead of_ david _his father, and prospered, and all_ israel _obeyed him._ prov. xx. . _a king that sitteth in the throne of judgment, scattereth away all evil with his eyes._ prov. xxv. . _take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness._ glasgow printed for george paton, and are to be sold at his shop in _linlithgow_, and other booksellers in town and country. . the national covenants coronation sermon at scone.[ ] _by robert douglas._ and he brought forth the king's son, and put the crown upon him; and gave him the testimony, and they made him king and anointed him, and they clapped their hands, and said, god save the king. and jehoiada made a covenant between the lord, and the king, and the people, that they should he the lord's people; between the king also, and the people.--_ kings_ xi, , . in this text of scripture you have the solemn enthronizing of joash, a young king, and that in a very troublesome time; for athaliah, the mother of ahaziah, had cruelly murdered the royal seed, and usurped the kingdom by the space of six years. only this young prince was preserved by jehosheba, the sister of ahaziah, and wife to jehoiada, the high priest, being hid with her in the house of the lord, all that time. good interpreters do conjecture, though joash be called the son of ahaziah, that he was not his son by nature, but by succession to the crown. they say, that the race of solomon ceased here, and the kingdom came to the posterity of nathan, the son of david, because, 'tis said, "the house of ahaziah had no power to keep still the kingdom;" which they conceive to be for the want of children in that house, and because of the absurdity and unnaturalness of the fact, that athaliah, the grandmother, should have cut off her son's children. i shall not stand on the matter, only i may say, if they were ahaziah's own children, it was a most unnatural and cruel act for athaliah to cut off her own posterity. for the usurpation, there might have been two motives. _first_, it seemeth when ahaziah went to battle, athaliah was left to govern the kingdom, and, her son ahaziah being slain before his return, she thought the government sweet, and could not part with it, and because the royal seed stood in her way, she cruelly destroyed them, that she might reign with the greater freedom. _secondly_, she was earnest to set up a false worship, even the worship of baal, which she thought could not be so well done, as by cutting off the royal race, and getting the sole power in her hand, that she might do what she pleased. the business you are about this day, is not unlike: you are to invest a young king in the throne, in a very troublesome time, and wicked men have risen up and usurped the kingdom, and put to death the late king most unnaturally. the like motives seemed to have prevailed with them. _first_, these men by falsehood and dissimulation, have gotten power in their hands, which to them is so sweet, that they are unwilling to part with it; and because the king and his seed stood in their way, they have made away the king, and disinherited his children, that the sole power might be in their hand. _secondly_, they have a number of damnable errors, and a false worship to set up, and intend to take away the ordinances of christ, and government of his kirk: all this cannot be done, unless they have the sole power in their hands, and this they cannot have until the king and his posterity be cut off. but i leave this, and come to the present solemnity; there's a prince to be enthroned, good jehoiada will have the crown put upon his head. it may be questioned why they went about this coronation in a time of so great hazard, when athaliah had reigned six years. had it not been better to have defeated athaliah, and then to have crowned the king? two reasons may be rendered why they delay the coronation. ( ) to crown the king was a duty they were bound to. hazard should not make men leave their duty; they did their duty, and left the success to god. ( ) they crowned the young king, to endear the people's affections to their own native prince, and to alienate their hearts from her that had usurped the kingdom. if they had delayed (the king being known to be preserved), it might have brought on not only compliance with her, but also subjection to her government, by resting in it, and being content to lay aside the righteous heir of the crown. the same is observed in our case; and many wonder that you should crown the king in a dangerous time, when the usurpers have such power in the land. the same reasons may serve to answer for your doing. ( ) it is our necessary duty to crown the king upon all hazards, and to leave the success to god. ( ) it appeareth now it hath been too long delayed. delay is dangerous, because of the compliance of some, and treachery of others. if it shall be delayed longer, it is to be feared that the most part shall sit down under the shadow of the bramble, the destroying usurpers. i come to the particular handling of the present text: and, to speak from it to the present time, i have read the twelfth and seventeenth verses, because of these two which meet together in the crowning of a king, and his renewing the covenant. amongst many particulars which may be handled from this text, i shall confine myself to these five, . the crown, "he put the crown upon his head." . the testimony, "he gave him the testimony." . the anointing, "they anointed him." these three are in the twelfth verse. as for that which is spoken of the people's joy, we shall give it a touch when we come to the people's duty. . the covenant between god and king and the people; "jehoiada made a covenant between god and the king and the people, that they should be the lord's people." . the covenant between the king and the people; "between the king also and the people." i. the first thing is the crown is put upon his head. a crown is the most excellent badge of royal majesty. to discourse on crowns in a state way, i shall leave unto statesmen, and lay only these three before you of the crown. i. in putting on of the crown, it should be well fastened, for kings' crowns are oftentimes tottering, and this is a time wherein they totter. there are two things which make kings' crowns to totter, great sins, and great commotions and troubles; take heed of both. . there are many sins upon our king and his family: sin will make the surest crown that ever men set on to totter. the sins of former kings have made this a tottering crown. i shall not insist here, seeing there hath been a solemn day of humiliation thro' the land on thursday last, for the sins of the royal family; i wish the lord may bless it; and desire the king may be truly humbled for his own sins, and the sins of his father's house, which have been great; beware of putting on these sins with the crown; for if you put them on, all the well-wishers to a king in the three kingdoms will not be able to hold on the crown, and keep it from tottering, yea, from falling. lord, take away the controversy with the royal family, that the crown may be fastened sure upon the king's head, without falling or tottering. . troubles and commotions in a kingdom make crowns to totter. a crown at the best, and in the most calm times, is full of troubles; which, if it were well weighed by men, there would not be such hunting after crowns. i read of a great man who, considering the trouble and care that accompanied the crown, said, "he would not take it up at his foot, though he might have it for taking." now, if a crown at the best be so full of troubles, what shall one think of a crown at the worst, when there are so great commotions, wherein the crown is directly aimed at? surely it must be a tottering crown at the best, especially when former sins have brought on these troubles. as the remedy of the former is true humiliation, and turning unto god; so the remedy of the latter, speaking of david's crown, "thou settest a crown of pure gold upon his head." god set on david's crown, and therefore it was settled, notwithstanding of many troubles. men may set on crowns, and they may throw them off again; but when god setteth them on, they will be fast. enemies have touched the crown of our king, and cast it off in the other kingdom, and have made it totter in this kingdom. both the king who is to be crowned, and you who are to crown him, should deal earnestly with god, to set the crown on the king's head, and to keep it on against all the commotions of this cruel generation. ii. a king should esteem more of the people he reigneth over, than of his crown. kings used to be so taken up with their crowns, that they despise their people. i would have a king following christ the king of his people, who saith of them, "thou shalt be a crown of glory in the hand of the lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy god." christ accounteth his people, his crown and diadem; so should a king esteem the people of the lord, over whom he ruleth, to be his crown and diadem. take away the people, and a crown is but an empty symbol. iii. a king, when he getteth the crown on his head, should think, at the best it is but a fading crown. all the crowns of kings are but fading crowns: therefore they should have an eye upon that "crown of glory that fadeth not away." and upon a "kingdom that cannot be shaken." that crown and kingdom belongeth not to kings as kings, but unto believers; and a believing king hath this comfort, that when "he hath endured a while, and been tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the lord hath promised to them that love him." ii. the second thing in this solemnity is the testimony. by this is meant the law of god, so called, because it testifieth of the mind and will of god. it was commanded, "when the king shall sit upon the throne of his kingdom, he shall write him a copy of this law in a book, and it shall be with him, that he may read therein all the days of his life." the king should have the testimony for these three uses. . for his information in the ways of god. this use of the king's having "the book of the law" is expressed, "that he may learn to fear the lord his god." the reading of other books may do a king good for government, but no book will teach him the way to salvation, but the book of god. christ biddeth "search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they testify of me." he is a blessed man, "who meditateth in the law of the lord day and night." king david was well acquainted herewith. kings should be well exercised in scripture. it is reported of alphonsus, king of arragon, that he read the bible fourteen times with glosses thereupon. i recommend to the king to take some hours for reading the holy scriptures; it will be a good means to make him acquainted with god's mind, and with christ as saviour. . for his direction in government. kings read books that may teach them to govern well, but all the books a king can read will not make him govern to please god, as this book. i know nothing that is good in government, but a king may learn it out of the book of god. for this cause, joshua is commanded "that the book of the law shall not depart out of his mouth;" and he is commanded "to do according to all that is written therein." he should not only do himself that which is written in it, but do, and govern his people according to all that is written in it. king david knew this use of the testimony, who said, "thy testimonies are my delight, and my counsellors." the best counsels that ever a king getteth are in the book of god: yea, the testimonies are the best and surest counsellors; because altho' a king's counsellors be never so wise and trusty, yet they are not so free with a king as they ought: but the scriptures tell kings very freely, both their sins and their duty. . for preservation and custody. the king is _custos utriusque tabulæ_, the keeper of both tables. not that he should take upon him the power, either to dispense the word of god, or to dispense with it: but that he should preserve the word of god and true religion, according to the word of god, pure, entire, and uncorrupted, within his dominions, and transmit them so to posterity; and also be careful to see his subjects observe both tables, and to punish the transgressors of the same. iii. the third thing in this solemnity is the "anointing of the king." the anointing of kings was not absolutely necessary under the old testament, for we read not that all the kings of judah and israel were anointed. the hebrews observe that anointing of kings was used in three cases. . when the first of a family was made king, as saul, david. . when there was a question for the crown, as in case of solomon and adonijah. . when there was an interruption of the lawful succession by usurpation as in the case of joash. there is an interruption, by the usurpation of athaliah, therefore he is anointed. if this observation hold, as it is probable, then it was not absolutely necessary under the old testament; and therefore far less under the new. because it may be said that in our case there is an interruption by usurpation, let it be considered that the anointing under the old testament was typical; although all kings were not types of christ, yet the anointing of kings, priests and prophets, was typical of christ, and his offices; but, christ being now come, all those ceremonies cease: and, therefore, the anointing of kings ought not to be used in the new testament. if it be said, anointing of kings hath been in use amongst christians, not only papist but protestant, as in the kingdom of england, and our late king was anointed with oil, it may be replied, they who used it under the new testament took it from the jews without warrant. it was most in use with the bishops of rome, who, to keep kings and emperors subject to themselves did swear them to the pope when they were anointed, (and yet the jewish priests did never swear kings to themselves.) as for england, although the pope was cast off, yet the subjection of kings to bishops was still retained, for they anointed the king and swore him to the maintenance of their prelatical dignity. they are here who were witnesses at the coronation of the late king; the bishops behoved to perform that rite; and the king behoved to be sworn to them. but now by the blessing of god, popery and prelacy are removed: the bishops as limbs of antichrist are put to the door; let the anointing of kings with oil go to the door with them, and let them never come in again. the anointing with material oil maketh not a king the anointed of the lord, for he is so without it; he is the anointed of the lord who, by divine ordinance and appointment is a king. god called cyrus his anointed; yet we read not that he was anointed with oil. kings are anointed of the lord, because, by the ordinance of the lord, their authority is sacred and inviolable. it is enough for us to have the thing, tho' we want the ceremony, which being laid aside, i will give some observations of the thing. . a king, being the lord's anointed, should be thinking upon a better unction, even that spiritual unction wherewith believers are anointed. "the anointing ye have received of him abideth in you." and "he that hath anointed us, is god, who hath also sealed us." this anointing is not proper to kings, but common to believers: few kings are so anointed. a king should strive to be a good christian, and then a good king: the anointing with grace is better than the anointing with oil. it is of more worth for a king to be the anointed of the lord with grace, than to be the greatest monarch of the world without it. . this anointing may put a king in mind of the gifts, wherewith kings should be endowed, for discharge of their royal calling. for anointing did signify the gifts of office. it is said of saul, when he was anointed king; "god gave him another heart." and "the spirit of god came upon him." it is meant of a heart for his calling, and a spirit of ability for government. it should be our desire this day, that our king may have a spirit for his calling; as the spirit of wisdom, fortitude, justice and other princely endowments. . this anointing may put subjects in mind of the sacred dues of the authority of a king. he should be respected as the lord's anointed. there are diverse sorts of persons that are enemies to the authority of kings; as . anabaptists, who deny there should be kings in the new testament: they would have no kings nor civil magistrates. . the late photinians, who speak respectfully of kings and magistrates, but they take away from them their power, and the exercise of it in the administration of justice. . those who rise against kings in open rebellion, as absalom and sheba, who said, "what have we to do with david, the son of jesse? to your tents, o israel." . they who do not rebel openly, yet they despise a king in their heart, like these sons of belial, who said of saul, after he was anointed king, "shall this man save us? and they despised him, and brought him no presents." all these meet in our present age. . anabaptists, who are against the being of kings, are very rife. you may find, to our great grief, a great number of them in that army, that hath unjustly invaded the land, who have trampled upon the authority of kings. . these are also of the second sort, who are secretly photinians in this point, they allow of kings in profession; but they are against the exercise of their power in the administration of justice. . a third sort are in open rebellion, even all that generation which are risen up not only against the person of a king, but against kingly government. . there is a fourth, who profess they acknowledge a king; but despise him in their heart, saying "shall this man save us?" i wish all had david's tenderness, whose heart did smite him, when he did but cut off the lap of saul's garment, that we may be far from cutting off a lap of the just power and greatness which god hath allowed to the king, and we have bound ourselves by covenant not to diminish. i have gone through the three particulars contained in verse . i come to the other two, in verse , which appertain also to this day's work; for our king is not only to be crowned, but to renew a covenant with god, and his people; and to make a covenant with the people. answerable hereto, there is a twofold covenant in the words, one between god, and the king, and the people: god being the one party, the king and the people, the other; another between the king and the people, the king being the one party, and the people the other. the covenant with god is the fourth particular propounded, to be spoken of. the sum of this covenant, ye may find in josiah's renewing the covenant, "to walk after the lord, and keep his commandments and testimonies, with all the heart, and to perform the words of the covenant." the renewing of the covenant was after a great defection from god, and the setting up of a false worship. the king and the people of god bound themselves before the lord, to set up the true worship, and to abolish the false. scotland hath a preference in this before other nations. in time of defection, they have renewed a covenant with god, to reform all; and because the king, after a great defection in the families, is to renew the covenant, i shall mention some particulars from the league and covenant. . we are bound to maintain the true reformed religion, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, established in this kingdom, and to endeavour the reformation of religion in the other two kingdoms, according to the word of god, and the example of the best reformed kirks. by this article, the king is obliged, not only to maintain religion as it was established in scotland, but also to endeavour the reformation of religion in his other kingdoms. the king would consider well, when it shall please god, to restore him to his government there, that he is bound to endeavour the establishment of the work of reformation there, as well as to maintain it here. . according to the second article, the king is bound without respect of persons, to extirpate popery, prelacy, superstition, heresy, schism, and profaneness, and whatsoever shall be found contrary to sound doctrine, and the power of godliness. and therefore popery is not to be suffered in the royal family, nor within his dominions; prelacy once plucked up by the root, is not to be permitted to take root again; all heresy and error whatsoever must be opposed by him, to the uttermost of his power; and by the covenant, the king must be far from toleration of any false religion within his dominions. . as the people are bound to maintain the king's person and authority, in the maintenance of the true religion, and liberties of the kingdom: so the king is bound with them, to maintain the rights and privileges of the parliament and the liberties of the subjects, according to the third article. . we are bound to discover, and to bring unto condign punishment, all such as have been, or shall be, incendiaries, malignants, or evil instruments, in hindering the reformation of religion; dividing the king from the people, or one of the kingdoms from another, or making any faction, or parties amongst the people. hereby the king is bound to have an eye upon such, and neither allow of them nor comply with them; but to concur according to his power, to have them censured and punished, as is expressed in the fourth article. i shall sum up all in this, that a king, in entering into covenant with god, should do as kings did of old, when they entered in covenant; they and their people went on in the work of reformation, as appeareth here. "and all the people of the land went into the house of baal, and brake it down," &c. and godly josiah, when he entered in covenant, made a thorough reformation. there is a fourfold reformation in scripture, and contained in the league and covenant. . a personal reformation. . a family reformation. . a reformation of judicatories. . a reformation of the whole land. kings have had their hand in all the four; and therefore i recommend them to our king. . a personal reformation. a king should reform his own life, that he may be a pattern of godliness to others; and to this he is tied by the covenant. the godly reformers of judah were pious and religious men. a king should not follow machiavelli's counsel, who requireth not that a prince should be truly religious, but saith, "that a shadow of it, and external simulation, are sufficient." a devilish counsel; and it is just with god to bring a king to the shadow of a kingdom, who hath but the shadow of religion. we know that dissembling kings have been punished of god; and let our king know that no king but a religious king, can please god. david is highly commended for godliness; hezekiah a man eminent for piety; josiah, a young king, commended for the tenderness of his heart, when he heard the law of the lord read; he was much troubled before the lord, when he heard the judgments threatened against his father's house, and his people. it is earnestly wished that our king's heart may be tender and truly humbled before the lord, for the sins of his father's house, and of the land; and for the many evils that are upon that family, and upon the kingdom. . a family reformation. the king should reform his family, after the example of godly kings. asa, when he entered in covenant, spared not his mother's idolatry. the house of our king hath been much defiled by idolatry. the king is now in covenant, and to renew the covenant, let the royal family be reformed; and, that it may be a religious family, wherein god will have pleasure, let it be purged, not only of idolatry, but of profanity and looseness, which hath abounded in it. much hath been spoken of this matter; but little hath been done in it. let the king and others, who have charge in that family, think it lieth upon them, as a duty, to purge it. and if ye would have a family well purged, and constitute, take david for a pattern, in the purgation and constitution of his, "the froward heart, wicked persons, and slanderers, he will have far from him: but his eyes are upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with him." if there be a man better than another in the land, he should be for the king, and his family: ye may extend his reformation to the court. a profane court is dangerous for a king. it hath been observed as a provoking sin in england, which hath drawn down judgment upon king and court, as appeareth this day. it is to be wished that such were in the court, as david speaketh of in that psalm. let the king see to it, and resolve with david, "that he who worketh deceit, shall not dwell within his house: and he who telleth lies, shall not tarry in his sight." . reformation in judicatories. it should be carefully seen to, that judicatories be reformed; and that men, fearing god and hating covetousness, may be placed in them. a king in covenant, should do as jehoshaphat did. "he set judges in the land, and said, take heed what ye do; ye judge not for men, but for the lord, who is with you in judgment: wherefore now, let the fear of the lord be before you." . the reformation of the whole land, the king's eye should be upon it. "jehoshaphat went out through the people, from beersheba to mount ephraim; and brought them back to the lord god of their fathers." our land hath great need of reformation; for there is a part of it that hath scarce ever yet found the benefit of reformation, they are lying without the gospel. it will be a good work for a covenanted king, to have a care that the gospel may be preached through the whole land. care also should be taken, that they who have the gospel may live suitably thereto. if a king would be a thorough reformer, he must be reformed himself, otherwise he will never lay reformation to heart. to make a king a good reformer, i wish him these qualifications, according to the truth and in sincerity, wherewith they report trajan the emperor to have been endued; he was, . devout at home. courageous in war. . just in his judicatures. . prudent in all his affairs. true piety, fortitude, justice and prudence, are notable qualifications in a prince who would reform a kingdom, and reform well. i come now to the fifth and last particular; and that is the covenant made between the king and the people: when a king is crowned and received by the people, there is a covenant or mutual contract between him and them, containing conditions, mutually to be observed: time will not suffer to insist upon many particulars. i shall only lay before you these three particulars. . it is clear from this covenant, that a king hath not absolute power to do what he pleaseth: he is tied to conditions by virtue of a covenant. . it is clear from this covenant, that a people are bound to obey their king in the lord. . i shall present the king with some directions for the right government of the people who are bound to obey. . it is clear, that the king's power is not absolute, as kings and flattering courtiers apprehend; a king's power is a limited power by this covenant; and there is a threefold limitation of the king's power. . in regard of subordination. there is power above his, even god's power, whom he is obliged to obey; and to whom he must give an account of his administration, (and yesterday ye heard that text, "by me kings reign.") kings have not only their crowns from god, but they must reign according to his will. he is called the "minister of god;" he is but god's servant. i need not stay upon this; kings and all others will acknowledge this limitation. . in regard of laws, a king is sworn at his coronation, to rule according to the standing received laws of the kingdom. the laws he is sworn to, limit him that he cannot do against them, without a sinful breach of this covenant between the king and the people. . in regard of government, the total government is not upon a king. he hath counsellors as a parliament or estates in the land, who share in the burden of government. no king should have the sole government: it was never the mind of those who received a king to rule them, to lay all government upon him, to do what he pleaseth, without controlment. there is no man able alone to govern all. the kingdom should not lay that upon one man, who may easily miscarry. the estates of the land are bound in this contract to bear the burden with him. these men who have flattered kings to take unto themselves an absolute power, to do what they please, have wronged kings and kingdoms. it had been good that kings, of late, had carried themselves so, as this question of the king's power might never have come in debate; for they have been great losers thereby. kings are very desirous to have things spoken and written, to hold up their arbitrary and unlimited power; but that way doth exceedingly wrong them. there is one, a learned man, i confess, who hath written a book for the maintenance of the absolute power of kings, called _defensio regis_, whereby he hath wronged himself in his reputation, and the king in his government. as for the fact, in taking away the life of the late king, (whatever was god's justice in it) i do agree with him to condemn it, as a most unjust and horrid act, upon their part who did it: but when he cometh to speak of the power of kings, in giving unto them an absolute and unlimited power, urging the damnable maxim, _quod libet licet_, he will have a king to do what he pleaseth, _impune_, and without controlment. in this, i cannot but dissent from him. in regard of subordination some say, that a king is accountable to none but god. do what he will, let god take order with it; this leadeth kings to atheism, let them do what they please, and to take god in their own hand: in regard of laws, they teach nothing to kings but tyranny: and in regard of government, they teach a king to take an arbitrary power to himself, to do what he pleaseth without controlment. how dangerous this hath been to kings, is clear by sad experience. abuse of power and arbitrary government, hath been one of god's great controversies with our king's predecessors. god in his justice, because power hath been abused, hath thrown it out of their hands: and i may confidently say that god's controversy with the kings of the earth is for their arbitrary and tyrannical government. it is good for our king to learn to be wise in time, and know that he receiveth this day a power to govern, but a power limited by contract; and these conditions he is bound by oath to stand to. kings are deceived who think that the people are ordained for the king; and not the king for the people; the scripture sheweth the contrary. the king is the "minister of god for the people's good." god will not have a king, in an arbitrary way, to encroach upon the possessions of subjects, "a portion is appointed for the prince." and it is said, "my princes shall no more oppress my people; and the rest of the land, shall they give unto the house of israel, according to their tribes." the king hath his distinct possessions and revenues from the people; he must not oppress and do what he pleaseth, there must be no tyranny upon the throne. i desire not to speak much upon this subject. men have been very tender in meddling with the power of kings; yet, seeing these days have brought forth debates concerning the power of kings, it will be necessary to be clear in this matter. extremities would be shunned. a king should keep within the bounds of the covenant made with the people, in the exercise of his power; and subjects should keep within the bounds of this covenant, in regulating that power. concerning the last, i shall propound these three to your consideration. . a king, abusing his power to the overthrow of religion, laws and liberties, which are the very fundamentals of this contract and covenant, may be controlled and opposed; and if he set himself to overthrow all these by arms, then they who have power, as the estates of a land, may and ought to resist by arms: because he doth, by that opposition, break the very bonds, and overthroweth all the essentials of this contract and covenant. this may serve to justify the proceedings of this kingdom against the late king, who, in an hostile way, set himself to overthrow religion, parliaments, laws and liberties. . every breach of covenant, wherein a king falleth, after he hath entered into covenant, doth not dissolve the bond of the covenant. neither should subjects lay aside a king for every breach, except the breaches be such as overthrow the fundamentals of religion, and of the covenant with the people. many examples of this may be brought from scripture. i shall give but one. king asa entered solemnly into covenant with god and the people. after that, he falleth in gross transgressions and breaches. he associated himself and entered into league with benhadad, king of syria, an idolater; he imprisoned hanani, the lord's prophet, who reproved him, and threatened judgment against that association, and at that same time he oppressed some of the people: and yet, for all this, they neither laid him aside, nor accounted him an hypocrite. . private persons should be very circumspect about that which they do in relation to the authority of kings. it is very dangerous for private men, to meddle with the power of kings, and the suspending them from the exercise thereof. i do ingenuously confess that i find no example of it. the prophets taught not such doctrine to their people, nor the apostles, nor the reformed kirks. have ever private men, pastors or professors, given in to the estates of a land as their judgment, unto which they resolve to adhere, that a king should be suspended from the exercise of his power? and, if we look upon these godly pastors, who lived in king james's time, of whom one may truly say, more faithful men lived not in these last times: for they spared not to tell the king his faults, to his face: yea, some of them suffered persecution for their honesty and freedom, yet we never read nor have heard, that any of these godly pastors joined with other private men, did ever remonstrate to parliament or estate as their judgment, that the king should be suspended from the exercise of his royal power. ii. it is clear from this covenant, that people should obey their king in the lord: for, as the king is bound by the covenant to make use of his power to their good; so, they are bound to obey him in the lord in the exercise of that power. about the people's duty to the king, take these four observations. . that the obedience of the people is in subordination to god; for the covenant is first with god, and then with the king. if a king command any thing contrary to the will of god--in this case, peter saith, "it is better to obey god, than man." there is a line drawn from god to the people, they are lowest in the line: and have magistrates inferior and supreme above them, and god above all. when the king commandeth the people that which is lawful, and commanded by god, then he should be obeyed; because he standeth in right line under god, who hath put him in his place. but if he command that which is unlawful, and forbidden of god, in that he should not be obeyed to do it; because he is out of his line. that a king is to be obeyed with this subordination, is evident from scripture; take one place for all. at the beginning, ye have both obedience urged to superior powers, as the ordinance of god, and damnation threatened against those who resist the lawful powers. it is said by some, that many ministers in scotland would not have king jesus, but king charles to reign. faithful men are wronged by such speeches. i do not understand these men. for, if they think that a king and jesus are inconsistent, then they will have no king: but i shall be far from entertaining such thoughts of them. if they think the doing a necessary duty for king charles is to prefer his interest to christ's, this is also an error. honest ministers can very well discern between the interest of christ, and of the king. i know no minister that setteth up king charles, with prejudice to christ's interest. there are three sorts of persons who are not to be allowed in relation to the king's interest, . such as have not been content to oppose a king in an evil course, (as they might lawfully do) but contrary to covenant vows and many declarations, have cast off kings and kingly government. these are the sectaries. . these who are so taken up with a king, as they prefer a king's interest to christ's interest; which was the sin of our engagers. . they who will have no duty done to a king, for fear of prejudicing christ's interest. these are to be allowed, who urge duty to a king in subordination to christ. i shall desire that men may be real, when they make mention of christ's interest; for these three mentioned profess and pretend the interest of christ. the sectaries cover their destroying of kings with christ's interest; whereunto, indeed, they have had no respect, being enemies to his kingdom. and experience hath made it undeniable. the engagers alleged they were for christ's interest; but they misplaced it. christ's interest should have gone before, but they drew it after the interest of a king, which evidenced their want of due respect to christ's interest. as for the third, who delay duty for fear of preferring the king's interest to christ's, i shall not take upon me to judge their intentions. i wish they may have charity to those who think they may do duty to a king in subordination to christ, yea, that they ought and should do duty, whatever men's fears be of the prejudice that may follow. if to be against the suspending of the king from the exercise of his power, and to be for the crowning of the king, according to the public faith of the kingdoms, he first performing all that kirk and state required of him in relation to religion, and civil liberties: if this be, i say, to prefer a king to christ, let all men that are unbiassed, be judges in the case. we shall well avow, that we crown a king in subordination to god and his interest, in subordination to christ's, which we judge, not only agreeable to the word of god, but also, that we are bound expressly in the covenant, to maintain the king in the preservation and defence of the true religion, and liberties of the kingdom, and not to diminish his just power and greatness. . that the covenant between god and the king and the people, goeth before the covenant between the king and the people; which sheweth, that a people's entering covenant with god doth not lessen their obedience and allegiance to the king, but increaseth it, and maketh the obedience firmer: because we are in covenant with god, we should the more obey a covenanted king. it is a great error to think, that a covenant diminisheth obedience, it was ever thought accumulative. and indeed true religion layeth strict ties upon men in doing of their duty. "wherefore ye must needs be subject not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake." a necessity to obey is laid upon all. many subjects obey for wrath, but the godly obey for conscience' sake. . that a king covenanted with god should be much respected by his subjects. they should love him. there is an inbred affection in the hearts of the people to their king. in the th verse it is said, that "the people clapped their hands for joy, and said, god save the king." they had no sooner seen their native king installed in his kingdom, but they rejoiced exceedingly, and saluted him with wishes of safety. whatever be men's affections, or respects, this day, to our king, certainly it is a duty lying on us both to pray for, and rejoice in his safety. the very end that god hath in giving us kings maketh this clear. "that we may live under them in godliness and honesty." and therefore, prayers and supplications are to be made for all kings; even for those that are not in covenant; much more for these that are in covenant. ye are receiving this day a crowned covenanted king, pray for saving grace to him, and that god would deliver him and us, out of the hand of these cruel enemies, and bless his government, and cause us to live a quiet and peaceable life under him in all godliness and honesty. . that as the king is solemnly sworn to maintain the right of the subjects against enemies, and is bound to hazard his life, and all that he hath for their defence: so, the people are also bound to maintain his person and authority, and to hazard life, and all that they have, in defending him. i shall not take the question in its full latitude, taking in what a people are bound to in pursuing of a king's right in another nation, which is not our present question. our question is, what a people should do when a kingdom is unjustly invaded by a foreign enemy, who seeketh the overthrow of religion, king and kingdom. surely, if men be tied to any duty to a king and kingdom, they are tied in this case. i have two sorts of men to meet with here, who are deficient in doing this covenanted duty: . these who do not act against the enemy. . these who do act for the enemy. . the first i meet with, are they who act not, but lie by, to behold what will become of all: three sorts of men act not for the defence of an invaded kingdom; . those who withdraw themselves from public councils, as from parliament or committee of estates: this withdrawing is not to act. . these act not who, upon an apprehension of the desperate state of things, do think that all is in such a condition, by the prevailing of the enemy, that there is no remedy: and therefore that it is best to sit still; and see how things go. they who do not act upon scruple of conscience. i shall ever respect tenderness of conscience; and i wish there be no more but tenderness. if there be no more, men will strive to have their consciences well informed. they may be supposed to scruple upon one of these grounds: . to act in such a cause, for the king's interest; sure i am, this was not a doubt before, but all seemed to agree to act for the king's interest, in subordination to christ's, and this day there is no more sought. we own the king's interest only in a subordination to christ's. or, . to join with such instruments as are enemies to the work of god. our answer to the estates' query resolves that such should not be entrusted: but we do not count these enemies who profess repentance, and declare themselves solemnly to be for the cause and the covenant, and evidence their willingness to fight for them. if it be said their repentance is but counterfeit, we are bound to think otherwise in charity, till the contrary be seen: no man can judge of the reality of hearts: for we have now found by experience, that men who have been accounted above all exception have betrayed their trust. if any who have not yet repented of their former course shall be intrusted, we shall be sorry for it; and plainly say, that it ought not to be. but i think there must be more in this, that men say they cannot act. for myself, i love not that word in our case; it is too frequent, he cannot act, and he cannot act. i fear there be three sorts of persons lurking under this covert. . such as are pusillanimous, who have no courage to act against the enemy; the word is true of them, they cannot act because they dare not act. . such as are selfish men, serving their idol credit: he hath been a man of honour, and now he feareth there will be no credit to fight against this prevailing enemy: therefore he cannot act, and save his credit. be who thou wilt that hast this before thee, god shall blast thy reputation. thou shalt neither have honour nor credit, to do a right turn in god's cause. . such as are compilers, who cannot act, because they have a purpose to comply. there are that cannot act in an army, but they can betray an army by not acting; there are that cannot act for safety of a kingdom, but they betray it by not acting. in a word, there are who cannot join to act with those whom they account malignants (i speak not of declared and known malignants; but of such as have been, and are, fighting for the cause; yet by them esteemed malignants), but they can join with sectaries, open and declared enemies to kirk and kingdom. i wish subjects, who are bound to fight for the kingdom, would lay by that phrase of not acting, which is so frequent in the mouth of compliers, and offensive to them, who would approve themselves in doing duty for endangered religion, king and kingdom. that men may be the more clear to act, i shall offer to your consideration some passages of scriptures, about those who do not act against a common enemy. . there are many reproved for lying still while an enemy had invaded the land: as reuben, with his divisions: gilead, dan, and asher seeking themselves, are all reproved for not joining with the people of god, who were willing to jeopard their lives against "a mighty oppressing enemy." but there is one passage concerning meroz, which fitteth our purpose, "the angel of the lord said, curse ye meroz, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; they came not to the help of the lord, to the help of the lord against the mighty." what this meroz was, is not clear: yet all interpreters agree that they had opportunity and power to have joined with, and helped the people of the lord, and it is probable they were near the place of the fight. they are cursed for not coming to the help of the lord's people. this may be applied to those in the land, who will not help the lord against the mighty. . another passage you have. reuben and gad having a multitude of cattle, and having seen the land of gilead, that it was a place for cattle, they desire of moses and the princes, that the land may be given them, and they may not pass over jordan. moses reproveth them in these words, "shall your brethren go to war; and shall ye sit still? wherefore discourage ye the heart of the children of israel?" reuben and gad make their apology, showing that they have no such intention to sit still, only they desire their wives and little ones may stay there: they themselves promise to go over jordan, armed before israel, and not to return before they were possessed in the land. then moses said unto them, "if you do so, then this shall be your possession. but, if ye do not so, behold, ye have sinned against the lord, and be sure your sins will find you out." i may apply this to them that cannot act; will ye sit still, when the rest of your brethren are to hazard their lives against the enemy? we have reason to reprove you. if moses, that faithful servant of god, was still jealous of reuben and gad, even after their apology and promise to act--for he saith, "if ye do not so"--have not honest and faithful servants of god, ground to be jealous of their brethren who refuse to act? let them apologize what they will; for their not acting, i say, they sin against the lord, and their sins shall find them out. it will be clearly seen, upon what intention they do not act. . a third passage. saul hath david enclosed, that he can hardly escape. in that very instant there cometh a messenger to saul, saying, "haste thee, and come; for the philistines have invaded the land." at the hearing of this message, "saul returned from pursuing after david, and went against the philistines." it is true, the lord did provide for his servant david's escape, by this means: but, if ye consider saul, he took it not so. nothing moved him to leave this pursuit but the condition of the land, by the invading of an enemy. three things might have moved saul to stay and pursue david. . he hath him now in a strait, and hath such advantage, that he might have thought not to come readily by the like. . that altho' the philistines be enemies, yet david is the most dangerous enemy; for he aimeth at no less than the crown. it were better to take conditions off the enemy, than to suffer david to live, and take the crown. . he might have said, if i leave david at this time and fight with the philistines, and be beaten, he will get a power in his hand to undo me and my posterity. these may seem strong motives; but saul is not moved with any of them. the present danger is the philistines invading the land, and this danger is to be opposed, come of the danger from david what will. as if saul had said, i will let david alone, i will meet with him another time, and reckon with him: now there is no time for it, the philistines are in the land, let us make haste against them. i wish that many of our countrymen had as great a love to their country, and as public a spirit for it, as this profane king had, then there would not be so many questions for acting, as men make this day. the objections i have been touching are in men's thoughts and heads. first, some say, now the malignants are under, for this enemy is their rod. it is best to put them out of having any power: yea, there are some who would more willingly go to undo these, whom they account malignants, than against the common enemy, who are wasting the land. if they had saul's resolution, they would say, the philistines are in the land, let them alone, we will reckon with them at another time; we will now go against the common enemy. they have also the second objection, the malignants are more dangerous enemies than the sectaries. i shall not now compare them to equal distance, and abstract from the present danger: but i shall compare them to the present posture of affairs. i am sure the sectaries having power in their hands, and a great part of the land in their possession, are far more dangerous than malignants, who have no power for the present: and therefore, the resolution should be, the sectaries have invaded the land, and are destroying it, let us go against them. . the third observation weigheth much with many. the malignants, being employed to fight for their country, may get such power in their hands as may hurt the cause. for answer: . the resolution given the query of the estates provideth against that, for therein is a desire that no such power should be put in their hand. . this fear goeth upon a supposition, that they do not repent their former course. this is an uncharitable judgment. we are bound to be more charitable of men professing repentance, for with such we have to do only. and, to speak a word by the way to you who have been in a malignant course. little good is expected from you, i pray you be honest, and disappoint them. i wish you true repentance, which will both disappoint them, and be profitable to yourselves. . i desire it may be considered, whether or not, fear of a danger to come from men, if they prevail against the common enemy, being only clothed with a capacity to fight for their country, be an argument against rising to oppose a seen and certain danger, coming from an enemy, clothed with power, and still prevailing. i conceive, it ought to be far from any, to hinder men to defend their country in such a case. i confess, indeed, the cause which we maintain hath met with many enemies, who have been against it, which requireth much tenderness; therefore men are to be admitted to trust, with such exceptions as may keep them out who are still enemies to the cause of god, have not professed repentance, renounced their former courses, and declared themselves for cause and covenant. i doubt not, but it shall be found, that the admitting such to fight in our case as it standeth, is agreeable to the word of god, and is not against the former public resolutions of kirk and state. the second sort of persons we are to meet with, are such as act for the enemy, against the kingdom. if they be cursed who will not come out to help the lord against the mighty; what a curse shall be upon them, who help the mighty against the lord, as they do who act for the enemy? three ways is the enemy helped against the cause and people of god. . by keeping correspondence with them, and giving them intelligence; there is nothing done against kirk or state, but they have intelligence of it. a baser way hath never been used in any nation. your counsels and purposes are made known to them. if there be any such here (as i fear they be), let them take this to them, they are of these who help the mighty against the lord, and the curse shall stick to them. . by strengthening the enemies' hands with questions, debates and determinations, in papers tending to the justifying of their unjust invasion. whatever have been men's intentions in taking that way, yet the thing done by them, hath tended to the advantage of the enemy, and hath divided these who should have been joined in the cause, to the great weakening of the power of the kingdom, and this, interpretatively, is to act for the mighty against the lord. . by gross compliance with the enemy, and going into them, doing all the evil offices they can, against their native kingdom. if meroz was cursed for not helping, shall not these perfidious covenant-breakers and treacherous dealers against a distressed land be much more accursed, for helping and assisting a destroying enemy, so far as lieth in their power? these words may be truly applied to them who are helping strangers, enemies to god, his kirk, and religion, "both he that helpeth, shall fall; and he that is holpen shall fall down, and they all shall fall together." iii. the third particular about this covenant remains to be spoken of; _to wit_, some directions to the king, for the right performing of his duty, whereof i shall give seven. . a king, meeting with many difficulties in doing of duty, by reason of strong corruption within and many temptations without: he should be careful to seek god by prayer, for grace to overcome these impediments, and for an understanding heart to govern his people. solomon, having in his option to ask what he would, he asked an understanding heart, to go out and in before his people; knowing that the government of a people was a very difficult work, and needed more than ordinary understanding. a king hath also many enemies (as our king hath this day), and a praying king is a prevailing king. asa, when he had to do with a mighty enemy, prayed fervently and prevailed. jehoshaphat was invaded by a mighty enemy, he prayed and did prevail. hezekiah prayed against sennacherib's huge army and prevailed. sir, you have many difficulties and oppositions to meet; acquaint yourself with prayer, be instant with god, and he will fight for you. prayers are not in much request at court; but a covenanted king must bring them in request. i know a king is burthened with multiplicity of affairs, and will meet with many diversions; but, sir, you must not be diverted. take hours, and set them apart for that exercise: men being once acquainted with your way, will not dare to divert you. prayer to god will make your affairs easy all the day. i read of a king, of whom his courtiers said, "he spoke oftener with god, than with men." if you be frequent in prayer, you may expect the blessing of the most high upon yourself, and upon your government. . a king must be careful of the kingdom which he hath sworn to maintain. we have had many of too private a spirit, by whom self-interest hath been preferred to the public; it becometh a king well to be of a public spirit, to care more for the public than his own interest. senates and states have had mottoes written over the doors of their meeting-places. over the senate house of rome was written, _ne quid respublica detrimenti capiat_. i shall wish this may be written over your assembly-houses; but there is another which i would have written with it, _ne quid ecclesia detrimenti capiat_. be careful of both; let neither kirk nor state suffer hurt; let them go together. the best way for the standing of a kingdom is a well constitute kirk. they deceive kings who make them believe that the government of the kirk--i mean presbyterial government--cannot suit with monarchy. they suit well, it being the ordinance of christ, rendering unto god what is god's, and unto cæsar what is cæsar's. . kings who have a tender care of the kirk are called nursing fathers. you should be careful that the gospel may have a free passage through the kingdom; and that the government of the kirk may be preserved entire according to your solemn engagement. the kirk hath met with many enemies, as papists, prelates, malignants, which i pass as known enemies: but there are two sorts more, who at this time should be carefully looked on. . sectaries, great enemies to the kirk, and to all the ordinances of christ, and more particularly to presbyterial government, which they have, and would have, altogether destroyed. a king should set himself against these, because they are enemies, as well to the king as to the kirk, and strive to make both fall together. . erastians, more dangerous snares to kings than sectaries; because kings can look well enough to these, who are against themselves, and their power, as sectaries, who will have no king. but erastians give more power to kings than they should have, and are great enemies to presbyterial government; for they would make kings believe that there is no government but the civil, and derived from thence, which is a great wrong to the son of god, who hath the government of the kirk distinct from the civil, yet no ways prejudicial to it, being spiritual, and of another nature. christ did put the magistrate out of suspicion, that his kingdom was not prejudicial to civil government, affirming, "my kingdom is not of this world." this government, christ hath not committed to kings, but to the office-bearers of his house, who, in regard of civil subjection, are under the civil power as well as others; but, in their spiritual administration, they are under christ, who hath not given unto any king upon earth the dispensation of spiritual things to his people. sir, you are in covenant with god and his people, and are obliged to maintain presbyterial government, as well against erastians as sectaries. i know this erastian humour aboundeth at court. it may be, some endeavour to make you encroach upon that for which god hath punished your predecessors. be who he will that meddleth with this government to overturn it, it shall be as heavy to him as the burthensome stone to the enemies of the kirk. "they are cut in pieces, who burden themselves with it." . a king in covenant with the people of god, should make much of these who are in covenant with him, having in high estimation the faithful ministers of christ, and the godly people of the land. it is rare to find kings lovers of faithful ministers and pious people. it hath been the fault of our own kings to persecute the godly. . let the king love the servants of christ, who speak the truth. evil kings are branded with this, that they contemned the prophets. when amaziah had taken the gods of seir, and set them up for his gods, a prophet came to him and reproved him; unto whom the king said, "who made thee of the king's council? forbear, lest thou be smitten." this contempt of the prophet's warning is a forerunner of following destruction. be a careful hearer of god's word; take with reproof; esteem of it, as david did, "it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head." to make much of the faithful servants of christ, will be an evidence of reality. . let the king esteem well of godly professors. let piety be in account. it is a fault very common, that pious men, because of their conscientious and strict walking, are hated by the profane, who love to live loosely: it is usual with profane men to labour to bring kings to a distaste of the godly; especially when men who have professed piety have become scandalous, whereupon they are ready to judge all pious men to be like them; and take occasion to speak evil of piety. i fear at this time, when men who have been commended for piety, have fallen foully and betrayed their trust, that men will take advantage to speak against the godly of the land; beware of this, for it is satan's policy to put piety out of request: let not this move any; fall who will, piety is still the same, and pious men will make conscience both of their ways and trust; remember, they are precious in god's eyes who will not suffer men to despise them, without their reward. sir, let not your heart be from the godly in the land, whatever hath fallen out at this time: i dare affirm, there are very many really godly men who, by their prayers, are supporting your throne. . a king should be careful whom he putteth in places of trust, as a main thing for the good of the kingdom. it is a maxim, that trust should not be put in their hands who have oppressed the people, or have betrayed their trust. there is a passage in a story meet for this purpose: one septimus arabinus, a man famous, or rather infamous, for oppression, was put out of the senate, but re-admitted about this time; alexander severus being chosen to the empire, the senators did entertain him with public salutations and congratulations. severus, espying arabinus amongst the senators, cried out, _o numina! arabinus non solum vivit, sed in senatum venit_. ah! arabinus not only liveth, but he is in the senate. out of just indignation, he could not endure to see him. as all are not meet for places of trust in judicatures, so all are not meet for places of trust in armies. men should be chosen who are godly, and able for the charge. but there are some who are not meet for trust. . they who are godly, but have no skill or ability for the places. a man may be a truly godly man who is not fit for such place; and no wrong is done to him nor to godliness, when the place is denied to him. i wonder how a godly man can take upon him a place, whereof he hath no skill. . they who have neither skill nor courage, are very unmeet; for, if it be a place of never so great moment, faint-heartedness will make them quit it. . they who are both skilful and stout, yet are not honest, but perfidious and treacherous, should have no trust at all. of all these we have sad experience, experience which should not move you to make choice of profane and godless men, by whom a blessing is not to be expected, but it should move you to be wary in your choice; i am confident such may be had, who will be faithful for religion, king and kingdom. . there hath been much debate about the exercise of the king's power; yet he is put in the exercise of his power, and this day put in a better capacity to exercise it by his coronation. many are afraid that the exercise of his power shall prove dangerous to the cause, and indeed i confess there is ground of fear, when we consider how this power hath been abused by former kings: therefore, sir, make good use of this power, and see that you rather keep within bounds, than exceed in the exercise of it. i may very well give such a counsel as an old counsellor gave to a king of france; he, having spent many years at court, desired to retire into the country for enjoying privacy fit for his age; and, having obtained leave, the king his master required him to sit down, and write some advice of government, to leave behind him, which he out of modesty declined: the king would not be denied, but left with him pen and ink and a sheet of paper; he, being alone, after some thoughts, wrote with fair and legible characters in the head of the sheet, _modus_; in the middle of the sheet, _modus_; and in the foot of the sheet, _modus_; and wrote no more in all the paper, which he wrapped up and delivered to the king; meaning that the best counsel he could give him, was, that he should keep temper in all things. nothing more fit for a young king than to keep temper in all things. take this counsel, sir, and be moderate in the use of your power. the best way to keep power, is moderation in the use of it. . the king hath many enemies, even such as are enemies to his family and to all kingly government; and are now in the bowels of this kingdom, wasting and destroying; bestir yourself, according to vows and oaths that are upon you, to be active for the relief of christ's kingdom, borne down by them, in all the three kingdoms; and for the relief of this kingdom grievously oppressed by them. we shall earnestly desire that god would put that spirit upon our king, now entered upon public government, which he hath put upon the deliverers of his people from their cruel oppressors. in speaking of the king's behaviour to enemies, one thing i cannot pass. there is much spoken of a treaty with this enemy: i am not of the judgment of some, who distinguish a treaty before invasion and after invasion, and say, treatying is very lawful before invasion; because it is supposed that there is a little wrong done; but after invasion, when a kingdom is wronged and put to infinite losses, then they say a treaty is to be shunned; but in my judgment, a treaty may be lawful after invasion and wrongs sustained; the end of war is peace, neither should desire of revenge obstruct it, providing it be such a treaty and peace as is not prejudicial to religion, nor to the safety of the kingdom, nor to the undoubted right of the king, nor to the league and covenant, whereunto we are so solemnly engaged. but, i must break off this treaty with a story related in plutarch. the city of athens was in a great strait, wherein they knew not what to do. themistocles in this strait said he had something wherein to give his opinion, for the behoof of the state, but he thought it not fit to deliver himself publicly. aristides, a man of great trust, is appointed to hear him privately, and to make an account as he thought meet. when aristides came to make his report to the senate, he told them that themistocles' advice was indeed profitable, but not honest, whereupon the people would not so much as hear it. there is much whispering of a treaty, they are not willing to speak publicly of it: hear them in private, and it may be the best advice shall be profitable, but not honest. if a treaty should be, let it be both profitable and honest, and no lover of peace will be against it. . seeing the king is now upon the renewing of the covenants, it should be remembered that we enter into covenant, according to our profession therein, with reality, sincerity, and constancy, which are the qualifications of good covenanters. many doubt of your reality in the covenant, let your sincerity and reality be evidenced by your stedfastness and constancy; for many have begun well, but have not been constant. in the sacred history of kings, we find a note upon kings according to their carriages: one of three sentences is written upon them. . some kings have this written on them, "he did evil in the sight of the lord." they neither begin well, nor end well; such an one was ahaz, king of judah, and divers others in that history. . others have this written on them, "he did that which was right in the sight of the lord, but not with a perfect heart." such an one was amaziah king of judah. he was neither sincere nor constant: when god blessed him with victory against the edomites, he fell foully from the true worship of god, and set up the gods of edom. . a third sentence is written upon the godly kings of judah, "he did right in the sight of the lord, with a perfect heart." as asa, hezekiah, jehoshaphat, and josiah, they were both sincere and constant. let us neither have the first nor the second, but the third written upon our king, "he did right in the sight of the lord, with a perfect heart." begin well, and continue constant. before i close, i shall seek leave to lay before our young king, two examples to beware of, and one to follow. the two warning examples, one of them is in the text, another in our own history. the first example is of joash. he began well, and went on in a godly reformation all the days of jehoiada; but, it is observed, "that after the days of jehoiada, the princes of judah came, and did obeisance to the king, and he hearkened unto them." it appeareth, they had been lying in wait till the death of jehoiada; and took the opportunity to destroy the true worship of god, and set up false worship, flattering the king for that effect: for it is said, "they left the house of the lord, and served groves and idols;" and were so far from being reclaimed by the prophet of the lord that was sent unto them, that they conspired against zechariah, the son of jehoiada, who reproved them mildly for their idolatry, and stoned him with stones, and slew him at the king's commandment. and it is said, "joash remembered not the kindness that jehoiada his father had done to him, but slew his son." sir, take this example for a warning. you are obliged by the covenant to go on in the work of reformation. it may be, some great ones are waiting their time, not having opportunity to work for the present, till afterward they may make obeisance, and persuade you to destroy all that hath been done in the work of god, these divers years. beware of it; let no allurement or persuasion prevail with you, to fall from that which this day you bind yourself to maintain. another example i give you, yet in recent memory, of your grandfather, king james. he fell, to be very young, in a time full of difficulties: yet there was a godly party in the land who did put the crown upon his head. and when he came to some years, he and his people entered into a covenant with god. he was much commended by godly and faithful men, comparing him to young josiah standing at the altar, renewing a covenant with god; and he himself did thank god that he was born in a reformed kirk, better reformed than england: for they retained many popish ceremonies: yea better reformed than geneva; for they keep some holy days; charging his people to be constant and promising himself to continue in that reformation, and to maintain the same. notwithstanding of all this, he made a foul defection: he remembered not the kindness of them who had held the crown upon his head; yea he persecuted faithful ministers for opposing that course of defection: he never rested till he had undone presbyterial government and kirk assemblies, setting up bishops, and bringing in ceremonies, against which formerly he had given large testimony. in a word, he laid the foundation whereupon his son, our late king, did build much mischief to religion, all the days of his life. sir, i lay this example before you the rather because it is so near you, that the guiltiness of the transgression lieth upon the throne and family, and it is one of the sins for which you have professed humiliation very lately. let it be laid to heart, take warning, requite not faithful men's kindness with persecution; yea, requite not the lord so, who hath preserved you to this time, and is setting a crown upon your head. requite not the lord with apostasy and defection from a sworn covenant: but be stedfast in the covenant, as you would give testimony of your true humiliation for the defection of these that went before you. i have set up these two examples before you, as beacons to warn you to keep off such dangerous courses, and shall add one for imitation, which, if followed, may happily bring with it the blessing of that godly man's adherence to god. the example is of hezekiah, who did that "which was right in the sight of the lord." it is said of him, "he trusted in the lord god of israel, and he clave unto the lord, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments." and "the lord was with him, and he prospered whithersoever he went forth." sir, follow this example, cleave unto the lord, and depart not from following him, and the lord will be with you, and prosper you, whithersoever you go. to this lord, from whom we expect a blessing upon this day's work, be glory and praise for ever. amen. charles ii. taking the covenants. sermon being ended, prayer was made for a blessing upon the doctrine delivered. the king began to renew the covenants. first the national covenant and then the solemn league and covenant were distinctly read. after the reading of these covenants, the minister prayed for grace to perform the contents of the covenants, and for faithful stedfastness in the oath of god: and then (the ministers, commissioners of the general assembly, desired to be present, standing before the pulpit) he administered the oath unto the king, who, kneeling and lifting up his right hand, did swear in the words following. "i charles, king of great britain, france and ireland, do assure and declare, by my solemn oath, in the presence of almighty god, the searcher of hearts, my allowance and approbation of the national covenant, and of the solemn league and covenant above written, and faithfully oblige myself to prosecute the ends thereof in my station and calling; and that i for myself and successors, shall consent and agree to all acts of parliament enjoining the national covenant and the solemn league and covenant, and fully establishing presbyterial government, the directory for worship, confession of faith, and catechisms, in the kingdom of scotland, as they are approven by the general assemblies of this kirk, and parliament of this kingdom; and that i shall give my royal assent, to acts and ordinances of parliament passed, or to be passed, enjoining the same in my other dominions: and that i shall observe these in my own practice and family, and shall never make opposition to any of these, or endeavour any change thereof."[ ] after the king had thus solemnly sworn the national covenant, the league and covenant, and the king's oath, subjoined unto both, being drawn up in a fair parchment; the king did subscribe the same, in presence of all. thereafter the king ascended the stage, and sitteth down in the chair of state. then the lords, great constable, and marshal, went to the four corners of the stage, with the lion going before them; who spoke to the people these words, "sirs, i do present unto you the king charles, the rightful and undoubted heir of the crown, and dignity of this realm: this day is by the parliament of this kingdom appointed for his coronation; and are you not willing to have him for your king, and become subject to his commandments?" in which action, the king's majesty stood up, showing himself to the people, in each corner; and the people expressed their willingness, by cheerful acclamations in these words, "god save the king, charles the second." thereafter the king's majesty, supported by the constable and marshal, cometh down from the stage, and sitteth down in the chair, where he heard the sermon. the minister, accompanied with the ministers before-mentioned, cometh from the pulpit toward the king, and requireth, if he was willing to take the oath, appointed to be taken at the coronation? the king answered, he was most willing. then the oath of coronation, as it is contained in the eighth act of the first parliament of king james, being read by the lion, the tenor whereof followeth: "because that the increase of virtue, and suppressing of idolatry, craveth, that the prince and the people be of one perfect religion; which of god's mercy is now presently professed within this realm: therefore it is statuted and ordained, by our sovereign lord, my lord regent, and three estates of this present parliament: that all kings, princes, and magistrates whatsoever, holding their place, which hereafter at any time shall happen to reign, and bear rule over this realm, at the time of their coronation, and receipt of their princely authority, make their faithful promise, in the presence of the eternal god; that, enduring the whole course of their lives, they shall serve the same eternal god to the uttermost of their power, according as he hath required in his most holy word, revealed and contained in the new and old testaments; and, according to the same words, shall maintain the true religion of christ jesus, the preaching of his holy word, and due and right ministration of the sacraments now received and preached within this realm: and shall abolish and gainstand all false religions, contrary to the same: and shall rule the people committed to their charge, according to the will and command of god, revealed in his foresaid word, and according to the loveable laws and constitutions received in this realm, no ways repugnant to the said word of the eternal god; and shall procure to the uttermost of their power, to the kirk of god and whole christian people, true and perfect peace, in time coming. the rights and rents, with all just privileges of the crown of scotland, to preserve and keep inviolated: neither shall they transfer, nor alienate the same. they shall forbid and repress, in all estates and degrees, rife oppression, and all kind of wrong: in all judgments they shall command and procure that justice and equity be keeped to all creatures, without exception, as the lord and father of mercies, be merciful unto them: and out of their lands and empire they shall be careful to root all heretics, and enemies to the true worship of god, that shall be convict by the true kirk of god, of the foresaid crimes; and that they shall faithfully affirm the things above written by their solemn oath." the minister tendered the oath unto the king, who, kneeling and holding up his light hand, swore in these words, "by the eternal and almighty god, who liveth and reigneth for ever, i shall observe and keep all that is contained in this oath." this done, the king's majesty sat down in his chair and reposeth himself a little. then the king riseth from his chair, and is disrobed by the lord great chamberlain, of the princely robe wherewith he entered the kirk, and is invested by the said chamberlain, in his royal robes. thereafter, the king being brought to the chair on the north side of the kirk, supported as formerly; the sword was brought by sir william cockburn of langtown, gentleman usher from the table, and delivered to lion king of arms; who giveth it to the lord great constable, who putteth the same in the king's hand, saying, "sir, receive this kingly sword, for the defence of the faith of christ, and protection of his kirk, and of the true religion, as it is presently professed within this kingdom, and according to the national covenant and league and covenant, and for executing equity and justice, and for punishment of all iniquity and injustice." this done, the great constable receiveth the sword from the king, and girdeth the same about his side. thereafter, the king sitteth down in his chair, and then the spurs were put on him by the earl marshall. thereafter, archibald, marquiss of argyle, having taken the crown in his hands, the minister prayed, to this purpose: "that the lord would purge the crown from the sins and transgressions of them that did reign before him; that it might be a pure crown; that god would settle the crown upon the king's head: and, since men that set it on were not able to settle it, that the lord would put it on, and preserve it." and then the said marquiss put the crown on the king's head. which done, the lion king of arms, the great constable standing by him, causeth an herald to call the whole noblemen, one by one, according to their ranks, who, coming before the king, kneeling, and with their hand touching the crown on the king's head, swore these words, "by the eternal and almighty god, who liveth and reigneth for ever; i shall support thee to my uttermost." and when they had done, then all the nobility held up their hands and "swore to be loyal and true subjects, and faithful to the crown." the earl marshall, with the lion, going to the four corners of the stage, the lion proclaimeth the obligatory oath of the people; and the people, holding up their hands all the time, did swear, "by the eternal and almighty god, who liveth and reigneth for ever, we become your liege men, and truth and faith shall bear unto you, and live and die with you against all manner of folks whatsoever, in your service, according to the national covenant, and solemn league and covenant." then did the earls and viscounts put on their crowns, and the lion likewise put on his. then did the lord chamberlain loose the sword wherewith the king was girded, and drew it, and delivered it drawn into the king's hands; and the king put it into the hands of the great constable, to carry it naked before him. then john, earl of crawford and lindsay, took the sceptre, and put it in the king's right hand, saying, "sir, receive this sceptre, the sign of royal power of the kingdom, that you may govern yourself right, and defend all the christian people committed by god to your charge, punishing the wicked, and protecting the just." then did the king ascend the stage, attended by the officers of the crown, and nobility, and was installed in the royal throne by archibald, marquiss of argyle, saying, "stand, and hold fast from henceforth the place whereof you are the lawful and righteous heir, by a long and lineal succession of your fathers, which is new delivered unto you by authority of almighty god." when the king was set down upon the throne, the minister spoke to him a word of exhortation as followeth. "sir, you are set down upon the throne in a very difficult time, i shall therefore put you in mind of a scriptural expression of a throne. "it is said, solomon sat on the throne of the lord." sir, you are a king, and a king in covenant with the lord; if you would have the lord to own you to be his king, and your throne to be his throne, i desire you may have some thoughts of this expression. . "it is the lord's throne. remember you have a king above you, the king of kings, and lord of lords, who commandeth thrones. he setteth kings on thrones, and dethroneth them at his pleasure: therefore take a word of advice; be thankful to him who hath brought you through many wanderings to set you upon this throne. kiss the son lest he be angry, and learn to serve him with fear who is terrible to the kings of the earth. . "your throne is the lord's throne, and your people the lord's people: let not your heart be lifted up above your brethren. they are your brethren, not only flesh of your flesh, but brethren by covenant with god. let your government be refreshing unto them as the rain upon the mown grass. . "your throne is the lord's throne. beware of making his throne a throne of iniquity: there is such a throne, which frameth mischief by a law; god will not own such a throne, it hath no fellowship with him. sir, there is too much iniquity upon the throne by your predecessors, who framed mischief by a law, such laws as have been destructive to religion, and grievous to the lord's people; you are on the throne, and have the sceptre, beware of touching mischievous laws therewith: but, as the throne is the lord's throne, let the laws be the lord's laws, agreeable to his word, such as are terrible to evil-doers, and comfortable to the godly, and a relief to the poor and oppressed in the land. . "the lord's throne putteth you in mind whom you should have about the throne. wicked counsellors are not for a king upon the lord's throne; solomon knew this, who said, 'take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness:' and 'a king upon the throne scattereth away all evil with his eyes.' . "the lord's throne putteth you in mind, that the judgment on the throne should be the lord's. take the exhortation, 'hear the word of the lord, o king of judah, that sittest upon the throne, thou and thy servants and thy people, execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressors, and do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place. for if ye do this thing indeed, then shall there enter by the gates of this house kings sitting upon the throne of david. but, if ye will not hear these words, i swear by myself, saith the lord, that this house shall become a desolation.' and 'i will prepare destroyers against thee.' "sir, destroyers are prepared for the injustice of the throne. i entreat you to execute righteous judgment, if ye do it not, your house will be a desolation; but, if ye do that which is right, god shall remove the destroyers: and you shall be established on your throne; and there shall yet be dignity in your house, for your servants, and for your people. "lastly, if your throne be the throne of the lord, take a word of encouragement against throne adversaries. your enemies are the enemies of the lord's throne: make your peace with god in christ, and the lord shall scatter your enemies from the throne; and he shall magnify you yet in the sight of these nations, and make the misled people submit themselves willingly to your government. "sir, if you use well the lord's throne on which you are set, then the two words in the place cited, spoken of solomon sitting on the throne of the lord, 'he prospered and all israel obeyed him,' shall belong unto you; your people shall obey you in the lord, and you shall prosper in the sight of the nations round about." then the lord chancellor went to the four corners of the stage, the lion king of arms going before him, and proclaimed his majesty's free pardon to all breakers of penal statutes, and made offer thereof: whereupon the people cried, "god save the king." then the king, supported by the great constable and marshall, and accompanied with the chancellor, arose from the throne, and went out at a door prepared for the purpose, to a stage; and sheweth himself to the people without, who clapped their hands, and cried with a loud voice a long time, "god save the king." then, the king returning, and sitting down upon the throne, delivered the sceptre to the earl of crawford and lindsay, to be carried before him: thereafter the lion king of arms rehearsed the royal line of the kings upward to fergus the first. then the lion called the lords one by one who, kneeling and holding their hands betwixt the king's hands, did swear these words, "by the eternal and almighty god, who liveth and reigneth for ever, i do become your liege man, and truth and faith shall bear unto you, and live and die with you, against all manner of folks whatsoever in your service, according to the national covenant and solemn league and covenant." and every one of them kissed the king's left cheek. when these solemnities were ended, the minister, standing before the king on his throne, pronounced this blessing: "the lord bless thee, and save thee; the lord hear thee in the day of trouble; the name of the god of jacob defend thee; the lord send thee help from the sanctuary and strengthen thee out of zion. amen." after the blessing was pronounced, the minister went to the pulpit and had the following exhortation, the king sitting still upon the throne. ye have this day a king crowned, and entered into covenant with god and his people; look, both king and people, that ye keep this covenant; and beware of the breach of it. that ye may be the more careful to keep it, i will lay a few things before you. i remember when the solemn league and covenant was entered into by both nations. the commissioners from england being present in the east kirk of edinburgh, a passage was cited out of nehemiah, which i shall now again cite. nehemiah requireth an oath of the nobles and people, to restore the mortgaged lands, which they promise to do; after the oath was tendered, he did shake his lap, and said, "so god shake out every man from his house, and from his labour, that performeth not this promise, even thus be he shaken out and emptied. and all the congregation said, amen." since that time, many of those who were in the covenant, are shaken out of it; yea, they have shaken off the covenant, and laid it aside. it is true, they are prospering this day, and think that they prosper, by laying aside the covenant; but they will be deceived. that word spoken then shall not fall to the ground; god shall shake them out of their possession, and empty them for their perfidious breach of the covenant. the same i say to king and nobles, and all that are in covenant; if you break that covenant, being so solemnly sworn, all these who have touched your crown, and sworn to support it, shall not be able to hold it on; but god will shake it off, and turn you from the throne: and ye noblemen, who are assistant to the putting on of the crown, and setting the king upon the throne, if ye shall either assist, or advise the king to break the covenant, and overturn the work of god, he shall shake you out of your possessions, and empty you of all your glory. another passage i offer to your serious consideration. after that zedekiah had promised to proclaim liberty to all the lord's people, who were servants, and entered into a covenant, he and his princes let them go free, and according to the oath had let them go; afterwards they caused the servants to return, and brought them into subjection. what followeth upon this breach? "ye were now turned, and had done right in my sight, in proclaiming liberty; but ye turned, and made them servants again." and therefore, "i will give the men who have transgressed my covenant, who have not performed the words of the covenant, which they made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof; i will even give them into the hands of their enemies, into the hand of them that seek their life, even zedekiah and his princes." if the breach of the covenant made for the liberty of servants was so punished, what shall be the punishment of the breach of a covenant for religion, and the liberty of the people of god? there is nothing more terrible to kings and princes than to be given into the hand of enemies that seek their life: if ye would escape this judgment, let kings and princes keep their covenant made with god: your enemies who seek your life, are in the land; if ye break the covenant, it may be feared god will give you over unto them as a prey: but, if ye keep the covenant, it may be expected god will keep you out of their hands. let not the place ye heard opened, be forgotten, for in it ye have an example of divine justice against joash and the princes, for breaking that covenant. the princes who enticed to that breach, are destroyed: and it is said, "the army of the syrians came with a small company of men, and the lord delivered a very great host into their hand;" because they had forsaken the lord god of their fathers: so they executed judgment against joash. "his own servants conspired against him and slew him on his bed." the conspiracy of servants or subjects against their king is a wicked course: but god in his righteous judgment suffereth subjects to conspire and rebel against their princes, because they rebel against god: and he suffereth subjects to break the covenant made with a king, because he breaketh the covenant made with god. i may say freely, that a chief cause of the judgment upon the king's house hath been the grandfather's breach of covenant with god, and the father's following his steps in opposing the work of god, and his kirk within these kingdoms; they broke covenant with god, and men have broken covenant with them: yea, most cruelly and perfidiously have invaded the royal family and trodden upon all princely dignity. be wise by their example: you are now sitting upon the throne of the kingdom, and your nobles about you. there is one above you, even jesus, the king of zion; and i as his servant, dare not but be free with you: i charge you, sir, in his name, that you keep this covenant in all points; if you shall break this covenant and come against his cause, i assure you the controversy is not ended between god and your family: but will be carried on to the further weakening, if not the overthrow of it: but if you shall keep this covenant, and befriend the kingdom of christ, it may be from this day god shall begin to do you good. although your estate be very weak, god is able to raise you, and make you reign, maugre the opposition of all your enemies: and howsoever it shall please the lord to dispose, you shall have peace toward god, through christ the mediator. as for you who are nobles and peers of the land, your share is great in this day of coronation; ye have come and touched the crown, and sworn to support it; ye have handled the sword and the sceptre, and have set down the king upon his throne. . i charge you to keep your covenant with god; and see that ye never be moved yourselves to come against it in any head, or article thereof; and that ye give no counsel to the king to come against the doctrine, worship, government and discipline of the kirk, established in this land, as ye would eschew the judgment of covenant-breakers. if the king and ye who are engaged to support the crown, conspire together against the kingdom of christ, both ye that do support and he that is supported will fall together. i press this the more, because it is a rare thing to see a king and great men for christ. in the long catalogue of the kings, which ye have heard recited this day, they will be found few who have been for christ. . i charge you also, because of your many oaths to the king; that you keep them inviolable. be faithful to him, according to your covenant. the oaths of god are upon you; if, directly or indirectly, ye do anything against his standing, god, by whom ye have sworn, will be avenged upon you for the breach of his oath. and now, i will shut up all with one word more to you. sir, you are the only covenanted king with god and his people in the world; many have obstructed your entry in it: now, seeing the lord hath brought you in over all these obstructions, only observe to do what is contained therein; and it shall prove an happy time for you and your house. and because you are entered in times of great difficulty, wherein small strength seemeth to remain with you in the eyes of the world, for recovering your just power and greatness; therefore take the counsel which david when he was dying gave to his son solomon, "be strong, and show thyself a man; and keep the charge of the lord thy god: to walk in his ways, and keep his commandments; that them mayest prosper in all that thou doest, and whithersoever thou turnest thyself." after this exhortation, the minister closed the whole action with prayer; and, psalm xx. being sung, he dismissed the people with the blessing. then did the king's majesty descend from the stage with the crown upon his head; and, receiving again the sceptre in his hand, returned with the whole train, in a solemn manner, to his palace, the sword being carried before him. the acts rescissory. first parliament of charles ii. january, .-- .--"_act concerning the league and covenant and discharging the renewing thereof without his majesties warrand and approbation._ "forasmuch as the power of armes, and entering into, and making of leagues and bonds, is an undoubted privilege of the crown, and a proper part of the royal prerogative of the kings of this kingdom, and that in recognisance of his majesties just right, the estates of parliament of this his most ancient kingdom of scotland, have declared it high treason to the subjects thereof, of whatsoever number, lesse or more, upon any pretext whatsoever, to rise, or continue in armes, or to enter into leagues and bonds, with forraigners, or among themselves, without his majesties special warrand and approbation, had and obtained thereto, and have rescinded and annulled all acts of parliament, conventions of estates, or other deeds whatsoever, contrary to, or inconsistent with the same; and whereas during these troubles, there have occurred divers things, in the making and pursuance of leagues and bonds, which may be occasion of jealousie in and betwixt his majesties dominions of scotland, england, and ireland. therefore and for preventing of all scruples, mistakes or jealousies that may hereafter arise upon these grounds, the king's majesty with advice and consent of his estates of parliament, doth hereby declare, that there is no obligation upon this kingdom by covenant, treaties or otherwise, to endeavour by armes a reformation of religion in the kingdom of england, or to meddle with the publick government and administration of that kingdom. and the king's majesty with advice and consent foresaid, doth declare, that the league and covenant, and all treaties following thereupon, and acts or deeds that do, or may relate thereto, are not obligatory, nor do infer any obligation upon this kingdom, or the subjects thereof, to meddle or interpose by armes, or any seditious way, in any thing concerning the religion and government of the churches of england and ireland, or in what may concern the administration of his majesties government there. and further, his majesty, with advice and consent of his estates, doth hereby discharge and inhibite all his majesties subjects within this kingdom, that none of them may presume upon any pretext of any authority whatsoever, to require the renewing or swearing of the said league and covenant, or of any other covenants, or publick oaths concerning the government of the church or kingdom, without his majesties special warrand and approbation; and that none of his majesties subjects offer to renew and swear the same, without his majesties warrand, as said is, as they will be answerable at their highest peril." same parliament.--_ .--"act rescinding and annulling the pretended parliaments in the years , , etc._ "the estates of parliament, considering that the peace and happiness of this kingdom, and of his majesties good subjects therein, doth depend upon the safetie of his majesties person, and the maintenance of his royal authority, power, and greatness: and that all the miseries, confusions, and disorders which this kingdom hath groaned under, these twenty-three years, have issued from, and been the necessarie and natural products of these neglects, contempts, and invasions, which, in and from the beginning of these troubles, were upon the specious (but false) pretexts of reformation (the common cloak of all rebellions) offered unto the sacred person and royal authority of the king's majesty, and his royal father of blessed memory. and notwithstanding, that by the sacred right, inherent to the imperial crown (which his majesty holds immediatelie from god almightie alone) and by the ancient constitution and fundamental laws of the kingdom; the power of convocating and keeping assemblies of the subjects; the power of calling, holding, proroguing and disolving of parliaments, and making of laws; the power of entering into bonds, covenants, leagues and treaties; the power of raising armes, keeping of strengths and forts are essential parts, and inseparable privileges of the royal authoritie and prerogative of the kings of this kingdom: yet, such hath been the madness and delusion of these times, that even religion itself, which holds the right of kings to be sacred and inviolable, hath been pretended unto, for warrand of these injurious violations and incroachments, so publickly done and owned, upon and against his majesties just power, authority and government; by making and keeping of unlawful meetings and convocations of the people; by entering into covenants, treaties and leagues; by seizing upon, and possessing themselves of his majesties castles, forts and strengths of the kingdom: and by holding of pretended parliaments, making of laws, and raising of armes for the maintaining of the same; and that not only without warrand, but contrary to his majesties express commands. and although the late king's majesty, out of his meer grace and respects to this his native kingdom, and the peace and quiet of his people, and for preventing the consequences which such bad example and practice might occasion, to the disturbance of the peace of his other kingdoms, was pleased in the year, one thousand six hundred and forty one, to come into this countrey, and by his own presence, at their pretended parliaments and other wayes, to comply with, and give way to, many things neerly concerning the undoubted interest and prerogative of the crown, expecting that such unparalleled condescentions should have made his subjects ashamed of their former miscariages, and the very thoughts thereof, to be hatefull to them and their posteritie for ever. yet, such was the prevalencie of the spirit of rebelion that raged in manie for the time, that not content with that peace and happiness which, even above their desires, was secured to them: nor of these manie grants of honour and profit, by which his majestie endeavoured to endear the most desperat of them to their duty and obedience, they then, when his majesty had not left unto them anie pretence or shaddow of anie new desire to be proposed, either concerning themselves or the kingdom, did most unworthilie engage to subvert his majesties government, and the publick peace of the kingdom of england: for which purpose, having joined in a league with some there, they, for the better prosecution of the same, did assume unto themselves the royal power, kept and held parliaments at their pleasure; by the pretended authoritie of which, they laid new exactions upon the people (which in one month did far exceed what ever by the kings authoritie had been raised in a whole year) levied armes, sent out edicts, requiring obedience unto their unlawful demands; and with all manner of violence pursued such as out of duty to his majesties authoritie opposed them by fines, confinements, imprisonment, banishment, death, and forfeiture of their property; and with their armie thus raised, invaded his majesties kingdom of england, and joyned with such as were in arms against his majestie there. and thus maintaining their usurped power, and violently executing the same against all law, conscience, honour and humanity, have made themselves instruments of much loss, shame and dishonour to their native countrey, and have justly forfeited anie favour they might have pretended to, from his majesties former concessions. and forasmuch as now it hath pleased almighty god, by the power of his own right hand, so miraculously to restore the kings majestie to the government of his kingdoms, and to the exercise of his royal power, and soveraigntie over the same, the estates of parliament do conceive themselves obliged, in discharge of their dutie and conscience to god and the kings majestie, to imploy all their power and interest, for vindicating his majesties authoritie from all these violent invasions that have been made upon it, and so far as possible to remove out of the way everything that may retain anie remembrance of these things, which have been so injurious to his majestie and his authoritie, so predjudicial and dishonourable to the kingdom, and destructive to all just and true interests within the same. and considering that, besides the unlawfulness of the publick actings during the troubles, most of the acts in all and every of the meetings of these pretended parliaments, do highly encroach upon, and are destructive of that sovereign power, authority, prerogative, and right of government, which by the law of god, and the ancient laws and constitutions of this kingdom, doth reside in, and belong unto, the kings majestie, and do reflect upon the honour, loyaltie, and reputation of this kingdom; or are expired, and serve only as testimonies of disloyaltie and reproach upon the kingdom, and are unfit to be any longer upon record. therefore the kings majestie and estates of parliament do hereby rescind and annull the pretended parliaments, kept in the years one thousand six hundred and fourty, one thousand six hundred and fourty one, one thousand six hundred and fourty four, one thousand six hundred and fourty five, one thousand six hundred and fourty six, one thousand six hundred and fourty seven, and one thousand six hundred and fourty eight, and all acts and deeds past and done in them, and declares the same to be henceforth void and null. and his majesty, being unwilling to take any advantage of the failings of his subjects during these unhappy times, is resolved not to retain any remembrance thereof, but that the same shall be held in everlasting oblivion: and that all difference and animosities be forgotten, his good subjects may in a happy union, under his royal government, enjoy that happiness and peace, which his majestie intends, and really wisheth unto them as unto himself, doth therefore, by advice and consent of his estates of parliament, grant his full assurance and indemnity to all persons that acted in, or by virtue of the said pretended parliaments, and other meetings flowing from the same, to be unquestioned in their lives or fortunes, or any deed or deeds done by them in their said usurpation, or by virtue of any pretended authority derived therefrom, excepting alwayes such as shall be excepted in a general act of indemnity, to be past by his majestie in this parliament. and it is hereby declared that all acts, rights and securities, past in any of the pretended meetings above written, or by virtue thereof, in favours of any particular persons for their civil and private interests shall stand good and valid unto them, untill the same be taken into further consideration, and determined in this, or the next session of this parliament." second session of first parliament of charles ii. edinburgh, may, .--_act for preservation of his majesties person, authority and government._ the estates of parliament, taking into their consideration the miseries, confusions, bondage and oppressions, this kingdom hath groaned under since the year, one thousand six hundred and thirty seven years, with the causes and occasions thereof: do, with all humble duty and thankfulness, acknowledge his majesties unparrallel'd grace and goodness, in passing by the many miscarriages of his subjects, and restoring the church and state to their ancient liberties, freedom, rights and possessions; and the great obligations thereby lying upon them to express all possible care and zeal in the preservation of his majesties person, (in whose honour and happinesse consisteth the good and welfare of his people) and in the security and establishment of his royal authority and government, against all such wicked attempts and practices for the time to come. and, since the rise and progress of the late troubles did, in a great measure, proceed from some treasonable and seditious positions infused into the people. that it was lawfull to subjects for reformation, to enter into covenants and leagues, or to take up arms against the king, or those commissionated by him, and such-like: and that many wilde and rebellious courses were taken and practised in pursuance thereof, by unlawful meetings and gatherings of the people, by mutinous and tumultuous petitions, by insolent and seditious protestations against his majesties royal and just commands, by entering into unlawfull oaths and covenants, by usurping the name and power of council tables and church judicatories, after they were by his majesty discharged, by treasonable declarations, that his majesty was not to be admitted to the exercise of his royal power, untill he should grant their unjust desires and approve their wicked practices, by rebellions rising in arms against his majestie and such as had commission from him; and by the great countenance, allowance and encouragement given to these pernicious courses by the multitude of seditious sermons, libels, and discourses, preached, printed and published in defence thereof: and considering that as the present age is not full freed of those distempers; so posterity may be apt to relapse therein, if timous remeed be not provided. therefore the king's majestie and estates of parliament do declare that these positions, that it is lawfull to subjects, upon pretence of reformation, or other pretence whatsoever, to enter into leagues and covenants, or to take up arms against the king; or that it is lawfull to subjects, pretending his majestys authority, to take up arms against his person or those commissionated by him, or to suspend him from the exercise of his royal government, or to put limitations upon their due obedience and allegiance, are rebellious and treasonable, and that all these gatherings, convocations, petitions, protestations, and erecting and keeping of council-tables, that were used in the beginning, and for carrying on, of the late troubles, were unlawful and seditious: and particularly, that these oaths, whereof the one was commonly called the national covenant, (as it was sworn and explained in the year one thousand, six hundred and thirty-eight, and thereafter) and the other entituled, a solemn league and covenant, were, and are in themselves unlawful oaths, and were taken by, and imposed upon, the subjects of this kingdom, against the fundamental laws and liberties of the same; and that there lyeth no obligation upon any of the subjects from the saids oaths, or either of them, to endeavour any change or alteration of government either in church or state; and therefore annuls all acts and constitutions, ecclesiastical or civil, approving the said pretended national covenant or league and covenant, or making any interpretations of the same or either of them. and also, it is hereby declared by his majesty and estates of parliament, that the pretended assemblie kept at glasgow in the year one thousand six hundred and thirty eight, was in itself (after the same was by his majestie discharged, under the pain of treason) an unlawfull and seditious meeting; and that all acts, deeds, sentences, orders, or decreets past therein, or by vertue of any pretended authority from the same, were in themselves from the beginning, are now, and in all time coming, to be reputed unlawful, void and null; and that all ratifications or confirmations of the same, past by whatsoever authority or in whatsoever meetings, shall from henceforth be void and null. likeas, his majesty and estates of parliament, reflecting on the sad consequences of these rebellious courses, and being carefull to prevent the like for the future, have therefore statute and ordained, and by these presents statutes and ordains, that, if any person or persons shall hereafter plot, contrive or intend destruction to the king's majesty, or any bodily harm tending to death or destruction, or any restraint upon his royal person, or to deprive, depose, or suspend him from the stile, honour and kingly name of the imperial crown of this realm, or any others his majesties dominions, or to suspend him from the exercise of his royal government, or to levy war or take up arms against his majesty or any commissionated by him, or shall entice any strangers or others to invade any of his majesties dominions; and shall by writing, printing, preaching or other malicious and advised speaking, express or declare such their treasonable intentions, every such person or persons, being upon sufficient probation legally convicted thereof, shall be deemed, declared and adjudged traitors, and shall suffer forfeiture of life, honour, lands, and goods as in cases of high treason. and further, it is by his majesty and estates of parliament declared, statute and enacted, that if any person or persons shall, by writing, printing, praying, preaching, libelling, remonstrating, or by any malicious and advised speaking, express, publish, or declare any words or sentences to stir up the people to the hatred or dislike of his majesties royal prerogative and supremacy in causes ecclesiastick, or of the government of the church by archbishops and bishops as it is now settled by law, or to justifie any of the deeds, actings, practices or things above-mentioned and declared against by this present act: that every such person or persons so offending, and being, as said is, legally convicted thereof, are hereby declared incapable to enjoy or exerce any place or imployment, civil, ecclesiastical, or military, within this church and kingdom, and shall be lyable to such further pains as are due by the law in such cases; provided alwayes, that no person be processed for any of the offences aforesaid, contained in this act, (other than these that are declared to be high treason) unless it be by order from his majesty, or by order of his privy council for the time; neither shall they incur any of the penalties above-mentioned, unless they be pursued within eight months after the offence committed, and sentenced thereupon within four months after the intenting of the process. and it is also declared, that if his majesty grant his pardon to any person convicted for any of the offences contained in this present act; after such pardon, the party pardoned shall be restored to all intents and purposes, as if he had never been pursued nor convicted any thing in this act to the contrary, notwithstanding. the torwood excommunication.[ ] after public worship, mr. cargill proceeded thus:--we have now spoken of excommunication, of the nature, subject, causes, and ends thereof. we shall now proceed to the action itself, being constrained by the conscience of our duty, and by zeal for god, to excommunicate some of those who have been the committers of such great crimes, and authors of the great mischiefs of britain and ireland, but especially those of scotland. in doing this, we shall keep the names by which they are ordinarily called, that they may be better known. i, being a minister of jesus christ, and having authority and power from him, do, in his name and by his spirit, excommunicate and cast out of the true church, and deliver up to satan, charles ii., king, etc., and that upon the account of these wickednesses:-- st, for his high contempt of god, in regard that after he had acknowledged his own sins, his father's sins, his mother's idolatry, and had solemnly engaged against them in a declaration at dunfermline, the th of august, , he hath, notwithstanding all this, gone on more avowedly in these sins than all that went before him. ndly, for his great perjury in regard that, after he had twice at least solemnly subscribed that covenant, he did so presumptuously renounce, and disown, and command it to be burnt by the hands of the hangman. rdly, because he hath rescinded all the laws for establishing that religion and reformation engaged unto in that covenant, and enacted laws for establishing its contrary; and also is still working for the introduction of popery into these lands. and thly, for commanding armies to destroy the lord's people, who were standing in their own just defence, and for their privileges and rights, against tyranny, and oppression and injuries of men, and for the blood he hath shed on fields, and scaffolds, and seas, of the people of god, upon account of religion and righteousness (they being willing in all other things to render him obedience, if he had reigned and ruled according to his covenant and oath), more than all the kings that have been before him in scotland. thly, that he hath been still an enemy to, and persecutor of, the true protestants; a favourer and helper of the papists, both at home and abroad; and hath, to the utmost of his power, hindered the due execution of the laws against them. thly, for his bringing guilt upon the kingdom, by his frequent grants of remissions and pardons to murderers (though it is in the power of no king to pardon murder, being expressly contrary to the law of god), an indulgence which is the only way to embolden men to commit murders, to the defiling of the land with blood. and lastly, to pass by all other things, his great and dreadful uncleanness of adultery and incest, his drunkenness, his dissembling both with god and men, and performing his promises, where his engagements were sinful. next, by the same authority, and in the same name, i excommunicate and cast out of the true church, and deliver up unto satan, james, duke of york, and that for his idolatry (for i shall not speak of any other sin but what hath been perpetrated by him in scotland), and for setting up idolatry in scotland to defile the lord's land, and for his enticing and encouraging to do so. next, in the same name, and by the same authority, i excommunicate and cast out of the true church, and deliver up unto satan, james, duke of monmouth, for coming unto scotland at his father's unjust command, and leading armies against the lord's people, who were constrained to rise, being killed in and for the worshipping of the true god, and for refusing, that morning, a cessation of arms at bothwell bridge, for hearing and redressing their injuries, wrongs and oppressions. next, i do, by virtue of the same authority, and in the same name, excommunicate and cast out of the true church, and deliver up unto satan, john, duke of lauderdale, for his dreadful blasphemy, especially for that word to the prelate of st. andrews, "sit thou at my right hand, until i make thine enemies thy footstool;" his atheistical drolling on the scriptures of god, and scoffing at religion and religious persons; his apostasy from the covenants and reformation, and his persecuting thereof, after he had been a professor, pleader, and presser thereof; for his perjury in the business of mr. james mitchell, who being in council gave public faith that he should be indemnified, and that, to life and limb, if he would confess his attempt on the prelate; and notwithstanding this, before the justiciary court, did give his oath that there was no such act in council; for his adultery and uncleanness; for his counselling and assisting the king in all his tyrannies, overturning and plotting against the true religion; for his gaming on the lord's day, and lastly for his usual and ordinary swearing. next, i do, by virtue of the same authority, and in the same name, excommunicate, cast out of the true church, and deliver up to satan, john, duke of rothes, for his perjury in the matter of mr. james mitchell; for his adulteries and uncleanness; for his allotting of the lord's day to his drunkenness; for his professing and avowing his readiness and willingness to set up popery in this land at the king's command: and for the heathenish, and barbarous and unheard of cruelty (whereof he was the chief author, contriver, and commander, notwithstanding his having engaged otherwise), to that worthy gentleman, david hackstoun of rathillet, and lastly, for his ordinary cursing, swearing, and drunkenness. and, i do, by virtue of the same authority, and in the same name, excommunicate, and cast out of the true church and deliver up to satan, sir george m'kenzie, the king's advocate, for his apostasy in turning into a profligacy of conversation, after he had begun a profession of holiness; for his constant pleading against, and persecuting unto the death, the people of god, and for alleging and laying to their charge things which in his conscience he knew to be against the word of god, truth and right reason, and the ancient laws of this kingdom; for his pleading for sorcerers, murderers, and other criminals, that before god and by the laws of the land ought to die, and for his ungodly, erroneous, fantastic, and blasphemous tenets printed in his pamphlets and pasquils. and, lastly, i do by virtue of the same authority, and in the same name, excommunicate, and cast out of the true church, and deliver up to satan, dalziell of binns, for his leading armies, and commanding the killing, robbing, pillaging and oppressing of the lord's people, and free subjects of this kingdom; for executing lawless tyrannies and lustful laws; for his commanding to shoot one findlay at a post at newmills, without any form of law, civil or military (he not being guilty of anything which they themselves accounted a crime); for his lewd and impious life, led in adultery and uncleanness from his youth, with a contempt for marriage, which is an ordinance of god; for all his atheistical and irreligious conversation, and lastly, for his unjust usurping and retaining of the estate of that worthy gentleman, william mure of caldwell, and his other injurious deeds in the exercise of his power. now i think, none that acknowledge the word of god, can judge these sentences to be unjust; yet some, it may be, to flatter the powers, will call them disorderly and informal, there not being warning given, nor probation led. but for answer: there has been warning given, if not with regard to all these, at least with regard to a great part of them. and, for probation, there needs none, their deeds being notour and public, and the most of them such as themselves do avow and boast of. and as the causes are just, so, being done by a minister of the gospel, and in such a way as the present persecution would admit of, the sentence is just, and there is no king, nor minister on earth, without repentance of the persons, can lawfully reverse these sentences upon any such account. god being the author of these ordinances to the ratifying of them, all that acknowledge the scriptures of truth, ought to acknowledge them. yet perchance, some will think that though they be not unjust, yet that they are foolishly rigorous. we shall answer nothing to this, but that word which we speak with much more reason than they that first used it, "should he deal with our sister, as with an harlot?" should they deal with our god as an idol? should they deal with his people as murderers and malefactors, and we not draw out his sword against them? act against conventicles.[ ] forasmuch as the assembling and convocating of his majesty's subjects, without his majesty's warrant and authority, is a most dangerous and unlawful practice, prohibit and discharged by several laws and acts of parliament, under high and great pains: and that notwithstanding thereof, diverse disaffected and seditious persons, under the specious but false pretences of religion and religious exercises, presume to make, and be present at conventicles and unwarrantable meetings and conventions of the subjects, which are the ordinary seminaries of separation and rebellion, tending to the prejudice of the public worship of god in the churches, to the scandal of the reformed religion, to the reproach of his majesty's authority and government, and to the alienating of the hearts and affections of the subjects from that duty and obedience they owe to his majesty, and the public laws of kingdom. for the suppressing and preventing of which for the time to come, his majesty, with advice and consent of his estates of parliament, hath thought fit to statute and enact, likeas they do hereby statute and command, that no outed ministers who are not licensed by the council, and no other persons not authorized, or tolerate by the bishop of the diocese, presume to preach, expound scripture, or pray in any meeting, except in their own houses, and to those of their own family; and that none be present at any meeting, without the family to which they belong, where any not licensed, authorized, nor tolerate as said is, shall preach, expound scripture, or pray: declaring hereby, all such who shall do in the contrary, to be guilty of keeping of conventicles; and that he, or they, who shall so preach, expound, or pray, within any house, shall be seized upon and imprisoned, till they find caution, under the pain of five thousand merks, not to do the like thereafter, or else enact themselves to remove out of the kingdom, and never return without his majesty's license; and that every person who shall be found to have been present at any such meetings, shall be _toties quoties_, fined according to their qualities, in the respective sums following, and imprisoned until they pay their fines, and further, during the council's pleasure, viz., each man or woman, having land in heritage, life-rent, or proper wadset, to be lined in a fourth part of his or her valued yearly rent; each tenant labouring land, in twenty-five pounds scots; each cottar, in twelve pounds scots, and each serving man, in a fourth part of his yearly fee: and where merchants or tradesmen do not belong to, or reside within burghs royal, that each merchant or chief tradesman be fined as a tenant, and each inferior tradesman as a cottar: and if any of the persons above-mentioned shall have their wives, or any of their children living in family with them, present at any such meeting, they are therefore to be fined in the half of the respective fines aforesaid, consideration being had to their several qualities and conditions. and if the master or mistress of any family, where any such meetings shall be kept, be present within the house for the time, they are to be fined in the double of what is to be paid by them, for being present at a house conventicle. and it is hereby declared, that magistrates of burghs royal are liable, for every conventicle to be kept within their burghs, to such fines as his majesty's council shall think fit to impose; and that the master or mistress of the house where the conventicle shall happen to be kept, and the persons present thereat, are to relieve the magistrates, as the council shall think fit to order the same; it being notwithstanding free to the council to fine the inhabitants of burghs for being present at conventicles within or without burghs, or where their wives or children shall be present at the same. and further, his majesty understanding that divers disaffected persons have been so maliciously wicked and disloyal, as to convocate his majesty's subjects to open meetings in the fields, expressly contrary to many public laws made thereanent, and considering that these meetings are the rendezvouses of rebellion, and tend in a high measure to the disturbance of the public peace, doth therefore, with advice and consent foresaid, statute and declare, that whosoever, without license or authority foresaid, shall preach, expound scripture, or pray, at any of those meetings in the field, or in any house where there be more persons than the house contains, so as some of them be without doors (which is hereby declared to be a field conventicle) or who shall convocate any number of people to these meetings, shall be punished with death, and confiscation of their goods. and it is hereby offered and assured, that if any of his majesty's good subjects shall seize and secure the persons of any who shall either preach or pray at these field-meetings, or convocate any persons thereto, they shall, for every such person so seized and secured, have five hundred merks paid unto them for their reward, out of his majesty's treasury, by the commissioners thereof, who are hereby authorised to pay the same; and the said seizers and their assistants are hereby indemnified for any slaughter that shall be committed in the apprehending and securing of them. and, as to all heritors and others aforesaid, who shall be present at any of these field-conventicles, it is hereby declared, they are to be fined, _toties quoties_, in the double of the respective fines appointed for house conventicles; but prejudice of any other punishment due to them by law as seditious persons and disturbers of the peace and quiet of the kirk and kingdom. and, seeing the due execution of laws is the readiest means to procure obedience to the same; therefore, his majesty, with consent and advice foresaid, doth empower, warrant, and command all sheriffs, stewarts of stewartries, lords of regalities, and their deputes, to call before them, and try all such persons who shall be informed to have kept, or been present at, conventicles within their jurisdictions, and to inflict upon these who shall be found guilty, the respective fines exprest in this act; they being always countable to the commissioners of his majesty's treasury, for the fines of all heritors within their bounds. and his majesty, for the encouragement of the said sheriffs, stewarts, and lords of regalities, to be careful and diligent in their duties therein, doth allow to themselves all the fines of any persons within their jurisdictions, under the degree of heritors; and requires the lords of his majesty's privy council to take exact trial of their care and diligence herein; and if the sheriffs, stewarts, and bailiffs, be negligent in their duties, or if the magistrates within burghs shall be negligent in their utmost diligence, to detect and delate to the council all conventicles within their burghs, that the council inflict such censures and punishments upon them as they shall think fit. and the lords of his majesty's privy council are hereby required to be careful in the trial of all field and house-conventicles kept since the first day of october, one thousand six hundred and sixty-nine, and before the date hereof, and that they punish the same conform to the laws and acts of state formerly made thereanent. and lastly, his majesty, being hopeful that his subjects will give such cheerful obedience to the laws as there shall not be long use of this act, hath therefore, with advice foresaid, declared that the endurance thereof shall only be for three years, unless his majesty shall think fit that it continue longer. the sanquhar declaration.[ ] it is not amongst the smallest of the lord's mercies to this poor land that there have been always some who have given their testimony against every course of defection, (that many are guilty of) which is a token for good, that he doth not as yet intend to cast us off altogether, but that he will leave a remnant in whom he will he glorious, if they, through his grace, keep themselves clean still, and walk in his way and method, as it has been walked in and owned by him in our predecessors of truly worthy memory, in their carrying on of our noble work of reformation in the several steps thereof, from popery, prelacy, and likewise erastian supremacy, so much usurped by him, who (it is true so far as we know) is descended from the race of our kings, yet he hath so far deborded from what he ought to have been, by his perjury and usurpation in church matters, and tyranny in matters civil, as is known by the whole land, that we have just reason to account it one of the lord's great controversies against us, that we have not disowned him and the men of his practices, (whether inferior magistrates or any other) as enemies to our lord and his crown, and the true protestant and presbyterian interest in thir lands, our lord's espoused bride and church. therefore, although we be for government and governors such as the word of our god and our covenant allows, yet we for ourselves and all that will adhere to us as the representatives of the true presbyterian kirk and covenanted nation of scotland, considering the great hazard of lying under such a sin any longer, do by thir presents disown charles stuart, that has been reigning (or rather tyrannizing as we may say) on the throne of britain these years bygone, as having any right, title to, or interest in, the said crown of scotland for government, as forfeited several years since, by his perjury and breach of covenant both to god and his kirk, and usurpation of his crown and royal prerogatives therein, and many other breaches in matters ecclesiastic, and by his tyranny and breach of the very _leges regnandi_ in matters civil. for which reason we declare, that several years since he should have been denuded of being king, ruler, or magistrate, or of having any power to act, or to be obeyed as such. as also, we, being under the standard of our lord jesus christ, captain of salvation, do declare a war with such a tyrant and usurper, and all the men of his practices, as enemies to our lord jesus christ and his cause and covenants; and against all such as have strengthened him, sided with, or any wise acknowledged him in his tyranny, civil or ecclesiastic, yea, against all such as shall strengthen, side with, or any wise acknowledge any other in the like usurpation and tyranny, far more against such as would betray or deliver up our free reformed mother-kirk unto the bondage of antichrist, the pope of rome. and by this we homologate that testimony given at rutherglen, the th of may, , and all the faithful testimonies of these who have gone before, as also of these who have suffered of late. and we do disclaim that declaration published at hamilton, june, , chiefly because it takes in the king's interest, which we are several years since loosed from, because of the foresaid reasons, and others, which may after this (if the lord will) be published. as also we disown, and by this resent the reception of the duke of york, that professed papist, as repugnant to our principles and vows to the most high god, and as that which is the great, though not alone, just reproach of our kirk and nation. we also by this protest against his succeeding to the crown; and whatever has been done, or any are essaying to do in this land (given to the lord), in prejudice to our work of reformation. and to conclude, we hope after this none will blame us for, or offend at our rewarding these that are against us as they have done to us as the lord gives opportunity. this is not to exclude any that have declined, if they be willing to give satisfaction according to the degree of their offence. _given at sanquhar, june nd, ._ protestation against the union.[ ] it will, no doubt, be reputed by many very unseasonable to protest at this time, against this union, now so far advanced and by their law established; but the consideration of the superabundant, palpable and eminent sins, hazards, and destructions to religion, laws, and liberties that are in it, and natively attend it, is such a pressing motive, that we can do no less, for the exoneration of our consciences in shewing our dislike of the same, before the sitting down of the british parliament, lest our silence should be altogether interpreted, either a direct or indirect owning of, or succumbing to the same: and though, having abundantly and plainly declared our principles formerly, and particularly in our last declaration, may , , against the then intended union; and waiting for more plain discovery of dissatisfaction with, and opposition unto this abominable course, by these of better capacitie, yet being herein so far disappointed in our expectations of such honourable and commendable appearances, for the laudable laws, and antient constitutions of this kingdom, both as to sacred and civil concerns, all these appearances, whither by addresses or protestations being so far lame and defective, as that the resolutions and purposes of such have never been fairly and freely remonstrat to the contrivers, promoters and establishers of this union. the consideration of which, and the lamentable case and condition the land already is, and may be in, by reason of the same, hath moved us, after the example and in imitation of the cloud of witnesses who have gone before us, to protest against the same, as being contrar to the word of god, and repugnant to our former union with england in the terms of the solemn league and covenant. and whereas it hath been the good will and pleasure of almighty god, to grant unto this nation a glorious and blessed reformation of the true christian religion, from the errors, idolatry, and superstition of popery and prelacy, and there withall to bless us with the power and purity of heavenly doctrine, worship, discipline, and government in the church of god, according to his will revealed in the holy scriptures; and to let us have all this accompanyed and attended with many great and singular blessings, in the conversion and comfort of many thousands, and in reforming and purging the land from that gross ignorance, rudeness and barbarity, that once prevailed among us. wherefore our zealous and worthy forefathers, being convinced of the benefit and excellency of such incomparable and unvaluable mercies, thought it their duty, not only by all means to endeavour the preservation of these, but also to transmit to posterity a fair _depositum_ and copy in purity and integrity, and as a fit expedient and mean to accomplish and perfect the same, they entered into the national covenant (no rank or degree of persons, from the highest to the lowest excepted) wherein they bound themselves to defend the reformation of religion in every part and point of the same, with their lives and fortunes to the outmost of their power, as may be seen in the national covenant of this church and kingdom, which was five times solemnly sworn. likeas the lord was so pleased to bless our land, and to beautify it with his presence, that our neighbour nations of england and ireland, who beheld this, and were groaning under and likeways aiming at the removal and abolishing of popery and prelacy, had sought and obtained assistance from this nation to help them in their endeavours for that end, and had been owned of god with success, they likeways thought it fit to enter into a most solemn league and covenant with this church and kingdom for reformation and defence of religion, wherein, with their hands lifted up to the most high god, they do bind and oblige themselves to maintain, preserve and defend, whatever measure and degree of reformation they had attained unto, and mutually to concurr, each with another with their lives and fortunes in their several places and callings, in opposition to all the enemies of the same, as may be seen at large in the solemn league and covenant. by means of which, these nations became (as it were) dedicated and devoted to god in a peculiar and singular manner, above all other people in the world and that by an indisolvable and indispensable obligation to perform, observe and fulfill the duties sworn too, and contained therein, from which no power on earth can absolve us. and so to prosecute and carry on the ends of the same, and to evidence our firm adherance to it, with the outmost of our endeavours, in opposition to every thing contradictory or contrar unto or exclusive of these our sacred vows. we have from time to time for these several years bypast, emitted and published several declarations and publick testimonies against the breaches of the same, as is evident not only from our declarations of late, but also from all the wrestlings and contendings of the faithful in former times, all which we here adhere to, approve of, and homologate, as they are founded upon the word of god and are agreeable thereto. and in this juncture to perpetuat and transmit to posterity the testimony of this church, and to acquit ourselves as faithful to god, and zealous for the concerns of religion, and every thing that's dear to us as men and christians. we here testify and protest against the prompters to, promoters or establishers of, and against every thing that hath tended to the promoting, advancing, corroborating, or by law establishing such a wicked and ruining union; and hereby we also declare against the validity of the proceedings of the late parliament with reference to the carrying on, and establishing the said union; and that their acts shall not be look't upon as obligatory to us, nor ought to be by posterity, nor any way prejudicial to the cause of god, and the covenanted work of reformation in this church, nor to the beeing, liberty, and freedom of parliaments, according to the laudable and antient pratique of this kingdom, the which we do not only for ourselves, but also in the name of all such as shall join or concurr with us in this our protestation, and therefore we protest. in regard, that the said union is a visible and plain subversion of the fundamental antient constitutions, laws and liberties of this kingdom, which we as a free people have enjoyed for the space of about two thousand years, without ever being fully conquered, and we have had singular and remarkable stepts of providence preventing our utter sinking, and preserving us from such a deludge and overthrow, which some other nations more mighty and opulent than we, have felt, and whose memory is much extinct: while by this incorporating union with england in their sinful terms, this nation is debased and enslaved, its antient independency lost and gone, the parliamentary power dissolved which was the very strength, bulwork and basis of all liberties and priviledges of persons of all ranks, of all manner of courts and judicatories, corporations and societies within this kingdom; all which, now, must be at the disposal and discreation of the british parliament, (to which, by this union, this nation must be brought to full subjection) and furder the number of peers, who have many times ventured their lives for the interest of their country, having reputation and success at home and were famous and formidable abroad: and the number of barons and burrows famous sometime, for courage and zeal for the interest of their country (and, more especially in our reforming times) all these, reduced to such an insignificant and small number in the brittish parliament, we say, (as is also evident from the many protestations given in to the late parliament against this union) how far it is contrary to the honour, interest, foundamental laws, and constitutions of this kingdom, and a palpable surrender of the soveraignity, rights and priviledges of the nation; and how by this surrender of parliament and soveraignity the people are deprived and denuded of all security, as to any thing that's agreed to by this union, and all that's dear to them, is daily in danger to be encroached upon, altered or subverted by the said brittish parliament, managed intirely by the english, who seldom have consulted our well-fare, but rather have sought opportunity to injure us, and are now put in a greater capacity with more ease to act to our prejudice: and poor people to be made lyable to taxes, levies and unsupportable burdens, and many other imminent hazards and impositions, all which we here protest against. as also that which is little considered (tho' most lamentable), how the foundamental constitutions should be altered, subverted, and overturned, not only, _renitente and reclamante populo_, but also by such men, who, if the righteous and standing laws of the nation were put in execution, are uncapable of having any vote or suffrage in any judicatory; seeing the covenants national and solemn league, which had the assent and concurrence of the three estates of parliament, and the sanction of the civil law, cordially and harmoniously assenting to, complying with, and coroborrating the acts and canons of ecclesiastick courts in favour of these covenants, whereby they became the foundation whence any had right to reign or govern in this land, and also became the foundation, limitation, and constitution of the government and succession to the crown of this realm, and the qualification of all magistrats supreame, and subordinate, and of all officers in church, state, or army, and likewise the ground and condition of the peoples obedience and subjection, as may be seen in the acts, laws, and practise of these times: witness the admission of charles ii. to the government, _anno_ . from all which it is evident how blind such men have been, who not only have enslaved the nation, but have rendered themselves unfamous by such an open and manifest violation of these solemn and sacred vows to the most high god, to the obligation of which they as well as the rest of the land, are indispensibly bound. but ah! when we mention these covenants, how notorious and palpable is the breach of, and indignity done to these solemn vows by this sinful union, by means whereof they come to be buried in perpetual oblivion, and all means for prosecuting their ends are so blockt up by this incorporating union with england, as that what ever is or may be done or acted contrair thereunto, or in prejudice thereof by any of the enemies of the same, cannot be remeided in a due and impartial exercise of church discipline, and execution of the laws of the land against such transgressors. and if we would open our eyes and consider a little with reference to our national covenant, we may clearly see that this incorporating union is directly contrar to that particular oath and vow made to god by us in this kingdom, which we are obliged to fulfill and perform in a national state and capacity, as we are a particular nation by ourselves, distinct in the constitution of our government and laws from these of england, and from all others: but now when we cease to be a particular nation, we being no way distinct from that of england (which is the very genuine and inevitable effect of this union) how then can we keep our national vows to god, when we shall not be a particular nation, but only (by means of this incorporating union) made a part of another nation, whose government is manag'd, as is very well known, in many things directly contrar to what is contained in this national covenant of this land; though we have charity to believe, there shall multitudes be found in the land who will grant and acknowledge themselves bound to the observation of that oath by an indispensibility, which no power on earth can disolve. and what a palpable breach is this wicked union of our solemn league and covenant, which was made and sworn with uplifted hands to the most high god, for purging and reforming his house in these three nations from error, heresie, superstition and profaneness, and whatever is contrar to sound and pure doctrine, worship, discipline, and government in the same: and so it involves this nation in most fearful perjury before god, being contrar to the very first article of the covenant wherein we swear to contribute our outmost endeavours in our several places and callings to reform england in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government; but by this union both we and they are bound up for ever from all endeavours and attempts of this nature, and have put ourselves out of a capacity to give any help or assistance that way; but on the contrar they came to be hardened in their deformation, impious and superstitious courses. and how far contrar to the second article, where we solemnly abjure prelacy for ever, when by this union, prelacy comes for ever to be established and settled on the surest and strongest foundations imaginable, as is evident from the ratification of the articles in the english parliament, with the exemplification of the same in the scots parliament, where the prelatick government in england is made a foundamental article of the union: so it is also impossible for us to fulfill the other part of that article, where we forswear schism, which a legal tolleration of errors will infer and fix among us, as the native result and inevitable consequence of this union; and how far this is contrar to the word of god, and to our covenants, any considering person may decern. as to the third article, any may see how far it is impossible for us to preserve the rights, liberties, and priviledges of parliament and kingdom, when divested both of our parliaments and liberties in a distinct national way, or yet as according to the same article, where we are obliged to maintain and defend the king, his majesty's person and government in defence and preservation of the true religion; how can it be supposed, that we can answer our obligation to this part of the covenant, when a corrupt religion is established, as is by this union already done, when prelatick government is made a foundamental thereof. and it is a clear breach of the fourth article of the solemn league and covenant, where we swear to oppose all malignants and hinderers of reformation and religion, and yet by this union, the prelats, who themselves are the very malignants and enemies to all further reformation in religion are hereby settled and secured in all their places of power and dignity, without the least appearance or ground of expectation of any alteration for ever. how offensive and displeasing unto god this accursed union is, may be further evident by its involving this land in a sinful conjunction and association with prelats, malignants, and many other enemies to god and godliness, and stated adversaries to our reformation of religion and sworn-to principles in our covenants national and solemn league, and particularly as this union imbodys and units us in this land in the strickest conjunction and association with england, a land so deeply already involved in the breach of covenant, and pestered with so many sectaries, errors and abominable practices, and joins us in issue and interest with these that are tollerators, maintainers and defenders of these errors, which the word of god strictly prohibits, and our sacred covenants plainly and expressly abjures. and further, how far and deeply it ingages this land in a confedracy and association with god's enemies at home and abroad in their expeditions and counsels; a course so often prohibeted by god in his word, and visibly pleagued in many remarkable instances of providences, as may be seen both in sacred and historical records, and the unlawfulness thereof, on just and scriptural grounds, demonstrate by famous divines, even of our own church and nation, and set down as a cause of god's wrath against this church and kingdom. and how detestable must such an union be, whose native tendency leads to wear off, from the dissenting party in england, all sight, sense, consideration and belief of the indispensibility of the solemn league, and hardening enemies in their opposition to it, and these of all ranks in the habitual breach of it: yea also, how shamefully it leads to the obliterating and extinguishing all the acts of parliaments and assemblies made in favours of these covenants and reformation, especially between and inclusive. and not only so, but to a trampling on all the blood of martyrs during the late tyrannical reigns, and a plain burying of all the testimonies of the suffering and contending party in this land, in their firm, faithful and constant adherance to the covenanted work of reformation, and their declarations, protestations, and wrestlings against all the indignities done unto, and usurpations made upon the royal crown and prerogative of the mediator, and all the priviledges and instrinsick rights of this church; we say, not only burying these in perpetual oblivion by this cope-stone of the land's sins and defections, but also opposing and condemning these as matters of the least concern and trivial, as not being worthy of the contending and suffering for, whereby these who ventured their lives and their all, may be reputed to have dyed as fools, and suffered justly. we cannot here omit also to declare and testify against the constitution of the british parliament, not only upon the consideration of the foresaid grounds and reasons, but also upon the account of the sinful mixture and unlawful admission of bishops and churchmen, to have a share in the legislative power, or in any place in civil courts or affairs, and thereto act or vote forensically in civil matters, a thing expressly forbidden and discharged by christ the only head and lord of his own house, whose kingdom, as mediator, is not of this world, but purely spiritual; and so the officers in his house must be spiritual; so that the civil power of church men is a thing inconsistent and incompatible with that sacred and spiritual function. upon which consideration, how palpable a sin will it be to subject to, or accept of any oath that may be imposed by the said british parliament, for the maintenance and support of such an union, or for recognoseing, owning and acknowledging the authority of the said parliament, and that because of our swearing, and promising subjection to the said parliament, we do thereby homologate the foresaid sinful constitution, and swear, and promise subjection to the bishops of england who are a considerable part of that parliament, and so we shall be bound and oblidged to maintain and uphold them in their places, dignities, and offices, which is contrar to the word of god and our covenants, while the very first article of the solemn league oblidges us to endeavour the reformation of the religion in the kingdom of england, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, according to the word of god, as well as in scotland. and it is very well known that the government of bishops is not according to the word of god, but contrar to it, and likeways contrar the second article of the solemn league whereby we are obliged to the extirpation of prelacy, that is, church government by archbishops, bishops, &c., which we will be obliged by such an oath to maintain and defend. and besides, from the consideration of the person that by the patrons and establishes of this union, and by the second article of the union itself, is nominated and designed to succeed after the decease of the present queen anne, in the government of these nations, to wit the prince of hanover, who hath been bred and brought up in the luthren religion, which is not only different from, but even in many things contrar unto that purity, in doctrine, reformation, and religion, we in these nations had attained unto, as is very well known. now, the admitting such a person to reign over us, is not only contrar to our solemn league and covenant, but to the very word of god itself; requiring and commanding one from among their brethren, and not a stranger who is not a brother, to be set over them: whereby undoubtedly is understood, not only such who were of consanguinity with the people of the land, but even such as served and worshipped the god of israel; and not any other, and that in the true and perfect way of worshipping and serving him, which he himself hath appointed, as they then did, to which this intended succession is quite contrary. and besides this, he is to be solemnly engaged and sworn to the prelats of england, to maintain, protect, and defend them in all their dignities, dominion, and revenues, to the preventing and excluding all reformation out of these nations for ever. and upon the like and other weighty reasons and considerations (as popish education, conversation, etc.) we protest against, and disown the pretended prince of wales from having any just right to rule or govern these nations, or to be admitted to the government thereof: and whereas (as is reported) we are maliciously aspersed by these who profess themselves of the presbyterian perswasion, especially the laodicean preachers, that we should be accessory to the advancement of him whom they call the prince of wales to the throne of britain: therefore to let all concerned be fully assured of the contrary, we protest and testifie against all such so principled to have any right to rule in thir lands, because we look upon all such to be standing in a stated opposition to god and our covenanted work of reformation. not that we contemn, deny or reject civil government and governours (as our former declared principles to the world make evident) but are willing to maintain, own, defend and subject to all such governours as shall be admitted according to our covenants, and laws of the nation, and act in defence of our covenanted work of reformation, and in defence of the nations ancient liberties and priviledges, according to the laudable laws and practique of this kingdom. and further, we cannot but detest, abominate and abhor, and likeways protest against the vast and unlimitted tolleration of error and sectaries, which, as a necessary and native consequence of this union, will inevitably follow thereupon, and whereby a plain and patent way is laid open for these errors, which will certainly have a bad influence upon all the parts, pieces, and branches of the reformation, both in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, yea even upon the most momentuous and fundamental articles of the christian faith: for hereby anabaptists, erastians, socinians, arminians, quakers, theists, atheists, and libertines of all kinds, with many others (which abound and swarm in that land) will come crouding and thronging in among us, venting and vomiting up their damnable and hellish tenets and errors to the destruction of souls, and great dishonour of god in many respects, and that without any check or control by civil authority, as is evident from the present practice of england, as having gotten full and free libertie for all this by means of this accursed union. how then ought not every one to be affrayed, when incorporating themselves with such a people so exposed to the fearful and tremendous judgments of god, because of such gross impieties and immoralities (not that our land is free of such hainous wickednesses as may draw down a judgment, but there these evils are to a degree) for what unparalelled, universal, national perjury is that land guilty of, both toward god and man (though there were no more) by the breach of the solemn league and covenant that they once made with this nation, for the defence and reformation of religion: but also what abominable lasciviousness, licentiousness, luxury, arrogancy, impiety, pride and insolence, together with the vilest of whoredoms, avowed breach of sabbath, and most dreadful blasphemies, yea, the contempt of all that's sacred and holy; gets liberty to reign and predomine without check or challenge, so that joining with such people, cannot but expose us, as well as them, to the just judgment of god, while continuing in these sins. and here we cannot pass by the unfaithfulness of the present ministers (not that we judge all of them to be cast in the same ballance) who at the first beginning of this work seemed to be so zealously set against it, and that both in their speeches, sermons and discourses (which was duty). but yet in a very little after flinched from, and became generally so dumb, silent, indifferent or ambiguous to the admiration of many, so that people knew not what to construct. but from what cause or motive they were so influenced, they know best themselves: sure their duty both to god and man was, to shew and declare how shameful, hurtful, and highly sinful this course was as so circumstantiat. and if ministers faithfulness and zeal to the concerns of christ had led them to such freedom and plainness, as was duty in such a matter, and had discovered how contrary this union was to the fundamental laws and sworn principles, by all probability they might have had such influence as to stop such an unhallowed and unhappy project. but it seems their policy hath utwitted their piety, their pleasing of man in conniving at, if not complying with their design that was carried on, hath weighed more with them, than the pleasing of god, in their witnessing and testifying against it. (but to say no more) by the negligence of ministers on the one hand, and the politicks of statesmen on the other hand, this wicked and naughty business has been carryed on and accomplished, to the provocking of god, enslaving the nation, and bringing the same under manifest perjury and breach of covenant. but how to evite the judgments pronunced against such, we know not, but by returning to their first love, taking up their first ground, and standing to sworn covenants, solemnly unto god, and adhereing to the cause of god, and the faithful testimonies of this church, and seeking back unto the old path, abandoning and shaking off and forsaking all these god-provoking and land-ruining courses; we say, we know and are perswaded, there can be no mean to retrive us in this land, but by unfeigned repentance, and returning unto him from whom we have so deeply revolted. and among the politicks of this age, it could not but be reckoned the wisdom of the nation, if ever they get themselves recovered out of the snare, to animadvert upon all such, as have had any hand in the contriving or manadging it, as being enemies both to god and their country; which course, if it had been taken in former times, with such who were enemies to religion and liberty, it would have deterred such from being so active in this fatal stroak. upon these and many more weighty considerations, plain and demonstrable evils in this complex mass of sin and misery, all the true lovers of zion who desire to be found faithful to god, to their vows and sworn principles, and who seek to be found faithful in their generation and duty of the day: and all such, who desire, love and respect the honour, independency, liberty and priviledge of their native countrey, especially in such a juncture, when long threatned judgments are so imminent, and religion and liberty as it were, in their last breathing, will easily find it to be their bound duty (as they would not conspire with adversaries to religion and liberty) to show no favour or respect, and give no encouragement or assistance that may tend to the upholding or supporting this union; but that it is their duty and concernment (as well as ours) to testify and declare against the same, and to concurr with their utmost endeavours to stop and hinder the same, and to deny their accession to, connivance at, or complyance with any thing that may tend to the continuing such an unsupportable yoke upon themselves or their posterity. and now to draw this, our protestation, to a conclusion, we heartily invite, and in the bowels of our lord jesus christ intreat all in both nations, who tender the glory of god, the removing the causes of his wrath, indignation and imminent judgments upon us, and who desire the continuance of his tabernacle, gospel ordinances, and gracious presence among us, and seek and contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints; and labour to follow the footsteps of these who throu' faith and patience inherit the promise, the noble cloud of witnesses who have gone before us; we say, we heartily invite and intreat such to consider their ways, and to come and join in a harmonious, zealous, and faithful withstanding all and every thing that may be like a hightning, or cope-stone of our defections, and particularly to join with us (according to our reformation, covenants, confession of faith, and testimonies of our church, as agreeable to the sacred and unerring rule of faith and manners, the holy scriptures) in this our protestation and testimony. and for these effects, we desire that this our protestation may be a standing testimony to present and succeeding ages, against the sinfulness of this land-ruining, god-provoking, soul destroying and posterity-enslaving and ensnaring union, and this _ad futurum rei memoriam_. and to evite the brand and odium of passing the bounds of our station, and that this our protestation may be brought to the view of the world; we have thought fit to publish and leave a copy of the same at sanquhar by a part of our number, having the unanimous consent of the whole so to do. _given on the nd day of october, ._ secession from the revolution church.[ ] we, mr. john mackmillan, present minister of the gospel at balmaghie, and mr. john mackneil, preacher of the gospel, being most odiously and invidiously represented to the world as schismaticks, separatists and teachers of unsound and divisive doctrine, tending to the detriment of church and state, and especially by ministers with whom we were embodied, while there remained any hope of getting grievances redressed. therefore, that both ministers and professors may know the unaccountableness of such aspersions, let it be considered that this backsliding church (when we with others might have been big with expectations for advancement in reformation) continued in their defections from time to time, still, as occasion was given, evidencing their readiness to comply with every new backsliding course, instance that of the oath of alledgance, and bond of assurance to the present queen; which additional step to the former gave occasion and rise to our unhappy contentions and divisions. and now at this time, for the glory of god, the vindication of truth and of ourselves (as conscience and reason obligeth us), to make evident to the world the groundlesness of these aspersions and calumnies as renters and dividers, and particularly in the commissions late odious and malicious lybel, wherein are contained many gross falsehoods, such as swearing persons not to pay cess, and travelling throw the country with scandalous persons in arms, which, as they are odious culumnies in themselves, so they will never be proven by witnesses: and, as to our judgment anent the cess, we reckon it duty in the people of god to deny and withhold all support, succour, aid, or assistance that may contribute to the upholding or strengthening the man of sin, or any of the adversaries of truth, (as the word of god instructs us) or for supporting any in such a way, as tending to the establishing the kingdom of satan, and bringing down the kingdom of the son of god, in a course tending this way, how deeply these nations are engadged (contrar to the word of god and our indispensible oaths and covenants, whereby these lands were solemnly devoted to god) is too palpable and plain, especially in the sinful terms of the late god provoking, religion destroying, and land ruining union: we judge it most necessary to give to the world a brief and short account of our principles in what we own or disown (referring for larger, more ample information, to several protestations and testimonies given by some of the godly heretofore at different times and places) and hereby that truth may be vindicated and our consciences exonered. we declare to the world our hearty desire to embrace and adhere to the written word of god, contained in the holy scriptures of the old and new testament, as the only and compleat rule and adequat umpire of faith and manners, and whatever is founded thereupon, and agreeable thereunto; such as our confession of faith; larger and shorter catechisms; directory for worship; covenants national and solemn league; the acknowledgment of sin and engagement to duties; causes of god's wrath, and the ordinary and perpetual officers of christ's appointment, as pastors, doctors, elders and deacons, and the form of church government, commonly called presbyterian. next, we declare our firm adherence to all the faithful contendings for truth, whether of old or of late, by ministers and professors, and against whatever sinful courses, whether more refined or more gross, and particularly the public resolutions cromwel's usurpation, the toleration of sectaries, and heresies in his time, and against the sacraligious usurpation and tyranny of charles ii., the unfaithfulness of ministers and professors in complying with him, and accepting his indulgences first and last. and in a word to everything agreeable to the matter of this our testimony, as it is declared in page and of the informatory vindication; printed _anno_ . likeways, we declare our adherence unto the testimony against the abominable toleration granted by the duke of york, and given in to the ministers at edinburgh, by that faithful minister and now glorified martyr, mr. james renwick, january , . and to whatever wrestlings or contendings have been made, or testimonies given against the endeavours of any in their subtle and sedulous striving to insinuate and engadge us in a sinful confederacy with a malignant interest and cause, contrar to the word of god, our solemn league and covenant, and testimony of this church. next, we bear testimony against persons being invested with royal power and authority in thir covenanted lands, without a declaration of their hearty complyance with, and approbation of the national and solemn league and covenant and engadgment to prosecute the ends thereof, by consenting to and ratifying all acts and laws made in defence of these covenants, agreeable to the word of god, and laudable acts and practise of this kirk and kingdom in our best times. moreover, we bear testimony against all confederacies and associations with popish prelats and malignants, contrary to the word of god and our solemn engadgments. the magistrats adjourning and dissolving of assemblies, and not allowing them time to consider and exped their affairs: their appointing them dyets and causes of fasts, particularly that in january : and the thanksgiving aug. , _anno_ , which is a manifest encroachment upon, and destructive to the priviledges of this church: their protecting of curats in the peaceable exercise of their ministry, some in kirks, others in meeting houses, yea, even in the principal city of the kingdom, if qualified according to law by swearing the oath of alledgance. their not bringing unto condign punishment enemies to the covenant and cause of god, but advancing such to places of power and trust: all which we here bear testimony against. next, we bear testimony against lukewarmness and unfaithfulness in ministers anent the corruptions and defections the church was guilty of in the late times, not yet purged and removed by censures, and other ways, as was duty. and their not leaving faithful and joint testimonies against all the encroachments made upon the church by the civil powers, since the year . and we bear testimony against the settling the constitution of this church, according as it was established in the year . and the ministers not testifying against this deed, seems to import a disowning all the reformation attained to betwixt and inclusive. at least cowardice in not daring to avouch the same, or their being ashamed to own it, because many famous and faithful acts of assemblies, especially about the year , would have made them lyable to censure, even to the length of silencing and deposition; for their defection and unfaithfulness during the late times, of the lands apostasie. particularly, the weakning the hands and discouraging the hearts of the lord's suffering people, by their bitter expressions, and aspersions cast on them for their zeal and tenderness, which would not allow them to comply with a wicked, arbitrary and bloody council as many of them did. their not renewing the covenant buried for upwards of fifty years by the greatest part of the land, contrar to the former practise of this church, especially after some grosser steps of defection. their receiving of perjured curats into ministerial communion, without covenant tyes and obligations and evident signs of their repentance, contrary to the former practise of this church. their receiving some lax tested men, and curates, elders, into kirk offices, without some apparent signs at least of their repentance in a publick appearance, contrar to the former practise of this church in such like cases, evident by the acts of the assemblies. their not protesting formally, faithfully and explicitly against the magistrate adjourning and dissolving of assemblies, and recording the same, contrar to the practise of this church in our reforming times. we are not concerned to notice the protestation of some few persons at particular times, seeing their precipitancy and rashness in this matter, (as they accounted it) was afterward apologized for; and that it was not the deed of the assembly. their not asserting in any explicit and formal act the divine right of presbytry, and the instrinsick power of the church, though often desired by many privat christians, and some several members, their not confirming and ratifying the acts of the assemblies that were made in our best times for strengthening and advancing the work of reformation, contrar to the former practise of this church. their admitting in many places, ignorant and scandalous persons to the lord's table, contrar to the acts of former assemblies: their not protesting against the present sinful confederacy with papists, malignants, and other enemies of religion and godliness; contrar to the word of god, and former practise of this church: their offensive partiality in their respective judicatories as to some particular members, where, the more lax and scandalous are overlooked and past by, and the more faithful and zealous are severely dealt with and handled, contrar to the rule of equity and the former practise of this church: their refusing and shifting to receive and redress the people's just and great grievances, and little regard had to prevent the giving offence to the lord's people, and small endeavours to have these things removed that are stumbling and offensive to them, contrar to the apostle's rule and practise, who became all things to all men that by all means he might save some: their not declaring faithfully and freely against the sins of the land former and latter, without respect of persons, contrar to that express precept, "set the trumpet to thy mouth, and show my people their transgressions, and the house of jacob their sin." lastly, we bear testimony against ministers sinful and shameful silence, when called to speak and act by preaching and protesting against this unhallowed union, which, as it is already the stain, so we swear it will prove the ruin and bain of this poor nation; though some of them, we grant, signified their dislike thereof, before and about the time it was concluded, yet there was no plain and express protestation, faithfully and freely given in to the parliament, shewing the sinfulness and danger of this cursed union, being contrar, not only to the honour, interest, and fundamental laws, and constitutions of the kingdom, and a palpable surrender of the sovereignty, rights and priviledges of the nation, but also a manifest breach of our solemn league and covenant, which was made and sworn with uplifted hands to the most high god, for purging and reforming the three nations from error, heresy, superstition and prophaneness, and whatever is contrar to sound doctrine, the power of godliness, and the purity of worship, discipline and government in the same. and so it involves this nation into a most fearful perjury before god, being contrar to the first article of the covenant, wherein we swear to contribute with our outmost endeavours, in our several places and callings, to reform england in doctrine, worship, discipline and government; but by this union we are bound up for ever from all endeavours and attempts of this nature, and have put ourselves out of all capacity to give any help or assistance that way, as ye may see more fully in the late protestation against the union, published at sanquhar, october , . let none say, that what we have done here flows from ambition to exalt ourselves above others, for as we have great cause, so we desire grace from the lord, to be sensible of what accession we have with others in the land, to the provoking of his spirit, in not walking as becomes the gospel, according to our solemn engagements, neither proceeds it from irritation or inclination (by choice or pleasure) to discover our mother's nakedness or wickedeness, or that we love to be of a contentious spirit, for our witness is in heaven (whatever the world may say) that it would be the joy of our hearts, and as it were a resurrection from the dead, to have these grievances redressed and removed, and our backsliding and breaches quickly and happily healed, but it is to exoner consciences by protesting against the defections of the land, especially of ministers: and seeing we can neither with safety to our persons, nor freedom in our consciences, compear before the judicatories, while these defections are not acknowledged and removed, so we must, so long decline them, and hereby do decline them, as unfaithful judges in such matters: in regard they have, in so great a measure, yielded up the priviledges of the church into the hands and will of her enemies, and carried on a course of defection contrar to the scriptures, our covenants, and the acts and constitutions of this our church. and hereby we further protest and testify against whatever they may conclude, or determine, in their ecclesiastick courts by acts, ratifications, sentences, censures, &c., that have been, or shall be made or given out by them, and protest that the same may be made void and null, and not interpreted as binding to us or any who desire firmly to adhere to the covenanted work of reformation. but let none look upon what we have here said, to be a vilipending or rejecting of the free, lawful, and rightly constitute courts of christ, for we do acknowledge such to have been among the first most effectual means appointed of god for preserving the purity and advanceing the power of reformation in the church of christ; the sweet fruits and blessed effects whereof, this church hath sometimes enjoyed, and which we have been endeavouring and seeking after, and are this day longing for. we detest and abhorr that principle of casting off the ministry, wherewith we are odiously and maliciously reproached by these who labour to fasten upon us the hateful names of schismaticks, separatists, despisers of the gospel: but, herein as they do bewray their enmity to the cause we own, so till they bring in their own principles and practices, and ours also, and try them by the law and testimony, the measuring line of the sanctuary, the word of god, and the practice of this church, when the lord keeped house with, and rejoiced over her as a bridegroom over his bride, they can never prove us schismaticks or separatists from the kirk of scotland upon the account of our non-union with the backslidden multitude, ministers and others. finally, that we may not be judged by any, as persons of an infallible spirit, and our actions above the cognisance of the judicatories of christ's appointment: we appeal to the first free, faithful and rightly constitute assembly in this church, to whose decision and sentence in the things, lybelled against us we willingly refer ourselves, and crave liberty to extend and enlarge this our protestation, declinature, and appeal as need requires. jo. mackmillan. jo. mackneil. balmaghie manse, _sept. th, _. "the chiefest among ten thousand." aird & coghill printers, glasgow. footnotes: [footnote : this exhortation was prepared by "reverend ministers of the gospel," who met at edinburgh, february, , and "sent to every one of the lords of council severally," inviting them to subscribe the covenant.] [footnote : aberdeen, crail and st. andrews were the only burghs in scotland that had no commissioners at the renewing of the national covenant in edinburgh. henderson was appointed to proceed to st. andrews to secure its approval of the movement, and his mission resulted in complete success. this sermon was preached there about the end of march, .] [footnote : the author of this "discourse and exhortation" and of the two sermons that follow, was ordained minister of pitsligo, and in was inducted to st. nicholas' church, aberdeen. part of the inscription on his tombstone is, "a boanerges and barnabas: a magnet and adamant." he was a member of the assembly at glasgow, . this exhortation was at the renewing of the national covenant at inverness, th april, .] [footnote : this sermon was delivered in , immediately after the renovation of the national covenant and celebration of the lord's supper.] [footnote : this sermon was preached at a "general meeting" in greyfriars church, edinburgh, on th june, , after the renovation of the covenant. in erskine's edition, black-fryar is a misprint for gray-fryar.] [footnote : mr. nye was an independent and a distinguished member of the westminster assembly. this exhortation was given to the house of commons and the "reverend divines" of the westminster assembly before they took the solemn league and covenant, and was published by order of the house of commons.] [footnote : this address was given to the house of commons and the westminster assembly before taking the covenant and was published by order of the house of commons.] [footnote : mr. white.] [footnote : mr. nye.] [footnote : mr. henderson.] [footnote : dr. gouge.] [footnote : mr. caryl was a member of the westminster assembly. this sermon was given at westminster "at that publick convention (ordered by the honourable house of commons) for the taking of the covenant, by all such of all degrees as wilfully presented themselves, upon friday, october , ." the house of commons thanked caryl for the sermon and ordered its publication.] [footnote : mr. case, a member of the westminster assembly, gave this sermon and the one that follows, at the taking of the covenant in milk street church, london; the former on saturday evening, th september, , and the other on st october, on "the sabbath-day in the morning," immediately before the covenant was taken. both sermons, together with one on the fast, th september, wore dedicated to the commissioners from the church of scotland to the westminster assembly.] [footnote : this sermon was delivered by rev. edmond calamy, a member of the westminster assembly, on january , , "before the then lord mayor of the city of london, sir thomas adams; together with the sheriffs, aldermen, and common council of the said city, being the day of their taking the solemn league and covenant, at michael basenshaw, london."] [footnote : the coronation of charles ii. took place at scone, st january, . in the "chamber of presence," the nation's representatives invited the king to accept the crown; to which the king replied: "i do esteem the affections of my good people more than the crown of many kingdoms, and shall be ready, by god's assistance, to bestow my life in their defence, wishing to live no longer than i may see religion and this kingdom flourish in all happiness." thereafter, they proceeded to the "kirk of scoon, in order and rank, and according to their quality." the "king first settles himself in his chair for hearing of sermon. all being quietly composed unto attention, mr. robert douglas, moderator of the commission of the general assembly, after incalling on god by prayer, preached the following sermon." after the sermon, the king took the national covenant and the solemn league and covenant.] [footnote : this second coronation oath is inserted in the th act of parliament, and in the parliament, feb. th, ; and is, with the first coronation oath following, insert and approven in the declaration of the general assembly th july, .] [footnote : at torwood, stirlingshire, september , donald cargill pronounced this sentence of excommunication against charles ii.; the dukes of york, monmouth, lauderdale, and rothes; sir george m'kenzie, the king's advocate; and dalziell of binns.] [footnote : there were several acts for the suppression of field preachings. this one was prepared by archbishop sharpe and issued in .] [footnote : on june nd, , this declaration was read by richard cameron at sanquhar, amid the breathless silence of the inhabitants who flocked to the spot. it marked "an epoch," writes burton, "in the career of the covenanters."] [footnote : the faithful followers of the reformers and martyrs, who could not identify themselves with the church and state at the revolution, maintained their separate existence and testimony through their "societies," and they prepared and published this paper against the union with england. its full title is "the protestation and testimony of the united societies of the witnessing remnant of the anti-popish, anti-prelatic, anti-erastian, anti-sectarian, true presbyterian church of christ in scotland, against the sinful incorporating union with england and their british parliament, concluded and established, may, ."] [footnote : the rev. john mackmillan, minister of balmaghie, endeavoured for years to convince the established church that the church had submitted at the revolution to invasions of her independence by the state, and to persuade her to return to the attainments of the reformation. bitter opposition to his efforts led to his secession from the church, after tabling this "protestation, declinature and appeal." mr. john mackneil joined in the declinature. a tablet in memory of mr. mackmillan has been recently erected in balmaghie church by his great-great-grandson, dr. john grieve, glasgow. part of the inscription is, "a covenanter of the covenanters: a father of the reformed presbyterian church: a faithful minister of jesus christ."] transcriber's note inconsistencies in language and dialect found in the original book have been retained. minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. printer errors have been changed and are listed at the end. ringan gilhaize their constancy in torture and in death-- these on tradition's tongue still live, these shall on history's honest page be pictured bright to latest times. grahame's sabbath. ringan gilhaize or _the covenanters_ by john galt author of "_annals of the parish_," "_sir andrew wylie_," "_the entail_," _etc._ edited, with an introduction, by sir george douglas, bart. london greening & co., ltd. cecil court, charing cross road introduction a neglected masterpiece there have, of course, been many men of genius who have united with great laxity and waywardness in their lives a high and perfect respect for their art; but instances of the directly contrary practice are much rarer, and among these there is probably none more prominent than that of the author of _ringan gilhaize_. gifted by nature with a faculty which was at once brilliant, powerful and genial, he led an industrious life, the upright and generally exemplary character of which has never for a moment been called in question. but, in the sphere of his art, it is as undeniable as unaccountable that he cared little or nothing to do his best. the haps or whims of the moment seem, indeed, to have governed his production with an influence as of stars malign or fortunate. furthermore, we know that the profession of authorship--that most distinguished of all professions, as, speaking in sober sadness without arrogance, we cannot but be bold to call it--that profession from which he was himself so well equipt to derive honour--was held by him in low esteem. so that, speaking of the time of his residence in upper canada, he thinks no shame to observe that he did _then_ consider himself qualified to do something more useful than "stringing blethers[ ] into rhyme," or "writing 'clishmaclavers' in a closet." and again says he, "to tell the truth, i have sometimes felt a little shamefaced in thinking myself so much an author, in consequence of the estimation in which i view the profession of book-making in general. a mere literary man--an author by profession--stands low in my opinion." such remarks as these from a man of commanding literary talent are the reverse of pleasant reading. but let us deal with the speaker, as we would ourselves be dealt by--mercifully, and regard these petulant utterances as a mere expression of bitterness or perversity in one much tried and sorely disappointed. even so, the fact remains that the sum of galt's immense and varied production exhibits inequalities of execution for which only carelessness or contempt in the worker for his task can adequately account. we shall presently have occasion to speak of him in his relation to the great contemporary writer to whose life and work his own work and life present so many interesting points of similarity and diversity; but we may here note that, in the glaringly disparate character of his output, the author of _the provost_ is in absolute contrast to the author of _the antiquary_. for, if scott's work viewed as a whole be rarely of the very finest literary quality, its evenness within its own limits is on the other hand very striking indeed. for, of his twenty-seven novels, there are perhaps but three which fall perceptibly below the general level of excellence; whilst probably any one of at least as many as six or eight might by a quorum of competent judges be selected as the best of all. and hence, where in the case of other authors we are called on to read this masterpiece or those specimens, and, having done so, are held to have acquitted ourselves, in the case of scott we cannot feel that we have done our duty till we have read through the waverley novels. how entirely different is it with galt--where we find _the omen_ occupying one shelf with _the radical_, _the annals of the parish_ catalogued with _lawrie todd_, and _the spaewife_ side by side with _the covenanters_! and obviously it is in this inequality in its author's work--in the magnitude, that is, of the rubbish-heap in which he chose to secrete his jewels--that the explanation of the neglect, if not rather oblivion, into which the work last-named has fallen can alone be sought and found. for, once in the threescore years of his busy life, galt did his best, consistently and on a large scale, with the pen; and that once was in the novel of _ringan gilhaize, or the covenanters_. what is more--however lamentably he may appear in general to lack the faculty of self-criticism--he knew when he had done his best, and among all his books this one remained his favourite. but a man has to pay for artistic as he has for moral delinquencies, and it would seem that the penalty of many a careless tome has been exacted in the obscuration of one of the finest and truest of historical romances in our language.[ ] a word or two as to the genesis and character of the book which we have ventured thus to describe may not be out of place as preface to our endeavour to obtain for it a second hearing. it was in the year or that galt, aged then about forty-three, and having already seen much of life in various countries and capacities, settled at esk grove, musselburgh, to apply himself to writing historical fiction. he was for the moment elated--carried away, perhaps, for his temper was enthusiastic even to a fault--by the recent and deserved success of his novels of scottish manners, _sir andrew wylie_ and _the entail_; and the soaring idea appears to have entered his head of deliberately attempting to rival scott in the very field which "the wizard" had made peculiarly his own. from the point of view of prudence, though not from that of art or of sport, this enterprise was a mistake. for an author, serving as he does the public, shows no more than common sense if he endeavour to study, in the proper degree, the idiosyncrasies of that employer on whose favour his reputation, nay, perhaps the payment of his butcher's bill, depends. and it has long been observed that when the public has once made up its mind that one man is supreme in his own line, it has generally little attention to spare for those who seek to have it reconsider its decision. (this, by the way, was amply illustrated in the sequel of the very case now under discussion.) but the names of galt and prudence do not naturally go together: indeed, the two were never well or for any length of time acquainted. at esk grove, either in earnest, or, as seems more likely, in banter of the architectural incongruities of abbotsford, galt announced his intention of building a "veritable fortress," exactly in the fashion of the oldest times of rude warfare. _en attendant_, he worked hard with his pen, the first fruits of his industry appearing in the novel which is here reprinted after some six-and-seventy years. what of the merits of this first attempt in a line that was new to him? in the first place, he had at least been guided in his choice of subject by an unerring historical instinct. for, surpassingly rich as is scottish history in the elements both of picturesque and romantic incident and of wild and fascinating character, it is none the less a fact that there is but one period during which that history rises to the dignity of a really wide and permanent interest. and that period is of course the century, or century and a half, of the national struggle for religious liberty. it is not necessary to remind the reader that upon that struggle, and on those who maintained it, much has been written as well in the terms of undiscriminating eulogy as in those of uncomprehending condemnation. nor is it more to the purpose to add that the truth lies neither entirely on one side nor the other. for--as in the earlier struggle for political independence, and, indeed, more or less in all other great national movements--the motives of most of those who took part were mixed, and varied with the individual. thus it is undeniable that in the breast of many a reforming scottish laird of the sixteenth century, mistrust of rome was a subordinate feeling to the covetousness excited by the sight of extensive and well-cultivated church lands; whilst, again, there are, on the other hand, probably few persons now in existence who would be prepared to justify the intolerance embodied even by the martyr guthrie in his celebrated remonstrance--to say nothing of that which made the mere hearing of the mass, under certain circumstances, a capital offence. these things are, however, more or less accidental, and supply no criterion by which the true character of the reforming movement may be tested; for during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the very nature of tolerance, if understood by one here and there, was beyond the comprehension of the masses of the people. and yet we believe that, notwithstanding the intolerant and implacable spirit too often manifested by the covenanters, no candid reader will read this book to the end without acknowledging (what is, indeed, the truth) that the soul of the covenanting movement was a great and noble one. and that soul we here find personified in the younger gilhaize--a type, if there be one in literature, of the covenanter of the best kind. for, whatever may have been the temper of his associates in the aggregate, the hero of the book holds the scales between the rival parties with admirable evenness--and this notwithstanding the strong bias of his temper and upbringing. indeed, until the time when he has become, not metaphorically, but literally maddened by the wrongs and outrages to which he has been subjected, the book, in so far as it constitutes an expression of his personal sentiments, is a perfect homily on fairness. and how much such fairness has to do with the winning and retaining of sympathy, perhaps only a modern reader is qualified to say. gifted with the saving graces of humour and of fellow-feeling, the supposed annalist of our chronicle is no less prepared to make allowance for the faults of the other side than to acknowledge the shortcomings of his own. in fact he is the pattern of a spirit at once upright, humble, and self-respecting, whose ruling passion is an earnest piety, and who asks no more of those set over him than freedom to worship god according to the dictates of his conscience. and for this little boon, so harshly and unjustly withheld, we see him called upon to sacrifice home, kindred and estate, to know his wife and daughters given over to death and worse than death, and finally to surrender his liberty and his last remaining child. unless pity and terror in a master's hand have lost their power, surely this spectacle is a moving one! nor must we forget that, even in the culminating scene of the tragedy--where ringan makes his bold and inspired oration at the meeting of the cameronian leaders with renwick in a dell near lasswade--the hero, for all his wrongs, remains unembittered, and retains unimpaired the gentleness and the manliness which are his characteristics. that there were such men as this among the covenanters, or that they constituted the salt which gave its savour to the movement, we are forbidden to doubt. but, saving in the pages which follow, we know not where to seek for the ideal presentment of one such. this is what we mean by saying, as we have said above, that galt has in this romance laid bare the soul of the covenanting movement. and this, we may add, is what scott in _old mortality_ most signally failed to do. for in that novel--in place of galt's subtle and penetrating analysis of the motives which animated the covenanters nobly to dare and nobly to endure--we find the author content himself with using the characteristics and the disturbances of the time for the mere purpose of providing incident and adventure, and a strong local colour for his puppets--in a word, for the most ordinary and conventional purposes of the romantic novelist. nor is this the only instance of such psychological obtuseness in his work. that, in spite of this initial and damning defect, he does succeed in producing a fine novel, is but one more proof of the amazing fecundity of his genius. none the less does the fact remain that it is a novel, so to speak, without a soul--that, so far from being of the essence of the covenant, the burleys, mucklewraths, mauses and macbrairs are but so many of its accidents, and that thus the main issues of the historical drama are not involved in the romance. in other words, it is as though the tragedy of _hamlet_ had been performed with great skill and _éclat_, only without the appearance of the prince of denmark upon the stage. and thus, if the historical novel is to play a part of any dignity in our literature, we may safely predict that it is upon the stock here supplied by galt, rather than upon that supplied by scott in _old mortality_, that it will have to be grafted. having now assigned to our author the credit due to him for his choice and general treatment of a fine subject, it remains to touch briefly upon the technical skill which he has brought to bear upon the handling of its details. by resorting, then, to an ingenious and yet perfectly natural and legitimate device, he has contrived to extend his "household memorial" (for it is thus that he describes the story) so as to make it embrace the entire period of the religious struggle--from its inception under the regency of marie of lorraine to its close, or practical close, under the rule of the enlightened and tolerant william of orange,--a period in all of full one hundred and thirty years. for the narrative, opening with the martyrdom of walter mill at st andrews in , is continued to the death of claverhouse at killiecrankie in . and by this means the varying phases of the struggle are traced almost step by step, through the preachings of john knox and the early image-breaking outrages, to the comparative lull of the reign of james the first of england, and thence again from the renewed exasperating of opposition by the shifty and infatuated martyr king to the climax of the "killing time" under the younger of his sons. few incidents of really primary or representative importance are omitted, and the skill shown by the author in stringing the pearls of history upon the thread of his narrative is not the least of the merits he displays. but, as should be in a novel, the historical never overweights the human or fictitious interest, but is always properly subordinated to it. we have spoken elsewhere[ ] of galt the novelist as being "in advance of his time"--a facile phrase which it is expedient to use with due reserve and after due consideration. but the fact that the author with whose work we are instinctively impelled to compare the novel of _ringan gilhaize_ is the great chief of the french "naturalistic" school would appear, at least so far, to support that characterisation. it is, of course, undeniable that, at the outset, there confront us several striking points of contrast or divergence between the two authors. for example, of that _triste amour du laid_, which, with its concomitants, was for so long, and perhaps is even yet, regarded by the general public as zola's one prominent characteristic--of this, galt has absolutely nothing, his preoccupation being uniformly with beauty in one form or another, whether of matter or of spirit. with him, a gloom which, did we not fear to be less than just to galt we might denominate byronic, fills perhaps the place of zola's pessimism. next, of that misbegotten passion for the painter's brush which has vitiated so much of modern french writing, and of which zola in inferior works has even more than his due share, the novel of _ringan gilhaize_ shows equally no trace. on the contrary, its brief descriptive passages, of which it is noticeable how many are nocturnal or crepuscular, or paint effects of mist or rain-cloud--these might serve as models, at once in their breadth of execution, their aptness and their pregnancy, or quality of moral suggestiveness, of what descriptions in literature should be. how different from those laboured outlines, laboriously filled in, of such a piece of writing as _la curée_! so much, then, for the divergence of the two authors; and now as to their relationship. it is, perhaps, in their power of putting their sense of a multitude before the reader, of exhibiting the passions by which that multitude is animated, and of tracing the phases and fluctuations of that passion, that the frenchman or italian and the scot come first and most strikingly together. witness in this book the scene of the advance of the congregations to the trial of the ministers, or that of the return of the reformer, knox, to scotland. this of itself, however, is not much; nor should we have felt justified in drawing special attention to it, but for the fact that it seems to us to be an outward and visible sign of what is a vital, perhaps _the_ vital characteristic of either writer--or, at least, that of galt in this book, and of zola in his masterwork. it is associated, then, as we read it, with a desire to rise in art above the limitation of the merely individual, and the springs of this desire we take to lie in that noble and abounding pity which is the dominant passion of either author, or of either book. in either case it is an "objective" or artistic pity, called into being by the spectacle of human suffering as specific as it is intolerable to contemplate. only that with galt it is felt for a particular historical group of men, with zola for a particular section of his contemporaries. and from this characteristic there naturally results a gain of the quality of artistic grandeur in the books. for it is less the fortunes of the individual colliers than the rights of labour and their chances of recognition which form the true theme of _germinal_; whilst in _ringan gilhaize_ we are called to gaze upon nothing less than the grandiose spectacle of a nation in death-grips with a race of mansworn sovereigns. hence, in either case, the individual characters, measured by the greatness of the issues at stake, sink into comparative insignificance. but this very insignificance serves to illustrate a fundamental truth. for, to quote the words of a great modern thinker, "this is the law which governs humanity: an immense prodigality in regard to the mere individual, a contemptuous heaping together of the unit of human life." he continues, "i can picture to myself the artificer letting great quantities of his material go to waste--undisturbed, indeed, although three parts of it fall useless to the ground. for it is the fate of the vast majority of the human race to serve as a mere floor-cloth on which destiny may celebrate her revel, or, rather, to contribute towards the making up of one of those numerous persons who were known to the classical drama as the chorus."[ ] impressively to exhibit this truth in art is of itself to accomplish much; but in the infinite pathos of the individual lot there is a converse side to every great drama too, and to this neither of our writers is insensible. hence it is that, against the shadowy curtain or background formed by the crowded and suffering masses of humanity, are relieved and detached such tragic silhouettes as those of ringan and of la maheude. in the nature of the long-drawn unrelenting ordeal to which each of these is subjected they are identical; for both of them are rich only in human affection, and of this both live to see themselves entirely denuded. gilhaize, who is raised above the struggle for mere daily bread, is animated by a spiritual and intellectual passion which would have been altogether beyond the comprehension of the miner's wife of montsou; but that he is on that account the nobler or more interesting figure of the two, we do not take upon us to say. neither, of course, must we be understood to insist unduly on the few points of resemblance in two books which, after all, are in so many respects radically unlike. there is a lighter side to galt's book, too, and this is seen principally, ere the stress of the action has become intense, in the adventures of the astute michael gilhaize. at this point in his narrative it is probably with stevenson that galt suggests comparison, nor is it any disparagement to the delightful author of _kidnapped_ and _catriona_ to say that the best of his work is to the best of galt's as a clever boy's to that of a clever man. for whilst galt presents incident with all, or nearly all, the charm of stevenson, he is master, besides, of an adult psychology to which the other, in his short life, never attained. george douglas. springwood park, _august_ . footnotes: [footnote : scots expletives, signifying different varieties of nonsense.] [footnote : dismissed in the _dictionary of national biography_, _sub voce_ galt, as one of "three forgotten novels."] [footnote : in "the _blackwood_ group": famous scots' series; essay on galt.] [footnote : ernest renan in _l'avenir de la science_.] ringan gilhaize chapter i it is a thing past all contesting, that, in the reformation, there was a spirit of far greater carnality among the champions of the cause than among those who in later times so courageously, under the lord, upheld the unspotted banners of the covenant. this i speak of from the remembrance of many aged persons, who either themselves bore a part in that war with the worshippers of the beast and his image, or who had heard their fathers tell of the heart and mind wherewith it was carried on, and could thence, with the helps of their own knowledge, discern the spiritual and hallowed difference. but, as i intend mainly to bear witness to those passages of the late bloody persecution in which i was myself both a soldier and a sufferer, it will not become me to brag of our motives and intents, as higher and holier than those of the great elder worthies of "the congregation." at the same time it is needful that i should rehearse as much of what happened in the troubles of the reformation as, in its effects and influences, worked upon the issues of my own life. for my father's father was out in the raids of that tempestuous season, and it was by him, and from the stories he was wont to tell of what the government did when drunken with the sorceries of the gorgeous roman harlot, and rampaging with the wrath of moloch and of belial, it trampled on the hearts and thought to devour the souls of the subjects, that i first was taught to feel, know and understand the divine right of resistance. he was come of a stock of bein burghers in lithgow; but his father having a profitable traffic in saddle-irons and bridle-rings among the gallants of the court, and being moreover a man who took little heed of the truths of religion, he continued with his wife in the delusions of the papistical idolatry till the last, by which my grandfather's young soul was put in great jeopardy. for the monks of that time were eager to get into their clutches such men-children as appeared to be gifted with any peculiar gift, in order to rear them for stoops and posts to sustain their babylon, in the tower and structure whereof many rents and cracks were daily kithing. the dominican friars, who had a rich howf in the town, seeing that my grandfather was a shrewd and sharp child, of a comely complexion, and possessing a studious observance, were fain to wile him into their power; but he was happily preserved from all their snares and devices in a manner that shows how wonderfully the lord worketh out the purposes of his will, by ways and means of which no man can fathom the depth of the mysteries. besides his traffic in the polished garniture of horse-gear, my grandfather's father was also a ferrier, and enjoyed a far-spread repute for his skill in the maladies of horses; by which, and as he dwelt near the palace-yett, on the south side of the street, fornent the grand fountain-well, his smiddy was the common haunt of the serving-men belonging to the nobles frequenting the court, and as often as any newcomers to the palace were observed in the town, some of the monks and friars belonging to the different convents were sure to come to the smiddy to converse with their grooms and to hear the news, which were all of the controversies raging between the priesthood and the people. my grandfather was then a little boy, but he thirsted to hear their conversations, and many a time, as he was wont to tell, has his very heart been raspet to the quick by the cruel comments in which those cormorants of idolatry indulged themselves with respect to the brave spirit of the reformers; and he rejoiced when any retainers of the protestant lords quarrelled with them, and dealt back to them as hard names as the odious epithets with which the hot-fed friars reviled the pious challengers of the papal iniquities. thus it was, in the green years of his childhood, that the same sanctified spirit was poured out upon him, which roused so many of the true and faithful to resist and repel the attempt to quench the relighted lamps of the gospel, preparing his young courage to engage in those great first trials and strong tasks of the lord. the tidings and the bickerings to which he was a hearkener in the smiddy, he was in the practice of relating to his companions, by which it came to pass that, it might in a manner be said, all the boys in the town were leagued in spirit with the reformers, and the consequences were not long of ripening. in those days there was a popish saint, one st michael, that was held in wonderful love and adoration by all the ranks and hierarchies of the ecclesiastical locust then in lithgow; indeed, for that matter, they ascribed to him power and dominion over the whole town, lauding and worshipping him as their special god and protector. and upon a certain day of the year they were wont to make a great pageant and revel in honour of this supposed saint, and to come forth from their cloisters with banners, and with censers burning incense, shouting and singing paternosters in praise of this their dagon, walking in procession from kirk to kirk, as if they were celebrating the triumph of some mighty conqueror. this annual abomination happening to take place shortly after the martyrdom of that true saint and gospel preacher mr george wishart, and while kirk and quire were resounding, to the great indignation of all christians, with lamentations for the well-earned death of the cruel cardinal beaton, his ravenous persecutor, the monks and friars received but little homage as they passed along triumphing, though the streets were, as usual, filled with the multitude to see their fine show. they suffered, however, no molestation nor contempt till they were passing the earl of angus' house, on the outside stair of which my grandfather, with some two or three score of other innocent children, was standing; and even there they might, perhaps, have been suffered to go by scaithless, but for an accident that befel the bearer of a banner, on which was depicted a blasphemous type of the holy ghost in the shape and lineaments of a cushy-doo. it chanced that the bearer of this blazon of iniquity was a particular fat monk, of an arrogant nature, with the crimson complexion of surfeit and constipation, who for many causes and reasons was held in greater aversion than all the rest, especially by the boys, that never lost an opportunity of making him a scoff and a scorn; and it so fell out, as he was coming proudly along, turning his babylonish banner to pleasure the women at the windows, to whom he kept nodding and winking as he passed, that his foot slipped and down he fell as it were with a gludder, at which all the thoughtless innocents on the earl of angus' stair set up a loud shout of triumphant laughter, and from less to more began to hoot and yell at the whole pageant, and to pelt some of the performers with unsavoury missiles. this, by those inordinate ministers of oppression, was deemed a horrible sacrilege, and the parents of all the poor children were obligated to give them up to punishment, of which none suffered more than did my grandfather, who was not only persecuted with stripes till his loins were black and blue, but cast into a dungeon in the blackfriars' den, where for three days and three nights he was allowed no sustenance but gnawed crusts and foul water. the stripes and terrors of the oppressor are, however, the seeds which providence sows in its mercy to grow into the means that shall work his own overthrow. the persecutions which from that day the monks waged, in their conclaves of sloth and sosherie, against the children of the town, denouncing them to their parents as worms of the great serpent and heirs of perdition, only served to make their young spirits burn fiercer. as their joints hardened and their sinews were knit, their hearts grew manful, and yearned, as my grandfather said, with the zealous longings of a righteous revenge, to sweep them away from the land as with a whirlwind. after enduring for several years great affliction in his father's house from his mother, a termagant woman, who was entirely under the dominion of her confessor, my grandfather entered into a paction with two other young lads to quit their homes for ever, and to enter the service of some of those pious noblemen who were then active in procuring adherents to the protestant cause, as set forth in the first covenant. accordingly, one morning in the spring of , they bade adieu to their fathers' doors, and set forward on foot towards edinburgh. "we had light hearts," said my grandfather, "for our trust was in heaven; we had girded ourselves for a holy enterprise, and the confidence of our souls broke forth into songs of battle, the melodious breathings of that unison of spirit which is alone known to the soldiers of the great captain of salvation." about noon they arrived at the cross of edinburgh, where they found a crowd assembled round the luckenbooths, waiting for the breaking up of the states, which were then deliberating anent the proposal from the french king that the prince dolphin, his son, should marry our young queen, the fair and faulty mary, whose doleful captivity and woful end scarcely expiated the sins and sorrows that she caused to her ill-used and poor misgoverned native realm of scotland. while they were standing in this crowd, my grandfather happened to see one icener cunningham, a servant in the household of the earl of glencairn, and having some acquaintance of the man before at lithgow, he went towards him, and after some common talk, told on what errand he and his two companions had come to edinburgh. it was in consequence agreed between them that this icener should speak to his master concerning them, the which he did as soon as my lord came out from the parliament; and the earl was so well pleased with the looks of the three young men that he retained them for his service on the spot, and they were conducted by icener cunningham home to his lordship's lodgings in st mary's wynd. thus was my grandfather enlisted into the cause of the lords of the congregation, and in the service of that great champion of the reformation, the renowned, valiant and pious earl of glencairn, he saw many of those things, the recital of which kindled my young mind to flame up with no less ardour than his against the cruel attempt that was made, in our own day and generation, to load the neck of scotland with the grievous chains of prelatic tyranny. chapter ii the earl of glencairn, having much to do with the other lords of the congregation, did not come to his lodging till late in the afternoon, when, as soon as he had passed into his privy chamber, he sent for his three new men, and entered into some conversation with them concerning what the people at lithgow said and thought of the queen-dowager's government, and the proceedings at that time afoot on behalf of the reformed religion. but my grandfather jealoused that in this he was less swayed by the expectation of gathering knowledge from them, than by a wish to inspect their discretion and capacities; for, after conversing with them for the space of half an hour or thereby, he dismissed them courteously from his presence, without intimating that he had any special service for them to perform. one evening as the earl sat alone at supper, he ordered my grandfather to be brought again before him, and desired him to be cup-bearer for that night. in this situation, as my grandfather stood holding the chalice and flagon at his left elbow, the earl, as was his wonted custom with such of the household as he from time to time so honoured, entered into familiar conversation with him; and when the servitude and homages of the supper were over, and the servants were removing the plate and trenchers, he signified, by a look and a whisper, that he wished him to linger in the room till after they were gone. "gilhaize," said he, when the serving-men had retired, and they were by themselves, "i am well content with your prudence, and therefore, before you are known to belong to my train, i would send you on a confidential errand, for which you must be ready to set forth this very night." my grandfather made no reply in words to this mark of trust, but bowed his head in token of his obedience to the commands of the earl. "i need not tell you," resumed his master, "that among the friends of the reformed cause there are some for policy and many for gain, and that our adversaries, knowing this, leave no device or stratagem untried to sow sedition among the lords and leaders of the congregation. this very day the earl of argyle has received a mealy-mouthed letter from that dissolute papist, the archbishop of st andrews, entreating him, with many sweet words, concerning the ancient friendship subsisting between their families, to banish from his protection that good and pious proselyte, douglas, his chaplain, evidently presuming, from the easy temper of the aged earl, that he may be wrought into compliance. but argyle is an honest man, and is this night to return, by the archbishop's messenger and kinsman, sir david hamilton, a fitting and proper reply. it is not, however, to be thought that this attempt to tamper with argyle is the sole trial which the treacherous priest is at this time making to breed distrust and dissension among us, though as yet we have heard of none other. now, gilhaize, what i wish you to do, and i think you can do it well, is to throw yourself in sir david's way, and, by hook or crook, get with him to st andrews, and there try by all expedient means to gain a knowledge of what the archbishop is at this time plotting--for plotting we are assured from this symptom he is--and it is needful to the cause of christ that his wiles should be circumvented." in saying these words the earl rose, and, taking a key from his belt, opened a coffer that stood in the corner of the room, and took out two pieces of gold, which he delivered to my grandfather, to bear the expenses of his journey. "i give you, gilhaize," said he, "no farther instructions; for, unless i am mistaken in my man, you lack no better guide than your own discernment. so god be with you, and his blessing prosper the undertaking." my grandfather was much moved at being so trusted, and doubted in his own breast if he was qualified for the duty which his master had thus put upon him. nevertheless he took heart from the earl's confidence, and, without saying anything either to his two companions or to icener cunningham, he immediately, on parting from his master, left the house, leaving his absence to be accounted for to the servants according to his lord's pleasure. having been several times on errands of his father in edinburgh before, he was not ill-acquainted with the town, and the moon being up, he had no difficulty in finding his way to habby bridle's, a noted stabler's at the foot of leith wynd, nigh the mouth of the north loch, where gallants and other travellers of gentle condition commonly put up their horses. there he thought it was likely sir david hamilton had stabled his steed, and he divined that, by going thither, he would learn whether that knight had set forward to fife, or when he was expected so to do; the which movement, he always said, was nothing short of an instinct from heaven; for just on entering the stabler's yard, a groom came shouting to the hostler to get sir david hamilton's horses saddled outright, as his master was coming. thus, without the exposure of any inquiry, he gained the tidings that he wanted, and with what speed he could put into his heels, he went forward to the pier of leith, where he found a bark, with many passengers on board, ready to set sail for kirkcaldy, waiting only for the arrival of sir david, to whom, as the archbishop's kinsman, the boatmen were fain to pretend a great outward respect; but many a bitter ban, my grandfather said, they gave him for taigling them so long, while wind and tide both served--all which was proof and evidence how much the hearts of the common people were then alienated from the papistical churchmen. sir david having arrived, and his horses being taken aboard, the bark set sail, and about daybreak next morning she came to anchor at kirkcaldy. during the voyage, my grandfather, who was of a mild and comely aspect, observed that the knight was more affable towards him than to the lave of the passengers, the most part of whom were coopers going to dundee to prepare for the summer fishing. among them was one patrick girdwood, the deacon of the craft, a most comical character, so vogie of his honours and dignities in the town council that he could not get the knight told often enough what a load aboon the burden he had in keeping a' things douce and in right regulation amang the bailies. but sir david, fashed at his clatter, and to be quit of him, came across the vessel and began to talk to my grandfather, although, by his apparel, he was no meet companion for one of a knight's degree. it happened that sir david was pleased with his conversation, which was not to be wondered at, for in his old age, when i knew him, he was a man of a most enticing mildness of manner, and withal so discreet in his sentences that he could not be heard without begetting respect for his observance and judgment. so out of the vanity of that vogie tod of the town council was a mean thus made by providence to further the ends and objects of the reformation in so far as my grandfather was concerned; for the knight took a liking to him, and being told, as it was expedient to give a reason for his journey to st andrews, that he was going thither to work as a ferrier, sir david promised him not only his own countenance, but to commend him to the archbishop. there was at that time in kirkcaldy one tobit balmutto, a horse-setter, of whom my grandfather had some knowledge by report. this tobit being much resorted to by the courtiers going to and coming from falkland, and well known to their serving-men, who were wont to speak of him in the smiddy at lithgow as a zealous reformer--chiefly, as the prodigals among them used to jeer and say, because the priests and friars in their journeyings atween st andrews and edinburgh took the use of his beasts without paying for them, giving him only their feckless benisons instead of white money. to this man my grandfather resolved to apply for a horse, and such a one, if possible, as would be able to carry him as fast as sir david hamilton's. accordingly, on getting to the land, he inquired for tobit balmutto, and several of his striplings and hostlers being on the shore, having, on seeing the bark arrive, come down to look out for travellers that might want horses, he was conducted by one of them to their employer, whom he found an elderly man of the corpulent order, sitting in an elbow-chair by the fireside, toasting an oaten bannock on a pair of tormentors, with a blue puddock-stool bonnet on his head, and his grey hose undrawn up, whereby his hairy legs were bare, showing a power and girth such as my grandfather had seen few like before, testifying to what had been the deadly strength of their possessor in his younger years. he was thought to have been an off-gett of the boswells of balmutto. when he had made known his want to tobit, and that he was in a manner obligated to be at st andrews as soon as sir david hamilton, the horse-setter withdrew the bannock from before the ribs, and seeing it somewhat scowthert and blackent on the one cheek, he took it off the tormentors and scraped it with them, and blew away the brown burning before he made any response; then he turned round to my grandfather, and looking at him with the tail of his eye from aneath his broad bonnet, said,-- "then ye're no in the service of his grace, my lord the archbishop? and yet, frien', i think na ye're just a peer to sir davie, that you need to ettle at coping with his braw mare, skelp-the-dub, whilk i selt to him mysel'; but the de'il a bawbee hae i yet han'let o' the price; howsever, that's neither here nor there, a day of reckoning will come at last." my grandfather assured tobit balmutto it was indeed very true he was not in the service of the archbishop, and that he would not have been so instant about getting to st andrews with the knight had he not a dread and fear that sir david was the bearer of something that might be sore news to the flock o' christ, and he was fain to be there as soon as him to speak in time of what he jealoused, that any of those in the town who stood within the reverence of the archbishop's aversion, on account of their religion, might get an inkling and provide for themselves. "if that's your errand," said the horse-setter, "ye s'all hae the swiftest foot in my aught to help you on, and i redde you no to spare the spur, for i'm troubled to think ye may be owre late--satan, or they lie upon him, has been heating his cauldrons yonder for a brewing, and the archbishop's thrang providing the malt. nae farther gane than yesterday, auld worthy mr mill of lunan, being discovered hidden in a kiln at dysart, was ta'en, they say, in a cart, like a malefactor, by twa uncircumcised loons, servitors to his grace, and it's thought it will go hard wi' him on account of his great godliness; so mak what haste ye dow, and the lord put mettle in the beast that bears you." with that tobit balmutto ordered the lad who brought my grandfather to the house to saddle a horse that he called spunkie; and in a trice he was mounted and on the road after sir david, whom he overtook notwithstanding the spirit of his mare, skelp-the-dub, before he had cleared the town of pathhead, and they travelled onward at a brisk trot together, the knight waxing more and more pleased with his companion, in so much that by the time they had reached cupar, where they stopped to corn, he lamented that a young man of his parts should think of following the slavery of a ferrier's life, when he might rise to trusts and fortune in the house of some of the great men of the time, kindly offering to procure for him, on their arrival at st andrews, the favour and patronage of his kinsman, the archbishop. chapter iii it was the afternoon when my grandfather and sir david hamilton came in sight of st andrews, and the day being loun and bright, the sky clear, and the sea calm, he told me that when he saw the many lofty spires and towers and glittering pinnacles of the town rising before him, he verily thought he was approaching the city of jerusalem, so grand and glorious was the apparition which they made in the sunshine, and he approached the barricaded gate with a strange movement of awe and wonder rushing through the depths of his spirit. they, however, entered not into the city at that time, but, passing along the wall leftward, came to a road which led to the gate of the castle where the archbishop then dwelt; and as they were approaching towards it, sir david pointed out the window where cardinal beaton sat in the pomp of his scarlet and fine linen to witness the heretic wishart, as the knight called that holy man, burnt for his sins and abominations. my grandfather, on hearing this, drew his bridle in, and falling behind sir david, raised his cap in reverence and in sorrow at the thought of passing over the ground that had been so hallowed by martyrdom, but he said nothing, for he knew that his thoughts were full of offence to those who were wrapt in the errors and delusions of popery like sir david hamilton; and, moreover, he had thanked the lord thrice in the course of their journey for the favour which it had pleased him he should find in the sight of the kinsman of so great an adversary to the truth as was the archbishop of st andrews, whose treasons and treacheries against the church of christ he was then travelling to discover and waylay. on reaching the castle-yett they alighted; my grandfather, springing lightly from the saddle, took hold of sir david's mare by the bridle-rings, while the knight went forward, and whispered something concerning his grace to a stalwart, hard-favoured, grey-haired man-at-arms, that stood warder of the port, leaning on his sword, the blade of whilk could not be shorter than an ell. what answer he got was brief, the ancient warrior pointing at the same time with his right hand towards a certain part of the city, and giving a belial smile of significance; whereupon sir david turned round without going into the court of the castle, and bidding my grandfather give the man the beasts and follow, which he did, they walked together under the town wall towards the east till they came to a narrow sallyport in the rampart, wherewith the priory and cathedral had of old been fenced about with turrets and bastions of great strength against the lawless kerns of the highlands, and especially the ships of the english, who have in all ages been of a nature gleg and glad to mulct and molest the sea-harbour towns of scotland. on coming to the sallyport, sir david chapped with his whip twice, and from within a wicket was opened in the doors, ribbed with iron stainchers on the outside, and a man with the sound of corpulency in his voice looked through and inquired what they wanted. seeing, however, who it was that had knocked, he forthwith drew the bar and allowed them to enter, which was into a pleasant policy adorned with jonquils and jelly-flowers, and all manner of blooming and odoriferous plants, most voluptuous to the smell and ravishing to behold, the scents and fragrancies whereof smote my grandfather for a time, as he said, with the very anguish of delight. but, on looking behind to see who had given them admittance, he was astounded when, instead of an armed and mailed soldier, as he had thought the drumly-voiced sentinel there placed was, he saw a large, elderly monk, sitting on a bench with a broken pasty smoking on a platter beside him, and a rotterdam greybeard jug standing by, no doubt plenished with cordial drink. sir david held no parlance with the feeding friar, but going straight up the walk to the door of a lodging, to the which this was the parterre and garden, he laid his hand on the sneck, and opening it, bade my grandfather come in. they then went along the trance towards an open room, and on entering it they met a fair damsel in the garb of a handmaid, to whom the knight spoke in familiarity, and kittling her under the chin, made her giggle in a wanton manner. by her he was informed that the archbishop was in the inner chamber at dinner with her mistress, upon which he desired my grandfather to sit down, while he went ben to his grace. the room where my grandfather took his seat was parted from the inner chamber, in which the archbishop and his lemane were at their festivities, by an arras partition, so that he could hear all that passed within, and the first words his grace said on his kinsman going ben was,-- "aweel, davie, and what says that auld doddard argyle, will he send me the apostate to mak a benfire?" "he has sent your grace a letter," replied sir david, "wherein he told me he had expounded the reasons and causes of his protecting douglas, hoping your grace will approve the same." "approve heresy and reprobacy!" exclaimed the archbishop; "but gi'e me the letter, and sit ye down, davie. mistress kilspinnie, my dauty, fill him a cup of wine, the malvesie, to put smeddam in his marrow; he'll no be the waur o't, after his gallanting at enbro. stay! what's this? the auld man's been at school since him and me hae swappit paper. my word, argyle, thou's got a tongue in thy pen neb! but this was ne'er indited by him; the cloven foot of the heretical carmelite is manifest in every line. honour and conscience truly!--braw words for a hielant schore, that bigs his bield wi' other folks' gear!" "be composed, your sweet grace, and dinna be so fashed," cried a silver-tongued madam, the which my grandfather afterwards found, as i shall have to rehearse, was his concubine, the mrs kilspinnie. "what does he say?" "say? why, that douglas preaches against idolatry, and he remits to my conscience forsooth, gif that be heresy--and he preaches against adulteries and fornications too--was ever sic varlet terms written in ony nobleman's letter afore this apostate's time--and he refers that to my conscience likewise." "a faggot to his tail would be ower gude for him," cried mrs kilspinnie. "he preaches against hypocrisy," said his grace, "the which he also refers to my conscience--conscience again! hae, davie, tak thir clishmaclavers to andrew oliphant. it'll be spunk to his zeal. we maun strike our adversaries wi' terror, and if we canna wile them back to the fold, we'll e'en set the dogs on them. kind mistress kilspinnie, help me frae the stoup o' sherries, for i canna but say that this scalded heart i hae gotten frae that auld shavling-gabbit hielander has raised my corruption, and i stand in need, my lambie, o' a' your winsome comforting." at which words sir david came forth the chamber with the letter in his hand; but seeing my grandfather, whom it would seem he had forgotten, he went suddenly back and said to his grace,-- "please you, my lord, i hae brought with me a young man of a good capacity and a ripe understanding that i would commend to your grace's service. he is here in the outer room waiting your grace's pleasure." "davie hamilton," replied the archbishop, "ye sometimes lack discretion. what for did ye bring a stranger into this house--knowing, as ye ought to do, that i ne'er come hither but when i'm o' a sickly frame, in need o' solace and repose? howsever, since the lad's there, bid him come ben." upon this, sir david came out and beckoned my grandfather to go in; and when he went forward, he saw none in that inner chamber but his grace and the mrs kilspinnie, with whom he was sitting on a bedside before a well-garnished table, whereon was divers silver flagons, canisters of comfits, and goblets of the crystal of venetia. he looked sharp at my grandfather, perusing him from head to foot, who put on for the occasion a face of modesty and reverence, but he was none daunted, for all his eyes were awake, and he took such a cognition of his grace as he never afterwards forgot. indeed, i have often heard him say that he saw more of the man in the brief space of that interview than of others in many intromissions, and he used to depict him to me as a hale, black-avised carl, of an o'ersea look, with a long dark beard inclining to grey; his abundant hair, flowing down from his cowl, was also clouded and streaked with the kithings of the cranreuch of age. there was, however, a youthy and luscious twinkling in his eyes, that showed how little the passage of three-and-fifty winters had cooled the rampant sensuality of his nature. his right leg, which was naked, though on the foot was a slipper of spanish leather, he laid o'er mistress kilspinnie's knees as he threw himself back against the pillar of the bed, the better to observe and converse with my grandfather; and she, like another delilah, began to prattle it with her fingers, casting at the same time glances, unseen by her papistical paramour, towards my grandfather, who, as i have said, was a comely and well-favoured young man. after some few questions as to his name and parentage, the prelate said he would give him his livery, being then anxious, on account of the signs of the times, to fortify his household with stout and valiant youngsters; and bidding him draw near and to kneel down, he laid his hand on his head and mumbled a benedicite; the which, my grandfather said, was as the smell of rottenness to his spirit, the lascivious hirkos, then wantoning so openly with his adulterous concubine, for no better was mistress kilspinnie, her husband, a creditable man, being then living, and one of the bailies of crail. nor is it to be debated that the scene was such as ought not to have been seen in a christian land; but in those days the blasphemous progeny of the roman harlot were bold with the audacious sinfulness of their parent, and set little store by the fear of god or the contempt of man. it was a sore trial and a struggle in the bosom of my grandfather that day to think of making a show of homage and service towards the mitred belial and high priest of the abominations wherewith the realm was polluted, and when he rose from under his paw he shuddered, and felt as if he had received the foul erls of perdition from the evil one. many a bitter tear he long after shed in secret for the hypocrisy of that hour, the guilt of which was never sweetened to his conscience, even by the thought that he maybe thereby helped to further the great redemption of his native land in the blessed cleansing of the reformation. chapter iv sir david hamilton conducted my grandfather back through the garden and the sallyport to the castle, where he made him acquainted with his grace's seneschal, by whom he was hospitably entertained when the knight had left them together, receiving from him a cup of hippocras and a plentiful repast, the like of which, for the savouriness of the viands, was seldom seen out of the howfs of the monks. the seneschal was called by name leonard meldrum, and was a most douce and composed character, well stricken in years, and though engrained with the errors of papistry, as was natural for one bred and cherished in the house of the speaking horn of the beast, for such the high priest of st andrews was well likened to, he was nevertheless a man of a humane heart and great tenderness of conscience. the while my grandfather was sitting with him at the board, he lamented that the church, so he denominated the papal abomination, was so far gone with the spirit of punishment and of cruelty as rather to shock men's minds into schism and rebellion than to allure them back into worship and reverence, and to a repentance of their heresies--a strain of discourse which my grandfather so little expected to hear within the gates and precincts of the guilty castle of st andrews that it made him for a time distrust the sincerity of the old man, and he was very guarded in what he himself answered thereto. leonard meldrum was, however, honest in his way, and rehearsed many things which had been done within his own knowledge against the reformers that, as he said, human nature could not abide, nor the just and merciful heavens well pardon. thus, from less to more, my grandfather and he fell into frank communion, and he gave him such an account of the bloody cardinal beaton as was most awful to hear, saying that his then present master, with all his faults and prodigalities, was a saint of purity compared to that rampagious cardinal, the which to hear, my grandfather thinking of what he had seen in the lodging of madam kilspinnie, was seized with such a horror thereat that he could partake no more of the repast before him, and he was likewise moved into a great awe and wonder of spirit that the lord should thus, in the very chief sanctuary of papistry in all scotland, be alienating the affections of the servants from their master, preparing the way, as it were, for an utter desertion and desolation to ensue. they afterwards talked of the latter end of that great martyr, mr george wishart, and the seneschal informed him of several things concerning the same that were most edifying, though sorrowful to hear. "he was," said he, "placed under my care, and methinks i shall ever see him before me, so meek, so holy, and so goodly was his aspect. he was of tall stature, black haired, long bearded, of a graceful carriage, elegant, courteous, and ready to teach. in his apparel he was most comely, and in his diet of an abstemious temperance. on the morning of his execution, when i gave him notice that he was not to be allowed to have the sacrament, he smiled with a holiness of resignation that almost melted me to weep. i then invited him to partake of my breakfast, which he accepted with cheerfulness, saying,-- "'i will do it very willingly, and so much the rather, because i perceive you to be a good christian, and a man fearing god.' "i then ordered in the breakfast, and he said,-- "'i beseech you, for the love you bear to our saviour, to be silent a little while, till i have made a short exhortation, and blessed this bread we are to eat.' "he then spoke about the space of half an hour of our saviour's death and passion, exhorting me, and those who were present with me, to mutual love and holiness of life; and giving thanks, brake the bread, distributing a part to those about him; then taking a cup, he bade us remember that christ's blood was shed to wash away our sins, and, tasting it himself, he handed it to me, and i likewise partook of it: then he concluded with another prayer, at the end of which he said, 'i will neither drink nor eat any more in this world,' and he forthwith entered into an inner chamber where his bed was, leaving us filled with admiration and sorrow, and our eyes flowing with tears." to this the seneschal added, "i fear, i fear, we are soon to have another scene of the same sort, for to-morrow the bishops of murray, and brechin, and caithness, with other dignitaries, are summoned to the cathedral to sit in judgment on the aged priest of lunan, that was brought hither from dysart yestereen, and from the head the newfangled heresies are making, there's little doubt that the poor auld man will be made an example. woes me! far better would it be an they would make an example of the like of the earls of argyle and glencairn, by whom the reprobates are so encouraged." "and is this mill," inquired my grandfather with diffidence, for his heart was so stung with what he heard, that he could scarcely feign the necessary hypocrisy which the peril he stood in required--"is this mill in the castle?" "sorry am i to say it," replied the seneschal, "and under my keeping; but i darena show him the pity that i would fain do to his grey hairs and aged limbs. some of the monks of the priory are with him just now, trying to get him to recant his errors, with the promise of a bein provision for the remainder of his days in the abbey of dunfermline, the whilk i hope our blessed lady will put it into his heart to accept." "i trust," said my grandfather in the core of his bosom, "that the lord will fortify him to resist the temptation." this, however, the seneschal heard not, for it was ejaculated inwardly, and he subjoined,-- "when the monks go away, i will take you in to see him, for truly he is a sight far more moving to compassion than displeasure, whatsoever his sins and heresies may be." in this manner, for the space of more than an hour, did my grandfather hold converse and communion with leonard meldrum, in whom, he was often heard to say, there was more of the leaven of a sanctified nature than in the disposition of many zealous and professing christians. when the two shavlings that had been afflicting master mill with the offer of the wages of satan were departed from the castle, the seneschal rose, and bidding my grandfather to come after him, they went out of the room, and traversing a narrow dark passage with many windings, came to the foot of a turnpike stair which led up into the sea-tower, so called because it stood farthermost of all the castle in the sea, and in the chamber thereof they found master mill alone, sitting at the window, with his ancient and shrivelled lean hand resting on the sole and supporting his chin, as he looked through the iron stainchers abroad on the ocean that was sleeping in a blessed tranquillity around, all glowing and golden with the shimmer of the setting sun. "how fares it with you?" said the seneschal with a kindly accent; whereupon the old man, who had not heard them enter, being tranced in his own holy meditations, turned round, and my grandfather said he felt himself, when he beheld his countenance, so smitten with awe and admiration, that he could not for some time advance a step. "come in, master meldrum, and sit ye down by me!" said the godly man. "draw near unto me, for i am a thought hard of hearing. the lord has of late, by steeking the doors and windows of my earthly tabernacle, been admonishing me that the gloaming is come, and the hour of rest cannot be far off." his voice, said my grandfather, was as the sound of a mournful melody, but his countenance was brightened with a solemn joyfulness. he was of a pale and spiritual complexion; his eyes beamed, as it were, with a living light, and often glanced thoughts of heavenly imaginings, even as he sat in silence. he was then fourscore and two years old; but his appearance was more aged, for his life had been full of suffering and poverty; and his venerable hands and skinny arms were heart-melting evidences of his ineffectual power to struggle much longer in the warfare of this world. in sooth, he was a chosen wheat-ear, ripened and ready for the garnels of salvation. "i have brought, master mill," said the seneschal, "a discreet youth to see you, not out of a vain curiosity, for he sorrows with an exceeding grief that such an aged person should be brought into a state of so great jeopardy; but i hope, master mill, it will go well with you yet, and that ye'll repent and accept the boon that i hae heard was to be proffered." to these words the aged saint made no reply for the space of about a minute; at the end of which he raised his hands, and casting his eyes heavenward, exclaimed,-- "i thank thee, o lord, for the days of sore trial, and want, and hunger, and thirst, and destitution which thou hast been pleased to bestow upon me, for by them have i, even now as i stand on the threshold of life, been enabled, through thy merciful heartenings, to set at nought the temptations wherewith i have been tempted." and, turning to the seneschal, he added mildly, "but i am bound to you, master meldrum, in great obligations, for i know that in the hope you have now expressed there is the spirit of much charitableness, albeit you discern not the deadly malady that the sin of compliance would bring to my poor soul. no, sir, it would na be worth my while now, for world's gain, to read a recantation. and, blessed be god, it's no in my power to yield, so deeply are the truths of his laws engraven upon the tablet of my heart." they then fell into more general discourse, and while they were speaking, a halberdier came into the room with a paper, whereby the prisoner was summoned to appear in the cathedral next day by ten o'clock, to answer divers matters of heresy and schism laid to his charge; and the man having delivered the summons, said to the seneschal that he was ordered by sir andrew oliphant to bid him refrain from visiting the prisoner, and to retire to his own lodging. the seneschal to this command said nothing, but rose, and my grandfather likewise rose. fain would he have knelt down to beg the blessing of the martyr, but the worthy master meldrum signified to him with a look to come at once away; and when they were returned back into his chamber where the repast had been served, he told him that there was a danger of falling under the evil thoughts of oliphant, were he to be seen evidencing anything like respect towards prisoners accused of the sin of heresy. chapter v the next day was like a cried fair in st. andrews. all the country from ayont cupar, and many reformed and godly persons even from dundee and perth, were gathered into the city to hear the trial of master walter mill. the streets were filled with horses and men with whips in their hands and spurs at their heels, and there was a great going to and fro among the multitude; but, saving in its numbers, the congregation of the people was in no other complexion either like a fair or a tryst. every visage was darkened with doure thoughts; none spoke cheerfully aloud; but there was whispering and muttering, and ever and anon the auld men were seen wagging their heads in sorrow, while the young cried often "shame! shame!" and with vehement gestures clave the air with their right hands, grasping their whips and staffs with the vigour of indignation. at last the big bell of the cathedral began to jow, at the doleful sound of which there was, for the space of two or three minutes, a silence and pause in the multitude as if they had been struck with panic and consternation, for till then there was a hope among them that the persecutors would relent; but the din of the bell was as the signal of death and despair, and the people were soon awakened from their astonishment by the cry that "the bishops are coming," whereat there was a great rush towards the gates of the church, which was presently filled, leaving only a passage up the middle aisle. in the quire a table was spread with a purple velvet cloth, and at the upper end, before the high place of the mass, was a stool of state for the archbishop; on each side stood chairs for the bishops of murray, brechin and caithness and his other suffragans, summoned to sit in judgment with him. my grandfather, armed and wearing the archbishop's livery, was with those that guarded the way for the cruel prelates, and by the pressure of the throng in convoying them into their place, he was driven within the screen of the quire, and saw and heard all that passed. when they had taken their seats, master mill was brought before them from the prior's chamber, whither he had been secretly conducted early in the morning, to the end that his great age might not be seen of the people to work on their compassion. but, notwithstanding the forethought of this device, when he came in, his white hair and his saintly look and his feeble, tottering steps softened every heart. even the very legate of antichrist, the archbishop himself, my grandfather said, was evidently moved, and for a season looked at the poor infirm old man as he would have spared him, and a murmur of universal commiseration ran through the church. on being taken to the bottom of the table and placed fornent the archbishop, master mill knelt down and prayed for support in a voice so firm and clear and eloquent that all present were surprised, for it rung to the farthest corner of that great edifice, and smote the hearts of his oppressors as with the dread of a menacing oracle. sir andrew oliphant, who acted as clerk and chancellor on the occasion, began to fret as he heard him thus strengthened of the lord, and cried peevishly,-- "sir walter mill, get up and answer, for you keep my lords here too long." he, however, heeded not this command, but continued undisturbed till he had finished his devotion, when he rose and said,-- "i am bound to obey god more than man, and i serve a mightier lord than yours. you call me sir walter, but i am only walter. too long was i one of the pope's knights; but now say what you have to say." oliphant was somewhat cowed by this bold reply, and he bowed down, and turning over his papers, read a portion of one of them to himself, and then raising his head, said,-- "what thinkest thou of priests' marriage?" the old man looked bravely towards the bishops, and answered with an intrepid voice,-- "i esteem marriage a blessed bond, ordained by god, approved by christ, and made free to all sorts of men; but you abhor it, and in the meantime take other men's wives and daughters; you vow chastity, and keep it not." my grandfather at these words looked unawares towards the archbishop, thinking of what he had seen in the lodging of mistress kilspinnie, and their eyes chancing to meet, his grace turned his head suddenly away as if he had been rebuked. divers other questions were then put by oliphant touching the sacraments, the idolatry of the mass, and transubstantiation, with other points concerning bishops and pilgrimages, and the worshipping of god in unconsecrated places, to all which master mill answered in so brave a manner, contrary to the papists, that even oliphant himself often looked reproved and confounded. at last the choler of that sharp weapon of persecution began to rise, and he said to him sternly,-- "if you will not recant i will pronounce sentence against you." "i know," replied master mill, with an apostolic constancy and fortitude, "i know that i must die once, and therefore, as christ said to judas, what thou doest do quickly. you shall know that i will not recant the truth, for i am corn and not chaff. i will neither be blown away by the wind nor burst with the flail, but will abide both." at these brave words a sough of admiration sounded through the church, but, instead of deterring the prelates from proceeding with their wicked purpose, it only served to harden their hearts and to rouse their anger, for when they had conferred a few minutes apart, oliphant was ordered to condemn him to the fire, and to deliver him over to the temporal magistrates to see execution done. no sooner was the sentence known, than a cry like a howl of wrath rose from all the people, and the provost of the town, who was present with the bailies, hastily quitted the church and fled, abhorring the task, and fearful it would be put upon him to see it done, he being also bailie of the archbishop's regalities. when the sentence was pronounced, the session of the court was adjourned, and the bishops, as they were guarded back to the castle, heard many a malison from the multitude who were ravenous against them. the aged martyr being led back to the prior's chamber, was, under cloud of night, taken to the castle; but my grandfather saw no more of him, nor of master meldrum, the seneschal; for there was a great fear among the bishops' men that the multitude would rise and attempt a rescue; and my grandfather, not being inclined to go so far with his disguise as to fight against that cause, took occasion, in the dusk of the evening, to slip out of the castle, and to hide himself in the town, being resolved, after what he had witnessed, no longer to abide, even as a spy, in a service which his soul loathed. all the night long there was a great commotion in the streets, and lights in many houses, and a sound of lamentation mingled with rage. the noise was as if some dreadful work was going on. there was no shouting, nor any sound of men united together, but a deep and hoarse murmur rose at times from the people, like the sound of the bandless waves of the sea when they are driven by the strong impulses of the tempest. the spirit of the times was indeed upon them, and it was manifest to my grandfather that there wanted that night but the voice of a captain to bid them hurl their wrath and vengeance against the towers and strongholds of the oppressors. at the dawn of day the garrison of the castle came forth, and, on the spot where the martyrdom of mr george wishart had been accomplished, a stake was driven into the ground, and faggots and barrels of tar were placed around it, piled up almost as high as a man; in the middle, next to the stake, a place was left for the sufferer. but when all things were prepared, no rope could be had--no one in all the town would give or sell a cord to help that sacrifice of iniquity, nor would any of the magistrates come forth to see the execution done, so it was thought for a time that the hungry cruelty of the persecutors would be disappointed of its banquet. one somerville, however, who was officer of the archbishop's guard, bethought himself, in this extremity, of the ropes wherewith his master's pavilion was fastened, and he went and took the same; and then his men brought forth the aged martyr, at the sight of whom the multitude set up a dreadful imprecation, the roar and growling groan of which was as if a thousand furious tigresses had been robbed of their young. many of somerville's halberdiers looked cowed, and their faces were aghast with terror; and some cried, compassionately, as they saw the blessed old man brought, with his hands tied behind him, to the stake, "recant, recant!" the monks and friars of the different monasteries, who were all there assembled around, took up the word, and bitterly taunting him, cried likewise, "recant, recant and save thyself!" he, however, replied to them with an awful austerity,-- "i marvel at your rage, ye hypocrites, who do so cruelly pursue the servants of god. as for me, i am now fourscore and two years old, and by course of nature cannot live long; but hundreds shall rise out of my ashes who shall scatter you, ye persecutors of god's people." sir andrew oliphant, who was that day the busiest high priest of the horrible sacrifice, at these words pushed him forward into the midst of the faggots and fuel around the stake. but, nothing moved by this remorseless indignity, the martyr looked for a moment at the pile with a countenance full of cheerful resignation, and then requested permission to say a few words to the people. "you have spoken too much," cried oliphant, "and the bishops are exceedingly displeased with what you have said." but the multitude exclaimed, "let him be heard! let him speak what he pleases! speak, and heed not oliphant." at which he looked towards them and said,-- "dear friends, the cause why i suffer this day is not for any crime laid to my charge, though i acknowledge myself a miserable sinner, but only for the defence of the truths of jesus christ, as set forth in the old and new testaments." he then began to pray, and while his eyes were shut, two of somerville's men threw a cord with a running loop round his body, and bound him to the stake. the fire was then kindled, and at the sight of the smoke the multitude uttered a shriek of anguish, and many ran away, unable to bear any longer the sight of that woful tragedy. among others, my grandfather also ran, nor halted till he was come to a place under the rocks on the south side of the town, where he could see nothing before him but the lonely desert of the calm and soundless ocean. chapter vi many a time did my grandfather, in his old age, when all things he spoke were but remembrances, try to tell what passed in his bosom while he was sitting alone, under those cliffy rocks, gazing on the silent and innocent sea, thinking of that dreadful work, more hideous than the horrors of winds and waves, with which blinded men, in the lusts of their idolatry, were then blackening the ethereal face of heaven; but he was ever unable to proceed for the struggles of his spirit and the gushing of his tears. verily it was an awful thing to see that patriarchal man overcome by the recollections of his youth; and the manner in which he spoke of the papistical cruelties was as the pouring of the energy of a new life into the very soul, instigating thoughts and resolutions of an implacable enmity against those ruthless adversaries to the hopes and redemption of the world, insomuch that, while yet a child, i was often worked upon by what he said, and felt my young heart so kindled with the live coals of his godly enthusiasm, that he himself has stopped in the eloquence of his discourse, wondering at my fervour. then he would lay his hand upon my head, and say, the lord had not gifted me with such zeal without having a task in store for my riper years. his words of prophecy, as shall hereafter appear, have greatly and wonderfully come to pass. but it is meet that for a season i should rehearse what ensued to him, for his story is full of solemnities and strange accidents. having rested some time on the sea-shore, he rose and walked along the toilsome shingle, scarcely noting which way he went--his thoughts being busy with the martyrdom he had witnessed, flushing one moment with a glorious indignation, and fainting the next with despondent reflections on his own friendless state. for he looked upon himself as adrift on the tides of the world, believing that his patron, the earl of glencairn, would to a surety condemn his lack of fortitude in not enduring the servitude of the archbishop, after having been in so miraculous a manner accepted into it, even as if providence had made him a special instrument to achieve the discoveries which the lords of the congregation had then so much at heart. and while he was walking along in this fluctuating mood, he came suddenly upon a man who was sitting, as he had so shortly before been himself, sad and solitary, gazing on the sea. the stranger, on hearing him approach, rose hastily, and was moving quickly away; but my grandfather called to him to stop and not to be afraid, for he would harm no one. "i thought," said the melancholy man, "that all his grace's retainers were at the execution of the heretic." there was something in the way in which he uttered the latter clause of the sentence that seemed to my grandfather as if he would have made use of better and fitter words, and therefore, to encourage him into confidence, he replied,-- "i belong not to his grace." "how is it, then, that you wear his livery, and that i saw you, with sir david hamilton, enter the garden of that misguided woman?" he could proceed no farther, for his heart swelled, and his utterance was for a while stifled, he being no other than the misfortunate bailie of crail, whose light wife had sunk into the depravity of the archbishop's lemane. she had been beguiled away from him and her five babies, their children, by the temptations of a dominican, who, by habit and repute, was pandarus to his grace, and the poor man had come to try if it was possible to wile her back. my grandfather was melted with sorrow to see his great affection for the unworthy concubine, calling to mind the scene of her harlotry and wanton glances, and he reasoned with him on the great folly of vexing his spirit for a woman so far lost to all shame and given over to iniquity. but still the good man of crail would not be persuaded, but used many earnest entreaties that my grandfather would assist him to see his wife, in order that he might remonstrate with her on the eternal perils in which she had placed her precious soul. my grandfather, though much moved by the importunity of that weak, honest man, nevertheless withstood his entreaties, telling him that he was minded to depart forthwith from st andrews, and make the best of his way back to edinburgh, and so could embark in no undertaking whatever. discoursing on that subject in this manner, they strayed into the fields, and being wrapt up in their conversation, they heeded not which way they went, till, turning suddenly round the corner of an orchard, they saw the castle full before them, about half a mile off, and a dim white vapour mounting at times from the spot, still surrounded by many spectators, where the fires of martyrdom had burnt so fiercely. shuddering and filled with dread, my grandfather turned away, and seeing several countrymen passing, he inquired if all was over. "yes," said they, "and the soldiers are slockening the ashes; but a' the waters of the ocean-sea will never quench in scotland the flame that was kindled yonder this day." the which words they said with a proud look, thinking my grandfather, by his arms and gabardine, belonged to the archbishop's household; but the words were as manna to his religious soul, and he gave inward praise and thanks that the selfsame tragical means which had been devised to terrify the reformers was thus, through the mysterious wisdom of providence, made more emboldening than courageous wine to fortify their hearts for the great work that was before them. nothing, however, farther passed; but, changing the course of their walk, my grandfather and the sorrowful master kilspinnie--for so the poor man of crail was called--went back, and, entering the bow at the shoegate, passed on towards a vintner's that dwelt opposite to the convent of the blackfriars; for the day was by this time far advanced, and they both felt themselves in need of some refreshment. while they were sitting together in the vintner's apartment, a stripling came several times into the room, and looked hard at my grandfather, and then went away without speaking. this was divers times repeated, and at last it was so remarkable that even master kilspinnie took notice of him, observing, that he seemed as if he had something very particular to communicate, if an opportunity served, offering at the same time to withdraw, to leave the room clear for the youth to tell his errand. my grandfather's curiosity was, by this strange and new adventure to him, so awakened, that he thought what his companion proposed a discreet thing; so the honest bailie of crail withdrew himself, and, going into the street, left my grandfather alone. no sooner was he gone out of the house than the stripling, who had been sorning about the door, again came in, and, coming close up to my grandfather's ear, said, with a significance not to be misconstrued, that if he would follow him he would take him to free quarters, where he would be more kindly entertained. my grandfather, though naturally of a quiet temperament, was nevertheless a bold and brave youth, and there was something in the mystery of this message--for such he rightly deemed it--that made him fain to see the end thereof. so he called in the vintner's wife and paid her the lawin', telling her to say to the friend who had been with him, when he came back, that he would soon return. the vintner's wife was a buxom and jolly dame, and before taking up the money, she gave a pawkie look at the stripling, and as my grandfather and he were going out at the door, she hit the gilly a bilf on the back, saying it was a ne'er-do-weel trade he had ta'en up, and that he wasna blate to wile awa' her customers, crying after him, "i redde ye warn your madam that gin she sends you here again, i'll maybe let his grace ken that her cauldron needs clouting." however, the graceless gilly but laughed at the vintner's wife, winking as he patted the side of his nose with his fore-finger, which testified that he held her vows of vengeance in very little reverence; and then he went on, my grandfather following. they walked up the street till they came to the priory yett, when, turning down a wynd to the left, he led my grandfather along between two dykes, till they were come to a house that stood by itself within a fair garden. but instead of going to the door in an honest manner, he bade him stop, and going forward he whistled shrilly, and then flung three stones against a butt, that was standing at the corner of the house on a gauntrees to kep rain water from the spouting image of a stone puddock that vomited what was gathered from the roof in the rones, and soon after an upper casement was opened, and a damsel looked forth; she however said nothing to the stripling, but she made certain signs which he understood, and then she drew in her head, shutting the casement softly, and he came back to my grandfather, to whom he said it was not commodious at that time for him to be received into the house, but if he would come back in the dark, at eight o'clock, all things would be ready for his reception. to this suggestion my grandfather made no scruple to assent, but promised to be there; and he bargained with the lad to come for him, giving him at the same time three placks for a largess. he then returned to the vintner's, where he found the crail man sitting waiting for him; and the vintner's wife, when she saw him so soon back, jeered him, and would fain have been jocose, which he often after thought a woful immorality, considering the dreadful martyrdom of a godly man that had been done that day in the town; but at the time he was not so over strait-laced as to take offence at what she said; indeed, as he used to say, sins were not so heinous in those papistical days as they afterwards became, when men lost faith in penance, and found out the perils of purchased pardons. chapter vii my grandfather having, as i have told, a compassion for the silly affection wherewith the honest man of crail still regarded his wanton wife, told him the circumstantials of his adventure with the stripling; without, however, letting wot he had discovered that the invitation was from her; the which was the case, for the damsel who looked out at the window was no other than the giglet he had seen in her lodging when he went thither with sir david hamilton, and he proposed to the disconsolate husband that he should be his friend in the adventure; meaning thereby to convince the unhappy man, by the evidence of his own eyes and ears, that her concubinage with the antichrist was a blessed riddance to him and his family. at first master kilspinnie had no zest for any such frolic, for so it seemed to him, and he began to think my grandfather's horror at the martyrdom of the aged saint but a long-fac't hypocrisy; nevertheless he was wrought upon to consent; and they sat plotting and contriving in what manner they should act their several parts, my grandfather pretending great fear and apprehension at the thoughts of himself, a stranger, going alone into the traps of a house where there were sic forerunners of shame and signs of danger. at last he proposed that they should go together and spy about the precincts of the place, and try to discover if there was no other entrance or outgate to the house than the way by which the stripling conducted him, though well he remembered the sallyport, where the fat friar kept watch, eating the pasty. accordingly they went forth from the vintner's, and my grandfather, as if he knew not the way, led his companion round between the priory and the sea, till they came near the aforesaid sallyport, when, mounting upon a stone, he affected to discover that the house of the madam stood in the garden within, and that the sallyport could be no less than a back yett thereto. while they were speaking concerning the same, my grandfather observed the wicket open in the gate, and guessing therefrom that it was one spying to forewarn somebody within who wanted to come out unremarked, he made a sign to his companion, and they both threw themselves flat on the ground, and hirsled down the rocks to conceal themselves. presently the gate was opened, and then out came the fat friar, and looked east and west, holding the door in his hand; and anon out came his grace the antichrist, hirpling with a staff in his hand, for he was lame with that monkish malady called the gout. the friar then drew the yett to, and walked on towards the castle, with his grace leaning on his arm. in the meantime the poor man of crail was grinding the teeth of his rage at the sight of the cause of his sorrow, and my grandfather had a sore struggle to keep him down, and prevent him from running wud and furious at the two sacerdotal reprobates, for no lightlier could they be called. thus, without any disclosure on my grandfather's part, did master kilspinnie come to jealouse that the lemane who had trysted him was no other than his own faithless wife, and he smote his forehead and wept bitterly, to think how she was become so dreadless in sin. but he vowed to put her to shame; so it was covenanted between them, that in the dusk of the evening the afflicted husband should post himself near to where they then stood, and that when my grandfather was admitted by the other entrance to the house, he should devise some reason for walking forth into the garden, and while there admit master kilspinnie. accordingly, betimes my grandfather was ready, and the stripling, as had been bargained, came for him to the vintner's, and conducted him to the house, where, after giving the signals before enumerated, the damsel came to the door and gave him admittance, leading him straight to the inner chamber before described, where her mistress was sitting in a languishing posture, with the table spread for a banquet. she embraced my grandfather with many fond protestations, and filled him a cup of hot malvesie, while her handmaid brought in divers savoury dishes; but he, though a valiant young man, was not at his ease, and he thought of the poor husband and the five babies that the adultress had left for the foul love of the papist high-priest, and it was a chaste spell and a restraining grace. still he partook a little of the rich repast which had been prepared, and feigned so long a false pleasance, that he almost became pleased in reality. the dame, however, was herself at times fearful, and seemed to listen if there was any knocking at the door, telling my grandfather that his grace was to be back after he had supped at the castle. "i thought," said she, "to have had you here when he was at the burning of the heretic, but my gilly could not find you among the troopers till it was owre late; for when he brought you my lord had come to solace himself after the execution. but i was so nettled to be so baulked, that i acted myself into an anger till i got him away, not, however, without a threat of being troubled with him again at night." scarcely had madam said this, when my grandfather started up and feigned to be in great terror, begging her to let him hide himself in the garden till his grace was come and gone. to this, with all her blandishments, the guilty woman made many obstacles, but he was fortified of the lord with the thoughts of her injured children, and would not be entreated, but insisted on scogging himself in the garden till the archbishop was sent away, the hour of his coming being then near at hand. seeing him thus peremptory, madam kilspinnie was obligated to conform; so he was permitted to go into the garden, and no sooner was he there than he went to the sallyport and admitted her husband; and well it was that he had been so steadfast in his purpose, for scarcely were they moved from the yett into a honeysuckle bower hard by when they heard it again open, and in came his grace with his corpulent pandarus, who took his seat on the bench before spoken of, to watch, while his master went into the house. the good bailie of crail breathed thickly, and he took my grandfather by the hand, his whole frame trembling with a passion of grief and rage. in the lapse of some four or five minutes, the giglet damsel came out of the house, and by the glimpse of a light from a window as she passed they saw she had a tankard of smoking drink in her hand, with which she went to the friar; and my grandfather and his companion, taking advantage of this, slipped out of their hiding-place and stole softly into the house and reached the outer chamber that was parted from madam's banquet bower by the arras partition. there they stopped to listen, and heard her complaining in a most dolorous manner of great heart-sickness, ever and anon begging the deluded prelate hamilton to taste the feast she had prepared for him, in the hope of being able to share it with him and the caresses of his sweet love, to which his grace as often replied, with great condolence and sympathy, how very grieved he was to find her in that sad and sore estate, with many other fond cajoleries, most odious to my grandfather to hear from a man so far advanced in years, and who, by reason of the reverence of his office, ought to have had his tongue schooled to terms of piety and temperance. the poor husband meanwhile said nothing, but my grandfather heard his heart panting audibly, and three or four times he was obligated to brush away his hand, for, having no arms himself, the bailie clutched at the hilt of his sword and would have drawn it from the scabbard. the antichrist, seeing his lemane in such great malady as she so well feigned, he at last, to her very earnest supplication, consented to leave her that night, and kissed her as he came away; but her husband broke in upon them with the rage of a hungry lion, and seizing his grace by the cuff of the neck, swung him away from her with such vehemence that he fell into the corner of the room like a sack of duds. as for madam, she uttered a wild cry, and threw herself back on the couch where she was sitting and seemed as if she had swooned, having no other device so ready to avoid the upbraidings and just reproaches of her spouse. but she was soon roused from that fraudulent dwam by my grandfather, who, seizing a flagon of wine, dashed it upon her face. chapter viii mrs kilspinnie uttered a frightful screech, and, starting up, attempted to run out of the room, but her husband caught her by the arm, and my grandfather was empowered, by a signal grant of great presence of mind to think that the noise might cause alarm, whereupon he sprang instanter to the door that led into the garden just as the damsel was coming up, and the fat friar hobbling as fast as he could behind her; and he had but time to say to her, as it was with an inspiration, to keep all quiet in the garden and he would make his escape by the other door. she, on hearing this, ran back to stop the pandarus, and my grandfather closed and bolted fast that back door, going forthwith to the one by which he had been himself admitted, and which, having opened wide to the wall, he returned to the scene of commotion. in the meantime the prelatic dragon that was so ravished from the woman had hastily risen upon his legs, and, red with a dreadful wrath, raged as if he would have devoured her husband. in sooth, to do his grace justice, he lacked not the spirit of a courageous gentleman, and he could not, my grandfather often said, have borne himself more proudly and valiantly had he been a belted knight, bred in camps and fields of war, so that a discreet retreat and evasion of the house was the best course they could take. but master kilspinnie fain would have continued his biting taunts to the mistress, who was enacting a most tragical extravagance of affliction and terror. my grandfather, however, suddenly cut him short, crying, "come, come, no more of this; an alarm is given, and we must save ourselves." with that he seized him firmly by the arm, and in a manner harled him out of the house and into the lane between the dykes, along which they ran with nimble heels. on reaching the showgate they slackened their speed, still, however, walking as fast as they could till they came near the port, when they again drew in the bridle of their haste, going through among the guards that were loitering around the door of the wardroom, and passed out into the fields as if they had been indifferent persons. on escaping the gate they fell in with divers persons going along the road, who, by their discourse, were returning home to cupar, and they walked leisurely with them till they came to a cross-road, where my grandfather, giving master kilspinnie a nodge, turned down the one that went to the left, followed by him, and it happened to be the road to dysart and crail. "this will ne'er do," said master kilspinnie, "they will pursue us this gait." upon hearing this reasonable apprehension, my grandfather stopped and conferred with himself, and received on that spot a blessed experience and foretaste of the protection wherewith, to a great age, he was all his days protected. for it was in a manner revealed to him that he should throw away the garbardine and sword which he had received in the castle, and thereby appear in his simple craftsman's garb, and that they should turn back and cross the cupar road, and go along the other, which led to the dundee waterside ferry. this he told to his fearful companion, and likewise, that as often as they fell in with or heard anybody coming up, the bailie should hasten on before or den himself among the brechans by the roadside, to the end that it might appear they were not two persons in company together. but they had not long crossed the cupar road and travelled the one leading to the ferry when they heard the whirlwind sound of horsemen coming after them, at which the honest man of crail darted aside and lay flat on his grouff ayont a bramble bush, while my grandfather began to lilt as blithely as he could, "the bonny lass of livingston," and the spring was ever after to him as a hymn of thanksgiving, but the words he then sang was an auld, ranting, godless and graceless ditty of the grooms and serving-men that sorned about his father's smiddy, and the closer that the horsemen came he was strengthened to sing the louder and the clearer. "saw ye twa fellows ganging this gait?" cried the foremost of the pursuers, pulling up. "what like were they?" said my grandfather, in a simple manner. "ane of them was o' his grace's guard," replied the man, "but the other, curse tak me gin i ken what he was like, but he's the bailie or provost of a burrough's town, and should by rights hae a big belly." to this my grandfather answered briskly, "nae sic twa ha'e past me, but as i was coming along whistling, thinking o' naething, twa sturdy loons, ane o' them no unlike the hempies o' the castle, ran skirring along, and i hae a thought that they took the road to crail or dysart." "that was my thought, too," cried the horseman, as he turned his beast, and the rest that were with him doing the same, bidding my grandfather good-night, away they scampered back; by which a blessed deliverance was there wrought to him and his companion on that spot, in that night. as soon as the horsemen had gone by, bailie kilspinnie came from his hiding-place, and both he and my grandfather proved that no bird-lime was on their feet till they got to the ferry-house at the waterside, where they found two boats taking passengers on board, one for dundee and the other for perth. here my grandfather's great gift of foreknowledge was again proven, for he proposed that they should bargain with the skipper of the dundee boat to take them to that town and pay him like the other passengers, at once, in an open manner, but that, as the night was cloudy and dark, they should go cannily aboard the boat for perth, as it were in mistake, and feign not to discover their error till they were far up the river when they should proceed to the town, letting wot that by the return of the tide they would go in the morning by the perth boat to dundee, with which master kilspinnie was well acquainted, he having had many times, in the way of his traffic as a plaiding merchant, cause to use the same, and thereby knew it went twice a week, and that the morrow was one of the days. all this they were enabled to do with such fortitude and decorum that no one aboard the perth boat could have divined that they were not honest men in great trouble of mind at discovering they had come into the wrong boat. but nothing showed more that providence had a hand in all this than what ensued, for all the passengers in the boat had been at st andrews to hear the trial and see the martyrdom, and they were sharp and vehement not only in their condemnation of the mitred antichrist, but grieved with a sincere sorrow that none of the nobles of scotland would stand forth in their ancient bravery to resist and overthrow a race of oppressors more grievous than the southrons that trode on the neck of their fathers in the hero-stirring times of the wallace wight and king robert the bruce. truly, there was a spirit of unison and indignation in the company on board that boat, everyone thirsting with a holy ardour to avenge the cruelties of which the papistical priesthood were daily growing more and more crouse in the perpetration, and they made the shores ring with the olden song of-- "o for my ain king, quo' gude wallace, the rightfu' king of fair scotlan'; between me and my sovereign dear i think i see some ill seed sawn." it was the grey of the morning before they reached perth, and as soon as they were put on the land the bailie took my grandfather with him to the house of one sawners ruthven, a blanket-weaver with whom he had dealings, a staid and discreet man, who, when he had supplied them with breakfast, exhorted them not to tarry in the town, then a place that had fallen under the suspicion of the clergy, the lordly monks of scoone taking great power and authority, in despite of the magistrates, against all that fell under their evil thoughts anent heresy. and he counselled them not to proceed, as my grandfather had proposed, straight on to edinburgh by the queensferry, but to hasten up the country to crieff and thence take the road to stirling. in this there was much prudence, but bailie kilspinnie was in sore tribulation on account of his children, whom he had left at his home in crail, fearing that the talons of antichrist would lay hold of them and keep them as hostages till he was given up to suffer for what he had done, none doubting that baal, for so he nicknamed the prelatic hamilton, would impute to him the unpardonable sin of heresy and schism, and leave no stone unturned to bring him to the stake. but sawners ruthven comforted him with the assurance that his grace would not venture to act in that manner, for it was known how mistress kilspinnie then lived at st andrews as his concubine. nevertheless, the poor man was in sore affliction, and as he and my grandfather travelled towards crieff, many a bitter prayer did his vexed spirit pour forth in its grief that the right arm of the lord might soon be manifested against the roman locust that consumed the land and made its corruption naught in the nostrils of heaven. thus was it manifest that there was much of the ire of a selfish revenge mixt up with the rage which was at that time kindled in so unquenchable a manner against the beast and its worshippers, for in the history of the honest man of crail there was a great similitude to other foul and worse things which the roman idolaters seemed to regard among their pestiferous immunities, and counted themselves free to do without dread of any earthly retribution. chapter ix my grandfather and his companion hastened on in their journey, but instead of going to stirling they crossed the river at alloa, and so passed by the water-side way to edinburgh, where, on entering the west-port, they separated. the bailie, who was a fearful man and in constant dread and terror of being burned as a heretic for having broke in upon the dalliance of his incontinent wife and the carnal-minded primate of st andrews, went to a cousin of his own, a dealer in serge and temming in the lawnmarket, with whom he concealed himself for some weeks, but my grandfather proceeded straight towards the lodging of the earl of glencairn to recount to his lordship the whole passages of what he had been concerned in, from the night that he departed from his presence. it was by this time the mirkest of the gloaming, for they had purposely tarried on their journey that they might enter edinburgh at dusk. the shops of the traders were shut, for in those days there was such a resort of sorners and lawless men among the trains of the nobles and gentry that it was not safe for honest merchants to keep their shops open after nightfall. nevertheless the streets were not darkened, for there were then many begging-boxes, with images of the saints, and cruisies burning afore them, in divers parts of the high street and corners of the wynds, insomuch that it was easy, as i have heard my grandfather tell, to see and know anyone passing in the light thereof. and, indeed, what befel himself was proof of it, for as he was coming through st giles' kirkyard, which is now the parliament close, and through which at that time there was a style and path for passengers, a young man, whom he had observed following him, came close up just as he reached a begging image of the virgin mary with its lamp that stood on a pillar at the south-east corner of the cathedral, and touching him on the left shoulder at that spot made him look round in such a manner that the light of the virgin's lamp fell full on his face. "dinna be frighted," said the stranger, "i ken you, and i'm in lord glencairn's service; but follow me and say nothing." my grandfather was not a little startled by this salutation; he, however, made no observe, but replied, "go on, then." so the stranger went forward, and, after various turnings and windings, led him down into the cowgate and up a close on the south side thereof, and then to a dark timber stair that was so frail and creaking and narrow that his guide bade him haul himself up with the help of a rope that hung down dangling for that purpose. when they had raised themselves to the stairhead, the stranger opened a door and they went together into a small and lonesome chamber, in the chimla-nook of which an old iron cruisie was burning with a winking and wizard light. "i hae brought you here," said his conductor, "for secrecy, for my lord disna want that ye should be seen about his lodging. i'm ane of three that hae been lang seeking you, and, as a token that ye're no deceived, i was bade to tell you that before parting from my lord he gi'ed you two pieces of gold out of his coffer in the chamber where he supped." my grandfather thought this very like a proof that he had been so informed by the earl himself, but happening to remark that he sat with his back to the light and kept his face hidden in the shadow of the darkness, providence put it into his head to jealouse that he might nevertheless be a spy, one perhaps that had been trusted in like manner as he had himself been trusted, and who had afterwards sold himself to the perdition of the adversaries' cause; he was, accordingly, on his guard, but replied with seeming frankness that it was very true he had received two pieces of gold from the earl at his departure. "then," said the young man, "by that token ye may know that i am in the private service of the earl, who, for reasons best known to himsel', hath willed that you should tell me, that i may report the same secretly to him, what espionage you have made." my grandfather was perplexed by this speech, but distrust having crept into his thoughts, instead of replying with a full recital of all his adventures, he briefly said that he had indeed effected nothing, for his soul was sickened by the woful martyrdom of the godly master mill to so great a disease that he could not endure to abide in st andrews, and therefore he had come back. "but you have been long on the way--how is that?--it is now many days since the burning," replied the stranger. "you say truly," was my grandfather's answer, "for i came round by perth, but i tarried at no place longer than was needful to repair and refresh nature." "perth was a wide bout gait to take frae st andrews to come to edinburgh. i marvel how ye went so far astray," said the young man, curiously. "in sooth it was, but being sorely demented with the tragical end of the godly old man," replied my grandfather, "and seeing that i could do the earl no manner of service, i wist not well what course to take, so after meickle tribulation of thought and great uncertainty of purpose i e'en resolved to come hither." little more passed; the young man rose and said to my grandfather he feared the earl would be so little content with him that he had better not go near him but seek some other master. and when they had descended the stair and were come into the street he advised him to go to the house of a certain widow rippet, that let dry lodgings in the grass-market, and roost there for that night. the which my grandfather in a manner signified he would do, and so they parted. the stranger at first walked soberly away, but he had not gone many paces when he suddenly turned into a close leading up to the high-street, and my grandfather heard the pattering of his feet running as swiftly as possible, which confirmed to him what he suspected; and so, instead of going towards the widow rippet's house he turned back and went straight on to st mary's wynd, where the earl's lodging was, and knocking at the yett was speedily admitted and conducted instanter to my lord's presence, whom he found alone reading many papers which lay on a table before him. "gilhaize," said the earl, "how is this? why have you come back? and wherefore is it that i have heard no tidings from you?" whereupon my grandfather recounted to him all the circumstantials which i have rehearsed, from the hour of his departure from edinburgh up till the very time when he then stood in his master's presence. the earl made no inroad on his narrative while he was telling it, but his countenance often changed and he was much moved at different passages--sometimes with sorrow and sometimes with anger; and he laughed vehemently at the mishap which had befallen the grand adversary of the congregation and his concubine. the adventure, however, with the unknown varlet in the street appeared to make his lordship very thoughtful, and no less than thrice did he question my grandfather if he had indeed given but those barren answers which i have already recited; to all which he received the most solemn asseverations that no more was said. his lordship then sat some time cogitating with his hands resting on his thighs, his brows bent, and his lips pursed as with sharp thought. at last he said,-- "gilhaize, you have done better in this than i ought to have expected of one so young and unpractised. the favour you won with sir david hamilton was no more than i thought your looks and manners would beget. but you are not only well-favoured but well-fortuned; and had you not found yourself worthily bound to your duty i doubt not you might have prospered in the archbishop's household. the affair with madam kilspinnie was a thing i reckoned not of, yet therein you have proved yourself not only a very joseph, but so ripe in wit beyond your years that your merits deserve more commendation than i can afford to give, for i have not sufficient to bestow on the singular prudence and discernment wherewith you have parried the treacherous thrusts of that judas iscariot, winterton, for so i doubt not is the traitor who waylaid you. he was once in my service and is now in the queen regent's. in sending off my men on errands similar to yours, i was wont to give them two pieces of gold, and this the false loon has gathered to be a custom from others as well as by his own knowledge, and he has made it the key to open the breasts of my servants. to know this, however, is a great discovery. but, gilhaize, not to waste words, you have your master's confidence. go, therefore, i pray you, with all speed to the widow rippet's and do as winterton bade you and as chance may require. in the morning come again hither, for i have this night many weighty affairs, and you have shown yourself possessed of a discerning spirit, that may, in these times of peril and perjury, help the great cause of all good scotchmen." in saying these most acceptable words, he clapped my grandfather on the shoulder, and encouraged him to be as true-hearted as he was sharp-witted, and he could not fail to earn both treasure and trusts. so my grand-father left him, and went to the widow rippet's in the grass-market; and around her kitchen fire he found some four or five discarded knaves that were bargaining with her for beds, or for leave to sleep by the hearth; and he had not been long seated among them when his heart was grieved with pain to see winterton come in, and behind him the two simple lads of lithgow that had left their homes with him, whom, it appeared, the varlet had seduced from the earl of glencairn's service and inveigled into the earl of seaton's, a rampant papist, by the same wiles wherewith he thought he had likewise made a conquest of my grandfather, whom they had all come together to see; for the two lithgow lads, like reynard the fox when he had lost his tail, were eager that he too should make himself like them. he feigned, however, great weariness, and indeed his heart was heavy to see such skill of wickedness in so young a man as he saw in winterton. so, after partaking with them of some spiced ale which winterton brought from the salutation tavern, opposite the gallow's-stone, he declared himself overcome with sleep, and perforce thereof obligated to go to bed. but when they were gone, and he had retired to his sorry couch, no sleep came to his eyelids, but only hot and salt tears; for he thought that he had been in a measure concerned in bringing away the two thoughtless lads from their homes, and he saw that they were not tempered to resist the temptations of the world, but would soon fall away from their religious integrity, and become lewd and godless roisters, like the wuddy worthies that paid half-price for leave to sleep on the widow's hearth. chapter x at the first blink of the grey eye of the morning my grandfather rose, and, quitting the house of the widow rippet, went straight to the earl's lodgings, and was admitted. the porter at the door told him that their master, having been up all night, had but just retired to bed; but while they were speaking, the earl's page, who slept in the ante-chamber, called from the stairhead to inquire who it was that had come so early, and being informed thereof, he went into his master, and afterwards came again and desired my grandfather to walk up, and conducted him to his lordship, whom he found on his couch, but not undressed, and who said to him on his entering, when the page had retired,-- "i am glad, gilhaize, that you have come thus early, for i want a trusty man to go forthwith into the west country. what i wish you to do cannot be written, but you will take this ring;" and he took one from the little finger of his right hand, on the gem of which his cipher was graven, and gave it to my grandfather. "on showing it to lord boyd, whom you will find at the dean castle, near kilmarnock, he will thereby know that you are specially trusted of me. the message whereof you are the bearer is to this effect,--that the lords of the congregation have, by their friends in many places, received strong exhortations to step forward and oppose the headlong fury of the churchmen; and that they have in consequence deemed it necessary to lose no time in ascertaining what the strength of the reformed may be, and to procure declarations for mutual defence from all who are joined in professing the true religion of christ. should he see meet to employ you in this matter, you will obey his orders and instructions, whatsoever they may be." the earl then put his hand aneath his pillow and drew out a small leathern purse, which he gave to my grandfather, who, in the doing of this, observed that he had several other similar purses ready under his head. in taking it, my grandfather was proceeding to tell him what he had observed at the widow rippet's, but his lordship interrupted him, saying,-- "such things are of no issue now, and your present duty is in a higher road; therefore make haste, and god be with you." with these words, his lordship turned himself on his couch, and composed himself to sleep, which my grandfather, after looking on for about a minute or so, observing, came away; and having borrowed a frock and a trot-cozey for the journey from one of the grooms of the hall, he went straight to kenneth shelty's, a noted horse-setter in those days, who lived at the west-port, and bargained with him for the hire of a beast to glasgow, though glasgow was not then the nearest road to kilmarnock; but he thought it prudent to go that way, in case any of the papistical emissaries should track his course. there was, however, a little oversight in this, which did not come to mind till he was some miles on the road, and that was the obligation it put him under of passing through lithgow, where he was so well known, and where all his kith and kin lived--there being then no immediate route from edinburgh to glasgow but by lithgow. and he debated with himself for a space of time whether he ought to proceed, or turn back and go the other way, and his mind was sorely troubled with doubts and difficulties. at last he considered that it was never deemed wise or fortunate to turn back in any undertaking, and besides, having for the service of the saviour left his father's house and renounced his parents, like a bird that taketh wing and knoweth the nest where it was bred no more, he knit up his ravelled thoughts into resolution, and clapping spurs to his horse, rode bravely on. but when he beheld the towers of the palace, and the steeples of his native town, rising before him, many remembrances came rushing to his heart, and all the vexations he had suffered there were lost in the sunny recollections of the morning of life, when everyone was kind, and the eyes of his parents looked on him with the brightness of delight, in so much, that his soul yearned within him, and his cheeks were wetted with fast-flowing tears. nevertheless, he overcame this thaw of his fortitude, and went forward in the strength of the lord, determined to swerve not in his duty to the earl of glencairn, nor in his holier fealty to a far greater master. but the softness that he felt in his nature made him gird himself with a firm purpose to ride through the town without stopping. scarcely, however, had he entered the port, when his horse stumbled and lost a shoe, by which he was not only constrained to stop, but to take him to his father's smiddy, which was in sight when the mischance happened. on going to the door, he found, as was commonly the case, a number of grooms and flunkies of the courtiers, with certain friars, holding vehement discourse concerning the tidings of the time, the burden of which was the burning of the aged master mill, a thing that even the monks durst not, for humanity, venture very strenuously to defend. his father was not then within; but one of the prentice lads, seeing who it was that had come with a horse to be shod, ran to tell him; and at the sight of my grandfather, the friars suspended their controversies with the serving-men, and gathered round him with many questions. he replied, however, to them all with few words, bidding the foreman to make haste and shoe his horse, hoping that he might thereby be off and away before his father came. but, while the man was throng with the horse's foot, both father and mother came rushing in, and his mother was weeping bitterly, and wringing her hands, chiding him as if he had sold himself to the evil one, and beseeching him to stop and repent. his father, however, said little, but inquired how he had been, what he was doing, and where he was going; and sent the prentice lad to bring a stoup of spiced ale from a public hard by, in which he pledged him, kindly hoping he would do well for himself and he would do well for his parents. the which fatherliness touched my grandfather more to the quick than all the loud lament and reproaches of his mother; and he replied that he had entered into the service of a nobleman, and was then riding on his master's business to glasgow; but he mentioned no name, nor did his father inquire. his mother, however, burst out into clamorous revilings, declaring her dread that it was some of the apostate heretics; and, giving vent to her passion, was as one in a frenzy, or possessed of a devil. the very friars were confounded at her distraction, and tried to soothe her and remove her forth the smiddy, which only made her more wild, so that all present compassionated my grandfather, who sat silent and made no answer, wearying till his horse was ready. but greatly afflicted as he was by this trial, it was nothing to what ensued, when, after having mounted, and shaken his father by the hand, he galloped away to the west-port. there, on the outside, he was met by two women and an old man, parents of the lads whom he had taken with him to edinburgh. having heard he was at his father's smiddy, instead of going thither, they had come to that place, in order that they might speak with him more apart, and free from molestation, concerning their sons. one of the women was a poor widow, and she had no other child, nor the hope of any other bread-winner for her old age. she, however, said nothing, but stood with the corner of her apron at her eyes, sobbing very afflictedly, while her friends, on seeing my grandfather coming out of the port, stepped forward, and the old man caught the horse by the bridle, and said gravely,-- "ye maun stop and satisfy three sorrowful parents! what hae ye done with your twa thoughtless companions?" my grandfather's heart was as if it would have perished in his bosom; for the company he had seen the lads with, and the talk they had held, and above all their recklessness of principle, came upon him like a withering flash of fire. he, however, replied soberly, that he had seen them both the night before, and that they were well in health and jocund in spirit. the mother that was standing near her husband was blithe to hear this, and reminded her gudeman, how she had often said, that when they did hear tidings of their son her words would be found true, for he had ever been all his days a brisk and a valiant bairn. but the helpless widow was not content, and she came forward drying her tears, saying, "and what is my poor fatherless do-na-gude about? i'm fearfu, fearfu to be particular; for, though he was aye kind-hearted to me, he was easily wised, and i doubt, i doubt he'll prove a blasting or a blessing, according to the hands he fa's among." "i hope and pray," said my grandfather, "that he'll be protected from scaith, and live to be a comfort to all his friends." and, so saying, he disengaged his bridle with a gentle violence from the old man's hold, telling them he could not afford to stop, being timed to reach glasgow that night. so he pricked the horse with his rowals, and shot away; but his heart, all the remainder of his day's journey, was as if it had been pierced with many barbed arrows, and the sad voice of the poor anxious widow rung in his ears like the sound of some doleful knell. saving this affair at lithgow, nothing befell him till he came to the gates of glasgow; by which time it was dark, and the ward and watch set, and they questioned him very sharply before giving him admission. for the queen regent was then sojourning in the castle, and her fears and cares were greatly quickened at that time, by rumours from all parts of the kingdom concerning the murder, as it was called, of master mill. on this account the french guards, which she had with her, were instructed to be jealous of all untimeous travellers, and they being joined with a ward of burghers, but using only their own tongue, caused no small molestation to every scotsman that sought admission after the sun was set: for the burghers, not being well versed in military practices, were of themselves very propugnacious in their authority, making more ado than even the frenchmen. it happened, however, that there was among those valiant traders and craftsmen of glasgow one thomas sword, the deacon of the hammermen, and he having the command of those stationed at the gate, overheard what was passing with my grandfather, and coming out of the wardroom, inquired his name, which when he heard, and that he was son to michael gilhaize, the lithgow ferrier, he advised to let him in, saying he knew his father well, and that they had worked together, when young men, in the king's armoury at stirling; and he told him where he lived, and invited him, when his horse was stabled, to come to supper, for he was glad to see him for his father's sake. chapter xi at this time an ancient controversy between the archbishops of st andrews and of glasgow, touching their respective jurisdictions, had been resuscitated with great acrimony, and in the debates concerning the same the glasgow people took a deep interest, for they are stouthearted and of an adventurous spirit, and cannot abide to think that they or their town should, in anything of public honour, be deemed either slack or second to the foremost in the realm, and none of all the worthy burgesses thereof thought more proudly of the superiority and renown of their city than did deacon sword. so it came to pass, as he was sitting at supper with my grandfather, that he enlarged and expatiated on the inordinate pretensions of the archbishop of st andrews, and took occasion to diverge from the prelate's political ambition to speak of the enormities of his ecclesiastical government, and particularly of that heinous and never-to-be-forgotten act, the burning of an aged man of fourscore and two years, whose very heresies, as the deacon mercifully said, ought rather to have been imputed to dotage than charged as offences. my grandfather was well pleased to observe such vigour of principle and bravery of character in one having such sway and weight in so great a community as to be the chief captain of the crafts who were banded with the hammermen, namely, the cartwrights, the saddlers, the masons, the coopers, the mariners, and all whose work required the use of edge-tools, the hardiest and buirdliest of the trades, and he allowed himself to run in with the deacon's humour, but without letting wot either in whose service he was, or on what exploit he was bound, sowing however, from time to time, hints as to the need that seemed to be growing of putting a curb on the bold front wherewith the archbishop of st andrews, under the pretext of suppressing heresies, butted with the horns of oppression against all who stood within the reverence of his displeasure. deacon sword had himself a leaning to the reformed doctrines, which, with his public enmity to the challenger of his own archbishop, made him take to those hints with so great an affinity, that he vowed to god, shaking my grandfather by the hand over the table, that if some steps were not soon taken to stop such inordinate misrule, there were not wanting five hundred men in glasgow who would start forward with weapons in their grip at the first tout of a trump to vindicate the liberties of the subject, and the wholesome administration by the temporal judges of the law against all offenders as of old. and, giving scope to his ardour, he said there was then such a spirit awakened in glasgow that men, women and children thirsted to see justice executed on the churchmen, who were daily waxing more and more wroth and insatiable against everyone who called their doctrines or polity in question. thus out of the very devices which had been devised by those about the queen regent to intercept the free communion of the people with one another was the means brought about whereby a chosen emissary of the congregation came to get at the emboldening knowledge of the sense of the citizens of glasgow with regard to the great cause which at that period troubled the minds and fears of all men. my grandfather was joyfully heartened by what he heard, and before coming away from the deacon who, with the hospitality common to his townsmen, would fain have had him to prolong their sederunt over the gardevine, he said that if glasgow were as true and valiant as it was thought, there could be no doubt that her declaration for the lords of the congregation would work out a great redress of public wrongs. for, from all he could learn and understand, those high and pious noblemen had nothing more at heart than to procure for the people the free exercise of their right to worship god according to their conscience and the doctrines of the old and new testaments. but though over the liquor-cup the deacon had spoken so dreadless and like a manly citizen, my grandfather resolved with himself to depart betimes for kilmarnock, in case of any change in his temper. accordingly, he requested the hostler of the hostel where he had taken his bed, to which his day's hard journey early inclined him, to have his horse in readiness before break of day. but this hostel, which was called the cross of rhodes, happened to be situated at the water-port, and besides being a tavern and inn, was likewise the great ferryhouse of the clyde when the tide was up, or the ford rendered unsafe by the torrents of the speats and inland rains--the which caused it to be much frequented by the skippers and mariners of the barks that traded to france and genoa with the renfrew salmon, and by all sorts of travellers at all times even to the small hours of the morning. in short it was a boisterous house, the company resorting thereto of a sort little in unison with the religious frame of my grandfather. as soon, therefore, as he came from the deacon's, he went to bed without taking off his clothes, in order that he might be fit for the road as he intended; and his bed being in the public room, with sliding doors, he drew them upon him, hoping to shut out some of the din and to win a little repose. but scarcely had he laid his head on the pillow when he heard the voice of one entering the room, and listening eagerly, he discovered that it was no other than the traitor winterton's, the which so amazed him with apprehension that he shook as he lay, like the aspen leaf on the tree. winterton called like a braggart for supper and hot wine, boasting he had ridden that day from edinburgh, and that he must be up and across his horse by daylight in the morning, as he had need to be in kilmarnock by noon. in this, which vanity made him tell in bravado, my grandfather could not but discern a kind providence admonishing himself, for he had no doubt that winterton was in pursuit of him, and thankful he was that he had given no inkling to anyone in the house as to whence he had come and where he was going. but had this thought not at once entered his head, he would soon have had cause to think it, for while winterton was eating his supper he began to converse with their host, and to inquire what travellers had crossed the river. twice or thrice, in as it were an off-hand manner, he spoke of one whom he called a cousin, but, in describing his garb, he left no doubt in my grandfather's bosom that it was regarding him he seemed at once both so negligent and so anxious. most providential therefore it was that my grandfather had altered his dress before leaving edinburgh, for the marks which winterton gave of him were chiefly drawn from his ordinary garb, and by them their host in consequence said he had seen no such person. when winterton had finished his repast, and was getting his second stoup of wine heated, he asked where he was to sleep, to the which question the host replied that he feared he would, like others, be obligated to make a bench by the fireside his couch, all the beds in the house being already bespoke or occupied. "every one of them is double," said the man, "save only one, the which is paid for by a young man that goes off at break of day and who is already asleep." at this winterton swore a dreadful oath that he would not sleep by the fire after riding fifty miles while there was half a bed in the house, and commanded the host to go and tell the young man that he must half blankets with him. my grandfather knew that this could only refer to him; so, when their host came and opened the sliding doors of the bed, he feigned himself to be very fast asleep at the back of the bed, and only groaned in drowsiness when he was touched. "o, let him alane," cried winterton, "i ken what it is to be tired; so, as there's room enough at the stock, when i have drank my posset i'll e'en creep in beside him." my grandfather, weary as he was, lay panting with apprehension, not doubting that he should be speedily discovered; but when winterton had finished his drink and came swaggering and jocose to be his bedfellow, he kept himself with his face to the wall, and snored like one who was in haste to sleep more than enough, insomuch that winterton, when he lay down, gave him a deg with his elbow and swore at him to be quiet. his own fatigue, however, soon mastered the disturbance which my grandfather made, and he began himself to echo the noise in defenceless sincerity. on hearing him thus fettered by sleep, my grandfather began to consider with himself what he ought to do, being both afraid and perplexed he knew not wherefore; and he was prompted by a power that he durst not and could not reason with to rise and escape from the jeopardy wherein he then was. but how could this be done, for the house was still open, and travellers and customers were continually going and coming. truly his situation was one of great tribulation, and escape therefrom a thing seemingly past hope and the unaided wisdom of man. chapter xii after lying about the period of an hour in great perturbation, he began to grow more collected, and the din and resort of strangers in the house also subsided, by which he was enabled, with help from on high, to gather his scattered thoughts and to bind them up into the sheaves of purpose and resolution. accordingly, when all was still, and several young men that were sitting by the fire on account of every bed being occupied, gave note, by their deep breathing, that sleep had descended upon them, and darkened their senses with her gracious and downy wings, he rose softly from the side of winterton, and stepping over him, slipped to the door, which he unbarred, and the moon shining bright he went to the stable to take out his horse. it was not his intent to have done this, but to have gone up into the streets of the city and walked the walls thereof till he thought his adversary was gone, but seeing the moon so fair and clear he determined to take his horse and forthwith proceed on his journey, for the river was low and fordable, and trintled its waters with a silvery sheen in the stillness of the beautiful light. scarcely, however, had he pulled the latch of the stable door--even as he was just entering in--when he heard winterton coming from the house rousing the hostler, whom he profanely rated for allowing him to oversleep himself. for, wakening just as his bedfellow rose, he thought the morning was come and that his orders had been neglected. in this extremity my grandfather saw no chance of evasion. if he went out into the moonshine he would to a surety be discovered, and in the stable he would to a certainty be caught. but what could he do and the danger so pressing? he had hardly a choice; however, he went into the stable, shut the door, and running up to the horses that were farthest ben, mounted into the hack, and hid himself among the hay. in that concealment he was scarcely well down when winterton, with an hostler that was half asleep, came with a lantern to the door, banning the poor knave as if he had been cursing him with bell, book and candle, the other rubbing his eyes and declaring it was still far from morning, and saying he was sure the other traveller was not gone. to the which there was speedy evidence, for on going towards winterton's horse the hostler saw my grandfather's in its stall and told him so. at that moment a glimpse of the lantern fell on the horse's legs, and its feet being white, "oho!" cried winterton, "let us look here--kenneth shelty's lightfoot--the very beast; and hae i been in the same hole wi' the tod and no kent it. the deil's black collie worry my soul, but this is a soople trick. i did nae think the sleekit sinner had art enough to play't. nae doubt he's gane to hide himsel in the town till i'm awa, for he has heard what i said yestreen. but i'll be up sides wi' him. the de'il a foot will i gang this morning till he comes back for his horse." and with these words he turned out of the stable with the hostler and went back to the house. no sooner were they well gone than my grandfather came from his hiding-place, and twisting a wisp of straw round his horse's feet, that they might not dirl or make a din on the stones, he led it cannily out and down to the river's brink, and, there mounting, took the ford, and was soon free on the gorbals side. riding up the gait at a brisk trot, he passed on for a short time along the road that he had been told led to kilmarnock, but fearing he would be followed, he turned off at the first wynd he came to on the left, and a blessed thing it was that he did so, for it led to the reformation-leavened town of paisley, where he arrived an hour before daylight. winterton, little jealousing what had happened, went again to bed, as my grandfather afterwards learnt, and had fallen asleep. in the morning when he awoke and was told that both man and horse were flown, he flayed the hostler's back and legs in more than a score of places, believing he had connived at my grandfather's secret flight. my grandfather had never before been in the town of paisley, but he had often heard from abercorn's serving-men that were wont to sorn about his father's smiddy, of a house of jovial entertainment by the water-side, about a stone-cast from the abbey-yett, the hostess whereof was a certain canty dame called maggy napier, then in great repute with the shavelings of the abbey. thither he directed his course, the abbey towers serving him for her sign, and the moonlight and running river were guides to her door, at the which he was not blate in chapping. she was, however, long of giving entrance, for it happened that some nights before the magistrates of the town had been at a carousal with the abbot and chapter, the papistical denomination for the seven heads and ten horns of a monastery, and when they had come away and were going home, one of them, bailie pollock, a gaucy widower, was instigated by the devil and the wine he had drunk to stravaig towards maggy napier's--a most unseemly thing for a bailie to do--especially a bailie of paisley, but it was then the days of popish sinfulness. and when bailie pollock went thither the house was full of riotous swankies, who, being the waur of drink themselves, had but little reverence for a magistrate in the same state, so they handled him to such a degree that he was obliged to keep his bed and put collops to his eyes for three days. the consequence of which was that the house fell under the displeasure of the town council, and maggie was admonished to keep it more orderly and doucely--though the fault came neither from her nor her customers, as she told my grandfather, for detaining him so long, it being requisite that she should see he was in a condition of sobriety before letting him in. but, when admitted, he was in no spirit to enjoy her jocosity concerning bailie pollock's spree, so he told her that he had come far and had far to go, and that having heard sore tidings of a friend, he was fain to go to bed and try if he could compose himself with an hour or two of sleep. maggie accordingly refrained from her jocularity, and began to soothe and comfort him, for she was naturally of a winsome way, and prepared a bed for him with her best sheets, the which, she said, were gi'en her in gratus gift frae the lord abbot, so that he undressed himself and enjoyed a pleasant interregnum of anxiety for more than five hours; and when he awoke and was up, he found a breakfast worthy of the abbot himself ready, and his hostess was most courtly and kind, praising the dainties, and pressing him to eat. nor when he proposed to reckon with her for the lawin would she touch the money, but made him promise, when he came back, he would bide another night with her, hoping he would then be in better spirits, for she was wae to see so braw a gallant sae casten down, doless and dowie. when they had settled their contest, and my grandfather had come out to mount his beast, which a stripling was holding ready for him at a louping-on-stane near the abbey-yett, as he was going thither, a young friar, who was taking a morning stroll along the pleasant banks of the cart, approached towards him, and, after looking hard at him for some time, called him by name and took him by both the hands, which he pressed with a brotherly affection. this friar was of lithgow parentage and called dominick callender, and when he and my grandfather were playing-bairns, they had spent many a merry day of their suspicion-less young years together. as he grew up, being a lad of shrewd parts, and of a very staid and orderly deportment, the monks set their snares for him, and before he could well think for himself he was wiled into their traps, and becoming a novice, in due season professed himself a monk. but it was some time before my grandfather knew him again, for the ruddy of youth had fled his cheek, and he was pale and of a studious countenance; and when the first sparklings of his pleasure at the sight of his old play-marrow had gone off, his eyes saddened into thoughtfulness, and he appeared like one weighed down with care and heavy inward dule. chapter xiii after dominick callender and my grandfather had conversed some time, with many interchanges of the kindly remembrances of past pleasures, the gentle friar began to bewail his sad estate in being a professed monk, and so mournfully to deplore the rashness with which inexperienced youth often takes upon itself a yoke it can never lay down, that the compassion of his friend was sorrowfully awakened, for he saw he was living a life of bitterness and grief. he heard him, however, without making any reply or saying anything concerning his own lot of hazard and adventure; for, considering dominick to be leagued with the papistical orders, he did not think him safe to be trusted, notwithstanding the unchanged freshness of the loving-kindness which he still seemed to bear in his heart; nor even, had he not felt this jealousy, would he have thought himself free to speak of his errand, far less to have given to any stranger aught that might have been an inkling of his noble master's zealous, but secret, stirrings for the weal of scotland and the enfranchisement of the worshippers of the true god. when my grandfather had arrived at his horse, and prepared to mount, dominick callender said to him if he would ride slowly for a little way he would walk by his side, adding, "for maybe i'll ne'er see you again--i'm a-weary of this way of life, and the signs of the times bode no good to the church. i hae a thought to go into some foreign land where i may taste the air of a freeman, and i feel myself comforted before i quit our auld, hard-favoured but warm-hearted scotland, in meeting wi' ane that reminds me how i had once sunny mornings and summer days." this was said so much in the sincerity of a confiding spirit that my grandfather could not refrain from observing, in answer, that he feared his friar's cloak did not sit easy upon him, which led him on to acknowledge that it was so. "i am speaking to you, gilhaize," said he, "with the frank heart of auld langsyne, and i dinna scruple to confess to one that i hae often thought of, and weary't to see again, and wondered what had become of, that my conscience has revolted against the errors of the papacy, and that i am now upon the eve of fleeing my native land and joining the reformed at geneva. and maybe i'm no ordain'd to spend a' my life in exile, for no man can deny that the people of scotland are not inwardly the warm adversaries of the church. that last and cruellest deed, the sacrifice of the feckless old man of fourscore and upward, has proven that the humanity of the world will no longer endure the laws and pretensions of the church, and there are few in paisley whom the burning of auld mill has not kindled with the spirit of resistance." the latter portion of these words was as joyous tidings to my grandfather, and he tightened his reins and entered into a more particular and inquisitive discourse with his companion, by which he gathered that the martyrdom of master mill had indeed caused great astonishment and wrath among the pious in and about paisley, and not only among them, but had estranged the affections even of the more worldly from the priesthood, of whom it was openly said that the sense of pity towards the commonalty of mankind was extinguished within them, and that they were all in all for themselves. but as they were proceeding through the town and along the road, conversing in a familiar but earnest manner on these great concerns, dominick callender began to inveigh against the morals of his brethren, and to lament again, in a very piteous manner, that he was decreed, by his monastic profession, from the enjoyment of the dearest and tenderest pleasures of man. and before they separated, it came out that he had been for some time touched with the soft enchantments of love for a young maiden, the daughter of a gentleman of good account in paisley, and that her chaste piety was as the precious gum wherewith the egyptians of old preserved their dead in everlasting beauty, keeping from her presence all taint of impurity and of thoughts sullying to innocence, insomuch that, even were he inclined, as he said many of his brethren would have been, to have acted the part of a secret canker to that fair blossom, the gracious and holy embalmment of her virtues would have proved an incorruptible protection. "but," he exclaimed, with a sorrowful voice, "that which is her glory and my admiration and praise is converted by the bondage of my unnatural vows into a curse to us both. the felicity that we might have enjoyed together in wedded life is forbidden to us as a great crime. but the laws of god are above the canons of the church, the voice of nature is louder than the fulminations of the vatican, and i have resolved to obey the one and give ear to the other despite the horrors that await on apostacy. can you, gilhaize, in aught assist my resolution?" there was so much vehemence and the passion of grief in these ejaculations, that my grandfather wist not well what to say. he told him, however, not to be rash in what he did, nor to disclose his intents save only to those in whom he could confide, for the times were perilous to everyone that slackened in reverence to the papacy, particularly to such as had pastured within the chosen folds of the church. "bide," said he, "till you see what issue is ordained to come from this dreadful deed which so shaketh all the land, making the abbey towers topple and tremble to their oldest and deepest foundations. truth is awakened and gone forth conquering and to conquer. it cannot be that ancient iniquities will be much longer endured, the arm of wrath is raised against them, the sword of revenge is drawn forth from its scabbard by justice, and nature has burst asunder the cords of the roman harlot and stands in her freedom, like samson, when the spirit of the lord was mightily poured upon him, as he awoke from the lap of delilah." the gentle friar, as my grandfather often told, stood for some time astounded at this speech, and then he said,-- "i dreamt not, gilhaize, that beneath a countenance so calm and comely, the zealous fires of a warrior's bravery could have been kindled to so vehement a heat. but i will vex you with no questions. heaven is on your side, and may its redeeming promptings never allow its ministers to rest till the fetters are broken and the slaves are set free." with these words he stepped forward to shake my grandfather by the hand and to bid him farewell, but just as he came to the stirrup he halted and said,-- "it is not for nothing that the remembrance of you has been preserved so much brighter and dearer to me than that of all my kin. there was aye something about you in our heedless days that often made me wonder, i could not tell wherefore, and now, when i behold you in the prime of manhood, it fills me with admiration and awe and makes me do homage to you as a master." much more he added to the same effect, which the modesty of my grandfather would not allow him to repeat; but when they had parted, and my grandfather had ridden forward some two or three miles, he recalled to mind what had passed between them, and he used to say that this discourse with his early friend first opened to him a view of the grievous captivity which nature suffered in the monasteries and convents, notwithstanding the loose lives imputed to their inmates; and he saw that the reformation would be hailed by many that languished in the bondage of their vows as a great and glorious deliverance. but still he was wont to say, even with such as these, it was overly mingled with temporal concernments, and that they longed for it less on account of its immortal issues than for its sensual emancipations. and as he was proceeding on his way in this frame of mind, and thinking on all that he had seen and learnt from the day in which he bade adieu to his father's house, he came to a place where the road forked off in two different airts, and not knowing which to take, he stopped his horse and waited till a man drew nigh whom he observed coming towards him. by this man he was told that the road leading leftward led to kilmarnock and ayr, and the other on the right to kilwinning; so, without saying anything, he turned his horse's head into the latter, the which he was moved to do by sundry causes and reasons. first, he had remarked that the chances in his journey had, in a very singular manner, led him to gain much of that sort of knowledge which the lords of the congregation thirsted for; and second, he had no doubt that winterton was in pursuit of him to kilmarnock, for some purpose of frustration or circumvention, the which, though he was not able to divine, he could not but consider important, if it was, as he thought, the prime motive of that varlet's journey. but he was chiefly disposed to prefer the kilwinning road, though it was several miles more of bout-gait, on account of the rich abbacy in that town, hoping he might glean and gather some account how the clergy there stood affected, the meeting with dominick callender having afforded him a vista of friends and auxiliaries in the enemy's camp little thought of. besides all this, he reflected, that as it was of consequence he should reach the lord boyd in secrecy, he would be more likely to do so by stopping at kilwinning and feeing someone there to guide him to the dean castle by moonlight. i have heard him say, however, the speakable motives of his deviation from the straight road were at the time far less effectual in moving him thereto than a something which he could not tell, that with an invisible hand took his horse, as it were, by the bridle-rings and constrained him to go into the kilwinning track. in the whole of this journey there was indeed a very extraordinary manifestation of a special providence, not only in the protection vouchsafed towards himself, but in the remarkable accidents and occurrences by which he was enabled to enrich himself with the knowledge so precious at that time to those who were chosen to work the great work of the gospel in scotland. chapter xiv as my grandfather came in sight of kilwinning, and beheld the abbey with its lofty horned towers and spiky pinnacles and the sands of cunningham between it and the sea, it seemed to him as if a huge leviathan had come up from the depths of the ocean and was devouring the green inland, having already consumed all the herbage of the wide waste that lay so bare and yellow for many a mile, desert, and lonely in the silent sunshine, and he ejaculated to himself that the frugal soil of poor scotland could ne'er have been designed to pasture such enormities. as he rode on, his path descended from the heights into pleasant tracks along banks feathered with the fragrant plumage of the birch and hazel, and he forgot, in hearkening to the cheerful prattle of the garnock waters, as they swirled among the pebbles by the roadside, the pageantries of that mere bodily worship which had worked on the ignorance of the world to raise such costly monuments of the long-suffering patience of heaven, while they showed how much the divine nature of the infinite god and the humility of his eternal son had been forgotten in this land among professing christians. when he came nigh the town he inquired for an hostel, and a stripling, the miller's son, who was throwing stones at a flock of geese belonging to the abbey, then taking their pleasures uninvited in his father's mill-dam, guided him to the house of theophilus lugton, the chief vintner, horse-setter and stabler in the town, where, on alighting, he was very kindly received; for the gudewife was of a stirring, household nature, and theophilus himself, albeit douce and temperate for a publican, was a man obliging and hospitable, not only as became him in his trade but from a disinterested good-will. he was, indeed, as my grandfather came afterwards to know, really a person holden in great respect and repute by the visitors and pilgrims who resorted to the abbey, and by none more than by the worthy wives of irvine, the most regular of his customers. for they being then in the darkness of papistry, were as much given to the idolatry of holidays and masses as, thanks be and praise! they are now to the hunting out of sound gospel preachers and sacramental occasions. many a stoup of burnt wine and spiced ale they were wont at pace and yule and other papistal high times to partake of together in the house of theophilus lugton, happy and well content when their possets were flavoured with the ghostly conversation of some gawsie monk well versed in the mysteries of requiems and purgatory. having parted with his horse to be taken to the stable by theophilus himself, my grandfather walked into the house, and dame lugton set for him an elbow-chair by the chimla lug, and while she was preparing something for a repast they fell into conversation, in the course of which she informed him that a messenger had come to the abbey that forenoon from edinburgh, and a rumour had been bruited about soon after his arrival that there was great cause to dread a rising among the heretics, for, being ingrained with papistry, she so spoke of the reformers. this news troubled my grandfather not a little, and the more he inquired concerning the tidings the more reason he got to be alarmed and to suspect that the bearer was winterton, who being still in the town, and then at the abbey--his horse was in theophilus lugton's stable--he could not but think that in coming to kilwinning instead of going right on to kilmarnock he had run into the lion's mouth. but, seeing it was so, and could not be helped, he put his trust in the lord and resolved to swerve in no point from the straight line which he had laid down for himself. while he was eating of dame lugton's fare with the relishing sauce of a keen appetite, in a manner that no one who saw him could have supposed he was almost sick with a surfeit of anxieties, one james coom, a smith, came in for a mutchkin-cap of ale, and he, seeing a traveller, said,-- "thir's sair news! the drouth of cauld iron will be slockened in men's blood ere we hear the end o't." "'deed," replied my grandfather, "it's very alarming; lucky, here, has just been telling me that there's likely to be a straemash among the reformers. surely they'll ne'er daur to rebel." "if a' tales be true, that's no to do," said the smith, blowing the froth from the cap in which dame lugton handed him the ale, and taking a right good-willy waught. "but what's said?" inquired my grandfather, when the smith had fetched his breath. "naebody can weel tell," was his response; "a' that's come this length is but the sough afore the storm. within twa hours there has been a great riding hither and yon, and a lad straight frae embro' has come to bid my lord abbot repair to the court; and three chiels hae been at me frae eglinton castle to get their beast shod for a journey. my lord there is hyte and fykie; there's a gale in his tail, said they, light where it may. now, atween oursels, my lord has na the heart of a true bairn to that aged and worthy grannie of the papistry, our leddy the virgin mary--here's her health, poor auld deaf and dumb creature--she has na, i doubt, the pith to warsle wi' the blast she ance in a day had." "haud that heretical tongue o' thine, jamie coom," exclaimed dame lugton. "it's enough to gaur a body's hair stand on end to hear o' your familiarities wi' the holy virgin. i won'er my lord abbot has na langsyne tethert thy tongue to the kirk door wi' a red-het nail for sic blasphemy. but fools are privileged, and so's seen o' thee." "and wha made me familiar wi' her, dame lugton, tell me that?" replied james; "was na it my lord himself at last marymas, when he sent for me to make a hoop to mend her leg that sklintered aff as they were dressing her for the show. eh! little did i think that i was ever to hae the honour and glory of ca'ing a nail intil the timber hip o' the virgin mary! ah, lucky, ye would na hae tholed the dirl o' the dints o' my hammer as she did. but she's a saint, and ye'll ne'er deny that ye're a sinner." to this dame lugton was unable to reply, and the smith, cunningly winking, dippet his head up to the lugs in the ale-cap. "but," said my grandfather, "no to speak wi' disrespeck of things considered wi' reverence, it does na seem to me that there is ony cause to think the reformers hae yet rebelled." "i am sure," replied the smith, "if they hae na they ought, or the de'il a spunk's amang them. isna a' the monks frae john o' groat's to the border getting ready their spits and rackses, frying-pans and branders to cook them like capons and doos for horney's supper? i never hear my ain bellows snoring at a gaud o' iron in the fire but i think o' fat father lickladle, the abbey's head kitchener, roasting me o'er the low like a laverock in his collop-tangs; for, as dame lugton there weel kens, i'm ane o' the reformed. heh! but it's a braw thing this reformation. it used to cost me as muckle siller for the sin o' getting fu', no aboon three or four times in the year, as would hae kept ony honest man blithe and ree frae new'erday to hogmanæ; but our worthy hostess has found to her profit that i'm now ane of her best customers. what say ye, lucky?" "truly," said dame lugton, laughing, "thou's no an ill swatch o' the reformers; and naebody need be surprised at the growth o' heresy wha thinks o' the dreadfu' cost the professors o't used to be at for pardons. but maybe they'll soon find that the de'il's as hard a taxer as e'er the kirk was; for ever since thou has refraint frae paying penance, thy weekly calks ahint the door ha'e been on the increase, jamie, and no ae plack has thou mair to spare. so muckle gude thy reforming has done thee." "bide awee, lucky," cried the smith, setting down the ale-cap which he had just emptied; "bide awee, and ye'll see a change. surely it was to be expecket, considering the spark in my hass, that the first use i would mak' o' the freedom o' the reformation would be to quench it, which i never was allowed to do afore; and whenever that's done, ye'll see me a geizen't keg o' sobriety, tak the word o' a drouthy smith for't." at this jink o' their controversy who should come into the house, ringing ben to the hearth-stane with his iron heels and the rattling rowels o' his spurs, but winterton, without observing my grandfather, who was then sitting with his back to the window light, in the arm-chair at the chimla lug; and when he had ordered dame lugton to spice him a drink of her best brewing, he began to joke and jibe with the blacksmith, the which allowing my grandfather time to compose his wits, which were in a degree startled. he saw that he could not but be discovered, so he thought it was best to bring himself out. accordingly, in as quiet a manner as he was able to put on, he said to winterton,-- "i hae a notion that we twa ha'e forgathered no lang sincesyne." at the sound of these words winterton gave a loup, as if he had tramped on something no canny, syne a whirring sort of triumphant whistle, and then a shout, crying,-- "ha, ha! tod lowrie! hae i yirded you at last?" but instanter he recollected himsel', and giving my grandfather a significant look, as if he wished him no to be particular, he said, "i heard o' you, gilhaize, on the road, and i was fain to hae come up wi' you, that we might hae travelled thegither. howsever, i lost scent at glasgow." and then he continued to haver with him, in his loose and profligate manner, anent the glasgow damsels, till the ale was ready, when he pressed my grandfather to taste, never letting wot how they had slept together in the same bed; and my grandfather, on his part, was no less circumspect, for he discerned that winterton intended to come over him, and he was resolved to be on his guard. chapter xv when winterton had finished his drink, which he did hastily, he proposed to my grandfather that they should take a stroll through the town; and my grandfather being eager to throw stour in his eyes, was readily consenting thereto. "weel," said the knave, when he had warily led him into the abbey kirk-yard, "i didna think ye would hae gane back to my lord; but it's a' very weel, since he has looked o'er what's past, and gi'en you a new dark." "he's very indulgent," replied my grandfather, "and i would be looth to wrang so kind a master;" and he looked at winterton. the varlet, however, never winced, but rejoined lightly,-- "but i wish you had come back to widow rippet's, for ye would hae spar't me a hard ride. scarcely had ye ta'en the road when my lord mindit that he had neglekit to gie you the sign, by the which ye were to make yoursel and message kent to his friends, and i was sent after to tell you." "i'm glad o' that," replied my grandfather; "what is't?" winterton was a thought molested by this thrust of a question, and for the space of about a minute said nothing, till he had considered with himself, when he rejoined,-- "three lads were sent off about the same time wi' you, and the earl was nae quite sure, he said, whilk of you a' he had forgotten to gie the token whereby ye would be known as his men. but the sign for the earl of eglinton, to whom i guess ye hae been sent, by coming to kilwinning, is no the same as for the lord boyd, to whom i thought ye had been missioned; for i hae been at the dean castle, and finding you not there, followed you hither." "i'll be plain wi' you," said my grandfather to this draughty speech. "i'm bound to the lord boyd; but coming through paisley, when i reached the place where the twa roads branched, i took the ane that brought me here, instead of the gate to kilmarnock; so, as soon as my beast has eaten his corn, i mean to double back to the dean castle." "how, in the name of the saints and souls, did ye think, in going frae glasgow to kilmarnock, o' taking the road to paisley?" "'deed, an' ye were acquaint," said my grandfather, "wi' how little i knew o' the country, ye would nae speir that question; but since we hae fallen in thegither, and are baith, ye ken, in my lord glencairn's service, i hope you'll no objek to ride back wi' me to the lord boyd's." "then it's no you that was sent to the earl of eglinton?" exclaimed winterton, pretending more surprise than he felt; "and all my journey has been for naething. howsever, i'll go back wi' you to kilmarnock, and the sooner we gang the better." little farther discourse then passed, for they returned to the hostel, and ordering out their horses, were soon on the road; and as they trotted along, winterton was overly outspoken against the papisticals, calling them all kinds of ill names, and no sparing the queen regent. but my grandfather kept a calm tongue, and made no reflections. "howsever," said winterton, pulling up his bridle and walking his horse as they were skirting the moor of irvine, leaving the town about a mile off on the right, "you and me, gilhaize, that are but servants, need nae fash our heads wi' sic things. the wyte o' wars lie at the doors of kings, and the soldiers are free o' the sin o' them. but how will ye get into the presence and confidence of the lord boyd?" "i thought," replied my grandfather, pawkily, "that ye had gotten our master's token; and i maun trust to you." "oh," cried winterton, "i got but the ane for the lad sent to eglinton castle." "and ha'e ye been there?" said my grandfather. winterton didna let wot that he heard this, but, stooping over on the off-side of his horse, pretended he was righting something about his stirrup-leather. my grandfather was, however, resolved to prob him to the quick; so, when he was again sitting upright, he repeated the question, if he had been to eglinton castle. "o, ay," cried the false loon; "i was there, but the bird was flown." "and how got he the ear of the earl," said my grandfather, "not having the sign?" "in for a penny in for a pound," was winterton's motto, and ae lie with him was father to a race. "luckily for him," replied he, "some of the serving-men kent him as being in glencairn's service, so they took him to their master." my grandfather had no doubt that there was some truth in this, though he was sure winterton knew little about it; for it agreed with what james coom, the smith, had said about the lads from eglinton that had been at his smiddy to get the horses shod, and remembering the leathern purses under the earl his master's pillow, he was persuaded that there had been a messenger sent to the head of the montgomeries, and likewise to other lords, friends of the congregation; but he saw that winterton went by guess, and lied at random. still, though not affecting to notice it, nor expressing any distrust, he could not help saying to him, that he had come a long way, and after all it looked like a gowk's errand. the remark, however, only served to give winterton inward satisfaction, and he replied with a laugh, that it made little odds to him where he was sent, and that he'd as lief ride in ayrshire as sorn about the causey of enbrough. in this sort of talk and conference they rode on together, the o'ercome every now and then of winterton's discourse being concerning the proof my grandfather carried with him, whereby the lord boyd would know he was one of glencairn's men. but, notwithstanding all his wiles and devices to howk the secret out of him, his drift being so clearly discerned, my grandfather was enabled to play with him till they were arrived at kilmarnock, where winterton proposed to stop till he had delivered his message to the lord boyd, at the dean castle. "that surely cannot be," replied my grandfather; "for ye ken, as there has been some mistak about the sign whereby i am to make myself known, ye'll ha'e to come wi' me to expound, in case of need. in trooth, now that we hae forgatherit, and as i ha'e but this ae message to a' the shire of ayr, i would fain ha'e your company till i see the upshot." winterton could not very easily make a refusal to this, but he hesitated and swithered, till my grandfather urged him again;--when, seeing no help for it, and his companion, as he thought, entertaining no suspicion of him, he put on a bold face and went forward. when they had come to the dean castle, which stands in a pleasant green park about a mile aboon the town-head of kilmarnock, on entering the gate, my grandfather hastily alighted, and giving his horse a sharp prick of his spur as he lap off, the beast ran capering out of his hand, round the court of the castle. with the well-feigned voice of great anxiety, my grandfather cried to the servants to shut the gate and keep it in; and winterton alighting, ran to catch it, giving his own horse to a stripling to hold. at the same moment, however, my grandfather sprung upon him, and seizing him by the throat, cried out for help to master a spy. winterton was so confounded that he gasped and looked round like a man demented, and my grandfather ordered him to be taken by the serving-men to their master, before whom, when they were all come, he recounted the story of his adventures with the prisoner, telling his lordship what his master, the earl of glencairn, suspected of him. to which, when winterton was asked what he had to say, he replied bravely, that it was all true, and he was none ashamed to be so catched, when it was done by so clever a fellow. he was then ordered by the lord boyd to be immured in the dungeon-room, the which may be seen to this day; and though his captivity was afterwards somewhat relaxed, he was kept a prisoner in the castle till after the death of the queen dowager, and the breaking-up of her two-faced councils. this exploit won my grandfather great favour, and he scarcely needed to show the signet-ring when he told his message from the lords of the congregation. chapter xvi by such devices and missions, as my grandfather was engaged in for the earl glencairn with the lord boyd, a thorough understanding was concerted among the reformed throughout the kingdom; and encouraged by their great strength and numbers, which far exceeded what was expected, the lords of the congregation set themselves roundly to work, and the protestant preachers openly published their doctrines. soon after my grandfather had returned from the shire of ayr, there was a weighty consultation held at the earl his patron's lodging in edinburgh, whereat, among others present, was that pious youth, afterwards the good regent murray. he was, by office and appointment, then the head and lord of the priory of st andrews; but his soul cleaving to the reformation and the gospel, he laid down the use of that title, and about this time began to be called the lord james stuart. the lords of the congregation, feeling themselves strong in the goodness of their cause and the number of their adherents, resolved at this council, that they should proceed firmly but considerately to work, and seek redress as became true lieges, by representation and supplication. accordingly a paper was drawn up, wherein they set forth how, for conscience sake, the reformed had been long afflicted with banishment, confiscation of goods, and death in its cruellest forms. that continual fears darkened their lives till, being no longer able to endure such calamities, they were compelled to beg a remedy against the oppressions and tyranny of the estate ecclesiastical, which had usurped an unlimited domination over the minds of men,--the faggot and the sword being the weapons which the prelates employed to enforce their mandates,--plain truths that were thus openly stated in order to show that the suppliants were sincere; and they concluded with a demand, that the original purity of the christian religion should be restored, and the government so improved as to afford them security in their persons, opinions, and property. sir james calder of sandilands was the person chosen to present this memorial to the queen regent; and never, said my grandfather, was an agent more fitly chosen to uphold the dignity of his trust, or to preserve the respect which, as good subjects, the reformed desired to maintain and manifest towards the authority regal. he was a man far advanced in life; but there was none of the infirmities of age under the venerable exterior with which time had clothed his appearance. of great honour and a pure life, he was reverenced by all parties, and had acquired both renown and affection, through his services to the realm and his manifold virtues. on a day appointed by the queen regent, the lords and leaders of the congregation attended sandilands, each with a stately retinue, to holyrood house; my grandfather having leave from the earl, his master, to wait on his person on that occasion. it was a solemn day to the worshippers of the true god, who came in great multitudes to the town, many from distant parts, to be present, and to hear the issue of a conference that was to give liberty to the consciences of all devout scotchmen. from the house in the lawnmarket, where the lords assembled, down to the very yetts of the palace, the sight was as if the street had been paved with faces, and windows over windows, roofs and lum-heads, were clustered with women and children. all temporal cares and businesses were that day suspended: in the accents and voices of men there was an awful sobriety, few speaking, and what was said, sounded as if every one was affected with the sense of some high and everlasting interest at stake. when the lords went down into the street, there was, for a brief interval, a stir and a murmur in the multitude, which opened to the right and left as when the waves of the red sea were opened, and through the midst thereof prepared a miraculous road for the children of israel. a deep silence succeeded, and sandilands, with his hoary head uncovered, bearing in his hand the supplication and remonstrance, walked forward; and the lords went after also all bareheaded, and every one with them followed in like manner as reverentially as their masters. the people, as they passed along, slowly and devoutly, took off their caps and bonnets, and bowed their heads as when the ark of the covenant of the lord was of old brought back from the philistines; and many wept, and others prayed aloud, and there was wonder, and awe, and dread, mingled with thoughts of unspeakable confidence and glory. when sandilands and those with him were conducted into the presence of the queen dowager, she was standing under a canopy of state, surrounded by many of the nobles and prelates, and by her maidens of honour. my grandfather had not seen her before, and having often heard her suspected of double-dealing, and of a superstitious zeal and affection for the papal abominations and cruelties, he had pictured to himself a lean and haggard woman, with a pale and fierce countenance, and was therefore greatly amazed when he beheld a lady of a most sweet and gracious aspect, with mild dark eyes beaming with a chaste dignity, and a high and fair forehead, bright and unwrinkled with any care, and lips formed to speak soft and gentle sentences. in her apparel she was less gay than her ladies, but nevertheless she was more queenly. her dress and mantle were of the richest purple genoese unadorned with embroidery, and round her neck she wore a ruff of fine ermine and a string of princely pearls. a small golden cross of curious graven gold dangled to her waist from a loup in the vale of her bosom. sandilands advanced several paces before the lords by whom he was attended, and falling on his knees, read with a loud and firm voice the memorial of the reformed; and when he had done so and was risen, the queen received a paper that was given to her by her secretary, who stood behind her right shoulder, and also read an answer which had been prepared, and in which she was made to deliver many comfortable assurances, that at the time were received as a great boon with much thankfulness by all the reformed, who had too soon reason to prove the insincerity of those courtly flatteries. for no steps were afterwards taken to give those indulgences by law that were promised; but the papists stirring themselves with great activity, and foreign matters and concerns coming in aid of their stratagems, long before a year passed the mind of the queen and government was fomented into hostility against the protestants. she called into her favour and councils the archbishop of st andrews, with whom she had been at variance; and the devout said, when they heard thereof, that when our saviour was condemned, on the same day herod and pilate were made friends, applying the text to this reconcilation; and boding therefrom woe to the true church. moved by the hatred which his grace bore to the reformers, the queen cited the protestant preachers to appear at stirling to answer to the charges which might there be preferred against them. my grandfather, when this perfidy came to a head, was at finlayston-house, in the shire of renfrew, with the earl, his master, who, when he heard of such a breach of faith, smote the table, as he was then sitting at dinner, with his right hand, and said, "since the false woman has done this, there is nothing for us but the banner and the blade;" and starting from his seat he forthwith ordered horses, and, attended by my grandfather and ten armed servants, rode to glasgow, where sir hugh campbell of loudon, then sheriff of ayr, and other worthies of the time, were assembled on business before the lords of justiciary; and it was instanter agreed, that they should forthwith proceed to stirling where the court was, and remonstrate with the queen. so, leaving all temporal concerns, sir hugh took horse, and they arrived at stirling about the time her highness supped, and going straight to the castle, they stood in the ante-chamber to speak, if possible, with her as she passed. on entering the room to pass to her table she saw them, and looked somewhat surprised and displeased; but without saying anything particular she desired the earl to follow her, and sir hugh, unbidden, went also into the banquet-room. it was seldom that she used state in her household, and on this occasion, it being a popish fast, her table was frugally spread, and only herself sat at the board. "well, glencairn," said she, "what has brought you hither from the west at this time? is the realm to be forever tossed like the sea by this tempest of heresies? the royal authority is not always to be insulted with impunity, and in spite of all their friends the protestant preachers shall be banished from scotland, aye, though their doctrines were as sound as st paul's." the earl, as my grandfather heard him afterwards relate, replied, "your majesty gave your royal promise that the reformed should be protected, and they have done nothing since to cause the forfeiture of so gracious a boon: i implore your majesty to call that sacred pledge to mind." "you lack reason, my lord," she cried, sharply; "it becomes not subjects to burden their princes with promises which it may be inconvenient to keep." "if these, madam, are your sentiments," replied the earl, proudly, "the congregation can no longer acknowledge your authority, and must renounce their allegiance to your government." she had, at the moment, lifted the salt-cellar to sprinkle her salad,--but she was so astonished at the boldness of this speech, that she dropped it from her hand, and the salt was spilt on the floor,--an evil omen which all present noted. "my lord glencairn," said she, thoughtfully, "i would execute my great duties honestly, but your preachers trouble the waters, and i know not where the ford lies that i may safest ride. go ye away and try to keep your friends quiet, and i will consider calmly what is best to be done for the weal of all." at these words the earl and sir hugh campbell bowed, and, retiring, went to the lodging of the earl of monteith, where they were minded to pass the night, but when they had consulted with that nobleman, my grandfather was ordered to provide himself with a fresh horse from monteith's stable, and to set out for edinburgh with letters for the lord james stuart. "gilhaize," said his master, as he delivered them, "i foresee we must buckle on our armour; but the cause of the truth does not require that the first blow should come from our side. by this time john knox, who has been long expected, may be hourly looked for; and as no man stands higher in the aversion of the papists than that brave, honest man, we shall know by the reception he meets with what we ought to do." so my grandfather, putting the letters in his bosom, retired from the presence of the earl, and by break of day reached the west-port and went straight on to the lord james stuart's lodging in the canongate. but, though the household were astir, it was some time before he got admittance, for their master was a young man of great method in all things, and his chaplain was at the time reading the first prayers of the morning, during which the doors were shut, and no one, however urgent his business, could gain admission into that house while the inmates were doing their homage to the king of kings. chapter xvii as my grandfather, in the grey of the morning, was waiting in the canongate till the worship was over in the house of the lord james stuart, he frequently rode up and down the street as far the luckenbooths and the abbey's sanctuary siver, and his mind was at times smitten with the remorse of pity when he saw, as the dawn advanced, the numbers of poor labouring men that came up out of the closes and gathered round the trone, abiding there to see who would come to hire them for the day. but his compassion was soon changed into a frame of thankfulness at the boundless variety of mercies which are dealt out to the children of adam, for he remarked, that, for the most part, these poor men, whose sustenance was as precarious as that of the wild birds of the air, were cheerful and jocund, many of them singing and whistling as blithely as the lark, that carries the sweet incense of her melodious songs in the censer of a sinless breast to the golden gates of the morning. hitherto he had never noted, or much considered, the complicated cares and trials wherewith the lot of man in every station is chequered and environed; and when he heard those bondmen of hard labour, jocund after sound slumbers and light suppers, laughing contemptuously as they beheld the humiliating sight, which divers gallants and youngsters, courtiers of the court, degraded with debauch, made of themselves as they stumbled homeward, he thought there was surely more bliss in the cup that was earned by the constancy of health and a willing mind, than in all the possets and malvesia that the hoards of ages could procure. so he composed his spirit, and inwardly made a vow to the lord, that as soon as the mighty work of the redemption of the gospel from the perdition of papistry was accomplished, he would retire into the lea of some pleasant green holm, and take, for the purpose of his life, the attainment of that happy simplicity which seeks but the supply of the few wants with which man comes so rich from the hands of his maker, that all changes in his natural condition of tilling the ground and herding the flocks only serve to make him poorer by increasing. while he was thus ruminating in the street, he observed two strangers coming up the canongate. one of them had the appearance of a servant, but he was of a staider and more thoughtful aspect than belongs to men of that degree, only he bore on his shoulder a willease, and had in his hand a small package wrapt in a woollen cover and buckled with a leathern strap. the other was the master; and my grandfather halted his horse to look at him as he passed, for he was evidently no common man nor mean personage, though in stature he was jimp the ordinary size. he was bent more with infirmities than the load of his years. his hair and long flowing beard were very grey and venerable, like those of the ancient patriarchs who enjoyed immediate communion with god. but though his appearance was thus aged, and though his complexion and countenance betokened a frail tenement, yet the brightness of youth shone in his eyes, and they were lighted up by a spirit over which time had no power. in his steps and gait he was a little hasty and unsteady, and twice or thrice he was obliged to pause in the steep of the street to draw his breath; but even in this there was an affecting and great earnestness, a working of a living soul within, as if it panted to enter on the performance of some great and solemn hest. he seemed to be eager and zealous like the apostle peter in his temper, and as dauntless as the mighty and courageous paul. many in the street stopped, and looked after him with reverence and marvelling, as he proceeded with quick and desultory steps, followed by his sedate attendant. nor was it surprising, for he was, indeed, one of those who, in their lives, are vast and wonderful,--special creations that are sent down from heaven, with authority attested by the glowing impress of the signet of god on their hearts, to avenge the wrongs done to his truths and laws in the blasphemies of the earth.--it was john knox! when he had passed, my grandfather rode back to the yett of the lord james stuart's lodgings, which by this time was opened, and instanter, on mentioning to the porter from whom he had come, was admitted to his master. that great worthy was at the time sitting alone in a back chamber, which looked towards salisbury crags, and before him, but on the opposite side of the table, among divers letters and papers of business, lay a large bible, with brass clasps thereon, in which, it would seem, some one had been expounding to him a portion of the scriptures. when my grandfather presented to him the letter from the earl of glencairn, he took it from him without much regarding him, and broke open the seal, and began to peruse it to himself in that calm and methodical manner for which he was so famed and remarkable. before, however, he had read above the half thereof, he gave as it were a sudden hitch, and turning round, looked my grandfather sharply in the face, and said,-- "are you gilhaize?" but before any answer could be made, he waved his hand graciously, pointing to a chair, and desired him to sit down, resuming at the same time the perusal of the letter; and when he had finished it, he folded it up for a moment; but, as if recollecting himself, he soon runkled it up in his hand and put it into the fire. "your lord informs me," said he, "that he has all confidence, not only in your honesty, gilhaize, but in your discernment; and says, that in respect to the high question anent christ's cause, you may be trusted to the uttermost. truly, for so young a man, this is an exceeding renown. his letter has told me what passed last night with the queen's highness. i am grieved to hear it. she means well; but her feminine fears make her hearken to counsels that may cause the very evils whereof she is so afraid. but the sincerity of her favour to the reformed will soon be tried, for last night john knox arrived, and i was with him; and, strong in the assurances of his faith, he intends to lead on to the battle. this morning he was minded to depart for fife.--'our captain, christ jesus,' said he, 'and satan, his adversary, are now at open defiance; their banners are displayed, and the trumpet is blown on both sides for assembling their armies.' as soon as it is known that he is within the kingdom, we shall learn what we may expect, and that presently too; for this very day the clergy meet in the monastery of the greyfriars, and doubtless they will be advertised of his coming. you had as well try if you can gain admittance among the other auditors, to hear their deliberations; afterwards come again to me, and report what takes place; by that time i shall be advised whether to send you back to glencairn or elsewhere." my grandfather, after this and some farther discourse, retired to the hall, and took breakfast with the household, where he was much edified with the douce deportment of all present, so unlike that of the lewd and graceless varlets who rioted in the houses of the other nobles. verily, he used to say, the evidences of a reforming spirit were brightly seen there; and, to rule every one into a chaste sobriety of conversation, a pious clerk sate at the head of the board, and said grace before and after the meal, making it manifest how much all things about the lord james stuart were done in order. having taken breakfast, and reposed himself some time, for his long ride had made him very weary, he rose, and, changing his apparel, went to the greyfriars church, where the clergy were assembling, and elbowing himself gently into the heart of the people waiting around for admission, he got in with the crowd when the doors were opened. the matter that morning to be considered concerned the means to be taken, within the local jurisdictions of those there met, to enforce the process of the summons which had been issued against the reformed preachers to appear at stirling. but while they were busily conversing and contriving how best to aid and further that iniquitous aggression of perfidious tyranny, there came in one of the brethren of the monastery, with a frightened look, and cried aloud, that john knox was come, and had been all night in the town. at the news the spectators, as if moved by one spirit, gave a triumphant shout,--the clergy were thunderstruck,--some started from their seats, unconscious of what they did,--others threw themselves back where they sat,--and all appeared as if a judgment had been pronounced upon them. in the same moment the church began to skail,--the session was adjourned,--and the people ran in all directions. the cry rose everywhere, "john knox is come!" all the town came rushing into the streets,--the old and the young, the lordly and the lowly, were seen mingling and marvelling together,--all tasks of duty, and servitude, and pleasure, were forsaken,--the sick-beds of the dying were deserted,--the priests abandoned their altars and masses, and stood pale and trembling at the doors of their churches,--mothers set down their infants on the floors, and ran to inquire what had come to pass,--funerals were suspended, and the impious and the guilty stood aghast, as if some dreadful apocalypse had been made;--travellers, with the bridles in their hands, lingering in profane discourse with their hosts, suddenly mounted, and speeded into the country with the tidings. at every cottage door and wayside bield, the inmates stood in clusters, silent and wondering, as horseman came following horseman, crying, "john knox is come!" barks that had departed, when they heard the news, bore up to tell others that they saw afar at sea. the shepherds were called in from the hills;--the warders on the castle, when, at the sound of many quickened feet approaching, they challenged the comers, were answered, "john knox is come!" studious men were roused from the spells of their books;--nuns, at their windows, looked out fearful and inquiring,--and priests and friars were seen standing by themselves, shunned like lepers. the whole land was stirred as with the inspiration of some new element, and the hearts of the persecutors were withered. "no tongue," often said my grandfather, "could tell the sense of that great event through all the bounds of scotland, and the papistical dominators shrunk as if they had suffered in their powers and principalities, an awful and irremediable overthrow." chapter xviii when my grandfather left the greyfriars, he went to the lodging of the lord james stuart, whom he found well instructed of all that had taken place, which he much marvelled at, having scarcely tarried by the way in going thither. "now, gilhaize," said my lord, "the tidings fly like wildfire, and the queen regent, by the spirit that has descended into the hearts of the people, will be constrained to act one way or another. john knox, as you perhaps know, stands under the ban of outlawry for conscience sake. in a little while we shall see whether he is still to be persecuted. if left free, the braird of the lord, that begins to rise so green over all the land, will grow in peace to a plentiful harvest. but if he is to be hunted down, there will come such a cloud and storm as never raged before in scotland. i speak to you thus freely, that you may report my frank sentiments to thir noble friends and trusty gentlemen, and say to them that i am girded for the field, if need be." he then put a list of several well-known friends of the reformation ayont the frith into my grandfather's hands, adding, "i need not say that it is not fitting now to trust to paper, and therefore much will depend on yourself. the confidence that my friend the earl, your master, has in you, makes me deal thus openly with you; and i may add, that if there is deceit in you, gilhaize, i will never again believe the physiognomy of man--so go your ways; see all these, wheresoever they may be,--and take this purse for your charges." my grandfather accepted the paper and the purse; and reading over the paper, imprinted the names in it on his memory, and then said-- "my lord, i need not risk the possession of this paper; but it may be necessary to give me some token by which the lords and lairds therein mentioned may have assurance that i come from you." for some time the lord james made no reply, but stood ruminating, with the forefinger of his left hand pressing his nether lip; then he observed,-- "your request is very needful;" and taking the paper, he mentioned divers things of each of the persons named in it, which he told my grandfather had passed between him and them severally, when none other was present. "by remembering them of these things," said he, "they will know that you are in verity sent from me." being thus instructed, my grandfather left the lord james, and proceeding forthwith to the pier of leith, embarked in the burntisland ferry-boat--and considering with himself, that the farthest way of those whom he was missioned to see ought to be the first informed, as the nearer had other ways and means of communion, he resolved to go forward to such of them as dwelt in angus and merns; by which resolution he reached dundee shortly after the arrival there of the champion of the reformation, john knox. this resolution proved most wise and fortunate, for, on landing in that town, he found a great concourse of the reformed from the two shires assembled there, and among them many of those to whom he was specially sent. they had come to go with their ministers before the queen regent's counsel at stirling, determined to avow their adherence to the doctrines of which those pious men were accused. and it being foreseen that, as they went forward others would join, my grandfather thought he could do no better in his mission than mingle with them, the more especially as john knox was also to be of that great company. on the day following, they accordingly all set forward towards perth,--and they were a glorious army, mighty with the strength of their great ally the lord of the hosts of heaven. no trumpet sounded in their march, nor was the courageous drum heard among them,--nor the shouts of earthly soldiery,--nor the neigh of the war-horse,--nor the voice of any captain. but they sang hymns of triumph, and psalms of the great things that jehovah had of old done for his people; and though no banner was seen there, nor sword on the thighs of men of might, nor spears in the grasp of warriors, nor crested helmet, nor aught of the panoply of battle, yet the eye of faith beheld more than all these, for the hills and heights of scotland were to its dazzled vision covered that day with the mustered armies of the dreadful god: the angels of his wrath in their burning chariots; the archangels of his omnipotence, calm in their armour of storms and flaming fires, and the rider on the white horse, were all there. as the people with their ministers advanced, their course was like a river, which continually groweth in strength and spreadeth its waters as it rolls onward to the sea. on all sides came streams of new adherents to their holy cause, in so much that when they arrived at perth it was thought best to halt there, lest the approach of so great a multitude, though without weapons, should alarm the queen regent's government. accordingly they made a pause, and erskine of dun, one of the lord james stuart's friends, taking my grandfather with him, and only two other servants, rode forward to stirling to represent to her highness the faith and the firmness of the people. when they arrived, they found the town in consternation. busy were the bailies, marshalling such of the burgesses as could be persuaded to take up arms, but all who joined them were feckless aged men, dealers and traffickers in commodities for the courtiers. proud was the provost that day, and a type of the cause for which he was gathering his papistical remnants. at the sight of dun and his three followers riding up the street to the castle, he was fain to draw out his sword and make a salutation; but it stuck sae dourly in that he was obligated to gar ane of the town-officers hold the scabbard, while he pulled with such might and main at the hilt, that the blade suddenly broke off, and back he stumbled, and up flew his heels, so that even my grandfather was constrained, notwithstanding the solemnity of the occasion, to join in the shout of laughter that rose thereat from all present. but provosts and bailies, not being men of war, should not expose themselves to such adversities. nor was the fyke of impotent preparation within the walls of the castle better. the queen had been in a manner lanerly with her ladies when the sough of the coming multitude reached her. the french guards had not come from glasgow, and there was none of the warlike nobles of the papistical sect at that time at stirling. she had therefore reason both for dread and panic, when the news arrived that all angus and merns had rebelled, for so it was at first reported. on the arrival of dun, he was on the instant admitted to her presence; for she was at the time in the tapestried chamber, surrounded by her priests and ladies, and many officers, all consulting her according to their fears. the sight, said my grandfather, for he also went into the presence, was a proof to him that the cause of the papacy was in the dead-thraws, the judgments of all present being so evidently in a state of discomfiture and desertion. dun going forward with the wonted reverences, the queen said to him abruptly,-- "well, erskine, what is this?" whereupon he represented to her, in a sedate manner, that the reformed ministers were not treated as they had been encouraged to hope; nevertheless, to show their submission to those in temporal authority over them, they were coming, in obedience to the citation, to stand trial. "but their retinue--when have delinquents come to trial so attended?" she exclaimed eagerly. "the people, please your highness," said dun, with a steadfastness of manner that struck every one with respect for him, "the people hold the same opinions and believe the same doctrines as their preachers, and they feel that the offence, if it be offence, of which the ministers are accused, lies equally against them, and therefore they have resolved to make their case a common cause." "and do they mean to daunt us from doing justice against seditious schismatics?" cried her highness somewhat in anger. "they mean," replied dun, "to let your highness see whether it be possible to bring so many to judgment. their sentiment, with one voice, is, cursed be they that seek the effusion of blood, or war, or dissension. let us possess the evangile, and none within scotland shall be more obedient subjects. in sooth, madam, they hold themselves as guilty of the crime charged as their ministers are, and they will suffer with them." "suffer! call you rebellion suffering?" exclaimed the queen. "they have not yet rebelled," said dun, calmly; "they come to remonstrate with your highness first; for, as christians, they are loth to draw the sword. they have no arms with them, to the end that no one may dare to accuse them of any treason." "it is a perilous thing when subjects," said the queen, much troubled, "declare themselves so openly against the authority of their rulers." "it is a bold thing for rulers," replied dun, "to meddle with the consciences of their subjects." "how!" exclaimed the queen, startled and indignant. "i will deal yet more plainly with your highness," said he, firmly. "this pretended offence of which the reformed are accused is not against the royal authority. they are good and true subjects, and, by their walk and conversation, bear testimony to the excellence and purity of those doctrines for which they are resolved to sacrifice their lives rather than submit to any earthly dictation. their controversies pertain to things of christ's kingdom,--it is a spiritual warfare. but the papists, conscious of their weakness in the argument, would fain see your highness abandon that impartial justice which you were called of heaven to administer in your great office, and to act factiously on their side, as if the cause of the gospel could be determined by the arm of flesh." "what has brought you here?" exclaimed the queen, bursting into tears. "to claim the fulfilment of your royal promises," said dun, making a lowly reverence that by its humility took away all arrogance from the boldness of the demand. "i will," said she. "i am ever willing to be just, but this rising has shaken me with apprehensions; therefore, i pray you, erskine, write to your brethren; bid them disperse; and tell them from me, that their ministers shall neither be tried nor molested." at these words, she took the arm of one of her ladies and hastily retired. dun also withdrew, and the same hour sent my grandfather back to perth with letters to the congregation to the effect of her request and assurance. that same evening the multitude broke up and returned to their respective homes, rejoicing with an exceeding great joy at so blessed a termination of their weaponless christian war. dun, however, distrusting the influence of some of those who were of the queen's council, and who had arrived at the castle soon after my grandfather's departure, did not return, as he had intended, next morning to perth, but resolved to wait over the day of trial; or, at least, until the ministers were absolved from attendance on the summons, either by proclamation or other forms of law. chapter xix john knox, among all the ministers who remained at perth after the congregation of the reformed had dispersed, was the only one, my grandfather has been heard to say, that expressed no joy nor exultation at the assurances of the queen regent. "we shall see, we shall see," was all he said to those among them who gloried in the victory; adding, "but if there is truth in the word of god, it is not in the nature of the beast to do otherwise than evil," and his words of discernment and of wisdom were soon verified. erskine of dun, while he remained at stirling, had his eyes and ears open; and in their porches he placed for sentinels, distrust and suspicion. he knew the fluctuating nature of woman; how every succeeding wave of feeling washes away the deepest traces that are traced on the quicksands of her unstable humours; and the danger having passed, he jealoused that the queen regent would forget her terrors, and give herself up to the headlong councils of the adversaries, whom, from her known adherence to the romish ritual, he justly feared she was inclined to favour. nor was he left long in doubt. on the evening before the day which had been appointed for the trial, no proclamation or other token was promulged to appease the anxiety of the cited preachers. he, therefore, thought it needful to be prepared for the worst; so, accordingly, he ordered his two serving-men to have his horses in readiness forth the town in the morning, and there to abide his orders. without giving any other about him the slightest inkling of what he had conceited, he went up betimes to the castle, having learnt that the queen regent was that day to hold a council. and being a man held in great veneration by all parties, and well known to the household of the court, he obtained access to the ante-chamber after the council was met; and standing there, he was soon surprised by her highness coming out, leaning on the arm of the lord wintoun, and seemingly much disturbed. on seeing him she was startled, and paused for a moment, but soon collecting all her pride, she dropped the lord wintoun's arm, and walked straight through the apartment without noticing any one, and holding herself aloft with an air of resolute dignity. dun augured no good from this; but following till the lord wintoun had attended her to the end of the long painted gallery, where she stopped at the door that opened to her private apartments, he there awaited that nobleman's return, and inquired of him if the process against the protestant ministers had been rescinded. "no," said wintoun, peevishly; "the summons have been called over, and they have not appeared, either in person or by agents." "say you so, my lord?" cried dun; "and what is the result?" "outlawry, for non-appearance, is pronounced against them," replied wintoun, haughtily, and went straight back into the council-chamber. dun thought it unnecessary to inquire farther; so, without making more ado, he instanter left the castle, and, going down the town, went to the spot where his horses stood ready, and, mounting, rode off with the tidings to perth, grieving sorely at the gross perfidy and sad deceit which the queen regent had been so practised on, by the heads of the papist faction, to commit. it happened on the same day, that john knox, who remained at perth, a wakeful warder on a post of peril, was moved by the spirit of god to preach a sermon, in which he exposed the idolatry of the mass and the depravity of image-worship. my grandfather was present, and he often said that preaching was an era and epoch worthy to be held in everlasting remembrance. it took place in the greyfriars church. there was an understanding among the people that it was to be there; but many fearing the monks might attempt to prevent it, a vast concourse, chiefly men, assembled at the ordinary mass hour, and remained in the church till the reformer came, so that, had the friars tried to keep him out, they could not have shut the doors. a lane was made through the midst of the crowd to admit the preacher to the pulpit; and when he was seen advancing, aged and feeble, and leaning on his staff, many were moved with compassion, and doubted if it could be the wonderful man of whom every tongue spoke. but when he had ascended and began, he seemed to undergo a great transfiguration. his abject mien and his sickly visage became majestic and glorious. his eyes lightened; his countenance shone as with the radiance of a spirit that blazed within; and his voice dirled to the heart like vehement thunder. sometimes he spoke to the understandings of those who heard him, of that insane doctrine which represented the mission of the redeemer to consist of believing, in despite of sight, and smell, and touch, and taste, that wafers and wine were actually the flesh and blood of a man that was crucified, with nails driven through his feet and hands, many hundred years ago. then, rising into the contemplation of the divinity of the saviour, he trampled under the feet of his eloquence a belief so contrary to the instincts and senses with which infinite wisdom has gifted his creatures; and bursting into ecstasy at the thought of this idolatrous invention, he called on the people to look at the images and the effigies in the building around them, and believe, if they could, that such things, the handy-works of carpenters and masons, were endowed with miraculous energies far above the faculties of man. kindling into a still higher mood, he preached to those very images, and demanded of them, and those they represented, to show any proof that they were entitled to reverence. "god forgive my idolatry!" he exclaimed. "i forget myself--these things are but stocks and stones." not one of all who heard him that day ever gave ear again to papistry. when he had made an end, and retired from the church, many still lingered, discoursing of his marvellous lecture, and among others, my grandfather. an imprudent priest belonging to the convent, little aware of the great conversion which had been wrought, began to prepare for the celebration of the mass, and a callan who was standing near, encouraged by the contempt which some of those around expressed at this folly, jibed the priest, and he drove him away. the boy, however, returned, and levelling a stone at a crucifix on the altar, shattered it to pieces. in an instant, as if caught by a whirlwind, the whole papistical trumpery was torn down and dashed into fragments. the cry of "down with the idols!" became universal: hundreds on hundreds came rushing to the spot. the magistrates and the ministers came flying to beseech order and to soothe the multitude; but a divine ire was upon the people, who heard no voice but only the cry of "down with the idols!" and their answer was, "burn, burn, and destroy!" the monasteries of the black and the grey friars were sacked and rendered desolate, and the gorgeous edifice of the carthusian monks levelled to the ground. so dreadful a tumult had never before been heard of within the realm. many of the best of the reformed deplored the handle it would give to the blasphemies of their foes. even my grandfather was smitten with consternation and grief; for he could not but think that such a temporal outrage would be followed by a terrible temporal revenge as ruthless and complete. sober minds shuddered at the sudden and sacrilegious overthrow of such venerable structures; and many that stood on the threshold of the house of papistical bondage, and were on the point of leaving it, retired in again, and barred the doors against the light, and hugged their errors as blameless compared with such enormities. to no one did the event give pleasure but to john knox. "the work," said he, "has been done, it is true, by the rascal multitude; but when the nests are destroyed the rooks will fly away." the thing, however, most considered at that time was the panic which this intemperance would cause to the queen regent; and my grandfather, seeing it had changed the complexion of his mission, resolved to return the same evening by the queensferry to the lord james stuart at edinburgh. for the people no sooner cooled and came to a sense of reflection, than they discerned that they had committed a heinous offence against the laws, and, apprehending punishment, prepared to defend themselves. thus, by the irresolute and promise-breaking policy of the queen was the people maddened into grievous excesses, and many of those who submitted quietly in the faith of her assurances, and had returned to their respective homes, considered the trumpet as sounded, and began to gird themselves for battle. chapter xx it's far from my hand and intent to write a history of the tribulations which ensued from the day of the uproar and first outbreaking of the wrath of the people against the images of the romish idolatry; and therefore i shall proceed, with all expedient brevity, to relate what farther, in those sore times, fell under the eye of my grandfather, who, when he returned to edinburgh, found the lord james stuart on the point of proceeding to the queen regent at stirling, and he went with him thither. on arriving at the castle, they found the french soldiery all collected in the town, and her highness, like another fiery bellona, vowing to avenge the calamities that had befallen the idols and images of perth; and summoning and envoking the nobility, and every man of substance she could think of, to come with their vassals, that she might be enabled to chastise such sacrilegious rebellion. the lord james stuart seeing her so bent on extremities, and knowing by his secret intelligences, that strong powers were ready to start forward at a moment's warning, both in the west, and in fife, angus and merns, entreated her to listen to more moderate councils than those of revenge and resentment, and rather to think of pacification than of punishment. but she was fiery with passion, and a blinded instrument in the hands of providence to work out the deliverance of the land, even by the crooked policy that her papistical counsellors hurried her into. so that the lord james, seeing she was transported beyond reason, sent my grandfather and other secret emissaries to warn the lords and leaders of the congregation, and to tell them that her highness was minded to surprise perth as soon as she had gathered a sufficient array. the conduct of that great worthy was in this full of wisdom, and foresight, and policy. by staying with the queen he incurred the suspicion of the reformed, to whom he was a devoted friend; but he gained a knowledge of the intents of their enemies, by which he was enabled to turn aside the edge of vengeance when it was meant to be most deadly. accordingly, reckless of the opinions of men, he went forward with the queen's army towards perth; but before they had crossed the water of earn, word was brought to her highness that the earl of glencairn, at the head of two thousand five hundred of the reformed, was advancing from the shire of ayr. such were the fruits of my grandfather's mission to the lord boyd, and he heard likewise that the bold and free lairds of angus and merns, with all their followers, had formed themselves in battle-array to defend the town. still, however, her highness was resolute to go on; for she was instigated by her feminine anger, even as much as by the wicked councils of the papist lords by whom she was surrounded. but when she reached the heights that overlooked the sweet valley of the tay, whose green and gentle bosom was then sparkling with the glances of warlike steel, her heart was softened, and she called to her the lord james stuart and the young earl of argyle--the old lord, his father, had died some time prior,--and sent them to the army of the congregation, that peace might still be preserved. they accordingly went into the town, and sending notice to the leaders of the reformed to appoint two of their party to confer with them, john knox and the master willocks were nominated. my grandfather, who attended the lord james on this occasion, was directed by him to receive the two deputies at the door and to conduct them in; and when they came he was much troubled to observe the state of their minds; for master willocks was austere in his looks as if resolved on quarrel, and the reformer was agitated and angry, muttering to himself as he ascended the stairs, making his staff often dirl on the steps. no sooner were they shown into the presence of the two lords, even before the door was shut, than john knox began to upbraid the lord james for having broken the covenant and forsaken the congregation. much to that effect, my grandfather afterwards learnt, passed; but the lord james pacified him with the assurance that his heart and spirit were still true to the cause, and that he had come with argyle to prevent, if possible, the shedding of blood; he likewise declared both for himself and the earl, who had hitherto always abided by the queen, that if she refused to listen to reasonable terms, or should break any treaty entered into, they would openly take part against her. upon these assurances a treaty was concluded, by which it was agreed that both armies should retire peaceably to their respective habitations; that the town should be made accessible to the queen regent; that no molestation should be given to those who were then in arms for the congregation, and no persecutions undertaken against the reformed,--with other covenants calculated to soothe the congregation and allay men's fears. but no sooner was this treaty ratified, the army of the congregation dispersed, and her highness in possession of the town, than it was manifest no vows nor obligations were binding towards the heretics, as the reformed were called. the queen's french guards, even when attending her into the town, fired into the house of a known zealous protestant and killed his son; the inhabitants were plundered and insulted with impunity, and the magistrates were dismissed to make way for men devoted to papistry. the earl of argyle and lord james stuart, filled with wrath and indignation at such open perfidy, went straight into her highness' presence without asking audience, and reproached her with deceit and craftiness; and having so vented their minds, instanter quitted the court and the town, and, attended by my grandfather and a few other servants, departed for fife, to which john knox had also retired after the dispersion of the congregation at perth. the lord james, in virtue of being prior of st andrews, went thither attended by the earl, and sent my grandfather to crail, where the reformer was then preaching, to invite him to meet them and others of the congregation with all convenient expedition. my grandfather never having been before in crail, and not knowing how the people there might stand affected, instead of inquiring for john knox, bethought himself of his acquaintance with bailie kilspinnie, and so speired his way to his dwelling, little hoping, from the fearful nature of that honest man, he would find him within. but, contrary to his expectation, he was not only there, but he welcomed my grandfather as an old and very cordial friend, leading him into his house and making much of him, telling him, with a voice of cheerfulness, that the day of reckoning had at last overtaken the lascivious idolaters. then he caused to be brought in before my grandfather the five pretty babies that his wife had abandoned for her papistical paramour, the eldest of whom was but turned of nine years. the thoughts of their mother's shame overcame their father at that moment, and the tears coming into his eyes he sobbed aloud as he looked at them, and wept bitterly, while they flocked around, and wreathed him, as it were, with their caresses and innocent blandishments. so tender a scene melted my grandfather's spirit into sadness; and he could not remain master of himself, when the eldest, a mild and meek little maiden, said to him, as if to excuse her father's sorrow, "a foul friar made my mother an ill-doer, and took her away ae night when she was just done wi' harkening our prayers." at this juncture, a blooming and modest-eyed damsel came into the room; but, seeing a stranger, she drew back and was going away, when the bailie, drying his eyes, said,-- "come ben, elspa; this is the young man that ye hae heard me sae commend for his kind friendship to me, in that dotage-dauner that i made in my distraction to st andrews. this," he added, turning to my grandfather, "is elspa ruet, the sister of that misfortunate woman;--to my helpless bairns she does their mother's duty." elspa made a gentle beck as her brother-in-law was speaking, and, turning round, dropt a tear on the neck of the youngest baby, as she leant down to take it up for a screen to hide her blushing face, that reddent with the thought at seeing one who had so witnessed her sister's shame. from that hour her image had a dear place in my grandfather's bosom, and after the settlement of the reformation throughout the realm, he courted her, and she became his wife, and in process of time my grandmother. but of her manifold excellencies i shall have occasion to speak more at large hereafter, for she was no ordinary woman, but a saint throughout life, returning in a good old age to her maker, almost as blameless as she came from his pure hands; and nothing became her more in all her piety, than the part she acted towards her guilty sister. having taken away the children, she then brought in divers refreshments, and a flagon of posset; but she remained not with the bailie and my grandfather while they partook thereof; so that they were left free to converse as they listed, and my grandfather was glad to find, as i have already said, that the poor man had triumphed over his fond grief, and was reconciled to his misfortunes as well as any father could well be, with so many deserted babies, and three of them daughters. he likewise learnt, with no less solace and satisfaction, that the reformed were strong in crail, and that the magistrates and beinest burgesses had been present on the day before at the preaching of john knox, and had afterwards suffered the people to demolish the images and all the monuments of papistry, without molestation or hinderance; so that the town was cleansed of the pollution of idolatry, and the worship of humble and contrite hearts established there, instead of the pagan pageantry of masses and altars. after the repast was finished, the bailie conducted my grandfather to the house where john knox then lodged, to whom he communicated his message from the lord james stuart. "tell your master," was the reply of the reformer, "that i will be with him, god willing; and god is willing, for this invitation, and the state of men's minds, maketh his will manifest. yea, i was minded myself to go thither; for that same city of st andrews is the zion of scotland. of old, the glad tidings of salvation were first heard there,--there, amidst the damps and the darkness of ages, the ancient culdees, men whose memory is still fragrant for piety and purity of faith and life, supplied the oil of the lamp of the living god for a period of four hundred years, independent of pope, prelate, or any human supremacy. there it was that a spark of their blessed embers was, in our own day, first blown into a flame,--and there, please god, where i, his unworthy instrument, was condemned as a criminal for his truth's sake, shall i, in his strength, be the herald of his triumph and great victory." chapter xxi when my grandfather had returned to the bailie's house after delivering his message to the reformer, he spent an evening of douce but pleasant pastime with him and the modest elspa ruet, whose conversation was far above her degree, and seasoned with the sweet savour of holiness. but ever and anon, though all parties strove to eschew the subject, they began to speak of her erring sister, the bailie compassionating her continuance in sin as a man and a christian should, but showing no wish nor will to mind her any more as kith or kin to him or his; a temper that my grandfather was well content to observe he had attained. not so was that of elspa; but her words were few and well chosen, and they made a deep impression on my grandfather; for she seemed fain to hide what was passing in her heart. twice or thrice she spoke of the ties of nature, intimating that they were as a bond and obligation laid on by the maker, whereby kindred were bound to stand by one another in weal or in woe, lest those who sinned should be utterly abandoned by all the world. the which tender and christian sentiment, though it was melodious to my grandfather's spirit, pierced it with a keen pain; for he thought of the manner in which he had left his own parents, even though it was for the blessed sake of religion, and his bosom was at the moment filled with sorrow. but, when he said how much he regretted and was yet unrepentant of that step, elspa cheered him with a consolation past utterance, by reminding him, that he had neither left them to want nor to sin; that, by quitting the shelter of their wing, he had but obeyed the promptings of nature, and that if, at any time hereafter, father or mother stood in need of his aid or exhortation, he could still do his duty. without well considering what he said, the bailie observed on this, that he was surprised to hear her say so, and yet allow her sister to remain so long unreproved in her offences. elspa ruet to this made no immediate reply,--she was indeed unable; and my grandfather sympathised with her, for the sting had plainly penetrated to the very marrow of her soul. at last, however, she said,-- "your reproach is just, i hae been to blame baith to heaven and man--but the thing has na been unthought, only i kent na how to gang about the task; and yet what gars me say sae but a woman's weakness, for the road's no sae lang to st andrews, and surely iniquity does not there so abound, that no ane would help me to the donsie woman's bower." my grandfather, on hearing this, answered, that if she was indeed minded to try to rescue her sister, he was ready and willing to do all with her and for her that she could desire; but, bearing in mind the light woman's open shame, he added, "i'm fearful it's yet owre soon to hope for her amendment: she'll hae to fin the evil upshot of her ungodly courses, i doubt, before she'll be wrought into a frame of sincere penitence." "nevertheless," replied elspa ruet, "i will try; it's my duty, and my sisterly love bids me no to be slothful in the task." at which words she burst into sore and sorrowful weeping, saying, "alas, alas! that she should have so fallen!--i loved her--oh! naebody can tell how dearly--even as i loved myself. when i first saw my ain face in a looking-glass i thought it was her, and kissed it for the likeness, in pity that it didna look sae fair as it was wont to be. but it's the lord's pleasure, and in permitting her to sink so low he has no doubt some lesson to teach." thus, from less to more, as they continued conversing, it was agreed that elspa ruet should ride on a pad ahint my grandfather next morning to st andrews, in order to try if the thing could be to move her sister to the humiliation of contrition for her loose life. and some small preparations being needful, elspa departed and left the bailie and my grandfather together. "but," said my grandfather to him, after she had been some time away, "is't your design to take the unfortunate woman back among your innocent lassie bairns?" "no," replied the bailie; "that's no a thing to be now thought of; please providence, she'll ne'er again darken my door; i'll no, however, allow her to want. her mother, poor auld afflicted woman, that has ne'er refraint from greeting since her flight, she'll tak her in; but atween her and me there's a divorce for ever." by daylight my grandfather had his horse at the door; and elspa having borrowed the provost's lady's pad overnight, it was buckled on, and they were soon after on the road. it was a sunny morning in june, and all things were bright, and blithe, and blooming. the spirits of youth, joy and enjoyment were spread about on the earth. the butterflies, like floating lilies, sailed from blossom to blossom, and the gowans, the bright and beautiful eyes of the summer, shone with gladness, as nature walked on bank and brae, in maiden pride, spreading and showing her new flowery mantle to the sun. the very airs that stirred the glittering trees were soft and genial as the breath of life; and the leaves of the aspine seemed to lap the sunshine like the tongues of young and happy creatures that delight in their food. as my grandfather and elspa ruet rode along together, they partook of the universal benignity with which all things seemed that morning so graciously adorned, and their hearts were filled with the hope that their united endeavours to save her fallen sister would be blessed with success. but when they came in sight of the papal towers and gorgeous edifices of st andrews, which then raised their proud heads, like babel, so audaciously to the heavens, they both became silent. my grandfather's thoughts ran on what might ensue if the archbishop were to subject him to his dominion, and he resolved, as early as possible, to make known his arrival to the lord james stuart, who, in virtue of being head of the priory, was then resident there, and to claim his protection. accordingly he determined to ride with elspa ruet to the house of the vintner in the shoegate, of which i have already spoken, and to leave her under the care of lucky kilfauns, as the hostess was called, until he had done so. but fears and sorrows were busy with the fancy of his fair companion; and it was to her a bitter thing, as she afterwards told him, to think that the purpose of her errand was to entreat a beloved sister to leave a life of shame and sin, and sadly doubting if she would succeed. being thus occupied with their respective cogitations, they entered the city in silence, and reached the vintner's door without having exchanged a word for several miles. there elspa alighted, and being commended to the care of lucky kilfauns, who, though of a free outspoken nature, was a most creditable matron, my grandfather left her, and rode up the gait to the priory yett, where, on his arrival, he made himself known to the porter, and was admitted to the lord prior, as the lord james was there papistically called. having told his lordship that he had delivered his message to john knox, and that the reformer would not fail to attend the call, he then related partly what had happened to himself in his former sojourn at st andrews, and how and for what end he had brought elspa ruet there that day with him, entreating the lord james to give him his livery and protection, for fear of the archbishop; which, with many pleasing comments on his devout and prudent demeanour, that noble worthy most readily vouchsafed, and my grandfather returned to the vintner's. chapter xxii when my grandfather had returned to the vintner's, he found that elspa had conferred with lucky kilfauns concerning the afflicting end and intent of her journey to st andrews; and that decent woman sympathising with her sorrow, telling her of many woful things of the same sort she had herself known, and how a cousin of her mother's, by the father's side, had been wiled away from her home by the abbot of melrose, and never heard tell of for many a day, till she was discovered, in the condition of a disconsolate nun, in a convent, far away in nithsdale. but the great difficulty was to get access to marion ruet's bower, for so, from that day, was mrs kilspinnie called again by her sister; and, after no little communing, it was proposed by lucky kilfauns, that elspa should go with her to the house of a certain widow dingwall, and there for a time take up her abode, and that my grandfather, after putting on the prior's livery, should look about him for the gilly, his former guide, and, through him, make a tryst, to meet the dissolute madam at the widow's house. accordingly the matter was so settled, and while lucky kilfauns, in a most motherly and pitiful manner, carried elspa ruet to the house of the widow dingwall, my grandfather went back to the priory to get the cloak and arms of the lord james' livery. when he was equipped, he then went fearless all about the town, and met with no molestation; only he saw at times divers of the archbishop's men, who recollected him, and who, as he passed, stopped and looked after him, and whispered to one another and muttered fierce words. much he desired to fall in with that humane samaritan, leonard meldrum, the seneschal of the castle, and fain would he have gone thither to inquire for him; but, until he had served the turn of the mournful elspa ruet, he would not allow any wish of his own to lead him to aught wherein there was the hazard of any trouble that might balk her pious purpose. after daunering from place to place, and seeing nothing of the stripling, he was obligated to give twalpennies to a stabler's lad to search for him, who soon brought him to the vintner's, where my grandfather, putting on the look of a losel and roister, gave him a groat, and bade him go to the madam's dwelling, and tell her that he would be, from the gloaming, all the night at the widow dingwall's, where he would rejoice exceedingly if she could come and spend an hour or two. the stripling, so fee'd, was right glad, and made himself so familiar towards my grandfather, that lucky kilfauns observing it, the better to conceal their plot, feigned to be most obstreperous, flyting at him with all her pith and bir, and chiding my grandfather, as being as scant o' grace as a gaberlunzie, or a novice of the dominicans. however, they worked so well together, that the gilly never misdoubted either her or my grandfather, and took the errand to his mistress, from whom he soon came with a light foot and a glaikit eye, saying she would na fail to keep the tryst. that this new proof of the progress she was making in guilt and sin might be the more tenderly broken to her chaste and gentle sister, lucky kilfauns herself undertook to tell elspa what had been covenanted to prepare her for the meeting. my grandfather would fain have had a milder mediatrix, for the vintner's worthy wife was wroth against the concubine, calling her offence redder than the crimson of schism, and blacker than the broth of the burning brimstone of heresy, with many other vehement terms of indignation, none worse than the wicked woman deserved, though harsh to be heard by a sister, that grieved for her unregenerate condition far more than if she had come from crail to st andrews only to lay her head in the coffin. the paction between all parties being thus covenanted, and lucky kilfauns gone to prepare the fortitude of elspa ruet for the trial it was to undergo, my grandfather walked out alone to pass the time till the trysted hour. it was then late in the afternoon, and as he sauntered along he could not but observe that something was busy with the minds and imaginations of the people. knots of the douce and elderly shopkeepers were seen standing in the streets with their heads laid together; and as he walked towards the priory he met the provost between two of the bailies, with the dean of guild, coming sedately, and with very great solemnity in their countenances, down the crown of the causey, heavily laden with magisterial fears. he stopped to look at them, and he remarked that they said little to one another, but what they did say seemed to be words of weight; and when any of their friends and acquaintances happened to pass, they gave them a nod that betokened much sadness of heart. the cause of all this anxiety was not, in its effects and influence, meted only to the men and magistrates: the women partook of them even to a greater degree. they were seen passing from house to house, out at one door and into the next, and their faces were full of strange matters. one in particular, whom my grandfather noticed coming along, was often addressed with brief questions, and her responses were seemingly as awful as an oracle's. she was an aged carlin, who, in her day, had been a midwife, but having in course of time waxed old, and being then somewhat slackened in the joints of the right side by a paralytic, she eked out the weakly remainder of her thread of life in visitations among the families that, in her abler years, she had assisted to increase and multiply. she was then returning home after spending the day, as my grandfather afterwards heard from the widow dingwall, with the provost's daughter, at whose birth she had been the howdy, and who, being married some months, had sent to consult her anent a might-be occasion. as she came toddling along, with pitty-patty steps, in a rose satin mantle that she got as a blithemeat gift when she helped the young master of elcho into the world, drawn close over her head, and leaning on a staff with her right hand, while in her left she carried a flanders pig of strong ale, with a clout o'er the mouth to keep it from jawping, scarcely a door or entry mouth was she allowed to pass, but she was obligated to stop and speak, and what she said appeared to be tidings of no comfort. all these things bred wonder and curiosity in the breast of my grandfather, who, not being acquaint with any body that he saw, did not like for some time to inquire; but at last his diffidence and modesty were overcome by the appearance of a strong party of the archbishop's armed retainers, followed by a mob of bairns and striplings, yelling, and scoffing at them with bitter taunts and many titles of derision; and on inquiring at a laddie what had caused the consternation in the town, and the passage of so many soldiers from the castle, he was told that they expected john knox the day following, and that he was mindet to preach, but the archbishop has resolved no to let him. it was even so; for the lord james stuart, who possessed a deep and forecasting spirit, had, soon after my grandfather's arrival with the reformer's answer, made the news known to try the temper of the inhabitants and burghers. but, saving this marvelling and preparation, nothing farther of a public nature took place that night; so that, a short time before the hour appointed, my grandfather went to the house of widow dingwall, where he found elspa ruet sitting very disconsolate in a chamber by herself, weeping bitterly at the woful account which lucky kilfauns had brought of her sister's loose life, and fearing greatly that all her kind endeavours and humble prayers would be but as water spilt on the ground. chapter xxiii as the time of appointment drew near, elspa ruet was enabled to call in her wandering and anxious thoughts, and, strengthened by her duty, the blessing of the tranquil mind was shed upon her. her tears were dried up, and her countenance shone with a serene benignity. when she was an aged, withered woman, my grandfather has been heard to say that he never remembered her appearance without marvelling at the special effusion of holiness and beauty which beamed and brightened upon her in that trying hour, nor without thinking that he still beheld the glory of its twilight glowing through the dark and faded clouds of her old age. they had not sat long when a tapping was heard at the widow's door, and my grandfather, starting up, retired into a distant corner of the room, behind a big napery press, and sat down in the obscurity of its shadow. elspa remained in her seat beside the table, on which a candle was burning, and, as it stood behind the door, she could not be seen by any coming in till they had passed into the middle of the floor. in little more than the course of a minute, the voice of her sister was heard, and light footsteps on the timber stair. the door was then opened, and marion swirled in with an uncomely bravery. elspa started from her seat. the guilty and convicted creature uttered a shriek; but in the same moment her pious sister clasped her with loving-kindness in her arms, and bursting into tears, wept bitterly, with sore sobs, for some time on her bosom, which was wantonly unkerchiefed. after a short space of time, with confusion of face, and frowns of mortification, and glances of rage, the abandoned marion disengaged herself from her sister's fond and sorrowful embraces, and, retreating to a chair, sat down, and seemed to muster all the evil passions of the guilty breast,--fierce anger, sharp hatred, and gnawing contempt; and a bad boldness of look that betokened a worse spirit than them all. "it was na to see the like of you i cam' here," said she, with a scornful toss of her head. "i ken that, marion," replied elspa, mournfully. "and what business then hae ye to come to snool me?" elspa for a little while made no answer to this, but, drying her eyes, she went to her seat composedly, and then said,-- "'cause ye're my sister, and brought shame and disgrace on a' your family. o, marion, i'm wae to say this! but ye're owre brave in your sin." "do ye think i'll e'er gae back to that havering, daunering cuif o' a creature, the crail bailie?" "he's a man o' mair worth and conduct, marion," replied her sister, firmly, "than to put that in your power--even, woman, if ye were penitent, and besought him for charity." "weel, weel, no to clishmaclaver about him. how's a' wi' the bairns?" "are ye no frighted, marion, to speer sic a question, when ye think how ye left them, and what for ye did sae?" "am na i their mither, have na i a right to speer?" "no," said elspa; "when ye forgot that ye were their father's wife, they lost their mother." "ye need na be sae snell wi' your taunts," exclaimed marion, evidently endeavouring to preserve the arrogance she had assumed; "ye need na be sae snell; i'm far better off, and happier than e'er i was in james kilspinnie's aught." "that's no possible," said her sister. "it would be an unco thing of heaven to let wickedness be happier than honesty." "but, marion, dinna deceive yoursel, ye hae nae sure footing on the steading where ye stan'. the bishop will nae mair, than your guidman, thole your loose life to him. if he kent ye were here, i doubt he would let you bide, and what would become of you then?" "he's no sic a fool as to be angry that i am wi' my sister." "that may be," replied elspa: "i'm thinking, however, if in my place here he saw but that young man," and she pointed to my grandfather, whom her sister had not till then observed, "he would have some cause to consider." marion attempted to laugh scornfully, but her heart gurged within her, and instead of laughter, her voice broke out into wild and horrid yells, and falling back in her chair, she grew stiff and ghastly to behold, in so much that both elspa and my grandfather were terrified, and had to work with her for some time before they were able to recover her; nor indeed did she come rightly to herself till she got relief by tears; but they were tears of rage, and not shed for any remorse on account of her foul fault. indeed, no sooner was she come to herself, than she began to rail at her sister and my grandfather, calling them by all the terms of scorn that her tongue could vent. at last she said,-- "but nae doubt ye're twa reformers." "ay," replied elspa, "in a sense we are sae, for we would fain help to reform you." but after a long, faithful, and undaunted endeavour on the part of elspa, in this manner, to reach the sore of her sinful conscience, she saw that all her ettling was of no avail, and her heart sank, and she began to weep, saying, "o, marion, marion, ye were my dear sister ance; but frae this night, if ye leave me to gang again to your sins, i hope the lord will erase the love i bear you utterly out of my heart, and leave me but the remembrance of what ye were when we were twa wee playing lassies, clapping our young hands, and singing for joy in the bonny spring mornings that will never, never come again." the guilty marion was touched with her sorrow, and for a moment seemed to relent and melt, replying in a softened accent,-- "but tell me, eppie, for ye hae na telt me yet, how did ye leave my weans?" "would you like to see them?" said elspa, eagerly. "i would na like to gang to crail," replied her sister, thoughtfully; "but if--" and she hesitated. "surely, marion," exclaimed elspa, with indignation, "ye're no sae lost to all shame as to wish your innocent dochters to see you in the midst of your iniquities?" marion reddened, and sat abashed and rebuked for a short time in silence, and then reverting to her children, she said, somewhat humbly,-- "but tell me how they are--poor things!" "they are as weel as can be hoped for," replied elspa, moved by her altered manner; "but they'll lang miss the loss of their mother's care. o, marion, how could ye quit them! the beasts that perish are kinder to their young, for they nourish and protect them till they can do for themselves; but your wee may can neither yet gang nor speak. she's your very picture, marion, as like you as--god forbid that she ever be like you!" the wretched mother was unable to resist the energy of her sister's appeal, and, bursting into tears, wept bitterly for some time. elspa, compassionating her contrition, rose, and, taking her kindly by the hand, said, "come, marion, we'll gang hame--let us leave this guilty city--let us tarry no longer within its walls--the curse of heaven is darkening over it, and the storm of the hatred of its corruption is beginning to lighten:--let us flee from the wrath that is to come." "i'll no gang back to crail--i dare na gang there--everyone would haud out their fingers at me--i canna gang to crail--eppie, dinna bid me--i'll mak away wi' mysel' before i'll gang to crail." "dinna say that," replied her sister: "o, marion, if ye felt within the humiliation of a true penitent, ye would na speak that way, but would come and hide your face in your poor mother's bosom; often, often, marion, did she warn you no to be ta'en up wi' the pride an' bravery of a fine outside." "ye may gang hame yoursel'," exclaimed the impenitent woman, starting from her seat; "i'll no gang wi' you to be looket down on by every one. if i should hae had a misfortune, nane's the sufferer but mysel'; and what would i hae to live on wi' my mother? she's pinched enough for her ain support. no; since i hae't in my power, i'll tak my pleasure o't. onybody can repent when they like, and it's no convenient yet for me. since i hae slippit the tether, i may as well tak a canter o'er the knowes. i won'er how i could be sae silly as to sit sae lang willy-waing wi' you about that blethering bodie, james kilspinnie. he could talk o' naething but the town-council, the cost o' plaiding, and the price o' woo'. no, eppie, i'll no gang wi' you, but i'll be glad if ye'll gang o'er the gait and tak your bed wi' me. i hae a braw bower--and, let me tell you, this is no a house of the best repute." "is yours ony better?" replied elspa, fervently. "no, marion; sooner would i enter the gates of death, than darken your guilty door. shame upon you, shame!--but the sweet heavens, in their gracious hour of mercy, will remember the hope that led me here, and some day work out a blessed change. the prayers of an afflicted parent, and the cries of your desolate babies, will assuredly bring down upon you the purifying fires of self-condemnation. though a wicked pride at this time withholds you from submitting to the humiliation which is the just penalty of your offences, still the day is not far off when you will come begging for a morsel of bread to those that weep for your fall, and implore you to eschew the evil of your way." to these words, which were spoken as with the vehemence of prophecy, the miserable woman made no answer, but plucked her hand sharply from her sister's earnest pressure, and quitted the room with a flash of anger. my grandfather then conveyed the mournful elspa back to the house of lucky kilfauns, and returned to the priory. chapter xxiv the next day, elspa ruet, under the escorting of my grandfather, was minded to have gone home to crail, but the news that john knox was to preach on the morrow at st andrews had spread far and wide; no man could tell by what wonderful reverberation the tidings had awakened the whole land. from all quarters droves of the reformed and the pious came pressing to the gates of the city, like sheep to the fold and doves to the windows. the archbishop and the priests and friars were smitten with dread and consternation; the doom of their fortunes was evident in the distraction of their minds--but the earl of argyle and the lord james stuart, at the priory, remained calm and collected. foreseeing that the step they had taken would soon be visited by the wrath of the queen regent, they resolved to prepare for the worst, and my grandfather was ordered to hold himself in readiness for a journey. thus was he prevented from going to crail with elspa ruet, who, with a heavy heart, went back in the evening with the man and horses that brought the reformer to the town. for john knox, though under the ban of outlawry, was so encouraged with inward assurances from on high, that he came openly to the gate, and passed up the crown of the causey on to the priory, in the presence of the archbishop's guards, of all the people, and of the astonished and dismayed priesthood. as soon as the antichrist heard of his arrival, he gave orders for all his armed retainers, to the number of more than a hundred men-at-arms, to assemble in the cloisters of the monastery of the blackfriars; for he was a man of a soldierly spirit, and though a loose and immoral churchman, would have made a valiant warrior; and going thither himself, he thence sent word to the lord james stuart at the priory, that if john knox dared to preach in the cathedral, as was threatened, he would order his guard to fire on him in the pulpit. my grandfather, with others of the retinue of the two noblemen, had accompanied the archbishop's messenger into the prior's chamber, where they were sitting with john knox when this bold challenge to the champion of christ's cause was delivered; and it was plain that both argyle and the lord james were daunted by it, for they well knew the fearlessness and the fierceness of their consecrated adversary. after the messenger had retired, and the lord james, in a particular manner, had tacitly signified to my grandfather to remain in the room, and had taken a slip of paper, he began to write thereon, while argyle said to the reformer,-- "master knox, this is what we could na but expect; and though it may seem like a misdooting of our cause now to desist, i'm in a swither if ye should mak the attempt to preach." the reformer made no answer; and the lord james, laying down his pen, also said, "my thoughts run wi' argyle's,--considering the weakness of our train and the archbishop's preparations, with his own regardless character,--i do think we should for a while rest in our intent. the queen regent has come to falkland wi' her french force, and we are in no condition to oppose their entrance into the town; besides, your appearance in the pulpit may lead to the sacrifice of your own most precious life, and the lives of many others who will no doubt stand forth in your defence. whether, therefore, you ought, in such a predicament, to think of preaching, is a thing to be well considered." "in the strength of the lord," exclaimed john knox, with the voice of an apostle, "i will preach. god is my witness that i never preached in contempt of any man, nor would i willingly injure any creature; but i cannot delay my call to-morrow if i am not hindered by violence. as for the fear of danger that may come to me, let no man be solicitous; for my life is in the custody of him whose glory i seek, and threats will not deter me from my duty when heaven so offereth the occasion. i desire neither the hand nor the weapon of man to defend me; i only crave audience, which, if it be denied to me here at this time, i must seek where i may have it." the manner and confidence with which this was spoken silenced and rebuked the two temporal noblemen, and they offered no more remonstrance, but submitted as servants, to pave the way for this intent of his courageous piety. accordingly, after remaining a short time, as if in expectation to hear what the earl of argyle might further have to say, the lord james stuart took up his pen again, and when he had completed his writing, he gave the paper to my grandfather (it was a list of some ten or twelve names) saying, "make haste, gilhaize, and let these, our friends in angus, know the state of peril in which we stand. tell them what has chanced; how the gauntlet is thrown; and that our champion has taken it up, and is prepared for the onset." my grandfather forthwith departed on his errand, and spared not the spur till he had delivered his message to every one whose names were written in the paper; and their souls were kindled and the spirit of the lord quickened in their hearts. the roads sparkled with the feet of summoning horsemen, and the towns rung with the sound of warlike preparations. on the third day, towards the afternoon, my grandfather embarked at dundee on his return, and was landed at the fife water-side. there were many in the boat with him; and it was remarked by some among them, that, for several days, no one had been observed to smile, and that all men seemed in the expectation of some great event. the weather being loun and very sultry, he travelled slowly with those who were bound for st andrews, conversing with them on the troubles of the time, and the clouds that were gathering and darkening over poor scotland; but every one spoke from the faith of his own bosom, that the terrors of the storm would not be of long duration--so confident were those unlettered men of the goodness of christ's cause in that epoch of tribulation. while they were thus communing together, they came in sight of the city, with its coronal of golden spires, and babylonian pride of idolatrous towers, and they halted for a moment to contemplate the gorgeous insolence with which antichrist had there built up and invested the blood-stained throne of his blasphemous usurpation. "the walls of jericho," said one of the travellers, "fell at the sound but of ram's horns, and shall yon babel withstand the preaching of john knox?" scarcely had he said the words, when the glory of its magnificence was wrapt with a shroud of dust; a dreadful peal of thunder came rolling soon after, though not a spark of vapour was seen in all the ether of the blue sky; and the rumble of a dreadful destruction was then heard. my grandfather clapped spurs to his horse, and galloped on towards the town. the clouds rose thicker and filled the whole air. shouts and cries, as he drew near, were mingled with the crash of falling edifices. the earth trembled, and his horse stood still, regardless of the rowels, as if it had seen the angel of the lord standing in his way. on all sides monks and nuns came flying from the town, wringing their hands as if the horrors of the last judgment had surprised them in their sins. the guards of the archbishop were scattered among them like chaff in the swirl of the wind: then his grace came himself on sir david hamilton's fleet mare, with sir david and divers of his household fast following. the wrath of heaven was behind them, and they rattled past my grandfather like the distempered phantoms that hurry through the dreams of dying men. my grandfather's horse at last obeyed the spur, and he rode on and into the city, the gates of which were deserted. there he beheld on all sides that the lord had indeed put the besom of destruction into the hands of the reformers; and that not one of all the buildings which had been polluted by the papistry--no, not one--had escaped the erasing fierceness of its ruinous sweep. the presence of the magistrates lent the grace of authority to the zeal of the people, and all things were done in order. the idols were torn down from the altars, and deliberately broken by the children with hammers into pieces. there was no speaking; all was done in silence; the noise of the falling churches, the rending of the shrines, and the breaking of the images were the only sounds heard. but for all that, the zeal of not a few was, even in the midst of their dread solemnity, alloyed with covetousness. my grandfather himself saw one of the town-council slip the bald head, in silver, of one of the twelve apostles into his pouch. chapter xxv the triumph of the truth at st andrews was followed by the victorious establishment, from that day thenceforward, of the reformation in scotland. the precautions taken by the deep forecasting mind of the lord james stuart, through the instrumentality of my grandfather and others, were of inexpressible benefit to the righteous cause. it was foreseen that the queen regent, who had come to falkland, would be prompt to avenge the discomfiture of her sect, the papists; but the zealous friends of the gospel, seconding the resolution of the lords of the congregation, enabled them to set all her power at defiance. with an attendance of few more than a hundred horse, and about as many foot, the earl of argyle and the lord james set out from st andrews to frustrate, as far as the means they had concerted might, the wrathful measures which they well knew her highness would take. but this small force was by the next morning increased to full three thousand fighting men; and so ardently did the spirit of enmity and resistance against the papacy spread, that the queen regent, when she came with her french troops and her scottish levies, under the command of the duke of chatelherault, to cupar, found that she durst not encounter in battle the growing strength of the congregation, so she consented to a truce, and, as usual in her dissimulating policy, promised many things which she never intended to perform. but the protestants, by this time knowing that the papists never meant to keep their pactions with them, discovering the policy of her highness, silently moved onward. they proceeded to perth, and having expelled the garrison, took the town, and fired the abbey of scone. but as my grandfather was not with them in those raids, being sent on the night of the great demolition at st andrews to apprise the earl of glencairn, his patron, of the extremities to which matters had come there, it belongs not to the scope of my story to tell what ensued, farther than that from perth the congregation proceeded to stirling, where they demolished the monasteries;--then they went to lithgow, and herret the nests of the locusts there; and proceeding bravely on, purging the realm as they went forward, they arrived at edinburgh, and constrained the queen regent, who was before them with her forces there, to pack up her ends and her awls, and make what speed she could with them to dunbar. but foul as the capital then was, and covered with the leprosy of idolatry, they were not long in possession till they so medicated her with the searching medicaments of the reformation, that she was soon scrapit of all the scurf and kell of her abominations. there was not an idol or an image within her bounds that, in less than three days, was not beheaded like a traitor and trundled to the dogs, even with vehemence, as a thing that could be sensible of contempt. but as all these things are set forth at large in the chronicles of the kingdom, let suffice it to say that my grandfather continued for nearly two years after this time a trusted emissary among the lords of the congregation in their many arduous labours and perilous correspondencies, till the earl of glencairn was appointed to see idolatry banished and extirpated from the west country; in which expedition his lordship, being minded to reward my grandfather's services in the cause of the reformation, invited him to be of his force; to which my grandfather, not jealousing the secularities of his patron's intents, joyfully agreed, hoping to see the corner-stone placed on the great edifice of the reformation, which all good and pious men began then to think near completion. having joined the earl's force at glasgow, my grandfather went forward with it to paisley. before reaching that town, however, they were met by a numerous multitude of the people, half way between it and the castle of cruikstone, and at their head my grandfather was blithened to see his old friend, the gentle monk dominick callender, in a soldier's garb, and with a ruddy and emboldened countenance, and by his side, with a sword manfully girded on his thigh, the worthy bailie pollock, whose nocturnal revels at the abbey had brought such dule to the winsome maggy napier. for some reason, which my grandfather never well understood, there was more lenity shown to the abbey here than usual; but the monks were rooted out, the images given over to destruction, and the old bones and miraculous crucifixes were either burnt or interred. less damage, however, was done to the buildings than many expected, partly through the exhortations of the magistrates, who were desirous to preserve so noble a building for a protestant church, but chiefly out of some paction or covenant secretly entered into anent the distribution of the domains and property, wherein the house of hamilton was concerned, the duke of chatelherault, the head thereof, notwithstanding the papistical nature of his blood and kin, having some time before gone over to the cause of the congregation. the work of the reformation being thus abridged at paisley, the earl of glencairn went forward to kilwinning, where he was less scrupulous; for having himself obtained a grant of the lands of the abbacy, he was fain to make a clean hand o't, though at the time my grandfather knew not of this. as soon as the army reached the town, the soldiers went straight on to the abbey, and entering the great church, even while the monks were chanting their paternosters, they began to show the errand they had come on. dreadful was the yell that ensued, when my grandfather, going up to the priest at the high altar, and pulling him by the scarlet and fine linen of his pageantry, bade him decamp, and flung the toys and trumpery of the mass after him as he fled away in fear. this resolute act was the signal for the general demolition, and it began on all sides; my grandfather giving a leap, caught hold of a fine effigy of the virgin mary by the leg to pull it down; but it proved to be the one which james coom the smith had mended, for the leg came off, and my grandfather fell backwards, and was for a moment stunned by his fall. a band of the monks, who were standing trembling spectators, made an attempt, at seeing this, to raise a shout of a miracle; but my grandfather, in the same moment recovering himself, seized the virgin's timber leg, and flung it with violence at them, and it happened to strike one of the fattest of the flock with such a bir, that it was said the life was driven out of him. this, however, was not the case; for, although the monk was sorely hurt, he lived many a day after, and was obligated, in his auld years, when he was feckless, to be carried from door to door on a hand-barrow begging his bread. the wives, i have heard tell, were kindly to him, for he was a jocose carl; but the weans little respected his grey hairs, and used to jeer him as auld father paternoster, for even to the last he adhered to his beads. it was thought, however, by a certain pious protestant gentlewoman of irvine, that before his death he got a cast of grace; for one day, when he had been carried over to beg in that town, she gave him a luggie of kail ower het, which he stirred with the end of the ebony crucifix at his girdle, thereby showing, as she said, a symptom that it held a lower place in his spiritual affections than if he had been as sincere in his errors as he let wot. chapter xxvi although my grandfather had sustained a severe bruise by his fall, he was still enabled, after he got on his legs, to superintend the demolishment of the abbey till it was complete. but in the evening, when he took up his quarters in the house of theophilus lugton with dominick callender, who had brought on a party of the paisley reformers, he was so stiff and sore that he thought he would be incompetent to go over next day with the force that the earl missioned to herry the carmelyte convent at irvine. dominick callender had, however, among other things, learnt, in the abbey at paisley, the salutary virtues of many herbs, and how to decoct from them their healing juices; and he instructed dame lugton to prepare an efficacious medicament, that not only mitigated the anguish of the pain, but so suppled the stiffness that my grandfather was up by break of day, and ready for the march, a renewed man. in speaking of this, he has been heard to say, it was a thing much to be lamented, that when the regular abolition of the monastries was decreed, no care was taken to collect the curious knowledges and ancient traditionary skill preserved therein, especially in what pertained to the cure of maladies; for it was his opinion--and many were of the same mind--that among the friars were numbers of potent physicians, and an art in the preparation of salves and syrups, that has not been surpassed by the learning of the colleges. but it is not meet that i should detain the courteous reader with such irrelevancies; the change, however, which has taken place in the realm in all things pertaining to life, laws, manners and conduct since the extirpation of the roman idolatry, is, from the perfectest report, so wonderful, that the inhabitants can scarcely be said to be the same race of people; and, therefore, i have thought that such occasional ancestral intimations might, though they proved neither edifying nor instructive, be yet deemed worthy of notation in the brief spaces which they happen herein to occupy. but now, returning from this digression, i will take up again the thread and clue of my story. the earl of glencairn, after the abbey of kilwinning was sacked, went and slept at eglinton castle, then a stalwart square tower, environed with a wall and moat, of a rude and unknown antiquity, standing on a gentle rising ground in the midst of a bleak and moorland domain. and his lordship having ordered my grandfather to come to him betimes in the morning with twenty chosen men, the discreetest of the force, for a special service in which he meant to employ him, he went thither accordingly, taking with him dominick callender and twelve godly lads from paisley, with seven others, whom he had remarked in the march from glasgow, as under the manifest guidance of a sedate and pious temper. when my grandfather with his company arrived at the castle yett, and he was admitted to the earl his patron, his lordship said to him, more as a friend than a master,-- "i am in the hope, gilhaize, that, after this day, the toilsome and perilous errands on which, to the weal of scotland and the true church, you have been so meritoriously missioned ever since you were retained in my service, will soon be brought to an end, and that you will enjoy in peace the reward you have earned so well, that i am better pleased in bestowing it than you can be in the receiving. but there is yet one task which i must put upon you. hard by to this castle, less than a mile eastward, stands a small convent of nuns, who have been for time out of mind under the protection of the lord eglinton's family, and he, having got a grant of the lands belonging to their house, is desirous that they should be flitted in an amiable manner to a certain street in irvine called the kirkgate, where a lodging is provided for them. to do this kindly i have bethought myself of you, for i know not in all my force any one so well qualified. have you provided yourself with the twenty douce men that i ordered you to bring hither?" my grandfather told his lordship that he had done as he was ordered. "then," resumed the earl, "take them with you, and this mandate to the superior, and one of eglinton's men to show you the way; and when you have conveyed them to their lodging, come again to me." so my grandfather did as he was directed by the earl, and marched eastward with his men till he came to the convent, which was a humble and orderly house, with a small chapel and a tower, that in after times, when all the other buildings were erased, was called the stane castle, and is known by that name even unto this day. it stood within a high wall, and a little gate, with a stone cross over the same, led to the porch. compassionating the simple and silly sisterhood within, who, by their sequestration from the world, were become as innocent as birds in a cage, my grandfather halted his men at some distance from the yett, and going forward, rung the bell; to the sound of which an aged woman answered, who, on being told he had brought a letter to the superior, gave him admittance, and conducted him to a little chamber, on the one side of which was a grating, where the superior, a short, corpulent matron, that seemed to bowl rather than to walk as she moved along, soon made her appearance within. he told her in a meek manner, and with some gentle prefacing, the purpose of his visit, and showed her the earl's mandate; to all which, for some time, she made no reply, but she was evidently much moved; at last she gave a wild skreigh, which brought the rest of the nuns, to the number of thirteen, all rushing into the room. then ensued a dreadful tempest of all feminine passions and griefs, intermingled with supplications to many a saint; but the powers and prerogatives of their saints were abolished in scotland, and they received no aid. though their lamentation, as my grandfather used to say, could not be recited without moving to mirth, it was yet so full of maidenly fears and simplicity at the time to him, that it seemed most tender, and he was disturbed at the thought of driving such fair and helpless creatures into the bad world; but it was his duty;--so, after soothing them as well as he could, and representing how unavailing their refusal to go would be, the superior composed her grief, and exhorting the nuns to be resigned to their cruel fate, which, she said, was not so grievous as that which many of the saints had in their day suffered, they all became calm and prepared for the removal. my grandfather told them to take with them whatsoever they best liked in the house; and it was a moving sight to see their simplicity therein. one was content with a flower-pot; another took a cage in which she had a lintie; some of them half-finished patterns of embroidery. one aged sister, of a tall and spare form, brought away a flask of eye-water which she had herself distilled; but, saving the superior, none of them thought of any of the valuables of the chapel, till my grandfather reminded them, that they might find the value of silver and gold hereafter, even in the spiritual-minded town of irvine. there was one young and graceful maiden among them who seemed but little moved by the event; and my grandfather was melted to sympathy and sorrow by the solemn serenity of her deportment, and the little heed she took of anything. of all the nuns she was the only one who appeared to have nothing to care for; and when they were ready, and came forth to the gate, instead of joining in their piteous wailings as they bade their peaceful home a long and last farewell, she walked forward alone. no sooner, however, had she passed the yett, than, on seeing the armed company without, she stood still like a statue, and, uttering a shrill cry, fainted away, and fell to the ground. every one ran to her assistance; but when her face was unveiled to give her air, dominick callender, who was standing by, caught her in his arms, and was enchanted by a fond and strange enthusiasm. she was indeed no other than the young maiden of paisley, for whom he had found his monastic rows the heavy fetters of a bondage that made life scarcely worth possessing; and when she was recovered, an interchange of great tenderness took place between them, at which the superior of the convent waxed very wroth, and the other nuns were exceedingly scandalised. but magdalene sauchie, for so she was called, heeded them not; for, on learning that popery was put down in the land by law, she openly declared that she renounced her vows; and during the walk to irvine, which was jimp a mile, she leant upon the arm of her lover: and they were soon after married, dominick settling in that town as a doctor of physic, whereby he afterwards earned both gold and reputation. but to conclude the history of the convent, which my grandfather had in this gentle manner herret, the nuns, on reaching the foot of the kirkgate, where the countess of eglinton had provided a house for them, began to weep anew with great vehemence, fearing that their holy life was at an end, and that they would be tempted of men to enter into the temporalities of the married state; but the superior, on hearing this mournful apprehension, mounted upon the steps of the tolbooth stair, and, in the midst of a great concourse of people, she lifted her hands on high, and exclaimed, as with the voice of a prophetess, "fear not, my chaste and pious dochters; for your sake and for my sake, i have an assurance at this moment from the virgin mary herself, that the calamity of the marriage-yoke will never be known in the kirkgate of irvine, but that all maidens who hereafter may enter, or be born to dwell therein, shall live a life of single blessedness unasked and untempted of men." which delightful prediction the nuns were so happy to hear, that they dried their tears, and chanted their ave maria, joyfully proceeding towards their appointed habitation. it stood, as i have been told, on the same spot where king james the sixth's school was afterwards erected, and endowed out of the spoils of carmelytes' monastery, which, on the same day, was, by another division of the earl of glencairn's power, sacked and burnt to the ground. chapter xxvii when my grandfather had, in the manner rehearsed, disposed of those sisters of simplicity in the kirkgate of irvine, he returned back in the afternoon to the earl of glencairn at eglinton castle to report what he had done; and his lordship again, in a most laudatory manner, commended his prudence and singular mildness of nature, mentioning to the earl and countess of eglinton, then present with him, divers of the missions wherein he had been employed, extolling his zeal, and above all his piety. and the lady eglinton, who was a household character, striving, with great frugality, to augment the substance of her lord, by keeping her maidens from morning to night eydent at work, some at their broidering drums, and some at their distaffs, managing all within the castle that pertained to her feminine part in a way most exemplary to the ladies of her time and degree, indeed to ladies of all times and degrees, promised my grandfather that when he was married, she would give his wife something to help the plenishing of their house, for the meek manner in which he had comported himself toward her friend, the superior of the nuns. then the earl of glencairn said,-- "gilhaize, madam, is now his own master, and may choose a bride when it pleases himself; for i have covenanted with my friend, your lord, to let him have the mailing of quharist, in excambio for certain of the lands of late pertaining to the abbacy of kilwinning, the which lie more within the vicinage of this castle; and, gilhaize, here is my warrant to take possession." with which words the earl rose and presented him with a charter for the lands, signed by eglinton and himself, and he shook him heartily by the hand, saying, that few in all the kingdom had better earned the guerdon of their service than he had done. thus it was that our family came to be settled in the shire of ayr; for after my grandfather had taken possession of his fee, and mindful of the vow he had made in the street of edinburgh on that blessed morning when john knox, the champion of the true church, arrived from geneva, he went into the east country to espouse elspa ruet, if he found her thereunto inclined, which happily he soon did. for their spirits were in unison; and from the time they first met, they had felt toward one another as if they had been acquaint in loving-kindness before, which made him sometimes say, that it was to him a proof and testimony that the souls of mankind have, perhaps, a living knowledge of each other before they are born into this world. at their marriage, it was agreed that they should take with them into the west agnes kilspinnie, one of the misfortunate bailie's daughters. as for her mother, from the day of the overthrow and destruction of the papistry at st andrews, she had never been heard of; all the tidings her sister could gather concerning her were, that the same night she had been conveyed away by some of the archbishop's servants, but whither no one could tell. so they came with agnes kilspinnie to edinburgh; and, for a ploy to their sober wedding, they resolved to abide there till the coming of queen mary from france, that they might partake of the shows and pastimes then preparing for her reception. they, however, during the season of their sojourn, feasted far better than on royal fare, in the gospel banquet of john knox's sermons, of which they enjoyed the inexpressible beatitude three several sabbath-days before the queen arrived. of the joyous preparations to greet queen mary withal neither my grandfather nor grandmother were ever wont to discourse much at large, for they were holy-minded persons, little esteeming the pageantries of this world. but my aunt, for agnes kilspinnie being in progress of time married to my father's fourth brother, became sib to me in that degree, was wont to descant and enlarge on the theme with much wonderment and loquacity, describing the marvellous fabrics that were to have been hung with tapestry to hold the ladies, and the fountains that were to have spouted wine, which nobody was to be allowed to taste, the same being only for an ostentation, in order that the fact thereof might be recorded in the chronicles for after-times. and great things have i likewise heard her tell of the paraphernalia which the magistrates and town-council were getting ready. no sleep, in a sense, she used to say, did maccalzean of cliftonhall, who was then provost, get for more than a fortnight. from night to morning the sagacious bailies sat in council, exercising their sagacity to contrive devices to pleasure the queen, and to help the custom of their own and their neighbours' shops. busy and proud men they were, and no smaller were the worshipful deacons of the crafts. it was just a surprise and consternation to everybody, to think how their weak backs could bear such a burden of cares. no time had they for their wonted jocosity. to those who would fain have speered the news, they shook their heads in a solomon-like manner, and hastened by. and such a battle and tribulation as they had with their vassals, the magistrates of leith! who, in the most contumacious manner, insisted that their chief bailie should be the first to welcome the sovereign on the shore. this pretence was thought little short of rebellion, and the provost and the bailies, and all the wise men that sat in council with them, together with the help of their learned assessors, continued deliberating anent the same for hours together. it was a dreadful business that for the town of edinburgh. and the opinions of the judges of the land, and the lords of the council, were taken, and many a device tried to overcome the upsetting, as it was called, of the leith magistrates; but all was of no avail. and it was thought there would have been a fight between the bailies of leith and the bailies of edinburgh, and that blood would have been shed before this weighty question, so important to the dearest interests of the commonweal of scotland, could be determined. but, in the midst of their contention, and before their preparations were half finished, the queen arrived in leith roads; and the news came upon them like the cry to the foolish virgins of the bridegroom in the street. then they were seen flying to their respective places of abode to dress themselves in their coats of black velvet, their doublets of crimson satin, and their hose of the same colour which they had prepared for the occasion. anon they met in the council-chamber--what confusion reigned there! then how they flew down the street! provost maccalzean, with the silver keys in his hand, and the eldest bailie with the crimson-velvet cod, whereon they were to be delivered to her majesty, following as fast as any member of a city corporation could be reasonably expected to do. but how the provost fell, and how the bailies and town-council tumbled over him, and how the crowd shouted at the sight, are things whereof to understand the greatness it is needful that the courteous reader should have heard my aunty agnes herself rehearse the extraordinary particularities. meanwhile the queen left her galley in a small boat, and the bailies of leith had scarcely time to reach the pier before she was on shore. alas! it was an ill-omened landing. few were spectators, and none cheered the solitary lady, who, as she looked around and heard no loyal greeting, nor beheld any show of hospitable welcome, seemed to feel as if the spirit of the land was sullen at her approach, and grudged at her return to the dark abodes of her fierce ancestors. in all the way from leith to holyrood she never spoke, but the tear was in her eye and the sigh in her bosom; and though her people gathered when it was known she had landed, and began at last to shout, it was owre late to prevent the mournful forebodings, which taught her to expect but disappointments and sorrows from subjects so torn with their own factions, as to lack even the courtesies due to their sovereign, a stranger, and the fairest lady of all her time. chapter xxviii soon after queen mary's return from france, my grandfather, with his wife and agnes kilspinnie, came from edinburgh and took up their residence on his own free mailing of quharist, where the lady eglinton was as good as her word in presenting to them divers articles of fine napery, and sundry things of plenishing both for ornament and use; and there he would have spent his days in blameless tranquillity, serving the lord, but for the new storm that began to gather over the church, whereof it is needful that i should now proceed to tell some of the circumstantials. no sooner had that thoughtless princess, if indeed one could be so called, who, though reckless of all consequences, was yet double beyond the imagination of man; no sooner, i say, had she found herself at home, than, with all the craft and blandishments of her winning airs and peerless beauty, she did set herself to seduce the lords of the congregation from the sternness wherewith they had thrown down, and were determined to resist, the restoration of the roman idolatry; and with some of them she succeeded so far, that the popish priests were hearkened, and, knowing her avowed partiality for their sect, the beast began to shoot out its horns again, and they dared to perform the abomination of the mass in different quarters of the kingdom. it is, no doubt, true, that the queen's council, by proclamation, feigned to discountenance that resuscitation of idolatry; but the words of their edict being backed by no demonstration of resolution, save in the case of a few worthy gentlemen in the shire of ayr and in galloway, who took up some of the offenders in their district and jurisdiction, the evil continued to strike its roots, and to bud and nourish in its pestiferous branches. when my grandfather heard of these things, his spirit was exceedingly moved, and he got no rest in the night, with the warsling of troubled thoughts and pious fears. some new call, he foresaw, would soon be made on the protestants, to stand forth again in the gap that the queen's arts had sapped in the bulwarks of their religious liberty, and he resolved to be ready against the hour of danger. so, taking his wife and agnes kilspinnie with him, he went in the spring to edinburgh, and hired a lodging for them; and on the same night he presented himself at the lodging of the lord james stuart, who had some time before been created earl of murray; but the earl was gone with the queen to loch leven. sir alexander douglas, however, the master of his lordship's horse, was then on the eve of following him with john knox, to whom the queen had sent a peremptory message, requiring his attendance; and sir alexander invited my grandfather to come with them; the which invitation he very joyfully accepted, on account of the happy occasion of travelling in the sanctified company of that brave worthy. in the journey, however, save in the boat when they crossed the ferry, he showed but little of his precious conversation; for the knight and the reformer rode on together some short distance before their train, earnestly discoursing, and seemingly they wished not to be overheard. but when they were all seated in the ferry-boat, the ardour of the preacher, which on no occasion would be reined in, led him to continue speaking, by which it would seem that they had been conversing anent the queen's prejudices in matters of religion and the royal authority. "when i last spoke with her highness," said john knox, "she laid sore to my charge, that i had brought the people to receive a religion different from what their princes allowed, asking sharply, if this was not contrary to the divine command, which enjoins that subjects should obey their rulers; so that i was obliged to contend plainly, that true religion derived its origin and authority, not from princes, but from god; that princes were often most ignorant respecting it, and that subjects never could be bound to frame their religious sentiments according to the pleasure of their rulers, else the hebrews ought to have conformed to the idolatry of pharaoh, and daniel and his associates to that of nebuchadnezzar, and the primitive christians to that of the roman emperors." "and what could her highness answer to this?" said sir alexander. "she lacketh not the gift of a shrewd and ready wit," replied master knox; for she nimbly remarked, "that though it was as i had said, yet none of those men raised the sword against their princes;"--which enforced me to be more subtle than i was minded to have been, and to say, "that nevertheless, they did resist, for those who obey not the commandments given them, do in verity resist." "ay," cried her highness, "but not with the sword," which was a thrust not easy to be turned aside, so that i was constrained to speak out, saying, "god, madam, had not given them the means and the power." then said she, still more eagerly, "think you that subjects, having the power, may resist their princes?" and she looked with a triumphant smile, as if she had caught me in a trap; but i replied, "if princes exceed their bounds, no doubt they may be resisted, even by power. for no greater honour or greater obedience is to be given to kings and princes than god has commanded to be given to father or mother. but the father may be struck with a frenzy, in which he would slay his children; in such a case, if the children arise, join together, apprehend the father, take the sword from him, bind his hands and keep him in prison till the frenzy be over, think you, madam," quo' i, "that the children do any wrong? even so is it with princes that would slay the children of god that are subject to them. their blind zeal is nothing but frenzy, and therefore to take the power from them till they be brought to a more sober mind, is no disobedience to princes, but a just accordance to the will of god. so i doubt not," continued the reformer, "i shall again have to sustain the keen encounter of her highness' wit in some new controversy." this was the chief substance of what my grandfather heard pass in the boat; and when they were again mounted, the knight and preacher set forward as before, some twenty paces or so in advance of the retinue. on reaching kinross, master knox rode straight to the shore, and went off in the queen's barge to the castle, that he might present himself to her highness before supper, for by this time the sun was far down. in the meantime, my grandfather went to the house in kinross where the earl of murray resided, and his lordship, though albeit a grave and reserved man, received him with the familiar kindness of an old friend, and he was with him when the reformer came back from the queen, who had dealt very earnestly with him to persuade the gentlemen of the west country to desist from their interruption of the popish worship. "but to this," said the reformer to the earl, "i was obligated, by conscience and the fear of god, to say, that if her majesty would exert her authority in executing the laws of the land, i would undertake for the peaceable behaviour of the protestants; but if she thought to evade them, there were some who would not let the papists offend with impunity." "will you allow," exclaimed her highness, "that they shall take my sword in their hands?" "the sword of justice is god's," i replied, "and is given to princes and rulers for an end, which if they transgress, sparing the wicked and oppressing the innocent, they who in the fear of god execute judgment where god has commanded, offend not god, although kings do it not. the gentlemen of the west, madam, are acting strictly according to law; for the act of parliament gave power to all judges within their jurisdiction to search for and punish those who transgress its enactments;" and i added, "it shall be profitable to your majesty to consider what is the thing your grace's subjects look to receive of your majesty, and what it is that ye ought to do unto them by mutual contract. they are bound to obey you, and that not but in god; ye are bound to keep laws to them--ye crave of them service, they crave of you protection and defence. now, madam, if you shall deny your duty unto them (which especially craves that ye punish malefactors), can ye expect to receive full obedience of them? i fear, madam, ye shall not." "you have indeed been plain with her highness," said the earl, thoughtfully; "and what reply made she?" "none," said the reformer; "her countenance changed; she turned her head abruptly from me, and, without the courtesy of a good-night, signified with an angry waving of her hand, that she desired to be rid of my presence; whereupon i immediately retired, and, please god, i shall, betimes in the morning, return to my duties at edinburgh. it is with a sad heart, my lord, that i am compelled to think, and to say to you, who stand so near to her in kin and affection, that i doubt she is not only proud but crafty; not only wedded to the popish faith, but averse to instruction. she neither is nor will be of our opinion; and it is plain that the lessons of her uncle, the cardinal, are so deeply printed in her heart, that the substance and quality will perish together. i would be glad to be deceived in this, but i fear i shall not; never have i espied such art in one so young; and it will need all the eyes of the reformed to watch and ward that she circumvent not the strong hold in christ, that has been but so lately restored and fortified in this misfortunate kingdom." nothing farther passed that night; but the servants being called in, and the preacher having exhorted them in their duties, and prayed with even more than his wonted earnestness, each one retired to his chamber, and the earl gave orders for horses to be ready early in the morning, to convey master knox back to edinburgh. this, however, was not permitted; for by break of day a messenger came from the castle, desiring him not to depart until he had again spoken with her majesty; adding, that as she meant to land by sunrise with her falconer, she would meet him on the fields where she intended to take her pastime, and talk with him there. chapter xxix in the morning, all those who were in the house with the earl of murray and john knox were early afoot, and after prayers had been said, they went out to meet the queen at her place of landing from the castle, which stands on an islet at some distance from the shore; but, before they reached the spot, she was already mounted on her jennet and the hawks unhooded, so that they were obligated to follow her highness to the ground, the reformer leaning on the earl, who proffered him his left arm as they walked up the steep bank together from the brim of the lake. the queen was on the upland when they drew near to the field, and on seeing them approach she came ambling towards them, moving in her beauty, as my grandfather often delighted to say, like a fair rose caressed by the soft gales of the summer. a smile was in her eye, and it brightened on her countenance like the beam of something more lovely than light; the glow, as it were, of a spirit conscious of its power, and which had graced itself with all its enchantments to conquer some stubborn heart. even the earl of murray was struck with the unwonted splendour of her that was ever deemed so surpassing fair; and john knox said, with a sigh, "the maker had indeed taken gracious pains with the goodly fashion of such perishable clay." when she had come within a few paces of where they were advancing uncovered, she suddenly checked her jennet, and made him dance proudly round till she was nigh to john knox, where, seeming in alarm, she feigned as if she would have slipped from the saddle, laying her hand on his shoulder for support; and while he, with more gallantry than it was thought in him, helped her to recover her seat, she said, with a ravishing look, "the queen thanks you, master knox, for this upholding," dwelling on the word this in a special manner; which my grandfather noticed the more, as he as well as others of the retinue observed, that she was playing as it were in dalliance. she then inquired kindly for his health, grieving she had not given orders for him to bed in the castle; and turning to the earl of murray, she chided his lordship with a gentleness that was more winning than praise, why he had not come to her with master knox, saying, "we should then perhaps have not been so sharp in our controversy." but, before the earl had time to make answer, she noticed divers gentlemen by name, and taking off her glove, made a most sweet salutation with her lily hand to the general concourse of those who had by this time gathered around. in that gracious gesture, it was plain, my grandfather said, that she was still scattering her feminine spells; for she kept her hand for some time bare, and though enjoying the pleasure which her beautiful presence diffused, like a delicious warmth into the air, she was evidently self-collected, and had something more in mind than only the triumph of her marvellous beauty. having turned her horse's head, she moved him a few paces, saying, "master knox, i would speak with you." at which he went towards her, and the rest of the spectators retired and stood aloof. they appeared for some time to be in an easy and somewhat gay discourse on her part; but she grew more and more earnest, till mr knox made his reverence and was coming away, when she said to him aloud, "well, do as you will, but that man is a dangerous man." their discourse was concerning the titular bishop of athens, a brother of the earl of huntly, who had been put in nomination for a superintendent of the church in the west country, and of whose bad character her highness, as it afterwards proved, had received a just account. but scarcely had the reformer retired two steps when she called him back, and holding out to him her hand, with which, when he approached to do his homage, she familiarly took hold of his and held it, playing with his fingers as if she had been placing on a ring, saying, loud enough to be heard by many on the field,-- "i have one of the greatest matters that have touched me since i came into this realm to open to you, and i must have your help in it." then, still holding him earnestly by the hand, she entered into a long discourse concerning, as he afterwards told the earl of murray, a difference subsisting between the earl and countess of argyle. "her ladyship," said the queen, for my grandfather heard him repeat what passed, "has not perhaps been so circumspect in everything as one could have wished, but her lord has dealt harshly with her." master knox having once before reconciled the debates of that honourable couple, told her highness he had done so, and that not having since heard anything to the contrary, he had hoped all things went well with them. "it is worse," replied the queen, "than ye believe. but, kind sir, do this much for my sake, as once again to put them at amity, and if the countess behave not herself as she ought to do, she shall find no favour of me; but in no wise let argyle know that i have requested you in this matter." then she returned to the subject of their contest the preceding evening, and said, with her sweetest looks and most musical accents, "i promise to do as ye required. i shall order all offenders to be summoned, and you shall see that i shall minister justice." to which he replied, "i am assured then, madam, that you shall please god, and enjoy rest and tranquillity within your realm, which to your majesty is more profitable than all the pope's power can be." and having said this much he made his reverence, evidently in great pleasure with her highness. afterwards, in speaking to the earl of murray, as they returned to kinross, my grandfather noted that he employed many terms of soft courtliness, saying of her that she was a lady who might, he thought, with a little pains, be won to grace and godliness, could she be preserved from the taint of evil counsellors; so much had the winning sorceries of her exceeding beauty and her blandishments worked even upon his stern honesty and enchanted his jealousy asleep. when master knox had, with the earl, partaken of some repast, he requested that he might be conveyed back to edinburgh, for that it suited not with his nature to remain sorning about the skirts of the court; and his lordship bade my grandfather be of his company, and to bid sir alexander douglas, the master of his horse, choose for him the gentlest steed in his stable. but it happened before the reformer was ready to depart, that queen mary had finished her morning pastime, and was returning to her barge to embark for the castle, which the earl hearing, went down to the brim of the loch to assist at her embarkation. my grandfather, with others, also hastened to the spot. on seeing his lordship, she inquired for "her friend," as she then called john knox, and signified her regret that he had been so list to leave her, expressing her surprise that one so infirm should think so soon of a second journey; whereby the good earl being minded to cement their happy reconciliation, from which he augured a great increase of benefits both to the realm and the cause of religion, was led to speak of his concern thereat likewise, and of his sorrow that all his own horses at kinross being for the chase and road, he had none well-fitting to carry a person so aged, and but little used to the toil of riding. her highness smiled at the hidden counselling of this remark, for she was possessed of a sharp spirit; and she said, with a look which told the earl and all about her that she discerned the pith of his lordship's discourse, she would order one of her own palfreys to be forthwith prepared for him. when the earl returned from the shore and informed master knox of the queen's gracious condescension, he made no reply, but bowed his head in token of his sense of her kindness; and soon after, when the palfrey was brought saddled with the other horses to the door, he said, in my grandfather's hearing, to his lordship, "it needs, you see, my lord, must be so; for were i not to accept this grace, it might be thought i refused from a vain bravery of caring nothing for her majesty's favour;" and he added, with a smile of jocularity, "whereas i am right well content to receive the very smallest boon from so fair and blooming a lady." nothing of any particularity occurred in the course of the journey; for the main part of which master knox was thoughtful and knit up in his own cogitations, and when from time to time he did enter into discourse with my grandfather, he spoke chiefly of certain usages and customs that he had observed in other lands, and of things of indifferent import; but nevertheless there was a flavour of holiness in all he said, and my grandfather treasured many of his sweet sentences as pearls of great price. chapter xxx before the occurrence of the things spoken of in the foregoing chapter, the great earl of glencairn, my grandfather's first and constant patron, had been dead some time; but his son and successor, who knew the estimation in which he had been held by his father, being then in edinburgh, allowed him, in consideration thereof, the privilege of his hall. it suited not, however, with my grandfather's quiet and sanctified nature to mingle much with the brawlers that used to hover there; nevertheless, out of a respect to the earl's hospitality, he did occasionally go thither, and where, if he heard little to edify the christian heart, he learnt divers things anent the queen and court that made his fears and anxieties wax stronger and stronger. it seemed to him, as he often was heard to say, that there was a better knowledge of queen mary's true character and secret partialities among those loose varlets than among their masters; and her marriage being then in the parlance of the people, and much dread and fear rife with the protestants that she would choose a papist for her husband, he was surprised to hear many of the lewd knaves in glencairn's hall speak lightly of the respect she would have to the faith or spirituality of the man she might prefer. among those wuddy worthies he fell in with his ancient adversary winterton, who, instead of harbouring any resentment for the trick he played him in the lord boyd's castle, was rejoiced to see him again: he himself was then in the service of david rizzio, the fiddler, whom the queen some short time before had taken into her particular service. this rizzio was by birth an italian of very low degree; a man of crouched stature, and of an uncomely physiognomy, being yellow-skinned and black-haired, with a beak-nose, and little quick eyes of a free and familiar glance, but shrewd withal, and possessed of a pleasant way of winning facetiously on the ladies, to the which his singular skill in all manner of melodious music helped not a little; so that he had great sway with them, and was then winning himself fast into the queen's favour, in which ambition, besides the natural instigations of his own vanity, he was spirited on by certain powerful personages of the papistical faction, who soon saw the great efficacy it would be of to their cause, to have one who owed his rise to them constantly about the queen, and in the depths of all her personal correspondence with her great friends abroad. but the subtle italian, though still true to his papal breeding, built upon the queen's partiality more than on the favour of those proud nobles, and, about the time of which i am now speaking, he carried his head at court as bravely as the boldest baron amongst them. still in this he had as yet done nothing greatly to offend. the protestant lords, however, independent of their aversion to him on account his religion, felt, in common with all the nobility, a vehement prejudice against an alien, one too of base blood, and they openly manifested their displeasure at seeing him so gorgeous and presuming even in the public presence of the queen, but he regarded not their anger. in this fey man's service winterton then was, and my grandfather never doubted that it was for no good he came so often to the earl of glencairn's, who, though not a man of the same weight in the realm as the old earl his father, was yet held in much esteem, as a sincere protestant and true nobleman, by all the friends of the gospel cause; and, in the sequel, what my grandfather jealoused was soon very plainly seen. for rizzio learning, through winterton's espionage and that of other emissaries, how little the people of scotland would relish a foreign prince to be set over them, had a hand in dissuading the queen from accepting any of the matches then proposed for her; and the better to make his own power the more sicker, he afterwards laid snares in the water to bring about a marriage with that weak young prince, the lord henry darnley. but it falls not within the scope of my narrative to enter into any more particulars here concerning that italian, and the tragical doom which, with the queen's imprudence, he brought upon himself; for, after spending some weeks in edinburgh, and in visiting their friends at crail, my grandfather returned with his wife and agnes kilspinnie to quharist, where he continued to reside several years, but not in tranquillity. hardly had they reached their home, when word came of quarrels among the nobility; and though the same sprung out of secular debates, they had much of the leaven of religious faction in their causes, the which greatly exasperated the enmity wherewith they were carried on. but even in the good earl of murray's raid, there was nothing which called on my grandfather to bear a part. nevertheless, those quarrels disquieted his soul, and he heard the sough of discontents rising afar off, like the roar of the bars of ayr when they betoken a coming tempest. after the departure of the earl of murray to france, there was a syncope in the land, and men's minds were filled with wonder and with apprehensions to which they could give no name; neighbours distrusted one another: the papists looked out from their secret places, and were saluted with a fear that wore the semblance of reverence. the queen married darnley, and discreet men marvelled at the rashness with which the match was concluded, there being seemingly no cause for such uncomely haste, nor for the lavish favours that she heaped upon him. it was viewed with awe, as a thing done under the impulses of fraud, or fainness, or fatality. nor was their wedding-cheer cold when her eager love changed into aversion. then the spirit of the times, which had long hovered in willingness to be pleased with her intentions, began to alter its breathings, and to whisper darkly against her. at last the murder of rizzio, a deed which, though in the main satisfactory to the nation, was yet so foul and cruel in the perpetration, that the tidings of it came like a thunder-clap over all the kingdom. the birth of prince james, which soon after followed, gave no joy; for about the same time a low and terrible whispering began to be heard of some hideous and universal conspiracy against all the protestants throughout europe. none ventured to say that queen mary was joined with the conspirators; but many preachers openly prayed that she might be preserved from their leagues in a way that showed what they feared; besides this suspicion, mournful things were told of her behaviour, and the immoralities of her courtiers and their trains rose to such a pitch, compared with the chastity and plain manners of her mother's court, that the whole land was vexed with angry thoughts, and echoed to the rumours with stern menaces. no one was more disturbed by these things than my pious grandfather; and the apprehensions which they caused in him came to such a head at last, that his wife, becoming fearful of his health, advised him to take a journey to edinburgh, in order that he might hear and see with his own ears and eyes; which he accordingly did, and on his arrival went straight to the earl of glencairn, and begged permission to take on again his livery, chiefly that he might pass unnoticed, and not be remarked as having neither calling nor vocation. that nobleman was surprised with his request; but, without asking any questions, gave him leave, and again invited him to use the freedom of his hall; so he continued as one of his retainers till the earl of murray's return from france. but, before speaking of what then ensued, there are some things concerning the murder of the the queen's protestant husband--the blackest of the sins of that age--of which, in so far as my grandfather participated, it is meet and proper i should previously speak. chapter xxxi while the cloud of troubles, whereof i have spoken in the foregoing chapter was thickening and darkening over the land, the event of the king's dreadful death came to pass; the which, though in its birth most foul and monstrous, filling the hearts of all men with consternation and horror, was yet a mean in the hands of providence, as shall hereafter appear, whereby the kingdom of the lord was established in scotland. concerning that fearful treason, my grandfather never spoke without taking off his bonnet, and praying inwardly with such solemnity of countenance that none could behold him unmoved. of all the remarkable passages of his long life it was indeed the most remarkable; and he has been heard to say that he could not well acquit himself of the actual sin of disobedience in not obeying an admonition of the spirit which was vouchsafed to him on that occasion. for some time there had been a great variance between the king and queen. he had given himself over to loose and low companions; and though she kept her state and pride, ill was said of her, if in her walk and conversation she was more sensible of her high dignity. all at once, however, when he was lying ill at glasgow of a malady, which many scrupled not to say was engendered by a malignant medicine, there was a singular demonstration of returning affection on her part, the more remarkable and the more heeded of the commonality, on account of its suddenness, and the events that ensued; for while he was at the worst she minded not his condition, but took her delights and pastimes in divers parts of the country. no sooner, however, had his strength overcome the disease, than she was seized with this fond sympathy, and came flying with her endearments, seemingly to foster his recovery with caresses and love. the which excessive affection was afterwards ascribed to a guilty hypocrisy; for in the sequel it came to light that, while she was practising all those winning blandishments, which few knew the art of better, and with which she regained his confidence, she was at the same time engaged in unconjugal correspondence with the earl of bothwell. the king, however, was won by her kindness, and consented to be removed from among the friends of his family at glasgow to edinburgh, in order that he might there enjoy the benefits of her soft cares and the salutary attendance of the physicians of the capital. the house of the provost of kirk o' field, which stood not far from the spot where the buildings of the college now stand, was accordingly prepared for his reception, on account of the advantages which it afforded for the free and open air of a rising ground; but it was also a solitary place--a fit haunt for midnight conspirators and the dark purposes of mysterious crime. there, for some time, the queen lavished upon him all the endearing gentleness of a true and loving wife, being seldom absent by day, and sleeping near his sick-chamber at night. the land was blithened with such assurances of their reconciliation; and the king himself, with the frank ardour of flattered youth, was contrite for his faults, and promised her the fondest devotion of all his future days. in this sweet cordiality, on sunday, the th of february, a.d. , she parted from him to be present at a masquing in the palace; for the reformation had not so penetrated into the habits and business of men as to hallow the sabbath in the way it has since done amongst us. but before proceeding farther, it is proper to resume the thread of my grandfather's story. he had passed that evening, as he was wont to tell, in pleasant gospel conversation with several acquaintances in the house of one raphael doquet, a pious lawyer in the canongate; for even many writers in those days were smitten with the love of godliness; and as he was returning to his dry lodgings in an entry now called baron grant's close, he encountered winterton, who, after an end had been put to david rizzio, became a retainer in the riotous household of the earl of bothwell. this happened a short way aboon the netherbow, and my grandfather stopped to speak with him; but there was a haste and confusion in his manner which made him rather eschew this civility. my grandfather at the time, however, did not much remark it; but scarcely had they parted ten paces when a sudden jealousy of some unknown guilt or danger, wherein winterton was concerned, came into his mind like a flash of fire, and he felt as it were an invisible power constraining him to dog his steps, in so much that he actually did turn back. but on reaching the bow he was obligated to stop, for the ward was changing; and observing that the soldiers then posting were of the queen's french guard, his thoughts began to run on the rumour that was bruited of a league among the papist princes to cut off all the reformed with one universal sweep of the scythe of persecution, and he felt himself moved and incited to go to some of the lords and leaders of the congregation to warn them of what he feared; but, considering that he had only a vague and unaccountable suspicion for his thought, he wavered, and finally returned home. thus, though manifestly and marvellously instructed of the fruition of some bloody business in hand that night, he was yet overruled by the wisdom which is of this world to suppress and refuse obedience to the promptings of the inspiration. on reaching his chamber, he unbuckled his belt, as his custom was, and laid down his sword and began to undress, when again the same alarm from on high fell upon him, and the same warning spirit whispered to his mind's ear unspeakable intimations of dreadful things. fear came upon him and trembling, which made all his bones to shake, and he lifted his sword and again buckled on his belt. but again the prudence of this world prevailed, and, heeding not the admonition to warn the lords of the congregation, he threw himself on his bed, without, however, unbuckling his sword, and in that condition fell asleep. but though his senses were shut, his mind continued awake, and he had fearful visions of bloody hands and glimmering daggers gleaming over him from behind his curtains, till in terror he started up, gasping like one that had struggled with a stronger than himself. when he had in some degree composed his thoughts, he went to the window and opened it, to see by the stars how far the night had passed. the window overlooked the north loch and the swelling bank beyond, and the distant frith and the hills of fife. the skies were calm and clear, and the air was tempered with a bright frost. the stars in their courses were reflected in the still waters of the north loch, as if there had been an opening through the earth showing the other concave of the spangled firmament. but the dark outline of the swelling bank on the northern side was like the awful corpse of some mighty thing prepared for interment. as my grandfather stood in contemplation at the window, he heard the occasional churme of discourse from passengers still abroad, and now and then the braggart flourish of a trumpet resounded from the royal masquing at the palace,--breaking upon the holiness of the night with the harsh dissonance of a discord in some solemn harmony.--and as he was meditating on many things, and grieving in spirit at the dark fate of poor scotland, and the woes with which the children of salvation were environed, he was startled by the apparition of a great blaze in the air, which for a moment lighted up all the land with a wild and fiery light, and he beheld in the glass of the north loch, reflected from behind the shadow of the city, a tremendous eruption of burning beams and rafters burst into the sky, while a horrible crash, as if the chariots of destruction were themselves breaking down, shook the town like an earthquake. he was for an instant astounded; but soon roused by the clangour of an alarm from the castle; and while a cry rose from all the city, as if the last trumpet itself was sounding, he rushed into the street, where the inhabitants, as they had flown from their beds, were running in consternation like the sheeted dead startled from their graves. drums beat to arms;--the bells rang;--some cried the wild cry of fire, and there was wailing and weeping, and many stood dumb with horror, and could give no answer to the universal question.--"god of the heavens, what is this?" presently a voice was heard crying, "the king, the king!" and all, as if moved by one spirit, replied, "the king, the king!" then for a moment there was a silence stiller than the midnight hour, and drum, nor bell, nor voice was heard, but a rushing of the multitude towards st mary's port, which leads to the kirk o' field. among others, my grandfather hastened to the spot by todrick's wynd; and as he was running down towards the postern gate, he came with great violence against a man who was struggling up through the torrent of the people, without cap or cloak, and seemingly maddened with terrors. urged by some strong instinct, my grandfather grasped him by the throat; for, by the glimpse of the lights that were then placing at every window, he saw it was winterton. but a swirl of the crowd tore them asunder, and he had only time to cry, "it's ane of bothwell's men." the people caught the earl's name; but instead of seizing the fugitive, they repeated, "bothwell, bothwell, he's the traitor!" and pressed more eagerly on to the ruins of the house, which were still burning. the walls were rent, and in many places thrown down; the west gable was blown clean away, and the very ground, on the side where the king's chamber had been, was torn as with a hundred ploughshares. certain trees that grew hard by were cleft and riven as with a thunderbolt, and stones were sticking in their timber like wedges and the shot of cannon. it was thought, that in such a sudden blast of desolation, nothing in the house could have withstood the shock, but that all therein must have been shivered to atoms. when, however, the day began to dawn, it was seen that many things had escaped unblemished by the fire; and the king's body, with that of the servant who watched in his chamber, was found in a neighbouring garden, without having suffered any material change,--the which caused the greater marvelling; for it thereby appeared that they were the only sufferers in that dark treason, making the truth plain before the people, that the contrivance and firing thereof was concerted and brought to maturity by some in authority with the queen,--and who that was the people answered by crying as the royal corpse was carried to the palace, "bothwell, lord bothwell, he is the traitor!" chapter xxxii all the next day, and for many days after, consternation reigned in the streets of the city, and horror sat shuddering in all her dwelling-places. multitudes stood in amazement from morning to night around the palace; for the earl of bothwell was within, and still honoured with all the homages due to the greatest public trusts. ever and anon a cry was heard, "bothwell is the murderer!" and the multitude shouted, "justice, justice!" but their cry was not heard. night after night the trembling citizens watched with candles at their casements, dreading some yet greater alarm; and in the stillness of the midnight hour a voice was heard crying, "the queen and bothwell are the murderers!" and another voice replied, "vengeance, vengeance!--blood for blood!" every morning on the walls of the houses writings were seen, demanding the punishment of the regicides--and the queen's name, and the name of bothwell, and the names of many more, with the archbishop of st andrews at their head, were emblazoned on all sides as the names of the regicides. but bothwell, with the resolute bravery of guilt in the confidence of power, heeded not the cry that thus mounted continually against him to heaven, and the queen feigned a widow's sorrow. the whole realm was as when the ark of the covenant of the lord was removed from israel and captive in the hands of the philistines. the injured sought not the redress of their wrongs; even the guilty were afraid of one another, and by the very cowardice of their distrust were prevented from banding at a time when they might have rioted at will. what aggravated these portents of a kingdom falling asunder, was the mockery of law and justice which the court attempted. those who were accused of the king's death ruled the royal councils, and were greatest in the queen's favour. the earl of bothwell dictated the very proceedings by which he was himself to be brought to trial,--and when the day of trial arrived, he came with the pomp and retinue of a victorious conqueror--to be acquitted. but acquitted, as the guilty ever needs must be whom no one dares to accuse, nor any witness hazards to appear against, his acquittal served but to prove his guilt, and the forms thereof the murderous participation of the queen. thus, though he was assoilzied in form of law, the libel against him was nevertheless found proven by the universal verdict of all men. yet, in despite of the world, and even of the conviction recorded within their own bosoms, did the infatuated mary and that dreadless traitor, in little more than three months from the era of their crime, rush into an adulterous marriage; but of the infamies concerning the same, and of the humiliated state to which poor scotland sank in consequence, i must refer the courteous reader to the histories and chronicles of the time--while i return to the narrative of my grandfather. when the earl of bothwell, as i have been told by those who heard him speak of these deplorable blots on the scottish name, had been created duke of orkney, the people daily expected the marriage. but instead of the ordinary ceremonials used at the marriages of former kings and princes, the queen and all about her, as if they had been smitten from on high with some manifest and strange phrenzy, resolved, as it were in derision and blasphemy, notwithstanding her own and the notour popery of the duke, to celebrate their union according to the strictest forms of the protestants; and john knox being at the time in the west country, his colleague, master craig, was ordered by the queen in council to publish the bans three several sabbaths in st giles' kirk. on the morning of the first appointed day my grandfather went thither; a vast concourse of the people were assembled, and the worthy minister, when he rose in the pulpit with the paper in his hand, trembled and was pale, and for some time unable to speak; at last he read the names and purpose of marriage aloud, and he paused when he had done so, and an awful solemnity froze the very spirits of the congregation. he then laid down the paper on the pulpit, and lifting his hands and raising his eyes, cried with a vehement sadness of voice,--"lord god of the pure heavens, and all ye of the earth that hear me, i protest, as a minister of the gospel, my abhorrence and detestation of this hideous and adulterous sin; and i call all the nobility and all of the queen's council to remonstrate with her majesty against a step that must cover her with infamy for ever and ruin past all remede." three days did he thus publish the bans, and thrice in that manner did he boldly proclaim his protestation; for which he was called before the privy council, where the guilty bothwell was sitting; and being charged with having exceeded the bounds of his commission, he replied with an apostolic bravery,-- "my commission is from the word of god, good laws, and natural reason, to all which this proposed marriage is obnoxious. the earl of bothwell, there where he sits, knows that he is an adulterer,--the divorce that he has procured from his wife has been by collusion,--and he knows likewise that he has murdered the king and guiltily possessed himself of the queen's person." yet, notwithstanding, mr craig was suffered to depart, even unmolested by the astonished and overawed bothwell; but, as i have said, the marriage was still celebrated; and it was the last great crime of papistical device that the lord suffered to see done within the bounds of scotland. for the same night letters were sent to the earl of murray from divers of the nobility, entreating him to return forthwith; and my grandfather, at the incitement of the earl of argyle, was secretly sent by his patron glencairn to beg the friends of the state and the lawful prince, the son whom the queen had born to her murdered husband, to meet without delay at stirling. accordingly, with the flower of their vassals and retainers, besides argyle and glencairn, came many of the nobles; and having protested their detestation of the conduct of the queen, they entered into a solemn league and covenant, wherein they rehearsed, as causes for their confederating against the misrule with which the kingdom was so humbled, that the scottish people were abhorred and vilipendit amongst all christian nations; declaring that they would never desist till they had revenged the foul murder of the king, rescued the queen from her thraldom to the earl of bothwell, and dissolved her ignominious marriage. the queen and her regicide, for he could not be called her husband, were panic-struck when they heard of this avenging paction. she issued a bold proclamation, calling on her insulted subjects to take arms in her defence, and she published manifestoes, all lies. she fled with bothwell from edinburgh to the castle of borthwick; but scarcely were they within the gates when the sough of the rising storm obliged him to leave her, and the same night, in the disguise of man's apparel, the queen of all scotland was seen flying, friendless and bewildered, to her sentenced paramour. the covenanting nobles in the meantime were mustering their clans and their vassals; and the earls of morton and athol having brought the instrument of the league to edinburgh, the magistrates and town-council signed the same, and, taking the oaths, issued instanter orders for the burghers to prepare themselves with arms and banners, and to man the city walls. the whole kingdom rung with the sound of warlike preparations, and the ancient valour of the scottish heart was blithened with the hope of erasing the stains that a wicked government had brought upon the honour of the land. meanwhile the regicide and the queen drew together what forces his power could command and her promises allure, and they advanced from dunbar to carberry hill, where they encamped. the army of the covenanters at the same time left edinburgh to meet them. mary appeared at the head of her troops; but they felt themselves engaged in a bad cause, and refused to fight. she exhorted them with all the pith of her eloquence;--she wept, she implored, she threatened, and she reproached them with cowardice, but still they stood sullen. to retreat in the face of an enemy who had already surrounded the hill on which she stood was impracticable. in this extremity she called with a voice of despair for kirkcaldy of grange, a brave man, whom she saw at the head of the cavalry by whom she was surrounded, and he having halted his horse and procured leave from his leaders, advanced toward her. bothwell, with a few followers, during the interval, quitted the field; and, as soon as kirkcaldy came up, she surrendered herself to him, and was conducted by him to the headquarters of the covenanters, by whom she was received with all the wonted testimonials of respect, and was assured, if she forsook bothwell and governed her kingdom with honest councils, they would honour and obey her as their sovereign. but the common soldiers overwhelmed her with reproaches, and on the march back to edinburgh poured upon her the most opprobrious names. "never was such a sight seen," my grandfather often said, "as the return of that abject princess to her capital. on the banner of the league was depicted the corpse of the murdered king, her husband, lying under a tree, with the young prince, his son, kneeling before it, and the motto was, 'judge and revenge my cause, o lord.' the standard-bearer rode with it immediately before the horse on which she sat weeping and wild, and covered with dust, and as often as she raised her distracted eye the apparition of the murder in the flag fluttered in her face. in vain she supplicated pity--yells and howls were all the answers she received, and volleys of execrations came from the populace, with burn her, burn her, bloody murderess! let her not live!" in that condition she was conducted to the provost's house, into which she was assisted to alight, more dead than alive, and next morning she was conveyed a prisoner to lochleven castle, where she was soon after compelled to resign the crown to her son, and the regency to the earl of murray, by whose great wisdom the reformation was established in truth and holiness throughout the kingdom--though for a season it was again menaced when mary effected her escape, and dared the cause of the lord to battle at langside. but of that great day of victory it becomes not me to speak, for it hath received the blazon of many an abler pen; it is enough to mention, that my grandfather was there, and after the battle that he returned with the army to glasgow, and was present at the thanksgiving. the same night he paid his last respects to the earl of murray, who permitted him to take away, as a trophy and memorial, the gloves which his lordship had worn that day in the field; and they have ever since been sacredly preserved at quharist, where they may be still seen. they are of york buff; the palm of the one for the right hand is still blue with the mark of the sword's hilt, and the fore-finger stool is stained with the ink of a letter which the earl wrote on the field to argyle, who had joined the queen's faction; the which letter, it has been thought, caused the swithering of that nobleman in the hour of the onset, by which providence gave the regent the victory--a conquest which established the gospel in his native land for ever. chapter xxxiii after the battle of langside, many of the nobles and great personages of the realm grew jealous of the good regent murray, and, by their own demeanour, caused him to put on towards them a reserve and coldness of deportment, which they construed as their feelings and fancies led them, much to his disadvantage; for he was too proud to court the good-will that he thought was his due. but to all people of a lower degree, like those in my grandfather's station, he was ever the same punctual and gracious superior, making, by the urbanity of his manner, small courtesies recollected and spoken of as great favours, in so much that, being well-beloved of the whole commonality, his memory, long after his fatal death, was held in great estimation among them, and his fame as the sweet odour of many blessings. few things, my grandfather often said, gave him a sorer pang than the base murder by the hamiltons of that most eminent worthy; and in all the labours and business of his long life, nothing came ever more pleasant to his thoughts than the remembrance of the part he had himself in the retribution with which their many bloody acts were in the end overtaken and punished. indeed, as far as concerns their guiltiest instigator and kinsman, the adulterous antichrist of st andrews, never was a just vengeance and judgment more visibly manifested, as i shall now, with all expedient brevity, rehearse, it being the last exploit in which my grandfather bore arms for the commonweal. bailie kilspinnie of crail having dealings with certain glasgow merchants, who sold plaiding to the highlanders of lennox and cowal, finding them dour in payment, owing, as they said, to their customers lengthening their credit of their own accord, on account of the times, the west having been from the battle of langside unwontedly tranquil, he, in the spring of , came in quest of his monies, and my grandfather having notice thereof, took on behind him on horseback, to see her father, agnes kilspinnie, who had lived in his house from the time of his marriage to her aunt, elspa ruet. and it happened that captain crawford of jordanhill, who was then meditating his famous exploit against the castle of dumbarton, met my grandfather by chance in the trongait, and knowing some little of him, and of the great regard in which he was held by many noblemen, for one of his birth, spoke to him cordially, and asked him to be of his party, assigning, among other things, as a motive, that the great adversary of the reformation, the archbishop of st andrews, had, on account of the doom and outlawry pronounced upon him, for being accessory both to the murder of king henry, the queen's protestant husband, and of the good regent murray, taken refuge in that redoubtable fortress. some concern for the state of his wife and young family weighed with my grandfather while he was in communion with jordanhill; but after parting from him, and going back to the saracen's inn in the gallowgait, where bailie kilspinnie and his daughter were, he had an inward urging of the spirit, moving him to be of the enterprise, on a persuasion, as i have heard him tell himself, that without he was there something would arise to balk the undertaking. so he was in consequence troubled in thought, and held himself aloof from the familiar talk of his friends all the remainder of the day, wishing that he might be able to overcome the thirst which captain crawford had bred within him to join his company. bailie kilspinnie seeing him in this perplexity of soul, spoke to him as a friend, and searched to know what had taken possession of him, and my grandfather, partly moved by his entreaty and partly by the thought of the great palpable antichrist of scotland, who had done the bailie's fireside such damage and detriment, being in a manner exposed to their taking, told him what had been propounded by jordanhill. "say you so," cried the bailie, remembering the offence done to his family, "say you so; and that he is in a girn that wants but a manly hand to grip him. body and soul o' me, if the thing's within the power of the arm of flesh he shall be taken and brought to the wuddy, if the lord permits justice to be done within the realm of scotland." the which bold and valorous breathing of the honest magistrate of crail kindled the smoking yearnings of my grandfather into a bright and blazing flame, and he replied,-- "then, sir, if you be so minded, i cannot perforce abide behind, but will go forth with you to the battle, and swither not with the sword till we have effected some notable achievement." they accordingly went forthwith to captain crawford and proffered to him their service; and he was gladdened that my grandfather had come to so warlike a purpose; but he looked sharply at the bailie, and twice smiled to my grandfather, as if in doubt of his soldiership, saying, "but, gilhaize, since you recommend him, he must be a good man and true." so the same night they set out at dusk, with a chosen troop and band of not more than two hundred men. a boat, provided with ladders, dropped down the river with the tide, to be before them. by midnight the expedition reached the bottom of dumbuckhill, where, having ascertained that the boat was arrived, jordanhill directed those aboard to keep her close in with the shore, and move with their march. the evening when they left glasgow was bright and calm, and the moon, in her first quarter, shed her beautiful glory on mountain and tower and tree, leading them as with the light of a heavenly torch; and when they reached the skirts of the river, it was soon manifest that their enterprise was favoured from on high. the moon was by that time set, and a thick mist came rolling from the clyde and the leven, and made the night air dim as well as dark, veiling their movements from all mortal eyes. jordanhill's guide led them to a part of the rock which was seldom guarded, and showed them where to place their ladders. he had been in the service of the lord fleming, the governor, but on account of contumelious usage had quitted it, and had been the contriver of the scheme. scarcely was the first ladder placed when the impatience of the men brought it to the ground; but there was a noise in the ebbing waters of the clyde that drowned the accident of their fall, and prevented it from alarming the soldiers on the watch. this failure disconcerted jordanhill for a moment; but the guide fastened the ladder to the roots of an ash tree which grew in a cleft of the rock, and to the first shelf of the precipice they all ascended in safety. the first ladder was then drawn up and placed against the upper story, as it might be called, of the rock, reaching to the gap where they could enter into the fortress, while another ladder was tied in its place below. jordanhill then ascended, leading the way, followed by his men, the bailie of crail being before my grandfather. they were now at a fearful height from the ground; but the mist was thick, and no one saw the dizzy eminence to which he had attained. it happened, however, that just as jordanhill reached the summit, and while my grandfather and the bailie were about half-way up the ladder, the mist below rolled away, and the stars above shone out, and the bailie, casting his eyes downward, was so amazed and terrified at the eagle flight he had taken, that he began to quake and tremble, and could not mount a step farther. at that juncture delay was death to success. it was impossible to pass him. to tumble him off the ladder and let him be dashed to pieces, as some of the men both above and below roughly bade my grandfather do, was cruel. all were at a stand. governed, however, by a singular inspiration, my grandfather took off his own sword-belt and also the bailie's, and fastened him with them to the ladder by the oxters and legs, and then turning round the ladder, leaving him so fastened pendent in the air on the lower side, the assailants ascended over his belly, and courageously mounted to their perilous duty. jordanhill shouted as they mustered on the summit. the officers and soldiers of the garrison rushed out naked, but sword in hand. the assailants seized the cannon. lord fleming, the governor, leaped the wall into the boat that had brought the scaling ladders and was rowed away. the garrison, thus deserted, surrendered, and the guilty prelate was among the prisoners. as soon as order was in some degree restored, my grandfather went with two other soldiers to where the bailie had been left suspended, and having relieved him from his horror, which the breaking daylight increased by showing him the fearful height at which he hung, he brought him to jordanhill, who, laughing at his disaster, ordered him to be one of the guard appointed to conduct the archbishop to stirling. in that service the worthy magistrate proved more courageous, and upbraided the prisoner several times on the road for the ill he had done to him. but that traitorous high priest heard his taunts in silence, for he was a valiant and proud man; such, indeed, was his gallant bearing in the march that the soldiers were won by it to do him homage as a true knight: and had he been a warrior as he was but a priest, it was thought by many that, though both papist and traitor, they might have been worked upon to set him free. to stirling, however, he was carried; and on the fourth day from the time he was taken he was executed on the gallows, where, notwithstanding his guilty life, he suffered with the bravery of a gentleman dying in a righteous cause, in so much that the papists honoured his courage as if it had been the virtue of a holy martyr; and bailie kilspinnie all his days never ceased to wonder how so wicked a man could die so well. chapter xxxiv having thus set forth the main passages in my grandfather's life, i should now quit the public highway of history, and turn for a time into the pleasant footpath of his domestic vineyard, the plants whereof, under his culture, and the pious waterings of elspa ruet, my excellent progenitrix, were beginning to spread their green tendrils and goodly branches, and to hang out their clusters to the gracious sunshine, as it were in demonstration to the heavens that the labourer was no sluggard, and as an assurance that in due season, under its benign favour, they would gratefully repay his care with sweet fruit. but there is yet one thing to be told, which, though it may not be regarded as germane to the mighty event of the reformation, grew so plainly out of the signal catastrophe related in the foregoing chapter, that it were to neglect the instruction mercifully intended were i not to describe all its circumstances and particularities as they came to pass. accordingly to proceed. in the winter after the storming of dumbarton castle, widow ruet, the mother of my grandmother, hearing nothing for a long time of her poor donsie daughter marion, had, from the hanging of archbishop hamilton, the anti-christian paramour of that misguided creature, fallen into a melancholy state of moaning and inward grief, in so much that bailie kilspinnie wrote a letter invoking my grandfather to come with his wife to crail, that they might join together in comforting the aged woman; which work of duty and of charity they lost no time in undertaking, carrying with them agnes kilspinnie to see her kin. being minded both in the going and the coming to partake of the feast of the heavenly and apostolic eloquence of the fearless reformer's life-giving truths, they went by the way of edinburgh; and in going about while there to show agnes kilspinnie the uncos of the town, it happened as they were coming down from the castlehill, in passing the weigh-house, that she observed a beggar woman sitting on a stair seemingly in great distress, for her hands were fervently clasped, and she was swinging her body backwards and forwards like a bark without a rudder on a billowy sea, when the winds of an angry heaven are let loose upon't. what made this forlorn wretch the more remarkable was a seeming remnant of better days in something about herself, besides the silken rags of garments that had once been costly. for, as she from time to time lifted her delicate hands aloft in her despairing ecstasy, the scrap of blanket, which was all her mantle, fell back and showed such lily and lady-like arms that it was impossible to look upon her without compassion, and not also to wonder from what high and palmy estate she had fallen into such abject poverty. my grandfather and his wife, with agnes, stopped for a moment, and conferred together about what alms they would offer to a gentlewoman brought so low; when she, observing them, came wildly towards them crying, "for the mother of god, to save a famishing outcast from death and perdition." her frantic gesture, far more than her papistical exclamation, made their souls shudder; and before they had time to reply, she fell on her knees, and taking elspa by the hand, repeated the same vehement prayer, adding, "do, do, even though i be the vilest and guiltiest of womankind." "marion ruet!--o, my sister!--o, my dear marion!" as wildfully and as wofully did my grandmother in that instant also cry aloud, falling on the beggar-woman's neck, and sobbing as if her heart would have burst; for it was indeed the bailie's wife, and the mother of agnes, that supplicated for a morsel. this sad sight brought many persons around, among others a decent elderly carlin that kept a huxtry shop close by, who pitifully invited them to come from the public causey into her house; and with some difficulty my grandfather removed the two sisters thither. agnes kilspinnie, poor thing, following like a demented creature, not even able to drop a tear at so meeting with her humiliated parent, who, from the moment that she was known, could only gaze like the effigy of some extraordinary consternation carved in alabaster stone. when they had been some time in the house of old ursie firikins, as the kind carlin was called, elspa ruet all the while weeping like a constant fountain and repeating, "marion, marion!" with a fond and sorrowful tenderness that would allow her to say no more, my grandfather having got a drink of meal and water prepared, gave it to the famished outcast, and she gradually recovered from her stupor. for many minutes, however, she sat still and said nothing, and when she did speak it was in a voice of such misery of soul that my grandfather never liked to tell what terrible thoughts the remembrance of it ever gave him. i shall therefore not venture to repeat what she said, farther than to mention that, having sunk down on her knees, she spread her hands aloft and exclaimed, "ay, the time's come now, and the words of her prophecy, that never ceased to dirl in my soul, are fulfilled. i will go back to crail--my penitence shall be seen in my shame;--i will go openly, that all may take warning--and before all, in the face of day, will i confess the wrongs i hae done to my gudeman and bairns." she then rose and said to her sister, "elspa, ye hae heard my vow, and this very hour i will begin my pilgrimage." some further conversation ensued, in which she told them that she had run a woful course after the havock at st andrews; but, though humbled to the dust, and almost perishing of hunger, pride had still warsled with penitence, and would not let her return to seek shelter from her mother. "but at last," said she, "all has now come to pass, and it is meet i submit to what is so plainly required of me." then turning to her daughter she looked at her for some time with a watery and inquiring eye, and would have spoken, but her heart filled full and she could only weep. by way of consolation my grandfather told her they were then on their way to crail, and that as soon as they had procured for her some fit apparel, they would take her with them. at these words she lifted the skirt of her ragged gown, and looking at it for a moment, smiled, as if in contempt of all things, saying,-- "no, this is the livery of him that i hae served so weel. it is fit that my friends should behold the coat of many colours, and the garment of praise wherewith he rewards all those that serve him as i hae done." and no admonition, nor any affectionate petition, could shake her sad purpose. "but," said she, "i ought not to shame you on the road; and yet, elspa, at least till the entrance of the town, let me travel with you; for when i hae dreed my penance, we must part, never to meet again. darkness and dule is my portion now in this world. i hae earnt them, and it is just that i should enjoy them. they are my ain conquest, bought wi' the price of everything but my soul, and wha kens but for this meeting that it might hae been bartered away too." in nothing, however, of all that then passed was there anything which so moved the tranquil heart of my grandfather as the looks which, from time to time, the desolate woman cast at her daughter. fain she seemed to speak and to catch her in her arms; but ever and anon the sense of her own condition came upon her, and she began to weep, crying, "no, no, i darena do that--i darena even mysel' to a parent's privilege after what i hae done." the poor lassie sat unable to make any answer; but at last, in a timid manner, she took her mother softly by the hand, and the fond and lowly penitent for a few moments allowed it to linger in her grip, willing to have left it there; but suddenly stung by her conscience she snatched it away, and again broke out into piercing lamentations and confessions of unworthiness. meanwhile the charitable ursie firikins had made ready a mess of porridge, and the mournful magdalen being soothed and consoled, was persuaded to partake. and afterwards, when they had sat some time, and the crowd which had gathered out of doors in the street was dispersed, my grandfather went to his lodgings; and having paid his lawin, returned to the two sisters and agnes kilspinnie, and they all walked to the shore of leith together, where they found a boat going to kinghorn, into which they embarked; and having slept there, they hired a cart to take them to crail next morning, everyone who saw them wondering at the dejected and ruinous appearance of the penitent. the particulars, however, of their journey and of her reception in her native place, will furnish matter for another chapter. chapter xxxv when they came within a mile of the town, where a small public stood that wayfaring men were wont to stop and refresh themselves at, my grandfather urged the disconsolate marion, who had come all the way from kinghorn without speaking a single word, to alight from the cart, and remain there till the cloud of night, when she might go to her mother's unafflicted by the gaze of the pitiless multitude. to this, at first, she made no answer; but leaping out of the cart, and standing still for a moment, she looked wistfully at her sister and daughter, and then began to weep, crying, "gang ye awa, and no mind me; ye canna thole, and oughtna to share what i maun bear; and i'll never break another vow: so, in the face o' day, and of a' people, i'm constrained to enter crail--first, to confess my guilt at the door of the honest man and his bairns that i hae sae disgraced; and syne to beg my mother to take in the limmer that was scofft frae door to door, till the blessed time when ye were sent to stop me laying desperate hands on mysel'." elspa remonstrated with her for some time, but she was not to be entreated: "my guilt and my shamelessness were public," said she, "and it is meet that the world should behold what hae been the wages i hae earnt, and the depth of the humiliation to which my vain and proud heart has been brought; so, go ye on wi' your gudeman and agnes, and let me come by mysel'." "no, marion," replied her sister, "that sha'na be; i'll no let you do that. if you will make sic a pilgrimage, i'll bear you company, for i can ne'er be ashamed nor mortified in being wi' you, when ye are seeking again the path of righteousness that ye were sae beguil't to quit." "say nae i was beguil't; say naething to gar me think less o' my fault than i should: there was nae beguiler but my ain vain and sinful nature." her daughter, who had all this time stood silent with the tear in her e'e, then said, "i'll gang wi' you, mother, too." "mother!--o agnes kilspinnie, dinna sae wrang yoursel', and your honest father, as to ca' the like o' me mother. but did ye say ye would come wi' me?" and she dropped vehemently on her knees, and, spreading her arms to the skies, cried out with a loud and wild voice,-- "god, god! is thy goodness so great, that thou canst already vouchsafe to me a mercy like this?" seeing her so bent on going into the town in her miserable estate, and his wife and her daughter so mindit to go with her, my grandfather said it would be as well for him to run forward and prepare her mother for her coming; so he left them, and hastened into the town, thinking they would come in the cart; but when he was gone, marion, still in the hope she might get her sister and daughter dissuaded from accompanying her, told them that she was resolved to go on her bare feet, which, however, made them in pity still adhere the more closely to their determination; and, having paid the kinghorn man for his cart, the three set forward together, elspa on the right hand and agnes on the left hand of the lowly penitent. in the meantime my grandfather hastened to the dwelling of widow ruet, his gude-mother, to tell her who was coming, and to prepare her aged mind for the sore shock. for though she was a sectarian of the roman seed, she was nevertheless a most devout character, and abided more in the errors of her religion, because she thought herself too old to learn a new faith, than from that obstinacy of spirit which in those days so abounded in the breasts of the papisticals. the news was at first as glad tidings to the humane old woman; but every now and then she began to start, and to listen--and a tear fell from her eye. when she heard the voice of anyone talking in the street, or the sound of a foot passing, she hurried to the window and looked hastily out. the struggle within her was great, and it grew every minute stronger and stronger; and after walking very wofully divers times across the floor, she went and closed the shutters of her window, and sitting down gave full vent to her grief. in that state she had not been long, when the sough of a din gathering at a distance was heard. "mother of christ!" she cried, starting up, clapping her hands; "mother of jesus, thou hast seen the fruit of thy womb exposed to ignominy. by thine own agonies in that hour, i implore thy support. o blessed mary, thy sorrow was light compared to my burden, for thy bairn was holy, and meek, and kind, and without sin. but thou hast known what it was to sit by thy baby sleeping in its innocence; thou hast known what it was to love it for the very troubles it then gave thee. by the remembrance of that sweet watching and care, o pity me, and help me to receive my erring bairn!" my grandfather could not stand her lament and ejaculations, and hearing the sound drawing nearer and nearer, he went out of the house to see if his presence might be any protection; but the sight he saw was even more sorrowful than the aged mother's grief. instead of the cart in which he expected to see the women, he beheld them coming along, side by side, together attended by a great multitude; doors and windows flew open as they came along, and old and young looked out. many cried, "she has been well serv't for her shame." some laughed; and the young turned aside their heads to hide their tears. among others that ran from the causey-side to look in the face of marion--still beautiful, though faded, but shining with something brighter than beauty--there was a little boy that went up close to her, and took her by the hand, without speaking, and led her along. he was her own son; but still she moved not her solemn heavenward eye, though a universal sobbing burst from ail the multitude; and my grandfather, at the piteous pageantry, was no longer able to remain master of his feelings. seeing, however, that the mournful actors therein were going on towards bailie kilspinnie's, and not intending to stop, as he expected they would, at widow ruet's door, he ran forward to warn his old friend; but in this he was too late; some one had been already there; and he found the poor man, with his three other children, standing at the door, seemingly utterly at a loss to know what his duty should be; nor was my grandfather in any condition of mind to help him with advice. at that juncture the multitude came rushing on before the women, and halted in front of the bailie's house; for, seeing him and his bairns, they were taught, by some sense of gentle sympathy, to divide and retire to a distance, leaving an open and silent space for the penitent to go forward. when agnes kilspinnie and her brother saw their father and brother and sisters at the door, they quitted their mother and joined them, as if instructed by an instinct, while she slowly approached. elspa ruet, who had hitherto maintained a serene and resigned composure of countenance, was so moved at this sad spectacle, that my grandfather, seeing her distress, stepped out and caught her in his arms, and supported her from falling, she was so faint with anguish of heart. in the same moment, with a look that struck awe and consternation into every one around, marion stepped on towards her husband and children, and gazed at them, and was dropping on her knees when the bailie caught her in his arms as if he would have carried her into the house. but he faltered in his purpose; and, casting his eyes on the five weans whom she had so deserted, he unloosed his embrace, and, gathering them before him, went in and shut the door. the multitude uttered a fearful sough; elspa ruet, roused by it, rushed from my grandfather towards her sister, and stooping, tried to raise her up. poor marion, still kneeling, looked around to the people, who stood all as still as mourners at an interment, and her dark ringlets falling loose, made her pale face appear of an unearthly fairness. she seemed as if she would have said something to her sister, who had clasped her by the hand, but litherly swinging backwards, she laid her head down on her husband's threshold and gave a heavy sigh, and died. chapter xxxvi the burial of marion ruet was decently attended by bailie kilspinnie and all his family; and though he did not carry the head himself, he yet ordered their eldest son to do so, because, whatever her faults had been, she was still the youth's mother. and my grandfather, with his wife, having spent some time after with their friends at crail, returned homeward by themselves, passing over to edinburgh, that they might taste once more of the elixir of salvation as dispensed by john knox, who had been for some time in a complaining way, and it was by many thought that the end of his preaching was drawing nigh. it happened that the dreadful tidings of the murder of the protestants in france, by the command of "the accursed king," reached edinburgh in the night before my grandfather and wife returned thither; and he used to speak of the consternation that they found reigning in the city when they arrived there, as a thing very awful to think of. every shop was shut, and every window closed; for it was the usage in those days, when death was in a house, to close all the windows, so that the appearance of the town was as if, for the obduracy of their idolatrous sovereign, the destroying angel had slain all the first-born, and that a dead body was then lying in every family. there was also a terrifying solemnity in the streets; for, though they were as if all the people had come forth in panic and sad wonderment, many were clothed in black, and there was a funereal stillness--a dismal sense of calamity that hushed the voices of men, and friends meeting one another, lifted their hands, and shuddering, passed by without speaking. my grandfather saw but one, between leith wynd and the door of the house in the lawnmarket, where he proposed to lodge, that wore a smile, and it was not of pleasure, but of avarice counting its gains. the man was one hans berghen, an armourer that had feathered his nest in the raids of the war with the queen regent. he was a norman by birth, and had learnt the tempering of steel in germany. in his youth he had been in the imperator's service, and had likewise worked in the arsenal of venetia. some said he was perfected in his trade by the infidel at constantinopolis; but, however this might be, no man of that time was more famous among roisters and moss-troopers, for the edge and metal of his weapons, than that same blasphemous incomer, who thought of nothing but the greed of gain, whether by dule to protestant or papist; so that the sight of his hard-favoured visage, blithened with satisfaction, was to my grandfather, who knew him well by repute, as an omen of portentous aspect. for two days the city continued in that dismal state, and on the third, which was sabbath, the churches were so filled that my grandmother, being then in a tender condition, did not venture to enter the high kirk, where the reformer was waited for by many thirsty and languishing souls from an early hour in the morning, who desired to hear what he would say concerning the dark deeds that had been done in france. she therefore returned to the lawnmarket; but my grandfather worked his way into the heart of the crowd, where he had not long been when a murmur announced that master knox was coming, and soon after he entered the kirk. he had now the appearance of great age and weakness, and he walked with slow and tottering steps, wearing a virl of fur round his neck, and a staff in one hand; godlie richie ballanden, his man, holding him up by the oxter. and when he came to the foot of the pulpit, richie, by the help of another servant that followed with the book, lifted him up the steps into it, where he was seemingly so exhausted that he was obligated to rest for the space of several minutes. no man who had never seen him before could have thought that one so frail would have had ability to have given out even the psalm; but when he began the spirit descended upon him, and he was so kindled that at last his voice became as awful as the thunders of wrath, and his arm was strengthened as with the strength of a champion's. the kirk dirled to the foundations; the hearts of his hearers shook, till the earth of their sins was shaken clean from them; and he appeared in the wirlwind of inspiration, as if his spirit was mounting, like the prophet elijah, in a fiery chariot immediately to the gates of heaven. his discourse was of the children of bethlehem slain by herod, and he spoke of the dreadful sound of a bell and a trumpet heard suddenly in the midnight hour, when all were fast bound and lying defenceless in the fetters of sleep. he described the dreadful knocking at the doors--the bursting in of men with drawn swords--how babies were harled by the arms from their mothers' beds and bosoms, and dashed to death upon the marble floors. he told of parents that stood in the porches of their houses and made themselves the doors that the slayers were obliged to hew in pieces before they could enter in. he pictured the women flying along the street, in the nakedness of the bedchamber, with their infants in their arms, and how the ruffians of the accursed king, knowing their prey by their cries, ran after them, caught the mother by the hair and the bairn by the throat, and, in one act, flung the innocent to the stones and trampled out its life. then he paused, and said, in a soft and thankful voice, that in the horrors of bethlehem there was still much mercy; for the idolatrous dread of herod prompted him to slay but young children, whose blameless lives were to their weeping parents an assurance of their acceptance into heaven. "what then," he cried, "are we to think of that night, and of that king, and of that people, among whom, by whom, and with whom, the commissioned murderer twisted his grip in the fugitive old man's grey hairs, to draw back his head that the knife might the surer reach his heart? with what eyes, being already blinded with weeping, shall we turn to that city where the withered hands of the grandmother were deemed as weapons of war by the strong and black-a-vised slaughterer, whose sword was owre vehemently used for a' the feckless remnant of life it had to cut! but deaths like these were brief and blessed compared to other things--which, heaven be praised, i have not the power to describe, and which, among this protestant congregation, i trust there is not one able to imagine, or who, trying to conceive, descries but in the dark and misty vision the pains of mangled mothers; babes, untimely and unquickened, cast on the dung-hills and into the troughs of swine; of black-iron hooks fastened into the mouths, and driven through the cheeks of brave men, whose arms are tied with cords behind, as they are dragged into the rivers to drown, by those who durst not in fair battle endure the lightning of their eyes. o, herod!--herod of judea--thy name is hereafter bright, for in thy bloody business thou wast thyself nowhere to be seen. in the vouts and abysses of thy unstained palace, thou hidst thyself from the eye of history, and perhaps humanely sat covering thine ears with thy hands to shut out the sound of the wail and woe around thee. but this herod--let me not call him by so humane a name. no: let all the trumpets of justice sound his own to everlasting infamy--charles the ninth of france! and let his ambassador that is here aye yet, yet to this time audaciously in this christian land, let him tell his master that sentence has been pronounced against him in scotland; that the divine vengeance will never depart from him or his house until repentance has ensued, and atonement been made in their own race; that his name will remain a blot--a blot of blood, a stain never to be effaced--a thing to be pronounced with a curse by all posterity; and that none proceeding from his loins shall ever enjoy his kingdom in peace." the preacher, on saying these prophetic words, paused, and, with his eyes fixed upwards, he stood some time silent, and then, clasping his hands together, exclaimed with fear and trembling upon him, "lord, lord, thy will be done?" many thought that he had then received some great apocalypse; for it was observed of all men that he was never after like the man he had once been, but highly and holily elevated above earthly cares and considerations, saving those only of his ministry, and which he hastened to close. he was as one that no longer had trust, portion, or interest in this temporal world, which in less than two months after he bade farewell, and was translated to a better. yes, to a better; for assuredly, if there is aught in this life that may be regarded as the symbols of infeftment to the inheritance of heaven, the labours and ministration of john knox were testimonies that he had verily received the yird and stane of an heritage on high. chapter xxxvii shortly after my grandfather had returned with his wife to their quiet dwelling at quharist on the garnock side, he began, in the course of the winter following, to suffer an occasional pang in that part of his body which was damaged by the fall he got in rugging down the virgin mary out of her niche in the idolatrous abbeykirk of kilwinning, and the anguish of his suffering grew to such an head by candlemas that he was obligated to send for his old acquaintance, dominick callender, who had, after his marriage with the regenerate nun, settled as a doctor of physic in the godly town of irvine. but for many a day all the skill and medicamenting of doctor callender did him little good, till nature had, of her own accord, worked out the root of the evil in the shape of a sklinter of bone. still, though the wound then closed, it never was a sound part, and he continued in consequence a lamiter for life. yet were his days greatly prolonged beyond the common lot of man; for he lived till he was ninety-one years, seven months, and four days old, and his end at last was but a pleasant translation from the bodily to the spiritual life. for some days before the close he was calm and cheerful, rehearsing to the neighbours that came to speer for him, many things like those of which i have spoken herein. towards the evening a serene drowsiness fell upon him, like the snow that falleth in silence, and froze all his temporal faculties in so gentle a manner, that it could not be said he knew what it was to die; being, as it were, carried in the downy arms of sleep to the portal door of death, where all the pains and terrors that guard the same were hushed, and stood mute around, as he was softly received in. no doubt there was something of a providential design in the singular prolongation of such a pious and a blameless life; for through it the possessor became a blessed mean of sowing, in the hearts of his children and neighbours, the seeds of those sacred principles, which afterwards made them stand firm in their religious integrity when they were so grievously tried. for myself i was too young, being scant of eight years when he departed, to know the worth of those precious things which he had treasured in the garnel of his spirit for seed-corn unto the lord; and therefore, though i often heard him speak of the riddling wherewith that mighty husbandman of the reformation, john knox, riddled the truths of the gospel from the errors of papistry, i am bound to say that his own exceeding venerable appearance, and the visions of past events, which the eloquence of his traditions called up to my young fancy, worked deeper and more thoroughly into my nature than the reasons and motives which guided and governed many of his other disciples. but, before proceeding with my own story, it is meet that i should still tell the courteous reader some few things wherein my father bore a part--a man of very austere character, and of a most godly, though, as some said, rather of a stubbornly affection for the forms of worship which had been established by john knox and the pious worthies of his times; he was withal a single-minded christian, albeit more ready for a raid than subtle in argument. he had, like all who knew the old people his parents, a by-common reverence for them; and spoke of the patriarchs with whom of old the lord was wont to hold communion, as more favoured of him than david or solomon, or any other princes or kings. when he was very young, not passing, as i have heard him often tell, more than six or seven years of age, he was taken, along with his brethren, by my grandfather, to see the signing at irvine of the covenant, with which, in the lowering time of the spanish armada, king james, the son of mary, together with all the reformed, bound themselves in solemn compact to uphold the protestant religion. afterwards, when he saw the country rise in arms, and heard of the ward and watch, and the beacons ready on the hills, his imagination was kindled with some dreadful conceit of the armada, and he thought it could be nothing less than some awful and horrible creature sent from the shores of perdition to devour the whole land. the image he had thus framed in his fears haunted him continually; and night after night he could not sleep for thinking of its talons of brass, and wings of thunder, and nostrils flaming fire, and the iron teeth with which it was to grind and gnash the bodies and bones of all protestants, in so much that his parents were concerned for the health of his mind, and wist not what to do to appease the terrors of his visions. at last, however, the great judith of the protestant cause, queen elizabeth of england, being enabled to drive a nail into the head of that holofernes of the idolaters, and many of the host of ships having been plunged, by the right arm of the tempest, into the depths of the seas, and scattered by the breath of the storm, like froth over the ocean, it happened that, one morning about the end of july, a cry arose that a huge galley of the armada was driven on the rocks at pencorse; and all the shire of ayr hastened to the spot to behold and witness her shipwreck and overthrow. among others my grandfather, with his three eldest sons, went, leaving my father at home; but his horrors grew to such a passion of fear that his mother, the calm and pious elspa ruet, resolved to take him thither likewise, and to give him the evidence of his eyes, that the dreadful armada was but a navy of vessels like the ship which was cast upon the shore. by this prudent thought of her, when he arrived at the spot his apprehensions were soothed; but his mind had ever after a strange habitude of forming wild and wonderful images of every danger, whereof the scope and nature was not very clearly discerned, and which continued with him till the end of his days. soon after the death of my grandfather, he had occasion to go into edinburgh anent some matter of legacy that had fallen to us through the decease of an uncle of my mother, a bonnet-maker in the canongate; and, on his arrival there, he found men's minds in a sore fever concerning the rash councils wherewith king charles the first, then reigning, was mindit to interfere with the pure worship of god, and to enact a part in the kirk of scotland little short of the papistical domination of the roman antichrist. to all men this was startling tidings; but to my father it was an enormity that fired his blood and spirit with the fierceness of a furnace. and it happened that he lodged with a friend of ours, one janet geddes, a most pious woman, who had suffered great molestation in her worldly substance, from certain endeavours for the restorations of the horns of the mitre, and the prelatic buskings with which that meddling and fantastical bodie, king james the sixth, would fain have buskit and disguised the sober simplicity of gospel ordinances. no two persons could be more heartily in unison upon any point of controversy than was my worthy father and janet geddes, concerning the enormities that would of a necessity ensue from the papistical pretensions and unrighteous usurpation of king charles; and they sat crooning and lamenting together all the saturday afternoon and night about the woes of idolatry that were darkening again over scotland. no doubt there was both reason and piety in their fears; but in the method of their sorrow, from what i have known of my father's earnest and simple character, i redde there might be some lack of the decorum of wisdom. but be this as it may, they heated the zeal of one another to a pitch of great fervour, and next morning, the sabbath, they went together to the high kirk of st giles to see what the power of an infatuated government would dare to do. the kirk was filled to its uttermost bunkers; my father, however, got for janet geddes, she being an aged woman, a stool near the skirts of the pulpit; but nothing happened to cause any disturbance till the godly mr patrick henderson had made an end of the morning prayer, when he said, with tears in his eyes, with reference to the liturgy, which was then to be promulgated, "adieu, good people, for i think this is the last time of my saying prayers in this kirk;" and the congregation being much moved thereat, many wept. no sooner had mr henderson retired, than master ramsay, that horn of the beast, which was called the dean of edinburgh, appeared in the pulpit in the pomp of his abominations, and began to read the liturgy. at the first words of which janet geddes was so transported with indignation that, starting from her stool, she made it fly whirring at his head, as she cried, "villain, dost thou say the mass at my lug?" then such an uproar began as had not been witnessed since the destruction of the idols; the women screaming, and clapping their hands in terrification as if the legions of the evil one had been let loose upon them; and the men crying aloud, "antichrist! antichrist! down wi' the pope!" and all exhortation to quiet them was drowned in the din. such was the beginning of those troubles in the church and state so wantonly provoked by the weak and wicked policy of the first king charles, and which in the end brought himself to an ignominious death; and such the cause of that solemn league and covenant, to which, in my green years, my father, soon after his return home, took me to be a party, and to which i have been enabled to adhere, with unerring constancy, till the glorious purpose of it has all been fulfilled and accomplished. chapter xxxviii when my father returned home, my mother and all the family were grieved to see his sad and altered looks. we gathered around him, and she thought he had failed to get the legacy, and comforted him by saying they had hitherto fenn't without it, and so might they still do. to her tender condolements he however made no answer; but, taking a leathern bag, with the money in it, out of his bosom, he flung it on the table, saying, "what care i for this world's trash, when the ark of the lord is taken from israel?" which to hear daunted the hearts of all present. and then he told us, after some time, what was doing on the part of the king to bring in the worship of the beast again, rehearsing, with many circumstances, the consternation and sorrow and rage and lamentations that he had witnessed in edinburgh. i, who was the ninth of his ten children, and then not passing nine years old, was thrilled with an unspeakable fear; and all the dreadful things, which i had heard my grandfather tell of the tribulations of his time, came upon my spirit like visions of the visible scene, and i began to weep with an exceeding sorrow, in so much that my father was amazed, and caressed me, and thanked heaven that one so young in his house felt as a protestant child should feel in an epoch of such calamity. it was then late in the afternoon, towards the gloaming, and having partaken of some refreshment, my father took the big bible from the press-head, and, after a prayer uttered in great heaviness of spirit, he read a portion of the revelations, concerning the vials and the woes, expounding the same like a preacher; and we were all filled with anxieties and terrors; some of the younger members trembled with the thought that the last day was surely at hand. next morning a sough and rumour of that solemn venting of christian indignation which had been manifested at edinburgh, having reached our country-side, and the neighbours hearing of my father's return, many of them came at night to our house to hear the news; and it was a meeting that none present thereat could ever after forget:--well do i mind everything as if it had happened but yestreen. i was sitting on a laigh stool at the fireside, between the chumley-lug and the gown-tail of old nanse snoddie, my mother's aunty, a godly woman, that in her eild we took care of; and as young and old came in, the salutation was in silence, as of guests coming to a burial. the first was ebenezer muir, an aged man, whose grandson stood many a blast in the persecution of the latter days, both with the blackcuffs and the bloody dragoons of the remorseless graham of claver. he was bent with the burden of time, and leaning on his staff, and his long white hair hung down from aneath his broad blue bonnet. he was one whom my grandfather held in great respect for the sincerity of his principles and the discretion of his judgment, and among all his neighbours, and nowhere more than in our house, was he considered a most patriarchal character. "come awa, ebenezer," said my father, "i'm blithe and i'm sorrowful to see you. this night we may be spar't to speak in peace of the things that pertain unto salvation; but the day and the hour is not far off, when the flock of christ shall be scattered and driven from the pastures of their divine master." to these words of affliction ebenezer muir made no response, but went straight to the fireside, facing nanse snoddie, and sat down without speaking; and my father, then observing john fullarton of dykedivots coming in, stretched out his hand, and took hold of his, and drew him to sit down by his side. they had been in a manner brothers from their youth upward. an uncle of john fullarton's, by whom he was brought up, had been owner, and he himself had heired, and was then possessor of, the mailing of dykedivot, beside ours. he was the father of four brave sons, the youngest of whom, a stripling of some thirteen or fourteen years, was at his back: the other three came in afterwards. he was, moreover, a man of a stout and courageous nature, though of a much-enduring temper. "i hope," said he to my father--"i hope, sawners, a' this straemash and hobbleshow that fell out last sabbath in embro' has been seen wi' the glamoured een o' fear, and that the king and government canna be sae far left to themsels as to meddle wi' the ordinances of the lord." "i doot, i doot, it's owre true, john," replied my father in a very mournful manner; and while they were thus speaking, nahum chapelrig came ben. he was a young man, and his father being precentor and schoolmaster of the parish, he had more lair than commonly falls to the lot of country folk; over and aboon this, he was of a spirity disposition, and both eydent and eager in whatsoever he undertook, so that for his years he was greatly looked up to amang all his acquaintance, notwithstanding a small spicin of conceit that he was in with himself. on seeing him coming in, worthy ebenezer muir made a sign for him to draw near and sit by him; and when he went forward, and drew in a stool, the old man took hold of him by the hand, and said, "ye're weel come, nahum;" and my father added, "ay, nahum chapelrig, it's fast coming to pass, as ye hae been aye saying it would; the king has na restit wi' putting the prelates upon us." "what's te prelates, robin fullarton?" said auld nanse snoddie, turning round to john's son, who was standing behind his father. "they're the red dragons o' unrighteousness," replied the sincere laddie with great vehemence. "gude guide us!" cried nanse with the voice of terror; "and has the king daur't to send sic accursed things to devour god's people?" but my mother, who was sitting behind me, touched her on the shoulder, bidding her be quiet; for the poor woman, being then doited, when left to the freedom of her own will, was apt to expatiate without ceasing on whatsoever she happened to discourse anent; and nahum chapelrig said to my father,-- "'deed, sawners gilhaize, we could look for nae better; prelacy is but the prelude o' papistry; but the papistry o' this prelude is a perilous papistry indeed; for its roots of rankness are in the midden-head of arminianism, which, in a sense, is a greater antichrist than antichrist himself, even where he sits on his throne of thraldom in the roman vaticano. but, nevertheless, i trust and hope, that though the virgin bride of protestantism be for a season thrown on her back, she shall not be overcome, but will so strive and warsle aneath the foul grips of that rampant arminian, the english high-priest laud, that he shall himself be cast into the mire, or choket wi' the stoure of his own bakiefu's of abominations, wherewith he would overwhelm and bury the evangil. yea, even though the shield of his mighty men is made red, and his valiant men are in scarlet, he shall recount his worthies, but they shall stumble in their walk." while nahum was thus holding forth, the house filled even to the trance-door with the neighbours, old and young; and several from time to time spoke bitterly against the deadly sin and aggression which the king was committing in the rape that the reading of the liturgy was upon the consciences of his people. at last ebenezer muir, taking off his bonnet, and rising, laid it down on his seat behind him, and then resting with both his hands on his staff, looked up, and every one was hushed. truly it was an affecting sight to behold that very aged, time-bent and venerable man so standing in the midst of all his dismayed and pious neighbours,--his grey hairs flowing from his haffets,--and the light of our lowly hearth shining upon his bald head and reverent countenance. "friens," said he, "i hae lived lang in the world; and in this house i hae often partaken the sweet repast of the conversations of that sanctified character, michael gilhaize, whom we a' revered as a parent, not more for his ain worth than for the great things to which he was a witness in the trials and troubles of the reformation; and it seems to me, frae a' the experience i hae gatherit, that when ance kings and governments hae taken a step, let it be ne'er sae rash, there's a something in the nature of rule and power that winna let them confess a fau't, though they may afterwards be constrained to renounce the evil of their ways. it was therefore wi' a sore heart that i heard this day the doleful tidings frae embro', and moreover, that i hae listened to the outbreathings this night of the heaviness wherewith the news hae oppressed you a'. sure am i, that frae the provocation given to the people of scotland by the king's miscounselled majesty, nothing but tears and woes can ensue; for by the manner in which they hae already rebutted the aggression, he will in return be stirred to aggrieve them still farther. i'm now an auld man, and may be removed before the woes come to pass; but it requires not the e'e of prophecy to spae bloodshed and suffering, and many afflictions in your fortunes. nevertheless, friens, be of good cheer, for the lord will prosper his own cause. neither king, nor priest, nor any human authority has the right to interfere between you and your god; and allegiance ends where persecution begins. never, therefore, in the trials awaiting you, forget that the right to resist in matters of conscience is the foundation-stone of religious liberty; o see, therefore, that you guard it weel!" the voice and manner of the aged speaker melted every heart. many of the women sobbed aloud, and the children were moved, as i was myself, and as i have often heard them in their manhood tell, as if the spirit of faith and fortitude had entered into the very bones and marrow of their bodies; nor ever afterwards have i heard psalm sung with such melodious energy of holiness as that pious congregation of simple country folk sung the hundred and fortieth psalm before departing for their lowly dwellings on that solemn evening. chapter xxxix it was on the wednesday that my father came home from edinburgh. on friday the farmer lads and their fathers continued coming over to our house to hear the news, and all their discourse was concerning the manifest foretaste of papistry which was in the praying of the prayers, that an obdurate prince and an alien arminian prelate were attempting to thrust into their mouths, and every one spoke of renewing the solemn league and covenant, which, in the times of the reformation and the dangers of the spanish armada, had achieved such great things for the truth and the word. on saturday, mr sundrum, our minister, called for my father about twelve o'clock. he had heard the news, and also that my father had come back. i was doing something on the green, i forget now what it was, when i saw him coming towards the door, and i ran into the house to tell my father, who immediately came out to meet him. little passed in my hearing between them, for, after a short inquiry concerning how my father had fared in the journey, the minister took hold of him by the arm, and they walked together into the fields, where, when they were at some distance from the house, mr sundrum stopped, and began to discourse in a very earnest and lively manner, frequently touching the palm of his left hand with the fingers of his right, as he spoke to my father, and sometimes lifting both his hands as one in amaze, ejaculating to the heavens. while they were thus reasoning together, worthy ebenezer muir came towards the house, but, observing where they were, he turned off and joined them, and they continued all three in vehement deliberation, in so much that i was drawn by the thirst of curiosity to slip so near towards them that i could hear what passed; and my young heart was pierced at the severe terms in which the minister was condemning the ringleaders of the riot, as he called the adversaries of popedom in edinburgh, and in a manner rebuking my honest father as a sower of sedition. my father, however, said stiffly, for he was not a man to controvert with a minister, that in all temporal things he was a true and leil subject, and in what pertained to the king as king, he would stand as stoutly up for as any man in the three kingdoms; but against a usurpation of the lord's rights, his hand, his heart, and his father's sword, that had been used in the reformation, were all alike ready. old ebenezer muir tried to pacify him, and reasoned in great gentleness with both, expressing his concern that a presbyterian minister could think that the attempt to bring in prelacy, and the reading of court-contrived prayers, was not a meddling with things sacred and rights natural, which neither prince nor potentate had authority to do. but mr sundrum was one of those that longed for the flesh-pots of egypt, and the fat things of a lordly hierarchy; and the pacific remonstrances of the pious old man made him wax more and more wroth at what he hatefully pronounced their rebellious inclinations; at which bitter words both my father and ebenezer muir turned from him, and went together to the house with sadness in their faces, leaving him to return the way he had come alone--a thing which filled me with consternation, he having ever before been treated and reverenced as a pastor ought always to be. what comment my father and the old man made on his conduct when they were by themselves i know not; but on the sabbath morning the kirk was filled to overflowing, and my father took me with him by the hand, and we sat together on the same form with ebenezer muir, whom we found in the church before us. when mr sundrum mounted into the pulpit, and read the psalm and said the prayer, there was nothing particular; but when he prepared to preach, there was a rustle of expectation among all present, for the text he chose was from romans, chapter xiii. and verses and ; from which he made an endeavour to demonstrate, as i heard afterwards, for i was then too young to discern the matter of it myself, the duty and advantages of passive obedience--and, growing warm with his ungospel rhetoric, he began to rail and to daud the pulpit in condemnation of the spirit which had kithed in edinburgh. ebenezer muir and my father tholed with him for some time; but at last he so far forgot his place and office, that they both rose and moved towards the door. many others did the same, and presently the whole congregation, with the exception of a very few, also began to move, so that the kirk skayled; and from that day, so long as mr sundrum continued in the parish, he was as a leper and an excommunicant. meanwhile the alarm was spreading far and wide, and a blessed thing it was for the shire of ayr, though it caused its soil to be soakened with the blood of martyrs, that few of the ministers were like the time-serving mr sundrum, but trusty and valiant defenders of the green pastures whereon they had delighted, like kind shepherds, to lead their confiding flocks, and to cherish the young lambs thereof with the tender embraces of a holy ministry. among the rest, that godly and great saint, mr swinton of garnock, our neighbour parish, stood courageously forward in the gap of the broken fence of the vineyard, announcing, after a most weighty discourse, on the same day on which mr sundrum preached the erroneous doctrine of passive obedience, that next sabbath he would administer the sacrament of the lord's supper, not knowing how long it might be in the power of his people to partake of it. every body around accordingly prepared to be present on that occasion, and there was a wonderful congregation. all the adjacent parishes in succession did the same thing sabbath after sabbath, and never was there seen, in the memory of living man, such a zealous devotion and strictness of life as then reigned throughout the whole west country. at last the news came, that it was resolved among the great and faithful at edinburgh to renew the solemn league and covenant; and the ministers of our neighbourhood having conferred together concerning the same, it was agreed among them, that the people should be invited to come forward on a day set apart for the purpose, and that as the kirk of irvine was the biggest in the vicinage, the signatures both for the country and that town should be received there. mr dickson, the minister, than whom no man of his day was more brave in the lord's cause, accordingly made the needful preparation, and appointed the time. in the meanwhile the young men began to gird themselves for war. the swords that had rested for many a day were drawn from their idle places; and the women worked together, that their brothers and their sons might be ready for the field; but at their work, instead of the ancient lilts, they sung psalms and godly ballads. however, as i mean not to enter upon the particulars of that awakening epoch, but only to show forth the pure and the holy earnestness with which the minds of men were then actuated, i shall here refer the courteous reader to the annals and chronicles of the time,--albeit the truth in them has suffered from the alloy of a base servility. chapter xl the sixteenth day of june, in the year of our lord , was appointed for the renewal at irvine of the solemn league and covenant. on the night before, my five elder brothers, who were learning trades at glasgow and kilmarnock, came home that they might go up with their father to the house of god, in order to set down their names together; me and my four sisters, the rest of his ten children, were still biding with our mother and him at the mailing. from my grandfather's time there had been a by-common respect among the neighbours for our family on his account; and that morning my brother jacob, who happened to be the first that went, at break of day, to the door, was surprised to see many of the cotters and neighbouring farmer lads already assembled on the lone, waiting to walk with us to the town, as a token of their reverence for the principles and the memory of that departed worthy; and they were all belted and armed with swords like men ready for battle. seeing such a concourse of the neighbours, instead of making exercise in the house, my father, as the morning was bright and lown, bade me carry the bible and a stool to the dykeside, that our friends might have room to join us in worship,--which i did accordingly, placing the stool under the ash-tree, at the corner of the stack-yard, and by all those who were present on that occasion the spot was ever afterwards regarded as a hallowed place. truly there was a scene and a sight there not likely to be soon forgotten; for the awful cause that had brought together that meeting was a thing which no man who had a part therein could ever in all his days forget. my father chose the seventy-sixth psalm, and when it was sung, he opened the scriptures in second kings, and read aloud, with a strong voice, the twenty-third chapter, and every one likened josiah to the old king, and jehoahaz to his son charles, by whose disregard of the covenant the spirit of the land was then in such tribulation; and at the conclusion, instead of kneeling to pray, as he was wont, my father stood up, and, as if all temporal things were then of no account, he only supplicated that the work they had in hand for that day might be approved and sanctified. the worship being over, the family returned into the house, and having partaken of a repast of bread and milk, my father put on his father's sword, and my brothers, who had brought weapons of their own home with them, also belted themselves for the road. i was owre young to be yet trysted for war, so my father led me out by the hand, and walking forward, followed by my brothers, the neighbours, two and two, fell into the rear, and the women, in their plaids, came mournful and in tears at some short distance behind. as we were thus proceeding towards the main road, we heard the sound of a drum and fife, and saw over the hedge of the lane that leads to the clachan, a white banner waving aloft with the words, "solemn league and covenant" painted thereon; at the sight of which my father was much disturbed, saying,--"this is some silly device of nahum chapelrig, that, if we allow to proceed, may bring scoff and scorn upon the cause as we enter the town;" and with that, dropping my hand, he ran forward and stopped their vain bravery; for it was, as he had supposed, the work of nahum, who was marching, like a man of war, at the head of his band. however, on my father's remonstrance, he consented to send away his sounding instruments and idle banner, and to walk composedly along with us. as we reached the town-end port, we fell in with a vast number of other persons, from different parts of the country, going to sign the covenant, and, on a cart, worthy ebenezer muir and three other aged men like himself, who, being all of our parish, it was agreed that they should alight and walk to the kirk at the head of those who had come with my father. while this was putting in order, other men and lads belonging to the parish came and joined us, so that, to the number of more than a hundred, we went up the town together. when we arrived at the tolbooth, we were obligated, with others, to halt for some time, by reason of the great crowd at the kirkgatefoot waiting to see if the magistrates, who were then sitting in council, would come forth and go to the kirk; and the different crafts and burgesses, with their deacons, were standing at the cross in order to follow them, if they determined, in their public capacity, to sign the covenant, according to the pious example which had been set to all in authority by the magistrates and town-council of edinburgh three days before. we had not, however, occasion to be long detained; for it was resolved, with a unanimous heart, that the provost should sign in the name of the town, and that the bailies and councillors should, in their own names, sign each for himself; so they came out, with the town-officers bearing their battle-axes before them, and the crafts, according to their privilege, followed them to the kirk. the men of our parish went next; but on reaching the kirk-yard yett, it was manifest that, large as the ancient fabric was, it would not be able to receive a moité of the persons assembled. godly mr david dickson, the minister, had, however, provided for this; and on one of the old tombs, on the south side of the kirk, he had ordered a table and chair to be placed, where that effectual preacher, mr livingstone, delivered a great sermon,--around him the multitude from the country parishes were congregated; but my father being well acquainted with deacon auld of the wrights, was invited by him to come into his seat in the kirk, where he carried me in with him, and we heard mr dickson himself. of the strain and substance of his discourse i remember nothing, save only the earnestness of his manner; but well do i remember the awful sough and silence that was in the kirk when, at the conclusion of the sermon, he prepared to read the words of the covenant. "now," said he, when he had come to the end, and was rolling it up, "as no man knoweth how long, after this day, he may be allowed to partake of the sacrament of the supper, the elders will bring forward the elements; and it is hoped that sisters in christ will not come to communion till the brethren are served, who, as they take their seats at the lord's table, are invited to sign their names to this solemn charter of the religious rights and liberties of god's people in scotland." he then came down from the pulpit with the parchment in his hand, and going to the head of the sacramental table, he opened it again, and laid it down over the elements of the bread and wine which the elders had just placed there; and a minister, whose name i do not well recollect, sitting at his right hand, holding an inkstand, presented him with a pen, which, when he had taken, he prayed in silence for the space of a minute, and then, bending forward, he signed his name; having done so, he raised himself erect and said, with a loud voice, holding up his right hand, "before god and these witnesses, in truth and holiness, i have sworn to keep this covenant." at that moment a solemn sound rose from all the congregation, and every one stood up to see the men, as they sat at the table, put down their names. chapter xli from the day on which the covenant was signed, though i was owre young to remember the change myself, i have heard it often said that a great alteration took place in the morals and manners of the covenanters. the sabbath was observed by them with far more than the solemnity of times past; and there was a strictness of walk and conversation among them, which showed how much in sincerity they were indeed regenerated christians. the company of persons inclined to the prelatic sect was eschewed as contagious, and all light pastimes and gayety of heart were suppressed, both on account of their tendency to sinfulness, and because of the danger with which the truth and the word were threatened by the arminian antichrist of the king's government. but the more immediate effect of the renewal of the solemn league and covenant was the preparation for defence and resistance, which the deceitful policy of that false monarch, king charles the first, taught every one to know would be required. the men began to practise firing at butts and targets, and to provide themselves with arms and munitions of war; while, in order to maintain a life void of offence in all temporal concerns, they were by ordinare obedient and submissive to those in authority over them, whether holding jurisdiction from the king, or in virtue of baronies and feudalities. in this there was great wisdom; for it left the sin of the provocation still on the heads of the king and his evil counsellors, in so much that even, when the general assembly, holden at glasgow, vindicated the independence and freedom of christ's kingdom, by continuing to sit in despite of the dissolution pronounced by king charles' commissioner, the marquis hamilton, and likewise by decreeing the abolition of prelacy as an abomination, there was no political blame wherewith the people, in their capacity of subjects to their earthly prince, could be wyted or brought by law to punishment. in the meantime, the king, who was as fey as he was false, mustered his forces, and his rampant high-priest, laud, was, with all the voices of his prelatic emissaries, inflaming the honest people of england to wage war against our religious freedom. the papistical queen of charles was no less busy with the priesthood of her crafty sect, and aids and powers, both of men and money, were raised wherever they could be had, in order to reinstall the discarded episcopacy of scotland. the covenanters, however, were none daunted, for they had a great ally in the lord of hosts; and, with him for their captain, they neither sought nor wished for any alien assistance, though they sent letters to their brethren in foreign parts, exhorting them to unite in the covenant, and to join them for the battle. general lesley, in gustavus adolphus' army, was invited by his kinsman, the lord rothes, to come home, that, if need arose, he might take the temporal command of the covenanters. the king having at last, according to an ancient practice of the english monarchs, when war in old times was proclaimed against the scots, summoned his nobles to attend him with their powers at york, the covenanters girded their loins, and the whole country rung with the din of the gathering of an host for the field. one captain bannerman, who had been with lesley in the armies of gustavus, was sent from edinburgh to train the men in our part; and our house being central for the musters of the three adjacent parishes, he staid a night in the week with us at quharist for the space of better than two months, and his military discourse greatly instructed our neighbours in the arts and stratagems of war. he was an elderly man, of a sedate character, and had gone abroad with an uncle from montrose when he was quite a youth. in his day he had seen many strange cities, and places of wonderful strength to withstand the force of sieges. but, though bred a soldier, and his home in the camp, he had been himself but seldom in the field of battle. in appearance he was tall and lofty, and very erect and formal; a man of few words, but they were well chosen; and he was patient and pains-taking; of a contented aspect, somewhat hard-favoured, and seldom given to smile. to little children he was, however, bland and courteous; taking a pleasure in setting those that were of my age in battle array, for he had no pastime, being altogether an instructive soldier; or, as william, my third brother, used to say, who was a free out-spoken lad, captain bannerman was a real dominie o' war. besides him, in our country-side, there was another officer, by name hepburn, who had also been bred with the great gustavus, sent to train the covenanters in irvine; but he was of a more mettlesome humour, and lacked the needful douceness that became those who were banding themselves for a holy cause; so that when any of his disciples were not just so list and brisk as they might have been, which was sometimes the case, especially among the weavers, he thought no shame, even on the golf-fields, before all the folks and onlookers, to curse and swear at them as if he had been himself one of the king's cavaliers, and they no better than ne'erdoweels receiving the wages of sin against the covenant. in sooth to say, he was a young man of a disorderly nature, and about seven months after he left the town twa misfortunate creatures gave him the wyte of their bairns. yet, for all the regardlessness of his ways and moral conduct, he was much beloved by the men he had the training of; and, on the night before he left the town, lies were told of a most respectit and pious officer of the town's power, if he did not find the causey owre wide when he was going home, after partaking of captain hepburn's pay-way supper. but how that may have been is little of my business at present to investigate; for i have only spoken of hepburn, to notify what happened in consequence of a brag he had with bannerman, anent the skill of their respective disciples, the which grew to such a controversy between them, that nothing less would satisfy hepburn than to try the skill of the irvine men against ours, and the two neighbouring parishes of garnock and stoneyholm. accordingly a day was fixt for that purpose, and the craiglands-croft was the place appointed for this probation of soldiership. on the morning of the appointed day the country folk assembled far and near, and nahum chapelrig, at the head of the lads of his clachan, was the first on the field. the sight to my young eyes was as the greatest show of pageantry that could be imagined; for nahum had, from the time of the covenanting, been gathering arms and armour from all quarters, and had thereby not only obtained a glittering breastplate for himself, but three other coats of mail for the like number of his fellows; and when they were coming over the croft, with their fife and drum, and the banner of the covenant waving aloft in the air, every one ran to behold such splendour and pomp of war; many of the women, that were witnesses among the multitude, wept at such an apparition of battles dazzling our peaceful fields. my father, with my five brothers, headed the covenanters of our parish. there was no garnish among that band. they came along with austere looks and douce steps, and their belts were of tanned leather. the hilts of many of their swords were rusty, for they had been the weapons of their forefathers in the raids of the reformation. as my father led them to their station on the right flank of nahum chapelrig's array, the crowd of onlookers fell back, and stood in silence as they passed by. scarcely had they halted, when there was a rushing among the onlookers, and presently the townsmen, with hepburn on horseback, were seen coming over the brow of the gowan-brae. they were scant the strength of the country folk by more than a score; but there was a band of sailor boys with them that made the number greater; so that, when they were all drawn up together forenent the countrymen, they were more than man for man. it is not to be suppressed nor denied, that, in the first show of the day, hepburn got far more credit and honour than old sedate bannerman; for his lads were lighter in the heel, glegger in the eye, and brisker in the manoeuvres of war: moreover, they were all far more similar in their garb and appearance, which gave them a seeming compactness that the countrymen had nothing like. but when the sham contest began, it was not long till bannerman's disciples showed the proofs of their master's better skill to such a mark, that hepburn grew hot, and so kindled his men by reproaches, that there was like to have been fighting in true earnest; for the blood of the country folk was also rising. their eyes grew fierce, and they muttered through their teeth. old ebenezer muir, who was among the multitude, observing that their blood was heating, stepped forward, and lifting up his hand, cried, "sirs, stop;" and both sides instanter made a pause. "this maunna be," said he. "it may be sport to those who are by trade soldiers to try the mettle o' their men, but ye're a covenanted people, obligated by a grievous tyranny to quit your spades and your looms only for a season; therefore be counselled, and rush not to battle till need be, which may the lord yet prevent." hepburn uttered an angry ban, and would have turned the old man away by the shoulder; but the combatants saw they were in the peril of a quarrel, and many of them cried aloud, "he's in the right, and we're playing the fool for the diversion o' our adversaries." so the townsmen and the country folk shook hands; but instead of renewing the contest, captain bannerman proposed that they should all go through their discipline together, it being manifest that there were little odds in their skill, and none in their courage. the which prudent admonition pacified all parties, and the remainder of the day was spent in cordiality and brotherly love. towards the conclusion of the exercises, worthy mr swinton came on the field; and when the business of the day was over, he stepped forward, and the trained men being formed around him, the onlookers standing on the outside, he exhorted them in prayer, and implored a blessing on their covenanted union, which had the effect of restoring all their hearts to a religious frame and a solemnity befitting the spirituality of their cause. chapter xlii one night, about a month after the ploy whereof i have spoken in the foregoing chapter, just as my father had finished the worship, and the family were composing themselves round the fireside for supper, we were startled by the sound of a galloping horse coming to the door; and before any one had time to open it, there was a dreadful knocking with the heft of the rider's whip. it was nahum chapelrig, who being that day at kilmarnock, had heard, as he was leaving the town, the cry get up there that the aggressor was coming from york with all the english power, and he had flown far and wide on his way home publishing the dismal tidings. my father, in a sober manner, bade him alight and partake of our supper, questioning him sedately anent what he had heard; but nahum was raised, and could give no satisfaction in his answers; he, however, leapt from his horse, and drawing the bridle through the ring at the door-cheek, came ben to the fire where we had all so shortly before been harmoniously sitting. his eyes were wide and wild; his hair, with the heat he was in, was as if it had been pomated; his cheeks were white, his lips red, and he panted with haste and panic. "they're coming," he cried, "in thousands o' thousands; never sic a force has crossed the border since the day o' flodden field. we'll a' either be put to the sword, man, woman, and child, or sent in slavery to the plantations." "no," replied my father, "things are no just come to that pass; we have our swords yet, and hearts and hands to use them." the consternation, however, of nahum chapelrig that night was far ayont all counsel; so, after trying to soothe and reason him into a more temperate frame, my father was obligated to tell him, that since the battle was coming so near our gates, it behoved the covenanters to be in readiness for the field, advising nahum to go home, and be over with him betimes in the morning. while they were thus speaking, james newbigging also came to the door with a rumour of the same substance, which his wife had brought from eglinton castle, where she had been with certain cocks and hens, a servitude of the eglintons on their mailing; so that there was no longer any dubiety about the news, though matters were not in such a desperate condition as nahum chapelrig had terrified himself with the thought of. nevertheless, the tidings were very dreadful; and it was a judgment-like thing to hear that an anointed king was so far left to himself as to be coming with wrath, and banners, and trampling war-horses, to destroy his subjects for the sincerity of their religious allegiance to that almighty monarch, who has but permitted the princes of the earth to be set up as idols by the hands of men. james newbigging, as well as nahum, having come ben to the fireside, my father called for the books again, and gave out the eight first verses of the forty-fourth psalm, which we all sung with hearts in holy unison and zealous voices. when james newbigging and nahum chapelrig were gone away home, my father sat for some time exhorting us, who were his youngest children, to be kind to one another, to cherish our mother, and no to let auld doited aunty want, if it was the lord's will that he should never come back from the battle. the which to hear caused much sorrow and lamentation, especially from my mother, who, however, said nothing, but took hold of his hand and watered it with her tears. after this he walked out into the fields, where he remained some time alone; and during his absence, me and the three who were next to me, were sent to our beds; but, young as we then were, we were old enough to know the danger that hung over us, and we lay long awake, wondering and woful with fear. about two hours after midnight the house was again startled by another knocking, and on my father inquiring who was at the door, he was answered by my brother jacob, who had come with michael and robin from glasgow to kilmarnock, on hearing the news, and had thence brought william and alexander with them to go with their father to the war. for they had returned to their respective trades after the day of the covenanting, and had only been out at hepburn's raid, as the ploy with the irvine men was called in jocularity, in order that the neighbours, who venerated their grandfather, might see them together as covenanters. the arrival of her sons, and the purpose they had come upon, awakened afresh the grief of our mother; but my father entreated us all to be quiet, and to compose ourselves to rest, that we might be the abler on the morn to prepare for what might then ensue. yet, though there was no sound in the house, save only our mother's moaning, few closed their eyes, and long before the sun every one was up and stirring, and my father and my five brothers were armed and belted for the march. scarcely were they ready, when different neighbours in the like trim came to go with them; presently also nahum chapelrig, with his banner, and fife, and drum, at the head of some ten or twelve lads of his clachan, came over; and on this occasion no obstacle was made to that bravery which was thought so uncomely on the day of the covenanting. while the armed men were thus gathering before our door, with the intent of setting forward to glasgow, as the men of the west had been some time before trysted to do, by orders from general lesley, on the first alarm, that godly man and minister of righteousness, the reverend mr swinton, made his appearance with his staff in his hand, and a satchel on his back, in which he carried the bible. "i am come, my friens," said he, "to go with you. where the ensigns of christ's covenant are displayed, it is meet that the very lowest of his vassals should be there;" and having exhorted the weeping women around to be of good cheer, he prayed for them and for their little children, whom the aggressor was, perhaps, soon to make fatherless. nahum chapelrig then exalted his banner, and the drum and fife beginning to play, the venerable man stepped forward, and heading the array with his staff in his hand, they departed amidst the shouts of the boys, and the loud sorrow of many a wife and mother. i followed them, with my companions, till they reached the high road, where, at the turn that led them to glasgow, a great concourse of other women and children belonging to the neighbouring parishes were assembled, having there parted from their friends. they were all mourning and weeping, and mingling their lamentations with bitter predictions against the king and his evil counsellors; but seeing mr swinton, they became more composed, and he having made a sign to the drum and fife to cease, he stopped, and earnestly entreated them to return home and employ themselves in the concerns of their families, which, the heads being for a season removed, stood the more in need of all their kindness and care. this halt in the march of their friends brought the onlookers, who were assembled round our house, running to see what was the cause; and, among others, it gave time to the aged ebenezer muir to come up, whom mr swinton no sooner saw than he called on him by name, and bade him comfort the women, and invite them away from the high road, where their presence could only increase the natural grief that every covenanted christian, in passing to join the army, could not but suffer, on seeing so many left defenceless by the unprovoked anger of the aggressor. he then bade the drum again beat, and, the march being resumed, the band of our parish soon went out of sight. while our men continued in view ebenezer muir said nothing; but as soon as they had disappeared behind the brow of the gowan-brae, he spoke to the multitude in a gentle and paternal manner, and bade them come with him into the neighbouring field, and join him in prayer; after which he hoped they would see the wisdom of returning to their homes. they accordingly followed him, and he having given out the twenty-third psalm, all present joined him, till the lonely fields and silent woods echoed to the melody of their pious song. as we were thus standing around the old man in worship and unison of spirit, the irvine men came along the road; and seeing us, they hushed their drums as they passed by, and bowed down their banners in reverence and solemnity. such was the outset of the worthies of the renewed covenant, in their war with the first charles. chapter xliii after my father and brothers, with our neighbours that went with them, had returned from the bloodless raid of dunse law, as the first expedition was called, a solemn thanksgiving was held in all the country-side; but the minds of men were none pacified by the treaty concluded with the king at berwick. for it was manifest to the world, that coming in his ire, and with all the might of his power, to punish the covenanters as rebels, he would never have consented to treat with them on anything like equal terms, had he not been daunted by their strength and numbers; so that the spirit awakened by his ahab-like domination continued as alive and as distrustful of his word and pactions as ever. after the rumours of his plain juggling about the verbals of the stipulated conditions, and his arbitrary prorogation of the parliament at edinburgh, a thing which the best and bravest of the scottish monarchs had never before dared to do without the consent of the states then assembled, the thud and murmur of warlike preparation was renewed both on anvil and in hall. and when it was known that the king, fey and distempered with his own weak conceits and the instigations of cruel counsellors, had, as soon as he heard that the covenanters were disbanded, renewed his purposes of punishment and oppression, a gurl of rage, like the first brush of the tempest on the waves, passed over the whole extent of scotland, and those that had been in arms fiercely girded themselves again for battle. as the king's powers came again towards the borders, the covenanters, for the second time, mustered under lesley at dunse; but far different was this new departure of our men from the solemnity of their first expedition. their spirits were now harsh and angry, and their drums sounded hoarsely on the breeze. godly mr swinton, as he headed them again, struck the ground with his staff, and, instead of praying, said, "it is the lord's pleasure, and he will make the aggressor fin' the weight of the arm of flesh. honest folk are no ever to be thus obligated to leave their fields and families by the provocations of a prerogative that has so little regard for the people. in the name and strength of god, let us march." with six-and-twenty thousand horse and foot lesley crossed the tweed, and in the first onset the king's army was scattered like chaff before the wind. when the news of the victory arrived among us, every one was filled with awe and holy wonder; for it happened on the very day which was held as a universal fast throughout the land; on that day, likewise, even in the time of worship, the castle of dumbarton was won, and the covenanted earl of haddington repelled a wasteful irruption from the garrison of berwick. such disasters smote the king with consternation; for the immediate fruit of the victory was the conquest of newcastle, tynemouth, shields and durham. baffled and mortified, humbled but not penitent, the rash and vindictive monarch, in a whirlwind of mutiny and desertion, was obligated to retreat to york, where he was constrained, by the few sound and sober-minded that yet hovered around him, to try the effect of another negotiation with his insulted and indignant subjects. but as all the things which thence ensued are mingled with the acts of perfidy and aggression by which, under the disastrous influence of the fortunes of his doomed and guilty race, he drew down the vengeance of his english subjects, it would lead me far from this household memorial to enter more at large on circumstances so notour, though they have been strangely palliated by the supple spirit of latter times, especially by the sordid courtliness of the crafty clarendon. i shall therefore skip the main passages of public affairs, and hasten forward to the time when i became myself enlisted on the side of our national liberties, briefly, however, noticing, as i proceed, that after the peace which was concluded at ripon my father and my five brothers came home. none of them received any hurt in battle; but in the course of the winter the old man was visited with a great income of pains and aches, in so much that, for the remainder of his days, he was little able to endure fatigue or hardship of any kind; my second brother, robin, was therefore called from his trade in glasgow to look after the mailing, for i was still owre young to be of any effectual service; alexander continued a bonnet-maker at kilmarnock; but michael, william and jacob, joined and fought with the forces that won the mournful triumph of marston moor, where fifty thousand subjects of the same king and laws contended with one another, and where the lord, by showing himself on the side of the people, gave a dreadful admonition to the government to recant and conciliate while there was yet time. meanwhile the worthy mr swinton, having observed in me a curiosity towards books of history and piety, had taken great pains to instruct me in the rights and truths of religion, and to make it manifest alike to the ears and eyes of my understanding, that no human authority could, or ought to, dictate in matters of faith, because it could not discern the secrets of the breast, neither know what was acceptable to heaven in conduct or in worship. he likewise expounded to me in what manner the covenant was not a temporal but a spiritual league, trenching in no respect upon the natural and contributed authority of the kingly office. but, owing to the infirm state of my father's health, neither my brother robin nor i could be spared from the farm, in any of the different raids that germinated out of the king's controversy with the english parliament; so that in the whigamore expedition, as it was profanely nicknamed, from our shire, with the covenanted earls of cassilis and eglinton, we had no personality, though our hearts went with those that were therein. when, however, the hideous tidings came of the condemnation and execution of the king, there was a stop in the current of men's minds, and as the waters of jordan, when the ark was carried in, rushed back to their fountain-head, every true scot on that occasion felt in his heart the ancient affections of his nature returning with a compassionate horror. yet even in this they were true to the covenant; for it was not to be hidden that the english parliament, in doing what it did in that tragical event, was guided by a speculative spirit of political innovation and change, different and distinct, both in principle and object, from the cause which made our scottish covenanters have recourse to arms. in truth, the act of bringing kings to public condign punishment was no such new thing in the chronicles of scotland, as that brave historian, george buchanan, plainly shows, to have filled us with such amazement and affright, had the offences of king charles been proven as clearly personal, as the crimes for which the ancient tyrants of his pedigree suffered the death;--but his offences were shared with his counsellors, whose duty it was to have bridled his arbitrary pretensions. he was in consequence mourned as a victim, and his son, the second charles, at once proclaimed and acknowledged king of scotland. how he deported himself in that capacity, and what gratitude he and his brother showed the land for its faith and loyalty in the wreck and desperation of their royal fortunes, with a firm and a fearless pen i now purpose to show. but as the tale of their persecutions is ravelled with the sorrows and the sufferings of my friends and neighbours, and the darker tissue of my own woes, it is needful, before proceeding therein, that i should entreat the indulgence of the courteous reader to allow a few short passages of my private life now to be here recorded. chapter xliv some time before the news of king charles' execution reached us in the west, the day had been set for my marriage with sarah lochrig; but the fear and consternation which the tidings bred in all minds, many dreading that the event would be followed by a total breaking up of the union and frame of society, made us consent to defer our happiness till we saw what was ordained to come to pass. when, however, it was seen and felt that the dreadful beheading of an anointed monarch as a malefactor, had scarcely more effect upon the tides of the time than the death of a sparrow,--and that men were called as usual to their daily tasks and toils,--and that all things moved onward in their accustomed courses,--and that laws and jurisdictions, and all the wonted pacts and processes of community between man and man, suffered neither molestation nor hindrance, godly mr swinton bestowed his blessing on our marriage, and our friends their joyous countenance at the wedding feast. my lot was then full of felicity, and i had no wish to wander beyond the green valley where we established our peaceful dwelling. it was in a lown holm of the garnock, on the lands of quharist, a portion of which my father gave me in tack; and sarah's father likewise bestowed on us seven rigs, and a cow's grass of his own mailing, for her tocher, as the beginning of a plenishment to our young fortunes. still, like all the neighbours, i was deeply concerned about what was going on in the far-off world of conflicts and negotiations; and this was not out of an idle thirst of curiosity, but from an interest mingled with sorrows and affections; for, after the campaign in england, my three brothers, michael, william and alexander, never domiciled themselves at any civil calling. having caught the roving spirit of camps, they remained in the skirts of the array which the covenanted lords at edinburgh continued to maintain; and here, poor lads! i may digress a little, to record the brief memorials of their several unhappy fates. when king charles the second, after accepting and being sworn to abide by the covenant, was brought home, and the crown of his ancient progenitors placed upon his head at scoone, by the hands of the marquis of argyle, in the presence of the great and the godly covenanters, my brothers went in the army that he took with him into england. michael was slain at the battle of worcester, by the side of sir john shaw of greenock, who carried that day the royal banner. alexander was wounded in the same fight, and left upon the field, where he was found next morning by the charitable inhabitants of the city, and carried to the house of a loyal gentlewoman, one mrs deerhurst, that treated him with much tenderness; but after languishing in agony, as she herself wrote to my father, he departed this life on the third day. of william i have sometimes wished that i had never heard more; for after the adversity of that day, it would seem he forgot the covenant and his father's house. ritchie minigaff, an old servant of the lord eglinton's, when the earl his master was cromwell's prisoner in the tower of london, saw him there among the guard, and some years after the restoration he met him again among the king's yeomen at westminster, about the time of the beginning of the persecution. but willy then begged ritchie, with the tear in his eye, no to tell his father; nor was ever the old man's heart pierced with the anguish which the thought of such backsliding would have caused, though he often wondered to us at home, with the anxiety of a parent's wonder, what could have become of blithe light-hearted willy. no doubt he died in the servitude of the faithless tyrant; but the storm that fell among us, soon after ritchie had told me of his unfortunate condition, left us neither time nor opportunity to inquire about any distant friend. but to return to my own story. from my marriage till the persecution began, i took no part in the agitations of the times. it is true, after the discovery of charles stuart's perfidious policy, so like his father's, in corresponding with the marquis of montrose for the subjection of scotland by the tyranny of the sword, at the very time he was covenanting with the commissioners sent from the lords at edinburgh with the offer of the throne of his ancestors, that with my father and my brother robin, together with many of our neighbours, i did sign the remonstrance against making a prince of such a treacherous and unprincipled nature king. but in that we only delivered reasons and opinions on a matter of temporal expediency; for it was an instrument that neither contained nor implied obligation to arm; indeed our deportment bore testimony to this explanation of the spirit in which it was conceived and understood. for when the prince had received the crown and accepted the covenant, we submitted ourselves as good subjects. fearing god, we were content to honour in all rights and prerogatives, not contrary to scripture, him whom, by his grace in the mysteries of his wisdom, he had, for our manifold sins as a nation and a people, been pleased to ordain and set over us for king. and verily no better test of our sincerity could be, than the distrust with which our whole country-side was respected by oliver cromwell, when he thought it necessary to build that stronghold at ayr, by which his englishers were enabled to hold the men of carrick, kyle and cunningham in awe,--a race that, from the days of sir william wallace and king robert the bruce, have ever been found honest in principle, brave in affection, and dauntless and doure in battle. but it is not necessary to say more on this head; for full of griefs and grudges as were the hearts of all true scots, with the thought of their country in southern thraldom, while cromwell's englishers held the upper hand amongst us, the season of their dominion was to me and my house as a lown and pleasant spring. all around me was bud, and blossom, and juvenility, and gladness, and hope. my lot was as the lot of the blessed man. i ate of the labour of my hands, i was happy, and it was well with me; my wife, as the fruitful vine that spreads its clusters on the wall, made my lowly dwelling more beautiful to the eye of the heart than the golden palaces of crowned kings, and our pretty bairns were like olive plants round about my table;--but they are all gone. the flood and the flame have passed over them;--yet be still, my heart; a little while endure in silence; for i have not taken up the avenging pen of history, and dipped it in the blood of martyrs, to record only my own particular woes and wrongs. chapter xlv it has been seen, by what i have told concerning the part my grandfather had in the great work of the reformation, that the heads of the house of argyle were among the foremost and the firmest friends of the resuscitated evangil. the aged earl of that time was in the very front of the controversy as one of the lords of the congregation; and though his son, the lord of lorn, hovered for a season, like other young men of his degree, in the purlieus and precincts of the lady regent's court, yet when her papistical counsels broke the paction with the protestants at perth, i have rehearsed how he, being then possessed of the inheritance of his father's dignities, did, with the bravery becoming his blood and station, remonstrate with her highness against such impolitic craft and perfidy, and, along with the lord james stuart, utterly eschew her presence and method of government. after the return of queen mary from france, and while she manifested a respect for the rights of her covenanted people, that worthy earl was among her best friends; and even after the dismal doings that led to her captivity in lochleven castle, and thence to the battle of langside, he still acted the part of a true nobleman to a sovereign so fickle and so faithless. whether he rued on the field that he had done so, or was smitten with an infirmity that prevented him from fighting against his old friend and covenanted brother, the good regent murray, belongs not to this history to inquire; but certain it is, that in him the protestant principles of his honourable house suffered no dilapidation; and in the person of his grandson, the first marquis of the name, they were stoutly asserted and maintained. when the first charles, and laud, that ravenous arminian antichrist, attempted to subvert and abrogate the presbyterian gospel worship, not only did the marquis stand forth in the van of the covenanters to stay the religious oppression then meditated against his native land, but laboured with all becoming earnestness to avert the pestilence of civil war. in that doubtless argyle offended the false counsellors about the king; but when the english parliament, with a lawless arrogance, struck off the head of the miscounselled and bigoted monarch, faithful to his covenants and the loyalty of his race, the marquis was amongst the foremost of the scottish nobles to proclaim the prince of wales king. with his own hands he placed on charles the second's head the ancient diadem of scotland. surely it might therefore have been then supposed that all previous offence against the royal family was forgotten and forgiven; yea, when it is considered that general monk himself, the boldest in the cause of cromwell's usurpation, was rewarded with a dukedom in england for doing no more for the king there than argyle had done for him before in greater peril here, it could not have entered into the imagination of christian men, that argyle, for only submitting like a private subject to the same usurped authority when it had become supreme, would, after the restoration, be brought to the block. but it was so; and though the machinations of political enemies converted that submission into treasons to excuse their own crime, yet there was not an honest man in all the realm that did not see in the doom of argyle a dismal omen of the cloud and storm which so soon after burst upon our religious liberties. passing, however, by all those afflictions which took the colour of political animosities, i hasten to speak of the proceedings which, from the hour of the restoration, were hatched for the revival of the prelatic oppression. the tyranny of the stuarts is indeed of so fell a nature that, having once tasted of blood in any cause, it will return again and again, however so often baffled, till it has either devoured its prey, or been itself mastered; and so it showed in this instance. for, regardless of those troubles which the attempt of the first charles to exercise an authority in spiritual things beyond the rights of all earthly sovereignty caused to the realm and to himself, the second no sooner felt the sceptre in his grip than he returned to the same enormities; and he found a fit instrument in james sharp, who, in contempt of the wrath of god, sold himself to antichrist for the prelacy of st andrews. but it was not among the ambitious and mercenary members of the clergy that the evidences of a backsliding generation were alone to be seen; many of the people, nobles and magistrates were infected with the sin of the same reprobation; and in verity, it might have been said of the realm that the restoration of king charles the second was hailed as an advent ordained to make men forget all vows, sobriety and solemnities. it is, however, something to be said in commendation of the constancy of mind and principle of our west country folk that the immorality of that drunken loyalty was less outrageous and offensive to god and man among them, and that although we did submit and were commanded to commemorate the anniversary of the king's restoration, it was nevertheless done with humiliation and anxiety of spirit. but a vain thing it would be of me to attempt to tell the heartburning with which we heard of the manner that the covenant, and of all things which had been hallowed and honourable to religious scotland, were treated in the town of lithgow on that occasion, although all of my grandfather's stock knew that from of old it was a seat and sink of sycophancy, alien to holiness, and prone to lick the dust aneath the feet of whomsoever ministered to the corruption abiding there. had the general inebriation of the kingdom been confined only to such mockers as the papistical progeny of the unregenerate town of lithgow, we might perhaps have only grieved at the wantonness of the world; but they were soon followed by more palpable enormities. middleton, the king's commissioner, coming on a progress to glasgow, held a council of state there, at which was present the apostate fairfoul, who had been shortly before nominated archbishop of that city; and at his wicked incitement, middleton, in a fit of actual intoxication from strong drink, let loose the bloodhounds of persecution by that memorable act of council which bears the date of the st of october, ,--an anniversary that ought ever to be held as a solemn fast in scotland, if such things might be, for by it all the ministers that had received gospel ordination from and after the year forty-nine, and who still refused to bend the knee to baal, were banished, with their families, from their kirks and manses. but to understand in what way that wicked act, and the blood-causing proclamation which ensued, came to take effect, it is needful, before proceeding to the recital, to bid the courteous reader remember the preaching of the doctrine of passive obedience by our time-serving pastor, mr sundrum, and how the kirk was deserted on that occasion; because, after his death, which happened in the forty-nine, godly mr swinton became our chosen pastor, and being placed and inducted according to the apostolic ordination of presbytery, fell, of course, like many of his gospel brethren, under the ban of the aforesaid proclamation, of which some imperfect sough and rumour reached us on the friday after it was framed. at first the particulars were not known, for it was described as the muttering of unclean spirits against the purity of the truth; but the tidings startled us like the growl of some unknown and dreadful thing, and i dreamt that night of my grandfather, with his white hair and the comely venerableness of his great age, appearing pale and sorrowful in a field before me, and pointing with a hand of streaming light to horsemen, and chariots, and armies with banners, warring together on the distant hills. saturday was then the market-day at irvine; and though i had but little business there, i yet went in with my brother robin, chiefly to hear the talk of the town. in this i but partook of the common sympathy of the whole country-side; for, on entering the town-end port, we found the concourse of people there assembled little short of the crowd at marymas fair, and all eager to learn what the council held at glasgow had done; but no one could tell. only it was known that the earl of eglinton, who had been present at the council, was returned home to the castle, and that he had sent for the provost that morning on very urgent business. while we were thus all speaking and marvelling one with another, a cry got up that a band of soldiers was coming into the town from ayr, the report of which, for the space of several minutes, struck every one with awe and apprehension. and scarcely had the sough of this passed over us, when it was told that the provost had privately returned from eglinton castle by the gallows-knowes to the backsides, and that he had sent for the minister and the bailies, with others of the council, to meet him in the clerk's chamber. no one wist what the meaning of such movements and mysteries could be; but all boded danger to the fold and flock, none doubting that the wolves of episcopalian covetousness were hungering and thirsting for the blood of the covenanted lambs. nor were we long left to our guesses; for, soon after the magistrates and the minister had met, a copy of the proclamation of the council held at glasgow was put upon the tolbooth door, by which it was manifested to every eye that the fences of the vineyard were indeed broken down, and that the boar was let in and wrathfully trampling down and laying waste. chapter xlvi the proclamation was as a stunning blow on the forehead of the covenanters, and for the next two sabbaths mr swinton was plainly in prayer a weighed down and sorrowful-hearted man, but he said nothing in his discourses that particularly affected the marrow of that sore and solemn business. on the friday night, however, before the last lord's day of that black october, he sent for my brother, who was one of his elders, and told him that he had received a mandatory for conformity to the proclamation, and to acknowledge the prelatic reprobation that the king's government had introduced into the church; but that it was his intention, strengthened of the lord, to adhere to his vows and covenants, even to the uttermost, and not to quit his flock, happen what would. "the beild of the kirk and the manse," said he, "being temporalities, are aneath the power and regulation of the earthly monarch; but in the things that pertain to the allegiance i owe to the king of kings, i will act, with his heartening, the part of a true and loyal vassal." this determination being known throughout the parish, and the first of november being the last day allowed for conforming, on the sabbath preceding we had a throng kirk and a solemneezed congregation. according to their wonted custom, the men, before the hour of worship, assembled in the kirk-yard, and there was much murmuring and marvelling among us, that nobody in all the land would stand forth to renew the covenant, as was done in the year thirty-eight; and we looked around and beheld the green graves of many friends that had died since the great day of the covenanting, and we were ashamed of ourselves and of our time, and mourned for the loss of the brave spirits which, in the darkness of his mysterious wisdom, the lord had taken away. the weather, for the season, was bright and dry; and the withered leaf still hung here and there on the tree, so that old and young, the infirm and the tender, could come abroad; and many that had been bed-rid were supported along by their relations to hear the word of truth, for the last time, preached in the house of god. mr swinton came, followed by his wife and family. he was, by this time, a man well stricken in years, but mrs swinton was of a younger generation; and they had seven children,--martha, the eldest, a fine lassie, was not passing fourteen years of age. as they came slowly up the kirk-stile, we all remarked that the godly man never lifted his eyes from the ground, but came along perusing, as it were, the very earth for consolation. the private door which, at that epoch, led to the minister's seat and the pulpit, was near to where the bell-rope hung on the outer wall, and as the family went towards it, one of the elders stepped from the plate at the main door to open it. but after mrs swinton and the children were gone in, the minister, who always stopped till they had done so, instead of then following, paused and looked up with a compassionate aspect, and laying his hand on the shoulder of old willy shackle, who was ringing the bell, he said,-- "stop, my auld frien,--they that in this parish need a bell this day to call them to the service of their maker winna come on the summons o' yours." he then walked in; and the old man, greatly affected, mounted the stool, and tied up the rope to the ring in the wall in his usual manner, that it might be out of the reach of the school weans. "but," said he, as he came down, "i needna fash; for after this day little care i wha rings the bell; since it's to be consecrat to the wantonings o' prelacy, i wis the tongue were out o' its mouth and its head cracket, rather than that i should live to see't in the service of baal and the hoor o' babylon." after all the congregation had taken their seats, mr swinton rose and moved towards the front of the pulpit, and the silence in the church was as the silence at the martyrdom of some holy martyr. he then opened the book, and having given out the ninety-fourth psalm, we sang it with weeping souls; and during the prayer that followed there was much sobbing and lamentations, and an universal sorrow. his discourse was from the fifth chapter of the lamentations of jeremiah, verse first, and first clause of the verse; and with the tongue of a prophet, and the voice of an apostle, he foretold, as things already written in the chronicles of the kingdom, many of those sufferings which afterwards came to pass. it was a sermon that settled into the bottom of the hearts of all that heard it, and prepared us for the woes of the vial that was then pouring out. at the close of the discourse, when the precentor rose to read the remembering prayer, old ebenezer muir, then upwards of fourscore and thirteen, who had been brought into the church on a barrow by two of his grandsons, and was, for reason of his deafness, in the bench with the elders, gave him a paper, which, after rehearsing the names of those in distress and sickness, he read, and it was "the persecuted kirk of scotland." "if i forget thee, o jerusalem! let my right hand forget her cunning," cried mr swinton at the words, with an inspiration that made every heart dirl; and surely never was such a prayer heard as that with which he followed up the divine words. then we sang the hundred and fortieth psalm, at the conclusion of which the minister came again to the front of the pulpit, and with a calm voice, attuned to by ordinare solemnity, he pronounced the blessing; then, suddenly turning himself, he looked down to his family and said, "the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man hath not where to lay his head." and he covered his face with his hands, and sat down and wept. never shall i forget the sound which rose at that sight; it was not a cry of woe, neither was it the howl of despair, nor the sob of sorrow, nor the gurl of wrath, nor the moan of anguish, but a deep and dreadful rustling of hearts and spirits, as if the angel of desolation, in passing by, had shaken all his wings. the kirk then began to skail; and when the minister and his family came out into the kirk-yard, all the heads of families present, moved by some sacred instinct from on high, followed them with one accord to the manse, like friends at a burial, where we told them, that whatever the lord was pleased to allow to ourselves, a portion would be set apart for his servant. i was the spokesman on that occasion, and verily do i think that, as i said the words, a glorious light shone around me, and that i felt a fanning of the inward life, as if the young cherubims were present among us, and fluttering their wings with an exceeding great joy at the piety of our kind intents. so passed that memorable sabbath in our parish; and here i may relate, that we had the satisfaction and comfort to know, in a little time thereafter, that the same christian faithfulness with which mr swinton adhered to his gospel-trusts and character, was maintained on that day by more than three hundred other ministers, to the perpetual renown of our national worth and covenanted cause. and therefore, though it was an era of much sorrow and of many tears, it was thus, through the mysterious ways of providence, converted into a ground of confidence in our religion, in so much that it may be truly said, out of the ruins and the overthrow of the first presbyterian church the lord built up among us a stronghold and sanctuary for his truth and law. chapter xlvii nothing particular happened till the second week of november, when a citation came from irvine, commanding the attendance of mr swinton, on a suffragan of fairfoul's, under the penalties of the proclamation. in the meantime we had been preparing for the event; and my father having been some time no more, and my brother with his family in a house of their own, it was settled between him and me, that i should take our mother into mine, in order that the beild of quharist might be given up to the minister and his houseless little ones; which all our neighbours much commended; and there was no slackness on their part in making a provision to supply the want of his impounded stipend. as all had foreseen, mr swinton, for not appearing to the citation, was pronounced a non-conformist; and the same night, after dusk, a party of the soldiers, that were marched from ayr into irvine on the day of the proclamation, came to drive him out of the manse. there was surely in this a needless and exasperating severity, for the light of day might have served as well; but the men were not to blame, and the officer who came with them, having himself been tried in the battles of the covenant, and being of a humane spirit, was as meek and compassionate in his tyrannical duty as could reasonably be hoped for. he allowed mrs swinton to take away her clothes, and the babies, that were asleep in their beds, time to be awakened and dressed, nor did he object to their old ploughman, robin harrow, taking sundry articles of provision for their next morning's repast; so that, compared with the lewd riots and rampageous insolence of the troopers in other places, we had great reason to be thankful for the tenderness with which our minister and his small family of seven children were treated on that memorable night. it was about eight o'clock when martha, the eldest daughter, came flying to me like a demented creature, crying the persecutors were come, with naked swords and dreadful faces; and she wept and wrung her hands, thinking they were then murdering her parents and brothers and sisters. i did, however, all that was in my power to pacify her, saying our lots were not yet laid in blood, and, leaving her to the consolatory counsellings of my wife, i put on my bonnet and hastened over to the manse. the night was troubled and gusty. the moon was in her first quarter, and wading dim and low through the clouds on the arran hills. afar off, the bars of ayr, in their roaring, boded a storm, and the stars were rushing through a swift and showery south-west carry. the wind, as it hissed over the stubble, sounded like the whisperings of desolation; and i was thrice startled in my walk by passing shapes and shadows, whereof i could not discern the form. at a short distance from the manse door i met the godly sufferer and his destitute family, with his second youngest child in his arms. mrs swinton had their baby at her bosom, and the other four poor, terrified, helpless creatures were hirpling at their sides, holding them by the skirts, and often looking round in terror, dreading the persecutors, by whom they were in that dismal and inclement night so cast upon the mercy of the elements. but he that tempers the wind to the shorn lamb was their protector. "you see, ringan gilhaize," said the minister, "how it fares with them in this world whose principles are at variance with the pretensions of man. but we are mercifully dealt by--a rougher manner and a harder heart, in the agent of persecution that has driven us from house and home, i had laid my account for; therefore, even in this dispensation, i can see the gentle hand of a gracious master, and i bow the head of thankfulness." while we were thus speaking and walking towards quharist, several of the neighbours, who had likewise heard the alarm of what had thus come to pass, joined us on the way; and i felt within myself that it was a proud thing to be able to give refuge and asylum to an aged gospel minister and his family in such a time and on such a night. we had not been long in the house when a great concourse of his friends and people gathered around, and among others nahum chapelrig, who had been some time his father's successor in the school. but all present were molested and angry with him, for he came in battle array, with the sword and gun that he had carried in the raids of the civil war, and was bragging of valorous things then needful to be done. "nahum chapelrig," said the worthy to him with severity, "this is no conduct for the occasion. it would hae been a black day for scotland had her children covenanted themselves for temporal things. no, nahum; if the prelatic reprobation now attempted on the kirk gang nae farther than outing her ministers from their kirks and manses, it maun be tholet; so look to it, that ye give not the adversary cause to reproach us with longing for the flesh-pots of egypt when we are free to taste of the heavenly manna. i redde ye, therefore, nahum chapelrig, before these witnesses, to unbuckle that belt of war, and lay down thae weapons of offence. the time of the shield and banner may come owre soon upon us. let us not provoke the smiter, lest he draw his sword against us, and have law and reason on his side. therefore, i say unto thee, peter, put up thy sword." the zealous dominie, being thus timeously rebuked, unharnessed himself, and the minister having returned thanks for the softness with which the oppression was let down upon him, and for the pious affection of his people, we returned home to our respective dwellings. but though by this christian submission the power of cruelty was at that time rendered innocent towards all those who did as mr swinton had done, we were, nevertheless, not allowed to remain long unvisited by another swirl of the rising storm. before the year was out, fairfoul, the glasgow antichrist, sent upon us one of the getts that prelacy was then so fast adopting for her sons and heirs. a lang, thin, bare lad he was, that had gotten some spoonful or two of pagan philosophy at college, but never a solid meal of learning, nor, were we to judge by his greedy gaping, even a satisfactory meal of victuals. his name was andrew dornock; and, poor fellow, being eschewed among us on account of his spiritual leprosy, he drew up with divers loose characters, that were nae overly nice of their company. this made us dislike him more and more, in so much that, like others of his nature and calling, he made sore and secret complaints of his parishioners to his mitred master; representing, for aught i ken to the contrary, that, instead of believing the gospel according to charles stuart, we preferred that of certain four persons, called matthew, mark, luke and john, of whom, it may be doubted, if he, poor man, knew more than the names. but be that as it may, to a surety he did grievously yell and cry, because we preferred listening to the gospel melody of mr swinton under a tree to his feckless havers in the kirk; as if it was nae a more glorious thing to worship god in the freedom and presence of universal nature, beneath the canopy of all the heavens, than to bow the head in the fetters of episcopal bondage below the stoury rafters of an auld bigging, such as our kirk was, a perfect howf of cloks and spiders. indeed, for that matter, it was said that the only sensible thing andrew dornock ever uttered from the pulpit was, when he first rose to speak therein, and which was caused by a spider, that just at the moment lowered itself down into his mouth: "o lord," cried the curate, "we're puzhened wi' speeders!" chapter xlviii it might have been thought, considering the poor hand which the prelatic curates made of it in their endeavours to preach, that they would have set themselves down content with the stipend, and allowed the flocks to follow their own shepherds in peace; but their hearts were filled with the bitterness of envy at the sight of the multitudes that went forth to gather the manna in the fields, and their malice was exasperated to a wonderful pitch of wickedness by the derision and contempt with which they found themselves regarded. no one among them all, however, felt this envy and malice more stirring within him, than did the arch-apostate james sharp; for the faithfulness of so many ministers was a terror and a reproach to his conscience and apostacy, and made him labour with an exceeding zeal and animosity to extirpate so many evidences of his own religious guilt. accordingly, by his malignant counsellings, edicts and decrees came out against our tabernacle in the wilderness, and under the opprobrious name of conventicles, our holy meetings were made prohibited offences, and our ministers subjected to pains and penalties, as sowers of sedition. it is a marvellous thing to think of the madness with which the minds of those in authority at that time were kindled; first, to create causes of wrong to the consciences of the people, and afterwards to enact laws for the natural fruit of that frantic policy. the wanton imposition of the prelatic oppression begat our field preachings, and the attempts to disperse us by the sword brought on resistance. but it belongs not to me and my story to treat of the folly of a race and government, upon whom a curse was so manifestly pronounced; i shall therefore return from this generality to those particulars wherein i was myself a witness or a sufferer. during the greater part of the year after the banishment of mr swinton from the manse and kirk, we met with little molestation; but from time to time rumours came over us like the first breathings of the cold blasts in autumn, that forerun the storms of winter. all thoughts of innocent pastimes and pleasures passed away, like the yellow leaves that fall from the melancholy trees; and there was a heaviness in the tread, and a solemnity in the looks of every one, that showed how widely the shadows of coming woes were darkening the minds of men. but though the court of commission, which the apostate james sharp procured to be established for the cognisance of those who refused to acknowledge the prelatic usurpation, was, in its proceedings, guided by as little truth or principle as the spanish inquisition, the violence and tyranny of its awards fell less on those of my degree than on the gentry; and it was not till the drunkard turner was appointed general of the west country that our personal sufferings began. the curates furnished him with lists of recusants; and power having been given unto him to torment men for many days, he was as remorseless as james sharp's own court in the fines which he levied, and in eating the people up, by sending his men to live upon them at free quarters, till the fines were paid. in our neighbourhood we were for some time gently dealt with; for the colonel who, at ayr, had the command under turner, was of a humane spirit, and for a season, though the rumour of the oppressions in dumfries-shire and galloway, where the drunkard himself reigned and ruled, dismayed and troubled us beyond utterance, we were still permitted to taste of the gospel pastures with our own faithful shepherd. but this was a blessing too great in those days to be of a continuance to any flock. the mild and considerate gentleman, who had softened the rigour of the prelatic rage, was removed from his command, and in his place came certain cruel officers, who, like the serpents that were sent among the children of israel in the desert, defiled our dwellings, and afflicted many of us even unto death. the change was the more bitterly felt, because it was sudden, and came upon us in an unexpected manner, of which i will here set down some of the circumstantials. according to the usage among us, from the time when mr swinton was thrust from the ministry, the parish had assembled, on the third lord's day of may, in the year , under the big sycamore-tree at zachariah smylie's gable, and which has ever since been reverenced by the name of the poopit tree. a cart served him for the place of lecture and exhortation; and zachariah smylie's daughter, rebecca armour, a godly widow, who resided with him, had, as her custom was in fine weather, ordered and arranged all the stools and chairs in the house, with the milk and washing-boynes upside down, around the cart as seats for the aged. when the day was wet or bleak, the worship was held in the barn; but on this occasion the morning was lown and the lift clear, and the natural quietude of the sabbath reigned over all the fields. we had sung a portion of the psalm, and the harmonious sound of voices and spirits in unison was spreading into the tranquil air, as the pleasant fragrancy of flowers diffuses itself around, and the tune, to which we sung the divine inspiration, was the sweet and solemn melody of the martyrs. scarcely, however, had we proceeded through the second verse, when mr swinton, who was sitting on a stool in the cart, with his back to the house, started up and said, "christians, dinna be disheartened, but i think i see yonder the glimmerin' of spears coming atween the hedges." at these words we all rose alarmed, and, on looking round, saw some eight or ten soldiers, in the path leading from the high road, coming towards us. the children and several of the women moved to run away, but mr swinton rebuked their timerarious fear, and said,-- "o! ye of little faith, wherefore are ye thus dismayed? let us put our trust in him, who is mightier than all the armies of all the kings of all the earth. we are here doing homage to him, and he will protect his true vassals and faithful people. in his name, therefore, christians, i charge you to continue his praises in the psalm; for in his strength i will, to the end of my intent, this day fulfil the word and the admonition; yea, even in the very flouting of the adversary's banner." the vehemence of elijah was in his voice; we resumed our former postures; and he himself leading on the psalm, we began to sing anew in a louder strain, for we were fortified and encouraged by his holy intrepidity. no one moved as it were an eyelid; the very children were steadfast; and all looked towards the man of god as he sat in his humble seat, serene, and more awful than ever was solomon on the royal throne of the golden lions, arrayed in all his glory. the rough soldiers were struck for a time with amazement at the religious bravery with which the worshipping was continued, and they halted as they drew near, and whispered together, and some of them spoke as if the fear of the lord had fallen upon them. during the whole time that we continued singing, they stood as if they durst not venture to disturb us; but when the psalm was finished, their sergeant, a lewd roister, swore at them, and called on them to do their duty. the men then advanced, but with one accord we threw ourselves in between them and the cart, and cried to mr swinton to make his escape; he, however, rose calmly from his seat and said,-- "soldiers, shed no blood; let us finish our prayer,--the worst of men after condemnation are suffered to pray,--ye will, therefore, not surely refuse harmless christians the boon that is aloo't to malefactors? at the conclusion i will go peaceably with you, for we are not rebels; we yield all bodily obedience to the powers that be, but the upright mind will not bend to any earthly ordinance. our bodies are subject to the king's authority, and to you as his servants, if ye demand them, we are ready to deliver them up." but the sergeant told him harshly to make haste and come down from the cart. two of the men then went into the house, and brought out the churn and bread and cheese, and with much ribaldry began to eat and drink, and to speak profane jests to the young women. but my brother interposed, and advised all the women and children to return to their homes. in the meantime, zachariah smylie had gone to the stable and saddled his horse, and rebecca armour had made a small providing of provisions for mr swinton to take with him to the tolbooth of irvine; for thither the soldiers were intending to carry him that night, in order that he might be sent to glasgow next day with other sufferers. when, however, the horse was brought out, and the godly man was preparing to mount the sergeant took him by the sleeve, and pulled him back, saying, "the horse is for me." verily at this insult i thought my heart would have leapt out; and every one present gurled and growled; but the soldiers laughed at seeing the sergeant on horseback. mr swinton, however, calmly advised us to make no obstacle: "good," said he, "will come of this, and though for a season we are ordained to tribulation, and to toil through the slough of despond, yet a firm footing and a fair and green path lies in a peaceful land beyond." the soldiers then took him away, the blasphemous sergeant riding, like a merry andrew, on zachariah smylie's horse before them, and almost the whole congregation following with mournful and heavy hearts. chapter xlix the testimony of the regard and respect which we showed to mr swinton in following him to the prison-door, was wickedly reported against us as a tumult and a riot, wearing the aspect of rebellion; and accordingly, on the second day after he was sent from irvine to glasgow, a gang of turner's worst troopers came to live at heck and manger among us. none suffered more from those ruthless men than did my brother's house and mine; for our name was honoured among the true and faithful, and we had committed the unpardonable sin against the prelacy of harbouring our minister and his destitute family, when they were driven from their home in a wild and wintry night. we were both together, with old zachariah smylie, fined each in a heavy sum. thinking that by paying the money down we should rid ourselves and our neighbours of the presence and burden of the devouring soldiery, our friends, to enable us, made a gathering among them, and brought us the means, for we had not a sufficiency of our own. but this, instead of mitigating the oppression, became a reason with the officer set over us to persecute us still more; for he pretended to see in that neighbourliness the evidences of a treasonous combination; so that he not only took the money, but made a pretext of the readiness with which it was paid to double his severity. sixteen domineering camp reprobates were quartered on four honest families, and five of them were on mine. what an example their conduct and conversation was at my sober hearth i need not attempt to describe. for some days they rampaged as if we had been barbarians, and the best in the house was not good enough for their ravenous wastrie;--but i was resolved to keep a uniform and steady abstinence from all cause of offence. so seeing they were passing from insolence into a strain of familiarity towards my wife and her two servant-lasses, we gave up the house and made our abode in the barn. this silent rebuke for some time was not without a wholesome effect; and in the end they were so far tamed into civility by our blameless and peaceful demeanour that i could discern more than one of them beginning to be touched with the humanity of respect for our unmerited punishment. but their officer, lieutenant swaby, an englisher by birth, and a sinner by education, was of an incorrigible depravity of heart. he happened to cast his eye on martha swinton, the minister's eldest daughter, then but in her sixteenth year, and notwithstanding the sore affliction that she was in, with her mother, on account of her godly father's uncertain fate, he spared no stratagem to lure her to his wicked will. she was, however, strengthened against his arts and machinations; but her fortitude, instead of repressing the rigour of his persecutions, only made him more audacious, in so much that she was terrified to trust herself unguarded out of the house,--and the ire of every man and woman was rising against the sensual swaby, who was so destitute of grace and human charity. but out of this a mean was raised, that in the end made him fain to be removed from among us. for all the immoral bravery of the rampant soldiery, and especially of their libertine commander, they had not been long among us till it was discerned that they were as much under the common fears and superstitions as the most credulous of our simple country folk, in so much that what with our family devotions and the tales of witches and warlocks with which every one, as if by concert, delighted to awe them, they were loth to stir out of their quarters after the gloaming. swaby, however, though less under those influences than his men, nevertheless partook largely of them, and would not at the king's commands, it was thought, have crossed the kirk-stile at midnight. but though he was thus infirm with the dread of evil spirits, he was not daunted thereby from ill purposes; and having one day fallen in with old mysie gilmour on the road, a pawkie carlin of a jocose nature, he entered into a blethering discourse with her anent divers things, and from less to more, propounded to honest mysie that she should lend a cast of her skill to bring about a secret meeting between him and the bonny, defenceless martha swinton. mysie gilmour was a christian woman, and her soul was troubled with the proposal to herself, and for the peril with which she saw her minister's daughter environed. but she put on the mask of a light hypocrisy, and said she would maybe do something if he fee'd her well, making a tryst with him for the day following; purposing in the meanwhile, instead of furthering his wicked ends, to devise, with the counselling of some of her acquaintances, in what manner she could take revenge upon the profligate prodigal for having thought so little of her principle, merely because she was a lanerly widow bent with age and poortith. among others that she conferred with was one robin finnie, a lad who, when a callan, had been drummer to the host that nahum chapelrig led in the times of the civil war to the raid of dunse-hill. he was sib to herself, had a spice of her pawkrie, and was moreover, though not without a leavening of religion, a fellow fain at any time for a spree; besides which he had, from the campaigns of his youth, brought home a heart-hatred and a derisive opinion of the cavaliers, taking all seasons and occasions to give vent to the same, and he never called swaby by any other name than the cavalier. between mysie and robin, with some of his companions, a paction was made that she should keep her tryst with swaby, and settle on a time and place for him to come to the delusion of expecting to find martha swinton; robin covenanting that between him and his friends the cavalier should meet with a lemane worthy of his love. accordingly, at the time appointed, when she met swaby on the road where they had foregathered the day before, she trysted him to come to her house on hallowe'en, which happened to be then at hand, and to be sure no to bring his sword, or any weapon that might breed mischief. after parting from him, the cavalier going one way and the carlin the other, robin finnie threw himself in his way, and going up to him with a seeming respectfulness, said,-- "ye were speaking, sir, to yon auld wife; i hope ye hae gi'en her nae offence?" the look with which robin looked at swaby, as he said this, dismayed the gallant cavalier, who cried, gazing back at mysie, who was hirpling homeward--"the devil! is she one of that sort?" "i'll no say what she is, nor what others say o' her," replied robin with solemnity; "but ye'll no fare the waur that ye stand weel in her liking." swaby halted, and again looked towards the old woman, who was then nearly out of sight. robin at the same time moved onward. "friend!" cried the cavalier, "stop. i must have some talk with you about the old--" "whisht!" exclaimed robin, "she's deevilish gleg o' the hearing. i would na for twenty merks she jealoused that i had telt you to take tent o' her cantrips." "do you mean to say that she's a witch?" said swaby in a low and apprehensive voice. "i would na say sic a thing o' her for the world," replied robin very seriously; "i would ne'er expek to hae a prosperous hour in this world were i to ca' honest mysie gilmour onything sae uncanny. she's a pious wife, sir,--deed is she. me ca' her a witch! she would deserve to be hang'd if she was a witch,--an' it could be proven upon her." but these assurances gave no heartening to the gallant cavalier; on the contrary, he looked like one that was perplexed, and said, "devil take her, i wish i had had nothing to do with her." "do," cried robin; "sir, she's an auld withered hag, would spean a foal. surely she did na sae beglamour your senses as to appear like a winsome young lass? but i hae heard o' sic morphosings. i'll no say, howsever, that honest mysie ever tried her art sae far;--and what i hae heard tell of was done in the cruelty of jealously. but it's no possible, captain, that ye were making up to auld mysie. for the love o' peace, an ye were sae deluded, say nothing about it; for either the parish will say that ye hae an unco taste, or that mysie has cast her cantrips o'er your judgment,--the whilk would either make you a laughing-stock, or, gin ye could prove that she kithed afore you like a blooming damsel, bring her to the wuddy. so i redde ye, captain, to let this story gang nae farther. but mind what i hae been saying, keep weel wi' her, as ye respek yoursel." in saying these words robin turned hastily into the wynd that led to the clachan, laughing in his sleeve, leaving the brave cavalier in a sore state o' dread and wonderment. chapter l it seems that shortly after robin finnie had departed from the gallant cavalier, a lad, called sandy macgill, who was colleagued with him in the plot, came towards the captain with looks cast to the earth, and so full of thought, that he seemingly noticed nothing. going forward in this locked-up state of the outward sense, he came close upon swaby, when, affecting to be startled out of his meditations, he stopped suddenly short, and looked in the lieutenant's broad face, with all the alarm he could put into his own features, till he saw he was frightened out of his judgment, when he said,-- "gude be about us, sir, ye hae gotten scaith; the blighting blink o' an ill e'e has lighted upon you.--o, sir; o, sir! tak tent o' yoursel!" sandy had prepared a deal more to say, but finding himself overcome with an inward inclination to risibility at the sight of swaby's terrification, he was obligated to flee as fast as he could from the spot; the which wild-like action of his no doubt dismayed the cavalier fully as meikle as all he had said. but it's the nature of man to desire to do whatever he is forbidden. notwithstanding all their mystical admonitions, swaby still persevered in his evil intents, and accordingly he was seen lurking, without his sword, about the heel of the evening, on hallowe'en, near the skirts of the clachan where mysie gilmour lived. and, as it had been conspired among her friends, mungo affleck, her gude-brother, a man weel stricken in years, but of a youthy mind, and a perfect pen-gun at a crack, came across the cavalier in his path, and swaby having before some slight acquaintance with his garb and canny observes, hovered for a little in discourse with mungo. "i counsel you, sir," said the pawkie auld carl as they were separating, "no to gang far afield this night, for this is a night that there is na the like o' in a' the year round. it's hallowe'en, sir, so be counselled by me, and seek your hame betimes; for mony a ane has met with things on hallowe'en that they never after forgot." considering the exploit on which the cavalier was then bowne, it's no to be thought that this was very heartening music; but for all that, he said blithely, as mungo told me himself, "nae, not so fast, governor, tell us what you mean by hallowe'en!" "hallowe'en!" cried mungo affleck, with a sound o' serious sincerity. "do ye no ken hallowe'en? but i need na say that. ye'll excuse me, captain, what can you englishers, that are brought up in the darkness o' human ordinances in gospel things, and who live in the thraldom of episcopalian ignorance, ken o' hallowe'en, or o' any other solemn day set apart for an occasion?--o, sir, hallowe'en among us is a dreadful night! witches and warlocks, and a' lang-nebbit things, hae a power and a dominion unspeakable on hallowe'en. the de'il at other times gi'es, it's said, his agents a mutchkin o' mischief, but on this night it's thought they hae a chappin; and one thing most demonstrable is;--but, sir, the sun's down--the blessed light o' day is ayont the hill, and it's no safe to be subjek to the whisking o' the mildew frae the tails o' the benweed ponies that are saddled for yon awfu' carnavaulings, where cluty plays on the pipes! so i wis you, sir, gude night and weel hame.--o, sir, an ye could be persuaded!--tak an auld man's advice, and rather read a chapter of the book, an it should even be the unedyfying tenth of nehemiah, than be seen at the gloaming in this gait, about the dyke-sides, like a wolf yearning for some tender lamb of a defenceless fold." mungo having thus delivered himself, went away, leaving swaby as it were in a swither; for, on looking back, the old man saw him standing half turned round as if he was minded to go home. the power of the sin was, however, strong upon him, and shortly after the dusk had closed in, when the angels had lighted their candles at their windows in the sky, to watch over the world in the hours of sleep, swaby, with stealthy steps, came to mysie gilmour's door, and softly tirling at the pin was admitted; for all within was ready for his reception. robin finnie and sandy macgill having carried thither zachariah smylie's black ram, a condumacious and outstropolous beast, which they had laid in mysie's bed, and keepit frae baaing with a gude fothering of kail-blades and a cloute soaken in milk. mysie, on opening the door, said to the gallant cavalier,-- "just step in, ye'll fin' a' ready," and she blew out her crusie which she had in her hand, and letting the captain grope in by himself, hirpled as fast as she could to one of the neighbours; for, although she had covenanted with him to come without his sword, she was terrified with the fear of some dreadful upshot. as soon as he was in, robin finnie and sandy macgill went and hearkened at the window, where they heard the gay gallant stumbling in the floor, churming sweet and amorous words as he went groping his way towards the bed where the auld toop was breathing thickly, mumbling and crunching the kail-blades in a state of as great sensual delight and satisfaction as any beast could well be. but no sooner had the cavalier placed his hand on the horned head of the creature than he uttered a yell of despair; in the same moment the toop, in little less fright, jumpit out of the bed against him and knocked him down over a stool with a lounder. verily providence might be said, with reverence, to have had a hand in the mirth of his punishment; for the ram recovering its senses before the cavalier, and being in dread of danger, returned to the charge, and began to butt him as if it would have been his death. the cries that ensued are not to be told; all the neighbours came running to the door, to see what was the matter, some with lighted sticks in their hands, and some with burning coals in the tongs. robin finnie and sandy macgill were like to die of laughing; but fearing the wrathful ram might dunt out the bowels or the brains, if he had any, of the poor young cavalier, they opened the door, and so delivered him from its horns. he was, however, by this time, almost in a state of distraction, believing the beast was the real evil one; so that he no sooner felt himself free and saw the lights, than he flew to his quarters as if he had been pursued by a legion. some of his own soldiers that were lying in the clachan, and who had come out with the rest of the folk, saw through the stratagem, and, forgetting all reverence for their afflicted commander, laughed louder and longer than any body. in short, the story was o'er the whole parish next day, and the very weans, wherever the cavalier appeared, used to cry ba at him, by which his very life was made a shame and a burden to him, insomuch that he applied for leave to give up his commission, and returned home to his kindred in the south of england, and we never heard tell of him after. chapter li but although in the exploit of mysie gilmour, and robin finnie with his confederates, we had a tasting of mirth and merriment, to the effect of lessening the dread and fear in which our simple country folk held his majesty's ungracious fine-levers, the cavalier captains and soldiers, still there was a gradual ingrowth of the weight of the oppression, wherewith we were laden more as bondsmen and slaves than as subjects; and, in the meantime, the spirit of that patriarch, my apostolic grandfather, was gathering to heart and energy within the silent recesses of my afflicted bosom. i heard the murmuring, deep and sad, of my neighbours, at the insult and the contumely which they were obligated to endure from the irresponsible licentiousness of military domination,--but i said nothing; i was driven, with my pious wife and our simple babies, from my own hearth by the lewd conversation of the commissioned freebooters, and obligated to make our home in an outhouse, that we might not be molested in our prayers by their wicked ribaldry,--but i said nothing; i saw my honest neighbours plundered--their sons insulted--and their daughters put to shame,--but i said nothing; i was a witness when our godly minister, after having been driven with his wife and family out to the mercy of the winter's wind, was seized in the very time while he was worshipping the maker of us all, and taken like a malefactor to prison,--but i said nothing; and i was told the story of the machinations against his innocent virgin daughter, when she was left defenceless among us,--and still i said nothing. like the icy winter, tyranny had so encrusted my soul that my taciturnity seemed as hard, impenetrable, cold and cruel as the frozen river's surface, but the stream of my feelings ran stronger and fiercer beneath; and the time soon came when, in proportion to the still apathy that made my brother and my friends to wonder how i so quietly bore the events of so much, my inward struggles burst through all outward passive forms, and, like the hurling and the drifting ice, found no effectual obstacle to its irresistible and natural destination. mrs swinton, the worthy lady of that saint, our pastor, on hearing what had been plotted against the chaste innocence of her fair and blooming child, came to me, and with tears, in a sense the tears of a widow, very earnestly entreated of me that i would take the gentle martha to her cousin, the laird of garlins, in dumfries-shire, she having heard that some intromissions, arising out of pacts and covenants between my wife's cousin and the laird of barscob, obligated me to go thither. this was on the monday after the battering that the cavalier got from zachariah smylie's black ram; and i, reasonably thinking that there was judgment in the request, and that i might serve, by my compliance, the helpless residue, and the objects of a persecuted christian's affections, i consented to take the damsel with me as far as garlins, in galloway; the which i did. when i had left martha swinton with her friends, who, being persons of pedigree and opulence, were better able to guard her, i went to the end of my own journey; and here, from what ensued, it is needful i should relate that, in this undertaking, i left my own house under the care of my brother, and that i was armed with my grandfather's sword. it happened that, on tuesday the th november , as i was returning homeward from barscob, i fell in with three godly countrymen, about a mile south of the village of dalry, in galloway, and we entered into a holy and most salutary conversation anent the sufferings and the fortitude of god's people in that time of trouble. discoursing with great sobriety on that melancholious theme, we met a gang of turner's blackcuffs, driving before them, like beasts to the slaughter, several miserable persons to thrash out the corn, that it might be sold, of one of my companions, who, being himself a persecuted man, and unable to pay the fine forfeited by his piety, had some days before been forced to flee his house. on seeing the soldiers and their prey coming towards us, the poor man would have run away; but we exhorted him not to be afraid, for he might pass unnoticed, and so he did; for, although those whom the military rabiators were driving to thrash his corn knew him well, they were enabled to bear up, and were so endowed with the strength of martyrdom, that each of them, only by a look, signified that they were in the spirit of fellowship with him. after they had gone by, his heart, however, was so afflicted that so many worthy persons should be so harmed for his sake, that he turned back, and, in despite of all our entreaties, went to them, while we went forward to dalry, where we entered a small public, and, having ordered some refreshment, for we were all weary, we sat meditating on what could be the upshot of such tyranny. while we were so sitting, a cry got up that our companion was seized by the soldiers, and that they were tormenting him on a red-hot gridiron for not having paid his fine. my blood boiled at the news. i rose, and those who were with me followed, and we ran to the house--his own house--where the poor man was. i beseeched two of the soldiers who were at the door to desist from their cruelty; but while i was speaking, other two that were within came raging out, like curs from a kennel, and flew at me; and one of them dared to strike me with his nieve in the mouth. my grandfather's sword flew out at the blow, and the insulter lay wounded and bleeding at my feet. my companions in the same moment rushed on the other soldiers, dashed their teeth down their throats, and, twisting their firelocks from their hands, set the prisoner free. in this there was rashness, but there was also redemption and glory. we could not stop at what we had done;--we called on those who had been brought to thrash the corn to join with us, and they joined;--we hastened to the next farm;--the spirit of indignation was there before us, and master and man, and father and son, there likewise found that the hilts of their fathers' covenanted swords fitted their avenging grasps. we had now fired the dry stubble of the land--the flame spread--we advanced, and grew stronger and stronger. the hills, as it were, clapped their hands, and the valleys shouted of freedom. from all sides men and horse came exulting towards us; the gentleman and the hind knew no distinction. the cry was, "down with tyranny--we are and we will make free!" the fields rejoiced with the multitude of our feet as we advanced towards dumfries, where turner lay. his blackcuffs flung down their arms and implored our mercy. we entered dumfries, and the oppressor was our prisoner. chapter lii hitherto the rising at dalry had been as a passion and a spreading fire. the strength of the soldiers was consumed before us, and their arms became our weapons; but when we had gained possession of dumfries, and had set a ward over the house where we had seized turner, i saw that we had waded owre far into the river to think of returning, and that to go on was safer than to come back. it was indeed manifest that we had been triumphant rather by our haste than by the achievements of victorious battle; and it could be hidden from no man's thought that the power and the vengeance both of the government and the prelacy would soon be set in array against us. i therefore bethought myself, in that peril of our lives and cause, of two things which seemed most needful; first, not to falter in our enterprise until we had proved the utmost of the lord's pleasure in our behalf; and second, to use the means under him which, in all human undertakings, are required to bring whatsoever is ordained to pass. whether in these things i did well or wisely, i leave to the adjudication of the courteous reader; but i can lay my hand upon my heart, and say aloud, yea, even to the holy skies, "i thought not of myself nor of mine, but only of the religious rights of my sorely-oppressed countrymen." from the moment in which i received the blow of the soldier, up till the hour when turner was taken, i had been the head and leader of the people. my sword was never out of my grip, and i marched as it were in a path of light, so wonderful was the immediate instinct with which i was directed to the accomplishment of that adventure, the success of which overwhelmed the fierce and cruel antichrists at edinburgh with unspeakable consternation and panic. but i lacked that knowledge of the art of war by which men are banded into companies and ruled, however manifold their diversities, to one end and effect, so that our numbers, having by this time increased to a great multitude, i felt myself utterly unable to govern them. we were as a sea of billows, that move onward all in one way, obedient to the impulse and deep fetchings of the tempestuous breath of the awakened winds of heaven, but which often break into foam, and waste their force in a roar of ineffectual rage. seeing this, and dreading the consequences thereof, i conferred with some of those whom i had observed the most discreet and considerate in the course of the raid, and we came to a resolve to constitute and appoint captain learmont our chief commander, he having earned an experience of the art and stratagems of war under the renowned lesley. had we abided by that determination, some have thought our expedition might have come to a happier issue; but no human helps and means could change what was evidently ordained otherwise. it happened, however, that colonel wallace, another officer of some repute, also joined us, and his name made him bright and resplendent to our enthusiasm. while we were deliberating whom to choose for our leader, colonel wallace was in the same breath, for his name's sake, proposed, and was united in the command with learmont. this was a deadly error, and ought in all time coming to be a warning and an admonition to people and nations in their straits and difficulties, never to be guided, in the weighty shocks and controversies of disordered fortunes, by any prejudice or affection so unsubstantial as the echo of an honoured name. for this wallace, though a man of questionless bravery, and a gentleman of good account among all who knew him, had not received any gift from nature of that spirit of masterdom without which there can be no command; so that he was no sooner appointed to lead us on, with learmont as his second, than his mind fell into a strange confusion, and he heightened disorder into anarchy by ordering over much. we could not, however, undo the evil, without violating the discipline that we were all conscious our forces so grievously lacked; but, from the very moment that i saw in what manner he took upon him the command, i augured of nothing but disaster. learmont was a collected and an urbane character, and did much to temper and turn aside the thriftless ordinances of his superior. he, seeing how much our prosperity was dependent on the speed with which we could reach edinburgh, hastened forward everything with such alacrity that we were ready on the morrow by mid-day to set out from dumfries. but the element of discord was now in our cause, and i was reproached by many for having abdicated my natural right to the command. it was in vain that i tried to redeem the fault by taking part with learmont, under the determination, when the black hour of defeat or dismay should come upon us, to take my stand with him, and, regardless of wallace, to consider him as the chief and champion of our covenanted liberties. but why do i dwell on these intents? let me hasten to describe the upshot of our enterprise. as soon as we had formed, in the manner herein related, something like a head and council for ourselves, we considered, before leaving dumfries, what ought to be done with general turner, and ordered him to be brought before us; for those who had suffered from his fell orders and licentious soldiery were clamorous for his blood. but when the man was brought in, he was so manifestly mastered by his wine, as his vice often made him, that we thought it would be as it were to ask a man mad, or possessed, to account for his actions, as at that time to put the frantic drunkard on his defence; so we heeded not his obstreperous menaces, but ordered him to be put into bed, and his papers to be searched for and laid before us. in this moderation there was wisdom; for, by dealing so gently by one who had proved himself so ruthless an agent of the prelatic aggressions, we bespoke the good opinion even of many among our adversaries; and in the end it likewise proved a measure of justice as well as of mercy. for, on examining his papers, it appeared, that pitiless as his domineering had been, it was far short of the universal cruelty of his instructions from the apostate james sharp, and those in the council with him, who had delivered themselves over as instruments to the arbitrary prerogatives and tyrannous pretensions of the court. we therefore resolved to proceed no farther against him, but to keep him as an hostage in our hands. many, however, among the commonalty complained of our lenity; for they had endured in their persons, their gear and their families, great severities; and they grudged that he was not obligated to taste the bitterness of the cup of which he had forced them to drink so deeply. in the meantime all the country became alive with the news of our exploit. the covenanters of the shire of ayr, headed by several of their ejected ministers, whom they had cherished in the solitary dens and hidings in the moors and hills, to which they had been forced to flee from the proclamation against the field-preachings, advanced to meet us on our march. verily it was a sight that made the heart of man dinle at once with gladness and sorrow to behold, as the day dawned on our course, in crossing the wide and lonely wilderness of cumnock-moor, those religious brethren coming towards us, moving in silence over the heath, like the shadows of the slowly-sailing clouds of the summer sky. as we were toiling through the deep heather on the eastern skirts of the mearns-moor, a mist hovered all the morning over the pad of neilston, covering like a snowy fleece the sides of the hills down almost to the course of our route, in such a manner that we could see nothing on the left beyond it. we were then within less than fourteen miles of glasgow, where general dalziel lay with the king's forces, keeping in thraldom the godly of that pious city and its neighbourhood. captain learmont, well aware, from the eager character of the man, that he would be fain to intercept us, and fearful of being drawn into jeopardy by the mist, persuaded wallace to halt us some time. as november was far advanced, it was thought by the country folk that the mist would clear away about noon. we accordingly made a pause, and sat down on the ground; for many were weary, having over-fatigued themselves in their zeal to come up with the main body, and we all stood in need of rest. scarcely, however, had we cast ourselves in a desultory manner on the heather, when some one heard the thud of a distant drum in the mist, and gave the alarm; at which we all again suddenly started to our feet, and listening, were not long left in doubt of the sound. orders were accordingly given to place ourselves in array for battle; and while we were obeying the command in the best manner our little skill allowed, the beating of the drum came louder and nearer, intermingled with the shrill war-note of the spirity fife. every one naturally thought of the king's forces; and the reverend mr. semple, seeing that we were in some measure prepared to meet them, stepped out in front with all his worthy brethren in the camp, and having solemneezed us for worship, gave out a psalm. by the time we had sung the first three verses the drum and fife sounded so near, that i could discern they played the tune of "john, come kiss me now," which left me in no doubt that the soldiers in the mist were my own friends and neighbours; for it was the same tune which was played when the men of our parish went to the raid of dunse-hill, and which, in memorial of that era, had been preserved as a sacred melody amongst us. being thus convinced, i stepped out from my place to the ministers, and said, "they are friends that are coming." the worship was in consequence for a short space suspended, and i presently after saw my brother at the head of our neighbours coming out of the cloud; whereupon i went forward to meet him, and we shook hands sorrowfully. "this is an unco thing, ringan," were his first words; "but it's the lord's will, and he is able to work out a great salvation." i made no answer; but inquiring for my family, of whom it was a cheering consolation to hear as blithe an account as could reasonably be hoped for, i walked with him to our captains, and made him known to them as my brother. chapter liii saving the innocent alarm of the drum in the mist, our march to lanerk was without hinderance or molestation; and when we arrived there, it was agreed and set forth, on the exhortation of the ministers who were with us, that the solemn league and covenant should be publicly renewed; and, to the end that no one might misreport the spirituality of our zeal and intents, a protestation was likewise published, wherein we declared our adherence and allegiance to the king undiminished in all temporalities; that we had been driven to seek redress by the sword for oppressions so grievous, that they could be no longer endured; and that all we asked and sought for was the re-establishment of the presbyterian liberty of worship, and the restoration of our godly pastors to their gospel rights and privileges. the morrow after was appointed for the covenanting, and to be held as a day of fasting and humiliation for our own sins, which had provoked the lord to bring us into such state of peril and suffering; and it was a sacred consolation, as mr semple showed in his discourse on the occasion, that, in all our long and painful travels from dumfries, we had been guided from the commission of any offence, even towards those whose hearts were not with us, and had been brought so far on our way as blameless as a peaceable congregation going in the lown of a sabbath morning to worship their maker in the house of prayer. but neither the sobriety of our demeanour, nor the honest protestation of our cause, had any effect on the obdurate heart of the apostate james sharp, who happened, by reason of the lord rothes going to london, to be then in the chief chair of the privy-council at edinburgh. he knew the deserts of his own guilt, and he hated us, even unto death, for the woes he had made us suffer. the sough, therefore, of our approach was to the consternation of his conscience as the sound of the wheels of an avenging god, groaning heavily in their coming with the weight of the engines of wrath and doom. some said that he sat in the midst of the counsellors like a demented man; and others, that he was seen flying to and fro, wringing his hands, and weeping, and wailing, and gnashing his teeth. but though all power of forethought and policy was taken from him, there were others of the council who, being less guilty, were more governed, and they took measures to defend the capital against us. they commanded the gates to be fenced with cannon, and working on the terrors of the inhabitants with fearful falsehoods of crimes that were never committed, thereby caused them to band themselves for the protection of their lives and property, while they interdicted them from all egress, in so much that many who were friendly to us were frustrated in their desire to come with the aid of their helps and means. the tidings of the preparations for the security of edinburgh, with the unhappy divisions and continual controversies in our councils, between the captains and the ministers, anent the methods of conducting the raid, had, even before we left lanerk, bred much sedition among us, and an ominous dubiety of success. nevertheless, our numbers continued to increase, and we went forward in such a commendable order of battle, that, had the lord been pleased with our undertaking, there was no reason to think the human means insufficient for the end. but in the mysteries of the depths of his wisdom he had judged, and for the great purposes of his providence he saw that it was meet we should yet suffer. accordingly, even while we were issuing forth from the port of the town, the face of the heavens became overcast, and a swift carry and a rising wind were solemn intimations to my troubled spirit that the heartening of his countenance went no farther with us at that time. nor indeed could less than a miracle in our behalf have availed; for the year was old in november, the corn was stacked, the leaf fallen, and nature, in outcast nakedness, sat, like the widows of the martyrs, forlorn on the hills: her head was bound with the cloud, and she mourned over the desolation that had sent sadness and silence into all her pleasant places. as we advanced the skies lowered, and the blast raved in the leafless boughs; sometimes a passing shower, as it travelled in the storm, trailed its watery skirts over our disheartened host, quenching the zeal of many,--and ever and anon the angry riddlings of the cruel hail still more and more exasperated our discontent. i observed that the men began to turn their backs to the wind, and to look wistfully behind, and to mutter and murmur to one another. but still we all advanced, gradually, however, falling into separate bands and companies, like the ice of the river's stream breaking asunder in a thaw. in the afternoon the fits of the wind became less vehement; the clouds were gathered more compactly together, and the hail had ceased, but the rain was lavished without measure. the roads became sloughs,--our feet were drawn heavily out of the clay,--the burns and brooks raged from bank to brae,--and the horses swithered at the fords, in so much, that towards the gloaming, when we were come to bathgate, several of our broken legions were seen far behind; and when we halted for the night, scarcely more than half the number with whom we had that morning left lanerk could be mustered, and few of those who had fallen behind came up. but still captain learmont thought, that as soon as the men had taken some repose after that toilsome march, we should advance outright to edinburgh. wallace, however, objected, and that night was spent between them and the ministers in thriftless debate; moreover, our hardships were increased; for, by the prohibition of the privy-council against the egress of the inhabitants of the city, we were, as i have said, disappointed of the provisions and succour we had trusted to receive from them, and there was no hope in our camp, but only bitterness of spirit and the breathings of despair. seeing, what no man could hide from his reason, our cause abandoned of the lord, i retired from the main body of the host, and sat alone on a rock, musing with a sore heart on all that had come so rashly to pass. it was then the last hour of the gloaming, and every thing around was dismayed and dishevelled. the storm had abated, and the rain was over, but the darkness of the night was closing fast in, and we were environed with perils. a cloud, like the blackness of a mort-cloth, hung over our camp; the stars withheld their light, and the windows of the castle shone with the candles of our enemies, who, safe in their stronghold, were fresh in strength and ready for battle. i thought of my home, of the partner of my anxieties and cares, of the children of our love, and of the dangers of their defencelessness, and i marvelled with a weeping spirit at the manner in which i had been snatched up, and brought, as it were in a whirlwind, to be an actor in a scene of such inevitable woe. sometimes, in the passion of that grief, i was tempted to rise, and moved to seek my way back to the nest of my affections. but as often as the thought came over my heart, with its soft and fond enticements, some rustle in the camp of the weary men who had borne in the march all that i had borne, and many of them in the cause far more, yea, even to the martyrdom of dear friends, i bowed my head and prayed for constancy of purpose and fortitude of mind, if the arm of flesh was ordained to be the means of rescuing the gospel, and delivering poor scotland from prelatic tyranny, and the thraldom of an anti-christian usurpation in the kingly power. while i was thus sitting in this sad and solitary state, none doubting that before another night our covenanted army would be, as the hail that smote so sorely on our march, seen no more, and only known to have been by the track of its course on the fields over which we had passed, a light broke in upon the darkness of my soul, and amidst high and holy experiences of consolation, mingled with awe and solemn wonder, i beheld as it were a bright and shining hand draw aside the curtain of time, and disclose the blessings of truth and liberty that were ordained to rise from the fate of the oppressors, who, in the pride and panoply of arbitrary power, had so thrown down the temple of god, and laid waste his vineyard. i saw that from our hasty enterprise they would be drawn to commit still more grievous aggressions, and thereby incur some fearful forfeiture of the honours and predominancy of which they had for so many years shown themselves so unworthy; and i had a foretaste in that hour of the fulfilment of my grandfather's prophecy concerning the tasks that were in store for myself in the deliverance of my native land. so that, although i rose from the rock whereon i was sitting, in the clear conviction that our array would be scattered like chaff before the wind, i yet had a blessed persuasion that the event would prove in the end a link in the chain, or a cog in the wheel, of the hidden enginery with which providence works good out of evil. chapter liv in the course of the night, shortly after the third watch had been set, some of those who had tarried by the way came to the camp with the tidings that dalziel and all the royal forces in glasgow were coming upon us. this, though foreseen, caused a great panic, and a council of war, consisting, as usual, of ministers and officers, was held, to determine what should be done; but it was likewise, as usual, only a fruitless controversy. i, however, on this occasion, feeling myself sustained in spirit by the assurances i had received in my meditations on the rock, ventured to speak my mind freely; which was to the effect that, taking our dejected condition, the desertion of our friends, and our disappointments from the city, into consideration, we could do no better thing than evade the swords of our adversaries by disbanding ourselves, that each might be free to seek safety for himself. many were inclined to this counsel; and i doubt not it would have been followed; but, while conferring together, an officer came from the privy-council to propose a cessation of arms till our demands could be considered. it was manifest that this was a wily stratagem to keep us in the snare till dalziel had time to come up, and i did all in my power to make the council see it in the same light; but there was a blindness of mind among us, and the greater number thought it augured a speedy redress of the wrongs for which we had come to seek reparation. nor did their obstinacy in this relax till next morning, when, instead of anything like their improbable hopes, came a proclamation ordering us to disperse, and containing neither promise of indemnity nor of pardon. but then it was too late. dalziel was in sight. his army was coming like a stream along the foot of the pentland-hills,--we saw his banners and the glittering of his arms, and the sound of his musicants came swelling on the breeze. it was plain that his purpose was to drive us in towards the town; but had we dispersed we might even then have frustrated his intent. there happened, however, besides learmont and wallace, to be several officers among us who had stubborn notions of military honour; and they would not permit so unsoldier-like a flight. there were also divers heated and fanatical spirits, whom, because our undertaking had been for religious ends, nothing could persuade that providence would not interfere in some signal manner for their deliverance, yea, even to the overthrow of the enemy; and mr whamle, a minister, one of these, getting upon the top of the rock where i had sat the night before, began to preach of the mighty things that the lord did for the children of israel in the valley of ajalon, where he not only threw down great stones from the heavens, but enabled joshua to command the sun and moon to stand still,--which to any composed mind was melancholious to hear. in sequence to these divisions and contrarieties which enchanted us to the spot, dalziel, considering that we were minded to give him battle, brought on his force; and it is but due to the renown of the valour of those present to record that, notwithstanding a fearful odds, our men, having the vantage ground, so stoutly maintained their station that we repulsed him thrice. but the victory, as i have said, was not ordained for us. in the afternoon dalziel was reinforced by several score of mounted gentlemen from the adjacent counties, and with their horse, about sunset, our phalanx was shattered, our ranks broken,--and then we began to quit the field. the number of our slain, and of those who fell into the hands of the enemy, did not in the whole exceed two hundred men. the dead might have been greater, but for the compassion of the gentlemen, who had respect to the cause which had provoked us to arms, and who, instead of doing as dalziel's men did, without remorse or pity, cried to the fugitives to flee, and spared many in consideration of the common wrongs. when i saw that our host was dashed into pieces, and the fragments scattered over the fields, i fled with the flying, and gained, with about some thirty other fugitives, the brow of a steep part of the pentland-hills, where the mounted gentlemen, even had they been inclined, could not easily follow us. there, while we halted to rest a little, we heard a shout now and then rise startling from the field of battle below; but night coming on, all was soon silent, and we sat, in the holiness of our mountain-refuge, in silent rumination till the moon, rolling slowly from behind arthur's seat, looked from her window in the clouds, as if to admonish us to flee farther from the scene of danger. the reverend mr witherspoon being among us, was the first to feel the gracious admonition, and, rising from the ground, he said,-- "friends, we must not tarry here, the hunters are forth, and we are the prey they pursue. they will track us long, and the hounds are not of a nature to lose scent, especially when they have tasted, as they have done this day, the rich blood of the faithful and the true. therefore let us depart; but where, o where shall we find a home to receive us?--where a place of rest for our weary limbs, or a safe stone for a pillow to our aching heads? but why do i doubt? blameless as we are, even before man, of all offence, save that of seeking leave to worship god according to our conscience, it cannot be that we shall be left without succour. no, my friends! though our bed be the damp grass and our coverlet the cloudy sky, our food the haws of the hedge, and our drink the drumly burn, we have made for our hearts the down-beds of religious faith, and have found a banquet for our spirits in the ambrosial truths of the gospel--luxuries that neither a james sharp nor a charles stuart can ever enjoy, nor all the rents and revenues, fines and forfeitures, which princes may exact and prelates yearn to partake of, can buy." he then offered up a thanksgiving that we had been spared from the sword in the battle; after which we shook hands in silence together, and each pursued his own way. mr witherspoon lingered by my side as we descended the hill, and i discerned that he was inclined to be my companion; so we continued together, stretching towards the north-west, in order to fall into the lithgow road, being mindet to pass along the skirts of stirlingshire, thence into lennox, in the hope of reaching argyle's country by the way of the ferry of balloch. but we had owre soon a cruel cause to change the course of our flight. in coming down towards the amond-water, we saw a man running before us in the glimpse of the moonshine, and it was natural to conclude, from his gestures and the solitude of the place, that no one could be so far-a-field at such a time, but some poor fellow-fugitive from rullion-green where the battle was fought; so we called to him to stop, and to fear no ill, for we were friends. still, however he fled on, and heeded not our entreaty, which made us both marvel and resolve to overtake him. we thought it was not safe to follow long an unknown person who was so evidently afraid, and flying, as we supposed, to his home. accordingly we hastened our speed, and i, being the nimblest reached him at a place where he was stopped by a cleft in the rocks on the river's woody brink. "why do you fly so fast from us?" said i; "we're frae the pentland-hills too." at these words he looked wildly round, and his face was as ghastly as a ghost's in the moonlight; but, distorted as he was by his fears, i discovered in him my neighbour, nahum chapelrig, and i spoke to him by name. "o, ringan gilhaize!" said he, and he took hold of me with his right hand, while he raised his left and shook it in a fearful and frantic manner, "i am a dead man, my hours are numbered, and the sand-glass of my days is amaist a' run out. i had been saved from the sword, spared from the spear, and, flying from the field, i went to a farm-house yonder; i sought admission and shelter for a forlorn christian man; but the edicts of the persecutors are more obeyed here than the laws of god. the farmer opened his casement, and speering if i had been at the raid of the covenanters, which, for the sake of truth and the glory of god, i couldna deny, he shot me dead on the spot; for his bullet gaed in my breast, and is fast in my--" he could say no more; for in that juncture he gave as it were a gurgle in the throat, and swirling round, fell down a bleeding corpse on the ground where he stood, before mr witherspoon had time to come up. we both looked at poor guiltless nahum as he lay on the grass, and, after some sorrowful communion, we lifted the body, and carrying it down aneath the bank of the river, laid stones and turfs upon it by the moonlight, that the unclean birds might not be able to molest his martyred remains. we then consulted together; and having communed concerning the manner of nahum's death, we resolved not to trust ourselves in the power of strangers in those parts of the country, where the submission to the prelatic enormity had been followed with such woful evidence of depravity of heart. so, instead of continuing our journey to the northward, we changed our course, and, for the remainder of the night, sought our way due west, by the skirts of the moors and other untrodden ways. chapter lv at break of day we found ourselves on a lonely brae-side, sorely weary, hungry and faint in spirit; a few whin-bushes were on the bank, and the birds in them were beginning to chirp,--we sat down and wist not what to do. mr witherspoon prayed inwardly for support and resignation of heart in the trials he was ordained to undergo; but doure thoughts began to gather in my bosom. i yearned for my family,--i mourned to know what had become of my brother in the battle,--and i grudged and marvelled wherefore it was that the royal and the great had so little respect for the religious honesty of harmless country folk. it was now the nine-and-twentieth day of november, but the weather for the season was open and mild, and the morning rose around us in the glory of her light and beauty. as the gay and goodly sun looked over the eastern hills, we cast our eyes on all sides, and beheld the scattered villages and the rising smoke of the farms, but saw not a dwelling we could venture to approach, nor a roof that our fears, and the woful end of poor nahum chapelrig, did not teach us to think covered a foe. while we were sitting communing on these things, we discovered, at a little distance on the left, an aged woman hirpling aslant the route we intended to take. she had a porringer in the one hand, and a small kit tied in a cloute in the other, by which we discerned that she was probably some laborous man's wife conveying his breakfast to him in the field. we both rose, and going towards her, mr witherspoon said, "for the love of god have compassion on two famishing christians." the old woman stopped, and, looking round, gazed at us for a space of time, with a countenance of compassionate reverence. "hech, sirs!" she then said; "and has it come to this, that a minister of the gospel is obligated to beg an almous frae janet armstrong?" and she set down the porringer on the ground, and began to untie the cloute in which she carried the kit, saying, "little did i think that sic an homage was in store for me, or that the merciful heavens would e'er requite my sufferings, in this world, wi' the honour of placing it in my power to help a persecuted servant of the living god. mr witherspoon, i ken you weel; meikle sweet counselling i hae gotten frae you when ye preached for our minister at camrachle in the time of the great covenanting. i was then as a lanerly widow, for my gudeman was at the raid of dunse-hill, and my heart was often sorrowful and sinking wi' a sinful misdooting of providence, for i had twa wee bairns and but a toom garnel." she then opened the kit, which contained a providing of victual that she was carrying, as we had thought, to her husband, a quarrier in a neighbouring quarry; and bidding us partake, she said,-- "this will be a blithe morning to john armstrong, to think that out of our basket and store we hae had, for ance in our day, the blessing of gi'eing a pick to ane o' god's greatest corbies; and he'll no fin' his day's dark ae hue the dreigher for wanting his breakfast on account of sic a cause." so we sat down, and began to partake of the repast with a greedy appetite, and the worthy woman continued to talk. "aye," said she, "the country-side has been in a consternation ever since dalziel left glasgow;--we a' jealoused that the lanerk covenanters would na be able to withstand his power and the king's forces; for it was said ye had na a right captain of war among you a'.--but, mr witherspoon, ye could ne'er be ane of the ministers that were said to meddle with the battering-rams o' battle.--no; weel i wat that yours is a holier wisdom--ye would be for peace;--blessed are the peacemakers." seeing the honest woman thus inclined to prattle of things too high for her to understand, mr witherspoon's hunger being somewhat abated, he calmly interposed, and turned the discourse into kind inquiries concerning the state of her poor soul and her straitened worldly circumstances; and he was well content to find that she had a pleasant vista of the truths of salvation, and a confidence in the unceasing care of providence. "the same gracious hand that feeds the ravens," said she, "will ne'er let twa auld folk want, that it has been at the trouble to provide for so long. it's true we had a better prospek in our younger days; but our auld son was slain at the battle of worcester, when he gaed in to help to put the english crown on the head of that false charlie stuart, who has broken his oath and the covenant; and my twa winsome lassies diet in their teens, before they were come to years o' discretion. but 'few and evil are the days of man that is born of a woman,' as i hae heard you preach, mr witherspoon, which is a blessed truth and consolation to those who have not in this world any continued city." we then inquired what was the religious frame of the people in that part of the country, in order that we might know how to comport ourselves; but she gave us little heartening. "the strength and wealth o' the gentry," said she "is just sooket awa wi' ae fine after anither, and it's no in the power of nature that they can meikle langer stand out against the prelacy." "i hope," replied mr witherspoon, "that there's no symptom of a laxity of principle among them?" "i doot, i doot, mr witherspoon," said janet armstrong, "we canna hae a great dependence either on principle or doctrine when folk are driven demented wi' oppression. many that were ance godly among us can thole no more, and they begin to fash and turn awa' at the sight of their persecuted friends." mr witherspoon sighed with a heavy heart on hearing this, and mournfully shook his head. we then thanked janet for her hospitable kindness, and rising, were moving to go away. "i hope, mr witherspoon," said she, "that we're no to part in sic a knotless manner. bide here till i gang for john armstrong and the other twa men that howk wi' him in the quarry. they're bearing plants o' the vineyard--tarry, i pray you, and water them wi' the water of the word." and so saying, she hastened down the track she was going, and we continued on the spot to wait her return. "ringan," said mr witherspoon to me, "i fear there's owre meikle truth in what she says concerning the state of religion, not only here, but among all the commonality of the land. the poor beast that's overladen may be stubborn, and refuse for a time to draw; but the whip will at last prevail, until, worn out and weary, it meekly lies down to die. in like manner, the stoutness of the covenanted heart will be overcome." just as he was uttering these words, a whiz in a whin-bush near to where we were standing, and the sound of a gun, startled us, and on looking round we saw five men, and one of the black-cuffs with his firelock still at his shoulder, looking towards us from behind a dyke that ran along the bottom of the brae. there was no time for consultation. we fled, cowering behind the whin-bushes till we got round a turn in the hill, which, protecting us from any immediate shot, enabled us to run in freedom till we reached a hazel-wood, which having entered, we halted to take breath. "we must not trust ourselves long here, mr witherspoon," said i. "let us go forward, for assuredly the blood-hounds will follow us in." accordingly we went on. but it is not to be told what we suffered in passing through that wood; for the boughs and branches scourged us in the face, and the ground beneath our feet was marshy and deep, and grievously overspread with brambles that tore away our very flesh. after enduring several hours of unspeakable suffering beneath those wild and unfrequented trees, we came to a little glen, down which a burn ran, and having stopped to consult, we resolved to go up rather than down the stream, in order that we might not be seen by the pursuers whom we supposed would naturally keep the hill. but by this time our strength was in a manner utterly gone with fatigue, in so much that mr witherspoon said it would be as well to fall into the hands of the enemy as to die in the wood. i however encouraged him to be of good cheer; and it so happened, in that very moment of despair, that i observed a little cavern nook aneath a rock that overhung the burn, and thither i proposed we should wade and rest ourselves in the cave, trusting that providence would be pleased to guide our persecutors into some other path. so we passed the water, and laid ourselves down under the shelter of the rock, where we soon after fell asleep. chapter lvi we were graciously protected for the space of four hours, which we lay asleep under the rock. mr witherspoon was the first who awoke, and he sat watching beside me for some time, in great anxiety of spirit, as he afterwards told me; for the day was far spent, and the weather, as is often the custom in our climate, in the wane of the year, when the morning rises bright, had become coarse and drumly, threatening a rough night. at last i awoke, and according to what we had previously counselled together, we went up the course of the burn, and so got out of that afflicting wood, and came to an open and wide moorland, over which we held our journeying westward, guided by the sun, that with a sickly eye was then cowering through the mist to his chamber ayont the hill. but though all around us was a pathless scene of brown heather, here and there patched with the deceitful green of some perilous well-e'e; though the skies were sullen, and the bleak wind gusty, and every now and then a straggling flake of snow, strewed in our way from the invisible hand of the cloud, was a token of a coming drift, still a joyous encouragement was shed into our bosoms, and we saw in the wildness of the waste, and the omens of the storm, the blessed means with which providence, in that forlorn epoch, was manifestly deterring the pursuer and the persecutor from tracking our defenceless flight. so we journeyed onward, discoursing of many dear and tender cares, often looking round, and listening when startled by the wind whispering to the heath and the waving fern, till the shadows of evening began to fall, and the dangers of the night season to darken around us. when the snow hung on the heather like its own bells, we wished, but we feared to seek a place of shelter. fain would we have gone back to the home for the fugitive, which we had found under the rock, but we knew not how to turn ourselves; for the lights of the moon and stars were deeply concealed in the dark folds of the wintry mantle with which the heavens were wrapt up. our hearts then grew weary, and more than once i felt as if i was very willing to die. still we struggled on; and when it had been dark about an hour, we came to the skirts of a field, where the strips of the stubble through the snow showed us that some house or clachan could not be far off. we then consulted together, and resolved rather to make our place of rest in the lea of a stack, or an outhouse, than to apply to the dwelling; for the thought of the untimely end of harmless nahum chapelrig lay like clay on our hearts, and we could not but sorrow that, among the other woes of the vial of the prelatic dispensation, the hearts of the people of scotland should be so turned against one another. accordingly going down the rigs, with as little interchange of discourse as could well be, we descried, by the schimmer of the snow, and a ghastly streak of moonlight that passed over the fields, a farm steading, with several trees and stacks around it, and thither we softly directed our steps. greatly, however, were we surprised and touched with distress, when, as we drew near, we saw that there was no light in the house, nor the sign of fire within, nor inhabitant about the place. on reaching the door we found it open, and on entering in, everything seemed as if it had been suddenly abandoned; but by the help of a pistol, which i had taken in the raid from one of turner's disarmed troopers, and putting our trust in the protection we had so far enjoyed, i struck a light and kindled the fire, over which there was still hanging, on the swee, a kail-pot, wherein the family at the time of their flight had been preparing their dinner; and we judged by this token, and by the visible desertion, that we were in the house of some of god's people who had been suddenly scattered. accordingly we scrupled not to help ourselves from the aumrie, knowing how readily they would pardon the freedom of need in a gospel minister, and a covenanted brother dejected with want and much suffering. having finished our supper, instead of sitting by the fire, as we at first proposed to do, we thought it would be safer to take the blankets from the beds and make our lair in the barn; so we accordingly retired thither, and lay down among some unthreshed corn that was lying ready on the floor for the flail. but we were not well down when we heard the breathings of two persons near us. as there was no light, and mr witherspoon guessing by what we had seen, and by this concealment, that they must be some of the family, he began to pray aloud, thereby, without letting wot they were discovered, making them to understand what sort of guests we were. at the conclusion an old woman spoke to us, telling us dreadful things which a gang of soldiers had committed that afternoon, and her sad story was often interrupted by the moans of her daughter, the farmer's wife, who had suffered from the soldiers an unspeakable wrong. "but what has become of our men, or where the bairns hae fled, we know not,--we were baith demented by the outrage, and hid oursel's here after it was owre late," said that aged person, in a voice of settled grief that was more sorrowful to hear than any lamentation could have been, and all the sacred exhortations that mr witherspoon could employ softened not the obduracy of her inward sorrowing over her daughter, the dishonoured wife. he, however, persuaded them to return with us to the house; for the enemy having been there, we thought it not likely he would that night come again. as for me, during the dismal recital, i could not speak. the eye of my spirit was fixed on the treasure i had left at home. every word i heard was like the sting of an adder. my horrors and fears rose to such a pitch, that i could no longer master them. i started up and rushed to the door, as if it had been possible to arrest the imagined guilt of the persecutors in my own unprotected dwelling. mr witherspoon followed me, thinking i had gone by myself, and caught me by the arm and entreated me to be composed, and to return with him into the house. but while he was thus kindly remonstrating with me, something took his foot, and he stumbled and fell to the ground. the accident served to check the frenzy of my thoughts for a moment, and i stooped down to help him up; but in the same instant he uttered a wild howl that made me start from him; and he then added, awfully,-- "in the name of heaven, what is this? "what is it?" said i, filled with unutterable dread. "hush, hush," he replied as he rose, "lest the poor women hear us," and he lifted in his arms the body of a child of some four or five years old. i could endure no more; i thought the voices of my own innocents cried to me for help, and in the frenzy of the moment i left the godly man, and fled like a demoniac, not knowing which way i went. chapter lvii a keen frost had succeeded the snow, and the wind blew piercingly cold; but the gloom had passed away. the starry eyes of the heavens were all wakefully bright, and the moon was moving along the fleecy edge of a cloud, like a lonely barque that navigates amidst the foaming perils of some dark inhospitable shore. at the time, however, i was in no frame of thought to note these things, but i know that such was then the aspect of that night; for as often yet, as the freezing wind sweeps over the fields strewed with snow, and the stars are shining vigilantly, and the moon hastily travels on the skirts of the cloud, the passion of that hour, at the sight thereof, revives in my spirit; and the mourning women, and the perished child in the arms of mr witherspoon, appear like palpable imagery before the eyes of my remembrance. the speed with which i ran soon exhausted my strength.--i began to reflect on the unavailing zeal with which i was then hastening to the succour of those for whom my soul was suffering more than the tongue of the eloquent orator can express.--i stopped to collect my reason and my thoughts, which, i may well say, were scattered, like the wrack that drifts in the tempestuous air.--i considered, that i knew not a footstep of the road, that dangers surrounded me on all sides, and that the precipitation of my haste might draw me into accidents, whereby the very object would be lost which i was so eager to gain; and the storm within me abated, and the distraction of my bosom, which had so well nigh shipwrekt my understanding, was moderated, like the billows of the ocean when the blasts are gone by; so that, after i was some four or five miles away from yon house of martyrdom and mourning, a gracious dispensation of composure was poured into my spirit, and i was thereby enabled to go forward in my journey with the circumspection so needful in that woful time. but in proportion as my haste slackened, and the fiery violence of the fears subsided wherewith i was hurried on, the icy tooth of the winter grew feller in the bite, and i became in a manner almost helpless. the mind within me was as if the faculty of its thinking had been frozen up, and about the dawn of morning i walked in a willess manner, the blood in my veins not more benumbed in its course than was the fluency of my spirit in its power of resolution. i had now, from the time that our covenanted host was scattered on rullion-green, travelled many miles; and though like a barque drifting rudderless on the ocean tides, as the stream flows and the blast blows, i had held no constant course, still my progress had been havenward, in so much that about sunrise i found myself, i cannot well tell how, on the heights to the south of castlemilk, and the city of glasgow, with her goodly array of many towers, glittering in the morning beams, lay in sight some few miles off on the north. i knew it not; but a herd that i fell in with on the hill told me what town it was, and the names of divers clachans, and the houses of men of substance in the lowlands before me. among others he pointed out to me nether pollock in the midst of a skirting of trees, the seat and castle of that godly and much-persecuted christian and true covenanter, sir george maxwell, the savour of whose piety was spread far and wide; for he had suffered much, both from sore imprisonment and the heavy fine of four thousand pounds imposed upon him, shortly after that conclave of satan, middleton's sederunt of the privy-council at glasgow, where prelatic cruelty was brought to bed of her first-born, in that edict against the ministers at the beginning of the persecution, whereof i have described the promulgation as it took place at irvine. being then hungered and very cold, after discoursing with the poor herd, who was a simple stripling in the ignorance of innocence, i resolved to bend my way toward nether pollock, in the confident faith that the master thereof, having suffered so much himself, would know how to compassionate a persecuted brother. and often since i have thought that there was something higher than reason in the instinct of this confidence; for indeed, had i reasoned from what was commonly said--and, alas! owre truly--that the covenanted spirit was bent, if not broken, i would have feared to seek the gates of sir george maxwell, lest the love he had once borne to our cause had been converted, by his own sufferings and apprehensions, into dread or aversion. but i was encouraged of the spirit to proceed. just, however, as i parted from the herd, he cried after me, and pointed to a man coming up the hill at some distance, with a gun in his hand, and a bird-bag at his side, and two dogs at his heel, saying, "yon'er's sir george maxwell himsel ganging to the moors. eh! but he has had his ain luck to fill his pock so weel already." whereupon i turned my steps towards sir george, and, on approaching him, beseeched him to have compassion on a poor famished fugitive from the pentlands. he stopped, and looked at me in a most pitiful manner, and shook his head, and said, with a tender grief in his voice, "it was a hasty business, and the worst of it no yet either heard nor over; but let us lose no time, for you are in much danger if you tarry so near to glasgow, where colonel drummond came yesterday with a detachment of soldiers, and has already spread them over the country." in saying these words, the worthy gentleman opened his bag, which, instead of being filled with game, as the marvelling stripling had supposed, contained a store of provisions. "i came not for pastime to the moor this morning," said he, presenting to me something to eat, "but because last night i heard that many of the outcasts had been seen yesterday lurking about thae hills, and as i could not give them harbour, nor even let them have any among my tenants, i have come out with some of my men, as it were to the shooting, in order to succour them. but we must not remain long together. take with you what you may require, and go away quickly; and i counsel you not to take the road to paisley, but to cross with what speed you can to the western parts of the shire, where, as the people have not been concerned in the raid, there's the less likelihood of drummond sending any of his force in that direction." accordingly, being thus plentifully supplied by the providence of that worthy, my strength was wonderfully recruited, and my heart cheered. with many thanks i then hastened from him, praying that his private charitable intents might bring him into no trouble. and surely it was a thing hallowing to the affections of the afflicted scottish nation to meet with such christian fellowship. for to the perpetual renown of many honourable west country families be it spoken, both master and men were daily in the moors at that time succouring the persecuted, like the ravens that fed elijah in the wilderness. after parting from sir george maxwell, i continued to bend my course straight westward, and having crossed the road from glasgow to paisley, i directed my steps to the hillier parts of the country, being minded, according to the suggestions of that excellent person, to find my way by the coast-side into the shire of ayr. but though my anxiety concerning my family was now sharpened as it were with the anguish of fire, i began to reason with myself on the jeopardy i might bring upon them, were i to return while the pursuit was so fierce; and in the end i came to the determination only to seek to know how it fared with them, and what had become of my brother in the battle, trusting that in due season the lord would mitigate the ire and the cruelty that was let loose on all those who had joined in the protestation and renewed the covenant at lanerk. chapter lviii towards the afternoon i found myself among the solitudes of the renfrewshire moors. save at times the melancholious note of the peese-weep, neither the sound nor the voice of any living thing was heard there. being then wearied in all my limbs, and willingly disposed to sleep, i laid myself down on a green hollow on the banks of the gryffe, where the sun shone with a pleasing warmth for so late a period of the year. i was not, however, many minutes stretched on the grass when i heard a shrill whistle of some one nigh at hand, and presently also the barking of a dog. from the kindly experience i had received of sir george maxwell's care this occasioned at first no alarm; but on looking up i beheld at some distance three soldiers with a dog, on the other side of the river. near the spot where i lay there was a cloven rock overspread with brambles and slae-bushes. it seemed to me as if the cleft had been prepared on purpose by providence for a hiding-place. i crept into it, and forgetting him by whom i was protected, i trembled with a base fear. but in that very moment he at once rebuked my infirmity, and gave me a singular assurance of his holy wardenship, by causing an adder to come towards me from the roots of the bushes, as if to force me to flee into the view of the pursuers. just, however, as in my horror i was on the point of doing so, the reptile looked at me with its glittering eyes, and then suddenly leapt away into the brake;--at the same moment a hare was raised by the dog, and the soldiers following it with shouts and halloes, were soon carried, by the impetuosity of the natural incitement which man has for the chase, far from the spot, and out of sight. this adventure had for a time the effect of rousing me from out the weariness with which i had been oppressed, and i rose and continued my course westward, over the hills, till i came in sight of the shaw's-water,--the stream of which i followed for more than a mile with a beating heart; for the valley through which it flows is bare and open, and had any of the persecutors been then on the neighbouring hills, i must have soon been seen; but gradually my thoughts became more composed, and the terrors of the poor hunted creature again became changed into confidence and hope. in this renewed spirit i slackened my pace, and seeing, at a short distance down the stream, before me a tree laid across a bridge, i was comforted with the persuasion that some farm-town could not be far off, so i resolved to linger about till the gloaming, and then to follow the path which led over the bridge. for, not knowing how the inhabitants in those parts stood inclined in their consciences, i was doubtful to trust myself in their power until i had made some espionage. accordingly, as the sun was still above the hills, i kept the hollowest track by the river's brink, and went down its course for some little time, till i arrived where the hills come forward into the valley; then i climbed up a steep hazel bank, and sat down to rest myself on an open green plot on the brow, where a gentle west wind shook the boughs around me, as if the silent spirits of the solitude were slowly passing by. in this place i had not been long when i heard, as if it were not far off, a sullen roar of falling waters rising hoarsely with the breeze, and listening again another sound came solemnly mingled with it, which i had soon the delight to discover was the holy harmony of worship, and to my ears it was as the first sound of the rushing water which moses brought from the rock to those of the thirsty israelites, and i was for some time so ravished with joy that i could not move from the spot where i was sitting. at last the sweet melody of the psalm died away, and i arose and went towards the airt from which it had come; but as i advanced, the noise of the roaring waters grew louder and deeper, till they were as the breaking of the summer waves along the ardrossan shore, and presently i found myself on the brink of a cliff, over which the river tumbled into a rugged chasm, where the rocks were skirted with leafless brambles and hazel, and garmented with ivy. on a green sloping bank, at a short distance below the waterfall, screened by the rocks and trees on the one side, and by the rising ground on the other, about thirty of the lord's flock, old and young, were seated around the feet of an aged grey-haired man, who was preaching to them,--his left hand resting on his staff,--his right was raised in exhortation,--and a bible lay on the ground beside him. i stood for the space of a minute looking at the mournful yet edifying sight,--mournful it was, to think how god's people were so afflicted, that they durst not do their heavenly king homage but in secrecy,--and edifying, that their constancy was of such an enduring nature that persecution served but to test it, as fire does the purity of gold. as i was so standing on the rock above the linn, the preacher happened to lift his eyes towards me, and the hearers who were looking at him, turned round, and hastily rising, began to scatter and flee away. i attempted to cry to them not to be afraid, but the sound of the cataract drowned my voice. i then ran as swiftly as i could towards the spot of worship, and reached the top of the sloping bank just as a young man was assisting mr swinton to mount a horse which stood ready saddled, tied to a tree; for the preacher was no other than that godly man; but the courteous reader must from his own kind heart supply what passed at our meeting. fain he was at that time to have gone no farther on with the exercise, and to have asked many questions of me concerning the expedition to the pentlands; but i importuned him to continue his blessed work, for i longed to taste the sweet waters of life once more from so hallowed a fountain; and, moreover, there was a woman with a baby at her bosom, which she had brought to be baptized from a neighbouring farm, called the killochenn,--and a young couple of a composed and sober aspect, from the back-o'-the-world, waiting to be joined together, with his blessing, in marriage. when he had closed his sermon and done these things, i went with him, walking at the side of his horse, discoursing of our many grievous anxieties; and he told me that, after being taken to glasgow and confined in prison there like a malefactor for thirteen days, he had been examined by the bishop's court, and through the mediation of one of the magistrates, a friend of his own, who had a soft word to say with the bishop, he was set free with only a menace, and an admonishment not to go within twenty miles of his own parish, under pain of being dealt with according to the edict. conversing in this manner, and followed by divers of those who had been solaced with his preaching, for the most part pious folk belonging to the town of inverkip, we came to a bridge over the river. "here, ringan," said he, "we must part for the present, for it is not meet to create suspicion. there are many of the faithful, no doubt, in thir parts, but it's no to be denied that there are likewise goats among the sheep. the lady of dunrod, where i am now going, is, without question, a precious vessel free of crack or flaw, but the laird is of a courtly compliancy, and their neighbour, carswell, she tells me, is a man of the dourest idolatry, his mother having been a papistical woman, and his father, through all the time of the first king charles, an eydent ettler for preferment." so we then parted, he going his way to dunrod castle, and one of the hearers, a farmer hard by, offering me shelter for the night, i went with him. chapter lix the decent, thoughtful, elderly man, who so kindly invited me to his house, was by name called gideon kemp; and as we were going towards it together, he told me of divers things that worthy mr swinton had not time to do; among the rest, that the preaching i had fallen in with at the linn, which should thenceforth be called the covenanters' linn, was the first taste of gospel-fother that the scattered sheep of those parts had tasted for more than eight months. "what's to come out o' a' this oppression," said he, "is wonderful to think o'. it's no in the power of nature that ony government or earthly institution framed by the wit and will of man can withstand a whole people. the prelates may persecute, and the king's power may back their iniquities, but the day and the hour cannot be far off when both the power and the persecutors will be set at nought, and the sense of what is needful and right, no what is fantastical and arbitrary, govern again in the counsels of this realm. i say not this in the boast of prediction and prophecy, but as a thing that must come to pass; for no man can say, that the peaceful worshipping according to the word is either a sin, a shame, or an offence against reason; but the extortioning of fines, and the desolation of families, for attending the same, is manifestly guilt of a dark dye, and the judge of righteousness will avenge it." as we were thus walking sedately towards his dwelling, i observed and pointed out to him a lassie coming running towards us. it was his daughter; and when she came near, panting and out of breath with her haste she said-- "o, father ye manna gang hame;--twa of carswell's men hae been speering for you and they had swords and guns. they're o'er the hill to the linn, for wee willie telt them ye were gane there to a preaching." "this comes," says the afflicted gideon, "of speaking of secret things before bairns; wha could hae thought, that a creature no four years old would have been an instrument of discovery?--it'll no be safe now for you to come hame wi' me, which i'm wae for, as ye're sae sorely weary't; but there's a frien o' ours that lives ayont the holmstone-hill, aboon the auld kirk; i'll convey you thither, and she'll gi'e you a shelter for the night." so we turned back, and again crossed the bridge before spoken of, and held our course towards the house of gideon kemp's wife's stepmother. but it was not ordained that i was yet to enjoy the protection of a raftered dwelling; for just as we came to the daff-burn, down the glen of which my godly guide was mindet to conduct me, as being a less observable way than the open road, he saw one of ardgowan's men coming towards us, and that family being of the progeny of the stuarts, were inclined to the prelatic side. "hide yoursel," said he, "among the bushes." and i den't myself in a nook of the glen, where i overheard what passed. "i thought, gideon," said the lad to him, "that ye would hae been at the conventicle this afternoon. we hae heard o't a'; and carswell has sworn that he'll hae baith doited swinton and dunrod's leddy at glasgow afore the morn, or he'll mak a tawnle o' her tower." "carswell shouldna crack sae croose," replied gideon kemp; "for though his castle stands proud in the green valley, the time may yet come when horses and carts will be driven through his ha', and the foul toad and the cauld snail be the only visitors around the unblest hearth o' carswell." the way in which that gifted man said these words made my heart dinle; but i hae lived to hear that the spirit of prophecy was assuredly in them: for, since the revolution, carswell's family has gone all to drift, and his house become a wastege;--folk say, a new road that's talked o' between inverkip and greenock is to go through the very middle o't, and so mak it an awful monument of what awaits and will betide all those who have no mercy on their fellow-creatures, and would exalt themselves by abetting the strength of the godless and the wrength of the oppressors. ardgowan's man was daunted by the words of gideon kemp, and replied in a subdued manner, "it's really a melancholious thing to think that folk should hae gane so wud about ministers and religion;--but tak care of yoursel, gideon, for a party of soldiers hae come the day to cartsdyke to take up ony of the rullion-green rebels that hae fled to thir parts, and they catcht, i hear, in a public in the stenners, three men, and have sent them to glasgow to be hanged." i verily thought my heart would at this have leapt out of my bosom. "surely," replied gideon kemp, "the wrath of government is no so unquenchable, that a' the misguided folk concernt in the rising are doom't to die. but hae ye heard the names of the prisoners, or where they belong to?" "they're o' the shire o' ayr, somewhere frae the skirts o' irvine or kilwinning; and i was likewise told their names, but they're no of a familiarity easy to be remembered." the horror which fell upon me at hearing this made me forget my own peril, and i sprung out of the place of my concealment, and cried,-- "do you ken if any of them was of the name of gilhaize?" ardgowan's man was astounded at seeing me standing before him in so instanter a manner, and before making any response, he looked at gideon kemp with a jealous and troubled eye. "nay," said i, "you shall deal honestly with me, and from this spot you shall not depart till you have promised to use nae scaith to this worthy man." so i took hold of him by the skirts of his coat, and added, "ye're in the hands of one that tribulation has made desperate. i, too, am a rebel, as ye say, from rullion-green, and my life is forfeited to the ravenous desires of those who made the laws that have created our offence. but fear no wrong, if you have aught of christian compassion in you. was gilhaize the name of any of the prisoners?" "i'll no swear't," was his answer; "but i think it was something like that;--one of them, i think, they called finnie." "robin finnie," cried i, dropping his coat, "he was wi' my brother; i canna doubt it;" and the thought of their fate flooded my heart, and the tears flowed from my eyes. the better nature of ardgowan's man was moved at the sight of my distress, and he said to gideon kemp,-- "ye needna be fear't, gideon; i hope ye ken mair o' me than to think i would betray either friend or acquaintance. but gang na' to the toun, for a' yon'er's in a state o' unco wi' the news o' what's being doing the day at cartsdyke, and every body's in the hourly dread and fear o' some o' the black-cuffs coming to devour them." "that's spoken like yoursel, johnnie jamieson," said gideon kemp; "but this poor man," meaning me, "has had a day o' weary travel among the moors, and is greatly in need of refreshment and a place of rest. when the sword, johnnie, is in the hand, it's an honourable thing to deal stoutly wi' the foe; but when forlorn and dejectit, and more houseless than the beasts of the field, he's no longer an adversary, but a man that we're bound by the laws of god and nature to help." jamieson remained for a short space in a dubious manner, and looking mildly towards me, he said, "gang you your ways, gideon kemp, and i'll ne'er say i saw you; and let your friend den himsel in the glen, and trust me: naebody in a' inverkip will jealouse that ony of our house would help or harbour a covenanted rebel; so i'll can bring him to some place o' succour in the gloaming, where he'll be safer than he could wi' you." troubled and sorrowful as i was, i could not but observe the look of soul-searching scrutiny that gideon kemp cast at jamieson, who himself was sensible of his mistrust, for he replied,-- "dinna misdoot me, gideon kemp; i would sooner put my right hand in the fire, and burn it to a cinder, than harm the hair of a man that was in my power." "and i'll believe you," said i; "so guide me wheresoever you will." "ye'll never thrive, johnnie jamieson," added honest gideon, "if ye're no sincere in this trust." so after some little farther communing, the worthy farmer left us, and i followed jamieson down the daff-burn, till we came to a mill that stood in the hollow of the glen, the wheel whereof was happing in the water with a pleasant and peaceful din that sounded consolatory to my hearing after the solitudes, the storms and the accidents i had met with. "bide you here," said jamieson; "the gudeman's ane o' your folk, but his wife's a thought camstrarie at times, and before i tak you into the mill i maun look that she's no there." so he hastened forward, and going to the door, went in, leaving me standing at the sluice of the mill-lade, where, however, i had not occasion to wait long, for presently he came out, and beckoned to me with his hand to come quickly. chapter lx sauners paton, as the miller was called, received me in a kindly manner, saying to jamieson,-- "i aye thought, johnnie, that some day ye would get a cast o' grace, and the lord has been bountiful to you at last, in putting it in your power to be aiding in such a samaritan work. but," he added, turning to me, "it's no just in my power to do for you what i could wis; for, to keep peace in the house, i'm at times, like many other married men, obligated to let the gudewife tak her ain way; for which reason, i doubt ye'll hae to mak your bed here in the mill." while he was thus speaking, we heard the tongue of mrs paton ringing like a bell. "for heaven's sake, johnnie jamieson," cried the miller, "gang out and stop her frae coming hither till i get the poor man hidden in the loft." jamieson ran out, leaving us together, and the miller placing a ladder, i mounted up into the loft, where he spread sacks for a bed to me, and told me to lie quiet, and in the dusk he would bring me something to eat. but before he had well descended, and removed the ladder from the trap-door, in came his wife. "noo, sauners paton," she exclaimed, "ye see what i hae aye prophesied to you is fast coming to pass. the king's forces are at cartsdyke, and they'll be here the morn, and what's to come o' you then, wi' your covenanted havers? but, sauners paton, i hae ae thing to tell ye, and that's no twa; ye'll this night flit your camp; ye'll tak to the hills, as i'm a living woman, and no bide to be hang't at your ain door, and to get your right hand chappit aff, and sent to lanerk for a show, as they say is done an doing wi' a' the covenanters." "naebody, kate, will meddle wi' me, dinna ye be fear't," replied the miller; "i hae done nae ill, but patiently follow't my calling at home, so what hae i to dread?" "did na ye sign the remonstrance to the laird against the curate's coming; ca' ye that naething? ye'll to the caves this night, sauners paton, if the life bide in your body. what a sight it would be to me to see you put to death, and maybe to fin a sword of cauld iron running through my ain body, for being colleague wi' you; for ye ken that it's the law now to mak wives respondable for their gudemen." "kate warden," replied the miller, with a sedate voice, "in sma' things i hae ne'er set mysel vera obdoorately against you." "na! if i e'er heard the like o' that!" exclaimed mrs paton. "a cross-graint man, that has just been as a covenant and remonstrance to happiness, submitting himsel in no manner o' way, either to me or those in authority over us, to talk o' sma' things! sauners paton, ye're a born rebel to your king, and kintra, and wife. but this night i'll put it out of your power to rebel on me. stop the mill, sauners paton, and come out, and tak the door on your back. i hae owre meikle regard for you to let you bide in jeopardy ony langer here." "consider," said sauners, a little dourly, as if he meditated rebellion, "that this is the season of december; and where would ye hae me to gang in sic a night?" "a grave in the kirk-yard's caulder than a tramp on the hills. my jo, ye'll hae to conform; for positeevely, sauners paton, i'm positive, and for this night, till the blast has blawn by, ye'll hae to seek a refuge out o' the reach of the troopers' spear.--hae ye stoppit the mill?" the mistress was of so propugnacious a temper, that the poor man saw no better for't than to yield obedience so far, as to pull the string that turned off the water of the mill-lade from the wheel. "noo," said he, "to pleasure you, kate, i hae stoppit the mill, and to pleasure me, i hope ye'll consent to stop your tongue; for, to be plain wi' you, frae my ain house i'll no gang this night; and ye shall hae't since ye will hae't, i hae a reason of my ain for biding at hame, and at hame i will bide;--na, what's mair, kate, it's a reason that i'll no tell to you." "dear pity me, sauners paton!" cried his wife; "ye're surely grown o' late an unco reasonable man. but leddy stuart's quadrooped bird they ca' a parrot, can come o'er and o'er again ony word as weel as you can do reason; but reason here or reason there, i'll ne'er consent to let you stay to be put to the sword before my e'en; so come out o' the mill and lock the door." to this the honest man made no immediate answer; but, after a short silence, he said,-- "kate, my queen, i'll no say that what ye say is far wrang; it may be as weel for me to tak a dauner to the top o' dunrod; but some providing should be made for a sojourn a' night in the wilderness. the sun has been set a lucky hour, and ye may as weel get the supper ready, and a creel wi' some vivers prepared." "noo, that's like yoursel, sauners paton," replied his wife; "and surely my endeavour shall not be wanting to mak you comfortable." at these words jamieson came also into the mill, and said, "i hope, miller, the wife has gotten you persuaded o' your danger, and that ye'll conform to her kind wishes." by which i discernt, that he had purposely egget her on to urge her gudeman to take the moors for the advantage of me. "o, aye," replied the miller; "i could na but be consenting, poor queen, to lighten her anxieties; and though for a season," he added, in a way that i well understood, "the eyes above may be closed in slumber, a watch will be set to gi'e the signal when it's time to be up and ready; therefore let us go into the house, and cause no further molestation here." the three then retired, and, comforted by the words of this friendly mystery, i confided myself to the care of the defenceless sleeper's ever-wakeful sentinel, and for several hours enjoyed a refreshing oblivion from all my troubles and fears. considering the fatigue i had undergone for so many days and nights together, my slumber might have been prolonged perhaps till morning, but the worthy miller, who withstood the urgency of his terrified wife to depart till he thought i was rested, soon after the moon rose came into the mill and wakened me to make ready for the road. so i left my couch in the loft, and came down to him; and he conducted me a little way from the house, where, bidding me wait, he went back, and speedily returned with a small basket in his hand of the stores which the mistress had provided for himself. having put the handle into my hand, he led me down to a steep shoulder of a precipice nigh the sea-shore, where, telling me to follow the path along the bottom of the hills, he shook me with a brotherly affection by the hand, and bade me farewell,--saying, in a jocose manner, to lighten the heaviness with which he saw my spirit was oppressed,--that the gudewife would make baith him and johnnie jamieson suffer in the body for the fright she had gotten. "for ye should ken," said he, "that the terror she was in was a' bred o' johnnie's pawkerie. he knew that she was aye in a dread that i would be laid hands on ever since i signed the remonstrance to the laird; and johnnie thought, that if he could get her to send me out provided for the hills, we would find a way to make the provision yours. so, gude be wi' you, and dinna be overly downhearted, when ye see how wonderfully ye are ta'en care o'." being thus cherished, cheered, and exhorted, by the worthy miller of inverkip, i went on my way with a sense of renewed hope dawning upon my heart. the night was frosty, but clear, and the rippling of the sea glittered as with a sparkling of gladness in the beams of the moon then walking in the fulness of her beauty over those fields of holiness whose perennial flowers are the everlasting stars. but though for a little while my soul partook of the blessed tranquillity of the night, i had not travelled far when the heaven of my thoughts was overcast. grief for my brother in the hands of the oppressors, and anxiety for the treasures of my hearth, whose dangers were doubtless increased by the part i had taken in the raid, clouded my reason with many fearful auguries and doleful anticipations. all care for my own safety was lost in those overwhelming reflections, in so much that when the morning air breathed upon me as i reached the brow of kilbride-hill, had i been then questioned as to the manner i had come there, verily i could have given no account, for i saw not, neither did i hear, for many miles, aught, but only the dismal tragedies with which busy imagination rent my heart with affliction, and flooded my eyes with the gushing streams of a softer sorrow. but though my journey was a continued experience of inward suffering, i met with no cause of dread, till i was within sight of kilwinning. having purposed not to go home until i should learn what had taken place in my absence, i turned aside to the house of an acquaintance, one william brekenrig, a covenanted christian, to inquire, and to rest myself till the evening. scarcely, however, had i entered on the path that led to his door when a misgiving of mind fell upon me, and i halted and looked to see if all about the mailing was in its wonted state. his cattle were on the stubble--the smoke stood over the lumhead in the lown of the morning--the plough lay unyoked on the croft, but it had been lately used, and the furrows of part of a rig were newly turned. still there was a something that sent solemnity and coldness into my soul. i saw nobody about the farm, which at that time of the day was strange and unaccountable; nevertheless i hastened forward, and coming to a park-yett, i saw my old friend leaning over it with his head towards me. i called to him by name, but he heeded me not; i ran to him and touched him, but he was dead. the ground around where he had rested himself and expired was covered with his blood; and it was plain he had not been shot long, for he was warm, and the stream still trickled from the wound in his side. i have no words to tell what i felt at the sight of this woful murder; but i ran for help to the house; and just as i turned the corner of the barn, two soldiers met me, and i became their prisoner. one of them was a ruthless reprobate, who wanted to put me to death; but the other beggit my life: at the moment, however, my spirit was as it were in the midst of thunders and a whirlwind. they took from me my pistols and my grandfather's sword and i could not speak; they tied my hands behind me with a cutting string, and i thought it was a dream. the air i breathed was as suffocating as sulphur; i gasped with the sandy thirst of the burning desert, and my throat was as the drowth of the parched earth in the wilderness of kedar. soon after this other soldiers came from another farm, where they had been committing similar outrages, and they laughed and were merry as they rehearsed their exploits of guilt. they taunted me and plucked me by the lip; but their boasting of what they had done flashed more fiercely over my spirit than even these indignities, and i inwardly chided the slow anger of the mysterious heavens for permitting the rage of those agents of the apostate james sharp and his compeers, whom a mansworn king had so cruelly dressed with his authority. but even in the midst of these repinings and bitter breathings, it was whispered into the ears of my understanding, as with the voice of a seraph, that the lord in all things moveth according to his established laws; and i was comforted to think that in the enormities whereof i was a witness and partaker, there was a tempering of the hearts of the people, that they might become as swords of steel, to work out the deliverance of the land from the bloody methods of prelatic and arbitrary domination; in so much, that when the soldiers prepared to return to their quarters in irvine, i walked with them--their captive, it is true; but my steps were firm, and they marvelled to one another at the proudness of my tread. there was at the time a general sorrowing throughout the country, at the avenging visitations wherewith all those who had been in the raid, or who had harboured the fugitives, were visited. hundreds that sympathised with the sufferings of their friends, flocked to the town to learn who had been taken, and who were put to death or reserved for punishment. the crowd came pressing around as i was conducted up the gait to the tolbooth; the women wept, but the men looked doure, and the children wondered whatfor an honest man should be brought to punishment. some who knew me, cheered me by name to keep a stout heart; and the soldiers grew fear't for a rescue, and gurled at the crowd for closing so closely upon us. as i was ascending the tolbooth-stair, i heard a shriek; and i looked around, and beheld michael, my first-born, a stripling then only twelve years old, amidst the crowd, stretching out his hands and crying, "o, my father, my father!" i halted for a moment, and the soldiers seemed to thaw with compassion; but my hands were tied,--i was a captive on the threshold of the dungeon, and i could only shut my eyes and bid the stern agents of the persecutors go on. still the cry of my distracted child knelled in my ear, and my agony grew to such a pitch, that i flew forward up the steps, and, in the dismal vaults within, sought refuge from the misery of my child. chapter lxi i was conducted into a straight and dark chamber, and the cord wherewith my hands were bound was untied, and a shackle put upon my right wrist; the flesh of my left was so galled with the cord, that the jailor was softened at the sight, and from the humanity of his own nature, refrained from placing the iron on it, lest the rust should fester the quick wound. then i was left alone in the gloomy solitude of the prison-room, and the ponderous doors were shut upon me, and the harsh bolts driven with a horrid grating noise, that caused my very bones to dinle. but even in that dreadful hour an unspeakable consolation came with the freshness of a breathing of the airs of paradise to my soul. methought a wonderful light shone around me, that i heard melodious voices bidding me be of good cheer, and that a vision of my saintly grandfather, in the glorious vestments of his heavenly attire, stood before me, and smiled upon me with that holy comeliness of countenance which has made his image in my remembrance ever that of the most venerable of men; so that, in the very depth of what i thought would have been the pit of despair, i had a delightful taste of those blessed experiences of divine aid, by which the holy martyrs were sustained in the hours of trial, and cheered amidst the torments in which they sealed the truth of their testimony. after the favour of that sweet and celestial encouragement, i laid myself down on a pallet in the corner of the room, and a gracious sleep descended upon my eyelids, and steeped the sense and memory of my griefs in forgetfulness. when i woke the day was far spent, and the light through the iron stainchers of the little window showed that the shadows of the twilight were darkening over the world. i raised myself on my elbow, and listened to the murmur of the multitude that i heard still lingering around the prison; and sometimes i thought that i discovered the voice of a friend. in that situation, and thinking of all those dear cares which filled my heart with tenderness and fear, and of the agonising grief of my little boy, the sound of whose cries still echoed in my bosom, i rose upon my knees and committed myself entirely to the custody of him that can give the light of liberty to the captive even in the gloom of the dungeon. and when i had done so i again prepared to lay myself on the ground; but a rustle in the darkness of the room drew my attention, and in the same moment a kind hand was laid on mine. "sarah lochrig," said i, for i knew my wife's gentle pressure,--"how is it that you are with me in this doleful place? how found you entrance, and i not hear you come in?" but before she had time to make any answer, another's fond arms were round my neck, and my affectionate young michael wept upon my shoulder. bear with me, courteous reader, when i think of those things,--that wife and that child, and all that i loved so fondly, are no more! but it is not meet that i should yet tell how my spirit was turned into iron and my heart into stone. therefore will i still endeavour to relate, as with the equanimity of one that writes but of indifferent things, what further ensued during the thirteen days of my captivity. sarah lochrig, with the mildness of her benign voice, when we had mingled a few tears, told me that, after i went to galloway with martha swinton, she had been moved by our neighbours to come with our children into the town, as being safer for a lanerly woman and a family left without its head; and a providential thing it was that she had done so; for on the very night that my brother came off with the men of the parish to join us, as i have noted down in its proper place, a gang of dragoons plundered both his house and mine; and but that our treasures had been timeously removed, his family having also gone that day into kilmarnock, the outrages might have been unspeakable. we then had some household discourse, anent what was to be done in the event of things coming to the worst with me; and it was an admiration to hear with what constancy of reason, and the gifts of a supported judgment, that gospel-hearted woman spoke of what she would do with her children, if it was the lord's pleasure to honour me with the crown of martyrdom. "but," said she, "i hae an assurance within that some great thing is yet in store for you, though the hope be clouded with a doubt that i'll no be spar't to see it, and therefore let us not despond at this time, but use the means that providence may afford to effect your deliverance." while we were thus conversing together the doors of the prison-room were opened, and a man was let in who had a cruisie in the one hand and a basket in the other. he was lean and pale-faced, bordering on forty years, and of a melancholy complexion; his eye was quick, deep set, and a thought wild; his long hair was carefully combed smooth, and his apparel was singularly well composed for a person of his degree. having set down the lamp on the floor, he came in a very reverential manner towards where i was sitting, with my right hand fettered to the ground, between sarah lochrig and michael our son, and he said, with a remarkable and gentle simplicity of voice, in the highland accent, that he had been requested by a righteous woman, provost reid's wife, to bring me a bottle of cordial wine and some little matters that i might require for bodily consolation. "it's that godly creature, willie sutherland, the hangman," said my wife. "though providence has dealt hardly with him, poor man, in this life, every body says he has gotten arles of a servitude in glory hereafter." when he had placed the basket at the knees of michael, he retired to a corner of the room, and stood in the shadow, with his face turned towards the wall, saying, "i'm concern't that it's no in my power to leave you to yoursels till mungo robeson come back, for he has lockit me in, but i'll no hearken to what ye may say;" and there was a modesty of manner in the way that he said this, which made me think it not possible he could be of so base a vocation as the public executioner, and i whispered my opinion of him to sarah lochrig. it was, however, the case; and verily in the life and conduct of that simple and pious man there was a manifestation of the truth, that to him whom the lord favours it signifieth not whatsoever his earthly condition may be. after i had partaken with my wife and son of some refreshment which they had brought with them, and tasted of the wine that provost reid's lady had sent, we heard the bolts of the door drawn, and the clanking of keys, at which willie sutherland came forward from the corner where he had stood during the whole time, and lifting the lamp from the floor, and wetting his fore-finger with spittle as he did so, he trimmed the wick, and said, "the time's come when a' persons not prisoners must depart forth the tolbooth for the night; but, master gilhaize, be none discomforted thereat, your wife and your little one will come back in the morning, and your lot is a lot of pleasure; for is it not written in the book of ecclesiastes, fourth and eighth, 'there is one alone, and there is not a second; yea, he hath neither child nor brother?' and such an one am i." the inner door was thrown open, and mungo robeson, looking in, said, "i wae to molest you, but ye'll hae to come out, mrs gilhaize." so that night we were separated; and when sarah lochrig was gone, i could not but offer thanksgiving that my lines had fallen in so pleasant a place, compared with the fate of my poor brother, suffering among strangers in the doleful prison of glasgow, under the ravenous eyes of the prelate of that city, then scarcely less hungry for the bodies of the faithful and the true, than even the apostate james sharp himself. chapter lxii the deep sleep into which i had fallen when sarah lochrig and my son were admitted to see me, and during the season of which they had sat in silence beside me till revived nature again unsealed my eyes, was so refreshing, that after they were gone away i was enabled to consider my condition with a composed mind, and free from the heats of passion and anxiety wherewith i had previously been so greatly tossed. and calling to mind all that had taken place, and the ruthless revenge with which the cruel prelates were actuated, i saw, as it were written in a book, that for my part and conduct i was doomed to die. i felt not, however, the sense of guilt in my conscience; and i said to myself, that this sore thing ought not to be, and that, as an innocent man and the head of a family, i was obligated by all expedient ways to escape, if it were possible, from the grasps of the tyranny. so from that time, the first night of my imprisonment, i set myself to devise the means of working out my deliverance; and i was not long without an encouraging glimmer of hope. it seemed to me, that in the piety and simplicity of willie sutherland, instruments were given by which i might break through the walls of my prison; and accordingly, when he next morning came in to see me, i failed not to try their edge. i entered into discourse with him, and told him of many things which i have recorded in this book, and so won upon his confidence and the singleness of his heart, that he shed tears of grief at the thought of so many blameless men being ordained to an untimely end. "it has pleased god," said he, "to make me as it were a leper and an excommunicant in this world, by the constraints of a low estate, and without any fault of mine. but for this temporal ignominy, he will, in his own good time, bestow an exceeding great reward;--and though i may be called on to fulfil the work of the persecutors, it shall yet be seen of me, that i will abide by the integrity of my faith, and that, poor despised hangman as i am, i have a conscience that will not brook a task of iniquity, whatsoever the laws of man may determine, or the king's judges decree." i was, as it were, rebuked by this proud religious declaration, and i gently inquired how it was that he came to fall into a condition so rejected of the world. "deed, sir," said he, "my tale is easy told. my parents were very poor needful people in strathnavar, and no able to keep me; and it happened that, being cast on the world, i became a herd, and year by year, having a desire to learn the lowland tongue, i got in that way as far as paisley, where i fell into extreme want and was almost famished; for the master that i served there being in debt, ran away, by which cause i lost my penny fee, and was obligated to beg my bread. at that time many worthy folk in the shire of renfrew having suffered great molestation from witchcraft, divers malignant women, suspectit of that black art, were brought to judgment, and one of them being found guilty, was condemned to die. but no executioner being in the town, i was engaged, by the scriptural counsel of some honest men, who quoted to me the text, 'suffer not a witch to live,' to fulfil the sentence of the law. after that i bought a question-book, having a mind to learn to read, that i might gain some knowledge of the word. finding, however, the people of paisley scorn at my company, so that none would give me a lesson, i came about five years since to irvine, where the folk are more charitable; and here i act the part of an executioner when there is any malefactor to put to death. but my bible has instructed me, that i ought not to execute any save such as deserve to die; so that, if ye should be condemned, as like is you will be, my conscience will ne'er allow me to execute you, for i see you are a christian man." i was moved with a tender pity by the tale of the simple creature; but a strong necessity was upon me, and it was needful that i should make use of his honesty to help me out of prison. so i spoke still more kindly to him, lamenting my sad estate, and that in the little time i had in all likelihood to live, the rigour of the jailor would allow but little intercourse with my family, wishing some compassionate christian friend would intercede with him in order that my wife and children, if not permitted to bide all night, might be allowed to remain with me as long and as late as possible. the pious creature said that he would do for me in that respect all in his power, and that, as mungo robeson was a sober man, and aye wanted to go home early to his family, he would bide in the tolbooth to let out my wife, though it should be till ten o'clock at night--"for," said he, piteously, "i hae nae family to care about." accordingly, he so set himself, that mungo robeson consented to leave the keys of the tolbooth with him; and for several nights everything was so managed that he had no reason to suspect what my wife and i were plotting; for he being of a modest and retiring nature, never spoke to her when she parted from me, save when she thanked him as he let her out; and that she did not do every night lest it should grow into a habit of expectation with him, and cause him to remark when the civility was omitted. in the meantime all things being concerted between us, through the mean of a friend a cart was got in readiness, loaded with seemingly a hogget of tobacco and grocery wares, but the hogget was empty and loose in the head. this was all settled by the nineteenth of december; on the twenty-fourth of the month the commissioners appointed to try the covenanters in the prisons throughout the shire of ayr were to open their court at ayr, and i was, by all who knew of me, regarded in a manner as a dead man. on the night of the twentieth, however, shortly before ten o'clock, james gottera, our friend, came with the cart in at the town-head port, and in going down the gait stopped, as had been agreed, to give his beast a drink at the trough of the cross-well, opposite the tolbooth-stair foot. when the clock struck ten, the time appointed, i was ready dressed in my wife's apparel, having, in the course of the day, broken the chain of the shackle on my arm; and the door being opened by willie sutherland in the usual manner, i came out, holding a napkin to my face and weeping in sincerity very bitterly, with the thought of what might ensue to sarah lochrig, whom i left behind in my place. in reverence to my grief the honest man said nothing, but walked by my side till he had let me out at the outer stair-head door, where he parted from me, carrying the keys to mungo robeson's house, aneath the tolbooth, while i walked towards james gottera's cart, and was presently in the inside of the hogget. with great presence of mind and a soldierly self-possession, that venturous friend then drew the horse's head from the trough, and began to drive it down the street to the town-end port, striving as he did so to whistle, till he was rebuked for so doing, as i heard, by an old woman then going home, who said to him that it was a shame to hear such profanity in irvine when a martyr doomed to die was lying in the tolbooth. to the which he replied scoffingly, "that martyr was a new name for a sworn rebel to king and country,"--words which so kindled the worthy woman's ire, that she began to ban his prelatic ungodliness to such a degree that a crowd collected, which made me tremble. for the people sided with the zealous carlan, and spoke fiercely, threatening to gar james gottera ride the stang for his sinfulness in so traducing persecuted christians. what might have come to pass is hard to say, had not providence been pleased, in that most critical and perilous time, to cause a foul lum in a thacket house in the sea-gate to take fire, by which an alarm was spread that drew off the mob, and allowed james gottera to pass without farther molestation out at the town-end port. chapter lxiii from the time of my evasion from the tolbooth, and during the controversy between james gottera and the mob in the street, there was a whirlwind in my mind that made me incapable of reason. but when we had passed through the town-end port, and the cart had stopped at the minister's carse till i could throw off my female weeds and put on a sailor's garb, provided for the occasion, tongue nor pen cannot express the passion wherewith my yearning soul was then affected. the thought of having left sarah lochrig within bolts and bars, a ready victim to the tyranny which so thirsted for blood, lightened within me as the lightnings of heaven in a storm. i threw myself on the ground,--i grasped the earth,--i gathered myself as it were into a knot, and howled with horror at my own selfish baseness. i sprung up and cried, "i will save her yet!" and i would have run instanter to the town; but the honest man who was with me laid his grip firmly upon my arm, and said in a solemn manner,-- "this is no christian conduct, ringan gilhaize; the lord has not forgotten to be gracious." i glowered upon him, as he has often since told me, with a shudder, and cried, "but i hae left sarah lochrig in their hands, and, like a coward, run away to save mysel." "compose yoursel, ringan, and let us reason together," was his discreet reply. "it's vera true ye hae come away and left your wife as it were an hostage in the prison, but the persecutors and oppressors will respek the courageous affection of a loving wife, and providence will put it in their hearts to spare her." "and if they do not, what shall i then be? and what's to become of my babies?--lord, lord, thou hast tried me beyond my strength!" and i again threw myself on the earth, and cried that it might open and swallow me; for, thinking but of myself, i was becoming unworthy to live. the considerate man stood over me in compassionate silence for a season, and allowed me to rave in my frenzy till i had exhausted myself. "ringan," said he at last, "ye were aye respekit as a thoughtful and discreet character, and i'll no blame you for this sorrow; but i entreat you to collek yersel, and think what's best to be done, for what avails in trouble the cry of alas, alas! or the shedding of many tears? your wife is in prison, but for a fault that will wring compassion even frae the brazen heart of the remorseless james sharp, and bring back the blood of humanity to the mansworn breast of charles stuart. but though it were not so, they daurna harm a hair of her head; for there are things, man, that the cruellest dread to do for fear o' the world, even when they hae lost the fear o' god. i count her far safer, ringan, frae the rage of the persecutors, where she lies in prison aneath their bolts and bars, than were she free in her own house; for it obligates them to deal wi' her openly and afore mankind, whose goodwill the worst of princes and prelates are from an inward power forced to respek; whereas, were she sitting lanerly and defenceless, wi' naebody near but only your four helpless wee birds, there's no saying what the gleds might do. therefore be counselled, my frien, and dinna gi'e yoursel up utterly to despair; but, like a man, for whom the lord has already done great things, mak use of the means which, in this jeopardy of a' that's sae dear to you, he has so graciously put in your power." i felt myself in a measure heartened by this exhortation, and rising from the ground completed the change i had begun in my apparel; but i was still unable to speak,--which he observing, said,-- "hae ye considered the airt ye ought now to take, for it canna be that ye'll think of biding in this neighbourhood!" "no; not in this land," i exclaimed; "would that i might not even in this life!" "whisht! ringan gilhaize, that's a sinful wish for a christian," said a compassionate voice at my side, which made us both start; and on looking round we saw a man who, during the earnestest of our controversy, had approached close to us unobserved. it was that gospel-teacher, my fellow-sufferer, mr witherspoon; and his sudden apparition at that time was a blessed accident, which did more to draw my thoughts from the anguish of my affections than any thing it was possible for james gottera to have said. he was then travelling in the cloud of night to the town, having, after i parted from him in lanerkshire, endured many hardships and perils, and his intent was to pass to his friends, in order to raise a trifle of money, to transport himself for a season into ireland. but james gottera, on hearing this, interposed his opinion, and said a rumour was abroad that in all ports and towns of embarkation orders were given to stay the departure of passengers, so that to a surety he would be taken if he attempted to quit the kingdom. by this time my mind had returned into something like a state of sobriety; so i told him how it had been concerted between me and sarah lochrig that i should pass over to the wee cumbrae, there to wait till the destroyers had passed by; for it was thought not possible that such an inordinate thirst for blood, as had followed upon our discomfiture at rullion-green, could be of a long continuance; and i beseeched him to come with me, telling him that i was provided with a small purse of money in case need should require it, but in the charitable hearts of the pious we might count on a richer store. accordingly, we agreed to join our fortunes again; and having parted from james gottera at kilwinning, we went on our way together, and my heart was refreshed by the kind admonitions and sweet converse of my companion, though ever and anon the thought of my wife in prison, and our defenceless lambs, shot like a fiery arrow through my bosom. but man is by nature a sordid creature, and the piercing december blast, the threatening sky, and the frequent shower, soon knit up my thoughts with the care of my worthless self: maybe there was in that the tempering hand of a beneficent providence; for when i have at divers times since considered how much the anguish of my inner sufferings exceeded the bodily molestation, i could not but confess, though it was with a humbled sense of my own selfishness, that it was well for me, in such a time, to be so respited from the upbraidings of my tortured affections. but, not to dwell on the specialities of my own feelings on that memorable night, let it suffice, that after walking some four or five miles towards pencorse ferry, where we meant to pass to the island, i became less and less attentive to the edifying discourse of mr witherspoon, and his nature also yielding to the influences of the time, we travelled along the bleak and sandy shore between ardrossan and kilbride hill without the interchange of conversation. the wind came wild and gurly from the sea,--the waves broke heavily on the shore,--and the moon, swiftly wading the cloud, threw over the dreary scene a wandering and ghastly light. often to the blast we were obligated to turn our backs, and, the rain being in our faces, we little heeded each other. in that state, so like sullenness, we had journeyed onward, it might be better than a mile, when, happening to observe something lying on the shore, as if it had been cast out by the sea, i cried, under a sense of fear,-- "stop, mr witherspoon; what's that?" in the same moment he uttered a dreadful sound of horror, and, on looking round, i saw we were three in company. "in the name of heaven," exclaimed mr witherspoon, "who and what are you that walk with us?" but instanter our fears and the mystery of the appearance were dispelled, for it was my brother. chapter lxiv "weel, ringan," said my brother, "we have met again in this world; it's a blessing i never looked for;" and he held out his two hands to take hold of mine, but the broken links of the shackle still round my wrist made him cry out,-- "what's this?--whare hae ye come fra? but i need na inquire." "i have broken out of the tolbooth o' irvine," said i, "and i am fleeing here with mr witherspoon." "i, too," replied my brother, mournfully, "hae escaped from the hands of the persecutors." we then entered into some conversation concerning what had happened to us respectively, from the fatal twenty-eighth of november, when our power and host were scattered on rullion-green, wherein mr witherspoon, with me, rehearsed to him the accidents herein set forth, with the circumstantials of some things that befel the godly man after i left him with the corpse of the baby in his arms; but which being in some points less of an adventurous nature than had happened to myself, i shall be pardoned by the courteous reader for not enlarging upon it at greater length. i should, however, here note, that mr witherspoon was not so severely dealt with as i was; for though an outcast and a fugitive, yet he was not a prisoner; on the contrary, under the kindly cover of the lady auchterfardel, whose excellent and truly covenanted husband was a sore sufferer by the fines of the year , he received great hospitality for the space of sixteen days, and was saved between two feather beds, on the top of which the laird's aged mother, a bed-rid woman, was laid, when some of drummond's men searched the house on an information against him. but disconsolatory as it was to hear of such treatment of a gospel-minister, though lightened by the reflection of the saintly constancy that was yet to be found in the land, and among persons too of the lady of auchterfardel's degree, and severe as the trials were, both of body and mind, which i had myself undergone, yet were they all as nothing compared to the hardships of my brother, a man of a temperate sobriety of manner, bearing all changes with a serene countenance and a placable mind, while feeling them in the uttermost depths of his capacious affections. "on the night of the battle," said he, "it would not be easy of me to tell which way i went, or what ensued, till i found myself with three destitute companions on the skirts of the town of falkirk. by that time the morning was beginning to dawn, and we perceived not that we had approached so nigh unto any bigget land; as the day, however, broke, the steeple caught our eye, and we halted to consider what we ought to do. and as we were then standing in a field diffident to enter the town, a young woman came from a house that stands a little way off the road, close to graham's dyke, driving a cow to grass with a long staff, which i the more remarked as such, because it was of the indian cane, and virled with silver, and headed with ivory. "'sirs,' said menie adams, for that was the damsel's name, 'i see what ye are; but i'll no speir; howsever, be ruled by me, and gang na near the town of falkirk this morning, for atwish the hours of dark and dawn there has been a congregationing o' horses and men, and other sediments o' war, that i hae a notion there's owre meikle o' the king's power in the place for any covenanter to enter in, save under the peril o' penalties. but come wi' me, and i'll go back wi' you, and in our hay-loft you may scog yoursels till the gloaming.' "who could have thought," said my brother, "that in such discourse from a young woman, not passing four-and-twenty years of age, and of a pleasant aspect, any guilty stratagem of blood was hidden!" he and his friends never questioned her truth, but went with her, and she conducted them to her father's house, and lodged them in the hay-loft. it seems that menie adams was, however, at the time betrothed to the prelatic curate that had been laid upon the parish, and that, in consequence, aneath her courtesy, she had concealed a very treacherous and wicked intent. for no sooner had she got my brother and his three companions into the hay-loft, than she hies herself away to the town, and, in the hope of pleasing her prelatic lover, informs the captain of the troop there of the birds she had ensnared. as soon as the false woman had thus committed the sin of perfidy, she went to the curate to brag how she had done a service to his cause; but he, though of the prelatic germination, being yet a person who had some reverence for truth and the gentle mercies of humanity, was so disturbed by her unwomanly disposition, that he bade her depart from his presence for ever, and ran with all possible speed to waken the poor men whom she had so betrayed. on his way to the house he saw a party of the soldiers, whom their officer, as in duty bound, was sending to seize the unsuspecting sleepers, and running on before them, he just got forward in time to give the alarm. my brother and one of them, esau wardrop, the wife's brother of james gottera, who had been so instrumental in my evasion, were providentially enabled to get out and flee; but the other two were taken by the soldiers and carried to prison. the base conduct of that menie adams, as we some years after heard, did not go long unvisited by the displeasure of heaven, for, some scent of her guilt taking wind, the whole town, in a sense, grew wud against her, and she was mobbet, and the wells pumped upon her by the enraged multitude; and she never recovered from the handling that she therein suffered. my brother and esau wardrop, on getting into the open fields, made all the speed they could, like the panting hart when pursued by the hunter, and distrusting the people of that part of the country, they travelled all day, not venturing to approach any reeking house. towards gloaming, however, being hungry and faint, the craving of nature overcame their fears, and they went up to a house where they saw a light burning. as they approached the door they faltered a little in their resolution, for they heard the dissonance of riot and revelry within. their need, however, was great, and the importunities of hunger would not be pacified, so they knocked, and the door was soon opened by a soldier, the party within being a horde of dalziel's men, living at free quarters in the house of that excellent christian and much-persecuted man, the laird of ringlewood. chapter lxv the moment that the man who came to the door saw, by the glimpse of the light, that both my brother and esau wardrop had swords at their sides, he uttered a cry of alarm, thinking the house was surrounded, at which all the riotous soldiers within flew to their arms, while the man who opened the door seized my brother by the throat and harl't him in. the panic, however, was but of short duration; for my brother soon expounded that they were two perishing men who came to surrender themselves; so the door was again opened and esau wardrop commanded to come in. "it's but a justice to say of those rampageous troopers," said my brother, "that, considering us as prisoners of war, they were free and kind enough, though they mocked at our cause, and derided the equipage of our warfare. but it was a humiliating sight to see in what manner they deported themselves towards the unfortunate family." ringlewood himself, who had remonstrated against their insolence to his aged leddy, they had tied in his arm-chair and placed at the head of his own table, round which they sat carousing, and singing the roister ribaldry of camp songs. at first, when my brother was taken into this scene of military domination, he did not observe the laird; for in the uproar of the alarm the candles had been overset and broken, but new ones being sworn for and stuck into the necks of the bottles of the wine they were lavishly drinking, he discovered him lying as it were asleep where he sat, with his head averted, and his eyes shut on the iniquity of the scene of oppression with which he was oppressed. some touch of contrition had led one of the soldiers to take the aged matron under his care; and on his intercession she was not placed at the table, but allowed to sit in a corner, where she mourned in silence, with her hands clasped together, and her head bent down over them upon her breast. the laird's grandson and heir, a stripling of some fifteen years or so, was obligated to be page and butler, for all the rest of the house had taken to the hills at the approach of the troopers. as the drinking continued the riot increased, and the rioters growing heated with their drink, they began to quarrel: fierce words brought angry answers, and threats were followed by blows. then there was an interposition, and a shaking of hands, and a pledging of renewed friendship. but still the demon of the drink continued to grow stronger and stronger in their kindling blood, and the tumult was made perfect by one of the men, in the capering of his inebriety, rising from his seat, and taking the old leddy by the toupie to raise her head as he rudely placed his foul cup to her lips. this called up the ire of the fellow who had sworn to protect her, and he, not less intoxicated than the insulter, came staggering to defend her; a scuffle ensued, the insulter was cast with a swing away, and falling against the laird, who still remained as it were asleep, with his head on his shoulder, and his eyes shut, he overthrew the chair in which the old gentleman sat fastened, and they both fell to the ground. the soldier, frantic with wine and rage, was soon, like a tiger, on his adversary; the rest rose to separate them. some took one side, some another; bottles were seized for weapons, and the table was overthrown in the hurricane. their sergeant, who was as drunk as the worst of them, tried in vain to call them into order, but they heeded not his call, which so enraged him, that he swore they should shift their quarters, and with that seizing a burning brand from the chumla, he ran into a bedchamber that opened from the room where the riot was raging, and set fire to the curtains. my brother seeing the flames rising, and that the infuriated war-wolves thought only of themselves, ran to extricate ringlewood from the cords with which he was tied; and calling to the leddy and her grandson to quit the burning house, every one was soon out of danger from the fire. the sense of the soldiers were not so overborne by their drink as to prevent them from seeing the dreadful extent of their outrage; but instead of trying to extinguish the flames, they marched away to seek quarters in some other place, cursing the sergeant for having so unhoused them in such a night. at first they thought of carrying my brother and esau wardrop with them as prisoners; but one of them said it would be as well to give the wyte of the burning, at headquarters, to the rebels; so they left them behind. esau wardrop, with the young laird and my grandfather, seeing it was in vain to stop the progress of the fire, did all that in them lay to rescue some of the furniture, while poor old ringlewood and his aged and gentle lady, being both too infirm to lend any help, stood on the green, and saw the devouring element pass from room to room, till their ancient dwelling was utterly destroyed. fortunately, however, the air was calm, and the out-houses escaping the ruinous contagion of the flames, there was still a beild left in the barn to which they could retire. in the meantime the light of the burning spread over the country; but the people knowing that soldiers were quartered in ringlewood, stood aloof in the dread of firearms, thinking the conflagration might be caused by some contest of war; so that the mansion of a gentleman much beloved of all his neighbours was allowed to burn to the ground before their eyes, without any one venturing to come to help him, to so great a degree had distrust and the outrages of military riot at that epoch altered the hearts of men. my brother and esau wardrop staid with ringlewood till the morning, and had, for the space of three or four hours, a restoring sleep. fain would they have remained longer there, but the threat of the soldiers to accuse them as the incendiaries made ringlewood urge them to depart; saying, that maybe a time would come when it would be in his power to thank them for their help in that dreadful night. but he was not long exposed to many sufferings; for the leddy on the day following, as in after-time we heard, was seized with her dead-ill, and departed this life in the course of three days; and the laird also, in less than a month, was laid in the kirk-yard, with his ancestors, by her side. chapter lxvi after leaving ringlewood, the two fugitives, by divers journeyings and sore passages through moss and moor, crossed the balloch ferry, and coming down the north side of the clyde frith to ardmore, they boated across to greenock, where, in little more than an hour after their arrival, they were taken in euphan blair's public in cartsdyke, and the same night marched off to glasgow; of all which i have already given intimation in recording my own trials at inverkip. but in that march, as my brother and esau wardrop were passing with their guard at the inchinnan ferry, the soldiers heedlessly laying their firelocks all in a heap in the boat, the thought came into my brother's head, that maybe it might be turned to an advantage if he was to spoil the powder in the firelocks; so, as they were sitting in the boat, he, with seeming innocence, drew his hand several times through the water, and in lifting it took care to drop and sprinkle the powder-pans of the firelocks, in so much, that by the time they were ferried to the renfrew side, they were spoiled for immediate use. "do as i do," said he softly to esau wardrop, as they were stepping out, and with that he feigned some small expedient for tarrying in the boat, while the soldiers, taking their arms, leapt on shore. the ferryman also was out before them; and my brother seeing this, took up an oar, seemingly to help him to step out; but pretending at the time to stumble, he caught hold of esau's shoulder, and pushing with, the oar, shoved off the boat in such a manner, that the rope was pulled out of the ferryman's hand, who was in a great consternation. the soldiers, however, laughed at seeing how the river's current was carrying away their prisoners; for my brother was in no hurry to make use of the oar to pull the boat back; on the contrary he pushed her farther and farther into the river, until one of the guards, beginning to suspect some stratagem, levelled his firelock, and threatened to shoot. whereupon my brother and esau quickened their exertions, and soon reached the opposite side of the river, while the soldiers were banning and tearing with rage to be so outwitted, and their firelocks rendered useless for the time. as soon as the fugitives were within wadeable reach of the bank, they jumpit out of the boat and ran, and were not long within the scope of their adversaries' fire. by this time the sun was far in the west, and they knew little of the country about where they were; but, before embarking, the ferryman had pointed out to them the abbey towers of paisley, and they knew that, for a long period, many of the humane inhabitants of that town had been among the faithfullest of scottishmen to the cause of the kirk and covenant; and therefore they thought that, under the distraction of their circumstances maybe it would be their wisest course to direct their steps in the dusk of evening towards the town, and they threw aside their arms, that they might pass as simple wayfaring men. accordingly, having loitered in the way thither, they reached paisley about the heel of the twilight, and searching their way into the heart of the town, they found a respectable public near the cross, into which they entered, and ordered some consideration of vivers for supper, just as if they had been on market business. in so doing nothing particular was remarked of them; and my brother, by way of an entertainment before bed-time, told his companion of my grandfather's adventure in paisley, the circumstantials whereof are already written in this book; drawing out of what had come to pass with him cheering aspirations of happier days for themselves. while they were thus speaking, one of the town-council, deacon fulton, came in to have a cap and a crack with any stranger that might be in the house. this deacon was a man who well represented and was a good swatch of the plain honesty and strict principles which have long governed within that ancient borough of regality. he seeing them, and being withal a man of shrewd discernment, eyed them very sharply, and maybe guessing what they were and where they had come from entered into a discreet conversation with them anent the troubles of the time. in this he showed the pawkrie, that so well becomes those who sit in council, with a spicerie of that wholesome virtue and friendly sympathy of which all the poor fugitives from the pentland raid stood in so great need. for, without pretending to jealouse any thing of what they were, he spoke of that business as the crack of the day, and told them of many of the afflicting things which had been perpetrated after the dispersion of the covenanters, saying,-- "it's a thing to be deplored in all time coming, that the poor, misguided folk, concern't in that rash wark, didna rather take refuge in the towns, and amang their brethren and fellow-subjects, than flee to the hills, where they are hunted down wi' dog and gun, as beasts o' an ill kind. really every body's wae for their folly; though to be sure, in a government sense, their fault's past pardon. it's no indeed a thing o' toleration, that subjects are to rise against rulers." "true," said my brother, "unless rulers fall against subjects." the worthy magistrate looked a thought seriously at him; no in reproof for what he had said, or might say, but in an admonitory manner, saying,-- "ye're owre douce a like man, i think, to hae been either art or part in this headstrong reformation, unless ye had some great cause to provoke you; and i doubt na ye hae discretion enough no to contest without need points o' doctrine; at least for me, i'm laith to enter on ony sort o' polemtic, for it's a gude's truth, i'm nae deacon at it." my brother discerning by his manner that he saw through them, would have refrain't at the time from further discourse; but esau wardrop was, though a man of few words, yet of such austerity of faith, that he could not abide to have it thought he was in any time or place afraid for himself to bear his testimony, even when manifestly uncalled on to do; so he here broke in upon the considerate and worthy counsellor, and said,-- "that a covenanted spirit was bound at a' times and in a' situations, conditions, and circumstances, to uphold the cause." "true, true, we are a' covenanters," replied the deacon, "and gude forbid that i should e'er forget the vows i took when i was in a manner a bairn; but there's an unco difference between the auld covenanting and this lanerk new-light. in the auld times, our forbears and our fathers covenanted to show their power, that the king and government might consider what they were doing. and they betook not themselves to the sword, till the quiet warning of almost all the realm united in one league had proved ineffectual; and when at last there was nae help for't, and they were called by their conscience and dangers to gird themselves for battle, they went forth in the might and power of the arm of flesh, as weel as of a righteous cause. but, sirs, this donsie business of the pentland raid was but a splurt, and the publishing of the covenant, after the poor folk had made themselves rebels, was, to say the least o't, a weak conceit." "we were not rebels," cried esau wardrop. "hoot toot, friend," said the counsellor, "ye're owre hasty. i did na ca' the poor folk rebels in the sense of a rebellion, where might takes the lead in a controversy wi' right, but because they had risen against the law." "there can be nae rebellion against a law that teaches things over which man can have no control, the thought and the conscience," said esau wardrop. "aye, aye," replied the counsellor, "a' that's vera true; but if it please the wisdom of the king, by and with the advice of his privy counsellors, to prohibit certain actions,--and surely actions are neither thoughts nor consciences,--do ye mean to say that the subject's no bound to obey such royal ordinances?" "aye, if the acts are in themselves harmless, and trench not upon any man's rights of property and person." "weel, i'll no debate that wi' you," replied the worthy counsellor; "but surely ye'll ne'er maintain that conventicles, and the desertion of the regular and appointed places of worship, are harmless; nor can it be denied that sic things do not tend to aggrieve and impair the clergy baith in their minds and means?" "i confess that," said esau; "but think, that the conventicles and desertions, whereof ye speak, sprang out of an arbitrary and uncalled-for disturbance of the peaceful worship of god. evil counselling caused them, and evil counselling punishes them till the punishment can be no longer endured." "ye're a doure-headed man," said deacon fulton, "and really ye hae gi'en me sic a cast o' your knowledge that i can do no less than make you a return; so tak this, and bide nae langer in paisley than your needs call." with that he laid his purse on the table and went away. but scarcely had he departed the house when who should enter but the very soldiers from whom my brother and esau had so marvellously escaped. chapter lxvii the noise of taking up my brother and esau wardrop to the tolbooth by the soldiers bred a great wonderment in the town, and the magistrates came into the prison to see them. then it was that they recognised their friendly adviser among those in authority. but he signified by winking to them that they should not know him; to which they comported themselves so, that it passed as he could have wished. "provost," said he to the chief magistrate, who was then present with them, "though thir honest men be concerned in a fret against the king's government, they're no just iniquitous malefactors, and therefore it behoves us, for the little time they are to bide here, to deal compassionately with them. this is a damp and cauld place. i'm sure we might gi'e them the use of the council-chamber, and direk a bit spunk o' fire to be kindl't. it's, ye ken, but for this night they are to be in our aught; and their crime, ye ken, provost, was mair o' the judgment than the heart, and therefore we should think how we are a' prone to do evil." by this sort of petitionary exhorting that worthy man carried his point, and the provost consented that the prisoners should be removed to the council-chamber, where he directed a fire to be lighted for their solace. "noo, honest men," said their friend the deacon, when he was taking leave of them, after seeing them in the council-room, "i hope you'll make yoursels as comfortable as men in your situation can reasonably be; and look ye," said he to my brother, "if the wind should rise, and the smoke no vent sae weel as ye could wis, which is sometimes the case in blowy weather when the door's shut, just open a wee bit jinkie o' this window," and he gave him a squeeze on the arm--"it looks into my yard. heh! but it's weel mindet, the bar on my back-yett's in the want o' reparation--i maun see til't the morn." there was no difficulty in reading the whumplet meaning of this couthiness anent the reeking o' the chamber; and my brother and esau, when the door was locket on them for the night, soon found it expedient to open the window, and next morning the kind counsellor had more occasion than ever to get the bar o' his back-yett repaired; for it had yielded to the grip of the prisoners, who, long afore day, were far beyond the eye and jurisdiction of the magistrates of paisley. they took the straight road to kilmarnock, intending, if possible, to hide themselves among some of my brother jacob's wife's friends in that town. he had himself been dead some short time before; but in the course of their journey, in eschewing the high-road as much as possible, they found a good friend in a cottar who lived on the edge of the mearns moor, and with him they were persuaded to bide till the day of that night when we met in so remarkable a manner on the sands of ardrossan; and the cause that brought him there was one of the severest trials to which he had yet been exposed, as i shall now rehearse. james greig, the kind cottar who sheltered them for the better part of three weeks, was but a poor man, and two additional inmates consumed the meal which he had laid in for himself and his wife, so that he was obligated to apply twice for the loan of some from a neighbour, which caused a suspicion to arise in that neighbour's mind; and he being loose-tongued, and a talking man, let out what he thought in a public at kilmarnock, in presence of some one connected with the soldiers then quartered in the dean-castle. a party, in consequence, had that morning been sent out to search for them; but the thoughtless man who had done the ill was seized with a remorse of conscience for his folly, and came in time to advise them to flee; but not so much in time as to prevent them from being seen by the soldiers, who no sooner discovered them than they pursued them. what became of esau wardrop was never known; he was no doubt shot in his flight; but my brother was more fortunate, for he kept so far before those who in particular pursued him, that, although they kept him in view, they could not overtake him. running in this way for life and liberty, he came to a house on the road-side, inhabited by a lanerly woman, and the door being open he darted in, passing through to the yard behind, where he found himself in an enclosed place, out of which he saw no other means of escape but through a ditch full of water. the depth of it at the time he did not think of, but plunging in, he found himself up to the chin; at that moment he heard the soldiers at hand; so the thought struck him to remain where he was, and to go under a bramble-bush that overhung the water. by this means he was so effectually concealed, that the soldiers, losing sight of him, wreaked their anger and disappointment on the poor woman, dragging her with them to the dean-castle, where they threw her into the dungeon, in the darkness of which she perished, as was afterwards well known through all that country-side. after escaping from the ditch, my brother turned his course more northerly, and had closed his day of suffering on kilbride-hill, where, drawn by his affections to seek some knowledge of his wife and daughter, he had resolved to risk himself as near as possible to quharist that night; and coming along with the shower on his back, which blew so strong in our faces, he saw us by the glimpses of the tempestuous moonlight as we were approaching, and had denned himself on the road-side till we should pass, being fearful we might prove enemies. some accidental lament or complaint, uttered unconsciously by me, made him, however, think he knew the voice, and moved thereby, he started up, and had just joined us when he was discovered in so awakening a manner. thus came my brother and i to meet after the raid of pentland; and having heard from me all that he could reasonably hope for, regarding the most valued casket of his affections, he came along with mr witherspoon; and we were next morning safely ferried over into the wee cumbrae, by james plowter the ferryman, to whom we were both well known. there was then only a herd's house on the island; but there could be no truer or kinder christians than the herd and his wife. we staid with them till far in the year, hearing often, through james plowter, of our friends; and above all the joyous news, in little more than a week after our landing, of sarah lochrig having been permitted to leave the tolbooth of irvine, without further dule than a reproof from provost reid, that had more in it of commendation than reproach. chapter lxviii it is well set forth in all the various histories of this dismal epoch, that the cry of blood had gone so vehemently up to heaven from the graves of the martyred covenanters, that the lord moved the heart of charles stuart to more merciful measures, but only for a season. the apostate james sharp and the other counsellors, whose weakness or wickedness fell in with his tyrannical proselytising purposes, were wised from the rule of power, and the earls of tweeddale and kincardine, with that learned sage and philosopher, sir john murray, men of more beneficent dispositions, were appointed to sit in their places in the privy council at edinburgh;--so that all in our condition were heartened to return to their homes. as soon as we heard that the ravenous soldiery were withdrawn from the shire of ayr, my brother and i, with mr witherspoon, after an abode of more than seven months in yon solitary and rocky islet, returned to quharist. but, o courteous reader, i dare not venture to tell of the joy of the meeting, and the fond intermingling of embraces, that was too great a reward for all our sufferings;--for now i approach the memorials of those things, by which the terrible heavens have manifested that i was ordained from the beginning to launch the bolt that was chosen from the quiver in the armoury of the almighty avenger, to overthrow the oppressor and oppression of my native land. it is therefore enough to state that, upon my return home, where i expected to find my lands waste and my fences broken down, i found all things in better order than they maybe would have been had the eye of the master been over them; for our kind neighbours, out of a friendly consideration for my family, had in the spring tilled the ground and sown the seed by day-and-day-about labour; and surely it was a pleasant thing, in the midst of such a general depravity of the human heart, so prevalent at that period, to hear of such constancy and christian-mindedness; for it was not towards my brother and me only that such things were done; the same was common throughout the country towards the lands and families of the persecuted. but the lown of that time was as a pet day in winter. in the harvest, however, when the proposal came out that we should give bonds to keep the peace, i made no scruple of signing the same, and of getting my wife's father, who was not out in the raid, to be my cautioner. in the doing of this i did not renounce the covenant; but, on the contrary, i considered that by the bonds the king was as much bound to preserve things in the state under which i granted the bond as i was to remain in the quiet condition i was when i signed it. after the bonds of peace came the indulgence, and the chief heritors of our parish having something to say with the lord tweeddale, leave was obtained for mr swinton to come back, and we had made a paction with andrew dornock, the prelatic curate and incumbent, to let him have his manse again. but although mr swinton did return, and his family were again gathered around him, he would not, as he said himself to me, so far bow the knee to baal as to bring the church of christ in any measure or way into erastian dependence on the civil magistrate. so he neither would return to the manse nor enter the pulpit, but continued, for the space of several years, to reside at quharist, and to preach on the summer sundays from the window in the gable. in the spring, however, of the year , he, after a lingering illness, closed his life and ministry. for some time he had felt himself going hence, and the tenour of his prayers and sermons had for several months been of a high and searching efficacy; and he never failed, sabbath after sabbath, just before pronouncing the blessing, to return public thanks that the lord was drawing him so softly away from the world, and from the storms that were gathering in the black cloud of prelacy which still overhung and darkened the ministry of the kirk of scotland,--a method of admonition that was awfully awakening to the souls of his hearers, and treasured by them as a solemn breathing of the inspiration of prophecy. when he was laid in the earth, and mr witherspoon, by some handling on my part, was invited to fill the void which his removal had left among us, the wind again began to fisle, and the signs of a tempest were seen in the changes of the royal councils. the gracious-hearted statesmen before spoken of were removed from their benignant spheres like falling stars from the firmament, and the duke of lauderdale was endowed with the power to persecute and domineer. scarcely was he seated in the council when the edicts of oppression were renewed. the prelates became clamorous for his interference, and the penalties of the bonds of peace presented the means of supplying the inordinate wants of his rapacious wife. steps were accordingly soon taken to appease and pleasure both. the court-contrived crime of hearing the gospel preached in the fields, as it was by john in the wilderness and jesus on the mount, was again prohibited with new rigour; and i for one soon felt that, in the renewed persecution of those who attended the conventicles, the king had again as much broken the conditions under which i gave the bond of peace as he had before broken the vows of the solemn league and covenant; so that when the guilty project was ripened in his bloody councils, that the west country should be again exasperated into rebellion, that a reason might be procured for keeping up a standing army, in order that the three kingdoms might be ruled by prerogative instead of parliament, i freely confess that i was one of those who did refuse to sign the bonds that were devised to provoke the rebellion,--bonds, the terms whereof sufficiently manifested the purpose that governed the framers in the framing. we were required by them, under severe penalties, to undertake that neither our families, nor our servants, nor our tenants, nor the servants of our tenants, nor any others residing upon our lands, should withdraw from the churches or adhere to conventicles, or succour field preachers, or persons who had incurred the penalties attached to these prelate-devised offences. and because we refused to sign these bonds, and continued to worship god in the peacefulness of the gospel, the whole country was treated by the duke of lauderdale as in a state of revolt. the english forces came mustering against us on the borders, the irish garrisons were drawn to the coast to invade us, and the lawless highlanders were tempted, by their need and greed, and a royal promise of indemnity for whatsoever outrages they might commit, to come down upon us in all their fury. by these means ten thousand ruthless soldiers and unreclaimed barbarians were let loose upon us, while we were sitting in the sun listening, i may say truly, to those gracious counsellings which breathe nothing but peace and good-will. when, since the burning days of dioclesian, the roman emperor,--when, since the massacre of the protestants by orders of the french king on the eve of st bartholomew, was so black a crime ever perpetrated by a guilty government on its own subjects? but i was myself among the greatest of the sufferers; and it is needful that i should now clothe my thoughts with sobriety, and restrain the ire of the pen of grief and revenge.--not revenge! no; let the word be here--justice. the highland host came on us in want, and, but for their license to destroy, in beggary. yet when they returned to their wild homes among the distant hills, they were laden as with the household wealth of a realm, in so much that they were rendered defenceless by the weight of their spoil. at the bridge of glasgow the students of the college and the other brave youths of that town, looking on them with true scottish hearts, and wrathful to see that the barbarians had been such robbers of their fellow-subjects, stopped above two thousand of them, and took from them their congregations of goods and wares, wearing apparel, pots, pans, and gridirons, and other furniture, wherewith they had burdened themselves like bearers at a flitting. my house was stript to a wastage, and every thing was taken away; what was too heavy to be easily transported was, after being carried some distance, left on the road. the very shoes were taken off my wife's feet, and "ye'll no be a refuse to gi'e me that," said a red-haired reprobate as he took hold of sarah lochrig's hand and robbed her of her wedding-ring. i was present and saw the deed; i felt my hands clench, but in my spirit i discovered that it was then the hour of outrage, and that the avenger's time was not yet come. chapter lxix rarely has it fallen to the lot of man to be so blessed with such children as mine; but surely i was unworthy of the blessing. and yet, though maybe unworthy, lord, thou knowest by the nightly anthems of thankfulness that rose from my hearth, that the chief sentiment in my breast, in those moments of melody, was my inward acknowledgment to thee for having made this world so bright to me, with an offspring so good and fair, and with sarah lochrig, their mother, she whose life was the sweetness in the cup of my felicity. let me not, however, hurry on, nor forget that i am but an historian, and that it befits not the juridical pen of the character to dwell upon my own woes when i have to tell of the sufferings of others. the trials and the tribulations which i had heard so much of, and whereof i had witnessed so many, made me in a sense but little liable to be moved when told of any new outrage. but the sight of that highlander wrenching from sarah lochrig's finger our wedding-ring did, in its effects and influences, cause a change in my nature as sudden and as wonderful as that which the rod of moses underwent in being quickened into a serpent. for some time i sat as i was sitting while the deed was doing; and when my wife, after the plunderers had departed, said to me, soothingly, that we had reason to be thankful for having endured no other loss than a little world's gear, she was surprised at the sedateness with which i responded to her pious condolements. michael, our first-born, then in the prime beauty of his manhood, had been absent when the robbery was committed, and coming in, on hearing what had been done, flamed with the generous rage of youth, and marvelled that i had been so calm. my blithe and blooming mary joined her ingenuous admiration to theirs, but my mild and sensible margaret fell upon my neck, and weeping, cried, "o! father, it's no worth the doure thought that gars your brows sae gloom;" while joseph, the youngest of the flock, then in his twelfth year, brought the bible and laid it on my knees. i opened the book, and would have read a portion, but the passage which caught my eye was the beginning of the sixth chapter of jeremiah, "o ye children of benjamin, gather yourselves to flee out of the midst of jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in tekoa, and set up a sign of fire in beth-haccerem: for evil appeareth out of the north, and great destruction." and i thought it was a voice calling me to arm, and to raise the banner against the oppressor; and thereupon i shut the book, and retiring to the fields, communed with myself for some time. having returned into the house, and sent michael to my brother's to inquire how it had fared with him and his family, i at the same time directed joseph to go to irvine, and tell our friends there to help us with a supply of blankets, for the highlanders had taken away my horses and driven off my cattle, and we had no means of bringing any thing. but joseph was not long gone when michael came flying back from my brother's, and i saw by his looks that something very dreadful had been committed, and said,-- "are they all in life?" "aye in life!" and, the tears rushing into his eyes, he exclaimed, "but o! i wish that my cousin bell had been dead and buried!" bell gilhaize, my brother's only daughter, was the lightest-hearted maiden in all our parish. it had long been a pleasure both to her father and me to observe a mingling of affections between her and michael, and the year following had been fixt for their marriage. "the time of weeping, michael," said i, "is past, and the time of warring will soon come. it is not in man to bear always aggression, nor can it be required of him ever to endure contumely." "what has befallen bell?" said his mother to him; but instead of making her any answer, he uttered a dreadful sound, like the howl of madness, and hastily quitted the house. sarah lochrig, who was a woman of a serene reason, and mild and gracious in her nature, looked at me with a silent sadness, that told all the anguish with which the horror that she guessed had darted into her soul; and then, with an energy that i never saw in her before, folded her own two daughters to her bosom, as if she was in terror for them, and bathed their necks with tears. while we were in this state my brother himself came in. he was now a man well stricken in years, but of a hale appearance, and usually of an open and manly countenance. nor on this occasion did he appear greatly altered; but there was a fire in his eye, and a severity in his aspect, such as i'd never seen before, yet withal a fortitude that showed how strong the self-possession was, which kept the tempest within him from breaking out in word or gesture. "ringan," said he, "we have met with a misfortune. it's the will of providence, and we maun bear it. but surely in the anger that is caused by provocation, our creator tells us to resent. from this hour, all obligation, obedience, allegiance, all whatsoever that as a subject i did owe to charles stuart is at an end. i am his foe; and the lord put strength into my arm to revenge the ruin of my bairn!" there was in the utterance of these words a solemnity at first terrifying to hear; but his voice in the last clause of the sentence faltered, and he took off his bonnet and held it over his face, and wept bitterly. i could make him no answer for some time; but i took hold of his hand, and when he had a little mastered his grief, i said, "brother, we are children of the same parents, and the wrongs of one are the wrongs of both. but let us not be hasty." he took the bonnet from his face, and looked at me sternly for a little while, and then he said,-- "ringan gilhaize, till you have felt what i feel, you ne'er can know that the speed o' lightning is slow to the wishes and the will of revenge." at that moment his daughter bell was brought in, led by my son michael. her father, at the sight of her, clasped his hands wildly above his head, and rushed out of the house. my wife went towards her, but stopped and fell back into my arms at the sight of her demented look. my daughters gazed, and held up their trembling hands. "speak to her," said michael to his sisters; "she'll maybe heed you;" and he added, "bell, it's mary and peggy," and dropping her hand, he went to lead mary to her, while she stood like a statue on the spot. "dear bell," said i, as i moved myself gently from the arms of my afflicted wife, "come wi' me to the open air;" and i took her by the hand which poor michael had dropped, and led her out to the green, but still she looked the same demented creature. her father, who had by this time again overcome his distress, seeing us on the green, came towards us, while my wife and daughters also came out; but michael could no longer endure the sight of the rifled rose that he had cherished for the ornament of his bosom, and he remained to hide his grief in the house. "her mind's gone, ringan," said my brother, "and she'll ne'er be better in this world!" nor was she; but she lived many months after, and in all the time never shed a tear, nor breathed a sigh, nor spoke a word; where she was led she went; where she was left, she stood. at last she became so weak that she could not stand; and one day, as i was sitting at her bedside, i observed that she lay unusually still, and touching her hand, found that all her sorrows were over. chapter lxx from the day of the desolation of his daughter, my brother seldom held any communion with me; but i observed that with michael he had much business, and though i asked no questions, i needed not to be told that there was a judgment and a doom in what they did. i was therefore fearful that some rash step would be taken at the burial of bell; for it was understood that all the neighbours, far and near, intended to be present to testify their pity for her fate. so i spoke to mr witherspoon concerning my fears, and by his exhortations the body was borne to the kirk-yard in a solemn and peaceable manner. but just as the coffin was laid in the grave, and before a spadeful of earth was thrown, a boy came running crying, "sharp's kill't!--the apostate's dead!" which made every one turn round and pause; and while we were thus standing, a horseman came riding by, who confirmed the tidings, that a band of men whom his persecutions had made desperate, had executed justice on the apostate as he was travelling in his carriage with his daughter on magus-moor. while the stranger was telling the news, the corpse lay in the grave unburied; and dreadful to tell! when he had made an end of his tale, there was a shout of joy and exultation set up by all present, except by michael and my brother. they stood unmoved, and i thought--do i them any wrong?--that they looked disconsolate and disappointed. but though the judgment on james sharp was a cause of satisfaction to all covenanted hearts, many were not yet so torn by the persecution as entirely to applaud the deed. i shall not therefore enter upon the particulars of what was done anent those who dealt his doom, for they were not of our neighbourhood. the crime, however, of listening peacefully in the fields to the truths of the gospel became, in the sight of the persecutors, every day more and more heinous, and they gave themselves up to the conscience-soothing tyranny of legal ordinances, as if the enactment and execution of bloody laws, contrary to those of god, and against the unoffending privileges of our nature, were not wickedness of as dark a stain as the murderer's use of his secret knife. edict and proclamation against field-preachings and conventicles came following each other, and the latest was the fiercest and fellest of all which had preceded. but the cause of truth, and the right of communion with the lord, was not to be given up: "it is not for glory," we said in the words of those brave scottish barons that redeemed, with king robert the bruce, their native land from the thraldom of the english edward, "nor is it for riches, neither is it for honour, but it is for liberty alone we contend, which no true man will lose but with his life;" and therefore it was that we would not yield obedience to the tyranny, which was revived with new strength by the death of james sharp, in revenge for his doom, but sought, in despite of decrees and statutes, to hear the word where we believed it was best spoken. the laws of god, which are above all human authority, require that we should worship him in truth and in holiness, and we resolved to do so to the uttermost, and prepared ourselves with arms to resist whoever might be sent to molest us in the performance of that the greatest duty. but in so exercising the divine right of resistance, we were not called upon to harm those whom we knew to be our adversaries. belting ourselves for defence, not for war, we went singly to our places of secret meeting in the glens and on the moors, and when the holy exercise was done, we returned to our homes as peacefully as we went thither. many a time i have since thought, that surely in no other age or land was ever such a solemn celebration of the sabbath as in those days. the very dangers with which we were environed exalted the devout heart; verily it was a grand sight to see the fearless religious man moving from his house in the grey of the morning, with the bible in his hand, and his sword for a staff, walking towards the hills for many a weary mile, hoping the preacher would be there, and praying as he went that there might be no molestation. often and often on those occasions has the lord been pleased to shelter his worshippers from their persecutors by covering them with the mantle of his tempest; and many a time at the dead of night, when the winds were soughing around, and the moon was bowling through the clouds, we have stood on the heath of the hills and the sound of our psalms has been mingled with the roaring of the gathering waters. the calamities which drove us thus to worship in the wilderness, and amidst the storm, rose to their full tide on the back of the death of the arch-apostate james sharp; for all the religious people in the realm were in a manner regarded by the government as participators in the method of his punishment. and claverhouse, whom i have now to speak of, got that special commission on which he rode so wickedly, to put to the sword whomsoever he found with arms at any preaching in the fields; so that we had no choice in seeking to obtain the consolations of religion, which we then stood so much in need of, but to congregate in such numbers as would deter the soldiers from venturing to attack us. this it was which caused the second rising, and led to the fatal day of bothwell-brigg, whereof it is needful that i should particularly speak, not only on account of the great stress that was thereon laid by the persecutors, in making out of it a method of fiery ordeal to afflict the covenanted, but also because it was the overflowing fountain-head of the deluge that made me desolate. and herein, courteous reader, should aught of a fiercer feeling than belongs to the sacred sternness of truth and justice escape from my historical pen, thou wilt surely pardon the same, if there be any of the gracious ruth of christian gentleness in thy bosom; for now i have to tell of things that have made the annals of the land as red as crimson and filled my house with the blackness of ashes and universal death. for a long period there had been, from the causes and circumstances premised, sore difficulties in the assembling of congregations, and the sacrament of the supper had not been dispensed in many parts of the shire of ayr from the time of the highland host; so that there was a great longing in the hearts of the covenanted to partake once again of that holy refreshment; and shortly after the seed-time it began to be concerted, that early in the summer a day should be set apart, and a place fixed for the celebration of the same. about the time of the interment of my brother's desolated daughter, and the judgment of the death executed on james sharp, it was settled that the moors of loudon-hill should be the place of meeting, and that the first sabbath of june should be the day. but what ministers would be there was not settled; for who could tell which, in those times, would be spared from prison? it was, however, forethought and foreseen, that the assemblage of communicants would be very considerable; for, in order that there might be the less risk of molestation, a wish that it should be so was put forth among us, to the end that the king's forces might swither to disperse us. accordingly, with my disconsolate brother and son, i went to be present at that congregation, and we carried our arms with us, as we were then in the habit of doing on all occasions of public testimony by worship. in the meantime a rent had been made in the covenant, partly by the over-zeal of certain young preachers, who, not feeling, as we did, that the duty of presbyterians went no farther than defence and resistance, strove, with all the pith of an effectual eloquence, to exasperate the minds of their hearers into hostility against those in authority; and it happened that several of those who had executed the judgment on james sharp, seeing no hope of pardon for what they had done, leagued themselves with this party, in the hope of thereby making head against their pursuers. i have been the more strict in setting down these circumstantials, because in the bloody afterings of that meeting they were altogether lost sight of; and also because the implacable rage with which claverhouse persecuted the covenanters has been extenuated by some discreet historians, on the plea of his being an honourable officer, deduced from his soldierly worth elsewhere; whereas the truth is, that his cruelties in the shire of ayr, and other of our western parts, were less the fruit of his instructions, wide and severe as they were, than of his own mortified vanity and malignant revenge. chapter lxxi it was in the cool of the evening, on saturday, the last day of may, when my brother came over to my house, where, with michael, i had prepared myself to go with him to loudon-hill. our intent was to walk that night to kilmarnock, and abide till the morning with our brother jacob's widow, not having seen her for a long time. we had in the course of that day heard something of the publication of "the declaration and testimony," which, through the vehemence of the preachers before spoken of, had been rashly counselled at ruglen, the twenty-ninth of the month; but there was no particulars, and what we did hear was like, as all such things are, greatly magnified beyond the truth. we, however, were grieved by the tidings; for we feared some cause of tribulation would be thereby engendered detrimental to the religious purposes of our journey. this sentiment pressing heavily on our hearts, we parted from my family with many misgivings, and the bodements of further sorrows. but the outward expression of what we all felt was the less remarkable, on account of what so lately had before happened in my brother's house. nor indeed did i think at the time, that the foretaste of what was ordained so speedily to come to a head was at all so lively in his spirit, or that of my son, as it was in mine, till, in passing over the top of the gowan-brae, he looked round on the lands of quharist, and said,-- "i care nae, ringan, if i ne'er come back; for though we hae lang dwelt in affection together yon'er, thae that were most precious to me are now both aneath the sod,"--alluding to his wife who had been several years dead,--and poor bell, that lovely rose which the ruthless spoiler had so trampled into the earth. "i feel," said michael, "as if i were going to a foreign land, there is sic a farewell sadness upon me." but we strove to overcome this, and walked leisurely on the high road towards kilmarnock, trying to discourse of indifferent things; and as the gloaming faded, and the night began to look forth, from her watch-tower in the heavens, with all her eyes of beautiful light, we communed of the friends that we trusted were in glory, and marvelled if it could be that they saw us after death, or ever revisited the persons and the scenes that they loved in life. rebellion or treason, or any sense of thoughts and things that were not holy, had no portion in our conversation: we were going to celebrate the redemption of fallen man; and we were mourning for friends no more; our discourse was of eternal things, and the mysteries of the stars and the lights of that world which is above the firmament. when we reached kilmarnock we found that jacob's widow had, with several other godly women, set out towards the place of meeting, to sojourn with a relation that night, in order that they might be the abler to gather the manna of the word in the morning. we therefore resolved not to halt there, but to go forward to the appointed place, and rest upon the spot. this accordingly doing, we came to the eastern side of loudon-hill, the trysted place, shortly after the first scad of the dawn. many were there before us, both men and women and little children, and horses intermingled, some slumbering, and some communing with one another; and as the morning brightened, it was a hallowed sight to behold from that rising ground the blameless persecuted coming with sedate steps to worship their maker on the mountain. the reverend mr thomas douglas, who was to open the action, arrived about the rising of the sun with several other ministers, and behind them four aged men belonging to strathaven bearing the elements. a pious lady, whose name i never heard, owing to what ensued, spread with her own hands a damask tablecloth on the ground, and the bread and wine were placed upon it with more reverence than ever was in kirk. mr douglas having mounted upon a rock nigh to where this was done, was about to give out the psalm, when we observed several country lads, that were stationed as watchers afar off, coming with great haste in; and they brought word, that claverhouse and his dragoons were coming to disperse us, bringing with them the reverend mr king, a preacher of the gospel at hamilton, and others that they had made prisoners, tied with cords two and two. the tidings for a moment caused panic and consternation; but as the men were armed, and resolved to resist, it was thought, in consideration of the women and children, that we ought to go forward, and prevent the adversaries from advancing. accordingly, to the number of forty horsemen, and maybe near to two hundred foot, we drew ourselves apart from the congregation, and marched to meet claverhouse, thinking, perhaps, on seeing us so numerous, that he would not come on,--while mr douglas proceeded with the worship, the piety of none with him being abated by this grievous visitation. mr william clelland, with mr hamilton, who had come with mr douglas, were our leaders, and we met claverhouse on the moor of drumclog. the dragoons were the first to halt, and claverhouse, having ordered his prisoners to be drawn aside, was the first who gave the word to fire. this was without any parley or request to know whether we came with hostile intent or no. clelland, on seeing the dragoons make ready, cried to us all to den ourselves among the heather; by which forethought the shot flew harmless. then we started up, and every one, with the best aim he could, fired at the dragoons as they were loading their carabines. several men and horses were killed, and many wounded. claverhouse seeing this, commanded his men to charge upon us; but the ground was rough, the heather deep, and the moss broken where peats had been dug, and the horses floundered, and several threw their riders, and fell themselves. we had now loaded again, and the second fire was more deadly than the first. our horsemen also seeing how the dragoons were scattered, fell in the confusion as it were man for man upon them. claverhouse raged and commanded, but no one now could or would obey. in that extremity his horse was killed, and, being thrown down, i ran forward to seize him, if i could, prisoner; but he still held his sword in his hand, and rising as i came up, used it manfully, and with one stroke almost hewed my right arm from my shoulder. as he fled i attempted for a moment to follow, but staggered and fell. he looked back as he escaped, and i cried--"blood for blood;" and it has been so, as i shall hereafter in the sequel relate. when the day was won, we found we numbered among the slain on the side of the vanquished nearly twenty of the dragoons: on our side we lost but one man, john morton--a ripe saint; but several were wounded; and john weir and william daniel died of their wounds. such was the day of drumclog. being wounded, i was carried to a neighbouring farm, attended by my brother and son, and there put upon a cart and sent home to quharist, as it was thought i would be best attended there. they then returned to the rest of the host, who, seeing themselves thus brought into open war, resolved forthwith to proceed to glasgow, and to raise again the banner of the covenant. but claverhouse had fled thither, burning with the thought of being so shorn in his military pride by raw and undisciplined countrymen, whom, if we had been bred soldiers, maybe he would have honoured, but being what we were, though our honour was the greater, he hated us with the deadly aversion that is begotten of vanity chastised; for that it was which incited him to ravage the west country with such remorselessness, and which, when our men were next day repulsed at glasgow with the loss of lives, made him hinder the removal of the bodies from the streets, till it was said the butchers' dogs began to prey upon them. but not to insist on matters of hearsay, nor to dwell at any greater length on those afflicting events, i must refer the courteous reader to the history of the times for what followed, it being enough for me to state here that as soon as the news spread of the battle and the victory, the persecuted ran flocking in from all quarters, by which the rope of sand, that the lord permitted monmouth to break at bothwell-brigg, was soon formed. my brother and my son were both there, and there my gallant michael lies. my brother, then verging on threescore, being among the prisoners, was, after sore sufferings in the greyfriars church-yard of edinburgh, sent on board a vessel as a bondsman to the plantations in america. his wrongs, however, were happily soon over; for the ship in which he was embarked perished among the orkney islands, and he, with two hundred other sufferers, received the crown of martyrdom from the waves. o charles stuart, king of scotland! and thou, james sharp!--false and cruel men--but ye are called to your account; and what avails it now to the childless father to rail upon your memory? chapter lxxii before proceeding farther at this present time with the doleful tale of my own sufferings, it is required of me, as an impartial historian, to note here a very singular example of the spirit of piety which reigned in the hearts of the covenanters, especially as i shall have to show that such was the cruel and implacable nature of the persecution, that time had not its wonted influence to soften in any degree its rigour. thirteen years had passed from the time of the pentland raid; and surely the manner in which the country had suffered for that rising might, in so long a course of years, have subdued the animosity with which we were pursued; especially, as during the earl of tweeddale's administration the bonds of peace had been accepted. but lauderdale, now at the head of the councils, was rapacious for money; and therefore all offences, if i may employ that courtly term, by which our endeavours to taste of the truth were designated,--all old offences, as i was saying, were renewed against us as recent crimes, and an innocent charity to the remains of those who had suffered for the pentland raid was made a reason, after the battle of bothwell-brigg, to revive the persecution of those who had been out in that affair. the matter particularly referred to arose out of the following circumstances: the number of honest and pious men who were executed in different places, and who had their heads and their right hands with which they signed the covenant at lanerk cut off, and placed on the gates of towns and over the doors of tolbooths, had been very great. and it was very grievous, and a sore thing to the friends and acquaintances of those martyrs, when they went to glasgow, or kilmarnock, or irvine, or ayr, on their farm business, to tryst or market, to see the remains of persons, whom they so loved and respected in life, bleaching in the winds and the rains of heaven. it was, indeed, a matter of great heart-sadness, to behold such animosity carried beyond the grave; and few they were who could withstand the sight of the orphans that came thither, pointing out to one another their fathers' bones, and weeping as they did so, and vowing, with an innocent indignation, that they would avenge their martyrdom. well do i remember the great sorrow that arose one market-day in irvine, some five or six years after the pentland raid, when mrs m'coul came, with her four weans and her aged gudemother, to look at the relics of her husband, who was martyred for his part in that rising. the bones were standing, with those of another martyr of that time, on a shelf which had been put up for the purpose, below the first wicket-hole in the steeple, just above the door. the two women were very decent in their apparel, rather more so than the common country wives. the gudemother, in particular, had a cast of gentility both in her look and garments; and i have heard the cause of it expounded, from her having been the daughter of one of the reformation preachers in the gospel-spreading epoch of john knox. she had a crimson satin plaid over her head, and she wore a black silk apron and a grey camlet gown. with the one hand she held the plaid close to her neck, and the youngest child, a lassie of seven years or so, had hold of her by the fore-finger of the other. mrs m'coul was more of a robust fabric, and she was without any plaid, soberly dressed in the weeds of a widow, with a clean cambric handkerchief very snodly prined over her breast. the children were likewise beinly apparelled, and the two sons were buirdly and brave laddies, the one about nine, and the other maybe eleven years old. it would seem that this had been the first of their pilgrimages of sorrow; for they stood some time in a row at the foot of the tolbooth stair, looking up at the remains, and wondering, with tears in their eyes, which were those they had come to see. their appearance drew around them many onlookers, both of the country folk about the cross and inhabitants of the town; but every one respected their sorrow, and none ventured to disturb them with any questions; for all saw that they were kith or kin to the godly men who had testified to the truth and the covenant in death. it happened, however, that i had occasion to pass by, and some of the town's folk who recollected me, said whisperingly to one another, but loud enough to be heard, that i was one of the persecuted; whereupon mrs m'coul turned round and said to me, with a constrained composure,-- "can ye tell me whilk o' yon's the head and hand o' john m'coul, that was executed for the covenanting at lanerk?" i knew the remains well, for they had been pointed out to me and i had seen them very often, but really the sight of the two women and the fatherless bairns so overcame me that i was unable to answer. "it's the head and the hand beside it, that has but twa fingers left, on the kirkgate end o' the shelf!" replied a person in the crowd, whom i knew at once by his voice to be willy sutherland the hangman, although i had not seen him from the night of my evasion. and here let me not forget to set down the christian worth and constancy of that simple and godly creature, who, rather than be instrumental in the guilty judgment by which john m'coul and his fellow-sufferer were doomed to die, did himself almost endure martyrdom, and yet never swerved in his purpose, nor was abated in his integrity, in so much, that when questioned thereafter anent the same by the earl of eglinton, and his lordship, being moved by the simplicity of his piety, said, "poor man, you did well in not doing what they would have had you to do." "my lord," replied willy, "you are speaking treason! and yet you persecute to the uttermost, which shows that you go against the light of your conscience." "do you say so to me, after i kept you from being hanged?" said his lordship. "keep me from being drowned, and i will still tell you the verity." the which honesty in that poor man begat for him a compassionate regard that the dignities of many great and many noble in that time could never command. when the sorrowful m'couls had indulged themselves in their melancholy contemplation, they went away, followed by the multitude with silence and sympathy, till they had mounted upon the cart which they had brought with them into the town. but from that time every one began to speak of the impiety of leaving the bones so wofully exposed; and after the skirmish at drumclog, where robin m'coul, the eldest of the two striplings above spoken of, happened to be, when mr john welsh, with the carrick men that went to bothwell-brigg, was sent into glasgow to bury the heads and hands of the martyrs there, robin m'coul came with a party of his friends to irvine to bury his father's bones. i was not myself present at the interment, being, as i have narrated, confined to my bed by reason of my wound. but i was told by the neighbours, that it was a very solemn and affecting scene. the grieved lad carried the relics of his father in a small box in his hands, covered with a white towel; and the godly inhabitants of the town, young and old, and of all denominations, to the number of several hundreds, followed him to the grave where the body was lying; and willy sutherland, moved by a simple sorrow, was the last of all; and he walked, as i was told, alone, behind, with his bonnet in his hand; for, from his calling, he counted himself not on an equality with other men. but it is time that i should return from this digression to the main account of my narrative. chapter lxxiii being wounded, as i have rehearsed, at drumclog, and carried to my own house, sarah lochrig, while she grieved with a mother's grief for the loss of our first-born and the mournful fate of my honest brother, advanced my cure more by her loving ministrations to my aching mind, than by the medicaments that were applied to the bodily wound, in so much that something like a dawn of comfort was vouchsafed to me. our parish was singularly allowed to remain unmolested when, after the woful day of bothwell-brigg, claverhouse came to ravage the shire of ayr, and to take revenge for the discomfiture which he had suffered, in his endeavour to disturb the worship and sacrament at loudon-hill. still, however, at times clouds overcame my spirit; and one night my daughter margaret had a remarkable dream, which taught us to expect some particular visitation. it was surely a mysterious reservation for the greater calamity which ensued, that while the vial of wrath was pouring out around us, my house should have been allowed to remain so unmolested. often indeed when in our nightly worship i returned thanks for a blessing so wonderful in that time of general woe, has a strange fear fallen upon me and i have trembled in thought, as if the thing for which i sent up the incense of my thanks to heaven, was a device of the enemy of man, to make me think myself more deserving of favour than the thousands of covenanted brethren who then, in scotland, were drinking of the bitterness of the suffering. but in proportion as i was then spared, the heavier afterwards was my trial. among the prisoners taken at bothwell-brigg were many persons from our parish and neighbourhood, who, after their unheard-of sufferings among the tombs and graves of the greyfriars church-yard at edinburgh, were allowed to return home. though in this there was a show of clemency, it was yet but a more subtle method of the tyranny to reach new victims. for those honest men were not long home till grievous circuit-courts were set agoing, to bring to trial not only all those who were at bothwell, or approved of that rising, but likewise those who had been at the pentland raid; and the better to ensure condemnation and punishment, sixteen persons were cited from every parish to bear witness as to who, among their neighbours, had been out at bothwell, or had harboured any of those who were there. the wicked curates made themselves, in this grievous matter, engines of espionage, by giving in the names of those, their parishioners, whom they knew could bear the best testimony. thus it was, that many who had escaped from the slaughter--from the horrors of the greyfriars church-yard--and from the drowning in the orkneys,--and, like myself, had resumed their quiet country labour, were marked out for destruction. for the witnesses cited to ayr against us were persons who had been released from the greyfriars church-yard, as i have said, and who, being honest men, could not, when put to their oaths, but bear witness to the truth of the matters charged against us. and nothing surely could better show the devilish spirit with which those in authority were at that time actuated, nor the unchristian nature of the prelacy, than that the prisoners should thus have been set free to be made the accusers of their neighbours; and that the curates, men professing to be ministers of the gospel, should have been such fit instruments for such unheard-of machinations. but to hasten forward to the fate and issue of this self-consuming tyranny, i shall leave all generalities, and proceed with the events of my own case; and, in doing so, i shall endeavour what is in me to inscribe the particulars with a steady hand; for i dare no longer now trust myself with looking to the right or to the left of the field of my matter. i shall, however, try to narrate things just as they happened, leaving the courteous reader to judge what passed at the time in the suffocating throbs wherewith my heart was then affected. it was the last day of february, of the year following bothwell-brigg, that, in consequence of these subtle and wicked devices, i was taken up. i had, from my wound, been in an ailing state for many months, and could then do little in the field; but the weather for the season was mild, and i had walked out in the tranquillity of a sunny afternoon to give my son joseph some instructions in the method of ploughing; for, though he was then but in his thirteenth year, he was a by-common stripling in capacity and sense. he was indeed a goodly plant; and i had hoped, in my old age, to have sat beneath the shelter of his branches; but the axe of the feller was untimely laid to the root, and it was too soon, with all the blossoms of the fairest promise, cast down into the dust. but my task now is of vengeance and justice, not of sorrowing, and i must more sternly grasp the iron pen. a party of soldiers, who had been that afternoon sent out to bring in certain persons (among whom i was one) in a list malignantly transmitted to the archbishop of glasgow, by andrew dornoch, the prelatic usurper of our minister's place, as i was leaving the field where my son was ploughing, saw me from the road, and ordered me to halt till they came up, or they would fire at me. it would have been unavailing of me, in the state i then was, to have attempted to flee, so i halted; and, after some entreaty with the soldiers, got permission from them to have my horse and cart yoket, as i was not very well, and so to be carried to ayr. and here i should note down that, although there was in general a coarse spirit among the king's forces, yet in these men there was a touch of common humanity. this was no doubt partly owing to their having been some months quartered in irvine, where they became naturally softened by the friendly spirit of the place. it was not, however, ordained that men so merciful should be permitted to remain long there. as it was an understood thing that the object of the trials to which the covenanters were in this manner subjected was chiefly to raise money and forfeitures for the rapacious duke of lauderdale, then in the rule and power of the council at edinburgh, my being carried away prisoner to ayr awakened less grief and consternation in my family than might have been expected from the event. through the humane permission of my guard, having a little time to confer with sarah lochrig before going away, it was settled between us that she should gather together what money she could procure, either by loan or by selling our corn and cattle, in order to provide for the payment of the fine that we counted would be laid upon us. i was then taken to the tolbooth of ayr, where many other covenanted brethren were lying to await the proceedings of the circuit-court, which was to be opened by the lord kelburne from glasgow, on the second day after i had been carried thither. among the prisoners were several who knew me well, and who condoled as christians with me for the loss i had sustained at bothwell; so, but for the denial of the fresh and heavenly air, and the freedom of the fields, the time of our captivity might have been a season of much solace: for they were all devout men, and the tolbooth, instead of resounding with the imprecations of malefactors, became melodious with the voice of psalms and of holy communion, and the sweet intercourse of spirits that delighted in one another for the constancy with which they had borne their testimony. when the lord kelburne arrived, on the first day that the court opened, i was summoned to respond to the offences laid to my charge, if any charge of offence it may be called, wherein the purpose of the court was seemingly to search out opinions that might serve as matter to justify the infliction of the fines,--the whole end and intent of those circuits not being to award justice, but to find the means of extorting money. in some respects, however, i was more mercifully dealt by than many of my fellow-sufferers; but in order to show how, even in my case, the laws were perverted, i will here set down a brief record of my examination or trial, as it was called. chapter lxxiv the council-room was full of people when i was taken thither, and the lord kelburne, who sat at the head of the table, was abetted in the proceedings by murray, an advocate from edinburgh. they were sitting at a wide round table, within a fence which prevented the spectators from pressing in upon them. there were many papers and letters folded up in bundles lying before them, and a candle burning, and wax for sigillation. besides lord kelburne and his counsellor, there were divers gentlemen seated at the table, and two clerks to make notations. lord kelburne, in his appearance, was a mild-looking man, and for his years his hair was very hoary; for though he was seemingly not passing fifty, it was in a manner quite blanched. in speech he was moderate, in disposition indulgent, and verily towards me he acted in his harsh duty with much gentleness. but murray had a doure aspect for his years, and there was a smile among his features not pleasant to behold, breeding rather distrust and dread than winning confidence or affection, which are the natural fruit of a countenance rightly gladdened. he looked at me from aneath his brows as if i had been a malefactor, and turning to the lord kelburne, said,-- "he has the true fanatical yellow look." this was a base observe; for naturally i was of a fresh complexion, but my long illness, and the close air of the prison, had made me pale. after some more impertinences of that sort, he then said,-- "ringan gilhaize, you were at the battle of bothwell-brigg." "i was not," said i. "you do not mean to say so, surely?" "i have said it," was my answer. whereupon one of the clerks whispered to him that there were three of the name in the list. "o!" cried he, "i crave your pardon, ringan; there are several persons of your name; and though you were not at bothwell yourself, maybe ye ken those of your name who were there,--do you?" "i did know two," was my calm answer; "one was my brother, and the other my son." all present remained very silent as i made this answer; and the lord kelburne bending forward, leant his cheek on his hand as he rested his elbow on the table, and looked very earnestly at me. murray resumed,-- "and pray now, ringan, tell us what has become of the two rebels?" "they were covenanted christians," said i; "my son lies buried with those that were slain on that sore occasion." "but your brother; he was of course younger than you?" "no; he was older." "well, well, no matter as to that; but where is he?" "i believe he is with his maker; but his body lies among the rocks at the bottom of the orkney seas." the steadiness of the lord kelburne's countenance saddened into the look of compassion, and he said to murray,-- "there is no use in asking him any more questions about them; proceed with the ordinary interrogatories." there was a murmur of satisfaction towards his lordship at this; and murray said,-- "and so you say that those in the late rebellion at bothwell were not rebels?" "i said, sir, that my son and my brother were covenanted christians." this i delivered with a firm voice, which seemed to produce some effect on the lord kelburne, who threw himself back in his chair, and crossing his arms over his breast, looked still more eagerly towards me. "do you mean then to deny," said murray, "that the late rebellion was not a rebellion?" "it would be hard, sir, to say what it was; for the causes thereto leading," replied i, "were provocations concerning things of god, and to those who were for that reason religiously there, i do not think, in a right sense, it can be called rebellion. those who were there for carnal motives, and i doubt not there were many such, i fancy every honest man may say it was with them rebellion." "i must deal more closely with him," said murray to his lordship; but his lordship, before allowing him to put any more questions, said himself to me,-- "but you know, to state the thing plainly, that the misguided people who were at bothwell had banded themselves against the laws of the realm, whether from religious or carnal motives is not the business we are here to sift, that point is necessarily remitted to god and their consciences." murray added, "it is most unreasonable to suppose that every subject is free to determine of what is lawful to be obeyed. the thought is ridiculous. it would destroy the end of all laws which are for the advantage of communities, and which speak the sense of the generality, touching the matter and things to which they refer." "my lord," said i, addressing myself to lord kelburne, "it surely will ne'er be denied that every subject is free to exercise his discretion with respek to his ain conduct; and your lordship kens vera weel that it is the duty of subjects to know the laws of the land; and your lordship likewise knows that god has given laws to all rulers as well as subjects, and both may and ought to know his laws. now if i, knowing both the laws of god and the laws of the land, find the one contrary to the other, undoubtedly god's laws ought to hae the preference in my obedience." his lordship looked somewhat satisfied with this answer; but murray said to him,-- "i will pose him with this question. if presbyterian government were established, as it was in the year , and some ministers were not free to comply with it, and a law were made that none should hear them out o' doors, would you judge it reasonable that such ministers or their people should be at liberty to act in contempt of that law." and he looked mightily content with himself for this subtlety; but i said,-- "really, sir, i canna see a reason why hearkening to a preaching in the fields should be a greater guilt than doing the same thing indoors." "if i were of your principles," said the advocate, "and thought in my conscience that the laws of the land were contrary to the laws of god, and that i could not conform to them, i would judge it my duty rather to go out of the nation and live elsewhere, than disturb the peace of the land." "that were to suppose two things," said i; "first, that rulers may make laws contrary to the laws of god, and that when such laws are once made, they ought to be submitted to. but i think, sir, that rulers being under the law of god act wickedly and in rebellion to him, when they make enactments contrary to his declared will; and surely it can ne'er be required that we should allow wickedness to be done." "i am not sure," said murray to his lordship, "that i do right in continuing this irrelevant conversation." "i am interested in the honest man's defence," replied lord kelburne; "and as 'tis in a matter of conscience, let us hear what makes it so." "well, then," resumed the advocate, "what can you say to the barbarous murder of archbishop sharp?--you will not contend that murder is not contrary to the law of god?" "i ne'er contended," said i, "that any sin was permitted by the law of god--far less murder, which is expressly forbidden in the ten commands." "then ye acknowledge the murder of the archbishop to have been murder?" "that's between those that did it and god." "hooly, hooly, friend!" cried murray; "that, ringan, winna do; was it or was it not murder?" "can i tell, who was not there?" "then to satisfy your conscience on that score, ringan, i would ask you, if a gang of ruffians slay a defenceless man, do or do they not commit murder?" "i can easily answer that." lord kelburne again bent eagerly forward, and rested his cheek again on his hand, placing his elbow on the table, while i continued,-- "a gang of ruffians coming in wantonness, or for plunder, upon a defenceless man, and putting him to death, there can be no doubt is murder; but it has not yet been called murder to kill an enemy in battle; and therefore, if the captain of a host go to war without arms, and thereby be defenceless, it cannot be said that those of the adverse party, who may happen to slay him, do any murder." "do you mean to justify the manner of the death of the archbishop?" exclaimed the advocate, starting back and spreading out his arms in wonderment. "'deed no, sir," replied i, a little nettled at the construction he would put upon what i said; "but i will say, even here, what sir davie lindsay o' the mount said on the similar event o' cardinal beaton's death,-- 'as for this cardinal, i grant he was the man we might well want; god will forgive it soon: but of a truth, the sooth to say, although the loon be well away, the fact was foully done.'" there was a rustle of gratification among all in the court as i said the rhyme, and lord kelburne smiled; but murray, somewhat out of humour, said,-- "i fancy, my lord, we must consider this as an admission that the killing of the archbishop was murder." "i fear," said his lordship, "that neither of the two questions have been so directly put as to justify me to pronounce any decision, though i am willing to put the most favourable construction on what has passed." and then his lordship, looking to me, added,-- "do you consider the late rebellion, being contrary to the king's authority, rebellion?" "contrary to the king's right authority," replied i, "it was not rebellion; but contrary to an authority beyond the right taken by him, despite the law of god, it was rebellion." "wherefore, honest man," rejoined his lordship kindly, "would you make a distinction that may bring harm on your own head? is not the king's authority instituted by law and prerogative, and knowing that, cannot ye say that those who rise in arms against it are rebels?" "my lord," said i, "you have my answer; for in truth and in conscience i can give none other." there was a pause for a short space, and one of the clerks looking to lord kelburne, his lordship said, with a plain reluctance, "it must even be so; write down that he is not clear the late rebellion should be called a rebellion;" and casting his eyes entreatingly towards me, he added, "but i think you acknowledge that the assassination of archbishop sharp was a murder?" "my lord," said i, "your questions are propounded as tests and therefore, as an honest man, i cannot suffer that my answers should be scant, lest i might be thought to waver in faith and was backward in my testimony. no, my lord, i will not call the killing of sharp murder; for on my conscience, i do verily think he deserved the death: first, because of his apostacy; second, because of the laws of which he was the instigator, whereby the laws of god have been contravened; and, third, for the woes that those laws have brought upon the land, the which stirred the hearts of the people against him. above all, i think his death was no murder, because he was so strong in his legalities, that he could not be brought to punishment by those to whom he had caused the greatest wrong;" and i thought, in saying these words, of my brother's desolated daughter--of his own sad death in the stormy seas of the orkneys--and of my brave and gallant michael, that was lying in his shroudless grave in the cold clay of bothwell. lord kelburne was troubled at my answer, and was about to remonstrate; but seeing the tear start into my eye as those things came into my mind, he said nothing, but nodding to the clerk, he bade him write down that i would not acknowledge the killing of the archbishop a murder. he then rose and adjourned the court, remanding me to prison, saying that he would send me word what would be the extent of my punishment. chapter lxxv the same night it was intimated to me that i was fined in five hundred marks, and that bonds were required to be given for the payment; upon the granting of which, in consideration of my ill-health, the lord kelburne had consented i should be set free. this was, in many respects, a more lenient sentence than i had expected; and in the hope that perhaps sarah lochrig might have been able to provide the money, so as to render the granting of the bonds and the procuring of cautioners unnecessary, i sent over a man on horseback to tell her the news, and the man in returning brought my son joseph behind him, sent by his mother to urge me to give the bonds at once, as she had not been able to raise so much money; and the more to incite me, if there had been need for incitement, she had willed joseph to tell me that a party of claverhouse's dragoons had been quartered on the house that morning, to live there till the fine was paid. of the character of those freebooters i needed no certificate. they had filled every other place wherever they had been quartered with shame and never-ceasing sorrow, and therefore i was indeed roused to hear that my defenceless daughters were in their power, so i lost no time in sending my son to entreat two of his mother's relations, who were bein merchants in ayr, to join me in the bond,--a thing which they did in the most compassionate manner;--and, the better to expedite the business, i got it to be permitted by the lord kelburne that the bonds should be sent the same day to irvine, where i hoped to be able next morning to discharge them. all this was happily concerted and brought to a pleasant issue before sunset;--at which time i was discharged from the tolbooth, carrying with me many pious wishes from those who were there, and who had not been so gently dealt by. it was my intent to have proceeded home the same night, but my son was very tired with the many errands he had run that day, and by his long ride in the morning; moreover, i was myself in need of repose, for my anxiety had brought on a disturbance in my blood, and my limbs shook, and i was altogether unable to undertake any journey. i was therefore too easily entreated of archibald lochrig, my wife's cousin, and one of my cautioners, to stop in his house that evening. but next morning, being much refreshed with a pleasant sleep and the fallacious cheering of happy dreams, i left ayr, with my son, before the break of day, and we travelled with light feet, for our hearts were lifted up with hope. though my youth was long past, and many things had happened to sadden my spirit, i yet felt on that occasion an unaccountable sense of kindliness and joy. the flame of life was as it were renewed, and brightened in the pure and breezy air of the morning, and a bounding gladness rose in my bosom as my eye expatiated around in the freedom of the spacious fields. on the left-hand the living sea seemed as if the pulses of its moving waters were in unison with the throbbings of my spirit; and, like jocund maidens disporting themselves in the flowing tide, the gentle waves, lifting their heads, and spreading out their arms and raising their white bosoms to the rising sun, came as it were happily to the smooth sands of the sparkling shore. the grace of enjoyment brightened and blithened all things. there was a cheerfulness in the songs of the little birds that enchanted the young heart of my blooming boy to break forth into singing, and his carol was gayer than the melody of the lark. but that morning was the last time that either of us could ever after know pleasure any more in this world. eager to be home, and that i might share with sarah lochrig and our children the joy of thankfulness for my deliverance, i had resolved to call, in passing through irvine, at the clerk's chamber, to inquire if the bonds had been sent from ayr, that my cautioners might be as soon as possible discharged. but we had been so early a-foot that we reached the town while the inhabitants were yet all asleep, so that we thought it would be as well to go straight home; and accordingly we passed down the gait and through the town-end port without seeing any person in the street, save only the town-herd, as he was going with his horn to sound for the cows to be sent out to go with him to the moor. the sight of a town in the peacefulness of the morning slumbers, and of a simple man going forth to lead the quiet cattle to pasture filled my mind with softer thoughts than i had long known, and i said to my son,-- "surely those who would molest the peace of the poor hae ne'er rightly tasted the blessing of beholding the confidence with which they trust themselves in the watches of the night, and amidst the perils of their barren lot." and i felt my heart thaw again into charity with all men, and i was thankful for the delight. as i was thus tasting again the luxury of gentle thoughts, a band of five dragoons came along the road, and joseph said to me that they were the same who had been quartered in our house. i looked at them as they passed by, but they turned their heads aside. "i wonder," said my son, "that they did na speak to me: i thought they had a black look." "no doubt, joseph," was my answer, "the men are no lost to a' sense of shame. they canna but be rebuked at the sight of a man that, maybe against their will, poor fellows, they were sent to oppress." "i dinna like them the day, father, they're unco like ill-doers," said the thoughtful and observing stripling. but my spirit was at the time full of good-will towards all men, and i reasoned with him against giving way to unkind thoughts, expounding, to the best of my ability, the nature of gospel-charity, and the heavenlyness of good-will, saying to him,-- "the nature of charity's like the light o' the sun, by which all things are cherished. it is the brightness of the soul, and the glorious quality which proves our celestial descent. our other feelings are common to a' creatures, but the feeling of charity is divine. it's the only thing in which man partakes of the nature of god." discoursing in this scriptural manner, we reached the gowan-brae. my heart beat high with gladness. my son bounded forward to tell his mother and sisters of my coming. on gaining the brow of the hill he leapt from the ground with a frantic cry and clasped his hands. i ran towards him--but i remember no more--though at times something crosses my mind, and i have wild visions of roofless walls, and a crowd of weeping women and silent men digging among ashes, and a beautiful body, all dropping wet, brought on a deal from the mill-dam, and of men, as it was carried by, seizing me by the arms and tying my hands,--and then i fancy myself in a house fastened to a chair;--and sometimes i think i was lifted out and placed to beek in the sun and to taste the fresh air. but what these things import i dare only guess, for no one has ever told me what became of my benign sarah lochrig and our two blooming daughters;--all is phantasma that i recollect of the day of my return home. i said my soul was iron, and my heart converted into stone. o that they were indeed so! but sorrowing is a vain thing, and my task must not stand still. when i left ayr the leaves were green, and the fields gay, and the waters glad; and when the yellow leaf rustled on the ground, and the waters were drumly, and the river roaring, i was somehow, i know not by what means, in the kirk-yard, and a film fell from the eyes of my reason, and i looked around, and my little boy had hold of me by the hand, and i said to him, "joseph, what's yon sae big and green in our lair?" and he gazed in my face, and the tears came into his eyes, and he replied,-- "father, they are a' in the same grave." i took my hand out of his;--i walked slowly to the green tomb;--i knelt down, and i caused my son to kneel beside me, and i vowed enmity for ever against charles stuart and all of his line; and i prayed, in the words of the psalmist, that when he was judged he might be condemned. then we rose; but my son said to me,-- "father, i canna wish his condemnation; but i'll fight by your side till we have harlt him down from his bloody throne." and i felt that i had forgotten i was a christian, and i again knelt down and prayed, but it was for the sin i had done in the vengeance of the latter clause. "nevertheless, lord," i then cried, "as thou thyself didst take the sceptre from saul, and gave the crown to david, make me an instrument to work out the purposes of thy dreadful justice, which in time will come to be." then i rose again, and went towards the place where my home had been; but when i saw the ruins i ran back to the kirk-yard, and threw myself on the grave, and cried to the earth to open and receive me. but the lord had heard my prayer, and while i lay there he sent down his consoling angel, and the whirlwind of my spirit was calmed, and i remembered the promise of my son to fight by my side, and i rose to prepare myself for the warfare. while i was lying on the ground several of the neighbours had heard my wild cries, and came into the kirk-yard; but by that time the course of the tempest had been staid, and they stood apart with my son, who told them i was come again to myself, and they thought they ought not to disturb me; when, however, they saw me rise, they drew near and spoke kindly to me, and zachariah smylie invited me to go back with him to his house; for it was with him that i had been sheltered during the frenzy. but i said,-- "no: i will neither taste meat nor drink, nor seek to rest myself, till i have again a sword." and i entreated him to give me a little money, that, with my son, we might go into irvine and provide ourselves with weapons. the worthy man looked very sorrowful to hear me so speak, and some of the others, that were standing by, began to reason with me, and to represent the peril of any enterprise at that time. but i pointed to the grave, and said,-- "friens, do you ken what's in yon place, and do ye counsel me to peace?" at which words they turned aside and shook their heads; and zachariah smylie went and brought me a purse of money, which having put into my bosom, i took my son by the hand, and bidding them all farewell, we walked to the town silently together, and i thought of my brother's words in his grief, that the speed of lightning was slow to the wishes of revenge. chapter lxxvi on arriving in irvine, we went to the shop of archibald macrusty, a dealer in iron implements, and i bought from him two swords without hilts, which he sold, wrapt in straw-rope, as scythe-blades,--a method of disguise that the ironmongers were obligated to have recourse to at that time, on account of the search now and then made for weapons by the soldiers, ever from the time that claverhouse came to disarm the people; and when i had bought the two blades we went to bailie girvan's shop, which was a nest of a' things, and bought two hilts, without any questions being asked; for the bailie was a discreet man, with a warm heart to the covenant, and not selling whole swords, but only hilts and hefts, it could not be imputed to him that he was guilty of selling arms to suspected persons. being thus provided with two swords, we went into james glassop's public, where, having partaken of some refreshment, we remained solemnly sitting by ourselves till towards the gloaming, when, recollecting that it would be a comfort to us in the halts of our undertaking, i sent out my son to buy a bible, and while he was absent i fell asleep. on awaking from my slumber i felt greatly composed and refreshed. i reflected on the events of the day, and the terrible truths that had broken in upon me, and i was not moved with the same stings of desperation that, on my coming to myself, had shot like fire through my brain; so i began to consider of the purpose whereon i was bowne, and that i had formed no plan, nor settled towards what airt i should direct my steps. but i was not the less determined to proceed, and i said to my son, who was sitting very thoughtful with the book lying on the table before him,-- "open the bible, and see what the lord instructs us to do at this time." and he opened it, and the first words he saw and read were those of the nineteenth verse of the forty-eighth chapter of the prophet jeremiah,-- "o inhabitant of aroer, stand by the way and espy; ask him that fleeth, and her that escapeth, and say, what is done?" so i rose, and bidding my son close the book, and bring it with him, we went out, with our sword-hilts, and the blades still with the straw-rope about them in our hands, into the street together, where we had not long been when a soldier on horseback passed us in great haste; and many persons spoke to him as he rode by, inquiring what news he had brought; but he was in trouble of mind, and heeded them not till he reached the door of the house where the captain of the soldiers then in irvine was abiding. when he had gone into the house and delivered his message, he returned to the street, where by that time a multitude, among which we were, had assembled, and he told to the many, who inquired, as it were, with one voice,--that mr cargill, and a numerous party of the cameronians, had passed that afternoon through galston, and it was thought they meditated some disturbance on the skirts of kilmarnock, which made the commander of the king's forces in that town send for aid to the captain of those then in irvine. as soon as i heard the news, i resolved to go that night to kilmarnock, and abide with my sister-in-law, the widow of my brother jacob, by whose instrumentality i thought we might hear where the cameronians then were. for, although i approved not of their separation from the general presbyterian kirk of scotland, nor was altogether content with their declaration published at sanquhar, there was yet one clause which, to my spirit, impoverished of all hope, was as food and raiment; and that there may be no perversion concerning the same in after times, i shall here set down the words of the clause, and the words are these:-- "although we be for government and governors such as the word of god and our covenant allows, yet we for ourselves, and all that will adhere to us, do, by thir presents, disown charles stuart, that has been reigning (or rather tyrannizing as we may say) on the throne of britain these years bygone, as having any right or title to, or interest in, the crown of scotland for government, he having forfeited the same several years since by his perjury and breach of covenant both to god and his kirk;" and further, i did approve of those passages wherein it was declared, that he "should have been denuded of being king, ruler, or magistrate, or having any power to act or to be obeyed as such:" as also, "we being under the standard of our lord jesus christ, captain of salvation, do declare a war with such a tyrant and usurper, and all the men of his practices, as enemies to our lord." accordingly, on hearing that the excommunicated and suffering society of the cameronians were so near, i resolved, on receiving the soldier's information, and on account of that recited clause of the sanquhar declaration, to league myself with them, and to fight in their avenging battles; for, like me, they had endured irremediable wrongs, injustice, and oppressions, from the persecutors, and for that cause had, like me, abjured the doomed and papistical race of the tyrannical stuarts. with my son, therefore, i went toward kilmarnock, in the hope and with the intent expressed; and though the road was five long miles, and though i had not spoken more to him all day, nor for days, and weeks, and months before, than i have set down herein, we yet continued to travel in silence. the night was bleak, and the wind easterly, but the road was dry, and my thoughts were eager; and we hastened onward, and reached the widow's door, without the interchange of a word in all the way. "wha do ye want?" said my son, "for naebody hae lived here since the death of aunty." i was smote upon the heart, by these few words, as it were with a stone; for it had not come into my mind to think of inquiring how long the eclipse of my reason had lasted, nor of what had happened among our friends in the interim. this shock, however, had a salutary effect in staying the haste which was still in my thoughts, and i conversed with my son more collectedly than i could have done before it, and he told me of many things very doleful to hear, but i was thankful to learn that the end of my brother's widow had been in peace, and not caused by any of those grievous unchances which darkened the latter days of so many of the pious in that epoch of the great displeasure. but the disappointment of finding that death had barred her door against us, made it needful to seek a resting-place in some public, and as it was not prudent to carry our blades and hilts into any such place of promiscuous resort, we went up the town, and hid them by the star-light in a field at a dyke-side, and then returning as wayfarers, we entered a public, and bespoke a bed for the night. while we were sitting in that house by the kitchen fire, i bethought me of the bible which my son had in his hand, and told him that it would do us good if he would read a chapter; but just as he was beginning, the mistress said,-- "sirs, dinna expose yoursels; for wha kens but the enemy may come in upon you. it's an unco thing now-a-days to be seen reading the bible in a change-house." so, being thus admonished, i bade my son put away the book, and we retired from the fireside and sat by oursels in the shadow of a corner; and well it was for us that we did so, and a providential thing that the worthy woman had been moved to give us the admonition; for we were not many minutes within the mirk and obscurity into which we had removed, when two dragoons, who had been skirring the country, like blood-hounds, in pursuit of mr cargill, came in and sat themselves down by the fire. being sorely tired with their day's hard riding, they were wroth and blasphemous against all the covenanters for the trouble they gave them; and i thought when i heard them venting their bitterness, that they spoke as with the voice of the persecutors that were the true cause of the grievances whereof they complained; for no doubt it was a hateful thing to persons dressed in authority not to get their own way, yet i could not but wonder how it never came into the minds of such persons that if they had not trodden upon the worm it would never have turned. as for the cameronians they were at war with the house of stuart, and having disowned king charles, it was a thing to be looked for, that all of his sect and side would be their consistent enemies. so i was none troubled by what the soldiers said of them, but my spirit was chafed into the quick to hear the remorselessness of their enmity against all the covenanters and presbyterians, respecting whom they swore with the hoarseness of revenge, wishing in such a frightful manner the whole of us in the depths of perdition, that i could no longer hear them without rebuking their cruel hatred and most foul impiety. chapter lxxvii "what gars you, young man," said i to the fiercest of the two dragoons, an englisher, "what gars you in that dreadful manner hate and blaspheme honest men, who would, if they were permitted, dwell in peace with all mankind?" "permitted!" cried he, turning round and placing his chair between me and the door, "and who does not permit them? let them seek the way to heaven according to law, and no one will trouble them." "the law, i'm thinking," replied i very mildly, "is mair likely to direct them to another place." "here's a fellow," cried the soldier, riotously laughing to his companion, "that calls the king's proclamation the devil's finger-post. i say, friend, come a little nearer the light. is your name cargill?" "no," replied i; and the light of the fire then happening to shine bright in his face, my son laid his trembling hand on mine, and whispered to me with a faltering tongue,-- "o! it's one of the villains that burnt our house, and--" what more he added i know not, for at the word i leapt from my seat, and rushed upon the soldier. his companion flew in between us; but the moment that the criminal saw my son, who also sprung forward, he uttered a fearful howl of horror, and darted out of the house. the other soldier was surprised, but collected; and shutting the door, to prevent us from pursuing or escaping, said,-- "what the devil's this?" "that's my father," said my son boldly, "ringan gilhaize of quharist." the dragoon looked at me for a moment, with concern in his countenance, and then replied, "i have heard of your name but i was not of the party. it was a damned black job. but sit down, ecclesfield will not be back. he has ever since of a night been afraid of ghosts, and he's off as if he had seen one. so don't disturb yourself, but be cool." i made no answer, nor could i; but i returned and sat down in the corner where we had been sitting, and my son, at the same time, took his place beside me, laying his hand on mine: and i heard his heart beating, but he too said not a word. it happened that none of the people belonging to the house were present at the uproar; but hearing the noise, the mistress and the gudeman came rushing ben. the soldier, who still stood calmly with his back to the door, nodded to them to come towards him, which they did, and he began to tell them something in a whisper. the landlord held up his hands and shook his head, and the mistress cried, with tears in her eyes, "no wonder! no wonder!" "had ye no better gang out and see for ecclesfield?" said the landlord, with a significant look to the soldier. the young man cast his eyes down, and seemed thoughtful. "i may be blamed," said he. "gang but the house, gudewife, and bring the gardivine," resumed the gudeman; and i saw him touch her on the arm, and she immediately went again into the room whence they had issued. "come into the fire, jack windsor, and sit down," continued he; and the soldier, with some reluctance, quitted the door, and took his seat between me and it, where ecclesfield had been sitting. "ye ken, jack," he resumed when they were seated, "that unless there are two of you present, ye canna put any man to the test, so that every body who has not been tested is free to go wheresoever it pleasures himsel." the dragoon looked compassionately towards me; and the mistress coming in at the time with a case-bottle under her arm, and a green dutch dram-glass in her hand, she filled it with brandy, and gave it to her husband. "here's to you, jack windsor," said the landlord, as he put the glass to his lips, "and i wish a' the english in england were as orderly and good-hearted as yoursel, jack windsor." he then held the glass to the mistress, and she made it a lippy. "hae, jack," said the landlord, "i'm sure, after your hard travail the day, ye'll no be the waur o' a dram." "curse the liquor," exclaimed the dragoon, "i'm not to be bribed by a dram." "nay," cried the landlord, "gude forbid that i should be a briber," still holding the glass towards the soldier, who sat in a thoughtful posture, plainly swithering. "that fellow ecclesfield," said he, as it were to himself, "the game's up with him in this world." "and in the next too, jack windsor, if he does na repent," replied the landlord; and the dragoon put forth his hand, and, taking the glass, drank off the brandy. "it's a damned hard service this here in scotland," said windsor, holding the empty glass in his hand. "'deed is't, jack," said the landlord, "and it canna be a pleasant thing to a warm-hearted lad like you, jack windsor, to be ravaging poor country folk, only because they hae gotten a bee in their bonnets about prelacy." "damn prelacy, says i," exclaimed the dragoon. "whisht, whisht, jack," said the landlord; "but when a man's sae scomfisht as ye maun be the night after your skirring, a word o' vexation canna be a great faut. gudewife, fill jack's glass again. ye'll be a' the better o't, jack;" and he took the glass from the dragoon's hand and held it to his wife, who again filled it to the flowing eye. "i should think," said the dragoon, "that ecclesfield cannot be far off. he ought not to have run away till we had tested the strangers." "ah! jack windsor," replied the landlord, holding out the glass to him, "that's easy for you, an honest lad wi' a clear conscience, to say, but think o' what ecclesfield was art and part in. ye may thank your stars, jack, that ye hae ne'er been guilty o' the foul things that he's wyted wi'. are your father and mother living, jack windsor?" "i hope so," said the dragoon; "but the old man was a little so so when i last heard of 'em." "aye, jack," replied the landlord, "auld folks are failing subjects. ye hae some brothers and sisters nae doubt? they maun be weel-looked an they're ony thing like you, jack." "i have but one sister," replied the dragoon, "and there's not a gooder girl in england, nor a lady in it that has the bloom of sally windsor." "ye're braw folk, you englishers, and ye're happy folk, whilk is far better," said the landlord, presenting the second glass, which jack drank off at once, and returned to the mistress, signifying with his hand that he wanted no more; upon which she retired with the gardivine, while the landlord continued, "it's weel for you in the south yonder, jack, that your prelates do not harass honest folk." "we have no prelates in england, thank god," said the dragoon; "we wouldn't have 'em; our parsons are other sort o' things." "i thought ye had an host o' bishops, jack," said the landlord. "true, and good fellows some on 'em are; but though prelates be bishops, bishops ain't prelates, which makes a difference." "and a blessed difference it is; for how would ye like to hear of your father's house being burnt and him in prison, and your bonny innocent sister?--eh! is nae that ecclesfield's foot clampering wi' his spurs at the door?" the dragoon listened again, and looked thoughtful for a little time, and turned his eyes hastily towards the corner where we were sitting. the landlord eyed him anxiously. "yes," cried the poor fellow, starting from his seat, and striking his closed right hand sharply into his left; "yes, i ought and i will;" adding calmly to the landlord, "confound ecclesfield, where the devil is he gone? i'll go see;" and he instantly went out. the moment he had left the kitchen the landlord rose and said to us, "flee, flee, and quit this dangerous town!" whereupon we rose hastily, and my son lifting the bible, which he had laid in the darkness of the corner, we instanter left the house, and, notwithstanding the speed that was in our steps as we hurried up the street, i had a glimpse of the compassionate soldier standing at the corner of the house when we ran by. thus, in a very extraordinary manner, was the dreadful woe that had befallen me and mine most wonderfully made a mean, through the conscience of ecclesfield, to effectuate our escape. chapter lxxviii on leaving the public we went straight to the place where our blades and belts lay, and took them up, and proceeded in an easterly direction. but i soon found that i was no longer the man i had once been; suffering and the fever of my frenzy had impaired my strength, and the weight of four-and-fifty years was on my back; so that i began to weary for a place of rest for the night, and i looked often around to discover the star of any window; but all was dark, and the bleak easterly wind searched my very bones; even my son, whose sturdy health and youthy blood made him abler to thole the night air, complained of the nipping cold. many a time yet, when i remember that night, do i think with wonder and reverence of our condition. an infirm, grey-haired man, with a deranged head and a broken heart, going forth amidst the winter's wind, with a little boy, not passing thirteen years of age, to pull down from his throne the guarded king of three mighty kingdoms,--and we did it,--such was the doom of avenging justice, and such the pleasure of heaven. but let me proceed to rehearse the trials i was required to undergo before the accomplishment of that high predestination. weary, as i have said, very cold and disconsolate, we walked hirpling together for some time; at last we heard the rumbling of wheels before us, and my son running forward came back and told me it was a carrier. i hastened on, and with a great satisfaction found it was robin brown, the ayr and kilmarnock carrier. i had known him well for many years, and surely it was a providential thing that we met him in our distress, for he was the brother of a godly man, on whose head, while his family were around him, claverhouse, with his own bloody hands, placed the glorious diadem of martyrdom. he had been told what had befallen me and mine, and was greatly amazed to hear my voice, and that i was again come to myself; and he helped both my son and me into the cart; and, as he walked by the wheel, he told me of many things which had happened during my eclipse, and of the dreadful executions at edinburgh, of the prisoners taken at airsmoss, and how that papist james stuart, duke of york, the king's brother, was placed at the head of the scottish councils, and was then rioting in the delights of cruelty, with the use of the torture and the thumbikins upon prisoners suspected, or accused of being honest to their vows and their religious profession. but my mind was unsettled, and his tale of calamity passed over it like the east wind that blew that night so freezingly, cruel to the sense at the time, but of which the morrow showed no memorial. i said nothing to robin brown of what my intent was, but that i was on my way to join the cameronians, if i knew where they might be found; and he informed me, that after the raid of airsmoss they had scattered themselves into the south country, where, as claverhouse had the chief command, the number of their friends was likely to be daily increased, by the natural issue of his cruelties, and that vindictive exasperation, which was a passion and an affection of his mind for the discomfiture he had met with at drumclog. "but," said the worthy man, "i hope, ringan gilhaize, ye'll yet consider the step before ye tak it. ye're no at this time in a condition o' health to warsle wi' hardship, and your laddie there's owre young to be o' ony fek in the way o' war; for, ye ken, the cameronians hae declar't war against the king, and, being few and far apart, they're hunted down in a' places." "if i canna fight wi' men," replied my brave stripling, "i can help my father; but i'm no fear't. david was but a herd laddie, maybe nae aulder nor bigger than me, when he fell't the muckle philistine wi' a stane." i made no answer myself to robin brown's remonstrance, because my resolution was girded as it were with a gir of brass and adamant, and, therefore, to reason more or farther concerning aught but of the means to achieve my purpose, was a thing i could not abide. only i said to him, that being weary, and not in my wonted health, i would try to compose myself to sleep, and he would waken me when he thought fit, for that i would not go with him to glasgow, but shape our way towards the south country. so i stretched myself out, and my dear son laid himself at my back, and the worthy man happing us with his plaid, we soon fell asleep. when the cart stopped at the kingswell, where robin was in the usage of halting half an hour, he awoke us; and there being no strangers in the house we alighted, and going in, warmed ourselves at the fire. out of a compassion for me the mistress warmed and spiced a pint of ale; but instead of doing me any good, i had not long partaken of the same when i experienced a great coldness and a trembling in my limbs, in so much that i felt myself very ill, and prayed the kind woman to allow me to lie down in a bed; which she consented to do in a most charitable manner, causing her husband, who was a covenanted man, as i afterwards found, to rise out of his, and give me their own. the cold and the tremblings were but the symptoms and beginnings of a sore malady, which soon rose to such a head that robin brown taiglet more than two hours for me; but still i grew worse and worse, and could not be removed for many days. on the fifth i was brought so nigh unto the gates of death that my son, who never left the bed-stock, thought at one time i had been released from my troubles. but i was reserved for the task that the lord had in store for me, and from that time i began to recover; and nothing could exceed the tenderness wherewith i was treated by those samaritan christians, the landlord and his wife of the public at kingswell. this distemper, however, left a great imbecility of body behind it; and i wondered whether it could be of providence to prevent me from going forward with my avenging purpose against charles stuart and his counsellors. being one day in this frame of dubiety, lying in the bed, and my son sitting at my pillow, i said to him, "get the book and open, and read," which he accordingly did; and the first verse that he cast his eye upon was the twenty-fourth of the seventh chapter of isaiah, "with arrows and with bows shall men come." "stop" said i, "and go to the window and see who are coming;" but when he went thither and looked out he could see no one far nor near. yet still i heard the tramp of many feet, and i said to him, "assuredly, joseph, there are many persons coming towards this house, and i think they are not men of war, for their steps are loose, and they march not in the order of battle." this i have thought was a wonderful sharpness of hearing with which i was for a season then gifted; for soon after a crowd of persons were discovered coming over the moor towards the house, and it proved to be mr cargill, with about some sixty of the cameronians, who had been hunted from out their hiding-places in the south. chapter lxxix it is surely a most strange matter, that whenever i come to think and to write of the events of that period, and of my sickness at kingswell, my thoughts relapse into infirmity, and all which then passed move, as it were, before me in mist, disorderly and fantastical. but wherefore need i thus descant of my own estate, when so many things of the highest concernment are pressing upon my tablets for registration? be it therefore enough that i mention here how much i was refreshed by the prayers of mr cargill, who was brought into my sick-chamber, where he wrestled with great efficacy for my recovery; and that after he had made an end, i felt so much strengthened that i caused myself to be raised from my bed and placed in a chair at the open window, that i might see the men who had been heartened from on high by the sense of their sufferings, to proclaim war against the man-sworn king, our common foe. they were scattered before the house, to the number of more than fifty, some sitting on stones, others stretched on the heather, and a few walking about by themselves, ruminating on mournful fancies. their appearance was a thought wild and raised,--their beards had not been shaven for many a day,--their apparel was also much rent, and they had all endured great misfortunes in their families and substance. their homes had been made desolate; some had seen their sons put to death, and not a few the ruin of their innocent daughters and the virtuous wives of their bosoms,--all by the fruit of laws and edicts which had issued from the councils of charles stuart, and were enforced by men drunken with the authority of his arbitrary will. but though my spirit clove to theirs, and was in unison with their intent, i could not but doubt of so poor a handful of forlorn men, though it be written, that the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, and i called to my son to bring me the book, that i might be instructed from the word what i ought at that time to do; and when he had done so i opened it, and the twenty-second chapter of genesis met my eye, and i was awed and trembled, and my heart was melted with sadness and an agonising grief. for the command to abraham to sacrifice isaac his only son, whom he so loved, on the mountains in the land of moriah, required of me to part with my son, and to send him with the cameronians; and i prayed with a weeping spirit and the imploring silence of a parent's heart, that the lord would be pleased not to put my faith to so great a trial. i took the book again, and i opened it a second time, and the command of the sacred oracle was presented to me in the fifth verse of the fifth chapter of ecclesiastes,-- "better is it that thou shouldest not vow than that thou shouldest vow and not pay." but still the man and the father were powerful with my soul; and the weakness of disease was in me, and i called my son towards me, and i bowed my head upon his hands as he stood before me, and wept very bitterly, and pressed him to my bosom, and was loath to send him away. he knew not what caused the struggle wherewith he saw me so moved, and he became touched with fear lest my reason was again going from me. but i dried my eyes, and told him it was not so, and that maybe i would be better if i could compose myself to read a chapter. so i again opened the volume, and the third command was in the twenty-sixth verse of the eight chapter of st matthew,-- "why are ye fearful, o ye of little faith?" but still notwithstanding my rebellious heart would not consent;--and i cried, "i am a poor, infirm, desolate, and destitute man, and he is all that is left me. o that mine eyes were closed in death, and that this head, which sorrow and care and much misery have made untimely grey, were laid on its cold pillow, and the green curtain of the still kirk yard were drawn around me in my last long sleep." then again the softness of a mother's fondness came upon my heart, and i grasped the wondering stripling's hands in mine, and shook them, saying, "but it must be so. it is the lord's will; thrice has he commanded, and i dare not rebel thrice." "what has he commanded, father?" said the boy, "what is his will? for ye ken it maun be done." "read," said i, "the twenty-second chapter of genesis." "i ken't, father; it's about abraham and wee isaac; but though ye tak me into the land of moriah, and up to the top of the hill, maybe a ram will be catched by the horns in a whin-bush for the burnt-offering, and ye'll no hae ony need to kill me." at that moment mr cargill came again into the room to bid me farewell; but seeing my son standing with a tear of simplicity in his eye, and me in the weakness of my infirm estate weeping upon his hands, he stopped and inquired what then had so moved us; whereupon i looked towards him and said,-- "when i was taken with the malady that has thus changed the man in me to more than the gentleness of woman, ye ken, as i have already told you, we were bowne to seek your folk out and to fight on your side. but when i beheld your dejected and much-persecuted host, a doubt came to me, that surely it could not be that the lord intended through them to bring about the deliverance of the land; and under this doubt as to what i should now do, and my limbs being moreover still in the fetters of sickness, i consulted the oracle of god." "and what has been the answer?" "it has instructed me to send my son with you. but o, it is a terrible probation." "you have done well, my friend," replied the godly man, "to seek advice from the word; but apply again, and maybe--maybe, ringan, ye'll no be put to so great a trial." to this i could only say, "alas! sir, twice have i again consulted the oracle, and twice has the answer been an exhortation and a reproach that i should be so loath to obey." "but what for, father," interposed my son, "need ye be sae fashed about it. i would ne'er refuse;--i'm ready to gang if ye were na sae weakly;--and though the folk afore the house are but a wee waff-like, ye ken it is written in the book that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong." mr cargill looked with admiration at the confidence of this young piety, and, laying his hand on the boy's head, said, "i have not found so great faith, no, not in israel. the lord is in this, ringan, put your trust in him." whereupon i took my son's hand, and i placed it in the martyr's hand, and i said, "take him, lead him wheresoever ye will. i have sinned almost to disobedience, but the confidence has been renewed within me." "rejoice," said mr cargill, in words that were as the gift of health to my enfeebled spirit, "rejoice, and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven; for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you." as he pronounced the latter clause i felt my thoughts flash with a wild remembrance of the desolation of my house; but he began to return thanks for the comfort that he himself enjoyed in his outcast condition, of beholding so many proofs of the unshaken constancy of faith still in the land, and prayed for me in words of such sweet eloquence, that even in the parting from my son,--my last, whom i loved so well, they cherished me with a joy passing all understanding. at the conclusion of his inspired thanksgiving, i kissed my joseph on the forehead, and bidding him remember what his father's house had been, bade him farewell. his young heart was too full to reply; and mr cargill too was so deeply affected that he said nothing; so, after shaking me by the hand, he led him away. and if i did sin when they were departed, in the complaint of my childless desolation, for no less could i account it, it was a sin that surely will not be heavily laid against me. "o absalom, my son, my son,--would i had died for thee," cried the warlike king david, when absalom was slain in rebellion against him, and he had still many children; but my innocent absalom was all that i had left. chapter lxxx during the season that the malady continued upon me, through the unsuspected agency of robin brown, a paction was entered into with certain of my neighbours, to take the lands of quharist on tack among them, and to pay me a secret stipend, by which means were obtained to maintain me in a decency when i was able to be removed into glasgow. and when my strength was so far restored that i could bear the journey, the same good man entered into a stipulation with mrs aird, the relict of a gospel minister, to receive me as a lodger, and he carried me in on his cart to her house at the foot of the stockwell. with that excellent person i continued several months unmolested, but without hearing any tidings of my son. afflicting tales were however of frequent occurrence, concerning the rigour wherewith the cameronians were hunted; so that what with anxiety, and the backwardness of nature to rally in ailments ayont fifty, i continued to languish, incapable of doing anything in furtherance of the vow of vengeance that i had vowed. nor should i suppress, that in my infirmity there was often a wildness about my thoughts, by which i was unfitted at times to hold communion with other men. on these occasions i sat wondering if the things around me were not the substanceless imageries of a dream, and fancying that those terrible truths whereof i can yet only trust myself to hint, might be the fallacies of a diseased sleep. and i contested as it were with the reality of all that i saw, touched, and felt, and struggled like one oppressed with an incubus, that i might awake and find myself again at quharist in the midst of my family. at other times i felt all the loneliness of the solitude into which my lot was then cast, and it was in vain that i tried to appease my craving affections with the thought, that in parting with my son i had given him to the lord. i durst not say to myself there was aught of frenzy in that consecration; but when i heard of cameronians shot on the hills or brought to the scaffold, i prayed that i might receive some token of an accepted offering in what i had done. sterner feelings too had their turns of predominance. i recalled the manifold calamities which withered my native land--the guilty provocations that the people had received--the merciless avarice and rapacious profligacy that had ruined so many worthies--the crimes that had scattered so many families--and the contempt with which all our wrongs and woes were regarded; and then i would remember my avenging vow, and supplicate for health. at last, one day mrs aird, who had been out on some household cares, returned home in great distress of mind, telling me that the soldiers had got hold of mr cargill, and had brought him into the town. this happened about the ninth or tenth of july, in the afternoon; and the day being very sultry, the heat had oppressed me with langour, and i was all day as one laden with sleep. but no sooner had mrs aird told me this, than i felt the langour depart from me, as if a cumbrous cloak had been taken away, and i rose up a recruited and reanimated man. it was so much the end of my debility of body and sorrowing of mind, that she was loquacious with her surprise when she saw me, as it were, with a miraculous restoration, prepare myself to go out in order to learn, if possible, some account of my son. when, however, i went into the street, and saw a crowd gathered around the guard-house, my heart failed me a little, not for fear, but because the shouts of the multitude were like the yells and derisions of insult; and i thought they were poured upon the holy sufferer. it was not, however, so; the gospel-taught people of glasgow were, notwithstanding their prelatic thraldom, moved far otherwise, and their shouts and scoffings were against a townsman of their own, who had reviled the man of god on seeing him a prisoner among the soldiers in the guard-house. not then knowing this i halted, dubious if i should go forward; and while standing in a swither at the corner of the stockwell, a cart came up from the bridge, driven by a stripling. i saw that the cart and horse were robin brown's, and before i had time to look around, my son had me by the hand. we said little, but rejoiced to see each other again. i observed, however, that his apparel was become old and that his eyes were grown quick and eager like those of the hunted cameronians whom i saw at kingswell. "we hae ta'en robin brown's cart frae him," said he; "that i might come wi't unjealoused into the town, to hear what's to be done wi' the minister; but i maun tak it back the night, and maybe we'll fa' in thegither again when i hae done my errand." with that he parted from me, and giving the horse a touch with his whip, drove it along towards the guard-house, whistling like a blithe country lad that had no care. as soon as he had so left me i went back to mrs aird, and providing myself with what money i had in the house, i went to a shop and bought certain articles of apparel, which having made up into a bundle, i requested, the better to disguise my intent, the merchant to carry it himself to robin brown the ayr carrier's cart, and give it to the lad who was with it, to take to joseph gilhaize,--a thing easy to be done, both the horse and cart being well known in those days to the chief merchants then in glasgow. when i had done this, i went to the bridge, and leaning over it, looked into the peaceful flowing tide, and there waited for nearly an hour before i saw my son returning; and when at last he came, i could perceive, as he was approaching, that he did not wish i should speak to him, while at the same time he edged towards me, and in passing, said as it were to himself, "the bundle's safe, and he's for edinburgh;" by which i knew that the apparel i had bought for him was in his hands, and that he had learnt mr cargill was to be sent to edinburgh. this latter circumstance, however, opened to me a new light with respect to the cameronians, and i guessed that they had friends in the town with whom they were in secret correspondence. but, alas! the espionage was not all on their part, as i very soon was taught to know by experience. though the interviews with joseph my son passed, as i have herein narrated, they had not escaped observance. for some time before, though i was seen but as i was, an invalid man, somewhat unsettled in his mind, there were persons who marvelled wherefore it was that i dwelt in such sequestration with mrs aird; and their marvelling set the espial of the prelacy upon me. and it so fell out that some of those evil persons, who, for hire or malice, had made themselves the beagles of the persecutors, happened to notice the manner in which my son came up to me when he entered the city driving robert brown's cart, and they jealoused somewhat of the truth. they followed him unsuspected, and saw in what manner he mingled with the crowd; and they traced him returning out of the town with seemingly no other cause for having come into it, than to receive the little store of apparel that i had provided for him. this was ground enough to justify any molestation against us, and accordingly the same night i was arrested, and carried next morning to edinburgh. the cruel officers would have forced me to walk with the soldiers, but every one who beheld my pale face and emaciated frame, cried out against it, and a cart was allowed to me. on reaching edinburgh, i was placed in the tolbooth, where many other sufferers for the cause of the gospel were then lying. it was a foul and an unwholesome den: many of the guiltless inmates were so wasted that they were rather like frightful effigies of death than living men. their skins were yellow, and their hands were roped and warpt with veins and sinews in a manner very awful to see. their eyes were vivid with a strange distemperature, and there was a charnel-house anatomy in the melancholy with which they welcomed a new brother in affliction, that made me feel, when i entered among them, as if i had come into the dark abode of spectres, and manes, and dismal shadows. the prison was crowded over-much, and though life was to many not worth the care of preservation, they yet esteemed it as the gift of their maker, and as such considered it their duty to prolong for his sake. it was, therefore, a rule with them to stand in successive bands at the windows, in order that they might taste of the living air from without; and knowing from dismal experience, that those who came in the last suffered at first more than those who were before, it was a charitable self-denial among them to allow to such a longer period of the window, their only solace. thus it was that on the morning of the third day after i had been immured in that doleful place, i was standing with several others behind a party of those who were in possession of the enjoyment, in order that we might take their places when the hour expired; and while we were thus awaiting in patience the tedious elapse of the weary moments, a noise was heard in the streets, as of the approach of a multitude. there was something in the coming sound of that tumult unlike the noise of any other multitude;--ever and anon a feeble shouting, and then the roll of a drum; but the general sough was a murmur of horror followed by a rushing as if the people were scared by some dreadful sight. the noise grew louder and nearer, and hoarse bursts of aversion and anger, mingled with lamentations, were distinctly heard. every one in the prison pressed to the window, wondering what hideous procession could occasion the expression of such contrarious feelings in the populace, and all eager to catch a glimpse of the dismal pageant, expecting that it was some devoted victim, who, according to the practice of the time, was treated as a sentenced criminal, even as he was conveyed to his trial. "what do you see?" said i to one of the prisoners, who clung to the bars of iron with which the window near where i stood was grated, and who thereby saw farther down the street. "i can see but the crowd coming," said he, "and every one is looking as if he grewed at something not yet in sight." at that moment, and while he was speaking, there was a sudden silence in the street. "what has happened?" said one of the sufferers near me: my heart beat so wildly that i would not myself inquire. "they have stopped," was the answer; "but now they come. i see the magistrates. their guard is before them,--the provost is first--they are coming two and two--and they look very sorrowful." "are there but the magistrates?" said i, making an effort to press in closer to the window. "aye, now it is at hand," said the man who was clinging to the grating of the window. "the soldiers are marching on each side--i see the prisoners;--their hands are tied behind, ilk loaded wi' a goad of iron--they are bareheaded--ane--twa--three--four--five--they are five fatherly-looking men." "they are cameronians," said i, somewhat released, i know not wherefore, unless it was because he spoke of no youth being among them. "hush!" said he, "here is another--he is on horseback--i see the horse's head--oh! the sufferer is an old grey-headed minister--his head is uncovered--he is placed with his face to the horse's tail--his hands are tied, and his feet are fastened with a rope beneath the horse's belly.--hush! they are passing under the window." at that moment a shriek of horror rose from all then looking out, and every one recoiled from the window. in the same instant a bloody head on a halbert was held up to us.--i looked--i saw the ghastly features, and i would have kissed those lifeless lips; for, o! they were my son's. chapter lxxxi i had laid that son, my only son, whom i so loved, on the altar of the covenant, an offering unto the lord; but still i did hope that maybe it would be according to the mercy of wisdom that he would provide a lamb in the bush for the sacrifice; and when the stripling had parted from me, i often felt as the mother feels when the milk of love is in her bosom, and her babe no longer there. i shall not, however, here relate how my soul was wounded at yon sight, nor ask the courteous reader to conceive with what agony i exclaimed, "wherefore was it, lord, that i was commanded to do that unfruitful thing!" for in that very moment the cry of my failing faith was rebuked, and the mystery of the required sacrifice was brought into wonderful effect, manifesting that it was for no light purpose i had been so tried. my fellow-sufferer, who hung by the bars of the prison-window, was, like the other witnesses, so shaken by the woful spectacle, that he suddenly jerked himself aside to avoid the sight, and by that action the weight of his body loosened the bar, so that when the pageantry of horrors had passed by, he felt it move in his grip, and he told us that surely providence had an invisible hand in the bloody scene; for, by the loosening of that stancher, a mean was given whereby we might all escape. accordingly it was agreed that as soon as the night closed over the world, we should join our strengths together to bend the bar from its socket in the lintel. and then it was i told them that what they had seen was the last relic of my martyred family; and we made ourselves wroth with the recital of our several wrongs; for all there had endured the scourge of the persecutors; and we took each other by the hand, and swore a dreadful oath, never to desist in our endeavours till we had wrenched the sceptre from the tyrannical grasp of the stuarts, and broken it into pieces for ever; and we burst into a wild strain of complaint and clamour, calling on the blood of our murdered friends to mount, with our cries, to the gates of heaven; and we sang, as it were, with the voices of the angry waters and the winds, the hundred and ninth psalm; and at the end of every verse we joined our hands, crying, "upon charles and james stuart, and all their guilty line, o lord, let it be done;" and a vast multitude gathered around the prison, and the lamentations of many without was a chorus in unison with the dismal song of our vengeance and despair. at last the shadows of the twilight began to darken in the town, and the lights of the windows were to us as the courses of the stars of that sky which, from our prison chamber, could not be seen. we watched their progress, from the earliest yellow glimmering of the lamp in the darksome wynd, till the last little twinkling light in the dwelling of the widow that sits and sighs companionless with her distaff in the summits of the city. and we continued our vigil till they were all one by one extinguished, save only the candles at the bedsides of the dying. then we twined a portion of our clothes into a rope, and, having fastened it to the iron bar, soon drew it from its place in the stone; but just as we were preparing to take it in, by some accident it fell into the street. the panic which this caused prevented us from attempting any thing more at that time; for a sentinel walked his rounds on the outside of the tolbooth, and we could not but think he must have heard the noise. a sullen despair in consequence entered into many of our hearts, and we continued for the remainder of the night silent. but though others were then shaken in their faith, mine was now confident. i saw, by what had happened in the moment of my remonstrance, that there was some great deliverance in reservation; so i sat apart by myself, and i spent the night in inward thanksgiving for what had been already done. nor was this confidence long without its reward. in the morning a brother of one of my fellow-sufferers coming to condole with him, it being generally reported that we were all doomed to die, he happened to see the bar lying on the street, and, taking it up, hid it till he had gone into a shop and provided himself with a cord. he then hastened to us, gave us the cord, and making what speed he could, brought the iron in his plaid; and, we having lowered the string from the window, he fastened the bar to it, and we drew it up undiscovered, and reset it in its place, by which the defect could not be seen by any one, not even from the street. that morning, by the providence which was visible in this, became, in our prison, a season indeed of light and gratulation; and the day passed with us as a sabbath to our spirits. the anvils of fear were hushed, and the shuttles in the looms of anxiety were at rest, while hope again walked abroad in those sunny fields where, amidst vernal blossoms and shining dews, she expatiates on the delights of the flowing cluster and the ripened fruit. the young man, who had been so guided to find the bar of iron, concerted with another friend of his to be in readiness at night on a signal from us, to master the sentinel. and at the time appointed they did so; and it happened that the soldier was the same humane englisher, jack windsor, who had allowed me to escape at kilmarnock, and he not only remained silent, but even when relieved from his post, said nothing; so that, to the number of more than twenty, we lowered ourselves into the street and escaped. but the city gates at that hour being shut, there was no egress from the town, and many of us knew not where to hide ourselves till the morning. such was my condition; and wandering up and down for some time, at last i turned into the blackfriars-wynd, where i saw a light in a window: on looking around i beheld, by that light, engraven on the lintel of an opposite door, "in the lord is my hope." heartened by the singular providence that was so manifest in that cheering text, i went to the door and knocked, and a maiden answered to the knocking. i told her what i was, and whence i had come, and entreated her to have compassion, and shelter me for the night. "alas!" said she, "what can hae sent you here, for this is a bishop's house?" i was astounded to hear that i had been so led into the lion's den; but i saw pity in the countenance of the damsel, and i told her that i was the father of the poor youth whose head had been carried by the executioner through the town the day before, and that i could not but believe providence had sent me thither; for surely no one would ever think of searching for me in a bishop's house. greatly moved by what i said, she bade me softly follow her, and she led me to a solitary and ruinous chamber. she then retired, but presently returned with some refreshment, which having placed on an old chest, she bade god be with me, and went away. with a spirit of inexpressible admiration and thanksgiving i partook of that repast, and then laying myself down on the bare floor, was blessed with the enjoyment of a downy sleep. chapter lxxxii i slept in that ruinous room in the bishop's house till far in the morning, when, on going to the window with the intent of dropping myself into the wynd, i saw that it was ordained and required of me to remain where i then was; for the inmates of the houses forenent were all astir at their respective vocations; and at the foot of the wynd, looking straight up, was a change-house, into which there was, even at that early hour, a great resorting of bein elderly citizens for their dram and snap. moreover, at the head of the wynd, an aged carlin, with a distaff in her arms and a whorl in her hand, sat on a doorstep tending a stand of apples and comfits; so that, to a surety, had i made any attempt to escape by the window, i must have been seen by some one, and laid hold of. i therefore retired back into the obscurity of the chamber, and sat down again on the old kist-lid, to abide the issues that were in reservation for me. i had not, however, been long there, till i heard the voices of persons entering into the next chamber behind where i was sitting, and i soon discerned by their courtesies of speech, that they were lords of the privy council, who had come to walk with the bishop to the palace, where a council was summoned in sudden haste that morning. the matter whereof they discoursed was not at first easily made out, for they were conversing on it when they entered; but i very soon gathered that it boded no good to the covenanted cause nor to the liberties of scotland. "what you remark, aberdeen," said one, "is very just; man and wife are the same person; and although queensberry has observed, that the revenue requires the penalties, and that husbands ought to pay for their wives, i look not on the question in that light; for it is not right, in my opinion, that the revenues of the crown should be in any degree dependent on fines and forfeitures. but the presbyterians are a sect whose main principle is rebellion, and it would be happy for the kingdom were the whole race rooted out; indeed i am quite of the duke of york's opinion, that there will be little peace among us till the lowlands are made a hunting-field, and therefore am i as earnest as queensberry that the fines should be enforced." "certainly, my lord perth," replied aberdeen, "it is not to be denied, that, what with their covenants, and solemn leagues, and gospel pretensions, the presbyterians are dangerous and bad subjects; and though i shall not go so far as to say, with the duke, that the lowlands should be laid waste, i doubt if there be a loyal subject west the castle of edinburgh. still the office which i have the honour to hold does not allow me to put any interpretation on the law different from the terms in which the sense is conceived." "then," said perth, "if there is any doubt about the terms, the law must be altered; for, unless we can effectually crush the presbyterians, the duke will assuredly have a rough accession. and it is better to strangle the lion in his nonage than to encounter him in his full growth." "i fear, my lord," replied the earl of aberdeen, "that the presbyterians are stronger already than we are willing to let ourselves believe. the attempt to make them accept the episcopalian establishment has now been made, without intermission, for more than twenty years, and they are even less submissive than they were at the beginning." "yes, i confess," said lord perth, "that they are most unreasonably stubborn. it is truly melancholy to see what fools many sensible men make of themselves about the forms of worship, especially about those of a religion so ungentlemanly as the presbyterian, which has no respect for the degrees of rank, neither out nor in the church." "i'm afraid, perth," replied aberdeen, laughing, "that what you say is applicable both to the king and his brother; for, between ourselves, i do not think there are two persons in the realm who attach so much importance to forms as they do." "not the king, my lord, not the king!" cried perth; "charles is too much a man of the world to trouble himself about any such trifles." "they are surely not trifles, for they overturned his father's throne, and are shaking his own," replied aberdeen, emphatically. "pray, have you heard any thing of argyle lately?" "o yes," exclaimed perth, merrily; "a capital story. he has got in with a rich burgomaster's frow at amsterdam; and she has guilders anew to indemnify him for the loss of half the highlands." "aye," replied aberdeen, "i do not like that; for there has been of late a flocking of the presbyterian malcontents to holland, and the prince of orange gives them a better reception than an honest man should do, standing as he does, both with respect to the crown and the duke. this, take my word for it, perth, is not a thing to be laughed at." "all that, aberdeen, only shows the necessity of exterminating these cursed presbyterians. we shall have no peace in scotland till they are swept clean away. it is not to be endured that a king shall not rule his own kingdom as he pleases. how would argyle, and there was no man prouder in his jurisdictions, have liked had his tenants covenanted against him as the presbyterians have so insultingly done against his majesty's government? let every man bring the question home to his own business and bosom and the answer will be a short one, _down with the presbyterians!_" while they were thus speaking, and i need not advert to what passed in my breast as i overheard them, patterson the bishop of edinburgh came in; and with many interjections, mingled with wishes for a calm procedure, he told the lords of our escape. he was indeed, to do him justice, a man of some repute for plausibility, and take him all in all for a prelate, he was, in truth, not void of the charities of human nature, compared with others of his sect. "your news," said the lord perth to him, "does not surprise me. the societies, as the cameronians are called, have inserted their roots and feelers every where. rely upon't, bishop patterson, that, unless we chop off the whole connexions of the conspiracy, you can hope neither for homage nor reverence in your appointments." "i could wish," replied the bishop, "that some experiment were made of a gentler course than has hitherto been tried. it is now a long time since force was first employed: perhaps, were his royal highness to slacken the severities, conformity would lose some of its terrors in the eyes of the misguided presbyterians; at all events, a more lenient policy could do no harm; and if it did no good, it would at least be free from those imputed cruelties, which are supposed to justify the long-continued resistance that has brought the royal authority into such difficulties." at this juncture of their conversation a gentleman announced, that his master was ready to proceed with them to the palace, and they forthwith retired. thus did i obtain a glimpse of the inner mind of the privy council, by which i clearly saw, that what with those members who satisfied their consciences as to iniquity, because it was made seemingly lawful by human statutes, and what with those who, like lord perth, considered the kingdom the king's estate, and the people his tenantry, not the subjects of laws by which he was bound as much as they; together with those others who, like the bishop, considered mercy and justice as expedients of state policy, that there was no hope for the peace and religious liberties of the presbyterians, merely by resistance; and i, from that time, began to think it was only through the instrumentality of the prince of orange, then heir-presumptive to the crown, failing james stuart, duke of york, that my vow could be effectually brought to pass. chapter lxxxiii as soon as those of the privy council had, with their attendants, left the house, and proceeded to join the duke of york in the palace, the charitable damsel came to me, and conveyed me, undiscovered, through the hall and into the cowgate, where she had provided a man, a friend of her own, one charles brownlee, who had been himself in the hands of the philistines, to conduct me out of the town; and by him i was guided in safety through the cowgate, and put into a house just without the same, where his mother resided. "here," said he, "it will be as well for you to bide out the daylight, and being now forth the town-wall, ye'll can gang where ye like unquestioned in the gloaming." and so saying he went away, leaving me with his mother, an ancient matron, with something of the remnant of ladyness about her, yet was she not altogether an entire gentlewoman, though at the first glimpse she had the look of one of the very highest degree. notwithstanding, however, that apparition of finery which was about her, she was in truth and in heart a sincere woman, and had, in the better days of her younger years, been, as she rehearsed to me, gentlewoman to the countess of argyle's mother, and was on a footing of cordiality with divers ladies of the bedchamber of what she called the three nobilities, meaning those of scotland, england, and ireland; so that i saw there might by her be opened a mean of espial into the camp of the adversaries. so i told her of my long severe malady, and the shock i had suffered by what i had seen of my martyred son, and entreated that she would allow me to abide with her until my spirits were more composed. mrs brownlee having the compassion of a christian, and the tenderness of her gentle sex, was moved by my story, and very readily consented. instead therefore of going forth at random in the evening, as i was at one time mindet, i remained in her house; where indeed could i at that time flee in the hope of finding any place of refuge? but although this was adopted on the considerations of human reason, it was nevertheless a link in the chain of providential methods by which i was to achieve the fulfilment of my vow. the house of mrs brownlee being, as i have intimated, nigh to the gate of the city, i saw from the window all that went into and came out therefrom; and the same afternoon i had visible evidence of the temper wherewith the duke of york and his counsellors had been actuated that day at holyrood, in consequence of the manner in which we had been delivered from prison;--for jack windsor, the poor sentinel who was on guard when we escaped by the window, was brought out, supported by two of his companions, his feet having been so crushed in the torturous boots before the council, during his examination anent us, that he could scarcely mark them to the ground; his hands were also bound in cloths, through which the blood was still oozing, from the pressure of those dreadful thumbikins of iron, that were so often used in those days to screw accusations out of honest men. a sympathizing crowd followed the destroyed sufferer, and the sight for a little while afflicted me with sore regret. but when i considered the compassion that the people showed for him, i was filled with a strange satisfaction, deducing therefrom encouraging persuasions, that every new sin of the persecutors removed a prop from their own power, making its overthrow more and more inevitable. while i was peering from the window in these reflections, i saw quintin fullarton, the grandson of john fullarton of dykedivots, in the street, and knowing that from the time of bothwell-brigg he had been joined with that zealous and martyred youth, richard cameron, and was, as robin brown told me, among other acquaintances at airsmoss, i entreated mrs brownlee to go after him and bid him come to me,--which he readily did, and we had a mournful communing for some time. he told me the particulars of my gallant joseph's death, and that it was by the command of claverhouse himself that the brave stripling's head was cut off and sent in ignominy to edinburgh; where, by order of the privy council, it was placed on the netherbow. "what i hae suffered from that man," said i, "heaven may pardon, but i can neither forget nor forgive." "the judgment time's coming," replied quintin fullarton; "and your part in it, ringan gilhaize, assuredly will not be forgotten, for in the heavens there is a doer of justice and an avenger of wrongs." and then he proceeded to tell me, that on the following afternoon there was to be a meeting of the heads of the cameronian societies, with mr renwick, in a dell of the esk, about half a mile above laswade, to consult what ought to be done, the pursuit and persecution being so hot against them, that life was become a burden, and their minds desperate. "we hae many friens," said he, "in edinburgh, and i am entrusted to warn them to the meeting, which is the end of my coming to the town; and maybe, ringan gilhaize, ye'll no objek yoursel to be there?" "i will be there, quintin fullarton," said i; "and in the strength of the lord i will come armed, with a weapon of more might than the sword and more terrible than the ball that flieth unseen." "what mean you, ringan?" said he, compassionately; for he knew of my infirmity, and thought that i was still fevered in the mind. but i told him, that for some time, feeling myself unable for warlike enterprises, i had meditated on a way to perplex our guilty adversaries, the which was to menace them with retaliation, for resistance alone was no longer enough. "we have disowned charles stuart as our king," said i, "and we must wage war accordingly. but go your ways and execute your purposes; and by the time you return this way i shall have a paper ready, the sending forth of which will strike terror into the brazen hearts of our foes." i perceived that he was still dubious of me; but nevertheless he promised to call as he came back; and, having gone away, i set myself down and drew up that declaration, wherein, after again calmly disowning the royal authority of charles stuart, we admonished our sanguinary persecutors, that, for self-preservation, we would retaliate according to our power, and the degree of guilt on such privy counsellors, lords of justiciary, officers and soldiers, their abettors and informers, whose hands should continue to be imbrued in our blood. and on the return of quintin fullarton, i gave the paper to him, that it might be seen and considered by mr renwick and others, previous to offering it to the consideration of the meeting. he read it over very sedately, and folded it up and put it in the crown of his bonnet without saying a word; but several times, while he was reading, he cast his eyes towards me, and when he rose to go away he said, "ringan gilhaize, you have endured much; but verily, if this thing can be brought to pass, your own and all our sufferings will soon be richly revenged." "not revenged," said i; "revenge, quintin fullarton, becomes not christian men. but we shall be the executioners of the just judgments of him whose ministers are flaming fires, and pestilence, and war, and storms, and perjured kings." with these words we parted; and next morning, by break of day, i rose, after the enjoyment of a solacing sleep, such as i had not known for many days, and searched my way across the fields towards laswade. i did not, however, enter the clachan, but lingered among the woods till the afternoon, when, descending towards the river, i walked leisurely up the banks, where i soon fell in with others of the associated friends. chapter lxxxiv the place where we met was a deep glen, the scroggy sides whereof were as if rocks, and trees and brambles, with here and there a yellow primrose and a blue hyacinth between, had been thrown by some wild architect into many a difficult and fantastical form. over a ledge of rock fell the bright waters of the esk, and in the clear linn the trouts shuttled from stone and crevice, dreading the persecutions of the angler, who, in the luxury of his pastime, heedeth not what they may in their cool element suffer. it was then the skirt of the afternoon, about the time when the sweet breathing of flowers and boughs first begins to freshen to the gentle senses, and the shadows deepen in the cliffs of the rocks and darken among the bushes. the yellow sunbeams were still bright on the flickering leaves of a few trees, which here and there raised their tufty heads above the glen; but in the hollow of the chasm the evening had commenced, and the sobriety of the fragrant twilight was coming on. as we assembled one by one, we said little to each other. some indeed said nothing, nor even shook hands, but went and seated themselves on the rocks, round which the limpid waters were swirling with a soft and pleasant din, as if they solicited tranquillity. for myself, i had come with the sternest intents, and i neither noticed nor spoke to any one; but going to the brink of the linn, i sat myself down in a gloomy nook, and was sullen, that the scene was not better troubled into unison with the resentful mood of my spirit. at last mr renwick came, and when he had descended into the dell, where we were gathered together, after speaking a few words of courtesy to certain of his acquaintance, he went to a place on the shelvy side of the glen, and took his station between two birch-trees. "i will be short with you, friends," said he; "for here we are too nigh unto the adversaries to hazard ourselves in any long debate; and therefore i will tell you, as a man speaking the honesty that is within him, i neither can nor do approve of the paper that i understand some among you desire we should send forth. i have, however, according to what was exhibited to me in private, brought here a proclamation, such as those who are most vehement among us wish to propound; but i still leave it with yourselves to determine whether or not it should be adopted--entering, as i here do, my caveat as an individual against it. this paper will cut off all hope of reconciliation--we have already disowned king charles, it is true; but this implies, that we are also resolved to avenge, even unto blood and death, whatsoever injury we may in our own persons and friends be subjected to suffer. it pledges us to a war of revenge and extermination; and we have to consider, before we wage the same, the strength of our adversary--the craft of his counsellors--and the malice with which their fears and their hatred will inspire them. for my own part, fellow-sufferers, i do doubt if there be any warrandice in the scriptures for such a defiance as this paper contains, and i would fain entreat you to reflect, whether it be not better to keep the door of reconciliation open, than to shut it for ever, as the promulgation of this retaliatory edict will assuredly do." the earnest manner in which mr renwick thus delivered himself had a powerful effect, and many thought as he did, and several rose and said that it was not christian to bar the door on peace, and to shut out even the chance of contrition on the part of the king and his ministers. i heard what they said--i listened to what they argued--and i allowed them to tell that they were willing to agree to more moderate counsels; but i could abide no more. "moderation!--you, mr renwick," said i, "counsel moderation--you recommend the door of peace to be still kept open--you doubt if the scriptures warrant us to undertake revenge; and you hope that our forbearance may work to repentance among our enemies. mr renwick, you have hitherto been a preacher, not a sufferer; with you the resistance to charles stuart's government has been a thing of doctrine--of no more than doctrine, mr renwick--with us it is a consideration of facts. judge ye therefore between yourself and us,--i say between yourself and us; for i ask no other judge to decide, whether we are not, by all the laws of god and man, justified in avowing, that we mean to do as we are done by. "and, mr renwick, you will call to mind, that in this sore controversy, the cause of debate came not from us. we were peaceable christians, enjoying the shade of the vine and fig-tree of the gospel, planted by the care and cherished by the blood of our forefathers, protected by the laws, and gladdened in our protection by the oaths and the covenants which the king had sworn to maintain. the presbyterian freedom of worship was our property,--we were in possession and enjoyment, no man could call our right to it in question,--the king had vowed, as a condition before he was allowed to receive the crown, that he would preserve it. yet, for more than twenty years, there has been a most cruel, fraudulent, and outrageous endeavour instituted, and carried on, to deprive us of that freedom and birthright. we were asking no new thing from government, we were taking no step to disturb government, we were in peace with all men, when government, with the principles of a robber and the cruelty of a tyrant, demanded of us to surrender those immunities of conscience which our fathers had earned and defended; to deny the gospel as it is written in the evangelists, and to accept the commentary of charles stuart, a man who has had no respect to the most solemn oaths, and of james sharp, the apostate of st andrews, whose crimes provoked a deed, that but for their crimson hue, no man could have doubted to call a most foul murder. the king and his crew, mr renwick, are, to the indubitable judgment of all just men, the causers and the aggressors in the existing difference between his subjects and him. in so far, therefore, if blame there be, it lieth not with us nor in our cause. "but, sir, not content with attempting to wrest from us our inherited freedom of religious worship, charles stuart and his abettors have pursued the courageous constancy with which we have defended the same, with more animosity than they ever did any crime. i speak not to you, mr renwick, of your own outcast condition,--perhaps you delight in the perils of martyrdom; i speak not to those around us, who, in their persons, their substance, and their families, have endured the torture, poverty, and irremediable dishonour,--they may be meek and hallowed men, willing to endure. but i call to mind what i am and was myself. i think of my quiet home,--it is all ashes. i remember my brave first-born,--he was slain at bothwell-brigg. why need i speak of my honest brother; the waves of the ocean, commissioned by our persecutors, have triumphed over him in the cold seas of the orkneys; and as for my wife, what was she to you? ye cannot be greatly disturbed that she is in her grave. no, ye are quiet, calm, and prudent persons; it would be a most indiscreet thing of you, you who have suffered no wrong yourselves, to stir on her account; and then how unreasonable i should be, were i to speak of two fair and innocent maidens.--it is weak of me to weep, though they were my daughters. o men and christians, brothers, fathers! but ye are content to bear with such wrongs, and i alone of all here may go to the gates of the cities, and try to discover which of the martyred heads mouldering there belongs to a son or a friend. nor is it of any account whether the bones of those who were so dear to us, be exposed with the remains of malefactors, or laid in the sacred grave. to the dead all places are alike; and to the slave what signifies who is master. let us therefore forget the past,--let us keep open the door of reconciliation,--smother all the wrongs we have endured, and kiss the proud foot of the trampler. we have our lives; we have been spared; the merciless blood-hounds have not yet reached us. let us therefore be humble and thankful, and cry to charles stuart, o king live for ever!--for he has but cast us into a fiery furnace and a lion's den. "in truth, friends, mr renwick is quite right. this feeling of indignation against our oppressors is a most imprudent thing. if we desire to enjoy our own contempt, and to deserve the derision of men, and to merit the abhorrence of heaven, let us yield ourselves to all that charles stuart and his sect require. we can do nothing better, nothing so meritorious, nothing by which we can so reasonably hope for punishment here and condemnation hereafter. but if there is one man at this meeting,--i am speaking not of shapes and forms, but of feelings,--if there is one here that feels as men were wont to feel, he will draw his sword, and say with me, woe to the house of stuart! woe to the oppressors! blood for blood! judge and avenge our cause, o lord!" chapter lxxxv the meeting, with one accord, agreed that the declaration should go forth; and certain of those who were ready writers, being provided with implements, retired apart to make copies, while mr renwick, with the remainder, joined together in prayer. by the time he had made an end, the task of the writers was finished, and then lots were cast to see whom the lord would appoint to affix the declaration on the trones and kirk doors of the towns where the rage of the persecutors burnt the fiercest, and he being pleased to choose me for one to do the duty at edinburgh, i returned in the gloaming back to the house of mrs brownlee, to abide the convenient season which i knew in the fit time would be prepared. nor was it long till the same was brought to pass, as i shall now briefly proceed to set down. heron brownlee, who, as i have narrated, brought me to his mother's house, was by trade a tailor, and kept his cloth shop in the canongate, some six doors lower down than st mary's wynd, just after passing the flesher's stocks below the netherbow; for in those days, when the court was at holyrood, that part of the town was a place of great resort to the gallants, and all such as affected a courtly carriage. and it happened that, on the morning after the meeting, a proclamation was sent forth, describing the persons and clothing of the prisoners who had escaped from the tolbooth with me, threatening grievous penalties to all who dared to harbour them. this heron brownlee seeing affixed on the cheek of the netherbow, came and told me; whereupon, after conferring with him, it was agreed that he should provide for me a suit of town-like clothes, and at the second-hand, that they might not cause observance by any novelty. this was in another respect needful; for my health being in a frail state, i stood in want of the halesome cordial of fresh air, whereof i could not venture to taste but in the dusk of the evening. he accordingly provided the apparel, and when clothed therewith, i made bold to go out in the broad daylight, and even ventured to mingle with the multitude in the garden of the palace, who went daily there in the afternoon to see the nobles and ladies of the court walking with their pageantries, while the duke's musicants solaced them with melodious airs and the delights of sonorous harmony. and it happened on the third time i went thither, that a cry rose of the duke coming from the garden to the palace, and all the onlookers pressed to see him. as he advanced, i saw several persons presenting petitions into his hands, which he gave, without then looking at, to the lord perth, whom i knew again by his voice; and i was directed, as by a thought of inspiration, to present, in like manner, a copy of our declaration, which i always carried about with me; so placing myself among a crowd of petitioners, onlookers and servants, that formed an avenue across the road leading from the canongate to the abbey kirk-yard, and between the garden yett and the yett that opened into the front court of the palace. as the duke returned out of the garden, i gave him the paper; but instead of handing it to the lord perth, as i had hoped he would do, he held it in his own hand, by which i perceived that if he had noticed by whom it was presented, and looked at it before he went into the palace, i would speedily be seized on the spot, unless i could accomplish my escape. but how to effect that was no easy thing; for the multitude around was very great, and but three narrow yetts allowed of egress from the enclosure--one leading into the garden, one to the palace, and the other into the canongate. i therefore calmly put my trust in him who alone could save me, and remained, as it were, an indifferent spectator, following the duke with an anxious eye. having passed from the garden into the court, the multitude followed him with great eagerness, and i also went in with them, and walked very deliberately across the front of the palace to the south-east corner, where there was a postern door that opened into the road leading to the king's park from the cowgate-port, along the outside of the town wall. i then mended my pace, but not to any remarkable degree, and so returned to the house of mrs brownlee. scarcely was i well in, when heron, her son, came flying to her with a report that a man was seized in the palace garden who had threatened the duke's life, and he was fearful lest it had been me; and i was much grieved by these tidings, in case any honest man should be put to the torture on my account; but the lord had mercifully ordained it otherwise. in the course of the night heron brownlee, after closing his shop, came again and told me that no one had been taken, but that some person in the multitude had given the duke a dreadful paper, which had caused great consternation and panic; and that a council was sitting at that late hour with the duke, expresses having arrived with accounts of the same paper having been seen on the doors of many churches, both in nithsdale and the shire of ayr. the alarm, indeed, raged to such a degree among all those who knew in their consciences how they merited the doom we had pronounced, that it was said the very looks of many were withered as with a pestilent vapour. yet, though terrified at the vengeance declared against their guilt, neither the duke nor the privy council were to be deterred from their malignant work. the curse of infatuation was upon them, and instead of changing the rule which had caused the desperation that they dreaded, they heated the furnace of persecution sevenfold; and voted, that whosoever owned or refused to disown the declaration should be put to death in the presence of two witnesses, though unarmed when taken; and the soldiers were not only ordered to enforce the test, but were instructed to put such as adhered to the declaration at once to the sword, and to slay those who refused to disown it; and women were ordered to be drowned. but my pen sickens with the recital of horrors, and i shall pass by the dreadful things that ensued, with only remarking that these bloody instructions consummated the doom of the stuarts; for scarcely were they well published when the duke hastened to london, and soon after his man-sworn brother, charles, the great author of all our woes, was cut off by poison, as it was most currently believed, and the duke proclaimed king in his stead. what change we obtained by the calamity of his accession will not require many sentences to unfold. chapter lxxxvi as soon as it was known abroad that charles the second was dead, the covenanters who had taken refuge in holland from the persecution assembled to consult what ought then to be done; for the papist james stuart, on the death of his brother, had caused himself to be proclaimed king of scotland, without taking those oaths by which alone he could be entitled to assume the scottish crown. at the head of this congregation was the earl of argyle, who, some years before, had incurred the aversion of the tyrant to such a degree that, by certain of those fit tools for any crime, then in dismal abundance about the court of holyrood, he had procured his condemnation as a traitor, and would have brought him to the scaffold, had the earl not fortunately effected his escape. and it was resolved by that congregation that the principal personages then present should form themselves into a council, to concert the requisite measures for the deliverance of their native land; the immediate issue of which was, that a descent should be made by argyle among his vassals, in order to draw together a sufficient host to enable them to wage war against the usurper, for so they lawfully and rightly denominated james stuart. the first hint that i gleaned of this design was through the means of mrs brownlee. she was invited one afternoon by the gentlewoman of the lady sophia lindsay, the earl's daughter-in-law, to view certain articles of female bravery which had been sent from holland by his lordship to her mistress; and, as her custom was, she, on her return home, descanted at large of all that she had seen and heard. the receipt, at that juncture, of such gear from the earl of argyle, by such a judith of courage and wisdom as the lady sophia lindsay, seemed to me very remarkable, and i could not but jealouse that there was some thing about it like the occultation of a graver correspondence. i therefore began to question mrs brownlee how the paraphernalia had come, and what the earl, according to the last accounts, was doing; which led her to expatiate on many things, though vague and desultory, that were yet in concordance with what i had overheard the lord perth say to the earl of aberdeen in the bishop's house. in the end, i gathered that the presents were brought over by the skipper of a sloop, one roderick macfarlane, whom i forthwith determined to see, in order to pick from him what intelligence i could, without being at the time well aware in what manner the same would prove useful; i felt myself, however, stirred from within to do so; and i had hitherto, in all that concerned my avenging vow, obeyed every instinctive impulse. accordingly, next morning i went early to the shore of leith, and soon found the vessel and roderick macfarlane, to whom i addressed myself, inquiring, as if i intended to go thither, when he was likely to depart again for amsterdam. while i was speaking to him, i observed something in his mien above his condition; and that his hands were fair and delicate, unlike those of men inured to maritime labour. he perceived that i was particular in my inspection, and his countenance became troubled, and he looked as if he wist not what to do. "fear no ill," said i to him; "i am one in the jaws of jeopardy; in sooth i have no intent to pass into holland, but only to learn whether there be any hope that the earl of argyle and those with him will try to help their covenanted brethren at home." on hearing me speak so openly the countenance of the man brightened, and after eyeing me with a sharp scrutiny, he invited me to come down into the body of the bark, where we had some frank communion, his confidence being won by the plain tale of who i was and what i had endured. the lord indeed was pleased, throughout that period of fears and tribulation, marvellously to endow the persecuted with a singular and sympathetic instinct, whereby they were enabled at once to discern their friends; for the dangers and difficulties, to which we were subject in our intercourse, afforded no time for those testimonies and experiences that in ordinary occasions are required to open the hearts of men to one another. after some general discourse, roderick macfarlane told me, that his vessel, though seemingly only for traffic, had been hired by a certain madam smith, in amsterdam, and was manned by highlanders of a degree above the common, for the purpose of opening a correspondence between argyle and his friends in scotland. whereupon i proffered myself to assist in establishing a communication with the heads and leaders of the covenanters in the west country, and particularly with mr renwick and his associates, the cameronians, who, though grievously scattered and hunted, were yet able to do great things in the way of conveying letters, or of intercepting the emissaries and agents of the privy council that might be employed to contravene the earl's projects. thus it was that i came to be concerned in argyle's unfortunate expedition--if that can be called unfortunate, which, though in itself a failure, yet ministered to make the scattered children of the covenant again co-operate for the achievement of their common freedom. doubtless the expedition was undertaken before the persecuted were sufficiently ripened to be of any effective service. the earl counted overmuch on the spirit which the persecution had raised; he thought that the weight of the tyranny had compressed us all into one body. but, alas! it had been so great, that it had not only bruised, but broken us asunder into many pieces; and time, and care, and much persuasion, were all requisite to solder the fragments together. as the spring advanced, being, in the manner related, engaged in furthering the purposes of the exiled covenanters, i prepared, through the instrumentality of divers friends, many in the west country to be in readiness to join the earl's standard of deliverance. it is not however to be disguised, that the work went on but slowly, and that the people heard of the intended descent with something like an actionless wonderment, in consequence of those by whom it had been planned not sending forth any declaration of their views and intents. and this indisposition, especially among the cameronians, became a settled reluctance, when, after the earl had reached campbelton, he published that purposeless proclamation, wherein, though the wrongs and woes of the kingdom were pithily recited, the nature of the redress proposed was in no manner manifest. it was plain indeed, by many signs, that the lord's time was not yet come for the work to thrive. the divisions in argyle's councils were greater even than those among the different orders into which the covenanters had been long split--the very cameronians might have been sooner persuaded to refrain from insisting on points of doctrine and opinion, at least till the adversary was overthrown, than those who were with the ill-fated earl to act with union among themselves. in a word, all about the expedition was confusion and perplexity, and the omens and auguries of ruin showed how much it wanted the favour that is better than the strength of numbers, or the wisdom of mighty men. but to proceed. chapter lxxxvii sir john cochrane, one of those who were with argyle, had, by some espial of his own, a correspondence with divers of the covenanters in the shire of ayr; and he was so heartened by their representations of the spirit among them, that he urged, and overcame the earl, to let him make a trial on that coast before waiting till the highlanders were roused. accordingly, with the three ships and the men they had brought from holland, he went toward largs, famed in old time for a great battle fought there; but, on arriving opposite to the shore, he found it guarded by the powers and forces of the government, in so much, that he was fain to direct his course farther up the river; and weighing anchor sailed for greenock. it happened at this juncture, after conferring with several of weight among the cameronians, that i went to greenock for the purpose of taking shipping for any place where i was likely to find argyle, in order to represent to him, that, unless there was a clear account of what he and others with him proposed to do, he could expect no cooperation from the societies; and i reached the town just as the three ships were coming in sight. i had not well alighted from my horse at dugal m'vicar the smith's public,--the best house it is in the town, and slated. it stands beside an oak-tree on the open shore, below the mansion-house-brae, above the place where the mariners boil their tar-pots. as i was saying, i had not well alighted there, when a squadron of certain time-serving and prelatic-inclined inheritors of the shire of renfrew, under the command of houston of that ilk, came galloping to the town as if they would have devoured argyle, host, and ships and all; and they rode straight to the minister's glebe, where, behind the kirk-yard dyke, they set themselves in battle array with drawn swords, the vessels having in the meanwhile come to anchor fornent the kirk. like the men of the town i went to be an onlooker, at a distance, of what might ensue; and a sore heart it was to me, to see and to hear that the greenock folk stood so much in dread of their superior, sir john shaw, that they durst not, for fear of his black-hole, venture to say that day whether they were papists, prelates, or presbyterians, he himself not being in the way to direct them. shortly after the ships had cast anchor, major fullarton, with a party of some ten or twelve men, landed at the burn-foot, near the kirk, and having shown a signal for parley, houston and his men went to him, and began to chafe and chide him for invading the country. "we are no invaders," said the major, "we have come to our native land to preserve the protestant religion; and i am grieved that such brave gentlemen, as ye appear to be, should be seen in the cause of a papist tyrant and usurper." "ye lee," cried houston, and fired his pistol at the major, the like did his men; but they were so well and quickly answered in the same language, that they soon were obligated to flee like drift to the brow of a hill, called kilblain-brae, where they again showed face. those on board the ships seeing what was thus doing on the land, pointed their great guns to the airt where the cavaliers had rallied, and fired them with such effect, that the stoure and stones brattled about the lugs of the heritors, which so terrified them all that they scampered off; and, it is said, some drew not bridle till they were in paisley with whole skins, though at some cost of leather. when these tyrant tools were thus discomfited, sir john cochrane came on shore, and tried in vain to prevail on the inhabitants to join in defence of religion and liberty. so he sent for the baron-bailie, who was the ruling power of the town in the absence of their great sir john, and ordered him to provide forthwith two hundred bolls of meal for the ships. but the bailie, a shrewd and gausie man, made so many difficulties in the gathering of the meal, to waste time till help would come, that the knight was glad to content himself with little more than a fifth part of his demand. meanwhile i had made my errand known to sir john cochrane, and when he went off with the meal-sacks to the ships i went with him, and we sailed the same night to the castle of allengreg, where argyle himself then was. whatever doubts and fears i had of the success of the expedition, were all wofully confirmed, when i saw how things were about that unfortunate nobleman. the controversies in our councils at the pentland raid were more than renewed among those who were around argyle; and it was plain to me that the sense of ruin was upon his spirit; for, after i had told him the purport of my mission, he said to me in a mournful manner,-- "i can discern no party in this country that desire to be relieved; there are some hidden ones, no doubt, but only my poor friends here in argyle seem willing to be free. god hath so ordered it, and it must be for the best. i submit myself to his will." i felt the truth of what he said, that the tyranny had indeed bred distrust among us, and that the patience of men was so worn out that very many were inclined to submit from mere weariness of spirit;--but i added, to hearten him, if one of my condition may say so proud a thing of so great a person, that were the distinct ends of his intents made more clearly manifest, maybe the dispersed hearts of the covenanters would yet be knit together. "some think, my lord, ye're for the duke of monmouth to be king, but that will ne'er do,--the rightful heirs canna be set aside. james stuart may be, and should be put down; but, according to the customs registered, as i hae read in the ancient chronicles of this realm, when our nation in olden times cut off a king for his misdeeds, the next lawful heir was aye raised to the throne." to this the earl made no answer, but continued some time thoughtful, and then said,-- "it rests not all with me,--those who are with me, as you may well note, take over much upon them, and will not be controlled. they are like the waves, raised and driven wheresoever any blast of rumour wiseth them to go. i gave a letter of trust to one of their emissaries, and, like the raven, he has never returned. if, however, i could get to inverary, i doubt not yet that something might be done; for i should then be in the midst of some that would reverence argyle." but why need i dwell on these melancholious incidents? next day the earl resolved to make the attempt to reach inverary, and i went with him; but after the castle of arkinglass, in the way thither, had been taken, he was obligated, by the appearance of two english frigates which had been sent in pursuit of the expedition, to return to allengreg; for the main stores and ammunition brought from holland were lodged in that castle; the ships also were lying there; all which, in a manner, were at stake, and no garrison adequate to defend the same from so great a power. on returning to allengreg, argyle saw it would be a golden achievement if, in that juncture, he could master the frigates; so he ordered his force, which amounted to about a thousand men, to man the ships and four prizes which he had, together with about thirty cowan boats belonging to his vassals, and to attack the frigates. but in this also he was disappointed, for those who were with him, and wedded to the purpose of going to the lowlands, mutinied against the scheme, as too hazardous, and obliged him to give up the attempt, and to leave the castle with a weak and incapable garrison. accordingly, reluctant, but yielding to these blind counsels, after quitting allengreg, we marched for the lowlands, and at the head of the gareloch, where we halted, the garrison which had been left at allengreg joined us with the disastrous intelligence that, finding themselves unable to withstand the frigates, they had abandoned all. i was near to argyle when the news of this was brought to him, and i observed that he said nothing; but his cheek faded, and he hastily wrung his hands. having crossed the river leven a short way above dumbarton, without suffering any material molestation, we halted for the night; but as we were setting our watches a party of the government force appeared, so that, instead of getting any rest after our heavy march, we were obligated to think of again moving. the earl would fain have fought with that force, his numbers being superior, but he was again overruled; so that all we could do was, during the night, leaving our camp-fires burning for a delusion, to make what haste we could toward glasgow. in this the uncountenanced fortunes of the expedition were again seen. our guides in the dark misled us; so that, instead of being taken to glasgow, we were, after grievous traversing in the moors, landed on the banks of the clyde near kilpatrick, where the whole force broke up, sir john cochrane, being fey for the west country, persuading many to go with him over the water, in order to make for the shire of ayr. the earl, seeing himself thus deserted, and but few besides those of his own kin left with him, rode about a mile on towards glasgow, with the intent of taking some rest in the house of one who had been his servant; but on reaching the door it was shut in his face and barred, and admission peremptorily refused. he said nothing, but turned round to us with a smile of such resigned sadness that it brought tears into every eye. seeing that his fate was come to such extremity, i proposed to exchange clothes with him, that he might the better escape, and to conduct him to the west country, where, if any chance were yet left, it was to be found there, as sir john cochrane had represented. whereupon he sent his kinsmen to make the best of their way back to the highlands, to try what could be done among his clan; and, having accepted a portion of my apparel, he went to the ferry-boat with major fullarton, and we crossed the water together. on landing at the renfrew side the earl went forward alone, a little before the major and me; but on reaching the ford at inchinnan he was stopped by two soldiers, who laid hands upon him, one on each side, and in the grappling one of them, the earl fell to the ground. in a moment, however, his lordship started up, and got rid of them by presenting his pistols. but five others at the same instant came in sight, and fired and ran in at him, and knocked him down with their swords. "alas! unfortunate argyle," i heard him cry as he fell; and the soldiers were so astonished at having so rudely treated so great a man, that they stood still with awe and dropped their swords, and some of them shed tears of sorrow for his fate. seeing what had thus happened, major fullarton and i fled and hid ourselves behind a hedge, for we saw another party of troopers coming towards the spot,--we heard afterwards that it was sir john shaw of greenock, with some of the renfrewshire heritors, by whom the earl was conducted a prisoner to glasgow. but of the dismal indignities, and the degradations to which he was subjected, and of his doleful martyrdom, the courteous reader may well spare me the sad recital, as they are recorded in all true british histories, and he will accept for the same those sweet but mournful lines which argyle indited in the dungeon:-- thou, passenger, that shalt have so much time to view my grave, and ask what was my crime; no stain of error, no black vice's brand, was that which chased me from my native land. love to my country--twice sentenced to die-- constrain'd my hands forgotten arms to try. more by friends' fraud my fall proceeded hath than foes, though now they thrice decreed my death. on my attempt though providence did frown, his oppress'd people god at length shall own; another hand, by more successful speed, shall raise the remnant, bruise the serpent's head. though my head fall, that is no tragic story, since, going hence, i enter endless glory. chapter lxxxviii the news of the fall of argyle was as gladdening wine to the cruel spirit of james stuart. it was treated by him as victory was of old among the conquering romans, and he ordained medals of brass and of silver to be made, to commemorate, as a glorious triumph, the deed that was a crime. but he was not content with such harmless monuments of insensate exultation; he considered the blow as final to the presbyterian cause, and openly set himself to effect the re-establishment of the idolatrous abominations of the mass and monkrie. the lord perth and his brother, the lord melford, and a black catalogue of others, whose names, for the fame of scotland, i would fain expunge with the waters of oblivion, considering religion as a thing of royal regulation, professed themselves papists, and got, as the price of their apostacy and perdition, certain places of profit in the government. clouds of the papistical locust were then allured into the land, to eat it up leaf and blade again. schools to teach children the deceits, and the frauds, and the sins of the jesuits, were established even in the palace of holyrood-house; and the chapel, which had been cleansed in the time of queen mary, was again defiled with the pageantries of idolatry. but the godly people of edinburgh called to mind the pious bravery of their forefathers, and all that they had done in the reformation; and they rose, as it were with one accord, and demolished the schools, and purified the chapel, even to desolation, and forced the papist priest to abjure his own idols. the old abhorrence of the abominations was revived; for now it was clearly seen what king charles and his brother had been seeking, in the relentless persecution which they had so long sanctioned; and many in consequence, who had supported and obeyed the prelatic apostasy as a thing but of innocent forms, trembled at the share which they had taken in the guilt of that aggression, and their dismay was unspeakable. the tyrant, however, soon saw that he had over-counted the degree of the humiliation of the land; and being disturbed by the union which his open papistry was causing among all denominations of protestants, he changed his mood, and from force resorting to fraud, publishing a general toleration,--a device of policy which greatly disheartened the prelatic faction; for they saw that they had only laboured to strengthen a prerogative, the first effectual exercise of which was directed against themselves, every one discerning that the indulgence was framed to give head-rope to the papists. but the covenanters made use of it to advance the cause of the gospel, as i shall now proceed to rehearse, as well as how through it i was enabled to perform my avenging vow. among the exiled covenanters who returned with argyle, and with whom i became acquainted while with him, was thomas ardmillan, when, after my escape at the time when the earl was taken, i fell in again with at kirkintilloch, as i was making the best of my way into the east country, and we went together to arbroath, where he embarked for holland. being then minded to return back to edinburgh, and to abide again with mrs brownlee, in whose house i had found a safe asylum, and a convenient place of espial, after seeing him on board the vessel, i also took shipping, and returned to leith under an assurance that i should hear of him from time to time. it was not, however, until the indulgence was proclaimed that i heard from him, about which era he wrote to me a most scriptural letter, by the reverend mr patrick warner, who had received a call from the magistrates and inhabitants of the covenanted town of irvine, to take upon him the ministry of their parish. mr warner having accepted the call, on arriving at leith sent to mrs brownlee's this letter, with a request that, if i was alive and there, he would be glad to see me in his lodging before departing to the west country. as the fragrance of mr warner's sufferings was sweet among all the true and faithful, i was much regaled with this invitation, and went forthwith to leith, where i found him in a house that is clad with oyster-shells, in the tod's-hole close. he was sitting in a fair chamber therein, with that worthy bailie that afterwards was next year, at the time of the revolution, mr cornelius neilsone, and his no less excellent compeer on the same great occasion, mr george samsone, both persons of godly repute. mr cheyne, the town-clerk, was likewise present, a most discreet character, but being a lawyer by trade, and come of an episcopal stock, he was rather a thought, it was said, inclined to the prelatic sect. divers others, douce and religious characters, were also there, especially mr jaddua fyfe, a merchant of women's gear, then in much renown for his suavity. mr warner was relating to them many consolatory things of the worth and piety of the prince and princess of orange, to whom the eyes of all the protestants, especially of the presbyterians, were at that time directed. "aye, aye," said mr jaddua fyfe, "nae doot, nae doot, but the prince is a man of a sweet-smelling odour,--that's in the way of character;--and the princess; aye, aye, it is well known, that she's a pure snowdrop, and a lily o' the valley in the lord's garden,--that's in the way of piety." "they're the heirs presumptive to the crown," subjoined mr cheyne. "they're weel entitled to the reverence and respect of us a'," added mr cornelius neilsone. "when i first got the call from irvine," resumed mr warner, "that excellent lady, and precious vessel of godliness, the countess of sutherland, being then at the hague, sought my allowance to let the princess know of my acceptance of the call, and to inquire if her highness had any commands for scotland; and the princess in a most gracious manner signified to her that the best thing i, and those who were like me, could do for her, was to be earnest in praying that she might be kept firm and faithful in the reformed religion, adding many tender things of her sincere sympathy for the poor persecuted people of scotland, and recommending that i should wait on the prince before taking my departure. i was not, however, forward to thrust myself into such honour; but at last yielding to the exhortations of my friends, i went to the house of mynheer bentinck, and gave him my name for an audience; and one morning, about eight of the clock, his servant called for me and took me to his house, and he himself conveyed me into the presence of the prince, where, leaving me with him, we had a most weighty and edifying conversation." "aye, aye," interposed mr jaddua fyfe, "it was a great thing to converse wi' a prince; and how did he behave himself,--that's in the way o' manners?" "ye need na debate, mr fyfe, about that," replied mr samsone, "the prince kens what it's to be civil, especially to his friends;" and i thought, in saying these words, that mr samsone looked particular towards me. "and what passed?" said the town-clerk, in a way as if he pawkily jealoused something. mr warner, however, in his placid and minister-like manner, responded,-- "i told his highness how i had received the call from irvine, and thought it my duty to inquire if there was any thing wherein i could serve him in scotland. "to this the prince replied in a benign manner--" "aye, aye," ejaculated mr jaddua fyfe, "nae doubt it was in a benignant manner, and in a cordial manner. aye, aye, he has nae his ill-wand to seek when a customer's afore the counter,--that's in the way o' business." "'i understand,' said his highness," continued mr warner, "'you are called home upon the toleration lately granted; but i can assure you, that toleration is not granted for any kindness to your party, but to favour the papists, and to divide you among yourselves; yet i think you may be so wise as to take good of it, and prevent the evil designed, and, instead of dividing, come to a better harmony among yourselves when you have liberty to see and meet more freely.' "to which," said mr warner, "i answered, that i heartily wished it might prove so, and that nothing would be wanting on my part to make it so; and i added, the presbyterians in scotland, great sir, are looked upon as a very despicable party; but those who do so measure them by the appearance at pentland and bothwell, as if the whole power of the presbyterians had been drawn out there; but i can assure your highness that such are greatly mistaken; for many firm presbyterians were not satisfied as to the grounds and manner of those risings, and did not join; and others were borne down by the persecution. in verity i am persuaded, that if scotland were left free, of three parts of the people two would be found presbyterians. we are indeed a poor persecuted party, and have none under god to look to for our help and relief but your highness, on account of that relation you and the princess have to the crown." "that was going a great length, mr warner," said mr cheyne, the town-clerk. "no a bit, no a bit," cried i; and mr jaddua fyfe gave me an approving gloom, while mr warner quietly continued,-- "i then urged many things, hoping that the lord would incline his highness' heart to espouse his interest in scotland, and befriend the persecuted presbyterians. to which the prince replied--" "aye, aye, i like to hear what his highness said, that's in the way of counselling," said mr jaddua fyfe. "the prince," replied mr warner, "then spoke to me earnestly, saying,-- "'i have been educated a presbyterian, and i hope so to continue; and i assure you, if ever it be in my power, i shall make the presbyterian church-government the established church-government of scotland, and of this you may assure your friends, as in prudence you find it convenient.'" discerning the weight and intimation that were in these words, i said, when mr warner had made an end, that it was a great thing to know the sentiment of the prince; for by all signs the time could not be far off when we would maybe require to put his assurance and promise to the test. at which words of mine there were many exchanges of gathered brows and significant nods, and mr jaddua fyfe, to whom i was sitting next, slyly pinched me in the elbow; all which spoke plainer than elocution, that those present were accorded with me in opinion; and i gave inward thanks that such a braird of renewed courage and zeal was beginning to kithe among us. chapter lxxxix besides mr warner, many other ministers, who had taken refuge in foreign countries, were called home, and it began openly to be talked that king james would to a surety be set aside, on account of his malversations in the kingly office in england, and the even-down course he was pursuing there, as in scotland, to abolish all property that the subjects had in the ancient laws and charters of the realm. but the thing came to no definite head till that jesuit-contrived device for cutting out the protestant heirs to the crown was brought to maturity, by palming a man-child upon the nation as the lawful son of the tyrant and his papistical wife. in the meantime, i had not been idle in disseminating throughout the land, by the means of the cameronians, a faithful account of what mr warner had related of the pious character and presbyterian dispositions of the prince of orange; and through a correspondence that i opened with thomas ardmillan, mynheer bentinck was kept so informed of the growing affection for his master in scotland, as soon emboldened the prince, with what he heard of the inclinations of the english people, to prepare a great host and navy for the deliverance of the kingdoms. in the midst of these human means and stratagems, the bright right hand of providence was shiningly visible; for, by the news of the prince's preparations, it smote the councils of king james with confusion and a fatal distraction. though he had so alienated the scottish lieges, that none but the basest of men among us acknowledged his authority, yet he summoned all his forces into england, leaving his power to be upheld here by those only who were vile enough to wish for the continuance of slavery. thus was the way cleared for the advent of the deliverer; and the faithful nobles and gentry of scotland, as the army was removed, came flocking into edinburgh, and the privy council, which had been so little slack in any crime, durst not molest them, though the purpose of their being there was a treason which the members could not but all well know. every thing, in a word, was now moving onward to a great event; all in the land was as when the thaw comes, and the ice is breaking, and the snows melting, and the waters flowing, and the rivers are bursting their frozen fetters, and the sceptre of winter is broken, and the wreck of his domination is drifting and perishing away. to keep the privy council in the confusion of the darkness of ignorance, i concerted with many of the cameronians that they should spread themselves along the highways, and intercept the government expresses and emissaries, to the end that neither the king's faction in england nor in scotland might know aught of the undertakings of each other; and when thomas ardmillan sent me, from mynheer bentinck, the prince's declaration for scotland, i hastened into the west country, that i might exhort the covenanted there to be in readiness, and from the tolbooth stair of irvine, yea, on the very step where my heart was so pierced by the cries of my son, i was the first in scotland to publish that glorious pledge of our deliverance. on the same day, at the same hour, the like was done by others of our friends at glasgow and at ayr; and there was shouting, and joy, and thanksgiving, and the magnificent voice of freedom resounded throughout the land, and ennobled all hearts again with bravery. when the news of the prince's landing at torbay arrived, we felt that liberty was come; but long oppression had made many distrustful, and from day to day rumours were spread by the despairing members of the prelatic sect, the breathings of their wishes, that made us doubt whether we ought to band ourselves into any array for warfare. in this state of swithering and incertitude we continued for some time, till i began to grow fearful lest the zeal which had been so rekindled would sink and go out if not stirred again in some effectual manner; so i conferred with quintin fullarton, who in all these providences had been art and part with me, from the day of the meeting with mr renwick near laswade; and as the privy council, when it was known the prince had been invited over, had directed beacons to be raised on the tops of many mountains, to be fired as signals of alarm for the king's party when the dutch fleet should be seen approaching the coast, we devised, as a mean for calling forth the strength and spirit of the covenanters, that we should avail ourselves of their preparations. accordingly we instructed four alert young men, of the cameronian societies, severally and unknown to each other, to be in attendance on the night of the tenth of december, at the beacons on the hills of knockdolian, lowthers, blacklarg, and bencairn, that they might fire the same if need or signal should so require, quintin fullarton having undertaken to kindle the one on mistylaw himself. the night was dark, but it was ordained that the air should be moist and heavy, and in that state when the light of flame spreads farthest. meanwhile fearful reports from ireland of papistical intents to maintain the cause of king james made the fancies of men awake and full of anxieties. the prelatic curates were also so heartened by those rumours and tidings, that they began to recover from the dismay with which the news of the prince's landing had overwhelmed them, and to shoot out again the horns of antichristian arrogance. but when, about three hours after sunset, the beacon on the mistylaw was fired, and when hill after hill was lighted up, the whole country was filled with such consternation and panic, that i was myself smitten with the dread of some terrible consequences. horsemen passed furiously in all directions--bells were rung, and drums beat--mothers were seen flying with their children they knew not whither--cries and lamentations echoed on every side. the skies were kindled with a red glare, and none could tell where the signal was first shown. some said the irish had landed and were burning the towns in the south, and no one knew where to flee from the unknown and invisible enemy. in the meantime, our covenanters of the west assembled at their trysting-place, to the number of more than six thousand armed men, ready and girded for battle; and this appearance was an assurance that no power was then in all the lowlands able to gainsay such a force; and next day, when it was discovered that the alarm had no real cause, it was determined that the prelatic priests should be openly discarded from their parishes. our vengeance, however, was not meted upon them by the measure of our sufferings, but by the treatment which our own pastors had borne; and, considering how many of them had acted as spies and accusers against us, it is surprising, that of two hundred, who were banished from the parishes, few received any cause of complaint; even the poor feckless thing, andrew dornock, was decently expelled from the manse of quharist, on promising he would never return. this riddance of the malignants was the first fruit of the expulsion of james stuart from the throne; but it was not long till we were menaced with new and even greater sufferings than we had yet endured. for though the tyrant had fled, he had left claverhouse, under the title of viscount dundee, behind him; and in the fearless activity of that proud and cruel warrior, there was an engine sufficient to have restored him to his absolute throne, as i shall now proceed to rehearse. chapter xc the true and faithful of the west, by the event recorded in the foregoing chapter, being so instructed with respect to their own power and numbers, stood in no reverence of any force that the remnants of the tyrant's sect and faction could afford to send against them. i therefore resolved to return to edinburgh; for the longing of my grandfather's spirit to see the current and course of public events flowing from their fountain-head, was upon me, and i had not yet so satisfied the yearnings of justice as to be able to look again on the ashes of my house and the tomb of sarah lochrig and her daughters. accordingly, soon after the turn of the year i went thither, where i found all things in uncertainty and commotion. claverhouse, or, as he was now titled, lord dundee, with that scorn of public opinion and defect of all principle, save only a canine fidelity, a dog's love, to his papistical master, domineered with his dragoons, as if he himself had been regnant monarch of scotland; and it was plain and probable, that unless he was soon bridled, he would speedily act upon the wider stage of the kingdom the same mahound-like part that he had played in the prenticeship of his cruelties of the shire of ayr. the peril, indeed, from his courage and activity, was made to me very evident, by a conversation that i had with one david middleton, who had come from england on some business of the jacobites there, in connection with dundee. providence led me to fall in with this person one morning, as we were standing among a crowd of other onlookers, seeing claverhouse reviewing his men in the front court of holyrood-house. i happened to remark, for in sooth it must be so owned, that the viscount had a brave though a proud look, and that his voice had the manliness of one ordained to command. "yes," replied david middleton, "he is a born soldier, and if the king is to be restored, he is the man that will do it. when his majesty was at rochester, before going to france, i was there with my master, and being called in to mend the fire, i heard dundee and my lord, then with the king, discoursing concerning the royal affairs. "'the question,' said lord dundee to his majesty, 'is, whether you shall stay in england or go to france? my opinion, sir, is, that you should stay in england, make your stand here, and summon your subjects to your allegiance. 'tis true, you have disbanded your army, but give me leave, and i will undertake to get ten thousand men of it together, and march through all england with your standard at their head, and drive the dutch before you;' and," added david middleton, "let him have time, and i doubt not, that, even without the king's leave, he will do as much." whether the man in this did brag of a knowledge that he had not, the story seemed so likely, that it could scarcely be questioned; so i consulted with my faithful friend and companion, quintin fullarton, and other men of weight among the cameronians; and we agreed, that those of the societies who were scattered along the borders to intercept the correspondence between the english and scottish jacobites, should be called into edinburgh to daunt the rampageous insolence of claverhouse. this was done accordingly; and from the day that they began to appear in the streets, the bravery of those who were with him seemed to slacken. but still he carried himself as boldly as ever, and persuaded the duke of gordon, then governor of the castle, not to surrender, nor obey any mandate from the convention of the states, by whom, in that interregnum, the rule of the kingdom was exercised. still, however, the cameronians were coming in, and their numbers became so manifest, that the dragoons were backward to show themselves. but their commander affected not to value us, till one day a singular thing took place, which, in its issues, ended the overawing influence of his presence in edinburgh. i happened to be standing with quintin fullarton, and some four or five other cameronians, at an entry-mouth forenent the canongate-cross, when claverhouse, and that tool of tyranny, sir george mackenzie the advocate, were coming up from the palace; and as they passed, the viscount looked hard at me, and said to sir george,-- "i have somewhere seen that doure cur before." sir george turned round also to look, and i said,-- "it's true, claverhouse--we met at drumclog;" and i touched my arm that he had wounded there, adding, "and the blood shed that day has not yet been paid for." at these words he made a rush upon me with his sword, but my friends were nimbler with theirs; and sir george mackenzie interposing, drew him off, and they went away together. the affair, however, ended not here. sir george, with the subtlety of a lawyer, tried to turn it to some account, and making a great ado of it, as a design to assassinate lord dundee and himself, tried to get the convention to order all strangers to remove from the town. this, however, was refused; so that claverhouse, seeing how the spirit of the times was going among the members, and the boldness with which the presbyterians and the covenanters were daily bearding his arrogance, withdrew with his dragoons from the city and made for stirling. in this retreat from edinburgh he blew the trumpet of civil war; but in less than two hours from the signal, a regiment of eight hundred cameronians was arrayed in the high-street. the son of argyle, who had taken his seat in the convention as a peer, soon after gathered three hundred of the campbells, and the safety of scotland now seemed to be secured by the arrival of mackay with three scotch regiments, then in the dutch service, and which the prince of orange had brought with him to torbay. by the retreat of claverhouse the jacobite party in edinburgh were so disheartened, and any endeavour which they afterwards made to rally was so crazed with consternation, that it was plain the sceptre had departed from their master. the capacity as well as the power for any effectual action was indeed evidently taken from them, and the ploughshare was driven over the ruins of their cause on the ever-memorable eleventh day of april, when william and mary were proclaimed king and queen. but though thus the oppressor was cast down from his throne, and though thus, in scotland, the chief agents in the work of deliverance were the outlawed cameronians, as instructed by me, the victory could not be complete, nor the trophies hung up in the hall, while the tyrant possessed an instrument of such edge and temper as claverhouse. as for myself, i felt that while the homicide lived the debt of justice and of blood due to my martyred family could never be satisfied; and i heard of his passing from stirling into the highlands, and the wonders he was working for the jacobite cause there, as if nothing had yet been achieved toward the fulfilment of my avenging vow. chapter xci when claverhouse left stirling, he had but sixty horse. in little more than a month he was at the head of seventeen hundred men. he obtained reinforcements from ireland. the macdonalds, and the camerons, and the gordons, were all his. a vassal of the marquis of athol had declared for him even in the castle of blair, and defended it against the clan of his master. an event still more strange was produced by the spell of his presence,--the clansmen of athol deserted their chief, and joined his standard. he kindled the hills in his cause, and all the life of the north was gathering around him. mackay, with the covenanters, the regiments from holland, and the cameronians, went from perth to oppose his entrance into the lowlands. the minds of men were suspended. should he defeat mackay, it was plain that the crown would soon be restored to james stuart, and the woes of scotland come again. in that dismal juncture i was alone; for quintin fullarton, with all the cameronians, was with mackay. i was an old man, verging on threescore. i went to and fro in the streets of edinburgh all day long, inquiring of every stranger the news; and every answer that i got was some new triumph of dundee. no sleep came to my burning pillow, or if indeed my eyelids for very weariness fell down, it was only that i might suffer the stings of anxiety in some sharper form; for my dreams were of flames kindling around me, through which i saw behind the proud and exulting visage of dundee. sometimes in the depths of the night i rushed into the street, and i listened with greedy ears, thinking i heard the trampling of dragoons and the heavy wheels of cannon; and often in the day, when i saw three or four persons speaking together, i ran towards them, and broke in upon their discourse with some wild interrogation, that made them answer me with pity. but the haste and frenzy of this alarm suddenly changed: i felt that i was a chosen instrument; i thought that the ruin which had fallen on me and mine was assuredly some great mystery of providence: i remembered the prophecy of my grandfather, that a task was in store for me, though i knew not what it was; i forgot my old age and my infirmities; i hastened to my chamber; i put money in my purse; i spoke to no one; i bought a carabine; and i set out alone to reinforce mackay. as i passed down the street, and out at the west-port, i saw the people stop and look at me with silence and wonder. as i went along the road, several that were passing inquired where i was going so fast? but i waived my hand and hurried by. i reached the queensferry without, as it were, drawing breath. i embarked; and when the boat arrived at the northern side i had fallen asleep; and the ferryman, in compassion, allowed me to slumber unmolested. when i awoke i felt myself refreshed. i leapt on shore, and went again impatiently on. but my mind was then somewhat calmer; and when i reached kinross i bought a little bread, and retiring to the brink of the lake, dipped it in the water, and it was a savoury repast. as i approached the brigg of earn i felt age in my limbs, and though the spirit was willing, the body could not; and i sat down, and i mourned that i was so frail and so feeble. but a marvellous vigour was soon again given to me, and i rose refreshed from my resting-place on the wall of the bridge, and the same night i reached perth. i stopped in a stabler's till the morning. at break of day, having hired a horse from him, i hastened forward to dunkeld, where he told me mackay had encamped the day before, on his way to defend the pass of killicrankie. the road was thronged with women and children flocking into perth in terror of the highlanders, but i heeded them not. i had but one thought, and that was to reach the scene of war and claverhouse. on arriving at the ferry of inver, the field in front of the bishop of dunkeld's house, where the army had been encamped, was empty. mackay had marched towards blair-athol, to drive dundee and the highlanders, if possible, back into the glens and mosses of the north; for he had learnt that his own force greatly exceeded his adversary's. on hearing this, and my horse being in need of bating, i halted at the ferry-house before crossing the tay, assured by the boatman that i should be able to overtake the army long before it could reach the meeting of the tummel and the gary. and so it proved; for, as i came to that turn of the road where the tummel pours its roaring waters into the tay, i heard the echoing of a trumpet among the mountains, and soon after saw the army winding its toilsome course along the river's brink, slowly and heavily, as the chariots of pharaoh laboured through the sands of the desert; and the appearance of the long array was as the many-coloured woods that skirt the rivers in autumn. on the right hand, hills, and rocks, and trees rose like the ruins of the ramparts of some ancient world; and i thought of the epochs when the days of the children of men were a thousand years, and when giants were on the earth, and all were swept away by the flood; and i felt as if i beheld the hand of the lord in the cloud weighing the things of time in his scales, to see if the sins of the world were indeed become again so great as that the cause of claverhouse should be suffered to prevail. for my spirit was as a flame that blazeth in the wind, and my thoughts as the sparks that shoot and soar for a moment towards the skies with a glorious splendour, and drop down upon the earth in ashes. chapter xcii general mackay halted the host on a spacious green plain which lies at the meeting of the tummel and the gary, and which the highlanders call fascali, because, as the name in their tongue signifies, no trees are growing thereon. this place is the threshold of the pass of killicrankie, through the dark and woody chasms of which the impatient waters of the gary come with hoarse and wrathful mutterings and murmurs. the hills and mountains around are built up in more olden and antic forms than those of our lowland parts, and a wild and strange solemnity is mingled there with much fantastical beauty, as if, according to the minstrelsy of ancient times, sullen wizards and gamesome fairies had joined their arts and spells to make a common dwelling-place. as the soldiers spread themselves over the green bosom of fascali, and piled their arms and furled their banners, and laid their drums on the ground, and led their horses to the river, the general sent forward a scout through the pass to discover the movements of claverhouse, having heard that he was coming from the castle of blair-athol, to prevent his entrance into the highlands. the officer sent to make the espial had not been gone above half an hour when he came back in great haste to tell that the highlanders were on the brow of a hill above the house of rinrorie, and that unless the pass was immediately taken possession of, it would be mastered by claverhouse that night. mackay, at this news, ordered the trumpets to sound, and as the echoes multiplied and repeated the alarm, it was as if all the spirits of the hills called the men to arms. the soldiers looked around as they formed their ranks, listening with delight and wonder at the universal bravery, and i thought of the sight, which elisha the prophet gave to the young man at dothan, of the mountains covered with horses and chariots of fire for his defence against the host of the king of syria; and i went forward with the confidence of assured victory. as we issued forth from the pass into the wide country, extending towards lude and blair-athol, we saw, as the officer had reported, the highland hosts of claverhouse arrayed along the lofty brow of the mountain, above the house of rinrorie, their plaids waving in the breeze on the hill and their arms glittering to the sun. mackay directed the troops, at crossing a raging brook called the girnaig, to keep along a flat of land above the house of rinrorie, and to form, in order of battle, on the field beyond the garden, and under the hill where the highlanders were posted; the baggage and camp equipages he at the same time ordered down into a plain that lies between the bank on the crown of which the house stands and the river gary. an ancient monumental stone in the middle of the lower plain shows, that in some elder age a battle had been fought there, and that some warrior of might and fame had fallen. in taking his ground on that elevated shelf of land, mackay was minded to stretch his left wing to intercept the return of the highlanders towards blair, and, if possible, oblige them to enter the pass of killicrankie, by which he would have cut them off from their resources in the north, and so perhaps mastered them without any great slaughter. but claverhouse discerned the intent of his movement, and before our covenanted host had formed their array, it was evident that he was preparing to descend; and as a foretaste of the vehemence wherewith the highlanders were coming, we saw them rolling large stones to the brow of the hill. in the meantime the house of rinrorie having been deserted by the family, the lady, with her children and maidens, had fled to lude or struan, mackay ordered a party to take possession of it, and to post themselves at the windows which look up the hill. i was among those who went into the house, and my station was at the easternmost window, in a small chamber which is entered by two doors,--the one opening from the stair-head, and the other from the drawing-room. in this situation we could see but little of the distribution of the army or the positions that mackay was taking, for our view was confined to the face of the hill whereon the highlanders were busily preparing for their descent. but i saw claverhouse on horseback riding to and fro, and plainly inflaming their valour with many a courageous gesture; and as he turned and winded his prancing war-horse, his breast-plate blazed to the setting sun like a beacon on the hill. when he had seemingly concluded his exhortation, the highlanders stooped forward and hurled down the rocks which they had gathered for their forerunners; and while the stones came leaping and bounding with a noise like thunder, the men followed in thick and separate bands, and mackay gave the signal to commence firing. we saw from the windows many of the highlanders, at the first volley, stagger and fall, but the others came furiously down; and before the soldiers had time to stick their bayonets into their guns, the broad swords of the clansmen hewed hundreds to the ground. within a few minutes the battle was general between the two armies; but the smoke of the firing involved all the field, and we could see nothing from the windows. the echoes of the mountains raged with the din, and the sounds were multiplied by them in so many different places, that we could not tell where the fight was hottest. the whole country around resounded as with the uproar of a universal battle. i felt the passion of my spirit return; i could no longer restrain myself, nor remain where i was. snatching up my carabine, i left my actionless post at the window, and hurried down stairs, and out of the house. i saw by the flashes through the smoke, that the firing was spreading down into the plain where the baggage was stationed, and by this i knew that there was some movement in the battle; but whether the highlanders or the covenanters were shifting their ground, i could not discover, for the valley was filled with smoke, and it was only at times that a sword, like a glance of lightning, could be seen in the cloud wherein the thunders and tempest of the conflict were raging. chapter xciii as i stood on the brow of the bank in front of rinrorie-house, a gentle breathing of the evening air turned the smoke like the travelling mist of the hills, and opening it here and there, i had glimpses of the fighting. sometimes i saw the highlanders driving the covenanters down the steep, and sometimes i beheld them in their turn on the ground endeavouring to protect their unbonneted heads with their targets, but to whom the victory was to be given i could discern no sign; and i said to myself the prize at hazard is the liberty of the land and the lord; surely it shall not be permitted to the champion of bondage to prevail. a stronger breathing of the gale came rushing along, and the skirts of the smoke where the baggage stood were blown aside, and i beheld many of the highlanders among the wagons plundering and tearing. then i heard a great shouting on the right, and looking that way, i saw the children of the covenant fleeing in remnants across the lower plain, and making toward the river. presently i also saw mackay with two regiments, all that kept the order of discipline, also in the plain. he had lost the battle. claverhouse had won; and the scattered firing, which was continued by a few, was to my ears as the riveting of the shackles on the arms of poor scotland for ever. my grief was unspeakable. i ran to and fro on the brow of the hill--and i stampt with my feet--and i beat my breast--and i rubbed my hands with the frenzy of despair--and i threw myself on the ground--and all the sufferings of which i have written returned upon me--and i started up and i cried aloud the blasphemy of the fool, "there is no god." but scarcely had the dreadful words escaped my profane lips, when i heard, as it were, thunders in the heavens, and the voice of an oracle crying in the ears of my soul, "the victory of this day is given into thy hands!" and strange wonder and awe fell upon me, and a mighty spirit entered into mine, and i felt as if i was in that moment clothed with the armour of divine might. i took up my carabine, which in these transports had fallen from my hand, and i went round the gable of the house into the garden--and i saw claverhouse with several of his officers coming along the ground by which our hosts had marched to their position--and ever and anon turning round and exhorting his men to follow him. it was evident he was making for the pass to intercept our scattered fugitives from escaping that way. the garden in which i then stood was surrounded by a low wall. a small goose-pool lay on the outside, between which and the garden i perceived that claverhouse would pass. i prepared my flint and examined my fire-lock, and i walked towards the top of the garden with a firm step. the ground was buoyant to my tread, and the vigour of youth was renewed in my aged limbs: i thought that those for whom i had so mourned walked before me--that they smiled and beckoned me to come on, and that a glorious light shone around me. claverhouse was coming forward--several officers were near him, but his men were still a little behind, and seemed inclined to go down the hill, and he chided at their reluctance. i rested my carabine on the garden-wall. i bent my knee and knelt upon the ground. i aimed and fired,--but when the smoke cleared away i beheld the oppressor still proudly on his war-horse. i loaded again, again i knelt, and again rested my carabine upon the wall, and fired a second time, and was again disappointed. then i remembered that i had not implored the help of heaven, and i prepared for the third time, and when all was ready, and claverhouse was coming forward, i took off my bonnet, and kneeling with the gun in my hand, cried, "lord, remember david and all his afflictions;" and having so prayed, i took aim as i knelt, and claverhouse raising his arm in command, i fired. in the same moment i looked up, and there was a vision in the air as if all the angels of brightness, and the martyrs in their vestments of glory, were assembled on the walls and battlements of heaven to witness the event,--and i started up and cried, "i have delivered my native land!" but in the same instant i remembered to whom the glory was due, and falling again on my knees, i raised my hands and bowed my head as i said, "not mine, o lord, but thine is the victory!" when the smoke rolled away i beheld claverhouse in the arms of his officers, sinking from his horse, and the blood flowing from a wound between the breast-plate and the armpit. the same night he was summoned to the audit of his crimes. it was not observed by the officers from what quarter the summoning bolt of justice came, but thinking it was from the house, every window was instantly attacked, while i deliberately retired from the spot,--and, till the protection of the darkness enabled me to make my escape across the gary, and over the hills in the direction i saw mackay and the remnants of the flock taking, i concealed myself among the bushes and rocks that overhung the violent stream of the girnaig. thus was my avenging vow fulfilled,--and thus was my native land delivered from bondage. for a time yet there may be rumours and bloodshed, but they will prove as the wreck which the waves roll to the shore after a tempest. the fortunes of the papistical stuarts are foundered for ever. never again in this land shall any king, of his own caprice and prerogative, dare to violate the conscience of the people. quharist, _ th november ._ glossary _airt_, direction, point of the compass. _almous_, alms. _atwish_, betwixt. _aught_, possession. _aumrie_, store-cupboard. _bakie_, a large square wooden vessel. _beek_, _v._ bathe; here, bask. _bein_, well-to-do, comfortable. _ben_, within. _benweed_, ragwort. _bield_, shelter. _big_, _v._ build. _bilf_, a blunt stroke (jamieson). _bir_, impetuosity. _blate_, bashful. _blether_, _v._ talk foolishly. _blithemeat gift_, gift made to those present at a child's birth. _bout-gait_, roundabout. _bow_, arch, gateway. _boyne_, tub. _braird_, the first sprouting of grain. _brattle_, _v._ clatter. _brechan_, bracken. _buirdly_, burly. _bunker_, bench. _busk_, adorn. _but_, _but the house_, toward the outer apartment of a house. _by ordinare_, out of the common. _ca'_, _v._ drive. _callan_, _callant_, boy. _camstrarie_, unmanageable, perverse. _cantrip_, magical device. _canty_, lively. _cap_, a wooden bowl. _carl_, fellow (_fem._) _carlin_. _carry_, motion of the clouds. _carse_, low-lying fertile land, generally adjacent to a river. _causey_, street or paved road; _crown of the causey_, middle of the street. _change-house_, a small inn or ale-house. _chap_, _v._ strike. _chappin_, a quart measure. _chimla_, _chumla_, chimney; _chimla-lug_, fireside. _churme_, murmur. _clachan_, hamlet. _clamper_, to make a noise with the feet in walking. _claught_, snatched (_pret._ of _v._ _clatch_). _clishmaclavers_, idle discourse. _clok_, beetle. _clout_, ragged cloth. _cluty_, _fam._ the "old one." _cod_, pillow, cushion. _couthiness_, kindness. _cowan-boat_, a fishing-boat. _cranreuch_, hoar-frost. _creel_, basket. _crouse_, confident, _crack crouse_, to "talk big." _cruisie_, _crusie_, a small iron lamp. _cuif_ simpleton. _cushy-doo_, cushat, dove. _dark_, _darg_, task. _dauner_, _daunder_, stroll. _dauty_, pet. _dinle_, thrill. _dirl_, _v._ clatter, thrill. _doless_, void of energy. _dominie_, schoolmaster. _donsie_, unfortunate. _door-cheek_, door-post. _doure_, hard, harsh. _dow_, _v._ can compass. _dowie_, dull. _dreich_, tedious. _drumly_, turbid, troubled. _duds_, rags. _dunt_, to knock out by repeated blows. _dwam_, seizure (sickness). _dyke_, boundary wall. _ellwand_, yard-measure. _erles_, _arles_, an earnest. _ettle_, _v._ aim. _excambio_, exchange ratified by law. _eydent_, zealous, industrious. _fash_, _v._ vex. _fek_, "_o' ony fek_," of any effect. _fey_, infatuated. _fisle_, _v._ rustle. _flesher_, butcher. _flit_, _v._ word in general use in scotland for changing residence. _flyte_, _v._ scold. _foregather_, _v._ get into company together. _fornent_, in front of. _fyke_, bustle. _gait_, _gate_, way. _gar_, compel. _gardevine_, cellaret. _garnel_, granary. _gaud_, a bar of metal. _gauntrees_, _gantrees_, a stand for a barrel. _gawsie_, _gaucy_, jolly. _geizen't_, drought-cracked. _gett_, contemptuous term for progeny. _gif_, if. _gir_, _gird_, hoop. _girn_, a snare. _glaikit_, foolish. _glebe_, land held _ex officio_ by a parish minister. _gled_, hawk. _gleg_, eager. _glower_, _v._ glare. _gludder_, the sound caused by a body falling among mire (jamieson). _gowk_, fool, _lit._ cuckoo. _greet_, weep. _grew_, _v._ shudder. _grouff_, belly. _gude-mother_, mother-in-law. _gurl_, _n._ growl. _gurly_, surly. _hack_, a rack for horses or cattle. _haffet_, side-lock. _hallowe'en_, the eve of all saints' day. _hap_, wrap. _harl_, _v._ drag. _hass_, throat. _havers_, foolish or incoherent talk. _hempy_, rogue. _herry_, harry. _hirkos_ (_lat._ hircus), a he-goat. _hirple_, limp. _hirstle_, to shove oneself along by the hands in a seated posture. _hobbleshow_, a difficulty. _hogmanæ_, the last day of the year. _holm_, _howm_, low-lying level ground on the banks of a river. _hooly_, cautiously. _horse-setter_, job-master. _howdy_, midwife. _howf_, _n._ haunt. _howk_, dig, burrow. _hyte and fykie_, anxious and irritable. _jawp_, _v._ dash and rebound as water (jamieson). _jealouse_, suspect. _jelly-flowers_, gilliflowers. _jimp_, scarcely. _jink_, chink (_corruption_). _jo_, sweetheart. _jow_, _v._ toll. _kail_, cabbage; soup made with the same. _kell_, scurf on a child's head (jamieson). _kep_, catch. _kist_, chest. _kithe_, show, appear. _laigh_, low. _lair_, lore. _lanerly_, _alanerly_, alone, lonely. _laverock_, lark. _lawing_, reckoning. _lift_, firmament. _limmer_, "baggage" (term of depreciation). _linn_, waterfall. _lippy_, a bumper. _litherly_, lazily. _lone_, _loaning_, lane. _loun_, serene. _lounder_, swinging stroke (jamieson). _low_, _n._ flame. _lum_, chimney. _lug_, ear. _luggie_, a small wooden vessel made of staves. _mailing_, farm. _manse_, residence of a minister of the gospel. _midden_, refuse-heap. _morphosings_, metamorphoses. _moss_, a place where peat may be dug (jamieson). _mutchkin_, a measure equal to a pint. _napery_, household linen. _neb_, beak of a bird. _nieve_, fist. _notour_, notorious. _o'ercome_, burden of a song or discourse. _outstropolous_, obstreperous. _oxter_, arm-pit, also arm. _pawkie_, sly; _pawkrie_, slyness. _peeseweep_, lapwing. _pen-gun_, pop-gun; _a pen-gun at a crack_, a "wunner to talk." _pet-day_, term applied to a fair day when the weather is generally foul. _pig_, earthenware vessel. _plack_, small copper coin. _play-marrow_, playmate. _prin_, pin. _puddock_, toad; _puddock-stool bonnet_, toadstool or tam o' shanter cap. _rackses_, andirons. _raised_, delirious. _ree_, half-drunk. _reek_, smoke. _redde_, rede, counsel. _rig_, ridge (of ploughed land). _rones_, external waterducts of a building. _rug_, _v._ pull roughly. _runkle_, crumple. _scad_, gleam, reflection. _schore_, a man of high rank. _scog_, _v._ hide. _scomfisht_, discomfited. _scowther_, scorch. _scrog_, a stunted shrub. _shavling-gabbit_, shavling mouthed, a shavling being a carpenter's tool of the plane order. having a mouth which emits sounds like those made in planing. _sicker_, certain. _siver_, sewer. _skail_, _skayl_, disperse. _skelf_, shelf. _skirr_, scour. _sklinter_, _v._ splinter. _skreigh_, cry. _sleekit_, deceitful. _slocken_, slake. _smeddam_, spirit. _sneck_, bolt. _snell_, keen. _snod_, trim. _snool_, subjugate by tyrannical means. _sole_, sill. _sorn_, to "sponge" upon; used by galt for to loiter. _sosherie_, social intercourse. _sough_, murmur. _spae_, _v._ forecast. _spean_, _v._ wean. _speat_, flood. _speer_, _speir_, inquire. _spunk_, spark. _staincher_, stanchion. _stang_, a pole; to "ride the stang" was to be subjected to a form of mob justice by which the patient was borne shoulder-high astride a pole. _steek_, stitch, fasten. _stock_ (bed-stock), the fore-part of a bed. _stoure_, dust in motion. _straemash_, disturbance. _stravaig_, _v._ stroll. _swanky_, strapping young countryman (brockett). _swatch_, sample. _swee_, a chimney crane for suspending a pot over the fire (jamieson). _swither_, _v._ to be reluctant, hesitate; _n_. reluctance, hesitation, indecision. _syne_, then. _tack_, lease. _taigle_, hinder, delay. _tawnle_, bonfire. _temming_, a coarse thin woollen cloth. _tent_, heed. _thacket_, thatched. _thole_, endure. _throng_, _adj._ busy. _thumbikins_, thumbscrews. _tirl at the pin_, old-fashioned mode of intimating desire of admission to a house. _tod_, _tod lowrie_, fox. _tolbooth_, a municipal building including a jail. _toom_, empty. _toop_, a ram. _toupie_ (french), toupet. _trance_, paved passage. _trintle_, _v._ roll. _trone_, a public weighing-machine standing in a market-place. _unco_, _adj._ extraordinary, remarkable; _n._ remarkable object. _virl_, ring (as those which bind a fishing-rod); frill. _vivers_, provisions. _vogie_, vain, complacent. _wae_, grieved. _waff_, feeble, worn out. _warrandice_, warrant. _warsle_, wrestle. _wastage_, a place of desolation (j.). _wastrie_, waste. _waught_, a large draught. _wean_, child. _whin_, furze. _whigamore_, sometimes derived from "whig," a word used in the west for urging on horses, and hence applied as a nickname to a political party. the expedition of the covenanters under eglinton to edinburgh was known as the whigamore raid. _whumple_, overturn, reverse. _willease_, valise. _willy-wa_, palaver, wheedle. _wise, v._ entice, incline. _wud_, wild. _wuddy_, "gallows-looking"; widdy is the gallows. _wyte_, blame. _yett_, gate. _yird_, _n._ earth; _v. a._ run to earth. _colston & coy. limited, printers, edinburgh._ books worth reading being a list of the new and forthcoming publications of greening & co., ltd. cecil court charing cross road _october _ london, w.c. general literature, criticism, poetry, etc. =_english writers of to-day:_= being a series of monographs on living authors. each volume is written by a competent authority, and each subject is treated in an appreciative, yet critical, manner. the following are the first volumes in the series:-- =_rudyard kipling_=. the man and his work. being an attempt at an "appreciation." by g. f. monkshood, author of "woman and the wits," "my lady ruby," etc. containing a portrait of mr kipling and an autograph letter to the author in facsimile. second impression. crown vo, buckram, gilt lettered, top edge gilt, s. nett. =daily telegraph=.--"he writes fluently, and he has genuine enthusiasm for his subject, and an intimate acquaintance with his work. moreover, the book has been submitted to mr kipling, whose characteristic letter to the author is set forth on the preface.... of kipling's heroes mr monkshood has a thorough understanding, and his remarks on them are worth quoting" (extract follows). =globe=--"it has at the basis of it both knowledge and enthusiasm--knowledge of the works estimated and enthusiasm for them. this book may be accepted as a generous exposition of mr kipling's merits as a writer. we can well believe that it will have many interested and approving readers." =scotsman=.--"this well-informed volume is plainly sincere. it is thoroughly well studied, and takes pains to answer all the questions that are usually put about mr kipling. the writer's enthusiasm carries both himself and his reader along in the most agreeable style. one way and another his book is full of interest, and those who wish to talk about kipling will find it invaluable, while the thousands of his admirers will read it through with delighted enthusiasm." volumes of e.w.o.t. (in preparation.) =_thomas hardy_=. by w. l. courtney. =_george meredith_=. by walter jerrold. =_bret harte_=. by t. edgar pemberton. =_richard le gallienne_=. by c. ranger gull. =_arthur wing pinero_=. by hamilton fyffe. =_w. e. henley_=, and the "national observer" group. by george gamble. =_the parnassian school in english_= poetry. (andrew lang, edmund gosse and robert bridges.) by sir george douglas. =_algernon charles swinburne_=. by g. f. monkshood. =_realistic writers of to-day_=. by justin hannaford. * * * * * =_the wheel of life_=. a few memories and recollections (de omnibus rebus). by clement scott, author of "madonna mia," "poppyland," etc. with portrait of the author from the celebrated painting by j. mordecai. third edition. crown vo, crimson buckram, gilt lettered, gilt top, s. =weekly sun= (t. p. o'connor) says:--a book of the week--"i have found this slight and unpretentious little volume bright, interesting reading. i have read nearly every line with pleasure." =illustrated london news=.--"the story mr scott has to tell is full of varied interest, and is presented with warmth and buoyancy." =punch=.--"what pleasant memories does not clement scott's little book, 'the wheel of life,'revive! the writer's memory is good, his style easy, and above all, which is a great thing for reminiscences, chatty." =referee=.--george r. sims (dagonet) says:--"deeply interesting are these last memories and recollections of the last days of bohemia.... i picked up 'the wheel of life' at one in the morning, after a hard night's work, and flung myself, weary and worn, into an easy-chair, to glance at it while i smoked my last pipe. as i read, all my weariness departed, for i was young and light-hearted once again, and the friends of my young manhood had come trooping back from the shadows to make a merry night of it once more in london town. and when i put the book down, having read it from cover to cover, it was 'past three o'clock and a windy morning.'" =_a trip to paradoxia_=, and other humours of the hour. being contemporary pictures of social fact and political fiction. by t. h. s. escott, author of "personal forces of the period," "social transformation of the victorian age," "platform, press, politics, and play," etc. crown vo, art cloth. gilt, s. nett. =standard.=--"a book which is amusing from cover to cover. bright epigrams abound in mr escott's satirical pictures of the modern world.... those who know the inner aspects of politics and society will, undoubtedly, be the first to recognise the skill and adroitness with which he strikes at the weak places in a world of intrigue and fashion.... there is a great deal of very clever sword-play in mr escott's description of dum-dum (london), the capital of paradoxia (england). =court circular.=--"it is brilliantly written, and will afford keen enjoyment to the discriminating taste. its satire is keen-edged, but good-humoured enough to hurt no one; and its wit and (may we say?) its impudence should cause a run on it at the libraries." =m. a. p.=--"a sparkling piece of political and social satire. mr escott besprinkles his pages with biting epigram and humorous innuendo. it is a most amusing book." =athenæum.=--"he constantly suggests real episodes and real persons. there are a good many rather pretty epigrams scattered through mr escott's pages." =scotsman.=--"a bright, witty, and amusing volume, which will entertain everybody who takes it up." =newcastle leader.=--"messrs greening are fortunate in being the publishers of a volume so humorous, so dexterous, written with such knowledge of men and affairs, and with such solidity and power of style as mr t. h. s. escott's 'a trip to paradoxia.'" =public opinion.=--"mr t. h. s. escott throws abundant humour blended with pungent sarcasm into his work, making his pictures very agreeable reading to all but the victim he has selected, and whose weaknesses he so skilfully lays bare. but the very clever manner in which the writer hits the foibles and follies of his fellows must create admiration and respect even from those who view his satire with a wintry smile. we like his writing, his power of discernment, and his high literary style." =_people, plays, and places._= being the second series of "the wheel of life," memories and recollections of "people" i have met, "plays" i have seen, and "places" i have visited. by clement scott, author of "the stage of yesterday and the stage of to-day," "pictures of the world," "thirty years at the play." crown vo, cloth gilt. (in preparation.) s. =_"sisters by the sea."_= seaside and country sketches. by clement scott, author of "blossom land," "amongst the apple orchards," etc. frontispiece and vignette designed by george pownall. long mo, attractively bound in cloth, s. =observer.=--"the little book is bright and readable, and will come like a breath of country air to many unfortunates who are tied by the leg to chair, stool, or counter." =sheffield telegraph.=--"bright, breezy, and altogether readable.... east anglia, nelson's land, etc., etc., are all dealt with, and touched lightly and daintily, as becomes a booklet meant to be slipped in the pocket and read easily to the pleasing accompaniment of the waves lazily lapping on the shingle by the shore." =dundee advertiser.=--"it is all delightful, and almost as good as a holiday. the city clerk, the jaded shopman, the weary milliner, the pessimistic dyspeptic, should each read the book. it will bring a suggestion of sea breezes, the plash of waves, and all the accessories of a holiday by the sea." =_some famous hamlets._= (sarah bernhardt, henry irving, beerbohm tree, wilson barrett and forbes robertson.) by clement scott. illustrated with portraits. crown vo, cloth, s. d. =_some bible stories retold._= by "a churchman." crown vo, cloth, s. d. =_bye-ways of crime._= with some stories from the black museum. by r. j. power-berrey. profusely illustrated. crown vo, cloth, s. d. =outlook.=--"decidedly you should read mr power-berrey's interesting book, taking laugh and shudder as they come." =sheffield independent.=--"we do not remember to have ever seen a more popularly-written summary of the methods of thieves than this bright and chatty volume. it is the work of a writer who evidently has a most intimate knowledge of the criminal classes, and who can carry on a plain narrative briskly and forcibly. the book fascinates by its freshness and unusualness." =literature.=--"it contains many interesting stories and new observations on the _modus operandi_ of swindlers." =scotsman.=--"a most interesting account of the dodges adopted by various criminals in effecting their purposes. the reader will find much that is instructive within its pages." =liverpool review.=--"this is no fanciful production, but a clear, dispassionate revelation of the dodges of the professional criminal. illustrated by numerous pen and ink sketches, mr power-berrey's excellent work is useful as well as interesting, for it will certainly not assist the common pilferer to have all his little tricks made public property in this lucid and easily rememberable style." =_the art of elocution_= and public speaking. by ross ferguson. with an introduction by geo. alexander. dedicated by permission to miss ellen terry. second edition. crown vo, strongly bound in cloth, s. =australian mail.=--"a useful little book. we can strongly recommend it to the chairmen of public companies." =stage.=--"a carefully composed treatise, obviously written by one as having authority. students will find it of great service." =people's friend.=--"contains many valuable hints, and deals with every branch of the elocutionist's art in a lucid and intelligible manner." =literary world.=--"the essentials of elocution are dealt with in a thoroughly capable and practical way. the chapter on public speaking is particularly satisfactory." =madame.=--"the work is pleasingly thorough. the instructions are most interesting, and are lucidly expressed, physiological details are carefully, yet not redundantly, dwelt on, so that the intending student may have some very real and definite idea of what he is learning about, and many valuable hints may be gleaned from the chapters on 'articulation and modulation.' not only for actors and orators will this little book be found of great service, but everyone may find pleasure and profit in reading it." =_the path of the soul._= being essays on continental art and literature. by s. c. de soissons, author of "a parisian in america," etc. illustrated with portraits, etc. crown vo, cloth gilt, s. d. =_a history of nursery rhymes._= by percy b. green. this interesting book is the result of many years research among nursery folklore of all nations, and traces the origin of nursery rhymes from the earliest times. crown vo, cloth, s. =_the year book of the stage._= being an annual record of criticisms of all the important productions of the english stage, with copious index and complete caste of each play recorded. a useful compilation for students of the drama. about pages, strongly bound in cloth, s. d. =_in quaint east anglia._= descriptive sketches. by t. west carnie. illustrated by w. s. rogers. long mo, cloth, s. =observer.=--"that east anglia exercises a very potent spell over those who once come under its influence is proved by the case of george borrow, and all who share in the fascination will delight in this brightly written, companionable little volume." =birmingham argus.=--"interesting matter entertainingly told." =glasgow herald.=--"mr carnie's book is thoroughly charming." =literature.=--"an aesthetic volume as pleasant to read as to look at." =guardian.=--"just the kind of book that would help a tourist in norfolk and suffolk to see what ought to be seen with the proper measure of enjoyment." =graphic.=--"it is a prettily got up and readable little book." =saturday review.=--"will be welcomed by all who have come under the charm of east anglia." =_a man adrift._= being leaves from a nomad's portfolio. by bart kennedy, author of "darab's wine-cup," "the wandering romanoff," etc. this very entertaining book is a narrative of adventures in all parts of the world. crown vo, cloth, s. =_woman and the wits._= epigrams on woman, love, and beauty. collected and edited by g. f. monkshood, author of "rudyard kipling: the man and his work," "lady ruby," etc. small vo, cloth gilt extra, gilt edges, s. d. nett. paper boards, rough edges, s. d. nett. =_weeds and flowers._= poems by william luther longstaff, author of "passion and reflection." crown vo, art cloth, gilt extra, gilt top, s. d. nett. =sun.=--"mr longstaff has real fire and passion in all of his work. he has a graceful touch and a tuneful ear. there is exquisite melody in his metre." =echo.=--"the poetry of passion is no rarity to-day, yet scarcely since the date of philip bourke marston's 'song tide' has such an arresting and whole-hearted example of this class of poetry been issued by any english author as the volume which mr william luther longstaff entitles 'weeds and flowers.' passion, tumultuous and unabashed, sensuous rapture openly flaunting its shame, love in maddest surrender risking all, daring all, these are the dominant motives of mr longstaff's muse. so wild is the rush of his emotion--all storm and fire and blood--to such white heat does he forge his burning phrases, so subtly varied are the constantly recurring expressions of love's ecstasy, its despair, its bereavement, its appetite, its scorn, so happy sometimes are the unexpected metrical changes and experiments herein adopted, that the younger poet might suggest discreet comparisons with the earlier swinburne." =morning herald.=--"the book contains _real_ poetry. there is always thought and force in the work. 'at the gate' is not merely swinburnian in metre; in all things it might well have come from that poet's pen." * * * * * greening's masterpiece library =_vathek._= an eastern romance. by geo. beckford. edited with an introduction by justin hannaford. full-page illustrations by w. s. rogers. crown vo, art cloth, gilt, s d. a superb edition of this most interesting and fascinating story. =_asmodeus_=; or, the devil on two sticks. an illustrated edition of the celebrated novel by le sage, author of "gil blas." edited by justin hannaford. crown vo, s. =_ringan gilhaize._= a tale of the covenanters. by john galt. edited with an introduction by sir george douglas. crown vo, s. =_rasselas_=, prince of abyssinia. a tale of adventure. by dr johnson. edited with an introduction by justin hannaford. full-page illustrations by w. s. rogers. crown vo, s. =_the epicurean._= a tale of mystery and adventure. by thomas moore. edited with an introduction by justin hannaford. illustrated. vo, art cloth, s. d. _several well known and popular works by great writers are in active preparation for this artistic series of masterpieces._ popular fiction novels at six shillings =_an obscure apostle._= a powerful and dramatic tale, translated from the polish of mdme. orzeszko by s. c. de soissons. crown vo, cloth, s. =_a son of africa._= a tale of marvellous adventures. by anna, comtesse de brÉmont, author of "the gentleman digger," etc. crown vo, cloth, s. =_mora_=: one woman's history. an interesting novel by t. w. speight, author of "the crime in the wood," "the mysteries of heron dyke," etc. crown vo, cloth, s. =_a girl of the north._= a tale of london and canada. by helen milicite. crown vo, cloth, s. =_ashes tell no tales._= a novel. by mrs albert s. bradshaw, author of "the gates of temptation," "false gods," "wife or slave," etc. crown vo, cloth, s. =_such is the law._= an interesting story by marie m. sadleir, author of "an uncanny girl," "in lightest london," etc. crown vo, cloth, s. =_fetters of fire._= a dramatic tale. by compton reade, author of "hard lines," "under which king," etc. crown vo, cloth, s. =_a virtue of necessity._= a powerful novel. by herbert adams. crown vo, cloth, s. =_a cry in the night._= an exciting detective story. by arnold golsworthy, author of "death and the woman," "hands in the darkness," etc. crown vo, cloth, s. =_a social upheaval._= an unconventional dramatic satirical tale. by isidore g. ascher, author of "an odd man's story," "the doom of destiny," etc. crown vo, cloth gilt, s. =scotsman.=--"the plot is bold, even to audacity; its development is always interesting, picturesque, and, towards the close, deeply pathetic; and the purpose and method of the writer are alike admirable." =eastern morning news.=--"it is a clever book, splendidly written, and striking in its wonderful power, and keeping the reader interested.... the author has not failed in his effort to prove the case. the awful truth of its pages is borne home upon us as we read chapter after chapter. the book should have a good effect in certain quarters. one of the best features is the dividing line drawn most plainly between socialism and anarchism. to its author we tender our thanks, and predict a large sale." =daily telegraph.=--"the hero is an interesting dreamer, absorbed in his schemes, which are his one weakness. to women, save when they can further the good of his cause, he is obdurate; in business, strong, energetic, and powerful. he is shown to us as the man with a master mind and one absorbing delusion, and as such is a pathetic figure. no one can dispute the prodigality and liveliness of the author's imagination; his plot teems with striking incidents." =vanity fair.=--"the story tells itself very clearly in three hundred pages of very pleasant and entertaining reading. the men and women we meet are not the men and women we really come across in this world. so much the better for us. but we are delighted to read about them, for all that; and we prophesy success for mr ascher's book, particularly as he has taken the precaution of telling us that he is 'only in fun.'" =aberdeen free press.=--"a story in which there is not a dull page, nay, not even a dull line. the characters are well drawn, the incidents are novel and often astounding, and the language has a terseness and briskness that gives a character of vivacity to the story, so that the reader is never tired going on unravelling the tangled meshes of the intricate plot until he comes to the end. 'a social upheaval' is, indeed, a rattling good book." =_a new tale of the terror._= a powerful and dramatic story of the french revolution. by the author of "the hypocrite" and "miss malevolent." (in preparation.) crown vo, cloth, s. * * * * * popular fiction novels at three shillings and sixpence =_shams!_= a social satire. by----? this is a remarkable and interesting story of modern life in london society. it is a powerful work, written with striking vividness. the plot is fascinating, the incidents exciting, and the dialogue epigrammatic and brilliant. "shams" is written by one of the most popular novelists of the day. crown vo, art cloth, gilt, s. d. =_miss malevolent._= a realistic study. by the author of "the hypocrite." crown vo, cloth, s. d. =_a comedy of temptation_;= or, the amateur fiend. a tale by tristram coutts, author of "the pottle papers," etc. crown vo, cloth, s. d. =_the weird well._= a tale of to-day. by mrs alec m'millan, author of "the evolution of daphne," "so runs my dream," etc. crown vo, cloth, s, d. =_zoroastro._= an historical romance. by creswick j. thompson, author of "poison romance and poison mysteries," "the mystery and romance of alchemy and pharmacy," etc. crown vo, cloth, s. d. =_the temptation of edith watson._= by sydney hall. crown vo, cloth, s. d. =_the gentleman digger._= realistic pictures of life in johannesburg. by anna, comtesse de brÉmont, author of "a son of africa," etc. new edition, revised to date, with a new preface. crown vo, cloth, s. d. _the sword of fate._ an interesting novel. by henry herman, author of "eagle joe," "scarlet fortune," etc., and joint author of the "silver king," "claudian." crown vo, art cloth, s. d. =vanity fair.=--"the hand that wrote the 'silver king' has by no means lost its cunning in painting broad effects of light and shadow. the description of life in broadmoor is, we fancy, done from actual observation. it is quite new." and the critic of =black and white= sums it up pithily as "a story which holds our attention and interests us right from the first chapter. the book is as exciting as even a story of sensation has any need to be." speaking of the scene of mr herman's drama, the beautiful county of devonshire, where the greater part of the story takes place, the =manchester courier= says: "the author's descriptive powers vividly portray the lovely spots by the winding tamar, while the rich dialect of the district is so faithfully reproduced as to become not the least feature of an exciting tale." =the weekly mercury.=--"mr henry herman has carefully studied the little weaknesses of the great army of readers. like a celebrated and much advertised medicine, he invariably 'touches the spot,' and hence the popularity of his works. his latest novel, 'the sword of fate,' contains all the essentials of a popular story. it is well written, sufficiently dramatic, full of life and incident, and above all, right triumphs over wrong. we must, too, congratulate the author upon the omission of all that is disagreeable or likely to offend the susceptibilities of the most delicate minded. it is a clean and healthy novel, a credit to the writer, and a pleasure to the reader.... these are quite capable of affording anyone a pleasant evening's reading, a remark which does not apply to the great majority of the modern novels." =_seven nights with satan._= a novel. by j. l. owen, author of "the great jekyll diamond." cover designed by w. s. rogers. crown vo, cloth, s. d. =st james's gazette.=--"we have read the book from start to finish with unflagging interest--an interest, by the way, which derives nothing from the 'spice,' for though its title may be suggestive of zolaism, there is not a single passage which is open to objection. the literary style is good." =truth.=--"i much prefer the ghastly story 'seven nights with satan,' a very clever study of degeneration." =london morning.=--"the story told is a powerful one, evidently based upon close personal knowledge of the events, places, and persons which figure in it. a tragic note pervades it, but still there is lightness and wit in its manner which makes the book a very fascinating as well as eventful volume." =public opinion.=--"mr j. l. owen has given a title to his work which will cause many conjectures as to the nature of the story. now, if we divulged what were the seven nights, we should be doing the author anything but a service--in fact, we should be giving the whole thing away; therefore, we will only state that the work is cleverly conceived, and carried out with great literary ability. there are numerous flashes of originality that lift the author above ordinary commonplace." =_the green passion._= the study of a jealous soul. a powerful novel. by anthony p. vert. cover designed by alfred praga. crown vo, art cloth, s. d. mr douglas sladen in =the queen=.--"a remarkably clever book.... there is no disputing the ability with which the writer handles her subject. i say _her_ subject, because the minuteness of the touches, and the odd, forcible style in which this book is written, point to it being the work of a female hand. the book is an eminently readable one, and it is never dull for a minute." =daily telegraph.=--"it is a study of one of the worst passions which can ruin a lifetime and mar all human happiness--one of the worst, not because it is necessarily the strongest, but because of its singular effect in altering the complexion of things, transforming love into suspicion, and filling its victim with a petulant and unreasonable madness. all this anthony vert understands, and can describe with very uncommon power. the soul of a jealous woman is analysed with artistic completeness, and proved to be the petty, intolerant, half-insane thing it really is.... the plot is well conceived, and well carried out. anthony vert may be congratulated on having written a very clever novel." =the monitor.=--"a wonderful piece of writing. the only modern parallel we can find is supplied in mr f. c. philip's 'as in a looking glass.'" =world.=--"as the study of a jealous soul, 'the green passion' is a success, and psychological students will be delighted with it.... the tragedy which forms the _dénouement_ to this story is of such a nature as to preclude our doing more than remotely alluding to it, for he (or is it she?) has portrayed an 'exceedingly risky situation.'" =whitehall review.=--"in 'the green passion' the author traces with much ability, and not a little analytical insight, the progress of jealousy in the breast of a woman who is born with a very 'intense,' although not a very deep, nature.... there is in mr vert's work a certain tendency towards realism which has its due effect in making his characters real. they are no loosely-built fancies of the journalistic brain, but portraits--almost snapshot portraits--of men and women of to-day." =_outrageous fortune._= being the confessions of evelyn gray, hospital nurse. a story founded on fact, proving that truth is stranger than fiction. (in preparation.) crown vo, cloth, s. d. =_the dolomite cavern._= an exciting tale of adventure. by w. patrick kelly, author of "schoolboys three," etc. crown vo, cloth, s. d. =daily telegraph.=--"lovers of the sensational in fiction will find abundance of congenial entertainment in mr w. p. kelly's new story. in the way of accessories to startling situations all is fish that comes to this ingenious author's net. the wonders of primitive nature, the marvels of latter-day science, the extravagances of human passion--all these he dexterously uses for the purpose of involving his hero in perilous scrapes from which he no less dexterously extricates him by expedients which, however far-fetched they may appear to the unimaginative, are certainly not lacking in originality of device, or cleverness of construction.... this is a specimen incident--those which succeed it derive their special interest from the action of rontgen rays, subterranean torrents, and devastating inundations. the book is very readable throughout, and ends happily. what more can the average novel reader wish for in holiday time?" =observer.=--"a story full of exciting adventure." =saturday review.=--"the plot is ingenious, and the style pleasant." =literature.=--"'the dolomite cavern' has the great merit of being very well written. the plot is sensational and improbable enough, but with the aid of the author's bright literary manner it carries us on agreeably until the last chapter." =critic.=--"it is a sensational novel with a dash of pseudo-scientific interest about it which is well calculated to attract the public. it is, moreover, well written and vigorous." =manchester guardian.=--"mr kelly's fluent, rapid style makes his story of mysteries readable and amusing. his irish servant, one of the principal characters, speaks a genuine irish dialect--almost as rare in fiction as the imitation is common." =st james's budget.=--"truly thrilling and dramatic, mr kelly's book is a cleverly written and absorbing romance. it concludes with a tremendous scene, in which a life-and-death struggle with a madman in the midst of a raging flood is the leading feature." =_madonna mia_=, and other stories. by clement scott, author of "poppyland," "the wheel of life," "the fate of fenella," "blossomland," etc. crown vo, cloth, s. d. =punch.=--"'madonna mia' is genuinely interesting. all the stories are good; you are 'scott free' to pick 'em where you like." (the baron de b. w.) =weekly sun.=--"shows mr scott's sturdy character painting and love of picturesque adventure." =weekly dispatch.=--"the book is characteristic of the work of its author--bright, brilliant, informing, and entertaining, and without a dull sentence in it." =st james's gazette.=--"full of grace and sentiment. the tales have each their individuality and interest, and we can recommend the whole as healthy refreshment for the idle or weary brain." =pelican.=--"full of living, breathing, human interest. few writers possess the gift of bringing actual existence to their characters as does mr scott, and in the pages of his newest book you shall find tears and smiles, and all the emotions skilfully arranged and put in true literary fashion." =world.=--"clement scott is nothing if not sympathetic, and every one of the ten stories is not only thoroughly readable, but is instinct with sentiment; for mr scott still retains a wonderful enthusiasm, usually the attribute of youth. 'drifting' is a very fresh and convincing narrative, founded, we understand, upon truth, and containing within a small compass the materials for a very stirring drama. 'a cross of heather,' too, is a charming romance, told with real pathos and feeling." =_the shadow on the manse._= a tale of religion and the stage. by campbell rae-brown, author of "the resurrection of his grace," "kissing-cup's race," etc. crown vo, art cloth, gilt, s. d. =_the lady of the leopard._= a powerful and fascinating novel. by chas. l'epine, author of "the devil in a domino." crown vo, art cloth, s. d. =public opinion.=--"a remarkable book.... we are plunged into a delicious and tantalising romance; incident follows incident like a panorama of exciting pictures. fertility of imagination is everywhere apparent, and the _dénouement_ is artfully concealed till it bursts upon the reader with a suddenness that fairly takes away his breath." =liverpool mercury.=--"lovers of the marvellous will enjoy it, for it is cleverly and dramatically written." =dundee advertiser.=--"written with dramatic force and vigour." =north british advertiser.=--"this is a weird and strange story that interests and fascinates the reader, with its occult fancies and marvellous experiences.... it may be added, in conclusion, that it is a book well worth reading, and will easily bear a second perusal." =liverpool post.=--"a very skilfully constructed story, mysterious and strange, with a natural explanation suggested of all the mystery which does not spoil one's enjoyment (here follows analysis of plot). this is the bare outline of the story up to a certain point; it is impossible to convey adequately an idea of the awe-inspiring characteristics of the story. readers can safely be recommended to turn to the book itself." * * * * * popular fiction half-crown novels =_in monte carlo._= a tale by henryk sienkiewicz, author of "quo vadis," "with fire and sword," etc., etc. translated by s. c. de soissons. crown vo, art cloth, with a new portrait of the author, s. d. =_the tragedy of the lady palmist._= by w. luther longstaff, author of "weeds and flowers," etc. an exciting tale, descriptive of the "behind-the-scenes of the palmist's bohemia." crown vo, cloth, s. d. =_my lady ruby, and basileon, chief of police._= two stories by g. f. monkshood, author of "nightshades," "rudyard kipling: the man and his work," "woman and the wits," etc. crown vo, cloth, s. d. =_the hypocrite._= a modern realistic novel of oxford and london life. fourth impression. crown vo, cloth, s. d. _this book has been "boycotted" by messrs mudie and messrs w. h. smith & son as being "unfit to circulate in their libraries," yet it has been praised by the press at being "a powerful sermon and a moral book."_ =daily telegraph.=--"a book by an anonymous author always arouses a certain inquiry, and when the book is clever and original the interest becomes keen; and conjecture is rife, endowing the most unlikely people with authorship.... it is very brilliant, very forcible, very sad.... it is perfect in its way, in style clear, sharp and forcible, the dialogue epigrammatic and sparkling.... enough has been said to show that 'the hypocrite' is a striking and powerful piece of work, and that its author has established his claim to be considered a writer of originality and brilliance." =daily graphic.=--"a very moral book." =court circular.=--"the work is decidedly clever, full of ready wit, sparkling epigram, and cutting sarcasm." =echo.=--"the story is thoroughly interesting, the wit and epigram of the writing are not to be denied, and altogether 'the hypocrite' is so brilliant that it can only be fittingly compared with 'the green carnation' or 'the babe b.a.'" =liverpool courier.=--"a genuinely clever book. furthermore, it is a book with a wholesome moral vividly enforced." =lady.=--"whoever the author may be, he has the right literary method, his work is absolutely realistic, his style is fluent and distinctive, and he has the rare faculty of gripping the reader's attention at the outset and retaining it to the very last.... 'the hypocrite' is something more than a remarkable novel--it is, in effect, a sermon, conveying a definite message to those who have the wit to understand it." =morning post.=--"it is entitled to be regarded as one of the clever books of the day. the writer shows artistic perception. he maintains throughout an atmosphere perfectly in harmony with the idea that has suggested his work." =_the wandering romanoff._= a romance. by bart kennedy, author of "a man adrift," "darab's wine-cup," etc. new and cheaper edition, crown vo, cloth, s. d. =_dona rufina._= a nineteenth century romance. being a story of carlist conspiracy. by heber daniels, author of "our tenants." second edition. crown vo, cloth, s. d. =bookman.=--"a highly emotional, cleverly written story." =lady.=--"a thrilling romance with a mediæval atmosphere, although the scene is laid in the cotswolds in the year of grace . the story is well constructed, and is a good example of the widely imaginative type of fiction that is so eagerly devoured by young people nowadays." =lloyd's.=--"the author has woven a clever story out of strange materials.... the interest of the book only ceases when the end is reached." =society.=--"altogether a very intelligible and interesting story of intrigue and love. the author has put some excellent work into the book." =eastern morning news.=--"readers will be fascinated by the stirring scenes, the swiftly moving panorama, the enacted tragedies, the wild, passionate, lawless loves depicted in the most sensational manner in this volume." =englishman= (calcutta).--"it is a lurid tale of spanish plotters.... around this central figure the author weaves an effective story with more than considerable skill. he has achieved a brilliant success with the character of rufina; it is a masterpiece in its own way, and invested with freshness, grace, and a magnetic personality." =_lord jimmy._= a story of music-hall life. by george martyn. crown vo, cloth, s. d. =outlook.=--"the book is both humorous and dramatic." =pelican.=--"it is amusing and interesting--two very good qualities for a novel to possess." =sheffield telegraph.=--"the book is vivaciously written, several of the characters being human enough to look like studies from life." =aberdeen free press.=--"the characters are skilfully depicted, and the whole book is amusing and interesting." =glasgow citizen.=--"'decidedly clever' will be the verdict of the reader on closing this book." =vanity fair.=--"the author has a peculiar knowledge of the 'halls' and those who frequent them; and especially, as it seems to us, of those jewish persons who sometimes run them. and he has made good use of his knowledge here. but there is more than this in the book; for 'george martyn' has considerable descriptive talent. his account, for instance, of the fight between the hero and the butcher is quite good. the story is straightforward, convincing, and full of human nature and promise." =_the lady of criswold._= a sensational story. by leonard outram. crown vo, cloth, s. d. =north british advertiser.=--"a thrilling tale of love and madness." =whitehall review.=--"no one can complain of lack of sensation, it is full of startling episodes. the characters are drawn with a rapid and vigorous touch. the interest is well maintained." =court circular.=--"it reminds us forcibly of a story in real life that engrossed public attention many years ago. whether this was in the author's mind we cannot say, but the book is deeply interesting, the characters well and strongly drawn, and we doubt not this tale will fascinate many a reader." =london morning.=--"the story is cleverly constructed, is full of incident with more than a dash of tragedy, and holds the attention of the reader to the close. dealing with modern life of the higher class, mr outram's story is consistent, and though it aims at romantic effect, is not strained or overdrawn." =church gazette.=--"we can heartily recommend 'the lady of criswold.' one likes to meet now and again a book which forsakes the eternal sex question, or the hairsplitting discussion of ethical or psychological problems, and treats us to simpler and more satisfying fare.... there are several good hours' reading in the book, and plenty of excitement of the dramatic order. another good point is that it is healthy in tone." =_the gates of temptation._= a natural novel by mrs albert s. bradshaw, author of "false gods," "wife or slave," etc. crown vo, cloth, s. d. =weekly dispatch.=--"this is a story full of power and pathos, the strong dramatic interest of which is sustained from the opening chapter to the close." =midland mail.=--"the characters are vividly drawn. there are many pleasant and painful incidents in the book, which is interesting from beginning to end." =london morning.=--"mrs albert bradshaw has done such uniformly good work that we have grown to expect much from her. her latest book is one which will enhance her reputation, and equally please new and old readers of her novels. it is called 'the gates of temptation,' and professes to be a natural novel. the story told is one of deep interest. there is no veneer in its presentation, no artificiality about it." =aberdeen free press.=--"mrs bradshaw has written several good novels, and the outstanding feature of all of them has been her skilful development of plot, and her tasteful, pleasing style. in connection with the present story we are able to amply reiterate those praises. the plot again is well developed and logically carried out, while the language used by the authoress is always happy and well chosen, and never commonplace.... the story is a very powerful one indeed, and may be highly commended as a piece of painstaking fiction of the very highest kind." =_the resurrection of his grace._= being the very candid confessions of the honourable bertie beauclerc. a sporting novel. by campbell rae-brown, author of "richard barlow," "kissing cup's race," etc. second impression. crown vo, cloth, s. d. =gentlewoman.=--"fantastic and impossible, but at the same time amusing.... the whole story is strongly dramatic." =saturday review.=--"a grotesquely improbable story, but readers of sporting novels will find much amusement in it." =scotsman.=--"the book is lightly and briskly written throughout. its pleasant cynicism is always entertaining." =star.=--"an ingeniously horrible story with a diabolically clever plot." =st james's budget.=--"a sporting romance which is indisputably cleverly written.... the book is full of interesting items of sporting life which are fascinating to lovers of the turf." =edinburgh evening news.=--"it has certainly an audacious idea for its central motive.... this bright idea is handled with no little skill, and the interest is kept up breathlessly until the tragic end of the experiment. the whole story has a racy flavour of the turf." =sporting life.=--"the character of the heartless _roue_, who tells his story, is very well sustained, and the rich _parvenu_, peter drewitt, the owner of the favourite that is very nearly nobbled by the unscrupulous beauclerc, is cleverly drawn. altogether it is an exciting and an uncommon tale, and is quite correct in all the sporting details." _anna marsden's experiment._ an interesting novel. by ellen williams. crown vo, art cloth, s. d. =outlook.=--"a good story cleverly told and worked out." =echo.=--"a very natural and interesting tale is carefully set forth in ellen williams' clever little book." =western morning news.=--"it is a smartly written and deeply interesting story, well out of the beaten track of novelists." =literary world.=--"the story is well told.... four racy chapters take us thus far, and seven lively ones follow." =public opinion.=--"from this point the interest in the story is such that there is no putting the book down till the _dénouement_ is reached. the writing is smart, clever, and telling." =critic.=--"a powerful story, unconventional as regards both subject and treatment. [here the reviewer analyses the plot.] this situation is handled with extraordinary delicacy and skill, and the book is an admirable study of repressed emotions." =monitor.=--"miss williams has here seized on an original concept, and given it fitting presentation. the 'experiment' is a novel one, and its working out is a deft piece of writing. the psychology of the work is faultless, and this study of a beautiful temperament, in a crude frame, has with it the verity of deep observation and acute insight.... we await with considerable confidence miss williams' next venture." =sheffield independent.=--"the writer has treated a delicate and unusual situation with delicacy and originality. the heroine's character is drawn with firmness and clearness, and the whole story is vivid and picturesque.... the history of the experiment is exceedingly well told. keen insight into character, and cleverness in its delineation, as well as shrewd observation and intense sympathy, mark the writer's work, while the style is terse and clear, and the management of trying scenes extremely good." =_darab's wine-cup_=, and other powerful and vividly-written stories. by bart kennedy, author of "the wandering romanoff," etc. new and cheaper edition. crown vo, cloth, s. d. =aberdeen free press.=--"will be welcomed as something fresh in the world of fiction." =st james's budget.=--"a volume characteristic of the author's splendid powers." =m. a. p.=--"mr kennedy writes powerfully, and can grip the reader's imagination, or whirl it off into the strangest domains of glamour and romance at will.... there is a future for this clever young man from tipperary. he will do great things." =outlook.=--"mr bart kennedy is a young writer of singular imaginative gifts, and a style as individual as mr kipling's." =weekly dispatch.=--"the author has exceptional gifts, a strong and powerful individuality, a facile pen, rich imagination, and constructive ability of a high order. this volume ought to find a place on every library shelf." =critic.=--"of a highly imaginative order, and distinctly out of the ordinary run.... the author has a remarkable talent for imaginative and dramatic presentation. he sets before himself a higher standard of achievement than most young writers of fiction." =cork herald.=--"gracefully written, easy and attractive in diction and style, the stories are as choice a collection as we have happened on for a long time. they are clever; they are varied; they are fascinating. we admit them into the sacred circle of the most beautiful that have been told by the most sympathetic and skilled writers.... mr kennedy has a style, and that is rare enough nowadays--as refreshing as it is rare." ="_fame, the fiddler._"= a story of literary and theatrical life. by s. j. adair fitz-gerald. crown vo, cloth, new and cheaper edition, s. d. =graphic.=--"the volume will please and amuse numberless people." =pall mall gazette.=--"a pleasant, cheery story. displays a rich vein of robust imagination." =sun.=--"interesting all through, and the inclination is towards finishing it at one sitting." =scotsman.=--"an amusing and entertaining story of bohemian life in london." =standard.=--"there are many pleasant pages in 'fame, the fiddler,' which reminds us of 'trilby,' with its pictures of bohemian life, and its happy-go-lucky group of good-hearted, generous scribblers, artists, and playwrights. some of the characters are so true to life that it is impossible not to recognise them. among the best incidents in the volume must be mentioned the production of pryor's play, and the account of poor jimmy lambert's death, which is as moving an incident as we have read for a long time. altogether, 'fame, the fiddler' is a very human book, and an amusing one as well." =catholic times.=--"we read the volume through, and at the conclusion marvelled at the wonderful knowledge of life the author displays. for although the whole work is written in a light, humorous vein, underneath this current of humour there is really an astonishing amount of wisdom, and wisdom that is not displayed every day.... it is a vivid description of times gay and melancholy, that occur in many lives. mr fitz-gerald has done his work well, so well that we loitered on many pages, and closed the book finally with a feeling that it is a faithful history of the journalist, the author, the theatrical individual, and the man who ekes out a living by playing the _rôle_ of all three." cheaper fiction =_pelican tails._= a collection of smart, up-to-date tales of modern life, written, edited and selected by frank m. boyd (editor of "the pelican.") one of the most popular and entertaining volumes of short stories that has ever been published. an ideal companion for a railway journey or a spare hour or two. crown vo, picture wrapper designed and drawn by w. s. rogers, s. (in active preparation.) =_the devil in a domino._= a psychological mystery. by chas. l'epine, author of "the lady of the leopard," "miracle plays," etc. cover designed by c h. beauvais. long mo, cloth, s. =truth.=--"the story is written with remarkable literary skill, and, notwithstanding its gruesomeness, is undeniably fascinating." =sketch.=--"it is a well-written story. an admirable literary style, natural and concise construction, succeed in compelling the reader's attention through every line. we hope to welcome the author again, working on a larger scene." =star.=--"may be guaranteed to disturb your night's rest. it is a gruesome, ghastly, blood-curdling, hair-erecting, sleep-murdering piece of work, with a thrill on every page. read it." =sunday chronicle.=--"a very clever study by 'charles l'epine,' who should by his style be an accomplished author not unknown in other ranks of literature. beyond comparison it is the strongest shilling shocker we have read for many a day. the author has succeeded in heaping horror upon horror until one's blood is curdled." =_that fascinating widow_=, and other frivolous and fantastic tales, for river, road and rail. by s. j. adair fitz-gerald. long mo, cloth, s. =the scotsman.=--"the widow is a charmingly wicked person. the stories are well written, with a pleasant humour of a farcical sort; they are never dull." =whitehall review.=--"written with all the dash and ease which mr fitz-gerald has accustomed us to in his journalistic work. there is a breezy, invigorating style about this little book which will make it a favourite on the bookstalls." =glasgow herald.=--"nonsense, genial harmless nonsense, to which the most captious and morose of readers will find it difficult to refuse the tribute of a broad smile, even if he can so far restrain himself as not to burst out into genuine laughter." =the referee.=--"another little humorous book is 'that fascinating widow,' by mr s. j. adair fitz-gerald, who can be very funny when he tries. the story which gives the title to the book would make a capital farce. 'the blue-blooded coster' is an amusing piece of buffoonery." =the globe.=--"the author, mr s. j. adair fitz-gerald, has already shown himself to be the possessor of a store of humour, on which he has again drawn for the furnishing of the little volume he has just put together. among the tales included are several which might be suitable for reading or recitation, and none which are dull. mr fitz-gerald frankly addresses himself to that portion of the public which desires nothing so much as to be amused, and likes even its amusements in small doses. such a public will entertain itself very pleasantly with mr fitz-gerald's lively tales, and will probably name as its favourites those titled 'pure cussedness,' 'splidgings' first baby,' and 'the blue-blooded coster.'" =_shadows._= a series of side lights on modern society. by ernest martin. (dedicated to sir henry irving.) crown vo, art cloth, gilt tops, s. =phoenix.=--"'shadows' is a very clever work." =western mercury.=--"clever sketches, intensely dramatic, original and forceful, based on scenes from actual life, and narrated with much skill." =weekly times.=--"a series of pictures sketched with considerable power. the last one, 'hell in paradise,' is terrible in the probable truth of conception." =northern figaro.=--"mr martin's descriptive paragraphs are couched in trenchant, convincing language, without a superfluous word sandwiched in anywhere.... 'shadows' may be read with much profit, and will give more than a superficial insight into various phases of society life and manners." =_death and the woman._= a powerful tale. by arnold golsworthy. picture cover drawn by sydney h. syme. crown vo, s. =scotsman.=--"a cleverly constructed story about a murder and a gang of diamond robbers.... the tale never has to go far without a strong situation. it is a capital book for a railway journey." =star.=--"a good shilling's worth of highly coloured sensationalism. those readers who want a good melodramatic story smartly told, mr golsworthy's latest effort will suit down to the ground." =literary world.=--"we do not remember having read a book that possessed the quality of _grip_ in a greater degree than is the case with 'death and the woman.' ... every page of every chapter develops the interest, which culminates in one of the most sensational _dénouements_ it has been our lot to read. the flavour of actuality is not destroyed by any incredible incident; it is the inevitable thing that always happens. 'death and the woman' will supply to the brim the need of those in search of a holding drama of modern london life." =_the fellow-passengers._= a mystery and its solution. a detective story. by rivington pyke, author of "the man who disappeared." long mo, cloth, s. =whitehall review.=--"those who love a mystery with plenty of 'go,' and a story which is not devoid of a certain amount of realism, cannot do better than pick up 'fellow-passengers.' the characters are real men and women, and not the sentimental and artificial puppets to which we have been so long accustomed by our sensationalists. the book is brightly written, and of detective stories it is the best i have read lately." =weekly dispatch.=--"if you want a diverting story of realism, bordering upon actuality, you cannot do better than take up this bright, vivacious, dramatic volume. it will interest you from first page to last." =catholic times.=--"this is a well-written story, with a good plot and plenty of incident. from cover to cover there is not a dull page, and the interest keeps up to the end." =glasgow news.=--"it is a thriller.... the sort of book one cannot help finishing at a sitting, not merely because it is short, but because it rivets.... the author uses his materials with great ingenuity, his plot is cleverly devised, and he very effectively works up to a striking _dénouement_. illustrated books for children =_nonsense numbers and jocular jingles_= for funny little folk. written by druid grayl, with full-page illustrations by walter j. morgan. to, cloth boards, s. =_the grand panjandrum_=, and other fanciful fairy tales for the youthful of all ages, climes and times. by s. j. adair fitz-gerald, author of "the zankiwank and the bletherwitch," "the wonders of the secret cavern," "the mighty toltec," etc. many full-page and smaller illustrations by gustave darrÉ. second edition. square vo, art cloth, gilt, s. d. =truth.=--"a decided acquisition to the children's library." =ladies' pictorial.=--"quite one of the brightest of the season's gift books." =spectator.=--"well provided with fun and fancy." =morning post.=--"bright and thoroughly amusing. it will please all children. the pictures are excellent." =echo.=--"of the pile (of children's books) before us, mr adair fitz-gerald's 'grand panjandrum' is the cleverest. mr fitz-gerald needs no introduction to the nursery of these days." =times.=--"very fanciful." =church news.=--"this is one of the most delightful books of nonsense we have read since we welcomed 'the wallypug of why.'" =scotsman.=--"will make the eyes of readers open wide with wonder and delight." =lloyd's.=--"will amuse all children lucky enough to get this neat and pretty volume." =pall mall gazette.=--"a charming little book. simply written, and therefore to be comprehended of the youthful mind. it will be popular, for the writer has a power of pleasing which is rare." =literary world.=--"a handsomely bound, mouth-watering, in every way up-to-date volume, written especially for and on behalf of the toddler or the newly breeched." =people.=--"a delightful story for children, something in the style of 'alice in wonderland,' but also having some flavour of kingley's 'water babies.'" =sun.=--"good fairy stories are a source of everlasting joy and delight. mr adair fitz-gerald breaks fresh ground and writes pleasantly.... the book has the added advantage of being charmingly illustrated in colour by gustave darré." =nottingham guardian.=--"it is a merry book, and should keep the nursery in a good humour for hours. it is artistically got up, the illustrations by mr gustave darré being of a high order of merit." =manchester courier.=--"it should prove a great favourite with young people, being written by one who evidently takes the utmost interest in them and their ways. the full-page illustrations are very pretty." =weekly sun.=--"mr adair fitz-gerald is a well-known writer of fairy stories and humorous books for the young. 'the grand panjandrum' is just the sort of book to please youngsters of all ages, being full of pleasant imaginings, and introducing its readers to a host of curious people." greening's humorous books =_the pillypingle pastorals._= a series of amusing rustic tales and sketches. by druid grayl. profusely illustrated by walter j. morgan. crown vo, art cloth, s. d. =_the pottle papers._= written by tristram coutts, author of "a comedy of temptation." illustrated by l. raven hill. fourth edition. crown vo, cloth, s. d. =the pottle papers=, the fourth edition of which is just ready, is a really funny book written by saul smiff, and illustrated by mr l. raven hill. "anyone who wants a good laugh should get 'the pottle papers,'" says the =sheffield daily telegraph.= "they are very droll reading for an idle afternoon, or picking up at any time when 'down in the dumps.' they are very brief and very bright, and it is impossible for anyone with the slightest sense of humour to read the book without bursting into 'the loud guffaw' which does not always 'bespeak the empty mind.'" =the pall mall gazette= says it contains "plenty of boisterous humour of the max adeler kind ... humour that is genuine and spontaneous. the author, for all his antics, has a good deal more in him than the average buffoon. there is, for example, a very clever and subtle strain of feeling running through the comedy in 'the love that burned'--a rather striking bit of work. mr raven hill's illustrations are as amusing as they always are." the =st. james's budget= accorded this book a very long notice, and reproduced some of the pictures. the reviewer said: "who says the sense of humour is dead when we have 'the pottle papers'? we can put the book down with the feeling that we have spent a very enjoyable hour and laughed immoderately. 'the pottle papers' will be in everybody's hands before long." h.r.h. the prince of wales honoured the author by accepting a copy of his book; and the =court circular= remarked: "the prince of wales has accepted a copy of saul smiff's delightfully merry book, 'the pottle papers.' the prince is sure to enjoy raven hill's clever sketches." this funniest of funny books is published at s. d., strongly bound in cloth. =_dan leno, hys booke._= a volume of frivolities: autobiographical, historical, philosophical, anecdotal and nonsensical. written by dan leno. profusely illustrated by sidney h. sime, frank chesworth, w. s. rogers, gustave darré, alfred bryan and dan leno. fifth edition, containing a new chapter, and an appreciation of dan leno, written by clement scott. crown vo, art cloth, gilt edges, s. popular edition, sewed, picture cover, s. =dan leno, hys booke=, is, says the =liverpool review=, "the funniest publication since 'three men in a boat.' in this autobiographical masterpiece the inimitable king of comedians tells his life story in a style that would make a shrimp laugh." this enormously successful book of genuine and spontaneous humour has been received with a complete chorus of complimentary criticisms and pleasing "press" praise and approval. here are a few reviewers' remarks: "bombshells of fun."--=scotsman.= "one long laugh from start to finish."--=lloyd's.= "full of exuberant and harmless fun."--=globe.= "a deliciously humorous volume."--=english illustrated magazine.= "the fun is fast and furious."--=catholic times.= "it is very funny."--=st paul's.= these are a few opinions taken at random from hundreds of notices. says the =daily news= (hull): "the funniest book we have read for some time. you must perforce scream with huge delight at the dry sayings and writings of the funny little man who has actually killed people with his patter and his antics. page after page of genuine fun is reeled off by the great little man." =_bachelor ballads_= and other lazy lyrics. by harry a. spurr, author of "a cockney in arcadia." with fifty illustrations by john hassall. crown vo, art cloth, s. d. =_the pottle's progress._= being the further adventures of mr and mrs pottle. by tristram coutts, author of "the pottle papers," etc. crown vo, s. d. (in preparation.) * * * * * guides, etc. =_london._= a handy guide for the visitor, sportsman and naturalist. by j. w. cundall. including an article on "literary restaurants," by clement scott. numerous illustrations. second year of publication. long mo, cloth, d. =vanity fair.=--"a capital little guide book. no bulky volume this, but a handy booklet full of pithy information on all the most important subjects connected with our great city." =outlook.=--"a handy booklet, more tasteful than one is accustomed to." =pelican.=--"as full of useful and entertaining information as is an egg of meat." =bookman.=--"a very lively and readable little guide." =to-day.=--"one of the best guide books for visitors to london. it is a model of lucidity and informativeness, and the profuse illustrations are admirably executed." =glasgow herald.=--"a useful little work for those who have no desire to wade through many pages of information before getting what they want." =_america abroad._= a handy guide for americans in england. edited by j. w. cundall. with numerous illustrations. ninth year of publication. d. =_in quaint east anglia._= descriptive sketches. by t. west carnie. illustrated by w. s. rogers. long mo, cloth, s. (_see page ._) ="_sisters by the sea._"= seaside and country sketches. by clement scott, author of "blossom land," "amongst the apple orchards," etc. frontispiece and vignette designed by george pownall. long mo, attractively bound in cloth, s. (_see page ._) a book of great interest. at all booksellers and libraries. second edition. =rudyard kipling:= =the man and his work.= being an attempt at appreciation. by =g. f. monkshood=. with a portrait of mr kipling, and an autograph letter to the author in facsimile. _crown vo, crimson buckram, gilt top, /= nett._ */ =a few of many press opinions= =daily telegraph.=--(mr w. l. courtney in "books of the day.")--"he writes fluently, and has genuine enthusiasm for his subject, and an intimate acquaintance with his work. moreover, his book has been submitted to mr kipling, whose characteristic letter to the author is set forth in the preface.... of mr kipling's heroes mr monkshood has a thorough understanding, and his remarks on them are worth quoting." (here follows a long extract.) =scotsman.=--"this well-informed volume ... is plainly sincere. it is thoroughly well studied, and takes pains to answer all the questions that are usually put about mr kipling. the writer's enthusiasm carries both himself and his reader along in the most agreeable style.... one way and another, his book is full of interest; those who wish to talk about mr kipling will find it invaluable, while the thousands of his admirers will read it through with delighted sympathy." =western daily press.=--"a very praiseworthy attempt, and by a writer imbued with a fervent esteem for his subject.... this valuation of the work of our most virile empire author should hold the attention of those who have well studied the subject and can appreciate accordingly." =sun.=--"the author has carefully compiled a lot of most interesting matter, which he has edited with care and conscientiousness, and the result is a volume which every lover of kipling can read with pleasure." =spectator.=--"it is very readable. it tells us some things which we might not otherwise have known, and puts together in a convenient form many things which are of common knowledge." =outlook.=--"something more than an attempt at appreciation.... mr monkshood has written what all the young men at home and abroad who treasure mr kipling's writings think, but have not expressed. the volume is a striking testimony to the hold which work that is clean and sane and virile has upon the rising generation. and for this we cannot be sufficiently thankful." =globe.=--"it has at the basis both knowledge and enthusiasm--knowledge of the works estimated and enthusiasm for them.... this book may be accepted as a generous exposition of mr kipling's merits as a writer. we can well believe that it will have many interested and approving readers." =irish times.=--"a well-thought-out and earnest appreciation of the great writer and his works." =academy.=--"the book should give its subject pleasure, for mr monkshood is very keen and cordial. his criticisms have some shrewdness too. here is a passage ..." (long quotation follows.) =sunday times.=--"sure to attract much attention. in it we are given a sketch of mr kipling's career and the story of his various works, along with some sane and balanced criticism.... the book is written brightly, thoughtfully, and informingly." =bookseller.=--"it is acute in perception, and sympathetic to the verge of worship, with just as much criticism as will allow that the hero has his limitations.... mr monkshood's well-informed and well-written critique possesses undoubted ability and attraction." =yorkshire herald.=--"this work, which is highly appreciative, will be received with enthusiasm.... from this point the biography becomes even more interesting.... the author deals at length with kipling's works, and with sufficient forcefulness and originality to hold the reader's attention throughout. the biography has undoubted merit and will be largely read." index a adams, herbert-- a virtue of necessity alexander, geo.-- introduction to "art of elocution" america abroad (j. w. cundall) anna marsden's experiment (ellen williams) asmodeus (edited by justin hannaford) ashes tell no tales (mrs a. s. bradshaw) ascher, isidore g.-- a social upheaval b bachelor ballads (h. a. spurr) beckford, geo.-- vathek bible stories retold bradshaw, mrs albert s.-- ashes tell no tales gates of temptation bye-ways of crime (r. j. power-berrey) c carnie, t. west-- in quaint east anglia comedy of temptation (t. coutts) coutts, tristram-- pottle papers comedy of temptation pottle's progress cundall, j. w.-- london america abroad cry in the night (a. golsworthy) d daniels, heber-- dona rufina darab's wine-cup (b. kennedy) dan leno, hys booke (dan leno) death and the woman (a. golsworthy) devil in a domino (c. l'epine) devil on two sticks (le sage) de brÉmont, comtesse-- a son of africa the gentleman digger de soisson-- the path of the soul dolomite cavern (w. p. kelly) dona rufina (heber daniels) e east anglia, in quaint (t. w. carnie) "english writers of to-day" series-- rudyard kipling (g. f. monkshood) thomas hardy (w. l. courtney) geo. meredith (walter jerrold) bret harte (t. e. pemberton) richard le gallienne (c. r. gull) arthur wing pinero (h. fyffe) w. e. henley (g. gamble) english parnassian school (sir g. douglas) realistic writers (j. hannaford) escott, t. h. s.-- a trip to paradoxia elocution, the art of (ross ferguson) epicurean, the (edited by justin hannaford) f fame, the fiddler (s. j. a. fitz-gerald) famous hamlets (c. scott) ferguson, ross-- the art of elocution fetters of fire (compton reade) fellow-passengers (r. pyke) fitz-gerald, s. j. adair-- fame, the fiddler that fascinating widow the grand panjandrum g galt, john-- ringan gilhaize gates of temptation, the (mrs a. s. bradshaw) gentleman digger, the (comtesse de brémont) girl of the north, a (h. milicite) golsworthy, arnold-- a cry in the night death and the woman grayl, druid-- nonsense numbers, etc. pillypingle pastorals grand panjandrum, the (s. j. a. fitz-gerald) green, percy b.-- a history of nursery rhymes green passion (a. p. vert) guides, etc. h hall, sydney-- temptation of edith watson hamlets, some famous (c. scott) herman, henry-- the sword of fate hypocrite, the (anonymous) i in monte carlo (h. sienkiewicz) in quaint east anglia (t. w. carnie) j jocular jingles (druid grayl) johnson, dr-- rasselas k kelly, w. patrick-- the dolomite cavern kennedy, bart-- a man adrift darab's wine-cup the wandering romanoff l lady of the leopard, the (c. l'epine) lady of criswold, the (l. outram) le sage-- asmodeus; or, the devil on two sticks l'epine, charles-- the devil in a domino the lady of the leopard leno, dan-- dan leno, hys booke longstaff, w. luther-- weeds and flowers the tragedy of the lady palmist lord jimmy (g. martyn) london (j. w. cundall) m man adrift, a (b. kennedy) madonna mia (c. scott) martyn, geo.-- lord jimmy martin, ernest-- shadows m'millan, mrs alec-- the weird well miss malevolent (author of "the hypocrite") milicite, helen-- a girl of the north monkshood, g. f.-- woman and the wits rudyard kipling my lady ruby moore, thomas-- the epicurean mora (t. w. speight) my lady ruby (g. f. monkshood) n new tale of the terror, a (author of "the hypocrite") nonsense numbers (d. grayl) nursery rhymes, a history of (p. b. green) o obscure apostle (orzeszko) outrageous fortune (anonymous) outram, leonard-- the lady of criswold owen, j. l.-- seven nights with satan p path of the soul (c. s. de soisson) people, plays, and places (c. scott) pelican tails (f. m. boyd, etc.) pillypingle pastorals (d. grayl) pootle papers, the (t. coutts) pootle's progress, the (t. coutts) power-berrey, r. j.-- bye-ways of crime pyke, rivington-- the fellow-passengers r rae-brown, campbell-- the shadow on the manse the resurrection of his grace rasselas (edited by justin hannaford) reade, compton-- fetters of fire resurrection of his grace (c. rae-brown) ringan gilhaize (edited by sir g. douglas) s sadleir, mrs maria m.-- such is the law scott, clement-- the wheel of life madonna mia people, plays, and places sisters by the sea famous hamlets seven nights with satan (j. l. owen) shadows (e. martin) shams (anonymous) shadow on the manse (c. rae-brown) sienkiewicz, henryk-- in monte carlo sisters by the sea (c. scott) son of africa, a (comtesse de brémont) social upheaval, a (i. g. ascher) speight, t. w.-- mora; one woman's history spurr, harry a.-- bachelor ballads stage, year book of (greening and hannaford) such is the law (m. m. sadleir) sword of fate, the (h. herman) t temptation of edith watson (s. hall) that fascinating widow (s. j. a. fitz-gerald) thompson, creswick j.-- zoroastro tragedy of the lady palmist, the (w. l. longstaff) trip to paradoxia, a (t. h. s. escott) v vathek (edited by justin hannaford) vert, anthony p.-- the green passion virtue of necessity, a (h. adams) w wandering romanoff, the (b. kennedy) weeds and flowers (w. l. longstaff) weird well, the (a. m'millan) wheel of life, the (c. scott) williams, ellen-- anna marsden's experiment woman and the wits (g. f. monkshood) y year book of the stage (greening and hannaford) z zoroastro (c. j. s. thompson) * * * * * transcriber's note the following changes have been made to the text: page : "chishmaclavers" changed to "clishmaclavers". page : "laid his land" changed to "laid his hand". page : "necessary hyprocrisy" changed to "necessary hypocrisy". page : "they they well gone" changed to "they well gone". page : "peebles" changed to "pebbles". page : "paper was drwan" changed to "paper was drawn". page : "umlimited domination" changed to "unlimited domination". page : "mindet to pass" changed to "minded to pass". page : "therefere" changed to "therefore". page : "idolaltry" changed to "idolatry". page : "eslpa ruet" changed to "elspa ruet". page : "elpsa made" changed to "elspa made". page : "progenitrex" changed to "progenitrix". page : "is his discourses" changed to "in his discourses". page : "acquaintaces" changed to "acquaintances". page : "no, my friens" changed to "no, my friends". page : "pursuer and the persecuted" changed to the "pursuer and the persecutor". page : "imprisoment" changed to "imprisonment". page : "soldiery" changed to "soldierly". page : "riotors" changed to "rioters". page : "ordered come" changed to "ordered some". page : "cumraes" changed to "cumbrae". page : "pharoah" changed to "pharaoh". page : "unbonnetted" changed to "unbonneted". page : "hogmanae" changed to "hogmanæ". page of ads: "may me say" changed to "may we say". page of ads: "asthetic" changed to "aesthetic". page of ads: "attact" changed to attract". page and of index: "asmodens" changed to "asmodeus". page of index: "((h. sienkiewicz) " changed to "((h. sienkiewicz) ". page of index: "((t. w. carnie) " changed to "((t. w. carnie) ". hunted and harried, by r.m. ballantyne. chapter one. on the hunt. on a brilliant summer morning in the last quarter of the seventeenth century a small troop of horsemen crossed the ford of the river cairn, in dumfriesshire, not far from the spot where stands the little church of irongray, and, gaining the road on the western bank of the stream, wended their way towards the moors and uplands which lie in the neighbourhood of skeoch hill. the dragoons, for such they were, trotted rapidly along the road that led into the solitudes of the hills, with all the careless dash of men whose interests are centred chiefly on the excitements of the passing hour, yet with the unflagging perseverance of those who have a fixed purpose in view--their somewhat worn aspect and the mud with which they were bespattered, from jack-boot to iron headpiece, telling of a long ride over rugged ground. the officer in command of the party rode a little in advance. close behind him followed two troopers, one of whom was a burly middle-aged man with a stern, swarthy countenance; the other a youth whose tall frame was scarcely, if at all, less powerful than that of his comrade-in-arms, though much more elegant in form, while his youthful and ruddy, yet masculine, countenance suggested that he must at that time have been but a novice in the art of war. this youth alone, of all the party, had a somewhat careworn and sad expression on his brow. it could hardly have been the result of fatigue, for there was more of ease and vigour in his carriage than in that of any of his companions. "we should be near the river by this time, glendinning," said the leader of the party, reining in and addressing the swarthy trooper. "ay, sir, the cluden rins jist ayont the turn o' the road there," replied the man. "ye'll hear the roar o' the fa' in a meenit or twa." even as he spoke the dull growl of a cataract was heard, and, a few minutes later, the party came upon the ford of the river. it was situated not many yards below the picturesque waterfall, which is now spanned by the routen bridge, but which, at that time, was unbridged--at all events, if a bridge had previously existed, it had fallen in or been carried away--and the wild gorge was impassable. the sound of the fall alone told of its vicinity, for a dense mass of foliage hid it completely from the troopers' view until they had surmounted the steep bank on the other side of the stream. "are you well acquainted with this man black?" asked the leader of the party as they emerged from the thick belt of trees and shrubs by which the cluden was shaded, and continued their journey on the more open ground beyond. "i ken him weel, sir," answered the trooper. "andrew black was an auld freend o' mine, an' a big, stoot, angry man he is--kindly disposed, nae doot, when ye let him alane, but a perfe't deevil incarnate when he's roosed. he did me an ill turn ance that i've no paid him off for _yet_." "i suppose, then," said the officer, "that your guiding us so willingly to his cottage is in part payment of this unsettled debt?" "maybe it is," replied the trooper grimly. "they say," continued the other, "that there is some mystery about the man; that somehow nobody can catch him. like an eel he has slipped through our fellows' fingers and disappeared more than once, when they thought they had him quite safe. it is said that on one occasion he managed even to give the slip to claverhouse himself, which, you know, is not easy." "that may be, sir, but he'll no slip through my fingers gin i ance git a grup o' his thrapple," said the swarthy man, with a revengeful look. "we must get a grip of him somehow," returned the officer, "for it is said that he is a sly helper of the rebels--though it is as difficult to convict as to catch him; and as this gathering, of which our spies have brought information, is to be in the neighbourhood of his house, he is sure to be mixed up with it." "nae doot o' that, sir, an' so we may manage to kill twa birds wi' ae stane. but i'm in a diffeeculty noo, sir, for ye ken i'm no acquaint wi' this country nae farer than the cluden ford, an' here we hae come to a fork i' the road." the party halted as he spoke, while the perplexed guide stroked his rather long nose and looked seriously at the two roads, or bridle-paths, into which their road had resolved itself, and each of which led into very divergent parts of the heathclad hills. this guide, glendinning, had become acquainted with black at a time when the latter resided in lanarkshire, and, as he had just said, was unacquainted with the region through which they now travelled beyond the river cluden. after a short conference the officer in command decided to divide the party and explore both paths. "you will take one man, glendinning, and proceed along the path to the right," he said; "i will try the left. if you discover anything like a house or cot within a mile or two you will at once send your comrade back to let me know, while you take up your quarters in the cottage and await my coming. choose whom you will for your companion." "i choose will wallace, then," said glendinning, with a nod to the young trooper whom we have already introduced. the youth did not seem at all flattered by the selection, but of course obeyed orders with military promptitude, and followed his comrade for some time in silence, though with a clouded brow. "it seems to me," said the swarthy trooper, as they drew rein and proceeded up a steep ascent at a walk, "that ye're no' sae pleased as ye might be wi' the wark we hae on hand." "pleased!" exclaimed the youth, whose tone and speech seemed to indicate him an englishman, "how can i be pleased when all i have been called on to do since i enlisted has been to aid and abet in robbery, cruelty, and murder? i honour loyalty and detest rebellion as much as any man in the troop, but if i had known what i now know i would never have joined you." glendinning gazed at his companion in amazement. having been absent on detached service when will wallace had joined--about three weeks previously--he was ignorant both as to his character and his recent experiences. he had chosen him on the present occasion simply on account of his youth and magnificent physique. "i doot i've made a mistake in choosin' _you_," said glendinning with some asperity, after a few moments, "but it's ower late noo to rectifee't. what ails ye, lad? what hae ye seen?" "i have seen what i did not believe possible," answered the other with suppressed feeling. "i have seen a little boy tortured with the thumbscrews, pricked with bayonets, and otherwise inhumanly treated because he would not, or could not, tell where his father was. i have seen a man hung up to a beam by his thumbs because he would not give up money which perhaps he did not possess. i have seen a woman tortured by having lighted matches put between her fingers because she would not, or could not, tell where a conventicle was being held. i did not, indeed, see the last deed actually done, else would i have cut down the coward who did it. the poor thing had fainted and the torture was over when i came upon them. only two days ago i was ordered out with a party who pillaged the house of a farmer because he refused to take an oath of allegiance, which seems to have been purposely so worded as to make those who take it virtually bondslaves to the king, and which makes him master of the lives, properties, and consciences of his subjects--and all this done in the king's name and by the king's troops!" "an' what pairt did _you_ tak' in these doin's?" asked glendinning with some curiosity. "i did my best to restrain my comrades, and when they were burning the hayricks, throwing the meal on the dunghill, and wrecking the property of the farmer, i cut the cords with which they had bound the poor fellow to his chair and let him go free." "did onybody see you do that?" "i believe not; though i should not have cared if they had. i'm thoroughly disgusted with the service. i know little or nothing of the principles of these rebels--these fanatics, as you call them--but tyranny or injustice i cannot stand, whether practised by a king or a beggar, and i am resolved to have nothing more to do with such fiendish work." "young man," said the swarthy comrade in a voice of considerable solemnity, "ye hae obviously mista'en your callin'. if you werena new to thae pairts, ye would ken that the things ye objec' to are quite common. punishin' an' harryin' the rebels and fanatics--_covenanters_, they ca' theirsels--has been gaun on for years ower a' the land. in my opeenion it's weel deserved, an' naething that ye can do or say wull prevent it, though what ye do an' say is no' unlikely to cut short yer ain career by means o' a rope roond yer thrapple. but losh! man, i wonder ye haena heard about thae matters afore now." "my having spent the last few years of my life in an out-of-the-way part of ireland may account for that," said wallace. "my father's recent death obliged my mother to give up her farm and return to her native town of lanark, where she now lives with a brother. poverty and the urgency of a cousin have induced me, unfortunately, to take service with the dragoons." "after what ye've said, hoo am i to coont on yer helpin' me e'noo?" asked glendinning. "as long as i wear the king's uniform you may count on my obeying orders unless i am commanded to break the plainest laws of god," answered the young man. "as our present business is only to discover the cottage of andrew black, there seems likely to be no difficulty between us just now." "h'm! i'm no' sure o' that; but if ye'll tak' my advice, lad, ye'll haud yer tongue aboot thae matters. if clavers heard the half o' what ye've said to me, he'd send ye into the next warl' withoot gieing ye time to say yer prayers. freedom of speech is no permitted at the present time in scotland--unless it be the right kind of speech, and--" he stopped, for at that moment two young girls suddenly appeared at a bend of the road in front of them. they gazed for a moment at the soldiers in evident surprise, and then turned as if to fly, but glendinning put spurs to his horse and was beside them in a moment. leaping to the ground, he seized the girls roughly by their arms as they clung together in alarm. one of the two was a dark-eyed little child. the other was fair, unusually pretty, and apparently about fifteen or sixteen years of age. the trooper proceeded to question them sharply. "be gentle," said will wallace sternly, as he rode up, and, also dismounting, stood beside them. "no fear of their running away now." the swarthy trooper pretended not to hear, but nevertheless relaxed his grip and merely rested his hand upon the fair girl's shoulder as he said to the other-- "now, my wee doo, ye canna be far frae hame, i's be sworn. what's yer name?" "aggie wilson," answered the child at once. "and yours?" "jean black," replied the blonde timidly. "oho! an' yer faither's name is andrew, an' his hoose is close by, i'll be bound, so ye'll be guid eneuch to show us the way till't. but first, my bonny lass, ye'll gie me a--" slipping his arm round the waist of the terrified blonde, the trooper rudely attempted to terminate his sentence in a practical manner; but before his lips could touch her face he received a blow from his comrade that sent him staggering against a neighbouring tree. blazing with astonishment and wrath, glendinning drew his sword and sprang at his companion, who, already full of indignation at the memory of what he had been so recently compelled to witness, could ill brook the indignity thus offered to the defenceless girl. his weapon flashed from its sheath on the instant, and for a few moments the two men cut and thrust at each other with savage ferocity. wallace, however, was too young and unused to mortal strife to contemplate with indifference the possibility of shedding the blood of a comrade. quickly recovering himself, he stood entirely on the defensive, which his vigorous activity enabled him easily to do. burning under the insult he had received, glendinning felt no such compunctions. he pushed his adversary fiercely, and made a lunge at last which not only passed the sword through the left sleeve of the youth's coat, but slightly wounded his arm. roused to uncontrollable anger by this, will wallace fetched his opponent a blow so powerful that it beat down his guard, rang like a hammer on his iron headpiece, and fairly hurled the man into the ditch at the roadside. somewhat alarmed at this sudden result, the youth hastily pulled him out, and, kneeling beside him, anxiously examined his head. much to his relief he found that there was no wound at all, and that the man was only stunned. after the examination, wallace observed that the girls had taken advantage of the fray to make their escape. indignation and anger having by that time evaporated, and his judgment having become cool, wallace began gradually to appreciate his true position, and to feel exceedingly uncomfortable. he had recklessly expressed opinions and confessed to actions which would of themselves ensure his being disgraced and cast into prison, if not worse; he had almost killed one of his own comrades, and had helped two girls to escape who could probably have assisted in the accomplishment of the duty on which they had been despatched. his case, he suddenly perceived, was hopeless, and he felt that he was a lost man. will wallace was quick of thought and prompt in action. carefully disposing the limbs of his fallen comrade, and resting his head comfortably on a grassy bank, he cast a hurried glance around him. on his left hand and behind him lay the rich belt of woodland that marked the courses of the rivers cluden and cairn. in front stretched the moors and hills of the ancient district of galloway, at that time given over to the tender mercies of graham of claverhouse. beside him stood the two patient troop-horses, gazing quietly at the prostrate man, as if in mild surprise at his unusual stillness. beyond this he could not see with the physical eye; but with the mental orb he saw a dark vista of ruined character, blighted hopes, and dismal prospects. the vision sufficed to fix his decision. quietly, like a warrior's wraith, he sheathed his sword and betook himself to the covert of the peat-morass and the heather hill. he was not the first good man and true who had sought the same shelter. at the time of which we write scotland had for many years been in a woeful plight--with tyranny draining her life-blood, cupidity grasping her wealth, hypocrisy and bigotry misconstruing her motives and falsifying her character. charles the second filled the throne. unprincipled men, alike in church and state, made use of their position and power to gain their own ends and enslave the people. the king, determined to root out presbytery from scotland, as less subservient to his despotic aims, and forcibly to impose prelacy on her as a stepping-stone to popery, had no difficulty in finding ecclesiastical and courtly bravos to carry out his designs; and for a long series of dismal years persecution stalked red-handed through the land. happily for the well-being of future generations, our covenanting forefathers stood their ground with christian heroism, for both civil and religious liberty were involved in the struggle. their so-called fanaticism consisted in a refusal to give up the worship of god after the manner dictated by conscience and practised by their forefathers; in declining to attend the ministry of the ignorant, and too often vicious, curates forced upon them; and in refusing to take the oath of allegiance just referred to by will wallace. conventicles, as they were called--or the gathering together of christians in houses and barns, or on the hillsides, to worship god-- were illegally pronounced illegal by the king and council; and disobedience to the tyrannous law was punished with imprisonment, torture, confiscation of property, and death. to enforce these penalties the greater part of scotland--especially the south and west-- was overrun by troops, and treated as if it were a conquered country. the people--holding that in some matters it is incumbent to "obey god rather than man," and that they were bound "not to forsake the assembling of themselves together"--resolved to set the intolerable law at defiance, and went armed to the hill-meetings. they took up arms at first, however, chiefly, if not solely, to protect themselves from a licentious soldiery, who went about devastating the land, not scrupling to rob and insult helpless women and children, and to shed innocent blood. our scottish forefathers, believing--in common with the lower animals and lowest savages--that it was a duty to defend their females and little ones, naturally availed themselves of the best means of doing so. about this time a meeting, or conventicle, of considerable importance was appointed to be held among the secluded hills in the neighbourhood of irongray; and andrew black, the farmer, was chosen to select the particular spot, and make the preliminary arrangements. now this man black is not easily described, for his was a curiously compound character. to a heart saturated with the milk of human kindness was united a will more inflexible, if possible, than that of a mexican mule; a frame of herculean mould, and a spirit in which profound gravity and reverence waged incessant warfare with a keen appreciation of the ludicrous. peacefully inclined in disposition, with a tendency to believe well of all men, and somewhat free and easy in the formation of his opinions, he was very unwilling to resist authority; but the love of truth and justice was stronger within him than the love of peace. in company with his shepherd, quentin dick--a man of nearly his own size and build--andrew black proceeded to a secluded hollow in skeoch hill to gather and place in order the masses of rock which were to form the seats of the communicants at the contemplated religious gathering--which seats remain to this day in the position they occupied at that time, and are familiarly known in the district as "the communion stones of irongray." chapter two. the "fanatic" and the "spy." the night was dark and threatening when andrew black and his shepherd left their cottage, and quickly but quietly made for the neighbouring hill. the weather was well suited for deeds of secrecy, for gusts of wind, with an occasional spattering of rain, swept along the hill-face, and driving clouds obscured the moon, which was then in its first quarter. at first the two men were obliged to walk with care, for the light was barely sufficient to enable them to distinguish the sheep-track which they followed, and the few words they found it necessary to speak were uttered in subdued tones. jean black and her cousin aggie wilson had reported their _rencontre_ with the two dragoons, and quentin dick had himself seen the main body of the troops from behind a heather bush on his way back to the farm, therefore caution was advisable. but as they climbed skeoch hill, and the moon shed a few feeble rays on their path, they began to converse more freely. for a few minutes their intercourse related chiefly to sheep and the work of the farm, for both andrew and his man were of that sedate, imperturbable nature which is not easily thrown off its balance by excitement or danger. then their thoughts turned to the business in hand. "nae fear o' the sodgers comin' here on a nicht like this," remarked andrew, as a squall nearly swept the blue bonnet off his head. "maybe no," growled quentin dick sternly, "but i've heard frae tam chanter that servants o' that papist earl o' nithsdale, an' o' the scoondrel sir robert dalziel, hae been seen pokin' their noses aboot at irongray. if they git wund o' the place, we're no likely to hae a quiet time o't. did ye say that the sodgers ill-used the bairns?" "na!--ane o' them was inclined to be impident, but the ither, a guid-lookin' young felly, accordin' to jean, took their pairt an' quarrelled wi' his comrade, sae that they cam to loggerheeds at last, but what was the upshot naebody kens, for the bairns took to their heels an' left them fechtin'." "an' what if they sud fin' yer hoose an' the bairns unproteckit?" asked the shepherd. "they're no likely to fin' the hoose in a nicht like this, man; an' if they do, they'll fin' naebody but ramblin' peter there, for i gied the lassies an' the women strick orders to tak' to the hidy-hole at the first soond o' horses' feet." by this time the men had reached a secluded hollow in the hill, so completely enclosed as to be screened from observation on all sides. they halted here a few moments, for two dark forms were seen in the uncertain light to be moving about just in front of them. "it's them," whispered andrew. "whae?" asked the shepherd. "alexander mccubine an' edward gordon." "guid an' safe men baith," responded quentin; "ye better gie them a cry." andrew did so by imitating the cry of a plover. it was replied to at once. "the stanes are big, ye see," explained andrew, while the two men were approaching. "it'll tak' the strength o' the fowr o' us to lift some o' them." "we've got the cairn aboot finished," said mccubine as he came up. he spoke in a low voice, for although there was no probability of any one being near, they were so accustomed to expect danger because of the innumerable enemies who swarmed about the country, that caution had almost become a second nature. without further converse the four men set to work in silence. they completed a circular heap, or cairn, of stones three or four feet high, and levelled the top thereof to serve as a table or a pulpit at the approaching assembly. in front of this, and stretching towards a sloping brae, they arranged four rows of very large stones to serve as seats for the communicants, with a few larger stones between them, as if for the support of rude tables of plank. it took several hours to complete the work. when it was done andrew black surveyed it with complacency, and gave it as his opinion that it was a "braw kirk, capable o' accommodatin' a congregation o' some thoosands, mair or less." then the two men, gordon and mccubine, bidding him and the shepherd good-night, went away into the darkness from which they had emerged. "whar'll they be sleepin' the nicht?" asked the shepherd, as he and andrew turned homeward. "i' the peat-bog, i doot, for i daurna tak' them hame whan the dragoons is likely to gie us a ca'; besides, the hidy-hole wull be ower fu' soon. noo, lad," he added, as they surmounted a hillock, from which they had a dim view of the surrounding country, "gang ye doon an' see if ye can fin' oot onything mair aboot thae sodgers. i'll awa' hame an see that a's right there." they parted, the shepherd turning sharp off to the right, while the farmer descended towards his cottage. he had not advanced above half the distance when an object a little to the left of his path induced him to stop. it resembled a round stone, and was too small to have attracted the attention of any eye save one which was familiar with every bush and stone on the ground. grasping a stout thorn stick which he carried, andrew advanced towards the object in question with catlike caution until quite close to it, when he discovered that it was the head of a man who was sleeping soundly under a whin-bush. a closer inspection showed that the man wore an iron headpiece, a soldier's coat, and huge jack-boots. "a dragoon and a spy!" thought andrew, while he raised his cudgel, the only weapon he carried, and frowned. but andrew was a merciful man; he could not bring himself to strike a sleeping man, even though waking him might entail a doubtful conflict, for he could see that the trooper's hand grasped the hilt of his naked sword. for a few moments he surveyed the sleeper, as if calculating his chances, then he quietly dropped his plaid, took off his coat, and untying his neckcloth, laid it carefully on one side over a bush. having made these preparations, he knelt beside will wallace--for it was he--and grasped him firmly by the throat with both hands. as might have been expected, the young trooper attempted to spring up, and tried to use his weapon; but, finding this to be impossible at such close quarters, he dropped it, and grappled the farmer with all his might; but andrew, holding on to him like a vice, placed his knee upon his chest and held him firmly down. "it's o' nae manner o' use to strive, ye see," said andrew, relaxing his grip a little; "i've gotten ye, an' if ye like to do my biddin' i'll no be hard on ye." "if you will let me rise and stand before me in fair fight, i'll do your business if not your bidding," returned wallace in a tone of what may be termed stern sulkiness. "div ye think it's likely i'll staund before you in fair fecht, as you ca'd--you wi' a swurd, and me wi' a bit stick, my lad? na, na, ye'll hae to submit, little though ye like it." "give me the stick, then, and take you the sword, i shall be content," said the indignant trooper, making another violent but unsuccessful effort to free himself. "it's a fair offer," said andrew, when he had subdued the poor youth a second time, "an' reflec's favourably on yer courage, but i'm a man o' peace, an' have no thirst for bloodshed--whilk is more than ye can say, young man; but if ye'll let me tie yer hands thegither, an' gang peaceably hame wi' me, i's promise that nae mischief'll befa' ye." "no man shall ever tie my hands together as long as there is life in my body," replied the youth. "stop, stop, callant!" exclaimed andrew, as will was about to renew the struggle. "the pride o' youth is awful. hear what i've gotten to say to ye, man, or i'll hae to throttle ye ootright. it'll come to the same thing if ye'll alloo me to tie ane o' _my_ hands to ane o' yours. ye canna objec' to that, surely, for i'll be your prisoner as muckle as you'll be mine--and that'll be fair play, for we'll leave the swurd lyin' on the brae to keep the bit stick company." "well, i agree to that," said wallace, in a tone that indicated surprise with a dash of amusement. "an' ye promise no' to try to get away when you're tied to--when _i'm_ tied to _you_?" "i promise." hereupon the farmer, reaching out his hand, picked up the black silk neckcloth which he had laid aside, and with it firmly bound his own left wrist to the right wrist of his captive, talking in a grave, subdued tone as he did so. "nae doot the promise o' a spy is hardly to be lippened to, but if i find that ye're a dishonourable man, ye'll find that i'm an uncomfortable prisoner to be tied to. noo, git up, lad, an' we'll gang hame thegither." on rising, the first thing the trooper did was to turn and take a steady look at the man who had captured him in this singular manner. "weel, what d'ye think o' me?" asked andrew, with what may be termed a grave smile. "if you want to know my true opinion," returned wallace, "i should say that i would not have thought, from the look of you, that you could have taken mean advantage of a sleeping foe." "ay--an' i would not have thought, from the look o' _you_," retorted andrew, "that ye could hae sell't yersel' to gang skulkin' aboot the hills as a spy upon the puir craters that are only seekin' to worship their maker in peace." without further remark andrew black, leaving his coat and plaid to keep company with the sword and stick, led his prisoner down the hill. andrew's cottage occupied a slight hollow on the hillside, which concealed it from every point of the compass save the high ground above it. leading the trooper up to the door, he tapped gently, and was promptly admitted by some one whom wallace could not discern, as the interior was dark. "oh, uncle andrew! i'm glad ye've come, for peter hasna come back yet, an' i'm feared somethin' has come ower him." "strike a light, lassie. i've gotten haud o' a spy here, an' canna weel do't mysel'." when a light was procured and held up, it revealed the pretty face of jean black, which underwent a wondrous change when she beheld the face of the prisoner. "uncle andrew!" she exclaimed, "this is nae spy. he's the man that cam' to the help o' aggie an' me against the dragoon." "is that sae?" said black, turning a look of surprise on his prisoner. "it is true, indeed, that i had the good fortune to protect jean and her friend from an insolent comrade," answered wallace; "and it is also true that that act has been partly the cause of my deserting to the hills, being starved for a day and a night, and taken prisoner now as a spy." "sir," said andrew, hastily untying the kerchief that bound them together, "i humbly ask your pardon. moreover, it's my opeenion that if ye hadna been starvin' ye wadna have been here 'e noo, for ye're uncommon teuch. rin, lassie, an' fetch some breed an' cheese. whar's marion an' is'b'l?" "they went out to seek for peter," said jean, as she hastened to obey her uncle's mandate. at that moment a loud knocking was heard at the door, and the voice of marion, one of the maid-servants, was heard outside. on the door being opened, she and her companion isabel burst in with excited looks and the information, pantingly given, that the "sodgers were comin'." "haud yer noise, lassie, an' licht the fire--pit on the parritch pat. come, peter, let's hear a' aboot it." ramblin' peter, who had been thus named because of his inveterate tendency to range over the neighbouring hills, was a quiet, undersized, said-to-be weak-minded boy of sixteen years, though he looked little more than fourteen. no excitement whatever ruffled his placid countenance as he gave his report--to the effect that a party of dragoons had been seen by him not half an hour before, searching evidently for his master's cottage. "they'll soon find it," said the farmer, turning quickly to his domestics--"away wi' ye, lassies, and hide." the two servant-girls, with jean and her cousin aggie wilson, ran at once into an inner room and shut the door. ramblin' peter sat stolidly down beside the fire and calmly stirred the porridge-pot, which was nearly full of the substantial scottish fare. "noo, sir," said black, turning to will wallace, who had stood quietly watching the various actors in the scene just described, "yer comrades'll be here in a wee while. may i ask what ye expect?" "i expect to be imprisoned at the least, more probably shot." "hm! pleasant expectations for a young man, nae doot. i'm sorry that it's oot o' my power to stop an' see the fun, for the sodgers have strange suspicions aboot me, so i'm forced to mak' mysel' scarce an' leave ramblin' peter to do the hospitalities o' the hoose. but before i gang awa' i wad fain repay ye for the guid turn ye did to my bairns. if ye are willin' to shut yer eyes an' do what i tell ye, i'll put you in a place o' safety." "thank you, mr. black," returned wallace; "of course i shall only be too glad to escape from the consequences of my unfortunate position; but do not misunderstand me: although neither a spy nor a covenantor i am a loyal subject, and would not now be a deserter if that character had not been forced upon me, first by the brutality of the soldiers with whom i was banded, and then by the insolence of my comrade-in-arms to your daughter--" "niece; niece," interrupted black; "i wish she _was_ my dauchter, bless her bonny face! niver fear, sir, i've nae doot o' yer loyalty, though you an' yer freends misdoot mine. i claim to be as loyal as the best o' ye, but there's nae dictionary in _this_ warld that defines loyalty to be slavish submission o' body an' sowl to a tyrant that fears naether god nor man. the quastion noo is, div ye want to escape and wull ye trust me?" the sound of horses galloping in the distance tended to quicken the young trooper's decision. he submitted to be blindfolded by his captor. "noo, peter," said andrew, as he was about to lead wallace away, "ye ken what to dae. gie them plenty to eat; show them the rum bottle, let them hae the rin o' the hoose, an' say that i bade ye treat them weel." "ay," was ramblin' peter's laconic reply. leading his captive out at the door, round the house, and re-entering by a back door, apparently with no other end in view than to bewilder him, andrew went into a dark room, opened some sort of door--to enter which the trooper had to stoop low--and conducted him down a steep, narrow staircase. the horsemen meanwhile had found the cottage and were heard at that moment tramping about in front, and thundering on the door for admittance. wallace fancied that the door which closed behind him must be of amazing thickness, for it shut out almost completely the sounds referred to. on reaching the foot of the staircase, and having the napkin removed from his eyes, he found himself in a long, low, vaulted chamber. there was no one in it save his guide and a venerable man who sat beside a deal table, reading a document by the light of a tallow candle stuck in the mouth of a black bottle. the soldiers, meanwhile, having been admitted by ramblin' peter, proceeded to question that worthy as to andrew black and his household. not being satisfied of the truth of his replies they proceeded to apply torture in order to extract confession. it was the first time that this mode of obtaining information had been used in black's cottage, and it failed entirely, for ramblin' peter was staunch, and, although inhumanly thrashed and probed with sword-points, the poor lad remained dumb, insomuch that the soldiers at length set him down as an idiot, for he did not even cry out in his agonies--excepting in a curious, half-stifled manner--because he knew well that if his master were made aware by his cries of what was going on he would be sure to hasten to the rescue at the risk of his life. having devoured the porridge, drunk the rum, and destroyed a considerable amount of the farmer's produce, the lawless troopers, who seemed to be hurried in their proceedings at that time, finally left the place. about the time that these events were taking place in and around black's cottage, bands of armed men with women and even children were hastening towards the same locality to attend the great "conventicle," for which the preparations already described were being made. the immediate occasion of the meeting was the desire of the parishioners of the reverend john welsh, a great-grandson of john knox, to make public avowal, at the communion table, of their fidelity to christ and their attachment to the minister who had been expelled from the church of irongray; but strong sympathy induced many others to attend, not only from all parts of galloway and nithsdale, but from the distant clyde, the shores of the forth, and elsewhere; so that the roads were crowded with people making for the rendezvous--some on foot, others on horseback. many of the latter were gentlemen of means and position, who, as well as their retainers, were more or less well armed and mounted. the reverend john blackadder, the "auld" minister of troqueer--a noted hero of the covenant, who afterwards died a prisoner on the bass rock--travelled with his party all the way from edinburgh, and a company of eighty horse proceeded to the meeting from clydesdale. preliminary services, conducted by mr. blackadder and mr. welsh, were held near dumfries on the saturday, but at these the place of meeting on the sabbath was only vaguely announced as "a hillside in irongray," so anxious were they to escape being disturbed by their enemies, and the secret was kept so well that when the sabbath arrived a congregation of above three thousand had assembled round the communion stones in the hollow of skeoch hill. sentinels were posted on all the surrounding heights. one of these sentinels was the farmer andrew black, with a cavalry sword belted to his waist, and a rusty musket on his shoulder. beside him stood a tall stalwart youth in shepherd's costume. "yer ain mother wadna ken ye," remarked andrew with a twinkle in his eyes. "i doubt that," replied the youth; "a mother's eyes are keen. i should not like to encounter even glendinning in my present guise." as he spoke the rich melody of the opening psalm burst from the great congregation and rolled in softened cadence towards the sentinels. chapter three. the true and the false at work. the face of nature did not seem propitious to the great gathering on skeoch hill. inky clouds rolled athwart the leaden sky, threatening a deluge of rain, and fitful gusts of wind seemed to indicate the approach of a tempest. nevertheless the elements were held in check by the god of nature, so that the solemn services of the day were conducted to a close without discomfort, though not altogether without interruption. several of the most eminent ministers, who had been expelled from their charges, were present on this occasion. besides john welsh of irongray, there were arnot of tongland, blackadder of troqueer, and dickson of rutherglen--godly men who had for many years suffered persecution and imprisonment, and were ready to lay down their lives in defence of religious liberty. the price set upon the head of that "notour traitor, mr. john welsh," dead or alive, was merks. mr. arnot was valued at ! these preached and assisted at different parts of the services, while the vast multitude sat on the sloping hillside, and the mounted men drew up on the outskirts of the congregation, so as to be within sound of the preachers' voices, and, at the same time, be ready for action on the defensive if enemies should appear. andrew black and his companion stood for some time listening, with bowed heads, to the slow sweet music that floated towards them. they were too far distant to hear the words of prayer that followed, yet they continued to stand in reverent silence for some time, listening to the sound--black with his eyes closed, his young companion gazing wistfully at the distant landscape, which, from the elevated position on which they stood, lay like a magnificent panorama spread out before them. on the left the level lands bordering the rivers cairn and nith stretched away to the solway, with the cumberland mountains in the extreme distance; in front and on the right lay the wild, romantic hill-country of which, in after years, it was so beautifully written:-- "o bonnie hills of galloway oft have i stood to see, at sunset hour, your shadows fall, all darkening on the lea; while visions of the buried years came o'er me in their might-- as phantoms of the sepulchre--instinct with inward light! the years, the years when scotland groaned beneath her tyrant's hand! and 'twas not for the heather she was called `the purple land.' and 'twas not for her _loveliness_ her children blessed their god-- _but for secret places of the hills, and the mountain heights_ _untrod_." "who was the old man i found in what you call your hidy-hole?" asked wallace, turning suddenly to his companion. "i'm no' sure that i have a right to answer that," said black, regarding will with a half-serious, half-amused look. "hooever, noo that ye've ta'en service wi' me, and ken about my hidy-hole, i suppose i may trust ye wi' a' my secrets." "i would not press you to reveal any secrets, mr. black, yet i think you are safe to trust me, seeing that you know enough about my own secrets to bring me to the gallows if so disposed." "ay, i hae ye there, lad! but i'll trust ye on better grunds than that. i believe ye to be an honest man, and that's enough for me. weel, ye maun ken, it's saxteen year since i howkit the hidy-hole below my hoose, an' wad ye believe it?--they've no fund it oot yet! not even had a suspeecion o't, though the sodgers hae been sair puzzled, mony a time, aboot hoo i managed to gie them the slip. an' mony's the puir body, baith gentle and simple, that i've gien food an' shelter to whae was very likely to hae perished o' cauld an' hunger, but for the hidy-hole. among ithers i've often had the persecuited ministers doon there, readin' their bibles or sleepin' as comfortable as ye like when the dragoons was drinkin', roarin', an' singin' like deevils ower their heids. my certies! if clavers, or sherp, or lauderdale had an inklin' o' the hunderd pairt o' the law-brekin' that i've done, it's a gallows in the gressmarkit as high as haman's wad be ereckit for me, an' my heed an' hauns, may be, would be bleachin' on the nether bow. humph! but they've no' gotten me yet!" "and i sincerely hope they never will," remarked wallace; "but you have not yet told me the name of the old man." "i was comin' to him," continued black; "but wheniver i wander to the doin's o' that black-hearted cooncil, i'm like to lose the threed o' my discoorse. yon is a great man i' the kirk o' scotland. they ca' him donald cargill. the adventures that puir man has had in the coorse o' mair nor quarter o' a century wad mak' a grand story-buik. he has no fear o' man, an' he's an awfu' stickler for justice. i'se warrant he gied ye some strang condemnations o' the poors that be." "indeed he did not," said wallace. "surely you misjudge his character. his converse with me was entirely religious, and his chief anxiety seemed to be to impress on me the love of god in sending jesus christ to redeem a wicked world from sin. i tried to turn the conversation on the state of the times, but he gently turned it round again to the importance of being at peace with god, and giving heed to the condition of my own soul. he became at last so personal that i did not quite like it. yet he was so earnest and kind that i could not take offence." "ay, ay," said black in a musing tone, "i see. he clearly thinks that yer he'rt needs mair instruction than yer heed. hm! maybe he's right. hooever, he's a wonderfu' man; gangs aboot the country preachin' everywhere altho' he kens that the sodgers are aye on the look-oot for him, an' that if they catch him it's certain death. he wad have been at this communion nae doot, if he hadna engaged to preach somewhere near sanquhar this vera day." "then he has left the hidy-hole by this time, i suppose?" "ye may be sure o' that, for when there is work to be done for the master, donal' cargill doesna let the gress grow under his feet." "i'm sorry that i shall not see him again," returned the ex-trooper in a tone of regret, "for i like him much." now, while this conversation was going on, a portion of the troop of dragoons which had been out in search of andrew black was sent under glendinning (now a sergeant) in quest of an aged couple named mitchell, who were reported to have entertained intercommuned, iúeú outlawed, persons; attended conventicles in the fields; ventured to have family worship in their cottages while a few neighbours were present, and to have otherwise broken the laws of the secret council. this council, which was ruled by two monsters in human form, namely, archbishop sharp of saint andrews and the duke of lauderdale, having obtained full powers from king charles the second to put down conventicles and enforce the laws against the fanatics with the utmost possible rigour, had proceeded to carry out their mission by inviting a host of half, if not quite, savage highlanders to assist them in quelling the people. this host, numbering, with regulars and militia, about , men, eagerly accepted the invitation, and was let loose on the south and western districts of scotland about the beginning of the year, and for some time ravaged and pillaged the land as if it had been an enemy's country. they were thanked by the king for so readily agreeing to assist in reducing the covenanters to obedience to "us and our laws," and were told to take up free quarters among the disaffected, to disarm such persons as they should suspect, to carry with them instruments of torture wherewith to subdue the refractory, and in short to act very much in accordance with the promptings of their own desires. evidently the mission suited these men admirably, for they treated all parties as disaffected, with great impartiality, and plundered, tortured, and insulted to such an extent that after about three months of unresisted depredation, the shame of the thing became so obvious that government was compelled to send them home again. they had accomplished nothing in the way of bringing the covenanters to reason; but they had desolated a fair region of scotland, spilt much innocent blood, ruined many families, and returned to their native hills heavily laden with booty of every kind like a victorious army. it is said that the losses caused by them in the county of ayr alone amounted to over , pounds sterling. the failure of this horde did not in the least check the proceedings of sharp or lauderdale or their like-minded colleagues. they kept the regular troops and militia moving about the land, enforcing their idiotical and wicked laws at the point of the sword. we say idiotical advisedly, for what could give stronger evidence of mental incapacity than the attempt to enforce a bond upon all landed proprietors, obliging themselves and their wives, children, and servants, as well as all their tenants and cottars, with their wives, children, and servants, to abstain from conventicles, and not to receive, assist, or even speak to, any forfeited persons, intercommuned ministers, or vagrant preachers, but to use their utmost endeavours to apprehend all such? those who took this bond were to receive an assurance that the troops should not be quartered on their lands--a matter of considerable importance--for this quartering involved great expense and much destruction of property in most cases, and absolute ruin in some. after the battle of the pentland hills (in ), in which the covenanters, driven to desperation, made an unsuccessful effort to throw off the tyrannical yoke, severer laws were enacted against them. their wily persecutor, also being well aware of the evil influence of disagreement among men, threw a bone of contention among them in the shape of royal acts of _indulgence_, as they were styled, by which a certain number of the ejected ministers were permitted to preach on certain conditions, but only within their own parishes. to preach at a separate meeting in a private house subjected the minister to a fine of merks (about pounds). to preach in the fields was to incur the penalty of death and confiscation of property. and these arbitrary laws were not merely enacted for intimidation. they were rigorously enforced. the curates in many cases became mere spies and government informers. many of the best men in the land laid down their lives rather than cease to proclaim the gospel of love and peace and goodwill in jesus christ. of course their enemies set them down as self-willed and turbulent fanatics. it has ever been, and ever will be, thus with men who are indifferent to principle. they will not, as well as cannot, understand those who are ready to fight, and, if need be, die for truth! their unspoken argument seems to be: "you profess to preach peace, love, submission to authority, etcetera; very good, stand to your principles. leave all sorts of carnal fighting to us. obey us. conform humbly to our arrangements, whatever they are, and all will be well; but dare to show the slightest symptom of restiveness under what you style our injustice, tyranny, cruelty, etcetera, and we will teach you the submission which you preach but fail to practise by means of fire and sword and torture and death!" many good men and true, with gentle spirits, and it may be somewhat exalted ideas about the rights of royalty, accepted the indulgence as being better than nothing, or better than civil war. no doubt, also, there were a few--neither good men nor true--who accepted it because it afforded them a loophole of escape from persecution. similarly, on the other side, there were good men and true, who, with bolder hearts, perhaps, and clearer brains, it may be, refused the indulgence as a presumptuous enactment, which cut at the roots of both civil and religious liberty, as implying a right to withhold while it professed to give, and which, if acquiesced in, would indicate a degree of abject slavery to man and unfaithfulness to god that might sink scotland into a condition little better than that of some eastern nations at the present day. thus was the camp of the covenanters divided. there were also more subtle divisions, which it is not necessary to mention here, and in both camps, of course there was an infusion, especially amongst the young men, of that powerful element--love of excitement and danger for their own sake, with little if any regard to principle, which goes far in all ages to neutralise the efforts and hamper the energies of the wise. besides the acts of indulgence, another and most tyrannical measure, already mentioned, had been introduced to crush if possible the presbyterians. _letters of intercommuning_ were issued against a great number of the most distinguished presbyterians, including several ladies of note, by which they were proscribed as rebels and cut off from all society. a price, amounting in some instances to pounbds sterling, was fixed on their heads, and every person, not excepting their nearest of kin, was prohibited from conversing with or writing to them, or of aiding with food, clothes, or any other necessary of life, on pain of being found guilty of the same crimes as the intercommuned persons. the natural result of such inhuman laws was that men and women in hundreds had to flee from their homes and seek refuge among the dens and caves of the mountains, where many were caught, carried off to prison, tried, tortured, and executed; while of those who escaped their foes, numbers perished from cold and hunger, and disease brought on by lying in damp caves and clefts of the rocks without food or fire in all weathers. the fines which were exacted for so-called offences tempted the avarice of the persecutors and tended to keep the torch of persecution aflame. for example, sir george maxwell of newark was fined a sum amounting to nearly pounds sterling for absence from his parish church, attendance at conventicles, and disorderly baptisms--iúeú for preferring his own minister to the curate in the baptizing of his children! hundreds of somewhat similar instances might be given. up to the time of which we write ( ) no fewer than , persons had suffered for attending field meetings, either by fine, imprisonment, or death. such was the state of matters when the party of dragoons under command of sergeant glendinning rode towards the mitchells' cottage, which was not far from black's farm. the body of soldiers being too small to venture to interrupt the communion on skeoch hill, glendinning had been told to wait in the neighbourhood and gather information while his officer, captain houston, went off in search of reinforcements. "there's the auld sinner himsel'," cried the sergeant as the party came in sight of an old, whitehaired man seated on a knoll by the side of the road. "hallo! jock mitchell, is that you? come doon here directly, i want to speak t'ye." the old man, being stone deaf, and having his back to the road, was not aware of the presence of the dragoons, and of course took no notice of the summons. "d'ye hear!" shouted the sergeant savagely, for he was ignorant of the old man's condition. still mitchell did not move. glendinning, whose disposition seemed to have been rendered more brutal since his encounter with wallace, drew a pistol from his holster and presented it at mitchell. "answer me," he shouted again, "or ye're a deed man." mitchell did not move... there was a loud report, and next moment the poor old man fell dead upon the ground. it chanced that ramblin' peter heard the report, though he did not witness the terrible result, for he was returning home from the mitchells' cottage at the time, after escorting jean black and aggie wilson thither. the two girls, having been forbidden to attend the gathering on skeoch hill, had resolved to visit the mitchells and spend the sabbath with them. peter had accompanied them and spent the greater part of the day with them, but, feeling the responsibility of his position as the representative of andrew black during his absence, had at last started for home. a glance over a rising ground sufficed to make the boy turn sharp round and take to his heels. he was remarkably swift of foot. a few minutes brought him to the cottage door, which he burst open. "the sodgers is comin', grannie!" (he so styled the old woman, though she was no relation.) "did ye see my auld man?" "no." "away wi' ye, bairns," said mrs. mitchell quickly but quietly. "oot by the back door an' doon the burnside; they'll niver see ye for the busses." "but, grannie, we canna leave you here alone," remonstrated jean with an anxious look. "an' i can fecht!" remarked peter in a low voice, that betrayed neither fear nor excitement. "the sodgers can do nae harm to _me_," returned the old woman firmly. "do my bidding, bairns. be aff, i say!" there was no resisting mrs. mitchell's word of command. hastening out by the back door just as the troopers came in sight, peter and his companions, diving into the shrubbery of the neighbouring streamlet, made their way to black's farm by a circuitous route. there the girls took shelter in the house, locking the door and barring the windows, while peter, diverging to the left, made for the hills like a hunted hare. andrew was standing alone at his post when the lithe runner came in sight. will wallace had left him by that time, and was listening entranced to the fervid exhortations of dickson of rutherglen. "the sodgers!" gasped peter, as he flung himself down to rest. "comin' this way, lad?" "na. they're at the mitchells." "a' safe at the ferm?" asked andrew quickly. "ay, i saw the lasses into the hoose." "rin to the meetin' an' gie the alarm. tell them to send wallace an' quentin here wi' sax stoot men--weel airmed--an' anither sentry, for i'm gaun awa'." almost before the sentence was finished ramblin' peter was up and away, and soon the alarming cry arose from the assembly, "the dragoons are upon us!" instantly the clydesdale men mounted and formed to meet the expected onset. the men of nithsdale were not slow to follow their example, and gordon of earlstoun, a tried and skilful soldier, put himself at the head of a large troop of galloway horse. four or five companies of foot, also well armed, got ready for action, and videttes and single horsemen were sent out to reconnoitre. thus, in a moment, was this assembly of worshippers transformed into a band of christian warriors, ready to fight and die for their families and liberties. but the alarm, as it turned out, was a false one. glendinning, informed by spies of the nature of the gathering, was much too sagacious a warrior to oppose his small force to such overwhelming odds. he contented himself for the present with smaller game. after continuing in the posture of defence for a considerable time, the assembly dispersed, those who were defenceless being escorted by armed parties to the barns and cottages around. as they retired from the scene the windows of heaven were opened, and the rain, which had been restrained all day, came down in torrents, and sent the cairn and cluden red and roaring to the sea. but long before this dispersion took place, andrew black, with quentin dick, will wallace, ramblin' peter, and six sturdy young men, armed with sword, gun, and pistol, had hurried down the hill to succour the mitchells, if need be, and see to the welfare of those who had been left behind in the farm. chapter four. the hunting and harrying displayed. being ignorant, as we have said, of the cruel murder of old mitchell, ramblin' peter's report had not seriously alarmed black. he concluded that the worst the troopers would do would be to rob the poor old couple of what money they found in their possession, oblige them to take the oath of supremacy, drink the health of king and bishops, and otherwise insult and plunder them. knowing the mitchells intimately, he had no fear that their opposition would invite severity. being very fond of them, however, he resolved, at the risk of his life, to prevent as far as possible the threatened indignity and plunder. "they're a douce auld pair," he remarked to will wallace as they strode down the hillside together, "quiet an' peaceable, wi' naething to speak o' in the way of opeenions--somethin' like mysel'--an' willin' to let-be for let-be. but since the country has been ower-run by thae hielanders an' sodgers, they've had little peace, and the auld man has gie'n them a heap o' trouble, for he's as deaf as a post. peter says the pairty o' dragoons is a sma' ane, so i expect the sight o' us'll scare them away an' prevent fechtin'." "it may be so," said wallace, "and of course i shall not fail you in this attempt to protect your old friends; but, to tell you the truth, i don't quite like this readiness on the part of you covenanters to defy the laws, however bad they may be, and to attack the king's troops. the bible, which you so often quote, inculcates longsuffering and patience." "hm! there speaks yer ignorance," returned the farmer with a dash of cynicism in his tone. "hoo mony years, think ye, are folk to submit to tyranny an' wrang an' fierce oppression for nae sin whatever against the laws o' god or the land? are twunty, thretty, or forty years no' enough to warrant oor claim to lang-sufferin'? does submission to law-brekin' on the pairt o' government, an' lang-continued, high-handed oppression frae king, courtier, an' prelate, accompanied wi' barefaced plunder and murder--does _that_ no' justifiee oor claim to patience? to a' this the covenanters hae submitted for mony weary years withoot rebellion, except maybe in the metter o' the pentlands, when a wheen o' us were driven to desperation. but i understand your feelin's, lad, for i'm a man o' peace by natur', an' would gladly submit to injustice to keep things quiet--_if possable_; but some things are _no'_ possable, an' the bible itsel' says we're to live peaceably wi' a' men only `as much as in us lies.'" the ex-trooper was silent. although ignorant of the full extent of maddening persecution to which not merely the covenanters but the people of scotland generally had been subjected, his own limited experience told him that there was much truth in what his companion said; still, like all loyal-hearted men, he shrank from the position of antagonism to government. "i agree with you," he said, after a few minutes' thought, "but i have been born, i suppose, with a profound respect for law and legally constituted authority." "div ye think, lad," returned black, impressively, "that naebody's been born wi' a high respec' for law but yersel'? i suppose ye admit that the king is bound to respec' the law as weel as the people?" "of course i do. i am no advocate of despotism." "weel then," continued the farmer with energy, "in the year saxteen forty-ane, an' at ither times, kings an' parliaments hae stamped the covenants o' scotland as bein' pairt o' the law o' this land--whereby freedom o' conscience an' presbyterian worship are secured to us a'. an' here comes chairles the second an' breks the law by sendin' that scoondrel the duke o' lauderdale here wi' full poors to dae what he likes--an' middleton, a man wi' nae heart an' less conscience, that was raised up frae naething to be a noble, nae less! my word, nobles are easy made, but they're no' sae easy unmade! an' this lauderdale maks a cooncil wi' airchbishop sherp--a traiter and a turncoat--an' a wheen mair like himsel', and they send sodgers oot ower the land to eat us up an' cram prelacy doon oor throats, an' curates into oor poo'pits whether we wull or no'. an' that though chairles himsel' signed the covenant at the time he was crooned! ca' ye _that_ law or legally constituted authority?" although deeply excited by this brief recital of his country's wrongs, black maintained the quiet expression of feature and tone of voice that were habitual to him. further converse on the subject was interrupted by their arrival at the farm, where they found all right save that jean and aggie were in a state of tearful anxiety about their poor neighbours. while the farmer was seeing to the security of his house and its arrangements, preparatory to continuing the march to the mitchells' cottage, the rest of the party stood about the front door conversing. will wallace was contemplating jean black with no little admiration, as she moved about the house. there was something peculiarly attractive about jean. a winsome air and native grace, with refinement of manner unusual in one of her station, would have stamped her with a powerful species of beauty even if she had not possessed in addition a modest look and fair young face. the ex-trooper was questioning, in a dreamy way, whether he had ever before seen such a pretty and agreeable specimen of girlhood, when he experienced a shock of surprise on observing that jean had gone to a neighbouring spring for water and was making something very like a signal to him to follow her. the surprise was mingled with an uncomfortable feeling of regret, for the action seemed inconsistent with the maiden's natural modesty. "forgie me, sir," she said, "for being so bold, but oh! sir, if ye knew how anxious i am about uncle black, ye would understand--he is wanted so much, an' there's them in the hidy-hole that would fare ill if he was taken to prison just now. if--ye--would--" "well, jean," said will, sympathising with the struggle it evidently cost the girl to speak to him--"don't hesitate to confide in me. what would you have me do?" "only to keep him back frae the sodgers if ye can. he's such an awfu' man to fecht when he's roosed, that he's sure to kill some o' them if he's no' killed himsel'. an' it'll be ruin to us a' an' to the mitchells too, if--" she was interrupted at this point by black himself calling her name. "trust me," said wallace earnestly, "i understand what you wish, and will do my best to prevent evil." a grateful look was all the maiden's reply as she hurried away. our hero's perplexity as to how this promise was to be fulfilled was, however, needless, for on reaching the mitchells' hut it was found that the troopers had already left the place; but the state of things they had left behind them was enough to stir deeply the pity and the indignation of the party. everything in confusion--broken furniture, meal and grain scattered on the floor, open chests and cupboards--told that the legalised brigands had done their worst. poor mrs. mitchell had objected to nothing that they said or did or proposed to her. she feebly drank the health of king and prelates when bidden to do so, and swore whatever test-oaths they chose to apply to her till they required her to admit that the king was lord over the kirk and the conscience. then her spirit fired, and with a firm voice she declared that no king but christ should rule over her kirk or conscience--to which she boldly added that she _had_ attended conventicles, and would do so again! having obtained all they wanted, the dragoons went away, leaving the old woman among the ruins of her home, for they probably did not consider it worth while carrying off a prisoner who would in all likelihood have died on the road to prison. in the midst of all the noise and confusion it had struck the old woman as strange that they never once asked about her husband. after they had gone, however, the arrival of two neighbours bearing his dead body revealed the terrible reason. she uttered no cry when they laid his corpse on the floor, but sat gazing in horror as if turned to stone. thus black and his friends found her. she could not be roused to speak, and looked, after a few minutes, like one who had not realised the truth. in this state she was conveyed to black's cottage and handed over to jean, whom every one seemed intuitively to regard as her natural comforter. the poor child led her into her own room, sat down beside her on the bed, laid the aged head on her sympathetic bosom and sobbed as if her heart was breaking. but no response came from the old woman, save that once or twice she looked up feebly and said, "jean, dear, what ails ye?" in the council chamber at edinburgh, lauderdale, learning on one occasion that many persons both high and low had refused to take the bond already referred to, which might well have been styled the bond of slavery, bared his arm in fury, and, smiting the table with his fist, swore with a terrific oath that he would "force them to take the bond." what we have described is a specimen of the manner in which the force was sometimes applied. the heartless despot and his clerical coadjutors had still to learn that tyranny has not yet forged the weapon that can separate man from his god. "what think ye noo?" asked andrew black, turning to wallace with a quiet but stern look, after old mrs. mitchell had been carried in, "what think ye _noo_, lad, o' us covenanters an' oor lack o' lang-sufferin' an' oor defyin' the laws? aren't these laws we _ought_ to defy, but havena properly defied yet, laws illegally made by a perjured king and an upstart cooncil?" "mr. black," said the ex-trooper, seizing his companion's hand with an iron grip, "from this day forward i am with you--heart and soul." little did wallace think, when he came to this decision, that he had still stronger reason for his course of action than he was aware of at the moment. it was night when mrs. mitchell was brought into the farm-house, and preparations were being made for a hasty meal, when ramblin' peter came in with the news that a number of people in the lanarkshire district had been intercommuned and driven from their homes--amongst others david spence, will wallace's uncle, with whom his mother had taken up her abode. the distracted looks of poor wallace on hearing this showed the powerful effect the news had upon him. "keep yersel' quiet, noo," said black in an encouraging tone, as he took the youth's arm and led him out of the house. "these are no' times to let our hearts rin awa wi' oor heids. yer mither must be looked after; but i' the meantime let me tell ye that yer uncle daavid is a douce, cliver felly, an' fears naething i' this warld. if he did, he wadna be amang the intercommuned. be sure he's no' the man to leave his sister maggie in trouble. of course ye'll be wantin' to be aff to look after her." "of course--instantly," said wallace. "na. ye'll hae yer supper first--an' a guid ain--for ye'll need it. have patience, noo, an' listen to me, for i'll do the very best i can for ye in this strait--an' it's no muckle ye can do for yersel' withoot help." there was something so decided yet kindly and reassuring in the farmer's tone and manner that wallace felt relieved in spite of his anxieties, and submitted to his guidance in all things. black then explained that he had a friend in lanark who owed him money on lambs sold to him the previous year; that he meant to send his man quentin dick first to collect that money, and then proceed to edinburgh, for the purpose of making further arrangements there about cattle. "noo," continued black, "i've gotten a mither as weel as you, an' she lives in the can'lemaker raw, close to the greyfriars' kirkyaird--where they signed the covenants, ye ken. weel, i wad advise you to gang to lanark wi' quentin, an' when ye find yer mither tak' her to edinbro' an' let her live wi' my mither i' the meantime, till we see what the lord has in store for this puir persecuted remnant. i'm sorry to pairt wi' ye, lad, sae unexpectedly, but in thae times, when folk are called on to pairt wi' their heids unexpectedly, we mauna compleen." "i'll take your advice gladly," said wallace. "when will quentin dick be ready to start?" "in less than an hour. the moon'll be up soon after that. it's o' nae use startin' on sae dark a nicht till she's up, for ye'll hae to cross some nasty grund. noo, lad, though i'm no a minister, my advice to ye is, to gang doon into the hidy-hole an' pray aboot this matter. niver mind the folk ye find there. they're used to prayin'. it's my opeenion that if there was less preachin' an' mair prayin', we'd be a' the better for 't. it's a thrawn warld we live in, but we're bound to mak' the best o't." although not much in the habit of engaging in prayer--save at the formal periods of morning and evening--our ex-trooper was just then in the mood to take his friend's advice. he retired to the place of refuge under black's house, where he found several people who had evidently been at the communion on skeoch hill. these were engaged in earnest conversation, and took little notice of him as he entered. the place was very dimly lighted. one end of the low vaulted chamber was involved in obscurity. thither the youth went and knelt down. from infancy his mother had taught him "to say his prayers," and had sought to induce him to pray. it is probable that the first time he really did so was in that secret chamber where, in much anxiety of soul, he prayed for herself. after a hasty but hearty supper, he and quentin dick set out on their night journey. they carried nothing with them except two wallets, filled, as wallace could not help thinking, with a needlessly large amount of provisions. of course they were unarmed, for they travelled in the capacity of peaceful drovers, with plaids on their shoulders, and the usual staves in their hands. "one would think we were going to travel for a month in some wilderness, to judge from the weight of our haversacks," observed wallace, after trudging along for some time in silence. "maybe we'll be langer than a month," returned quentin, "ann the wulderness hereaway is warse than the wulderness that moses led his folk through. they had manna there. mony o' us hae _naething_ here." quentin dick spoke with cynicism in his tone, for he was a stern straightforward man, on whom injustice told with tremendous power, and who had not yet been taught by adversity to bow his head to man and restrain his indignation. before wallace had time to make any rejoinder, something like the appearance of a group of horsemen in front arrested them. they were still so far distant as to render their tramp inaudible. indeed they could not have been seen at all in so dark a night but for the fact that in passing over the crest of a hill they were for a moment or two dimly defined against the sky. "dragoons--fowr o' them," muttered quentin. "we'll step aside here an' let them gang by." clambering up the somewhat rugged side of the road, the two men concealed themselves among the bushes, intending to wait till the troopers should pass. "what can they be doing in this direction, i wonder?" whispered wallace. "my freend," answered quentin, "dinna whisper when ye're hidin'. of a' the sounds for attractin' attention an' revealin' secrets a whisper is the warst. speak low, if ye maun speak, but sometimes it's wiser no to speak ava'. dootless the sodgers'll be giein' andrew black a ca', but he kens brawly hoo to tak' care o' himsel'." when the horseman approached it was seen that they were driving before them a boy, or lad, on foot. evidently they were compelling him to act as their guide. "it's ramblin' peter they've gotten haud o', as sure as i'm a leevin' man," said the shepherd with a low chuckle; "i'd ken him amang a thoosand by the way he rins." "shall we not rescue him?" exclaimed wallace, starting up. "wheesht! keep still, man. nae fear o' peter. he'll lead them in amang the bogs o' some peat-moss or ither, gie them the slip there, an' leave them to find their way oot." just as the troop trotted past an incident occurred which disconcerted the hiders not a little. a dog which the soldiers had with them scented them, stopped, and after snuffing about for a few seconds, began to bark furiously. the troop halted at once and challenged. "tak' nae notice," remarked quentin in a low voice, which went no farther than his comrade's ear. a bright flash and sharp report followed the challenge, and a ball whistled through the thicket. "ay, fire away," soliloquised quentin. "ye seldom hit when ye can see. it's no' likely ye'll dae muckle better i' the dark." the dog, however, having discovered the track of the hidden men, rushed up the bank towards them. the shepherd picked up a stone, and, waiting till the animal was near enough, flung it with such a true aim that the dog went howling back to the road. on this a volley from the carbines of the troopers cut up the bushes all around them. "that'll dae noo. come awa', wull," said the shepherd, rising and proceeding farther into the thicket by a scarce visible footpath. "the horses canna follow us here unless they hae the legs an' airms o' puggies. as for the men, they'd have to cut a track to let their big boots pass. we may tak' it easy, for they're uncommon slow at loadin'." in a few minutes the two friends were beyond all danger. returning then to the road about a mile farther on, they continued to journey until they had left the scene of the great communion far behind them, and when day dawned they retired to a dense thicket in a hollow by the banks of a little burn, and there rested till near sunset, when the journey was resumed. that night they experienced considerable delay owing to the intense darkness. towards dawn the day following quentin dick led his companion into a wild, thickly-wooded place which seemed formed by nature as a place of refuge for a hunted creature--whether man or beast. entering the mouth of what seemed to be a cavern, he bade his companion wait. presently a sound, as of the cry of some wild bird, was heard. it was answered by a similar cry in the far distance. soon after the shepherd returned, and, taking his companion by the hand, led him into the cave which, a few paces from its mouth, was profoundly dark. almost immediately a glimmering light appeared. a few steps farther, and wallace found himself in the midst of an extraordinary scene. the cavern at its inner extremity was an apartment of considerable size, and the faint light of a few lanterns showed that the place was clouded by smoke from a low fire of wood that burned at the upper end. here, standing, seated, and reclining, were assembled all sorts and conditions of men--some in the prime and vigour of life; some bowed with the weight of years; others, both young and old, gaunt and haggard from the influence of disease and suffering, and many giving evidence by their aspect that their days on earth were numbered. some, by the stern contraction of brow and lip, seemed to suggest that submission was the last thought that would enter their minds, but not a few of the party wore that look of patient endurance which is due to the influence of the spirit of god--not to mere human strength of mind and will. all seemed to be famishing for want of food, while ragged clothes, shaggy beards, hollow cheeks, and unkempt locks told eloquently of the long years of bodily and mental suffering which had been endured under ruthless persecution. chapter five. risks and refuges. immediately on entering the cave in which this party of covenanters had found a temporary shelter, will wallace learned the reason of the large supply of provisions which he and his comrade had carried. "i've brought this for ye frae andrew black," said quentin, taking the wallet from his shoulder and presenting it to a man in clerical costume who advanced to welcome him. "he thought ye might stand in need o' victuals." "ever thoughtful of his friends; i thank him heartily," said the minister, accepting the wallet--as also that handed to him by wallace. "andrew is a true helper of the persecuted; and i thank the lord who has put it into his heart to supply us at a time when our provisions are well-nigh exhausted. our numbers have been unexpectedly increased by the arrival of some of the unfortunates recently expelled from lanark." "from lanark!" echoed wallace as he glanced eagerly round on the forlorn throng. "can you tell me, sir, if a mr. david spence and a mrs. wallace have arrived from that quarter?" "i have not heard of them," returned the minister, as he emptied the wallets and began to distribute their contents to those around him.--"ah, here is milk--i'm glad our friend black thought of that, for we have a poor dying woman here who can eat nothing solid. here, webster, take it to her." with a sudden sinking at the heart wallace followed the man to whom the milk had been given. might not this dying woman, he thought, be his own mother? true, he had just been told that no one with her name had yet sought refuge there; but, there was a bare possibility and--anxiety does not reason! as he crossed to a spot where several persons were bending over a couch of straw, a tremendous clap of thunder shook the solid walls of the cavern. this was immediately followed by a torrent of rain, the plashing of which outside suggested that all the windows of heaven had been suddenly opened. the incident was natural enough in itself, but the anxious youth took it as a bad omen, and trembled as he had never before trembled at the disturbances of nature. one glance, however, sufficed to relieve his mind. the dying woman was young. delicate of constitution by nature, long exposure to damp air in caves, and cold beds on the ground, with bad and insufficient food, had sealed her doom. lying there, with hollow cheeks, eyes closed and lips deathly pale, it seemed as if the spirit had already fled. "oh, my ain lizzie!" cried a poor woman who knelt beside her. "wheesht, mither," whispered the dying woman, slowly opening her eyes; "it is the lord's doing--shall not the judge of a' the earth do right? we'll understand it a' some day--for ever wi' the lord!" the last words were audible only to the mother's ear. food for the body, even if it could have availed her, came too late. another moment and she was in the land where hunger and thirst are unknown--where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. the mourners were still standing in silence gazing on the dead, when a loud noise and stamping of feet was heard at the entrance of the cave. turning round they saw several drenched and haggard persons enter, among them a man supporting--almost carrying--a woman whose drooping figure betokened great exhaustion. "thank you, o thank you; i--i'm better now," said the woman, looking up with a weary yet grateful expression at her protector. will wallace sprang forward as he heard the voice. "mother! mother!" he cried, and, next moment, he had her in his arms. the excitement coupled with extreme fatigue was almost too much for the poor woman. she could not speak, but, with a sigh of contentment, allowed her head to fall upon the broad bosom of her son. accustomed as those hunted people were to scenes of suffering, wild despair, and sometimes, though not often, to bursts of sudden joy, this incident drew general attention and sympathy--except, indeed, from the mother of the dead woman, whose poor heart was for the moment stunned. several women--one of whom was evidently a lady of some position-- crowded to will's assistance, and conveyed mrs. wallace to a recess in the cave which was curtained off. here they gave her food, and changed her soaking garments. meanwhile her brother, david spence--a grand-looking old man of gentle manners and refined mind--gave his nephew an account of the manner in which they had been driven from their home. "what is the matter with your hands, uncle?" asked will, observing that both were bandaged. "they tried the thumbscrews on me," said spence with a pitiful smile, glancing at his injured members. "they wanted to force me to sign the bond, which i declined to do--first, because it required me to perform impossibilities; and, second, because it was such as no government in the world has a right to exact or freeman to sign. they were going to put the boot on me at first, but the officer in command ordered them to try the thumbscrews. this was lucky, for a man may get along with damaged thumbs, but it would have been hard to travel with crippled legs! i held out though, until the pain became so great that i couldn't help giving a tremendous yell. this seemed to touch the officer with pity, for he ordered his men to let me be. soon afterwards your mother and i managed to give them the slip, and we came on here." "but why came you here, uncle?" asked will. "because i don't want to be taken to edinburgh and hanged. besides, after hearing of your temporary settlement with black, i thought the safest place for your mother would be beside yourself." when wallace explained the cause of his own journey, and the condition of the district around black's farm, the plans of david spence had to be altered. he resolved, after consideration and prayer, to take to the mountains and remain in hiding, while mrs. wallace should go to edinburgh, as already planned, and live with mrs. black. "but it will never do to take her along with yourself, will," said spence. "she cannot walk a step farther. we must try to get her a horse, and let her journey along with some o' the armed bands that attended the conventicle at skeoch hill. they will be sure to be returning this way in a day or two." "you are right," said the minister who has already been introduced, and who overheard the concluding remark as he came forward. "the armed men will be passing this way in a day or two, and we will take good care of your mother, young sir, while she remains with us." "just so," rejoined spence. "i'll see to that; so, nephew, you and your comrade quentin may continue your journey with easy minds. you'll need all your caution to avoid being taken up and convicted, for the tyrants are in such a state of mind just now that if a man only _looks_ independent they suspect him, and there is but a short road between suspicion and the gallows now." "humph! we'll be as innocent-lookin' an' submissive as bairns," remarked quentin dick, with a grim smile on his lips and a frown on his brow that were the reverse of childlike. convinced that spence's arrangement for his mother's safety was the best in the circumstances, wallace left her, though somewhat reluctantly, in the care of the outlawed covenanters, and resumed his journey with the shepherd after a few hours' rest. proceeding with great caution, they succeeded in avoiding the soldiers who scoured the country until, towards evening, while crossing a rising ground they were met suddenly by two troopers. a thicket and bend in the road had, up to that moment, concealed them from view. level grass-fields bordered the road on either side, so that successful flight was impossible. "wull ye fecht?" asked quentin, in a quick subdued voice. "of course i will," returned wallace. "ca' canny at first, then. be humble an' _awfu'_ meek, till i say `_noo_!'" the troopers were upon them almost as soon as this was uttered. "ho! my fine fellows," exclaimed one of them, riding up to quentin with drawn sword, "fanatics, i'll be bound. where from and where away now?" "we come, honoured sir, frae irongray, an' we're gaun to ed'nbury t' buy cattle," answered quentin with downcast eyes. "indeed, oho! then you must needs have the cash wherewith to buy the cattle. where is it?" "in ma pooch," said the shepherd with a deprecating glance at his pocket. "hand it over, then, my good fellow. fanatics are not allowed to have money or to purchase cattle nowadays." "but, honoured sir, we're no fannyteeks. we're honest shepherds." the lamb-like expression of quentin dick's face as he said this was such that wallace had considerable difficulty in restraining an outburst of laughter, despite their critical position. he maintained his gravity, however, and firmly grasped his staff, which, like that of his companion, was a blackthorn modelled somewhat on the pattern of the club of hercules. "here, melville," said the first trooper, "hold my horse while i ease this `honest shepherd' of his purse." sheathing his sword, he drew a pistol from its holster, and, handing the reins to his companion, dismounted. "noo!" exclaimed quentin, bringing his staff down on the trooper's iron headpiece with a terrific thwack. like a flash of lightning the club of wallace rang and split upon that of the other horseman, who fell headlong to the ground. strong arms have seldom occasion to repeat a well-delivered blow. while the soldiers lay prone upon the road their startled horses galloped back the way they had come. "that's unfort'nit," said quentin. "thae twa look like an advance-gaird, an' if so, the main body'll no be lang o' gallopin' up to see what's the maitter. it behoves us to rin!" the only port of refuge that appeared to them as they looked quickly round was a clump of trees on a ridge out of which rose the spire of a church. "the kirk's but a puir sanctuary nooadays," remarked the shepherd, as he set off across the fields at a quick run, "but it's oor only chance." they had not quite gained the ridge referred to when the danger that quentin feared overtook them. a small company of dragoons was seen galloping along the road. "we may gain the wood before they see us," suggested will wallace. "if it _was_ a wud i wadna care for the sodgers," replied his comrade, "but it's only a bit plantation. we'll jist mak' for the manse an' hide if we can i' the coal-hole or some place." as he spoke a shout from the troopers told that they had been seen, and several of them leaving the road dashed across the field in pursuit. now, it chanced that at that quiet evening hour the young curate of the district, the reverend frank selby, was enjoying a game of quoits with a neighbouring curate, the reverend george lawless, on a piece of ground at the rear of the manse. the reverend frank was a genial lowlander of the muscular type. the reverend george was a renegade highland-man of the cadaverous order. the first was a harum-scarum young pastor with a be-as-jolly-as-you-can spirit, and had accepted his office at the recommendation of a relative in power. the second was a mean-spirited wolf in sheep's clothing, who, like his compatriot archbishop sharp, had sold his kirk and country as well as his soul for what he deemed some personal advantage. as may well be supposed, neither of those curates was a shining light in the ministry. "missed again! i find it as hard to beat you, lawless, as i do to get my parishioners to come to church," exclaimed the reverend frank with a good-humoured laugh as his quoit struck the ground and, having been badly thrown, rolled away. "that's because you treat your quoits carelessly, as you treat your parishioners," returned the reverend george, as he made a magnificent throw and ringed the tee. "bravo! that's splendid!" exclaimed selby. "not bad," returned lawless. "you see, you want more decision with the throw--as with the congregation. if you will persist in refusing to report delinquents and have them heavily fined or intercommuned, you must expect an empty church. mine is fairly full just now, and i have weeded out most of the incorrigibles." "i will never increase my congregation by such means, and i have no wish to weed out the incorrigibles," rejoined selby, becoming grave as he made another and a better throw. at that moment our fugitive shepherds, dashing round the corner of the manse, almost plunged into the arms of the reverend frank selby. they pulled up, panting and uncertain how to act. "you seem in haste, friends," said the curate, with an urbane smile. "oot o' the fryin'-pan into the fire!" growled quentin, grasping his staff and setting his teeth. "if you will condescend to explain the frying-pan i may perhaps relieve you from the fire," said selby with emphasis. wallace observed the tone and grasped at the forlorn hope. "the dragoons are after us, sir," he said eagerly; "unless you can hide us we are lost!" "if you are honest men," interrupted the reverend george lawless, with extreme severity of tone and look, "you have no occasion to hide--" "bub we're _not_ honest men," interrupted quentin in a spirit of almost hilarious desperation, "we're fannyteeks,--rebels,--covenanters,--born eediots--" "then," observed lawless, with increasing austerity, "you richly deserve--" "george!" said the reverend frank sharply, "you are in my parish just now, and i expect you to respect my wishes. throw your plaids, sticks, and bonnets behind that bush, my lads--well out of sight--so. now, cast your coats, and join us in our game." the fugitives understood and swiftly obeyed him. while they were hastily stripping off their coats selby took his brother curate aside, and, looking him sternly in the face, said--"now, george lawless, if you by word or look interfere with my plans, i will give you cause to repent it to the latest day of your life." if any one had seen the countenance of the reverend george at that moment he would have observed that it became suddenly clothed with an air of meekness that was by no means attractive. at the time we write of, any curate might, with the assistance of the soldiers, fine whom he pleased, and as much as he pleased, or he might, by reporting a parishioner an absentee from public worship, consign him or her to prison, or even to the gallows. but though all the curates were in an utterly false position they were not all equally depraved. selby was one who felt more or less of shame at the contemptible part he was expected to play. when the troopers came thundering round the corner of the manse a few minutes later, quentin dick, in his shirt sleeves, was in the act of making a beautiful throw, and will wallace was watching him with interest. even the reverend george seemed absorbed in the game, for he felt that the eyes of the reverend frank were upon him. "excuse me, gentlemen," said the officer in command of the soldiers, "did you see two shepherds run past here?" "no," answered the reverend frank with a candid smile, "i saw no shepherds run past here." "strange!" returned the officer, "they seemed to enter your shrubbery and to disappear near the house." "did you see the path that diverges to the left and takes down to the thicket in the hollow?" asked selby. "yes, i did, but they seemed to have passed that when we lost sight of them." "let me advise you to try it now," said selby. "i will," replied the officer, wheeling his horse round and galloping off, followed by his men. "now, friends, i have relieved you from the fire, as i promised," said the reverend frank, turning to the shepherds; "see that you don't get into the frying-pan again. whether you deserve hanging or not is best known to yourselves. to say truth, you don't look like it, but, judging from appearance, i should think that in these times you're not unlikely to get it. on with your coats and plaids and be off as fast as you can--over the ridge yonder. in less than half-an-hour you'll be in denman's dean, where a regiment of cavalry would fail to catch you." "we shall never forget you--" "there, there," interrupted the reverend frank, "be off. the troopers will soon return. i've seen more than enough of hanging, quartering, and shooting to convince me that presbytery is not to be rooted out, nor prelacy established, by such means. be off, i say!" thus urged, the fugitives were not slow to avail themselves of the opportunity, and soon were safe in denman's dean. "now, lawless," said the reverend frank in a cheerful tone, "my conscience, which has been depressed of late, feels easier this evening. let us go in to supper; and _remember_ that no one knows about this incident except you--and i. so, there's no chance of its going further." "the two rebels know it," suggested lawless. "no, they don't!" replied the other airily. "they have quite forgotten it by this time, and even if it should recur to memory their own interest and gratitude would seal their lips--so we're quite safe, you and i; quite safe--come along." our travellers met with no further interruption until they reached edinburgh. it was afternoon when they arrived, and, entering by the road that skirts the western base of the castle rock, proceeded towards the grassmarket. pushing through the crowd gathered in that celebrated locality, quentin and wallace ascended the steep street named candlemaker row, which led and still leads to the high ground that has since been connected with the high street by george the fourth bridge. about half-way up the ascent they came to a semicircular projection which encroached somewhat on the footway. it contained a stair which led to the interior of one of the houses. here was the residence of mrs. black, the mother of our friend andrew. the good woman was at home, busily engaged with her knitting needles, when her visitors entered. a glance sufficed to show wallace whence andrew black derived his grave, quiet, self-possessed character, as well as his powerful frame and courteous demeanour. she received quentin dick, to whom she was well known, with a mixture of goodwill and quiet dignity. "i've brought a freend o' mr. black's to bide wi' ye for a wee while, if ye can take him in," said quentin, introducing his young companion as "wull wallace." "i'm prood to receive an' welcome ony freend o' my boy andry," returned the good woman, with a slight gesture that would have become a duchess. "ay, an' yer son wants ye to receive wallace's mither as weel. she'll likely be here in a day or twa. she's been sair persecooted of late, puir body, for she's a staunch upholder o' the covenants." there have been several covenants in scotland, the most important historically being the national covenant of , and the solemn league and covenant of . it was to these that quentin referred, and to these that he and the great majority of the scottish people clung with intense, almost superstitious veneration; and well they might, for these covenants--which some enthusiasts had signed with their blood--contained nearly all the principles which lend stability and dignity to a people-- such as a determination to loyally stand by and "defend the king," and "the liberties and laws of the kingdom," to have before the eyes "the glory of god, the advancement of the kingdom of our lord and saviour jesus christ, the honour and happiness of the king and his posterity, as well as the safety and peace of the people; to preserve the rights and privileges of parliament, so that arbitrary and unlimited power should never be suffered to fall into the hands of rulers, and to vindicate and maintain the liberties of the subjects in all these things which concern their consciences, persons, and estates." in short, it was a testimony for constitutional government in opposition to absolutism. such were the principles for which mrs. black contended with a resolution equal, if not superior, to that of her stalwart son; so that it was in a tone of earnest decision that she assured her visitors that nothing would gratify her more than to receive a woman who had suffered persecution for the sake o' the master an' the covenants. she then ushered wallace and quentin dick into her little parlour--a humble but neatly kept apartment, the back window of which--a hole not much more than two feet square--commanded a view of the tombstones and monuments of greyfriars' churchyard. chapter six. tells of overwhelming reverses. mrs. black was a woman of sedate character and considerable knowledge for her station in life--especially in regard to scripture. like her son she was naturally grave and thoughtful, with a strong tendency to analyse, and to inquire into the nature and causes of things. unlike andrew, however, all her principles and her creed were fixed and well defined--at least in her own mind, for she held it to be the bounden duty of every christian to be ready at all times to give a "reason" for the hope that is in him, as well as for every opinion that he holds. her natural kindness was somewhat concealed by slight austerity of manner. she was seated, one evening, plying her ever active needle, at the same small window which overlooked the churchyard. the declining sun was throwing dark shadows across the graves. a ray of it gleamed on a corner of the particular tombstone which, being built against her house, slightly encroached upon her window. no one was with the old woman save a large cat, to whom she was in the habit of addressing occasional remarks of a miscellaneous nature, as if to relieve the tedium of solitude with the fiction of intercourse. "ay, pussie," she said, "ye may weel wash yer face an' purr, for there's nae fear o' _you_ bein' dragged before airchbishop sherp to hae yer thoombs screwed, or yer legs squeezed in the--" she stopped abruptly, for heavy footsteps were heard on the spiral stair, and next moment will wallace entered. "well, mrs. black," he said, sitting down in front of her, "it's all settled with bruce. i'm engaged to work at his forge, and have already begun business." "so i see, an' ye look business-like," answered the old woman, with a very slight smile, and a significant glance at our hero's costume. a considerable change had indeed taken place in the personal appearance of will wallace since his arrival in edinburgh, for in place of the shepherd's garb, with which he had started from the "bonnie hills of galloway," he wore the leathern apron and other habiliments of a blacksmith. moreover his hair had been allowed to grow in luxuriant natural curls about his head, and as the sun had bronzed him during his residence with black, and a young beard and moustache had begun to assert themselves in premature vigour, his whole aspect was that of a grand heroic edition of his former self. "yes, the moment i told your friend," said wallace, "that you had sent me to him, and that i was one of those who had good reason to conceal myself from observation, he gave me a hearty shake of the hand and accepted my offer of service; all the more that, having already some knowledge of his craft, i did not require teaching. so he gave me an apron and set me to work at once. i came straight from the forge just as i left off work to see what you would think of my disguise." "ye'll do, ye'll do," returned mrs. black, with a nod of approval. "yer face an' hands need mair washin' than my pussie gies her nose! but wheesht! i hear a fit on the stair. it'll be quentin dick. i sent him oot for a red herrin' or twa for supper." as she spoke, quentin entered with a brown paper parcel, the contents of which were made patent by means of scent without the aid of sight. the shepherd seemed a little disconcerted at sight of a stranger, for, as wallace stood up, the light did not fall on his face; but a second glance sufficed to enlighten him. "no' that bad," he said, surveying the metamorphosed shepherd, "but i doot yer auld friends the dragoons wad sune see through 't--considerin' yer size an' the soond o' yer voice." so saying he proceeded to place the red herrings on a gridiron, as if he were the recognised cook of the establishment. presently bruce himself--mrs. black's friend the blacksmith--made his appearance, and the four were soon seated round a supper of oat-cakes, mashed potatoes, milk, and herring. for some time they discussed the probability of wallace being recognised by spies as one who had attended the conventicle at irongray, or by dragoons as a deserter; then, as appetite was appeased, they diverged to the lamentable state of the country, and the high-handed doings of the privy council. "the airchbishop cam' to the toon this mornin'," remarked mrs. black, "so there'll be plenty o' torterin' gaun on." "i fear you're right," said bruce, who, having sojourned a considerable time in england, had lost much of his northern language and accent. "that horrible instrument, the _boot_, was brought this very morning to my smiddy for repair. they had been so hard on some poor wretch, i suppose, that they broke part of it, but i put a flaw into its heart that will force them to be either less cruel or to come to me again for repairs!" "h'm! if ye try thae pranks ower often they'll find it oot," said quentin. "sherp is weel named, and if he suspects what ye've done, ye'll get a taste of the buit yersel'." the hatred with which by far the greater part of the people of scotland regarded archbishop sharp of saint andrews is scarcely a matter of wonder when the man's character and career is considered. originally a presbyterian, and minister of crail, he was sent to court by his brethren and countrymen as their advocate and agent, and maintained there at their expense for the express purpose of watching over the interests of their church. sharp not only betrayed his trust but went over to what might well at that time be described as "the enemy," and secretly undermined the cause which he was bound in honour to support. finally he threw off all disguise, and was rewarded by being made archbishop of saint andrews and primate of scotland! this was bad enough, but the new prelate, not satisfied with the gratification of his ambition, became, after the manner of apostates, a bitter persecutor of the friends he had betrayed. charles the second, who was indolent, incapable and entirely given over to self-indulgence, handed over the affairs of scotland to an unprincipled cabal of laymen and churchmen, who may be fittingly described as drunken libertines. by these men--of whom middleton, lauderdale, and sharp were the chief--all the laws passed in favour of presbytery were rescinded; new tyrannical laws such as we have elsewhere referred to were enacted and ruthlessly enforced; prelacy was established; the presbyterian church was laid in ruins, and all who dared to question the righteousness of these transactions were pronounced rebels and treated as such. there was no impartial tribunal to which the people could appeal. the king, who held presbyterianism to be unfit for a gentleman, cared for none of these things, and even if he had it would have mattered little, for those about him took good care that he should not be approached or enlightened as to the true state of affairs in scotland. sharp himself devised and drafted a new edict empowering any officer or sergeant to kill on the spot any armed man whom he found returning from or going to a conventicle, and he was on the point of going to london to have this edict confirmed when his murderous career was suddenly terminated. in the days of james the sixth and charles the first, the bishops, although forced on the scottish church and invested with certain privileges, were subject to the jurisdiction of the general assembly, but soon after charles the second mounted the throne ecclesiastical government was vested entirely in their hands, and all the ministers who refused to recognise their usurped authority were expelled. it was in that the celebrated act was passed by middleton and his colleagues in glasgow college. it provided that all ministers must either submit to the bishops or remove themselves and families out of their manses, churches, and parishes within a month. it was known as the "drunken act of glasgow," owing to the condition of the legislators. four hundred brave and true men left their earthly all at that time, rather than violate conscience and forsake god. their example ultimately saved the nation from despotism. the archbishop of saint andrews was chief in arrogance and cruelty among his brethren. he afterwards obtained permission to establish a high commission court in scotland--in other words, an inquisition--for summarily executing all laws, acts, and orders in favour of episcopacy and against recusants, clergy and laity. it was under this authority that all the evil deeds hitherto described were done, and of this commission sharp was constant president. it may be well to remark here that the prelacy which was so detested by the people of scotland was not english episcopacy, but scotch prelacy. it was, in truth, little better at that time than popery disguised--a sort of confused religio-political popery, of which system the king was self-constituted pope, while his unprincipled minions of the council were cardinals. no wonder, then, that at the mere mention of sharp's name mrs. black shook her head sorrowfully, bruce the blacksmith frowned darkly, and quentin dick not only frowned but snorted vehemently, and smote the table with such violence that the startled pussie fled from the scene in dismay. "save us a'! quentin," said mrs. black, "ye'll surely be hanged or shot if ye dinna learn to subdue yer wrath." "subdue my wrath, wumman!" exclaimed the shepherd, grinding his teeth; "if ye had seen the half o' what i've seen ye wad--but ye ken 'maist naething aboot it! gie me some mair tatties an' mulk, it'll quiet me maybe." in order that the reader may know something of one of the things about which mrs. black, as well as quentin dick himself, was happily ignorant at that time, we must change the scene once more to the neighbourhood of andrew black's cottage. it was early in the day, and the farmer was walking along the road that led to cluden ford, bent on paying a visit to dumfries, when he was overtaken by a troop of about twenty horsemen. they had ridden out of the bush and come on the road so suddenly that black had no time to secrete himself. knowing that he was very much "wanted," especially after the part he had played at the recent conventicle on skeoch hill, he at once decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and took to his heels. no man in all the country-side could beat the stout farmer at a race either short or long, but he soon found that four legs are more than a match for two. the troopers soon gained on him, though he ran like a mountain hare. having the advantage, however, of a start of about three hundred yards, he reached the bend in the road where it begins to descend towards the ford before his pursuers overtook him. but andrew felt that the narrow strip of wood beside which he was racing could not afford him shelter and that the ford would avail him nothing. in his extremity he made up his mind to a desperate venture. on his right an open glade revealed to him the dark gorge through which the cluden thundered. the stream was in flood at the time, and presented a fearful aspect of seething foam mingled with black rocks, as it rushed over the lynn and through its narrow throat below. a path led to the brink of the gorge which is now spanned by the routen bridge. from the sharp-edged cliff on one side to the equally sharp cliff on the other was a width of considerably over twenty feet. towards this point andrew black sped. close at his heels the dragoons followed, glendinning, on a superb horse, in advance of the party. it was an untried leap to the farmer, who nevertheless went at it like a thunderbolt and cleared it like a stag. the troopers behind, seeing the nature of the ground, pulled up in time, and wheeling to the left, made for the ford. glendinning, however, was too late. the reckless sergeant, enraged at being so often baulked by the farmer, had let his horse go too far. he tried to pull up but failed. the effort to do so rendered a leap impossible. so near was he to the fugitive that the latter was yet in the midst of his bound when the former went over the precipice; head foremost, horse and all. the poor steed fell on the rocks below and broke his neck, but the rider was shot into the deep dark pool round which the cluden whirled in foam-flecked eddies. in the midst of its heaving waters he quickly arose flinging his long arms wildly about, and shouting for help with bubbling cry. the iron helm, jack-boots, and other accoutrements of a seventeenth century trooper were not calculated to assist flotation. glendinning would have terminated his career then and there if the flood had not come to his aid by sweeping him into the shallow water at the lower end of the pool, whence some of his men soon after rescued him. meanwhile, andrew black, plunging into the woods on the opposite side of the river, was soon far beyond the reach of his foes. but escape was not now the chief anxiety of our farmer, and selfishness formed no part of his character. when he had left home, a short time before, his niece jean was at work in the dairy, ramblin' peter was attending to the cattle, marion clark and her comrade, isabel scott were busy with domestic affairs, and old mrs. mitchell--who never quite recovered her reason--was seated in the chimney corner calmly knitting a sock. to warn these of their danger was now the urgent duty of the farmer, for well he knew that the disappointed soldiers would immediately visit his home. indeed, he saw them ride away in that direction soon afterwards, and started off to forestall them if possible by taking a short cut. glendinning had borrowed the horse of a trooper and left the dismounted man to walk after them. but there was no particularly short cut to the cottage, and in spite of andrew's utmost exertions the dragoons arrived before him. not, however, before the wary peter had observed them, given the alarm, got all the inmates of the farm--including mrs. mitchell--down into the hidy-hole and established himself in the chimney corner with a look of imbecile innocence that was almost too perfect. poor peter! his heart sank when the door was flung violently open and there entered a band of soldiers, among whom he recognised some of the party which he had so recently led into the heart of a morass and so suddenly left to find their way out as they best could. but no expression on peter's stolid countenance betrayed his feelings. "so, my young bantam cock," exclaimed a trooper, striding towards him, and bending down to make sure, "we've got hold of you at last?" "eh?" exclaimed peter interrogatively. "you're a precious scoundrel, aren't you?" continued the trooper. "ay," responded peter. "i told you the lad was an idiot," said a comrade. the remark was not lost upon the boy, whose expression immediately became still more idiotic if possible. "tell me," said glendinning, grasping peter savagely by one ear, "where is your master?" "i dinna ken, sir." "is there nobody in the house but you?" "naebody but me," said peter, "an' _you_," he added, looking vacantly round on the soldiers. "now, look 'ee here, lad, i'm not to be trifled with," said the sergeant. "where are the rest of your household hidden? answer; quick." peter looked into the sergeant's face with a vacant stare, but was silent. glendinning, whose recent misfortune had rendered him unusually cruel, at once knocked the boy down and kicked him; then lifting him by the collar and thrusting him violently into the chair, repeated the question, but received no answer. changing his tactics he tried to cajole him and offered him money, but with similar want of success. "hand me your sword-belt," cried the sergeant to a comrade. with the belt he thrashed peter until he himself grew tired, but neither word nor cry did he extract, and, again flinging him on the floor, he kicked him severely. "here's a rope, sergeant," said one of the men at this point, "and there's a convenient rafter. a lad that won't speak is not fit to live." "nay, hanging is too good for the brute," said glendinning, drawing a pistol from his belt. "tie a cloth over his eyes." peter turned visibly paler while his eyes were being bandaged, and the troopers thought that they had at last overcome his obstinacy, but they little knew the heroic character they had to deal with. "now," said the sergeant, resting the cold muzzle of his weapon against the boy's forehead, "at the word three your brains are on the floor if you don't tell me where your people are hid--one--two--" "stop, sergeant, let him have a taste of the thumbscrews before you finish him off," suggested one of the men. "so be it--fetch them." the horrible instrument of torture was brought. it was constantly used to extract confession from the poor covenanters during the long years of persecution of that black period of scottish history. peter's thumbs were placed in it and the screw was turned. the monsters increased the pressure by slow degrees, repeating the question at each turn of the screw. at first peter bore the pain unmoved, but at last it became so excruciating that his cheeks and lips seemed to turn grey, and an appalling shriek burst from him at last. talk of devils! the history of the human race has proved that when men have deliberately given themselves over to high-handed contempt of their maker there is not a devil among all the legions in hell who could be worse: he might be cleverer, he could not be more cruel. the only effect of the shriek upon glendinning was to cause him to order another turn of the screw. happily, at the moment the shriek was uttered andrew black arrived, and, finding the troop-horses picketed outside, with no one apparently to guard them, he looked in at the window and saw what was going on. with a fierce roar of mingled horror, surprise, and rage, he sprang into the room, and his huge fist fell on the brow of glendinning like the hammer of thor. his left shot full into the face of the man who had worked the screws, and both troopers fell prone upon the floor with a crash that shook the building. the act was so quick, and so overpoweringly violent that the other troopers were for a moment spellbound. that moment sufficed to enable black to relieve the screws and set peter free. "c'way oot, lad, after me!" cried andrew, darting through the doorway, for he felt that without more space to fight he would be easily overpowered. the dragoons, recovering, darted after him. the farmer caught up a huge flail with which he was wont to thresh out his oats. it fell on the headpiece of the first trooper, causing it to ring like an anvil, and stretching its owner on the ground. the second trooper fared no better, but the head of the flail broke into splinters on his iron cap, and left andrew with the stump only to continue the combat. this, however, was no insignificant weapon, and the stout farmer laid about him with such fierce rapidity as to check for a few moments the overwhelming odds against him. pistols would certainly have been used had not glendinning, recovering his senses, staggered out and shouted, "take him _alive_, men!" this was quickly done, for two troopers leaped on andrew behind and pinioned his arms while he was engaged with four in front. the four sprang on him at the same instant. even then andrew black's broad back--which was unusually "up"--proved too strong for them, for he made a sort of plunging somersault and carried the whole six along with him to the ground. before he could rise, however, more troopers were on the top of him. samson himself would have had to succumb to the dead weight. in a few seconds he was bound with ropes and led into the house. ramblin' peter had made a bold assault on a dragoon at the beginning of the fray, but could do nothing with his poor maimed hands, and was easily secured. "let him taste the thumbscrews," growled glendinning savagely, and pointing to black. "dae yer warst, ye born deevil," said black recklessly--for oppression driveth even a wise man mad. "very good--fetch the boot," said the sergeant. the instrument of torture was brought and affixed to the farmer's right leg; the wedge was inserted, and a blow of the mallet given. black's whole visage seemed to darken, his frowning brows met, and his lips were compressed with a force that meant endurance unto the death. at that moment another party of dragoons under captain houston galloped up, the captain entered, and, stopping the proceedings of his subordinate, ordered black and peter to be set on horseback and bound together. "fire the place," he added. "if there are people in it anywhere, that will bring them out." "oh dear!" gasped peter, "the hidy--" "wheesht, bairn," said black in a low voice. "they're safe enough. the fire'll no' touch them, an' besides, they're in the lord's hands." a few minutes more and the whole farm-steading was in flames. the dragoons watched the work of destruction until the roof of the cottage fell in; then, mounting their horses, they descended to the road with the two prisoners and turned their faces in the direction of edinburgh. chapter seven. more than one narrow escape. one day, about a week after the burning of black's farm, a select dinner-party of red-hot rebels--as government would have styled them; persecuted people as they called themselves--assembled in mrs. black's little room in candlemaker row. their looks showed that their meeting was not for the purpose of enjoyment. the party consisted of mrs. black, mrs. wallace, who had reached edinburgh in company with her brother david spence, jean black, will wallace, quentin dick, and jock bruce the blacksmith. "but i canna understand, lassie," said mrs. black to jean, "hoo ye werena a' roasted alive i' the hidy-hole, or suffocated at the best; an' hoo did ye ever get oot wi' the ruckle o' burning rafters abune ye?" "it was easy enough," answered the girl, "for uncle andry made the roof o' the place uncommon thick, an' there's a short tunnel leadin' to some bushes by the burn that let us oot at a place that canna be seen frae the hoose. but oh, granny, dinna ask me to speak aboot thae things, for they may be torturin' uncle andry at this vera moment. are you sure it was him ye saw?" she added, turning to bruce. "quite sure," replied the smith. "i chanced to be passing the tolbooth at the moment the door opened. a party of the city guard suddenly came out with black in the midst, and led him up the high street." "i'm _sure_ they'll torture him," said the poor girl, while the tears began to flow at the dreadful thought. "they stick at naethin' now." "i think," said will wallace, in a tone that was meant to be comforting, "that your uncle may escape the torture, for the archbishop does not preside at the council to-day. i hear that he has gone off suddenly to saint andrews." "that won't serve your uncle much," remarked bruce sternly, "for some of the other bishops are nigh as bad as sharp, and with that raving monster lauderdale among them they're likely not only to torture but to hang him, for he is well known, and has been long and perseveringly hunted." in his indignation the smith did not think of the effect his foreboding might have on his friend's mother, but the sight of her pale cheeks and quivering lips was not lost upon wallace, whose sympathies had already been stirred deeply not only by his regard for black, but also by his pity for tender-hearted jean. "by heaven!" he exclaimed, starting up in a sudden burst of enthusiasm, "if you will join me, friends, i am quite ready to attempt a rescue at once." a sort of pleased yet half-cynical smile crossed the grave visage of quentin dick as he glanced at the youth. "hoots, man! sit doon," he said quietly; "ye micht as weel try to rescue a kid frae the jaws o' a lion as rescue andry black frae the fangs o' lauderdale an' his crew. but something may be dune when they're takin' him back to the tolbooth--if ye're a' wullin' to help. we mak' full twunty-four feet amangst us, an' oor shoothers are braid!" "i'm ready," said david spence, in the quiet tone of a man who usually acts from principle. "an' so am i," cried bruce, smiting the table with the fist of a man who usually acts from impulse. while wallace calmed his impatient spirit, and sat down to hatch a plot with his brother conspirators, a strange scene was enacting in the council chamber, where the perjured prelates and peers were in the habit of practising cruelty, oppression, and gross injustice under the name of law. they sat beside a table which was covered with books and parchments. in front of them, seated on a chair with his arms pinioned, was andrew black. his face was pale and had a careworn look, but he held his head erect, and regarded his judges with a look of stern resolution that seemed to exasperate them considerably. on the table lay a pair of brass-mounted thumbscrews, and beside them the strange-looking instrument of torture called the boot. in regard to these machines there is a passage in the privy council records which gives an idea of the spirit of the age about which we write. it runs thus: "whereas the _boots_ were the ordinary way to explicate matters relating to the government, and there is now a new invention and engine called the _thumbkins_, which will be very effectual to the purpose aforesaid, the lords ordain that when any person shall by their order be put to the torture, the said boots and thumbkins be applied to them, as it shall be found fit and convenient." lauderdale on this occasion found it fit and convenient to apply the torture to another man in the presence of black, in order that the latter might fully appreciate what he had to expect if he should remain contumacious. the poor man referred to had not been gifted with a robust frame or a courageous spirit. when asked, however, to reveal the names of some comrades who had accompanied him to a field-preaching he at first loyally and firmly refused to do so. then the boot was applied. it was a wooden instrument which enclosed the foot and lower limb of the victim. between it and the leg a wedge was inserted which, when struck repeatedly, compressed the limb and caused excruciating agony. in some cases this torture was carried so far that it actually crushed the bone, causing blood and marrow to spout forth. it was so in the case of that well-known martyr of the covenant, hugh mckail, not long before his execution. the courage of the poor man of whom we now write gave way at the second stroke of the mallet, and, at the third, uttering a shriek of agony, he revealed, in short gasps, the names of all the comrades he could recall. let us not judge him harshly until we have undergone the same ordeal with credit! a look of intense pity overspread the face of andrew black while this was going on. his broad chest heaved, and drops of perspiration stood on his brow. he had evidently forgotten himself in his strong sympathy with the unhappy martyr. when the latter was carried out, in a half fainting condition, he turned to lauderdale, and, frowning darkly, said-- "thou meeserable sinner, cheeld o' the deevil, an' enemy o' a' righteousness, div 'ee think that your blood-stained haund can owerturn the cause o' the lord?" this speech was received with a flush of anger, quickly followed by a supercilious smile. "we shall see. get the boot ready there. now, sir," (turning to black), "answer promptly--will you subscribe the oath of the king's supremacy?" "no--that i wull _not_. i acknowledge nae king ower my conscience but the king o' kings. as for that perjured libertine on the throne, for whom there's muckle need to pray, i tell ye plainly that i consider the freedom and welfare o' scotland stands higher than the supposed rights o' king and lords. ye misca' us rebels! if ye ken the history o' yer ain country--whilk i misdoot--ye would ken that the parliaments o' baith scotland an' england have laid it doon, in declaration and in practice, that resistance to the exercise o' arbitrary power is _lawfu'_, therefore resistance to chairles and you, his shameless flunkeys, is nae mair rebellion than it's rebellion in a cat to flee in the face o' a bull-doug that wants to worry her kittens. against the tyrant that has abused his trust, an' upset oor constitution, an' broken a' the laws o' god and man, i count it to be my bounden duty to fecht wi' swurd an' lip as lang's i hae an airm to strike an' a tongue to wag. noo, ye may dae yer warst!" at a signal the executioner promptly fitted the boot to the bold man's right leg. black's look of indignant defiance passed away, and was replaced by an expression of humility that, strangely enough, seemed rather to intensify than diminish his air of fixed resolve. while the instrument of torture was being arranged he turned his face to the bishop of galloway, who sat beside lauderdale silently and sternly awaiting the result, and with an almost cheerful air and quiet voice said-- "god has, for his ain wise ends, made the heart o' the puir man that has just left us tender, an' he's made mine teuch, but tak' notice, thou wolf in sheep's clothing, that it's no upon its teuchness but upon the speerit o' the lord that i depend for grace to withstand on this evil day." "strike!" said the duke, in a low stern voice. the mallet fell; the wedge compressed the strong limb, and andrew compressed his lips. "again!" a second time the mallet fell, but no sign did the unhappy man give of the pain which instantly began to shoot through the limb. after a few more blows the duke stayed the process and reiterated his questions, but black took no notice of him whatever. large beads of sweat broke out on his brow. these were the only visible signs of suffering, unless we except the deathly pallor of his face. "again!" said the merciless judge. the executioner obeyed, but the blow had been barely delivered when a loud snap was heard, and the tortured man experienced instant relief. jock bruce's little device had been successful, the instrument of torture was broken! "thanks be to thy name, o god, for grace to help me thus far," said black in a quiet tone. "fix on the other boot," cried lauderdale savagely, for the constancy as well as the humility of the martyr exasperated him greatly. the executioner was about to obey when a noise was heard at the door of the council chamber, and a cavalier, booted and spurred and splashed with mud, as if he had ridden fast and far, strode hastily up to the duke and whispered in his ear. the effect of the whisper was striking, for an expression of mingled surprise, horror, and alarm overspread for a few moments even his hard visage. at the same time the bishop of galloway was observed to turn deadly pale, and an air of consternation generally marked the members of council. "murdered--in cold blood!" muttered the duke, as if he could not quite believe the news,--and perhaps realised for the first time that there were others besides the archbishop of saint andrews who richly deserved a similar fate. hastily ordering the prisoner to be removed to the tolbooth, he retired with his infamous companions to an inner room. the well-known historical incident which was thus announced shall receive but brief comment here. there is no question at all as to the fact that sharp was unlawfully killed, that he was cruelly slain, without trial and without judicial condemnation, by a party of covenanters. nothing justifies illegal killing. the justice of even legal killing is still an unsettled question, but one which does not concern us just now. we make no attempt to defend the deed of those men. it is not probable that any average christian, whether in favour of the covenanters or against them, would justify the killing of an old man by illegal means, however strongly he might hold the opinion that the old man deserved to die. in order to form an unprejudiced opinion on this subject recourse must be had to facts. the following are briefly the facts of the case. a merchant named william carmichael, formerly a bailie of edinburgh, was one of sharp's favourites, and one of his numerous commissioners for suppressing conventicles in fife. he was a licentious profligate, greedy of money, and capable of undertaking any job, however vile. this man's enormities were at last so unbearable that he became an object of general detestation, and his excessive exactions had ruined so many respectable lairds, owners, and tenants, that at last nine of these (who had been outlawed, interdicted the common intercourse of society, and hunted like wild beasts on the mountains) resolved, since all other avenues of redressing their unjust sufferings were denied them, to take the law into their own hands and personally chastise carmichael. accordingly, hearing that the commissioner was hunting on the moors in the neighbourhood of cupar, they rode off in search of him. they failed to find him, and were about to disperse, when a boy brought intelligence that the coach of archbishop sharp was approaching. baffled in their previous search, and smarting under the sense of their intolerable wrongs, the party regarded this as a providential deliverance of their arch-enemy into their hands. here was the chief cause of all their woes, the man who, more almost than any other, had been instrumental in the persecution and ruin of many families, in the torture and death of innumerable innocent men and women, and the banishment of some of their nearest and dearest to perpetual exile on the plantations, where they were treated as slaves. they leaped at the sudden and unexpected opportunity. they reasoned that what had been done in the past, and was being done at the time, would continue to be done in the future, for there was no symptom of improvement, but rather of increasing severity in the government and ecclesiastics. overtaking the coach, which contained the prelate and his daughter, they stopped it, made archbishop sharp step out, and slew him there on magus moor. it was a dark unwarrantable deed, but it was unpremeditated, and necessarily unknown, at first, to any but the perpetrators, so that it would be inexcusably unfair to saddle it upon the great body of the covenanters, who, as far as we can ascertain from their writings and opinions, condemned it, although, naturally, they could not but feel relieved to think that one of their chief persecutors was for evermore powerless for further evil, and _some_ of them refused to admit that the deed was murder. they justified it by the case of phinehas. a better apology lies in the text, "oppression maketh a wise man mad." this event had the effect, apparently, of causing the council to forget our friends black and ramblin' peter for a time, for they were left in the tolbooth for about three weeks after that, whereat andrew was much pleased, for it gave his maimed limb time to recover. as peter remarked gravely, "it's an ill wund that blaws naebody guid!" a robust and earnest nation cannot be subdued by persecution. the more the council tyrannised over and trampled upon the liberties of the people of scotland, the more resolutely did the leal-hearted and brave among them resist the oppressors. it is ever thus. it ever _should_ be thus; for while an individual man has a perfect right, if he chooses, to submit to tyranny on his own account, he has no right to stand tamely by and see gross oppression and cruelty exercised towards his family, and neighbours, and country. at least, if he does so, he earns for himself the character of an unpatriotic poltroon. true patriotism consists in a readiness to sacrifice one's-self to the national well-being. as far as things temporal are concerned, the records of the scottish covenanters prove incontestably that those long-tried men and women submitted with unexampled patience for full eight-and-twenty years to the spoiling of their goods and the ruin of their prospects; but when it came to be a question of submission to the capricious will of the king or loyalty to jesus christ, thousands of them chose the latter alternative, and many hundreds sealed their testimony with their blood. when at last the question arose, "shall we consent to the free preaching of the gospel being suppressed altogether, or shall we assert our rights at the point of the sword?" there also arose very considerable difference of opinion among the covenanters. many of those who held the peace-at-almost-any-price principle, counselled submission. others, such as richard cameron, donald cargill, and thomas douglas, who believed in the right of self-defence, and in such a text as "smite a scorner and the simple will beware," advocated the use of carnal weapons for _protection alone_, although, when driven to desperation, they were compelled to go further. some of the ejected ministers, such as blackadder and welsh, professed to be undecided on this point, and leant to a more or less submissive course. matters were now hastening to a crisis. a lawless government had forced a law-abiding people into the appearance, though not the reality, of rebellion. the bands of armed men who assembled at conventicles became so numerous as to have the appearance of an army. the council, exasperated and alarmed, sent forth more troops to disperse and suppress these, though they had been guilty of no act of positive hostility. at this crisis, cargill and his friends, the "ultra-covenanters," as they were styled, resolved to publish to the world their "testimony to the cause and truth which they defended, and against the sins and defections of the times." they chose the th of may for this purpose, that being the anniversary of the king's birth and restoration. led by robert hamilton, a small party of them rode into the royal burgh of rutherglen; and there, after burning various tyrannical acts--as their adversaries had previously burnt the covenants--they nailed to the cross a copy of what is now known as the declaration of rutherglen, in which all their grievances were set forth. the news of this daring act spread like wildfire, and the notorious graham of claverhouse was sent to seize, kill, and destroy, all who took any part in this business. how claverhouse went with his disciplined dragoons, seized john king, chaplain to lord cardross, with about fourteen other prisoners, in passing through hamilton, tied them in couples, drove them before the troops like sheep, attacked the covenanters at drumclog, received a thorough defeat from the undisciplined "rebels," who freed the prisoners, and sent the dragoons back completely routed to glasgow, is matter of history. while these stirring events were going on, our friend andrew black and ramblin' peter were languishing in the unsavoury shades of the tolbooth prison. one forenoon andrew was awakened from an uneasy slumber. they bade him rise. his arms were bound with a rope, and he was led up the canongate towards the well-remembered council chamber, in company with ramblin' peter, who, owing to his size and youth, was not bound, but merely held in the grasp of one of the guards. at the mouth of one of the numerous closes which lead down to the cowgate and other parts of the old town stood will wallace, quentin dick, david spence, and jock bruce, each armed with a heavy blackthorn. bruce had been warned by a friendly turnkey of what was pending--hence their opportune presence. as soon as the prison party was opposite the close, the rescue party made a united rush--and the united rush of four such strapping fellows was worth seeing. so thought the crowd, and cheered. so thought not the city guard, four of whom went down like ninepins. black's bonds were cut and himself hurried down the close almost before the guard had recovered from the surprise. no doubt that guard was composed of brave men; but when they met two such lions in the mouth of the close as wallace and quentin--for these two turned at bay--they paused and levelled their pikes. turning these aside like lightning the lions felled their two foremost adversaries. the two who followed them met a similar fate. thinking that four were sufficient to block the entry, at least for a few moments, our heroes turned, unlionlike, and fled at a pace that soon left the enemy far behind. this delay had given time to black and his other friends to make good their retreat. meanwhile ramblin' peter, taking advantage of the confusion, wrenched himself suddenly free from the guard who held him, and vanished down another close. the rescue having been effected, the party purposely scattered. black's leg, however, prevented him from running fast. he therefore thought it best to double round a corner, and dash into a doorway, trusting to having been unobserved. in this, however, he was mistaken. his enemies, indeed, saw him not, but ramblin' peter chanced to see him while at some distance off, and made for the same place of refuge. springing up a spiral stair, three steps at a time, black did not stop till he gained the attics, and leaped through the open doorway of a garret, where he found an old woman wailing over a bed on which lay the corpse of a man with a coffin beside it. "what want ye here?" demanded the old creature angrily. "wow! wumman, i'm hard pressed! they're at my heels!" said black, looking anxiously at the skylight as if meditating a still higher flight. "are ye ane o' the persecuted remnant?" asked the woman in a changed tone. "ay, that am i." "hide, then, hide, man--haste ye!" "where?" asked the perplexed fugitive. "there," said the woman, removing the coffin lid. andrew hesitated. just then hurrying footsteps were heard on the stair. he hesitated no longer. stepping into the coffin he lay down, and the woman covered him up. "oh, wumman!" said black, lifting the lid a little, "tak' care ye dinna meddle wi' the screw-nails. they may--" "wheesht! haud yer tongue!" growled the woman sharply, and reclosed the lid with a bang, just as ramblin' peter burst into the room. "what want ye here, callant?" peter drew back in dismay. "i'm lookin' for--i was thinkin'--did 'ee see a man--?" the lid of the coffin flew off as he spoke, and his master sprang out. "man, peter," gasped the farmer, "yours is the sweetest voice i've heard for mony a day. i verily thocht i was doomed--but come awa', lad. thank 'ee kindly, auld wife, for the temporary accommodation." the intruders left as abruptly as they had entered. that night the whole party was reassembled in mrs. black's residence in candlemaker row, where, over a supper "o' parritch an' soor mulk," andrew black heard from jock bruce all about the declaration of rutherglen, and the defeat of claverhouse by the covenanters at drumclog. "the thundercloods are gatherin'," said black with a grave shake of the head, as the party broke up and were about to separate for the night. "tak' my word for 't, we'll hear mair o' this afore lang." we need scarcely add that on this occasion andrew was a true prophet. chapter eight. bothwell bridge. matters had now come to such a pass that it was no longer possible to defer the evil day of civil war. persecuted inhumanly and beyond endurance, with every natural avenue of redress closed, and flushed with recent victory, the covenanters resolved not only to hold together for defensive purposes, but to take the initiative, push their advantage, and fight for civil and religious liberty. it was the old, old fight, which has convulsed the world probably since the days of eden--the uprising of the persecuted many against the tyrannical few. in the confusions of a sin-stricken world, the conditions have been occasionally and partially reversed; but, for the most part, history's record tells of the abuse of power on the part of the few who possess it, and the resulting consequence that:-- "man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn--" until the down-trodden have turned at bay, and, like the french in , have taken fearful vengeance, or, as in the case of the covenanters at the time of which we write, have reaped only disaster and profounder woe. there were, however, two elements of weakness among the covenanters in which rendered all their efforts vain, despite the righteousness of their cause. one was that they were an undisciplined body, without appointed and experienced officers; while their leader, robert hamilton, was utterly unfitted by nature as well as training for a military command. the other weakness was, that the unhappy differences of opinion among them as to lines of duty, to which we have before referred, became more and more embittered, instead of being subordinated to the stern necessities of the hour. the earnest men of god amongst them could no doubt have brought things to a better state in this crisis if their counsels had prevailed, but the men whose powers of endurance had at last given way were too many and strong for these; so that, instead of preparing for united action, the turbulent among them continued their dissensions until too late. after drumclog, hamilton led his men to glasgow to attack the enemy's headquarters there. he was repulsed, and then retired to hamilton, where he formed a camp. the privy council meanwhile called out the militia, and ordered all the heritors and freeholders to join with the regulars in putting down the insurrection. a good many people from all quarters had joined the covenanters after the success at drumclog; but it is thought that their numbers never exceeded . the army which prepared to meet them under the command of the duke of monmouth and buccleuch was said to be , strong--among them were some of the best of the king's troops. the duke was anxious to delay matters, apparently with some hope of reconciliation. many of the covenanters were like-minded; and it is said that mr. welsh visited the royal camp in disguise, with a view to a peaceful solution; but the stern spirits in both camps rendered this impossible. some from principle, others from prejudice, could not see their way to a compromise; while the unprincipled on either side "cried havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!" it was on sabbath the nd of june that the duke's army reached bothwell moor; the advanced guards entering bothwell town within a quarter of a mile of the bridge which spans the clyde. the covenanters lay encamped on hamilton moor, on the southern side of the river. that morning a company of stalwart young men, coming from the direction of edinburgh, had crossed bothwell bridge before the arrival of the royal army and joined the covenanters. they were preceded by two men on horseback. "it seems a daft-like thing," said one horseman to the other as they traversed the moor, "that the likes o' me should be ridin' to battle like a lord, insteed o' trudgin' wi' the men on futt; but, man, it's no' easy to walk far efter wearin' a ticht-fittin' buit--though it was only for a wee while i had it on. it's a' verra weel for you, wull, that's oor eleckit captain, an' can sit yer horse like a markis; but as for me, i'll slip aff an' fecht on my legs when it comes to that." "there's no military law, andrew, against fighting on foot," returned the captain, who, we need scarcely say, was will wallace; "but if you are well advised you'll stick to the saddle as long as you can. see, yonder seems to be the headquarters of the camp. we will report our arrival, and then see to breakfast." "ay--i'll be thankfu' for a bite o' somethin', for i'm fair famished; an' there's a proverb, i think, that says it's ill fechtin' on an emp'y stammack. it seems to me there's less order an' mair noise yonder than befits a camp o' serious men--specially on a sabbath mornin'." "the same thought occurred to myself," said wallace. "perhaps they have commenced the services, for you know there are several ministers among them." "mair like disputation than services," returned the farmer with a grave shake of his head. finding that andrew was correct, and that the leaders of the little army were wasting the precious moments in irrelevant controversy, the edinburgh contingent turned aside and set about preparing a hasty breakfast. this reinforcement included quentin dick, jock bruce, david spence, and ramblin' peter; also tam chanter, edward gordon, and alexander mccubine, who had been picked up on the march. of course, while breaking their fast they discussed the _pros_ and _cons_ of the situation freely. "if the king's troops are as near as they are reported to be," said wallace, "our chances of victory are small." "i fear ye're richt," said black. "it becomes ignorance to haud its tongue in the presence o' knowledge, nae doot--an' i confess to bein' as ignorant as a bairn o' the art o' war; but common sense seems to say that haverin' aboot theology on the eve o' a fecht is no sae wise-like as disposin' yer men to advantage. the very craws might be ashamed o' sic a noise!" even while he spoke a cry was raised that the enemy was in sight; and the confusion that prevailed before became redoubled as the necessity for instant action arose. in the midst of it, however, a few among the more sedate and cool-headed leaders did their best to reduce the little army to something like order, and put it in battle array. there was no lack of personal courage. men who had, for the sake of righteousness, suffered the loss of all things, and had carried their lives in their hands for so many years, were not likely to present a timid front in the hour of battle. and leaders such as john nisbet of hardhill, one of the most interesting sufferers in the twenty-eight years' persecution; clelland, who had fought with distinguished courage at drumclog; henry hall of haughhead; david hackston of rathillet; john balfour of burley; turnbull of bewlie; with major learmont and captain john paton of meadowhead--two veterans who had led the westland covenanters in their first battle at the pentland hills--such men were well able to have led a band of even half-disciplined men to victory if united under a capable general. but such was not to be. the laws of god, whether relating to physics or morals, are inexorable. a divided army cannot conquer. they had assembled to fight; instead of fighting they disputed, and that so fiercely that two opposing parties were formed in the camp, and their councils of war became arenas of strife. the drilling of men had been neglected, officers were not appointed, stores of ammunition and other supplies were not provided, and no plan of battle was concerted. all this, with incapacity at the helm, resulted in overwhelming disaster and the sacrifice of a body of brave, devoted men. it afterwards intensified persecution, and postponed constitutional liberty for many years. in this state of disorganisation the covenanters were found by the royal troops. the latter were allowed quietly to plant their guns and make arrangements for the attack. but they were not suffered to cross bothwell bridge with impunity. some of the bolder spirits, leaving the disputants to fight with tongue and eye, drew their swords and advanced to confront the foe. "it's every man for himsel' here," remarked andrew black indignantly, wiping his mouth with his cuff, as he rose from the meal which he was well aware might be his last. "the lord hae mercy on the puir covenanters, for they're in sair straits this day. come awa', wull wallace--lead us on to battle." our hero, who was busily forming up his men, needed no such exhortation. seeing that there was no one in authority to direct his movements, he resolved to act "for his own hand." he gave the word to march, and set off at a quick step for the river, where the fight had already begun. soon he and his small band were among those who held the bridge. here they found hackston, hall, turnbull, and the lion-like john nisbet, each with a small band of devoted followers sternly and steadily defending what they knew to be the key to their position. distributing his men in such a way among the coppices on the river's bank that they could assail the foe to the greatest advantage without unnecessarily exposing themselves, wallace commenced a steady fusillade on the king's foot-guards, who were attempting to storm the bridge. the covenanters had only one cannon and about men with which to meet the assault; but the gun was effectively handled, and the men were staunch. on the central arch of the old bridge--which was long and narrow--there stood a gate. this had been closed and barricaded with beams and trees, and the parapets on the farther side had been thrown down to prevent the enemy finding shelter behind them. these arrangements aided the defenders greatly, so that for three hours the gallant held the position in spite of all that superior discipline and numerous guns could do. at last, however, the ammunition of the defenders began to fail. "where did ye tether my horse?" asked will wallace, addressing peter, who acted the part of aide-de-camp and servant to his commander. "ayont the hoose there," replied peter, who was crouching behind a tree-stump. "jump on its back, lad, and ride to the rear at full speed. tell them we're running short of powder and ball. we want more men, too, at once. haste ye!" "ay, an' tell them frae me, that if we lose the brig we lose the day," growled andrew black, who, begrimed with powder, was busily loading and firing his musket from behind a thick bush, which, though an admirable screen from vision, was a poor protection from bullets, as the passage of several leaden messengers had already proved. but our farmer was too much engrossed with present duty to notice trifles! without a word, except his usual "ay," ramblin' peter jumped up and ran to where his commander's steed was picketed. in doing so he had to pass an open space, and a ball striking his cap sent it spinning into the air; but peter, like black, was not easily affected by trifles. next moment he was on the back of will's horse--a great long-legged chestnut--and flying towards the main body of covenanters in rear. the bullets were whistling thickly past him. one of these, grazing some tender part of his steed's body, acted as a powerful spur, so that the alarmed creature flew over the ground at racing speed, much to its rider's satisfaction. when they reached the lines, however, and he attempted to pull up, peter found that the great tough-mouthed animal had taken the bit in its teeth and bolted. no effort that his puny arm could make availed to check it. through the ranks of the covenanters he sped wildly, and in a short time was many miles from the battlefield. how long he might have continued his involuntary retreat is uncertain, but the branch of a tree brought it to a close by sweeping him off the saddle. a quarter of an hour later an old woman found him lying on the ground insensible, and with much difficulty succeeded in dragging him to her cottage. meanwhile the tide of war had gone against the covenanters. whatever may be said of hamilton, unquestionably he did not manage the fight well. no ammunition or reinforcements were sent to the front. the stout defenders of the bridge were forced to give way in such an unequal conflict. yet they retired fighting for every inch of the ground. indeed, instead of being reinforced they were ordered to retire; and at last, when all hope was gone, they reluctantly obeyed. "noo this bates a'!" exclaimed black in a tone of ineffable disgust, as he ran to the end of the bridge, clubbed his musket, and laid about him with the energy of despair. will wallace was at his side in a moment; so was quentin dick. they found balfour and hackston already there; and for a few moments these men even turned the tide of battle, for they made an irresistible dash across the bridge, and absolutely drove the assailants from their guns, but, being unsupported, were compelled to retire. if each had been a hercules, the gallant five would have had to succumb before such overwhelming odds. a few minutes more and the covenanters were driven back. the king's troops poured over the bridge and began to form on the other side. then it was that graham of claverhouse, seeing his opportunity, led his dragoons across the bridge and charged the main body of the covenanters. undisciplined troops could not withstand the shock of such a charge. they quickly broke and fled; and now the battle was changed to a regular rout. "kill! kill!" cried claverhouse; "no quarter!" his men needed no such encouragement. from that time forward they galloped about the moor, slaying remorselessly all whom they came across. the gentle-spirited monmouth, seeing that the victory was gained, gave orders to cease the carnage; but claverhouse paid no attention to this. he was like the man-eating tigers,--having once tasted blood he could not be controlled, though monmouth galloped about the field doing his best to check the savage soldiery. it is said that afterwards his royal father--for he was an illegitimate son of the king--found fault with him for his leniency after bothwell. we can well believe it; for in a letter which he had previously sent to the council charles wrote that it was "his royal will and pleasure that they should prosecute the rebels with fire and sword, and all other extremities of war." speaking at another time to monmouth about his conduct, charles said, "if i had been present there should have been no trouble about prisoners." to which monmouth replied, "if that was your wish, you should not have sent me but a _butcher_!" in the general flight black, owing to his lame leg, stumbled over a bank, pitched on his head, and lay stunned. quentin dick, stooping to succour him, was knocked down from behind, and both were captured. fortunately monmouth chanced to be near them at the time and prevented their being slaughtered on the spot, like so many of their countrymen, of whom it is estimated that upwards of four hundred were slain in the pursuit that succeeded the fight--many of them being men of the neighbourhood, who had not been present on the actual field of battle at all. among others wallace's uncle, david spence, was killed. twelve hundred, it is said, laid down their arms and surrendered at discretion. wallace himself, seeing that the day was lost and further resistance useless, and having been separated from his friends in the general _melee_, sought refuge in a clump of alders on the banks of the river. another fugitive made for the same spot about the same time. he was an old man, yet vigorous, and ran well; but the soldiers who pursued soon came up and knocked him down. having already received several dangerous wounds in the head, the old man seemed to feel that he had reached the end of his career on earth, and calmly prepared for death. but the end had not yet come. even among the blood-stained troops of the king there were men whose hearts were not made of flint, and who, doubtless, disapproved of the cruel work in which it was their duty to take part. instead of giving the old man the _coup de grace_, one of the soldiers asked his name. "donald cargill," answered the wounded man. "that name sounds familiar," said the soldier. "are not you a minister?" "yea, i have the honour to be one of the lord's servants." upon hearing this the soldiers let him go, and bade him get off the field as fast as possible. cargill was not slow to obey, and soon reached the alders, where he fell almost fainting to the ground. here he was discovered by wallace, and recognised as the old man whom he had met in andrew black's hidy-hole. the poor man could scarcely walk; but with the assistance of his stout young friend, who carefully dressed his wounds, he managed to escape. wallace himself was not so fortunate. after leaving cargill in a place of comparative safety, he had not the heart to think only of his own escape while uncertain of the fate of his friends. he was aware, indeed, of his uncle's death, but knew nothing about andrew black, quentin dick, or ramblin' peter. when, therefore, night had put an end to the fiendish work, he returned cautiously to search the field of battle; but, while endeavouring to clamber over a wall, was suddenly pounced upon by half a dozen soldiers and made prisoner. at an earlier part of the evening he would certainly have been murdered on the spot, but by that time the royalists were probably tired of indiscriminate slaughter, for they merely bound his arms and led him to a spot where those covenanters who had been taken prisoners were guarded. the guarding was of the strangest and cruellest. the prisoners were made to lie flat down on the ground--many of them having been previously stripped nearly naked; and if any of them ventured to change their positions, or raise their heads to implore a draught of water, they were instantly shot. next day the survivors were tied together in couples and driven off the ground like a herd of cattle. will wallace stood awaiting his turn, and watching the first band of prisoners march off. suddenly he observed andrew black coupled to quentin dick. they passed closed to him. as they did so their eyes met. "losh, man, is that you?" exclaimed black, a gleam of joy lighting up his sombre visage. "eh, but i _am_ gled to see that yer still leevin'!" "not more glad than i to see that you're not dead," responded will quickly. "where's peter and bruce?" a stern command to keep silence and move on drowned the answer, and in another minute wallace, with an unknown comrade-in-arms, had joined the procession. thus they were led--or rather driven--with every species of cruel indignity, to edinburgh; but the jails there were already full; there was no place in which to stow such noxious animals! had charles the second been there, according to his own statement, he would have had no difficulty in dealing with them; but bad as the council was, it was not quite so brutal, it would seem, as the king. "put them in the greyfriars churchyard," was the order--and to that celebrated spot they were marched. seated at her back window in candlemaker row, mrs. black observed, with some surprise and curiosity, the sad procession wending its way among the tombs and round the church. the news of the fight at bothwell bridge had only just reached the city, and she knew nothing of the details. mrs. wallace and jean black were seated beside her knitting. "wha'll they be, noo?" soliloquised mrs. black. "maybe prisoners taken at bothwell brig," suggested mrs. wallace. jean started, dropped her knitting, and said in a low, anxious voice, as she gazed earnestly at the procession, "if--if it's them, uncle andrew an'--an'--the others may be amang them!" the procession was not more than a hundred yards distant--near enough for sharp, loving eyes to distinguish friends. "i see them!" cried jean eagerly. next moment she had leaped over the window, which was not much over six feet from the ground. she doubled round a tombstone, and, running towards the prisoners, got near enough to see the head of the procession pass through a large iron gate at the south-west corner of the churchyard, and to see clearly that her uncle and quentin dick were there--tied together. here a soldier stopped her. as she turned to entreat permission to pass on she encountered the anxious gaze of will wallace as he passed. there was time for the glance of recognition, that was all. a few minutes more and the long procession had passed into what afterwards proved to be one of the most terrible prisons of which we have any record in history. jean black was thrust out of the churchyard along with a crowd of others who had entered by the front gate. filled with dismay and anxious forebodings, she returned to her temporary home in the row. chapter nine. among the tombs. the enclosure at the south-western corner of greyfriars churchyard, which had been chosen as the prison of the men who were spared after the battle of bothwell bridge, was a small narrow space enclosed by very high walls, and guarded by a strong iron gate--the same gate, probably, which still hangs there at the present day. there, among the tombs, without any covering to shelter them from the wind and rain, without bedding or sufficient food, with the dank grass for their couches and graves for pillows, did most of these unfortunates--from twelve to fifteen hundred--live during the succeeding five months. they were rigorously guarded night and day by sentinels who were held answerable with their lives for the safe keeping of the prisoners. during the daytime they stood or moved about uneasily. at nights if any of them ventured to rise the sentinels had orders to fire upon them. if they had been dogs they could not have been treated worse. being men, their sufferings were terrible--inconceivable. ere long many a poor fellow found a death-bed among the graves of that gloomy enclosure. to add to their misery, friends were seldom permitted to visit them, and those who did obtain leave were chiefly females, who were exposed to the insults of the guards. a week or so after their being shut up here, andrew black stood one afternoon leaning against the headstone of a grave on which quentin dick and will wallace were seated. it had been raining, and the grass and their garments were very wet. a leaden sky overhead seemed to have deepened their despair, for they remained silent for an unusually long time. "this _is_ awfu'!" said black at last with a deep sigh. "if there was ony chance o' makin' a dash an' fechtin' to the end, i wad tak' comfort; but to be left here to sterve an' rot, nicht an' day, wi' naethin' to do an' maist naethin' to think on--it's--it's awfu'!" as the honest man could not get no further than this idea--and the idea itself was a mere truism--no response was drawn from his companions, who sat with clenched fists, staring vacantly before them. probably the first stage of incipient madness had set in with all of them. "did jean give you any hope yesterday?" asked wallace languidly; for he had asked the same question every day since the poor girl had been permitted to hold a brief conversation with her uncle at the iron gate, towards which only one prisoner at a time was allowed to approach. the answer had always been the same. "na, na. she bids me hope, indeed, in the lord--an' she's right there; but as for man, what can we hope frae _him_?" "ye may weel ask that!" exclaimed quentin dick, with sudden and bitter emphasis. "man indeed! it's my opeenion that man, when left to hissel', is nae better than the deevil. i' faith, i think he's waur, for he's mair contemptible." "ye may be right, quentin, for a' i ken; but some men are no' left to theirsel's. there's that puir young chiel anderson, that was shot i' the lungs an' has scarce been able the last day or twa to crawl to the yett to see his auld mither--he's deeing this afternoon. i went ower to the tombstane that keeps the east wund aff him, an' he said to me, `andry, man,' said he, `i'll no' be able to crawl to see my mither the day. i'll vera likely be deid before she comes. wull ye tell her no' to greet for me, for i'm restin' on the lord jesus, an' i'll be a free man afore night, singing the praises o' redeeming love, and waitin' for _her_ to come?'" quentin had covered his face with his hands while black spoke, and a low groan escaped him; for the youth anderson had made a deep impression on the three friends during the week they had suffered together. wallace, without replying, went straight over to the tomb where anderson lay. he was followed by the other two. on reaching the spot they observed that he lay on his back, with closed eyes and a smile resting on his young face. "he sleeps," said wallace softly. "ay, he sleeps weel," said black, shaking his head slowly. "i ken the look o' _that_ sleep. an' yonder's his puir mither at the yett. bide by him, quentin, while i gang an' brek it to her." it chanced that mrs. anderson and jean came to the gate at the same moment. on hearing that her son was dead the poor woman uttered a low wail, and would have fallen if jean had not caught her and let her gently down on one of the graves. jean was, as we have said, singularly sympathetic. she had overheard what her uncle had said, and forthwith sat down beside the bereaved woman, drew her head down on her breast and tried to comfort her, as she had formerly tried to comfort old mrs. mitchell. even the guards were softened for a few minutes; but soon they grew impatient, and ordered them both to leave. "bide a wee," said jean, "i maun hae a word wi' my uncle." she rose as she spoke, and turned to the gate. "weel, what luck?" asked black, grasping both her hands through the bars. "no luck, uncle," answered jean, whimpering a little in spite of her efforts to keep up. "as we ken naebody o' note here that could help us, i just went straight to the parliament hoose an' saw lauderdale himsel', but he wouldna listen to me. an' what could i say? i couldna tell him a lee, ye ken, an' say ye hadna been to conventicles or sheltered the rebels, as they ca' us. but i said i was _sure_ ye were sorry for what ye had done, an' that ye would never do it again, if they would only let you off--" "oh, jean, jean, ye're a gowk, for that was twa lees ye telt him!" interrupted black, with a short sarcastic laugh; "for i'm no' a bit sorry for what i've done; an' i'll do't ower again if ever i git the chance. ne'er heed, lass, you've done your best. an' hoo's mither an' mrs. wallace?" "they're baith weel; but awfu' cast doon aboot you, an'--an'--wull and quentin. an'--i had maist forgot--peter has turned up safe an' soond. he says that--" "come, cut short your haverin'," said the sentinel who had been induced to favour jean, partly because of her sweet innocent face, and partly because of the money which mrs. black had given her to bribe him. "weel, tell peter," said black hurriedly, "to gang doon to the ferm an' see if he can find oot onything aboot marion clerk an' isabel scott. i'm wae for thae lassies. they're ower guid to let live in peace at a time like this. tell him to tell them frae me to flee to the hills. noo that the hidy-hole is gaen, there's no' a safe hoose in a' the land, only the caves an' the peat-bogs, and even they are but puir protection." "uncle dear, is not the lord our hiding-place until these calamities be overpast?" said jean, while the tears that she could not suppress ran down her cheeks. "ye're right, bairn. god forgi'e my want o' faith. rin awa' noo. i see the sentry's getting wearied. the lord bless ye." the night chanced to be very dark. rain fell in torrents, and wind in fitful gusts swept among the tombs, chilling the prisoners to the very bone. it is probable that the guards would, for their own comfort, have kept a slack look-out, had not their own lives depended a good deal on their fidelity. as it was, the vigil was not so strict as it might have been; and they found it impossible to see the whole of that long narrow space of ground in so dark a night. about midnight the sentry fancied he saw three figures flitting across the yard. putting his musket through the bars of the gate he fired at once, but could not see whether he had done execution; and so great was the noise of the wind and rain that the report of his piece was not audible more than a few paces from where he stood, except to leeward. alarms were too frequent in those days to disturb people much. a few people, no doubt, heard the shot; listened, perchance, for a moment or two, and then, turning in their warm beds, continued their repose. the guard turned out, but as all seemed quiet in the churchyard-prison when they peered through the iron bars, they turned in again, and the sentinel recharged his musket. close beside one of the sodden graves lay the yet warm body of a dead man. the random bullet had found a billet in his heart, and "nature's sweet restorer" had been merged into the sleep of death. fortunate man! he had been spared, probably, months of slow-timed misery, with almost certain death at the end in any case. three men rose from behind the headstone of that grave, and looked sorrowfully on the drenched figure. "he has passed the golden gates," said one in a low voice. "a wonderful change." "ay, wull," responsed another of the trio; "but it's noo or niver wi' us. set yer heid agin' the wa', quentin." the shepherd obeyed, and the three proceeded to carry out a plan which they had previously devised--a plan which only very strong and agile men could have hoped to carry through without noise. selecting a suitable part of the wall, in deepest shadow, where a headstone slightly aided them, quentin planted his feet firmly, and, resting his arms on the wall, leaned his forehead against them. black mounted on his shoulders, and, standing erect, assumed the same position. then wallace, grasping the garments of his friends, climbed up the living ladder and stood on black's shoulders, so that he could just grip the top of the wall and hang on. at this point in the process the conditions were, so to speak, reversed. black grasped wallace with both hands by one of his ankles, and held on like a vice. the living ladder was now hanging from the top of the wall instead of standing at the foot of it, and quentin--the lowest rung, so to speak--became the climber. from wallace's shoulders, he easily gained the top of the wall, and was able to reach down a helping hand to black as he made his way slowly up wallace's back. then both men hauled wallace up with some trouble, for the strain had been almost too much for him, and he could hardly help himself. at this juncture the sentinel chanced to look up, and, dark though it was, he saw the three figures on the wall a little blacker than the sky behind. instantly the bright flash of his musket was seen, and the report, mingled with his cry of alarm, again brought out the guard. a volley revealed the three prisoners for a moment. "dinna jump!" cried black, as the bullets whizzed past their heads. "ye'll brek yer legs. tak' it easy. they're slow at loadin'; an' `the mair hurry the less speed!'" the caution was only just in time, for the impulsive wallace had been on the point of leaping from the wall; instead of doing which he assisted in reversing the process which has just been described. it was much easier, however; and the drop which wallace had to make after his friends were down was broken by their catching him in their arms. inexperience, however, is always liable to misfortune. the shock of such a heavy man dropping from such a height gave them a surprise, and sent them all three violently to the ground; but the firing, shouting, and confusion on the other side of the wall caused them to jump up with wonderful alacrity. "candlemaker raw!" said black in a hoarse whisper, as they dashed off in different directions, and were lost in blackness of night. with a very sad face, on which, however, there was an air of calm resignation, mrs. black sat in her little room with her bible open before her. she had been reading to mrs. wallace and jean, preparatory to retiring for the night. "it's awful to think of their lying out yonder, bedless, maybe supperless, on a night like this," said mrs. wallace. jean, with her pretty face in that condition which the scotch and norwegian languages expressively call begrutten, could do nothing but sigh. just then hurried steps were heard on the stair, and next moment a loud knocking shook the door. "wha's that?" exclaimed mrs. black, rising. "it's me, mither. open; quick!" next moment andrew sprang in and looked hastily round. "am i the first, mither?" before the poor woman could recover from her joy and amazement sufficiently to reply, another step was heard on the stair. "that's ane o' them," said black, turning and holding the door, so as to be ready for friend or foe. he was right. mrs. wallace uttered a little scream of joy as her son leaped into the room. "whaur's quentin?" asked black. the question was scarcely put when the shepherd himself bounded up the stair. "they've gotten sight o' me, i fear," he said. "have ye a garret, wummin--onywhere to hide?" "no' a place in the hoose big enough for a moose to hide in," said mrs. black with a look of dismay. as she spoke a confused noise of voices and hurrying steps was heard in the street. another moment and they were at the foot of the stair. the three men seized the poker, tongs, and shovel. mrs. black opened her back window and pointed to the churchyard. "yer only chance!" she said. andrew black leaped out at once. wallace followed like a harlequin. quentin dick felt that there was no time for him to follow without being seen. dropping his poker he sprang through the doorway, and, closing the door on himself, began to thunder against it, just as an officer leading some of the town-guard reached the landing. "open, i say!" cried quentin furiously, "i'm _sure_ the rebels cam in here. dinna be keepin' the gentlemen o' the gaird waitin' here. open, i say, or i'll drive the door in!" bursting the door open, as though in fulfilment of his threat, quentin sprang in, and looking hastily round, cried, as if in towering wrath, "whaur are they? whaur are thae pestiferous rebels?" "there's nae rebels here, gentlemen," said mrs. black. "ye're welcome to seek." "they maun hae gaen up the next stair," said quentin, turning to the officer. "and pray, who are you, that ye seem so anxious to catch the rebels?" "wha am i?" repeated quentin with glaring eyes, and a sort of grasping of his strong fingers that suggested the idea of tearing some one to pieces. "div 'ee no see that i'm a shepherd? the sufferin's than i hae gaen through an' endured on accoont o' thae rebels is past--but c'way, sirs, they'll escape us if we stand haverin' here." so saying the bold man dashed down the stair and into the next house, followed by the town-guards, who did not know him. the prisoners' guards were fortunately searching in another direction. a strict search was made in the next house, at which quentin assisted. when they were yet in the thick of it he went quietly down-stairs and walked away from the scene, as he expressed it, "hotchin'"--by which he meant chuckling. but poor andrew black and will wallace were not so fortunate. a search which was made in the outer churchyard resulted in their being discovered among the tombs, and they were forthwith conducted to the tolbooth prison. when ramblin' peter, after many narrow escapes, reached the farm in dumfries in a half-famished state, he sat down among the desolate ruins and howled with grief. having thus relieved his feelings, he dried his eyes and proceeded in his usual sedate manner to examine things in detail. he soon found that his master had been wrong in supposing that the hidy-hole had been discovered or destroyed. as he approached the outer end of the tunnel a head suddenly appeared above ground, and as suddenly vanished. "hallo!" exclaimed peter in surprise. "hallo!" echoed the head, and reappeared blazing with astonishment. "is that you, peter?" "ay, mccubine, that's me. i thought ye was a' deid. hae ye ony parritch i' the hole? i'm awfu' hungry." "c'way in, lad: we've plenty to eat here, an guid company as weel--the lord be thankit." the man led the way--familiar enough to peter; and in the hidy-hole he found several persons, some of whom, from their costume, were evidently ministers. they paid little attention to the boy at first, being engaged in earnest conversation. "no, no, mr. cargill," said one. "i cannot agree with you in the stern line of demarcation which you would draw between us. we are all the servants of the most high god, fighting for, suffering for, the truth as it is in jesus. it is true that rather than bow to usurped power i chose to cast in my lot with the ejected; but having done that, and suffered the loss of all things temporal, i do not feel called on to pronounce such absolute condemnation on my brethren who have accepted the indulgence. i know that many of them are as earnest followers of christ as ourselves--it may be more so--but they think it right to bow before the storm rather than risk civil war; to accept what of toleration they can get, while they hope and pray for more." "in that case, mr. welsh," replied cargill, "what comes of their testimony for the truth? is not christ king in his own household? charles is king in the civil state. the oath which he requires of every minister who accepts the indulgence distinctly recognises him--the king--as lord of the conscience, ruler of the spiritual kingdom of this land. to take such an oath is equivalent to acknowledging the justice of his pretensions." "they do not see it in that light," returned mr. welsh. "i agree with your views, and think our indulged brethren in the wrong; but i counsel forbearance, and cannot agree with the idea that it is our duty to refuse all connection with them, and treat them as if they belonged to the ranks of the malignants. see what such opinions have cost us already in the overwhelming disaster at bothwell brig." "overwhelming disaster counts for nothing in such a cause as this," rejoined cargill gravely. "the truth has been committed to us, and we are bound to be valiant for the truth--even to death. is it not so, mr. cameron?" the young man to whom the old covenanter turned was one of the most noted among the men who fought and died for the covenant. an earnest godly young minister, he had just returned from holland with the intention of taking up the standard which had been almost dropped in consequence of the hotter persecutions which immediately followed the battle of bothwell bridge. "of course you know that i agree with you, mr. cargill. when you licensed me to preach the blessed gospel, mr. welsh, you encouraged me to independent thought. under the guidance, i believe, of the holy spirit, i have been led to see the sinfulness of the indulgence, and i am constrained to preach against it. truly my chief concern is for the salvation of souls--the bringing of men and women and children to the saviour; but after that, or rather along with that, to my mind, comes the condemnation of sin, whether public or private. consider what the indulgence and persecution together have done now. have they not well-nigh stopped the field-preaching altogether, so that, with the exception of yourselves and mr. thomas douglas and a few others, there is no one left to testify? part of my mission has been to go round among the ministers on this very point, but my efforts have been in vain as far as i have yet gone. it has been prophesied," continued cameron with a sad smile, "that i shall yet lose my head in this cause. that may well be, for there is that in my soul which will not let me stand still while my master is dishonoured and sin is triumphant. as to the king, he may, so far as i know, be truly descended from the race of our kings, but he has so grievously departed from his duty to the people--by whose authority alone magistrates exist--and has so perjured himself, usurped authority in church matters, and tyrannised in matters civil, that the people of scotland do no longer owe him allegiance; and although i stand up for governments and governors, such as god's word and our covenants allow, i will surely--with all who choose to join me-- disown charles stuart as a tyrant and a usurper." the discussion had continued so long that the ministers, as if by mutual consent, dropped it after this point, and turned to ramblin' peter, who was appeasing his hunger with a huge "luggie o' parritch." but the poor boy had no heart to finish his meal on learning that marion clark and isabel scott--of whom he was very fond--had been captured by the soldiers and sent to edinburgh. indeed nothing would satisfy him but that he should return to the metropolis without delay and carry the bad news to his master. that same night, when darkness rendered it safe, cargill, cameron, welsh, and douglas, with some of their followers, left black's place of concealment, and went off in different directions to risk, for a brief space, the shelter of a friendly cottage, where the neighbours would assemble to hear the outlawed ministers while one of them kept watch, or to fulfil their several engagements for the holding of conventicles among the secret places of the hills. chapter ten. fiercer and fiercer. after his escape, quentin dick, hearing of the recapture of his comrades, and knowing that he could not in any way help them, resolved to go back to dumfries to make inquiries about the servant lassies marion and isabel, being ignorant of the fact that ramblin' peter had been sent on the same errand before him. now, although the one was travelling to, and the other from, edinburgh, they might easily have missed each other, as they travelled chiefly at night in order to escape observation. but, hearing on the way that the much-loved minister, mr. welsh, was to preach in a certain locality, they both turned aside to hear him, and thus came together. a price of pounds sterling had been set on the head of mr. welsh, and for twenty years he had been pursued by his foes, yet for that long period he succeeded in eluding his pursuers--even though the resolute and vindictive claverhouse was among them,--and in continuing his work of preaching to the people. though a meek and humble man, welsh was cool, courageous, and self-possessed, with, apparently, a dash of humour in him--as was evidenced by his preaching on one occasion in the middle of the frozen tweed, so that either he "might shun giving offence to both nations, or that two kingdoms might dispute his crime!" the evening before the meeting at which quentin and peter unwittingly approached each other, mr. welsh found himself at a loss where to spend the night, for the bloodhounds were already on his track. he boldly called at the house of a gentleman who was personally unknown to him, but who was known to be hostile to field-preachers in general, and to himself in particular. as a stranger mr. welsh was kindly received. probably in such dangerous times it was considered impolite to make inquiry as to names. at all events the record says that he remained unknown. in course of conversation his host referred to welsh and the difficulty of getting hold of him. "i am sent," said welsh, "to _apprehend rebels_. i know where mr. welsh is to preach to-morrow, and will give you the rebel by the hand." overjoyed at this news the gentleman agreed to accompany him to the meeting on the morrow. arriving next day at the rendezvous, the congregation made way for the minister and his host. the latter was then invited to take a seat, and, to his great amazement, his guest of the previous night stood up and preached. at the close of the sermon mr. welsh held out his hand to his host. "i promised," he said, "to give you mr. welsh by the hand." "yes," returned the gentleman, who was much affected, as he grasped the hand, "and you said that you were sent to apprehend rebels. let me assure you that i, a rebellious sinner, have been apprehended this day." it was at this interesting moment that quentin and peter recognised each other, and, forgetting all other points of interest, turned aside to discuss their own affairs. "then there's nae use o' my gaun ony farer," said the shepherd thoughtfully. "nane whatever," said peter; "ye'd best c'way back t' toon wi' me. ye'll be safer there nor here, an' may chance to be o' service to the lassies." alas for the poor lassies! they were in the fangs of the wolves at that very time. in that council-room where, for years, the farce of "trial" and the tragedy of cruel injustice had been carried on, marion clark and isabel scott were standing before their civil and clerical inquisitors. the trial was nearly over. proceeding upon their mean principle of extracting confession by the method of entrapping questions, and thus obtaining from their unsuspecting victims sufficient evidence--as they said--to warrant condemnation, they had got the poor serving-maids to admit that they had attended field-preachings; had conversed with some whom the government denounced as rebels; and other matters which sufficed to enable them to draw up a libel. those two innocent girls were then handed over to the justiciary court, before which they were charged with the crime of receiving and corresponding with mr. donald cargill, mr. thomas douglas, mr. john welsh, and mr. richard cameron; with the murderers of archbishop sharp; and with having heard the said ministers preach up treason and rebellion! when the indictment was read to them the poor things meekly admitted that it was correct, except in so far as it called the ministers rebels and asserted that they preached up treason. the jury were exceedingly unwilling to serve on the trial, but were compelled to do so under threat of fine. after deliberating on the evidence they found the girls both guilty, by their own confession, of holding the opinions charged against them, but that as actors, or receivers of rebels, the charge was not proven. upon this they were condemned to die, but before leaving the court isabel scott said impressively: "i take all witness against another at you to your appearance before god, that your proceeding against us this day is only for owning christ, his gospel, and his members." [see _a cloud of witnesses_, page (edition .)] they were then led back to prison. when quentin and peter arrived in edinburgh, two days later, they passed under the west port, which was decorated with the shrivelled heads and hands of several martyrs, and made their way to the grassmarket, which they had to traverse in going towards candlemaker row. here they found a large crowd surrounding the gallows-tree which did such frequent service there. two female figures were swinging from the beam. "the auld story," said the shepherd in a low sad voice. "what was their crime?" he inquired of a bystander. "they tried to serve the lord, that was a'," replied the man bitterly. "but they ended their coorse bravely. ane sang the th psalm and the ither spake of god's great love an' free grace to her and to sinfu' man." "puir things!" exclaimed quentin with tremulous voice. "it's ower noo. they're fairly inside o' the celestial gates." the sight was all too common in those dark days to induce delay, but the two friends had to pass near the gallows, and naturally looked up in passing. "quentin!" gasped peter, stretching out both hands towards the martyrs, whose now soulless frames were hanging there, "it's--it's marion an'--" a low wail followed, as the poor boy fell over in a swoon. the shepherd's heart almost stood still, and his great chest quivered for a moment as he gazed, but he was a man of strong will and iron mould. stooping, he picked up his little friend and carried him silently away. their grief was, however, diverted to other channels on reaching the abode of mrs. black, for there they found her and mrs. wallace and jean in deepest sorrow over the terrible news just brought to them by jock bruce. andrew black, he told them, had been sent a prisoner to the bass rock, and will wallace, with two hundred others, had been banished to the plantations in barbadoes, where they were to be sold as slaves. quentin sat down, covered his face with both hands, and groaned aloud on hearing this. peter, who had recovered by that time, looked about him with the expressionless face of one whose reason has been unseated. observing that jean was sitting apart, sobbing as if her heart would break, he went quietly to her, and, taking one of her hands, began to stroke it gently. "dinna greet, jean," he said; "the lord will deliver them. marion aye telt me that, an' i believe she was richt." truly these unfortunate people needed all the consolation that the word could give them, for banishment to the plantations usually meant banishment for life, and as to the hundreds who found a prison on the bleak and rugged bass rock at the mouth of the forth, many of these also found a grave. after the battle of bothwell bridge the persecutions which had been so severe for so many years were continued with intensified bitterness. not only were all the old tyrannical laws carried into force with increased severity, but new and harsher laws were enacted. among other things the common soldiers were given the right to carry these laws into effect--in other words, to murder and plunder according to their own will and pleasure. and now, in , began what has been termed _the killing-time_; in which graham of claverhouse (afterwards viscount dundee), grierson of lagg, dalziel, and others, became pre-eminently notorious for their wanton cruelty in slaughtering men, women, and even children. on nd june twenty armed horsemen rode up the main street of the burgh of sanquhar. the troop was headed by richard cameron and his brother michael, who, dismounting, nailed to the cross a paper which the latter read aloud. it was the famous "declaration of sanquhar," in which charles stuart was publicly disowned. while the fields of scotland were being traversed and devastated by a lawless banditti, authorised by a lawless and covenant-breaking king and government, those indomitable men who held with cameron and cargill united themselves more closely together, and thus entered into a new bond pledging themselves to be faithful to god and to each other in asserting their civil and religious rights, which they believed could only be secured by driving from the throne that "perfidious covenant-breaking race, untrue both to the most high god and to the people over whom for their sins they were set." if the cameronians were wrong in this opinion then must the whole nation have been wrong, when, a few years later, it came to hold the same opinion, and acted in accordance therewith! as well might we find fault with bruce and wallace as with our covenanting patriots. be this as it may, richard cameron with his followers asserted the principle which afterwards became law--namely, that the house of stuart should no longer desecrate the throne. he did not, however, live to see his desire accomplished. at airsmoss--in the district of kyle--with a band of his followers, numbering twenty-six horse and forty foot, he was surprised by a party of upwards of one hundred and twenty dragoons under command of bruce of earlshall. the cameronians were headed by hackston of rathillet, who had been present at the murder of sharp, though not an active participator. knowing that no mercy was to be expected they resolved to fight. before the battle cameron, engaging in a brief prayer, used the remarkable words: "lord, take the ripe, but spare the green." the issue against such odds was what might have been expected. nearly all the covenanters were slain. richard cameron fell, fighting back to back with his brother. some of the foot-men escaped into the moss. hackston was severely wounded and taken prisoner. cameron's head and hands were cut off and taken to edinburgh, where they were cruelly exhibited to his father--a prisoner at the time. "do ye know them?" asked the wretch who brought them. the old man, kissing them, replied, "ay, i know them! they are my son's--my own dear son's! it is the lord; good is the will of the lord, who cannot wrong me nor mine, but has made goodness and mercy to follow us all our days." a wonderful speech this from one suffering under, perhaps, the severest trial to which poor human nature can be subjected. well might be applied to him the words--slightly paraphrased--"o man, great was thy faith!" hackston was taken to edinburgh, which he entered on a horse with his head bare and his face to the tail, the hangman carrying cameron's head on a halter before him. the indignities and cruelties which were perpetrated on this man had been minutely pre-arranged by the privy council. we mention a few in order that the reader may the better understand the inconceivable brutality of the government against which the scottish covenanters had to contend. besides the barbarities connected with poor cameron's head and hands, it was arranged that hackston's body was to be drawn backward on a hurdle to the cross of edinburgh, where, in the first place, his right hand was to be struck off, and after some time his left hand. thereafter he was to be hanged up and cut down alive; his bowels to be taken out and his heart shown to the people by the hangman, and then to be burnt in a fire on the scaffold. afterwards his head was to be cut off, and his body, divided into four quarters, to be sent respectively to saint andrews, glasgow, leith, and burntisland. in carrying out his fiendish instructions the bungling executioner was a long time mangling the wrist of hackston's right arm before he succeeded in separating the hand. hackston quietly advised him to be more careful to strike in the joint of the left. having been drawn up and let fall with a jerk, three times, life was not extinct, for it is said that when the heart was torn out it moved after falling on the scaffold. several others who had been with cameron were betrayed at this time, by apostate comrades, tried under torture, and executed; and the persecution became so hot that field-preaching was almost extinguished. the veteran donald cargill, however still maintained his ground. this able, uncompromising, yet affectionate and charitable man had prepared a famous document called the "queensferry paper," of which it has been said that it contains "the very pith of sound constitutional doctrine regarding both civil and ecclesiastical rights." once, however, he mistook his mission. in the presence of a large congregation at torwood he went so far as to excommunicate charles the second; the dukes of york, lauderdale, and rothes; sir cú mckenzie and dalziel of binns. that these despots richly deserved whatever excommunication might imply can hardly be denied, but it is equally certain that prolonged and severe persecution had stirred up poor cargill upon this occasion to overstep his duty as a teacher of love to god and man. heavily did cargill pay for his errors--as well as for his long and conscientious adherence to duty. five thousand merks were offered for him, dead or alive. being captured, he was taken to edinburgh on the th of july, and examined by the council. on the th he was tried and condemned, and on the th he was hanged, after having witnessed a good confession, which he wound up with the words: "i forgive all men the wrongs they have done against me. i pray that the sufferers may be kept from sin and helped to know their duty." about this time a _test_ oath was ordered to be administered to all men in position or authority. the gist of it was that king charles the second was the only supreme governor in the realm over all causes, as well ecclesiastical as civil, and that it was unlawful for any subject upon pretence of reformation, or any pretence whatever, to enter into covenants or leagues, or to assemble in any councils, conventicles, assemblies, etcetera, ecclesiastical or civil, without his special permission. pretty well this for a king who had himself signed the covenant--without which signing the scottish nation would never have consented to assist in putting him on the throne! the greater number of the men in office in scotland took the oath, though there were several exceptions--the duke of argyll, the duke of hamilton, john hope of hopetoun, the duchess of rothes, and others--among whom were eighty of the conforming clergy whose loyalty could not carry them so far, and who surrendered their livings rather than their consciences. it would require a volume to record even a bare outline of the deeds of darkness that were perpetrated at this time. we must dismiss it all and return to the actors in our tale. will wallace, after being recaptured, as already stated, was sent off to the plantations in a vessel with about two hundred and fifty other unfortunates, many of whom were seriously ill, if not dying, in consequence of their long exposure in the greyfriars' churchyard. packed in the hold of the ship so closely that they had not room to lie down, and almost suffocated with foul air and stench, the sufferings which they endured were far more terrible than those they experienced when lying among the tombs; but god sent most of them speedy deliverance. they were wrecked on the coast of orkney. at night they were dashed on the rocks. the prisoners entreated to be let out of their prison, but the brutal captain ordered the hatches to be chained down. a tremendous wave cleft the deck, and a few of the more energetic managed to escape and reach the shore. the remainder--at least two hundred--were drowned in the hold. will wallace was among the saved, but was taken to leith and transferred to another vessel. after several months of tossings on the deep he reached his destination and was sold into slavery. many months--even years--passed away, but no news reached candlemaker row regarding the fate of the banished people. as to andrew black, the only change that took place in his condition during his long captivity was his transference--unknown to his kindred--from the gloomy prison of the bass rock to the still gloomier cells of dunnottar castle. during all this time, and for some years after, the persecutions were continued with ever-increasing severity: it seemed as if nothing short of the extirpation of the covenanters altogether was contemplated. in short, the two parties presented at this period an aspect of human affairs which may well be styled monstrous. on the one hand a people suffering and fighting to the death to uphold law, and on the other a tyrant king and arrogant ecclesiastics and nobles, with their paid slaves and sycophants, deliberately violating the same! quentin dick and ramblin' peter had been drawn closer together by powerful sympathy after the imprisonment of black and the banishment of will wallace. they were like-minded in their aspirations, though very dissimilar in physical and mental endowment. feeling that edinburgh was not a safe place in which to hide after his recent escape, quentin resolved to return to dumfries to inquire after, and if possible to aid, his friends there. peter determined to cast in his lot with him. in size he was still a boy though he had reached manhood. "we maun dae our best to help the wanderers," said the shepherd, as they started on their journey. "ay," assented peter. arrived in galloway they were passing over a wide moorland region one afternoon when a man suddenly appeared before them, as if he had dropped from the clouds, and held out his hand. "what! mccubine, can that be you?" exclaimed quentin, grasping the proffered hand. "man, i _am_ glad to see ye. what brings ye here?" mccubine explained that he and his friend gordon, with four comrades, were hiding in the moss to avoid a party of dragoons who were pursuing them. "grierson of lagg is with them, and captain bruce is in command," he said, "so we may expect no mercy if they catch us. only the other day bruce and his men dragged puir old tam mchaffie out o' his bed, tho' he was ill wi' fever, an' shot him." having conducted quentin and peter to the secret place where his friends were hidden, mccubine was asked anxiously, by the former, if he knew anything about the wilsons. "ay, we ken this," answered gordon, "that although the auld folk have agreed to attend the curates for the sake o' peace, the twa lassies have refused, and been driven out o' hoose an' hame. they maun hae been wanderin' amang the hills noo for months--if they're no catched by this time." hearing this, quentin sprang up. "we maun rescue them, peter," he said. "ay," returned the boy. "jean black will expect that for aggie's sake; she's her bosom freend, ye ken." refusing to delay for even half an hour, the two friends hurried away. they had scarcely left, and the six hunted men were still standing on the road where they had bidden them god-speed, when bruce with his dragoons suddenly appeared--surprised and captured them all. with the brutal promptitude peculiar to that well-named "killing-time," four of them were drawn up on the road and instantly shot, and buried where they fell, by lochenkit moor, where a monument now marks their resting place. the two spared men, gordon and mccubine, were then, without reason assigned, bound and carried away. next day the party came to the cluden water, crossing which they followed the road which leads to dumfries, until they reached the neighbourhood of irongray. there is a field there with a mound in it, on which grows a clump of old oak-trees. here the two friends were doomed without trial to die. it is said that the minister of irongray at that time was suspected of favourable leanings toward the covenanters, and that the proprietor of the neighbouring farm of hallhill betrayed similar symptoms; hence the selection of the particular spot between the two places, in order to intimidate both the minister and the farmer. this may well have been the case, for history shows that a very strong and indomitable covenanting spirit prevailed among the parishioners of irongray as well as among the people of the south and west of scotland generally. indeed wodrow, the historian, says that the people of irongray were the first to offer strenuous opposition to the settlement of the curates. when gordon and mccubine were standing under the fatal tree with the ropes round their necks, a sorrowing acquaintance asked the latter if he had any word to send to his wife. "yes," answered the martyr; "tell her that i leave her and the two babes upon the lord, and to his promise: `a father to the fatherless and a husband to the widow is the lord in his holy habitation.'" hearing this, the man employed to act the part of executioner seemed touched, and asked forgiveness. "poor man!" was the reply, "i forgive thee and all men." they died, at peace with god and man. an old tombstone, surrounded by an iron rail, marks to this day the spot among the old oak-trees where the bodies of mccubine and gordon were laid to rest. commenting on this to his friend selby, the reverend george lawless gave it as his opinion that "two more fanatics were well out of the world." to which the reverend frank replied very quietly: "yes, george, well out of it indeed; and, as i would rather die with the fanatics than live with the godless, i intend to join the covenanters to-night--so my pulpit shall be vacant to-morrow." chapter eleven. coming events cast shadows. in february charles the second died--not without some suspicion of foul play. his brother, the duke of york, an avowed papist, ascended the throne as james the second. this was a flagrant breach of the constitution, and argyll--attempting to avert the catastrophe by an invasion of scotland at the same time that monmouth should invade england--not only failed, but was captured and afterwards executed by the same instrument--the "maiden"--with which his father's head had been cut off nigh a quarter of a century before. as might have been expected, the persecutions were not relaxed by the new king. when good old cargill was martyred, a handsome fair young man was looking on in profound sorrow and pity. he was a youth of great moral power, and with a large heart. his name was james renwick. from that hour this youth cast in his lot with the persecuted wanderers, and, after the martyrdom of cameron and cargill, and the death of welsh, he was left almost alone to manage their affairs. the "strict covenanters" had by this time formed themselves into societies for prayer and conference, and held quarterly district meetings in sequestered places, with a regular system of correspondence--thus secretly forming an organised body, which has continued down to modern times. it was while this young servant of god--having picked up the mantle which cargill dropped--was toiling and wandering among the mountains, morasses, and caves of the west, that a troop of dragoons was seen, one may morning, galloping over the same region "on duty." they swept over hill and dale with the dash and rattle of men in all the pride of youth and strength and the panoply of war. they were hasting, however, not to the battlefield but to the field of agriculture, there to imbrue their hands in the blood of the unarmed and the helpless. at the head of the band rode the valiant graham of claverhouse. most people at that time knew him as the "bloody clavers," but as we look at the gay cavalier with his waving plume, martial bearing, beautiful countenance, and magnificent steed, we are tempted to ask, "has there not been some mistake here?" some have thought so. one or two literary men, who might have known better, have even said so, and attempted to defend their position! "methinks this is our quarry, glendinning," said claverhouse, drawing rein as they approached a small cottage, near to which a man was seen at work with a spade. "yes--that's john brown of priesthill," said the sergeant. "you know the pestilent fanatic well, i suppose?" "ay. he gets the name o' being a man of eminent godliness," answered the sergeant in a mocking tone; "and is even credited with having started a sabbath-school!" john brown, known as the "christian carrier," truly was what glendinning had sneeringly described him. on seeing the cavalcade approach he guessed, no doubt, that his last hour had come, for many a time had he committed the sin of succouring the outlawed covenanters, and he had stoutly refused to attend the ministry of the worthless curate george lawless. indeed it was the information conveyed to government by that reverend gentleman that had brought claverhouse down upon the unfortunate man. the dragoons ordered him to proceed to the front of his house, where his wife was standing with one child in her arms and another by her side. the usual ensnaring questions as to the supremacy of the king, etcetera, were put to him, and the answers being unsatisfactory, claverhouse ordered him to say his prayers and prepare for immediate death. brown knew that there was no appeal. all scotland was well aware by that time that soldiers were empowered to act the part of judge, jury, witness, and executioner, and had become accustomed to it. the poor man obeyed. he knelt down and prayed in such a strain that even the troopers, it is said, were impressed--at all events, their subsequent conduct would seem to countenance this belief. their commander, however, was not much affected, for he thrice interrupted his victim, telling him that he had "given him time to pray, but not to preach." "sir," returned brown, "ye know neither the nature of preaching nor praying if ye call this preaching." "now," said claverhouse, "take farewell of your wife and children." after the poor man had kissed them, claverhouse ordered six of his men to fire; but they hesitated and finally refused. enraged at this their commander drew a pistol, and with his own hand blew out john brown's brains. "what thinkest thou of thy husband now, woman?" he said, turning to the widow. "i ever thought much good of him," she answered, "and as much now as ever." "it were but justice to lay thee beside him," exclaimed the murderer. "if you were permitted," she replied, "i doubt not but your cruelty would go that length." thus far the excitement of the dreadful scene enabled the poor creature to reply, but nature soon asserted her sway. sinking on her knees by the side of the mangled corpse, the widow, neither observing nor caring for the departure of the dragoons, proceeded to bind up her husband's shattered skull with a kerchief, while the pent-up tears burst forth. the house stood in a retired, solitary spot, and for some time the bereaved woman was left alone with god and her children; but before darkness closed in a human comforter was sent to her in the person of quentin dick. on his arrival in wigtown, quentin, finding that his friends the wilson girls had been imprisoned with an old covenanter named mrs. mclachlan, and that he could not obtain permission to see them, resolved to pay a visit to john brown, the carrier, who was an old friend, and who might perhaps afford him counsel regarding the wilsons. leaving ramblin' peter behind to watch every event and fetch him word if anything important should transpire, he set out and reached the desolated cottage in the evening of the day on which his friend was shot. quentin was naturally a reserved man, and had never been able to take a prominent part with his covenanting friends in conversation or in public prayer, but the sight of his old friend's widow in her agony, and her terrified little ones, broke down the barrier of reserve completely. although a stern and a strong man, not prone to give way to feeling, he learned that night the full meaning of what it is to "weep with those that weep." moreover, his tongue was unloosed, and he poured forth his soul in prayer, and quoted god's word in a way that cheered, in no small degree, his stricken friend. during several days he remained at priesthill, doing all in his power to assist the family, and receiving some degree of comfort in return; for strong sympathy and fellowship in sorrow had induced him to reveal the fact that he loved margaret wilson, who at that time lay in prison with her young sister agnes, awaiting their trial in wigtown. seated one night by the carrier's desolated hearth, where several friends had assembled to mourn with the widow, quentin was about to commence family worship, when he was interrupted by the sudden entrance of ramblin' peter. the expression of his face told eloquently that he brought bad news. "the wilsons," he said, "are condemned to be drowned with old mrs. mclachlan." "no' baith o' the lasses," he added, correcting himself, "for the faither managed to git ane o' them off by a bribe o' a hundred pounds-- an' that's every bodle that he owns." "which is to be drooned?" asked quentin in a low voice. "marget--the auldest." a deep groan burst from the shepherd as the bible fell from his hands. "come!" he said to peter, and passed quickly out of the house, without a word to those whom he left behind. arrived in wigtown, the wretched man went about, wildly seeking to move the feelings of men whose hearts were like the nether millstone. "oh, if i only had siller!" he exclaimed to the wilsons' father, clasping his hands in agony. "hae ye nae mair?" "no' anither plack," said the old man in deepest dejection. "they took all i had for aggie." "ye are strang, quentin," suggested peter, who now understood the reason of his friend's wild despair. "could ye no' waylay somebody an' rob them? surely it wouldna be coonted wrang in the circumstances." "sin is sin, peter. better death than sin," returned quentin with a grave look. "aweel, we maun just dee, then," said peter in a tone of resignation. nothing could avert the doom of these unfortunate women. their judges, of whom grierson, laird of lagg, was one, indicted this young girl and the old woman with the ridiculous charge of rebellion, of having been at the battles of bothwell bridge and airsmoss and present at twenty conventicles, as well as with refusing to swear the abjuration oath! the innocent victims were carried to the mouth of the river bladenoch, being guarded by troops under major winram, and followed by an immense crowd both of friends and spectators. quentin dick and his little friend peter were among them. the former had possessed himself of a stick resembling a quarter-staff. his wild appearance and bloodshot eyes, with his great size and strength, induced people to keep out of his way. he had only just reached the spot in time. no word did he speak till he came up to major winram. then he sprang forward, and said in a loud voice, "i forbid this execution in the name of god!" at the same time raising his staff. instantly a trooper spurred forward and cut him down from behind. "take him away," said winram, and quentin, while endeavouring to stagger to his feet, was ridden down, secured, and dragged away. poor peter shared his fate. so quickly and quietly was it all done that few except those quite close to them were fully aware of what had occurred. the blow on his head seemed to have stunned the shepherd, for he made no resistance while they led him a considerable distance back into the country to a retired spot, and placed him with his back against a cliff. then the leader of the party told off six men to shoot him. not until they were about to present their muskets did the shepherd seem to realise his position. then an eager look came over his face, and he said with a smile, "ay, be quick! maybe i'll git there first to welcome her!" a volley followed, and the soul of quentin dick was released from its tenement of clay. peter, on seeing the catastrophe, fell backwards in a swoon, and the leader of the troop, feeling, perhaps, a touch of pity, cast him loose and left him there. returning to the sands, the soldiers found that the martyrdom was well-nigh completed. the mouth of the bladenoch has been considerably modified. at this time the river's course was close along the base of the hill on which wigtown stands. the tide had turned, and the flowing sea had already reversed the current of the river. the banks of sand were steep, and several feet high at the spot to which the martyrs were led, so that people standing on the edge were close above the inrushing stream. two stakes had been driven into the top of the banks--one being some distance lower down the river than the other. ropes of a few yards in length were fastened to them, and the outer ends tied round the martyrs' waists--old mrs. mclachlan being attached to the lower post. they were then bidden prepare for death, which they did by kneeling down and engaging in fervent prayer. it is said that the younger woman repeated some passages of scripture, and even sang part of the th psalm. at this point a married daughter of mrs. mclachlan, named milliken, who could not believe that the sentence would really be carried out, gave way to violent lamentations, and fainted when she saw that her mother's doom was fixed. they carried the poor creature away from the dreadful scene. the old woman was first pushed over the brink of the river, and a soldier, thrusting her head down into the water with a halbert, held it there. this was evidently done to terrify the younger woman into submission, for, while the aged martyr was struggling in the agonies of death, one of the tormentors asked margaret wilson what she thought of that sight. "what do i see?" was her reply. "i see christ in one of his members wrestling there. think ye that we are sufferers? no! it is christ in us; for he sends none a warfare on his own charges." these were her last words as she was pushed over the bank, and, like her companion, forcibly held, down with a halbert. before she was quite suffocated, however, winram ordered her to be dragged out, and, when able to speak, she was asked if she would pray for the king. "i wish the salvation of all men," she replied, "and the damnation of none." "dear margaret," urged a bystander in a voice of earnest entreaty, "say `god save the king,' say `god save the king.'" "god save him if he will," she replied. "it is his salvation i desire." "she has said it! she has said it!" cried the pitying bystanders eagerly. "that won't do," cried the laird of lagg, coming forward at the moment, uttering a coarse oath; "let her take the test-oaths." as this meant the repudiation of the covenants and the submission of her conscience to the king--to her mind inexcusable sin--the martyr firmly refused to obey. she was immediately thrust back into the water, and in a few minutes more her heroic soul was with her god and saviour. the truth of this story--like that of john brown of priesthill, though attested by a letter of claverhouse himself [see dr. cunningham's _history of the church of scotland_, volume two, page .]--has been called in question, and the whole affair pronounced a myth! we have no space for controversy, but it is right to add that if it be a myth, the records of the kirk-sessions of kirkinner and penninghame--which exist, and in which it is recorded--must also be mythical. the truth is, that both stories have been elaborately investigated by men of profound learning and unquestionable capacity, and the truth of them proved "up to the hilt." as to graham of claverhouse--there are people, we believe, who would whitewash the devil if he were only to present himself with a dashing person and a handsome face! but such historians as macaulay, mccrie, mckenzie, and others, refuse to whitewash claverhouse. even sir walter scott--who was very decidedly in sympathy with the cavaliers--says of him in _old mortality_: "he was the unscrupulous agent of the scottish privy council in executing the merciless seventies of the government in scotland during the reigns of charles the second and james the second;" and his latest apologist candidly admits that "it is impossible altogether to acquit claverhouse of the charges laid to his account." we are inclined to ask, with some surprise, why should he wish to acquit him? but claverhouse himself, as if in prophetic cynicism, writes his own condemnation as to character thus: "in any service i have been in, i never inquired further in the laws than the orders of my superior officer." an appropriate motto for a "soldier of fortune," which might be abbreviated and paraphrased into "stick at nothing!" coupling all this with the united testimony of tradition, and nearly all ancient historians, we can only wonder at the prejudice of those who would still weave a chaplet for the brow of "bonnie dundee." turning now from the south-west of scotland, we direct attention to the eastern seaboard of kincardine, where, perched like a sea-bird on the weatherbeaten cliffs, stands the stronghold of dunnottar castle. down in the dungeons of that rugged pile lies our friend andrew black, very different from the man whose fortunes we have hitherto followed. care, torment, disease, hard usage, long confinement, and desperate anxiety have graven lines on his face that nothing but death can smooth out. wildly-tangled hair, with a long shaggy beard and moustache, render him almost unrecognisable. only the old unquenchable fire of his eye remains; also the kindliness of his old smile, when such a rare visitant chances once again to illuminate his worn features. years of suffering had he undergone, and there was now little more than skin and bone of him left to undergo more. "let me hae a turn at the crack noo," he said, coming forward to a part of the foul miry dungeon where a crowd of male and female prisoners were endeavouring to inhale a little fresh air through a crevice in the wall. "i'm fit to choke for want o' a breath o' caller air." as he spoke a groan from a dark corner attracted his attention. at once forgetting his own distress, he went to the place and discovered one of the prisoners, a young man, with his head pillowed on a stone, and mire some inches deep for his bed. "eh, sandy, are ye sae far gane?" asked black, kneeling beside him in tender sympathy. "oh, andry, man--for a breath o' fresh air before i dee!" "here! ane o' ye," cried black, "help me to carry sandy to the crack. wae's me, man," he added in a lower voice, "i could hae carried you ye wi' my pirlie ance, but i'm little stronger than a bairn noo." sandy was borne to the other side of the dungeon, and his head put close to the crevice, through which he could see the white ripples on the summer sea far below. a deep inspiration seemed for a moment to give new life--then a prolonged sigh, and the freed happy soul swept from the dungeons of earth to the realms of celestial, light and liberty. "he's breathin' the air o' paradise noo," said black, as he assisted to remove the dead man from the opening which the living were so eager to reach. "ye was up in the ither dungeon last night," he said, turning to the man who had aided him; "what was a' the groans an' cries aboot?" "torturin' the puir lads that tried to escape," answered the man with a dark frown. "hm! i thoucht as muckle. they were gey hard on them, i dar'say?" "they were that! ye see, the disease that's broke oot amang them-- whatever it is--made some o' them sae desprit that they got through the wundy that looks to the sea an' creepit alang the precipice. it was a daft-like thing to try in the daylight; but certain death would hae been their lot, i suspec', if they had ventured on a precipice like that i' the dark. some women washin' doon below saw them and gied the alarm. the gairds cam', the hue and cry was raised, the yetts were shut and fifteen were catched an' brought back--but twenty-five got away. my heart is wae for the fifteen. they were laid on their backs on benches; their hands were bound doon to the foot o' the forms, an' burnin' matches were putt atween every finger, an' the sodgers blew on them to keep them alight. the governor, ye see, had ordered this to gang on withoot stoppin' for three oors! some o' the puir fallows were deid afore the end o' that time, an' i'm thinkin' the survivors'll be crippled for life." while listening to the horrible tale andrew black resolved on an attempt to escape that very night. "wull ye gang wi' me?" he asked of the only comrade whom he thought capable of making the venture; but the comrade shook his head. "na," he said, "i'll no' try. they've starved me to that extent that i've nae strength left. i grow dizzy at the vera thoucht. but d'ye think the wundy's big enough to let ye through?" "oo ay," returned black with a faint smile. "i was ower stoot for't ance, but it's an ill wund that blaws nae guid. stervation has made me thin enough noo." that night, when all--even the harassed prisoners--in dunnottar castle were asleep, except the sentinels, the desperate man forced himself with difficulty through the very small window of the dungeon. it was unbarred, because, opening out on the face of an almost sheer precipice, it was thought that nothing without wings could escape from it. black, however, had been accustomed to precipices from boyhood. he had observed a narrow ledge just under the window, and hoped that it might lead to something. just below it he could see another and narrower ledge. what was beyond that he knew not--and did not much care! once outside, with his breast pressed against the wall of rock, he passed along pretty quickly, considering that he could not see more than a few yards before him. but presently he came to the end of the ledge, and by no stretching out of foot or hand could he find another projection of any kind. he had now to face the great danger of sliding down to the lower ledge, and his heart beat audibly against his ribs as he gazed into the profound darkness below. indecision was no part of andrew black's character. breathing a silent prayer for help and deliverance, he sat down on the ledge with his feet overhanging the abyss. for one moment he reconsidered his position. behind him were torture, starvation, prolonged misery, and almost certain death. below was perhaps instantaneous death, or possible escape. he pushed off, again commending his soul to god, and slid down. for an instant destruction seemed inevitable, but next moment his heels struck the lower ledge and he remained fast. with an earnest "thank god!" he began to creep along. the ledge conducted him to safer ground, and in another quarter of an hour he was free! to get as far and as quickly as possible from dunnottar was now his chief aim. he travelled at his utmost speed till daybreak, when he crept into a dry ditch, and, overcome by fatigue, forgot his sorrow in profound unbroken slumber. rising late in the afternoon, he made his way to a cottage and begged for bread. they must have suspected what he was and where he came from, but they were friendly, for they gave him a loaf and a few pence without asking questions. thus he travelled by night and slept by day till he made his way to edinburgh, which he entered one evening in the midst of a crowd of people, and went straight to candlemaker row. mrs. black, mrs. wallace, jean black, and poor agnes wilson were in the old room when a tap was heard at the door, which immediately opened, and a gaunt, dishevelled, way-worn man appeared. mrs. black was startled at first, for the man, regardless of the other females, advanced towards her. then sudden light seemed to flash in her eyes as she extended both hands. "mither!" was all that andrew could say as he grasped them, fell on his knees, and, with a profound sigh, laid his head upon her lap. chapter twelve. the darkest hour before the dawn. many months passed away, during which andrew black, clean-shaved, brushed-up, and converted into a very respectable, ordinary-looking artisan, carried on the trade of a turner, in an underground cellar in one of the most populous parts of the cowgate. lost in the crowd was his idea of security. and he was not far wrong. his cellar had a way of escape through a back door. its grated window, under the level of the street, admitted light to his whirling lathe, but, aided by dirt on the glass, it baffled the gaze of the curious. his evenings were spent in candlemaker row, where, seated by the window with his mother, mrs. wallace, and the two girls, he smoked his pipe and commented on scotland's woes while gazing across the tombs at the glow in the western sky. ramblin' peter--no longer a beardless boy, but a fairly well-grown and good-looking youth--was a constant visitor at the row. aggie wilson had taught him the use of his tongue, but peter was not the man to use it in idle flirtation--nor aggie the girl to listen if he had done so. they had both seen too much of the stern side of life to condescend on trifling. once, by a superhuman effort, and with an alarming flush of the countenance, peter succeeded in stammering a declaration of his sentiments. aggie, with flaming cheeks and downcast eyes, accepted the declaration, and the matter was settled; that was all, for the subject had rushed upon both of them, as it were, unexpectedly, and as they were in the public street at the time and the hour was noon, further demonstration might have been awkward. thereafter they were understood to be "keeping company." but they were a grave couple. if an eavesdropper had ventured to listen, sober talk alone would have repaid the sneaking act, and, not unfrequently, reference would have been heard in tones of deepest pathos to dreadful scenes that had occurred on the shores of the solway, or sorrowful comments on the awful fate of beloved friends who had been banished to "the plantations." one day jean--fair-haired, blue-eyed, pensive jean--was seated in the cellar with her uncle. she had brought him his daily dinner in a tin can, and he having just finished it, was about to resume his work while the niece rose to depart. time had transformed jean from a pretty girl into a beautiful woman, but there was an expression of profound melancholy on her once bright face which never left it now, save when a passing jest called up for an instant a feeble reminiscence of the sweet old smile. "noo, jean, awa' wi' ye. i'll never get thae parritch-sticks feenished if ye sit haverin' there." something very like the old smile lighted up jean's face as she rose, and with a "weel, good-day, uncle," left the cellar to its busy occupant. black was still at work, and the shadows of evening were beginning to throw the inner end of the cellar into gloom, when the door slowly opened and a man entered stealthily. the unusual action, as well as the appearance of the man, caused black to seize hold of a heavy piece of wood that leaned against his lathe. the thought of being discovered and sent back to dunnottar, or hanged, had implanted in our friend a salutary amount of caution, though it had not in the slightest degree affected his nerve or his cool promptitude in danger. he had deliberately made up his mind to remain quiet as long as he should be let alone, but if discovered, to escape or die in the attempt. the intruder was a man of great size and strength, but as he seemed to be alone, black quietly leaned the piece of wood against the lathe again in a handy position. "ye seem to hae been takin' lessons frae the cats lately, to judge from yer step," said black. "shut the door, man, behint ye. there's a draft i' this place that'll be like to gie ye the rheumatiz." the man obeyed, and, advancing silently, stood before the lathe. there was light enough to reveal the fact that his countenance was handsome, though bronzed almost to the colour of mahogany, while the lower part of it was hidden by a thick beard and a heavy moustache. black, who began to see that the strange visitor had nothing of the appearance of one sent to arrest him, said, in a half-humorous, remonstrative tone-- "maybe ye're a furriner, an' dinna understan' mainners, but it's as weel to tell ye that i expec' men to tak' aff their bannets when they come into _my_ hoose." without speaking the visitor removed his cap. black recognised him in an instant. "wull wallace!" he gasped in a hoarse whisper, as he sprang forward and laid violent hands on his old friend. "losh, man! are my een leein'? is't possable? can this be _you_?" "yes, thank god, it is indeed--" he stopped short, for andrew, albeit unaccustomed, like most of his countrymen, to give way to ebullitions of strong feeling, threw his long arms around his friend and fairly hugged him. he did not, indeed, condescend on a frenchman's kiss, but he gave him a stage embrace and a squeeze that was worthy of a bear. "your force is not much abated, i see--or rather, feel," said will wallace, when he was released. "abated!" echoed black, "it's little need, in thae awfu' times. but, man, _your_ force has increased, if i'm no mista'en." "doubtless--it is natural, after having toiled with the slaves in barbadoes for so many years. the work was kill or cure out there. but tell me--my mother--and yours?" "oh, they're baith weel and hearty, thank the lord," answered black. "but what for d'ye no speer after jean?" he added in a somewhat disappointed tone. "because i don't need to. i've seen her already, and know that she is well." "seen her!" exclaimed andrew in surprise. "ay, you and jean were seated alone at the little window in the candlemaker raw last night about ten o'clock, and i was standing by a tombstone in the greyfriars churchyard admiring you. i did not like to present myself just then, for fear of alarming the dear girl too much, and then i did not dare to come here to-day till the gloamin'. i only arrived yesterday." "weel, weel! the like o' this bates a'. losh man! i hope it's no a dream. nip me, man, to mak sure. sit doon, sit doon, an' let's hear a' aboot it." the story was a long one. before it was quite finished the door was gently opened, and jean black herself entered. she had come, as was her wont every night, to walk home with her uncle. black sprang up. "jean, my wummin," he said, hastily putting on his blue bonnet, "there's no light eneuch for ye to be intryduced to my freend here, but ye can hear him if ye canna see him. i'm gaun oot to see what sort o' a night it is. he'll tak' care o' ye till i come back." without awaiting a reply he went out and shut the door, and the girl turned in some surprise towards the stranger. "jean!" he said in a low voice, holding out both hands. jean did not scream or faint. her position in life, as well as her rough experiences, forbade such weakness, but it did not forbid--well, it is not our province to betray confidences! all we can say is, that when andrew black returned to the cellar, after a prolonged and no doubt scientific inspection of the weather, he found that the results of the interview had been quite satisfactory--eminently so! need we say that there were rejoicing and thankful hearts in candlemaker row that night? we think not. if any of the wraiths of the covenanters were hanging about the old churchyard, and had peeped in at the well-known back window about the small hours of the morning, they would have seen our hero, clasping his mother with his right arm and jean with his left. he was encircled by an eager group--composed of mrs. black and andrew, jock bruce, ramblin' peter, and aggie wilson--who listened to the stirring tale of his adventures, or detailed to him the not less stirring and terrible history of the long period that had elapsed since he was torn from them, as they had believed, for ever. next morning jean accompanied her lover to the workshop of her uncle, who had preceded them, as he usually went to work about daybreak. "are ye no feared," asked jean, with an anxious look in her companion's face, "that some of your auld enemies may recognise you? you're so big and--and--" (she thought of the word handsome, but substituted) "odd-looking." "there is little fear, jean. i've been so long away that most of the people--the enemies at least--who knew me must have left; besides, my bronzed face and bushy beard form a sufficient disguise, i should think." "i'm no sure o' that," returned the girl, shaking her head doubtfully; "an' it seems to me that the best thing ye can do will be to gang to the workshop every mornin' before it's daylight. have ye fairly settled to tak' to uncle andrew's trade?" "yes. last night he and i arranged it while you were asleep. i must work, you know, to earn my living, and there is no situation so likely to afford such effectual concealment. bruce offered to take me on again, but the smiddy is too public, and too much frequented by soldiers. ah, jean! i fear that our wedding-day is a long way off yet, for, although i could easily make enough to support you in comfort if there were no difficulties to hamper me, there is not much chance of my making a fortune, as andrew black says, by turning parritch-sticks and peeries!" wallace tried to speak lightly, but could not disguise a tone of despondency. "your new king," he continued, "seems as bad as the old one, if not worse. from all i hear he seems to have set his heart on bringing the country back again to popery, and black will be the look-out if he succeeds in doing that. he has quarrelled, they say, with his bishops, and in his anger is carrying matters against them with a high hand. i fear that there is woe in store for poor scotland yet." "it may be so," returned jean sadly. "the lord knows what is best; but he can make the wrath of man to praise him. perhaps," she added, looking up with a solemn expression on her sweet face, "perhaps, like quentin dick an' margaret wilson, you an' i may never wed." they had reached the east end of the grassmarket as she spoke, and had turned into it before she observed that they were going wrong, but wallace explained that he had been directed by black to call on ramblin' peter, who lived there, and procure from him some turning-tools. on the way they were so engrossed with each other that they did not at first observe the people hurrying towards the lower end of the market. then they became aware that an execution was about to take place. "the old story," muttered wallace, while an almost savage scowl settled on his face. "let us hurry by," said jean in a low tone. at the moment the unhappy man who was about to be executed raised his voice to speak, as was the custom in those times. jean started, paused, and turned deadly pale. "i ken the voice," she exclaimed. as the tones rose in strength she turned towards the gallows and almost dragged her companion after her in her eagerness to get near. "it's mr. renwick," she said, "the dear servant o' the lord!" wallace, on seeing her anxiety, elbowed his way through the crowd somewhat forcibly, and thus made way for jean till they stood close under the gallows. it was a woeful sight in one sense, for it was the murder of a fair and goodly as well as godly man in the prime of life; yet it was a grand sight, inasmuch as it was a noble witnessing unto death for god and truth and justice in the face of prejudice, passion, and high-handed tyranny. the martyr had been trying to address the crowd for some time, but had been barbarously interrupted by the beating of drums. just then a curate approached him and said, "mr. renwick, own our king, and we will pray for you." "it's that scoundrel, the reverend george lawless," murmured wallace in a deep and bitter tone. "i am come here," replied the martyr, "to bear my testimony against you, and all such as you are." "own our king, and pray for him, whatever ye say of us," returned the curate. "i will discourse no more with you," rejoined renwick. "i am in a little to appear before him who is king of kings and lord of lords, who shall pour shame, contempt, and confusion on all the kings of the earth who have not ruled for him." after this renwick--as was usual with the martyrs when about to finish their course--sang, read a portion of scripture, and prayed, in the midst of considerable interruption from the drums. he also managed to address the spectators. among the sentences that reached the ears of jean and wallace were the following:-- "i am come here this day to lay down my life for adhering to the truths of christ... i die as a presbyterian protestant... i own the word of god as the rule of faith and manners... i leave my testimony against ... all encroachments made on christ's rights, who is the prince of the kings of the earth." the noise of the drums rendered his voice inaudible at this point, and the executioner, advancing, tied a napkin over his eyes. he was then ordered to go up the ladder. to a friend who stood by him he gave his last messages. among them were the words-- "keep your ground, and the lord will provide you teachers and ministers; and when he comes he will make these despised truths glorious in the earth." his last words were--"lord, into thy hands i commit my spirit; for thou hast redeemed me, lord god of truth." thus fell the last, as it turned out, of the martyrs of the covenants, on the th of february . but it did not seem to will wallace that the storm of twenty-eight long years had almost blown over, as he glanced at the scowling brows and compressed lips of the upturned faces around him. "come--come away, jean," he said quickly, as he felt the poor girl hang heavily on his arm, and observed the pallor of her face. "ay, let's gang hame," she said faintly. as will turned to go he encountered a face that was very familiar. the owner of it gazed at him inquiringly. it was that of his old comrade in arms, glendinning. stooping over his companion as if to address her, wallace tried to conceal his face and pushed quickly through the crowd. whether glendinning had recognised him or not, he could not be sure, but from that day forward he became much more careful in his movements, went regularly to his work with andrew black before daylight, and did not venture to return each night till after dark. it was a weary and irksome state of things, but better--as black sagaciously remarked--than being imprisoned on the bass rock or shut up in dunnottar castle. but the near presence of jean black had, no doubt, more to do with the resignation of our hero to his position than the fear of imprisonment. as time passed, things in the political horizon looked blacker than ever. the king began to show himself more and more in his true colours--as one who had thoroughly made up his mind to rule as an absolute monarch and to reclaim the kingdom to popery. among other things he brought troops over from ireland to enforce his will, some of his english troops having made it abundantly plain that they could not be counted on to obey the mandates of one who wished to arrogate to himself unlimited power, and showed an utter disregard of the rights of the people. indeed, on all hands the king's friends began to forsake him, and even his own children fell away from him at last. rumours of these things, more or less vague, had been reaching edinburgh from time to time, causing uneasiness in the minds of some and hope in the hearts of others. one night the usual party of friends had assembled to sup in the dwelling of mrs. black. it was the sabbath. wallace and black had remained close all day--with the exception of an hour before daylight in the morning when they had gone out for exercise. it was one of those dreary days not unknown to auld reekie, which are inaugurated with a persistent drizzle, continued with a "scotch mist," and dismissed with an even down-pour. yet it was by no means a dismal day to our friends of candlemaker row. they were all more or less earnestly religious as well as intellectual, so that intercourse in reference to the things of the kingdom of god, and reading the word, with a free-and-easy commentary by mrs. black and much acquiescence on the part of mrs. wallace, and occasional disputations between andrew and bruce, kept them lively and well employed until supper-time. the meal had just been concluded when heavy footfalls were heard on the stair outside, and in another moment there was a violent knocking at the door. the men sprang up, and instinctively grasped the weapons that came first to hand. wallace seized the poker--a new and heavy one-- andrew the shovel, and jock bruce the tongs, while ramblin' peter possessed himself of a stout rolling-pin. placing themselves hastily in front of the women, who had drawn together and retreated to a corner, they stood on the defensive while mrs. black demanded to know who knocked so furiously "on a sabbath nicht." instead of answering, the visitors burst the door open, and half-a-dozen of the town-guard sprang in and levelled their pikes. "yield yourselves!" cried their leader. "i arrest you in the king's name!" but the four men showed no disposition to yield, and the resolute expression of their faces induced their opponents to hesitate. "i ken o' nae king in this realm," said andrew black in a deep stern voice, "an' we refuse to set oor necks under the heel o' a usurpin' tyrant." "do your duty, men," said a man who had kept in the background, but who now stepped to the front. "ha! this is your doing, glendinning," exclaimed wallace, who recognised his old comrade. the sergeant had obviously been promoted, for he wore the costume of a commissioned officer. "ay, i have an auld score to settle wi' you, wallace, an' i hope to see you an' your comrades swing in the grassmarket before lang." "ye'll niver see that, my man," said black, as he firmly grasped the shovel. "ye ha'ena gotten us yet, an' it's my opeenion that you an' your freends'll be in kingdom-come before we swing, if ye try to tak' us alive. oot o' this hoose, ye scoondrels!" so saying, black made a spring worthy of a royal bengal tiger, turned aside the pike of the foremost man, and brought the shovel down on his iron headpiece with such force that he was driven back into the passage or landing, and fell prostrate. black was so ably and promptly seconded by his stalwart comrades that the room was instantly cleared. glendinning, driven back by an irresistible blow from the rolling-pin, tripped over the fallen man and went headlong down the winding stairs, at the bottom of which he lay dead, with his neck broken by the fall. but the repulse thus valiantly effected did not avail them much, for the leader of the guard had reinforcements below, which he now called up. before the door could be shut these swarmed into the room and drove the defenders back into their corner. the leader hesitated, however, to give the order to advance on them, partly, it may be, because he wished to induce submission and thus avoid bloodshed, and partly, no doubt, because of the terrible aspect of the four desperate men, who, knowing that the result of their capture would be almost certain death, preceded by imprisonment, and probably torture, had evidently made up their minds to fight to the death. at that critical moment a quick step was heard upon the stair, and the next moment the reverend frank selby entered the room. "just in time, i see," he said in a cool nonchalant manner that was habitual to him. "i think, sir," he added, turning to the leader of the guard, "that it may be as well to draw off your men and return to the guard-room." "i'll do that," retorted the man sharply, "when i receive orders from my superiors. just now i'll do my duty." "of course you will do what is right, my good sir," replied the reverend frank; "yet i venture to think you will regret neglecting my advice, which, allow me to assure you, is given in quite a friendly and disinterested spirit. i have just left the precincts of the council chamber, where i was told by a friend in office that the councillors have been thrown into a wild and excusable state of alarm by the news that william, prince of orange, who, perhaps you may know, is james's son-in-law and nephew, has landed in torbay with , dutchmen. he comes by invitation of the nobles and clergy of the kingdom to take possession of the crown which our friend james has forfeited, and james himself has fled to france--one of the few wise things of which he has ever been guilty. it is further reported that the panic-stricken privy council here talks of throwing open all the prison-doors in edinburgh, after which it will voluntarily dissolve itself. if it could do so in prussic acid or some chemical solvent suited to the purpose, its exit would be hailed as all the more appropriate. meanwhile, i am of opinion that all servants of the council would do well to retire into as much privacy as possible, and then maintain a careful look-out for squalls." having delivered this oration to the gaping guard, the reverend frank crossed the room and went through the forbidden and dangerous performance of shaking hands heartily with the "rebels." he was still engaged in this treasonable act, and the men of the town-guard had not yet recovered from their surprise, when hurrying footsteps were again heard on the stair, and a man of the town-guard sprang into the room, went to his chief, and whispered in his ear. the result was, that, with a countenance expressing mingled surprise and anxiety, the officer led his men from the scene, and left the long-persecuted covenanters in peace. "losh, man! div 'ee railly think the news can be true?" asked andrew black, after they had settled down and heard it all repeated. "indeed i do," said the reverend frank earnestly, "and i thank god that a glorious revolution seems to have taken place, and hope that the long, long years of persecution are at last drawing to a close." and frank selby was right. the great revolution of , which set william and mary on the throne, also banished the tyrannical and despotic house of stuart for ever; opened the prison gates to the covenanters; restored to some extent the reign of justice and mercy; crushed, if it did not kill, the heads of popery and absolute power, and sent a great wave of praise and thanksgiving over the whole land. prelacy was no longer forced upon scotland. the rights and liberties of the people were secured, and the day had at last come which crowned the struggles and sufferings of half a century. as mrs. black remarked-- "surely the blood o' the martyrs has not been shed in vain!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ but what of the fortunes of those whose adventures we have followed so long? whatever they were, the record has not been written, yet we have been told by a man whose name we may not divulge, but who is an unquestionable authority on the subject, that soon after the persecution about which we have been writing had ceased, a farmer of the name of black settled down among the "bonnie hills of galloway," not far from the site of the famous communion stones on skeoch hill, where he took to himself a wife; that another farmer, a married man named wallace, went and built a cottage and settled there on a farm close beside black; that a certain rú peter became shepherd to the farmer black, and, with his wife, served him faithfully all the days of his life; that the families of these men were very large, the men among them being handsome and stalwart, the women modest and beautiful, and that all of them were loyal subjects and earnest, enthusiastic covenanters. it has been also said, though we do not vouch for the accuracy of the statement, that in the kirk-session books of the neighbouring kirk of irongray there may be found among the baptisms such names as andrew wallace and will black, quentin dick black, and jock bruce wallace; also an aggie, a marion, and an isabel peter, besides several jeans scattered among the three families. it has likewise been reported, on reliable authority, that the original mr. black, whose christian name was andrew, was a famous teller of stories and narrator of facts regarding the persecution of the covenanters, especially of the awful killing-time, when the powers of darkness were let loose on the land to do their worst, and when the blood of scotland's martyrs flowed like water. between , when the marquis of argyll was beheaded, and , when james renwick suffered, there were murdered for the cause of christ and christian liberty about , noble men and women, some of whom were titled, but the most of whom were unknown to earthly fame. it is a marvellous record of the power of god; and well may we give all honour to the martyr band while we exclaim with the "ayrshire elder":-- "o for the brave true hearts of old, that bled when the banner perished! o for the faith that was strong in death-- the faith that our fathers cherished. "the banner might fall, but the spirit lived, and liveth for evermore; and scotland claims as her noblest names the covenant men of yore." the end. note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see -h.htm or -h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/ / / / / / -h/ -h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/ / / / / / -h.zip) sketches of the covenanters by j. c. mcfeeters, d.d. minister of the second church of the covenanters, philadelphia "that ye may tell it to the generations following; for this god is our god for ever and ever; he will be our guide even unto death." [illustration: modern church of the covenanters, greenock.] the unconquerable covenanters "we bind and obligate ourselves to defend ourselves and one another, in our worshiping of god, and in our natural, civil, and divine rights and liberties, till we shall overcome, or send them down under debate to posterity, that they may begin where we end."--_queensferry paper_. preface this book is a spontaneous growth, being without pre-meditation or original intention. a visit to scotland was the embryo; out of this seed sprang a stereopticon lecture on "the martyrs of scotland;" the lecture developed into an illustrated serial which was published in the christian nation; and the serial, at the request of many readers, developed into this volume. the book, therefore, was not originally contemplated; it is a providential growth, rather than a human conception; and we sincerely trust that it is one of god's eternal thoughts, blossoming in the sunlight of its own appointed time. may our lord jesus christ add his blessing, and commission these sketches to do him service and glorify his exalted name. j.c.m. philadelphia, march , . contents. subjects illustrations chapter i. the land of the covenants in the highlands chapter ii. the battle-field of presbyterianism flag of the covenanters chapter iii. some early martyrs george wishart chapter iv. knox in the field of conflict knox administering the lord's supper chapter v. foundation stones mary, queen of scots chapter vi. the national covenant king james vi. chapter vii. contending with the king melville before king james chapter viii. men of might edinburgh castle chapter ix. darkness brooding over the land souvenirs of the covenanters chapter x. approaching a crisis alexander henderson chapter xi. the advance guards jean geddes chapter xii. gathering of the hosts greyfriars church chapter xiii. renewing the covenant signing the covenant chapter xiv. the covenanters at work archibald johnston (lord warriston) chapter xv. the king wages war captain paton's grave chapter xvi. the solemn league and covenant the martyrs' monument chapter xvii. high ideals by the covenanted fathers rutherford in prison chapter xviii. the westminster assembly westminster assembly chapter xix. division in the covenanted ranks king charles i. chapter xx. crowning the prince archbishop sharp chapter xxi. a sifting time king charles ii. chapter xxii. an illustrious martyr argyle's daughter pleading chapter xxiii. resisting unto blood james guthrie chapter xxiv. source of the covenanters' power the grassmarket chapter xxv. expelling the ministers john welch ejected chapter xxvi. the field-meetings preaching in the mountains chapter xxvii. the covenanters' communion the covenanters' communion chapter xxviii. the home invaded home of the howies chapter xxix. the battle of rullion green gravestone at rullion green chapter xxx. the oppressor's revenge rutherford's monument chapter xxxi. indulgence, the six-fold snare a conventicle anniversary chapter xxxii. the field meetings under fire battle of drumclog chapter xxxiii. a massacre battle of bothwell bridge chapter xxxiv. the covenanters' prison dunnottar castle chapter xxxv. declaration of independence claverhouse chapter xxxvi. ayrsmoss monument at ayrsmoss chapter xxxvii. the cameronians young covenanters discovered chapter xxxviii. the lone star donald cargill chapter xxxix. an extraordinary service earlston castle chapter xl. the societies st. sebastian church, rotterdam, holland chapter xli. the daughters of the covenant consolation in prison chapter xlii. young life under persecution andrew hislop's martyrdom chapter xliii. the covenanters' bible covenanters bibles chapter xliv. the scottish seer peden at cameron's grave chapter xlv. scotland's maiden martyr choosing death rather than life chapter xlvi. the eldership--a wall of defence john brown of priesthill chapter xlvii. a home desolated a widow's sorrow chapter xlviii. last, but not least james renwick chapter xlix. the shepherdless flock martyrdom of renwick chapter l. the voice of the martyrs' blood the burial chapter li. the old blue banner yet banner of the covenant i. the land of the covenants. all history is interesting and much of it is inspiring. scotland furnishes a large measure of that quality of history, that awakens the soul, and appeals to the faculties by which life is transfigured with moral grandeur. history yields its best results when we use our best powers in pursuing its paths. let the creative genius, a healthy imagination, be employed restoring the scenes of former times, mingling with the people and participating in their high endeavors; then will the quiet page of history become a world of thrilling activity. in this manner let us here endeavor to follow the chain of events which gave scotland two reformations and a revolution. let us keep our horizon wide by resuscitating the former generations and associating with the covenanted fathers, who, in their faithfulness to god and loyalty to jesus christ, were like the burning bush, enswirled with fire but not consumed. scotland--the very name awakens fondest memories, revives holiest scenes, makes dearest associations throb with life. scotland--charming in her romances of love, mighty in her struggles for freedom, pathetic in her sufferings for christ, and glorious in her oft-renewed covenant with god--scotland in many respects is incomparable among the nations. the covenanted church of scotland, coming up from the wilderness leaning upon her beloved in holy dependence and dauntless faith, while heaven looks down with admiration--how beautiful, how instructive, how inspiring! extending from the north boundary of england, scotland thrusts her rocky shores with rugged irregularity into the deep sea on three sides. her granite cliffs, resisting the ceaseless waves, teach her people the lesson of constant vigilance and unconquerable courage. in this country the summer days are long and delightful, the echoes of good-night linger till the voice of good-morning may be heard. the days almost touch each other, twilight scarcely leaves the sky. the winter reverses the order, making the path of the sun short and, bringing it down close to the hilltops. the storm loves the long night; the winds rise and sift the treasures of hail and snow over mountain and meadow. [illustration: in the highlands in visiting the places of deepest interest to covenanters, the journey in our day may be made with little fatigue and much comfort. this makes the wanderings of the persecuted covenanters to appear in pathetic contrast which touches the heart with sadness. the scene presented here is loch lubnaig nestling in the bosom of the highlands. the view is charming, especially while the historic events are revived by a guide like rev john mcdonald, b d, who is here seen in the motor car, accompanied by mrs mcdonald and mrs mcfeeters.] scotland contains about , square miles and , , souls. the shores, especially the western and northern, are beautifully fringed with narrow lochs and steep indentures of the sea, making the coast picturesque beyond description. the surface is mostly mountainous and rugged, presenting to the eye natural scenery, which for beauty and magnificence can scarcely be surpassed. on the mountain side mists suddenly form, dense as thunder-clouds and bright as snow-drifts. we were one day pointed to a certain hill where, it is said, peden was hunted by dragoons, and found shelter in the heart of a mist-cloud, which he called "the lap of god's cloak." in answer to prayer he thus found safety in the secret place of the most high; heaven seemed to touch earth where he knelt upon the dripping grass. these mountainous grounds furnish luxuriant pasture for numerous flocks of sheep. here is the shepherd's paradise, who, with his dog and crook, keeps careful watch. while the brow of the mountain is white with mist, its cheeks are often crimsoned with heather, and its breast verdant with pasture. the associated colors are very grateful to the eye, while the sublimity ennobles the heart. many picturesque lochs nestle among the hills, in whose placid waters is mirrored the sky in the brilliant variations of day and night. poets and novelists have thrown a charm over these waters, and their shady isles--and deep coves, relating the stories of love and the tragedies of war. castles, some in ruins, some in excellent preservation, dot the country from sea to sea, crowning prominent hill tops, and grimly telling of the era of savage strife and imperiled life. splendid cities, thrifty towns, and modest country homes are an index of the present prosperous and peaceful conditions. the industry, intelligence, and happiness of the people are everywhere apparent. numerous churches, schools, and colleges bear testimony to the high tide of christian civilization, which, through the labors and fidelity of the fathers, have carried the present generation into enviable prominence. the climate is pleasant and healthful. the asperity of winter is softened by the ocean streams coming from the south; the heat of summer is reduced by the high latitude and the mountains. withal the lord has blessed this celebrated country with rare natural advantages for producing an indomitable and resourceful race. something in their environment seems to have given the people more than ordinary qualities of mind and heart. through the centuries they listened to the deep music of the sea, gazed upon the majesty of the mountains, meditated upon the solitude of the moors, kept vigil over their flocks in the fields, laboriously tilled the rugged soil; and grew solemn, vigorous, magnanimous, and unconquerable; they became a distinguished people. but above all this, god in the early ages gave them the scriptures, and the truth made them free. from the dawn of the evangelization of scotland there has ever been a band, and sometimes a host, whose heart god touched, whose lives he enswathed with the fire of zeal for christ and his royal rights. they grasped the meaning of the word of god, heard his voice calling them into the marvelous light, and lived in the radiance of his dreadful presence. they stood upon the solid foundation of the infallible book, and grew solid as the rocks of granite in their conviction of truth and right. how much of this scotch granite is apparent in the faith and firmness of the present generation? the matchless inheritance we have received from our covenanted ancestors, an inheritance of truth, liberty, and high example, should be more inspiring to us than nature's grandest scenery. our eyes should be open to the moral significance of present conditions. we should be alive to the weighty obligations transmitted by the fathers to their children. filled with the spirit and power of the gospel of jesus christ, and enthusiastic in our work for god, we should throw our strength into the service of our lord jesus, striving to bring all people into covenant with god. the covenant relation is the normal state of human society. * * * * * points for the class. . locate scotland on the map. . what is the size? what the population? . mention the main physical features. . give some characteristics of the people. . what contributed much to their prominence in history? . what moral inheritance did the covenanted fathers leave their children? . what obligation comes with the inheritance? . how should the obligation be met in our day? ii. the battlefield of presbyterianism.--a.d. . the beginning of scotland's evangelization is pre-historic. the records fail to give any satisfaction concerning the entrance of the gospel into that lovely land. the ruins of numerous altars of stone bear grim testimony to the idolatrous worship practiced by the early inhabitants. these are known in history as the druids. they held their religious meetings in groves, and evidently offered human sacrifices to their gods. the oak was accounted by them a sacred tree, and the mistletoe, when growing upon it, was worshiped. thus the land of our forefathers, in the far off ages, was without a ray of gospel light. the people sat in darkness, in the region and shadow of death. in the first three centuries of the christian era, the successive persecutions at rome drove many christians out from that gospel center, to wander in all directions over the world. they suffered banishment for christ's sake. in their wanderings they became great missionaries. they loved jesus more than their lives, and their religion more than their homes. by them the gospel was carried to the ends of the earth. it seems that some of them drifted into scotland and brought to that land the bright morning of a day that carried storms in its bosom, and after the storms, peace, quietness, prosperity, christian civilization--an inheritance of light and liberty unparalleled in history. as these witnesses of jesus told the story of god's love and of christ's death, the holy spirit came down with power and wrought wondrously upon the people. they readily believed the faithful saying, "christ jesus came into the world to save sinners." in the later centuries the gospelized communities developed into an organized church, with doctrine, worship, and government based upon god's word. these primitive christians were careful to preserve the apostolic simplicity, purity, manner, and substance, of divine service. the infallibility of the bible, the divinity of christ, the inspired psalmody, and the presbyterian form of government, were fundamentals in the faith of the church of scotland from her youth. she appears exceedingly beautiful in her first love, coming up from the wilderness with her right hand taking firm hold upon the lord jesus christ, her gracious redeemer and mighty protector. the church of scotland was then known as the church of the culdees. they had a flourishing theological seminary on the isle of iona. the ruins of it still remain. papal rome however quickly scented this noble vine, with its rich, ripe clusters of grapes. embassies were sent to win these children of light over to the papacy. but they had tasted of the freedom and blessedness in christ and refused. a long sanguinary struggle ensued, which resulted in the apparent suppression of the protestant faith in the twelfth century. the ministers in general, under the severity of prolonged persecution, surrendered their liberty and became servants of the roman pontiff. yet were there always some to resist the cruel conqueror. the excellent of the earth are always to be found at their unpurchasable value, when mankind is on the market selling cheap. these had the courage to challenge popes and kings, who dared to assume the power or the prerogatives of jesus christ. they believed that christ was the head of the church, and were willing to yield up their lives rather than their convictions. the doctrine of christ's supremacy was incarnated in these worthies, and they became invincible in its defence. as the granite rocks, beneath whose shelter they worshiped, withstood the blasts of winter, so these insuppressible men withstood the storms of persecution. the sovereignty of christ over church and nation was dearer to them than life. they saw the glory of god involved in this fundamental truth, also the honor of jesus christ, and the liberty, purity, and permanence of the church. they counted the pre-eminence of the lord jesus christ worthy of every sacrifice. they suffered bonds and imprisonment, exile and slavery, torture and death, for its sake. their blood watered the moss of the moors and the heather of the mountains. thousands and tens of thousands of scotland's noblest sons and purest daughters gave their lives freely for the contested doctrine of christ's crown rights and royal supremacy. as these valiant soldiers of the cross fell, their children arose, and, grasping the banner of the covenant crimsoned with the blood of their fathers, carried it defiantly along the firing line of the fierce battle. the dreadful conflict continued while century followed century. [illustration: this old banner is yet to be seen at the home of mr. john howie of lochgoin. it has its own unwritten history. as we placed our hands on the precious folds, the heart was asking about the brave standard-bearers who carried it in the hard-fought encounters, and the fearless covenanters who followed it unto death.] victory finally crowned the martyrs' cause, and peace spread her white wings over the crimson field, which in our day yields a rich harvest of happiness and prosperity. out of that great struggle we have inherited the civil and religious liberty, which to-day is the crowning glory of great britain and america. but the victories of our fathers were not final: they only placed us on vantage ground to continue the struggle, until the whole world shall be redeemed from every system of false religion and despotic power. much land yet remains to be possessed. animated by their noble example and encouraged by their success, we should press forward in the same cause, for the glory of christ and the salvation of souls. how can we hesitate? great obligations have descended from the fathers to us as their successors; future generations are dependent on our faithfulness. * * * * * points for the class. . describe the religion that prevailed in scotland before the gospel was introduced. . what is known concerning the beginning of the church in this country? . what was the success of the gospel during the early centuries? . what were the chief doctrines of the church in those times? . what foe attempted her suppression? . describe the resistance offered by the martyrs. . what was the great doctrine around which the battle was waged? iii. some early martyrs.--a.d. . the roman hierarchy, having gained a foothold on the shores of scotland, pushed hard for the ascendancy. at length the papal religion prevailed. the black wings of apostasy, as of an ominous bird, were stretched from sea to sea. dense darkness fell upon scotland. the thirteenth century was the horrible midnight, during which the people slept helpless in the grasp of a terrorizing nightmare. kings combined with priests to crush all who asserted their right to a free conscience in the worship of god. the bible was officially condemned and publicly burned; its perusal by the people was accounted a crime worthy of death. poor scotland! how ruinously overwhelmed beneath the briny waters of adversity. the providences of god are mysterious. we become mystified and distressed when we ask for reasons. god's circles are vast; we cannot take in his horizon. we know however that all his works are done in truth and righteousness. the wheels of christ's chariot never move backward. in getting over the rough places, progress may seem to be reversed, yet this is an illusion. in every such case the mysterious operation of providence is merely preparation for advancement. the great work of redemption goes forward through all stages to perfection. the storms that dash against the face of spring prevent not the coming of summer with its abundant harvests and songs of joy. the light of the gospel seemed to have been quenched beneath the seething tide of papal corruption. still there were incorruptible men and women here and there, who devoutly worshiped god according to his word. their hearthstone was their church. there may have been many in those days deeply rooted in the faith, but for most part they remained invisible. to be known as true to christ imperiled life. not many had the courage to publish their convictions. yet there were some who arose in the majesty of redeemed manhood and confessed jesus, testifying to his truth in defiance of the powers of darkness. to them truth was sweeter than life. john resby is on record as one among the first witnesses, who heralded a glorious reformation for scotland. he was a voice crying in the wilderness, proclaiming the sovereignty of christ over the church and denouncing the pope who claimed to be the representative of the lord jesus. he was quickly silenced by death at the stake. this occurred in the spirit of religious liberty was thereby crushed and disappeared for twenty-five years. paul craw was the next to be lifted into prominence by the power of the gospel, and thrust into publicity by the courage of his convictions. the spirit of the lord came mightily upon him. his love for the truth of the gospel filled him with abhorrence of roman errors; his pity for souls carried him into the fight for their freedom. he testified boldly against papal idolatry, prayer to saints, and the confessional. for this he was sentenced to suffer in the flames. his martyrdom took place in . patrick hamilton was another distinguished hero in this age of darkness. nearly a century had passed between the last mentioned martyr and this. doubtless lesser lights had appeared, for the record cannot possibly be complete. winter snows and summer showers often fell on smoking embers, where the charred bones and precious names of martyrs are now forgotten, and the annual sward of green conceals the sacred grounds from the knowledge of man. hamilton was a young man of education and refinement having fairest worldly prospects. however, the lord showed him "the way, the truth, and the life," and his soul was fired with the love of god. he counted all things but "loss for the excellency of the knowledge of christ." his enthusiasm carried him boldly into controversy with the enemies of his lord, and won for him the honors of a noble martyr. as the flames leaped around him at the stake, his voice rose calm and clear on the crisp winter air, exclaiming, "how long, o lord, shall darkness cover this realm? how long wilt thou suffer this tyranny of man?" this man was sacrificed in . the light was rising; spring-time was coming, the early rain of god's grace was falling upon scotland. godly lives now sprang up thick as flowers in the meadow. they must be uprooted in bunches, thought the romanists, or the people, gaining light, will cast off the papal religion and be free to worship god according to his word. during the next few years many were condemned and executed for their faith. helen stark deserves honorable mention. she and her husband were sentenced to death for their fidelity to jesus. she begged for the poor consolation of dying with her husband, pleading that the flames that would consume his flesh might also consume hers. the privilege was denied. she stood by him while the fire did its work, and the chariot of flame bore his soul to heaven. she encouraged him to endure bravely and glorify god. when life had departed from his quivering body, she was pushed aside and hastened to a pond of deep water. withdrawing a babe from her warm breast where it would never again rest, she gave it to a woman near by, resigning it to the loving father of orphans. she was then plunged into the water where death quickly ended her sorrows. this martyrdom was in . [illustration: george wishart. george wishart was a burning and shining light in darkest times. his pure and vigorous life was lifted up into the presence of god and devoted to the glory of jesus christ and the emancipation of souls from the bondage of satan, through the preaching of the gospel. he finished his work, a great work, while he was yet a young man. his enemies burned him at the stake, in , for his faith in jesus christ.] george wishart arose at this time in the spirit and majesty of the lord jesus christ, and displayed the banner of truth with an invincible faith. his heart was true, pure, fresh, and fragrant as the heart of a rosebud, through the indwelling spirit of god. his life was wonderfully attractive. his eloquence was seraphic; his lips had been touched with a live coal from the altar of god; his soul was aflame with the gospel. he was animated with transfiguring revelations of christ and his redeeming truth. he was a burning and shining light. the light he shed was too bright to last long in those dangerous times. the cardinal, prelates, and priests consulted for his overthrow. he fell suddenly into their hands and his death was decreed. to the stake he was hurried where the flames once more did their work, and another faithful soul appeared before the throne, washed in the blood of the lamb, and arrayed in a white robe, rejoicing in the victory won through jesus christ. at the stake his executioner begged forgiveness. wishart kissed his cheek, saying, "go, here is a token that i forgive thee; do thine office." one standing near said to him, "be of good courage." he replied, "this fire torments my body, but in no way abates my spirit." this execution was in . the success of life is not measured by the years we live, but by loyalty to jesus christ and service in the gospel; the might of our faith, the healthiness of the soul, the greatness of the heart, and the intensity of the light shining from a character radiant with the presence and glory of jesus christ. are we every day trying to make our lives rich, radiant, successful, and certain of reward, through earnest effort to bring others into the possession of the blessings of the gospel of jesus christ? * * * * * points for the class. . what was scotland's condition when over-ridden by the roman religion? . how was the true church kept alive? . describe the sufferings endured by the witnesses of jesus. . give the death scene of john resby, paul craw, patrick hamilton, helen stark, george wishart. . how may the study of the martyrs' lives purify, strengthen, and ennoble our lives? iv. knox in the field of conflict.--a.d. . "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." this crimson adage is a striking truth. "if ye burn any more," quaintly said one who had observed the effects of the martyrdom of wishart on the public mind, "burn them in your cellar, for the smoke infects all upon whom it is blown." john knox was then a young man preparing for service in the priesthood of rome. he had met wishart and felt the glow of his warm heart and the power of his inspiring fellowship. he was a man of eminent natural abilities to which was added a liberal education. he was recognized as one who would be a mighty champion on whatever side he took his stand. god was rich in mercy to scotland when he caused the gospel to shine into the heart of knox, giving him "the light of the knowledge of the glory of god in the face of jesus christ." his towering intellect, through the study of the word of god, caught the morning glory of the reformation, like a mountain that catches the first rays of the rising sun. he broke all the bonds that bound him to papacy, and entered into the liberty of the children of god in the power of the holy spirit. when knox received his first call to become a pastor, he was overwhelmed with anxiety at the awful responsibility of preaching the gospel. he stood in amazement, but dared not refuse. his humility and self-abasement prepared him, through the grace of the lord jesus, for heights of power and honor seldom reached by ministers. from that crucial day he devoted all the energies of body and soul to the preaching of the word of god. his public services covered a quarter of a century. this mighty man of valor threw himself immediately into the thickest of the fight against romanism. he struck at the root of the evil. instead of skirmishing along the borders about rituals, ceremonies, and perversion of doctrines, he boldly challenged the papal system as antichrist, and the pope as "the man of sin." in his estimation the romish church was a fallen church and had become "the synagogue of satan." he entered the field of conflict clad in the armor of god and wielded the sword of the spirit with precision and terrible effect. in prayer lay the secret of his power. he knew how to take hold upon god, and prevail like a prince. the queen regent, who in those times mustered the forces of the government at her pleasure, said, "i am more afraid of the prayers of john knox than of any army of ten thousand men." the very name of knox was enough to strike terror into the hearts of his enemies. on one occasion, having been in geneva for a time, he returned unexpectedly. just then a number of the reformed ministers, who had been arrested for preaching against popery, were approaching their trial. the court had assembled and were attending to the preliminaries. suddenly a messenger rushed into the hall of justice, breathless with haste, exclaiming, "john knox! john knox is come! he slept last night in edinburgh!" the court was stunned and immediately adjourned. the life of knox was often in danger. once as he sat in his room reading by candle light a shot was fired at him from the street through the window. it went harmlessly past him and struck his candle. he received a request on a certain occasion to preach in a city that was a stronghold of romanism. he accepted, glad of the opportunity, knowing also the peril. the archbishop of the city, having an army at his bidding, sent knox a warning, saying, that if he preached, the soldiers would receive orders to fire upon him. his friends urged him not to go. he replied, "as for the fear of danger that may come to me let no man be solicitous, for my life is in the custody of him whose glory i seek. i desire the hand and weapon of no man to defend me. i only crave audience, which, if it be denied here unto me at this time, i must seek farther where i may have it." he went and preached and returned unharmed. his great courage infused itself into other hearts, and a multitude of invincible men stood forth with him in the struggle for liberty and conscience, which he so fearlessly advocated. every sublime life is a mighty power for the uplifting of others into the same region of healthy action. the throne of scotland, with its machinery of government, was against knox all his days. queen mary was determined to keep the people in subjection to her own arbitrary will, and the church subject to her authority. knox had several personal interviews with her, taking occasion at the risk of his life to speak candidly and solemnly, applying the word of god to her life and conscience. at one time, remonstrating against her persecuting rage, he said to her, "even so, madam, if those who are in authority, being stricken with a frenzy, will murder the children of god, who are their own subjects, the sword may be taken from them, and they may be imprisoned till they be brought to a sober mind." the queen was much amazed and her face changed color, but she was powerless to do him harm. during the lifetime of knox, the church of the reformation grew rapidly and became mighty in numbers and influence. the first general assembly was held in , having ministers and other members, in all. in , just seven years later, the assembly numbered ministers, readers, and exhorters. this, too, was in a time of distress the conditions were unfavorable, the opposition was very strong. how account for the success? "not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the lord." [illustration: knox administering the lord's supper. john knox led the church in the great struggle for pure doctrine and worship. the vain heart of man is ever inventing additions and variations in the services of god's house. many devices had been thrust upon the early church of scotland. here we see this servant of christ, in the administration of the lord's supper, giving the people the bread and the cup as jesus directed.] the church contended for the supremacy of the lord jesus christ, even unto death. the church pursued unswervingly the course marked out for her in the word of god, in doctrine, worship, and discipline, not troubled at the cost nor fearing results. the church refused to be guided by human wisdom or temporizing methods, either to win numbers or gain favor, depending for success upon the wisdom that cometh from above. the church sought to glorify god with simplicity of faith, holiness of life, purity of worship, and loyalty to the lord jesus christ. hence the invincible energy, the wonderful achievements, the magnificent victories, and the amazing increase. would not the church of christ take on like activities, proportions, and strength, by following the same course of fidelity in our own times? john knox died in , at the age of . his last words were, "come, lord jesus, sweet jesus; receive my spirit." his latter end was peace. will we strive to emulate knox in prayer, courage, self-denial, and pure-heartedness? will not his example be to us an inspiration to work with faith and might, to build up the church and enlarge the kingdom of christ? he was great because he was humble and trusted in the lord. the same way is still open to all who would do great things for god. humility, prayer, faith, activity, courage, honor, glory--these are the successive steps upward. there is yet room in the high places. knox's place seems to be vacant. who will fill it? what an opportunity for young men to bring their noblest powers into action! * * * * * points for the class. . what great reformer appeared at this stage of the conflict? . what was the attitude of knox toward romanism? . how was his power dreaded by his enemies? . what was his demeanor in danger? . describe his interviews with the rulers. . tell how the church prospered during his ministry; explain the cause. . what effect should such a life have on us as we study it? v. foundation stones.--a.d. . during the first half of the sixteenth century the church struggled strenuously for a more complete organization. the word of god was quietly circulated and believers in jesus christ were growing numerous. but hitherto they had to worship god at their own fireside or burn at the stake. in the humble cottage, while the raging storm kept spies away, the father read from the book of god to his children as they huddled around the turf fire, and the mother sang psalms to the little ones as she knit their stockings or baked the oaten bread. thus pious parents instilled into their sons and daughters the truth of christ which stirred their blood, and prepared a generation to emerge from the bondage of papacy. the first covenant-- . during these times the church was found chiefly in groups of christians who met secretly for prayer. a company of devout believers came together to spend the evening hours, or the sabbath day, in the worship of god. the meeting was called a society. in these places prayer was offered in faith, the psalms were sung with grave melody, and the bible was read with reverence. these hungry souls fed upon the word. sometimes the meetings were held in caves for fear of the enemy. once a minister, being pursued, entered one of these caves for safety. as he sat down in its shelter, he was surprised at hearing soft melody farther back in that dark retreat. following the sound of the voices he found a company of devout worshipers. in those troublous times the holy spirit, in his own mysterious way, electrified the hearts of these hidden ones with the thought of covenanting with each other and with god, to stand for life, liberty, and religion. a day was set and a place appointed for entering into the holy bond. notwithstanding the danger incurred, a large concourse of people assembled and solemnly entered into the covenant. this occurred in the city of edinburgh, december , . this covenant embodied their purpose, thus, "we by his grace, shall, with all diligence, continually apply our whole power, substance, and our very lives, to maintain, set forward, and establish the most blessed word of god and his church." this is known as the first covenant of scotland. two years later, another bond of agreement was subscribed, on behalf of the church, by her most prominent leaders, which was called the second covenant. [illustration: mary, queen of scots. mary, queen of scots, came to the throne young, beautiful, aspiring, and unscrupulous. she selected for her counselors, those who were devoted to the papal religion. she employed the government, the army, and the french forces, to suppress the reformers. the tide of power was against her. she lost her throne and kingdom, and fled the country. she was finally beheaded in london.] the first general assembly-- . the first covenant was a formidable bulwark of defence against papacy. the young protestant church found in it a strong tower. the battle grew fiercer. many of the nobles joined the covenanted ranks. two years later this covenant was renewed and the cause gained great strength. among other leaders lord james stuart, the queen's brother, subscribed. he was a daring defender of the reformed faith. he stood as a wall of adamant between the reformation and his sister, mary, queen of scots, who employed the government and army to destroy it. after her overthrow he became regent, ruling the nation with kingly power and extraordinary ability, having the fear of god and the welfare of the people at heart. his home was like a sanctuary; the fire burned on the family altar, the bible was read at the table, the beauty of holiness graced the household. in history he is known as lord murray, the "good regent." he was assassinated by an ingrate, whom he had pardoned and saved from execution. much credit for the first reformation must be given to murray in the state and knox in the church, each peerless in his place. in their day the church became an organized power and assumed the appearance of "an army with banners." the first general assembly met in edinburgh, december , . the purpose was, "to consult upon those things which are to forward god's glory and the well-being of his kirk." the glory of god! the honor of christ! the exaltation of the supreme name! that is the purpose that sends fire through the veins and sweeps the soul with holy flames. give this its true place, and the best work of life will be done. then did the church arise and shine in the glory of the lord. then did she develop in size, strength, and courage, as in the days of the apostles. seven years later when the general assembly met, the members numbered , with a prosperous church of proportionate size. the reformers entered into the work of the lord with heartiness and reaped a plentiful harvest. the first book of discipline-- . the high principles governing the first general assembly are seen in the effort to preserve the purity of the young church, springing up under the care of these "valiant men of israel." one of the first steps taken was the appointment of a committee to prepare a book of discipline. these devout men copied from no existing form of church government. they did not draw even upon holland or geneva for resources. they went directly to the word of god, as the fountain of all knowledge for the task on hand. they took counsel and instruction from god in prayer, placed mind and heart under the guiding power of the holy spirit. the book that came forth was such as we would expect at the hands of such men, working with such spirit and purpose. its statements were truth; its rules were wisdom; its censures were a sword; its authority was christ. the general assembly adopted it. however, it was not in favor with all. its standard of doctrine and discipline was too high to please some. knox gives the reason: "everything that impugned their corrupt affections was mockingly termed 'devout imaginations.' the cause was, some were licentious, some had greedily gripped the possessions of the church, and others thought they would not lack their part of christ's coat." discipline was applied to the church according to the book. the unworthy were suspended, and those who failed to measure up to the standard of knowledge, character, and spiritual life, were refused. could there be a clearer demonstration of the power of the holy spirit and the presence of jesus christ, than the discipline that removed the unworthy and refused the unfit, when the church was so weak in number and assailed by hordes of enemies? yet during the first seven years of this book of discipline, the general assembly grew from to ministers, and the church in the same marvelous proportion. behold god's seal placed on strict discipline. there is power in purity; vitality depends much on sanitation. the first schools-- . the public school system is the offspring of protestantism. the human mind, when liberated by the gospel of jesus christ, aspires after education, as the eagle soars into the upper air when set free from its cage. freedom in christ jesus awakens consciousness of rights, powers, privileges, obligations, and the immeasurable boundaries of mind and spirit. with such breathings and aspirations these presbyterian fathers planted free schools over their country and set the example for the world. the general assembly authorized a school for every "parish", and made attendance imperative. the children of the poor were instructed free, the rich contributed support. the studies covered "religion, grammar, and latin." also in every "notable town, a college was to be erected for instruction in logic, rhetoric, and the learned languages." such was the work of the general assembly in the year of our lord . our system of public schools is but the extension of the orchard these fathers planted, in their far-reaching plans and great-hearted purposes. such were some of the steps taken by the fathers, in the church of scotland, at the dawn of the first reformation. they were master builders in laying foundation stones. they were preparing for the onward movement, which gave to the world the most brilliant example of church and state in covenant with god. the like has not been witnessed since the days of jesus of nazareth. these beginnings were the stately steppings of god within his sanctuary. the lord raised up men after his own heart, and empowered them by the holy spirit to perform this stupendous task. they were men of like passions with others, yet possessing the rare quality of an inviolate conscience. they were governed by principle, not expediency; were guided by truthfulness, not diplomacy; consulted god's law, not convenience; accepted duty at god's command, not at man's dictate. not all who were enrolled in the church stood the test; some grew faint and fell back from the firing line. but enough were ever there to glorify god and do his service at any cost. scotland's first reformation reached its climax in . the diligence and success of the fathers in the lord's work should inspire us to do the best within our power for the enlargement of the church. are we building, as they built, upon the true foundation, which is jesus christ? is our building material like theirs--gold, silver, and precious stones? are we zealous in making the church of christ appear the glorious temple of truth, the sanctuary of the living god, the habitation of the holy spirit? are we so consumed with the holy passion of love, that we cannot rest till we bring others into the house of god? are we worthy of our relation to the covenanted fathers? * * * * * points for the class. . give an account of the first covenant. . describe the first general assembly. . what was the value of the first book of discipline? . describe the founding of public schools in scotland. . when was the first reformation at its climax? . how should the success of the fathers inspire us? vi. scotland's national covenant.--a.d. . during the sixties of the sixteenth century, the presbyterian church had her beautiful summer. the winter seemed to be past and the storms over and gone; the time of the singing of birds had come. hitherto the church had been as a lily among thorns: now instead of thorns were fir trees, and instead of briers, myrtle trees, to the glory of the lord, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working. among the matchless sayings of jesus, one specific word resounds through all the ages and falls upon listening ears like thunder from heaven: "watch". eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, the price of purity, the price of honor, the price of every thing worth having. the young church, vigorous, victorious, and enthusiastic, seems to have been off her guard at a critical moment and while she slept the enemy sowed tares among the wheat. the regent, the person who was acting as king while the coming king was a child, called a convention of ministers and others who favored the king's supremacy over the church. the convention at his dictation introduced prelacy. this occurred on january , , a dark day for scotland. prelacy is little else than popery modified; popery in another dress, trained and taught to speak a softer dialect. the power of popery had been broken, but the residuum still remained, and now there appeared "the strange heterogeneous compound of popery, prelacy, and presbyterianism" in the church. the church awoke to find herself in the grasp of a horrible octopus, from which she did not escape for three generations, and only then at the loss of much precious blood. the first effort of the church, when awakened to her real condition, was to control the bishops that had come into her ministry, and whom she was powerless to remove. the next step was to attempt their removal, on the ground that the office of the bishop was unscriptural. difficulties rapidly increased; opposing forces were daily growing stronger; the civil government was against the church; the regent, scotland's chief ruler, bent all his energies in the defence of the bishops. from whence shall light and deliverance now come? listen to the words that seem to be on ten thousand lips: "the covenants; the covenants shall be scotland's reviving!" "the covenants" now became the watchword of the faithful. a wave of hopefulness and enthusiasm spread over the church; gladness wreathed the faces that had gathered blackness, and strength throbbed in hearts that were faint. the general assembly, given strength from the lord for the occasion, adopted a form of covenant for the nation. the covenant, as written by rev. john craig, was the product of a cultured brain and pious heart. it is unsurpassed in clear diction, high purpose, majestic spirit, heroic decision, and solemn appeal to god. it became the ground-work of all scotland's subsequent covenants. but craig had to meet the test of faith required by his own covenant. king james vi., who was now on the throne, after subscribing the bond, repudiated it, and commanded its author to do the same. craig replied that he would never repudiate anything approved by the word of god. the court, in which he was on trial, ordered his head to be shaved, and other indignities to be done to his person. again when on trial he was treated with utmost contempt by his judge, to whom he said, "there have been as great men set up higher than thou, that have been brought low." the judge, mockingly, sat down at his feet, saying, "now i am humbled." "nay," said craig, "mock god's servants as thou wilt, god will not be mocked, but shall make thee find it in earnest, when thou shalt be cast down from the high horse of thy pride." a few years later he was thrown from his horse and killed. the fervor aroused by the covenant swept the church like a pentecostal fire, and spread over all the kingdom as a storm of holy excitement. the covenant bond, being signed by the king, the nobles, and a great multitude of people, was called, the first national covenant of scotland. no greater event had ever stirred the kingdom, no deeper joy had lighted up her coasts, no higher honor had exalted her people, no brighter glory had overspread her mountains and moors. that holy covenant had lifted her into relationship with god; the kingdom had become hephzibah, and the land, beulah; the nation was married to the lord. the covenant bound the covenanter, the church, the nation, and posterity, under a solemn oath,-- to adhere to the reformed religion with all the heart through all time to come; to labor with all lawful means to recover the purity and liberty of the gospel, by removing all human innovations from the church; to abhor and detest the corrupt doctrines and practices of romanism; to resist under the oath of god all the evils and corruptions contrary to the reformed religion; to defend the country and support the government, while country and government defend and preserve true religion; to stand in mutual defence of one another in maintaining the gospel and the reformed church; to permit nothing to divide the covenanted ranks, or diminish their power, or swerve them from their high purpose; to become good examples of godliness, soberness, and righteousness in the performance of every duty due to god and man; to fear none of the foul aspersions that may be cast upon this covenant, seeing it is warranted by the word of god, and is for the maintenance of his church; to recognize the living god as the searcher of hearts, and jesus christ as the judge, before whom all shall stand in judgment. such was the high range of thought, motive, purpose, and action reached by this covenant of the fathers, who called upon god in the day of trouble, and were heard in that they feared. the men who led in this solemn transaction were distinguished for learning, piety, high-souled purpose, devotion to their country, and zeal for the glory of christ. they were among the excellent of the earth. but the mighty current of religious enthusiasm that had set in drew to itself, and carried on its bosom, multitudes who were superficial and vacillating. these quickly fell away when the counter current set forward; some of them even became violent persecutors of the covenanters. [illustration: king james vi. king james vi. came to the throne of scotland in , and reigned till . he was crowned when a boy of years. he subscribed the national covenant, saying, "i praise the lord that i am king in such a kirk, the sincerest kirk in the world." he soon forsook the "kirk"--the covenanted church--and became a violent persecutor.] the king was among the first to vitiate his oath, and break the covenant. his weakness was pitiful; he seemed to turn with every gale that struck him. the next year he mustered the strength of his government to overthrow the presbyterian church, and reverse the workings of the covenant. the church was aroused and resolute, andrew melville being her recognized leader. a delegation was sent to the king to remonstrate; melville was the spokesman. the king was confronted like a lion in his den. he listened to the following message: "your majesty, by device of some counselors, is caused to take upon you a spiritual power and authority, which properly belongs unto christ, as the only king and head of the church. through your highness, some men are trying to erect a new popedom, as though your majesty could not be king and head of this commonwealth, unless the spiritual sword, as well as the temporal, be put into your hands; unless christ be bereft of his authority, and the two jurisdictions which god separated be confounded. all this tends to the wreck of true religion." melville sent the truth, like a lancet, into the inflated ambition of the young king. he winced in the agony of the keen surgery. but melville had to meet the consequences of his faithfulness. he was taken to the tower of london, where he lay in a dismal cell four years. he was afterward banished and died in a strange land. this covenant of placed posterity, equally with the covenanters of that day, in oath-bound relation to god. a public covenant with god continues in its moral obligation until its terms are fulfilled. are we lifting up our lives into relationship with our lord jesus christ through our inherited covenant? are we fulfilling our sworn duties to our country, our church, and our lord? are we using all lawful means to cause true religion to prevail? are we employing our strength against all opposing evils? are we keeping step in the covenanted ranks that are marching on, assured that the principles of the reformation will yet prevail in every land? * * * * * points for the class. . what was the condition of the presbyterian church during - ? . how did the church thereafter decline? . to what did the church resort for her reviving? . what effect had the covenant on the church? . mention some of the main points in the covenant. . how did the king regard the covenant? . how was his opposition resisted by the covenanters? . in what way do the former covenants bind the present generation? vii. contending with the king--a.d. . the covenanted church flourished under the care of the general assembly like a well-watered garden. the small band of ministers and elders, who had organized the assembly, were richly blest in their labors. they had assembled at the risk of their lives to give the supremacy of jesus christ its loudest utterance, and the unity of the church its grandest expression; and the signal favor of god was their reward. the first ten years of the general assembly were the halcyon days of the presbyterian church of scotland. under the showers of the holy spirit, pious people sprang up "as among the grass, as willows by the water-courses." the power of the papacy was broken and its horrors checked. the clear sky, however, soon gathered blackness. the first cloud was, in size, and in cunning, too, as a man's hand. the national government had condemned popery as a religion, and had confiscated the vast wealth which the priesthood had amassed and had long enjoyed. this immense property, including rich revenues, large buildings, broad fields, and annual harvests, was held for distribution. how shall it be distributed? that was the burning question of the day, and it started a conflagration in the church, that kindled many a fire at the stake. the civil court decided that one-sixth should be given to the church. the church accepted the allowance. it was a sweet morsel in her mouth; but bitter, oh, how bitter in her bowels! regent morton held the reins of government at that time. that cunning ruler in bestowing this gift expected large returns. if the church get gold at his hand, she must make concessions on his demand. from that day the covenanted church was in trouble. she was compelled to keep up a constant warfare for her heaven-given independence, a bitter fight at the cost of much blood for the right of self-government under her lord. the bride of the son of god had linked arms with an earthly suitor, and leaned on him for support, to her shame and sorrow. the church of christ, free-born and independent, endued with divine power, enriched with the indwelling spirit, and sufficiently resourceful for all conditions and obligations, now depended on the state for financial help. the mistake grew more evident, and its correction more difficult, as time rolled on. the sovereignty of jesus christ is one of the cardinal doctrines of presbyterianism. christ in this form of church government is glorified as lord over all, and blessed forever. enthroned on the right hand of the majesty on high, he rules over a dominion whose limits include the utmost bounds of creation. on earth he has organized the church, of which he is the only head and king. he has also established the state, of which he is both king and judge. the church and state under jesus christ are mutually independent; each should be cordial and co-operative with the other; both are directly accountable to the lord jesus christ. morton saw his opportunity when the church took the money. in those days the ruler of scotland insisted on being recognized as the head of the church. morton put forth his claim of control; the faithful ministers of christ resisted. since the reign of henry viii., the episcopal church has acknowledged the reigning sovereign as supreme in her government. in this position the ruler can use the church as an arm of his government, a handmaid in his administration, an instrument in carrying out his designs, an ally in supporting whatsoever may originate in his heart. morton attempted to introduce episcopacy into the general assembly. even there he found some ready to do his bidding; and thus began the long controversy between presbyterianism and episcopacy. the struggle of protestantism with romanism had well-nigh disappeared; the fight was now between the presbyterian and the episcopalian. morton's leaven quickly did its work; the assembly became deeply infected. for more than an hundred years the terrible struggle continued. in the early years of this fierce conflict, andrew melville, mighty in the power of jesus, stood in the forefront of the battle. melville was scholarly, intrepid, adventurous, highly emotional, and vehement in the cause of the church's independence. he had some sharp encounters with morton. morton in a rage said to him one day, "the country will never be in quietness till half a dozen of you be hanged or banished." melville, looking him in the face with his piercing eyes, replied, "tush, man, threaten your courtiers after that manner. it is the same to me whether i rot in the air or in the ground. the earth is the lord's. my country is wherever goodness is. let god be glorified, it will not be in your power to hang or exile his truth." morton felt himself outdared and outdone by the courage and calmness of this humble servant of christ. morton resigned the regency in , to make way for james vi. to ascend the throne, who continued the war against the presbyterians. he asserted that his crown depended on the office of the bishop. "no bishop, no king," was his motto. he aspired to become dictator to the church. the general assembly resisted his claim. a delegation was sent to the king with a strong remonstrance against his tyrannic course. melville was a member of the delegation, and his energetic spirit constituted him speaker. the delegation appeared in the royal court where the king sat among his advisers. the remonstrance was read; it filled the king with rage. "who dare subscribe this treasonable paper?" was asked. "we dare," replied melville, taking hold of the pen and calmly writing his name. the others followed the bold example. the king and his company were overawed by their holy bravery. [illustration: melville before king james. andrew melville was able to stand before the king because he habitually stood before god. he was wise and strong to give advice and warning in the name of christ to the sovereign of the nation, because he took his orders from jesus christ, the king of kings and lord of lords. he was banished for his faithfulness, and died in france, in , being years old.] at another time melville became so animated in his remonstrance against the despotic monarch, that he took hold of his arm, and gave him an admonition such as few kings have ever heard. his passionate eloquence flowed in a torrent: "i must tell you, sir, there are two kings, and two kingdoms in scotland. there is king james vi., head of the commonwealth; and there is christ jesus, the king of the church, whose subject king james is, and of whose kingdom he is not a king, nor a lord, nor a head, but a member. sir, when you were in your swaddling clothes, christ jesus reigned freely in this land, in spite of all his enemies." the words penetrated the guilty soul like flashes from the eye of god. for the time the men had exchanged places; melville was king. melville suffered for his faithfulness; he was banished. yet he was rewarded with a green old age and a triumphant death. at the age of sixty-eight he wrote from the land of his exile, "i thank god, i eat, i drink, i sleep, as well as i did thirty years bygone, and better than when i was young. my heart is yet a scotch heart, and as good, or better than ever, both toward god and man. the lord only be praised for this, to whom belongs all glory." he died in france in . the supremacy of christ is the glory of the church. jesus is the fountain-head of life, love, law, government, and authority. are we maintaining this exalted truth with the courage of our ancestors? the zeal of our fathers, if revived in these days, would electrify the world. * * * * * points for the class. . what financial question in those days ensnared the church? . how was her independence affected by state patronage? . what was the great question in controversy? . how did the state make use of episcopacy in the battle with presbyterianism? . how did melville resist the king's attempt to rule the church? . what did melville's faithfulness cost him? . what need now to advocate the supremacy of jesus, and the independence of the church? viii. men of might.--a.d. . jesus christ is "the king of glory; the lord strong and mighty; the lord mighty in battle." his servants, filled with the holy spirit and devoted to his cause, grow like him in moral courage and irresistible action. every age supplies the opportunity for heroic service. the church has always had mighty men willing to venture their lives, when religion and liberty were attacked; but at no time has there gone forth a more illustrious band whose heart god touched, than in the last years of the sixteenth century. the tide of defection was then rolling in upon the church with desolating violence. the truth of christ's supremacy was being submerged beneath the waves of episcopacy. the right of christ to rule his church was disputed by king james, and claimed as his own prerogative. the true servants of god writhed in shame and sorrow, as they saw the diadem of christ snatched from his brow and clutched by a presumptuous man. the times demanded men who would not quail in the presence of the sceptered monarch; or at his threats of imprisonment, banishment and death. the soldiers of the cross stepped forth. the "threescore valiant men of the valiant of israel" were there, standing about the king of kings; "every man with his sword on his thigh, because of fear in the night." andrew melville was chief among the captains in those days. his face was luminous with an inner light; his eye pierced through the countenance of his adversaries; his bearing overwhelmed his enemies with the innate majesty of truth and holiness. what a torrent his electrified soul poured forth when he opened his mouth and protested against the wrongs done to jesus christ and the church! his eloquence was like a rushing river, an irresistible niagara. like knox, it was said, "he never feared the face of man." in private and in public, in the pulpit and through the press, he reproved kings, princes, judges, and nobles for their sins. he did his best work when he met them face to face. the dishonor done to christ by denying his royal rights made his blood boil, and fired his soul with vehement love in defence of his lord and master. but he suffered for his faithfulness. he was imprisoned; yet four years spent in jail, eating bad bread, breathing foul air, sleeping on a hard bed, groping in the darkness, lonesome in the pest-room, brought him no regret for preaching christ. from prison he went into banishment, and from banishment, home to heaven. in his last illness he was asked if he desired the return of health. "no, not for twenty worlds," was his spirited reply. [illustration: edinburgh castle. the castle is built on a rock that rises with rugged abruptness feet high. it is inaccessible except on one side, which opens upon the esplanade, on the foreground of the picture. in this castle, many notable martyrs were imprisoned, and there awaited their execution.] john davidson also shines in history as a minister of dauntless courage. he breasted the destructive flood of declension, and endured the buffeting of the waves. his humility prepared him for great service in the kingdom of god. he was deeply grieved by reason of the loose doctrines and practices prevailing within the ministry. the church was infected and corrupted with the inventions of man. through his effort the general assembly held a special meeting in , to observe a fast and renew the covenant of . the meeting was held on the th of march of that year. the showers of spring were falling, the mountain streams were flowing, the fields were putting on their soft verdure, the flowers were appearing in their beauty--all nature seemed to be breaking forth into holy laughter through her tears. how impressive this emblem of the memorable meeting, where earnest men prayed and wept and sobbed and sat in sadness and silence, in the presence of god confessing their sins! then, with uplifted hands, they "made promise before the majesty of heaven to amend their ways." a great reviving followed, and many hearts were made glad. two years later mr. davidson met the king, and, refusing to submit conscience to his tyrannic will, was cast into prison. john welch, too, is found in the front ranks of the church's noblest defenders. his wife, elizabeth, daughter of john knox, was his equal in courage and steadfastness. his life caught high inspiration from her faith, and her heart gloried in his heroic spirit; the two mountains were alike high. king james had determined to crush the general assembly of the presbyterian church. that assembly stood in his way as he strode toward despotic power. he must remove the hindrance, or fail in his ambition. he commanded the assembly to hold no more meetings, except by his permission. against his royal decree, a few bold-hearted men met on the first tuesday of july, . this was the last free general assembly for a whole generation. in this court of god's house disappeared altogether under the king's despotic rule, till , when scotland arose once more in the power of the lord, and renewed her covenant. john welch was one of the few ministers who braved the king's wrath, and approved of the forbidden meeting. within a month he was in jail. the place of his detention was called "blackness." in his little cell, damp, dark, foul, and lonely, he had time to reflect. he remembered his happy home, faithful wife, loving children, garden walks, sweet sunshine, soft breezes, pleasant sabbaths, inspiring pulpit, glowing audience--he could now think of all, and see the cost of fidelity to jesus. did it pay? he could lay his aching head on its hard pillow, and dream of the happiness that was gone, and awaken to ask if it had been worth while. did it pay to be true to christ? listen; he speaks from his prison: "we have ever been waiting with joyfulness to give the last testimony of our blood to christ's crown, scepter, and kingdom." welch found his great strength in prayer. prayer to him was conversation with god. his soul was familiar with jesus. he often arose from his bed to talk with god. he kept a shawl at hand, when at home, to cast over his shoulders during these rapturous hours. in the summer nights he spent much time under the trees in communing with the lord of heaven. to him the stars lost their brilliancy in the presence of the bright and morning star. his soul took many a bath in the ocean of eternal light. on one occasion his wife listened to his mysterious talk with god. he was in the agony of earnestness. "lord, wilt not thou give me scotland?" he cried. then followed the outpouring of contentment: "enough, lord, enough." at another time, the awful glory of the lord was let in upon his soul, till he called out, "o lord, hold thy hand; it is enough; thy servant is a clay vessel and can hold no more." mrs. welch was as heroic as her husband. when she pleaded with the king for his release, he consented, on condition that welch would recede from his position. mrs. welch, lifting up her apron in the presence of the king, replied, "please, your majesty, i would rather kep his head here!" referring to the axeman's block, and the head rolling from it into her apron. the sovereignty of jesus calls for heroic lives. this royal truth, defended by the fathers, at the cost of much blood, must yet be lifted up in the sight of the world. brave men and women are needed now as much as ever, even those who count the honor of jesus worth more than life, yea, more precious than all that the heart holds dear on earth. * * * * * points for the class. . what great principle in the church was here at stake? . how did christ's servants contend for his supremacy? . what notable men did god raise up for the occasion? . by what means was the church again revived? . what violence did the presbyterian assembly suffer by the king? . how long was the assembly suppressed? . what was the secret of power in these defenders of the truth? . state the present need of moral heroes. ix. darkness brooding over the land.--a.d. . the seventeenth century dawned upon scotland amidst ominous clouds. storms were gathering that swept the land for more than eighty years--storms of "fire, and blood, and vapors of smoke." the intervals of sunshine were few. the flock of god, the beautiful flock, suffered grievously by reason of wolves that entered into the fold in sheep's clothing. "no bishop, no king," cried king james. he evidently meant, "no prelacy, no despotism." he made the prelatic form of church government, of which he was the recognized head, the bulwark of his assumed supremacy over the church and his tyranny over conscience, and took every occasion to assert his power. the general assembly had appointed the date and place for a meeting in . the king arbitrarily postponed the meeting one year, and at the expiration of the year postponed it again. but there were high-principled men who resisted the domineering monarch. nineteen faithful ministers had met with a number of elders, just as fearless and faithful as the ministers, and constituted the assembly against the king's specific orders. their defiance of the king's authority was at the risk of their lives. this was their last free assembly for thirty years. these men were haled before the judges, and, being found guilty of disobeying the king, were sentenced. during the next twelve years the king dominated the assembly, after which he dissolved it, permitting no more meetings while he lived. the prelatic party henceforth held the power and ruled the church with a high hand. [illustration: souvenirs of the covenanters. battle-flag, carried at drumclog; drum, seen at lochgoin, said to have been in use at the battle of bothwell bridge; captain paton's bible, which he gave his wife from the scaffold; his sword, which he wielded with terrible effect; and a powder horn used in those times.] the form of worship was changed; human devices, in place of god's appointments flooded the church. departure from the old ways was especially marked by a measure known as the "five articles of perth." these were sanctioned by the king, and rigorously enforced in his effort to subdue all who resisted or protested. henceforth presbyterians had to conform to the new mode of worship, or feel the weight of the law in confiscation, imprisonment, banishment, or death. these articles of perth were sanctioned by the parliament. this act of ratification was accompanied by a remarkable demonstration of providence. parliament was then evidently carrying out the will of the king, for the subversion of the presbyterian church, the reformed religion, the liberty of conscience, and the rights of the people. parliament met for this purpose in edinburgh, august , . the morning was gloomy. with the advancing hours the clouds grew denser and darker; the whole sky became covered with blackness; a storm of divine wrath seemed to bend the very heavens with its weight. just at the moment when the marquis of hamilton, performing the final act of ratification in the name of the king, touched the official paper with the scepter, a streak of lightning blazed through the gloom, and another, and a third, blinding the guilty men in the presence of their awful deed. three peals of thunder followed in quick succession, making every heart tremble. a momentary pang of conscience must have been felt, while the king of heaven spoke in thunder that made their ears tingle, and in flames that dazzled their eyes. this dismal day, july , , is remembered in scotland as "black saturday." oh, how black with storm clouds, with man's guilt, with heaven's rebukes, and with apprehensions of sorrow and suffering! these were the days of melville, welch, and boyd, who, with other men, mighty in the lord, withstood the king to his face, and the government with its threats and penalties. when the church was in jeopardy, the lord jesus christ had his chosen servants, able and willing to defend the faith. like the prophets of old, they lifted up their voices in the high places, wrestled with principalities and powers, uttered their testimony as with the voice of thunder, and cheerfully sealed their testimony with their blood. among the champions of that day, robert bruce, an eminent minister of the gospel, took his place in the thickest of the fight. he was a large man, dignified and commanding in appearance; the countenance, physique, intellect, and spirit denoting true kingliness and strength. he may have been a descendant of his famous namesake, robert bruce, one of scotland's great kings; his heart was just as heroic and patriotic. this soldier of the cross was strong because he lived in the bosom of god's love; his life was fragrant with heaven's atmosphere. he had a keen conscience. when urged to accept the ministry he at first refused, but that refusal caused such remorse that he said, he would rather walk through half a mile of burning brimstone than have the mental agony repeated. bruce, during his early ministry, was greatly beloved by the king. such was his delight in him that he was chosen to anoint the king's bride and place the crown on her head. three years after this pleasant event he incurred the king's wrath by discountenancing his majesty's authority over the church. being commanded to perform a certain service in the pulpit he resolutely refused. to forfeit thus the royal good will, and take the risk of consequences, required courage of the highest type. but bruce was a man of public spirit and heroic mind, equal to the occasion, through the abiding spirit of god, that wrought mightily in him. when matters were going from bad to worse, in his relation to the king, he attended a meeting with a few other ministers, contrary to the king's proclamation, to take counsel concerning the church. a delegation was appointed at this meeting to wait on the king, and urge their plea for relief. bruce was the spokesman. the king received the delegates, but listened with impatience. he was in bad humor; anger flushed his face. "how durst you convene against my proclamation?" he said. "we dare more than that, and will not suffer religion to be overthrown," was the swift reply. bruce, after this interview, quickly felt the power of the law. his property was seized; he was driven from home; and, on permission to return, was required to cease preaching. this he refused to do, finally consenting to quit for ten days. that night he fell into a fever, and suffered such terrors of conscience, that he resolved that he would die ere he would make a promise like that again. bruce's strength lay in his familiarity with jesus christ. his preaching was with power, because christ was with him. on one occasion, being late for the service, a certain person reported, saying, "i think he will not come to-day, for i overheard him in his room say to another, 'i protest i will not go unless thou goest with me.'" he was talking with jesus about going to preach. in his prayers he was brief, but "every word was as a bolt shot to heaven;" and in preaching he was slow and solemn, but "every sentence was as a bolt shot from heaven." he, having finished his work, entered into glory, saying pleasantly to his children, as the dying hour drew near, "i have breakfasted with you this morning, and i shall sup with my lord jesus christ this night." that night he entered the heavenly city. they who are truly alive to the holiness, justice, and goodness of god, and dwell in the radiance of his blessed face, will get views of the church and her mission, that will inspire to greatest service and noblest sacrifices for christ and his cause. they will arise far above ordinary life, in effort, enthusiasm, power, and stability in the lord's work. * * * * * points for the class. . why did the king insist on having bishops in the church? . how did the presbyterian ministers oppose them? . in what way did the king authorize that which corrupted church services? . what device for public worship was ratified by parliament? . what significant providence accompanied this daring act? . what champion of freedom arose at this time? . wherein lay bruce's great strength? . how may we, too, become inspired for service? x. approaching a crisis--a.d. . the church confronts greatest temptations and dangers when at peace with the world. a period of outward prosperity is almost certain to result in moral deterioration and produce membership of inferior mould. the appointments of god in divine worship being few, simple, and spiritual, are likely to be displaced by the showy, deceptive, sensuous inventions of man when the church is honored with success. the holy spirit then withdraws in measure; frigid formality quickly follows; the services, however beautiful, become artificial and spiritless. god has good reason for sending upon his church periodical trials, hardships, persecutions--storms that winnow the wheat, fires that melt the gold. such tests of faith purify the church, run off the dross, throw out the counterfeits, break off the dead branches. the people of god are then distinguished; their heroic qualities are called into action; they become burning and shining lights in the surrounding darkness. this severe process may reduce the enrollment, yet it mightily strengthens the ranks. the lord jesus would rather have one of ten if true, than all the ten yea, ten times ten if untrue. christ jesus prefers who can wield the sword of the lord and of gideon, to , who are indifferent or faint-hearted. the presbyterian church made great progress under the covenant of and overspread the kingdom. after ten years of prosperity came another declension. again she was reclaimed and revived by the renewing of the covenant of . once more she became exceedingly prosperous and popular; but her popularity resulted in weakness. multitudes "joined the church" merely for place, privilege, and power. these soon made themselves felt on the wrong side: they controlled the courts of god's house. faithful ministers contended for the truth, resisted the innovations, protested in the name of jesus, and suffered because they would not consent to do evil. they were overpowered and sometimes were displaced, sometimes imprisoned, sometimes banished. their farewell sermons were heart-rending. amid the sobs and wails of the affectionate people, the farewell exhortations came from these devoted men of god as words from heaven. great excitement and sorrow prevailed in the churches, as the stricken congregations took leave of the pastors who loved the truth more than their own lives. who can wonder at the indignation that arose like a storm, as the congregation witnessed their beloved pastor and his wife and children leave their home, and go forth to wander under the skies of summer or through the storms of winter, not knowing whither they were going! should the people be censured for nailing the church doors against intruding ministers, and refusing to hear the hirelings sent to fill the pulpit against their will? the five articles of perth, adopted by those who were in power in the church and enforced by civil law, became the pastor's test. the presbyterian minister who would not approve of the five articles was deposed. but how could a covenanter give his approval without perjury? the five articles of perth were these: kneeling at the communion; observance of holidays; episcopal confirmation; private baptism; private communion. the first implied the worship of the bread; the second, the homage of saints; the third, the approval of prelacy; the fourth, that baptism was necessary to salvation; and the fifth, that the communion opened heaven to the dying; all savored of popery. what minister having any regard for conscience could sign this list of errors, after swearing the covenant? would he not immediately feel his spiritual life sink below zero? would not his heart chide him bitterly for the degradation of his office and manhood? and god is greater than the heart. david dickson was one of the ministers who had strength to endure, rather than bend. he was a young man full of fire and holy power. he had charge of a flourishing congregation at irvine. his preaching swayed the people. they crowded the church to hear him. his appeals melted the heart and watered the cheeks. he was bold to denounce the articles of perth. the authorities called him up and commanded him to retract; he refused. a sad farewell to his flock followed. rather than support error, however popular and profitable, he would sacrifice the dearest ties on earth and journey to parts unknown. and this he did. alexander henderson, another minister, encountered the displeasure of the men in power and suffered much at their hands. in his early life he accepted the prelatic creed and entered the ministry in favor with the party. he was sent to a church which, a short time previous, had experienced the violent removal of their beloved pastor. the people were indignant at henderson's coming. they barricaded the door of the church. the delegates that had come to ordain him, not being able to effect an entrance through the door, entered by a window. henderson was that day settled as the pastor of an absent congregation. in the lapse of time he won the people. he was faithful and powerful as a preacher of the word, and the lord jesus honored him in the eyes of large audiences. [illustration: alexander henderson. alexander henderson was born in , and died in the rd year of his age. he began his ministry in the prelatic church. under a sermon by robert bruce, he was convinced of the error of that system--and became a powerful defender of the presbyterian faith. he became a distinguished leader of the covenanters, taking a prominent part in the covenant of , in the solemn league and covenant, and in other notable events. his grave is in greyfriars' churchyard.] one day henderson went to hear a covenanted minister, robert bruce, at a communion. he was shy and concealed himself in a dark corner of the church. mr. bruce took for his text, "he that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber." the minister having read his text paused, and in dignified posture, with head erect, scanned his congregation with eyes that gleamed with holy fire. such was his custom before beginning his sermon. henderson felt the blaze of those eyes. he seemed to be the very man for whom they were searching. the recollection of having entered upon his ministry by climbing through a window horrified him. he went from that meeting determined to investigate prelacy in the light of the scriptures. the result was conviction of the truth and conversion to the covenanted cause. deportation from his devoted flock quickly followed. he was thereafter found in the forefront of the fight against the supremacy of the king over the church, and against prelacy that upheld the king in his arrogant assumption of the royal prerogative of the lord jesus christ. the minister of christ is the watchman of the church. he is placed upon zion's walls to sound an alarm at the approach of danger. he is charged with responsibility for the people. if they perish through his neglect to give warning of dangers, his life for theirs. faithful preaching may not be pleasant or profitable to the minister. declaring the whole counsel of god may involve the pastor in trouble, demand sacrifices, result in hardships, controversies, separations; yet the lord requires it, the people need it, no safety without it for either the flock or the shepherd. without fidelity no power with god, no comfort of the spirit, no approval from christ. are they who serve as ministers of christ willing to sacrifice ministerial support, relationship, popularity, applause--everything temporal, rather than one jot or one tittle of the truth of the gospel of jesus christ? * * * * * points for the class. . why does god send trials upon his church? . mention some of the fluctuations in the church's condition. . what class of ministers then had the ascendancy? . how did the faithful ministers suffer? . what became the test for the pastorate? . what faithful young minister declined the test? . what was alexander henderson's experience? . explain the responsibility of ministers. xi. the advance guards.--a.d. . king james vi. continued his warfare against presbyterianism until his death. this occurred march , . with advancing years he grew more bitter, using every means to coerce the covenanters and bring them into submission. they stood as a wall of fire between him and his cherished ambition to rule supreme over church and state. he resolved to break down that wall and quench that fire. covenanted presbyterianism has always stood for liberty, conscience, enlightenment, progress, and exalted manhood, resisting all tyrants and oppressors. presbyterianism recognizes as the crowning glory of man, his relation to god, all men alike being subjects of his government and accountable at his throne; all being under law to god and under law to no man, except in the lord. presbyterianism honors every honest man as a real king, clothed with innate majesty, crowned with native dignity, and exalted far above the conventional office of earth's highest monarch. yet does presbyterianism sustain all rightful rulers as ministers of god, and enjoin upon all people submission in the lord. in the beginning of , while the snow was yet mantling the mountains in white, the symbol of moral purity and goodness, the king was grimly planning to debase and corrupt the best people in his realms. he gave orders to celebrate easter with a communion according to the articles of perth, announcing a severe penalty against all who would not comply. the decree was not enforced, for the lord came suddenly to the unhappy monarch, saying, "thy soul is required of thee." easter came with its soft winds and opening buds, its singing brooks and flowery nooks, but king james was not there; the judge had called him, death had conquered him, the grave had swallowed him; his miserable life was broken off under sixty years of age; and after death, eternity; the long, long eternity. his son, charles i., inherited the father's troubled kingdom, despotic principles, and wilful doggedness. the young ruler began his reign by breathing out threatenings against the covenanters. yet the lord in many ways strengthened his people. he gave them at this time some remarkable communions and memorable seasons of refreshing. he pitied them for they were nearing the fiery trials that would try their faith to the utmost. to prepare them for the testing times. he led them up into the mountain of his loving favor and gave them another memorable privilege of renewing their covenant. john livingston, an honored minister of jesus christ, was of great service to the church at this time. he preached christ and his contested truths with power and striking effect. he stood in the strength and majesty of the chief shepherd and fed the flock given into his care. this flock was very large. multitudes gathered about him waiting for the word at his lips; the church could not hold them. god gave the people spiritual hunger that brought them from afar; they came over the hills and along the vales, converging upon the place of worship as doves fly to their windows. they journeyed solemnly from their homes to the house of god, both in the calm of summer and in the storms of winter. they came in the dew of the morning and tarried till protected by the gloaming. men and women, old and young, gathered around this man of god who ministered comfort, strength, and eternal life, through jesus christ, with wonderful power and grace unto their troubled souls. our monday service of the communion originated under mr. livingston. the sacrament of the lord's supper had been administered to a large congregation. the preaching and serving of tables filled the long summer sabbath. it was june , . the great congregation had come with souls lifted up to god in prayer; the church was not large enough to hold the people, and the churchyard was filled with devout worshipers. they sat upon the grass like the thousands that were fed by christ in the days of old. the soft wind blew upon them as it listed, and the holy spirit, too, came with mysterious power; the vast assembly was deeply moved. the long sabbath was followed by a short night. monday came, and the people, having been profoundly affected by the services of the preceding day, were again early on the grounds. they felt that they could not separate without another day of worship--a day of thanksgiving to the lord for the wondrous revelations of his love at his holy table. mr. livingston was constrained to preach, and that day proved to be the great day of the feast. an unusual awe fell upon the preacher and his hearers; the holy spirit wrought marvelously, melting the hearts of the vast congregation and filling them with comfort, strength, and thankfulness. mr. livingston and his people declined to conform to the "articles of perth." a goodly number of other ministers and their churches likewise refused. the king determined to force them into submission by authorizing a "book of public worship", called the liturgy. july , , was the day appointed for its introduction. an attempt to force a mode of worship upon scotch presbyterians! no experiment could be more perilous to the king; it was indiscretion bordering on insanity. the very announcement produced an underground swell such as precedes a moral earthquake. murmurings, groanings, threatenings, dark forebodings swayed the nation. these were gusts fore-running the storm. the day for testing the liturgy arrived. attention was chiefly concentrated upon the church of st. giles at edinburgh. the large auditorium was filled with presbyterians who were accustomed to worship god in the plain, solemn manner of the apostles. the suspense preceding the service was painful. each heart was beating fast, repressed emotion was at white heat, the atmosphere was full of electricity, no one could tell where the fiery point would first appear. at length the dean stood in the pulpit before the gaze of his insulted audience. he opened the new book and began. that was enough, the spark struck the powder, the explosion was sudden. jean geddes, a woman whose name is enshrined in history, and whose stool is a souvenir in the museum,--jean, impelled by a burst of indignation, bounced from her seat and flung her stool at the dean's head, crying with a loud voice, "villain, dost thou say mass at my lug?" the unpremeditated deed acted as a signal; the whole congregation was immediately in an uproar; the dean fled and the service came to an undignified conclusion. the indignation manifested itself in many other places that sabbath. in the greyfriars' church, there were deep sobs, bitter crying, and wails of lamentation. over the entire kingdom the excitement was intense. the scotch blood was stirred; the king had outraged the most sacred feelings of the people. they held meetings, prayed to god, and petitioned the king. the king replied to their petition, like rehoboam, with blustering insolence. the covenanters were not intimidated, their determined resistance was contagious and stirred vast communities, national sympathy was aroused; the holy spirit wrought mightily upon multitudes. three days after the king's haughty reply had been received, a procession, including twenty-four noblemen, one hundred ministers, and bands of commissioners from sixty-six churches, marched boldly into edinburgh and enforced their petition by a demonstration of strength, with which not even the king could afford to trifle. [illustration: jean geddes throwing her stool. jean geddes sat convenient to the pulpit on the eventful sabbath, when the dean attempted to introduce the new "prayer book" in st giles' church. the innovation had by anticipation filled the people with intense indignation. a storm was brewing. this heroine, unable to restrain herself, sprang to her feet and hurled her stool at the dean's head, exclaiming. "villain, dost thou say mass at my lug?" the dean dodged the stool and escaped. confusion followed, and the service for that day was abandoned.] do the children of these covenanters appreciate the value and power of the truth? have the fundamental principles of the kingdom of jesus christ become incarnated in our lives? do the doctrines of the word circulate in the blood, throb in the heart, flash in the eye, echo in the voice, and clothe the whole person with strength and dignity? is the covenant of these ancestors a living bond that binds the present generation to god, through which his energy, sympathy, purity, life, love, and glory descend upon us in continual streams of refreshing? then will our mission on earth be fulfilled, our work in the church will be blessed, our testimony for the lord will be powerful, and our efforts to win others for christ will be fruitful. * * * * * points for the class. . when did king james vi. die? . what was he planning when death claimed him? . who was his successor? . what course did his son charles pursue? . how did god prepare his church for the approaching trials? . how did communion monday service originate? . how did the king try to enforce uniformity on the church? . how was the liturgy received by the presbyterians? . what demonstration of strength by the presbyterians? . what practical lesson here for us? xii. gathering of the hosts.--a.d. . "who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?" what a beautiful and striking portrait of the church in her militant character and service! terrible as an army with banners! the church is mighty to subdue the strongholds of satan; powerful in the use of spiritual weapons; invincible in the presence of her enemies. she fights the battles of her lord, and though often defeated, moves steadily forward assured of final victory. how terrible her warfare in the sight of enemies! how admirable in the eyes of heaven! the first impressive demonstration of numbers, power, and resolution, given by the church of scotland, was in . the king and his advisers had attempted to force upon the presbyterians the "new prayer book" against their will. the attempt was as insane as it was despotic. as well might the king have tried to change the song of the sea or the course of the stars. the scotch conscience, enlightened by the word of god, strengthened by the covenant, and guided by the holy spirit, was like scotland's granite, upon which the storms spend their force to no effect. to resist the king's purpose, the presbyterians poured into the capital from all directions. home and flocks were left in the care of the mother and children, and the crops lay ripening in the warm september sun. the freedom of the church was the supreme interest that stirred the blood of these men. they filled the streets of edinburgh, thousands moved determinately and irresistibly through the chief thoroughfares of that awakened city. there was no confusion, this was not a mob. these were men of mind, purpose, prayer, and peace; they knew their rights and commanded respect. they carried their bibles to show their authority. resolution gleamed in the face of the grey-headed and flashed from the eyes of the young men as they stood side by side. their adversaries were overawed and made conciliatory promises. the covenanters therefore withdrew. the promises were quickly broken. one month later, a fresh attempt by the king and his counselors to trample the heaven-given right to worship god with a free conscience stirred the country. the covenanters were alert, they were not caught napping. they concentrated their strength upon the capital once more, and this time with a speed that surprised the government. their number was greater than before; hundreds of ministers, and hundreds of noblemen, with strong delegations of elders from many congregations assembled for the occasion. the vast concourse of people was too unwieldy to meet in one place; they therefore divided into four sections, each going in its own direction. they held meetings for prayer and consultation, realizing deeply the dangers that were converging upon their church, their homes, and their persons. they prepared petitions to be presented to the king. once more they received assurance of relief, and quietly returned to their homes. the months rolled past heavily. mild september had seen the country greatly agitated; bountiful october had witnessed the recurrence and increase of violent measures; november now came, chilled with sleety storms, and vexed with man's perfidy and cruel attempt to crush conscience. more desperate efforts were again in progress by the king and those who supported him in his claim of supremacy over the church and power to regulate her worship. the covenanters were apprised, and for the third time the roads converging upon edinburgh were filled with their dauntless ranks. they came on foot, on horses, and in wagons; old men with white locks and young men with iron nerve; ministers and elders, noblemen and commoners. these were men who were exalted into covenant with the almighty; they had tasted the sweetness of the liberty of the sons of god; they had felt the energy of the holy spirit throb in their hearts; they had visions of the king of kings in his transcendent glory. they came with one resolve--that jesus christ must not be superseded by the king of scotland in the government of the church. they poured into the capital in strong, living streams, till the city was almost deluged with their number. the king's officials were alarmed. feigning a bold spirit they commanded the covenanters to depart on pain of rebellion. the covenanters, knowing their rights and power, refused. after preparing a respectful petition to the king, and a strong remonstrance against the wrongs they suffered, they elected a permanent commission of sixteen men to remain in the capital, to protect their interests and give notice when danger appeared. [illustration: greyfriars' church. here the covenanters gathered to renew their covenant in . the house was crowded to its utmost capacity with renowned minister, elders, and nobles. the oath was taken and the covenant signed in the most impressive manner. the churchyard contains many graves of celebrated martyrs.] the new year followed the old carrying trouble in its bosom. the mid-winter storms drove the flocks to the fold and the shepherd to the cot; all nature rested from labor, awaiting the coming of summer; but hostilities against the presbyterian church took no rest. the king's council was removed from edinburgh to stirling; from thence they thought to spring a crushing surprise upon the covenanters. the news of this intention spread as if on the wings of lightning. one day was enough to give the alarm. the covenanters were minute-men, with the heart of a lion, the eye of an eagle, and feet swift to meet the battle call. before the sun was hot, the morning after the news, the covenanters had crowded stirling. the city authorities seeing their strength meekly besought them to disband and return home. these covenanters were patient, long-suffering, full of charity, believing all things, hoping all things. receiving the promise of better treatment, they drew off as quickly as they had come. they refused to leave edinburgh when threatened; they consented to leave stirling when requested. behold the spirit of these covenanted presbyterians! but no confidence could be placed in the king or his representatives. the land was greatly troubled by the wickedness of its rulers. one wave of commotion followed another; there was no peace, no safety, no security. many weary hearts were crying out, "how long, o lord?" the covenanters saw that the king was determined to crush their church. the general assembly had not met for twenty years; that court of god's house had been stamped out beneath the iron heel of despotism; the lesser courts had been corrupted; the king had resolved on the subversion of all. will not ministers and elders soon be worn out by the incessant and desperate attacks? the sea is roaring, the waves are raging, will presbyterianism be engulfed? will the supremacy of jesus christ go to the bottom? strong hearts are trembling; much prayer is arising to heaven; from faithful pulpits fervent appeals are ascending to god. what shall be the end of these things? is there no remedy to be found? "is there no balm in gilead? is there no physician there?" must these spirited men bow to the will of the tyrant and see their church brought into bondage? there were great searchings of heart. "the covenants! the covenants!" this has been repeatedly the watch-cry of scotland in the throes of distress. the covenants have been the glory and strength of the church in the past; will they not be safety and stability to the church in the present? such was the thought that throbbed in many hearts at this critical moment. the holy spirit was now clothing himself with henderson, warriston, argyle, and other princes of god, preparing them to lead the church into the renewal of her covenant with god. the right to worship god according to conscience, when conscience is set free by the spirit and enlightened in the word, must be jealously guarded. every attempt to introduce the devices of man into the service of the church should be strenuously resisted. each innovation in the worship of god does violence to the most delicate and sacred feelings of the human heart, and is a reflection on the wisdom of the lord jesus christ, who has ordained all the services of his house with utmost care and precision. if the covenanted fathers protested unflinchingly against a man-made prayer book, what would they have done at the appearance of a modern pulpit programme of music and hymns? * * * * * points for the class. . describe the militant character of the church. . what three successive demonstrations of strength did the covenanted church give against the new prayer book? . what was the great issue? . how should the church guard divine worship against corruption? xiii. renewing the covenant.--a.d. . king charles believed in the divine right of kings, and the presbyterians believed in the eternal right of christ to rule kings. the two beliefs could not be reconciled; hence the great struggle. the attacks on presbyterianism came in rapid succession and with increasing violence. the covenanters sternly resisted these attacks. the nation seemed to be on the verge of civil war. the leading covenanters saw in the war-cloud, that which blinded eyes could not see--the hand of the lord lifted up against the nation. henderson, rutherford, dickson, and others of penetrating mind discovered the moral cause of the troubles and trembled for their country. the lord was meting out judgment against sin. divine wrath was falling upon the people. judgment had already begun at the house of god. the king of righteousness was girding his sword on his thigh for action. who will be able to stand when he arises in wrath to vindicate his own royal rights? these men feared god and trembled at his word. a day of humiliation and fasting was appointed, many came together for prayer. there were deep searchings of heart followed by pangs of conscience and cries for mercy. god gave an alarming view of sin. the defection of the church and perfidy of the nation seemed to fill the sky with lurid flames of divine vengeance. the former covenants had been broken; the oath was profaned, the obligations denied, the penalty defied; the lord had been provoked to pour out his wrath upon the land. the day of reckoning seemed to have come. the sense of guilt and the weight of wrath bowed many souls to the earth. one supreme desire seemed to prevail--that they arise and return to him, from whom they had so deeply and shamefully revolted. "the covenants! the covenants!" this was now the national cry. the covenants have ever been scotland's hope, strength, and glory. the cry went from house to house, from church to church, from earth to heaven. it was on the lips and in the prayers of men, women, and children. hope revived, enthusiasm spread like flames, the nation was rapidly prepared for the high honors that were awaiting her. the people in large numbers were fired with a passion to renew their covenant with god! the holy spirit fell mightily upon many, causing a floodtide of spiritual life to sweep the country. the leading covenanters were endowed with wisdom and courage to direct the holy enthusiasm into the right channel. it had to be turned by prompt action, to present use, and conserved for the generations to come, or its strength and volume would soon be lost. on sabbath february , , the ministers preached on covenanting. next day the people met in their churches and received notice that, on wednesday following, their covenant with god would be renewed in edinburgh. the announcement struck a responsive chord. the country was astir early on the morning of the appointed day. doubtless many had spent the preceding night with the lord jesus christ in prayer. while the stars were still shining, many households, we may be assured, were called around the family altar, that the father might bless his house and hasten to edinburgh. the commissioners who had been appointed to lead the people in covenanting were on the ground at break of day. the covenant of was chosen for the present occasion. two generations had passed since that solemn bond had lifted the kingdom into holiest relation with god. nearly all the covenanted fathers of that event had finished their testimony and were gone; only here and there a patriarchal voice was heard telling of that solemn day and deed. the grand-children had lost much of the fervor, power, purpose, holy enthusiasm, dread of god's majesty, fellowship with jesus christ, and raptures in the holy spirit--had lost many of the countless and unspeakable blessings descending from the sure covenant made with god and kept by their fathers. fifty-seven years had elapsed and many changes had occurred. henderson, by appointment, added to the covenant what was necessary to make it applicable to their times. the holy spirit came in great power upon thousands and tens of thousands on that eventful morning; the day was bringing heaven's best blessings to the church and the nation. it was still winter; but not frozen roads, nor drifting snows, nor lowering clouds, nor biting winds, could stay the people. many men and women, old and young, were far on their way before the sun had softened the rasping air. they came on foot and on horses, in carriages and in wagons, through the valleys, over the mountains, along the highways and the lanes, pouring into the jubilant city from all directions as rivers of enthusiastic life. it has been estimated that sixty thousand came that day to take part in the renewing of the covenant, or to give countenance and influence to the solemn deed. to these spirited people the winter was over and gone, though february still lingered; the time of the singing of birds had come, though the earth was clad in her mantle of snow. the season had lost its rigor upon these covenanters; their cheeks were red, but not so much with wintry blasts as with holy animation. it was a summer day to them. [illustration: signing the covenant. the covenant of was signed first by those who filled the greyfriars' church. the parchment was then brought outside and laid on a flat tombstone, where those who had assembled in the churchyard eagerly embraced the opportunity to add their signatures. the people were deeply moved, as they thus joined themselves and their children to the lord, in an everlasting covenant never to be forgotten.] at the appointed hour, greyfriars' church and churchyard were crowded "with scotland's gravest, wisest, and best sons and daughters." alexander henderson constituted the meeting with prayer. his earnest words were deeply felt, they seemed to bring the lord of glory out of heaven. the earl of loudon made a solemn address, appealing to the searcher of motives. archibald johnston unrolled the vast parchment and read the covenant in a clear voice. silence followed--a dreadful pause during which the holy spirit was doing great work on all present. the earl of rothes broke the silence with a few well-chosen words. another solemn pause ensued, while all eyes watched for the next act in the sublime programme. the covenant was ready for signatures. what name will have the honor of heading the list on that white parchment? at length the earl of sutherland, an aged elder, with much reverence and emotion, stepped forward and taking the pen with trembling hand subscribed his name. others rapidly followed. the heart went with the name, the blood was pledged with the ink, the covenant was for life even unto death. when all in the church had subscribed, the parchment was carried to the churchyard and placed on a flat tombstone, where the people outside added name after name till there was no room, no, not for an initial letter. the scene was impressive beyond description; the people gave themselves willingly unto the lord. many wrote through blinding tears and with throbbing hearts; some added the words, "till death"; some drew blood from their own veins for ink. then as the sun was westering in the cold sky, they lifted up the right hand to almighty god, the searcher of hearts, avowing allegiance to him with the solemnity of a most sacred oath. surely this was scotland's greatest day. the church may now be called hephzibah, and her land, beulah. immanuel is the name of her covenant lord. "glory, glory, in immanuel's land!" the evening drew on; the spirited demonstrations of that eventful day, like a glorious sunset, melted away; but the covenant, in all its sacredness, substance, obligations, and strength, remained for the next day, and the next generation, and all generations to come. thus was scotland's national covenant renewed in . let the children of these covenanters not forget, nor lightly esteem their covenant inheritance and obligations. how great the honor! remember the accountability, withdraw not from the bond. relation to the lord jesus christ by means of the covenants of the fathers loads descendants with heavy duties, endows them with bountiful blessings, entrusts them with the welfare of coming generations, crowns them with high honors, and brings them into judgment to account for all these advantages and obligations. let the children of the covenants take heed lest they forget the duties, forfeit the blessings, prove themselves untrustworthy, and trample their heavenly crown in the dust. let them fear lest being exalted to heaven they be cast down to hell. the covenants of the fathers bind the children. * * * * * points for the class. . what new danger was now threatening scotland? . in what way did the covenanted ministers explain the trouble? . to what did they resort for deliverance? . how were the people prepared for covenanting? . how was the nation stirred at the prospect of renewing the covenant? . describe the great gathering of people in edinburgh on the appointed day. . describe the solemn act of covenanting. . what obligations descend from that covenant upon the present generation of covenanters? xiv. the covenanters at work.--a.d. . wednesday, february , , was one of scotland's greatest days. no victory on any battlefield is more worthy of anniversary honors. no birthday of statesman or warrior, no discovery in science or geography, no achievement in ancient or modern civilization, is more entitled to a yearly celebration. the notable event of that day is the high water mark of true greatness and moral grandeur in national life; nothing exceeds it in the world's history. as the evening drew on, the vast multitude that had congregated in edinburgh melted away. the sublime transactions in which they had been engaged had filled them with awe; the shadow of the almighty had overspread them, the glory of heaven had descended upon them, and, being filled with the peace of god and joy unspeakable in the holy spirit, they departed from the city as quietly as they had come and returned to their homes. the stars were again out while many were yet traveling, but the great light that fell upon them was the glory of the lord, as they carried the brilliant scenes of the day in their hearts. every heart-beat had the solemnity of a vow, a prayer, a song of praise, a psalm of thanksgiving. what devout worship in those homes that night when the fathers told the touching story of the greyfriars' church and of covenant. within a short time the delegates had reached their respective churches, in which they rehearsed the renewing of their covenant with god. the people were deeply moved, the holy spirit fell upon them. the interest became intense; the fires arose into flames; a covenanting passion swept the kingdom; the enthusiasm knew no bounds. the covenant was studied, accepted, and subscribed by ministers and magistrates, men and women, old and young, throughout the four quarters of the kingdom. there was a voice heard throughout the land, as the "voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, alleluia; for the lord god omnipotent reigneth." the lord jesus christ was glorified in his people, honored by his church, and exalted supremely above the nation's haughty monarch. yet the covenant had its enemies; but they were apparently few and for a while very quiet. these anti-covenanters stood with the king in his effort to foist prelacy upon the people. these he repaid with political preferments. hitherto they had claimed to be in the majority and therefore assumed the right to rule over the presbyterians. but the year of jubilee had come; the covenant proclaimed "liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." this covenant with god revealed to the people their dignity, privileges, rights, power, and freedom in christ jesus, king of kings and lord of lords. in that light which fell like the glory of heaven upon scotland, episcopacy appeared in its real strength, or rather in its weakness; in comparison with presbyterianism it was a mere faction. king charles ruled scotland from his throne in london. the covenanters were his most loyal subjects, devoted to him on every principle of truth and righteousness; yet by no means would they permit him to assume the rights of jesus christ without their earnest protest. they hastened to report the covenant to the king at london; their adversaries sent delegates with equal haste. both sides tried to win the king. as might have been expected, the covenanters failed. he was exceedingly wroth. he branded the covenant as treason and the covenanters as traitors. "i will die," said he, "before i grant their impertinent demands; they must be crushed; put them down with fire and sword." the king appointed the marquis of hamilton to represent his majesty in scotland and to subdue the covenanters. hamilton accepted the commission and entered upon his stupendous task. he was authorized to deceive and betray, to arrest and execute, to feign friendship and wage war--to use discretionary power; the manner would not be questioned if the covenanters were subdued. hamilton announced his intention to enter edinburgh, as the king's high commissioner, on the th of june. less than four months previous, the covenant had been renewed in that city amid transports of joy; must it now be trampled in the dust? the effects of the covenant had fallen upon the kingdom like spring showers that fill the land with songs and flowers; must the glory be blighted ere the fruitage be matured? the day set for the commissioner's coming was perfect. the bright sun, clear sky, blue sea, green fields, purple hills, soft winds, fragrant blossoms, tuneful birds--all united to make the coming of his majesty's commissioner a delight. nature was in her gayest attire. the road chosen for his journey to the city lay along the strand. he came in a stately carriage. his official dress was brilliant and imposing. his associates followed, while a strong military guard added dignity and a tinge of terribleness to the procession. it was hamilton's day of high honor. the proud sea rippled its welcome; the mellow winds floated the national emblem from many a window; the city was gaily decorated. the king's sympathizers had done their best for the occasion, but the covenanters had excelled them all. the covenanters were by no means ignorant of hamilton's power and purpose; yet they recognized him as the king's representative, and therefore they would do him honor. they were truly loyal. no taint of treason had ever mingled in their blood. they resolved to give the commissioner every opportunity to do his duty as ruler, yet stood ready to resist if he did wrong. they came to the city in force; their number was estimated at sixty thousand. they thronged the road over which hamilton passed, banked the hillsides with earnest faces, raised their caps in sincere respect for the commissioner, and lifted up their voices in prayer for their king and their country. when hamilton saw the great-heartedness of the people, whom he came to crush, he wept. the covenanters had requested two things: a free general assembly and a parliament. the church must have the first; the nation must have the second. the commissioner, in the name of the king, refused both. king james had abolished the general assembly in ; there had been none for twenty years. the covenanters, braving the king's wrath and the commissioner's power, appointed a meeting of ministers and elders to be held in glasgow, november , , five months hence, to re-organize the general assembly. a cloud of war immediately darkened the heavens. had the king's wrath been lightning, the meeting-place would have been struck; but his rage was impotent. [illustration: archibald johnston. known also as lord warriston. he took a prominent part in the renewing of the covenant in ; was chosen clerk of the general assembly, that same year, and continued in this office several years. he was an able defender of the covenanted church. he attained also to high earthly honors, yet held fast his integrity, and, when far advanced in years, suffered martyrdom for adherence to the cause of christ and his covenant.] when the day for the re-organization of the general assembly arrived, the delegates from the covenanted churches were on the ground. the house was filled with able, earnest, resolute men, true servants of the lord jesus christ. they had come in his name at his call to do his work. each breathed deeply the spirit of reverence; they felt the presence of god; holy dignity rested on every brow. they had come in the strength of the lord and were ready for duty and its consequences. hamilton with his friends also appeared. he immediately began the work of obstruction. alexander henderson was chosen moderator, and archibald johnston, known also as lord warriston, clerk, both of whom had taken an active part in the renewing of the covenant. hamilton made certain demands all of which were refused. he then attempted to dissolve the meeting but failed. in a storm of passion and with vigorous threats he withdrew, leaving the assembly to pursue its own course. can we conceive of sublimer courage than these covenanters exhibited in standing by duty, conviction, and principle, owning their covenant and honoring christ jesus, in the face of the king's wrath? the assembly continued its sessions one month. the work was stupendous, and it was thoroughly done. the church was cleansed, the ministry purified, true worship restored, and enactments adopted for the protection of the reformed religion. after pronouncing the final benediction, the moderator said, "we have now cast down the walls of jericho; let him that rebuildeth them beware of the curse of hiel the bethelite." behold how these fathers stood at the risk of their lives for the sovereignty of jesus christ! what devotion, what courage, what self-immolation! how great the moral grandeur of those lives, lifted up in the service of christ far above the fear of man! they felt deeply the presence and power of the holy spirit, giving them wisdom, peace, joy, and success, in their tasks! had we the same enduement of the spirit of god, surely the lord's work would prosper in our hands! may god grant it. * * * * * points for the class. . in what spirit did the people retire from the covenant convention in edinburgh? . how was the covenant received by the nation? . how did king charles regard it? . how did he attempt to counteract its power? . in what manner did the covenanters receive his commissioner? . when and where was the general assembly reorganized? . with what interference did it meet? . what good work did it accomplish? . what trust did it commit to future generations? xv. the king wages war.--a.d. . the year of our lord, , exalted the covenanted church into prominence and power. the covenant in the beginning of the year, and the general assembly at the end, were achievements that arose in sublimity and moral grandeur like mountains, and all the months between, being filled with spiritual refreshing, were like table lands covered with the glory of the lord, and shaking like lebanon with prosperous fruit. "the light of the moon was as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun sevenfold, as the light of seven days." during the next ten years the church experienced rapid growth. the covenant always seemed to give the church about ten years of extraordinary prosperity. the holy spirit descended in power, multiplying the ministry and membership exceedingly. new congregations sprang up in the towns and in the country, and were shepherded by faithful ministers. true religion, bringing peace, comfort, and gladness, entered the homes of the people and lodged with them. the melody of joy and health was heard in their dwellings. the family altar made the humblest house the holy of holies where god was enthroned on his mercy seat, and the lowliest family was a royal priesthood ministering unto god in the name of the lord jesus. yet all this time the church suffered violence. she had become a bright target upon which satan concentrated the fire of his heaviest artillery. one onslaught followed another with vengeful malice. the gates of hell opened wide and the floods dashed fiercely against her; but she was built upon a rock, and that rock was christ. she was in alliance with the lord. her people were steadfast in their covenant; they were united, full of faith and of the holy spirit; therefore the distresses resulted only in her growth. when the king heard that the general assembly was in session contrary to his will and acting directly in violation of his decree, he was filled with wrath. having sent hamilton to use policy and craftiness, and thereby gain time, he mustered an army of nearly , men, with which to punish the covenanters. he also sent a fleet to co-operate with the land forces. absolute subjugation was determined. these people must be despoiled of conscience, liberty, divine worship, religious rights--all that is most sacred to the human heart. the army is coming. men, women, and children must feel the weight of the horses' hoofs and the warriors' boots, just because they have joined themselves to the lord in a covenant, and are living the life of faith on the son of god. the covenanters were not dismayed, yet they hesitated to accept war. would it be right to take up arms against the government? ought they to go forth against their king in battle? should they use the weapons that are carnal, and engage in the shedding of blood? such questions lay heavy upon their hearts. they pondered, prayed, and fasted, that they might reach a decision in the fear of god. finally they resolved to make their defence by force of arms. their cause was just. momentous issues were involved; their covenant with god, the supremacy of jesus christ, the independence of the church, the liberty of conscience, the purity of divine worship, the rights of citizenship, the heritage of future generations, the progress of christian civilization--all this appealed to the covenanters for defence. the trumpet of war sounded, and the sturdy sons of the covenant quickly responded. general alexander leslie was at the head of the covenanted army. he led his forces with rapid marches to meet the king. friendly troops converged upon him on the way from all parts of scotland till his command numbered , men. they presented a formidable array. these soldiers of the covenant were marching to victory or to death. courage in the countenance and firmness in the step told of an unconquerable purpose. onward moved the resolute columns. every day brought them nearer the royal hosts that would test their strength. the sight was thrilling; solid ranks of infantry, sword-girded cavalry, stalwart cannoneers, and floating banners. the psalms reverberated among the hills in worship morning and evening. well might king charles pause ere he strike against this host of god. [illustration: memorial stone of captain paton. captain paton was a brave defender of the covenanters. his exploits in different battles are noted as extraordinary. finally he was captured and, on may , , executed in edinburgh. in his last words he exhorted the people, saying, "let your way be the good old path, the word of god." his joy on the scaffold was triumphant. this memorial stone is at fenwick.] one day the covenanters from an eminence beheld their enemy at a distance of six miles. general leslie halted, arranging his troops on sloping grounds, facing the foe. there he prepared for action. forty pieces of cannon bristled along the oval summit; the musketry and swordmen were placed on the hillside and outstretching plain. the encampment presented an appearance unusual in warfare. at the tent-door of each captain the ensign of the covenant was unfurled. on the banner was inscribed in letters of gold the soul-stirring motto: for christ's crown and covenant. as the flag rose and fell on the soft summer winds, the men were reminded of the sacred cause which they loved more than their lives. a chaplain of highest character was assigned to each regiment. every morning and evening the men were summoned by the beat of drum for the worship of their god. such were the covenanters as they waited in the presence of their foes for a sanguinary struggle. how often they sang the rd psalm, the th, and the nd, we know not. the psalms were the lion's marrow upon which these lion-hearted heroes fed. the covenanters did not want to give battle; they were merely on the defensive. they loved peace and longed for it. they shuddered at the horror of civil war and would avoid it if at all within their power. they sent an embassy asking for a conference. the king, knowing the spirit and power of the men with whom he had to deal, consented. during the negotiations for peace, the king hesitated to grant the covenanters their demand. they would have nothing less than a free general assembly and a parliament. the king would not consent. gen. leslie replied by announcing his intention to advance his army within gunshot of the king's camp. this persuaded the king to come to terms, and a treaty of peace was ratified, by which the covenanters received, on paper, all they asked. the covenanters returned to their homes rejoicing in their covenant lord, who had given them the victory without the cost of blood, and in their homes profound gratitude arose to god in their morning and evening service of worship. the people continued steadfast in their covenant, enjoying the rights and privileges of the children of god for a time. the lord showered his blessings upon them. their increase in power and numbers was marvelous. the king again became alarmed. he resolved on war once more, and within a year was at the head of another army, determined to reduce the covenanters and bring them into subjection to his arbitrary will. the covenanted fathers would surrender nothing in which the honor of the church and the glory of christ were involved. they were very jealous concerning all moral obligations and religious truth. they had convictions, conscience, intelligence, and the fear of god, and dared to fight for the right. they distinguished pillars of granite from columns of brick, and were not confused. they knew that gold dust was gold, and saved the dust as well as the ingots; they would sacrifice nothing. can not we get a lesson here that will make the heart throb and the cheeks burn, as we view the faithfulness and heroism of these covenanted ancestors? * * * * * points for the class. . what two great events in the church transpired in ? . what growth did the church experience in the next ten years? . what new danger loomed up? . how did the covenanters meet the king's army? . describe the army of the covenanters. . how was this struggle ended? . how did the king keep his promise? . what lessons may we derive from the fathers? xvi. the solemn league and covenant.--a.d. . the solemn league and covenant touches a tender chord in the heart of every true covenanter. it is a solitaire of statesmanship; a precious jewel of international law, unique and alone; there is nothing like it in the world. the historical setting of this lustrous stone is intensely interesting. out of what mine did the priceless diamond come? by whose skill was it so admirably cut and polished? by whose hand was it set in its own historic foil? such questions are worthy of serious and earnest thought. king charles' war flurry against the covenanters, in , brought him no honor. out-matched on the field, outdone in diplomacy, and utterly defeated in his purpose, he returned to london greatly humiliated. the journey was long and dreary, even though he rode in his stately carriage and behind swiftest horses, for he was chafing over his failure to reduce the covenanters. in his palace also he found no comfort, his magnificent apartments brought him no restfulness. he brooded over his ill-fortune till his blood was tinctured with acid and his heart soured; a malignant spirit spread its dark wings over him. he had failed in his military operations; the covenanters were stronger and more independent than hitherto; his prelatic friends were aggrieved with his treaty of peace; his power to tyrannize over the public conscience was waning. such thoughts racked his brain and wrecked his peace of mind. he grew sullen, miserable, desperate. it was this passionate and despotic temperament that carried him into the second war with these covenanters whom he so thoroughly hated. the covenanters were yet truly loyal to their king. their loyalty was high-principled and self-sacrificing, yet at the same time discriminating. they bound themselves by their covenant to be true to their king and their country. the covenant recognized the king and the people to be equally under the law of god, subjects of the moral government of jesus christ. while he occupied his rightful place and exercised legitimate power, they would stand by him till their blood and treasures were alike exhausted. such was their oath of loyalty, and it was kept with sacred care. but they resisted his authority at the point where he attempted to crush conscience, rule the church, and usurp the royal prerogatives of the lord jesus christ, who is king of kings. there they drew the line, and drew it so clear, that all the world might see it, and the blindest king might pause, consider, and not pass beyond. there they uttered their solemn protest with the bible in one hand and the sword in the other. such encroachments on their rights and liberties, and upon the honor and supremacy of jesus christ, they met on the battlefield, when peaceful measures had failed. while these interests were at stake they counted not their lives dear. [illustration: the martyrs' monument, edinburgh. this monument honors the memory of the martyrs who were executed at the grass market. it stands in greyfriars' churchyard at the head of a small plot of ground, where about bodies were at sundry times heaped together. here lies the dust of argyle, guthrie, warriston, cargill, renwick, and others of equal fame and faithfulness in the covenant.] the king on this second occasion collected an army of , men--all he could then muster--and hastened to punish the covenanters. he was not able at this time to rally the hosts of england; that kingdom was not in sympathy with his enterprise. his haughty will and arbitrary measures had alienated the strength of england from his support. the english parliament was like a trembling volcano, ready to break out and involve his throne in ruins. a revolution from monarchy to democracy was sending its advance swell over the land like a tidal wave. the covenanters, ever loving peace and hating war, had exhausted all honorable measures to avoid a conflict with their king on the battlefield. their efforts however having failed, again the call to arms resounded through their peaceful glens and over their granite hills. the shepherd again left his flock, the workman closed his shop, the plowman released his team, and the minister took leave of his people to follow the fiery war-cloud. again the banner was unfurled for christ's crown and covenant; the silken folds rose and fell on the breeze; the golden letters and sacred motto flashed upon the eyes of the men who were willing to follow where it led. gen. leslie was again in command. he boldly crossed the tweed and hastened to give the king battle on english soil. the armies having come within range of each other, the usual lull before the battle ensued. the covenanted columns, standing under their colors and gleaming with arms and armor in the bright august sun, struck terror once more to the king's heart. he dreaded to meet this sea of living, fiery valor, rolling its waves into his very camp. he saw, as on the first occasion, that a treaty was the better part of valor and offered peace. the terms being concluded, the covenanters returned to their homes, not knowing how long the peace would last. england, too, was at this time greatly agitated. she was making a desperate effort to throw off the galling despotism of king charles. the spirit of progress, enlightenment, and liberty was deeply stirring the people; they were eagerly reaching after a higher and nobler life. the grand possibilities of improvement and happiness filled them with visions of better things, and they grew desperate in their purpose to obtain freedom. continued subjection to the heartless autocrat became intolerable. there was public indignation likewise against prelacy, for by it the king was inspired and upheld. in the state the revolt was from monarchy to democracy: in the church, from episcopacy to presbyterianism. the king, as the head of the episcopal church, not only exercised jurisdiction over her, but used her as an instrument to enforce his arbitrary will over the people. the king mounted his war horse once more. this time it was english against english. strong armies were mustered on each side. for four long years a civil war swept the unhappy kingdom, victory perching alternately on the opposing banners. this was a war of the parliament against the king, british rule against brutish rule, humanity against despotism. scotland watched the struggle of her sister kingdom with deepest interest. on the one side she was attached to her king, notwithstanding his incorrigibleness; on the other, she was devoted to the principles involved, including the independence of the church. while the war-cloud was thickening, the english parliament sent a delegation to scotland to consult with the covenanters in expectation of receiving aid. the question was entrusted to a joint commission. the deliberations were deep and far-reaching; the men in council were among the wisest and best in the two kingdoms. they weighed the momentous interests involved in the pending war, that eventually convulsed england and watered her soil with fraternal blood. the liberty of both kingdoms, the progress of the gospel, the purity of religion, the independence of the church, the inheritance of the covenants, the onward movement of christianity--yea, their own homes, possessions, liberties, and lives--all were at stake in the crisis that darkened the land. these men turned to god in prayer to meet the task that burdened their hearts and taxed their wisdom. dangers, too, were thickening around scotland as well as england, like storm-clouds concentrating for a destructive outburst. the king was planning to restore the scottish prelacy to power; he still hoped to fight his way victoriously into edinburgh; he had hired an army of , men to invade scotland; he had watched with apparent complacency, we will not say his sanction, the slaughter of , protestants in ireland by the papists. such were the conditions in both kingdoms, which these counselors had to face. dark were the days when this joint commission was in session. scotland was harassed by internal foes, england was convulsed in a dreadful strife, and poor ireland lay bleeding from a thousand wounds. but here was a band of men whose hearts reached up to god for counsel, and they were made equal to the occasion. they knew how to take hold upon omnipotence and secure the help of heaven. they had access to the eternal throne, and were able to call into service god's chariots and angels, and fill the mountains with armies which, though invisible to mortal eyes, were invincible in the presence of all the hosts of the king, and all the legions of satan. listen to the cry that goes up from that council chamber--"the covenants! the covenants!" scotland had a beaten path up the mountain of god, leading to the ever-available covenant. again she climbs the heights, and this time leads her two trembling sisters, england and ireland, by the hand. and there, on the top of the mountain where the glory of the lord shines like the sun in his strength, the three kingdoms, scotland, england, and ireland, enter into the solemn league and covenant. we would appreciate our covenanted privileges more highly, if we considered more carefully the difficulties our ancestors overcame in reaching the covenant heights. let us take heed lest, like a foolish heir squandering his father's wealth, we waste our inheritance, which is more precious than gold, more priceless than life. * * * * * points for the class. . how did the covenanters meet the king's second appeal to arms? . how was england disturbed at this time? . what joint commission was then created? . what was its purpose? . what did it accomplish? . what was the intention of the solemn league and covenant? . why should we appreciate our covenanted inheritance? xvii. high ideals by the covenanted fathers.--a.d. . the solemn league and covenant of scotland, england, and ireland is the high-water mark in the moral progress of nations. but the flood of divine glory, which then covered these three kingdoms, quickly subsided and has remained ever since far below that conspicuous mark. god honored these nations with the greatest privilege accorded to civil society, and brought them into the most blessed relation to himself. but they lightly esteemed the favor and revolted from the covenant. he therefore hid his countenance, withdrawing the assistance and protection which they so gratefully accepted in distress, but deceitfully rejected when prosperity returned. the relapse threw them suddenly into direful conditions of misrule, oppression, and profuse bloodshed, which continued nearly half a century. the covenant of the three kingdoms, though short-lived in its beneficent effect, was of immense value to the world. like the morning star, it heralded the coming of a bright day to all nations. the star may be hidden by thickening clouds, but the sun will not fail to rise. this covenant stands as a pledge of the ultimate condition of all nations, points the way into the shining heights of god's favor, and warns against the aggravated sin of breaking relation with the lord. it was the first blast of the trumpet that will one day announce the submission of the kingdoms of the world to the lord jesus christ. the scottish fathers evidently regarded covenanted union as the normal relation existing between god and man, god and the church, god and all the nations. any thing less than this was, in their estimation, sub-normal, imperfect, unworthy, dangerous, disastrous to man, and offensive to god. they loved their covenant, flew to it in times of danger as doves to the clefts of the rock, and reproached themselves for lightly esteeming the inestimable privilege. these covenanters took their position at the throne of the lord jesus, and contemplated with rapturous delight his many crowns and the magnificence of his kingdom. their vast horizon took in heaven and earth, time and eternity, god and man. in their eyes the affairs of the world fell into subordinate relations, while the interests of the church loomed up in over-awing proportions. the high ideal for nations entertained by the covenanters of scotland will hardly be excelled while the world lasts. the lord gave them a vision of what their country should be: enlightened with the gospel, governed in righteousness, protected by omnipotence, adorned with churches, a school in every parish, and a college in every city. the land in that vision was married to the lord--beulah was her name. all destroying vices had fled, all public evils were rooted out. the heavens were beneficent, the soil yielded its increase, business was prosperous, the armies were victorious, the rulers were god's ministers, the homes were filled with peace and plenty, and resounded with the melody of praise. such was their conception of the blessed nation whose god is the lord. [illustration: rutherford in prison. samuel rutherford was a devoted minister and faithful covenanter. he had charge of a congregation at anwoth, from whence he was driven by persecution. for a time he was compelled to abide in aberdeen. here he wrote the famous "letters" that sparkle like rubies, with precious thoughts. out of his heart flowed "rivers of living water." such spirituality is seldom seen in mortals. his enemies sought his life, yet god permitted him to die on a peaceful deathbed. a vision of heaven seemed to break upon his soul in his last moments, and he died, exclaiming, "glory, glory in immanuel's land."] all this was embodied in the solemn league and covenant. by analyzing that international bond we find that it expresses or implies the following: nations originate with god, are dependent on his will, subject to his authority, and accountable at his throne. they are placed under jesus christ to be employed by him to the glory of god the father. the chief end of civil government is to suppress wickedness and promote righteousness, and thus prepare the way for the coming of the kingdom of our lord. civil rulers are god's ministers, and as such, should serve the lord jesus christ by conserving true religion. civil rulers should be interested in the union of the churches, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, according to the scriptures. civil government should suppress in church and state all features of society that are openly criminal or publicly injurious. the people should enter into a solemn covenant with their rulers and with god, to place themselves and their possessions in readiness to sustain the government in its legitimate work. the nation that keeps covenant with god shall dwell in safety, grow in power, and enjoy enduring prosperity. such was the solemn league and covenant. have the principles of civil government ever had an enunciation so candid and heroic, so sublime and comprehensive, so ennobling to man and honoring to god? these principles were not flashes of a high-wrought imagination; they were practical. the covenanted fathers reduced them to practice. these nations embodied them. the time was short, yet long enough for a demonstration. what dignity rests on the state that is federally and loyally connected with the empire of the lord jesus christ! how great the security and excellence of the government that abides under the banner of christ! how powerful and happy the people who are exalted into favor with heaven by a covenant that binds god and man! such was the ideal entertained by the scottish fathers; and by heroic self-sacrificing effort, they exalted the three kingdoms into the untrodden heights. these nations caught glimpses of the glory, basked for a season in the brilliancy, tasted the sweetness of the banquet, breathed the exhilarating air, then fell back. by the perfidy of man the vision was shattered and the idealization wrecked. we shudder at the loss incurred by these kingdoms in their decline from their covenant. what would have been their eminence among nations had the terms of the covenant been fulfilled? what would have been their power and prestige had they, by keeping their covenant, been sheltered for the last two and a half centuries from the ravages of rum and rome, misrule and tyranny, the violence of unscrupulous men and the wrath of the offended lord? what numerous posterity! what fruitful fields! what prodigious wealth! what industrial prosperity! what educational institutions! what unparalleled progress! what inexhaustible resources for development at home and achievements abroad! enjoying the glorious millennium two hundred and fifty years ahead of the rest of the world--what such a start would have done for the british isles is past finding out. priest-ridden ireland failed because at that time her best blood was soaking the roots of her green meadows; the massacre of her protestants by the romanists had left her low. half-hearted england failed because treachery was lurking in her ranks from the beginning. but scotland! oh, scotland, wherefore didst thou doubt? wherefore turned ye back, ye sons of the mighty, lacking neither bows nor other arms? heroes of the covenant, why fainted ye in the day of battle? shame on scotland. the high places of the field, where once the banner for christ's crown and covenant triumphantly waved, testify against thy treason. but the standard unfurled by the covenanters of scotland has not been altogether forsaken. a devoted band of christ's soldiers still remain underneath its waving folds. few, yet fearless, they hold the ground. there they sustain, day and night, the attacks of the world, the flesh, and the devil. their position is ridiculed as impractical; they are galled by the fire of deserters; they are assailed by the arguments of statesmen; they are reproached by their own brethren; they are shelled by satan's heaviest guns. a thousand voices are shouting, "abandon your impracticable position. come down; ye men of the covenant, come down." but the reply is returned in unfaltering tones, "we will not; we cannot. these heights of righteousness have once been reached by three kingdoms; they will yet return to the lord and renew their covenant, leading other nations in triumphal procession. they are coming; they are coming. 'all the kings of the earth shall praise thee o lord, when they hear the words of thy mouth; yea, they shall sing in the ways of the lord: for great is the glory of the lord.'" alexander henderson, who wrote the solemn league and covenant, displayed therein statesmanship of the highest order. great men are scarce who can be compared with henderson to advantage. wellington, nelson, howard, gladstone, and livingstone; these form a brilliant constellation; but henderson is bright as a morning star. he set the pace for the future statesmen, who will yet lead the nations to god in covenant and place the crown of national homage on the head of jesus christ. the covenanter who abides by his covenant is the truest patriot. the greatest service that can be rendered to the country is the presentation of god's ideal for nations. * * * * * points for the class. . how long did the solemn league and covenant remain in force? . what is its permanent use to the nations? . what was the covenanters' ideal for nations? . give the substance of the solemn league and covenant. . what caused these nations to abandon the covenant? . is the covenant position still held by any? . how is truest patriotism best displayed? xviii. the westminster assembly.--a.d. . the covenanted church is much indebted to the westminster assembly, for its magnificent contributions to the reformed religion. presbyterian churches of every name have reaped rich harvests from the seed sown by this assembly. nothing has done more, if the covenants be excepted, to give the covenanted church decision, stability, permanence, spiritedness, and undecaying strength, than the superlative formulas of truth produced by this illustrious assembly. our inheritance received from their hands should awaken our admiration for the men and our interest in their work. origin. this assembly came into existence in peculiar times and for a remarkable purpose. england was goaded to desperation by the despotism of king charles. as king of that nation and head of the episcopal church, he attempted to stifle liberty and conquer conscience. he clashed with his parliament in london. a great awakening had suddenly spread over all england. new ideas of life electrified the people, and they arose in the majesty of their inalienable rights to realize their ideals. the action and reaction became terrible. the king and the parliament called out their armies each against the other. england was plunged into a horrible civil war. the parliament, perceiving that episcopacy was the bulwark of the king's tyranny and hostile to the interests of the people, attempted to abolish that system of church government. but this destructive act necessitated a constructive work. accordingly parliament, by an ordinance, created an assembly for "settling the government and liturgy of the church of england." character of the members. the ordinance provided for an assembly of "learned, godly, and judicious divines." milton, while not in sympathy with their work, called this "the select assembly." baxter, another disapproving contemporary, said, "that in his judgment the world, since the days of the apostles, had never a synod of more excellent divines than this and the synod of dort." abundant evidence certifies that in westminster hall, in those days was seen a rare combination of native talent, classic learning, sanctified conscience, spiritual illumination, and devotion to the truth as revealed in the word of god. enrollment. the complete number of members was , of which were ministers, and , elders. of this number, four ministers and two elders were commissioners from scotland. the scottish delegation of divines were men mighty in the scriptures and powerful in debate. their influence in making scripture truths lucid, and thereby directing the assembly to right conclusions, was deeply felt and cordially acknowledged. they declined to sit as regular members of the assembly, content with the humbler position of consultative members. they would not by incorporation become responsible, personally or representatively, for the deliverances of an assembly selected and erected by parliament. these scotch ministers form a brilliant constellation; let their names be written in capitals: alexander henderson robert baillie samuel rutherford george gillespie "and they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." the scottish elders were john maitland and archibald johnston. maitland in after years renounced the covenant and became a powerful foe of the covenanters. [illustration: westminster assembly. the westminster assembly met in london in . the roll of members contained names, of which were divines and selected from parliament. the covenanters of scotland were represented by commissioners, of whom were ministers. this assembly produced the confession of faith, the larger and shorter catechisms, the directory for public worship, and the form of church government. these excellent formulas of divine truth are carefully compiled and finely polished, and, being true to the bible, they will scarcely ever be surpassed.] organization. the assembly met according to the call, july , , in the church of westminster. dr. william twisse, president, preached the opening sermon from christ's precious promise, "i will not leave you comfortless." these word's were as apples of gold in pictures of silver, in those days of woeful distraction. one week later they met again, when the oath was administered to every member present, in the following words: "i,--------, do seriously and solemnly protest, in the presence of almighty god, that in this assembly, whereof i am a member, i will not maintain anything in matters of doctrine, but what i think in my conscience to be truth; or in point of discipline, but what i shall conceive to conduce most to the glory of god, and the good and peace of his church." this oath was read every monday morning to refresh memory and revive conscience. these men were working for the kingdom of christ, in the presence of the great white throne; its brightness was flashing constantly upon their eyes. the work. the work, to which the assembly gave its attention, as specified by parliament, was "( ) a confession of faith, ( ) a catechism, ( ) a platform of government, ( ) a directory for all parts of public worship." the confession of faith: the first attempt was to revise the old creed of the church of england. this was abandoned at the fifteenth article. a new confession was then prepared having thirty-three articles, all of which are pillars of truth, every one ponderous, polished, and precious, revealing the quarry out of which they were hewn, and the skill of the workmen by whom they were chiselled. henderson has been credited with the honor of preparing the first draft. the catechisms: the shorter catechism was prepared as a summary of biblical instruction, appealing even by its literary construction and elegance to the heart and memory for lodgment. this golden chain is an ornament of grace that should be worn by every son and daughter of the covenant. rutherford seems to have been the original writer. the larger catechism is an expansion of the shorter. the form of church government: the divine right of presbyterianism occasioned much discussion. the adoption of this principle was a deadly blow struck at the theory of episcopacy--official ranks, tier above tier, in pyramidal form with the people beneath the pyramid. equal authority of ministers in the administration of the gospel of christ, and equal authority of ministers and elders in administering government in the house of god--these were the great truths announced by the assembly with clearness and solemnity, as the voice of god speaking in the holy scriptures. the directory for public worship: this directory superseded the liturgy. the liturgy had been condemned for "giving encouragement to an idle and unedifying ministry, who had chosen rather to confine themselves to forms, made to their hands, than to exert themselves in the gift of prayer, which our saviour furnishes all those he calls to that office." a warm discussion arose concerning the mode of receiving the lord's supper. "the communicants orderly and gravely sitting round the table," was the expression adopted. successive tables received sanction from this expression. psalmody. sir francis rouse, a member of the english parliament, had recently produced his metrical version of the psalms. it was fresh and fragrant and greatly admired. the assembly after a careful revision adopted it. five years later, having passed through the purifying furnace of revision at the hands of the general assembly of scotland, it was authorized as "the only paraphrase of the psalms of david to be sung in the kirk of scotland." the new version superseded the old and took its place in divine worship on may , , the day appointed for its introduction by the assembly. the westminster assembly convened july , , and adjourned february , , covering years, months, and days, having held , sessions. they met at nine o'clock in the morning and sat till three in the afternoon. each member received four shillings a day, and were fined one shilling for absence. they kept a solemn fast monthly, at which occasionally a single prayer lasted two hours. these men knew how to pray. they became absorbed in prayer and talked with god while he strengthened them to stand in his presence and receive his answer. such was the famous assembly of westminster divines. the magnitude of their work can never be measured. their building is imperishable. familiarity with these manuals of doctrine will deepen, broaden, strengthen, and exalt the human mind. herein the truth of christ appears in the symmetry, significance, magnitude, and omnipotence of a complete system. one truth may take us to heaven, but the system of truth treasured up in the heart, will bring heaven to us. let us study the system. * * * * * points for the class. . what event called the westminster assembly into being? . what was the character of the members? . how many were enrolled? . who were the scottish commissioners? . what was the oath of membership? . what was the work assigned to the assembly? . how long did the assembly sit? . what benefit derived from the study of these manuals? xix. division in the covenanted ranks.--a.d. . the covenant produced gratifying results in the presbyterian church of scotland. she was revived, enlarged, strengthened, consolidated, and fortified beyond precedent. ten years of marvelous prosperity followed, and yet she had no easy road to travel. she was still beset by dangers; enemies were plotting her overthrow; wars were convulsing the country; the external conditions were extremely adverse; yet she grew, waxed mighty, and became irresistible in the work of the gospel. the church honored the lord in his holy covenant, and he honored her with growth, success, and victory in the presence of her foes. he was a wall of fire round about her, and the glory in the midst thereof. these were years of phenomenal power and splendor unto the covenanted church. then followed the gloaming. the evening of that prosperous day grew very dark; the darkness increased for forty years; ten thousand midnights seemed to have condensed their horrid blackness upon scotland and her prostrated church. at length the storm of fire and blood exhausted itself, but not till a whole generation had wasted away in the anguish of that protracted persecution. the steps that led to the church's prostration and decimation, we may trace with profit; but as it is crimsoned with the blood of the brave, and marked with many a martyr's grave, the eye will oft be moist and the heart sick. while the church stood to her covenant, she was like an impregnable fortress, or an invincible army. while she held the truth tenaciously in her general assembly, presbyteries, and sessions, and applied it effectively, she spread forth her roots like lebanon. but when doubt and fear, plans and policy, compromise and temporizing entered into her councils, her gold became dim and her sword pewter. the lord went not with her armies into the battle, and they fainted and fell on the field. a brief review is necessary to understand the situation. the solemn league and covenant, in , gave the covenanted church of scotland a mighty impetus in the right direction, but its effect for good was brief. the league united the kingdoms of scotland, england, and ireland; and the covenant placed them under obligations to one another and to god. these kingdoms were thereby exalted beyond measure in privilege. the sacred bond had been prepared by the joint commission that represented england and scotland, the initial step having been taken by the english parliament. the king and the parliament were then at strife. the dominating spirit of charles, which harassed scotland had provoked hostility in england; the strength of that kingdom was nearly equally divided between the two parties. the people of england, who aspired after liberty and felt the throb of nobler manhood in their pulse, had asked scotland to combine forces against the oppressor. the outcome was the solemn league and covenant which united their armies for the conflict. this sacred bond was adopted by the general assembly of scotland, the english parliament, and the westminster assembly of divines. afterward it received a prodigious number of signatures by the people in public and private life, and became quite popular. these kingdoms were thereby placed under solemn obligation conjointly to conserve the reformed religion in scotland, to reform the religion of england and ireland, and to root out all systems of evil in church and state. scotland was far in advance of the other two kingdoms in enlightenment and liberty. the covenanted church had exalted the lord jesus as her head, and he had exalted her as the light, life, and glory of scotland. the vine had spread its branches from sea to sea. the two sisters were far behind. she undertook to lift them up; the burden was too heavy; they dragged her down. she was unequally yoked, and the yoke pushed her astray. doubtless there were reasons that justified the course she had taken, but that course led her into a "waste and howling wilderness." scotland sent her army to help the english reformers in their fight for liberty. the soldiers coming from covenanted homes, marched, as was their custom, under the banner emblazoned with the inspiring-words: for christ's crown and covenant. they were led by general leslie. victory followed victory until king charles, overwhelmed with defeat, rode into leslie's camp in disguise and surrendered as his prisoner. what now shall be done with the royal captive? this was the question which called for the wisdom of both nations. the covenanters urged him to subscribe the covenant and return to his throne. he refused. they pleaded, promising that their flag would lead the forces of scotland in his support. he yet refused. they prayed and entreated him with tears to accept the covenant and continue his reign. he would not. what could they then do, but deliver him up to the english army, whose battles they were fighting? general leslie led his command back to scotland. it was disbanded, for the land again had rest. the suspense, however, concerning the king was painful. the scottish heart yet loved charles. though he was false, cruel, treacherous, and tyrannical, the covenanters were still devoted to him as their own king. they prayed, took counsel, sent delegates, did everything in their power to have him restored. all they asked was his adherence to the covenant, their national constitution of government. let him subscribe to this, and scotland's bravest sons will rally around him; the blue banner will wave over him in bold defiance of every foe. but he would not yield. [illustration: king charles i. king charles i. came to the throne in , and reigned over scotland, england, and ireland, years. his despotic will carried him into great excesses of cruelty, and brought upon him mountains of trouble. in scotland the covenanters firmly resisted his encroachment upon their rights and liberties. he was beheaded by the english parliament in .] the king was now a prisoner in england. while he lay at carisbrooke castle, the earl of lauderdale, a covenanter of some eminence, accompanied by the earl of lanark, was stealthily admitted into his presence. these men succeeded in making a compromise. lauderdale and lanark agreed to raise an army to bring the king back. the king in turn agreed to confirm presbyterianism for three years; the permanent form of church government to be then determined by an assembly of divines, assisted by twenty commissioners to be appointed by the king. this private treaty is known in history as "the engagement." it contained the elements of a base and disastrous surrender of principle. presbyterianism on probation! built upon the rock of truth, it lasts while the rock endures. presbyterianism to be succeeded by an uncertainty? how could the church entrust the government of god's house to the king's commissioners? when "the engagement" became public, the covenanted church was plunged into a debate that wrought havoc. the peaceful sea was struck with a storm; the angry waves lashed every shore. the compromise failed, but the church was infected, weakened, rent, in twain, and for forty years was unable to stand in the presence of her enemies. henceforward there were two parties: those who held to the covenant, in its clearness, fulness, pungent energy, and logical deductions; and those who trimmed, modified, and compromised divine truth, for the sake of numerical strength and temporal advantage. one party was governed by principle; the other by expediency. the entering wedge was followed by other wedges, until the glorious church of scotland was chopped and split, and thrown about into endless disorder, "as wood which men do cut and cleave lies scattered on the ground." the church of jesus christ may never traffic in the truth. the least compromise of gospel principle is treason against the king of heaven. the terms offered to the world, while in rebellion against christ, should be those embodied in general grant's famous demand--"unconditional surrender." anything less than this is treachery. the truth of the lord jesus, which cost his blood in its purchase and the blood of martyrs in its defence, should be maintained to the very last shred, with the tenacity of unconquerable faith. unfaithfulness in the least degree may result in greatest disaster. once a ship was cast upon the rocks, and the lives of the passengers were jeopardized simply because the compass varied, it was said, a millionth part of an inch. it requires "hair-splitting" to measure a millionth part of an inch, and in certain cases it is worth while. * * * * * points for the class. . what reaction followed the ten prosperous years after the covenant of ? . trace the cause of the great distress that befell the church . why did scotland aid england with her army? . what were the results of the war? . how did the covenanters treat their captive king? . what was the agreement known as "the engagement?" . how did it divide the covenanted church? . what dangers arise from the surrender of truth? xx. crowning the prince.--a.d. . the reign of charles i. came to an unkingly end. the war between him and the english parliament resulted in his utter defeat. he delivered himself up as a prisoner, and "because he mercy minded not but persecuted still," mercy refused to spread her white wings over his guilty soul. he was tried for treason by the british parliament and sentenced to death. the trial continued one week, during which the recital of his misrule and cruel deeds must have intensely harrowed his soul. he yielded up his life by laying his head upon the block to receive the executioner's axe. one stroke did the fatal work. the death of the king was not with the consent of the covenanters; to them it was a poignant grief. with all his faults they loved him still as their king. had he accepted the solemn league and covenant when a prisoner in their hands, they would have been at his service to restore his power and kingdom. they still hoped for his reformation, entreated him to take the covenant, and pointed him to a triumphal entry into edinburgh. they pleaded with the english parliament to spare his life, and sent commissioners to prevent his execution. through his obstinacy they failed. but that obstinacy he accounted kingly dignity and inviolable honor. the covenanters upon hearing of his tragic death hastened to proclaim his eldest son king in his stead, granting him the throne on condition of accepting the solemn league and covenant, and ruling the kingdom according to its terms. he was a young man of nineteen years; "a prince of a comely presence; of a sweet, but melancholy aspect. his face was regular, handsome, and well-complexioned; his body strong, healthy, and justly proportioned; and, being of a middle stature, he was capable of enduring the greatest fatigue." charles ii. while emerging from his teens faced a golden future. the providence of god spread before him prospects of greatness, honor, and success, which the most exalted on earth might have envied. his heart in its highest aspirations had not yet dreamed of the moral grandeur and kingly possibilities, that were granted him when the covenanters called him to rule their kingdom. even solomon, accepting a crown at the same age, was not more highly favored. scotland at this time was exalted into close relation with heaven; the national covenant had lifted the kingdom into alliance with god; the people had been emancipated from darkness, papacy, and prelacy; the gospel of jesus christ had overspread the land with light. the covenanted church had flourished marvelously during the last decade, notwithstanding the storms that swept her borders; her branches veiled the mountains, and her fruit overhung the valleys; every parish was adorned with a schoolhouse, and the cities with colleges. what sublime possibilities for a king at the head of such a nation! oh, that the young prince might have a dream in the slumbers of the night and see god! oh, for a vision, a prayer, and a gift, that will fit him for the glory-crested heights of privilege and power to which he has been advanced! charles ii. failed, and fell from these heavens like lucifer. the young king was crowned by the covenanters january , . the crown of scotland, sparkling with precious stones deeply set in purest gold, was his splendid new year's gift. but the gift was more than a crown of gold and precious stones; it was a symbol of the nation's power, wealth, people, covenant, honor, and high relation to god, entrusted to his keeping. the coronation took place in the dead of winter. the country was gowned like a bride in white. but the white on this occasion was not the emblem of purity; rather was it the pallor of icy death. the rigorous storms seemed to prophesy of trouble; the very winds were rehearsing a dirge to be plaintively sung over mountains and moors in the coming years. a large assembly of covenanters met at scone for the crowning of the new king. there was much enthusiasm, yet beneath it all there flowed a deep undercurrent of doubt and fear. rev. robert douglas preached the coronation sermon. the king listened to deep, penetrating, practical words from the book of god. the solemn league and covenant was read. he gave his assent to it with an overflow of vehemence. archibald campbell, the marquis of argyle, a prominent covenanter and statesman, then took the crown in both hands, and, lifting it above the prince with great solemnity, placed it upon his head, accompanying the act with an appropriate exhortation. while the oath of office was being administered, the prince kneeled in apparent humility, and lifted up his right hand in a solemn appeal to god. at this point he uttered the awful vow in the presence of the people: "by the eternal and almighty god, who liveth and reigneth forever, i shall observe and keep all that is contained in this oath." he also said: "i will have no enemies, but the enemies of the covenant--no friends, but the friends of the covenant." thus king charles ii. became a radical covenanter by profession and protestation in the most solemn manner. time proved his guilty duplicity. the english parliament, after the execution of charles i., had passed an act making it treason to proclaim this prince king. the covenanters, having thus elevated charles to the throne, must now settle accounts with england on the battlefield. [illustration: archbishop sharp james sharp was a young covenanted minister in , but withdrew from the covenanters and became a persecutor of the most virulent type. the land could not bear his cruelties. he lost his life at the hands of a few men, who had been goaded into desperation by his atrocities. he was slain while driving across magus moor in .] oliver cromwell invaded scotland with a strong force, determined to unseat charles. the covenanters rallied in defence of their king. alexander leslie was once more in command. the two armies were soon facing each other, but hesitated to strike both armies were made up of soldiers of the cross; both had fought for the solemn league and covenant; prayer ascended habitually from both camps; the singing of psalms aroused the heroic spirit in each. what wonder if they feared the shock of battle! at length leslie moved down from his advantageous position, and cromwell ordered an attack. the covenanters were put to flight with terrible slaughter. had the sweet singer of israel been on the field after the clash of arms, doubtless he would have repeated his wail: "how are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!" the covenanters defeated! how! why! ah, there was an achan in the camp. the king was already perfidious in the covenant. his perfidy had blighted the nation, and smitten the army. hitherto god had led the armies of the covenanters; they had won easy victories, and sometimes bloodless triumphs. but now the lord turns his back upon the banner unfurled for his crown and covenant. the dread disaster-sent a wail through all scotland. the grief was great and the penitential searchings deep. the pious and prayerful inquired of the lord to know the cause of his wrath and the way of deliverance. the eyes of many were opened to see the shadow of greater calamities approaching. argyle, johnston, rutherford, gillespie, and others of kindred spirit, saw in the last battle the stroke of the lord for the sins of the nation. the wrath of god, like a bolt of lightning, had struck that field and thousands lay dead. greater retributions were coming; repentance alone could save the country. the king attempted to rally his shattered forces. he raised his standard at stirling. his army was small; he wanted more men. hitherto the army had been recruited from the homes of covenanters; the rank and file were the resolute sons of the covenant. the scottish parliament in bygone years had made a law called the "act of classes", by which only those who had taken the covenant were eligible to office in the government, or position in the army. the statesmanship of the scottish fathers was profound; their military wisdom was from above. civil government is god's gift to man. why entrust it to other than his people? the military power is to guard this trust. why commit the guardianship to any but the loyal servants of the lord jesus christ? the king had the act of classes repealed that he might increase his army. he multiplied his regiments, but forgot "the sword of the lord, and of gideon." three hundred may be better than thirty thousand. he accepted battle once more with cromwell, suffered a terrible defeat, escaped from the country and remained an exile nine years. all honor to gen. leslie, and other faithful officers, who refused to serve after the ranks had been filled with men who feared not god nor regarded his covenant! can we here find a lesson to lay upon our hearts? covenanting with god is, possibly, the highest privilege on earth; covenant-breaking is, possibly, the most dangerous sin. what can be worse? the covenant-breaker destroys much good; brings wrath upon himself, and defeat, sorrow, and distress upon those whom he represents. * * * * * points for the class. . how was the reign of king charles i. ended? . what effort on the part of the covenanters to secure a successor? . what were the prospects of the young prince? . what brought ruin upon him? . why were the covenanters now compelled to meet the english in battle? . with what result? . what was the "act of classes." . why was it repealed? . what was the effect? . what heinousness lies in covenant-breaking? xxi. a sifting time--a.d. . we now enter the most serious period in the history of the covenanters. hitherto we have been on the skirmish line. all we have yet reviewed has been leading up to the desperate and sanguinary struggle, which lasted twenty-eight years, costing treasures of blood and indescribable suffering, yet finally resulting in the wealthy heritage of liberty, enlightenment, and religion, which we now enjoy. oliver cromwell, having defeated king charles, ruled scotland five years. he was titled "lord protector", but in reality was a dictator. the government was centered more than ever in one man. many strange qualities blended in this austere autocrat, some of which command our admiration. he was stern and painfully severe, yet much sagacity and justice characterized his administration. during his sway of power the reformed churches in his own realms and on the continent were by him heroically defended. he became, in the hand of the lord, "the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." the persecuted found shelter under his shadow, in the providence of the lord. he avenged the massacre of the protestants in ireland, halted the persecution of christians on the continent, and gave rome the alternative, to cease the work of slaughter, or listen to the thunder of his legions at her gates. the church of the covenanters however had strange experience at the hands of cromwell. in a ruthless and despotic manner he dissolved the general assembly, put the supreme court of god's house out of existence to appear no more for thirty-five years. the meeting previous to this act of violence had been held in the mid-summer of . the ministers and elders had come from all parts of scotland, to sit in counsel, or rather in debate, concerning the kingdom of the lord jesus christ. the salubrious air and genial sky of edinburgh united with, the sacred and exhilarating interests of the gospel to arouse all that was noble, and divine in every heart. the moderator reverently led the assembly in prayer and constituted the court most solemnly in the name of jesus christ. such a prayer should overwhelm the soul with god's presence, burden the conscience with responsibilities, make the spiritual world dreadfully visible, and bring god's servants close to his throne of judgment. the assembly had met last year in this prayerful and solemn mariner, but the business of the lord jesus soon degenerated into an acrid, harmful discussion, that lasted two weeks and ended in confusion. the debate evidently was now to be renewed with the additional bitterness and vehemence that had accumulated during the ensuing year. the ministers and elders having convened, the regular business was under way, when suddenly the assembly witnessed what was unexpected--a regiment of soldiers in the churchyard. cromwell had sent them. the soldiers, in bright uniform and bristling with swords and guns, struck amazement into the hearts of the delegates. the colonel ordered them to leave the house. they walked out in front of the soldiers and, being escorted beyond the city limits, were sent home, not to return, under pain of punishment. the general assembly had fallen into a state of bitter strife--the snare of satan. there were two parties and these were quite well balanced. their power for good was greatly neutralized by one another; their influence for harm was incalculable; the baneful effect spread like a withering shadow over the land. the two parties, at the beginning, chiefly differed in the methods employed to accomplish the same end. the one was governed by expediency; the other by principle. expediency drew the majority; principle held the remainder. the majority discounted the obligations of the covenant; the minority held to the spirit and letter of the sacred bond. the party in power precipitated the direful conditions. this they did by repeated breaches of the covenant. the responsibility for the disgraceful proceedings, and the shameful termination of the assembly, must be attached to these who made the discussion a moral necessity. the first shadow that darkened the general assembly was the discussion of "the engagement." two unscrupulous men--one of them a covenanter--had made a secret engagement with charles i. in his captivity. they had promised to seat him, if possible, again on his throne; he in turn had engaged to favor presbyterianism three years. the engagement aroused earnest and violent discussion in the assembly. the element of strife had now entered the supreme court of god's house, and the downward trend was deplorably rapid. the next vexation was the abolition of "the act of classes." the act of classes guarded all places of trust in the government and army. none but those who expressed sympathy with the national covenant were eligible to places of trust. here was an unparalleled state of civil affairs; the world had never seen the like. this was a marvelous stride toward the millennium. the fathers are worthy of all praise for this unprecedented effort to build the national government upon the true foundation of god's will, and administer it by men in covenant with jesus christ, the king of kings. this was the first attempt to erect a christian government, in which the fear of god should pervade every department and characterize every official. the abolition of the act of classes involved a great moral issue which the general assembly had to meet. strangely, the assembly was divided in the discussion; the debate waxed vehement and bitterly passionate. the majority favored abolition, thus opening the flood-gates of moral laxity in official stations. these were called "resolutioners", because they offered the resolution to this effect, and supported it: the minority were called "protesters", because they protested against it. [illustration: king charles ii. king charles ii. ascended the throne in , but was soon defeated and driven from the country by oliver cromwell. in his kingdom and power were restored and he reigned till . his death was sudden and mysterious, poisoning by his brother, the duke of york, having been suspected. he died at the age of fifty-five. he was called the "merry monarch," though his reign was characterized by atrocious cruelty. under him the persecution waxed so violent that some of these years were called "the killing times."] the discussion continued year after year till all other interests in the general assembly were overshadowed. the voice of the church, once powerful in guiding public issues, was now despised; the tones were guttural, sepulchral, alarming, making the blood run in chills. then came cromwell and snuffed the assembly out like a candle. it was sending forth ill--odored smoke and but little light. are we surprised that god permitted him to quench the noisome spark? the protesters stood for all that the covenant embodied. the covenant lay heavy upon their conscience; they trembled at its violation. they saw in the breach of the covenant the wrath of god against themselves, against the church, and against the nation. they believed that nothing could compensate for the loss incurred by forsaking the covenant. they trusted in god with absolute faith; would not resort to expediency for any purpose; temporized with no principle, no, not for greatest advantages. they knew that god could send peace, victory, and prosperity to their country through the covenant; and that he would send defeat, distress, and desolation through the breach of it. the resolutioners grew more and more lax. they may have dreaded to be termed narrow-minded; they may have sought to be reputed broad and charitable. they weakened in morals and influence, and lost power and position when tried by the fires of persecution. they finally melted away and disappeared among the enemies of the covenant, as snowflakes falling on the mire. the protesters were the covenanters who continued with the lord jesus christ in his temptation. when the covenant called for martyrs, they were the martyrs. when the cause of christ demanded witnesses, they were the witnesses. they gave their testimony with a clear voice, and sealed it with their blood. these are they whose crimson path we will now follow, our lord jesus permitting, till we come to the last of scotland's honored roll--the pleasant, youthful, innocent james renwick. god requires his church to receive, proclaim, and defend the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, as it is in the lord jesus christ. this obligation is weighty, and the duty is difficult, yet no release is granted. the church that holds most truth should draw most people; the church that abandons any truth for any reason must be unsatisfying to honest souls. the organization that embodies the largest measure of god's word is the largest church; that which contains the smallest is the least. "whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven." these are the words of jesus. in his sight a church is measured, not by the number enrolled, but by the truth professed, incarnated, and proclaimed. * * * * * points for the class. . how long did oliver cromwell rule scotland? . how did he deal with the covenanted church? . how had the general assembly previously deteriorated? . give the downward steps. . what two parties henceforth in the church? . by whom was the truth preserved? . what principle governs the true followers of christ? . what distinguishes the largest church? xxii. an illustrious martyr.--a.d. . archibald campbell, the marquis of argyle, was the first martyr to suffer at the hand of king charles ii. twenty-two years had this illustrious nobleman been in special training for the honors of a martyr. he became identified with the covenanters at the general assembly of . from that time he brought his influence, wealth, power, and office into the service of his covenant lord, and grew mighty in the cause of god. he ripened early in convictions and hallowed experiences, which won for him the highest distinction conferred upon mortals--martyrdom. he was in the prime of his years, at the summit of his earthly career, when he gave his life for the cause of christ. he was a true warrior; every drop of his blood was electrified with heroism. in meeting death he felt the military spirit throb, but suppressing it he calmly said, "i could die as a roman, but choose to die as a christian." this was a cedar of lebanon, a choice tree of god, distinguished for its grace, strength, and height, towering above the trees of the forest. therefore the first blast struck it with such deadly force. then descended the terrific storm upon the lesser trees, and the mountain of god's house was strewn with them. the next twenty-eight years were filled with lamentation, and mourning, and woe. let us look at the condition of the covenanted church, as this age of horror settles down upon scotland. when cromwell had reduced scotland, he attempted to convert the covenanted church to congregationalism. though he possessed some amiable qualities, yet this ignoble work was attempted in the spirit of a turk--with the bible in one hand and the sword in the other. a resolution in favor of congregationalism was introduced in the general assembly of . this was voted down. the military suppression of the assembly at its next meeting was cromwell's bitter revenge. yet we must not fail to see the hand of god in the overthrow of the supreme court of his house. as with the temple at jerusalem before its destruction, this temple was already desolate; the glory had departed ere the storm of divine wrath smote it. the resolution of the "resolutioners," some years previous, favoring the repeal of the "act of classes," was a gross violation of the covenant, and the proceedings in the assembly had thereby degenerated into bitter debate. the assembly had lost its power for good and, therefore, its right to exist; this part of the golden candlestick had exhausted its oil and god removed the useless part. the church did not seem to be seriously affected by the abolition of the assembly. the process was more like the removal of a tumor than of a vital organ. god can do without the most excellent parts of the church's organization, when they become diseased and endanger the system with blood poisoning. during the rule of cromwell, the subordinate courts were mostly unmolested. the synods flourished; the presbyteries were uninterrupted in their work; the congregations enjoyed quietness and refreshing. the strife that existed in the church was chiefly among the shepherds, not among the sheep. there were synods, presbyteries, and congregations, when the persecution began under king charles ii. during cromwell's administration the land had rest; unusual quietness prevailed among the clans; there was a great calm. the four angels were holding the four winds of the earth, till the servants of god were sealed in their foreheads. the people were diligent in waiting upon the lord; the holy spirit fell upon them with power, they became intensely interested in the ordinances of grace. they clustered around the family altar, through the house of god, hallowed the sabbath, observed the sacraments, and tarried much in secret prayer. thus they were unwittingly preparing to enter the dreadful cloud. the vine was taking deep root, anticipating the storm that was in the air. when cromwell died the public mind experienced a strange reaction. the politicians of the two kingdoms, scotland and england, reverting from the severe discipline of the "protector," launched into every excess of luxuriousness and dissipation. a cry for the return of the profligate king swept the country from london to edinburgh. even the covenanters were loud in calling for the banished monarch. they determined not to be last in bringing back the king. they would, however, renew their allegiance to him only on condition that he would renew the covenant with them. from france, where he had found an asylum, came his captivating reply, "i am a covenanted king." he was received with enthusiastic demonstrations. king charles organized his government in scotland by immediately placing in power the most virulent enemies of the covenanters. within one month they were ready to execute whomsoever they would. the earl of middleton was the head official. when off his guard by indulging in drink, he divulged the king's secret instructions, confessing that he had been commissioned to do three things: ( ) rescind the covenant; ( ) behead argyle; ( ) sheath every man's sword in his brother's breast. argyle in those days was one of the great men of scotland, if not the greatest. he was recognized in the council as overshadowing his associates, in personal excellence, public-spiritedness, trustworthiness, and executive ability. he was a fine scholar, masterly statesman, wealthy landlord, brave soldier, and faithful covenanter. his magnificent estate lay in argyleshire, where the mountains are fringed with lochs in the most picturesque manner. the scenery is charming. one summer evening as our ship passed along the broken coast, a sunset of surpassing beauty scattered its blending colors in rich profusion over clouds, hills, vales, and lochs. the scenery was panoramic and enchanting. but greater gorgeousness than a thousand sunsets fell upon the outlook, at the remembrance of the famous argyle, himself and his wife and children; his home, hearth, altar, covenant, and martyrdom what incomparable grandeur where such hallowed associations throw their colors! when charles had first been placed on the throne, ten years previous, argyle had the honor of setting the crown upon his head. the king at that time feigned great friendship and respect for him. he sought, and received, counsel from argyle in apparent meekness and with evident appreciation. on one occasion he remained nearly all night with him in prayer, for preparation and fitness to rule the kingdom. he even sought argyle's daughter in marriage. such was the former intimacy of the king with argyle. but once again on the throne, he determined to crush the covenanters, and argyle was his first victim. when cromwell was conquering scotland, argyle fought him till further resistance was useless. he even then refused to sign the declaration of submission, but agreed to keep the peace. this agreement with cromwell was the main charge preferred against argyle. he was tried and convicted. the sentence was passed upon him on saturday; he was executed on the following monday. he eloquently defended himself. it was a scene highly tragical--this calm, innocent, dignified man, looking into the face of his accusers and over-awing them with his bold vindication, and pathetic appeal for justice. kneeling down he received his sentence, which was death by decapitation, his head to be placed above one of the city gates, as a gruesome warning to all covenanters. argyle arose from his knees and, looking upon his judicial murderers, calmly said, "i had the honor to set the crown on the king's head, and now he hastens me to a better crown than he owns." the real cause of his death was his devotion to the covenant, and the solemn admonitions he had tendered the king. his wife, hearing of the decree of death, hastened to his prison. "they have given me till monday to be with you," said he. the stricken woman was overcome. "the lord will require it; the lord will require it;" said she in tumultuous grief. "forbear, forbear!" replied argyle, "for i truly pity them: they know not what they do." he was filled with inexpressible joy at the thought of honoring christ with his blood the fear of death was gone heaven was so near; glory was ready to break upon him; the lord was soon to be seen face to face. he went to his execution like a prince to his coronation this was the stephen of that age, and this the persecution that scattered the covenanters. [illustration: argyle's daughter pleading argyle had two daughters, anne and mary. the young king, after having engaged to marry anne, forsook her. she became despondent and lapsed into insanity. mary, after her father's martyrdom, went to middleton, the king's commissioner, and on her knees begged the privilege of taking her father's head down from the netherbow port, a gate of the city, to bury it with the body. she was refused. middleton, pointing her to the door, rudely asked her to leave his presence in haste.] we are soft and puny for lack of hardships. the difficult places and dreaded conditions, through which christians pass, make life strong, sublime, triumphant, fruitful in good work, resourceful in the holy spirit, and glorifying to god. * * * * * points for the class who was marquis argyle? what service had he formerly rendered the king? describe the return of the king from banishment. how did the covenanters receive him? what was the nature of the government he established? what was his attitude toward the covenanters? who was his first victim? describe argyle's trial and execution. xxiii. resisting unto blood.--a.d. . king charles had put argyle to death. the head of the martyred nobleman had been placed above the prominent gate, called the netherbow port of edinburgh. there it remained four years, meeting the public gaze in the glare of day and in the gloom of night. and yet the sight had its charms. the broad brow and beneficent countenance still retained the expression of goodness and greatness. the sun-browned features and the wind-shaken locks, the motionless face and silent lips, made a touching appeal to the passers-by as they filed through the gateway. many hearts were softened, many eyes were moistened, many serious thoughts were awakened. the death of argyle only fired the ferocious spirit of the king. the tiger had tasted blood; now he must drink deeply of the crimson flood and satiate his cruel heart. with vengeful hatred he reached for samuel rutherford, the venerable minister of anwoth. neither feeble health nor grey hairs could elicit, the king's compassion. a rock never pulsates with kindness. but ere the officer could lay his hand upon this man of god, his lord and master took him home to heaven. james guthrie of stirling, a distinguished minister of christ, was the next upon whom the king set his cruel eyes. he was seized and thrust into prison to await trial for "high treason." high treason! what was high treason in those days? what had guthrie done to merit the king's mortal displeasure? here is the sum of his crimes: james guthrie had preached, spoken, written, voted, and protested against the "resolution" and the "resolutioners," because they had approved of the suspension of the moral test for office. he had written and published a message to the nation, entitled "the causes of god's wrath", pointing out the many breaches of the covenant, and pleading for repentance. he had declined the king's authority, when cited to be tried for ministerial services which his enemies accounted treasonable. he had advocated christ's supremacy over the church and over the nation, and had disputed the king's authority in ecclesiastical matters. for pursuing this course of action, james guthrie was charged with "high treason." but the rudest terms of the world and the basest charges made by men are often turned into heaven's fairest badges. the iron chains that manacled rutherford he called "gold"; he called his prison "the king's palace." how could guthrie have done otherwise, as a faithful minister of christ jesus, in the high calling of the gospel? was he not responsible for the honor of the church? was he not entrusted with the truth and claims and glory of christ? was he not accountable for the souls that waited on his ministry? guthrie had an exalted view of the gospel ministry. he had the eagle's eye to take in a wide horizon, and the lion's heart to meet dangers and difficulties. he took his instructions from the lord, and stood above the fear of man. he lived with the open bible in his hand; his soul delighted in the deep, broad sublime truths of salvation. the ministers of the covenant in those days dwelt in the bosom of jesus christ, breathed his spirit, saw his glory, pulsated with his love, and were irresistibly carried forward in the discharge of the duties of their high office. they served as the ambassadors of the king of heaven. only by dishonoring their office, vitiating their conscience, shrivelling their manhood, disowning their lord, and imperiling their souls, could christ's ministers do less than james guthrie had done. yet he was charged with "high treason." the trial was set for april , . guthrie came before the tribunal, full of peace and comfort. he answered for himself in a masterly speech. his pleading was deeply felt; some members of the court arose and walked out, saying, "we will have nothing to do with the blood of this righteous man." he was urged to retract. he was offered a high office in the episcopal church if he would accede to their terms. such inducements he held in contempt. neither threat nor reward could weaken his loyalty to the lord jesus christ and the covenant. the closing sentence of his defence was tender, fearless, and sublime: "my lords, my conscience i cannot submit; but this old crazy body and mortal flesh i do submit, to do with it whatever ye will, whether by death, or banishment, or imprisonment, or anything else; only i beseech you to ponder well what profit there is in my blood. it is not the extinguishing of me, or many others, that will extinguish the covenant and the work of reformation. my blood, bondage, or banishment will contribute more for the propagation of these things, than my life or liberty could do, though i should live many years." the death sentence was passed upon him. he was condemned to be hanged, his head to be placed above the city gate beside argyle's. he received the sentence with great composure. the execution was fixed for the first day of june. to those who sat in judgement on his case, he replied: "my lords, let this sentence never affect you more than it does me; and let my blood never be required of the king's family." in such cases doubtless the wife through sympathy is the greater sufferer. but mrs. guthrie was strong in the lord, and had courage equal to her trials. she was her husband's faithful helper in the difficult places. once when duty imperiled his life, and he was in danger of halting, she urged him on, saying, "my heart, what the lord gives you light and clearness to do, that do." noble words! nothing wiser or greater could come from consecrated lips. just before his death guthrie was permitted to see his son, willie, at that time five years old. the father tenderly fondled his child, so soon to become an orphan, and spoke words adapted to the innocent heart. so little did the child comprehend the terrible tragedy, that he could scarcely be restrained from playing on the street while his father was dying. but the meaning soon dawned upon him with melancholy effect. it is said that he never played again. the execution was public and the streets were thronged. guthrie mounted the scaffold with a cheerful spirit. he spoke with great deliberation and earnestness for one hour to the immense throng that crowded close to hear his last words. he then yielded himself to the executioner, who placed the death cap over his face. but, as the light of that bright june day was shut out from his eyes, a vision of entrancing joy seemed to break upon his soul. in that flash of inspiration he saw scotland: the land was covered with the glory of christ; peace filled all her borders, and prosperity crowned her industries; churches and schools adorned her hills and valleys; the mountains and moors were filled with devout worshipers; the sabbath poured forth its weekly blessings; the psalms arose with solemn music in praise to the lord jesus. the covenanted reformation, in that vision, was triumphant. lifting the cap from his eyes, he exclaimed with the rapture of a prophet, and with the shout of a conqueror: "the covenants, the covenants shall yet be scotland's reviving." [illustration: james guthrie. guthrie was an eminent minister of christ, and valiant defender of the covenant, in the reign of king charles ii. he was the second victim sacrificed to the king's rage against the covenanters. on the day of his execution he wrote a very touching letter to his wife. one quotation: "my heart, i commend you to the eternal love of jesus christ. pray for me while i am here, and praise with me hereafter. god be with you!" he died on the scaffold june , .] thus he died in the full assurance of victory. his head was affixed over the gate, where it remained many years. the sun bronzed the face, the storms smote it, the rains drenched it, the snows dashed against it, the winds swirled the white locks, the stars looked down in silence, the people looked up in sadness, but james guthrie was heedless of all. the soul was mingling with the redeemed in heaven and rejoicing in the presence of god. guthrie had gone home to be forever with the lord. little willie often came and sat near the gate, gazing up at the silent motionless head. he would stay there till night veiled the sombre features of his father. he seemed to be communing with the spirit that now lived above the stars. "where have you been, willie?" his mother would say, on his return. "i have been looking at father's head," he would sadly reply. the intense strain sapped his vitality and he died in early manhood. have we a conscience like that of the covenanted fathers? a conscience that cannot submit to a man? a conscience that can take instructions only from god? the surrender of conscience to man imperils the soul. * * * * * points for the class. . how did argyle's death seem to affect the king? . whom did he seize next? . what charge was preferred against guthrie? . what was the nature of that "high treason?" . how did he defend himself in court? . what sentence did he receive? . how did he reply? . relate an incident about his wife; his child. . what was his death cry? . what lesson here regarding a pure conscience? xxiv. source of the covenanters' power.--a.d. . the death of marquis argyle was the signal for the utter overthrow of the covenanted church in scotland. he was chief among the nobles who in those days stood by the covenant, and james guthrie was chief among the ministers. these mighty men quickly followed each other in watering god's vineyard with their own blood. the issue now between the king and the covenanters was clear, direct, unmistakable, beyond the possibility of evasion. both parties set themselves for the desperate struggle; henceforth compromise was out of the question. the king was determined to abolish the covenant, obliterate presbyterianism, establish episcopacy, and assume to himself the place, power, and prerogatives of the lord jesus christ, as head of the church. the covenanters disputed his right to these pretentious claims at every point. especially did they challenge his authority over the church, and testify against his blasphemous presumption. they looked with horror upon his attempt to grasp the crown of christ, that he himself might wear it. this they resented and resisted as treason against the king of kings. they could not submit to the man who clothed himself with christ's supremacy; that robe of royal priesthood must not be worn by mortal man. the covenanters grew very spirited and fearless in defence of the independence of the church. when these two leaders, argyle and guthrie, had been sacrificed, their enemies doubtless thought the people would be as sheep scattered upon the mountains without a shepherd. but the good shepherd was ever with them and gave them faithful ministers, who fed the flock amidst their wintry desolations. the covenanted church had noble sons to lift up the head of their fainting mother even when persecution was at its worst. the church of christ was very dear to these covenanters. they gazed with rapturous eyes upon her high origin, her mysterious character, her indescribable glory. she dwelt in the very heart of god; she was the bride of the son of god; she was clothed with the righteousness of god; she was adorned with all the excellencies of character god could lavish upon her. the church was the habitation of the holy spirit. the covenant was the marriage bond joining her to her lord and husband. the love of the covenanters for the church of the lord jesus arose in flames of jealousy when they saw a mere man, a dissolute and sinful man, attempt to woo her heart and alienate her affections from her lord and king. they could not endure it. her honor and purity were worth more to them than life itself. the testimony of the covenanters against the wrongs done the church was both pathetic and vehement, ranging all the way from tender tearful supplication, to pointed fearless denunciation. at times they spoke with meekness and hope, as if standing on the mount of beatitudes; again with severity and sadness, as if the voice came from the fiery summit of sinai. their eloquence in the sacred office matched the tenderness of the dove and the terribleness of thunder; distilled like the dewdrop and smote like pointed lightning. the sword of burnished steel they wielded to good purpose in self-defence, and the sword of the word they used with telling effect in the spiritual warfare for their lord and his church. the strength which the covenanters possessed and employed in battling for the rights of the church, and the prerogatives of their lord, amazes the contemplative mind. their power was always sufficient, new every morning, fresh every hour, inexhaustible under most excessive strains, and mighty to win moral victories everywhere. whence the power? what was its source? explain as we may the fortitude, inspiration, enthusiasm, exalted purpose, indestructible hope, and unconquerable faith of the covenanters under the cruel treatment and prolonged persecution they endured, we must reach the conclusion that their strength lay in their covenanted union with the lord jesus christ. being thus united, the god's strength was theirs. their covenant they cherished with holy awe; its sacredness lay heavy upon their hearts. it lifted the conscience up into the presence of god. his throne of judgment was continually flashing its brightness upon their eyes. a deep consciousness of god's presence, power, and approval, grew upon them. the dreadful majesty of god overawed them. the sacrificial love of jesus christ set their hearts on flames. the bible to them was teeming with promises, shining with doctrines, and terrible with fiery warnings. they walked on the border line, being often times even more in the other world than in this. the glory of the lord fell upon them, till some of them were compelled to cry out, "withhold, lord; it is enough." their trials drove them into the arms of their father; and, oh, how sweet it was to lie on his bosom when cold and hungry, weary and sobbing, amidst the sorrows of this world! but was this the happy condition of many, or merely of a few, in those days of sad adversity? how with the , covenanters while suffering in their homes, or roaming through the mountains, or hiding in the caves? we have a record of a few only, but we are persuaded that many others enjoyed an equal portion of the abounding love of christ. the promise of god is ever sure: "as thy days, so shall thy strength be." terrible days insure extraordinary strength. the lord had a great harvest in those times, ministers and people, men and women, parents and children--a generation of honored worthies. [illustration: the grassmarket. the grassmarket was the place where many martyrs were executed. the spot where the gallows stood is now marked by a circular pavement on the street. here cargill ascended the ladder, saying that he had less disturbance of mind than when he was ascending the pulpit. from this grim elevation the martyrs made many a touching address, as they uttered their last words, and bade farewell to earth and welcome to heaven.] samuel rutherford was one of that mighty host. his life reveals the secret and source of the covenanter's strength. he was a small man, not built to endure hardships. he was of a fair complexion, denoting gentleness and a tender heart. he was roughly tossed from his earliest years upon the billows of trouble. an invalid wife claimed his kindliest attention and received it with utmost care. the children were laid in short graves, one after another till only a little daughter remained. the persecutor drove him from home, and church, and people, to live an exile in an unfriendly city. at the age of sixty-one, the wrath of king charles fell upon him and his life was demanded, but god sheltered him from the gallows. through all these trials the heart of this little fair man, with shrill voice, rapid step, and quick eye, was ever an overflowing well of joy and praise. he seemed to live in the very heart of god, walked hand-in-hand with jesus christ, and was continually wrapped in the flames of holiest love. it is said that he rose at three in the morning to have five hours of prayer and study of the word in preparation for the day's work. he seemed to be always among his flock, yet was he ever ready for the pulpit. this minister, like his blessed master, could be seen, early and late, "leaping upon the mountains, and skipping upon the hills," in his eagerness to visit his people who were scattered widely over the country. as he walked, his head was erect and his face heavenward; his eyes were feasting on the glory above the sky. his musings cast him into transports of joy in christ. his covenant with god exalted his soul into sweetest familiarity with the lord. the holy spirit came upon him in great power and with superabundance of gifts. rutherford, having a high-keyed voice, was a poor speaker; but that did not prevent him from holding multitudes spell-bound. they came from afar to hear him tell of the love of christ. he gazed upon visions of christ's loveliness, arose in raptures of joy as he discoursed on christ's glory, and seemed at times as if he would fly out of the pulpit in his animation. he was so full of life, of power, of heaven, of glory, and of god, that his words and thoughts and teachings were pictures, revelations, inspirations, apocalypses, scenes in the eternal world, glimpses of the glory of immanuel and immanuel's land. here are some of his spiritual chromos as they took color and language from his soul: "my one joy, next to the flower of my joys, christ, was to preach my sweetest, sweetest master, and the glory of his kingdom. "i would beg lodging, for god's sake, in hell's hottest furnace, that i might rub souls with christ. "were my blackness and christ's beauty carded through other, his beauty and holiness would eat up my filthiness. "christ's honeycombs drop honey and floods of consolation upon my soul; my chains are gold." when rutherford was on his deathbed, his enemies sent for him to stand trial for treasonable conduct. his treasonable conduct was his fearless preaching of the gospel and heralding the royal glory of christ, which included severest denunciation of the king's arrogant claim of authority over the church. he replied, "tell them i have got a summons already before a superior judge, and i behoove to answer my first summons; and ere your day come, i will be where few kings and great folks come." as he lay dying, he opened his eyes, and his familiar vision of christ and the world of glory breaking upon him with unclouded luster, he exclaimed: "glory, glory in immanuel's land." with this outburst of joy on his lips, he joined the white-robed throng to take up the heavenly song. the same source of strength is yet available. power comes through holy familiarity with god, personal relation to christ, and the indwelling of the holy spirit. are we full of power in the lord's service? * * * * * points for the class. . what event intensified the issue between the king and the covenanters? . wherein lay the moral strength of the covenanters? . how did they show their love for the church of christ? . what aroused their jealousy for the church? . how numerous were the covenanters at this time? . give the character of rutherford as a typical covenanter. . quote some of his sayings. . relate his triumphant death. . on what condition may we expect to be strong in the lord? xxv. expelling the ministers.--a.d. . "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." in the martyrdom of argyle and guthrie blood of the best quality had been shed, and the most precious seed had been sown. therefore the harvest will surely be great, the field will yield an hundredfold. the fidelity of argyle and of guthrie, their devotion to christ and the covenant, reappeared in hundreds of noblemen and in hundreds of ministers all over scotland. overawe and subdue the covenanters by sacrificing their prominent leaders? their foes mistook their spirit and underestimated their strength, knowing little of the deathless principles of the covenant that carried them into the service of the lord, not counting their lives dear for christ's sake. the covenanters overawed! will the sun faint and fail beneath the gale? will the oak wither at the loss of a few boughs? will veterans recoil at the first fire? rather, will not the fighting spirit be roused? at this time the covenanters numbered about , ministers, and , communicants. they had congregations. the ministers were not all staunch; the leaven of compromise had been working; half the number had become more or less infected. they had weakened in the covenant and yielded to king charles under his vicious administration. the political whirlpool in its outside circles was drawing them slowly yet surely toward its horrible vortex. the sifting time had come for the covenanters. god knows how to shake his sieve to clean the wheat. he seeks not bulk, but value. numbers are nothing to him; character is everything. he would rather have gideon with men up to the standard, than thirty regiments below it. he preferred one-tenth of israel to the whole number, and sifted the nation in nebuchadnezzar's sieve to get the good wheat separated from the inferior. the covenanted church became loaded down with chaff, weevil, shrunken grains, and broken kernels--low grades of religious life--and the lord shook the bad out of the church by making it exceedingly painful and difficult to stay in. the way of faithfulness was filled with hardships. god made covenant-keeping dangerous and expensive. the followers of christ were compelled to take up the cross and carry it. if true to their lord, they must go outside the camp, bearing his reproach. if they keep conscience pure, they must accept cruel mockings, scourging, imprisonment, banishment, and death. in this way would god separate unto himself a "peculiar people, zealous of good works." the others may be of use in degree, yet to prevent general defection and universal declension, god winnows the wheat. but who were thrown out of the presbyterian church in the reign of charles ii.? were they not the strong, unyielding, uncompromising covenanters? who are these separated from their brethren, and driven like chaff before the wind over mountains and moors? are they not the zealous defenders of the reformed faith? the true soldiers of jesus christ? to the casual eye the scrupulous, strong-headed, hard-fighting covenanters were tossed out, and the rest remained at home to distribute the prey; the lax party had the organization and held the church; the strict party suffered disintegration and were banished. but such a view is only superficial; yea, it is a visual illusion. the church of christ depends not on external organization. she can live without assemblies, presbyteries, or sessions. she can enjoy the fullest measure of the love of christ without chapels, masses, or glebes. she can have power and render service in any community, without ministers, elders, or deacons. when the covenanters were driven out by the persecutor, the covenanted church went forth into the wilderness, leaning upon the lord jesus christ her beloved. she brought with her all the essentials. she had the bible, the covenant, the faith, the sacraments, the holy spirit, the love of god, and the presence of the lord jesus christ. the valleys were her places of worship; her meeting houses were fitted up with stone seats, rock pulpits, granite walls, green carpets, and azure ceilings. a row of stones was her sacramental table, and the purling stream her baptismal bowl. the mountains round about were filled with angelic hosts, and the plains were covered with the manna of heaven; the banner of christ's love waved over the worshipers, and the glory of god filled the place. such was the church of the covenanters in the times of persecution. the king and his advisers in required of the covenanted church what no faithful self-respecting covenanter could render. the demands in substance were: that the oath of allegiance, embodying the king's supremacy over church and state, shall be taken. that the ministers in preaching and praying shall not refer to public sins, whether committed by the king or his parliament. that the administration of the church shall be, to some extent, according to the prelatic form. that the edicts of the king and the enactments of parliament shall not be questioned, even in the light of god's word. that the ministers shall comply with these demands, or be banished from their respective homes, parishes, and presbyteries. such was the sieve that did the work. what loyal heart could brook these terms? what minister of christ, bent on preserving honor and conscience, could remain in charge of his church? in comparison with the covenant, all earthly inducements were as rotten straw, in the judgment of those whose eyes took in the world of glory and rested on the lord. two hundred covenanted ministers quietly accepted the penalty. on the last sabbath of october, , they preached their farewell sermons. the churches were crowded; the grief of the people was indescribable, heart-groans broke into loud lamentations. "there was never such a sad day in scotland as when the poor persecuted ministers took their leave of their people." two hundred more stood their ground and fought the battle a little longer. these were forcibly ejected. thus that desolating blast smote four hundred congregations of covenanters. the minister with his wife and children departed in deep sorrow from the pleasant manse and the loving people. tender ties were sundered and holy endearments sacrificed; the comforts of life were abandoned, and safety, shelter, and supplies left behind. the minister could have retained all had not his conscience been so tender. but the servant of the lord may not be bribed. offer the true minister of jesus christ money, comfort, pleasure, honor, houses, lands--all that the world can give to corrupt his conscience in his calling, and you will get a laugh of scorn that will freeze the blood. [illustration: john welch, ejected from his church john welch, of irongrey, was a grandson of the famous john welch, of the first reformation. he was one of the covenanted ministers who were driven from their pulpits by the kings edict in . his congregation, overwhelmed with sorrow, followed him till they came to a brook where they kneeled down and prayed. mounting his horse he rode away while they rent the air with their bitter wails.] the winter storms were descending upon the man of god and his unprotected family, as they walked across the glebe to return no more. they went out, not knowing where they were going. night may fall upon them in a dreary place; to-morrow may come to them without a roof, or a table, or a fire. winter may drive them into a cold cave, where possibly some good-hearted shepherdess may find them, and share with them her pail of milk and oaten cakes. withal no complaints. they have taken joyfully the spoiling of their goods for the sake of christ. by them the reproach of christ was accounted better than the riches of egypt. alexander peden was one of the fighting ministers. he preached till forced to leave his pulpit. on the day of his farewell service the congregation was convulsed with grief. peden had to restrain the wails of the people again and again. coming down from the pulpit after service, he shut the pulpit door and struck it three times with his bible, saying with great emphasis, "i charge thee, in my master's name, that no man ever enter thee, but such as come in by the door as i have done." the pulpit kept the solemn charge; no one entered there till after the persecution; it remained empty twenty-six years. prelatic ministers were sent to fill the vacant pulpits, but the people refused to hear them. the time of field-preaching had now come; the conventicles in the mountains and moors became the order of the day. the ministration of the gospel of jesus christ--that river of god which makes glad the city of the lord--had now reached the precipitous places where it was broken upon the rocks; yet it continued to flow, and even increase in volume and strength. the preaching by these ministers in the desolate places was powerful, impetuous, majestic, thunder-like amid the mountains, making the kingdom tremble. great trials make great men. we live in an easy age. ministers may now have pulpit and salary on easy terms. they can preserve a good conscience without special self-denial. no providential issue now to separate the false from the true. but the ease of conscience in the church's ministry, and the easy terms of communion in her membership, may change god's gold and make it dim with dross, and thus necessitate a furnace. the lord may suddenly spring an event upon his church, that will compel the true to be very true, and the false to be very false. where will we stand in case the trial come? * * * * * points for the class. . what effect had the death of argyle and guthrie on the covenanters? . how does god keep his church pure? . why is the sifting process needed? . can the church survive the loss of her external organization? . describe the covenanted church in the mountains and moors of scotland. . what did the king require of the ministers? . how did the covenanters receive his restrictions? . how many pastors were driven from their churches? . what may again occasion a sifting time? xxvi. the field-meetings.--a.d. . middleton, the king's commissioner, had dictated to the covenanted ministers how they should conduct their ministry. they boldly declined his authority over their work in the gospel. he then laid down conditions upon which their pastoral relation must depend. these conditions have been stated in the foregoing chapter. they may be summed up in three brief sentences: acknowledgement of the king's supremacy over the church; agreement to refrain from all public criticism of the king; willingness to conduct public worship as the king directed. such were the terms on which the covenanted ministers might continue their work. they were given one month to reach a decision. the conflict of interests that tried the famous ministers none knew but god. home, wife, children, salary, comfort, tender ties, future supplies, and the welfare of the congregation--oh, how much was involved in that decision! can the husband, the father, the shepherd, the watchman arise and forsake all? can he suspend the high calling, sunder the holy ties, abandon the field and flock, and go forth, not knowing whither he goeth? can flesh and blood endure the ordeal? but look at the other side. will the servant of the lord take orders from man? will the ambassador of god submit to be muzzled? will a pastor of christ's flock hold his position for what he finds in the flesh-pot? will the preacher of righteousness connive at wickedness? will the herald of gospel liberty become a slave to vilest men? such was the other outlook. which way will the man of god take? the lord made the way of faithfulness hard to travel. only they, who, like caleb, followed the lord wholly, could walk therein. to make this choice, the love of the lord jesus christ had to arise in the heart and surge through all the veins, above love for wife, or children, or house, or lands, or brethren, or sisters, or self; and it must consume all these in the flames of its vehemence. and the lord made the wrong way, also, hard to travel; yea, impassable, except for those whose sin against light made them exceeding sinful. what more vile, degraded, contemptible, and criminal, than a minister of christ, that is leased to an earthly power, purchased with things that perish, and controlled by designing men? in this manner would god separate the precious from the vile and put them far apart. [illustration: preaching in the mountains. the conventicle preachers were men of dauntless courage. their souls had firmly grasped the tremendous verities of the gospel and kingdom of christ, and the word of god was as fire in their bones. they chose texts that resounded like artillery. just before cargill was offered up, he preached from the words: "gird thy sword on thy thigh, o most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty!" how that seraphic preacher swayed the people with that discourse has not been told.] on november , , three-fourths of the covenanted ministers were brought to this valley of decision. the king's edict took effect upon those who had been settled within the past thirteen years; the others, for the time, were exempted. about , therefore, stood at the parting of the ways. of this number about sixty per centum chose to suffer with christ, that they might reign with him; the rest, being faint-hearted, abode by the stuff. all honor to the church that could muster such a proportion of self-sacrificing, ministers! these men accepted the challenge and went forth, like soldiers, into the field of action, saying, "we will continue the conflict till we overcome, or hand it down in debate to posterity." four hundred ministers expelled from their congregations! four hundred churches left vacant! four hundred families rendered desolate! forty thousand of god's sheep, and as many lambs, left to wander in the wilderness without a shepherd! who can estimate the extent of such a calamity? who can reckon the sorrows, sufferings, and stupendous losses, public and private, caused by this iniquitous act of the king? but the four hundred ministers were not silenced. who can silence tongues of fire? they were scattered, but not conquered. they took shelter where it could be found--under friendly roofs, within dismal caves, under dripping moss-hags, in the open fields, and on mountain tops. they wandered over desolate moors and on lonely ridges. they suffered hunger, weariness, sickness, exposure. the rains of summer drenched them and the snows of winter stiffened them. they were clothed with plaids, shawls, and threadbare garments. they hastened from place to place to elude pursuers, and wherever they went they carried their bibles. the bible to them in their desolation was meat, drink, light, shelter, fellowship,--everything the soul could wish. these men of god were devoted preachers, they loved to preach, had a passion for preaching. the word of god that carried them into such excess of suffering was in their bones as fire, an unquenchable flame; and in their hearts as rising waters, an overflowing river. as christ their lord and master preached in summer and in winter, in the house and in the field, to as many as came, so preached they to one soul, or to ten thousand. the king sent detachments of his army over the country to compel the people, who had lost their pastors, to attend services under the ministers of the episcopal church. they refused. the new clergymen preached to empty pews in many of the covenanted parishes. the covenanters instinctively discovered the haunting places of their own ministers, and thither they repaired for their preaching. they traveled far that they might hear the precious gospel, in its richness and fulness from consecrated lips. they were hungry for the word of god and willingly incurred hardships and dangers to get a feast. these meetings at first were small; in time they developed into the great conventicles at which thousands assembled to worship god. a conventicle sabbath was a solemn day. the time and place having been fixed beforehand, the people were notified in a very private manner. a kind of wireless telegraphy seemed to have been operated by the covenanters. the news spread and thousands came at the call. the place selected was usually in the depression of a lonely moor, or under the shelter of a desolate mountain; yet any spot was dangerous. the king had issued successive proclamations against the conventicles, and his troops were constantly scouring the country in search of them. the services were of necessity sensational. at the appointed time the people were on the ground. many came a great distance, some of them traveling under the shades of night. from every direction they converged. fathers and mothers with their sons and daughters were there. the young and the old were equally full of zeal, and the women were courageous as the men. on the way they would cannily scan the country from the hilltop, to see if the dreaded dragoons were in sight. the hour for the service having arrived, the audience sat down upon the grass or on the rocks. the minister took his stand on a prominent spot. sentinels occupied elevated points, from whence they could detect and report the approach of troops. the mountain extended its friendly shelter over the congregation. the sun shed its light upon them like the smile of their heavenly father. the sky spread over them as the canopy of god's high throne. the winds swept through the bushes and over the heather with regaling freshness. this was god's sanctuary built without hands; here his people worshiped in spirit and in truth. the minister from his granite pulpit would catch the inspiration. the waiting people, the earnest faces, the gleaming eyes, the solemn hour, the charming scenery, the occasion, the danger, the privilege, the responsibility, the presence of god, the nearness of heaven--how much here to awaken all that was noble, courageous, and overpowering in god's messenger! the fiery, pathetic, powerful eloquence, that echoed among those rocks and swept through the coves, was beyond the reporter's skill. here heaven touched earth; eternity overlapped time; glory overspread the worshipers. these were days when that which is most sacred, awful, and sublime burdened men's souls. here holy oratory distilled like dew, breathed like zephyrs, crashed like storms, leaped like devouring flames. the recorded sermons of these ministers are yet regarded as the very marrow of christian literature. have we the zeal of these fathers for the house of our god? are we carried to the place of worship at the appointed hour by our love for jesus christ? one glance at the enthusiasm of the conventicle covenanters would surely make the present generation blush. * * * * * points for the class. . state the demands commissioner middleton made upon the covenanted ministers. . how would such a demand agitate the mind? . how long had they to decide? . what proportion remained faithful under the trial? . in what way did these continue their ministry? . describe a conventicle service. . how will present zeal for divine services compare with their zeal? xxvii. the covenanters' communion.--a.d. . the lord jesus christ loves his church with love that arises into flames. "i am jealous for jerusalem and for zion with a great jealousy." the church is his bride, his well-beloved, his only one; he has bestowed his heart upon her. the love of jesus for his church has ever been excessive in intensity. his blood was shed for her redemption. love laid him on the altar, where his life was consumed for her sake. it laid all covenant blessings at her feet, placed the angelic hosts at her service, made the universe tributary to her welfare, opened heaven for her admission, prepared her throne at the right hand of god, and gave the eternal ages to her for service and enjoyment, in jesus christ her lord. and this love has never abated; his voice resounds across the centuries, falling upon her ears in sweetest accents, saying, "i have loved thee with an everlasting love." the lord jesus asks the church for reciprocal love. it is his due; christ is worthy; nothing less than vehement love will satisfy the divine heart. the apostle, in dread of its subsidence, cries out, "keep yourselves in the love of god." how readily the church, in interest and zeal, becomes cold. her spiritual pulse sinks till it is scarcely perceptible; the flames disappear, and the coals lie hidden in their own grey ashes. with such conditions the lord is vexed. he gently chides his inconstant bride, saying, "thou hast left thy first love. remember therefore from whence thou art fallen; repent, and do the first works." then in unwaning faithfulness he tenderly soliloquizes: "behold, i will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her; and she shall sing as in the days of her youth." the covenanted church was now in the wilderness; the lord had brought her hither, that he might woo her back to himself, and revive her first love. here he spake to her heart the words that rekindled the fires of her earliest and strongest devotion to the covenant, that holy contract of her marriage to the lord. the loving fidelity of the , covenanters, or more, who had been deprived of their ministers by king charles, was severely tested. the lord jesus, in his crucial providence, was to them as a refiner's fire; their love was sorely tried in the terrible heat. the first question that appealed to the heart was concerning comfort and convenience. their churches were occupied by other ministers. there the people could have preaching, hear the word, listen to prayers, sing psalms, and receive baptism and the lord's supper. true, the services were spiced and ornamented with details, which the covenanters disliked, because they were unscriptural. but could they not find hidden manna on the sand, and kernels of wheat in the chaff? could they not get sufficient food in the new ministrations to sustain their souls? could they not reach heaven by the new road as certainly as by the old? such were the inquiries that appealed to their love of ease. these sturdy sons of the covenant said, "no." they said it, too, with emphasis like the lightning that strikes the oak. they said, "public worship, not in all parts according to the book of god, is corrupt; we will not participate in such services, for the lord has said, 'cursed be the deceiver, that sacrificeth unto the lord a corrupt thing.'" the second question was concerning the imminent dangers that attended their own services. their meetings were held in distant places; in the lonely mountain, on the homeless moor, in the swampy moss, in the dark glen, among the rugged rocks, and in the dreary cave--just wherever they could find a place to worship god in peace. they had no roof for shelter, no walls to break the storm, no fires for heat. attending these meetings involved travel, weariness, hunger, exposure, loss of sleep, shivering in the cold, every physical strain, besides the risk of life, liberty, and property, at the hands of the enemy. these heroic sons and daughters of the covenant said, "we will go; if we perish, we perish; though he slay us, yet will we trust in him." these covenanters would not habituate themselves to sinful conditions, nor permit their conscience to be drugged with the love of ease. they had much of the spirit of paul; they counted all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of christ. they consulted not with flesh and blood; not even with their own flesh, which was often wasted with hunger, fatigue, and pain; nor with their own blood, which was frequently sprinkled on the heather and mingled with the mountain rill. the conventicles, held in these desolate resorts, were awe inspiring, especially the communions. many of the people journeyed at night toward the selected spot, for troops were overrunning the country to shoot them down, and day travel was extremely dangerous. they therefore followed their path in the light of the stars, or under the pale moon. they came from all directions, converged like streams at the place appointed, and spread out like an overflowing tide. sometimes they numbered , , and more. men and women, young and old, came and sat down on the broad green, in quietness and with unwonted gravity. the men in their kilts, plaids, and caps; the women in shawls and plain clothes; the boys and girls beaming and bright, and dressed in their best--all gathered together, sitting down on the grass or on the rocks. what an inspiration to the minister, when opening his bible he gazed upon the earnest faces and caught the gleam of those expectant eyes! [illustration: the covenanters' communion. these communions were very spiritual and solemn. the people came in great numbers into the solitudes of the mountain and moorlands, and there renewed their covenant at the lord's table. the danger added much to the awe and reverence of these meetings.] saturday was preparation day for the communion. preparation services sometimes lasted till sunset several ministers were usually in attendance. at night the grave old elders would meet in clusters, under the shadow of a rock, or in a cave, or beside the murmuring brook, and spend hours in prayer. with the dawn of sabbath the people were astir, and soon appeared again on the grounds. then began the solemn services that lifted their souls into the heavens of joy, and brought them into the glorious presence of jesus christ. we may receive an impression of the greatness of these occasions, from memorials yet to be seen on some of the sacred places where the communions were held. certain stones near the town of irongrey remain as witnesses of these inspiring solemnities. the stones were evidently on the ground, as witnesses of the wonderful doings of god and his people, in the days of the conventicles. oh, that they could speak! this place is in the bosom of a mount. here we find an open space, like unto an amphitheater, large enough to seat thousands. on this ground are two rows of stones each row high enough for a seat, and long enough to accommodate fifty persons. between them, other stones stand upright, which evidently supported planks, on which the bread and wine were passed in front of the communicants. at a little distance are two other rows of similar construction. here were accommodations for at one table service. on one occasion, it is said, sixteen tables were served, the number of communicants on that day being no less than , . at one end of these four rows stands a small table of stone, from which, no doubt, the minister gave the bread and wine to the people. here he made the table addresses, that were so sweet and refreshing to these weary souls. what solemn days these must have been. hungry hearts found a feast in the desert. the wells of salvation overflowed; the palm trees of sacred ordinances shed their sweet fragrance, spread forth their shade, yielded their fruit, for these followers of the lamb. the presence of the lord was deeply felt. these covenanters worshiped here in spirit and in truth. their prayers ascended on the wings of the winds; the sound of the psalms mingled with the song of the birds and the chant of the brooks. the eloquence of the preacher--now rising like the storm, now falling like a spring shower--now consoling the sad, now arousing the strong--now exhibiting the loveliness of jesus, now depicting the woes of the lost--in its ever-varying notes of tenderness and power, echoed along the hillside, and died away in the distance. some of these sermons are yet in print. these have been regarded, by certain writers, as the greatest days of the church since the times of the apostles. how bright and refreshing the sunshine that poured down from the spiritual heavens upon these covenanters! the desert rejoiced and blossomed as the rose. heaven was very near. one who survived the persecution said, that if he had any part of his life to live over again, he would choose these years. * * * * * points for the class. . how should the church respond to the love of christ? . in what way does her love often fail? . how does jesus reprove his people for growing feeble in love? . how has he sometimes undertaken to revive his church's fidelity? . what two questions did the covenanters face in attending conventicle services? . describe a conventicle communion. . what memorials are found at irongrey? . how may we have the same rapturous joy at communions now? xxviii. the home invaded.--a.d. . home, by divine appointment, is a haven of rest for the weary father, a palace of honor for the virtuous mother, a citadel of defence for the helpless children. how sacred, pleasant, and ennobling is the christian home, when modeled after the divine pattern! it is a little paradise, a miniature heaven, a vestibule of the everlasting habitation; it fronts on the borders of the glory-world. the home of the covenanters in those days was mostly the abode of virtue and intelligence, of comfort in the holy spirit and abundant grace in the lord jesus christ. the knowledge of god was the light in which the household dwelt. the language of the shorter catechism was the mother tongue; the children were dieted on psalms and porridge; the family altar was indispensable; the holy bible was appreciated more than bread, and king david's poetry more than roast lamb. the father's prayer at the hearthstone was vital to the household as the breath of their nostrils; morning and evening the voice of parents and children mingled together in the worship of god. to the family that kept covenant with god the sabbath came with peculiar loveliness and inspiration. on saturday evening special preparation was made for the coming of the lord's day; even the turf was piled beside the fire, the potatoes were washed and in the pot, and the water carried from the spring; "the works of necessity and mercy" were reduced to a minimum. a solemn hush fell upon the fields, and a heavenly light gleamed upon the house, as the sun ascended the sky. the noise of labor had ceased, and the human voice was suppressed. the notes of a plover, or the bleating of a lamb, or the lowing of a cow, might be heard making the quietness all the more impressive. the morning came pouring out blessings upon the people, like christ jesus on the mount of beatitudes, filling every open heart with sweetness, holiness, and inspiration. the blessed morning came to lead the father and mother, with their sons and daughters, up into the mountain of god's house, to stand in the presence of the lord of glory, and absorb the brightness that would shine in their faces for many days to come. the sabbath was the great day of the week in the covenanter's home. let us get a glimpse of these homes of the covenanters, as they suffered when the storms of persecution swept the land. but will not the dwelling-place of the righteous be protected from harm? will not the lord, in his glorious presence, hover over them as a cloud by day and as a flaming fire by night? hath he not said, "upon all the glory shall be a defence?" shall the cruel persecutor then have power to tread on that sacred threshold? may the ruthless slayer enter this little sanctuary, where god and his children dwell together in mutual and unquenchable love? will the wicked be permitted to draw the sword, and quench the coals on the hearth, and the fire on the altar, with the blood of the worshipers? the answer is found in the story of the sufferings of the covenanters. god had now begun judgment at his own house. he was testing the fidelity of his people. the test must touch every point, cover every relation, and reach the degree of suffering that satisfies his mysterious will. god cares much, even for houses, fields, harvests, garners, comforts, conveniences, earthly ties--he cares much for all these as they affect his people. he cares infinitely more, however, for their moral cleanness, spiritual growth, untarnished fidelity, unconquerable faith, and everlasting honor. therefore he permits the furnace to be heated, and sometimes heated sevenfold; yet he brings them out of the flames without the smell of fire on their garments. the persecutors, heartless as the rocks and frigid as the iceberg, had equal disregard for the rights of men, the delicacy of women, and the innocency of children. a few incidents will show the general conditions. nor are these exceptional cases; thousands, yea, tens of thousands suffered in like manner. [illustration: the howie home, lochgoin. the house is located in one of scotland's solitudes. here the howies have lived for successive generations, keeping the altar fire burning since . the present house is modern, bearing the date ; john howie, the present occupant, ( ), is the th lineal descendant of one of the first settlers. we had the pleasure of meeting this genial scotchman in his meadow, as he was making hay one fine august day. he immediately laid his fork aside, and brought us to his house, where we were deeply interested in a fine collection of souvenirs of the martyrs and their times.] a home at lochgoin. this is a very ancient residence of the covenanters. the howies have lived here since , the twenty-eighth generation now occupying the house. the building is stone, one story high, with a loft. while the persecution raged, this was a chief resort of the covenanters. occupying a solitary place, with a vast out-stretch of waste moorland on every side, this house was like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land: the pursued often found shelter under its roof. hither peden, cameron, renwick, paton, and many others repaired, and found a cordial welcome. on one occasion a group had come to spend the night in prayer. they felt comparatively secure, because a storm was raging over the moor. the clouds were pouring down torrents, and the fitful gusts were playing wildly across the broad expanse of moss and heather. these men of god knew how to wrestle with the angel of the covenant, and betimes continued their prayers till the break of day. the pursuers had scented their game; in the morning a detachment of cavalry rode up to the house. the covenanters escaped through the back door. to give them more time, mrs. howie stood in front of the soldiers, and disputed their entrance into the house. a burly dragoon attempted to push in. she grappled him by the shoulder, whirled him about, and shoved him out with such force that he fell to the ground. her covenanted guests all escaped, and the soldiers, after a fruitless pursuit, withdrew. for this heroic service mrs. howie suffered much and her life was sought. often she had to leave her home, and spend whole nights in the cold, damp moor, with a tender babe on her breast. a home near muirkirk. james glendinning was a shepherd whose humble cottage escaped not the notice of the persecutor. knowing the danger that enshrouded his home, he arose one evening from his knees after family worship, and, walking softly across the floor, uncovered the cradle and gently lifted the babe, which he tenderly placed on the mother's knee, saying, "i commit you, my dear wife, and this sweet babe to the fatherly care of the great shepherd of israel. if my days be cut short, god, the god under whose shadow we have taken refuge, will be to you a husband, and to this child a father." not long after this, the home was beset by a company of soldiers. that very night his wife had constrained him to retire to his hiding-place near by. the soldiers rudely rushed into the house, expecting to pounce upon him as their prey. not finding him they were enraged. seizing the infant, they held the struggling form up in the face of the frantic mother, and, flashing a glittering sword, threatened to cut it into pieces, if she did not reveal the hiding-place of her husband. at that moment the father, who had been attracted to the door, seeing the manoeuvres, rushed in. his soul was on fire; he was just then strong as ten men; he feared not consequences. "hold, ye murderers! back! back!" cried he, waving his sword in their faces. he sprang toward his babe and rescued it, while he used his sword with telling effect upon the intruders. the soldiers retreated, leaving the floor sprinkled with their blood. the family soon afterward removed to holland. a home near closeburn. james nivison was a farmer whose hospitable home afforded comfort and shelter to many who were houseless. he was an unbending covenanter. nothing could daunt his noble soul. being threatened with trouble and loss, he once replied, that if the turning of a straw, in obedience to unprincipled and arbitrary rulers, would save him from harm, he would not comply. his wife was of equal heroism. his home was so often beset by soldiers in search of him, that he had to retire to the solitudes. he one day said to his wife, "my dear wife, stern necessity demands our temporary separation. god will be with us both--you at the home, and me in the wilderness." "i will accompany you," she firmly replied; "i will accompany you. if the archers hit you, i will be there to staunch your wounds and to bind up your bleeding head. in whatever danger you may be, i will be at your side, your affectionate wife, in life or in death." they went out together. sadly they closed the door of their pleasant home, to wander, not knowing where. the mother carried a tender little babe in her bosom. their first retreat was found in the woods, then in different caves. they made a basket of twigs for the infant. the mother, sitting in the mouth of the cold cavern, would rock her little darling, and sing the soft lullabies that mingled with the sighing of the winds. they survived the persecution. sweet home! the covenanted home is but an annex of heaven. home is god's institution, endowed by him with the wealth of infinite grace, furnished with holy ordinances, and consecrated with the blood of christ. do we appreciate the value, the dignity, and the advantage of a covenanted home? do we keep the home bright, cheerful, and inspiring, by worshiping our covenant god, and honoring the presence of our lord jesus christ? * * * * * points for the class. . describe a covenanted home of the olden time. . what distresses fell upon these homes? . can we account for these afflictive providences? . what is the explanation? . give an incident at lochgoin; muirkirk; closeburn. . how should a covenanted home be appreciated? xxix. the battle of rullion green.--a.d. . a young covenanter once stood on the battlefield of rullion green, pensively pondering over the battle and the heroes whose blood had watered this soil. two centuries and more had fled since the engagement, yet the field appealed to the responsive heart with powerful eloquence. the beautiful slope, the verdant pasture, the grazing flocks, the broad valley, the distant hills, the expansive sky, the summer charms--all blended into a strange enchantment around the young man's soul. the quiet meditation quickened the heart; the heart aroused the imagination; the imagination revived the scenes of november , , by which this field was made memorable in the struggle of the covenanters for civil and religious liberty. he was deeply impressed with the value of the covenant, which was sealed with the blood of the noble warriors who sleep on this hillside. there he vowed, that if god would ever give him a home of his own, the home would be called rullion green. god gave him a home; a beautiful residence, adorned with this name, graces the city of airdrie to-day. the battle of rullion green had its cause many days previous to the actual engagement. we will get the better view by following the chain of events. four years before this, to the very month, four hundred ministers had been expelled from their churches, because they would not forsake their covenant, renounce presbyterianism, and follow the instructions of king charles and his council, in the administration of god's house. the covenanted people, deeply in sympathy with their ministers, refused to wait on the preaching of the curates--the ministers of the episcopal church sent by the authority of the king to supply the vacant pulpits. a series of proclamations was then issued to bring the covenanters into subjection, each proclamation being severer than the one preceding. the people were enjoined to attend their own parish church, warned against going to the conventicles, and threatened with fines, imprisonment, and exile for frequenting what the king termed "unwarrantable preaching." to enforce the royal will and overawe the covenanters, troops were stationed among the people and commissioned to plunder and kill the disobedient at will. the sufferings of the covenanters, at the hands of the soldiers, were indescribable. their homes were invaded; their property was confiscated; their flocks and herds were driven off; their families were broken up; the aged and delicate, the women and children--all who would not yield to their demands endured personal violence. the country groaned and staggered under the cruelty authorized by king charles, and practiced by his agents. conditions became desperate; the wise were driven mad; patience ceased to be a virtue; endurance was at the point of conflagration. thousands had to flee and keep in hiding, to escape personal harm and even the shedding of their blood. at this juncture of events, four young covenanters, fleeing from place to place for safety, came to a dwelling, where they found four dragoons preparing to roast an old man on a gridiron, to extract information concerning his money. the sight shocked every noble feeling; their manhood was aroused, and their courage was greater than their prudence. they challenged the conduct of the soldiers, and were answered with drawn swords. the covenanters came off best. they rescued the aged victim, disarmed the soldiers, and marched them off at the point of their own sabers. in the fight one of the covenanters fired a pistol, wounding a dragoon. that was "the shot that echoed around the world," and re-echoed, till it resounded over the green valley of the boyne, among the rocks of bunker hill, and along the banks of the appomattox. the covenanters knew that they had now precipitated a conflict, that would call armies into the field. the king's measures have hitherto been severe, but now the furnace will be heated seven fold. the covenanters must now meet force with force, or be utterly crushed. they attempted to raise an army. next morning, the four men were increased to ten, and a second encounter resulted in the capture of a detachment of the king's regulars, with one dead. the second day volunteers swelled the number to ; the prospects were growing bright. another engagement resulted in the surrender of sir james turner, the local commander of the royal forces. thus far the operations greatly encouraged the covenanters; they now hoped to be able to redress their grievances, and compel the king to withdraw his army, thus bringing the horrors of those times to an end. king charles hastily prepared to meet the new conditions. he termed the uprising, "a formidable insurrection." he massed his troops to crush "the rebels." the covenanters spent their time moving from one town to another to increase their forces. colonel james wallace, a brave officer of considerable military experience, was chosen commander. the recruits were not numerous. they were also without discipline, and inefficiently armed, carrying muskets, pistols, swords, pikes, scythes, pitchforks, and flails. [illustration: gravestone at rullion green. the stone, three feet by two, stands at the head of this battlefield. beautiful firs pensively wave their soft branches over the grave. here lies the dust of the covenanters who fell on the sloping field in front of the stone. on that day it was covered with sleet. the fallen lay all night, some stiffened in death, and others benumbed with the sharp november winds. the next morning, the good women of edinburgh came, with shrouds for the dead, and blankets for the living, all having been stripped by the foe.] at lanark they remained a day, renewing their covenant and issuing a public declaration, stating that the object of their appeal to arms was the redress of their grievances. the next day they manoeuvred, coming in contact with detachments of the enemy. the weather was unfavorable; rain, snow, sleet, and wind united in drenching, chilling, and depressing the unsheltered and underfed men, and turning the roads, over which they marched, into deep mire. when the morning of the th arrived, the day of the battle, colonel wallace had only men at his command. the covenanters were moving around the foot of the pentland hills, a few miles from edinburgh, when general dalziel, with of the king's troops, emerged from a pass behind them, and offered battle. wallace accepted the challenge. he formed his men for action on the hillside, having the advantage of the higher ground. the gentle slope extended down to the spot where dalziel's war-horse was pawing the ground. the sun was sinking behind the hills. the day was cold and the country was covered with sleet. dalziel ordered an attack by his cavalry. the horsemen formed, each with blade in hand, and moved rapidly up the rising ground. colonel wallace immediately placed his mounted men in readiness to receive them. the space between the armies was about half a mile. the covenanters grimly watched their approach. the waiting moments were burdened with awe, but the covenanters knew how to turn awful moments into power. they carried the psalms in their hearts. some one began to sing. the psalm was pensive and the tune solemn. all hearts were responsive; from voices a wave of sacred music rolled up the mountain-side against the heavens. the very sentiment seemed to be the stirring of hearts, that were consciously entering into a forlorn battle: "o god, why hast thou cast us off? is it for evermore? against thy pasture-sheep why doth thine anger smoke so sore?" they sang three stanzas. while the echoes were dying away, the brave colonel ordered a charge. adown the field his horsemen dashed. they struck the enemy with terrific force, broke their ranks, and hurled them back upon their own base. dalziel ordered another charge. the troops plunge forward to retrieve their lost honor. over the blood-stained snow they gallop; nearer and nearer they approach the stern line awaiting them on the hillside. wallace gives the word, and the covenanters again strike the gleaming column with clash of swords, once more rolling it back upon itself in confusion. a third time the cavalry charged up the hill, and a third time the covenanters hurled them back. dalziel at last moved his entire force forward, which, like a tidal wave, carried all before it. the covenanters were swept from the field leaving dead. the battle was lost, but not the cause. these heroes fought well. the defeat was certain, in their own minds, even before a shot was fired; but believing that the cause of liberty now demanded a sacrifice, they freely offered up themselves on the altar. rullion green! how euphonic the name! what music in the words! what clustering memories to awaken all that is heroic and ennobling in our hearts! de we appreciate the fruits of the fields, fertilized with the blood of the fathers? are we loyal as they were to the covenants? do our lives arise into the heroic spirit, and take on the moral grandeur exhibited by them? * * * * * points for the class. . what led to the battle of rullion green? . who commanded on each side? . what was the respective strength of the forces? . where was the engagement fought? . describe the battle. how did it issue? . for what were the covenanters contending? . what fruits of their sufferings do we now enjoy? xxx. the oppressor's revenge.--a.d. . the sun was sinking behind the pentland hills, when the last assault was made upon the covenanters at the battle of rullion green. they, being driven from the field, were pursued without mercy till night kindly threw its shadow over the scene of carnage. about were slaughtered in the flight, and taken prisoners; many of these were speedily executed. the stars timidly arose and shed their pale light over the crimsoned field. the night was bitterly cold. the dead lay scattered over the frosted ground, and the air was burdened with the groans of the dying. all had been barbarously stripped of their clothing by the ruthless conquerors. the blood of the dying was chilled in their veins, ere it oozed from their wounds and froze upon the ground. the tender-hearted women of edinburgh came the next day, with clothes for the living and winding sheets for the dead. an upright stone, two feet by three, marks the place where these soldiers of christ, in number about , calmly sleep, awaiting the resurrection of the just. beautiful fir trees swaying their soft branches over the grave seem to be singing the dirge of the fallen heroes. heroes! this was a forlorn battle. the battle that must be lost, that other battles may be won, demands heroes of the noblest type; and here were the men. they were willing to fight in the presence of defeat. listen to their resolution just before the battle: "we will follow on, till god shall do his service by us; and though we should all die at the end of it, we think the giving of a testimony enough for all." the little army of the covenanters, broken and bleeding, was now scattered upon the mountains and completely disorganized. one of these men, wandering alone, came to a cottage at midnight. he was bleeding, hungry, weary, utterly exhausted, ready to die. he asked for food and shelter. the pitiful request was denied, for such kindness, if the authorities were informed, would endanger the family; and the penalty might be expulsion, imprisonment, or death. no cup of cold water for this thirsty soul; no spark of charity to warm this shivering child of the covenant. feeling the chill of death already creeping through his veins, he touchingly said, "if you find me dead in the morning, bury me on the hillside, looking toward my home beyond the valley." in the morning he was found dead, under an oak beside the house. he was buried as he had requested. a stone, with an interesting inscription, marks the grave. after this battle the covenanters were subjected to a period of horrors that exhaust description. this brief warlike demonstration was by the government called "the pentland rising." the men who had placed themselves under colonel wallace, for the redress of their wrongs, had come from the adjacent counties. general dalziel was immediately sent with an army to punish the people of these districts. here we must draw a veil and cover the more shocking barbarities and hideous indignities; the unmentionable crimes practiced upon these covenanters, who already had suffered beyond the limit of patience; upon the men, women, and children who were as inoffensive, as they were helpless, beneath the monstrous tyranny of king charles and his brutal soldiers. the story of pillage may be painted in flames; the story of revenge may be recorded in vitriol; the story of carnage may be written in blood; but the story of the horrors that befell the covenanted families, especially the delicate and helpless members of the household, must not be told. the manner in which fathers, husbands, and brothers stood and died on the door-step in defence of mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters may be related; but the inhumanity that followed must not be mentioned. purity shudders at the horror; the heart sickens at the thought; the eyes instinctively turn away. general dalziel quartered his army upon the covenanters, sent troops in all directions to raid the country, disinherited those who were engaged in the "uprising", subjected to arrest all who were suspected, and reduced the people to extremest poverty. the soldiers lived in the homes of the covenanters, compelled the family to provide boarding, and proudly tyrannized over the household. they devoured, or destroyed the crops; slaughtered, or drove off the flocks and herds; tortured, imprisoned, and shot the people according to their pleasure. the prisons were overcrowded with old and young, men and women, the sickly and the dying. three men under the king were chiefly responsible for these atrocities, and all three were reprobate covenanters. their names can be mentioned only with abhorrence and detestation; the earl of lauderdale, the earl of rothes, and archbishop sharp. lauderdale, formerly known as john maitland, one of the scotch commissioners at the westminster assembly, shined in that bright galaxy as a morning star; but like lucifer, son of the morning, he fell from the glory-crested height. rothes was the son of the earl of rothes, celebrated for his active part in the covenant of . archbishop sharp was a covenanted minister, previous to the restoration of king charles. such were the chief actors in these scenes of infernal cruelty practiced upon the covenanters. surely they could not have been so atrociously wicked, had they not been previously exalted to heaven in privilege and by profession. satan could not have been the devil, had he not first been an angel. [illustration: rutherford's monument at anwoth. rutherford's pastorate at anwoth was pleasant and prosperous. his church was filled with people, and his home was the abode of peace. yet that blessed home was disturbed by the persecutor. rutherford was condemned, and compelled to abide at aberdeen as a prisoner, "six quarters of ane yeir." the glory of the lord was there upon him, and he called his prison, "christ's palace."] some prisoners taken at rullion green were, after their execution, utilized by the government, for the intimidation of the covenanters. their heads were set up in public places in various cities, as a gruesome warning to all others. these men, when on the way to rullion green, had paused at lanark to renew their covenant. there they lifted up the right hand to heaven, making their appeal to god. now those right hands are cut off and set up on spikes over the gates of the city--a grim admonition to the living. some of the prisoners were reserved for the slower process of law, and the severer operations of cruelty. john neilson became conspicuous through the tortures he endured, the noble spirit he displayed, and the death by which he glorified god. he was a man renowned for his wealth, as well as for great-heartedness. the preceding year sir james turner, when commanding the king's troops, despoiled him of his property; yet when that lawless officer had been taken prisoner by the covenanters, neilson pleaded for him and saved his life. now neilson is in his hands. will the kindness be returned? ah, kindness returned! rather feel for a pulse in the cold granite or look upon the white marble for a loving smile. the court questioned neilson, but his answers were not satisfactory. they tortured him, but could extract nothing further. they thrust one of his legs into an iron boot, and crushed it with a wedge, driven between the flesh and the iron; yet nothing but groans were extorted from him. filled with wrath, because a confession involving others could not be elicited, they passed the death sentence on him. he went cheerfully to the scaffold. hugh m'kail, a young minister of jesus christ, was another victim. he was a man mighty in the scriptures and full of the holy spirit. his lips were touched with a live coal from the altar of god, his eloquence was seraphic. in one of his impassionate outbursts he had said, "the church in all ages has been persecuted by a pharaoh on the throne, a haman in the state, and a judas in the church." archbishop sharp heard of the terse statement. the lightning had struck the mark. sharp appropriated the caricature, and saw judas personified in his own character. he never forgave the young minister. m'kail was put on trial for his connection with the pentland rising. he candidly confessed his part in the insurrection. the court then demanded information concerning the leaders; he had none to impart. they then tortured him with the iron boot; the only response was groans. he swooned in the dreadful agony. this noble young minister was sentenced to die. he received the sentence with serene happiness. when on the scaffold, he was filled with unutterable joy; his victory over fear and death was complete; his soul was clothed with immortal bliss. his highest hopes were now turning into realizations that were ten thousand times brighter and more glorious than his most sanguine expectations. the lord jesus was at his side; the heavens were opening to receive him; in a few moments his face would shine in the light that dazzled angels, and his voice would mingle in the chorus of the redeemed round about the throne. what wonder that he poured forth the ecstasy of a transfigured soul in these his last words: "welcome, god and father; welcome, sweet jesus, the mediator of the new covenant; welcome, blessed spirit of grace, and god of all consolation; welcome, glory; welcome, eternal life; welcome, death. o lord, into thy hands i commit my spirit; for thou hast redeemed my soul, lord god of truth." these were the winter days of the church. but the winter was like summer in fruitfulness. how nobly did she endure the inclement season and produce fruit of excellent quality! we are enjoying the summer time of peace and comfort, of privileges and advantages. how much more abundant should be our labors of love than even theirs, in the lord jesus christ! a comparison, we fear, would put us to great disadvantage, perhaps to shame. * * * * * points for the class. . what cruelties practiced on the covenanters on rullion green field? . describe the wounded covenanter seeking shelter. . what horrors followed the battle? . what atrocities committed by gen. dalziel's troops? . what three men were in great part responsible for the cruelties? . describe the sufferings of john neilson. . relate the sufferings of hugh mckail. . how did he meet his death? . what special advantages have we for serving god? xxxi. indulgence, the six-fold snare.--a.d. . the covenanters, after the pentland rising, were placed under martial law. every district was garrisoned and overrun with troops. the military, having been empowered to plunder, pillage, and punish at their caprice, did not hesitate to shoot down innocent people without trial, leaving them weltering in their own blood. king charles accounted the covenanters rebels to be subdued with fire and sword. he was determined upon their subjection, or destruction. "better," said one in his service, "that the land bear whins than whigs." the covenanters were called whigs; the whins were worthless bushes. the covenanters rebels! be it remembered that scotland was under a constitutional government, and the constitution was embodied in the covenant. also, the king and the people had accepted the covenant on oath. yet in the face of all this, king charles attempted to rescind the covenant, destroy the constitution, and assume absolute power. ah, was not charles the rebel? was not he the traitor, the revolutionist, the autocrat who attempted to turn things upside down? the covenanters were the old guard, who stood for law, justice, government, and constitutional rights, on the accepted basis--god's law and covenant. nor did the old guard ever yield the field; they occupy it yet. true, the covenanters did decline the king's authority in certain particulars! but were they not justifiable? a glance at the situation will solve the question. the king, having expelled the covenanted ministers, substituted others of his own choice. the covenanters refused to hear them. the king restricted the covenanters to their own parishes in public worship. they went where they pleased. the king forbade marriages or baptisms, except by episcopal ministers. the covenanters went to their own ministers for these services. the king ordered them to observe the episcopal form of worship. they believed this to be unscriptural, and refused. the king commanded the people to deliver up their ministers to the authorities for punishment. this they would in no wise do. the covenanters rebels, because they declined the king's authority in matters like these? how could they have done otherwise? two courses lay before them; resist the tyrant's will, or submit as his slaves. blessed be the lord jesus christ, who gave them light, strength, courage, and victory. these fathers of the covenant chose to suffer and be free; to endure the king's wrath and keep a pure conscience; to disdain every suggestion of compromise and continue the conflict. the invitation to come down, and consult on the plains of ono, was answered by its own echo--o, no. the covenanters, like the israelites, flourished while in this great tribulation. they were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them. the more they were afflicted, the more they multiplied and grew. their ministers were numbered by hundreds; the people, who assembled in conventicles, by tens of thousands. oppression could not crush them; the furnace, though heated seven times more than it was wont, could not singe their garments. their adversaries became alarmed and began to devise other measures. their device was diabolical wisdom. satan, having had more than three thousand years since he failed on israel in egypt, was now better up to his work. the king proposed to indulge the ministers. the royal indulgence was surely a product of the bottomless pit. the snare was laid six times and caught many unwary souls. [illustration: anniversary of a conventicle. the people of scotland delight to do honor to the memory of the martyrs. in many places they hold anniversary meetings on the grounds made memorable by some signal event in the times of persecution. here is the picture of one of these thrilling meetings, held on the scene of a conventicle near loudon-hill.] the first indulgence was granted in . the expelled ministers were offered pardon, and permission to return to their churches on certain conditions stipulated by the king. forty-two accepted the indulgence, and by that very act conceded the king's right to expel, and to recall, the ministers of christ, at his own pleasure. the great principles for which they had suffered were thereby sacrificed--the supremacy of the lord jesus christ over his church, and the church's independence under christ. what were the conditions upon which these ministers returned? we give them in substance: . they must attend the meetings of the prelatic ministers. . they must permit none of the people from other parishes to attend their services. . they must refrain from speaking or preaching against the king's supremacy. . they must not criticize the king or his government. the indulgence, with such conditions, was accepted by forty-two ministers. are we surprised? do we wonder that so many relaxed under the strain of persecution, and returned to their own vine and fig tree? let not censure, from her bowers of ease, be too severe. the hardships of these men were great, the sufferings excessive, the outlook dark. they were worn and sickly; they were filled with pain by exposure to storms, living in caves, and sleeping on the ground. their lives were in jeopardy every hour. yet it must be said that these ministers sacrificed much for which they had long and nobly battled; they capitulated on terms dictated by the enemy, surrendered their rights as the ambassadors of christ, and accepted conditions that made them bond servants of king charles. they were caught in the snare. the second indulgence was issued in . eighty ministers were selected by the king for this bait, and most of them swallowed it. yet among the eighty some inflexible men were found on whom the deceitful offer had no effect. they knew how to endure hardness as good soldiers. one of them on receiving the legal notice at the hand of an official said, "i cannot be so uncivil as to refuse this paper offered me by your lordship." then letting it fall to the ground, he added, "but i can receive no instructions from you, regulating my ministry; for then i would be your ambassador, not christ's." he was immediately thrust into prison, and continued there till death. the third indulgence was another snare, equally deceitful and injurious. the other three were offered by king james vii., and all were of the same nature, only each being more lenient, seductive, and satanic, than the one preceding. the indulgence was a dragnet, drawing large hauls of hungry fish, and leaving them to squirm on the shores of sinful compromises. the covenanters who remained faithful were greatly diminished. the ministers were decimated until few were left. yet as the banner of the covenant fell from the hand of one, it was snatched up by another, and defiantly given to the breeze. at no moment did the battle cease for lack of heroes. the indulgence did what sword, pillage, prison, torture, exile, gibbet--all could not do; it shattered the covenanted forces and wasted their power. the fiercest fires of persecution only fused the elements, and consolidated the mass of metal. but the fruit of indulgence was debate, dissension, distraction, division, and decimation. the tree is known by its fruit; the fruit was bad, very bad. the non-indulged charged their brethren with betrayal of christ and his cause. the indulged retorted, that the king's offer opened the way back to the churches, and refusal to accept protracted the evil times. thus the host of god was divided against itself; judah against israel, and israel against judah. archbishop sharp had boasted, that by the indulgence he would throw a "bone of contention" among the presbyterians. he judged rightly. the cause of christ still demands self-sacrifice. fidelity to jesus christ is hard on the flesh; it always has been and always will be. the friendship of this world is enmity against god, and against all who sincerely love god. to make terms with the world is to forfeit god's love. the church has lost much of the heroic heart, the militant power, the iron nerve, and the fire of the holy spirit, by reason of ease, indulgence, compromise, and inordinate desire for the friendship of the world. "if we suffer, we shall also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us." * * * * * points for the class. . why were the covenanters styled rebels? . how did the king try to suppress them? . on what points did they refuse to obey the king? . were they justifiable? on what grounds? . how did the persecuted people increase? . what new attempt to divide and destroy them? . how many indulgences were offered? . on what terms were ministers permitted to return home? . what effect had the indulgences on the covenanters? . what present danger along the line of indulgence? xxxii. the field meetings under fire.--a.d. . the king's indulgence did double work on the persecuted ministers. the indulgence was a surgical knife that removed the spinal nerve of the indulged; and it was a sharp sword launched at the heart of those who refused the indulgence. the proclamation that offered pardon announced desperate measures against all who declined the offer. the persecution thereby grew fiercer and the sufferings more insufferable. the indulgence thinned the covenanted ranks; many ministers withdrew from the old blue banner with its golden motto: "for christ's crown and covenant." home! sweet, sweet home had charmed the heart. the indulged were no more worthy of being called covenanters. they had lost zeal, courage, place, and name among the worthies. some however repented and returned to the solitudes. their home, as they had crossed the threshold, was to them no more like home, but a gloomy prison, a dreary waste, an intolerable place, because the heart condemned them, and god was greater than the heart. these went back to their brethren, to endure hardness as good soldiers for christ's sake. persecution with all its hardships, in comparison with the indulgence, was a paradise while the love of jesus christ enamored the soul. the ministers who remained loyal to the lord and the covenant were pursued by men who drove like jehu. the conventicles, however, continued. the covenanters swarmed on the grounds where the preaching was appointed. they refused to hear the curates of the episcopal church, and likewise the ministers who had returned through the king's indulgence. the latter had forfeited their confidence and respect. the people, forsaking the parish churches, traveled to the moors and mountains for their preaching. there they found their own ministers, the unconquerable ambassadors of christ, the uncompromising messengers of god. a price was placed upon the heads of these ministers, by the government of king charles. they were hunted like partridges upon the mountains. let them be brought in, dead or alive, and the prize will range in value from $ to $ , . the people were commanded to refuse them bread, lodging, fellowship, all kindness and support, that they might perish without a helping hand or a consoling word. to attend their preaching was accounted a crime to be punished by the judges, an act of rebellion worthy of imprisonment or death. the ministers were not overawed, nor were the people intimidated. field-preaching characterized the times. conventicles were more numerous and the attendance larger than hitherto. it was estimated that, on a certain sabbath, an aggregate of , attended three meetings held in one county. men, women, and children traveled miles and miles to these sequestered spots among the hills and on the moors, in defiance of all threats and in face of all clangers. there they stayed through the long sabbath hours, listening to the rich, sweet gospel of christ, while the ministers spoke with earnestness as from the very portals of eternity. the conventicles flourished in spite of every effort to suppress them. the king and his counselors became alarmed and sent the "highland host," a vicious army of , strong, to extinguish these hated field-meetings. the covenanters suffered at their hands, as by a foreign invasion. the military atrocities, horrible before, were now barbarous in the extreme. "fire, and blood, and vapors of smoke" marked the path of these brutal men as they raided the country. yet the conventicles were not extinguished. to meet the conditions of increasing terror, the covenanters came to the field-meetings armed and ready for self-defence. sentries were stationed on the hills that towered above the worshipers, and the discharge of a gun was the signal of danger. at the approach of soldiers, the people quietly dispersed, if escape were possible; if not, then the armed men drew out and lined up for battle. many a time the worship of god was suddenly turned into the clash of arms. the lomond-hills formed good places for these meetings. on one occasion, a large concourse of people had assembled amidst these sheltering heights. rev. john wellwood, a young minister whom the soldiers could not catch, was feasting these hungry souls with the word of life. some of his sermons are still extant. they are rich in nourishment, nervous with earnestness, and flashing with fiery eloquence, he lived in the dark days, but died exclaiming, "now, eternal light! no more night, nor darkness to me." while the people this day were feasting on his words, the signal announced the approach of the dragoons. the people quietly moved up the "brae." the soldiers rode up and delivered five volleys into the crowd. the balls whizzed among the men, women, and children, but none were hurt. a ledge of rock prevented an attack. the captain commanded them to dismiss. "we will," they replied, "when the service is over, if you promise us no harm." the promise was given, yet the treacherous troops dashed upon the hindmost and captured eighteen. an attack was made also on a conventicle held at lillies-leaf moor. a large number of people had assembled. the famous john blackader was preaching. the alarm shot was fired when the minister was in the middle of the afternoon sermon. he at once closed the service with a few words to allay fear. the people stood in their places, showing no excitement. the troopers came up at full gallop and formed in battle line in front of the covenanters. the soldiers were astonished at the calmness of the people. a sullen pause followed; not a word, not a movement. the officer broke the silence, shouting, "in the name of the king, i charge you to dismiss." the reply was immediate: "we are here in the name of the king of heaven, to hear the gospel, and to harm no man." such unexpected calmness and fortitude wilted the officer. another painful pause. what next? no one knew. the suspense was suddenly broken by a woman who stepped forth from the midst of the covenanters. she was alone; her movements showed decision; her eyes were flashing; her face was flushed with indignation. she went straight for the officer, seized the bridle close to the horse's mouth, and wheeled him about, vociferating, "fye on ye, man; rye on ye; the vengeance of god will overtake you for marring so good a work." the officer was dazed as by an exploding shell. the woman was his own sister. he was crest-fallen, and withdrew the dragoons, while the people went home unharmed. [illustration: battle of drumclog. the battle of drumclog was fought on sabbath, june , claverhouse with dragoons attempted to break up a conventicle near loudon-hill he was met by covenanters under hamilton, and put to rout, leaving dead on the field. the covenanters had killed and wounded.] one of these armed field-meetings was held at drumclog. it was a sweet summer sabbath, june , . the covenanters had come in large numbers they covered the green sward, sitting among clumps of moss and heather. they were far from the abode of man; nothing there to break the solemn stillness of the lord's day, except the notes of the heather-cock and the plover. loudon-hill stood near like a mighty champion. the air breathed softly across the field, and the sky bent silently over the worshipers; the hearts of the people were lifted up in sweet psalms that echoed over the hills, and a serene joy filled all the holy spirit came mightily upon the people; the lord was among them. thomas douglas was the minister. he was one of the three mighties, who afterward issued the sanquhar declaration disowning king charles ii. as a tyrant. the sermon was half finished when a signal shot was heard. mr. douglas immediately closed the bible, saying, "you have the theory; now for the practice." resolute men hastily sprang to their feet, lined up, and marched off to meet claverhouse who was coming with dragoons. the covenanters halted on an elevation to await the attack. while waiting they sang the th psalm to the tune of "martyrs." the psalm was very appropriate; well fitted to arouse the military spirit: "in judah's land god is well known, his name's in israel great; in salem is his tabernacle, in zion is his seat." the troops galloped forward and fired. their fire drew a vigorous response. the covenanters aimed with deadly precision; the fighting was desperate; hand-to-hand encounters were frequent. the troops broke and fled, leaving dead on the field. the covenanters had killed and mortally wounded. hamilton, hackston, paton, balfour, cleeland, and hall were the noble captains that won the day in the name of the lord of hosts. these fighting covenanters, who could fight as well as pray, have won for their posterity the privilege of worshiping god in peace. there is nothing now to hurt or annoy in god's mountain. how punctual, diligent, and appreciative ought we to be in the service of our lord jesus christ! * * * * * points for the class. . what was the double effect of the indulgence? . what new effort to suppress the conventicles? . give the character of the highland host. . how did the covenanters prepare for self-defense? . describe the conventicle at the lomond-hills; lillies-leaf moor; drumclog. . who were the covenanted captains at drumclog? . how should we appreciate peaceful worship? xxxiii. a massacre.--a.d. . the victory at drumclog was followed up by the covenanters with vigor. claverhouse, with his broken ranks, was hotly pursued. he fled from the field on a wounded horse; nor did he halt till he reached glasgow, miles away. the pursuers followed him half the distance. he began that sabbath with the beat of drums, and ended it with defeat and shame. next morning these covenanters had doubled their number; men stood harnessed for war, determined to overtake the foe, renew the fight, and win other victories. that forenoon, with hamilton in command, they boldly dashed into glasgow to strike the broken forces of claverhouse; but they were repulsed. they retired to an encampment much dispirited. as was usual with the covenanters, they began to enquire into the moral cause of this reverse. they felt that god for some reason was displeased. the investigation revealed the fact, that thomas weir, who had joined them with horsemen, had been a dragoon in dalziel's ranks at rullion green, where the covenanters were defeated. a committee was appointed to wait on weir and investigate his case. they were roughly received. he gave no satisfaction for having been on the enemy's side on the former occasion. the covenanters were quick to reach bible conclusions and at once classed him with achan who in the days of joshua brought defeat upon israel. weir with his detachment was summarily dismissed. a resolution was then adopted that none, who had forsaken the covenant or were guilty of the sins of the times, be admitted into the army. this was a heroic step, a return to the solid basis, the old covenant grounds that had been abandoned in , when the "act of classes" was rescinded, and the doors opened to admit unfaithful men into places of public trust. sir robert hamilton, at the head of half a regiment of covenanters, thus nobly attempted to rebuild the walls of zion and set up the gates, even in troublous times. these were men of god who knew the lord of hosts, in whose eyes fidelity is everything and numbers are nothing. they were afraid of nothing but sin. the martial spirit of the covenanters rapidly spread during the week; they flocked to the standard that was again lifted up for christ's crown and covenant. beneath the waving folds of the blue banner , men had rallied when saturday's sun was sinking in the west. they had unbounded confidence in the cause for which they adventured their lives; a holy enthusiasm knit them together. they were ready for battle "with hand strokes," as they said to hackston, one of their noble captains. they had accepted the responsibility of war and were determined to win or die. the sabbath was approaching. they planned to enter into its sweet rest and offer the appointed worship; then on monday morning, march upon the enemy and strike for freedom. but, alas, how quickly fairest prospects may be covered with darkness! the sun set that evening behind an ugly cloud. hamilton had held a council of war on thursday. he had the benefit of the wisdom and advice of donald cargill, thomas douglas, john king, and john kidd, ministers eminent among the covenanters. that council adopted a public declaration, stating their reasons for taking up arms. this statement embodied: . their purpose to defend the true reformed religion; . their adherence to the solemn league and covenant; . an acknowledgment of public sins and duties; . a denunciation of popery, prelacy, and erastianism. the declaration was proclaimed to the army and published to the world. on these impregnable grounds the little army was consolidated; they felt themselves strong in the lord, and able in his name to fight his battles. on saturday night, when quietness had fallen upon the camp, john welch arrived with an additional force of men. this should have been an inspiration, but it was the very opposite. welch was a prominent conventicle minister; "a diligent, fervent, successful, unwearied preacher." he was a fearless man; a price equal to $ , had been set upon his head by the government. such a man should not be disparaged. yet, he it was who introduced the confusion of tongues that resulted in the utter dissipation of the army, and the consequent defeat of the covenanters at bothwell bridge. welch was dissatisfied with the declaration. it was too forceful for him. he would tone it down, that it might soothe the king, placate the duke of monmouth, condone the indulged ministers, and restore weir to the ranks. he presented a new declaration as a substitute for the one already in force. for two weeks, even till the enemy was lining up for battle, he agitated the question. the majority was always against him. at last hamilton, the commander, contrary to his convictions, yielded for the sake of peace. he hoped by this means to save his distracted army, that with solid ranks he might meet the foe and win the fight. but he sadly mistook policy for wisdom. the battle of bothwell bridge was lost that moment. the battle was lost before a shot was fired. hamilton surrendered before he met monmouth. he had displaced the truth for the sake of harmony. his flag is already furled, there will be no fighting now except by the heroes of the van-guard. the divine favor that gives victories has been withdrawn. the martial spirit has fled from the leader and his men are weak as women. on sabbath morning, june , , the king's army, , strong, was massed on the north bank of the clyde; on the south side, the covenanters numbering , confronted them. the narrow bridge lay between them. hackston, paton, and balfour, with covenanters stood at its south end. the rest of the army was behind them on the moor with gunshot, standing in eleven solid squares; six banners waved proudly over them. they had one cannon, two detachments of cavalry, and a body of skirmishers. monmouth orders his troops across the bridge. a solid column pushes forward broad as the bridge is wide; step follows step in that dread procession, when lo, a spreading puff of smoke rises on the bank in front, and a cannon ball is hurled among them, while muskets pour forth volleys of death. the bridge is strewn with bleeding men and the broken ranks fall back. the duke orders another charge. a second column moves hurriedly over the gory path of their fallen comrades to meet the same fate. again and again, the attack and the repulse. they attempt to ford the river, but balfour with his sharpshooters hurls them back, while many a brave man lies down in the cool stream to rise no more. the bridge drips with blood; the clyde is crimsoned. after three hours the covenanters' ammunition fails, and monmouth rushes the bridge. the covenanters meet them with swords, but are overpowered; they fall back upon the main body and find it unfit for action. [illustration: the battle of bothwell bridge. the battle of bothwell bridge was fought on sabbath, june , the king's forces numbering , , under the duke of monmouth, assailed , covenanters under robert hamilton. for three hours captain hackston, with covenanters, held the bridge. at length their ammunition was exhausted, and the royal army forced their way across. the covenanters took flight and were savagely slaughtered in the stampede were slain, , captured, and the rest scattered. a granite monument has been erected at the bridge in honor of the covenanters.] the royal army was soon across. they line up for the general engagement, but hesitate to give battle; they have tested the courage of the covenanters, and have a dread of results. hamilton is awaiting his opportunity. his intention is to rush the enemy into the river. he orders a forward movement, but the order fails. wherefore does his army hesitate? ah, many of the officers have disappeared. terror is creeping over the masses like a death chill. welch and his friends have left; weir with his horsemen takes fright and flees; hamilton loses his head and his cavalry stampedes; the army is thrown into confusion; all is lost. in the fight only were killed; in the flight were slaughtered. monmouth, seeing the panic, ordered a pursuit which resulted in a running butchery, a horrid massacre. a body of , surrendered; these were compelled to lie flat on the ground all night. if in their wounds or achings they moved head or hand, an admonition was delivered from a musket. a change of posture, then a sharp crack, a whizzing bullet, a bleeding victim, a death struggle, a pallid corpse. that was a sad sabbath for the covenanters. defeat, dishonor, and distress turned the day into a painful memory. the calamity, doubtless, arose out of the compromise of covenanted principles. welch's wisdom proved to be foolishness; weir's strength, weakness; hamilton's compliance, defeat. the sacrifice of truth can never be productive of good. loss, sorrow, defeat, and death are in the train of any policy that buries principle. points for the class. . how did the covenanters follow up their victory at drumclog? what reverse did they suffer? how did they account for it? . what was the growth of their army? . who introduced confusion into their ranks? . what was the subject of debate? . how did it terminate? . describe the forces at the battle of bothwell bridge. . describe the battle and its issue. . what lesson may we learn from this defeat? xxxiv. the covenanters' prisons.--a.d. . "they who profess christ in this generation must suffer much or sin much," exclaimed one of the scottish martyrs. the enemy was in power and every means was employed to compel the covenanters to abandon their covenant with god, break relation with jesus christ, and thus destroy their testimony. to accomplish this, the king and his courtiers subjected these inoffensive people to cruelties most shocking. while they remained steadfast in their covenant, the violence increased; when any of them relaxed, one step of defection necessitated another, till they stood in the enemy's camp. the same process is ever true. the massacre at bothwell bridge brought upon the covenanters extreme distress. their sufferings hitherto had been as a continual dropping on a very rainy day, with fitful gusts striking here and there; now a hurricane sweeps the country, bringing ruin and desolation in its broad path. every available force was put in operation for the utter annihilation of the covenanters. their ardor for christ and his royal rights must be quenched in their blood, and their testimony to the truth must be silenced. the king, the courts, the army, the bishops--all were combined for the overthrow of the presbyterian system of faith and the covenant of god. upon the ruins of the temple of liberty, erected by the reformers, king charles had determined to build his castle of absolute despotism. he knew that the glory of christ's supremacy would never fade out of the skies of scotland, while covenanters preached, prayed, and sang psalms; nor would his despotism flourish while there were covenanters to challenge his impious claim of authority over the church, and iniquitous attempt to rule man's conscience. hence the desperate attempt to overawe and suppress them. after the battle of bothwell bridge, the first stroke of excessive cruelty fell upon the , prisoners who had surrendered on the field. they lay all night upon the cold ground huddled together like sheep, surrounded by a strong guard. it was a night of horror. the sentinels watched every motion, and shot at any hand or head that dared to stir. in the morning they were marched from their mossy bivouac, leaving the green field dotted with crimson pools, and strewn with the dead who had received fatal shots; there they lay in garments rolled in blood. the prisoners were tied together, two and two, and driven to edinburgh, as cattle to the slaughter. the journey was dreary, during which they suffered from hunger, weariness, cruel mockings, and barbarous treatment. in the greyfriars' churchyard, there yet remains the small enclosure, into which these prisoners were driven like so many dumb animals. here they were kept to await their sentence. twelve hundred men, with scarcely comfortable standing room, without decent clothing, without sanitary accommodations, without proper food, without shelter, detained for months within these stone walls under a merciless guard--who can conceive of their sufferings? they had been stripped, all but naked; the hard ground was their bed; the sky was their roof; they were exposed to the heat of day, and the chill of night; the rains of july drenched them; the snows of november blanketed them. during these wearisome months the number of prisoners constantly grew less, and mostly by melancholy means. some of them subscribed a bond confessing themselves to be rebels and promising unconditional obedience to the king. the hardships of their condition, the threats against their lives, and the entreaties of relatives overpowered conscience. they were released only to be reproached, distressed, tormented, and pillaged at home, by the soldiers who overran the country. their unholy bond sacrificed their peace with god, and brought no protection from man. such is the effect of every compromise of god's people with the world. disease also reduced the number. sickness arising from exposure, neglect, and ill fare, wrought havoc with their lives. the living watched carefully over their dying companions, as they lay on the cold hard ground, destitute of every earthly cordial and comfort. but the balm of gilead they had in plenty; the consolations of god were abundant; the promises distilled sweetness upon their lips; prayers filled the place with incense; the psalms were as the music of heaven in their ears; the gates of glory opened wide for the dying; pain, sorrow, and darkness vanished from the soul, as it went forth from the earthly tabernacle to enter into the eternal city. quite a few were condemned to death and executed on the scaffold. prominent among these, were john kid and john king, two ministers of christ. they received their sentence with serenity and went hand in hand, to the place of execution. their conversation was cheerful. their outlook was far beyond the scaffold, and the city towers, and the high hills outlined on the sky, and even beyond the glowing sun that was then smiling in the west. what magnificent scenery their eyes must have rested upon, as they now had come to mount zion, the city of the living god, the innumerable company of angels, the spirits of just men made perfect! already in triumphant faith they were walking the golden streets, with palms in their hands crowns on their heads, and songs in their hearts. kid was a witty man, usually overflowing with innocent mirth; even in sight of the gallows his humor was insuppressible. looking into king's face he made a pun on their own names, saying, "i have often heard and read of a kid sacrificed, but i seldom or never heard of a king made a sacrifice." four hundred of these covenanters remained unmoved by threats, promises, sufferings, or protracted hardships. the painful weeks and months might wear them out, but they continued firm in the faith and testimony, resolved to honor their lord and his covenant while they had breath. they remembered the promise, "be thou faithful unto death, and i will give thee a crown of life." they were of the unbending type. the king's council, hopeless in attempting to bring them to terms, resolved to finish the irksome task by shipping all to distant lands. they placed on a small sail-ship, which was tossed on the atlantic ocean until engulfed amidst the waves. the remainder were never transported. many covenanters were confined in places even more intolerable than this. dunnottar castle became one of these notable spots. the castle stands on a rock that projects into the sea. here still exists a deep dark room, called the "whigs' vault," where covenanters were crowded together. forty-five of these were women. the room is feet long, wide, and high, having two small windows. this outrageous disregard for sex, decency, health, and every natural right, aroused even the indignation of the governor's wife, at whose request the women, after some days, were removed to another vault. the prisoners suffered the horrors of these dark foul pits three months. but the lord jesus christ did not forsake them; they were sustained by his abundant grace. he heard their mournful cries and upheld their faith. some breathed out their lives on the hard stone floor, with no pillow on which to rest their aching heads. blessed termination of the horrid cruelty! even there the "pearl gate" opened wide, and the ransomed soul arose in power, and walked forth into the marvelous light of the world above. they who survived death were offered liberty on condition of taking the king's oath, and acknowledging his supremacy over church and conscience. they persistently refused to do this. how great the loyalty of these men and women to the lord jesus christ! imprisonment with all its bitterness was sweeter to them than liberty with a defiled conscience. [illustration: dunnottar castle. the castle rock projects into the sea, on the east coast of scotland, and rises with rugged sides out of the water to the height of feet. it is connected with the mainland by a narrow neck. here is the "whigs' vault," a dismal underground room, hewn out of the rock, where many covenanters suffered imprisonment.] the bass rock, too, was a penitentiary for the covenanters. this is a lofty green rock arising boldly out of the sea near edinburgh, having steep rugged sides, being accessible only at one point. thither they brought, in the latter years of the persecution, the overflow of prisoners after the inland jails had been crowded. the rock is very desolate. this was the covenanters' patmos. here alexander peden, john blackader, and many others spent months and years, walking round and round over the storm-battered cliffs, or sitting on the ledges looking landward thinking of the desolated home, the broken family, the wasted church, and the guilty land. when the waves dashed against the rock, and the breakers leaped high; when storms darkened the land, and billows whitened the sea; when nothing was heard but the noise of the waters, the roar of the tempest, and the scream of the sea-fowl, even then was the holy spirit there to illuminate these prisoners of hope. they held communion with god; visions of glory lighted up their dreary home; they moved amidst the scenery of heaven; the bass rock was peopled with angels. blackader has left on record some rich experiences he there enjoyed. we are free to worship god according to conscience and the word. but let us not forget that our liberty is the blossom, and our privileges the fruit, of the rough black root of persecution suffered by our forefathers. had they not been faithful, we would have had to fight the battles they fought, and suffer as they suffered, or have perished in darkness. will not we, for the sake of coming generations, be likewise faithful? the lord jesus grant us strength and success. * * * * * points for the class. . what was done with, the prisoners taken at bothwell bridge? . how did they suffer in edinburgh? . describe their prison, and their hardships. . what two of their ministers were executed? . describe dunnottar castle. . describe the bass rock. . for what was it used in those times? . how may we meet the obligations descending from the fathers? xxxv. declaration of independence.--a.d. . the persecution of the covenanters under king charles ii. had now continued twenty years. these were years of slaughter, and the horrors were still deepening. the battle of bothwell bridge was followed by a climax of suffering and sacrifice. the wrath of the king, vented through the dragoons, fell upon every district where the covenanters were located and followed them into their hiding-places. they were required to take the oath of loyalty, or suffer the direful consequence. some were haled to the judges to be sentenced, others were shot like game where they were found. like a fire that breaks out in a city and mercilessly devours while the flames find fuel, so this fire seemed destined to spread and devour till the last drop of covenanted blood would sizzle on the coals. the persecutors were in degree successful. four hundred ministers, in , had refused to receive orders from the king for the exercise of their ministry; they gave up home and all its comforts, rather than admit the king's claim of supremacy over the church of christ. these were now reduced to less than one hundred. some were martyred, some were banished, some had died of old age and some of exposure; but many, if not most, had been constrained to accept the indulgence and were gone back home. their first love had been chilled by the wintry blasts. their zeal for the lord jesus and his testimony abated as the hardships increased. worn with suffering, emaciated with hunger, exposed to danger, grey with sorrows, and the darkness deepening with no relief in prospect, they weakened and accepted the terms of a false peace. but let them not be judged with harshness. our lord has said of such, "the spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak." the struggle lasted eight more years, during which time there were sixty ministers standing by their covenant instead of four hundred, and even these sixty, almost to a man, counted it expedient to suspend their testimony and keep silence. the real covenanters however were not conquered. death had slain thousands, and defection tens of thousands, yet the faithful had not lost heart. there was still a vigorous force of loyal men and women, earnest quiet people, who stood fearlessly by the covenant and testimony of jesus christ. they were called, "the remnant." with these the holy spirit was pleased to clothe himself, for the good fight of faith which they continued with unabated ardor. they stepped into the firing line where the shock of war was heaviest, and became the aggressive party, demanding from the king their covenanted rights. the lord was ever with them; they heard him saying, "be of good cheer; i have overcome the world." their zeal and energy were but the crested waves of omnipotence, the lord's own strength surging along the strand of time, and dashing against the rocks of wickedness and misrule--waves of divine energy that must yet overflow every land, overcome the whole world, and cover the earth with glory, as the waters cover the sea. [illustration: claverhouse. claverhouse was a captain of dragoons, who pursued the covenanters and slaughtered them with savage atrocity. he outlived the persecution, but was killed the next year, , at the battle of killiecrankie, fighting against the accession of the prince of orange. "a shot in the left eye" sent the reeking soul into the presence of god, whom he, in aweful blasphemy, had promised to take into his own hands. he died at the age of forty-six.] these strong-spirited, unbending covenanters believed that the time had now come for a forward movement, and they accepted the task as from the lord. they were not merely unconquerable; they were determined to conquer. at the beginning of the persecution they were passive, meekly submitting to reproach, spoilation, imprisonment, and death, for christ's sake. this continued till patience was exhausted. their second attitude was that of self-defence. oppression maketh a wise man mad. the people came armed to the conventicles, and with swords and muskets met the troops that attacked the meetings. these acts of self-defence developed into two distinct efforts to raise an army for the redress of grievances. all this time the covenanters recognized charles ii. as their king. the third attitude was that of revolution. they now had reached this point. they challenge the king's right to reign. they resolve to take the crown from his head, and place it upon the brow of a man worthy of the honor, one who "feared god, and hated covetousness." what a daring task! what courage exhibited by these men! what unbounded confidence in the righteousness of their cause as they against all odds, all earthly advantages, and all human wisdom, proclaim the king's forfeiture of the throne, and face the consequences of that proclamation! this was a forlorn battle. the distant outlook was hopeful and the final success was assured; but the present struggle must be sanguinary and the sacrifice of life dreadful. every man that enlists in the army at this stage must expect to die on the field. this bold position of the covenanters will surely be met by all the powers of darkness that can be massed against them. they now unfurl the banner for christ's crown and covenant on the very highest grounds; the persecution will therefore be waged, if possible, with tenfold greater fierceness. the king with all his engines of destruction will fight them most desperately; satan with all his hosts will assail them ferociously. how can the noble band escape annihilation? but who will lead the covenanters in such a struggle? who will command these "little flocks of kids," when the hosts of syria fill all the country round about? where are the ministers now, when the trumpet blast proclaims a revolutionary war against the king? while the dread notes echo from mountain to mountain, the most of them are in caves, hidden--like obadiah's prophets. three, only three, step forward. these lions of the covenant are cameron, cargill, and douglass. they grasp the old battle-banner, and carrying it to the new position call upon the covenanted sons of freedom to rally under its floating folds. the "remnant" gave a noble response. this self-sacrificing band was merely the advance guard of a great army that was now mustering in the providence of god for the restoration of civil and religious liberty. little did they expect to win under existing conditions, but they could hold the hordes of darkness back, till the lord jesus would bring up his mighty forces for the decisive battle. they could throw themselves upon the enemy, and with the impact stay their progress. they laid down principles and began action that eight years later resulted in the revolution under the prince of orange. cameron, cargill, and douglass began the revolution, and william, prince of orange, finished it. the covenanters engaged in this forward movement were henceforth called cameronians. richard cameron was the leader. on the first anniversary of the battle of bothwell bridge, june , , he with mounted men rode into the quiet town of sanquhar. they came in a martial spirit; each horse carried a christian swordsman; they were armed for war. reaching the heart of the town, they dismounted and reverently offered prayer. they then read aloud a declaration of war against king charles. this they nailed to the post at the crossroads. what a heroic celebration of the first anniversary of their greatest defeat! the paper carried this declaration: "we do disown charles stuart as having any right, title to, or interest in, the crown of scotland for government. "we, being under the standard of our lord jesus christ, do declare a war with such a tyrant and usurper, and all the men of his practices as enemies to our lord jesus christ and his cause and covenants." the men then quietly rode away, while the people read the declaration with mingled joy and terror. the lions roared on the hills of sanquhar, and the king's throne trembled; within a few years the monarch and his dynasty had disappeared from the earth. these covenanters prepared also another declaration which was called the queensferry paper. it contained the following statement of the principles, for which they contended: "the avowal of the scriptures as the only rule of faith and action; "the promotion of the kingdom of god by every possible and lawful method; "adherence to the covenanted reformation of the presbyterian church; "the disowning of all authority which opposes the word of god!" with deathless bravery, they added the following: "we bind and oblige ourselves to defend ourselves and one another, in the worship of god and in our natural, civil, and divine rights, till we shall overcome, or send them down under debate to prosperity, that they may begin where we end." the fathers have finished their work. they nobly sustained the cause in their day; they gave their blood freely for its success; but they were not permitted to see the ultimate victory. the covenant principles for which they contended are the hope of the world. the covenant holds forth the highest standard for the church and the nation. this standard must be reached, or prophecy must fail. the struggle has descended upon us in "debate." will we be true to the task laid on us by the fathers, who unfalteringly carried the banner of the covenant amid fiercest battles? will we be a strong link, or will we be a broken link, connecting the worthy past with the golden future? which? * * * * * points for the class. . how did the true covenanters become diminished? . with what spirit did the "remnant" sustain their trials? . what successive attitudes toward the king did they assume? . when did they proclaim a revolutionary war against the king? . who were their leaders? . where was the declaration of war issued? . what was the nature of the queensferry declaration? . under what obligations were future generations placed? . what task here has fallen to us? xxxvi. ayrsmoss.--a.d. . ayrsmoss is a household word among covenanters. here is one of the numerous spots where temporary defeat has been transformed into permanent glory. a granite monument with suitable inscription marks the place and honors the fallen heroes. this is the field where richard cameron with a hardy group of covenanters met the foe, and fought the first fight of scotland's revolutionary war against king charles ii. ayrsmoss lies in the heart of a wide solitude. the eye takes in a wild, broken surface in all directions. loneliness broods in the very air. the heart grows heavy and the eyes dreamy, while we sit on a tuft of rushes and gaze at the monument that bears the names of the worthy dead. reverie readily rehabilitates the landscape, and, in vision, the field is covered again with the horrors of the engagement. the horsemen are dashing upon each other, the air is shattered with the discharge of guns, swords are flashing in the evening sunlight, men are falling, blood is flowing, the covenanters are fleeing, and--cameron lies on the field dead. richard cameron had sounded the keynote of freedom, that reverberated all over scotland, and down into england, and over into holland, and at length struck the ears of william, prince of orange. cameron and his covenanted associates, having disowned the authority of king charles, disputed by force of arms his right to reign. they had preferred three charges against him. these were: ( ) perjury; ( ) usurpation; ( ) tyranny. the king had grossly violated the covenant to which he had given his oath. the covenant was the scottish constitution of government, and the wilful subversion of it was treason. he had usurped authority over the church, posing in the prerogatives of the lord jesus christ and trampling on the people's rights in the worship of god. he had impoverished, imprisoned, exiled, and even slaughtered his subjects in great numbers, without other fault than their refusal to submit conscience to his tyrannic will. therefore, as perjurer, usurper, and tyrant, he must face the arbitrament of war. the proclamation has been published; the dauntless sons of the covenant have forced the issue. in the name of the lord of hosts they have unfurled the banner for christ's crown and covenant. it may often be torn with bullets and stained with blood, but it will never be folded till the cause of christ and freedom prevail. these covenanters have resolved "to continue the struggle till they overcome, or hand it down to posterity, that each generation may begin where the last ended." such was the solemn bond that bound these covenanters by their own voluntary action one to another, and all to god and freedom in the worship of god through jesus christ. it also joined all coming generations into an indivisible and invincible solidarity for the defence of liberty, the triumph of righteousness, and the glory of christ in his church. the declaration of war had been proclaimed in sanquhar. there cameron with his band of twenty-one men appealed to the god of battles and grasped the sword. they stood a few moments gazing solemnly at their declaration, now nailed to a post and speaking to the nation. holding their horses by the bridle, they tarried long enough to sing a psalm to the god of nations, then mounted. ere the tramp of their steeds had died away on the streets of sanquhar, the news of the daring deed was spreading over the hills. the royal army, more than , strong, was quickly on the track of these daring revolutionists. cameron quailed not at the consequences of that day's work. his soul was on fire for the honor of the lord jesus christ. he had expressed a desire to die fighting against the avowed enemies of his lord. he never doubted the final issue; victory was sure in the end, whatever might be the reverses at the beginning and the losses by the way. "let christ reign," he exclaimed with prophetic fire; "let christ reign, is a standard that shall yet overthrow all the thrones of europe;" and he spoke as if his flashing eyes saw the thrones reel, and his quick ears heard the crash of their fall. one brief month lay between sanquhar and ayrsmoss. cameron and his little company moved cautiously over the desolate places. they roamed across the dreary moorlands, slept amidst the flowering heather, and pillowed their weary heads on the moss. the cold ground was their mattress; the chilling mist was their covering; the arching sky was their roof; the silent stars were their sentinels; the lord god almighty was their keeper. thus they awaited the day of battle. cameron betimes enjoyed the hospitality of friends who risked their lives in receiving him under their roof. july , , was the eventful day. the little band had strolled into the heart of this waste moor. here were threescore valiant men, of the valiant of israel. "they all held swords, being expert in war: every man had his sword upon his thigh, because of fear in the night." the actual number was sixty-three, twenty-three men were mounted. they hung about cameron who never wearied in preaching christ to their hungry souls. this day his voice was unusually solemn. he had an inward assurance that the sun, which was now flooding the landscape with glory and taking the chill of the night out of his veins, would glance its setting rays upon his blood and theirs, poured out upon that field. it was now o'clock; the men were resting on the little knolls that studded the moor; their horses were grazing by their side; all eyes were often scanning the horizon; any minute danger might loom up. "they come!" cried one who saw a troop verging on the moor. in a moment the sixty-three were on their feet; the horses were mounted and every man drew his weapon. captain hackston, a veteran in the covenanted cause, took command. cameron offered a prayer; his recorded prayer was not a plea for safety nor for victory, but that god would "spare the green and take the ripe." they chose their ground, and waited the coming of captain bruce with troopers. with grim determination they watched the dragoons cover the ground. every man was ready, every nerve was steady. the covenanters had the courage of conscience; they knew they were in the right; their hearts sustained them; their covenant reinforced them; they were assured of ultimate success. they will certainly achieve all that is best for this time, and for this occasion. even a crushing defeat will be a moral victory. the outcome will be according to the will of god, and a necessary event in the progress of christ's kingdom. [illustration: monument at ayrsmoss. this monument marks the grave of richard cameron and eight other covenanters, who fell on this moorland fighting for religious liberty. the place is reached by passing from the road over a wide mossy field. the solitude is oppressive with solemn tragic memories. these heroes were martyrs who faithfully sealed their testimony with their blood. this battle was fought on july , .] these men were sent forward, to stand on the firing line, and show the spirit, the courage, and the faith of the soldiers of christ; behind them the spiritual world was filled with the armies of god. his twenty-thousand chariots and thousands of angels, were coming up for the successive engagements, that will yet fill the world with righteousness and the heavens with praise. bruce and his troop were received with a deadly volley; many of their saddles were emptied. hackston led his horsemen in a desperate charge; he almost split the enemy's force in two; but his men being few, the dragoons enveloped him. his horse bogged; he dismounted, and used his sword with fearful effect. at last he fell, bleeding from many wounds. the covenanters were overwhelmed and driven from the field. nine lay dead, among whom was richard cameron. twenty-six were killed on the other side, so steady the nerve and deliberate the aim of the covenanters in the face of crushing odds. the war for freedom was now on; the first blood was shed and had consecrated ayrsmoss. but the prize of liberty was of high value; other fields must yet be crimsoned with streams flowing from many a heart. our enjoyment of civil and religious liberty is so constant and ordinary that we scarcely wait a moment to think of the original cost. what pangs of sorrow, what years of hardships, what streams of blood our fathers paid for the inheritance of truth and freedom they have left their children! let us be careful to appreciate the blood-bought blessings lest they flee away. * * * * * points for the class. . what monument has been erected at ayrsmoss? . what previous proclamation occasioned this battle? . what charges did the covenanters prefer against the king? . how long after the declaration till this fight occurred? . how did cameron and his associates employ their time? . who appeared in search of them? . how many men were on each side? . who won the battle? . how account for god's people suffering defeat? . what was the cost of the liberty we enjoy? . how should we guard it for other generations? xxxvii. the cameronians.--a.d. . richard cameron had fallen in the battle at ayrsmoss; but the cause had not failed, nor would he be forgotten. "the righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance." his years were brief, but his work was great. he was fresh and hearty, in the very prime of his life when he met death. the sun had only reached the meridian of his sky. while his powers were glowing with divine energy, and his ministry was making the deepest impression, the lord called him home to glory. the translation from earth to heaven was sudden and sublime. one of the poets has painted his own conception of the event in a brilliant poem, entitled, "the cameronian's dream." that noble life, so full of zeal, action, and power, left a lasting imprint on the church of the covenanters. so mighty was his influence that the people who stood strictly to the covenant were henceforth called cameronians. the field of ayrsmoss presented a sad sight that evening. the departing day may have flung over it a glowing sunset, but nothing could relieve the gloom. the light was fading as the dragoons left, taking with them captain hackston and a few other bleeding prisoners. night settled softly upon the moorland; the shout of the captains had given place to the stillness of death. nine noble defenders of the covenant lay pulseless in the dewy grass. the friends, soon as safety permitted, came and, gathering the bodies together, solemnly and sadly buried them in one broad grave. the present monument marks the spot where the precious dust awaits the resurrection. the head and hands of cameron were cut off and carried in ignoble triumph through the streets of edinburgh. the head was elevated on the point of a spear and borne in front of the prisoners to the city jail. cameron's father was a prisoner there at that time. the head and hands were presented to him, with the sneering question, "do you know them?" the aweful shock quickly gave place to a gush of fatherly affection. the blood, the pallor, even the stare of the lifeless face, seemed to disappear in the heart-kindlings of the aged parent; to him the countenance was sweet as ever, the eyes were beaming, the lips were vocal, the brow was wreathed with holy dignity. a thousand tender scenes of the past must have rushed in upon the soul of the agitated father. he took up the cold pieces, dearer to him than his own flesh and, while tears flowed plentifully, kissed them, saying, "i know them; they are my son's; my own dear son's: the lord can harm neither me nor mine; good is the will of the lord." cameron lived in the most critical period of the covenanted cause. his life of service and sacrifice arose into gigantic strength just when the covenanted reformation seemed to be ready for burial. the floodtide of indulgence had almost submerged the testimony of the covenanters. many of the ministers had been caught in that satanic snare. the remainder were overawed, or disabled with disease and old age. yet there was a host of brave men and honorable women, thousands in number, who without a leader faced the increasing' fierceness of the persecution, and continued their testimony for christ in defiance of the king's wrath. these were called the society people, and cameron during his public ministry was their standard-bearer. cameron and the society people, afterward known as the cameronians, have been severely criticised for their exclusiveness. they refused to hold fellowship with the indulged ministers who had assented to the king's supremacy over the church, and likewise with the field-ministers, who had become mute on the covenanted testimony. they are often represented as having been stern, censorious, and uncharitable in the extreme. a glance at cameron's commission will show how baseless is the charge. richard cameron received ordination in holland, four months after the battle of bothwell bridge. the ordination service was very solemn and touching. the presbytery felt that they were commissioning a servant of god to do a work that would cost his life. while the ministers rented their hands on cameron's head in the act of ordination, he was told by one of them, that the head whereon their hands were laid would one day be severed from his body and set up before the sun and moon for public view. such was the vision of blood that moved before his eyes during the eight months of his ministry. at that same time he received also the exhortation: "go, richard; the public standard of the gospel is fallen in scotland; go home and lift the fallen standard, and display it publicly before the world. but before you put your hand to it, go to as many of the field-ministers as you can find, and give them your hearty invitation to go with you." true to his commission cameron went. he sought out the field-ministers. they now numbered about sixty. these were keeping close to their hiding-places; their voices scarcely went beyond the mouth of their caves; they counted their blood more valuable than their testimony for christ and his covenant. twenty years of unabating hardships had unnerved them; the late avalanche of the king's wrath had overwhelmed them; they were mostly mute in witnessing for christ, as the rocks behind which they were hiding. of the sixty ministers cameron found only two who were willing to stand with him and hold up the banner of the covenant before the eyes of the nation. one of these, thomas douglas, quickly disappeared leaving cameron and cargill alone to lead the covenanted people of god in the fight that was growing harder every day. these two dauntless ministers of christ accepted the responsibility, knowing too well the price to be paid was their own blood. and they have been censured for their exclusiveness. twenty years previous, the covenanted ministers numbered one thousand. more than half of these had violated the covenant by a resolution in , to open the offices of public trust to men without moral qualification. will the minority be censured for not following them? in , the ministerial brotherhood was again rent in twain by the king's decree requiring them to submit, or quit the manse. four hundred refused to comply. will they be censured for withdrawing from their brethren who remained? in later years the indulgences followed, one after another, capturing all except sixty. will the sixty be censured for not following the others in submitting to the king's supremacy over the church? and now all but two suspend the public testimony for christ's crown. will the two be censured for separating from the sixty, and holding forth the banner of christ? [illustration: four young covenanters discovered these young men had left their homes to save their lives. they lived among the hills, hid in the caves, slept on the ground, had little to eat, and were always in danger. they evidently had come here to sun themselves after a chilly night, and to comfort one another in jesus christ. they were found and sentenced to be shot. they said to their accusers, "if we had a hundred lives, we would willingly quit them all, for the truth of christ".] cameron and cargill, with the society people, stood on a basis separated from their brethren who had stepped off the basis, and had left them to struggle alone against mighty odds and fierce enemies, for the covenanted reformation to which all were bound by a solemn oath. these men, with the society people at their back, stood by their covenant and the oath of god, the others had departed. censure the cameronians for exclusiveness? rather, be sincere and censure them for not slipping, and stumbling, and falling away, like their brethren from covenant attainments. these worthies stood on the heights from which the others had departed, and waving the old battle-worn colors of the covenant appealed unto them to come up and occupy the ground where they had formerly stood. the cameronians maintained a high position; but it was not chimerical or theoretical; it was practical and scriptural; here was solid ground, a rock-foundation. on it were no sidings, no off-sets, no bogs. the truths they held were clear, clean-cut, adamantine, foundational, and unchangeable. their oath bound them to defend the sovereignty of christ, the kingdom of god, and the reformed religion. the banner still floats up there in the care of a few successors. under the lord of hosts, the captain of the covenant, they continue to this day without a thought of retreating, and trailing their colors in the dust. they are confident that churches and nations will yet reach the heights of covenant doctrine and fidelity under jesus christ. the bane of the churches to-day is the slanting ground, adown which an evil influence is steadily drawing the people lower and lower. but in the last days the holy spirit will be poured out upon all flesh; then shall the world have a spiritual resurrection, and a glorious ascension to covenant grounds, through the lord jesus christ, "to whom be dominion and majesty for ever and ever." "the mountain of the lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains; and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it." * * * * * points for the class. . describe ayrsmoss on the night after the battle? . what did the enemy do with cameron's body? . how did cameron's life and death impress the covenanters? . why were the cameronians called extremists? . were they justifiable in separating from others? . who joined cameron in carrying out his commission? . what is the true position of covenanters? . what is their mission in the world? xxxviii. the lone star.--a.d. . donald cargill was at this time the only minister of the society people. he was the lone star appearing in the firmament of the covenanted church. the night was very cloudy. the storm of persecution had darkened the land; the defection of the church had deepened the darkness; the wrath of the lord, against the persecuting nation and the covenant-breaking church, had covered scotland with a woeful night. the stars had disappeared till one alone, a solitary orb, had power sufficient to pierce the deadly gloom with its lustrous rays. donald cargill was the elijah of his day, the solitary standard-bearer of the covenant after the death of cameron. doubtless there were seven thousand, yea, seven thousand twice told, who had not bowed the knee to baal; but they were hidden in caves and in holes of the rocks, waiting for some terrible display of the power and glory of the lord. there were many stars, but the night was too dark for them to shine; also they had become almost nebulous. even alexander peden, scotland's fiery prophet, who never weakened in the covenant nor waned in his brilliant career--even he did not identify with the cameronians in the declaration of war against king charles and the demand for his abdication. cargill was the lone leader of the dreadless covenanters in their new and aggressive movement. the last years of cargill were his best, and his last services were his greatest. he grew like the cedar, increasing in strength, usefulness, and dignity till cut down by death. his zeal leaped into flames with the adverse winds: he did his noblest works when he was most sorely pressed. he conducted divine services even when wounded and bleeding; he carried the gashes of the sword into the pulpit and the scars of battle down to the grave. a glance at his wonderful career should be inspiring. even in childhood cargill was noted for prayer. he grew up on a beautiful farm where the fields dip into the shady valley and ascend the lofty hills. rugged nature taught the opening child-life to take on much beauty, grandeur, and dignity. he loitered often on the confines of the higher world in his meditations and in prayer. but especially the altar of worship, the family bible, the fireside catechising, the stern discipline, and the solemn sabbaths moulded the boy and awakened the powers that distinguished the man. family religion, which was strict, solemn, and awe-inspiring made heroes of the men of the covenant. without family religion the children may be expected to become moral imbeciles and spiritual ciphers. when cargill was yet a youth, he was known to spend whole nights in prayer. what those nights must have been to that young heart! what unfoldings of the gospel and of the love of god! what revelations of the beauties of christ, the preciousness of his blood, and the treasures of his covenant! what insight into the value of the soul and its commission from god! what views of stewardship, accountability, rewards, punishments, destiny, eternity! what visions of the kingdom of the lord jesus christ, his royal rights, his glory and majesty, his jealousy over the church, his indignation against evil, his vindication of right! what those nights of prayer must have been to that boyish heart! the holy spirit came down upon the tender suppliant; the glory of the lord shone round about him; the heavens bent and burst with blessings above his head; he made many an incursion into the upper world. what a wonderful life we may expect to arise out of a beginning like this! look out for the boy that spends whole nights in prayer, or even whole hours talking with god! assuredly the outcome will be amazing. courage was prominent among the qualities that brought cargill to the front and made him one of scotland's many mighties. he was afraid of nothing except god's displeasure. his towering intellect, polished with education, instructed in the bible, and irradiant with the holy spirit, gave him a wide horizon. he made the throne of the lord jesus christ his viewpoint, and therefore saw things in their true relation. he had a strong, spiritual grasp of the truths of christ and his universal dominion. he saw jesus crowned with many crowns; the church united to christ in marriage; and all the universe subject to christ for the church's sake. cargill's clear and comprehensive view of christ and his universal dominion enabled him to take the right side in the great struggle that was then shaking scotland's foundations. he wisely chose the strong side. he cast his lot in with the poor "remnant," who were hunted, captured, and executed as fast as the bloodhounds of king charles could do their cruel work. most men called this the weak side, but cargill's eyes took in the spiritual world. he gazed upon the infinite power of god, the omnipotence of truth, the armies of heaven. he knew that all the forces of righteousness were moving forward in matchless harmony in support of the "remnant" who kept faith with the lord jesus christ. in the consciousness of this almighty strength, which was at his back, how could he be afraid? cargill accepted the office of the gospel ministry with a deep sense of unworthiness. when urged to enter the ministry he hesitated and spent a day in fasting and prayer to discover the mind of the lord. god spoke to him by sending into his heart the irresistible command: "son of man, eat this roll, and go speak unto the house of israel." he took this to be the answer, as these words rang in his ears day and night. he hesitated no longer; from that time he was consecrated to the work of the gospel, and his zeal made him a bright target for the foe. his regular service on one occasion fell on the anniversary of the king's restoration to the throne. the house was crowded; the country was rejoicing with the king, though he had already launched upon the crimson tide of persecution. casting a glance over the audience and judging that many had come to do the king honor, his soul flamed into indignation, and his eyes flashed with scorn for the crowned murderer. "we are not here," said he, "to keep this day as others keep it. we thought once to bless the day when the king came home again, but now we have reason to curse it. if any of you have come to solemnize this day, we desire you to remove." then arising into passionate vehemence, he cried, "woe, woe, woe unto the king! his name shall be a stench while the world stands, for treachery, tyranny, and lechery." from that day they sought his life to take it away; yet he lived and preached twenty more years. [illustration: donald cargill. donald cargill received the martyr's crown in , after passing through years of persecution. he died on the scaffold at the age of . standing beneath the rope he exclaimed, "this is the sweetest and most glorious day that ever mine eyes did see." he sang psalm , from the th verse. then crying out in a rapture of joy, "welcome, father, son, and holy ghost, into thy hands i commit my spirit," he entered within the veil.] cargill's life was tossed about on roughest waves. he made many narrow escapes. near his early home lies a deep valley, adown which a mountain stream rushes within a rock-rimmed channel, churning itself into milky whiteness. on one occasion he was pursued by soldiers all the way from dundee, nine miles distant. he fled down the steep cliff and leaped the chasm. the soldiers following him came to the spot but dared not to jump. cargill walked up the opposite embankment and escaped. being reminded one day that he had made a good leap he humorously replied, "yes, but i had a good run before the leap." at another time he saw a group of soldiers approaching in search of him. he coolly walked forward and, taking a square look at them, went on. they not knowing him personally never once thought that a man of such an airy countenance could be the one for whom they were searching. at queensferry the house still stands where he and captain hall were arrested. the brave captain threw himself between cargill and the officer. the struggle was a tough one; hall was mortally wounded; cargill, too, was much hurt but escaped. but this did not prevent him from keeping his engagement at a conventicle; he preached in his wounds. nothing but death seemed able to check this man of god in the work of the gospel. his greatest service however is yet to be related. have we incorporated the element of divine strength into our lives? do we make the throne of jesus our viewpoint, from whence we see all things related to him, and through him to each other? do we stand for the right, however weak that side may seem, knowing that all the powers that be of god are on that side? the times call for heroic lives, men who will not flinch under reproach, nor apologize for their convictions; men who will support the truth at any cost, and denounce sin at every hazard. can the church now furnish such men? * * * * * points for the class. . who succeeded cameron as leader of the society people? . tell something about cargill's early life. . how was he influenced to become a minister? . what objection had he to the king's anniversary? . what dangers did he meet? . how did he persist in the work of the gospel? . describe the strong side of every good cause. xxxix. an extraordinary service.--a.d. . the severity of the persecution had now driven the conventicles into the most solitary places. very few ministers at this period ventured, under any circumstances, to preach at the field-meetings. cargill survived cameron a little more than one year. they had been accustomed to attend these meetings together; their fellowship in the ministry of christ was a mutual joy. they were equally yoked and made a strong team. where the two preached the people had a great feast. but death had separated them; cargill keenly felt the bereavement. he was thereafter like a dove mourning the loss of its mate. he preached a touching sermon on the sabbath after cameron's death, taking his text from king david's elegy over the death of abner: "there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in israel." cargill was now seventy years old; grey, worn, and weakened with the terrible experiences that had crowded into his persecuted life. his last year was a fitting climax, the best of all his years in the lord's service. the notes of his trumpet were always vigorous and decisive; one blast, however, was especially loud, long, and clear, the like of which the world had never heard. this preacher of righteousness denounced sin with unsparing keenness. he was no respecter of persons; the king got his share of reproof and admonition, equally with the lowliest in the land. he was very jealous for the lord god of hosts, and could brook no indignity to christ. king charles had done dishonor of the darkest kind to the lord jesus. he had grasped at the crown of christ, had broken the holy covenant, had crushed the church, and had shed the blood of the saints. the sight of such horrible wickedness made cargill's blood boil, and his sermons arose betimes in passionate eloquence against the guilty king. on one occasion he poured out upon the royal head a triple woe. this could never be pardoned by the crowned murderer of god's people. the king pursued him with vengeful wrath. a price equal to $ , was offered for his head, alive or dead. twenty years and more the bloodhounds of persecution were on his track. twenty years, with the sword hanging over the head, makes a solemn life. twenty years, amidst the hardships and horrors of persecution, gives a rich experience. twenty years, in the furnace heated seven times more than it is wont, makes a pure soul. twenty years, hiding under the shadow of the most high, makes a powerful preacher. it was said of him, as of his master, though in a lesser sense, "never man spake like this man." his voice reached wide circles, resounded across broad glades, and echoed from rugged mountain sides. thousands were melted by his tender words, and many were swung into line with the covenant by his forceful logic. he spoke out of deep experience, pleading as a man who stood in the glare of christ's judgment seat. while he preached, the eternal world seemed irradiant about him. some of his discourses have been preserved by the press. cargill's sermons and prayers were usually short. he once received a gentle reproof for his brevity. he was holding a conventicle; the people had come a long distance for the preaching; they hungered and thirsted for god and his word. the great congregation was feasting on the rich abundance of the gospel, and hanging on the lips of the minister, when he suddenly stopped. he had finished. one of the hearers, who felt that only a slice of bread was given, when a loaf was needed, approached him and said, "oh, sir, 'tis long betwixt meals, and we are in a starving condition, and it is sweet and good and wholesome which ye deliver; but why do ye straiten us so much for shortness?" cargill replied, "ever since i bowed the knee in good earnest to pray, i never durst pray or preach with my gifts; and when my heart is not affected, and comes not up with my mouth, i always thought it time for me to quit. what comes not from my heart, i have little hope that it will go to the heart of others." he was able to distinguish between the product of his own gifts and that of the holy spirit. the one is like bubbles on the water for hungry souls; the other like the grapes of eschol. [illustration: earlston castle this castle is very ancient. the earlstons were zealous reformers for many generations. they suffered much in the persecution, and furnished at least one martyr, william gordon, a young man who was apprehended on his way to the battle of bothwell bridge, and shot on the road.] the most notable event in the career of cargill was the excommunication of the king, and six of his accomplices, from the covenanted church. these seven men were the chief persecutors at that time. formerly they had been covenanters, but had abandoned the covenant, and had fallen into excessive wickedness. the church had never dealt with their cases; she had lost the power. the church courts were controlled by the king. but shall discipline, therefore, fail? can the church no more sustain her laws, and administer her censures? is she incapacitated? extraordinary conditions justify extraordinary methods. cargill conceived the bold purpose of issuing these cases, and inflicting the censures, solitary and alone, as a minister of christ jesus. not in the spirit of revenge, nor as a vain anathema, but by the authority of god, in the name of christ, and with profound sense of responsibility did he mete out the spiritual penalty unto these blood-stained and impenitent transgressors. the indestructible vitality of the church thus reappeared in that dread act. this action was taken at a conventicle held at torwood early in the autumn of . the attendance was large. the people knew not what was coming. cargill was much animated. after a powerful sermon, he proceeded with the act of excommunication. the form was this: "i, being a minister of jesus christ, and having authority from him, do, in his name, and by his spirit, excommunicate, cast out of the true church, and deliver up to satan, charles ii., upon these grounds: ( ) his mocking of god; ( ) his great perjury; ( ) his rescinding all laws for establishing the reformation; ( ) his commanding armies to destroy the lord's people; ( ) his being an enemy to true protestants; ( ) his granting remission and pardon to murderers; ( ) his adulteries." cargill knew that he would be adversely judged, by future generations, for what he had done; many would regard the excommunication as unreasonable and unwarrantable. he, therefore, adventured his reputation and authority on a prophecy, which he uttered in his sermon on the next sabbath: "if these men die the ordinary death of men, then god hath not spoken by me." king charles was poisoned; the duke of york died raving under the sentence; mckenzie died with blood flowing from many parts of his body; the duke of monmouth was executed; dalziel died while drinking, without a moment of warning; lauderdale sank into dotage through excessive indulgence; the duke of rothes passed into eternity in despair. the prophecy had its terrible fulfilment, to the last man. "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living god." not much now remained for cargill to do. a few more conventicles, the acknowledgment of christ's supremacy before the judges, a public testimony on the scaffold; then the blood can flow, and seal the truth, which he loved so well to preach. his pursuers at length discovered him. great was the rejoicing of his enemies when he was found, and bound, and hastened to prison. his trial was swift, issuing in the death sentence. his execution quickly followed. when he came to the gibbet, he placed his back against the ladder, and addressed the throng that had gathered to witness his last struggle. the venerable face beamed with happiness. that morning he had written some of his flowing thoughts. here is one of them: "this is the most joyful day i ever saw; my joy is now begun never to be interrupted." his soul was stirring with divine raptures; the glory of heaven was breaking around him. the thrill of youthful life again quickened his pulse; he wheeled about and mounted the scaffold, saying, "the lord knows i go up this ladder with less fear and perturbation of mind than ever i entered the pulpit to preach." having reached the platform, where the rope was waiting for his neck, he bade adieu to earth, and welcome to heaven. "farewell," he exclaimed; "farewell, all relations and friends in christ; farewell acquaintances and all earthly enjoyments; farewell reading and preaching, praying and believing, wanderings and reproaches and sufferings. welcome joy unspeakable and full of glory. welcome father, son, and holy ghost! into thy hands i commit my spirit." what was death to a man like that but the beginning of glory! the black scaffold was lighted up with the radiance that streamed through the pearl gates. how much does the spirit of zeal, courage, witness-bearing, and discipline, stir the descendants of the martyred covenanters in the present day? * * * * * points for the class. . what may be said of cargill's last years of service? . how many years of persecution did he suffer? . what aroused him against the king? . what official act did he perform on the king and six others? . what was the nature of this excommunication? . how did he protect himself against wrong criticism? . was his prophecy fulfilled? . how did cargill die? . what service is much neglected in the church in our day? xl. the societies.--a.d. . after the death of cameron, the covenanters of the cameronian type formed themselves into societies for the worship of god, for their own spiritual edification, and for the defence of the covenant. half a dozen families or more, having the same faith, spirit, and purpose, met together on the sabbath day, to engage in social worship. this was called a society. those were days of woeful declension. defection had swept the great body of covenanters from their basis. under the strain of persecution and the snare of the royal indulgence, many ministers and people had abandoned wholly, or in degree, reformation grounds. the society people alone refused to make concessions by which truth would be suppressed, conscience defiled, or any divine principle surrendered. they stood by the covenant, and accepted the consequences, including hardest service and greatest sufferings. the society people have been censured for exclusiveness; they refused to associate with others in the worship of god, and would hear no ministers except their own. but why? consider their reason, then let them be judged. these people stood alone simply because they had been left alone; these soldiers of christ had been deserted while holding the ground won by their fathers at the cost of much blood. they stood where the lord jesus christ had placed them, giving them a solemn charge to keep the oath, and defend his royal rights. should they then be reprimanded, for not joining in the general stampede? what saith the lord? "if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him." from the fortress of the covenant these veterans of christ heroically waved the blue banner, declaring to their brethren, and to the world, that by the grace of god they would never surrender. they were the real covenanters, the true blue, the old stock. they were not a faction; they were the remnant. they stood on the original ground; the others had broken the covenant and had departed. these were the core, the center, the substance, the personnel, the integral force, the organized body, the visible form, of the covenanted church in those days. the societies were the continuity of the church that had flourished in the days of knox, and took on later and greater glory in the times of henderson. they were the same church, holding the same faith, the same covenant, and the same services. the society people were not the branch; they were, the trunk from which the branches had fallen. the branches were strewn around; but the trunk, though broken and disfigured, was still deeply rooted in covenant soil, and full of life. the persecutors more than ever concentrated their fire upon these people. they were pursued and shot like game. liberal rewards were offered for their leaders. yet they stood by their covenant; they would not yield an hairbreadth. fidelity to christ swallowed up every other consideration; it was the burning passion of their lives. these societies were numerous, extending over a wide area. they were held together by delegations which met quarterly. by this means harmony of spirit, purpose, and action was preserved. they stood like a square of veterans, facing the enemy on every side. they even took aggressive steps, delivering in the most public manner their testimony against the tyranny of the king and the defection of the church. the minutes of these general meetings have been preserved; they furnish interesting reading. after the death of cargill these people had no minister. a few ministers, like alexander peden, were still untainted, but they would not join these strong-headed covenanters in their war against the king. they regarded the society people as extremists and fanatics. the societies suffered more seriously from reproach and misrepresentation by the brethren than from persecution, though that was growing fiercer every day. but these were men who reckoned with conscience and with god; not with consequences nor with man. fidelity to christ was their first and only choice. these immovable covenanters were now undergoing the severest trial of faith. they were hunted, seized, tortured, shot, hanged, destroyed, in the most infernal manner. they were shown neither mercy nor justice. but the most crushing distress was the reproach heaped upon them by retrograde covenanters. by these they were defamed as dangerous men, disloyal to their country and a disgrace to religion. all the ministers, through fear or with scorn, had forsaken them. this was harder to endure than fire, gibbet, and sword combined. they issued a pathetic call to the pastors to come back and tend this flock of god. the call was like the wail of lost children crying for a father's care and pity. it contained these assuring words: "we will hear all ministers, whether in houses or fields, who will preach according to the word of god, our covenants, confession of faith, and catechisms, larger and shorter, that will embrace this, our call." the call was presented to as many as could be found, and was declined by every one. these that declined their call were the ministers who, twenty years previous, had been expelled from their churches, because they would not abandon their covenant and submit to the king. and these were the people who had followed them into the wilderness, gathered about them in great conventicles, enjoyed wonderful communions under their ministry, and adventured their lives in their defence. now the flock was forsaken; the shepherds had fled. these people, however, were not to be despised. they were numerous; a few years later, upon an emergency, they mustered a regiment for their country's defence without the beat of a drum, and announced that another regiment or two would follow if needed. they were courageous; they gave a most aggressive testimony at lanark against the king and the defections of the times. they were intelligent; they ably defended their principles and position both in speech and in print. they were consecrated; they made their appeal always to god, to the covenant, to conscience, and to the enlightened judgment of christendom. the general meeting resolved, in , to educate four young men for the ministry, among whom was james renwick. these were sent to college. renwick was ordained in . each society endeavored to hold a meeting every sabbath for divine worship. this went far to supply the spiritual nourishment which the ministers had failed to give. the "society" is a sweet memory, lingering still in the hearts of some of our aged people. there are covenanters who can yet recall the old-fashioned prayer meeting, then known as the society which descended from the times of persecution they can remember how half a dozen families, sometimes more, sometimes less, came quietly together on sabbath morning to one of their homes. the atmosphere, within and without, was pervaded with holy awe. a quiet joy, subdued with gravity, beamed in all faces. the largest room in the house was crowded with men, women, and children; the chairs were supplemented with boards, cushioned with quilts, for seats. at a.m. the worship of god began. [illustration: st. sebastian church, rotterdam, holland. in the times of persecution many covenanters fled to holland for safety. here they found a city of refuge. the city council gave them the use of this church for worship. the building is very ancient, and yet it is in a good state of preservation.] order of exercises: a psalm announced, a blessing invoked singing the psalm, reading a chapter, and prayer by the leader. bible verse announced, statement of doctrine and remarks. a second psalm, chapter, and prayer. reading in the confession of faith or in a sermon. a third psalm, chapter, and prayer. the children reciting psalms and questions. the shorter catechism recited by the whole house. a fourth psalm, followed with a short prayer. adjournment at p.m. these societies were the deep roots of the covenanted church. by means of them, she became thoroughly indoctrinated in the word of god and his holy covenant. in these meetings the elders became like ministers in the knowledge of christ, and the people like elders. the feeble in israel waxed strong as the house of david, and the house of david as the angel of the lord. there were giants in those days. the covenanted church must revive the society spirit and exercises, if she would recover her vitality; she must resume these spiritual athletics if she would feel the glow of healthy vigor. these roots have suffered decay; therefore the trees are easily upturned. when social worship of god characterizes the church, the people will take on strength and be able to stand amidst the spiritual landslides and general defection that characterizes the times in which we live. * * * * * points for the class. . how did the covenanted societies survive the general defection? . how did they succeed when they had no ministers? . what separated them from others in worship? . what caused them the greatest grief? . how did they entreat the ministers to come to them? . on what terms would they have received the minister? . how were the societies unified? . how did the general meeting provide a ministry? . give a description of an old-time prayer-meeting. . why should these exercises be revived? xli. the daughters of the covenant. the persecution of the covenanters brought into display the rarest virtues and highest qualities of womanhood. many women chose to give up their happy homes, and wander in solitudes, dwell in caves, suffer in prisons, hear the death sentence, and go to the gallows, rather than violate their covenant with god. they cheerfully accepted their full share of service and sacrifice in scotland's struggle for civil and religious liberty. they faced the terrors of that conflict with a noble spirit; they were man's worthy helpers in those trying times. thousands of incidents of feminine heroism might be cited; we have room for merely a few. the covenanter's marriage, in those days, was both serious and romantic. the bride always loves to open her eyes upon rosy prospects, but persecution in that generation shattered the beautiful dream. her future was then like a landscape, over which storm followed storm, with only alternate blinks of sunlight. husband and wife were in jeopardy every hour; to-morrow the wedding gown might be the winding sheet. when john knox found the woman of his choice, he said, "my bird, are you willing to marry me?" she replied, "yes, sir." then tenderly and firmly he added, "my bird, if you marry me, you must take your venture of god's providence, as i do. i go through the country on foot, with a wallet on my arm, and in it a bible, a shirt, and a clean band; you also may put some things in for yourself; and you must go where i go, and lodge where i lodge." "i'll do all this," she blithely answered. they lived long, and were happy in the bonds of that blessed wedlock. once as they journeyed across the county she took the hand-baggage, and hastening ahead sat on the hilltop awaiting his coming. as he came up she humorously said, "am not i as good as my word?" the women often showed fidelity to jesus christ and his covenant that amazed the persecutors. they scorned the suggestion of relief for themselves or their families that would compromise the truth of christ. john welch, of ayr, lay in prison fifteen months because his preaching did not please the king. the dungeon in which he was confined is yet pointed out in blackness castle, a dark, dismal, pestilential vault. a recent traveler said that he had gotten enough of its horrors in five minutes to do him. but poor welch had to abide there "five quarters of ane yier." mrs. welch visited the king in person to plead for his release. "yes," said the king, "if he will submit to the bishops." "please your majesty," said mrs. welch, holding up the corners of her apron, "i'd rather kep his head here." the faithful wife was willing to witness her husband's execution, rather than have him betray the cause of christ or break his covenant with god. many a martyr got his inspiration for duty from god, through his noble wife. when james guthrie came to a difficult task, he seemed to hesitate. great interests were involved. may he not modify a certain ministerial action so as to save his life, provide for his family, and continue to shepherd his flock? who would not pause in presence of such a serious consideration? his wife, observing his perplexity, came into his presence with a cheery countenance and an assuring voice, saying, "my heart, what the lord gives you light and clearness to do, that do." the light carried him into the service; the conscience was set free from the temporary disturbance; yet the decision brought him to the scaffold; it placed upon his brow the martyr's crown. the worthy wife sadly went into widowhood, and the children into orphanage, through that strong, womanly spirit which could brook no deviation from duty. the women frequently were placed in embarrassing positions. in marriage they were not always equally yoked. when the husband was a persecutor, faithfulness in the house and fidelity to jesus required the highest wisdom on the part of the wife. lady anne rothes occupied such a home. both she and her husband were born covenanters. the covenant principles were bred in the bone, instilled into the thoughts, and impressed on the conscience, at the parental fireside, at the family altar, in the house of god, and at the table of the lord, while they were under the care of their parents; but the young man forsook his father's god, dishonored the covenant, and cast off religion. he became a profligate and persecutor. the woman, through the abundant grace of god, remained true to the covenant. her position, however, involved her in many a dilemma. the wedlock that promised to be a blessed union proved to be a galling yoke. the husband was placed in power by the king, and granted the title of duke. on one occasion, when entertaining archbishop sharp, the two grew merry over their plan to put certain covenanters to death. the tender-hearted woman, sitting with them at the table, was greatly distressed, yet she wisely concealed her feelings. having the information, however, she was able to send out timely warning to the covenanters. in this way she saved their lives, not once, nor twice. rothes, too, in his better moments, assisted her in protecting the persecuted. when about to send his soldiers to apprehend the covenanters, at times he would say to her with a twinkle in his eye, "my lady, the hawks will be out to-night, so you had better take care of your chickens." the women of the covenant were compelled to pass through many painful scenes. often their hearts were heavily burdened, yet they were mightily sustained by the holy spirit. captain john paton, after a wonderful record on the battlefield in defence of the covenant, won his last fight on the scaffold. he went joyfully to his death, glorying in victory through his lord jesus christ. as he stood on the platform from which he would soon step into eternity, he held forth his well-worn bible, from which he addressed the crowd that stood around the gallows. then bidding farewell to earth, and welcome to heaven, he commended his wife and their six children to the care of his covenant god. at that moment, the sorrow-stricken woman, reaching up her trembling hand, received from him his bible with a blessing--a double token of her husband's deathless love. then in the twinkling of an eye, she saw his body twirling in the death struggle, while his soul entered into glory. that bible is still preserved at lochgoin. the horrors which women deliberately faced, in their devotion to christ and his servants, seem almost incredible. how great the love of woman whose heart god's love has filled! how deep, how tranquil, how inexhaustible, how majestic, how like the love of jesus is the love of that woman whose heart rests in her covenant god! it is measured in part by the stupendous tasks she accepts and the crucial emergencies she endures for the sake of others. when robert baillie, burdened with years and weakened with disease, lay in prison waiting for his sentence, his wife was ill and unable to visit him. but the angelic heart of her sister, lady graden, then found its opportunity. the authorities would permit her to visit the dying man, only on her consent to become a prisoner with him. she agreed to the conditions, and entered the dark sickly cell. his pale face was quickly lighted up with her presence, and the word of god, which she read to him in the dim candle-light. night and day she watched over him with sympathetic interest. at length he was brought out for trial, and sentenced to die. she accompanied him to the gallows, stood by him when swung off; saw him cut down, watched while his body was quartered and prepared for shipment, to be placed on exhibition in four cities. and when the service of love was fully finished, and neither hand, nor tongue, nor eye could do anything further, she went home to console her sick sister. [illustration: consolation in prison. helen johnston, afterward lady graden, was the daughter of the celebrated archibald johnston, who sealed the covenant with his blood. through much tribulation she learned to sympathize deeply with those who were condemned to die for their faith in the lord jesus christ. here she is seen visiting an aged prisoner of christ, robert baillie. she is leading the bible, and conversing upon the consolation of god's grace. she attended him on the scaffold, where he gave up his life for the truth.] and what shall we say more of isabel alison, marion harvie, margaret dun, barbara cunningham, janet livingston, anne hamilton, margaret colville, marion veitch, and the long list of worthy women, which the pen of man will never complete? the covenanted church is largely dependent on the women for spirit, courage, fidelity, and activity in the service of christ. the grace of god, abounding in the women, will cause the church to arise and do valiant work. when mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters beam with devotion to christ and his covenant; when their voice is resonant with holy courage in the lord's cause; when their lives are sublime with deeds of heroic faith; then will the church become "beautiful as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners." jesus said unto her, "o woman, great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt." * * * * * points for the class. . in what spirit did the women endure the persecution? . give an incident in courtship. . describe the loyalty of mrs. welch, both to her husband and to the covenant. . relate mrs. guthrie's spirited advice to her husband. . tell about mrs. paton. . what were some of the difficulties faced by lady rothes? . describe the service of devotion by lady graden to robert baillie. . how is the church dependent on woman, for spirited and successful work? xlii. young life under persecution. when the shepherd is smitten, the sheep will be scattered. when the father is persecuted, the family will suffer, the mother and children cannot escape. the fire that enfolds the oak with a sheet of flame will not pause at the more beautiful maple or the flowering shrubs. god's covenant with the fathers included mothers, sons, and daughters. it also embraced future generations. "the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the lord our god shall call." the covenant of our fathers was their acceptance of god's promise on his own terms. the terms were these: unswerving fidelity to his truth, and steadfastness in his service. they who were true in spirit, honest at heart, firm in purpose, and consistent in life, were able to enter into the deep, broad, marvelous meaning of the covenant. the secret of the lord was with them. the holy spirit came upon them with power, shed light, gave strength, ministered comfort, inspired hope, produced courage, wrought wonders. in their presence the wilderness blossomed as the rose; gardens sprang up in the solitary places; the apple tree bore fruit in the woods. the lord jesus christ was with them in the rich abundance and wonderful variety of his grace; they dwelt in the heavenly places; glory covered the ground whereon they trod. the children of the covenanters, being included in the covenant, suffered with their parents in the persecution, and received also the recompense of reward. a few of these lovely lives may be mentioned, but the fascinating story of thousands will never be told. the few, however, will suggest the many. we look at a bunch of violets, then think of the acres of delicate beauty bathing in the warm sunbeams and fluttering in the soft winds. the young covenanters in those days confronted severest conditions and learned hardest lessons in discipleship. sometimes they had to forsake father and mother to prove themselves worthy of christ. andrew forsyth, verging on manhood, was required to drink this bitter cup. the family had not yet espoused the covenanted cause. one day andrew was entrusted with a flock of sheep for the market. he was over night on the way. as he lay that night guarding his sheep in the field, he heard solemn music. following the sound, he came to a moss-hag, where a group of covenanters were worshiping god. a moss-hag is a cut on the hillside, formed by frost and rain; and overhung with moss, heather, and other growths. in such places the pursued covenanters often hid themselves. the cold grotto was their house; the damp earth their bed; the hole cut out of the hill without hands their sanctuary. andrew listened with breathless interest. they were singing a psalm of david. then followed an earnest prayer. tie could not endure the suspense, but revealed himself to the little company. they received him gladly, and spent hours talking of christ, his precious blood, his amazing love, his royal glory, and his unrivalled supremacy. andrew was a covenanter when he went home. his father was angry, his mother was sorry, and he had to leave. in a distant moor he made himself a bed under a booth of heather and moss, and supported himself by working for the neighboring shepherds. the dragoons heard of his affiliation with the covenanters, and were quickly on his path; his life was ever in danger. one day they fired on him, but he escaped and reached his mossy den, carrying a bullet wound received from their fire. there he lay several days, suffering, bleeding, hungry, lonely, and helpless, yet full of peace and joy in the lord. often did he think of his father's house, and his mother's love; of the gentle hands that had in other days smoothed his bed and made his bread; yet his heart bloomed with thoughts of the love of jesus christ and his sweet promises. his religion had cost much, but he never regretted the bargain by which he had lost the world and gained his soul. at length a shepherd found him, and kindly ministered to his wants. this good boy lived to be an old man, whose grey hair was a crown of glory. the young people often manifested presence of mind equal to those of riper years. bessie willison was one of those brilliant characters. once she heard of a field-meeting to be held under trying circumstances and resolved to attend it. it was winter; the ground was covered with snow; the place was distant and difficult to reach; the weather was rough; the journey was perilous; dragoons might be met at any turn of the road. what girl would brave such hardships for a day's preaching? bessie arrayed herself in her winter wraps, and started early in the morning. she was willing to endure hardness for the lord's sake. she could face the driven snow, or sit on an icy stone, or laugh at the blasts that reddened her cheeks, in order to hear the word preached by a true servant of god. she walked alone; yet not alone, for her heart burned within her while the lord talked with her by the way. as the road led around a hill, she suddenly came upon a troop of dragoons. they drew up their horses, soldier-like, and spoke rudely to her; she replied with much dignity. they persisted in their vile language, taunting her and railing on the covenanters. but even with their horses, guns, swords, and rough speeches, they were unable to daunt the lonely girl. conscious of purity, and flaming with indignation, her eyes flashing into their faces, she administered a reproof that cut like a lancet. they shrank and made room for her to pass on without further molestation. what inspiration would come to the field-meeting from the presence of a covenanter like that! the lord was with her, and therefore she brought joy and strength to others. the little children, too, had their difficult places in scotland's hard fight for liberty. the persecution still increased in violence. at length when for any reason a town had fallen under the king's displeasure, all the inhabitants were subject to punishment. on one occasion, the people had been warned of the coming of dragoons. the parents, not being able to take their children with them, and hoping the "bairns" would find pity, left them and fled to a hiding-place. the children were sharply interrogated by the soldiers concerning their parents, but gave no satisfaction. they were then led to a field and placed in front of the soldiers. this greatly terrified them, but they would reveal nothing. the officer commanded his men to take aim. up went the guns; the sight was dreadful for children; yet they would give no information. "lead us to the hiding-place, or you will be shot," cried the officer. there were sobs, tears, and trembling, but no response. [illustration: andrew hislop's martyrdom. andrew hislop was but a youth when he suffered death for christ's crown and covenant. he was taken while crossing a field, and sentenced to die on the spot. he bravely faced the guns that were levelled at his brow. many, other boys of that period were equally heroic. four of them, who were captured in a group, replied thus to their captors, when told that they must be shot: "we are to die, you say? glorious news! christ is no worse than he promised."] "will it hurt much, janet?" said a little boy, as he clasped the hand of his sister. "i dinna ken, willie," replied the sister tenderly, "but i'm sure it will na last lang." "fire!" shouted the officer. the terrible volley flashed from every gun. some of the children dropped, thinking they had been shot. the soldiers had been told to shoot over their heads to frighten and not kill. the officer, outmatched by the brave children, and we hope heartily ashamed of himself, led his men away. as they rode off, the children sang: "the lord's my shepherd; i'll not want; he makes me down to lie in pastures green; he leadeth me the quiet waters by." their sweet voices mingled with the dying clatter of the horses' hoofs. the young bridegroom and his bride were also involved in hardships that tried their souls. the soldiers that raided the country had equal disregard for old age, youth, and infancy. the mother, whether surrounded by a houseful of children, or clasping her first infant on her bosom, found no pity. one morning the dragoons surrounded the house of a happy couple, john and sarah gibson. they had come to seize both, whether to kill or imprison was not yet determined. john was absent; sarah, seeing the troopers gallop toward the house, poured a prayer over her babe, as it lay asleep in the crib, and fled in terror, hoping that sweet infancy would appeal to their hearts. a ruffian rushed in, and grasping the babe, shouted, "the nurse is not far away." he made it scream, to bring the mother back. she heard its pitiful cry; her heart was breaking, yet she was utterly powerless. she might expose herself, but she could not help the infant. they carried it away. she was almost insane with grief. the soldiers, going back from the house, met the father, but he was not identified. they, being bewildered on the moor, compelled him to be their guide. he saw the child, but did not recognize it as his own. the officer, ashamed of the cruel deed, ordered the man who had carried off the babe to take it back to the house. he galloped off and laid it again in the crib. the mother quickly clasped it to her bosom. that night the father returned. telling of his adventures, he mentioned the babe he had seen with the soldiers. the mother, bursting into tears, arose and laying the infant in his arms said, "this is the babe you saw." the young people are the hope of the church. the congregation whose young people are loyal to christ and true to the covenant is greatly blessed of god. the covenant embraces children, claims their allegiance, calls for their service, honors them with responsibilities, and lays at their feet the privileges and beatitudes of the kingdom of heaven. * * * * * points for the class. . does the covenant of the fathers include posterity? . how did the children suffer in the persecution? . describe the case of andrew forsyth. . how did bessie willison meet her trials? . tell about the little children of a persecuted town. . describe the cruelty done to the babe of mr. and mrs. gibson. . what may the church expect, when her young people are true? xliii. the covenanters' bible. the covenanters dearly loved the bible. they esteemed it very highly for the sake of god, its author. they believed in its inspiration, genuineness, infallibility, majesty, and power. the bible inspired? yes, the covenanters had no troublesome thoughts on that question. the holy spirit, in their estimation, was the source of that book; the contents were all his own. he produced every sentence, formed every clause, chose every word found in the original hebrew and greek scriptures, and filled all brimful and overflowing with god's own meaning. he did all this through the men who were employed as the inspired writers. the covenanters believed in the verbal and plenary inspiration of the bible. they discovered also a second inspiration. the holy spirit inspires the devout reader. he opens the heart to receive the scriptures, and he opens the scriptures to yield their meaning. then, and only then, the bible appears in its true greatness. then is it the effective voice of god, tender as the sob of a babe, and majestic as thunder; it then is the temple of living truth, filled with the glory of the lord's presence; it then is the revelation of the eternal world, showing the beauty of holiness, the mystery of the cross, the conquest of death, the horrors of sin, the doom of the lost, the joy of the saved. oh, what a book the bible is to the inspired reader! it becomes transparent. the light of the face of jesus flashes from the lines and between the lines, through the words and amidst the letters, turning the page into heaven's bright scenery, and the chapters into the unveiling of the wonders of redemption. such was the book of god to the covenanters, as they passed through the fires of persecution. the homeless covenanters, wandering from place to place, carried the bible with them. it was their faithful guide and constant companion. when they were hungry, it was their food; when thirsty, it was their drink; when forsaken, it was their friend; when wounded, it was their balm; when pursued, it was their refuge; when condemned, it was their advocate; when executed, it was their welcome into heaven. when they retired to the darksome caves, its promises made the dripping stones shine; when they sought shelter in the mountains, the music of the psalms cheered their hearts; when their blood bedewed the moss, the loud cry on calvary sanctified their pain; when they sat on the bass rock begirt with waves and swept by storms, the visions, creations, and tumultuous grandeurs of patmos were reproduced in the spiritual experience of these illuminated sufferers, by means of the word of god. to these devout covenanters, the blessed book yielded up its wealth, breathed its deepest love, revealed its hidden glory. in their spiritual visions, the desert blossomed at their feet, gardens flourished around them, harvests ripened for their sickle; summer drove back the dreary winter; they verily dwelt in immanuel's land. the covenanters loved the bible more than their lives. in it they found eternal life, and counted all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of christ. many instances are on record, showing their willingness to die, rather than abandon, or conceal, the book of god. one man, m'roy by name, was shot on the spot, because he was found reading his bible. it was sabbath, a sweet summer day. that morning he drove his cows to pasture, carrying the sacred book with him. the field is a beautiful place for personal devotions. here the soul can luxuriate in prayer and meditation, holding fellowship with heaven. a solemn stillness had fallen upon the broad landscape; nothing was heard but the notes of the plover, the bleating of the lambs, and the grazing of the cows. m'roy sat down on the soft grass, and opened the book of god. he was then in his element; he delighted in the law of the lord. the sun poured down its blessings upon the fields, and a light much brighter spread around his soul; the fragrant air fanned his brow, and sweeter aroma from the "mountain or myrrh" refreshed his spirit. his heart was beating fast with the joys that were crowding into his inner life. he was preparing, though he knew it not, for a crisis. suddenly and rudely the spiritual reverie was interrupted. captain lagg, with a company of horsemen, was dashing across that field, when their eyes fell upon the lonely herdsman. they galloped to the spot where he sat in solemn composure. "what book is that you are reading?" lagg gruffly asked. "it is the bible, sir," meekly replied m'roy, looking up into the face of the rough soldier, who held his weapon ready for action. the confession sealed his death. "your cows must find another herdsman," sternly returned lagg, who immediately delivered the fatal shot. the bleeding body struggled a moment on the heath, then the ransomed spirit took its flight to brighter realms. the bible won the young, as well as the more matured. it warmed, strengthened, purified, and ennobled the hearts of sons and daughters, affording comfort and arousing heroism equal to that of fathers and mothers. andrew hislop, while yet a youth, was overtaken as he hastened to a hiding-place, and was put on trial for his life, while he stood before the soldiers in the field across which he was running. his bible was found on his person. his mother's home had been demolished by claverhouse some time previous; she and her children had been compelled to face the future without food or shelter. she had been charged with harboring covenanters; therefore her residence had been destroyed, her provisions seized, and her children scattered; all were now being hunted for their lives. claverhouse had found andrew. he was allowed a short time for prayer. his prayer brought the needed blessing with more than lightning-speed; sufficient grace and strength were immediately given. his face shined with courage; his eyes gleamed with contempt for danger and death; a halo of victory seemed to wreathe him; the holy spirit filled his soul with joy; his lips took up the psalmist's inspired challenge, and the solemn music smote the ears of his foes, as he sang-- "the mighty lord is on my side, i will not be afraid; for any thing that man can do i shall not be dismayed." the dragoons were unable to endure the glory of that face, or the sweetness of that voice. he was ordered to draw down his "bonnet" over his eyes, and receive the volley. he sternly refused, lifting it higher on his dauntless brow, and affirming that he could look the musketeers in the face, while they delivered the murderous fire. then holding out his bible, he haled them to the judgment-seat, where they would be judged by that book. [illustration: covenanters bibles in this group of bibles, peden's is the largest; cargill's is underneath it, and captain paton's to the left. we had the privilege of using cargill's bible in , at a conventicle service held on the cargill farm. we felt deeply impressed, while reading from the pages upon which the piercing eyes of the martyr had often flashed. the book still bears the marks of rain-drops, received, doubtless, while being used in the outdoor meetings held by the covenanters.] "shoot," cried claverhouse. not a gun was discharged. the men were overawed by the sweet innocency and intrepid spirit of the youthful covenanter. "shoot that bonnie young man!" exclaimed the officer, who had charge of the men appointed to do the bloody work. "i'll fight clavers and a' his men first." three others were found sufficiently hardened to do the cruel deed. the young hero fell, and expired. as the horsemen rode away, the stricken mother hastened to the spot. the young heart had ceased to beat; the eyes opened no more upon her kindly face. sadly she gathered up the oozing brains, for which she had brought a clean napkin, knowing too well what had occurred; she then prepared the body for burial. the covenanters endeavored to keep the bible ever close at hand. it was the open book in the house the desk-book in the shop, the pocket-book in the field, the guide-book on the road. when they had a breathing spell at their work, they inhaled its fragrance, fed upon its manna, drank from its wells of salvation, plucked the ripe fruit of its orchards. a glance at its sacred pages, now and then through the day, supplied strength, wisdom, comfort, and courage so much needed. but this pious habit imperiled life. arthur inglis one day, while resting his team at the plow, sat down on the furrow, with his open bible. he was suddenly sighted by the wary dragoons, who were scouting the country. they spurred their steeds, and were quickly drawn up around their victim. the fact that he was reading the bible was sufficient to convince them that he was worthy to die. neither judge nor jury was necessary for conviction. he received the deadly volley and fell, expiring in the furrow where he sat. the bible, how we should prize it! our fathers, when they opened the book of god, knew not but ere they closed it their blood would stain the page upon which the eyes were feasting; yet they relished it more than their necessary food. how will our delight in the word of god compare with theirs? points for the class. . how did the covenanters esteem the bible? . what kind of inspiration did they ascribe to the bible? . what second inspiration needed to understand it? . what was the bible to these sufferers? . describe their devotion to the word of god; the experience of mcroy; andrew hislop; arthur inglis. . how ought we to esteem the bible? xliv. the scottish seer.--a.d. . alexander peden was a burning and a shining light in the dark night of scotland's persecution. his career in the ministry of the gospel glowed with mysterious splendor. his natural powers flashed with supernatural glints, or rather, with excessive spiritual light, by the indwelling holy spirit. god, through persecution, made many mighty men. peden was born in , when king charles was trying hard to stamp out presbyterianism. he was twelve years old, when the covenant renewed at greyfriars' church thrilled the kingdom. he was twenty-four when charles ii. took the throne, and wrought havoc with the reformation. when thirty-six, he was driven from his church at glenluce by the wrath of the king. when forty-eight, he was banished to the bass rock, where he rested, like an eagle on its aerie, his soul betimes soaring above all clouds, and calmly viewing the ransomed in presence of the eternal throne. at sixty, he gave death a royal welcome, uttering predictions, bestowing blessings, and giving signs, like one of the prophets of old. thus his singular life fell into periods of twelves, each arising above the other, like mountain upon mountain, in ruggedness and majesty, until his noble spirit took its flight from the scenes of earth. a great distress befell him on the day appointed for his licensure. a serious charge was preferred against him, affecting his moral character. his licensure, therefore, was deferred. greatly humiliated, he withdrew to a solitary place, and spent twenty-four hours in prayer. he was all night alone with the angel of the covenant, and wrestled till he got the blessing. a prayer lasting twenty-four hours, poured forth from the heart, will work wonders. he has not told us how he sat by the murmuring waters, pouring out his complaint; nor how that day was to him like night, and the night like outer darkness; nor how he mingled his sighs with the moaning of the winds, and his tears with the drops of the night; but he has told how that the lord answered him. returning to the house he said, "give me meat and drink, for i have gotten what i was seeking; i will be vindicated." his innocency was soon made clear by the criminal making a public confession of guilt. peden was called to the church of glenluce, where he remained as pastor three years. his preaching was earnest, pointed, and powerful. he was greatly beloved by his flock, and the work of the lord prospered in his hand. but his ministry in that field was violently interrupted by the vengeance of king charles, which fell upon the church in , driving ministers from their parishes. peden possessed a militant spirit, and ignored the day set by royal authority for the arbitrary vacation. he boldly continued overtime. at length the strain was so great that he had to go. his farewell sermon was preached from acts : : "therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years i ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears." the text was peculiarly appropriate to the occasion. the house was crowded; tumultuous emotions surged through the audience; the anguish found vent in weeping, wailing, and loud lamentations. the sermon was frequently interrupted with the grief. the service continued until night. he never again preached in that pulpit. the gift of prophecy distinguished peden in a striking manner, giving him a unique place in history. he spoke with accuracy of many events, without information other than that received directly from god. but this will astonish no one who is acquainted with man's power in prayer. prayer was the secret of peden's prescience. god proceeds on established principles, in his dealings with his people. "the secret of the lord is with them that fear him." "and the lord said, shall i hide from abraham that thing which i do?" peden's prayers on certain occasions lasted all night. communion with god was his delight; he lived in the presence of the almighty; his hiding-place was in the brightness of the light shining from the face of jesus christ. his heart was burdened with the interests of christ's kingdom. therefore god gave him eyes to see much that was hidden from others. he was sixty miles away when the covenanters fell on the field of rullion green. news then traveled no faster than a horse. that evening he was sad. a friend inquired the cause. he replied, "to-morrow i shall tell you." that night he retired to his room, but went not to bed; he spent the hours in prayer. next morning he said, "our friends, that were in arms for christ's interest, are now broken, killed, taken, and fled, every man." he was forty miles away on the dismal sabbath, when the covenanters were slaughtered at bothwell bridge. he had an engagement to preach. the people assembled in a solitary place for the service. they were hungry for the word of god, but peden did not appear. at noon they sent to know the cause. he replied, "let the people go to their prayers; i neither can, nor will preach this day, for our friends are fallen and fleed before the enemy; they are hagging and hacking them down, and their blood is running like water." [illustration: peden at cameron's grave. when peden was old, he wandered one day to the grave of cameron. there he sat down in deep meditation. desolation brooded over the scene. the solitude of his life, too, was crushing. his dearest companions in persecution had fallen in the hard-fought battle. they had received their crown, and were with the lord in glory, while he was yet pursued like a partridge on the mountains. his heart heaved a heavy sigh, and from his lips came the memorable words, "o, to be wi richie."] one day while preaching, he arose in a flight of inspiration, exclaiming, "i must tell you, in the name of the lord, who sent me unto you this day, to tell you these things, that ere it be very long, the living shall not be able to bury the dead in thee, o scotland; and many a mile shall ye walk, or ride, and shall not see a farm-house, but ruinous wastes, for the quarrel of a broken covenant and wrongs done to the son of god." this servant of god had profound knowledge of bible doctrines. he had a masterly conception of the crown rights of jesus christ, and the fundamental principles of his kingdom. he had vivid views of the excellence of holiness, and the atrocity of sin. this filled him, like the psalmist, with horror at the doom of transgressors. his inner life was fiercely swept with the contrary passions of love for righteousness, and hatred for iniquity. his soul was the scene of terrific conflicts. his preaching and praying against the powers of darkness often revealed an internal tragedy. one night while preaching to the covenanters who had assembled in a sheep-house, he cried out, "black, black, black will be the day, that shall come upon ireland; they shall travel forty miles, and not see a reeking house, or hear a crowing cock." then, clapping his hands with dramatic effect, he exclaimed: "glory, glory to the lord, that he has accepted a bloody sacrifice of a sealed testimony off scotland's hand." peden could not brook any departure from christ and his covenant. covenant-breaking was, in his eyes, a most aggravated sin. he was quick to see the lord coming to avenge the quarrel of his covenant, and his soul was filled with dread. here are some of his utterances: "oh, my heart trembles within me, to think what is coming on the backsliding, soul-murdering ministers of scotland! "he is not worth his room, that prays not half his time, to see if he can prevent the dreadful wrath, that is coming on our poor motherland. "thirty-six years ago our lord had a numerous train of ministers in scotland, but one blast blew six hundred of them away, and they never returned. "i shall tell you the right way of covenanting with god; it is when christ and believers meet; and our lord gives them his laws, statutes, and commandments; and charges them not to quit a hoof of them; no, though they should be torn into a thousand pieces. and the right covenanter says, amen." peden never married. during twenty-four years of wanderings, his life was pathetically lonely. when death was approaching, he returned to the old home, to spend his last days amid the scenes of his childhood. his brother still dwelt there. he received a cordial welcome, though his presence imperiled the family; for the dragoons were still pursuing him. to that true and tender soul, how beautiful must have been the green fields, the rippling brooks, and the familiar hills, where he had roamed when a child! they made him a cave on the hillside; a bush covered its entrance. there he was hidden from the enemy, and there he lay in his last illness, and ripened for heaven. when near his end he predicted, that, bury him where they would, the enemy would lift his body. forty days after his burial, the spiteful foe raised his body, and buried it among the graves of criminals. thus they attempted to disgrace this servant of jesus christ. but in later years his memory was so dearly cherished, that many good people requested to be interred beside him, and the grounds around that grave in time became a beautiful cemetery. communion with god is the secret of power, and of spiritual vision; and faithfulness in god's covenant is the secret of divine communion. the possibility of living in holy familiarity with god the father, and with our lord jesus christ, and with the holy spirit, learning the thoughts of god, feeling the thrill of his power, viewing his far-reaching plans, and co-operating in his glorious work--is this only a fascinating dream? nay, the covenanters of the martyr-spirit found it to be a realization. do their children strive after the same attainment? * * * * * points for the class. . what gift specially distinguished peden? . what distress did he meet at his licensure? . how did he overcome it? . where was his first pastorate? . why did he leave glenluce? . what remarkable prophecies did he utter? . repeat some of his sayings. . what occurred to his body after burial? . how may we attain to a similar familiarity with god? xlv. scotland's maiden martyr.--a.d. . king charles ii. died february , . few tears were shed, many hearts were glad, at his departure. he was called the "merry monarch," in allusion to his frivolous spirit and gross dissipation. "wherever you see his portrait, you may fancy him in his court at whitehall, surrounded by some of the worst vagabonds in the kingdom, drinking, gambling, indulging in vicious conversation, and committing every kind of profligate excess." charles left behind him a gory path. pools of blood, precious blood, the blood of the saints, marked it all the way through the twenty-five years of his reign. where did that horrible path lead? we shudder at the answer; we draw a veil over the scene; we are careful not to speak our thoughts. but the strong-hearted martyrs followed the vision to the end. "would you know what the devil is doing in hell?" exclaimed john semple, one of the covenanted ministers. "he is going with a long rod in his hand, crying, make way, make room, for the king is coming; and the other persecutors are posting hither." how like the scathing irony of isaiah, in describing the death of the king of babylon! "hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming." an ovation in the lower world! what horrid mockery there awaits the chieftains of crime! a curious coincidence occurred at this time. alexander peden, on a certain night, was conducting family worship. he was hundreds of miles distant from the king. while reading from the bible, he suddenly stopped, and exclaimed, "what's this i hear?" he uttered the strange words three times. then after a brief pause, he clapped his hands and said, "i hear a dead shot at the throne of britain. let him go; he has been a black sight to these lands, especially to poor scotland. we're well quit of him." that same night the king fell in a fit of apoplexy, or as some say, by a dose of poison, and died within five days. his brother, the duke of york, succeeded him on the throne. james vii, the new king, inherited charles' work of slaughter, and continued it with revolting savagery. he, too, was infatuated with the thought of being supreme over the church, and became infuriated with the purpose of overthrowing presbyterianism, and suppressing the covenanters, now called "the cameronians." had he paused to consider, surely he would have hesitated to follow the man, who had gone to meet his judge, to answer for the blood that was crying against him for vengeance. we tremble at the thought of the naked soul facing the accusations of the slain, and receiving righteous retribution for its cruel deeds. how great the infatuation of the successor, who determined to follow the same path! among those who suffered under king james, the family of gilbert wilson is worthy of special notice. neither gilbert, nor his wife, had espoused the covenanters' cause; but they had three children who claimed the enviable distinction; margaret, aged eighteen years, thomas, sixteen, and agnes, thirteen. these children had been deeply moved by the stories of bloodshed, that were then recited, night by night at many a fireside. their sympathy with the persecuted was aroused unwittingly, and they absorbed the principles of the covenant; somehow, and it could not be explained, they became covenanters, and that of the noblest type. their parents were shocked, for their property, and freedom, and even their lives were involved. the children were required to abandon the covenant, or quit their home. they chose the latter, sad and terrible as it was. these young hearts had grasped one of the highest and hardest truths in the religion of jesus christ--"he that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me." [illustration: choosing death rather than life margaret mclaughlin was a widow, years of age; margaret wilson a girl of . false accusations were preferred against them, but the real ground of their death was their faith in jesus christ and piety before god. they were offered life, if they would renounce the covenant. they chose death rather than forfeit god's favor, by breaking covenant. several costly and beautiful monuments have been erected in scotland to their honor. the strand where they died is still marked by stakes, which are replaced from time to time. the place is near wigtown, in the south of scotland.] one day they walked slowly and sadly away from their beloved parents, and their pleasant home. from a distance they cast a farewell glance upon the scenes of their childhood, then quickened their pace to reach the solitudes and escape the soldiers. the dragoons came to the house, but missed their prey. they were very angry, and enjoined the parents, under a heavy penalty, to refuse their children food and shelter; yea, all human kindness. the children pursued their way, not knowing whither they were going. the desolate moors, the dreary mountains, the damp caves, the chilly moss-hags were before them, but their resting-place this night must be determined by the setting of the sun. we have not been told where they wrapped themselves in their plaids for sleep, but it was likely on the ground. they sadly missed the cozy bed their mother used to make. where they had to stop was so shelterless, silent, chilly, and lonely. they were weary, hungry, defenceless, trembling like nestlings cast violently out of the nest. margaret the oldest was a mother to the others. she loved her bible. it contained god's many promises, one especially precious on a night like this: "fear thou not; for i am with thee; be not dismayed; for i am thy god: i will strengthen thee; yea, i will help thee; yea, i will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness." with such assuring words, they fell asleep in each other's arms, their heads resting on the bosom of christ's everlasting love. the sun arose, and they, wandering on, found the covenanters, with whom they shared the privations, yea, also the consolations, of persecuted life. having heard that king charles was dead, the two sisters supposed that the persecution had abated, and ventured to the house of margaret mclaughlan, an old faithful friend. here they were discovered and arrested; and, with this aged widow, were cast into prison. agnes was ransomed by her father, at a price equal to $ . the two margarets were sentenced to die. the manner of their death was peculiar and very shocking. on may , , they were taken to the sea-shore to be drowned. while the tide was low two stakes were driven deep into the oozy sand, one close to the water, the other nearer the shore. to the first margaret mclaughlin was bound; to the second, margaret wilson. the shore was crowded with people. major windram, with his troop, had charge of the execution. this man himself like gilbert wilson had two daughters and a son. they, too, like the wilson children, had become aroused at the deeds of blood, and remonstrated with their father against his atrocious cruelty, in persecuting the covenanters. one after another they had sickened and died, each charging their death on him, as god's vengeance upon his deeds. this man, after all his bitter experience, was hard enough to watch these women die beneath the briny waves, and show them no pity. the tide slowly recovered its strength; higher and higher it arose around the more distant woman--up to her face--over her head--then a death-struggle. "what think you now of your companion?" said a soldier to the young maiden, as the head of the aged martyr rose and fell on the waves. "what do i see but christ, in one of his members, wrestling there," she calmly replied. "think you that we are the sufferers? no, it is christ in us; for he sends none a warfaring on their own charges." the tide crept up upon this second martyr like the death-chill, but her heart was strong and fearless in the lord. her voice arose sweetly above the swash of the waves, reciting scripture, pouring forth prayer, and singing psalms. the tide swelled around her bosom, ascended her naked neck, touched her warm lips, yet the heavenly music continued. but now a breaker dashes over the uplifted face; the voice is silenced; the head droops upon the water. at this moment a soldier rushed forward, and dragged her to the shore, hoping that she had received enough of the sea to frighten her into a confession, and thereby securing her release. the gasping girl was asked to renounce her covenant. she refused. "dear margaret," said a friend in melting tones, "say, 'god save the king!' say, 'god save the king!'" with sweet composure, she answered, "god save him if he will, for it is his salvation i desire." her friends, rushing up to the officers, exclaimed, "o, sir, she has said it; she has said it." "then let her take the oath, and renounce her covenant," he replied with cruel harshness. she answered with emphasis, "i will not; i am one of christ's children; let me go." they plunged her back into the heaving waters; the struggle was brief. the lifeless form was cast upon the strand, and soon borne off by loving hands. the limp body was now free from all sorrow and suffering. the beautiful casket was empty; the shining jewel had been taken to adorn the crown of the king of kings, and to flash forever in the glory of heaven. "the tide flowed in, and rising over her lips, she sang no more, but lifted up her face, and there was glory all over the sky, and there was glory all over the sky, a flood of glory--and the lifted face swam in it, till it bowed beneath the flood, and scotland's maiden martyr went to god." the young people who are governed by the word of god, and strengthened by a covenant with god, and steadfastly aim at the glory of god, will have the holy spirit in rich abundance. when love to jesus arises into a holy passion, subordinating all earthly interests and relations, be assured that extraordinary services, sacrifices, achievements, victories, and honors are awaiting. * * * * * points for the class. . when did king charles die? . what terrors must such a man have to meet at death? . who was his successor on the throne? . what was his character? . what notable family suffered under him? . relate the sad circumstances of the wilson children. . what happened to the sisters and their elderly friend? . what was the manner of the death of the two margarets? . describe the martyrdom of margaret wilson. . how may the young people arise in strength for church service? xlvi. the eldership--a wall of defence.--a.d. . the eldership has ever been a tower of strength in the covenanted church. the elders have been pilots at the helm, when the ship was driven by fiercest storms, and the ministers had altogether disappeared. they have been the homeguards, when the most desperate assaults were made upon their beloved zion. they have been leaders, moving forward with wise, fearless, and persistent step, when christ's cause demanded aggressive testimony for down-trodden truth, and against uprising error. the presbyterian church has derived her distinctive name from the office of the elder. elder, presbytery, presbyterianism, scriptural church government, christ's supremacy unlimited and unrivaled--these thoughts are links in a chain, all made of the same gold. presbyterianism is the doctrine of christ's sovereignty, crystalized into form, and reduced to practice; the headship of jesus over his church finds therein its grandest expression. the covenanted presbyterians recognized only one form of church government as scriptural--that invested in the elders. they rejected all other forms, as human inventions, without divine warrant, an injury to the church, an infringement upon christian liberty, a seizure of christ's crown rights and a blot upon his royal glory. the elders are christ's delegates, appointed to administer his government in the church. they are empowered by his will, accredited by his spirit, directed by his word, entrusted with his authority, and accountable at his throne. to the elders are committed, directly or indirectly, all the interests of christ's church. what awful responsibility! surely the elder may pause at the threshold of the sacred office, and, with trembling lips exclaim, "how dreadful is this place!" the presbyterian church of scotland, in her palmy days, numbered about , congregations, each under the care of a session. the elders may therefore be estimated at , effective men, when the twenty-eight years' persecution struck the covenanters. the value of this force can never be known, in advising, comforting, defending, and leading the broken congregations of god's people, amidst the storms that desolated their beloved zion. the minister, being assisted and encouraged by a faithful band of elders, was able to do great work in his parish, and the church flourished exceedingly between the covenant of and the persecution which began in . during the persecution, the order of the church being broken up, the election and ordination of elders had almost ceased. yet, as the regular eldership melted away by death and defection, there were other sons of the covenant, who, in spirit, service, suffering, and leadership, became elders in fact, and were duly recognized and honored. the service of the elders in those days appeared in many forms. captain henry hall, of haughhead, did splendid work in a variety of ways. he often placed himself between the enemy and the field-meetings, in defense of the covenanters. he was a large man, formidable and fearless. many a time, with sword in hand, he rode his dashing charger upon the king's troops, occasionally breaking their ranks. he was chiefly distinguished, however, for his willingness to sacrifice all he possessed, in the interest of the church. he opened up his house for the licensure of richard cameron, when such a meeting jeopardized his life, family, and property. he also opened up his farm for field-meetings, despite the wrath of the king, and the danger of being raided by the troops. a communion, held on his grounds, was long remembered for the gracious work of the holy spirit. george barcley was the minister on that occasion. the people had come from their rocky retreats and distant homes in great numbers. the preaching was refreshing, and the lord's table furnished a great feast for hungry souls. the people, not fully satisfied with the bountiful provisions of the sabbath, came again on monday, and swarmed over the green field, waiting for another service. during the sermon a shower descended, but the audience did not seem to mind it. the minister himself was quite pleased, remarking while the rain was falling, "i am as sensible of the drizzle of the dew of heaven upon our souls, as of the rain upon our bodies." elder hall died of wounds received while defending donald cargill, june , . the elders of those times were profoundly intelligent in the principles of the covenant for which they suffered. they were bible men, who delighted in the law of god, and drank deeply at the fountain-head of knowledge. they were experts in the confession of faith, the larger and shorter catechisms, and the church covenants. john nisbet, of hardhill, was a hero on many a field, defending minister and people from the merciless troopers; but his greatest service was in the use of the sword of the spirit. his last testimony abounds with lovely passages of scripture, beautiful and fragrant as a bush abloom with roses. his witness for the truth came from a rich heart; his protest against error was solemn as an affidavit. his testimony shows deep experience in the lord, and gives faithful warning to covenant-breakers. here are some of his words: "i close with christ in that way of redemption, which he hath purchased. i give my testimony to the holy scriptures, for they are the rule men are to walk by. i leave my testimony against all wrongers of my lord's crown." this man died on the scaffold; he ascended the ladder, rejoicing and praising god, saying, "my soul doth magnify the lord; my soul doth magnify the lord. i have longed, these sixteen years, to seal the precious cause and interest of my precious christ with my blood" he suffered december , . [illustration: john brown of priesthill john brown was notable for meekness, intelligence, and fervent love, in the lord jesus christ he studied for the ministry, but an impediment in his speech turned him from that path he became known as the "christian carrier"--an expressman, in modern language. his devotion to the covenant secured for him the martyr's crown. he was shot in his own dooryard, may , .] many of the elders were filled with spiritual enthusiasm. they had such vivid views of the lord jesus and of the glory of the world to come, that their souls were poured out in exclamations of wonder. robert garnock, of stirling, seemed at times to be caught up to the third heaven, where he saw and enjoyed what he was unable to utter. he could express the inexpressible only by the repetition of oh! oh! oh! referring to a season when no one was permitted to see him in prison, he said, "oh, but i had a sweet time! the lord's countenance was better unto me, than all the company in the world." in his dying testimony, he pleaded in the following manner: "oh, will ye love him? oh, he is well worth the loving, and quitting all for! oh! for many lives to seal the sweet cause with! if i had as many lives, as there are hairs on my head, i would think them all too few to be martyrs for the truth. oh, if i could get my royal king jesus cried up and down the world! oh, but i think it very weighty business, to be within twelve hours of eternity! i will get my fill of love this night, for i will be with jesus in paradise. welcome, father, son, and holy ghost; into thy hands i commit my spirit." those elders were men of hope. they were enlisted in a winning cause, and knew it. in the thickest of the fight, the cloud was dark, and the thunder deafening; yet they knew that victory would ultimately perch on their banner. their triumph was assured in christ, who had said, "be of good cheer; i have overcome the world." robert miller, of rutherglen, was, by his courageous hopefulness, an inspiration to the afflicted church. pointing to the future, he exhorted his fellow-sufferers to hold out, for glorious days were coming. "and now i dare not doubt," said he, "but christ is upon his way to return again. oh, be earnest with him! employ your strength holding up the fallen-down standard of our lord. if ye be found real in this duty, ye shall either be a member of the church militant, and see the glory of the second temple, which shall be a glorious sight; or else ye shall be transported, and be a member of the church triumphant; so ye shall be no loser, but a noble gainer, either of the ways." he was martyred one winter morning, in the early dawn; the shadows of night still lingered, for the murderers may have dreaded the light. before the sun had risen, his spirit took its flight to the realms of eternal brightness. are the elders of the covenanted church worthy of their predecessors? do they measure up to the standard of fortitude in the faith, self-immolation for the truth, intelligence in the scriptures, enthusiasm in christ, and hopefulness that has no sunset? are they leaders of the people in every good enterprise? are they defenders of the flock against all defection? are they carrying the banner of christ forward, even beyond the ministers, where the testimony for king jesus requires it? for all faithful elders, seats in glory are prepared round about the throne of god. * * * * * points for the class. . whence did the presbyterian church get its name? . what is the only scriptural form of church government? . what dread responsibility attached to this office? . how did the persecuted church keep up her force of elders? . describe the service some of them rendered; hall, nisbet, garnock, miller. . what questions should our elders apply to their own conscience? xlvii. a home desolated. "see the top of yon hill?" said the shepherd's wife, pointing to the highest crag of cairn table. "keep that in yir e'en, and ye'll come to john brown's grave." our way lay through a pathless moor, covered deep with grass, rushes, and moss; and we had asked direction to the spot where the martyr's body sleeps. the day was wet, the pasture was beaded with drops, and the rushing streamlets disputed our crossing yet a passionate longing to see the place where john brown, known as the "christian carrier" had lived, and was buried, overcame every difficulty. the walk covered three miles. at length we ascended a knoll, and, lo, the monument stood before our eyes, and almost at our feet. now we were on ground, where one of the most tragic scenes of scotland was transacted. cargill very beautifully said, "the moors are flowered with martyrs' graves." here is one of these flowers; a century plant it is, watered with precious blood, and abloom in sweet solitude. the buildings are gone; not a trace of them is left. the grave was made, it is said, where the martyr fell, in front of his cottage. it is enclosed with a stone wall breast high. a flat stone lies over the remains, bearing a copious inscription. the solitariness is oppressive; death and desolation here bear undisputed sway. the blood ran in chills, as the cold grey stones gave their testimony, amid the gusts that played with the heather, and the drizzle that sprinkled our bare heads. the thoughts of the heart played wildly; imagination refused to be bridled; in a moment former conditions were, in vision, revived. the monument had given place to the dwelling, and the dreariness was astir with the scenes of busy life. the country around, was then, as it is now, somber as a desert. the silence is solemn; we bated our breath; the lips shrank from speaking; aught except a prayer, or the melody of a psalm, seemed out of place. the outlook on every side is without an inhabitant; yet, even here, the persecutor sought his prey, and did his cruel work. many years had this home been a sanctuary in the wilderness, and a refuge for the hunted covenanters. john brown and isabel, his wife, were like zacharias and elizabeth, "both righteous before god, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the lord blameless." they had two children, a babe in the mother's arms, and janet, five years old, a child by a former wife. morning and evening god's worship perfumed their humble dwelling. these hearts, filled with the love of jesus, poured forth his praise every day, but especially on the sabbath, which they kept with great care. their hospitality was munificent: they entertained angelic strangers. the latch-string was on the outside, and many a covenanter, driven by storms, or hunted by dragoons, found a welcome here. they came wearied with journeying, wasted with hunger, weakened with sickness, and worried with trouble, and found rest, comfort, and inspiration in this habitation, where god was pleased to dwell. a society of covenanters held its meetings in this home. several families came across the broad moor on sabbath morning, and remained till evening. sometimes they traveled both ways under star-light, for fear of the enemy. the day was devoutly spent in prayer, reading the word, singing psalms, and conversing on the heart-stirring doctrines of redemption. they spoke much concerning the duties and dangers of the times. this society continued to meet, till broken up by the martyrdom of its men; one after another was pursued and shot down like game on the mountains. john brown's home became a rendezvous for the delegated meetings of the united societies. this thickened the dangers that were gathering around his life. he had a presentiment that his blood would be shed for the cause of christ, yet he accepted duty at every hazard, and rejoiced in privileges however perilous. after the death of donald cargill, the cameronians for a while had no ministers. they stood, however, unfalteringly by their covenant. they even grew aggressive in their testimony; hurled new challenges at the king; took forward steps in the battle for conscience, liberty, and the royal rights of christ. the societies, numbering several hundred, were able to unify and utilize their strength, by means of the delegated meetings. the second meeting of these delegates was held in this consecrated home. sixteen men, representative cameronians, competent and fearless elders, gathered around this hearth, where the turf-fire glowed, while the march storms swept the moorland. here they deliberated how the covenanters might continue the struggle, and intensify it by striking harder blows against error, and giving stronger testimony to the rights of their kingly saviour. they were at no time planning for ease, safety, or deliverance. "we only fear," said one, "that our sufferings will end before the reformation begins." the glory of jesus christ was their objective point. alexander peden in his wanderings, drifted into this home, on the night previous to the awful tragedy that occurred in the front yard. how surpassingly kind is god's providence! surely peden was sent of god to fill these hearts with comfort, courage, and triumph in jesus christ, for the trial, which was now at their door. peden held john brown in highest esteem. of him he said, "he was a clear, shining light, the greatest christian i ever conversed with." what a night of prayer and inspired fellowship those men must have had together. their souls were then in a state of highest tension; both were fired with zeal for the covenant of the lord, and melted with sorrow for the desolated church. [illustration: a widow's sorrow claverhouse and his troopers found john brown on his farm digging turf. it was in the morning. his fields were still dripping with dew, and his soul moist with distillings of the th psalm, which he had sung at family worship. he was brought home, and shot at his door, in presence of his wife and child. mrs brown suffered "neither fainting nor confusion, but her eyes dazzled when the shots went off," according to her own story.] next morning, may , , they were up at dawn for family worship. the first verses of the th psalm were sung. how wonderfully appropriate for such a morning! the psalm is the shout of faith: "the lord's my light and saving health, who shall make me dismayed? my life's strength is the lord; of whom then shall i be afraid?" john brown then went to the field, spade in hand to dig turf. peden lingered; he was sad; the shadow of the great distress had fallen on his tender spirit. taking his farewell of mrs. brown, he paused and said, as if to himself, "poor woman; a fearful morning; a dark, misty morning!" he then went his way. "oh, mother, a great many horsemen are coming down the hill with father," cried little janet, rushing into the house. "the thing that i feared is come upon me," cried the mother, "o, give me grace for this hour," she prayed, lifting her eyes to heaven. then taking her babe in her bosom, and janet by the hand, she went out to meet the soldiers, praying as she went. claverhouse was in command. she pleaded that her husband's life might be spared; but not words nor tears could move the hardened man. "will you pray for king james and his supremacy?" said claverhouse to his prisoner. "jesus christ is the supreme head of his church," was the fearless reply. "will you attend the curate's service?" continued claverhouse. "i cannot attend where god's law is not honored," responded brown. "go to your prayers, for you shall immediately die," cried claverhouse. even the soldiers were horrified at the awful threat. "isabel, this is the day i told you of, before we were married," said he tenderly to his wife. "you see me now summoned to appear before the court of heaven, as a witness in our redeemer's cause. are you willing?" "heartily willing," she answered, her voice tremulous with affection for him and submission to god. her heart was breaking, yet she would cheer up the martyr spirit of her husband. "that is all i wait for," he said, then added in a rapture of joy, "o, death, where is thy sting? o, grave, where is thy victory?" he prayed for covenant blessing upon mother and children, soon to be left so lonely; adding, "blessed be thou, o holy spirit, that speaketh more comfort to my heart, than my oppressors can speak terror to my ears." "shoot" said claverhouse to the soldiers, drawn up for the bloody work. not a gun was discharged. the brutal leader then fired the deadly shot. the martyr fell at the feet of his wife, and after a brief struggle the noble spirit departed. "what think you of your husband now?" said claverhouse to mrs. brown. "i always thought well of him, but more now than ever," she quietly replied. "you deserve the same fate," said the brutal man. "and if you had the power, i would receive it," she defiantly responded. "but o, how will you answer for this day's work?" she continued. "i'll take god in my own hand," he replied. the soldiers silently and sullenly rode away, ashamed of the horrible deed. mrs. brown, with her children, sat down beside the outstretched martyr, and poured out her great sorrow. john brown might have saved his life, and his family, by relaxing in his covenant, and joining another church. the family that keeps covenant with god will surely be tried; difficulties and hardships must be met. but the victory is always to them who cling close to the lord, in personal holiness, in family worship, and in covenant-keeping. * * * * * points for the class. . describe the location of john brown's home. . what meetings were held in this cottage? . what interests were here under deliberation? . who visited the home the evening before the sad event? . how was john brown captured? . describe the death of this martyr. . how could john brown have saved his life? xlviii last, but not least.--a.d. . james renwick was the last martyr publicly executed for adhering to scotland's covenant. he was a child of maternal vows. his mother dedicated him to the lord, praying that he might live, and do worthy service for christ. she saw her prayer answered; yea, more than answered; it became, also, a sword that pierced through her own soul. she had not asked too much; but great prayers always imply self-immolation. the renwick home was beautiful for situation. it was located near the quiet town of moniaive. the building is gone, but the place is kept in remembrance by an attractive monument. the cottage stood on a hillside, overlooking a charming valley, and beyond the valley, a range of mountains reaching to the clouds, glistening with snow in the winter, and purple with heather in the summer. young renwick was a passionate lover of nature. oft did he sit on this grassy slope, where stands the monument, and gaze, and ponder, and dream, till filled with amazement. well did he know, that all the magnificence of earth and sky was but the shadow of the glory beyond, the frills of the creator's robe, the evidence of a personal god. this boy, like young samuel, did not yet know the lord. he knew his bible, his prayers, his catechism, his psalm-book, and his church; but he had no personal acquaintance with god. this he eagerly sought. one day, as he gazed upon valley and mountain, a wave of melancholy dashed upon his soul, and he exclaimed, "if these were devouring furnaces of burning brimstone, i would be content to go through them all, if so i could be assured that there is a god." such agonizing for an experimental acquaintance with god is sure of reward. god revealed himself. no great light breaking through the sky fell upon him; but there came an inner illumination by the holy spirit, which increased till his penetrating eyes saw god in everything; every bush was burning with his glory; every mountain was clothed with his majesty; all the heavens were speaking his praise; and yet he saw a thousand-fold more of the beauty of the lord in the holy covenant, and in the poor despised covenanters who kept the faith, than in all the grandeur of nature. renwick in this deep experience had his introduction to god. oh, what a life we may expect of such a man! an introduction to god must result in a wonderful character. look out for the boy, who says that he must find god; his life will yet be transfigured with real greatness and moral grandeur. at the age of nineteen renwick finished his university education. that year he witnessed the affecting sight of donald cargill's martyrdom. the execution was public; curiosity and sympathy had collected an immense throng around the scaffold, to see the old minister die. renwick was in the crowd. he was not yet a covenanter. he pressed forward to hear and see all he could. the sight was deeply affecting. the venerable man of god walked triumphantly to the place of execution. his hair was white with years and cares, his face serene as an angel, and his voice clear and strong in his last testimony. he ascended the ladder with firm step, and joyfully sealed the covenant with his blood. renwick gazed and trembled; his heart beat fast, and his eyes grew moist. from that day he was a covenanter. he there, and then, resolved to give his life for the same noble cause. the first notable service renwick rendered to the covenanters was his part in the public testimony given by the society people, at lanark, january , . the death of donald cargill had bereaved the societies of their only pastor. they had no minister now, who would grasp the fallen banner of the covenant, and hold it forth, in defiance of the persecutor's rage. these people were the real covenanters; they counted the covenant of their lord more precious than all the blood that could be poured out for its sake. nor were they to be despised. they numbered at least , . these were men and women noted for high principle, public spirit, intelligence, and courage. they seized the banner of the covenant, and kept it unfurled with utmost fidelity, while waiting for god to send them a standard-bearer. the persecution waxed hotter and hotter. the murderous guns were ever echoing over moors and mountains, in the desperate effort to exterminate the unconquerable societies. yet they grew bolder, and more aggressive, in their testimony against the king, the episcopacy, the indulged ministers, and the silent shepherds. it was in mid-winter, when storms were a shelter from the foe, that forty armed covenanters, including james renwick, entered the town of lanark, and there delivered a new declaration of rights and wrongs, that made their enemies gnaw their tongues for pain. [illustration: james renwick. james renwick was the last martyr of the covenant, who suffered by public execution. his short life was a miracle of devotion to the societies, whose fidelity to christ and their covenant had inflamed the enemy with rage, and thereby greatly increased the violence of the persecution. he had a marvelous victory over death, being in a transport of joy on the way from the prison to the scaffold. his soul was overflowing with happiness, in anticipation of the marriage supper of the lamb, of which he was about to partake.] we find renwick, soon after this, studying theology in holland. after twenty months he appeared before presbytery for ordination. this is the man who has had his introduction to god. now we will see what his acquaintance with god will do for him. acquainted with god! oh, how singular that will make any man! acquainted personally with god, with his sovereignty, his holiness, his love of righteousness, and his hatred of sin! the man who is thus honored will be peculiar indeed. he will have deep insight, unswerving purpose, strong character, unhesitating courage. he will not deviate an hairbreadth from the law of god, as he sees it. he will not yield his convictions for any consideration. he will stand alone against the forces of all worlds combined, rather than compromise one jot of revealed truth. the pleading of friends and the threats of enemies will alike fall heedlessly upon his ears. he will consider every word of christ, and every gem in his crown, worthy of all the blood that may flow for its sake. such was james renwick at this time. there were no ministers of his own denomination to ordain him. the church in holland was not a covenanted church, but a branch of the presbyterian church, and at that time it was burdened with corruptions. but it was not guilty of covenant-breaking, like the church of scotland. therefore he sought ordination in holland. now, this is the man who is acquainted with god. observe what he does. in his trial sermons, he laid bare the errors and faultiness of the holland church. what a daring step for a student of theology! what a breach of ordinary courtesy! he placed conventional etiquette on the altar of truth, and consumed it in the flames of zeal for god's house, and the purity of divine worship. he would, then and there, give faithful testimony; for the opportunity might no more return. presbytery listened with amazement; yet his arguments were so scriptural, and his manner so gracious, they cordially sustained him. next came the act of subscribing the creed before ordination could be granted. this he positively refused to do, for it had not the approval of his conscience. they yielded here also, permitting him to sign the standards of the church of the covenant. he won his way. decorum was nothing to him, in comparison with conscience and god. he then came back to scotland, and visited the ministers, pleading with the indulged to return to the covenant, and entreating the silent ones to come out of their caves, and make the land ring again with their voices. he was small in person, slender and delicate, and scarcely yet out of his boyhood. he everywhere met with repulse. vexed and disappointed, he went alone, in the strength of the lord, to the little flocks scattered over the wilderness. the societies gathered about him; the field-meetings were revived; the lord poured out his holy spirit in great power; the shout of a king was again heard in the camp of the covenanters. renwick's ministry lasted about four years. during this time he seemed to be the most hated man in the world; reproach, revenge, and hatred rolled over his head like breaking waves. he was called a deceiver, a fanatic, a schismatic, a traitor. he was pursued by malicious rumors to blacken his name, and by armed men to shed his blood. yet he continued steadfastly on his way. winter storms and summer rains could not abate his ardor. neither the advice of friends, nor the wrath of foes, could swerve him, no, not one moment, nor one hairbreath. his spirit was on fire while his body was emaciated. a thousand arrows were flying around this dove, some of them drinking its blood, yet was it singing. one night he appeared at the door of john brown. he was graciously received. a storm was sweeping the moor. as he sat by the glowing fire, drying his dripping garments and warming his shivering body, he remarked, "reproach has not broken my heart; but the excessive traveling, and many exposures, have weakened my body." his mother and sisters visited him when in jail, awaiting his execution. looking into their sad faces, he cheered them up, by exclaiming, "oh, how can i contain this, to be within two hours of the crown of glory! let us be glad, and rejoice. this death is to me, as if i were to lie down on a bed of roses." when the drum sounded the signal for the execution, he cried out, "yonder, the welcome warning; the bridegroom is coming; i am ready, i am ready." he died with the words of assurance on his lips: "lord, into thy hands i commend my spirit." are present covenanters acquainted thus with god? have they the all-inclusive view of his glorious trinity, his personal presence, his revealed will, his exacting requirements, his omnipotent grace, his redeeming love, his mediatorial kingdom, his everlasting covenant? have they the view that will keep them steadfast, progressive, and enthusiastic in his service? they, who have an abiding acquaintance with god, will eventually develop a life, that will be clear as the sun, deep as the sea, firm as the rock, and strong as the cedar. * * * * * points for the class. . where was james renwick born? . how was he troubled with doubts regarding god? . how did the death of cargill affect him? . what was his first notable service in the covenant? . where did he study theology? . how did he testify against the errors of the church of holland? . what success did he have in his ministry? . what was his great sorrow? . wherein lay his unwavering strength? xlix. the shepherdless flock. renwick received the martyr's crown at the age of twenty-six. his limp body was borne from the scaffold to greyfriar's churchyard. a spot of ground, a few yards square, had been allotted there for criminals. the covenanters in these days were accounted criminals by the civil authorities. here the ground was stirred again and again, till the bodies of martyrs were heaped together, and renwick's was the last. a suitable stone bearing his name, and referring to the others, now graces this hundredfold grave. what a cluster of gems the lord will find here, in the day when he makes up his jewels! when the blue banner fell from renwick's lifeless hand, alexander shields grasped it. he was scarcely worthy. though he had served well and suffered much in former years, yet once he had lapsed. this temporary defection, while pardonable, proved to be a symptom of inherent weakness that unfitted him for leadership. for his fault he shed tears, but they could not remove the stain, nor restore confidence. the fearless covenanters continued the struggle, their own spiritual momentum being sufficient to carry them forward with or without leaders. the persecution had now reached its eventide; the sunset was showing some rosy tints; a bright day would soon be dawning. this year, , william, prince of orange, with an army of , , disputed the right of king james to the throne. the persecutor was able to give the covenanters no more attention. the coward fled without a battle. he lost his kingdom, and, with his fall, the house of the stuarts sank into oblivion, as had been predicted by the covenanters. the revolution filled the covenanted societies with high hope. they became enthusiastic supporters of the new king, expecting him to inaugurate a reign of righteousness. a convention of statesmen met in edinburgh, to readjust public affairs and restore peace. claverhouse, too, was there, still dripping with the blood of the martyrs. he had dashed suddenly upon the scene with his troops to break up the convention, and give battle to king william's supporters. the convention was without a sufficient guard. the delegates were in danger. to whom could they look for protection? listen! the call is to the cameronians; to the men who have borne the brunt of persecution for twenty-eight years, and are now quietly returning from the moors and caverns to their desolate homes. to these who have been hated and hunted and tortured and hacked to pieces--to these the government now appeals for help. these, after all they have suffered, are the reliables. they are the recognized patriots, who stand ready for any sacrifice, and are worthy of any trust, in the name of liberty and righteousness. "we are coming," was their quick reply. a regiment was mustered in one day without the beat of a drum; two others were offered. the poor covenanters were not now despised. [illustration: the martyrdom of renwick. james renwick went to the scaffold in triumphant joy. there he read the th chapter of revelation--the prophecy of christ's great battle and victory--and sang part of the rd psalm. he then lifted his eyes heavenward, and said, "and now, lord, i am ready. the bride, the lamb's wife, hath made herself ready." he suffered february , , aged twenty-six years. it was said by his enemies that he was the "stiffest maintainer of covenanted principles."] the persecution being over, the church endeavored to resume her operations. the general assembly convened october , , after a violent suspension lasting forty years. this assembly was most remarkable for its membership. there sat together three active cameronian ministers, threescore other ministers pale from their hiding places, a large group of the indulged ministers who had gone home years ago, a number of curates who had slipped into the vacancies, and a list of bishops who had been in the service of the persecuting government. such being the blend, the aroma was anything but sweet. alexander peden had prophesied of this assembly years before. he said, "the indulged, and the lukewarm ministers, with some young things that know nothing, will hive together in a general assembly; the hands red with blood, and the hands black with defection, will be clasped by our ministers; and ye will not ken who has been the persecutor, and who the sufferer; and your testimony will be cut off at the web's end." how true the prediction! rev. hugh kennedy was chosen moderator. the choice indicated the spirit of the assembly. this man had accepted the indulgence, had given thanks for the toleration, and had debarred from communion the covenanters who had fought at bothwell bridge. the liberals had the meeting. moderation, compromise, unionism, a nauseating agreeableness pervaded the court, like the miasma that broods over a stagnant pond. the three cameronians, alexander shields, thomas linning, and william boyd, had courage to represent the covenanted societies, by presenting their petition for the restoration of the general assembly on reformation grounds, according to the covenant of . the petition was treated with contempt; it was not even read in the assembly. the three ministers winced, faltered, yielded. they fell beneath the popular wave, to rise no more. these men, who had bravely faced persecution, were at last overcome by blandishment. the covenanted cause was at stake in that assembly, as truly as it ever had been in the presence of claverhouse and his dragoons; and here the leaders surrendered. the covenanted societies refused to follow their faithless guides into the general assembly, to disappear there in the strange blending of religious forces. these were men of conviction; they did not vary with the weather; they thought for themselves. some of them were aged and had seen the covenant temple of , with its strong foundation and imposing structure. they had seen the reformation in its glory--the covenanted church of christ, purified, strengthened, and exalted, under the care of henderson, johnston, guthrie, argyle, and others whose hearts god had touched; and now they saw this reconstruction. ah, how inferior! it was far removed from the true foundation; it was conspicuous only for its hay, wood, and stubble; they saw and wept. the covenanted cause was practically abandoned. what satan could not win by fire and sword, he had won by the enchantments of peace. the assembly submitted to the king's supremacy over the church. king william, like the former rulers, had seized the gem of christ's authority and set it in his own crown. for this royal truth the martyrs had died. now their blood was reckoned an unnecessary expenditure. the covenant was ignored, and its principles set aside; the church was placed on a new basis. thus the glory of scotland's reformation sank behind a fog-bank that has never yet cleared away. the covenanted societies resolved to maintain their organization, as the true representatives of scotland's reformation church; the legitimate successors of knox, melville, guthrie, cameron, cargill, and renwick; the rightful heirs of the covenant, its obligations and blessings; the devoted witnesses of jesus christ, going forth unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. they had much for which to contend. the supremacy of christ, the independence of the church the covenant of the fathers, the testimony of the martyrs, the purity of divine worship, the dignity of church discipline--all had suffered at the hands of this assembly. against the great defection they resolved to lift up a testimony. they would not deny their covenant lord, by entering into relation with church or state, as at that time constituted and administered. these covenanters were ridiculed as a fanatical, narrow-minded faction. james renwick had been taunted with the question, "do you believe that none, but those of your principles, can enter heaven?" "i never said so," he replied; "but i do say, these are principles worth suffering for." a noble reply to the sarcastic question which often reappears. narrow-minded! breadth may be viewed from various positions. he, who attempts to broaden himself by accepting error, becomes the narrow man. every error adopted means a truth rejected. this process may continue till the heart is so contracted that there is no room for either god or man. ah, the irony of such broadness! how different with him who will not surrender a hairbreadth of truth! he is the broad man; broad as the law of god, broad as the gospel of christ, broad as the principles of the everlasting covenant, broad as the kingdom of heaven. those covenanters were the broadest men of their day. the covenanters would not receive gospel services from ministers who had broken covenant with them and with god. sixteen years this flock was in the wilderness without a shepherd. they came together in societies for spiritual fellowship and the worship of god. the lord sustained them, and maintained their cause. at length he sent them a minister, john mcmillan; and thirty years later another, thomas nairn. by these the reformed presbytery was organized, august , . sir robert hamilton was the peerless champion of the pastorless people. he exhorted them, saying, "labor to keep the good old way, seeking to be found in his way when he cometh, keeping the word of christ's patience, standing fast to your post, and close to your master, in readiness to follow the lamb whithersoever he goeth; for the winds are now let loose; and it is to be feared, many shall be blown away." and the pastorless people spake often one to another, saying, "wherefore, we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve god acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our god is a consuming fire. let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp bearing his reproach." and jesus encouraged them, saying, "he that endureth to the end shall be saved. be thou faithful unto death, and i will give thee a crown of life. to him that overcometh will i grant to sit with me in my throne, even as i also overcame, and am set down with, my father in his throne." * * * * * points for the class. . who succeeded renwick as leader of the covenanters? . what was his character? . when did the revolution take place? . how did the cameronians regard it? . when was the general assembly reorganized? . what was its general character? . how many in it represented the covenanted societies? . what course did they take? . what line of action did the societies follow? . who were the men of broad principles in those times? . by whom was the reformed presbytery organized? l. the voice of the martyrs' blood. the mountains and moors of scotland are decorated with the tombstones of the martyrs. the descendants of the covenanted fathers have erected many memorials in the places made sacred with the blood of the martyrs. the memorials range from the humble stone to the costly monument. the fathers have not been forgotten; yea, they are still highly esteemed for the heroic struggle, by which every son and daughter has a birthright to the richest inheritance of christian liberty on earth. the persecution lasted twenty-eight years, with few "blinks" to take the chill of horror out of the air. during this time, , persons, it is said, suffered death, or utmost hardships, for their faith in jesus christ. of this number, , went into voluntary banishment; , were shipped to distant lands; were outlawed; were killed in battle, or died of their wounds; were murdered in cold blood; were, by form of law, executed. we have no account of the number that perished in shipwrecks, or succumbed to the horrors of transportation; nor of hundreds that were shot at sight by the soldiers who ravaged the country for years; nor of the thousands who wasted away through cold, hunger, and exposure in the mountains and moors. gloomy caves, dripping moss-hags, and unmarked graves, were asylums of mercy to multitudes, who are without any earthly record; but their names are written in heaven. truly scotland has been consecrated to the lord. the blood of the martyrs has watered her heather, crimsoned her streams, stained her streets, and bedewed her fields. scotland is the lord's. the blood means much. the blood emphasizes the truth of christ. the blood of the martyrs testifies to the value of the truth--the superlative importance of all revealed truth. their blood placed emphasis on the sovereignty of god, the supremacy of christ, the inspiration of the bible, the preciousness of the gospel, the independence of the church, the liberty of conscience and the thousand and one co-related doctrines of salvation. these covenanters took their position at christ's throne, where the rainbow of the covenant arches the heavens; and from that point of view the plan of salvation lay before them, in matchless detail and glorious perspective. these men received enlightenment from the holy spirit, and thereby had a broad, clear, rapturous vision of god and his redeeming grace. they saw the truth in the harmonious teachings of the bible, and esteemed it as god's sanctuary, filled with the presence of jesus christ. these covenanters found christ in every particle of revealed truth, in every "jot," and in every "tittle" of the word of god. christ's life was throbbing in it, his glory was streaming through it, his energy was radiating from it. they were willing to lose the right eye, the right hand, the right foot, yea, life itself, rather than lose the least fragment of the scriptures. rather would they be jostled out of their homes, and wander in deserts, than depart from bible doctrines. james renwick was offered his life, if he would let a drop of ink fall on a sheet of paper. he chose death in preference to that compromising act. is the truth, the entire system of truth, every stone in the temple of truth, thus dear to us? a witnessing church is needed. the blood testifies to the need of a witnessing church. while satan remains above the pit, and iniquity abounds in present proportions, a faithful and fearless testimony for jesus christ, and his glorious gospel and royal rights, will be a moral necessity. god has his own way of calling out his witnesses, and assigning service to them. the church, as a whole, has invalidated and incapacitated herself for this responsibility, by weakness, declension, and compromise. god does not commit his testimony to the church, while in such condition; nor to the faithful in the church, whose voice and actions are weakened or neutralized by majorities. this important and hazardous task throughout the ages has not been committed to a church, that is recreant at any point; nor to individuals, that are true at every point; but to a distinctive body of earnest, faithful, and fearless believers. for this purpose the lord has divided, and sub-divided, his people time and again. he will have a testimony by a church that is distinct from every retrograde organization. while the covenanted church was faithful under henderson, johnston, guthrie, gillespie, and other worthy leaders, she was united, happy, and prosperous; "she was beautiful as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners." but when she suppressed, by resolution, one principle of the covenant, god drew the dividing line. he sent the persecution that brought out his witnesses, four hundred ministers, and people in proportion. and when these ministers weakened under the royal indulgences, he intensified the persecution and called out the "cameronians." these witnesses he qualified to see the truth in its vast proportions and feel it in its divine dreadfulness. they became the embodiment of the gospel of jesus christ; they were the incarnation of the doctrines of his kingdom on earth. they dwelt in the presence of god, lived on the hidden manna, and pulsated with the power of the endless life. such were the martyrs who defied death and all the instruments of torture. have the covenanters of to-day spirit, power, and character like this? [illustration: the burial. the burial service was peculiarly sad and solemn, in the times of persecution. the deceased covenanters were, in many cases, buried at night, for fear of the enemy. the friends, with breaking hearts, gathered around the new grave, and waited under the dim star-light, while the minister, with the use of a flickering candle, offered consolation from the word of god. great was the grief when one of the leaders had fallen in death.] a cry for vengeance. the blood of the martyrs cries unto god for vengeance. "how long, o lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" such was the cry of them that were "slain for the word of god, and for the testimony which they held." vengeance in the gospel! vengeance in jesus christ! vengeance in the heart of god! how we are shocked! we try to veil our eyes and shut out the dreadful fact. we attempt to explain away the terrible doctrine. yet there it is. a sharp sword is sheathed in this scabbard, and it will yet be drawn for dreadful work. "vengeance is mine; i will repay, saith the lord." "and shall not god avenge his own elect? i tell you that he will avenge them speedily." god is just as well as merciful; yea, necessarily just, but conditionally merciful. justice is an essential attribute of his life; mercy is volitional. the blood of the martyrs, their groans, tears, wanderings, the desolation of home, the cries of mothers and children, the horrors worse than death--all are ever before his face; nothing is forgotten. without repentance, no remission; sin does not grow feeble with, years, nor die of old age. judgment must be meted out, or rectitude would forsake the universe; the whole structure of god's kingdom would fall into ruins. the guilty must suffer. the individual perpetrators of these horrid crimes have suffered already; they have appeared personally before christ's tribunal. but the state! oh, the guilty state! the state was the chief party in the slaughter of these innocents. true, she has ceased to shed the blood of saints; but has she repented of the blood she has shed? her eyes are dry; her brow is brass. her children build monuments, but her hand's are still red; the blood that once dripped is now dried, but it is still on her hands. genuine repentance means reformation. the reformation is under scotland's feet. the twenty-eight years' struggle is to her a splendid drama; the principles are amusing. when he inquireth after blood, what shall scotland do? the angel answers in the revelation: "they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink." weighty moral obligations. the blood of the martyrs imposes obligations upon posterity from generation to generation. the martyrs deeply felt their responsibility for the church, her purity, doctrines, discipline, membership; for her loyalty to christ, her separation from the world, and her administration in the holy spirit. their zeal for the house of god brought them to the front; their passionate love for jesus christ placed them on the firing line. there they met every attack made upon christ and his house; there they stood for the royal rights of jesus and the honor of his kingdom; there they fell under the murderous fire, giving place to their successors. these soldiers of jesus knew how to die, 'but not how to retreat. they did their work well, yet necessarily left it unfinished. the victory was assured, though not in sight. the death-stricken hand reached the blood-stained banner out to another to be carried forward. this war still rages. the supremacy of jesus christ is yet disputed; his royal rights are yet usurped by mortals; his bride, the church, still halts amid many opinions; the ordinances of grace are unblushingly corrupted; the teachings of the gospel are adroitly doctored. the attacking forces are active, determined, and numerous, as in the days of the martyrs. the tactics differ, but the fight goes on. heavy, heavy are the moral obligations, that fall to the successors of those who gave their lives for the truth. to recede would be cowardice, desertion from the ranks, perjury within the covenant, treason against jesus christ. is this too strong? listen: "if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him." surely the times call for christian soldiers; yea, heroes; possibly, martyrs. do covenanters feel their obligations to the lord? * * * * * points for the class. . how long did the persecution last? . what is the estimated number of those who suffered? . what significance is attached to the martyrs' blood? . how does it show the value of gospel truth? . in what manner does the blood cry for vengeance? . how does it lay obligations on posterity? li. the old blue banner yet. the covenanters in scotland's struggle for liberty carried a significant banner. letters of gold, on a field of blue, displayed the soul-stirring motto: "for christ's crown and covenant." the men of the covenant unfurled their colors with dauntless spirit, and went forth in the name of the lord, conquering and to conquer. and this is the victory by which they overcame the world, even their faith. the covenanters carried their banner as an emblem of the truth in jesus christ. the bible focussed its light in the burning words that flashed on their ensign. these fathers accepted the bible without reservation or apology, as god's book, inspired, inerrable, authoritative, the rock foundation of faith, and the supreme law of life. they grasped the wondrous system of redeeming truth, as bearing on their own lives, on the church, on the world, and on all generations to come. they embodied it in their covenant, and wove it into their flag. they saw all bible truth converge in christ, the only begotten of the father, the mediator of the covenant of grace, the crucified and risen redeemer, the exalted prince and saviour; and on their banner they emblazoned their faith. but while their profession was embroidered on their colors, their creed was pulsating in their veins. this standard they carried boldly into the battle in defence of christ and his church. the deadly missiles that tattered its folds, and plowed through their flesh, could not subdue their spirit. their blood often stained it, but it was never surrendered. one standard-bearer fell, and the flag-staff was grasped by another. thus the old blue banner, in all its significance, has come down through the ages; it is the covenanter's banner yet. the covenanters' standard of religion. the standard of truth is the real banner of the covenant. the standard of religion in the covenanted church exalts the truth of christ, and makes it most conspicuous. nothing in a nation so public as her colors. where the flag flies, the power, honor, and greatness of the country are represented by the folds that flap on the winds. the covenant commits the covenanted church to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth of god's word. this obligation, when honored, carries the covenanter into all truth, and all truth into the covenanter. the doctrines of grace will throb in his heart, flow in his veins, illumine his mind, dominate his thoughts, deepen his life, enlarge his capacities, control his actions, and purify all the fountains of his being. to all such the truth is concrete, not abstract; it has form, color, action, energy, atmosphere, horizon, immensity: to the true covenanter, knowledge is experience; he deals with god, worships in spirit, battles with sin, glories in jesus, and listens to the eternal spirit. his faith is power; his love is life; his hope is realization. the invisible world looms up with awful visibility before him. such is the life that is distinguished by covenant fidelity; in it the truth of god has grandest publicity. it shines like the sun. the voice of that life has the majesty of thunder, testifying for christ. they who are thus animated with the truth cannot hide the great principles of the church. they will glory in her covenant and publish the truth. behold the martyrs, how they witnessed for jesus christ, while fire and sword had no more power over their faith than over the stars. the truth demands publicity. our poor, deceived, demon-ridden world needs the truth, gospel truth shining like the sun, convicting truth pointed like lightning; the sweet truth of love and the fiery truth of wrath; truth that reveals life, death, immortality, judgment, heaven, hell, and eternity. the world needs the truth that will rend the heavens with prayer, and make the earth quake with fear. [illustration: the banner of the covenant.] the highest type of christian life. the standard of religion adopted by the covenanted church demands that covenanters possess the noblest spirit. they, who rally in earnest under this banner, will be men after god's own heart. such were the martyrs: kind, patient, self-sacrificing, passionately in love with christ, and laboring diligently to bring others into the same sphere of blessedness. they were strong, heroic, and unconquerable; affectionate, intelligent, filled with veneration for god, and aflame with zeal for his house. those covenanters knew that they were redeemed, and gloried in their relation and obligation to the lord jesus christ, their almighty redeemer. they flew into every service at his command. their obedience was accompanied with much assurance of salvation. they had heaven on earth. the heaven of glory was merely an extension of their vista, an enlargement of their horizon, higher up the mountain that they were climbing, more spiritual ozone in the air they were breathing. they dwelt with god, lived in jesus christ, felt the raptures of the holy spirit; they knew the mystery of the cross, the value of the blood, and the power of the spiritual resurrection. therefore were they swallowed up in love to god and man. are we amazed at the divine beauty of the martyr's life? let us have the same heartiness, the same vision of god, the same joy in the holy spirit, and we will have the key to the nobleness of the martyr. the covenant with god, when kept, produces holiness, tenderness, charitableness, and divinest sympathy; turns life into an overflowing fountain of goodness. they, who follow the banner of the covenant in spirit and in truth, will aim at the very climax of christian character, moral culture, and heroic service through jesus christ. the emblem of war. the standard of religion in the covenanted church recognizes an uncompromising conflict in the world. where hostile forces are encamped, the banner means battle. the martyrs were carried into this conflict, by their zeal for god's house and love to jesus christ. their fight was against the tyranny of civil government and the corruption of the church. they fought well, resisting the aggressor at every point of attack. we must open our eyes wide, to see the forces on either side. the persecution was merely the crimson line, along which the kingdom of christ and the kingdom of satan came into collision. these kingdoms stretch beyond our vision, far away into the spiritual world, each having immense resources and innumerable battalions for the war. the firing lines are merely the visible places that project themselves upon our horizon. the human struggle, the din of battle, the blood, the groans, the graves, are merely the evidence of the momentum of these tremendous powers, grinding each other at the points of contact. it is satan against christ, in his effort to waste the church, suppress the truth, crush mankind, and despoil jesus of his crown, people, and kingdom. it is christ against satan, determined to resist, defeat, enchain, and imprison that old dragon. this war still rages. the powers are the same as in the days of old, though the methods of warfare be changed. christ still calls for soldiers of the covenant, men of spirit, courage, and unshaken faith. he needs consecrated men, to hurl them against the organized powers, and inbreaking hordes, that are desecrating the sabbath, corrupting the church, maiming the truth, debauching morality, bribing conscience, licensing drunkenness, desolating the home, adulterating religion, worshiping wealth, crushing the poor, chaining manhood to secrecy, denying god in government, and the lord jesus christ on his throne. men are needed, men of the martyr type, men who count not heads, but principles. men are in demand, men who find victory in defeat, men who see the mountains filled with horses and chariots, the mighty host of god. the great inheritance. the church of the covenanters has a precious inheritance. the achievements of the past, the privileges of the present, and the victories of the future--all, all are hers, if she be faithful. the old blue banner leads to the world-wide triumph of the principles it represents. this is no presumption; it is a foregone conclusion, the very language of logic. the certainty is based on god's revealed purpose, and glows in the richest hues of prophecy. humility forbids boasting; we have not said that the covenanted church shall have this honor. but the banner of the covenant, by whomsoever borne, will surely be glorified with victory, as jesus christ, the great captain, leads his conquerors to universal conquest. the covenant contains all bible principles that apply to church and state; it is neither sectarian nor sectional. the covenant abhors sectarianism. it contains the universal principles which must become universal in practice ere the world bask in millennial glory. the true covenanter is no sectarian. he occupies the center of a circle that contains all revealed truth, and he is pledged to all known duty. the martyrs died in the assurance of the triumph of the cause for which they suffered. "do not weary to maintain the present testimony," said dying renwick. "when christ goeth forth to defeat anti-christ, with that name written on his vesture and on his thigh, king of kings and lord of lords, he will make it glorious in the earth." marriage with the son of god awaits the church. covenanting with the king of glory awaits the nations. "and i heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, alleluia: for the lord god omnipotent reigneth. "let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him: for the marriage of the lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. "blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the lamb." * * * * * points for the class. . describe the banner of the covenant. . what motto on the covenanters' banner? . what large meaning in the motto? . why ought the truth of christ have wide publicity? . what should be the spirit and character of covenanters? . what hope is there of the world-wide success of covenanted principles? . what is the duty of the present generation in the great conflict? the auchensaugh renovation of the national covenant and solemn league and covenant; with the acknowledgment of sins and engagement to duties, as they were renewed at auchensaugh, near douglas, july , . (compared with the editions of paisley, , and belfast, .) also, the renovation of these public federal deeds ordained at philadelphia, october , , by the reformed presbytery, with accommodation of the original covenants, in both transactions, to their times and positions respectively. * * * * * philadelphia . * * * * * preface. the reformed presbytery, at a meeting in philadelphia, october th , "_resolved_, that another edition of the auchensaugh deed be published," and appointed the undersigned a committee "to attend to this business with all convenient speed." this presbytery, after forty years' experience, during which opportunities have been afforded for examining the opinions and practices of all parties, professing any regard for the covenanted reformation, is still deeply impressed with the conviction that the transaction at auchensaugh , is the only faithful renovation of our covenants, national and solemn league. the fidelity of our fathers in that hazardous and heroic transaction, it is believed, has ever since been the _occasion_ (not the _cause_) of all opponents manifesting their hostility to the whole covenanted cause, by first assaults upon that detested bond. and that this is the real state of the case we proceed to prove by the following historical facts. _first._--in connection with remodeling the testimony; or rather by supplanting it in , the terms of communion, without submitting an overture, were also changed to harmonize with _reformation principles exhibited_, by excluding the auchensaugh renovation from the fourth term, where it had stood for nearly a century. the same party have for years excluded from their abstract of terms the _covenants themselves_. _second._--in scotland this faithful document was expunged in , obviously to prepare the way for the adoption of a _"new testimony"(!)_, which appeared - . the majority of the actors in that work who survive, are now in the free church! _third._--at the time when defection was progressing in the r.p. synod of scotland, the sister synod of ireland strenuously resisted an attempt to remove the foresaid bond from its place in the terms. the rev. messrs. dick, smith and houston in , were faithful and successful for the time in resisting that attempt. mr. houston "_would ever resist any alteration_ in respect of the auchensaugh bond, regarding the objection laid against it as in reality aimed at the covenants themselves." yet as a sequel to their renovation of the covenants at dervock , the auchensaugh bond was subsequently "shown to the porch"--removed from the terms! _fourth._--at what was called covenant-renovation at pittsburgh , we believe no one spoke in behalf of their fathers' noble achievement in . indeed this could not be rationally expected in a body who could tolerate members vilifying the very covenants which they pretended to renew. _fifth._--other parties farther removed from the position of their reforming progenitors; but who still claim ecclesiastical affinity with john knox, and commonly prefix to the symbols of their faith the historical word _westminster_, give very strong expression to their feelings of hostility--not to the auchensaugh bond, of which probably they never heard, but to the british covenants expressly; yea, to the very ordinance of public social covenanting itself. but we shall let them speak for themselves. one doctor of divinity is reported as saying--"i am opposed to the whole matter of covenanting. covenants do an immense sight more harm than good. those scotch covenanters brought persecution upon themselves by their covenants."[ ] another dr. said, "i have always been opposed to covenanting. one generation of god's people have no right to enter into bonds that entail obligations upon future generations."[ ] a third dr. said, "i hold it is a sin for men to go into the august presence of god and enter into covenant with him. it is base presumption."[ ] a fourth dr. said, "i hold that the church as an organization is not a responsible moral agent. neither is the nation!" these sentiments may well excite astonishment and alarm, when proclaimed by accredited teachers of morality and religion. _sixth._--seceders have all along their history claimed to be the sole heirs of the scottish covenanted inheritance. they are not ignorant of the auchensaugh renovation. how they view that transaction may be best ascertained from their own language. the _original secession magazine_ for november , p. , speaks thus, "the distinction drawn between 'covenanters' and 'seceders,' we have shown to be groundless. are reformed presbyterians covenanters at all? there is not an _actual_ covenanter among them. they renewed the covenants after a fashion in . in our view the covenants were not renewed, they were only mangled," &c. these sentiments are sufficiently strong and explicit to be intelligible. the writer's feelings evidently interfered with judicial discrimination, while openly expressing that hostility to the auchensaugh bond which is concealed by others. the rev. john mcmillan, whom the lord honored to take the lead at auchensaugh, is especially branded by this writer who asserts,--"he did not secede and retire, he was expelled; nor was the position of his early associates in the ministry of the purest water." moreover, this writer asserts "that they (seceders) have actually renewed the covenants, from time to time, during the whole period of their existence." how could this be, since seceders have all along rejected "the civil part of the covenants?" but these documents bear on their face a direct aim at personal, domestic, ecclesiastical, and civil reformation. no party can intelligently and honestly renew the national covenant and solemn league, while eulogizing the "glorious revolution" of , while in allegiance to the british throne--that "bloody horn of the beast;" or whose political principles will identify them with any other horn which may have power to scatter "judah." zech. i: . we have thus attempted by an induction of particulars, as concisely as we could, to point out existing opposition to our covenanted reformation, by various parties who assail the british covenants directly, or by a first assault upon the auchensaugh bond, would reach a fatal stroke at the covenants themselves. we believe with our predecessors that those who reject the auchensaugh renovation, by logical necessity will relinquish the covenants themselves. the reader may be assured that neither we nor the reformed presbytery, whose committee we are, claim papal infallibility or christian perfection; nor do we ask implicit faith in any uninspired documents. but we sincerely believe ourselves that the auchensaugh renovation and the bond, to which the foregoing statements are prefixed, will be found on examination to be sound, faithful, and "in nothing contrary to the word of god." david steele, robert alexander, john clyde. _committee_ footnotes: [footnote : this gentleman does not seem to know that infidels use similar argument against christianity. or, did he never read--"i came not to send peace on the earth, but a sword." his logic also is as faulty as his theology--_non causa pro causa_.] [footnote : on what principle does this minister dispense the ordinance of baptism to subjects in their minority? is baptism a mere ceremony, involving no obligation upon the children of believers? gen. xvii: .] [footnote : no _presumption_, when graciously invited to do so. is. lvi: , , . this teaching tends to the subversion of social order--the moral order of the universe. pet. ii: .] * * * * * the auchensaugh renovation. the national covenant and solemn league and covenant, with the acknowledgment of sins and engagement to duties: as they were renewed at auchensaugh, near douglas, th july, , with accommodation to the (then) present times. psalm lxxvi: . vow and pay unto the lord your god. isaiah xxiv: . the earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof: because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. ezek. xvii: . seeing he despised the oath by breaking the covenant (when, lo, he had given his hand), and hath done all these _things_, he shall not escape. tim. iii: . truce-breakers--or covenant-breakers. historical introduction. it is the ineffable product of eternal love, and infinite condescension in god toward his rational creatures, that ever he was pleased to make a covenant with them, and not to command and require obedience to his holy and just will, by virtue of his most absolute supremacy and rightful dominion only; but even to superadd sweet and precious promises, as a reward of that obedience, which he might of right have required, without giving any such incitements or pursuasives to it. and as no tongue of men or angels is sufficient to express, no strength of imagination to conceive, no sublimity of intellectual faculties to comprehend the depth of that spring, and breadth of that ocean of unbounded love, which hath exerted itself in god's covenanting with man; yea, with sinful man, by means of a mediator: so shall it always afford matter of wonder and admiration to all finite and intelligent beings, to the ages of eternity, and shall never be comprehended by any, but by him whose understanding is infinite; wherefore he, who is all-sufficient and self-sufficient, should invite, yea, press and entreat unworthy indigent nothings, the sinful children of men to such an incomparable degree of honor, dignity and advancement, as that is, to enter into a covenant relation, and come into a solemn treaty of peace and conjunction with him, who is infinitely removed beyond all blessing and all praise. to have this invitation, is indeed the honor and privilege of all within the visible church, to whose ears the joyful sound of the glorious gospel of jesus christ hath come; but few are so wise as to accept and approve it. many, too many, account themselves unworthy of this honor, and by despising this privilege, and rejecting this dignity, deprive themselves of the greatest happiness; but as all nations, upon whom the day-star of the gospel hath arisen, have had the invitation to this duty, and all sound and real believers have actually participated of this honor, to have god making a covenant with them, and they striking hands with him through a mediator (which covenant is commonly termed the _covenant of grace_,) so these three kingdoms of scotland, england and ireland conjunctly, and scotland by itself, as an independent nation, had in an eminent way and manner the honor, above most nations in the world, to dedicate and surrender themselves to the lord, by a most voluntary, free and deliberate choice, and to come under the bond of a most solemn oath, in a most religious manner, devoting their all to christ, his interest and honor, the flourishing and thriving of his kingdom, the success of his gospel, and reformation of his churches; and openly avouching him for their lord and master, to the honor of his name, and confusion of his enemies; which _covenants national_ and _solemn league_, though we look not upon them to be the same with the covenant of grace, yet we conceive of them as a solemn superadded and new obligation, tying us to all the duties, as well of a particular christian conversation, as these which tend to the public and national advancement of reformation in religion, whereof the covenant of grace is the spring and foundation. these covenants, as they were the effects and consequents of many remarkable and signal expressions of divine love and goodness, many singular mercies and deliverances vouchsafed to these nations, as the return of many earnest prayers and wrestlings of the lord's people with him; so they were the occasions of many blessings, and great indications of god's favor and loving-kindness. then the lord delighted to dwell in the nations; then did he beautify the place of his sanctuary; then did he fill his people's hearts with joy and gladness, by the familiar intimations of his special love and down pourings of his spirit's gracious influences, as our land can afford many instances. then did he enlarge his people's affections, and animate their spirits with zeal and courage, attended with knowledge, prudence and discretion to act for him, and advance his kingdom. then did he illustrate his churches in these kingdoms, as bright and sparkling stars arising out of the thick clouds of antichristian darkness, and getting out from under prelatic and erastian yokes of bondage and slavery, and made them go forth as the meridian sun glorious and excellent; _terrible as an army with banners_. hence it came to pass that these nations sent out a savory report to all the neighboring reformed churches, a report which comforted, revived, strengthened, animated and encouraged all the true and loyal subjects of christ's kingdom; which struck terror and amazement to the hearts of his enemies; which shook and caused to tremble the pillars of antichrist's kingdom, and disquieted the very foundations of the _seat of that beast_; which made malignants at home and abroad to be ashamed and confounded, and even forced the haters of the lord to _feign submission to him_. numberless were the advantages and privileges which did redound to these nations by, and were the lovely attendants and sweet consequents of, these covenants; whereby god did set to his seal of approbation, and gave clear evidence and demonstration of his acceptance of his people's cheerful and willing adventures in this duty of covenanting with him: and as these blessings and mercies, which, as the dew of hermon, were distilled upon his people's heads and hearts, while they abode steadfast with him, and faithful in his covenant were so many irrefragable proofs of his acquiescence in their first and laudable undertakings; so the many sad and fearful plagues, distractions, confusions and miseries, which have attended and followed the many gross breaches and violations of these covenants and departures from god, are no less evident discoveries, undeniable signs and pregnant convictions of the lord's most just displeasure and indignation with the bypast and present courses of revolting and backsliding from him; which courses of declension and grievous apostatizing from god and his covenant, all the three kingdoms and in special this nation, and every individual therein capable of such a work, are, without all controversy, called to bewail and confess before god, and by speedy amendment to turn from them, in order to avert judgments, and turn away justly impendent wrath and long threatened strokes. the consideration of these blessings and benefits, on the one hand, which followed the zealous entering into, and sincere performing of these sacred oaths; and upon the other hand the sense we desire to retain of the plagues and curses, threatened by god in his word against covenant-breaking inflicted upon covenant-breakers in former ages, and foreign nations, and visibly impending upon us in these nations, for our perfidious dealing in god's covenant; hath moved us a _poor insignificant handful of people_, unworthy indeed to be called the posterity of our zealous reforming ancestors, though heartily desirous to be found adhering to the same standard of doctrine, worship, discipline and government to which they adhered, to attempt this solemn and weighty duty of renewing (in our capacities and stations) these covenant obligations, that we might at least give some discovery of our respect to the cause of god, for the advancement and preservation whereof these covenants were first entered into, and afterwards again and again renewed by our religious progenitors, and by the whole representative body of the three kingdoms, who had any zeal for the interest of religion. and that we might, for our parts, be in some measure instrumental to transmit a testimony for the work of god in our land to the succeeding generation. neither do we want, besides these general motives, some special inducements to this undertaking. as . because these national covenants, having been nationally broken, and their funeral piles erected by wicked and perfidious rulers in the capital cities of the kingdom, with all imaginable ignominy and contempt, have long lien buried and (almost) quite forgotten under these ashes; most people either hating the very name and remembrance of them, or at least being ashamed honorably to avouch their adherence to them, and afraid to endeavor a vigorous and constant prosecution of the duties contained in them: so that it is high time that every one should do his utmost towards a reviving of them. . because many openly declare their sorrow and grief that ever these covenants should have been entered into: malignants calling them a conspiracy, attributing every miscarriage of the persons engaged in them to the covenants themselves as their native effects; and others, who would take it ill to be called malignants, making them the causes of all the tyranny, rapine, bloodshed and persecution of the late reigns, as having raised the spleen of the enemies of religion, and accounting it safer that they should lie still in their graves, than that they should irritate malignants any more by their resurrection.[ ] therefore we judge it our duty to renew them, that we might evidence, that notwithstanding all these malicious calumnies and false consequences cast upon them, we are still of the same judgment with our reformers, that they are the most sovereign means, under the blessing of god, for the reviving and preserving the work of god in the land. . because of the courses that are carried on in direct opposition to these covenants; the nations, formerly cemented in peace and love in conjunction with truth and righteousness, having broken these bonds, and united themselves upon another footing, by the late sinful incorporating union: and imposing new oaths in opposition to the covenant; such as abjuration, &c. granting license, protection and toleration to all the evils abjured in the covenant; as heresies and errors in doctrine, superstition in worship, prelacy and erastianism in government, and overthrowing all good discipline. . because of our own sinful miscarriages in, and woful declinings from our covenanted duties, our proneness to break covenant with god, and to be indifferent, lax, negligent and unsteadfast in the cause and work of god, and to be led away with the error of the wicked, and to fall from our steadfastness; wherefore we thought it necessary to bind ourselves by a new tie to the lord, and one to another in a zealous prosecution of covenanted duties, that the covenant might be as a hedge to keep us from running out into the paths of destroyers. . we being sincerely desirous and having an earnest longing to celebrate the sacred ordinance of the lord's supper, whereof many had unjustly called us despisers and contemners, and finding it to have been the laudable practice of the church of scotland formerly, that all such as were admitted to that holy table should swear and subscribe the covenant before their coming thereunto; we judged it a fit preparation for our receiving a sacramental confirmation of god's covenanted love and favor to us, through our lord jesus christ, that we should avouch him for our god, and testify our adherence to his cause and truth, by our renewing our national covenants with him. upon these and the like weighty considerations we resolved to set about this solemn and tremendous duty; and being assured that we have no sufficiency in ourselves for any such undertaking, after frequently imploring the lord for light and direction, strength and assistance, and seeking for ourselves a right way in the performance of the duty, upon days of humiliation, both in our private societies and publicly in the fields, we did condescend upon the following _acknowledgment of sins_, the more to enable us to remember our own and the land's breaches of covenant, in our solemn public confession thereof; and did draw up the following _engagement to duties_, not to superadd any new oath and obligation to the covenants, but only to adjust the articles of the covenant to the circumstances of the time, and to explain in what sense the covenant binds us against the present evils that are now prevalent in the land, and to the contrary duties. as for the covenants themselves, we made no material alteration in them, as judging it a work more proper for an assembly of divines, or representative body of church and state (had they been upright and faithful in this cause) than for us, who, as we are called by others in contempt, must own ourselves in truth to be, _but a handful of weak and most illiterate people_, and but as babes in comparison of the first framers of our covenants; only that we might make them in some measure accomodable to the present lamentable circumstances, whereinto we are involved by our iniquities, we have annotated some few necessary alterations upon the margin, wherein the judicious will find that we have in nothing receded from the scope and substance of the covenant, but only in the phrase; for instance, where the covenant binds to _the defence and preservation of the king's majesty and government_, in regard we have no king nor supreme civil magistrate so qualified, as god's law and the laudable laws of this realm require, to whom we might, for conscience sake, subject ourselves, in a consistency with our defending the true reformed religion in all its parts and privileges: therefore, we can only bind ourselves to _defend and preserve the honor, authority and majesty of lawful sovereigns, or supreme magistrates, having the qualifications aforesaid, when god shall be pleased to grant them to us_. where no judicious person will say that there is any substantial alteration as to the _matter of the duty_, but only as to the object to whom the duty is to be performed; there being none such in being as can justly claim, or to whom we may with a good conscience pay such an allegiance. having mutually agreed concerning these prerequisites to this sacred action, that the same might be orderly gone about, and might not be performed in a clandestine way, so as to preclude any upright-hearted friends to the covenanted reformation from joining with us in that so necessary a duty, there was public intimation made of the design a competent space of time before, upon a day of humiliation, and likewise upon the lord's day immediately preceding the work. as for the particular way and manner, method and circumstances of the work, we had not given any narrative of them; but that some, who came with an evil eye, to spy out our liberty, for criticizing, not for joining or profiting, have in part misrepresented the same, and may further do so; therefore, to obviate all such misreports, we have thought fit to make this brief relation thereof. upon wednesday, july d, those who had the work in design being met together, the minister began the day's work with prayer for special assistance to attain due preparation, and a suitable frame, throughout the whole solemnity: and thereafter had a prefatory discourse to the people, showing the nature of the work in general, its lawfulness, expediency, and necessity, from scripture precedents and approven examples of the people of god, adducing the th chapter of ezra, neh. ezek. dan. and neh. x. , , for proof thereof; and of the day in particular, that it was a day of fasting and supplication, with preaching of the word, in order to preparation for the solemnities intended, both of renewing the covenants and celebrating the sacrament of the lord's, supper. after which a part of the lxxviii. psalm, from the th to the th verse being sung, mr. john m'neil, preacher of the gospel, had a sermon upon jer. . , and . "in those days, and in that time, saith the lord, the children of israel shall come, they and the children of judah together, going and weeping: they shall go and seek the lord their god. they shall ask the way to zion, with their faces thitherward, saying, come and let us join ourselves to the lord, in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten." from which text he raised and prosecuted largely, and particularly the two following observations, as most pertinent for the work of the day; the first implicitly supposed, the other more explicitly asserted in the words; viz. . that, _a people in covenant with god may be forgetful of and deal falsely in their covenant_; or that _covenant-takers may be covenant-breakers_. . that, _it is the duty of a people who have broken covenant with god to engage themselves again to the lord by the renovation of their covenant_. where in prosecuting the former, he showed by what gradual steps of declension a people usually come to deal falsely in god's covenant, such as, ( .) by forgetfulness, deut. iv. . there being a connexion between forgetting and forsaking, or dealing falsely in god's covenant, so the church intimates, psal. xliv. , . "all this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant; our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from thy way." and the returning remnant of israel being sensible of this connexion, resolve to bind themselves to the lord _in a perpetual covenant that may not be forgotten_. ( .) by seeking shifts and arguments to elude and evade the obligation of the covenant and to defend the breaches thereof; which is after vows to make inquiry. ( .) by despising the bond of it; ezek. xvi. . "which hast despised the oath in breaking the covenant." ( .) by defection to the iniquities which are sworn and engaged against in the covenant, jer. xi. . "they are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, which refused to hear my words; and they went after other gods to serve them; the house of israel and the house of judah have broken my covenant, which i made with their fathers." ( .) by changing the government, laws, and ordinances sworn to be maintained in the covenant; either the government of the state, without consulting divine direction, and due inspection into the qualification of the persons set up, hos. viii., compare the st and th verses. "they have transgressed my covenant, &c. they have set up kings, but not by me, princes and i knew it not;" that is, without consulting me to know my will, and without my approbation and consent; or the government of the church, without regard to the revealed will of god. thus, abijah justly chargeth jeroboam that he had "cast out the priests of the lord, the sons of aaron, and the levites," and that he had "made priests after the manner of the nations of other lands;" but encourages himself that he and judah had the lord for their god, because they had not forsaken him; "and the priests which ministered unto the lord were the sons of aaron." chron. xiii. , . ( .) by an entire forsaking and disowning the obligation of the covenant, dan. xi. . "he------shall have intelligence with them that forsake the holy covenant." ( .) by a stated opposition to the covenant, and persecuting of these who adhere thereunto. thus elijah justly charges israel, kings xix. , that they had forsaken god's covenant, because they had thrown down his altars, slain his prophets, and sought after elijah's life. and in a use of lamentation deduced from the foresaid doctrine, he showed, that all ranks in the land had reason to mourn over their breach of covenant, in regard that some of all ranks, from the throne to the dunghill, in church and state, are, or have been guilty of dealing falsely in god's covenant, in all and every one of these diverse ways, and of declining from it: and in regard that there has been so much ignominy and contempt cast upon these sacred covenants, not only by breaking them openly, but also avowedly disowning and disdaining their obligation, and making the adherence to them criminal; and, which is above all, burning them by the hand of the hangman, and burying them so long in forgetfulness. this guiltiness he applied not to great persons only, but also to professors, to ministers, and particularly to ourselves, who are called dissenters from the present establishment; pressing upon us no less than others, the absolute and indispensable necessity of being convinced of, and mourning over these, not as the sins of others only, but also as our own--we having a chief hand in the trespass; pressing upon all present concerned in the work the duty of self-examination, and putting themselves to the trial, concerning their knowledge of the covenant obligations, both as to their nature and extent, as well as their sense of the breaches of these obligations. in the second head of doctrine, viz., _that it is the duty of a people who have broken covenant with god, to engage themselves again to him by renovation of their covenant_; after proving the proposition by several heads of arguments deduced-- st, from the lawfulness of entering into covenant with god, whether personal, as jacob, gen. xxviii. , , or economical, as joshua and his family, josh. xxiv. , or national, as god brought his people israel under a covenant with himself, exod. xix . the consequence holding undeniably, that if it be lawful and necessary, in any of these respects, to enter into covenant with god, it must needs be also lawful and a duty to renew the same after the breach thereof. dly, from scripture precedents of the people of god, who, after breaking off and declining from god's covenant, renewed the same. as for instance, the covenant made with israel at horeb, was renewed at the plains of moab, deut. xxxix;--by joshua, chap, xxiv.;--by asa, chron. xv. , ;--by jehoiada, kings xi. ;--by hezekiah, chron. xxix. ;--by josiah, kings, xxiii. ;--by ezra and nehemiah, ezra, x. ;--neh. ix ult. and x. , . dly, from scripture precepts, deut. xxix. --"these are the words of the covenant which the lord commanded moses to make with the children of israel in the land of moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in horeb." psalm, lxxvi. --"vow, and pay unto the lord your god." thly, from scripture promises, wherein the lord promiseth as a blessing and mercy to his church and people, that they should renew their covenant with him, isaiah xix. , -- ; zech. ii. . for further opening of the proposition, these two questions were proposed and solved--_first_, whether all persons who have broken covenant with god may be admitted to renew the same? _answer_, all sorts of persons in the three kingdoms are under the obligation of the covenant, and consequently, bound to renew and keep it inviolable; but all are not in present capacity, and therefore have no actual right to enter into covenant: such as are obstinately wicked, living in error, profanity, or malignancy, have not god's call and right from him, as such, to renew a covenant with him; for, psal. . , --"god says to the wicked, what hast thou to do to take my covenant in thy mouth?" but all such as are reformed, or reforming from all iniquity, and namely from the defections and compliances of the time; who have some suitable sense of the breaches, and competent knowledge and understanding of the duties engaged unto in the covenant, neh. x. , have a right and an immediate call to the duty of renewing the covenant. dly, if any number of people may renew a national oath and covenant without the consent and concurrence of royal authority, or at least, without the concurrence of some chief and principal men in church and state? _answer_, without the concurrence of church and state, a covenant cannot be taken or renewed nationally, speaking strictly; yet a few may publicly declare their adherence to their covenant-engagements by renewing them, not only without the consent and concurrence of authority, but against it; and there are several precedents for so doing, both before and since the established reformation. as for instance, that covenant at edinburgh, anno ; at perth, ; at stirling, the same year; another at leith, anno ; another at ayr, . and at lanark, a small handful of the lord's people renewed it in direct opposition to, and at lesmahago, without the consent or concurrence of authority; which instances may be both an inducement and encouragement to us to renew, and in our mean capacity, to testify to the nation our approbation of, and adherence to these covenants. in the prosecution of this doctrine, he had occasion also to insist upon the _reasons_, or _motives_, and _manner_ of entering into covenant. the scope and argument of the reasons adduced as motives to the duty of covenanting was to this effect:-- . the turning away of the lord's wrath and anger from a land, or people, which covenant-breaking hath deserved, may be a motive to renewing covenant with god; this was the motive that prompted the good reforming king hezekiah to make a covenant with the lord, chron. xxix. --"now it is in mine heart to make a covenant with the lord god of israel, that his fierce wrath may turn away from us." and nehemiah, with the returned captives, neh. ix. --"and because of all this, we make a sure covenant." . reviving and advancement in reformation, being the ordinary consequent and effect of upright covenanting with the lord, may be another motive and inducement thereunto; this appears both in personal and national covenanting--in personal, psal. cxix. --"i have sworn, and i will perform it, that i will keep thy righteous judgments." the psalmist's having sworn, was a very quickening consideration to excite him to the performance of his duty. in national covenanting, we always find, after the people of israel and judah had covenanted with the lord, they made progress in reformation, and the land was purged of abominations and idols. thus it was in asa's covenant, chron. xv. to ; for there, the people have entered into a covenant with the lord, "and sworn with all their soul, and with all their heart," the lord was found of them; and asa removed his mother, maachah, from her royal dignity, and stamped the idol which she had made, and burnt it at the brook kidron; and he brought into the house of the lord the things that his father and himself had dedicated. thus it was also in jehoiada's covenant, which he made "between the lord, and the king, and the people, that they should be the lord's people," kings xi. , , ; for, immediately after the making of his covenant, "all the people of the land went into the house of baal, and brake it down--his altars, and his images brake they in pieces thoroughly; and the priest appointed officers over the house of the lord;" and they slew athaliah with the sword. the like is evident in hezekiah's covenanting, chron. xxxiv., xxxv. chapters. . this upright renewing of covenant with the lord is a way and mean to procure many mercies, both spiritual and temporal, from the hand of the lord; which should be a strong inducement and motive to engage us thereunto. spiritual mercies are entailed upon it, deut. xxix. , . "that thou shouldest enter into covenant with the lord thy god, and into his oath, which the lord thy god maketh with thee this day: that he may establish thee to-day for a people to himself, and that he may be unto thee a god, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, to abraham, to isaac, and to jacob." temporal mercies are also promised to this upright renewing and keeping covenant, deut. xxix. --"keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do." and, it is remarked, chron. xv. , that after asa's covenant, "the lord gave them rest round about." . the malice and opposition of the popish, prelatical, and malignant party against the covenants, and their doing what in them lies, to make their obligation void and null, may be a motive and argument for the people of god so much the more to avouch their respect to them by a public adherence, especially after long continued breaches. . upright entering into, or renewing covenant with god, is a most sovereign medicine for healing a people's breaches, as well as their backslidings, the covenant being a cement, as well to join and unite the people of god one to another, as all of them in their duty to god; and, as it flows from the nature of the covenant to unite the friends of reformation, so it is observable as one of the peculiar fruits of covenant-renewing, that union in the lord has followed thereupon: thus it was with israel and judah in the text, who united together in making a covenant with the lord. whence all the people of god, who are called to be united and "perfectly joined together in the same spirit, and in the same mind;" and especially they who have been lamentably divided one from another, by their manifold defections from god, and from their covenant-engagements, ought to be strongly inclined, moved, and engaged to this duty; from this consideration, the upright covenant-renewing is a usual mean of land-uniting and church-uniting dispositions amongst the people of god. as for the manner of renewing covenant with god, and how the duty ought to be gone about, he propounded and opened it in the following particulars, to this effect:-- . that it must be done with understanding and judgment, both in relation to the nature of the duties we engage to perform in the covenant: grossly ignorant persons being justly deprived of the privilege of engaging in covenant, though bound to inform themselves of its nature and obligation; and also in relation to the breaches, such as would engage into it being called to have some suitable sense and understanding, both how it has been violated, and by what means persons come to be guilty of the breach thereof. so, neh. x. , --"every one that had knowledge and understanding entered into the covenant." . this duty must be gone about with sincerity and uprightness of heart; thus joshua, when making a covenant with the people, that they should serve the lord, exhorts them--"now therefore fear the lord, and serve him in sincerity and truth," joshua, xxiv., compare the th verse with the th. the want of which qualification in covenant-renewing, causes unsteadfastness and perfidy in covenant-performing--psal. lxxviii. , . . this duty of covenant-renewing requires, as a qualification towards the right performing of it, that there be a due consideration, and some suitable impression of the solemnity and weightiness of the work: which ariseth, partly from the _object_ or _party covenanted with_, the holy and jealous god, joshua xxiv. --"he is a holy god, he is a jealous god, he will not forgive your transgressions, nor your sins," and partly from the _subject matter covenanted, or engaged to_. the articles of the covenant of grace, which we have professedly, at last, yielded to in our baptism, are weighty; for therein, as god engages to give us himself, his son christ jesus, and in him all temporal and eternal blessings; so we engaged to be obedient children, and faithful subjects to him all the days of our lives. and the articles of these national covenants are weighty, for therein we engage to great things relating to the glory of god, and the good of our own and other's souls. and, partly, this weightiness ariseth from the great _danger and dreadful punishment of breaking the covenant_; which is threatened in many places of scripture. the same is also intimated to us in the customs both of the jews and heathens, in entering into covenant; particularly, we find that the jews used to cut a calf, or some other clean beast, in twain, and pass between the parts of it--using this, or the like form of speech, as the jewish doctors relate--"so god divide or separate me, if i keep not this covenant." jer. xxxiv. , compared with verse --"i will give the men into the hands of their enemies who have transgressed my covenant, which they had made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof." nehemiah also, chap. v. , , when he took an oath of the priests, shook his lap and said--"so god shake out every man from his house, and from his labour, that performeth not this promise," &c. and all the covenanters said--"amen." . much tenderness and heart-melting is requisite to the right performing of this duty. so it was with covenant-renewing israel and judah, who were "weeping as they went to seek the lord their god, and to make a covenant never to be forgotten." this brokenness of heart, and tender-melting frame may arise, both from the consideration of the many sins and iniquities whereby persons have provoked the lord their god to anger, whence they come "to be like doves of the valley, every one mourning for his iniquity:" and likewise from the consideration of the grace and mercy of god, manifested in christ jesus, his condescension to enter into a covenant with sinful men, and readiness, upon his people's repentance, to pardon their former breaches; from the consideration of this transcendently free grace, an humble and sincere covenanter will be transported into an ecstacy of wonder and admiration; as the church is, mic. vii. , , --"who is a god like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage?" &c. . dependency and recumbency upon the lord by faith, for strength to perform covenant engagements, is requisite to right covenanting, isa. xxvii. --"let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me." this is to "take hold of" god's covenant, isa. lvi. . . affection to god and the duties whereunto we engage, is requisite to right covenanting, and that in its flower and vigour, height and supremacy. thus, chron. xv. , , asa and the people "entered into a covenant, to seek the lord god of their fathers with all their heart, and with all their soul:--and all judah rejoiced at the oath; for they had sworn with all their heart, and sought him with their whole desire." they had an affection to the work, and did it with complacency, not in dissimulation, so as not to design to perform it: nor through compulsion, with an eye to secular profit or preferment, as many in these lands did. . it is necessary, in order to right covenanting, that the work be gone about with a firm purpose and resolution (through grace enabling us) to adhere to our covenant engagements, notwithstanding whatever opposition and persecution we may meet with from the world for so doing, and whatever difficulties and discouragements may arise from the multitude of those, who prove unsteadfast in, or foully forsake their covenant. we must stand to our covenant, as it is said of josiah, chron. xxxiv. , that "he caused all that were present in judah and benjamin, to stand to" the covenant, which implies as well a firm resolution to perform, as consent to engage, as in the latter part of the verse, it is remarked, that "the inhabitants of jerusalem did according to the covenant of god, the god of their fathers;" where _doing according to the covenant_ is exegetical of _standing to it._ david also joins the resolution of performance with swearing; psal. cxix. . "i have sworn, and i will perform, that i will keep thy righteous judgments." from the doctrine thus confirmed and explained, he drew this inference, by way of information, that seeing it is a people's duty, who have broken covenant with the lord, to engage themselves again to him, by renewing their covenant, that it is not arbitrary for us (as many are apt to think) to renew, or not to renew our covenant; but that there is a plain and positive necessity for our repenting and returning again to the lord, by entering anew into covenant with him, whether personal made in baptism, or at the lord's table, or under affliction and trouble, or national vows and covenants entered into by ourselves or our fathers. and in a use of lamentation, he bewailed the backwardness of these lands, and particularly of this nation, to this duty; in that, now after sixty years and upwards of great defections from, and grievous breaches of our covenants by people of all ranks; yet there appears so little sense of either the obligations or breaches of them, and of a disposition to reviving them, even amongst those who not only profess some love to the reformation of religion, but even some belief of their perpetual binding obligation; and that notwithstanding, as the prophet isaiah saith, concerning judah, chap. xxiv. , "the earth (or the land) is defiled under the inhabitants thereof, because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant;" our land having been denied with popery and prelacy, and with a flood of abomination and profanity, the natural consequent of perfidy, the ordinances having been changed, perverted and corrupted, and the covenant not only broken, but burnt ignominiously, and the adherence to it made criminal; yet, for all this, there has not been a time found for renewing them these twenty-three years; and that ministers, at whose door it chiefly lay to stir up the land to this work, have many of them been as careless as others, waiving and putting off a stumbled and offended people, expressing some concernedness for this duty, with these and the like pretexts, that it was not a fit time, nor the land in a case for it (too sad a truth), but not laboring to get the land brought to be in a case and disposition for it, by pressing the obligation, and plainly discovering the violations thereof; so that, instead of being brought to a fitter condition for this duty, the covenants are almost forgotten and quite out of mind, so that the succeeding generation is scarce like to know that ever there was a covenant sworn in scotland. and more particularly, that the godly, who are dissatisfied with, and dissent from the defections and corruptions of the times, have discovered so little concern about the work of reformation, and cause of god, which the covenants oblige us to own, defend, and promote. all which laxness and remissness is for a lamentation, and ought to be lamented and mourned over by the people of god. in the exhortation, he pressed upon us who are embodied together to renew our _covenant-engagements_, by giving an open and public testimony of our adherence to the _covenants, national_ and _solemn league_, that we should labor to attain a suitable frame, and serious consideration of the weightiness, solemnity, and awfulness of the work we were then undertaking: enforcing the same by several cogent motives, as namely, because in renewing these covenants we are called to remember our baptismal and personal vows, whereby we had renounced the devil, the world and the flesh, and devoted ourselves to the lord to be his people; which if they were slighted and forgotten, there could be no right, acceptable, and comfortable entering into _national covenants._ and likewise because of the weightiness of the duties engaged to in our _national covenant_, and in the _solemn league_ and _covenant_, which he proved to be a covenant that ought to be renewed by us in this nation no less than our _national covenant_, in regard it was a religious, just, and holy covenant made betwixt god and the three kingdoms, though it cannot now be taken in the same consideration and extent, as at the first framing it was, viz.: as a league betwixt us and the representative body of the kingdoms of england and ireland: where he took occasion to go over the several articles of the covenant, showing the nature and weightiness of the duties. beside these two more general doctrines which were chiefly insisted upon, he observed several others pertinently deducible from the words, as first, _that unfaithful dealing in god's covenant will breed distance and estrangement from god._ this is implied in the children of israel and judah seeking the lord, asking the way to zion, &c.; their asking the way to zion, importing that they had forgotten the right way of worshipping god, and that their sins had made a sad separation between them and their god. secondly, that it is necessary that persons become sensible of their sin against god, and of his anger against them, and lay these things to heart, that they may be concerned about reconciliation with god, and reform their lives. thirdly, that the kindly exercise of repentance in a backsliding people lamenting after the lord, and setting about to renew their covenant with him, hath an effectual influence to unite and cement the divided people of god: thus in the text the children of israel and judah, whom their iniquities had long and sadly divided, are uniting together in this desirable frame of weeping and seeking the lord their god, and making a perpetual covenant with him. this doctrine he proved and applied briefly as the time would permit, both because of its native result from the text, and because of his own, and our sincere desire to see a holy union and communion, in the way of truth and duty effected by returning to the lord, and renewing the covenant with him, as among all the godly, so especially among those that profess their dissent from, and dislike of the corrupt courses of the times. sermon being ended, after prayer, the covenants were first read according to the _directory for renewing the solemn league and covenant_, prescribed by the act of the general assembly at edinburgh, th october, , post meridiem, entitled, _act for renewing of the solemn league and covenant;_ and, thereafter, the following acknowledgment of sins was also read: after which, prayer was made, containing a comprehensive confession of the more general heads of the foresaid acknowledgement of sins; and a part of the th psalm, beginning at the th verse, was sung; and the minister dismissed the congregation with a short reprehension and advice, reproving them for their unconcerned carriage and behaviour during the reading of the acknowledgment of the breaches of these covenants, which had been first entered into at the expense of so much blood and treasure, and confirmed and sealed with the blood of many honourable martyrs of all ranks in the land; withal, exhorting all present to labour after a heart-melting frame for the right performance of the work in hand. upon thursday, july th, after singing a part of the th psalm, from the th to the th verse, and prayer--mr. john m'millan preached upon isaiah, xliv. --"one shall say i am the lord's: and another shall call himself by the name of jacob: and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the lord, and sirname himself by the name of israel." whereupon, after the unfolding of the context, and explication of the words, showing that they clearly contain an intimation of a covenant relation betwixt god and a people, and their avouching of the same upon their part; the words seeming to have a reference to the state of the new testament church, and conversion of the gentiles, who, being allured by the great gospel blessings and mercies bestowed by god upon the jews, to join themselves to the church, should avouch their interest in the messiah and covenant of grace, by taking the lord for their god, and owning themselves to be his people. so that the words may be taken up as an answer to such a presupposed question as this, _whose are you?_ _and what is your name?_ to which question, one shall answer, _i am the lord's;_ another, _i am one of old jacob's family and offspring_; another, if you desiderate my name, look the covenant subscriptions and you will find it there; another shall say, whatever my name was before, _my sirname now is an israelite_. so sweetly should a shower of gospel grace engage the hearts of the new testament converts to avow their covenant relation to the lord, and glory in their union with his church and covenanted people. having taking up the sense of the words to this effect, he deduced from them these two observations: _ . that the lord is graciously pleased sometimes to privilege his people with very remarkable tokens of his gracious presence._ this doctrine is clear from the context, verses d and th--"for i will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; i will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring. and they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the watercourses." under this head of doctrine, he gave the following marks to evidence whether the present time of renewing our covenant with god was indeed to us a time of the lord's privileging us with his gracious presence-- st, that a time of god's privileging his people with his gracious presence, and with a shower of gospel grace, is a very inviting and alluring time; wherein, as the lord invites his people to their duty, by engaging their hearts and souls, through his spirit's gracious influences, to fall in love with him and his commandments, so they mutually invite one another to covenant with god. d, that such a time proves a soul-engaging and taking time, wherein souls are engaged to fall in love with the covenant, and with christ the mediator of the covenant, and are taken in the net of the gospel. d, that a time of the letting out of god's gracious presence is ordinarily a time of many sweet and excellent resolutions, the people of god resolving to walk more accurately and circumspectly in the ways of new obedience. th, that this usually is a time of ridding marches, and clearing of evidences. th, that it is a time of many and special confirmations of god's love to the soul. th, that this time of god's letting out much of his gracious presence to his people, is a very uniting and healing time to them amongst themselves. having given these marks, to show whether the lord were, at the occasion, letting out his gracious presence, he added, by way of caution, that seeing (no doubt) the people of god would be expecting something of all these, upon the undertaking of so great a work; if so be that they found it not, they should not thence be induced to have hard thoughts of the lord, and to conclude that he keeps not his usual method with his people, or is not so good to them as formerly he hath been: for whatever defects there are upon his people's part, there is none upon the lord's, for he remains the same to them, providing they do so to him; the change of his dispensations towards his people being from the change of his people's deportment towards him. the second doctrine, resulting more directly from the words, was, _that the lord's spirit poured out in plenty upon his people will quickly bring them to an embracing of him, and to a public acknowledgment and avouching of the same._ thus it was with the people of god in the text--no sooner does the lord "pour water upon the thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground," even his spirit upon the spiritual seed of israel, but presently they are at covenanting work and subscribing work; "one shall say, i am the lord's," etc. in prosecuting this doctrine he shewed first negatively that he was not for that occasion largely to treat of the several ways that the spirit useth to manage this work of engaging the hearts of his people to embrace christ, and so to make a public avouchment of the same; whether he doth it by representing to their views the sweet and precious promises made in the covenant of grace, thereby sweetly alluring and drawing them with the cords of love to himself, or by holding forth to their consciences the terrors and threatenings of the law, and thereby powerfully constraining them to fly to him as to the city of refuge from the face of divine justice pursuing them: for seeing the spirit is a free agent and blows both how and where he listeth, he may engage a soul to close with christ by either of these ways, though most usually he doth it by a conjunction and concurrence of both. only this ought to satisfy us, that what way soever the spirit taketh in bringing a soul to embrace christ upon the gospel terms, he so manageth the work as that the end is effectually and infallibly attained. nor secondly, was he to enquire into the measure of the outpouring of the spirit's graces and operations, which is effectual for attaining the end, this being one of the deep things of god which the spirit alone searcheth, and therefore is not necessary for us further to know, save only that we understand so much to be needful as may serve to empty the creature of all confidence in or dependence upon itself, or any other creature-helps whatsoever, and bring it to rely upon christ alone, for acceptance with god; so much is necessary, and less cannot be sufficient. nor thirdly, was he to handle the material differences between those who are brought really and sincerely to accept, embrace and acknowledge the lord for their lord, and to avouch the same publicly, which presupposeth a mighty power of the spirit manifested in the sweet impressions which he maketh upon the soul, moving them sweetly and readily to comply with and yield to christ without any longer resistance, and these who only in semblance and shew profess to avouch christ to be their lord, and feign submission to him, not from the spirit's effectual and saving operations, but either from carnal and external considerations, or at most from the spirit's common motions and convictions; which differences commonly arise from the different natures, motives, manner or ends of this their acknowledging and avouching christ for their lord, and covenanting with him. these things, as not so immediately proper for the work in hand, though natively involved in the doctrine, being only cleared in transition; he came in the second place more positively to insist upon and handle the following heads. first, more generally to propose some considerations which make such a great work as renewing covenant with the lord a weighty, hard and difficult work. and upon the other hand, to lay down some counterbalancing considerations which render such a work more easy and light, and may afford matter of encouragement toward the undertaking of it. secondly, more particularly in application to ourselves and the work in hand, to lay before those who were resolved to enter into covenant with the lord, what were the things that seemed to speak against us in the work, and might prove matter of discouragement in the undertaking of it. and what, upon the other side, might speak for us, and be ground of encouragement to us to go forward in humble and sincere endeavors to renew our covenant with the lord. thirdly, to give some advices and directions to such as were resolved upon the work. as for the first: the considerations which make covenanting work weighty and difficult. the _first_ consideration was drawn from the greatness of the party to be covenanted with, the great and glorious jehovah, the creator of the ends of the earth, who is a holy and jealous god, and who will not forgive the iniquity of such as are false hearted and perfidious in his covenant, obstinately persisting in their false dealing; so joshua premonisheth a people making very fair resolutions and promises to serve the lord, that it was a harder work than at the first sight they apprehended; "that they could not serve the lord, in regard he is an holy god, he is a jealous god, and would not forgive their transgressions nor their sins; and that if they should forsake the lord, and serve strange gods, then he would turn and do them hurt and consume them, after he had done them good," josh. xxiv. , . 'tis a part of his name, exod. xxxiv. . _that he will by no means clear the (obstinately and impenitently) guilty_. a _second_ consideration that makes the work of covenanting with god to appear a hard and difficult work, was taken from the nature of the work itself, which is to serve the lord in a covenant way, and in the capacity of covenanted children, this covenant relation involving in it a walk and conversation in all things like the chosen of the lord; and 'tis no small matter, so to walk, and so to behave as to be accounted worthy of a covenanted union with the lord and interest in him, this covenant relation being confirmed with such awful sanctions, as in scripture we find, neh. x. . "they------entered into a curse and into an oath, to walk in god's law," &c. this consideration, that covenanting work is weighty in its own nature, was further illustrated and amplified from the difficulty both of the things to be engaged against, and of the things to be engaged unto. as for the former, the things to be engaged against, which is sin in all its kinds and degrees, and in all the inducements to it, both with reference to ourselves, and also as to participation in the sins of others. this must first be put away, if one would be a right covenanter. well did old jacob understand the necessity of this, who being resolved to go up to bethel, to renew his covenant with god, that answered him in the day of his strait, advises his family first "to put away the strange gods that were amongst them, and to be clean." gen. xxxv. . so david assures us, psal. xxxiv. , that departing from evil must precede doing of good. a man that would lift up his face without spot in renewing covenant with god, must first "put iniquity far away, and not suffer wickedness to dwell in his tabernacles," as zophar advises job, chap. xi. , . they that would take on with a new master must be fairly parted from the old, there is no way of pleasing both christ and mammon, and therefore no possibility of serving both; whence the nature of covenanting work requires, that there be an upright putting away of all sin; for if the soul have any secret reserves in favor of a beloved sin, it has no ground to think that christ will accept it, as his covenanted spouse and bride. nor is this all, but dly, it must be mourned over and truly bewailed, especially upon the account of the offence done to a gracious god thereby; which sorrow must not be of an ordinary sort, but an extraordinary and most intense sorrow, for it cannot be an ordinary kind of sorrow, provided it be in any suitable measure proportioned to the offence. and dly, which follows upon the former, there must be a "loathing of the person's self because of these its ways and doings that have not been good in his sight," ezek. vi. , even to that degree as to fill the soul with wonder and astonishment, that ever it should have an occasion of renewing covenant with god again. thly, there must be a sincere and hearty resolving against all sins, consequent upon this loathing; the soul saying with a steady purpose, "if i have done iniquity i will do so no more," job xxxiv. . dly, as to the latter, the things engaged unto render the nature of covenanting work difficult and weighty, which are duties of various kinds, such as, st, holiness towards god, which is one special and chief part of the covenant, and that not for a time only, but for ever; both in regard that god, the party covenanted with, is holy and unchangeably so, and calls his people to imitate him in this attribute especially; and also in regard that the covenant itself is for its nature holy, all the articles being morally good and consonant to the royal law, the scriptures of truth; and for the extent of its duration, of perpetual force and obligation. this duty of holiness towards god, engaged to in the covenant, comprehends in it a zealous endeavor to maintain the purity of the doctrine, worship, discipline and government of his institution, in opposition to all those who would corrupt it, or decline from it. d, righteousness towards our neighbor, and more especially to our covenanted brother; which righteousness should discover itself both in reference to sin and duty, by reproving him for sin; or upon his rejecting reproof, by withdrawing from him, that he may be ashamed, and so come to be reclaimed from his evil course; and by affording him all that help and assistance to covenanted duties, that may be warrantably called for, and generally by uprightness towards him in all our transactions and dealings of any kind. d, faithfulness towards our nation, which comprehends a constant endeavor to advance and promote in our station the common good thereof; and a stedfast opposition to the courses that tend to take away the privilege of the same. th, uprightness towards ourselves, in everything relating to the real good of our own souls and bodies; by walking in all the duties of soberness, temperance, and moderation; for as others are to have their due, so ourselves are not to be neglected. a _third_ consideration, whereby the duty of renewing covenant with god appears to be difficult and weighty, was deduced from _the manner and way of engaging_; whereunto several things of great difficulty to be attained were showed to be absolutely necessary, as, st, _judgment_, to know, and in some measure comprehend, the nature of the duties to be engaged to, and the advantages flowing from the right entering into, and keeping of the covenant, and the losses redounding to the breakers thereof. d, _seriousness_, which, if ever it be in exercise, will certainly then be most lively, when the soul is entering upon a work of so high import, as making a covenant with god; for then the creature has one of two things to look for, either covenant blessings, or covenant curses, according as it performs or not performs the tenor of the covenant. d, _deliberation_; rashness in covenanting is of dangerous consequence: 'tis not the example of others only, nor raw flashes of conviction or love, nor external considerations, as gain, honor, men's approbation, &c., that must induce to this duty; but a fixed permanent purpose of heart and soul, rationally and deliberately entered into. th, _heart-integrity_, that it be done with all the heart, chron. xv. , for the man brings himself under a curse, that "having a male in his flock, sacrificeth to the lord a corrupt thing." mal. i. . a _fourth_ consideration, from whence the work of covenanting comes to be a difficult and hard work, was deduced from the _way and manner of performing_ the duties engaged to; which is (as 'tis expressed in the covenant) with sincerity, reality, and constancy; the difficulty of attaining to these qualifications in the performance of covenant-duties, arising partly from the strength of corruption within, the law of sin and death, which opposes the law of god; and partly from the strength of snares and temptations from without; which requires, that (as becomes covenanted children) there be a daily recourse to jesus christ, for light to discover, and strength to overcome these corruptions and temptations; and life, that the soul turn not dead and insensible under them. a _fifth_ consideration, from whence the difficulty of covenanting with god is sometimes heightened, was taken from _the meanness of such as attempt the work_. when the great ones, the nobles that are called _the shields of the earth_, do not afford their authority and patrociny, as an encouragement to the undertaking; and when the wise and learned will not employ their learning, parts, and abilities for the facilitating thereof; but the mean and weakest are left to do the work alone. this was no small difficulty and discouragement to the tekoites, in their building and repairing the wall of jerusalem, "that their nobles put not their necks to the work of their lord." neh. iii. . a _sixth_ consideration, which may sometimes render such a work hard and difficult, was drawn from _the want of the concurrence of civil authority; and the opposition made thereunto by the laws of the land_; which, when it happens to be the case of a people designing to renew national engagements cannot but be a very difficult and discouraging ingredient amongst others in their cup. on the other hand, these counterbalancing considerations were adduced, which are as so many props and pillars to support his people, and to allay the difficulties of the duty of entering into covenant with god, and to make it the more light and easy. st, _that the work is the lord's_, and he is greatly concerned in it; and, therefore, his people may safely lean to him for help, he having enacted no law against it, as men have. d, that _he looks not upon his people in such undertakings, as in themselves_, for then it were impossible for creatures, having the least sinful imperfection in them, to covenant with their spotless creator, and come so near a jealous god, who is a consuming fire to the workers of iniquity; _but he considers his people in their covenanting with him, as in their head, christ, his eternal son_; whence we may safely say, that our national covenant wants not a mediator more than the covenant of grace, in this sense, as it is through him we have access to make this covenant with god. d, that _the lord has promised his presence to his own work_; thus we find through the whole of the covenants made, and renewed by the people of israel and judah, that the lord discovered his gracious presence with them, by some remarkable effect of his goodness. thus it is remarked of hezekiah, that after he had entered into covenant, "that the lord was with him, and he prospered whithersoever he went forth," kings xviii. , compared with chron. xxix. . th, that _the lord puts none of his people to any piece of his work upon their own proper expense and charges, but upon his own_; and whatever complaints his people may have of want of necessary charges, he both has wherewith to supply them, and has undertaken to make it actually forthcoming for them, having commanded his people to open their mouths wide, and he has promised to fill them. th, that the covenant has a greater entail of blessings, than what will sufficiently compensate whatever expense and pains a people may be at, in undertaking and performing it. in regard, that though a christian should lose all, yea, even life itself, upon the account of it, yet the covenant will bring in all with advantage to a hundred fold, and glory to the overplus, when it is duly observed. th, that _the undertakers have god's call and commandment to set about it_; this is that which, above all other considerations, inspires a christian with undaunted courage and alacrity in the undertaking of a duty, when it is made clear that the person has god's call and command for a warrant; otherwise the want of this may make the duty to be heartlessly and doubtingly entered upon, and lamely performed. seeing, therefore, that sometimes a work may be the lord's, and yet the lord's call to such a particular person, or people to undertake it, may be wanting; he came necessarily (which was the _second_ head proposed) to enquire, what were the several things that might seem to speak against us, as not having this call from the lord, and what were the things that spake for us, and might give us matter of encouragement in undertaking the work before us.--in solution of which the following considerations were proposed. st, as to the things that might seem to speak against us: st, _our darkness_, not whether covenanting be a duty, but in regard of the want of right apprehensions of the nature and greatness of the duty, which cannot be a sufficient ground to neglect the duty, unless there were some duties from which a christian is exeemed and that this is one of them, which indeed will not be found in the whole bible. d, _our want of a frame suitable for the greatness and weightiness of the work_, which speaks sadly against us, but is not to be a ground to neglect the duty, we being commanded to look to the god of the covenant for it. upon the other hand, the things which seemed to speak for us, and yield matter of encouragement, that not only the work was the lord's, but also that we had his call to the same, were, st, the many, palpable, plain, and open breaches of these covenants, are a loud call to renew them. d, the undervaluing account that the nations have made of them, is a call to all such as have any respect to the sacred name of the lord invocated in these covenants, to do their utmost to vindicate them from that disgrace, by showing how high a price and value they put upon them. d, the lands enacting the perpetual banishment of these covenants, and imposing oaths contrary and opposite to them; which brings double perjury upon the nation, both by disregarding and omitting the performance of this just, lawful, and commendable covenant, and by making unjust, sinful and hateful covenants, for opposing the growth and success of christ's kingdom, even the reformation of these many abuses that have corrupted the holy religion of his institution: and perjury drawing wrath after it, as a native and necessary fruit consequent; they that would stand in the gap, to turn away national wrath, cannot otherwise make up the hedge, that the land should not be destroyed, but by renewing and keeping national covenants. th, that so many are speaking against them everywhere, accounting them a conspiracy against royal authority, a popular combination for advancing private ends and interests under the cloak of religion, or at least unnecessary and unprofitable for the end intended by them, binding to things of such a heterogeneous nature, as renders the keeping of them, and keeping within the sphere of our own activity and station, inconsistent and impossible, and such things as whereof we now have no occasion, and the like; which is a loud call to us, or any that retain other thoughts of their nature and ends, than the generality do, to speak for them; which cannot be done more fitly, honorably, nor conspicuously any other way, than by renewing and observing them. th, the practice of the godly in such a juncture of time, as what ours appears to be, is a call and encouraging consideration to set us upon this work: the godly usually in times of great defection from the purity and power of religion, and corruption of the ordinances of god's worship, set about renewing their covenant, thereby to prevent covenant curses, and procure covenant blessings; as we find both in scripture record, chron. xv. , ; xxix. ; xxxiv. , ; ezra x. , and in our own ecclesiastic history. and the practice was justified by the success, for the most part terminating in some reviving and reformation. th, the time being come to such a crisis, that such as would keep the word of christ's patience cannot any longer do it in a distinguishing way from those that are covenant-breakers, but by renewing covenant, and thereby making a test and trial of the well-wishers to the covenanted interest in the land, is a call to set about this work: in former times the godly held fast this their profession, by suffering for their adherence to covenanted duties, resisting unto blood, striving against the sin of covenant-breaking; whereas now our call seems to be more clear to do it, by renewing those covenant-obligations. th, the covenants themselves have, as it were, a loud voice to call us, and all who own their obligation, to set about renewing of them; they call by the justness and intrinsic goodness of the matter, which is of binding force by virtue of the law of god, prior to any covenant-tie, and by the holiness and excellency of the end, to wit, the reformation and preservation of religion. yea, the covenant seems to say to us, and to every true hearted son of the church of scotland, as job said in another case, "have pity upon me, o my friends," &c. so says the covenant: have pity upon me, all ye that have any respect for me, for church and state have forsaken me. the _third_ thing proposed was to give some advices and directions for right managing the duty intended. the scope and substance whereof briefly follows: st, such as would make a covenant with god aright, so as the same may never be broken nor yet forgotten, must labor to know if they be in good terms with the god of the covenant, and with the mediator of the covenant; if they sincerely closed with the terms, and acquiesced to the proposals of the covenant of grace; this personal and particular acceptance of christ in the new covenant being the only fountain of acceptable entering into national covenants. hence it concerns all that would be right covenanters, to search and see how it may be betwixt god and them, because 'tis but a profanation of the covenant to have the hand and tongue at it, and the heart from it: a well informed head without a reformed heart is not sufficient: a good opinion and liking of the covenant without a heart and affection to the covenant avails nothing in god's sight. d, such as would rightly renew covenant with god, must be well resolved concerning the motives leading them to covenant; which motives must neither arise wholly from without, nor yet wholly from within, for if these motives arise wholly from without, it discovers a great deal of treachery in the persons covenanting, as not beginning at the heart, not duly considering the inward case of the soul, but being moved from some external considerations, as a name amongst men, or affectation of zeal for public concerns, or such like; if they arise wholly from within it betrays much weakness and lowness of spirit, as not being able at the same time both to have a concern about the inward frame of the heart, and eternal state and condition of the soul, and likewise a zeal for the public good of the nation, and thriving of the work of god and kingdom of christ. both which interests ought to be in their due proportion before the eyes of a sound and real covenanter; a right engager in covenant must be moved thereto, both from a due sense of the strength and power of corruption within, and also from the consideration of the lowness of god's work through defection without. d, a right covenanter must be well resolved concerning the terms of the covenant; that it excludes all coming and going, according to the revolutions of the times, and the ebbing and flowing of worldly interests: one that has given up his name to the lord in covenant, and called himself by the name of israel, must not, like the samaritans, be an israelite only in the time of israel's prosperity, but he must be one in adversity too: the things engaged to in the covenant being of an everlasting and permanent duration, in their nature, must be lasting also in their observation. th, a right renewer of covenant must be well resolved anent the cost and expense of steadfast keeping of covenant. this should be first counted and deliberately resolved upon before engaging, lest after persons have engaged they want sufficiency to finish and fulfil the undertaking; and the wise man assures us, it is better not to vow, than to vow and not pay. the covenant may come to require the cost both of doing and suffering to finish it: there must, therefore, be a resolving upon both, before engaging. th, a right covenanter must be well resolved concerning the separating nature, and the uniting tie and bond of the covenant, for as it distinguished between friends and foes, so it unites covenanters amongst themselves in duties, interests, and concerns. so that they become one society, having an identity of common duties and privileges, common crosses and rejoicings; and must rejoice together and weep together. he closed the sermon with a two-fold advice or exhortation, to two sorts of persons. st, to those who had some good opinion of, and some love for the covenant, but yet were not resolved to join in covenant with us, because of many entanglements in a world; some estate, farm, or place of employment would be forfeited thereby; and hence, though the covenant be, in their opinion, a lawful and commendable engagement, yet not for them; they are in a course inconsistent with it, and could not be otherwise without foregoing some worldly accommodation. those he advised to consider the matter duly; not to engage without a resolution to forsake all interests that might interfere with covenanted duties; for to engage in the covenant, and yet to walk in a course opposite to it, would be exceedingly sinful; but to labour rather after old jacob's spirit and disposition, who looked to and trusted in the god of the covenant when he had nothing else to look to--no outward encouragement, gen. xxxii. --he had but his staff in his hand when he passed over jordan, and the lord made him to return with two bands. for, if a person could attain jacob's spirit, name and sirname would be lovely in their eyes, covenant and covenanting. dly, to those who had put their hands to many sinful covenants in opposition to this covenant, and such as being in a natural and unrenewed state, in league with sin and satan, and in covenant with hell and death. those he advised and earnestly obtested to break all their sinful covenants, to loathe and abhor them, and be humbled for them: and to come and fall in with this covenant, to say in sincerity that whereas other lords have had too long dominion over them, henceforth they would make mention only of the name of the lord as their lord; and that their name should henceforth be _jacob_, and their sirname _israel_, and to sign and seal the same with their oath and subscription. this exhortation he enforced by the several calls to the work mentioned before, and by the two following motives: st, because right entering into, and steadfast keeping of this covenant is the way to a holy life, and a holy life tends to make a holy nation; for, if we would observe this covenant sincerely, uniformly, and constantly, we could never be an unholy, and consequently, never an unhappy people; but it should be written as a motto upon our walls and gates, jehovah shammai, _the lord is there._ d, because the entering rightly into and due observance of this covenant would be our strength in the midst of all perplexing thoughts, whether arising from inward corruptions, or from outward temptations or dangers; the covenant yielded more satisfaction to david when dying than a royal diadem, a melodious harp, a puissant army, strong cities, a numerous offspring, or any earthly comforts could do, when, sam. xxiii. , he supports himself with this, that "though his house was not so with god," yet he had made with him "an everlasting covenant, well-ordered in all things, and sure." the keeping of this covenant had been to our nation a samson's lock, whereby we should have been able to oppose all our enemies; whereas the breach of it hath opened a door to all sorts of enemies to creep in amongst us, and hence is verified that which the lord has threatened his people with for their breach of covenant, deut. xxviii. , that the enemy shall be the head, and his people the tail. sermon being closed by prayer, the acknowledgment of sins was again read, as preparative to the engaging part; and the minister, in the first place, admonished all such as were guilty of such public steps of defection as are confessed in the acknowledgment, to make full and free confession thereof before the congregation, with such a due sense of, and sorrow for these public sins, as might evidence a hearty design of abandoning them and of adhering more closely to covenanted duties, which accordingly many did, both with respect to the perjurious oaths of the late times and defections of the present. because many have made a handle of this, above any other part of the action, to reproach and render the whole of the work contemptible, calling it jesuitic superstition, enthusiasm, advancing our own confessions into the room of christ's satisfaction, and expecting pardon upon the score of superficial public acknowledgments:--therefore, to vindicate this part of the work from such groundless calumny, we desire it may be adverted. st, that this is a commanded duty, that such as have violated the law and commandments of god, and being guilty of false and unfaithful dealing in his covenant, should unfeignedly confess their iniquity, which, if they do, god is faithful and just to forgive. d, that according to the nature of the offence, as the same has been acted secretly or publickly, and is of a secret or public nature and concern, so it ought to be confessed. if the offence be in its nature and way of perpetration a secret sin, known only to god and the person's own conscience, secret repentance sufficeth: nor can the church require any thing else, in regard such sins come not within the sphere of her cognizance;--but if the sin be public and national, or only personal, but publickly acted, so as the same has been stumbling, scandalous, and offensive to others; then it is requisite, for the glory of god and good of offended brethren, that the acknowledgment be equally public as the offence. these are _first principles_ that will not need to be proved, but may be taken for granted. but, dly, to make it appear that it is consonant to the practice of the godly to make public confession of national backsliding, we will advance two or three scripture instances. joshua, chap. vii. , compared with verse , commands achan, who had broken god's covenant which he commanded israel, and so brought upon the whole nation the lord's anger, that he would give glory to god, by making confession to him. whence it appears, that such sins as are national in their consequences, and bring national judgments upon a people, ought to be publickly confessed for turning away these judgments, and vindicating the honour of the supreme lawgiver, ezra x. , --"now when ezra had prayed, and when he had confessed, weeping, and casting himself down before the house of god, there assembled unto him out of israel a very great congregation of men, women, and children: for the people wept very sore." verse d, and shechaniah the son of jehiel, one of the sons of elam, answered and said unto ezra, we have trespassed against our god, and have taken strange wives of the people of the land. verse d, now therefore let us make a covenant with our god, to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them. verse , and ezra the priest stood up and said unto them, ye have transgressed and taken strange wives, to increase the trespass of israel. verse , now therefore make confession unto the lord god of your fathers, and do his pleasure. verse , then all the congregation answered, and said with a loud voice, as thou hast said, so must we do." neh. ix. --"now, in the twenty and fourth day of this month, the children of israel were assembled with fasting and with sackclothes, and earth upon them. verse d, and the seed of israel separated themselves from all strangers, and stood and confessed their sins, and the iniquities of their fathers. verse d, and they stood up in their place, and read in the book of the law of the lord their god, one fourth part of the day, and another fourth part they confessed and worshipped the lord their god." acts xix. --"and many that believed came, and confessed, and showed their deeds." these scripture examples, as we conceive, do sufficiently evince, that such public confession, for the substance of it, is not only expedient, but also necessary for such as would renew their covenant with god. as for some circumstances of the manner thereof, neither are we to vindicate them, nor can they justly be charged upon the whole of those who made those confessions; far less upon the minister, who, though he exhorted such as were guilty of scandalous defection, to glorify god by a public confession, yet obliged none thereunto _authoritatively_: and such as confessed the sin of their thoughts, or any other sins not scandalous or offensive to others; he exhorted to be serious in mourning over these things secretly before the lord; but withal told them that these things are not the subject matter of such a public acknowledgment. such as were unconcerned in their confessions, and seemed rather to do it from the examples of others, than from a real and deep sense of their guiltiness before god (as it must not be dissembled, there were too many,) he exhorted to attain a sense of the things confessed, and posed their consciences, whether they were convinced of what they pretended to confess. if any was so ignorant and weak in their apprehensions of the nature of right repentance and justification, as to put their acknowledgment of sin in the room of christ's satisfaction, and to rely thereupon for peace and acceptance with god, as it is alleged they did, it must be owned that they wofully erred in a matter of the highest consequence: but to affix this either upon all in general, or upon any particular person by name, is against the law of charity, and a judging of the heart, which is not obvious to man, but only to god, and so an usurping of god's prerogative; wherefore it appears, that the objecting of these and other such like things against this duty, is the effect of an impotent malice, and passion against the whole design of the work, which is too shrewd an evidence of a malignant spirit. whereas, some have taken occasion to pass injurious reflections upon the minister, because he made confession and acknowledgment of his own personal miscarriage; as though he did it with design to please the people, and to excite them to make confession of the things whereof they had no due sense, and that he should have proposed himself, as an example to the people; therefore, to discover the falsehood of such reports, we must declare plain matter of fact upon this head. the minister did indeed acknowledge his own iniquities in general, with others, and also particularly at the entry of the work; but without any design to please party or person; but only for the glory of god as himself declared, which if any shall say was but hypocritical self-seeking, we must remit them to the apostle's interrogation, to prepare an answer, _who art thou, o man, that judgest?_ neither did he say that he did it to be an example to others, though, even in that case, he had not been to be blamed, seeing the best of god's saints, in public employment in church and state, have done the like in public assemblies, as josiah, ezra, nehemiah, in sacred record, and in our church history, the rev. john davidson, who, at the renewing of the covenant, march th, , not only exhorted the brethren of the ministry to a serious confession of their sins, but did also make confession of his own, and excited the rest by his example, as is related by mr. calderwood in his history of the church of scotland, page . wherefore, seeing he has the command of god, and the most eminent of his saints for his warrant and precedent, he may be perfectly unconcerned, what are the constructions that such persons as are indifferent either about national sins or judgments do put upon this action, the acknowledgment of sins being read, the minister prayed, confessing therein the sins which had been publicly confessed in the said acknowledgment, and begging assistance to know and do the duties engaged unto, then the engagement to duties was likewise read in the audience of the congregation; where he showed that the design of these engagements was to accommodate the covenants to our case and circumstances. and advised the mixed multitude to beware of entering into the covenant, unless they were duly resolved concerning the performing of the same, according as our fathers understood it, as the same was explained and applied to the present condition of things in these engagements. after which the minister having prayed for the gracious presence and assistance of the divine spirit, to enable us both to engage and perform; commanding those who were to renew their covenant to stand upright, and hold up their right hands, he proceeded to the administration of the oath, causing the people to elevate their hands at the end of each article. the covenants being renewed, the minister addressed himself to those that had entered into covenant to this purpose. now, you who have renewed your covenant with god must not imagine that you may sit down upon your performance and rest yourselves as though your work was perfected and finished; nay, but you must consider with yourselves that now it is but beginning; your race is before you, the greatest, part of the work is before your hand: covenanting is relative to performing; you must, therefore, meditate upon, and ponder your engagements more now than before; for now you have put a new bond upon your souls, to walk with god in all the ways of new obedience. in order therefore to your performing, as you have undertaken, i would put you in mind of several particulars, which you must have much and frequently upon your hearts, and before your eyes. st, you must know that a holy life is what becomes covenanters; it is not holiness in name, show and appearance, but holiness in reality, in truth and substance, that must be interwoven with all your actions and duties; though others should not look to conscience, yet you must; though others slight and neglect religion, you must by no means do it; you must put on a joshua's generous and holy resolution, "that whatever others do, you and your house will serve the lord." you must consider upon it, that well-set speeches concerning the covenant, is not what you are principally to study, but well-set hearts; you must shake off laziness as well as hypocrisy. d. you must be very regular in your walk; an uniform conversation in the way of holiness is that which greatly adorns a christian, and consequently, a covenanter. and if you endeavor such a regular course of life, you will not shape yourselves according to the company you fall into. as some have a religion for every company, so they have one for man and another for god, and will be more careful and afraid lest their hypocrisy be discovered by men, than they are afraid to be made manifest to the lord. but so it must not be with you who have renewed your covenant with the lord: you must be the same in the closet as in the public assembly, and have a greater regard to the eye of jehovah, and the answer of a good conscience, than the approbation of fellow creatures. d, you mast be careful to perform all things which you have engaged to, within your sphere and station, but must not go without it: god is _a god of order_, and as he hath placed the stars in their proper orbs for the order and ornament of the universe, so hath he assigned to christians their diverse stations, for the beauty, order, and union of the church; christ, the captain of salvation, hath marshalled his soldiers into rank and file, and it were a disordering of his army if any should break their ranks. th, you must slight no opportunity of pursuing the ends of your covenant; whatever it may cost you when the occasion offers, suffering must not deter you from it; and if the times be such now as spare both your persons and purses, yet you must not be sparing in your prayers for the reviving of the work of god in the land, which is the very end of covenanting. th, you must be careful that you do not forget the covenant; forgetting (as you heard before) is a step towards forsaking, and, therefore, you must endeavour to have the covenant nearer to you than the israelites had it--they had it written upon the posts of their doors, you must have it written upon the tables of your hearts. th, you must evidence a great deal of cheerfulness and patience under your crosses, which may occur to you for your adherence to this your covenant; you must neither weaken your own hands in the discharge of covenanted duties, by drooping and discouragement under these crosses, nor stumble others, by repining at these losses, or by any carriage and deportment under them that may import your repenting of what you have now done. and because you are impotent and weak in yourselves, therefore, th, you must see that faith be in exercise in all your performances of covenanted duties. if this be wanting you will perform nothing to purpose, "for without faith it is impossible to please god." by this grace you must keep up acquaintance with christ, and have frequent recourse to him, both for cleansing you from your defilements, when you break the covenant, and for strength to perform what you are obliged to by covenant; both for recovering grace, to raise you up when fallen, and for preventing grace, to preserve you from falling or relapsing again. th, that you may be the more active and vigilant in keeping covenant, you must labor to maintain a constant fear of breaking it, and have a fixed impression of the tremendous threatening denounced against covenant-breakers; and you must know that all are such in god's account, who satisfy themselves with the form of godliness, denying the power thereof. for this end read and ponder these and the like scriptures. lev. xxvi. , "and i will bring a sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant, and when ye are gathered together within your cities, i will send the pestilence among you: and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy." neh. v. --"so god shall shake out every man from his house, and from his labor, that performeth not this promise; even thus be he shaken out and emptied." jer. xi. , "cursed be the man that obeyeth not the words of this covenant, which i commanded your fathers in the day that i brought them forth from the iron furnace." ezek. xvii. , "shall he prosper? shall he escape that doth such things? or shall he break the covenant and be delivered?" verse , "seeing he hath despised the oath, by breaking the covenant, when lo, he had given his hand, and hath done all these things, he shall not escape." verse th, "therefore, thus saith the lord god, as i live, surely mine oath that he hath despised and my covenant that he hath broken, even it will i recompense upon his own head." the minister having given these exhortations, closed the day's work with prayer, and singing a part of the ciii. psalm from the th to the th verse. and having intimated the time of meeting for more immediate preparation for the _holy communion_, putting the people in mind to be preparing for the work, by fervent prayer and supplication, joined with serious and upright self-examination, he dismissed the congregation after the usual form. this true and unbiassed account of the work in its design, progress and issue we have given, not to pre-occupy false reports only, which we cannot rationally suppose an entire freedom from, unless we fall in with the opposers of our covenanted reformation, and to purchase the good opinion and commendation of men at the rate of losing the favor of god. the main end of relating some of the more material heads, scope and argument of the _sermons_ is because there are some things handled in them which behoved to have been inserted in this _preface_, to clear up our motives and call to the work, which could not be better done than as the same was cleared then to the people. and this brief relation, though falling short of the matter then delivered, may serve to bring things to the memories of those that found sweet satisfaction in hearing them in the public. as for what may be the observations of censorious critics, either _of the sermons_ in particular, or of the _work_ in general, we are perfectly unconcerned about them, seeing we equally value their approbation or disapprobation; providing true matter of fact be not misrepresented, and so truth injuriously wronged. nor are we willing here to make any observation of our own concerning the issue and on-carrying of the work, though all the godly there present ought to observe the lord's gracious assistance and favor (so far as they found the same afforded to themselves, or displayed in others), lest we may either be in danger to diminish the grace of god by complaining, or incur the suspicion of self-flatterers by commending, but shall leave it to the judgment of such as were then present, and the candid interpretation of others that may read this preceding account thereof. there have been many objections made against the _design, matter_ and _form_ of the _covenants_: more against subjects covenanting to defend the purity and promote the reformation of religion, without the royal concurrence of their sovereign princes; most of all against private persons entering into covenant, or renewing thereof, for the said end without the general concurrence of the representative body of the church and state. those which concern the former two, have been fully answered by the greatest of our reformers, whose piety and learning set them sufficiently above the snarling censures of whatsoever cavilling pens or tongues: as for what are made against the last, they are also answered better than we can pretend to, in the analysis upon the th chapter of deuteronomy, prefixed to the national and solemn league and covenant renewed at lesmahago, whereunto we refer the reader. only because that book may not be at hand to every one that would desire these objections solved, we shall here transcribe the answers to two or three of the most material of these objections, making but small, if any, variation from the author's words. _object_. . "in all the national covenants whereof we read in scripture, there was still the concurrence of either the sovereign authority then in being, or at least of the captains, elders, officers, and heads of the tribes; and, therefore, it cannot be done by private subjects, without either royal or parliamentary authority." _ans_. certainly the obligations of the covenant, held forth deut. xxix. , , , being so extensive as to reach all the members of church and commonwealth, of all qualities, ranks, vocations, ages, sexes; is to be understood _positively_, that all these are obliged to enter into covenant, but not _negatively_, that without any of these the covenant should not be entered into. the motives mentioned are to the small as well as to the great; and without them as well as with them; the articles of it, and the keeping and doing them, are common to both alike: the relation that the small and meaner sort of people have to god (the other contracting party) is the same that the nobles and great ones have, and the privileges of it, to be established as a people unto himself and to have him for their god, do no more belong to the one than the other; and consequently the small may renew it, as well as the great; but not nationally to bind the whole nation formally, to which indeed the concurrence of the representatives is necessary. as for precedents of this practice, see them above, in the narrative of the sermons, [p. ]. _object_. . "this covenant having been disclaimed by the political father, and made void by law, never again revived by authority of parliament, nor the law rescinded by which it was declared not obligatory; is therefore of no binding force upon us, who have never personally sworn it; and to renew it, and bring ourselves under the bond of it, when we are free, without the concurring or imposing authority of our rulers, is high presumption in private subjects." _ans_. if any engagements can be supposed binding to posterity, certainly national covenants to keep the commandments of god, and to adhere to his institutions, must be of that nature. it cannot be denied, that several obligations do bind to posterity; such as public promises with annexation of curses to breakers, neh. v. , . thus joshua's adjuration did oblige all posterity never to build jericho, josh. vi. . and the breach of it did bring the curse upon hiel the bethelite, in the days of ahab. dly, public vows: jacob's vow, gen. xxviii. , did oblige all his posterity, virtually comprehended in him, hos. xii. . the rechabites found themselves obliged to observe the vow of their forefather jonadab, jer. xxxv. , , for which they were rewarded and commended. public oaths do oblige posterity: joseph took an oath of the children of israel, to carry up his bones to canaan, gen. i. , which did oblige posterity some hundred years after. exod. xiii . josh. xxiv. . national covenants with men before god, do oblige posterity, as israel's covenant with the gibeonites, josh. ix. , . the breach whereof was punished in the days of david, sam. xxi. . especially national covenants with god, before men, about things moral and objectively obliging, are perpetual; and yet more especially (as grotius observes) when they are of an hereditary nature, i.e. when the subject is permanent, the matter moral, the end good, and in the _form_ there is a clause expressing their perpetuity. all which ingredients of perpetual obligations are clear in scotland's covenants, which are _national promises_, adjuring all ranks of persons, under a curse, to preserve and promote reformation according to the word of god, and extirpate the opposite thereof. _national vows_, devoting the then engaging, and succeeding generations to be the lord's people, and walk in his ways. _national oaths_, solemnly sworn by all ranks, never to admit of innovations, or submit to usurpations, contradictory to the word of god. _national covenants_, wherein the king, parliament and people did covenant with each other, to perform their respective duties, in their several places and stations, inviolably to preserve religion and liberty: yea, more, _national laws_, solemnly ratified by the king and parliament, and made the foundation of the people's compact with the king, at his inauguration: and, finally, they are _national covenants with god_, as party contracting, to keep all the words of his covenant. the subject or parties contracting are permanent, to wit, the unchangeable god and the kingdom of scotland, (the same may be said of england and ireland,) which, whilst it remains a kingdom, is still under the obligation of these covenants. the _matter_ is _moral_, antecedently and eternally binding, albeit there had been no formal covenant: the _ends_ of them perpetually good, to wit, _the defence of the true reformed religion, and the maintenance of the king's majesty's person and estate_, (as is expressed in the national covenant,) _the glory of god, the advancement of the kingdom of our lord jesus christ; the honor and happiness of the king's majesty and his posterity, and the public liberty, safety, and peace of the kingdoms_, as it is expressed in the solemn league. and in the _form_ of them there are clauses expressing their perpetuity. in the national covenant it is said, _that the present and succeeding generations in this land are bound to keep the foresaid national oath and subscription inviolable_. and in the solemn league, article , _that we and our posterity after us, may, as brethren, live in faith and love_. and art. , _that they may remain conjoined in a firm peace and union to all posterity_. we may add also the sanctions of rewards and punishments descending to posterity, prove the obligation perpetual: which is, alas! too visible in our case as to the punishments inflicted for the breach of our covenants, and like to be further inflicted, if repentance prevent not; so that as we have been a taunting proverb, and an hissing, for the guilt, we may look to be made a curse and an execration for the punishment of it. the distinction which some make use of to elude this obligation, "that suppose they be materially bound, yet seeing they have not sworn the covenants personally, they are not formally bound," is both false and frivolous; for our father's oath having all the aforesaid qualifications, binds us formally as an oath, though we have but virtually sworn it; and whether the obligation be material or formal, implicit or explicit, it is all one in god's sight, if it be real, seeing even virtual obligations have frequently brought rewards and punishments upon the head of the observers or breakers of them, as well as formal. seeing, then, the obligation of the covenant upon us is evident to a demonstration, it cannot, in justness, be called a rebellious action against lawful authority, to declare in our station that we believe so much and resolve to practice accordingly. it is indeed too true that the wicked laws enacting the perpetual breaches of these covenants have never been rescinded; but seeing they are wicked and opposite to the commandment and covenant of the lord, the supreme legislator, they are naturally void and null, and have been still so esteemed by us. _object_. . "albeit the national covenant should be granted to be binding upon us the people of scotland, and, therefore, may be renewed: yet, to renew the solemn league with england and ireland, as matters now stand, is ridiculous and impossible." _ans_. this objection is partly answered before in the sermons, [page ,] and may be further cleared, if we consider, that the solemn league and covenant may be taken under different respects, _either as a league amongst men_ or _a covenant between god and men_: in the former sense, as it notes a _league offensive and defensive_ made betwixt the collective bodies of these kingdoms, it is certain it cannot be taken by us, who are but a poor insignificant handful of people, far from any authority, or influence in church or commonwealth; the collective and representative body of the three kingdoms having basely abandoned their covenant with god, and united in a sinful compact opposite thereto, so that to make a league with england or ireland in this sense, were to enter into a sinful confederacy with apostate covenant breakers; but in the latter acceptation, as it is a covenant with god, not as a witness only, but also as a party contracting, there is no absurdity or impossibility why scotland, or any part thereof, may not renew it, obliging themselves by a solemn vow to perform what they are bound to antecedently by the law of god. and if it be considered as an association, it respects those only who now do, or hereafter shall, adhere unto it, whether here or in the other two kingdoms. hence, the words in the preamble of the solemn league and covenant, expressing the several ranks and the extent of the covenanters, were not read at the renewing of it at douglass, because we own ourselves to be under a league with none but such as own the covenanted reformation; these, and these only, we heartily embrace as our colleagues, into the nearest and dearest bonds of christian union and fellowship, according to this league and covenant. as the revolt of the ten tribes from the true religion and covenant of the lord their god, hindered not the godly of judah, nor the small party that joined in the sincere worship of god, out of ephraim and manasseh, to renew their covenant under the auspicious reigns of asa, hezekiah, josiah; nor did the horrid apostacy of the sectarian party in england impede our ancestors to renew this solemn league and covenant in scotland, anno, . so neither can the defection of the generality of the three kingdoms, which is to be bewailed, if possible, with tears of blood, hinder us from testifying our adherence to the covenant, or invalidate what we have done therein. _object_. . "albeit the action should be granted to be for the main, lawful and right, yet it was most unseasonable to undertake it at such a time, when the parliament and ministry is composed of a set of men that evidence no good affection to the present established church in scotland, who will be ready to interpret the action of a few immoderately and unseasonably zealous people, as the deed of the whole presbyterians in scotland, and to make a handle thereof against them, to impose upon them some new burdens; or to take such measures as will effectually put a stop to the more general renovation thereof throughout the land." in answer to this objection, we shall only desire the gentlemen that made it to remember, that now for the space of years they have been crying, the time is not come wherein we should set about covenant-renewing; one while they have pretended that the time was not seasonable, because such as were in authority were friends to the church; and it would look like a suspecting of their integrity, to enter into covenant for defence and reformation of religion, as if they would not show themselves active enough for these ends, and prove an irritation to them to turn enemies to presbyterian government; it would cause them to think the presbyterians to be a people of indiscreet and ungovernable zeal, and so disgust them at the establishment. another, while they excuse themselves from this duty, because these in authority are unfriendly to the presbyterian establishment, they must walk cautiously now and manage prudently, lest they give any umbrage to jacobites and episcopalians to represent them ill at court, and so occasion the overthrow of the great security founded in the union treaty. formerly they needed not renew the covenant, because religion was not in danger; now they dare not attempt to do it because it is; they must wait till a well-affected parliament and good counsellors set it out of danger again, and then they will not need to covenant for its safety. these shifts are too shrewd discoveries of neutrality in this cause. it is to be feared that the godly have too long been hoodwinked with such frivolous pretexts; and it is high time for every one that has the low case of the work of god in the land at heart, to be awakened to renew their covenant with god and keep the same. the motives and calls to the work above mentioned will sufficiently, we hope, demonstrate the seasonableness of it. but if there was a defect as to the seasonableness, it was not because it was so soon set about, but because it was no sooner. we shall not dwell any longer upon these and the like objections; there will not want mountains of difficulties in the way till such time as the lord, coming by his spirit in a day of his power, shall be pleased to level them and say, "who art thou, o great mountain? before zerubabel thou shalt become a plain." in that day (we doubt not) there shall be a willing people to enter covenant with the lord, even a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten; but, in the mean time, they would do well to consider the hazard they bring themselves into who wilfully raise objections against the covenant, because they are unwilling to enter into it, or be bound by it. it may be some will desiderate an account of the other _solemn holy action_ that followed upon the back of this, in regard there were some circumstances in it not so ordinary in this church in former times, because of the paucity of public instruments; but neither do we think it needful to give any large account of it, nor will it fall so properly into this preface, which concerneth only national covenanting, and, it is likely the reader's patience is too far transgressed upon already; nor was there any _substantial or formal_ difference betwixt it and the comely order of the church of scotland observed in our purest times of reformation in the celebration of that sacred ordinance, except what in the form arose from the circumstances we were in, and the reason now mentioned. the work was awful and great, the persons employed about it few, insignificant in their own eyes, as well as mean in the eyes of others; and hence the lord's power and grace was the more conspicuous, who (we must not dissemble it) was present to the sensible experience of many, sealing instruction upon the hearts of some, and granting, strengthening, and confirming grace to others, for which he ought to have all the glory. but because there has been, as we are informed, no small clamor raised anent some expressions used in debarring the ignorant and scandalous from the holy table of the lord; _that the minister should have unreasonably and presumptuously excommunicated the queen and parliament, and the whole ministers of the established church of scotland_; therefore, we shall here insert the very words relating to that affair, as they were uttered by him without any alteration. in warning the ignorant, scandalous and profane to beware of presuming to approach to the holy table of the lord, the minister observed (as the manner is) the order of the decalogue, where, in the sins forbidden in the second commandment, as they are enumerated by the very reverend the assembly of divines sitting at westminster, in their humble advice concerning a larger catechism, we find these amongst others--"all devising, counseling, commanding, using, and any ways approving any religious worship not instituted by god himself, tolerating a false religion.---- all superstitious devices, corrupting the worship of god, adding to it, taking from it, whether invented and taken up of ourselves, or received by tradition from others, though under the title of antiquity, custom, devotion, good intent, or any other pretence whatsoever." hence, he expressed himself in these words--"i excommunicate and debar from this holy table of the lord, all devisers, commanders, users, or approvers of any religious worship not instituted by god in his word, all tolerators and countenancers thereof; and by consequence i debar and excommunicate from this holy table of the lord, queen and parliament, and all under them, who spread and propagate or tolerate a false superstitious worship, ay and until they repent," and in relation to the opposing of the covenants and work of reformation, he had these words--"i excommunicate and debar all who are opposers of our covenants and covenanted reformation, and all that have taken oaths contrary to our covenants, and such particularly as are takers of the oath of abjuration, whether ministers or others, until they repent." that this was no presumptuous and rebellious arrogance is evident, because the sins for which he debarred queen and parliament, and all others guilty of them, are proven from scripture to be gross breaches of god's law, and every violation thereof persisted in without repentance, is a sufficient cause (in the opinion of protestant divines) to debar and exclude from the lord's table. now, it is certain that even those ministers of the established church who make such obloquy against the work for this particular, do the same thing in effect every time that they administrate this ordinance, for (as can be proved if they please to require it, or do deny it,) they excommunicate from the table all guilty of such sins as are forbidden in the second commandment, according as they are specified in the forsaid catechism; and so, by an infallible consequence, they excommunicate the queen and parliament, who are grossly guilty of the most of them, only they have not the courage ingenuously and freely to own and express the consequence, but that it follows natively and necessarily from the premises, even according to their own principles, they will never be able to disprove. now, reader, thou hast a just and true account as far as was necessary, of our poor and weak endeavours in this matter, which we hope will, at least, stand as a witness and testimony (without arrogance we desire to speak it) against the apostacy of some and indifferency of others, who should have been to us as the _he-goats before the flock_ in paving our way to zion, but are rather _making to themselves captains_ to carry us back to babylon, and pollute our land with idolatry and superstition; and, as a pledge to posterity that the lord has not yet utterly deserted the land, though we rather wish,(if so it may consist with his holy purpose, _who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working_) that it might tend to excite, some to bethink "whence they have fallen, and repent, and to do their first works, lest the lord come quickly, and utterly remove his candlestick from us:" and engage them to renew these covenants in a more public way, and prosecute the ends of them with more zeal, fidelity, and constancy, "that the lord may yet delight to dwell amongst us, make our judges peace, and our exactors righteousness," and make us to be called _hephzibah_, and our land _beulah_. the reader may please to cast his eye upon the following passages, quoted from the writings of some of the ablest divines, wherewith these kingdoms have been blessed, since the first reformation from popery; wherein he will see, how far different an opinion they have entertained of the covenant, from what are the thoughts of the learned latitudinarians of our age. _a testimony to the truth of_ jesus christ _and to our solemn league and covenant, &c., subscribed by the ministers of christ, within the province of london, december_ , head iv. "in order unto reformation and defence of religion within these three kingdoms, we shall never forget, how solemnly and cheerfully the solemn league and covenant was sworn with hands lifted up to the most high god.--we were, and are abundantly satisfied, that our solemn league and covenant of september , , is not only warrantable for the matter of it and manner of entering into it, but also of such excellency and importance,--that it will be very hard in all points to parallel it; and, therefore, as we did sincerely swear this covenant with god, with all our heart, and with all our soul, much rejoicing at the oath with a true intention to perform it, and not for promoting any politic design; so we do believe and profess to the world that we still stand as firmly engaged to the real performance of it, and that it is not in the power of any person or persons on earth to dispense with it or absolve from it." _the harmonious consent of the ministers of the county palatine lancaster with their reverend brethren the ministers of the province of london._ head v. "we shall never forget how solemn it (the solemn league and covenant) was sworn, and what rejoicing there was at the oath, sundry at the taking of it weeping for joy; and when the covenant was thus taken, we thought with ourselves, that surely now the crown is set upon england's head: we judged the day of entering into this covenant to be england's coronation-day, as it was the day of the gladness of our hearts." _mr. philip nye's exhortation at the taking of the covenant, september th, , p. ._ "this oath is such, and in the matter and consequence of it of such concernment, as i can truly say, it is worthy of us, yea, of all the kingdoms of the world; for it is swearing fealty and allegiance to christ the king of kings, and giving up of all these kingdoms which are his inheritance, to be subdued more to his throne, and ruled more by his sceptre, upon whose shoulders the government is laid." * * * * * _the national covenant, or the confession of faith of the kirk of scotland_; subscribed at first by the king's majesty and his household, in the year of god ; thereafter, by persons of all ranks, in the year ; by ordinance of the lords of the secret council, and acts of the general assembly. subscribed again by all sorts of persons in the year , by a new ordinance of council, at the desire of the general assembly, with a band for the maintenance of the true religion, and the king's person: and subscribed in the year , by the noblemen, barons, gentlemen, burgesses, ministers and commons, then under-subscribing; together with their resolution and promises for the causes after specified, to maintain the true religion, and the king's majesty, according to the confession aforesaid and acts of parliament; and upon the supplication of the general assembly to his majesty's high commissioner, and the lords of his majesty's honorable privy council. subscribed again in the year , by ordinance of council, and acts of general assembly, &c., &c. the tenor whereof here followeth. we all, and every one of us underwritten, protest, that after long and due examination of our own consciences in matters of true and false religion, we are now thoroughly resolved in the truth by the word and spirit of god: and, therefore, we believe with our hearts, confess with our mouths, subscribe with our hands and constantly affirm before god and the whole world, that this only is the true christian faith and religion pleasing god, revealed to the world by the preaching of the blessed evangel; and is received, believed, and defended by many and sundry notable kirks and realms, but chiefly by the _kirk of scotland, and sometimes by the king's majesty, and the three estates of this realm_, as god's eternal truth and only ground of our salvation, as more particularly is expressed in the confession of our faith, established and publickly confirmed by sundry acts of parliaments, and now of a long time have been openly professed by the king's majesty, and whole body of this realm, both in burgh and land. to the which confession and form of religion, we willingly agree in our own consciences, in all points, as unto god's undoubted truth and verity, grounded only upon his written word. and, therefore, we abhor and detest all contrary religion and doctrine; but chiefly all kind of papistry in general, and particular heads, even as they are now damned and confuted by the word of god, and kirk of scotland. but in special we detest and refuse the usurped authority of that roman antichrist upon the scriptures of god, upon the kirk, the civil magistrate, and consciences of men: all his tyrranous laws made upon indifferent things against our christian liberty: his erroneous doctrine against the sufficiency of the written word, the perfection of the law, the offices of christ, and his blessed evangel: his corrupted doctrine concerning original sin, our natural inability and rebellion to god's law, our justification by faith only, our imperfect sanctification and obedience to the law; the nature, number, and use of the holy sacraments: his five bastard sacraments; with all his rites, ceremonies, and false doctrine, added to the ministration of the true sacraments, without the word of god: his cruel judgment against infants departing without the sacrament: his absolute necessity of baptism: his blasphemous opinion of transubstantiation, or real presence of christ's body in the elements, and receiving of the same by the wicked, or bodies of men: his dispensations with solemn oaths, perjuries, and degrees of marriage forbidden in the word; his cruelty against the innocent divorced: his devilish mass: his blasphemous priesthood: his profane sacrifice for the sins of the dead and the quick: his canonization of men; calling upon angels or saints departed; worshipping of imagery, relics and crosses; dedicating of kirks, altars, days; vows to creatures: his purgatory, prayers for the dead; praying or speaking in a strange language; with his processions and blasphemous litany, and multitude of advocates or mediators: his manifold orders, auricular confession: his desperate and uncertain repentance; his general and doubtsome faith: his satisfactions of men for their sins: his justification by works, _opus operatum_, works of supererogation, merits, pardons, peregrinations and stations: his holy water, baptizing of bells, conjuring of spirits, crossing, earning, anointing, conjuring, hallowing of god's good creatures, with the superstitious opinion joined therewith: his worldly monarchy, and wicked hierarchy: his three solemn vows, with all his shavellings of sundry sorts: his erroneous and bloody decrees made at trent, with all the subscribers and approvers of that cruel and bloody bond, conjured against the kirk of god. and finally, we detest all his vain allegories, rites, signs, and traditions brought into the kirk, without or against the word of god and doctrine of this true reformed kirk; to the which we join ourselves willingly, in doctrine, faith, religion, discipline, and use of the holy sacraments, as lively members of the same in christ our head: promising and swearing by the _great name of the lord our god_, that we shall continue in the obedience of the doctrine and discipline of this kirk, and shall defend the same according to our vocation and power, all the days of our lives, under the pains continued in the law and danger both of body and soul, in the day of god's fearful judgment. and, seeing that many are stirred up by satan and that roman antichrist, to promise, swear, subscribe, and for a time use the holy sacraments in the kirk deceitfully against their own consciences, minding thereby, first, under the external cloak of religion, to corrupt and subvert secretly god's true religion within the kirk, and afterwards, when the time may serve, to become open enemies and persecutors of the same, under vain hope of the pope's dispensation devised against the word of god, to his greater confusion, and their double condemnation in the day of the lord jesus. we, therefore, willing to take away all suspicion of hypocrisy, and of such double dealing with god and his kirk, protest, and call _the searcher of all hearts for witness_, that our minds and hearts do fully agree with this our _confession, promise, oath_, and _subscription_, so that we are not moved with any worldly respect, but are persuaded only in our own consciences, through the knowledge and love of god's true religion, imprinted in our hearts by the holy spirit, as we shall answer to him in the day when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed. and because we perceive that the quietness and stability of our religion and kirk, doth depend upon the safety and good behaviour of [the[ ] king's majesty,] as upon a comfortable instrument of god's mercy, granted to this country, for the maintaining of this kirk, and ministration of justice amongst us, we protest and promise with our hearts, under the same oath, hand-write, and pains, that we shall defend [his[ ] person and authority,] with our goods, bodies, and lives, in the defence of christ's evangel, liberties of our country, ministration of justice, and punishment of iniquity, against all enemies within this realm, or without, we desire our god to be a strong and merciful defender to us in the day of our death, and coming of our lord jesus christ. to whom with the father, and the holy spirit, be all honour and glory eternally. amen. likeas, many acts of parliament not only in general do abrogate, annul, and rescind all laws, statutes, acts, constitutions; canons, civil or municipal, with all other ordinances and practique penalties whatsoever, made in prejudice of the true religion and professors thereof; or of the true kirk-discipline, jurisdiction and freedom thereof; or in favor of idolatry and superstition; or of the papistical kirk; as act. , act. , parl. ; act. , parl. ; act. , parl. , of king james vi. that papistry and superstition may be utterly suppressed, according to the intention of the acts of parliament, repeated in the th act, parl. , king james vi. and to that end they ordain all papists and priests to be punished with manifold civil and ecclesiastical pains, as adversaries to god's true religion, preached, and by law established within this realm, act , parl. , king james vi.; as common enemies to all christian government, act parl. , king james vi.; as rebellers and gainstanders of our sovereign lord's authority, act parl. , king james vi.; and as idolaters, act , parl. , king james vi. but also in particular, by and attour the confession of faith, do abolish and condemn the pope's authority and jurisdiction out of this land, and ordain the maintainers thereof to be punished, act , parl. ; act parl. ; act , parl. ; act , parl. , king james vi., do condemn the pope's erroneous doctrine, or any other erroneous doctrine repugnant to any of the articles of the true and christian religion, publickly preached, and by law established in this realm; and ordain the spreaders and makers of books, or libels, or letters, or writs of that nature, to be punished, acts , parl. ; act , parl. ; act , par. , k. james vi. do condemn all baptism conform to the pope's kirk, and the idolatry of the mass; and ordains all sayers, wilful hearers, concealers of the mass, the maintainers and resetters of the priests, jesuits, trafficking papists, to be punished without any exception or restriction, act , parl. ; act , parl. ; act , parl. ; act , parl. act , parl. ; act , parl. , king james vi., do condemn all erroneous books and writs, containing erroneous doctrine against the religion presently professed or containing superstitious rites and ceremonies papistical, whereby the people are greatly abused; and ordains the home-bringers of them to be punished, act , parl. , king james vi., do condemn the monuments and dregs of the bygone idolatry, as going to crosses, observing the festival days of saints and other superstitious and papistical rites, to the dishonour of god, contempt of true religion, and fostering of great error among the people; and ordains the users of them to be punished for the second fault as idolaters, act , parl. , king james vi. likeas, many acts of parliament are conceived for maintenance of god's true christian religion, and the purity thereof in doctrine and sacraments of the true church of god, the liberty and freedom thereof in her national synodical assemblies, presbyteries, sessions, policy, discipline, and jurisdiction thereof, as that purity of religion and liberty of the church was used, professed, exercised, preached, and confessed according to the reformation of religion in this realm. as for instance, the th act, parl. , act , parl. ; act , parl. ; act , parl. , king james vi., ratified by the th act of king charles. so that the th act, parl. , and th act, parl. , of king james vi., in the year of god , declares the ministers of the blessed evangel, whom god of his mercy had raised up, or hereafter should raise, agreeing with them that then lived in doctrine and administration of the sacraments, and the people that professed christ as he was then offered in the evangel and doth communicate with the holy sacraments, (as in the reformed kirks of this realm they were publickly administrate) according to the confession of faith, to be the true and holy kirk of christ jesus within this realm, and decerns and declares all and sundry who either gainsay the word of the evangel, received and approved as the heads of the confession of faith, professed in parliament in the year of god , specified also in the first parliament of king james vi, and ratified in this present parliament; more particularly do specify, or that refuse the administration of the holy sacraments as they were then administered, to be no members of the said kirk within this realm, and true religion presently professed, so long as they keep themselves so divided from the society of christ's body; and the subsequent act , parl. . of king james vi. declares, that there is none other face of kirk, nor other face of religion, than was presently at that time by the favour of god established within this realm, which therefore is ever styled, _god's true religion--christ's true religion--the true and christian religion--and a perfect religion_; which, by manifold acts of parliament, all within this realm are bound to subscribe the articles thereof, the confession of faith, to recant all doctrine and errors repugnant to any of the said articles, act and , parl. ; act , , , parl. ; act , parl. ; act , parl. ; act , parl. ; act , parl. ; act and , parl. , of king james vi. and all magistrates, sheriffs, &c. on the one part, are ordained to search, apprehend, and punish all contraveners; for instance, act , parl. ; act , parl. ; act , parl. , king james vi.; and that notwithstanding of the king's majesty's licence to the contrary, which are discharged and declared to be of no force, in so far as they tend in any ways to the prejudice and hinder of the execution of the acts of parliament against papists and adversaries of true religion, act , parl. , king james vi. on the other part, in the th act, parl. , of king james vi. it is declared and ordained, seeing the cause of god's true religion and his highness' authority are so joined, as the hurt of the one is common to both; and that none shall be reputed as loyal and faithful subjects to our sovereign lord or his authority, but be punishable as rebellers and gainstanders of the same, who shall not give their confession, and make their profession of the said true religion, and that they who, after defection, shall give the confession of their faith of new, they shall promise to continue therein in time coming, to maintain our sovereign lord's authority, and at the uttermost of their power to fortify, assist, and maintain the true preachers and professors of christ's evangel against whatsoever enemies and gainstanders of the same; and namely, against all such (of whatsoever nation, estate, or degree they be,) that have joined and bound themselves, or have assisted, or assist to set forward, and execute the cruel decrees of trent, contrary to the preachers and true professors of the word of god, which is repeated, word by word, in the articles of pacification at perth, the rd of february, ; approved by parliament, the last of april, ; ratified in parliament, ; and related, act , parl. , of king james vi., with this addition, that they are bound to resist all treasonable uproars and hostilities that are raised against the true religion, the king's majesty, and the true professors. likeas all lieges are bound to maintain the king's majesty's royal person, and authority, the authority of parliaments, without the which neither any laws, or lawful judicatories can be established, act , act , parl. , k. james vi. and the subjects' liberties, who ought only to live and be governed by the king's laws, the common laws of this realm allenarly, act , parl. , k. james i. act , parl. , k. james iv. repeated in the act , parl. , k. james vi. which, if they be innovated or prejudged, the commission anent the union of the two kingdoms of scotland and england, which is the sole act of the parl. of k. james vi. declares such confusion would ensue, as this realm could be no more a free monarchy, because by the fundamental laws, ancient privileges, offices and liberties of this kingdom, not only the princely authority of his majesty's royal descent hath been these many ages maintained, but also the people's security of their lands, livings, rights, offices, liberties, and dignities preserved, and therefore for the preservation of the said true religion, laws and liberties of this kingdom, it is statute by the act, parl. , repeated in the act, parl. , ratified in the act, parl. , and act, parl. , of k. james vi. and act k. charles i. that all kings and princes at their coronation and reception of their princely authority, shall make their faithful promise by their solemn oath in the presence of the eternal god, that enduring the whole time of their lives; they shall serve the same eternal god to the uttermost of their power, according as he hath required in his most holy word, contained in the old and new testaments. and according to the same word, shall maintain the true religion of christ jesus, the preaching of his holy word, the due and right ministration of the sacraments now received and preached within this realm (according to the confession of faith) and shall abolish and gainstand all false religion contrary to the same, and shall rule the people committed to their charge, according to the will and command of god, revealed in his foresaid word, and according to the laudable laws and constitutions received in this realm, no ways repugnant to the said will of the eternal god; and shall procure, to the uttermost of their power, to the kirk of god and whole christian people, true and perfect peace in all time coming; and that they shall be careful to root out of their empire all heretics, and enemies to the true worship of god, who shall be convicted by the true kirk of god, for the foresaid crimes, which was also observed by his majesty[ ] at his coronation in edinburgh, , as may be seen in the order of the coronation. in obedience to the commandment of god, conform to the practice of the godly in former times, and according to the laudable example of our worthy and religious progenitors,----which was warranted also by act of council, commanding a general bond to be made and subscribed by his majesty's subjects of all ranks, for two causes: one was, for defending the true religion as it was then reformed, and is expressed in the confession of faith above-mentioned, and a former large confession established by sundry acts of lawful general assemblies, and of parliament, unto which it hath relation, set down in public catechisms, and which had been for many years (with a blessing from heaven) preached and professed in this kirk and kingdom as god's undoubted truth, grounded only upon his written word. the other cause was, for maintaining the king's majesty, his person, and estate; the true worship of god and the king's authority being so straitly joined as that they had the same friends and common enemies and did stand and fall together; and finally, being convinced in our minds, and confessing with our mouths, that the present and succeeding generations in this land are bound to keep the foresaid national oath and subscription inviolable. we,------------under subscribing, considering divers times before, and especially at this time, the danger of the true reformed religion --------, and of the public peace of the kingdom; by the manifold innovations and evils generally contained and particularly mentioned, [in supplications, complaints, and protestations,[ ]] do hereby profess, and before god, his angels, and the world, solemnly declare, that with our whole hearts we agree and resolve, all the days of our life, constantly to adhere unto and defend the foresaid true religion; and (forbearing the practice of all novations already introduced in the matters of the worship of god, or approbation of the corruptions of the public government of the kirk, or civil places and power of kirkmen,[ ] till they be tried and allowed in free assemblies and in parliaments,) to labor by all means lawful to recover the purity and liberty of the gospel, as it was established and professed before the foresaid novations; and because, after due examination, we plainly perceive, and undoubtedly believe, that the evils contained in our [supplications, complaints, and protestations,[ ]] have no warrant of the word of god; are contrary to the articles of the foresaid confessions, to the intention and meaning of the blessed reformers of religion in this land, to the above-written acts of parliament, and do sensibly tend to the re-establishing of the popish religion and tyranny, and to the subversion and ruin of the true reformed religion, and of our liberties, laws and estates. we also declare, that the foresaid confessions are to be interpreted, and ought to be understood of the foresaid novations and evils, no less than if every one of them had been expressed in the foresaid confessions, and that we are obliged to detest and abhor them, amongst other particular heads of papistry abjured therein; and, therefore, from the knowledge and conscience of our duty to god, [to our king and country,[ ]] without any worldly respect or inducement, so far as human infirmity will suffer, wishing a further measure of the grace of god for this effect, we promise and swear by the _great name of the lord our god_, to continue in the profession and obedience of the foresaid religion; that we shall defend the same, and resist all these contrary errors and corruptions, according to our vocation, and to the uttermost of that power that god hath put in our hands, all the days of our life; and, in like manner, with the same heart, we declare before god and men, that we have no intention nor desire to attempt any thing that may turn to the dishonour of god, or to the diminution of [the king's[ ]] greatness and authority; but on the contrary, we promise and swear, that we shall, to the uttermost of our power, with our means and lives, and to the defence of [our dread sovereign, the king's majesty, his person and authority[ ]] in the defence and preservation of the foresaid true religion, liberties, and laws of the kingdom; as also, to the mutual defence and assistance every one of us of another, in the same cause of maintaining the true religion [his majesty's[ ]] authority, with our best counsel, our bodies, means, and whole power, against all sorts of persons whatsoever. so that whatsoever shall be done to the least of us for that cause, shall be taken as done to us all in general, and to every one of us in particular; that we shall, neither directly nor indirectly, suffer ourselves to be divided or withdrawn, by whatsoever suggestion, allurement, or terror, from this blessed and loyal conjunction; nor shall cast in any let or impediment that may stay or hinder any such resolution, as by common consent shall be found to conduce for so good ends;--but, on the contrary, shall, by all lawful means labour to further and promote the same, and if any such dangerous and divisive motions be made to us by word or write, we, and every one of us, shall either suppress it, or if need be, shall incontinent make the same known that it may be timeously obviated; neither do we fear the foul aspersions of rebellion, combination, or what else our adversaries from their craft and malice would put upon us, seeing what we do is so well warranted, and ariseth from an unfeigned desire to maintain the true worship of god, the majesty of [[ ] our king,] and peace of the kingdom, for the common happiness of ourselves and the posterity. and because we cannot look for a blessing from god upon our proceedings, except with our profession and subscription, we join such a life and conversation as beseemeth christians who have renewed their covenant with god: we, therefore, faithfully promise, for ourselves, our followers, and all other under us, both in public, in our particular families and personal carriage, to endeavor to keep ourselves within the bounds of christian liberty, and to be good examples to others of all godliness, soberness and righteousness, and of every duty we owe to god and man. and that this our union and conjunction may be observed without violation, we call the living god, the searcher of our hearts, to witness, who knoweth this to be our sincere desire and unfeigned resolution, as we shall answer to jesus christ, in the great day, and under the pain of god's everlasting wrath and of infamy, and loss of all honour and respect in this world: most humbly beseeching the lord to strengthen us by his holy spirit for this end, and to bless our desires and proceedings with a happy success, that religion and righteousness may nourish in the land, to the glory of god, the honour of [our king[ ]] and peace and comfort of us all. in witness whereof we have subscribed with our hands all the premises, &c. the article of this covenant, which was at first subscription referred[ ] to the determination of the general assembly, being now determined, and thereby the five articles of perth, the government of the kirk by bishops, the civil places and power of kirkmen upon the reasons and grounds contained in the acts of the general assembly, declared to be unlawful within this kirk, we subscribe according to the determination foresaid. * * * * * _the solemn league and covenant, for reformation and defence of religion, etc_. we, having before our eyes the glory of god, and the advancement of the kingdom of our lord and saviour jesus christ, the honour and happiness of [the[ ] king's majesty and his posterity] and the true public liberty, safety, and peace of the kingdoms, wherein every one's private condition is included; and calling to mind the treacherous and bloody plots, conspiracies, attempts and practices of the enemies of god against the true religion and professors thereof in all places, especially in these three kingdoms, ever since the reformation of religion; and how much their rage, power, and presumption are of late, and at this time increased and exercised, whereof the deplorable estate of the church and kingdom of ireland, the distressed estate of the church and kingdom of england, and the dangerous estate of the church and kingdom of scotland, are present and public testimonies. we have now at last [[ ] after other means of supplication, remonstrance, protestation and suffering] for the preservation of ourselves and our religion from utter ruin and destruction, according to the commendable practice of these kingdoms in former times, and the example of god's people in other nations, after mature deliberation, resolved and determined to enter into a mutual and solemn league and covenant: wherein we all subscribe, and each one of us for himself, with our hands lifted up to the most high god, do swear-- . that we shall sincerely, really, and constantly, through the grace of god, endeavour in our several places and callings, the preservation of the reformed religion in the church of scotland, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, against our common enemies; the reformation of religion in the kingdoms of england and ireland, in doctrine, worship, discipline and government, according to the word of god, and the example of the best reformed churches; and shall endeavour to bring the churches of god in the three kingdoms, to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, confession of faith, form of church-government, directory for worship and catechizing; that we and our posterity after us, may, as brethren, live in faith and love, and the lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us. . that we shall, in like manner, without respect of persons, endeavor the extirpation of popery, prelacy (that is, church government by arch-bishops, bishops, their chancellors and commissaries, deans, deans and chapters, archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical officers depending on that hierarchy), superstition, heresy, schism, profaneness, and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound doctrine and the power of godliness; lest we partake in other men's sins, and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues; and that the lord may be one, and his name one in the three kingdoms. . we shall, with the same sincerity, reality and constancy, in our several vocations, endeavor with our estates and lives mutually to preserve the rights and privileges of the parliaments[ ] and the liberties of the kingdoms; and to preserve and defend [the king's[ ] majesty's] person and authority, in the preservation and defence of the true religion and liberties of the kingdoms; that the world may bear witness with our consciences of our loyalty, and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish [his[ ] majesty's] just power and greatness. . we shall also with all faithfulness endeavor the discovery of all such as have been, or shall be, incendiaries, malignants, or evil instruments, by hindering the reformation of religion, dividing [the[ ] king] from his people, or one of the kingdoms from another, or making any faction or parties amongst the people, contrary to this league and covenant, that they may be brought to public trial, and receive condign punishment, as the degree of their offences shall require or deserve, or the supreme judicatories of both kingdoms respectively, or others having power from them for that effect, shall judge convenient. . and whereas the happiness of a blessed peace between these kingdoms, denied in former times to our progenitors, was by the good providence of god granted unto [[ ]us] and--concluded, and settled by both parliaments, we shall, each one of us, according to our place and interest, endeavor that they may be and remain conjoined[ ] in a firm peace and union to all posterity, and that justice may be done upon the wilful opposers thereof, in manner expressed in the precedent article. . we shall also according to our places and callings this common cause of religion, liberty and peace of the kingdoms, assist and defend all those that enter into this league and covenant, in the maintaining and pursuing thereof; and shall not suffer ourselves, directly or indirectly, by whatsoever combination, persuasion or terror, to be divided and withdrawn from this blessed union and conjunction, whether to make defection to the contrary part, or to give ourselves to a detestable indifferency or neutrality in this cause which so much concerneth the glory of god, the good of the kingdoms, and honor of [the[ ] king;] but shall all the days of our lives zealously and constantly continue therein, against all opposition, and promote the same according to our power, against all lets and impediments whatsoever; and what we are not able ourselves to suppress or overcome, we shall reveal and make known, that it may be timely prevented or removed; all of which we shall do as in the sight of god. and because these kingdoms are guilty of many sins, and provocations against god and his son jesus christ, as is too manifest by our present distresses and dangers, the fruits thereof; we profess and declare before god and the world, our unfeigned desire to be humbled for our own sins, and for the sins of these kingdoms, especially that we have not, as we ought, valued the inestimable benefit of the gospel, that we have not labored for the purity and power thereof, and that we have not endeavored to receive christ in our hearts, nor to walk worthy of him in our lives, which are the causes of other sins and transgressions so much abounding amongst us; and our true and unfeigned purpose, desire and endeavor for ourselves, and all others under our power and charge, both in public and private, in all duties we owe to god and man, to amend our lives, and each one to go before another in the example of a real reformation; that the lord may turn away his wrath, and heavy indignation, and establish these churches and kingdoms in truth and peace. and this covenant we make in the presence of almighty god, the searcher of all hearts, with a true intention to perform the same, as we shall answer at the great day, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed; most humbly beseeching the lord to strengthen us by his holy spirit for this end, and to bless our desires and proceedings with such success as may be deliverance and safety to his people, and encouragement to other christian churches that may be groaning under, or in danger of, the yoke of antichristian tyranny, to join in the same, or like association and covenant to the glory of god, the enlargement of the kingdom of jesus christ, and the peace and tranquility of christian kingdoms and commonwealths. n.b.--these covenants above-written, formerly nationally taken and renewed, and still nationally binding, we, in our private station only, swear and subscribe in their genuine sense, conform to the explication and application thereof, in our present acknowledgment of the public sins and breaches of the same, and engagement to the duties contained therein, which do in a special way relate to the present times, and are proper for our capacities therein. * * * * * _a solemn acknowledgment of public sins, and breaches of the national covenant and solemn league and covenant_. we all and every one of us--being _by the good hand of our god upon us_, now, after a long and due deliberation, determined to testify to the world, for the glory of god, and the exoneration of our consciences, in the matter of our duty, our adherance to the whole of our attained reformation, by renewing these our vows and covenant-engagements with god, and knowing that it is a necessary preparative for the right performance of that so great and solemn a duty, that we be duly sensible of, and deeply humbled for the many heinous breaches thereof, which these nations, and we ourselves in particular are guilty of; do therefore, with that measure of sorrow and repentance which god of his mercy shall be pleased to grant us, desire to acknowledge and confess our own sins and violations of these vows, and the sins and transgressions of our fathers; to which we have also an example left us by the _cloud of witnesses, which through faith and patience have inherited the promises_, ever since the lord had a visible national church upon earth, and more especially by our progenitors in this nation; as, for instance, in the year , "wherein the general assembly, and all the kirk judicatories, with the concurrence of many of the nobility, gentry and burgesses, did with many tears acknowledge the breach of the national covenant, and engaged themselves into a reformation, even as our predecessors, and theirs, had done in the general assembly and convention of estates in the year ." as also the more recent practice of the godly renewing the national covenant, and acknowledging the breaches of it, both before they obtained the concurrence of civil authority, in the year , and again, by authority, in the year . and that noble precedent of that _national solemn acknowledgment of public sins and breaches of the solemn league and covenant, and solemn engagement to all the duties contained therein_, (which we are here taking for our pattern, and enlarging the same as the sad sins and transgressions since that time committed, and the circumstances of time give occasion) condescended upon, "by the commission of the general assembly, and approven by the committee of estates, and publickly owned in all the churches, at the renewing of the solemn league, anno , and , together with that solemn renovation thereof accompanied with such confession of sins as did best suit that time, by that small company of the lord's people at lanark, before their discomfiture at pentland hills. and perceiving by the foresaid instances, that this duty, when gone about out of conscience, hath very often been attended with a reviving out of troubles--or at least out of deadness, security, and formality, under which we and the land are at present sinking, and with a blessing and success from heaven;--'we do humbly and sincerely, as in his sight who is the searcher of hearts, acknowledge the many sins and great transgressions of the land; we have done wickedly, our kings, our princes, our nobles, our judges, our officers, our teachers, and our people. albeit the lord hath long and clearly spoken unto us, we have not hearkened to his voice. albeit he hath followed us with tender mercies, we have not been allured to wait upon him and walk in his way. and though he hath sticken us, yet we have not grieved: nay, though he hath consumed us, we have refused to receive correction. we have not remembered to render unto the lord according to his goodness, and according to our vows and promises; but have gone away backward, by a perpetual backsliding, and have most sinfully and shamefully broken the national covenant, and all the articles of the solemn league and covenant, which our fathers sware before god, angels and men.'" albeit there has been in the land, ever since the reformation of religion, some of all ranks who have been for a testimony unto the truth, and for a name of joy and praise unto the lord, by living godly, studying to keep their garments pure, and being steadfast in the covenant and cause of god; and there yet continues to be some, though reduced to a very small number, destitute of outward power and ability, and other helps fit for the right managing of a testimony, wanting the countenance of civil authority, and having few to feed or lead them; who are, notwithstanding all these difficulties, labouring in the strength of christ to keep the good old way of these faithful witnesses who are gone before, in bearing testimony to the truths of christ. "yet we have reason to acknowledge, that most of us in this land have not endeavoured with that reality, sincerity, and constancy that did become us, to preserve the work of reformation in the kirk of scotland, as we are obliged by the first article of the solemn league, and by the national covenant; wherein we promise and swear by the great name of the lord our god, that we shall continue in the obedience of the doctrine and discipline of this kirk, and shall defend the same according to our vocation and power all the days of our lives, under the pains contained in the law, and danger both of body and soul in the day of god's fearful judgment, and resist all contrary error and corruptions, according to our vocations, and the utmost of that power god hath put in our hands all the days of our life--according to these scriptures." ezra ix. , , "and now, o our god, what shall we say after this? for we have forsaken thy commandments. verse . which thou hast commanded by thy servants the prophets, &c." isaiah xxiv. , "the earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof, because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinances, broken the everlasting covenant." jeremiah ix. , "and the lord saith, because they have forsaken my law, which i set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein. verse . therefore, thus saith the lord of hosts, the god of israel, behold i will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink." daniel vii. , "and he shall speak great words against the most high, and shall wear out the saints of the most high, and think to change times and laws." galatians v. , "stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." i timothy iv. , "take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine: continue in them: for in doing this, thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee." timothy i. , "hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith, and love, which is in christ jesus." revelation in. , , "because thou hast kept the word of my patience, i will also keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. behold i come quickly; hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take thy crown." "but we have been so far from such endeavours, that there hath been a stupid submission to our rulers and great ones, breaking down and ruining the whole work of reformation, razing the bulwarks thereof, rescinding the laws in favour of the same, and not only breaking but burning the covenants for preserving it, enacting the breaches thereof, and declaring the obligation thereof void and criminal to be, owned; and, upon the ruins thereof, setting up abjured diocesan erastian prelacy, with its concomitant bondage of patronages--a blasphemous and sacrilegious supremacy and arbitrary power in magistrate over church and state. there was little conscience made of constant endeavours to preserve the reformation, when there was not a seasonable testimony exhibited against these audacious and heaven-daring attempts; when our ministers were by a wicked edict ejected from their charges, both they and the people too easily complied with it. albeit, in the national covenant, the land is obliged to defend the reformation, and to labour by all means lawful to recover the purity and liberty of the gospel, by forbearing the practice of all novations introduced in the worship of god, or approbation of the corruptions of the public government of the kirk: yet was there given all the approbation required by law of the novation and corruption of prelacy by hearing the prelatic curates. both ministers and people, in a great measure complied with, submitted unto, and connived at the encroachments of the supremacy and absolute power, both in accepting and countenancing the former indulgences and later toleration; the generalty took and subscribed oaths and bonds imposed during the reigns of these tyrants, charles ii. and james duke of york, pressing conformity with the then establishments of church and state, most contrary to the reformation which the nation had sworn to preserve; some of these oaths and bonds restraining the takers from all endeavours to preserve it, as those that renounced the privilege of defensive arms; some of them abjuring the covenants expressly, and condemning the prosecution of the ends of them as rebellion, viz., the declaration and test; the most part did, issachar like, crouch beneath all the burthens of maintaining and defending an arbitrary power and absolute tyranny, wholly employed and applied for the destruction of reformation, and paid such subsidies and supplies as were declaredly imposed for upholding the tyrant's usurpations, and suppressing all endeavours to preserve the reformation." and after the lord was pleased in mercy to break the rod of oppression, and burst the bands of that horrid tyranny from off his people's necks, and to allow us a time of peace and ease; yet have we not made conscience of keeping this our oath; but instead of all lawful means to preserve the discipline and government of this church, there have been frequent invasions made thereupon by the civil powers, exercising an erastian supremacy over her assemblies, by indicting, prorogueing, and dissolving them at their pleasure, and in their name and authority; whereby christ's supremacy and kingly dignity was highly injured. and as the state for their part have, contrary to this article, made these usurpations upon the government of the church, so have backslidden ministers in their stations shamefully succumbed to, been silent at, and pleaded in defence of these usurpations, and have not zealously and faithfully asserted their master's prerogatives, and the privileges of his church, sacrilegiously encroached upon by the magistrate. and people likewise have, in their stations, been unconcerned about these wrongs and injuries done to christ, and have not used all lawful endeavour with their superiors (which they own as such,) whether of church or state, in order to reformation thereof, nor made faithful protestations against them, when they could not obtain redress--and as the government of the church has not been duly preserved; so there has been a want of constant endeavours to preserve pure the doctrine of this reformed church; and that ever since that fatal distraction of _public resolution principles_ began to creep into the church, which corrupted people in that doctrine of abstaining from association with malignants and enemies to truth and godliness, and so far prevailed that the avowed enemies of religion were brought into places of greatest trust and authority. and these associations have not been made only with the haters of religion at home, but are also entered into with the enemies to the protestant religion abroad; and many backsliding ministers in the late times of tyranny were very faulty in this point of not labouring to preserve the purity of doctrine, either by express condemning of some important truths then persecuted, or at least in being silent and not asserting them, nor applying their doctrine to the time's corruptions; whereby many of the people were left to be overcome by snares--"and so laid open to seek out other principles to justify their practices of compliance, or extravagances on the right or left hand, not consistent with the doctrine and rules of the church of scotland, others were not constant in confessing those doctrines before men when called to suffer for, and avouch them." neither are there at this day, nor has there been all along during these years of peace and quiet, suitable endeavours for suppressing all sorts of unsound doctrine, or purging the land of the leaven of erroneous principles. although there have been many laws made against popery, yet how have they been put to execution, when papists are so rife and popery prevalent?--the idolatrous mass being set up in several places of the kingdom; the maintainers and promoters of quakerism, bourignianism, arminianism, &c, are not punished, but protected by the state, and connived at by the church. and whereas, the right endeavouring of maintaining sound doctrine, doth require uprightness and sincerity in the profession and belief thereof, and a suitable practice accompanying that belief; we have it to lament that the most part of us in this land are but hypocritical in the professing of the doctrines of the gospel, and want a suitable practice and conversation becoming the gospel, cause, and cross of christ. many are grossly ignorant of the fundamental doctrines of christianity, or study the circumstantial and controverted more than the fundamental truths. there has also been great short coming of _real, sincere and constant endeavors to preserve the worship of god_, public and private. "in times of hazard, many ministers left off preaching, and the people hearing. we have been negligent and remiss in family worship; and, instead of preserving, many have done much to discourage and hinder it: and in secret we have been formal and careless: many have satisfied themselves with the purity of the ordinances, neglecting the power thereof, yea, some have turned aside to crooked ways destructive to both." neither have we been careful to preserve the discipline, church censures being laid aside, and not impartially exercised against scandals, personal and public. scandalous persons being admitted to hold up their children to baptism, and to partake of the lord's table and other privileges of the church, without respect to the rules of christ. the discipline of the church hath also been circumscribed, limited, and bounded by acts of parliament, and is now rendered ineffectual by the late act of the british parliament, entitled, _act for preventing the disturbing of those of the episcopal communion in that part of great britain called scotland_. so that ministers could not without transgressing these acts (which they too punctually observe) draw out the sword of discipline against many covenant-breakers; perjured hireling-curates being allowed to enjoy churches and benefices without censure or molestation, if subject to the civil government, as is evident from the th act of the fifth session of william's first parliament, entitled, _act concerning the church_. ministers have neglected to draw out the sword of discipline, duly and impartially against scandalous persons of every rank and quality; so that many gross offenders have been passed over without censure, as, namely, such as shed the blood of the lord's people, complied with the tyrants and usurpers in the times of persecution, by testing, bonding, hearing of curates, paying of cess and other taxations, intelligencers, and informers against the people of god, accepters of indulgences and toleration, and such as preached under the covert of remissions and indemnities bought by sums of money from the council, such as had been lack and negligent in testifying against the corruptions of the times, were not brought to an acknowledgment of it; but, upon the contrary, encouraged as well-doers, and advanced to office and public employment in the church without evident signs of repentance. and many other scandalous persons are daily connived at and superficially past, without sufficient discoveries of their repentance and amendment: many also have been overlooked because of their eminency in the world, or past over for pecuniary mulcts. and, whereas, in the same first article of the solemn league, we are bound "to endeavor the promoting and propagating of the reformation and uniformity of religion, confession of faith, form of church-government (which as it was primarily understood, so still we own to be only presbyterial) directory for worship and catechising. according to the scriptures." isa. xix. . "in that day shall five cities in the land of egypt speak the language of canaan, and swear to the lord of hosts." jer. xxxii. . "and i will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the good of them and of their children after them." zech. xiv. . "and the lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day there shall be one lord, and his name one." acts ii. . "and they continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread, from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart." acts iv. . "and the multitude of them that believed were of one heart, and one soul." i cor. vii. . "but as god hath distributed to every man, as the lord hath called every one, so let him walk; and so ordain i in all churches." gal. vi. . "and as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the israel of god." phil. iii. . "nevertheless, whereto we have already attained; let us walk by the same rule; let us mind the same thing." yet as our fathers had reason to complain, "that the profane, loose, and insolent carriage of many in their armies, who went to the assistance of their brethren in england, and the tampering and unstraight dealings of some commissioners and others of our nation, in london, the isle of wight, and other places, had proved great lets to the work of reformation and settling of kirk government there, whereby error and schism in the land had been greatly increased, and sectaries hardened in their way;" so much more during the time of the late persecution, the offensive carriage of many who went to england is to be bewailed, who proved very stumbling to the sectarians there. there hath been little zeal or endeavour for such a uniformity, little praying for it, or mourning over the obstructions of it; but, upon the contrary, a toleration was embraced, introductive of a sectarian multiformity of religion without a testimony against the toleration even of popery itself, under the usurper james, duke of york; and since the revolution the land hath done exceeding much to harden them. st, by accepting such persons to the royal dignity over this realm as had sworn to maintain the antichristian hierarchy of prelacy, with all the superstitions and ceremonies of the church of england, and who countenance a multiformity in the worship of god and government of the church, and do not suppress such as are unsound and heterodox in the fundamental articles of the christian faith. and, next, to put a full stop to all endeavours of uniformity and union in the lord's way, and to bring the nation under an indespensible necessity of covenant breaking, this nation hath entered into an _incorporating union_ with england in such terms, and upon such conditions as formally and explicitly established prelacy as the church-government there to all succeeding generations; and that while, in the meantime, all manner of sectarian errors are there encouraged, maintained, and supported by means of a toleration. by the concluding of which union, this land hath said upon the matter that there is no obligation upon us to tender the advancement of religion in that nation, or to study such means and methods as might tend to bring them to a sense of their breach of covenant, or reduce them to a performance of the duties whereunto they are engaged; and thus this land hath hardened them in their sinful ways and courses, contrary to this solemn league, and given them ground to think that we look upon the obligation thereof to be loosed. this land hath been wanting in compassion to them as brethren, in not labouring to show them their sin and danger, while persisting in a professed violation of their vows, and refusing them help in their need, when supplication was made by some of them to the first assembly after the revolution for ministers to preach the gospel. and though this land hath sought out methods how to entertain amity and friendship with them, yet have they not endeavoured to have it such as that the lord should, upon that account, delight to dwell amongst us: nay, upon the contrary, unless these methods be repented of and forsaken, it is impossible that reformation should ever amount to that degree of perfection in these kingdoms, to which, through the mercy of god, it once arrived; so that instead of _living together in peace and love, we and our posterity after us_, are like to live in a joint defection from our covenant engagements made to the most high god. in the second article of the solemn league and covenant, we swear, "that we shall, without respect of persons, endeavour the extirpation of popery, prelacy, superstition, heresy, schism, profaneness, and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound doctrine and the power of godliness. and in the national covenant to abhor and detest the antichristian wicked hierarchy," &c. according to the scriptures. exod. xxiii. , . "thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. they shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it surely will be a snare unto thee." exod. xxxiv. , . "take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee: but ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves." deut. xiii. chapter throughout. judges ii. . "and ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land; you shall throw down their altars," &c. zech. xiii. , . "and it shall come to pass in that day saith the lord of hosts, that i will cut off the names of idols out of the land, and also i will cause the prophets and the unclean spirits to pass out of the land. and it shall come to pass, that when any shall yet prophesy, then his father and his mother that begat him, shall say unto him, thou shalt not live; for thou speakest lies in the name of the lord: and his father, and his mother, that begat him, shall thrust him through, when he prophesieth." i tim. iv. , , . "now the spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils: speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron: forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which god hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe, and know the truth." rev. xvii. . "and upon her forehead was a name written, mystery, babylon the great, the mother of harlots, and abominations of the earth. verse . and the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire." compared with rev. xviii. , , . "a i heard another voice from heaven, saying, come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues: for her sins have reached unto heaven, and god hath remembered her iniquities. reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled, fill to her double." yet, alas! so far has the land been defective in this, that upon the contrary, it hath been polluted with idolatrous masses; altars, and other monuments of idolatry were suffered again to be erected; the penal statutes were disabled, stopped, and suspended by an absolute arbitrary power by means of a toleration in its own nature tending, and in its design intending to introduce popery and slavery, which yet was accepted and addressed for by many backslidden ministers, who to this day have made no public acknowledgement of the sin of so doing, notwithstanding all the reformation which is bragged of, and was countenanced, complied, and concurred with by many people without a testimony or endeavour to withstand it. yea, the administration of the government and the greatest offices of power and trust were committed into, and permitted to abide in the hands of papists; and the head of them and great pillar and promoter of popery, james the vii, was owned as king, contrary to the laws of god and man and covenant obligations, without respect of persons to extirpate popery and papists; and few during that time evinced any just zeal or indignation against, or fear of the manifest appearances of the coming in of popery and intended establishment of it in the land. and not only then, but even to this day, there is too much conniving at papists; the laws are not put in execution against them in their full extent and latitude: and albeit this land, yea, whole britain and ireland, were purged of popery, yet cannot we be said to have made conscience of performing this part of the oath of god, while there is a confederating with papists abroad and fighting in their quarrel, and that, whilst in the meantime they are persecuting, with the height of rigour and severity, all such as profess any thing of the reformed religion in their dominions. and as there hath been great failures in respect of extirpating popery, so especially in the performance of that part of the covenant which binds us to the extirpation of prelacy--"_i.e._ church government by arch-bishops, bishops, their chancellors and commissaries, deans, deans and chapters, archdeacons, and all other officers depending upon that hierarchy:" there hath been a most wilful and palpable violation of the oath of god, though it be most clearly our duty prescribed in his word. matt. xx. , . "but jesus called them unto him, and said, ye know that the princes of the gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them: but it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister." luke xxii. , . "and he said unto them the kings of the gentiles exercise lordship over them," &c. acts xx: . "and from miletus he sent to ephesus, and called the elders of the church." compared with verse . "take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the holy ghost hath made you observers (bishops) to feed the church of god, which he hath purchased with his own blood." i peter v. . "neither as being lords over god's heritage: but being ensamples to the flock." john verse . "i wrote unto the church; but diotrepehes, who loveth to have the pre-eminence among them, receiveth us not." and these breaches of it were not only made during the tunes of persecution, when charles the ii. by an arbitrary power, granted him by a parasitical parliament, did overturn presbyterian government, and introduce prelacy, to which change the greatest part of the ministry did perfidiously yield, and became vassals to the bishops; such as were not willing to conform, were pressed to it by confinement, banishment, imprisonment, confiscation of goods, all manner of tortures, and, finally, death itself. during which hour and power of darkness, many complied with the enemy, by taking oaths and bonds, indulgencies and toleration, and because so remiss in this matter, that it was all one to them which government had the ascendant, so they might enjoy their worldly accommodations. and not only then, while satan was let loose in his members and emissaries to persecute and waste the church of christ, but since peace and quietness are obtained, this duty continues to be greatly slighted; yea, in place of extirpating prelacy, have there not been courses taken effectually to establish it? to instance a few--the accepting of william and mary, and after them the present possessor of the crown, to be supreme magistrates, while they are knownly and professedly prelatical in their judgment, and engaged by oath at their coronation to maintain the same; the swearing oaths of allegiance to them without security for their preserving of the true reformed religion--yea, without any limitation or qualification whatsoever; as also, the taking an oath of adjuration, wherein, by consequence, the takers engaged to do to the utmost of their power to procure that the kings or queens of these kingdoms shall be of the communion of the prelatical church, and so that they shall contribute to the support of prelacy. again, the episcopal clergy who subjected to it during the time of its legal establishment, have not been therefore prosecuted by the discipline of the church; but such as did, and yet do profess it as their principle, are allowed equal encouragement with the presbyterians, only providing they evidence good affection to the civil government. and now, since the late _incorporating union_ with england, we of this nation have consented that prelacy shall be established there to all succeeding generations, (as was observed in the first article); and, moreover, have given into the hands of the prelatics in england, the power of making laws which must become binding upon this land, they being members of the british parliament and council; which power has been already improved, to establish a liberty and protection for the whole rabble of the episcopal clergy in the free exercise of the popish ceremonies of the church of england, without any provision against the grossest heretical opinions that they please to broach, excepting only the denying of the doctrine of the blessed trinity. where, then, are our endeavours for the extirpation of the wicked hierarchy?--where is the abhorrence and detestation of it, sworn and engaged to in these covenants?--do not many who profess themselves to be presbyterians show themselves so indifferent in this point, that they can join with either, as may suit their interest?--instance the sacramental testers. few mourn over and pray earnestly for the subversion of that hierarchy. few doctrinally discover the evils of such a government, and how contrary it is to god's word--or labour to bring their hearers into a dislike and detestation of it, and the sad fruits which result from it. few study to convince others of the evil of such a principle, and following such a course by the apostle's rule, avoiding all unnecessary company with them, that they may be ashamed; but, upon the contrary, many presbyterians too familiar and unnecessary converse with them, encourage and harden them; and, particularly, ministers are to be blamed herein, who preach one half of the lord's day in the church, and allow the curate the other half. few impartially reprove and warn them of their sin and danger; but, upon the other hand, many professed presbyterians, by their untender and unchristian walk and conversation, or by their lukewarmness and indifferency in christ's matters, now called _moderation_, and by their walking contrary to covenant engagements, do exceedingly harden them in their evil way, and scandalize them at their duty. instead of endeavours to extirpate superstition and heresy, as we are bound by the same article of the solemn league, and by the "national covenant to detest all superstition and heresy, without or against the word of god, and doctrine of this reformed kirk, according to the scripture." duet. xii. , , --"take heed to thyself, that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee, and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, how did these nations serve their gods? even so will i do likewise. thou shalt not do so unto the lord thy god; for every abomination to the lord which he hateth, have they done unto their gods: for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods. what thing soever i command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto nor diminish from it." acts xvii. --"then paul stood in the midst of mar's-hill, and said--ye men of athens, i perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious." gal. iv. --"ye observe days, and months, and times, and years." gal. v. --"idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies." col. ii. --"wherefore, if ye be dead with christ from the rudiments of the world; why as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances? verse , touch not, taste not, handle not: verse , which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will-worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body, not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh." tit. iii. --"a man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject." yet, in the darkness of the times of persecution, many dregs of popish superstition were observed, many omens and freets too much looked to; popish festival days--as pasche, yule, fastings-even, &c, have been kept by many; and prelatical anniversary days, and festivities devised of their own heart, appointed for commemorating the king's and queen's birthdays, (as may th, october th, february th,) who were born as a scourge to this realm, were complied with by many. yes, some have superstitiously made use of the scriptures as a fortune book, looking to that which first cast up to them, or to impressions borne in upon their minds from such and such places of scripture as divine responses, without a due search of them as the lord hath commanded. and many wavering and unstable souls have been seduced unto damnable and pernicious heresies, as quakers, and delirious delusions, as those that followed john gib. all which have been breaches of covenant, as well as of divine commands. yea, even to this very day, the same superstitions are observed and practised, as abstaining from labouring upon the foresaid festivities, and observing presages of good or tad fortune (as it is called,) upon them and other times; as likewise, many practisers of enchantments and users of charms--yea, such as are in actual compact with the devil, are not carefully sought out, nor accurately tried, in order to be brought to punishment, but overlooked and protected. there has been also since the revolution, as well as before, a great deluge of errors through these covenanted lands, which, to this day, continue and increase: that might be sufficient to convince us that there have not been proper measures taken to suppress them, as this article obliges us to do;--nay, instead thereof, they are tolerated, maintained, and protected by authority, as appears both from the late act of parliament, and from the liberty allowed to that pestilent generation of quakers, who keep their general meetings yearly in edinburgh, being guarded by a company of the town guards. and as the state do not prosecute the promoters and abettors of these heresies with civil pains, as is the duty of such as call themselves god's vicegerents, and own themselves to be intrusted with keeping of both tables of the law; so the church is nothing speedier or more active in drawing out their ecclesiastical sword to cut off these luxurant branches, and to take _the little foxes which spoil the wines_. many whose duty, by virtue of their office, is to give warning from zion's walls, as watchmen entrusted with the city of god, neglect to discover, and from the scriptures to confute these errors, or to show their flocks by doctrine or writing the danger of being tainted with them. and as suitable endeavours have been wanting effectually to extirpate heresy and error, so schism, its inseparable companion, and necessary consequent, has exceedingly grown and increased, to the great damage of the church of christ in these kingdoms, and utter subversion of that most pleasant fabric of uniformity in religion, which the league and covenant binds us to endeavour. the word of god makes schism a very great sin, as is evident from rom. xvi. ; cor. xi. , xii. ; heb. x. ; jude . and all the nation are to be reputed guilty of it who depart from the doctrine and laudable constitutions delivered by christ and his apostles, and adhered unto by the church of scotland in her purest times of reformation. and if we consider schism under this notion, as we ought to do, then will we find that the greatest part of the land is guilty of it. few are firmly and constantly adhering to the attained reformation; but many upon the left hand, have turned aside to compliance with prelacy and erastianism, and so have by their defection broken the church's _beauty_ and _bands_, order and union, in making a faction repugnant to her established order, and, censurable by all her standing acts, in bringing innovations in the government, and making a rent in the bowels of the church; by causing divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine of the church; whereby they have made themselves guilty of schism; and some have fallen into delusions and dotages upon the right hand, who, in seeking to be religious above what is commanded, have come short of the truth of religion, and made a faction repugnant to this covenant. some, being private persons, have pretended an immediate commission to preach the word, and administer the sacraments. others, being stumbled with the defection of the time, have turned aside to independency. "some upon slender and insufficient grounds, have and do separate both from faithful ministers and christian societies and families, because of difference in judgment and incident debates, wherein the testimony of christ is not much concerned; or because of personal offences easily removed, not observing the rules of christ for removing of them, not having respect to his great commands of charity, forbearance, forgiving one another, or condescendency. and among divided parties, which in our day have been long biting and devouring one another, there hath been too much both of sinful union and confederacy in terms prejudicial to truth; as our joinings in the _angus regiment_, at the _revolution_, and our guarding and supplicating that corrupt _convention of estates_, which consisted mostly of such as had been directly or indirectly guilty of the murder of the lord's people; and upon the other hand, there hath been too much of sinful heats, animosities, and jealousies, pride, passion, and prejudice, grieving the spirit of the lord, and eating out the power and life, and much hindering the holy practice and spiritual exercise of religion." _we have been so far from endeavouring to extirpate profaneness, another evil engaged against in the covenant, and condemned in the word of god_. deut. xxix. ; job xxi. ; jer. xxiii. ; ezek. xxii. ; hos. iv. - ; heb. vii. . "that profanity hath been much winked at, and profane persons much countenanced, and many times employed, till iniquity and ungodliness have gone over the land as a flood; and profanity, beginning at the court, hath spread itself through every rank and quality in the land: so that immoralities and sins against every precept of both tables are greatly abounding." as, namely, great contempt of god and godliness, ignorance, atheism and irreligion, unsuitable walking to the knowledge of him and his perfections which we have, and not labouring in the use of means to attain more. much neglect of pressing after peace and reconciliation with him, through a mediator, and of living up to the profession which we make of him. despising of his holy ordinances and means of worship; deafness and stupidity under the calls of his word. profanation of his holy sacraments, neglect of secret prayer (wherein much of the life of religion lies), and of prayer in families, or a negligent, careless and superficial performance thereof; many using a formality of words and expressions learned by custom. some using our blessed lord's prayer as a set form, which ought to be used as a rule of direction in all our prayers, and not as a dead form of words: many seeking more to be seen of men in this and all other duties, than to approve themselves to god, and more careful to come by apposite words and expressions, when praying with others, than to attain and entertain the breathings and influences of the spirit of god. much neglect of propagating christian knowledge in congregations and families; ministers and masters of families not making diligent search into the knowledge of the flocks and families under their charge, and instructing them suitably. much swearing and profanation of god's name, by loose and vain oaths in common discourse: yea, swearing by the creatures--as, soul, faith, conscience, and the like, thereby sacrilegiously attributing to them divine honour; as also, by imposing upon all persons in any public trust the unlimited and unlawful oath of allegiance, together with the bond of assurance, and the oath of abjuration, contrary to the oath of the covenant, thereby debauching people's consciences, and involving them in the guilt of perjury. great profanation of the holy sabbath, and neglect or careless performance of the duties therein required; breaking it by unnecessary feasting, walking, idle, vain and impertinent discourse, and such like recreations; yea, by hunting, hawking, riding and going of journeys, sounding trumpets before their lords of justiciary when going to church, reading of proclamations wholly irrelative to religion, and making publications not necessary nor expedient to be made upon that day. much disobedience to parents, and undue carriage of persons of all ranks and relations towards each other. great murder and bloodshed, so that the land is defiled with blood, and that not only the blood of the lord's people, who, in the times of persecution, were led forth like sheep to the slaughter, because of their adherence to their duty, and refusing conformity with wicked courses and subjection to wicked laws, eversive of their covenant engagements, not yet mourned over, nor purged away by the blood of those that shed it; but likewise many through the land are murdered frequently, and the murderers are not prosecuted with due severity: nay, such are the methods that are now taken to embolden the wicked in that and all other crimes, that whatever presumptions of guilt may be had, or how ample confession soever be made, if it be extrajudicial, and the very fact not proved by witnesses, the delinquent is passed over and absolved as a well-doer, and many actually convicted of murder are indemnified and let pass unpunished. much uncleanness and filthiness, adultery, fornication, incest, bestiality, sodomy, lasciviousness, promiscuous dancing, stage plays, excessive drinking, vanity in apparel, and the like abominable unchastity and incentives to it. much stealing, robbery and oppression, grinding the faces of the poor by unjust taxations and heavy impositions, and by hindering the poor from begging, for the support of their lives in times of scarcity, by a wicked edict. perverting of justice in law suits; lawyers and advocates finding means, for their own gain and worldly advantage, to obtain decisive sentences in favor of the rich, contrary to justice and equity; much cheating and deceiving in bargaining; forestalling of markets in times of scarcity; depriving the poor of their habitations and livelihoods by building of parks and in-closures; tenants taking leases over their neighbor's head, and the like. it is, moreover, to be bewailed that many ministers, who should be examples of charity and good works, are ringleaders in this sin of oppression. much lying and bearing of false witness, defaming one another's good name, reproaching persons for their adherence to the truths and cause of christ, or for discovering any piece of zeal and affection that way. much covetousness and worldly-mindedness, repining, murmuring and discontentment with god's dispensations; revenge, wrath, malice, envy, bitterness and innumerable sins, both against the precepts of the moral law, and the offers of christ in the gospel, which plainly says that we have not used the endeavours which in this article we promise, for "rooting up profaneness and whatsoever is found contrary to sound doctrine and the power of godliness, lest we partake of other men's sins, and so be in danger to receive of their plagues." nay, hath not much unsound doctrine been maintained in the arguments which have been used for defending the lawfulness of the courses of compliance with prelacy and erastianism? and these, amongst other unsound notions, have been entertained amongst us--"that lesser and circumstantial truths are not to be suffered for; that confession of these truths hath not been called for in our day; that people are not in hazard of the sins of others, especially of magistrates and ministers, if they do not directly act the same sins themselves; that sins of bypast times (if they be not presently practiced) are not to be confessed, nor the persons guilty to be stood at a distance from, till they give evident documents of their repentance;" contrary to express and plain scripture. sam. xxi. ; sam. xxiv. ; kings xxi. , ; isa. xliii. , ; jer. xiv. , ; mic. iii. , . whence both ministers and people have been involved in the sins of prelacy, indulgence, toleration, erastianism, subjecting the government of the church to the secular and civil authority; while they thought these only to be the sins of prelates, or of wicked and usurping rulers; they in the meantime yielding all the conformity with, submission unto, and approbation of them, that was by wicked laws required. on the other hand, many of us have rested too much in a non-compliance with these, and "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." in the third article, whereas we are bound, "in our several vocations, mutually to preserve the rights and privileges of parliaments, and liberties of the kingdoms;" meaning the true, real and righteous privileges and liberties--consonant to the word of god. deut. i. ; deut. xvi. ; isa. i. . likeas, all lieges are bound by the laws of the land inserted in the national covenant, to "maintain the authority of parliaments, without which neither any laws nor lawful judicatories can be established." yet as our fathers had reason to complain "that neither had the privileges of the parliament nor liberties of the subject been duly tendered; but some amongst them had laboured to put into the hands of the king an arbitrary and unlimited power destructive to both; and many of them had been accessory to those means and ways whereby the freedom and privileges of parliaments had been encroached upon, and the subjects oppressed in their consciences, persons and estates;" so afterwards, all alongst the tract of tyranny and persecution, they had rather the name and show than the real power and privileges of lawfully constituted parliaments; having advanced the royal prerogative to such a boundless pitch of arbitrariness, and being so corrupted, that faithful men and honest and honourable patriots were excluded, and those admitted who by the law of god and man should have been debarred; and so prelimited that the members behoved to take such oaths (for instance, the declaration and test, abjuring and condemning the covenants) as engaged them to be perjured and conjured enemies both to our religion and liberty, which both the electors of members of parliament and the elected did sinfully comply with; neither did the body of the land make conscience of recovering these rights and privileges thus perverted and polluted; but in stupid subjection did own those for representatives who betrayed their liberties, and made laws to enslave the nation and entail slavery upon, posterity. on the other hand, they that disowned them did not make conscience of preserving those rights and privileges of supreme judicatories, when inadvertently and unadvisedly they put in such expressions and styles in some of their declarations as do not belong to private persons, but only to such judicatories. and not only then, but since the revolution, have there been many ways taken for corrupting and depriving the members of parliament; as that all members and electors of members have been obliged to take the oath of allegiance, with the assurance to such as did, and do, in their dominions, support prelacy and exercise an erastian supremacy over the church of christ. and now, last of all, by the means of this fatal union with england, in terms and upon conditions inconsistent with our covenanted union, engaged to in the league and covenant; the nation's sovereignty and independency are given up, the rights of parliament entirely lost, or vanished into a shadow, little preferable to no parliament; so few being to represent this nation in the parliament of great britain, as can never be able to prevent, by their number of voices, any act which it shall please the english to make, how destructive soever the same be to our sacred or civil concerns. which treaty of union was concluded in a parliament as manifestly prelimited, as any which ever was seen in scotland; the members were corrupted with bribes and preferment, and so engaged to act contrary to the will and mind of those whome they did represent, and to comply with that stratagem hatched by the english, for enslaving this poor nation, and denuded it of its privileges, as well sacred as civil. and alas! how insignificant were the endeavours then used to prevent that course, and preserve the privileges of the parliament and liberties of this kingdom? only some faint addresses, all other attempts being laid aside at their queen's command, by her proclamation, as _treasonable convocation of the lieges_. again, the subject's liberties, both as men and as christian, which the scriptures allow, we should preserve, i sam. xiv. ; acts xxii. , ; xxv. , , ; gal. v. . have been miserably encroached upon by arbitrary government, whereby the subjects have been oppressed in their consciences, persons and estates, by all the oaths and bonds pressing conformity with the corruptions, novations, and usurpations the government of church and state, and persecutions for recusancy, and by impositions of the freedom of secret thoughts, which no law of men can reach, which yet in the time of the late persecution were extorted, by threatening of death and manifold tortures; the church's liberties have also been invaded by the ecclesiastical supremacy, declared by a blasphemous law inherent to the crown, which law, though it be not now in force, is yet still kept up in practice by the indiction, prorogation, and dissolution of assemblies, and prescribing diets and causes of fasting and thanksgiving in the magistrate's name and authority, to which ecclesiastical supremacy, usurped by the magistrate, this backslidden church hath always subjected, and now to discover to the world that they are not ashamed of this surrendering of our lord's prerogative to his enemies they have, in their assembly, holden at edinburgh, anno , most explicitly and fully subscribed to this ecclesiastical supremacy, in their act for observation of fasts, wherein they affirm, "that it is much for the honor of god that fasts whether appointed' by the church, or the civil magistrate, be duly observed." in that same third article, we are likewise bound to defend "the supreme magistrate's person and authority, in the preservation and defence of the true religion and liberties of the kingdom:" as in the national covenant is expressed: likewise, "to defend his person and authority, in the defence of christ his evangel, liberties of our country, ministration of justice, and punishment of iniquity; and to stand to his defence, in the defence of the true religion, liberties and laws of the kingdom;" as the duty is qualified in scripture. ii sam. v. .; ii kings xi. ; ii chron. xxvi. , , , ; rom. xiii. , , ; i pet. ii. , . as our fathers in their acknowledgments had reason to say, "neither hath it been our care to avoid these things which might harden the king in his evil way; but, upon the contrary he hath not only been permitted, but many of us have been instrumental to make him exercise his power in many things tending to the prejudice of religion, and of the covenant, and of the peace and safety of these kingdoms; which is so far from the right way of preserving his majesty's person and authority that it cannot but provoke the lord against him unto the hazard of both. nay, under a pretence of relieving and doing for the king, whilst he refuses to do what was necessary for the house of god, some have ranversed and violated most of all the articles of the covenant." so, during the unhappy days of the late tyranny, it was the land's sin and shame, and ought to be our sorrow, that men were mounted upon a throne of iniquity whose main design and practice was to subvert religion and persecute it, to introduce popery itself and slavery, to destroy the nation's liberties, suppress the evangel, and oppress its professors; who enacted and executed manifest injustice, stopped the ministration of justice against idolaters, adulterers, murderers, and other malefactors, and punished equity and duty, instead of iniquity; arrogated and obtained a monstrous prerogative above all rights and privileges of parliaments, all laws, all liberties; a power to tyrannize as they pleased without control. but, as it was their sin who inaugurated charles ii. after such discoveries of his hypocritical enmity to religion and liberty, upon his subscription to the covenants, so when he burned and buried that covenant, and degenerated into manifest tyranny, and had razed the very foundation upon which both his right to govern, and the people's allegiance were founded, and remitted the subjects' allegiance by annulling the bond of it: it was the land's sin that they continued still to own his authority when opposite to, and destructive of religion and liberty; and of those who appeared in arms at pentland and bothwell bridge, that they put in his interest (with application of the words of the covenant to him, though stated in opposition to it) into _the state of the quarrel_, in their _declaration of war_, for which (so far as the godly could discern) the lord put them to shame, and went not forth with their armies. it was likewise the sin of the land, and a great breach of covenant, when the duke of york was admitted to the exercise of the royal office against the laws of god and man; being incapable of the covenant qualifications of a magistrate, and being a papist, and so incapable of taking the "oath of coronation to maintain the true protestant religion, and gainstand and abolish popery;" which, for the preservation of the true religion, laws, and liberties of this kingdom, is stated by the th act of parliament, i king james vi, "that all kings, at the reception of their princely authority, shall take and swear;" yet this authority, though inconsistent with, and declaredly opposite to religion and liberty, was owned and upheld, by paying cess and supplies, expressly exacted for upholding tyranny in the destruction of religion and liberty; and though the lord did, for a long time, by the tyranny of charles ii. and james vii., chastise these covenanted lands, yet there has not been a turning to him that smiteth: but these lands have again transgressed the lord's commandments, and broken this part of the covenant of the lord, by receiving, admitting, supporting and subjecting to such, for kings and queens over these realms as want the qualifications required in god's word, and enacted by the righteous and laudable laws of the land to be in magistrates, superior and inferior: which were not brought under covenant ties and obligations, to be for god and religion in their own persons and families, and to advance and preserve the same allenarly in their dominions; but in place thereof have come under oath and obligation to countenance, protect end advance the romish superstitions and innovations in the worship of god and government of the church, which the covenant binds these kingdoms to suppress and extirpate, and in consequence of, and in conformity to, these obligations, do maintain and defend, or tolerate and allow prelacy and sectarian errors in their dominions, contrary to the true religion and sound doctrine, contrary to justice and equity; yea, contrary to that trust especially committed to the hands of christian magistrates, who for that end have the sword given them, _that they may be a terror to evil doers_, preserve and defend the true religion and professors thereof, and punish and extirpate false religion and heresies, and bring the wheel over the broachers, maintainers and abettors thereof; which did, and do exercise an erastian supremacy over the church, in proroguing, and dissolving general assemblies, appointing diets and causes of fasts and thanksgivings; and by their civil authority causing them to be kept and observed; which do not impartially execute justice upon all offenders, witness the frequent indemnities and remissions granted to murderers; as particularly, the passing without punishment the persons which perpetrated the inhuman, barbarous and lawless action of the massacre of glencoe. which waste and destroy the kingdom, by levying men and raising money for maintaining a long and expensive war, undertaken neither for the advancement of the true religion, nor for the advantage and safety of the nation; but in favour of the house of austria, which hath been, and yet continues to be, one of the strong pillars of antichrist's kingdom, and inplacable enemies to the true reformed religion, as appears by the persecution of the protestants in silesia, hungary, &c. and yet notwithstanding of all this, many in the land of all ranks have sworn to bear true and faithful allegiance to them, without any conditional restriction or limitation; so that it is not possible for them, in a consistency with their oath, to disown their authority, and deny them subjection, or refuse to defend their persons and government, albeit they should proceed to the greatest pitch of arbitrariness; which is very far from the defence promised to magistrates in the covenant: the whole land (almost) hath complied with them in all the forementioned particulars so diametrically opposite to the covenants, and supported, strengthened and encouraged them in these evil courses, by paying them cess and other subsidies; and ministers have minded so much to be loyal to their government, that they have forgotten to be faithful to their souls, in that they have not discovered to them the sin and danger of patronising prelacy, and exercising erastianism over the church; but in order to obtain their favor, have clapped their hands in these sins, which certainly is most opposite to that loyalty which we ought to maintain towards princes, and tends rather to diminish their just power and greatness, than to increase and preserve it; and, instead of being a proper way of defending their persons and authority, is rather a mean to bring the wrath of a just and jealous god upon them, and those who defend or connive at them in these unlawful courses. "our own consciences within, and god's judgment upon us without, do convince us of the manifold, wilful, renewed breaches of the fourth article, which concerneth the discovery of malignants, consonant to the scriptures." sam. xxiii. ; esther vii. . ; psalm xxvi. ; psalm ci. ; prov. xxv. . "for their crimes have not only been connived at, but dispensed with and pardoned, and themselves received into intimate fellowship, intrusted with counsels, admitted into parliaments, and put in places of power and authority for managing the public affairs of the kingdom; whereby, in god's justice, they got at last into their hands the whole power and strength of the kingdom, both in judicatories and armies, and did employ the same unto the enacting and prosecuting an unlawful engagement in war against the kingdom of england, notwithstanding the dissent of many considerable members of parliament, who had given constant proof of their integrity in the cause from the beginning; of many faithful testimonies and free warnings of the servants of god; of the supplications of many synods, presbyteries, and shires; and the declaration of the general assembly and their commissioners to the contrary; which engagement, as it was the cause of much sin, so also of much misery and calamity unto this land, and held forth the grievousness of our sin, in complying with malignants in the greatness of our judgment, that we may be taught never to split again upon the same rock, upon which the lord hath set so remarkable a beacon. and, after all that is come to pass unto us, because of this our trespass, and after that grace hath been showed unto _our fathers and us once and again_ from the lord our god, by breaking these men's yoke from off _their and our necks, and sometimes_ delivering our fathers _so far from their insultings_, that he put them in a capacity to act for the good of religion, their own safety, and the peace and safety of the kingdoms, should they and we again break the commandment and covenant of the lord, by joining once more with the people of these abominations, and taking unto our bosom these serpents which had formerly stung us almost unto death; this, as it would argue great madness and folly upon our part, so no doubt, if it be not avoided, will provoke the lord against us, to consume us until there is no remnant nor escaping in the land? many times have we been warned of the sin of complying with malignants, both by faithful ministers, and fatherly corrections from the lord;"--yet, after all these punishments, we have again joined with the people of these abominations; the lord is righteous, for we remain yet escaped as it is this day; behold, we are before him in our trespass, we cannot stand before him because of this. these incendiaries, malignants, and evil instruments, made many grievous encroachments, and prevailed much in the days of our fathers--yet not without dissent, testimonies, warnings, and declarations; but more especially in the dismal days of persecution and tyranny, they were suffered, yea, encouraged, without any significant joint testimony, not only to hinder the reformation of religion, but to overturn the whole work of reformation, to burn and bury the covenants for it, to re-establish abjured prelacy, erect a monstrous christ-exauctorating and church-enslaving supremacy, attempt the introduction of popery and slavery at the gate of an anti-christian toleration, and to persecute and destroy the godly, who durst not in conscience comply with them; and not only to divide the _king from his people, or one of the kingdoms from another_--but first, to divide the bulk and body of both kingdoms, and make them pursue divided interests from the interest and cause of christ, and then to divide the remnant of such as adhered to it amongst themselves, by indulgences and other bonds of contention, in order to get them more easily destroyed; and at length to engage the king into such a division from the people, as to make him, instead of their protector, their declared destroyer; and not only to _make parties among the people contrary to his league and covenant_, but to draw and divide the whole people into a party with perjuries. the generality, notwithstanding, did own allegiance to the head of these incendiaries and malignants, yea, a popish incendiary, because he wore a crown on his head; and did pay the cess imposed for the maintenance and encouragement of malignants; many did associate with them in expeditions of war, drawing up with them in their musters and rendezvouses, thereby countenancing a malignant cause, and listing themselves under a malignant--yea, popish banner; many subscribed and sware themselves contrary to the covenant by taking tests, oaths, and bonds, obliging them to surcease from covenanted duties, and to keep the peace and good behaviour with them, whom they were obliged by covenant to seek to bring to punishment; yea, some, and not a few, were inveigled in the snare of the oath of delation, to delate the persecuted people of god to their courts, and thereby made them (instead of discovering malignants according to the covenant,) to discover their brethren to malignants. and very many, almost the universality of the land, were involved in the snare of the oath of abjuration, renouncing the principle of declaring war against a malignant king, and of asserting the lawfulness of bringing his murthering accomplices and incendiaries to condign punishment; but, on the other hand, some of the suffering party did sometimes exceed the bounds of moderation in this matter, in usurping the sword without god's call, without respect to the rule, and against the scope of their own declarations, to take vengeance on them at their own hand; yea, even to that degree, of taking the lives of some of them in an extravagant manner;[ ] for which, they were sadly rebuked of god, an occasion was given and taken to reproach and blaspheme the way of god upon that account. but to descend to our own time, we have it to bewail, that whatever alteration there is in the face of affairs since the yoke of tyranny was taken off our neck, yet there is no alteration in this matter to the better, but rather to the worse; malignants are so far from being brought to condign punishment, that they are the whole administrators of the affairs of the kingdom; whence it is come to pass, that the supreme judicatories which should take trial of such and bring them to punishment, and to whom they should be delated, are wholly, or mostly composed of such; yea, none may now be reputed malignant unless he be disaffected to the civil government; so that malignancy is not now disaffection to the cause and work of god, but disaffection to the present establishment, and so far are they that are truly disaffected to christ and his interest this day advanced and strengthened in their designs, that they have (so far as in them lies) put a final stop to all further progress in reformation in these covenanted kingdoms; so that instead of discovering and bringing to punishment them who make parties and factions against the league and covenant, and reformation therein concerted, the most part of britain and ireland are nought else but a party and faction against it, who have cast it out of doors, and, for what is apparent, are never minded to receive it again; and, upon the contrary, such as are labouring to adhere most closely (though in weakness) to these engagements, and prosecute the ends of these covenants, are unjustly looked upon as a party and faction, and prosecuted as offenders by such as, according to the genuine sense of this article, ought to be brought to condign punishment. it is likewise promised in this article, that such _shall be brought to trial as shall divide the king from his people, or one of the kingdoms from another_, which clause hath been broken, by using endeavours to have king and people and the kingdoms all conjoined in a _union_ and conjunction contrary to, and eversive of this solemn league and covenant; and these that go under the character of ministers, from whom it might in all reason be expected that they should interpose for having malignants duly punished, are so far from doing so, that they make it their endeavour to please them; and upon the contrary, they spare no pains to incense the persons in the government against those whose design it is, in the lord's strength, to adhere to their covenant engagements, and keep themselves unspotted from the abominations of the times. we acknowledge also ourselves guilty of the breach of this article, in so far as we have not more frequently and fervently, from a real respect and zeal to the glory of god, after we saw no means of getting such evil instruments and opposers of reformation punished and suppressed by human judicatories, applied by prayer and supplication to god, that he would either of his infinite mercy convince them of, and reclaim them from, or in justice reprove and punish them for their opposition to his cause and interest. as also, that we have not duly searched into our own sins, and especially the malignancy of our own hearts: by means whereof, the lord is highly provoked to permit such evil instruments not only to afflict and oppress us, but also to retard the success of his own work; and that we have not impartially or sincerely mourned over these sins in our own hearts and lives, which hinder our own personal, and so have influence to impede national reformation, and have not forsaken and abandoned them. in the fifth article, we are bound, "according to our place and station, to endeavor, that the kingdoms may remain conjoined in a most firm peace and union to all posterity; and that justice may be done upon the wilful opposers thereof;" according to isa. ii. , , xiv. , ; jer. , , ; ezek. xxxvii. , ; zech. ii. . viii. , ; gal. v. . "but through the peace and union of the kingdoms (while duly subordinate to the interest of religion) was a great blessing of god unto both, and a bond which we are bound to preserve inviolated, and to endeavor that justice may be done upon the wilful opposers thereof; yet some in this land, who have come under the bond of the covenant, have made it their great study how to dissolve this union, and few or no endeavors have been used by any of us for punishing of such;" yea, very little, or none at all, have the most of us been concerned about this article; whether there be peace with, or holiness and truth in, the other kingdoms; or what sort of peace, or on what foundation it be settled: both kingdoms are mutually guilty of dissolving this covenant union, in invading each other, at several times, contrary to the covenant, the english nation in subjecting us to their conquest, and forcing us to a submission to their sectarian usurpations on church and state; and this nation, in giving such provocations to them, by the unlawful engagement in the year , by treating with, setting up and entertaining, the head of the malignant party, their enemy and ours both, as our king in the year , and invading them upon his quarrel, at the worcester expedition, anno ; since which time, after that kingdom and this both united in that unhappy course of restoring the king, without respect to the covenant, and re-establishing the prelacy, which broke our covenanted union and conjunction, that nation hath sometimes sent aid to our persecutors, for suppressing our attempts to recover our religion and liberties; and this nation hath sent forces to help their destroyers, and to suppress their endeavors for the recovery of their privileges. and in the mean time, we have been very little solicitous for correspondence to settle union with such of them as owned the covenant, or for giving to, or receiving from them, mutual informations of our respective cases and conditions, under all our calamities and calumnies cast upon us: nor have we studied to keep sympathy or communion of saints, or mutual bearing of one another's burdens, as became covenanted brethren. on the other hand instead of union in truth and duty according to the bond of the covenant, a confederacy hath been studied in defection from the covenant, and an union and peace which wanted the foundation laid down in the foregoing articles of the covenant, viz., "uniformity in doctrine, worship, discipline and government, against popery, prelacy, schism, sectarianism, for our religion, laws and liberties, and discovering, suppressing and punishing the enemies of these interests." such an union has not been studied nor sought, but on the contrary an union against the reformation and uniformity, for prelacy and sectarianism multiformity, by maintaining tyranny and strengthening malignancy. yea, by the means of this incorporating union now of late established, prelacy is not only strengthened and confirmed, but so settled as to continue to all succeeding generations, and this nation's slavery as well as their sin perpetuated. and persons of all ranks have had a deep hand in this trespass: the nobility and gentry who represented the nation, in surrendering their own and the nation's rights and privileges; ministers in not warning them faithfully to beware of that covenant-breaking course, which could not but provoke god to anger against this poor island, but showing more concern in that juncture for settling their own, then for securing and advancing christ's interest; and the body of the land, in that they did not bestir themselves, for the defence of their own liberties in a lawful way. in the sixth article we are bound, "according to our places and callings, in this common cause of religion, liberty and peace, to assist and defend all those that enter into this league and covenant, in the maintaining thereof. and in the national covenant, in like manner, we are bound to stand to the mutual defence and assistance, every one of us of another, in the same cause, with our best counsel, our bodies, means, and whole power, against all sorts of persons whatsoever; so that whatsoever shall be done to the least of us for that cause, should be taken as done to all of us in general, and to every one of us in particular." a duty very clear in the scriptures; judges v. ; chron. xii. , ; neh. iv. ; prov. xxiv. , . but alas! how little conscience hath been made of this duty? "we have suffered many of our brethren in many parts of the land to be oppressed of the common enemy, without compassion or relief. there hath been great murmuring and repining because of expenses of means and pains in doing of our duty;" and not only so, but many did swear and subscribe oaths and bonds expressly against such assistances, and to condemn all such endeavors, to assist, defend and rescue them, as rebellion and sedition, and obliging them to assist their murdering malignant enemies, by such occurrences as they required. yea, many instead of coming out to _help the lord against the mighty_, and defending their brethren, did come out to the help of the mighty against the lord, his cause, covenant, and oppressed people; concurring in arms against them at all the appearances that were made and essayed for the cause of christ; compearing at courts, held for informing against and condemning their brethren, that were present at, or concerned in such appearances for the covenanted cause, and coming in as witnesses against them; sitting in assizes for condemning them, and guarding them to their executions, when martyred for their duty, and the interest of truth. many likewise denied to reset, harbor or entertain their brethren, persecuted for maintaining the covenanted reformation; some raised the hue and cry after them, thereby occasioning, and assisting in, the murder of several faithful brethren; the most part owned the great murderer who authorized all the rest, and enacted all these murders, and assisted him and his accomplices, and executioners of his murdering mandates, with their persons and estates, in paying the supplies professedly demanded, and declaredly imposed, for enabling them to accomplish these mischiefs. yea, many were so far from assisting, that they added afflictions to their afflicted brethren, their reproaches, and persecuting by the tongue those whom the lord had smitten, and talking to the grief of those he had wounded. and all sorts of us have been wanting in our sympathy with, and endeavoring succor to, our suffering brethren, let be to deliver them from their enemies' hands according to our capacity. so also, it is for matter of lamentation, that many ministers all alongst discovered great unconcernedness with, and contempt of, poor despised and reproached sufferers, condemned the heads of their suffering, forgot or refused to pray for them publicly. and as this article was all alongst through the persecuting times, most grossly violated, so to this day it continues to be. any that would appear in the least active in this cause, are so far from being assisted that they are borne down, derided, sentenced, and sometimes imprisoned; whatever motions are made in private discourses, or public sermons, which may import a respect to, or liking of, this noble cause of religion, or a dislike of, and displacency with the courses opposite unto it, are so far from being countenanced, that the movers are hated, vilipended, contemned or censured, as raisers of dust, formenters of division, pragmatic, turbulent and fractious spirits, and loaded with many other defamatory epithets and calumnies. many instances of which may be given since the revolution. for example, when in the year , there was a paper of grievances presented to the assembly by some of those who had been keeping up a witness against the iniquitous courses of the times, and were now expecting that as the fruit of a merciful delivery from tyrannical usurpations, and antichristian persecutions, reformation should be revived, grievances redressed, judicatories rightly constituted, and duly purged, it was far from receiving a kind and friendly reception and they who presented it left without assistance and help, contrary to the tenor of the covenant, so that that paper could not be allowed a hearing, let be a redress, and the persons who offered it to their consideration were, to their great sorrow and grief of heart, dismissed without a satisfying answer. as also when messrs. linning, shields and boyd, who had been carrying on a testimony against the time's defection, and were now minded to join with the assembly, after the exhibition of their testimony, whatever acceptance it might meet with at their hands, had in prosecution of this their design, exhibited their proposals to the committee of overtures, these proposals, though both worthy of consideration and necessary to be redressed, were not allowed a hearing in open assembly, but rejected as being "made up of mistakes, reflections, unseasonable and impracticable overtures," and the said persons, so far from being assisted, in order to a removal of the evils therein complained of, as destructive to the cause of god, that upon the contrary the four named persons stand in the fifth act of that pretended assembly characterized with the name and epithet of persons who had followed courses contrary to the order of the church, and in their moderator's exhortation, _to walk orderly in time coming, in opposition to all schism and division_, their former practice of testifying against the corruptions of the times was implicitly condemned as disorderly, schismatic and divisive. another instance of this appeared not long after; when in the year , some of the godly of the land published their declaration disowning william and mary's government, because not qualified as god's word, and our covenants do require, as it is specified at large in the narrative of that declaration; some of them were apprehended and imprisoned, for that piece of adherence to the covenanted reformation, and opposing or at least witnessing against the courses which they found to be contrary to it. yet who at that juncture appeared to assist them in their laudable undertakings? and all alongst since, whosoever has offered grievances, or any way witnessed against the bypast and present defections, have been and are prosecuted with church censure, or persecuted with bitter and malicious invectives and reproaches, falling from the tongues and pens of those that are obliged by covenant to have assisted, defended and encouraged them. and especially ministers, who by virtue of their office, as well as covenant engagements, are obliged to excite persons to, and assist them in their duty, have been active to do the quite contrary; for instance, when some persons offered to give public satisfaction for their compliance with christ's enemies, they refused to admit them. but to what purpose do we repeat these instances? it is too certain and evident, that there is more assistance and encouragement afforded to the enemies of this cause and covenant, by persons of all ranks than to the friends and well wishers of it. love to, and zeal for this cause are greatly decayed, and therefore mutual sympathy and affection amongst the people of god in the prosecution and maintenance of it are much a wanting. in the same article we are bound, "not to suffer ourselves directly or indirectly, by whatsoever combination or terror, to be divided or withdrawn from this blessed union and conjunction, whether to make defection to the contrary part, or to give ourselves to a detestable indifferency or neutrality in this cause; and in the national covenant, that we shall neither directly nor indirectly suffer ourselves to be divided, or withdrawn, by whatsoever suggestion, allurement or terror, from this blessed and loyal conjunction. according to scripture warrants." gen. xiii. ; psal. cxxxiii. throughout; zech. viii. ; i cor. i. ; eph. iv. ; phil. i. , ii. ; heb. xxi. ; jer. ix. ; ezek. xxii. ; hag. i. ; phil. ii. ; ii tim. iv. ; rev. iii. . but, alas! it is long since our fathers had reason to complain and confess, "that many in their day through persuasion or terror, suffered themselves to be divided and withdrawn to make defection to the contrary part. many had turned off to a detestable indifferency and neutrality in this cause, which so much concerneth the glory of god, and the good of these kingdoms. nay, many had made it their study to walk so, as they might comply with all times, and all the revolutions thereof. that it was not their care to countenance, encourage, entrust, and employ, such only as from their hearts did affect and mind god's work; but the hearts of such, many times had been discouraged, and their hands weakened, their sufferings neglected, and themselves slighted, and many who had been once open enemies, and always secret underminers, countenanced and employed. nay, even those who had been looked upon as incendiaries, and upon whom the lord had set marks of desperate malignancy, falsehood and deceit, were brought in as fit to manage public affairs." all which sins and breaches of covenant have now increased to a great height of heinousness; for, in our day, these incendiaries, desperate and engrained malignants have only been employed in, and admitted to the management of the affairs of the kingdom, and none but they accounted habile by law; and such divisions from the covenanted-conjunction, and defections to the contrary part have been, and are enacted and established by law; yea, all the unhappy divisions that have been from the _public resolutions_, and downward, have been the woful consequents and effects of defections to the contrary part. at the first erection of prelacy, many, both ministers and professors, partly by terror, partly by persuasions, did withdraw from this covenanted conjunction, and make defection unto prelacy, with which they combined, conforming with, and submitting to the ministry of the conforming curates; and afterward, by the terror of the fear of men, and the persuasions of their counsel and example, many of the land were seduced into a combination with malignants, in taking oaths and bonds contrary to the covenant, thereby dividing themselves from the recusants, and making defection to the party imposing them, and opposing the covenants. by combination of those that preferred peace to truth, and ease to duty--by the terror of threatened continuance of persecution, and the persuasion of a promised relaxation and immunity from troubles; many ministers have been divided from the testimony of the church of scotland, against the enroaching supremacy and absolute power, and one from another, and have made defection to that part and party that were advancing these encroachments and usurpations on the prerogatives of christ and privileges of his church; by receiving indulgences and tolerations from them, in their own nature destructive unto, and given and received on terms inconsistent with the duties of the covenants, which were contrived and conferred on purpose to divide them from this cause, and from their brethren that more tenaciously adhered to it; and did effectuate that design in a great measure--and others gave themselves to a detestable indifferency in complying with, conniving at, and not witnessing against these defections, but passing them over in a secure submissive silence. and as, in the times of persecuting violence, these breaches of this article were made by reason of the snares of that sinful time; so much more has there been a manifest violation of it since, when at this day there is such a universal combination of interests in opposition to the covenanted reformation. are not the most of the three kingdoms in one great combination against it, by this cope-stone of defection, this incorporating union? how have we made conscience of performing that part of the covenant anent _resisting the persuasion of men to make defection to the contrary part_, when the whole land is so deeply involved into it? there has been, alas! too much way given to carnal arguments and persuasives--such as worldly gain, ease, profit, and preferment, and too much slavish fear and terror of men, whose breath is in their nostrils, has been entertained, without a due reliance and dependance upon omnipotency; which has greatly carried men off their feet, and wheedled them into a compliance with, and defection to the contrary part, or into a neutrality and indifferency in this cause; so that few are found valiant for the truth upon the earth. what strange laxness and laodicean indifference has there appeared in this cause, through the whole conduct of affairs in church and state, since the revolution; whereby many discover to every observant eye that they are satisfied if they obtain a peaceful enjoyment of their own things, and liberty to dwell in their ceiled houses--albeit the lord's house (in a great measure) lies waste? where are there any acts of assemblies, or proceedings of the church, which discover any due concern or zeal for the covenanted interests? nay, the contrary has too frequently appeared; as for instance, when by the th act of the d session of william and mary's st parl., the establishment of the church was calculated for the meridian of state-policy, according to act , parl. , king james vi. anno . on purpose to pass over in shameful oblivion the church's choicest attainments in reformation betwixt and ; and particularly, to make void the league and covenant, with the assembly's explanatory declaration affixed to the national, the malignants' grand eye-sore, there was no faithful protestation and testimony exhibited against this by the assembly, then indicted, and convened the th of october following; which, if duly pondered in all its circumstances, without the mask and pretexts industriously drawn over it, will appear to be, perhaps one of the greatest sins of this nation, and to be little inferior in nature and aggravations to the burning of the covenants, which is granted by all presbyterians to be a most atrocious act of contempt done to the eternal god, and to his son jesus christ, and cannot be called to mind by any of the godly without great abhorrence and detestation of it; in so far as the passing over and not ratifying these acts of parliament and assembly by the respective judicatories, which were made during that time of reformation, was a practical and interpretative condemning of them as unprofitable, and did greatly corroborate the acts whereby charles ii. had declared them null and not obligatory; and did likewise import a vilifying and despising of what god had wrought for his people in these lands, during that time; and, lastly, was a manifest indication of disregard to the oath of god, which these lands had come under. neither did that, nor any succeeding assembly, impartially and explicitly enumerate the land's sins in their national fasts; namely, the indulgence and toleration, with the addresses and thanksgiving for it, and the burning of the covenant, &c.; neither have they, in any of their addresses to their king or queen, by letters, or other means, declared unto them the indispensable duty of renewing the covenants, nor applied to the parliament for that effect; neither have they, by their assembly-acts, asserted the intrinsic power of the church; neither did they in any of their acts, or public papers, make honourable mention of those who had laid down their lives for their adherence to christ's truths during the times of persecution, nor testified their approbation of what was done that way; and yet many of us have been wanting in testifying our dislike of these backsliding courses, by discountenancing, withdrawing from, and keeping ourselves free of all participation with them; but have received the sacraments of baptism and the lord's supper, and the privilege of marriage at their hands, and paid tithes and stipends. by all which, it is apparent now much indifferency there has been in this cause of covenanted interest, which so much concerneth the glory of god, the good of the kingdoms, and the honour of the civil magistrate. moreover in the same article we are sworn, "all the days of our lives, zealously and constantly to continue in this cause, against all lets and impediments whatsoever, and what we are not able ourselves to suppress and overcome, to reveal and make known the same that it may be timeously prevented. and in the national covenant, never to cast in any let, that may stop or hinder any such resolution, as by common consent shall be found to conduce for so good ends; but on the contrary, by all lawful means, to labor to further and promote the same; and if any such dangerous or divisive motion be made to us by word or writ, that we and every one of us shall either suppress it, or if need be, incontinent make the same known, that it may be timeously obviated. agreeing very well with the scriptures." numb. xiv. , ; neh. vi. , , , , , ; isa. viii. , , ; acts iv. , , , xxi. ; gal. ii. ; phil. i. . nevertheless, _many have been the lets and impediments, that have been cast in the way, to retard and obstruct the lord's work_, by prelacy, supremacy, indulgences, toleration, and absolute tyranny and compliance therewith, enacted by law, and all the mischiefs established by a throne of iniquity since the unhappy restoration of charles ii. to this day. yet few have ever zealously contended and fewer have constantly continued in contending, against these obstructions, so obstructive to the cause, many have kept secret the first motions and appearances of these things, while they might have been suppressed and overcome, and the generality have passed them over in silence, and not made known, nor advertised unto evil of these things when declared, by witnessing against these things, when, they could not be otherwise removed or overcome. yea, many of us have ourselves cast in lets and impediments, obstructive to the cause, by our defections divisions and disorders against common consent, and precipitances, without common consent even of our brethren adhering to the testimony. many a divisive motion hath not been counted dangerous, of those which tended to divide us from the covenanted cause. and many a good and necessary motion hath been accounted divisive, namely, such as proposed the necessity of confessing and forsaking sin. "besides these and many other breaches of the articles of the covenant, in the matter thereof, which concerneth every one of us, to search out and acknowledge before the lord, as we could wish his wrath to be turned away from us, so have many of us failed exceedingly in the manner of following and pursuing the duties contained therein, not only seeking great things for ourselves, and mixing private interests, and ends concerning ourselves, and friends, and followers, with those things which concern the public good; but many times preferring such to the honour of god and good of his cause; and retarding god's work until we might carry alongst with us our own interests and designs: it hath been our way to trust in the means, and to rely upon the arm of flesh for success, albeit the lord hath many times made us meet with disappointments, and stained the pride of all our glory, by blasting every carnal confidence unto us. we have followed for the most part the counsels of flesh and blood, and walked more by the rules of policy than piety, and have hearkened more unto men than unto god." in the conclusion of the solemn league and covenant there is a profession and declaration "before god and the world of our unfeigned desires to be humbled[ ] for our own sins and for the sins of these kingdoms[ ]; especially that we have not valued, as we ought, the inestimable benefit of the gospel[ ], that we have not laboured for the purity[ ] and power thereof[ ], and that we have not endeavoured to receive christ into our hearts[ ], nor to walk worthy of him in our lives[ ], which are the causes of other sins and transgressions so much abounding amongst us[ ]: all which we are under many obligations to confess and mourn over from the word; and, of our true and unfeigned purpose and desire, to endeavour for ourselves and all others under our power and charge[ ] both in public and in private, in all dutie[ ] we owe to god and man, to amend our lives[ ] and each one to go before another[ ] in the example of a real reformation, that the lord might turn away his wrath and heavy indignation,[ ] and establish these kingdoms in truth and peace.[ ] yet we have refused to be reformed and have walked proudly and obstinately before the lord, not valuing his gospel, nor submitting ourselves unto the obedience thereof; not seeking after christ, nor studying to honour him in the excellency of his person, nor to employ him in the virtue of his offices; not making conscience of the public ordinances, nor studying to edify one another in love. the ignorance of god and his son jesus christ prevails exceedingly in the land." even our fathers in their purest times confessed, in their acknowledgement of sins, "that the greatest part of masters of families among noblemen, barons, gentlemen, burgesses, and commons, neglected to seek god in their families, and to endeavour the reformation thereof. and albeit it had been much pressed, yet few of the nobles and great ones could be persuaded to perform family duties themselves in their own persons, which made so necessary a duty to be disregarded by persons of inferior rank." we may add, in our degenerate times, not only the great ones generally profess the neglect and contempt of so necessary a duty, both in their own persons and in the use of chaplains; but the great part of the commons are altogether strangers to it; many performing no part of the family worship at all, others only singing a psalm and reading a chapter without praying, and others making a fashion of all, but very perfunctoriously, formally, and indifferently, and scarcely once in a day. and ministers also making little conscience of visiting families to see how this duty is performed, not pressing it upon the negligent, nor stirring up the formal to a more spiritual way of performing it, nay, some giving bad examples to their flocks, by neglecting it themselves in their own families. _the nobility, gentry, and barons, who should be examples of sober walking unto others, are very generally ringleaders of excess and rioting_. we have been far from amending our lives and promoting a personal reformation, and going before one another in the example of a real reformation, when we have been examples of deformation in our personal practices and public transactions, and being too-familiar and too far united with the patrons and patterns of the land's deformations. "our fathers also acknowledged, albeit they were the lord's people engaged unto him in a solemn way; yet they had not made it their study that judicatories and armies should consist of, and places of power and trust be filled with men of blameless and christian conversation, and of known integrity and approved fidelity, affection, and zeal unto the cause of god. and not only those who were neutral and indifferent, but disaffected and malignant, and others who were profane and scandalous were intrusted. by which it came to pass that judicatories, even then, were the seats of injustice and iniquity. and many in their armies, by miscarriages, became their plague unto the great prejudice of the cause of god, the great scandal of the gospel, and the great increase of looseness and profanity throughout all the land." but, since the time of that acknowledgment there has still been more and more degeneracy, so that judicatories have consisted of, and been filled with perjured traitors to god and their country. and armies made up of these plagues marshalled under a displayed banner against christ and his interest, not only to the scandal, but for the suppression of the gospel, and forcing people to profanity throughout the land; and now are, to the disgrace of the protestant religion, made up of the refuse of the lands, and employed in the support of an antichristian interest abroad. yet have we not sighed and cried for these abominations, nor have we been concerned, as we ought, with the abounding of them through the land. as also, with blushing, we must confess our pride and presumptuous boasting of external privileges of the gospel and outward reformation, and of a testimony which we bragged of, as if that had made us better than others, while we made no conscience of personal reformation, which, no doubt, amongst other sinful miscarriages, was a main cause of the lord's depriving us so long a time of the comfortable and soul-enriching mercy of a faithfully dispensed gospel. and, in like manner, the conceitedness of some in suffering and contending for truth, rather for keeping up the contention abetting a party, and many times under too lofty names of the suffering party, and remnant, and the like, than to keep and hold fast the word of the lord's patience to his glory as our crown; and many other evidences of pride hateful to god, such as boasting in the strength of armies in the suffering times in an ostentatious way, vaunting of, and being too much taken up with them, though then necessary for the defence of our lives; rejoicing in our numerousness or worldly abilities, or in the number of them that frequent the public ordinances in the fields; or that they, who are owners of the testimony, are for the most, part kept free from the gross out-breakings into which others are left to fall; which things, though very good and desirable in themselves, may yet be, and have been, occasions of sin when boasted in, more than humbly and thankfully acknowledged to be from the hand of god. as also, revengeful resenting of affronts, passionate and disdainful refusing to take reproof for faults, or for the excess in any duty, as to the manner of it, when we thought the matter was right. and, it is likewise matter of regret, that both in the time of greatest suffering and afterwards, idleness of both kinds did too much prevail amongst us; both that when we were in a manner driven from the world, and shut up from all employment but the exercise of godliness, many did not improve that opportunity of the cross to promote acquaintance and communion with god, being slothful in prayer, reading and other duties; and some again, even when they might have had access to lawful employments, continued idle and out of work, to the opening of the mouths of many against the cause; albeit they were not called to, or employed in any public business for the same. and besides all these things, there may be many other transgressions whereof the lands wherein we live are guilty, and these attended with many heinous aggravating circumstances beyond what they were in our fathers, which we have not been humbled for to this day; but, instead of mourning for them, confessing and forsaking them, we have been rather defending or daubing, covering or coloring, excusing or extenuating them. all which we now desire to acknowledge and be humbled for, that the world may bear witness with us, that righteousness belongeth unto god, and shame and confusion of face to us, as appears this day. * * * * * _a solemn engagement to the duties contained in our national and solemn league and covenant._ _particularly adjusted to the circumstances of these times, anno _ because it is requisite, in order to obtain mercy, not only to confess, but also to forsake our sins, and to do the contrary duties; therefore, that the sincerity and reality of our repentance may appear, we resolve, and solemnly engage before god, in the strength and through the assistance of christ, that we shall carefully endeavour, in all time coming, to avoid all these offences, whereof we have now made solemn public acknowledgment, and all the snares and temptations tending thereunto; and to testify this sincerity of our resolution, and that we may be better enabled in the power of the lord's might, to perform the same, we do again renew our covenants, both national and solemn league, promising to make conscience of a more exact performance of all the duties therein contained, so far as we, in our stations, and present deplorable circumstances, are capable; particularly such as follow. because religion is of all things the most excellent and precious in its own nature, and therefore most to be desired by the children of men, and the knowledge of the great truths of the gospel, so generally decreased in this land, is so absolutely necessary to salvation; therefore in order to attain it, we shall labor to be better acquainted with the _written word of god_, the only infallible rule of faith and manners; and shall (according to our capacity) study more than formerly the doctrine of the reformed church of scotland, summed up in our[ ] confession of faith, catechisms larger and shorter, sum of christian doctrine and practical use of saving knowledge, directory for worship (as the same was received and observed by this church in her purest times, viz. in the year ,) propositions concerning church government, and ordination of ministers, annexed to the confession of faith, and other writings clearing and confirming these truths, approven by this church, and agreeable to the word of god. we shall likewise endeavor the advancing and promoting the power of this true reformed religion, against all ungodliness and profanity, the securing and preserving the purity thereof, against all kinds of errors, heresy and schism, as namely, independency, brownism, anabaptism, antinomianism, arminianism, socinianism, libertinism, familism. scepticism, quakerism, deism, burignonism and erastianism; and as we declare, that we willingly agree in our consciences unto the doctrine of the church of scotland in all points, as unto god's undoubted truth and verity, grounded only upon his written word, so we resolve constantly to adhere unto, maintain and defend, profess and confess, and (when called of god) to yield ourselves sufferers for the said doctrine, as we shall desire to be approven and confessed by jesus christ, before god and his holy angels. _ dly_, we shall also study more sincerity, uprightness and heart-integrity in the worship of god, and shall not satisfy ourselves with the form of it, without the power and spirituality, which god the only object of religious worship, doth require: and shall endeavor the due performance of all the duties of religious worship, which god hath in his most holy word required. and shall (if providence offer occasion) endeavor to recover, and labor to preserve the purity thereof from all corruptions, mixtures, innovations and inventions of men, popish, prelatical, or any other; and while we are not able, by reason of the prevailing power of the abettors and maintainers of them, to get them removed, we shall labor (through grace) to keep ourselves free from all sinful communion and participation with them, and shall, in our stations, testify against these corruptions and perversions of god's worship, by all competent means. _ dly_, we shall likewise by all lawful means endeavor, that presbyterian church government in kirk-sessions, presbyteries, synods and general assemblies, may be recovered in its former purity, established upon its proper basis and foundation, the word of god; and that it may be freed from all encroachments and invasions made thereupon by the powers of the earth; and that the discipline of the church may be impartially exercised against all scandalous offenders, great or small; and when the ministers of this church, or any of them, shall sincerely and conscientiously endeavor the restoration of the government in all its privileges, and freedom from all erastian encroachments, and to have the discipline duly and impartially exercised, then we promise to be obedient, and be subject thereunto, as becomes the flock of christ; but shall always testify our dislike of all encroachments made and yielded to, prejudical to the privileges which christ hath bestowed upon his church. _ thly_, we shall always desire and pray for the reviving of the work of uniformity in the three kingdoms, and (if the lord in his providence shall offer opportunity) shall seek and endeavour it by other means possible, lawful, expedient, and competent to us in our capacities; and shall never cordially consent unto, nor cease to testify against, whatsoever doth obstruct and hinder that work of uniformity, and shall detest and abhor all multiformity, introduced by erastianism, prelacy, and sectarianism, now so prevalent, and confirmed by this late union with england. according to the second article, we shall do our utmost endeavour to have the land purged of popish idolatry, and the monuments thereof destroyed, particularly the abomination of the mass; and, so far as lies in our power, shall never suffer the same to be re-introduced or erected again, nor favour any attempts tending thereunto. we shall never make any conjunction with these abominable popish idolaters, at home or abroad, in armies or otherwise; and shall, according to our national covenant, detest and abhor all their wicked superstitious rites and ceremonies. we shall never consent, for any reason whatsoever, that the penal statutes made against papists should be annulled; but shall, when opportunity offers, be ready to concur in putting them to a due and vigorous execution. _ dly_, we shall, by all approven means, in our stations and vocations, endeavour the extirpation of prelacy; and shall never submit to that wicked hierarchy of bishops, archbishops, &c., having superiority of order and jurisdiction above preaching presbyters, whether erastian or only diocesan, in any form or degree, howsoever reformed, accommodated, limited, or restricted by cautions and provisions of men; seeing that all such superiority is flatly condemned in the word of god, and hath proven many times fatal to the church of christ. we shall detest and abhor, and in our stations witness against whatsoever courses, tending to the establishment of that abominable hierarchy; and particularly, the oaths of allegiance, with the assurance, and oath of abjuration, lately imposed on the persons of public trust in these realms, in regard they may justly be interpreted to strengthen that hierarchy, by upholding the persons that maintain the same. we shall not submit to any orders issued forth by bishops, nor own them as our lawgivers, nor acknowledge any title they have to be members of parliament or council. _ dly_, we shall in like manner detest, and abhor, and labour, to extirpate all kinds of superstition--all rites and ceremonies superadded by human invention to the worship of god, not enjoined and required in his word; together with all heresy and false doctrine, and all profaneness and immortalities of every kind, and whatsoever is contrary to sound religion; and shall in the strength, and through the help of christ, endeavour to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and from henceforth to live righteously towards our neighbour, soberly in ourselves, and to walk humbly with our god. we shall upon the one hand, endeavour to keep ourselves, as far as we can, from all partakings in other men's sins, by consenting unto associations, incorporations, combinations, compliance with, or conniving at, their sins. and upon the other, to guard against all schism, and sinful separation, or unjust, rash, and disorderly withdrawing from societies, congregations or families, or any part of the communion of the true reformed church of scotland, holding purely and entirely the doctrine, worship, discipline and government of the same, in principle and exercise, according to the rules of christ, and standing acts and constitutions of this church, consonant thereunto, so far as the lord gives light therein. and as we look not upon our practice in withdrawing from the backslidden ministers of the present erastian church, for reasons valid and sufficient, to be a gathering and setting up formed separate churches under other ordinances and ministry, distinct from the presbyterian church of scotland, (although we be falsely aspersed as doing it) so we purpose and resolve always to adhere to that standard of doctrine, discipline, and government, and that purity and form of worship, which during our reforming times were established, and to embrace such ordinances, and such a ministry as are of divine appointment; and that we shall not presume to withdraw from minister or member of that body for any offence, in any case, where either the offence may be legally removed without withdrawing, or cannot be instructed to be condemned by the word of god, and constitution of this church, or is in itself an insufficient ground of withdrawing, or where it is not defended, or obstinately persisted in, or is a thing to be condescended upon, forborn, or forgiven; but shall study to maintain union and christian communion, with all and every one, whether ministers or private christians, who adhere unto the purity of the doctrine, worship, discipline and government of the church of scotland, and to the whole word of christ's patience, in the sufferings and contendings of his people, in opposition to his enemies' encroachments; and shall join, in the way of truth and duty, with all who do, and in so for as they do, adhere to the institutions of christ. and because many have labored to supplant the liberties of the true kirk, and have in a great measure, of late by indulgences and toleration, and now by oaths of allegiance and abjuration, and encroaching on the freedom of christ's courts, obtained their design: we shall therefore, to our power withstand and witness against all these encroachments made upon the liberties of christ's church in our land, and when we can do no more, shall withdraw our countenance and concurrence from such as hold their freedom from, and are modified by such usurpation; and shall neither hear their sermons, nor pay them stipends, while they continue unfaithful; and shall, whenever god gives us opportunity, endeavor to recover, and when recovered, to maintain and defend the liberties and privileges of the church of scotland, against all who shall oppose or undermine the same, or encroach thereupon, under any pretext whatsoever. with reference to the third article, wherein we are bound to defend the privileges of the parliament, liberties of the kingdoms, and the king's majesty's person and authority, in the defence of the true reformed religion: albeit god, in his righteous judgment, hath left the nations so far to the counsels of their own hearts, as to suffer them to set up magistrates, wanting the qualifications requisite, and to fill places of power and trust with insufficient and disaffected persons, who have no respect to the interest of religion, and this nation in particular to give up the rights and privileges of parliament, and kingdom, to the will and lust of the english, and so to betray the interest both of religion and civil liberty for unworthy by-ends; yet we purpose and promise, that we shall always in our capacities bear witness against these courses, and shall not by any means corroborate them, or encourage and countenance the maintainers and abettors of them. and if ever the lord in his mercy shall be pleased to open a door of relief, and break the cords of the ungodly, we shall not be wanting in all lawful and suitable endeavors to promote, to our power, the recovery of that liberty and freedom which we have lost, and to have those acts and oaths, which impede reformation, rescinded: and that all the righteous laws, made in favor of the covenanted reformation, may be put in full force, and duly executed. we shall earnestly pray to god that he would give us able men, men of truth, fearing god and hating covetousness, to bear charge over his people, and that all places of power and trust in church, state, or army, may consist of, and be filled with men of known good affection to the cause of god, and of a christian and blameless conversation; and when it shall please the lord to give us such magistrates and judges supreme and subordinate, then we will, in the terms of the covenant, yield allegiance to them, and loyally subject to their good government, not from any by-end or sinistrous principle, but out of sincere obedience to god's commandment; and shall willingly support and defend them, with our estates and lives, in their persevering and defending the true reformed protestant religion, in doctrine, worship, discipline and government, and suppressing all kinds of false religion in their dominions, and in the administration of justice and punishment of iniquity; but while the lord, in his just displeasure for our sins, withholds such from us, we intend to wait till he turn away his anger, and not to stretch forth our hands to iniquity, in owning and countenancing such as are not duly qualified; as, particularly, those that are popish or prelatical in their professed principle and practice, and by oaths engage themselves to maintain, and accordingly to defend, the prelatical form of church government, who oppose and encroach upon the true government of christ's house by their supremacy, and tolerate sectarian errors in their dominions, and that every one of them supreme and subordinate; and shall not corroborate their unjust authority, by pacing them cess and supply, for upholding their corrupt courts and armies, employed in an unjust and antichristian quarrel; or, by compearing before their judicatories, either to defend or pursue lawsuits, or upon any other account. because we are not in a case to bring to due trial and punishment, condign, according to the merit of their offences, malignants and evil instruments, according to the fourth article; therefore, we shall endeavour to keep ourselves, as far as possible, from any compliance with, or approbation of their cause and courses, opposite to the cause and work of god; and shall endeavour to keep at a distance from everything that may anyways import a unitive conjunction, association, or confederacy with them, or strengthening them in their opposition to the cause of god--the covenanted interest. we shall, through grace, endeavour to represent before the throne of justice their wicked courses; and pray that god would defeat their inventions, though we shall always, as becomes christians, implore the throne of grace for mercy to their souls, so far as it may be consistent with god's eternal purpose of electing love. moreover, we shall always endeavour to guard against all unwarrantable and irregular ways, not approven in god's word, of punishing malignants and incendiaries, for their opposition to reformation. whereas, in the fifth article, we are bound to endeavour, that the kingdoms may remain united in a most firm peace and union to all posterity; which union did consist in a uniformity in doctrine, worship, discipline and government, though, as was said, it is now laid aside, and a union entered into which establishes multiformity therein, and so is the opposite of this covenanted union. we shall, therefore, deny our consent unto, and approbation of this union, and shall, as we have in weakness been witnessing against it formerly, so continue to do for the future, and shall not corroborate or strengthen the same; but upon the contrary, if the lord afford opportunity, shall do our utmost to have the _union of the kingdoms settled_ upon the true covenanted basis; and shall lay out ourselves, as far as possible, to entertain correspondence and sympathy with every one in the kingdoms of england and ireland, who do, or shall, to our knowledge, adhere to this league and covenant. according to the sixth article, considering what danger we and all our brethren, under the bond and owning the obligation of these covenants, are in, and may be exposed unto, from the popish and prelatical malignant faction still prevailing, and from this backslidden church; and being sensible of the many defects which have been amongst us, in the duty of defending and assisting one another in maintaining the common cause of religion and liberty, we do here solemnly enter into a bond of association with all that do now renew these covenants, "with the acknowledgement of the public sins and breeches, and the engagement of duties thereof, and concert and assert the old covenanted cause and quarrel," as our fathers stated and contended for it, from the year to the year . which cause of the covenanted reformation in doctrine, worship, discipline and government, and all interests, or rights, religious or civil, contended for during the foresaid space of years, conducing to promote the same, we faithfully promise to prosecute, propagate, preserve and maintain, to the utmost of our power, with our lives and all that we have; and to adhere to all the faithful testimonies, protestations and declarations, in the defence of the foresaid covenanted reformation, agreeable to, and founded on god's word, ever since the foresaid year , not regarding the foul aspersions of rebellion, combination or schism, or what else our adversaries, from their craft and malice, would put upon us; seeing what we do is so well warranted, and ariseth from an unfeigned desire to maintain the true religion, to obtain the protection and preserve the honour of righteous government, and promote the peace and happiness of the kingdoms. and for the better performance of what we here engage to, we shall sympathize, bear all burdens, embark our interest with, assist and defend all those, who enter into, or join this association and covenant, and shall reckon whatsoever is done to the least of us, for this cause, as done to us all in general and to every one of us in particular: and shall account it a breach of covenant, if seeing our brethren pursued for this very cause, and having sufficient means to comfort and assist them, any of us shall either make peace with the persecutors, bind up their hands by oaths and bonds from resisting them, refuse to hide, harbor, or supply their brethren, decline to venture, in lawful and necessary attempts for their relief, or withdraw from their dutiful support; and being thus united and associated in this cause, as we resolve and oblige ourselves to abide in this firm conjunction, and neither consent nor concede to any combination or counsel, suggestion, persuasion, allurement or terror, that may have any known tendency or influence, whether direct or indirect, to seduce us either to a division amongst ourselves, or defection to our adversaries, or a base indifferency and neutrality between the two; but shall, with all zeal, fidelity and constancy, communicate our best help, counsel and concurrence, for promoting all resolutions, which by common consent shall be found to conduce to the good of the cause, and shall endeavor to discover, oppose and suppress, all contrivances or counsels, that may cast in any let or impediment, that may be obstructive or prejudicial to the same. so we shall likewise desire, design and endeavor, (whenever the lord in his providence shall offer opportunity) to get the defections, unworthy neutralities, and unhappy divisions, which have long and lamentably wounded, and wrecked this church, removed and remedied. and shall be willing, with all tender sympathy and compassion, to embrace and welcome with the utmost bowels of kindness and respect that we can, all who shall confess and forsake these defections, and according to their stations, as ministers or private christians, shall, by all proper means, labor to satisfy the conscience of the godly, that are through these defections and scandals justly offended, and that according to the rules of christ, delivered in his word, and received in this church, in her reforming times, and join cordially with us in the prosecution of this cause; and we shall be willing also, at their desire, to acknowledge and forsake, for peace and unity, whatever we can rationally be convinced to be bad in our conduct and management, as we must acknowledge, that in all things we fail, and come exceedingly short of that perfection, which we should and would be at. and because there be many who heretofore have not made conscience of the oath of god--but some, through fear, others by persuasion, and upon base ends, and human interests, have entered thereinto, who have afterwards discovered themselves to have dealt deceitfully with the lord, in swearing falsely by his name; therefore, we, who do now renew our covenants with reference to these duties, and all other duties contained therein, do, in the sight of him who is the searcher of hearts, solemnly profess, that it is not upon any politic advantage, or private interest, or by-end, or because of any terror or persuasion from men, or hypocritically or deceitfully, that we do again take upon us the oath of god; but honestly and sincerely, and from the sense of our duty. and that, therefore, denying ourselves and our own things, and, laying aside all-self interests and ends, we shall, above all things, seek the honour of god, the good of his cause, and the wealth of his people; and that, forsaking the counsels of flesh and blood, and not leaning upon carnal confidences, we shall depend upon the lord, walk by the rule of his word, and hearken to the voice of his servants. in all which, professing our own weakness, we do earnestly pray to god who is the father of mercies, through his son jesus christ, to be merciful unto us, and to enable us, by the power of his might, that we may do our duty, unto the praise of his grace in the churches. amen. footnotes: [footnote : in the preface to this edition, the reader may perceive the same spirit in . | ed.] [footnote : the lawful supreme magistrate.] [footnote : the persons and authority of such, when god of his mercy shall grant them to us.] [footnote : king charles the first.] [footnote : remonstrances, declarations and testimonies of old, and of late.] [footnote : or any other corruptions thereof, prelatic or erastian, either tried or to be tried; such as indulgence, the toleration, the magistrates appointing fasts without advice and consent of the church, dissolving assemblies, &c.] [footnote : remonstrances, declarations and testimonies.] [footnote : to righteous governors, (when obtained), and to our country.] [footnote : the lawful supreme magistrate's.] [footnote : the person and authority of sovereigns having the qualifications which the scriptures require.] [footnote : the lawful supreme magistrate's.] [footnote : the lawful supreme magistrate.] [footnote : lawful supreme magistrates.] [footnote : anno .] [footnote : lawful supreme magistrates.] [footnote : after all supplications, remonstrances protestations and sufferings of our fathers, and our own grievous sufferings and contendings both before and since the late revolution.] [footnote : when restored, according to their ancient foundation.] [footnote : the lawful supreme magistrate's.] [footnote : the lawful magistrate's.] [footnote : the lawful magistrate, when obtained.] [footnote : our reformers.] [footnote : as they were then.] [footnote : the lawful supreme magistrate.] [footnote : such as the curate of carsphairn, and some others. but it is to be noted, that this sentence is not meant of those who either designed or actually executed that act of extraordinary justice upon the archbishop of st. andrews, who being an arch-traitor, and public incendiary, and implacable enemy to the work of god, and all the godly in the kingdom, was therefore justly put to death; though (because of the defect of justice in those that had authority,) the act, in respect of the persons executing, was singular and extraordinary. see the same vindicated, _hind let loose_, head vi., page , &c.] [footnote : ezek. vii. . but they that escape of them shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the vallies, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity.] [footnote : ezek. ix. .----set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.] [footnote : matt. xxii. . but they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise.] [footnote : tim. vi. . that thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our lord jesus christ.] [footnote : tim. lii. . having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.] [footnote : eph. in. . that christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.----col. ii. . as ye have therefore received christ jesus the lord, so walk ye in him.] [footnote : col. i. . that ye might walk worthy of the lord unto all pleasing.] [footnote : thes. ii. , , . because they received not the love of the truth----for this cause god shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie. that they all might be damned, who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.] [footnote : josh. xxiv. .----but as for me and my house, we will serve the lord. gen. xviii. . for i know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the lord, to do justice and judgment.] [footnote : tim. iii. ----that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of god.----] [footnote : psal. ci . i will walk within my house with a perfect heart. jer. vii. . thus saith the lord of hosts, the god of israel; amend your ways and your doings, and i will cause you to dwell in this place. isa. i. , ; _cease to_ do evil. learn to do well.----] [footnote : jer. . . remove out of the midst of babylon, and go forth out of the land of the chaldeans, and be ye as the he goats before the flocks.] [footnote : zech. i . turn ye unto me, saith the lord of hosts, and i will turn unto you, saith the lord of hosts. psal. lxxxv. . thou hast taken away all thy wrath; thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger. verse th. turn us, o god of our salvation and cause thine anger towards us to cease] [footnote : psal. lxxxv. , . surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him; that glory may dwell in our land. mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. isa. xxxii. . and the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever. zech. viii. ----therefore love the truth and peace.] [footnote : note. the confession of faith is here adhered to, as it was received and approven by the general assembly of this church, by their act of the th of aug. , sess. , the d article of the st chap, being understood, as explained in that act, and the th sect, of the d chap, being understood, as it is explained in our informatory vindication, page , d edition.] [typographical errors excepted, and _historical introduction_ substituted for _preface_, this edition agrees with those of paisley, , and belfast, .--ed.] act of covenant renovation, agreed upon at philadelphia, october , , by the reformed presbytery, after the approved example of our fathers, at auchensaugh, , and accommodated to the present time. * * * * * "i have sworn, and i will perform it, that i will keep thy righteous judgments."--_psalms_ cxix: . "they (egyptians) shall vow a vow unto the lord, and perform it."--_is_. xix: . the corinthians "first gave their own selves to the lord."--_ cor_. viii: . covenant renovation. vow, and pay unto the lord your god.--_ps_. lxxvi: ii. preface. having in prospect a united, public and solemn approach to our covenant god, some important principles should be understood, that we may proceed with intelligence and have sure ground for our faith. "god is love;" and reciprocal love constitutes "the bond of perfectness" between god and rational creatures. communion with god is the supreme felicity and highest honor of which angels and men are capable. the first emanation of divine love revealed to us was displayed in the covenant of works; although not called a covenant, the narrative contains all the elements essential to a federal deed, comprising a summary of the whole moral law. thus the sovereign love of god was manifested through the medium of law and covenant inseparably combined; and this is the lord's manner of dealing with mankind till the present time. that covenant was made with us in adam as our common father and public representative. by the breach of it we are born in adam's image and "children of wrath;" for the principle of representative identification pervades the moral universe. our rational and social nature fits us both for personal and federal responsibility. when we had "destroyed ourselves" by apostasy from god, then did god "show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through christ jesus." the gift of his son to be a covenant head to sinners is god's highest, and most glorious demonstration of his ineffable love. the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of the love of christ passeth knowledge; and the displays of this love through the covenant of grace will doubtless furnish matter of admiration to holy angels, and of adoring gratitude to redeemed sinners throughout eternity. rev. i: , . ever since our fall in adam god has dealt with our sinful race by covenant. this covenant was made with christ as mediator between god and man, and as the representative of all whom the father gave him to be redeemed and brought to glory. john xvii: . accordingly, the lord jesus, immediately on the fall of our first parents, entered upon his work of mediation. to them first he announced his commission, declaring his purpose to "bruise the serpent's head--to destroy the works of the devil." gen. iii: ; john iii: . christ is given "for a witness to the people; a leader and commander to the people; to have power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as the father hath given him." throughout the whole of the mediatorial administration the law and the covenant are distinct, though inseparably connected: and although many covenants are mentioned in the scriptures, and even distinguished as _old_ and _new_. jer. xxxi: ; heb. viii: ; yet we must understand these as only different and successive modes of administering one and the same covenant of grace. this covenant was proclaimed before the deluge by prophets, as enoch and noah; after the flood by patriarchs; then by the ministry of moses and other prophets, when john the baptist and the messiah in person proclaimed it; and from the day of pentecost till the end of the world is the last dispensation--still, the covenant is immutably the same. the most solemn and memorable act of covenanting with god was at horeb, otherwise called sinai, when the israelites were first and formally organized in ecclesiastical and civil relations. then "judah was his sanctuary, and israel his dominion." ps. cxiv: . besides circumcision and the passover, both of which involved covenant obligation, god instituted the additional ordinance of public and social federal transaction, that the whole body might glorify him by a united act of solemn dedication as his special property separated visibly from the world. is. lxiii: . and that this is a moral ordinance, and of perpetual obligation, is evident from the practice of god's people, both under the old and new testament, and the language of prophecy. deut. xxix: - ; cor. viii: ; is. xliv: . again, when we renew our covenant, we do not mean that the obligation has ceased, or that we can increase its obligation, for this is infinite and permanent; we intend by our personal act to deepen and render more durable our sense of preexisting obligation. this is, indeed, the immediate object of all renovations, by moses, joshua, kings of judah and nehemiah. and as we have seen, this ordinance was observed by christians in the time of the apostles, so their practice may be traced through history afterwards, however obscure, until the time of the reformation from popery; when in europe, both continental and insular, this ordinance was revived and exemplified. among all nations in christendom scotland stands preeminent since first emancipated from bondage in mystical babylon, for the frequency and fidelity of her ecclesiastical and national vows to the most high. after many struggles with popery and prelacy, during which christ's witnesses in that land derived strength and courage from vows renewed to withstand these organized oppressors; at length by their example and influence the kingdoms of england and ireland were brought into a confederation by that famous and grand document, the solemn league and covenant. taken in connection with the national covenant of scotland, those three nations and the churches in them were voluntarily bound to god and to each other by all the solemnity of cords and bands made in heaven. yet, through the corruption of human nature and the restless malice of the dragon and his angels, these bands were treacherously broken and the cords cast away. although those symbols of the public faith were scriptural documents, yet the reformation as truly described by the late mr. robert lusk, was to the majority "a reformation only on paper." like israel of old the hearts of most of the people were not right with god, neither were they steadfast in his covenant. ps. lxxviii: . this was soon made manifest by the public resolutions, accepting indulgences, and the subsequent twenty-eight years of persecution inflicted upon those who "stood to the covenant." then followed, in , what the apostates called, and their successors still fondly hail, as the "glorious revolution settlement!"--a settlement which, by forms of law, consigned the nations' solemn vows to oblivion, with all possible expressions of detestation by the infamous "act rescissory." in the year , the "act of incorporation" brought the church and kingdom of scotland under degrading bondage to the anti-christian, prelatic and erastian throne of britain. while these steps of apostasy were in progress, the lord preserved a "wasted remnant" of witnesses, who "resisted unto blood striving against sin." these valiant christian patriots--"the society people"--kept themselves and their garments clean, and kept also the word of christ's patience. they never were _dissenters_, nor properly called the "old dissenters." during this hour of temptation they were destitute of the help and guidance of a public ministry. at length, in the year , mr. john m'millan, wearing the honorable badges of suspension and deposition, imposed by his apostate brethren for advocating in their assembly the continued obligation of the covenants. national and solemn league, (is. lxvi: ,) was joyfully received as their minister by the voice of the society people. in the year , at auchensaugh, mr. m'millan, with the assistance of mr. john m'neil, licentiate, "resolved to set about this solemn and tremendous duty of renewing their national covenants with god." their mode of procedure was scriptural, following the examples of moses and others to nehemiah--"the footsteps of the flock." they framed three papers, history, confession and engagement. the text of the covenants of our fathers was left entire, only some explanatory words and phrases being placed in the margin. these explanations were then necessary to clear that question of questions--"shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee?"--a question to be finally settled only at the sounding of the last apocalyptic trumpet. rev. xi: . that transaction was ever after incorporated with the terms of communion. some years after this transaction another renovation took place in scotland, at a locality called crawford-john; but no attainments were then made, nor has any authentic record of the proceedings been transmitted to posterity. also the seceders, soon after their erection as a distinct organization in scotland, and repeatedly since in britain and america, by public covenanting have contributed to the preservation of sound doctrine and christian practice. we cannot, however, accord to them the honor of being the successors of the covenanted witnesses, which they unwarrantably claim, seeing that they disowned the "civil part" of the public covenants, and thus unwittingly, we charitably believe, passed an implied censure on the one lawgiver for having given us a second table in the moral law! we merely refer to the octoraro transaction, ( ,) conducted by that unstable minister, mr. craighead, as being unworthy of anything more than historical notice. the two most noteworthy instances of avowed covenant-renovation within the present century are those at dervock, ireland, in , and in pittsburg, pennsylvania, in ; and we class them together, because however the respective documents differ in their provisions, and in our judgment some of these are irreconcilable, yet the parties have ever since agreed to coalesce. reference is here made only to a sample of _essential_ discrepancies. in the dervock bond the british covenants are expressly mentioned and owned; in the pittsburg bond they are neither owned nor mentioned, although both were urged at the time, while they were openly vilified without rebuke. in the former prelacy is abjured, in the latter it is not so much as named. the fourth article of the former is irreconcilable with the fourth article of the latter. the former is limited by _recognized truth_; the latter substitutes for truth _supposed piety_. but since these two parties, in the face of such antagonistic fundamental principles, do actually harmonize in practice, coming down to treat with opposing parties in the plain of ono, their example of treachery in covenant can be regarded only as a beacon of warning. strictly speaking, no new obligation has been imposed or assumed since the law was given at sinai. we are to "keep the words of the covenant, the ten commandments." this is just what christ still enjoins upon his disciples--"teaching them to observe all things whatsoever i have commanded you." the footsteps of christ's flock differ nothing now from what they were in the days of solomon. some turn back into egypt, while others turn aside with the "flocks of the companions to right-hand extremes or left-hand defections"; for the harlot's "ways are moveable that thou canst not know them," and we are warned--"come not near the door of her house." the federal deeds which we propose to renew are, of course, those of our witnessing fathers, the national covenant of scotland and the solemn league of scotland, england and ireland, adapting these public deeds to our time, and comprising all preceding and subsequent attainments, as was done by our predecessors at auchensaugh. our condition and surroundings are in many respects similar to theirs. "their soul was exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that were at ease, and with the contempt of the proud"; but they were also exposed to many perils from the existing ecclesiastical and civil authorities which they publicly disowned. all inspired records of public vows to god by his united people, from the time of moses to nehemiah, contained a synopsis of special providence towards themselves and others, of sins, mercies and judgments; and these were motives to this special duty, though not a rule--"and because of all this we make a sure covenant and write it." after these examples, which we judge "written for our learning," we renew our own and our ancestors' covenants, neither ecclesiastically nor nationally as representatives of either church or state, as they are now confederated against the lord and his anointed: but we appear publicly as a "despised remnant," avowing allegiance to zion's only king and "prince of the kings of the earth," pledging adherence to those public deeds of our progenitors, in which the divine ordinances of church and state are exhibited; and in which they are exemplified as co-ordinate, mutually independent, friendly, and helpful to the family and to each other. thus acted the people of god under the covenant of grace in all ages; and so acted his servants at auchensaugh, whose more immediate example we propose to follow. * * * * * confession of public sins. all authentic history confirms the declaration of the sacred scriptures, that by one man sin entered into the world, and that there is not a just man upon earth that doeth good and sinneth not. yet there is mercy with god that he may be feared, and plenteous redemption to redeem israel from all his trespasses. but we are assured that "he that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy." believing these teachings of god's word, and in view of renewing solemn vows to him, we now give glory to the lord god of israel by making confession of our own and our fathers' sins in violating our solemn covenants. we acknowledge the heinous sins of repeated violation of our covenanted unity--_first_, by joining in a military confederacy with the american colonies in the revolutionary war of . _second_, joining in a similar confederacy with irish papists and others to cast off the british government in . _third_, in a similar confederacy in the war between the united states and england in . _fourth_, by the like military association in the recent civil war: and these sins were aggravated by framing oaths of allegiance or fidelity in the years and . some of those who had violated their covenants by military association with the united irishmen fled for refuge to the united states; and without undergoing censure became active agents in constituting a presbytery without authority had from the parent body in scotland, ; and proceeded in to frame and publish _reformation principles exhibited_, a work which removed landmarks which the fathers had set; and which with an abstract of terms of communion unpresbyterially introduced, unsettled the foundations and issued in the lamentable disruption of . in scotland the leaders of the people caused them to err by changing the terms of communion in the year , and the testimony in . while these changes were made in the covenanted church's organic law some of the most popular and influential ministers--theological professors, were publicly transgressing our covenants by joining in affinity with divers confederacies for moral reform. doctor andrew symington, the most influential minister in the synod did actually and publicly co-operate with the evangelical alliance; and in the same professor was among the foremost in projecting a plan for a "concert of prayer," by diverse sorts of professors, those of the established church of scotland being expressly mentioned. no wonder the hesitating _covenanter_ ventured at least to express preferance for "more generally small meetings for prayer, to a large number of christians of different names." this kind of amalgamation being contrary to scripture was a breach also of the solemn league, the sixth article of which was evidently designed by our fathers to prevent such social sins under the name of religion. the theological seminary in scotland, as a corrupt fountain, polluted all the streams, the ministers taking the lead in the defection, as is now manifested to the world. all along our history in scotland, ireland and america, the sin of the antediluvians and of israel after the flesh has been imitated by us--joining with the known enemies of truth and righteousness, in the face of many fearful judgments for such breaches of solemn vows. the ministers took the lead in joining and inducing others to join the colonization society, a scheme for the removal of colored freedmen from among the bondmen, that slavery might be more secure and more certainly perpetuated by removing the disturbing element; and all this under the guise of evangelizing africa! the general synod which had unanimously patronized that scheme in , discovering the deception, did in , by a majority transfer its patronage to the rival cause of abolition, thus continuing and persevering in the same transgression, from which they are not reclaimed to this day. about the same time when we were ensnared in these unscriptural confederacies, occasional hearing naturally became developed in a sabbath-school, which for a short time was conducted jointly by three denominations in pittsburgh--covenanters, seceders and associate reformed, violating our covenanted unity and erecting an unauthorized agency for spiritual instruction. the general synod did, in , abolish its own deligation form and the subordinate synods in violation of conventional law and presbyterial order, and still continues to adhere to this two-fold breach of the brotherly covenant. that body, carrying on defection, joined in military association as noticed above, during the late civil war between the union and confederate armies, framing an "oath of fidelity," and thus profaning a divine ordinance by pledging themselves to enforce an atheistical constitution and execute the laws: and some of them glory in their shame and boast of this flagrant and complicated breach of solemn vows to the contrary. while recognizing many precious principles embodied in the dorvock bond, we cannot give it our approbation as an adequate renovation of our national covenant and solemn league, because it not only omits but obviously excludes the form of presbyterial church government and the directory for public worship, and seems to substitute for these the testimony which is incompatible with that of ; although the two documents above named were received by our general assembly of scotland as "part of the uniformity" to which we are bound in the solemn league. and besides, all their symbols of faith mentioned in the dervock transaction as subordinate, are owned only as "_doctrinal_ standards," thus leaving at loose ends individual and social christian _practice_. this document is therefore a defective, evasive, and consequently inadequate renovation of our covenants. the sound principles comprised in the pittsburgh bond are still more palpably rendered nugatory by contradictions, manifold evasions and ambiguous phrases; such as "accepted manuals, our fathers' covenants," etc.; while the solemn pledge to "maintain christian friendship with pious men of every name, and to feel and act as one with all in every land who pursue this grand end "--an _undefined_ end--would overthrow, if this were possible, the whole scriptural fabric of our presbyterial covenanted reformation. treachery and perfidy, not to say perjury, are bound up in the pittsburgh bond, especially in pledging themselves to the performance of civil duties "not forbidden in the law of god." some of the native fruits of this transaction, tending still more to corrupt themselves and others are the continual practice of occasional hearing, exchange of pulpits and correspondence by delegation. this body has placed itself under the authority of the pennsylvania legislature, having petitioned for and obtained an act of incorporation, and having voluntarily submitted to the erastian civil jurisdiction of the state of pennsylvania and of the united states. the civil charter expressly institutes and appoints its trustees to be regulated and limited in the exercise of the functions of their respective offices by the constitutions of pennsylvania and of the nation. their bond prepared the way for this more gross and practical surrender of all that is distinctive in our covenanted position. and finally, so far as we know all parties in the three lands claiming to be reformed presbyterians, have for years renounced those provisions of our directory which require the lines to be read in public praise to god, and the banns to be proclaimed before marriage. the nations throughout christendom, continue in league with antichrist and give their strength to the beast. they still refuse to profess and defend the true religion in doctrine, worship, government and discipline, contrary to the example of the kingdoms of scotland, england and ireland in the seventeenth century. some of them have waged wars of conquest, under pretence of opening a way for the spread of the gospel; and disregarding international law, have violated solemn treaties among themselves, and all of them practically disregard divine authority; habitually profaning the christian sabbath, by carrying the mail, by commercial traffic, and parties of pleasure on land and water. acknowledging the righteousness of divine judgment upon ourselves and others for manifold violations of god's law and breaches of our own and our fathers' solemn vows in our domestic, ecclesiastical and civil relations; we desire to humble ourselves before god for these sins, and for others not contained in this enumeration. seeing that god hath punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and hath left us a small remnant in his sovereign mercy, our prayer to him is that he may enable us by his grace to bring forth fruits meet for repentance, to the glory of his great and holy name, and the commendation of his pardoning mercy. * * * * * act of adherence to our covenants. national and solemn league; as adapted to the present time. we, office-bearers and members of the reformed presbyterian church, convinced by the word and spirit of god of our guilt and depravity by our breach of covenant in adam; of utter inability to save ourselves from the ruins of the falls or its just penal consequences; desiring moreover to bless, the lord, that when we were yet without strength christ died for the ungodly; that a door of faith has been opened to the gentiles, and repentance unto life granted to such; taking our warrant and encouragement from god alone, with our hands lifted up toward him:--do swear by his great and fearful name as the lord our god, that-- i. we accept god in christ for ourselves and our children as offered to us in the gospel, to be our everlasting portion; and we joyfully surrender ourselves and our all to him as his rightful and exclusive property. we cordially approve the covenant of grace, and embrace it as all our salvation and all our desire. dead to the law as a covenant of works, we cheerfully receive it from christ's hand as our perfect rule of life, to direct our personal and social conduct. aiming to glorify god as our chief end, and to do good unto all men as we have opportunity--especially to the household of faith--we promise in the strength of divine grace to search the scriptures, conforming heart and life to this standard, in constant opposition to the course of this world, exemplifying godliness and honesty before men all our days. ii. set for the defence of the gospel, and under manifold obligations to contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered to the saints, we acknowledge the scriptures of the old and new testament to be the word of god and the alone infallible rule of faith and manners, rejecting any and all additions or subtractions, false translations, perverting or wresting them to men's destruction. we own also, as subordinate standards of faith and practice of doctrine and order, the national covenant and solemn league: as also the westminster formularies, well known by their names--viz., the confession of faith, the larger and shorter catechisms, form of church government, and directory of public worship; as these were received respectively by the church of scotland in the years , ' , and ' , not merely as "_doctrinal_ standards," but as symbols, all of them, of christian practice also, and as a part of the uniformity sworn to in the solemn league. we adhere to the renovation of the national covenants at auchensaugh, , as comprising the same grand scriptural principles with the original deeds, and preserving the identity of the moral person, which became more visible in by a judicial testimony, re-exhibited in and . we repudiate the renovation at dervock, , as being inadequate, defective, and unfaithful--part of the document couched in abstract, evasive, and equivocal language. also, we condemn and reject the pittsburgh bond, as ambiguous, self-contradictory and treacherous--"a snare on mizpah." we abjure and testify against popery, as delineated by our ancestors in the national covenant, together with the fictitious dogma of the immaculate conception, and the blasphemous assumption by the pope of jehovah's incommunicable prerogative of infallibility. in like manner we reject prelacy, whether erastian or diocesan, as abjured in the national covenant and more explicitly in the solemn league; while in pity for the persons involved in these despotic systems, we will pray and labor for the extirpation of these poisonous plants, and the emancipation of their deluded admirers. we condemn and disown all existing systems which involve the infidel element called voluntaryism, representing the divine ordinances of church and state as mutually inimical or in any way antagonistic, thus impeaching the wisdom of the almighty. iii. believing that the son of god has been, as mediator appointed heir of all things, and invested with universal dominion; that he reigns and must reign till all his impenitent enemies be put under his feet: we pledge ourselves in reliance on divine grace to continue our advocacy of his claims upon the homage and willing obedience of individual and social man, in the family, the church and the civil commonwealth. we will maintain and urge his exclusive right to prescribe the faith and order of the church by his royal authority. we promise to inculcate and exemplify presbyterian church government as alone of divine right and unalterable. believing, moreover, that civil government, originating in the will of god as creator, has been placed by the father under the authority of the mediator, and that the principal objects to be promoted by this divine ordinance are the glory of its author, the welfare of mankind, and the prosperity of the church; we engage to endeavor the reformation of the nations by testifying against all neglect or contempt of messiah's claims, or impious invasion of his rights by either rulers or subjects. in joyful anticipation of the universal reign of righteousness and peace on the earth, we will labor and pray for a gospel ministry and a scriptural magistracy; testifying against all corruptions of these or substitutes for them. persuaded of the adaptation and sufficiency of divine ordinances to effect reformation, we will refuse to identify or incorporate with any substitutes for these, or to co-operate with voluntary associations for moral reform, whether secret and sworn, or open and pledged, as these imply want of faith in divine ordinances, and in the wisdom and beneficence of our covenant god. iv. believing that the christian church is one by her divine constitution, and lamenting existing divisions among the children of god; recognizing the obligation upon us to love the brotherhood, we will endeavor to cultivate charity in private intercourse towards all who reflect the divine image; and help to elevate them to the platform of the covenanted reformation as our only recognized bond of organic and ministerial church-fellowship. nor will we, in reliance upon the promised and continued supplies of the spirit of jesus christ, permit ourselves to be divided from this our covenanted unity and uniformity by the promises, threats, or solicitations of surrounding communities. through divine grace we will endeavor, by practical manifestation of the truth, to commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of god, as the most effectual means of healing zion's breaches, that are great like the sea. v. having learned from god's word that all who live godly in christ jesus shall suffer persecution, in their character, in their substance, or in their persons; and knowing from the recorded history of those who nobly stood to their covenant that they were subjected to all these kinds of suffering; and since our sovereign lord in his holy providence for the trial of the patience and faith of his saints permits antichrist to practice and prosper, the kings of the earth still giving their strength unto the beast: we therefore, anticipating like treatment from an opposing world wherever we may sojourn, resolve in his strength to follow the lamb, whithersoever he goeth, as our leader, endeavoring so to diffuse the sweet savor of his name, that in due time and in every land men shall be blessed in him, and all nations shall call him blessed. vi. finally, this solemn renewal of our federal obligations we confirm by oath in the presence of the omniscient god, who searcheth our hearts, uninfluenced by any selfish, worldly, politic, or carnal motives or ends; but singly with a view to the glory of god and the temporal and eternal welfare of our fellow-men; beseeching our father in heaven for christ's sake so to furnish us with the gifts and graces of his holy spirit, that we may prove faithful unto death, and joyfully welcome, the glorious appearing of our final and chosen judge. and in testimony of our desires, and assurance to be heard, we say--amen. [illustration] the life of james renwick a historical sketch of his life, labours and martyrdom and a vindication of his character and testimony. _by thomas houston, d.d._ originally this life was written as an introduction to "the letters of renwick" published by alex. gardner, paisley, . cover picture: execution of james renwick, edinburgh, . historical introduction. the prophet's message to eli, "wherefore the lord god of israel said * * * them that honour me, i will honour," ( sam. ii. ,) declares a fundamental law of the divine government, which the history alike of individuals and of communities has illustrated in all by-past ages. the works of many men of eminent talent and remarkable energy--admired in their own day,--have speedily passed into oblivion, or have been productive of few permanently salutary results. despising god, "they have been lightly esteemed." those, on the other hand, who honoured god, and were devoted to his service--however humble their talents or position in society,--however contemned and persecuted by the world--have been honoured of god. their labours have been accepted to advance his glory in the earth--their memories have continued long fragrant, and their principles and character have furnished the most valuable instruction and the brightest examples to future generations. of this we have a striking instance in james renwick,--the last, and in various respects the most illustrious of the scottish martyrs of the seventeenth century. hated and persecuted in his own day, by the men in authority in church and state--caluminated and reproached by ministers and others, who professed evangelical sentiments and affected piety--and his principles generally misrepresented and condemned even to our own day,--there is yet abundant evidence to show that the master whom he faithfully served, and for whose cause he willingly surrendered his life, singularly owned and honoured him. his faithful contendings and arduous labours contributed not a little to subvert the throne of a bigot and tyrant, and to achieve the nation's liberties. they served also to secure the purity and independence of the church, and to transmit a legacy of imperishable principles to future times, when "the handful of corn" upon the top of the mountains, "shall shake with fruit like lebanon." scant and fragmentary as are the memorials of renwick--clothed in the most homely garb, and written with no artistic skill, they have yet been the means of nurturing vital piety in many a humble breast and household, in these and other countries, from the martyr era, to our own day; and not a few of the most devoted ministers, who have earnestly contended for precious truth, and been wise to win souls to christ, have received from the record of the labours and sufferings and testimony of renwick, some of their first solemn impressions for good, and propelling motives to holy diligence and self-devotion. as the story of joseph in the old testament has been remarkably blessed, above other parts of the divine word, for promoting the conversion and early piety of the young, so the unadorned narrative of the life, labours, and death of the youthful scottish martyr, has led not a few to prefer the cause and reproach of christ to the world's favour--to imbibe his spirit, and to imitate him, in seeking ends the most important and glorious. renwick's work in the church is not yet fully accomplished, nor is the influence of his name losing its attractive power. on the contrary, there is evidence, increasing as it is cheering, that while the one is drawing to it more earnest regard and willing workers, the other is constantly becoming more powerful and widespread. let any person compare the manner in which the later scottish martyrs--renwick and the society people,--were spoken of in the histories, civil and ecclesiastical, emitted in these countries, forty or fifty years ago, with the altered tone of historians of a recent date, and he will see that posterity is beginning to do tardy justice to the memories of men of whom "the world was not worthy,"--- who were the noblest, most disinterested patriots of which their country could ever boast, and whose services to the cause of pure and undefined religion were invaluable. occasionally, we yet find, in the works of some popular writers, renwick and his fellow-sufferers, designated enthusiasts and fanatics, their principles misrepresented, and some of their most heroic deeds held up to ridicule and scorn. even the brilliant macaulay, while exposing to deserved condemnation their cruel and heartless persecutors, and while depicting with graphic power some of the incidents of the deaths of the scottish martyrs, yet shews his strong aversion to evangelical principle and godly practice, by applying to the honest confessors the same opprobrious epithets. the age in which the martyrs and their principles were kept entombed, by heaping on them reproach and slander, is past, however, not to return again. their names are destined not to perish. god designs in his providence to honour them more and more, by bringing more clearly to light the great principles for which they contended unto blood, striving against sin. the era long predicted and desired is approaching, when the saints shall rise to reign with christ on the earth, when the spirit which distinguished them shall be extensively revived, and the great principles of their testimony shall be triumphant. meanwhile, the resurrection of the _names_ of the confessors and martyrs of a former age, is a sure indication of the resurrection of their principles too. through the evidence furnished by the faithful contendings and devoted lives of men of sanctified wisdom and high-toned piety, and the light reflected from the story of their sufferings and triumphant deaths, we cannot doubt that numbers will be led to earnest inquiry concerning the principles for which they testified in life, and in confirmation of which they willingly laid down their lives, that they might transmit the precious heritage to future generations. the result will be a wider appreciation of the value and excellency of a martyr-testimony; and in the period of promised light and enlargement, the lifting up of a standard in many places, and by strong hands, in behalf of the same great principles. as prefatory to the memorials of the piety, wisdom, and devotedness of the martyr renwick, it appears desirable to present a brief sketch of his personal history--to notice the particular time in which he laboured, and the principles for which he contended,--his martyrdom, character, and the distinct and honourable position assigned him in the great work of maintaining and advancing the redeemer's cause in the earth. renwick's life james renwick was the child of godly parents in humble life. his father, andrew renwick, was a weaver, and his mother, elizabeth corson, is especially mentioned, like the mother and grandmother of timothy, or like monica, the mother of augustine, as a woman of strong faith, and eminently prayerful. as several of her children had died in infancy, she earnestly sought that the lord would give her a child, who would not only be an heir of glory, but who might live to serve god in his generation. her prayer was heard and graciously answered. the son of her vows was born at moniaive, in the parish of glencairn, gallowayshire, on the th of february, . his father died before he reached the age of fourteen, but not before he felt assured--probably from observing in the boy remarkable indications of early piety--that, though his course on earth would be short, the lord would make singular use of him in his service. the early training of this distinguished martyr was, in a great measure, through the instrumentality of a devoted mother, who could boast of no worldly affluence or accomplishments, but whose heart was richly pervaded by the grace of the spirit, and intensely concerned for the saviour's glory; and who, in times of great difficulty and great trial, maintained unwavering confidence in the faithful word of promise. if james renwick was not "sanctified from the womb," there was clear evidence afforded, that, in early childhood, he was the subject of gracious motions of the spirit. at two years of age, he was observed to be aiming at secret prayer; and as his childhood advanced, he evinced love to the ways of god, by reading and pondering the scriptures, delight in secret prayer, and by reverential regard to the authority of his parents. like luther, and other eminent servants of god, renwick was trained for his life-work in the school of _temptation_; he experienced painful mental conflicts, and the assaults of the tempter, at a very early period. it is recorded that, at six years of age, he was conscious of distressing doubts, in relation to the divine existence and perfections. these exercised and agitated his mind for a period of two years. in answer to prayer, and by meditation on the power and goodness of god, as seen in creation, he overcame the temptation, and attained to internal composure and tranquillity. at a time of life considerably subsequent, when he had reached mature youth, and had acquired extensive acquaintance with scriptural truth, a like temptation again assailed him. he himself relates that he fell into deeper perplexity and distress about these fundamental truths. like the excellent robert bruce of the first reformation, he was strongly tempted to atheism. so powerful at one time was the assault, that, being in the fields and looking to the distant mountains, he exclaimed, "were all these devouring furnaces of burning brimstone, he would be content to go through them, if he could thereby be assured of the existence of god." there was at length made for him a way of escape from this severe temptation, and not only did he attain to a full and joyful persuasion of god's existence, but to the assurance of his personal interest in god as his covenant portion. james renwick was endowed with a vigorous reflective mind, and from his childhood he was devoted to reading and study. amidst considerable difficulties, he commenced and prosecuted with ardour studies for the ministry. there is ample evidence from his writings that his attainments in learning were by no means superficial. through the kindness of friends raised up in providence, he was enabled to pursue classical studies in edinburgh, and while attending the university there, he maintained himself till he had finished the undergraduate course, partly by teaching and aiding others in their studies. when his scholarship entitled him to a university degree, he refused to receive this honour, because it was required at the time that students, on graduating, should swear the oath of allegiance, which expressly owned the royal supremacy. in company with two fellow-students, he sometime after received his degree privately. continuing in edinburgh to prosecute his studies, he was brought to attend the private fellowship-meetings of the persecuted covenanters. he met with the "outed" ministers, and was led to study, by the light of the divine word and the teaching of the spirit, the exciting and deeply important questions of the day. thus did he become convinced of the numerous defections from the principles and ends of the covenanted reformation, of the majority of the ministers and presbyterian people of scotland; and he was persuaded that the stricter covenanters,--the followers of cargill and cameron, and those associated in societies, and who frequented conventicles,--alone consistently carried out the grand principles and aims of the national vows. at length, after much searching of heart, and according to his words, testifying to his deep conscientiousness, "with great grief, reluctance, and trembling of soul," he became identified with the persecuted remnant. soon after, while yet only _nineteen years of age_, renwick witnessed the martyrdom of the venerable servant of christ, donald cargill. he stood near the scaffold, beheld his courageous and triumphant departure to glory, and heard the clear and powerful last words, in which he nobly testified for the crown-rights of the redeemer, and against erastian usurpation. "as to the causes of my suffering," said the dying martyr, "the chief is--not acknowledging the present authority, as it is established in the supremacy and explanatory act. this is the magistracy i have resisted, that which is invested with christ's power. seeing that power taken from christ, which is his glory, and made the essential of an earthly crown, it seemed to me as if one were wearing my husband's garments, after he had killed him. there is no distinction we can make, that can free the acknowledger from being a partaker of this sacrilegious robbing of god. and it is but to cheat our consciences to acknowledge the _civil power_ alone, that it is of the essence of the crown; and seeing they are so express, we ought to be plain; for otherwise, we deny our testimony and consent that christ be robbed of his glory." these mighty utterances, so solemnly confirmed by the martyr's blood, could not fail to make a deep impression on the heart of the youthful renwick. his purpose was fixed, and his resolution taken, to maintain the same great principles; and reproach and persecution and death could not turn him aside. his christian decision had its reward. he declared that he did not fully know what the gracious presence of god with his people meant, till he joined the fellowship of the persecuted remnant. a large measure of the spirit of the "faithful cargill" rested on his youthful successor; and when, some two years after, he entered on the work of the ministry, it was justly said--"he took up the covenanted banner as it fell from the hands of cargill." at the time that renwick united with the society people, they were destitute of a public ministry. cargill and cameron had sealed their testimony with their blood. the churches were either filled with episcopal curates, or by time-serving presbyterian ministers, who had accepted the indulgence flowing from the royal supremacy. by an act of parliament passed in against "unlawful ordinations," the way to the ministry was barred against all who could not accept prelatical ordination. the societies, having organized a general correspondence, earnestly desired a stated ministry, while they manifested the strictest regard to scriptural order. animated by a noble public spirit, they selected james renwick and two other young men, and sent them to complete their studies for the ministry in holland, then renowned for its theological seminaries, where deep sympathy was manifested for the suffering church of scotland. he studied at the university of groningen, where some of the most distinguished theologians in europe occupied professorial chairs. studying in the spirit of entire devotedness, and actuated by an earnest desire to return to scotland, where there was pressing need for faithful ministerial services, he made such proficiency, that in a short time, he was fully qualified to receive ordination. according to the usage of the dutch church, he was ordained at groningen, by a classis or presbytery of learned and godly ministers, who evinced their catholic spirit by yielding to his request to allow him to subscribe the standards of the church of scotland, instead of their own formula. there was remarkable evidence of god's gracious presence being enjoyed in the solemn service.--it has been appropriately said, that as the conflicts of the german reformation were acted over by luther in his cloister, before he was called to his public work, so the struggles of the covenanted cause in scotland, were first engaged in by renwick in his retirement and solitary chamber in groningen. there he clearly foresaw the conflicts and trials that awaited him; and in near communion with god, he yielded himself up as an entire self-sacrifice, anticipating the blessed recompense of the reward. in the early pagan persecutions, the church was sometimes symbolically represented by an ox with a plough on the one side, and an altar on the other, with the inscription, "ready for either"--prepared for work or slaughter. such was the spirit of renwick, as he looked forward to the work that lay before him in his native land. in a letter written from holland at this time, he says, "my longings and earnest desire to be in that land, and with the pleasant remnant, are very great. i cannot tell what may be in it, but i hope the lord hath either some work to work, or else is minded presently to call for a testimony at my hand. if he give me frame and furniture, i desire to welcome either of them." renwick returned from holland in the autumn of . escaping some dangers at sea, he visited dublin, where he bore a faithful testimony against the silence of ministers in the public cause, and left behind him a favourable impression on the minds of some of his christian zeal and devotedness. in september, , he landed in scotland, and on the d of november, he entered on his arduous work of preaching the gospel in the fields, and lifting up the standard of a covenanted testimony. he preached on that day at darmead in the parish of cambusnethan. from that time, till he closed his glorious career and won the martyr's crown, he preached with eminent fidelity and great power the glorious gospel of the grace of god. his public labours were continued for a period of nearly five years, and extended to many districts in the east, south, and west of scotland. in remote glens, unfrequented moorlands, often in the night season, and amid storm and tempest, when the men of blood could not venture out of their lairs, to pursue the work of destruction, he displayed a standard for truth, and eagerly laboured to win souls to christ. his last sermon was preached at _borrowstoness_, from isaiah liii. , on january th, . though he ever testified boldly against the defections of the times, especially the indulgence, and insisted on disowning the papist james, as not being a constitutional monarch, and on maintaining fully presbyterian order and discipline, and all the covenanted attainments, his discourses were eminently evangelical. his darling themes were salvation through christ, and the great matters of practical godliness. with wonderful enlargement and attractive sweetness, he unfolded the covenant of grace--the matchless person and love of christ--the finished atonement, and its sufficiency for advancing the glory of the godhead, and for the complete salvation of elect sinners. considering renwick's youth, being but _nineteen_ years of age when he entered on his great work, he was endowed with singular qualifications as a preacher of the gospel. these remarkably fitted him for the great work to which he was called--promoting the redeemer's glory, in awakening and converting sinners, and in edifying and comforting the church in a season of suffering and trial. he was, moreover, gifted with personal talents, natural and acquired, that rendered him an attractive and powerful preacher of the gospel. his aspect was solemn and engaging. his personal appearance, even when harassed by incessant labours and privations, night wanderings and hair-breadth escapes from enemies, was sweet and prepossessing. his manner in preaching was lucid and affecting. his whole heart was thrown into his discourses. he often rose to the height of the most moving eloquence; and with the constant reality of god's presence and love, and the dread realities of persecution, and violent death, and eternity, before him, he poured out his soul in such strains of heavenly enlargement, that his hearers were melted, subdued, and raised above the fear of death, and the terror of enemies. the following account of renwick's manner of preaching, and of the impressions made on his hearers is taken from an unpublished ms. of ebenezer nesbit, son of captain nesbit of hardhill, and may be regarded as descriptive of the way in which he proclaimed the gospel to the "flock in the wilderness," during his brief but singularly efficient ministry. need we wonder, after reading this narrative, at the spiritual effects of his preaching to thousands in his day, and at the precious fruits that resulted from his labours long afterwards, and the sweet savour of his name throughout subsequent times? "the latter end of this year, i heard that great man of god, mr. james renwick, preach on song iii. , , when he treated greatly on the covenant of redemption agreed on between god the father and god the son, in favour of the elect; as also on the covenant of grace established with believers in christ. oh, this was a great and sweet day of the gospel! for he handled and pressed the privileges of the covenant of grace with seraphic enlargement, to the great edification of the hearers. sweet and charming were the offers which he made of christ to all sorts of sinners. there was one thing that day that was very remarkable to me; for though it was rain from morning to night, and so wet as if we had been drenched in water, yet not one of us fell sick. and though there was a tent fixed for him, he would not go into it, but stood without in the rain and preached; which example had a great influence on the people to patience, when they saw his sympathy with them. and though he was the only minister that kept closest to his text, and had the best method for the judgment and memory, of any that ever i heard; yet now, when he preached, the people crowded close together, because of the rain, he digressed a little, and said, with a pleasant, melting voice, 'my dear friends, be not disturbed because of the rain. for to have a covenant-interest in christ, the true solomon, and in the benefits of his blessed purchase, is well worth the enduring of all temporal, elementary storms that can fall on us. and this solomon, who is here pointed at, endured a far other kind of storm for his people--even a storm of unmixed wrath. and oh, what would poor damned reprobates in hell give for this day's offer of sweet and lovely christ. and oh, how welcome would our suffering friends in prison and banishment make this day's offer of christ.' 'and, for my own part,' said he, 'as the lord will keep me, i shall bear my equal share in this rain, in sympathy with you.' and he returned to his sweet subject again, and offered us grace and reconciliation with god, through christ, by his spirit. "words would fail me to express my own frame, and the frame of many others; only this i may say, we would have been glad to have endured any kind of death, to have been home at the uninterrupted enjoyment of that glorious redeemer who was so livelily and clearly offered to us that day. "he was the only man that i ever knew that had an unstained integrity. he was a lively and faithful minister of christ and a worthy christian, such as none who were acquaint with him could say any other but this, that he was a beloved jedidiah of the lord. i never knew a man more richly endowed with grace, more equal in his temper, more equal in his spiritual frame, and more equal in walk and conversation. when i speak of him as a man--none more lovely in features, none more prudent, none more brave and heroic in spirit; and yet none more meek, none more humane and condescending. he was every way so rational, as well as religious, that there was reason to think that the powers of his reason were as much strengthened and sanctified as any man's i ever heard of. when i speak of him as a christian--none more meek, and yet none more prudently bold against those who were bold to sin--none more frequent and fervent in religions duties, such as prayer, converse, meditation, self-examination, preaching, prefacing, lecturing, baptizing, and catechising; none more methodical in teaching and instructing, accompanied with a sweet, charming eloquence, in holding forth christ, as the only remedy for lost sinners; none more hated of the world, and yet none more strengthened and upheld by the everlasting arms of jehovah, to be steadfast, and abound in the way of the lord, to the death; wherefore he might be justly called "antipas," christ's faithful martyr. and as i lived then to know him to be so of a truth, so, by the good hand of god, i yet live, thirty-six years after him, to testify that no man upon just grounds had any thing to lay to his charge. when all the critical and straitening circumstances of that period are well considered, save that he was liable to natural and sinful infirmities, as all men are when in this life, and yet he was as little guilty in this way as any i ever knew or heard of, he was the liveliest and most engaging preacher to close with christ, of any i ever heard. his converse was pious, prudent, and meek; his reasoning and debating was the same, carrying almost with it full evidence of the truth of what he asserted. and for steadfastness in the way of the lord, few came his length. he learned the truth and counted the cost, and so sealed it with his blood. of all men that ever i knew, i would be in the least danger of committing a hyperbole when speaking in his commendation. and yet i speak not this to praise men, but for the glory and honour of god in christ, who makes men to differ so much from others, and in some periods of the church more than others." the "lectures and sermons" of james renwick that remain were published from the notes taken, at the time of their delivery, by some of his attached hearers and followers. they were not prepared with any view to future publication; and the trying circumstances in which their devoted author was placed, wholly prevented any correction or revisal. yet they contain not only remarkably clear expositions of the word, and a full exhibition of the scheme of salvation, but also many passages which, for searching application to the conscience, and moving eloquence, are unsurpassed in the discourses of eminent preachers either in ancient or modern times. as specimens of the matter of renwick's discourses delivered in the _conventicles_, in the fields, amidst all dangers and incidents of weather, and by night as well as day, the following are selected from the published reports of his hearers:-- in a discourse on song i. ,--"tell me, o thou whom my soul loveth, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon,"--he thus earnestly pleads, "love him, and you shall not come short of the enjoyment of him hereafter. it is true, faith is that which, as an instrument, apprehends christ and engrafts us in him; yet it worketh by love, and love accompanieth faith, as the sunbeams do the sun. oh what shall i say? love him! love him! ye cannot bestow your love so well. turn others to the door, and take in this beloved. here i make offer of him unto you, here i present him unto you! lift up your heads, o ye doors, that the king of glory may come in. i present a glorious conqueror _this night_, to be your guest. o cast ye open the two foldings of the door of your hearts, to wit, that ye may receive him; cast ye open the hearty consent of faith and love, that he may take up his abode with you. oh, what say ye to it? friends, will ye close with christ? i obtest you by his own excellency, i obtest you by the joys of heaven, and the torments of hell, that you close with him. _all of you come, whatever you have been or are; none of you_ shall be cast _out_. whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely." "seeing it is the duty of people to set their love upon christ, i exhort you to give some testimonies of love. think ye that ye love him? will ye then show that? i would expostulate for some testimonies of your love. when peter confessed that he loved christ, our lord desires him to show that by feeding his lambs and sheep. it is true, you cannot show your love that way, for ye are not called to that office; but ye ought to show it in the way that is competent to you in your stations. so as i was saying before, i expostulate with you for some testimonies of your love. "make a free and full resignation of yourselves and your all to christ, that ye may say with the spouse, i am my beloved's! oh, ye should not prig (higgle) with him about anything. some prig with him about their hearts, and will have a part thereof in their darling idols, which they cannot think to quit. some prig with him about their time, and will make religion but their by-work. if their worldly employments be throng, they will neglect the worship in their families, and prayer in secret. others, if they keep any family worship, it is in the evening: ordinarily they are impatient, and haste to an end in it: and neglect it in the morning altogether. oh, what a sad prigging is this. some prig with him about their relations. they will not quit these when he calls them to suffer for his sake; but will tempt them, or will insinuate upon them to comply, and deny his cause. some prig with him about their possessions, and yielding to this or that iniquity, will keep their houses and lands, they will not quit them. and some will prig with him about their lives; and if the swearing of a sinful oath, the subscribing to an iniquitous bond, or denying of his cause, will save their lives, they will not lose them. oh, what sad prigging is this! oh, be ashamed of it. will ye lay all at his feet, and count it your honour and joy that he dispose of the same as he pleaseth? give this testimony of your love to christ, rejoice in him when present, and keep his room empty when absent. i say rejoice in him when present. i need not press you much to do this, for in his presence there is great joy: though the enjoyment of him here be imperfect, yet it brings exceeding gladness with it. therefore saith the psalmist,--'thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than when corn and wine are increased.' but when he is absent, see that ye keep his room empty for him. when he sees it meet at any time for your correction, trial, and instruction, to withdraw himself, or hide his face, then idols or other lovers will readily present themselves, and seek to possess his room. but, be chaste and true to your beloved, as the spouse who, in his absence, could not be contented, but used all means and diligence until she found him." in a sermon on song v. ,--"his mouth is most sweet, yea, he is altogether lovely. this is my beloved, and this is my friend, o ye daughters of jerusalem,"--the following affecting views are presented: "the second property of christ's love is, that it is a _strong_ love, which appears from what he hath done for sinners. he has done great things for sinners. he took upon himself all the sinless infirmities of human nature--not sinful nature. yea, he endured a shameful and lingering death, besides a flood of wrath that he waded through, such a flood of wrath as would have drowned all the sons and daughters of adam to all eternity. thus 'he who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of god in him.' greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. oh, my friends, if ye will follow christ through all the steps of his humiliation, ye may see that the love of christ is strong love, which makes him endure such things for sinners. he gives great things to sinners, whereby he shows the strength of his love to them; for he gives grace and glory, and no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly; for he saith, 'father, i will that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me where i am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me.' christ gives the believer union with himself and communion in glory with the father, even a share of that glory which the father giveth him, he giveth them. he gives them a crown of righteousness which shall never fade away; and he gives them to drink of the rivers of his pleasures, that are at his right hand for evermore. oh, my friends, christ doth not prig with his spouse: he will keep nothing back from them, that he sees to be for her profit.--oh, but his love is _strong_. he requires no more for all that he has done, and all that he hath given, but that he see the travail of his soul. he will think but little of all that he hath done, if we will but accept of his love, and lay our love upon him. yea, so may be said of him, as was said of jacob,--the seven years that he served for rachel seemed but a few days, for the love that he bare unto her. his love is so strong, that although thou shouldest run away from him never so fast, yet his love will overtake thee, and bring thee back again. paul ran very fast in opposition to his love, when he was going to damascus to persecute the church. but christ's love overtook him suddenly. manasseh ran very fast from christ, when he made the streets of jerusalem to run with innocent blood, and set up an abomination in the house of god, and used witchcraft; and yet christ's love overtook him, and brought him back again from the pit. if thou art one of those that the father hath given to the son, though thou shouldest run to the brink of hell, he will bring thee back again from thence. "christ's love is _pure_ and _sincere_ love. 'herein is love, not that we loved him, but that he loved us;" not for any advantage that he can have by us, for he is infinite in all perfections without us; therefore we can neither enrich him, nor add any more glory to him. we may well magnify his power; that is all we can do, and all the advantage is our own. christ's love is not a base love; he loves us not for his good or advantage, but for our real good and advantage. it is pure and sincere love, for all the advantage is ours. "christ's love is an _enriching_ love, for those upon whom his love is bestowed are no more poor. how can they be poor who have christ for their riches? for, saith the apostle, 'all things are yours, and ye are christ's, and christ is god's.' if ye have this love bestowed on you, then all other things are made to serve for your good--ye shall lack nothing. "christ's love is a _free_ love. he gives his love freely, without any reward, and so it is free love; the offer is _alike to all_. if ye will but take it off his hand, he makes open proclamation of it to you all, saying, 'ho every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.' oh, my friends, all other love is infinitely beneath this. he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took the seed of abraham. oh, my friends, god hath made us the centre of his love; and therefore, i beseech you, do not despise his love. he came not to redeem any of the fallen angels, but the seed of abraham." in the following moving terms, he pleads with his hearers to accept of christ and his salvation:--"your eternal enjoyment of god will be your element, which ye shall for ever delight in, and this shall be to praise and admire his love. for, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the things that the lord hath prepared for them that love him. oh, then, sirs, what think ye of christ? will ye not, at _this time_, say, he is your beloved and your friend? oh, give your consent to become his friends, and accept of him as your friend. i leave this offer at your door; he is willing to befriend you, if you will come into an estate of friendship with him. come, come, and take his offer off his hand. say not that ye have continued so long in sin, that ye know not if he will befriend you now; for if ye will come to him, he will yet befriend you. therefore, for the lord's sake, put not away such an offer, but take it _in the present time_; for ye know not if ever ye shall have an offer again. if ye will not take his offer off his hand _this day_, i will be a witness against you in the great day of judgment, that this day, the son of righteousness offered himself to be your friend, and ye have made light of the offer. yea, the hills and mountains about us shall be witnesses that ye had christ in your offer such a _day_, in such a _place_; therefore, my dear friends, say now that he is your beloved, and that he is your friend." his close dealing with the conscience, and his solemn warnings and exhortations are exemplified in the following passages:-- "consider your own condition without christ. ye are lost and undone, limbs of satan, children of wrath, hell to be your dwelling-place, and devils and damned souls to be your company eternally, and where sin shall be your eternal torment. this is your condition without jesus christ. what think ye of eternal exclusion from the presence and comfort of god? what think ye of hell, where there is nothing but utter darkness, weeping and wailing for evermore, to be your dwelling-place? what think ye of devils to be your continual company? and what think ye of sin to be your continual life--always blaspheming the glorious name of god? and what think ye of your final condition--to be in continual torment--always weeping and gnashing your teeth? all this, i say, is abiding you who will not embrace jesus christ, whatever your profession be. for, believe me, a profession will not save you from this eternal misery, if ye receive not jesus christ. whatever your sufferings be here, yet ye shall suffer this hereafter, if ye receive not jesus christ. my heart bleeds for many sufferers in scotland, who shall suffer everlasting torment in hell, because they will not receive and embrace jesus christ, this gracious and free saviour, who is now in your offer. oh, embrace jesus christ, otherwise, be ye who ye will, and do what ye will, god's justice shall pursue you, and he shall have war against you without cessation: there shall be no discharge in that war. the great warriors of the earth are all lying with their weapons broken under their heads; but here is a war that hath no end. you who will not receive jesus christ, you will see that ye have made an evil choice, when ye pass through the dark gates of hell, to the inner chambers thereof. to move you, further consider, that if ye will take him, ye shall have him and all his. ye shall drink of the waters of life; your feet shall stand on the sea of glass before the throne. ye shall have his name, and bear his image, and wear a crown of pure gold upon your heads, and follow the lamb with palms in your hands, saying, 'hallelujah! and glory, and honour and power, unto the lord our god.' ye shall have the fine white linen garments of christ's righteousness, to wear in heaven, in clothing eternally. ye shall have the glorious cloud of witnesses--angels and the spirits of just men made perfect, for your continual company; and ye shall have a life of love and joy everlasting, with him that is altogether lovely. oh, then, come and take jesus christ. would ye make a happy choice? then take him and embrace him, old and young, man and woman, lad and lass. now christ is in your offer; and you are all invited to come to him. and now i charge you all, as ye respect the glory of god, and as ye desire this happy condition that i have spoken of to you, slight not this offer. now the golden chain of salvation is let down to you. grip, grip it fast, before it is taken up again. go not away fools, lest ye never be at such a market-day again. "what shall i say to persuade you? let the excellency and glory of his great name do it. be entreated to accept of christ in this present offer. here i obtest you, by what he hath purchased for sinners, and by what he has suffered, come and embrace him. i obtest you by the blood he shed on the cross; i obtest you by the great drops of blood he shed in the garden, and by all the joys that are above the clouds in heaven, that ye put not this offer away. i obtest you, by all the torments of hell, that ye put not this offer away. i obtest you by the glory of heaven, and by the crowns which believers put on his head, that ye slight not this offer. "here i take every man and woman to witness against one another, that ye had christ in your offer; and i shall be a witness against all of you that have not received christ _this night_. yea, though he should never be glorified in such a sort by me, yet i will be a witness against you. here, before the throne of grace, i declare in his name, that i have made an offer of him unto you; and, therefore, your blood shall be upon your own heads if ye perish, and i shall be free of the same." in another place, he presses with like earnestness acceptance of the gospel offer:--"if ye would be rightly concerned, ye must at once come, and be a right son or daughter of the church, and member of jesus christ; until then, ye cannot have a fellow-feeling of the body. come then, and christ will give you a fellow-feeling with the sufferings of the church. come and embrace himself, and he will set the stamp of natural children upon you. without him, ye can do nothing; without him, ye cannot be concerned with the sufferings of his name and members. refuse not; reject not his offers, when he calls you to himself. it is hard to say if some of you shall have an offer again. _now_ is the acceptable time--_now_ is the day of salvation. he is _now_ spreading his net, and will ye not come about the net's mouth, that a catch of you may be gotten. he is proclaiming unto you that he hath invincible power, though managed by apparent weakness. oh, find you any of this irresistible power of christ? oh, come unto him who is the joy of heaven, and it shall be a joyful time in heaven. he will have a good report of you through heaven, if ye shall have it to say that some poor lad or lass hath put a crown upon his head in such a place. but oh, how sad will it be, if christ shall have it to say, 'i gave offer of myself to a people like stocks and stones, but they would not hear!'" on the duty of devoting the best to god's service, in another discourse, he thus forcibly reasons:-- "observe, that it cannot but be a great injury against god, and procure a curse, when people employ not their best things in his service. this is clear from the words, 'cursed be the deceiver which hath in his flock a male, and voweth and sacrificeth unto the lord a corrupt thing.' so men that employ not their best things in the lord's service, believe it, they are chargeable with this. he calls for your best things in his service, and not that you should spend that upon your lusts. ye are called to employ the best of your time in his service; and many of you give him but the refuse of your time, or at least, he gets but your by-time for his service. but ye should give him the best of your time and strength, and your hearts--all should be employed in his service. do not say that you do the best that you can; for i am persuaded that there is none of you but may do more for him than ye do. do not say that ye improve the talent that he hath given you to trade with, for ye but misimprove it; and the best of you, we fear, come short of improving it. if ye improve it, ye should find it increase upon your hand, and you would appear like his children. but because people do not improve their time and abilities to lay them out for god, it procures a curse. for though our obligations go far beyond our duties that we do, yet when we do not lay out all our abilities for him, and do not bestow our love, our affections, and our time, and all that we have for him, but bestow them upon other things, we procure his curse. young folks, set to the work, and be entreated to give up yourselves to his service, and employ your best things for him, now when your desires are fast and quick. oh, will ye bestow them on precious christ? you have a brave prize put in your hand, if ye set aright to the work; ye may see zion's king come back, and the crown set upon his head again." urging the necessity of being found within the kingdom of god, he says:-- "seeing that the gate is very strait and narrow that leads to the kingdom of heaven, then what shall become of many of you, that never came the length that hypocrites have come? oh, what will ye say, and how will ye meet with god, when he comes to count with you for a preached gospel? what will ye think of a mediator that was offered to you, whom ye slighted and despised; when the heaven and earth shall melt away; and great men, and mean men, shall howl and cry, and all the tribes of the earth shall wail because of him? oh! this will be the portion of hypocrites from god. "it is of use for trial--for all of you to try yourselves, and ponder in your hearts, and say, 'oh, soul, whether art thou in the kingdom of heaven or not?' oh, be exhorted to this, whatever be thy state, o man and woman. it is safe for thee to search thy state; if matters be right betwixt god and thy soul, it will be thy peace; if not, thou mayest possibly get righted. for my part, i count him the best christian that is most accurate in this searching and communing with his own heart; for if ye neglect this, ye may come to lose the sight of your interest in christ, if ever ye had it. do not satisfy yourselves with being near the kingdom of god, but go into it. for this end, break the bargain and peace with your lusts and idols; and make up your peace with god through christ, our peace-maker, and ye shall find great advantage in the exchange; for the wicked have peace, but with sin and sinful men, but the godly have peace with god. oh, will ye quit all other things, and seek to be interested in him? for it is to be feared that many here have proclaimed peace with sin, and some idol, or other. oh, break the bargain, and make peace with christ! make choice of him; for he can give you that which no other lover can give you. o break that peace with your lusts and idols, and make peace with him. remember, he offers himself to you freely this day. choose, therefore, what ye will do. o seek for the fulness of the spirit of christ, and rest upon nothing but upon himself alone; and seek to be in the kingdom of god, by the thorough work of conversion upon your souls. "and now to all that are in the kingdom, i proclaim peace in the name of god, whatever troubles they are under here. so enter into the kingdom through christ only, for that is the way to it. but as for you who will not come to him, and enter into the kingdom through christ only, who is the way to it, i do, in like manner, proclaim war with that soul from god, whatever ye be in profession. o friends, lay it to heart, and choose you whether it be better to have heaven's peace, and the devil and the world's feud; or to have the devil and the world's peace, and feud with god for ever! and now to him who is purchaser of true peace, be glory and praise for ever. amen." when it is understood that the discourses from which these extracts are taken were preached in the open air, and often in the night time, amidst the exposure both of the preacher and the hearers to all changes of the weather, not unfrequently in rain and tempest; and that the "sermons and lectures" that bear renwick's name, were not prepared in a quiet study, in peaceful times, but in the midst of frequent removings, incessant labours, and manifold dangers, and that they are transmitted to us from the imperfect notes, and the recollection of attached hearers,--themselves the objects of fierce persecution,--they cannot fail to impress us with a vivid idea of the remarkable power and fidelity as a preacher of the youthful martyr, and to account, at the same time, for the popularity and salutary effects of his preaching. renwick's special testimony. to understand properly the position of james renwick and his associates, and the distinctive testimony which they maintained at the peril of life, and transmitted, sealed with their blood, to posterity, it is necessary to advert to the particular time in which these devoted witnesses were called to appear in behalf of precious truth; and to the public measures which had been adopted at that period for extinguishing the liberties of the nation, and for destroying the independence and purity of the church. the prelatic persecution in scotland, which commenced with the restoration of charles ii. to the throne of his ancestors in , had continued for nearly _twenty-three_ years, when renwick entered on his ministry. instead of the perfidious rulers in church and state being satiated with the number of the victims of their cruelty, their thirst for blood became more intense, as the time wore on; and when they found they could not crush the spirit of a free people, or extinguish the light of gospel truth, they had recourse to the most despotic and atrocious measures for effecting their diabolical purposes. what has been designated "the killing time" of the scottish persecution, embraced the greater part of renwick's public ministry. the graphic pens of such able writers as de foe, charles james fox, and macaulay, have but imperfectly sketched the barbarities perpetrated by the infamous royal brothers, and their base counsellors, and the sufferings of an oppressed nation, and of thousands of godly people of all ranks, during this dark and distressing period. two matters of general public interest, and intimately connected with the position of renwick and his associates, excited particular attention in the concluding period of the persecution. these were, , the measure called the indulgence; and, , the limits of civil authority, and of the allegiance of the subject. i.--the indulgence. when the power of the persecutors was unable to put down the preaching of the gospel in the fields, and to crush the spirit of liberty in the breasts of multitudes of the people of scotland, the indulgence was a master contrivance of the arch-enemy to divide the presbyterians, and to seduce them to abandon some of their fundamental principles, for the sake of outward advantages. the first indulgence was issued by charles ii. and his council in june, . it was proclaimed as flowing directly from the royal supremacy. the power was granted to the persecuting council, at their discretion, to appoint certain of the outed ministers to vacant parishes, on ensnaring conditions. in case they refused to receive collation from the bishops, they could not have the stipends or tiends, they were only to possess the manse and glebe, and be allowed an annuity. if they did not attend diocesan synods, they were to be confined within the bounds of their own parishes. they were not to dispense ordinances to persons from other parishes, nor, on any account, to hold conventicles. they were prohibited from speaking against the king's authority, or the public measures of the government; and they were to report their peaceable behaviour from time to time to the council. two other indulgences were issued at intervals during the latter part of the reign of charles ii. all of them by public proclamation denounced relentless vengeance against the faithful men who refused the royal boon. they threatened utter extermination to all who pleaded for the independence of the presbyterian church, and who maintained the freedom of the gospel by holding conventicles, preaching and administering ordinances in their purity in the fields. the indulgence unhappily proved a snare in which by far the largest number of the presbyterian ministers in scotland were entangled. we cannot hesitate to agree with the historian hetherington, in holding that "it was offered on a principle clearly subversive of the presbyterian church, and that not one of the ejected ministers ought to have accepted of it, because it was impossible to do so, without sacrificing the fundamental and essential principle of the presbyterian church--that which constitutes its glory and its life--the sole sovereignty of christ."[ ] three results followed the acceptance of the indulgence, which proved highly injurious to the presbyterian church, and which were, in all likelihood, foreseen by the contrivers of the measure, and led them to introduce it. these were-- . the constant interference of the government with the indulged in the discharge of their strictly ministerial functions. . a rupture between the indulged and the non-indulged, with many of the best of the people clinging to the latter; and, . the more systematic, virulent, and crushing persecution of those who, defying the tyrant's rage, bared their bosoms to the storm; and had the courage at all hazards to plead for the royal prerogatives of messiah the prince, and to contend for the chartered liberties of the presbyterian church. this honour belongs exclusively to cargill, cameron, and renwick, and the society people; when the large majority of the presbyterian ministers in scotland, followed by great numbers of the people, proved recreant to sound scripture principle, and unfaithful to the sacred engagements of their fathers. however belied and misrepresented the persecuted covenanters were in their own day, impartial history has not failed to do justice to their memory, and to show that their faithful contendings had no little influence in the nation's deliverance from degrading oppression. ii.--the limits of public authority, and of a people's allegiance. a question was raised in the later times of the persecution of difficult solution, but of vast practical importance. this was the due limit of submission to civil rulers, and the withdrawal of allegiance and submission from those who had violated their compact with the people, and had trampled under foot their constitutional rights. it is ably shown by dr. d'aubigné,[ ] as had been done before, that civil freedom and religious reformation, originating with the people, have ever been closely united and advanced together. wherever the principles of evangelical truth have been rightly understood and firmly maintained, the people have refused to tolerate civil oppression. "_he is a freeman whom the truth makes free._" all genuine civil freedom is based on religious liberty. calvinism, as is admitted even by many who are opposed to it as a doctrinal system, has been the irreconcileable foe of despotism all over the world;--by the heroic struggles, and cheerful sacrifices of its adherents, the battle of freedom has been fought, and its triumphs achieved in many lands. particularly in scotland, where the reformation, from the first, originated with the people, and was carried forward in opposition to the mandates of arbitrary rulers, and notwithstanding the relentless persecution of the civil powers, the eminent instruments whom god honoured for advancing the truth, all along contended for the liberties of their country, and earnestly pleaded that the duties of rulers and ruled should be clearly defined, and the rights of the people settled on a constitutional basis. this was the plea of the illustrious knox, as is seen in his expostulations with the queen and nobles of scotland, and in his intercourse with the statesmen of the day--english and scottish--and in his writings. the works of buchanan, rutherford, and gillespie, bear ample testimony to the enlarged views of their authors in relation to the proper bounds of civil and ecclesiastical authority, and to their fidelity to the cause of genuine liberty. the same great principles were contended for by alexander henderson, embodied in the scriptural attainments of the memorable second reformation, and clearly enunciated in the solemn league and covenant of the three kingdoms, in which the covenanters explicitly bound themselves to support the king and parliament in "the maintenance of the true reformed religion." when the scottish nation, forgetful of their sacred vows, tamely submitted to the tyranny of the royal brothers, and presbyterian ministers remained silent under an infamous indulgence, it devolved upon a few despised and persecuted covenanters,--the society people,--to lift up and hold aloft the torch of freedom; and by their faithful testimonies and declarations uttered in fields and on scaffolds, and more still, by their blood freely shed to confirm their righteous cause, to sow broadcast the principles of genuine liberty. these, after lying buried in the earth for a time, sprung up vigorously, and bore fruit, when the perfidious race of the stuarts was driven ignominiously from the throne; and, at the revolution, some of the fundamental truths for which the martyrs of the covenant contended, became ascendant and triumphant.[ ] in the _queensferry paper_, penned by cargill, in a rough draft, and found on the person of henry hall of haughhead, when he was taken, the heroic sufferers expressly disowned the authority of charles ii. and his government. the terms employed, it has been remarked, very much resemble those used by the english nation when they rejected the government of james ii., and transferred the crown to william and mary. "we reject the king and those associate with him in government from being our king and rulers, being no more bound to them. they have altered and destroyed the lord's established religion,--overturned the fundamental and established laws of the kingdom--taken away altogether christ's church government, and changed the civil government of this land, which was by a king and free parliament, into tyranny." the conclusion expresses sentiments worthy of the most distinguished patriots, and that are fit to be taken as the watchward of struggling freemen all over the world. "we bind and oblige ourselves to defend ourselves and one another in our worshipping of god, in our natural, civil and divine rights and liberties, till we shall overcome, or send them down under debate to posterity--_that they may begin where we end_." the grand principle of the rejection of tyrannical power was boldly proclaimed by cargill, in preaching to thousands of conventicle hearers, and was prominently held forth in his last testimony:--"as to the cause of my suffering," said he, "the chief is, not acknowledging the present authority, as it is established in the supremacy and explanatory act. this is the magistracy i have rejected--that which is invested with christ's power. seeing that power taken from christ which is his glory, and made the essential of an earthly crown, seemed to me, as if one were wearing my husband's garments, after he had killed him. there is no distinction we can make that can free the conscience of the acknowledger from being a partaker of this sacrilegious robbery of god. and it is but to cheat our conscience to acknowledge the civil power alone, that it is of the essence of the crown; and seeing they are so express, we _ought to be plain_, for otherwise we deny our testimony, and consent that christ be robbed of his glory." the same testimony against the indulgence and against unconstitutional power was firmly maintained by richard cameron, during the whole of his public ministry, and in the noble testimony emitted by him shortly before his death. soon after his return from holland in , in one of his earliest sermons, he declared, "i know not if this generation will be honoured to cast off these rulers. but those that the lord makes instruments to bring back christ, and to recover our liberties, civil and ecclesiastical, shall be such as shall disown this king and the magistrates under him." he added this warning to the persecuting authorities, with the heroic resolve--"let them take heed unto themselves; for though they should take us to scaffolds, and kill us in the fields, the lord will yet raise up a party who will be avenged on them. we had rather die than live in the same country with them, and outlive the glory of god departing altogether from these lands." a short month before his death, the intrepid cameron, his brother michael, and some twenty other covenanters, armed and on horseback, posted up at the market cross of the burgh of sanquhar, the "_sanquhar declaration_" in which are contained these ever memorable words:-- "we do, by these presents, disown charles stuart, who has been reigning, or rather tyrannizing in the throne of britain, these years bygone, as having any right, title to, or right in the crown of scotland, for government:--as forfeited several years since, by his perjury, and breach of covenant both to god and his truth, and by his tyranny and breach of the very _leges regnandi_--the very essential conditions of government, in matters civil." this was a noble deed, and ranks cameron and his followers with the purest and most disinterested patriots of any age or country. it has been justly remarked by an eloquent writer, "the real matter of fact for which the cameronians contended was just the old claim of the covenanters--'a free parliament and a free assembly.'" "it is the glory of the cameronians, in which no other party shares, that when most people lay prostrate, and many of the bravest stood aloof, they were the first to hoist the flag, disowning the government of the stuarts, without whose expulsion liberty was impossible."[ ] the testimony which cargill and cameron boldly proclaimed and sealed with their blood, was cordially espoused by renwick, and faithfully maintained by him during the whole course of his public ministry. he was called, besides, to the great work of preaching a full and free gospel, throughout many parts of his native country, to multitudes who were hungering for the bread of life, when through terror of oppressive rulers, or from seeking their favour, others shrunk from the performance of so important and hazardous a duty. he was required, moreover, to dispense the ordinances of religion in scriptural purity, to the scattered, persecuted remnant, and thus to repair "the desolations of zion," and to transmit the truth to future generations. in the year of cameron's martyrdom, the societies framed their "general correspondence," and formed a simple but effective organization, for mutual fellowship and edification,--for preserving their precious gospel liberties, and for taking advantage of any event in public affairs, for re-establishing the covenanted order in church and state, which had been violently taken away, by despotic power and prelatic intolerance. the extent of this organization, in a time of great suffering is remarkable. gordon of earlston, when examined before the privy council in , with the instruments of torture placed in view, testified that several counties were divided into districts, of which there were , with associated members. there is evidence that, chiefly through the divine blessing upon renwick's faithful preaching, and his singular wisdom in council, those societies increased, instead of diminishing, in the latter part of the prelatic persecution. to the friends of evangelical truth, and the faithful witnesses for the redeemer's royal prerogatives, the services of renwick, at the crisis in which he exercised his public ministry, were invaluable. he was eminently the man for the time. through the influence of the unhappy indulgence, the strict covenanters were reduced to what they style themselves in the "informatory vindication," a "wasted, suffering, anti-popish, anti-prelatic, anti-erastian, anti-sectarian remnant." by the death of cargill and cameron, they were left as "sheep without a shepherd,"--broken and scattered. through the fierceness of persecution, and the machinations of enemies, they were in danger of falling into confusion, and of being entirely wasted and destroyed. we admire the gracious providence of god in preparing, at this particular crisis, an instrument of such rare and suitable endowments for feeding "the flock in the wilderness," and for unfurling and upholding so nobly the "banner of truth" amidst hosts of infuriated enemies. james renwick, though a very youth when he entered on his arduous work, and trained under great outward disadvantages, had a powerful and well-cultivated mind. he was endowed with singular administrative talent, and had great tact and skill in managing men. he was an acute and logical thinker, an eloquent and attractive public speaker, and was distinguished by fertility and force as a writer. the "informatory vindication"--his testimony against king james's toleration, with his "letters," and "sermons and lectures," bear ample evidence of his sound judgment, comprehensive mind, and ability as an author. his prudence, meekness and loving disposition, combined with his sanctified zeal, and heroic courage, deservedly gave him great influence among those to whom he ministered. he was eminently fitted to be "a first man among men." the lord held him in the hollow of his hand, and made him a "polished shaft in his quiver." the services which renwick rendered to the protestant cause were invaluable. he organized the scattered remnant, and imparted new life and ardour to their proceedings. he set forth clearly the principles of the "society people;" and in a number of able and logical papers, clearly defined their plans of action. he rendered it, in a great measure, impossible for enemies to misrepresent and accuse them falsely to the government. he was their secretary in their correspondence with foreign churches; and he did much to evoke the prayerful sympathy of protestants in other lands in behalf of the victims of persecution in scotland. the presence and influence of renwick among the suffering presbyterians were of the highest importance in his own day; and not to them alone, but also to the whole church of christ in these lands, and to the constitutional liberties of the nation. so far as we can see, but for the singular power and devoted spirit of renwick, and the firm and unyielding position which the cameronians through him were led to assume, the cause of truth would have been completely borne down, and erastianism, and popery, and despotism had triumphed. renwick and his followers were the vanguard "in the struggle for britain's liberties, and for the church's spiritual independence." though, like other patriots born before their time, they were doomed to fall, yet posterity owes to them a large part of the goodly heritage which they enjoy. the _manifold labours and sufferings_ of renwick, which were ended by his martyrdom, deserve a brief notice. for a period of five years, after he entered on his public ministry, he was in constant movement and unremitting and exhausting labours. he was employed at all seasons, and often in the night time, and in the most inclement weather, preaching the gospel in the fields, visiting families, and conversing with the people individually and in groups, attending stated general meetings--taking part in their deliberations, composing differences, confronting gainsayers and opponents, and writing the papers and manifestoes of the persecuted party. his services were in constant and increasing demand, in various places widely scattered. after he had been engaged in the most arduous labours, he had little or no rest, and no comfortable place of retirement. he was obliged to lodge in moss-hags, sheils of shepherds, or holes dug in the ground by his followers; when sticks were kindled for a fire, and children conveyed to him food, not unfrequently without the knowledge of their parents. naturally of a weak constitution, he was, at times, so borne down by sickness and total prostration of strength, that he was literally carried on the shoulders of faithful followers, or supported when on horseback. he had frequently to flee from one hiding place to another, barefoot, or without some of his garments, as he had also to travel in disguise. letters of intercommuning were launched against him. a price was set upon his head, and persons were forbidden, on pain of death, to yield him shelter, or a mouthful of food, to converse, or correspond with him by writing, or offer him the smallest service of humanity. it is recorded that in , the year before renwick's martyrdom, the royal troops, _thirteen times_, made the strictest search for him throughout all the country. to avoid the pursuit of enemies, he had to travel in disguise, and often in the dark night, and to seek shelter in caves, and rocks, and dens of the earth. whenever he was engaged in his ministerial work, friendly watches were placed around him, to give the alarm on the approach of danger. when he preached, a fleet horse was standing beside him saddled and bridled, by which he could speedily distance the pursuit of enemies. he had, moreover, to suffer much from disputes, contentions, and reproaches among those for whom he was expending his energies, and for whom he was prepared to sacrifice his life. on one occasion, when entering the cottage of john brown of priesthill, he is said to have given momentary utterance to the pent-up grief of his heart by exclaiming, "reproach hath broke my heart." "from an enemy," he added, "he could have borne it, but it was hard when it came from those whom he loved as himself, and for whom he was undergoing such privations and sufferings." from the presbyterian ministers and people, who had closed in with the indulgence and james's toleration, he received no kindly recognition, nor a single act of friendship. on the contrary, they heaped on him every term in the vocabulary of abuse, calling him "jesuit," "devil," &c. they misrepresented his principles, and sought to excite prejudice against him throughout the country and among foreign churches, especially in holland, where renwick had many attached sympathisers and friends. what was the ground of such dislike and hostility? his life,--even his enemies being witnesses,--was blameless. he preached fully and powerfully the glorious gospel. he enforced a strict scriptural discipline, and he was constantly careful to promote practical godliness. his sole fault in the eyes of the indulged was that he strictly adhered to the great principles of the covenanted reformation, when his opponents had plainly abandoned them,--that he refused to accept a royal toleration which was designed to establish popery and absolute power, and that he disowned a perfidious race of monarchs, whose oppressive and galling yoke was felt by many, and whose rule the whole nation soon after rejected. the fidelity of renwick to the cause of god and truth powerfully reproved those who had made defection; while his holy living and devotedness strongly condemned such as, to secure immunity from suffering and the world's favour, were at ease in zion. therefore was it, that, in the spirit of apostates in all ages, they laboured to misrepresent and calumniate him and the cause which he maintained, and abetted the designs of those who persecuted him to the death. renwick's martyrdom and testimony. this devoted servant of christ, though worn with incessant labours, was found actively engaged in his darling work when he was called to receive his reward. on the th and th of january, he preached in fifeshire, and at borrowstoness, on the th. the last night of the month, he lodged with a friend in edinburgh. on the morning of the st of february, the house was beset with soldiers, in the employment of the persecuting council. when renwick attempted to escape, he was arrested near the cowgate, and was carried by graham the captain of the guard, before a quorum of the council, by whom he was committed to close prison, and laid in irons. when he stood in the presence of those who had issued against him fierce proclamations, and had sought his life, they were surprised at his youthful appearance, and his comely countenance, and one exclaimed, "is this the boy renwick, that the whole nation was so troubled with," renwick replied only with a quiet smile. on the d of february, he was brought before the council, and received his indictment. in it, he was charged with casting off the fear of god--disowning the king's authority--preaching in the fields--and teaching the people to refuse to pay cess, and to carry arms in self-defence. it is related of renwick, when he became a prisoner, that, though he had grace given willingly to offer his life to confirm his testimony, he yet dreaded torture. having in prayer freely surrendered his life to god, he obtained in answer the assurance that enemies would not have the power to inflict on him torture. this he afterwards told his mother in prison, shortly before his execution, when she was expressing concern about seeing his head and hands on the ports of the city. he said he was persuaded that the persecutors would "not be permitted to torture his body, nor touch one hair of his head farther." he was so open and candid hi his answers that the members of the justiciary were to some extent favourably impressed, and this had doubtless some influence in preventing him from being tortured. he enjoyed so much of divine presence from his entrance into prison, till his execution, that to his mother he said, "he could hardly pray, being so much taken up with praise, and ravished with the joy of the lord." when before the justiciary, on the th february, he confessed to all in the indictment, save the first article, charging him with having "cast off all fear of god." he said, "it is because i feared to offend god, and to violate his law, that i am here to-day, standing to be condemned." when asked about disowning the king's authority, he answered like a true protestant and a heroic patriot--"i own all authority that hath its prescriptives and limitations from the word of god; but i cannot own this usurper as lawful king--seeing both by the word of god, such a one is incapable to bear rule, and likewise by the ancient laws of the kingdom, which admit none to the crown of scotland until he swear to defend the protestant religion, which a man of his profession cannot do." at the close of his examination, when asked if he would subscribe his testimony, he did so, with protestation that he subscribed it as his testimony, but not as recognizing the authority of his judges. when condemned to be executed in the grassmarket, on the friday following, he was asked by the justice general if he desired a longer time, he declared, "it was all one to him; if the time was protracted, it was welcome; if it was shortened, it was welcome too;--his master's time was the best." without his knowledge he was reprieved for ten days, till the th of february, as the persecutors were to some degree sated with blood, and perhaps somewhat troubled in conscience by the demeanor of the youthful confessor. after his condemnation was pronounced, many attempts were made to shake his constancy. several petitions were written for him, but he refused resolutely to sign any of them. it was at one time proposed to him, that his dropping a few drops of ink on paper would be sufficient: this however, he promptly refused, alleging that it would be so far an owning of wicked authority, and a renunciation of his whole testimony. his friends were denied access to him in prison; paper and ink were removed from him, and also part of his dying testimony which he had written. others--persons in authority--prelates, curates, and popish priests visited him. his christian firmness resisted all their attempts to make him swerve from his principles; while several of them were struck and overawed by the power of his singular wisdom, gentleness, and unaffected goodness. viscount tarbet, a man of intellect, but noted for his lax accommodating principles, said of renwick, after several times visiting him, "he was the stiffest maintainer of his principles that ever came before us. others we used always to cause at one time or other to waver; but him we could never move. we could never make him yield nor vary in the least. he was of old knox's principles." the testimony of renwick contained in the "cloud of witnesses," was written the night before he suffered, and in near anticipation of his martyrdom. his mother and sisters were allowed to be with him for a short time, on the morning of the day of his execution: in giving thanks at food in their presence, he said--"lord! thou hast brought me within two hours of eternity, and this is no matter of terror to me, more than if i rose to go to lie down on a bed of roses. nay, through grace, to thy praise, i may say, i had never the fear of death since i came within this prison; but from the place i was taken in, i could have gone very composedly to the scaffold." again, he said, "let us be glad and rejoice, for the marriage of the lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. could i ever have thought that the fear of suffering and death could be so taken from me? what shall i say of it? it is the doing of the lord and marvellous in our eyes." he asked, "i have many times counted the cost of following christ, but never expected it would have been so easy. now, who knows the honour and happiness of that--'he that confesseth me before men, him will i confess before my father!' several times, he said, _"now that i am so near the end of time, i desire to bless the lord: it is inexpressibly sweet and satisfying peace to me, that he has kept me in the least from complying with enemies."_ on the morning of his execution, he wrote his last letter to his most attached friend, sir robert hamilton, who was then an exile in holland, for the sacred cause for which renwick suffered. every part of this brief epistle is calm and thoughtful, and bespeaks the joyful serenity of the martyr's spirit. "this," he writes, "being my last day on earth, i thought it my duty to send you this, my last salutation. the lord has been wonderfully gracious to me since i came to prison. he has assured me of his salvation, helped me to give a testimony for him, and to say before his enemies all that i have taught, and strengthened me to resist and repel many temptations and assaults." he closes, with these simple, solemn, and affecting words--"but i must break off, i go to your god and my god. _death is to me as a bed to the weary._" when the drums beat for his execution, he exclaimed, "yonder is my welcome call to the marriage. the bridegroom is coming. i am ready." on the scaffold, he sung the first part of the d psalm, read the th chapter of revelations, and prayed. when he was rudely interrupted, he said, "i shall soon be above these clouds. then shall i enjoy thee and glorify thee, o my father, without intermission and interruption for ever." in the few sentences that he was permitted to speak to the spectators from the scaffold, after commending the lord's special mercy to him, in washing away his sins, and honouring him to suffer for his name's sake, he declared he laid down his life mainly for three things: . for disavowing the usurpation and tyranny of james, duke of york. . preaching that it is unlawful to pay cess, expressly exacted for bearing down the gospel, and . teaching that it is lawful for people to carry arms for defending themselves in their meetings for persecuted gospel ordinances." at the close, he said, "i leave my testimony against popery, prelacy, and erastianism, and against all profanity, and every thing contrary to sound doctrine, and the power of godliness; particularly against all usurpations and encroachments made upon christ's rights, who alone must bear the glory of ruling his own kingdom, the church; and in particular, against this absolute power, usurped by this usurper, that belongs to no mortal; but is the incommunicable property of jehovah; and against this toleration flowing from this absolute power." here he was compelled to leave off speaking, and to go up the ladder. he then prayed again, and said, "lord! i die in the faith that thou wilt not leave scotland, but that thou will make the blood of thy witnesses to be the seed of the church, and will return again and be glorious in our land. and now, lord, i am ready; the bride, the lamb's wife, hath made herself ready." when the napkin was tied about his face, he uttered a few affectionate words to the single friend who was permitted to attend him on the scaffold; his last counsels then spoken to the suffering remnant, show how much his heart was with them, and the cause of truth in their hands. "as to the remnant i leave, i have committed them to god. tell them from me, not to weary, nor be discouraged in maintaining their testimony. let them not quit or forego one of these despised truths. let them keep their ground; and the lord will provide them churches and ministers. and _when he comes, he will make these despised truths glorious in the earth._" in the close of his testimony, written in prison, the day before his execution, there are those sublime and affecting expressions, which were designed to be his last words from the scaffold--"farewell, beloved sufferers, and followers of the lamb. farewell, christian and comfortable mother and sisters. farewell, sweet societies and desirable general meetings. farewell! night wanderings in all seasons for christ, and all sublunary things. farewell! conflicts with a body of sin and death. welcome, scaffold, for precious christ. welcome, heavenly jerusalem. welcome, innumerable company of angels. welcome, crown of glory. welcome, above all, o thou blessed trinity and one god. o eternal one, i commit my soul into thy eternal rest." the relentless persecutors of our presbyterian forefathers were not content with removing this eminent servant of god, by a violent death; as if to throw upon him the utmost indignity, his body was buried in the common grave of felons, at the lower entrance of the greyfriars church-yard, a plain slab of stone erected over the spot, stating that the dust of the rev. james renwick lies interred with that of eight other martyrs, and with the remains of a hundred common felons. the emblem and inscription on the stone point, however, to the glory reserved for faithful servants of christ, when the sufferings of the church shall have been completed, and antichristian power shall have been overthrown. the emblem is an open bible, with the words in revelation vi. , , , inserted underneath. though enemies thus did their utmost to pour dishonour on the name and memory of renwick, and to extinguish the cause for which he suffered, yet the redeemer whom he intensely loved, and faithfully served, has in his providence, vindicated the one, as he has preserved, and will yet more extensively and gloriously display the other. not only have eminent historians and other distinguished writers, in recent times, done justice to the character and labours of renwick, and the contendings of the society people; but within the last few years, by several public commemorative services in scotland, the spirit and testimony of the later scottish martyrs, have been held forth as worthy of the grateful regard of posterity, and commended to their imitation and adoption. the bicentenary of the sanquhar declaration was commemorated with appropriate services,--upwards of persons of different religious denominations convening at the ancient burgh of sanquhar for this purpose. the addresses delivered on the occasion by ministers and others, ably displayed and vindicated the position assumed by richard cameron, and his followers, and commended to public approval their testimony. some three years ago, a like public commemoration of renwick's birth and martyrdom was celebrated, at the place of his nativity near moniaive, in the south of scotland,--ministers and people of the free, united, and reformed presbyterian churches manifesting the deepest interest in the proceedings. besides the ministers and large concourse of people--many of them gathered from great distances, that met in the open air, near the place of renwick's birth,--numerous congregations assembled in different houses of worship, observed the solemn occasion with solemn devotional exercises. the addresses delivered were a suitable tribute to the spirit and conduct of the covenanted martyrs; and various articles of their special testimony were clearly displayed and ably vindicated. an admirable sermon was preached at this commemoration by rev. william anderson of loanhead, which has since been published under the title of "_the voice of renwick_," and extensively circulated. it contains a condensed, yet lucid sketch of the life, labours and sufferings of renwick, a faithful portraiture of his character, and an able exposition and defence of the great principles of the testimony of the scottish martyrs. there has been published in modern times no juster or more appropriate tribute to the character, principles, and heroic deeds of these faithful confessors, than is contained in this discourse. on this account, as well as for the weighty practical lessons which it enforces, it is of no local or ephemeral interest, but deserves to be transmitted along with the testimonies of the presbyterian martyrs to future generations. these movements indicate the gracious design of zion's king to put lasting and increasing honour upon those who cheerfully suffered the loss of all things in maintaining his cause, and of yet reviving the principles for which they nobly contended. though the day may be distant when these nations shall voluntarily and generally return to allegiance to prince messiah, yet, as the dimness of the hour is the sure precursor of the perfect day, and the cloud like a man's hand betokened "abundance of rain," so these grateful reminiscences of the covenanted martyrs and their distinctive testimony, point to a day of deliverance and brightness approaching, when antichristian error and idolatry shall be overthrown, and the reign of righteousness and truth shall be universally established. conclusion. the record of the life, labours, and testimony, of james renwick is fraught with _practical lessons_ of the highest value to the church in the present day; and ministers, theological students, and the rising youth of the church generally have a special interest in pondering them deeply, and in seeking to reduce them to practice. from renwick's personal history, we see-- . an instance of the divine blessing on parental dedication, and early religious instruction, confirming the truth of the divine promise, and exhibiting the unspeakable benefit of the faithful labours of godly parents, especially of mothers, to the church. . it is impressively shown too, that a person's work and influence for good, is not dependent on birth or station in life, or on outward advantages. many of the most eminent servants of christ, like luther and renwick, sprung from the humbler ranks of society, and before they came forward to public usefulness, had to contend with great difficulties. grace ennobled them. god often chooses "the weak things" of the world to "confound the mighty." his servants are raised from the dunghill to sit among princes. in heaven's heraldry, a man's rank is taken, not from hereditary titles, or possessions, but from grace renewing and sanctifying the heart, and a life of true devotedness to christ and his service. . we are taught to lay no stress on present prosperity, but to do god's work, looking for the recompense of reward which he gives. a noble forgetfulness of self, and mortification to the favour of the world, have characterized all christ's most approved servants. dr. payson relates about himself, what has been experienced by many faithful men, "when i thought myself to be _something_, i never knew happiness of mind; since i came to feel myself nothing, and christ all, i have realized full satisfaction and joy." renwick reviled, calumniated, and persecuted in his day, while esteeming all but loss for christ, enjoyed in life and death, peace surpassing understanding--his name will be ever fragrant, and his memorial everlasting. . again, renwick's life presents a bright and attractive _example of the graces of fervent piety_. there shines forth in his character, in harmonious display and concentrated lustre, an array of lovely and ennobling features. to faith, he added virtue, and knowledge, patience, temperance, godliness, &c. ( pet. i. - .) his christian _wisdom_ is singularly conspicuous. renwick was blamed in his own day by time-servers and backsliders as imprudent; and those who maintain the same testimony even in our times, are characterized as foolish, imprudent, and infatuated. certainly, if wisdom consists only in securing present temporal gain--fleeting pleasure and the applause of the world, then renwick and his followers have no claim to be considered wise. but if the "beginning" and spirit of true wisdom are the "fear of the lord;" and if it is shown in preferring the advancement of god's glory and the enjoyment of his favour to all else, and in seeking the attainment of those ends by means divinely appointed, and approved, then the persecuted remnant were eminently wise. by opposing popery, prelacy, erastianism, and arbitrary power, and pleading resolutely for the covenant liberties of the church and nation, they proposed to themselves holy ends. their faithful contendings; their stern denunciations of royal perfidy and tyranny; their organization of societies, and a general correspondence; their proclaiming open opposition to usurped authority; and, above all, their willing sacrifice of life rather than abandon right principles, evince true wisdom. these were the best means that could possibly have been adopted to expose the countless evils of the government of the royal brothers; and to rouse the dormant spirit of the nation, to hurl tyrants and oppressors from the throne, and to establish constitutional liberty. then, the _fidelity_ of renwick and the cameronians were seen in maintaining fully their testimony to the whole covenanted reformation, amidst manifold perils, when the large body of presbyterians had made defection. the standard which they firmly grasped and refused to surrender had its glorious motto, "for christ's crown and covenant." the central doctrine of the redeemer's headship over the church and the nations, occupied a first place in all the testimonies emitted in their general meetings, and uttered on scaffolds and fields of blood. connected with this, as necessary corollaries, were the supremacy of holy scripture--the spiritual independence of the church, and the subjection of rulers and national legislation to the sceptre of the reigning mediator. on these grounds, they not only rejected infamous rulers, but condemned and rejected with utter abhorrence the royal supremacy. the sentiment expressed in the words subscribed to the minutes of their general meetings--"let king jesus reign,[ ] declare the leal allegiance of renwick and the persecuted covenanters to prince messiah. earnestly did they seek to have the authority of king jesus universally acknowledged, honoured, and obeyed. they believed firmly the sure word of prophecy that "all kings shall fall down before him; and all nations shall serve him." "he shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth." psal. lxxii. , . so should we also aim to be faithful to christ and his cause; to our own sacred vows; to the souls of men; and to the blood-bought privileges that have been entrusted to us to preserve and transmit. we are responsible, not for success, but for fidelity; and the promised reward will be a glorious recompense for all trial and suffering. "be thou faithful unto the death, and i will give thee a crown of life." renwick was, furthermore, distinguished by a _catholic, genial, loving spirit_. this characteristic is not generally thought to have been prominent in the spirit of illustrious reformers and suffering confessors. luther, calvin, and knox, have been represented as unsocial, morose fanatics, and gloomy bigots. renwick has been branded as rigid and austere, and those who have embraced and faithfully maintained the same testimony have been exhibited as sectaries of the deepest dye. no representation could be more unjust, and none is more opposed to historic truth. luther was most genial and loving, as his "table talk," and the record of his domestic life, abundantly testify. calvin's "letters" collected by bonnet, show how keenly and long he felt the death of his wife and infant child; how deeply his heart was affected with the sufferings of protestants everywhere, even of those who differed from him in principle; and attest, moreover, the warmth and constancy of his friendship. knox's declaration before queen mary, that he was always affected by the crying of his infant children, shows his gentle and susceptible disposition; while his letters to his wife and mother-in-law bear witness, equally to his piety, and to the depth of tender feeling that filled his large heart. renwick was, at all times, a loving, thoughtful, and confiding friend, as many passages in his "letters" declare. the annals of the persecution, and the traditions of suffering times, testify to his genial disposition, even when he was harassed by relentless enemies, and his heart was overwhelmed with incessant cares and anxieties. in proof of the catholic, unsectarian, christian spirit of renwick and his followers, the clear statements of the informatory vindication, the work which most fully and clearly defines their position, may be referred to. after laying down an admirable platform of fellowship and discipline, the persecuted covenanters declare in effect, "we are not a church at present, and cannot act fully as an organized church. we are a broken, persecuted remnant. our societies are not a church, but a temporary means of enjoying proper religious instruction and ordinances of worship. they are, besides, associations for self-defence, and for watching and taking advantage of any public movement for overturning the present despotism, and recovering our liberties, civil and religious. we require to make the terms of admission strict, to guard against spies, and those who are contentious or quarrelsome. at the same time they declare the close and hallowed relations that bound them to all the true disciples of their common lord. in a noble spirit of christian brotherhood, they virtually proclaim, "on the communion of saints, let us impose no new restrictions. though others differ from us in the word of their special testimony, let us embrace and love them, and acknowledge fellowship with them as christian brethren."[ ] in these noble utterances, we have strikingly exemplified the true spirit of christian brotherhood and catholic communion. this is the genuine import of the vow of the solemn league and covenant, which binds covenanters to regard whatever is done to the least of them, as done to all and to every one in particular. while firmly holding fast all scriptural attainments, and contending "earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints," we should cordially rejoice in the evidences of grace in christ's servants wherever we find them. we should love them as brethren, fulfil the law of christ by bearing their burdens, wish them god speed in all that they are doing for the advancement of his glory, and fervently labour and pray for the coming of the happy period when divisions and animosities shall cease, and when there shall be one king, and his name one in all the earth. . the testimony of renwick and his associates is of permanent value and of special importance in our day, as it was directed against _systems of error and idolatry_, which serve to corrupt the church and enslave the state. against popery in every form renwick was a heroic and uncompromising witness. at the peril of life, he publicly testified against the usurpation of the papist james, and rejected him as having no claim to be regarded as a constitutional sovereign, and as utterly disqualified to reign in a protestant reformed land. this was the main ground of his objection against james's toleration, for which the indulged ministers tendered obsequious thanks to the usurper. yet this edict of toleration was issued for the purpose of opening the way for the practice of rome's abominations, and for the advancement of papists to places of power and trust in the nation. none of the cameronians would, for any earthly consideration, even to save their lives, for a moment admit that a papist had any right to exercise political power in a reformed land. our martyred forefathers we regard as worthy of high respect and imitation, for their deeply cherished dread of the growing influence of popery, and for their determined resistance to its exclusive and extravagant claims. the system of popery is the abnegation of all precious gospel truth; and is a complete politico-religious confederacy against the best interests of a protestant nation. the boast of its abettors is that it is _semper eadem_--ever the same. rome cannot reform herself from within, and she is incapable of reformation from external influences and agencies. the bible never speaks of antichrist as to be reformed, but as waxing worse and worse till the time when he shall be completely subverted and irrecoverably destroyed. whatever changes may be going on in some popish countries, whereby the power of the papacy is weakened, it is evident that the principles and spirit of the romish priesthood, and of those who are under their influence, remain unchanged. the errors of the antichristian system, instead of being diminished, have of late years increased. creature worship has become more marked and general. the immaculate conception has been proclaimed by papal authority as the creed of romanism. in these countries, and some other protestant lands, the influence of popery in government and education, and so on the whole social system, has been greatly on the increase. among those who have most deeply studied inspired prophecy, there is a general expectation that the period of babylon's downfal is hastening on, and is not far distant. there is a general presentiment too, that the man of sin, prior to his downfal, will make some dire and violent attempt through his infatuated followers against the truth, and against such as faithfully maintain it. the "_slaying of the witnesses_,"--which we are disposed to regard as yet future--may take place, not so much by the actual shedding of blood, though it is plain that jesuit policy and violence will not hesitate to re-enact former persecution and massacre, to accomplish a desired purpose. it may mainly be effected, as scott, the expositor, suggests, by silencing the voice of a public testimony in behalf of fundamental truths throughout christendom; and of this there are at present unmistakeable signs not a few, throughout the churches in various countries. the protestant church in all its sections should be thoroughly awake to its danger from the destructive errors, idolatry and power of its ancient irreconcilable enemy; and should, by all legitimate means, labour to counteract and nullify its political influence. the ministry and the rising youth of the church should study carefully the popish controversy, and should be intimately acquainted with the history of the rise and progress of the papacy--its assumed blasphemous power--its accumulated errors and delusions, and its plots, varied persecutions and cruel butcheries of christ's faithful witnesses. above all, they should set themselves earnestly, prayerfully and perseveringly to diffuse the bible and gospel light in the dark parts of their native country, and among romanists in other lands. by embracing fully and holding fast, in their practical application, the principles of the british covenants, and by imbibing the spirit of covenanted martyrs--men like renwick and the cameronians, we will be prepared for the last conflict with antichrist. the firm and faithful maintenance of a martyr-testimony will be a principal instrument of the victory of truth over the error and idolatry of rome. "they overcame him by the blood of the lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death," (rev. xii. .) finally--the testimony of renwick is valuable, as throwing light on _great evils connected with systems of civil government_, and _with protestant churches_, and as pointing out clearly the duty of faithful witnesses in relation to them. two great principles--the one _doctrinal_, and the other _practical_, were essential to it, or rather constituted its whole speciality. these were--first--that, according to the national vows, and the reformation attainments, the whole civil polity of the nation should be conformed to the scriptures,--and secondly, the positive duty of distinct separation from whatever systems in the state or the church that are opposed to entire allegiance to messiah, the prince. the civil constitution and the national legislation and administration, as well as the lives of rulers, were required to be in subjection to his authority, and in accordance with the prescriptions of his word. when such subjection is withheld, christ's servants, if they would be faithful to the exalted saviour, cannot do otherwise than refuse to incorporate with the national society, and to homologate the acts of its rulers; and from churches that do not testify against national defection, they are constrained to maintain distinct separation. the past history of the church bears clear testimony that truth has been frequently preserved, when it was in danger of being lost, by open separation from those who were bent on declension and apostacy. in our day, it should not be regarded as enough to profess in theory the doctrine of christ's headship, or merely to speak in commendation of a martyr-testimony. we should aim, as renwick and his followers, at whatever inconvenience and hardship, to give it _practical effect_. the reason why these honoured confessors disowned the authority of charles and his brother, was, not solely or chiefly, because of their tyranny or persecuting measures, but principally because the authority assumed was opposed to the exclusive royal prerogatives of the redeemer. the public evils against which renwick and the later martyrs testified to the death, did not cease at the revolution; nor can we admit that the revolution settlement embodied all the principles for which the covenanted martyrs contended, and suffered, and died. on the contrary, there are essential and inherent evils in the revolution settlement, both civil and ecclesiastical, which exist to this day, and which render a decided testimony against it dutiful now, as it was at the period of the revolution. the act rescissory, which was passed at the restoration, is still retained in the statute book: the national covenants were abandoned, both by the church and the nation, and neither has returned to a sense of their obligation. the scriptural attainments of the reformation were left under a gravestone. presbyterianism was established in scotland--not because it was scriptural or right in itself, but because it was agreeable to the wishes of the majority of the nation, and it was set up on an erastian basis. by the introduction of the curates into the ministry of the scottish establishment, at the king's behest, without any public confession or renunciation of prelacy--the germ of moderatism was laid, which, in due time, budded and brought forth bitter fruits, in numerous corruptions and oppressions, and in multiplied divisions and separations. prelacy, abjured in the solemn league of the three kingdoms, was, at the revolution, established in england and ireland, and the supremacy of the monarch as head of the national church, and in "all causes, civil and ecclesiastical," was declared to be an inherent prerogative of the crown. these evils yet exist in the civil and ecclesiastical establishments of these countries; and others have in recent years been added, such as the admission of papists to places of power and trust throughout the nation, the national endowment of popish institutions, and the public favour shown by rulers to the antichristian system. the national policy in these instances and others that might be mentioned, is wholly inconsistent with the doctrine of the redeemer's headship in its legitimate application, and is the source of many of the evils that in our day corrupt and degrade the church of england, and that prevent the developement and prevalence of genuine protestantism throughout the nation. the presbyterian churches that claim descent from the covenanting reformers and martyrs, should seriously consider whether they do not compromise a faithful testimony, and encourage national apostacy, by incorporating with a civil system that refuses homage to the reigning mediator, and obedience to the authoritative prescriptions of his word. the rising youth of the church should carefully study in its legitimate application, and vitally important consequences, the grand article of renwick's testimony,--the redeemer's headship over the church and the nations, and the cognate principles of the supremacy of the word, the spiritual independence of the church, and the claim of the subjection of the nation and its rulers to the authority of the reigning mediator. whether viewed in the light of the past or of the present state of the nations, as of america, and the kingdoms of the antichristian earth; or of prophecy yet unfulfilled, a testimony for these truths is of grand and overwhelming importance. this is emphatically, the _present truth_--the cause of god and truth, now to be pleaded in the earth. it is "the word of christ's patience," which we are required to hold fast. it is at our peril if we be found neutral here; our preservation from the coming "hour of temptation," is alone to be expected in fidelity to the great trust committed to us. we are assured in the faithful word of prophecy, that the redeemer will ere long take to him his power to reign. the "little stone" shall bruise and break in pieces the feet and toes of the "great image,"--the representative of the world-powers,--and become a "great mountain," and fill the earth. then shall the cause for which christ's witnesses testified in sackcloth, and for which chosen martyrs died, gloriously triumph. "the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our lord, and of his christ." the peaceful, triumphant death of renwick, shows impressively that there is a reward to the righteous; that a life of self-denial and devoted piety appears at the close, enstamped with heaven's approval; and that labours and sufferings for christ's sake conduct to the joy of completed victory, and to perfect communion with the redeemer, and the redeemed in glory. "mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace." (ps. xxxvii. .) "after this, i beheld, and lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kingdoms, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands. and cried with a loud voice, saying, salvation to our god, which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the lamb." (rev. vii. , .) footnotes: [footnote : hist of ch. of scotland, vol. ii. p. ] [footnote : calvin and geneva, vol. i., ii.] [footnote : see appendix,--note a.] [footnote : dodds' "fifty years' struggle," p. .] [footnote : see "faithful contendings."] [footnote : dodds' "fifty years' struggle," p. .] appendix. it has been common in some quarters of late, to speak of renwick and his associates in testimony-bearing and suffering, as only contending against the unconstitutional and persecuting measures of the government of the royal brothers,--and to declare that, had they lived to witness the change of government which took place at the revolution, they would have joyfully hailed it as the realization of their eager aspirations,--and would have incorporated readily with the national society. thus, dodds in his "_fifty years' struggle of the scottish covenanters_,"--while acknowledging the important services rendered to the cause of the prince of orange, by the bold and resolute position taken by the cameronians, represents renwick, as not only "the last martyr of the covenanting struggle," but also as "the _proto-martyr of the revolution_." he adds, "like the shepherd overwhelmed in the snow-storm, he perished within sight of the door. the door of deliverance was speedily opened, on the arrival of william, in november, ." and, again, speaking of cameron, renwick, and the stricter covenanters, he says, "so far, the revolution settlement--in the main adopting what was universal, and rejecting what was exclusive, or over-grasping in their views,--was the consummation and triumph, civilly and politically, and to a large extent, ecclesiastically, of the fifty years' struggle of the scottish covenanters." these statements, though plausible, and such as seem likely to be readily embraced by those who have no relish for a full covenanted testimony--or who desire to maintain fellowship with corrupt civil and ecclesiastical systems, are liable to one fundamental and unanswerable objection,--they are wholly unsupported by historical evidence. all pains were taken by cameron and renwick, in preaching and in their dying testimonies, and by the united societies in their published declarations, to show that they testified not merely against the usurpation and blasphemous supremacy of the last of the stuarts,--but likewise, principally, against all invasion of the redeemer's royal prerogatives,--and all departure from the scriptural attainments of the former happy reformation. in nothing were they more decided than in testifying to the death, that the national covenants were the oath of god, perpetually binding on all classes in the realm,--"the marriage tie," which no power on earth could dissolve--that all departure from the principles of these federal deeds was sinful, and involved the land in the guilt of national apostacy and perjury,--and that the authority of the scripture was supreme in constituting the national society, in enacting and administering the laws, and in regulating the lives and official acts of the rulers. the revolution settlement, in both its civil and ecclesiastical departments, instead of being the exemplification and carrying forward of the work of the second reformation,--for the maintenance of which the scottish martyrs shed their blood,--was a deliberate abandonment of it, and was established in open opposition to its grand and distinguishing principles. the faithful companions and followers of renwick refused to incorporate with this settlement, on the ground of adhering firmly to the scriptural vows of the nation, and the testimonies of illustrious martyrs. while giving the best proof of their genuine patriotism, they withheld allegiance from the government of william, and they took the name and position of "old dissenters," for reasons which they clearly stated, which those who opposed and misrepresented them, were unable to answer, and the greater part of which are as applicable to the present british government, and existing ecclesiastical systems, as they were to the settlement of the revolution. several of the political changes which have taken place in recent times, have supplied strong additional grounds for faithful covenanters maintaining the position of public protest against, and active dissent from the establishments, civil and ecclesiastical, of the nation. the reasons of separation from the revolution church and state, as given by the "society people," are presented in a lucid and convincing manner, in the work entitled--"plain reasons for presbyterians dissenting from the revolution church in scotland, as also their principles concerning civil government, and the difference betwixt the reformation and revolution principles." they are likewise exhibited in a condensed form in the "short account of old dissenters," emitted with the sanction of the reformed presbytery, and in very luminous terms in the historical part of the "testimony of the reformed presbyterian church." no person who peruses these works, and ponders their carefully prepared statements, can with candour and honesty affirm that renwick and his fellow-sufferers would have willingly incorporated with the revolution settlement; or that fellowship with the present british political system, by taking oaths of allegiance and office, and setting up rulers, is consistent with their declared and dearly prized principles. let the "plain reasons" to which we have referred, be duly weighed--and it must be perfectly apparent, that mr. dodds's oracular statement--that the "revolution settlement" was the consummation and triumph, civilly, and politically, and to a large extent ecclesiastically, of the "fifty years' struggle of the scottish covenanters," is completely destitute of any solid foundation. these _reasons_ are such as the following--the scottish reformation in its purest form was deliberately abandoned in the revolution settlement--both the church and state concurred in leaving unrepealed on the statute-book, the infamous act rescissory, by which the national covenants were declared to be unlawful oaths, and all laws and constitutions, ecclesiastical or civil, were annulled, which approved and gave effect to them. the revolution church was, in every respect, an entirely different establishment from that of the second reformation. its creed was dictated by erastian authority--its government established on the ground of popular consent and not of divine right--its order and discipline were placed in subjection to erastian civil rulers--and the scriptural liberties of the ministry and membership interfered with; and corruption in doctrine, and ordinances of worship, without the power of removing it, extensively spread throughout the ecclesiastical body. how sadly different a structure did this appear to the eyes of faithful men, who lamented that the carved work of a covenanted sanctuary had been broken down, and the "beautiful house where their fathers worshipped, was laid waste!" nor could the civil and political part of the revolution settlement have any pretensions to be a proper carrying out of the civil system of the reformation era. in this the federal deeds of the nation were the compact between rulers and ruled, and were an essential part of the oath of the sovereign on admission to supreme power. civil rulers were required to be possessed of scriptural and covenant qualifications--and were taken bound to make a chief end of their government the promotion of the divine glory in the advancement of the true reformed religion, and the protection and prosperity of the reformed presbyterian church. they were likewise solemnly engaged to employ their official influence and authority to put away systems that had been abjured in the national vows,--popery, prelacy and erastianism, and to discourage all profaneness and ungodliness. at the revolution, all these engagements were deliberately set aside. the sovereign's coronation oath, and the oath of allegiance of subjects, bind both equally to the support of prelacy--which is declared to be established unchangeably in england and ireland. the whole civil system is based on expediency and the popular will, and not on scriptural principles. the authority claimed and exercised by the monarch over the presbyterian establishment in scotland, and the national church in england and ireland, is grossly erastian. the introduction of popery into the bosom of the state--the admission of papists to offices of power and trust in the nation, and the endowment of popish seminaries and chaplains--which the revolution settlement barred--but which the antichristian and infidel policy of recent times has enacted, show still more clearly that the civil and political system established in these countries is diametrically opposed to that which was set up at the era of the reformation, and was contended for by the scottish martyrs--and impose on all who would honestly promote the ends of the national covenants, the obligation to maintain distinct separation from it. a hind let loose; or, an historical representation of the testimonies of the church of scotland, for the interest of christ. with the true state thereof in all its periods. together with a vindication of the present testimony against the popish, prelatical, and malignant enemies of that church, as it is now stated, for the prerogatives of christ, privileges of the church, and liberties of mankind; and sealed by the sufferings of a reproached remnant of presbyterians there, witnessing against the corruptions of the time: wherein several controversies of greatest consequence are enquired into, and in some measure cleared; concerning hearing of the curates, owning of the present tyranny, taking of ensnaring oaths and bonds, frequenting of field-meetings, defensive resistance of tyrannical violence, with several other subordinate questions useful for these times. * * * * * by mr. alexander shiels, late minister of the gospel in st. andrew's. psal. xciv. . _shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?_ rev. xii. . _and they overcame him by the blood of the lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death._ glasgow _printed by william paton_, for john kirk, calton, the publisher. . preface. christian reader, presuming it is thy desire to answer the holy and honourable designation i accost thee with, i shall take the confidence to assure thee, it is my design to answer, in some measure, the expectation which the title of this treatise would offer, in the hope that, wherein i come short (as i indeed confess not only my jealous fears, but my sensible conviction of my insufficiency for such a great undertaking) thy christian tenderness will impute it to my weakness, and not to any want of worth in the cause i manage, which is truly worthy, weighty, noble and honourable, in the esteem of all the lovers of christ, that have zeal for his honour in exercise; and therefore as it gives me all the encouragement i have, in dependence on his furniture whose cause it is, to make such an essay, so it animates my ambition, albeit i cannot manage it with any proportion to its merit, yet to move the christian reader to make enquiry about it, and then sure i am he will find it is truth i plead for, though my plea be weak. all i shall further say by way of preface, is to declare the reason of the title, and the design of the work. though books use not to be required to render a reason of their names, which often are arbitrarily imposed more for the author's fancy and the time's fashion, than for the reader's instruction: yet, seeing the time's injuries do oblige the author to conceal his name, the title will not obscurely notify it to some for whose satisfaction this is mainly intended, and signify also the scope of the subject; which aims at giving goodly words, not sugared with parasitic sweetness, nor painted with affected pedantry, but fairly brought forth in an unhampered freedom, for the beauty of the blessing of human and christian liberty, in its due and true boundaries. this was the subject of a discourse, as some may remember, on that text whence this title is taken, gen. xlix. . "naphtali is a hind let loose." in prosecuting of which, the speaker, with several others, falling at the same time into the hands of the hunters, (to learn the worth of that interrupted subject from the experience of the want of it) an occasion was given, and interpreted by the author to be a call to study more the preciousness of that privilege predicated of naphtali, which is the right and property of the wrestling tribe of israel, the persecuted witnesses of christ now every where preyed upon. and now, providence having opened a door for "delivering himself as a roe from the hand of the hunter," he thought it his duty, and as necessary a piece of service as he could do to the generation, to bring to light his lucubrations thereupon; with an endeavour to discover to all that are free born, and are not contented slaves, mancipated to a stupid subjection to tyrants absoluteness, that this character of naphtali, "satisfied with favour, and full with the blessing of the lord," that he is a "hind let loose" from the yoke of tyrannical slavery, is far preferable, in the account of all that understand to be christians or men, to that infamous stigma of issachar (the sin, shame, and misery of this age) to be "a strong ass, couching under two burdens; and he saw that rest was good, and the land that it was pleasant, and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute." but to all that are not altogether strangers in our israel, it will appear, that this title is not inaptly applied to the subject and design of this treatise. the party whose case and cause, and contendings are here treated of, being known to have the same situation of residence in scotland that naphtali had in israel, viz. the west and the south (deut. xxxiii. .) will be found, among all our tribes, most appositely to bear the signature of naphtali, who, in their wrestlings for the interest of christ and the liberties of his israel, have mostly jeoparded their lives in the high places of the fields; and chiefly to deserve his elogy, being a "hind", (called wild by nickname in the scorn of them that are at ease, but) truly weak in their present wilderness condition, to wrestle against the force and fraud of their cruel and cunning hunters, who cease not (when they have now got the rest of the roes and hinds of the field made fast asleep, under the bondage of the lions dens and mountains of leopards, by a pretence of a falsely so called liberty of conscience) to seek and pursue the chace of them for a prey; yet really they are "let loose," and not only suffered to run loose, as a prey to the hunters, by the unwatchfulness of their keepers, but made to escape loose, by the mercy of the mighty one of jacob, from the nets of the hunters and snares of the fowlers, and from the yoke of the bondage of these beasts of prey, to whose authority they will not own a willing subjection; and being such "hinds," so "let loose," they make it their work to give goodly words, for the worth and honour, and royalties of their princely master, and for the precious liberties wherewith he hath endoted and entrusted his spouse and children, and to keep the goodly words of his patience, until he return "as a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of bether." this being the party who are represented as the wild folk of scotland, the design of this treatise is to hold forth the history of their manifold chaces, the craft, keeness, and cruelty of their hunters, and the goodliness of the words of their testimony, which, by reason of the likeness of the testimony of former periods with the present, and that the latter may be vindicated by the former, is resumed from the beginning of the church of scotland's wrestlings against the enemies of christ, and deduced through all the most signal steps of this long propagated and hereditary war. and, lest my words should not be goodly enough, nor my notions grateful to the critics of this age, who cast every thing as new and nice, which is someway singular, and not suited to their sentiments; that it may appear the cause here cleared and vindicated is not of yesterday, but older than their grandfathers who oppose it, i dare avouch, without vanity, there is nothing here but what is confirmed by authors of greatest note and repute in our church, both ancient and modern, namely, buchanan, knox, calderwood, acts of general assemblies, causes of wrath, lex rex, apologetical relation, naphtali, jus populi, history of the indulgence, banders disbanded, rectius instruendum, and some other authors much respected, whose authority, more always repelled by rage than ever yet refitted by reason; though i value more than all the vain oblatrations of the opposers of this testimony, and think it sufficient to confute all imputations of its novelty, and to counterbalance the weight that may be laid on the contradictions of the greatest that treat on this subject, yet i do not lay so much stress on the reason of their authority as on the authority of their reason, which is here represented with that candour and care, that, lest any should cavil that they are wrested or wronged when made to speak so patly to the present controversies, i have chosen rather to transcribe their words, than to borrow their matter dressed up in my own, except where the prolixity and multiplicity of their arguments, as clearly demonstrating that which i adduce them for, as that for which they were primarily intended, did impose the necessity of abridging them, which yet is mostly in their own words, though reduced into a sollogistical form. but this obloquy of novelty being anticipated, when i reflect on the helps i have collected from so many hands, i am rather afraid the truths here delivered be contemned as obsolete and antiquate, than cast at for new speculations. however, i am content; yea it is my ambition, that nothing here be looked upon as mine, but that it may appear this is an old plea, and that the party here pleaded for, who are stigmatized with many singularities, are a people who ask the old paths, and the good way, that they may walk therein; and though their paths be not now much paved, by the frequency of passengers, and multitude of professors walking therein, and albeit it must indeed be confessed the word of their testimony is someway singular, that the same things were never the word of christ's patience, stated as heads of suffering before, yet they are not untrodden paths, but the same way of truth which hath been maintained by the witnesses of christ in all the periods of our church, and asserted by the greatest confessors, though never before sealed by martyrs. as for the arguments i bring to clear and confirm them, whether they be accounted mine, or borrowed from others, i am very indifferent, if they prove the point they are brought for, which i hope they will be found to do; but of this i am confident, there is nothing here can be condemned until some one or more of these grave authors be confuted; and, when that is done, (which will be never, or against the _thirtieth of february_), there is something besides here, which will challenge consideration. the design then of this work is of great importance, even no less than to essay the discussing the difficulties of all our conflicts with open enemies, about the present state of the testimony; the vindicating of all the heads of sufferings sustained thereupon these twenty-seven years past; the proposing of the right state of the testimony for the interest of christ, not only of this, but of all former periods, with an account of the propagation and prosecution of the witnesses, wrestlings, and sufferings of it from time to time, to the end it may appear, not only how great the sufferings have been, since this fatal catastrophe and overturning of the covenanted reformation, and unhappy restoration of tyranny and prelacy; but that the grounds upon which they have been stated, are not niceties and novelties, (as they are reproached and reprobated by many), but worthy and weighty truths of great value and validity, and of near affinity unto, and conformity with the continued series and succession of the testimonies in all former periods. so that in this little treatise must be contained a compendious history of the church of scotland, her testimony in all ages, a vindication of the present state of it; yea, in effect, a short epitome of the substance of those famous forecited authors, as far as we need to consult them, concerning the controversies of the present time with adversaries; which is much, and perhaps too much, to be undertaken in so small a volume. but considering that many who are concerned in this cause, yea the most part who concern themselves about, are such who have neither access, nor time, nor capacity to revolve the voluminous labours of these learned men for light in this case, i have done best to bring them into one body of portable bulk with as great brevity as could consist well with any my measure of perspicuity, not meddling with any thing but what i thought might some way conduce to clear some part of the present testimony. every undertaking of this nature cannot but be liable to several disadvantages that are unavoidable: this hath many discouraging and difficult. one is, that it shall be exposed to the common fate of such representations, to be stigmatized as a seditious libel, and so may be sent to the flames to be confuted; and, to inflame the fury of these fire brands, already hell-hot, into the utmost extremity of rage against the author, that ever cruelty itself at its fullest freedom did exert against truth and reason arraigned, and cast for sedition and treason: the only sanctuary in such a case, is, in prospect of this, to have the greater care that nothing be spoken, but what the speaker may dare to affirm in the face of cruelty itself. a second common disadvantage is obvious from the consideration of the humour of the age; wherein fancy hath greater force than faith, and nothing is pleasing but what is parasitical, or attempered to the palate of the greatest, not of the best; and naked truth, without the fairdings of flattery, or paintings of that pakiness which is commonly applauded as prudence now a days, is either boggled at, or exposed to scorn and contempt; and reason, if roundly written, except it meet with an honest heart, is commonly read with a stammering mouth, which puts a t before it, and then it is stumbled at as treason. this essay does expect no entertainment from any, but such who resolve to harbour truth, be the hazard what will, even when the world raises the _hue_ and _cry_ after it, and from such who are really groaning, either by suffering or sympathy, under the same grievances here represented. there is a third, which makes it not a little difficult, the quality, quantity, and intricacy of the matter, here to be confined to such a compend. all which, together considered, do infer a fourth difficulty, that hardly can it get a pass through the press; which is blocked up against all such books that may offer a manifestation of the innocency of that people, and the injustice and inhumanity of their enemies; which is their only hope of preventing the world's knowledge and condemnation of their actings. yea, there is a fifth, that wants not its own difficulty; that though the press were patent, yet an empty purse, from a poor impoverished people, will as readily preclude all access to it, as if it were locked up by law; but both together make it hard. but there is a sixth disadvantage yet more discouraging, that the man as well as the money, is wanting to manage the business: and this needs no other proof; than the necessity of my poor pen to undertake it, instead of a better. it must needs be very low with that people, that stand in need of such a pitiful patrociny as mine is. our persecuted brethren, elsewhere, have this advantage of us, that they have champions to espouse their quarrel, which we have not; but only such, who as they are reputed in the world, so, in their own sense, own themselves to be very unaccomplished for such work; and under this invincible disadvantage also, that, being forced to a wandering and unsettled life, they have no conveniency, nor can be accommodated with time, nor helps to perform it; and so circumstantiated, that either it must be done at this time, and in this manner, or not at all. in the seventh place, we are at a greater loss than any suffering people; in that, among all other bitter ingredients, we have this gall also in our cup, that they that suffer most among us, have not the comfort and benefit of the sympathy of others, that sufferers use to have from good people. the reason of this makes an eighth discouragement, besides what is said above; that not only is the case and cause of that poor persecuted and wasted witnessing remnant, obscure in itself, and not known in the world, nay, not so much as in the very neighbouring churches of england and ireland, but also more obscured by the malice of enemies, traducing, calumniating, and reproaching that righteous remnant whom they intend to ruin; not indeed as hereticks (which is the case of other suffering churches, wherein they have the advantage of us also; that though the name be more odious, yet it makes the notion of their cause, and the nature of their enemies, notour, and is more effectual to conciliate sympathy from all that know that protestants are persecuted by papists under the notion of hereticks: but we are at a loss in this, that our persecutors, at least the most part of the executioners of the persecution, will not as yet avouch that protestantism is heresy though we want not this nick name likewise from the chief of them that are professed papists) but as scismaticks, seditious, rebels, traitors, murderers, holding principles inconsistent with government, (to wit, their tyranny), and the peace of human society, (to wit, their association against religion and liberty), and therefore to be exterminated out of the world. and this imposture, covering all their mischiefs, hath prevailed so far with the blinded world, that under this brand the consideration of their case and cause is buried, without farther inquiry. this were yet more tolerable from open enemies, if there were not another more pressing discouragement, in the ninth place, peculiar to them in scotland; that having to do with treacherous as well as truculent enemies, as they have been much destroyed by open force, so much more by fraud; while, by ensnaring favours, some have been flattered from the testimony, others disdaining and suspecting, as well as deprived of, and secluded from, these favours, have stuck to it; hence defection brought on division, and division confusion, which hath reduced the reformation to a ruinous heap. in the next place, as the consequent of the former, while the purer remnant have been resolutely prosecuting the testimony, and not only keeping themselves free of, and standing at the farthest distance from, all degrees of compliance, but also witnessing against their brethren involved in them and thinking it their duty to discountenance them in these corruptions and backslidings; they have been therefore reproached and misrepresented very industriously, as "ignorant, imprudent, transported with blind zeal, extravagant, wild separatists, espousing new and nice notions, rejecters of the ministry, imposers on the ministry, deniers of all government, usurpers of an imaginary government of their own, that died as fools, and as guilty of their own blood." by which odious and and invidious obloquies, they have easily prevailed with many, both at home and abroad, that are more credulous than considerate, to believe these things of them: hence, with prejudicate people, a contrary representation will find difficult acceptance. however, this moreover is another great disadvantage, and renders an essay to vindicate their sufferings very uneasy; that they are thrust at, and tossed on both hands, by enemies and professed friends: and by enemies that are not papists, but professed protestants, owning the same fundamentals in opinion, though in practice not holding the same head: and by friends, that not only are protestants, but presbyterians, under the bonds of the same solemn and sacred covenants, the obligation whereof they still own; and not only so, but such, whose piety and godliness cannot be doubted. this is a gravamen grievous to bear, and greatly aggravates the difficulty. finally, the greatest of all is, that not only their cause is rendered odious, but must be confessed truly stated as heads of suffering. for now it is the dragon's chief stratagem with us, like to be the most subtile, ensnaring, and successful of any, that ever he set on work since ever he began this war with the lamb, (which yet i hope will prove as fatal to his interest as the former), to bring the sufferings of christ's witnesses to such a state, that may seem to spectators little or nothing relative to religion, that so he may destroy both them and their testimony unlamented, and by that trick divert others from concerting that same necessary witness in the season thereof. and, for this end, he will change both matter and manner, in managing the war. he will not now persecute for the old controverted heads of popery, with fire and faggot, as formerly, for refusing to worship our lady, or the "blessed sacrament of the altar." these weapons and engines are so worn out of use, that they will not work now as they did before. and that old bawd of babylon is become so ugly, and out of date; that he does not believe her beauty can be so bewitching, except that she put on a new busk: but her eldest daughter, the prelatical church, of the same complexion with herself, except that she is coloured with protestant paint, is fitter for his service to allure our land into fornication; and who will not be enticed, must be forced to communion with her, by finings, confinings, exactions, extortions, and impositions of oaths, &c. religion must be little concerned here; for there is preaching enough, and of protestant doctrine too, and without the monkey-tricks, and montebank shows, and foperies of english popish ceremonies and liturgical services: what would they be at! is it not better to yield to this, than to fall into the hand of the scottish-spanish inquisition, that will rack the purse, the body, and conscience and all? this is one complex head of suffering, and thought a very small one by many. but now, finding this would not do his business yet, it looked too like religion still: he hath therefore invented a new machine; he will not now persecute, nor force the conscience at all (so good-natured is the devil and his lieutenant grown in their old age) for matters of mere religion. nay, (if we may believe him, who, when he speaketh a lie, speaketh it of his own) he hath not done it this long time, but only, in all the violent courses exercised against these sufferers, he hath been magistratically chastising the disobedence and rebellion of a few turbulent traitors, who would not own the government. and thus, under the notion of rebellion and disowning authority, he hath had access and success to destroy almost an innumerable number of honest and innocent, faithful and fruitful lovers of christ, who, though indeed they have had their sufferings stated upon those points, yet i doubt not shall be found among the followers of the lamb, and confessors and martyrs of christ, who have overcome by the blood of the lamb, and the word of their testimony, not loving their lives unto the death, whose blood is crying for vengeance against the shedders thereof: and he will make inquisition for it, when he comes to overturn, overturn, and take his own right, for which they have been contending. nevertheless this is a prejudice too prevalent with many, to misregard the case and cause of these contenders, or any thing that can be said to represent them favourably. and all these disadvantages, difficulties, and discouragements, together considered, would soon cool my courage, and, at first blush, make me leave off before i begin, were i not persuaded, that it is the cause of christ these reproached people are still suffering for: and that their great sufferings and reproaches are both alike unjust: from both which the lord will vindicate them, and bring forth their righteousness as the light, and their judgment as the noon-day, in his own time. in confidence of which, depending on his conduct, i shall undertake, as briefly as possible for me, to represent their case, and clear the cause, so far at least as concerns their contest with their persecuting enemies, with whom i only deal at present: it not being my purpose to descend particularly in their necessitated contendings with complying brethren: partly because they would make the volume to excresce unto too great a bulk, and because they are to be seen elsewhere: yet, in effect: these also are not only here narratively deduced, but whatever is odious in them is vindicated, and what is difficult in some measure enodated. but it may be expected and desiderated, that i should give a distinct deduction of all the steps of this woful defection, against which a great part of the testimony hath been stated; but i would have the reader advertised, i touch only that part of the testimony which hath been sealed by severe sufferings from enemies. it were a task transcending my capacity, and a theme wherein i have no pleasure, besides that it is inconsistent with my leisure, to enlarge upon such a sad and shameful subject: though the world indeed is at a loss, that they that would do it, cannot, and they that would and should do it, will not; and it is a greater loss, not only to scotland, but also to the whole christian world, that what hath been done in this kind already cannot see the light, or rather that the church of christ is deprived of its light, which through the injury of the times, and the disingenuous prudence of some, who suffer themselves to be imposed upon by the patrons of defection, is embezzled and suppressed. i mean that excellent and faithful history of defection, the posthumous work of the famous mr. m'ward, whose praise is in the churches; which if they that have it in keeping would do themselves the honour, and the world the happiness, of publishing it, there would be no more need to discover from whence, to what, and how, that church hath fallen and degenerate; nor so great difficulty in that indisputable and indispensible duty that such a day calls for, in searching and trying our ways, to the end we may turn again to the lord; nor any necessity for my poor essay to invite and incite the people of the lord to take cognizance and compassion on poor perishing scotland. i wish that they who have it, may consult more their own duty and credit, and what they owe to the memory of the dead, the church's edification, the day's testimony, and the honour of christ, than to continue robbing the world of such a treasure; which i doubt not to call treason against christ, and sacrilege against the church, and stick not to tell them, if they will not publish it, the world must know there was such a thing done. but it not being my design now, to detect or reflect upon all the defections of that declining, and by declensions divided, and by divisions almost (only not) destroyed church; i shall meddle with them no further, than what is necessary to clear the cause, referring the knowledge and account of them, either to the notoriety of the grossest of them, or to the more particular ennaration of them, to be found in papers emitted and published by the contenders against them: of which one is of this same year's edition, entitled, 'the informatory vindication of a 'poor, wasted, misrepresented remnant,' &c. in which may be evident, that notwithstanding of all this darkness and distress, defection and division, under which the church of scotland hath been so long, and is still labouring, there is yet a poor wasted, wounded, rent, and almost ruined, but still wrestling and witnessing remnant of professors and confessors of christ there, who though they have not only had their souls exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud; but their bodies also killed all day long, and counted as sheep for the slaughter, have yet through grace endeavoured to overcome by the blood of the lamb, and the word of their testimony, and have not loved their lives dear unto the death, and have continued to this day contending both against professed enemies, and also declining friends, sustaining from both the utmost of rage and reproach. and since that little book gives an account, what their contendings have been against their backdrawing brethren on the right and left hand, i shall spare labour to offer a discussion of them, only endeavour to make it not difficult to decide and determine, on whose side truth lies, by what is here hinted. i shall conclude with advertising the reader of one thing further, that, as this reproached people, for testimony i am pleading, is now the only party that is persecuted in scotland, (some few excepted, who are exempted from the pretended favour of the current indemnities) and their persecution still continues, notwithstanding of the impudent, as well as insnaring declarations of universal liberty to all dissenters, which they look upon as their honour and happiness, to be thought incapable of tyrannical and antichristian favours; so their past and present oppressions and sufferings are only here in general aggregated, described as to their kinds, and vindicated as to their causes: the particular deduction of their number, weight, and measure, of their names that have been martyred and murdered, both by formality of law, and without all formality of law, by sea and land, city and country, on scaffolds, and in the fields; of the manner of their sufferings; and of the form of their trials and testimonies, being intended shortly (if the lord will) to be emitted and published in a book by itself; which will discover to the world as rare instances of the injustice, illegality, and inhumanity of the scottish inquisition, and of the innocency, zeal, ingenuity, and patience of the witnesses of christ, as readily can be instanced in these latter ages. only here is a taste till more come; which if the lord bless for its designed end, the glory of god, the vindication of truth, the information and satisfaction of all serious sympathisers with zion's sorrows, and the conviction or confutation of reproachers, so far, at least, as to make them surcease from their invidious charge of things whereof the innocency is here vindicated, i have obtained all my design, and shall desire to give the lord the praise. _it will not be unprofitable for the reader to cast his eye upon these sentences of great authors, which relate to some heads of the following discourse._ (translated from their originals.) _erasmus._ as a woodcock, otherwise loud, being taken, becomes dumb; so slavery renders some men speechless, who, if they were free, would tell their minds freely. _nazianzen._ discord is better for the advantage of piety, than dissembled concord. _bernard._ but if scandal arise for the truth, it is better to suffer scandal than relinquish the truth. _bracton._ he is a king who rightly governs, a tyrant who oppresses his people. _cicero._ he loses all right to government, who, by that government, overturns the common-weal. _aristotle._ he who obeys the law, obeys both god and the law; who obeys the king, a man and a beast. _sueton._ they are not bound to be loyal to a wicked king, under the pains of perjury. _ambrose._ he that does not keep off injury from his neighbour, if he can do it, is as much in the fault as he who does it. _chamier._ but all subjects have right of resisting tyrants, who by open force acquire dominion. _barclay. against contenders for monarchy._ all antiquity agrees, that tyrants can, most justly, be attacked and slain as public enemies, not only by the public, but also by individual persons. a hind let loose; or, an historical representation of the testimonies of the church of scotland, for the interest of christ. with the true state thereof in all its periods. with _a vindication of the present testimony_. the church of christ, in the impression of all that have the least spark of the day's spirit is now brought to such a doleful and dreadful case and crisis, that if it be not reckoned the killing of the witnesses, yet all that have or desire the knowledge of the times, will judge it no impeachment to the prophecy to say, it is either very like, or near unto it. when now the devil is come down in great wrath, and knowing his time is but short, and therefore exerting all the energy of the venom and violence, craft and cruelty of the dragon, and antichrist, alias pope, his captain-general, is now universally prevailing, and plying all his hellish engines to batter down, and bury under the rubbish of everlasting darkness, what is left to be destroyed of the work of reformation; and the crowned heads, or horns of the beast, the tyrants, alias kings of europe, his council of war, are advancing their prerogatives upon the ruins of the nations and churches privileges, to such a pitch of absoluteness, and improving and employing their power for promoting their masters (the devil and antichrists) interests, to whom they have gifted the churches, mancipated their own, and sacrificed the nations interest; and that with such combination of counsels, and countenance of providential success, that all the powers of hell, the principalities of earth, and the providence of heaven, over-ruling all things for the accomplishment of the divine purpose, and purchase, and prediction, seem to conspire to produce that prodigious period, and last attempt of the church's enemy. and the commencement is so far advanced, that now in all the churches of europe either the witnesses of christ are a killing, or the witness for christ is in a great measure killed; either the followers of the lamb, who are called, and chosen, and faithful, are killed for their testimony, or fainting in their zeal, and falling from their first love, they are cooled or cajoled from their testimony. some are indulging themselves in their ease, settling on their lees, and sleeping in a stupid security; and, while the lord is roaring from above, and his, and their enemies raging about them, and designing to raze them after they have ruined their neighbours, they are rotting away under the destructive distempers of detestable neutrality, loathsome lukewarmness, declining, and decaying in corruptions, defections, divisions, distractions, confusions; and so judicially infatuated with darkness and delusions, that they forget and forego the necessary testimony of the day. others again, outwearied with the length and weight of the trial, under the temptation of antichrist's formidable strength on the one hand, and a deceitful prospect of an insnaring liberty on the other, are overcome either to be hectored or flattered from their testimony. and so, in these churches, comprehending all that are free from persecution at this time, the witness for christ is in a great measure killed. other churches, which are keeping and contending for the word of christ's patience, are so wasted, and almost worn out, with persecutions, afflictions, and calamities, that, after they have been, and are (so much) daily killed for the word of god, and the testimony of jesus, it may well be said, there hath been, and is, a great slaughter of the witnesses. and it were hard to determine, which of them can give the largest and most lamentable account of their sufferings, or which of them have had the greatest and most grievous experiences of the treachery and truculency, violence and villany of atheistical and papistical enemies: whether the reformed church of france, howling under the paw of that devouring lion, the french tyrant; or the protestants of hungary under the tearing claws of that ravenous eagle, the tyrant of austria; or those of piedmont, under the grassant tyranny of that little tyger of savoy. the accounts they give in print, the reports they bring with them in their flight from their respective countries, and the little hints we have in gazettes and news-letters, must needs enforce a conviction, if not extort a compassion of the greatness of their pressures; and that with such a parity, that it is doubtful which preponderates. i shall not make comparisons, nor aggravate nor extenuate the sufferings of any of the churches of christ, beyond or below their due measures; but will presume to plead, that scotland, another ancient, and sometimes famous reformed church, be inrolled in the catalogue of suffering churches, besides these mentioned; and crave, that she may have a share of that charity and sympathy which is the demand and desire of afflicted churches of christ, from all the fellow members of that same body: and so much the rather is this her due, that, whereas, among all the rest of the churches, christ's witnesses are killed in some particular respect, and each of them have their own proper complaint of it; some upon the account of persecution, some of defection, division, &c. of this it may be said, in all respects, both the witnesses of christ, and a witness for christ, are killed with a witness. this is the case of the sometimes renowned, famous, faithful, and fruitful, reformed, covenanted church of scotland, famous for unity, faithful for verity, fruitful in the purity of doctrine, worship, discipline, and government; which now, for these twenty-seven years past, under the domination of the late tyrant, and present usurper of britain, hath been so wasted with oppression, wounded with persecution, rent with division, ruined with defection, that now she is as much despised, as she was before admired; and her witness and testimony for reformation, is now as far depressed and suppressed in obscurity, as it was formerly declared and depredicated in glory and honour. and yet, which should move the greater commiseration, her witnessings and wrestlings, trials and temptations, have not been inferior, in manner or measure, quality or continuance, to any of the fore-mentioned churches, though in extent not so great, because her precinct is not so large, whereby the number of her oppressed and murdered children could not be so multiplied, though her martyrs be more, and the manner of their murder more illegal, than can be instanced in any of them during that time. a particular enumeration or ennaration whereof, cannot be here exhibited, but is referred and reserved to a peculiar treatise of that subject, which ere long the world may see. only i shall give a compendious account of the kinds and causes, grounds and heads of their sufferings, who have been most slighted, and least sympatized with, though they have sustained the greatest severities of any; and, in end, endeavour to vindicate the merit of their cause, in the most principal heads upon which their sufferings have been stated: whereby it will appear to impartial men, that will not be imposed upon, there hath been, and yet is, a great and grievous, and some way unparalleled, persecution in scotland, at least inferior to none: which hath not hitherto been duly considered, with any proportion to the importance thereof. but though this be the scope, it is not the sum of what is intended in this discourse. the method i have proposed to prosecute it withal, will discover it; which is, . to give a brief and summary account of the series and succession, success and result of the several contendings of the witnesses of christ, against his enemies in scotland from time to time; that it may appear, whether or not the present sufferings, as now stated, can be condemned, if the former be approven. . to rehearse some of the chief means, methods and measures, that the popish, prelatical and malignant faction have managed, for the ruin of this witnessing remnant, and some of the most signal steps of sufferings sustained by and from these within these twenty-seven years; by which it will appear, that the persecution in scotland hath been very remarkable (though little regarded) both in respect of the injustice, illegality, and inhumanity of the persecutors, and in respect of the innocency, zeal and ingenuity of the persecuted. . to clear the state, and vindicate the merit of the cause of their sufferings, as to the most material heads of it, that are most controverted at this time. in the first of these, i must study all compendious brevity, as may consist with the clearing of my scope; which is not to enlarge an historical deduction of the rise and result, progress and prosecution, occasion and continuation of every controversy the church hath had with her several adversaries in several periods; but only to hint at the chief heads of their contendings, with a design to make it appear, that the most material heads of sufferings that are now condemned as new and nice notions, have been transmitted from age to age, from the beginning even to this present time, through all the periods of this church. period i. _comprehending the_ testimony _of the_ culdees. it is not without reason reckoned among the peculiar prerogatives of the renowned church of scotland, that christ's conquest in the conversion of that nation, is one of the most eminent accomplishments of scripture-prophecies, of the propagation of his kingdom in the new testament dispensation; not only because it was, when called out of gentile paganism, among the rudest of heathen nations, and in the acknowledgement of all, among "the uttermost parts of the earth," which were given to christ for his inheritance and possession; whereunto he had, and hath still undoubted right, by his father's grant, and by his own purchase; and took infeftment of it by a glorious conquest of that land, which the roman arms could never subdue; and erected his victorious trophies there, whither their triumphs could never penetrate; obtaining and thereby accomplishing that predicted song of praise, "from the uttermost parts of the earth have we heard songs, even glory to the righteous." which gives us ground to expect, that however christ's interest there be now very low, and like to be lost as a prey in the dragon's mouth, yet christ, having such undoubted and manifold right to it, will not so easily quit or forego his possession; but also, because he hath so constantly continued his possession, and maintained his title, by a long course of contendings, by the testimonies of his witnesses against the invaders thereof, through all the periods of the church, from the very infancy of this new dispensation; and because scotland's conversion unto the christian faith was among the first fruits of the gentiles, of the oldest date, that any standing church holding the head christ this day can deduct its original from. for it is clear from ancient records, the christian faith was embraced here a few years after the ascension of our saviour, being taught by the disciples of john the apostle; and received afterwards great increase from the britons flying to scotland to escape the persecution of the emperor domitian, and was long promoted by the ancient culdees, (or worshippers of god,) men whose memory is still fragrant for piety and purity of faith and life, who continued some hundreds of years under various vicissitudes of providence, before either prelacy or popery was known in scotland. they were first universally encouraged by king cratilinth, in the time of the last persecution under dioclesian, which brought many of christ's witnesses hither for shelter, who were very helpful for the settling of truth, and the total extirpation of the idolatry of the druids, the heathen priests, whereby the pure doctrine, worship, and government also, of christ's institution, was established and continued many years, while these witnesses of christ had no other emulation but of well-doing, and to advance piety. in this period, these ancient, and first confessors and witnesses of christ, did wrestle strenuously, according to their strength and light, for the truths and words of christ's patience, controverted in their day, both against professed enemies, pagan persecutors and priests, and pretended friends, corrupters of the faith. their testimony was stated in a peculiar manner, for the verity, value and virtue of christ's natures and offices, in asserting his truths relative to either, against the malignants and sectaries of their time; particularly for the concerns of his prophetical office. and though we be at a loss, that for the most part their witness is buried in oblivion, through the darkness of the times succeeding; yet the scrapes and fragments that are left, do furnish us with these few remarks. i. they maintained the verity of the christian doctrine, against both pagan persecutors and heretical perverters; and the purity of his instituted worship, without the vanity of human inventions, or conformity with, either the druids on the one hand, or the heretics on the other, with which, sometime before the end of that period, they were infested; chiefly the pelagians, with whom the faithful would have no communion; but abstracted themselves in a monastical life, living and exercising their religion in cells, from whence many places in the country yet retain the name, as kilmarnock, kilpatrick, &c. that is the cells of these eminent men among the culdees. and their government also was that of the primitive order, without bishops, with little vanity, but great simplicity and holiness. many authors do testify, that near about years, the church of scotland knew nothing of the episcopal hierarchy, until palladius brought it in, and not without great opposition. ii. in these recesses, they had the advantage, both of outward peace, when others were in trouble, and of inward peace of conscience, when others were debauched with many conjurations and abjurations, combinations and confederacies, imposed and exacted by them that prevailed for the time, whereby they might both keep themselves free of ensnaring oaths, perfidious compliances, and associations with the wicked, and also entertain and encourage the oppressed for equity, who fled unto their sanctuary for safety. we find they refused to enter into league with malignant enemies. one memorable passage i shall insert (though strictly it belong not to this period, as i distinguish it, yet falling out, within eighty years thereafter, in the time of the culdees, it will not obscurely evidence the truth of this) goranus the forty-fifth king of scots, earnestly dissuaded lothus king of picts to entertain the league with the saxons, not only because they were treacherous and cruel, but because they were enemies to the country and to the religion they professed, concluding thus: _homini vero christiano id longe omnium videri_, &c. "but to a christian nothing must seem more grievous, than to consent to such a covenant, as will extinguish the christian religion, and reduce the prophane customs of the heathen, and arm wicked tyrants, the enemies of all humanity and piety, against god and his laws." whereupon lothus was persuaded to relinquish the saxons, buchan. hist. rer. scotic. iii. though they were not for partaking in wicked unnecessary wars, without authority, or against it; yet we have ground to conclude, they were for war, and did maintain the principle of resisting tyranny; since there was never more of the practice of it, nor more happy resistances in any age, than in that; where we find, that, as their ancestors had frequently done before, so they also followed their footsteps, in resisting, reducing to order, repressing, and bringing to condign punishment tyrants and usurpers; and thought those actions, which their fathers did by the light of nature and dictates of reason, worthy of imitation, when they had the advantage of the light of revelation and dictates of faith; the one being indeed moderate and directed, but no ways contradicted by the other. therefore we read, that, as their predecessors had done with thereus the th king of scotland, whom they banished in the year before christ's incarnation ; with dustus the th king, whom they slew in battle in the year before christ ; evenus the d, who was imprisoned, and died there, in the year before christ ; dardanus the th king, who was taken in battle, beheaded by his own subjects, his head exposed to mockage, and his body cast into a sink, in the year of christ ; luctatus the d king, who was slain for his leachery and tyranny in the year , mogaldus the d king, slain in the year ; conarus the th king, a leacherous tyrant, died in prison in the year ; satrael the th king hanged in the year . so, after the christian faith was publicly professed, they pursued athirco the th king, when degenerate into tyranny, who was forced to kill himself in the year . they slew nathalocus the th king, and cast him into a privy, in the year . they beheaded romachus the th king, and carried about his head for a show in the year . as they did with many others afterwards, as witnesseth buchanan, book iv. scottish history. iv. whence it is evident, that as they attained, even in these primitive times, and maintained the purity and freedom of their ministry, independent on pope, prelate, or any human supremacy (that antichristian hierarchy and erastian blasphemy not being known in those days) so they contended for the order and boundaries of the magistracy, according to god's appointment and the fundamental constitutions of their government; and thought it their duty to shake off the yoke, and disown the authority of these tyrants that destroyed the same. yea, we find, that even for incapacity, stupidity and folly, they disowned the relation of a magistrate, and disposed of the government another way, as they did with ethodius ii. whose authority they did own, but only to the title. see buchanan in the before cited place. period ii. _comprehending the_ testimony _of the same_ culdees, _with that of the_ lollards. the following period was that fatal one, that brought in universal darkness on the face of the whole church of christ, and on scotland with the first of them: which, as it received very early christianity, so it was with the first corrupted with antichristianism: for that mystery of iniquity that had been long working, till he who letted was taken out of the way, found scotland ripe for it when he came; which, while the dragon did persecute the woman in the wilderness, did valiantly repel his assaults; but when the beast did arise, to whom he gave his power, he prevailed more by his subtilty, than his rampant predecessor could do by his rage. scotland could resist the roman legions while heathenish, but not the roman locusts when antichristian. at his very first appearance in the world, under the character of antichrist, his harbinger palladius brought in prelacy to scotland, and by that conveyance the contagion of popery, which hath always been, as every where, so especially in scotland, both the mother and daughter, cause and effect, occasion and consequence of popery. these rose, stood and lived together, and sometimes did also fall together; and we have ground to hope that they shall fall again; and their final and fatal fall is not far off. whatever difficulty authors do make, in calculating the epocha of the forty-two months of antichrist's duration in the world, because of the obscurity of his first rise; yet there needs not be much perplexity in finding out that epocha in scotland, nor so much discouragement from the fancied permanency of that kingdom of wickedness. for if it be certain, as it will not be much disputed, that popery and prelacy came in by palladius, sent legate by pope celestine, about the year ; then if we add forty-two months, or prophetical days, that is, years, we may have a comfortable prospect of their tragical conclusion. and though both clashings and combinations, oppositions and conjunctions, this day may seem to have a terrible aspect, portending a darker hour before the dawning; yet all these reelings and revolutions, though they be symptoms of wrath incumbent upon us for our sins, they may be looked upon, through a prospect of faith, as presages and prognostics of mercy impendent for his name's sake, encouraging us, when we see these dreadful things come to pass in our day, to lift up our heads, for the day of our redemption draweth nigh. this dark period continued nigh about years, in which, though christ's witnesses were very few, yet he had some witnessing and prophesying in sackcloth all the while. their testimony was the same with that of the waldenses and albigenses, stated upon the grounds of their secession, or rather abstraction from that mystery babylon, mother of harlots, popery and prelacy, for their corruption in doctrine, worship, discipline and government. and did more particularly relate to the concerns of christ's priestly office, which was transmitted from the culdees to the lollards, and by them handed down to the instruments of reformation in the following period. their testimony indeed was not active, by way of forcible resistance against the sovereign powers; but passive, by way of confession and martyrdom, and sufferings and verbal contendings, and witnessings against the prevailing corruptions of the time. and no wonder it should be so, and in this someway different from ours, because that was a dispensation of suffering, when antichrist was on the ascendant, and they had no call or capacity to oppose him any other way, and were new spirited for this passive testimony, in which circumstances they are an excellent pattern for imitation, but not an example for confutation of that principle of defensive resistance, which they never contradicted, and had never occasion to confirm by their practice. but, as in their managing their testimony, their manner was someway different from ours on this respect; so they had by far the advantage of us, that their cause was so clearly stated upon the greatest heads of sufferings, having the clearest connexion with the fundamentals of religion; yet we shall find in this period our heads of suffering someway homologated, if we consider, i. that as they did faithfully keep and contend for the word of christ's patience under that dispensation, in asserting and maintaining both the verity of christ's doctrine, and the purity of his worship, by testifying against the corruptions, errors, idolatries and superstitions of popery; so they did constantly bear witness against the usurpation and tyrannical domination of the antichristian prelates. and as the culdees did vigorously oppose their first introduction, and after aspiring domination, as well as the corruptions of their doctrines, as we have the contendings of eminent witnesses recorded from age to age; in the fourth and fifth age, columbe, libthac, ethernan, kintegern or mungo; in the sixth and seventh age, colmanus, clemens, and samson, with others; in the eighth and ninth age, alcuin, rabanus, maurus, joannes scotus �rigena, are noted in history. and the lollards, by their examinations and testimonies, are found to have witnessed against the exercise of their power, and sometimes against the very nature of their power itself: so in their practice they condemned prelacy as well as popery, in that their ministers did in much painfulness, poverty, simplicity, humility, and equality, observe the institution of our lord. and so far as their light served, and had occasion to enquire into this point, they acknowledged no officer in the house of god superior to a preaching minister, and according to this standard, they rejected and craved reformation of exorbitant prelacy. and it is plain, that they were frequently discovered by discountenancing and withdrawing from their superstitious and idolatrous worship; for all which, when they could not escape nor repel their violence, they cheerfully embraced and endured the flames. ii. that their adversaries did manage their cruel craft, and crafty cruelty, in murdering those servants of god, much after the same methods that ours do; except that they are many stages outdone by their successors; as much as perfect artists do outstrip the rude beginnings of apprentices. but, on the other hand, the sufferers in our day, that would follow the example of those worthies under popery, would be much condemned by this generation, even by them that commend the matter of their testimony, though they will not allow the manner of it to be imitated in this day. the adversaries of christ, in this and that generation, are more like than his confessors and witnesses are. the adversaries then, when constrained by diversions of the time's troubles, or when their designs were not ripe, pretended more moderation and aversation from severity; but no sooner got they opportunity, (which always they sought), but so soon they renewed the battle against jesus christ; so now: when they had seven abominations in their hearts, and many cursed designs in their heads, they always spoke fairest; so now: when they had a mind to execute their cruelty, they would resolve before hand whom to pitch upon before conviction; so now: and when so resolved, the least pretence of a fault, obnoxious to their wicked law, would serve their design; so now: they used then to forge articles, and falsely misrepresent their answers, and declarations of their principles; so now. yet, on the other hand, if now poor sufferers should glory in that they are counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of christ, as they did then; if now they should suffer with as great chearfulness, for the smallest points as for the greatest heads, as they did then, who endured the flames as gallantly, for eating a goose upon friday, as others did for the doctrine of justification, or purgatory, or indulgences, or worshipping of images and saints; if now they should speak for every truth in question, with all simplicity and plainness, without reserves or shifts declining a testimony, as they did; if they should supersede from all application to their enemies for favour, and not meddle with either petitioning or bonding with them, as they did; nay, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection: then they might expect the severe censure of ignorant and precise fools, as the most part who suffer now are counted. iii. that they stood aloof from every appearance of a base compliance with them; not so much as to give them an interpretative sign of it; which, in their meaning, might be thought a recantation, though, abstractly considered, it might be capable of a more favourable construction; as the required burning of their bill was; which might have been thought a condemning of their accusations; but because that was not their adversaries sense of it, they durst not do it. not like many now a-days, who will not be solicitous to consult that. neither would they take any of their oaths, nor pay any of their ecclesiastical exactions, as we find in the articles brought in against the lollards of kyle, knox's history of reformation. these things are easily complied with now: and such as will suffer upon such things are condemned. iv. that while the love of god and his blessed truth, and the precepts, promise, and presence of our lord jesus christ, did enable them unto all patience with joy, in a passive testimony, being by the call of a clear and necessary providence sent and set forth to be his witnesses; they did not indeed endeavour any resistance: yet we find they never resigned nor abandoned that first and most just privilege of resistance; nay, nor bringing public beasts of prey to condign punishment, in an extraordinary way of vindictive justice, for the murder of the saints. as, upon the murder of mr. george wishart, was done with cardinal beaton, who was slain in the tower of st. andrew's by james melvin: who, perceiving his consorts in the enterprize moved with passion, withdrew them, and said, 'this work and judgment of god, although it be secret, ought to be done with greater gravity.' and, presenting the point of the sword to the cardinal, said, 'repent thee of thy former wicked life, but especially of the shedding of the blood of that notable instrument of god, mr. george wishart, which albeit the flame of fire consumed before men, yet it cries for vengeance upon thee, and we from god are sent to revenge it; for here, before my god, i protest, that neither the hatred of thy person, the love of thy riches, nor the fear of any trouble thou couldst have done me in particular, moved or moveth me to strike thee, but only because thou hast been and remainest an obstinate enemy against christ jesus, and his holy gospel.' of which fact, the famous and faithful historian mr. knox speaks very honourably, and was so far from condemning it, that while, after the slaughter, they kept out the castle, he, with other godly men, went to them, and stayed with them, till they were together carried captives to france. yet now such a fact, committed upon such another bloody and treacherous beast, the cardinal prelate of scotland, eight years ago, is generally condemned as horrid murder. v. however, though in this dark period there be no noted instances of these witnesses resisting the superior powers, for reasons above hinted: yet, in this period, we find many instances of noble and virtuous patriots, their not only resisting, but also revenging to the utmost of severity, rigorous and raging tyrants, as may be seen in histories. for, before the corruption of antichrist came to its height, we find ferchardus st, the d king, was drawn to judgment against his will, great crimes were laid to his charge, and among others the pelagian heresy, and contempt of baptism, for which he was cast into prison, where he killed himself in the year ; eugenius th, the d king, degenerating into wickedness, and rejecting the admonitions of his friends, and especially of the ministers, was killed in a convention of his nobles, with the consent of all, in the year ; donaldus th was imprisoned, where he killed himself, in the year ; ethus, surnamed alipes, the d king, was apprehended, and his wicked life laid out before the people, and then compelled to resign the government, and died in prison, in the year . afterwards when the government was transmitted to the stewarts, james the d, the d king, who killed william earl of douglas in the castle of stirling, most treacherously, after he had pretended a civil treatment, was publicly defied by the earl's friends, who took the king's public writ and subscription made to the said earl, and tied it to a horse tail, dragging it through the streets; and, when they came to the market-place, they proclaimed both king and nobles perjured covenant breakers; and thereafter, when earl james his brother was desired to submit, he answered, 'he would never put himself in their reverence who had no regard to shame; nor to the laws of god or man, and who had so perfidiously killed his brother and his cousins.' james d, the th king, for his treachery and tyranny, was opposed and pursued by arms by his own subjects; who, finding himself under disadvantages, sent to the rebels (as he thought them, and called them) an offer of peace, and received this answer--'that seeing the king did nothing honestly, a certain war seemed better to them than a peace not to be trusted, that there was no other hope of agreement but one, that he should quit the government, otherwise it was to no purpose to trouble themselves with treaties.' thereafter, in a battle, he was slain at bannockburn by gray, ker, and borthwick. the same king was also constrained, by the valour of archibald douglas earl of angus, called bell the cat, to reform the court, and put away some wicked sycophants from his council, and give way, though against his will, to the execution of judgment upon others: which was the occasion of that foresaid agnomen to the earl: for he, with other nobles, in a meeting at lauder, consulting how to reform and repress the insolency of the court, had the apologue of the mice laid out before them; that the mice fell upon deliberating how to be rid of the cat, and concluded that the best way was to put a bell about her neck; but when it came to be put in execution, never a mouse durst undertake it: the earl quickly made application, saying, i will bell the cat; and forthwith went out, and meeting cochran, one of these wicked counsellors, took hold of him, and hanged him with a horse halter over the bridge of lauder; and, rushing into the king's presence, proceeded to snatch ramsay, another of the country's enemies, out of the king's arms; but that he yielded at length to the king's earnest entreaties to spare him. however we see how generously zealous these noble patriots were for the country's good, against tyranny, though they were ignorant of religion: yet this all along was still the character of the scots in these days, none more terrible to tyrants, none more loyal to kings than they. period iii. _containing the_ testimony _of the_ reformation _from_ popery. as in the former, the testimony was mostly passive; so, in the following period, when they were encreased in number and strength that embraced the gospel, the lord called, and spirited to an active testimony, for these two twins, religion and liberty, that were then sought to be stifled in the birth, and are now designed more declaredly to be destroyed, after they have grown up to some maturity: which, as it renders the cruelty of the present destroyers the more grassant and grievous, so it rubs the more indelible infamy on the shameful security and ass-like stupidity of this generation, that have received such an excellent testimony deposited to their trust, transmitted to them through a continued tract of the witnessings and wrestlings of their worthy ancestors, and now let it slip and slide through their feeble fingers; and does the more justify, yea magnify, the poor endeavours of the present sufferers, who, at least, when they cannot re-act these mighty works, in defending religion and liberty, do chuse rather to die than to resign the testimony, or quit the least privilege that their progenitors possessed them of: and though they be superciliously despised, as little insignificant nothings in the eyes of the bulk of the big boasters of this blind age; yet if these valiant heroes, who did such exploits for their god, in commencing and carrying on the work of reformation, were now to see the dull dotages of this dreaming generation, (not only suffering and consenting to, but congratulating and applauding, the introduction and re-establishment of idolatry and tyranny, popery and slavery, upon the ruins of the work they built with so great expence); and were to read the pitiful petitions, and airy and empty, flattering and fawning addresses, to this antichristian tyrant, for the toleration of that religion and liberty, under the odious notion of a crime, which they had conveyed to them under the security of a fundamental law; they, if any, would be acknowledged as their children, who disdain and disown such dishonourable and dastardly yieldings, and are therefore most despised with disdain and despight. a brief rehearsal of their contendings will clear the case. while the queen dowager regent reigned by the curse of god, and employed all her power and policy to suppress the gospel in scotland, god so counteracted her, that the blood of the martyrs she caused to be murdered, proved the seed of the church; and the endeavours of his servants had such success, that no small part of the barons and gentlemen, as well as commons, began to abhor the tyranny of the bishops: yea, men almost universally began to doubt, whether they could without sin give their bodily presence 'to the mass, or offer their children to the papistical baptism? whether these that were in any public trust, could with safe conscience serve the higher powers in maintaining of idolatry, persecuting their brethren, and suppressing christ's truth? or whether they might suffer their brethren to be murdered in their presence, without any declaration that such tyranny displeased them?' and, from the scriptures, they were resolved, that a lively faith requires a plain confession, when christ's truth is impugned; and that not only they be guilty that do evil, but also they that consent to evil, and this they should do, if seeing such things openly committed, they should be silent, and so allow whatsoever was done. from doubts they came to determinations, to endeavour that christ jesus his glorious gospel should be preached, his holy sacraments truly ministred, superstition, idolatry, and tyranny should be suppressed in this realm; and that both as to the worship, discipline, and government, the reverend face of the first primitive and apostolic church should be reduced again to the eyes and knowledge of men. and in this they never fainted till the work was finished. to accomplish this, famous and faithful mr. knox, and other servants of the lord, did preach diligently in private meetings. and for that, when they were summoned before the queen, several zealous and bold men repaired to her, and plainly in the hearing of the prelates, did charge them with the cruel device intended, and told her with a vow, 'they should make a day of it, because they oppressed them and their tenants for feeding their idle bellies, they troubled the preachers, and would murder all; should they suffer this any longer? no; it should not be.' thereafter, the more effectually to prosecute the reformation begun, they entered into covenants, to maintain and advance that work of reformation, and to stand to the defence thereof; and of one another, against all wicked power, that might intend tyranny or trouble against them, and to resent any injury done to any of their brethren, upon the account of the common cause, as done to all. of which covenants they entered into many very solemnly; one was at edinburgh in the year ; another at perth ; another at stirling , binding, that none should have any correspondence with the queen, without notifying it to one another; and that nothing should proceed therein, without common consent of them all. another at leith, in the year ; another at ayr, in the year , of the same tenor. by which covenants, as their conjunction was the more firm among themselves, so was it the more fearful to their adversaries: when, according to the tenor of them, they kept their conventions, and held counsels with such gravity and closeness, that the enemies trembled. i mention these things more particularly, because these same very things commended in our fathers, are now condemned in a poor handful, that would aim at imitating their example, in renewing and reiterating such covenants of the same nature and tenor, and binding to the same very duties, and prosecute in the same methods of keeping general meetings for correspondence, and consultation about common mutual duties in common danger; whereunto they have not only present necessity to urge them, but also preterite examples of these worthies to encourage them, and their experience of comfort and tranquillity they reaped, by these christian assemblies and godly conferences, as oft as any danger appeared to any member or members of their body. these beginnings, the zealous covenanted reformers left no means unessayed to promote, by protestations to the parliament, and petitions, and many reiterated addresses to the queen dowager: from whom they received many renewed fair promises; which she had never mind to keep, and wanted not the impudence, when challenged for breaking them, to declare, 'it becomes not subjects to burden their princes with promises further than it pleased them to keep the same:' and, at another time, 'that she was bound to keep no faith to hereticks:' and again, 'that princes must not be strickly bound to keep their promises; and that herself would make little conscience to take from all that sort their lives and inheritance, if she might do it with an honest excuse.' wherein she spoke not only the venom of her own heart, but the very soul and sense, principle and project of all popish princes: whereby we may see what security we have for religion and liberty this day, though the most part make such a pretence a pillow to sleep on. but, after many discoveries in this kind of the queen's treachery, at length they would no more be bribed by promises, blinded by pretences, nor boasted by her proclamations, (slandering their enterprise, as if it pertained nothing to religion) from their endeavours to prosecute the same: but finding themselves compelled to take the sword of just defence, against all that should pursue them for the matter of religon, they first signified unto her; 'that they would notify to the king of france, and all christian princes, that her cruel, unjust, and most tyrannical murder intended against towns and multitudes, was and is the only cause of their revolt from their accustomed obedience, which they owned and promised to their sovereign; provided they might live in peace and liberty, and enjoy christ's gospel, without which they firmly purpose never to be subject to mortal man; and that better it were to expose their bodies to a thousand deaths; than to deny christ; which thing not only do they, who commit open idolatry, but also all such, as, seeing their brethren pursued for the cause of religion, and having no sufficient means to comfort and assist them, do nevertheless withdraw from them their dutiful support.' and thereafter, they published a declaration to the generation of antichrist, the pestilent prelates, and their shavelings within scotland. 'that they should not be abused, thinking to escape just punishment, after that they, in their blind fury, had caused the blood of many to be shed; but if they proceeded in this their malicious cruelty, they should be dealt withal, wheresoever they should be apprehended, as murderers, and open enemies to god and to mankind. and that with the same measure they had measured, and intended to measure to others, it should be measured to them;--that is, they should, with all force and power they had, execute just vengeance and punishment upon them; yea begin that same war which god commandeth israel to execute against the canaanites; that is, contract of peace should never be made, till they desist from their open idolatry and cruel persecution of god's children.' i rehearse this declaration the more expressly, because in our day declarations of this style and strain, and aiming at the same scope, are hideously hissed and houted at as unheard of novelties. finally, when by all their letters, warnings, admonitions and protestations, they could obtain no redress, but rather an increase of insupportable violence, they proponed the question in a general meeting, 'whether she, whose pretences threatened the bondage of the whole common wealth, ought to be suffered so tyrannically to domineer over them?' unto which the ministers, being required to give their judgment, answered, that she ought not. and accordingly they declared her deposed from all government over them; 'because of her persecuting the professors of the true religion, and oppressing the liberties of the true lieges, never being called nor convinced of any crime; because of her intrusion of magistrates against all order of election; because of her bringing in strangers to suppress the liberty of the country, and placing them in greatest offices of credit; because of her altering and subverting the old laws of the realm,' &c. which i mention, because hence we may see what things our fathers judged did dissolve the relation between the people and their rulers; and, when applied to our case, will justify their reasons that have renounced the present tyranny. this was done at edinburgh in the year . and thereafter, while they vindicated themselves, and went on with the work of reformation, throwing down all monuments of idolatry, and propagating the reformed religion, god so blessed their endeavours, that their confession of faith, and all articles of the protestant religion, was read and ratified by the three estates of parliament, at edinburgh, july . and the same year the book of discipline, containing the form and order of presbyterial government, was subscribed by a great part of the nobility. thus, through the wisdom and power of god alone, even by the weakness of very mean instruments, against the rage and fury of the devil, and of all the powers of hell, was this work of reformation advanced and effectuated; and came to the establishment of a law, which did not only ratify and confirm the protestant religion, but abolish antichristian popery, and appoint punishment for the professors and promoters thereof. which law, often confirmed and ratified afterwards, though it be now cested and rescinded by the prerogative of the present tyrant; because it annuls and invalidates his pretence to succession in the government, (it being expressly enacted afterwards, by a parliament at edinburgh, , confirming this, that all princes and kings hereafter, before their coronation, shall take oath to maintain the true religion then professed, and suppress all things contrary to it), yet is still in force in the hearts of all honest men, that will not prostitute religion, law and liberty, to the lusts of tyrants; and will be accounted a better bottom to build the hope of enjoying religion upon, than the perfidious promises of a popish usurper, pretending a liberty to dissenting protestants, by taking away the penal statutes, the legal bulwark against popery: all which yet, to the reproach of all protestants, some are applauding and congratulating in this time by their addresses and petitions, to this destroyer of law and religion. i wish they would look back to see what the building of this bulwark cost our fathers, before they sell it at such a rate; and compare the present addresses, courting and caressing the papists, with the addresses of these worthy builders of what they are destroying. there is one dated edinburgh, may , , presented to the council, shewing, that honesty craved them, to make the secrets of their heart patent, which was--'that, before ever these tyrants and dumb dogs empire over them professing christ jesus within this realm, they were fully determined to hazard life, and whatsoever they had received of god in temporal things.--and let these enemies of god assure themselves, that if their council put not order unto them, that they should shortly take such order, that they shall neither be able to do what they list, neither yet to live upon the sweet of the brows of such as are no debtors to them.' and when the mischievous mary, the daughter of the degraded queen, returning from france, set up the mass but in her own family, the godly at that time gave plain signification, that they could not abide that 'the land which god had purged from idolatry, should in their eyes be polluted again. shall that idol (say they) be suffered again to take place within this realm? it shall not.' the idolatrous priests should die the death according to god's law. and a proclamation being issued to protect the queen's domestic servants that were papists, there was a protestation given forth presently, 'that if any of her servants should commit idolatry, say mass, participate therewith, or take the defence thereof, in that case this proclamation was not extended to them in that behalf, no more than if they commit murder; seeing the one is much more abominable in the sight of god than the other; but that it may be lawful to inflict upon them, the pains contained in god's word against idolaters, wherever they may be apprehended, without favour.' the words of john knox upon the following sabbath may be added, 'that one mass was more fearful unto him, than if ten thousand armed enemies were landed in any part of the realm, of purpose to suppress the whole religion: for (said he) in our god there is strength to resist and confound multitudes, if we unfeignedly depend upon him; but when we join hands with idolatry, it is no doubt but both god's amiable presence and comfortable defence will leave us, and what shall then become of us?' yea, when it was voted in the general assembly, whether they might take the queen's mass from her? many frankly affirmed, 'that as the mass is abominable, so it is just and right that it should be suppressed; and that in so doing, men did no more hurt to the queen's majesty, than they that should by force take from her a poisoned cup, when she was going to drink it.' thus we have some specimen of the zeal of our fathers against idolatry. but in a little time court favours blunted it in many; and then had the servants of god a double battle, fighting on the one hand against idolatry, and the rest of the abominations maintained by the court. and upon the other hand, against the unfaithfulness of false brethren, and treachery of sycophants, who informed the court against the ministers, for their free and faithful preaching and warnings on all occasions; yet they sustained the brunt of all these assaults, and came off with honour. at length, to be short, in process of time, this mary, a woman of a proud and crafty wit, and an obdured heart against god and his truth, infilled in the same steps of tyranny and treachery (but with greater aggravations) that her mother walked in, and was served according to her desert. for after that her darling david rizzo, the italian fidler, (whom most men then supposed, and do still suspect to be the father of king james, this man's grandfather; and some do think it not unlikely, that his successors have derived from this stock the italian complexion and constitution both of body and mind, spare and swarthy, cruel and crafty) received his due rewards in her presence, by the king's consent and counsel; she conceived such contempt of, and indignation against the poor uxorious young king, henry of darnley, that she never rested till she and bothwel contrived and executed his murder, and then she married that murdering adulterer, the said earl of bothwel: whereupon the protestant noblemen pursuing the murder, took her, and sent her prisoner to lochleven, where they made her resign the government to her son james, then an infant, and afterwards she was beheaded by elizabeth queen of england. we see now by this deduction, what was the testimony of this period, and how in many things it confirms the heads of the present sufferings, which we may particularly remark. i. the reformation of scotland had this common with all other protestant churches, that it was carried on by resisting the opposing powers; but it had this peculiar advantage above all, that at once, and from the beginning, both doctrine and worship, discipline and government were reformed: as mr. knox witnesseth, that there was no realm upon the face of the earth at that time that had religion in greater purity. 'yea,' says he, 'we must speak the truth, whomsoever we offend, there is no realm that hath the like purity; for all others, how sincere soever the doctrine be, retain in their churches and ministry thereof, some footsteps of antichrist, and dregs of popery; but we (praise to god alone) have nothing in our churches that ever flowed from that man of sin.' the doctrine was purely reformed, according to the rule of christ, both as to matter and manner of delivery. as to the matter of it, what it was, the confession of faith, ratified in parliament in the year , doth witness. in the manner of it, they studied not the smooth and pawky prudence that is now so much applauded, for not observing which, such as would fain be honest in this duty, are so much condemned; but they cried aloud against, and did not spare the sins of the time, with application to every degree of men; as we have it published and vindicated in mr. knox's history. they cried, 'that the same god who plagued pharaoh, repulsed sennacherib, struck herod with worms, and made the bellies of dogs the grave and sepulchre of the spiteful jezebel, will not spare misled princes, who authorize the murderers of christ's members in this our time. many now a days will have no other religion than the queen; the queen no other than the cardinal; the cardinal no other than the pope; the pope no other than the devil: let men therefore consider what danger they stand in, if their salvation shall depend upon the queen's faith.' and they used to defend such manner of free dealing, from the examples of the prophets reproving kings personally. 'now, if the like and greater corruptions be in the world this day, who dare enterprize, to put to silence the spirit of god, which will not be subject to the appetites of misled princes.' mr. knox's defence before the queen, when rebuked for speaking of her marriage in the pulpit, was: 'the evangel, saith he, hath two points, repentance and faith; in preaching repentance, of necessity it is, that the sins of men may be noted, that they may know wherein they offend.' and in his dispute with lethington, requiring where any of the prophets did so use kings and rulers; he gave the example of elias 'reproving ahab and jezebel, that dogs shall lick the blood of ahab, and eat the flesh of jezebel; which was not whispered in their ears, but so as the people understood well enough, for so witnessed jehu after the accomplishment.' elisha reproved jehoram, saying, 'what have i to do with thee; if it were not for jehosaphat, i would not have looked toward thee. though a subject, yet he gave little reverence to the king.' these were their arguments for faithfulness then, which are now exploded with contempt. their worship was also reformed from all dregs of popery, and fopperies of human ceremonies, retained in many other churches, especially in england; to whose bishops, in queen elizabeth's time, the assembly wrote, 'that if surplice, corner cap, tippet, &c. have been the badges of idolaters in the very act of idolatry, what have preachers to do with the dregs of that romish beast? yea, what is he that ought not to fear to take, either in his hand or forehead, the mark of that odious beast?--we think you should boldly oppose yourselves to all power, that will dare extol itself against god, and against all such as do burden the conscience of the faithful, further than god hath burdened them by his own word.' the discipline and government was from the beginning presbyterial, even before the establishment: both in practice, among the persecuted ministers, who kept their private meetings; and in their doctrine. this was one of mr. knox's articles he sustained at st. andrew's, upon his first entry unto the ministry. _art. ._ there is no bishop, except he preach even by himself, without any substitute. but so soon as they attained any settlement, they assembled in their first national synod in the year , by virtue of that intrinsic power granted by the lord to his church; nor did they so much as petition for the indulgence of the then authority; but upon christ's warrant, they kept and held their courts in the name of the lord jesus christ only; and in his sole authority, by direction of his word and spirit, concluded all their counsels, votes and acts. and as they knew nothing of an exotic supremacy, so they put out and held out prelacy, and kept a perfect parity; which was nothing infringed by the extraordinary employments and commissions delegated to some superintendants, upon the account of the particular exigence of these times. ii. next we find in the practice of these renowned reformers, many demonstrations of pure zeal, worthy of all imitation; which i remark the rather, because poor sufferers that would now imitate it, are condemned as blind and ignorant zealots. but why are not the reformers condemned for the same things? we find in the first place, that they were so far from complying with, or conniving at, or countenancing public sins, that they could not contain themselves from declaring their detestation of the sight of them; yea the very boys did abominate them, as at the reformation, at st. johnstoun, a boy cried with a bold voice, this is intolerable, that when god by his word hath plainly condemned idolatry, we shall stand and see it used in despight. whereupon he and others threw down all the monuments of idolatry in that place. but if now any should enterprise such a thing, when the idol of the mass is set up in every city, they might expect jerubaal's censure of the abiezrites; though it is true they might have the same encouragement, because they have the same command as he had, to wit, the perpetual precept of throwing down idolatrous altars. next, they were so far from complying with the enemies, in keeping the peace with them, that they thought it a great sin not to oppose them, when their brethren were forced to take the sword of self-defence, being persuaded by these arguments: 'that by their fainting and abstracting their support, the enemies would be encouraged; and thereby they should declare themselves both traitors to the truth once professed, and murderers of their brethren, whom their presence and concurrence might preserve; and that if they should deny their brethren suffering for his name's sake, they should also deny christ, and be denied of him; and that god hath punished subjects with their princes, for winking at, and not resisting their manifest iniquity; and therefore, as he is immutable in nature, so would he not pardon them in that which he hath punished in others,' &c. which arguments prevailed with the noble earl of glencairn, in zeal to burst forth in these words:--'albeit never man should accompany me, yet i will go to my brethren, and if it were but a pike upon my shoulder, i had rather die with that company, than live after them.' but now professors cannot only sit at home, in their shops and cieled houses, when the lord's people are pursued and murdered in the fields, but also can hire their murderers, and strengthen their hands, by paying them cesses and localities, and what they require for help to do their work, and maintaining them in their iniquity. which famous mr. knox disproveth very much in his day, arguing, 'that if people thought they were innocent, because they were not the actors of such iniquity, they were utterly deceived; for god doth not only punish the chief offenders, but the consenters to such iniquity; and all are judged to consent, who give not testimony against it; as the rulers and bishops are criminal of all the innocent blood that is shed for the testimony of christ's truth; so are all who assist and maintain them in their blind rage, and give no declaration, that their tyranny displeaseth them. this doctrine is strange to the blind world, but the verity of it hath been declared in all notable punishments from the beginning. when the old world was destroyed by water, sodom and jerusalem were destroyed, were all alike wicked? yet all perished: why? all kept silence, or did not resist; by which all approved iniquity, and joined hands with the tyrants, as it had been in one battle against the omnipotent.' which words, if impartially applied, will condemn and confute the dull daubings of the present compliances, in maintaining tyrants and their emissaries, by emoluments which they require and exact, and that professedly, for promoting their accursed projects; and will justify conscientious sufferers, for refusing to pay these impositions. and this will the more appear, if we add some more of his pithy expressions in the same place, clearing the subject he is upon, and answering an objection, what poor people might do, when compelled to give obedience to all their rulers demanded? 'ye may,' saith that author, without sedition, 'withhold the fruits and profits, which your false bishops and clergy most unjustly received of you: upon which he subjoins the preceeding arguments.' yet now a-days these have no weight, but such as refuse either to pay oppressors exactions, or curates stipends, are condemned for giddy fools. again we find, that when they were challenged for duty, they would never decline a declaration of its righteousness, nor do any thing directly or indirectly, which might seem a condemning of it. and therefore they would receive no pardons for these things which they could not confess to be offences. john knox, challenged for offending the queen, had her promise, that if he would confess an offence his greatest punishment should be, but to go within the castle of edinburgh, and immediately to return to his own house; he refused absolutely. but now, if our pardon-mongers, and prudent men had been so circumstantiate, surely they could have helped themselves with their distinctions, they might confess and be pardoned for offending the queen, though not confess it to be a fault in their conscience: but mr. knox had not learned that then. when they were pursuing the murderer of king henry of darnly, the queen finding herself not strong enough, offers to forgive and pardon that insurrection: the earl of morton, in name of all the rest, did not only refuse a cessation, but told her they would not ask a pardon. but now sufferers, for refusing of these base and unmanly, as well as unchristian compliances, are much condemned. finally, because this strictness, especially in their severity against their enemies, may be accused of jewish rigidity, inconsistent with a gospel spirit of lenity, which also is imputed to the much condemned sufferers of scotland at this time, for their testimonies against toleration and liberty of conscience: let us hear what knox says, 'whatsoever god required of the civil magistrate in israel or judah, concerning the observation of true religion during the time of the law, the same doth he require of lawful magistrates, professing christ jesus, in the time of the gospel: and cites a large testimony out of augustine to this purpose.' and afterward objecting to himself the practice of the apostles, who did not punish the idolatrous gentiles; he answers, 'that the gentiles, being never avowed to be god's people before, had never received his law, and therefore were not to be punished according to the rigour of it, to which they were never subject, being strangers from the common-wealth of israel; but if any think, after the gentiles were received in the number of abraham's children, and so made one people with the jews believing; then they were not bound to the same obedience of israel's covenant, the same seems to make christ inferior to moses, and contrary to the law of his heavenly father; for if the contempt and transgression of moses' law was worthy of death, what judge we the contempt of christ's ordinance to be? and if christ be not come to dissolve, but to fulfil the law of his heavenly father, shall the liberty of his gospel be an occasion that the special glory of his father be trodden under foot, and regarded of no man? god forbid: and therefore i fear not to affirm, that the gentiles be bound by the same covenant that god made with his people israel, in these words--"beware that thou make not any covenant with the inhabitants of the land, but thou shalt destroy their altars," &c. when, therefore, the lord putteth the sword in the hand of a people, they are no less bound to purge their cities and countries from idolatry, than were the israelites, what time they received the possession of the land of canaan.' iii. for the head of resistance of superior powers, we have no clearer instances in any period than in this, whereof the above-mentioned hints give some account, to which their sentiments and arguments may be here subjoined. they prized and improved this principle so much, that they put it in their confession of faith, art. . to save the lives of innocents, to repress tyranny, to defend the oppressed, are among the good works of the second table, which are most pleasing and acceptable to god, as these works are commanded by himself; and to suffer innocent blood to be shed, if we may withstand it, is affirmed to be sin, by which god's hot displeasure is kindled against the proud and unthankful world. and if there were no more to render the late test of scotland detestable, that condemns all resistance of kings upon any pretence whatsoever, this may make all christians, and all men, abhor the contrivance of it; that that same test that confirms this thesis, doth also impose the antithesis upon conscience. it obliges to this confession in the first part of it, and to deny it in the latter. but no wonder, that men of feared consciences can receive any thing, though never so contradictory to itself, and that men who deny sense, and that principle radicated in human nature, may also deny conscience, and make a tool of it in soldering contradictories. but not only did our reformers assert this truth, for which now their children adhering to their testimony, suffer both rage and reproach; but also gave their reasons for it. as ( .) mr. knox, in his first conference with the queen, argues thus, 'there is neither greater honour nor obedience to be given to princes than parents; but so it is, that the father may be stricken with a phrensy, in the which he would slay his own children; now if the children arise, take his weapon from him, bind his hands, do the children any wrong? it is even so with princes, that would murder the children of god subject to them, their blind zeal is nothing but a very mad phrensy; and therefore to take the sword from them, and cast them into prison till they be brought to a more sober mind, is no disobedience against princes.' ( .) in his conference with lethingtoun, he proves the same point, from the consideration of the justice of god, punishing the people for not resisting the prince. the scripture of god teacheth me (saith he) 'jerusalem and judah were punished for the sins of manasseh; if you alledge they were punished, because they were wicked, and not because the king was wicked; the scripture says expressly, for the sins of manasseh; yet will i not absolve the people, i will grant the whole people offended with their king, but how? to affirm that all judah committed the acts of his impiety, hath no certainty; who can think, that all jerusalem should turn idolaters immediately after hezekiah's notable reformation? one part therefore willingly followed him in his idolatry, the other suffered him, and so were criminal of his sin; even as scotland is guilty of the queen's idolatry this day.' in the same discourse he makes it plain, that all are guilty of innocents murder who do not oppose it, from jeremiah's words in his defence before the princes.----"know ye for certain, if ye put me to death, ye shall surely bring innocent blood upon yourselves, and upon the city, and upon the inhabitants thereof:" now, if the princes, and the whole people should have been guilty of the prophet's blood; how shall others be judged innocent before god, if they suffer the blood of innocents to be shed, when they may save it? ( .) _ibid._ he argues from the distinction between the person placed in authority, and the ordinance of god, the one may be resisted, the other cannot. the plain words of the apostle makes the difference, 'the ordinance is of god, for preservation of mankind, punishment of vice, which is holy and constant: persons commonly are profane and unjust: he that resisteth the power there, is only meant of the just power wherewith god hath armed his magistrates, which whoso resists, resists god's ordinance; but if men, in the fear of god, oppose themselves to the fury of princes, they then resist not god, but the devil, who abuses the sword and authority of god: it is evident the people resisted saul, when he had sworn jonathan should die, whom they delivered: the spirit of god accuses them not of any crime, but praises them, and condemns the king: this same saul again commanded the priests of the lord to be slain, his guard would not obey, but doeg put the king's cruelty in execution; i will not ask, whether the king's servants, not obeying, resisted the ordinance of god; or whether doeg's murdering gave obedience to just authority? the spirit of god condemns that fact, psal. lii. that god would not only punish the commander, but also the merciless executor; therefore they who gainstood his command, resisted not the ordinance of god. ( .) _ibid._ he argues from examples, not only of resisting, but of punishing tyrants; chiefly the example of uzziah is pertinent to this purpose, chron. xxvi. who after his usurping the priest's office, was put out of the temple.' when it was replied, that they were the priests that withstood the king, not simple people: he answered, 'the priests were subjects, as abiathar was deposed by solomon, &c. yet they made him go out of the temple for his leprosy, and the people put him from the kingdom.' it is noted also, that mr. knox, in that discourse, adduces examples of those, who use to be brought in as objections against defensive arms, even the primitive christians, before that passage last cited: 'what precepts,' says he, 'the apostle gave, i will not affirm; but i find two things the faithful did; the one was, they assisted their preachers even against the rulers; the other was, they suppressed idolatry wheresoever god gave unto them force, asking no leave of the emperor, nor of his deputies: read the ecclesiastical histories, and ye shall find examples sufficient.' iv. in the next place, we may enquire into the judgment of these reformers, concerning that question that is now so puzzling to many; which indeed was never started before this time, as a head of suffering; but now, when it is started, we may gather from our ancestors actings and determinations about it, how it ought to be answered. they were indeed in capacity, and accordingly did improve it, for disowning the authority of both the queens; for their capacity was not the thing that made it duty, if it had not been so before. capacity makes a thing possible, but not lawful: it does indeed make a duty seasonable, and clears the call to it, and regulates the timing of affirmative duties, but the want of it can never dispense with negative precepts: and a duty, negative especially, may become necessary, when it hath not the advantage of seasonableness or capacity; certainly it were duty to depose the pope from his usurped authority, and to disown it even in rome itself, but there it would not be thought very feasible or seasonable, for twenty or thirty people to avouch such a thing there; yet, at all times, it is a duty never to own it. it is thought unseasonable and unfeasible to disown the tyrants authority; but it is made necessary, when urged, never to own it. and for this we have the grounds of our ancestors, shewing who may be disowned, and must not be owned. i shall first insert here john knox's propositions, prosecuted in his second blast, extant at the end of anton. gilbie's admonition to england and scotland, . 'it is not birth only, nor propinquity of blood, that maketh a king lawfully to reign over a people professing christ jesus and his eternal verity; but, in his election, the ordinance which god hath established in the election of inferior judges, must be observed. . no manifest idolater, nor notorious transgressor of god's holy precepts, ought to be promoted to any public regimen, honour, or dignity, in any realm, province, or city, that hath subjected themselves to christ jesus, and his blessed evangel. . neither can oath, or promise, bind any such people to obey and maintain tyrants, against god and his truth known. . but if rashly they have promoted any manifest wicked person, or yet ignorantly have chosen such an one, as after declareth himself unworthy of regimen above the people of god, (and such be all idolaters and cruel persecutors) most justly may the same men depose and punish him, that unadvisedly before they did nominate, appoint and elect.' accordingly this was done in deposing both the queens; which is fully vindicated by the earl of morton, in his discourse to the queen of england, as buchanan relates it, book xx. page . 'the deed itself, neither the custom of our ancestors of taking a course with their governors, will suffer it to be accounted new, nor the moderation of the punishment to be odious; for it were not needful to recount so many kings punished by death, bonds, and exile by our progenitors. for the scottish nation, being from the beginning always free, hath created kings upon these conditions, that the government entrusted to them by the people's suffrages, might be also (if the matter required) removed by the same suffrages: of which law there are many footsteps remaining even to our day; for both in the isles about, and in many places of the continent, in which the old language and institutions have any abode, this custom is kept, in creating their governors of clanns: and the ceremonies, used at the entering into government, do yet retain the express representation of this law. whence it is evident, that the government is nothing else but a mutual stipulation between kings and people: which further appears, from the inviolated tenor of the ancient law, since the beginning of the scottish government, reserved even unto our memory, without the least essay either to abrogate it, or disable, or diminish it. yea, even when our fathers have deposed, banished, and more severely punished so many kings, yet never was any mention or motion made of relaxing the rigour of that law, and not without reason, seeing it was not of that kind of constitutions, that change with the times, but of those which are engraven in the minds of men from the first original, and approved by the mutual consent of all nations, and by nature's sanction continued inviolable and perpetual, which, being subject to no other laws, do command and rule all. this, which in every action doth offer itself to our eyes and minds, and whether we will or not, abides in our breasts, our predecessors followed; being always armed against violence, and ready to suppress tyrants.--and now for the present, what have we done, but insisting in the footsteps of so many kingdoms and free nations, suppressed tyrannical licentiousness, extolling itself above all order of laws, not indeed so severely as our predecessors in like cases; if we had imitated them, not only would we have been far from all fear of danger, but also have escaped the trouble of calumnies.--what would our adversaries be at? is it that we should arm with authority tyrants convicted of grievous crimes, maintained by the spoils of the subjects, having hands embrued in loyal blood, and hearts gaping for the oppression of all good men? and shall we put them upon our head, who are infamously suspected of parricide, both projected and perpetrated?' to which we may add, a foreign conclusion indeed, but adduced and maintained by mr. craig, in the assembly, in the , which had been determined by learned men in bononia, 'all rulers, be they supreme or subordinate, may and ought to be reformed, or bridled (to speak moderately) by them, by whom they are chosen, confirmed, or admitted to their office; so oft as they break that promise made by oath to their subjects, because princes are no less bound by oath to their subjects, than are the subjects to their princes: and therefore ought it to be kept and performed equally, according to law and condition of the oath that is made of either party.' by comparing which two testimonies together, we may see the reasons, why neither of the two royal brothers, that have ruled in our day, could be conscientiously owned as magistrates, in the case they have been in for several years past: the first testimony is for the second brother, the latter is for the first that's gone. but, as for mr. knox's opinion, it is evident he had written a book against the government of women; which though he did not intend it particularly against mary of scotland, yet it did invalidate her authority as well as other women's. this book he owns and maintains, in his first conference with her, and consequently could not own her authority as of the lord, tho' he gave her common respect, as the title of majesty, &c. yet when he was particularly urged by the queen's question, you think, said she, 'that i have no just authority;' he would not answer in the affirmative, but shifted it, by telling her, 'that learned men, in all ages, have had their judgment free, and most commonly disagreeing from the common judgment of the world. and though, he says, he could live under her government (so may, and would the greatest disowners of tyranny, if they be not troubled with questions about owning it) yet he affirms that with the testimony of a good conscience, he had communicated his judgment to the world, and that if the realm found no inconveniences in her government, he would no further disallow than within his own breast.' certainly then, in his conscience, he did not, and could not own her, as the magistrate of god; and that though many things which before were holden stable, had been called in doubt, yet neither protestant nor papist could prove, that any such question was, at any time, moved in public or private. neither could ever such a question be moved, if the conscience were not posed; and then, when it must speak, it must of necessity be unpleasant to tyrants. thus we have heard both the positions and scruples of this witness; let us also hear his arguings, that people may punish princes for their idolatry and murder, &c. and therefore much more may disown them: and therefore again much more may they forbear to own them, when called; for can a dead man, by law, be owned to be a magistrate, and keeper of the law. 'idolatry' (saith he in his conference with lethington) 'ought not only to be suppressed, but the idolater ought to die the death; but by whom? by the people of god, for the commandment was given to israel; yea, a command, that if it be heard that idolatry is committed in any one city, that then the whole body of the people arise and destroy that city, sparing neither man, woman, nor child. but shall the king also be punished? if he be an idolater, i find no privilege granted unto kings more than unto people, to offend god's majesty. but the people may not be judges to their king.----god is the universal judge; so that what his word commands to be punished in the one, is not to be absolved in the other; and that the people, yea, or a part of the people, may not execute god's judgments against their king, being an offender; i am sure you have no other warrant, except your own imaginations, and the opinion of such as more fear to offend their princes than god.' in the same conference we have the instance of jehu adduced to prove that subjects may execute god's judgments upon their princes. it was objected, jehu was a king before he executed judgment upon ahab's house, and the fact was extraordinary, and not to be imitated. he answered, he was a mere subject; 'no doubt jezabel both thought and said he was a traitor, and so did many others in israel and samaria. and whereas it was said, that the fact was extraordinary; i say, it had the ground of god's ordinary judgment, which commandeth the idolater to die the death; and therefore i yet again affirm, it is to be imitated of all those that prefer the true honour of the true worship and glory of god, to the affection of flesh and wicked princes. we are not bound, said lethington, to follow extraordinary examples, unless we have the like commandment and assurance. i grant, said the other, if the example repugn to the law, but where the example agrees with the law, and is, as it were, the execution of god's judgment expressed within the same; i say, that the example approved of god, stands to us in place of a commandment; for as god, in his nature, is constant and immutable, so cannot he condemn, in the ages subsequent, that which he hath approved in his servants before us.' then he brings another argument from amaziah who fled to lachish, but the people sent thither and slew him there. lethington doubted whether they did well or not: he answered, 'where i find execution according to god's law, and god himself not accuse the doers, i dare not doubt of the equity of their cause: and it appears, god gave them sufficient evidence of his approving the fact, for he blessed them with peace and prosperity. but prosperity does not always prove that god approves the fact: yes, when the acts of men agree with the law, and are rewarded according to the promise in that law, then the prosperity succeeding the fact is a most infallible assurance that god hath approved it; but so it is, that there is a promise of lengthening out prosperity to them that destroy idolatry. and again, concluding uzziah's example, he says there, the people ought to execute god's law, even against their princes, when that their open crimes, by god's law, deserve punishment; especially when they are such as may infect the rest of the multitude.' v. there is another thing for which people have suffered much in our day of blasphemy, rebuke and trouble, which yet we find was not so odious in our reformers eyes as this dull and degenerate age would represent it. that in some cases it is lawful and laudable for private persons, touched with the zeal of god, and love to their country, and respect to justice trampled upon by tyrants; to put forth their hand to execute righteous judgment upon the enemies of god and mankind, intolerable traitors, murderers, idolaters; when the ruin of the country, destruction of religion and liberty, and the wrath of god is threatened, in and for the impunity of that vermin of villains, and may be averted by their destruction, always supposed, that these, whose office it is to do it, decline their duty. the mind of our reformers as to this is manifest, both in their practice and opinion. we heard before of the slaughter of cardinal beaton, and of the fiddler rizzio: we shall find both commended by mr. knox, giving account how these that were carried captives to france for this cause from st. andrew's were delivered. 'this (saith he), we write, to let the posterity to come to understand, how potently god wrought in preserving and delivering of those that had but a small knowledge of his truth, and for the love of the same hazarded all; that if we, in our days, or our posterity that shall follow, shall see a dispersion of such as oppose themselves to impiety, or take upon them to punish the same otherwise than laws of men will permit, if such shall be left of men, yea as it were despised and punished of god: yet let us not damn the persons that punish vice, (and that for just cause,) nor yet despair, but that the same god that dejects will raise up again the persons dejected, to his glory and their comfort; and to let the world understand in plain terms what we mean; that great abuser of this commonwealth, that poultron and vile knave davie was justly punished, march , , by the counsel and hands of james douglas, earl of morton, patrick lord lindsay, &c. who, for their just act, and most worthy of all praise, are now unworthily left of all their brethren.' this is not only commended by the author alone, but we find it concluded by all the brethren at that time, when the queen brought in the idol of the mass again, and the proud papists began to avow it: then let it be marked that, 'the brethren universally offended, and espying that the queen by proclamation did but delude them, determined to put to their own hands, and to punish for example of others; and so some priests in the west land were apprehended, intimation was made to others, as to the abbot of cosragnel, the parson of sanquhar, and such, that they should neither complain to the queen nor council, but should execute the punishment that god has appointed to idolaters in his law, by such means as they might, wherever they should be apprehended.' upon this the queen sent for mr. knox, and dealt with him earnestly, that he would be the instrument to persuade the people not to put hand to punish. he perceiving her craft, willed her majesty to punish malefactors according to law, and he durst promise quietness, upon the part of all them that professed christ within scotland: but if her majesty thought to delude the laws, he feared some would let the papists understand, that without punishment they should not be suffered so manifestly to offend god's majesty. will ye (quoth she) allow they shall take my sword in their hand? 'the sword of justice (said he) madam, is god's, and is given to princes and rulers for one end; which, if they transgress, sparing the wicked, and oppressing the innocents, they that in the fear of god execute judgment, where god hath commanded, offend not god, although kings do it not: the examples are evident, for samuel spared not to slay agag the fat and delicate king of amalek, whom king saul had saved; neither spared elias jezabel's false prophets, and baal's priests, albeit that king ahab was present; phineas was no magistrate, and yet feared he not to strike zimri and cozbi in the very act of filthy fornication; and so, madam, your majesty may see that others than magistrates may lawfully punish, and have punished the vice and crimes that god commands to be punished.' he proved it also at more length in his appellation, from deut. xiii. "if thy brother solicit thee secretly, saying, let us go serve other gods, consent not to him, let not thine eye spare him, but kill him; let thy hand be first upon him, and afterward the hand of the whole people." of these words of moses, two things appertaining to our purpose are to be noted: 'the first is, that such as solicitate only to idolatry ought to be punished to death, without favour or respect of person; for he that will not suffer man to spare his son, wife, &c. will not wink at the idolatry of others, of what state or condition soever they be: it is not unknown that the prophets had revelations of god, which were not common to the people; now, if any man might have claimed any privilege from the rigour of the law, or might have justified his fact, it should have been the prophet, but god commands, that the prophet that shall so solicitate the people to serve strange gods, shall die the death, notwithstanding that he alledge for himself, dream, vision, or revelation, because he teacheth apostacy from god: hereby it may be seen, that none, provoking the people to idolatry, ought to be exempted from the punishment of death. evident it is, that no state, condition, nor honour can exempt the idolater from the hands of god, when he shall call him to an account: how shall it then excuse the people, that they according to god's command, punish not to death such as shall solicitate or violently draw the people to idolatry? the second is, that the punishment of such crimes, as idolatry, blasphemy, and others that touch the majesty of god, doth not appertain to kings and chief rulers only, but also to the whole body of the people, and to every member of the same, according to the vocation of every man, and according that possibility and occasion which god doth minister, to revenge the injury done against his glory: and that doth moses more plainly speak in these words of the same chapter, "if in any city which the lord thy god giveth thee, thou shalt hear this brute, there are some men sons of belial."--plain it is, that moses speaks not nor giveth charge to kings, rulers, and judges only; but he commands the whole body of the people, yea and every member of the same, according to their possibility. and who dare be so impudent as to deny this to be most reasonable and just? for seeing god had delivered the whole body from bondage, and to the whole multitude had given his law, and to the twelve tribes had distributed the land of canaan: was not the whole and every member addebted to confess the benefits of god, and to study to keep the possession received? which they could not do, except they kept the religion established, and put out iniquity from amongst them. to the carnal man this may seem to be a rigorous and severe judgment, that even the infants there should be appointed to the cruel death; and as concerning the city and spoil of the same, man's reason cannot think but that it might have been better bestowed, than to be consumed. but in such cases, let all creatures stoop, and desist from reasoning, when commandment is given to execute his judgment. i will search no other reasons than the holy ghost hath assigned; first, that all israel should fear to commit the like abomination; and, secondly, that the lord might turn from the fury of his anger: which plainly doth signify, that, by the defection and idolatry of a few, god's wrath is kindled against the whole, which is never quenched, till such punishment be taken upon the offenders, that whatsoever served them in their idolatry be brought to destruction,' &c. i have enlarged so far upon this period, that it may appear, there is nothing now in controversy, between the suffering and reproached party now in scotland, and either their friends or enemies, which could fall under our reformers inquiry; but they have declared themselves of the same sentiments that are now so much opposed; and therefore none can condemn the present heads of suffering, except also they condemn the reformers judgment; and consequently the imputation of novelty must fall. period iv. _containing the testimony of the first contenders against prelacy and supremacy, from the year , to ._ hitherto the conflict was for the concerns of christ's prophetical and priestly office, against paganism and popery. but from the year , and downward, the testimony is stated, and gradually prosecuted for the rights, privileges and prerogatives of christ's kingly office; which hath been the peculiar glory of the church of scotland, above all the churches in the earth, that this hath been given to her as the word of her testimony; and not only consequentially and reductively, as all other churches may challenge a part of this dignity, but formally and explicitly to contend for this very head, the headship and kingship of jesus christ, the prince of the kings of the earth, and his mediatory supremacy over his own kingdom of grace, both visible and invisible. this is christ's supremacy, a special radiant jewel of his imperial crown, which as it hath been as explicitly encroached upon in scotland, by his insolent enemies, as ever by any that entered in opposition to him, so it hath been more expressly witnessed and wrestled for by his suffering servants in that land than in any place of the world. this was in a particular manner the testimony of that period, during the reign of king james the th; as it hath been in a great measure in our day, since the year . which, as it is the most important cause, of the greatest consequence that mortals can contend for; so it hath this peculiar glory in it, that it is not only for the truth of christ, of greater value than the standing of heaven and earth, but also it is the very truth for which christ himself died, considered as a martyr; and which concerns him to vindicate and maintain as a monarch. the witnesses of that day made such an high account of it, that they encouraged one another to suffer for it, as the greatest concern; 'being a witness for christ's glorious and free monarchy, which, as it is the end of the other two offices, so the testimony is more glorious to god, more honourable to his son, and more comfortable to them, than the testimony either for his prophetical office, or for his priesthood, because his kingdom was especially impugned at the time;' as mr. forbes and mr. welch wrote in a letter to the ministers at court. the corruptions and usurpations wronging this truth, that they contended against, were prelacy and the king's supremacy in ecclesiastical matters; which will be useful to hint a little, how they prosecuted the conflict. when satan (whose kingdom was then declining) by several instruments and means, both by force and fraud, did endeavour to put a stop to the reformation, by reintroducing the antichristian hierarchy of prelacy, when he could not re-establish the antichristian doctrine of popery; he left no means unessayed to effectuate it. and first he began to bring the name bishop in request, that was now growing obsolete and odious, by reason of the abuse of it (as it ought to be still, for though the name be found in the scriptures, yet neither is that catechestical application of it to prelates to be found, nor was there any other reason for the translation of it after that manner, except it were to please princes; seeing the native signification of it is an overseer, proper and common to all faithful pastors.) and indeed his first essay reached little further than the bare name, for they were to be rejected to, and tried by assemblies, and hardly had so much power as superintendants before. but it was a fine court juggle for noblemen to get the church-revenues into their hands, by restoring the ecclesiastical titles, and obtaining from the titulars either temporal lands, or pensions to their dependers; so they were only tulchan bishops, _a calf-skin to cause the cow give milk_. yet, though this in our day would have been thought tolerable, the faithful servants of christ did zealously oppose it. mr. knox denounced anathema to the giver, and anathema to the receiver. and the following assembly condemned the office itself, 'as having no sure warrant, authority, nor ground in the book of god, but brought in by the folly and corruption of men's invention, to the overthrow of the church; and ordained all that brooked the office, to demit simpliciter, and to desist and cease from preaching, while they received _de novo_ admission from the general assembly, under the pain of excommunication.' hereby they were awakened and animated to a more vigorous prosecution of the establishment of the house of god in its due government. in pursuance whereof, the assemblies from that time, until the year , did with much painfulness and faithfulness attend the work: until, by perfecting of the second book of discipline, they completed their work, in the exact model of presbyterial government, in all its courts and officers; which was confirmed and covenanted to be kept inviolate, in the national covenant, subscribed that year by the king, his court and council; and afterwards by all ranks of people in the land. whence it may be doubted, whether the impudence of the succeeding prelates, that denied this, or their perjury in breaking of it, be greater. this was but the first brush. a brisker assault follows; wherein, for the better establishment of prelacy, that what it wants of divine right, might be supplied by the accession of human prerogative, and not only diocesan, but also erastian prelacy might be set up, to destroy christ's kingdom, and advance satan's; the earl of arran, and his wicked accomplices move the king, contrary both to the word and oath of god, to usurp the prerogative of jesus christ, and assume to himself a blasphemous monster of supremacy, over all persons, and in all causes, as well ecclesiastical as civil. but this also the faithful servants of god did worthily and valiantly resist; and at the very appearance of it, gave in a grievance to the king in the year , 'that he had taken upon him a spiritual power, which properly belongs to christ, as only king and head of the church; the ministry and execution whereof is only given to such as bear office in the ecclesiastical government in the same: so that in the king's person, some men press to erect a new popedom, as though he could not be full king of this commonwealth, unless as well the spiritual as temporal sword be put in his hand, unless christ be reft of his authority, and the two jurisdictions confounded, which god hath divided, which directly tendeth to the wreck of all true religion.' which being presented by the commissioners of the general assembly, the earl of arran asked with a frowning countenance, who dare subscribe these treasonable articles? mr. andrew melvin answered, we dare, and will subscribe, and render our lives in the cause. and afterward, that same assembly presented articles, shewing, 'that seeing the spiritual jurisdiction of the church is granted by christ, and given only to them, that by preaching, teaching, and overseeing, bear office within the same, to be exercised, not by the injunctions of men, but by the only rule of god's word.--hereafter, no other, of whatsoever degree, or under whatsoever pretence, have any colour to ascribe, or to take upon them any part thereof either in placing or displacing of ministers, without the church's admission, or in stopping the mouths of preachers, or putting them to silence, or take upon them the judgment of trial of doctrine,' &c. but in contempt and contradiction to this, and to prosecute and exert this new usurped power, mr. andrew melvin was summoned before the secret council, for a sermon of his, applying his doctrine to the time's corruptions; whereupon he gave in his declinature against them, as incompetent judges, and told them, 'they were too bold, in a constitute christian church, to pass by the pastors, prophets, and doctors, and to take upon them to judge the doctrine, and to controul the ambassadors of a greater than was there, which they neither ought nor can do. there are (saith he, loosing a little hebrew bible from his girdle) my instructions and warrant: see if any of you can controul me, that i have past my injunctions.' for this he was decerned to be warded in the castle of edinburgh; but he being informed that if he entered in ward, he would not be released, unless it were for the scaffold, he conveyed himself secretly out of the country. hereafter when the parliament had enacted this supremacy, and submission to prelacy, to be subscribed by all ministers; the faithful first directed mr. david lindsay to the king, desiring, that nothing be done in parliament prejudicial to the church's liberty, who got the prison of blackness for his pains. and then when they could not get access for shut doors to protest before the parliament; yet when the acts were proclaimed at the cross of edinburgh, they took public documents in name of the church of scotland (though they were but two) that they protested against the said acts, and fled to england, leaving behind them reasons that moved them to do so. and mr. james melvin wrote against the subscribers at that time very pertinently; proving first, 'that they had not only set up a new pope, and so become traitors to christ; and condescended to that chief error of papistry, whereupon all the rest depend; but further, in so doing, they had granted more to the king, than ever the popes of rome peaceably obtained,' &c. and in the end, as for those that lamented their own weakness and feebleness, he adviseth them, to remove the public slander, 'by going boldly to the king and lords, and shew them how they had fallen through weakness, but by god's power are risen again; and there by public note and witness taken, free themselves from that subscription, and to will the same to be delete, renouncing and detesting it plainly, and thereafter publicly in their sermons; and by their declaration and retractation in writ, presented to the faithful, manifest the same, let them do with stipend, benefice, and life itself, what they list.' this i inferr, because this counsel is now condemned; and when poor people, offended with ministers subscriptions of bonds and other compliances, desire acknowledgments of the offence, they reject it as an impertinent imposition, and plead they are not obliged to manifest any retractation but to an ecclesiastical judicatory. to which i shall say nothing here, but this is no novelty. after this, it is known what bickerings the faithful witnesses of christ had, in their conflicts with this supremacy upon the account of mr. david black's declinature, which they both advised him to, and approved when he gave it in, against the king and council, as judges of his doctrine. and the commissioners of the general assembly ordained all, to deal mightily with the power of the word, against the council's encroachments; for which they were charged to depart forth of edinburgh. after which he added a second declinature: 'declaring, there are two jurisdictions in this realm; the one spiritual, the other civil; the one respecting the conscience, the other externals, &c.--therefore, in so far as he was one of the spiritual office-bearers, and had discharged his spiritual calling in some measure of grace and sincerity, should not, nor could not be lawfully judged for preaching and applying the word, by any civil power; he being an ambassador and messenger of the lord jesus, having his commission from the king of kings, and all his instructions set down and limited in the book of god, that cannot be extended, abridged, or altered by any mortal wight, king or emperor; and seeing he was sent to all sorts, his commission and discharge of it should not, nor cannot be lawfully judged by them to whom he was sent; they being sheep, and not pastors, to be judged by the word, and not to be judges thereof in a judicial way.' the interlocutor being past against him for this, the brethren thought it duty, that the droctrine of the preacher should be directed against the said interlocutor, as against a strong and mighty hold set up against the lord jesus, and the freedom of the gospel; and praised god for the force and unity of the spirit that was among themselves. and being charged to depart out of the town, they leave a faithful declaration at large, shewing how the liberties of the church were invaded and robbed. but all this was nothing, in comparison of their wrestlings for the royalties of their princely master, and privileges of his kingdom, against the tyrant's insolences, after he obtained the crown of england; for then he would not suffer the church to indict her own assemblies. and when the faithful thought themselves obliged to counteract his encroachments, and therefore convened in an assembly at aberdeen in the year , they were forced to dissolve, and thereafter, the most eminent of the ministers there assembled were transported prisoners to blackness; whence being cited before the council, they decline their judicatory. and one of their brethren, mr. robert youngson, who had formerly succumbed, being moved in conscience, returned; and when the rest were standing before the council, desired to be heard, and acknowledged his fault; and therefore, howbeit not summoned by the lords, was charged by the living god, and compelled to compear that day, to justify that assembly, to the great astonishment of the lords, and comfort of his brethren; he subscribed the declinature with the rest; and for this they were arraigned, and condemned, as guilty of treason, and banished. before the execution of which sentence, mr. welch wrote to the lady fleming, to this effect: 'what am i, that he should first have called me, and then constituted me a minister of glad tidings of the gospel of salvation, these fifteen years already, and now last of all to be a sufferer of his cause and kingdom? to witness that good confession, that jesus christ is the king of saints, and that his church is a most free kingdom; yea, as free as any kingdom under heaven, not only to convocate, hold and keep her meetings, conventions and assemblies; but also to judge of all her affairs in all her meetings and conventions among his subjects. these two points, ( .) that christ is the head of his church. ( .) that she is free in her government from all other jurisdiction except christ's, are the special cause of our imprisonment, being now convict as traitors, for maintaining thereof. we have now been waiting with joyfulness to give the last testimony of our blood in confirmation thereof, if it would please our god to be so favourable, as to honour us with that dignity.' after this, the king resolving by parliament to advance the state of bishops again, as in the time of popery, without cautions as before; and further, to establish not only that antichristian hierarchy, but an erastian supremacy: the faithful ministers of christ thought themselves bound in conscience to protest; and accordingly they offered protestation to the parliament july---- , obtesting, 'that they would reserve into the lord's own hands, that glory which he will communicate neither to man nor angel, to wit, to prescribe from his holy mountain a lively pattern, according to which his own tabernacle should be formed: remembring always, that there is no absolute and undoubted authority in this world, except the sovereign authority of christ the king; to whom it belongeth as properly to rule the church, according to the good pleasure of his own will, as it belongeth to him to save his church by the merit of his own sufferings: all other authority is so entrenched within the marches of divine command, that the least overpassing of the bounds, set by god himself, brings men under the fearful expectation of temporal and eternal judgment.--if ye should authorize bishops, ye should bring into the church the ordinance of man, which experience hath found to have been the ground of that antichristian hierarchy, which mounted up on steps of bishops pre-eminence, until that man of sin came forth, as the ripe fruit of man's wisdom, whom god shall consume with the breath of his own mouth. let the sword of god pierce that belly, which brought forth such a monster; and let the staff of god crush that egg, which hath hatched such a cockatrice: and let not only that roman antichrist be thrown down from the high bench of his usurped authority, but also let all the steps, whereby he mounted up to that unlawful pre-eminence, be cut down and utterly abolished in this land: and beware to strive against god with an open displayed banner, by building up again the walls of jericho, which the lord hath not only cast down, but also hath laid them under an horrible interdiction and execration; so that the building of them again must needs stand to greater charges to the builders, than the re-edifying of jericho, to hiel the bethelite in the days of ahab.' yet notwithstanding of all opposition, prelacy was again restored in parliament. and to bring all to a compliance with the same, presbyteries and synods universally charged, under highest pains, to admit a constant moderator without change; which many refused resolutely, as being the first step of prelacy. upon this followed a great persecution of the faithful, for their non-conformity, managed by that mongrel and monstrous kind of court, made up of clergymen and statesmen, called the high commission court, erected in the year , whereby many honest men were put violently from their charges and habitations; the generality were involved in a great and fearful defection. but the cope-stone of the wickedness of that period, was the ratification of the five articles of perth, 'kneeling at the communion; private communion to be given to the sick, private baptism: and confirmation of children by the bishop; and observation of festival days:' which were much opposed and testified against by the faithful, from their first hatching in the year , to the year , when they were ratified in parliament; at what time they were also witnessed against from heaven; by extraordinary lightnings and tempests. and against this the testimony of the faithful continued, till the revolution in the year . here we see how the cause was stated in this period; and may gather also wherein it agrees; and how far it differs from the present testimony, now suffered for under all rage and reproach. i. the matter of the testimony was one with that we are suffering for, against popery, prelacy and supremacy; except that it was not so far extended against tyranny, because that tyrant was not such an usurper, nor such a violator of the fundamental constitutions of the civil government, as these that we have had to do withal. but as to the managing the testimony; they far outstripped their successors in this generation, in conduct and courage, prudence and zeal, as is above hinted in many instances; to which we may add some more. when several plots of papist lords had been discovered, conspiring with the king of spain, and they were by the king's indulgence favoured, and some were also persuaded to treat with them, famous mr. davidson opposed with great resolution; declaring before the synod of lothian, 'that it savoured much of defection in these days, that such notorious rebels to god, his church, and the country, should be so treated with; we should not rashly open a door to god's enemies, without better proof of their manners nor were yet seen.' and when a convention in falkland was consulting to call home these conspiring traitors, mr. andrew melvin went thither uncalled; and when found fault with by the king for his boldness, he answered, 'sir, i have a call to come here from christ and his church, who have special interest in this turn, and against whom this convention is assembled directly; i charge you, and your estates, in the name of christ and his church, that ye favour not his enemies whom he hateth, nor go about to call home, nor make citizens of these, who have traiterously fought to betray their city and native country, with the overthrow of christ's kingdom.' and further challenged them of treason against christ, his church and the country, in that purpose they were about. about the same time, in a private conference with the king, he calls the king god's silly vassal; and taking him by the sleeve, told him, 'sir, you, and church and country is like to be wrecked for not telling the truth, and giving you faithful counsel; we must discharge our duty, or else be enemies to christ and you: therefore i must tell you, there are two kings and two kingdoms; there is christ and his kingdom, whose subject king james vi. is, and of whole kindom he is not a king, nor a head, nor a lord, but a member; and they whom christ hath called to watch over and govern his church, have sufficient authority and power from him, which no christian king should controul, but assist, otherwise they are not faithful subjects to christ. sir, when you were in your swaddling clouts, christ reigned freely in this land, in spight of all his enemies; but now the wisdom of your council, which is devilish and pernicious, is this, that you may be served of all sorts of men to your purpose and grandeur, jew and gentile, papist and protestant, because the ministers and protestants in scotland are too strong, and controul the king, they must be weakened and brought low, by stirring up a party against them; and the king being equal and indifferent, both shall be fain to flee to him, so shall he be well settled: but, sir, let god's wisdom be the only wisdom, this will prove mere and mad folly; for his curse cannot but light upon it; so that in seeking both, you shall lose both.' to the like effect mr. robert bruce, in a sermon upon psal. li. gives faithful warning of the danger of the times. 'it is not we (says he) that are party in this cause; no, the quarrel is betwixt a greater prince and them. what are we but silly men: yet it has pleased him to let us in this office, that we should oppone to the manifest usurpation that is made upon his spiritual kingdom. is there a more forcible mean to draw down the wrath of god, than to let barabbas that nobilitate malefactor pass free, and to begin the war against christ and his ministry. it putteth on the cope-stone, that so many of our brethren should not be so faithful, as their calling and this cause craveth. fy upon false brethren, to see them dumb, so faint-hearted, when it comes to the shock; not only are they ashamed to speak the thing they think, which is a shame in a pastor, but speak directly against their former doctrine. they will speak the truth a while, till they be put at, but incontinent they will turn, and make their gifts weapons to fight against christ; for there is none so malicious as an apostate, when he begins to slide back,' &c. the same faithful witness, because he would not preach as the king would have him, against his own conscience, to justify and proclaim the king's innocency, in a forged conspiracy against him, was put from his church in edinburgh; and being requested in an insinuating manner to desist from preaching but for nine or ten days; he condescended at first, thinking the matter of no great importance; yet that night his body was cast in a fever, with the terror of his conscience, and he promised he should never obey their commandments any more. these were faithful men, yet we find they challenge themselves, in deep humiliation, for their short-comings and defections. at the renovation of the national covenant march th, , was the greatest solemnity ever had been seen in scotland before that time; so that the place might worthily have been called bochim. o when shall we see such a day, when even the most faithful among us, shall mourn over our far more aggravated defections! but if they mourned then for these first degrees of declensions; we may say, 'how heavily would these valiant men groan, who formerly contended so stoutly for the liberty of the church of scotland, if they beheld this our laziness (that i may call it by no worse name!') i know notwithstanding of all this, that some encourage themselves in a base compliance with the present corruptions of our church, from the practice of these worthies; alledging, they did not scruple to hear and join with prelatical men, dispensing the ordinances. but this objection will be easily refelled, if we consider, first, the period wherein they were but growing up to a more perfect reformation, and therefore might bear with many things which we cannot, after we have been reformed from them: they were then advancing, and still gaining ground, we are now declining, and therefore should be more shy to lose what we have gained. they had then of a long time enjoyed their judicatories, unto which they might recur for an orderly redress of such grievances that offended them; and when they were deprived of them, yet they were still in hopes of recovering them; and so suspended their total secession from that corrupt church, until they should recover them; in the mean time still holding their right, and maintaining their cause against these invaders. but we were, at the very first beginning of this unhappy revolution, totally deprived of our judicatories, and denuded of all expectation of them in an ordinary way, and of all place, but what they are masters of to contend with them that way; therefore must keep ourselves free of their communion. but next, if we consider their practice, we shall find these worthies were not such conformists, as our compliers would make them. what if we find among them meetings, that were called and counted as seditious and schismatic as ours are now? we find a field meeting, yea, a general assembly at dumfermline, without and against the king's warrant, when the ports were shut against them, in the year . but that is not so pat to the purpose, as that we find private meetings at edinburgh, and that in the very time of public service in the churches, discharged by open proclamation in , wherein it is charged, that they had no respect to the ordinary pastors, contemned and impugned their doctrine, disobeyed and controuled their discipline, abstained to hear the word preached, and to participate of the sacraments. and long before that, we find the sincerer sort scrupled to hear bishop adamson, notwithstanding that he was absolved in the assembly. and that afterwards, the doubt being proponed to the assembly, if it be a slander to a christian to absent himself from the sermons of them that are suspended from all function in the ministry? the assembly answered, there is no slander in the case, but rather it is slanderous to resort. and why is not this ground to think it slanderous, or scandalous to resort to them, who deserve to be suspended (all of them by a spiritual cognizance, and some of them to be suspended corporally for their villany) when there can be no access orderly to do it. and the rather, because we find in this period, that sometimes ministers were so faithful and zealous against the corruptions of the ministry, that they decerned ministers to be suspended for far smaller faults, than many now could exempt themselves from, viz. if they were not powerful and spiritual; if they did not apply their doctrine to corruptions; if they were obscure and too scholastic before the people; cold and wanting zeal, flatterers, dissembling at public sins for flattery or fear, &c. as we may read in the advice of the brethren, deputed for penning the corruptions in the ministry, in . i wish our silent prudent ministers now would consider the justness of this censure, and what ground people have to be offended at such censurableness. but not only this may answer the false imputation of conformity on these witnesses of christ at that time; but i shall set down a part of a letter of one of the banished ministers at that time, discovering his mind about hearing these men, that were then serving the times. mr. john welch, writing to mr. robert bruce,----'what my mind is concerning the root of these branches, the bearer will shew you more fully. they are no more to be counted orthodox, but apostates; they have fallen from their callings, by receiving an antichristian, and bringing in of idolatry, to make the kingdom culpable, and to expose it to fearful judgments, for such an high perfidy against an oath so solemnly enacted and given; and are no more to be counted christians, but strangers, apostates, and persecutors; and therefore, not to be heard any more, either in public, or in consistories, colleges, or synods; for what fellowship hath light with darkness?' we see then as to that part of the testimony, they were not dissonant to the witness of the present reproached sufferers. ii. as the matter and manner of their testimony against all the invaders of the church's privileges, did speak forth a great deal of sincere and pure zeal; so their practice was conform, shewing forth a great deal of strictness and averseness from all sinful compliances, even with things that would be now accounted of very minute and inconsiderable consequence, and for which honest sufferers now are flouted at as fools. when that oath was formed for acknowledging the supremacy, there was a clause added which might have been thought to salve the matter, "according to the word of god." i fear many now would not stand to subscribe with such a qualification. yet the faithful then perceived the sophistry, that it made it rather worse, affirming that that brat of hell was according to the word of god: and therefore, though there were several eminent men to persuade them to it, both by advice and example, yet they could not, in conscience, comply; and pleaded also from the illegality of that imposition, that they should be charged with the subscription of laws, a thing never required before of any subject; if they offended against the laws, why might they not be punished according to the laws? when many honest faithful patriots, for the attempt at ruthven to deliver the country from a vermin of villains that abused the king, to the destruction of the church and kingdom, were charged to crave pardon, and take remission; they would do neither, judging it a base condemning duty, which puts a brand upon our sneaking supplicators and petitioners, and pardon mongers, as unworthy to be called the race of such worthies, who scorned such baseness; and choosed rather to endure the extremity of their unjust sentences of intercommuning and banishment, &c. and when the earl of gowrie accepted of a remission, he afterwards condemned himself for it, and desired that his old friends would accept of his friendship, to whom he had the same favour offered to him, refused altogether, lest so doing he should condemn himself, and approve the courts proceedings: and the brethren, conferring with the counsellors, craving that some penalty should be condescended unto for satisfying his majesty in his honour, would not condescend to any, how light soever; lest thereby they should seem to approve the judicatory and their proceeding. the imprisoned ministers, for declining the counsel, had it in their offer, that if they would, without any confession of offence, only submit themselves to his majesty, "for scandal received, not given," they should be restored to their places: but it pleased god so to strengthen them, that they stopped their mouths, and convinced them in their consciences, that they could not do it without betraying of the cause of christ. again, in another case, we have instances of such strictness, as is much scorned now a-days. the ministers of edinburgh were committed to ward, for refusing to pray for the queen, before her execution in fothringham castle . they refused not simply to pray for her, but for the preservation of her life, as if she had been innocent of the crimes laid to her charge, which had imported a condemnation of the proceedings against her. afterwards, in the year . the ministers of edinburgh would not praise god for the delivery of the king from a pretended conspiracy of the earl of gowrie at that time, of which they had no credit nor assurance; and would not crave pardon for it neither. for this mr. robert bruce was deprived of the exercise of his ministry, and never obtained it again in edinburgh: but now, for refusing such compelled and imposed devotion, to pray or praise for the king, poor people are much condemned. i know it is alledged, that these faithful sufferers in those days, were not so strict as they are now, in submitting to unjust sentences, and obeying and keeping their confinements. i shall grant, there was much of this, and much might be tolerate in their circumstances, when the court's procedure against them was not so illegal, their authority was not so tyrannical, nor so necessary to be disowned, and they were so stated, that they were afraid to take guilt upon them, in making their escapes; whereas it is not so with us. yet we find very faithful men broke their confinements; as mr. john murray, confined at dumfries, perceiving there was no end of the bishop's malice, and that he would be in no worse case than he was, he resolved without licence, either of king or council, to transport himself: so did also mr. robert bruce. iii. for resistance of superior powers, we have in this period, first the practice of some noblemen at ruthven, in the [year] . who took the king, and seized on that arrant traitor, enemy to the church and country the earl of arran; declaring to the world the causes of it, the king's correspondence with papists, his usurping the supremacy over the church, and oppressing the ministers, all by means of his wicked counsellers, whom therefore they removed from him. the king himself emitted a declaration allowing this deed. the general assembly approved of it, and persuaded to a concurrence with it, and nothing was wanting to ratify it, as a most lawful and laudable action. at length the fox escapes, and changes all, and retracts his former declaration. the lords again rally, and interprise the taking of the castle of stirling, and gain it; but afterward surrender it: after which the earl of gowrie was executed, and ministers are commanded to retract the approbation of ruthven business, but they refused; and many were forced to flee to england, and the lords were banished. but, in the year , they return with more success, and take the castle of stirling. the cowardly king does again acknowledge and justify their enterprise, 'that they needed no apology of words, weapons had spoken well enough, and gotten them audience to clear their own cause:' but his after carriage declared him as crafty and false, as he was cowardly and fearful. again, we have the advice of the general assembly, for resisting, when the ministers were troubled upon mr. black's business, and there was an intention to pull them out of their pulpits; they advised them to stand to the discharge of their calling, if their flocks would save them from violence, and yet this violence was expected from the king and his emissaries. as to that point then there can be no dispute. iv. there was little occasion for the question about the king's authority in this period, but generally all acknowledged it; because they were not sensible of his usurpation, and his cowardice made him incapable of attempting any thing that might raise commotions in civil things. yet we remark, that whatsoever authority he usurped beyond his sphere, that was disowned and declined by all the faithful, as the supremacy. next that they resented, and represented very harshly, any aspiring to absoluteness; as mr. andrew melvin could give it no better name, nor entertain no better notion of it, than to term it, the bloody gully, as he inveighs against it in the assembly . and next, in this same period, we have a very good description of that authority, which the king himself allows not to be owned, which out of a king's mouth abundantly justifies the disowning of the present tyranny: this same king james, in a speech to the parliament, in the year , saith, 'a king degenerateth into a tyrant, when he leaveth to rule by law, much more when he beginneth to invade his subjects persons, rights and liberties, to set up an arbitrary power, impose unlawful taxes, raise forces, make war upon his subjects, to pillage, plunder, waste, and spoil his kingdoms.' period v. _containing the testimony for the last reformation from prelacy, in all its steps, from the year . to ._ the following period, from the year , to , continues and advances the testimony, to the greatest height of purity and power, that either this church, or any other did ever arrive unto, with a gradation, succession, and complication of wonders, of divine wisdom, power, justice and mercy, signally and singularly owning and sealing it, to the confusion of his enemies, comfort of his people, conviction of indifferent neutrals, and consternation of all. now after a long winter, and night of deadness and darkness, the sun returns with an amiable approach of light and life; now the winter was past, the rain was over and gone, the flowers appear on earth, and the time of singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. now the second time, the testimony comes to be managed in an active manner, as before it was passive: as the one hath been always observed to follow interchangeably upon the other, especially in scotland, and the last always the greatest; which gives ground to hope, though it be now our turn to suffer, that when the summer comes again after this winter, and the day after this night, the next active testimony shall be more notable than any that went before. the matter of the testimony was the same as before, for the concerns of christ's kingly prerogative, but with some more increase as to its opposites: for these grew successively in every period, the last always including all that went before. the first period had gentilism principally to deal with; the second popery; the third popery and tyranny; the fourth prelacy and supremacy; this fifth hath all together, and sectarianism also, to contend against. the former had always the opposites on one hand, but this hath them in extremes on both hands; both fighting against one another, and both fighting together against the church of scotland, and she against both, till at length one of her opposites prevailed, viz. the sectarian party, and that prevailing brought in the other, to wit, the malignant, which now domineers over all together. wherefore, because this period is in itself of so great importance, the revolutions therein emergent so eminent, the reformation therein prosecuted wanting little of its perfect complement, the deformation succeeding in its deviation from the pattern being so destructive; to the end it may be seen from whence we have fallen, and whether or not the present reproached sufferers have lost or left their ground, we must give a short deduction of the rise, progress, and end of the contendings of that period. in the midst of the forementioned miseries and mischiefs, that the pride of prelacy and tyrannical supremacy had multiplied beyond measure upon this church and nation, and at the height of all their haughtiness, when they were setting up their dagon and erecting altars for him, imposing the service-book, and book of canons, &c. the lord in mercy remembred his people, and surprised them with a sudden unexpected deliverance, by very despicable means; even the opposition of a few weak women, at the beginning of that contest, which, ere it was quashed, made the tyrant tumble headless off his throne. the zeal against the english popish ceremonies, obtruded on edinburgh, did first inflame some feminine hearts to witness their detestation of them; but afterwards was followed out with more masculine fervor, accosting king and council with petitions, remonstrances, protestations and testimonies against the innovations, and resolving upon a mutual conjunction, to defend religion, lives and liberties, against all that would innovate or invade them. to fortify which, and conciliate the favour both of god and man in the resolution, all the lovers of god, and friends to the liberty of the nation, did solemnly renew the national covenant, (wherein they were signally countenanced of the lord,) which, though in itself obliging to the condemnation of prelatical hierarchy, and clearly enough confirming presbyterial government, yet they engaged into it with an enlargement, to suspend the practice of novations already introduced, and the approbation of the corruptions of the present government, with the late places and power of church men, till they be tried in a free general assembly. which was obtained that same year, and indicted at glasgow: and there, notwithstanding all the opposition that the king's commissioner could make, by protestations and proclamations to dissolve it, the six preceeding assemblies establishing prelacy were annulled, the service-book, and high commission were condemned; all the bishops were deposed, and their government declared to be abjured in that national covenant; though many had, through the commissioners persuasions, subscribed it in another sense without that application: as also the five articles of perth were there discovered to have been inconsistent with that covenant and confession, and the civil places and power of church men were disproved and rejected: on the other hand presbyterial government was justified and approved, and an act was passed for their keeping yearly general assemblies. this was a bold beginning, into which they were animated with more than human resolution, against more than human opposition, hell as well as the powers of the earth being set against them. but when the lord gave the call, they considered not their own deadness, nor were daunted with discouragements, nor staggered at the promise through unbelief, but gave glory to god, outbraving all difficulties. which in the following year were much increased, by the prelates and their popish partakers rendezvousing their forces under the king's personal standard, and menacing nothing but misery to the zealous covenanters; yet when they found them prepared to resist, were forced to yield to a pacification, concluding that an assembly and parliament should be held, for healing all grievances of church and state. in which assembly at edinburgh, the covenant is ratified and subscribed by the earl of traquair commissioner, and enjoined to be subscribed by the body of the whole land, with an explication, expressly condemning the five articles of perth, the government of bishops, the civil places and power of churchmen: but the sons of belial cannot be taken with hands, nor bound with bonds of faith, humanity, or honour, for in the year following, king and prelates, with their popish abettors, go to arms again; but were fain to accommodate the matter by a new pacification, whereby all civil and religious liberties were ratified. and in the following year , by laws, oaths, promises, subscriptions of king and parliament, fully confirmed, the king, charles i. being present, and consenting to all; though in the mean time he was treacherously encouraging the irish murderers, who by his authority made a massacre of many thousand innocent protestants in ireland. but in scotland things went well, the kingdom of our lord jesus was greatly advanced, the gospel flourished, and the glory of the lord did shine upon us with such a splendour, that it awaked england, and animated the lord's people there, then groaning under those grievances from which scotland was delivered, to aspire to the like reformation. for advice in which, because though all agreed to cast off the yoke of prelacy, yet sundry forms of church government were projected to be set up in the room thereof, chiefly the independent order, determining all acts of church government, as election, ordination, and deposition of officers, with admission, excommunication, and absolution of members, to be done and decided by the voices of every particular congregation, without any authoritative concurrence or interposition of any other, condemning all imperative and decisive power of classes, &c. as a mere usurpation. therefore, the brethren in england wrote to the assembly then sitting at edinburgh, who gave them answer,----'that they were grieved, that any of the godly should be found not agreeing with other reformed churches, in point of government as well as doctrine; and that it was to be feared, where the hedge of discipline and government is different, the doctrine and worship shall not long continue the same without change; that the government of the church, by compound presbyteries and synods, is a help and strength, and not a hindrance to particular congregations and elderships, in all the parts of government; and are not an extrinsical power set over particular churches, but the intrinsical power wherewith christ hath invested his officers, who may not exercise it independently, but with subordination, unto presbyteries, &c. which as they are representative of particular churches, conjoined together in one under their government; so their determination, when they proceed orderly, whether in causes common to all, or brought before them by reference in case of aberration, is to the several congregations authoritative, and not consultatory only. and this subordination is not only warranted by the light of nature, but grounded upon the word of god, and conform to the pattern of the primitive and apostolic church, for the preservation of verity and unity, against schism, heresy and tyranny, which is the fruit of this government wheresoever it hath place.' so from henceforth the assembly did incessantly urge uniformity in reformation with their brethren in england, as the chiefest of their desires, prayers and cares. and in the year , prevailed so far, that the english parliament did first desire, that the two nations might be strictly united for their mutual defence, against the papists and prelatical faction, and their adherents in both kingdoms; and not to lay down arms, till these implacable enemies should be brought in subjection; and instantly urge for help and assistance from scotland. which, being sent, did return with an olive branch of peace, and not without some beginnings of a reformation in england. and afterwards, a bloody war beginning between the king and parliament, with great success on the king's side, whence the papists at the time got great advantage, (witness the cessation of arms concluded in ireland,) commissioners were sent from both houses to scotland, earnestly inviting to a nearer union of the kingdoms, and desiring assistance from this nation to their brethren in that their great distress. and this, by the good hand of god, produced the solemn league and covenant of the three kingdoms, first drawn up in scotland, and approven in the assembly at edinburgh, and afterward embraced in england to the terror of the popish and prelatical party, and to the great comfort of such as were wishing and waiting for the reformation of religion, and the recoveries of just liberties. the tenor whereof did import, their sincere and constant endeavours, in their several places and callings, for preservation of the uniformity in reformation, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government: the extirpation of popery, prelacy, error and profanity; the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people; and of the magistrates authority, in defence of the true religion and liberty; the discovery and punishment of incendiaries; the retaining of the peace and union of the kingdoms; the mutual assistance and defence of all under the bond of this covenant; and the performing all duties we owe to god, in the amendment of our lives, and walking exemplarily one before another. this is that covenant comprehending the purpose of all prior, and the pattern of all posterior covenants, to which christ's witnesses did always adhere, for which the present witnesses do suffer and contend; that covenant, which the representatives of church and state in the three nations did solemnly subscribe and swear, for themselves and posterity, of which the obligation, either to the duty or the punishment, continues indispensibly on the generation; which for the moral equity of its matter, the formality of its manner, the importance of its purpose, the holiness of its solemn engagement, and the glory of its ends, no power on earth can disannul, disable, or dispense; that covenant, which the lord did ratify from heaven, by the conversion of many thousands at their entering under the bond of it, securing and establishing unto them, and all the faithful, the blessings and privileges therein express, and avouching himself to be their god, as they had avouched themselves to be his people; that covenant, which, in all the controversies it hath occasioned, did never receive a greater confirmation than from the malice and opposition of its adversaries; that covenant, which malignants do malign and deny, and sectaries scorn and lay aside, as an almanack out of date; which hath been many ways traduced and reproached by enemies, and yet could never be reflected on by any serious in this land, without an honourable and fragrant remembrance: especially that retortion of adversaries of the rigour of its imposition upon recusants, to justify their cruelty upon its asserters now, is to be refelled, not with confutation of its importance, but with disdain of its impudence. for who were the recusants; but wicked enemies to god, and church, and nation, who for their malignancy were then to be prosecuted, not for their scrupling at a covenant, but for their contumacious contempt of a law? this was no violence done to their conscience; for as they had none, and could not pretend to any, so they were never troubled for that, but for their opposition and conspiracy against the common cause. however, it went through at that time: and that the covenanted reformation, in a nearer conjunction betwixt the united churches, might be promoted, the parliament of england called an assembly of divines at westminster, and desired the assembly of scotland to send thither their commissioners; which accordingly nominated and elected mr. alexander henderson, mr. robert douglas, mr. samuel rutherford, mr. robert balzie, mr. george gillespie, ministers; john earl of cassils, john lord maitland, and sir archibald johnston of waristoun, ruling elders; to propone, consult, treat, and conclude in all such things as might conduce to the extirpation of popery, prelacy, heresy, schism, superstition, and idolatry; and for the settling of the so much desired union of the whole island, in one form of church-government, one confession of faith, one common catechism, and one directory for the worship of god. forces were also sent to assist the parliament of england: which were favoured with great success in their enterprizes, till that war was ended by the total overthrow of tyranny at that time, and all its upholders. but that popish, prelatical, and malignant faction, being brought much under in england, attempted (not unlike the syrians, who thought the god of israel was not god of the hills and valleys both) to try the fortune of war in scotland, under the conduct of that treacherous and truculent traitor montrose, gathering an army of wicked apostates and irish murderers: who prevailing for a time, did punish in the justice of god, the hypocrisy and self-seeking of such in this land, whose hearts were not upright in his covenant; at length was defeat at philiphaugh, in the year . yet certain it is, that they had commission and warrant from the king; as the assembly that year, february . remonstrates it to himself? warning him, in the name of their master, the lord jesus christ, 'that the guilt, which cleaved to his throne, was such, as (whatsoever flattering preachers or unfaithful counsellors, might say to the contrary) if not timely repented, could not but involve himself and his posterity, under the wrath of the ever-living god, for his being guilty of the shedding of the blood of many thousand of his best subjects, for his permitting the mass and other idolatry in his family and dominion,' &c. at the same time also, the assembly did zealously incite the parliament to a speedy course of justice, against these incendiaries and murderers, as the only mean of cleansing the land from that deluge of blood then current, and of appeasing the wrath of god: and solemnly and seasonably warned all ranks to applaud the glory and righteousness of that judgment of the sword, in the hands of these apostates, and murderers, and to search to understand the language of that dispensation; wherein many public sins and breaches of covenant are pointed at, as the causes of that desolation; and the covenant itself is there very encomiastically vindicated. 'we are so far from repenting of it (say they) that we cannot mention it without great joy and thankfulness to god, as that which hath drawn many blessings after it, and unto which god hath given manifold evident testimonies: for no sooner was the covenant begun to be taken in england, but sensibly the condition of affairs there was changed to the better, and our forces sent into that kingdom, in pursuance of that covenant, have been so mercifully and manifestly assisted and blessed from heaven, that we have what to answer the enemy that reproacheth us concerning that business, and that which may make iniquity itself to stop her mouth; but which is more unto us than all victories, the reformation of religion in england, and uniformity therein between both kingdoms (a principal end of that covenant) is so far advanced, that the government of the church by congregational elderships, classical presbyteries, provincial and national assemblies, is agreed upon by the assembly of divines at westminster, and voted and concluded in both houses of parliament.' after this the malignants in england being crushed in all their projects, the king renders himself to the scots in newcastle: by whom (because by covenant they were not obliged to defend him, but only in defence of religion and liberty, which he had been destroying, and they defending, because in this war he did directly oppose and oppugn these conditions, under which they were only to defend him; and therefore they had all along carried towards him as an enemy, as he to them; and because, by the same covenant, they were obliged to discover, and render to condign punishment all malignants and incendiaries, of whom he was the chief, and to retain the peace and union of the kingdoms, which could not be retained in maintaining their destroyer, and to assist mutually all entred into that covenant, which he was fighting against) he was delivered up unto the english, and kept under restraint in the isle of wight, until he received his just demerit, for all his oppressions, murders, treachery, and tyranny; being condemned and execute january th, in the - . which fact, though it was protested against, both before and after, by the assembly of the church of scotland, out of zeal against the sectarians, the executioners of that extraordinary act of justice; yet it was more for the manner than for the matter, and more for motives and ends of it, than for the grounds of it, that they opposed themselves to it, and resented it. for they acknowledged and remonstrated to himself, the truth of all these things upon which that sentence and execution of justice was founded. and when a wicked association, and unlawful engagement was on foot to rescue him, they opposed it with all their might: shewing, in their answers to the estates that year , and declarations and remonstrances, the sinfulness and destructiveness of that engagement; that it was a breach of the commandments of god, and of all the articles of the covenant; declaring withal, they would never consent to the king's restitution to the exercise of his power, without previous assurance, by solemn oath, under his hand and seal, for settling of religion according to the covenant. by which it appears, they were not so stupidly loyal, as some would make them. yet indeed it cannot be past without regret, that there was too much of this plague of the king's-evil even among good men: which from that time forth hath so infected the heads and hearts of this generation, that it hath almost quite extinct all loyalty to christ, and all zeal for religion and liberty. then it began to infuse and diffuse its contagion, when after the death of charles first, in the year , they began, after all that they had smarted for their trusting these treacherous tyrants, and after that grace had been shewed them from the lord their god, by breaking these men's yokes from off their necks, and putting them again into a capacity to act for the good of religion, their own safety, and the peace and safety of the kingdom, to think of joining once more with the people of these abominations, and taking into their bosom these serpents which had formerly stung them almost to death. hence these tears, lo the origin and spring of our defection! there was indeed at that time a party faithful for god, who considering the many breaches of the solemn league and covenant, and particularly by the late engagement against england, did so travel, that they procured the covenant to be renewed, with the solemn acknowledgment of sins and engagement to duties, which was universally subscribed and sworn through all the land; wherein also they regret this tampering with malignants. and therefore the lord did mightily save and defend them from all their adversaries, subdued them at stirling, and in the north. they did also give warning concerning the young king, 'that notwithstanding of the lord's hand against his father, yet he hearkens unto the counsels of these, who were authors of these miseries to his father, by which it hath come to pass, that he hath hitherto refused to grant the just and necessary desires of the church and kingdom, for securing of religion and liberty: and it is much to be feared, that these wicked counsellors, may so far prevail upon him, as to engage him in a war, for overturning the work of god, and bearing down all those in the three kingdoms that adhere thereto. which if he shall do, cannot but bring great wrath from the lord upon himself and throne, and must be the cause of many new and great miseries and calamities to these lands.' and, in the same warning, by many weighty reasons, they prove, that he is not to be admitted to the exercise of his power, without security for religion and liberty. and when the bringing home of the king came to be voted in the assembly, there was one faithful witness, mr. adam kae, minister in galloway, protested against it: foreshewing, and foretelling, what mischief and misery he would bring with him when he should come. these things might have had some weight, to demur the nation from meddling with that perfidious traitor. but all this serves only to aggravate the sin and shame of that distraction, which hath procured all this destruction, under which the land mourns to this day: that notwithstanding of all these convictions, warnings; yea, and discoveries of his malignancy, treachery, and inclination to tyranny; they sent commissioners, and concluded a treaty with him at breda. during which treaty, the commissions which he had sent to that bloody villain montrose, and his cut-throat complices, to raise an army, and waste, and invade the country with fire and sword the second time; were brought to the committee of estates, discovering what sort of a king they were treating with. whereupon, after serious consulting, not only together, but with the lord: and after many debates what to do in such a doubtful case, wherein all was in danger, the estates concluded to break off the treaty, and recal their commissioners. to which intent, they sent an express with letters to breda; which, by providence, falling into the hands of libberton, a true libertine, and false betrayer of his trust and country, was by him, without the knowledge of the other commissioners, delivered unto the king; who consulting the contents of the packet with his jesuitical and hypocritical cabal, found it his interest to play the fox (being disappointed at that time to play the tyger) and dissemble with god and man. and so sending for the commissioners, he made a flattering speech to them, shewing, that now after serious deliberation, he was resolved to comply with all their proposals. whereupon the poor cheated commissioners dispatch the post back with letters full of praise and joy for the satisfaction they had received. the estates, perceiving themselves imposed upon, consulted again what to do; and in end, being overswayed more with respect to their own credit, (which they thought should be impeached, if they should retract their own plenipotentiary instructions, to conclude the treaty, upon the king's assent to their conditions) than to their reclamant consciences, they resolved to bring home that pest, and thereby precipitated themselves and us into eluctable misery. yet they thought to mend the matter, by binding him with all cords, and putting him to all most explicit engagements, before he should receive the imperial crown. well, upon these terms, home he comes, and, before he sets his foot on british ground, he takes the covenant: and thereafter, because the commission of the general assembly, by the act of the west-kirk, august th, , precluded his admittance unto the crown, if he should refuse the then required satisfaction, before his coronation, he emits that declaration at dunfermline; wherein, 'professing and appearing in the full persuasion and love of the truth, he repenteth (as having to do with and in the fight of god) his father's opposition to the covenant and work of god, and his own reluctances against the same, hoping for mercy through the blood of jesus christ, and obtesting the prayers of the faithful to god for his stedfastness. and then protesteth his truth and sincerity in entring into the oath of god, resolving to prosecute the ends of the covenant to his utmost, and to have with it the same common friends and enemies, exhorting all to lay down their enmity against the cause of god, and not to prefer man's interest to god's, which will prove an idol of jealousy to provoke the lord: and he himself accounteth to be but selfish flattery.' a declaration so full of heart-professions, and high attestations of god, that none, considering what followed, can reflect thereon, without horror and trembling from the holy jealousy of the lord, either for the then deep dissimulation, or the after unparalleled apostasy. i know it is objected by court-parasites, that the king was then compelled to do these things. to which i shall only say, it would have cost any of them their head at that time, to have asserted, that he did upon deliberation and choice mock god and man, and entered into these engagements, only with a purpose to be thereby in better capacity to destroy what he swore to maintain, only because he could not have the crown without this way, which, in the confession of the objectors themselves, was only deliberate and premeditate perjury. next, if it should be granted he was compelled; let it be also considered, who compelled him; and these will be found to be the deceitful courtiers. for, let it be adverted, what mr. gillespie declares of the case, who put the pen in his hand when he subscribed that declaration: he, perceiving there was sufficient ground to jealouse his reality, and seeing evidently that the courtiers prevailed with the king on a sudden to offer to subscribe the declaration (when they observed that the commissioners of church and state were resolute, and ready to go away in a fixedness, to leave out the putting of his interest in the state of the quarrel) and being afraid of the said consequences of it, spoke his mind plainly to the king: 'that if he was not satisfied in his soul and conscience, beyond all hesitation of the righteousness of the subscription, he was so far from over-driving him to run upon that, for which he had no light, as he obtested him, yea, he charged him in his master's name, and in the name of these who sent him, not to subscribe this declararation, no not for the three kingdoms.' whereupon the king answered,--mr. gillespie, mr. gillespie, i am satisfied, i am satisfied with the declaration, and therefore will subscribe it. upon which some of the courtiers swore that mr. gillespie intended simply to dissuade the king from subscribing it, that so church and state might professedly lay aside his interest; which would have defeat their hopes to make up themselves, as now they have done, upon the then designed ruin of the interest of truth. then at his coronation, we have his again reiterated confirmations of that covenant; first, he is desired in name of the people to accept the crown, and maintain religion according to the national and solemn league and covenant; whereunto he gave his apparently cordial consent (the words are in the form and order of the coronation with the whole action.) then next, a sermon being preached upon kings xi. and . the action commenceth, with his most solemn renewing of the national and solemn league and covenant, by oath. then, he is presented to the people, and their willingness demanded to have him for their king on these terms. at the same time, in the next place, he took the coronation oath. then on these terms he accepted the sword. and after the crown is set upon his head, the people's obligatory oath is proclaimed on the terms foresaid, otherwise he is not that king to whom they swore subjection. then being set upon the throne, he was by the minister put in mind of his engagements, from chron. xxix. . and then the nobles of the land came one by one kneeling, and lifting up their hands between his hands, swore the same oath. these things done, the whole action was closed with a most solid and severe exhortation from several instances, neh. v. . jer. xxxiv. , , . &c. thereafter in the year , followed the ratification of all these preceeding treaties, transactions, and engagements, concluded and enacted by the king, and the parliament then fully and freely conveened; whereby the same did pass into a perpetual law. and this covenant, which from the beginning was and is the most sure and indispensible oath of god, became at length the very fundamental law of the kingdom, whereon all the rights or privileges, either of king or people, are principally bottomed and secured. this might seem security sufficient, but considering the former discoveries and experiences they had of his treachery, and the visible appearances (in the mean time) of his refusals, visible reluctances, manifest refilings, open counter actings, and continued prejudices against the covenant, and his following unprecedented avowed perjury, every thing doth indelibly fasten upon them the weakness at least of an overweening credulity, and upon him the wickedness of a perfidious policy, in all these condescensions. after this it came to pass, that zeal for the cause rightly stated was suddenly contracted to a few, and the flame thereof extinguished in many, and court wild-fire substitute in its place: whereby a plain defection was violently carried on by the public resolutioners, who relapsing into that most sinful conjunction with the people of these abominations, so solemnly repented for and resolved against, did notwithstanding bring in notorious malignants, into places of power and trust, in judicatories and armies, in a more politic than pious way of requiring of them a constrained and dissembled repentance, to the mocking of the god of truth, and scorn of all our holy engagements. which defection did not only cause for a long time an incurable division; the first of that kind, and most permanent of any that ever was in the church of scotland, by reason of the surcease of general assemblies, stopped and hindered by the yoke of the sectarian usurpation; but also was the spring and source of all our defections since, all flowing from and fomented by that same spirit that fostered that: and for that, since that time, the lord hath been contending with this church and nation, bringing us under the bondage of these malignant enemies, whom we suffered them then to encourage and introduce. and both at that time, and since that time, the lord never countenanced an expedition where that malignant interest was taken in unto the state of that quarrel. upon this our land was invaded by oliver cromwel, who defeated our army at dunbar, where the anger of the lord was evidently seen to smoke against us, for espousing that interest. and remarkable it is, how in that very day wherein the public resolutions were concluded in the assembly at st. andrew's, the lord then shed the blood of his people at inverkeithing; so as that the assembly, having in great haste hurried through this approbation, were all made to run for it, and adjourn themselves to dundee, where they met and completed that step of defection. and afterwards it is known, what a peculiar vengeance fell upon that city, where this deed was done, beyond all other cities of the nation. next, an army being raised, according to these unhallowed resolutions, and the lord putting remarkable discountenance upon them in their attemptings at home, as was manifest in their attemptings at torwood, &c. they march into england, and there did the lord continue, by his leaving our army to the sword, to preach that doctrine to the world, josh. vii. , , . ('israel hath sinned and transgressed the covenant--have taken the accursed thing--and dissembled also, and have put it even amongst their own stuff, therefore the children of israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies, because they were accursed: neither will i be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed thing from among you.') an army of near , was totally routed at worcester, and the achan, the cause of the overthrow, was forced to hide himself in the oak, and thence to transport himself beyond sea, where he continued a wandering fugitive in exile, till the year . in the mean time the sectarian army here prevailed, till, after the usurper cromwel's death, the false monk then general, with a combination of malignants and public resolutioners, did machinate our misery, and effectuated it by bringing home the king to england from his banishment: wherein he was habituate into an implacable hatred against the work of god. yet, though since the king's first reception into scotland, our declensions were still growing, until they produced this dreadful revolt from god, wherein the nation is now involved; there was still a faithful remnant of ministers and professors, zealous for the cause, keeping their integrity; who in their remonstrances and testimonies witnessed against both their malignant enemies, and their backsliding brethren the revolutioners, and also against the sectarians their invaders; whose vast toleration and liberty of conscience, which they brought in to invade our religion as they had invaded our land, and infected it with their multifarious errors, was particularly by the synod of fife, and other brethren in the ministry that joined themselves to them, testified against, and demonstrated to be wicked and intolerable. now to see how far the present testimony is confirmed by the witnesses of this period, we may resume some reflections on it. i. they impartially carried on the testimony against prelacy, and the popish, prelatical and malignant factions on the one hand, and the sectarians on the other, without ever waving the testimony against either, or at the least, winking at the one to weaken the other: both which testimonies they thought of so great importance, that they could not dispense with but faithfully maintain both, in their witnessings and warnings. in that seasonable and necessary warning and declaration, concerning present and imminent dangers, given at edinburgh july . sess. . they first say of the sectaries, 'that prevailing party of sectaries in england, who have broken the covenant, and despised the oath of god, corrupted the truth, subverted the fundamental government, look upon us with an evil eye, as upon these who stand in the way of their monstrous and new fangled devices in religion and government; and though there were no cause to fear any thing from that party, but the gangrene and infection of those many damnable and abominable errors which have taken hold on them; yet our vicinity unto and daily commerce with that nation, may justly make us afraid, that the lord may give up many in this land into a spirit of delusion to believe lies, because they have not received the love of the truth. in that same warning they say, we are not so to have the one of our eyes upon the sectarians, as not to have the other upon malignants, they being an enemy more numerous and more dangerous than the other; not only because experience hath proven, that there is a greater aptitude and inclination in these of our land to comply with malignants, than sectaries, in that they carry on their wicked design, under a pretext of being for the king, but also because there be many of them in our own bowels.' by which we may see how impartially they opposed both; and that this cannot be condemned in the testimonies of the present sufferers, except the assembly be condemned. and because many now a-days have extenuating notions of those debates, against prelacy and sectarianism, about the government of the church, &c. and condemn these that would adhere to and suffer for the punctilios of it, as rigid nicety: i shall, for seeing what account the assembly had of them, cite their words in a letter to the assembly of divines at westiminster, dated edinburgh, june , . the 'smallest (say they) of christ's truths (if it be lawful to call any of them small) is of greater moment than all the other businesses, that ever have been debated since the beginning of the world to this day: but the highest of honours and heaviest of burdens is put upon you; to declare out of the sacred records of divine truth, what is the prerogative of the crown and extent of the sceptre of jesus christ; what bounds are to be set between him ruling in his house, and powers established by god on earth; how and by whom his house is to be governed; and by what ways a restraint is to be put on these who would pervert his truth and subvert the faith of many.' ii. in the manner of maintaining this testimony, these famous fathers, while faithful for god, gave us a perfect pattern of purity and strictness, in opposition to all degrees of conformity and compliance with the corruptions of the time; and laid down such rules and constitutions, as might regulate us in our contendings about present defections, and teach us what account to make of them, and how to carry towards them: which if adverted unto, would evince how manifest and manifold the declinings of many have been from the late reformation, that yet pretend to adhere unto it, and how justifiable the aversation and abstraction of the present reproaching suffering party is, from all these defections and the daubings of them, because so much deviating and declining from the attained reformation. i need not repeat how prelacy, and all the parts and pendicles of that antichristian hierarchy, were abjured in the national covenant, and condemned in the acts of assemblies, and re-abjured in the solemn league and covenant, and in the solemn acknowledgement of sins and engagement to duties, where also we came under sacred and inviolable engagements, to endeavour the extirpation thereof: which doth clearly file the present countenancing and submitting to the prelatic curates, in receiving ordinances from them, among the grossest of defections; being altogether inconsistent with these acts and constitutions, and covenant obligations to extirpate them, as much as the countenancing of popish priests were inconsistent therewith, being both equally covenanted to be extirpated. next, though in this period, tyranny being in its retrograde motion, erastian supremacy was not so much contended for, and therefore not so much questioned as formerly, being held exploded with execration out of doors and out of doubt; yet the testimony was still continued against it, in the uninterrupted maintaining of the church's privileges and freedom of assemblies, against all encroachings of adversaries. and therefore the embracing of the late detestable indulgences, were as contrary to the actings of this as to the testimonies of the former period, against the supremacy from which they flow. yea many particulars, might be instanced, wherein the accepters had declined from the covenanted reformation then prosecuted; not only in their confederating with malignant usurpers, for the pretended benefit of them (by which, if there had been no more, they are obnoxious to the censure of the church, standing registered in an act of assembly, ordaining all persons in ecclesiastic office, for the like or lesser degrees of compliance, yea even for procuring protections from malignant enemies, to be suspended from their office and all exercise thereof at edin. . sess. .) nor only in their taking sinful instructions from them, restricting them in the exercise of their ministry; but in admitting themselves, by their patronage, to be by them presented to their prelimited and pre-imposed congregations: which involves them in the iniquity of the abolished patronages, condemned by the assembly; for that ministry of such so presented, is made too much to depend upon the will and pleasure of man, and such an imposition is destructive of the church and people's liberties, obstructive of the gospel's freedom and faithful plainness, and occasion of much base flattery and partiality; and in subjecting to, homologating, and fortifying a sacrilegious supremacy, overturning the intrinsic power of the church, contrary to the covenant obliging to the preservation of the government, as well as to the doctrine of the church, in the first article thereof; and in their suffering themselves, either directly or indirectly, either by combination, persuasion, or terror, to be divided and withdrawn from that blessed union and conjunction, which they were obliged to maintain and promove, according to the sixth article of the solemn league and covenant; and in their strengthening the erastian usurpations of enemies encroaching upon the church's liberties and christ's prerogatives, against which we are engaged expressly in the solemn acknowledgment of sins and engagement to duties, where also we have these words article . because many have of late laboured to supplant the liberties of the church, we shall maintain and defend the church of scotland, in all her liberties and privileges, against all who shall oppose or undermine the same, or encroach thereupon under any pretext whatsomever. next, we have many demonstrations of the zeal and strictness of these servants of christ, in their synodical determinations of censures, to be past upon many ministerial corruptions; which will condemn the present course of covering and countenancing them, and commend the contendings of a poor reproached party against them, in their conscientious abstracting from them. of which determinations, i shall rehearse some. among the enormities and corruptions of the ministry, in their callings, this is one, sect. , . silence in the public cause--some accounting it a point of wisdom to speak, ambiguously--whereof the remedy is sect. . 'that beside all other scandals, silence or ambiguous speaking in the public cause--be seasonably censured, general assembly, at edinburgh, june . .' there is indeed an act against withdrawers from ministers: but in the self same act they are charged to be diligent in fulfilling their ministry, 'to be faithful in preaching, declaring the whole counsel of god, and as they have occasion from the text of scripture to reprove the sins and errors, and press the duties of the time, and in all these to observe the rules prescribed by the acts of assembly, wherein if they be negligent, they are to be censured, general assembly edinburgh, aug. . . sess. .' then there is that act, aug. . . sess. . for censuring ministers for their silence, and not speaking to the corruptions of the time; 'calling it, a great scandal, through some ministers their reserving and not declaring themselves against the prevalent sins of the times; appointing, that all that do not apply their doctrine to these corruptions, which is the pastoral gift, and that are cold or wanting of spiritual zeal, dissembling of public sins, that all such be censured even to deprivation; for forbearing or passing in silence the errors and exorbitancies of sectaries in england, or the defections current at home, the plots and practices of malignants, the principles and tenets of erastianism; and if they be found too sparing, general, or ambiguous in their applications and reproofs, and continuing so, they are to be deposed, for being pleasers of men rather than servers of christ, for giving themselves to a detestable indifferency or neutrality in the cause of god for defrauding the souls of people, yea for being highly guilty of the blood of souls, in not giving them warning.' and in that seasonable and necessary warning of the general assembly, edinbugh july . . sess. . we are taught how they resented the unfaithfulness of ministers continuing in defections, and how we are to look upon them and carry to them: where they say, it is undeniably true, that many of the evils, 'wherewith this church and kingdom hath been afflicted in our age, have come to pass because of the negligence of some and corruptions of others of the ministry; and the course of backsliding was carried on, until it pleased god to stir up the spirits of these few, who stood in the gap, to oppose and resist the fame, and to begin the work of reformation in the land; since which time, the silence of some ministers, and the compliance of others, hath had great influence upon the backslidings of many amongst the people, who, upon the discovery of the evil of their way, complain that they got no warning, or that if they were warned by some, others held their peace, or did justify them in the course of their backsliding: we can look upon such ministers no otherwise, than upon these that are guilty of the blood of the lord's people, and with whom the lord will reckon, for all the breach of covenant and defection that hath been in the land; the priest's lips should preserve knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth, for he is the messenger of the lord of hosts, but such as are departed out of the way, and have caused many to stumble at the law, therefore hath the lord made them contemptible before all the people, according as they have not kept his ways, but have been partial in his law, because they have lost their favour, he hath cast out many of them as unsavoury salt.' furthermore, to evidence the purity and power of zeal burning and blazing in these days in their contendings against public enemies on all hands, i shall instance some of their acts and testimonies, clearly condemning the manifold compliances of this generation and which may contribute somewhat to justify the reproached preciseness of a remnant, standing at the furthest distance from them. there is an act for censuring the compliars with the public enemies of this church and kingdom, general assembly, june . , sess. . 'where, they judge it a great and scandalous provocation, and grievous defection from the public cause, to comply with those malignants (such as james graham then was) in any degree, even to procure protections from them, or to have invited them to their houses, or to have drunk james graham's health, or to be guilty of any other such gross degrees of compliance; censured to be suspended from the communions, ay and while they acknowledge their offence.' and yet now, for refusing these degrees of compliance, for not having the protection of a pass from the wicked courts of malignant enemies, by taking a wicked oath, and for refusing to drink the king's health, a greater enemy then ever james graham was, some poor conscientious people have not only been murdered by enemies, but mocked and condemned by professors. there is an act likewise, and declaration against all new oaths or bonds in the common cause imposed without consent of the church general assembly, edinburgh july . . sess. . 'enjoining all the members of the church to fearbear the swearing or subscribing any new oaths, or bonds, in this cause without advice and concurrence of the church, especially any negative oaths or bonds, which may any way limit or restrain them in the duties whereunto they are obliged, by national or solemn league or covenant.' yet now, for refusing oaths, not only limiting in covenanted duties, but contradicting and condemning many material principles of the covenanted reformation, many have not only lost their lives, but also have been condemned, by them that are at ease, having a wider conscience to swallow such baits. it is known how pertinacious the most faithful in those days were, in their contendings against associations, in any undertaking for the cause, with persons disaffected to the true state thereof. i need not give any account of this, were it not that now that principle is quite inverted; and poor adherers to it, for their abstracting and substracting their concurrence with such promiscuous associations, are much hated and flouted; therefore i shall give some hints of their sentiments of them. in their answer to the committee of estates, july , , sess. . the general assembly says, 'it was represented to the parliament, that for securing of religion it was necessary, that the popish, prelatical, and malignant party, be declared enemies to the cause upon the one hand, as well as sectaries upon the other, and that all associations either in forces or counsels, with the former as well as with the latter, be avoided.' and in their declaration concerning the present dangers of religion, especially the unlawful engagement in war, july ult. . sess. . they say, 'suppose the ends of that engagement be good (as they are not) yet the means and ways of prosecution are unlawful; because there is not an equal avoiding of rocks on both hands, but a joining with malignants to suppress sectaries, a joining hands with a black devil to beat a white devil; they are bad physicians who would so cure one disease, as to breed another as evil or worse--we find in the scriptures condemned, all confederacies and associations with the enemies of true religion, whether canaanites, exod. xxiii. and . xii. . deut. vii. . or other heathens, kings xi. , .' more arguments against associations may be seen in that excellent discussion of this useful case, concerning associations and confederacies with idolaters, infidels, hereticks, or any other known enemy of truth or godliness, by famous mr. g. gillespie, published at that same time: whereunto is appended his letter to the commission of the general assembly, having these golden words in it, words fitly spoken in that season, when he was a-dying, at the beginning of the public resolutions: 'having heard of some motions and beginnings of compliance, with these who have been so deeply engaged in a war destructive to religion and the kingdom's liberties, i cannot but discharge my conscience, in giving a testimony against all such compliance. i know and am persuaded, that all the faithful witnesses that gave testimony to the thesis, that the late engagement was contrary and destructive to the covenant, will also give testimony to the appendix, that compliance with any who have been active in that engagement is most sinful and unlawful. i am not able to express all the evils of that compliance, they are so many--but above all, that which would heighten this sin even to the heavens is, that it were not only a horrid backsliding, but a backsliding into that very sin, which was specially pointed at and punished by the prevalency of the malignant party, god justly making them thorns and scourges who were taken in as friends. alas! shall we split twice upon the same rock? yea run upon it, when god hath set a beacon on it? yea i may say, shall we thus outface and outdare the almighty, by protecting his and our enemies, by making peace and friendship with them, when the anger of the lord is burning against them. i must here apply to our present condition, the words of ezrah, ix. .--o happy scotland, if thou canst now improve and not abuse this golden opportunity! but if thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the lord, wrath upon wrath, and wo upon wo, shall be upon thee from the lord.' whereunto is subjoined his dying testimony to the same purpose; wherein are these words: 'but if there shall be falling back, to the sin of compliance with malignant ungodly men, then i look for the breaking out of the wrath of the lord, till there be no remedy.' this was the warning of a worthy dying man. notwithstanding of which and many other warnings and witnessings, a course of compliance was commenced by the public resolutioners, and continued in to this day; wherein that faithful warning of a dying servant of christ is verified. but before i leave this purpose, i must obviate an objection that some make use of for strengthening themselves in their incorporations and joining at least in worship, with the corruptions of the time, and for condemning conscientious withdrawers; that the godly in those days did not separate from the men of these compliances and defections, as many do now, viz. the protesting party did not withdraw from the public resolutioners and associators with malignants. i answer, first, many and these the most godly and tender did withdraw, even from their own ministers, and would have gone forty or fifty miles to hear a faithful minister at that time: yea ministers themselves, in the case of intrusion of the unfaithful, would have supplied the paroch, as if the church had been vacant, and when they could not get access to the pulpit, they preached in the fields, on purpose to witness against, and professedly to withdraw the people from such an unfaithful intruder; as might be instanced particularly for time and place, if need were. but next, the church then, though broken by division, and under the subjection of strangers deprived of her general assemblies, yet was in a constitute case, enjoying the privilege, power and order of synods and presbyteries, to whom the people offended with their ministers might address themselves, for an orderly redress, and removal of these scandals in an ordinary way; and so they needed not assume to themselves that power to regulate their communion, that in a broken state, as now is, must be allowed to them. and besides, both the ministers at that time who were faithful, though they might have proceeded to censure and silence the corrupt party as they were obliged, yet not only found it difficult by reason of the injury of the times; but also thought it best to spare them, and the people to bear them, as burdens; until, as they were still in hopes, they should obtain a general assembly to take order with them, but now it is not so. and then the defection was but beginning, and people did not know and could not expect it would go such a length, and therefore could not fall upon the rigour of that duty, which such disorders call for at first: but if they had seen where these beginnings would land them at length, i doubt not but they would have resisted those beginnings, in such a way as would have precluded this imputation of novelty upon our necessitated withdrawings. iii. we have in this period, not only an illustrious testimony for the principle, but a continued and unintermitted putting into practice the duty of defensive arms, in resisting the sovereign power, maleversing and abusing authority to the destruction of the ends of it; which resistance was avowed, encouraged, and furthered by the general assembly, both for the defence of themselves, and for the help of their brethren in england. take one expression in their solemn and seasonable warning to all ranks, feb. , , sess. .--'unless men will blot out of their hearts the love of religion and cause of god, and cast off all care of their country, laws, liberties, &c. (all being in visible danger of present ruin and destruction) they must now or never appear actively, each one stretching himself to, yea beyond his power. it is not time to dally, or go about the business by halves, nor be almost, but altogether zealous: cursed is he that doeth the work of the lord negligently. if we have been forward to assist our neighbour kingdoms, shall we neglect to defend our own? or shall the enemies of god be more active against his cause than his people for it? god forbid.' in another seasonable and necessary warning, july , , sess. . they say, 'but if his majesty, or any having or pretending power and commission from him, shall invade this kingdom, upon pretext of establishing him in the exercise of his royal power; as it will be an high provocation against god, to be accessory or assisting thereto, so it will be a necessary duty to resist and oppose the same.' these fathers could well distinguish, between authority and the person abusing it: and were not so loyal, as now their degenerate children are ambitious to shew themselves, stupidly stooping to the shadow thereof, and yet will be called the only asserters of presbyterian principles. but we find, they put it among the characters of malignants, to confound the king's honour and authority with the abuse and pretence thereof, and with commissions, warrants, and letters, procured from the king by the enemies of the cause and covenant, as if we could not oppose the latter, without incroaching upon the former. but here an objection or two must be removed out of the way before we go forward. one is, from the third article of the covenant; where there seems to be a great deal of loyalty, obliging to defend the king's majesty, his person and authority, in the preservation and defence of the true religion and liberties of the kingdoms, 'that the world may bear witness with our consciences of our loyalty, and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his majesty's just power and greatness.' i answer, there is indeed a deal of loyalty there, and true loyalty, because lawfully limited, being qualified with, and subordinate unto the preservation and defence of the true religion and liberties of the kingdom (as the makers of the covenant do expound it, in the assembly's declaration against the unlawful engagement, july _ult._ , sess. .) not that reverse loyalty, which makes duties to god conditional and limited, and duties to the king absolute and unlimited, as our loyalists do now. and i wish others were free of it, who have sworn oaths of unlimited allegiances to maintain the king in any power unto which his force aspires; and to justify this their loyalty, will bring in this article of the covenant with a distorted sense, reading it backward, 'that we in the preservation and defence of religion must preserve and defend the king:' as if religion obliged to defend him, do what he will. it were better such pretended covenanters denied the covenant, than to be such a reproach to it, in wresting its genuine sense. but i have adduced the sense of the best interpreters of it, the general assembly. next when they entered under the bond of this covenant, they did it with a purpose to oppose all his invasions upon religion and the liberties of the people, and to vindicate these precious interests from his usurpings, into a state of liberty: and shall we imagine, that that very oath of god did lay upon them or us an obligation to defend the person who is a destroyer of all these, contrary to the very nature of the oath, contrary to the hope of the covenanters, and contrary to their subsequent practice? but then it will be urged, why then was that clause cast into the covenant? i answer we have not the same cause to keep it, as they had some cause to put it in, with accommodation to the present possessor of the sovereignty. the owning of it in our circumstances would be as great a reproach to us, as the want of it was to them in theirs. they put in the words to prevent the world's mistake, and to remove that odium industriously heaped upon the heads of whose hearts were associate in the defence of religion and liberty, therefore they would profess they would not be disloyal while he was for god. and a defiance may be given to clamour, and calumny itself, to give one instance of the defect of performance hereof, while he went not about to ruin those things, incomparably more precious than his person or authority, and in ruining whereof no person can retain authority. iv. but now two things will chiefly be desiderated, which now we own in our testimony, for which many have died, that seem not to be confirmed by or consistent with the testimony of this period. one is, that we not only maintain defensive resistance, but in some cases vindictive and punitive force, to be executed upon men that are bloody beasts of prey, and burdens to the earth, in cases of necessity, when there is no living among them. this principle of reason and natural justice, was not much inquired into in this time; when the sun was up, whose warmth and light made these beasts creep into their dens, and when they, being brought under subjection, could not force people into such extraordinary violent courses when the ordinary and orderly course of law was running in its right channel. yet from the ground of their ordinary procedure, military and civil, against such monsters, we may gather the lawfulness of an ordinary procedure in a pinch of necessity, conform to their grounds: i hope to make this evident, when i come _ex proposito_ to vindicate this head. but there is another thing that we own, which seems not to have been known in these days, viz. that when we are required to own the authority of the present dominator, we hold sinful to own it. yet we find these reverend and renowned fathers owned king charles i. and did not refuse the succession of charles ii. i shall answer in order. first, as to king charles i. there was a great difference betwixt him and his sons that succeeded; he never declared parliamentarily that neither promises, contracts, nor oaths should bind him, as the first of his perfidious sons did; it might have been then presumed, if he had engaged so far for promoving the work of god, he would have been a man of his word (for to say a king of his word, is antiquitate in a good sense, except that it means he is as absolute in his word as in his sword, and scorns to be a slave to it.) neither professed he himself a papist, as the second son hath done: again it must be granted, that more might have been comported with in the beginning, when there were some hopes of redress, than after such process of time; whereby now we see and feel beyond all debate, that the throne stands and is stated, not only in opposition to, but upon the ruins of the rights and privileges both of religion and liberty. but was not the equivalent done by the church, anno , when they refused to concur with that unlawful engagement, for restoring of the king, 'till security be had, by solemn oath under his hand and seal, that he shall for himself and successors, give his assent to all acts and bills for enjoining presbyterial government, and never make opposition to it, nor endeavour any change thereof? july _ult._ . sess. .' but it will be laid, that in their renewing the covenant that year, they did not leave out that article. true, thereby they stopped the mouths of their adversaries; and then they were not without hopes, but that in his straits he might have proved a manasseh taken among the thorns. and the covenanters at that time, not being clear that he had done that which _ipso jure_ made him no magistrate, chused rather, while matters stood so, to engage to maintain him, than simply to disown him (which yet our forefathers did upon smaller grounds many times) in the hopes of being prevailed with at last. but when they saw that this proved ineffectual, therefore at the coronation of the new king they made the covenanted interest the sole basis upon which alone authority was conferred upon him. for the second, though they did not refuse the succession of charles the second (which was their blame and our bane, of which we may blush this day) yet we find many things in that transaction which justify our disowning of him, and condemn the owning of the present possessor. ( .) in that seasonable and necessary warning, july , sess. . 'whereas many would have admitted his majesty to the exercise of his royal power, upon any terms whatsoever: the assembly declares first; that a boundless and unlimited power is to be acknowledged in no king nor magistrate; neither is our king to be admitted to the exercise of his power, as long as he refuses to walk in the administration of the same, according to this rule. secondly, that there is a mutual stipulation and obligation between the king and the people, as both of them are tied to god, so each of them are tied to one another, for the performance of mutual and reciprocal duties; accordingly kings are to take the oath of coronation, to abolish popery and maintain the protestant religion: as long therefore as the king refuses to engage and oblige himself for security of religion and safety of his people, it is consonant to scripture and reason and laws of the kingdom, that he should be refused. thirdly, in the league and covenant the duty of defending and preserving the king, is subordinate to the duty of preserving religion and liberty: and therefore, he standing in opposition to the public desires of the people for their security, it were a manifest breach of covenant, and a preferring the king's interest to the interest of jesus christ, to bring him to the exercise of his power. fourthly, that it was for restraint of arbitrary government, and for their just defence against tyranny, that the lord's people did join in covenant, and have been at the expence of so much blood these years past; and if he should be admitted to the government before satisfaction, it were to put in his hand that arbitrary power, and so to abandon their former principles, and betray the cause. fifthly, that he, being admitted before satisfaction, would soon endeavour an overturning of the things which god hath wrought, and labour to draw public administrations, concerning religion and liberty, into that course and channel in which they did run under prelacy, and before the work of reformation. whence they warn that every one take heed of such a snare, that they be not accessory to any such design, as they would not bring upon themselves and their families, the guilt of all the detriment that will undoubtedly follow thereupon, of all the miseries it will bring upon the kingdoms--and therefore whosoever attempt the same, oppose themselves to the cause of god, and will at last dash against the rock of the lord's power, which hath broken in pieces many high and lofty ones, since the beginning of the work in the kingdoms.' . i shall here insert the act of the west-kirk, declaring their mind very manifestly. '_west kirk, august , ._ the commission of the general assembly, considering that there may be just ground of stumbling, from the king's majesty refusing to subscribe and emit the declaration, offered to him by the committee of estates and the commission of the general assembly, concerning his former carriage and resolutions for the future, in reference to the cause of god and the enemies and friends thereof; doth therefore declare, that this kirk and kingdom doth not own or espouse any malignant party, or quarrel, or interest, but that they fight merely upon their former grounds and principles, and in the defence of the cause of god and of the kingdom, as they have done these twelve years past: and therefore, as they disclaim all the sin and guilt of the king and of his house, so they will not own him nor his interest, otherwise than with a subordination to god, and so far as he owns and prosecutes the cause of god, and disclaims his and his father's opposition to the work of god, and to the covenant, and likewise all the enemies thereof; and that they will with convenient speed take unto consideration the papers, lately sent unto them by oliliver cromwel, and vindicate themselves from all the falshoods contained therein; especially in these things wherein the quarrel betwixt us and that party is mistated, as we owned the late king's proceedings, and were resolved to prosecute and maintain his present majesty's interest, before and without acknowledgement of the sin of his house and former ways, and satisfaction to god's people in both kingdoms.' 'a. ker.' '_august , ._ the committee of estates, having seen and considered a declaration of the commission of the general assembly, anent the stating of the quarrel wherein the army is to fight, do approve the same, and heartily concur therein.' 'tho. henderson.' in the third place: it is specified in the causes of wrath, as one of the steps of defection, art. . step. . 'that a treaty should have been closed with him, upon his subscribing demands, after he had given many clear evidences of his disaffection and enmity to the work and people of god: that these demands, which he was required to subscribe, did not contain a real security, a real abandoning of former malignant courses and principles, and cleaving to the work of god; it was not a paper or verbal security which we were bound to demand of him, but a real one; and to entrust him without this, was but to mock god, and to deceive the world, and to betray and destroy ourselves, by giving up all the precious interests of religion and liberty unto the hands of one, who was in a course of enmity to them: that both before, and in the mean time of the treaty, he had given evidences of his enmity in many instances there condescended upon particularly; that he authorized james graham to invade this kingdom, and encouraged him by letters to go on in that invasion, even whilst he was in terms of a treaty with us, as appeared by bringing into our hands the authentic commission itself, and sundry letters under his own hand.' next, in the same causes of wrath, among the sins of the ministry, in relation to the public, sect. , , , . 'that they agreed to receive the king to the covenant, barely upon writing, without any apparent evidences of a real change of principle: that they did not use freedom, in showing what was sinful in reference to that treaty, but went on therein when they were not satisfied in their consciences, for fear of reproach, and of being mistaken: that they were silent in public, and did not give testimony, after a discovery of the king's commission to james graham for invading the kingdom: that they pressed the king to make a declaration to the world, whilst they knew by clear evidences that he had no real conviction of the things contained therein.' period vi. _containing the testimony through the continued tract of the present deformation from the year to this day._ now comes the last catastrophe of the deformation of the church of scotland, which now renders her to all nations as infamously despicable, as her reformation formerly made her admired and envied; which in a retrograde motion hath gradually been growing these years, going back through all the steps by which the reformation ascended, till now she is returned to the very border of that babylon, from whence she took her departure, and reduced through defection, and division, and persecutious to a confused chaos of almost irreparable dissolution, and unavoidable desolation. through all which steps notwithstanding, to this day, scotland hath never wanted a witness for christ, against all the various steps of the enemy's advancings, and of professed friends declinings: though the testimony hath had some singularities, some way discriminating it from that of former periods; in that it hath been more difficult by reason of more desperate and dreadful assaults of more enraged enemies, more expert and experienced in the accursed art of overturning than any formerly; in that it hath been attended with more disadvantages, by reason of the enemies greater prevalency, and friends deficency, and greater want of significant asserters, than any formerly; in that it hath been intangled in more multifarious intricacies of questions, and debates, and divisions among the assertors themselves, making it more dark, and yet in the end contributing to clear it more than any formerly; in that it hath been intended and extended to a greater measure, both as to matter and manner of contendings against the adversaries, and stated upon nicer points; more enixly prosecuted and tenaciously maintained, and sealed with more sufferings, than any formerly; in that it hath had more opposition and contradiction, and less countenance from professed friends to the reformation, either at home or abroad, than any formerly. and yet it hath had all these several speciallties together, which were peculiar to the former testimonies, in their respective periods: being both active and passive, both against enemies and friends; and _in cumulis_ stated against atheism, popery, prelacy, and erastian supremacy, which were the successive heads of the former testimonies, and also now extended in a particular manner against tyranny. and not only against the substance and circumstance, abstract and concret root and branch, head and tail of them, and all complying with them, conforming to them, or deduced from them, any manner of way, directly or indirectly, formally or interpretatively. this is that extensive and very comprehensive testimony of the present period, as it is now stated and sealed with the blood of many: which in all its parts, points and pendicles is most directly relative, and dilucidly reducible, to a complex witness for the declarative glory of christ's kingship and headship over all, as he is mediator, which is the greatest concern that creatures have to contend for, either as men or as christians. the matter of this testimony, i shall give a short manuduction to the progress and result of its management. during the exile of the royal brothers, it is undeniably known that they were, by their mothers caresses and the jesuits allurements, seduced to abjure the reformed religion (which was easy to induce persons to, that never had the sense of any religion) and to be reconciled to the church of rome: and that, not only they wrote to the pope many promises of promoting his projects, if ever they should recover the power into their hands again, and often frequented the mass themselves; but also, by their example and the influence of their future hopes, prevailed with many of their dependents and attendants abroad, to do the like. yet it is unquestionably known, that in the mean time of his exile, he renewed and confirmed, by private letters to presbyterians, his many reiterated engagements to adhere to the covenant, and declared that he was and would continue the same man, that he had declared himself to be in scotland, (wherein doubtless, as he was an expert artist, he equivocated, and meant in his heart he would continue as treacherous as ever) which helped to keep a loyal impression of his interest in the hearts of too many, and an expectation of some good of him, of which they were ashamed afterwards. and immediately before his return, it is known what promises are contained in that declaration from breda (from whence he came also the second time, with greater treachery than at the first) to all protestants that would live peaceably under his government; beginning now to weigh out his perfidy, and perjury, and breach of covenant, in offering to tolerate that in an indulgence, which he swore to maintain as a duty. but in all this he purposed nothing, but to ingere and ingratiate himself into the peoples over credulous affections, that they might not obstruct his return, which a jealousy of his intended tyranny would have awakened them to withstand. and so having seated himself, and strengthened his power against the attemptings of any, whom his conscience might suggest an apprehension that they ought to resist him, he thought himself discharged from all obligations of covenants, oaths, or promises, for which his faith had been pledged. and from the first hour of his arrival, he did in a manner set himself to affront and defy the authority of god, and to be revenged upon his kingdoms for inviting him so unanimously to sway their sceptre; in polluting and infecting the people with all debaucheries and monstrous villanies; and commencing his incestous whoredoms that very first night he came to his palace, wherein he continued to his dying day outvying all for vileness. yet he went on deluding our church with his dissimulations, and would not discover all his wickedness hatched in his heart at first, till his designs should be riper; but directed a letter to the presbytery of edinburgh, declaring he was resolved to protect and preserve the government of the church of scotland, as it is settled by law without violation: wherein it was observed he altered the stile, and spake never a word of the covenant, our _magna charta_ of religion and righteousness, our greatest security for all interests intrusted to him, but only of law; by which, as his practice expounded it afterwards, he meant the prelatical church, as it was settled by the law of his father, since which time he reckoned there was no law but rebellion. this was a piece and prelude of our base defection, and degeneration into blind blockish, and brutish stupidity; that after he had discovered so much perfidy, we not only at first tempted him to perjury, in admitting him to the crown, upon his mock-engagement in the covenant, whereby god was mocked, his spirit was grieved, his covenant prostituted, the church cheated, and the state betrayed; but after the lord had broken his yoke from off our necks, by sending him to exile ten years, where he was discovered to be imbibing all that venom and tyrannical violence, which he afterward vented in revenge upon the nation; and after we had long smarted for our first transaction with him; yet notwithstanding of all this, we believed him again, and issachar-like couched under his burdens and were so far from withstanding, that we did not so much as witness against the re-admission and restoration of the head and tail of malignants, but let them come in peaceably to the throne, without any security to the covenanted cause, or for our civil or religious interests, and by meal, at their own ease, leisure and pleasure, to overturn all the work of god, and reintroduce the old antichristian yoke of absurd prelacy, and blasphemous sacreligious, supremacy, and absolute arbitrary tyranny with all their abominations: which he, and with him the generality of our nobility, gentry, clergy, and commonality by him corrupted, without regard to faith, or fear of god or man, did promote and propogate, the nation was involved in the greatest revolt from, and rebellion against god, that ever could be recorded in any age or generation; nay attended with greater and grosser aggravations, than ever any could be capable of before us, who have had the greatest privileges that ever any church had, since the national church of the jews, the greatest light, the greatest effects of matchless magnified love, the greatest convictions of sin, the greatest resolutions and solemn engagements against it, and the greatest reformation from it, that ever any had to abuse and affront. o heavens be astonished at this, and horribly afraid! for scotland hath changed her glory, and the crown hath fallen from off her head, by an unparalelled apostasy, a free and voluntary, wilful and deliberate apostasy, an avowed and declared and authorized apostasy, tyrannically carried on by military violence and cruelty, a most universal and every way unprecedented apostasy! i must a little change my method, in deducing the narration of this catastrophe, and subdistinguish this unhappy period into several steps; shewing how the enemies opposition to christ advanced, and the testimony of his witnesses did gradually ascend, to the pitch it is now arrived at. i. these enemies of god, having once got footing again, with the favour and the fawnings of the foolish nation, went on fervently to further and promote their wicked design: and meeting with no opposition at first, did encourage themselves to begin boldly. wherefore, hearing of some ministers peaceably assembled, to draw up a monitory letter to the king, minding him of his covenant engagements and promises (which was though weak, yet the first witness and warning against that heaven-daring wickedness then begun) they cruelly incarcerate them. having hereby much daunted the ministry from their duty in that day, for fear of the like unusual and outrageous usage. the parliament convenes january , , without so much as a protestation for religion and liberty given in to them. and there, in the first place, they frame and take the oath of supremacy, exauctorating christ, and investing his usurping enemy with the spoils of his robbed prerogative, acknowledging the king 'only supreme governor over all persons and in all causes, and that his power and jurisdiction must not be declined.' whereby under all persons and all causes, all church officers, in their most properly ecclesiastic affairs and concerns of christ, are comprehended: and if the king shall take upon him to judge their doctrine, worship, discipline, or government, he must not be declined as an incompetent judge. which did at once enervate all the testimony of the th period above declared, and laid the foundation for all this babel they have built since, and of all this war that hath been waged against the son of god, and did introduce all this tyranny and absolute power, which hath been since carried to its complement, and made the king's throne the foundation of all the succeeding perjury and apostacy. yet, though then our synods and presbyteries were not discharged, but might have had access in some concurrence to witness against this horrid invasion upon christ's prerogative and the church's privilege, no joint testimony was given against it, except that some were found witnessing against it in their singular capacity by themselves. as faithful mr. james guthrie, for declining this usurped authority in prejudice of the kingdom of our lord jesus, suffered death, and got the martyr's crown upon his head: and some others, for refuting that oath arbitrarily imposed, were banished or confined, when they had gained this bulwark of christ's kingdom; then they waxed more insolent, and set up their ensigns for signs, and broke down the carved work of reformation with axes and hammers. in this parliament, , they past an _act rescissory_ whereby they annulled and declared void the national covenant, the solemn league and covenant, presbyterial government, and all laws made in favour of the work of reformation since the year . o horrid wickedness! both in its nature so atrocious, to condemn and rescind what god did so signally seal as his own work, to the conviction of the world, and for which he will rescind the rescinders, and overturn these overturners of his work, and make the curse of that broken covenant bind them to the punishment, whom its bond could not oblige to the duty covenanted; and in its design and end so base and detestable, for nothing but to flatter the king in making way for prelacy, tyranny, and popery, and to indulge the licentiousness of some debauched nobles, who could not endure the yoke of christ's government, and to suppress religion and righteousness under the ruins of that reformation. but o holy and astonishing justice, thus to recompence our way upon our own head! to suffer this work and cause to be ruined under our unhappy hands, who suffered this destroyer to come in before it was so effectually secured, as it should not have been in the power of his hand (whatever had been in his heart, swelled with enmity against christ) to have razed and ruined that work as now most wickedly he did, and drew in so many into the guilt of the same deed, that almost the whole land not only consented unto it but applauded it; by approving and countenancing another wicked act framed at the same time, by that same perfidious parliament for an anniversary thanksgiving, commemorating every th of may, that blasphemy against the spirit and work of god, and celebrating that unhappy restoration of the rescinder of the reformation; which had not only the concurrence of the universality of the nation, but (alas for shame that it should be told in gath, &c!) even of some ministers who afterwards accepted of the indulgence (one of which, a pillar among them, was seen scandalously dancing about the bonefires.) and others, who should have alarmed the whole nation _quasi pro aris & focis_, to rise for religion and liberty, to resist such wickedness, did wink at it. o how righteous is the lord now in turning our harps into mourning! though alas! we will not suffer ourselves to this day, to see the shining righteousness of this retribution: and though we be scourged with scorpions, and brayed in a mortar, our madness, our folly in these irreligious frolics, is not yet acknowledged, let be lamented. yet albeit, neither in this day when then the covenant was not only broken, but cassed and declared of no obligation, nor afterward when it was burnt (for which turks and pagans would have been ashamed and afraid at such a terrible sight, and for which the lord's anger is burning against these bold burners, and against them who suffered it, and did not witness against it) was there any public testimony by protestation or remonstrance, or any public witness? though the lord had some then, and some who came out afterward with the trumpet at their mouth, whole heart then sorrowed at the sight; and some suffered for the sense they shewed of that anniversary abomination, for not keeping which they lost both church and liberty. it is true the ordinary meetings of presbyteries and synods were about that time discharged, to make way for the exercise of the new power conferred on the four prelates who were at court, re-ordained and consecrated thereby renouncing their former title to the ministry. but this could not give a discharge from a necessary testimony, then called for from faithful watchmen. however the reformation being thus rescinded and razed, and the house of the lord pulled down, then they begin to build their babel. in the parliament , by their first act they restore and re-establish prelacy, upon such a foundation as they might by the same law bring in popery, which was then designed; and so settled its harbinger diocesan and erastian prelacy, by fuller enlargement of the supremacy. the very act begins thus: 'for as much as the ordering and disposal of the external government of the church, doth properly belong to his majesty as an inherent right of the crown, by virtue of his royal prerogative, and supremacy in causes ecclesiastic--whatever shall be determined by his majesty, with advice of the archbishops, and such of the clergy as he shall nominate, in the external government of the church (the same consisting with the standing laws of the kingdom) shall be valid and effectual. and in the same act all laws are rescinded, by which the sole power and jurisdiction within the church doth stand in the church assemblies, and all which may be interpreted, to have given any church power, jurisdiction, or government to the office-bearers of the church, other than that which acknowledgeth a dependence upon, and subordination to the sovereign power of the king as supreme.' by which, prelates are redintegrated to all their privileges and pre-eminencies, that they possessed . and all their church power (robbed from the officers of christ) is made to be derived from, to depend upon, and to be subordinate to the crown prerogative of the king: whereby the king is made the only fountain of church power, and that exclusive even of christ, of whom there is no mentioned exception: and his vassals the bishops, as his clerks in ecclesiastics, are accountable to him for all their administrations; a greater usurpation upon the kingdom of christ, than ever the papacy itself aspired unto. yet, albeit here was another display of a banner of defiance against christ, in altering the church government of christ's institution into the human invention of lordly prelacy, in assuming a power by prerogative to dispose then of the external government of the church, and in giving his creatures patents for this effect, to be his administrators for that usurped government; there was no public, ministerial, at least united testimony against this neither. therefore the lord punished this sinful and shameful silence of ministers, in his holy justice, though by men's horrid wickedness; when by another wicked act of the council at glasgow, above ministers were put from their charges; and afterwards, for their non-conformity in not countenancing their diocesan meeting, and not keeping the anniversary day, may , the rest were violently thrust from their labours in the lord's vineyard, and banished from their parishes, and adjudged unto a nice and strange confinement, twenty miles from their own parishes, six miles from a cathedral church, as they called it, and three miles from a burgh; whereby they were reduced into many inconveniencies. yet in this fatal convulsion of the church, generally all were struck with blindness and baseness, that a paper proclamation made them all run from their posts, and obey the king's orders for their ejection. thus were they given up, because of their forbearing to sound an alarm, charging the people of god, in point of loyalty to christ, and under the pain of the curse of the covenant, to awake and aquit themselves like men, and not to suffer the enemy to rob them of that treasure of reformation, which they were put in possession of, by the tears, prayers, and blood of such as went before them; instead of those prudential fumblings and firstlings then and since so much followed. wherefore the lord in his holy righteousness, left that enemy (against whom they should have cried and contended, and to whose eye they should have held the curse of the covenant, as having held it first to their own, in case of unfaithful silence in not holding it to his) to call them out of the house of the lord, and dissolve their assemblies, and deprive them of their privileges, because of their not being so valiant for the truth, as that a full and faithful testimony against that encroachment might be found upon record. nevertheless some were found faithful in that hour and power of darkness, who kept the word of the lord's patience, and who were therefore kept in and from that temptation (which carried many away into sad and shameful defections) though not from suffering hard things from the hands of men; and only these who felt most of their violence, found grace helping them to acquit themselves suitably to that day's testimony, being thereby prevented from an active yielding to their impositions, when they were made passively to suffer force. however that season of a public testimony was lost, and as to the most part never recovered to this day. the prelates being settled, and re-admitted to voice in parliament, they procure an act, dogmatically condemning several material parts and points of our covenanted reformation, to wit, these positions, 'that it was lawful for subjects, for reformation or necessary self-defence, to enter into leagues, or take up arms against the king: and particularly declaring, that the national covenant, as explained in the year , and the solemn league and covenant, were and are in themselves unlawful oaths, and were taken by and imposed upon the subjects of this kingdom against the fundamental laws and liberties thereof, that all such gatherings and petitions that were used in the beginning of the late troubles, were unlawful and seditious: and whereas then people were led unto these things, by having disseminated among them such principles as these, that it was lawful to come with petitions and representations of grievances to the king, that it was lawful for people to restrict their allegiance under such and such limitations, and suspend it until he should give security for religion, &c. it was therefore enacted, that all such positions and practices founded thereupon, were treasonable.--and further did enact, that no person, by writing, praying, preaching, or malicious or advised speaking, express or publish any words or sentences, to stir up the people to the dislike of the king's prerogative and supremacy, or of the government of the church by bishops, or justify any of the deeds, actings, or things declared against by that act.' yet notwithstanding of all this subversion of religion and liberty, and restraint of asserting these truths here trampled upon either before men by testimony, or before god in mourning over these indignities done unto him, in everting these and all the parts of reformation, even when it came to daniel's case of confession, preaching and praying truths interdicted by law; few had their eyes open (let be their windows in an open avouching them) to see the duty of the day calling for a testimony. though afterwards, the lord spirited some to assert and demonstrate the glory of these truths and duties to the world. as that judicious author of the apologetical relation, whose labours need no eulogium to commend them. but this is not all: for these men, having now as they thought subverted the work of god, they provided also against the fears of its revival: making acts, declaring, 'that if the outed ministers dare to continue to preach, and presume to exercise their ministry, they should be punished as seditious persons; requiring of all a due acknowledgement of, and hearty compliance with, the king's government, ecclesiastical and civil; and that whosoever shall ordinarily and wilfully withdraw and absent from the ordinary meetings for divine worship in their own churches on the lord's day, shall incur the penalties there insert.' thus the sometimes chaste virgin, whose name was beulah to the lord, the reformed church of scotland, did now suffer a violent and villainous rape, from a vermin of vile schismatical apostates, obtruded and imposed upon her, instead of her able, painful, faithful, and successful pastors, that the lord had set over her, and now by their faintness and the enemy's force, robbed from her, and none now allowed by law to administer the ordinances, but either apostate curates, who by their perjury and apostacy forfaulted their ministry, or other hirelings and prelates journeymen, who run without a mission, except from them who had none to give according to christ's institution, the seal of whose ministry could never yet be shewn in the conversion of any sinner to christ: but if the tree may be known by its fruits, we may know whose ministers they are; _ut ex ungue leonem_, by their conversions of reformation into deformation, of the work and cause of god into the similitude of the roman beast, of ministers into hirelings, of their proselytes into ten times worse children of the devil than they were before, of the power of godliness into formality, of preaching christ into orations of morality, of the purity of christ's ordinances into the vanity of men's inventions, of the beautiful government of the house of god for edification, to a lordly pre-eminence and domination over consciences; in a word, of church and state constitutions for religion and liberty, all upside dwon into wickedness and slavery: these are the conversions of prelacy. but now this astonishing blow to the gospel of the kingdom, introducing such a swarm of locusts into the church, and in forcing a compliance of the people with this defection, and that so violently and rigorously, as even simple withdrawing was so severely punished by severe edicts of fining, and other arbitrary punishments at first; what did it produce? did it awaken all christ's ambassadors, now to appear for christ, in this clear and claimant case of confessing him, and the freedom and purity of his ordinances? alas! the backwardness and bentness to backsliding, in a superseding from the duties of that day, did make it evident, that now the lord had in a great measure forsaken them, because they had forsaken him. the standard of the gospel was then fallen, and few to take it up. the generality of ministers and professors both went and conformed so far as to hear the curates, contrary to many points of the reformation formerly attained, contrary to their covenant engagements, and contrary to their own principles and practice at that same time; scrupling and refusing to keep the bishops visitations, and to countenance their discipline and power of jurisdiction, because it was required as a testification of their acknowledgment of, and compliance with the present government, and yet not scrupling to countenance their doctrine and usurped power of order required also by the same law, as the same test of the same compliance and submission. its strange that some yet do plead for persisting in that same compliance, after all the bitter consequents of it. other ministers lay altogether by in their retired recesses, waiting to see what things would turn to: others were hopeless, turned farmers and doctors: others more wily, staid at home, and preached quietly in in ladies chambers. but the faithful thought that this tyrannical ejection did not nor could not unminister them, so as they might not preach the gospel wherever they were, as ambassadors of christ; but rather found themselves under an indispensible necessity to preach the gospel and witness for the freedom of their ministry, and make full proof of it, in preaching in season and out of season: and thereupon as occasion offered preached to all such as were willing to hear; but at first only in private houses, and that for the most part at such times, when sermons in public surceased (a superplus of caution.) but afterwards, finding so great difficulties and persecutions for their house meetings, where they were so easily entrapped, were constrained at last to keep their meetings in the fields, without shelter from cold, wind, snow, or rain. where testifying both practically and particularly against these usurpations on their master's prerogatives, and witnessing for their ministerial freedom, contrary to all law-interdictions, without any licences or indulgences from the usurper, but holding their ministry from jesus christ alone, both as to the office and exercise thereof; they had so much of their master's countenance, and success in their labours, that they valued neither hazards nor hardships, neither the contempt of pretended friends, not the laws nor threatnings of enemies, adjudging the penalty of death itself to preachers at field conventicles as they called them. now having thus overturned the church-government, by introducing prelacy, to advance an absolute supremacy; the effects whereof were either the corruption, or persecution of all the ministry, encouragement of profanity and wickedness, the encrease and advancement of popery, superstition, and error, cruel impositions on the conscience, and oppressions for conscience sake, by the practices of cruel supra-spanish inquisitions, and all manner of outcries of outragious violence and villany: the king proceeds in his design, to pervert and evert the well modelled and moderated constitution of the state government also, by introducing and advancing an arbitrary tyranny; the effects whereof were, an absolute mancipation of lives and liberties and estates unto his lust and pleasure, the utter subversion of laws, and absolute impoverishing of the people. for effectuating which, he first procures a lasting imposition of intollerable subsidies and taxations, to impoverish that he might the more easily enslave the nation; next a further recognizance of his prerogative, in a subjection of persons, fortunes, and whole strength of the kingdom to his absolute arbitrement, 'in a levy of militia of , footmen, and horsemen sufficiently armed with days provision, to be ready upon the king's call to march to any part of his dominions, for opposing whatsoever invasion, or insurrection, or for any other service.' the first sproutings of tyranny were cherished, by the cheerful and stupid submission generally yielded to these exorbitancies; under which they who suffered most were inwardly malecontents, but there was no opposition to them by word or action, but on the contrary, generally people did not so much as scruple sending out, or going out as militiamen: never adverting unto what this concurrence was designed, and demanded, and given for; nor what an accession it was, in the nature and influence of the mean itself, and in the sense and intention of the requirers, unto a confederacy for a compliance with, and a confirmation and strengthening of arbitrary tyranny. after the fundamental constitutions of both church and state are thus razed and rooted up, to confirm this absolute power, he contrived to frame all inferior magistrates according to his mould: and for this end appointed, that all persons in any public trust or office whatsoever should subscribe a declaration, renouncing and abjuring the covenants; whereby perjury was made the chief and indispensible qualification, and _conditio sine qua non_, of all that were capable of exercising any power or place in church or state. but finding this not yet sufficient security for this unsettled settlement; because he well understood, the people stood no ways obliged to acknowledge him but only according to the solemn covenants, being the fundamental conditions whereupon their allegiance was founded (as amongst all people, the articles mutually consented betwixt them and these whom they set over them, are the constituent fundamentals of government) and well knowing, that he and his associates, by violating these conditions, had loosed the people from all subjection to him, or any deriving power from him, whereby the people might justly plead, that since he had kept no condition they were not now obliged to him, he therefore contrived a new oath of allegiance to be imposed upon all in public trust both in church and state; wherein they are made to oblige themselves to that boundless breaker of all bonds sacred and civil, and his successors also, without any reciprocal obligation from him to them, or any reserved restriction, limitation, or qualification, as all human authority by god's ordinance must be bounded. whereby the swearers have by oath homologated the overturning of the very basis of the government, making free people slaves to the subverters thereof, betraying their native brethren and posterity to the lust of tyranny, and have in effect as really as if in plain terms affirmed, that whatsoever tyranny shall command or do, either as to the overturning of the work of god, subverting of religion, destroying of liberty, or persecuting all the godly to the utmost extremity, they shall not only stupidly endure it, but actively concur with it, and assist in all this tyranny. alas there was no public testimony against this trick, to bring people under the yoke of tyranny; except by some who suffered for conscientious refusing it, while many others did take it, thinking to salve the matter by their pitiful quibbling senses, of giving cesar his due. whereas this cesar, for whom these loyal alledgers plead, is not an ordinary cesar, but such a cesar, as nero, or caligula, that if he got his due, it would be in another kind. strange! can presbyterians swear that allegiance, which is substituted in the place of the broken and burnt covenant? or could they swear it to such a person, who having broken and buried the covenant, that he who had sworn it might have another right and allegiance than that of the covenant, had then remitted to us all allegiance founded upon the covenant? however, having now prepared and furnished himself with tools so qualified for his purpose, in church and state, he prosecutes his persecution with such fervour and fury, rage and revenge, impositions and oppressions, and with armed formed force, against the faithful following their duty in a peaceable manner, without the least shadow of contempt even of his abused authority, that at length in the year , a small party were compelled to go to defensive arms. which, whatever was the desire of the court (as it is known how desirous they have been of an insurrection, when they thought themselves sure to suppress it, that they might have a vent for their cruelty; and how one of the brothers hath been heard say, that if he might have his wish, he would have them all turn rebels and go to arms.) yet it was no predetermined design of that poor handful. for sir james turner, pursuing his cruel orders in galloway, sent some soldiers to apprehend a poor old man; whom his neighbours compassionating, intreated the soldiers to loose him as he lay bound, but were answered with drawn swords and necessitated to their own defence: in which they relieve the man, and disarm the soldiers, and further attacked some others oppressing that country, disarming ten or twelve more, and killing one that made resistance. whereupon, the country being alarmed, and fearing from sad experience sir james would certainly avenge this affront upon the whole country, without distinction of free and unfree, they gather about horsemen, march to dumfries, take sir james turner prisoner, and disarm the soldiers, without any more violence. being thus by providence engaged without any hope of retreat, and getting some concurrence of their brethren in the same condition, they came to lanark, where they renew the covenant, and thence to pentland hills; where, by the holy disposal of god, they were routed, many killed, and taken prisoners, who were treated so treacherously and truculently, as turks would have blushed to have seen the like. hence now on the one hand, we may see the righteousness of god in leaving that enemy to him, whom we embraced, to make such avowed discoveries of himself, without a blush to the world, and to scourge us with scorpions that we nourished and put in his hands: and also, how justly at that time he left us into such a damp, that like asses we couched under all burdens, and few came out to the help of the lord against the mighty, drawing on them meroz's curse, and the blood of their butchered brethren; after we had sat, and seen, and suffered all things civil and sacred to be destroyed in our fight, without resentment. and though the lord, who called out these worthy patriots who fell at pentland to such an appearance for his interests, did take a testimony of their hands with acceptance by sufferings, and singularly countenanced them in sealing it with their blood; yet he would not give success nor his presence to the enterprise, but left them in a sort of infatuation, without counsel and conduct, to be a prey to devourers, that by a sad inadvertency they took in the tyrant's interest into the state of the quarrel. which should have warned his people for the future to have stated the quarrel otherwise. ii. by this time, and much more after, the king gave as many proofs and demonstrations of his being true to antichrist, in minding all the promises and treaties with him, as he had of his being false to christ, in all his covenanted engagements with his people. for in this same year , he, with his dear and royal brother the duke of york, contrived, countenanced, and abetted, the burning of london, evident by their employing their guards to hinder the people from saving their own, and to dismiss the incendiaries, the papists, that were taken in the fact. the committee, appointed to cognosce upon that business, traced it so far, that they durst go no further, unless they would arraign the duke, and charge the king, and yet before this, it was enacted as criminal for any to say the king was a papist. but having gained so much of his design in scotland, where he had established prelacy, advanced tyranny to the height of absoluteness, and his supremacy almost beyond the reach of any additional supply, yea above the pope's own claim, and had now brought his only opposites, the few faithful witnesses of christ, to a low pass; he went on by craft as well as cruelty, to advance his own in promoting antichrist's interest. and therefore, having gotten the supremacy devolved upon him by law (for which also he had the pope's dispensation, to take it to himself for the time, under promise to restore and surrender it to him, as soon as he could obtain his end by it, as the other brother succeeding hath now done) he would now exert that usurped power, and work by insnaring policy to effectuate the end which he could not do by other means. therefore, seeing he was not able to suppress the meetings of the lord's people for gospel ordinances, in house and fields, but that the more he laboured by violent courses, the greater and more frequent they grew; he fell upon a more crafty device, not only to overthrow the gospel and suppress the meetings, but to break the faithful, and to divide, between the mad-cap and the moderate fanatics (as they phrased it) that he might the more easily destroy both, to confirm the usurpation, and to settle people in a sinful silence, and stupid submission to all the incroachments made on christ's prerogatives, and more effectually to overturn what remained of the work of god. and, knowing that nothing could more fortify the supremacy than minister's homologating and acknowledging it; therefore he offered the first indulgence in the year , signifying in a letter, dated that year june , his gracious pleasure was, 'to appoint so many of the outed ministers, as have lived peaceably and orderly, to return to preach and exercise other functions of the ministry, in the parish churches where they formerly served (provided they were vacant) and to allow patrons to present to other vacant churches, such others of them as the council should approve: that all who are so indulged, be enjoined to keep presbyteries, and the refusers to be confined within the bounds of their parishes: and that they be enjoined not to admit any of their neighbour parishes unto their communions, nor baptize their children, nor marry any of them, without the allowance of the minister of the parish, and if they countenance the people deserting their own parishes, they are to be silenced for shorter or longer time, or altogether turned out, as the council shall see cause; and upon complaint made and verified, of any seditious discourse or expressions in the pulpit, uttered by any of the ministers, they are immediately to be turned out, and further punished according to law: and seeing by these orders, all pretences for conventicles were taken away, if any should be found hereafter to preach without authority, or keep conventicles, his pleasure is, to proceed with all severity against them, as seditious persons and contemners of authority.' to salve this in point of law, (because it was against former laws of their own) and to make the king's letter the supreme law afterwards, and a valid ground in law, whereupon the council might proceed, and enact, and execute what the king pleased in matters ecclesiastic; he therefore caused frame a formal statutory act of supremacy, of this tenor, 'that his majesty hath the supreme authority and supremacy over all persons and in all causes ecclesiastic, within his dominions, and that by virtue thereof, the ordering and disposal of the external government of the church, doth properly belong to him and his successors, as an inherent right to the crown: and that he may settle, enact, and emit such constitutions, acts, and orders, concerning the administrating thereof, and persons employed in the same, and concerning all ecclesiastical meetings and matters, to be proposed and determined therein, as he in his royal wisdom, shall think fit: which acts, orders, and constitutions, are to be observed and obeyed by all his majesty's subjects, any law, act, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding.' whereupon, accordingly the council, in their act july , , do nominate several ministers, and 'appoint them to preach, and exercise the other functions of the ministry, at their respective churches there specified, with consent of the patrons.' the same day also they conclude and enact the forementioned restrictions, conform to the king's letter above rehearsed, and ordain them to be intimate to every person, who is by authority foresaid allowed the exercise of the ministry. these indulged ministers, having that indulgence given only upon these terms, that they should accept these injunctions, and having received it upon these terms also (as an essential part of the bargain and condition, on which the indulgence was granted and accepted, as many following proclamations did expressly declare) do appoint mr. hutcheson, one of the number, 'to declare so much; in acknowledging his majesty's favour and clemency, in granting that liberty, after so long a restraint; and however they had received their ministry from jesus christ, with full prescriptions from him for regulating them therein, yet nothing could be more refreshing on earth to them, than to have free liberty for the exercise of their ministry, under the protection of lawful authority; and so they purposed to behave themselves in the discharge of their ministry, with that wisdom that became faithful ministers, and to demean themselves towards lawful authority, notwithstanding of their known judgment in church affairs, as well becometh loyal subjects; and their prayer to god should be, that the lord should bless his majesty in his person and government, and the council in the public administration, and especially in the pursuance of his majesty's mind in his letter, wherein his singular moderation eminently appears.'--afterwards they issued out proclamations, reinforcing the punctual observation of the forementioned injunctions, and delivered them into the indulged. in the mean time, though cruel acts and edicts were made against the meetings of the lord's people, in houses and the fields, after all these midianitish wiles to suppress them, such was the presence of the lord in these meetings, and so powerful was his countenance and concurrence with the labours of a few, who laid up themselves to hold up the standard of christ; that the number of converts multiplied daily, to the praise of free grace, and to the great encouragement of the few hands that wrestled in that work, through all human discouragement. therefore, the king and council was put to a new shift, which they supposed would prove more effectual: to wit, because there was a great number of nonconformed ministers not yet indulged, who either did or might hereafter hold conventicles, therefore to remeed or prevent this in time coming, they appoint and ordain them to such places where indulged ministers were settled, there to be confined with allowance to preach as the indulged should employ them; thinking by this means to incapacitate many to hold meetings there or elsewhere: and to these also they give injunctions and restrictions to regulate them in the exercise of their ministry. and to the end that all the outed ministers might be brought under restraint, and the word of god be kept under bonds, by another act of council they command, that all other ministers (not disposed of as is said) were either to repair to the parish churches where they were, or to some other parishes where they may be ordinary hearers, and to declare and condescend upon the parishes where they intend to have their residence. after this they assumed a power, to dispose of these their curates as they pleased, and transport them from place to place; whereof the only ground was a simple act of council, the instructions always going along with them, as the constant companion of the indulgence. by all which it is apparent; whatever these ministers alledge, in vindication of it to cover its deformity, in their balms to take away its stink, and in their surveys to gather plaisters to scurf over its scurviness, viz. that it was but the removal of the civil restraint, and that they entered into their places by the call of the people (a mere mock pretence for a prelimited imposition, whereby that ordinance of christ was basely prostituted and abused) and that their testimony and protestation was a salvo for their conscience (a mere utopian fancy, that the indulgers with whom they bargained never heard of, otherwise, as they did with some who were faithful in testifying against their encroachments, they would soon have given them a bill of ease). it cannot be denied, that that doleful indulgence, both in its rise, contrivance, conveyance, grant, and acceptance, end and effects, was a grievous encroachment upon the princely prerogative of jesus christ the only head of the church; whereby the usurper's supremacy was homologated, bowed to, complied with, strengthened and established, the cause and kingdom of christ betrayed, his church's privileges surrendered, his enemies hardened, his friends stumbled, and the remnant rent and ruined; in that it was granted and deduced from the king's supremacy, and conveyed by the council; in that, according to his pleasure, he gave and they received a licence and warrant, to such as he nominated and elected, and judged fit and qualified for it, and fixed them in what particular parish he pleased to assign, under the notion of a confinement, in that he imposed and they submitted to restrictions in the exercise of their ministry, in these particular parishes, inhibiting to preach elsewhere in the church; and with these restrictions, he gave and they received instructions to regulate and direct them in their functions: all which was done without advice or consent of the church: and thereupon they have frequently been called and conveened before the council, to give account of their ministerial exercise, and some of them sentenced, silenced, and deposed for alledged disobedience. this was a manifest treason against christ, which involved many in the actual guilt of it that day, and many others who gaped after it, and could not obtain it, and far more at that time and since in the guilt of misprision of treason, in passing this also without a witness. thus, in holy judgment, because of our indulging and conniving at the usurper of christ's throne, he left a great part of the ministers to take that wretched indulgence; and another part, instead of remonstrating the wickedness of that deed, have been left to palliate, and plaister, and patronize it, in keeping up the credit of the king and council's curates, wherein they have shewed more zeal, than ever against that wicked indulgence. yet the lord had some witnesses, who pretty early did give significations of their resentment of this dishonour done to christ, as mr. william weir, who having got the legal call of the people, and discharging his duty honestly, was turned out; and mr. john burnet, who wrote a testimony directed to the council, shewing why he could not submit to that indulgence, inserted at large in the history of the indulgence; where also we have the testimony of other ten ministers, who drew up their reasons of non-compliance with such a snare; and mr. alexander blair, who, upon occasion of a citation before the council for not observing the th of may, having with others made his appearance, and got new copies of instructions presented to them, being moved with zeal and remembering whose ambassador he was, told the council plainly, that he could receive no instructions from them in the exercise of his ministry, otherwise he should not be christ's ambassador but theirs, and herewith lets their instructions drop out of his hand, knowing of no other salvo or manner of testifying for the truth in the case; for which he was imprisoned, and died under confinement. but afterwards, the lord raised up some more explicit witnesses against that defection. all this trouble was before the year . about which time, finding this device of indulgences proved so steadable for his service in scotland, he was induced to try it also in england; which he did almost with the same or like success, and producing the same effects of defection, security, and unfaithfulness. the occasion was upon his wars with the dutch; which gave another demonstrative discovery of his treachery and popish perfidy, in breaking league with them, and entering into one with the french, to destroy religion and liberty in britain: 'wherein the king of france assures him an absolute authority over his parliaments, and to re-establish the catholic religion in his kingdoms of england, scotland and ireland; to compass which it was necessary first to abate the pride and power of the dutch, and to reduce them to the sole province of holland, by which means the king of england should have zealand for a retreat in case of need, and that the rest of the low countries should remain to the king of france, if he could render himself master of it. but to return to scotland.' while by the forementioned device, he thought he had utterly suppressed the gospel in house and field meetings, he was so far disappointed, that these very means and machines by which he thought to bury it, did chiefly contribute to its revival. for, when by persecution many ministers had been chased away by illegal law sentences, many had been drawn away from their duty, and others were now sentenced with confinements and restraints, if they should not chuse and fix their residence where they could not keep their quiet and conscience both; they were forced to wander and disperse through the country, and the people being tired of the cold and dead curates, and wanting long the ministry of their old pastors, so longed and hungered after the word, that they behoved to have it at any rate cost what it would; which made them entertain the dispersed ministers more earnestly, and encouraged them more to their duty. by whose endeavours, through the mighty power and presence of god, and the light of his countenance now shining through the cloud, after so fatal and fearful a darkness that had overclouded the land for a while, with such a resplendent brightness, that it darkened the prelatic locusts, and made them hiss and gnash their tongues for pain, and dazzled the eyes of all onlookers; the word of god grew exceedingly, and went through at least the southern borders of the kingdom like lightning, or like the sun in its meridian beauty; discovering so the wonders of god's law, the mysteries of his gospel, and the secrets of his covenant, and the sins and duties of that day, that a numerous issue was begotten to christ, and his conquest was glorious, captivating poor slaves of satan, and bringing them from his power unto god, and from darkness to light. o! who can remember the glory of that day, without a melting heart, in reflecting upon what we have lost, and let go, and sinned away, by our misimprovements. o that in that our day we had heartened to his voice, and had known the things that belonged to our peace! a day of such power, that it made the people, even the bulk and body of the people, willing to come out and venture, upon the greatest of hardships and the greatest of hazards, in pursuing after the gospel, through mosses and muirs, and inaccessible mountains, summer and winter, through excess of heat and extremity of cold, many days and night-journeys; even when they could not have a probable expectation of escaping the sword of the wilderness, and the barbarous fury of bloody burrio's raging for their prey, sent out with orders to take and kill them, it being now made criminal by law, especially to the preachers and convocaters of those meetings. but this was a day of such power, that nothing could daunt them from their duty, that had tasted once the sweetness of the lord's presence at these persecuted meetings. then had we such humiliation-days for personal and public defections, such communion-days even in the open fields, and such sabbath-solemnities, that the places where they were kept might have been called bethel, or peniel, or bochim, and all of them jehovah-shammah; wherein many were truly converted, more convinced, and generally all reformed from their former immoralities: that even robbers, thieves, and profane men, were some of them brought to a saving subjection to christ, and generally under such a restraint, that all the severities of heading and hanging, &c. in a great many years, could not make such a civil reformation, as a few days of the gospel, in these formerly the devils territories, now christ's quarters, where his kingly standard was displayed. i have not language to lay out in the inexpressible glory of that day: but i will make bold to say two things of it, first, i doubt if ever there was greater days of the son of man upon the earth since the apostolic times, than we enjoyed for the space of seven years at that time: and next, i doubt, if upon the back of such a lightsome day there was ever a blacker night of darkness, defection, division, and confusion, and a more universal impudent apostasy, than we have seen since. the world is at a great loss, that a more exact and complete account demonstrating both these, is not published, which i am sure would be a fertile theme to any faithful pen. but this not being my scope at present, but only to deduce the steps of the contendings of christ's friends and his enemies, i must follow the thread of my narration. now when christ is gaining ground by the preached gospel in plenty, in purity, and power, the usurper's supremacy was like to stagger, and prelacy came under universal contempt, in so much that several country curates would have had but scarce half a dozen of hearers, and some none at all. and this was a general observe that never failed, that no sooner did any poor soul come to get a serious sense of religion, and was brought under any real exercise of spirit about their souls concerns, but as soon they did fall out with prelacy and left the curates. hence to secure what he had possessed himself of by law, and to prevent a dangerous paroxism which he thought would ensue upon these commotions, the king returned to exerce his innate tyranny, and to emit terrible orders, and more terrible executioners, and bloody emissaries, against all field meetings: which, after long patience, the people at length could not endure; but being first chased to the fields, where they would have been content to have the gospel with all the inconveniences of it, and also expelled from the fields, being resolute to maintain the gospel, they resolved to defend it and themselves by arms. to which, unavoidable necessity in unsupportable extremity did constrain them, as the only remaining remedy. it is known, for several years they met without any arms, where frequently they were disturbed and dispersed with soldiers, some killed, others wounded, which they patiently endured without resistance: at length the ministers that were most in hazard, having a price set upon their heads to be brought in dead or alive, with some attending them in their wanderings, understanding they were thus appointed for death, judged it their duty to provide for the necessary defence of their lives from the violence of their armed assaulters. and as meetings increased, diverse others came under the same hazards, which enforced them to endeavour the same remedy, without the least intention of prejudice to any. thus the number of sufferers increasing, as they joined in the ordinances at these persecuted meetings, found themselves in some probable capacity to defend themselves, and these much endeared and precious gospel privileges, and to preserve the memory of the lord's great work in the land, which to transmit to posterity was their great design. and they had no small encouragement to endeavour it, by the satisfying sweetness and comfort they found in these ordinances, being persuaded of the justness of their cause, and of the groundlessness of their adversaries quarrel against them: and hereunto also they were incited and prompted, by the palpableness of the enemy's purposes to destroy the remainder of the gospel, by extirpating the remnant that professed it. wherefore in these circumstances, being redacted to that strait, either to be deprived of the gospel, or to defend themselves in their meetings for it; and thinking their turning their backs upon it for hazard was a cowardly deserting duty, and palpable breach of covenant-engagements, abandoning their greatest interest, they thought it expedient, yea necessary, to carry defensive arms with them. and as for that discouragement, from the difficulty and danger of it, because of their fewness and meanness, it did not deter or daunt them from the endeavour of their duty; when they considered the lord in former times was wont to own a very small party of their ancestors, who in extremity jeoparded their lives in defence of reformation against very potent and powerful enemies: these now owning the same cause, judged themselves obliged to run the same hazard, in the same circumstances, and to follow the same method, and durst not leave it unessayed, leaving the event to god: considering also, that not only the law of nature and nations doth allow self defence from unjust violence, but also the indissoluble obligation of their covenants, to maintain and defend the true religion, and one another in promoving the same, made it indispensible to use that endeavour, the defect of which, through their former supineness gave no small encouragement to the enemies: they considered also what would be the consequence of that war, declared against all the faithful of the land with a displayed banner, prosecuted with fire and sword, and all acts of horrid hostility published in printed proclamations, and written in characters of blood by barbarous soldiers, so that none could enjoy gospel ordinances dispensed in purity, but upon the hazard of their lives: and therefore, to prevent and frustrate these effects, they endeavoured to put themselves in a posture. and hereunto they were encouraged, by the constant experience of the lord's countenancing their endeavours in that posture, which always proved successful for several years, their enemies either turning their backs without disturbance, when they observed them resolve defence, or in their assaultings repulsed: so that there was never a meeting which stood to their defence, got any considerable harm thereby. thus the lord was with us while we were with him, but when we forsook him, then he forsook us, and left us in the hands of our enemies. however, while meetings for gospel ordinances did continue, the wicked rulers did not cease from time to time to encrease their numerous bands of barbarous soldiers for suppressing the gospel in these field meetings. and for their maintenance, they imposed new wicked and arbitrary cesses and taxations, professedly required for suppressing religion and liberty, banishing the gospel out of the land, and preserving and promoting his absoluteness over all matters and persons sacred and civil: which, under that temptation of great suffering threatened to refusers, and under the disadvantage of the silence and unfaithfulness of many ministers, who either did not condemn it, or pleaded for the peaceable payment of it, many did comply with it then, and far more since. yet at that time there were far more recusants, in some places, (especially in the western shires) than compliers; and there were many of the ministers that did faithfully declare to the people the sin of it; not only from the illegality of its imposition, by a convention of overawed and prelimitated states; but from the nature of that imposed compliance, that it was a sinful transaction with christ's declared enemies, a strengthening the hands of the wicked, an obedience to a wicked law, a consenting to christ's expulsion out of the land, and not only that, but (far worse than the sin of the gadarenes) a formal concurrence to assist his expellers, by maintaining their force, a hiring our oppressors to destroy religion and liberty; and from the fountain of it, an arbitrary power domineering over us, and oppressing and overpressing the kingdoms with intolerable exactions, that to pay it, it was to entail slavery on their posterity; and from the declared end of it, expressed in the very narrative of the act, viz. to levy and maintain forces for suppressing and dispersing meetings of the lord's people, and to show unanimous affection for maintaining the king's supremacy as now established by law; which designs he resolved, and would be capacitate by the granters to effectuate by such a grant, which in effect, to all tender consciences had an evident tendency to the exauctorating the lord christ, to maintain soldiers to suppress his work, and murder his followers, yet all this time ministers and professors were unite, and with one soul and shoulder followed the work of the lord, till the indulged, being dissatisfied with the meetings in the fields, whose glory was like to overcloud and obscure their beds of ease, and especially being offended at the freedom and faithfulness of some, who set the trumpet to their mouth, and shewed jacob his sins, and israel his transgressions, impartially without a cloak or cover, they began to make a faction among the ministers, and to devise how to quench the fervour of their zeal who were faithful for god. but the more they sought to extinguish it, the more it broke out and blazed into a flame. for several of christ's ambassadors, touched and affected with the affronts done to their princely master by the supremacy and the indulgence its bastard brood and brat, began after long silence to discover its iniquity, and to acquaint the people how the usurper had invaded the mediator's chair, in taking upon him to depose, suspend, silence, plant, and transplant his ministers, where and when and how he pleased, and to give forth warrants and licences for admitting them, with canons and instructions for regulating them in the exercise of their ministry, and to arraign and censure them at his courts for delinquencies in their ministry; pursuing all to the death who are faithful to christ, and maintain their loyalty to his laws, and will not prostitute their consciences to his lusts, and bow down to the idol of his supremacy, but will own the kingly authority of christ. yet others, and the greater number of dissenting ministers, were not only deficient herein, but defended them, joined with them, and (pretending prudence and prevention of schism) in effect homologated that deed and the practice of these priests. ezek. xxii. . teaching and advising the people to hear them, both by precept and going along with them in that erastian course: and not only so, but condemned and censured such who preached against the sinfulness thereof, especially in the first place, worthy mr. welwood, who was among the first witnesses against that defection, and mr. kid, mr. king, mr. cameron, mr. donald gargil, &c. who sealed their testimony afterwards with their blood; yet then even by their brethren were loaden with the reproachful nicknames of schismatics, blind zealots, jesuits, &c. but it was always observed, as long as ministers were faithful in following the lord in the way of their duty, professors were fervent, and under all their conflicts with persecutors, the courage and zeal of the lovers of christ was blazing, and never out-braved by all the enemies boastings to undertake brisk exploits: which from time to time they were now and then essaying, till defection destroyed, and division diverted their zeal against the enemies of god, who before were always the object against which they whetted the edge of their just indignation. especially the insulting insolency and insolent villany of that public incendiary, the arch-prelate sharp, was judged intolerable by ingenuous spirits; because he had treacherously betrayed the church and nation, and being employed as their delegate to oppose the threatened introduction of prelacy, he had like a perjured apostate and perfidious traitor advanced himself into the place of primate of scotland, and being a member of council he became a chief instrument of all the persecution, and main instigator to all the bloody violence and cruelty that was exerced against the people of god; by whose means, the letter sent down to stop the shedding of more blood after pentland was kept up, until several of these martyrs were murdered. therefore in july , mr. james mitchel thought it his duty to save himself, deliver his brethren, and free the land of the violence of that beast of prey, and attempted to cut him off: which failing, he then escaped, but afterwards was apprehended; and being moved by the council's oath, and act of assurance promising his life, he made confession of the fact: yet afterwards for the same he was arraigned before the justiciary, and the confession he made was brought in against him, and witnessed by the perjured chancellor rothes, and other lords, contrary to their oath and act produced in open court, to their indelible infamy: whereupon he was tortured, condemned, and executed. but justice would not suffer this murder to pass long unrevenged, nor that truculent traitor, james sharp the arch-prelate, who was the occasion and cause of it, and of many more both before and after, to escape remarkable punishment; the severity whereof did sufficiently compense its delay, after ten years respite, wherein he ceased not more and more to pursue, persecute, and make havock of the righteous for their duty, until at length he received the just demerit of his perfidy, perjury, apostacy, sorceries, villanies, and murders, sharp arrows of the mighty and coals of juniper. for upon the d of may , several worthy gentlemen, with some other men of courage and zeal for the cause of god and the good of the country, executed righteous judgment upon him in magus moor near st. andrews. and that same month, on the anniversary day, may , the testimony at rutherglen was published against that abomination of celebrating an anniversary day, kept every year for giving thanks for the setting up an usurped power, destroying the interest of christ in the land.--and against all sinful and unlawful acts, emitted and executed, published and prosecuted against our covenanted reformation. where also they burnt the act of supremacy, the declaration, the act recissory, &c. in way of retaliation for the burning of the covenants. on the sabbath following june . a field meeting for the worship of god near to loudoun-hill was assaulted by graham of claverhouse, and with him three troops of horse and dragoons, who had that morning taken an honest minister and about fourteen country men out of their beds, and carried them along with them as prisoners to the meeting in a barbarous manner. but by the good hand of god upon the defendents, they were repulsed at drumclog and put to flight, the prisoners relieved, about thirty of the soldiers killed on the place, and three of the meeting, and several wounded on both sides. thereafter the people retreating from the pursuit, consulted what was expedient in that juncture, whether to disperse themselves as formerly, or to keep together for their necessary defence. the result was, that considering the craft and cruelty of those they had to deal with, the sad consequence of falling into their hands now more incensed than ever, the evil effects that likely would ensue upon their separation, which would give them access to make havock of all; they judged it most safe in that extremity for some time not to separate. which resolution, coming abroad to the ears of others of their brethren, determined them incontinently to come to their assistance, considering the necessity, and their own liableness to the same common danger, upon the account of their endeavours of that nature elsewhere to defend themselves, being of the same judgment for maintaining of the same cause, to which they were bound by the same covenants, and groaning under the same burdens; they judged therefore that if they now with-held their assistance in such a strait, they could not be innocent of their brethren's blood, nor found faithful in their covenant: to which they were encouraged with the countenance and success the lord had given to that meeting, in that defensive resistance. this was the rise and occasion of that appearance at bothwel-bridge, which the lord did in his holy sovereignty confound, for former defections by the means of division, which broke that little army among themselves, before they were broken by the enemy. they continued together in amiable and amicable peace for the space of eight or nine days, while they endeavoured to put out and keep out every wicked thing from amongst them, and adhered to the rutherglen testimony, and that short declaration at glasgow confirming it; representing their 'present purposes and endeavours, where, only in vindication and defence of the reformed religion--as they stood obliged thereto by the national and solemn league and covenant, and the solemn acknowledgment of sins and engagement to duties; declaring against popery, prelacy, erastianism, and all things depending thereupon.' intending hereby to comprehend the defection of the indulgence, to witness against which all unanimously agreed: until the army increasing, the defenders and daubers of that defection, some ministers and others, came in who broke all, and upon whom the blood of that appearance may be charged. the occasion of the breach was, first, when in the sense of the obligation of that command, when the host goeth forth against thine enemies, keep thee from every wicked thing, an overture was offered to set times apart for humiliation for the public sins of the land, according to the practice of the godly in all ages, before engaging their enemies, and the laudable precedents of our ancestors; that so the causes of god's wrath against the nation might be enquired into and confessed, and the lord's blessing, counsel, and conduct to and upon present endeavours, might be implored. and accordingly the complying with abjured erastianism, by the acceptance of the ensnared indulgence, offered by and received from the usurping rulers, was condescended upon among the rest of the grounds of fasting and humiliation, so seasonably and necessarily called for at that time. the sticklers for the indulgence refused the overture, upon politic considerations, for fear of offending the indulged ministers and gentlemen, and provoking them to withdraw their assistance. this was the great cause of the division, that produced such unhappy and destructive effects. and next, whereas the cause was stated before according to the covenants, in the rutherglen-testimony and glasgow-declaration, wherein the king's interest was waved; these dividers drew up another large paper (called the hamilton-declaration) wherein they assert the king's interest, according to the third article of the solemn league and covenant. against which the best affected contended, and protested they could not in conscience put in his interest in the state of the quarrel, being now in stated opposition to christ's interests, and inconsistent with the meaning of the covenant, and the practices of the covenanters, and their own testimonies; while now he could not be declared for as being in the defence of religion and liberty, when he had so palpably overturned and ruined the work of reformation, and oppressed such as adhered thereunto, and had burnt the covenant, &c. whereby he had loosed the people from all obligation to him from it. yet that contrary faction prevailed, so far as to get it published in the name of all: whereby the cause was perverted and betrayed, and the former testimonies rendered irrite, and the interest of the public enemy espoused. finally, the same day that the enemy approached in sight, and a considerable advantage was offered to do execution against them, these loyal gentlemen hindered and retarded all action, till a parly was beat, and an address dispatched to the duke of monmouth, who then commanded his father's army. by which nothing was gained, but free liberty given to the enemies to plant their cannon, and advance without interruption. after which, in the holy all over-ruling providence of god, that poor handful was signally discountenanced of god, deprived of all conduct, divested of all protection, and laid open to the raging sword, the just punishment of all such tamperings with the enemies of god, and espousing their interest, and omitting humiliation for their own and the land's sins. about were killed in the fields, and , and upwards were taken prisoners, stripped, and carried to edinburgh, where they were kept for a long time in the greyfriar's church-yard, without shelter from cold and rain. and at length had the temptation of an insnaring bond of peace: wherein they were to acknowledge that insurrection to be rebellion, and oblige themselves never to rise in arms against the king, nor any commissionate by him, and to live peaceably, &c. which, through fear of threatened death, and the unfaithfulness of some, and the impudence of other ministers that persuaded them to take it, prevailed with many: yet others resolutely resisted, judging it to imply a condemning of their duty, an abandoning of their covenant engagements, wherein they were obliged to duties inconsistent with such bonds, and a voluntary binding up their hands from all oppositions to the declared war against christ, which is the native sense of the peace they require, which can never be entertained long with men so treacherous. and therefore, upon reasons of principle and conscience they refused that pretended indemnity, offered in these terms. nevertheless the most part took it: and yet were sentenced with banishment, and sent away for america as well as they who refused it; and by the way, (a few excepted,) perished in shipwreck: whose blood yet cries both against the imposers, and the persuaders to that bond. iii. this fearful and fatal stroke at bothwel, not only was in its immediate effects so deadly, but in its consequents so destructive, that the decaying church of scotland, which before was beginning to revive, was then cast into such a swoon that she is never like to recover to this day. and the universality of her children, which before espoused her testimony, was after that partly drawn by craft, and partly drawn by cruelty, from a conjunction with their brethren in prosecuting the same, either into an open defection to the contrary side, or into a detestable indifferency and neutrality in the cause of god. for first of all the duke of monmouth, whose nature, more averse from cruelty than the rest of that progeny, made him pliable to all suggestions of wicked policy that seemed to have a shew of smoothness and lenity, procured the emission of a pretended indemnity, attended with the foresaid bond of peace for its companion. which were dreadful snares, catching many with flatteries, and fair pretences of favours, fairded over with curious words, and cozening names, of living peaceably, &c. while in the mean time a most deadly and destructive thrust (as it were under the fifth rib) because most secret, was intended against all that was left remaining of the work of god undestroyed, and a bar put upon all essays to revive or recover it by their own consent who should endeavour it. this course of defection carried away many at that time: and from that time, since the taking of the bond of peaceable living, there hath been an universal preferring of peace to truth, and of ease to duty. and the generality have been left to swallow all baits, though the hook was never so discernible, all those ensnaring oaths and bonds imposed since, which both then and since people were left to their own determination to chuse or refuse; many ministers refusing to give their advice when required and requested thereunto, and some not being ashamed or afraid to persuade the people to take them. the ministry then also were generally insnared with that bonded indulgence, the pretended benefit of that indemnity, which as it was designed, so it produced the woful effect of propagating the defection, and promoting the division, and laying them by from their duty and testimony of that day, which to this day they have not yet taken upon their former ground. for when a proclamation was emitted, inveighing bitterly against field meetings, and absolutely interdicting all such for the future under highest pain, but granting liberty to preach in houses upon the terms of a cautionary bond given for their living peaceably: yet excluding all these ministers who were suspected to have been at the late rebellion, and all these who shall afterward be admitted by non-conform ministers: and certifying, that if ever they shall be at any field conventicle, the said indemnity shall not be useful to such transgressors any manner of way: and requiring security, that none under the colour of this favour continue to preach rebellion. though there seems to be enough in the proclamation itself to have scared them from this scandalous snare, yet a meeting of ministers at edinburgh made up of indulged, avowed applauders of the indulgence, or underhand approvers and favourers of the same, and some of them old public resolutioners, assuming to themselves the name of a general assembly, yea of the representatives of the church of scotland, voted for the acceptance of it. and so formally transacted and bargained upon base, dishonest, and dishonourable terms with the usurper, by consenting and compacting with the people to give that bond, wherein the people upon an humble petition to the council, 'obtaining their indulged minister to bind and oblige--that the said--shall live peaceably. and in order thereto to present him, before his majesty's privy council, when they shall be called so to do; and in case of failzie in not presenting him, to be liable to the sum of merks.' whereby they condemned themselves of former unpeaceableness, and engaged to a sinful peace with the enemies of god, and became bound and fettered under these bonds to a forbearance of a testimony, and made answerable to their courts, and the people were bound to present them for their duty. the sinfulness, scandalousness, and inconveniences of which transactions, are abundantly demonstrated by a treatise thereupon, intitled, the banders disbanded. nevertheless many embraced this new bastard indulgence, that had not the benefit of the former brat, of the same mother the supremacy, and far more consented to it without a witness, and most of all did some way homologate it, in preaching under the sconce of it: declining the many reiterated and urged calls of the zealous lovers of christ, to come out and maintain the testimony of the gospel in the open fields, for the honour of their master and the freedom of their ministry. whereupon, as many poor people were stumbled and jumbled into many confusions, so that they were so bewildered and bemisted in doubts and debates, that they knew not what to do, and were tempted to question the cause formerly so fervently contended for against all opposition, then so simply abandoned, by these that seemed sometimes valiant for it, when they saw them consulting more their own ease than the concerns of their master's glory, or the necessity of the poor people hungering for the gospel, and standing in need of counsel in time of such abounding snares, whereby many became a prey to all tentations: so the more zealous and faithful, after several addresses, calls, and invitations to ministers, finding themselves deserted by them, judged themselves under a necessity to discountenance many of them, whom formerly they followed with pleasure; and to resolve upon a pursuit and prosecution of the duty of the day without them, and to provide themselves with faithful ministers, who would not shun for all hazards to declare the whole counsel of god. and accordingly through the tender mercy of god, compassionating the exigence of the people, the lord sent them first mr. richard cameron, with whom after his serious solicitation his brethren denied their concurrence, and then mr. donald cargil; who, with a zeal and boldness becoming christ's ambassadors, maintained and prosecuted the testimony, against all the indignities done to their master and wrongs to the cause, both by the encroachments of adversaries and defections of their declining brethren. wherein they were signally countenanced of their master; and the lord's inheritance was again revived with the showers of the gospel's blessings, wherewith they had been before refreshed; and enlightened with a glance and glimpse of resplendent brightness, immediately before the obscurity of this fearful night of darkness that hath succeeded. but as christ was then displaying his beauty, to his poor despised and persecuted people; so antichrist began to blaze his bravery, in the solemn and shameful reception of his harbinger, that pimp of the romish whore, the duke of york. who had now pulled off the mask, under which he had long covered his antichristian bigotry, through a trick of his brother, constrained by the papists importunity, and the necessity of their favour, and recruit of their coin, either to declare himself papist, or to make his brother do it: whereby all the locusts were engaged to his interest, with whom he entered into a conspiracy and popish plot; as was discovered by many infallible evidences, and confessed by coleman his secretary, to sir edmund-bury godfrey; for which, lest he should witness against him, when coleman was apprehended, that gentleman was cruelly murdered by the duke of york's contrivance and command. yet for all the demonstrations of his being a bigot papist, that he had long given unto the world, it is known what some suffered for saying, that the duke of york was a papist, and being forced to leave england, he was come to scotland to promote popery and arbitrary government. however, though the parliament of england, for his popery and villany, and his plotting and pursuing the destruction of the nation, did vote his exclusion; yet degenerate scotland did receive him in great pomp and pride. against which, the forementioned faithful witnesses of christ did find themselves obliged to testify their just resentment, and to protest against his succeeding to the crown, in their declaration published at sanquhar, june d, . 'wherein also they disown charles stewart, as having any right, title, or interest in the crown of scotland or government thereof, as being forefaulted several years since, by his perjury and breach of covenant, usurpation on christ's prerogatives, and by his tyranny and breaches in the very _leges regnandi_ in matters civil--and declare a war with him, and all the men of these practices--homologating the testimony at rutherglen, and disclaiming that declaration at hamilton.' this action was generally condemned by the body of lurking ministers, both for the matter of it, and the unseasonableness of it, and its apparent unfeasibleness, being done by a handful so inconsiderable, for number, strength, or significancy. but as they had very great and important reasons to disclaim that tyrant's authority, hinted in the declaration itself, and hereafter more fully vindicated: so the necessity of a testimony against all the tyrannical encroachments on religion and liberty, then current and increasing; and the sin and shame of shifting and delaying it so long, when the blasphemous supremacy was now advanced to its summit; the church's privileges all overturned; religion and the work of reformation trampled under foot; the people's rights and liberties destroyed, and laws all subverted; and no shadow of government left but arbitrary absoluteness, obtruding the tyrant's will for reason, and his letter for the supreme law (witness the answer which one of the council gave to another; objecting against their proceedings as not according to law, what devil do ye talk of law? have not we the king's letter for it?) and all the ends of magistracy wholly inverted; while innocent and honest people were grievously oppressed in their persons, consciences, and estates; and perjuries, adulteries, idolatries, and all impieties were not only connived at, but countenanced as badges of loyalty, and manifest and monstrous robberies and murders authorized, judgement turned into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemloc; do justify its seasonableness: and the ends of the declaration, to keep up the standard of the gospel, and maintain the work of reformation, and preserve a remnant of faithful adherers to it; the nature of the resolution declared, being only to endeavour to make good and maintain their revolt, in opposition to all who would pursue them for it, and reinforce them to a subjection to that yoke of slavery again; and the extremity of danger and distress that party was in, while declared and pursued as rebels, and intercommuned and interdicted of all supply and solace, being put out of their own, and by law precluded of the harbour of all other habitations, and so both for safety and subsistence compelled by necessity to concur and keep together, may alleviate the censure and stop the clamour of its unfeasibleness. but though it is not the prudence of the management, but the justness of the action, that i would have vindicated from obloquies; yet it wanted nothing but success to justify both, in the conviction of many that made much outcry against it. in these dangerous circumstances their difficulties and discouragements daily increased, by their enemies vigilance, their enviers treachery, and their own inadvertency, some of their number falling into the hands of them that sought their lives. for two of the most eminent and faithful witnesses of christ, mr. donald cargil and henry hall, were surprized at queensferry; mr. cargil escaped at that time, but the other fervent contender for the interest of christ, fixed in the cause, and courageous to his death, endeavouring to save him and resist the enemies, was cruelly murdered by them. and with him they got a draught of a covenant, declaring their present purposes and future resolutions. the tenor whereof was an engagement. ' . to avouch the only true and living god to be their god, and to close with his way of redemption by his son jesus christ, whose righteousness is only to be relied upon for justification; and to take the scriptures of the old and new testament, to be the only object of faith, and rule of conversation in all things. . to establish in the land righteousness and religion, in the truth of its doctrine, purity and power of its worship, discipline, and government; and to free the church of god of the corruption of prelacy on the one hand; and the thraldom of erastianism on the other. . to persevere in the doctrine of the reformed churches, especially that of scotland, and in the worship prescribed in the scriptures, without the inventions, adornings, and corruptions of men; and in the presbyterian government, exercised in sessions, presbyteries, synods, and general assemblies, as a distinct government from the civil, and distinctly to be exercised, not after a carnal manner, by plurality of votes, or authority of a single person, but according to the word of god, making and carrying the sentence. . to endeavour the overthrow of the kingdom of darkness, and whatsoever is contrary to the kingdom of christ, especially idolatry, and popery in all its articles, and the overthrow of that power that hath established and upheld it--and to execute righteous judgments impartially, according to the word of god, and degree of offences, upon the committers of these things especially, to wit, blasphemy, idolatry, atheism, bougery, sorcery, perjury, uncleanness, profanation of the lord's day, oppression and malignancy.---- . seriously considering--there is no more speedy way of relaxation from the wrath of god, that hath ever lien on the land since it engaged with these rulers, but of rejecting them who hath so manifestly rejected god--disclaiming his covenant----governing contrary to all right laws, divine and human----and contrary to all the ends of government, by enacting and commanding impieties, injuries, and robberies, to the denying of god his due, and the subjects theirs; so that instead of government, godliness, and peace, there is nothing but rapine, tumult, and blood, which cannot be called a government, but a lustful rage----and they cannot be called governors, but public grassators and land-judgments, which all ought to set themselves against, as they would do against pestilence, sword, and famine raging amongst them----seeing they have stopped the course of law and justice against blasphemers, idolaters, atheists, bougerers, sorcerers, murderers, incestuous and adulterous persons--and have made butcheries on the lord's people, sold them as slaves, imprisoned, forefaulted &c. and that upon no other account, but their maintaining christ's right of ruling over their consciences against the usurpations of men. therefore, easily solving the objections, ( .) of our ancestors obliging the nation to this race and line: that they did not buy their liberty with our thraldom, nor could they bind their children to any thing so much to their prejudice, and against natural liberty (being a benefit next to life, if not in some regard above it) which is not as an engagement to moral things: they could only bind to that government, which they esteemed the best for common good, which reason ceasing, we are free to choose another, if we find it more conducible for that end. ( .) of the covenant binding to defend the king: that this obligation is only in his maintenance of the true covenanted religion--which homage they cannot now require upon the account of the covenant, which they have renounced and disclaimed; and upon no other ground we are bound to them--the crown not being an inheritance that passeth from father to son without the consent of tenants--( .) of the hope of their returning from these courses: whereof there is none, seeing they have so often declared their purposes of persevering in them, and suppose they should dissemble a repentance--supposing also they might be pardoned, for that which is done--from whose guiltiness the land cannot be cleansed, but by executing god's righteous judgments upon them--yet they cannot now be believed, after they have violated all that human wisdom could devise to bind them. upon these accounts they reject that king, and those associate with him in the government--and declare them henceforth no lawful rulers, as they had declared them to be no lawful subjects--they having destroyed the established religion, overturned the fundamental laws of the kingdom, taken away christ's church-government, and changed the civil into tyranny, where none are associate in partaking of the government, but only these who will be found by justice guilty criminals--and declare they shall, god giving power, set up government and governors according to the word of god, and the qualifications required exod. xviii. verse .--and shall not commit the government to any single person, or lineal succession, being not tied as the jews were to one single family--and that kind being liable to most inconveniences, and aptest to degenerate into tyranny--and moreover, that these men set over them shall be engaged to govern principally, by that civil and judicial law (not that which is any way typical) given by god to his people of israel--as the best so far as it goes, being given by god--especially in matters of life and death--and other things, so far as they reach, and are consistent with christian liberty--exempting divorces and polygamy-- . seeing the greatest part of ministers not only were defective in preaching against the acts of the rulers for overthrowing religion--but hindered others also who were willing, and censured some that did it--and have voted for acceptation of that liberty, founded upon and given by virtue of that blasphemously arrogate and usurped power--and appeared before their courts to accept of it, and to be enacted and authorized their ministers--whereby they have become the ministers of men, and bound to be answerable to them as they will--and have preached for the lawfulness of paying that tribute, declared to be imposed for the bearing down of the true worship of god--and advised poor prisoners to subscribe that bond--which if it were universally subscribed--they should close that door, which the lord hath made use of in all the churches of europe, for casting off the yoke of the whore--and stop all regrets of men, when once brought under tyranny, to recover their liberty again.--they declare they neither can nor will hear them &c. nor any who encouraged and strengthened their hands, and pleaded for them, and trafficked for union with them. . that they are for a standing gospel ministry, rightly chosen and rightly ordained--and that none shall take upon them the preaching of the word &c. unless called and ordained thereunto--and whereas separation might be imputed to them, they resell both the malice, and the ignorance of that calumny--for if there be a separation, it must be where the change is; and that was not to be found in them, who were not separating from the communion of the true church, nor setting up a new ministry, but cleaving to the same ministers and ordinances, that formerly they followed, when others have fled to new ways, and a new authority, which is like the old piece in the new garment. . that they shall defend themselves in their civil, natural, and divine rights and liberties----and if any assault them, they shall look on it as a declaring a war, and take all advantages that one enemy does of another--but trouble and injure none but those that injure them.' this is the compend of that paper which the enemies seized and published, while it was only in a rude draught, and not polished, digested, nor consulted by the rest of the community: yet, whether or not it was for their advantage, so to blaze their own baseness in that paper truly represented, i leave it to the reader to judge: or, if they did not thereby proclaim their own tyranny, and the innocency and honesty of that people, whom thereby they were seeking to make odious; but in effect inviting all lovers of religion and liberty to sympathise with them, in their difficulties and distresses there discovered. however that poor party continued together in a posture of defence, without the concurrence or countenance of their convenanted brethren, who staid at home, and left both them to be murdered and their testimony to be trampled upon, until the d of july . upon the which day they were attacked at airsmoss, by a strong party of about horse well armed, while they were but horse and foot at most; and so fighting valiantly were at length routed, not without their adversaries testimony of their being resolute men: several of zion's precious mourners, and faithful witnesses of christ were killed; and among the rest, that faithful minister of christ, mr. richard cameron, sealed and fulfilled his testimony with his blood. and with others, the valiant and much honoured gentleman, david hackstoun of rathillet, was after many received wounds apprehended, brought in to edinburgh; and there, resolutely adhering to the testimony, and disowning the authority of king and council, and all their tyrannical judicatories, was cruelly murdered, but countenanced eminently of the lord. now remained mr. donald cargill, deprived of his faithful colleague, destitute of his brethren's concurrence, but not of the lord's counsel and conduct; by which he was prompted and helped to prosecute the testimony against the universal apostacy of the church and nation, tyranny of enemies, backsliding of friends, and all the wrongs done to his master on all hands. and considering, in the zeal of god, and sense of his holy jealousy, provoked and threatening wrath against the land, for the sins especially of rulers, who had arrived to the height of heaven-daring insolence in all wickedness, in which they were still growing and going on without controul; that notwithstanding of all the testimonies given against them, by public preachings, protestations, and declarations, remonstrating their tyranny, and disowning their authority; yet not only did they still persist in their sins and scandals, to make the lord's fierce anger break forth into a flame, but were owned also by professors, not only as magistrates, but as members of the christian and protestant church; and that, however both the defensive arms of men had been used against them, and the christian arms of prayer, and the ministerial weapon of preaching, yet that of ecclesiastical censure had not been authoritatively exerted against them: therefore, that no weapon which christ allows his servants under his standard to manage against his enemies, might be wanting, though he could not obtain the concurrence of his brethren to strengthen the solemnity and formality of the action, yet he did not judge that defect, in this broken case of the church, could disable his authority, nor demur the duty, but that he might and ought to proceed to excommunication. and accordingly in september , at the torwood, he excommunicated some of the most scandalous and principal promoters and abettors of this conspiracy against christ, as formally as the present case could admit: after sermon upon ezek. xxi. , , . 'and thou profane wicked prince of israel, whose day is come,' &c. he had a short and pertinent discourse on the nature, the subject, the causes, and the ends of excommunication in general: and then declared, that he was not led out of any private spirit or passion to this action, but constrained by conscience of duty, and zeal to god to stigmatize with this brand, and wound with the sword of the lord, these enemies of god that had so apostatized, rebelled against, mocked, despised, and defied our lord, and to declare them as they are none of his, to be none of ours. 'the persons excommunicated; and the sentence against them was given forth as follows: 'i being a minister of jesus christ, and having authority and power from him, do, in his name, and by his spirit, excommunicate, cast out of the true church, and deliver up to satan, charles the second, king,' &c. the sentence was founded upon these grounds, declared in the pronunciation thereof, ( .) 'for his high mocking of god, in that after he had acknowledged his own sins, his father's sins, his mother's idolatry, yet he had gone on more avowedly in the same than all before him. ( .) for his great perjury in breaking and burning the covenant. ( .) for his rescinding all laws for establishing the reformation, and enacting laws contrary thereunto. ( .) for commanding of armies to destroy the lord's people. ( .) for his being an enemy to true protestants, and helper of the papists, and hindering the execution of just laws against them. ( .) for his granting remissions and pardons for murderers, which is in the power of no king to do, being expressly contrary to the law of god. ( .) for his adulteries, and dissembling with god and man.' next, by the same authority, and in the same name, he excommunicated james duke of york, 'for his idolatry, and setting it up in scotland to dedefile the land, and enticing and encouraging others to do so:' not mentioning any other sins but what he scandalously persisted in in scotland, &c. with several other rotten malignant enemies, on whom the lord hath ratified that sentence since very remarkably, whole sins and punishments both may be read more visible in the providences of the time, than i can record them. but about this time, when amidst all the abounding defections and divisions of that dark and dismal hour of temptation, some in zeal for the cause were endeavouring to keep up the testimony of the day, in an abstraction from complying ministers; others were left (in holy judgment, to be a stumbling-block to the generation hardening them in their defections, and to be a beacon to the most zealous to keep off from all unwarrantable excesses) to fall into fearful extravagancies, and delirious and damnable delusions, being overdriven with ignorant and blind zeal into untrodden paths, which led them into a labyrinth of darkness; when as they were stumbled at many ministers unfaithfulness, so through the deceit of satan, and the hypocrisy of his instruments, they came to be offended at mr. cargil's faithfulness, who spared neither left hand declensions, nor right hand extremes, and left him and all the ministers; not only disowning all communion with those that were not of their way, but execrating and cursing them; and kept themselves in desert places from all company; where they persisted prodigiously in fastings and singing psalms, pretending to wonderful raptures and enthusiasms: and in fine, j. gib, with four more of them came to that height of blasphemy, that they burnt the bible and confession of faith. these were the 'sweet singers,' as they were called, led away into these delusions by that impostor and sorcerer, john gib, who never encreased to such a number, as was then feared and reported, being within thirty, and most part women: all which for the most part have been through mercy reclaimed from that destructive way, which through grace the reproached remnant, adhering to the foresaid testimony, had always an abhorrence of. wherefore that ignorant and impudent calumny, of their consortship with gib's followers, is only the vent of viperous envy. for they were the first that discovered them, and whose pains the lord blessed in reclaiming them, and were always so far from partaking with them, that to this day these that have come off from that way, and have offered the confession of their scandal, do still complain of their over rigid severity, in not admitting them to their select fellowships. to which may be added this undeniable demonstration, that whereas the persecuting courts of inquisition did always extend the utmost severity against the owners of this testimony, yet they spared them: and the duke of york, then in scotland, was so well pleased with gib's blasphemies, that he favoured him extraordinarily, and freely dismissed him. this was a cloudy and dark day, but not without a burning and shining light as long as that faithful minister of christ, mr. donald cargil, was following the work of the lord; who shortly after this finished his testimony, being apprehended with other two faithful and zealous witnesses of christ, mr. walter smith, and mr. james boog, who with two more were altogether, at edinburgh, july, , crowned with the glory of martyrdom. then came the day of the remnant's vexation, trouble, darkness and dimness of anguish, wherein whoso looked unto the land could see nothing but darkness and sorrow, and the light darkened in the heavens thereof, wherein neither star nor sun appeared for many days, and poor people were made to grope for the wall like the blind, and to stumble in noon-day as in the night. while the persecution advanced on the one hand, a violent spait of defection carried down the most part of ministers and professors before it, driving them to courses of sinful and scandalous conformings with the time's corruptions, compearings before their courts, complyings with their commands, paying of their cesses and other exactions, taking of their oaths and bonds, and countenancing their prelatical church-services, which they were ashamed to do before: and thereupon on the other hand the divisions and confusions were augmented, and poor people that desired to cleave to the testimony were more and more offended and stumbled at the ministers, who, either left the land in that clamant call of the people's necessity, or lurked in their own retirements, and declined the duty of that day, leaving people to determine themselves in all their perplexities, as a prey to all temptations. but the tender pastor and shepherd of israel, who leads the blind in the way they know not, did not forsake a remnant in that hour of temptation who kept the word of his patience; and as he helped those that fell into the hands of enemies to witness a good confession, so he strengthened the zeal of the remaining contenders, against all the machinations of adversaries to crush it, and all the methods of backsliding professors to quench it. and the mean which most effectually preserved it in life and vigour, was the expedient they fell upon of corresponding in general meetings, to consult, inform, and confirm, one another about common duties in common dangers, for preservation of the remnant from the destruction and contagion of the times, and propagation of the testimony: laying down this general conclusion for a foundation of order, to be observed among them in incident doubtful cases, and emergent controversies, that nothing relative to the public, and which concerns the whole of their community, be done by any of them, without harmonious consent sought after and rationally waited for, and sufficient deliberation about the means and manner. in the mean time, the duke of york, as commissioner from his brother, held a parliament wherein he presided, not only against all righteous laws that make a bloody and avowed papist incapable of such a trust, but against the letter of their own wicked laws, whereby none ought to be admitted but such as swear the oaths; yet not only was he constitute in this place, but in the whole administration of the government of scotland without the taking any oath, which then he was courting to be entailed successor and heir of the crown thereof; and for this end made many pretences of flatteries, and feigned expressions of love, and of doing many acts of kindness to that ancient kingdom, as he hath made many dissembling protestations of it since, for carrying on his own popish and tyrannical designs: but what good-will he hath borne to it, not only his acts and actings written in characters of the blood of innocents declare, but his words do witness, which is known when and to whom he spake, when he said, it would never be well till all on the southside of forth were made a hunting field. however in that parliament, anno , he is chiefly intended, and upon the matter by a wicked act declared legal and lineal successor, and a detestable blasphemous and self-contradictory test is framed for a pest to consciences, which turned out of all places of trust any that had any remaining measure of common honesty; and when some was speaking of a bill for securing religion in case of a popish prince, the duke's answer was notable, that whatsoever they intended or prepared against papists should light upon others: whereby we may understand what measures we may expect, when his designs are ripe. and to all the cruel acts then and before made against the people of god, there was one superadded regulating the execution of all the rest, whereby at one dash all civil and criminal justice was overthrown, and a foundation laid for popish tyranny, that the right of jurisdiction both in civil and criminal matters is so inherent in the crown, that his majesty may judge all causes by himself, or any other he thinks fit to commissionate. here was law for commissionating soldiers to take away the lives of innocents, as was frequently exemplified afterwards, and may serve hereafter for erecting the spanish inquisition to murder protestants when he thinks fit to commissionate them. against which wicked encroachments on religion and liberty, the faithful thought themselves obliged to emit a testimony: and therefore published a declaration at lanark, january . . confirming the preceeding at sanquhar, and adding reasons of their revolt from the government of charles the second. . 'for cutting off the neck at one blow of the noble constitution of church and state, and involving all officers in the kingdom in the same perjury with himself. . for exalting himself into a sphere exceeding all measures divine and human, tyrannically obtruding his will for a law in his arbitrary letters, so that we are made the reproach of nations, who say, we have only the law of letters instead of the letter of the law. . for his constant adjourning and dissolving parliaments at his pleasure. . for his arrogantly arrogated supremacy in all causes civil and ecclesiastic, and oppressing the godly for conscience and duty. . for his exorbitant taxings, cessings, and grinding the faces of the poor, dilapidating the rights and revenues of the crown, for no other end but to employ them for keeping up a brothel rather than a court. . for installing a successor, such an one (if not worse) as himself, contrary to all law, reason, and religion, and framing the test, &c. and in end offer to prove, they have done nothing in this against our ancient laws, civil or ecclesiastic--but only endeavoured to extricate themselves from under a tyrannous yoke, and to reduce church and state to what they were in the year and .' after which declaration, they were more condemned by them that were at ease than ever, and very untenderly dealt with; being without any previous admonition reproached, accused, and informed against, both at home and abroad, as if they had turned to some wild and unhappy course. for which cause, in the next general meeting, they resolved to delegate some of their number to foreign churches, on purpose to vindicate themselves from these calumnies, and to represent the justness of their cause, and the sadness of their case, and provoke them to some sympathy abroad, which was then denied at home: and withal to provide for a succession of witnesses, who might maintain the testimony, which was then in appearance interrupted, except by martyrdom and sufferings. therefore by that means having obtained access for the instruction of some young men, at an university in the united provinces, in process of time, mr. james renwick received ordination there, and came home to take up the standard of his master, upon the ground where it last was left, and to carry on the testimony against all the oppositions of that day, from open enemies and backsliding professors: an undertaking more desperate-like than that _unus athanasius contra totam orbem_, and like that of a child threshing down a mountain. which yet against all the outrageous rage of ravening enemies, ranging, ravaging, hunting, chasing, pursuing after him, through all the towns, villages, cottages, woods, moors, mosses, and mountains of the country; and against all the scourge of tongues, contradictions, condemnations, obliquies, reproaches, and cruel mockings of incensed professors, and generally of all the inhabitants of the land; he was helped to prosecute, by many weary wanderings, travels, and traversings thro' the deserts, night and day, preaching, conferring, and catechising, mostly in the cold winter-nights in the open fields: until, by the blessing of god upon his labours, not only was the faithful witnessing remnant that joined in the testimony, further cleared, confirmed, and encouraged, and their number much increased by the coming in and joining of many others to the fellowship of their settled societies; but also many others, in other places of the country were induced to the contracting themselves in the like, to the settling such fellowships in most of the southern shires. but then the fury of persecutors began to flame more flagrantly than ever; not only in sending out cruel soldiers, foot, horse and dragoons, habitually fleshed in, and filled with the blood of the saints, to hunt, hound, chase, and pursue after them, and seek them out of all their dens and hiding-holes, in the wildest glens, fens, and remotest recesses in the wilderness; but emitting edicts allowing them to kill, slay, hang, drown, and destroy such as they could apprehend of them _pro libitu_; and commanding the country to assist them, in raising the hue and cry after them, and not to refer, harbour, supply, or correspond any manner of way with them, under the hazard and pain of being liable to the same punishment. whereby the country was harassed and spoiled in searching after them, and many villains were stirred up to give informations and intelligence of these wanderers wherever they saw them, or learned where they were. hence followed such a slaughter and seizure of them, that common people usually date their common occurrences since, from that beginning of killing time, as they call it. for which cause, to preserve themselves from, and put a stop to that deluge of blood, and demur and deter the insolency of intelligencers and informers, they were necessitate to publish the apologetical relation, and affix it upon several market-crosses and parish-doors, november , . wherein they 'declare their firm resolution, of constant adherence to their covenants and engagements, and to the declarations disowning the authority of charles stewart. and to testify to the world, that they purpose not to injure or offend any whomsoever, but to pursue the ends of their covenants, in standing to the defence of the work of reformation, and of their own lives; yet, if any shall stretch forth their hand against them, by shedding their blood actually, either by authoritative commanding or obeying such commands, to search for them, and deliver them up to the spilling of their blood, to inform against them, to raise the hue and cry after them, and delate them before their courts. all these shall be reputed by them enemies to god and the covenanted reformation, and punished as such, according to their power and the degree of their offence, if they shall continue so maliciously to proceed against them; and declare, they abhor and condemn any personal attempt, upon any pretext whatsomever, without previous deliberation, common or competent consent, without certain probation by sufficient witnesses, the guilty person's confession, or the notourness of the deeds themselves; and in the end warn the bloody doegs, and flattering ziphites informing against them, to expect to be dealt with as they deal with them.' this declaration, though it occasioned greater trials to them and trouble to the country, by the courts of inquisition, pressing an oath abjuring the same universally upon all, as well women as men, and suffering none to travel without a pass, declaring they had taken that oath: yet it was so far effectual, as to scare many from their former diligence in informing against them, and to draw out some to join with the wanderers more publicly, even when the danger was greatest of owning any respect to them. but at length in the top and height of their insulting insolency, and heat of their brutish immanity and barbarous cruelty, designing to cut off the very name of that remnant, the king of terrors (a terror to kings) cut off that supreme author and authorizer of these mischiefs, charles the second, by the suspicious intervention of an unnatural hand as the instrument thereof. wherein much of the justice of god was to be observed, and of his faithfulness verified, that 'bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days.' his bloody violence was recompensed with the unnatural villany of his brother, and his unparalleled perfidy was justly rewarded with the most ungrate and monstrous treachery of a parricide: for all the numerous brood of his adulterous and incestuous brats, begotten of other men's wives, and of his numerous multitude of whores at home and abroad, yea of his own sister too, he died a childless pultron, and had the unlamented burial of an ass, without a successor save him that murdered him: and for all his hypocritical pretensions to a protestant profession, he not only received absolution and extreme unction from a popish priest at his death, but drunk his death in a popish potion, contrived by his own dear brother that succeeded him; impatiently longing to accomplish that conspiracy of reintraducing popery, wherein the other moved too slowly, and passionately resenting charles's vow, to suffer the murder of the earl of essex to come to a trial (which was retorted by the reiterated solicitations of some, who offered to discover by whom it was contrived and acted) which made the duke's guilty conscience to dread a detection of his deep accession to it: whereupon the potion quickly after prepared, put a stop to that, and an end to his life, feb. , . of which horrid villany time will disclose the mystery, and give the history when it shall be seasonable. iv. the former persecution and tyranny, mainly promoted by the duke of york's instigation, did not only oppress the poorer sort, but reached also the greatest of the nobility and gentry in both kingdoms. in scotland, the earl of argyle was arraigned and condemned for his explanation of the test, but escaped out of the castle of edinburgh, _anno_ . and after him several gentlemen were arbitrarily oppressed and troubled, upon the act of intercommuning with rebels, and for a pretended plot against the government (as they called it) but really because they knew these gentlemen had a desire, and would design to preserve the nation, which they were seeking to destroy, and would counteract their wicked projects to advance popery and tyranny upon the ruins of the nation's interest. for which cause they left their native country, to seek safety and quiet abroad. and in england, upon the same pretences, the lord russel was murdered by law, and the earl of essex by a razor in the tower, in a morning when the king and duke of york came to pay it a visit. and many other gentlemen lost either their lives or fortunes, upon the same grounds of opposing the duke's designs: which made many resort to the united provinces. where they, with the scots gentlemen, as soon as they heard of the death of charles ii. and of the ascending of james duke of york, a notorious and bigot papist, to the throne, associating themselves in counsel, to essay some diversion and opposition to the present current of tyranny and popery, threatening the ruin of both nations; resolved and agreed upon the declaring a war against that usurper and all his complices. and in order thereunto, having provided themselves with arms, concluded that a certain number should, under the conduct of james duke of monmouth, direct their course for england, for managing the war there: and others to go for the same ends to scotland, under the conduct of archibald earl of argyle, their chosen captain. whereupon in a short time they arrived at orkney, where two gentlemen of their company going ashore, were taken prisoners, and carried to edinburgh; whereby the country was alarmed, and a huge host gathered to oppose them. from thence they went to the west highlands, where encreasing to the number of about men, they traversed to and again about kintyre and bute, and other places in the highlands, for six or seven weeks, until many of their men ran away, and the rest were much straitened for want of victuals, their passage by sea was blocked up by ships of war, and by land with their numerous enemies, who got time to gather and strengthen themselves, whereby their friends were frustrate and more oppressed, and themselves kept little better than prisoners, till their spirits were wearied and worn out, and all hope lost. at length the earl determined, when out of time, to leave the highlands, and the ships, cannons, arms, and ammunition at island craig, and marched towards dumbarton, crossing the water of leven about three miles above it. next morning near duntreith, they discovered a party of the enemy, and faced towards them, but they retired. and then directed their course towards glasgow, were intercepted by a body of the enemy's army: where they drew up in battalia one against another, and stood in arms till the evening, a water being betwixt them. but argyle's party, perceiving that their enemies were above ten times their number, and that themselves were wearied out with a long and tedious march, want of victuals and sleep, resolved to withdraw: but as soon as it grew dark, all hope lost, they dispersed, every man shifting for himself; only a few keeping together all the next day, had a skirmish with a party of the enemies, in which they slew the captain, and about or some more of his men, and afterwards they dispersed themselves also. the enemies, searching the country, gleaned up the earl of argyle himself, colonel rumbol an englishman, mr. thomas archer minister, gavin russel, and david law, who were all condemned and executed at edinburgh, and many others who were banished to america: and about some in the highlands, who were hanged at inveraray. in england, the duke of monmouth's expedition, though it had more action, yet terminated in the same success, the loss of many hundred lives, many killed in battle: and afterwards, by the mercy of the duke of york, several hundreds in the west of england were carried about, and hanged before the doors of their own habitations; and to make his captains sport by the way, according to the number of the hours of the day, when the murdering humour came in their head, so many of the poor captives were hanged, as a prodigious monument of monstrous cruelty. this was the commencement of the present tyrant's government. in the mean time, the wanderers in scotland, though they did not associate with this expedition upon the account of the too promiscuous admittance of persons to trust in that party, who were then and since have discovered themselves to be enemies to the cause, and because they could not espouse their declaration as the state of their quarrel, being not concerted according to the constant plea of the scots covenanters, and for other reasons given in their late vindication: yet against this usurpation of a bloody papist, advancing himself to the throne in such a manner, they published another declaration at sanquhar, may , . 'wherein approving and adhering unto all their former declarations, and considering that james duke of york, a profest and excommunicate papist, was proclaimed.--to testify their resentment of that deed, and to make it appear unto the world, that they were free thereof, by concurrence or connivance; they protest against the foresaid proclamation of james duke of york as king: in regard that it is the chusing of a murderer to be a governor, who hath shed the blood of the saints--that it is the height of confederacy with an idolater, forbidden by the law of god--contrary to the declaration of the general assembly of the church, july , . and contrary to many wholesome and laudable acts of parliament----and inconsistent with the safety, faith, conscience, and christian liberty of a christian people, to chuse a subject of antichrist to be their supreme magistrate----and to instruct an enemy to the work and people of god with the interests of both: and upon many important grounds and reasons (which there they express) they protest against the validity and constitution of that parliament, approving and ratifying the foresaid proclamation.----and against all kind of popery in general and particular heads----as abjured by the national covenant, and abrogated by acts of parliament----and against its entry again into this land, and every thing that doth or may directly or indirectly make way for the same: disclaiming likewise all sectarianism, malignancy, and any confederacy therewith.'----this was their testimony against popery in the season thereof: which though it was not so much condemned as any former declarations, yet neither in this had they the concurrence of any ministers or professors; who as they had been silent, and omitted a seasonable testimony against prelacy, and the supremacy, when these were introduced, so now also, even when this wicked mystery and conspiracy of popery and tyranny, twisted together in the present design of antichrist, had made so great a progress, and was evidently brought above board, they were left to let slip this opportunity of a testimony also, to the reproach of the declining and far degenerate church of scotland. yea to their shame, the very rabble of ignorant people may be brought as a witness against the body of presbyterian ministers in scotland, in that they testified their detestation of the first erection of the idolatrous mass, and some of the soldiery, and such as had no profession of religion, suffered unto death for speaking against popery and the designs of the king, while the ministers were silent. and some of the curates, and members of the late parliament, , made some stickling against the taking away of the penal statutes against papists; while presbyterians, from whom might have been expected greater opposition, were sleeping in a profound submission. i cannot without confusion of spirit touch these obvious and dolorous reflections, and yet in candour cannot forbear them. however the persecution against the wanderers went on, and more cruel edicts were given forth against them, while a relenting abatement of severity was pretended against other dissenters. at length what could not be obtained by law at the late parliament, for taking off the statutes against papists, was effectuated by prerogative: and to make it pass with the greater approbation, it was conveyed in a channel of pretended clemency, offering a sort of liberty, but really introducing a licentious latitude, for bringing in all future snares by taking off some former, as arbitrarily as before they were imposed, in a proclamation, dated feb. , . 'granting by the king's sovereign authority, prerogative royal, and absolute power, which all subjects are to obey without reserve, a royal toleration, to the several professors of the christian religion afternamed, with and under the several conditions, restrictions, and limitations aftermentioned. in the first place, tolerating the moderate presbyterians to meet in their private houses, and there to hear all such ministers, as either have or are willing to accept of the indulgence allenerly, and none other: and that there be nothing said or done contrary to the well and peace of his reign, seditious or treasonable, under the highest pains these crimes will import, nor are they to presume to build meeting houses, or to use out-houses or barns----in the mean time it is his royal will and pleasure, that field conventicles, and such as preach at them, or who shall any way assist or connive at them, shall be prosecute according to the utmost severity of laws made against them----in like manner tolerating the quakers to meet and exercise in their form, in any place or places appointed for their worship----and by the same absolute power, foresaid, suspending, stopping, and disabling all laws or acts of parliament, customs or constitutions against any roman catholic subjects----so that they shall in all things be as free in all respects as any protestant subjects whatsoever, not only to exercise their religion, but to enjoy all offices, benefices, &c. which he shall think fit to bestow upon them in all time coming----and cassing, annulling, and discharging all oaths whatsoever, and tests, and laws enjoining them. and in place of them this oath only is to be taken----i a.b. do acknowledge, testify, and declare that james the vii. &c. is rightful king and supreme governor of these realms, and over all persons therein; and that it is unlawful for subjects, on any pretence or for any cause whatsoever, to rise in arms against him, or any commissionated by him; and that i shall never so rise in arms nor assist any who shall so do; and that i shall never resist his power or authority, nor ever oppose his authority to his person--but shall to the utmost of my power assist, defend, and maintain him, his heirs and lawful successors, in the exercise of their absolute power and authority against all deadly--and by the same absolute power giving his full and ample indemnity, to all the foresaid sorts of people, under the foresaid restrictions.' here is a proclamation for a prince: that proclaims him in whose name it is emitted, to be the greatest tyrant that ever lived in the world, and their revolt who have disowned him to be the justest that ever was. for herein that monster of prerogative is not only advanced, paramount to all laws divine and human, but far surmounting all the lust, impudence, and insolence of all the roman, sicilian, turkish, tartarian, or indian tyrants that ever trampled upon the liberties of mankind: who have indeed demanded absolute subjection, and surrender of their lives, lands, and liberties at their pleasure, but never arrived at such a height of arrogance as this does, to claim absolute obedience, without reserve of conscience, religion, honour, or reason; not only that which ignorantly is called passive, never to resist him, not only on any pretence, but for cause, even though he should command his popish janissaries to murder and massacre all protestants, which is the tender mercy and burning fervent charity of papists; but also of absolute active obedience without reserve, to assist, defend, and maintain him in every thing, whereby he shall be pleased to exercise his absolute power, though he should command to burn the bible as well as the covenant (as already he applauded john gib in doing of it) and to burn and butcher all that will not go to mass, which we have all grounds to expect will be the end of his clemency at last. herein he claims a power to command what he will, and obliging subjects to obey whatsoever he will command: a power to rescind, stop, and disable all laws; which unhinges all stability and unsettles all the security of human society, yea extinguishes all that remains of natural liberty: wherein, as is well observed by the author of the representation of the threatening dangers impending over protestants page . 'it is very natural to observe, that he allows the government, under which we were born, and to which we were sworn, to be hereby subverted and changed, and that thereupon we are not only absolved and acquitted from all allegiance to him, but indispensibly obliged, by the ties and engagements that are upon us, to apply ourselves to the use of all means and endeavours against him, as an enemy of the people and subverter of the legal government.' but this was so gross, and grievously gripping in its restrictions, as to persons, as to the place, as to the matter allowed the presbyterians in preaching, that it was disdained of all; and therefore he behoved to busk it better, and mend the matter, in a letter to the council (the supreme law of scotland) bearing date march . . of this tenor--'whereas we did recommend to you to take care, that any of the presbyterians should not be allowed to preach, but such only as should have your allowance for the same, and that they at the receiving the indulgence should take the oath contained in the proclamation----these are therefore to let you know, that thereby we meant such of them as did not solemnly take the test; but if nevertheless the presbyterian preachers do scruple to take the said oath, or any other oath whatsoever, and that you shall find it reasonable or fit to grant them or any of them our said indulgence, so as they desire it upon these terms, it is now our will and pleasure----to grant them our said indulgence, without being obliged to take the oath, with power unto them to enjoy the benefit of the said indulgence (during our pleasure only) or so long as you shall find they behave themselves regularly and peaceably, without giving any cause of offence to us, or any in authority or trust under us in our government.'----thus finding the former proposal not adequately apportioned to his design, because of its palpable odiousness, he would pretend his meaning was mistaken (though it was manifest enough) and mitigate the matter by taking away of the oaths altogether, if any should scruple it; whereas he could not but know, that all that had sense would abhor it: yet it is clogged with the same restrictions, limited to the same persons, characterized more plainly and peremptorily, with an addition of cautions, not only that they shall not say or do any thing contrary to the well and peace of his reign seditious or treasonable, but also that they behave themselves regularly and peaceably without giving any cause of offence to him or any under him; which comprehends lesser offences than sedition or treason, even every thing that will displease a tyrant and a papist, that is, all faithfulness in seasonable duties or testimonies. but at length lest the deformity and disparity of the proclamation for the toleration in scotland, and the declaration for liberty of conscience in england, should make his pretences to conscience suspect of disingenuity, and lest it should be said he had one conscience for england and another for scotland; therefore he added a third eik to the liberty, but such as made it still an ill favoured patched project to destroy religion and true liberty, in another proclamation dated at windsor, june , , wherein he says--'taking into our royal consideration, the sinistrous interpretations, which either have or may be made of some restrictions (mentioned in the last) we have thought fit by this further to declare, that we will protect our arch bishops, &c. and we do likewise, by our sovereign authority, prerogative-royal, and absolute power, suspend, stop, and disable, all penal and sanguinary laws; made against any for non-conformity to the religion established by law in that our ancient kingdom----to the end, that by the liberty thereby granted the peace and security of our government in the practice thereof may not be endangered, we hereby strictly charge all our loving subjects, that as we do give them leave to meet and serve god after their own way, in private houses, chapels, or places purposely hired or built for that use, so that they take care that nothing be preached or taught, which may any way tend to alienate the hearts of our people from us and our government, and that their meetings be peaceably and publicly held, and all persons freely admitted to them, and that they do signify and make known to some one or more of the next privy counsellors, sheriffs, stewards, bailiffs, justices of the peace, or magistrates of burghs royal, what place or places they set apart for these uses, with the names of the preachers----provided always that the meetings be in houses, and not in the open fields for which now after this our royal grace and favour (which surpasses the hopes, and equals the very wishes of the most zealously concerned) there is not the least shadow of excuse left: which meeting in the fields we do hereby strictly prohibit and forbid, against all which we do leave our laws and acts of parliament in full force and vigour, notwithstanding the premises; and do further command all our judges, magistrates, and officers of forces, to prosecute such as shall be guilty of the said field conventicles with the utmost rigour; for we are confident, none will after these liberties and freedoms, given to all without reserve to serve god in their own way, presume to meet in these assemblies, except such as make a pretence of religion to cover their treasonable designs against our royal person and the peace of our government.'---- this is the royal charter for security of the protestant religion (intended to secure it so, that it shall not go much abroad again) in lieu of all the laws, constitutional oaths, and covenants wherewith it was formerly confirmed. this is the only patent which the royal dawties, the moderate presbyterians, have now received to ensure their enjoyment of it _durante bene placito_, during his pleasure whole faith is as absolute over all ties of promises, as his power from whence it flows is over all laws; whose chiefest principle of conscience is that no faith is to be kept to hereticks. here is the liberty which is said to surpass the hopes, and equal the wishes of the most zealously concerned; holding true indeed of too many, whose hopes and wishes and zeal are terminate upon peace rather than truth, case rather than duty, and their own things rather than the things of christ; but as for the poor wild wanderers, it some way answers their fears and corresponds with their jealousies, who put the same interpretation upon it as on all the former indulgences, indemnities and tolerations, proceeding from the same fountain, and designed for the same sinistrous ends with this, which they look upon as more openly and obviously antichristian: and therefore, while others are rejoicing under the bramble-shadow of it, they think it a cause of weeping and matter of mourning, not because they do not share of the benefit of it, but because they are afraid to share of the curse of it. for which cause, though a freedom be pretended to be given, to all without reserve to serve god in their own way, they think it necessary to reserve to themselves the liberty wherewith christ hath made them free, and to serve him in his way though interdicted by men, and to take none from antichrist restricted with his reserves; and do look upon it as a seasonable testimony for the cause of christ, and the interest of the protestant religion, and the laws and liberties of the country, all overturned and subverted by this toleration, to keep their meetings as in former times, in the open fields whither their tyranny hath driven them. and let them call these meetings covered and treasonable designs against the government on pretence of religion, i trust it shall be made evident to the conviction of all that know religion, that their designs are to preserve it, in opposition to the tyranny that goes about all these ways to suppress it. though i must suspend the reasons of their keeping their meetings in the fields, till i come to discuss that case in its own place: here i shall only say, none that are acquainted with their circumstances, which are as dangerously stated as ever, by reason of the constant persecution of cruel enraged enemies incessantly pursuing them without relenting, notwithstanding of all this pretence of clemency and tenderness to conscience, but may know they can neither have safety, secrecy, nor conveniency in houses for fear of their entrapping enemies, and none will blame them, that after so many discoveries of their truculent treachery they dare not trust them: and besides, they think it sinful, scandalous, and inconvenient to seem to homologate this toleration, the wickedness whereof they are convinced of, from these reasons. i. considering the granter in his personal capacity, as to his morals, they look upon him as a person with whom they cannot in prudence communicate, in any transaction of that nature. first, because being in his principles and practice professedly treacherous, yea, obliged to be both perfidious and cruel by that religion whereunto he is addicted, he cannot be trusted in the least concerns, let be those of such momentous consequence as this, without a stupid abandoning of conscience, reason and experience. since both that known principle, that 'no faith is to be kept to 'hereticks,' which is espoused by all papists, does to them justify all their lying dissimulations, equivocations, and treacheries imaginable; and that lateran canon, that enjoins kings 'to destroy and extirpate 'hereticks, under pain of excommunication,' does oblige them to be cruel; besides what deep engagements he is known to be under by oaths and promises to the pope, both in his exile, and while a subject, and since he came to the crown; which make him, to all considering persons, to be a person of that character, whose deceitful dainties are not to be desired, and that when he speaketh fair is not to be believed, for there are seven abominations in his heart. of which open and affronted lies we have a sufficient swatch, both in his proclamation for scotland, and declaration for england; where he speaks of his constant resolves of 'uniting the hearts of subjects to god in religion, and to their neighbours in christian love, and that it never was his principle to offer violence to any man's conscience, or use invincible necessity against any man on the account of his persuasion;' and that their property was never in any case invaded since his coming to the crown; and that it hath been his constant sense and opinion, that 'conscience ought not to be constrained, nor people forced to matters of mere religion.' to which his uninterrupted endeavours to divide us from god, and from one another, that he might the more easily destroy us, and his constant encroachments upon laws, liberties, and properties, and all interests of men and christians for conscience sake, do give the lie manifestly. and it must be great blindness not to see, and great baseness willingly to wink at that double-faced equivocation, in matters of mere religion; by which he may elude all these flattering promises of tenderness, by excepting at the most necessary and indispensible duties, if either they be such wherein any other interest is concerned, beside mere religion, or if their troubles sustained thereupon be not altogether invincible necessities. hence the plain falsehood and doubleness of his assertions as to what is past, may give ground to conclude his intended perfidy in the promises of what is future. next, it is known what his practice and plots have been for the destruction of all honest and precious interests; what a deep hand he had in the burning of london, in the popish plot discovered in , in the murder of the earl of essex, yea in the parricide committed upon his own brother. by all which it appears, nothing is so abominable and barbarous which he hath not a conscience that will swallow and digest without a scruple; and what he hath done of this kind must be but preparatory to what he intends, as meritorious to atone for these villanies. and in his esteem and persuasion of papists, nothing is thought more meritorious than to extirpate the protestant religion, and destroy the professors thereof. therefore being such a person with whom in reason no honest man could transact, for a tenure of the least piece of land or house, or any holding whatsoever, they dare not accept of his security or protection for so great an interest, as the freedom and exercise of their religion under the shadow of such a bramble. if it was the shechemites sin and shame to strengthen a naughty abimelech, and strengthen themselves under the shadow of his protection, much more must it be to take protection for religion, as well as peace, from such a monster of cruelty and treachery. this were against their testimony, and contrary to the laudable constitutions of the church of scotland, to take no protections from malignant enemies, as was shewed above in montrose's case. see page above. ii. considering his religion more particularly, they judge it unlawful so to bargain with him as this acceptance would import. it is known he is not only a papist, an apostate papist, and an excommunicate papist (as is related above) but a fiery bigot in the romish religion, and zealous sworn votary and vassal of antichrist: who, as the letter from the jesuits in liege lately published in print, tells us, is resolved 'either to convert england to popery, or die a martyr,' and again that he stiles himself 'a son of the society of jesuits, and will account every injury done to them to be a wrong done against himself;' being known to be under the conduct and guidance of that furious order, yea and enrolled as a member of that society. which makes it the less to be wondered, that he should require absolute obedience without reserve, seeing he himself yields absolute obedience as well as implicit faith without reserve, to the jesuits. such a bigot was mary of england (as also his great grand dame of scotland if she had got her will;) and his bigotry will make him emulous of her cruelty, as counting it a diminution of his glory, for such a champion as he under antichrist's banner to come short of a woman's enterprizes: nor would the late king have been so posted off the stage, if his successor were not to act more vigorously than he in this tragical design, to which this toleration is subservient. he is then a servant of antichrist, and as such under the mediator's malediction; yea in this respect is heir to his grandfather's imprecations, who wished the curse of god to fall upon such of his posterity as should at any time turn papists. how then can the followers of the lamb strike hands, be at peace, associate, confederate, or bargain with such a declared enemy to christ, certainly the scripture-commands of making no covenant or league, interdicting entering into any affinity with the people of these abominations, and forbidding saying a confederacy with them, do lay awful bonds on the faithful to stand aloof from such. the people might have had liberty of conscience under the assyrian protection, when they were saying a confederacy with him, but in so doing they forefaulted the benefit of the lord's being a sanctuary to them. to bargain therefore with such an one for a toleration of religion, were contrary to the scriptures, contrary to the covenants and principles of the church of scotland, against associations and confederacies with such enemies. see gillespie's useful case of conscience concerning associations, hinted page , and more head . argument . but to accept of this liberty as now offered were a bargaining; for where there is a giving and receiving upon certain conditions, where there are demands and compliance; commands and obedience, promises and reliance, offers upon terms, and acquiescence in these terms, what is there wanting to a bargain, but the mere formality of subscriptions? at least it cannot be denied, but the addressers have bargained for it, and in the name of all the accepters, which must stand as their deed also; if they do not evidence their resentment of such presumption, which i do not see how they can, if they abide under the shadow thereof the same way as they do. i grant liberty is very desirable, and may be taken and improven from enemies of religion: and so do the wanderers now take it and improve it to the best advantage, without receiving it by acquiescing in any terms. but such a liberty as this was never offered without a destructive design, nor ever received without a destructive effect. it is one of the filthy flatteries found in the english addresses, particularly that from totness, that the present indulger is like another cyrus who proclaimed liberty to the people of god, ezra i. but who sees not the disparity in every respect? cyrus at his very first entry into the government did lay out himself for the church's good; this man who speaks now so fair, his first work was to break our head, and next to put on our hood, first to assert and corroborate his prerogative, and then by virtue of that to dispense with all penal laws: it was foretold that cyrus should deliver the church at that time; but was it ever promised that the church should get liberty to advance antichrist? or that antichrist, or one of his limbs, should be employed in the church's deliverance, while such? the lord stirred up the spirit of cyrus; can it be said without blasphemy that the lord stirred up this man, to contrive the introduction of popery by this gate and gap, except in a penal sense for judgment? cyrus had a charge to build the lord a house, but this is not a charge but a grant or licence, not from nor according to god's authority but man's, not to build christ a house, but a babel for antichrist; and all this liberty is but contrived as scaffolding for that edifice, which when it is advanced then the scaffolding must be removed. . considering him in his relation as a magistrate, it were contrary to their testimony so often renewed and ratified, and confirmed with so many reasons, and sealed by so much blood, bonds, banishment, and other sufferings, to own or acknowledge his authority which is mere usurpation and tyranny; in that by the laws of the land he is incapable of government, and that he had neither given nor can give, without an hypocritical and damning cheat, the oath and security indispensibly required of him before and at his entry to the government. yet this liberty cannot be complied with, without recognizing his authority that he arrogates in giving it: seeing he tenders it to all his good subjects, and gives it by his sovereign authority, and to the end that by the liberty thereby granted, the peace and security of the government in the practice thereof may not be indangered; and in the declaration to england, it is offered as an expedient to establish his government on such a foundation, as may make his subjects happy, and unite them to him by inclination as well as duty; to which indeed the acceptance thereof hath a very apt subserviency: seeing it implies, not only owning of the government out of duty, but an union and joining with it and him by inclination, which is a cordial confederacy with god's enemy, and a co-operating to the establishment of his tyranny; that the peace and security thereof may not be endangered. and in his former proclamation, he gives them the same security for their rights and properties, which he gives for religion; and in the english declaration, addeth that to the perfect enjoyment of their property, which was never invaded, &c. which to accept, were not only to take the security of a manifest lie, but to prefer the word of a man that cannot, must not, will not keep it (without going cross to his principles) to the security of right and law which is hereby infringed, and to acknowledge not only the liberty of religion, the right of property to be his grant: which when ever it is removed, there must remain no more character for it, but stupid slavery entailed upon posterity, and pure and perfect tyranny transmitted to them. the sin and absurdity whereof may be seen demonstrated, head . . considering the fountain whence it flows, they cannot defile themselves with it. in the english declaration, it flows from the royal will and pleasure which speaks a domination despotical and arbitrary enough, but more gently expressed than in the scots proclamation; when it is refounded on sovereign authority, prerogative royal, and absolute power: proclaiming by sound of trumpet a power paramount to all law, reason, and religion, and outvying the height of ottoman tyranny: a power which all are to obey without reserve: a power to tolerate or restrain the protestant religion, according to his royal will or pleasure: an absolute power which cannot be limited by laws, nor most sacred obligations, but only regulated by the royal lust; whereby indeed he may suffer the protestant religion, but only precariously so long as he pleases, and until his royal pleasure shall be to command the establishment of popery, which then must be complied with without controul. whereby all the tenure that protestants have for their religion, is only the arbitrary word of an absolute monarch, whose principles oblige him to break it, and his ambition to disdain to be a slave to it. now the acceptance of this grant, would imply the recognizance of this power that the granter claims in granting it; which utterly dissolves all government, and all security for religion and liberty, and all the precious interests of men and christians: which to acknowledge, were contrary to scripture, contrary to reason, and contrary to the principles of the church of scotland, particularly the declaration of the general assembly, july , . see page , &c. and contrary to the covenant. . considering the channel in which it is conveyed, they cannot comply with it. because it comes through such a conveyance, as suspends, stops, and disables all penal laws against papists, and thereby averts all the securities and legal bulwarks that protestants can have for the establishment of their religion; yea in effect leaves no laws in force against any that shall attempt the utter subversion of it, but ratifies and leaves in full vigour all wicked laws and acts of parliament, against such as would most avowedly assert it; and stops and disables none of the most cruel and bloody laws against protestants: for the most cruel are such as have been made against field-meetings, which are hereby left in full force and vigour. hence as he hath formally by absolute power suspended all laws made for the protection of our religion, so he may when he will dispense with all the laws made for its establishment; and those who approve the one by such an acceptance, cannot disallow the other, but must recognosce a power in the king to subvert all laws, rights, and liberties, which is contrary to reason as well as religion, and a clear breach of the national and solemn league and covenants. . considering the ends of its contrivance, they dare not have any accession to accomplish such wicked projects, to which this acceptance would be so natively subservient. the expressed ends of this grant are, to unite the hearts of his subjects to him in loyalty and to their neighbours in love, as in the former proclamation; and that by the liberty granted the peace and security of his government in the practice thereof may not be endangered, as in the latter proclamation; and to unite the subjects to him by inclination as well as duty, which he thinks can be done by no means so effectually as by granting the free exercise of religion, as in the english declaration. whence we may gather not obscurely, what is the proper tendency of it, both as to the work and worker, to wit, to incline and induce us by flattery to a lawless loyalty, and a stupid contented slavery when he cannot compel us by force, and make us actively co-operate in setting and settling his tyranny, in the peaceable possession of all his usurpations, robberies, and encroachments upon our religion, laws, and liberties, and to incorporate us with babylon; for who are the neighbours he would have us unite with in love, but the papists? against whom all the lovers of christ must profess themselves irreconcileable enemies. the english declaration does further discover the design of this device, in one expression which will most easily be obtained to be believed of any in it, viz. that he heartily wishes that all the people of these dominions were members of the catholic church: which clearly insinuates, that hereby he would entice them to commit fornication with that mother of harlots; which enticing to idolatry (if we consult the scripture) should meet with another sort of entertainment than such a kind and thankful acceptance, which is not an opposing of such a wicked wish, but an encouraging and corroborating of it. and further he says, that all the former tract of persecutions never obtained the end for which it was employed; for after all the frequent and pressing endeavours that were used, to reduce this kingdom to an exact conformity in religion, it is visible the success has not answered the design, and that the difficulty is invincible. wherein we may note his extorted acknowledgment, that all former endeavours to destroy the work of god have been successless, which induces him to try another method, to which this acceptance is very subservient, to wit, to destroy us and our religion by flatteries, and by peace to overturn truth, and by the subversion of laws to open a door to let in popery and all abominations. but what is more obscurely expressed in his words, is more visibly obvious in his works, to all that will not willingly wink at them; discovering clearly the end of this liberty is not for the glory of god, nor the advantage of truth, or the church's edification, nor intended as a benefit to protestants; but for a pernicious design, by gratifying a few of them in a pretended favour to rob all of them of their chiefest interests, religion, laws, rights, and liberties, which he could not otherwise effectuate but by this arbitrary way; for if he could have obtained his designs by law: he would never have talked of lenity or liberty, but having no legal ends, he behoved to compass them by illegal means. they must then be very blind who do not see, his drift is, first to get in all popish officers in places of public trust, by taking off the penal laws disabling them for the same; then to advance his absoluteness over all laws, in a way which will be best acknowledged and acquiesced in by people, till he be so strengthened in it that he fears no control; and then to undermine and overturn the protestant religion, and establish popery and idolatry: which he is concerned the more violently to pursue, because he is now growing old, and therefore must make haste, lest he leave the papists in a worse condition than he found them: which, to be sure, the papists are aware of, and their conscious fears of the nation's resentments of their villanies will prompt them, as long as they have such a patron, to all vigilance and violence in playing their game; and withal, hereby he may intend to capacitate himself for subduing the dutch, against whom he hath given many indications of a hostile mind of old and of late; not only in hiring two rascals to burn the amsterdam-fleet heretofore, but in stirring up and protecting the algerine pirates against them; so universal a protector is he become of late, that papists and protestants, turks and jews are shrouded under the shadow of his patrociny, but with a design to destroy the best, when his time comes. which cursed designs cannot be counteracted, but very much strengthened by this acceptance. . considering the effects already produced thereby, they cannot but abhor it. seeing the eyes of all that are tender may afflict their hearts, observing how the papists are hereby encouraged and encreased in numbers, the whole nation overflowed with their hellish locusts, and all places filled with priests and jesuits, yea the executive power of the government put into the hands of the romanists, and on the other hand how the people are endangered with their abounding and prevailing errors (to which the lord may and will give up those that have not received the love of the truth) truth is fallen in the streets and equity cannot enter, a testimony against antichrist is abandoned and laid aside as unseasonable, the edge of zeal for the interest of christ is blunted and its fervour extinguished, they that should stand in the gap and upon the watch tower are laid aside form all opposition to the invasions of the enemy, and lulled asleep by this bewitching charm and intoxicating opium, ministers and, professors are generally settling on their lees and languishing in a fatal security, defection is carried on, division promoted, and destruction is imminent. is it not then both a part of the witness of the faithful, and of their wisdom to stand aloof from such a plague, that hath such destructive effects? . considering the nature and name of this pretended liberty, they cannot but disdain it as most dishonourable to the cause of christ. it is indeed the honour of kings and happiness of people, to have true human and christian liberty established in the common wealth, that is, liberty of persons from slavery; liberty of privileges from tyranny, and liberty of conscience from all impositions of men; consisting in a freedom from the doctrines, traditions, and commandments of men against or beside the word of god in the free enjoyment of gospel ordinances in purity and power, and in the free observance and establishment of all his institutions of doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, in subordination to the only rule of conscience, the revealed will of its only lawgiver jesus christ. when this is ratified as a right by the sanction of approven authority, and countenanced and encouraged as religion, by the confirmation of laws, approving whatsoever is commanded by the god of heaven to be done for the house of the god of heaven (which is the full amount of all magistrates authority) then we are obliged to accept of it with all thankful acceptation. but such a liberty, as overturns our rights, our privileges, our laws, our religion, and tolerates it only under the notion of a crime, and indemnifies it under the notion of a fault to be pardoned, and allows the exercise thereof only in part so and so modified, cannot be accepted by any to whom the reproach thereof is a burden, and to whom the reproaches of christ are in esteem, in such a day, when even the hoofs of christ's interest buried in bondage are to be contended for. whatever liberty this may be to some consciences, it is none to the tender according to the rule of conscience, it is only a toleration which is always of evil: for that which is good cannot be tolerated under the notion of good, but countenanced and encouraged as such. therefore this reflects upon our religion, when a toleration is accepted which implies such a reproach: and the annexed indemnity and pardon tacitely condemns the profession thereof as a fault or crime, which no christian can bear with or by his acceptance homologate these reproaches, if he consider the nature of it: and much more will he be averse from it, if he consider how dishonourable it is to god (whatever some addresses, particularly the presbyterians at london, have blasphemously alledged, that god is hereby restored to his empire over the conscience) since the granter, after he hath robbed the mediator of his supremacy and given it away to antichrist, and god of his supremacy imperial as universal king by a claim of absolute power peculiar to him, he hath also robbed him of his empire over the conscience, in giving every man the empire over his own conscience, which he reserves a power to retract whom he pleases. . considering the extent of it, they cannot class themselves among the number of them that are indulged thereby. it takes in not only the archbishops and bishops, and the prelatical and malignant crew, but all quakers, and papists, reaching all idolatry, blasphemy, and heresy, and truth also (which could never yet dwell together under one sconce.) whereby the professors of christ come in as partners in the same bargain with antichrist's vassals; and the lord's ark hath a place with dagon, and its priests and followers consent to it; and the builders of babel and of jerusalem are made to build together, under the same protection; and a sluice is opened to let the enemy come in like a flood, which to oppose the accepters cannot stand in the gap, nor lift up a standard against them. liberty indeed should be universally extended to all the lord's people, as cyrus's proclamation was general, who is there among you of all his people? his god be with him. but a toleration of idolaters, blasphemers, and hereticks, as papists, &c. is odious to god, because it is contrary to scripture, expresly commanding idolaters to die the death, and all seducers and enticers to apostacy from god to be put to death without pity; and commending all righteous magistrates that executed judgment accordingly, as asa, hezekiah, &c. yea even heathen magistrates that added their faction to the laws of god, as artaxerxes is approven for that statute, that whosoever will not do the law of god and of the king, judgment should be executed speedily upon him. and in the new testament this was never repealed but confirmed, in that the sword is given to magistrates, not in vain, but to be a terror to, and revengers to execute wrath upon all that do evil, among whom seducers that are evil workers and idolaters are chiefly to be ranked, being such as do the worst of evil to mankind. ephesus is commended because they could not bear them which are evil: and thyatira reproved for suffering jezebel: by which it appeareth, that our lord jesus is no friend to toleration. it is true this is spoken against churchmen; but will any think that will be approven in civil powers, which is so hateful in church officers? surely it will be the duty and honour of these horns spoken of rev. xvii. to eat the whore's flesh and burn her with fire: and shall that be restricted only to be done against the great antichrist, and not be duty against the lesser antichrists, the limbs of the great one? it is recorded of julian the apostate, that among other devices he used, to root out christianity this was one, that he gave toleration openly to all the different professions that were among christians, whereof there were many heretical in those days: which was exactly aped by james the apostate now for the same end. it is also contrary to the confession of faith, chap. , sect. . asserting that 'for their publishing such opinions, or maintaining of such practices, as are contrary to the light of nature, or to the known principles of christianity, whether concerning faith, worship, or conversation, or to the power of godliness, or such erroneous opinions or practices, as either in their own nature, or in the manner of publishing or maintaining them, are destructive to the external peace and order, which christ hath established in the church; they may lawfully be called to account, and proceeded against by the censures of the church, and by the power of the civil magistrate.' and therefore to accept of this toleration is inconsistent with the principles of the church of scotland, with the national and solemn league and covenants, and solemn acknowledgment of sins and engagement to duties, in all which we are bound to extirpate popery, prelacy, &c. with the whole tract of contendings in the fifth period above related, and particularly by the testimony of the synod of fife, and other brethren in the ministry, against cromwell's vast toleration and liberty of conscience, mentioned above page ----, for it is plain, if it be not to be suffered, then it is not to be accepted. . considering the terms wherein it is offered, they cannot make such a shameful bargain. in the former proclamation it is granted expresly under several conditions, restrictions, and limitations: whereof indeed some are retracted in the latter, as the restriction of it to moderate presbyterians, which would seem to be taken off by extending to all without reserve to serve god in their own way; but being evidently exclusive of all that would serve god in christ's way, and not after the mode prescribed, it is so modified and restricted that all that will accept of it must be moderate presbyterians indeed, which as it is taken in the court sense, must be an ignominy to all that have zeal against antichrist. the limitation also to private houses and not to out-houses, is further enlarged to chapels, or places purposely hired, but still it is stinted to these, which they must bargain for with counsellors, sheriffs, &c. so that none of these restrictions and limitations are altogether removed, but the condition of taking the oath only: yet it is very near to an equivalency homologated, by the accepters acknowledging in the granter a prerogative and absolute power over all laws, which is confirmed and maintained by their acceptance. as for the rest that are not so much as said to be removed, they must be interpreted to remain, as the terms, conditions, restrictions, and limitations, upon which they are to enjoy the benefit of this toleration. and what he says, that he thought fit by this proclamation further to declare, does confirm it, that there are further explications, but no taking off of former restrictions. hence it is yet clogged with such provisions and restrictions, as must make it very nauseous to all truly tender. ( .) the restriction as to the persons still remains, that only moderate presbyterians, and such as are willing to accept of this indulgence allenarly, and none other, and such only whose names must be signified to these sheriffs, stewards, bailiffs, &c. are to have the benefit of this indulgence: whereby all the zealous and faithful presbyterians are excluded, (for these they will not call them moderate) and all that would improve it without a formal acceptance, and all who for their former diligence in duty are under the lash of their wicked law, and dare not give up their names to those who are seeking their lives, must be deprived of it. ( .) it is restricted to certain places still, which must be made known to some one or more of the next privy counsellors, and whereby they are tied to a dependence on their warrant, and must have their lease and licence for preaching the word in any place, and field-meetings are severely interdicted, though signally countenanced of the lord, whereby the word of the lord is bound and bounded; and by this acceptance their bloody laws against preaching in the open fields, where people can have freest access with conveniency and safety, are justified. ( .) the manner of meeting is restricted, which must be in such a way as the peace and security of the government in the practice thereof may not be endangered, and again that their meetings be peaceably held, which is all one upon the matter with the bond of peace, and binding to the good behaviour so much formerly contended against by professors, and is really the same with the condition of the cautionary bond in the indulgence after bothwel, of which see page ----. and further they must be openly and publicly held, and all persons freely admitted to them; which is for the informing trade, exposing to all the inconveniencies of jesuits, and other spies and flies their delations, in case any thing be spoken reflecting on the government, a great temptation to ministers. ( .) the worst of all is upon their matter of preaching, which is so restricted and limited, that nothing must be said or done contrary to the well and peace of his reign, seditious or treasonable; and in case any treasonable speeches be uttered, the law is to take place against the guilty, and none other present, providing they reveal to any of the council the guilt so committed, as in the former proclamation: and in the last it is further declared, that nothing must be preached or taught, which may any way tend to alienate the hearts of the people from him or his government. here is the price at which they are to purchase their freedom (a sad bargain to buy liberty and sell truth) which yet hardly can be so exactly paid, but he may find a pretence for retrenching it when he pleases; for if a minister shall pray for the overturning of a throne of iniquity, or for confounding all that serve graven images, and for destruction to the pope, and all that give their power to that beast, there will be something said against the well of his government; or if any shall hear this and not delate it, then the same pretence is relevant; or if he shall preach against the king's religion as idolatry, and the church of rome as babylon, and discharge his conscience and duty in speaking against the tyranny of the times; or let him preach against any public sin faithfully, a popish critic or romish bigot shall interpret it to be an alienation of the people's hearts from the king and his government. but who can be faithful, and preach in season and out of season now, but he must think it his duty to endeavour to alienate the hearts of the people from such an enemy to christ, and his absolute tyranny, so declaredly stated against god? what watchman must not see it his indispensible duty, to warn all people of his devilish designs to destroy the church and nation, and preach so that people may hate the whore, and this pimp of her's? sure if he preach the whole counsel of god, he must preach against popery and tyranny. and if he think this indulgence from absolute prerogative, granted and accepted on these terms, can supersede him from this faithfulness, then he is no more the servant of christ but a pleaser of men. therefore since it is so clogged with so many restrictions, so inconsistent with duty, so contrary to scripture, so clearly violatory of covenant-engagements, so cross to the constant contendings and constitutions of this church, and acts of assembly (see page ----, &c.) it were a great defection to accept of it. . considering the scandal of it, they dare not so offend the generation of the righteous by the acceptance, and dishonour god, disgrace the protestant profession, wrong the interest thereof, and betray their native country, as thus to comply with the design of antichrist, and partake of this cruel tender mercy of the beast; who hath always mischief in his heart, and intends this as a preparative for inducing or inforcing all that are hereby lulled asleep either to take on his mark, or bear the marks of his fiery fury afterwards. for hereby foreign churches may think, we are in a fair way of reconciliation with antichrist, when we so kindly accept his harbinger's favours. and it cannot but be very stumbling to see the ministers of scotland, whose testimony used to be terrible to the popish, and renowned through all the protestant churches, purchasing a liberty to themselves at the rate of burying and betraying the cause into bondage and restraint, and thus to be laid by from all active and open opposition to antichrist's designs, in such a season. the world will be tempted to think, they are not governed by principles but their own interest in this juncture, seeking their own things more than the things of christ; and that it was not the late usurpation upon, and overturning of religion and liberty that offended them, so much as the persecution they sustained thereby; but if that arbitrary power had been exerted in their favours, though with the same prejudice of the cause of christ, they would have complied with it as they do now. alas, sad and dolorous have been the scandals given, and taken by and from the declining ministers of scotland heretofore, which have rent and racked the poor remnant, and offended many both at home and abroad, but none so stumbling as this. and therefore the tender will be shy to meddle with it. . considering the addresses made thereupon, with such a stain of fulsome and blasphemous flatteries, to the dishonour of god, the reproach of the cause, the betraying of the church, and detriment of the nation, and exposing themselves to the contempt of all, the poor persecuted party dare not so much as seem to incorporate with them. i shall set down the first of their addresses, given forth in the name of all the presbyterian ministers, and let the reader judge whether there be not cause of standing aloof from every appearance of being of their number. it is dated at edinburgh, july , , of this tenor. _to the king's most excellent majesty. the humble address of the presbyterian ministers of his majesty's kingdom of scotland._ 'we your majesty's most loyal subjects, the ministers of the presbyterian persuasion in your ancient kingdom of scotland, from the due sense we have of your majesty's gracious and surprising favour, in not only putting a stop to our long sad sufferings for non-conformity, but granting us the liberty of the public and peaceable exercise of our ministerial function without any hazard: as we bless the great god who hath put this in your royal heart, do withal find ourselves bound in duty to offer our most humble and hearty thanks to your sacred majesty, the favour bestowed being to us and all the people of our persuasion valuable above all our earthly comforts, especially since we have ground from your majesty to believe that our loyalty is not to be questioned upon the account of our being presbyterians, who as we have amidst all former temptations endeavoured, so we are firmly resolved still to preserve an entire loyalty in our doctrine and practice (consonant to our known principles, which according to the holy scriptures are contained in the confession of faith, generally owned by presbyterians in all your majesty's dominions) and by the help of god so to demean ourselves, as your majesty may find cause rather to enlarge than to diminish your favours towards us; throughly persuading ourselves from your majesty's justice and goodness, that if we shall at any time be otherwise represented, your majesty will not give credit to such information, until you have due cognition thereof: and humbly beseeching, that those who promote any disloyal principles and practices (as we disown them) may be looked upon as none of ours, whatsoever name they may assume to themselves. may it please your most excellent majesty graciously to accept of this our most humble address, as proceeding from the plainness and sincerity of loyal and thankful hearts, much engaged by your royal favour, to continue our fervent prayers to the king of kings, for divine illumination and conduct, with all other blessings spiritual and temporal, ever to attend your royal person and government, which is the greatest duty can be rendered to your majesty, by _your majesty's most humble, most faithful, and most obedient subjects_. subscribed in our names, and in the name of the rest of our brethren of our persuasion, at their desire.' which received this gracious return. _the king's letter to the presbyterians in his ancient kingdom of scotland_. 'we love you well: and we heartily thank you for your address: we resolve to protect you in your liberty, religion, and properties, all our life: and we shall lay down such methods, as shall not be in the power of any to alter hereafter. and in the mean time, we desire you to pray for our person and government.' to which may be added that kind compliment of the chancellor's: 'gentlemen, my master hath commanded me to tell you, that i am to serve you in all things within the compass of my power.' these gentlemen needed not to have been solicitous that those who avouch an adherance to the covenanted reformation, and avow an opposition to antichristian usurpers (which they call promoting disloyal principles and practices) might not be looked upon as of their confederacy: for all that abide in the principles and practices of the church of scotland (which they have deserted) and that desire to be found loyal to christ, in opposition to his and the church's, and the country's declared enemy, would count it a sin and scandal, laying them obnoxious to the displeasure of the holy and jealous god, who will resent this heinous indignity they have done unto his majesty (if they do not address themselves unto him for pardon of the iniquity of this address, which is the desire of those whom they disown that they may find grace to do so) and a shameful reproach, exposing them to the contempt of all of whom they expect sympathy, to be reckoned of their association who have thus betrayed the cause and the country. these mutual compliments (so like the caresses of the romish whore, whereby she entices the nations to her fornication) between the professed servants of christ and the vassals of antichrist, if they be cordial, would seem to import that they are in a fair way of compounding their differences, and to accommodate their oppositions at length; which yet i hope will be irreconcileably maintained and kept up by all true presbyterians, in whose name they have impudence to give out their address: but it they be only adulatory and flattering compliments, importing only a conjunction of tails (like samson's foxes) with a disjunction of heads and hearts, tending towards distinct and opposite interests; then, as they would suit far better the dissimulations of politicians, than the simplicity of gospel-ministers, and do put upon them the brand of being men-pleasers rather than servants of christ, so for their dissemblings with dissemblers, who know their compliments to be and take them for such, they may look to be paid home in good measure, heaped up and running over, when such methods shall be laid down as shall not be in the power of any to alter, when such designs shall be obtained by this liberty and these addresses, that the after-bought wit of the addressers shall not be able to disappoint. however the address itself is of such a dress, as makes the thing addressed for to be odious, and the addressers to forefault the respect, and merit the indignation of all that are friends to the protestant and presbyterian cause, as may appear from these obvious reflections. . it was needful indeed they should have assumed the name of presbyterians (though it might have been more tolerable to let them pass under that name, if they had not presumed to give forth their flatteries in the name of all of that persuasion, and to alledge it was at their desire; which is either an illuding equivocation, or a great untruth, for though it might be the desire of the men of their own persuasion, which is a newly start up opinion that interest hath led them to espouse, yet nothing could be more cross to the real desires of true presbyterians, that prefer the truth of the cause to the external peace of the professors thereof) and call it the humble address of presbyterian ministers: for otherwise it could never have been known to come from men of the presbyterian persuasion; seeing the contents of this address are so clearly contrary to their known principles. it is contrary to presbyterian principles, to congratulate an antichristian usurper for undermining religion, and overturning laws and liberties. it is contrary to presbyterian principles, to justify the abrogation of the national covenant, in giving thanks for a liberty whereby all the laws are cassed and disabled therein confirmed. it is contrary to presbyterian principles, to thank the king for opening a door to bring in popery, which they are engaged to extirpate in the solemn league and covenant. it is contrary to presbyterian principles, to allow or accept of such a vast toleration for idolaters and hereticks, as is evident above from all their contendings against it, which is also contrary to the confession of faith, generally owned by presbyterians, as may be seen in the place forecited, chap. . par. . it is contrary to presbyterian principles, to consent to any restrictions, limitations, and conditions, binding them up in the exercise of the ministerial function, wherewith this liberty is loaded and clogged; whereby indeed they have the liberty of the public and peaceable exercise of it, without any hazard of present persecution, but not without great hazard of sin; and incurring the guilt of the blood of souls, for not declaring the whole counsel of god, which addressers cannot declare, if they preserve an entire loyalty in their doctrine, as here they promise. . there is nothing here sounds like the old presbyterian strain; neither was there ever an address of this stile seen before from presbyterian hands. it would have looked far more presbyterian like, instead of this address, to have sent a protestation against the now openly designed introduction of popery, and subversion of all laws and liberties which they are covenanted to maintain, or at least to have given an address in the usual language of presbyterians, who used always to speak of the covenants, and work of reformation; but here never a word of these, but of loyalty to his excellent, to his gracious, and to his sacred majesty, of loyalty not to be questioned, an entire loyalty in doctrine, a resolved loyalty in practice, and a fervent loyalty in prayers: and all that they are solicitous about is not lest the prerogatives of their master be encroached upon, and the liberties of the church be supplanted, and religion wronged; but lest their loyalty be questioned, and they be otherwise represented: and all that they beseech for is, not that the cause of christ be not wronged, nor antichristian idolatry introduced by this liberty; but that these who promove any disloyal principles and practices may be looked upon as none of theirs, wherein all their encouragement is, that they persuade themselves from his majesty's justice and goodness, that he will not give credit to any other information, until he take due cognition thereof. here is a lawless unrestricted loyalty to a tyrant, claiming an absolute power to be obeyed without reserve, not only professed, but solicitously sought to be the principle of presbyterians; whereas it is rather the principle of atheistical hobbes exploded with indignation by all rational men. this is not a christian loyalty, or profession of conscientious subjection, to a minister of god for good, who is a terror to evil doers, but a stupid subjection and absolute allegiance to a minister of antichrist, who gives liberty to all evil men and seducers. this is not the presbyterian loyalty to the king, in the defence of christ's evangel, liberties of the country, ministration of justice, and punishment of iniquity, according to the national covenant; and in the preservation and defence of the true religion and liberties of the kingdoms, according to the solemn league and covenant; but an erastian loyalty to a tyrant, in his overturning religion, laws and liberties, and protecting and encouraging all iniquity. this loyalty in doctrine will be sound disloyalty to christ, in a sinful and shameful silence at the wrongs done to him, and not declaring against the invasions of his open enemies. this loyalty in practice is a plain betraying of religion and liberty, in lying by from all opposition to the open destroyer of both. and this loyalty in prayers, for all blessings ever to attend his person and government, will be found neither consonant to presbyterian prayers in reference to popish tyrants, nor consistent with the zeal of christians, and the cries of all the elect unto god to whom vengeance belongs, against antichrist and all his supporters, nor any way conform to the saints prayers in scripture, nor founded upon any scripture promises, to pray for a blessing to a papist's tyranny, which cannot be of faith and therefore must be sin. it were much more suitable to pray, that the god which hath caused his name to dwell in his church, may destroy all kings that shall put to their hand to alter and destroy the house of god, ezrah vi. . . this address is so stuffed with sneaking flatteries, that it would become more sycophants and court-parasites than ministers of the gospel; and were more suitable to the popish, prelatical, and malignant faction, to congratulate and rejoice in their professed patron and head, and fill the gazettes with their adulatory addresses, which heretofore used to be deservedly inveighed against by all dissenters; than for presbyterians to take a copy from them, and espouse the practice which they had condemned before, and which was never commended in any good government, nor never known in these british nations, before oliver's usurpation and charles' tyranny; flattery being always counted base among ingenuous men. but here is a rhapsody of flatteries, from the deep sense they have of his majesty's gracious and surprising favour----finding themselves bound in duty to offer their most humble and hearty thanks, to his sacred majesty, the favour bestowed being to them----valuable above all earthly comforts. one would think this behoved to be a very great favour, from a very great friend, for very gracious ends: but what is it? in not only putting a stop to their long sad sufferings; which were some ground indeed if the way were honest: but this not only supposes an also; what is that? but also granting us the liberty----which is either a needless tautology (for if all sufferings were stopped, then liberty must needs follow) or it must respect the qualifications of the liberty; flowing from such a fountain, absolute power; through such a conveyance, the stopping all penal laws against papists; in such a form as a toleration; for such ends, as overturning the reformation, and introducing popery. this is the favour for which they offer most humble and hearty thanks, more valuable to them than all earthly comforts; though it be manifestly intended to deprive the lord's people, at the long run, of the heavenly comforts of the preached gospel. sure, if they thank him for the liberty, they must thank him for the proclamation whereby he grants it, and justify all his claim there to absoluteness, being that upon which it is superstructed, and from which it emergeth, and so become a listed faction to abett and own him in all his attemptings, engaged now to demean themselves as that he may find cause rather to enlarge than to diminish his favours, which can be no other way but assisting him to destroy religion and liberty, at least in suffering him to do what he will without controul. o what an indelible reproach is this for ministers, who pretend to be set for the defence of the gospel, thus to be found betraying religion, through justifying and magnifying a tyrant, for his suspension of so many laws whereby it was established and supported. . it were more tolerable if they went no further than flatteries: but i fear they come near the border of blasphemy, when they say, that the great god hath put this in his royal heart: which can bear no other construction but this, that the holy lord hath put it in his heart to assume to himself a blasphemous and absolute power, whereby he stops and suspends all penal laws against idolaters, and gives a toleration for all errors: or if it be capable of any other sense, it must be like that as the lord is said to have moved david to number the people, or that rev. xvii. . "god hath put it in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree and give their kingdom unto the beast." but to bless god and thank the tyrant for this wicked project, as deliberate and purposed by men, i say is near unto blasphemy. and again where they say, they are firmly resolved by the help of god so to demean themselves as his majesty may find cause rather to enlarge than to diminish his favours; this in effect is as great blasphemy as if they had said, they resolved by the help of god to be as unfaithful, time-serving and silent ministers as ever plagued the church of god; for no otherwise can they demean themselves so as he may find cause to enlarge his favours towards them, it being in no way supposeable that his enlarging his favours can consist with their faithfulness, but if they discover any measure of zeal against antichrist, he will quickly diminish them. thus far i have compendiously deduced the account of the progress, and prosecution of the testimony of this church to the present state thereof, as it is concerted and contended for, by the reproached remnant now only persecuted: which i hope this pretended liberty shall be so far from obscuring and interrupting, that it shall contribute further to clear it, and engage them more to constancy in it, and induce others also to countenance it, when they shall see the sad effects of this destructive snare, which i leave to time to produce; and hope, that as the former representation of their cause will conciliate the charity of the unbiassed, so an account of their sufferings thereupon will provoke them to sympathy. to which i now proceed. part ii. _containing a brief account of the persecution of the last period, and of the great suffering whereby all the parts of its testimony were sealed._ the foregoing deduction, being the first thing i proposed to be discussed in the method of this essay, hath now swelled to such a bulk, that the last period of it doth, in a manner, swallow up what i intended to have said on the second: because it gives grounds to gather the methods and measures that our adversaries have managed, for the ruin of this witnessing remnant, and also discover some special steps of their sufferings within these years past, under the tyranny of both the brothers. it will now be the more easy to glean the gradations of the means and machines, used by this popish, prelatical, and malignant faction, to raze the work of reformation, and to build their babel of popery and slavery on the ruins thereof; and to aggregate an account in brief of the great sufferings of the faithful. which though it be beyond my power, and besides my purposes at present, to offer a narrative of it, with any proportion to the greatness of the subject; a more particular relation thereof, being now projected, if providence permit, to be published to the world, which will discover strange and unheard of cruelties: yet, in this little heap of some hints only of the kinds of their sufferings, i do not question but it will appear, that the persecution of scotland hath been very remarkable, and scarcely out-done by the most cruel in any place or age, in respect of injustice, illegality, and inhumanity, though perhaps inferior in some other circumstances. but that none could be more unjust, illegal, or inhuman, i need not further, i cannot better, demonstrate than only to declare the matter of fact, as it fell out in the several steps of the last period. i. in the entry of this fatal catastrophe, the first of their mischievous machinations was to remove out of the way all who were eminent instruments in carrying on the former work of god, or might be of influence for obstructing their antichristian and tyrannical designs, both in the state and in the church. and accordingly, when the marquis of argyle, who had a main hand in bringing home the king, and closing the second treaty at breda, went up to london, to congratulate his return from exile, he was made prisoner in the tower, thereafter sent down to scotland, indicted of high treason, at length beheaded, and his head placed upon the tolbooth of edinburgh (a watch-word of warning to our addressers, who may, ere all be done, meet with the same sauce) for no other alledged cause, but for his compliance with the english, when they had our land in subjection; a thing wherein the judges who condemned him were equally criminal; but really for another provocation that incensed the king against him, which made him a tyrant as infamous for villany as for violence, to wit, for his reproving the king (when others declined it) for an adulterous rape, which he held for so piacular a crime, that he resolved nothing should expiate it but the blood of this nobleman. for the same pretended cause was the lord wariston afterwards executed to death at edinburgh, after they had missed of their design of taking him off by clandestine ways abroad. then they fall upon the ministers: and because mr. james guthrie was a man, who had been honoured of god to be zealous and singularly faithful, in carrying on the work of reformation, and had asserted the kingly authority of christ, in opposition to the erastian supremacy encroaching thereupon, therefore he must live no longer, but is condemned to die, and most basely handled, as if he had been a most notorious thief or malefactor; he is hanged, and afterward his head placed upon one of the ports of edinburgh, where it abideth to this day, preaching not only against the enemies rebellion against god, but against the defection of many ministers since, who have practically denied that great truth for which he suffered, to wit, his testimony against the supremacy, and for declining the usurped authority of him who arrogated it. at the same time there was a proclamation, which they caused to be read at all the church-doors, discharging ministers to speak against them or their proceedings, whereby profane and malicious persons were encouraged to witness against their ministers. by which means (though many were in no hazard, thinking it commendable prudence, commended indeed by the world, but hateful unfaithfulness before god, to be silent at such a time) some faithful ministers giving faithful and free warning, and protesting against the present defection, were condemned of treason, and banished out of the three dominions. others, without a legal citation, or without access to give in their defences, were sentenced with banishment, and could never get an extract of their sentence: and further, were compelled to subscribe a bond, under pain of death, to remove out of all the dominions betwixt and such a day. this was the lot, and also the blot of these famous and faithful ministers, mr. john livingston, mr. robert macward, mr. john brown, &c. who spent the rest of their days in holland, serving their generation by their excellent writings. then, after they had disposed of many other ministers, whom they thrust out, for not keeping the th of may, having now laid by the most eminent, and whom they feared most of the ministry, they shortly thereafter outed, and violented the rest from the exercise of their ministry, and straitned them with strange and severe confinements; yea, because they would not be outdone in suppressing religion by any, no, not by julian the apostate, they proceeded to poison all the springs and fountains of learning; ordaining that none be masters in universities, except they take the oath of supremacy, and own the government of prelacy; and none be admitted to teach in a school, without the prelate's licence. these courses brought many ministers and expectants to great sufferings. ii. hitherto they reached only noblemen, gentlemen and ministers, and others whom they thought might stand in their way of advancing their cursed designs. the next drift is, when they had emptied the churches of ministers, and filled them with the vermin of ignorant and scandalous curates, to force the people to conformity, and to disown and discountenance their own ministers; first, by severe edicts of exorbitant fining not only the persons themselves contraveening, but those that had the superiority over them, and rigorous exaction of these fines, to the depopulation of a poor country, by military force; whereby, where there was but one church in the bounds, still enjoying a minister whom the people could hear, the profane soldiers would beset that church in time of worship, and cause all within to pay their fines, or take the garments from them that could not, and beat them to the effusion of their blood: and where the church was planted with a curate, the soldiers would come, and call the names of the parishioners, and amerciate the absents in such fines as they pleased. in other places they went to private houses, and by force drove them to church, even though sick and unable. but where the dissenters were numerous, great bands of legal robbers were sent to exact and extort these exorbitant fines, by plundering, quartering, beating, wounding, binding men like beasts, chasing away from houses, and harassing whole country-sides in a hideous manner. and yet after all these insolencies, some of the common sort were compelled to subscribe an acknowledgment, that the captain had used them civilly and discreetly; though the account of others of that place manifests the violence to have been so monstrous, that it justified the great barbarity; shewing their exactions to have been intolerable, both for the quantity, without all proportion or pity, and for the manner of it, consuming and wasting poor people's provision by their very dogs, and sparing no more these who conformed, than others who did not conform at all, and punishing husbands for their wives, yea, doubling and tripling the same exactions after payment. next, though at first they did not imprison any for simple absenting themselves from the curates, yet they began to fill prisons with such as at any time shewed more than ordinary zeal against the curates intrusion, and testified their dissatisfaction to his face; for which, some were imprisoned, scourged, stigmatized, and thereafter carried to barbadoes. others, because they would not give the prelates their title of lords, when conveened before them, were also scourged: and one minister seized for preaching, and offending the prelates by the same fault, was carried first to the thieves hole, laid in irons in company with a madman, and then banished to shetland, the coldest and wildest of all the scots islands. iii. but when fining would not do, and still the people were more averse from the curates, by getting sometimes occasions of hearing their own ministers in private; hence were houses forced and searched, many hawled to prisons, and several necessitate to escape at windows with the hazard of their lives, spies sent unto and set in suspected places, to seize and fall upon such as they found at such meetings, or but suspected to have been there. whence it came to pass, that many, both men and women, young and old, have been dragged to prisons, and there close kept as malefactors, besides several other outrageous and illegal acts of violence and oppression committed against them, contrary to all law, equity and conscience. iv. after pentland defeat, they ruled by rage more than either law or reason. there prisoners, who were taken upon quarter, and solemn parole to have their life spared, yet treacherously and bloodily were all hanged (except five that were reprieved) who had much of the lord's presence at their deaths, and assurance of his love, strengthening them to seal a noble testimony. one of them, a much honoured young minister, only for having a sword about him, though not present at the fight, did first most patiently endure the cruel torture of the boots (a cruel engine of iron, whereby with wedges the leg is tortured, until the marrow come out of the bone) and afterwards death, with great courage and constancy. upon the scaffold, at their execution, they then began that barbarity never practised in scotland before, but frequently, and almost always at all the executions since, to beat drums, that they might not be heard. after this conflict, many were forefaulted of their estates, and intercommuned, with inhibition to all to reset, conceal, or correspond with any that had escaped, under the pain of being accounted guilty of the same rebellion, as they called it. soldiers are permitted to take free quarter in the country, and licensed to all the abuses, that either rapine or cruelty may suggest; to examine men by tortures, threatning to kill or roast alive, all that would not delate all they knew were accessory to that rising; to strip them who did so much as reset the fugitives, and thrust them into prisons, in cold, hunger and nakedness, and crowd them so with numbers, that they could scarce stand together, having the miseries of their own excrements superadded; yea, to murder without process, such as would not, nay could not, discover those persecuted people. but not only time, but heart and tongue would fail, to relate all the violences and insolencies, the stobbings, woundings, stripping and imprisonings of mens persons, violent breaking of their houses both by day and night, beating of wives and children, ravishing of women, forcing of them by fire-matches and other tortures, to discover their husbands and nearest relations, although not within the compass of their knowledge, and driving away all their goods that could be carried away without respect to guilt or innocency, and all the cruelties that were exercised without a check by these ruffians at that time. v. after all these tender mercies and clemencies, or cruelties, which his gracious majesty was pleased to confer or commit upon these poor contenders for religion and liberty, he and his cabal the council thought it not enough to suppress them with oppressions and force, distrusting the authority of his law (that he knew the people would no more observe, than he would observe a promise or oath) and diffiding also the authority of his sword, which he had above their heads, he proposes terms of bargaining with them, whereupon he would suffer them to live, and to which he would have them bound to live according to his prescript; therefore, besides the old oaths of allegiance and supremacy, that were still going among hands, he caused coin new ones to keep the peace, and to live orderly, meaning to conform themselves to the disorders of the times! whereby, after he had wrought such destruction to their bodies and estates, and almost nothing was left them but a bit of a conscience, he would rob them of that too, verifying the constant character of the wicked, they only consult to cast a man down from his excellency. what is a man's excellency but a good conscience? but these men, having feared consciences of their own, not capable of any impression, they presume to impose upon all others, and cannot endure so much as to hear of the name of conscience in the country, except it be when it is baffled in the belchings of beastly mouths; as one, that was well acquaint with the council's humour in this point, told a gentleman that was going before them, to have one of these oaths imposed upon him, who was beforehand signifying his scruples, that he could not do such things in conscience. conscience (said he) i beseech you whatever you do, speak nothing of conscience before the lords, for they cannot abide to hear that word. therefore it is, that since this last revolution, there have been more conscience-debauching and ensnaring oaths invented and imposed, and some repugnant and contradictory to others, than ever was in any nation in the world in so short a time: and hereby they have had woful success in their designs, involving the generality of the land in the sin of perjury and false swearing with themselves. and it hath been observed, that scarcely have they let one year pass, without imposing some oaths or bonds upon presbyterians; such always as are unlawful to take, yea and impossible to keep, sometimes more obviously gross, sometimes more seemingly smooth, sometimes tendered more generally through the kingdom, sometimes imposed upon particular shires; and these carried on by craft and cunning, sometimes by force and cruelty. doubtless it is not the least part of their design, hereby to make oaths and bonds become a trivial and common thing, and by making all men of as capacious consciences as themselves. vi. further, they never ceased to express their fear of another rising, (their guilty consciences dictating that they deserved greater opposition.) hence, to secure themselves, and incapacitate the people from further attempts of that nature, they order all withdrawers from churches, all who did not join to suppress the lord's people, to deliver up their arms betwixt and such a day, and not keep a horse above such a very mean price, unfit for service. vii. when force could not do the business, then they try flatteries; and hence contrive that wicked indulgence to divide and destroy the ministers that remained, and to suppress meetings. but when this bait, so well busked, could not catch all, but still there were meetings for administring the ordinances; their flattery turns to fury, and the acceptance of that indulgence by some, and despising of it by others, did both animate and instigate them unto a following forth of their design, by all the cruel acts and bloody executions. and hereby the residue of the faithful of the land were exposed unto their rage, while the indulged became interpretatively guilty of, and accessory to all the cruelties used and executed upon ministers and professors, for adhering unto that way. hence it was common at private and peaceable meetings, when, without arms of defence, they were disturbed by soldiers, and exposed to all manner of villanous violence, some being dragged to prisons, some banished and sold to french captains to be transported with rascals, many intercommuned and driven from their dwellings and relations, great sums of money were proffered to any that would bring in several of the most eminent ministers, either dead or alive; yea several at several times were killed, and others cruelly handled: all which, for several years, they patiently endured without resistance. but especially, when not only they were driven to the fields to keep their meetings in all weathers, summer and winter, but necessitate to meet with arms, then they raised more troops of horse and dragoons to pursue them with all rage, as traitors and rebels. hence what pursuings, hornings, huntings, hidings, wanderings through mountains and muirs, and all kinds of afflictions, the people of god then met with, because of their following that necessary and signally blessed duty; all the lands inhabitants know, the jailors can witness to this day, and the barbarous soldiers, bloody executioners of the commands of their enraged masters, having orders to wound and kill, and apprehend all they could take at these meetings, or on the way suspected to be going to or coming from them, having encouragement to apprehend some ministers, and bring them dead or alive, by the promise of merks, others valued at , and several professors also with prices put upon their heads. hence others that were taken of them were sent into the bass, a dry and cold rock in the sea, where they had no fresh water, nor any provision but what they had brought many miles from the country; and when they got it, it would not keep unspoiled. and others, both ministers and many hundreds of professors, were outlawed; whereby all the subjects were prohibited to reset, supply, intercommune with any of them, or to correspond with them by word, writ, or message, or furnish them with meat, drink, house, harbour, victual, or any other thing useful, under the highest pains. hence also prisons were filled, and the wives and children of the outed ministers, that were come to edinburgh for shelter, were commanded to dislodge, within a short day prefixed, under the pain of being forcibly shut up or dragged out. for which and other such uses, to apprehend and seize, on meetings, a major was appointed in edinburgh, with command over the town guards, and a good salary for that end. then prisons being filled, they were emptied to make room for others in ships, to be taken away to be sold for slaves, in one of which were sent to virginia above men, some ministers; who, through the kindness and sympathy of some english godly people, were relieved at london. a greater barbarity not to be found in the reigns of caligula or nero. viii. but all this is nothing to what followed; when, thinking these blood-hounds were too favourable, they brought down from the wild highlands an host of savages upon the western shires, more terrible than turks or tartars, men who feared not god nor regarded man; and being also poor pitiful skybalds, they thought they had come to a brave world, to waste and destroy a plentiful country, which they resolved, before they left it, to make as bare as their own. this hellish crew was adduced to work a reformation, like the french conversions, to press a band of conformity, wherein every subscriber was bound for himself and all under him, wife, children, servants, tenants, to frequent their parish churches, and never to go to these meetings, nor reset, nor entertain any that went, but to inform against, pursue, and deliver up all vagrant preachers, as they called them, to trial and judgment. which they prosecuted with that rigour and restless, boundless rage, that the children then unborn, and their pitiful mothers do lament the memory of that day, for the loss of their fathers and husbands. many houses and families then were left desolate in a winter flight, many lost their cattle and horses, and some, in seeking to recover them, lost their lives, by the sword of these burrios. so that it was too evident, both by what orders was given, the severity of prosecuting, and the expressions of some great ones since, that nothing less than the utter ruin and desolation of these shires was consulted and concluded, and that expedition, at that time, calculated for that end; for what else can be imagined could induce to the raising or , barbarous savages, the joining them to the standing forces, and with such cruel orders the directing them all to the west, where there was not one person moving the finger against them: neither could they pretend any quarrel, if it was not the faithfulness of the people there in their covenanted religion, and their hopelessness of complying to their popish and tyrannical designs, and therefore no course so feasible as to destroy them; so for dispatching thereof, order is given forth, that whosoever refuseth to subscribe that hell-hatched bond, must instantly have , , , , more or fewer according to his condition as he is poorer or richer, of these new reformers sent to him, to ly not only upon free quarters to eat up and destroy what they pleased, but also (for the more speedy expedition) ordered to take a sixpence for each common soldier a-day, and the officers more, according to their degrees, and so to remain till either the bond was subscribed, or all destroyed; nor was these trustees deficient to further their purposes in prosecuting their orders, who, coming to their quarters, used ordinarily to produce a billgate for near to as many more as came, and for these absents they must have double money, because their landlord was not burdened with their maintenance, and, where that was refused, would take the readiest goods, and if any thing remained not destroyed and plundered at their removing, which was not transportable, rather than the owner should get any good of it, they would in some places set fire to it, as they did with the cornstacks. it would require several great volumes to record the many instances of horrid barbarities, bloods and villanies of that wicked expedition; so that what by free quarterings, exactions, robberies, thefts, plunderings, and other acts of violence and cruelty, many places were ruined almost to desolation, all which the faithful choosed rather to suffer, than to sin in complying: and albeit their oppression was exceeding lamentable, and their loss great, yet that of the compliers was greater and sadder, who losed a good conscience in yielding to them, and compounding with them. ix. then the country behoved to pay the soldiers for all this service, and hire them to do more, by paying the imposed cess; whereby they were sharpened into a greater keenness in cruel executions of their orders, returning to those places of the country whither they had chased the persecuted people, who still kept their meetings wherever they were, though they could not attend them, but upon the hazard of being killed, either in the place (where some had their blood mingled with their sacrifice) or fleeing, or be exposed to their dreadful cruelties, more bitter than death. for then it was counted a greater crime, and punished with greater severity, for persons to hear a faithful minister preach, than to commit murder, incest, adultery, or to be guilty of witchcraft, or idolatry, or the grossest abominations: for these have passed unpunished, when some, for their simple presence at a meeting, have been executed unto the death. then also, when some were forced to flee into the english border for shelter, there also were parties ordered to pursue these poor hunted partridges, who could not find a hole to hide their head in. there we lost a valiant champion for truth, and truly zealous contender for the interest of christ, that universally accomplished gentleman and christian, thomas ker of heyhope, who was cruelly murdered in a rencounter with a party of the english side. thereafter followed that lamentable stroke at bothwel, where about were killed on the field, and about or taken prisoners, and stript, and brought into edinburgh in a merciless manner. after which, first two faithful and painful ministers and witnesses of christ, mr. john kid and mr. john king, received the crown of martyrdom, sealing that testimony with their blood, and many others after them for the same cause. then the enemy, after the manner used before, first to wound our head, and then put on a hood upon it, (as they have done always after a mischief, and intending a greater), offered their bond of peace, on terms that clearly condemned the cause, never to rise in arms against the king, &c. by which bond, many of the prisoners, after they had lien several weeks in a church-yard, without the shadow of a house to cover them night and day, were liberate: and many of the rest, by the persuasion of some ministers, at whose door their blood lies as well as at the enemy's, took that bond; and yet were sent away with others that did not take it, in a ship bound for america between and in all, who were all murdered in the ship, being shut up under the hatches, when it split upon a rock in the north of scotland, except about persons; whereof many to this are living witnesses of such a cruelty. x. hitherto only the common rules and rudiments of the art of persecution were put in practice, exactly quadrating with the rules of adam contzen the jesuit for introducing of popery, in his polit. lib. . cap. . which are, ( .) to proceed as musicians do, in tuning their instruments gradually. ( .) to press the examples of some eminent men to draw on the rest. ( .) to banish all arch-heretics at once (that is the most zealous witnesses of christ) or at least with all expedition by degrees. ( .) to put them out of all power and trust, and put in friends to the catholic interest. ( .) to load the protestant opinions, as are most obnoxious, with all odious contions. ( .) to discharge all private conventicles. ( .) to make and execute rigorous laws against the most dangerous. ( .) to foment all quarrels among protestants, and strengthen the party that is ready to comply. but these, and many other of a deeper projection, and greater perfection, were fallen upon afterwards, equalling the most mischievous machines of spanish inquisition, or the methods that effectuated the desolation of the church of bohemia; that were exactly followed, as they are related in clark's martyrology. especially the last of contzen's rules were industriously observed, in the device of the indulgence both before and after bothwel, which contributed more to the rending and ruining the remnant, and to expose the faithful to rage and cruelty, than any thing; for when, by these ensnaring favours, many were drawn away from their duty, the rest that maintained it, and kept up the testimony, were both the more easily preyed upon, and more cruelly insulted over. hence the field-meetings that were kept, were more fiercely pursued after bothwel than the many before, and more cruel laws were made against them, and more bloody executions, than i can find words to express in short. but, in a word, no party of tartars invading the land, or crew of cut-throats destroying the inhabitants, or the most capital malefactors, could have been more violently opposed, or more vigorously fought to be suppressed, than these poor meeters were. but i must make some more special hints. . they not only raised more forces to exhaust the strength and substance of the already wasted country, and laid on and continued from one term to another that wicked exaction and cruel oppression of the cess, for the same declared ends of suppressing and banishing what remained of the gospel, and imposed localities for maintaining the soldiers employed in those designs; for refusing which many families were pillaged, plundered, and quite impoverished, besides the beating and abusing them: but also they went on unweariedly with their courts of inquisition, pressing the bonds of peace, and dragging them like dogs to prisons that would not subscribe them, and for taking up in their porteous' rolls the names of all that were suspected to have been at bothwel insurrection: which they gathered by the information of sycophants, and reputed them convict, if being summoned they did not appear, and forced others to swear concerning things that are to be enquired after, and delate upon oath whom they did either see or heard that they were in arms, or went to meetings; and such as refused, suffered bonds or banishment. yea, having made it criminal to reset, harbour, correspond, or converse with these whom they declared rebels, they thereupon imprisoned, fined, and ruined vast numbers, for having seen or spoken with some of them, or because they did not discover or apprehend them when they fancied they might, and even when they were not obliged, and could not know whether they were obnoxious persons or not: for which many gentlemen and others were indicted and imprisoned, and some arraigned and condemned to death. for these causes, the country was harrassed and destroyed by four extraordinary circuit courts, successively going about with their numerous train, whereby many were grievously oppressed, and with their oppressions tempted with many impositions of conscience-debauching oaths, and bonds to compear when called, and to keep the church, and to refrain from going to meetings, &c. and by these temptations involved in compliances and defections. . to enrich themselves, by these means, with the spoil of the country, did not satisfy these destroyers; but they must glut themselves with the blood of the saints, upon every pretext that they could catch, under any colour of law. as upon the account of bothwel insurrection, many were cruelly executed to the death, some gentlemen, and some common country men, without any legal conviction, by packing bloody juries and assizes most partially for their murdering ends, besides more than can be reckoned that were kept to perish in their imprisonments. and not only for being actually in arms, or any ouvert act of transgressing their wicked laws, but even for their extorted opinion of things, or because they could not condemn these necessitated risings in arms to be rebellion, and a sin against god, which they were forced to declare by terrible menacings of death and torture, they have been condemned to death; making their arbitrary laws to reach the heart, thoughts, and inward sentiments of the mind, as well as outward actions. whereupon this became a criminal question robbing many of their lives, was the rising at bothwel-bridge rebellion, and a sin against god? and this another, was the killing of the bishop of st. andrew's horrid murder? which if any answered negatively, or did not answer affirmatively, they were cruelly condemned to death; for which, first, five innocent christians were execute upon the spot, where that murderer fell. though they declared, and it was known, they were as free as the child unborn, and that some of them had never seen a bishop that they knew from another man, and were never in that place of the country where he was killed. and afterwards this was the constant question that all brought before them were troubled with, which some avouching to be duty, were dismembered alive, their hands struck off, and then hanged, and their heads cut off when dead. . after sanquhar declaration, they observed the jesuits rules more exactly, especially that mentioned above, to load the opinions that are most obnoxious with all odious constructions, and to make it both criminal to declare them, and also criminal to conceal and wave their intrapping questions thereupon. for after mr. hall was killed at the queensferry, and mr. cameron with several worthies were slain at airsmoss, and after mr. hackston for declining the authority of his murderers, head and tail, and for being accessory to executing judgment upon the arch traitor, or arch bishop of st. andrew's (though he laid not his hands on him himself, nor was present at the action, but at a distance when it was done) was tortured alive, with the cutting off of his hands, and then hanged, and before he was dead, ripped up, his heart taken out, and carried about on the point of a knife, and thrown into a fire, and afterwards his body quartered. then, not only such as were with that little handful at airsmoss were cruelly murdered, but others against whom they could charge no matter of fact, were questioned if they owned the king's authority? which if any did not answer affirmatively and positively, he was to look for nothing but exquisite torments by terrible kinds of tortures, and death besides. and if any declared their judgment, that they could not, in conscience, own such authority as was then exercised; or if they declined to give their thoughts of it, as judging thoughts to be under no human jurisdiction; or if they answered with such innocent specifications as these, that they owned all authority in the lord, or for the lord: or according to the word of god, or all just and lawful authority, these underwent and suffered the capital punishment of treason. and yet both for declining and declaring their extorted answers about this, they were condemned as unsufferable maintainers of principles inconsistent with government. . but here, as in egypt, the more they were afflicted, the more they grew, the more that the enemies rage was increased, the more were the people inflamed to inquire about the grounds of their suffering, seeing rational men and religious christians die so resolutely upon them; and the more they insisted in this inquisition, the more did the number of witnesses multiply, with a growing increase of undauntedness, so that the then shed blood of the martyrs became the seed of the church, and as by hearing and seeing them so signally countenanced of the lord, many were reclaimed from their courses of compliance, so others were daily more and more confirmed in the ways of the lord, and so strengthened by his grace, that they chose rather to endure all torture, and embrace death in its most terrible aspect, than to give the tyrant and his complices any acknowledgment: yea, not so much as to say, god save the king, which was offered as the price of their life, and test of their acknowledgment, but they would not accept deliverance on these terms, that they might obtain a better resurrection. which so enraged the tygrish truculency of these persecutors, that they spared neither age, sex, nor profession: the tenderness of youth did not move them to any relenting, in murdering very boys upon this head, nor the grey hairs of the aged; neither were women spared, but some were hanged, some drowned, tied to stakes within the sea-mark, to be devoured gradually with the growing waves, and some of them of a very young, some of an old age. especially after the murder of the never to be forgotten martyr, mr. cargil, the multitude of merciless sufferings upon this account cannot be enumerated; which increased far beyond all the former steps, after the lanark declaration, which was burnt with great solemnity by the magistrates of edinburgh in their robes, together with the solemn league and covenant, which had been burnt before, but then they would more declaredly give new demonstrations of their rage against it, because they confessed, and were convinced of its being conform unto and founded upon that covenant. and because the incorporation of lanark did not, because they could not, hinder the publishing of it; therefore they were threatened with the loss of their privileges, and forced to pay merks. upon the back of which, the sufferings of poor people that owned the testimony were sadder and sharper, and further extended than ever: some being banished for soldiers to flanders, &c. some to be sold as slaves in carolina, and other places in america, to empty the filled prisons, and make room for more, which were daily brought in from all quarters, and either kept languishing in their nasty prisons, or thieves holes, in bolts and irons to make them weary of their life, or dispatched as sacrifices, and led as dumb sheep to the slaughter, without suffering them to speak their dying words, for beating of drums, or disposed of to masters of ships to be transported to slavery. . had they satisfied themselves with murdering them out of hand, it would have been more tolerable, and reckoned some degree of mercy, in comparison of their malice; which, after all their endeavours to murder their souls, by ensnaring offers, enslaving bonds, blasphemous and contradictory oaths, and multiplying captious questions to catch the conscience, or at least vex the spirits of the righteous, whom they could not prevail with to put forth their hands into iniquity, did proceed to invent all exquisite torments more terrible than death. some at their first apprehending were tortured with fire-matches, burning and for ever thereafter disabling their hands: then laid fast, and locked up in great irons upon their legs, where they lay many months in the cold of winter, without any relaxation. some were tortured with the boots, squeezing out the marrow of their legs: others with thumbkins, piercing and bruising the bones of their thumbs: and some tormented with both one after another, and besides, kept waking nine nights together by watchful soldiers, who were sworn not to let the afflicted person sleep all that time. . all this tyranny had been the more tolerable, if they had kept within any bounds of colourable or pretended shadow of legality, or in any consonancy to their own wicked laws, or exemplars of any former persecutions. but in an ambition to outdo all the neros, domitians, dioclesians, duke d'alvas, or lewis le grands, they scorned all forms, as well as justice of law, and set up monstrous monuments of unprecedented illegality and inhumanity. for when, after all their hornings, harassings, huntings, searchings, chafings, catchings, imprisonments, torturings, banishments, and effusions of blood, yet they could not get the meetings crushed, either in public or private, or the zeal of the poor wanderers quenched, with whom they had interdicted all harbour, supply, comfort, refreshment, converse or correspondence, and whom they had driven out of their own and all other habitations, in towns, villages, or cottages, to the deserts, mountains, muirs, and mosses, in whose hags and holes they were forced to make dens and caves to hide themselves, but that they would still meet for the worship of god, either in public (though mostly in the cold winter nights) or in their private fellowships for prayer and conference; and to rescue their brethren, and prevent their murder in these extremities, would surprize and take advantages of the soldiers now and then: they then raged beyond all bounds, and not only apprehending many innocent persons (against whom they had nothing to accuse them of, but because they could not satisfy them in their answers) sentenced, and executed them, all in one day, and made an act to do so with all; but allowed the bloody soldiers to murder them, without either trial or sentence. especially after the apologetical declaration, affixed on the church doors, they acted with an unheard of arbitrariness. for not only did they frame an oath of abjuration, renouncing the same, but pressed it universally upon pain of death, upon all men and women in city and country, and went from house to house, forcing young and old to give their judgment of that declaration, and of the king's authority, &c. to ridicule and reproach, and make a mocking stock of all government: yea impowered soldiers, and common varlets, to impannel juries, condemn, and cause to be put to death, innocent recusants, and having stopt all travel and commerce without a pass, signifying they had taken that oath, they gave power to all hostlers and inn-keepers to impose oaths upon all passengers, travellers, gentlemen and countrymen, who were to swear, that their pass was not forged. and prisoners that would not take the oath were, according to the foresaid act, condemned, sentenced and execute, all in one day, and early in the morning, that the people might not be affected with the spectacles of their bloody severities. yea spectators also, that gathered to see the execution, were imposed upon, and commanded to give their judgment, whether these men were justly put to death or not. and not only so, but after that, they gave orders and commands to the soldiers to pursue the chase after these wanderers more violently, and shoot, or otherwise put them to death wherever they could apprehend them; whereby many were taken and instantly most inhumanly murdered. xi. in the beginning of this killing time, as the country calls it; the first author or authorizer of all these mischiefs, charles ii. was removed by death. then one would have thought the severity would have stopped: and the duke of york succeeding, in his late proclamation would make the world believe, that it never was his principle, nor will he ever suffer violence to be offered to any man's conscience, nor use force or invincible necessity against any man on the account of his persuasion: smooth words, to cover the mischiefs of his former destructions, and the wickedness of his future designs. to which his former celebrated saying, that it would never be well till all the south side of forth were made a hunting field; and his acts and actings designed to verify it, since his unhappy succession, do give the lie. for immediately, upon his mounting the throne, the executions and acts, prosecuting the persecution of the poor wanderers, were more cruel than ever. . there were more butchered and slaughtered in the fields, without all shadow of law, or trial, or sentence, than all the former tyrant's reign; who were murdered without time given to deliberate upon death, or space to conclude their prayers, but either in the instant, when they were praying, shooting them to death, or surprizing them in their caves, and murdering them there, without any grant of prayer at all; yea many of them murdered without taking notice of any thing to be laid against them, according to the worst of their own laws, but slain and cut off without any pity, when they were found at their labour in the field, or travelling upon the road. and such as were prisoners, were condemned for refusing to take the oath of abjuration, and to own the authority, and surprized with their execution, not knowing certainly the time when it should be, yea left in suspense whether it should be or not, as if it had been on design to destroy both their souls and bodies. yea queensberry had the impudence to express his desire of it, when some went to solicit him, being then commissioner, for a reprieval in favours of some of them, he told them, they should not have time to prepare for heaven, hell was too good for them. . there have been more banished to foreign plantations in this man's time, than in the other's. within these two years, several shipfuls of honest and conscientious sufferers have been sent to jamaica, (to which before they were sent, some had their ears cut) new jersey, and barbadoes, in such crouds and numbers, that many have died in transportation; as many also died before in their pinching prisons, so thronged that they had neither room to ly nor sit. particularly the barbarous usage of a great multitude of them that were sent to dunotter castle, when there was no room for them in edinburgh, is never to be forgotten; which the wildest and rudest of savages would have thought shame of. they were all that long way made to travel on foot, men and women, and some of both sexes, very infirm and decrepit through age; and several sick, guarded by bands of soldiers, and then put into an old ruinous and rusty house, and shut up under vaults above in a room, men and women, without air, without ease, without place, either to ly or walk, and without any comfort save what they had from heaven, and so straitned for want of refreshment, which they could not have but at exorbitant prices inconsistent with their poor empty purses, and so suffocated with the smell of the place, and of their own excrements, that as several of them died; so it was a wonder of mercy that any of them could outlive that misery, yet there they remained some months, at a distance from all their friends, being sent thither to that northern corner out of the south and west borders of the country; and some out of london. whose transportation hither, if it were not a part of this tragical story, would seem a merry and ridiculous passage to strangers, discovering the ridiculous folly as well as the outrageous fury of their persecutors. for at a private meeting in london, among others, some scotsmen, of very mean figure, some taylors, a shoemaker, a chapman, &c. were taken, and being found to be scotsmen, were not only examined at the common courts there, but by sir andrew foster, by express commission from the late king a little before his death; who threatened them under a strange sort of certification, (considering what fell out immediately thereafter) that assuredly they should be sent to scotland very shortly, if there were not a revolution of the government. but this revolution, following within a few days, retarded it a little: yet not long thereafter they were sent in a yacht, with a guard of soldiers, and a charge of high treason. but, when brought before the council of scotland, the amount of all that bustle was, a question posed to them under pain of death, whether the king should be king or no? that is, whether they owned his authority or not. yet though some of the poor men did own it, they were sent to dunotter castle: and thence among the rest banished and transported to new jersey; in which passage, by reason of their crude and bad provision, the most part in the ship were cast into a fever, and upwards of sixty died, yea even since the former proclamation for this pretended liberty, there are twenty-one men and five women sent to barbadoes, against whom nothing could be alledged but matters of mere religion and conscience: which, as it proclaims the notoriousness of these impudent lies, wherewith the proclamations for this liberty are stuffed; so it puts an indelible brand of infamy upon some london merchants, that are said to pretend to some profession of religion, who sent the ship to transport them, thereby to make gain of the merchandise of the lord's captives. . there have been more cruel acts of parliament enacted in this tyrant's time, than the former made all his reign. for in his first parliament held by queensberry, commissioner, not only was there an act for making it treason to refuse the oath of abjuration, confirming all the illegalities of their procedure hereupon before; but an act making it criminal to own the covenant, and another act making it criminal for any to be present at a field-meeting, which was only so to preachers before. yet neither these acts, and all the executions following upon them, have daunted, nor i hope shall drive them, nor the indemnity and toleration (so generally now applauded) draw them from the duty of owning both these, that are so much the more publicly to be avouched, that they are so openly interdicted by wicked and blasphemous tyranny, though for the same they expect from the scottish inquisition all the murdering violence, that hell and rome and malignant rage can exert. but to conclude this tragical deduction: as these hints we have heaped together of the kinds and several sorts (the particulars being impossible to be reckoned) of barbarities and arbitrary methods, used in carrying on this persecution, demonstrating the reign, or rather rage of these two dominators, under which we have howled these twenty-seven years, to be a complete and habitual tyranny, to discover the inhumanity and illegality of their proceedings, having no other precedent save that of the french conversions, or spanish inquisition, out-done by many stages, in respect of illegality, by the scottish inquisition, and the practices of the council of scotland, and judiciary court; so i shall shut up all in a summary relation of the common practices and forms of procedure in these courts: which will be useful to understand a little more distinctly, to the end the innocency of sufferers may more clearly appear. . they can accuse whom they will, of what they please; and if by summar citation, he will not, may be, because he cannot, compear; if once his name be in their porteons' rolls, that is sufficient to render him convict. . they used also to seize some, and shut them up in prison year and day, without any signification of the cause of their imprisonment. . they can pick any man off the street; and if he do not answer their captious questions, proceed against him to the utmost of severity; as they have taken some among the croud at executions, and imposed upon them the questions. . they can also go through all the houses of the city, as well as the prisons, and examine all families upon the questions of the council's catechism, upon the hazard of their life, if they do not answer to their satisfaction, as has been done in edinburgh. . when any are brought in by seizures, sometimes (as is said before) they let them lie along without any hearing, if they expect they cannot reach them; but if they think they can win at them any way, then they hurry them in such haste, that they can have no time to deliberate upon, and oftentimes have no knowledge or conjecture of the matter of their prosecution: yea, if they be never so insignificant, they will take diversion from their weightiest affairs, to examine and take cognizance of poor things, if they understand they dare vent or avow any respect to the cause of christ: and the silliest body will not escape their catechization about affairs of state, what they think of the authority, &c. . if they be kept in prison any space, they take all ways to pump and discover what can be brought in against them: yea, sometimes they have exactly observed that device of the spanish inquisition, in suborning and sending spies among them, under the disguise and shew of prisoners, to search and find out their minds, who will outstrip all in an hypocritical zeal, thereby to extort and draw forth words from the most wary, which may be brought in judgment against them the next day. . when prisoners are brought in before them, they have neither libel nor accuser, but must answer concerning things that are to be enquired after, to all questions they are pleased to ask. . if at any time they form a sort of libel, they will not restrict themselves to the charges thereof, but examine the person about other things altogether extraneous to the libel. . they have frequently suborned witnesses, and have sustained them as witnesses, who either were sent out by themselves as spies and intelligencers, or who palpably were known to delate those against whom they witnessed, out of a pick and prejudice, and yet would not suffer them to be cast for partial counsel. . if they suppose a man to be wary and circumspect, and more prudent than forward in the testimony; then they multiply questions, and at first many impertinent interrogations, having no connexion with the cause, to try his humour and freedom, that they may know how to deal with him: and renew and reiterate several criminal examinations, that they may know whereof, and find matter wherein, to indict him, by endeavouring to confound, or intrap, or involve him in confessions or contradictions, by wresting his words. . they will admit no time for advice, nor any lawful defence for a delay, but will have them to answer presently, except they have some hopes of their compliance, and find them beginning to stagger and succumb in the testimony; in that case, when a man seeks time to advise, they are animated to a keenness to impose, and encouraged to an expectation of catching by their snares, which then they contrive and prepare with greater cunning. . if a man should answer all their questions, and clear himself of all things they can alledge against him, yet they used to impose some of the oaths, that they concluded he would not take; and according to the measure of the tenderness they discovered in any man, so they apportioned the oaths to trap them, to the stricter the smoother oaths, to the laxer, the more odious, that all natural consciences did fear at. . they will not only have their laws obeyed, but subscribed, and they reckon not their subjects obedience secured by the lawmaker's sanction, but the people's hand-writing; and think it not sufficient that people transgress no laws, but they must also own the justness of them, and the authority that enacts them, and swear to maintain it: and yet when some have done all this, and cleared themselves by all compliances, they will not discharge them, but under a bond to answer again when called. . they will have their laws to reach not only actions, but thoughts; and therefore they require what people think of the bishop's death, and of bothwel insurrection; and whether they own the authority, when they can neither prpve their disowning of it, nor any way offending it. . they will have them to declare their thoughts, and hold them convict, if they do not answer positively all their captious questions; and if they will not tell what they think of this or that, then they must go as guilty. . if they insist in waving, and will not give categorical answers, then they can extort all, and prove what they please by torture: and when they have extorted their thoughts of things, though they be innocent as to all actions their law can charge them with, then they used to hang them when they had done. . they have wheedled men sometimes into confession either of practices or principles, by promising to favour their ingenuity, and upbraiding them for dissemblers if they would not, and by mock expostulations, why were they ashamed to give a testimony? and then make them sign their confessions at the council, to bring them in as a witness against them at the criminal court. . yea, not only extrajudicial confession will sustain in their law: but when they have given the public faith, the king's security the act and oath of council, that their confession shall not militate against them, they have brought it in as witness against them, and given it upon oath, when their former oath and act was produced in open court, in demonstration of their perjury. . when the matter comes to an assize or cognizance of a jury, they use to pack them for their purpose, and pick out such as they listed, who they think will not be bloody enough. . sometimes when the jury hath brought their verdict in favours of the pannel, they have made them sit down, and resume the cognition of the case again, and threatened them with an assize of error, if they did not bring him in guilty. . yea, most frequently the king's advocate used to command them to condemn, and bring in the pannel guilty, under most peremptory certifications of punishment if they should not; so that they needed no juries, but only for the fashion. . sometimes they have sentenced innocent persons twice, once to have their ears cut and be banished, and after the lopping of their ears, some have been re-examined, and sentenced to death, and execute. . they have sentenced some and hanged them both in one day; others early in the morning, both to surprize the persons that were to die, and to prevent spectators of the sight of their cruelty; others have been kept in suspence, till the very day and hour of their execution. . not only have they murdered, serious and zealous followers of christ in taking away their lives, but endeavoured to murder their names, and to murder the cause for which they suffered; loading it with all reproaches, as sedition, rebellion, &c. which was their peculiar policy, to bring the heads of sufferings to points that are most obnoxious to men's censure, and accounted most extrinsic to religion, whereby they levelled their designs against religion, not directly under that notion, but obliquely in the destruction of its professors, under the odium and reproach of enemies to government. . but chiefly they labour to murder the soul, defile the conscience, and only consult to cast a man down from his excellency, which is his integrity; that is a christian's crown, and that they would rather rob him of as any thing, either by hectoring or flattering him from the testimony: which they endeavour, by proposing many offers, with many threatnings in subtile terms; and pretend a great deal of tenderness, protesting they will be as tender of their blood as of their own soul (which in some sense is true, for they have none at all of their own souls) and purging themselves as pilate did, and charging it upon their own heads. . they will be very easy in their accommodations, where they find the poor man beginning to faint, and hearken to their overtures, wherein they will grant him his life, yielding to him as cunning anglers do with fishes: and to persuade him to complying, they will offer conference sometimes or reasoning upon the point, to satisfy and inform his conscience, as they pretend, but really to catch him with their busked hook. . sometimes they used to stage several together, whereof they knew some would comply, to tantalize the rest with the sight of the others liberty, and make them bite the more eagerly at their bait, to catch the conscience. but when they had done all they could, christ had many witnesses, who did retain the crown of their testimony in the smallest points, till they obtained the crown of martyrdom, and attained boldly to them without fear or shame, and disdaining their flattering proposals, but looking on them under a right notion, as stated there in opposition to christ; whereby they found this advantage, that hence they were restrained from all sinful tampering with them, or entertaining any discourse with them, but what was suitable to speak to christ's enemies, or doing any thing to save their life, but what became christ's witnesses, who loved not their lives unto the death. of whom universally this was observed, that to the admiration of all, the conviction of many enemies, the confirmation of many friends, the establishment of the cause, and the glory of their redeemer, they went off the stage with so much of the lord's countenance, so much assurance of pardon and eternal peace, so much hope of the lord's returning to revive his work, and plead his cause again in these lands, that never any suffered with more meekness humility and composure of spirit, and with more faithfulness, stedfastness and resolution, than these worthies did for these despised and reproached truths; for which their surviving brethren are now contending and suffering, while others are at ease. part iii. _the present testimony stated and vindicated in its principal heads._ by what is above premitted, the reader may see the series and succession of the testimony of christ's witnesses in scotland from time to time, in all the periods of that church; how it hath been transmitted from one generation to another down to our hands; how far it hath been extended, and what increasements it hath received in every period; how it hath been opposed by a continued prosecution of an hereditary war against christ, by an atheistical, papistical, prelatical, and tyrannical faction; and how it hath been concerted, contended for, maintained, and sealed actively and passively, by an anti-pagan, anti-popish, anti-prelatical, anti-erastian, anti-sectarian, and anti-tyrannical remnant of the followers, professors, confessors, and martyrs of christ in all ages. now it remains in the third and last place, to consider the merit of the cause as it is now stated, to see whether it will bear the weight of those great sufferings wherewith it hath been sealed. i hope all the lovers of christ, who have an esteem even of his reproaches above all the treasures of egypt, will grant, that if these sufferings be stated on the least or lowest of the truths of christ, then they are not mistated, nor built upon a bottom that will not bear them, or is not of that worth to sustain them. for certainly every truth, the least of truths, is of greater value than any thing that we can suffer the loss of for it; yea, of infinitely greater value, than the whole world. so that if i prove these heads of suffering to be truths wherein conscience is concerned, the cause will be sufficiently vindicated from the loadings and lashings of such as prefer peace to truth, and ease to duty, who to justify their own backwardness and detestable lukewarmness, call some of them only state questions about things civil, and not gospel truths and heads to state suffering upon: and if they be truths and duties, the cause will some way be rendered more illustrious, that it is stated upon the smallest hoofs and hair-breadths of the concerns of christ's declarative glory; as being a greater witness of its owners love and loyalty to christ, and of their pure and tender zeal for his honour, than if for more substantial and fundamental truths, which a natural conscience may reclaim to decline, when for the meanest circumstantials of christ's truths they dare and are ambitious to bestow their dearest blood. but if the complex of them be impartially considered, no unprejudiced arbiter will suffer himself to have such extenuating impressions of the present word of patience, and testimony of the suffering remnant in scotland this day: but it will appear to be a very weighty and worthy concern, as any that either men or christians can be called to witness for; being the privilege of all mankind, the duty of all christians, and the dignity of all churches, to assert; it is for the glory and crown prerogatives and imperial regalia of the king of kings, with reference to his visible kingdom, of which the government is laid upon his shoulders, against the heaven daring usurpations and encroachments made thereupon, both as he is mediator, and king, and head of the church, and as he is god and universal king of the world. as he is mediator, it is his peculiar prerogative to have a supremacy and sole sovereignty over his own kingdom, to institute his own government, to constitute his own laws, to ordain his own officers, to appoint his own ordinances, which he will have observed without alteration, addition, or diminution, until his second coming: this his prerogative hath been, and is invaded by erastian prelacy, sacrilegious supremacy, and now by antichristian popery, which have overturned his government, inverted his laws, subverted his officers, and perverted his ordinances. as he is god and universal king, it is his incommunicable property and glory, not only to have absolute and illimited power, but to invest his deputed ministers of justice with his authority and ordinance of magistracy, to be administred in subordination to him, to be regulated by his laws, and to be improved for his glory, and the good of mankind; this glory of his, hath been invaded by tyrants and usurpers arrogating to themselves an absolute power, intruding themselves without his investment into authority, in a rebellion against him, in opposition to his laws, and abusing it to his dishonour, and the destruction of mankind. against both which encroachments the present testimony is stated, in a witness for religion and liberty, to both which these are destructive. this will appear to be the result and tendency of the testimony in all its parts, opposed by the enemies of religion and liberty, and the end of all their opposition, to bring it to this crinomenon, who shall be king? jesus or cæsar? let any seriously search into all their proclamations and edicts against religion and liberty, this will be found to be the soul and sense of them, practically and really speaking to this purpose, especially since this man came to the throne. '_j. r._ 'james the vii. ii. by the v. of g. king of scotland, england, france, and ireland, defender of the antichristian faith: to all and sundry our good subjects, whom these presents do, or may concern: greeting. we having taken into our royal consideration, the many and great inconveniencies which have happened in that our ancient kingdom of scotland, especially of late years, through the persuasions of the christian religion, and the great heats and animosities, betwixt the professors thereof, and our good and faithful subjects, whose faith and religion is subject and subservient to our royal will (the supreme law, and reason, and public conscience) to the disappointment of our projects, restraint of our pleasures, and contempt of the royal power, converting true loyalty and absolute subjection, into words and names (which we care not for) of religion and liberty, conscience and the word of god, thereby withdrawing some to the christian faction, from an absolute and implicit subjection to us and our will, as if there were a superior law to which they might appeal; and considering that these rebellious christians do never cease to assert and maintain strange paradoxes, such principles as are inconsistent with the glory and interest of our government, as that the authority of kings should be hemmed in with limits, and that their acts and actions are to be examined by another rule than their own authority to make them lawful, that some things in the kingdom are not subject to the king's authority, that there is a kingdom within a kingdom not subordinate to the king, and that there is another king superior to the supreme whom they will rather obey than us, and that we must either take laws from him, or otherwise we are no magistrates; and considering also their practices are conform to their principles, they will not obey our laws, but the laws of another inconsistent with ours, and will calculate their religion according to his laws, and not according to ours, and continually make their addresses to, and receive ambassadors from a prince whom we know not, whom our predecessors, of truly worthy memory, did crucify, one jesus who was dead, whom they affirm to be alive, whose government they alledge is supreme over all kings, whom they acknowledge but as his vassals: being now by favourable fortune, not only brought to the imperial crown of these kingdoms through the greatest difficulties, but preserved upon the throne of our royal ancestors, which from our great founder nimrod of glorious memory, and our illustrious predecessors pharaoh, nebuchadnezzar, herod the great, nero, caligula, &c. of blessed and pious memory, hath been ever opposite to, and projecting the destruction of that kingdom of christ, do, after their laudable example, resolve to suppress that kingdom by all the means and might we can use, because his government is hateful to us, his yoke heavy, his sayings are hard, his laws are contrary to our lusts; therefore we will not let this man reign over us, we will break his bonds, and cast away his cords from us; and advance and exercise our sovereign authority, prerogative royal, and absolute power, which all our subjects are to obey without reserve. 'and as by virtue of our supremacy, whereby we are above all, but such as we are pleased to subject ourselves to, settled by law, and lineally derived to us as an inherent right to the crown, we have power to order all matters of church as well as state, as we in our royal wisdom shall think fit, all laws and acts of christ to the contrary notwithstanding; and accordingly in our royal wisdom have overturned the platform of that government which christ hath instituted, razed all courts fenced in his name, and severely interdicted all meetings of his subjects, and entertainment of his ambassadors: many of whom, in contempt of him that sent them, we have punished according to law, for negotiating his affairs in our kingdoms without our pleasure, and requiring allegiance and obedience to him, after we had exauctorated him; we have also established our right trusty, and well beloved clerks in ecclestiastic affairs, and their underlings, by our authority to have the administration of the business of religion and impowered our right trusty and well beloved cousins and counsellors, to compel all to submit to them, by finings, confinings, imprisonment, banishment, oaths, and bonds, and all legal means: so now having prosecuted this war against christ to this length, that we have no fears of a rally of his forces again so often beaten, we are now engaged with other antichristian princes to give our power to our holy father antichrist, so far as may serve his purpose to oppose christ in his way; but we reserve so much to ourselves, as may encroach upon him in our capacity. and therefore we have thought fit to restore to antichrist our ecclesiastical supremacy, from whom we borrowed it, and for which we have no use at present: but we resolve to maintain and prosecute our sovereign authority, prerogative royal, and absolute power foresaid, against christ, and without subordination to him, from whom, as we sought none, so we received no power by his warrant and grant, and against whom we mind to manage it to the uttermost of our power. yet reflecting upon the conduct of the four last reigns, how, after all the frequent and pressing endeavours that were used in each of them, to reduce our kingdoms to antichrist, the subjects of christ were so stubborn, that the success hath not answered the design: we must now change our methods a little, and tolerate that profession of christ which we cannot yet get overturned, his subjects being so numerous, but always upon these terms, that they take a special care that nothing be preached or taught among them, which may be a testimony for christ's prerogatives, in opposition to our usurpation, or may any way tend to alienate the hearts of our people from us, or our government, or preach his truths which we have condemned as seditious and treasonable, under the highest pains these crimes will import. hereby we shall establish our government on such a foundation, on the ruin of christ's, as may make our subjects happy, and unite them to us by inclination as well as duty, in a belief that we will not restrain conscience in matters of mere religion: for which we have a dispensation from our holy father, and also from our own absoluteness, to be slaves to this promise no longer than consists with our own interest; and which we have power to interpret as we please: and would have all to understand, that no testimony for christ's supremacy against our encroachments thereupon, shall be comprehended under these matters of mere religion, for which the conscience shall not be constrained: but we will have the consciences of such subjects of his, that dare assert it, brought to a test and probation how they stand affected in this competition betwixt us and this king jesus, and see whether they will own or decline our authority, because not of him, nor for him, nor to him, but against him and all his interests. our will is therefore, that all who will countenance any other meetings of his subjects than we have allowed, or connive at them, shall be prosecuted according to the utmost severity of our laws made against them, which we leave in full force and vigour, notwithstanding of all the premises. and for this effect, we further command all our judges, magistrates, and officers of our forces, to prosecute all these subjects and followers of christ, who shall be guilty of treating with, or paying homage to that exauctorated king of theirs, in their assemblies with his ambassadors in the fields with the utmost rigour, as they would avoid our highest displeasure: for we are confident none will, after these liberties and freedom we have given to all without reserve, to serve god publicly, in such a way, as we, by our sovereign authority, prerogative royal, and absolute power aforesaid, have prescribed and allowed, presume to meet in these assemblies, except such whose loyalty to christ doth alienate them from us and our government. as also, under the same certifications, by the same sovereign authority, and prerogative royal, and absolute power foresaid, we charge, impower, warrant, and authorize, against all hazards (hell excepted) all our foresaid judges and officers, in their respective places, to prosecute and execute our laws, against all that may be suspected or convicted of their adherence to christ, or be found guilty of owning their allegiance to him as their liege lord, by solemn covenant, which we have caused burn by the hand of the hangman, and declared criminal to own it, or shall be found guilty of declining allegiance to us and our absolute authority, stated in opposition to him and his, or of maintaining that pernicious principle, inconsistent with our government, that their lives are their own, which they will preserve without surrender to our mercy: all which we command to be executed to death, or banished as slaves, as shall be found most conducible to our interest. and to the end, the few that remain of that way may be totally exterminated, we straitly command all our soldiers, horse and foot, to be ready upon order, to march and make search, pursue and follow, seize and apprehend, kill and slay, and cause to perish, all such, whether they shall be found at meetings, or in their wanderings, wherever they may be apprehended: and ordain all our good subjects to be assistant to these our forces, in prosecuting this war against christ and his followers, and contribute their best help and encouragement, in giving them their required maintenance, and duly paying cess and locality imposed for that end; and that they shall not dare to countenance, converse with, refer, harbour, supply, or keep any manner of correspondence with any of these traitors that adhere to christ, under the pain of being found art and part with them, and obnoxious to the same punishments to which they are liable; but on the contrary, to assist our forces to apprehend, and raise the hue and cry after them wherever they shall be seen, that they may be forthwith pursued, seized, cut off, and destroyed, which we order to be instantly done upon the place, where they or any of them are apprehended, and that without any delay or mercy to age or sex,' &c. on the other hand, if any will take a look of the declarations and testimonies of the other party without prejudice or stumbling at some expressions, which may be offensive to critics, he will find the scope and strain of them to have this importance. 'we, a poor company of persecuted, reproached, and despised christians; who indeed have not many wise men among us after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, but are a few foolish, weak, base, and despised nothings in the world; yet having this ambition to be his called chosen; and faithful soldiers, who is king of glory, king of heaven, king of saints, king of nations, king of kings, whose kingdom is everlasting and universal; considering the many insolent indignities, affronts, and reproaches cast upon his name and glory, and the many usurpations, encroachments, and invasions made upon his crown and dignity, by a pestilent generation of his atheistical, papistical, prelatical, and tyrannical enemies, who have rebelled against him, and have renounced, corrupted, and subverted his royal government, both in the church and in the world, both in his kingdom of grace and of power: do bear witness and testimony against these rebels, from the highest to the lowest: and assert the interest and title of our princely master, and own allegiance and absolute obedience to him and his government, to which he hath undoubted right; an essential right by his eternal godhead, being the everlasting father, whose goings forth have been of old from everlasting; a covenant-right by compact with the father, to bear the glory and rule upon his throne, by virtue of the council of peace between them both; a donative right by the father's right of delegation, by which he hath all power given to him in heaven and in earth, and all authority, even because he is the son of man; an institute right by the father's inauguration, which hath set him as king in zion; an acquisite right by his own purchase, by which he hath merited and obtained not only subjects to govern, but the glory of the sole sovereignty over them in that relation, a name above every name; a bellical right by conquest, making the people fall under him, and be willing in the day of his power, and overcoming those that make war with him; an hereditary right by proximity of blood and primogeniture, being the first born, higher than the kings of the earth, and the first born from the dead, that in all things he might have the pre-eminence; an electing right by his people's choice and surrender, a crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals. in a humble recognizance of all which rights, we own and avouch, that he hath that incommunicable prerogative of sole sovereignty over his visible kingdom, as well as invisible, without a co-partner or competitor, either co-ordinate or subordinate; in prescribing laws, by no human authority to be reversed; in appointing ordinances immutable, without addition or diminution, for matter or manner; instituting a government, which no man or angel can, without blasphemy, arrogate a power either to invert or evert, change or overturn; and constituting officers, which must depend only on his authority, and his alone; and must be cloathed only with his commission, and his alone; guided by his instructions, and his alone; acting according to his laws and prescribed platform, and his alone; without any dependence on, subordination to, licence, warrant or indulgence from any mortal. and therefore we disown and detest every thing that hath not the stamp of his authority, either in doctrine, worship, discipline or government: and will discountenance prelacy, supremacy, popery, and all corruption contrary to his institution, who is sole and supreme lawgiver to the conscience, and will submit to, or comply with nothing that may directly or indirectly signify our respect unto them. hence we will take none of their oaths, subscribe none of their bonds, yield to none of their impositions, pay none of their exactions; neither will we hear or receive ordinances from any minister, but the faithful authorized ambassadors of christ our king, whatever either rage or reproach we suffer for it. we assert and affirm also, that our exalted prince is king of the whole world, by whom kings reign, and princes decree justice, as his ministers of justice, in subordination to him; whom he hath hath appointed to rule over us, with just boundaries, that they may not exceed, and true characters, by which we should know them and pay them deference. and therefore, whosoever shall arrogate to themselves, and extend their power beyond and above his prescripts, being neither called to, nor qualified for, nor improving the office for the ends he hath appointed; we will acknowledge them no otherwise than usurping tyrants, and not magistrates nor ministers of justice, to whom he hath given the sword by his perceptive will; only as lions, bears, wolves, to whom he hath given a rod by his providential will; in that case we may be passively subject, when we cannot do better; but will never own conscientious allegiance to them, nor own them as our lawful magistrates; and therefore we will not bow down to their idols they have set up, nor prostitute either conscience or liberty to their lust, but will endeavour, under our master's banner and conduct, to preserve whatever he hath intrusted to us religion, life, liberty, estate, and whatsoever the lord our god hath given us to possess, as they unjustly possess what their god gives them; and will maintain a war of constant opposition to them (against whom our lord hath declared a war for ever) without parley, treaty of peace, capitulation, composition, truce, or any transaction; we will neither meddle nor make with them, less or more, nor seek their favour, nor embrace it when it is offered, on any terms that may imply any obligation to surcease from our duty to our king, and irreconcileable opposition to them,' &c. now i shall come more distinctly to the purpose, in offering a short vindication of the heads and grounds of our great sufferings, dividing them into their principal parts, which i reduce to two, to wit, negatives and positives. the negative grounds i reckon three principally. . for refusing to acknowledge a corrupt ministry. . for refusing to own a tyrannical magistracy. . for refusing to swear and subscribe their unlawful imposed oaths, chiefly that of abjuration, which was the occasion of suffering unto death. the positive grounds are also three. . for frequenting field-meetings, to receive gospel ordinances from faithful ministers. . for maintaining the principle and practice of defensive resistance of superior powers. . for maintaining the privilege and duty of offensive revenge, in executing justice upon murdering enemies of mankind, in cases of extreme necessity, in prosecuting which, i shall intertex some subordinate questions relating to their respective heads, and endeavour to discuss them briefly. head i. _where the sufferings of many, for refusing to acknowledge a corrupt ministry, are vindicated; and the question of hearing curates is cleared._ this question, though it may seem nice, and of no great moment, to persons of gallio's or laodicea's temper, indifferent and lukewarm dispositions, consulting their own more than the things of christ, which make it pass without any enquiry with the most part of the world; yet, to all who are truly tender in keeping a good conscience, free of the times contagion, to all who have the true impression of the fear of god, who is jealous, especially in the matters of his worship; to all who have the true zeal of god eating them up, in a just indignation at the indignities done to him, in usurping the office and corrupting the administration of the ministry; to all who truly love the gospel, and put a due value on the ordinances of christ, the corruptions whereof this question touches, it will be accounted of great importance. there are three questions about the duty of hearing the word, concerning which the lord jesus gives us very weighty cautions, to wit, what we should hear, mark iv. . how we should hear, luke viii. . and whom we should hear. the last of which, though it be not so expressly stated as the other two, yet the searcher of the scriptures will find it as clearly determined, and as many cautions to guard from erring in it, as in any other case, and that the concern of conscience in it is very weighty. and certain it is, if there had been more advertency in this point, there would not have been such inconsideration and licentiousness in the matter and manner of hearing. nor would that itching humour and luxuriancy of lust, in heaping up teachers to please the fancy, have been so much encouraged, to the great detriment of the church, disgrace of the gospel, and destruction of many poor souls. but through the ignorance and neglect of this duty of trying whom we should hear, by seeking some satisfying evidence of their being cloathed with authority from christ, the world hath been left loose in a licence to hear what they pleased, and so have received the poison of error from the mountebanks, instead of the true and wholesome potions of christ's prescripts from them that had power and skill to administer them. hence the many sects, and schisms, and errors that have pestered the church in all ages, have in a great measure proceeded from this latitude and laxness of promiscuous hearing of all whom they pleased, whom either the world's authority impowered, or by other means were possessed of the place of preaching, without taking any cognizance whether they had the characters of christ's ambassadors or not. if this had been observed, and people had scrupled and refused to hear these whom they might know should not have preached; neither the great antichrist, nor the many lesser antichrists, would have had such footing in the world as they have this day. it is then of no small consequence to have this question cleared. neither is it of small difficulty to solve the intricacies of it, what characters to fix for a discovery of christ's true ministers; whom we should submit to and obey in the lord, and love and esteem them for their work's sake, and for their qualities sake, as standing in christ's stead, having the dispensation of the word of reconciliation committed to them; and how we may discern those characters; what judgment is incumbent to private christians, for the satisfaction of their own consciences in the case; and how they ought to demean themselves in their practice, without scandal on either hand, or sin against their own conscience; how to avoid the rocks and extremes that inadvertency or precipitancy in this matter may rush upon; so as to escape and sail by the scylla of sinful separation on the one hand, and the charybdis of sinful union and communion on the other, which are equally dangerous; especially how these cautions are to be managed in a broken, and disturbed, and divided case of the church. the question also is the more difficult, that as it was never so much questioned before this time, and never so much sought to be obscured, by the perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, to find out evasions to cover sin and escape sufferings upon this account; so it hath never been discussed by divines either at home or abroad, with relation to our case, except what hath been of late by some faithful men, who have suffered upon this head, from whom i shall gather the most of my arguments, in as compendious a way as i can without wronging them. the reason, i fancy, that we are at such a loss in our helps from the learned on this head, is partly, that they have written with relation to their own times, in a constitute case of the church, when corruptions and disorders might be orderly rectified, and people might have access to get their scruples removed in a legal way by church-order, in which case the learned and judicious mr. durham hath written excellently in his book on scandal; but therein neither he nor others did consult, nor could have a prospect of such a case as ours is; and partly, that foreign divines, not having this for their exercise, could not be acquainted with our circumstantiate case, and so are not fit nor competent arbiters to decide this controversy; hence many of them do wonder at our sufferings upon this head. every church is best acquainted with her own testimony. yet we want not the suffrage of some of the most learned of them, as the great gisb. voetius in his polit. eccles. in several places comes near to favour us: where he allows people to leave some, and hear such ministers as they profit most by, from these grounds, 'that people should choose the best and most edifying gifts, and from that scripture, thess. v. . prove all things, &c. and answers objections to the contrary, and granteth, that, upon several occasions, one may abstain from explicit communion with a corrupt church, for these reasons, that such communion is not absolutely necessary, by necessity either of the mean or precept, where the christian shall have more peace of conscience, and free exercise of christian duties elsewhere, and that he may keep communion with more purity in other places, polit. eccles. quest. . pag. . and he approves of the people refusing to bring their children to be baptized by such corrupt ministers, because they may wait until they have occasion of a minister; for if the best gifts be to be coveted, why should not the best ministers be preferred? and why should not christians shew by their deeds, that they honour such as fear the lord, and contemn a vile person? they ought not to partake of other men's sins, cor. v. , . eph. v. . they should not strengthen the hands of the wicked, and make sad the godly; the authority of such ministers should not be strengthened,' voet. polit. eccles. pag. to . but though it labour under all these disadvantages; yet it is not the less, but so much the rather necessary, to say somewhat to clear it, with dependence upon light from the fountain, and with the help of faithful men who have sufficiently cleared it up, to all that have a conscience not blinded nor bribed with some prejudices, by which more light hath accrued to the church in this point of withdrawing from corrupt ministers than ever was attained in former times; which is all the good we have got of prelacy. insomuch that i might spare labour in adding any thing, were it not that i would make the arguments, vindicating this cause of suffering, a little more public, and take occasion to shew, that the grounds espoused by the present and reproached party for their withdrawings, so far as they are stretched, are no other than have been owned by our writers on this head; to the intent that it may appear, there is no discrepancy, but great likeness and harmony between the arguments and grounds of withdrawing, in the late informatory vindication, &c. and those that are found in other writings. and so much the rather i think it needful to touch this subject now, that not only this hath been the first ground of our sufferings, but many that suffered a while for it, now have fainted, and condemned all their former contendings for this part of the testimony, calling in question all these reasons that formerly satisfied them. but to proceed with some distinctness in this thorny point: some concessory assertions must first be permitted, and then our grounds propounded. first, i willingly yield to, and cordially close with the truth of these assertions. i. the unity of the spirit, in the bond of peace, ought to be the endeavour of all that are members of the one body of christ, partakers of his one spirit, called in one hope, professing one lord, confessing one faith, sealed with one baptism, eph. iv. . &c. and for brethren to dwell together in unity, is good and pleasant, and like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon aaron's beard, psal. cxxxiii. , . a fragrant ointment indeed, if it be composed aright of gospel simples, according to divine art, and the wisdom that is from above, which is pure, and then peaceable: and not made up of adulterate politics: that union that hath the spirit for its author, the scripture for its rule, peace for its bond and beauty, love for its cement, faith for its foment, christ for its foundation, and truth and holiness for its constant companions, cannot but be intensely desired, enixly endeavoured, and fervently followed by all the professors of the gospel of peace, and subjects of the prince of peace: which makes division and schism, not only a great misery, but a grand sin. but it must be in the way of truth and duty, and consistent with holiness and the honour of christ, otherwise if it be in the way of apostasy and defection, it is but a confederacy and conspiracy against the lord. and true union can neither be attained, nor retained, nor recovered, except the sinful cause of division, defection, and the holy over-ruling cause, the anger of the lord be removed, in turning to and following him. ii. though there be not perfect union, but diversity both of judgments and practices, in several cases there may be communion with a church in its ordinances and ministry. as, . we may have a catholic communion with all christian ministers and members of the catholic church, considered as such; holding the head christ, and the fountain sure. and so we may meet for worship with all devout men in every nation under heaven, whether they be parthians, or medes, or elamites, or french or dutch, &c. though differing in controversies of lesser moment, not overturning that; if they hold the universal testimony of the gospel, against the common enemies thereof, jews, turks, or pagans: for there is neither greek nor jew, if he be a christian, christ is all and in all, col. iii. . but if they be heretics, we can have no communion with them. . we may have a more special communion with all protestant ministers and members of the reformed church, considered as such, more strictly, and upon stricter conditions: providing they hold, not only the universal of christians, but the general testimony of protestants, against the greater and lesser antichrists; though differing from us in some circumstantial points, not reformed, and not contradictory unto the protestant testimony against popery, and all heresy; nor declining from their own reformation, by defection or schism. and consequently, it is lawful to own communion with the churches of the united provinces, and take ordination from them, though they have some forms not allowable, from which they were never reformed, because they are sound in the protestant testimony. but with the sectarians, or schismatics, or apostates among them, we cannot own that special communion. . we may have a more particular communion upon yet stricter conditions with all our covenanted brethren, ministers and members of the churches of britain and ireland, considered as such: providing they hold, not only the universal, not only the more special, protestant testimony against the greater and lesser antichrists, but the covenanted testimony for the reformation in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, against popery, prelacy, superstition, heresy, schism, and profaneness, according to the covenant; though differing from us in those controversial points, never reformed, and which were never the word of christ's patience, and do not overturn the covenanted testimony. but with those that contradict and counteract that, we own that particular communion. . we may have yet a nearer organical communion, upon stricter conditions still with all the ministers and members of the national church of scotland constitute and confederate under one reformed government, according to the rule of christ: providing they hold, not only all the former testimonies under the foresaid considerations, but the presbyterian testimony as stated in the ecclesiastical constitution, and sworn to in the national covenants and engagements of that church, founded upon the word of god, against popery, prelacy, erastianism, sectarianism, toleration, schism and defection; though differing in some things from us, never reformed, never considered in ecclesiastical judicatories, never engaged against in our covenants, never stated as the word of patience and matter of testimony. but with those that oppose, suppress, reproach, and abandon this testimony, we cannot own this organical communion, in this broken state of the church. we may have yet a stricter congregational communion, upon stricter conditions, in and with the ordinary or extraordinary meetings or societies of the lord's people for gospel ordinances, with any minister or ministers, duly and truly admitted to that function, according to christ's appointment, and the call of the people, whether in a fixed or unfixed relation; providing he holds the testimony of christ, under all the considerations, and owns and adheres unto the true received principles of the church of scotland, in doctrine, worship, discipline and government, founded upon the written word of god, and whatsoever declarations or testimonies, former or latter, particular or more general, are agreeable thereunto; though differing from us in some of the integral and not essential parts of our testimony against the enemies of our covenanted reformation. but with such as deny or decline from it, by schism or defection, or compliance with the enemies thereof, we cannot own this congregational communion, in this broken state of the church. iii. though there be many things in a church, to brangle and lessen the comfort of our communion with it, and the ministry thereof; yet we may keep fellowship with a true church, though in many things faulty and corrupt, as all churches are, in some measure, in this militant state. as the church of corinth had many corruptions in their practice, yet no separation is enjoined from it. and the lord did not require separation from the churches of pergamos and thyatira; though they had many corruptions and deficiences in discipline, in a toleration of heretics; and would lay no other burden upon them, but to hold fast what they had: as mr. durham shews in his commentary on the revelation, chap. . lect. . page , . as also chap. . lect. . page . in to. this must be granted especially in these cases, . in the infant state of the church, when the reformation is only begun: then many things may be tolerated, before they be gradually reformed, which, in an adult state, are not to be suffered. . in a growing case of the church, advancing out of corruptions, then many things may be borne with, while they are ascending and wrestling up the hill, which in a declining state, when the church is going backward, must not be yielded unto. see that objection of hearing prelatical men in the time of former prelacy, answered above, period . in a constitute and settled case of the church, enjoying her privileges and judicatories, corruptions may be forborn, and the offended are not to withdraw, before recourse to the judicatories for an orderly redress; but in a broken and disturbed state, when there is no access to these courts of christ; then people, though they must not usurp a power of judicial censuring these corruptions, yet they may claim and exercise a discretive power over their own practice; and by their withdrawing from such ministers as are guilty of them, signify their sense of the moral equity of these censures that have been legally enacted against these and the equivalent corruptions, and when they should be legally inflicted. as we do upon this ground withdraw from the prelatic curates, and likewise from some of our covenanted brethren, upon the account of their being chargeable with such corruptions and defections from our reformation, as we cannot but shew our dislike of. this the reverend author of rectius instruendum justifies, confut. . dial. chap. . p. . where he is shewing what separation is not sinful; and gives this for one, if we separate in that, which a national church hath commanded us as her members to disown, by her standing acts and authority, while those from whom we separate own that corruption. which holds true of the curates, and indulged and addressers, and all that we withdraw from. however it be, certainly those are to be withdrawn from, with whom we cannot communicate without submitting to the laws establishing them, and taking on that test and badge of our incorporation with them, and partaking of their sin, and in hazard of their judgment. iv. though in some cases, as we are warranted, so are necessitated to withdraw: yet neither do we allow it upon slight or slender grounds, nor can any tender soul be forced to discountenance the ministers of christ, (i do not here speak of the prelatical curates), without great reluctancy and grief of heart, even when the grounds of it are solid and valid, and the necessity unavoidable; therefore we reject these as insufficient grounds. besides what are given already, . we cannot withdraw from a minister, for his infirmities or weakness, natural, spiritual, or moral. . neither for personal faults and escapes: we expect a faithful, but not a sinless ministry. . nor for every defect in faithfulness, through ignorance, want of courage, misinformation, or being biassed with affection for particular persons. we do not hold, that faults in members or defects in ministers, do pollute the ordinances, and so necessitate a separation; but agree with what mr. durham says on revelations, chap. . lect. . p. . in quarto. sincerity discovered will cover many faults. . nor for every discovery of hypocrisy; though we may have ground to suspect a man's principle and motive be not right, yet if he be following duty unblameably, and have a lawful call, what then! "notwithstanding every way, whether in pretence or in truth, christ is preached, therein we may rejoice," phil. i. . . nor yet for real scandals, not attended with obstinacy, if ministers will take reproof and admonition, and at least by doctrinal confessing, and practical forsaking them, satisfy the offended. . yea, though his scandals be so gross, that we must discountenance him, when he persists in them: yet that is not a disowning of his ministry, or a rejecting his commission, but a discountenancing for his disorders, until they be removed. but the apologet. relat. sect. . p. , . says, ( .) 'there may be ministerial corruptions, that cut the very throat of the office, and make one no officer,----and it is past questioning, such may be shunned, without all hazard of separation. ( .) when personal faults are very gross and palpable, open and avowed, such may be shunned without any hazard of separation; because the man's being an officer, before god, is much to be questioned; and there is great probability, that by the very deed itself, he had forefaulted the same, though such should be the corruption in a church, that notwithstanding of all this he may be maintained. ( .) separation is one thing, and not hearing such or such a man is a far other thing: there may be many just grounds of exception against a particular person, why people may refuse to countenance him, without any hazard of separation, or joining with separatists in their principles: separation is one thing, and refusing to attend the ministry of such a man is another thing; for a man may join with ordinances in another congregation, and so testify that he hath no prejudice at the ministry, but only against such a man in particular.' whence it is an ignorant as well as malicious calumny, to say, that our withdrawing from the curates, and also from some ministers, whom otherwise we respect and reverence as godly ministers, for their offensive defections, is a disowning all the ministry of scotland. whereas, we do profess indeed a disowning of the curate's ministry, but for our reverend presbyterian ministers, though we do discountenance many of them with sad hearts, for not keeping the word of the lord's patience in this hour of tentation, nor adhering to the principles and constitutions of the church of scotland: yet this is not a disowning of their ministry, but a refusing to countenance them in their present administrations, in this disturbed state, till these offences be removed. v. as to disown the ministry were hateful sectarianism; so to dissolve or break off communion with a true church, whereof we are members, were an unnatural schism, which is horrid sin. but because among all the various sufferings, wherewith the poor tossed and racked remnant now persecuted, have been exercised, this hath not been the lightest; that they have been on all hands stigmatized as schismatics and separatists, not only because they have maintained a resolved withdrawing from the curates, but also have discountenanced many presbyterian ministers, with whom they have been offended for their declining courses, and compliances with the times corruptions, and forsaking in a great measure the duty of this day: i shall distinguish some cases of separation, out of the writings of our approven authors, which will justify all their withdrawings. . mr. durham distinguishes these three, schism separating from the unity and communion of a true church, consisting not always in diversity of doctrine, but in divided practices, according to that of augustine, it is not a different faith makes schismatics, but a broken society of communion: then separation, either in whole from a church as no church, or in part in some things wherein they cannot communicate with that corrupt church, which is lawful if it exceed not its ground; then, lastly, secession, a local removing to a better church. the first of these cannot be imputed to the persecuted wanderers: for they separate from no true church, whereof they were members, but these from whom they separate, will be found to be the schismatics. . the second of these, to wit separation, is either positive and active, or negative and passive. the first is, when a party not only leaves communion with a church whereunto they were formerly joined, but also gathers up new distinct churches, different from the former, under another government and ministry, and ordinances, disowning those they left. the latter is, when the faithful remnant of a declining church, standing still and refusing to concur with the backsliding part of the same church, after they have become obstinate in their defections, hold closely by, and adheres unto the reformation attained. this famous mr. rutherford, in his due right of presbyteries, p. , . sheweth to be lawful, and calleth it a non-union, as that in augustine's time, when the faithful did separate from the donatists; which is lawful and laudable. . 'mr. rutherford there proceeds to distinguish between a separation from the church in her worst and most part, and a separation from the best and least part: and these who separate from the worst and greatest part, do notwithstanding retain a part of, and a part in the visible church, because they do not separate from the church, according to the least and best part thereof; as the godly in england, who refused the popish ceremonies and antichristian bishops. hence it will follow, that though people should now withdraw from communion with the greatest part of the church, which is now corrupted, they cannot be counted separatists, because they hold full communion with the better, though lesser part. moreover he saith, p. , . that there may be causes of non-union with a church which are not sufficient causes of separation. lastly, he tells us in the same place, p. . when the greatest part of a church makes defection from the truth, the lesser part remaining sound, the greatest part is the church of separatists; though the manyest and greatest part in the actual exercise of discipline be the church, yet in the case of right discipline the best, though fewest, is the church. for truth is like life, that retireth from the manyest members unto the heart, and there remaineth in its fountain in case of dangers. so that it is the major part which hath made defection, that are to be accounted separatists, and not such who stand to their principles, though they cannot comply or join with the corrupt majority.' thus the apol. relat. rehearsed his words, sect. . pag. . . . there may be a lawful withdrawing, where the ordinances and ministry are not cast at, as the apol. rel. saith ibid. . 'so then, so long as people do not cast at the ordinances, but are willing to run many miles to enjoy them: nor cast at the church as no church (thought they sadly fear, that god shall be provoked by this dreadful defection, which is carried on by these men and their favourers, to give her a bill of divorce) nor at the ministry, for they love those that stand to their principles dearly, and are most willing to hear them either in public or private. . it is granted by all that write against separatists, that separation from a church is lawful, when the case so falleth out, that union cannot be kept up with her without sin,' voet. polit. eccles. p. . quest. . . the grave author of rectius instruendum confut. dial. chap. pag. . &c. 'allows, every separation is not schism, even from the church which hath essentials; yea, and more than essentials: if it be from those (though never so many) who are drawing back from whatever piece of duty and integrity is attained; for this is still to be held fast, according to many scripture commands. so elias, when god's covenant was forsaken, was as another athanasius (i and i only am left) in point of tenacious integrity. . next he says, if we separate in that which a national church hath commanded us as her members to disown, by her standing acts and authority, while those from whom we separate own that corruption. . likewise he there asserts, there is a lawful forbearance of union and compliance with notorious backsliders, in that which is of itself sinful, or inductive to it: which is far from separation strictly taken. the commands of abstaining from all appearance of evil, and hating the garment spotted with the flesh, do clearly include this. . he adds, many things will warrant separation from such a particular minister or congregation; which will not warrant separation from the church national; nor infer it, by mr. durham's acknowledgment (on scandal, pag. .) for if scandals become excessive, he allows to depart to another congregation. . lastly, he says, there is a commanded withdrawing from persons and societies even in worship, the precepts, rom. xvi. . cor. vi. . prov. xix. . acts ii. . will clearly import this by consequence.--surely the ministers and professors, adhering to the reformation, must be the true church of scotland, though the lesser number: these soldiers who keep the generals orders, are the true army, not the deserters of the same.' but, secondly, it being in part cleared by these assertions, what is our mind in this controversy, i shall lay down from scripture oracles, all the causes and cases justifying and warranting withdrawing from any ministers; with application of all of them to the curates, and accommodation of some of them to all that the wanderers withdraw from: with arguments endeavouring to evince the validity of them, and evidencing they are not new notions, but the same grounds which approven authors have improved in this controversy. i shall omit the ordinary criticisms in stating the question, in distinguishing betwixt hearing and joining in worship, and owning them as our ministers, and submitting to them, &c. and only essay to prove this thesis: we cannot, without sin, own church communion in gospel ordinances with the prelates or their curates, as our ministers, but must withdraw from them, and any other guilty of the like corruptions, which we can make out against them. i shall not resume what confirmations this thesis is strengthned with, from the testimonies, or church constitutions of former periods, which are permitted in the foregoing discourse; nor make any repetition of the circumstances of our present condition, represented above, which contributes to clear it: but shortly come to the arguments. i. it is necessary that we must acknowledge them ministers of christ, and his ambassadors clothed with his commission, from whom we receive the ordinances of the gospel. for otherwise they must be looked upon as thieves, robbers, usurpers, and strangers, whom christ's sheep will not, nay must not hear, john x. , . and "how shall they preach," or be heard, "except they be sent," rom. x. . for such whom we know may not lawfully preach, we cannot lawfully hear. these from whom we may receive the mysteries of god, we must account ministers of christ, cor. iv. . and ambassadors for christ, standing in his stead, beseeching us to be reconciled to god, cor. v. . hence such as we doubt to acknowledge ministers of christ, clothed with his commission, them we cannot hear without sin; but the prelatical curates are such as we doubt to acknowledge ministers of christ, clothed with his commission: therefore we cannot hear them. the minor only needs probation. these who neither have nor can have the qualifications of a minister of christ, cannot be acknowledged with confidence to be ministers of christ clothed with his commission: but the prelatical curates are such: ergo----first, they neither have, nor can have the qualifications of christ's ministers; since few of them have the personal, as christians, far less the ministerial as officers, mentioned tim. iii. , . tit. i. , . except it be to be "husbands of one wife," and if that do not make them ministers, they having nothing else, especially four are wanting in all of them. ( .) blamelessness, and freedom from scandal, even such as affects the office (besides other gross disorders in their life and conversation, obvious to the view of onlookers, being men who have denied the faith; and therefore unfit to have the privilege of church members in any well governed church) being, in the experience of all that know them signalized under the characters of those that run unsent, and from whom we are commanded to withdraw: causing the people to err by their lies, and by their lightness, not sent of god, jer. xxiii. making the heart of the righteous sad, and strengthening the hands of the wicked, ezek. xiii. . see also ezek. xxxiv. , . such as we are commanded to beware of, matth. vii. , . such as we must mark and avoid, rom. xvi. , . phil. iii. . disorderly walkers from whom we must withdraw, thess. iii. . covenant breakers, from whom we are commanded to turn away, tim. iii. , . they are not then blameless: and in shewing how fitly these agree unto the persons now spoken of, time needs not be spent, such as know them can best judge. hence, such as either are not fit to be church members, or have all the characters of such officers from whom we are to withdraw, cannot be acknowledged capable of the qualifications of the ministers of christ; but such are the curates: ergo----( .) the qualification of vigilancy cannot be found with them for all that know them will acknowledge that they neither do, nor can in preaching the word be "instant in season and out of season," so as to make "full proof of their ministry," tim. vi. ,-- . nay, they can give no proof of their ministry at all, further than may be competent to dumb dogs that cannot bark, isa. lvi. , . for they nor no man can say, that the diseased they have strengthened, or healed that which was sick, &c. ezek. xxxiv. . and it is known to all that know them, that if ever there were any that assumed to themselves the name of levites, who departed out of the way, and caused many to stumble at the law, and corrupted the covenant of levi, and therefore were deservedly contemptible and base before all the people, (mat. ii. , .) they are the men. let any man judge then, whether they have the qualifications of the messengers of the lord of hosts. hence, they that can give no proof of their ministry, but that which proves them to be such whom the lord condemns, and such who deserve to be contemned of all, cannot be acknowledged to be qualified as the lord's ministers; but the prelatic curates can give no proof of their ministry, &c. ergo----( .) the qualification of aptness to teach is wanting; yea, incompatible with them, not only such of them as are noted for ignorance, of whom clearly that is verified, they are blind watchmen, they are all ignorant (isa. lvi. .) but even their greatest clerks and rabbies may fitly be called after the name of their forefathers, whom christ calls blind leaders of the blind, concerning whom he gives a command to let them alone, mat. xv. . either generally they are discovered to be such masters of israel, as know not these things, john iii. . being men not exercised in religion, and have not learned the truth as it is in jesus; or they are such, as if they have had gifts or grace, yet now they are palpably blasted of god, and so cannot profit the people at all, being such as do not stand in god's counsel, for then they should have turned the people from their evil way, and so they are not apt to teach others when they are not taught of god, but steal his words every one from their neighbour, clearly discovering they are not sent of him, jer. xxiii. , , , . and because they do not stand in god's counsel, they cannot declare all the counsel of god, acts xx. . for they can neither be apt to teach repentance towards god, since they cannot be supposed to be sensible of these sins to be repented of, for which the land perisheth, and is burnt up like a wilderness, jer. ix. . for then they would first repent themselves of their own conformity with prelacy, of their breach of covenant, &c. all that they can do in such a subject is, to see vain and foolish things, and not to discover the land's iniquity, but to see false burdens, and causes of banishment, lam. ii. . nor can they be apt to teach faith, seeing in many things they teach otherwise than christ hath taught us in his word, and consent not to wholesome words, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, from such the command is to withdraw, tim. vi. ,-- . whose mouths must be stopped when they teach things which they ought not, tit. i. ,-- . which is undeniable to all that know what sort of stuff they preach, contrary to the word of god, and the principles of our covenanted reformation. hence if none of them be apt to teach, then none of them is fit to be heard; but none of them is apt to teach: ergo----'it is true private christians may not judge of the endowments and qualifications of ministers; yet every private christian hath the judgment of discretion, and that way may judge such an one if he appear qualified according to the rule of the word; and may doubt if he be a qualified minister before god, wanting these qualifications which the word requireth,' apol. relat. sect. . p. . secondly, they have not the lawful call of a minister of christ, so much as an external call of his institution: which i prove thus. they that have presentations from patrons, and collations from prelates, and no more for a call, have no lawful call at all; but the curates have presentations from patrons, and collations from prelates, and no more for a call: ergo they have no lawful call at all. the minor cannot be doubted: 'for, in this government, the minister's mission, call, ordination, and relation to such a people over whom he is to officiate, flows all from the prelate; the congregational eldership hath not the least interest in it: hence the presbyterian way of calling pastors was ranversed by the parliament, when prelacy was set up, and the old custom of patronages was restored,' rectius instru. confut. of dial. chap. . p. . the major proposition may be proven by parts. first, presentations from patrons cannot give a lawful call; for besides what other reasons might be given against this old relict of popish bondage of patronages, it destroys that privilege and liberty of the church in calling their own pastors, and makes all intruders, without the church's choice; whereas the flock are allowed a judgment of discretion, knowledge of, and consent to the admission of their pastors, to whom they intrust their soul's directions, before they be subject to, and obey him in the lord, for otherwise he is a stranger that hath not come in at the door, and they must not, nor will not be imposed upon, john x. - . they had an interest in choosing and nominating even the apostles, though there were other apostles of infallible knowledge, as to qualifications, present to ordain them; and they appointed two to be chosen by lot, acts vi. . and even the deacons were looked out and chosen by the people, and appointed over the business, acts vi. . 'much less ought ministers to be thrust upon such a weighty employment, to pleasure great men who are patrons, since in their faithfulness the people are infinitely more concerned,' rectius instruen. ubi supra. hence, if the curates have no call but what destroys the people's privilege, they have no lawful call at all, neither ought they to be owned, or countenanced as called ministers; but by the presentation of patrons they have no call, but what destroys the people's privilege: ergo--next, collations from prelates cannot give a lawful call: for ( .) they cannot give that to others which they have not themselves; but they have not a lawful call themselves, because they are not lawful officers, as is clear, and may be proven afterwards. ( .) the only way of conveyance of an ordinary call to this office, is by the act of a presbytery, tim. iv. . and, by ministers, their ordaining elders in every church, with the consent of that church; but a prelate's collation is not this act of a presbytery. ( .) that which only makes a man a prelate's depute, cannot give him a call to the ministry of christ; but this collation only makes a man a prelate's depute. or thus, a prelate's depute is no minister; but a curate is a prelate's depute: ergo----that a prelate's depute is no minister, i prove; not only from that, that a prelate, as such, is not a servant of christ, but an enemy; and therefore cannot confer upon another, that dignity to be christ's servant; but from this, that the scripture allows no derivation of deputed officers. if no officers of christ can have deputes of christ's institution; then the deputes that they make cannot be christ's officers of his institution; but no officers of christ can have deputes by christ's institution: every man that hath any piece of stewardship in god's family must ever see and execute it immediately by himself, and wait upon it, rom. xii. , . that curates are prelates deputes is clear: for they are subject to them in order and jurisdiction, and derive all their power from them, and are accountable to them: therefore they cannot be acknowledged with confidence of conscience to be christ's ministers. 'because they have not such a visible evidence of the call of christ, as, in reason and charity, doth oblige all men to receive the person so called, as truly sent: which things are so evident in themselves, that whoever denieth them, is obliged by the same consequence to affirm, that if simon magus had in his horrid wickedness, purchased the apostleship by money, the christian world had been bound to receive him as an apostle,' naphtali, p. , , first edition. that their ministry is the lord's ordinance is plainly denied, naphtali, p. . 'they have nothing like a solemn ordination, having no imposition of hands of the presbytry with fasting and prayer, according to the order of the gospel, but the sole warrant and mission of the prelate, and therefore it cannot be lawful to countenance such, and to look upon them as lawful ministers,' apol. relat. sect. . pag. . it will be objected here, . 'that then their baptism is no baptism, if they be no ministers.' ans. '( .) what sad consequences may follow upon the nulling of their office, let them see to it who either send such forth, or employ them.' apol. relat. ib. p. . the best way to avoid these inconveniences is not to countenance them. but ( .) the same answers may serve which are adduced for popish baptisms and ordinations: and the deed sometimes signifies, that it ought not to be done. next it will be, object. . that many of the curates were in the ministry before, therefore the argument is not stringent against them. ans. the one half of it about the qualifications does still urge them, through the want of which, and their base treachery and betraying their trust, and perjuries in breaking covenant, they have really forefaulted their ministry, and loosed all from an obligation to hear them, or any other to whom these scripture-characters may be applied, and brings all under the guilt of partaking with them that hear them. ii. it is necessary also, that all whom we may lawfully hear as ministers and ambassadors of christ, should not only have had a commission from christ, sometimes conveyed to them in his orderly appointed way, by and from approven church officers; but they must have it then when we hear them, at this time when we own communion with them. for if they have sometimes had it, and forefaulted or changed it, by taking a new right another way, it is all one in point of owning them, as if they had none at all: and we must not meddle with such changelings, in things that they and we must not come and go upon, prov. xxiv. . now plain it is, that some curates sometimes had a commission from christ, when they were presbyters; but now they have changed their holding, and taken a new right from them who are no officers of christ, invested with power to confirm or convey a ministerial mission; and so they have forefaulted what they had. mr. durham, in a digression on this subject of hearing, shews, that ministers may forefeit, on revel. chap. i. p. . in to. 'in matter of hearing (says he) it is not so hard to discern, who are to be counted to speak without god's commission; because ordinarily such have no warrantable call at all (no not in the outward form, and so cannot be counted but to run unsent) or by palpable defection from the truth, and commission given them in that call, they have forefeited their commission: and so no more are to be counted ambassadors of christ, or watchmen of his flock, than a watchman of the city is to be accounted an observer thereof, when he hath publicly made defection to the enemy, and taken on with him.' let the indulged and addressing ministers advert to this: and consider, whether or not the truly tender have reason to discountenance them, while they continue in their palpable defection. but undeniably this resells that objection of the curates ordination before they were curates; for they that change their holding of a right, and take a new right which is null, they forego and forefeit their old right, and all right; but the prelatic curates have changed their holding of their right, and taken a new one, which is null: therefore they have foregone and forefeited their old one. the minor i prove thus. they who had a right from christ by conveyance of his officers, and take a new grant for the exercise of it, not from christ, but by conveyance of such as are none of his officers, they change their holding, and take a new one, which is null. but the prelatic curates, who had a right by conveyance of his officers, have taken a new grant for the exercise of it, not from christ, but by conveyance of the prelate, which is none of his officers; therefore----the stress of all will ly in the probation of this, that the prelate is none of christ's officers, and therefore the conveyance of a power from him is not from christ. which i prove, . because his office is cross to the very nature of gospel church government, and therefore he cannot be a gospel church ruler. christ discharged his officers to exercise dominion (or lordship, luke xxii. .) or authority, as the gentiles did, but that the chiefest should be only a minister, matth. xxii. , . the apostle paul disclaims dominion over the church, cor. i. ult. peter exhorts the elders not to be lords over god's heritage, pet. v. . the authority of church-officers then is not a despotic power, but a ministerial stewardship. but the diocesan bishop is both a lordly title and power, having all authority in the diocese derived from him, as being as it were the universal pastor, and so taking upon him a power, which is neither commanded, nor can be discharged. hence, he that subjects his ministry to the domination of a strange lord, inverting the nature of gospel church-government, cannot be owned in his ministry; but all curates subject their ministry, &c. therefore---- . because he is an officer distinct from, and superior to a presbyter or pastor; whereas the scripture makes a bishop and presbyter all one. the elders of the church of ephesus are called episcopi or overseers, acts xx. , . an ordained elder must be a blameless bishop, as the steward of god, tit. i. , . again, it cannot be shown, where the scripture mentions either name, qualification, work, duty, or ordination of an ordinary church-officer superior to presbyters, and which are not likewise appropriate to them who are called rulers, governors, bishops. in all the holy ghost's purposed recitals of ordinary church-officers, there is not the least hint of a diocesan bishop; and yet a deacon is described the meanest officer in his work and qualifications. hence then, if this diocesan prelate be such an uncouth beast, that neither in name nor nature is found in the word of god, all the power derived from him is null; but the first is true: therefore---- . because every officer in the scripture relates to the flock (except the extraordinary officers, who were further extended, now ceased) bishops of ephesus, were overseers over the flock, acts xx. the elders that peter writes to were over the flock. but this diocesan antiscriptural monster pretends to be over the shepherds, and invents new degrees and orders of superiority and inferiority of officers of the same kind, beside and against the scripture, which makes all apostles alike, and all evangelists, so all teachers; though there be a distinction and superiority in diverse kinds, yet not in same. god hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, cor. xii. . but not among teachers, some above others, in a power of order and jurisdiction. hence, an officer over officers of the same kind, is not an officer of christ's institution, and consequently any power conveyed from him is null; but a prelate pretends to be an officer, over officers of the same kind: therefore, . because every officer in the church hath equally, and in perfect parity, equal power and authority allowed them of god in the exercise of both order and jurisdiction; all ruling elders may rule alike, and deserve equal honour; and all preaching elders have the like authority, and the like honour conferred upon them, tim. vi. . the scripture attributes both power of order and jurisdiction; to all preaching presbyters equally. they must oversee the flock (or as the word is, do the part of a bishop over them) acts xx. . and they must also feed the flock, pet. v. . subjection and obedience is due to them all alike: all that are over us and admonish us, we must esteem highly for their work's sake, thes. v. . and obey and submit ourselves to them that watch for our souls, heb. xiii. . we find also excommunication belongs to all alike, cor. ii. . and ordination, tim. iv. . but the diocesan prelate takes from presbyters to himself power of ordination, assuming only his curates for fashion's sake, and the sole decisive power in church judicatories, wherein he hath a negative voice; like a diotrephes, the first prelate who loved to have the pre-eminence, john . the only precedent for prelacy in the scripture. hence, he that would take all power to himself, which is undivided and equal to all officers by christ's appointment, hath none by christ's allowance, but is to be reckoned an usurping diotrephes; but the diocesan prelate would take all the power to himself, which is undivided and equal to all. by all which it appears, the prelate being no authorized church-officer of christ's, no authority can be derived from him; and so that such as betake themselves to this pretended power, for warranting them in the function, can warrantably claim no deference thereupon, nor can be owned as ministers, whatever they were before. 'for this were an acknowledging of the power and authority of prelates (especially when the law commands our hearing as a submitting to them.) the reason is, because these men came forth from the prelate, having no other call or warrant but what the prelate giveth: and so a receiving of them will be a receiving of the prelate, as a refusing of them will be accounted a slighting of the prelate and his power,' apol. relat. . p. . iii. it is necessary also, that all with whom we own communion as ministers, should be christ's ambassadors, having then, when we hear them, and holding still their commission from christ as king, and only head of his church: conveyed not only from church-officers, in a way that he hath revealed as the prophet of his church, but in a way of dependence upon, and subordination to christ as king, who ascending far above principalities and powers, appointed and gave the gifts of the ministry, eph. iv. , . and set them in the church, cor. xii. . and gave them commission to go and teach the nations, by virtue of that all power that was given to him in heaven and earth, matth. xxviii. , . if then they take a new holding, and close with a new conveyance of the ministry, and of the power to exercise the same, from a new architectonic usurped power in the church, encroaching on christ's royal prerogative, we dare not homologate such an affront to christ, as to give them the respect of his ambassadors, when they became the servants of men, and subject even in ministerial functions to another head than christ, for then they are the ministers of men, and by men, and not by jesus christ, and god the father, who raised him from the dead, because they do not hold the head, col. ii. . hence those that receive and derive their church power from, and are subordinate in its exercise to, another head than christ jesus, should not be received and subjected to as the ministers of christ in his church; but the prelates and their curates do receive and derive their church power from, and are subordinate in its exercise to, another head than christ: therefore they should not be received, &c. the first proportion cannot be denied, the second is proved thus: those officers in the church, professing themselves such, that derive their church power from, and are subordinate in its exercise to, a power truly architectonic and supreme in the church (to wit the magistrate) beside christ, do derive their power from, and are subordinate in its exercise to another head than christ jesus; but so it is that prelates and their curates do derive, &c. therefore----the major is evident; for whosoever hath a supreme architectonic power in and over the church, must be a head to the same, and the fountain of all church-power. the minor is also clear, from the foregoing historical deduction, manifesting the present prelacy to be gross erastianism; for the disposal of the government of the church is declared by law to be the crown-right, and and an inherent perpetual prerogative, and thereupon the bishops are restored to the episcopal function; it is expressly declared, that there is no church power in the church office-bearers, but what depends upon, and is subordinate unto the supremacy, and authorized by the bishops, who are declared accountable to the king for the administration; by virtue of which ecclesiastic supremacy, he put excommunication, and spiritual censures, and consequently the power of the keys, into the hands of persons merely civil, in the act for the high commission. hence it is clear, that as the fountain of all church government, he imparts his authority to such as he pleases, and the bishops are nothing else but his commissioners in the exercise of that ecclesiastic power, which is originally in himself, and that the curates are only his under clerks. all the stress will ly in proving, that this monster of a supremacy, from which the prelates and their curates have all their authority, is a great encroachment on the glory of christ as king; which will appear, if we will briefly consider these particulars. . it usurps upon christ's prerogative, who only hath all undoubted right to this architectonic and magisterial dominion over the church, his own mediatory kingdom; not only an essential right by his eternal godhead, being the everlasting father, whose goings forth hath been of old, from everlasting, isa. ix. . mic. v. . in recognizance of which, we own but one god the father, and one lord, by whom are all things, and we by him, cor. viii. . but also a covenant-right, by compact with the father, to bear the glory and rule upon his throne, by virtue of the counsel of peace between them both, zech. vi. . a donative right by the father's delegation, by which he hath all power given in heaven and in earth, mat. xxviii. . and all things given into his hand, john iii. . and all judgment and authority to execute it, even because he is the son of man, john v. , . and to be head over all things to the church, eph. . . an institute right, by the father's inauguration, who hath set him as king in sion, psal. ii. . and appointed him governor, that shall rule over his people israel, matth. ii. . an acquisite right, by his own purchase, by which he hath merited and obtained, not only subjects to govern, but the glory of the sole sovereignty over them in that relation. a name above every name, phil. ii. . which is, that he is the head of the church, which is as much his peculiar prerogative, as to be saviour of the body, eph. v. . a bellical right by conquest, making the people fall under him, psal. xlv. . and be willing in the day of his power, psal. cx. . and overcoming those that make war with him, rev. xvii. . an hereditary right by proximity of blood and promogeniture, being the first born, higher than the kings of the earth, psal. lxxxix. . and the first born from the dead, that in all things he might have the pre-eminence, col. i. . an elective right, by his people's choice and surrender, having a crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals, cant. iii. last verse. by all which undoubted titles, it is his sole incommunicable prerogative, without a co-partner or competitor, co-ordinate or subordinate, to be judge, and only lawgiver, and king in spirituals, isa. xxxiii. . to be that one lawgiver, jam. iv. . who only can give the power of the keys to his officers, (which comprehends all the power they have) matth. xvi. . to be that one master over all church officers, who are but brethren, matth. xxiii. , . in whose name only they must perform all church acts, and all parts of their ministry, and not in the name of any mortal, matth. xxviii. , . matth. xviii. . from whom only they receive whatever they have to deliver to the church, cor. xi. . to be the only instituter of his officers, who hath set them in the church, cor. xii. . and gave them to the church, eph. iv. . whose ambassadors only they are, cor. v. . from whom they have authority for edification of the church, cor. x. . cor. xiii. . in whose name only they are to assemble, and keep and fence their courts, both the least, matth. xviii. . and the greatest, acts xv. but now also this is usurped by one who is not so much as a church-member, let be a church-officer, as such: for the magistrate is neither, as he is a magistrate, otherwise all magistrates would be church-members. hence they that have all their power from a mere usurper on christ's prerogative, who is neither member nor officer of the church, have none at all to be owned or received as his lawful ambassadors; but the prelates and their curates have all their power from a mere usurper on christ's prerogative, who is neither member nor officer of the church: ergo---- . it confounds the mediatory kingdom of christ with, and subjects it to, the kingly government of the world, removes the scripture land-marks and limits between civil and ecclesiastic powers in making the governors of the state to be governors of the church, and denying all church-government in the hands of church-officers, distinct from and independent upon the civil magistrate: which clearly derogates from the glory of christ's mediatory kingdom, which is altogether distinct from, and not subordinate to the government of the world, both in the old testament and in the new. for, they have distinct fountains whence they flow; civil government flows from god creator, church government from christ the lord redeemer, head and king of his church, whose kingdom is not of this world, john xviii. . though for this end he came into the world, that he should have a kingdom there, verse . they have distinct objects: civil government hath a civil object, the outward man; church government a spiritual object, men considered as christians; in the old testament, the matters of the lord are clearly distinguished from the matters of the king, chron. xix. last verse. in the new testament, there are matters of church cognizance which do not at all belong to the civil magistrate; as, in the case of offence, they must tell the church, not the civil magistrate, matth. xviii. , . in the case of excommunication, the church is to act by virtue of the power of the lord jesus christ, cor. v. , . not by the magistrate's power; in the case of absolution, the church is to judge what punishment is sufficient, and what evidence of repentance is sufficient to remove it, cor. ii. , . so in the case of trial and ordination of ministers, &c. none of those belong to the magistrate. they have distinct natures: the civil is a magisterial, the ecclesiastic is a ministerial government; the one is the power of the sword, the other of the keys; the one put forth in political punishments, the other in ecclesiastic censures: in the old testament, the magistrate's power was coactive, by death, banishment, confiscation, &c. ezra vii. . the church, but putting out of the synagogue, interdiction from sacred things, &c. in the new testament, the magistrate's power is described, rom. xiii. to be that of the sword by punishment; the power of the church only in binding and loosing, matth. xvi, . they have distinct ends, the end of the one being the good of the commonwealth, the other the church's edification: in the old testament, the end of the civil government was one thing, and of the church another, to wit, to warn not to trespass against the lord, in that forecited, chron. xix. . in the new testament, the end of magistratical power is to be a terror to evil works, and a praise to the good, rom. xiii. . but the end of church power is edification, cor. v. . cor. x. . cor. xiii. . they have distinct courts of officers: in the old testament, the distinction of the civil and ecclesiastic sanhedrim is known, where there were distinct causes, and persons set over them to judge them respectively, chron. xix. last verse. in the new testament, we find officers given unto the church, cor. xii. . with no mention of the civil magistrate at all, and church assemblies distinct from parliaments or senates (yea, when the magistrate was an enemy) determining questions that did not belong to the magistrate at all, acts xv. we have rulers distinct from the rulers of the commonwealth, thess. v. . whom we are to obey and submit ourselves to as those who are accountable to christ only, for to whom else can they give account of souls? heb. xiii. . we have rulers inferior to labourers in word and doctrine, not to be honoured so much as they: sure these cannot be civil rulers, tim. v. . we have rulers commended for trying impostors, which were not magistrates, rev. ii. . and others who are rebuked for suffering hereticks, ibid. ver. , , . which supposes they had authority to do it; yet distinct from and not depending on the magistrate. besides it is from the confusion of the two governments together, and making the supreme magistrate to be supreme governor of the church, would follow many absurdities; as that they who are not church-members should be church-officers, even heathen magistrates; yea women should be church-officers; and none should be chosen for magistrates, but such as have the qualifications of church-officers. see apol. relat. sect. . pag. . rectius instruen. confut. . dial. chap. . pag. . hence, they that in deriving their authority do confound the two governments, civil and ecclesiastic, and take it all from a mere civil power, cannot be owned as having any authority of christ's institution: but the prelates and their curates, in deriving their authority, do confound the two governments civil and ecclesiastic, and take it all from a mere civil power. this same argument equally militates against hearing the indulged ministers, who have taken a licence and warrant from the usurper of this supremacy: because it is highly injurious to christ's headship; very contrary to presbyterian principles; clearly homologatory of the supremacy; plainly prejudicial to the power of the people; very much establishing erastianism; sadly obstructive and destructive to the good of the church; wronging our cause and ground of suffering; strengthening the prelates hands; contradictory to our covenants; prejudging the meetings of god's people; and heinously scandalous and offensive: as is clear by, and unanswerably proven in the history of the indulgence. iv. there is a necessity that any man whom we may join with as a minister, must not only be a minister, and a minister clothed with christ's commission then, when we join with him, but he must also have a right to administer there where we join with him. else we can look upon him no otherwise than a thief and a robber, whom christ's sheep should not hear, john x. - . now the prelates and curates, though they should be accounted and acknowledged ministers, yet they have not a right to officiate where they have intruded themselves. hence we have several arguments, as . they who have no just authority, nor right to officiate fixedly in this church as the proper pastors of it, ought not to be received but withdrawn from: but the prelates and their curates have no just authority, or right to officiate in this church as her proper pastors: therefore they ought not to be received, but withdrawn from. all the debate is about the minor, which may thus be made good. they who have entered into and do officiate fixedly in this church, without her authority and consent, have no right so to do: but the prelates and their curates have entered into and officiate fixedly in this church, without her authority and consent: ergo--the major is manifest: for if this church have a just right and power of electing and calling of ministers, then they who enter into and officiate fixedly in this church, without her authority and consent, have no just authority or right so to do: but this church hath a just right and power of electing and calling of ministers, as all true churches have. and, if it were not evident from what is said above, might be easily demonstrated from scripture. the minor, to wit, that the prelates and their curates have entered into and officiate fixedly in this church, without her authority and consent, is evident, from matter of fact: for there was no church-judicatory called or convocated, for bringing of prelates into this church; but on the contrary her judicatories were all cashiered and discharged, and all her officers turned out to let them in; and all was done immediately by the king and acts of parliament without the church; a practice wanting a precedent in this, and (for any thing we know) in all other churches: all that the curates can say is, that they came in by the bishop and patron, who are not the church, nor have any power from her for what they do; all their right and power is founded upon and derived from the supremacy, whereby the diocesan erastian prelate is made the king's delegate and substitute, only impowered thereto by his law. this is mr. smith's, st and th argum. if 'we suppose a particular congregation acknowledging their own lawful pastor, and a few violent persons arise and bring in a minister by plain force, and cast out their lawful pastor; are not the faithful in that church obliged to relinquish the intruder, and not only discountenance him, but endeavour his ejection?' this is our case, naphtali, pag. . sect. . first edition. . if we cannot submit to these curates, without consenting to the great encroachments made upon the privileges of this church, then we cannot submit to them without sin; but we cannot submit to them without consenting to the great encroachments made upon the privileges of this church: therefore we cannot submit to them without sin. the minor is all the question: but instances will make it out. as first, the robbing of the privilege of election of her pastors, and substituting the bondage of patrons presentations, is a great encroachment upon the privilege of this church: but accepting of curates as ministers lawfully called, notwithstanding that they want the election of the people, and have nothing for their warrant but a presentation from the patron, were a consenting to that robbery and wicked substitution. it will be of no force to say, our forefathers did submit to this, and to a ministry who had no other call. this is answered above in the narrative; 'tis a poor consequence to say, the posterity may return backward, because their forefathers could not advance further forward. secondly, the thrusting out of lawful ministers without any cause but their adhering to the covenanted work of reformation, and thrusting in others in their rooms who denied the same, is a great encroachment on the churches privileges; but embracing and encouraging curates by countenancing their pretended ministry, were a consenting to this violent extrusion and intrusion. the minor is proven thus. they who leave the extruded, and countenance the intruded, they consent to the extrusion and intrusion, and declare they confess the intruded's right is better than his who is extruded: but they who embrace and encourage curates by countenancing their pretended ministry, do leave the extruded, to wit, their old ministers, and countenance the intruded: ergo----to say, that people, in this case, should protest against these encroachments is frivolous; for withdrawing is the best protestation: and if after their protestation they still countenance the encroachment, they should undo their own protestation. the same argument will militate against countenancing the indulged, or any that obtained authority to preach in any place by a power encroaching on the churches liberties. there is an objection to be removed here, from matth. xxiii. , . the scribes and pharisees sit in moses chair; therefore whatever they bid you observe, that observe and do; therefore they who, without a title, usurp the office, may be heard. ans. . the case is no-ways alike; for then the lord had no other church in the world but that, which was confined in its solemnities of worship to that place, where they intruded themselves: he had not yet instituted the new testament form of administration in its ordinances and officers. therefore the head of the church being present might give a toleration, during pleasure: but it is not so now. but, . our lord's words bear no command for the people to hear them at all, but only not to reject sound doctrine, because it came from them: surely he would not bid them hear such, as he calls plants that his father had never planted, whom he bids let alone, matth. xv. , . and who were thieves and robbers whom his sheep should not hear. v. they must not only be ministers, and acknowledged as such then and there, when and where we join with them; but they must be such as we can own church communion with in the ordinances administrated by them, as to the matter of them. otherwise if they pervert and corrupt their ministry, by preaching and maintaining errors, either in doctrine, worship, discipline, or government, contrary to the scriptures, our confessions, and principles of our covenanted reformation, and contradictory to our testimony founded thereupon, and agreeable thereunto, maintaining errors condemned thereby, or condemning truths maintained thereby, we must withdraw from them. for if any seek to turn us away from the lord our god, we must put away that evil, and not consent nor hearken to them, deut. xiii. , . we must cease to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge, prov. xix. . we must have a care of these leaders that will cause us to err lest we be destroyed with them, isa. ix. . we must mark these who contradict the doctrine that we have learned, and avoid them, rom. xvi. . if any man teach otherwise we must withdraw ourselves from such, tim. vi. , . if there come any, and bring not this doctrine, we must not receive him, nor bid him god speed, in that work of his preaching or practising against any of the truths, we have received from the word, john x. . hence we must not hear false teachers, who, in preaching and prayer, bring forth false doctrine contrary to the principles of our reformation; but the curates are false teachers, who, in preaching and prayer, bring forth false doctrine, &c. therefore we must not hear them. the minor is certain, in that not only many of them are tainted with points of popery and arminianism; but all of them do teach false doctrine tending to seduce the hearers: when in their preaching they cry up the lawfulness of prelacy, and vent bitter invectives against presbyterian government, condemn the work of reformation, and inveigh against the covenant, and so teach and encourage people to follow them in open perjury, and condemning all our testimony, as nothing but treason and sedition; which we are persuaded is truth, and that therefore they are blasphemers: and in their prayers, stuffed with error, and larded with blasphemy, they reproach the work of reformation, and the power of godliness, and pray for a blessing on the prelates, and on their courses which are cursed; besides their parasitick prayers for the king, to be blessed in his government when stated in opposition to christ, and several other things that tender consciences cannot go along with them therein. and yet if they hear them, they must go along and actively concur with them, as their mouth to god. if it be objected here, that this doth not strike against all, nor against any at all times, because some preach always sound doctrine, and all preach sometime sound doctrine, and the like may be said of their prayers: therefore sometimes at least they may be heard. i answer . this may be alledged for all hereticks, who do all at sometimes preach sound doctrine, and yet these scriptures are stringent against them at all times, which i have adduced; for by these fruits which they bring forth at sometimes, they shew themselves to be such as we must beware of at all times. . we cannot know when they will preach sound doctrine, seeing by their subjection to that government, they are obliged to maintain prelacy, and impugn our covenanted constitution. vi. they must not only be such as we can join with in the ordinances as to the matter of them, but in the manner also they must be such administrators, as we are obliged in charity to think the lord will approve of them, and their administrations, and of us in our communion with them; or at least, that, in their manner of dispensing ordinances, they be not such as we find are under a recorded sentence of dreadful punishment, both against them and their partakers: for if it be so, it is as sufficient a ground to withdraw from them, as for men to withdraw from a company staying in a house, that they see will fall and smother them in its ruin; yea it is as warrantable to separate from them, as for israel to separate themselves from the congregation of the rebels who were to be consumed in a moment, numb. xvi. . or for the lord's people to come out of babylon, that they receive not of her plagues, rev. xviii. . now we find that not only the prophets of baal, and enticers to idolatry, and leaders to error upon the matter are threatened, and the people for adhering to them, but we find also (as is observed by rectius instruendum confut. dial chap. . pag. .) many terrible charges and adjurations laid upon ministers, in reference to a faithful diligence in their ministerial function, and a suitable testimony concerning the sin and duty of the time, that they are commanded to cry aloud and shew the people their sin, isa. lviii. . and as they would not have the blood of souls upon them, to give faithful warning touching the peoples case and hazard, sin and duty, especially in times of great sin and judgment, when god is terribly pleading his controversy with them, ezek. iii. . therefore they must be instant in season and out of season, tim. iv. . and for their negligence and unfaithfulness herein, we find many scripture woes and threatenings thundered against them. when in the deceit of their own heart they promise assured peace, when the lord is pleading against a generation, they are threatened to be consumed with sword and famine, and the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets, jer. xiv. , , . therefore we dare not admit them to prophesy to us. when they strengthen the hands, and harden the hearts of evil doers, that none doth return from his wickedness, the lord threatens to feed them with wormwood, and commands not to hearken to them, jer. xxiii. .- . their blood shall be required at their hands, ezek. iii. . one builds a wall, and another daubs it with untempered morter, then ye, o great hailstones shall fall, and they shall be consumed in the midst thereof, ezek. xiii. , , , , . we dare not join with either builders or daubers of such a work, as is carried on to the dishonour of christ and ruining of reformation, nor by our countenance and concurrence strengthen either builders or daubers; lest we also be consumed in the midst thereof. when there is a conspiracy of the prophets, and the priests violate the law, and profane holy things, and shew no difference between the unclean and the clean, then the lord will pour out his indignation upon all, ezek. xxii. ,--to the end. we would endeavour to keep ourselves free of having any hand in that conspiracy. these scriptures do give the perfect pourtracture of our curates, in the conviction of all that know them. hence we draw a complex argument: such ministers as can do no good by their ministry, but a great deal of hurt to their hearers, and expose themselves and them both to the indignation of a jealous god, are not to be heard; but the curates are such as can do no good by their ministry, but a great deal of hurt to their hearers, and expose themselves and them both to the indignation of the jealous lord: therefore they are not to be heard. the connexion of the major is clear from what is said above. the minor is also evident from the application of these scriptures, thus: they that in the deceit of their own heart promise peace to, and strengthen the hands of evil doers, and give them not warning, but seduce them by daubing their wickedness, and shew no difference between the unclean and the clean, &c. are such as can do no good by their ministry, but a great deal of hurt to hearers, and expose themselves and them both to the indignation of god; but the curates are such, and all others, who are so unfaithful as to give no warning against, but justify the sins of the times. to be short, the minor of both these foregoing arguments is evident from the experience of all that go to the curates, who wrong thereby their own souls, mar their edification; and run to cisterns without water. what blessing can be expected upon the labours of such, who having perjured themselves in taking on with the prelates, are prosecuting that course of defection, and making themselves captains to lead the people back to egypt, encouraging profanity and wickedness, being themselves patterns and patrons of the times corruptions? and seeing a blessing cannot be expected upon their labours, but rather a curse, as daily experience maketh good, when instead of any work of conversion or conviction among people, there is nothing seen but a fearful hardening in profanity, ignorance and atheism: so that many that seemed to have somewhat like religion before, through hearing of them, are turned loose and lax in all duties: yea never can it be instanced these twenty-seven years, that they have brought one soul to christ, from darkness to light, and from the power of satan unto god: but many instances might be given of their murdering souls, as indeed they cannot be free of it, who cannot warn nor declare the whole counsel of god. hence these who cannot but be soul-murderers, may not be heard nor entertained as soul-physicians; but the curates cannot but be soul-murderers. again, we can expect no good from them, but a great deal of hurt; seeing their ministry is not the lord's ordinance, which he will approve, and no performances can be acceptable unto the lord which are not, in manner as well as in matter, agreeable to his will: hence the wickedness even of the lord's lawful priests, not only caused the people to abhor the offerings of the lord, but even the lord himself to abhor his sanctuary, and to account their incense an abomination, so that he could not away with the calling of their assemblies, which yet upon the matter were duties. should not we then hate that which the lord hates, and withdraw from that which he hath forsaken? but the meetings of the curates for administration of ordinances in their way, the lord hates, and hath signally forsaken: therefore we should hate and forsake them. this is confirmed by what mr. durham says in that digression about hearing, rev. . page . in quarto, 'seeing edification is god's gift, can it be expected but in his way, or can that be accounted his way which he hath not warranted.' vii. as we would not partake of their judgment in countenancing of their administration of ordinances, so we would keep ourselves free from all participation of their sin; for we must not be partakers with any in sin, nor have fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, that we must reprove, and that we find the lord reproves and condemns, eph. v. , . and not only ministers in ordaining, but people in hearing, may be in hazard of partaking of some mens sins, who enter into the ministry, tim. v. . we must keep at the greatest distance from sin: hence if we hear the curates without partaking of their sin, then we must not hear them; but we cannot hear the curates without partaking of their sin: therefore we must not hear them. the minor i prove. if hearing of them be a tessera of our incorporation with them, a test of our submission to them, a badge of our compliance with them, and sign of our approbation of them, then we cannot hear them without partaking of their sin; but hearing of them is such: the major cannot be denied, if prelacy and conformity therewith be sin, as is in part proven above: for if these be sins, then we must not incorporate with, nor submit to them, nor comply with them, nor approve them. the minor i prove by parts. . hearing of curates is a tessera of our incorporation with them; for communion in sacred things doth infer an incorporation of the communicants or joiners in all cases, both in lawful and unlawful communions, cor. x. .- . all partakers of the bread are one body, and they which eat of the sacrifices are partakers of the altar; and also they that partake of the sacrifice offered to devils, though they do not offer it so themselves, yet they are incorporate, and have fellowship with devils. and cor. vi. .- . where they that do not come out, and are separate from unlawful communions, are expostulated with, as making an unequally yoked fellowship between righteousness and unrighteousness, light and darkness, christ and belial, the temple of god and idols: hence then, if we cannot partake of their sacred things, without partaking of their altar, and becoming one body with them, and making such an unequally yoked mixture with them, then we must be separate; but the first is true from these places. this argument concludes with equal force, against joining with any deeply engaged in the gross defections of the time. . hearing of curates is a test of our submission to them, and compliance with them: for so it is required by law, as the acts themselves say, 'that a chearful concurrence, countenance, and assistance given to such ministers, and attending all the ordinary meetings for divine worship, is an evidence of a due acknowledgment of, and hearty compliance with his majesty's government ecclesiastical and civil, as now established by law within this kingdom,' act of parl. july , . and themselves look on all such as obey this act as their friends. hence, if this be sinful to submit to them, and comply with their establishment, in obedience to a sinful act of parliament, then it is sinful to hear them; but the former is true, as hath been shown: therefore---- . hence it follows, by native consequence, that hearing of curates is a sign of our approbation of them: for he that gives that which is required, and accepted, and interpreted as an evidence of a due acknowledgment, and of compliance with the government ecclesiastical, gives the sign of his approbation of it; but the hearer of curates does that in obedience to the act requiring accepting, and expresly interpreting it so: therefore, &c. viii. as we would be free of their sin, in approving of, and complying with their course; so we must endeavour to stand at the greatest distance from all appearance of sin in ourselves, either by commission or omission, in which our joining with them in these circumstances would involve us. for we must abstain from all appearance of evil, thess. v. . and from every thing that circumstances may make sinful: for otherwise, suppose a thing might be materially lawful and not sinfully sinful, yet circumstances may make it sinful, and a countenancing it so circumstantiated, doth infer a communion in these circumstances that makes it sinful. they that eat of the sacrifice are partakers of the altar, and if the altar be not of god's approbation, the thing offered, though otherwise lawful to be eaten, cannot justify the eaters, so circumstantiated. an idol is nothing, and that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is nothing, yet they who eat of it, when they know it is so circumstantiated, have fellowship with devils, cor. x. , , , . and it is called idolatry, comp. verse . which provokes the lord to jealousy, verse . especially when an action is so circumstantiated, that it would infer an omission of our duty, and a declining from or denying of our testimony, then it is clearly sinful. for whosoever shall deny the lord before men, him will he deny before his father, matth. x. . and we must 'hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering,' heb. x. . and 'keep the word of his patience,' if we would be kept in the hour of temptation, and hold it fast that no man take our crown, rev. iii. , . 'all truth must be avowed, and practically avowed, on the greatest hazard: and as this testimony must be full so must it be also constant. it was demas's shame, that the afflictions of the gospel made him forsake the apostle, after great appearances for christ: and therefore whatever truth or duty is opposed, that becomes the special object of this testimony.' rectius instruend. confut. . dial. chap. . pag. , . hence, if hearing of the curates would infer and involve us under the guilt both of commission of sin, and omission of duty, then we cannot hear them without sin; but the former is true; therefore also the latter. i prove the minor by parts. first, that it would infer and involve us under the guilt of commission of sin, all that is said above doth evince it; and besides, palpable breach of covenant, hereafter to be charged and cleared: and idolatry is a great sin of that nature; but the hearing of the curates doth infer this. which may be made out thus; the breach of the second commandment is idolatry, (for to make the sins against that command odious, they are all comprehended under that odious name of worshipping images, as the sins against the seventh are called adultery, comprehending all unchaste thoughts, words, and actions); hearing of curates is a breach of the second command: ergo----the minor i prove thus: every worship, not according to christ's appointment, is a breach of the second commandment; but hearing of curates is a worship not according to christ's appointment. which i prove thus: a worship enjoined by, and performed in obedience to a law, establishing a human ordinance in the church, besides and against the institution of christ, is a worship not according to christ's appointment; but the hearing of curates is a worship enjoined by, and performed in obedience to a law establishing a human ordinance, to wit diocesan erastian prelacy, with the curates their substitutes. hence also the second doth follow by necessary consequence, that it would infer and involve us under the guilt of omission of duty. for, first, if reductively it may involve us under the guilt of idolatry and breach of the second commandment, then it will infer the guilt of omission of these necessary duties incumbent to the lord's people with a reference to idolatry; to make no covenant with them nor with their gods, nor let them dwell in the land, lest they make us sin, exod. xxiii. . . exod. xxxiv. , . to overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and destroy the names of them out of the place, deut. xii. . judg. ii. . i do not adduce these precepts, to stretch them to the full measure of the demerit of the grossest of idolaters: for as there are degrees of breaches of the commandment, some grosser, some smaller, so there are also degrees of punishment, and as to the manner of destroying and extirpating all pieces of idolatry; but that the commands being founded upon a moral ground, lest they be sins and snares unto us, do oblige us to some endeavour of expelling, extirpating and overthrowing all pieces of idolatry, according to the word and our covenants; 'and that the true and right zeal of god should and would not only inspire all with an unanimous aversion against the profane intruding curates, but animate us as one man to drive away these wolves and thieves, and to eradicate these plants which our heavenly father never planted,' naph. prior edit. pag. . the least duty that can be inferred is that of the apostles, flee from idolatry, cor. x. . which idolatry, there mentioned to be avoided, is to eat of the sacrifices offered to idols: whence we infer, that if to eat of things consecrated to idols be idolatry, then also to partake of sacred things consecrated by idols must be idolatry; as the curates dispensing of ordinances is consecrated by, and hath all its sanction from an idol of diocesan erastian prelacy; but we see the apostle expresses the former: therefore we may infer the latter. further, it will also infer a declining from, and denying a necessary testimony, in the case circumstantiated. even the smallest matter is great, when a testimony is concerned in it, were it but the circumstance of an open window; daniel durst not omit it upon the greatest hazard. and now this is clearly come to a case of confession, when there is no other way to exoner our 'consciences before god and the world, and declare our non-conformity to this course of backsliding, no getting of wrongs redressed, or corruptions in the ministry removed, but by this practice; and certainly some way we must give public testimony against these courses, and there is no other way so harmless and innocent as this, though suffering follow upon it,' apol. relat. sect. . , . and now there is no other way apparent, whereby the difference shall be kept up betwixt such as honestly mind the covenanted work of reformation, and the corrupt prelatical and malignant enemies; but this argument also will infer the expediency of withdrawing from all ministers, with whom our circumstantiate joining would involve us in a participation with their defections. ix. as we would endeavour to avoid sin in ourselves; so we must have a care to give no occasion of others sinning, by our taking liberty in a promiscuous joining in church communion, whereby we may offend and stumble the conscience of others: for to that, in this as well as in other things, we must have a special respect, and forbear things, not only for our own unclearness, but for the sake of others also. if therefore the hearing of curates be a scandal, we must refuse it, be the hazard what will: for 'whoso shall offend one of christ's little ones, it were better for him that a milstone were hanged about his neck,' matth. xviii. . 'no man must put a stumbling block, or an occasion to fall in his brother's way,' rom. xiv. . they that 'sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, they sin against christ,' cor. viii. . we must forbear some things for conscience sake. conscience, i say, not our own, but of others, giving none offence, neither to the jews, nor to the gentiles, nor to the church of god,' cor. x. , , . and so 'cut off all occasion from them that desire occasion,' cor. xi. . 'these commands discharge whatever practice gives occasion of our brother's sinning, of calling truth in question, of acting with a doubting conscience, or which weakens his plerophory or assurance; and neither the lawfulness nor indifferency of the thing itself, nor mens authority commanding it, nor the weakness, yea, or wickedness of those in hazard to be stumbled, will warrant the doing of that out of which offence arises,' rectius instruend. confut. . dial. chap. . p. . mr. durham in that forecited place saith, 'it carries offence along with it; in reference to the party who runs unsent, it proves a strengthening and confirming of him, and so a partaking of his sin; in reference to others, either strengthens them by that example, to cast themselves in that snare, which possibly may be their ruin; or it grieves them, and makes them sad, who are tender of such things, or gives occasion to make all difference of that kind to be thought light of.' hence, if hearing of the curates be an offence or scandal, both in reference to malignants, and in reference to the godly, and in reference to the posterity, then it must be avoided; but the former is true: which is evidenced by parts. first, in reference to malignants, it hardens and encourages them in their opposition to the work of god, and all backsliders and compliers with them in their apostacy; this strengthens their hands in their wicked courses, when they see how they are countenanced by all, and that there is no disrespect put upon them, nor dissatisfaction evinced against their courses, then they conclude that they are approven of all: and this hardeneth them, so that they never once think of the evil of their ways. next, in reference to the godly, stumbles the truly tender, by encouraging them to do contrary to their light and conscience, even when they are not clear to hear them, then they are emboldened thereunto when they see others doing so; and so it tends to the wounding of their peace, and makes them halt in the ways of the lord. lastly, with reference to posterity, it would prejudge them very much: though now the honest party be not in a capacity to transmit the work of reformation unto their posterity, in such a manner as were to be wished: yet they should do something for keeping fresh the memory of the good old cause, by keeping up some footsteps of a standing controversy for zion's interest against the common enemy: but now let all join with, and own the curates, what appearance of this shall the posterity see? shall not they conclude that the day is lost, and the cause is gone, when they see that this generation hath fled the fields, or rather sold and betrayed the cause, by owning, countenancing, and complying with the enemy, and no standing testimony against these corruptions? whereas if there were but this much of a standing difference, betwixt the people of god and the common enemies of god, to be seen, posterity shall in some measure be kept from being deceived, and shall see the interest of christ not killed nor buried quick, but living, though in a bleeding condition, and this will occasion their engaging for christ, and interesting themselves in the quarrel; and it is far better to see the cause of christ owned, though by suffering and blood, than sold and betrayed by base flenching and complying with persecutors. this argument may also sound and infer a withdrawing from the addressing ministers, who, to the great scandal of presbyterians, give forth their addresses in the name of all of that persuasion. x. our duty to themselves, yea our greatest office of love we owe to them, in order to their conviction, does oblige us to withdraw from them. this may seem a paradox, yet it will be apparent, if we search the scriptures, to see what we owe to scandalous brethren. there we find it is a duty, to endeavour by all lawful means to shame them out of their sin; and it is an argument of hatred, when we do not rebuke our neighbour, or when we suffer sin upon him, lev. xix. . if we consider them then as neighbours and friends, we must use endeavours to take away their sin from them; if we consider them not as such, but as enemies, then we must avoid them, and not be mingled with them, as i could adduce many scriptures for that. but i suppose all that will oppose my thesis, would have them considered as friends. well then, if they be scandalous brethren, this is the way prescribed by the apostle to deal with them, in order not to suffer sin upon them, that we should withdraw from them our company; and if we must withdraw our company, then also a fortiori, we must deny them our religious communion: for that must either be included there, or necessarily inferred. he writes, not to keep company: if any man that is called a brother (mark that especially) be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or an extortioner, with such an one no not to eat, cor. v. . and i presume they that know them best will grant, that it would not be hard to prove, that all the curates in scotland were chargeable with some of these, or at least partakers with them; and that if they were all impartially impannelled, they would be rare ones, whom an honest jury would not bring in guilty of this libel. then we are expresly commanded 'in the name of our lord jesus christ, to withdraw ourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the received tradition. and if any man obey not the word, to note him, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed,' thess. iii. , . sure neither their office nor their innocency can exempt them from these rules. for either they must be considered as our brethren; or not; if not, then we own no church communion with them; for that is only among brethren that are so in sympathy and affection, and affinity, having one father and one mother, if they be brethren, then all scandalous brethren are to be withdrawn from; but they are scandalous brethren: therefore they are to be withdrawn from. the minor will not be doubted by any, but such as are strangers to them, who both in their ministerial and personal capacity are so scandalous to the conviction of all, that profaneness hath gone forth from them into all the land, and they as much as ever the profane sons of eli, have made men to abhor the offering of the lord, sam. ii. . but even strangers, that are unacquaint with their personal profligateness and ignorance, &c. cannot be altogether ignorant of the scandal of prelacy and erastianism, in which they are involved, of the scandal of apostasy, perjury, and breach of covenant, which is their brand, and the nation's bane, that hath countenanced them. and none can doubt, but if our church were duly constitute, and invested with the orderly power of christ, and in capacity to exercise and improve it, they would soon be censured every soul of them as scandalous, as they have been also previously sentenced as such, by the acts of our general assemblies. this argument levels also against all complying, indulged, addressing ministers, who by these courses have incurred the character of disorderly brethren. xi. our faithfulness to god, and to one another, engaged in our covenants, doth oblige us to turn away from them who have broken it, and so classed themselves among these truce breaking traitors, who make our times perilous, from whom we must turn away, tim. iii. ,-- . it appears from the foregoing deduction, how solemnly these nations were engaged, both to keep out and put out this generation of prelatists, now prevailing; the obligation of which yet lies upon all the inhabitants of the land, with a binding force, both in regard of their form, and object and end. hence, if the curates be covenant-breakers, and we also in owning them, then we cannot own them without sin; but the curates are covenant-breakers, and we also in owning them: ergo----the minor may be manifest by an induction of all the articles of the solemn league and covenant, broken by them, and all that own them. . that doctrine, worship, discipline and government in the st article, sworn to be preserved and propagated, was the presbyterian then established, which our church was in possession of, which they have opposed, and their owners refiled from, and have not maintained. . we are engaged in the d article, to endeavour the extirpation of prelacy, and its dependents; which is diametrically opposite to owning of curates: can we own them whom we are bound to abhor? and submit to them whom we are bound to extirpate? surely this were to rebuild what we have destroyed, see napht. p. . and since in relation to popery, heresy and schism, this article obliges us to disown, and not to hear papists and schismatics, why not also in relation to prelatists, who are greatest schismatics? . they have established and homologated an erastian supremacy, to the prejudice of true religion, and the liberties of the church and kingdom; and their owners have abetted and countenanced the same, and not preserved either the liberties of church or kingdom, contrary to the d article. . they have not only concealed and countenanced malignant enemies to this church and kingdom, but have themselves been real incendiaries, hindering the reformation of religion, making factions and parties among them contrary to this league and covenant: and their hearers are so far from bringing them to condign punishment, that they have strengthened their hands in their avowed opposition to the covenants, contrary to the th article. . they have broken our conjunction in firm peace and union, and yet their hearers have not marked and avoided these causers of divisions, contrary to scripture, and the th article. . instead of assisting and defending all these that entered into this league and covenant, &c. they have been the greatest persecutors of all them that adhered to it; and their owners have suffered themselves, by combination, or persuasion, or terror, to be divided and withdrawn from their suffering brethren, and have made defection to the contrary part, and given themselves to a detestable indifferency in this cause, contrary to the th article. . instead of humbling themselves for their sins, and going before others in the example of a real reformation, they have obstinately defended their breach of covenant, and have been patrons and patterns of all deformations; and their owners and hearers have not repented of that neither, when they countenance such covenant-breakers and profane persons, nor of their not labouring for the purity and power of the gospel when they seek it from such impure hands: neither do they go before others in reformation, when they are such bad examples of defection, contrary to the conclusion of the covenant. this argument will also strike against hearing of such ministers, that have made themselves guilty of the same, or equivalent breaches of covenant. xii. finally, for union's sake, and to avoid schism in the body, we must withdraw from them. this may seem another paradox; but it is apparent, if we consider, 'that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care one for another,' cor. xii. . and that for to prevent and remeid this, the apostle 'beseeches us to mark them which cause divisions and offences, contrary to the doctrine which we have learned, and avoid them,' rom. xvi. . now then, if the prelates and their curates be schismatics and separatists, and dividers, then we must avoid and withdraw from them, but so it is, that the prelates and their curates are schismatics and separatists, and dividers: therefore we must avoid and withdraw from them. the minor i prove from all the constituents of a formed schism, separation and sinful division. . they that start out from under due relations to a church, and from her ministry, are schismatics, separatists and dividers; but the prelates and their curates have started out from under due relations to the covenanted church of scotland, and from her ministry, in being so unnatural rebellious children, as have broken their mother's beauty and bands, order and union, and razed her covenanted reformation in doctrine, worship, discipline and government. . these who withdraw from the communion of a true church, and therefore are censurable by all her standing acts, are schismatical separatists; but the prelates and their curates have withdrawn from the communion of the true church of scotland, and therefore are censureable by all her standing acts, in that they have made a faction and combination repugnant to the communion of this church, and all her established order. . those who separate from a church, whose principles and practices are subservient to that church's true union and communion, and right establishment, are properly schismatics; but the prelates and their curates have separated from this church, whose principles and practices are subservient to its true union and communion, and right establishment: for they could never yet impeach or challenge any principle or practice, contrary to the word of god, or not subservient to true union and order, but their principles and practices are stated in opposition to her purity and reformation. those who innovate the worship and government, owned and established in a true church, are schismatics; but the prelates and their curates have innovated the worship and government of the true church of scotland, in bringing a doctrine new and odd, and not the voice of this church; and their worship, over and above the corruption adhering to it, is the worshipping of an innovating party, contrary to our church's established order. . they that make a rent in the bowels of the true and genuine church, are the schismatics; but the prelates and their curates have made a rent in the bowels of this church, and have caused all the divisions in this church. . those that divide themselves from the fellowship of a pure church, either in her ministry, lawful courts and ordinances, are the schismatics; but the prelates and their curates have divided themselves from the fellowship of this pure church, in her ministry, lawful courts and ordinances, in that they have caused the ejection of her ministry, dissipation of her assemblies, and subversion of her pure ordinances. . those that break union with such, to whom they were under obligations to adhere, are schismatical dividers; but the prelates and their curates have broken union with such to whom they were under obligations to adhere, both from the antecedent morally obliging duty, and from the superadded obligation of the covenants, neither could they ever pretend any thing that might loose the obligation. . that party in a reformed church, which having overturned her reformation, hath shut out, laid aside, and persecute away sound adherers thereunto, both ministers and professors, and will not admit ministers to officiate, but upon the sinful terms of compliance with their way, are schismatics; but the prelates and their curates are that party in this reformed church, which having overturned her reformation, hath shut out, laid aside, and persecute away sound adherers thereunto, &c. therefore they are the schismatics to be withdrawn from, and their way is the schism, which we are bound to extirpate in the covenant. head ii. _the sufferings of many for refusing to own the tyrant's authority vindicated._ the other grand ordinance of god, magistracy, which he hath in his sovereign wisdom, justice, and goodness, appointed, ordained, and consecrated, for the demonstration, illustration, and vindication of his own glory, and the communication, conservation, and reparation of the peace, safety, order, liberty, and universal good of mankind, is next to that of the ministry of great concern: wherein not only the prudence, policy, property, and liberty of men, but also the conscience, duty, and religion of christians, have a special interest. and therefore it is no less important, pertinent, profitable, and necessary for every one that hath any of these to care and contend for, keep and recover, to inquire into and understand something of the institution, constitution, nature, and boundaries of the sacred ordinances of magistracy, than into the holy ordinance of the ministry; so far at least as may consist with the sphere of every one's capacity and station, and may conduce to the satisfaction of every one's conscience, in the discharge of the duties of their relations. every private man indeed hath neither capacity, concern, nor necessity, to study the politics, or search into the secrets, or intrigues of government, no more than he is to be versed in all the administrations of ecclesiastical policy, and interests of the ministry; yet every man's conscience is no less concerned, in distinguishing the character of god's ministers of justice, the magistrates, to whom he owes and owns allegiance, that they be not usurping tyrants, everting the ordinances of the magistracy, than in acknowledging the character of christ's ministers of the gospel, to whom he owes and owns obedience, that they be not usurping prelates or impostors, perverting the ordinance of the ministry. the glory of god is much concerned, in our owning and keeping pure and entire, according to his will and word, both these ordinances. and our conscience as well as interest is concerned in the advantage or hurt, profit or prejudice, of the right or wrong, observation or prevarication, of both these ordinances; being interested in the advantage of magistracy, and hurt of tyranny in the state, as well as in the advantage of the ministry, and hurt of diocesan, or erastian supremacy in the church; in the advantage of liberty, and hurt of slavery in the state, as well as in the advantage of religion, and hurt of profaneness in the church; in the profit of laws, and prejudice of prerogative in the state, as well as in the profit of truth, and prejudice of error in the church; in the profit of peace and true loyalty, and prejudice of oppression and rebellion in the state, as well as in the profit of purity and unity, and prejudice of defection, and division or schism in the church. so that in confidence, we are no more free to prostitute our loyalty and liberty absolutely, in owning every possessor of the magistracy; than we are free to prostitute our religion and faith implicitly, in owning every pretender to the ministry. this may seem very paradoxical to some, because so dissonant and dissentient from the vulgar, yea almost universal and inveterate opinion and practice of the world, that hitherto hath not been so precise in the matter of magistracy. and it may seem yet more strange, that not only some should be found to assert this; but that any should be found so strict and strait laced, as to adventure upon suffering, and even to death, for that which hath hitherto been seldom scrupled, by any that were forced to subjection under a yoke, which they had no force to shake off, and wherein religion seems little or nothing concerned; for not owning the authority of the present possessors of the place of government: which seems to be a question not only excentric and extrinsic to religion, but such a state-question, as for its thorny intricacies and difficulties, is more proper for politicians and lawyers to dispute about, (as indeed their debates about this head of authority, have been as manifold and multiplied as about any one thing) than for private christians to search into, and suffer for, as a part of their testimony. but if we will cast off prejudices, and the tyranny of custom, and the bondage of being bound to the world's mind in our inquiries about tyranny, and suffer ourselves to ponder impartially the importance of this matter; and then to state the question right; we shall find religion and conscience hath no small interest in this business. they must have no small interest in it, if we consider the importance of this matter, either extensively, objectively, or subjectively. extensively considered, it is the interest of all mankind to know and be resolved in conscience, whether the government they are under be of god's ordination, or of the devil's administration? whether it be magistracy or tyranny? whether it gives security for religion and liberty, to themselves and their posterity? or whether it induces upon themselves, and entails upon the posterity, slavery as to both these invaluable interests? whether they have matter of praise to god for the blessings and mercies of magistracy, or matter of mourning for the plagues and miseries of tyranny, to the end they may know both the sins and snares, duties and dangers, cases and crisis, of the times they live in? all men, that ever enjoyed the mercy of a right constitute magistracy, have experienced, and were bound to bless god for the blessed fruits of it: and, on the other hand, the world is full of the tragical monuments of tyranny, for which men were bound both to search into the causes, and see the effects of such plagues from the lord, to the end they might mourn over both. and from the beginning it hath been observed, that as people's sins have always procured the scourge of tyranny; so all their miseries might be refounded upon tyrants encroachments, usurping upon or betraying their trust, and overturning religion, laws and liberties. certainly mankind is concerned in point of interest and conscience, to inquire into the cause and cure of this epidemic distemper, that hath so long held the world in misery, and so habitually, that now it is become, as it were, natural to ly stupidly under it; that is, that old ingrained gangrene of the king's evil, or compliance with tyranny, that hath long afflicted the kingdoms of the world, and affected not only their backs in bearing the burden thereof; but their hearts into a lethargic stupor of insensibleness; and their heads in infatuating and intoxicating them with notions of the sacredness and uncontroulableness of tyranny; and their hands in infeebling and fettering them from all attempts to work a cure: or else it hath had another effect on many that have been sensible of a touch of it; even equivalent to that, which an ingenious author, mr. gee, in his preface to the divine right and original of the civil magistrate, (to which mr. durham is not absonant) expounds to be the effect of the fourth vial, rev. xvi. , . when in these dog days of the world, power is given to the sun of imperial, especially popish, tyranny, by their exorbitant stretches of absolute prerogative, to scorch men with fire of furious oppressions, they then blaspheme the name of god which hath power over these plagues, in their male-content complaints, grumblings, grudgings, and murmurings under the misery, but they do not repent, nor give him glory, in mourning over the causes promeriting such a plague, and their own accession in exposing themselves to such a scorching sun, nakedly without a sconce. certainly this would be the remedy that conscience would suggest, and interest would incite to, an endeavour either of allaying the heat or of subtracting from it under a shelter, by declining the oblique malignity of its scorching rays. but will the world never be awakened out of this dream and dotage, of dull and stupid subjection to every monster that can mount a throne? sure at length it may be expected, either conscience from within as god's deputy, challenging for the palpable perversion of this his excellent ordinance, or judgments from without, making sensible of the effects of it, will convince and confute these old inveterate prejudices. and then these martyrs for that universal interest of mankind, who got the fore-start and the first sight of this, will not be so flouted as fools, as now they are. and who knoweth, what prelude or preparative, foreboding and presaging the downfal of tyranny, may be in its aspirings to this height of arbitrary absoluteness, and in the many questions raised about it, and by them imposed upon consciences to be resolved. if we consider the object of this question; as conscience can only clear it, so in nothing can it be more concerned. it is that great ordinance of god, most signally impressed by a very sacred and illustrious character of the glorious majesty of the most high, who hath appointed magistracy; in which, considering either its fountain, or dignity, ends, or effects, conscience must have a very great concern. the fountain, or efficient cause of magistracy, is high and sublime. the powers that are, be of god, not only by the all-disposing hand of god in his providence, as tyranny is, nor only by way of naked approbation, but by divine in-institution; and that not only in the general, by at least a secondary law of nature, but also the special investiture of it, in institution and constitution, is from god; and therefore they are said to be ordained of god, to which ordinance we must be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake: which is the great duty required in the fifth commandment, the first commandment with promise; that hath the priority of place before all the second table, because the other commandments respect each some one interest, this hath a supereminent influence upon all. but tyrannical powers are not of god in this sense. and it were blasphemy to assert they were of the lord's authorization, conscience cannot bind to a subjection to this. again, the dignity of magistracy, ordained for the maintenance of truth and righteousness, the only foundations of people's felicity, whether temporal or eternal, including the bonds and boundaries of all obedience and subjection, for which they are intended, and to which they refer, is supereminent; as that epithet of higher, added to the powers that are of god, may be rendered; making them high and sublime in glory, whose highest prerogative is, that, being god's ministers, they sit in the throne of god, anointed of the lord; judging not for man, but for the lord, as the scripture speaks. to this conscience is concerned in duty to render honour as due, by the prescript of the fifth commandment; but for tyranny, conscience is bound to deny it, because not due, no more than obedience, which conscience dare not pay to a throne of iniquity, and a throne of the devil, as tyranny may be called, as really as magistracy is called the throne of god. next, conscience is much concerned in the ends of magistracy, which are the greatest, the glory of god, and the good of mankind. and, in the effects of it, the maintenance of truth, righteousness, religion, liberty, peace, and safety, and all choicest external blessings; but the ends and effects of tyranny are quite contrary, domineering for pleasure, and destroying for profit. can we think that conscience is nothing concerned here, that these great ends shall be subverted, and the effects precluded; and to that effect, that tyranny not only be shrouded under a privilege of impunity, but by our subjection and acknowledgement of it, as a lawful power, encouraged into all enormities, and licensed to usurp, not only our liberties, but god's throne by an uncontroulable sovereignty? but if we consider the subjective concern of conscience, it must be very graat, when it is the only thing that prompts to subjection, that regulates subjection, and is a bottom for subjection to lawful powers. if it were not out of conscience, men that are free born are naturally such lovers of liberty, and under corruption such lusters after licentiousness, that they would never come under the order of this ordinance, except constrained for wrath's sake: but now, understanding that they that resist the power, resist the ordinance of god, and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation, they must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. if conscience were not exercised in regulating our duty to magistrates, we would either obey none, or else would observe all their commands promiscuously, lawful or unlawful, and would make no difference either of the matter commanded, or the power commanding: but now, understanding that we must obey god rather than man, and that we must render to all their dues, fear to whom fear, honour to whom honour, conscience regulates us what and whom to obey. and without conscience there is little hope for government to prove either beneficial or permanent; little likelihood of either a real, regular, or durable subjection to it. the discernible standing of government upon conscientious grounds, is the only thing that can bring in conscience, and a conscientious submission to it; it being the highest and most kindly principle of, and the strongest and most lasting obligation to any relative duty. it will not be liberty of conscience, (as saith the late declaration for it) but reality of conscience, and government founded upon a bottom of conscience, that will unite the governed to the governors, by inclination as well as duty. and if that be, then there is needful a rule of god's revealed preceptive will, (the only cynosure and empress of conscience), touching the founding and erecting of government, that it have the stamp of god's authority. it must needs then follow, that conscience hath a very great concernment in this question in the general, and that before it be forced to an abandoning of its light in a matter of such moment, it will rather oblige people that are conscientious to suffer the worst that tyrants can do; especially when it is imposed and obtruded upon conscience, to give its sufferage and express acknowledgment that the present tyranny is the authority of god, which is so visible in the view of all that have their eyes open, that the meanest capacity that was never conversant in laws and politics can give this verdict that the constitution and administration of the government of the two royal brothers, under whose burden the earth and we have been groaning these twenty-seven years past, hath been a complete and habitual tyranny, and can no more be owned to be magistracy, than robbery can be acknowledged to be a rightful possession. it is so plain, that i need not the help of lawyers and politicians to demonstrate it, nor launch into the ocean of their endless debates in handling the head of magistracy and tyranny: yet i shall improve what help i find in our most approved authors who have enlarged upon this question, (though not as i must state it) to dilucidate the matter in thesi, and refer to the foregoing deduction of the succession of testimonies against tyranny, to clear it in hypothesi. whence we may see the occasion, and clearly gather the solution of the question, which is this: whether a people, long oppressed with the encroachments of tyrants and usurpers, may disown their pretended authority; and, when imposed upon, to acknowledge it, may rather choose to suffer than to own it? to clear this question: i shall premit some concessions, and then come more formally to resolve it. . it must be granted the question is extraordinary, and never so stated by any writer on this head; which makes it the more difficult and odious, because odd and singular, in the esteem of those who take up opinions rather from the number of votes than from the weight of the reasons of the asserters of them. it will also be yielded, that this was never a case of confession for christians to suffer upon. and the reason of both is, because, before these seven years past, this was never imposed upon private and common subjects to give an account of their thoughts and conscience about the lawfulness of the government they lived under. conquerors and usurpers sometimes have demanded an acknowledgment of their authority, from men of greatest note and stroke in the countries they have seized; but they never since the creation urged it upon common people, as a test of loyalty; but thought always their laws and power to execute them on offenders, did secure their subjection. or otherwise to what purpose are laws made, and the execution of them committed to men in power, if they be not thought a sufficient fence for the authority that makes them; except it also have the actual acknowledgment of the subjects to ratify it? men that are really invested with authority, would think it both a disparagement to their authority, and would disdain such a suspicion of the questionableness of it, as to put it as a question to the subjects, whether they owned it or not. but the gentlemen that rules us, have fallen upon a piece of unprecedented policy; wherein they think both to involve the nation in the guilt of their unparalelled rebellion against the lord, by owning that authority that promotes it; and so secure their usurpations, either by the suffrage of all that own them, or by the extirpation of the conscientious that dare not, with the odium and obloquy of being enemies to authority; by which trick they think to bury the honour of their testimony. yet in sobriety without prophesying it may be presumed, at the long run, this project will prove very prejudicial to their interest: and herein they may verify that scots proverb, 'o'er fast o'er loose,' and accomplish these divine sayings, 'he disappointeth the devices of the crafty, he taketh the wise in their own craftiness, and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong.' for as they have put people upon this question, who would not otherwise have made such inquiries into it, and now finding they must be resolved in conscience to answer it, whenever they shall be brought before them; upon a very overly search, they see terrible tyranny written in legible bloody characters almost on all administrations of the government, and so come to be fixed in the verdict that their conscience and the word of god gives of it; so it may be thought, this question now started, for as despicable beginnings it hath, yet ere it come to a full and final decision, will be more enquired into through the world, and at length prove as fatal to tyranny, as ever any thing could be, and then they may know whom to thank. but however, though the question be extraordinary, and the sufferings thereupon be unprecedented, and therefore, among other contradictions that may be objected, that neither in history nor scripture we can find instances of private people's refusing to own the authority they were under, nor of their suffering for that refusal; yet nevertheless it may be duty without example. many things may be done, though not against the law of god, yet without a precedent of the practice of the people of god. though we could not adduce an example for it, yet we can gather it from the law of god, that tyranny must not be owned, this will be equivalent to a thousand examples. every age in some things must be a precedent to the following, and i think never did any age produce a more honourable precedent, than this beginning to decline a yoke under which all ages have groaned. . it will be also granted, it is not always indispensibly necessary, at all times, for a people to declare their disclaim of the tyranny they are under, when they cannot shake it off; nor, when they are staged for their duty before wicked and tyrannical judges, is it always necessary to disown their pretended authority positively; when either they are not urged with questions about it, then they may be silent in reference to that; or when they are imposed upon to give their judgment of it, they are not always obligated, as in a case of confession, to declare all their mind, especially when such questions are put to them with a manifest design to entrap their lives, or intangle their conscience. all truth is not to be told at all times; neither are all questions to be answered when impertinently interrogate, but may be both cautiously and conscientiously waved. we have christ's own practice, and his faithful servant paul's example, for a pattern of such prudence and christian caution. but yet it were cruel and unchristian rigour, to censure such as, out of a pious principle of zeal to god and conscience of duty, do freely and positively declare their judgment, in an absolute disowning of their pretended authority, when posed with such questions, though to the manifest detriment of their lives, they conscientiously looking upon it as a case of confession. for where the lord hath not peremptorily astricted his confessors to such rules of prudence, but hath both promised, and usually gives his spirit's conduct, encouraging and animating them to boldness, so as before hand they should not take thought how or what they shall speak, and in that same hour they find it given them, it were presumption for us to stint them to our rules of prudence. we may indeed find rules to know, what is a case of confession; but hardly can it be determined, what truth or duty we are questioned about is not, or may not be, a case of confession. and who can deny, but this may be in some circumstance, a case of confession, even positively to disown the pretended authority of a bloody court or council? when either they go out of their sphere, taking upon them christ's supremacy, and the cognizance of the concerns of his crown, whereof they are judges noways competent; then they must freely and faithfully be declined. or when, to the dishonour of christ, they blaspheme his authority, and the sacred boundaries he hath prescribed to all human authority, and will assert an illimited absolute authority, refusing and discharging all offered legal and scriptural restrictions to be put thereupon, (as hath been the case of the most part of these worthy though poor martyrs, who have died upon this head) then they must think themselves bound to disown it. or when they have done some cruel indignity and despite to the spirit of god, and to christ's prerogative and glory, and work of reformation, and people, in murdering them without mercy, and imposing this owning of their king, by whose authority all is acted, as a condemnation of these witnesses of christ their testimony, and a justification of their bloody cruelties against them, which hath frequently been the case of these poor people that hath been staged upon this account: in this case, and several others of this sort that might be mentioned, then they may be free and positive in disowning this test of wicked loyalty, as the mark of the dragon of the secular beast of tyranny. and in many such cases, when the lord gives the spirit, i see no reason but that christ's witnesses must follow his pattern of zeal in the case of confession, which he witnessed before pontius pilate in asserting his own kingship, as they may in other cases follow his pattern of prudence. and why may we not imitate the zeal of stephen who called the council before whom he was staged stiff-necked resisters of the holy ghost, persecutors of the prophets, and betrayers and murderers of christ the just one, as well as the prudence of paul? but, however it be, the present testimony against this pretended authority lies in the negative, which obliges always, for ever and for ever; that is to say, we plead, that it must never be owned. there is a great difference between a positive disowning and a not owning; though the first be not always necessary, the latter is the testimony of the day, and a negative case of confession, which is always clearer than the positive. though we must not always confess every truth, yet we must never deny any. . it is confessed, we are under this sad disadvantage besides others, that not only all our brethren, groaning under the same yoke with us, will not take the same way of declining this pretended authority, nor adventure, when called, to declare their judgment about it, (which we do not condemn, as is said, and would expect from the rules of equity and charity, they will not condemn us when we find ourselves in conscience bound to use greater freedom) but also some when they do declare their judgment, give it in terms condemnatory of, and contradictory unto our testimony, in that they have freedom positively to own this tyranny as authority, and the tyrant as their lawful sovereign: and many of our ministers also are of the same mind. and further, as we have few expressly asserting our part of the debate, as it is now stated; so we have many famous divines expresly against us in this point, as especially we find in their comments upon, rom. xiii. among whom i cannot dissemble my sorrow to find the great calvin, saying, sæpe solent inquirere, &c. 'men often enquire, by what right they have obtained their power who have the rule! it should be enough to us that they do govern; for they have not ascended to this eminency by their own power, but are imposed by the hand of the lord.' as also pareus saying too much against us. for answer to this, i refer to mr. knox's reply to lethington, producing several testimonies of divines against him upon this very head; wherein he shews, that the occasions of their discourses and circumstances wherein they were stated, were very far different from those that have to do with tyrants and usurpers, as indeed they are the most concerned, and smart most under their scourge, are in best case to speak to the purpose. i shall only say, mens averment, in a case of conscience, is not an oracle, when we look upon it with an impartial eye, in the case wherein we are not prepossessed: it will bear no other value, than what is allayed with the imperfections of fallibility, and moreover is contradicted by some others, whose testimony will help us as much to confirm our persuasion, as others will hurt us to infirm it. . but now when tyrants go for magistrates, lest my plea against owning tyranny, should be mistaken, as if it were a pleading for anarchy, i must assert, that i and all those i am vindicating, are for magistracy, as being of divine original, institute for the common good of human and christian societies, whereunto every soul must be subject, of whatsoever quality or character, and not only for wrath but also for conscience sake (though as to our soul and conscience, we are not subject) which whosoever resisteth, resisteth the ordinance of god, and against which rebellion is a damnable sin, whereunto (according to the fifth commandment, and the many reiterated exhortations of the apostles) we must be subject, and obey magistrates, and submit ourselves to every ordinance of man, for the lord's sake, whether it be unto the king as supreme, &c. and we account it a hateful brand of them that walk after the flesh, to despise government, to be presumptuous, self-willed, and not afraid to speak evil of dignities: and that they are filthy dreamers, who despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities: and of those things which they know not. we allow the magistrate, in whatsoever form of government, all the power the scripture, laws of nature and nations, or municipal do allow him; asserting, that he is the keeper and avenger of both the tables of the law, having a power over the church, as well as the state, suited to his capacity, that is, not formally ecclesiastical, but objectively, for the church's good; an external power, of providing for the church, and protecting her from outward violence, or inward disorder, an imperate power, of commanding all to do their respective duties; a civil power of punishing all, even church-officers, for crimes; a secondary power of judicial approbation or condemnation; or discretive, in order to give his sanction to synodical results; a cumulative power, assisting and strengthening the church in all her privileges, subservient, though not servile, co-ordinate with church-power, not subordinate (though as a christian he is subject) in his own affairs, viz. civil; not to be declined as judge, but to be obeyed in all things lawful, and honoured and strengthened with all his dues. we would give unto cæsar the things that are cæsar's, and to god the things that are god's; but to tyrants, that usurp and pervert both the things of god and of cæsar, and of the peoples liberties, we can render none of them, neither god's, nor cæsar's, nor our own: nor can we from conscience give him any other deference, but as an enemy to all, even to god, to cæsar, and the people. and in this, though it doth not sound now with court-parasites, nor with others, that are infected with royal indulgencies and indemnities, we bring forth but the transumpt of old principles, according to which our fathers walked when they still contended for religion and liberty, against the attemptings and aggressions of tyranny, against both. . it must be conceded, it is not an easy thing to make a man in the place of magistracy a tyrant: for as every escape, error, or act of unfaithfulness, even known and continued in, whether in a minister's entry to the ministry, or in his doctrine, doth not unminister him, nor give sufficient ground to withdraw from him, or reject him as a minister of christ: so neither does every enormity, misdemeanor, or act of tyranny, injustice, perfidy, or profanity in the civil magistrate, whether as to his way of entry to that office, or in the execution of it, or in his private or personal behaviour, denominate him a tyrant or an usurper, or give sufficient ground to divest him of magistratical power, and reject him as the lawful magistrate. it is not any one or two acts contrary to the royal covenant or office, that doth denude a man of the royal dignity, that god and the people gave him. david committed two acts of tyranny, murder and adultery; yet the people were to acknowledge him as their king (and so it may be said of some others, owned still as kings in scripture) the reason is, because though he sinned against a man or some particular persons, yet he did not sin against the state, and the catholic good of the kingdom, subverting law; for then he would have turned tyrant, and ceased to have been lawful king. there is a great difference between a tyrant in act, and a tyrant in habit; the first does not cease to be a king. but on the other hand, as every thing will not make a magistrate to be a tyrant; so nothing will make a tyrant by habit a magistrate. and as every fault will not unminister a minister; so some will oblige the people to reject his ministry, as if he turn heretical, and preach atheism, mahometanism, or the like, the people, though they could not formally depose him, or through the corruption of the times could not get him deposed; yet they might reject and disown his ministry: so it will be granted, that a people have more power in creating a magistrate, than in making a minister; and consequently they have more right, and may have more light in disowning a king, as being unkinged; than in disowning a minister, as being unministred. it will be necessary therefore, for clearing our way, to fix upon some ordinary characters of a tyrant, which may discrimate him from a magistrate, and be ground of disowning him as such. i shall rehearse some, from very much approved authors; the application of which will be as apposite to the two brothers, that we have been burdened with, as if they had intended a particular and exact description of them. buchanan de jure regni apud scotos, shews, 'that the word tyrant was at first honourable, being attributed to them that had the full power in their hands, which power was not astricted by any bonds of laws, nor obnoxious to the cognition of judges; and that it was the usual denomination of heroes, and thought at first so honourable, that it was attributed to the gods: but as nero and judas were sometimes among the romans and jews names of greatest account, but afterwards by the faults of two men of these names, it came to pass, that the most flagitious would not have these names given to their children, so in process of time, rulers made this name so infamous by their wicked deeds, that all men abhorred it, as contagious and pestilentious, and thought it a more light reproach to be called hangman than a tyrant.' thereafter he condescends upon several characters of a tyrant. . 'he that doth not receive a government by the will of the people, but by force invadeth it, or intercepteth it by fraud, is a tyrant; and who domineers even over the unwilling (for a king rules by consent, but a tyrant by constraint) and procures the supreme rule without the peoples consent, even tho' for several years they may so govern, that the people shall not think it irksome.' which very well agrees with the present gentleman that rules over us, who, after he was by public vote in parliament secluded from the government, of which the standing laws of both kingdoms made him incapable for his murders, adulteries and idolatries, by force and fraud did intercept first an act for his succession in scotland, and then the actual succession in england, by blood and treachery, usurping and intruding himself into the government, without any compact with, or consent of the people; though now he studies to make himself another syracusan hiero, or the florentine cosmo de medices, in a mild moderation of his usurped power; but the west of england, and the west of scotland both, have felt the force of it. . he does not govern for the subjects welfare, or public utility, but for himself, having no regard to that, but to his own lust, 'acting in this like robbers, who cunningly disposing of what wickedly they have acquired, do seek the praise of justice by injury, and of liberality by robbery; so he can make some shew of a civil mind; but so much the less assurance gives he of it, that it is manifest, he intends not hereby the subjects good, but the greater security of his own lusts, and stability of empire over posterity, having somewhat mitigated the peoples hatred, which when he had done, he will turn back again to his old manners; for the fruit which is to follow, may easily be known, both by the seed and by the sower thereof.' an exact copy of this we have seen within these two years, oft before in the rule of the other brother. after god hath been robbed of his prerogatives, the church of her privileges, the state of its laws, the subjects of their liberty and property, he is now affecting the praise, and captating the applause of tenderness to conscience, and love of peace, by offering now liberty after all his cruelties; wherein all the thinking part of men do discern he is prosecuting that hellish project, introducing popery and slavery, and overturning religion, law, and liberty. . the kingly government is according to nature, the tyrannical against it; principality is the kingly government of a freeman amongst freemen; the tyrannical a government of a master over slaves. tyranny is against nature, and a masterly principality over slaves. can he be called a father, who accounts his subjects slaves; or a shepherd, who does not feed, but devours his flock? or a pilot, who doth always study to make shipwreck of the goods, and strikes a leak in the very ship where he fails? 'what is he then that bears command, not for the people's advantage, but studies only himself, who leadeth his subjects into manifest snares? he shall not verily be accounted by me either commander, emperor, or governor.' king james vi. also, in a speech to the parliament in the year , makes this one character of a tyrant, when he begins to invade his subjects rights and liberties. and if this be true, then we have not had a king these many years: the foregoing deduction will demonstrate, what a slavery we have been under. . what is he then, who doth not contend for virtue with the good but to exceed the most flagitious in vices? 'if you see then any usurping the royal name, and not excelling in any virtue, but striving to exceed all in baseness, not tendering his subjects good with native affection, but pressing them with proud domination, esteeming the people committed to his trust, not for their safeguard, but for his own gain, will you imagine this man is truly a king, albeit he vapours with a numerous levee guard, and makes an ostentation of gorgeous pomp?' the learned althusius likewise in his politics, chap. . num. . (as he is cited by jus populi, chap. . p. .) makes this one character of a tyrant, that 'living in luxury, whoredom, greed and idleness, he neglecteth, or is unfit for his office.' how these suit our times we need not express; what effrontery of impudence is it, for such monsters to pretend to rule by virtue of any authority derived from god, who pollute the world with their adulteries and incests, and live in open defiance of all the laws of the universal king; with whom to exceed in all villanies is the way to purchase the countenance of the court, and to aspire to preferment? no heligobaldus, &c. could ever come up the length in wickedness, that our rulers have professed. . he can transfer unto himself the strength of all laws, and abrogate them when he pleases. king james vi. in that forecited speech saith, a king degenerateth into a tyrant, when he leaveth to rule by law. althusius also, in the forecited place, saith, 'there is one kind of tyranny, which consisteth in violating, changing, or removing of fundamental laws, specially such as concern religion; such, saith he, philip the king of spain, who, contrary to the fundamental belgic laws, did erect an administration of justice by force of arms; and such was charles ix. of france, that thought to overturn the salic law.' all that knoweth what hath been done in britain these twenty-seven years, can attest our laws have been subverted, the reformation of religion overturned, and all our best laws rescinded; and now the penal statutes against papists disabled and stopped, without and against law. . he can revoke all things to his nod, at his pleasure. this is also one part of king james vi.'s character of a tyrant, when he sets up an arbitrary power; and of althusius, in the forecited place, 'when he makes use of an absolute power, and so breaks all bonds for the good of human society.' we allow a king an absolute power taken in a good sense, that is, he is not subaltern, nor subordinate to any other prince, but supreme in his own dominions: or if by absolute he meant perfect he is most absolute that governs best, according to the word of god; but if it be to be loosed from all laws, we think it blasphemy to ascribe it to any creature. where was there ever such an arbitrary and absolute power arrogated by any mortal, as hath been claimed by our rulers these years past? especially by the present usurper, who, in this liberty of conscience now granted to scotland, assumes to himself an absolute power, which all are to obey without reserve, which carries the subjects slavery many stages beyond whatever the grand signior did attempt. . for by a tyrant strangers are employed to oppress the subjects: 'they place the establishment of their authority in the people's weakness, and think that a kingdom is not a procuration concredited to them by god, but rather a prey fallen into their hands; such are not joined to us by any civil bond, or any bond of humanity, but should be accounted the most capital enemies of god, and of all men.' king james, as above says, he is a tyrant that imposes unlawful taxes, raises forces, makes war upon his subjects, to pillage, plunder, waste, and spoil his kingdoms. althusius as above, makes a tyrant, who by immoderate exactions, and the like, exhausts the subjects, and cites scripture, jer. xxii. , . ezek. xxxiv. . kings xii. . psal. xiv. .' it is a famous saying of bracton, he is no longer king, than while he rules well, but a tyrant whensoever he oppresseth the people that are trusted to his care and government. and cicero says, he loseth all legal power in and over an army or empire, who by that government and army does obstruct the welfare of that republic. what oppressions and exactions by armed force our nation hath been wasted with, in part is discovered above. . althusius in the place above quoted, makes this another mark, 'when he keepeth not his faith and promise, but despiseth his very oath made unto the people.' what shall we say of him then, who not only brake, but burnt, and made it criminal to assert the obligation of the most solemnly transacted covenant with god and with the people, that ever was entered into, who yet upon these terms of keeping that covenant only was admitted to the government? and what shall we say of his brother succeeding, who disdains all bonds, whose professed principle is, as a papist, to keep no faith to heretics? . in the same place he makes this one character: 'a tyrant is he, who takes away from one or more members of the commonwealth the free exercise of the orthodox religion.' and the grave author of the impartial enquiry into the administration of affairs in england, doth assert, p. . . 'whensoever a prince becomes depraved to that degree of wickedness, as to apply and employ his power and interest, to debauch and withdraw his subjects from their fealty and obedience to god, or sets himself to extirpate that religion which the lord hath revealed and appointed to be the rule of our living, and the means of our happiness, he doth by that very deed depose himself; and instead of being owned any longer for a king, ought to be treated as a rebel and traitor against the supreme and universal sovereign.' this is the perfect portracture of our princes; the former of which declared an open war against religion, and all that professed it: and the latter did begin to prosecute it with the same cruelty of persecution, and yet continues without relenting against us; though to others he tolerates it under the notion of a crime, to be for the present dispensed with, until he accomplish his design. . ibid. he tells us, 'that whoso for corrupting of youth erecteth stage plays, whore-houses, and other play-houses, and suffers the colleges and other seminaries of learning to be corrupted.' there were never more of this in any age, than in the conduct of our court, which, like another sodom, profess it to be their design to debauch mankind into all villanies, and to poison the fountains of all learning and virtue, by intruding the basest of men into the place of teachers, both in church and university, and precluding all access to honest men. . further he says. 'he is a tyrant who doth not defend his subjects from injuries when he may, but suffereth them to be oppressed, (and what if he oppress them himself?)' it was one of the laws of edward the confessor, if the king fail in the discharge of his trust and office, he no longer deserves nor ought to enjoy that name. what name do they deserve then, who not only fail in the duty of defending their subjects, but send out their lictors and bloody executioners to oppress them, neither will suffer them to defend themselves! but althusius makes a distinct character of this. . then, in fine he must certainly be a tyrant, who will not suffer the people, by themselves nor by their representatives, to maintain their own rights, neither by law nor force; for, saith my author forecited, 'he is a tyrant who hindereth the free suffrages of members of parliament, so that they dare not speak what they would; and chiefly he who takes away from the people all power to resist his tyranny, as arms, strengths, and chief men, whom therefore, though innocent, he hateth, afflicteth, and persecuteth, exhausts their goods and livelihoods, without right or reason.' all know that our blades have been all along enemies to parliaments; and when their interest forced to call them, what means were used always to paque and prelimit them, and overawe them, and how men, who have faithfully discharged their trust in them, have been prosecuted with the height of envy and fury, and many murdered thereupon; and how all the armed force of the kingdoms have been inhanced into their hand, and the people kept so under foot, that they have been rendered incapable either to defend their own from inrestine usurpers, or foreign invaders. all that is said amounts to this, that when ever men in power to evert and subvert all the ends of government, and intrude themselves upon it, and abuse it, to the hurt of the commonwealth, and the destruction of that for which government was appointed; they are then tyrants, and cease to be magistrates. to this purpose i shall here append the words of that forecited ingenious author of the impartial inquiry, pag. , . 'there can be nothing more evident from the light of reason as well as scripture, than that all magistracy is appointed for the benefit of mankind, and the common good of societies; god never gave any one power to reign over others for their destruction, (unless by his providence when he had devoted a people for their sins to ruin,) but on whomsoever he confers authority over cities or nations, it is with this conditional proviso and limitation, that they are to promote their prosperity and good, and to study their defence and protection; all princes are thus far pactional----and whosoever refuseth to perform this fundamental condition, he degrades and deposes himself; nor is it rebellion in any to resist him; whensoever princes cease to be for the common good, they answer not the end they were instituted unto, and cease to be what they were chosen for.' . it will not be denied, but when the case is so circumstantiate, that it would require the arbitration of judgment to determine, whether the king be a tyrant or not, that then people are not to disown him: for if it be a question, whether the people be really robbed of their rights and liberties, and that the king might pretend as much reason to complain of the people's doing indignity to his sovereignty, as they might of his tyranny; then it were hard for them to assume so far the umpirage of their own cause, as to make themselves absolute judges of it, and forthwith to reject his authority upon these debatable grounds. but the case is not so with us; no place being left for doubt or debate, but that our fundamental rights and liberties civil and religious, are overturned, and an absolute tyranny, exactly characterized as above, is established on the ruins thereof. hence we have not disowned the pretended authority, because we judged it was tyrannical, but because it was really so. our discretive judgment in the case was not our rule, but it was our understanding of the rule, by which only we could be regulated, and not by the understanding of another, which cannot be better, nor so good, of our grievances, which certainly we may be supposed to understand best ourselves, and yet they are such as are understood every where. to the question then, who shall be judge between these usurping and tyrannizing rulers and us? we answer briefly and plainly. we do not usurp a judgment in the case pretending no more authority over them in our private capacity, than we allow them to have over us, that is none at all? nor can we admit that they should be both judges and party; for then they might challenge that prerogative in every case, and strengthen themselves in an uncontrollable immunity and impunity to do what they pleased. but we appeal to the fundamental laws of the kingdom, agreeable to the word of god, to judge, and to the whole world of impartial spectators to read and pronounce the judgment. lex rex, quest. . pag. . saith in answer to this, 'there is a court of necessity no less than a court of justice; and the fundamental laws must then speak, and it is with the people in this extremity as if they had no ruler. and as to the doubtsomeness of these laws, he saith, ( .) as the scriptures in all fundamentals are clear, and expound themselves, and _in the first instance_ condemn heresies; so all laws of men in their fundamentals, which are the law of nature and nations, are clear. ( .) tyranny is more visible and intelligible than heresy, and it is soon discerned----the people have a natural throne of policy in their conscience, to give warning, and materially sentence against the king as a tyrant;--where tyranny is more obscure, and the thread small, that it escape the eye of man, the king keepeth possession, but i deny that tyranny can be obscure long.' . i shall grant that many things are yieldable even to a grassonant dominator, and tyrannical occupant of the place of magistracy; as . there may be some cases, wherein it is lawful for a people to yield _subjection_ to a lawless tyrant, when groaning under his overpowering yoke, under which they must patiently _bear the indignation of the lord, because_ they _have sinned against him, until he_ arise and _plead_ his own _cause, and execute judgment_ in the earth, (mic. vii. .) until which time they must kiss the rod as in the hand of god, and own and adore the holiness and sovereignty of that providence that hath subjected them under such a slavery; and are not to attempt a violent ejection or excussion, when either the thing attempted is altogether impracticable, or the means and manner of effectuating it dubious and unwarrantable, or the necessary concomitants and consequents of the cure more hurtful or dangerous than the disease, or the like. as in many cases also a man may be subject to a robber prevailing against him; so we find the people of israel in egypt and babylon, &c. yielded subjection to tyrants. but in this case we deny two things to them, ( .) allegiance or active and voluntary subjection, so as to own them for magistrates. ( .) stupid _passive obedience_, or suffering without resistance. for the first, we owe it only to magistrates, by virtue of the law, either ordinative of god, or constitutive of man. and it is no argument to infer; as a man's subjecting himself to a robber assaulting him, is no solid proof of his approving or acknowledging the injury and violence committed by the robbery, therefore a person's yielding subjection to a tyrant a public robber does not argue his acknowledging or approving his tyranny and oppression. for, the subjection that a tyrant requires, and which a robber requires, is not of the same nature; the one is legal of subjects, which we cannot own to a tyrant; the other is forced of the subdued, which we must acknowledge to a robber. but to make the parallel; if the robber should demand, in our subjecting ourselves to him, an owning of him to be no robber but an honest man, as the tyrant demands in our subjecting ourselves to him in owning him to be no tyrant, but a magistrate, then we ought not to yield it to the one no more than to the other. for the second, to allow them passive obedience is unintelligible nonsense and a mere contradiction; for nothing that is merely passive can be obedience as relative to a law; nor can any obedience be merely passive; for obedience is always active. but not only is the inaccuracy of the phrase excepted against, but also that position maintained by many, that, in reference to a yoke of tyranny, there is a time which may be called the proper season of suffering, that is, when suffering (in opposition to acting or resisting) is a necessary and indispensible duty, and resisting is a sin: for if the one be an indispensible duty, the other must be a sin at the same time, but this cannot be admitted. for, though certainly there is such a season of suffering, wherein suffering is lawful, laudable and necessary, and all must lay their account with suffering, and little else can be attempted, but which will increase sufferings; yet even then we may resist as well as we can: and these two, resistance and suffering, at the same time, are not incompatible: david did bear most patiently the injury of his son's usurpation, when he said, 'let the lord do to me as seemeth him good,' sam. xv. . chap. x. . and betaketh himself to fervent prayers, psal. iii. and yet these were not all the weapons he used against him; neither did he ever own him as a magistrate. we are to suffer all things patiently as the servants of the lord, and look to him for mercy and relief, (psal. cxxiii. .); but we are not obliged to suffer even in that season, as the slaves of men. again, suffering in opposition to resistance, does never fall under any moral law of god, except in the absolutely extraordinary case of christ's passive obedience, which cannot fall under our deliberation or imitation; or in the case of a positive law, as was given to the jews to submit to nebuchadnezzar, which was express and peculiar to them, as shall be cleared. that can never be commanded as indispensible duty, which does not fall under our free will or deliberation, but the enemies will, as the lord permits them, as the case of suffering is. that can never be indispensible duty, which we may decline without sin, as we may do suffering, if we have not a call to it; yea, in that case, it were sin to suffer; therefore, in no case it can be formally and indispensibly commanded, so as we may not shift it, if we can without sin. suffering simply the evil of punishment, just or unjust, can never be a conformity to god's preceptive will, but only to his providential disposal; it hath not the will of the sign for its rule, but only the will of well-pleasing. all the commands that we have for suffering, are either to direct the manner of it, that it be patiently and cheerfully, when forced to it wrongfully, pet. ii. , , or comparatively, to determine our choice in an unavoidable alternative, either to suffer or sin; and so we are commanded, rather to suffer, than to deny christ, matth. xiii. . and we are commanded upon these terms to follow christ, to take up his cross, when he lays it on his providence, matth. xvi. . see at length this cleared, lex rex, q. . page - otherwise in no case subjection, even passive, can be a duty; for it is always to be considered under the notion of a plague, judgment and curse, to be complained of as a burden, never to be owned as a duty to magistrates. as we find the lord's people resenting it as a servitude, under which they were servants even in their own land, which did yield increase unto the kings whom the lord had set over them, because of their sins, neh. ix. , . . in divers cases there may be some compliance with a mere occupant, that hath no right to reign; as upon this account the noble marquis of argyle and lord warriston suffered for their compliance with the usurper cromwell. such may be the warrantableness, or goodness, or necessity, or profitableness of a compliance, when people are by providence brought under a yoke which they cannot shake off, that they may part with some of their privileges, for the avoidance of the loss of the rest, and for the conveniency and profit, peace and safety of themselves and their country, which would be in hazard, if they did not comply; they may do whatsoever is due from them to the public weal, whatsoever is an office of their station or place, or which they have any other way a call unto, whatsoever may make for their own honest interest, without wronging others, or the country's liberties in their transactions with these powers, even though such a compliance may be occasionally to the advantage of the usurpers, seeing good and necessary actions are not to be declined for the ill effects that are accidental to them, and arise from the use which others make of them. but though this may be yielded in some cases to such usurpers, especially conquerors, that have no right of occupying the empire, but are capable of it by derivation from the people's consent: yet it must not be extended to such usurpers as are also tyrants, that have no right of their own, nor are capable of any, and that overturn all rights of subjects. to such we can yield no compliance, as may infer either transacting with them, or owning them as magistrates. we find indeed the saints enjoyed places under these, who were not their magistrates; as nehemiah and mordecai and esther was queen to ahasuerus. but here was no compliance with tyrants (for these heathens were not such) only some of them were extraordinary persons, raised up by an extraordinary spirit, for extraordinary ends in extraordinary times, that cannot be brought to an ordinary rule, as esther's marriage; and all of them in their places kept the law of their god, served the work of their generation, defiled not themselves with their customs, acted against no good, and engaged to no evil, but by their compliance promoted the welfare of their country, as argyle and warrriston did under cromwel. again, we find they paid custom to them, as neh. ix. , . and we read of augustus' taxation universally complied with, luke ii. - . and christ paid it. this shall be more fully answered afterwards. here i shall only say ( .) it can never be proven that these were tyrants. ( .) christ paid it with such a caution, as leaves the title inflated; not for conscience (as tribute must be paid to magistrates, rom. xiii. , .) but only that he might not offend them. ( .) any other instances of the saints taxations are to be judged forced acts, badges of their bondage, which, if they had been exacted as tests of their allegiance, they would not have yielded. strangers also, that are not subjects, use to pay custom in their trafficking, but not as tests of their allegiance. . there may be also, in some cases, obedience allowed to their lawful commands because of the lawfulness of the thing commanded, or the coincidency of another just and obligging authority commanding the same. we may do many things which a tyrant commands, and which he enforces; and many things also whether he will or not; but we must do nothing upon the consideration of his command, in the acknowledgement of obedience, due by virtue of allegiance, which we own of conscience to a lawful magistrate. we must do nothing, which may seem to have an accessoriness to the tyrant's unlawful occupancy, or which depends only on the warrant of his authority to do it, or may entrench on the divine institution of magistracy, or bring us into a participation of the usurper's sin. in these cases we can neither yield obedience in lawful things, nor in unlawful: 'nor can we own absolute subjection, no more than we can absolute obedience; for all subjection is enjoined, in order to obedience: and to plead for a privilege in point of obedience, and to disclaim it in point of subjection, is only the flattery of such, as having renounced with conscience all distinction of obedience, would divest others of all privileges, that they may exercise their tyranny without controul, naphtali, p. . prior edit.'] . there may be addresses made to such as are not rightful possessors of the government, for justice, or mercy, or redress of some intolerable grievances, without scruple of accepting that which is materially justice or mercy, or seeking them at the hand of any who may reach them out to us, though he that conveys them to us be not interested in the umpirage of them. thus we find jeremiah supplicated zedekiah for mercy, not to return to prison; and paul appealed to cæsar for justice. but in these addresses we may not acknowledge the wicked laws that brought on these grievances, nor conceal the wickedness, no more than the misery of them which we have endured; nor may we own the legal power of them that we address, to take them off, nor signify any thing, in the matter and manner of our representations, that may either import a declining our testimony, for which we have suffered these grievances, or a contradiction to our declinature of their pretended authority: only we may remonstrate, what cruelties we have endured, and how terrible it will be to them to be guilty of, or accessory to our blood, in not pitying us; which was all that jeremiah did. and as for paul's appeal, we find he was threatened to be murdered by his countrymen, acts xxiii. . from whose hands he was rescued, and brought before the judicatory of festus the roman deputy, not voluntarily; thence also they sought to remand him to jerusalem, that they might kill him, acts xxv. . whereupon he demands in justice that he might not be delivered to his accusers and murderers, but claims the benefit of the heathens own law, by that appeal to cæsar, which was the only constrained expedient of saving his own life, acts xxviii. , by which also he got an opportunity to witness for christ at rome. but, as shall be cleared further afterwards, cæsar was not an usurper over judea; which not obscurely is insinuated by paul himself, who asserts, that both his person, and his cause criminal, of which he was accused (it was not an ecclesiastical cause, and so no advantage hence for the supremacy) appertained to cæsar's tribunal, and that not only in fact, but of right, acts xxv. . 'i stand at cæsar's judgment-seat, where i ought to be judged.' we cannot say this of any tribunal; fenced in the name of them that tyrannize over us. . i will not stand neither upon the names and titles of kings, &c. to be given to tyrants and usurpers, in speaking to them or of them, by way of appellation or compellation: for we find even tyrants are called by these names in scripture, being kings in fact, though not by right and indeed not impertinently, kings and tyrants for the most part are reciprocal terms. but in no case can we give them any names or titles, which may signify our love to them whom the lord hates, or who hate the lord, chron. xix. . or which may flatter them, whom elihu durst not give, for fear his maker should take him away, job xxxii. . or which may be taken for honouring of them, for that is not due to the vilest of men, when exalted never so high, psal. xii. ult. a vile person must be contemned in our eyes, psal. xv. . nor which may any way import or infer an owning of a magistratical relation between them and us, or any covenant-transaction or confederacy with them, which is no terms with them, as such, we will say or own. isa. viii. . hence many sufferers upon this head forbear to give them their titles. . it will be yielded very readily by us, that a magistrate is not to be disowned, merely for his differing in religion from us: yea, though he were a heathen. we do not disown our pretended rulers merely upon that account, but cheerfully do grant and subscribe to that truth in our confession of faith, chap. xxiii. sect. . that infidelity, or difference in religion, doth not make void the magistrate's just and legal authority, nor free the people from their due obedience to him: on which our adversaries have insulted, as if our principle and practice were thereby disproved. but it is easy to answer, . let the words be considered, and we are confident, 'that no sober man will think, the acknowledgement of just and legal authority, and due obedience a rational ground to infer, that tyranny is thereby either allowed or privileged,' napht. p. prior edition. . though infidelity or difference of religion, does not make void authority, where it is lawfully invested; yet it may incapacitate a person, and lawfully seclude him from authority, both by the word of god, which expressly forbids to set a stranger over, who is not our brother, deut. xvii. . which includes as well a stranger of a strange religion, as one of a strange country, and by the laws of the land, which do incapacitate a papist of all authority, supreme or subordinate. and so, if this james vii. ii. had been king before he was a roman catholic, if we had no more to object, we should not have quarrelled his succession. . we both give and grant all that is the confession, to wit, that dominion is not founded in grace: yet this remains evident, that a prince, who not only is of another religion, but an avowed enemy to, and overturner of the religion established by law, and intending and endeavouring to introduce a false, heretical, blasphemous and idolatrous religion, can claim no just and legal authority, but in this case the people may very lawfully decline his pretended authority; nay, they are betrayers of their country and posterity, if they give not a timeous and effectual check to his usurpings, and make him sensible that he hath no such authority. can we imagine, that men in the whole of that blessed work so remarkably led of god, being convocate by a parliament of the wisest and worthiest men that ever were in england, whom they did encourage, by writing and preaching, and every way to stand fast in their opposition to the then king displaying a banner for his prerogative (a court dream) against religion and liberty, should be so far left, as to drop that as a principle and part of our religion, which would sacrifice religion itself to the lust of a raging tyrant? must we believe, that a religion destroying tyrant is a righteous ruler? and must we own him to be a nursing father to the church? shall we conclude, that the common bounds and limits, whereby the almighty hath bounded and limited mankind, are removed by an article of our confession of faith, which hereby is turned into a court creed: then welcome hobs de cive, with all the rest of pluto's train, who would babble us into a belief, that the world is to be governed according to the pleasure of wicked tyrants. i would fain hope at length the world would be awakened out of such ridiculous dreams, and be ashamed any more to own such fooleries. and it may be, our two royal brothers have contributed more to cure men of this moral madness than any who went before them. and this is the only advantage, i know, that the nations have reaped by their reign. . though we deny that conquest can give a just title to a crown; yet we grant, in some cases, that by the peoples after-consent it may be turned into a just title. it is undeniable, when there is just ground of the war, if a prince subdue a whole land, who have justly forfeited their liberties, when by his grace he preserves them, he may make use of their right now forfeited, and they may resign their liberty to the conqueror, and consent that he be their king, upon fair and legal, and not tyrannical conditions. and even when the war is not just, but successful on the invading conquerors side, this may be an inducement to the conquered, if they be indeed free and unengaged to any other, to a submission, dedition, and delivery up of themselves to be the subjects of the victor, and to take him for their sovereign: as it is like the case was with the jews in cæsar's time, whose government was translated by dedition to the roman power; in the translation, when a-doing, there was a fault, but after it was done, it ceased; though the beginning was wrong, there was a post-fact, which made it right, and could not be dissolved, without an unjust disturbance of public order. whence, besides what is said above, in answer to that much insisted instance of christ's paying tribute, and commanding it to be paid to cæsar, the difficulty of that instance may be clearly solved. that tribute which he paid, matth. xvii. . &c. and that about the payment whereof he was questioned, matth. xxii. . seem to be two different tributes. many think, very probably, they were not one and the same tribute. it is a question, for whom, and by whom that of matth. xvii. was gathered; it is most likely, it was gathered by the officers of the temple for its service: however, the payment was made, with such caution (tacitely declining the strict right to exact it from him, but to avoid offence, in an act in itself unobliging) that their claim is left as much in the dark, as if the question had never been moved. the other, matth. xxii. was exacted for cæsar: but to that captious question our lord returns such an answer, as might both solve it, and evade the snare of the propounder, giving a general rule of giving to god and to cæsar each their own, without defining which of them had the right to the payment in question; whether cæsar should have it, or whether it should be paid only for the temple's use: upon which they marvelled, which they needed not do, if they had understood in his words an express and positive declaration of an obligation to make that payment to cæsar; for then they would have obtained one of their ends, in making him odious to the people, who were not satisfied with the payment of it. but however, the knot is loosed, by considering that they were now lawfully subject to the roman emperors, as their governors, to whom they were obliged (i do not say christ was) to pay tribute. for they had yielded themselves unto, and owned the roman dominion in pompey, cæsar augustus and tiberius, ere this question about tribute paying was proposed to our saviour; and therefore they who stuck at the payment of it, were a seditious party, dissenting from the body of the nation; else it is not supposeable readily, that their dominion in judea could have been exercised long without some consent, sufficient to legitimate it to the present rulers; and this is the more likely, if we consider the confession of the jews themselves, disavowing the power of capital punishment. it is not lawful for us to put any man to death, and owning cæsar as their king, with an exclusive abrenunciation of all other, we have no king but cæsar; as paul also acknowledges, he ought to be judged at cæsar's bar, in his appeal to cæsar. it is also acknowledged by very good authors, that this was the tribute which judas the galilean stood up to free the people from; and that the sedition of those jews that followed him, mentioned acts v. . who mutinied upon this occasion, was, according to gamaliel's speech, disallowed by that sanhedrim, or council of the jews. and it may be gathered out of josephus, that the jews of hircanus' party came under the roman power by consent and dedition, while they of aristobulus' party looked upon the romans as usurpers. which difference continued till our saviour's time, when some part of them acknowledged the cæsarean authority, some part looked upon it as an usurpation; and of this generally were the pharisees. to confirm this, calvin's testimony may be adduced, upon matth. xxii. who saith, 'the authority of the roman emperors was by common use approved and received among the jews, whence it was manifest, that the jews had now of their own accord imposed on themselves a law of paying the tribute, because they had passed over to the romans the power of the sword.' and chamiers panstrat. tom. lib. . cap. . p. . 'what then? if cæsar's authority was from bad beginnings, did therefore christ untruly say it was from above? can no power, at first unjust, afterward become just? if that were so, then either none, or very few kingdoms would be just.' . as tyranny is a destructive plague to all the interests of men and christians; to anarchy, the usual product of it, is no less pernicious, bringing a community into a paroxysm as deadly and dangerous. we must own government to be absolutely necessary, for the constitution and conservation of all societies. i shall not enter into a disquisition, let be determination of the species or kind of magistracy, whether monarchy aristocracy or democracy, be preferable. my dispute, at present, is not levelled against monarchy, but the present monarch: not against the institution of the species (though i believe, except we betake ourselves to the divine allowance and permission; we shall be as puzzled to find out the divine original of it, as cosmographers are in their search of the spring of nilus, or theologues of the father of melchizedeck) but the constitution of this individual monarchy established among us, which, in its root and branch, spring and streams, in its original, nature, ends and effects, is diametrically opposite to religion and liberty; and because its contagion, universally converting and corrupting all the ends and orders of magistracy, doth affect and infect all the subordinate officers, deriving their power from such a filthy fountain; we must also subtract and deny their demanded acknowledgments as any way due, so long as they serve the pride and projects of such a wicked power: and do not reckon ourselves obliged by covenant, or any otherwise (though, in the third article of the solemn league, we are bound to preserve the rights and privileges of our parliaments, and consequently the honour and deference that's due to our peers, or other parliament-men, acting according to the trust committed to them, but not when they turn traitors engaged in a conspiracy with the tyrant) to own or defend a soulless shadow of a court cabal, made up of persons who have sold themselves to work wickedness, in conspiring with this throne of iniquity against the lord, which is all we have for a parliament, whom we can in no ways own as our representatives, but must look upon them as perjured and perfidious traitors to god and their country, which they have betrayed into the hands of a tyrant; and therefore divested of that power and authority, which they had of the people as their representatives, which now is returned to the fountain. and therefore we must act as we can against them, and also what is necessary for securing of ourselves, religion and liberty, without them. we would think nobles, ennobled with virtue, a great mercy and encouragement; and if they would concur in the testimony for religion and liberty, we would be glad that they should lead the van, and prove themselves to be powers appointed by god, in acting for him in his interest. but for the want of their conduct, we must not surcease from that duty that they abandon, nor think that the concurrence of peers is so necessary to legitimate our actions, as that without that formality our resolutions to maintain the truth of god on all hazards, in a private capacity, were unlawful in the court of god and nature: but, on the contrary, must judge that their relinquishing or opposing their duty, which before god they are obliged to maintain, preserve, and promove, is so far from loosing our obligation, or exeeming us from our duty that it should rather press us to prosecute it with the more vigour, without suspending it upon their precedency. for now they can pretend to no precedency, when they do not answer the end of their own private advantage, they cease to be the ministers of god and of the people, and become private persons. and reason will conclude, 'that when the ephori or trustees betray their trust, and sell, or basely give away the liberties and privileges of the people, which they were entrusted with, the people cannot be brought into a remediless condition; if a tutor waste and destroy the pupils estate, the law provides a remedy for the pupil, jus popu. vind. cap. . page , .' 'the remedy, in this case, can only be, as every one must move in his own sphere, while all concur in the same duty; so if any, in higher place, become not only remiss, but according to the influence of their power would seduce others into their apostasy, it is their duty to resist and endeavour their reformation or removal: and if these more eminently entrusted shall turn directly apostates, and obstructive and destructive to common interests, the people of an inferior degree may step forward to occupy the places, and assert the interests, which they forefault and desert. neither is this a breach of good order; for order is only a mean subordinate to, and intended for the glory of god, and the peoples good, and the regulation thereof must only be admitted as it is conducible, and not repugnant to these ends. a general's command to his soldiers in battle, does not impede the necessity of succession, in case of vacancy of any charge, either through death or desertion, even of such as in quality may be far inferior to those whose places they step into, naphtali, page . first edition.' i do not assert this for private peoples aspiring into the capacity of primores of peers; but that they may do that which the peers desert, and dare not, or will not do, if the lord put them in a capacity to do it. and more plainly i assert, that if the peers of the land whose duty it is principally to restrain and repress tyranny, either connive at it, or concur with it, and so abandon or betray their trust, then the common people may do it; at least are obliged to renounce, reject, and disown allegiance to the tyrant, without the peers. for which i offer these reasons. . because all men have as much freedom and liberty by nature as peers have, being no more slaves than they; because slavery is a penal evil contrary to nature, and a misery consequent of sin, and every man created according to god's image, is a sacred thing; and also no more subjects to kings, &c. than they; freedom being natural to all (except freedom from subjection to parents, which is a moral duty, and most kindly and natural, and subjection of the wife to the husband, &c.) but otherwise as to civil and politic subjection, man, by nature, is born as free as beasts; no lion is born king of lions, nor no man born king of men; nor lord of men, nor representative of men, nor rulers of men, either supreme or subordinate; because none, by nature, can have those things that essentially constitute rulers, the calling of god, nor gifts and qualifications for it, nor the election of the people. . the original of all that power, that the primores or representatives can claim, is from the people, not from themselves; from whence derived they their being representatives, but from the people's commission or compact? when at the first constitution of parliaments, or public conventions for affairs of state, necessity put the people, who could not so conveniently meet all, to confer that honour and burden upon the best qualified, and who had chief interest by delegation. hence, if the people give such a power, they may wave it when perverted, and act without their own impowered servants. . the people's power is greater than the power of any delegated or constituted by them; the cause is more than the effect; parliament-men do represent the people, the people do not represent the parliament: they are as tutors and curators unto the people, and in effect their servants deputed to oversee their public affairs, therefore if their power be less the people can act without them. . it were irrational to imagine, the people committing the administration of their weighty affairs unto them, did denude themselves of all their radical power; or that they can devolve upon them, or they obtain any other power but what is for the good and advantage of the people; therefore they have power to act without them, in things which they never resigned to them; for they cannot be deprived of that natural aptitude, and nature's birth-right, given to them by god and nature, to provide the most efficacious and prevalent means for the preservation of their rights and liberties. . as the people have had power before they made peers, and have done much without them; so these primores could never do without them, therefore in acts of common interest, the peers depend more upon the people than the people do upon them. . all these primeve rights, that gave rise to societies, are equal to both people and peers, whereof the liberty to repress and reject tyranny is a chief one. the people as well as peers have a hand in making the king, and other judges also, as is clear from deut. xvii. . judg. ix. . sam. xi. . kings xiv. . therefore they may unmake them as well as they. to seek to preserve the ends of government, when they are overturned, is essentially requisite to all societies, and therefore common and competent to all constituents of these societies, superiors or inferiors. the glory of god and security of religion, the end of all christian government, doth concern all equally. as every one equally is bound to obey god rather than man, so violence in this case destroys both the commonwealth, and maketh the end and means of government, and the injured persons obligation thereto to cease; and this equally to every man of private or public capacity. in the concern of religion at least, we must not think because we are not nobles, or in authority, that the care of it, or reformation thereof does nothing pertain to us; nay in that, and carrying on the work thereof, there is an equality: as in the erection of the old testament tabernacle, all the people were to contribute alike half a shekel, exod. xxx. that it might be for a remembrance before the lord. hence it follows, if we disown the supreme ruler, and the inferior confederate with him, and cannot have the concurrence of others: 'now through the manifest and notorious perversion of the great ends of society and government, the bond thereof being dissolved, we liberated therefrom, do relapse into our primeve liberty and privilege: and accordingly, as the similitude of our case, and exigence of our cause doth require, may, upon the very same principles, again join and associate, for our better defence and preservation, as we did at first enter into societies,' nap. p. . yet, whatever we may do in this case, we are not for presumptuous assumptions of authority which maleversers have forefaulted: neither are we for new erections of government, but are for keeping the society, of which we are members, entire, in an endeavour to have all our fellow members united unto god, and to one another, in religion and liberty, according to the bond of the solemn league and covenant. certain it is, that greater societies, under one government, may in some cases make a secession, and divide into lesser, without sedition: or else, how would there be so many distinct commonwealths in the world? seeing at first all was under one head: and how comes it to pass, that there are so many kingdoms in europe, when it can be instanced, when all, or the most part, were under one roman emperor? but this, in our circumstance, is noway expedient, neither was it ever in projection. but our aim is to abstract ourselves inoffensively, and maintain our rights that remain unrobbed, and to adhere closely to the fundamental constitutions, laws, and laudable practices of our native kingdom. ii. we own the obligation of our sacred covenants, unrepealably and indispensibly binding to all the duties of christian subjection to magistrates. but we deny, that hereby we are bound either to maintain monarchy, especially thus perverted; nor to own the authority of either of the two monarchs that have monarchized or tyrannized over us these twenty-seven years past. for as to the first, we assert, that that which is in its own nature mutable, cannot be simply sworn unto to be maintained and preserved, but hypothetically at most, else it were simply sinful; since it were to make things in their own nature, and in the providence of god changeable, unchangeable; yea it were a downright swearing not to comply with, but to spurn against, the various vicissitudes of divine providence, the great rector of the universe. and it is unquestionable, that when things alterable and unalterable are put in the same oath, to make the engagement lawful the things must be understood, as they are in their own nature, and no otherwise: else both the imposer and the taker grievously transgress; the former, in taking upon him what is in the power of no mortal, and a contradiction to the prerogative of the immortal god; and the other, in owning that power as just. hence when these two fall to be in the same oath, they must be so understood as it may not be made a snare to the conscience of the swearer. for it may fall so out in the providence of god, that the preservation of both is in all respects made impossible: and an adhesion to the one, may so far interfere with the preservation of the other, as if the mutable and that which hath no objective obligation to be stuck to the other, which with the loss of all interests we are to maintain, must be abandoned; yea, that which was sworn to be maintained as a mean only, and a mutable one too, may not only cease to be a mean, but may actually destroy the main end, and then it is to be laid aside, because then it inverts the order of things. hence also it may be questioned, if it were not more convenient, to leave out those things that are alterable in themselves, out of the same oath with things unalterable, and put them in a distinct oath or covenant by themselves; as we see jehojadah did kings xi. . 'he made a covenant between the lord, and the king, and the people, that they should be the lord's people; between the king also and the people.' here are two distinct covenants; the one made with god, about things eternally obligatory, wherein the king and people engage themselves upon level ground to serve the lord, and joash the king, his treacherous dealing with god in that matter, brought the curse of that covenant upon him: the other covenant was civil, about things alterable relating to points of government and subjection. and as he, by virtue of that prior covenant, had obliged himself, under the pain of the curse thereof, to carry as one covenanted to god with the people, and so not to tyrannize over his brethren: so, the people, by virtue of that same covenant, were to yield obedience, but in nothing to acknowledge him, as having power or authority to countermand god's command; neither had it been an act of disloyalty, to have broken down his groves, which he had, with the addition of the guilt of perjury, set up, and to have bound his ungrateful hands from the blood of the gracious zechariah: a perfect parallel to our case under the former dominator, save that it was outdone as to all dimensions of wickedness by him. to speak more plainly, the religious part of our covenant is of an eternal obligation; but as to the civil part, it is impossible it can ever be so, unless it be well and cautiously understood; that is, unless instead of any species of government, as monarchy, &c. we put in magistracy itself. for this is that power which is of god; but monarchy, &c. is only a human creature, about the creation whereof men take a liberty, according to what suits them best in their present circumstances. and as to this species of monarchy; men are never left at liberty to clothe therewith any inept or impious person. and they are perfectly loosed from it. . when that species of government becomes opposite to the ends of government, and is turned tyranny, especially when a legal establishment is pretended, then it affects with its contagion the very species itself: the house is to be pulled down, when the leprosy is got into the walls and foundation. . when it is exercised, it is turned inept for answering the ends of its erection, and prejudicial to the main thing for which government is given, to wit, the gospel and the coming of christ's kingdom: hence it is promised to the church, isa. xlix. . 'kings shall be nursing fathers to the church:'----and isa. lii. . it is promised to the mediator that 'kings shall shut their mouths,'----_i.e._ never a word in their head, but out of reverence and respect to his absolute sovereignty, they shall take the law from him, without daring to contract, far less to take upon them to prescribe in the house of god, as they in their wisdom think fit. . when providence, without any sinful hand, makes that species impossible to be kept up, without the ruin of that for which it was erected: when things comes to this push, whosoever are clothed with the power, are then under an obligation to comply with that alteration of providence, for the safety of the people; else they declare themselves unworthy of rule, and such who would sacrifice the interest of their people to their particular interest; in which case the people may make their public servant sensible, he is at his highest elevation but a servant. hence now, when this species named in the covenant, viz. monarchy, is by law so vitiate, as it becomes the mean and instrument of the destruction of all the ends of that covenant, and now by law transmitted to all successors as a hereditary, pure, perfect and perpetual opposition to the coming of christ's kingdom, so that as long as there is one to wear that crown, (but jehovah will in righteousness execute coniah's doom upon the race, jer. xxii. _ult._ 'write this man childless'----) and enter heir to the government as now establishment, he must be an enemy to christ; there is no other way left, but to think on a new model moulded according to the true pattern. as to the second, we are far less obliged to own and acknowledge the interest of any of the two monarchs, that we have been mourning under these many years, from these sacred covenants. for, as to the first of them, charles ii. those considerations did cassate his interest, as to any covenant obligation to own him. . in these covenants we are not sworn absolutely to maintain the king's person and authority, but only conditionally, in the preservation and defence of religion and liberties. now, when this condition was not performed, but, on the contrary, professedly resolved never to be fulfilled; and when he laid out himself to the full of his power and authority, for the destruction of that reformed religion and liberties of the kingdom, which he solemnly swore to defend when he received the crown, only in the terms that he should be a loyal subject to christ, and a true and faithful servant to the people, in order to which a magistrate is chosen, and all his worth, excellency, and valuableness, consists in his answering that purpose; for the excellency of a mean, as such, is to be measured from the end, and its answerableness thereunto: we were not then obliged, to maintain such an enemy to these precious interests. . because, as the people were bound to him, so he was bound to them by the same covenant, being only on these terms entrusted with the government, all which conditions he perfidiously broke, whereupon only his authority and our allegiance were founded; and thereby we were loosed from all reciprocal obligation to him by virtue of that covenant. . though he and we stood equally engaged to the duties of that covenant, only with this difference, that the king's capacity being greater, he was the more obliged to have laid out that power, in causing all to stand to their covenant engagements, as josiah did, chron. xxxiv. , , . (but alas! there was never a josiah in the race,) yet he rose up to the height of rebellion against god and the people, in heaven daring insolency, and not only brake, but burnt that covenant, and made laws to cass and rescind it, and made a not-concurring in this conspiracy, a note of incapacity for any trust in church or state. therefore to plead for an owning of him in this case, were only concludent of this, that the generation had dreamed themselves into such a distraction, as may be feared will be pursued with destruction, and make such dreamers the detestation of posterity, and cause all men proclaim the righteousness of god, in bringing ruin upon them by that very power and authority they owned in such circumstances. . it is a known maxim, 'he that does not fulfil the conditions, falls from the benefit of it, and whoso remits the obligation of the party obliged upon condition, cannot exact it afterwards.' so then it is evident, that the subjects of scotland were by king charles ii. his consent, yea express command, disengaged from so much of that covenant as could be alledged in favours of himself: so that all that he did, by burning and rescinding these covenants, and pursuing all who endeavoured to adhere to them, was a most explicit liberating his subjects from, and remission of their allegiance to him, (and in this we had been fools if we had not taken him at his word;) yea he rescinded his very coronation, by an act of his first parliament after his return, which did declare null and void all acts, constitutions and establishments, from the year to that present session, not excepting those for his own coronation, after which he was never recrowned, and therefore we could not own that right, which himself did annul. but as for his royal brother, james the vii. and ii. we cannot indeed make use of the same reasons and arguments to disown him, as we have now adduced; yet, as we shall prove afterwards, this covenant does oblige to renounce him. so it is so clear, that it needs no illustration, that there lies no obligation from this covenant to own him. . because, as he is an enemy to the whole of our covenant, and especially to these terms upon which authority it is to be owned therein: so he will not come under the bond of this covenant, nor any other compact with the people, but intrude himself upon the throne, in such a way as overturns the basis of our government, and destroys all the liberties of a free people, which by covenant we are bound to preserve, and consequently, as inconsistent therewith, to renounce his usurpation. for, a prince that will set himself up without any transactions with the people, or conditions giving security for religion and liberty, is an usurping tyrant, not bounded by any law but his own lusts. and to say to such an one, reign thou over us, is all one as to say, come thou and play the tyrant over us, and let thy lust and will be a law to us: which is both against scripture and natural sense. if he be not a king upon covenant terms, either expresly or tacitely, or general stipulations according to the word of god, and laws of the land, he cannot be owned as a father, protector, or tutor, having any fiduciary power entrusted to him over the common wealth, but as a lawless and absolute dominator, assuming to himself a power to rule or rage as he lists: whom to own were against our covenants: for there we are sworn to maintain his majesty's just and lawful authority, and by consequence not to own usurpation and tyranny, stated in opposition to religion and liberty, which there also we are engaged to maintain. sure, this cannot be lawful authority which is of god, for god giveth no power against himself; nor can it be of the people, who had never power granted them of god to create one over them, with a liberty to destroy them, their religion and liberty, at his pleasure. . as he is not, nor will not be our covenanted and sworn king (and therefore we cannot be his covenanted and sworn subjects;) so he is not nor cannot be our crowned king, and therefore we must not be his liege subjects, owning fealty and obedience to him. for, 'according to the national covenant, as all lieges are to maintain the king's authority, consistent with the subjects liberties; which, if they be innovated or prejudged, such confusion would ensue, as this realm could be no more a free monarchy;--so for the preservation of true religion, laws and liberties of this kingdom, it is statute by the th act, parl. . repeated in the th act, parl. th, ratified in the d act, parl. th, and th act, parl. th of king james vi, and th act. of king charles i. that all kings and princes, at their coronation and reception of their princely authortity, shall make their faithful promise by their solemn oath, in the presence of the eternal god, that enduring the whole time of their lives, they shall serve the same eternal god, to the uttermost of their power, according as he hath required in his most holy word, contained in the old and new testaments; and according to the same word, shall maintain the true religion of christ jesus, the preaching of his holy word, the due and right ministration of the sacraments, now received and preached within this realm (according to the confession of faith immediately preceding) and shall abolish and gainst and all false religion, contrary to the same; and shall rule the people committed to their charge, according to the will and command of god, revealed in his foresaid word, and according to the laudable law and constitutions received in this realm, no ways repugnant to the said will of the eternal god; and shall procure, to the uttermost of their power, to the kirk of god, and whole christian people, true and perfect peace in all time coming, and that they shall be careful to root out of their empire all hereticks, and enemies to the true worship of god, who shall be convicted by the true kirk of god of the foresaid crimes.' now, this coronation oath he hath not taken, he will not, he cannot take; and therefore cannot be our crowned king according to law. as there be also many other laws, incapacitating his admission to the crown, being a professed papist, and no law for it at all, but one of his own making, by a packed cabal of his own complices, a parliament, wherein himself presided as commissioner, enacting materially his succession, and rescinding all these ancient laws: which act of succession (which is all the legal right he can pretend to in scotland) because it cannot be justified, therefore his right cannot be owned, which is founded upon the subversion of our ancient laws. but as he cannot be our legally crowned king, so he is not so much as formally crowned. and therefore before his inauguration, whatever right to be king (whom the representatives may admit to the government) he may pretend to, by hereditary succession, yet he cannot formally be made king, till the people make a compact with him, upon terms for the safety of their dearest and nearest liberties, even though he were not disabled by law. he might, as they say, pretend to some right to the thing, but he could have no right in the thing. the kings of scotland, while uncrowned, can exercise no royal government; for the coronation in concrete, according to the substance of the act, is no ceremony (as they, who make conscience itself but a ceremony, call it) nor an accidental ingredient in the constitution of a king, but as it is distinctive, so it is constitutive: it distinguished saul from all israel, and made him from no king to be a king; it is dative, and not only declarative; it puts some honour upon him that he had not before. . though the laws should not strike against his coronation, and though the representatives legally should take the same measures with him that they took with his brother, and admit him upon the terms of the covenant; yet after such doleful experiences of such transactions with these sons of belial, who must not be taken with hands, nor by the hand, it were hard to trust, or entrust them with the government, even though they should make the fairest professions; since they, whose principles is to keep no faith to heretics (as they call us) and who will be as absolute in their promises as they are in their power, have deservedly forfeited all credit and trust with honest men; so that none could rationally refer the determination of a half crown reckoning to any of them, far less own them and their government in the management of the weightiest affairs of state, since their malversations are written in such bloody characters, as he that runs may read them. at least it were wisdom, and is our duty, to take our measures from the general assembly's procedure with the other brother, before his admission to the government, to suspend our allegiance to him, until authority be legally devolved upon him, and founded upon, and bounded by terms, giving all security for religion and liberty. . as i said, before wary prudence, in waving such an impertinent and ticklish question, cannot be condemned; since whatever he may be in conscience, no man in law can be obliged, so far to surrender the common privilege of all mankind, to give an account of all his inward thoughts, which are always said to be free. and as in nothing they are more various, so in nothing they can be more violented, than to have our opinion and sentiments of the current government extorted from us, a declining of which declaration of thoughts, where no ouvert act in project or practice can be proven against it, cannot be treason in any law in the world: so a cautelous answer, in such a ticklish, and intrapping imposition, cannot be censured in point of lawfulness or expediency, even though much be conceded, to stop the mouths of these bloody butchers, gaping greedily after the blood of the answerer; if he do not really own, but give them to understand, he cannot approve of this tyranny. but as these poor faithful witnesses, who were helped to be most free, have always been honoured with the most signal countenance of the lord in a happy issue of their testimony: so those that used their prudentials most, in seeking shifts to shun severity, and studying to satisfy these inquisitors with their stretched concessions, were ordinarily more exposed to snares, and found less satisfaction in their sufferings even though they could say much to justify, or at least extenuate their shiftings. i knew one, who had proof of this, who afterwards was ashamed of this kind of prudence. a short account of whose managing of answers to this question, because it may conduce somewhat to the explication of it, may here be hinted. the question moved after the usual form, was, do ye own the authority of king james vii. in answer to which, he pleaded first, for the immunity of his thoughts, which he said were not subject to theirs or any tribunal. when this could not be an evasion from their extortions, he objected the ambiguity of the terms in which the question was conceived, being capable of divers senses: and enquired, what they meant by authority? what, by owning authority? by authority, whether did they mean the administration of it as now improved? if so, then he was not satisfied with it: or the right, as now established? if so, then he was not clear to give his opinion of it, as being neither significant nor necessary; and that it was fitter for lawyers and those that were better acquaint with the secrets of government, than for him to dispute it. again he asked, what they meant by owning? either it is passive subjection, that he did not decline; or active acknowledgment of it and that he said he looked upon as all the suffrage he could give to its establishment in his station, which he must demur upon some scruple. the replies he received were very various, and some of them very rare, either for ignorance or imposture. sometimes, it was answered: to own the king's authority, is to take the oath of allegiance; this he refused. some answered, it is to engage never to rise in arms against the king, upon any pretence whatsoever; this he refused likewise. others explained it to be, to acknowledge his right to be king: to his he answered, when the authority is legally devolved upon him by the representatives of both kingdoms, it was time enough for him to give account of his sentiments. others defined it, to own him to be a lawful king by succession. to this he answered, he did not understand succession could make a man formally king, if there were not some other way of conveyance of it; it might put him in the nearest capacity to be king, but could not make him king. some did thus paraphrase upon it, that he must own him to be his sovereign lord under god, and god's vicegerent, to be obeyed in all things lawful. to this he answered, whom god appoints, and the people choose according to law, he would own. when those shifts would not do, but from time to time being urged to a categorical answer; he told them, he was content to live in subjection to any government providence set up; but for owning the present constitution as of god, and according to law, he durst not acknowledge it, nor own any mortal as his lawful sovereign, but in terms consistent with the covenant securing religion and liberty. this not satisfying, when he came to a more pinching trial; he declared, he owned all lawful authority according to the word of god, and all authority that was the ordinance of god by his preceptive will, and he could be subject to any; but further to acknowledge it, he behoved to have more clearness; for sometimes a nation might be charged with that, 'ye have set up kings, and not by me,' &c. further he conceded, he owned his providential advancement to the throne; he owned as much as he thought did oblige him to subject himself with patience; he owned him to be as lawful, as providence possessing him of the throne of his ancestors, and lineal succession, as presumed next in blood and line, could make him: but still he declined to own him as lawful king, and alledged that was all one, whether he was lawful or not, he refused not subjection, distinguishing it always from allegiance. but all these concessions did not satisfy them, and alledged he might say all this of a tyrant; and therefore commanded him to give it under hand, to own not only the lineal, but the legal succession of king james vii. to the crown of scotland; which he did, upon a fancy, that legal did not import lawful, but only the formality of their law; withal protesting, he might not be interpreted to approve of his succession. but this was a vain protestation against fact. however, by this we see, what is owning this authority, in the sense of the inquisitors. the result of all is, to acknowledge allegiance to the present possessor, and to approve his pretended authority as lawful, rightful and righteous; which indeed is the true sense of the words, and any other, that men can forge or find out, is strained. for, to speak properly, if we own his authority in any respect, we own it to be lawful: for every authority, that is owned to be authority indeed, is lawful; authority always importing authorization, and consisting in a right or call to rule, and is formally and essentially contradistinct to usurpation: where ever the place of power is merely usurped, there is no authority but according to his word; a stile without truth, a barely pretended nominal equivocal authority, no real denomination: if we then own this man's authority, we own it to be lawful authority: and if we cannot own it so, we cannot own it all. for it is most suitable, either to manly ingenuity, or christian simplicity, to speak properly, and to take words always in the sense, that they to whom they are speaking will understand them, without equivocating. these preliminaries being thus put by, which do contribute to clear somewhat in this controversy, and both furnish us with some arguments for, and solutions in most of the objections against my thesis, in answer to the questions above stated. i set it down thus: a people long oppressed with the encroachments of tyrants and usurpers, may disown all allegiance to their pretended authority, and when imposed upon to acknowledge it, may and must rather chuse to suffer, than to own it. and consequently we cannot, as matters now stand, own, acknowledge, or approve the pretended authority of king james vii. as lawful king of scotland; as we could not, as matters then stood, own the authority of charles ii. this consequence is abundantly clear from the foregoing deduction, demonstrating their tyranny and usurpation. in prosecuting of this general thesis, which will evince the particular hypothesis, i shall, . adduce some historical instances, whence it may be gathered, that this is not altogether without a precedent, but that people have disowned allegiance to tyrants and usurpers before now. . deduce it from the dictates of reason. . confirm it by scripture arguments. i. albeit, as was shewed before, this question, as now stated, is in many respects unprecedented; yet the practice, which in our day hath been the result of it, to disown, or not to own prevailing dominators usurping the government, or abusing it, is not so alien from the examples of history, but that by equivalency or consequence it may be collected from and confirmed by instances. . to begin at home, besides many passages related already for confirmation, we may add, ( .) that for about years, the people had in their choice whom to own, or admit to succeed in the government, 'even though the kingdom was hereditary; and used to elect, not such who were nearest in blood and line, but these that were judged most fit in government, being of the same progeny of fergus,' buchanan's history of scotland, book vi. pag. . in the life of kenneth iii. this continued until the days of kenneth iii. who to cover his villainous murder of his brother's son malcolm, and prevent his, and secure his own son's succession, procured this charter for tyranny, the settlement of the succession of the next in line from the parliament: which, as it pretended the prevention of many inconveniencies, arising from contentions and competitions about the succession; so it was limited by laws, precluding the succession of fools or monsters, and preserving the people's liberty to shake off the yoke when tyranny should thereby be introduced: otherwise it would have been not only an irrational surrender of all their own rights, and enslaving the posterity, but an irreligious contempt of providence, refuting and anticipating its determination in such a case. however it is clear, before this time, that as none but the fittest were admitted to the government; so if any did usurp upon it, or afterwards did degenerate into tyranny, they took such order with him, as if he had not been admitted at all; as is clear in the instances of the first period, and would never own every pretender to hereditary succession. ( .) as before kenneth's days, it is hard to reckon the numerous instances of kings that were dethroned, or imprisoned, or slain, upon no other account than that of their oppression and tyranny; so afterwards they maintained the same power and privilege of repressing them, when ever they began to encroach. and although no nation hath been more patient towards bad kings, as well as loyal towards good ones; yet, in all former times, they understood so well the right they had, and the duty they owed to their own preservation, as that they seldom failed of calling the exorbitantly flagitious to an account. and albeit, instead of condoling or avenging the death of the tyrannous, they have often both excused and justified it, yet no kingdom hath inflicted severer punishments upon the murders of just and righteous princes: and therefore, though they did neither enquire after, nor animadvert upon those that slew james iii. a flagitious tyrant, yet they did, by most exquisite torments, put them to death who slew james the i. a virtuous monarch. hence, because these and other instances i mind to adduce of deposing tyrants, may be excepted against, as not pertinent to my purpose, who am not pleading for exauctoration and deposition of tyrants, being impracticable in our case: i shall once for all remove that, and desire it may be considered, ( .) that though we cannot formally exauctorate a tyrant; yet he may, by law itself, fall from his right, and may exauctorate himself, by his laws by whom kings reign; and this is all we plead for as a foundation of not owning him. ( .) though we have not the same power, yet we have the same grounds, and as great and good, if not greater and better reasons to reject and disown our tyrant, as they, whose example is here adduced, had to depose of their tyrannizing princes. ( .) if they had power and ground to depose them, then a fortiori, they had power and ground to disown them; for that is less, and included in the other, and this we have. ( .) though it should be granted, that they did not disown them before they were deposed; yet it cannot be said that they did disown them only because they were deposed: for it is not deposition that makes a tyrant; it only declares him to be justly punished for what he was before. as the sentence of a judge does not make a man a murderer or thief, only declares him convict of these crimes, and punishable for them; it is their own committing them that makes him criminal: and, as before the sentence, having certain knowledge of the fact, we might disown the man's innocency or honesty; so a ruler's acts of tyranny and usurpation make him a tyrant and usurper, and give ground to disown his just and legal authority; which he can have no more than a murderer or thief can have innocency or honesty. ( .) we find also examples of their disowning kings undeposed; as king baliol was disowned with his whole race, for attempting to enslave the kingdom's liberties to foreign power. and if this may be done for such an attempt, as the greatest court parasites, and sycophants consent; what then shall be done for such as attempt to subject the people to domestic or intestine slavery? shall we refuse to be slaves to one without, and be, and own ourselves contented slaves to one within the kingdom? it is known also that king james the i. his authority was refused by his subjects in france, so long as he was a prisoner to the english there, though he charged them upon their allegiance, not to fight against the party who had his person prisoner: they answered, they owned no prisoner for their king, nor owned no allegiance to a prisoner. hence princes may learn, though people submit to their government; yet their resignation of themselves to their obedience is not so full, as that they are obliged to own allegiance to them, when either morally or physically they are incapacitate to exercise authority over them. they that cannot rule themselves cannot be owned as rulers over a people. . neither hath there been any nation, but what at one time or other hath furnished examples of this nature. the english history gives account, how some of their kings have been dealt with by their subjects, for impieties against the law and light of nature, and encroachments upon the laws of the land. vortigern was dethroned for incestuously marrying his own sister. neither did ever blasphemies, adulteries, murders, plotting against the lives of innocents, and taking them away by poison or razor, use to escape the animadversion of men, before they were priest-ridden unto a belief that princes persons were sacred. and if men had that generosity now this man that now reigns might expect some such animadversion. and we find also king edward, and richard the ii. were deposed, for usurpation upon laws and liberties, in doing whereof the people avowed, they would not suffer the laws of england to be changed. surely the people of england must now be far degenerate, who having such laws transmitted to them from their worthy ancestors, and they themselves being born to the possession of them without a change, do now suffer them to be so encroached upon, and mancipate themselves, and leave their children vassals to popery, and slaves to tyranny. . the dutch also, who have the best way of guiding of kings of any that ever had to do with them (witness their having so many of them in chains, now in batavia in the east indies) are not wanting for their part to furnish us with examples. when the king of spain would not condescend to govern them according to their ancient laws, and rule for the good of the people, they declared him to be fallen from the seigniory of the netherlands, and so erected themselves into a flourishing common-wealth. it will not be amiss to transcribe some of the words of the edict of the states general to this purpose. it is well known, (say they) 'that a prince and lord of a country is ordained, by god, to be sovereign and head over his subjects, to preserve and defend them from all injuries, force, and violence; and that if the prince therefore faileth therein, and instead of preserving his subjects, doth outrage and oppress them, depriveth them of their privileges and ancient customs, commandeth them, and will be served of them as slaves; they are no longer bound to respect him as their sovereign lord, but to esteem of him as a tyrant, neither are they bound to acknowledge him as their prince, but may abandon him, &c.' and with this agrees the answer william, prince of orange, to the edict of proscription, published against him by philip the ii. there is, says he, 'a reciprocal bond betwixt the lord and his vassal; so that if the lord break the oath, which he hath made unto his vassal, the vassal is discharged of the oath made unto his lord.' this was the very argument of the poor suffering people of scotland, whereupon they disowned the authority of charles the ii. . the monarchy of france is very absolute; yet there also the state hath taken order with their tyrants; not only have we many instances of resistances made against them, but also of disowning, disabling, and invalidating their pretended authority, and repressing their tyranny. so was the two childerici served: so also sigebertus, dagabertus, and lodowick the ii. kings of france. . the great body of germany moves very slowly, and is inured to bear great burdens: yet there also we find joanna of austria, mother of charles v. was put to perpetual imprisonment: which example is adduced by the earl of morton, in his discourse to the queen of england (whereof i rehearsed a part before) vindicating the deposing and disowning queen mary of scotland. 'if, saith he, we compare her with joanna of austria--what did that poor wretch commit, but that she could not want a little lustful pleasure as a remedy necessary for her age? and yet, poor creature, she suffered that punishment, of which our dame, convicted of most grievous crimes, now complains.'--buchanan's history of scotland, book xx. p. . the duke of saxon, the landgrave of hesse, and the magistrates of magdeburgh, joined in a war against her son charles v. and drew up a conclusion by resolution of lawyers, wherein are these words----'neither are we bound to him by any other reason, than if he keep the conditions on which he was created emperor. by the laws themselves it is provided, that the superior magistrate shall not infringe the right of the inferior, and if the superior magistrate exceed the limits of his power, and command that which is wicked, not only we need not obey him, but if he offer force we may resist him.' which opinion is confirmed by some of the greatest lawyers, and even some who are patrons of tyranny, grotius none of the greatest enemies of tyrants, de jure belli. lib. . chap. . p. . saith out of barclaius, and with him, that the king doth lose his power when he seeketh the destruction of his subjects. it was upon the account of the tyranny of that bloody house of austria over the helvetians, that they shook off the rule and government of that family, and established themselves into a republic. and at this present time, upon the same accounts, the tyranny and treachery of this imperial majesty, the hungarians have essayed to maintain and justify a revolt in disowning the emperor, now for several years. . poland is an elective kingdom, and so cannot but be fertile of many instances of casting off tyrants. henricus valesius, disowned for fleeing, and sigismundus for violating his faith to the states, may suffice. lex rex, q. . p. . . in denmark, we find christiernus their king, was, for his intolerable cruelty, put from the kingdom, he and all his posterity, and after twenty years did end his life in prison. . in swedland, within the compass of one century, the people deposed and banished the two christierns, and dethroned and imprisoned ericus, for their oppressions and tyranny, and for pursuing the destruction of their subjects. . the portuguese, not many years ago, laid aside and confined alphonsus their king, for his rapines and murders. . some dukes of venice have been so disowned by these commonwealths men, that laying aside their royal honours as private men, they have spent their days in monasteries. buchan. de jure regni apud scotos. . if we will resolve the old roman histories, we shall find no small store of such examples, both in the time of their kings, consuls, and emperors. their seventh king tarquinius superbus was removed by the people, for his evident usurpation: saith livius, 'that is, for he had nothing for a right to the government, but mere force, and got the rule neither by the people's consent and choice, nor by the authority of the senators.' so afterwards the empire was taken from vitellius, heliogabulus, maximinus, didius, julianus, lex rex, ubi supra. . but it will be said, can there be any instances of the primitive christians adduced? did ever they, while groaning under the most insupportable tyranny of their persecuting emperors, disown their authority, or suffer for not owning it? to this i answer, . what they did, or did not of this kind, is not of moment to enquire.: seeing their practice and example, under such disadvantages, can neither be known exactly, nor what is known of it be accommodated to our case: for ( .) they were never forced to give their judgment, neither was the question ever put to them, whether they owned their authority or not? if they transgressed the laws, they were liable to the punishment, they craved no more of them. ( .) they confess themselves to be strangers, that had no establishments by law; and therefore they behoved to be passively subject, when in no capacity to resist; there was no more required of them. yet lex rex quest. . page . cites theodoret affirming, 'then evil men reigned through the unmanliness of the subjects.' ( .) their examples are not imitable in all things; they were against resistance, which we doubt not to prove is lawful against tyrannical violence: many of them refused to flee from the fury of persecutors: they ran to martyrdom, when neither cited nor accused; and to obtain the crown thereof they willingly yielded up their lives and liberties also to the rage of tyrants. we cannot be obliged to all these. . yet we find some examples not altogether unapplicable to this purpose. when barochbach, the pretended king of the jews, after the destruction of jerusalem, set himself as king in bitter, a city in arabia; the christians that were in his precincts, refused to own him as king; which was one great cause of his persecuting them. it is true he persecuted them also for other things, as for their not denying christ; so are we persecuted for many other things, than for our simple disowning of the king: yet this is reckoned as a distinct cause of their suffering, by mr. mede, on the revel. part. . page . gees magist. origin. chap. . sect. . page . the same last cited author shews, that when albinus, niger, and cassius, successively usurped the empire, having none of them any legal investiture, the christians declined the recognition of their claim, and would not own them; and that upon this tertullian says, that is, the christians could never be found to be albinians, or nigrians, or cassians, meaning they were never owners of these men for magistrates. and so may we say, we may be ashamed to be found amongst the charlites and jacobites of these times. not unlike is the passage of ambrose, who, in favours of valentinian the rightful governor, contested against maximus the tyrant, and not only disowned him, but excommunicated him, for which he was threatened with death. and yet it is observable, that when maximus offered to interpose his power in defence of ambrose, that he might not be banished by justina the empress, he would not accept of the help of maximus, whose power he disallowed and disowned. whence i observe, that it is not without a precedent for a minister to disown a tyrant, to refuse favour from him: yea, and to excommunicate him, yea, even without the concurrence of his fainting brethren; for all which some of our faithful ministers have been much condemned in our day, especially mr. donald cargil for excommunicating charles the ii, and james, duke of york, as if such a thing had never been done before: whereas, we see what ambrose did to maximus. and this same faithful minister, ambrosius minister at milan, in italy, did also hold out of the assembly of the christians theodosius the emperor, though a most virtuous prince, for that grievous scandal committed by him, against the innocent people at thessalonica in killing so many of them in a passionate transport. but, . since this objection of primitive christians is much insisted on, both against this and the head of defensive arms: i shall further take notice of several distinctions, that do make the difference between their case and ours very vast. ( .) there is a great difference betwixt a prince of the common religion of his subjects, but distinct from some of them, whom yet he does not seek to entice to his religion, but gives them liberty, and the benefit of the law as other subjects: which was the case of many in these primitive times sometimes. and a prince, by all means, both foul and fair, pressing to a revolt from the true, and to embrace a false religion. in this case (which is ours with a witness) it must be granted we should be wary, that we neither engage with him, nor own allegiance to him, when he would withdraw us from our allegiance to god. ( .) there is a great difference betwixt a prince persecuting the true religion, which only a few of his subjects here and there did profess, who in regard of their paucity were never in capacity to be looked upon as the body of the people, impowering him as their public servant; (which was their case) and a prince persecuting that religion, which was professed by the body of the nation, when they set him up. in this latter case, men of great sense have denied he should be owned for a prince, because then he is stated against the common good. this was our case under the former king, and yet under this, though all professors be not now persecuted, the public religion and ancient reformation is persecuted in a few, whom he intends to destroy, and in their destruction to bury it. ( .) there is a difference betwixt a prince persecuting religion, publicly owned and received of his subjects, yet never approved nor confirmed by law (as it was not in the primitive times) and a prince persecuting religion ratified and established by the laws of the land, which is our case. it will seem clear to every soul, not benighted with court darkness, that he then of course, and by law, falleth from his right in this case, because now he is not only stated against the common good, but against the very laws by which the subjects must be ruled. then he ruleth not as a prince, to whom the law giveth his measures and bounds, but rageth as a tiger and tyrant, and ought to be carried towards as such. ( .) there is a difference betwixt a prince suppressing that religion established by law, which he never professed, nor never gave his consent to these laws (as might be the case of some of the arian emperors) though it be unlawful for any people to set up any mortal over them, who is not in this case bound to the good behaviour; and a prince, opposing and oppressing that religion, which himself hath professed, and is ratified by laws with his own consent: which was our case under the former king, who did give the most solemn ratification of them that ever was given, but afterwards most perfidiously retracted it. as also this apostate papist, did sometime profess himself protestant, and consented to the laws establishing it, and the penal statutes against papists, though now he is going about to raze all, and ruin that alone valuable treasure of our nation, religion. ( .) there is a difference betwixt a prince consenting to laws establishing religion which he now persecuteth (which might have been the case of julian the apostate) and a prince, who not only consented to these laws, but who did upon these very terms, and no other, get and receive his crown and sceptre, that he should preserve the religion as reformed, and protect as a father the professors thereof, and maintain the laws establishing it, which yet he, perfidiously, being once settled in the government, breaks, casts, cassates and overturns (which was done by charles) or, and a prince who will be bounded by the laws consented to, nor be bound to the observation of any laws whatsoever; but challenges it as his prerogative royal, to be absolute above all laws, and denying all security upon terms, is free to destroy religion and liberty, and all the valuable interests of the nation, when he pleases. this is james's character. ( .) there is a difference betwixt a prince breaking the main and only article of his covenant, in a fit of fury and rage being transported upon some mistakes (which was the case of theodosius the emperor) and a prince not only violating this upon deliberation, but plainly declaring, that neither oath nor declaration can or will bind him; but these being made void, he will destroy without restraint all these covenanted privileges (this was the case of charles) or, and a prince who, as he never will come under the bond of a covenant with his people: so tho' he makes never so many fair promises with the greatest solemnities, maintains a principle, that he will keep no promises, but when, and with whom he pleases, and can get a dispensation to break all when he likes. (this is james's ingenuity.) sure in this case, such as are characterized, declare themselves so far from being princes, that they profess before the world, they are no more men to be conversed with: for if neither their words, writs, vows, promises, oaths, declarations, nor protections can bind them, what society can be had with them? are they not to be looked upon, and carried towards as common enemies of morality, religion, righteousness, liberty, humanity, yea even of mankind itself? now then, let the world be judge, if the people of scotland can be judged in conscience, reason, prudence, policy, or any imaginable way, bound to own their authority, being so stated, and by the act rescissory all human ground rescinded, that ever it shall be otherwise; let them go seek other slaves where they can find them, for we will not sell ourselves and posterity to tyrants as slaves, nor give up our religion and the exercise of it to the mouldings of the court. ii. in the second place, it being clear from these forementioned instances, that tyrants and usurpers have been disowned; and it being also as clear as light can make any thing, from the foregoing account of their government, and all the characters of truculency, treachery and tyranny, conspicuously relucent therein, that these two gentlemen, whose authority we are pressed to own, were tyrants and usurpers: it remains therefore to prove from all dictates of reason about government, that their pretended authority could not nor cannot be owned. for the argument runs thus; the authority of tyrants and usurpers cannot be owned; but the authority of charles and james was and is the authority of tyrants and usurpers, therefore their authority cannot be owned. now it is the major of this syllogism that i undertake to prove, the minor being so clear from their history, that to prove it by witnesses were to do what is already done. . all authority to be owned of men must be of god, and ordained of god: for so the apostle teacheth expresly, rom. xiii. . &c. which is the alone formal reason of our subjection to them, and that which makes it a damnable sin to resist them; because it is a resisting the ordinance of god. the lord owns himself to be the author of magistrates, prov. viii. . by me kings reign and princes decree justice. as he is the author of man, and hath made him a sociable creature, so he is the author of the order of human society, which is necessary for the preservation of mankind, he being the god of order and not of confusion. and this must hold not only of the supreme authority, but of subordinate magistrates also; for they must be included in the higher powers, to whom we must be subject, rom. xiii. and they that resist them, resist god's ordinance too. their judgment is god's, as well as the judgment of the supreme magistrate, deut. i. . chron. xix. , . they are called gods among whom the lord judgeth, psal. lxxxii. . he speaketh not there of a congregation of kings. we are to be subject to them for the lord's sake, as well as to the supreme magistrate, pet. ii. . therefore all magistrates, superior and inferior, are ordained of god in the respective places. it is true, peter calls every degree of magistracy an ordinance of man, not that he denies it to be an ordinance of god for so he would contradict paul, rom. xiii. but terms it so emphatically, to commend the worth of obedience to magistrates, though but men, when we do it for the lord's sake: not effectively, as an invention of men, but subjectively, because exercised by men, and created and invested by human suffrages, considered as men in society, and objectively, for the good of man, and for the external peace and safety of man, thereby differenced from the ministry, an ordinance of christ, for the spiritual good of mens souls. hence, those rulers that are not of god, nor ordained of god, cannot be owned without sin; but tyrants and usurpers are the rulers, that are not of god, nor ordained of god, but are set up, and not by him, &c. hos. viii. .- . therefore they cannot be owned without sin. i refer it to any man of conscience and reason to judge, if these scriptures, proving magistracy to be the ordinance of god, for which alone is to be owned, can be applied to tyrants and usurpers. how will that, rom. xiii. read of tyrants? let every soul be subject to tyrants, for they are ordained of god as his ministers of justice, &c. and are a terror to good works, and a praise to the evil. would not every man nauseate that as not the doctrine of god? again, how would that sound, prov. viii. by me tyrants reign, and usurpers decree injustice? harsh to christian ears. can they be said to be gods among whom the lord judgeth? if they be, they must be such as the witch of endor saw, gods coming out of the earth, when she raised the devil; in a very catechrestical meaning, as the devil is called the god of this world. and indeed they have no more power, nor otherwise to be owned, than he hath: for this is a truth, tyranny is a work of satan, and not from god; because sin, either habitual or actual, is not from god; tyranny is sin in habit and act: therefore----the magistrate, as magistrate, is good in nature and end, being the minister of god for good, a tyrant as a tyrant, is quite contrary. lex rex saith well, 'a power ethical, politic or moral, to oppress, is not from god, and is not a power, but a licentious deviation of a power, and no more from god, but from sinful nature, and the old serpent, than a licence to sin,' quest. . p. . hence sin, a licence to sin, a licentious sinning, cannot be from god; but tyranny, usurpation, absolute power enaroaching upon all liberties, laws, divine and human, is sin, a licence to sin, a licentious sinning: therefore----but, to make this clear, and to obviate what may be said against this, let it be considered, how the powers that be are of god, and ordained of god. things are said to be of god and ordained of god, two ways; by his purpose and providence, and by his word and warrant. things may be of god, either of his hand working, or bringing them about, ordaining and ordering them to be to his glory, either by a holy over-ruling providence, as samson's desire of a wife was of god, judg. xiv. . and amaziah's insolent and foolish rejection of joash's peaceable overture, chron. xxv. . or by a powerful effective providence; so rom. xi. . of him and through him are all things, cor. viii. . one god, of whom are all things. or things be of god, of his word warranting and authorizing. so we are commanded to try the spirits; whether they be of god ( john iv. i.) so in this sense, sin, tentation, lust, corruptions of the world are not of god, jam. i. , john ii. . again, things are ordained of god, ether by the order of his counsel or providential will; either effectively, by way of production, or direction; or permissively, by way of non-impedition: or they are ordained by the order of his word and preceptive will. the former is god's rule, the latter is ours: the former is always accomplished, the latter is often contradicted: the former orders all actions, even sinful; the latter only that which is good and acceptable in the sight of god: by the former israel rejected samuel, by the latter they should have continued samuel's government, and not sought a king: by the former athaliah usurped the government, by the latter she should have yielded obedience, and resigned the government to the posterity of ahaziah: by the former, all have a physical subordination to god at creatures, subject to his all disposing will; by the latter, those whom he approves have a moral subordination to god, as obedient subjects to his commanding will. now magistrates are of god, and ordained by him both these ways, tyrants but one of them. i say, magistrates, the higher powers, to whom we owe and must own subjection, are of god both these ways; both by his purpose and providence; and that not merely eventual, but effective and executive of his word, disposing both of the title and right, and possession of the power, to them whom he approves, and bringing the people under a conscientious subjection, and by his word and warrant. so adonijah the usurper (though he had the pretence of hereditary right, and also possession by providence) was forced to own king solomon in these terms, upon which only a magistrate may be owned: 'the kingdom' says he, 'was mine, and all israel set their faces on me that i should reign: howbeit the kingdom is turned about, and become my brother's, for it was his from the lord,' kings ii. . he had both providence turning about the kingdom to him, and also the warrant of the lord's approbative and preceptive will. but tyrants and usurpers are only of god, and ordained of god, by his over-ruling purpose and permissive providence, either for performing his holy purpose towards themselves, as rehoboam's professing he would be a tyrant, and refusing the lawful desires of the people was of god, chron. x. . or for a judgement and vengeance upon them that are subject to them, zech. xi. . whereby they get a power in their hand, which is the rod of the lord's indignation, and a charge and commission against a hypocritical nation, isa. x. , . this is all the power they have from god, who 'gives jacob to the spoil, and israel to the robbers, when they sin against him,' isa. xlii. . this doth not give these robbers any right, no more than they whose 'tabernacle prosper, into whose hand god bringeth abundantly,' job xii. . thus all robbers, and the great legal robbers, tyrants and their authorized murderers, may be of god, viz. by his providence. hence those that are not ordained of god's preceptive will, but merely by his providential will; their authority is not to be owned; but tyrants and usurpers are not ordained of god's preceptive, but merely by his providential will. the minor needs no proof, yet will be cleared by many following arguments, the major will be afterwards more demonstrated. here i shall only say, they that have no other ordination of god impowering them to be rulers, than the devil hath, must not be owned; but they that have no other than the ordination of providence, have no other ordination of god impowering them to be rulers, than the devil hath: therefore they that have no other than the ordination of providence, must not be owned. . but let us next consider what is comprehended in the ordination of that authority which is to be owned as of god: and it may be demonstrated, there are two things in it, without which no authority can be owned as of god, viz. institution and constitution so as to give him, whom we must own as god's minister, authority both in the abstract and concrete, that is, that he should have magistracy by god's ordination, and be a magistrate by and according to the will of god. all acknowledge that magistracy hath god's institution, for the powers that be are ordained of god: which contains not only the appointment of it, but the qualification and form of it. that government is appointed by divine precept all agree, but whether the precept be moral natural, or moral positive, whether it was appointed in the state of innocency, or since disorder came into the world, whether it be primario or secundario, from the law of nature, is not agreed upon. it may possibly be all these ways; government in the general may be from the law and light of nature appointed in innocency, because all its relative duties are enjoined in the fifth command, and all nations naturally have an esteem of it, without which there could be no order, distinction, or communion in human societies but the specification or individuation may be by a postnate, positive and secondary law, yet natural too, for though there be no reason in nature why any man should be king and lord over another, being in some sense all naturally free, but as they yield themselves under jurisdiction the exalting of david over israel is not ascribed to nature, but to an act of divine bounty, which took him from following the ewes, and made him feeder of the people of israel, psal. lxxviii. , . yet nature teacheth, that israel and other people should have a government, and that this should be subjected to. next, not only is it appointed to be, but qualified by institution, and the office is defined, the end prescribed, and the measures and boundaries thereof are limited, as we shall hear. 'again, the forms of it though politically, they are not stinted, that people should have such a form and not another; yet morally, at least negatively, whatever be the form it is limited to the rules of equity and justice, and must be none other than what hath the lord's mould and sanction. but there is no institution any of these ways for tyranny. hence, that power hath no institution from god, cannot be owned as his ordinance; but the power of tyrants is that power, being contrary in every respect to god's institution, and a mere deviation from it, and eversion of it: ergo--to the minor it may be replied; though the power which tyrants may exercise, and usurpers assume, may be in concrete contrary to god's institution, and so not to be owned; yet, in the abstract, it may be acknowledged of god. it is but the abuse of the power, and that does not take away the use. we may own the power, though we do not own the abuse of it. i answer, . i acknowledge the distinction as to magistrates is very pertinent; for it is well said by the congregation in a letter to the nobility, knox's history of scotland, book . 'that there is a great difference betwixt the authority, which is god's ordinance, and the persons of these who are placed in authority; the authority and ordinance of god can never do wrong, for it commandeth that vice be punished, and virtue maintained; but the corrupted person placed in this authority may offend.' it is certain, higher powers are not to be resisted; but some persons in power may be resisted. the powers are ordained of god; but kings commanding unjust things are not ordained of god to do such things; but to apply this to tyrants, i do not understand. magistrates in some acts may be guilty of tyranny, and yet retain the power of magistracy; but tyrants cannot be capable of magistracy, nor any one of the scripture-characters of righteous rulers. they cannot retain that which they have forfeited, and which they have overturned; and usurpers cannot retain that which they never had. they may act and enact some things materially just, but they are not formally such as can make them magistrates, no more than some unjust actions can make a magistrate a tyrant. a murderer, saving the life of one and killing another, does not make him no murderer: once a murderer ay a murderer, once a robber ay a robber, till he restore what he hath robbed: so once a tyrant ay a tyrant, till he makes amends for his tyranny, and that will be hard to do. . the concrete does specificate the abstract in actuating it, as a magistrate in his exercising government, makes his power to be magistry; a robber, in his robbing, makes his power to be robbery; an usurper in his usurping makes his power to be usurpation; so a tyrant in his tyrannizing, can have no power but tyranny. as the abstract of a magistrate is nothing but magistracy, so the abstract of a tyrant is nothing but tyranny. it is frivolous then to distinguish between a tyrannical power in the concrete, and tyranny in the abstract; the power and the abuse of the power: for he hath no power as a tyrant, but what is abused. . they that object thus, must either mean, that power in it general notion is ordained of god, but this particular power abused by tyrants, and assumed by usurpers, is not ordained: or they must mean, that the very power of tyrants and usurpers is ordained of god, but the way of holding it and using it, is not of god. if the first be said, they grant all i plead for; for though the power in general be ordained, yet what is this to tyrants and usurpers? would not this claim be ridiculous for any man to soy, god hath ordained governments to be, therefore i will challenge it? god hath ordained marriage, therefore any may cohabit together as man and wife, without formal matrimony. if the second be alledged, that the power of these prevailing dominators is ordained, but not their holding and using of it: this is nonsense, for how can a power be ordained, and the use of it be unlawful? for the abuse and use of tyrannical power is all one and reciprocal: an usurper cannot use his power but by usurpation. again, is it not plain, that the abstract and the concrete, the act or habit, and the subject wherein it is, cannot have a contrary denomination? if drunkenness and theft, lying or murder, be of the devil; then the drunkard, the thief, the liar, and the murderer, are of the devil too: so if tyranny and usurpation, or the use or abuse of tyrants and usurpers be of the devil, then most the tyrants and usurpers also be of him: none can say, the one is of the devil, and the other of god. wherefore it is altogether impertinent to use such a distinction, with application to tyrants or usurpers, as many do in their pleading for the owning of our oppressors; for they have no power, but what is the abuse of power. . as that authority which is god's ordinance must have his institution; so it must have his divine constitution from himself and by the people. wherever then there is authority to be owned of men, there must be these two, constitution from god and constitution from the people. for the first, god hath a special interest in the constitution of authority, both immediately and mediately. immediately, he declares such and such forms of government to be lawful and eligible, and does order whom, and who, and how people shall direct governors. and so, he confers royal graces, and endowments, and gifts for government on them, as on joshua and saul: so they become the lord's anointed, placed and set on the throne of the lord, chron. xxix. . and honoured with majesty, as his deputes and vicegerants, having their crown let on by god, psal. xxi. . but in regard now he doth not by any special revelation determine, who shall be the governors in this or that place; therefore he makes this constitution by meditation of men, giving them rules how they shall proceed in setting them up. and seeing, by the law of nature, he hath enjoined government to be, but hath ordered no particular in it with application to singulars he hath committed it to the positive transaction of men, to be disposed according to certain general rules of justice. and it must needs be so; for first, without this constitution, either all or none would be magistrates: if he hath ordained civil power to be, and taken no order in whom it shall be, or how it shall be conveyed, any might pretend to it; and yet none would have it, more than another. if then he hath affixed it to a peculiar having and holding, by virtue whereof this man is enstated and entitled to the office, and not that man, there must be a law for constituting him in authority, which will discover in whom it is. . if it were not so, then resisting of a particular magistrate would not be a resisting of the ordinance of god, if a particular magistrate were not constitute of god, as well as magistracy is institute of god: for still it would be undetermined, who were the owner; and so it would be left as free and lawful for the resister to take the place, as for the resisted to hold it; the institution would be satisfied if any possessed it: therefore there must be constitution to determine it. . no common law of nature can put in practice, without particular constitution regulating it. that wives and children own their superior relations, is the law of nature; but there must be such a relation first fixed by human transaction, before they can own them; there must be marriage authorized of god, there must be children begotten, and then the divine ordination of these relative duties take place. so the judges of israel for four hundred and fifty years were given of god, acts xiii. . not all by an immediate express designation, but a mediate call from god by men, as jephthah; judg. xi. , . inferior judges also are magistrates appointed by god, yet they have their deputation from men. our saviour speaks of all magistrates, when he applies that of the psalm to them, i said ye are gods; and shews how they were gods, because unto them the word of god came, john x. . that is, by his word and warrant he authorized them, not by immediate designation in reference to the most of them, but the word of god comes to them, or his constitution is past upon them, who are advanced by men according to his word. when men therefore do act according to the divine rule, in the moulding and erecting of government and governors, there the constitution is of god, though it be not immediate. and where this is not observed, whatever power (so named or pretended) there may be, or whatsoever persons there be that take upon them to be the power, and are not thereto appointed or therein instated, and do exercise such a power as god hath not legitimated, they are not a power ordained of god. hence, whatsoever power hath no constitution from god, either immediate or mediate, cannot be owned: but the authority of tyrants and usurpers, is a power that hath no constitution from god, either immediate or mediate; therefore it cannot be owned. the major is cleared above. the minor is also undeniable: for, either they must pretend to an immediate constitution by revelation, that james duke of york a vassal of antichrist, had, by all his plots and pranks, merited the crown of britain, and therefore must be constitute king; and this i hope they will not pretend to, except the pope hath gotten such a revelation from pluto's oracle; or they must have recourse to the mediate constitution by men: and if so, then either this mediate constitution of god is left undetermined, indefinitely and absolutely giving way to any that will assume what power they please and can: and then, i confess tyrants may have a constitution; but this constitution cannot be of god; or else it is fixed by a rule, regulating the succession or constitution of the governors, and obliging the people to own the government so constituted, with exclusion and disallowance of any other. and so, if in that constitution there be a substantial deviation from the rule, as when incompetent or unallowed persons be the advancers of themselves, or others, into that place by illegal and sinistrous means, in as much as in that case there is the divine disapprobation, it may be said there is no ordinance of god, but a contradiction and contra-ordination to god's order. gee's magist. origin. chap. . sect. . subject page . this will shake off this of ours, and all other tyrants and usurpers, that come into the government, and hold it not according to god's rule. . it is clear also in the second place, that the authority which we can own out of conscience, must have constitution by the people. the special way by which men should be called into the place of sovereign power, may perhaps not be found so expresly defined in scripture, as mens call to the other ordinance of the ministry is; yet in this two things are essentially necessary to the constitution of a magistrate, the peoples consent and compact either formal and virtual. and without these we can own conscientious subjection and allegiance to no man living. that the first is necessary will be evident, from the law of nature and nations, and from scripture. first, the light and law of nature dictates, that the right and interest of constituting magistrates is in the elective vote or suffrage of the people. this will appear, . if we consider the original of government among men, especially after they were so multiplied, that there was a necessity of a reduction into diverse communities; which, whatever was before the flood, yet after it, behoved to be by a coalition with consent under an elective government. the scripture makes it more than probable, that the partition of commonwealths was in peleg's days, in whole time the earth was divided, gen. x. . occasioned by the confusion of "languages at babel, which did dissolve their union, and scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth," gen. xi. . then was it that we may conceive, as buchanan says, de jure regni apud scot. 'the time was when men dwelt in cottages and caves, and as strangers did wander to and fro without laws, and such as could converse together of the same language, assembled together as their humours did lead them or as some common utility did allure them, a certain instinct of nature did oblige them to desire converse and society.' but this confusion of languages, and communion of language, in several divided parcels, could not incorporate these several parties into communities; that behoved to be the effect of some other cause: and what should that be, but the joint will, consent and agreement of the severally languaged? it could not be by consanguinity; for there is no direction from nature for a confinement of that into such and such degrees, to make out the bonds of a common-wealth, or possibility of knowing all within such degrees; besides all within these degrees might not be of the same language. now, the scripture says, they "were divided every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations," gen. x. . next, it could not be by cohabitation: for how that must go to be the boundaries of a common-wealth, inclusively, or exclusively, is not defined by nature, nor can it be otherwise determined, than by human choice. then, it could not be by mens belonging to such a sovereign: for, after that division and confusion, they could not all be under one sovereign, nor under the same that they were subject to before; and a sovereign cannot be before the aggregation of the subjects whereof he is head, they must first be a commonwealth before they can belong to it. again, it cannot be founded upon the right of fatherhood: for, in that scattering, such a right could not be uninterruptedly preserved: and then noah should also have been the universal magistrate, which he could not be in these multiplied secessions. and further, if it be refounded on the right of fatherhood, either every company had one common father over all, or every father made a commonwealth of his own children: the latter cannot be said, for that would multiply commonwealths in infinitum: neither can the first be said; for, if they had one common father, either this behoved to be the natural father of all the company, which none can think was so happily ordered by babel's confusion: or else the eldest in age, and so he might be incapable for government, and the law of nature does not direct that the government should alway be astricted to the eldest of the community: or else, finally, he behoved to be their political father, by consent. for, before this consent, they were unengaged as to common order of government; none of the community having any legal claim to sovereignty more than the rest. when therefore they were forced to conclude upon association, for their mutual preservation, they must be thought to act rationally, and not to make their condition worse, but rather better by that conclusion; and if they found it worse, to resume their radical right which they had conferred upon men subject to law, not to tyrannize over them: and in this case, certainly they had the power of choosing what kind of government suited most to their advantage, and would best preserve their liberties, and how far this should be extended, and who should be affirmed into this combination; still with a reservation of the privilege to their own safety, if their associates should not do their duty: and so they might also reserve to themselves a liberty to alter the form, when they found it productive of more prejudice than advantage, and never to leave their condition remediless; and to pitch upon this way of succession, and not another, the way of free election of every successor, or of definite election limited to one line, or to the nearest in line; and _e contra_, with a reserve still of their primeve privileges, to secure themselves from the inconveniences of that determination, or to change it; and to make choices of such a family and line, and not another, and whether the eldest always of that family, or the fittest is to be chosen; and however it be, yet still by the peoples consent: and in all this to have respect to some good, great and necessary ends, which, if they should be disappointed of, and find these means useless or destructive to, they were to be loosed from their obligation to use or to own them. see jus populi vindicat. chap. . p. , &c. . if we consider how nature determines the peoples interest in the constitution of governors: whence comes it that this man, and not that man, this race and family, and not that, is invested with that title? it will be found there is no title on earth now to the crowns, to families, to persons, but the peoples suffrage: for the institution of magistracy in general does not make james stewart a king, no more than john chamberlain: neither do qualifications make one, otherwise there might be many better than is this day extant; for there are many men better qualified: and there is no prophetical or immediate callings to kingdoms now: and as for conquest without consent, and having no more for a title, it is no better than royal latrociny. it is certain, god would not command us to obey kings, and leave us in the dark, that we should not know him that hath a real call to it. and if he have not the peoples call, where shall we find another? it remains therefore they must have it from the people, who have it to give radically and virtually, having a power to preserve themselves, and to put it in the hands of one or more rulers, that they may preserve themselves by them. all men are born alike as to civil power (no man being born with a crown on his head) and yet men united in society may give it to this man, and not to that man; therefore they must have it virtually, for they cannot give what they have not. and as cities have power to choose their magistrates, so many cities have power to create an universal ruler over them all. the people also have power to limit the magistrates power with conditions; so that the present ruler shall not have so much prerogative as his predecessor, as royalists cannot deny, therefore they must have given that power which they can limit. see lex rex, quest. . p. . &c. dly, the scripture also gives light in this particular. . in giving directions and rules about their orderly calling their governors, impowering them to "take wise men, and understanding, and known among their tribes, to be made rulers," deut. i. . "to make judges and officers in all their gates," deut. xvi. . "to set one among their brethren king over them, and not a stranger," deut. xvii. . to what purpose are these rules given them, if they had no interest to choose their magistrates? would god command them to set a king over them, if they had not power to do it? and to set such a man over them, and not such an one, if they had no influence in making one at all? and accordingly that wise statist says very well, sam. xvi. . hushai to absalom, nay, but whom the lord and this people, and all the men of israel choose, his will i be, and with him will i abide. which will also hold in the negative, whom the lord and the people, and all the men of the kingdom do not choose, his we will not be, nor with him will we abide. . the scripture expressly attributeth the making of kings to the people. all the people of judah took azariah, and made him king, instead of his father amaziah, whom they had executed, kings xiv. . they came with a perfect heart to make david king in hebron, chron. xii. . so they made joash king, chron. xxiii. . . even these that were particularly designed of god, and chosen to be rulers, yet were not formally invested with power, before the people conferred it upon them. gideon was called of god to it, but was not judge, till the people said, rule thou over us, both thou and thy son, giving him an hereditary right for his children, judg. viii. . saul was appointed to be king, and therefore samuel honoured him, because he was marked out of god to be king, sam. ix. . and anointed him with oil, sam. x. . after which he was gifted and qualified for government. god gave him another heart, vers. . yet all this did not make him king, till the people met for his inauguration, vers. . &c. and crowned him, and made him king in gilgal, sam. xi. last verse. david was anointed by samuel, and yet was a persecuted fugitive for several years, and never acknowledged formally king, till the men of judah came and anointed him, sam. ii. . for if he had been king before, then there were two kings in israel at one time, and david failed of his royal duty, in not punishing the murderer saul; whereas himself says, he would not touch the lord's anointed. therefore the people made all kings, and that by choice and consent, without which they were no kings. hence i argue, if the consent and choice of the people be so essentially necessary to the making of kings, then they who set up themselves against the consent of the body of the land, and without the choice of any, must be usurpers, not to be acknowledged for lawful kings; but the former is true, as is proven above: therefore.----now plain it is, that this duke set up himself against the consent of the body, being excluded from the government by the representatives of england, and generally hated of all; who disdaining to wait upon the formal choice of any, but after he had paved his passage to the throne upon his brother's blood, did usurp the title without all law. . the second thing necessary for the legal constitution of a king by the people, is their compact with him: which must either be express or tacit, explicit or implicit. two things are here to be proven, that will furnish an argument for disowning both the brothers. first, that there must be a conditional reciprocally obliging covenant between the sovereign and the subjects, without which there is no relation to be owned. secondly, that when this compact is broken in all or its chiefest conditions by the sovereign, the peoples obligation ceases. the first i shall set down, in the words of a famous author, our renowned countryman buchanan, in his dialogue 'de jure regni apud scotos. there is then (or there ought to be) a mutual compact between the king and his subjects', &c. that this is indispensibly necessary and essential to make up the relation of sovereign and subjects, may be proved both from the light of nature and revelation. first, it may appear from the light of natural reason. . from the rise of government, and the interest people have in erecting it by consent and choice (as is shewed above) if a king cannot be without the peoples making, then, all the power he hath must either be by compact or gift: if by compact, then we have what we proposed: and if by gift: then if abused, they may recal it; or if they cannot recover it, yet they may and ought to hold their hand, and give him no more that they may retain, that is, no more honour or respect, which is in the honourer before the honoured get it. can it be imagined, that a people acting rationally, would give a power absolutely, without restrictions, to destroy all their own rights? could they suppose this boundless and lawless creature, left at liberty to tyrannize, would be a fit mean to procure the ends of government? for this were to set up a rampant tyrant to rule as he listeth, which would make their condition a great deal worse than if they had no ruler at all, for then they might have more liberty to see to their safety. see jus populi, chap. . pag. , . . this will be clear from the nature of that authority, which only a sovereign can have over his subjects; which, whatever be the nature of it, it cannot be absolute, that is against scripture, nature, and common sense, as shall be proven at more length. that is to set up a tyrant, one who is free from all conditions, a roaring lion and a ranging bear to destroy all if he pleases. it must be granted by all, that the sovereign authority is only fiduciary, entrusted by god and the people with a great charge: a great pledge is impawned and committed to the care and custody of the magistrate, which he must take special care of, and not abuse, or waste, or alienate, or sell: (for in that case, royalists themselves grant he may be deposed.) he is by office a patron of the subjects liberties, and keeper of the law both of god and man, the keeper of both tables. sure, he hath no power over the laws of god, but a ministerial power, he may not stop and disable them as he pleases; of the same nature is it, over all other parts of his charge. he is rather a tutor, than an inheritor and proprietor of the commonwealth, and may not do what his pupil's interest, what he pleases. in a word, the nature and whole significancy of his power lies in this, that he is the nation's public servant, both objectively in that he is only for the good of the people, and representatively in that the people hath impawned in his hand all their power to do royal service. the scripture teaches this, in giving him the titles of service, as watchmen, &c. allowing him royal wages for his royal work, rom. xiii. he is god's minister attending continually on this thing. there is his work, for this cause pay you tribute also. there is his wages and maintainance. he is called so in that transaction with rehoboam; the old men advised him to be a servant unto the people, then they should be his servants, kings xii. . there was a conditional bargain proposed: as to be a servant, or tutor, or guardian upon trust, always implies conditions and accountableness to them that entrust them. . it must needs be so, otherwise great absurdities would follow. here would be a voluntary contracted relation, obliging us to relative duties, to a man that owed none correlative to us, and yet one whom we set over us. it were strange, if there were no condition here; and no other voluntarily suscepted relations can be without this, as between man and wife, master and servant, &c. this would give him the disposal of us and ours, as if both we and what we have were his own, as a man's goods are, against which he does not sin whatever he doth with them. so this would make a king that could not sin against us; being no ways obliged to us, for he can no otherwise be obliged to us, but upon covenant conditions; he may be obliged and bound in duty to god otherwise, but he cannot be bound to us otherwise: and if he be not bound, then he may do what he will, he can do no wrong to us to whom he is noways bound. this also is point blank against the law of god, which is the second way to prove it, by the light of revelation or scripture. . in the very directions about making and setting up of kings, the lord shews what conditions shall be required of them, deut. xvii. . &c. and in all directions for obeying them, the qualifications they should have are rehearsed, as rom. xii. , . therefore none are to be set up but on these conditions, and none are to be obeyed but such as have these qualifications. . in his promises of the succession of kings, he secures their continuation only conditionally, to establish the kingdom, if they be constant to do his commandments and judgments, chron. xxviii. . there shall not fail a man to sit upon the throne, yet so that they take heed to their way to walk in god's law, as david did, chron. vi. . now he was not otherwise to perform these promises, but by the action and suffrage of the people setting him up, (which he had appointed to be the way of calling kings to thrones,) if therefore the lord's promise be conditional, the people's actions also behoved to be suspended upon the same conditions. . we have many express covenants between rulers and subjects in scripture. jephthah was fetched from the land of tob, and made the head of the gileadites by an explicit mutual stipulation, wherein the lord was invocated as a witness, judg. xi. , , , , . so all the elders of israel came to make david king; and king david made a league with them in hebron before the lord, and then they anointed him over israel, sam. v. . he made there a covenant with them before the lord, chron. xi. . he was no king before this covenant, and so it was a pactional oath between him and the kingdom, upon terms according to the law, deut. xvii. he was only a king in fieri; one who was to be king, but now actually inaugurate a covenanted king upon terms that sanctified them. it is true, they came to recognosce rehoboam's rights, and came to shechem to make him king, kings xii. . and yet when he would not enter in covenant-terms with them, to satisfy their just demands, the people answered the king, saying, what portion have we in david, neither have we inheritance in the son of jesse, to your tents, o israel, vers. . they refused to acknowledge such an usurper, and we find no prophets ever condemning them for it. so when jehoash or joash was crowned, jehoiada made a covenant between the lord and the king and the people, between the king also and the people, kings xi. . chron. xxiii. , . from all these reasons and scriptures, it is clear, there must be a mutual compact between the subjects and every sovereign they own subjection to, which if he refuse, and usurp the sword, they are under an anterior obligation to subtract their allegiance, and to make use of their sword, if they be in capacity to pull it out of his hands, and use it against him. and of this we are put in mind by the motto of our old coronation pieces, which have these words about the sword, 'for me, but, if i deserve, against me:' and surely to him that hath it now in his hands, it may be said, thou hast deserved, and as yet deserves. we see then, the allegiance that this usurper alledges is his due, wants a bottom, to wit, a compact with the people. whence i argue, if there must of necessity be a compact between the king and the people, when he is advanced to the government: then he that advances himself, without and against this compact, is an usurper not to be owned; but the former is true: therefore he that advances himself without and against this compact, is an usurper not to be owned. and who more notoriously deserving such a signature, than james vii. and ii. who hath made horns of his own strength, or the pope's bulls, to push his brother out and himself into the throne, upon no terms at all, or any security for religion and liberty. one objection is to be removed here: can the customs of the jews be binding to all nations? the kings of judah made such covenants, shall therefore all kings do so? _answ._ why not this custom, as well as crowning, which they used likewise? these rules are not typical or ceremonial, nor only so judicial as to be peculiarly judicial, but are matters of moral equity, bearing a standing reason founded upon that law, deut. xvii. . &c. limiting the prince to stand to conditions. if we cast at divine laws for rules of government where will we find better laws? it is recorded of the first of the british kings who was christian, that writing to eleutherius bishop of rome, (before antichrist took that seat) for the roman laws, he received this answer: 'by divine clemency ye have received the law and faith of christ, you have the old and new testaments, out of them in god's name by counsel of your states take laws, and govern your kingdom.' and of another, that he began his laws thus. god spake all these words, &c. and so repeated the laws of god. the second thing i undertook to prove, is that assertion of buchanan ubi supra, de jure regni. 'there being a paction between the king and subjects, he who first recedes from what is covenanted, and doth counteract what he hath covenanted, he looses the contract; and the bond being loosed which did hold fast the king with the people, whatever right did belong to him by virtue of that compact, he looses it, and the people are as free as before the stipulation.' which is also asserted by the author of jus populi, chap. . pag. . 'it is no less clear, that when the sovereign doth not perform the principal, main, and most necessary conditions, condescended and agreed upon, by right he falleth from his sovereignty: and pag. . when the prince doth violate his compact, as to all its conditions, or as to its chief, main, and most necessary condition, the subjects are by right free from subjection to him, and at liberty to make choice of another.' this is so clear that it needs no labour to prove it, that, upon this head, we were loosed from all allegiance to the former tyrant, who was admitted upon terms of an explicit covenant, the conditions whereof he did as explicitly break. there are two cases wherein subjects are loosed from covenanted allegiance to their princes. . when the prince remits the obligation of the subjects, and refuses allegiance upon that basis; then he can no more demand it by virtue of that compact. he that remits, and will not have that allegiance, that the subjects covenanted upon such and such conditions to him, these subjects should not give it that they so covenanted, for they should not prostitute it to a refuser and remitter: but charles the ii. remitted and would not have that allegiance, which we covenanted upon such and such conditions, viz. upon the terms of the covenant, which he cassed and annulled and made criminal to own: therefore to him we should not have given it, which we so covenanted. . when the prince doth enter into a mutual covenant with the people upon mutual conditions, and does not only cease to perform the conditions, but simply denies all obligation to do it, and makes it a quarrel to insinuate so much, yea persecutes all who dare assert the obligation of that covenant; and yet demands allegiance, not upon the obligation of that covenant which he hath remitted, but absolutely upon the grounds of his prerogative: in this case it will be evident also, the subjects are not bound either to own their formerly covenanted allegiance to him, or that which he demands on other grounds. grotius de jure belli, is clear as to this, lib. . cap. . num. . 'if there be such a clause or condition in the very devolution of the government upon a prince, as if he do so and so, the subjects shall be loosed from all bonds of obedience, then, when he does so, he becomes a mere private person.' grotius there supposes the power is transferred upon a resolutive condition; that is, if he transgress the condition, the power shall be resolved into its first fountain: much more if it be transferred expresly also upon a suspensive condition, that he shall continue to maintain the ends of the covenant, defend religion and the liberties of the subjects, in the defence whereof we shall own allegiance to him, otherwise not. in that case, if he do not maintain these ends, plain it is, our obligation ceases; for how can it stand upon a conditional obligation, when his performance of the condition sists? but whatever be the conditions mutual, it flows natively from the nature of a mutual compact, 'that he who doth not perform the conditions agreed upon, hath no right to the benefit granted upon condition of performance of these conditions; especially if he perform not, or violate these conditions upon supposition whereof he would not have gotten the benefit: it were very absurd to say in a mutual conditional compact, one party shall still be found to perform his conditions, though the other perform none, but break all. were it the act of rational creatures to set up a sovereign, upon conditions he shall not play the tyrant, and yet be bound to him though he tyrannize never so much? we have the name of mutual compacts in the spies covenant with rahab, josh. ii. . "if thou utter this our business, then we will be quit of thine oath, which thou hast made us to swear:" if she should break, condition, then the obligation on their part should cease. but next, all the stress will ly in proving that the covenant, on such and such conditions between a prince and subjects, doth equally and mutually oblige both to each other: for if it equally oblige both, then both are equally disengaged from other by the breach on either side, and either of them may have a just claim in law against the other for breach of the conditions. but royalists and court slaves alledge, that such a covenant obliges the king to god, but not to the people at all: so that he is no more accountable to them, than if he had none at all. but the contrary is evident: for, ( .) if the compact be mutual, and if it be infringed on one side, it must be so in the other also; for in contracts, the parties are considered as equals, whatever inequality there may be betwixt them otherwise: i speak of contracts among men. ( .) if it be not so, there is no covenant made with the people at all: and so david did no more covenant with israel, than with the chaldeans: for to all with whom the covenant is made it obliges them to it. otherwise it must be said, he only made the covenant with god, contrary to the text: for he made it only before the lord as a witness, not with him as a party. joash's covenant with the lord is expresly distinguished from that with the people. ( .) if it be not so, it were altogether nonsense to say, there were any covenant made with the king on the other hand: for he is supposed to be made king on such and such terms: and yet, by this, after he is made king he is no more obliged unto them, than if there had been no compact with him at all. ( .) if he be bound as king, and not only as a man or christian, then he is bound with respect to the people; for with respect to them he is only king: but he is bound as king, and not only as a man or christian, because it is only with him as king that the people covenant, and he must transact with them under the same consideration. next, that which he is obliged to, is the specifical act of a king, to defend religion and liberty, and rule in righteousness; and therefore his covenant binds him as a king. again, if he be not bound as king, then as a king he is under no obligation of law or oath, which is to make him a lawless tyrant; yea, none of god's subjects. it would also suppose that the king as king could not sin against the people at all, but only against god: for as king he could be under no obligation of duty to the people, and where there is no obligation, there is no sin; by this he would be set above all obligations to love his neighbour as himself, for he is above all his neighbours, and all mankind, and only less than god; and so by this doctrine, he is loosed from all duties of the second table, or at least he is not so much obliged to them as others. but against this it is objected: both prince and people are obliged to perform their part to each other, and both are obliged to god, but both are not accountable to each other; there is not mutual power in the parties to compel one another to perform the promised duty; the king hath it indeed over the people, but not the people over the king, and there is no indifferent judge superior to both, to compel both, but god. ans. . what if all this should be granted? yet it doth not infringe the proposition: what if the people have not power to compel him? yet, if by law, he may fall from his sovereignty, though, indeed, he is not deposed: he loses his right to our part, when he breaks his part. . there is no need of a superior arbiter: for as in contracting they are considered as equal, so the party keeping the contract is superior to the other breaking it. . there may be mutual co-active power, where there is no mutual relation of superiority and inferiority: yea, in some cases, inferiors may have a co-active power by law, to compel their superiors failing in their duty to them; as a son wronged by his father, may compel him to reparation by law; and independent kingdoms, nothing inferior to each other, being in covenant together, the wronged may have a co-active power to force the other to duty, without any superior arbiter. . the bond of suretiship brings a man under the obligation to be accountable to the creditor, though the surety were never so high, and the creditor never so low: solomon says, in general, without exception of kings; yea, including them because he was a king that spake it, prov. vi. , . "my son, if thou be surety for thy friend,----thou art snared with the words of thy mouth." now a king's power is but fiduciary; and therefore he cannot be unaccountable for the power concredited to him. and if this generation had minded this, our stewards should have been called to an account for their stewardship ere now. hence i argue, if a covenanted prince, breaking all the conditions of his compact, doth forfeit his right to the subjects allegiance, then they are no more to own him as their sovereign; but the former is proved, that a covenanted prince, breaking all the conditions of his compact, doth forfeit his right to the subjects allegiance: therefore----and consequently when charles ii. expresly bound by covenant to defend and promote the covenanted reformation and liberties of the kingdom, to whom only we were bound in the terms of his defending and promoting the same, did violently and villainously violate and vilify these conditions, we were no more bound to them. somewhat possibly may be objected here, . if this be the sense of the covenant, then it would seem that we were not bound to own the king, but only when and while he were actually promoting and carrying on the ends of the covenant. _ans._ it does not follow, but that we are obliged to preserve his person and authority in these necessary intervals, when he is called to see to himself as a man; for we must preserve him as a mean, because of his aptitude and designation for such an end, albeit not always formally prosecuting it: we do not say, that we are never to own him, but when actually exercised in prosecuting these ends: but we say, we are never to own him, when he is tyrannically and treacherously abusing his authority for destroying and overturning these ends, and violating all the conditions of his compact. it may be. object. . saul was a tyrant, and a breaker of his royal covenant, and persecutor of the godly, and murderer of the priests of the lord, usurper upon the priest's office, and many other ways guilty of breaking all conditions: and yet david and all israel owned him as the anointed of the lord. _ans._ . saul was indeed a tyrant, rejected of god, and to be ejected out of his kingdom in his own time and way, which david, a prophet knowing, would not anticipate. but he was far short, and a mere bungler in acts of tyranny in comparison of our grassators: he broke his royal covenant in very gross particular acts, but did not cass and rescind the whole of it, did not burn it, did not make it criminal to own its obligation, nor did he so much as profess a breach of it, nor arrogate an absolute prerogative, nor attempt arbitrary government, nor to evert the fundamental laws, and overturn the religion of israel, and bring in idolatry as ours have done: he was a persecutor of david upon some private quarrels, not of all the godly upon the account of their covenanted religion: he murdered priests of the lord, in a transport of fury, because of their kindness to david; but he did not make laws adjudging all the ministers of the lord to death, who should be found most faithful in their duty to god and his church, as ours have done against all field preachers: he usurped upon the priest's office, in one elicit act of sacrificing: but he did not usurp a supremacy over them, and annex it as an inherent right of his crown. . he was indeed such a tyrant, as deserved to have been dethroned and brought to condign punishment, upon the same accounts that amaziah and uzziah were deposed for afterwards: and in this the people failed in their duty, and for it they were plagued remarkably. shall their omission be an argument to us? . as the question was never put to the people, whether they owned his authority as lawful, or not? so we do not read, either of their universal owning him, or their positive disowning him: however, that is no good argument, which is drawn from a not doing to a doing; because they did it not, therefore it must not be done. . they owned him; but how? as the minister of god, not to be resisted or revolted from under pain of damnation? (as all lawful magistrates ought to be owned, rom. xiii. , .) this i deny: for david and his six hundred men resisted him resolutely; and though the body of the nation did long lazily ly and couch as asses under his burden, yet, at length, weary of his tyranny, many revolted from under him, and adjoined themselves to david at ziklag, "while he kept himself close, because of saul the son of kish," chron. xii. . who are commended by the spirit of god for their valour, verse. . &c. "and many out of manasseh fell to him, when he came with the philistines against saul, to battle," verse . this was a practical disowning of the tyrant, before the lord deposed him. . david did indeed pay him and his character some deference, as having been the anointed of the lord; yet perhaps his honouring him with that title, the lord's anointed, sam. xxiv. sam. xxvi. and calling him so often his lord the king, cannot be altogether justified, no more than his using that same language to achish king of gath, sam. xxix. . i shewed before how titles might be allowed; but this so circumstantiate, does not seem so consistent with his imprecatory prayer, for the lord's avenging him on him, sam. xxiv . and many other imprecations against him in his psalms. in some of which he calls the same man, whom here he called, psal. lix. , . and the evil, violent and wicked man, psal. cxl. , . and the vilest of men, psal. xii. ult. however it be, there can be no argument from hence, to own the authority of tyrants and usurpers. . though this necessary conditional compact, which must always be in the constitution of lawful rulers, be not always express and explicit, so that a written authentic copy of it cannot be always produced; yet it is always to be understood, implicitly at least, transacted in the ruler's admission to the government, wherein the law of god must regulate both parties; and when he is made ruler, it must be understood that it is upon terms to be a father, feeder, and protector, and not a tyrant, murderer and destroyer. all princes are so far pactional, that they are obliged by the high and absolute sovereign from whom they derive their authority, to reign for the peace and profit of the people. this is fixed unalterably by the laws of the supreme legislator, and solemnly engaged unto at the coronation: and whosoever declines or destroys this fundamental condition, he degrades and deposes himself. it is also not only the universal practice, but necessary for the constitution and conservation of all commonwealths, to have fundamental laws and provisions about government, both for the upholding, and transmitting and transferring it, as occasion calls, and preventing and punishing violations thereof, that there be no invasion or intrusion upon the government; and if there be any entrance upon it not according to the constitution, that it be illegitimated, and the nation's liberties always secured. this doth infer and regulate a conditional compact with all that are advanced to the government, albeit it should not be expressed. for it is undeniable that in the erection of all governors, the grand interests of the community must be seen to, by legal securities for religion and liberty, which is the end and use of fundamental laws. now, how these have been unhinged and infringed, by the introduction and present establishment by law of that monster of the prerogative, enacted in parliament _anno_ , the apologetic relation doth abundantly demonstrate, lect. . concerning the king's civil supremacy, enhancing all the absoluteness that ever the great turk could arrogate, and yet far short of what hath been usurped since, and impudently proclaimed to the world; especially by him who now domineers, in his challenges of sovereign authority, prerogative royal, and absolute power, which all are to obey without reserve; whereby the whole basis of our constitution, and bulwark of our religion, laws and liberty, is enervated, and we have security of no law but the king's lust. hence i argue, those princes that, contrary to their virtual compact (at least) at their coming to the crown, overturned all fundamental laws: ergo they cannot be owned. the major is plain; for they that overturn fundamental laws are no magistrates; thereby all the ends of government being subverted, and the subverter cannot be owned as a father or friend, but an open enemy to the commonwealth, nor looked upon as magistrates doing their duty, but as tyrants, seeking themselves with the destruction of the commonwealth. and in this case, the compact, the ground of the constitution, being violated, they fall from their right, and the people are liberated from their obligation; and they being no magistrates, the people are no subjects; for the relation is mutual, and so is the obligation, jus populi, chap. . page . the minor is manifest, both from the matter of fact, and the mischiefs framed into laws, by the sovereign authority, prerogative royal, and absolute power foresaid: whereby what remains of our fundamental constitutions, either in religious or civil settlements, unsubverted as yet, may be subverted when this absolute monarch pleases. which absolute authority we cannot in conscience own, for these reasons, taken both from reason and scripture. first, it is against reason, . a power contrary in nature cannot be owned; absolute power is such: for that which takes away, and makes the people to give away their natural power of preserving their lives and liberties, and sets a man above all rule and law, is contrary to nature: such is absolute power, making people resign that which is not in their power to resign, an absolute power to destroy and tyrannize. . a power contrary to the first rise of its constitution cannot be owned; absolute power is such: for the first rise of the constitution is a people's setting a sovereign over them, giving him authority to administer justice over them: but it were against this, to set one over them with a power to rage at random, and rule as he lists. it is proven before, a king hath no power but what the people gave him; but they never gave, never could give an absolute power to destroy themselves. . that power which is against the ends of government cannot be owned; absolute power is such: for that which will make a people's condition worse than before the constitution, and that mean which they intended for a blessing to turn a plague and scourge to them, and all the subjects to be formal slaves at the prince's devotion, must needs be contrary to the ends of government; but absolute power is such: for against the exorbitance thereof, no means would be left to prevent it obstructing all the fountains of justice, and commanding laws and lawyers to speak; not justice, righteousness, and reason; but the lust and pleasure of one man, turning all into anarchy and confusion: certainly it could never be the intention either of the work or workers, at the constitution of government, to set up a power to enslave the people, to be a curse to them, but their ends were to get comfort, safety and liberty, under the shadow of government. . that power which invalidates, and is inconsistent with the king's compact with the people, cannot be owned; absolute power is such: for the tenor of that is always to secure laws and liberties, to rule according to law; but to be absolute invalidates, and is inconsistent with that: that which were an engagement into contradictories cannot consist with that compact; but to engage to be absolute, and yet to rule by law, is an engagement into contradictories, which no people could admit for a security. it is inconsistent with this compact, to give the king absolute power to overturn religion and liberty; and to assume that which was never given, were to invalidate this compact, and to make himself no king; but to restore unto the people the power they conferred upon him for the defence of religion and liberty. . that power which is not from god, nor of god, cannot be owned; but absolute power is not of god; because it is a power to tyrannize and sin, which, if it were of god, he should be the author of sin; for if the moral power be of god, so must the acts be; but the acts of absolute power being lawless, cannot be from god: ergo, neither the moral power to commit these acts. . that ruler who cannot be god's minister for the people's good, cannot be owned; (for that is the formal reason of our conscientious subjection to rulers, rom. xiii. , .) but absolute sovereigns are such as cannot be god's ministers for the people's good; for if they be god's ministers for good, they must administer justice, preserve peace, rule by law, take directions from their master; and if so, they cannot be absolute. . a tyrant in the signal act and exercise cannot be owned; but an absolute prince is such; being a power that may play the tyrant if he pleases, and by law as king; and so if kings be by action tyrants, then people are by action slaves; and so royal power cannot be a blessing to them; yea, a lawless breaker of all bonds, promises, and oaths, cannot be owned as lawful power; but absolute power is such: for, it cannot be limited by these obligations, at least people cannot have any security by them. . a lawless power is not to be owned; an absolute power is a lawless power: ergo, not to be owned. the major is plain. cicero says, lib. . 'the reason of making laws was the same, as of the creation of kings.' and buchanan, de jure regni, very excellently, when 'the lust of kings was instead of laws, and being vested with an infinite and immoderate power, they did not contain themselves within bounds.----the insolency of kings made laws to be desired; for this cause laws were made by the people, and kings constrained to make use, not of their licentious wills in judgment, but of that right and privilege which the people had conferred upon them, being taught by many experiences, that it was better that their liberty should be concredited to laws, than to kings; better to have the law, which is a dumb king, than a king, who is not a speaking law.' if then laws be necessary for the making of kings, and more necessary than kings, and the same cause requires both, then a king without laws is not to be owned. a king must be a speaking and living law, reducing the law to practice. so much then as a king hath of law, so much he hath of a king; and he who hath nothing of the law, hath nothing of a king. magna charta of england saith, 'the king can do nothing but by law, and no obedience is due to him but by law.' buchanan rehearses the words of the most famous emperors, theodosius and valentinianus, to this effect, 'it is,' say they, 'a word worthy of the majesty of a king, to confess he is a tied prince to the laws; and indeed it is more to submit a principality to the laws, than to enjoy an empire.' but now that an absolute power must be a lawless power, is also evident; for that is a lawless power that makes all laws void, needless and useless; but such is absolute power: for it cannot be confined to the observance of laws. . that power which is destructive to the people's liberties cannot be owned; absolute power is such: for such a licentious freedom as is absolute cannot consist with the people's liberties; for these may infringe when he pleases. now these, in their own nature, and in all respects, being preferable to the king's prerogative, and it being no prerogative which is not consistent with, yea in its own nature adapted to, the precious interests of religion and liberty: when the king's absolute authority is stated in contradictory terms to these, we cannot own that authority; for now he hath another authority than could be given him for the preservation of these interests; in the preservation whereof he can only have an authority to be owned, seeing he claims a power to destroy them, if he please. . if we should own absolute authority, then we should own a royal prerogative in the king to make and dispense with laws: now that cannot be owned; for, it would infer that the king had a masterly dominion over his subjects, to make laws, and inflict penalties without their consent. and plain it is, they that make kings must have a co-ordinate power to make laws also; but the people, in their representatives, make kings, as is proven. next, a prerogative to dispense with laws, except such laws as are in their own nature dispensable, without prejudice to any law of god or liberties of men, cannot be owned: for any power to dispense with reason and law, not grounded on any other reason but mere will and absolute pleasure, is a brutish power. it cannot be a right annexed to the crown, to do so; for a king, as a king, can do nothing but what he may do by law. nay, this is not only a brutish power, but a blasphemous power, making him a kind of god on earth, illimited, that can do what he pleases: and to dispute it further, were to dispute whether god hath made all under him slaves by their own consent? or, whether he may encroach on the prerogative of god or not? by this prerogative, he arrogates a power to dispense with the laws of god also, in pardoning murderers, &c. which no man hath power to do; the law of god being so peremptorily indispensible. gen. ix. . "whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." numb. xxxv. , . "whoso killeth any person, the murderer shall be put to death----moreover, ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, but he shall be surely put to death." these pardons are acts of blood to the community. if the judgment be god's, as it is, deut. i. . and not for man, but for the lord, chron. xix. . then no king can arrogate a power to dispense with it, no more than an inferior judge can dispense with the king's laws; for the king is but a minister, bearing the sword, not in vain, but as a revenger, to execute wrath upon them that do evil, rom. xiii. . they are but bastard kings who give out sentences out of their own mouth, contrary to god's mind. and if he may do acts of grace by prerogative above law, then may he also do acts of justice (so pretended) by the same prerogative; and so may murder innocents, as well as pardon murderers; he may condemn the just, as well as justify the wicked; both which are alike abomination to the lord, prov. xvii. . this power cannot be owned in any man. . to own absolute power, were to recognosce the king as the proper and sole interpreter of the law. this buchanan shews to be very absurd, 'when you grant the interpretation of laws to a king, you give him such a license, that the law should not speak what the lawgiver meaneth, but what is for the interpreter's interest; so that he may turn it to all actions, as a lesbian rule, for his own advantage; and so what he pleases the law shall speak, and what he will not, it shall not speak.' now the king's absolute pleasure can no more be the sense of the law, than it can be the law itself: he is king by law, but he is not king of law; no mortal can make a sense to a law, contrary to the law; for it involves a contradiction: the true meaning is only the law. this also would take away the use of all laws; for they could not declare what were just and unjust, but as the king pleased: their genuine sense could not be the rule. . if we own the law to be above the king, then we cannot own the king to be absolute; but the former is true; for he must be under it several ways: ( .) under its directive power; that will not be denied. ( .) under its constitutive power; he is not a king by nature, but by constitution and law: therefore the law is above the king; because it is only from the law that there is a king, and that such a man and not another is king, and that the king must be so and so qualified, and they that made him a king, may also unmake him by the same law. ( .) under its limiting and restrictive power, as a man he cannot be absolute, nor as a king by law. ( .) under its co-active power. a lawmaker, said king james the vi. should not be a law-breaker: but if he turn an overturner of the fundamental laws, that law or covenant that made him king, doth oblige to unmake him. whatever power he hath, it is only borrowed fiduciary power, as the nation's public servant: and that which was lent him in pledge or pawn may be reclaimed, when abused by him. especially if he turn parricide, kill his brother, murder his nobles, burn cities, then he may and ought to be punished by law. otherwise god should have provided better for the safety of the part than of the whole, though that part be but a mean for the safety of the whole: for if he turn a tyrant in his absoluteness, the people must be destroyed, if they may not repress him: thus he is secured, and the whole exposed to ruin. yea, if he be a man, as well as a king, he must be under rule of law; and when he transgresses, either his transgressions are punishable by men, or they are not transgessions with men. see many arguments to this purpose in lex rex, quest. , , , , , , . but secondly, i prove it by scripture, . even as a king he is regulated by law, not to multiply horses, nor wives, nor money, but to keep the words of the law, and not lift up himself above his brethren, deut. xvii. , , , . he must observe to do according to the law, and not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, josh. i. . therefore he must not be absolute. . he is certainly under that law, matth. vii. . whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do you even so to them: which is the universal fundamental law. if then he would have us keeping in our line of subordination to him, he must keep his line, and so cannot be absolute. . what is god's due and peculiar prerogative, can be owned in no mortal; but absolute power is god's due and peculiar prerogative. he alone does whatsoever pleases him, psal. cxv. . he alone worketh all, things after the counsel of his own will, eph. i. . acts or commands founded upon the sole pleasure of the agent, are proper to god. it is god's will and not the creature's that can make things good or just. it is blasphemy therefore to ascribe absolute power to any creature. . that which the spirit of god condemned as a point of tyranny in nebuchadnezzar, that is no prerogative to be owned; but the spirit of god condemned this in him, proceeding from absolute power, that whom he would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive, whom he would he set up, and whom he would he put down. and his heart was lifted up, dan. v. , . . that which god condemns and threatens in tyrants in the word in general, cannot be owned; but absolute power god condemns and threatens in the word in general; that they "turned judgment into gall," and said, "have we not taken to us horns by our own strength?" amos vi. , . . the word of god speaks nothing of the king's absolute prerogative, to make laws as he will. it is plain the king of judah had it not: but the sanhedrim had a great part of the legislative power, and of the punitive power in a special manner: the princes and people had it by jeremiah's acknowledgement, jer. xxvi. . and zedekiah confesses to them, the king is not he that can do any thing against you, jer. xxxviii. . . we find the king in scripture had not an absolute power, to expone or execute the law as he would; saul made a law, sam. xiv. . cursed be the man that eats any food until the evening. but exponing it, and thinking to execute it after a tyrannical manner, he was justly resisted by the people, who would not let him kill innocent jonathan. . nor had he the sole power of interpreting it; for inferior judges were interpreters, who are no less essential judges than the king who are set to judge for the lord, and not for the king, chron xix. . and therefore they were to expone it according to their own conscience, and not the king's. they were to speak righteousness and judge uprightly, psal. lviii. . hence called gods as well as kings, psal. lxxxii. . there was no essential difference between a king of god's approving, and a judge; there being but one law to both, deut. xvii. . he was subject to judgment as well as others: for being but a brother, even while on the throne, who was not to lift up his heart above his brethren, deut. xvii. ult. when this cause was to be judged, his person, though never so great, was not to be respected: nor were they to be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment was god's, deut. i. . therefore the judges were to give out sentence in judgment, as if the lord were to give it out: there was no exception of kings there. yea we find, according to common law, they judged and punished offending kings, as shall be made appear: . if they were under church censures, then they were not absolute; but we find kings were under church censures; not only rebuked sharply to their face, of which we have many instances; but also subjected to church discipline, as uzziah shut up for his leprosy. and certainly at all times this must be extended to all: for the king is either a brother, or not: if not, then he should not be king, according to the scripture, deut. xvii. . then also he is not a christian, nor can he say the lord's prayer: if he be, then if a brother offend, he is subject to the church, matth. xviii. there is no exceptions of kings there. the objection from eccles. viii. , .--he doth whatsoever pleaseth him, where the word of a king is, there is power, and who may say unto him, what dost thou? is of no significancy here. for, . this argument will enforce absolute obedience, if the power be to be taken absolutely; for it is obedience that is there commanded: and so we must not only own the absolute authority, but obey it without reserve, which never any yet had the impudence to plead for, until james the unjust claimed it in a scots proclamation: but we answer, it is better to obey god than man. . if he may do whatsoever pleases him, then he may turn priest, then he may kill whom he pleases, and take possession; and yet for saul's usurpation samuel could say more than what dost thou? even to tell him, he had done foolishly, and his kingdom should not continue, sam. xiii. , . and for ahab's tyranny, elijah could tell him, the dogs shall lick thy blood, even thine, kings xxi. , and ezekiel, thou profane wicked prince of israel, ezek. xxi. . . the meaning is then only this; that a righteous king's just power may not only be controlled: he is armed with power that may not be resisted, for he beareth not the sword in vain, and therefore we must not stand in an evil matter against them. i conclude then this argument, with the word of an ingenious author, upon this same subject, both in thesi and hypothesi: 'whosoever shall offer to rule arbitrarily, does immediately cease to be king by right, seeing by the fundamental, common and statute laws of the realm, we know none for supreme magistrate and governor but a limited prince, and one who stands circumscribed and bounded in his power and prerogative. ill effects of animosities,' page . . from what is said, this is the result, that it is essentially necessary to a moral power and authority, to have a right and title, without which we can own none, but as a tyrant without a title. for what is authority, but a right to rule? if then it have not a right, it is not authority. this will be undeniable, if we consider, that as private dominion, or property, consists in a right to enjoy; so public dominion, in a right to rule. some things indeed are exposed to the common and arbitrary use of every man, and also at the beginning, by reason of the fewness of mankind, dominion was not reduced to distinct property; yet now, upon the multiplication of occupants, of necessity it must be stated by peculiar appropriation, from the law of nature, and by the grant of the supreme king, who hath given the earth to the children of men, psal. cxv. . not to be catched up as the food of beasts, which the stronger seize, and the weaker get only what the other leave them, but divided by right as an inheritance, by him who separated the sons of adam, and set the bounds of the people, deut. xxxii. . especially public dominion cannot be without a foundation, for its relation to the subjected, and must be so tied up, that it may be said, this man is to command, and these are to obey. i shew, that authority is from god, both by institution and constitution; so that the subjects are given to understand, such an one is singled out by god to sustain this authority, by prescribing a rule for men's entry into the authoritative relation, whereby he communicates that power to them which is not in others, and which otherwise would not be in them. hence it is, that orderly admittance that must give the right, and upon men's having or not having such an entrance to it, depends the reality or nullity of the power they challenge. where therefore there is no lawful investiture, there is no moral power to be owned; otherwise john of leyden's authority might have been owned: the unlawfulness of such a power consists in the very tenor itself; and if we take away the use or holding of it, we take away the very being of it: it is not then the abuse of a power lawfully to be used, but the very use of it is unlawful. but in the usurpation of this man, or monster rather, that is now mounted the throne, there is no lawful investiture in the way god hath appointed as is shewed above; therefore there is no moral power to be owned. to clear this a little further, it will be necessary to remove the ordinary pretences, pleaded for a title to warrant the owning of such as are in power, which are three chiefly, to wit, possession, conquest, and hereditary succession. the first must be touched more particularly, because it hath been the originate error, and spring of all the stupid mistakes about government, and is the pitiful plea of many, even mal contents, why this man's authority is to be owned, asserting, that a person attaining and occupying the place of power (by whatsoever means) is to be owned as the magistrate. but this can give no right: for, . if providence cannot signify god's approbative ordination, it can give no right; for without that there can be no right; but providence cannot signify his approbative ordination, because that, without the warrant of his word, cannot signify either allowance or disallowance, it is so various, being often the same to courses directly contrary, and oftentimes contrary to the same course; sometimes savouring it, sometimes crossing it, whether it be good or bad, and the same common providence may proceed from far different purposes, to one in mercy, to another in judgment; and most frequently very disproportionable to men's ways. providence places sometimes "wickedness in the place of judgment, and iniquity in the place of righteousness," eccl. iii. . that is, not by allowance. by providence it happens to the just according to the work of the wicked, and to the wicked according to the work of the righteous, eccl. viii. . no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them. all things come alike to all, there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked, eccl. ix. , . it were a great debasing of the lord's anointed, to give him no other warrant than sin hath in the world, or the falling of a sparrow. . either every providential possession, in every case, gives a title; or, god hath declared it as a law, that it shall be so in this particular matter of authority only. the first cannot be said: for that would justify all robbery: nor the second, for where is that law found? nay, it were impious to alledge it; for it would say, there is no unjust possessor or disorderly occupant, but if he were once in the possession, he were right enough, and then usurpation would be no sin. . if none of the causes of magistracy be required to the producing of this possessory power, then it cannot give or have any right; for without the true causes it cannot be the true effect, and so can have no true right to be owned: but none of the causes of magistracy are required to the production of this; neither the institution of god, for this might have been, if magistracy had never been instituted; nor the constitution of men, for this may usurp without that. . that which must follow upon the right, and be legitimated by it, cannot be owned as the right, nor can it give the title: but the possession of the power, or the exercise thereof, must follow upon its right, and be legitimated by it: therefore.----a man must first be in the relation of a ruler, before he can rule; and men must first be in the relation of subjects, before they obey. the commands of public justice, to whom are they given but to magistrates? they must then be magistrates, before they can be owned as the ministers of justice: he must be a magistrate, before he can have the power of the sword: he cannot, by the power of the sword, make himself magistrate. . that which would make every one in the possession of the magistracy a tyrant, cannot be owned: but a possessory occupation giving right, would make every one in possession a tyrant; for, that which enervates, and takes away that necessary distinction between the king's personal capacity and his legal capacity, his natural and his moral power, will make every king a tyrant (seeing it makes every thing that he can do as a man, to be legally done as a king) but a possessory occupation giving right, would enervate and take away that distinction: for how can these be distinguished in a mere possessory power? the man's possession is all his legal power; and if possession give a right, his power will give legality. . what sort or size of possession can be owned to give a right? either it must be partial or plenary possession: not partial, for then others may be equally entitled to the government, in competition with that partial possessor, having also a part of it: not plenary, for then every interruption or usurpation on a part, would make a dissolution of the government. . hence would follow infinite absurdities; this would give equal warrant, in case of vacancy, to all men to step to, and stickle for the throne, and expose the commonwealth as a booty to all aspiring spirits: for they needed no more to make them sovereigns, and lay a tie of subjection upon the consciences of people, but to get into possession: and in case of competition, it would leave people still in suspense and uncertainties whom to own; for they behoved to be subject only to the uppermost, which could not be known until the controversy be decided: it would cassate and make void all pre-obligations, cautions, and restrictions from god about the government: it would cancel and make vain all other titles of any, or constitutions, or provisions, or oaths of allegiance: yea, to what purpose were laws or pactions made about ordering the government, if possession gave right, and laid an obligation on all to own it? yea, then it were sinful to make any such provisions, to fence in and limit the determination of providence, if providential possession may authorize every intrusive acquisition to be owned: then also in case of competition of two equal pretenders to the government, there would be no place left for arbitrations. if this were true, that he has the power that is in possession, the difference were at an end; no man could plead for his own right then; in this also it is inconsistent with itself, condemning all resistance against the present occupant, yet justifying every resistance that is but successful to give possession. . that which would oblige us to own the devil and the pope, cannot be a ground to own any man; but if this were true, that possession gave right, it would oblige us to own the devil and the pope. satan we find claiming to himself the possession of the world's kingdoms, luke iv. . which as to many of them is in some respect true, for he is called the god of this world, and the prince of this world, john xiv. . cor. iv. . are men therefore obliged to own his authority? or shall they deny his, and acknowledge his lieutenant, who bears his name, and by whom all his orders are execute, i mean the man that tyrannizes over the people of god? for he is the devil that casts some into prison, rev. ii. . again, the pope, his captain-general, lays claim to a temporal power and ecclesiastic both, over all the nations, and possesses it over many; and again, under the conduct of his vassal the duke of york, is attempting to recover the possession of britain: shall he therefore be owned. this cursed principle disposes men for popery, and contributes to strengthen popery and tyranny both on the stage, to the vacating of all the promises of their dispossession. . that which would justify a damnable sin, and make it a ground of a duty, cannot be owned; but this fancy of owning a very power in possession would justify a damnable sin and make it the ground of a duty; for, resistance to the powers ordained of god is a damnable sin, rom. xiii. . but the resisters having success in providence, may come to the possession of the power, by expelling the just occupant; and, by this opinion, that possession would be ground for the duty of subjection for conscience sake. . if a self-created dignity be null and not to be owned, than a mere possessory is not to be owned; but the former is true: as christ saith, john viii. . if i honour myself my honour is nothing. . that which god hath disallowed possession without right, ezek. xxi. . i will overturn, overturn, overturn it, until he come whose right it is, hos. viii. . they have set up kings and not by me, matth. xxvi. . all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword; by this the usurper of the sword is differenced from the true owner. . many scripture examples confute this; shewing that the possession may be in one, and the power with right in another. david was the magistrate, and yet absalom possessed the place, sam. xv. xvi. xvii. xviii. xix. chap. sheba also made a revolt and usurped the possession in a great part, and yet david was king, sam. xx. . adonijah got the start in respect of possession, exalting himself saying, i will be king: yet the kingdom was solomon's from the lord, kings . the house of ahaziah had not power to keep still the kingdom, chron. xxii. . and athaliah took the possession of it, yet the people set up joash, xxiii. . next we have many examples of such who have invaded the possessor, witness jehoram and jehoshaphat's expedition against mesha, king of moab, elisha being in the expedition, kings, iii. , . hence we see the first pretence removed. the second is no better; which augustine calls magnum latrocinium, a great robbery; i mean conquest, or a power of the sword gotten by the sword; which, that it can give no right to be owned, i prove that which can give no signification of god's approving will, cannot give a title to be owned: but mere conquest can give no signification of god's approving will, as is just now proven about possession: for then the lord should have approven all the unjust conquests that have been in the world. . either conquest as conquest must be owned, as a just title to the crown, and so the ammonites, moabites, philistines, &c. prevailing over god's people for a time, must have reigned by right, or as a just conquest. in this case, conquest is only a mean to the conquerors seizing and holding that power, which the state of the war entitled him unto; and this ingress into authority over the conquered, is not grounded on conquest but on justice, and not at all privative, but inclusive of the consent of the people; and then it may be owned; but without a compact, upon conditions of securing religion and liberty, and posterity, cannot be subjected without their content; for whatever just quarrel the conqueror had with the present generation, he could have none with the posterity, the father can have no power to resign the liberty of the children. . a king as king, and by virtue of his royal office, must be owned to be a father, tutor, protector, shepherd, and patron of the people; but a mere conqueror, without consent cannot be owned as such. can he be a father and a patron to us against our will, by the sole power of the sword? a father to these that are unwilling to be sons? an head over such as will not be members? and a defender thro' violence? . a king, as such, is a special gift of god, and blessing, not a judgment: but a conqueror, as such, is not a blessing, but a judgment, his native end being not peace, but fire and sword. . that which hath nothing of a king in it, cannot be owned to make a king; but conquest hath nothing of a king in it: for it hath nothing but violence and force, nothing but what the bloodiest villain that was never a king may have, nothing of god's approving and regulating will, nothing of institution or constition; and a plain repugnancy to the ordination of god, for god hath said, thou shalt not kill; conquest says, i will kill, and prosper, and reign. . a lawful call to a lawful office may not be resisted; but a call to conquest, which is nothing but ambition or revenge, ought to be resisted; because not of god's preceptive will, otherwise he should be the author of sin. . that power which we must own to be the ordinance of god, must not be resisted, rom. xiii. . but conquest may be resisted in defence of our king and country: therefore it must not be owned to be the ordinance of god. . that which god condemns in his word, cannot be owned; but dominion by the sword god condemns in his word, ezek. xxxii. . "ye stand upon the sword,----and shall possess the land," amos vi. . "ye rejoice in a thing of naught, which say, have we not taken to us horns by our own strength?" habbak. ii. , .----"wo to him that encreaseth that which is not his, how long," &c. . we have many examples of invading conquerors; as abraham, for the rescue of lot, pursued the conquering kings unto dan, gen. iv. . "jonathan smote a garrison of the conquering philistines," sam. xiii. . the lord owning and authorising them so to do. the people did often shake off the yoke of their conquerors in the history of the judges: but this they might not do to their lawful rulers. what is objected from the lord's people conquering canaan, &c. is no argument for conquest: for he, to whom belongs the earth and its fulness, disponed to israel the land of canaan for their inheritance, and ordained that they should get the possession thereof by conquest; it followeth not therefore, that kings now, wanting any word of promise, or divine grant to any lands, may ascend to the thrones of other kingdoms than their own, by no better title than the bloody sword. see lex rex, quest. . the third pretence of hereditary succession remains to be removed; which may be thus disproven, . this classes with the former, though commonly asserted by royalists. for either conquest gives a right, or it does not; if it does, then it looses all allegiance to the heirs of the crown dispossessed thereby: if it does not give a right, then no hereditary succession founded upon conquest can have any right, being founded upon that which hath no right: and this will shake the most part of hereditary successions that are now in the world. . if hereditary succession have no right but the people's consent; then of itself it can give none to a man that hath not that consent; but the former is true. for, it is demanded, how doth the son or brother succeed? by what right? it must either be by divine promise; or by the father's will, or it must come by propagation from the first ruler, by a right of the primogeniture; but none of these can be. for the first, we have no immediate divine constitution tying the crown to such a race, as in david's covenant: it will easily be granted, they fetched not their charter from heaven immediately, as david had it, a man of many peculiar prerogatives, to whose line the promise was astricted of the coming of the messias, and jacob's prophecy that the sceptre should not depart from judah until his coming, gen. xlix. . was restricted to his family afterwards: wherefore he could say, the lord god of israel chose me before all the house of my father, to be king over israel for ever; for he hath chosen judah to be the ruler; and of the house of judah, the house of my father; and among the sons of my father, he liked me to make me king over israel; and of all my sons he hath chosen solomon, chron. xxviii. , . all kings cannot say this; neither could saul say it, tho' immediately called of god as well as david: yet this same promise to david was conditional, if his children should keep the lord's ways, chron. vi. . next, it cannot be said this comes from the will of the father; for according to the scripture, no king can make a king, though a king may appoint and design his son for his successor, as david did solomon, but the people make him. the father is some way a cause why his son succeedeth, but he is not the cause of the royalty conferred upon him by line: for the question will recur, who made him a king, and his father, and grandfather, till we come up to the first father? then, who made him a king? not himself; therefore it must be resounded upon the people's choice and constitution: and who appointed the lineal succession, and tied the crown to the line, but they? it is then, at the best, the patrimony of the people, by the fundamental law of the kingdom, conferred upon the successor by consent. and generally it is granted, even where the succession is lineal, he that comes to inherit, he does not succeed by heritage, but by the force of law; the son then hath not his kingdom from his father, but by law, which the people made and stand to, as long as it may consist with the reasons of public advantage, upon which they condescended to establish such a family over them. neither can it be said, it is by a right of primogeniture, propagated from the first ruler; for this must either be adam the first of the world or fergus for example, the first of this kingdom. it could not come from adam as a monarch and father of all: for that behoved to be, either by order of nature, or his voluntary assignment: it could not be transferred by order of nature; for besides the difficulty to find out adam's successor in the universal monarchy, and the absurdity of fixing it on cain, (who was a cursed vagabond, afraid of every man and could not be an universal monarch, yet adam's first born.) it will be asked, how this passed from him unto others? whether it went by fatherhood to all the sons, fathers to their posterity? which would multiply as many commonwealths, as there have been fathers since: or if it went, by primogeniture, only to the first-born, that he alone could claim the power which would infer the necessity of an universal monarchy, without multiplication of commonwealths. if it was by his voluntary assignment, to whom, and in what proportion, he pleased; then the universal monarchy died with himself, and so could not be conveyed at all: for, either he behoved to give each son a share, to be conveyed downwards to their children in that proportion; or whole and solid to one: so also the former dilemma recurs, for if the first be said, it will make as many little kingdoms as there have been sons of adam; if the second, the world should be but still one kingdom. but however it be, this could never be the way that god appointed, either for raising a magistratical power where it is wanting, or deriving a right to any in being; considering the multiplication, division, confusion, and extinction of families that have been. if it be from fergus the first of his line; then either it comes from him as a king, or as a father: not the first, for the reason above hinted: nor as a father; for a father may defraud his son of the heritage, a king cannot divide the kingdom among his sons; it must then be length refounded on the peoples consent. . if even where lineal succession is constituted by law, for eviting the inconveniencies of frequent elections, people are not tied to admit every first born of that line; then that birth-right, where there is no more, cannot make a king; but the former is true; for they are tied only conditionally, so he be qualified, and have a head to sit at the helm, and not a fool or monster; neither are they free to admit murderers or idolaters by the laws of god, and of the land: it is not birth then, but their admission being so qualified, that makes kings. hence, . that which takes away the peoples birth-right, given them of god to provide for their liberties in the fittest government, and that is not to be owned; but to make birth alone a title to the crown, takes away the peoples birth-right given them of god of providing for their liberties in the fittest government, fetters their choice to one destructive to these. certainly where god hath not bound the conscience, men may not bind themselves nor their posterity; but god hath never fettered men to a choice of a government or governing line; which, contrary to the intention of the oath, may prove destructive to the ends thereof. nor can the fathers leave in legacy, by oath, any chains to fetter the after wits of posterity to a choice destructive to religion and liberty. israel was bound, by covenant, not to destroy the gibeonites; but if they had risen to cut off israel, who can doubt but they were loosed from that obligation? for to preserve cut-throats was contrary to the intention of the oath: so when either monarchy, or the succeeding monarch, proves destructive to the ends of government, the choice, law, or oath of our fathers, cannot bind us. . if we are tied to the hereditary succession, not for the right the successor hath by birth, but for our covenanted allegiance to them whose successor he is; then cannot his birth-right be the ground of our allegiance, and consequently hereditary succession cannot make a king; but the former is true; for in hereditary crowns, the first family being chosen by the suffrages of the people, for that cause the hereditary successor hath no privilege or prerogative, but from him who was chosen king: therefore the obligation to the son, being no greater than the obligation to the father, which is the ground of that, if the father then was owned only because he was chosen, and qualified for government, the son cannot be owned for any other cause, but as chosen in him, and also qualified and admitted with consent. we cannot choose the father as qualified, and tie ourselves to the successors, be what they will. . if a king be not born heir of a kingdom, then is he not king by birth; but he is not born heir of a kingdom; for, a mean cannot be born to inherit the end, the king is but a mean for the kingdom's preservation. if the kingdom be his, by birth, as an inheritance, why may he not upon necessary occasions sell his inheritance? but if he sell it, then all confess he is no more king. . if that which makes a king cannot be transmitted from father to son; then succession, by birth, cannot make a king; but the former is true. the royal faculty of governing cannot be transmitted: solomon asked it from god, he had it not from his father: nor can he be born to the honour of a king, because not born with either the gift or honour to be a judge. god maketh high and low, not birth. nor can the call and constitution of a king, according to the will of god, be transferred from father to son, for that cannot be in god's way without the intervening consent of the people, that cannot make him a born king. . if no dominion can come by nature, as is proven before, then can no man be a born king: nature and birth cannot give them a sceptre in their hand, nor kingly majesty, they must have that alone from god and the people, and may only expect honour from their own good government: kings (as plutarch says) must be like dogs that are best hunters, not these who are born of best dogs. . the peculiar prerogative of jesus christ must not be ascribed to any other; but this is his peculiar prerogative, to be born a king, of whom it might be truly said, where is he that is born king of the jews? and for this end was he born, who came out of the womb with a crown on his head, which no creature can bear. . in scripture we find that a king was to be so and so qualified, not a stranger, but a reader of god's word, &c. deut. xvii. , &c. he was not qualified by naked birth. hence, if all the qualifications requisite in an heir cannot make a king qualified according to the institution of god, then his being heir cannot make him king: but the first is true, an heir may be an heir without these qualifications. . we find in the scripture, the people were to make the kings by that law, deut. xvii. . thou shalt choose him whom the lord chooseth: yea, neither saul nor david were kings, till the people met to make them: therefore birth never made them kings, even though the kingdom was tied to david's line. that was only a typical designment by special promise, because christ was to come of that line; it was therefore established in david's family for typical reasons, that cannot be now alledged. . we find in the disposal of government among brethren, this birth order was not seldom inverted; as when jacob was preferred before esau, judah before all the elder sons of jacob, ephraim before manasseh, solomon before adonijah. hence if this gentleman, now regnant, have no better pretences than these now confuted, we cannot recognize his right to reign; yea, though this last were valid, yet he cannot plead it, it being expresly provided in our laws against the succession of a papist. but there is one grand objection against all this. the jews and other nations are commanded to bring their necks under the yoke of the king of babylon, and to serve him, and yet he had no other right to these kingdoms; than the lord's providential disposal, because the lord had "given all these lands into his hand," jer. xxvii. , , . ans. . he was indeed an unjust usurper, and had no right but the lord's providential gift; which sometimes makes "the tabernacles of robbers prosper, into whose hand god bringeth abundantly, job xii. . and gives jacob sometimes for a spoil, and israel to the robbers, isa. xlii. . and giveth power to the beast to continue forty and two months, and to have power over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations," rev. xiii. , . his tyranny also was very great extensively, in respect of his oppressions and usurpations by conquest; but it was not so great intensively, as our robbers and spoilers may be charged with; he was never such a perverter of all the ends of government, nor a treacherous overturner of all conditions, he was never a persecutor of the jewish religion, he never oppressed them upon that account, nor endeavoured its extirpation, he never enacted such mischiefs by law. the lord only made use of him to bring about the holy ends of the glory of his justice and wisdom, in which respect alone he is called his servant, as elsewhere his rod and hammer, having given him a charge against an hypocritical nation, to trample them down in his holy providence; and accordingly there was no resistance could prevail, they must be trampled upon, no help for it; but no subjection was required, acknowledging his magistratical right by divine ordinance, but only a submissive stooping to the holy disposal of divine providence; no owning was exacted either of the equity of that power, or of fealty to the administrator. . this behoved to be a particular command, by positive revelation given at that time, not binding to others in the like condition; which i refer to the judgment of the objectors: put the case, and make it run parallel, if the king of england were in league with the king of france, and breaking that league, should provoke that aspiring prince, growing potent by many conquests to discover his designs, make preparations and give out threatnings for the conquest of england and all britain; were the people of england bound to surrender themselves as servants and tributaries to him for years, or for ever, under pain of destruction, if they should not? this were one of the most ridiculous inferences that ever was pleaded; nay, it would make all refusal of subjection to invaders unlawful. . i will draw an argument from this to confirm my plea: for these commands of subjection to babylon, were not delivered, until after the king of judah had surrendered to nebuchadnezzar, and entred into covenant with him to be subject to him, kings xxiv. chap. in keeping which covenant the kingdom might have stood, and after he had rebelled against him, and broken that covenant, "when lo, he had given his hand," after which he could "not prosper, or escape, or be delivered," ezek. xviii. , , , chron. xxxvi. . then the commandment came, that they should disown their own king zedekiah, now forfeiting his right by breach of covenant, and be subject to nebuchadnezzar, whence i argue, if people are commanded to disown their covenant-breaking rulers, and subject themselves to conquerors, then i have all i plead for; but the former is true, by the truth of this objection: therefore also the latter. there is a d objection from rom xiii. . "let every soul be subject to the higher powers, the powers that be are ordained of god;" yet the roman emperor, to which they were to be subject, was an usurper. ans. it cannot be proven, that the apostle intendeth here the roman emperor as the higher power: there were at this time several competitions for the empire, about which christians might have their own scruples whom to own; the apostle does not determine their litigations, nor interest himself in parties but gives the general standard of god's ordinance they had to go by. and the best expositors of the place do alledge, the question and doubt of christians then was not so much in whom the supremacy was, as whether christians were at all bound to obey civil power, especially pagan? which the apostle resolves, in giving general directions, to obey the ordinance of magistracy, conform to its original, and as it respects the end for which he had and would set it up: but no respect is there had to tyrants. . it cannot be proven, that the supreme power then in being was usurped, there being then a supreme senate, which was a lawful power; nor that nero was then an usurper, who came in by choice and consent, and with the good liking of the people. . the text means of lawful powers, not unlawful force, that are ordained of god by his preceptive will, not merely by his providential disposal, and of conscientious subjection to magistracy, not to tyranny, describing and characterizing the powers there, by such qualifications as tyrants and usurpers are not capable of. but i mind to improve this text more fully hereafter, to prove the quite contrary to what is here objected. . from the right of magistracy, flows the magistratical relation, which is necessary to have a bottom, before we can build the relative duties thereon. this brings it under the fifth commandment, which is the rule of all relative duties between inferiors and superiors, requiring honour to be given to fathers, masters, husbands, &c. and to rightful magistrates, who are under such political relations, as do infer the same duties; and prohibiting not only the omission of these duties, but also the committing of contrary sins; which may be done, not only by contrary acts, as dishonouring and rebelling against fathers, magistrates, &c. but also by performing them to contrary objects, as by giving the father's due to the father's opposite, and the magistrates due to tyrants who are their opposites. certainly this command, prescribing honour, does regulate to whom it should be given; and must be understood in a consistency with that duty and character of one that hath a mind to be an inhabitant of the lord's "holy hill," psal. xv. . "in whose eyes a vile person is contemned, but he honoureth them that fear the lord." so that we sin against the fifth command, when we honour them that we are obliged to contemn by another command. hence i argue, if owning or honouring of tyrants be a breach of the fifth command, then we cannot own their authority: but the former is true: therefore the latter. i prove the assumption: a honouring the vile, to whom no honour is due, and who stand under no relation of fathers as fathers, is a breach of the fifth command; but the owning of tyrants authority is a honouring the vile, to whom no honour is due, and who stand under no relation of fathers, and is yet a honouring them as fathers: therefore the owning of tyrants authority is a breach of the fifth command. the major is clear: for if the honouring of these to whom no honour is due, were not a breach of the fifth command, that precept could neither be kept at all or broken at all. it could not be kept at all; for, either it must oblige us to honour all indefinitely, as fathers, and other relations, which cannot be; or else it must leave us still in suspense and ignorance, who shall be the object of our honour; and then it can never be kept: or finally, it must astrict our honouring to such definite relations, to whom it is due; and then our transgression of that restriction shall be a breach of it. next, if it were not so, it could not be broken at all: for if prostituting and abusing honour be not a sin, we cannot sin in the matter of honour at all; for if the abuse of honour be not a sin, then dishonour also is not a sin: for that is but an abuse of the duty, which is a sin as well as the omission of it. and what should make the taking away of honour from the proper object to be sin, and the giving it to a wrong object to be no sin? moreover, if this command do not restrict honour to the proper object, we shall never know who is the object. how shall we know who is our father, or what we owe to him, if we may give another his due? the minor also is manifest: for if tyrants be vile, then no honour is due to them, according to that, psal. xv. . and yet it is a honouring them as fathers; if they be owned as magistrates; for magistrates are in a politic sense fathers; but certain it is, that tyrants are vile, as the epithets and characters they get in scripture prove. but because, in contradiction to this, it may be said, though fathers be never so wicked, yet they are to be honoured, because they are still fathers; and though matters be never so vile and froward, yet they are to be subjected unto, pet. ii. - . and so of other relations, to whom honour is due by this command; therefore though tyrants be never so vile, they are to be owned under these relations, because they are the higher powers in place of eminency, to whom the apostle paul commands to yield subjection, rom. xiii. and peter to give submission and honour, pet. ii. , . therefore it must be considered, that as the relative duty of honouring the relations to whom it is due, must not interfere with the moral duty of contemning the vile, who are not under these relations; so this general moral of contemning the vile, must not cassate the obligation of relative duties, but must be understood with a consistency therewith, without any prejudice to the duty itself. we must contemn all the vile, that are not under a relation to be honoured, and these also that are in that relation, in so far as they are vile. but now tyrants do not come under these relations at all, that are to be honoured by this command. as for the higher powers that paul speaks of, rom. xiii. they are not those which are higher in force, but higher in power, not in authority, but in power, not in a celsitude of prevalency, but in a pre-excellency of dignity; not in the pomp and pride of their posterity, and possession of the place, but by the virtue and value of their office, being ordained of god not to be resisted, the ministers of god for good, terrors to evil doers, to whom honour is due; those are not tyrants but magistrates. hence it is a word of the same root which is rendered authority, or an authorized power, tim. ii. . and from the same word also comes that supreme, to whom peter commands subjection and honour, pet. ii. . now these he speaks of have the legal constitution of the people, being the ordinance of man, to be subjected to for the lord's sake, and who sends other inferior magistrates for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well, who are to be honoured as kings or lawful magistrates; this cannot be said of tyrants. but more particularly, to evince that tyrants and usurpers are not to be honoured according to this command, and that it is a breach of it so to do; let us go through all these relations of superiority, that come under the obligation of this command, and we shall find tyrants and usurpers excluded out of all. first, they cannot come under the parental relation: we are indeed to esteem kings as fathers, though not properly, but by way of some analogy, because it is their office to care for the people, and to be their counsellors, and to defend them, as fathers do for children: but roaring lions and ranging bears, as wicked rulers are, prov. xxviii. . cannot be fathers. but kings cannot properly be owned under this relation, far less tyrants (with whom the analogy of fathers cannot consist) there being so many notable disparities betwixt kings and fathers. . a father may be a father to one child; but a king cannot be a king or politic father to one only, but his correlate must be a community; a tyrant can be a father to none at all in a politic sense. . a father is a father by generation to all coming out of his loins; a king not so, he doth not beget them, nor doth their relation flow from that; a tyrant is a destroyer, not a pro-creator of people. . a father is the cause of the natural being of his children, a king only of the politic well being of his subjects; but tyrants are the cause of the ill being of both. . a father, once a father, as long as his children live, retains still the relation, though he turn mad and never so wicked; a king turning mad may be served as nebuchadnezzar was, at least all will grant in some cases the subjects may shake off the king; and if in any case, it is when he turns tyrant. . a father's relation never ceases, whithersoever his children go; but subjects may change their relation to a king, by coming under another king in another kingdom; a tyrant will force all lovers of freedom to leave the kingdom where he domineers. . a father's relation never changes, he can neither change his children, nor they change their father; but a king may naturalize new subjects, and subjects may also change their sovereign. royalists will grant a state or commonwealth may make a king, and there is great reason sometimes that a monarchy be turned into a commonwealth; but a tyrant changes those that are under him, expels the natives, brings in foreigners, and all good patriots do pant for a change of him every day. . a father hath no power of life and death over his children; a king hath it over his subjects according to law; a tyrant usurps it over the innocent against law. . a father is not a father by consent of his children; as a king is by consent of his subjects; a tyrant is neither a father with it nor without it. . a father is not made by the children, as a king is by his subjects, as was shewed: a tyrant is neither a natural, nor by compact, but a self created power. . a father is not chosen conditionally upon compact, as a king is by the free suffrages of the community; a tyrant in this differs from a king that he is not chosen, and in tyranny from a father. . children wanting a father cannot choose whom they will to be their father; as subjects wanting a king may choose whom they will, and what form they please; but though they can, yet if they be rational, they will never choose a tyrant, nor a tyrannical form of government. . children cannot restrict their father's power to what degrees they please; as subjects may limit their kings, at their first erection; but a tyrant, though he ought, yet he will not be limited, and if he might, he should be restrained. . children cannot set bounds how long they will have their fathers to continue; subjects may condescend upon the time, in making laws how long such an one shall be their sovereign, during life, or while faultless, according as the fundamental law is made at first; tyrants ought every day to be repressed that they should not continue at all. yet giving and not granting, that a king were to be owned under the relation of a father; though every man be bound to own and maintain his father's parental authority, yet let the case be put, that the father turns a robber, murderer, an avowed enemy to god and the country, is his person and authority in that case to be owned, to the dishonour of god, and hurt and hazard of the country? or ought he not rather to be delivered up even by the son to justice? much more then will it follow, that a king who turns the more dangerous, because the more powerful robber, and legal murderer, and enemy to god and the country, cannot be owned seeing the relation between father and son is stronger and stricter as having another original, than can be betwixt king and subjects, and stands unremoved as long as he is father, though turning such, they ought to contribute, (in moral duty, to which their relative duty must cede) that he should no more be a father, nor no more a living man, when dead by law. secondly, they cannot come under the herile or masterly relation, though analogically also sometimes they are stiled so, and subjects are called servants, by reason of their subjection, and because it is the office of kings to command, and subjects to obey, in this there is some analogy. but kings cannot properly be owned under this relation, as masters over either persons or goods of subjects, far less tyrants, yea kings assuming a masterly power turn tyrants. now that the magistratical relation is not that of a master, is clear from many disparities and absurdities, whether we consider the state of hired servants or slaves. for hired servants, the difference is vast betwixt them and subjects. . the hired servant gets reward for his service, by compact; the subjects none, but rather gives the royal reward of tribute to the king for his service; the tyrant exacts it to maintain his tyranny. . the hired servant is maintained by his master; the subjects maintain the king; the tyrant robs it from them by force. . the hired servant bargains only for a time, and then may leave him; the subject cannot give up his covenanted allegiance, at that rate and for these reasons as the servant may his service; a tyrant will make nor keep no such bargain. . the hired servant must have his master's profit mainly before his eyes, and his own secondarily; but the magistrates power is primarily ordinated to the public good of the community and only consequentially to the good of himself. . the master hath a greater power over the hired servant, to make and give out laws to him, which if they be lawful he must obey; than the king hath over the nation, to which he is the sole lawgiver, as is shewed. . the hired servant's subjection is mercenary and servile; but the subject's subjection is civil, free, voluntary, liberal, and loving to a lawful king. again for slaves, the difference between them and subjects is great. . slavery, being against nature, rational people would never choose that life, if they could help it; but they gladly choose government and governors. . slavery would make their condition worse than when they had no government, for liberty is always preferable; neither could people have acted rationally in setting up government, if to be free of oppression of others they had given themselves up to slavery, under a master who may do what he pleases with them. . all slaves are either taken in war, or bought with money, or born in the house where their parents were slaves, as abraham and solomon had of that sort; but subjects are neither captives, nor bought, nor born slaves.-- . slavery is not natural, but a penal fruit of sin, and would never have been if sin had not been; but government is not so, but natural and necessary. . slaves are not their master's brethren, subjects are the king's brethren, "over whom he must not lift up himself," deut. xvii. . . masters might purchase and sell their slaves, abimelech took sheep and men servants and gave them unto abraham, gen. xx. . jacob had maid-servants, and men-servants, and asses, gen. xxx. . no otherwise than other goods, solomon got to himself servants and maidens, and servants born in his house, eccles. ii. . a king cannot do so with his subjects. . princes have not this power to make the people slaves, neither from god, nor from the people: from god they have none, but to feed and to lead them, sam. v. . to rule them so as to feed them, chron. xi. . psal. lxxviii, , . from the people they have no power to make slaves, they can give none such. . slavery is a curse: it was canaan's curse to be a servant of servants, gen. ix. . but to have magistrates is a promised blessing, jer. xvii. . . to be free of slavery is a blessing, as the redemption from egypt's bondage is every where called, and the year of redemption was a jubilee of joy, so the freedom of release every seven years a great privilege, jer. xxxiv. . but to be free of government is a judgment, isa. iii. , . 'tis threatened, "israel shall abide without a king and without a prince;" hos. iii. . in the next place, they cannot be owned as masters or proprietors over the goods of the subjects; though in the case of necessity, the king may make use of all goods in common, for the good of the kingdom; for, . the introduction of kings cannot overturn nature's foundation; by the law of nature property was given to man, kings cannot rescind that. . a man had goods ere ever there was a king; a king was made only to preserve property, therefore he cannot take it away. . it cannot be supposed that rational people would choose a king at all, if he had power to turn a great robber to preserve them from lesser robberies and oppressions; would rational men give up themselves for a prey to one, that they might be safe from becoming a prey to others? . then their case should be worse, by erecting of government, if the prince were proprietor of their goods, for they had the property themselves before. . then government should not be a blessing, but a curse, and the magistrate could not be a minister for good. . kingdoms then should be among the goods of fortune, which the king might sell and dispone as he pleased. . his place then should not be a function, but a possession. . people could not then, by their removes, or otherwise, change their sovereigns. . then no man might dispose of his own goods without the king's consent, by buying or selling, or giving alms; nay, nor pay tribute, for they cannot do these things except they have of their own. . this is the very character of a tyrant, as described, sam. viii. . "he will take your sons," zeph. iii. . "her princes are roaring lions, her judges are evening wolves." . all the threatnings and rebukes of oppression condemn this, isa. iii. , , ezek. xlv. . mic. iii. , . ahab condemned for taking naboth's vineyard. . pharaoh had not all the land of egypt, till he bought it, gen. xlii. . so the land became pharaoh's not otherwise. yet giving, and not granting that he were really a master in all these respects; notwithstanding if he turn to pursue me for my life, because of my fidelity to my master and his both, and will withdraw me from the service of the supreme universal master, i may lawfully withdraw myself from his, and disown him for one, when i cannot serve two masters. sure he cannot be master of the conscience. thirdly, they cannot come under the conjugal relation, though there may be some proportion between that and subjection to a lawful ruler, because of the mutual covenant transacted betwixt them; but the tyrant and usurper cannot pretend to this, who refuse all covenants. yet hence it cannot be inferred, that because the wife may not put away her husband, or renounce him, as he may do her in the case of adultery; therefore the people cannot disown the king in the case of the violation of the royal covenant. for the king's power is not at all properly a husband's power, . the wife, by nature, is the weaker vessel, but the kingdom is not weaker than the king. . the wife is given as an help to the man; but here the man is given as an help to the common-wealth. . the wife cannot limit the husband's power; as subjects may limit their sovereigns. . the wife cannot prescribe the time of her continuing under him; as subjects may do with their sovereigns. . the wife cannot change her husband; as a kingdom can do their government. . the husband hath not power of life and death; but the sovereign hath it over malefactors. yet giving, and not granting, his power were properly marital: if the case be put, that the man do habitually break the marriage-covenant, or take another wife, and turn also cruel and intolerable in compelling his own wife to wickedness; and put the case also, that she should not get a legal divorce procured, who can doubt but she can disown him, and leave him? for this case is excepted out of that command, cor. vii. . let not the wife depart from her husband, meaning for mere difference in religion, or other lesser causes; but adultery doth annul the marriage relation. see pool's synopsis critic, in locum. so when a prince breaks the royal covenant and turns tyrant, or without any covenant commits a rape upon the common-wealth, that pretended relation may and must be disowned. hence, we see, there is no relation can bring a king or ruler under the object of the duty of the fifth command, except it be that of a fiduciary patron, or trustee, and public servant: for we cannot own him properly either to be a father, or a master, or a husband. therefore what can remain, but that he must be a fiduciary servant? wherefore if he shall either treacherously break his trust, or presumptuously refuse to be entrusted, upon terms and conditions to secure and be accountable for, (before god and man) religion and liberty, we cannot own his usurped authority. that metaphor which the learned buchanan uses, de jure regni, of a public and politic physician, is not a relation different from this of a fiduciary servant; when he elegantly represents him as entrusted with the preservation and restoration of the health of the politic body, and endowed with skill and experience of the laws of his craft. if then he be orderly called unto this charge, and qualified for it, and discharges his duty faithfully, he deserves, and we are obliged to give him the deference of an honoured physician; but if he abuse his calling, and not observe the rules thereof, and instead of curing, go about wilfully to kill the body he is entrusted with, he is no more to be owned for a physician: but for a murderer. . if we enquire further into the nature of this relation between a king, (whose authority is to be owned) and his subjects; we can own it only as it is reciprocal in respect of superiority and inferiority; that is, whereby in some respects the king is superior to the people, and in some respects the people is inferior to him. the king is superior and supreme as he is called, pet. ii. . in respect of formal sovereignty, and executive authority, and majestic royal dignity, resulting from the peoples devolving upon him that power, and constituting him in that relation over themselves, whereby he is higher in place and power than they, and in respect of his charge and conduct is worth ten thousands of the people, sam. xviii. . and there is no formally regal tribunal higher than his; and though he be lesser than the whole community, yet he is greater than any one, or all the people distributively taken; and though he be a royal vassal of the kingdom, and princely servant of the people; yet he is not their deputy, because he is really their sovereign, to whom they have made over their power of governing and protecting themselves irrevocably, except in the case of tyranny; and in acts of justice, he is not accountable to any, and does not depend on the people as a deputy. but, on the other hand, the people is superior to the king, in respect of their fountain power of sovereignty, that remains radically and virtually in them, in that they make him their royal servant, and him rather than another, and limit him to the laws for their own good and advantage, and though they give to him a politic power for their own safety; yet they keep a natural power which they cannot retract, the power of justice to govern righteously, yet it is not so irrevocably given away to him, but that when he abuseth his power to the destruction of his subjects, they may wrest a sword out of a mad man's hand, though it be his own sword, and he hath a just power to use it for good, but all fiduciary power abused may be repealed. they have not indeed sovereignty, or power of life and death formally; yet, in respect, they may constitute a magistrate with laws, which if they violate they must be in hazard of their lives, they have this power eminently and virtually. hence, in respect, that the king's power is, and can be only fiducial, by way of trust reposed upon him, he is not so superior to the people, but he may and ought to be accountable to them in case of tyranny; which is evident from what is said, and now i intend to make it further appear. but, first, i form the argument thus; we can own no king that is not accountable to the people: ergo, we cannot own this king. to clear the connexion of the antecedent and consequent, i add; either he is accountable to the people, or he is not: if he be accountable to all, then he is renouncible by a part, when the community is defective as to their part, it is the interest of a part, that would, but cannot, do their duty, to give no account to such as they can get no account from for his maleversations. this is all we crave: if he be not accountable, then we cannot own him, because all kings are accountable: for these reasons, . the inferior is accountable to the superior; the king is inferior, the people superior: ergo, the king is accountable to the people. the proposition is plain; if the king's superiority make the people accountable to him in case of transgressing the laws; then, why should not the peoples superiority make the king accountable to them, in case of transgressing the laws? especially, seeing the king is inferior to the laws: because the law restrains him, and from the law he hath that whereby he is king; the law is inferior to the people, because they are as it were its parent, and may make or unmake it upon occasion: and seeing the law is more powerful than the king, and the people more powerful than the law, we may see before which we may call the king to answer in judgment, buchan. jure regni apud scot. that the king is inferior to the people is clear on many accounts: for these things which are institute for others sake, are inferior to those for whose sake they are required or sought; a horse is inferior to them that use him for victory; a king is only a mean for the peoples good; a captain is less than the army, a king is put a captain over the lord's inheritance, sam. x. . he is but the minister of god for their good, rom. xiii. . those who are before the king, and may be a people without him: let the king be considered either materially as a mortal man, he is then but a part inferior to the whole; or formally under the reduplication as a king, he is no more but a royal servant, obliged to spend his life for the people, to save them out of the hand of their enemies, sam. xix. : a part is inferior to the whole, the king is but a part of the kingdom: a gift is inferior to them to whom it is given, a king is but a gift given of god for the peoples good: that which is mortal, and but accidental, is inferior to that which is eternal, and cannot perish politically; a king is but mortal, and it is accidental to government that there be a succession of kings; but the people is eternal, one generation passeth away, and another generation cometh, eccl. i. . especially the people of god, the portion of the lord's inheritance, is superior to any king, and their ruin of greater moment than all the kings of the world; for, if the lord for their sake smite great kings, and slay famous kings, as sihon and og, psal. cxxxvi. ,-- . if he give kings and famous kingdoms for their ransom, isa. xliii. , . then his people must be so much superior than kings, by how much his justice is active to destroy the one, and his mercy to save the other. all this proves the people to be superior in dignity; and therefore, even in that respect, it is frivolous to say, the king cannot be accountable to them, because so much superior in glory and pomp; for they are superior every way in excellency; and though it were not so, yet judges may be inferior in rank considered as men, but they are superior in law over the greatest as they are judges, to whom far greater than they are accountable. the low and mean condition of them to whom belongs the power of judgment, does not diminish its dignity; when the king then is judged by the people, the judgment is of as great dignity as if it were done by a superior king; for the judgment is the sentence of the law. . they are superior in power: because every constituent cause is superior to the effect, the people is the constituent cause, the king is the effect, and hath all its royalty from them, by the conveyance god hath appointed; so that they need not fetch it from heaven, god gives it by the people, by whom also his power is limited, and, if need be, diminished from what they gave his ancestors: hence, if the people constitute and limit the power they give the king, then they may call him to an account, and judge him for the abuse of it; but the first is true, as is proven above: ergo.----the major is undeniable, for sure they may judge their own creature, and call him to an account for the power they gave him, when he abuses it, though there be no tribunal formally regal above him, yet, in the case of tyranny, and violating his trust, there is a tribunal virtual eminently above him, in them that made him, and reposed that trust upon him, as is said. . the fountain power is superior to the power derived: the people, though they constitute a king above them, yet retain the fountain power, he only hath the derived power: certainly the people must retain more power eminently, than they could give to the king, for they gave it, and he receives it with limitations; if he turn mad or incapable, they may put curators or tutors over him; if he be taken captive, they may appoint another to exercise the power; if he die, then they may constitute another, with more or less power; so then if they give away all their power, as a slave selleth his liberty, and retain no fountain power or radical right, they could not make use of it to produce any of these acts: they set a king above them only with an executive power for their good, but the radical power remains in the people, as in an immortal spring, which they communicate by succession to this or that mortal man, in the manner and measure they think expedient; for otherwise, if they gave all their power away, what shall they reserve to make a new king, if this man die? what if the royal line surcease, there be no prophets now sent to make kings; and if they have power in these cases, why not in the case of tyranny? . if the king be accountable by law, for any act of tyranny done against one man, then much more is he accountable for many against the whole state: but the former is true; a private man may go to law before the ordinary judges, for wronging his inheritance, and the king is made accountable for the wrong done by him. now, shall the laws be like spiders webs, which hold flies, but let bigger beasts pass through? shall sentence be past for petty wrongs against a man, and none for tyrannizing over religion, laws, and liberties of the kingdom? shall none be past against parricide or fratricide, for killing his brother, murdering the nobles, and burning cities? shall petty thieves be hanged for stealing a sheep; and does the laws of god or man give impunity for robbing a whole country of the nearest and dearest interests they have, to crowned heads, for the fancied character of royalty, which thereby is forfeited? . if there be judges appointed of god independently, to give out and execute the judgment of the lord on all offenders, without exception of the highest; then the king also must be subject to that judgment; but there are judges appointed of god independently, to give out and execute the judgment of the lord on all offenders, without exception of the highest. two things must be here proved; first, that in giving judgment they do not depend on the king, but are the immediate vicars of god. secondly, that the king is not excepted from, but subject to their judgment, in case he be criminal. first, they cannot depend upon the king, because they are more necessary than the king; and it is not left to the king's pleasure whether there be judges or not. there may be judges without a king, but there can be no king without judges, nor no justice, but confusion; no man can bear the people's burden alone, numb. xi. , . if they depended on the king, their power would die with the king; the streams must dry up the fountain; but that cannot be, for they are not the ministers of the king, but of the kingdom, whose honour and promotion, though by the king's external call, yet comes from god, as all honour and promotion does, psal. lxxv. . the king cannot make judges whom he will, by his absolute power, he must be tied to that law, deut. i. . to take wise men and understanding, and known: neither can he make them during pleasure; for if these qualifications remain, there is no allowance given for their removal. they are gods, and the children of the most high, appointed to defend the poor and fatherless, as well as he, psal. lxxxii. , . they are ordained of god for the punishment of evil doers, in which they must not be resisted, as well as he, rom. xiii. , . by me (saith the lord) rule--all the judges of the earth, prov. viii. . to them we must be subject for conscience sake, as being the ministers of god for good; they must be obeyed for the lord's sake, as well as the king; though they are sent of him, yet they judge not for man, but for the lord, chron. xix. . hence they sit in his room, and are to act as if he were on the bench; the king cannot say, the judgment is mine, because it is the lord's; neither can he limit their sentence (as he might, if they were nothing but his deputies) because the judgment is not his: nor are their consciences subordinate to him, but to the lord immediately; otherwise if they were his deputies, depending on him, then they could neither be admonished, nor condemned for unjust judgment, because their sentence should neither be righteous nor unrighteous, but as the king makes it; and all directions to them were capable of this exception, do not so or so, except the king command you; crush not the poor, oppress not the fatherless, except the king command you; yea, then they could not execute any judgment, but with the king's licence, and so could not be rebuked for their not executing judgment. now all this is contrary to scripture, which makes the sentence of the judges undeclinable, when just, deut. xvii. . the lord's indignation is kindled, when he "looks for judgment, and behold oppression, for righteousness, and behold a cry," isa. v. . neither will it excuse the judges to say, the king would have it so; for even they that are subservient to "write grievousness, to turn aside the needy from judgment," &c. are under the wo, as well as they that prescribe it, isa. x. , . the lord is displeased when "judgment is turned away backward, and judgment stands afar off,"----and when there is no judgment, whatever be the cause of it, isa. lix. , . the lord threatens he will be "avenged on the nation," when a man is "not found to execute judgment," jer. v. , . and promises, if they "will execute judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor," he will give them righteous magistrates, jer. xxii. , . but if they do not, he will send desolation, ibid. he rebukes those that "turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth," amos v. . he resents it, when "the law is slacked, and judgment doth not go forth" freely, without overawing or over-ruling restraint, hab. i. . can these scriptures consist with the judges dependence on the king's pleasure, in the exercise and execution of their power? therefore, if they would avoid the lord's displeasure, they are to give judgment, though the king should countermand it. secondly, that the king is not excepted from their judgment, is also evident from the general commands, gen. ix. . "whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed:" there is no exception of kings or dukes here: and we must not distinguish where the law distinguisheth not, numb. xxxv. , . whoso killeth any person, the murderer shall be put to death by the mouth of witnesses,--ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer which is guilty of death, but he shall be surely put to death. what should hinder then justice to be awarded upon a murdering king? shall it be for want of witnesses? it will be easy to adduce thousands. or, shall this be satisfaction for his life, that he is a crowned king? the law saith, there shall be no satisfaction taken. the lord speaketh to under judges, levit. xix. . ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty. if kings be not among the mighty, how shall they be classed? deut. i. . ye shall not respect persons in judgment, but you shall hear the small as well as the great; you shall not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is god's. if then no man's face can outdare the law and judgment of god, then the king's majestic face must not do it; but as to the demerit of blood, he must be subject as well as another. it is no argument to say, the sanhedrim did not punish david for his murder and adultery; therefore it is not lawful to punish a king for the same; a reason from not doing is not relevant. david did not punish joab for his murder, but authorized it, as also he did bathsheba's adultery; will that prove, that murders connived at, or commanded by the king, shall not be punished? or that whores of state are not to be called to an account? neither will it prove, that a murdering king should not be punished; that david was not punished, because he got both the sin pardoned, and his life granted from the lord, saying to him by the mouth of the prophet nathan, thou shalt not die. but as for the demerit of that fact, he himself pronounced the sentence out of his own mouth, sam. xii. . "as the lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die." 'so every king condemned by the law, is condemned by his own mouth: for the law is the voice of the king. why then do we so much weary ourselves concerning a judge, seeing we have the king's own confession, that is, the law?' buchanan de jure regni. and there needs be no other difficulty to find a tribunal for a murdering king, than to find one for a murderer; for a judgment must acknowledge but one name, viz. of the crime. if a king then be guilty of murder, he hath no more the name of a king, but of a murderer, when brought to judgment; for he is not judged for kingship, but for his murder; as when a gentleman is judged for robbery, he is not hanged, neither is he spared, because he is a gentleman, but because he is a robber. see buchanan above. . if the people's representatives be superior to the king in judgment, and may execute judgment without him, and against his will, then they may also seek account of him; for if he hath no power but from them, and no power without them to act as king, (no more than the eye or hand hath power to act without the body) then his power must be inferior, fiduciary, and accountable to them; but the former is true, the peoples representatives are superior to the king in judgment, and may execute judgment without him, and against his will. in scripture we find the power of the elders and heads of the people was very great, and in many cases superior to the king; which the learned dr. owen demonstrates in his preliminary exercitations on the epistle to the hebrews, and proves out of the rabbins, that the kings of the jews might have been called to an account, and punished for transgressing of the law. but in the scripture we find, ( .) they had a power of judgment with the supreme magistrate in matters of religion, justice and government. hamor and shechem would not make a covenant with jacob's sons, without the consent of the men of the city, gen. xxxiv. . david behoved to consult with the captains of thousands, and every leader, if it seemeth good to bring again the ark of god, chron. xiii. , , . so also solomon could not do it without them, kings viii. . ahab could not make peace with benhadad against the consent of the people, kings xx. . the men of ephraim complain that jephthah, the supreme magistrate, had gone to war against the children of ammon without them, and threatned to burn his house with fire, which he only excuses by the law of necessity, judges xii. , , . the seventy elders are appointed of god, not to be the advisers only and helpers of moses, but to bear a part of the burden of ruling and governing the people, that moses might be eased, numb. xi. , . moses upon his sole pleasure, had not power to restrain them in the exercise of judgment given of god. they were not the magistrate's depending deputies, but in the act of judging, they were independent, and their consciences as immediately subjected to god as the superior magistrate, who was to add his approbative suffrage to their actings, but not his directive nor imperative suffrage of absolute pleasure, but only according to the law; he might command them to do their duty, but he could do nothing without them. ( .) they had power, not derived from the prince at all, even a power of life and death. the rebellious son was to be brought to the elders of the city, who had power to stone him, deut. xxi. , . they had power to punish adultery with death, deut. xxii. . they had power to cognosce whom to admit into, and whom to seclude from the cities of refuge: so that if the king had commanded to take the life of an innocent man, they were not to deliver him, josh. xx. throughout. but besides the elders of cities, there were the elders and heads of the people, who had judicial power to cognosce on all criminal matters, even when joshua was judge in israel we find they assumed this power, to judge of that matter of the two tribes and the half, josh. xxii. . and they had power to make kings, as saul and david, as was shewed: and it must needs follow, they had power to unmake them in case of tyranny. ( .) they had power to conveen, even without the indiction of the ruler, as in that, josh. xxii. they conveen without him; and without advice or knowledge of samuel, the ruler, they conveen to ask a king, sam. viii. and without any head or superior, they conveen and make david king, notwithstanding of ishbosheth's hereditary right. without and against tyrannous athaliah's consent, they conveen and make joash king, and cared not for her treason, treason, kings xi. but now the king alone challenges the prerogative power of calling and dissolving parliaments as he pleases, and condemns all meetings of estates without his warrant, which is purely tyrannical; for, in cases of necessity, by the very law of nature, they may and must conveen. the power is given to the king only by a positive law, for order's sake; but otherwise, they have an intrinsical power to assemble themselves. all the forecited commands, admonitions, and certifications, to execute judgment, must necessarily involve and imply a power to conveen, without which they could not be in a capacity for it: not only unjust judgment, but no judgment, in a time when truth is fallen in the streets, and equity cannot enter, is charged as the sin of the state; therefore they must conveen to prevent this sin, and the wrath of god for it: god hath committed the keeping of the commonwealth, not to the king's only, but also to the people's representatives and heads. and if the king have power to break up all conventions of this nature, then he hath power to hinder judgement to proceed, which the lord commands: and this would be an excuse, when god threatens vengeance for it. we would not execute judgment, because the king forbade us. yet many of these forementioned reproofs, threatnings, and certifications were given, in the time of tyrannous and idolatrous kings, who, no doubt, would inhibit and discharge the doing of their duty; yet we see that was no excuse, but the lord denounces wrath for the omission. ( .) they had power to execute judgment against the will of the prince. samuel killed agag against saul's will, but according to the command of god, sam. xv. . against ahab's will and mind elijah caused kill the priests of baal, according to god's express law, kings xviii. . it is true it was extraordinary, but no otherwise than it is this day; when there is no magistrate that will execute the judgment of the lord, then they who have power to make the magistrate, may and ought to execute it, when wicked men make the law of god of none effect. so the princes of judah had power, against the king's will, to put jeremiah to death, which the king supposes, when he directs him what to say to them, jer. xxxviii. . they had really such a power, though in jeremiah's case it would have been wickedly perverted. see lex rex, q. , . ( .) they had a power to execute judgment upon the king himself, as in the case of amaziah and uzziah, as shall be cleared afterwards. i conclude with repeating the argument: if the king be accountable, whensover this account shall be taken, we are confident our disowning him for the present will be justified, and all will be obliged to imitate it: if he be not, then we cannot own his authority, that so presumptuously exalts himself above the people. . if we will further consider the nature of magistracy, it will appear what authority can conscientiously be owned, to wit, that which is power, not authorised power, not might or force; moral power, not merely natural. there is a great difference betwixt these two: natural power is common to brutes, moral power is peculiar to men; natural power is more in the subjects, because they have more strength and force; moral power is in the magistrate, they can never meet adequately in the same subject; natural power can, moral only may warrantably exercise rule; natural power is opposed to impotency and weakness, moral to illicitness or unlawfulness; natural power consists in strength, moral in righteousness; natural power may be in a rout of rogues making an uproar, moral only in the rulers; they cannot be distinguished by their acts, but by the principle from which the acts proceed; in the one from mere force, in the other from authority. the principle of natural power is its own might and will, and the end only self; moral hath its rise from positive constitution, and its end is public safety. the strength of natural power lies in the sword, whereby its might gives law; the strength of moral power is in its word, whereby reason gives law, unto which the sword is added for punishment of contraveeners: natural power takes the sword, matth. xxvi. . moral bears the sword, rom. xiii. . in natural power the sword is the cause; in moral it is only the consequent of authority; in natural power the sword legitimates the sceptre; in moral the sceptre legitimates the sword: the sword of the natural is only backed with metal, the sword of the moral power is backed with god's warrant: natural power involves men in passive subjection, as a traveller is made to yield to a robber; moral power reduces to conscientious subordination. hence the power that is only natural, not moral authority, not power, cannot be owned; but the power of a tyrant's and usurper's is only natural, not moral, authority, not power: ergo it cannot be owned. the major cannot be denied; for it is only the moral power that is ordained of god, unto which we must be subject for conscience sake. the minor also; for the power of tyrants is not moral, because not authorized, nor warranted, or ordained of god by his preceptive ordinance, and therefore no lawful magistratical power. for the clearer understanding of this, let it be observed, there are four things required to the making of a moral or lawful power; the matter of it must be lawful, the person lawful, the title lawful, and the use lawful. . the matter of it, about which it is exerted, or the work to be done by it, must be lawful and warranted by god: and if it be unlawful it destroys its moral being. as the pope's power, in dispensing with divine laws, is null and no moral power; and so also the king's power, in dispensing with both divine and human laws is null. hence that power, which is, in regard of matter unlawful, and never warranted by god, cannot be owned; but absolute power, which is the power of tyrants and usurpers, (and particularly of this of ours) is in regard of matter unlawful, and never warranted by god: ergo-- . the person holding the power must be such as not only is capable of, but competent to the tenure of it, and to whom the holding of it is allowed; and if it be prohibited, it evacuates the morality of the power. korah and his company arrogated to themselves the office of the priesthood, this power was prohibited to them, their power then was a nullity. as therefore a person that should not be a minister, when he usurps that office is no minister; so a person that should not be a magistrate, when he usurps that office, is no magistrate. hence, a person that is incapable and incompetent for government cannot be owned for a governor; but the duke of york is such a person, not only not qualified as the word of god requires a magistrate to be, but by the laws of the land declared incapable of rule, because he is a papist, a murderer, an adulterer, &c. . there must be a moral power, a lawful title and investiture, as is shewed above; which, if it be wanting, the power is null, and the person but a scenical king, like john of leyden. this is essentially necessary to the being of a magistrate; which only properly distinguishes him from a private man; for when a person becomes a magistrate, what is the change that is wrought in him? what new habit or endowment is produced in him? he hath no more natural power than he had before, only now he hath the moral power, right and authority to rule, legally impowering him to govern. let it be considered, what makes a subordinate magistrate, whom we own as such; it must be only his commission from a superior power, otherwise we reject him; if one come to us of his own head, taking upon him the stile and office of a bailiff, sheriff or judge, and command our persons, demand our purses, or exact our oaths; we think we may deny him, not taking ourselves to owe him any subjection, not owning any bond of conscience to him; why? because he hath no lawful commission. now, if we require this qualification in the subordinate, why not in the supreme? hence, that magistrate, that cannot produce his legal investiture, cannot be owned; but the duke of york cannot produce his legal investiture, his admission to the crown upon oath and compact, and with the consent of the subjects, according to the laws of the land, as is shewed above: therefore---- . there must also be the lawful use of the power; which must be not only legal for its composure, but right for its practice; its course and process in government must be just, governing according to law, otherwise it is mere tyranny: for what is government, but the subjecting of the community to the rule of governors, for peace and order's sake, and the security of all their precious interests? and for what end was it ordained, and continued among men, but that the stronger may not domineer over the weaker? and what is anarchy, but the playing the rex of the natural power over the moral? hence, that power which is contrary to law, evil and tyrannical, can tie none to subjection; but the power of the king, abused to the destruction of laws, religion and liberties, giving his power and strength unto the beast, and making war with the lamb, rev. xvii. , . is a power contrary to law, evil and tyrannical: therefore it can tie none to subjection: wickedness by no imaginable reason can oblige any man. it is objected by some, from rom. xiii. . there is no power but of god; the usurping power is a power: therefore it is of god, and consequently we owe subjection to it. ans. . the original reading is not universal, but this: for there is no power if not from god: which confirms what i plead for, that we are not to own any authority, if it be not authorized by god. the words are only relative to higher powers, in a restricted sense and at most are but indefinite, to be determined according to the matter; not all power simply, but all lawful power. . it is a fallacy from what is said according to a certain thing, there is no power but of god, that is no moral power, as universal negatives use to be understood, heb. v. . no man taketh his honour unto himself, but he that is called of god; which is clear, must not be understood for the negation of the fact, as if no man at all doth or ever did take unto himself that honour, for korah did it, &c. but, no man taketh it warrantably, with a moral right and god's allowance without god's call: so also the universal imperative, in that same text, must not be taken absolutely without restriction; for if every soul without exception were to be subject, there could be none left to be the higher powers; but it is understood with restriction to the relation of a subject. so here, no power but of god, to be understood with restriction to the relation of a lawful magistrate. it is also to be understood indiscriminately, in reference to the divers species, sorts and degrees of lawful power, supreme and subordinate, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, &c. as peter expresses it: or whether they be christian or pagan; it cannot be meant of all universally, that may pretend to power, and may attain to prevailing potency; for then by this text, we must subject ourselves to the papacy now intended to be introduced; and indeed if we subject ourselves to this papist, the next thing he will require will be that. . to the minor proposition, i answer, the usurping power is a power; it is power, i grant, that it is power, or authority, i deny. therefore it is of god by his providence, i concede; by his ordinance, i deny. consequently we owe subjection to it, i deny. we may be subject passively, i grant. actively, out of conscience, i deny. but some will object, . though the power be usurped, and so not morally lawful in all these respects; yet it may do good, its laws and administrations may be good. answ. i grant all is good that ends well, and hath a good beginning. this cannot be good which hath a bad principle, good from the entire cause. some government for constitution good, may, in some acts, be bad; but a government for constitution bad cannot, for the acts it puts forth, be good. these good acts may be good for matters but formally they are not good, as done by the usurper: they may be comparatively good, that is better so than worse; but they cannot be absolutely, and in a moral sense good: for to make a politic action good, not only the matter must be warrantable, but the call also. it may indeed induce subjects to bear and improve to the best, what cannot be remedied; but cannot oblige to own a magistratical relation. ii. the nature of the power thus discovered, let us see the nature of that relative duty, which we owe and must own as due to magistrates, and what sort of owning we must give them; which, to inquire a little into, will give light to the question. all the duty and deference the lord requires of us, towards them whom we must own as magistrates, is comprehended in these two expressions, honour required in the fifth command, and subjection required in rom. xiii. . &c. pet. ii. . &c. whomsoever then we own as magistrates, we must own honour and subjection as due to them: and if so be, we cannot, upon a conscientious ground, give them honour and subjection, we cannot own them as magistrates. the least deference we can pay to magistrates is subjection, as it is required in these words; let every soul be subject to the higher powers, and, submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the lord's sake. but this cannot be given to tyrants and usurpers; therefore no deference can be paid to them at all: and consequently they cannot be owned. that this subjection, which is required to the higher powers, cannot be owned to tyrants, will be apparent, if we consider, . the subjection required is orderly subjection to an orderly power, that we be regularly under him that is regularly above; but usurpation and tyranny is not an orderly power, orderly placed above us; therefore we cannot be orderly under it. this is gathered from the original language, where the powers to be subjected to, are ordained of god and the ordinance of god, and he that resisteth the power is counter-ordered, or contrary to his orderly duty; so the duty is to be subject. they are all words coming from one root, which signifies to order; so that subjection is to be placed in order under another relative to an orderly superiority; but, to occupy the seat of dignity unauthorized, is an ataxy, a breaking of order, and bringing the commonwealth quite out of order. whereby it may appear, that, in relation to an arbitrary government, there can be properly no orderly subjection. . the thing itself must import that relative duty which the fifth command requires; not only a passive stooping endurance, or a feigned counterfeit submission, but a real active duty including obedience to lawful commands; and not only so, but support and maintenance; and that both to the acts of his administration, and to his standing and keeping his station, assisting him with all our abilities, both human and christian; and not only as to the external acts of duties, but the inward motions of the heart, as consent, love, reverence, and honour, and all sincere fealty and allegiance. but can a subjection of this extent be paid to a tyrant or usurper? can we support those we are bound to suppress? shall we love the ungodly, and help those that hate the lord? can we consent, that we and our posterity should be slaves? can we honour them who are vile, and the vilest of men; how high soever they be exalted? . the ground of this subjection is for conscience sake, not for wrath, that is, so far and so long as one is constrained by fear, and, to avoid a greater evil, to stoop to him, but out of conscience of duty, both that of piety to god who ordained magistracy, and that of equity to him who is his minister for good, and under pain of damnation if we break this orderly subjection, rom. xiii. , . but can it be imagined, that all this is due to a tyrant and usurper? can it be out of conscience, because he is the lord's minister for good? the contrary is clear, that he is the devil's drudge serving his interest: is resistance to tyrants a damnable sin? i hope to prove it to be a duty. . if subjection to tyrants and usurpers will inveigle us in their snares, and involve us in their sin and judgment, then it is not to be owned to them; but the former is true; therefore the latter. in the foregoing head i drew an argument, for withdrawing from and disowning the prelatic ministers, from the hazard of partaking in their sin, and of being obnoxious to their judgment, because people are often punished for their pastor's sins; aaron and his sons polluting themselves, would have brought wrath upon all the people, lev. x. . because the teachers had transgressed against the lord, therefore was jacob given to the curse, and israel to reproaches, isa. xliii. , . and all these miseries lamented by the church, were inflicted for the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, lam. iv. . the reason was, because they owned then, followed them, countenanced them, complied with them, or connived at them, or did not hinder, or else disown them. the same argument will evince the necessity of withdrawing our subjection from, and disowning, usurping, and tyrannical rulers, when we cannot hinder their wickedness, nor give any other testimony against them, to avert the wrath of the lord. if the defections of ministers will bring on the whole nation desolacing judgments; then much more have we reason to fear it, when both magistrates and ministers are involved in, and jointly carrying on, and caressing and encouraging each other in promoting a woful apostasy from god: when the heads of the house of jacob and princes of the house of israel, abhor judgment, and pervert all equity. the heads judge for reward, and the priests teach for hire, and the prophets divine for money, and yet lean upon the lord, and say, is not the lord among us: none evil can come upon us. then we can expect nothing, but that zion for their sake shall be plowed as a field, and jerusalem become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest, mic. iii. , , . certain it is, that subjects have smarted sore for the sins of their rulers: for saul's sin, in breaking covenant with the gibeonites, the land suffered three years famine, sam. xxi. . and the wrath of the lord could not be appeased, till seven of his sons were hanged up unto the lord. what then shall appease the wrath of god, for the unparalleled breach of covenant with god in our days? for david's sin of numbering the people, , men died by the pestilence, sam. xxiv. . for jeroboam's sin of idolatry, who made israel to sin, the lord threatens to give israel up, because of the sins of jeroboam, i kings xiv. . only they escaped this judgment, who withdrew themselves and fell into judah. for ahab's sin of letting go a man whom the lord had appointed to utter destruction, the lord threatens him, thy life shall go for his life, and thy people for his people, kings xx. . because manasseh, king of judah, did many abominations, therefore the lord threatened to bring such evil upon jerusalem and judah, that whosoever heard it, his ears should tingle, &c. kings xxi. , . and notwithstanding of his repentance and the reformation in the days of josiah, notwithstanding the lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against judah, because of all the provocations that manasseh had provoked him withal, kings xxiii. . which was accomplished by the hands of the chaldeans, in jehoiakim's time. surely, at the commandment of the lord, came this upon judah, to remove them out of his sight, for the sins of manasseh according to all that he did, and also for the innocent blood which he shed,----which the lord would not pardon, kings xxiv. , . and jeremiah further threatens, that they should be removed into all kingdoms of the earth, because of manasseh for that which he did in jerusalem, jer. xv. . certainly passages were recorded for our learning, rom. xv. . and for our examples, to the intent we should not do as they did, cor. x. . and for our admonition, ver. . whence we may be admonished, that it is not enough to keep ourselves free of public sins of rulers; many of those then punished, were free of all actual accession to them; but they became accessory to, and involved in the guilt of them, when they did not endeavour to hinder them, and bring them to condign punishment for them, according to the law of god, which respecteth not persons; or, at least, because they did not revolt from them, as libnah did: there might be other provocations on the peoples part, no doubt, which the lord did also punish by these judgments; but when the lord specifies the sin of rulers as the particular procuring cause of the judgment; it were presumption to make it the occasion only of the lord's punishing them: for plain it is, if these sins of rulers had not been committed, which was the ground of the threatening and execution, the judgment would have been prevented; and if the people had bestirred themselves as became them, in repressing and restraining such wickedness, they had not so smarted; and when that sin, so threatened and punished, was removed, then the judgment itself was removed or deterred. it is just and necessary, that the subjects, being jointly included with their rulers in the same bond of fidelity to god, be liable to be punished for their rebellion and apostacy, when they continue under the bond of subjection to them. but how deplorable were our condition, if we should stand obnoxious to divine judgments, for the atheism, idolatry, murders, and adulteries of our rulers, and yet be neither authorized nor capacitated to hinder it, nor permitted to withdraw ourselves from subjection to them? but it is not so; for, the lord's making us responsible for their debt, is an impowering us either to repress their wickedness when he gives us capacity, or at least to save ourselves harmless from their crimes, by disowning them; that being the only way of standing no longer accountable for their souls. . it remains to consider the ends for which government was institute by god, and constitute by men; from whence i argue, that government, that destroys the ends of government, is not to be owned; but tyranny, and especially this under which we howl, destroys all the ends of government; therefore it is not to be owned. the minor i prove thus, that government, that destroys all religion and safety, destroys all the ends of government; but this popish and arbitrary absolute power, destroys religion and safety; therefore--it is evident, both from the laws of nature and revelation, that the ends of government are the glory of god, and the good of mankind. the first is the glory of god, the ultimate end of all ordinances; to which whatever is opposite, is not to be owned by them that fear him: whatever power then is destructive to religion, and is applied and employed against the glory of the universal king, and for withdrawing us from our fealty and obedience to him, is nothing but rebellion against the supreme lord and lawgiver, and a traiterous conspiracy against the almighty, and therefore not to be owned: and they are enemies to religion, or strangers to it, who are not sensible this hath been the design of the present government, at least these twenty-seven years, to overturn the reformed covenanted religion, and to introduce popery. hence, seeing a king at his best and highest elevation, is only a mean for preserving religion, and for this end only chosen of the people to be keeper of both tables of the law, he is not to be regarded, but wholly laid aside, when he not only moves without his sphere, but his motion infers the ruin of the ends of his erection, and when he employs all his power for the destruction of the cause of christ, and advancement of antichrist, giving his power to the beast; he is so far from deserving the deference of the power ordained of god, that he is to be looked upon, and treated as a traitor to god, and stated enemy to religion and all righteousness. the second end of government is the good of the people, which is the supreme and cardinal law; the safety of the people is the supreme law. which cannot be denied, if it be considered, . for this only the magistrate is appointed of god to be his minister for the people's good, rom. xiii. . and they have no goodness but as they conduce to this end: for all the power they have of god is with this proviso, to promote his people's prosperity. (it were blasphemy to say, they are his authorised ministers for their destruction) to which if their conduct degenerate, they degrade themselves, and so must be disowned. he is therefore, in his institution, no more than a mean for this end; and himself cannot be either the whole or half of the end; for then he should be both the end and the mean of government; and it is contrary to god's mould to have this for his end, to multiply to himself silver and gold, or lift up himself above his brethren, deut. xvii. , . if therefore he hath any other end than the good of the people, he cannot be owned as one of god's moulding, . this only is the highest pitch of good princes ambition, to postpone their own safety to the peoples safety. moses desired, rather than the people should be destroyed, that his name should be razed out of the book of life. and david would rather the lord's hand be on him and his father's house, than on the people, that they should be plagued, chron. xxi. . but he that would seek his own ambitious ends, with the destruction of the people, hath the spirit of the devil, and is to be carried towards as one possessed with that malignant spirit. . originally their power is from the people, from whom all their dignity is derived, with reserve of their safety, which is not the donative of kings, nor held by concession from them, nor can it be resigned or surrendered to the disposal of kings; since god hath provided, in his universal laws, that no authority make any disposal, but for the good of the people. this cannot be forfeited by the usurpation of monarchs, but being always fixed in the essential laws of government, they may reclaim and recover it when they please. since then we cannot alienate our safety, we cannot own that authority which is inconsistent with it. . the attaining this end was the main ground and motive of peoples deliberating to constitute a government, and to choose such a form, because they thought it most conducible for their good; and to admit such persons as fittest instuments for compassing this end; and to establish such a conveyance, as they thought most contributive for this end. when therefore princes cease to be what they could be constitute for, they cease to have an authority to be owned; but ceasing to answer these ends of government, they cease to be what they could be constitute for. . for no other end were magistrates limited with conditions, but to bound them, that they might do nothing against the peoples good and safety. whosoever then breaking through all legal limitations, shall become injurious to the community, lists himself in the number of enemies, and is only to be looked upon as such. . for this end all laws are ratified or rescinded, as they conduce to this end, which is the soul and reason of the law: then it is but reason, that the law establishing such a king, which proves an enemy to this, should be rescinded also. . contrary to this end no law can be of force; if then, either law or king be prejudicial to the realm, they are to be abolished. . for this end, in cases of necessity, kings are allowed sometimes to neglect the letter of the laws, or private interests, for the safety of the community: but if they neglect the public safety, and make laws for their own interests, they are no more trustees but traitors. . if it were not for this end, it were more eligible to live in desarts, than to enter into societies. when therefore a ruler, in direct opposition to the ends of government, seeks the ruin, not only of religion, but also of the peoples safety, he must certainly forfeit his right to reign. and what a vast, as well as innocent number, have, for religion, and their adherence to their fundamental rights, been ruined, rooted out of their families possessions, oppressed, persecuted, murdered, and destroyed by this and the deceased tyrant, all scotland can tell, and all europe hath heard. if ever the ends of government were perverted and subverted in any place. britain is the stage where this tragedy has been acted. . i may argue from the covenant, that to own this authority is contrary to all the articles thereof. . that authority which overturns the reformation of religion in doctrine, worship, discipline and government, which we are sworn to preserve against the common enemies thereof, in the first article, cannot be owned; but the present pretended authority overturned (and continues more to overturn) the reformation of religion, &c. therefore it cannot be owned. for against what common enemy must we preserve it, if not against him that is the chief enemy thereof? and how can we own that authority, that is wholly employed and applied for the destruction of religion? . if we are obliged to extirpate popery, without respect of persons, lest we partake in other mens sins; then we are obliged to extirpate papists without respect of persons; and consequently the head of them. (for how otherwise can popery be extirpated? or how otherwise can we cleanse the land of their sins?) but in the d article we are obliged to extirpate popery without respect of persons, lest we partake in others mens sins: therefore we are obliged to extirpate papists without respect of persons, and consequently the crowned jesuit, and therefore cannot own him: for how can we own him, whom we are bound to exstirpate? . if we be engaged to preserve the rights and liberties of parliaments, and the liberties of the kingdoms, and the king's authority only in the preservation and defence of the true religion and liberties of the kingdoms, then we cannot own his authority, when it is inconsistent with, opposite to, and destructive of all these precious interests, as now it is with a witness. but in the d article we are engaged to preserve the rights and privileges of parliaments, and the liberties of the kingdoms, and the king's authority only in the preservation and defence of the true religion and liberties of the kingdoms: therefore all allegiance that we can own to any man, must stand perpetually thus qualified, in defence of religion and liberty; that is, so far as it is not contrary to religion and liberty, and no further; for if it be destructive of these, it is null. if we should then own this man, with this restricted allegiance, and apply into his own authority (as we must apply it to all authority that we can own) it were to mock god and the world, and own contradictions: for can we maintain the destroyer of religion, in defence of religion, and the destroyer of all our rights and liberties, and all our legal securities for them, in the preservation of these rights and liberties? that were pure nonsense. . if we be obliged to endeavour, that all incendiaries and malignants, &c. be brought to condign punishment, then we cannot own the authority of the head of these incendiaries and malignant enemies; but in the fourth article, we are obliged to endeavour, that all incendiaries and malignants, &c. be brought to condign punishment: therefore----the connexion of the major cannot well be doubted, for is it imaginable, that the head of that unhallowed party, the great malignant enemy, who is the spring, and gives life unto all these abominations shall be exempted from punishment, or owned for a sacred majesty? shall we be obliged to discover, and bring to justice the little petty malignants, and this implacably stated enemy to christ escape with a crown on his head? nay, we are by this obliged, if ever we be in case, to bring these stated enemies to god and the country to condign punishment, from the highest to the lowest: and this we are to do, as we would have the anger of the lord turned away from us, which cannot be, without hanging up their heads before the lord against the sun, as was done in the matter of peor, numb. xxv. . for hath not he and his accomplices made the kingdom a curse? and we, with our own consent, have made ourselves obnoxious to it, if we do not procure, each in our capacities, and pursue these traitors and rebels, that the judgment of the lord be executed upon the accursed. . no wilful opposer of peace and union between the kingdoms is to be owned; but, according to the th article, we are obliged to endeavour, that justice be done upon him: but this man and his brother have been wilful opposers of peace and union between the kingdoms, all true peace and union, except an union in confederacy against the lord; for they have taken peace from both the kingdoms, and destroyed and annulled that which was the bond of their union, to wit, the solemn league and covenant. . if we are obliged to assist and defend all those that enter into this league and covenant, in the maintaining and pursuing thereof, and never to suffer ourselves to be divided, to make defection to the contrary part, &c. according to the th article then, we must not owt the butcher of our covenanted brethren, who hath imbrued his hands in their blood, in maintaining and pursuing thereof, and would have us withdrawn into so detestable a defection; for we cannot both own him as he requires to be owned, and as god requires every magistrate to be owned (so as not to resist him under pain of damnation, rom. xiii. .) and assist our brethren too in refilling his murders: and our owning of him were a dividing of ourselves from our brethren that oppose him, into a defection to the contrary part, whereof he is head and patron. lastly, in the conclusion, we are obliged to be humbled for the sins of these kingdoms, and to amend in a real reformation; whereof this is one to be mourned for, that after the lord had delivered us from the yoke of this tyrannical family, we again joined in amity with the people of these abominations, and took these serpents into our bosom again, which hath bit us so sore, and wherewith the lord hath scourged us severely. and if it was our sin to engage with them at first, then it is our sin to continue under their subjection; and is not consistent with that repentance, that the lord's contendings call for, to continue owning that power which was our sin to own at first. iii. in the third place, i promised to confirm my thesis from more express scripture arguments. therefore i shall endeavour to gather them as briefly as may be. . from scripture inferences, nearly and natively consequential. . from scripture assertions. . from scripture precepts. . from scripture practices. . from scripture promises. . from scripture threatnings. . from scripture prayers. first, i shall offer some arguments deduced by way of immediate inference, from the grounds laid before us in scripture about government: wherein i shall confine my self to these particulars. . let us consider the characters of a magistrate, laid down in scripture; and we may infer, if tyrants and usurpers are not capable of these characters, then they cannot be owned for magistrates. for if they be not magistrates, they cannot be owned as magistrates; but if they be not capable of the characters of magistrates, they are not magistrates: ergo, if they be not capable of the characters of magistrates, they cannot be owned as magistrates. to find out the characters of magistrates, we need seek no further than that full place, rom. xiii. which usually is made a magazine of objections against this truth; but i trust to find store of arguments for it from thence, not repeating many that have been already deduced therefrom. we find, in this place, many characters of a magistrate, that are all incompatible with a tyrant or usurper. . he is the higher power, verse . authorities supereminent, signifying such a pre-excellency as draweth towards it a recognition of honour; but this is not competent to tyrants and usurpers; for they are the vilest of men, let them be never so high exalted, psal. xii. last verse, and if they be vile then they are to be contemned, psal. xv. . and no more to be regarded than herod was by christ, when he called him a fox, luke xiii. . but more particularly, let us consider what is the highness, or dignity of magistrates, set forth in scripture. they are stiled gods, not to be reviled, exod. xxii. . among whom god judgeth, psal. lxxxii. . so called, because the word of god came unto them, john x. . but tyrants are rather devils, as one of them is called lucifer, isa. xiv. . and they that persecute and imprison the people of god, because actuated by the devil, and acting for him, do bear his name, rev. ii. . they are devils that cast the lord's witnesses into prison. the magistrate's judgment is god's judgment, deut. i. . because it is not for man, but for the lord, chron. xix. . and therefore solomon is said to have sat on the throne of the lord, chron. xxix. . but it were blasphemy to say, that tyrants judgment, usurping the place without his warrant, and giving forth judgment against his laws, and cause, and people, is the lord's judgment, or for him, or that they sit on the throne of the lord. a throne of iniquity is not the throne of the lord, for he hath no fellowship with it; the tyrant's throne is a throne of iniquity, psal. xciv. . magistrates are truly to be subjected to and obeyed, as principalities and powers, tit. iii. . it is a sin to speak evil of them, verse . for it is presumption to despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities, pet. ii. . jude . but tyrants are very catechrestically and abusively principalities and powers, no otherwise then the devils are so termed, eph. vi. . and there is no argument to own or obey the one more than the other: for if all principalities and powers are to be subjected to and owned, then also the devil must, who gets the same title. to speak truth of tyrants indignities, cannot be a speaking evil of dignities; for truth is no evil, nor is tyranny a dignity. hence they that are not capable of the dignity of rulers, as these places prove: ergo----against this it is objected. that paul did apply this character to the tyrannical high priest ananias, whom, after he had objurated for manifest injustice, he honours with that apology, that he wist not that he was the high priest, for it is written, thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people, acts xxiii. . ans. though all should be granted that is in this objection, yet our argument would not be enervated: for grant we should not speak evil of tyrants, that does not evince that we should hold them us rulers; for we should bless our persecutors, rom. x. . and speak evil of no man, tit. iii. . that does not say, we should hold every man, or our persecutors, to be rulers. the meaning must be, he knew not that he was the high-priest; that is, he did not acknowledge him to be either high priest or ruler, he could acknowledge or observe nothing like one of that character in him: for as the high-priest's office was now null and ceased, so this ananias was only an usurper of the office, in place of ismael and joseph, who had purchased it by money: and paul had learned from his master gamaliel, tit. talmud. of the sanhedrim. that a judge who hath given money for purchasing this honour, is neither a judge, nor to be honoured as such, but to be held in place of an ass. and it was common among the jews to say, if such be gods, they are silver gods, not to be honoured, as is quoted by pool's synopsis criticorum, &c. on the same place. and that this must be the sense of it is plain; for he could not be ignorant that he was there in place of a judge, being called before him, and smitten by him authoritatively, whom therefore he did threaten with the judgment of god; it were wicked to think, that he would retract that threatning which he pronounced by the spirit of god. and therefore this place confirms my thesis: if a tyrannical judge, acting contrary to law, is not to be known or acknowledged to be a ruler, but upbraided as a whited wall; then a tyrant is not to be known or acknowledged as such; but the former is true, from this place: therefore also the latter. paul knew well enough he was a judge, and knew well enough what was his duty to a judge, that he should not be reviled; but he would not acknowledge this priest to be a judge, or retract his threatning against him. . he is of god, and ordained of god; i proved before, tyrants are not capable of this; yea, it were blasphemy to say, they are authorized, or ordained of god, by his preceptive will. hence, take only this argument. all rulers that we must own are ordained of god, do reign, and are set up by god, prov. viii, . (for that and this place are parallel) but tyrants do not reign, nor are set up by god, hos. viii. . they are set up (saith the lord) but not by me: ergo, we cannot own them to be ordained of god. . whosoever resisteth this power ordained of god, resisteth the ordinance of god, and they that resist, shall receive to themselves damnation, verse . this cannot be owned of a tyrant, that it is a damnable sin to resist him, for it is duty to resist, and also repress him, as is proven already, and shall be afterwards. hence, whatsoever authority we own subjection to, we must not resist it; but we cannot own that we must not resist this authority: therefore we cannot own it at all. again, that cannot be the power not to be resisted, which is acquired and improved by resisting the ordinance or god; but the power of usurpers and tyrants is acquired and improved by resisting the ordinance of god: ergo, their power cannot be the power not to be resisted. the major is manifest; for when the apostle says, the resisting of the power brings damnation to the resister, certainly that resistance cannot purchase dominion instead of damnation: and if he that resists in a lesser degree, be under the doom of damnation; then certainly he that does it in a greater degree, so as to complete it, in putting himself in place of that power which he resisted, cannot be free. the minor is also undeniable; for, if usurpers acquire their power without resistance forcible and sensible, it is because they that defend the power invaded, are wanting in their duty; but however morally the tyrant or usurper is always, or in contrary order to a lawful power. . rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil, and they that do that which is good, shall have praise of the same, verse . this is the character and duty of righteous magistrates, though it be not always their administration; but an usurper and tyrant is not capable or susceptible of this character; but, on the contrary, is, and must be a terror to good works, and a praise to the evil: for he must be a terror to them that would secure their rights and liberties in opposition to his encroachments, which is a good work; and he must be a tutor, patron, and protector of such, as encourage and maintain him in his usurpation and tyranny, which is an evil work: and if he were a terror to the evil, then he would be a terror to himself and all his accomplices, which he cannot be. therefore, that power which is not capable of the duties of magistrates, cannot be owned; but the power of tyrants and usurpers is such: ergo--we find in scripture the best commentary on this character, where the duties of a magistrate are described; they must justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked, deut. xxvii. . they must, as job did, deliver the poor that cry, and put on righteousness as a clothing,----and be eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame, and a father to the poor----and break the jaws of the wicked, job xxix. , . their throne must be established by righteousness, prov. xvi. . a king sitting on the throne of judgment must scatter away all evil with his eyes----then mercy and truth will preserve him, and his throne is upholden by mercy, prov. xx. , . but tyrants have a quite contrary character; the throne of iniquity frames mischief by a law, and condemns the innocent blood, psal. xciv. , . they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them, isa. i. . they build their house by unrighteousness, and their chambers by wrong, and use their neighbours service without wages, jer. xxii. . they oppress the poor, and crush the needy, amos iv. . they turn judgment to gall, and the fruit of righteousness to hemlock, and say, have we not taken horns to us by our own strength, amos vi. , . these contrary characters cannot consist together. . he is the minister of god for good, verse . not by providential commission, as nebuchadnezzar was, and tyrants may be eventually, by the lord making all things turn about for the good of the church; but he hath a moral commission from god, and is entrusted by the people, to procure their public and political good at least. now, then tyranny and usurpation, are together inconsistible; for if tyrants and usurpers were ministers for good, then they would restore the public and personal rights, and rectify all wrongs done by them; but then they must surrender their authority, and resign it, or else all rights cannot be restored, nor wrongs rectified. hence, these that cannot be owned as magistrates of god for good, cannot be owned as magistrates; but tyrants and usurpers, (and in particular this man) are such as cannot be owned as ministers of god for good: ergo----again, if magistracy be always a blessing, and tyranny and usurpation always a curse, then they cannot be owned to be the same thing, and the one cannot be owned to be the other; but magistracy, or the rightful magistrate, is always a blessing; tyranny and usurpation, or the tyrant and usurper, always a curse: ergo----that the former is true, these scriptures prove it. god provides him for the benefit of his people, sam. xvi. . a just ruler is compared to the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds, sam. xxiii. . so the lord exalted david's kingdom, for his people israel's sake, sam. v. . because the lord loved israel for ever, therefore made he solomon king, to do judgment and justice, kings x. . when the righteous are in authority the people rejoice----the king by judgment stablished the land,----prov. xxix. , . the lord promises magistrates as a special blessing, isa. i. . jer. xvii. . and therefore their continuance is to be prayed for, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, in all godliness and honesty, tim. ii. . and they must needs be a blessing, because to have no ruler is a misery: for when israel had no king, every man did that which was right in his own eyes, judges xvii. . and the lord threatens it as a curse to take away the stay and the staff----the mighty man, and the man of war, the judge and the prophet, &c. isa. iii. , . &c. and that the children of israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, hos. ii. . but on the other hand, tyrants and usurpers are always a curse, and given as such: it is threatened among the curses of the covenant, that the stranger shall get up above israel very high----and that they shall serve their enemies, which the lord shall send against them----and he shall put a yoke of iron upon their neck, until he hath destroyed them, deut. xxviii. , . as a roaring lion and a ranging bear, so is a wicked ruler over the poor people, prov. xxviii. . and therefore, when the wicked beareth rule the people mourn, prov. xxix. . the lord threatens it as a curse, that he will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them, isa. iii. . and if unqualified rulers be a curse, much more tyrants. they are the rod of his anger, and the staff in their hand is his indignation, his axe, and sawe, and rod, isa. x. , . it is one thing to call a man god's instrument, his rod, axe, sword, or hammer; another thing to call him god's minister; there is a wide difference betwixt the instruments of god's providence, and the ministers of his ordinance; those fulfil his promises only, these do his precepts. such kings are given in the lord's anger, hos. xiii. . therefore they cannot be owned to be ministers of god for good. . he beareth not the sword in vain, for he is the minister of god, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil, verse . the apostle doth not say, he that beareth the sword is the ruler, but he is the ruler that beareth the sword. this is not every sword, for there is the sword of an enemy, the sword of a robber, the sword of a common traveller; but this as a faculty of political rule, and authoritative judgment. it is not said, he takes the sword (as the lord expresses the usurpation of that power, matth. xxvi. .) but he beareth the sword, hath it delivered him into his hand by god, by god's warrant and allowance, not in vain; to no end or without reason, or without a commission, as paræus upon the place expounds it. he is a revenger to execute wrath, not by private revenge, for that is condemned by paul before, rom. xi. . not by providential recompense, for when a private person so revengeth, it is the providential repayment of god; but as god's minister, by him authorized, commissionated, and warranted to this work. now this cannot agree with a tyrant or usurper, whose sword only legitimates his sceptre, and not his sceptre his sword, who takes the sword rather than bears, and uses it without reason or warrant from god, in the execution of his lustful rage upon him that doth well, and hath no right to it from god. hence, he that beareth the sword no other way but as it may be said of a murderer, cannot be a magistrate bearing the sword; but a tyrant and usurper beareth the sword no other way but as it may be said of a murderer: ergo.----so much for the characters of a magistrate, which are every way inapplicable to tyrants and usurpers, and as inapplicable to this of ours as to any in the world. . if we consider the scripture resemblances, importing the duty of magistrates, and the contrary comparisons, holding forth the sin, vileness, and villainy of tyrants and usurpers; we may infer, that we cannot own the last to be the first. first, from the benefit they bring to the commonwealth, magistrates are stiled, . saviours, as othniel the son of kenaz is called, judges iii. . and jehoahaz in his younger years, kings xiii. . and all good judges and magistrates, neh. ix. . but tyrants and usurpers cannot be such, for they are destroyers, whom the lord promises to make go forth from his people, isa. xlix. . the chaldean tyrant is called the destroyer of the gentiles, jer. iv. . and the destroyer of the lord's heritage, jer. l. . where they can no more be owned to be magistrates, than abaddon or apollyon can be owned to be a saviour. . from their paternal love to the people, they are stiled fathers, and therefore to be honoured according to the fifth command. so deborah was raised up a mother in israel, judges v. . kings are nursing fathers by office, isa. xlix. . but that tyrants cannot be such, i have proved already; for they can no more be accounted fathers, than he that abuseth or forceth our mother. . from the protection and shelter that people find under their conduct, they are called shields, psal. xlvii. ult. the princes of the people, the shields of the earth, belong unto god. but tyrants cannot be such, because they are the subverters of the earth. . from the comfort that attends them, they are resembled to the morning light, and fruitful showers of rain, sam. xxiii. . they waited for me, as for the rain, saith job xxix. . but tyrants cannot be resembled to these, but rather to darkness, and to the blast of the terrible ones, isa. xxv. . as a storm against the wall. if darkness cannot be owned to be light, then cannot tyrants be owned to be magistrates. . from their pastoral care and conduct and duty, they are feeders. the judges of israel are commanded to feed the lord's people, chron. xvii. . david was brought to feed jacob his people, and israel his inheritance, psal. lxxvii. . but tyrants are wolves, not shepherds. . by office they are physicians, or healers, isa. iii. . that tyrants cannot be such, is proven above. secondly, on the other hand, the vileness, villainy, and violence of tyrants and usurpers, are held forth by fit resemblances, being compared to these unclean creatures. . tyrants are wicked dogs, as they who compass about christ, psal. xxii. , . saul is called dog there, and in that golden psalm, psal. lix. . saul and his accomplices watching the house to kill david, make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city. . they are pushing bulls, psal. xxii. . and crushing kine of bashan, that oppress the poor, amos iv. . they have need then to have their horns cut short. . they are roaring lions, that are wicked rulers over the poor people, prov. xxviii. . zeph. iii. . so paul calls nero the lion, out of whose mouth he was delivered, tim. iv. . . they are ranging bears, prov. xxvii. . so the persian monarch is emblemized dan. vii. . . they are leviathan, the piercing serpent and dragon, isa. xxvii. . and have great affinity in name and nature with the apocalyptick dragon. so also, isaiah li. . the egyptian tyrant is called dragon and nebuchadnezzar swallowed up the church like a dragon, jer. li. . see also ezek. xxix. . . they are wolves, ravening for the prey, ezek. xxii. . evening wolves, that gnaw not the bones till the morrow, zeph. iii. . . they are leopards; so the grecian tyrants are called, dan. vii. . and antichrist, rev. xiii. . . they are foxes; so christ calls herod, luke xiii. . . they are devils, who cast the lord's people into prison, rev. ii. , . now, can we own all these abominable creatures to be magistrates? can these be the fathers we are bound to honour in the fifth commandment? they must be esteemed sons of dogs and devils that believe so, and own themselves sons of such fathers. if we further take notice, how the spirit of god describes tyranny, as altogether contradistinct and opposite unto the magistracy he will have owned; we may infer hence, tyrants and usurpers are not to be owned. what the government instituted by god among his people was, the scripture doth both relate in matter of fact, and describes what it ought to be by right, viz. that according to the institution of god, magistrates should be established by the constitution of the people, who were to make them judges and officers in all their gates, that they might judge the people with just judgment, deut. xvi. . but foreseeing that people would affect a change of that first form of government, and, in imitation of their neighbouring nations, would desire a king, and say, i will set a king over me, like all the nations that are about me, deut. xvii. . the lord, intending high and holy ends by it, chiefly the procreation of the messias from a kingly race, did permit the change, and gave directions how he should be moulded and bounded, that was to be owned as the magistrate under a monarchical form; to wit, that he should be chosen of god, and set up by their suffrages, that he should be a brother, and not a stranger; that he should not multiply horses, nor wives, nor money, (which are cautions all calculated for the people's good, and the security of their religion and liberty, and for precluding and preventing his degeneration into tyranny) and that he should write a copy of the law in a book, according to that which he should govern, verse . to the end of the chapter, yet the lord did not approve the change of the form, which that luxuriant people was long affecting, and at length obtained: for, long before saul was made king, they proffered an hereditary monarchy to gideon, without the boundaries god's law required: which that brave captain knowing how derogatory it was to the authority of god's institution, not to be altered in form or frame without his order, generally refused, saying, i will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you; the lord shall rule over you, judges viii. . but his bastard, the first monarch and tyrant in israel, abimelech, by sinistrous means being advanced to be king by the traiterous sechemites, jotham, and other of the godly, disowned him; which, by the spirit of god, jotham describes parabolically significantly holding out the nature of that tyrannical usurpation, under the apologue of the trees itching after a king, and the offer being repudiate by the more generous sort, embraced by the bramble: signifying, that men of worth and virtue would never have taken upon them such an arrogant domination, and that such a tyrannical government, in its nature and tendency, was nothing but an useless, worthless, sapless, aspiring, scratching, and vexing shadow of a government, under subjection to which there could be no peace nor safety. but this was rather a tumultuary interruption than a change of the government; not being universally either desired or owned; therefore, after that the lord restored the pristine form, which continued until, being much perverted by samuel's sons, the people unanimously and peremptorily desired the change thereof, and, whether it were reason or not, would have a king; as we were fondly set upon one, after we had been delivered from his father's yoke: and the lord gave them a king with a curse, and took him away with a vengeance, hos. xiii. . as he did our charles ii. yet he permitted it, but with a protestation against and conviction of the sin, that thereby they had "rejected the lord," sam. viii. . and with a demonstration from heaven, which extorted their own confession, that they "had added unto all their sins this evil to ask a king," sam. xii. , , . and to deter and dissuade from such a conclusion, he appoints the prophet to shew them the "manner of the king" that should reign over them, sam. viii. . to declare before hand, what sort of a ruler he would prove, when they got him; to wit, a mere tyrant, who would take their sons and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and for horsemen, and to run before his chariots, and make them his soldiers, and labourers of the ground, and instrument makers, and household servants, and he would take their fields and vineyards--the best of them, and give unto his servants. in a word, to make all slaves; and that in the end, when this should come to pass, they should cry out because of their king, but the lord would not hear them, ver. - . all which, as it is palpable in itself, so we have sensibly felt in our experience to be the natural description of tyranny, but more tolerable than any account of ours would amount to. it is both foolishly and falsely alledged by royalists or tyrannists, that here is a grant of uncontroulable absoluteness to kings to tyrannize over the people without resistance, and that this manner of the king is in the original mishphat, which signifies right or law; so that here was a permissive law given to kings to tyrannize, and to oblige people to passive obedience, without any remedy but tears; and therefore it was registered, and laid up before the lord in a book, sam. x. . but i answer, . if any thing be here granted to kings, it is either by god's approbation, directing and instructing how they should govern; or it is only by permission and providential commission to them, to be a plague to the people for their sin of choosing them, to make them drink as they have brewed, as sometimes he gave a charge to the assyrian rod to trample them down as the mire of the streets: if the first be said, then a king that does not govern after that manner, and so does not make people cry out for their oppression, would come short of his duty, and also behoved to tyrannize and make the people cry out; then a king may take what he will from his subjects, and be approved of god: this were blasphemy absurd, for god cannot approve of the sin of oppression. if the second be said, then it cannot be an universal grant, or otherwise all kings must be ordained for plagues; and if so, it were better we wanted such nursing fathers. . though mishphat signifies right or law, yet it signifies also, and perhaps no less frequently, manner, course, or custom: and here it cannot signify the law of god, for all these acts of tyranny are contrary to the law of god; for to make servants of subjects is contrary to the law of god, deut. xvii. . forbidding to lift up himself so far above his brethren; but this was to deal with them as a proud pharaoh; to take so many for chariots and horsemen, is also contrary to the law, deut. xvii. . "he shall not multiply horses;" to take their fields and vineyards is mere robbery, contrary to the moral and judicial law, whereof he was to have always a copy, ver. . and contrary to ezek. xlvi. . "the prince shall not take of the peoples inheritance," &c. this would justify ahab's taking naboth's vineyard, which yet the lord accounted robbery, and for which tyrants are called "companions of thieves," isa. i. . and "robbers," isa. xlii. . into whose hands the lord sometimes may give his people for a spoil in judicial providence; but never with his approbation and grant of right: to make them cry out, is oppression, which the lord abhors, isa. v. , . and if this be all the remedy, it is none; for it is such a cry, as the lord threatens he will not hear. . it is false, that this manner of the lord was registred in that book mentioned, sam. x. . for that was the law of the kingdom, accordingly the copy of which the king was to have for his instruction containing the fundamental laws, point blank contrary to this which was the manner of the king; there is a great difference between the manner of the kingdom, which ought to be observed as law, and the manner of the king, what he would have as lust. would samuel write in a book the rules of tyranny, to teach to oppress, contrary to the law of god? he says himself, he would only teach both king and people "the good and the right way," sam. xii. , . . nothing can be more plain, than that this was a mere dissuasive against seeking; for he protests against this course, and then lays before them what sort of a king he should be, in a description of many acts of tyranny; and yet in the end it is said, sam. vii. . "nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of samuel, and said, nay, but we will have a king." now, what else was the voice of samuel, than a dissuasion? i am not here levelling this argument against monarchy in the abstract, that does not ly in my road; but i infer from thence, . if god was displeased with this people for asking and owning a king, who was only to become a tyrant and dissuades from the choice, by a description of his future tyranny; then certainly he was displeased with them, when they continued owning, when he was a tyrant indeed, according to that description; but the former is true, therefore also the latter. the consequence is clear: for continuing in sin is sin; but continuing in owning that tyrant, which was their sin at first, was a continuing in sin; therefore----the minor is confirmed thus: continuing is counteracting the motives of god's dissuasion, especially when they are sensibly visible, is a continuing in sin; but their continuing in owning saul after he became a tyrant, was a continuing in counteracting the motives of god's dissuasion, when they were sensibly visible. i do not say, because it was their sin to ask saul, therefore it was not lawful to own him, while he ruled as a magistrate: and so if charles ii. had ruled righteously, it would not have been sin to own him; but after the lord uses dissuasives from a choice of such an one, and these are signally verified, if it was to make the choice, then it must be sin to keep it. . if it was their sin to seek and set up such an one before he was tyrant, who yet was admitted upon covenant terms, and the manner of it registred; then much more is it a sin to seek and set up one, after he declared himself a tyrant, and to admit him without any terms at all, or for any to consent or give their suffrage to such a deed; but the former is true, therefore the latter: and consequently, to give our consent to the erection of the duke of york, by owning his authority, was our sin. . if it be a sin to own the manner of the king there described, then it is a sin to own the pretended authority, which is the exact transumpt of it; but it is a sin to own the manner of the king there described, or else it would never have been used as a dissuasive from seeking such a king. . to bring ourselves under such a burden, which the lord will not remove, and involve ourselves under such a misery, wherein the lord will not hear us, is certainly a sin, ver. . but to own or choose such a king, whose manner is there described, would bring ourselves under such a burden and misery, wherein the lord would not hear us: therefore it were our sin. . we may add the necessary qualifications of magistrates, which the lord requires to be in all, both superior and inferior: and thence it may be inferred, that such pretended rulers, who neither have nor can have these qualifications, and are not to be owned as ministers, who have no qualifications for such a function. we find their essentially necessary qualifications particularly described. jethro's counsel was god's counsel and command; that rulers must be able men such as fear god, men of truth, hating covetousness, exod. xviii. . tyrants and usurpers have none, nor can have any of these qualifications, except that they may have ability of force, which is not here meant: but that they be morally able for the discharge of their duty: surely they cannot fear god, nor be men of truth; for then they would not be tyrants. it is god's direction, that the man to be advanced and assumed to rule, must be a man in whom is the spirit, numb. xxvii. . as is said of joshua; what spirit this was, deut. xxxiv. . explains, he was full of the spirit of wisdom, that is, the spirit of government; not the spirit of infernal jesuitical policy, which tyrants may have, but they cannot have the true regal spirit, but such a spirit as saul had when he turned tyrant, an evil spirit from the lord. moses saith, they must be wise men, and understanding, and known among the tribes, deut. i. . for if they be children or fools, they are plagues and punishments, isa. iii. , , . &c. not magistrates, who are always blessings. and they must be known men of integrity, not known to be knaves or fools, as all tyrants are always. the law of the king is, deut. xvii. . he must be one of the lord's chusing. can tyrants and usurpers be such? no, they are set up, but not by him, hos. viii. . he must be a brother, and not a stranger, that is, of the same nation, and of the same religion: for though infidelity does not make void a magistrate's authority; yet both by the law of god and man, he ought not to be chosen, who is an enemy to religion and liberty. now it were almost treason, to call the tyrant a brother; and i am sure it is no reason, for he disdains it, being absolute above all. that good king's testament confirms this, the god of israel said, the rock of israel spake, he that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of god, sam. xxiii. . but tyrants and usurpers cannot be just: for if they should render every one their right, they would keep none to themselves, but behoved to resign their robberies in the first place, and then also they must give the law its course, and that against themselves. these scriptures indeed do not prove, that all magistrates are in all their administrations so qualified, nor that none ought to be owned, but such as are so qualified in all respects. but as they demonstrate what they ought to be, so they prove, that they cannot be magistrates of god's ordaining, who have none of these qualifications: but tyrants and usurpers have none of these qualifications. much more do they prove, that they cannot be owned to be magistrates who are not capable of any of these qualifications: but usurpers are not capable of any or these qualifications. at least they conclude, in so far as they are not so qualified, they ought not to be owned, but disowned; but tyrants and usurpers are not so qualified in any thing: therefore in any thing they are not be owned, but disowned. for in nothing are they so qualified as the lord prescribes. secondly, i shall offer some reasons from scripture assertions. . it is strongly asserted in elihu's speech to job, that he that hateth right should not govern, where he is charging job with blasphemy, in accusing god of injustice; of which he vindicates the almighty, in asserting his sovereignty and absolute dominion, which is inconsistent with injustice, and shews both that if he be sovereign, he cannot be unjust: and if he be unjust, he could not be sovereign: which were horrid blasphemy to deny. and in the demonstration of this, he gives one maxim in a question, which is equivalent to an universal negative, job xxxiv. , . shall even he that hateth right govern? and wilt thou condemn him that is most just? is it fit to say to a king, thou art wicked; and to princes ye are ungodly? in which words, the scope makes it clear, that if job made god a hater of right, he should then deny his government; and if he took upon him to condemn him of injustice, he should blasphemously deny him to be king of the world. for it is not fit to say to any king, that he is wicked, or so ungodly, as to be a hater of right; for that were treason, lese majesty, and in effect a denying him to be king; much less is it fit to say to him that is king of kings. here then it is affirmed, and supposed to hold good of all governors, that he that hateth right should not govern, or bind, as it is in the margin; for habash signifies both to bind and to govern, but all to one sense; for governors only can bind subjects authoratively, with the bonds of laws and punishments. i know the following words are alledged to favour the uncontroulableness and absoluteness of princes, that it is not fit to say to them, they are wicked. but plain it is, the words do import treason against lawful kings, whom to call haters of right were to call their kingship in question; as the scope shews, in that these words are adduced to justify the sovereignty of god by his justice, and to confute any indirect charging him with injustice, because that would derogate from his kingly glory, it being impossible he could be king, and unjust too. so in some analogy, though every and of injustice do not unking a prince; yet to call him wicked, that is habitually unjust, and a hater of justice, were as much as to say, he is no king, which were intolerable treason against lawful kings. but this is no treason against tyrants; for truth and law can be no treason: now this is the language of truth and law, that wicked kings are wicked; and they that are wicked and ungodly ought to be called so, as samuel called saul, and elijah, ahab, &c. however it will hold to be a true maxim, whether we express it by way of negation or interrogation. shall even he that hateth right govern? but are not tyrants and usurpers haters of right? shall therefore they govern? i think it must be answered, they should not govern. if then they should not govern, i infer, they should not be owned as governors. for if it be their sin to govern (right or wrong, it is all one case, for they should not govern at all) then it is our sin to own them in their government: for it is always a sin to own a man in his sinning. the royal prophet, or whoever was the penman of that appeal for justice against tyranny, psal. xciv. . does tacitly assert the same truth, in that expostulation, shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, that frameth mischief by a law? which is as much as if he had said, the throne of iniquity shall not, no, cannot have fellowship with god; that is, it cannot be the throne of god that he hath any interest in, or concern with, by way of approbation: he hath nothing to do with it, except it be to suffer it a while, till he take vengeance on it in the end. and shall we have fellowship with that throne, that god hath no fellowship with, and that is not his throne, but the devil's, as it must be, if god doth not own it? much may be argued from hence; but in a word, a throne which is not of god, nor ordained of god, but rather of the devil, cannot be owned (for that is the reason of our subjection to any power, because it is of god, and ordained of god, rom. xiii. . and that is the great dignity of magistracy, that its throne, is the throne of god, chron. xxix. .) but a throne of tyranny and usurpation, is a throne which is not of god, nor ordained of god, but rather of the devil: ergo----. the minor is proved: a throne of iniquity, &c. is a throne which is not of god, nor ordained of god, but rather of the devil; but a throne of tyranny and usurpation is a throne of iniquity: ergo, it is not of god, and so not to be owned. . the lord charges it upon israel as a transgression of his covenant, and trespass against his law, that they had set up kings, and not by him, and had made princes and he knew it not, hos. viii. . and then taxes them with idolatry, which ordinarily is the consequent of it, as we have reason to fear will be in our case. he shews there the apostasy of that people, in changing both the ordinances of the magistracy and of the ministry, both of the kingdom and of the priesthood, in which two the safety of that people was founded: so they overturned all the order of god, and openly declared they would not be governed by the hand of god, as calvin upon the place expounds it. whereas, the lord had commanded, if they would set up kings, they should set none up but whom he choosed, deut. xvii. . yet they had no regard to this, nor consulted him in their admission of kings, but set them up, and never let him to wit of it, without his knowledge; that is, without consulting him, and without his approbation, for it can have no other sense. i know, it is alledged by several interpreters, that here is meant the tribes secession from the house of david, and their setting up jeroboam. i shall confess that the ten tribes did sin in that erection of jeroboam, without respect to the counsel or command of god, without waiting on the vocation of god, as to the times and manner, and without covenanting with him for security for their religion and liberty; but that their secession from david's line, which by no precept or promise of god they were astricted to, but only conditionally, if his children should walk in the ways of god, or that their erecting of jeroboam was materially their sin, i must deny; and assert, that if jeroboam had not turned tyrant and apostate from god (for which they should have rejected him afterwards, and returned to the good kings of david's line) he would have been as lawful a king as any in judah, for he got the kingdom from the lord the same way, and upon the same terms that david did, as may be seen expressly in kings xi. . it must be therefore meant, either generally of all tyrants whom they would set up without the lord's mind, as at first they would have kings on any terms though they should prove tyrants, as we have seen in saul's case. or particularly omri whom they set up, but not by the lord; kings xvi. . and ahab his son, and shallum, menaham, pekah, &c. who were all set up by blood and treachery, the same way that our popish duke is now set up, but not by the lord, that is by his approbation. hence i argue, those kings that are not owned of god, nor set up by him, must not be owned by us (for we can own none for kings but those that reign by him, prov. viii. . and are ordained of him, rom. xiii. .) but tyrants and usurpers are not owned of god as kings, nor are set up by him: ergo----again, if it be a sin to set up kings, and not by god, then it is a sin to own them when set up: for, that is a partaking of, and continuing in the sin of that erection, and hath as much affinity with it, as resetting hath with theft; for if they be the thieves, they are the resetters who receive them and own them. . the prophet habakkuk, in his complaint to god of the chaldean tyranny, asserts that god hath made righteous, as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them, habak. i. . now how were they said to be without a ruler, when the chaldean actually commanded, and absolutely ruled over them? yea, how can the fishes and reptiles have no ruler over them? if domineering be ruling, they want not that; when the weaker are over-mastered by the stronger, and by them made either to be subject, or to become their prey. but the meaning is, these creatures have no ruler over them by order of nature: and the jews had then no ruler over them by order of law, or ordination from god, or any that was properly their magistrate by divine institution, or human orderly constitution. we see then it is one thing for a people to have an arbitrary or enthralling tyranny; another to have true magistracy or authority to be owned over them; without which kingdoms are but as mountains of prey, and seas of confusion. hence i argue, if the jews having the chaldean monarch tyrannizing over them, had really no ruler over them, then is a tyrant and usurper not to be owned for a ruler: but the former is true: therefore also the latter. . our saviour christ delivers this as a commonly received, and a true maxim, john viii. . "he that honoureth himself, his honour is nothing." the jews had objected that he had only made himself messias, ver. . to whom he answers, by way of concession, if it were so indeed, then his claims were void, if i honour my self, my honour is nothing: and then claims an undubitable title to his dignity, it is my father that honoureth me. here is a twofold honour distinguished, the one real, the other suppositious and null, the one renounced, the other owned by christ, self-honour, and honour which is from god. hence i argue, a selfcreated dignity is not to be owned; the authority of tyrants and usurpers is a self created dignity: ergo----. this was confirmed above. thirdly, i shall offer some other considerations confirming this truth, from those scriptures which i class among precepts. and these i find of divers sorts touching this subject. . i shew before that the greatest of men, even kings, are not exempted from punishment, if guilty of capital crimes; for where the law distinguisheth not, we ought not to distinguish. there is one special and very peremptory law, given before the law for regulating kings, which, by that posterior law, was neither abrogated nor limited even as to kings, deut. xiii. - . if thy brother (and a king must be a brother, deut. xvii. .)--entice thee secretly, saying, let us go and serve other gods--thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him, neither shall thine eye pity him. how famous mr. knox improved this argument, is shewed in the third period. that which i take notice of here is only, that kings are not excepted from this law; but if they be open enticers to idolatry, by force or fraud, persecution or toleration, as this idolater now reigning is palpably doing, they are obnoxious to a legal animadversion. as it cannot be supposed, that secret enticers should be liable to punishment, and not open avouchers of a desire and design to pervert all the nation to idolatry: that a private perverter of one man, though never so nearly and dearly related, should be pursued and brought to condign punishment, and a public subverter of whole nations, and introducer of a false and blasphemous idolatrous religion, should escape scot free. let the punishment inflicted be in a judicial way, and of what measures it pleases the judge to determine, i shall not controvert here; only i plead, that idolatrous tyrants are not excepted from this law: and infer, that if they ought to be punished, they ought to be deposed; and if they ought to be deposed, they cannot be owned, when undeniably guilty of this capital crime, as was urged above. to this i may add that part of that prophetical king's testament; who, being about to leave the world, under some challenges of maladministration in his own government, (for which he took himself to the well ordered everlasting covenant, for pardon and encouragement,) after he had shewn what rulers should be, he threatens, by antithesis, tyrannical pretenders, in these severe words, which do also imply a precept, and a direction how to deal with them, sam. xxiii. , . "but they of belial shall be all of them as thorns thrust away, because they cannot be taken with hands, but the man that shall touch them must be fenced with iron, and the staff of a spear, and they shall be utterly burnt with fire in the same place." let these words be understood as a threatning against all the wicked in general, who are to be quenched as the fire of thorns; or particularly of the promoters of antichrist's kingdom, in opposition to christ's, as some interpreters judge; it will not weaken, but confirm my argument, if kings who are ringleaders of that gang be not excepted. i know some do understand this of rebels against righteous rulers: which though indeed it be a truth, that they that are such should be so served, and roughly handled with iron, and the staff of a spear; yet it is not so consonant to the scope and connexion of this place, shewing the characters of righteous rulers, and of usurping tyrants, making an opposition between rulers that are just, ruling in the fear of god, and those that are rulers of belial, promising blessing upon the government of the one, and contempt and rejection to the other, and shewing how both should be carried towards: neither does it agree with the words themselves, where the supplement in our translation is redundant; for it is not in the hebrew. the sons of belial, only they of belial, clearly relative to the rulers of whom he was speaking before. and indeed the word belial, in its etymology is not more applicable to any than to tyrants; for it comes from beli not, and hhall above, because they will have none above them, or from beli not, and hhol a yoke, because they cannot suffer a yoke, but cast away the yoke of laws and the yoke of christ, saying, let us burst his bands, &c. nor is it always agreeable to truth, to understand it only of rebels against righteous rulers, that they can never be taken with hands: for as very rarely righteous rulers have any rebels to be the objects of their rigour and rage; so when there are any, discreet and wise rulers will find many ways to take and touch them, and quath or quiet them. but it is always true of tyrants, for they can never be taken with hands, neither in a friendly manner, taken by the hand and transacted within any bargain as other men, for they that would do so, will find them like pricking and jagging briers, which a man cannot handle without hurt to himself: nor can they be any other way repressed or restrained, or touched, but by hands fenced with iron, that is, with the sword of necessity, or axe of justice. and this is insinuated as duty, so to endeavour to extirpate and eradicate such thorns, as pester the commonwealth; but if it cannot be done, it must be duty and wisdom both not to meddle with them, nor own them, no more than jotham, who would not subject himself, nor come under the shadow of the bastard bramble. i confess it is commonly taken as a threatning of the lord's judgment against these sons of belial: and so it is. but it teacheth also what men are called to, when they have to do with such, to wit, to take the same course with them as they would to clear the ground of thorns and briers. and that it is restricted to the lord's immediate way of taking them off, is not credible: for, it can have no tolerable sense to say, they shall be thrust away, because they cannot be taken with the lord's hands: neither is there need, that he should be fenced with iron, &c. and let iron, &c. be taken tropically for the lord's sword of vengeance; yet how can it be understood, that he must be fenced therewith? or that he will thrust them away, as a man must be fenced against thorns? what defence needs the lord against tyrants! it is only then intelligible, that the lord, in his righteous judgment, will make use of men and legal means, and of those who cannot take them with hands, in his judicial procedure against them. hence i argue, if tyrants are to be dealt with as thorns, that cannot be taken with hands, but to be thrust away by violence, then, when we are not in case to thrust them away, we must let them alone, and not meddle nor make with them, and so must not own them, for we cannot own them without meddling, and without being pricked to our hurt; but the former is true: therefore,--of this same nature, another threatning confuting the pretence of the prince's impunity, may be subjoined out of psal. lxxxii. , . "i have said, ye are gods, and all of you are children of the most high, but ye shall die like men, and fall as one of the princes." from which words the learned author of the history of the douglasses, mr. david hume of godscraft, in his discourse upon mr. craig's sermon, upon the words, doth strongly prove, that the scope is to beat off all kings, princes and rulers, from the conceit of impunity for their tyrannical dominations; that they must not think to domineer and do what they list, and overturn the foundations or fundamental laws of kingdoms, because they are gods; as if they were thereby uncontroulable, and above all law and punishment: no, they must know, that if they be guilty of the same transgressions of the law, as other capital offenders, they shall die like other men, and fall as princes, who have been formerly punished. it is not to be restricted to a threatning of mortality; for that is unavoidable, whether they judge justly or unjustly, and the fear thereof usually hath little efficacy to deter men from crimes punishable by law: neither can it be understood only of the lord's immediate hand taking them away, exclusive of men's legal punishment; for expressly they are threatned to die like common men, and to be liable to the like punishment with them: now, common men are not only liable to the lord's immediate judgment, but also to men's punishment. hence, if tyrants and overturners of the foundations of the earth must be punished as other men, then when they are such, they cannot be looked upon as righteous rulers, for righteous rulers must not be punished; but the former is true: therefore,--according to these scriptures, which either express or imply a precept to have no respect to princes in judgment, when turning criminals, we find examples of the people's punishing amaziah, &c. which is recorded without a challenge, and likewise athaliah. . there is a precept given to a humbled people, that have groaned long under the yoke of tyranny and oppression, enjoining them, as a proof of their sincerity in humiliation, to bestir themselves in shaking off those evils they had procured by their sin, isa. lviii. . "is not this the fast that i have chosen, to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?" which are all good works of justice and mercy, and more acceptable to god, than high flown pretences of humiliation, under a stupid submission, and hanging down the head as a bulrush. we see it then a duty to relieve the oppressed, and to repress tyranny, and break its yoke. if it be objected, ( .) that these are spiritual bonds and yokes, that are here commanded to be loosed and broken; or if any external be meant, they are only the yokes, of their exactions and usuries. for answ. i grant, that it is the great duty of a people humbling themselves before the lord, "to break off their sins by righteousness, and their iniquity, by shewing mercy to the poor," dan. iv. . but that this is the genuine and only sense of this place, cannot be proved, or approved by the scope; which is, to press them to those duties they omitted, whereby the poor oppressed people of god might be freed from the yokes of them that made them to howl, and to bring them to the conviction of those sins for which the lord was contending with them, whereof this was one, that they exacted all their labours, or things wherewith others were grieved (as the margin reads) or suffered the poor to be oppressed. ( .) if it be alledged, that this is the duty proper to rulers to relieve the oppressed, &c. i answer, it is so; but not peculiar to them: yet most commonly they are the oppressors themselves, and cast out the poor, which others must take into their houses. but the duty here is pressed upon all the people, whose sins are here cried out against (ver. .) upon all who professed the service of god, and asked the ordinances of justice (ver. .) upon all who were fasting and humbling themselves, and complained they had no success (ver .) the reasons whereof the lord discovers (ver. , .) whereof this was one, that they did not loose those bands, nor break these yokes, nor relieved the oppressed; and those works of justice (ver. ) are pressed upon the same grounds, that the works of mercy are pressed upon (ver. .) sure these are not all, nor only rulers. hence i argue, if it be a duty to break every yoke of oppression and tyranny, then it is a duty to come out from under their subjection; but the former is true: therefore also the latter. . in answer to that grand objection of the jews subjection to nebuchadnezzar, i shewed what little weight or force there is in it. and here i shall take an argument from that same passage. the lord commands his people there, to desert and disown zedekiah, who was the possessor of the government at present, and says, it was the way of life to fall to the chaldeans, jer. xxi. , . which was a falling away from the present king. either this commanded subjection to the chaldeans is an universal precept; or it is only particular at that time. if it be universal, obliging people to subject themselves to every conqueror, then it is also universal, obliging people to renounce and disown every covenant-breaking tyrant, as here they were to fall away from zedekiah: if it be only particular, then the owners of tyranny have no advantage from this passage. and i have advantage, so far as the ground of the precept is as moral, as the reason of that punishment of zedekiah, which was his perfidy and perjury. hence, if the lord hath commanded to disown a king breaking covenant, then at least it is not insolent or unprecedented to do so; but here the lord hath commanded to disown a king: therefore,-- fourthly, we may have many confirmations of this truth from scripture practices approven. . i was but hinting before, how that after the death of that brave captain and judge gideon, when abimelech, the son of his whore, did first aspire into a monarchy, which he persuaded the silly shechemites to consent to, by the same argument, which royalists make so much of, for asserting the necessity of an hereditary monarchy, (whether it is better for you, either that all the sons of jerubbaal----reign over you, or that one reign over you?) and by bloody cruelty did usurp a monarchical or rather tyrannical throne of domination, founded upon the blood of his seventy brethren, (as we know, whose throne is founded upon the blood of all the brethren he had,) jotham, who escaped, scorned to put his trust under the shadow of such a bramble, and they that did submit, found his parable verified, a mutual fire reciprocally consuming both the usurping king and his traiterous subjects; neither did all the godly in israel submit to him. see pool's synopsis critic. on the place, jud. ix. here is one express example of disowning a tyrant and usurper. . i shewed before, how, after the period of that theocracy, which the lord had maintained and managed for some time in great mercy and majesty in and over his people, they itching after novelties, and affecting to be neighbour-like, rejected the lord in desiring a king; and the lord permitting it, gave them a king in wrath, (the true original and only sanction of tyrannical monarchy,) when the characters of his tyranny, presaged by samuel, were verified in his aspiring into a great deal of absoluteness especially in his cruel persecuting of david, not only the men that were david's followers stood out in opposition to him, but, in the end, being weary of his government, many brave and valiant men, whom the spirit of god commends and describes very honourably, fell off from saul, even when he was actually tyrannizing, before he was dead, chron. xii. . &c. they came to david to ziklag, while he yet kept himself close, because of saul the son of kish, (n.b. now he is not honoured with the name of king,) they were armed with bows, and could use both the right hand and the left. and of the gadites, there separated themselves unto david men of might, fit for the battle, that could handle shield and buckler, whose faces were as the faces of lions, ver. . and the spirit came upon amasai chief of the captains, saying, thine are we david, and on thy side, thou son of jesse. here was a formed revolt from saul unto david before he was king; for after this he was made king in hebron, and there could not be two kings at once. hence i argue, if people may separate themselves from, and take part with the resister, against a tyrant; then they may disown him, (for if they own him still to be the minister of god, they must not resist him, rom. xiii. .) but here is an example that many people did separate themselves from saul, and took part with the resister david: therefore----here two of the first monarchs of israel were disowned, abimelech and saul. . the first hereditary successor was likewise disowned, as was hinted above likewise. the ten tribes offer to covenant with rehoboam, in terms securing their rights and liberties. they desired nothing on the matter, but that he would engage to rule over them according to the law of god; to which, when he answered most tyrannically, and avowed he would tyrannize over them, and oppress them more than any of his predecessors, they fell away from, and erected themselves into a new commonwealth, . kings xii. . so when israel saw that the king hearkened not unto them, they answered, what portion have we in david? neither have we inheritance in the son of jesse; to your tents, o israel; now see to thine own house david, chron. x. . now, however the event of this declared revolt proved sorrowful, when they and their new king made defection unto idolatry, yet if they had stated and managed it right, the cause was good, justifiable, and commendable. for, ( .) we find nothing in all the text condemning this. ( .) on the contrary, it is expressly said, the cause was from the lord, that he might perform his saying, which he spake by ahijah, kings xii. . chron. x. . and ( .) when rehoboam was preparing to pursue his pretended right, he was reproved and discharged by shemaiah, ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren, for this thing is from me, kings xii. . chron. xi. . ( .) whereas it is alledged by some, that this was of god only by his providence, and not by his ordinance; the contrary will appear, if we consider how formally and covenant-wise the lord gave ten tribes to jeroboam, . kings xi. , , . "i will take the kingdom out of his son's hand, and i will give it unto thee, even ten tribes; and i will take thee, and thou shalt reign according to all that thy soul desireth, and shalt be king over israel; and it shall be, if thou wilt hearken unto all that i command thee, and wilt walk in my ways, and do that which is right in my sight, to keep my statutes and commandments, as david my servant did, that i will be with thee, and build thee a sure house, as i built for david, and will give israel unto thee." where we see the kingdom was given unto him on the same terms and conditions, that it was given to david. he may indeed give kingdoms to whom he will, by providential grant, as unto nebuchadnezzar, and others; but he never gave them a kingdom upon these conditions, and, by way of covenant, that does always imply and import his word, warrant, and ordinance. ( .) if we consider the cause of the revolt, we will find it very just: for after the decease of the former king, they enter upon terms of a compact with the successor, upon a suspensive condition, to engage into fealty and allegiance to him as subjects, if he would give them security for their liberties and privileges. a very lawful, laudable and necessary transaction, founded upon moral equity, and upon the fundamental constitutions of that government, and suitable to the constant practice of their predecessors, in their covenanting with saul and david. as for that word, kings xii. . so israel rebelled against the house of david: it is no more than in the margin, they fell away or revolted; and no more to be condemned than hezekiah's rebellion, kings xviii. . the lord was with him, and he rebelled against the king of assyria. that was a good rebellion. hence if it be lawful for a part of the people to shake off the king, refuse subjection to him, and set up a new king of their own, when he resolveth to play the tyrant, and rule them after his own absolute power; then it is a duty, when he actually plays the tyrant, and by his absolute power overturns laws and religion, and claims by law such a prerogative; but the former is true: ergo----see jus populi vindic. chap. . page . . this same jeroboam, when he turned tyrant and idolater, was revolted from and deserted by the priests and the levites, and after them out of all the tribes of israel, by all such as set their heart to seek the lord god of israel; because that king, degenerating into tyranny and idolatry, had put them from the exercise of their office and religion (as our charles did,) and ordained him priests for the devils, and for the calves: so they returned to rehoboam, being induced by his administration of the government, which for a time was better than he promised, for three years he walked in the ways of david and solomon, chron. xi. ,-- . hence i argue, if idolatrous tyrants may be deserted, then they may be disowned abroad, it is the same duty at home, though may be not the same policy or prudence. . another example of the like nature we have in the reign of baasha, who succeeded to nadab, jeroboam's son, whom he slew, and reigned in his stead, (the same way that the duke came to the throne) for he could not keep his subjects within his kingdom, but behoved to build ramah, that he might not suffer any to go out or come in to asa, king of judah, a good prince, kings xv. . yet that could not hinder them, but many strangers out of ephraim, and manasseh, and simeon, fell to him in abundance, when they saw that the lord his god was with him, chron. xv. . hence, if people may choose another king, when they see the lord is with him, then they may disown their country king, when they see the devil is with him. . when jeroboam, the son of ahab, reigned over israel, we have an express example of elisha's disowning him, kings iii. , . and elisha said unto the king of israel, what have i to do with thee?----as the lord of hosts liveth, before whom i stand, surely were it not that i regard the presence of jehoshaphat the king of judah, i would not look towards thee, nor see thee. here he declares so much contempt of him, and so little regard, that he disdains him a look. and if he would not regard him, nor give him honour, then he did not own him as king; for all kings are to be honoured, that are owned to be kings really. it may be alledged by some, that elisha was an extraordinary man, and this was an extraordinary action, and therefore not imitable. i shall grant it so far extraordinary, that it is not usual to carry so to persons of that figure, and that indeed there are few elishas now, not only for his prophetic spirit which now is ceased, but even in respect of his gracious spirit of zeal, which in a great measure is now extinguished: he was indeed an extraordinary man, and this action did demonstrate much of the spirit of elias to have been abiding with him. but that this was was inimitable, these reasons induce me to deny, ( .) prophets were subjects to kings, as well as others, as nathan was to david ( kings i , .) every soul must be subject to the higher powers that are of god. ( .) all the actions of prophets were not extraordinary, nor did they every thing by extraordinary inspiration; that was peculiar to christ, that he could prophesy, and do extraordinary acts when he pleased, because he received the spirit not by measure, and it rested upon him. ( .) this particular action and carriage was before he called for the minstrel, and before the hand of the lord came upon him, ver. . ergo, this was not by inspiration. ( .) the ground of this was moral and ordinary, for hereby he only shewed himself to be a person fit to abide in the lord's tabernacle, and an upright walker, in whose eyes a vile person is contemned, psal. xv. . and a just man, to whom the unjust is an abomination, prov. xxix. . what further can be alledged against this instance, i see not. and i need draw no argument by consequence, it is so plain. . this same jehoram, after many signal demonstrations of the power of god exerted in the ministry of his servant elisha, which sometimes did extort his acknowledgement, and made him call the prophet his father, kings vi. . yet, when in the strait siege of samaria, he was plagued with famine for his idolatry, insomuch that the pitiful mothers were made to eat their own tender children; became so insolent a tyrant, that being incensed into a madness of outragious malice against the prophet elisha, that he sware, god do so to him, and more also, if the head of elisha, the son of shaphat, should stand on him that day, accordingly he sent a messenger to execute it. but the prophet, from a principle of nature, and reason, and law, as well as grace, and by the spirit of a man as well as of a prophet, stood upon his defence and encouraged those that were with him to keep out the house against him, saying, see ye how this son of a murderer (a proper stile for such a monster of a king) hath sent to take away mine head-- kings vi. . this is a strong argument for self defence; but i improve it thus; if tyrants may be opposed as sons of murderers, and murderers themselves, and no otherwise to be accounted than under such a vile character, then can they not be owned as kings; but here is an example for the first: ergo.-- . this man's brother in law, of the same name, jehoram the son of jehoshaphat, who had the daughter of ahab to wife, and therefore walked in the way of the house of ahab, gives us another instance. he turned apostate and tyrant, and abimelech-like (or if you will, york-like) slew his brethren, and divers also of the princes of israel; moreover he made high places in the mountains of judah and caused the inhabitants of jerusalem to commit fornication, and compelled judah thereto: for which cause of his intolerable insolency in wickedness, libnah one of the cities of priests in judah, revolted from him, kings viii. . because he had forsaken the lord god of his fathers, chron. xxi. . which was the motive and impulsive cause of their disowning him, and is not to be detorted to that restricted cavil of royalists, understanding it only as the meritorious or procuring cause of his punishment, and loss sustained thereby; for it is not said of the edomites, who revolted at the same time, as it is mentioned in another paragraph; neither of the philistines and arabians, and ethiopians, whose spirit the lord stirred up against him; these were also a punishment to him: nor would it sound very suitably to be said, that they opposed him, because he had forsaken the lord god of his fathers: for that would insinuate some influence that his apostasy had on them, as certainly it could not but have on the lord's priests that dwelt in libnah, who understood by the law of god, what was their duty to do with enticers, or drawers or drivers to idolatry: and when they were not in capacity to execute the judgment of the lord, this was the least they could, to revolt. here then is an example of a peoples revolt from a prince, and disowning allegiance to him, because of apostasy and tyranny. . in this kingdom of judah, after long experience of a succession of hereditary tyranny in many wicked kings, the people, after they had long smarted for their lazy loyalty, in their stupid abandoning, forgetting and foregoing this privilege of disowning tyrants, and keeping them in order, began at length to bestir themselves in their endeavours to recover their lost liberties, and repress tyrants insolencies on several occasions; wherein, though sometimes were extravagancies, when circumstances did mar the justice of the action, and some did go beyond their sphere in tumultuary precipitations; yet, upon the matter, it was justice, and in conformity to a moral command. one impregnable witness of this we have, in the pious plot of jehoiada the priest, who being but a subject, as all priests were (as the deposition of abiathar by king solomon, kings ii. . proveth) entered into an association with the inferior rulers, to choose and make a new king: and notwithstanding that the idolatress and the tyrant athaliah, who had the possession of the government, cried treason, treason at the fact, they had her forth without the ranges, and slew her, kings xi. , . this was according to the law, deut. xiii. and approven by all interpreters, even mr. pool in his synopsis critic. though otherwise superlatively loyal, yet approves of this, and says, she was an incurable idolatress, and therefore deserved to be deposed by the nobles of the kingdom, and quotes grotius in loc. saying (she reigned by mere force; for the hebrews were to have brethren for their kings, but not sisters, deut. xvii. .) hence if tyrants may be forcibly repressed, then may they peaceably be disowned; but this example confirms that: therefore---- . the sacred history proceeds in the relation, how this same joash the son of ahaziah, after he degenerated into murdering tyranny, was slain by jozachar and jehozabad, kings xii. , . but that was by his own servants in private assassination: therefore they are called murderers by amaziah his son, kings xiv. , . but upon the matter it was the justice of god, which he deserved (if it had been duly execute) for the blood of the son of jehoiada the priest, chron. xxiv. . so amon the son of manesseh, for his walking in the way of his father in idolatry and tyranny, and forsaking the lord god of his fathers, was slain in his own house by his servants, who conspired against him; but though this was justice also upon the matter and consonant to the command for punishing idolaters and murderers, yet because defective in the manner, and done by them that took too much upon them in a perfidious way of private assassination and conspiracy, therefore the people of the land punished them for it, kings xxi. , . but the repressing and punishing of amaziah is a more unexceptionable instance. the people made a conspiracy against him in jerusalem, and he fled to lachish; but they sent after him to lachish, and slew him there, kings xiv. . after the time that he turned away from following the lord, chron. xxv. . which was according to the command, deut. xiii. which hath no exception of kings in it. this action was not questioned either by the people or his successor, as the forementioned conspiracies were. his son uzziah succeeding, who did right, and consulted the lord ( . chron. xxvi. , .) did not resent nor revenge his father's death; which certainly he would have done, by advice of zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of god, if it had been a transgression. the famous and faithful mr. knox doth clear this passage beyond contradiction in his conference with lethington. hence i take an argument a fortiori, if people may conspire and concur in executing judgment upon their king turning idolater and tyrant, then much more may they revolt from him; but this example clears the antecedent: therefore. . the fame power and privilege of people's punishing their princes, was exemplified in the successor of him last mentioned, to wit, in uzziah the son of amaziah, called azariah, kings xv. when he degenerated into the ambition of arrogating a supremacy in causes ecclesiastic and sacred, as well as civil, his heart was lifted up to his destruction, for he transgressed against the lord his god, and went into the temple of the lord to burn incense. in which usurpation he was resisted by azariah the priest, and with him fourscore priests of the lord, that were valiant men, who withstood him, and told him, it did not appertain to him to take upon him so much, and bade him go out of the sanctuary, or else it should not be for his honour. which indeed he stomached at as an affront, to be controuled and resisted; but in thinking to resent it, he was plagued of the lord with leprosy; which the priests looking upon, they thrust him out from thence: and thereafter sequestred him from all supremacy, both that which he had before in things civil, and that which he was affecting in matters sacred; for he was made to dwell in a several house, being a leper, (the law including, and here execute upon, the king as well as the beggar) and to resign the government into his son jotham's hands, chron. xxvi. ,-- . where it appears, he was not only excommunicated by a ceremonial punishment, but also deposed judicially. whether he voluntarily demitted or not, it is to no purpose to contend; 'tis evident, that by the law of god, the actual exercise of his power was removed, whether with his will or against it, it is all one; and that he was punished both by god and by men is undeniable. yea, in this, his punishment was very gentle, and far short of the severity of the law: for by the law he should have been put to death, for intermeddling with these holy things, interdicted to all but to the priests, under pain of death, numb. iii. . numb. xviii. . the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death. all were strangers that were not priests. whence i argue, if a prince, for his usurpation beyond his line in things sacred, may by the priests be excommunicated, and by the people deposed; then may a prince, not only usurping a supremacy (as charles did) but an absolute power of overturning all things, sacred and civil (as james doth) and oppressing his subjects in all their liberties, be disowned, a fortiori, for that is less than deposing or dethroning; but this example clears the antecedent; therefore----. see knox's discourse to lethington. lex rex, quest. . sect. , p. . jus popul. chap. . p. . . what if i should adduce the example of a king's rebellion against, and revolt from a superior king, to whom he and his fathers both acknowledged themselves subject? surely our royalists and loyalists would not condemn this; and yet in justifying it, they should condemn their beloved principle of uncontrouled subjection to uncontroulable sovereigns possessing the government. ahaz became servant to the assyrian monarch, kings xvi. . yet hezekiah his son, when the lord was with him, and he prospered--rebelled against the king of assyria, and he served him not, kings xviii. . hezekiah was indeed a king; but he was not sennacherib's king; he acknowledges himself his vassal, and that he offended in disowning him, ver. . which certainly was his sin against the lord, to make such an acknowledgment: for if his father's transaction with the assyrian was sin, then it was duty to break the yoke; if the lord was with him in that rebellion, then it was sin to acknowledge it to be his offence: and to make good this acknowledgment, it was certainly his sin to commit sacrilege, in robbing the house of god, to satisfy that tyrant. by way supplement, i shall add that instance of repressing a mad and furious tyrant, which all will acknowledge to be lawful. nebuchadnezzar was both stricken of god with madness, and for that was depelled from the kingdom, according to the heavenly oracle, the kingdom is departed from thee, and they shall drive thee from men, dan. iv. , . calvin says upon the place, he was ejected, as usually is done to tyrants, by the combination of the nobles and people, pool's synopsis critic. in locum. thus he was unkinged for a time, both by the just judgment of god, and by the intermediation of the just judgment of men; and could not be owned to be king at that time, when his nails were as birds claws, and he could not tell his own fingers: they could not own him to be the governor then of so many kingdoms, when he could not govern himself. hence, though this is an instance of heathens, yet, because they acted upon a rational ground, it may be argued, if kings, because natural madness, when they cannot govern themselves, may not be owned; then also, because of moral madness, when they will not govern but to the destruction of kingdoms, may not be owned, but the former is true: therefore also the latter. the same reason against the government of asses, will also militate against the government of tygers, the first is more eligible than the last. fifthly, this may be confirmed from several promises in scripture. . there are many gracious and precious promises of reformation of the magistracy, and restitution of good rulers, as a great blessing from god to mankind, and to the church, isa. i. . 'i will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning, afterward thou shalt be called the city of righteousness.' if judges must first be restored before the city can be a city of righteousness, then they must be restored before we can own the government thereof: for that government, under which it cannot be a city of righteousness, cannot be owned, since it is no government, but a rebellion and combination of thieves, see ver. . i do not here restrict the promise, as it is a prophecy, to its exact fulfilment, as if no government were to be owned but what answers this promise, of the restitution of the primitive order of magistrates; but i plead, that when the princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves, the government is not to be owned, till judges be so far restored, as to reduce righteousness in some measure, which cannot be under tyranny. and in the general i may plead, that none is to be owned as a magistrate, but who some way is found in a promise; for there is no ordinance of god, no duty, no blessing, no good thing, either to be done or enjoyed, but what is in a promise; but tyranny, or owning of tyrants, or subjection to usurpers, is not, nor cannot be in a promise. we have many other promises about magistrates, as, that the lord will be for a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment, isa. xxviii. . a tyrant cannot be capable of this happiness, nor we under tyranny, nor any while they own them. kings shall be the church's nursing fathers, and their queens her nursing mothers, isa. xlix. . kings are not always so, but all kings to be owned are such as can be so, at least they are never to be owned when they turn destroyers of what they should nourish; but tyrants can never be nourishers. it is promised to the lord's people, if they will hearken diligently unto the lord, and keep the sabbath, then shall there enter into their gates kings and princes, jer. xxiii. , . but it is never promised, neither doth it come to pass in providence, that these duties procured tyrants. there are many other promises to the same purpose: from whence may be concluded, the lord will not always leave his people to howl under uneluctable tyranny, but will accomplish their deliverance in his own time and way, though we are not to look to miracles. whence i argue, . since all the ordinances of god, and rulers in a special manner, are appointed and promised as blessings, these cannot be owned for his ordinance, which are not blessings, but curses. . that which would vacate and evacuate all the promises of magistracy, cannot be a doctrine of god; but this that obliges to own tyrants and usurpers, as long as they are up, would vacate and evacuate all the promises of magistracy: for except the lord work miracles, (which are not in the promise) and do all without means, they cannot be accomplished. for if any means be used, they must be such as will infer disowning of tyrants; for magistrates cannot be restored, except tyrants be removed; and whatever way they be removed without miracles, by others or their own subjects, they must still be disowned, and that before they be removed: for if they be to be owned before their removal, if they exist, cannot make them to be disowned: dispossession cannot take away their right, if they have it before. . there are many promises of breaking the yoke of tyrants, isa. x. . "his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck." and in that promise of the church's deliverance and enlargement, wherein they are prophetically urged and stirred up to some activity in co-operating with the providence, isa. lii. , . "they are called to awake, and put on strength and their beautiful garments--and to shake themselves from the dust--and to rise and to loose themselves from the bands of their neck," that were captives. here is not only a promise of deliverance or a ground of encouragement what the church may expect, but a promise of, and direction for their being active in delivering themselves, as men, from the encroachments that were made on their human liberties, that they should loose themselves from these bands. whose bands? from their bands that ruled over them, and made them to howl, and the lord's name to be blasphemed, (ver. ) here is a promise of breaking the bands of rulers, by them who howled under their subjection. and it also includes a precept, that people should not stay any longer under these yokes, than they can shake them off, or slip from under them. hence we see we are not to ly stupidly sleeping, or sinking in the ditch, expecting the accomplishment of the promise of deliverance; but are to endeavour actively, in dependence upon the lord's assistance, to deliver ourselves. hence we may argue, . a promise by way of command, that a people under bands of oppressing rulers shall rouse themselves up to loose themselves from them, implies and infers a promise and a duty of disowning those rulers (for otherwise they cannot be loosed from their subjection.) but here is a promise by way of command, that a people under bands of oppressing rulers shall rouse themselves up to loose themselves from them: ergo---- . if the removal of tyranny and usurpation be promised as a blessing, then those can never be owned to be the ordinance of god; for the removal of that can never be a blessing; but in these promises we see the removal of those is promised as a blessing: therefore they can never be owned. sixthly, to the same purpose we may cite some threatnings, that will confirm the same truth. . there are many threatnings against tyrants themselves. there are two mentioned, jer. xxii. that seem partly to quadrate, and near of a piece with our misrulers; both because of the demerit of the threatning, and the likeness of the judgment threatned. the ground of it was "building their house by unrighteousness, and their chambers by wrong," ver. . and severally threatned: "jehoiakim with the burial of an ass unlamented," ver. , . coniah with a life without prosperity, and a death without issue to succeed, ver. . the first of these is verified in the elder of our royal brothers, the last is like to be of both. but that which i take notice of is, first, the demerit, building their house by unrighteousness, on which whitehall is built with a witness: and particularly it is noted of jehoiakim, as his crimson sin (to which his son jehoiachin or coniah served himself heir) that he burnt jeremiah's roll, or causes of wrath; so did our dominators burn the causes of wrath (a book written by the commission of the general assembly) and the covenants. then i note these words, ver. . "shalt thou reign because thou closest thyself in cedar, &c." it is certainly not fit for us to say, he shall reign, of whom the lord says, he shall not reign; but when we own the authority of those whom the lord threatens they shall not reign, we say, they shall reign; for we say, they have a right to reign, and own ourselves obliged to do all that is required in our capacity to perpetuate their reign. there is a terrible threatning against zedekiah, ezek xx. ,-- . "thou profane," or as some translate it, "thou worthy to be killed," (pool. synops. crit. in locum.) "wicked prince of israel--thus saith the lord god, remove the diadem, take off the crown, this shall not be the same, exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high; i will overturn, overturn, overturn it, and it shall be no more until he come whose right it is, and i will give it him." than which nothing can be more applicable to our princes, who are profane, and the patterns and patrons of it, whose diadem the lord will remove; and if he threaten it, wo to them that contribute to hold it on. we see here a profane and wicked prince threatned to be overturned must not be owned, because he hath no right; but our excommunicate tyrant is a profane and wicked prince, threatned to be overturned: ergo--there is another dreadful threatning against tyrants, amos iv. , . "hear this word ye kine of bashan, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy--the lord god hath sworn by his holiness, that lo the days shall come upon you, that he will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks." shall we own these, against whom the lord hath engaged his holiness by oath so solemnly, that he will fish them with hooks? we may fear if there be such a tie as allegiance between them and us, that that same hook which fishes them may also catch us; as it is said of pharaoh and his subjects, when he is hooked, then his fish stick unto his scales, and he and they are left in the wilderness, ezek. xxix. , . that is, as grotius expounds it, whoever are of his community shall be consorts in his calamity, pool. critic. in locum. if we then own them, we must be of their community, and so partake of their judgments. . there are many threatnings against illimited loyalty, and those who had more of that than religion: for this ephraim was broken in judgment, because he walked willingly after the commandment, hos. v. . and because the statutes of omri were kept, and the works of the house of ahab, therefore the lord threatens to make them a desolation, mic. vi. ult. and among other threatnings against the men of such universal loyalty, that is notable, hos. x. . "now ye shall say, we have no king, because we feared not the lord, what then should a king do to us?" it is the just punishment of wicked loyalty, that prefers the fear and favour of kings to the fear and favour of god, that at length they are brought to that pass, that either they have no kings at all to look to, or else they have such of whom it may be said, they are no kings in effect; for they cannot act the part of kings to them that trust in them. hence, . if to have really no kings be a punishment. . if those that have the name of kings, that can do no good, be no kings; then tyrants that can do no good, but a great deal of hurt, must be reckoned no kings also; but here it is threatned, people that had kings, that had the name, but could do no good, should reckon they had no kings: therefore much more may tyrants be reckoned to be no kings, who can do no good, but a great deal of hurt. seventhly, this truth is confirmed from scripture-prayers; whereof there are many against tyrants, none for them. hence we argue, if we are not to pray for tyrants, then we are not to own them; for we are to pray for all that are in authority, tim. ii. . but we are not to pray for tyrants; ergo, we are not to own them. the minor now must be proved. and this leads me to another subordinate question, which hath also been a head of suffering to some serious seekers of god in our land of late. the profane emissaries of this and the late tyrant, sent out with bloody commissions to hunt after the lord's hidden ones, in order to murder all whom they might meet with, that made conscience of adhering to every part of the present testimony; among other trapping questions to discover their prey, they used to put this to them as a discriminating shibboleth, and tessera of owning the present tyranny, will you say, god save the king? and for refusing this, many have been cruelly murdered in the fields; and many before their bloody judicatories, have for this been arraigned and condemned, and executed to the death. wherefore to this somewhat must be said, . by way of concession. . by way of vindication, of scrupling it, and suffering upon it. first, in the general, it will be necessary to premit by way of concession, . it is duty to pray, supplicate and interceed for all men, tim. ii. . not collectively considered nor distributively for every one universally without exception, but indefinitely and indiscriminately, for the kinds of every individual, for all sorts and sexes, of whatsoever nation or religion, jew or gentile, christian or infidel, not excluding any for these distinctions: and not only so, but for every individual of the kinds, also conditionally, if they be among those all whom the lord will have to be saved, verse . if they be among those all for whom the mediator gave himself a ransom to be testified in due time, verse , . if they have not sinned the sin unto death, for which we are not bidden pray, john v. . which, because we know not particularly who are guilty of it, charity will oblige us to take into our prayers many that may never be the better of them; yet it is necessary that we pray in faith, for what, or whomsoever we pray, at least, if i may so call it, we must have a negative faith, a belief that they have not sinned that sin unto death; which we cannot have at all, there being some whose demonstrations of desperate displays of affronted wickedness, and hatred of holiness may give ground to doubt of it, as christians had of julian the apostate. . we are obliged to love our enemies, to bless them that curse us, to do good to them that hate us, to pray for them that despitefully use and persecute us, mat. v. . accordingly our master, who commanded this, did give us a pattern to imitate, when he prayed, father forgive them for they know not what they do, luke xxiii. . and his faithful martyr stephen, prayed for his murderers, lord lay not this sin to their charge, acts vii. the last verse. we are to pity them, and not to seek vengeance against them, for any injuries they can do to us. yet, as this doth not interfere with a holy and zealous appeal to god for righting, and resenting, and requiting, the wrongs done to us, that he may vindicate us and our cause, and make them repent of their injuries done to us, to the glory of god, and conviction of onlookers, and confusion of themselves, which may well consist with mercy to their souls; so all we can pray for them in their opposition to us, is in order to their repentance, but never for their prosperity in that course. and we may well imitate, even against our enemies, that prayer of zechariah's, "the lord look upon it, and require it," chron. xxiv. . but we are never to pray for christ's stated enemies, as to the bulk of them; and under that formality as his enemies: for we must not "love them that hate the lord," chron. xix. . but hate them, and hate them with a perfect hatred, psal. cxxxix. , . we are to pray for the elect among them, but only to the end they may escape the vengeance, which we are obliged to pray for against them. . we are not to execrate our enemies, or use imprecations against any, out of blind zeal, or the passionate or revengeful motions of our own hearts: our lord rebuked his disciples for such preposterous zeal, luke ix. . "ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of;" but against the stated and declared enemies of christ, as such and while such, we may well take a pattern from the imprecatory prayers of saints recorded in scripture; such as do not peremptorily determine about the eternal state of particular persons: which determinations, except we be extraordinarily acted by the same spirit, whose dictates these are, are not to be imitated by us. we find several sorts of imprecations in the psalms and other scriptures: some are imitable, some not; some are prophetical, having the force of a prophecy, as david's psal. xxxv. . "let them be confounded--that seek after my soul.--let destruction come upon him," psal. lv. . "let them go down quick to hell." and jeremiah, chap. xvii. . "let them be confounded that persecute me,--destroy them with double destruction." without this prophetical spirit, determining the application of these threatnings to particular persons, we may not imitate this peremptoriness. some are typical of christ's mediatory devoting his enemies to destruction; who as he interceeds for his friends, so, by virtue of the same merits (by them trampled upon) he pleads for vengeance against his enemies; which mediatory vengeance is the most dreadful of all vengeances, (heb. x. .) so also, psal. xl. he whose ears were opened, and who said, "lo i come,"--verse , . (that is christ) does imprecate shame, and confusion, and desolation, ver. , . as also psal. cix. the psalmist personates christ, complaining of, and imprecating against his enemies; particularly judas the traitor, verse . it must be dreadful to be under the dint of the mediator's imprecations; and also dreadful to clash with him in his intercessions, that is, to apprecate for them against whom he intercedes. but some imprecations against the enemies of god are imitable; such as proceed from pure zeal for god, and the spirit of prayer, as that, psal. cix. last verse, "put them in fear, o lord, that the nations, may know themselves to be but men." psal. lxxxiii. .----"fill their faces with shame that they may seek thy name." this is to be imitated in general against all the enemies of god, psal. cxxix. . "let them all be confounded that hate zion;" without condescending on particular persons, except obviously and notoriously desperate and presumptively christ's implacable enemies. . touching magistrates it is a great duty to pray, that god would give us magistrates, as he hath promised for the comfort of his church, isa. i. . isa. xlix. . jer. xxx. . promises should be motives and foments of prayer. we ought to pray against anarchy as a plague, and with all earnestness beg of god, that the mercy of magistracy may again be known in britain, of which it hath been long deprived. . and when we have them, it is a necessary duty to pray for them; "for kings and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty," tim. ii. . where it is specified, what sort we should pray for, and to what end. as we are not to pray for all men absolutely; for some, as they are declared to be out of the precincts of christ's mediation, so they must be out of our prayers: so there may be some in actual rule, that may be excepted out of the verge of the christian prayers, as was said of julian the apostate. but he that is a magistrate indeed, and in authority, the subjects are to pray and to give thanks for him, not as a man merely, but as a magistrate. yea, though they be heathen magistrates, ezra vi. . we may pray for all in authority, two ways; as men, and as kings. as men, we may pray for their salvation, or conversion, or taking them out of the way, if they be enemies to christ's kingdom, according as they are stated; and upon condition, if it be possible, and if they belong to the election of grace. though for such as are opposites to the coming of christ's kingdom, as it is a contradiction to the second petition of the lord's prayer, (thy kingdom come.) so, in the experience of the most eminent wrestlers, they have found less faith, and less encouragement, in praying for them, than for any other sort of men. it is rare that ever any could find their hands in praying for the conversion of the rulers. and though we pray that the lord would convince them; yea, and confound them, in mercy to their souls; yet this must never be wanting in our prayers for tyrants, as men, that god would bring them down, and cause justice overtake them, that god may be glorified, and the nation eased of such a burden. but if we pray for them as kings, then they must be such by god's approbation, and not mere possessory occupants, to whom we owe no such respect nor duty. for whatever the hobbists, and the time serving casuists of our day, and even many good men (though wofully lax in this point) homologating both doctrinally and practically their heathenish notions, say to the contrary; i hope it be in some measure made out, that tyrants are no more the ordinance of god, nor to be owned as his ministers and vicegerents, than the devil the prince of this world for the lord's anointed, or baal's priests for true ministers. if we pray for them as kings, we must pray for their peace, prosperity, and preservation, that their government may be blessed with success, their designs not frustrated, nor their desires disappointed. this we cannot pray for tyrants. . albeit, we may pray for the peace of the nation, and for the government thereof, so far as it may conduce to our own and the church's tranquillity, that we may live a peaceable and godly life under it; yet this cannot be extended to the peace of tyrants, for whom the best prayer that we can bestow is, that the lord would bridle and restrain them, that they may not mar the church's peace. that command, jer. xxix. . "seek the peace of the city, whithersoever i have caused you to be carried captives, and pray unto the lord for it, for in the peace thereof shall you have peace," is apparent to have been but of a temporary nature, upon occasion of their captivity there, until the years should be expired, having it also declared by god, that their own peace was bound up in that of babylon's: for after that time they are taught the contrary carriage towards that city, to depart, and pray against it, and exult and rejoice in its ruin: "o daughter of babylon, happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us, that dasheth thy little ones against the stones," psal. cxxxvii. , . "the voice of them that flee out of the land of babylon, to declare in zion the vengeance of the lord, the vengeance of his temple," jer. l. . and jer. li. . "the violence done to me, and to my flesh, be upon babylon, shall the inhabitant of zion say, and my blood be upon chaldea, shall jerusalem say." certainly this is not the season to seek the peace of mystical babylon, but to pray for the destruction thereof, and all its supporters: which we cannot do, if we pray for them that improve, employ, and apply all their power to support it, lest we pray contradictions; as many do, who pray against babel's brats, and yet pray for the king; but the comfort is this, that nonsensical prayers will do little good, little hurt, but to themselves that pray them. secondly, to vindicate the scruplers and refusers of such compelled and extorted devotions in praying for tyrants, i shall offer these considerations, . the imposed form of it (which as it is found in the original from whence it is taken, is only paraphrastically expounded, god save the king; and catechrestically applied to tyrants, being in the native sense of the words of this signification. let the king live; which is a very improper wish for men of death, of whom god says they shall die, and the law says, they should die for their murders and capital crimes) must be taken either as an adulatory compliment; or a congratulatory honour; or a precatory benediction. the first as it is extorted most illegally, so it can be tendered neither civilly, nor sincerely, nor christianly; but all ingenious men would think it a base imposition, to be forced not only to subject themselves to their tyrannical oppressors, but to flatter them as if they were not such. whatever they may force the mouth to speak dissemblingly, they can never compel the heart to think such wishes are due to them; and so they can never be cordial, nor confident with candor: and to interpose the holy and dreadful name of god, in a dissembling compliment, to flatter base men, is a horrid mocking of god, and a heinous taking his name in vain, contrary to the third command. if it be a congratulation (as always it is used in scripture, and in cases formerly; being never imposed on men, by way of compulsion, before this set of tyrants started up, that know they can get no deference of honest men, but by extortion) it is the more abominable; not only for the hypocrisy that is in it, but the blasphemy, in giving thanks for the promoter of the devil's interest, and the destroyer of christ's, and the liberties of mankind. what have we to congratulate him for, but for overturning our laws and liberties, and oppressing us in most grievous tyranny? besides, to give the vilest of men, when exalted, any congratulatory honour, is contrary to the fifth command, as is shewed above. "and it were a forsaking of the law, thus to praise the wicked, since they that keep the law, will contend with them," prov. xxviii. . if it be a benediction, we cannot bestow it upon one whom our father curses, our mother curses, and all our brethren. it is no less preposterous to bless whom the lord declaredly curses, than to curse whom he blesses. "the curse of the lord is in the house of the wicked," prov. iii. . we cannot then bless that house. nor can we bless them that our mother curses, and cries for vengeance against, as she did against nebuchadnezzar, jer. li. , . nor them against whom the blood of our dead brethren hath a moral cry, "how long, o lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood," rev. vi. . and the vexed spirits of our brethren, yet howling under the same yoke, are putting up before the throne of grace, the same continued cry, with incessant importunity; "how long, how long shall the wicked triumph? how long shall they break in pieces thy people? o god, to whom vengeance belongeth," psal. xciv. - . yea god hath said it, and we must not contradict it in our practice, against all tyrants that wrest judgment, and say unto the wicked, "thou art righteous, him shall the people curse, nations shall abhor him," prov. xxiv. . and this must stand registred, as the everlasting clause of all zion's haters, to which all her lovers must say, amen, that they shall be as the grass upon the house tops, and never have the benefit of the church's benediction, psal. cxxix. . "neither do they which go by say, the blessing of the lord be upon you; we bless you in the name of the lord." this one word may be a sufficient supersede as from blessing any of the enemies of god; or of the church, while acting in a declared opposition to god for the destruction of his people and interest. . either this----save the king, as they mouth it, and demand the repetition of it, is a prayer, or it is not. if not, it must be a dreadful profanation of the name of god, to be commanded to speak to him, and yet not to pray. if it be a prayer, we would expect another way of dealing with us, if they really desired the benefit of our prayers, than a threatning us with death, if we did it not. and if they did desire it, as darius did, "that we might offer sacrifices of sweet savour unto the god of heaven, and pray for the life of the king and of his sons," ezra vi. . we could not refuse to pray for him, so far as might consist with that prayer of the same darius, in that same decree, ver. . "that god may destroy all kings and people, that shall put to their hand to alter and destroy the house of god." we can pray no prayer inconsistent with this; and to pray that god would save this king, and yet destroy all kings that put to their hand against his house, were to pray contradictions. but they know they deserve no prayers, and must force them, if they get them. and all the world knows, that compelled prayers are no devotion; and if they be no devotion, they must be sin; imposed prayers are not the prayers that god will hear and accept: and if we have not the faith of acceptance in them, they must be sin; for whatever is not of faith is sin, rom. xiv. last ver. all prayers which god will hear, must proceed from the heart voluntarily and fervently, in spirit and in truth, with the whole heart; but imposed and compelled prayers cannot be such, especially when they are not only by them imposed, but prescribed as to the form of them: which sets and forms prescribed by men, and such men as usurp a supremacy over the church, cannot be subjected to, according to the word of god, and principles of our reformation. . that infallible proposition of the apostle, whatsoever is not of faith is sin, must be urged yet a little further: and that with a reference, both to the person required to be prayed for, and to the matter of the duty more generally. first, if we cannot pray for this man, neither as a christian, nor as a king, then we cannot satisfy this imposed demand; for it will not satisfy for him as a heathen: but we cannot in faith pray for him, either as a christian, or as a king. not as a christian, for besides that he is an excommunicate apostate (by a sentence, which we believe stands yet ratified in heaven, pronounced by a faithful servant of christ) and a papist, which, as such, can no more be prayed for, than the pope as pope; for whom, and all the limbs of antichrist, the only prayer that protestants can pray, is, that the lord would consume him with the spirit of his mouth, and destroy with the brightness of his coming, thess. ii. . (we cannot reconcile the prayers of some, that pray against the pope and his supporters, and upholders of his tottering kingdom, and yet for this his antichristian vassal) his rage and resolution in prosecuting a war against christ and his followers, is such, that if we may make comparisons, our faith will have little more ground to pray for james, than christians of old could find for julian the apostate. nor as a king, for that we cannot do, because he is none with god's approbation, and may not do, for a very heathen could teach us to pray, that god would destroy all kings that put to their hand to alter and destroy the house of god, ezra vi. . and besides, in the second place, with respect to the matter of the duty in general; that cannot be, in faith, which wants a warrant in the word, either by precept, promise, or practice; but to pray for wicked tyrants and enemies of god, wants a warrant in the word, either by precept, promise, or practice: there is no precept for it, either general or particular, neither express, nor any to which this is reducible: and who dare add without a precept in the worship of god, either for matter, manner, or end, what he hath not commanded? for such presumption nadab and abihu were destroyed, levit. x. , . because they did that which the lord had not commanded. what command can there be for praying for that, which is against the preceptive will of god? but it is against the preceptive will of god that there should be tyrants: therefore to pray that these may be preserved in the world, cannot fall under a command of god. there is no promise for it, which is the foment and foundation of prayer: we can pray for nothing that we have not a promise for, either general or particular; but we have none, nor can have any, for the preservation of a plague to us, as tyrants are. there is no practice for it in scripture, to pray for kings that put to their hand to destroy the house of god. samuel did indeed mourn for saul, but the lord reproved him for it, how long wilt thou mourn for saul, seeing i have rejected him from being king over israel? sam. xvi. i. belike this reproof was for his praying for saul's preservation as king, for otherwise we may mourn for wicked wretches, for their sin and misery both. but hence, if the lord reprove his servant, for mourning for a king whom he disowned, then we may not pray for such a king whom the lord disowns, as he disowns all tyrants, for they are set up and not by him; but the antecedent is true in that example of samuel; therefore also the consequent, that we may not pray for them as kings, whom the lord disowns. . moreover, to confirm this yet further; that prayer is not of faith, and so sin, which is contrary to the precepts of god, and his promises, and the practices of the saints; but praying for wicked kings, their preservation, is contrary to these precepts, promises, and practices, &c. ergo----. it is contrary to some divine precepts, both affirmative and negative. there is an affirmative precept, prescribing what prayer should be used under the domination of tyrants, that they should weep and say, spare thy people, o lord, give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them, wherefore should they say among the people, where is their god? joel ii. . if it be a reproach to be under heathen rulers, and if we should pray that they may not rule, but that our god may shew himself where he is, and who he is, in delivering his people from their domination; then it is contrary to this, to pray for the preservation of tyrants, that do rule over them to their destruction and reproach; for it is contradictory to pray, that they may not rule, and that they may be preserved in ruling. there is a negative precept, prohibiting the salutation of heretics and enemies of the gospel, which will condemn this salutation of heretical kings: for, in the original, god save the king, is no more than a solemn salutation, or apprecatory wish that he may prosper. epist. john ver. , . "if there come any----, and bring not this doctrine,----neither bid him god speed, for he that biddeth him god speed, is partaker of his evil deeds." god speed, in the greek, is the same with god save, in the hebrew. if then we must not say, god save a heretic; neither must we say, god save an heretical king, or a popish tyrant, a sworn enemy to the gospel of christ, and the coming of his kingdom. this is also inconsistent with that rule and directory of our prayers, commonly called the lord's prayer, not only because it cannot be reduced to any of its petitions, (which are comprehensive of all that we are warranted to pray for,) but because it is contradictory to the second, which is, thy kingdom come. the coming of christ's kingdom in our land cannot consist with the preservation of the tyrant's reign, which is satan's rule, for antichrist's and satan's kingdom, and christ's, cannot be promoted both at once. it may be also demonstrated, that it is inconsistent with all the petitions of that perfect form of prayer. with the first, hallowed be thy name; for when they who rule over his people make them to howl, then his name continually is blasphemed, isa. lii. . yea much profaned in the frequent repeating that imposition. with the second, thy kingdom come; for when he takes unto him his great power and reins, then is the time he will destroy them that destroy the earth, rev. xi. , . it is against the third, thy will be done--for it is against his preceptive will that there should be a throne of iniquity, it shall not have fellowship with him; as it would have, if according to his will. and therefore habbakkuk pleads from the lord's holiness and righteousness against tyrants, habbak. i. , . it is against the fourth, give us this day our daily bread, to pray for them that rob us of it, whom the lord hath set over us for a plague, to domineer over our bodies, and all the means of life, neh. ix. . the saints there make a complaint of kings, and pray to remove them, not to save them: the church also prays against base rulers on this account, because under them they get their bread with the peril of their lives, lam. v. , . it is against the fifth, forgive us our debts or sins; for if we pray for taking away the guilt of sin, we must also pray for removing the punishment; whereof this is one, to be under tyrants: and if it be sin which brings on judgment, then it is sin to pray for the keeping of it on, and continuing thereof; and though we should forgive their sin against us, yet we ought to complain against their sins against god, and the church, in defiling it, and shedding the blood of the saints, psal. lxxix. - . it is against the sixth, lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil: for their government is a continued tract of temptation, they being a snare on mizpah, and a net spread upon tabor, hos. v. . and if we pray to be delivered from all evil, then we must pray to be delivered from tyranny, which is a great evil. it is against the conclusion also, for thine is the kingdom,----and glory: tyrants being stated in opposition to the glory of god. again, in the next place, it is against many promises of giving good rulers, and of breaking the yoke of tyrants, (as i cited several above;) neither of which can consist with the preservation of tyrants, if such a prayer should be answered according to the idol of the heart of the supplicants: for if god should save this man as long as we may pray for him as a king, then all the promises of a change and revolution are precluded. lastly, it is contrary to the constant tenor of the saints prayers against the enemies of god. deborah prayed upon the destruction of a tyrant, so let all thine enemies perish, o lord, judg. v. ult. jotham prayed against the bastard king, let fire come out from abimelech and devour the men of shechem, and--let fire come out from the men of shechem and devour abimelech, judg. ix. . david prays against saul, whom he calls cush the benjamite in the title of psal. vii. alluding to kish his father, or because he was no better than an ethiopian, a cushite, amos ix. . and could no more change his manners than an ethiopian can change his skin, jer. xiii. . see pool's synops. critic. in locum. where it is proven, that this was saul; against him he prays, that the lord would awake to judgment, psal. vii. . and that he would break the arm of the wicked and the evil man, psal. x. . that he would not slay them, (to wit, suddenly, or in a common way) lest the people forget, but scatter, and bring them down, and consume them in wrath, that they may not be, that it may be known god ruleth in jacob to the ends of the earth, psal. lix. , . this is a psalm against dogs, ver. . what dogs?--saul and his men watching david. see the title. as also it is against saul that he prays, that the lord would not grant his desires, nor further his devices, and as for the head of them that compassed him about, (which was saul.) let the mischief of their own lips cover them, psal. cxl. , . there is also a prayer, that the saints may execute vengeance, and the judgment written upon tyrants, and bind them with chains, psal. cxlix. , , . the church is brought in praying for vengeance against the babylonian tyrant, nebuchadnezzar the king of babylon hath devoured me,--the violence done to me and my flesh be upon babylon shall the inhabitants of zion say, jer. li. , . paul imprecates any man that does not love the lord jesus, let him be anathema maranatha, cor. xvi. . and sure no tyrant, persecutor, subverter of christ's kingdom, can be a lover of christ. the martyrs, under the fifth seal slain for the word of god, and the testimony which they held, are brought in crying against the tyrants that murdered them, how long! o lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood, revel. vi. , . which though it be to be understood of a moral cry of blood, as abel's blood cried against cain: yet ought to be a pattern of our prayers against such bloody enemies, imbruing their hands in the blood of our brethren, for which we ought to pray that the lord would haste to make inquisition. durham observes from this place, that god's people, in a holy way, may pray for vengeance upon persecutors. . let us consider the person and matter, for whom and for what this prayer is extorted. either it is for the personal salvation of james the papist, or the royal preservation of james the tyrant. it will not satisfy to pray, that if it be possible, and if it were the lord's will, he might be taken to heaven, that so we might be quit of him. neither were it lawful to pray, that, except we prayed first, that he might repent of this his wickedness, if perhaps it might be forgiven him, as peter directed simon magus to pray for himself, acts viii. . for it is unlawful to pray for the salvation of a papist, except upon supposition of his repentance and relinquishing popery. we must pray nothing but according to the will of god; and it is not the will of god, that they that have and keep, and will not part with the mark of the beast, should be saved, for he is adjudged of god to drink of the wine of his wrath, revel. xiv. , . so we cannot pray for him as a christian, which he is not; nor as a papist, except that he may get repentance. nor can we pray for him as a king, which he is not; nor as a tyrant, except that he may repent of and relinquish his tyranny and usurpation: for tyrants as such cannot be saved, no more than papists as such; for tophet is ordained of old, yea for the king it is prepared,----isa. xxx. . we cannot then pray for his salvation, except we pray for his repentance, and relinquishing all his sins, and so we must pray for him relinquishing his kingship, and that he may cease to be king; for that is his sin, that he hath made himself king without god, and against the laws of the land. and now, while he continues such, we must complain in prayer, not for his misgovernment only, but for that he governs, and desire to be delivered from him. see gee's magistrates original, pag. . but now considering what a man, and what a king he hath been, guilty of murder, adultery, idolatry, under sentence of the law both of god and man; we can pray no otherwise for him, than for a murderer, adulterer, or an idolater. we cannot pray for him as cloathed with authority, or that the lord may bless his government, for that is his sin and our misery, that he is a governor: and his throne is a throne of iniquity, which we dare not pray may have fellowship with god. can we pray that god would bless him on a throne of iniquity? could we pray, that the lord would bless a drunkard in his drunkenness, abusing his enjoyments? or a thief in his stealing, though he used his purchase never so soberly? what if prevailing robbers by land, or pirates by sea, preying upon all passengers, should require this as the sign of subjection to them, and only condition whereupon such, as they apprehend and overcame, should be suffered to live, that they should pray for preservation and prosperity to them? would not this be wickedness thus to pray for thieves and robbers? and are not tyrants the greatest of thieves, that rob and destroy twenty for one of private robberies? and do they not require this as such a sign on such a condition? . lastly, then the plea will be reduced to this, that it is exacted as a badge of loyalty, and sign, tessera, shibboleth of owning the authority. which i have at this length endeavoured to prove, cannot be conscientiously owned by us, in these circumstances. and even by this argument: that authority which we cannot pray for we cannot own; but we cannot pray for this tyrannical authority: therefore.--the minor i trust is in some measure made manifest, by what is said above. and so i conclude this head, with that form of prayer, that i use for the king. o lord god, to whom vengeance belongeth, shew thy self; lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth, render a reward to the proud. lord, how long shall the wicked? how long shall the wicked triumph? shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, that frameth mischief by a law? the mighty and terrible god destroy all kings and people, that put to their hand to alter and destroy the house of god. overturn, overturn, overturn this throne of tyranny, and let it be no more, until he come whose right it is. head iii. _the refusing to swear and subscribe the many unlawful imposed oaths, for which many have suffered great cruelties; chiefly that of_ abjuration _which was the cause of several their suffering to death_, vindicated. another great head of grievous sufferings, in this fatal period, hath been, this stated war between christ and his enemies in scotland, he hath not wanted witnesses, who in their wrestlings for the word of god and the testimony which they held, thought it their duty to refuse all illegally imposed and wickedly required transactions with his declared enemies, and tampering any manner of way with them, in taking or subscribing any of their conscience couzening impositions of deceitful and destructive bonds and oaths, obtruded by men who have cast off all sense of a deity, or regard to humanity, upon the consciences of poor people, to debauch them and cast them down from the only excellency or integrity that was left them: whereby (though they have missed of their design as to some, who through grace have escaped the snares of these fowlers, and in resisting have overcome through the blood of the lamb) they have prevailed to inveigle the generality, even of the professors of this generation, into such a degree of defection and wretched compliance with all their snares, that as it prognosticates universal desolation ineluctable, (if it be not prevented as universal as the compliance hath been,) so it proclaims the infamy of the compliers perjury as indelible as their perfidy with whom they have complied. the consideration of which woful apostasy, in its various steps by which it hath been propagated and promoted, ought to deter and demur all the fearers of god, that would not partake of its threatned punishment, from venturing any more to come near the brink, or border of such precipices, and paths of the destroyer, when so many have stumbled, and fallen, and been hooked, and taken; yea not so much as to look near them, lest they be left to follow their look, but to stand aloof from every appearance of transacting with these man catchers, yea conscience-catchers, who are so cunning to ensnare and destroy; as their predecessors, to whose sins and judgments also they serve themselves heirs, are described by the holy ghost, jer. v. - . they lay wait as he that setteth snares, they set a trap, they catch men,----their houses are full of deceit, therefore they are become great and waxen rich.----shall i not visit for these things saith the lord? many and manifold have been the snares, traps and gins, laid in the way of the professors of this generation and nation, by these mischief hatchers, these keen and cunning persecutors, the party now regnant or rather raging, in madness and malice against christ and all that are loyal and zealous for his interest against their encroachings thereon, whereby they have caught and cozened many out of their consciences, and have broken the neck of some, the peace of others, and the hearts of not a few. yea no nation can be instanced, wherein so many oaths and bonds have been imposed on peoples consciences, so nauseating for naughtiness and number, as well as noxious in their nature, in an age, as have been in scotland within these years past; on design to waste all remainder of conscience, or sense of religion among people, that so having worn out the awful impression of it, they may introduce what they would, upon a people involved in the same apostasy with themselves and either to incorporate all with themselves in the same combination against the lord, or to extirpate all dissenters, who should discover any tenderness of conscience, in not going along with them in the same excess of riot. and to the end they might have the greater concurrence and countenance, with the help of hell's policy, they contrived them in such terms as might engage many to take them, and load the recusants with odious obloquies, either as silly scruplers, or seditious schismaticks, or rebels. for this hath been all along their grand project, to level their designs against religion, not directly and formally under that notion, but obliquely to the destruction of the lovers and professors of it under the nickname of fanatical enemies to government. of these ensnaring engines levelled to these ends, some have been more patent and open, others more latent and hidden; both have made a pray of people, the last chiefly. for a snare the more latent and hidden it be and the more varnished over with the vermillion of pretended honesty and innocence, it is the more dangerous; and will be so accounted by all the circumspect and cautious, as in its design more destructive, and in its effects, when discovered, more dolorous, than that which is more open and manifest. a hook, the braver that it is busked, and the better that it is baited, the surer and more successful it is to catch the simple fish; if it want its busking, they will not so readily bite at it. in vain is a net spread in the sight of any bird; yet though this is a truth, such silly birds have the bulk of us been, such silly doves without a heart, and so senselessly stupefied, as to suffer ourselves to be blindfolded and hood-winked into snares, of such a manifest baseness, as none could be readily supposed might fall into, who did not brutishly abandon all common sense of reason, besides religion; as a test, and oaths of arbitrary allegiance, bonds of conformity, and irregular regulation, &c. some again, and these, alas! too many, have been ensnared with snares of a more smooth, and subtile complexion, and poisoned with gilded arrows, coloured over with the specious pretexts of the enemies relenting condescendency and tenderness, stooping now to universal and general terms, obviously thought capable of a very good construction, and daubed over with the untempered mortar of the frequency of the most universally unscrupled supscription of very good and conscientious men and the rarity of recusants lying under the reproach of some few, wild, fantastical fools. these well busked hooks have caught many; of which sort have been many banded indemnities, and easily swallowed oaths thereunto appended. though the present indeed is contrived without gins of this sort, and now all these snares of oaths and bands are as illegally taken away as they were before imposed; upon the same design, to catch silly fish by other methods; not with hooks, as before, but with a large spread net, to hale the whole school to antichrist's shore; and to put to proof and practice the vastness of that leviathan prerogative of absolute power, to dispense with all oaths; especially because, in all of them, even the most monstrous, people might think there was some tye obliging them to maintain the protestant religion, therefore to obliterate that, and bury it in oblivion, all now are taken away; but the guilt of them still remains upon the land, and the grievous cry of suffering for refusing them still continues; and therefore the iniquity of them must be looked unto and lamented, and that with an eye to the account and reckoning must be rendered for them, to a greater judgment than that of creatures. but among all these destructive and diabolical devices, there have been none more charming and cheating, than that cunningly contrived oath of abjuration, as it is called, enjoined to be taken by all within the kingdom, by a proclamation about it, representing a late declaration emmitted by that party, whose sufferings i am vindicating (as a manifesto of their enemies) under the most odious character, that the malice of men helped with hell's hatred could devise; and requiring all to abjure it in the most peremptory manner, and under the severest penalty that ever was heard. this oath, i say, was contrived with such cunning, and followed with such keenness, that it hath involved more under its obligation, and engaged more to subscribe it, than any other that went before it: because it hath been painted over with such pretexts, as never any before was capable of. the pressing of it hath been so impartial, upon travelling to the country, &c. and their acceptance of the pass annexed to it thought so necessary, as without it no business could be gone about. its subscription so universally unscrupled, even by the generality of great professors and ministers too; the thing abjured represented so odious, as no honest man could refuse to renounce; and the matter renounced, under its best aspect and construction, esteemed only a paper declaration of a party very despicable, wherein the principles, profession, or confession of the church seems no way concerned; and if any way concerned, yet the concern appearing so finall, as few or none durst state their sufferings upon that head. yet i believe, if either such as have taken it, or others that may have the tentation of the like hereafter, will impartially ponder it; so much iniquity may be discovered in it, as may oblige the one to mourn in the sense of its fulness, and the other to beware of its danger. and so much rather would i offer this to consideration, that i know one who was wofully wheedled into it, that found the bitter effects of this poisoned pill in his wounded conscience, after reflections on the deed, in such a measure that he despaired of ever recovering peace. and this man had as much, and more to say, to justify his deed, than any that ever took it; having it with all the advantages that ever it could be tendered with: for, being urged thereunto before the justiciary, he expresly refused to disown that declaration, and the principles whereupon it was founded, and told them that it was misrepresented in the proclamation: and when they yielded to an abstract disowning of it in so far as the proclamation represents it, or, if so be, it might be so represented, he gave in a sense in writ, wherein he would take it; shewing that, upon supposition, the declaration did assert such things as was represented, he would disown it: and after the sense was accepted as satisfactory, he refused to swear after the ordinary manner, following the clerks, blind manuduction, but behoved to have it written down: and when it was written, with express specification of that apologetical declaration, he refused to swear it, till it was altered and corrected, and the word pretended put in the stead of it: which done, before he subscribed it, he protested it might be constructed in no other sense, than the genuine meaning of the words he delivered in, and that it might not be reckoned a compliance for fear of his life: yet, notwithstanding of all this, he lost the jewel of inward peace, and knew the terror of the lord for many days. therefore i shall chiefly insist on discovering the iniquities of this last oath, called the abjuration oath, both because it is the smoothest, and more generally taken than any other, and approven by many that condemn the rest, and refusing it hath been punished by death, and most illegally pressed upon all, under the penalty thereof, as none of the rest was; and because as all other oaths successively imposed, were so contrived that the last did always imply and involve the substance of the former, so it will appear that the iniquity of none of the preceeding oaths was altogether wanting in this. but to the end, both the complication of the iniquities of this oath may be evinced, and the continued strain of all the oaths (which have also been heads of suffering, though not to this degree) may be discovered; i shall touch somewhat of all the sorts of them, and shew that their iniquity cleaves to this last oath: and then come to canvass this oath itself, after i have premitted some general concessions. first, in a few words some general concessory propositions may be premitted, . that oaths both assertory and promissory are lawful, will not be denied but by quakers, &c. it is clear, swearing is a moral duty, and so material, that oftentimes it is used for the whole worship of god, deut. vi. . "thou shalt fear the lord thy god, and shalt serve him, and swear by his name," deut. x. .----"to him shalt thou cleave and swear by his name." the reason is, because by whomsoever we swear, him we profess to be our god, and invocate him as witness of our heart's uprightness, and honest meaning in the thing sworn, according as it is understood by both parties, and as avenger if we prove false. hence, every oath, which doth not bind us faster to serve and cleave to him, is but a breach of the third command. again, it is not only commanded as a duty, but qualified how it should be performed, jer. iv. , . where it is required of a people returning to the lord, to swear in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness. hence, every oath which is not so qualified, and does not consist with a penitent frame, is sin. it is likewise promised in the covenant, that believers shall speak the language of canaan, and swear to the lord, isa. xix. . every oath then that is not in the language of canaan, is unsuitable to believers, that is to say, consentaneous to the word of god, and confession of our faith. again, he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the god of truth, isa. lxv. . and therefore that oath which is not according to truth, is dishonourable to the god of truth. if all the oaths imposed upon scotland these many years, were examined by these touch-stones, they would be found all naught. so giving bands for security, which for obligation are equivalent to promissory oaths, are also lawful materially; but with the same qualifications, otherwise they are sinful. . this duty when suitably discharged, truly, judiciously, righteously, in the fear of god, according to his will, is in many cases very necessary. not only in vows, in which god is the party, in matters morally necessary, to keep the righteous judgments of god, psal. cxix. . nor only in national covenants for reformation, and promoting the interest of christ, whereof we find many instances in scripture, in moses, joshua, asa, hezekiah, josiah, ezrah, nehemiah, their making and renewing such covenants by oath, coming under the dreadful curse of it if they should break it. and this may make our hearts meditate terror, for the universal unparalelled breach of solemn covenants with god, that exposes the nation to the curse of it; but also in human transactions, whereunto god is invocated as a witness, as in national transactions, at choosing and inaugurating their magistrates, for security of religion and liberties, as we have many examples in scripture. seldom indeed do such bonds hold tyrants, but it is this generation's indelible brand and bane, that without this they have come under the yoke of ineluctable slavery, and have entailed it upon posterity. as likewise in contracts and mutual compacts of friendship, or stricter association, when edification, or other satisfaction, or security calls for it, as jacob sware to laban, david to jonathan, &c. in which the matter must be clear, and mutually understood, and honestly meant, without equivocation and mental reservation, and all ambiguity, as also possible, and likely to continue so: for otherwise, it were but a mocking of god and man, to swear a thing we either cannot, or will not perform, according to the meaning of him in whose favours the oath is given. but withal we ought to be sparing in such things except where the matter of the oath or bond is weighty and necessary, and not multiply them needlesly upon formality or custom; for if there were suitable confidence in one another, there would not be need for so many of these securities. and specially in relative stipulations betwixt man and wife, &c. where an indissolvable relation is entered into. and, in a particular manner, even in things civil, when we are called thereunto by a lawful magistrate, for deciding of controversies, or our own vindication, or to confirm our obligation to some duty, an oath for confirmation is an end of all strife, heb. vi. . but always in this the matter must be lawful, according to the will of god, and true, and certainly known, and also necessary, weighty, useful, worthy of such confirmation, for the glory of god, and the good of our neighbour, that his holy name be not taken in vain; for otherwise if the matter be false, god is made witness of a lie; if uncertain, conscience condemns us that we know not, nor care not, what we call god witness to; if unlawful, then god is called to approve what he hath condemned, and so to contradict himself, which is horrid blasphemy. with all which cases, and hell devised impositions on consciences in these days, obtruded to debauch and ensnare them, not one of them, levelling all at one design, how smoothly soever conceived, can be taken without a wound and wramp to the conscience. . of all these cases, only two are applicable to our imposed transactions with our wicked rulers, viz. in the matter of friendly contracts, or in the matter of judicial appearances before them, and swearing and banding before, and to them. in both which, there must be a sort of confederation, with them. in contracts with them it will not be doubted; and in judicial submitting to their authoritative impositions of such securities, it is evident, there must be also a confederation with them, not only in acknowledging their authority, but in coming under mutual exacted stipulations; wherein, by taking these oaths and bands, we give them security of orderly subjection, as members of the community whereof they are judges, and get their security of acquittance, and that we shall not be molested nor prosecuted among the recusants. now concerning this confederation, i shall concede in two cases, it may be owned, and consequentially oaths and bonds may be given to men of their stamp, . a confederation which is more discretive, or discriminative may be allowed to them; that is, such bargains wherein they and we are kept still divided as two parties, and not under one incorporation, as in contracts of co-habitation, living under them as tenants, buying and selling, and the like. but we cannot enter into a confederation unitive with them, which may make us one body or party. . a confederation which is necessary and unavoidable; when either an unavoidable strife or contention doth arise between them and us, whereupon we are compelled to answer in law, and can no otherwise be decided but by our oath of confirmation, which is an end of all strife; or when we are falsely accused of some odious and heinous crime, as of murder or adultery: it is then lawful and necessary to vindicate ourselves, by giving all these legal confirmations that we are free of these things; for otherwise to ly under the imputation of such enormities, were shamefully scandalous to religion. but we cannot allow any transactions of this sort, which are elective and voluntary, to make or pursue either peace or pleas with them, when our own interest or benefit draweth us thereunto; but ere we go to law, or give oaths and bonds to, and before the unjust and perfidious, and such also as we cannot own as magistrates, we would rather take wrong, and suffer ourselves to be defrauded as the apostle adviseth, cor. vi. , . it was not unlawful, as expositors shew from that place, for the corinthians to answer in law for their own vindication, being pursued by a heathen; but it was utterly a fault to go voluntarily one with another. and if to pursue a brother was a fault, then much more to go to law with an apostate, with whom there should be less meddling. and if to go before the unjust magistrates, as these heathen judges were at corinth, who yet were magistrates, was utterly a fault, then much more to go before such as have neither rightful nor righteous authority at all: which yet must be acknowledged, if we take oaths and bands before them: for none can exact these but acknowledged magistrates. hence it is apparent, it would be an elective confederation with these wicked usurping judges, when brought before them to take their tendered oaths and bonds, not as parties pursued before them, but as transacting with them, with whom, as well as before whom, we must give these confirming securities: and so not only must we acknowledge them to be gods, among whom the lord sitteth, whose holy name is interposed in such solemn transactions; but also we must swear and enter in bonds to them as they require. this indeed is necessary when called before them against our will, and accused of horrid crimes, as was always in the imposition of the oath of abjuration audaciously imputed to the refusers, that they asserted murdering principles, and owned it lawful to kill all that served the king; in such a case, to declare with the most solemn asseverations, for vindication of truth, that we disown not only all such assertions, but all such thoughts as that it is lawful to kill all that serve the king, or any that serve him because they serve him, or because they have injured us any manner of way, and to declare our abhorrence of all murder and assassinations. but to swear such things to them, when we are altogether innocent, would be a granting that we were legally suspected, by offering a legal purgation. and so all the subjects of scotland should take upon them to purge themselves from a suspicion of murder, which were odious. and to abjure a declaration, as asserting such things, when it asserts no such thing, is a swearing to a lie. . all solemn securities of oaths or bonds, that are sacred promises, are by strictness of law, of most strict and indispensible obligation, as mr. durham on the third command, shews in many cases: no man's loss, or private prejudice, can make it void, (though we swear to our own hurt, we must not change, psal. xv. ) nor indifferency in the matter, if once engaged in, for then our souls are bound, numb. xxx. . nor deceit of others, if the deceit be circumstantial only, as in the gibeonites case; nor the extortion of it by fear or violence, if the matter be lawful; nor rashness and sin in the manner, if lawful in the matter, as with the gibeonites; nor another meaning afterwards devised, not according to the imposer's mind, nor our own at first who took it, (that is but a swearing deceitfully, psal. xxiv. .) nor any good meaning or design in reversing the oath (saul was punished for breaking his oath with the gibeonites, out of zeal, sam. xxi. .) nor though the oath be conceived by creatures, (as by the altar or temple, &c. mat. xxxiii. ,-- .) nor when the thing becomes impossible, if that possibility could have been foreseen or prevented; nor any other sacred meaning, by equivocation or mental reservation, which are abominable; nor any dispensation from pope or king; nor any other posterior oath. none of these things can make an oath void; but if we have bound ourselves, god will require it: "for whoso despises an oath, by breaking the covenant, when lo he hath given his hand, he shall not escape, god shall recompense it," ezek. xvii. , . they are null indeed and of no force, when they become bonds of iniquity, tying to things unlawful or impossible; or when the thing sworn is not in our own power, numb. xxx. . or when there is deceit in it, not in circumstantials only, but in essentials; or when it hinders a greater good, when the case materially altereth; or when the party sworn to relaxeth us. all these do condemn the horrid breach of the sacred and solemn league and covenant, and confutes the perverting and wresting the words of it in the third article, as if it did oblige to allegiance of tyrants; for, in that case, the obligation is unlawful, and there is a case in essentials, and the case materially altereth, (for in the covenant we are bound to the king, not to a tyrant) and the party sworn to have relaxed us long ago, by annulling the covenant; yet all these things prove, that the covenant is still in force, and that all the oaths and bonds contradictory to it, are sinful: and yet though it be sinful to take them, and sinful to keep them, it is nevertheless perjury to break them, especially to them whose erroneous conscience is bound by them, under a notion of their lawfulness. and in a special manner it is here conspicuous, how deceitful a juggle that sinful shift of many hath been, that they could subscribe an unlawful bond under a penalty: as for example, to answer to their courts, or to go to church, or separate from the persecuted meetings of the lord's people, under such a penalty, which they thought to pay the penalty would clear them off, as if it were only an alternative bond. the iniquity of this juggle will appear, if we consider, such bonds cannot be alternative: for alternatives are always disjunctive, binding equally either to this or that; and the one alternative is no more determinately enjoined by the imposer, than the other. and so, if these bonds were alternative, it should be in the binder's choice, whether to answer the court, go to church, to separate meetings, or pay so much money. but it is not so, for the stipulation and promise is determinate to the obligation, for which the bond is required, and the penalty is annexed, as a punishment of the breach of that obligation. and that fancy of eluding the bond by paying the penalty, would quite enervate all security among men, in their mutual compacts of that nature; and under that pretence, they might give a satisfactory compliance to the most wicked imposed obligation imaginable, to subscribe the turk's alcoran, with a reserved attention only to pay the imposed penalty. which reservation is so far from being suitable to that christian simplicity the gospel requires, that it does not answer that moral honesty that our concern, in the good of human society, calls for. it is incumbent on all that expect to dwell on god's holy hill, to have this requisite qualification for one, though they swear to their own hurt they will not change it, and they must be far from swearing deceitfully; and consequently, if they bind themselves by a promise, which a christian should be no less tender of than his oath, they must keep it. and besides, to condescend that that penalty or fine should be paid, by ourselves, or friends in our behalf, were to condescend that these enemies should be enriched by our own or the spoil of our friends, upon the account of the forfeiture of our promise; which seems such a dishonest and dishonourable thing, that an honest heart would disdain it. and though this should be flouted as foolish preciseness, to chuse rather to ly still and suffer in such a case; yet it may be considered that christ's cross, even with reproaches, is always a better choice than the world's ease, purchased at any price which is a hire for christ's enemies. . all divines and casuists do grant, that an oath must be taken in his sense and meaning who tenders it, and in whose favours it is conceived: because oaths and bonds are for security, and therefore whosoever would deal honestly and christianly in taking an oath, must take it in the sense that it is understood by such as impose it; otherwise the holy name of god should be taken in vain, and the swearers and promisers shall deal deceitfully, in frustrating the end of the oath or bond, and the design of the tenderers thereof. and therefore, as reason and religion requires, that all oaths or bonds be so conceived and enunciated, that all concerned may understand them, and if there be any doubt how far they bind, the imposers should explain the same, as abraham did to his servant: so conscience requires, that they be always taken in the imposer's sense, and as they discover their sense and sentiments of them, and not according to the meaning that we may think the words capable of; nor yet according to the wheedling explications, that they may give or allow, which are as deceitful and ensnaring as the things themselves. nor is it to be looked upon as a favour to get a liberty to put a sense upon them, contrary to their known meaning; for that is but a liberty to mock god, to mock others, and ourselves too, and nothing but a snare to the conscience. and to put a gloss upon printed oaths or bonds, which in strict construction they will not bear, and then to subscribe them in the terms as offered, is not only an intangling ourselves into the bond of sinful oaths and bands, but to stumble the godly, and harden the wicked in the present, and to mock posterity in future ages; who shall see the oaths in the terms subscribed, but not the sense they were taken in. see apolog. relat. sect. . it is known by manifold experiences that it is dangerous to hearken to their overtures who study to ensnare us, but far more hurtful and hateful to propound overtures to them. for they interpret it a ceding and giving ground, and when they see a man beginning to yield, then they will seem to be very condescending, even to accept of little at first, that they may draw him on to more: like cunning anglers sometimes recoiling and drawing back the well baited and busked hook, to invite the poor unwary fish to pursue, and sometimes letting it run away with the hook when it bites kindly: so when they find a man offering and ready to accept of accommodations, they will be very yielding and easy, but with a design to hook him. but conscience can find no safety at present, nor satisfaction afterwards in accommodations with them. for it is plain to all that are not blinded with ignorance, or partiality, or a judicial stroke, that our imposers are such sons of belial as cannot be taken with hands, or by the hand; and if we reflect upon the matters upon which these accommodations are to be offered or accepted, they are not things upon which we may come and go, upon our discretion, as we do with our own particulars, or with problems to be disputed, or ambiguous propositions capable of different senses; but matters so and so circumstantiate, as do require the positive determinate judgment of the conscience, concerns of truth and falsehood, duty and sin, which cannot admit of accommodation, or dispensation, or reservation, or any other sense than the imposers and they that state their inquisition about such things do own, and are observedly known to have and maintain about them. otherwise, all other forged accommodations are but tampering tricks, juggling with jugglers, deceiving the deceivers, in such a way as does not well consist with the simplicity of the gospel, or the doves innocency; for what is that but a swearing or promising deceitfully! psal. xxiv. . "a conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood," isa. lix. . "a false oath," zech. viii. . "which are hateful to god who will be a swift witness against false swearers," mal. iii. . neither will they be so easily deceived, for they will readily yield to accommodations, or any tolerable sense that we can put upon their snares; for they reckon that a yielding in part, and are glad to find us so far justifying their acts and impositions, as by our offer practically to declare they bear a good sense, and they will come many ways to our hand to get us hooked so. secondly, these things being premitted, i shall offer reasons why it was necessary, in point of conscience, to refuse all the oaths hitherto tendered; and consequently conscientious sufferers upon this account will be vindicated. and first, some general reasons against all of them together, and then a word to each sort of them. . there is one general argument, that will condemn coming in any terms of oaths or bonds with that party, that have broken the covenant, overturned the reformation, and destroyed the people of the lord: because such transactions with them (as hinted above) are a sort of confederacy with the known enemies of truth and godliness, importing a voluntary subjection to them, compliance and incorporation with them, as members of the same community, whereof they are acknowledged to be the head. now all such sort of confederacy with such malignant enemies of god and of the church, is unlawful, as mr. gillespie demonstrates in his useful case of conscience, concerning associations and confederacies with idolaters, or any known enemies of truth and godliness. though civil compacts for common commerce may be allowed, as abraham was confederate with aner, eshcol, and mamre, gen. xiv. . jacob covenanted with laban by way of lawborrows, gen xxxi. . but sacred confederations of this sort are unlawful from these arguments, . the law of god condemns them, exod. xxiii. . "thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods, they shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me,"----where not only religious covenants are discharged in a toleration of the idolatry, but familiar conversation also, they shall not dwell in thy land. if then we must not suffer them, if in capacity, sure we must far less be imposed upon by them; if we are not to be familiar with heathens, far less with apostates, that call themselves christians; for the apostle lays much more restraint from communion with them, than with pagans, cor. v. , . the reason of the law, lest they make thee sin: as long therefore as there is that hazard of sinning, the law obliges to that caution. so exod. xxxiv. ,-- . "take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land--lest it be a snare--but ye shall destroy their altars--lest thou make a covenant with them--and they go a whoring after their gods, and thou take of their daughters unto thy sons"--here again all sacred transactions are discharged, upon a moral and perpetually binding ground, and all toleration is prohibited, and conjugal affinity. such compliance brought on the first desolating judgment, the flood on the old world (gen. vi. , , .) when the godly conformed and incorporated themselves, and joined in affinity with that ungodly crew, from whom they should have separated themselves. likewise deut. vii. , , , .--"thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them, neither shalt thou make marriages with them--for they will turn away thy son from following me--so shall the anger of the lord be kindled against you--but thus shall ye deal with them, ye shall destroy their altars." where all transactions with a people devoted to destruction are discharged, even that of toleration of malignant enemies, according to which precept, "david resolved to destroy early all the wicked of the land, and cut off all wicked doers, from the city of the lord," psal. ci. . mark this, all, of what degree or quality soever, without respect of persons. and lest it should be thought this is meant only of these seven nations there enumerate, the law is interpreted by the spirit of god or many other nations; where solomon is condemned for joining in affinity with other wicked people, besides these, kings, xi. , . so that it is to be understood generally, against confederacies with all, to whom the moral ground is applicable, and the danger of insnaring the people of god. it is clear likewise, we must have nothing to do with the wicked, but to treat them and with them as enemies, psal. cxxxix. , . with whom, as such, there can be no confederation; for that supposes always the enmity is laid aside, but that can never be between the professors of religion and the professed enemies thereof: but that must always be the language of their practice, "depart from me ye workers of iniquity, for the lord hath heard me," psal. vi. . the command is peremptory and perpetual, "forsake the foolish," prov ix. . "make no friendship with them," prov. xxii. . "say not a confederacy to them." isa. viii. . where it is clear from the opposition in that text, betwixt confederating with the wicked and the fear of god, that the one is not consistent with the other. there is an express discharge to yoke or have any fellowship with them, cor. vi. . to the end--"for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?--what concord hath christ with belial?--wherefore come out from among them, and be separate."-- . many sad and sharp reproofs for such transactions and confederations do conclude the same thing, judg. ii. , , --"i said,--ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land, you shall throw down their altars: but you have not obeyed my voice, why have you done this? wherefore--i will not drive them out from before you--." it cannot be expected, the lord will drive out these enemies, if we swear subjection and allegiance, and come under confederations with them; for thereby we contribute actively to their settlement and establishment, and bring ourselves not only under the misery, but the guilt of strengthening the hands of evil doers. so jer. ii. the people of god are reproved, for making themselves home-born slaves. how? by outlandish confederacies, verse . "now what hast thou to do in the way of assyria?--the chaldee paraphrase hath it, what have you to do to associate with pharaoh king of egypt? and what have you to do to make a covenant with the assyrian?" so may we say, what have we to do to take their oaths and bonds, that are as great enemies as they were? ephraim is reproved for mixing himself among the people, hos. vii. . by making confederacies with them. what follows? he is a cake not turned, hot in the nether side, zealous for earthly things, but cold and raw in the upper side, remiss in the things of christ. and this we have seen in our experience to be the fruit of such bargains, or bonds, or oaths, that they that were engaged in them, have always in some measure fallen from their former fervour for christ. nay we shall find, that such transactions are seldom or never recorded in the book of god without a reproof, or some greater marks of god's displeasure put upon them? which doubtless is set purposely as beacons, that we may beware of them. and therefore, . we may take notice of many disallowed and condemned examples, on which the lord set marks of wrath, as ahab's covenant with benhadad, kings xx. . to the end. asa's covenant with benhadad, which the prophet calls a foolish deed, chron. xvi. from beginning to verse . proceeding from an evil heart of unbelief, as all such transactions are overawed compliances. jehoshaphat's with ahab hath the same censure, though he kept himself free of ahab's idolatry, and ahab seemed to have been penitent before he joined with him, and his relation to him was very near, the enemy of both was an infidel, the cause was good, to recover a city of refuge, the manner of his proceeding was pious, consulting the prophets, and his end good; yet all this did not justify that wickedness, related chron. xviii. and reproved chron. xix. . jehu the prophet is sent to him, "shouldst thou love them that hate the lord? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the lord." after this, when he joined himself with ahaziah, who did very wickedly, the lord brake his works, chron. xx. . to the end: which made him afterwards mend his fault, for he would not again join with him, when he sought the like association, kings xxii. . so amaziah's bargain with the israelites, when the lord was not with them, is condemned by the prophet, admonishing him to disjoin himself from them, chron. xxv. ,-- . and ahaz's bargain with tilgath pilneser the assyrian, chron. xviii. &c. is plainly disallowed. . the complaints, confessions, and lamentations of the lord's people, mourning over this sin, demonstrate the evil of it, ezra ix. . "should we again break thy commandments, and join in affinity with the people of these abominations? wouldst not thou be angry with us, till thou hadst consumed us, so that there shouldst be no remnant nor escaping?" psal. cvi. . "they were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works." all these commands, reproofs, examples and complaints, are written for our learning; and being seriously laid to heart, will sufficiently sear all the fearers of god to join, but stand aloof from all compliances, conjurations, or confederacies with the enemies of god, directly or indirectly, formally or interpretatively, for fear of partaking of their sins, and receiving of their plagues. i insist the more largely on this argument, both because it will conclude that for which those proofs are adduced, to condemn all bonding or bargaining with malignant enemies; and because it will vindicate the aversion of this poor persecuted remnant, from associating in expeditions of war, with promiscuous subverters and perverters of the cause, on which it were not proper to my purpose to dilate any discourse in a distinct head, while i must confine myself only to the heads of sufferings; only because it may be objected, and it will be profitable to consider it, that these scriptures disprove only voluntary and elective confederations with the wicked, but cannot condemn necessitated subscriptions of lawful obligations, when the matter is not sinful; nor come they home to the case of prisoners, who are constrained to transact and treat, and have do with the men in power, otherwise, if all bonds were unlawful, then prisoners might not procure liberty for longer or shorter time, upon bond and bail, to answer again when called; which yet is generally approven, and practised without scruple, and see us not want a precedent in scripture, in that jason gave such security, acts xvii. . i shall therefore subjoin here some considerations, by way of answer to this. . these scriptures disprove all covenants, exod. xxiii. . all confederacies, isa. viii. . all concord or agreement with the men of belial, cor. vi. . and, without distinction of voluntary or overawed transactions, all unitive agreements of whatsoever sort are discharged, and can no more be restricted to the particulars there specified, as if any other covenant, confederacy, or concord might be lawful, that there was not a joining in marriage, an associating in war, or communion in communion in worship with them, than the moral grounds of these prohibitions can be so restricted: for the hazard of sins and snares, the hurt of faithless fears from whence they flow, and the hatefulness of such unequal conjunctions, which are the grounds and reasons of these laws, as may be seen in these forecited places, cannot be restricted to the particulars specified. but now all the tendered oaths and bonds of our adversaries, when subscribed as they require; yea, even those transactions of prisoners for procuring their liberty, on terms of engaging to re-enter themselves according to agreement with their persecutors, are unitive covenants, or conditional agreements, giving solemn securities for their respective obligations, upon terms wherein both parties accord; for these bonds are given to them, and not only before them, as was said. they are confederacies of the subjected, seeking the peace and favours of their superiors, which when overawed are sinful to be made with wicked enemies of religion, as well as when unconstrained, for ahaz's transaction with the assyrian, was forced out of fear, and yet it is called a sinful confederacy, not to be homologated by any of the fearers of the lord, isa. viii. . they are concords and agreements with the unrighteous sons of belial, and not about common matters, but matters wherein religion and righteousness are nearly concerned: can any think that these commands are given with exception of prisoners? and that if any israelite was prisoner to these nations, he might make a covenant with them for his liberty, upon an engagement to render himself prisoner to them again? then he might give bond to god's devoted enemies, to bind up his hands from prosecuting the war with them, which all israel was obliged to do: for if they might covenant subjection to them, then it would have been their sin to rebel, as it was zedekiah's sin to rebel against nebuchadnezzar, because it was breach of covenant: and so there might be a case, wherein the israelites, notwithstanding of all these prohibitions, would be obliged not to destroy, nor break down their altars, to wit, if they made such a bargain with them for their liberty, to surrender themselves as their subjects. now we read, many times they were brought under subjection, and that as a punishment of their leaguing with them: and yet they broke the yoke, when they cried unto the lord, and never submitted any longer than they were able to deliver themselves. whence it is plain, that they never bound themselves to such subjection by oath, bond, or promise, for that would have been no mercy which was purchased by treachery. . it is a voluntary compact with the men in power to procure liberty upon bond to answer again, and cannot be called necessitated; or if it be, it is but a necessitated sin. it must be voluntary, because it is an act of the will, and the will cannot be forced; it is the consent of the will, and the consent cannot but be voluntary, in so far as it is a consent; and by this, whereas, before their so procured liberty, they were prisoners by constraint, now when they must return to prison, they are prisoners by consent: it is the prisoner's choice, whether he will come out upon these terms, or not; and every choice, in so far as it is a choice, is elective and voluntary: it is put to the man's choice, whether he will continue under the cross, and continue his testimony for the cause, or surcease from it for a time, the latter in the case is chosen. it is the prisoner's desire and petition, to transact with them in these terms for liberty, without which no benefit of any such bond can be procured, and every desire is voluntary. yea, it is a formal compact and capitulation with them, binding and obliging these bonders by their own word and writ, at least to be at their call and command, not by compulsion and force now, but by the moral obligation of their own compact: now, every such compact is voluntary. and therefore, if all voluntary covenants, confederacies, and agreements, be discharged in scripture, then this bond of compearance also must be discharged. the judgment of the famous mr. rutherford, or a draught of a petition to have been presented to the committee of estates, by those ministers who were prisoners in the castle of edinburgh, will confirm what is said: we find it in the third part of his letters, numb. . where are these words, 'i am straitned as another suffering man, but dare not petition this committee, . because it draws us to capitulate with such as have the advantage of the mount, the lord so disposing for the present, and to bring the matters of christ to yea and no (you being prisoners, and they the powers) is a hazard.' . this agreement with the enemies for liberty upon these terms, is sinful. for it is not only an acknowledgement of a wicked power, in owning and transacting with them as judges, who can free them and bind them as prisoners by law, which is disproved above; but it is a binding themselves over to a packed, perverse, and law-perverting judicatory, not as prisoners by forcible constraint, but a willing consent, acknowledging the legality of their imprisonment, and obliging themselves to observe it when demanded: yea, it is a covenanted and bonded obedience to a wicked law; for it is a wicked law, to exact from a sufferer for truth his re-entry to prison, for no crime but his duty. as also it is a justifying of a wicked sentence; for it is a wicked sentence, that an innocent man shall return to prison when they please; which is justified when they bind themselves to obey it. this is no ways like a man's going to the gibbet on his own feet; for the man does not bind himself to do that, neither is it exacted of him as an obedience to a law, nor is it given forth as a part of his sentence, only he chooseth it for his own ease: but if all these did concur, it were unlawful for a martyr for righteousness to obey such a law, or voluntarily to submit to such a wicked sentence. neither is it of any pertinency to urge, that it is lawful for a man to submit so far to a robber, as to bind himself to return to him against such a day with another purse to him: for this is a necessitated bargain, to give what a man hath, and promise more to save his life, and is like a man's casting his goods out at sea to save the ship; the other is not so, but elective: this is only a choice of the least of two evils of suffering, but the other is a choice of one of two evils, which is sin, which cannot come under a christian's election at all; this is a compact with the robber, which is still discretive, and no ways unitive of the robber and him, in any bargain of concord, or confederacy, or acknowledged subjection, only a passive surrender to his greater force as an enemy; but the other is unitive, as between rulers and ruled: this is not any obedience to a law, nor is the man's purse required to be given, or promised under that notion, as the other is. i shall here also subjoin some more of that foresaid letter of mr. rutherford's, in the second place, says he, 'a speaking to them in writ, and passing in silence the sworn covenant, and the cause of god, which is the very present controversy, is contrary to the practice of christ and the apostles, who being accused, or not accused, avouched christ to be the son of god, and the messias, and that the dead must rise again, even when the adversary initiated the question.' now plain it is, that neither in the bonds nor petitions, is there any word of the cause or testimony suffered for. . as it is sinful, so it is very scandalous in several respects; in that at least it hath the appearance of evil, which christians should abstain from, thes. v. . and seems to be a voluntary subjecting themselves to their impositions (at least of that to return to prison again) a willing acknowledgment of their unjust usurpations; a spontaneous consenting to their mischiefs framed into a law, and exacted under the notion of a law; a gratifying of the enemies of religion, and pleasing them more than any thing a prisoner can do, except he should wholly deny the cause: and therefore chiefly always this overture is most acceptable from those that durst give any testimony, because they look upon it as some indication of their fainting or falling from it, or of their wearying of the cross of christ, of which they are very glad; and an offending and making sad the hearts, and condemning the practice, of some truly tender and zealous confessors of christ, who have had strong tentations to make such transactions, and durst not yield so far for a world; yea it is certainly an argument of faithless fear, and impatient wearying of the cross, because of the fury of the oppressor, which the lord taxeth, when the captive hastneth that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail; which is a dishonour to him who hath promised to bear their charges, and hath given them many encouragements to trust, that he will open a door in his own time and way. see isa. li. , . of this rutherford addeth in that forecited letter: 'silence of the cause of god which adversaries persecute, seems a tacit deserting of the cause, when the state of the question is known to beholders, and i know the brethren intend not to leave the cause. and a little after, says he, the draught of that petition which you sent me, speaks not one word of the covenant of god, for the adhering to which you now suffer, and which is the object of men's hatred, and the destruction whereof is the great work of the times; and your silence, in this nick of time, appears to be a not confessing of christ before men, and you want nothing to beget an uncleanly deliverance, but the profession of silence:' which is professed by all that petition for such a bond, when their address and transaction speaks no more in favours of the cause, than if they denied it. it is plainly a coming out of prison without a testimony, which cannot consist with faithful and zealous suffering for christ, and is far from the choice of christ's witnesses, who overcame by the blood of the lamb, and the word of their testimony, recorded, heb. xi. .----who were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. . as it is a scandalous, so it is very inconvenient and unsuitable for the confessors of christ. in that not only they may be ignorant, and much troubled to know what underhand dealings their friends may use sometimes to procure that liberty, without acquainting them, and how odiously their act of deliverance may be worded and registred to the prejudice of the cause, which they dare not testify against afterwards when they do know it, for fear of many inconveniences. but also it cannot be vindicated from being a dishonourable shifting, and putting off, or casting off the call of a testimony; and confessing either an inconstancy, or impatience, or unreadiness, or want of resolution, to confess or profess the testimony for christ, without some respite to gather new defences for it: whereas christ's witnesses should be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh them a reason of the hope that is in them, pet. iii. . and besides, they involve themselves into the incumbrances of a doubtful suspence about the event, whereas if they keep their first resolution and condition with cheerfulness, aloof from such bargains, they know the utmost they have to fear or hope from men. but now, as it is hard for them to come off without some sinful engagement, and to continue any measure of faithfulness when they are out, for fear of being soon called again; so they bring themselves into many sad difficulties how to behave, and cast themselves into many tentations unavoidably. however, except of late, a precedent of this practice can hardly be instanced among the sufferers of christ in former times, but, on the contrary, many have refused such offers. i shall only name one; in the persecution of queen mary of england, dr. sands, prisoner at london, had the offer of liberty, upon the term of such a bond, finding bail to appear when he should be called, but refused it absolutely; and when a gentleman, without his knowledge, having procured it by giving l. bond for him, brought him forth and required his consent and observance of the obligation, he would not consent to give any security, and denied his resolution to observe it in the least; whereupon the gentleman very courteously told him, he would stand to his hazard. this was far more like the innocency of the dove, but this new prudence resembles more wisdom of the serpent. finally, as for jason's business, which is so much harped upon by these bonders. ( .) these were rulers that he had to deal withal, and not raging tyrants. ( .) they were indifferent arbiters between jason and the lewd fellows that troubled him, and not both judge and party; he gave no security to his persecutors, as these bonders do, but to the true judges of the cause, who impartially took cognizance of it, from whom jason might and did expect right. ( .) this was before he was prisoner, being as free as his accusers, and having the law as free for him as it was for them; whereby he could vindicate himself and abide the law, and be absolved by it: which does not answer the case of prisoners actually engaged in and called to a testimony for christ, when there is no law but what is established in opposition to christ. ( .) in the original it is, when they got satisfaction from him; that is, when he so cleared himself, that they could not fasten any transgression upon him, then they absolved him. . all these oaths and solemn securities that have been imposed in these times, are dreadful and heinous breaches of the third command, by taking his name in vain in the worst sort, whereby the takers cannot be holden guiltless. for it is impossible such oaths and bonds, however they be constructed, can ever be taken with these requisite qualifications necessary to be observed in all oaths (and consequently in all solemn promises or bonds) that are mentioned once for all, jer. iv. . where one that sweareth, must do it in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness. . they cannot be taken in truth, which is a necessary qualification in all oaths, according to the definition of a true oath, which is a solemn invocation of god, for confirmation of some true, lawful, grave, and weighty, useful and worthy business, wherein he is attested and appealed unto, that he, as the only searcher of hearts, may give his testimony to the truth of the thing, and punish the swearers, if he swear not in truth. and this swearing in truth does import and require both sincerity of the heart, filled with reverence and the awful apprehension of a present god; and simplicity of the mind, well informed of the genuine meaning of the oath, that we have clear uptaking of it, and take it not implicitly, but with our own understanding; and also singleness and honesty of the intention, that it be not to deceive, by putting any other sense than the imposer hath, or will allow when he understands it: so the meaning must be clear, and such as may be obviously gathered from the words, and according as they are supposed to be understood by others, especially them that exact the oath; for if they mean one thing and we another, god's name is profaned, and the end of the oath frustrated, and so all equivocations and mental reservations are condemned; as all divines treating on oaths teach, and worthy mr. durham particularly on the third command, who asserts, 'that though we could devise some other meaning, that might seem to make for us; yet if that was not meant at first tendering, but otherwise understood by him that did take it, it will not absolve from the guilt of perjury; for an oath of strict law, and will not admit, on any respect or account, of interpretations prejudicial to the native truth of it, lest it should be found to be' (according to psal. xxiv. .) 'a swearing deceitfully.' and he afterwards says, 'much less will it exempt a man from guilt, that in swearing he had a meaning of the words, contrary to what in common sense they bear, and in the construction of all indifferent persons, without oath, or beyond it; but it should be plain, single, and clear.' and paræus saith, in catech. urs. part . quest. . an oath hath the divine sanction, that it might be a bond of verity among men, and a testimony that god is the author and defender of truth. now, none of these oaths and bonds can be taken in truth; for if they may be safely taken in any sense, it must be such as the oath in the design of the imposers cannot bear, and which the imposers never intended, nor would they ever have allowed, if they had understood it; which industriously the takers have a care they should not understand, and so they must take it in that sense with a mind to deceive, which cannot be in truth, but most derogatory both to the truth and simplicity of the gospel. and they are all unclear and ambiguous which cannot be taken in truth, because they have no truth in them, as dr. sanderson saith, de jure. promiss. oblig. præl. . sect. . 'a proposition of an ambiguous and indefinite sense, before the matter be distinguished, is not a true proposition; yea, nor a proposition at all: for a proposition, as its definition cleareth, should signify either a truth or a falsehood, without any ambiguity; and therefore, says he; such oaths should be suspected that there is some deceit lurking, and every pious and prudent man should refuse them offered under such terms,' cited by apol. relat. sect. . pag. . and sect. . pag. . in fine, none of them can be taken in truth, since they are all a denying the truth, as will be evident by the induction of all of them: which, how it can consist with the fear of god, or sincerity of the heart, cannot be imagined; and if conscience be called into judgment, it will condemn the taking them. . they cannot be taken in judgment, is that, with knowledge and deliberation, minding and understanding what it is we swear or subscribe, as mr. durham explains it in the place above cited. for, first, they cannot be taken in judgment, because they are all ambiguous, the terms of them being capable of divers senses, not explained by the imposers. and if they were explained in their sense, then they could not be taken in righteousness; and so at best they are uncertain: and that is dreadful to invoke the majesty of god to be a witness to uncertainties; for that is to swear with an evil conscience and contempt of god to dare to call him in as a witness of that which is in suspense, whether it be truth or a lie; and such a swearer must make it a matter indifferent, whether he make god a witness of a truth or of a lie in the case. vide paræum. loc. sup. cit. pag. . sect. . dr. sanderson as before, gives these reasons further against all ambiguous oaths. 'because of him who tendereth the oath. for the proper end of an oath is, that he in whose favours it is taken should have some certainty of that whereof he doubted before; but there can be no certainty out of the words which have no certain sense. next, because of him who sweareth, who, if he take such an oath in these terms, either stumbleth his neighbour, or spreadeth a net for his own feet; for to what else should such collusion tend, but either that by our example others may be induced to take it, whereby they are stumbled; or, that afterwards, by virtue of that oath, something may be required of us, which is either unlawful or hurtful, and this is to lay a snare for ourselves! therefore let every prudent man beware of suffering himself to be deceived by these wiles, and of thinking so much either of the favour of the ill will of any other, as to swallow the bait under which he is sure there is a hook: it is expedient, that, in the matter of oaths, all things be done aright, and that the sense be clear to all, and that is, to swear with a clear conscience,' apol. relat. pag. . but next, they cannot be taken in judgment; because they are all imposed and extorted under a severe penalty, and some of them of death, and so must be taken out of fear. such oaths are by many famous divines judged unlawful, especially public oaths imposed by authority, and under colour of law; these are worse than a man's private oath given to a robber, for fear of death, if the matter be unlawful: for, without the matter be lawful or unlawful, such oaths coacted, exacted, and imposed by law, cannot be taken in judgment; for if they be taken out of respect to the law; then it is the person's suffrage to the equity of that law, and an approbation of the imposition; which, in the present case, cannot be done, by any man of conscience; for, whether the oaths be lawful or not, the authority imposing them is nought, and the law wicked, and can never be approven; and if they be extorted out of fear, then they cannot be taken with deliberation, or voluntary and unviolented choice, unconstrained light or liberty, which are all the ingredients of judgment. . they cannot be taken in righteousness, that is, according to the law of equity as well as piety, neither wronging god nor others by our oaths. lawful oaths should be in themselves ties of equity, as well as truth. and paræus faith, in the place before cited, lawful oaths are only these which are engaged into about things true, certainly known, lawful, possible, weighty, necessary, useful and worthy. and if that be true, then are all the oaths and bonds taken these many years but fetterings into bonds of iniquity; which, when the consciences of the takers will reflect on them, will become galls of bitterness, and found to have none of these qualifications; but on the contrary, to be about matters false, uncertain, unlawful, impossible, frivolous, fruitless, useless, and unworthy, to the worst degree of baseness; and, which is worst of all, dreadfully sinful, and horrid to be thought on to interpose the name of god upon, making him the approver of what his soul hates, and a witness of that which he will be an avenger of, as will appear by the particular consideration of all of them. . let it be considered, that though (as the pleaders for these transactions do impertinently) alledge the same words in other cases might be subscribed in a more abstract sense, as being capable of a good construction; yet complexly considered in the form and frame of all the oaths and bonds we have been troubled with, they cannot be subscribed in any sense; and if in any, that must be the imposer's sense, which in them all is always pernicious. . they cannot be taken in any sense though never so good, if we consider the absolute illegality of their arbitrary imposition. it will be confessed that oaths should be very tenderly imposed upon consciences, not only lest the name of god be prostitute to profanation, in matters light and trivial, or dubious and uncertain; but lest a tyrannical jurisdiction be exercised over the souls of men, which are not subject to any power that mortals can claim: so it cannot be denied, but that the constitution of our government requires, and reason as well as religion says it is necessary, that no ruler hath right to enjoin an oath which is not first enacted into a law; and it was always accounted a good plea for refusing oaths, when there was no law for them; and some have been charged with treason, for exacting oaths without a statute ordaining them: which might be brought in as a charge against all the imposers of our oaths, the most part of which have been enacted and extorted without any colour of law; some of them being never ordained by any act of parliament, and others of them before they could obtain such a mischief framed into an act for them, and all of them neither ever legally administred nor righteously enacted, by such who had power to make acts; for as for the packed parliaments that made them, no conscientious man could ever own such a company of perjured traitors, to be their parliamentary representatives. yet abstracting from that, i say, the oaths that have been imposed without and against law could never be taken in any sense, without consenting to their treasonable breach of law, for which they have forfeited their lives to justice, whenever there shall be a judicatory to revise their administrations: and these that have been imposed by a pretended law, could never be taken without justifying of that law that ordained them, which hath been nothing but a mischief framed into a law by a throne of iniquity. . they cannot be taken in a good sense, with a safe conscience, considering either what is plain in them, or what is more ambiguous. what is plain and capable but of one sense, that is always either restraining to a clear sin, to renounce some part of the covenanted reformation, in profession or practice; or constraining from a clear duty, that we should not do that which we may or ought to do. there is nothing in all of them plain but what obliges to one of these two. again, what is ambiguous in them, as it ought to be refused for its ambiguity; so, when it is explained according to the imposer's mind and meaning, the sense will be found always pernicious, though the words may be plausible. as when they require an obligation to allegiance, or loyalty, or peaceableness, or orderliness, and other smooth words, signifying excellent things in an abstract notion, these will be found to carry quite another sense, if we enquire into the imposer's meaning, in which only oaths and bonds must be taken. the only way to find out their meaning, is to consider either their acts or actings, or their designs and intentions, as they are discoverable by any man of prudence or consideration. if we consult their acts or actings practically, and not only legally explaining them for a commentary, then by allegiance, we can understand nothing else but an owning of their absolute tyranny: by loyalty, nothing but an absolute and implicit obedience of their absolute commands, without reserve (as the late proclamation for the toleration expounds it) by peaceableness, nothing but a stupid subjection to them, letting them do what they please without resistance or controul; and by orderliness nothing but a disorderly compliance and conformity with them, in going along with the corruptions and defections of the time; for their acts and actings expound them so. if we consider their designs and intentions, according to which they are all uniformly calculate and equally levelled; he is blind who hath not seen they have been driving all this time at these designs (to which all these oaths and bonds have been adapted and successfully subservient, and by which they have been promoted to the present pass) to overturn gradually all the degrees of our covenanted reformation, to establish tyranny, and advance it unto greater degrees of absoluteness, and to introduce popery and slavery: so that by allegiance and loyalty can be meant nothing else but an obligation to own and obey, and never to oppose the design of advancing tyranny; and by peaceableness and orderliness, nothing else can be intended, than an obligation never to oppose either the present settlement, or future establishment of popery and arbitrary power, upon the ruins of the reformation, and our civil and religious rights and liberties. whence, they that can take these oaths and bonds in any other sense, and plead for the inoffensiveness of the terms, in a more abstract notion, and sense alledged more legal, without regard to that of the imposers, practically explained by their administrations, and so looking more to the briberies of their blinded reason and worldly interest, than to the dictates of conscience, please themselves with such notions and quibbling evasions, do but mock god, deceive the world, elude the enemies, and delude themselves. and all these debatings for accommodations and expositions in another sense, are but foul fairdings of conscience-beguiling compoundings in, and pitiful priggings for, a base compliance. but it is usual for a guilty son of adam to sew fig-leaves. . let it be considered, that all these oaths and bonds that the land hath been debauched with these years, are all condemned by, and contradictory to anterior binding orders, the acts of the general assemblies requiring no oaths in the common cause to be taken, without the church's consent, as was cleared in the historical part, upon the fifth period, page . and that especially they are condemned as being contradictory to, and violatory of prior oaths, of continuing indispensible obligation; being designed, pressed, and imposed, on purpose to delete the same out of the minds and memories of the present generation; i mean the national and solemn league and covenants, and other former nationally binding public engagements. which, because they are not only broken and burnt, but declared criminal to be owned, and because the owning of their obligation is ordinarily inserted in the indictments of our martyrs, i must touch upon them more particularly. it was cleared above, head i. arg. . from the form, the object, and from the ends of the covenant, which are all moral, and of indispensible obligation, that it is of perpetual and unalterably binding force, obliging the present and all future generations, as well as that which did first come under the bond of it. and to confirm this, i shall add more particularly these many considertions. . the national engagements are national promises, plighting and pledging the nation's public faith, for the preservation and propagation of religion and liberty, to succeeding posterity; which if succeeding generations may reverse, then the faith of men, and the faith of nations, can be of no force above a century of years; nay nor after the decease of them that personally made the promise: and so every new ruler, every new parliament, yea every person coming up to succeed the father in any capacity, might be free not to stand to it, which were very absurd. certainly that promise of the jewish nobles and rulers, not to exact usury of their brethren, but to restore, and not require it of them, did not only oblige themselves but would bring their posterity under the curse, if they should exact the same debt there remitted, neh. v. , . and does not a national promise of preserving the reformation, bind as much to the curse of the breach of it? . they are national vows, avowing and avouching, and devoting themselves and their posterity to be the lord's people, and to keep his statutes, and promote his interests, which do bind the posterity. jacob's vow at bethel, that the lord should be his god, gen. xxviii. . did oblige all that his posterity, virtually comprehended in him; he found him in bethel, and there he spake with us, saith the prophet many hundred years after, hos. xii. . the israelites vow to destroy the canaanites, did oblige all their posterity, numb. xxi. . not only by virtue of the lord's command, but by virtue of their vow; as we are obliged to preserve the reformation, not only by virtue of the lord's command, but by virtue of our covenants. vows are bonds to the soul, which must stand, numb. xx. , . and whereas it is said, that as a woman's father or husband might disannul her vow, and so the magistrate might abrogate the covenant: besides the impertinency of this comparison, as might be easy to demonstrate, it may be, by giving and not granting that he might do so; yet if the father and husband shall hold their peace, then all her vows shall stand, and her bonds wherewith she bound her soul shall stand, ver. iv. . but so it was, that the supreme magistrate did give his consent to the national covenant, and the successor did swear the solemn league and covenant, and received the crown on the terms thereof, to preserve and promote religion and liberty; and therefore his vows must stand, they cannot be made void afterwards; for, it is a snare to devour that which is holy, and after vows to make enquiry, prov. xx. . so we find the rechabites were obliged to observe the vow of their forefathers jonadab, jer. xxxv. . . and if the father's vow obliges the children, shall not the nation's vow oblige the posterity? . they are national oaths which do oblige posterity: esau's oath to jacob, resigning his birth-right, did oblige his posterity never to recover it, gen. xxv. . joseph took an oath of the children of israel to carry up his bones into canaan, gen. . xxv. which the posterity, going forth of egypt in after ages, found themselves straitly sworn to observe, exod. xii. . and accordingly buried them in shechem, josh. xxiv. . the spies swore to preserve rahab alive and her house, josh. ii. , &c. which was without the consent of the magistrate, and yet joshua found himself obliged to observe it, josh. vi. . moses swore unto caleb to ensure him an inheritance, josh. xiv. . and upon this ground he demands it as his right, ver. . which he could not do, if successors might reverse their predecessors lawful oaths. the lord will in a special manner, resent and revenge the posterities breach of the oath of their father's covenant, ezek. xvi. . "thus saith the lord god, i will even deal with thee, as thou hast done, which hast despised the oath, in breaking the covenant," which was the covenant of their fathers. . they are national covenants, wherein king, parliament, and people do covenant with each other, for the performance of the respective duties of their several stations, either as to the work of reformation, or as to the preservation of each others mutual rights and privileges: so that they are national covenants made by men with men; and these we find do oblige the posterity. israel's covenant with the gibeonites did oblige the posterity, josh. ix. , . and for the breach of it many ages after, the posterity was plagued, sam. xxi. . zedekiah was bound by his predecessor's covenant, though it was such as made the kingdom base, yet in keeping it, it was only to stand. "shall he break the covenant, and be delivered? thus saith the lord, as i live, surely mine oath that he hath despised and my covenant that he hath broken, even it will i recompense upon his own head," ezek. xvii. , , , . the apostle says even of human covenants, "though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth or addeth thereunto," gal. iii. . that is, cannot do so lawfully much less can one man disannul a nation's covenant. . they are national attestations of god as a witness, for the perpetuity, as well as fidelity of these sacred engagements. all such covenants, wherein the holy name of god is invocated as witness, are owned of god as his (hence the covenant betwixt david and jonathan, is called the covenant of the lord, sam. xx. .) and zedekiah's fault was the breach of the lord's covenant, ezek. xvii. forecited. so likewise that covenant mentioned jer. xxxiv. , , . wherein the princes and people did swear to let their hebrew servants go free, is called god's covenant, verse . and upon this account sorer judgments are threatened, verse , . "and i will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant which they had made before me----into the hands of their enemies." certainly this did oblige the posterity, at least not to recal these servants, and, it was always morally obliging. so our national covenant, sworn with hands lifted up to the most high god, being materially also binding, cannot be abrogated by the posterity except the lord renounce his interest in them; as long as the witness liveth then, who claims them as his, they cannot be made void; especially considering. . they are national covenants made with god, as the other party contracting, in the matters of god, which none can dispense with, or grant remissions in; and therefore they must perpetually bind, until he loose them. and if even the posterity break them, the lord will make them that hate them to reign over them, and he will bring a sword upon them to avenge the quarrel of his covenant, levit. xxvi. , , . such were all the national covenants of the lord's people, renewed by joshua, asa, jehoshaphat, hezekiah, josiah, ezra, nehemiah, for the breaches of which the lord plagued the posterity. it was for breach of their fathers covenant with god, that the ten tribes were carried away captive, kings xvii. , &c. we have already experienced the threatned judgments for covenant breaking, and may look for more. . they are for their matter national covenants, about things moral objectively, obliging to join ourselves to the lord in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten, jer. l. . i might easily demonstrate all the articles of the covenant to be morally binding, but they are demonstrated sufficiently above, head . arg. . therefore they are perpetually binding. . they are for their ends national covenants, inviolably obliging. which cannot be made void, though they should be broken, because the ends of them are always to be pursued, as is proved above, head . therefore they are perpetual. . they are for their formality national covenants, most solemnly sworn, and subscribed by all ranks, with uplifted hands, with bended knees, with solemn invocating the name of god, with solemn preaching, prayer and praise, rendering themselves and the posterity obnoxious to the curse, if they should break it. now the solemnities of the oath do aggravate the heinousness of the breach of it, as is clear from jer. xxxiv. . ezek. xvii. . quoted above: the reason is, because of their greater deliberation in the action, and because of the greater scandal accompanying the violation thereof. hence as they are national oaths and covenants so solemnized, they are national adjurations, under the pain of a national curse, not to break them nationally, which do make the posterity obnoxious to it; as joshua adjured israel, saying, "cursed be the man that raiseth up, and buildeth this city jericho," josh. vi. . which was fulfilled many generations after, in the days of ahab, upon hiel the bethelite, kings xvi. last verse. so the curse of introducing abjured prelacy and popery, if it be let in, will be impendent on the nation. all national covenants have a curse annexed, in case of a breach, whenever it shall be: so in nehemiah's covenant, 'they clave to their brethren, and entered into a curse, and into an oath, to walk in god's law, which was given by moses the servant of god, and to observe and to do all the commandments of the lord our lord, and his judgments and statutes;' particularly not to enter into affinity with their malignant enemies, neh. x. , . which certainly did oblige the posterity, because the thing was moral; so in our covenants we are bound to the same things, and nothing but these: and therefore the posterity is liable to the curse of perjury, for the breach thereof. . they are for their legality national laws, being solemnly ratified by the parliament and by the king, and made the foundation of their compact with him at his inauguration, whereby they became the fundamental laws of the government, and among the very laws and rules of governing, which, though they be rescinded by a wicked law, yet make the rescinders chargeable not only of perjury, in breaking a covenant, but of treason and tyranny, in breaking and altering the constitution of the government, and render them liable to the curse thereof: for they cannot rescind that, nor escape its vengeance: whereof we have a speaking pledge already, in that the rescinder of these covenants was so terribly rescinded, and cut off by the hands of unnatural violence; god thereby fulfilling that threatned judgment of covenant breakers, that he hath broken his covenant shall be brought to destruction, and bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days; psal. lv. . last verse. so charles ii. got not leave to live out half the days that he projected to himself. . they are national engagements of an hereditary nature, like that of israel, deut. xxix. , . which did oblige not only the present, but the absent, 'not only them that stood there that day before the lord their god, but them that were not there that day.' grotius de jur. bel. lib. . cap. . gives these marks of hereditary covenants, ( .) when the subject is of a permanent nature, and as long as the same body remains: therefore as long as scotland is scotland, whose people in their personal capacity, whose parliaments in their parliamentary capacity, whose king in his princely capacity, did all solemnly and sacredly engage in the covenant, it must be real and perpetually obliging. ( .) when there is such a clause in the covenant, as that it should be perpetual, there are many clauses in the solemn league to this purpose. in art. . are these words, 'that we, and our posterity after us, may, as brethren, live in faith and love, and the lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us.' in the th art. 'we shall each one of us, according to our place and interest, endeavour that the kingdoms may remain conjoined in a firm peace and union to all posterity.' ( .) when it is such as is made for the good of the kingdom, the covenant expresses its end, for the perpetual good of the kingdom, 'having before our eyes the glory of god, the advancement of the kingdom of----christ, the honour and happiness of the king and his posterity, and the true public liberty, safety, and peace of the kingdoms; wherein every one's private condition is included.' and again it is added, 'for preservation of ourselves and our religion from utter ruin and destruction.' all this is a public national good. ( .) the matter is moral, about materially binding duties, and therefore it must be hereditary, and of perpetual obligation. . lastly, they are national obligations, taking on public duties, by way of virtual representation of the posterity. and they that think it irrational, that the father should represent and involve the family, must resolve us how the religious and civil covenants of israel and judah, made in moses', joshua's, david's, asa's, joash's, hezekiah's, josiah's and nehemiah's days, did comprehend and bind as well the absent as the present, and their posterity, yet unborn; as also, how the laws and contracts continually passed by some do take in others, not personally consenting; yea, how comes it to pass, that every succeeding generation is bound to the laws, and must be obedient to the kings, that they did not make themselves, no reason can be given, but because they are virtually represented by, and included in their fathers. now, if these arguments prove our national covenants to be perpetually binding, and cannot be dispensed with, then must these posterior oaths that are made in a diametrical opposition to the covenants, and are condemned by the covenants, be false and unlawful oaths; but the first is proved: therefore these oaths so opposite to, and condemned by the covenants, are false and unlawful. that they are opposite to the covenant, will appear in the induction of all of them. and that, whatever they be imposed by this party, they are condemned by the covenants, wherein we are obliged to make no such transactions with them, will appear if we consider these and the like expressions, 'that we shall neither directly, nor indirectly, suffer ourselves to be divided by whatsoever suggestion, allurement, or terror, from this blessed conjunction, nor shall cast in any let or impediment that may stop or hinder any such resolution, as shall be found to conduce for so good ends.' which are the words of the national covenant, clearly condemning oaths and bonds given to malignants, which are divisive of them that adhere to, and unitive with them that oppose the covenant, and impeditive of resolutions to prosecute the ends thereof. so, in the solemn league and covenant, art. . 'we are obliged to oppose all such as make any faction or parties amongst the people contrary to this league and covenant; but by these oaths and bonds, such factions are made,' &c. and by art. . 'we are obliged to assist and defend all those that enter into this covenant (contradicted by all the latter oaths and bonds) and not to suffer ourselves directly, or indirectly, by whatsoever combination,----to be divided----from this blessed union,----whether to make defection to the contrary part, or to give ourselves to a detestable indifferency,' &c. which we do, when we divide ourselves from these that refuse these oaths, and make defection unto the party that impose them. and in the solemn acknowledgment of sins, and engagement to duties, 'we are sworn, sect. . to be so far from conniving at, complying with, or countenancing of malignancy, injustice, &c. that we shall not only avoid and discountenance these things, &c. but take an effectual course to punish and suppress these evils.' all which we counteract and contradict, when we take any of these oaths or bonds. in the second place, by a particular induction of the several kinds of these oaths and bonds, the iniquity of each of them will appear; and the complex iniquity of the smoothest of them, the oath of abjuration compared with every one of them, will be manifest. and consequently the honesty and innocency of sufferers for refusing them will be discovered. . the first in order, which was a copy to all the rest, was the declaration, ordained to be subscribed by all in public charge, office, or trust, within the kingdom: 'wherein they do affirm and declare, they judge it unlawful to subjects, upon pretence of reformation, or any other pretence whatsoever, to enter into leagues and covenants, or take up arms against the king,----and that all these gatherings,----petitions, protestations----that were used----for carrying on of the late troubles, were unlawful and seditious; and particularly that these oaths,----the national covenant,----and the solemn league and covenant, were and are in themselves unlawful oaths.' here is a confederacy required against the lord, at which the heavens might stand astonished; an unparalelled breach of the third command. which could no more be taken in truth and righteousness, than an oath renouncing the bible; but it hath this advantage of the rest; that it is somewhat plain, and the iniquity legible on its front. . that it is a renouncing of solemn and sacred covenants, perpetually binding to moral and indispensible duties, the wickedness whereof is evident from what is said above. . it makes perjury of the deepest dye, the absolute necessary qualification of all in public office, who cannot be presumed capable of administrating justice, when they have avowed themselves perjured and perfidious, and not to be admitted among heathens, let be christians, nor trusted in a matter of ten shillings money, according to the laws of scotland. . it renounces the whole work of reformation, and the way of carrying it on, as a pretence and trouble unlawful and seditious, which if it be a trouble, then the peace they have taken in renouncing it, must be such a peace as is the plague of god upon the heart, filling it with senselesness and stupidity in his last judgment, because of the palpable breach of covenant; or such a peace, as is very confident with the curse and vengeance of god, pursuing the quarrel of a broken covenant. . it condemns the taking up arms against the king, which shall be proven to be duty. head . besides, that hereby the most innocent means of seeking the redress of grievances, that religion, risings, law, and practice of all nations allows, is condemned. yet, in effect, for as monstrous as this oath is, the complex of its iniquity is touched in the oath of abjuration; in which many of these methods of combinations, risings and declarations of war against the king, and protestations against his tyranny, which were used in the late troubles for carrying on the reformation, are abjured; in that a declaration is renounced, in so far as it declares war against the king, and asserts it lawful to kill them that serve him: which yet, in many cases in the covenanted reformation here renounced, were acknowledged and practised as lawful, besides that it hath many other breaches of covenant in it, as will be shewed. ii. the next net they contrived to catch consciences, was the oath of allegiance and supremacy: 'wherein they that took it for testification of their faithful obedience to their most gracious and redoubted sovereign, charles king of great britain,----do affirm, testify, and declare,----that they acknowledge their said sovereign, only supreme governor of this kingdom, over all persons and in all causes; and that no foreign prince----hath any jurisdiction, power, or superiority over the same; and therefore do utterly renounce all foreign power,----and shall, at their utmost power, defend, assist, and maintain his majesty's jurisdiction foresaid,----and never decline his power----.' the iniquity of this oath is very vast and various, . it is a covenant of allegiance with a king, turned tyrant and enemy to religion, subverter of the reformation, and overturner of our laws and liberties: and therefore demonstrate to be sinful both from the first general argument against oaths, and from head d. . it cannot be taken in truth, righteousness, or judgment: because the words are general and very comprehensive, and ambiguous, capable of diverse senses; when he is affirmed to be supreme over all persons, and in all causes, and to be assisted, and maintained, in that jurisdiction. who can be sure in swearing such an oath, but that he may thereby wrong others, wrong parliaments in their privileges, wrong the church in her liberties, and which is worse, wrong the lord jesus christ, who is supreme alone in some causes? can an oath be taken in truth and righteousness, to assist him in all encroachments, upon causes that are not subordinate to him? and in invading all those privileges of subjects, which are natural, civil, moral, and religious? for if he be supreme in all causes, then all these depend upon him, and be subordinate to him. and can it be taken in judgment, and with a clear mind, when it may be debated and doubted (as it may by some) whether the obligation of it is to be considered, as circumstantiate and specificate to the present object of it, supposing him a tyrant? or in a more abstract notion, as it might be rendered in the sense of its first authors as it was taken in king james the vi's days, and as they plead for taking the english oath of allegiance, as it was excepted by the puritans in queen elizabeth's days? whether it obliges to a king in idea, and in a more general consideration, as one who is said never to die? or with reference to such an one as we have, a mortal man, and an immortal enemy to all those precious interests, for preservation of which he only received his kingship? whether it must be taken in that of the imposers, practically explained by their administrations? or in any other sense, alledged more legal? these would be clear, before it can be taken with the due qualifications of an oath. . as for the civil part of it, or ecclesiastical, no other examination needeth to be enquired after, than what they give forth on their acts on record: the act of supremacy (to be seen in the historical representation of the sixth and last period,) senses the ecclesiastical part of it: and the act for acknowledgment of his majesty's prerogative does sufficiently sense, explain and expound the civil part; declaring, 'that it is inherent in the crown, and an undoubted part of his royal prerogative,----to have the sole choice and appointment of all officers of state,----the power of calling, holding, and dissolving parliaments and all conventions and meetings of estates,----the power of armies, making of peace and war, treaties and leagues with foreign princes or states, or at home by the subjects among themselves:----and that it is high treason in the subjects,----upon whatsoever ground to rise----in arms,----or make any treaties or leagues----among themselves: without his majesty's authority first interponed thereto; that it is unlawful to the subjects, of whatsoever quality or function to convocate----themselves, for holding of councils to treat, consult, or determine in any matters civil or ecclesiastic, (except in the ordinary judgments) or make leagues or bonds upon whatsoever colour or pretence, without his majesty's special consent,----that the league and covenant, and all treaties following thereupon, and acts or deeds that do or may relate thereunto, are not obligatory,----and that none----should presume, upon any pretext of any authority whatsoever, to require the renewing or swearing of the said league and covenant,' &c. whereby it appears, that all this screwing up the prerogative to such a pitch is by the oath of allegiance to defend all this jurisdiction justified: and so, these palpable encroachments on the privileges of the scots parliaments, that, by the fundamental constitutions of the government always had a share in making laws, and peace and war: these robberies of our natural privileges of defending ourselves by arms, in case of the king's tyranny and oppression, and of convocating for consultations about the best means thereof; and these invasions upon our ecclesiastical privileges, in keeping general assemblies for the affairs of religion for an affair newly happening, always strenuously contended for as a part of the testimony; yea, all these rescindings, repealings, and condemnings of the way and manner, methods and measures, of promoting the covenanted reformation, are by this oath explained, and by this act acknowledged to be parts of that supremacy and jurisdiction to be defended and maintained: as likewise, by many wicked acts since promulgated, which promote the supremacy to a vast degree of absoluteness, which all do interpret what that supremacy is which is sworn to be maintained, to wit, pure tyranny established by law. see the many grievous consequences of this laid out at large, in apol. relat. sect. . . here is absolute allegiance sworn to an absolute power, paramount to all law, engaging to faithful obedience to their sovereign, as supreme over all persons, and in all causes----and to defend, assist, and maintain his said jurisdiction, and never to decline his power: there is no restriction here on obedience, nor limitation on the power, nor definition of the causes, nor circumscription of the cases, in which that assistance, &c. is to be given, whether they be lawful or not. now, absolute allegiance to an absolute power cannot be sworn by any man of conscience, nor owned by any man of reason, as is proven, head . arg. . it cannot be lawful in any sense, to swear such an oath to any mortal, nay, not to a david nor hezekiah: because to swear unrestricted and unlimited allegiance to any man, were a manifest mancipating of mankind, not only to an ass-like subjection, but to a servile obligation to maintain and uphold the persons and government of mutual men, be what they will, turn to what they will; it is known the best of men may degenerate: and by this no remedy is left to redress ourselves, but our heads, hearts, and hands all tied up under an engagement to defend, assist, and maintain whosoever doth hold the government, manage it as he pleases. this reason will also conclude against the english oath of allegiance, though it be a great deal more smoothly worded, and seems only to require a rejection of the pope, and legal subjection to the king; yet, that comprehensive clause makes it border upon absoluteness, i will bear faith and true allegiance to his majesty's heirs and successors, and him and them will defend to the uttermost of my power, against all conspiracies and attempts whatsoever. there are no conditions here at all, limiting the allegiance, or qualifying the object; but an arbitrary imposition of true allegiance and defence, in all cases, against all attempts, (even that of repressing their tyranny not excepted), not only of their persons, but of their dignities, if this be not an illimited allegiance to an absolute power, i know not what is. . here is an acknowledgment of the ecclesiastical supremacy resident in the king: which is the most blasphemous usurpation on the prerogatives of christ, and privileges of his church that ever the greatest monster among men durst arrogate: yea, the roman beast never claimed more; and, in effect, it is nothing else but one of his name of blasphemy twisted out of the pope's hands by king henry the viii. and handed down to queen elizabeth, and wafted over to james the vi. for that was the original and conveyance of it. the iniquity whereof is discovered above, head . arg. . but further, may be aggravated in these particulars, ( .) it is only a change of the pope, but not of the popedom; and nothing else but a shaking off the ecclesiastical pope, and submitting to a civil pope, by whom christ's hardship is as much wronged as by the other: and hereby a door is opened for bringing in popery (as indeed by this stratagem it is brought now to our very doors) for by the act of supremacy he hath power to settle all things concerning doctrine, worship, discipline or government, by his clerks the bishops, having all the architectonic power of disposing, ordering, and ordaining these, as he in his royal wisdom thinks fit. ( .) by this church and state are confounded (whereof the distinction is demonstrate above) making the magistrate a proper and competent judge in church matters, not to be declined; whereby also he hath power to erect new courts, mongrel judicatories; half civil, half ecclesiastic, which have no warrant in the word. ( .) by this, many palpable and intolerable encroachments made upon the liberties and privileges of the church of christ are yielded unto; as that there must be no church-judicatories or assemblies, without the magistrate's consent, but that the power of convocating and indicting assemblies do belong only to him, and the power of delegating and constituting the members thereof, that he may dissolve them when he pleases; that his presence, or his commissioners, is necessary unto each national assembly; that ministers have no proper decisive suffrage in synods, but only of advice; that the church judicatories be prelimited, and nothing must be treated there, which may be interpreted grating upon the prerogative, nor any thing whatsoever, but what he shall allow and approve, without which it can have no force nor validity; yea, by this a door should be opened unto the utter destruction and overthrow of all church-judicatories, seeing he is made the fountain of all church power. ( .) by this, the magistrate is made a church-member as he is a magistrate, and so all magistrates as such are church-members, even heathens. and yet, ( .) by this he is exempted from subjection to the ministry, because they are made accountable to him in their administrations, and in the discharge of their function are under him as supreme. yea, ( .) by this the magistrate is made a church officer, having the disposal of the church's government. and not only so, but ( .) by this he is made a church officer of the highest degree, being supreme in all causes, to whom ministers in the discharge of their ministry are subordinate. and so, ( .) by this the church of the new testament is made imperfect, so long as she wanted a christian magistrate, wanting hereby a chief officer; yea, and the apostles did amiss in robbing the magistrate of his power. ( .) by this the magistrate might exercise all acts of jurisdiction, immediately by himself; seeing he can do it as supreme by his commissioners in ecclesiastic affairs. ( .) finally, by this oath the king is made the head of the church, being supreme over all persons, and in all causes, unto whom all appeals and references must ultimately be reduced, even from church judicatories. those things are only here touched they are more apodictically confirmed above, and may be seen made out at large in apol. relat. sect. . but i proceed. . it is contrary unto the solemn league and covenant; into whose place, after it was broken, burnt, buried, and rescinded, since they have remitted the subjects allegiance by annulling the bond of it, they substitute and surrogate this in its place: and therefore none can comply with the surrogation of the second, except he consent to the abrogation of the first oath. all the allegiance we can own according to the covenants, stands perpetually and expresly thus qualified, viz. in defence of religion and liberty, according to our first and second covenants, and in its own nature must be indispensibly thus restricted: therefore to renew the same, or take an oath of allegiance simply, purposely omitting the former restriction, when the powers are in manifest rebellion against the lord, is, in effect, a disowning of that limitation, and of the sovereign prerogative of the great god, which is thereby reserved and as much as to say, 'whatever authority command us to do, we shall not only stupidly endure it, but actively concur with, and assist in all this tyranny.' see naph. first edition, pag. , . vindicated at length by jus populi. chap. . by all this the iniquity of the scots oath of allegiance and supremacy may appear, and also that of the english oath of allegiance, even abstract from the supremacy, is in some measure discovered; though it is not my purpose particularly to speak to that: yet this i will say, that they that plead for its precision from the supremacy annexed seem not to consider the full import of its terms; for under the dignities, superiorities and authorities, there engaged to be upheld, the ecclesiastical supremacy must be included; for that is declared to be one of the dignities of the crown there, as well as here; and hither it was brought from thence. and therefore those scots men that took that oath there, and pled, that though the oath of allegiance in scotland be a sin, yet it is duty to take the oath in england, seem to me to be in a great deceit: for the object is the same, the subject is the same, the duty expected, required, and engaged into, is the same, and every thing equal in both. yet all this iniquity, here couched, is some way comprehended in, and implied by the oath of abjuration: for the civil part is imported in abjuring a declaration, for its declaring war against the king, where it is clear, he is owned as king, and all part with them that declare war against him being renounced, it is evident the abjurers must take part with him in that war, and so assist and defend him; for being subjects, they must not be neutral, therefore if they be not against him, they must be for him, and so under the bond of allegiance to him: the ecclesiastical supremacy is inferred from that expression of it, where some are said to serve him in church, as well as in state, which implies an ecclesiastical subordination to him as supreme over the church. iii. the tenor of some other bonds was more smooth and subtile, as that of the bond of peace; several times renewed and imposed, and under several forms; but always after one strain; engaging to live peaceably, whereby many were caught and cheated with the seeming fairness of these general terms; but others discerning their fallaciousness, refused and suffered for it. this in the general is capable of a good sense: for no christian will refuse to live peaceably, but will endeavour, if it be possible, as much as lieth in them, to live peaceably with all men, rom. xii. . that is, so far to follow peace with all men, as may consist with the pursuit of holiness, heb. xii. . but if we more narrowly consider such bonds, we shall find them bonds of iniquity. for, . they are covenants of peace, or confederacies with god's enemies, whom we should count our enemies, and hate them because they hate him, psal. cxxxix . it is more suitable to answer, as jehu did to joram, kings ix. .----what peace, so long as the whoredoms of thy mother jezebel, and her witchcrafts are so many? than to engage to be at peace with those, who are carrying on babylon's interest, the mother of harlots and witchcrafts. . this cannot be taken in truth, judgment, and righteousness, because of the fallacy and ambiguity of the terms: for there are diverse sorts of peace and peaceableness; some kind is duty, some never. it must then be rightly qualified, for we can profess and pursue no peace of confederacy with the enemies of god, not consistent with the fear of the lord, otherwise we cannot expect to have the lord for a sanctuary, but for a stone of stumbling, isa. viii. , ,---- .----no peace obstructing the gospel or testimony, or abstracting from the duty of the day: no peace tending to sinful security, jer. viii. . no peace leading to slavish stupidity; no peace prompting to preposterous prudence, in palliating sin, or daubing defections with untempered morter; no peace inconsistent with truth; they must go together, zech. i. . no peace that may not be followed with holiness, heb. xii. . but it must be so qualified, that it be in the lord, in truth, in duty, contributing for the good of the church, psal. cxxii. , . and the fruit of that wisdom, which is first pure, and then peaceable, james iii. . now, all that know the imposers of these bonds, will acknowledge that is not the peace they are seeking. . if we further enquire into their meaning of living peaceably, and seek a determinate sense of it from their acts and actings, it is plain they mean such a peaceable living, as gives obedience to their wicked laws, and is a compliance to their established courses: and it must be such a peaceable living, as is opposite to their sense of sedition, rebellion, schism, &c. which they interpret every seasonable duty to be: and it must be such a peaceable living, as they were presumed not to have been observant of before; and whatever it be, must be opposite to that with which they were charged as turbulent, and so contrary to all the duties of our covenanted profession, as going to meetings, withdrawing from the curates, &c. which they interpret not to be peaceable living. . this is contrary to our covenants, which oblige us to a constant contending with, and opposition to them. yet all this is engaged into in the oath of abjuration, which abjures all war against the king, and all doing injury to them that serve him, and consequently to peace, and living peaceably with them. iv. of affinity to this were many other bonds of regularity, frequently renewed and generally imposed, and that with unparalleled illegality and rigour; sometimes by hosts of savage highlanders; sometimes by circuit courts, and by heritors upon their tenants, and with such unheard of involvments, that the master or heritor was obliged for himself, his wife, children, servants, tenants, and all under him, to live orderly; which in some was more bluntly expressed, in others more flatly explained, that they should keep the public ordinances, that is, hear the curates, and not go to any seditious conventicles, (so they called the persecuted meetings of the lord's people for the worship of god) and in others yet more impudently exacted, that they should not harbour, entertain, or correspond with any that went to these meetings, but discover and assist to the apprehending of them. there were several forms of them from time to time, some longer, some shorter; but all of them, first and last, were to the same sense and scope. and the most favourably worded had much wickedness in them: for, . they are covenants of order, and coming under the same rule with themselves, which is nothing but their lusts and mischiefs framed into law, not according to the rule of the word of god, but the iniquitous laws of men. . they could not be taken in truth, judgment, and righteousness: for either they were ambiguous, or their plain sense obliged to manifest iniquities, to conform with all their enacted corruptions. . they are clear breaches of covenant, which obliges to another kind of orderliness, and to follow other rulers, and take none from them in the matters of god. . they are impossible, and absurd; obliging masters to bind for all under them, that could neither lie in their power, nor in their duty, to restrain their liberty in these lawful things, and to constrain and compel their consciences to sin. . they are unnatural and cruel, obliging the takers to partake with them in their persecution of the godly. . they were engagements to hear curates, which is proved to be sin, head . throughout. . they were engagements to withdraw from the meetings of the lord's people, proved to be duty, head . yet the oath of abjuration is some way equivalent to this, in that it obliges the abjurers to renounce disorderliness in their sense, and to do no harm to the time-serving orderly clergy or laity, serving and prosecuting their wicked orders. v. some other bonds of that nature, and oaths frequently put to suffering people when taken prisoners, did require peaceableness and orderliness, in this stile, that they should either tacitly or expresly condemn some risings in arms, as at pentland, bothwel, &c. to be rebellion against the king, and a sin against god, and engage never to rise in arms against the king, or any commissionate by him, upon any pretence whatsoever. the iniquity whereof is manifest: for, . this is a covenant equivalent to a league offensive and defensive with them, obliging never to offend or oppose them, nor to defend nor rescue our brethren against and from their murdering violence. . this could not be taken in truth, judgment, and righteousness: for who can tell how far that may extend, upon any pretence whatsoever? this may oblige us to make a stupid surrender of our lives, when the king turns so tyrannical, as to send his cut-throats to demand them, or authorizes his bloody papists to massacre us, them we must not resist upon any pretence. . it is contrary to our covenants, that allow resistance in some cases, and oblige to assist and defend all that enter under the bond thereof. . this infers an owning of the present authority, as the irresistible ordinance of god, and an obligation of living peaceably in subjection under it; disproved above. to which i shall add a part of that forecited letter of mr. rutherford's, the d in number of the third part of his printed letters, which are a clear vindication of the principles and practice of our conscientious sufferers on this point: 'there is a promise and real purpose, (saith he) to live peaceably, under the king's authority; but ( .) you do not so answer candidly and ingeniously the mind of the rulers, who to your knowledge, mean a far other thing by authority than you do: for you mean his just authority, his authority in the lord----in the maintainance of true religion, as in the covenant, and confession of faith----is expressed from the word of god; they mean his supreme authority, and absolute prerogative about laws, as their acts clear, and as their practice is; for they refused to such as were unwilling to subscribe their bond to add, authority in the lord, or just and lawful authority, or authority as it is expressed in the covenant; but this draught of a petition yields the sense and meaning to them which they crave. ( .) that authority for which they contend, is exclusive of the sworn covenant; so that except ye had said, ye shall be subject to the king's authority in the lord, or according to the sworn covenant, you say nothing to the point in hand, and that sure is not your meaning. ( .) whoever promises so much of peaceable living under his majesty's authority, leaving out the exposition of the fifth command,--may, upon the very same ground subscribe the bond refused by the godly, and so you pass from the covenant, and make all these bypast actings of this kirk and state these years bypast to be horrid rebellion, and how deep this guilt draws, consider.' . this would infer, though the king should send and kill us, we must not resist, nor defend our own lives: yet, being an oath against the sixth command, which enjoineth natural self-preservation, it should be intrinsically sinful; and 'tis all one to swear to non-preservation of self, as to swear to self-murder. . i hope to make it appear in the fifth head, that this is against the practice of nations, the law of nature, and the word of god. yet all this complex iniquity is clearly comprehended in the oath of abjuration, in terms abjuring all war against the king. vi. there were some other oaths, frequently obtruded upon people, for refusing which they have suffered great cruelties, that can hardly be described by any name; nor can their imposition have a parallel in any age or place, for illegality, inhumanity, arbitrariness, and odiousness. these were the oaths of inquisition, or things beyond all enquiry: whereby people were pressed to answer the inquisitors, according to all their knowledge of things they were interrogate upon, and delate and discover intercommuned persons in their wanderings, or such whole names were in their porteous rolls, &c. and power was given to single soldiers, to press these oaths upon whom they pleased. the iniquity of which is monstrous: for, . this was the worst kind of combination with these blood hounds, to abet and assist them in their pursuing after the lord's people: which is worse than to be bare consenters to such wickedness, or to be onlookers to their affliction in the day of their calamity; but like that sin charged upon edom, that they delivered up those of his that did remain in the day of distress, obad. ver. , . for these that took oaths, obliged themselves to do all they could to deliver up the remnant that escaped; and if they did not, no thanks to them; if they could not, their sin was in their willingness: it they would not, and yet swore would contribute their help towards it, by telling of all they knew, that was horrid perjury and false swearing. . this could be no ways capable of the qualification of an oath; not only because the matter is wicked and unnatural, to discover, may be, the husband, or children, or nearest relations, to please men, or save their own life, which was a great tentation; and therefore in it there could be no deliberation in swearing: but also for the doubtful perplexity confounding the mind, that they either could not, nor durst not tell of all they knew, and yet swore to do it. . it is against the covenant, which obliges to discover malignant enemies, and assist our covenanting brethren, and not to discover them, and assist malignant enemies; which is a perfect inverting the fourth and sixth articles of the covenant. . it is contrary to clear precepts in scripture, to assist and defend our brethren, to make our shadow as the night in the midst of the noon-day, and hide the outcast, and bewray not him that wandereth, isa. xvi. , . the illegality of this imposition makes it very absurd, that every pitiful officer or soldier should be empowered to impose and exact oaths, and impanel and examine witnesses, about alledged criminals. yet the monstrousness of this oath serves to aggravate the oath of abjuration; in that the abjurers do renounce their part of, and disown the declarers of that abjured declaration, and so do as much as from them is required, to give them up for a prey to their hunters; yea they declare them murderers, in that they abjure their declaration as asserting murder; and consequently they must be obliged to discover them to their acknowledged judges. vii. the abominable test comes next: which needs no other refutation than to rehearse it; the substance whereof was a solemn swearing, 'that they owned and sincerely professed the true protestant religion, contained in the confession of faith, recorded in the first parliament of king james vi.----and that they would adhere thereunto all the days of their life,----and never consent to any change or alteration contrary thereto,----but renounce all doctrines, principles, practices, whether popish or fanatical, contrary thereto.----and they swear, that the king is the only supreme governor of this realm, over all persons, in all causes, as well ecclesiastical as civil,----and promises to bear faith and true allegiance to the king's majesty, his heirs and lawful successors, and to their power shall assist and defend all rights, jurisdictions, prerogatives,----belonging to them----and affirm----it----unlawful for subjects, upon pretence of reformation, or any other pretence whatsoever, to enter into covenants----or to convocate, conveen, or assemble----to treat, consult, or determine in any matter of state, civil or ecclesiastic, without his majesty's special command or to take up arms against the king, or these commissionate by him----and that there lies no obligation on them, from the national covenant, or solemn league and covenant----to endeavour any change or alteration in the government, either in church or state, as it is now established by the laws of the kingdom----and they shall never decline his majesty's power and jurisdiction----and finally, they swear, that this oath is given in the plain genuine sense and meaning of the words, without any equivocation, mental reservation, or any manner of evasion whatsoever.' this is the complement of a wicked conspiracy, couching in its capricious bosom the complication of all their mischiefs, comprehending all, and explaining all the former: which indeed cannot be taken with any equivocating evasion, that can escape either the stigma of nonsense and self contradiction, or the censure of atheism and irreligion, or the sentence of divine vengeance against such baffling the name of god. the best sense that can be put upon it, is that which a poor sot expressed, when it was tendered to him, prefacing thus before he took it, lord have mercy upon my soul. for, . it is not consistent with itself, there being such contradictions between that confession of faith and the following part, that no man can reconcile, some whereof may be instanced as follows; ( .) in the th art. of that confession, intituled, of christ's ascension, it is said, 'that christ is the only head of the church, and just lawgiver, in which honours and offices, if men or angels presume to intrude themselves, we utterly detest and abhor them, as blasphemous to our sovereign and supreme governor christ jesus.' and a little before in that same article, it is said, 'this glory, honour and prerogative he alone among the brethren shall possess.' and in the th art. of the kirk, 'christ is the only head of the same kirk.' and yet in the test, the king is affirmed to be the only supreme in all causes ecclesiastical. ( .) in the th art. among good works are reckoned these: 'to obey superior powers and their charges (not repugning to the commandment of god) to save the lives of innocents, to repress tyranny, to defend the oppressed.' and among evil works these are qualified, 'to resist any that god hath placed in authority (while they pass not over the bounds of their office.') and art. th, it is confessed, 'that such as resist the supreme power, doing that which pertains to his charge, do resist god's ordinance,----while the princes and rulers vigilantly travel in the execution of their office.' and yet in the test, true allegiance is engaged into without any such limitations; and it is affirmed to be unlawful, upon any pretence whatsoever, to convocate, &c. or to take up arms against the king. ( .) in the th art. 'evil works are affirmed to be, not only those that expresly are done against god's commandment, but those also that, in matters of religion, and worshipping of god, have no other assurance but the invention and opinion of men.' and art. th, among the notes of the true church, 'ecclesiastical discipline, uprightly ministred, as god's word prescribes, whereby vice is repressed, and virtue nourished, is one.' in art. th. 'the voice of god and constitution of men are opposed.' and yet in the test, they swear never to endeavour any change or alteration in the government of the church----as it is now established; whereof many things must be altered, yea, the whole form and frame of it, if these propositions be true, as they are. ( .) in the test, they swear never to consent to any change or alteration, contrary to that confession, and that all principles and practices contrary thereto are popish and fanatical (for so they divide them into one of these disjunctively) then must all the following principles in their test be renounced as such, seeing they are contrary to that confession in some propositions or articles; and that the government established by that confession was presbyterian, and this established by the test is episcopal. . it comprehends all the former oaths and bonds, which are cleared above to be sinful. yet for as wicked as it is, it must be some way homologated by the oath of abjuration, excepting the contradiction that is in it; seeing all these oppositions against the king, sworn against in the test, are abjured and renounced in that oath of abjuration, in renouncing all declarations of war against the king; for if any war can be undertaken against him, all these kinds of opposition must be allowed, that are in the test sworn against. viii. in the last place, i shall come to consider more particularly the oath of abjuration itself; for refusing of which, the sufferings were more severe (being extended even to death or banishment) though the words be more smooth than in any of the former, which are these: 'i----do abjure, renounce, and disown a late pretended declaration, affixed on several market crosses, &c. in so far as it declares war against the king, and asserts it lawful to kill any that serve his majesty in church, state, army or country.' that the taking of this oath is a step of compliance, dishonourable to god, derogatory to the day's testimony, contradictory to the many reiterated confessions of christ's worthy (though poor despised) witnesses, sealed by their blood, bonds and banishments, encouraging and gratifying to the enemies of god, hardening to backsliding brethren, offensive to the generation of the righteous; stumbling to all, leaving a stain and sting upon the conscience of the subscriber, i shall endeavour to make out by these considerations. . considering the party who imposed it; it must be looked upon as a confederacy with them, being tendered upon all the subjects, as a test of their incorporating themselves with, and declaring themselves for their head, and siding with them and him, in this their contest and contention with a poor remnant of the lord's people, persecuted and murdered by them for truth and conscience sake, who issued forth that declaration against them, here abjured. therefore let the party be considered, imposing the oath with such rigour, and prosecuting the refusers with ravenous rage, murdering and torturing all who did not comply with them, declaring a war more formally and explicitely against christ as king, and all that will dare to assert their allegiance to him; under an open displayed banner of defiance of him and his, than even mortals durst espouse and avouch: the head of that treacherous and truculent faction, both he who was first declared against in that declaration, and he who hath by bloody and treacherous usurpation succeeded to him, being such a monster for murder and mischief, tyranny, oppression and perfidy, that among all the nimrods and nero's that past ages can recount, we cannot find a parallel, by all law divine and human, incapable of government, or any trust, or so much as protection, or any privilege, but to be pursued by all, as a common enemy to mankind: and his underlings, agents and complices, devoted to his lust, and serving his wicked designs, in their respective offices and places of trust under him, which by his nomination and sole appointment they have been erected to, and established in, with the stain and indelible character of perjury, the only qualification of their being capable of any advancement, occupying by usurpation, intrusion and violence, the public places of judicatories, and carrying all so insolently and arbitrarily, and with an effrontery of wickedness and despight of all reason, religion or justice, that they cannot but be looked upon as the most pestilent and pestiferous plague that ever pestered a people: the taking then of this oath, by them projected as a pest to infect consciences, with, and pervert them to wicked, truth deserting and law perverting loyalty, and imposed as a test of compliance with them and coming off from that little flock whom they design to devour and destinate to destruction; must be in their own esteem, as well as of the generation of the righteous, to their satisfaction, and the others sorrow, a real incorporating with them, an owning of their usurped power as judges to administer oaths, giving them all obedience they required for the time to their authority, and all the security they demanded for the subscribers loyalty, an approving of all their proceedings in that matter, and transacting, tampering, and bargaining with these sons of belial, out of fear, whereby a right is purchased to that common badge of their owned and professed friends, who (upon taking that oath) had from them a privilege and allowance to travel and traffic (where and how they will) through the country, denied to all other that wanted that badge; i mean the pass or testificate they got from them thereupon, which was the mark of that secular beast of tyranny, no less pernicious to the world than popery hath been to the church, and which was given to all the takers of the oath, as a mark or tessera, that they were no enemies to the government, as they call it. o base and unworthy livery! for the suffering sons of zion to put on the signature of the society of her devourers. hence, if covenants and confederacies, declaring we are on their side, cannot be made with the enemies of religion, then this oath could not be taken lawfully; but the former is proved above: therefore the latter follows. this will yet more appear, . if we consider the party that set forth that declaration, whom the proclamation against it represents so odiously and invidiously, whom the oath imposed obliges us to condemn; being so represented, as if they were maintainers of murdering principles, and perpetrators of assassinating villanies, inconsistent with peace or any good government, and therefore to be exterminated and destroyed out of the land, whom therefore they prosecute and persecute so cruelly to the effusion of their blood, under colour of law. . the takers of this oath must have formally, under their unhappy hand, disowned and renounced them, and all part or interest in them, or society or sympathy with them; who yet are known to be the suffering people of god, more earnestly contending, witnessing, wrestling for the faith and word of christ's patience, and have suffered more for their adherence to the covenanted reformation of the church of scotland, and for their opposition to all its deformations and defections, than any party within the land: yet them have they rejected as their companions, though with some of them sometimes they have had sweet company and communion to the house of god, by abjuring and condemning their deed which duty and necessity have drove them to. . hereby they have presumptuously taken upon them, to pass a judgment upon the deed of their brethren, before their murdering enemies? and that not a private discretive judgment, but a public definitive sentence (in their capacity) by the most solemn way of declaring it, that can be, by oath and subscription under their hand; whereby they have condemned all the sufferings of their brethren, who sealed their testimony in opposition to this compliance with their blood, and finished it with honoured joy, as foolish and frivolous profusion of their own blood, nay, as just and legally inflicted and executed upon them, as being rebels, of murdering principles and practices: for this cannot be vindicated from a more than indirect justifying of all the murdering severity executed upon them. . and hereby they have unkindly and unchristianly lifted themselves on the other side against them, and take part rather with their enemies than with them; for thus they used to plead for it, when they pressed this oath upon them that scrupled it; when any war is declared against the king, 'any of his majesty's soldiers may question any man whom he is for, and if he be not for the king, he may act against him as an enemy, and if they will not declare for the king and disown the rebels, they are to be reputed by all as enemies.' which, whatever weakness be in the arguing, plainly discovers, that they take the abjuring of that declaration, in that juncture, to be a man's declaring of what side he is for, and that he is not for the emmitters of that declaration, but for the king and his party: which, in the present state of affairs, is a most dreadful owning of christ's enemy, and disowning of his friends. hence, a disowning of the lord's persecuted people, and condemning their practice, and an owning of their persecutors, and espousing their side of it, is a sinful confederacy; but the taking of this oath is such, as is evident by what is said; therefore it is a sinful confederacy. . considering the nature, conditions, and qualifications of so solemn and serious a piece of god's worship, and way of invocating his holy name, as an oath is; it will appear, that the taking of this imposed oath of abjuration, was a dreadful and heinous breach of the third command, by taking his name in vain, in the worst sort, and so cannot be holden guilty. i prove it thus: an oath which cannot be taken in truth, judgment and righteousness, is a breach of the third command; but this is an oath which cannot be in truth, judgment and righteousness: which is evident; for, . it cannot be taken by any conscientious man in truth, in sincerity of the heart, simplicity of the mind, singleness and honesty in the intention, not putting any other sense than the imposer hath, and which is the clear sense of it without oath and beyond it. for if he take it according to the meaning, then he should swear it unlawful ever to declare war against the king, and consequently never to rise in arms against him upon any pretence whatsoever: for, if we may rise in arms for our own defence, we make and must declare a defensive war. and indeed, in themselves, as well as in their sense and meaning who imposed them, these two oaths never to rise in arms against the king, and this of abjuration, are one and the same. then also should we swear it unlawful, at any time, upon any occasion, or for any cause, to kill any such as serve the king in church, state, army or country, either in peace or war: for that is their thought, and the sense of the oath itself, or what is beyond it: and in part, for their exemption and immunity from all condign punishment, this oath was contrived. but in fine, how can this oath be taken in truth; when it is not apparent, either that the declaring of a war against the king, or killing some for some causes (which shall afterwards be made appear to be lawful) that serve him, are to be abjured and disowned? or that the declaration does assert any such thing? and indeed it will be found to be a denying the truth, and a subscribing to a manifest falsehood, invoking god to be witness thereto. . this oath cannot be taken in judgment; that is, with knowledge and deliberation, &c. all the terms of it have much of obscure ambiguity, declaring a war, and killing any who serve the king, may be constructed in several senses, good and bad, but here they are indefinitely expressed, and universally condemned. particularly that (in so far as) hath several faces, and can never be sworn in judgment; for if it denote a casuality, and signify as much as because or wherefore, then all declarations of war against any that have the name of king whatsoever, upon whatsoever grounds, and all killing of any serving him, though in our own defence, must be universally condemned, for the consequence is good as to every thing, if it import a restriction, excluding other things in the declaration, but obliging to abjure only that; then it implies also an affirmation, that these two things are contained in it, which will not appear to the judgment of them that will seriously ponder the declaration itself; if again it be a supposition or condition, and to be interpreted, for if so be, then all that the judgment can make of it is, that it is uncertain, and so the conscience dare not invoke god as a witness of that which is uncertain whether it be a truth or a lie. . this oath could not be taken in righteousness: for the matter is not true, certainly known, lawful, possible, weighty, necessary, useful, and worthy: it is not true, that the declaration imports so far as it is represented in the oath of abjuration; neither is it certainly known, but by collating these two together the contrary will appear; neither is it lawful (if it were true that such assertions were in it) to abjure all declarations of war against the king, and to swear it unlawful ever to kill any, if he be once in the king's service, in church, state, army, or country; nor is it possible to reduce this assertory oath into a promissory one lawfully, as most part of such oaths may and do necessarily imply; for when i swear such a thing unlawful, it implies my promise, by virtue of the same oath, never to practice it: but it is not possible (as the case stands) for a man to bind up himself in every case from all declared war against the king, or from killing some employed in his service; what if there be a necessary call to join in arms with the lord's people, for the defence of their religion, lives and liberties, against him? what if he commands massacre? shall not a man defend himself? nor endeavour to kill none of that murdering crew, because they are in his service? was ever a fool so fettered? nor is it of such weight, to be the occasion of involving the whole country in perjury or persecution, as by that oath was done; nor was it necessary, in this man's time, to make all abjure a declaration out of date, when the object of it charles ii. was dead, and no visible party actually in arms to prosecute it; nor was it ever of any use or worth, except it were implicitely to gratify their greedy lusting after the blood of innocents, or the blood of silly souls cheated by their snares, by involving them in the same sin of perjury and conscience debauching false swearing, whereof they themselves are so heinously guilty. but let them, and such as have taken that oath, and not fled to christ for a sanctuary, lay to heart the doom of false swearers, 'the flying roll of the curse of god shall enter into their house,' zech. v. . 'love no false oath, for all these are things that i hate, saith the lord,' zech. viii. . 'the lord will be a swift witness against false swearers,' mal. iii. . and let them sift their conscience before the word, and set the word to the conscience, and these considerations will have some weight. . if we consider this particular oath itself, and the words of it more narrowly, we shall find a complication of iniquities in it, by examining the sense of them as the imposers expound them. . not only that declaration, but all such in so far as they declare and assert such things, are here renounced; and hereby many and faithful declarations are disowned, that declare the same things. it is indeed pleaded by some, that profess to be presbyterians, as it was also pretended by some of the pressers of the oath themselves but in order to pervert and cheat the conscience; that here is not required a disowning of the apologetical declaration simpliciter, but only according to which, or rather of a pretended one of their supposing, in so far as it imports such things: but this is frivolous for that pretended one is intended by the imposers to be the real apologetical declaration, which they will have to be disowned, and cannot be distinguished from it: and though all these assertions cannot be fastened upon that apologetical declaration, but it is evident, that it is invidiously misrepresented: yet that same is the pretended one which they require to be abjured in so far as it asserts such things, which it does not: and if it be according to which to be disowned, then that must either be according to that assertion of killing any, &c. which is not to be found in it, and so it is not to be disowned at all; or it must be according to the declaration of war against the king, and so that which, or formal reason of disowning it, will oblige to disown all declarations of war against the king, which cannot be disowned. others again object, that it is not required to be disowned formally but only conditionally, taking and confounding in so far, for if so be: but to any thinking man it is plain, this cannot be a supposition nor yet a simple restriction (as they would give it out) but an assertion, that such things are indeed imported in it; for so the imposers think and say: and if it might pass current under that notion, as a supposition, being equivalent to if so be, then under that sophistical pretext, i might renounce the covenant, or the most indisputed confession or declaration that ever was, in so far as it contained such things; and so this equivocation might elude all testimonies whatsoever, and justify all prevarications. . this must condemn all defensive war of subjects against their oppressing rulers, in that a declaration is abjured, in so far as it declares war against the king: to press and persuade people to which, it was usually urged by the imposers, that when a war is declared by rebels against the king, then all the subjects are obliged to disown the rebels, or else be repute for such themselves; and, when it was alledged the war was ceased, because the object declared against was ceased, charles ii. being dead, otherwise if a man be obliged to give his opinion about a war declared against a king deceased and gone, then by the same parity of reason, he must be obliged to give his opinion of that war of the lords of the congregation (as they were called) against queen mary, in the beginning of the reformation, it was still replied by them, that the rebellion continued, and all were guilty of it, that did not abjure that declaration; whence it is evident, they mean, that every thing which they call rebellion, must be disowned, and consequently all resistance of superior, upon any pretence whatsoever, as many of their acts explain it; yea, and it was plainly told by some of them, to some that scrupled to take the oath, because they said they did not understand it, that the meaning was to swear, never to rise in arms against the king. against this it hath been objected by several, that this was always denied by presbyterians, that ever they declared war against the king expresly, purposedly and designedly, but only against him by accident, when he happened to be the adverse party; but this distinction will not be a salvo to the conscience; for the object declared against, is either a king or not; if he be not, then a declaration of war against him is not to be abjured; if he be king, then he is either declared against as king, and by himself, or as an oppressor, or an abuser of his power: the first indeed is to be disowned; for a king, as king or lawful magistrate, must not be resisted, rom. xiii. . but the second, to declare war against a king, as an oppressor and abuser of his power, and subverter of the laws, hath been owned by our church and state many a time, and they have opposed and declared war as purposedly against him, as he did against them, and as really and formally as he was an oppressor: sure he cannot be an oppressor only by accident: however this hath been owned always by presbyterians, that war may be declared against him who is called king. and therefore to abjure a declaration, in so far as it declares war against the king, will condemn not only that declaration, upon the heads wherein its honesty and faithfulness chiefly consists, but all other most honest and honourable declarations, that have been made and emitted by our worthy and renowned ancestors, and by our worthies in our own time, who have formally, avowedly and explicitely, or expresly, purposedly and designedly, declared their opposition to tyranny and tyrants, and their lawful and laudable designs to repress, depress and suppress them, by all the ways and means that god and nature, and the laws of nations allow, when they did by law itself depose and exauctorate themselves from all rule, or privilege, or prerogative of rulers, and became no more god's ministers, but beelzebub's vicegerents, and monsters to be exterminated out of the society of mankind. the honestest of all our declarations of defensive war, have always run in this strain; and others, insinuating more preposterous loyalty, have been justly taxed for asserting the interest of the tyrant, the greatest enemy of the declarers, and principal object of the declared war; which disingenious juggling and foisting in such flattering and falsifying distinctions in the state of the quarrel, hath rationally been thought one of the procuring causes or occasions of the discomfiture of our former appearances for the work of god and liberties of our country. . this must infer an owning of his authority as lawful king, when the declaration disowning him is abjured, in so far as it declares war against his majesty; for in this oath he is stiled, and asserted to be king, and to have the majesty of a lawful king, and therefore must be owned as such by all that take it; which yet i have proved to be sinful above, head . against this it hath been quibbled by some, that that declaration does not declare war against the king expresly as king, who set forth the declaration. but this will not salve the matter; for then ( .) it a subscribing to a lie, in abjuring a declaration, in so far as it did declare a thing, which it did not, if that hold. ( .) the enemies impose the abjuring and disowning of it, in so far as it declares war against their king, who had none other but charles stewart at that time, who was the king in their sense; and an oath cannot be taken in any other sense, contradictory to the imposers, even though by them allowed, without an unjustifiable equivocation. ( .) though he had been king, and had not committed such acts of tyranny, as might actually denominate him a tyrant, and forfeit his kingship; yet to repress his illegal arbitrariness and intolerable enormities, and to repel his unjust violence, and reduce him to good order, subjects, at least for their own defence, may declare a war expresly, purposedly and designedly against their own acknowledged king; this ought not in so far to be disowned; for then all our declarations emitted, during the whole time of prosecuting the reformation, in opposition to our king would be disowned; and so with one dash, unhappily the whole work of reformation, and the way of carrying it on, is hereby tacitely and consequentially reflected upon and reproached, if not disowned. ( .) it must infer an owning of the ecclesiastical supremacy, when it asserts, that some do serve the king in church, as well as in state; there is no distinction here, but they are said to serve him the same way in both. and it is certain they mean so, and have expressed so much in their acts, that churchmen are as subordinate, and the same way subject to the king's supremacy, as statesmen are; the absurdity and blasphemy of which is discovered above. . this condemns all killing of any that serve the king in church, state, army or country; for a declaration is abjured, in so far as it asserts it lawful to kill any such; and so by this oath, there is an impunity secured for his idolatrous priests and murdering varlets, that serve him in the church; for his bloody counsellors, and gowned murderers, that serve his tyrannical designs in the state; for his bloody lictors and executioners, the swordmen, that serve him in the army, whom he may send when he pleades to murder us; and for his bloody just-asses, informers, and intelligencing sycophants, the zyphites, that serve him in the country: all these must escape bringing to condign punishment, contrary to the th art. of the solemn league and covenant, and shall be confuted, head . against this it is excepted by pleaders for this oath, that it is only a declared abhoring of murdering principles, which no christian dare refuse; and it may be taken in this sense safely, that it is to be abjured, in so far as it asserts it lawful to kill all that are to be employed by his majesty, or any, because so employed in church, state, army or country, which never any did assert was lawful: but though murdering principles are indeed always to be declaredly abhorred, and all refusers of that oath did both declare so much, and abhorred the thoughts of them; yet this invasion is naught: for ( .) the declaration asserts no such thing, neither for that cause nor for any other, but expressly makes a distinction between persons under the epithet of bloody cruel murderers, and these only whom it threateneth to animadvert upon. ( .) the only reason of their declared intent of prosecuting these, whom they threaten to bring to condign punishment, was, because they were so employed by the tyrant in such service, as shedding the blood of innocents, murdering people where they met them; and so that's the very reason for which they deserve to be killed, and therefore foolish, impertinent, and very absurd to be alledged as a qualification of the sense of that impious oath. . if we consider the proclamation enjoining this oath and narrating and explaining the occasions and causes of it, all these reasons against it will be confirmed; and it will further appear, that the proclamation itself is indirectly approved. for though it might be sustained in the abstract, that we may and must renounce such declarations founded on principles inconsistent with government, and bearing such inferences as are specified in that proclamation; yet complexly considered what they mean by government, what sort of society that is, the security whereof is said to be infringed by that declaration, and what is the scope of that narrative; a renouncing of a paper contradictory thereto, must be in so far a tacite approbation of that proclamation. for that oath, which renounceth what is contrary to such a proclamation, does justify the proclamation; but this oath renounces what is contrary to the proclamation, and that only: therefore it justifies the proclamation. it is intituled, as it was really designed, for discovering such as own or will not disown the foresaid declaration, by them falsely nicknamed, a late treasonable declaration of war against his majesty, and the horrid principle of assassination. and the body of it discovers such hell-bred hatred of, and malice against, that poor party, destinated, in their design, to final and total destruction, and lays down such contrivances for their discovery and ruin, that the heads and hearts of the inventers and authors may seem to be possessed and inspired with the devil's immediately assisting counsel, and the clerk's pen that drew it up to have been dipt in the stygian lake, and the gall and venom of hell: representing the emitters, and abetters, and spreaders of that declaration, and all who have been joined in any of their societies, and all who either will own or scruple to disown the said declaration, in the manner by them tendered and imposed, (which are the generality of the most tender and conscientious christians in the land) under all the vilest and most abominable and odious terms, their malice could invent; as if they were 'insolent and desperate rebels, associated under a pretended form of government, who had formerly endeavoured to disguise their bloody and execrable principles, but now had pulled off the mask, and who think it a duty to kill and murder all who do any manner of way serve the present rulers, or bear charge under them, who maintain principles inconsistent with all government and society, and tending to the destruction of the lives of their loyal and honest subjects; treacherous and assassinating principles, &c. who now have declared their hellish intentions, and for the better performance of their mischievous designs, do lurk in secret, and are never discerned but in the acts of their horrid assassinations, and passing up and down among the king's loyal subjects, take opportunity to murder and assassinate, like execrable rebels; and calling that declaration, an execrable and damnable paper,' &c. all which are execrable and damnable lies, and forgeries of the fathers of them, and a charge which all their sophistry can never make out in any particular: yet by them amplified to a swelling height of heinousness; and, among other circumstances, aggravated, from their frequent refusing the reiterated offers of their clemency, by which they understand their contempt of their presumptuous, christ-defying, and church-destroying indulgences, and their not submitting to their insnaring and base indemnities, or their conscience cheating bonds and oaths by them so finely bulked. from these impudently pretended premisses, in their falsely forged viperous narrative, they lay down their bloody methods and measures for prosecuting that poor people, with all vigour of savage severity; ordaining, 'that whosoever shall own that declaration, and the principles therein specified,' (which is a larger dilatation of their meaning, than their pretended, restriction, (in so far as, &c.) and gives a further discovery of the intent of the oath, that gives a covert stroke to all the principles of our reformation, which are reductively specified in that declaration) 'or whosoever shall refuse to disown the same----shall be execute to the death; and commanding all subjects to concur, and do their utmost endeavour to seek, search, delate, and apprehend all such, under the severest penalties of the laws; and to difference the good from the bad, (meaning their own associates and friends, from christ's followers) by discriminating signs, declaring it their pleasure, and requiring all past the age of years not to presume to travel without testificates of their loyalty and good principles, by taking the oath of abjuration; whereupon they are to have a testificate, which is to serve for a free pass, with certification to all that shall adventure to travel without such a testificate, shall be holden and used as concurrers with the said rebels; commanding all heritors, &c. to give up the lists, of the names of all under them, before the curate; declaring, if any shall refuse to concur in such service, they shall be holden as guilty of the foresaid crimes, and punished accordingly; and strictly prohibiting all to harbour, lodge, or entertain any, unless they have such certificates, under the same pain: and for encouragement to any that shall discover or apprehend any to be found guilty as above said, ensuring to them the sum of merks scots for each of them.' this is that hell hatched proclamation, so grievous for its effects, so dreadful for its designs, so monstrous for its absurdities, that the like hath not been seen: whereby not only the country's interest and trade hath been prejudged, by compelling all to have a pass in time of peace, and these to be procured at exorbitant rates, oppressing poor people; not only common hostlers and innkeepers are made judges, impowered to impose oaths upon passengers for their passes, that they be not forged; but many consciences couzened, cheated, wounded and insnared, and the whole land involved in sin. but they that took this oath have approved and justified this detestable, execrable, bloody proclamation, the spurious spawn of the devil's venom against christ's followers: for they gave all the obedience to it that was required of them in their capacity, and obedience justifies the law enjoining it; they have done all was required, or could be done by them, to answer the design of it in their circumstances; and consequently, by doing the thing prescribed, they have justified the grounds upon which the rescript was founded, and the methods by which it was prosecuted, which hath a dreadful medly of iniquity in it. hence, ( .) they have subscribed to all these odious characters wherewith they branded that poor persecuted party, and condemned them as insolent, desperate rebels, murderers, bloody assassins, &c. ( .) in disowning that declaration, they have disowned the principles therein specified, and consequently all the testimony against this usurping faction of overturners of the work of reformation, active and passive, that have been given and sealed by the eminent servants of god, since this catastrophe, the principle of defensive arms, and our covenants, and several others which are therein specified. ( .) they have given their consent to all the concurrence therein required, for seeking, searching, delating, and apprehending of these people, and to all the cruel villainies committed against them. ( .) they have taken on their prescribed discriminating sign of loyalty, and of being repute by them men of good principles, that is, their friends, men for the times: which is so sinful and scandalous, that it is shameful to hint at them, and yet shameful to hide them. . if we consider the apologetical declaration itself, which is so bespattered, and so odiously represented, and so rigorously enjoined to be abjured; who will more narrowly look into it, and ponder and perpend the purpose and scope of it, will see nothing that can be abjured conscientiously in it, but the whole of it, laying aside prejudice and invidious critical censoriousness, capable of a fair and acceptable construction. the motives leading them to let it forth, being only their desires and just endeavours to prosecute, and secure themselves in the prosecution of holy commanded duties, and to keep a standing testimony against the insolency of those that are given up of god, to lay out themselves in promoving a course of profanity and persecution, notwithstanding of all their viperous threatnings. their measures being none other, than the commendable precedents and examples of zealous and tender hearted christians, who have done the like, and our national and solemn covenants, lying with their binding force indispensible upon all of us, and obliging us to endeavour all that is there declared, as being bound for ever to have common friends and foes with our covenanted reformation, to all which they declare and avouch their resolved adherence, and their own former declarations, disowning their allegiance to, and authority of a man who had, by law itself, forfeited all authority, by his intolerable tyranny, perjury, and perfidious breach of trust, reposed and devolved upon him by covenant; by his overturning all the fundamental constitutions of the government, perverting, inverting, and everting all laws, all liberties, all privileges of church and state, all establishments of our covenanted work of reformation, all securities of our life and enjoyments whatsoever, usurping to himself an absolute tyrannical civil supremacy, inconsistent with the safety or freedom of the people; and a monstrous, blasphemous, ecclesiastical supremacy; upon which considerations, to endeavour to make good their freedom and emancipation from that yoke which they had cast off, they behoved to resolve upon defensive resistance, against him and his bloody emissaries; which war being declared before, they only in this declaration testifyed their unanimous approbation of, adherence to, and resolutions for prosecuting the same against him and his accomplices, such as lay out themselves to promove his wicked and hellish designs: by which war they do not mean a formed stated and declared insurrection with hostile force, to break the peace of the nation, and involve all in blood, but a resolved, avowed, constant, opposition to the murdering violence, injustice, oppression, and persecution of this wicked faction, now raging, rather than reigning, who have declared, and still prosecute a declared war against christ, bearing down his work and interest in the land; 'and a constant endeavour, in opposition to them, to pursue the ends of our covenants, in standing to the defence of the glorious work of reformation, and their own lives; and, in the defence thereof, to maintain the cause and interest of christ against his enemies, and to hold up the standard of our lord jesus christ (meaning the gospel and the word of our testimony,) whereunto they looked upon themselves as bound and obliged by their holy covenants, being therein dedicated to the lord in their persons, lives, liberties, and fortunes, for defending and promoving this glorious work of reformation, notwithstanding of all opposition, that is or may be made thereunto, and sworn against all neutrality and indifferency in the lord's matters; whereunto they beseech, invite and obtest, all them who wish well to zion, to a concurrence and concerting the same cause and quarrel.' in maintaining of which opposition against such wicked enemies, because by them they were restlessly pursued and hunted, and murdered wherever they were found, neither could find any harbour or hiding place in any corner of the country, for searchers, informers, and instigators, who still stirred up the country to raise the hue and cry after them, and caused them to be delivered up, and delated them to the courts of their murdering enemies, whereby much innocent blood was shed; therefore, to stop their career of violence and deter them from such courses, they found it necessary to threaten them with more active and vigorous opposition, and that they might expect to be treated as they deserved. wherein they are far from owning assassinating principles, or practising assassinations; for they give only open and plain warning, and advertisement to the world, of their necessitated endeavours to defend themselves, and prevent the murder of their brethren, and can no way be charged with asserting it lawful, to kill all employed in the king's service in church, state, army, or country, as the proclamation in viperous, invective calumny, misrepresents the declaration; but, on the contrary, do jointly and unanimously declare, 'they detest and abhor that hellish principle of killing such as differ in judgment from them, and they are firmly and really purposed, not to injure or offend any whomsoever, but such as are directly guilty of, or accessory to the murder of their brethren.' whom yet they mind not to assassinate or kill tumultuarily, but to prosecute them with all the legal formalities, that justice in their capacity, and the times disorder and distracted condition will allow; expressly declaring, 'that they abhor, condemn, and discharge all personal attempts upon any pretexts whatsomever, without previous deliberations, common consent, certain probation of sufficient witnesses, or the guilty persons confession.' neither could it ever be supposed, that they threaten all employed in the king's service with this sort of handling, but some select and expressly distinguished kind of notorious villains, men of death and blood, openly avowing and vaunting of their murders: and these they distinguished into several classes, according to the respective aggravations of their wickedness: in the first, 'they place those that murder by command, under pretext of an usurped authority, as counsellors, justiciary, and officers of their forces, or bands of robbers, and not all, nor any of these neither, but the cruel and bloody.' in the second class, they threaten such as are actually in arms against them of an inferior rank, and such gentlemen, and bishops, and curates, as do professedly and willingly serve them to accomplish and effectuate their murders, by obeying their commands, making search for these poor men, delivering them up, instigating, informing, and witnessing against, and hunting after them: and not all these neither, but such as cruelly prosecute that service, to the effussion of their blood. neither do they threaten all equally, nor any of them peremptorily, 'but that continuing after the publication of this their declaration, obstinately and habitually in these courses (plainly declaring they intended no hurt to them if they would hold up their hands) they would repute them as enemies to god and the reformation, and punish them as such, according to their power, and the degree of their offence; withal leaving room for civil and ecclesiastical satisfaction, before lawful and settled judicatories, for the offences of such persons, as their power may nor reach,' &c. and as unwilling to be necessitated to such severe courses, and earnestly desirous they be prevented, they admonish them with sorrow and seriousness, of the sin and hazard of their wicked courses; and protest, that only necessity of self preservation, and zeal to religion, lest it should be totally rooted out by their insolency, did drive them to this threatening declaration, and not because they were acted by any sinful spirit of revenge. this is all that is contained in that declaration. and if there be any thing here so odious and execrable, to be so solemnly abjured, renounced, and abhorred in the presence of god, for the pleasure of, and in obedience to the will of his and our enemies, let all unbiassed considerers impartially weigh, or any awakened conscience speak, and i doubt not but the sweating and subscribing this oath will be cast and condemned. i shall say nothing of the necessity, or conveniency, or expediency, or formality of this declaration: but the lawfulness of the matter, complexly taken, is so undeniable, that it cannot be renounced, without condemning many very material principles of our reformation: only success and incapacity is wanting to justify the manner, whole procedure, formality, and all the circumstances of the business; if either the declarers themselves, or any other impowered with strength, and countenanced with success to make good the undertaking, had issued out such a declaration in the same terms, and had prevailed and prospered in the project, many, that have now abjured it, would approve and applaud it. but passing these things that are extrinsic to the consideration in hand it is the matter that they required to be abjured and condemned, it is that the enemies quarrelled at, and not the inexpediency or informalities of it: and it must be taken as they propound it, and abjured and renounced by oath as they represent it; and therefore the iniquity of this subscription will appear to be great, in two respects; st, in denying the truth. dly, in subscribing to, and swearing a lie. . they that have taken that oath have denied and renounced the matter of that declaration, which is truth and duty, and a testimony to the cause of christ, as it is this day stated and circumstantiate in the nation, founded upon former (among us uncontroverted) precedents and principles of defensive wars, disowning tyranny, and repressing the insolency of tyrants and their accomplices; the whole matter being reducible to these two points, declaring a resolved endeavour of breaking the tyrant's yoke from off our neck, thereby asserting our own and the posterities liberty and freedom, from his insupportable and entailed slavery; and a just threatening to curb and restrain the insolency of murderers, or to bring them to condign punishment: whereof, as the first is noways repugnant, but very consonant to the third article; so the second is the very duty obliged unto in the fourth article of our solemn league and covenant. but all this they have denied by taking that oath. . by taking that oath, they have sworn and subscribed to a lie, making it as they represent it, abjuring it in so far as it declares, &c. and asserts it is lawful to kill all employed in the service of the king, in church, state, army, or country; which is a manifest lie, for it asserts no such thing. neither will any other sense put upon the words, in so far as salve the matter; for as thereby the takers of the oath shall deal deceitfully, in frustrating the end of the oath, and the design of the tenderers thereof; and to take an oath in so far, will not satisfy, as voetius judgeth, de pol. eccl. p. . so let them be taken which way they can, either for so much, or even as, or providing, it is either a denying the truth, or subscribing a lie: and consequently these poor people suffered for righteousness that refused it. head iv. _the sufferings of people for frequenting_ field meetings _vindicated._ hitherto the negative heads of sufferings have been vindicated: now follow the positive, sounded upon positive duties, for doing, and not denying, and not promising and engaging to relinquish which, many have suffered severely. the first, both in order of nature and of time, that which was first and last, and frequently, most constantly, most universally, and most signally sealed by sufferings, was that which is the clearest of all, being in some respect the testimony of all ages, and which clears all the rest, being the rise and the root, cause and occasion of all the rest; to wit, the necessary duty of hearing the gospel, and following the pure and powerful faithfully dispensed ordinances of christ, banished out of the churches to private houses, and persecuted out of the houses to the open fields, and there pursued and opposed, and sought to be suppressed, by all the fury and force, rigour and rage, cruelty and craft, policy and power, that ever wicked men, maddened into a monstrous malice against the mediator christ, and the coming of his kingdom, could contrive or exert; yet still followed and frequented, owned and adhered to by the lovers of christ, and serious seekers of god, even when for the same they were killed all day long, and counted as sheep for the slaughter, and continually oppressed, harrassed, hunted, and cruelly handled, dragged to prisons, banished and sold for slaves, tortured, and murdered. and after, by their fraudulent favours of ensnaring indulgencies and indemnities, and a continued tract of impositions and exactions, and many oaths and bonds, they had prevailed with many, and even the most part both of ministers and professors, to abandon that necessary duty; and even when it was declared criminal by act of parliament, and interdicted under pain of death, to be found at any field meetings: they nevertheless persisted in an undaunted endeavour, to keep up the standard of christ, in following the word of the lord wherever they could have it faithfully preached, though at the greatest of hazards: and so much the more that it was prosecuted by the rage of enemies, and the reproach and obloquies of pretended friends, that had turned their back on the testimony, and preferred their own ease and interests to the cause of christ; and with the greater fervour, that the labourers in that work were few, and like to faint under so many difficulties. what the first occasion was that constrained them to go to the fields, is declared at length in the historical deduction of the testimony of the sixth period: to wit, finding themselves bound in duty, to testify their adherence to, and continuance in their covenanted profession, their abhorrence of abjured prelacy, and their love and zeal to keep christ and his gospel in the land, after they had undergone and endured many hazards and hardships, oppressions and persecutions, for meeting in the houses where they were so easily attrapped, and with such difficulty could escape the hands of these cruel men; they were forced to take the fields, though with the unavoidable inconveniences of all weathers, without a shelter: yet proposing the advantages, both of conveniency for meeting in great numbers, and of secrecy in the remote recesses of wild muirs and mountains, and of safety, in betaking themselves to inaccessible natural strengths, safest either for flight or resistance; and withal, having occasion there to give a testimony for the reformation with greater freedom. and to this very day, though many have a pretended liberty to meet in houses, under the security of a man's promise, whose principle is to keep no faith to heretics, and under the shelter and shadow of an antichristian toleration; yet there is a poor people that are out of the compass of this favour, whom all these forementioned reasons do yet oblige to keep the fields, that is both for conveniency, secrecy, and safety; they dare not trust those who are still thirsting insatiably after their blood, nor give them such advantages as they are seeking, to prey upon them, by shutting themselves within houses; and moreover, they take themselves to be called indispensibly, in the present circumstances, to be as public, or more than ever, in their testimony for the preached gospel, even in the open fields. now this would be a little cleared; and to essay the same, i would offer, st, some concessions, dly, some postulata, or supposed grounds. dly, some more special considerations, which will conduce to clear the case. first, that we may more distinctly understand what is the duty here pleaded for, and what is that which these people suffer for here vindicated; let these concessions be premised, . now under the evangelical dispensation, there is no place more sacred than another, to which the worship of god is astricted, and which he hath chosen for his house and habitation, whither he will have his people to resort and attend, as under the legal and typical dispensation was ordered; there was a place where the lord caused his name to dwell, deut. xii. , . but now, "neither in the mountain, nor at jerusalem, the father will be worshipped; but every where, and any where, in spirit and in truth," john iv. , , . and the apostle wills, "that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting," tim. ii. . we abhor therefore the english and popish superstition of consecrated places, and assert that all are alike in this respect, houses or fields. . in the constitute state of the church, or wherever it can be obtained, order, decency, and conveniency doth require that there be appointed places, sequestrate and appropriate for the meetings of the lord's people, according to that general rule, "let all things be done decently and in order," cor. xiv. last verse. and, in that case private conventicles, set up in a schismatical competition with public churches, are not to be allowed. but even then private meetings for prayer and conference, are necessary, lawful, and laudable. but now the church is broken by a crew of schismatical intruders, who have occupied the places of public assemblies: and thrust out the lord's ministers: it is these we scar at, and not the place. . suppose a magistrate should interdict and discharge the public place of worship, and restrain from the churches, but leave all other places free to meet in: or if he should prohibit the houses, but leave freedom for the fields, or discharge the fields, and give liberty in houses; in that case we would not contend for the place out of contempt: though it were duty then to witness against such a sacrilegious injury done to the church, in taking away their meeting places; yet it were inexpedient to stickle and strive for one spot, if we might have another; then when only excluded out of a place, and not included or concluded and restricted to other places, nor otherwise robbed of the church's privileges, we might go to houses when shut out of churches, and go to fields when shut out of houses, and back again to houses when discharged thence. but this is not our case, for we are either interdicted of all places: or if allowed any, it is under such confinements as are inconsistent with the freedom of the gospel: and besides, we have to do with one from whom we can take no orders, to determine our meetings; nor can we acknowledge our liberty to depend on his authority, or favour which we cannot own nor trust, nor accept of any protection from him. neither is it the place of fields or houses that we contend for; nor is it that which he mainly opposes: but it is the freedom of the gospel faithfully preached, that we are seeking to suppress. the contest betwixt him and us, is the service of god in the gospel of his son; that we profess, without owning him for the liberty of its exercise: and therefore as an enemy to the matter and object of these religious exercises, which are the eye-sore of antichrist, he prosecutes with such rage the manner and circumstances thereof. . even in this case, when we are persecuted in one place, we flee unto another, as the lord allows and directs, matth. x. , and if occasionally we find a house, either public, or a church or a private dwelling house that may be safe or convenient, or capacious of the numbers gathered, we think it indifferent to meet there, or in the field; but, in the present circumstances, it is more for the conveniency of the people, and more congruous for the day's testimony, to keep the fields in their meetings, even though it irritate the incensed enemies. which that it may appear. secondly, i shall offer some postulata or hypothesis to be considered, or endeavour to make them good, and infer from them the necessity and expediency of field meetings at this time in these circumstances: which consequently vindicate the sufferings that have been thereupon stated formerly, and are still continued. . it is necessary at all times that christians should meet together, whether they have ministers or not, and whether the magistrate allow it or not. the authority of god, their necessity, duty, and interest, makes it indispensible in all cases. it is necessary for the mutual help, "two are better than one, for if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow," eccl. iv. , . it is necessary for cherishing mutual love, which is the new commandment, and badge of all christ's disciples, john xiii. , . a principle which they are all taught of god, thess. iv. . it is necessary for nourishing union to communicate together, in order to their being of one mind, and one mouth, and that they receive one another, rom. xv. , , . cor. i. . standing fast in one spirit, striving together for the faith of the gospel, phil. . . it is necessary for serving one another in love, gal. v. . bearing one another's burdens, and so fulfilling the law of christ, gal. vi. . submitting to one another, eph. v. . pet. v. . teaching and admonishing one another, col. iii. . comforting one another, thess. iv. last verse, edifying one another, thess. v. . exhorting one another, heb. iii. . it is necessary for considering one another, and provoking unto love, and to good works; and for this end, they must not forsake the assembling of themselves together, as the manner of some is, for that were to sin wilfully, heb. x. , , . must these things depend on the magistrate's allowance? or can they be done without meeting together in private or public? the same reasons do alike conclude for the necessity of both. if then there must be meetings for these ends necessary at all times, then when they cannot do it within doors, they must do it without. . there is a necessity for meeting for preaching and hearing the gospel; the enjoyment whereof hath always been the greatest design and desire of saints, who could not live without it; therefore they loved the place where the lord's honour dwelt, psal. xxvii. . this was the one thing they desired of the lord, and that they would seek after, to behold the beauty of the lord, psal. xxvii. . for this they panted, and their soul thirsted, psal. xlii. , . without which every land is but a thirsty land, where there is no water, where they cannot see the power and glory of god, as they have seen it in the sanctuary, psal. lxiii. , . o how amiable are his tabernacles? "one day in his courts is better than a thousand elsewhere," psal. lxxxi. , . no gladness to them like that of going to the house of the lord, psal. cxxii. . a christian cannot possibly live without gospel ordinances, no more than children can want the breasts, or the poor and needy want water when their tongue faileth for thirst; they are promised it in high places, and in the wilderness, when they can get it in no where else, isa. lxi. , . there is an innate desire in the saints after it, as new born babes they desire the sincere milk of the word, pet. ii. . so that any that is offended with them for this, must be offended with them for being christians, for as such they must have the gospel, cost what it will. it is the greatest desire of the spouse of christ, to know where he feeds and where to find the shepherd's tents, where they may rest at noon, cant. i. , . and not only in their esteem is it necessary: but in itself, the church cannot bear the want of it, for where there is no vision, the word of the lord is then very precious, sam. iii. . no wonder then that the lord's people make such ado of it, in a famine of it, that they go from sea to sea to seek it, amos viii. , . and that they are content to have it at any rate; though with the peril of their lives, because of the sword of the wilderness, lam. v. . seeing they cannot live without it. would men be hindered, by law, from seeking their natural food? nay, they would fight for it before they wanted it, against any that opposed them. if then they cannot get it with peace, they must have it with trouble: and if they cannot get it in houses, they must have it wherever it is to be found, with freedom, and the favour of god. . it is necessary that the meetings be as public, as they can be with conveniency and prudence; yea, simple hazard should no more hinder their publicness and solemnity, than their being at all. especially, in an evil time, when wickedness is encouraged and established, and conformity thereto pressed, truth banished, and a witness for christ suppressed, corruption in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government connived at, countenanced, and advanced, the word of god is become a reproach, and men have no delight in it, apostasy is become universal, and both magistrates and ministers generally turned promoters of it, which is the true description of our times: then the meetings of the lord's people, that endeavour to keep clean garments, should be more frequent, public, and avowed. the reasons are, . then the call of god, by his word and works, is more clamant, for public and solemn humiliation, in order to avert public imminent judgments, and impendent strokes from god. it is not enough to reform ourselves privately and personally, and to keep ourselves pure from such courses, by an abstraction and withdrawing from them, as is proved, head . (where this is improved as an argument against hearing the curates) nor is it enough to admonish, exhort, reprove, and testify against such as are involved in these courses, but it is necessary, for them that would be approven, to adhere to the truth, and serve god after the right manner, and to mourn, sigh, and cry for all the abominations of the time, so as to get the 'mark of mourners on their foreheads,' ezek. ix. . and they that do so, will be found 'on the mountains like doves in the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity,' ezek. vii. . and not only to be humbled every family apart, but there must be a great mourning, as the mourning of hadadrimmon in the valley of megiddon,' zech. xii. . to the end. that is a solemn public mourning there promised. there must be a 'gathering themselves together, though a nation not desired, before the decree bring forth, before the day pass as the chaff, and the fierce anger of the lord come upon them, if they would have any possibility of their hiding,' zep. ii. , , . 'the trumpet then must be blown in zion, to sanctify a fast, to call a solemn assembly, gather the people, sanctify the congregation assemble the elders, gather the children,'----joel ii. , . as was exemplified in ezra's time, when there were great congregations of people assembled publicly, weeping very sore, then there was hope in israel, ezra x. , . and when that messenger of the lord came up from gilgal to the people of israel, and reproved them for their defections and compliance with the canaanites, they had such a solemn day of humiliation, that the place of their meeting got a name from it, they called the name of that place bochim, that is, weepers, judg. ii. , . 'and when the ark was at kirjathjearim all the house of israel lamented after the lord----and they gathered together at mizpeth, and drew water, and poured it out before the lord,' sam. vii. . . i shewed before, that there is reason to fear that the sins of a few, especially of magistrates and ministers, will bring wrath upon the whole body of the people, as is plain from these scriptures, lev. x. . isa. xliii. , . lam. iv. . micah iii. , . shewing the sins of ministers may procure universal destruction. and sam. xxiv. . . kings xxi. . jer. xv. . proving the sins of magistrates may procure it: and numb. iii. , . josh. xxii. , . demonstrating that the sins of a party of the people may draw wrath upon the whole. now, the only way the scripture points out to evite and avert such public judgments is to make our resentment of these indignities done to our god, our mourning over them, and our witness against them, as public as the sins are, at least as public as we can get them, by a public pleading for truth, isa. lix. . for the defect whereof he hides his face, and wonders that there is no man, no intercessor, ver. . that is, none to plead with god, in behalf of his borne down truths; there must be in order to this, a public seeking of truth, which if there be any found making conscience of, the lord makes a gracious overture to pardon the city, jer. v. . we cannot think there were no mourners in secret there, but there was no public meetings for it, and public owning the duty of that day: there must be valour for the truth upon the earth, jer. ix. , a public and resolute owning of truth: there must be a making up the hedge, and standing in the gap for the land, that the lord should not destroy it, ezek. xxii. . a public testimony in opposition to defection: there must be a pleading with our mother, hos. ii. . which is spoken to private persons in the plural number, commanding all that would consult their own safety, publicly to condemn the sins of the whole nation, that they may escape the public punishment thereof, as it is expounded in pool's synop. critic. in locum. by this means we must endeavour to avert the wrath and anger of god, which must certainly be expected to go out against the land, which hath all the procuring causes, all the symptoms, prognostics, and evidences of a land devoted to destruction, that ever a land had. if then there must be such public mourning, and such solemn gathering for it, such public pleading for truth, seeking for truth, valour for truth, making up the hedge, and pleading with our mother, there must of necessity be public meetings for it: for these things cannot be done in private, but must be done by way of testimony. which i make a second reason, the nature and end of meeting for gospel ordinances is for a public testimony for christ and his truths and interest, against sin and all dishonours done to the son of god. so that the only end, is not only to bring to christ, and build up souls in christ, but it is to testify also for the glory of christ, whether souls be brought in and built up or not. the preached gospel is not only the testimony of christ, cor. i. . but a testimony for christ; in which sense, the testimony of jesus is said to be the spirit of prophecy, rev. xix. . so called, durham expounds it, for its bearing witness to christ; in which respect ministers are often called witnesses. it is also the testimony of israel (not only given to israel, but given by israel) unto which the tribes go up, the tribes of the lord, psal. cxxii. . whensoever therefore, or howsoever the testimony of the church is contradicted, that is not a lawful meeting of the tribes of the lord. it is also the testimony of the preachers for christ, against them that will not receive them, mark vi. . and a witness unto all nations to whom they preach, matth. xxiv. . and of all the witnesses that hold it, and suffer for it, rev. vi. . and the same which is the word of christ's testimony, is the word of theirs, rev. xii. . by which they overcome, and for which they love not their lives. wherever then the gospel is preached, it must be a testimony except it be public, at least as public as can be, as we find all christ's witnesses were in the old and new testaments. . the motive or principle prompting the lord's people to a frequenting of gospel ordinances, is a public spirit, stirring up to a public generation work, whereof this is the scope, to promote the kingdom or christ, and not only to obey the lord's command enjoining the duty, to enjoy the lord, the end thereof, to edify their own souls; but to partake in, and promote this great work of the day, for the glory of god, and the church's good. for the gospel is not only a banner of love over his friends, but christ's standard of war against his enemies, isa. lix. . under which all that countenance it, are called to lift themselves as his soldiers, called, and chosen, and faithful: and it is required of his soldiers that they be valiant for the truth upon the earth, discovering a gallant greatness and generosity of a public spirit, having their designs and desires not limited to their own interests, even spiritual, but aiming at no less than christ's public glory, the church's public good, the saints public comfort, having a public concern for all christ's interests, public sympathy for all christ's friends, and a public declared opposition to all christ's enemies: this is a public spirit, the true spirit of all christ's zealous lovers and votaries; which, when he is a missing, will prompt them to go about the city, in the streets, and in the broad ways, to seek him whom their soul loveth, cant. iii. . and not only in their beds, or secret corners, but they must go to the streets, and to the fields, and avow their seeking of christ, even though the watchmen should smite them, and the keepers of the walls take their vails from them, cant. v- which obliges them to take him into their own cottages, and entertain him in their hearts, and give him a throne there, but also to endeavour to enlarge his dwelling, and propagate his courtly residence through the world, that the kingdoms of the earth may become the kingdoms of the lord; and if they cannot get that done, yet that he may have the throne in their mother's house, and take up his abode in the church, or nation they belong to, that there his ordinances be established in purity, peace, plenty, and power, according to his own order; and if that cannot be, but that their mother play the harlot, and he be provoked to give up house with her, and, by her children's treachery, the usurping enemy be invited into his place and habitation, and take violent possession of it, and enact his extrusion and expulsion by law; yet they will endeavour to secure a place for him among the remnant, that he may get a lodging among the afflicted and poor 'people that trust in the name of the lord----that they may feed and ly down, and none make them afraid, zeph. iii. , . that the poor of the flock that wait on him, may know that it is the word of the lord,' zech. xi. . they will lay out themselves to strengthen their hands. this is the work of the public spirited lovers of the gospel, which hath been, and yet is the great work of this our day, to carry the gospel, and follow it, and keep it up, through the land, as the standard of christ, against all opposition, from mountain to hill, when now zion hath been labouring to bring forth as a woman in travail, and made to go forth out of the city, and to dwell in the field, mic. iv. . therefore, seeing it is the public work of the day, and all its followers must have such a public spirit, it follows that the meetings to promote it must be as public as is possible. . the interest and privilege of the gospel, to have it in freedom, purity, power, and plenty, is the public concern of all the lord's people, preferable to all other interests; and therefore more publicly, peremptorily, and zealously to be contended for, than any other interest whatsoever. it is the glory of the land. sam. iv. . without which, ichabod may be the name of every thing; and every land, though never so pleasant, will be but a dry and parched land, where no water is, in the esteem of them that have seen the lord's glory and power in the sanctuary, psal. lxiii. . whereas its name is hephzibah and beulah, isa. lxii. . and jehovah-shammah, ezek. xlviii. ult. where god is enjoyed in his gospel-ordinances; and the want and reproach of the solemn assemblies, is a matter of the saddest mourning of the lord's people, zeph. iii. . therefore, while the ark abode in kirjath jearim, the time was thought very long, and all the house of israel lamented after the lord, sam. vii. . then they heard of it at ephratah, and found it in the fields of the wood, psal. cxxxii. . but it hath been longer than twenty years in our fields of the woods, and therefore we should be lamenting after it with a greater concernedness; especially remembering, how we were privileged with the gospel, which was sometimes times publicly embraced and countenanced by authority, and ensured to us by laws, statutes, declarations, proclamations, oaths, vows, and covenant-engagements, whereby the land was dedicated and devoted unto the son of god, whose conquest it was. and now are not all the people of god obliged to do what they can, to hinder the recalling of this dedication, and the giving up of the land as an offering unto satan and antichrist? and how shall this be, but by a public contending, for this privilege, and a resolving they shall sooner bereave us of our hearts blood, than of the gospel in its freedom and purity? but this we cannot contend for publicly, if our meetings be not public. . the nature and business of the gospel ministry is such, that it obliges them that exercise it to endeavour all publicness, without which they cannot discharge the extent of their instructions: their very names and titles do insinuate so much. they are witnesses for christ, and therefore their testimonies should be public, though their lot oftentimes be to witness in sackcloth. they are heralds, and therefore they should proclaim their master's will, though their lot be often to be a voice crying in the wilderness, as john the baptist was in his field preachings. they are ambassadors, and therefore they should maintain their master's majesty in the public port of his ambassadors, and be wholly taken up about their sovereign's business. they are watchmen, and therefore they should keep and maintain their post their master has placed them at. nay, they are lights and candles, and therefore cannot be hid, matth. v. , . the commands and instructions given them, infer the necessity of this. they must cry aloud, and spare not, and lift up their voice like a trumpet and shew the lord's people their transgressions and sins, isa. lviii. . they are watchmen upon jerusalem's walls which must not hold their peace day nor night, nor keep silence, nor give the lord rest, till he establish, and till he make jerusalem a praise in the earth, isa. lxii. , . they are watchmen, that must command all to hearken to the sound of the trumpet, jer. vi. . they must be valiant for the truth upon the earth, jer. ix. . they must say, thus saith the lord even to a rebellious nation, whether they will hear or forbear, and not be afraid of them, ezek. ii. , . they must cause the people to know their abominations, ezek. . . and the abominations of their fathers, ezek. xx. . and what their master tells them in darkness, that they must speak in the light, and what they hear in the ear, that they must preach upon the house tops, matth. x. . these things cannot be done in a clandestine way; and therefore now, when there is no much necessity, it is the duty of all faithful ministers, to be laying out themselves to the utmost in their pastoral function, for the suppressing of all the evils of the time, notwithstanding of any prohibition to the contrary, in the most public manner, according to the examples of all the faithful servants of the lord, both in the old and new testaments; though it be most impiously and tyrannically interdicted, yet the laws of god stand unrepealed; and therefore all who have a trumpet and a mouth, should set the trumpet to their mouth, and sound a certain sound; not in secret, for that will not alarm the people, but in the most public manner they can have access to; and it is the duty of all to come and hear, and obey their warnings and witnessings, command who will the contrary. it was for mocking, despising his words, and misusing his prophets, that the wrath of the lord arose against his people, the jews, until there was no remedy, chron. xxxvi. . therefore from all that is said, it must be concluded, that meetings for gospel ordinances must be as public as can be: and if so, then that they should be in houses, safety will not permit to us; to go to the streets or market places, neither safety nor prudence will admit; therefore we must go to the fields with it, cost what it will. . seeing then there must be meetings, and public meetings; and seeing we cannot, and dare not in conscience countenance the curates meetings, we must hear, own, embrace and follow such faithful ministers, as are clothed with christ's commission, righteousness and salvation, and do keep the words of the lord's patience, and the testimony of the church of scotland in particular. this i think will not, or dare not be denied, by any that own the authority of christ (which none can deny or instruct the contrary, but our ministers that ventured their lives in preaching in the fields, have had a certain seal to their ministry, and is sealed sensibly in the conviction of many, and confession of more) that christ's ministers and witnesses, employed about the great gospel-message, clothed with his authority and under the obligation of his commands lying upon them, must preach, and the people must hear them, notwithstanding of all laws to the contrary. divines grant that the magistrate can no more suspend from the exercise, than he can depose from the office of the ministry; for the one is a degree unto the other. see apollon. de jure magist. circa sacra, part . p. , &c. rutherford's due right of presbyterians, p. , &c. for whether it be right in the sight of god, to hearken unto men more than unto god, the consciences of the greatest enemies may be appealed unto, acts iv. . they must not cease, wherever they have a call and occasion, to teach and preach jesus christ, acts v. last verse. necessity is laid upon them; yea, wo unto them, if they preach not the gospel, cor. xi. . in all things they must approve themselves, as the ministers of god, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, &c. by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report, as deceivers, and yet true, as unknown, and yet well known,---- cor. vi. . . . they must preach the word, be instant in season, and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine, tim. iv. . dare any say then, that a magistrate's or tyrant's laws can exauctorate a minister? or silence him by his own proper elicite acts, as king or tyrant, or formally and immediately? will mischiefs framed into a law warrant such iniquity? or an act of a king of clay rescind the mandates of the king of kings? or exempt people from obedience due thereunto? or will the bishops canons, who have no power from christ, or the censures of them, that stand condemned themselves by the constitutions of the church, and acts of the general assemblies, have any weight in the case? and yet these are all that can be alledged, except odious and invidious calumnies, the ordinary lot of the most faithful, against the present preachers in the fields, which are sufficiently confuted in their late informatory vindication, and need not here be touched. seeing therefore they have given up themselves unto christ as his servants they must resolve to be employed for him to the uttermost of their power, and must not think of laying up their talent in a napkin; especially now when there is so great necessity, when defection is yet growing, covered, countenanced more and more, division nothing abated, but new oil cast daily into the flames of devouring contentions; the people generally drowned in the deluge of the times, snares and sins, and like to be overwhelmed in the inundation of black popery, now coming in at the opened sluice of this wicked toleration, with the congratulations of addressing ministers, when now the harvest is great, and the labourers are few; great then is the necessity, and double must the woe be that abideth such ministers, as are silent at such a time: and great and inexcusable is the sin of the people, if they do not come out, and countenance faithful ministers, the messengers of the lord of hosts, from whom they should seek the law, mal. ii. . especially when there are so many, that have so palpably betrayed their trust, and so few that are faithful in the necessary testimony of the day. seeing then faithful ministers must preach, and people must hear, where can they meet with conveniency, and safety and freedom, except either under the shelter of this wicked toleration, which they dare not do, or else go to the fields? . it must be obtained also, that the ministers have a right to preach in this unfixed manner, wherever they have a call; their relation now, in this disturbed state of the church, being to be considered more extensively, than in its unsettled condition. for understanding which, we must distinguish a three or fourfold relation, that a minister of the gospel stands into. first, he is a minister of christ, and steward of the mysteries of god, cor. iv. . having his commission from christ as his master: and this relation he hath universally, wherever he is. secondly, he is a minister of the catholic church, though not a catholic minister of it, which is his primary relation; for that is the church, in which ministers are set, cor. xii. . and to which they are given, eph. iv. , . thirdly, he is a minister of the particular church whereof he is a member; and so in scotland, a minister is a minister of the church of scotland, and is obliged to lay out himself for the good of that church. fourthly, he is a minister of the particular congregation, whereunto he hath a fixed relation in a constitute case of the church: this last is not essential to a minister of christ, but is subservient to the former relation; but when separated from such a relation, or when it is impossible to be held, he is still a minister of christ, and his call to preach the gospel stands and binds. see mr. durham's digression on this particular, on rev. chap. . pag. . &c. in quarto. for though he be not a catholic-officer, having an equal relation to all churches, as the apostles were; nevertheless he may exercise ministerial acts authoritatively, upon occasions warrantably calling for the same, in other churches, as heralds of one king, having authority to charge in his name where-ever it be: especially in a broken state of the church, when all the restriction his ministerial relation is capable of, is only a tie and call to officiate in the service of that church whereof he is a member; and so he hath right to preach every where, as he is called for the edification of that church. the reasons are, . he hath power from christ the master of the whole church; and therefore, wherever the master's authority is acknowledged, the servant's ministerial authority cannot be denied; at least in relation to that church, whereof he is a member as well as a minister. . he hath commission from christ principally for the edification of christ's body, as far as his ministry can reach, according to the second relation. . his relation to the whole church is principal, that which is fixed to a part is only subordinate, because it is a part of whole . his commission is indefinite to preach the gospel, which will suit as well in one place as in another. . the same great ends of the church's great good and edification, which warrants fixing of a minister to a particular charge in the church's peaceable state. . else it would follow, that a faithful minister, standing in that relation to a disturbed and destroyed church, and all his gifts and graces were useless in that case, which notwithstanding are given for the good of the church. . yea, by this, when his fixed relation cannot be kept, it would follow, that he ceased to be a minister, and his commission expired; so that he should stand in no other relation to christ, than any private person so qualified, which were absurd: for by commission he is absolutely set apart for the work of the ministry, so long as christ hath work for him, if he continue faithful. . this hath been the practice of all the propagators of the gospel from the beginning, and of our reformers in particular; without which they could never have propagated it so far: and it was never accounted the characteristic of apostles, to preach unfixedly; because in times of persecutions, pastors and doctors also might have preached wherever they came, as the officers of the church of jerusalem did, when scattered upon the persecution of stephen, acts viii. . did go every where preaching the word, ver. . since therefore they may and must preach, in this unfixed manner, they must in this broken state look upon all the godly in the nation, that will own and hear them, to be their congregation, and embrace them all, and consult their conveniency and universal advantage, in such a way as all equally may be admitted, and none excluded from the benefit of their ministry. and therefore they must go to the fields with it. . the lord hath so signally owned, successfully countenanced, and singularly sealed field preaching in these unfixed exercises, that both ministers and people have been much encouraged against all opposition to prosecute them, as having experienced much of the lord's power and presence in them, and of the breathings of the enlivening, enlarging, enlightening and strengthening influences of the spirit of god upon them. the people are hereby called, in this case of defection, to seek after these waters that they have been so often refreshed by: for in this case of defection, god being pleased to seal with a palpable blessing on their souls, the word from ministers adhering to their principles, they may safely look on this as a call from god to hear them, and follow after them so owned of the lord. and it being beyond all doubt, that the assemblies of the lord's people to partake of pure ordinances, with full freedom of conscience in the fields, hath been signally owned and blessed of the lord, and hath proven a mean to spread the knowledge of god beyond any thing that appeared in our best times; and in despite of this signal appearance of god, and envy at the good done in these meetings, all endeavours being used by wicked men to suppress utterly all these rendezvouzes of the lord's militia, both by open force and cunning midianitish wiles; ministers cannot but look upon it as their duty, and that the lord hath been preaching from heaven, to all who would hear and understand it, that this way of preaching, even this way, was that wherein his soul took pleasure, and to which he hath been, and is calling all who would be co-workers with him this day, to help forward the interest of his crown and kingdom. many hundreds of persecuted people can witness this, and all the martyrs have sealed it with their blood, and remembered it particularly on the scaffolds, that they found the lord there, and that he did lead them thither, where he had made them to ride upon the high places of the earth, and to eat the increase of the fields, and to suck honey out of the rock, and that in their experience, under the spirit's pouring out from on high, they found the wilderness to be a fruitful field, and, in their esteem, their feet were beautiful upon the mountains that brought good tidings, that published peace, that brought good tidings of good, that published salvation, that said unto zion, thy god reigneth. and all the ministers that followed this way, while they were faithful, and had but little strength, and kept his word, and did not deny his name, found that verified in their experience, which was said of philadelphia, rev. iii. . that they had an open door which no man could shut. the characters whereof, as they are expounded by mr. durham, were all verified in these meetings: where . the ministers had a door of utterance upon the one side opened to them; and the people's ears were opened to welcome the same, in love to edification, simplicity, and diligence on the other. . this had real changes following, many being made humble, serious, tender, fruitful, &c. . the devil raged and let himself to oppose, traduce, and some way to blast the ministry of the most faithful more than any others: just as when paul had a greater door and effectual opened to him, there were many adversaries, cor. xvi. . . yet the lord hath been observedly defeating the devil and profanity in every place, where the gospel came, and made him fall like lightning from heaven, by the preaching of the word. . and the most experimental proof of all was, that hereby ground was gained upon the kingdom of the devil, and many prisoners brought off to jesus christ. and therefore seeing it is so, this must certainly be a call to them who are yet labouring in that work, which others have left off, to endeavour to keep this door open with all diligence, and reap the corn while it is ripe, and when the sun shines make hay, and with all watchfulness, lest the wicked one sow his tares, if they should fall remiss. . as for the circumstance of the place, of this unfixed manner of celebrating the solemn ordinances of the worship of god, in a time of persecution: this cannot be quarrelled at by any, but such as will quarrel at any thing. but even that is better warranted, than to be weakened with their quarrels. for before the law, mountain-worship was the first worship of the world, as abram's jehovah-jireh, gen. xxii. . jacob's bethel, (or house of god in the open fields) gen. xxviii. , . his peniel, gen. xxxii. . his el-elohe israel, gen. xxxiii. ult. do witness: under the law, they heard of it at ephratah, they found it in the fields of the wood, psal. cxxxii. . after the law, field preaching was the first that we read of in the new testament, both in john's preaching in the wilderness of judea, being the voice of one crying in the wilderness, and the master-usher of christ, matth. iii. . . and in his ambassadors afterwards, who, on the sabbath, went out to a river-side where prayer was wont to be made, as lydia was converted at paul's field preaching, acts xvi. , . and chiefly the prince of preachers, christ himself preached many a time by the sides of the mountains, and the sea-side: that preaching, matth. v. was on a mountain, ver. . and this is the more to be considered, that our lord had liberty of the synagogues to preach in, yet he frequently left them, and preached either in private houses, or in the fields; because of the opposition of his doctrine by the jewish teachers, who had appointed that any who owned him should be excommunicate: and therefore, in the like case, as it is now, his servants may imitate their master: for though all christ's actions are not imitable: such as these of his divine power, and the actions of his divine prerogative (as his taking of the ass without the owner's liberty) and the actings of his mediatory prerogative, which he did as mediator; but all his gracious actions, and moral upon moral grounds, and relative upon the grounds of relative duties, are not only imitable, but the perfect pattern for imitation. therefore that superstitious and ridiculous cavil, that such meetings in fields or houses are conventicles, gathering separate congregations, is not worth the taking notice of: for this would reflect upon christ's and his apostles way of preaching, and the constant method of propagating the gospel in times of persecution, in all ages since, which hath always been by that way which they call keeping of conventicles. it is absurd to say, it is a gathering of separate congregations, it is only a searching or seeking after the lord's sheep, that are made to wander through all the mountains, and upon every high hill, and his flock which is scattered by corrupt shepherds, and the cruelty of the beasts of the field, ezek. xxxiv. , . and preaching to all who will come and hear the word of truth, in such places where they may get it done most safely, and may be most free from distraction and trouble of their enemies, who are waiting to find them out, that they may haul them to prisons, or kill them. . as for the circumstance of the time, that is specially alledged to be unseasonable, especially when there is a little breathing, and some relaxation from the heat of persecution, to break the peace, and awaken sleeping dogs by such irritating courses, is thought not consistent with christian prudence. this is the old pretence of them that were at ease, and preferred that to duty. but as we know no peace at this time, but a peace of confederacy with the enemies of god, which we desire not to partake of, and know of no relaxation of persecution against such as continue to witness against them; so let what hath been said above in the third hypothesis, of the necessity of publicness in our meetings at such a time as this is, be considered; and let the scripture be consulted, and it will appear, not only that in preaching the gospel there must be a witness and testimony kept up, (as is proved above) and not only that ministers preach the word, and be instant in season and out of season, tim. iv. . but that such a time, as this, is the very season of a testimony. for, in the scripture, we find, that testimonies are to be given in these seasons especially, . when the enemies of god, beginning to relent from their stiffness and severity, would compound with his witnesses, and give them some liberty, but not total; as pharaoh would let the children of israel go, but stay their flocks; and now our pharaoh will give some liberty to serve god, but with a reservation of that part of the matter of it, that nothing be said to alienate the hearts of the subjects from his arbitrary government. but moses thought it then a season to testify (though the bondage of the people should be thereby continued) that there should not a hoof be left behind; for, says he, we know not with what we must serve the lord, until we come thither, exod. x. , , . so must we testify for every hoof of the interest of christ this day. . when these is a toleration of idolatry, and confederacy with idolaters, and suspending the execution of penal laws against them, or pardoning of those that should be punished: in such a season as this, that messenger, that came from gilgal, gave his testimony as bochim against their toleration of idolatrous altars, and confederacy with the canaanites, judg. ii. , . he is called an angel indeed, but he was only such an one as ministers are, who are called so, rev. ii. . for heavenly spirits have brought a heavenly message to particular persons, but never to the whole people; the lord hath committed such a treasure to earthern vessels, cor. iv. . and this came from gilgal, not from heaven: so the man of god testified against eli, for his toleration of wicked priests, though they were his own sons, sam ii. , &c. so samuel witnessed against saul, for his toleration and indemnity granted to agag, sam. xv. . so the prophet against ahab, for sparing benhadad, kings xx. . the angel of ephesus is commended for this, and he of pergamos, and he of thyatira is condemned, for omitting this testimony, and allowing a toleration of the nicolaitans and jezebel, rev. ii. , , . in such a case of universal compliance with these things, and the peoples indulging themselves under the shadow of the protection of such a confederacy, the servants of the lord that fear him must not say a confederacy, though they should be accounted for signs and wonders in israel, isa. viii. , , . but now idolatrous mass-altars are set up, none thrown down, penal statutes against papists are stopt and disabled, and the generality of ministers are congratulating, and saying a confederacy in their addresses for the same. . when the universal apostasy is come to such a height, that error is prevailing, and few siding themselves in an avowed opposition against it; as elijah chose that time, when the people were halting between two opinions, kings xviii. . and generally all the prophets and servants of christ, consulted alway the peoples necessity for the timing of their testimonies: and was there ever greater necessity than now, when popery is coming in like a flood? . when wicked men are chief in power; as when haman was promoted. mordecai would not give him one bow, though all the people of god should be endangered by such a provocation, esther iii. . and when tyrants and usurpers are set up without the lord's approbation, then they that have the lord's trumpet should set it to their mouth, hos. viii. , . is not this the case now? . when, upon the account of this their testimony, the lord's people are in greater danger, and enemies design to massacre them, then, if they altogether hold their peace at such a time, there shall enlargement and deliverance, arise another way, but they and their father's house shall be destroyed, who are silent then as mordecai said to esther, esth. iv. . and who knows not the cruel designs of the papists now? . when iniquity is universally abounding, and hypocrisy among professors, then the servants of the lord must cry aloud and not spare, isa. lviii. . as the case is this day. . when the concern of truth, and the glory of god, is not so illustriously vindicated as he gives us to expect it shall be; then the watchmen must not hold their peace, and they that make mention of the name of the lord must not keep silence, isa. lxii. , . especially when his name and glory is blasphemed, baffled, and affronted, as at this day with a witness. . when ministers generally are involved in a course of defection, and do not give faithful warning, but daub over the peoples and their own defections; then the prophets must prophesy against the prophets, ezek. xiii. , . &c. as, alas! this day there is a necessity for it. . when public worship is interdicted by law, as it was by that edict prohibiting public prayer for days in daniel's time: they could not interdict all prayer to god; for they could forbid nothing by that law, but that which they might hinder and punish for contraveening; but mental prayer at least could not be so restrained. and certain it is, they intended only such prayer should be discharged as might discover daniel: but might not the wisdom of daniel have eluded this interdiction, by praying only secretly or mentally? no, whatever carnal wisdom might dictate, his honesty did oblige him in that case of confession, when he knew the writing was signed, to go into his house, and to open his windows, and to kneel upon his knees three times a day,----as he did aforetime, dan. vi. . now, what reason can be given for his opening his windows? was it only to let in the air? or was it to see jerusalem out at these windows? the temple he could look toward, as well when they were shut. no other reason can be assigned, but that it was necessary then to avouch the testimony for that indispensible duty then interdicted. and is not public preaching indispensible duty too? which is declared criminal, except it be confined to the mode their wicked law tolerates; which we can no more homologate, than omit the duty. . when it is an evil time, the evil of sin is incumbent, and the evil of wrath is impendent over a land; then the lion hath roared, who will not fear? the lord god hath spoken, who can but prophesy? amos iii. . there is no contradiction here to that word, which hath been miserably perverted in our day, to palliate sinful silence of time-servers, amos v. . the prudent shall keep silence in that time, for it is an evil time: whereby we cannot understand a wylie withdrawing our witness against the time's evils: for there they are commanded to bestir themselves actively, in seeking good, hating the evil, loving the good, and establishing judgment in the gate, ver. , . but we understand by it a submissive silence to god, without fretting (according to that word, jer. viii. . for the lord our god hath put us to silence,----and mic. vii. .) calvin upon the place expounds it, 'the prudent shall be affrighted at the terrible vengeance of god; or they shall be compelled to silence, not willingly (for that were unworthy of men of courage to be silent at such wickedness) but, by the force of tyrants, giving them no leave to speak.' sure then this is such a time, wherein it is prudence to be silent to god, but not to be silent for god, but to give public witness against the evils of sin abounding, and public warning of the evils of punishment imminent. . then is the season of it, when worldly wisdom thinks it unseasonable, when men cannot endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and turn away their ears from the truth; then to preach the word, and be instant is indeed in itself seasonable, because profitable and necessary; but it is out of season as to the preachers or hearers external interest, and in the esteem of worldly wiselings, tim. iv. , , . see pool's synops. critic. in locum. so in our day, men cannot endure free and faithful dealing against the sins of the times, but would have smooth things and deceits spoken unto them; like those, isa. xxx. . and nothing can be more offensive, than to speak plainly (so as to give every thing its own name) either of the sins of the times, or of the snares of the times, or of the miseries and evils of the times, or of the duties of the times, or of the dangers, and the present crisis of the times: which no faithful minister can forbear. therefore so much the more is it seasonable, that it is generally thought unseasonable. . in a word, whenever the testimony of the church, or any part of it, is opposed and suppressed; then is the season to keep it, and contend for it, and to hold it fast, as our crown, rev. iii. , . it must be then a word spoken in due season, and good and necessary (prov. xv. .) at this time, to give a public testimony against all wrongs done to our blessed lord jesus, all the encroachments upon his prerogatives, all the invasions of the church's privileges, all the overturnings of our covenanted reformation, and this openly designed introduction of popery and slavery. but now how shall this testimony be given by us conveniently? or how can it be given at all, at this time, in our circumstances, so as both the matter and manner of it may be a most significant witness bearing to the merit of it, except we go to the fields? who can witness significantly against popery and tyranny, and all the evils to be spoken against this day, under the protection of a papist and tyrant, as house-meetings under the covert of this toleration are stated? for if these meetings be private and secret, then the testimony is not known; if they be public, then they are exposed to a prey. now, by all these general hypotheses, it is already in some measure evident, that field meetings are very expedient. but i shall add some particular considerations, to inculcate the same more closely. in the third place, besides what is said, to clear the lawfulness and necessity of a public testimony against the evils of the present time, some considerations may be added to prove the expediency of this way and manner of giving a testimony, by maintaining held meetings in our present circumstances, . the keeping of field meetings now, is not only most convenient for testifying, but a very significant testimony in itself, against this popish toleration; the wickedness of whole spring and original, and of its nature and terms, channel and conveyance, end and design, is shewed in the historical narrative thereof, and cannot be denied by any presbyterian, whose constant principle is that there should be no toleration of popery, idolatry, or heresy, in this reformed and covenanted church. reason and religion both will conclude, that this is to be witnessed against, by all that will adhere to the cause of reformation overturned hereby, and resolve to stand in the gap against popery, to be introduced hereby, and that will approve themselves as honest patriots in defending the laws and liberties of the country subverted hereby. and besides, if it be considered with respect to the granter; it is palpable his design is to introduce popery, and advance tyranny, which can be hid from none that accept it, the effectuating whereof hath a necessary and inseparable connexion with the acceptance of the liberty; and is so far from being avertible by the accepters, that it is chiefly promoted by their acceptance, and the design of it is to lay them by from all opposition thereto. if it be considered with relation to the accepters, it is plain it must be taken as it is given, and received as it is conveyed, from its fountain of absolute power, through a channel of an arbitrary law disabling and religion dishonouring toleration, which is always evil; and with consent to the sinful impositions, with which it is tendered; concerning and affecting the doctrine of ministers, that they shall preach nothing which may alienate the subjects from the government: against all which there is no access for a protestation, confident with the improvement of the liberty, for it is granted and accepted on these very terms; that there shall be no protestation; for if there be, that will be found an alienating of the hearts of the subjects from the government, which, by that protestation, will be reflected upon. if it be considered with respect to the addressers for it, who formally say a confederacy with, and congratulate the tolerator for his toleration, and all the mischiefs he is machinating and effectuating thereby: then seeing they have presumptuously taking upon them to send it in the name of all presbyterians, it concerns all honest men, zealous christians, and faithful ministers of that persuasion and denomination, in honour and conscience, to declare to the world by some public testimony, that they are not consenters to that sinful, shameful, and scandalous conspiracy, nor of the corporation of these flattering addresses who have betrayed the cause; with which all will be interpreted consenters, that are not contradicters. further this toleration is sinful as is cleared above, period . and to accept of it is contrary to our solemn covenants and engagements, where we are bound to extirpate popery, preserve the reformation, defend our liberties, and never to accept of a toleration eversive of all these precious interests we are sworn to maintain. and it is heinously scandalous, being, in effect, a succumbing at length, and yielding up the cause, which hath been so long controverted, and so long contended for; at least an appearance of ceding and lying by from contending for the interests of christ, of condemning our former wrestlings for the same, of purchasing a liberty to ourselves at the rate of burying the testimony in bondage and oblivion; of hardening and confirming open adversaries in their wicked invasions on our religion, laws, and liberties; of being weary of the cross of christ, that we would fain have ease upon any terms, and of weakening the hands, yea, condemning the practice and peremptoriness of these that are exempted from the benefit, or rather the snare of it, and suffer when others are at ease. it is also attended with many inconveniences; for either such as preach under the covert of it, must forbear declaring some part of the counsel of god, and give no testimony seasonable this day: or else if they do, they will soon be discovered, and made a prey. hence, seeing there must be a testimony against this toleration, it is certainly most expedient to give it there, where the meeting is without the reach and bounds of it, and interdicted by the same proclamation that tenders it, and where the very gathering in such places is a testimony against it: for to preach in houses constantly and leave the fields, would now be interpreted and homologating the toleration that commands preaching to be restricted; especially when an address is made in name of all that accept the benefit of it, from which odium we could not vindicate ourselves, if we should so make use of it. . the keeping of field meetings now is a testimony against that wicked law that discharges them, and interdicts them as criminal; yea, in some respect a case of confession; for if daniel's case, when public prayer was discharged under pain of death, was a case of confession, as all grant; then must also our case be, when public preaching is discharged under the same penalty; for it is equivalent to an universal discharge of all public preaching, when the manner of it is discharged, which we can only have with freedom and safety in way of public testimony, which can be none other in our circumstances but in the fields. again, if the law be wicked that discharges them, as certainly it is, and is demonstrated from what is said already, then it must be sin to obey it; but it were an obeying of it to quit the fields. . the keeping of field meetings now is a testimony against tyranny and usurpation, encroaching upon our religion, laws, and liberties, and presuming to restrict and bound the exercise of the ministerial function, and discharge it altogether, except it be modified according to the circumstances prescribed by a wicked law, which cannot be allowed as competent to any man whose authority is not acknowledged, for reasons given in head . therefore, though there were no more, this is sufficient to call all ministers to give testimony against such an usurpation, by refusing to obey any such act, and preaching where god giveth a call. for otherwise, to submit to it, would be an acknowledging of his magistratical power to discharge these meetings, and to give forth sentences against faithful ministers. . the keeping of field meetings now is a testimony for the honour, headship, and princely prerogative of jesus christ, which hath been the great word of his patience in scotland, and by an unparalleled insolence encroached upon by usurpers in our day, and in effect, denied by such as took a new holding for the exercise of their ministry from their usurped power. now in these meetings, there is a practical declaration of their holding their ministry, and the exercise thereof from christ alone, without any dependence upon, subordination to, or licence and warrant from his usurping enemies; and that they may and will preach in public, without authority from them. if then it be lawful and expedient to maintain the interests of a king of clay against an usurper; then much more must it be lawful and expedient, to maintain the quarrel of the king of kings, when wicked men would banish him and his interests out of the kingdom by their tyrannical cruelty, and cruel mercy of a destructive toleration. . the keeping of field meetings now is a testimony for the gospel and the ministry thereof; which is always the dearest and nearest privilege of christians, and in the present circumstances, when our lives and our all are embarked in the same bottom with it, and sought to be destroyed together with it, by a party conspiring against christ, it is necessary duty to defend both by resisting their unjust violence; especially when religion and the gospel is one and the chief of our fundamental land rights, and the cardinal condition of the established policy, upon which we can only own men for magistrates by the law of the land: and this testimony, by defence of the gospel and of our own lives, cannot be given expediently any where but in the fields. it is also a testimony for the freedom and authority of the gospel ministry, and for their holding their unremoveable relation to the church of scotland, which is infringed by these tyrannical acts, and maintained by these exercises; which is a privilege to be contended for, above and beyond all other that can be contended for or defended, especially to be maintained again those that have no power or authority to take it away. there will no man quit any of his goods upon a sentence coming from an incompetent judge: and shall ministers or people be hectored or fooled from such a privilege by them that have no such power. . the keeping of field meetings now is a testimony for our covenants, the owning whereof is declared criminal by that same law that discharges these meetings; in which we are sworn to preserve the reformation in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, and to defend all the church's liberties, and to oppose all their opposites, and endeavour their extirpation: and in the solemn acknowledgment of sins and engagements to duties, we are sworn, because many have of late laboured to supplant the liberties of the kirk, to maintain and defend the kirk of scotland, in all her liberties and privileges, against all who shall oppose and undermine the same, or encroach thereupon, under any pretext whatsoever. since then, the owning of these meetings and the covenants are both discharged together, and the owning of the covenant does oblige to a public opposition against the dischargers, and an avowed maintenance of the church's privileges, whereof this is, in a manner, the only and chief liberty now left to be maintained, to keep meetings where we may testify against them, without dependence on their toleration; it must follow, that these meetings are to be maintained, which only can be in the fields, with conveniency. . to give over these field meetings now, would be an hardening and encouraging of these enemies in their wicked design of banishing all these meetings out of the land; which manifestly would be defeat, by a resolute refusal of all to submit to their discharging of them; and they that do submit, and give them over, do evidently contribute to the effectuating that wicked design, which is of that sort, but further is intended to extirpate all meetings for gospel ordinances, in which there is any testimony against them. to comply therefore with such a forbearance of them at this time, would lay a stone of stumbling before them, to encourage them in these their designs: when they should see their contrivance so universally complied with, wherein they might boast that at length they had prevailed, to put quite away that eye-sore of theirs, field meetings. . to give over these field meetings now, were a stumbling to the poor ignorant people; who might think, that now it appears that work was but of men, and so hath come to naught; and would look upon it as an evidence of fainting, and succumbing at last in the matter of the testimony, as being quite overcome; and that indeed all have embraced and accepted this present toleration, and were all alike sleeping under the shade, and eating the fruits of such a bramble. . finally, to give over these field meetings now, would be very scandalous to the posterity, and to strangers, who shall read the history of our church, to find, that as prelacy came in without a joint witness, and the monstrous, blasphemous, and sacrilegious supremacy was erected, without a testimony in its season; so black popery itself, and tyranny, was introduced by a toleration, which laid them all by from a testimony against these; who formerly had valiantly, resolutely, and faithfully contended against all lesser corruptions; but at last, when that came, and stricter prohibitions of all public meetings, but under the covert thereof, were emitted, then all were persuaded to comply with that course. how astonishing would it be to read, that all these contendings, sealed with so much precious blood, should come to such a pitiful period! but i hasten to the next, which is the second positive ground of suffering. head v. _the principle of, and testimony for, defensive arms vindicated._ this truth is of that sort, that can hardly be illustrated by demonstration; not for the darkness thereof, but for its self-evidencing clearness, being scarcely capable of any further elucidation, than what is offered to the rational understanding by its simple proposition. as first principles can hardly be proven because they need no probation, and cannot be made clearer than they are, and such as cannot consent to them, are incapable of conceiving any probation of them; so this truth of self preservation being lawful, because it is congenite with and irradicated in every nature, that hath a self which it can preserve, can scarcely be more illustrated that it may do so, than that it can do so. and therefore to all who have a true respect to their own, as well as a due concern in the interest of mankind, and zeal for the interest of christ, it might seem superfluous to make a doubt or debate of this: were it not that a generation of men is now prevailing, that are as great monsters in nature, as they are malignant in religion, and as great perverters of the law of nature, as they are subverters of municipal laws, and everters of the laws of god: who for owning this principle, as well as using the practice of defensive resistance for self-preservation against tyrannical violence, have set up such monuments of rage and cruelty, in the murder of many innocent people, as was never read nor heard of before. it hath been indeed the practice of all nations in the world, and the greatest of men have maintained this principle in all ages; but the bare asserting the principle, when extorted by severe inquisitions, was never a cause of taking the lives of any, before this was imposed on the poor sufferers in scotland, to give their judgment, whether or not such appearances for defence (as the tyranny of rulers had forced people to) were rebellion, and a sin against god, which they could not in conscience assert; and therefore, though many that have suffered upon this head, have been as free of the practice of such resistance as any; yet because they would not condemn the principle, they have been criminally processed, arraigned, and condemned to the death. and against this truth they have been observed to have a special kind of indignation, either because the light of it, which cannot be hid, hath some heat with it to scorch them; or because they fear the impression of this in the hearts of people more than others, knowing that they deserve the practical expression of it by the hands of all. but the reason they give why they are so offended at it, is, that they look upon it as the spring of all the errors of presbyterians, and a notion that destroys them; which indeed will be found to have a necessary connexion with many of the truths that they contend for this day, as it hath been the necessary method of defending them. what practices of this kind hath been, and what were the occasions inducing, or rather enforcing to these defensive resistances, here to be vindicated as to the principle of them, is manifested in the historical representation, shewing, that after the whole body of the land was engaged under the bond of a solemn covenant, several times renewed, to defend religion and liberty; and in special manner the magistrates of all ranks, the supreme whereof was formally admitted to the government upon these terms; he, with his associates, conspiring with the nobles, to involve the whole land in perjury and apostasy, overturned the whole covenanted work of reformation; and thereby not only encroached upon the interest of christ and the church's privileges, but subverted the fundamental constitution of the kingdom's government, and pressed all to a submission unto, and compliance with that tyranny and apostasy, erected upon the ruins thereof; yet the godly and faithful in the land, sensible of the indispensible obligation of these covenants, resolved to adhere thereunto, and suffered long patiently for adherence unto the same, until being quite wearied by a continued tract of tyrannical oppressions, arbitrarily enacted by wicked laws, and illegally executed against their own laws, and cruelly prosecuted even without all colour of law, in many unheard of barbarities, when there could be no access for, or success in complaining, or getting redress by law, all petitions and remonstrances of grievances being declared seditious and treasonable, and interdicted as such: they were forced to betake themselves to this last remedy of defensive resistance, intending only the preservation of their lives, religion and liberties; which many times hath been blessed with success, and therefore zealously contended for, as an inadmissible privilege, by all well affected to the cause of christ, and interest of their country, because they found it always countenanced of the lord; until the cause was betrayed by the treachery, and abandoned by the cowardice of such, as were more loyal for the king's interests, than zealous for christ's and the country's; for which the lord in his holy jealousy discountenanced many repeated endeavours of this nature, cutting us off, and putting us to shame, and would not go forth with our armies. but because the duty is not to be measured by, and hath a more fixed rule to be founded upon than providence; therefore the godly did not only maintain the principle in their confessions and testimonies, but prosecute the practice in carrying arms, and making use of them in the defence of the gospel and of themselves, at field meetings; which were always successfully prosperous, by the power and presence of god. this question is sufficiently discussed, by our famous and learned invincible patrons and champions for this excellent privilege of mankind, the unanswerable authors of lex rex, the apologetical relation, naphtali, and jus populi vindicatum. but because it is easy to add to what is found, i shall subjoin my mite; and their arguments being various and voluminously prosecute, and scattered at large through their books, i shall endeavour to collect a compend of them in some order. the two first speak of a defensive war, managed in a parliamentary way: and the two last, of resistance against the abuse of a lawful power, when there is no access to maintain religion and liberty any other way; which does not come up so close to our case, nor is an antithesis to the assertions of our adversaries, who say, that it is no ways lawful, in any case, or upon any pretence whatsoever, to resist the sovereign power of a nation, in whomsoever it be resident, or which way soever it be erected. i shall consider it more complexly and extensively, and plead both for resistance against the abuse of a lawful power, and against the use and usurpation of a tyrannical power, and infer not only the lawfulness of resisting kings, when they abuse their power (as is demonstrate unanswerably by these authors) but the expediency and necessity of the duty of resisting this tyrannical power, whensoever we are in a capacity, if we would not be found treacherous covenant-breakers, and betrayers of the interest of god, and the liberties of the nation, and of our brethren, together with the posterity, into the hands of this popish and implacable enemy, and so bring on us the curse of meroz, and the curse of our brethren's blood, crying for vengeance on the heads of the shedders thereof, and upon all, who being in case, came not to their rescue; and the curse of posterity, for not transmitting that reformation and liberty, whereof we were by the valour of our forefathers put and left in possession. i shall not therefore restrict myself to the state of the question, as propounded ordinarily, to wit, whether or not, when a covenanted king doth really injure, oppress and invade his subjects civil and religious rights, or unavoidably threatens to deprive their dearest and nearest liberties, and sends out his emissaries with armed violence against them; and when all redress to be had, or hope by any address or petition, is rendered void or inaccessible, yea addressing interdicted under severe penalties, as treasonable; then, and in that case, may a community of these subjects defend themselves, and their religion and liberties, by arms, in resisting his bloody emissaries? but, to bring it home to our present case, and answer the laxness of the adversaries position of the uncontroulableness of every one that wears a crown, i shall state it thus: whether or not is it a necessary duty for a community (whether they have the concurrence of the primores or nobles, or not) to endeavour, in the defence of their lives, religion, laws and liberties, to resist and repress the usurpation and tyranny of prevailing dominators, using or abusing their power for subverting religion, invading the liberties, and overturning the fundamental laws of their country? i hold the affirmative, and shall essay to prove it, by the same arguments that conclude this question, as usually stated; which will more than evince the justifiableness of the sufferings upon this head. in prosecuting of this subject, i shall first premit some concessory considerations to clear it. and secondly, bring reasons to prove it. first, for clearing of this truth, and taking off mistakes, these concessions may be considered. . the ordinance of magistracy, which is of god, is not to be resisted, no, not so much as by disobedience or non obedience, nay, not so much as mentally, by cursing in the heart, eccles. x. . but a person clothed therewith, abusing his power, may be in so far resisted. but tyrants, or magistrates turning tyrants, are not god's ordinance; and there is no hazard of damnation, for refusing to obey their unjust commands, but rather the hazard of that is in walking willingly after the commandment, when the statutes of omri are kept. so that what is objected from eccl. viii. - . "i counsel thee to keep the king's commandment," &c. is answered on head ii. and is to be understood only of the lawful commands of lawful kings. . rebellion is a damnable sin, except where the word is taken in a lax sense, as israel is said to have rebelled against rehoboam, and hezekiah against sennacherib, which was a good rebellion, and clear duty, being taken there for resistance and revolt. in that sense indeed some of our risings in arms might be called rebellion; for it is lawful to rebel against tyrants. but because the word is usually taken in an evil sense, therefore it would have been offensive to acknowledge that before the inquisitors, except it had been explained. but rebellion against lawful magistrates, is a damnable sin, exemplarily punished in korah and his company, who rebelled against moses; and in sheba and absalom, who rebelled against david. for to punish the just is not good, nor to strike princes for equity, prov. xvii. . and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation, rom. xiii. . so that this objection brought from this place, as if the apostle were commanding their subjection without resistance to nero, and such tyrants; as it is very impertinent, it is fully answered above, head ii. here it will be sufficient to reply, . he is hereby vindicating christianity from that reproach, of casting off or refusing subjection to magistrates for conscience sake in general. and it is very considerable, what buchanan says in his book de juri regni, that paul did not write to the kings themselves, because they were not christians, and therefore the more might be born with from them, though they should not understand the duty of magistrates; but imagine, that there had been some christian king who had turned tyrant and apostate, 'to the scandal of religion: what would he have written then? sure if he had been like himself, he would have denied that he should be owned for a king, and would have interdicted all christians communion with him, and that they should account him no king, but such as they were to have no fellowship with, according to the law of the gospel.' . he speaks of lawful rulers here, not tyrants, but of all such as are defined and qualified here, being powers ordained of god, terrors to evil works, ministers of god for good. yea, but say prelates, and their malignant adherents, these are only motives of subjection to all powers, not qualifications of the powers. i answer, they are indeed motives, but such as can be extended to none but to these powers that are so qualified. . he speaks of lawful powers indefinitely in the plural number, not specifying any kind or degree of them, as if only kings and emperors were here meant. it cannot be proven, that the power of the sword is only in them. neither was there a plurality of kings or emperors at rome to be subject to: if he meant the roman emperor, he would have designed him in the singular number. all the reasons of the text agree to inferior judges also, for they are ordained of god, they are called rulers in scripture, and god's ministers, revengers by office, who judge not for man, but for the lord: and inferior magistrates also are not to be resisted, when doing their duty, pet. ii. . yet all will grant, when they go beyond their bounds, and turn little tyrants, they may be withstood. . he does not speak of nero, concerning whom it cannot be proven, that at this time he had the soverereign power as the learned mr. prin shews: or if he had, that he was a tyrant at this time; and if he meant him at all, it was only as he was obliged to be by right, nor as he was in deed. all men know, and none condemns the fact of the senate, that resisted nero at length, without transgressing this precept. yea i should rather think, the senate is the power that the apostle applies this text to, if he applied it to any in particular. . the subjection here required, is the same with the honour in the fifth command, whereof this is an exposition, and is opposite to the contraordinateness here condemned. now, subjection takes in all the duties we owe to magistrates, and resistance all the contraries forbidden; but unlimited obedience is not here required: so neither unlimited subjection. . we may allow passive subjection in some cases, even to tyrants, when the lord lays on that yoke, and in effect says, he will have us to lie under it a while, as he commanded the jews to be subject to nebuchadnezzar: of which passage, adduced to prove subjection to tyrants universally, buchanan, as above, infers, that if all tyrants be to be subjected to, because god by his prophet commanded his people to be subject to one tyrant; then it must be likewise concluded, that all tyrants ought, to be killed, because ahab's house was commanded to be destroyed by jehu. but passive subjection, when people are not in capacity to resist, is necessary. i do not say passive obedience, which is a mere chimera, invented in the brains of such sycophants, as would make the world slaves to tyrants. whosoever suffereth, if he can shun it, is an enemy to his own being: for every natural thing must strive to preserve itself against what annoyeth it; and also he sins against the order of god, who in vain hath ordained so many lawful means for preservation of our being, if we must suffer it to be destroyed, having power to help it. . we abhor all war of subjects, professedly declared against a lawful king, as such; all war against lawful authority, founded upon, or designed for maintaining principles inconsistent with government, or against policy and piety; yea, all war without authority. yet, when all authority of magistrates, supreme and subordinate, is perverted and abused, contrary to the ends thereof, to the oppressing of the people, and overturning of their laws and liberties, people must not suspend their resistance upon the concurrence of men of authority, and forbear the duty in case of necessity, because they have not the peers or nobles to lead them: for if the ground be lawful, the call clear, the necessity cogent, the capacity probable, they that have the law of nature, the law of god, and the fundamental laws of the land on their side, cannot want authority though they may want parliaments to espouse their quarrel. this is cleared above, head . yet here i shall add, . the people have this privilege of nature, to defend themselves and their rights and liberties, as well as peers; and had it, before they erected and constituted peers or nobles. there is no distinction of quality in interests of nature, though there be in civil order: but self defence is not an act of civil order. in such interests, people must not depend upon the priority of their superiors, nor suspend the duties they owe to themselves and their neighbours, upon the manuduction of other mens greatness. the law of nature allowing self-defence, or the defence of our brethren, against unjust violence, addeth no such restriction, that it must only be done by the conduit or concurrence of the nobles or parliaments. . the people have as great interest to defend their religion as the peers, and more, because they have more souls to care for than they, who are fewer. and to be violented in their consciences, which are as free to them as to the peers, is as insupportable to them: yea, both are equally concerned to maintain truth, and rescue their brethren suffering for it, which are the chief grounds of war; and if the ground of the defensive war be the same with them and without them, what reason can be given, making their resistance in one case lawful, and not in the other? both are alike obliged to concur, and both are equally, obnoxious to god's threatened judgments, for suffering religion to be ruined, and not relieving and rescuing innocents. it will be but a poor excuse for people to plead, they had no peers to head them. what if both king and nobles turn enemies to religion, (as they are at this day) shall people do nothing for the defence of it then? many times the lord hath begun a work of reformation by foolish things, and hath made the least of the flock to draw them out, jer. xlix. . and l. . and did not think fit to begin with nobles, but began it, when powers and peers were in opposition to it; and when he blessed it so at length, as to engage the public representatives to own it, what was done by private persons before, they never condemned. . the people are injured without the nobles, therefore they may resist without them, if they be able: for there can be no argument adduced, to make it unlawful to do it with them. . it is true the nobles are obliged beyond others, and have authority more than others to concur; but separately they cannot act as representatives judicially: they have a magistratical power, but limited to their particular precincts where they have interest, and cannot extend it beyond these bounds; and so if they should concur, they are still in the capacity of subjects; for out of a parliamentary capacity they are not representatives. . all the power they can have is cumulative, not privative; for the worse condition of a ruler ought not to be by procuring. why then shall the representatives, betraying their trust, wrong the cause of the people, whose trustees they are? nay, if it were not lawful for people to defend their religion, lives, and liberties without the concurrence of parliaments, then their case should be worse with them than without them; for they have done it before they had them, and so they had better be without them still. . people may defend themselves against the tyranny of a parliament, or primores, or nobles: therefore, they may do it without them; for if it be lawful to resist them, it is lawful to wave them, when they are in a conspiracy with the king against them. . we disallow all war without real undeclinable necessity, and great and grievous wrongs sustained: and do not maintain it is to be declared or undertaken upon supposed grounds, or pretended causes: and so the question is impertinently stated by our adversaries, 'whether or not it be lawful for subjects, or a party of them, when they think themselves injured, or to be in a capacity, to resist or oppose the supreme power of a nation.' for the question is not, if when they think themselves injured they may resist? but when the injuries are real: neither is it every reality of injuries will justify their resistance, but when their dearest and nearest liberties are invaded, especially when such an invasion is made, as threatens ineluctable subversion of them. next, we do not say, that a party's esteeming themselves in a capacity, or their being really in a capacity, doth make resistance a duty; except, all alike, they have a call as well as a capacity, which requires real necessity, and a right to the action, and the things contended for to be real and legal rights, really and illegally encroached upon: their capacity gives them only a conveniency to go about the duty, that is, previously lawful upon a moral ground. no man needs to say, who shall be judge? the magistrate or people? for, . all who have eyes in their head may judge whether the sun shine or not; and all who have common sense may judge in this case. for when it comes to a necessity of resistance, it is to be supposed, that the grievances complained of, and sought to be redressed by arms, are not hid, but manifest; it cannot be so with any party only pretending their suffering wrong. . there is no need of the formality of a judge, in things evident to nature's eye, as grassant tyranny undermining and overturning religion and liberty must be. nature, in the acts of necessitated ressistance, in such a case, is judge, party, accuser, witness, and all. neither is it an act of judgment, for people to defend their own: defence is no act of jurisdiction, but a privilege of nature. hence, these common sayings, all laws permit force to be repelled by force; and the law of nature allows self defence: the defence of life is necessary, and flows from the law of nature. . be judge who will, the tyrant cannot be judge in the case: for, in these tyrannical acts, that force the people to that resistance, he cannot be acknowledged as king, and therefore no judge: for it is supposed, the judge is absent, when he is the party that does the wrong. and he that does the wrong, as such, is inferior to the innocent. . let god be judge, and all the world, taking cognizance of the evidence of their respective manifestos of the state of their cause. . we condemn rising to revenge private injuries; whereby the land may be involved in blood for some petty wrongs done to some persons, great or small; and abhor revengeful usurping of the magistrate's sword, to avenge ourselves for personal injuries. as david's killing of saul would have been, sam. xxiv. . . , sam. xxvi. , . to object which, in this case, were very impertinent: for it would have been an act of offence in a remote defence: if saul had been immediately assaulting him, it could not be denied to be lawful: and it would have been an act of private revenge for a personal injury, and a sinful preventing of god's promise of david's succession, by a scandalous assassination. but it is clear, then david was resisting him, and that is enough for us; and he supposes he might descend into battle, and perish, sam. xxvi. . not excluding, but that he might perish in battle against himself resisting him. we are commanded indeed not to resist evil, but whosoever shall smite us on the one cheek, to turn to him the other also, matth. v. . and to recompence to no man evil for evil, rom. xii. . but this doth not condemn self defence, or resisting tyrants violently, endangering our lives, laws, religion, and liberties, but only resistance by way of private revenge and retaliation, and enjoin patience, when the clear call and dispensation do inevitably call unto suffering; but not to give way to all violence and sacrilege, to the subverting of religion and righteousness. these texts do no more condemn private persons retaliating the magistrate, than magistrates retaliating private persons, unless magistrates be exempted from this precept, and consequently be not among christ's followers: yea, they do no more forbid private persons, to resist the unjust violence of magistrates, than to resist the unjust violence of private persons. that objection from our lord's reproving peter, matth. xxvi. . put up thy sword, for all they that take the sword, shall perish by the sword, hath no weight here: for this condemns only making use of the sword, either by way of private revenge, or usurping the use of it without authority, (and so condemns all tyrants) which private subjects do not want to defend themselves, their religion and liberty; or using it without necessity, which was not in peter's case, both because christ was able to defend himself, and because he was willing to deliver up himself. pool's synops. critic. in locum. christ could easily have defended himself, but he would not; and therefore there was no necessity for peter's rashness; it condemns also a rash precipitating and preventing the call of god to acts of resistance; but otherwise it is plain, it was not peter's fault to defend his master, but a necessary duty. the reason, our lord gives for that inhibition at that time, was twofold; one expressed matth. xixvi. . for they that take the sword, &c. which do not belong to peter, as if peter were hereby threatened; but to those that were coming to take christ, they usurped the sword of tyranical violence, and therefore are threatened with destruction, by the sword of the romans: so is that commination to be understood of antichrist, and the tyrants that serve him, rev. xiii. . he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword, which is a terrible word against persecutors. the reason is, john xviii. .----the cup which my father hath given me, shall i not drink? which clearly refels that objection of christ's non-resistance. to which it is answered, that suffering was the end of his voluntary suscepted humiliation, and his errand to the world, appointed by the father, and undertaken by himself, which is not our practice: though it be true, that even in his sufferings he left us an ensample that we should follow his steps, pet. ii. . in many things, as he was a martyr, his sufferings were the purest rule and example for us to follow, both for the matter, and frame of spirit, submission, patience, constancy, meekness, &c. but not as he was our sponsor, and after the same manner, for then it were unlawful for us to flee, as well as to resist, because he would not flee at that time. . as we are not for rising in arms for trifles of our own things, or small injuries done to ourselves, but in a case of necessity for the preservation of our lives, religion, laws, and liberties, when all that are dear to us, as men and as christians, are in hazard: so we are not for rising up in arms, to force the magistrates to be of our religion, but to defend our religion against his force. we do not think it the way that christ hath appointed, to propagate religion by arms: let persecutors and limbs of antichrist take that to them; but we think it a privilege which christ hath allowed us to defend and preserve our religion by arms: especially, when it hath been established by the laws of the land, and become a land right, and the dearest and most precious right and interest we have to contend for. it is true faith christ, john xviii. . 'my kingdom is not of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight that i should not be delivered to the jews.' but this objection will not conclude, that christ's kingdom is not to be defended and preserved by resistance, of all that would impiously and sacrilegiously spoil us of it in this world, because it is not of this world: for then all were obliged to suffer it to be run down, by slaves of hell and satan, and antichrist's vassals, papists and malignants: yea, magistrates were not to fight for it, for they are among his servants, if they be christians. but the good confession he witnesses here before pilate, is, that he hath a kingdom, which, as it is not in opposition to any cesarean majesty; so it must not be usurped upon by any king of clay, but is specially distinct from all the kingdoms of the world, and subordinate to no earthly power, being of a spiritual nature; whereof this is a demonstration, and sufficient security for earthly kingdoms, that his servants, as such, that is, as christians, and as ministers, were not appointed by him to propagate it by arms, nor to deliver him their king at that time, because he would not suffer his glorious design of redemption to be any longer retarded: but this doth not say, but though they are not to propagate it as christians, and as ministers, by carnal weapons, yet they may preserve it with such weapons as men. hence that old saying may be vindicated, prayers and tears are the arms of the church. i grant they are so, the only best prevailing arms, and without which all others would be ineffectual, and that they (together with preaching and church discipline, &c.) are the only ecclesiastical or spiritual arms of a church as a church; but the members thereof are also men, and as men they may use the same weapons that others do, and ye my flock, the flock of my pasture, are men, saith the lord, ezek. xxxiii. . yea, from this i shall take an argument; if it be lawful for private subjects, without the concurrence of parliaments, to resist a tyrant by prayers and tears; then it is lawful also to resist him by violence, but the former is true, as our adversaries grant by this objection, and i have proved it to be duty to pray against tyrants, head . ergo--. the connection is founded upon these reasons, . this personal resistance by violence, is as consistent with that command, rom. xiii. . . 'let every soul be subject unto the higher powers--whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of god;' as resistance by prayer is with that, tim. ii. , . i exhort--that--supplications--be made--for kings, and for all that are in authority. if the prince be good, the one is as unlawful as the other; and a sinful resistance of the ordinance of god (to pray against him) no less than the other (to fight against him.) therefore when he becomes a tyrant, and destroyer of the lord's inheritance, and an apostate, as i may not pray for him except conditionally, but against him as an enemy of christ; so i may also fight against him as such. . as adversaries themselves will grant, that resistance by prayers and tears is more powerful and effectual than the other; so the laws of the land make the one treasonable as well as the other; and that deservedly, when the prince is doing his duty; but when he turneth tyrant, neither can justly be condemned. these things being permitted, i shall come shortly to the purpose, and endeavour to prove this truth, that it is a necessary duty for a community (whether they have the concurrence of the primores, nobles, and representatives or not) to endeavour, in the defence of their religion, lives, laws, and liberties, to resist and repress the usurpation and tyranny of prevailing dominators, using or abusing their power, for subverting religion, invading the liberties, and overturning the fundamental laws of the country. wherein i shall be but short, because this truth is sufficiently confirmed by all the arguments of the second head; yet i may only hint at many others, and prosecute them in this order. first, i shall produce some arguments from the law of nature and nations. dly, from the common practice of all christian people. dly, from express scriptures. i. the arguments of the first class are very multifarious: i shall reduce them to a few, as compendiously as may be, and only give the strength of them in a syllogistical form, without expatiating, save where the matter requires. . the great antagonists of this truth, through the clearness thereof, are forced to assert and grant such particulars, as will by consequence justify this plea. . barclay contra monarchum, is cited by the apol. relat. and jus populi asserting 'that if a king will alienate and subject his kingdom, without his subjects consent, or be carried with a hostile mind to the destruction of his people, his kingdom is actually lost, and the people may not only lawfully resist, but also depose him.' grotius de jure belli, lib. . cap. . asserts the same, and adds, 'if he but attempt to do so he may be resisted.' the surveyor of naphtali grants the same, pag. , . yea, this hath been granted in open court, by the council of scotland, that in case of the king's alienating his kingdoms he may be resisted. hence, . if vendition or alienation of kingdoms, or attempts of it, do annul a king's authority, then an alienation of them from christ, to whom they are devoted by covenant, and selling to antichrist, as is attempted by this king, gives the people a right to resist him; but the former is here conceded: ergo--( .) we need say no more to apply the other, that carrying a hostile mind to the destruction of the people does forfeit his kingdom, and gives the people right to resist, than that a papist is always known to carry a hostile mind to the destruction of protestants, and all the designs declared these years have been demonstrative efforts of it. . dr. ferne acknowledgeth, 'that personal defence is lawful against the sudden, illegal, and inevitable assaults of the king's messengers, or of himself, in so far as to ward off his blows, or hold his hands. as also, he alloweth private persons liberty to deny subsidies and tribute to the prince, when he employeth it to the destruction of the commonwealth.' hence, ( .) if one may defend himself against the sudden, illegal, and inevitable assaults of the king or his messengers; then may many men, in defence of their lives and liberties, defend themselves against the surprising massacres, the sudden assaults, and much more the devised and deliberate assaults of a tyrant's bloody emissaries, which are illegal and inevitable, as all their furious and bloody onsets have been; but the former is here allowed: therefore,-- . bodin de repub. lib. . cap. . granteth, 'if a king turn tyrant, he may lawfully, at his subjects request, be invaded, resisted, condemned, or slain by a foreign prince.' hence, if foreign princes may lawfully help a people oppressed by their own sovereign; then people may resist themselves, if they be able and hold in their pains; but the former is here granted: therefore----the consequence cannot be denied, for foreigners have no more power or authority over another sovereign, than the people have themselves. . arnisæus de author. princip. c. . n. . granteth, 'that if the prince proceed extrajudicially, without order of law, by violence, every private man hath power to resist.' so the surveyor of naphtali, as above, 'grants so much of a woman's violent resisting attempts against the honour of her chastity, and tending to ensnare her in sin, whereof, her non-resistance makes her guilty.' hence, ( .) if every extrajudicial violence of a prince may be resisted; then also all contrajudicial violence against law or reason must be opposed, for that is more grievous, and all their violences, wherein they do not act as judges, must be resisted, and that is all together, for in none of them they can act as judges; but the former is here granted: therefore-- . if a woman may defend her chastity against the king, lest her non-resistance make her guilty, (oh, if all women had been of this mind, the country would not have been pestered so with the king's bastards); then may a nation, or any part of it, resist a tyrant's attempt upon the honour of their religion, enticing them to fornication with the mother of harlots, lest their non-resistance make them guilty; but the former is here yielded: therefore,-- . that same arnisæus, cap. . saith, 'of the former (to wit, he who is called a tyrant in title) it is determined by all without any difficulty, that he may be lawfully repulsed, or if by force he be gotten into the throne, he may warrantably be thence removed, because he hath not any jot of power which is not illegitimate, and unto which resistance is forbidden for the fear of god and for conscience sake, and therefore he is no further to be looked at than as an enemy.' this is so pat and pertinent to the present possessor of the government, that no words can more particularly apply it. . grotius de jure belli, lib. . cap. . granteth, the law of not resisting does not bind when the danger is most weighty and certain, 'and we do not plead for it in any other case.' and further he says, 'the law of non-resistance seemeth to have flowed from them, who first combined together into society, and from whom such as did command did derive their power: now, if it had been asked of such, whether they would choose to die, rather than in any case to resist the superior by arms? i know not if they would have yielded thereto, unless with this addition, if they could not be resisted but with the greatest perturbation of the commonwealth, and destruction of many innocents. and afterwards he hath these words, nevertheless i scarce dare condemn every one or the lesser part, which may only be done at utmost extremity, notwithstanding respect is to be had to the common good.' from which we need make no inference, the concession is so large, that it answers our case. . the surveyor of naphtali, in the place above cited, 'grants legal self-defence against the sovereign, by way of plea in court, for safety of a man's person or estate,--as also is the case of most habited, notour and complete tyranny against law, to the destruction of the body of a people, and of all known legal liberties, and the being of religion according to law.--and in case of his not being in his natural and right wits.'--hence, ( .) if it be lawful to resist the king by a plea in law, for an estate, (yea the law will allow), by actual force, if he come to take possession of it illegally: then it must be lawful for their lives and estates, liberties and religion, to resist him by force, when the legal resistance is not admitted; but the former is yielded here: therefore.--the reason of the connexion is, the municipal law permits the one, and the law of nature and nations (which no municipal law can infringe) will warrant the other: he hath no more right to be both judge and party in this case, more than in the other: and he can no more act as a sovereign in this case, than in the other. ( .) if it be lawful to resist habited, notour, and complete tyranny against law, to the destruction of the body of a people, and of all known legal liberties, and the being of religion, according to law: then we desire no more to conclude the duty of resisting this tyranny exercised this years habitually, which the desolation of many hundred families, the banishment of many hundreds to slavery, the rivers of blood, &c. have made notour to all scotland at least, and the perversion of all the fundamental laws, and all civil and religious liberties, yea the subversion of every remaining model of our religion, as reformed and covenanted to be preserved, in doctrine, worship, discipline and government, and designs to introduce popery and establish arbitrary government, have made complete; but the former is here granted: therefore-- . if in case of his being out of his wits, he should run upon an innocent man to kill him, or attempt to cut his own throat, it were then lawful to resist him, yea, a sin not to do it; then when in a rage, or deliberately, he is seeking to destroy many hundreds of the people of god, he may be resisted; but the former is clear: therefore--. . king james the vi. in his remonstance for the right of kings, against the oration of cardinal perron, hath these words, the public laws make it lawful, and free for any private person, to enterprize against an usurper of the kingdom. then shall it not be duty, to enterprize against a man, who by the laws of the land is not capable of a right to reign, who hath got into the throne by the means of murder, and can pretend no right but that of succession, which i proved to be, none, head . however, we see by these concessions of adversaries, that the absolute subjection they talk of will not hold, nor the prerogative be so uncontroulable in every case, as they would pretend, and that in many cases, the safety of the people hath the supremacy above it; and that also in these cases the people must be judges, whether they may resist or not. . from the law of nature i may argue, . if god, the fountain of all power, and author of all right, hath given unto man both the power and the right, of, and reason to manage self-defence, and hath noways interdicted it in his word to be put forth against tyrants; then it is duty to use it against them upon occasion; but the former is true: therefore,-- . if this power and right were restrained in man against the unjust violence of any, it would either be by policy, or grace, or some express prohibition in the word of god; but none of these can be said: therefore.--policy cannot destroy nature, but is rather cumulative to it; a man entering into a politic incorporation, does not lose the privilege of nature: if one particular nature may defend itself against destroying violence out of society, then must many of these natures combined in society have the same right, and so much the more that their relative duties super-add an obligation of mutual assistance. grace does not restrain the right of sinless nature, though it restrains corruption: but self-defence is no corruption: grace makes a man more a man than he was. and nothing can be more dishonourable to the gospel, than that by the law of nature it is lawful to resist tyrants, but we are bound by religion from withstanding their cruelty: the laws of god do not interfere one with another. . that law which alloweth comparative re-offending, so as to kill rather than be killed, teacheth resistance: but so the law of nature alloweth, except we be guilty of murder in the culpable omission of self defence. the reason is, because the love of self is nearer and greater, as to temporal life, than the love of our neighbour: that being the measure of this: therefore it obliges rather to kill than be killed, the exigence of necessity so requiring. . if nature put no difference between the violence of a tyrant than of another man: then it teaches to resist both alike: but it putteth no difference, but rather aggravates that of a tyrant; being the violence of a man, the injustice of a member of the commonwealth, and the cruelty of a tyrant. and it were absurd to say, we might defend ourselves from the lesser violence, and not from the greater. . if particular nature must yield to the good of universal nature; then must one man, though in greatest power, be resisted, rather than the universal commonwealth suffer hurt: but the former is true; for that dictates the necessity of the distracted father to be bound by his own sons, lest all the family be hurt: ergo the greatest of men or kings, when destructive to the commonwealth, must be resisted; for he is but one man, and so but particular nature. . that which is irrational, and reflects upon providence, as putting men in a worse condition than brutes, is absurd and contrary to the law of nature: but to say, that the brutes have power to defend themselves by resisting what annoys them, and deny this power to men, is irrational and reflects upon providence, as putting men in a worse condition than brutes: therefore it is absurd, and contrary to the law of nature. . from the institution of government i may argue thus: that power and government which is not of god may be resisted: the tyrants power and government, in overturning laws, subverting religion, bringing in idolatry, oppressing subjects, is not of god: ergo it may be resisted: the major is clear, because that is only the reason why he is not to be resisted, because the ordinance of god is not to be resisted, rom. xiii. . but they that resist a man destroying all the interests of mankind, overturning laws, subverting religion, &c. do not resist the ordinance of god. and if it were not so, this would tend irremedilessly to overthrow all policies, and open a gap to all disorder, injustice, and cruelty, and would give as great encouragement to tyrants to do what they list, as thieves would be encouraged, if they knew nobody would resist them or bring them to punishment. . from the original constitution of government by men, it may be argued thus: if people at the first erection of government acted rationally, and did not put themselves in a worse case than before, wherein it was lawful to defend themselves against all injuries, but devolved their rights upon the fiduciary tutory of such, as should remain still in the rank of men, that can do wrong, who had no power but by their gift, consent, and choice, with whom they associated not to their detriment but for their advantage, and determined the form of their government, and time of its continuance, and in what cases they might recur to their primeve liberty, and settled a succession to have course not _jure hereditario_ but _jure et vi legis_, for good ends; then they did not give away their birth-right of self-defence, and power of resistance, which they had before to withstand the violence, injuries, and oppressions of the men they set over them, when they pervert the form and convert it to tyranny, but did retain a power and privilege to resist and revolt from them, and repel their violence when they should do violence to the constitution, and pervert the ends thereof: but the former is true. ergo--the minor is cleared, head. . and the connexion is confirmed from this; if the estates of a kingdom give the power to a king, it is their own power in the fountain, and if they give it for their own good, they have power to judge when it is used against themselves, and for their evil; and so power to limit and resist the power that they gave. . from the way and manner of erecting governors by compact, the necessity whereof is proven head . many arguments might be deduced; i shall reduce them to this form: if people must propose conditions unto princes, to be by them acquiesced in and submitted unto at their admission to the government, which thereupon becomes the fundamental laws of the government, and securities for the people's rights and liberties, giving a law claim to the people to pursue the prince, in case of failing in the main and principal thing covenanted, as their own covenanted mandatarius who hath no jus or authority of his own, but what he hath from them, and no more power but what is contained in the conditions, upon which he undertaketh the government; then when either an usurper will come under no such conditions, or a tyrant doth break all these conditions, which he once accepted, and so become stricto jure no prince, and the people be stricto jure liberated from subjection to him, they may and must defend themselves and their fundamental rights and privileges, religion and laws, and resist the tyranny overturning them: but the former is true, ergo--the connexion is clear: and the minor is proved head . and at length demonstrated and applied to the government of charles the second by jus populi. cap. . see arg. , . head . . from the nature of magistracy it may be argued thus, that power which is properly neither parental, nor marital, nor masterly and despotic, over the subjects, persons, and goods, but only fiduciary, and by way of trust, is more to be resisted than that which is properly so; but that power which is properly so, that is parental power, and marital, and masterly, may be resisted in many cases; therefore, that power which is not so properly, but only fiduciary is more to be resisted. that a king's power over his subjects, is neither parental, nor marital, &c. is proven head . and the major needs no probation. the minor is clear by instances, . if children may, in case of necessity, resist the fury of their father, seeking to destroy them; then must private subjects resist the rage and tyranny of princes, seeking to destroy them, and what is dearest to them; for there is no stricter obligation moral between king and people, than between parents and children, nor so strict; and between tyrants and people there is none at all; but the former cannot be denied: therefore,-- . if wives may lawfully defend themselves against the unjust violence of enraged husbands; then must private subjects have power to resist the furious assaults of enraged tyrants, for there is not so great a tye betwixt them and people, as between man and wife; yea there is none at all; but the former is true: ergo,-- . if servants may defend themselves against their masters; then must private subjects defend themselves against a tyrant or his emissaries; but the former is true: ergo,-- . if the king's power be only fiduciary, and by way of pawn, which he hath got to keep; then when that power is manifestly abused, to the hurt of them that intrusted him with it, he ought to be resisted by all whom he undertook to protect; but the former is true: therefore the latter. . from the limited power of princes it may be thus argued: if princes be limited by laws and contracts, and may be resisted by pleas in law, and have no absolute power to do and command what they will, but must be limited both by the laws of god and man, and cannot make what laws they will in prejudice of the people's rights, nor execute the laws made according to their pleasure, nor confer on others a lawless licence to oppress whom they please; then when they turn tyrants, and arrogate a lawless absoluteness, and cross the rules, and transgress the bounds prescribed by god's laws, and man's laws, and make their own lusts a law, and execute the same arbitrarily, they must be resisted by force, when a legal resistance cannot be had, in defence of religion and liberty; but all princes are limited, &c. therefore,--the minor is proved, head . and the connexion may be thus confirmed in short: that power which is not the ordinance of god may be resisted; but an absolute illimited power, crossing the rules, and transgressing the bounds prescribed by god's law and man's, is not the ordinance of god; therefore it may be resisted. . further from the rule of government, it may be argued several ways, . that power which is contrary to law, evil and tyrannical, can ty none to subjection, but if it oblige to any thing, it ties to resistance; but the power of a king against law, religion, and the interests of the subjects, is a power contrary to law, evil and tyrannical: therefore,--the major is plain, for wickedness can ty no man, but to resist it; that power which is contrary to law, evil and tyrannical is wickedness. . that power, and those acts, which neither king can exercise; nor command, nor others execute, nor any obey, must certainly be resisted: but such is the power and acts that oppress the subjects, and overturn religion and liberty; therefore--the minor is evident from scriptures condemning oppression and violence, both in them that command, and in them that execute the same, and also them that obey such wicked commands. the major is clear from reason; both because such power and such acts as cannot be commanded, cannot be executed, cannot be obeyed lawfully, are sinful and wicked: and because it cannot be a magistratical power, for that may always be exercised and executed lawfully. and what a man cannot command, the resisting of that he cannot punish; but acts of oppression against law, religion, and liberty, a man cannot command; ergo, the resisting of these he cannot punish. . that government of administration, which is not subordinate to the law and will of god, who hath appointed it, must be resisted; but that government or administration, which undermines or overturns religion and liberty, is not subordinate to the law and will of god; therefore--the major is clear; for nothing but what is the ordinance of god, subordinate to his law and will, is irresistible, rom. xiii. . the assumption is undeniable. . from the ends of government, which must be acknowledged by all to be the glory of god, and the good of mankind; yea, all that have been either wise or honest, have always held that the safety of the people is the supreme law. the argument may run thus, in short, . that doctrine which makes the holy one to cross his own ends in giving governors, must be absurd and unchristian as well as irrational; but such is the doctrine that makes all kings and tyrants irresistible upon any pretence whatsoever: ergo--the minor i prove: that doctrine which makes god intending his own glory and the people's good, to give governors both as fathers to preserve, and as murderers to destroy them, must make the holy one to cross his own ends; for these are contradictory; but the doctrine that makes all kings and tyrants irresistible, &c. is such: for, by office, they are fathers to preserve, and, by office also, they must be murderers, vested with such a power from god, by the first act, if they be irresistible when they do so; seeing every power that is irresistible is the ordinance of god. hence also when a blessing turns a curse, it is no more the ordinance of god, but to be resisted; but when a king turns a tyrant, overturning religion and liberty, then a blessing turns a curse: therefore-- . means are to be resisted, when they are not useful for, but destructive to the ends they were appointed for; but governors overturning religion and liberty, are means not useful for, but destructive to the ends for which they were appointed; seeing then they are neither for the glory of god, nor the good of mankind: therefore-- . if all powers and prerogatives of men are only means appointed for, and should vail unto the supreme law of the people's safety, and all laws be subordinate to, and corroborative of this law, and when cross to it are in so far null, and no laws, and all law formalities in competition with it are to be laid aside, and all parliamentary privileges must yield to this, and king and parliament both conspiring have no power against it; and no sovereign power, by virtue of any resignation from the people can comprize any authority to act against it; then it is duty to obey this supreme law, in resisting all powers and prerogatives, all laws, and law formalities, and all conspiracies whatsoever against this supreme law, the safety of the people; but the former is true, as was proven head . therefore-- . that power which is obliged, and appointed to command and rule justly and religiously, for the good of the people, and is only set over them on these conditions, and for that end, cannot ty them to subjection without resistance, when the power is abused to the destruction of laws, religion and people; but all power is so obliged and appointed: therefore, whensoever it is so abused, it cannot ty people to subjection, but rather oblige them to rejection of it. . from the obedience required to government, it may be argued thus. . if we may flee from tyrants, then we may resist them; but we may flee from tyrants: therefore we may resist them. the connexion i prove, ( .) if all grounds of justice will warrant the one as well as the other, then if the one be duty, so is the other; but the former is true; for the same justice and equity that warrants declining a tyrant's unjust violence by flight, will warrant resistance when flight will not do it; the same principle of self-defence, that makes flight duty, when resistance is not possible, will also make resistance duty, when flight is not possible; the same principle of charity to wives and children, that makes flight lawful, when by resistance they cannot avoid tyranny, will make resistance duty, when by flight they cannot evite it; the same principle of conscience to keep religion free, that prompts to flight, when resistance will not save it, will also prompt to resist it, when flight is not practicable. ( .) if to flee from a just power, when in justice we are obnoxious to its sword, be to resist the ordinance of god, and so sin: then to flee from an unjust power, must be also a resisting of the abusing of it, and so duty, for the one is resistance as well as the other; but the difference of the power resisted makes the one lawful; the other not. again, if royal power may be resisted by interposing seas and miles, why not also by interposing walls and arms? both is resistance, for against a lawful magistrate that would be resistance. ( .) if a tyrant hath irresistible power to kill and destroy the people, he hath also irresistible power to cite and summon them before him; and if it be unlawful to resist his murders, it must be as unlawful to resist his summons. ( .) for a church or community of christians, persecuted for religion, to flee with wives and children, strong and weak, old and young, to escape tyrannical violence, and leave the land, were more unlawful than to resist; for what is not possible as a natural means of preservation is not a lawful mean; but this were not a possible mean: neither is it warranted in nature's law, or god's word, for a community or society of christians, that have god's right and man's law to the land, and the covenanted privileges thereof, to leave the country and cause of christ, and all in the hands of a tyrant and papist, to set up idolatry upon the ruins of reformation there. a private man may flee, but flight is not warranted of them as of a private single man. . if it be duty to disobey, it is duty to resist tyrants, in defence of religion and liberty; but it is duty to disobey them: therefore--the connection only will be struck at, which is thus strengthened: if subjection be no more pressed in scripture than obedience, then if non-obedience be duty, non-subjection must be so also, and consequently resistance; but subjection is no more pressed in scripture than obedience; for all commands of subjection to the higher powers, as god's ministers, under pain of damnation, do only respect lawful magistrates, and in lawful things, and do include obedience: and non-obedience to the power so qualified is a resisting of the ordinance of god, as well as non-subjection. if then obedience to magistrates be duty, and non-obedience sin, and obedience to tyrants sin, and non-obedience duty; then by parity of reason, subjection to magistrates is duty, and non-subjection is sin, and also subjection to tyrants is sin, and non-subjection duty. . from the resistance allowed in all governments, it may be argued thus; if it be duty to defend our religion, lives and liberties, against an invading army of cut-throat papists, turks or tartars, without or against the magistrates warrant; then it must be duty to defend the same against invading home-bred tyrants, except we would subscribe ourselves home-born slaves: but the former is true; therefore--the minor cannot be doubted, because the magistrates power cannot be privative and destructive to defence of our religion, lives and liberties; nor can it take away nature's birth-right to defend these, or make it fare the worse, than if we had no magistrates at all. now, if we had no magistrates at all, we might defend these against invaders; and whether we have magistrates or not, we are under moral obligations of the law of god to endeavour the defence of these: but this needs not be insisted on. the connexion of the proposition is clear; if princes be more tyrannical in invading religion and liberties themselves, than in suffering others to do it, or hindering them to be opposed: and if their invasion be more tyrannical, hurtful and dangerous, than the invasion of strangers, then if it be duty to resist strangers invading their interests, it is more duty to resist home-bred tyrants invading the same; but the former is true: therefore the latter. resisting in the one case is no more resisting the ordinance of god than in the other. . from the motives of resistance we may draw this argument, which might be branched out into several, but i shall reduce it to this complex one: if when we are in a capacity, we cannot acquit ourselves in the duties that we owe to our covenanted religion, and our covenanted brethren, and posterity, and ourselves, nor absolve exoner ourselves from the sin and judgment of tyrants, who overturn religion, oppress our brethren, impose slavery on ourselves, and entail it upon posterity, by a passive subjection, submission to and not opposing these mischiefs; then resistance is necessary: but the former is true: therefore--. the connexion is clear, for there cannot be a medium; if we cannot discharge these duties by subjection, submission, and not opposing, then we must do them by non-subjection, non-submission, and opposing, since they must be done some way. the assumption is thus confirmed. . the duties we owe to religion, when it is corrupted, declined from, and overturned, are not only to reform our own hearts and ways, and keep ourselves pure from the corruptions established, and to rebuke and witness against the compliers with the same, and so by work, doing and suffering, keep and contend for the word of our testimony; but further, when, by the constitution of the kingdom, religion is become a fundamental law, and consequently the magistrate, overturning it, is violating and everting the main grounds and ends of the government, and turning grassant and ingrained tyrant, especially when it is not only so authorised and confirmed by law, but corroborated by solemn vows and covenants made and sworn unto god by all ranks of people, to maintain and defend this religion with their lives and fortunes,--and resist all contrary errors and corruptions according to their vocation: and the utmost of that power that god puts in their hands all the days of their lives; as also mutually to defend and assist one another, (as in the national covenant.) and sincerely, really, and constantly endeavour--the preservation of the reformed religion in doctrine, worship, discipline and government, the extirpation of popery, prelacy, &c.--and to assist and defend all those that enter into the same bond in the maintaining thereof,--(as in the solemn league;) then to defend and maintain that religion, and themselves professing it; when it is sought to be razed; this must be an interest as necessary to be defended, as that of our bodies which is far inferior, and as necessary a duty, as to defend our nation and civil liberties from perpetual slavery, and as preferable thereunto, as christ's interest is to man's, and as the end of all self-preservation is to the means of it, the preservation of religion being the end of all self-preservation; but this duty cannot be discharged without resistance, in a mere passive subjection and submission: otherwise the same might be discharged in our universal submission to turks coming to destroy our religion. certainly this passive way cannot answer the duty of pleading for truth, isa. lix. . seeking the truth, jer v. . being valiant for it, jer. ix. . making up the hedge, standing in the gap, &c. ezek. xxii. . which yet are necessary incumbent duties according to our capacity; therefore we cannot answer the duties we owe to religion in a mere passive way. . the duty we owe to our covenanted brethren, is to assist and defend them, and relieve them when oppressed, as we are bound by our covenants, and antecedently by the royal law of christ, the foundation of all righteousness among men toward each other, matth. vii. . 'all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.'--we would have them helping us when we are oppressed, so should we do to them when it is in the power of our hands to do it, and not forbear to deliver them for fear the lord require their blood at our hand, prov. xxiv. , . but this cannot be done by mere subjection without resistance. . there is no way to free ourselves of the sin and judgment of tyrants, by mere passive subjection: we find in the scriptures, people have been so involved and punished for the sins of tyrants; as the people of judah for manasseh, kings xxi. . &c. jer. xv. . whose sins if they had not been committed, the judgment for them had been prevented, and if the people had hindered them they had not smarted; but being jointly included with their rulers in the same bond of fidelity to god, and made accountable as joint principals with their kings for that debt, by their mutual as well as several engagements to walk in his ways, they were liable to be punished for their rebellion and apostacy, because they did not hinder it. hence somewhat must be done to free ourselves of their sin, and to escape their judgments: but this can be nothing else but opposition to them by resistance; or else if we make any other opposition, it will make us more a prey to their jury. ii. secondly, this truth is confirmed from the common practice of the people of god, even under persecution. whence i shall draw an argument from examples, which, to condemn, were impious, and, to deny, were most impudent. and, for form's sake, it may run thus: what the people of god, under both testaments, have frequently done, in time of persecution, for defending, vindicating, or recovering their religion and liberties, may and ought to be done again in the like circumstances, when these are in the like hazard; but, under both testaments, the people of god frequently in times of persecution have defended, vindicated, or recovered their religion and liberties by defensive arms, resisting the sovereign powers that sought to destroy them: therefore this may and ought to be done again, when these religious, civil and natural privileges, are in the like hazard to be destroyed by the violent encroachments of the sovereign powers. the proposition cannot be denied, except by them that do profess themselves enemies to the people of god, and condemn their most frequently reiterated practices most solemnly and signally owned of god, to the confusion of their enemies, to the convicton of the world that the cause for which they contended was of god, and to the encouragement of all the patrons of such a cause, to hope, that when it is at the lowest it shall have a revival and glorious issue. it is true, sometimes they did not resist, when either they were not in a capacity, or did not see a call to such an action, but were not extraordinarily spirited of the lord for passive testimonies under a suffering dispensation: but it is as true, that many times they did resist, when the lord capacitated, called, and spirited them for active testimonies. and therefore, if their suffering under these circumstances may be imitated, by a people so stated; then also their actions under these other circumstances may be imitated, by a people in the like case. and by an impartial scrutiny it will be found, that the examples of their endeavoured resistance will be little inferior, if not superior in number or importance, to the examples of their submissive sufferings in all ages; which will appear in the probation of the assumption, by adduction of many instances, which i shall only cursorily glean out of that plentiful harvest that histories afford. . i need only to glance at that known and famous history of the maccabees, of undoubted verity, though not of cannonical authority. in which according to scripture predictions, we have a notable account of heroic enterprises, atchievements, and exploits performed by them that knew their god, and tendered his glory, and their religion and country's liberties, above the common catechrestic notions of uncontroulable irresistible royalty, and absolute implicit loyalty, that have abused the world in all ages. we have there an account of the noble and successful resistance of a party of a few godly and zealous patriots, without the concurrence of civil authority, or countenance of the ephori or nobles of the kingdom, against a king universally acknowledged and subjected unto, that came in peaceably, and obtained the kingdom by flatteries, with whom the greatest part and those of the greatest note took part, and did wickedly against the covenant and nation's interest, and were corrupted by flatteries: yet a few priests, with the concurrence of some common countrymen, did go to arms against him and them; and the lord did wonderfully assist them for a considerable time; as was foretold by daniel xi. this fell out under the persecution of antiochus epiphanes, and was happily begun by matthias a godly priest, and his five sons, who, being commanded under severe certifications to worship according to the then law, and the king's wicked lust, did valiantly resist that abomination, and went to defensive arms: which, while living, he patronized, and, when a dying, did encourage his sons to it by a notable oration, shewing what case his country was in, and what a duty and dignity it was to redeem and deliver it. this was vigorously prosecuted by judas maccabeus, expressly for the quarrel of religion and liberty, against that mighty tyrant and all his emissaries. . to come to the history of the gospel dispensation: it is true in that time of the primitive persecutions under heathen emperors, this privilege of self-defence was not so much improved or contended for by christians, who studied more to play the martyrs, than to play the men, because in these circumstances the lord was pleased to spirit for and call them unto, and accept of their hands passive testimonies; while they were incorporate under a civil relation with the heathens, in subjection to governors who did not by open tyranny, overturn their civil liberties, only did endeavour to eradicate religion, which, at that time, had never become their right by law; while they were scattered and out of capacity, and never could come to a separate formed community by joint concurrence and correspondence, to undertake a declared resistance; while religion was only a propagating through the nations, and the lord providentially did preclude the least appearance that might be of propagating it by any formed force, being the gospel of peace, designed to save, and not to destroy: yet even then, instances are not wanting of christians resisting their enemies, and of rescuing their ministers, &c. as they are found on record. . how some inhabiting mareota, with force rescued dionysius, of alexandria, out of the hands of such as were carrying him away, about the year . . how about the year , the arminians waged war against maximus, who was come against them with an army because of their religion. . how about the year , the citizens of athanasius their minister, against gregorius the intruded curate and syrianus the emperor's captain, who came with great force to put him in. . how about the year , the people of constantinople did in like manner stand to the defence of paulus, against constantius the emperor, and killed his captain hermogenes; and afterwards, in great multitudes, they opposed the intrusion of the heretic macedonius. . how, when a wicked edict was sent forth to pull down the churches of such as were for the clause of one substance, the christians that maintained that testimony resisted the bands of soldiers, that were procured at the emperor's command by macedonius, to force the mantinians to embrace the arian heresy; but the christians at mantinium, kindled with an earnest zeal towards christian religion, went against the soldiers with chearful minds and valiant courage, and made a great slaughter of them. . how, about the year , the people of cesarea did defend basil their minister. . how, for fear of the people, the lieutenant of the emperor valens durst not execute those priests who had come to supplicate the emperor, and were commanded to be killed by him. . how the inhabitant's of mount nitria espoused cyril's quarrel, and assaulted the lieutenant, and forced his guards to flee. . how, about the year , when the emperor had banished chrysostom, the people flocked together, so that the emperor was necessitated to call him back again from his exile. . how the people resisted also the transportation of ambrose, by the command of valentinian the emperor; and chused rather to lose their lives, than to suffer their pastor to be taken away by the soldiers. . how the christians, oppressed by baratanes king of persia, did flee to the romans to seek their help. and theodosius, the emperor, is much praised for the war which he commenced against chosroes king of persia, upon this inducement, that the king sought to ruin and extirpate those christians in his dominions, that would not renounce the gospel. . but when religion was once embraced in embodied corporations, and established by law, and became a people's common interest and liberty, in a capacity to defend it with their lives and other liberties, and when it was propagated through the nations; then the lord did call for other more active testimonies, in the preservation and defence of it: of which we have many instances in histories. about the year , the bohemian christians resisted drahomica their queen, who thought to have destroyed them, and reintroduced paganism. about the year , they maintained a long defensive war against the government, and the pope's legates, under the management of their brave captain zizca; which was further prosecuted after him by the remaining thaborites. and again in this century, in the year , they maintained a defensive war against the emperor ferdinand ii. electing and erecting a new king in opposition to him, frederick palatine of the rhine, in which cause many received a crown of martyrdom: and this was also espoused by king james vi, who sent to aid his son in law against the emperor. . it we look to the histories of the waldenses, these constant opposers of antichrist, we will find many instances of their resistance. about the year , very early, while waldo (from whom they had their name) was alive, they began to defend themselves by arms, after the bloody edict of alphonsus king of arragon; an edict so like to many of ours emitted this day, as it would seem our enemies have taken the copy of it: so it were very seemly for the people grieved with such edicts to imitate the copy of the waldenses their practice, in opposition to them. in the year , they resist by arms albert de capitaneis, sent by pope innocent viii. in pragola and frassaniere, and throughout piedmont; where, for the most part, the offspring of the old waldenses had their residence, where, very evidently, through many successions of ages, they shewed themselves to be the true successors of their worthy progenitors, valiant for the truth. that's a famous instance of their resistance, in opposing vigorously the lord of trinity, in that same piedmont, at which time they so solemnly asked their ministers, whether it were not lawful to defend themselves against his violence? who answered affirmatively. and accordingly they did it with wonderful success at that time, and many times thereafter. especially it is notour in the memory of this present age, how in the year , a vigorous defensive war was prosecuted against the duke of savoy, by their captains ginavel, jahier, &c. which was espoused by many protestant princes. and no further gone than the very last year, it is known how they resisted the arms of that tyger, and the french that helped him, and that their simplicity in trusting popish promises was their ruin. . if we look over the histories of the albigenses, we find many instances of their defensive resisting their oppressing superiors. about the year , they defended themselves at beziers and carcasson, against the pope's legate and his crossed soldiers, under the conduct first of the earl of beziers, and then of the earl of foix, and earl of remand of thoulouse, and were helped by the english, who then possessed guienne bordering upon thoulouse; which resistance continued several years. afterwards in the year , they maintained a resistance against the king of france. . in spain, we find the people of arragon contesting with alphonsus iii. and associating themselves together against him. and they tell pedro iii. their king, that if he would not contain himself within the limits of the laws, they would pursue him by arms, about the year . as also other spaniards, who rose in arms several times against pedro the first king of castile. . it was this which brought the cantons of helvetia into this state of freedom, wherein they have continued many years: for, about the year , they levied war against their oppressing nobles. and in the year , they joined in covenant to defend themselves against the house of austria; and in the year , they renewed it at brunna, in which, at length, the rest of the cantons joined, and formed themselves into a commonwealth. . if we take a glance of the germans, we will find at the very commencement of the reformation, as soon as they got the name of protestants, they resisted the emperor charles v. the duke of saxon, the land grave of hesse, and the city of magedburgh, with advice of lawyers, concluded. 'that the laws of the empire permitted resistance of the emperor in some cases, that the times were then so dangerous, that the very force of conscience did leave them to arms, and to make a league to defend themselves though cesar or any in his name should make war against them--for since he attempteth to root out religion, and subvert our liberties, he giveth us cause enough to resist him with a good conscience: the matter standing as it doth, we may (say they) resist'--as may be shewed both by sacred and profane histories.--and so they undertook and stated the war upon the account of religion and liberty. . if we but cast an eye over to the hollanders, we will find how much they stand obliged to this practice of defensive arms; having thereby recovered both religion and liberty, and established themselves into a flourishing state. we find even in the time of d. de alva's persecution, they began to defend haerlem and valenciennes in hainault, and went on till under the conduct of william of nassau prince of orange, they declared the king of spain to have fallen from the government of those countries; and so effectually shook off the yoke of spanish tyranny. . if we go to the french hugonets, we will find many instances among them, and many brave heroes raised up, to maintain the principle, and prosecute the practice thereof, of older and later date. the history of the civil wars of france is stored with their trophies; and the memories of conde and coligni will ever be fragrant. there were many resistances there, both before and since the parisian massacre. it is sad, that the present protestants there are so far degenerate from the spirit of their ancestors. . the many practices of the hungarians, resisting the encroachments of the house of austria, prove the same. and when matthias denied the free exercise of religion unto the protestants of austria, they took up arms in their own defence, and sent a protestation unto the states of hungary, requiring their assistance, conform to their league. and now this present war there founded upon this plea. . the polonians have oftentimes levied war against their kings: and we are furnished by clark in his martyrol. with a late instance of their resistance against the sovereign powers, at lesna in poland, in the year . . the danes and swedes have not been wanting, for their parts, in taking course with their christierns, kings of that name, whom they resisted and punished. and generally, wherever the reformation was received, we find this principle espoused, and the practice of it prosecuted. nay, there hath been no nation in the world, but it will be found, they have either resisted or killed tyrants. . the most deserving and celebrated monarchs in the world have espoused the quarrel of oppressed subjects. not only such as tamerlane, whose observable saying is noted, when he advanced against bajazet, i go (says he) to chastise his tyranny and to deliver the afflicted people. and philip and lewis of france, who assisted the barons of england against king john. and charles the great, who upon this ground undertook a war against the lombards in italy. but even constantine the great, hath it recorded for his honour, that he employed his power and force against licinius, upon no other motive but because he banished, tortured, and destroyed those christians in his dominions, that would not abandon their religion. and queen elisabeth is commended for assisting the dutch to maintain their religion by force, when they could not enjoy it by favour. and king james the vi. gave public aid to the protestants in germany and bohemia against the emperor. against whom also gustavus adolphus marched, that he might deliver the oppressed cities from the bondage that ferdinand had brought them into. yea, king charles i. this man's father, pretended at least to help the protestants in france at ree and rochel: and though he himself was avowedly resisted by the parliaments of both kingdoms, yet he was forced to declare, in his acts of oblivion and pacification, the scots late taking up arms against him, in defence of their religion, laws and privileges, to be no treason nor rebellion.--see apol. relat. sect. . pag. . and though the late charles ii. condemned all the risings of the people of scotland for defence of religion and liberty, and their lives and privileges which his own tyranny forced them into; yet he justified the present revolt of heathens and mahometan subjects from the young king of bantam in java major in the east indies, who, when he got the government in his hands by his father's resignation, killed his subjects, and caused them to be killed without any cause, which was the reason of their revolt from him, and defending the father against the son: this defensive war of these subjects was justified by the said charles, in his sending ammunition, &c. for relief. these, and many more instances that might be adduced, are sufficient evidences of the righteousness and reason of such resistances, when the greatest of princes have undertaken the patrociny of them. iii. from scripture proofs. i shall but briefly gather some of the many that might be pressed, which being put together, to me seem impregnable. i shall reduce them to these heads, . i shall adduce some practices of the lord's people, frequently reiterated, never condemned, always approven, confirming this point. . some severe reprehensions for their omission of this duty, in the season thereof. . some promises both of spiriting for the duty, and of countenancing it, when undertaken. . some precepts commanding such atchievements. . some prayers supplicating for them. all which put together will make a strong argument. first, for practices of this kind, there is nothing more common in scripture history. . i shall begin at the first war that is recorded in the world: wherein some lots fell to the godly at first, but afterwards by the virtue and valour of their brethren they were vindicated, and the victory recovered with honour. lot, and his family living in sodom, was taken prisoner, by chedarlaomer and his confederates, gen. xiv. . but abraham hearing of it, armed his trained his servants, and pursued them to dan, and rescued him, ver. ,-- . thereby justifying that rebellion of the cities of the plain, by taking part and vindicating the rebels. hence, he that may rescue subjects from the violence of any tyrannizing domination by arms, may also rise with these subjects to oppose that violence; but here is an example of that in abraham:--therefore, . after the lord's people were possessed of canaan, and forgetting the lord, did enter into affinity with these interdicted nations, some of them were left to prove israel, that the generations of the children of israel might know to teach them war, judg. iii. , . and when they did evil in the sight of the lord, he sold them into the hand of cushan rishathaim, king of mesopotamia, whom they served and were subject to eight years, vers. . but when they cried unto the lord, their rebellion, shaking off that yoke, was successful under the conduct of othniel, vers. . and after a relapse unto the like defection, they became subject to eglon king of moab, whom they served eighteen years, vers. . but attempting the same remedy by arms, under the conduct of ehud, they recovered their liberty. and after his death, falling into that sin again, which procured the like misery, they became subject to jabin king of canaan, who twenty years mightily oppressed them, judg. iv. - . but by the lord's commandment, under the conduct of deborah and barak, they rebelled and prevailed. whence, if the lord's people serving a sovereign domineering power, may shake off the yoke of their subjection: then it is duty to defend themselves and resist them, for there is no other way of shaking it off; but these examples prove the former: therefore,--obj. if any cavil that these were not their own kings, to whom they owed allegiance, but only invading conquerors, whom they might resist. i answer, ( .) yet they were the sovereign powers for the time; and therefore, if royalists and loyalists grounds hold good, they ought upon no pretence whatsoever to have been resisted: and though possibly they might not be by compact their own kings, yet by conquest they were, as much as that would make them, and by their own consent, when they paid them king's due, viz. tribute, ( .) no more are they our kings, who either intrude themselves into an arbitrary domination over us, (without any terms of a compact upon a pretence of hereditary succession) or being our covenanted kings overturn all the conditions of their compact, and degenerate into tyrants: to such we owe no allegiance, more than israel did to these dominators. ( .) i retort that old colewort twice boiled, who should be judge, whether they were their own lawful kings or not? for they acted as kings, and thought themselves their absolute lords, and gave themselves out to be such; and yet we find an approved rebellion against them. mr. gee, in his magistrate's original, chap. . sect. . pag. . improves these instances to the same purpose; and adds, 'neither (as far as my observation goes) can any immediate or extraordinary command or word for what they so did be pretended to, or pleaded from the text, for many of them, or for any, save barak or gideon.' . yet gideon's example, though he had an extraordinary call, cannot be pretended as unimitable on the matter; for that was ordinary, though the call and manner was extraordinary. he, with the concurrence of a very few men, did break the yoke of subjection to midian, judg. vi. and vii. chap. and having called his brethren out of all mount ephraim, into a conjunction with him in the pursuit of his victory; when he demanded supply of the princes of succoth, and of the men of penuel, and they denied it, he served them as enemies. whence, if a small party may with god's approbation deliver themselves, and the whole of their community, from the bondage of their oppressing dominators whom they had served several years, and may punish their princes that do not come out to their help, in a concurrence with them, and encouragement of them in that attempt; then must it be duty to defend themselves against their oppressors that rule over them, and all ought to concur in it; or else there would not be justice in punishing them that were defective in this work; but we see the former from this example: therefore,--obj. if it be said, gideon, and the rest of the extraordinary raised judges, were magistrates, therefore they might defend and deliver their country, which a private people that are only subjects may not do. i answer. ( .) they were subject to these tyrants that oppressed them who were then the sovereign powers of that time, and yet they shook off their yoke by defensive arms. ( .) they were not then magistrates when they first appeared for their country's defence and deliverance, neither in that did they act as such, but only as captains of rebels, in the esteem of them that had power over them. it is clear, gideon was not ruler, till that authority was conferred upon him after the deliverance. see judg. viii. , &c. yet he did all this before. when his bastard abimelech usurped the government, and was made king by the men of shechem, at length god sending an evil spirit between him and his accomplices that set him up, not only was he resisted by the treacherous schechemites, (which was their brand and bane in the righteous judgment of god), for their aiding him at first and killing his brethren, judg. ix. , , &c. but also he was opposed by others of the men of israel, as at thebez, where he was slain by a woman, vers. . at the end. whence, if an usurping tyrant, acknowledged as king by the generality, may be disowned by the godly, and threatened with god's vengeance to consume both him and his accomplices that comply with him; and if he may be opposed and resisted, not only by those that set him up, but also by others that were in subjection to him, and at length be killed by them, without resentment of the rest of the nation; then must it be duty for a people, who had no hand in the erection of such a dominator, to defend themselves against his force; but the former is true by this example: therefore----. . when israel fell under the tyranny of ammon, oppressing them eighteen years, they did, by resisting these supreme powers, shake off their yoke, under the conduct of jephthah. and being challenged sharply by the men of ephraim, who it seems claimed the prerogative of making war, and therefore came to revenge and reduce jephthah and his company to order, casting herein belike a copy to our regular loyalists, who are very tenacious of this plea of the ephraimites, that, at least, without the nobles of the kingdom, no war is to be made; yet we find jephthah did not much regard it, but stoutly defended himself, and slew of them , men, by their shibboleth, judg. xii. if people then, when questioned for defending themselves, by them that claim a superiority over them, and should deliver them, may defend themselves both without them and against them; then it is a people's duty and privilege: but the former is true by this example. . they were then made subject to the philistines years, whom the men of judah acknowledged for their rulers: yet samson, that rackle-handed saint, never ceased from pelting them upon all occasions: and when challenged for it by the men of judah, saying, 'knowest thou not that the philistines are rulers over us? what is that, that thou hast done?' samson objects nothing against their being rulers; but notwithstanding prosecutes his purpose of vindicating himself in defence of his country, as they did unto me, says he, so have i done unto them, judg. xv. . hence, if saints may avenge themselves upon them whom the country calls rulers, and when enabled by god, may do to them as they did to them; then must it be a duty for them to defend themselves against them; but the antecedent is true by this example. . when saul, in the pursuit of the philistines, had charged the people with a foolish oath (like unto many of the ensnaring oaths that monarchs use to impose upon people) not to eat any food until the evening, jonathan his son tasted but a little honey, and lo he must die; which saul confirmed with another peremptory oath, god do so to him, and more also, if he should not die. whereupon the people, as resolute on the other hand to save him, resisted the rage of that ruler, and swore as peremptorily, that not one hair of his head should fall to the ground. so the people rescued jonathan that he died not, sam. xiv. , . hence, if people may covenant by oath to resist the commands, and rescue a man from a tyrant's cruelty, then it is duty to defend themselves against him: the antecedent is true here. . afterwards, when the manner of the king, presaged by samuel, was verified in saul's degeneration into many abuses of government, this privilege of resistance was not wholly mancipated, but maintained by david's defensive appearance with his little army, he took goliah's sword, not for ornament, or only to fright saul, but to defend himself with it, and was captain first to four hundred men, sam. xxii. . had a mind to keep out keilah against him with six hundred men, sam. xxiii. . and afterwards a great host came to him to ziklag, while he kept himself close because of saul the son of kish, chron. xii. . throughout, where they left saul, and came and helped david against him. this is proved at length by lex rex. quest. . p. . . the city abel, whether sheba the traitor had fled, did well to resist joab the king's general, coming to destroy a whole city for a traitor's sake, and not offering peace to it (according to the law, deut. xx. .) and defended themselves by gates and walls, notwithstanding he had a commission from the king, sam. xx. and after the capitulating, they are never challenged for rebellion. . the ten tribes revolted from the house of david, when rehoboam claimed an absolute power, and would not acquiesce to the people's just conditions, kings xii. chron. x. which is before justified, head . hence, if it be lawful for a part of the people to shake off the king, refuse subjection to him, and set up a new one, when he but resolves to play the tyrant; then it must be duty to resist his violence, when he is tyrannizing; but the antecedent is clear from this example. this is vindicated at more length by jus pop. ch. . p. . . the example of elisha the prophet is considerable, kings vi. . "elisha sat in his house, (and the elders sat with him) and the king sent a man before him; but ere the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, see how this son of a murderer hath sent to take away mine head; look when the messenger cometh, shut the door, and hold him fast at the door: is not the sound of his master's feet behind him?" here was violent resistance resolved both against the man and the master, though the king of the land for the time. and this calling him the son of a murderer, and resisting him, is no more extraordinary (though it was an extraordinary man's act) than it is for a plaintiff to libel a true crime against a wicked person, and for an oppressed man to close the door upon a murderer, lex rex, quest. . p. . hence, if a king or his messenger coming to use unjust violence, against an innocent subject, be no more to be regarded than a murderer's emissary, but may be resisted by that innocent subject; then must a community of such innocent subjects defend themselves against a tyrant or his emissaries, coming against them on such a wicked errand; the antecedent is here clear. . the city libnah revolted from under jehoram's tyranny, chron. xxi. . p. martyr on the place saith, they revolted, because he endeavoured to compel them to idolatry. this is justified above, head . hence, if it be lawful for a part of the people to revolt from a tyrannical prince, making defection from the true religion; then it is duty to defend themselves against his force: the antecedent is here plain. . when athaliah usurped the monarchy, jehoiada the priest strengthened himself, and made a covenant with the captains, &c. to put her down, and set up joash, kings xi. chron. xxiii. and when she came and cried, treason, treason, they regarded it not, but commanded to kill her and all that help her. whence, if those that are not kings may lawfully kill an usurpress, and all her helpers, then may a people resist them; but jehoiada, though no magistrate, did it. . the repressing and punishing amaziah the son of joash is an undeniable instance, vindicated by mr. knox. see above, per. . p. . after the time that he turned away from the following the lord, the people made a conspiracy against him in jerusalem, and he fled to lachish, but they sent and slew him there, kings xiv. . chron. xxv. . hence, a fortiori, if people may conspire and concur in executing judgment upon their king turning idolater and tyrant, then much more must they defend themselves against his violence. . the same power, of people's resisting princes, was exemplified in uzziah or azariah, when he would needs be supreme in things sacred as well as civil, kings xv. chron. xxvi. fourscore priests, that were valiant men, withstood him, and thrust him out of the temple, they troubled him, saith vatablus, they expelled him, saith ar. mont. vid. pool's synopsis. in loc. see this vindicated by mr. knox. per. . pag. , . above. hence, if private subjects may, by force, resist and hinder the king from transgressing the law, then must they resist him when forcing them to transgress the law of god. . after the return from the babylonish captivity, when the jews were setting about the work of building the temple, which they would do by themselves, and not admit of any association with malignants (upon their sinister misinformation, and sycophantic accusation, that they were building the rebellious and bad city, and would refuse to pay the king toll, tribute, and custom) they were straitly discharged by artaxerxes to proceed in their work, and the inhibition was execute by force and power, ezra iv. but by the encouragement of the prophets haggai and zechariah, countermanding the king's decree, they would not be hindered, the eye of their god being upon them, though tatnai the governor of those parts, shetharboznai, and their companions, would have boasted them from it, with the usual arguments of malignants, who hath commanded you to do so and so? ezra v. .-- . and yet this was before the decree of darius was obtained in their favours, ezra vi. hence, if people may prosecute a duty without and against a king's command, and before an allowance by law can be obtained; then may a people resist their commands and force used to execute them: but here the antecedent is manifest. . when nehemiah came to jerusalem, and invited the jews to build up the walls of the city, they strengthened their hands for that good work against very much opposition: and when challenged by sanballat the horonite, tobiah the servant, the ammonite, and gesham the arabian. great king's-men all of them, who despised and boasted them, what is this that ye do? will ye rebel against the king? say they. he would not plead authority, though, in the general, he had the king's warrant for it; yet he would not give them any other satisfaction, than to intimate, whether they had that or not, having the call of god to the work, they would go on in the duty, and god would prosper them against their opposition, neh. ii. , . and accordingly, notwithstanding of all scoffs, and plots, and conspiracies, to hinder the building, yet they went on, and were encouraged to remember the lord, and fight for their brethren, &c. and to build with weapons in their hands, neh. iv. and brought it to an end, notwithstanding of all their practices to fright them from it, chap, vi. hence, if neither challenges of rebellion, nor practices of malignant enemies who pretend authority, nor any discouragements whatsoever, should deter people from a duty which they have a call and capacity from god to prosecute, and if they may promove it against all opposition by defensive arms; then, when a people are oppressed and treated as rebels, for a necessary duty, they may and must defend themselves, and maintain their duty, notwithstanding of all pretences of authority against them. . i shall add one instance more, which is vindicated by jus populi, from the history of esther. because mordecai refused to do homage to a hangman, (haman i should say) a cruel edict was procured from ahasuerus to destroy all the jews, written and sealed with the king's ring, according to the laws of the medes and persians, becoming a law irrevocable and irreversible, esther iii. , . yet the lord's providence, always propitious to his people, brought it about so, that haman being hanged, and mordecai advanced, the jews were called and capacitated, as well as necessitated, to resist that armed authority that decreed to massacre them, and that by the king's own allowance, esther ix. when his former decree drew near to be put in execution, in the day that the enemies of the jews hoped to have power over them, it was turned to the contrary, that no man could withstand them. here they had the allowance of authority to resist authority: and this was not a gift of a new right by that grant, which they had not before; only it was corroborative of the irradical right to defend themselves, which is not the donative of princes, and which they had power to exercise and use without this, though may be not the same capacity; for the king's warrant could not make it lawful in point of conscience; if it had not been so before. hence, if people may have the allowance of well advised authority, to resist the decree and force of unlawful authority; then may a people maintain right authority, in defending themselves against the injuries of pretended authority; but by this instance we see, the jews had ahasuerus's allowance to resist the decree and force of his own ill advised authority, though irreversible. and hence, we see, that distinction, in this point, is not groundless, between resisting the authority of supreme powers, and the abuses of the same. dly, we have in the scripture both tacit and express reproofs, for lying by from this duty in the season thereof, . in jacob's swan song or prophetical testament, wherein he foretels what should be the fate and future condition of each of the tribes, and what should be remarked in their carriage influencing their after lot in their generations, for which they should be commended or discommended, approved or reproved; coming to issachar, he prophetically exprobates his future ass like stupidity, that indulging himself in his lazy ease, and lukewarm security, he should be mancipate himself and his interests into a servile subjection unto his oppressors impositions, even when he should be in a capacity to shake them off, and free himself, by resistance, gen. xlix. , . "issachar is a strong ass couching down between two burdens." this is set down by the holy ghost, as the brand and bane, not of the person of issachar, jacob's son, but of the tribe, to be inured upon them, when they should be in such a condition by their own silliness: hence i argue, if the holy ghost exprobrate a people for their stupid subjection to prevailing tyranny, when they do not improve their ability, capacity, and right to maintain and defend their liberties and privileges, from all unjust invasion; but the former is true here: therefore also the later. . in deborah's song after their victorious resistance, the people are severely upbraided for not concurring in that expedition, jud. v. , , . and meroz is particularly cursed for not coming to the help of the lord, to the help of the lord against the mighty. this is recorded as a resting reproof, against all that will with draw their helping hand from the lord's people, when necessitate to appear in defensive arms for the preservation of their lives and liberties. on the other hand, zebulon and naphthali are commended for jeoparding their lives in the high places of the fields, and are approved in that practice of fighting against the king of canaan, that then ruled over them, ver. , . hence, if people be reproved and cursed for staying at home to look to their own interests, when others jeopard their lives for their countries defence and freedom from tyranny and oppression; then this implies it is a duty to concur in so venturing; but here, reuben, dan, asher, and meroz, are reproved and cursed for staying at home, when zebulon and naphthali jeoparded their lives, &c. ergo. dly, we have in the scriptures many promises of the lord's approving and countenancing the duty of defensive arms, even against their oppressing rulers. . in that forecited testament of the patriarch jacob, in that part of it which concerns god, he prophesies that tribe shall have a lot in the world answering his name, and be engaged in many conflicts with oppressing dominators, who at first should prevail over him, but at length god should so bless his endeavours, to free himself from their oppressions, that he should overcome. there is an excellent elegancy in the original, answering to the etymology of the name of gad, which signifies a troop, reading thus in the hebrew, gad, a troop shall overtroop him, but he shall overtroop them at the last, gen. xlix. . and moses homologating the same testimony, in his blessing the tribes before his death, shows, that he should make a very forcible and successful resistance, and should execute the justice of the lord over his oppressors, deut. xxxiii. , , wherein is implied a promise of resistance to be made against oppressing conquerors, who should acquire the supreme rule over them for a time: and the success of that resistance for overcoming, necessarily supposes resistance. hence, where there is a promise of success at last to a people's conflicts against prevailing tyranny, there is implied an approbation of the duty, and also a promise of its performance wrapped up in that promise; but here is a promise, &c. ergo-- . in that threatning against tyrants, shewing how they shall be thrust away and burnt up with fire, there is couched a promise, and also an implied precept of resisting them, sam. xxiii. , "the sons of belial shall be all of them as thorns thrust away--with hands fenced with iron," &c. which clearly implies resistance, and more than that, rejection and repression. hence, if it be threatned as a curse against rulers of belial, and promised as a blessing, that they shall be so roughly handled; then this implies a duty to resist them, who cannot be otherways taken; but here this is threatned, &c. . when the lord shall have mercy on jacob, and chuse israel, it is promised, isa. xiv. , . "that they shall take them captives, whose captives they were. and they shall rule over their oppressors." this necessarily implies and infers a promise of resistance against these oppressing rulers, in the time of their domineering, as well as revenge after their yoke should be broken; and something of men's actions, as well as god's judgment in breaking that yoke; for they could not take them captives, nor rule over them, except first they had resisted them whose captives they were: there is resisting of the supreme power, subjection whereunto was the bondage wherein they were made to serve. hence, if it be promised, that a captivated and subjugated people shall break the yoke, and free themselves of the bondage of them that had them in subjection; then it is promised in that case, they must resist the supreme powers; for such were they whose captives they were: the antecedent is here expressed. . there are promises that the lord's people, when those that rule over them are incensed against the holy covenant, and when many of their brethren that should concur with them shall be frighted from their duty by fear, or corrupted with flattery, shall be made strong to exploits, though in such enterprizes they may want success for some time, "and fall by the sword and flame, and by captivity, and spoil many days," dan. xi. ,-- . which is very near parallel to the case of the covenanted people of scotland, their appearing in defensive exploits against their covenant-breaking rulers these many years bygone. this was very eminently fulfilled in the history of the maccabees, before rehearsed. hence, if it be promised, that a people shall be strong to do exploits, in resisting the arms of their rulers, opposing their covenant, and overturning their religion and liberties; then it must be approven that such resistance is lawful, even though it want success; but this is here promised. to the same purpose it is promised, that after the lord's people have been long kept as prisoners under the bondage of oppressing rulers, they shall by a vigorous resistance, be saved from their tyranny, zech. ix. ,-- . "when the lord shall bend judah for him, and raise up zion's sons against the sons of greece."--so it was in their resistances and victories against the successors of alexander, who had the rule over them for a time. and so it may be again, when the lord shall so bend his people for him. hence, if the lord promises to fit and spirit his people for action against their oppressing rulers, and to crown their atchievements, when so fitted and spirited, with glorious success; then it is their duty, and also their honour to resist them; but here that is plainly promised. . there are promises of the lord's making use of his people, and strengthening them to break in pieces the power of his and their enemies, and his defending, and maintaining them against all their power and projects, when they think most to prevail over them. as is promised in the threatned catastrophe of the babylonian usurpation, jer. li. ,-- .--"thou art (says he to israel, of whom he speaks as the rod of his inheritance in the preceding verse) my battle ax and weapons of war, and with thee will i break in pieces," &c. whensoever this hath been, or shall be accompshlied, (as it may relate to the vengeance to be execute upon the new testament babylon) it clearly implies their breaking in pieces powers that were supreme over them. hence, if the lord will make use of his people's vindictive arms against babylon ruling over them, then he will justify their defensive arms against babylon oppressing them. here it is promised, &c. so micah iv. . to the end. many nations shall be gathered to defile and look upon zion, and then the lord shall give an allowance and commission to his people to arise and thresh, &c. what time the accomplishment of this is referred to, is not my concern to enquire: it seems to look to the new testament times, wherein the lord's people shall be first in great straits, and then enlarged; but to restrict it to the spiritual conquest over the nations by the ministry of the word, (though i will not deny but that may be included) seems too great a straitning of the scope, and not so apposite to the expressions, which certainly seem to import some forcible action of men, and more than the peaceable propagation of the gospel. it is usually referred to the latter days of that dispensation, when both the jewish and gentile zion shall be totally and finally delivered from babylon, or antichristian tyranny; before, or about which period, the enemies of christ and of his people shall attempt their utmost power to destroy the church, groaning under their bondage; but when they are all well mustered in a general rendezvous, the lord's people shall have a gallant game at the chace. but whensoever the time be of fulfilling the promise, it ensures to the people of god the success of their defensive arms against them that pretended a domination over them. and it looks to a time, when they should have no rulers of their own, but them under whose subjection they had been long groaning, and now brought to a very low pass; yet here they should not only resist, but thresh them. hence, if in the latter days the people of god are to be honoured, and acted forth with such a spirit and capacity to thresh and beat down these powers under which they have been long groaning; then, when the lord puts them in such capacity to attempt it, they should be ambitious of such an honour; but here it is promised, &c. the same may be inferred from the prophet's vision, zech. i. , . he sees four carpenters resisting the four horns; the horns scattered judah, so that no man did lift up his head; but the carpenters came to fray them, to cast out the horns of the gentiles, which lifted up their horn over the land of judah. these horns had the supreme power over judah for a time, while they were in no capacity to resist them; but as soon as the lord furnishes them with capacity and instruments impowered to resist them, they do it effectually. the carpenters are certainly the lord's people themselves; for here they are opposite to the gentiles, which all were except the lord's people. hence, if the lord promises, when reconciled to his people, to furnish them with instruments to fray and scatter the power of tyrants, who have long borne down their head; then when they are so furnished, they may resist them: but the lord here promises that, &c. this is more plainly promised also, zech. x. . &c. "then they shall be as mighty men which shall tread down their enemies,--and the pride of assyria shall be brought down"--hence, if the lord, when he shall have mercy on his people, will bless their resistance so, as to bring down the pride and sceptre of them that had the power over them; then, in hope of such a blessing, they may attempt such a duty, when the call is clear. fourthly, we have also precepts, from whence we may consequentially conclude the approven duty of defensive arms against oppressing rulers. . the children of israel are commanded to vex the midianites, and smite them, for saith the lord, they vex you with their wiles, numb. xxv. , . and to avenge themselves, numb. xxx. . which did not only oblige the people, when they had moses for their magistrate to lead them forth; but in the days of gideon, when they were under their rule whom they were to avenge themselves upon. hence, if people must vex their enemies, and avenge themselves of them, by war offensive, when ensnared by their craftiness; much more may they resist them by a war defensive, when invaded by their cruelty. . there is a command to punish every city or party making apostacy unto idolatry, deut. xiii. , . upon this moral ground was israel's war against benjamin, judg. xx. and their bringing amaziah unto condign punishment; which is vindicated by mr. knox, see above per. . pag. , . hence, if people are to bring to condign punishment idolatrous apostates seeking to entice them; then much more ought they to resist such tyrants seeking to enforce them to such apostacy. . there is a precept, not only to defend, but also to rescue and deliver our brethren when in hazard, prov. xxiv. , . we must not forbear to deliver them, when drawn to death: which will at least infer the duty of assisting them when forced to defend themselves; for, if it be a duty to rescue them from any prevailing power that would take their lives unjustly, much more is it duty to defend them and ourselves both against their murdering violence; but it is duty to rescue them, &c. . all that would learn to do well, are commanded, isa. i. . to relieve the oppressed; which is not spoken to magistrates only, many of whom were the oppressors, the princes were rebellious, and companions of thieves, ver. , so also, isa. lviii. . it is required of a people that would be accepted of god in their humiliations; to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke. hence, if it be duty to relieve the oppressed by breaking the yoke of them that oppress them; then it is duty to defend them and ourselves, both against them that would oppress us more; but the former is here commanded: therefore, &c. . there is a command for a spoiled oppressed people, when the lord is reconciled to them, and sympathizes with them, to deliver themselves from their rulers servitude, zech. ii. . 'deliver thyself o zion, which dwellest with the daughter of babylon.' which comprehends all the ordinary active means of people's delivering themselves, from oppressing powers that rule over them: and consequently defensive resistance; for it cannot only be restricted to flight included (ver. .) the promise annexed (ver. .) imports more, when they that spoiled them shall be a spoil to their servants: whereby it insinuated, they were so to deliver themselves, as not only to free themselves from their servitude, but to bring their masters under subjection. hence, if the lord's people, being subject to tyrants ruling over them for the time, may deliver themselves from their oppressing masters, then may they resist them, and defend themselves: the antecedent is express here in the command. . there is a command given by christ to his disciples, to provide themselves with defensive weapons, necessary for their defence against them that would pursue after their lives; as well as with other things necessary for their sustenance, luke xxii. .--'now he that hath a purse let him take it, and likewise his scrip, and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.' before, when he had sent them out upon an extraordinary commission, as it were to serve their apprenticeship in the work of the gospel, he did not allow them such solicitous care to provide themselves, because he would give them a proof of his sufficiency to sustain and protect them, without the ordinary means of their own diligence. but now when he was about to withdraw his bodily presence from them, and would warn them of the discouragements they were to expect in the prosecutions of their more continued work, which they had a commission for not to be retracted, he would not have them to expect provision and protection by a course of miracles, but to provide themselves with means for their sustenance, and also for their defence against the violence of men: which chiefly was to be expected from their rulers, who would persecute them under the notion of transgressors of the laws of their kingdoms and countries. he was not indeed to make much use of them, at that time, for himself; who was then to finish the work of redemption by suffering: only, that what was written might be accomplished in him, he would make so much use of them, as voluntarily to be involved under the censure and reproach of rebellion, being taken among men in arms, that he might be reckoned among transgressors, ver. . therefore, when they told him, they had two swords, he said, 'it is enough,' ver. . i need not stand upon that impertinency of a conceit, that these were spiritual swords; which deserve no confutation, being fitter to be put among quakers delirious distractions, than to be numbered among the notions of men of understanding: for then the purse and the scrip must be spiritual too; and these spiritual things must be bought by selling of garments; and yet they would be such spiritual tools, as would a sharp edge for cutting off of carnal ears, and such as would be both visible and sensible; and two of them would be enough. they were then ordinary material swords, which the lord commands his followers to provide themselves with for their defence as men, in cases of necessity, and, when they should be in a capacity to improve them against their murdering persecutors, against whom he gives his royal grant of resistance; that the world may know his subjects, though they have more privileges spiritual, yet they have no less human privileges than other men: albeit, at that period of his determined suffering, he would not allow the present use of them. hence, if the lord's people should provide themselves with arms of defence, though they should be reputed transgressors for so doing; then may they use these arms of defence against them that persecute them under that notion; but the antecedent is clear: therefore, &c. fifthly, we may infer the same truth from some of the prayers of the saints, wherein they glory in the confident expectation of the lord's strengthening them, and favouring and approving their helpers, and in the experience of the lord assisting them, while in the mean time constitute in a formed appearance of resistance. i shall only hint these, . in that prayer, psal. xliv. . they glory, in hope, that through the lord they will push down their enemies, &c. yet now they were under the power of tyrannizing dominators which they were resisting: for, ver. . they complain they were put to shame, because the lord went not forth with their armies, and they which hated them spoiled them,--and for his sake were killed all day long: hence, they plead, that the lord would awake,--and not forget their affliction and oppression. whereby it is evident they were under the yoke of tyrannizing powers, and resisting according to their might. which, by whomsoever, or upon what occasion soever the psalm was compiled, shews, that no want of success in resisting tyrants, can mar the saints faith in pleading for the lord's assistance and approbation of the duty. hence, they that, in faith, may pray for, and boast of their treading down their tyrannizing powers that rise up against them, may also, in faith, attempt the resisting of them in their own defence; but here the lord's people did the former. . we find david under saul's persecution, while he had a party of men to defend himself against his rage, in the psalms which he composed upon that occasion, not only complaining of oppressors, but encouraging himself in the faith that god would be with them that assisted him, in his essay of defending himself, and imprecating destruction to saul and his accomplices; that the lord would cut them off in his truth, and let him see his desire upon them, psal. liv. , . last verse. and psal. lvii. . and psal. lvii. throughout. and psal. cxl. , . he imprecates against the head of them that compassed him about, and consequently against saul. whence i argue, . if the lord's people, conflicting with, and encompassed with oppressing rulers as so many lions and dogs, may pray and praise for the help of those that assist them, in their endeavours of self preservation from them; then may they make use of their help for their defence, for which they pray and praise; but here we see the lord's people did the former: therefore they may do the latter. . if we may pray against kings, and for preservation from them; then may we defend ourselves against them, and endeavour the means of that preservation for which we pray. the connexion is before cleared; yet here i add: that which will give a dispensation from our duty of praying for them, will also dispense from the duty of being passively subject to their will; and consequently will allow defending ourselves from their violence; but here we see tyranny and treachery, and designed mischief will give a dispensation from our duty of praying for them, though that be duty as indispensible as subjection. again, if any thing demur us from resisting of princes, it must be respect to their majesty, and the character of the lord's anointing upon them; but we see, no respect to that will demur a believer from praying in faith against them: therefore no such respect will hinder, but that he may defend himself against his violence. and indeed, if we consider it right, if the impression of any majesty god hath put upon princes, should bind up our hands from any resistance, it will restrain from prayer resistance: for, if that impression have any force at any time, it must be when a man is most solemnly stated before god, and speaking to god as a christian, rather than when he is acting as a man with a man like himself: and as prayer resistance is the more formidable and forcible resistance than any other (as this saul and many other kings, have found by their woful experience) so it is more restricted than other resistance; for we may defend ourselves against many whom we must not pray against, to wit, our private enemies, for whom we are commanded to pray: yet nobody will deny but we may resist their violence: and likewise, we are commanded to pray for kings, when invested with god's authority; but when their degeneration looses us from that obligation to pray for them, and allows us to pray against them when they turn enemies to god (as we see in the prayers of the psalmist) then also we may more warrantably resist them by defensive arms. . among the hallelujahs, in the end of psalms, there is one calculated for the prevailing time of the church, when the lord shall take pleasure in his people. in that time of the saints being joyful in glory, when they may glory in the rest and security the lord will vouchsafe upon them, they are prophetically and very pathetically excited to praise prayer-ways, psal. cxlix. . to the end. "let the high praises of god be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand,--to bind their kings with chains,--to execute upon them the judgment written; this honour have all the saints, hallelujah," this was their praise and honour, when they were brought in to execute vengeance upon the kings and nobles of canaan. this also, in david's time, was the ambition, and also the attainment of the saints, in their triumphant victories over many of their oppressors round about them. but it looks to a further and more famous execution of vengeance upon the tyrants of the earth, when they shall have long kept under the church of god, and at length the lord shall give his people a capacity to break their yoke: which, whenever it shall be, shall be their honour. hence, if it is the honour of the saints, when the lord puts them in capacity, to execute vengeance upon their enemies, though they be kings that oppress them; then it may be their ambition to seek it, at least they may resist them. thus from several scripture practices, reproofs, promises, precepts, and prayers, this truth may be proven. from which scriptures, though other precious truths are more natively deduced, yet this truth by unstrained and unconstrained consequence may be also clearly inferred. head vi. _the sufferings of some, upon the account of extraordinary executing of judgment upon notorious incendiaries, and murdering public enemies by private persons in the circumstances wherein they were stated vindicated._ surely (saith solomon) oppression maketh a wise man mad, as on the other hand, a gift destroyeth the heart. which, whensoever there is a concurrence and verification of both together, makes it very incident, and noways to be admired, that either some actions of the oppressed be censurable; or, that there be found many to censure them, either out of ignorance or prejudice, at a far off glance, which a nearer or narrower inspection of circumstances, through a prospect of charity, would not so readily condemn. when the oppression of tyrants comes to such a height and pinch of extremity, that it not only threatens a community with desolation, but induces a necessity of unavoidable dissolution, and reduces a people to such a paroxism of desperation and consternation (in respect of human deliberation bringing them to their wits end) that either they must succumb as slaves, and mancipate consciences, persons, liberties, properties, and all they are or have, to the lust of raging tyrants, and their revenging emissaries,; or surrender themselves, and their posterity, and, which is dearer, the interest of religion, to be destroyed: then it is no wonder, that they be sometimes necessitated in such an extremity, to apply extreme remedies to extremity of evils, and forced to fall upon such expedients to prevent their utter extermination, as at other times common order, and ordinary justice would make extravagant. yea it is no marvel, though they fall into several real extravagancies, which are not to be justified nor extenuated; but rather it is to be acknowledged, as a miracle of the lord's mercy, that in such a case they are restrained from more scandalous excesses of that nature. yet even then, such as live at ease, free of oppression who are blinded with prejudice at the oppressed, and bribed with the indulgence and lenity of the oppressors towards themselves, will look upon these actions as transports of madness, and effects of extravagant zeal, while they weigh them only in the scales of ordinary justice, and do not ponderate them in the ballance of necessitated virtue; nor perpend the circumstances which made those extraordinary acts of judgment, which materially are lawful at all times to be executed by some, to be then necessary acts of justice to be inflicted by them in such a case. but if either the oppressors themselves, or such who are blinded and bribed with their gifts, and killed with their kindness, not only into an omission of concurring, but into a condemning of such extraordinary attempts of taking off those destroyers; or, if onlookers at a distance, would seriously consider, and ingeniously declare their opinion, in a particular application of the case to themselves, what they would do in such circumstances: i doubt not, but as charity should oblige them to be sparing of their censure, in a case whereof they have no experience; so justice, in resolving this point for themselves, would constrain them to justify such extraordinary necessitated practices for self-preservation, in preventing punishing, by destroying their destroyers, and move them rather to admire their patience, who have suffered so much and so long those beasts of prey to devour them, than to censure their precipitancies, in being constrained to endeavour to deliver themselves at last from, and put an end to their cruelty who did most annoy them. 'yea, (as naphtali says very well) it were impossible that rational men, after the feeling of so sore grievances, and the teaching of so many and sad experiences, should still couch under the burden, and submit themselves to the yoke of such vile apostate upstarts and bloody villains, and not rather acquit themselves like men, by pulling off these vizards, under which they mask their villanies and clack their violence; and plucking them out of that sanctuary of loyalty, and refuge of authority, which they do not more pretend than profane by all their horrid rebellions against god, and cruel murders executed upon the lord's people, to the effect that in the righteous and deserved punishment of these wicked men, both the sin of the land might be sisted, and the fierce anger of the lord averted,' naph. first edit. pag. . nevertheless such lawful, and, (as one would think) laudable attempts, for cutting off such monsters of nature, beasts of prey, burdens to the earth, as well as enemies to the commonwealth, are not only condemned as murders and horrid assassinations, but criminally and capitally punished as such. and upon this account, the sufferings of such, as have left a conviction upon the consciences of all that knew them, of their honesty, integrity, soundness in the principles, and seriousness of the practice of religion, have been several singular, and signally severe, and owned of the lord, to the admiration of all spectators; some being cruelly tortured and executed to the death, for essaying such execution of judgment, as mr. mitchel; others for accumplishing it, as mr. hackston of rathillet, and others, who avowed their accession to the cutting off that arch traitor sharp, prelate of st. andrews; and others, for not condemning that and the like acts of justice, though they were as innocent of the facts as the child unborn. the foregoing historical representation of the matters of fact, doth clear the circumstances of the actions: which if ever any of that nature performed by private men without public authority, could be justified, will at least demur the condemning of them. for, the men, or rather monsters, thus removed, had not only been perjured apostates from, and conjured enemies against god, in a conspiracy with the devil, to destroy the reformation, and the remnant that professed it, affronted blasphemers, perfidious betrayers of the country, and enemies to the commonwealth, malignant incendiaries, and habitual murderers of many of the lord's people, who, for many notorious crimes, had forfeited their lives to justice; but were insolently prosecuting their murdering designs, informing the council, and instigating them against innocent people to destroy them utterly, procuring from them bloody orders to spare none, but cut off all who might fall into their hands, and vigorously and vigilantly with all violence pursuing their murdering mandates, both in their own persons, and by villains, whom they hounded out as intelligencers to get, and to give notice where any of those people might be detected, whom they avowed, and avowed a design to destroy, when in the heat and height of their rage they were cut off. the actors were noways subject to them, nor any other way related, than declared and independent enemies are to one another, having renounced all relation to them and their masters, as magistrates and their superiors; and were in no terms of peace with them, but maintaining an hostile opposition and carrying, without cessation, arms to resist them; and when they got that advantage over them, that these enemies were seeking against them, they declared solemnly to them, and died, declaring it to the world, that they were not moved out of private revenge for personal injuries they had done against themselves; but being touched with the zeal of god, love to their country, respect to justice trampled upon by tyrants, and for saving themselves, rescuing their brethren, and preventing their murdering them, because there were none that would or could execute justice upon them legally: therefore they were forced to put forth their hands against them as enemies, with whose preservation their own could not consist. their circumstances were such, that they were redacted to the greatest of extremities, precluding all other human possibility of preserving themselves and their brethren from the destruction intended, and declaredly resolved, and restlessly sought and prosecuted, by these murderers, being persecuted to the death by them, daily chased, hunted, way-laid, turned out of their own habitations, intercommuned, discharged and denied all harbour in any house, under the hazard of the same pains that themselves were liable to, which was death by the present law and so forced to hide in caves and dens; out of which they durst not come forth, if it were but to seek bread for themselves, without iminent danger of their lives; the country raising the hue and cry after them, whensover they were seen, whereby many were killed as soon as they were apprehended: hence they could neither escape in the land, nor by flight out of the land, passages by sea and land being stopt, and none suffered to go any where, without strict examination what they were, which was impossible for them to elude: and many other specialties of misery and danger were ingredients in their circumstances, that no words can represent to them that are altogether strangers to them. wherefore, in such a strait and pinch of perplexity, when they could not other wise escape the fury of these firebrands, nor demur and deter the rest of them from an uncontrouled pursuit after the lives of innocents, nor otherwise avert the wrath of god against the land for the impunity of such vermine; and seeing there was no access to address themselves to magistrates, who by office are obliged to bring such villains to condign punishment; and none were found in public authority, but such as patronized and authorized them; whom in conscience they could not acknowledge, and in prudence durst not make application to them for fear of their lives; what could they do? what was left them to deliberate, but to fall upon this extraordinary course, wherein if they have stumbled into some extravagancies, as to the manner, who can think it strange, considering the case? but as that is not the debate; so as for such acts of vengeance as are peccant in the matter, and were not circumstantiate, as above rehearsed, being disowned in their public declarations, and the actors excluded from their communion, for whom i plead; it were iniquous to impute the scandal of them to that suffering people. it is only the so circumstantiate, necessitated, extraordinary execution of judgment, upon notoriously gross and grassant incendiaries, tyrants, and terrible murdering enemies, where there is no living for them, that i vindicate. and though the handling of this tender and quick-scented subject may seem odious to some, and my discourse upon it is pregnant with an oblique design to obviate such unmerited surmises, i must say, it is only the wiping off of such reproaches as reflect on religion; the vindication of preterite extraordinary practices of this nature; the investigation of present duty with respect to future emergencies; and the restraining all extravagancies incident on this head, that i intend. however this may be exploded by this generation, as odious and uncouth doctrine; yet, in former periods of this church, it hath been maintained with courage, and asserted with confidence. how the ancient scots, even after they received the christian faith, served their tyrants and oppressors, how in the beginning of the reformation, the killing of the cardinal, and of david rizio, were and are generally to this day justified, and what was the judgment and pleading of our reformers for practicing this principle against idolaters, &c. needs not be here repeated? mr. knox's judgment in particular is before declared, and will be further discovered, if we consider how he resented his slackness, in putting people to execute judgment in these words, insert in second part of the cloud of witnesses, p. . 'for god (said he) had not only given me knowledge, and a tongue to make known the impiety of the idol, but had given me credit with many, who would have put in execution god's judgments, if i would only have consented thereto: but so careful was i of the common tranquility, and loath was i to offend some, that in secret conference with zealous men, i travelled rather to slacken that fervency god had kindled in them, than to animate and encourage them to put their hands to god's work; wherein i acknowledge myself to have done most wickedly, and from the bottom of my heart i do ask god pardon, that i did not what in me lay to have suppressed that idol from the beginning.' but the preceeding historical representation doth abundantly demonstrate this is no novelty, to assert, that when the ruin of the country, suppression of religion, destruction of the remnant professing and suffering for it, and the wrath of god is threatened in, and for the impunity of idolaters and murderers, that by the law of god and man should die the death; and supposing always such as are in public office not only decline their duty, but encourage those destroyers, yea authorize them themselves, we may not only maintain defensive resistance according to our capacity, but endeavour also vindictive and, punitive force in executing judgment upon them in cases of necessity, as before circumstantiate. and i am the more confident to assert it, that what i say cannot be condemned, till first what our reformers have proven be confuted. however, to endeavour to make it somewhat clear, i shall premit some assertions, to clear the state of the question; and then give some reasons for it, when clearly stated. first. it will be needful for clearing our way, to shew what length we may warrantably go in this matter of executing judgment, in our private capacity, in extraordinary cases of necessity, by setting down some propositions negative and positive, signifying what we disown, and what we own in this point. i. what we disown, may appear in these assertions, . no necessity nor circumstance supposible whatsoever, can justify the murder of the righteous or innocent, or vindicate the unlawful taking away of their lives directly, or indirectly, immediately, or mediately, which in thought as well as deed we must abhor, as a horrid breach of the sixth command. the guilt whereof may be incurred several ways; as by killing them immediately, as cain did his brother abel; or commanded them to be killed, as saul commanded doeg to kill the lord's priests; or contriving their murder, as david did uriah's, and jezabel naboth's; or counselling thereunto, as the people advised the princes to the murder of jeremiah, and all that cried crucify jesus were murderers of christ; or by procuring it, as haman was guilty of the intended murder of the jews; or concurring therein, as joab was guilty of uriah's death as well as david, and judas of christ's by betraying him; or by the patrociny thereof, defending and sparing the murderers when called, by office, to punish them, as david was guilty in not punishing joab, ahab in patronizing the murder of naboth; or by consenting thereunto, as saul consented to the death of stephen; or by knowing and permitting, and conniving at it, as is condemned, prov. xxiv. , . whether this be done under colour of law, as pilate murdered our lord, herod killed james; or without all colour, by absolute power, herod the ascalonite murdered the infants; or whether it be done by purpose, as joab murdered abner and amasa; or without previous purpose yet with knowledge of the action in the perpetrating of it, as men may do in passion, when provoked beside their purpose, or in a tumult, without intending it beforehand; yet that is murder; barrabas committed murder in the insurrection. for, as for casual killing, contrary to intention, without knowledge, that's no breach of the command. and, whatever may be said of necessitated delivering up the innocent, pursued by a potent enemy, to deliver the city from his fury; or of preferring our own life to our innocent neighbour, in a case when both cannot be preserved, and by preserving the one lawfully, the other happens to lose his life; i do not meddle with these cases. but since this is taken for granted by casuists, i infer, if it be lawful that an innocent man die in case of necessity, that others may be preserved; then much more is it lawful, that the nocent, who are guilty of murdering the righteous all these ways above specified, and actually prosecuting their murdering designs by these methods, should rather be made to die, than the righteous be destroyed. but of this sort of murder, taking away the life of the righteous, none hath the impudence to accuse that reproached people. . though a man kill an innocent unwittingly and willingly, besides his knowledge and against his will; yet he may be guilty of sinful homicide, if he was obliged to know that he was in hazard of it, and neglected to consider, lest a man might be killed by what he was doing: as if a man should shoot at random, when he doth not know but some may be killed thereby: or if one were hewing with an ax, which he either knew or might have known to be loose, and the head not well fastened to the helve, did not advertise those about him of it; if by flying off it happened to kill any person, he were not innocent, but if he knew not without any inadvertency, then he were guiltless, deut. xix. . see durham on . com. so if a man built a house without battlements, he should bring blood upon his house, if any man fell from thence, deut. xxii. . but of this the question is not. . though a person be not altogether innocent, nor to be reckoned among the righteous; but suppose him wicked and profane, and engaged in an evil course, dishonourable to god, prejudicial to the church and kingdom, and very injurious to us; yet it may be murder to kill him, if he be not guilty of crimes that deserve death by the law of god: for the life of man is not subjected to the arbitrement of any, but his who is the author of life and death; it is necessary to all to obey the law, thou shalt not kill, without exception, but such killing as is approven by the author of the law, as saith ames. de conscientia, cap. . quest. . hence, this people so much reproached with extravagant actions, do abundantly clear themselves of that imputation of being of the mind to kill all that differ from them, which was the impudent forgery of the father of lies, in their informatory vindication, head . 'we positively disown (say they) as horrid murder, the killing of any because of a different persuasion or opinion from us, albeit some have invidiously cast this odious calumny upon us.' and it is as clear, they that took the oath of abjuration swore a lie, when they abjured the apologetical declaration, in so far as it is asserted it was lawful to kill all employed in the king's service, when it asserted no such thing, as is shewed above head . to think so much, let be to declare it, far more to practise such a thing against all that served the king, or any merely, because they served him, or because they are in a wicked course, or because they have oppressed us, were abominable: for these things simply do not make men guilty of death, to be punished capitally by men according to the law of god. but when they are stated in such opposition to us, and serve the tyrant's murdering mandates by all those ways above specified; then we may by the law of god and nature and nations, destroy, slay, and cause to perish, and avenge ourselves on them that would assault us, and are seeking our destruction: as it was lawful for the jews to do with haman's emissaries, esth. viii. . . and ix. , . . this charge then cannot reach the case. . though murderers, and such as are guilty of death by the law of god, must be punished by death; for, "he that sheddeth man's blood," &c. yet it may be murder for a man to kill another, because he thought him so criminal, and because he thought it his duty, being moved by a pretended enthusiastical impulse, in imitation of the extraordinary actions of such as were really moved by the spirit of god. as when james and john would have commanded fire to come down to consume the samaritans, the lord rebuked them, saying, "ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of, for the son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them," luke ix. ,-- . such impulses had need to be well examined, for ordinarily they will be found not consistent with a gospel spirit, which is always averse from acts of cruelty. blind zeal sometimes may incite men to fearful work: yea the persecutors have often most of that spirit, as our lord foretels, "the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you shall think that he doth god service," john xvi. . paul, in his pharisaical zeal, breathed out slaughter against the disciples. and satan can drive men under several colours, to act such things, as he did the boors in germany, and john of leyden and his followers, whose practices are deservedly detested by all that have any spark of christianity or humanity: for if this were espoused as a principle, there would be no security for men's lives. but hence it cannot be concluded, that god may not animate some to some rare enterprizes, for the cutting off of tyrants and their bloody emissaries, incendiaries, destroyers of innocent people, and putting an end to, and stopping the career of their murders, in a time of real extreme necessity, the matter of the action being unquestionably lawful, their ends and intentions really good and commendable, there being also a deficiency of others to do the work, and themselves in some probable capacity for it. see jus popul. cap. . pag. . neither can it be denied, but true zeal may sometimes incite people to such exploits for the preservation of religion and liberty, their own lives and brethren, all like to be destroyed by the impunity of beasts of prey. this will be found very consistent with a gospel spirit: and though this principle be asserted, and also put in practice; all persons, notwithstanding thereof would have sufficient security for their lives, except such as have really forfeited their lives by all law of god and man. those that are led by impulses, may pretend the imitation of extraordinary examples, and abuse them; yet hence it will not follow, that in no case these extraordinary examples may be imitated. shall the examples of good magistrates, executing justice on idolaters and murderers, be altogether unimitable, because tyrants abuse them; in persecuting the innocent? if this arguing were good, it would make all virtuous actions in the world unimitable; for these may be abused by pretenders. see jus popul. ubi supra, pag. . but it cannot be charged upon the sufferers upon this head, that they had nothing to give as the reasons of their actions, but pretexts of enthusiasms. . though a man be really so criminal, as that he deserves death by the law of god and man; yet it may be murder to kill him, if we do not certainly know it, and can prove it, and convict him of it upon trial: for no man must be killed not indicted, or the cause unknown. thus even magistrates may murder murderers, when they proceed against them without probation or cognition according to law, far more private persons. thus the abiezrites would have murdered gideon, not only unjustly, for his duty of throwing down the altar of baal, but illegally; because they would have had him brought out that he might die without any further trial, judg. vi. , . so likewise the jews that banded and bound themselves under a curse to kill paul before he was tried, would have murdered him, not only unjustly for his duty, but illegally before he was tried, acts xxiii. . but this doth not condemn the actions of those sufferers, in maintaining the necessary execution of judgment, upon persons who are notorious murderers, yea, professing a trade and prosecuting habitually a tract of continued murdering the people of the lord. . though it should be certainly known, and sufficiently proven that a man is a murderer, &c. yet it were murder for an inferior, under a relation of subjection to him, to kill him, as long as that subjection were acknowledged; for, whensoever the common and mutual right or relation, either natural, moral, civil, or religious, to the prejudice or scandal of the church, or state, or particular persons, is broken by killing any person, that is murder, though the person killed deserve to die. as if a subject should kill an acknowledged king, a son by nature or in law should kill his natural or legal father, a servant should kill his master, breaking these relations, while their right and tie were acknowledged, (as some of them must still be acknowledged as long as the correlates continue in being, to wit, that of a father is not broken by his becoming a murderer) and to the danger, detriment, and scandal of the church and state; that were properly assassination: for assassins are they, who being subject to others, either out of their own head, for their own ends, or by command of their superiors, kill their superiors, or such as they command them to kill, as alstedius describes them, theol. caf. cap. . de homicid. reg. . therefore david would not kill saul, because he acknowledged him to be the lord's anointed, to whom he was under a relation of subjection, and because he was his master and father in law, and because it would have tended to the hurt of the kingdom, and involved it in combustions and contentions about the succession, and prejudged his own right, as well as to the scandal of the people of god, though saul deserved otherwise to be capitally punished. so ishbosheth was killed by baanah and rechab, sam. iv. . so jozachar and jehozabad, who killed joash, kings xii. . were punished as murderers, chap. xiv. . because they were his servants, and did assassinate him to whom they were subject: so the servants of amon were punished by the people, as conspirators against their king and master, kings xxi. , . though amon deserved to have been punished as well as amaziah was. hence generally it is observed by some; that though right be given to equals or superiors, to bring their nearest relations to condign punishment, when they turn enticers to idolatry, deut. xiii. . yet no right or law, upon any cause or occasion whatsoever, is given to inferiors, as children, &c. to punish their fathers. see pool. synop. critic. in locum. however it be, this cannot condemn the taking off of notorious murderers, by the hand of such as were no way subject nor related to them; but as enemies, who, in extreme necessity, executed righteous judgment upon them, without prejudice of the true, necessary, and chief good of the church and commonwealth, or of any particular person's just right and security, as naphtali qualifies it, pag. , . first edition. . though the matter of the action were just, and the murderer such a person as we might punish without any breach of relative obligations, or duties; yet the manner may aggravate it to some degree of murder; if it be done secretly, when it may be execute publicly, or suddenly and precipitantly, when it may be done deliberately, without rushing upon such an action, or hurrying the murderer to eternity; as this also might have had some weight with david not to murder saul secretly and suddenly in the cave, or when he was sleeping; so ishbosheth, and joash, and amon were murdered; or if it be done subtilly, when it may be performed in more plain and fair dealing; or treacherously, under colour of friendship; or cruelly without regard to humanity; and especially when the actors are at peace with the person, whose blood they shed, as joab shed the blood of war in peace, kings ii. . in killing abner and amasa so craftily and cruelly; and absalom made his servants assassinate amnon, sam. xiii. , . but this cannot be changed upon them who executed righteous judgment, as publicly, deliberately, and calmly, as the extraordinary exigence of pressing necessity, in extremity of danger, could allow, upon notorious murderers, with whom they were in open and avowed terms of hostility. . though the manner also be inculpable; yet if the principle and motive of killing, even those that deserve to die, be out of malice, hatred, rage, or revenge, for private or personal injuries, it is murder. for the affection and intention doth make one and the same action of taking away the life, homicide or no homicide: lex rex faith, quest. . pag. . if a man out of hatred deliberately take away another man's life, he is in so far a murderer, but if that same man had taken away the other's life, by the flying off of his ax head, he neither hating him before, nor intending to hurt him, he is no murderer by god's express law, allowing cities of refuge for the one, and not for the other, deut. iv. . deut. xix. , &c. private revenge is indignity to god, whose it is to take vengeance, deut. xxxii. . rom. xii. . "dearly beloved avenge not yourselves, for vengeance is the lord's." for which cause jacob curses simeon and levi their murder of the shechemites: for in their anger they slew a man, gen. xlix. , . so david would not put forth his hand against saul, for his own private and personal quarrel. so joab killed abner, and absalom amnon. but this doth not make the execution of judgment, out of zeal for god, respect to righteousness, love to the nations interest, and care to preserve the persecuted people of god from imminent destruction, upon public enemies, incendiaries, that are trampling upon all these precious interests, and threatening the utter ruin of them, and in a particular manner their destruction who thus prevent them. . though the motive or cause were upon a public account, yet it may be murder to have a wrong end in it; as either to intend simply the destruction of the person on whom they execute judgment, as the end to which all their action is directed, or to make their own advantage or honour the end of the action. thus david would not kill saul, because it might have been thought he did it to obtain the kingdom, of which he was rightful successor: and deservedly he punished the amalekite, that brought news of his killing saul; and baanah and rechab, for their killing ishbosheth, thinking thereby to advance themselves at david's court. so also joab murdered amasa to secure himself in the general's place. and jehu, though upon the matter he executed righteous judgment, his end was only himself, it is condemned as murder. but when the execution of righteous judgment is both formally intended by the actors, and natively and really doth conduce to the glory of god, the preservation of the remnant threatened to be destroyed by these murderers, the suppressing of impiety, doing of justice, turning away wrath and removing of present, and preventing of future judgments, then it may be duty, napthtali, pag. . first edition. . though the end also were not culpable; yet it may be murder to kill criminals by transgressing the sphere of our vocation, and usurping upon the magistrate's sword: for he, by office, is a revenger, to execute wrath upon him that doth evil, rom. xiii. . none must make use of the sword of vindictive justice, but he to whom the lord giveth it; therefore they that came to take christ are condemned and threatened for this, matth. xxvi. . "all they that take the sword, shall perish with the sword." the god of order hath assigned to every man his station and calling, within the bounds whereof he should keep, without transgressing by defect or excess, let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called, cor. vii. . and study to be quiet, and do his own business, thess. iv. . therefore david would not kill saul, because he would have done it beside his calling. and therefore the killing of joash and amon was murder, because the assassins did transgress their vocation. but when notorious incendiaries do not only transgress their vocation, but the limits of human society, and turn open enemies to god and man, destroying the innocent, making havoc of the lord's heritage, and vaunting of their villanies, and boasting of their wickedness, and thereby bringing wrath upon the land if such effrontries of insolence should pass unpunished, and when there is no magistrate to do that work of justice, but all in that place are art and part with them, patrons and defenders of them; yea, no magistrate that can be acknowledged as a minister of god to be applied unto; in that case, it is not a transgression of our vocation, nor an usurpation upon the magistrates, where there is none, to endeavour to avert wrath, by executing righteous judgment. otherwise, if for fear, or suspicion of the accidental hazard of private men's usurping the office, or doing of the duty of public persons, every virtuous action which may be abused, shall be utterly neglected, impiety shall quickly gain universal empire, to the extermination or all goodness, naphtali, pag. . first edition. to clear this, it must be considered, that a man's calling is twofold; his particular calling, whereunto in the ordinary course of things he is regularly confined: and his general calling, not circumscribed by particular rules, which from the common obligation of the end for which all callings are institute, in the clear exigence of an extraordinary emergent, according to the general rules of righteousness, bind to an agreeable practice; therefore circumstances may sometimes so diversify actions, that what in the ordinary and undisturbed state of things would be accounted an excess of our particular calling, and an usurpation, in an extraordinary occurrence may become a necessary duty of our general calling. . though it were no usurpation beyond our calling; yet it may be murder, to kill any without the call of god in a case of necessity, either in the immediate defence of life, or though it be in the remote when the hazard is unavoidable. every thing must have god's call in its season to make it duty, so also the time of killing, eccles. iii. . for want of this david would not kill saul. lex rex saith excellently to this, quest. . pag. , . 'david might have killed saul when he was sleeping, and when he cut off the lap of his garment, but it was unlawful for him to kill the lord's anointed, as it is unlawful for him to kill a man because he is the image of god, gen. ix. . except in case of necessity,----david having saul in his hand, was in a remote posture of defence, the unjust invasion then was not actual, nor unavoidable, nor a necessary mean in human prudence for self preservation; for king saul was not in an actual pursuit of the whole princes, elders, community of israel: saul did but seek the life of one man david, and that not for religion, or a national pretended offence, and therefore he could not, in conscience, put hands on the lord's anointed: but if saul had actually invaded david for his life, david might, in that case, make use of goliah's sword, (for he took not that weapon as a cypher to boast saul) and rather kill than be killed.' thus he. by a call here, we do not mean an express or immediate call from god, such as the prophets might have to their extraordinary executions of judgments, as samuel and elijah had to kill agag and baal's prophets; but either the allowance of man, then there is no question about it; or if that cannot be had, as in the case circumstantiate it cannot, then the providential and moral call of extreme necessity, for preservation of our lives, and preventing the murder of our brethren, may warrant an extraordinary executing of righteous judgment upon the murderers. men may have a call to a necessary duty, neither every way mediate nor immediate, as the call of running together to quench a fire in a city, when magistrates through wickedness or negligence, will not, or do not, call people forth unto that work; they have not man's call, nor an immediate call from heaven, yet they have a lawful call from god; so they do not intrude upon the magistrates office, nor want they a call to this execution of judgment, who did materially that work for that exigent which magistrates, by office, were bound to do, being called thereto by god, by nature, and the call of inevitable necessity, which knoweth no human law, and to which some divine positive laws will cede. jus populi. chap. . pag. . . though this be a principle of reason and natural justice, when all the fore mentioned circumstances are clear, that it is lawful for private persons to execute righteous judgment, upon notorious incendiaries, and murdering public enemies, in cases of necessity; yet it might be a sinful breach of the sixth command, to draw extraordinary examples of it to an ordinary practice in killing all who might be found criminal, and would deserve death by the law, as all that have served under a banner of tyranny and violence, displayed against god and his people, to the ruin of the reformation, wasting of the country, oppression of many honest families, and destruction of many innocent people, are and would be found guilty of murder; as the chief captain would have truly alledged paul to have been a murderer, if he had been the egyptian which made an uproar, and led out four thousand men that were murderers, acts xxi. . as for the vulgar and ordinary sort of those vermine of varlets, it is of no advantage for oppressed people to foul their fingers upon them, when their slaughter would not put a stop to, but rather increase the destruction of the people of god; and were unlawful to prevent and anticipate the due and legal execution of justice, where there is any prospect or expectation of its running in its right channel. but for the chief and principal ring leaders, and common public and habitual incendiaries, and masters of the trade of murdering the lord's people, when there is no other way of being rid of their rage, and preserving ourselves, and preventing the destruction of our brethren, we may in that case of necessity make public examples of them, in an extraordinary procedure against them, that may be most answerable to the rules of the ordinary procedure of justice, and in imitation of the heroic actions recorded and justified in the word of god, in the like extraordinary cases; which are imitable, when the matter of their actions is ordinary, that is, neither preternatural nor supernatural though the occasion was singular, just and necessary, both by divine precept, and as a mean to good and necessary ends, and when there is no other to do the work, nor any prospect of access to justice in its ordinary and orderly course, nor possibility of suspending it till that can be obtained. we need not then any other call than a spirit of holy zeal for god, and for our own and our brethrens preservation, in that pinch of extremity. we do not hold these extraordinary actions for regular and ordinary precedents, for all times and persons universally: which if people should fancy, and heed more the glory and fame of the action, than the sound and solid rule of the scriptures, they may be tempted and carried to fearful extravagancies. but they may be warrants for private persons in their doing of these things, in an extreme necessity, to which at other times they are not called. and when the lord, with whom is the residue of the spirit, doth breathe upon his people, more or fewer, to the exciting of more than ordinary zeal, for the execution of justice upon such adversaries, we should rather ascribe glory and praise to him, whose hand is not shortened, but many times chooseth the weak and foolish things of the world to confound the mighty and the wise, than condemn his instruments for doing such things, naph. pag. , . prior edit. all these cases, which are all i can think on at present, comprehending all that may any way infer the guilt of murder, i have collected; to the end i may conclude this one argument, and leave it to be considered: if this extraordinary executing of judgment, upon notorious incendiaries and murdering public enemies, by private persons, in the circumstances above declared, cannot be reduced to any case that can infer the guilt of murder; then it cannot be condemned, but justified; but this extraordinary executing of judgment, &c. cannot be reduced to any case that can infer the guilt of murder, (as will appear by the induction of all of them:) therefore, this extraordinary executing of judgment, &c. cannot be condemned, but justified. ii. in the next place, what we own may be done warrantably, in taking away the life of men without breach of the sixth command, will appear by these propositions and assertions, which will bring the matter to the present circumstantiate case. . it is certain, though the command be indefinitely expressed, it doth not prohibit all killing, but only that which is condemned in other explicatory commands. our lord jesus, repeating this command, explains it by expressing it thus, matth. xix. .--"thou shalt not murder." and if any be lawful, it is granted by all, that is, which is unavoidable by the invincible necessity of providence, when a man following his duty doth that which beside and contrary his intention, and without any previous neglect or oversight in him, proveth the hurt and death of another, in which case he was allowed to flee to the city of refuge by the law of god. whence if that physical necessity did justify that kind of killing, shall not a moral necessity every way inivincibly unavoidable (except we suffer ourselves and our brethren to be destroyed by beasts of prey) vindicate this kind, in an extraordinary extremity, when the murderers are protected under the sconce of pretended authority? in which case the law of god would allow deliberate murderers should be pursued by the avenger of blood, and not to have liberty to flee to these subterfuges and pretexts of authority, (mere tyranny,) but to be taken from the horns of such altars, and be put to death, as mr. mitchel says in vindicating his own action, in a letter dated feb. . . it is lawful to take the life of known and convicted murderers by public justice; yea, it is indispensibly necessary by the law of god, and no mercy nor pardon of the magistrate may interpose to spare them; for, 'whoso killeth any person, the murderer shall be put to death by the mouth of witnesses. '--ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer:--but he shall surely be put to death,' he was not to be admitted to the benefit of any refuge: and the reason is, 'blood defiles the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it,' numb. xxxv. , , , . hence, if it be so necessary to cleanse the land, then when the magistrate is not only negligent in his duty, but turns a patron and protector of such murderers, and employs them as his emissaries to murder and destroy, it cannot be expected he should cleanse the land, for then he should free it of the burden of himself, and begin with himself: therefore then, there must be more incumbent upon private persons, touched with the zeal of god, than at another time. and as mr. knox, in his conference with queen mary, says, 'they that in the fear of god execute judgment, where god hath commanded, offend not god, though kings do it not;' and adduces the examples of samuel killing agag, elias killing the prophets of baal, and of phineas killing zimri and cozbi. . it is lawful for private persons to kill their unjust assaulters, in defending themselves against their violence, and that both in the immediate defence of our life against an immediate assault, in the instant of the assault, and also in a remote defence of ourselves, when that is as necessary as the first; and there is no other way of escaping the destruction intended by murderers, either by flight or resistance; then it is lawful to preserve ourselves by taking advantages to cut them off. . it is lawful in a just war to kill the enemy; yea in the defensive war of private subjects, or a part of the commonwealth, against their oppressing tyrants, as is proven, head . where several of the arguments used to evince that truth will confirm this; as namely, those arguments taken from the people's power in reformation, and those taken from the hazard of partaking of others sin and judgment: for, if all the magistrates, supreme and subordinate, turn principal patrons and patterns of all abominations, and persecutors and destroyers of the people for not complying with them, then the people are not only under an obligation to resist them; but seeing otherwise they would be liable to their sin, in suffering them thus to trample on religion, and the interests of god as well as their own, in order to turn away the wrath of god, it is incumbent upon them to vindicate religion, and reform the land from these corruptions, in an endeavour to bring those malignant enemies of god, and destroyers of the people, to condign punishment, "that the heads of the people be hanged up before the lord against the sun, the fierce anger of the lord may be turned away from the land," numb. xxv. . in this case, as buchanan says of a tyrant, de jure regni, 'a lawful war being once undertaken with such an enemy as a tyrant is, every one out of the whole multitude of mankind may assault, with all the calamities of war, a tyrant, who is a public enemy, with whom all good men have a perpetual warfare.' and though the war be not always actually prosecute in a hostile manner, yet, as long as peace is not concluded and the war ceased, they that have the just side of the quarrel may take advantages, in removing and taking off, (not every single soldier of the contrary side, for that would contribute nothing to their prevailing in the end) but the principal instruments and promoters of the war, by whose fall the offending side would suffer great loss, and the defending would be great gainers. so jael killing sisera, jabin's captain-general, is greatly commended. now this was the case of the sufferers upon this head, as mr. mitchel, one of them represents it in his forecited letter, 'i being (says he) a soldier, not having laid down my arms, but still upon my own defence, having no other end or quarrel at any man--besides the prosecution of the ends of the covenant, particularly the overthrow of prelates and prelacy; and i being a declared enemy to him (that is sharp) on that account, and he to me in like manner, i never found myself obliged--to set a centinel at his door for his safety; but as he was always to take his advantage, as it appeareth, so i of him to take any opportunity offered: moreover, we being in no terms of capitulation, but on the contrary, i, by his instigation, being excluded from all grace and favour, thought it my duty to pursue him at all occasions.' . it is lawful to kill enemies in the rescue of our brethren, when they are keeping them in bondage, and reserving them for a sacrifice to the fury of tyrants, or leading them forth to the slaughter, or in the time of acting their murdering violence upon them: then, to break prisons, beat up garrisons, surprise the murderers, and kill them in the rescue of our innocent brethren, is very lawful, according to that command, prov. xxiv. , . and the practice of moses, who seeing one of his brethren suffering wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and slew the egyptian, acts vii. . for that is a certain truth, which grotius faith in locum, 'the law of nature gives a right to an innocent, and to the defender of an innocent person, against the guilty offender.' hence, it cannot but be lawful also, in a case of necessity, when both ourselves and our brethren are pursued incessantly by destroying murderers, to avenge ourselves on them, and slay them, when there is no other way to be rid of their violence. . it is lawful to prevent the murder of ourselves or our brethren, when no other way is left, by killing the murderers before they accomplish their wicked design, if they be habitually prosecuting it, and have many times accomplished it before. this followeth upon the other; and upon this account it had been duty for gedaliah to have suffered johanan to slay ishmael, and so prevent the governor's murder, if it had been certainly known that ishmael was sent by the king of ammon to assassinate him, jer. xl. , . for nothing is there objected against the lawfulness of the thing, but only it was alledged that he spoke falsely. alftedius asserts this, caf. de homicid. reg. . p. . it is lawful to prevent him that would assault us, and by preventing to kill him before his invasion, if it be so necessary, to prevent him, that our life cannot be otherwise defended but by preventing. and hence he justifies that saying, 'it is lawful to kill him that lieth in wait to murder,' ibid. this is all the length that the reproached sufferers, whom i am vindicating, go, in asserting this principle, as may be seen in their informatory vindication, head . pag. . where they say, 'we maintain it as both righteous and rational, in defence of our lives, liberties, and religion, after an orderly and christian manner, to endeavour, by all means lawful and possible, to defend ourselves, rescue our brethren, and prevent their murder, in a martial opposition against wicked persecutors, who are seeking to destroy them and us, and imbrue their hands in our blood, according to the true import of the apologetical declaration.' which is very rational; especially considering. . these murderers, who are thus to be prevented, are such whom the law of god commands to be put to death, and no where allows to be spared, being public enemies to god and good men, open blasphemers, avowed idolaters, affronted adulterers, notorious murderers, habitual tyrants, suppressing religion, oppressing the innocent, and professing a trade of destroying the lord's people. surely, if god hath expressly in his laws provided, that blasphemers, idolaters, murderers, &c. should not be suffered to live, he never intended men daily guilty, yea, making profession of these crimes, should be allowed impunity, either by virtue of their office, or because there is none in office to execute judgment upon them; but in a case of extreme necessity, these laws will not only allow, but oblige people, daily murdered by them, for their own preservation, for vindication of religion, for purging the land of such wickedness, for turning away the wrath of god, to prevent their prosecuting their murdering designs any further, and put a stop to their persecution, by putting an end to their wicked lives: seeing, as buchanan says, de jure regni, it is expresly commanded, 'to cut off wickedness and wicked men, without any exception of rank or degree; and yet in no place of sacred scripture are tyrants more spared than private persons.' much less their bloody emissaries. now, seeing all these cases of killing i have collected, are justifiable in scripture, and none of the sufferers upon this head, whom i am vindicating, have exceeded in principle or practice the amount of these assertions, what is said already may have some weight to demur a censorious condemnation of them. but as the true nonconformist well observes, in answer to dial. . p. . seeing the consideration resulting from the concurrence of all circumstances, whereupon the right dignoscing of such deeds, when actually existent, doth mostly depend, doth more contribute to the clearing and passing a judgment on a case of this nature, when the whole contexture is exposed to certain examination, than to set down general rules directive of such practices (which yet will all justify this in question) therefore to clear the case further, all may be resolved into this state of the question. 'whether or not private persons, incessantly pursued unto death, and threatened with ineluctable destruction by tyrants and their emissaries, may, to save themselves from their violence, in case of extreme necessity, put forth their hand to execute judgment upon the chief and principal ringleaders, instruments and promoters of all these destructive mischiefs and miseries, who are open and avowed enemies to god, apostates, blasphemers, idolaters, tyrants, traitors, notorious incendiaries, atrocious murderers, and known and convict to be public enemies, prosecuting their murdering designs notourly and habitually, and therefore guilty of death by all laws of god and man; and in such an extraordinary case, put them to death, who have by law forfeited their lives to justice, when there is no access to public justice, no prospect of obtaining it in an orderly way, nor any probability of escaping their intended destruction, either by flight or resistance, if they be past longer unpunished; and so deliver themselves from their murdering tyranny, while they are under no acknowledged subjection to them, nor at peace with them, but maintaining a defensive resistance against them; and in this extraordinary execution of justice, being not chargeable with ignorance of matters of fact so manifest, nor mistakes of circumstances so palpable, nor with malice, rage or revenge against their persons for private and particular injuries, nor with enthusiastic impulses pretended as their rule, nor with deceit or treachery in the manner, nor with any breach of relation or obligation, nor usurpation upon or prejudice to any lawful right whatsoever in the matter, nor with any selfish or sinistrous ends in the design; but forced to perform this work of judgment, when there is none other to do it, out of zeal for the glory of god, care of the country's good, love to their brethren, sense of their own danger, and respect to justice; to the end, that by the removal of these wicked destroyers, their war against the prevailing faction of their malignant enemies may be more successfully maintained, their religion, lives, laws, and liberties more securely defended, their brethren rescued, their murder prevented, impiety suppressed, the land cleansed from blood, and the wrath of god averted.' that this is the true state of the question, the preceeding assertions, all comprehended here, do make it evident. to which i answer in the affirmative, and shall come to give my reasons. secondly, then i shall offer some reasons for this, first for some grounds and hypotheses of reason: then more expresly from scripture-proofs. . there may be some arguments offered from the dictates of natural reason, which i shall but only glance at. . i premit the consideration of the practice of all nations, even such from whom patterns have been taken for government, and who have had the most polite and purest policy, and have been the severest animadverters upon all extravagants and transgressors of their vocation: yet even among them, for private persons to destroy and rid the commonwealth of such burdens, and vile vermin so pernicious to it, was thought a virtue meriting rather commendation, than a thing to be condemned. i shall not here instance the laudable practices recorded in scripture; these may be seen in their own place. neither do i speak of ruder nations, among whom this is a relict of reason, not of rudeness, as the oriental indians have a custom, whenever any person runs a muck, that is, in a revengeful fury, takes such a quantity of opium, as distracts them into such a rage of mad animosity, that they fear not to assault (which is the common operation of that portion there) and go through destroying whom they can find in their way: then every man arms against him: and is ambitious of the honour of first killing him, which is very rational; for otherwise no man could be safe; and it seems to be as rational, to take the same course with our mad malignant mucks who are drunk with hellish fury, and are running in a rage to destroy the people of god whom they can meet with. but all the nations, where the best policy was established, have been of his mind. in greece public rewards were enacted to be given, and honours appointed for several cities, to those that should kill tyrants, from the mightiest of them to the meanest; with whom they thought there was no bond of humanity to be kept. hence, thebe is usually commended for killing her husband, timoleon for killing his brother, because they were pernicious and destructive to the commonwealth: which, though it seem not justifiable, because of the breach of relation of natural subjection, yet it shews what sentiments the most politic nations have had of this practice. as also among the romans, cassius is commended for killing his son, and fulvius for killing his own son going to cataline, and brutus for killing his kinsmen, having understood they had conspired to introduce tyranny again. servilius ahala is commended for killing even in the court sep. melius, turning his back and refusing to compear in judgment, and for this was never judged guilty of bloodshed, but thought nobilitate by the slaughter of a tyrant, and all posterity did affirm the same. cicero, speaking of the slaughter of cesar, stiles it a famous and divine fact, and put to imitation. sulpitius asper, being asked, why he had combined with others against nero, and thought to have killed him? made this bold reply, 'that he knew not any other way to put a stop to his villanies, and redeem the world from the infection of his example, and the evils which they groaned under by reason of his crimes.' on the contrary, domitius corbulo is reprehended by all, for neglecting the safety of mankind, in not putting an end to nero's cruelty, when he might very easily have done it: and not only was he by the romans reprehended, but by tyridates the persian king, being not all afraid lest it should afterward befal an example unto himself. when the ministers of caius caligula, a most cruel tyrant, were, with the like cruelty, tumultuating for the slaughter of their master, requiring them that killed him to be punished, valerius asiaticus the senator cried out aloud, 'i wish i had killed him,' and thereby both composed their clamour, and stopt their rage. 'for there is so great force in an honest deed, (saith buchanan de jure regni, relating this passage) that the very lightest shew thereof, being presented to the minds of men, the most furious assaults are allayed, and fury will languish, and madness itself must acknowledge the sovereignty of reason.' the senate of rome did often approve the fact, tho' done without their order oftentimes by private hands: as upon the slaughter of commodus, instead of revenging it, they decreed that his carcase should be exposed and torn in pieces. sometimes they ordered before hand to have it done; as when they condemned didimus julianus, they sent a tribune to slay him in the palace: nay, they have gone so far, as in some cases to appoint reward for such as should kill those tyrants that trampled upon their laws, and murdered virtuous and innocent people; as that sentence of the senate against the two maximini doth witness, whosoever killeth them deserves a reward. buchanan as above, rehearsing many instances of this nature, gives reasons of their approveableness; and these i find here and there scattered, in his book, de jure regni, . they that make a prey of the commonwealth, are not joined to us by any civil bond or tie of humanity, but should be accounted the most capital enemies of god and of all men. . they are not to be counted as within human society, but transgressors of the limits thereof; which whoso will not enter into, and contain himself within, should be taken and treated as wolves, or other kinds of noisome beasts, which whosoever spares, he preserves them to his own destruction, and of others; and whosoever killeth, doth not only good to himself, but to all others; and therefore doth merit rather reward than to be condemned for it. for if any man, divested of humanity, should degenerate into such cruelty, as he would not meet with other men but for their destruction (as the monsters i am speaking of, could meet with none of the party here treated on, but to this effect) he is not to be called a man, no more than satyrs, apes or bears. . it is expressly commanded to cut off wickedness and wicked men, without any exception of rank or degree; and, if kings would abandon the counsels of wicked men, and measure their greatness rather by duties of virtue, than by the impunity of evil deeds, they would not be grieved for the punishment of tyrants, nor think that royal majesty is lessened by their destruction, but rather be glad that it is purged from such a stain of wickedness. . what is here to be reprehended? is it the cause of their punishment? that is palpable. is it the law which adjudges them to punishment? all laws were desired as necessary for repressing tyrants; whosoever doth condemn this, must likewise condemn all the laws of nations. is it the person executing the laws? where will any other be found to do it in such circumstances? . a lawful war being once undertaken with an enemy for a just cause, it is lawful not only for the whole people to kill that enemy, but for every one of them: every one therefore may kill a tyrant, who is a public enemy, with whom all good men have a perpetual warfare; meaning, if he be habitually tyrannical, and destructive to the people, so that there is no living for good people for him; otherwise, though a man by force or fraud acquire sovereignty, no such violence is to be done to him, providing he use a moderate way in his government, such as vespasian among the romans, hiero in syracuse. . treason cannot be committed against one who destroys all laws and liberties of the people, and is a pernicious plague to the commonwealth. . such is the force of this truth in the case of circumstantiate, that it extorts the acknowledgment of the greatest authors ancient and modern, domestic and foreign, and even of all rational royalists (as mr. mitchel lays in his postscript to the forecited letter.) that it is lawful for any private person to kill a tyrant without a title, and to kill tories or open murderers, as devouring beasts, because the good of his action doth not only redound to the person himself, but to the whole commonwealth, and the person acting incurs the danger himself alone. tertullian, though a man loyal to excels, says, every man is a soldier inrolled to bear arms against all traitors and public enemies. the ancient ecclesiastical historian, sozomen, relating the death of julian, and intimating that he was supposed to have been slain by a christian soldier, adds, let none be so rash as to condemn the person that did it, considering he was thus courageous in behalf of god and religion, sozom. hist. lib. . cap. . barclaius, a great royalist, faith, all antiquity agrees, that tyrants, as public enemies, may, most justly, be attacked and slain, not only by the community but also by every individual person thereof. grotius de jure belli, lib. i. cap. . saith, if any person grasp at dominion by unjust war, or hath no title thereto by consent of the community, and no paction is made with him, nor allegiance granted, but retains possession by violence only, the right of war remains; and therefore it is lawful to attack him as an enemy, who may be killed by any man, and that lawfully. yea, king james vi. in his remonstrance for the right of kings, says, the public laws make it lawful and free for any private persons to enterprise against an usurper. divines say the same. chamier, tom. . lib. . cap . sect. . all subjects have right to attack tyrants. alsted. theolog. gaf. cap. . reg. . p. . any private man may and ought to cut off a tyrant, who is an invader, without a title; because in a hostile manner he invades his native country. and, cap. . . reg. . p. . 'it is lawful for every private man to kill a tyrant, who unjustly invades the government. but dr. ames concerning conscience, book . chap . concerning manslaughter, asserts all that is here pleaded for in express terms, quest. . whether or no is it lawful for a man to kill another by his own private authority? ans. sometimes it is lawful to kill, no public precognition preceeding; but then only, when the cause evidently requires that it should be done, and public authority cannot be got: for in that case, a private man is publicly constitute the minister of justice, as well by the permission of god, as the consent of all men. these propositions carry such evidence in them, that the authors thought it superfluous to confirm them, and sufficient to affirm them. and from any reason that can be adduced to prove any of these assertions, it will be as evident that this truth i plead for, is thereby confirmed, as that itself is thereby strengthened: for it will follow natively, if tyrants, and tyrants without a title, be to be thus dealt with,; then the monsters, of whom the question is, those notorious incendiaries and murdering public enemies, are also to be so served: for either these authors assert the lawfulness of so treating tyrants without a title, because they are tyrants, or because they want a title. if the first be said, then all tyrants are to be so served; and reason would say, and royalists will subscribe, if tyrants that call themselves kings may be so animadverted upon, because of their perniciousness to the commonwealth by their usurped authority, then the subordinate firebrands that are the immediate instruments of that destruction, the inferior emissaries that act it, and actually accomplish it, in murdering innocent people, may be so treated; for their persons are not more sacred than the other, nor more unpunishable. if the second be said, it is lawful to kill them, because they want a title; then it is either because they want a pretended title, or because they want a real and lawful one. the latter is as good as none, and it is proven, head . arg. . that no tyrants can have any. the former cannot be said, for all tyrants will pretend some, at least before they be killed. . but though some of these great authors neither give their reasons for what they assert, nor do they extend it to all tyrants that tyrannize by virtue of their pretended authority, yet it will not be difficult to prove, that all, great and small, that murder, destroy, and tyrannize over poor people, are to be punished, though they pretend authority for what they do. and hence, if all tyrants, murderers and destroyers of mankind ought to be punished; then when it cannot be done by public authority, it may be done by private; but all tyrants, murderers and destroyers of mankind ought to be punished: therefore--. the minor is manifest from the general commands of shedding the blood of every man that sheds it, gen. ix. . of putting to death whosoever killeth any person, numb. xxxv. , . of respecting no man's person in judgment, deut. i. . and universally all penal laws are general without exception of any; for under that reduplication of criminal transgressing those laws, under that general sanction, they are to be judged; which admits of no partial respect: for if the greatest of men be murderers, they are not to be considered as great, but as murderers; just as the meanest are to be considered as mean or poor, but as murderers. but i need not insist on this, being sufficiently proved, head . arg. . and throughout that head, proving that tyrants can have no authority: and, if they have no authority, then authority (which they have not) cannot exempt them from punishment. the connexion of the major proposition may be thus urged: when this judgment cannot be executed by public authority, either it must be done by private authority, in case of extreme necessity, or not at all: for there is no medium, but either to do it by public authority, or private: if not at all, then the land must remain still defiled with blood, and cannot be cleansed, numb. xxxv. . then the fierce anger of the lord cannot be averted, numb. xxxv. . for without this executing of judgment, he will not turn it away, jer. v. . then must murderers be encouraged, by their impunity, to make havoc of all according to their lust, besides that poor handful who cannot escape their prey, as their case is circumstantiate. besides, this is point black contrary to these general commands, which say peremptorily, the murderer shall be put to death; but this supposed case, when public authority will not or cannot put them to death, says, they shall not be put to death. in this case then i demand, whether their impunity is necessary, because they must not be put to death? or because they cannot be put to death? to say the latter, were an untruth; for private persons can do it, when they get access, which is possible: if the former, then it is clearly contradictory to the commands, which say, they must be put to death, excepting no case, but when they cannot be put to death. if it be said, they must not be put to death, because the law obliges only public authority to execute judgment: to this i reply, . i trust to make the contrary appear from scripture by and by. . if the law obliges none but those in public authority to execute judgment, then when there is no judgment execute, it must be the sin of none but those in public authority; and if it be only their sin, how comes others to be threatened and punished for this, that judgment is not executed? if they must only stand by, and be spectators of their omissions unconcerned, what shall they do to evite this wrath? shall they exhort them, or witness against them? but that more than all this is required, is proved before several times, where this argument of people's being punished for the sin of their rulers hath been touched. . then when there is no authority, it must be no sin at all that judgment is not executed, because it is the sin of none; it cannot be sin, except it be the sin of some. . what if those in public authority be the murderers? who shall put them to death? by what authority shall judgment be execute upon them? whether public or private? public it cannot be; for there is no formal public authority above the supreme, who are supposed the party to be punished; if it be the radical authority of the people, which is the thing we plead for, then it is but private, as that of one party against the other: the people are the party grieved, and so cannot be judges: at best then, this will be extrajudicial executing of judgment. and if the people may do it upon the greatest of tyrants, then a part of them who are in greatest hazard may save themselves from those of lesser note, by putting them to death: for if all the people have right to punish universal tyrants, because they are destroyers of all; then a part hath right to punish particular tyrants, because they are destroyers of them, when they cannot have access to public authority, nor the concurrence of the whole body. . let these murderers and incendiaries be considered, either as a part of the community with them whom they murder and destroy, or not; if they be a part, and do belong to the same community (which is not granted in this case, yet let it be given) then when the safety of the whole, or better part, cannot consist with the sparing or preserving of a single man, especially such an one as prejudges all, and destroys that better part; he is rather to be cut off, than the whole or the better part be endangered: for the cutting off of a contagious member that destroys the rest of the body, is well warranted by nature, because the safety of the whole is to be preferred to the safety of a part, especially a destructive part: but now, who shall cut it off? since it must be cut off, otherwise a greater part of the body will be presently consumed, and the whole endangered. it is sure the physician's duty; but what if he will not, or cannot, or there be no physician? then any that can may and must; yea, one member may, in that case, cut off another. so, when either the magistrate will not, or dare not, or does not, or there is none to do this necessary work of justice, for the preservation of the community; any member of it may rather prevent the destruction of the whole, or a greater part, by destroying the murdering and destructive member, than suffer himself and others to be unavoidably destroyed by his being spared. if they be not within, or belonging to that society, then they may be dealt with, and carried towards as public enemies and strangers, and all advantages may be taken of them in cases of necessity, as men would do, if invaded by turks or tartars. . let it be considered, what men might have done in such a case before government was erected, if there had been some public and notour murderers still preying upon some sort of men. certainly then private persons (as all are in that case) might kill them to prevent future destruction. hence, if this was lawful before government was established, it cannot be unlawful when people cannot have the benefit of the government, when the government that is, instead of giving redress to the grieved and oppressed, does allow and impower them to destroy them: otherwise people might be better without government than with it; for then they might prevent their murderers by cutting them off. but so it is that this was lawful before government was established: for let it be adverted, that the scripture seems to insinuate such a case before the flood. cain, after he murdered his brother, feared that every man that found him should slay him. gen. iv. . if he had reason to fear this, as certainly he had, if the lord had not removed that, by prorogueing the execution of vengeance upon him, for his greater punishment, and the world's more lasting instruction, and by setting a mark upon him, and inhibiting, under a severe threatning, any to touch him; then every man that should have killed him was the magistrate, (which were ridiculous) or every man was every, and any private person universally, which might have killed him, if this inhibition had not past upon it. ainsworth upon the place saith, 'that among the ancient romans, every one might kill without a challenge, any man that was cursed for some public crime.' and cites dionys. halicarnas. l. . and so cain spoke this from a dictate of nature and a guilty conscience. . at the erection of government, though the people resign the formal power of life and death, and punishing criminals, over to the governor constitute by them; yet, as they retain the radical power and right virtually, so when either the magistrates neglect their duty of vindicating the innocent, and punishing their destroyers, or impower murderers to prey upon them; in that case, they may resume the exercise of it, to destroy their destroyers, when there is no other way of preventing or escaping their destructions; because extreme remedies ought to be applied to extreme diseases. in an extraordinary exigent, when ahab and jezebel did undo the church of god, elias, with the people's help, killed all baal's priests, against and without the king's will; in this case, it is evident the people resumed their power, as lex rex saith, quest. . p. . there must be a court of necessity, no less than a court of justice, when it is in this extremity, as if they had no ruler, as that same learned author saith, quest. . pag. . if then the people may resume that power in cases of necessity, which they resigned to the magistrate; then a part may resume it, when a part only is in that necessity, and all may claim an interest in the resumption, that had an interest in the resignation. . especially upon the dissolution of a government when people are under a necessity to revolt from it, and so are reduced to their primitive liberty, they may then resume all that power they had before the resignation, and exert it in extraordinary exigents of necessity. if then a people that have no magistrates at all may take order with their destroyers then must they have the same power under a lawful revolt. as the ten tribes, if they had not exceeded in severity against adoram, rehoboam's collector, had just cause to take order with that usurper's emissary, if he came to oppress them; but if he had come to murder them, then certainly it was duty to put him to death, and could not be censured at all, as it is not in the history, kings xii. . but so it is that the people pursued by these murderers, some of which in their extreme exigencies they put to death; have for these several years maintained a declared revolt from the present government, and have denied all subjection to it upon the grounds vindicated, head . and there they must be considered as reduced to their primeve liberty, and their pursuers as their public enemies, to whom they are no otherwise related than if they were turks, whom none will deny it lawful to kill, if they invade the land to destroy the inhabitants. . hence, seeing they are no other than public enemies, unjustly invading, pursuing, and seeking them to destroy them: what arguments will prove the lawfulness of resistance, and the necessity of self-defence, in the immediate defence of life, as well as remote, will also prove the lawfulness of taking all advantages upon them: for if it be lawful to kill an enemy in his immediate assault, to prevent his killing of them, when there is no other way of preserving themselves from his fury; then it must be lawful also in his remote but still incessant pursuit, to prevent his murdering them by killing him, when there is no other way to escape in a case of extreme necessity. but that this was the case of that poor people, witnesses can best prove it; and i dare appeal to two sorts of them that know it best, that is, all the pursuers, and all the pursued. . this is founded, and follows upon the th article of the solemn league and covenant: where we are bound with all faithfulness to endeavour the discovery, of all such as have been, or shall be incendiaries, malignants or evil instruments,----that they may be brought to public trial, and receive condign punishment. now, as this obliges to the orderly and ordinary way of prosecuting them when there is access to public judicatories: so when there is none either this article obliges to no endeavour at all; (which cannot be, for it is moral duty to endeavour the punishment of such) or else it must oblige to this extraordinary action and execution of judgment, if to any at all. especially considering, how, in the sense of the short comings of this duty, it is renewed in the solemn acknowledgement of sins, and engagement to duties, that we shall be so far from conniving at malignity, injustice, &c., that we shall----take a more effectual course, than heretofore, in our respective places and callings, for punishing and suppressing these evils.----certainly we were called to one way of prosecuting this obligation then, when it was first engaged into, and to another now, when our capacity and circumstances are so materially and formally altered: if the effectual course then was by public authority; then now when that is wanting, there must be some obligation to take some effectual course still, that may suit our places and callings, which will certainly comprehend this extraordinary way of suppressing those evils, by preventing their growth in curbing the instruments, and executing judgment upon them, in a case of extreme necessity, which will suit with all places, and all callings. ii. from the scriptures, these arguments are offered, first, some approven examples, and imitable in the like circumstances, will clear and confirm the lawfulness of this extraordinary work of judgment executed by private persons, upon notorious incendiaries, firebrands, and murderers, guilty of death by the law of god, . moses spied an egyptian smiting an hebrew, one of his brethren; and he looked this way, and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the egyptian, and hid him in the sand, exod. ii. , . here is an uncondemned example: whereof the actor who was the relater did not condemn himself, though he condemns himself for faults that seem less odious; yea, in effect, he is rather condemned by stephen the martyr, acts vii. and though it be extraordinary, in that it was done by private authority, not by a judge, as it was objected to him the second day: yet it was not unimitable; because that action, though heroical, whereof the ground was ordinary, the rule moral, the circumstances commonly incident, the management directed by human prudence, cannot be unimitable; but such was this action, though heroical. the ground was ordinary, spying his brother in hazard, whose murder he would have prevented. the rule was moral, being according to that moral precept in rescuing our brother in hazard, prov. xxiv. , . the circumstances were incident in a case of extreme necessity, which he managed very prudently, looking this way, and that way, and hiding him in the sand. therefore it may be imitated in the like case. it signifies nothing to say that he was moved by the spirit of god thereto: for unto every righteous performance the motion of the spirit of god is requisite. this impulse that moses had and others after-mentioned, was nothing but a greater measure of that assisting grace, which the extraordinariness of the case, and the difficulties therein occurring did call for; but the interveening of such motions, do not alter the rule, so as to make the action unimitable. impulses are not the rule of duty, either under an ordinary or extraordinary exigence; but when they are subsequent and subservient both to the rule of duty, and to a man's call in his present circumstances, they clearly determine to the species of an heroic enterprise; in so much that it is not only the particular deed that we are to heed for our imitation, but we are to emulate the grace and principle of zeal which produced it, and is thereby so conspicuously relucent for our upstirring to acts in like manner, as god may give opportunity, as is observed by the true non-conformist, dial. . pag. , &c. . when israel joined himself unto baal-peor, the lord said unto moses, 'take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the lord against the sun, that the fierce anger of the lord may be turned away from israel.' and moses said unto the judges, 'slay every one his men that were joined unto ball-peor.' and when zimri brought the midianitish cozbi in the sight of moses, and in the sight of all the congregation, who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle; and when phineas saw it, he rose up,----and took the javelin in his hand, and he went after the men of israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through,----so the plague was stayed,----and the lord spake unto moses, saying, 'phineas hath turned away my wrath from the children of israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them,----i give unto him my covenant of peace,----because he was zealous for his god, and made an atonement for the children of israel.' numb. xxv. .- . this action is here much commended, and recorded to his commendation, psal. cvi. , . then stood up phinehas, and executed judgment, and so the plague was stayed; and that was counted to him for righteousness, unto all generations; that is,----into justice of the deed before men, who otherwise might have put a bad construction upon it, as rash, out of season, committed against a magistrate by a private person, too cruel by cutting them off from repentance; but god esteemed it as extraordinary just. pool's synops. critic. in locum. it is certain, this action was some way extraordinary; because phinehas was not a magistrate, nor one of the judges whom moses commanded to slay every one his men, ver. . otherwise, if this had been only an ordinary execution of the judgment by the authority of moses, phinehas' action would not have been taken so much notice of, nor so signally rewarded; but here it is noted as a singular act of zeal, which it could not have been, if it was only an ordinary execution of the magistrate's command: yet, though this action was signally heroical, proceeding from a principle of pure zeal for god, and prompted by a powerful motion of the spirit of god to that extraordinary execution of judgment: it is notwithstanding imitable in the like circumstances. for, the matter is ordinary, being neither preternatural, nor supernatural, but just and necessary. the end was ordinary, to turn away the wrath of god, which all were obliged to endeavour. the principle was ordinary, (though at the time he had an extraordinary measure of it) being zealous for the lord, as all were obliged to be. the rule was ordinary, to wit, the command of slaying every man that was joined to baal peor, ver. . only this was extraordinary, that the zeal of god called him to his heroical action, though he was not a magistrate, in this extraordinary exigent, to avert the wrath of god; which was neither by moses's command, nor by the judges obedience, turned away only by phinehas' act of another nature, and his zeal appearing therein, and prompting him thereto, the lord was appeased, and the plague slayed. in which fervour of zeal, transporting him to the omission of the ordinary solemnities of judgment, the spirit of the lord places the righteousness and praise of the action. yet the same call and motion of zeal might have impowered others to do the like: the text speaks of no other call he had, but that of zeal, ver. , , . yea, another was obliged to do the same, upon the ground of that moral command, deut. xiii. .- . having the ground of god's ordinary judgment, which commandeth the idolater to die the death; and therefore to be imitate of all that prefer the true honour and glory of god to the affection of flesh and wicked princes, as mr. knox affirmeth in his conference with lethingtoun, rehearsed before, per. . further, let it be enquired, what makes it unimitable? certainly it was not so, because he had the motion and direction of god's spirit; for men have that to all duties. it was not, because he was raised and stirred up of god to do it; for god may raise up spirits to imitable actions. it was not, because he had an extraordinary call, for men have an extraordinary call, to imitable actions, as the apostles had to preach. we grant these actions are extraordinary and unimitable; which, first, do deviate from the rule of common virtue, and transcend all rules of common reason and divine word; but this was not such, but an heroic act of zeal and fortitude: next these actions, which are contrary to a moral ordinary command are unimitable, as the israelites robbing the egyptians, borrowing, and not paying again, abraham's offering his son isaac; but this was not such: next those actions, which are done upon some special mandate of god, and are not within the compass of ordinary obedience to the ordinary rule, are unimitable; but is not such: as also miraculous actions, and such as are done by the extraordinary inspiration of the spirit of god, as elias's killing the captains with their fifties by fire from heaven; but none can reckon this among these. see jus populi at length discussing this point, and pleading for the suitableness of this action, cap. . if therefore the lord did not only raise up this phinehas to that particular act of justice, but also so warrant and accept him therein, and reward him therefore, upon the account of his zeal, when there was a godly and zealous magistrate, able, and whom we cannot without breach of charity presume, but also willing to execute justice; how much more may it be pleaded, that the lord, who is the same yesterday, to day and forever, will not only pour out of that same spirit upon others; but also when he gives it, both allow them, though they be but private persons, and also call them, being otherwise in a physical and probable capacity to do these things in an extremely necessitous, and otherwise irrecoverable state of the church, to which in a more intire condition he doth not call them? and particularly, when there is not only the like or worse provocations, the like necessity of execution of justice and of reformation, for the turning away of wrath, and removing of judgments, that was in phinehas's case, but also, when the supreme civil magistrate, the nobles of the kingdom, and other inferior rulers, are not only unwilling to do their duty, but so far corrupted and perverted, that they are become the authors and patronizers of these abominations, naph. prior edit. p. . . when the children of israel served eglon the king of moab, and they cried unto the lord, he raised them up a deliverer, ehud the son of gera, who made a dagger, and brought a present unto eglon, and put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly, judg. iii. . that this action was approven will not be doubted, since the lord raised him up as a deliverer who by this heroical action commenced it; ond since it was a message from god, and that it was extraordinary, were ridiculous to deny: for sure this was not the judicial action of a magistrate, neither was ehud a magistrate at this time, but only the messenger of the people sent with a present. yet it is imitable in the like case, as from hence many grave authors concluded the lawfulness of killing a tyrant without a title. . when the lord discomfitted the host of jabin, and sifera his captain fled into the house of heber the kenite, jael heber's wife took a nail of the tent, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, judg, iv. . of which the prophetess deborah says, chap. v. . "blessed above women shall jael the wife of heber the kenite be above women in the tent." yet not only was jael no magistrate, but in subjection to and at peace with jabin, though she killed his captain. but there was no injustice here, when he was declared a public enemy, the war was just, he was an oppressor of the people of god, it became jael, as a member of the commonwealth, to betray and cut off the common enemy. therefore jael had sinned, if she had not killed him. martyr and others cited in pool. synops. critic. upon the place, albeit that author himself, in his english annotations, does cut the knot, instead of loosing it, in denying deborah's song to be divinely inspired in its first composure, but only recorded as a history by divine inspiration, as other historical passages not approven, only because this heroic fact of jael is there recommended, which is too bold an attempt upon this part of the holy canon of the scripture: whence we see what inconveniences they are driven to, that deny this principle of natural justice, the lawfulness of cutting off public enemies, to procure the deliverance of the lord's people. hence, if it be lawful for private persons, under subjection to, and at peace with the public enemies of the lord's people to take all advantages to break their yoke, and deliver the oppressed from their bondage, by killing their oppressors; it must be much more lawful for such as acknowledge no such subjection or agreement, to attempt the same in extreme necessity; but the former is true: therefore the latter. . when samson married the timnite, and obliged himself by compact, to give them thirty sheets and thirty change of garments, upon their solving his riddle, the spirit of the lord came upon him, and he went down to askelon, and slew thirty men of them, and took their spoil, judg. xiv. . and afterwards, when he lost his wife by the cruelty and treachery of those philistines, he said unto them, 'though you have done this, yet will i be avenged of you, and after that i will cease. and he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter,' chap. xv. , . and when the jews, who acknowledged the philistines for rulers, came to etam to expostulate with him, all the satisfaction he gave them was to avouch, that as they had done unto him, so he had done unto them, and to kill a thousand more of them, ver. . &c. these were extraordinary heroic facts, not only because they flowed from an extraordinary power wherewith he was endued, and from an extraordinary motion and call; but because of his avenging his own private injuries for the public good, in a way both of fortitude and prudence, without a declared war, provoking the enemies against himself, and diverting from the people, and converting against himself, all their fury, in which also he acted as a type of christ; and also because he acted not as a magistrate at this time, for by whom was he called or counted a magistrate? not by the philistines, nor by the men of judah, for they tell him that the philistines were their lords, and they bound him and delivered him up to them: yet in his private capacity, in that extraordinary exigence, he avenged himself and his country against his public enemies, by a clandestine war, which is imitable in the like case, when a prevailing faction of murdering enemies domineer over and destroy the people of god, and there is no other way to be delivered from them; for his ground was moral, because they were public enemies, to whom he might do as they did to him. hence, if saints sometimes, in cases of necessity, may do unto their public enemies, as they have done unto them, in prosecuting a war not declared against them; then much more may they do so in cases of necessity, to deliver themselves from their murdering violence, when a war is declared; but here is an example of the former: ergo . when these same philistines again invaded and over-ran the land in the time of saul, jonathan his son, and his armour bearer, fell upon the garrison of these uncircumcised, and killed them, sam. xiv. . . this was an heroic action, without public authority; for he told not his father, ver. . and singular indeed, in respect of the effect, and were a tempting of the lord, for so few to assault such a multitude, as it were to imitate samson in his exploits; but in this respect, these actions are unimitable in consideration of prudence, not of conscience, or as to the lawfulness of the thing: their ground was moral, to cut off public enemies. hence, if it be lawful to fall upon a garrison of public enemies, oppressing the country, then it must be lawful to fall upon one or two, that are the ring leaders of public enemies, and main promoters of their destruction, that are as pernicious, and have no more right or power, than the philistines; but such is the case of those about whom the question is. . when david dwelt in the country of the philistines, he and his men went up and invaded the geshurites, and the gezrites, and the amalekites; and david smote the land, and left neither man nor woman alive, sam. xxvii. , . this was without public authority, having none from saul, none from achish, in whose country he dwelt, and none of his own, being no magistrate. we deny not the divine motion, but plead, that it is imitable from its moral ground, which was that command to cut off the amalekites, exod. xvii. and the amorites, whose relicts these nations were; the same ground that saul the magistrate had to destroy them. whence it is lawful sometimes for others than magistrates to do that which is incumbent to magistrates, when they neglect their duty. all i plead for from it is, if it be lawful for private persons, upon the call of god, to cut off their public enemies, when they are obliged by the command of god to destroy them, though they be living quietly and peaceably in the country; then may it be lawful, in cases of necessity, for private persons to cut off their public enemies, whom they are obliged, by the covenant of god, to bring to condign punishment, and to extirpate them, (as the covenant obliges in reference to malignant incendiaries) when they are ravening like lions for their prey. . in the days of ahab and jezebel's tyranny, whereby the idolatrous prophets of baal were not punished according to the law, elijah said unto the people, 'take the prophets of baal, let none of them escape; and they took them to the brook kishon, and slew them there,' kings xviii. . how mr. knox improved this passage we heard before, in the historical representation, per, . and jus pop. vindicates it, that in some cases private persons may execute judgment on malefactors, after the example of elias here. which fact, peter martyr, in locum, defendeth thus: 'i say it was done by the law of god; for, deut. xviii. . god decerned that the false prophet should die; and chap. xvii. the same is said of private men and women, who would worship idols; but, chap. xiii. not only is death threatened against a seducing prophet, but a command is added, that no man should spare his brethren.-- dly, it is commanded, that the whole city, when it becometh idolatrous, should be cut off by fire and sword:' and, lev. xxiv. . . it is statute, that the blasphemer should not live: 'to which we may add the law or equity of taliation: for these prophets of baal caused jezebel and ahab kill the servants of the lord.' see jus pop. cap. . pag. . upon this also mr. mitchel defends his fact, as above,--'also elijah, by virtue of that precept, deut. xiii. gave commandment to the people to destroy baal's priests, contrary to the command of the seducing magistrate, who was not only remiss and negligent in executing justice, but became a protector and defender of the seducers; then and in that case, i suppose the christians duty not to be very dark.' . this idolatrous and tyrannical house was afterwards condignly punished by jehu, kings ix. x. chap. who destroyed all the idolaters, who were before encouraged and protected by that court, chap. x. . this extraordinary fact was not justified by his magistratical authority; for that was as extraordinary as the fact itself, and conferred as a mean to accomplish the fact. he had no authority by the people's suffrages, nor was he acknowledged as such by the court or body of the people, only the lord gave it extraordinarily. but it is not the imitation of his assumption of authority that is here pleaded for, but the imitation of his fact in extraordinary cases, when not only tyrants and idolaters pass unpunished, but their insolency in murdering the innocent is intolerable. mr. knox vindicates this at length, as before, and shews, that it had the ground of god's ordinary judgment, which commands the idolater to die the death; and that though we must not indeed follow extraordinary examples, if the example repugn to the law, but where it agrees with and is the execution of the law, an example uncondemned stands for a command; for god is constant, and will not condemn in ages subsequent what he hath approved in his servants before. see the testimony of period . above, and jus pop. cap. . pag. . . when athaliah, the mother of ahaziah, had tyrannized six years, at length jehoiada, with others, made a conspiracy against her, to depose her, and make joash king; which when it was discovered, she cried treason, treason, as indeed it would have been so, if she had been the lawful magistrate; for it was an attempt of subjects against her that had the possession of the sovereign power. but jehoiada commanded the captains to heave her forth without the ranges, and him that followeth her kill with the sword; and they laid hands on her, and she was slain, kings xii. ,-- . that this is imitable in the punishment of tyrants, is cleared above. if therefore it be lawful for subjects to kill usurping tyrants, and such as follow them to help them, under whom nevertheless people might have a life; then it must be lawful for private persons to put forth their hand against their cut-throat emissaries, in a case of necessity, when there is no living for them. . when amaziah turned idolater and tyrant, after the time that he turned away from the lord, they made a conspiracy against him in jerusalem, and he fled to lachish; but they sent to lachish after him and slew him there, chron. xxv. . this fact is before vindicated by mr. knox, period . afterward head . and head . . when esther made suit to reverse haman's letters, the king granted the jews in every city, not only to gather themselves together, and to stand for their lives, but also to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish, all the power of the people and province that would assault them, both little ones and women,--and to avenge themselves on their enemies. and accordingly in the day that their enemies hoped to have power over them, the jews gathered themselves to lay hand on such as sought their hurt, and smote all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, esth. viii. , , chap. ix, - , &c. they had indeed that law of nature fortified by the king's accessary authority, as valentinian, by his edict, granted the like liberty, to resist any unjust invader to depopulate the lands of his subjects, that he might be forthwith liable to a deserved punishment, and suffer that death which he threatned.--and the like of arcadius is extant, in the justinian cod. tit. how it may be lawful for every man to vindicate himself and the public, without the concurrence of a judge. but that doth not exclude the lawfulness of such resistances in case of necessity, without public authority; so here, it was not the king's commandment that made the jews avenging themselves lawful, if it had not been lawful before and without it; it gave them only liberty to improve that privilege, which they had from god and nature. surely their power of resisting did not depend on the king's commandment, as is proven, head . ergo, neither their power of avenging themselves, to prevent their murder by their enemies, which they could and were obliged to do, if there had been no such authority: ergo, it was not only suspended upon the king's authority. and as for haman's sons and adherents, being agagites, they were obliged, by a prior command, to avenge themselves on them, on all occasions, by that command to destroy amalek: therefore it must be lawful, even without public authority, in some cases of necessity, to prevent the murder of public enemies, by laying hands on them that seek the hurt of all the people of god. secondly, there are some precepts from which the same may be concluded. . there is a command, and the first penal statute against murderers, we read, gen. ix. . 'whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.' here the command is given in general to punish capitally all murderers; but there may be some that no magistrate can punish, who are not here exempted, to wit, they that are in supreme authority, and turn murderers, as was said above. again, the command is given in general to man involving all the community (where the murderer is) in guilt, if his blood be not shed; as we find in the scripture, all the people were threatned and punished because judgment was not executed; and when it was executed even by these who were no magistrates, the wrath of god was turned away, whereof there are many examples above. further, if the command to shed the blood of murderers be given before the institution of magistracy, then, in case of necessity, to stop the course of murderers, it may be obeyed, when there is no magistrate to execute it: but here it is given before the first institution of magistracy, when now there was no government in the world, but family government, as grotius on the place saith, 'when this law was given, public judgment was not yet constitute, therefore the natural right and law of taliation is here held forth, which when mankind was increased and divided into several nations, was justly permitted only to judges, some cases excepted, in which that primeve right did remain.' and if in any, then in this case in question. hence, lex rex answereth the p. prelate, essaying to prove, that a magistracy is established in the text denies that ba adam, by man, must signify a magistrate, for then there was but family government, and cites calvin, of the same mind, that the magistrate is not spoken of here. though this command afterwards was given to the magistrate, numb. xxxv. . yet in a case of necessity, we must recur to the original command. . this same command of punishing murdering enemies, is even, after the institution of magistrates, in several cases not astricted to them, but permitted to the people, yea enjoined to them. as, ( .) not only magistrates, but the people, are commanded to avenge themselves on their public enemies, as the israelites, after their being ensnared in the matter of peor, are commanded to vex the midianites, and smite them, because they beguiled them, and brought a plague upon them, numb. xxv. , . and numb. xxxi. . to avenge themselves on them, and for this end to arm themselves, and go against them, and avenge the lord of midian: which they executed with the slaughter of all the males. so likewise are they commanded to destroy amalek. it is true these commands are given primarily and principally to magistrates, as there to moses, and afterwards to saul: yet afterwards we find others than magistrates, upon this moral ground, having the call of god, did execute judgment upon them, as gideon and david, before they were magistrates, did avenge themselves and the lord upon them, as is before cleared. it is also true, that there was some holy severity then to be extended against particular nations as such, peculiar to that dispensation, which is not pleaded as imitable; but the ground was moral, and the right of a people's saving themselves by the destruction of their enemies; when there is no other way for it, is natural. and this is all we plead for here. if people may vex their enemies, and avenge themselves against them, even without public authority, when ensnared by their craftiness; much more may they put a stop to their insolency, by cutting off their principle and most pernicious instruments, in case of necessity, when invaded by their cruelty; but here a people is commanded to vex their enemies, and avenge themselves on them, and accordingly gideon and david did so, without public authority, and that upon a ground which is moral and natural: ergo--( .) the execution of the punishment of murderers is committed to the people: 'the revenger of blood, himself shall slay the murderer, when he meeteth him, he shall slay him,' numb. xxxv. , . so that if he met him before he got into any city of refuge, he might lawfully slay him, and if he did flee to any, he was to be rendered up to the avengers hands, deut. xix. . that the guilt of innocent blood may be put away from israel, ver. . this revenger of blood was not the magistrate: for he was the party pursuing, numb. xxxv. . between whom and the murderer the congregation was to judge: he was only the next in blood or kindred. in the original he is called goel, the redeemer, or he to whom the right of redemption belongs, and very properly so called, both because he seeks redemption and compensation for the blood of his brother, and because he redeems the land from blood guiltiness, in which otherwise it would be involved. i do not plead that this is always to be imitated, as neither it was always practised in israel; but if a private man, in a hot pursuit of his brother's murderer, might be his avenger, before he could be brought to judgment, then much more may this power be assumed, in a case of necessity, when there is no judgment to be expected by law, and when not only our brethren have been murdered by them that profess a trade of it, but others also and ourselves are daily in hazard of it, which may be prevented in cutting them off. i do not see what is here merely judicial, so as to be rejected as judaical: for sure murderers must be slain now as well as then, and there is the same hazard of their escaping now as then: murder involves the land in guilt, now as well as then, and in this case of necessity especially, that law that gives a man right to preserve himself, gives him also right to be his own avenger, if he cannot otherwise defend himself. ( .) not only the execution, the decision of matters of life and death, is committed to them; as in the case of blasphemy and cursing, 'all that heard were to lay their hands upon his head, and all the congregation was to stone him,' lev. xxiv. , . 'the man-slayer was to stand before the congregation in judgment. then the congregation shall judge between the slayer and avenger of blood,' numb. xxxv. , . the people claimed the power of life and death, in seeking to execute judgment upon those that had spoken treason against saul, bring the men (say they) that we may put them to death, . sam. xi. . especially in the case of punishing tyrants, as they did with amaziah. certainly this is not so judicial or judaical, as that in no case it may be imitated; for that can never be abrogated altogether, which in many cases is absolutely necessary; but that the people, without public authority, should take the power of life and death, and of putting a stop to the insolency of destroyers, by putting them to death, is in many cases absolutely necessary; for without this they cannot preserve themselves against grassant tyrants, nor the fury of public enemies or firebrands within themselves, in case they have no public authority, or none but such as are on their destroyers side. ( .) not only the power of purging the land, by divine precept, is incumbent on the people, that it may not ly under blood guiltiness; but also the power of reforming the courts of kings, by taking course with their wicked abetters and evil instruments, is committed to him, with a promise that if this be done, it shall tend to the establishment of their throne; which is not only a supposition in case it be done, but a supposed precept to do it, with an insinuation of the necessity and expediency of it, that it is as suitable as the taking away of the dross from silver, in order to the production of a vessel, prov. xxv. , . 'take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness;' which is not only there given to kings, for then it would be in the second person spoken to them, but to the people to do it before them, as the people did with baal's prophets from before ahab. and our progenitors many times have done with wicked counsellors, as may be seen in the foregoing representation, and more fully in the history of the douglasses, and in knox's and calderwood's histories. hence, if it be duty to reform the court, and to take away a king's wicked sycophants, counsellors, agents, and instigators to tyranny; then it must be lawful, in some cases of necessity, to restrain their insolency, and repress their tyranny, in executing judgment upon such of them as are most insupportable, who are made drunk with the blood of innocents; but the former is true: therefore----( .) for the omission of the executing of this judgment on oppressors and murderers, involving the whole land in blood guiltiness, which cannot be expiated but by the blood of them that are so criminal; not only magistrates, but the whole people have been plagued. as for saul's murdering the gibeonites, the whole land was plagued, until the man that consumed them, and devised against them to destroy them, seven of his sons were delivered unto them, to be hanged up before the lord, sam. xxi. , . so also for the sins of manasseh. the reason was, because if the magistrate would not excute judgment, the people should have done it: for not only to the king, but also to his servants, and to the people that entered in by the gates, the command is, excute ye judgment, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, jer. xxii. , . though it be true, this is to be done by every one in their station, justice and order being preserved, and according to the measure of their office, and it chiefly belongs to judges and magistrates: yet this is no wrong to justice, nor breach of order, nor sinful transgression of people's vocation, not only to hinder the shedding of innocent blood, to prevent god's executing of what he there threatens, but also to execute judgment on the shedders, to prevent their progress in murdering villany, when inferior as well as superior magistrates are oppressing and tyrannizing: therefore this seeking, and doing, and executing judgment, is so often required of the people, in such a case, when princes are rebellious and companions of thieves, and in the city where judgment used to be, now murderers bear sway, isa. i. . . the lord is displeased where there is none, isa. lix. , . jer. v. . see this vindicated in lex rex, quest. . p. . and in jus popul. cap. . p. . . that command concludes the same against idolaters, apostates, and enticers thereunto, deut. xiii. . &c. 'if thy brother----or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, let us go and serve other gods----thou shalt not spare nor conceal him, but thou shalt surely kill him----because he sought to thrust thee away from the lord thy god----and all israel shall hear, and fear, and do no more any such wickedness.' and ver. . &c. 'if thou shall hear say in one of thy cities----saying, certain men the children of belial, are gone out----and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying, let us go to serve other gods----then shalt thou enquire----and behold if it be truth, and the thing certain----thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly.'----this cause of the open enticers to idolatry was not brought to the judges, as common idolaters, and such who were enticed to serve other gods, and worship them, were to be brought to the gates, and to be stoned first by the hands of witnesses, and afterwards by all the people, deut. xvii. , , . but this is another law; of which the jewish antiquaries, and particularly grotius out of philo and the rabb. upon the place, saith, 'whereas in other crimes the guilty used to be kept after the sentence a night and a day, that if he could say any more for himself he might, these were excepted from this benefit; and not only so, but it was permitted to any to execute judgment upon them (viz. enticers to idolatry) without waiting for a judge. the like was used against sacrilegious robbers of the temple, and priests who sacrificed when they were polluted, and those who cursed god by the name of an idol, and those who lay with an idolatress: chiefly those who denied the divine authority of the law: and this behoved to be before the people, at least ten, which in hebrew they called hheda.----neither is this to be admitted in so grievous a crime, when even the man-slayer without the place of refuge might have been killed by the kinsman of the defunct.' and upon numb. xv. . the punishment of presumptuous blasphemers, he says, 'but here these are to be understood thus, that the guilty shall not be brought to the judges, but be killed by them that deprehended them in the crime, as phinehas did to zimri;' and proves it out of maimonides, pool. synop. critic. on the place. and it must be so; for in this case no mention is made either of judges, or witnesses, or further judgment about it, than that he that was tempted by the enticer should fall upon him, and let the people know it, that they might lay hands on him also; otherwise evil men might pretend such a thing when it was not true. but in case of a city's apostacy, and hearkning to enticers, the thing was only to be solicitously enquired into, and then though it was chiefly incumbent upon the magistrate to punish it, yet it was not all astricted to him, but that the people might do it without him. as upon this moral ground, was israel's war stated against benjamin, judg. xx. . when there was no king nor judge, and also when there were kings that turned idolaters and tyrants, they served them so, as here is commanded: witness amaziah, as is shewed above. hence not only moses, upon the people's defection into idolatry in the wilderness, commanded all on the lord's side, every man to put his sword by his side,--and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour, whereby three thousand fell at that time by the sword of the levites, exod. xxxii. , . but also joash, gideon's father, upon the same moral ground, though he was no magistrate, could say to the abiezrites, will ye plead for baal--he that will plead for him, let him be put to death while it is yet morning.--judg. vi. . moreover, (as mr. mitchel adduces the example very pertinently), we see that the people of israel destroyed idolatry, not only in judah wherein the king concurred, but in ephraim, and in manasseh, where the king himself was an idolater; and albeit, they were but private persons, without public authority: for what all the people was bound to do by the law of god, every one was bound to do it to the uttermost of his power and capacity. mr. mitchel offers this place to vindicate his fact of shooting at the prelate, deut. xiii. . 'wherein, (says he) it is manifest, that the idolater or enticer to worship a false god, is to be put to death by the hand of those whom he seeks to turn away from the lord: which precept i humbly take to be moral, and not merely judicial, and that it is not at all ceremonial or levitical. and as every moral precept is universal, as to the extent of place, so also as to the extent of time, and persons.' the chief thing objected here is, that this is judicial precept, peculiarly suited to the old dispensation; which to plead for as a rule under the new testament, would favour of jewish rigidity inconsistent with a gospel spirit. ans. how mr. knox refels this, and clears that the command here is given to all the people, needs not be here repeated; but it were sufficient to read it in the foregoing representation, period . pag. . as it is also cited by jus pop. pag. . &c. but these general truths may be added, concerning the judicial laws, . none can say, that none of the judicial laws, concerning political constitutions, is to be observed in the new testament: for then many special rules of natural and necessary equity would be rejected, which are contained in the judicial laws of god: yea, all the laws of equity in the world would be so cast: for none can be instanced, which may not be reduced to some of the judicial laws: and if any of them are to be observed, certainly these penal statutes, so necessary for the preservation of policies, must be binding. . if we take not our measures from the judicial laws of god, we shall have no laws for punishment of any malefactors by death, of divine right, in the new testament. and so all capital punishments must be only human constitutions; and consequently they must be all murders: for to take away the life of man, except for such causes as the lord of our life (to whose arbitriment it is only subject) hath not approven, is murder, as dr. ames saith, de homicidio conscienc. lib. . cap. . quest. . for in the new testament, though in the general, the power of punishing is given to the magistrate, yet it is no where determined, neither what, nor how crimes are to be punished. if therefore penal laws must be taken from the old testament; the subject of executing them, as well as the object, must be thence deduced; that is, what is there astricted to the magistrate must be so still, and what is permitted to the people must remain in like manner their privilege; since it is certain, the new-testament liberty is not more restricted as to penal laws than the old. . those judicial laws, which had either somewhat typical, or pedagogical, or peculiar to the then judaical state, are indeed not binding to us under that formality; though even these doctrinally are very useful, in so far as in their general nature, or equity of proportion, they exhibit to us some documents of duty; but those penal judgments, which in the matter of them are appended to the moral law, and are, in effect, but accurate determinations and accommodations of the law of nature, which may suit our circumstances as well as the jews, do oblige us as well as them. and such are these penal statutes i adduce; for, that blasphemy, murder, and idolatry, are heinous crimes, and that they are to be punished, the law of nature dictates: and how, and by whom, in several cases, they are to be punished, the law judicial determines. concerning the moral equity even of the strictest of them, amesius de conscien. lib. . mosaical appendix of precepts, doth very learnedly assert their binding force: . those judicial laws, which are but positive in their form, yet if their special, internal, and proper reason and ground be moral, which pertains to all nations, which is necessary and useful to mankind, which is rooted in, and may be fortified by human reason, and as to the substance of them approven by the more intelligent heathens; those are moral, and oblige all christians as well as jews: and such are these laws of punishing idolaters, &c. founded upon moral grounds, pertaining to all nations, necessary and useful to mankind, rooted in, and fortified by human reason; to wit, that the wrath of god may be averted, and that all may hear and fear, and do no more so wickedly; especially if this reason be superadded, when the case is such, that innocent and honest people cannot be preserved, if such wicked persons be not taken order with. . those judicial laws, which being given by the lord's immediate authority, though not so solemnly as the moral decalogue, are neither as to their end, dead, nor as to their use, deadly, nor as to their nature, indifferent, nor in any peculiar respect restringible only to the jews, but the transgressions whereof both by omission and commission are still sins, and were never abolished neither formally nor consequentially in the new testament, must be moral; but such, as these penal laws i am speaking of, they cannot be reputed among the ceremonial laws, dead as to their end, and deadly as to their use, or indifferent in their nature: for sure, to punish the innocent upon the account of these crimes, were still sin, now as well as under the old testament; and not punish the guilty, were likewise sin now as well as then. if then the matter be moral and not abolished, the execution of it by private persons, in some cases when there is no access to public authority, must be lawful also. or if it be indifferent, that which is in its own nature indifferent, cannot be in a case of extreme necessity unlawful, when otherwise the destruction of ourselves and brethren is in all human consideration inevitable. that which god hath once commanded, and never expresly forbidden, cannot be unlawful, in extraordinary cases, but such are these precepts we speak of: therefore they cannot be in every case unlawful. concerning this case of the obligation of judicial laws, ames. de conscienc. lib. . cap. . quest. . . those laws which are predicted to be observed and executed in the new testament, cannot be judicial or judaical, restricted to the old: but such is this. in the day, that a fountain shall be opened for the house of david for sin, and for uncleanness; which clearly points at gospel times; it is said, "the lord will cause the prophets and the unclean spirits to pass out of the land: and it shall come to pass, that when any shall yet prophesy, then his father and his mother that begat him shall say unto him, thou shalt not live----and shall thrust him through when he prophesieth," zech. xiii. . which cannot be meant of a spiritual penetration of the heart: for it is said, he shall not live; and the wounds of such as might escape, by resistance or flight, are visible in his hands, ver. . it is therefore to be understood of corporal killing inticers to idolatry, according to the law, deut. xii. . either by delivering them up to the judges, as piscator on the place says, or as grotius saith, they shall run through, as phinehas did zimri, numb. xxv. understand this of a false prophet, desiring to intice the people to the worship of false gods; for the law impowered every jew to proceed against such----which law expressly adds, that they should not spare their son, if guilty of such a crime. from all which i conclude, if people are to bring to condign punishment idolatrous apostates, seeking to intice them; then may oppressed people, daily in hazard of the death of their souls by compliance; or of their bodies, by their constancy in duty, put forth their hand to execute judgment, in case of necessity, upon idolatrous apostates and incendiaries, and the principal murdering emissaries of tyrants, that seek to destroy people, or enforce them to the same apostacy; but the former is true: therefore, &c. . the same may be inferred from that command of rescuing and delivering our brother, when in hazard of his life; for omitting which duty, no pretence, even of ignorance, will excuse us, prov. xxiv. , . if thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, behold we knew it not: doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul doth not he know it, and shall not he render to every man according to his works? that is, 'rescue out out of the hand of the invader, robber, unjust magistrate, &c. and that either by defending him with your hand, or tongue, or any other lawful way: men use to make a great many excuses, either that they know not his danger nor his innocence, nor that they were possessed of so great authority that they might relieve him, that they have enough to do to mind their own affairs, and not concern themselves with others, &c. he proposes and redargues here, for examples sake, one excuse, comprehending all the rest.' as commentators say, pool. syn. crit. in loc. this precept is indefinitely given to all: principally indeed belonging to righteous magistrates; but in case of their omission, and if, instead of defending them, they be the persons that draw or send out their destroying emissaries to draw them to death, then the precept is no more to be restricted to them, than that verse. . not to be envious against evil men, or vers. . if thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small, can be said to be spoken only to magistrates. hence, if it be a duty to rescue our brethren from any prevailing power that would take their lives unjustly, and no pretence even of ignorance will excuse the forbearance of it, then it must be lawful, in some extraordinary cases, to prevent the murdering violence of public incendiaries, by killing them, rather than to suffer ourselves or our brethren to be killed, when there is no other way, in probability, either of saving ourselves, or rescuing them; but here the former is commanded as a duty: therefore the latter also must be justified, when the duty cannot otherwise be discharged. now, having thus at some length endeavoured to discuss this some way odd and esteemed odious head, to which task i have been as unwillingly drawn, as the actors here pleaded for were driven to the occasion thereof, whom only the necessity of danger did force to such atchievements, to preserve their own and brethren's lives, in prosecuting the cause; and nothing but the necessity of duty did force me to this undertaking, to defend their name from reproach, and the cause from calumnies. i shall conclude with a humble protestation, that what i have said be not stretched further than my obvious and declared design doth aim at; which is not to press a practice from these precedents, but to vindicate a scripture truth from invidious or ignorant obloquies, and not to specify what may or must be done in such cases hereafter, but to justify what hath been done in such circumstances before. wherein i acknowledge, that though the truth be certain, such things may be done, yet the duty is most difficult to be done with approbation. such is the fury of corrupt passion, far more fierce in all than the pure zeal of god is to be found fervent in any, that too much caution, tenderness, and fear, can scarce be adhibit in a subject, wherein even the most warrantable provocation of holy zeal is ordinarily attended with such a concurrence of self-interest, and other carnal temptations, as it is impossible, without the signal assistance of special grace, to have its exercise in any notable measure or manner, without the mixture of sinful allay; as the true nonconformist doth truly observe as above. yet this doctrine, though in its defined and uncautioned latitude be obnoxious to accidental abuses (as all doctrines may be abused by men's corruption or ignorance, misapplying the same) is nevertheless built upon such foundations, that religion will own to be firm, and reason will ratify their force. and i hope it is here so circumscribed with scripture boundaries, and restricted in the narrow circumstantiation of the case, that as the ungodly cannot captate advantage from it, to encourage themselves in their murdering villanies, seeing they never were, never can be so circumstantiate, as the exigence here defined requires; so as for the godly, i may presume upon their tenderness, and the conduct of that spirit that is promised to lead them, and the zeal they have for the honour of holiness, with which all real cruelty is inconsistent, to promise in their name, that if their enemies will repent of their wickedness, and so far at least reform themselves, as to surcease from their cruel murdering violence, in persecuting them to the death, and devouring them as a prey, then they shall not need to fear from the danger of this doctrine, but as saith the proverb of the ancients, wickedness proceedeth from the wicked, but their hand shall not be upon them. but if they shall still proceed to murder the innocent, they must understand, they that hold this truth in theory, will also reduce it to practice. and bloody papists must know, that christians now are more men, than either stupidly to surrender their throats to their murdering swords, or supinely to suffer their villany to pass unpunished; and though their favours have flattered many, and their fury hath forced others, into a faint succumbing and superseding from all action against them; yet all are not asleep; and i hope there are some, who will never enter into any terms of peace with them, against whom the mediator hath declared, and will prosecute a war for ever, but will still own and aim at this, as the highest pitch of their ambition, to be found among his chosen, called, and faithful ones, who maintain a constant opposition against them. however, though the lord seems, in his providence, to put a bar upon all public appearances under a display of open war against them; and it is not the design of what is said here on this and the foregoing head, to incite or invite to any: yet certainly, even at this present time, all that have the zeal of god, and love to his righteous cause rightly stated in their hearts, will find themselves called not to supersede altogether from all actions, of avowed and even violent opposition against them, whom we are all bound both by the morality of the duty, and the formality of solemn and sacred covenants, to hold out from a violent intrusion into, and peaceable possession of this land devoted to god, and to put them out when they are got in either by fraud or force; and this plea, now brought to an end, will oblige all the loyal lovers of christ to an endeavour of these, . to take alarms, and to be fore-warned and fore-armed, resolute and ready to withstand the invasion of popery; that it be neither established by law, through the supineness of such, who should stand in the gap, and resolve rather to be sacrificed in the spot by a valiant resisting, than see such an abomination set up again; nor introduced by this liberty, through the wiles of such, whose chiefest principle of policy is perfidy, who design by this wide gate, and in the womb of the wooden horse of this toleration, to bring it in peaceably; nor intruded by force and fury, fire and sword, if they shall fall upon their old game of murders and massacres. it concerns all to be upon their guard, and not only to come out of babylon, but to be making ready to go against it, when the lord shall give the call. . to resist the beginnings of their invasions, before they be past remedy; and for this effect, to oppose their gradual erections of their idolatrous monuments, and not suffer them to set up the idol of the mass in city or country, without attempting, if they have any force, to overthrow the same. . in the mean time, to defend themselves and the gospel, against all their assaults, and to rescue any out of their hands, upon all occasions, that for the cause of christ they have caught as a prey, and to oppose and prevent their own and the nation's ruin and slavery. but to conclude: as it will be now expected, in justice and charity, that all the vassals and votaries, subjects and servants, of the one common lord and king, christ jesus, every where throughout his dominions, who may see this representation of the case, and vindication of the cause of a poor wasted and wounded, persecuted and reproached, remnant of the now declining, sometimes renowned church of scotland, will be so far from standing esau like on the other side, either as enemies, rejoicing to look on their affliction in the day of their calamity; or as neutral, unconcerned with their distressed conditions; or as strangers, without the knowledge or sense of their sorrows and difficulties; or as gallio's caring for none of these things, or thinking their case not worthy of compassion, or their cause of consideration; or possibly condemning their sufferings, as at best but started upon slender, subtile, and nice points, that are odd and odious, and invidiously represented: it is now expected, i say, that christians, not possessed with prejudice, (which is very improper for any that bear that holy and honourable signature) and not willing to be imposed on by misinformations, will be so far from that unchristian temper towards them, as to be easily biassed with all reports and reproaches to their disadvantage, that if they weigh what is in this treatise offered, and truly i may say candidly represented, without any design of prevarication, or painting or daubing, to make the matter either better or worse than it will seem to any impartial observer; they will admit and entertain a more charitable construction of them, and not deny them brotherly sympathy and christian compassion, nor be wanting in the duty of prayer and supplication for them; at length the lord would turn his hand upon the little ones, and bring at least a third part, a remnant of mourners, through the fire. so, to that little flock, the poor of the flock, that wait upon the lord, and desire to keep his way, i shall only say, though i judged necessity was laid upon me, instead of a better, to essay this vindication of your cause, as stated betwixt you and your lord's enemies, the men that now ride over your heads, that say to your soul, bow down that we may go over you, i desire not that you should, yea i obtest that you may not lay any stress on the strength of what i have said; but let its weight ly where it must be laid, on that firm foundation that will bear you and it both, that stone, that tried stone, that precious corner-stone, that sure foundation christ jesus; and search the scriptures of truth to see whether these things be so or not: and i doubt not, but by that touchstone if these precious truths be tried, they will be found neither hay nor stubble, that cannot abide the fire, but as silver tried in a furnace of earth purified seven times. be not offended, that they are contemned as small, and contradicted as odious, but look to the importance of his glory, whose truths and concerns they are, and from whom they are seeking to draw or drive you, who oppose and oppugn these truths. stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith christ hath made you free, and hold fast every word of his patience, that you may be kept in this hour of tentation. let no man take your crown, or pull you down from your excellency, which is always the design of your wicked enemies, in all their several shapes nd shews, both of force and fraud, craft and cruelty. beware of their snares, and of their tender mercies, for they are cruel; and when they speak fair, believe them not, for there are seven abominations in their hearts. "say ye not a confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say a confederacy, neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid; sanctify the lord of hosts himself, and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread, and he shall be for a sanctuary, but for a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence, to both the houses of israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of jerusalem. wait upon the lord who hideth his face from the house of jacob, and look for him among his children," though now you be reputed for signs and wonders in israel, from the lord of hosts which dwelleth in mount zion. "who knows, but therefore will the lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you, for the lord is a god of judgment, blessed are all they that wait for him." to whom be all the glory, amen. * * * * * having come to a conclusion of the six heads proposed to be treated of, i judged it conducing, by way of a postscript, to subjoin a seventh, in vindication of these conscientious and truly tender sufferers, who, in the dread and awe of the holy, sovereign, and supreme law-giver, who commandeth his subjects and followers, to abstain from all appearance of evil, did in obedience to him and his royal law, choose rather to suffer the rage, robberies, and violence of cruel and bloody enemies, together with censures, reproaches, obloquies, and contempt of apostatising professors, than to give any aid or encouragement to the avowed and declared enemies of christ, that might contribute to the promoving their sacrilegious, tyrannical, and hellish projects and practices, calculate and prosecute against the gospel and kingdom of christ, the covenanted reformed religion of the church, the rights, laws, and liberties of the people, and to the introducing of antichristian idolatry, tyranny and slavery, by paying any of their wicked and wickedly imposed exactions, raised for furthering their hellish designs, of which none that pays them can be innocent. head vii. _the sufferings of many, for refusing to pay the wicked exactions of the cess, locality, fines, &c. vindicated._ it will possibly seem impertinent, or at least preposterous at such a time, when the pressure of these burdens is not more pinching to the generality of professing people, and in such a retrograde order, as after the discussion of the foregoing heads to subjoin any disquisition of these questions, which are now out of date and doors with many. but considering that the impositions of these burdens are still pressing to some, and the difficulties of doubts and disputes about them still puzling, the sin and scandal of complying with them still lying upon the land, not confessed nor forsaken, the leaven of such doctrine as daubs and defends the like compliance still entertained, the sufferings of the faithful, for refusing them, still contemned and condemned, and the fears and expectations of more snares of that nature, after this fair weather is over, still increasing; if i may be so happy as to escape impertinencies in the manner of managing this disquisition, i fear not the censure of the impertinency or needlessness of this essay. as to the order of it, it was intended to have been put in its proper place among the negative heads of sufferings; but knowing of how little worth or weight any thing that i can say is with the prejudged, and having a paper writ by two famous witnesses of christ against the defections of their day, mr. m'ward and mr. brown, more fully and largely detecting the iniquity of the cess (from which the wickedness of other exactions also may be clearly deduced) though at such distance at the writing of the foregoing heads, that it could not be had in readiness to take its due place, and time would not allow the suspending other things until this should come to hand; i thought it needful, rather than to omit it altogether, to insert it here. however, tho' neither the form of it, being by way of letter, nor the method adapted to the design of a moving disswasion, nor the length and prolixity thereof, will suffer it to be here transcribed as it is; yet to discover what were their sentiments of these things, and what was the doctrine preached and homologated by the most faithful both ministers and professors of scotland, eight or nine years since, how closely continued in by the contendings of this reproached remnant still persecuted for these things, and how clearly abandoned and refiled from, by their complying brethren now at ease, i shall give a short transumpt and compend of their reasonings, in a method subservient to my scope, and with additions necessary for applying their arguments against the other exactions here adduced in this head, and bringing them also under the dint of them, though not touched by them expressly. i must put altogether, because it would dilate the treatise, already excresced, into a bigness, far beyond the boundaries i designed for it, to handle them distinctly; and their affinity, both as to their fountain, nature, and ends, is such, that what will condemn one of them will condemn all. what and how many and manifold have been the exorbitant exactions, as the fruits and foments of this cruel tyranny, that the godly in our land have been groaning under these twenty seven years, and upon what occasions they have been, at diverse times, and in diverse manners and measures imposed, i need not here relate, the first part of the treatise doth represent it. the first of these tyrannical exactions, were the fines for not hearing the curates, and other parts of non-conformity; which, together with paying the curates stipends, were too universally at first complied with; but afterwards upon more mature consideration, and after clearer discoveries of the imposers projects and practices, they were scrupled and refused by the more tender. and their sufferings, upon the account of that recusancy, have been very great and grievous, to the utter impoverishment and depopulation of many families, besides the personal sufferings of many in long imprisonments, which some choose rather to sustain with patience, than pay the least of those exactions. yea, some when ordered to be legally liberate, and set forth out of prison, choosed rather to be detained still in bondage, than to pay the jaylor's fees, their keepers demanded of them. many other wicked impositions have been pressed and prosecuted with great rigour and rage, as militia money, and locality, for furnishing soldiers, listed under a banner displayed against religion and liberty, with necessary provision, in and for their wicked service; which of late years have been contended against by the sufferings of many, and daily growing a trial to more. but the most impudently insolent of all these impositions, and that which plainly paraphrases, openly expresses and explains all the rest, calculate for the same ends, was by that wicked act of convention, enacted in the , declaring very plainly its ends, to levy and maintain forces for suppressing meetings, and to shew unanimous affection for maintaining the king's supremacy established by law. or as they represent it in their act, for continuation of it, act . parl. . char. ii. august , . 'seeing the convention of estates held at edinburgh in the month of july, , upon weighty considerations therein specified, and particularly the great danger the kingdom was under, by seditious and rebellious conventicles, and the necessity which then appeared, to increase the forces, for securing the government, and suppressing these rebellious commotions, which were fomented by seditious principles and practices, did therefore humbly and dutifully offer a chearful and unanimous supply of , pound scots,--in the space of five years,--and the estates of parliament now conveened, having taken to consideration, how the dangers from the foresaid causes do much encrease, in so far as such as are seditiously and rebelliously inclined, do still propagate their pernicious principles, and go on from one degree of rebellion to another, till now at last the horrid villanies of murder, assassination, and avowed rebellion, are owned, not only as things lawful, but as obligations from their religion,--do therefore, in a due sense of their duty to god, to their sacred sovereign, and the preservation of themselves, and their posterity, of new make an humble, unanimous, chearful, and hearty offer, for themselves, and in name of, and as representing this his majesty's ancient kingdom, of a continuation of the foresaid supply, granted by the convention or estates; and that for the space of five years, or ten terms successive, beginning the first terms payment at martinmass, , which yet is to be continued until martinmass, .' here is a sample of their wicked demands, shewing the nature, quality, and tendency of all of them; wherein we may note, . that they continue it upon the same considerations, upon which it was first granted. . that these were, and yet remain to be, the danger of the meetings of the lord's people for gospel ordinances, by them forced into the fields, which they call rebellious conventicles; and the necessity of securing their usurpation upon the prerogatives of christ, liberties of his church and privileges of mankind, (which they call their government) and suppressing the testimonies for the interest of christ (called by them rebellious commotions.) . that their motive of continuing it, was their considerations of some weak remainders of former zeal for god, in prosecuting the testimony for the interests of christ, and principles of the covenanted reformation, (which they call propagating pernicions principles) and some weak attempts to oppose and resist their rebellion against god, and vindicate the work, and defend the people of god, from the destruction they intended against them, and their lawful and obliged endeavours to bring these destroyers and murderers to condign punishment (which they, call horrid villanies of murder, assassinations, and avowed rebellion.) here all the active appearances of the lord's people, vindicated in the foregoing heads, are industriously represented, under these odious and invidious names, as motives to contribute this supply of means to suppress them, and to involve all the contributers in the guilt of condemning them. . that as a tell their allegiance unto, and confederacy with that execrable tyrant (which they call their duty to their sacred sovereign) they enact this as representatives of the kingdom, and must be owned as such by all the payers . that it is the same cess that was granted by the convention of estates, and the term of its continuation is not yet expired. and hence it is manifest, that that act of convention, though its first date be expired, and thereupon many plead for the lawfulness of paying it now, that formerly scrupled at and witnessed against it, yet is only renewed, revived and corroborated, and the exaction continued upon no other basis or bottom but the first state constitution; which was, and remains to be a consummating and crimson wickedness, the cry whereof reaches heaven, since upon the matter, it was the setting of a day betwixt and which (exceeding the gadarenes wickedness, and short of their civility) they did not beseech christ, and his gospel to be gone out of scotland, but with armed violence declared, they would with the strong hand drive him out of his possession; in order to which their legions are levied, with a professed declaration, that having exauctorate the lord's anointed by law, and cloathed the usurper with the spoils of his honour, they will by force maintain what they have done; and having taken to themselves the house of god in possession, they will sacrifice the lives, liberties, and fortunes of all in the nation, to secure themselves in the peaceable possession of what they have robbed god; and that there shall not be a soul left in the nation, who shall not be slain, shut up, or sold as slaves, who will own christ and his interest. all which they could not, nor cannot accomplish, without the subsidiary contribution of the people's help. this is the plain sense of the act for the cess; and, though not expressed, the tacit and uniform intention of all the rest; yet, for as monstrous and manifest the wickedness of these designs are, so judicially were the bulk of our seers plagued with blindness, that many of them were left to plead for the payment of these impositions; others, though they durst not for a world do it themselves, to be silent, and by their silence to encourage and embolden many to such a compliance; presuming with themselves, and without further enquiry, that the zeal of god, and love to his glory, and the souls of their brethren, would constrain them to speak in so clamant a case, if they did observe any sin in it. whereby the universality was involved in the guilt of these things, especially deceived by the patrociny and pleadings of such of late, who formerly witnessed against it. o that it might be given to us to remember lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt, to season us, lest the stink of our destruction, and what may follow upon it, be all that the posterity get for a warning not to tread our paths. as for the few that have suffered upon this head, they have been so discruciated with perplexities, in their conflicts with the rage of enemies, and reproach of friends, and fear of these snares attending every lot of occupation they could put themselves in, that they have been made to desire death, as their best refuge, and only retreat wherein they may find rest from all these rackings; for, in no place could they escape the reach of some of these impositions, nor the noise of their clamorous contendings of arguments that pleaded for it. but some have had more love to christ and his interests, than language to plead for him, and more resolution to suffer, than learning to dispute for his cause; and where pure zeal for christ, and love to his bleeding interests; in a time when he is crucified afresh, and put to open shame, and the concurrence of all is required to help forward the war against him, is in integrity and vigour, it will burn with its flame those knots that it cannot in haste loose; and chuse rather to ly under the imputation of being zealous without knowledge, than life of let go such an opportunity of witnessing a good confession; yea, when it could do more, expire with an ichabod in its mouth. but shortly to come to the point, i shall, . permit some concessions. . propose some parallel questions. . offer some reasons to clear it. . i shall willingly grant in the general, concerning paying of exactions, impositions, or emoluments. . they are to be paid to these to whom they are due; as tribute and custom is to be paid to the powers ordained of god, and for this cause they that are god's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing, rom. xiii. , . so stipends and all outward encouragements are due to ministers of the gospel, who sow spiritual things, and should reap these carnal things, cor. ix. , . fines also, and all legal amercements for delinquencies against such laws must be paid, deut. xxii. . and whatsoever is due by law to officers, appointed by law, for keeping delinquents in custody, as all debts whatsoever. but tyrants exactions, enacted and exacted for promoving their wicked designs against religion and liberty, hirelings salaries, for encouraging them in their intrusions upon the church of god; arbitrary impositions of pecuniary punishments for clear duties; and extorted hirings, of the subordinate instruments of persecution, oppressions, are no ways due, and cannot be debt, and therefore no equity to pay them. . it is lawful to pay them, when due and debt, either by law or contract, even though they should be afterward abused and misimproven to pernicious ends. but these payments for such wicked ends, either particularly specified and expressed in the very act appointing them, or openly avouched by the exactors, are of another nature than impositions fundamentally appointed for the public good; and the after misapplication thereof, made by such as are entrusted therewith, is no more imputable unto the land or payers, than is the theft of a collector stealing or running away with the same, without making count or reckoning to superiors. it is then a foolish thing to say, that former impositions were peaceably paid, though we saw and were convinced that their use was perverted, and they were used against the good of the land and god's people: for no such thing was laid down as the ground, or declared as the end of these exactions; but what fell out was by the personal abuse and perversion of those in power: which was their own personal fault, and posterior to the legal engagement and submission to the payment thereof by the land in their representatives. . it is lawful to pay them sometimes, even when fundamentally and originally from the first constitution of them they were not due, but illegally or usurpatively challenged and exacted, if afterwards they were by sedition or voluntary engagement, legally submitted unto by the true representatives. but not so, when they were never either lawfully enacted, or legally exacted, or voluntarily engaged by the representatives, except such as represented the enslavement of the nation, and betrayed the country, religion, liberty, property, and all precious interests, and declaredly imposed to further the destruction of all. nor can any with reason say, that this case is but like the case of the people of israel under the feet of enemies, paying to them of the fruits of their ground, as was regretted and lamented by nehemia, chap. ix. , . for so they must say, the exactions now in debate are their redemption-money, and by these they purchase their liberty of life and lands, and own themselves to be a people under conquest. and yet they cannot deny, but they are both exacted and paid as tests of their allegiance as subjects, and badges of their loyalty and obedience. but this is answered before, head . conces. . sect. . if any should object the practice of christ, though otherwise free, yet paying custom, lest he should offend: it is fully solved ibid. head . conces. . here it is sufficient to hint ( .) that which made them to marvel at his wise answer was, that he left the title unstated, and the claim unresolved, whether it belonged to cesar or not, and taught them in the general to give nothing to cesar with prejudice to what was god's; which condemns all the payments we speak of, which are all for carrying on the war against god. ( .) cesar was no tyrant nor usurper at this time; because they had legally submitted themselves unto several cesars successively before. ( .) it was, lest he should offend: but here it will be evident, that the offence and scandal lieth on the other hand, of paying the exaction: and it is against all religion to say, that both the doing and refusing to do the same act, can give offence. but ( .) make the case like our's, and i doubt not to call it blasphemy to say, that christ would have paid, or permitted to pay a taxation professedly imposed for levying a war against him, or banishing him and his disciples out of the land; or to fill the mouth of the greedy pharisees, devouring widows houses, for their pretence of long prayers; or that he would have paid, or suffered to pay their extortions, if any had been exacted of him, or his disciples, for his preaching, or working miracles; or if help or hire had been demanded, for encouraging those that rose to stone him for his good deeds. . it is lawful to pay a part to preserve the whole, when it is extorted by force and threatenings, and not exacted by law; when it is a yielding only to a lesser suffering, and not a consenting to a sin to shift suffering. the objection of a man being seized by a robber, transacting with him to give him the one half or more to save the rest and his life, commonly made use of to justify the paying of these impositions, while under the power and at the reverence of such public robbers, cannot satisfy in this case. it is thus far satisfying, that there is a manifest concession in it, that instead of righteous rulers, we are under the power, and fallen into the hand of robbers, from whom we are not able to rise up. but there is no paritie. for to bring it home without halting, and make it speak sense, we must suppose that the robber not only requires a part for himself, and a part for his underling shavers, horse-rubbers, &c. but a part upon this declared account, that he may by that supply be enabled and furnished with all things necessary, for murdering my father, mother, wife, children, kinsmen, and friends, (all whom he hath now in his power) yea, and for doing that besides, which is worse than all these put together: whether then shall i, by giving the robber that part which he seeks, enable him to do all these mischiefs? or by refusing, expose myself to the hazard of being robbed or slain? let the conscience of any man answer this (for nothing can be here alledged against the paritie as now propounded) and then i fear not but the objection shall be found a blaze of empty words, blown away by any breath. but alas! will this tattle of a robber be found relevant in that day, when the public robbers shall be proceeded against by the just judge? let them who think so, think also, they see the court fenced, and the judge set, and hear these words sounding in their ears, "ye are cursed with a curse, for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation;" and then they are like to lay as little weight on the objection, for fear of falling under the weight of the curse, as i do. . it is lawful passively by forcible constraint to submit to the execution of such wicked sentences, as impose these burdens, if it be not by way of obedience to them: this is suffering and not sinning. hence it is easy to refel that objection; if it be lawful (which hitherto was never questioned) for a man, who is sentenced to die, to go to the place of execution, then a man, being under the moral force of a law, which is equivalent, may pay cesses, localities, fines, &c. ans. . might it not be doubted, whether a man's going upon his feet to be execute, had as manifest, and from the nature of the thing, a tendency, yea and proper casuality to advance the design of the enemy, and his refusing to go, had as clear a testimony against the clamant wickedness of their course, as his refusing to pay their impositions. whether, i say, in this case, a man might not, yea, ought not to refuse to go to the place of execution. but . whosoever would conclude any thing from it, to give it either life or legs, must make it run thus: let the order run in this form (else there is no parallel, and so no inference) we appoint all the opposers of our course (that is all the lovers of our lord jesus) whom we have for their rebellious rendezvouzing at conventicles sentenced as enemies and traitors to die, to come and be hanged by virtue of our sentence: otherwise besides the moral force of the law, adjudging them to die, we shall use force, and drag them like dogs to the place of execution; and in putting us to this trouble, they shall fall under the reproach, that being sentenced to die, they scrupled forsooth, yea refused to go on their own legs to the gibbet. let this, i say, be made the case, which to me is the exact parallel, and there every child will know what to answer, or to hiss the objection as pure ridicule. . i suppose the objection speaks of a righteous and innocent person, who for righteousness it brought, as a sheep to the slaughter (for a malefactor, who hath lost all right to his life, is not to be understood) then to make the case parallel, it must be taken for granted, ( .) there is a public law with the penalty of death, statute for the violation thereof. ( .) that the person to be executed, hath not only transgressed that law, but his disobedience to the law is notour. ( .) that he is processed and convict of the transgression thereof: whereupon follows. ( .) the sentence, and then the execution. now the law being wicked, and the man from the fear of god, being constrained to disobey the law, he can in nothing be justly construed active, but in that disobedience or renitence: but in the whole of what befals him for this, he being a captive prisoner, is to be looked upon as passive. yea the very act of going to the place of execution in the present case, howbeit, as to its physical entity, it is of the same kind, with the executioner's motion that goes along with him, yet in its moral and religious being, whence it hath its specification, it is wholly the suffering of a captive. well then, ere any thing can be pleaded from the pretended parity; seeing there are laws, made for paying such exactions, cesses, salaries, and fines, for the declared ends of ruining the people and interests of christ; it is necessary, in order to a just parallel, that the law must be first disobeyed. ( .) the disobedience must be notour. ( .) the delinquent must be processed and pursued, as guilty of the transgression, and convicted thereof, whereupon sentence passeth against him for the breach of the law. here i grant all with advantage to the cause: as in the first case, so in this, he who is judged guilty of the breach of this wicked law, and who is sentenced for that violation, ought to suffer patiently the spoiling of his goods, and not to decline suffering, if it were unto blood, striving against this sin. . it is lawful of two evils of sufferings to chuse the least; where both come in the election, as in the cases forementioned, and in a man throwing of his goods overboard in a storm; these and the like are deeds in the present exigent voluntary and rational, being upon deliberation and choice, where the least evil is chosen under the notion of good, yea of the best that can be in the present case, and accordingly the will is determined, and meets and closes with its proper object; or one of them only be proposed to be submitted to, but another lesser evil of suffering is in a man's power to chuse and propose, for purchasing his immunity from a greater; which is not imposed nor exacted of him, either by a wicked law, or for wicked ends declared, but voluntarily offered; as in the case of parting with some money to a robber or murderer to save the life, when he is seeking only the life; as the ten men that were going to the house of the lord said unto ishmael, "slay us not for we have treasures in the field," for which he "forbare and slew them not," jer. xli. . in this a man does nothing, which under such circumstances is not only lawful (one of the main ends for which goods are given to him, to wit the preservation of his life, being thereby attained) but it were a grievous sin, and would conclude him guilty of self murder, not to make use of such a mean for preservation of his life, which god hath put in his power, and is in the case called for by his precept. but however force may warrant one to do that, which may be done for shunning a greater evil of loss; yet it is never sufficient to make one to do that which is a greater evil, than all the evil that can be said to be shunned: for the evil shunned is suffering, but the evil done to shun this, is real and active concurrence, in manner, measure, and method, enjoined by law, in strengthening the hands of those who have displayed a banner against all the lovers of our lord jesus christ; a manifest chusing of sin to shun suffering, and a saving of life with the prejudice of that in the preservation whereof he should be ready to lay down all, and be at a point to endure the worst this wicked world can make him suffer, ere he be found guilty in the matter of a compliance of that nature. and though the rod of the wicked should seem to rest on his lot, for his refusal, and he be the object of their rage and revenge, for holding his integrity; yet he shall be honoured as a faithful witness, helped to endure as seeing him who is invisible, and amidst all his sufferings and sorrows, made to rejoice in the hope, that when god shall lead forth these workers of iniquity, he shall not be found amongst the company of these who have turned aside with them into their crooked courses, and for that shall be overturned and crushed with them, under the curse that is hovering over their heads. it is true a man should not cast himself and his family (which if he provide not for, he is worse than an infidel) upon sufferings, either needlessly or doubtfully, when he is not persuaded it is truth and duty he suffers for, and of value sufficient to countervail the loss he may sustain for it. but on the other hand, in the present and all like cases it is highly of the concernment of all men to be careful and circumspectly cautious, when the case comes to be stated upon suffering or not suffering, in examining well whether the course whereby a man shuns suffering be of god, and not to take plausibilities for demonstrations: seeing the flesh is not only ready to inculcate that doctrine, 'spare thy self,' but is both witty of invention to plead for what will afford ease, and as unwilling to listen to what would, if attended unto, expose us to the malice and rage of rigorous enemies: it being always more becoming the professors of the gospel, and the followers of our lord jesus, who must walk to heaven bearing his cross; to abstain at all hazards when the case is doubtful, than to rush forward upon an uncertainty, when it is not evident they have god's approbation for what they do. yea suppose a person erred to his own hurt in the first case, through weakness, yet it will argue much more sincerity and uprightness towards god, and is done with less danger than in the other. and as many as walk according to this rule, are like to have the peace of the israel of god, to compense whatever of trouble or loss they may meet with in the world, when others shall not have this bird of paradise to sing in their bosom. ii. but shunning prolixity; to come nearer the point, because perhaps some may alledge such cases are not determined in the scriptures, nor can any case be found parallel to these under consideration, from which we may gather the determination thereof; which i think hard indeed to find, because in the wickedness of former ages such monstrous exactions had never a precedent, for such declared ends, so declaredly impudent. i shall make some suppositions, and propose some questions, all of a piece, and some way parallel to this under debate, and leave any conscience touched with the fear of god to answer. . suppose, when our lord jesus and his disciples were tossed upon the waves by the storm at sea, and he was sleeping, that then herod or pilate, or the chief rulers, had sent peremptory orders to all men, to supply and furnish with such things as he had, the men they employed, to capacitate them once for all and forever to sink that floating bottom out of sight; and that somewhat should be given to the soldiers engaged in that enterprize, somewhat to the pharisees for persuading them to it, and fines to be exacted from the recusants, and rewards to be given to such as should keep them in custody that should fall in their hands, either of them that refused to pay the moiety prescribed, or of such of them as should escape drowning. in this case would, or durst any of the lovers of jesus comply with any of these demands? and not rather chuse to perish with him, or in opposition to such wicked attempts? now, hath not the lord jesus, and all the interest he hath in the nation, been embarked as it were in one bottom, and floating like a wreck in the sea? and have not these called rulers in this land, in their rage against the lord's anointed, and the handful who adhere to him, sent their peremptory orders to pay a cess for sinking his floating interests; and to pay the curates for persuading to it; and fines for not concurring in it; and rewards to jailors and others appointed to repress the recusants? who durst concur then in this compliance, who had love to christ in exercise, and who had his friends in the same bottom embarked? and besides, seeing the great god had the man of whom this is required, bound with his own consent, under a sacred and solemn oath, and under the penalty of never seeing his face, if he do not venture life and fortune to preserve that precious interest, and all who are embarked with it from perishing. shall he, notwithstanding of this, give what these enemies to christ, call for as his concurrence, to enable them to execute their wicked contrivance? does any man think or dream, that the pitiful plea, of what they call a moral force, will clear and acquit him before god from the guilt of a concurrence in this conspiracy, while in the mean time he furnished whatsoever these enemies demanded of him, with this express declaration, that it was for this cause exacted, and for this end imposed? or can he think to be saved, when they shall be sentenced, who with so much deliberation and despite have done this thing? o let us consider the after reckoning! and let us not with pretences distinguish ourselves into a defection, or distract ourselves into the oblivion of this, that god is righteous to whom the reckoning must be made. . let it be supposed, under saul's tyranny, when the ziphims informed him of david's hiding himself with them, or when doeg informed him of ahimelech's resetting him, that an order had been given forth to all israel, with this narrative: whereas that rebel david had now openly despised authority, had been entertained by the priest, received goliath's sword from him, and gathered a company of armed men together, therefore to the end he and his accomplices may be brought to justice, we ordain all from dan to beersheba, to concur either personally in this expedition against him, or to pay cess to our standing forces to maintain them in this expedition, or so much to gratify the ziphims for their kindness, or to furnish doeg with a sword to murder the priests of the lord. would any that favoured david's righteous cause, have dared to do any of these? would these that durst not concur themselves, contribute any encouragement to the concurrers? would saul's servants that would not fall upon the priests of the lord themselves, have given doeg one of their swords to do it, or money to buy one, if it had been demanded? to the same purpose, suppose a party comes to a dissenter, with an express order, and this narrative, whereas there is such a minister met with some people, at an execrable conventicle, as they call it, (but in itself the pure worship of god) therefore to the end the minister may be taken and murdered, and the servants of the lord for the countenance they gave him may be brought to the same punishment, they ordain him, for the accomplishing of their design, to furnish that party with all necessities, or to pay such a sum of money for not concurring with them: now, should he in this case not only forbear to lay down his life for his brethren, and forbear to deliver them, that are thus drawn unto death on such an account, (into which forbearance the great god will make so accurate an inquiry, prov. xxiv. , . as may make us tremble, whether we look backward or forward) but also furnish according to the tenor of this order, that party of the dragon's legions, in their war against the prince michael and his angels, with supplies, and think to put off the matter and plead innocent with this, that he was under the moral force of the law, accompanied with such military force, as if he had refused, they would have taken away all he had, &c. for this plea, in its full strength, is to do evil, that some good may come of it, (no true good) which brings damnation, rom. iii. . or to choose sin rather than affliction. . what if manasseh, or other idolatrous princes, that sacrificed to devils, and made children pass through the fire to molech, had enacted a cess, or under severe impositions of fines had commanded all to concur to a solemn sacrifice of that nature, charging every man against a certain day, to bring in his proportion, in order to celebrate the sacrifice with all its statute solemnities; or should have taken a child from every father, and then made a law, that each of these should contribute such a sum, for furnishing with all necessaries, and maintaining these murderers, whom they had conduced to shed the blood of their innocent children, or sacrifice them to molech: could it be expected that any of the godly would have paid such exactions, and then have wiped his mouth with the notion of a moral force? this comes home enough to our case; for no sacrifice they can offer to the devil, can be more real or so acceptable, as what they declare they intend to do; being so direct, not only in opposition to the coming of the kingdom of christ, but the deletion of his precious interests, and extirpation of his faithful remnant, and the giving satan such an absolute dominion in the nation, as that they who have made the decree, and all who put it in execution, practically declare thereby they have emancipate themselves to his slavery, and sold themselves to work wickedness in the sight of the lord: so likewise, that all the rest of the nation, may with themselves become his vassals, and in evidence of their opposition to christ, and in recognition of satan's sovereignty, and their subjection, they are appointed to pay these back-meals. . let it be supposed, that after nebuchadnezzar had made the decree, for all to fall down and worship his image, and the three children were apprehended for refusing it, he had made another, that all the jews especially should contribute, every one a faggot, or money to buy it, to heat the furnace, or a rope to lead them to it; can any man suppose, that daniel, or the rest of the faithful, would have paid it? even so, let it be supposed, that any one of these faithful ambassadors of christ, or all these zealous workers together with god, who have laboured among the people in the preached gospel, should fall into the hands of these hunters, and then they should make a law, and appoint every man in the nation to send but one thread, to make a tow, to hang that minister, or to hang the whole company of christ's ambassadors, and a farthing to pay the executioner: can any man, without horror, think of complying so far as to contribute what is commanded? or would not a gracious man, frighted into an abhorrence at the atrociousness of the wickedness, or fired into a flame of zeal for god, say without demur, as not daunted with fear of what flesh could do unto him, i will rather venture my all to keep them alive, or be hanged with them, than by doing what is demanded, be brought forth and classed in the cursed and cruel company of those who shall be dragged before the tribunal of christ, with their fingers dyed and dropping with the blood of those who are peculiarly dear to him? i know it will be said, that in all these cases it would be a clear case of confession. well, that's all i would have granted: for that which doth overbalance to a testimony, in all the cases mentioned, is so far from being wanting in the cases now under consideration, that they have all to enforce the duty, that all of them put together do include; as will be clear to any who consider, . the preciousness of the things and interests to be destroyed. . the concurrence called for from every one, that this desperate design may be accomplished. . the great, manifold and indispensable obligations all are under, not only to abstain from the required concurrence, but to preserve also and maintain these things in opposition to all whom satan sets on work to serve him in this expedition against the son of god, and to do it, or endeavour it with the loss of life, and all things dearest to men, to the end, that these things which are satan's eye sore, as only obstructive of his kingdom, may be preserved among the poor remnant, and propagate in their power and purity to the posterity. happy he, who shall be found so doing now, when the dragon and his angels are drawn into the fields, and have proclaimed the war, and published to the world the causes thereof; so that now this general having laid aside all his old disguises, doth in his true shape march upon the head of his black legions, who wear his badge and colours, and fight under his banner and standard. iii. in the last place, with all possible brevity, i shall offer some reasons against compliance with these exactions _in cumulo_. . to pay these impositions, upon such declared accounts, for such declared causes, and for such declared ends, would condemn the contendings and sufferings of many eminently godly, especially in our day, who have refused them. of these questions and sufferings thereupon, among the godly in former times, we cannot instruct much for such insolent impositions, as to all the dimensions of their heinousness, were never heard before. but we want not examples of the saints refusing to give their money and other such things to wicked men, either to comply with their wicked demands, obey their wicked laws, encourage their wicked courses, or further their wicked designs. in scrpture we find paul would not give felix money that he might be loosed, though he sent for him often for that end, acts xxiv. . mr. durham in his exposition of the revelation, chap. vi. ver. . lect. . gives an account, 'that when in the persecution of dioclesian, the persecutors sought but the bibles, poor coats, money, or cups (wherewith they served) to be given them, as some evidence of their ceding: but they refused to accept deliverance upon these terms; yea, when the soldiers, partly wearying to be so bloody, partly desirous of seeming victory over christians, did profess themselves content to take any old paper or clout in place of the bible, they refused to give any ecvola, or cast-away clout; yea, when soldiers would violently pluck such things from them against their wills, they would follow them, professing their adherence unto the truth, and that they had not any way willingly delivered these things, as is to be seen in baronius, an. , p. . it is reported of one marcus arethusius, who was put to torment under julian, because he would not build the idol temple which he had formerly demolished, when they were content to accept some part of the expences from him, and to spare his life, he refused to give obolum, or one half penny, sozom. lib. . . cent. mag. cent. . p. and . by which and many other instances we may see, how resolutely the primitive saints held fast their testimonies: from which especially they were called martyrs or witnesses; and by which often, not only many weak ones were strengthened, but also many persecutors convinced, and made to cry out, certainly great is the god of the christians; while as they saw, that no allurements on the one side, nor terrors on the other, could make them loose their grips, but still truth and christ were borne witness unto, and well spoken of by them. it will not be unnecessary here to consider some of mr. durham's observations on the fourth lecture; for clearing whereof he adduced these matters of fact, such as obs. . that the giving of a testimony by outward confession of the truth, when called for, is necessary and commendable, as well as soundness of faith; yea, it is oftentimes the outward testifying of the truth before men, more than the faith of it before god, that bringeth on suffering: and there was nothing more abhorred in the primitive christians than dissembling of a testimony, to evite suffering, as appeareth in augustine's writings concerning a lie, and against a lie, and the writings of others to that purpose. obs. . that every truth of the word may be a ground of suffering warrantably: for the least thing that hath a truth in it, as well as the more concerning fundamental truths, is the word of god, and so cannot be dispensed with by his people. obs. . every truth in the word hath an outward testimony joined to it, and sometimes may be called for upon very great hazards. obs. . when it is called for, this testimony or confession to any truth before men, is no less necessary, and ought as peremptorily to be held and stuck to as the former; therefore it is called (rom. x.) confession unto salvation, and called for by a peremptory certification, matth. x. , . obs. . that these who are found in the faith of the word, will be also exceeding tenacious of their testimony; in scripture, and in primitive times, we will find the saints sticking at, and hazarding themselves on things which appear of very small moment, yet were to them of great concernment, because of the testimony, which was involved in them, which they would not let go. such was mordecai, esther iii. daniel vi. his not shutting of his windows. yea further, in his lately printed sermons on matth. xvi. . serm. . p. . the same author saith; there is not in some respect a more and a less in the matter of duty, and in the matter of truth, or in respect of suffering. and a little after, sect. . he says, we would not limit sufferings for christ to things simply lawful or unlawful; for it may be sometimes for things indifferent in their own nature, which yet being so and so circumstantiated to us, may draw on suffering; a thing may be indifferent and lawful to some, which to others, stated under such and such circumstances may be counted a receding from some part of a just testimony; even though the matter be not such in itself, and in its own nature, yet it may be so circumstantiate to some persons, as it may be liable to that construction, if they shall recede from or forbear it; as in the example of daniel, who suffered for opening his windows, which was a thing indifferent in itself, and not essential to his worshipping of god; but--he finds himself bound in conscience, and that on very just ground, to do as he was wont to do before, and that on the manifest hazard of his life, lest his malicious enemies should have it to say, that he receded from his duty, and that he thought more shame now, or was more afraid now, than before, to worship the true god.' how worthy mr. knox argueth for withholding emoluments from the false bishops and clergy, may be seen before, part . per. . the general assembly, in their declaration, dated july ult. . concerning the then unlawful engagement in a war against england, plainly and positively dehorteth all members of the kirk of scotland from contributing any assistance thereunto, expressed as followeth, 'that they do not concur in, nor any way assist this present engagement, as they would not partake in other men's sins, and so receive of their plagues; but that by the grace and assistance of christ, they stedfastly resolve to suffer the rod of the wicked, and the utmost which wicked men's malice can afflict them with, rather than to put forth their hands to iniquity.' in which declaration may be seen at large that candour, faithfulness and freedom which becometh the ministers of the gospel, and dignity of watchmen, in their seasonable warning and dissuading all from assisting any way to that unlawful engagement, perceiving the sin and snare thereof, so obviously tending to the involving the land in guilt, and exposing to wrath; yea, and that notwithstanding of the fair and plausible pretexts of the engagers and joiners therein, who pretended and professed their undertaking to be for the furthering reformation, establishing and securing the covenanted religion from the plottings and endeavours of the popish, prelatic, and malignant enemies thereof, and prosecuting the ends of the covenants; pretences which no doubt our silent and time-serving ministers (if they had any such now to plead) would strenuously improve, in vindication of their prudent silence, sinful and shameful compliances. alas, how sad and lamentable is the condition of the church and nation now! that even when the case is so far altered, that not only all such pretences are laid aside, reformation deserted and disdained, the established religion razed and ruined, the covenant broken and burned, and the owning the obligation thereof declared treason, but also an absolute power pleaded and exercised, to the suspending, stopping and disabling all penal laws against popery and prelacy, a gap opened by an antichristian toleration to the letting in all the heresies, idolatries and blasphemies of the mother of harlots, and the land openly defiled therewith, unjust and wicked taxations arbitrarily imposed and levied, for the most dreadful, sacrilegious and hellish ends that ever was published to the world, far exceeding in wickedness these testified against by the assembly , or any formerly. while the watchmen have so far abandoned their duty of setting the trumpet to their mouth, and giving due warning of the sin and danger of those dreadful and judgment procuring courses, that they are caught in the snare, and found complimenting and encouraging the principal instruments of all these evils, by their scandalous flattering addresses. how faithful and tender some have been even in our day, their sufferings and losses in a measure above others makes manifest, amongst whom the worthy laird of kersland is not to be forgotten, whose estate, heritable and moveable, was declared forfeited and seized, for his appearing in arms to join with that faithful party, who by horrid oppression, were forced to betake themselves to defensive resistance in the year ; who, considering the equity of the cause he appeared for, the indispensibleness of the obligations binding him to that duty, and how much a good conscience is to be preferred to an estate, durst not part with the sweet comforts of the one for the uncertain profits of the other: and as he was earnest with god by frequent and fervent prayer, for light and stedfastness in the matters of his suffering and testimony, so it pleased the lord so to determine his heart therein, as that all the endeavours and persuasions used both by friends and foes, to move him to a composition with the enemies for his estate, proved unsuccessful; yea, it is well known how that severals, both of his near relations and others, who used the most forcible and persuasive arguments, as the consideration of the ancient and honourable family he was descended from; the miserable case that he, his lady and children should be in, without his estate; the counsel and judgment of grave and godly ministers; the freedom and practice of other learned and knowing men; together also with the imputation of vain scrupulosity, simple and unwarrantable nicety and preciseness, &c. that yet even some of those who dealt most with him, were, by his defences and reasonings, convinced of the equity of his cause, and brought to commend his upright resolution, and to applaud his tenderness and faithfulness; and in particular his own father, who pleaded much that he would only consent, that he, with others of his friends, might compone in favours of his family, and that he himself should be no ways concerned in it further than to assent that the thing be done; but could not prevail, who afterwards blessed god that he did not; declaring, that he had much more satisfaction and comfort in his son's honesty and stedfastness, than many such estates could ever have afforded him. i shall here mention some considerations which prevailed with him to decline all composition directly or indirectly with the enemies in that matter. ( .) that he could never attain to freedom to use any such manifest dissimulation, as deliberately to assent to any thing that might import his acknowledging that to be a sin and fault, (yea such a sin and fault as rebellion) which he was convinced in his conscience to be unquestionable duty both before god and man, nor thereby dissembling to insinuate his undoubted right to his estate, to be in the person, or at the disposing of any other. ( .) considering that there can be no new right procured upon a composition, and granted to any, but such as shall carry in the narrative thereof that he had forfeited that estate by rebellion, with a long preamble, condemning the cause of god, and dutiful endeavours of his people for reformation, and in defence of religion and liberty, all as sedition, rebellion and treason; whereupon he resolved rather to part with his estate, than be any way instrumental and occasional to the indignifying that holy and honourable cause, with such disdainful, reproachful and blaspemous epithets. and albeit such tenderness in principle and practice of this worthy gentleman, and of many others of the faithful sufferers in our day, be censured and condemned by the lukewarm and worldly-wise professors in this age, as an unprecedented novelty, or precise and unwarrantable notion; yet we find it the same with the faithful sufferers in former ages, and exactly agreeing with the doctrine and principles of the most orthodox and famous divines; for the reverend and learned calvin having the same case of conscience proposed to him by the godly, persecuted in his age, to which his solid and faithful answer is extant in his epistle, article . thus proposed and answered: 'whether the confiscation of goods can be fought back again from a prince, in the name and behalf of these who are forfeited for religion?' to which he answers, 'that it is certain it cannot be done without sin; for the new right, or the de novodamus (as we call it) granted by the prince, doth really contain open blasphemies against the glory of god; because therein mention is made of errors, crimes, and divine lese majesty, whereof the condemned are found guilty; which new right must, in law, be exhibited by him who intendeth to use the same; and that as a certain kind of approbation, no ways to be tolerated. wherefore, i see not that it is lawful for a godly man, rightly instructed in the gospel, to involve himself into such fictions.' . from the fountain and conveyance whence they proceed, the iniquity of these payments might be concluded; which is nothing else than the arbitrary power domineering over us, and oppressing and overpressing the kingdoms with intolerable exactions which to pay is all the consent and concurrence required of us to entail slavery on the posterity. i mean, to pay it out of submission only to the moral force of its imposition, which is all the justification required of that absolute tyranny imposing it. for we have the testimony of a king for it, (king james' speech to the parliament, in .) that a king degenerateth into a tyrant, when he leaveth to rule by law, much more when he begins--to set up an arbitrary power, impose unlawful taxes, &c. it can be denied by none, that know either religion or liberty, and are not enemies to both, that these impositions under consideration, upon such accounts, for such ends, are as unlawful taxes, and as illegally and arbitrarily imposed, as ever could demonstrate the most despotical absoluteness, paramount to all law, or precedent, but that of benhadad, of a very tyrannical strain. thus saith benhadad, "thy silver and thy gold is mine--yet i will send my servants, and they shall search thine house, and it shall be that whatsoever is pleasant in thine eyes, they shall put in their hand, and take it away," kings, xx. . . which even as ahab and his elders would not hearken to nor consent. but from an extoic dominator this were not so intolerable, as from such as pretend an hereditary right to govern, who should remove violence and spoil, and take away their exactions from the lord's people, as the lord saith, ezek. xlv. . but instead of that, that they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward: and the great man uttereth his mischievous desire: so they wrap it up, mic. vii , the easy compliance with which, makes zion as the grape gleanings of the vintage. if those exactions be wicked, then compliance with them must be iniquity: for it justifies the court that enacts and exacts them, a packed juncto of a prevalent faction, made up of perjured traitors, in a course of enmity against god and the country, who, to prosecute the war against the almighty, and root out all his people out of the land, condescend upon these cesses, fines, &c. as a fit and adapted medium thereunto. wherefore, of necessity, all that would not own that conclusion, as their own deed, in these representatives, and own them as their representatives in that deed, must bear witness against the same, by a refusal to own the debt, or pay the same. but i shall conclude this, with observing. ( .) the holy and remarkable righteousness of the lord, that we, who would not contend earnestly for the liberty of the gospel, who would not acquit ourselves like men, in witnessing our loyalty to christ, were not fixed in our engagements, nor steadfast in holding the liberties wherewith christ hath made us free, did not reclaim nor reluctate, when we saw our royal master's prerogative invaded; should be trod upon in all civils, and treated as slaves, even by these, whom we had gratified with a base and sinful forbearance to plead for god, and preserve from their violence these things, these precious and valuable things, which we should have kept more tenderly than the apple of our eye. o the relucency of this righteousness, in making the gods whom we have served smite us, and in making them whose interest we minded, with a misregard and perjury involving neglect of the interest of christ, thus to destroy our pitiful interests! and thus having taught them to be captains over us, we must now sit in the house of bondage in our land. ( .) who will not adore and admire the righteousness of the lord, particularly in leaving some of these to be designedly trod upon, who not only were involved in the common guilt of not withstanding these encroachments, but first went a great way in concurring to the making of these wicked laws; and now have been made to ly under the load, laid upon their loins by the hand of such, to whom they gave the hand in overturning the work of god? why should not they be spoiled? why should not the young lions roar upon them, and make their land waste? why should not men of the same metal and soul with the children of noph and tahapenes, break the crown off their head (or feed upon their crown) who have sold, and set the crown of christ upon another's head, and concurred to crush his faithful remnant? o let us learn to read and revere! let us not be wheedled with we know not what, out of our good old principles, into the espousing the interest, or embarking into the same bottom with men of such principles and practices. and whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving kindness of the lord. great loving kindness, that he hath shewed to his poor remnant, in delivering us from deliverances by such deliverers, whereby the work had been more really and more shamefully ruined and the hope of the posterity more certainly razed. . from the declared ends of all of them, declared either verbally or virtually, and indisputable and universally known; to wit, that by such exaction, they might be enabled to maintain and prosecute the national rebellion against christ, and root out his gospel and all the faithful preachers and professors thereof. these designs being notour, and the impositions demanded being the best expedients, and most adapted means to attain them, it cannot but be manifest, that whosoever complies with the means, do co-operate with the ends: which, if any thing, will involve the compliers in the contriver's sin, and make the payers obnoxious to the enacters judgment. if they that take rewards to slay innocents, be liable to a curse, deut. xxvii. . they cannot say amen to it, who so co-operate to the effectuating the slaughter. if any thing make zion liable to be plowed as a field, when the heads thereof judge for reward, mic. iii. , . it must be, when they demand such rewards, and the demands are complied with. but some may pretend, and under that pretence think to shut the shower of suffering, and command the serenity and sun shine of a good conscience too, and to shelter their soul under that shadow; that these exactions may be necessary for other ends: can any state be without exactions? is it not necessary that forces be maintained, and such as are in public office in the kingdom? wherewithal shall the nation be guarded against foreign invasion? alas! the pretence is so false and frivolous as he could not escape the censure of foolish, who in answering it appeared serious, save in a just indignation at its empty vanity. what are these forces and public officers for? what are they employed about, but to promote the dragon's designs, and serve his drudgery? shall these guard the nation, who, together with religion, tread upon the poor remaining shadow of liberty? do they indeed fear a foreign invasion? no; it doth not hold us here: these called rulers hide not their designs, but hold them to our eye that we may not pretend ignorance. they will do the greatest haste first: christ and his interest is their great eye-sore. this one jesus, who calls himself a king, (yea, and he will be so to their cost,) and his subjects as the most dangerous party, are to be discussed in the first place: and thereafter, when they are liberate from that fear of returning to his throne, whom they have exauctorate, (for, if ever he do, they are ruined, make haste, o lord!) and have eaten the flesh and drunk the blood of his people, then they will be in a better case to defend the land, by shewing the enemy those teeth and tusks wherewith they have killed the people of the lord. but will men put out their own eyes, that they may be taken with the more tameness to grind in their mill, and make them merry at our madness? have we lost our senses, that we may with confidence jeopard our souls? have they not invaded the mediator's kingdom, and taken to themselves his house in possession? and because reavers may not be ruers, they will destroy all in the land, who seem faithful to christ, and resolute to follow the captain of the host of israel. but it is not enough that they menace heaven? will they mock us into the same rebellion with themselves? he will not be mocked, but turn their jest into earnest. i cannot here shift the transcribing some of the very words of that author, whose reasonings i am but gleaning on this subject. 'oh britain! o scotland! bent into, and bold in backsliding, the wrath of god and thy wo seems to be upon the wing. and alas! i am afraid, that by this crowning and crimson wickedness, the lord god almighty is making a way to his anger, and preparing the nation for a sacrifice, to expiate in the sight of the world our perjury, defection and heaven daring provocations. alas! i am afraid, that the sword of the lord, which shall avenge the quarrel of his covenant, is near to be drawn,--that the contributers, as well as the stated party of contrivers, decreers and cruel executioners of these decrees, may fall under the blow of the furbished sword of the lord god: and that the land of such abominations may be swept of its inhabitants with the besom of destruction, and soaked with the blood of those, who instead of contending for christ, have by this payment associate with his stated, his declared, and implacable enemies, whose rage is come up before him, and will bring him down to take revenge. alas! my fears, my fears are multiplied upon me, that the war shall not only at last land in britain: but that he hath been all this while training up a militia abroad, breeding them in blood, and teaching them how to destroy, against the time he gave them order to march, and put the flaming sword in their hand, to be bathed in the blood of backsliding britain! oh, if our turning unto him, that he might turn away from the fierceness of his anger, might prevent this woful day! but since, instead of any turning unto him, we surpass the deeds of the heathen, and outdo in wickedness all that went before us, and proceed, with a petulancy reaching heaven, from evil to worse; i am afraid, that all the blood shed since the sword was drawn in the nations about, all the sacked cities, all the burnt crops and villages, all the wasted countries, all the slain of the lord by sea or land, all the pillagings, rapes, murders, outrages, (which rage itself could hardly outdo,) all the horrid and inhuman cruelties, that hath been committed during this bloody war (wherein the sea hath been dyed, and the land as it were drowned with the blood of the slain) all the truculent and treacherous murders of that monster alva in the low countries, all the incredible cruelties of the guises, and the bloodshed in the massacres of france, all the tortures that the people of the lord have been put to in the vallies of piedmont, by that little fierce tyger the duke of savoy, all the savage and barbarous butcheries of the irish massacre: shall be forgotten, or seem things not to be mentioned in one day, when what shall be done in britain comes to be remembered. o britain, o britain: of all nations under the cope of heaven, most ripe for the sickle of vengeance! shall this throne of iniquity, which hath framed so many mischiefs into laws, and all that are accomplices in this wicked conspiracy, who now are gathering themselves against the souls of the righteous, and condemning the innocent blood, be able to save its subjects, when he comes to make inquisition for that blood? or shall the subjects, calling in all from to , be able to support the throne? alas! in vain shall they offer to draw up, and draw the sword and defend, when the lord god of hosts draws his sword, to accomplish upon them the vengeance written, and wrapt up in these words. he shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall cut them off in their own wickedness, yea the lord our god shall cut them off. and, if it come to this, then in that day, escape who will, professing gentlemen and others, who, in this, have complied with the rulers, shall not escape: then shall they be paid for this payment. the storm of his displeasure, (even though they get their souls for a prey, yea so much the more as he will not suffer them to perish eternally) shalt be observed to fall particularly upon their houses, interests and estates. who can think upon the wickedness of britain, with its just aggravations, and imagine the righteous lord will not proportion his judgments to the heinousness of our guilt, and his revenge to the rage, whereby he and his christ hath been, and is opposed, and take other measures?' . from the nature of this payment, it is notour they are sinful compliances and transactions with christ's declared enemies, and do partake of unitive confederacies with them; which are demonstrated to be sinful, head . arg. . in gen. pag. certainly such bargains cannot be discretive, exacted and complied with by persons no ways incorporate together, being only overcome by mere force: since they are not only demanded and granted acknowledgments of that power that imposes them, as legally lording over them, but obediential submissions to these wicked laws that enact them; which is a formal justifying of these laws: for laws cannot be obeyed, except they be justified, seeing laws unjust and unjustifiable cannot be obeyed. therefore, seeing the payment of the cess, locality, fines, stipends, fees, &c. is an obediential compliance with the laws that enjoin them, that obedience can no more be justified, than the laws enacting such payments; which none can justify but he that is an enemy to those things for opposing which they are enacted. if then compliances with the wicked impositions and exactions of arbitrary dominators, enemies to the work and people of god, be in scripture condemned, then such payments cannot be justified: but such compliances are condemned, and cannot be approven. this was issachar's brand, that being a strong ass, he couched between burdens, and bowed his shoulders to bear and become a servant to tribute, gen. xlix. . this was afa's folly, that he so far complied with benhadad, as to give money to take his help, kings xv. . condemned by the prophet hanani, chron. xvi. , &c. much more if he had given it to help him. it is one of the instances of the evil that menahem did in the sight of the lord, kings xv. ,-- , that when pul the king of assyria came against the land, he gave him a thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him, which he enacted of israel; this was certainly evil in the sight of the lord; for if the confederacy was evil, then this price to procure it was evil also: and if menahem's exaction was evil, then israel's compliance was evil also; for thus ephraim was oppressed and broken in judgment, because he willingly walked after the commandment, hos. v. . it was also a part and proof of ahaz's confederacy with tiglath pileser king of assyria, that he sent money to him, kings xvi. . which to all the fearers of the lord is condemned and discharged, isa. viii. , . which, if it was evil, then also hezekiah's compliance with sennacherib, giving him money, and offering to bear that which was put upon him, kings xviii. , . was evil: and also jehoiakim's taxing the land, to give the money according to the commandment of pharaoh, kings xxiii. . was sinful to the exacter, and likewise to the compliers. these were all sinful compliances and confederacies with the wicked, making their peace with them to whom they paid them; therefore all peace-making payments, by way of unitive agreement with the wicked must be sinful. and accordingly in the time of montrose, the general assembly made an act for censuring the compliers with the public enemies of this church and kingdom, june . , sess. . see part . per. . . where these exactions are extorted only as badges of bondage, without consent unto the law imposing them, it is a case more suitable for lamentation than censure, that she that was princess among the provinces should become tributary, lam. i. . but when they are acknowledgments of the lawgivers, and an exact obedience to the law, and voluntary agreement and bargain with them, strengthening them to the prosecution of their mischiefs, they cannot be free of the imposer's sin. it was the sin of the men of shechem, and a proof of their heart's inclination to follow abimelech, that they gave him threescore and ten pieces of silver, enabling him to kill threescore and ten persons, and to hire vain and light persons to follow him, which they paid as an acknowledgment of his usurped power, judg. ix. ,---- . for which afterwards fire came out of the house of abimelech and devoured them. certainly a voluntary consent unto a mischief is a partaking with the sin of it, a consent unto theft is a partaking with it, psal. . . but if there be any consent unto a mischief, it must be when the person agrees it be done against himself, and voluntarily subjects himself to the force of the law imposing it, and not only does not oppose or witness against the doing of it against others, but yields to its reaching himself, and gives what is demanded to strengthen the robbers to exercise robbery over all. as the payer of the cess, fines and fees, &c. gives all the consent required of him to these mischiefs framed into law, not only to rob himself, but the church and nation of its dearest treasure, the gospel, for the punishment of owning which, and as means to remove it, these payments are exacted. but the plea of the payers is, that they are constrained to it, and they do it against their will. ans. . he who says he understands this, that the payer of these exactions can purge himself of the guilt of them, is like to buy an after-wit at a dear rate. can it be thought by any man of knowledge and conscience, that so remote a force makes the deed involuntary, whereby the payer is purged from the guilt of accession to the imposers deeds, whom hereby, in this very imposition, he owns as his representatives! . the payment cannot be involuntary; for the law enjoining it, being the public and declared will of the nation, requires no other voluntariness but obedience, and judgeth no other thing involuntariness but disobedience. so that the law being satisfied, it absolves the satisfier from all transgression, and looks upon all who yield obedience as equally willing, and equally out of the reach of its appended penalty, in case of disobedience. neither are we to please ourselves with other fancies and fictitious unwillingness, when real obedience is yielded, whereby the law is satisfied, and the lawmaker capacitated thereby to act all his intended mischiefs. for to be unwilling to part with money in the case, as it is no virtue in itself, so i suppose there are few who will be solicitous to purge themselves of this. and to be unwilling from some strugglings of light and conscience, is such unwillingness as aggravates the guilt of the giver, and makes it more heinous in the sight of god, and hateful in the eyes of all tender men; the law enjoining such payments, takes no notice of such reluctances, only requireth obedience; and when that is yielded, the law is satisfied, as to the voluntariness of the action, and must construe the agent a willing walker after the command, and a voluntary complier with the public will of the nation. . it must be simply, really, and truly a voluntary deed, when there is deliberation and election. the law requiring these payments being promulgate, every man must be supposed to put the question to himself, what shall i do in the case? shall i obey and be free? or disobey and suffer? here is election and choice upon mature deliberation; and so the deed becomes voluntary. this will be confirmed, if we consider the law of god, deut. xxii. . concerning rapes. where, to make the unvoluntariness of the betrothed virgin, she must not only be supposed to struggle and resist the attempt made upon her chastity and honour by the villain; but she must cry for assistance in that resistance, without which she was held in law willingly to consent to the committing of that wickedness. and moreover, if we consider the law, ver. . it will be manifest, in order to her escaping of death, that when violated, and the villain hath committed this villany, she is to carry as tamar (when defiled of that beast, though of the blood royal) did, sam. xiii. . that is, to complain and cry, and crave justice against him, and be wanting in nothing, that may bring him to condign punishment. this doth aptly correspond to our case. scotland is the betrothed virgin: we were espoused to jesus christ, and joined to him, by a marriage covenant, never to be forgotten; but, the rulers, and with them the body of the land have treacherously broken it; yet there is a remnant that adhere to him as head and husband, because of which, these called rulers incensed against him, will violently commit a rape upon them, and have them prostitute their bodies, their fortunes, yea their souls and consciences to their lusts, and thus they will needs ravish the queen in the king's presence. and so, while with displayed banner they will drive our covenanted husband out of the nation, and destroy all who will own him as such, they call for our assistance and compliance, to enable them to accomplish this wickedness. now either must we make all the resistance that is in our power; or the law judgeth us willingly to consent, and because of that we fall into the hands of the righteous judge, and have neither the evidence of our resisting, nor crying, nor pursuing the wicked for this violent rape, to produce and plead upon, why sentence should not pass, and the law's just severity be executed upon us. what? alas! do they declare they will stone our husband? (ah! for which of his good deeds is this done) and shall they make a law, whereby we shall be obliged to furnish them with stones to do it? and shall they be obeyed? is this our struggling? is this our crying? is this our endeavour that the wicked may be brought to condign punishment? oh! let us meditate terror, lest we be brought forth as willing consenters; for whatever vengeance the jealous and just god shall execute upon them, who have committed the rape, shall equally, in its crushing and everlastingly confounding weight, fall upon them who do not by their refusing, and their resisting make their unwillingness manifest; which in the present case is their struggling, their crying, and calling god and man to witness, they are not consenters, but continue constant and loyal in their love to their betrothed husband. . a formal consent to the wickedness of these impositions were the less matter, if the payment of them were not also a concurrence to assist them, and a strengthening their hands in it. but this is so manifest, that the paying of the cess, locality, fines, fees, &c. is a concurrence with, and contributing towards the promoving the wicked designs for which they are imposed, that he must have a conscience of brass, and in a great measure feared who will run upon such a formal engagement against the lord and his anointed king in zion. if it was aaron's sin which made the people naked, and which brought so great a sin upon them, to take, and the people's sin and shame to give, that contribution of golden ear-rings for making a calf, exod. xxii. . &c. and if it was gideon's sin to take and israel's to give, that contribution of the ear-rings of their prey, to make an ephod, judg. viii. . then, as it is our oppressors sin to take, so it must be our sin and shame to give, their demanded exaction to help them in erecting such idols of jealousy, as they have set up, and are commanding all to bow to, to provoke the lord to jealousy, especially when they affrontedly require such contributions to be paid, both as punishments for not assisting, and as means to assist in their establishment. should we thus help the ungodly, and love them that hate the lord? chron. xix. . alas! instead of arguing, it were more fit to fall a weeping, when it is come to be a question amongst us, whether, instead of coming to the help of the lord against the mighty, we shall really help the mighty against the lord, and that while they call for our assistance formally upon this declared account. as the very inscription of their acts, does carry it in their front, requiring a supply to his majesty, &c. if this be not a casting in a lot among them, who can tell what it is? sure it is a preparing a table for that troop, and a furnishing a drink offering unto that number, isa. lxv. . seeing it is a supplying them with necessaries, to solemnize their idolatrous festivities, who forsake the lord, and not only forget but lay waste his holy mountain, for which all that have any occasion to it, are threatened to be numbered to the sword. if any thing be a strengthening the hands of evil doers, jer. xxiii. . certainly this is. for as they cannot accomplish their cursed ends without these exactions, so the payment of them is all the present, personal and public concurrence in waging this war with heaven, that is required of the nation, to wit, such a sum to furnish them with all necessaries, and maintain the executioners of their hell-hatched and heaven-daring decrees and orders: and the law requiring no more but contributing what is appointed, looks equally upon the givers, as followers of the command, and active concurrers in complying with its end, and carrying on and promoving its design, and so affoils them from all the statute severities, in case of deficiency. . if it were only a concurrence in their wickedness to pay those their exacted supplies, it were more easily comported with: but i fear it shall be found a hire and reward for their wicked service. at first they were only enacted and exacted, as helps to capacitate this popish, prelatical and malignant faction, to prosecute the war they had undertaken and declared against christ: but now, having thereby been enabled to carry it through this length, that they have almost got all visible appearances for christ, in owning his gospel, and propagating his testimony, quite suppressed by means of these impositions, and having got the fields cleared or those that formerly opposed their course and career, and all obstacles removed that might stand in the way of the reception they have prepared for their mistress the babylonish lady, the mother of harlots; they now demand these payments, as their wages and hire for their labour; which to pay now, is more than a justifying, seeing it is a rewarding them for their work. and to pay these pimps, and to purchase their peace thereby, is worse than to bring the hire of a whore into the house of the lord, (deut. xxiii. .) since it is a hiring them to bring the whore into the house of the lord. o how hath scotland played the harlot with many lovers! is this the zeal we should have had to our covenanted husband, and the honour of his house, that we have not only suffered his enemies to come in and take possession of it, but consented to their invasion; and not only consented, but invited them to come in; and not only invited them, but prostitute our estates and consciences also to their arbitrary lusts; and not only played the harlot with them, but hired them also when they had done! and for this the lord may say to scotland, as he said to his people of old, 'they give gifts to all whores, but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hirest them, that they may come unto thee on every side, for thy whoredom. and the contrary is in thee from other women in thy whoredoms--in that thou givest a reward, and no reward is given unto thee; therefore thou art contrary,' ezek xvi. , . there israel is taxed for hiring the assyrians: but let it be considered and enquired into in the history, how this was. what evidence can be given of this in their transactions with them? was it only that they were enticed, or did entice them into a communion with their idolatry, it is true, ahaz may be an instance of that, in his sending the pattern of the altar he saw at damascus, kings xvi. . and it cannot be denied, but in several respects they did partake with the assyrians in their idolatry, which was their adultery. but what could be their hire they gave them for it, if it was not their taxations they paid, and money they sent unto them? as ahaz did, verse . and hezekiah also, though a good man, kings xviii. , . which can no more be justified, than asa's paying to benhadad. it was then their confederacies, and the hire of them the lord calls the hire they gave unto their lovers. with this also ephraim is charged, that he hired lovers, hos. viii. , . of this we have instances, in menahem's giving to pul a thousand talents of silver, and exacting it of the people, kings xv. , . and in hoshea's becoming servant to shalmanesar king of assyria, and giving him presents, kings xvii. . if then hiring wicked men in confederacies to help the lord's people, be a hiring of lovers so much condemned in scripture, what must a hiring of them to hurt them, and rewarding them after they have done, and when they formally seek it for such work, be? but a giving the reward, they seek to slay the innocent (deut. xxvii. .) and a voluntary yielding that which they take, (ezek. xxii. .) which if it be sin in the takers, cannot be justified in the givers, but will render both obnoxious to the indignation of a provoked god, in the day when he shall begin to contend for the wrongs he hath got, both by the work and the wages. now let all the acts for the cess and continuation thereof, and other acts and edicts for fines and forfeitures, be considered in their just import, according to the true meaning of the enacters, and the causes for which they exact them, and will have them complied with; it will be found they were both declared, intended and improved, and accordingly approved by the compliers, not only as helps, but as hires for our oppressors and destroyers, and for such as have been, and are more destructive and explicitly declared enemies to christ's interests and people in scotland, than ever the assyrians were to the church in the old testament. the cess was not only a help, but a hire to the tyrant and his accomplices, for suppressing meetings for gospel ordinances; especially the continuation of it, from time to time, was humbly, unanimously, chearfully and heartily offered, for themselves, and in name of, and as representing this kingdom, as a hire for the doing of it, and an encouragement to suppress what remained of these conventicles. the locality was intended as a help to the soldiers in their quarterings upon this account; but afterwards, being expressly discharged to be furnished, without payment according to the current rates of the country, act . par. . x. charles ii. aug. , . the contribution of it for nought must be interpreted for a reward of their service, fines are appointed, not only for a punishment of contraveeners of their wicked laws, but for a hire to their most violent executors. stipends for a hire to their hireling curates. and fees, as a hire to jailors, to keep the lord's people in bondage. by which hires these destroyers have been rewarded, by them whom they have destroyed, and for which the righteous lord will reward both. . let it be considered, how far these submissions are short of, and how clearly these compliances are inconsistent with, that duty which lies upon us with reference to them. our obligation to god and our brethren doth indispensibly bind us to a contrary carriage. if it bind us in our station and capacity to an active renitency, it doth much more bind us up from such compliances. neither is it imaginable, how moral force can ever justify our doing that deed, we are obliged, by all imaginable bonds, yea, if in any probable capacity, by the utmost of real force, to counteract. can we give them that which they require, and by which they are enabled to murder our brethren, when we are so indispensibly obliged to rescue our brethren, prov. xxiv. , . to relieve the oppressed, isa. i. , to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke, isa. lviii. . what do we owe to these enemies, but seeing they have constitute themselves by these acts implacable enemies to christ, his people and interest _in babite_, not only plainly and importunely to pray that he would overturn them, but to oppose their course, to the uttermost of our power, and to concur to wrath that power out of their hands? and since they will needs make the whole nation a curse, they are so far from being to be complied with, that for these exactings and exactions they are to be looked upon, and carried unto, not only as these who have sold themselves to work wickedness, but endeavour also to engage with themselves all in the same guilt, and expose them to the same curse. and therefore, that the anger of the lord may be turned away from his people, every one in his station is obliged to endeavour to bring these achans to condign punishment. . as it must be taken for granted, that these wicked oppressions by law are perjury avouched in the sight of god; yea in a peculiar manner, our covenanted subjection unto him is turned into an open war against him; so we cannot but believe, that for this height of wickedness, the curse of god (to which in the covenant the nation in case of breach, is liable by their own consent) and the mediator's malediction shall follow, pursue, overtake, and fall upon the head of these, who have made the decrees, and upon all who concur in the execution, and carry on this course: oh! it is impossible to keep them company, and not fall with them into the hands of the living god. well then, seeing every one for whom these exactions are required, is under an anterior obligation to god and the brethren, to preserve these precious interests, which the imposers have been long essaying to root out and ruin, and his people whom they have been destroying, with the loss of all he hath, life not accepted. (for i suppose none, who acknowledged his soul is still under the bond of the covenant and it is likely to cost him his soul who denies it) but he will own this to be duty; nay, none who hath any sense of religion; but abstracting from the subjective obligation of a sworn covenant, he will own an objective obligation from the law of the great superior, that doth immediately bind the conscience to witness against this course, and to lay down, if it should come to that, his life for his brethren. then for a man to give his goods to destroy these things and persons, which he is obliged to defend and preserve with the loss of all, is so clear a making himself a transgressor, in paying his proportion, and being at the expense of destroying what he built, and building what he destroyed, that it seems inexplicable how he can dream to be innocent; especially when more lies upon it than the souls of the compliers are worth even the interest of christ in the land. and to close this, i would put home the question, and pose the confidence of any that took that covenant, if in that day the question had been asked at him, whether he would have judged the paying of a cess for the ends narrated, to suppress a testimony for that covenanted reformation, the paying of fines and fees, (for owning it) to the overturners, breakers and burners of it, to be a plain perjury and palpable counteracting of the ends thereof? and let him speak his soul, and it is beyond debate with me, he will not dare to say he took it in a sense which can subsist with these compliances. nay, i doubt not, if to any morally serious it had been then said, you will pay money, &c. for destroying this covenant and its ends, and deleting the remnant that shall be found to adhere to it he would have given hazael's answer. it concerns every man, that would be free of the curse of it, to consider how he is brought to make enquiry after vows; or to dream of consistencies betwixt the performing those engagements, and the plainest concurring in a counteracting thereof. . if then these impositions be so wicked, and for such wicked ends and causes; then, in order to my being free of this heinous guilt, there is a necessity of my giving a testimony, and such an one, which when brought to the touchstone, will get god's approbation, and be my acquittance from a concurrence. now, it is not imaginable that my testimony can be the exact obedience to the law, against the wickedness whereof it is witnessed; but on the contrary, it must be at least a plain and positive refusing to yield obedience to that law, when i am in no other case to counteract these commands; for i must either obey and be guilty, or refuse and be innocent. i shall not here plunge into the labyrinth of these debates and difficulties, wherewith this matter of testimonies hath been perplexed, and mostly by those who have had no great mind to the thing. i shall only propound these few queries. ( .) whether any thing less than a testimony can free me of this guilt, whereby the nation involved in it is made a curse? ( .) whether, we believe that the testimony of every one shall be called for, in the day when god shall seek out this wickedness? ( .) whether, if ever it be necessary, it be not then when christ is openly opposed, and every one is called either to concur or to testify? ( .) whether a testimony against a wicked law must not be notour for my testimony must make it evident that the law is not obeyed by me, else it is no testimony. ( .) whether it be not necessary also, that it be with that plainness and boldness, as it may keep some proportion with the prodigiousness of that wickedness testified against? ( .) whether to the making it a testimony indeed, it is not only required, that an opposition be made at first, but that this be so persisted in, as by no subsequent deed it be weakened? ( .) whether we do not take it for granted, that according as a man hath testified, the sentence of the righteous judge shall pass! for he who hath not purged himself thereby from the guilt of this conspiracy, shall be led forth and punished with these workers of iniquity. it is a saying which would sink in the soul of every one who would be saved, especially in such a day. whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will i confess also before my father which is in heaven; but whosoever shall deny me before men, him will i also deny, &c. oh that men would now judge of things and courses, as in that hour they desire to be judged! and then there would be little difficulty what to determine in that case. . from what is said it appears, that there is no other way of testifying against it, or shunning the sin of this wickedness, imposing and enjoining these compliances, but by refusing them; which as it is clear duty, so it hath many advantages to countervail all the supposed loss that can be sustained thereby. it is a shameful subterfuge to say, i strengthen them more by doing thus, which will make them take all, and so put themselves in better case to do the mischief decreed. for as it is then my suffering, not my sin, so it is simply false that i do hereby strengthen their hands: for hereby i do more certainly weaken their hands, and wound their cause, by my counteracting, testifying and suffering. for, . i do really, to the uttermost of the sphere of my activity, counteract their design; and hence, besides my own upmaking peace of conscience, (which is my hundredfold in this life) i glorify god in the day of visitation, behaving as the subject and soldier of the prince michael; and though i lose my life in the conflict, yet the victory over the dragon, and his lieutenant and trustees, and their lictors, is thereby gained, and they are foiled, while i fight and overcome, by my not loving my life in the present case unto the death. . i do by my example encourage my brethren to stand fast, and withstand in this evil day. . i hereby transmit to posterity a pattern for imitation, and so propagate an opposition to this course to succeeding generations. . i hereby (so to speak) engage god to arise and appear to plead his own cause and his people's: for when we, out of love to him and zeal for his interests, take our lives in our hands, or expose our substance as a prey in witnessing for him, then he is engaged to own us, and to plead his cause, taking the quarrel then to be against himself. hence it is that when he puts on the garments of vengeance for cloathing, and goes forth to meet them, who, in their risings up against his people, run upon the bosses of his buckler, his arm is said to bring salvation to himself, isa. lix. , . and isa. lxiii. . this keeps a man in case to pray against such a party; whereas a compliance with them, in the least degree, will wound a man's faith and weaken his confidence, so that he cannot wrestle with god to prevail: for that wherein his strength lay, a good conscience, being sinned away, in vain doth he essay, when he hath cut his own hair, to shake himself as at other times. alas! if by keeping a due distance from his enemies, we were in case to play the samsons or jacobs on our knees, this enemy, who think it their stability to stand upon the ruins of christ's interest, should not stand long upon their feet. he who would have his prayer heard, thy kingdom come, should make his practice, in a conformity thereto, speak this plain language, if i perish, i perish, but comply i will not: for it is not necessary that i live, or have an estate, but it is necessary i should witness a good confession against the wrongs done to christ. . this keeps a man in ease, either to act for god with advantage, if an opportunity be put in his hand, or to suffer, as under his supportings, and the shinings of his face, whereby, even while dying, he becomes an ornament to his profession, gives a dash to the enemy, and so becomes more than a conqueror. . let us consider the matter of scandal in the present case, and remember whose words these are, "wo to the world because of offences, and wo to him by whom offences come:" and it will appear, the payer of these exactions becomes highly guilty before god. . in stumbling and hardening this party of enemies: for though there was never a party before them in the nation (and i much doubt if ever a party can come after them to outdo them) who had so many evidences of plagues poured upon their hearts, that he may pour forth his wrath, and cause his fury to rest upon them; and that in his spotless justice, he will rain snares upon them, that thereafter he may rain fire and brimstone, and horrible tempest, as the portion of their cup, when he shall come to plead his own cause: yet we would beware lest we do any thing that may embolden them, or make them bless themselves in this their stated opposition to christ's. and because we know not but some of the elect may, for a time, be carried down with the current of this impetuous opposition to him, and may concur actively for a season in promoving this course, we ought, even upon this supposition, so to witness, and so to keep a distance from all apparent or interpretative compliance with what they contrive and carry on, as they may, by beholding our stedfastnes, be provoked to consider their own course; that considering at last how their feet go down to death, and their steps take hold on hell, they may hasten their escape from the company of his enemies, lest they be consumed with the fire of his indignation, if found congregate with the men of these god provoking practices. . by paying what is required, i stumble also and offend my weak brethren, while by my example they are encouraged to rush into the same compliance. o! let every man, whose practice may be pleaded as a pattern, remember that word, and who spoke it, "it were better that a milstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the midst of the sea, than offend any of these little ones." . sufferers for refusing this payment are offended, when the payer doth not only encourage the persecutors to proceed with rigour and rage against him, as a peevish and froward malecontent, but does what in him lies to wound the heart and weaken the hands of such a faithful witness: whereas, if the poor sufferer saw himself, by a joint testimony owned by his brethren, he would be comforted, strengthened, and become more confident in the conflict. . in paying these things the compliers, either by their example, lay a snare for the posterity, to whose knowledge their carriage may come; and so instead of the leaving them a pattern of contending earnestly for the faith, they spread a net for their feet, yea pave them a way to defection and apostasy; or else they engage the great god, out of zeal to his own glory, and tenderness to his people who shall succeed, for preventing of their following of such progenitors, wherein they have not been followers of him fully, to give such a testimony against their untenderness, and set such marks of displeasure upon their course, that the thoughts of turning aside with them, and following their steps shall be terrible to all that hear of it, lest, for such a compliance, they fall as they did, for falling from their own stedfastness into the hands of the living god. but alas! for the posterity, under whose curse we are like to go off the stage, because of our not having done what we ought, yea what we might; both for transmitting pure ordinances unto them, and for not transcribing in our practice the noble example of our zealous and heroic ancestors, who valiantly resisted when violently attacked, and by their valour wrestled us into a state of liberty. well, if we leave those that shall succeed us such an example as this, he is like to make us such an example as will fright the following generations, and force them to serve themselves heirs to them who have gone before us, who did acquit themselves as the good soldiers of jesus christ, and not to us, the debt of whose declensions and defections cannot be paid, without the destruction of those who shall serve themselves heirs to us. but alas! who does think on what he owes to the poor posterity; or who doth make confidence to preserve for them that precious treasure put in our custody, and judges it more necessary than to live, to leave the tract of a way contending zealously for god, and the preservation of his interests, and the propagation of his own pure ordinances to the posterity, shining so clearly by suffering and blood, as the way-faring man, and they who shall come after, though fools, need not err therein? our only comfort is, that the lord, who shall see his seed, and must prolong his days, will make his pleasure prosper, and preserve some to be witnesses of it to his praise. finis. * * * * * transcriber's note: numbering of headings and subheadings were left as they were in the original. spelling of many words vary in the text; for example, expressly/expresly, abbreviation for matthew as mat. and matt., dumfermline/dunfermline. page --supplied the word "year" "for resistance of superior powers, we have in this period, first the practice of some noblemen at ruthven, in the . who took the king, ..." long "f" characters were replaced with the standard english "s"; the "ct" ligature was replaced with "ct". honest wullie. by lydia l. rouse, author of "sandy's faith," and "jim bentley's resolve." [illustration: logo] _american tract society_, nassau street, new york. copyright, , by american tract society. [illustration: page .] contents chapter i. wullie and rab page chapter ii. the new home chapter iii. daft jamie's chapter iv. death in the cup chapter v. a year of gloom chapter vi. a clear sunset chapter vii. donald macpherson chapter viii. improvements chapter ix. new ties chapter x. jamie chapter xi. home life chapter xii. the first vacation chapter xiii. belle chapter xiv. archie and belle chapter xv. annie chapter xvi. reconsidered chapter xvii. davie chapter xviii. a rest by the wayside chapter xix. lengthening shadows chapter xx. another sheaf gathered chapter xxi. the professor visits his sisters chapter xxii. changes chapter xxiii. robin in america chapter xxiv. over sea and land chapter xxv. sunday; the last day with our friends * * * * * effie patterson's story. introduction chapter i. the home circle chapter ii. the beginning of sorrows chapter iii. the sword unsheathed chapter iv. the prison and the tomb chapter v. unwelcome visitors chapter vi. defeat at rullion green chapter vii. the wanderer chapter viii. victory of drumclog, and defeat at bothwell bridge chapter ix. the shepherd smitten chapter x. bridal and burial chapter xi. the last drop in the cup of bitterness chapter xii. peace chapter xiii. conclusion * * * * * sequel: by christie somerville. chapter xiv. the pen in another hand chapter xv. a visit to aunt margaret chapter xvi. a morning at the manse chapter xvii. at cousin christie's chapter xviii. graham place chapter xix. the old home and the new honest wullie. chapter i. wullie and rab. among the hills that divide the county of ayr from kirkcudbright, and near the bonny doon, lived, in the early part of this century, a man named william murdoch, but who was called by all his neighbors "honest wullie." he was a farm-laborer, and lived alone in a cottage which he rented. he feared god and regarded man. his word was indeed as good as his bond. he had been called honest wullie while yet a boy, and by common consent he still retained the name. at the time our story opens he was about thirty-five years of age. it was the morning of the first of january. the departing year had robed the earth in spotless white, that its successor might behold nothing but beauty and purity, and might begin its course with gladness. the rough places were made smooth and the waste places concealed. the sun shone brightly, and the earth glittered and sparkled as if nature had purposely arrayed herself in jewelled robes to welcome the coming year. but men looked out upon the frozen earth and saw only wastes of snow, and began to cut their way through it that they might look after their cattle and all that belonged to them. while all other hands were busy, willie murdoch's were not idle. he was shovelling paths about his door, and, while so employed, his thoughts were running in this manner. "i suppose i shall hae to look after that ne'er-do-weel brither o' mine. a man canna let his ain brither suffer, even if it s'ould be through his ain faut. rab was aye a careless lad. he s'ouldna hae married withoot changing his ways. hoo did he suppose he would support a wife and weans! he aye depends o'er muckle on me." while he was thus mentally soliloquizing his brother appeared, struggling through the snow. "weel, wullie, ye are aye warking; ye are o'er industrious." "a man canna sit in the hoose and be snawed in. hae ye no made paths aboot your ain door?" "i didna feel the courage to do it, the snaw is that deep. i am a'maist beat oot wi' coming here." "what brings ye oot on sic a morning? are ye no all weel at hame?" "we are all weel, i am thankful to say, but i am in trouble aboot the rent. ye ken it is due, and i hae na made oot to save it. i am sair set upon to pay it, and i cam to ask if ye could gie me a helping hand." it seemed but natural for robert to ask this help. as his brother had said, he depended on willie. the two were all that were left of their family, or, rather, of two families; for, though brothers by adoption and affection, they were in reality cousins. willie's parents had died when he was but a few months old, and his mother's only sister, then lately married to a brother of willie's father, had taken the orphaned little one and brought him up as her own child. he had repaid her with all the devotion of a loving and thoughtful son; and on her death-bed she had given him, then only fifteen years of age, the charge of robert, who was six years younger. her other children had died in infancy, and she had been a widow several years. "wullie, ye are a douce lad, for ane o' your years," she had said. "ye maun aye hae a care o' your brither, and if he doesna get on weel in the warld, dinna spare to lend him a hand. and may the gude god guide you both." willie had never forgotten the injunction of his foster-mother, which seemed to him doubly binding from the peculiar character of their relationship. he had had too much care of his brother, in fact, to the manifest detriment of both; for robert was sadly deficient in self-reliance, and willie's hard-earned money was too often applied to the support of his brother's family. so when this new demand was made, willie, with a perplexed look, leaned upon his shovel and remained a moment silent and thoughtful. at length he spoke. "i dinna see what is to be dune. i am sair straitened for siller mysel'." "weel, if ye dinna see a way i canna tell what is to become o' us. i thought i could coont on you to help me out o' my trouble." "ye hae coonted on me o'er mony times for the gude o' my purse," said willie, half in jest and half in earnest; for he had always said to himself, "i can never find it in my heart to be hard upon rab." "but come into the hoose, rab," continued he; "we will talk aboot it, and see if there is ony way to mend matters. i hae a few p'un's laid by for ony case o' emergency; but i would be loath to break in upon that just noo. ye s'ould wark better and plan better. i dinna want to be hard upon you, but ye maunna forget that ye are na longer a laddie, but a man, and a husband and father forbye. i will help you this ance, but i canna be always ready to meet your obligations at a moment's warning. i hae been casting aboot in my ain mind, for some time, whether it wouldna be better to tak ye a' in wi' me, sin' ye are maistly no prepared on rent days. the hoose is sma'; that is ane thing against it; and i hae sa long lived in quiet that it might be hard at first to become accustomed to the prattle o' the bairns; but if you choose to come, you will be welcome." this generous offer had cost wullie no little self-sacrifice. he had lived alone since robert was married, and he liked that way of living. "he could mak his ain parritch, and help himsel' amazin' weel," as his neighbors said. his wants were few and simple. he went to his labor each morning, and returned in the evening. as he left his house, so he found it; but how would it be if he opened his door to his brother's family? this is what he often thought about, and for this reason he had hesitated to propose the subject to robert. but it was becoming a serious matter to pay so much for rent, for he almost always had it to pay for both cottages. besides, hardly a week passed that he did not carry or send something to relieve the necessities of robert's family. having made the proposition, he watched to see how it would be received. robert's face brightened at first; then a shadow overspread it as he thought that, if he were in his brother's house, he could not conceal from him the fact that he was often out at night, and in bad company. so he sat trotting his feet, with his eyes on the floor, and made no reply. "hoo would that please you, rab?" asked wullie, after a long silence. "i would be almost ashamed to accept sic a favor. then, too, i might feel mair bound to think like yoursel' aboot mony things that i hae my ain opeenion aboot." "hoo is that, rab? ye dinna want to do wrang, i hope; or do you think i hae na sense to judge what s'ould be accounted wrang? if you do what is right, we will hae na difference o' opeenion. it is time ye had your wild oats a' sown. a man s'ould think mair aboot wark and less aboot diversion." "ilka ane canna think like yoursel', wullie." "ilka ane s'ould consult duty before pleasure, rab." "a' folk dinna see duty in the same light. but we will mak na mair words aboot that. if jeannie has na objections, we will accept your kindness and be thankful for it." this he said to cover his own hesitancy, for he well knew that his wife would be glad of any change that would insure for herself more comforts and fewer cares. her daily life was harassed by the all-absorbing questions, "what shall we eat? what shall we drink? and wherewithal shall we be clothed?" robert for once hastened home to tell jeannie the good news. as may be supposed, her necessitous circumstances overcame her pride, and she readily consented to a proposition which would lessen her anxieties; for she was a sensible, well-meaning woman, and was much pained at her husband's want of thrift. "wullie was aye a douce, honest man," said she, as she made hasty preparations to leave her comfortless home. there was little to pack and little to move; and before night closed in upon the short day, robert and his family were brought by a kind neighbor to his brother's door. wullie heaved a sigh of regret for past quiet, and hastened to welcome the pale, careworn woman to her new home. tears of gratitude stood in jeannie's eyes as she crossed the threshold. she extended her hand to wullie, and endeavored to express her thanks; but sobs choked her utterance, and she burst into tears. "ye maunna greet, woman; ye are mair than welcome. sit doun by the fire, and warm yoursel' and the bairns," said wullie in the kindest tones. jeannie sat down and soon regained her composure. then she arose, and began to place and put in order the few things she had brought with her. this done, she returned to the fire where wullie was preparing the evening meal. she assisted in arranging the table, and soon they sat down to a frugal but substantial supper. after the repast was finished, robert went to pay his rent. jeannie busied herself about the house for a while; then she put the children to bed, and sat down to her usual evening occupation, knitting. wullie did not as usual get his bible; he sat on the opposite side of the room and watched jeannie's nimble fingers and listened to the clicking of her needles. "jeannie, ye are o'er pale and thin; are ye no weel?" he asked. "i maistly think i am weel; but whiles i misdoot it. i think laneliness has had muckle to do wi' my ill looks. i was reared in a large family, and i canna but feel the change. then rab has a way o' gaen oot in the evening, and i am all alane, savin' my sleepin' bairns; and it is weary waitin', for he is lang a-comin'. i doot if he would like me to tell you, but lately i hae suffered bath laneliness and fear." "o jeannie, ye s'ould hae tauld me before. i didna ken he was gaen that gate." "weel, i hae tauld ye noo, and i hae a purpose in tellin' ye. i want ye to look after him. he willna heed me, but perhaps he will heed you." wullie was about to reply when they heard a footstep, and robert entered. "weel, rab, ye are square ance mair," said his brother cheerily, though his own small store was much smaller on that account. "ay am i, thanks to yoursel', wullie." "i am right glad we hae stoppit rent-payin' for ane o' the places. noo, if ye stick to wark as ye s'ould, ye will get on in the warld better than ye hae been doing. i will seek a gude place for ye the neist year. if ye are wullin' to wark weel, i hae na doot but ye can wark wi' me. farmer lindsay will need anither man in the spring, and ye would do better on a farm than wi' your hedging and ditching. with him ye would hae every kind o' wark in its season; and if ye wark as weel as ye ken hoo, ye will hae wark the hail year round, and nae trouble in gien satisfaction. we will hae to look weel to oor affairs, and then i see na reason why we s'ouldna gather comforts aboot us. i will get a coo; it willna cost muckle to keep her, and the milk will be gude for the bairns. and we'll hae to fatten a couple o' swine. i hae had naebody but mysel' to feed, and i hae been sa strang and weel that onything would do me. but your wife and bairns need mair than i hae needed. i dinna like to see them sa thin and pale." a cry from one of the children attracted jeannie's attention, and she left the room. "it canna be, rab, that they hae na been weel keepit," he continued. "plenty o' aiten meal would mak them look better than they do." rab was confused, and did not reply. he could not look into the clear gray eyes of honest wullie and tell him that a part of his wages went to the innkeeper, that he often treated a set of idle, jolly fellows with the money that should have given bread to his family. so he only said, "jeannie has never complained o' her fare." "weel, rab, the pale cheek will sometimes tell o' suffering when the tongue refuses to speak o' it. i dinna say it is so in jeannie's case; ye ken that best yoursel'." "wullie, ye are o'er plain o' speech. ilka ane wouldna tak it frae ye." "i am plain-spoken, rab. i never say yea when i mean nay; neither do i stand aboot tellin' a freend his fauts when ony gude can come o' it. 'faithful are the wounds o' a freend,' ye ken." "that may be; but sic talk maistly sits too snug to fit weel. ye are ca'ed honest wullie, and ye cam as honestly by the name through your plain, outspoken way as by your fair dealing." "weel, i am no ashamed o' the name, however i cam by it." jeannie's return changed the conversation to some other subject. chapter ii. the new home. the next morning was the sabbath. of course honest wullie was at home on that morning. it was a strange thing for him to have children in his house. but his face brightened as little jamie's curly head and happy face appeared, and instinctively he extended his hand. "come to me, come to your uncle, my wee man," he said in winning tones. the child approached him rather slowly, and suffered himself to be lifted to his uncle's knee. soon the broad palm of honest wullie was stroking jamie's head, and from that time uncle wullie's knee was the child's favorite seat. the other child was a mere babe, a sweet, delicate little girl, named isabel, whom wullie always called "the wee lass." this child he did not at first attempt to take, for she was "sic a wee bit thing," he said, he would be "a'maist sure to let her fa'." there was soon a decided improvement in rab's family. the children grew plump and rosy, and the mother lost the pale, sad look. rab seldom went to town, and when he did he returned early. his wife began to breathe more freely; she inwardly felt that wullie's influence would save her husband. spring came, and with it a change of labor for robert murdoch. his brother secured employment for him on mr. lindsay's farm, as he had proposed. jeannie now moved about the house with a light step and a lighter heart. the cottage too was undergoing a change; not under the carpenter's hand, but under the skilful, remodelling hand of a woman. the bareness was less apparent. in the best room were a chest of drawers and a clock, the only heirlooms jeannie possessed. the windows were curtained, some of the rough chairs and unsightly stools were cushioned; here was a small mirror, and there a bright pincushion and housewife. the cradle, too, with its many-colored covering and tiny pillow, and little isabel's sweet face half hidden in it, made the cottage seem more like a home. true, there was no elegance or beauty, but there was a change; for honest wullie had considered his home furnished when he had a bed, a table, a few chairs, shovel and tongs, parritch-pot, and bake-kettle. as to time, he could always tell that by the crowing of the cock or the position of the sun. he was so accustomed to these methods of telling time that he seldom needed to look at the noon-mark cut in the south window. but wullie appreciated the change that had taken place, and smiled approvingly. he even went so far as to say, "it taks a woman's hand to mak hame tidy." he began to perceive that he had received as well as afforded comfort by opening his door to others. quickly passed the spring and summer seasons. on warm afternoons jeannie often sat in the pleasant cottage door sewing on some pretty garments for the little ones who were playing at her feet. she had watched the budding trees with unusual interest, for the new life in nature seemed to harmonize with her own fresh hopes. her heart was again blithe and hopeful, and as the birds carolled their notes of joy, she too sang old songs of love and happiness. but hers was a happiness founded on the constancy of frail humanity. alas, that cannot always be trusted. chapter iii. daft jamie's. about two miles from the cottage was a small inn and dramshop familiarly known as daft jamie's. the nominal proprietor was james mcallister, but the house was kept by his wife; for, many years before, mcallister had been so badly injured in a drunken brawl that he had never fully recovered his reason, and had ever since borne the name of daft jamie. this was a place of resort for all the idlers of the neighborhood, who came here to gossip and drink and empty their pockets into mrs. mcallister's money-drawer. rab well knew the road to this place, but since he had brought his family to his brother's house he had kept away from it. one evening late in autumn robert murdoch failed to come home as usual. as the evening advanced jeannie's fears fast deepened into certainty; but she concealed her anxiety as well as she could and endeavored to appear cheerful. wullie had no fears concerning his brother. he sat down near the fire, preparing to doze until rab should return; but before he was lost in slumber jeannie broke the silence by remarking that the night was dark, and it was a long way to daft jamie's. "what puts daft jamie's into your heid?" said wullie. "surely rab is no there. he is crackin' wi' donald mcpherson or some o' the neebors. dinna worry yoursel'. gang to your bed, and i'll wait for rab." but jeannie did not go to bed. she resumed her work and relapsed into silence. again wullie settled himself into an easy posture and succeeded in falling asleep. the unhappy wife still listened for the footsteps of her husband, but all the sound she heard was the heavy breathing of the weary man in the chimney-corner. after another hour had passed she again roused the sleeper. "i am right sorry to disturb you," she said, "but i am worried about rab. would you be sa kind as to gang and look for him?" "ay, i will gang, to please you," said he, putting on his bonnet and going out into the darkness. it was now late. as he passed the neighbors' houses one after another, he found only darkness and silence. the inmates were wrapped in slumber. rab was not there. he kept on till he saw the light of daft jamie's. as he approached the house he heard loud laughing. he opened the door and beheld with astonishment his brother, who had always been as lithe as a willow, performing sundry feats for the amusement of the company. rab was so much engaged that he did not notice the entrance of the new-comer. "gude save us!" exclaimed one of the company, "if here isna honest wullie! i would liefer see the de'il himsel' in this place." wullie walked straight to his brother. "it is time all honest folk were at hame," said he. robert looked at him a moment, hardly knowing whether to be angry or to yield and feel foolish. "can a man no hae a bit o' merriment but ye maun come spierin' aboot after him?" he asked. "come hame. dinna stop here makin' a gowk o' yoursel'," said wullie in an undertone. "i could hide my face wi' very shame to see your foolish pranks to mak sport for these idle haverals." rab went home, but he was much displeased. he did not like the idea of his free moral agency being interfered with. he remained silent and sullen. when the sabbath came he refused to accompany wullie to church. wullie remonstrated, but to no purpose. "then ye can mind the bairns, and let your wife gang," he added. "she can gang if she likes," rab replied. the day passed wearily to robert murdoch. he felt as one always feels when he is wilfully drifting from the right. to wullie the day and means of grace had not been without profit. ever since his brother came to live with him he had been debating with his conscience whether he ought to have family worship. that day he made up his mind to act on the side of duty. when the time for rest drew near, the time when so many of those honest, devout sons of scotland bowed before the king of kings, wullie took down the bible he had so often read in private, and read aloud. then he knelt in prayer, and one more altar was set up for the worship of god. short and simple, yet touching, was the prayer of honest wullie. especially did he pray that they all might be delivered from the power of the tempter. after he arose from his knees he remarked to robert, "ye dinna mind when our faither kept the fire o' devotion burning on sic an altar as i hae this night set up, but i mind it weel; and i mind, mairover, that god's fury is to be poured out on the families that call not on his name; so i hae made up my mind that, come what will, i will daily raise my voice in praise to god, to whom i owe every good thing i possess." jeannie, who had often in her hours of trouble turned her thoughts towards god, heartily assented to this arrangement. but rab said to himself, "what is the need o' sic an ado?" he felt that the breath of piety in his home was a constant rebuke to his wilful course, and it vexed him. truly, "the way of the transgressor is hard." but rab's resentment gradually wore away, and the little household had nearly regained its wonted cheerfulness when, in a few weeks, rab was again absent. "i wonder what is keeping rab," said jeannie, as they sat down to supper without him. wullie was as anxious as herself; for when the demon of drink has once entered a household, one never knows at what moment shame, or a worse thing, may come to the door. as the candle burned low, and the evening was far advanced, wullie arose and took his bonnet and plaid. "the night is cold, and it is o'er late. i will go and seek rab. something has gone wrang, or he would be here." "he said ye werena to come again," was sobbed out by jeannie, rather than spoken. "i canna bide this suspense, and it is my duty to go. we are each our brother's keeper." it was a still, cold night. the stars shone brightly, and the crusted snow sparkled in the moonlight. wullie drew his plaid closely about him and strode forth in the direction of daft jamie's. he knew by the remark that greeted his ear on the former occasion that his presence was not regarded as desirable, so he slipped in very quietly. there was mrs. mcallister, who was anxious to shut up for the night, and rab with his boon companion donald mcpherson. when wullie entered, donald was vainly endeavoring to induce rab to go home. "hands off," said wullie, coming quickly forward; "i'll tak care o' him mysel'. he has had mair o' your care than is gude for him." then, turning to the landlady and addressing her, he said, "ye s'ould be mair careful hoo ye deal oot your foul whiskey." he raised his brother to his feet, put his bonnet on his head, drew him to the door, and turned his face towards home. he took him by the arm and led him along as fast as possible. jeannie had sat there anxiously waiting their return. they laid the scarcely conscious man in his bed, and then with aching hearts sought their own pillows, where at length tardy sleep came to relieve exhausted nature. robert awoke next morning too late to go to his work in time. his head ached; he felt angry with himself and angry with others. his wife bore his ill-humor with patience, and that annoyed him. little jamie noticed the change in his father. "what ails ye, faither, that ye dinna smile to wee jamie?" he asked. "faither has a sair heid; rin awa and play by yoursel'," said the father. jeannie prepared a nice dinner, and she tried to wear a smile, but failed; for in her heart she felt that thick darkness hung over her future. when honest wullie returned from his work that evening his face was very grave. thought had been active all day. had he been too lenient with his brother when he was young and under his care? had he failed to impress his mind with bible truths? what was the cause of his intemperance? and why his aversion to vital piety? these and similar questions had troubled him all day. so while rob had a "sair heid," wullie had a sair heart. he took his bible and read long to himself. once, some large tears fell on the book. rab saw them, and his heart was softened. he had never before seen tears in his brother's eyes. he moved uneasily about the room, and spoke pleasantly to his family. he even felt so nearly penitent as to listen patiently to the reading of the scriptures, and to a lengthy prayer wherein were some allusions to his own shortcomings, for wullie carried all his troubles to the throne of grace. so he besought the lord, who is a present help in trouble, to draw near to his household, and to deliver them from the snare of the fowler; he entreated that, if satan desired to have any of them, the blessed master might pray for them as he did for peter of old, and plead their poor prayers before the throne of mercy, and that delivering power might be felt in all their hearts. the next day rab was himself again. he went to his work, and came home at the usual time. he had thought a good deal during the day. he was ashamed of his weakness, and he had resolved to let strong drink alone. he told wullie that he would never have to go again to daft jamie's to bring him home; and he promised jeannie that he would drink no more. jeannie rejoiced to hear him say so, although she knew a promise is more easily made than kept. but rab kept his resolution. he worked steadily all the next year. he attended church, and seemed anxious to do right. hope sprang up in the hearts of his wife and brother. wullie felt sure that god had heard his prayers. and god had heard them. but human strength, at best, is weak; and there was to be one more trial, the hardest and the last. chapter iv. death in the cup. the rolling year again brought the winter. during the coldest weather there was little to be done on the farm, and wullie and rab spent many days at home. one very cold evening rab went out "to look after the coo," as he told his wife. while he was at the cow-shed, donald mcpherson, who was passing that way in hope of seeing his old comrade, approached him softly. "come awa wi' me to daft jamie's, and get a drop to warm you this cauld night." "i canna gang, donald. it isna gude for me nor you to gang there." "hoot, man! i'll be bound ye are as dry as a fish oot o' water." "weel, dry or no dry, i canna gang. i hae na claes on that would keep me frae the cauld to gang that length, and but a puir pair o' auld shoon to my feet; and if i went to the hoose to get better, jeannie would say, 'where are ye gaen?' and wullie would say, 'what are ye after noo?' sa ye see yoursel' i canna gang." "i hae it. ye jist gang in and say ye are but noo tauld to gang for the doctor for a seek neebor." "na, na. i canna lee, wi' a' my fauts. i would liefer rin fast eneuch to keep mysel' warm." "weel, do that," said the tempter; and rab consented, though rather reluctantly. he did run fast enough to keep himself warm while going; but alas for the home-coming! he had, of course, drunk more than was good for him. mrs. mcallister, who feared another visit from honest wullie, urged donald to take him home. donald took him a part of the way and left him. "we hae had a gude auld-fashioned time tagither," said he; "but noo ye maun hasten hame. rin, for the life o' ye!" but poor rab did not comprehend his situation; he could not have hurried if he had. the cold soon benumbed him; his feet refused to carry him, and he soon sank down into the snow. meantime he had been missed at home, and search had been made for him. it was a long time before it entered into the minds of his family that he might have gone to daft jamie's. but with the thought wullie quickly seized his brother's plaid and his own, and hurried in the direction of the inn. he had gotten about half the distance when he found the object of his search. he succeeded in arousing him, wrapped him in his plaid, and took him home as fast as his ill condition would permit. rab was allowed to remain near the fire until he was supposed to be warm. then wullie offered to "loose his shoon." to his horror he discovered that his feet had been frozen. it was a trial to all, but particularly to rab, that he had to be kept in the house with sore feet. still, no one at first realized the extent of the injury; and many days had elapsed before a conviction fastened on rab's mind which found expression in these words: "i will hae to lose my taes." "no so bad as that, i hope," said his wife. "i see nae help for it. oh, why did i gang oot that unlucky night! i wish i had let the coo gang withoot her supper; then i wouldna hae seen donald. i am afeared i will be a cripple a' the rest o' my days; and if i am crippled in sic a way, i will never shaw my heid again." "but, rab, ye might hae been frozen to death; think o' that!" "ay, i hae thought o' that; and i hae thought o' anither thing, and that is just this: donald mcpherson will hae gray hairs on his heid before i forgie him for that night's wark. i would hae been at hame in my warm bed but for him. i was aboot my ain business, and had nae intention o' gaen to daft jamie's, when he cam along, and naething would do but i maun gang wi' him. but, as god helps me to keep my promise, i will never be found wi' him again." "i am glad to hear ye say that," said jeannie, "and i hope ye will stick to it as lang as he is the same wild, warthless donald; but if god s'ould change his heart, it would be different, ye ken." "it is my opeenion that god's grace will never reach donald." "ye maunna say that. wullie would tell ye no to limit the grace o' god." "ay, and wullie would say there is mercy for me; but i canna feel sure aboot it." "and why s'ould there not be mercy for you?" "because, jeannie, i hae been, and am still, a great sinner." "weel, rab, it was but yester morn that i read in the gude book, 'they that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick;' and i thought to mysel, here jesus holds oot hope for the warst o' folk." "it would seem so, jeannie, but i ken little aboot sic things." "and i am nae judge o' thae things either, although i would fain learn aboot them. we will ask wullie." accordingly, after wullie had returned from his work, and had settled in his favorite corner, with jamie on his knee, jeannie began to speak upon the subject uppermost in her mind. "wullie, doesna the bible hold forth hope and pardon to the warst o' sinners?" "of course it does. wha says it doesna?" "rab says he doesna feel a'thegither sure aboot it." wullie smiled a glad smile, not unmingled with surprise, while he answered, "if you will test the promises, rab, ye will ken better than to doot them. only turn to the lord wi' full purpose o' heart. tak the promises as your ain, and cling to them, and ye shall save your soul; for the lord is ever ready to hear all that call upon his name." "i hae only lately begun to think aboot sic things. i had some conversation to-day wi' jeannie that led her to speak to you aboot it." "it is the strivings o' the spirit, rab. oh, that ye would 'seek the lord while he may be found, and call upon him while he is near!' he is near to you noo. he is speaking to your conscience. he has said, 'let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our god, for he will abundantly pardon.'" "i am sure i would like to have that abundant pardon. but there is are thing i canna mak clear in my ain mind. i canna weel see what maks sic a difference between us. it may be that you are to be saved and i am to be lost. ye ken the ministers preach that one is sure to go to the gude place, and anither to the bad, according to god's plan." "i ken, rab, some say that. but i dinna fash my held aboot election while i can find sic words as these: 'say unto them, as i live, saith the lord god, i have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live. turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, o house of israel?'" "but, wullie, might not that be only for the chosen people, the israelites?" "na, rab, na. 'the gentiles shall come to thy light.' and listen to this: 'ho, _every one_ that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.' and again: 'come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and i will give you rest.' this is eneuch for me; for i ken weel our blessed maister wouldna call us to him to send us empty awa." "weel, wullie, there be folk wha say ane thing, and folk wha say anither thing. wha kens wha has the right o' it?" "i will tell ye, rab; ye just read the ward o' god for yoursel. i am sure ye are nae fule; and if ye were, ye could understand eneuch to be saved; for the bible declares that the wayfaring man, though a fule, needna err therein. noo read for yoursel, as i said, and tak the plain, simple truths o' the bible. dinna gang aside frae the general course to pick at what ye canna understand, for in so doing ye may wrest the scriptures to your ain destruction. nane by seeking can find out god; neither can they understand all the wards o' him wha is infinite in wisdom." "but what wad ye think if ye were in the kirk and ye s'ould hear it sounded in your ears that some were left to eternal death?" "i would no dispute it; but i would whisper softly to my heart sic passages o' the holy ward as these: 'as moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up; that whasoever believeth in him s'ould not perish, but have eternal life.' 'for god so loved the warld that he gave his only-begotten son, that whasoever believeth in him s'ould not perish, but have everlasting life.' 'for god sent not his son into the warld to condemn the warld, but that the warld through him might be saved.'" "that you would say to yoursel; but if a man was in trouble aboot the doctrine o' election, and s'ould ask ye to comfort him, what would ye tell him?" "i would say, dinna meddle wi' decrees. never gang back o' the promises. they are strang eneuch to bear us up, and sweet eneuch to comfort us; and i think a' we hae to do is to lay hand o' them as they are held oot to us. and i will tell ye, rab, what i honestly think: mair folk catch at the question o' election as an excuse for putting off god's claims upon them, than through fear that they are not o' the elect." chapter v. a year of gloom. spring came, but robert murdoch was still in his chair. it was then evident that not only his feet had been injured, but that he had also contracted disease. the physician plainly told wullie that his brother's working days were over. "it is but right to tell you," said he, "that he has consumption; and though its work may not be swift, it will be sure." honest wullie staggered under the weight of this sad intelligence. but he took this trouble where he had long since learned to take all others--to his father in heaven. he also tried to appear cheerful, though his heart was very heavy. rab began to think that his health had been undermined, and he became very despondent. during the day he would sit many hours without speaking; but in the evening he would converse with his brother on indifferent subjects. wullie soon perceived that he was speaking of that which was least in his thoughts. therefore, one evening when jeannie and the children were in another room, he endeavored to lead rab to talk of that which more nearly concerned his true welfare. "hoo is it," said he, "that ye speak aboot sic things? i can see right weel that your heart is no in your talk. it would be better to lay aside sic pretences, for ye hae na deceived me frae the vera first. ye hae a trouble that is pressing sair upon you. will ye no tell me at ance what it is? perhaps i might comfort you." "wullie," replied rab, "ye hae had ane look into my heart, and noo i will mak it bare to you. i am thinking i will never be a sound man again. it isna my feet alane, but i hae a sair pain when i cough; and i hae nae mair strength than wee jamie; and it is nae wonder, for i sweat sae muckle o' nights. but that is not all: the end of it will be death--death to the body at least; and wha kens but it will be death to the soul as weel! it is this that troubles me. i sit and ponder it o'er and o'er, and jeannie thinks perhaps that i am ill-tempered; but i canna bring mysel to tell her. it would break her heart if i were to dee without hope. puir lass! i hae never been gude eneuch for her. many a time i hae pitied her that she wasna better mated." wullie was much moved. as soon as he could trust his voice he replied, "rab, i hae seen all that ye hae tauld me, and mair than ye hae tauld me. ye are seeking to find favor in the sight o' god; and ye are looking within yoursel to find something to recommend you to him, but ye canna find onything. ye hae been vexing yoursel wi' a notion a'thegither wrang. hae ye never understood that ye are to come with a' your guilt upon you, and fall doun at the feet o' sovereign mercy, and ask god to accept you as ye are, since naething but the bluid o' the son of god has power to cleanse you frae your sins? that is the way you are to come to god. ye shall read it for yoursel." handing him the bible, he continued, "read frae the eleventh to the twenty-fifth verse o' the fifteenth chapter o' st. luke, and ye will see if the prodigal son did mair than just come to his faither." rab read the story carefully. "ye are right, wullie. he went wi' a' his fauts, and was thinking to be coonted as a servant; but he wasna, for the servants were called to put the best robe on him, and a ring on his hand, and shoon on his feet." "ye hae missed ane strang point, rab, if ye didna notice that the mere sight o' the sinfu' son, wi' his face turned hameward, gave the faither sic joy that he ran to meet him while he was yet a lang way off, and fell on his neck and kissed him." "sae he did; sae he did. weel, it was sae full i couldna tak it all in at ance." jeannie had returned and sat quietly listening. she had been praying that her husband might be brought to see the promises so clearly as to be led to accept them. finally she ventured to speak. "it is plain that a' the young man did, saving his rising and gaen to his faither, was to confess his fauts; and he was met wi' compassion even before he made any confession. so ye see, rab, god is waiting to forgive if we forsake sin and rise up and go to him. i am sure that i, for ane, need a strang freend to flee to when doots and fears get hold o' me." "and i feel the need o' sic a freend mair than ye think, jeannie," said rab. "wha will lead me to him?" "i hae pointed you to the word o' god, my brither. ye maun ask to be led by the holy spirit. meantime ye hae my puir prayers that ye may be accepted," said wullie. honest wullie soon found his hands more than full. expenses had greatly increased, and were not likely soon to diminish. he now had the entire charge of providing for his brother's family. besides, there were extra expenses in the way of medicines and occasional visits from the physician. it required all his energy to meet these constantly recurring demands on his resources. the remainder of the small sum he had laid by was spent. autumn came, and he found that his wages would barely purchase provisions for the winter. there could be no surplus for an emergency. rab's family now numbered five instead of four, for another little girl had come to be cared for; and the father's illness increased. wullie felt that he was being sorely tried. he was obliged to apply to his employer to advance him money. farmer lindsay was accompanied by a strange gentleman when honest wullie met him and preferred his request. the money was immediately put into his hand. "how is this," said the stranger when wullie was gone, "that you advance money in that fashion? if he cannot meet his expenses this year, how will he do it next year with this amount deducted?" "i admit," said farmer lindsay, "that i couldna do it wi' a' my men; but wi' honest wullie it is a' right. he has ta'en his brither's family into his hoose, and there is seckness amang them. the brither himsel is seck, and his wife has a wee bit bairn, and they hae na onything laid by. i am right sorry for wullie, for a better man never put his hand to a sickle. i would help him though i s'ould never be paid. but there is nae danger o' that. he hasna come to his name withoot gude reason. i ken him weel. he has a generous nature; and he is aye ready to help ithers when he has the means in his hands." here the subject dropped. but the gentleman, who was a cousin of mrs. lindsay's, had also a generous nature, and he did not forget honest, struggling wullie. the next day when he left he put a ten-pound note into mr. lindsay's hand, saying, "give this, with my compliments, to the man that has earned the name of honest wullie." wullie went to town, paid the doctor's bill, bought a few delicacies for the sick, and some necessaries, among which was a pair of thick warm shoes for jeannie. he paid out nearly all the money he had taken, but still more things were needed. when he reached home he gave the shoes to jeannie. "i hae brought you some shoon," said he. "noo your feet will no be weet." jeannie had not expected them. her happy surprise gave him no small pleasure. but the pleasure suddenly vanished; for no sooner had he taken his seat by the fire than jamie climbed on his knee and asked, "uncle wullie, did you bring me too ony new shoon?" "nae, my wee man, i couldna spare the siller." "will ye bring me some when ye gang again? my shoon are fu' o' holes." "i canna promise, puir laddie," said he, stroking the child's head as he spoke. jamie hid his face on his uncle's neck and cried from disappointment. wullie felt very sorry for his little nephew. "dinna greet, laddie, dinna greet," said he. "ye will hae me keepin' you company if ye dinna stop." in reality he felt perplexed as well as sorry; for he could not help seeing that to keep comfortable would require his utmost efforts. the signs of perplexity had not left his countenance, when farmer lindsay entered. mr. lindsay seemed the bearer of good tidings, so happy was his face. he wished them all a good evening, and then inquired particularly after rab. "i am nae better," said rab. "and hoo are a' the bairns, mistress murdoch?" "they are a' vera weel, i thank ye." "and hoo hae ye made oot wi' your marketing in the town, wullie?" "i found things o'er dear; and i hae na got a' i s'ould hae fetched, for this wee man has but noo been greetin' for new shoon. i brought his mither a pair, and he lookit doun at his ain feet; then he climbed to my knee and spiered at me aboot shoon for himsel. it is nae wonder, as ye see," said wullie, holding up both the small feet in his capacious hand and displaying the condition of the shoes. farmer lindsay smiled peculiarly. "come here, my wee man," said he. "so ye hae been greetin' aboot new shoon, hae ye? weel, your uncle will bring them the next time he gaes to town." "i dinna ken hoo that will be," interposed wullie. "weel, ye will hae the means to get them, at ony rate," replied mr. lindsay; "for the man ye saw wi' me yesterday, when he learned more aboot you, gied me a ten-pound note, saying 'gie that, wi' my compliments, to the man that has earned the name o' honest wullie.'" wullie was dumb with amazement. but collecting his thoughts he said, "i hae nae suitable words to express my thanks; but if i ever see the gentleman i will do my best to thank him, for i am right thankfu'. but, mr. lindsay, i hae seen the time when i wouldna hae taen sic a gift. but god has shawn me that it is pride, and not wisdom, that refuses the help that gude men offer to their struggling fellow-men. especially would it be wrang for me, sin' i hae the comfort o' ithers to consider." "that is my ain opeenion, wullie; and i thought ye would hae the sense to see it in that light. i hae nae sympathy, nor patience either, wi' puir folk that haud their heids sae high, and willna accept help when it is offered to them, and then sink into want or disgrace through their ain fulish pride." "ye are right, mr. lindsay. if god puts it into the hearts o' gude men to help those wha are in need, and they willna receive that help, they stand in the way o' providence, sin' they shut up channels through which the lord would send blessings to them. every ane can understand that it is mair gratifying to give than to acknowledge ane's needs so far as to accept gifts; but pride maun hae a fa'." "just so, wullie. now, if ye s'ould find yoursel again in want o' means, come to me. i wish ye a' a good-night." "hae ye ever heard o' sic a thing!" exclaimed wullie when the door had closed behind farmer lindsay. "yesterday i was that discouraged that i hardly kenned what to do nor which way to turn. but i clung to the promise o' god, and i said to mysel, 'the siller and the gowd are his;' but i couldna see in what way he would send it to me in my sair need. my heart wouldna quite trust yet. i thought o' the wee helpless bairns, and i said again to mysel, 'he hears the young ravens when they cry, and he will hear the prayer o' his unworthy servant for those his ain providence has put into his care.' then i gaed aboot my wark as light o' heart as the birds o' the air. but my faith was o'er weak, for when wee jamie was disappointed i had a'maist gien o'er again to fear." "weel, wullie, if ye lack faith, what would ye think o' me?" asked rab. "ah, rab, ye hae na proved what comfort ane gets in just takin' god at his ward. i dinna see hoo folk can endure life withoot the heavenly father's smile. it is true they hae the bonny things in nature; but they are far bonnier when ane can not only see their beauty, but can trace in them the gudeness and wisdom o' the creator, and can feel that he has this all-wise creator for his freend. mony a time when i am weary wi' my wark, i see a bonny wee flower, and the sight o' it gladdens me. i hear the blithe sang o' a bit bird, and that cheers me. i see the drooping plant revive, and i say to mysel, 'though i fa', i shall rise again.' i tell ye, there is naething like having the bible hidden in your heart when your een are lookin' oot on the face o' nature. the ane makes you think o' the ither. they blend weel thegither, and strengthen ane's faith, for it isna hard to see that he that created the ane inspired the ither." "hoo differently you and i hae aye lookit on life, wullie. did ye ever think o' it?" "ay, i hae thought o' it mony times. ye hae been fond o' company, while i hae been fond o' quiet. i hae made a companion o' my bible; and i gie it as my verdict that it is not only a safe, but a profitable ane." wullie's heart was full of glad thankfulness. he rose and stirred the fire, and added fuel. there should be no lack of anything now. "jamie, ye s'all hae new shoon, and wee belle s'all hae new shoon; and rab, ye s'all no want for medicines. jeannie, ye will see till 't that there is plenty o' parritch made, for if the meal gies oot ye can hae mair. weel, weel, i canna forget it. is it no wonderfu' that the gentleman s'ould hae left the money for me! i hae nae doot he is a servant of the lord, sin' he considers the puir. oh, how i wish that ilka ane would set his heart on serving the most high!" chapter vi. a clear sunset. wullie now felt a great relief with regard to ways and means. ten pounds seemed quite a sum to those frugal cottagers. but as rab's illness increased wullie became very anxious about his brother's future welfare, and earnestly desired that he should experience a good hope through the saviour of sinners. he missed no opportunity to set before him the love of christ, and his willingness to save all who come to him with a humble and contrite heart. he proposed to bring the parish minister. but rab said, "not yet. i like best to talk wi' yoursel, wullie. i would be ashamed to talk to onybody aboot my past life." "are ye sorry for it as weel as ashamed o' it." "ay, i am baith ashamed and sorry." "there is a godly sorrow that warketh repentance. hae ye that sorrow?" "i dinna ken right weel what that s'ould be." "i will tell you what it is as near as i can come to it. if the remembrance o' sin is painfu' to us because it is hateful in the sight o' god; if our misspent, unprofitable lives grieve us because they hae grieved our saviour, to whom we owe obedient, faithful service; if we wish to forsake sin, because it is sin, and not from fear o' punishment alane, then i think it is the sorrow that warketh repentance." "i think i feel something like that. i dinna ken hoo it would be if i were oot again wi' my auld comrades; but noo as i lie here i am seck o' sin, seck o' the things i ance loved. i canna bear to think o' my past life. in the night season i often put oot my hand in the vain attempt to push it far frae me, but it willna gang oot o' my memory. then i think o' him wha deed to save us frae oor sins, and i remember that i hae never turned towards him, but awa frae him, and i feel that my condemnation would be just. but at ither times i feel that i will, i must, lay hold o' some promise; that i will lay me doun just outside the door o' mercy, and wait to see if the maister willna lift the latch and bid me come in." "brither, it is yoursel maun lift the latch to the door o' your heart, and bid the maister come in and possess it. beyond a doot the saviour is noo knocking to be admitted. do ye no remember that passage o' scripture that reads, 'behold, i stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, i will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me'? noo, my brither, in faith bid the maister enter your heart, and all will be weel. only believe, rab. 'believe on the lord jesus christ, and thou shalt be saved.'" "wullie, i am gaen to believe noo." then closing his eyes, he said aloud, "lord, i will believe thee. i do believe thee; and if i do not believe aright, wilt thou teach me how to believe?" wullie went to the bedside, and, kneeling down, he poured out his soul in prayer that god would bless them all, and bless them then. when he arose from his knees jeannie was weeping softly, but rab had a glad light in his eyes. "wullie," he said, "the darkness is o'erpast, and light is breaking through. oh, the wondrous condescension o' the saviour! jeannie, my puir wife, ye maun find jesus and hae him for your dearest freend." "i hae found him, rab. ane can greet wi' joy as weel as sorrow." "that is true," said wullie, as he wiped away the great joy-born tears from his own cheeks. it was a sight for angels--and angels do know of such scenes, for "there is joy in the presence of the angels of god over one sinner that repenteth." "i think i would hae been comforted sooner," said rab, "if i could hae brought mysel to forgive donald the wrang he has done me. but i couldna do it, although i aye remembered what oor saviour himsel said, 'if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly father forgive you your trespasses.' it was only this morning that i forgave him, and noo i am rejoicing in forgiveness mysel. i would like to tell donald that i forgive him, for perhaps after i am awa he may feel troubled aboot it." donald mcpherson had always felt very guilty concerning his own part in rab's illness. he never came near the cottage, and he took care to avoid honest wullie. but now that rab had expressed a desire to tell donald that he had forgiven him, wullie went to donald's cottage and told him that rab would like to see him. donald looked embarrassed and troubled. "he wants to upbraid me," said he, "but god knows my ain conscience has upbraided me eneuch for that night's wark." "na, naething o' the kind. i could tell you what it is mysel, but he would rather tell it." "i will come and see him. i hear he isna lang for this warld." "he willna be here lang," replied wullie. "god hae mercy on us a'," said donald, with emotion. that night there was a timid knock at honest wullie's door. "come in," said wullie in a loud tone. the latch was lifted, and in walked donald mcpherson. jeannie set a chair for him, and wullie spoke pleasantly to him. but donald was ill at ease. he seemed looking for some one he did not see. a voice from the bed said, "good evening to ye, donald." donald approached the bed, and rab extended his hand. "i am o'er sorry to see you here," said donald, grasping the proffered hand. a shiver ran through him as he saw and felt how emaciated it was. [illustration: page . "i am o'er sorry to see you here," said donald.] "my hand is o'er thin," said rab, noticing his emotion. "ay is it, and it is a' my ain faut." "not a'thegither, donald, for i s'ould hae been proof against temptation." "ye would hae dune weel eneuch if ye had been left alane." "that is true as to the night i got my seckness; but i might hae fallen some ither time, for i hadna the grace o' god to keep me in the right way. noo i willna fall into that sin ony mair--i canna. and ye maunna think ye are no forgien your part in that night's wark, for i hae forgien ye, and that is what i wanted to tell you. god has forgien me, but he wouldna do it until i had forgien you. noo i hope ye will ken what it is to hae god's forgiveness as weel as mine. ye hae, as ye say, led me in the wrang way; let me noo seek to lead you in the right way. it is a fearsome thing to live withoot god for a freend. i hae found that oot the last year o' my life. to feel, as i hae felt, that life is fast passing awa, and to see nae hope in the darkness beyond, is dreadful, dreadful, donald. your life will hae an end too, donald, though it mayna be for mony years. then ye will stand alane before your maker. do ye no ken that there are robes provided, so that each wha will may wrap himsel around wi' them as he wraps his plaid aboot him? only thae robes cover us entirely. they are robes o' the saviour's righteousness. wi' sic a robe aboot us we may stand before the judge o' all the earth and not fear condemnation. i dinna ken as i mak it plain to you, for i am but a beginner in the scule o' christ; but i am in his scule, donald; yes, i am; praised be the gude lord for that! and what i canna learn here i can learn in the warld above." "i hope i shall meet you there," said donald, wiping the tears away with his hand. "dinna put off repentance till ye come to your death-bed, donald. gie your heart to god noo; and then, whether ye are called sooner or later, ye are aye ready." donald was much affected. he remained an hour or more talking with wullie, and then left, promising to come again, and offering his assistance if it should be needed. during rab's illness jeannie was very quiet in her manner, but her heart was heavy and sad. slowly but surely proof was added to proof that her husband was soon to die. with many fears and anxieties she had looked forward to the long, weary time that must elapse between the sad event about to befall her and the time when her children would be old enough to seek their own livelihood. but since she had obtained a hope of eternal life she had learned to regard the future with less anxiety, and to cast her cares on one stronger than herself. still the sadness remained. she could not forget that disease was fast wasting all that was mortal of robert murdoch. that which is spiritual within us may assent to god's providences, and we think it to be in the ascendency, and so it is; but sometimes, when the chill and gloom of a starless night settle down upon our spirits, our natural desires assert themselves, and we clutch again our passing friends and comforts. poor jeannie! more thorns than roses seemed to grow along her pathway. and now the saddest trial of all was before her. but she had promised in her heart that, if god would save her husband eternally, she would not murmur at the dispensation that was to separate him from her in this life. for this reason she strove to control her feelings; and the quivering of the face was often stayed before the tear-drop started. once, when her husband noticed these outward signs of inward grief, he called her to him. she drew her chair to the bedside, and laid her head on the pillow. "my puir wife," said he, while he pressed her pale cheek with his thin hand, "i hae never been as gude to you as i s'ould hae been, and noo i am gaen frae you. i ask your forgiveness. i leave you in the hands o' god, and under him to the care o' wullie. i couldna leave you in better hands. and, jeannie, if wullie would ever wish to mak you his wife, hear till him." she raised her eyes with a look of surprise and reproof. he understood her, and continued, "weel, never mind noo what i hae said. some time ye may remember it withoot sae muckle pain, and be glad ye kenned my mind aboot it." the winter passed slowly away. rab's death was expected from week to week. the neighbors were untiring in their kindness and sympathy. farmer lindsay called often, and many a kind word he spoke to the afflicted family. mrs. lindsay sent many a dainty to tempt the sick man's appetite. the pastor, too, called, and was satisfied with the dying man's profession of faith. "i am so thankful," said rab, "that i had time gien me for repentance. if i had been cut off suddenly i s'ould hae gane to eternal death." donald mcpherson fulfilled his promise and came often. "i hae seen eneuch o' the evils o' strang drink," he said to rab, "and i want ye to carry wi' you to heaven my promise that, wi' god's help, i will never taste anither drap." when the milder days of spring succeeded the rigors of winter, robert murdoch's lamp of life flickered and went out. he met death with a calm resignation and a happy trust. mrs. murdoch yielded to sorrow after her husband was dead. no one interfered with her grief until wullie thought she had wept "o'er lang." "compose yoursel, sister jeannie," he said, speaking in a persuasive manner. "i ken it is hard to bear; but neither yoursel nor the bairns will want for a freend while it is in the power o' wullie murdoch to help you. he wha has gaen frae us can never return to us, but we can gang to him in the lord's ain gude time." a simple funeral service was held at the church, and the body was committed to the earth whence it came. chapter vii. donald macpherson. no one, not even the widow, wept more at the grave than did donald mcpherson. the once light-hearted, mischief-loving, whiskey-drinking donald was overcome with sorrow and contrition. he took rab's death greatly to heart, and, standing by that open grave, he firmly resolved that from that hour he would change his manner of life; that he would fear and serve god, and never again place a stumbling-block in the way of his fellow-creatures. after the funeral he went to honest wullie's cottage, "to see if there was onything to be dune," as he said. wullie thanked him for his kindness, adding, "the little that is to be dune i can do mysel. i would liefer be busy than not. but i am glad to see you, for a' that." then, laying his hand on mcpherson's shoulder, he said, "ye will no forget the lesson o' this day, donald!" "i trust i never shall." the widow had bowed to donald as he entered, and then left the room. she went to attend the children; but she was glad of the excuse, for memory was too busy with the past to render the presence of rab's old comrade desirable on that sad day. donald went slowly from the home of mourning to his own cottage. he hung his bonnet on a peg, then went and sat down beside his wife. she was holding a troublesome child and trying to sew at the same time. "here, gie me the bairn," said he. he took the child in his strong arms and dandled him, much to the satisfaction of wee donald. then with much seriousness he addressed his wife. "katy, i dinna think i will gie you as muckle trouble as i hae dune. i maun gie up auld habits. they wunna do ony langer. i hae just seen mistress murdoch, and i hae been thinkin' what if it had been yoursel, katy, that this day was clad in garments o' dool instead o' her, where would the soul o' donald mcpherson hae been noo!" the person addressed was a tall, straight, well-formed woman, whose face showed both thoughtfulness and firmness. she only replied, "it is weel to think." "i hae thought, and i hae felt as weel. noo dinna think there is nae gude in me, wifie, but trust me ance mair. i am no gaen to drink any mair whiskey. i hae promised him that they this day laid law that i wouldna, and that i would gang to kirk. noo i will tell ye my plans. i will gang to daft jamie's but ance mair, and that will be to pay fourpence ha'penny, for that is a' i owe them, i am blithe to say; and then never a penny mair will i gie for grog; but i will save a' that i can earn, and we will soon hae decent claes, and gang to the kirk like christian folk." "that sounds gude, and i hope ye will do as ye say; and ye may do it if ye look to the strang for help." after supper donald put on his bonnet and went to daft jamie's. mrs. mcallister smiled very blandly as he entered. "gude evenin' to ye, donald. ye hae keepit yoursel a great stranger o' late. what will ye be wantin'?" "i am wantin' naething but to pay a bit debt. a man maun pay his debts, i suppose, though what he has bought has dune him no gude." "hoot, man! hae ye taen to preachin'? ye ken as weel as ony ane that it is gude whiskey we keep; and a drap o' gude whiskey hurts naebody." "na, mistress mcallister, a drap wunna hurt ony ane; but wha stops at a drap, tell me?" "weel, donald, ye ken it is a decent hoose we keep, and we dinna want ony drunken folk around us." "ay, i ken it; and that is ane reason why puir rab went oot i' the cauld the night he got his death." "weel, weel, hae your ain opeenion aboot it, but dinna stand quarrellin' wi' me. sin' ye dinna want onything ye may as weel be gaen." "i will, mistress mcallister, and there'll be mony a weet day afore i again cross your doorstane. gude evenin' to ye." donald was soon at home again, much to the joy of his wife; for she thought if he could go to daft jamie's and return without the scent of liquor about him, there was indeed some room for hope. chapter viii. improvements. widow murdoch now gave more time and attention to her children. the youngest had not yet been named, but had always been called "the wee lass." now that more notice was taken of her, she began to smile and play. "it is time this bairn had a name, wullie," said jeannie one evening when the baby was lying on her lap. "what would ye think o' callin' her annie? it would be for rab's mither, and it is a bonny name forbye." "that i would like right weel." so this important matter was happily decided, and annie was the little one's name. spring brought warm, bright days, jamie and belle played at the cottage door, their innocent prattle often beguiling their mother's sad hours. honest wullie was not long in paying by his labor the debt which he had contracted, and he felt glad that his accounts were again even. farmer lindsay let him have a small piece of ground near the cottage to be made into a garden. this was to be the joint care of wullie, jeannie, and jamie, for "jamie is auld eneuch noo to pu' the weeds frae the beds," said his uncle. but with all the work to do that one could easily accomplish, widow murdoch often felt lonely. she had been three years in honest wullie's cottage, but she had made very few acquaintances. mrs. lindsay never came into the cottage except in time of sickness. mrs. mcpherson, like herself, had hitherto been kept closely at home by care and poverty, and there had been no intercourse between the two women. at this time, however, they were brought together. donald was the first to propose a visit. one pleasant evening in the early summer, when katy had just finished the first dress that donald had ever bought for her, he surprised her by saying, "mak yoursel ready, katy, and gang wi' me to honest wullie's; then ye will become acquent wi' widow murdoch. she is but poor, like yoursel, and i am thinking she maun be lanely. at ony rate, it is but neeborly to call and see her." mrs. mcpherson readily assented. she put a clean cap and dress on the baby, and arrayed herself in her new gown. donald combed his hair until it was smooth, and put on his best coat. "katy, ye look as fine the night as a leddy," said donald as they were ready to start; "but ye aye did keep yoursel tidy, though ye hae na had muckle to do wi'. there is muckle difference in folk. some people's claes fit them, while other people's claes seem to hing on them. mrs. murdoch is like yoursel. she has a way o' makin' the maist o' ilka thing. it wasna muckle she brought to wullie's cottage, but ye s'ould hae seen the difference she made in the looks o' it." the two soon found themselves at honest wullie's cottage, where they met a kind reception and spent a pleasant evening. the conversation often turned on moral and religious topics, as would necessarily be the case where honest wullie took part. donald was full of new hopes and courage. "wullie, ye s'ould come and see hoo nicely we are getting alang," said he. "we hae eneuch to eat and drink, and some new claes for sunday forbye. katy, there, thinks i am quite a man noo." "i always thought ye would do weel eneuch if ye would let whiskey alane." "i will let it alane frae this oot, or i dinna ken mysel." "donald, ye dinna depend a'thegither on yoursel, i hope," said wullie. "nae, wullie, i ken better than that; but i hae changed my purpose, and i hae asked help o' the strang ane. that is what katy said i must do. puir lass! i am sure she has kenned the comfort o' gaen to him mony times when sairly tried wi' me." "it is gude to go to the lord in times o' trial," said wullie; "and it is gude to go to him wi' thankful hearts when the trials are o'erpast. i hae nae doot, mistress mcpherson, but that ye find it baith pleasant and profitable to come wi' your heart full o' gratitude and praise to him wha has heard your prayers." "ay, i like weel to acknowledge his gudeness to me in saving donald frae the evil that threatened him; but it grieves me noo to think i had sae nearly distrusted him because he didna answer my prayers at ance. mony a time did i a'maist feel that there is nae gude in prayer, and that god wouldna hear a puir body like me. but i dinna think he has set it doun against me, sin' he has answered my prayer. besides, he kens i was but a weak woman, and sairly tried forbye." tears filled jeannie's eyes. katy's experience had been her own. and although it recalled her trials, to which she would not allude, because we instinctively cover the faults and follies of our dear dead, she felt, nevertheless, drawn towards katy. both had had trials, but not more than they were able to bear; and the discipline of an all-wise father had chastened and strengthened them both. "we a' hae cause for thankfulness ilka day o' oor lives," wullie hastened to say, as he perceived jeannie's emotion. "let nane o' us be remiss in the duty o' prayer and thanksgiving." this visit proved the precursor of many others, and the two women became good friends. wullie strengthened jeannie's good impressions of katy mcpherson. "she was aye a canny lass," he said. "folk wondered that she wedded wi' sic a giddy chiel as donald was; but if he sticks to his ward noo, he will mak a gude living for her, for he can wark weel when he sets himsel to it, and naebody can ootstrip him in the harvest-field." donald soon learned to go to honest wullie for advice, and he was as anxious to meet him as he had been to avoid him. he seemed changed in many ways. his new hope and trust had lifted him above that frivolity which had always been so prominent a characteristic of his. he found the influence of his wife much more elevating than that of his boon companions, and he said to her, "ye s'all see what a man can be made oot o' me, frolickin' as i hae been. i would na wonder if folk s'ould yet ca' me 'douce donald.'" wullie's garden proved a success, and the fresh, tender vegetables added much to the frugal fare. then, as donald had said, jeannie made the most of everything. her skill in cooking also added to their comfort. her neat, orderly ways were everywhere apparent. it was a pretty sight to see the three rosy children, with clean hands and faces, clean pinafores, and carefully combed hair, gathered at the family board, annie seated on her mother's knee, the others on their stools. they were trained to be obedient and respectful, to keep the sabbath with due strictness, and, above all, to fear and honor god. thus not only shadows, but sunshine, too, rested on the little moorland cottage. peace and harmony reigned in the household, and signs of thrift were also apparent. wullie could now sometimes allow himself the pleasure of bringing little gifts to the children, and their childish delight hardly surpassed his own. jeannie did not forget to thank god for the blessings she enjoyed. and although the recollection of the early death of her husband often brought sorrow to her heart and a shade of sadness to her countenance, the sorrow was softened by the cherished hope of his eternal happiness and a future reunion. thus passed two years more, but these were years of comparative comfort. chapter ix. new ties. one evening, when the mcphersons were spending an hour or two at the cottage, donald took it into his head to joke wullie about matrimony. "hoot, man, what ails ye, to talk after that fashion?" exclaimed wullie. "and what for no? is it no a gude fashion? i daur ye to say it is no a gude fashion!" wullie did not reply, but a smile was on his face. "honestly, noo," continued donald; "katy and i hae talked it over mair than ance, and we baith think it is the best thing that could be dune. ye ken there is naething against it, for rab was no your vera ain brither." katy smiled, but jeannie knitted busily, showing neither pleasure nor displeasure. donald's suggestion seemed to have struck wullie favorably, for after the visitors had gone he ventured to renew the subject. "jeannie, what think ye aboot oor neebor's talk?" "his talk aboot what? he says sae muckle, wha can mind it a'?" she said with that persistent dullness of comprehension that is often assumed by her sex. wullie, seeing he would have no help in the matter, came to the point at once, "his talk aboot wedlock, to be sure." "it is but ane o' his daft notions," she replied, but in a tone less severe than the words. "it isna sae daft a notion, perhaps," he said, following up his advantage. "it is true i hae neither riches, wit, nor beauty. i hae naught but a hamely living to offer ye, and that ye s'all hae at ony rate if i can win it. i will always do my best to provide for rab's family, but it might be mair proper to hae the family a' in ane. what do ye say till it?" "i will say naething against the wish o' him wha is gaen awa. he said, 'if wullie would ever wish to mak ye his wife, hear till him.'" "noo, then," said wullie, "i will tak the first kiss i hae had o' a woman sin' my mither died. hoo soon s'all it be?" "as it suits yoursel. ye ken my best earthly affections lie in the grave wi' your brither; but if ye can tak respect and esteem instead o' affection, i willna oppose your wishes." "weel, i will accept what ye hae to gie me, and perhaps the affection will come after a while." "ye are mair than warthy o' it, wullie; sae i hope it will come. but sin' i didna hae it, i wouldna deceive ye." "ye hae been honest aboot it at ony rate, sae it wunna fret me." a few days later wullie returned from town with a nice dress-pattern for jeannie, some tartans for the little girls, cloth to be made up for jamie, and a new suit for himself. after a few weeks there were gathered in the best room of the cottage farmer lindsay and his wife, donald and katy mcpherson, the children, and the parish minister. before him stood honest wullie and the widow, who was then to become mrs. william murdoch. after the ceremony and the congratulations were over came a supper such as had never before been seen in the cottage. after this was finished farmer lindsay took his seat by the window, and often looked out into the twilight. presently he saw, as he expected, his herd-boy leading a fine young cow. "i suppose ye hae room in your byre for anither coo?" he asked, addressing wullie. "ay, i hae room eneuch, if that was a' that stood in the way o' twa being there." "weel, then, ye will hae twa, for here comes a lad wi' the heifer we ca' spot. did ye think i would forget my auld and tried servant at sic a time as this?" "weel, weel, weel! this is wholly unexpectit! mony thanks to you, maister lindsay." donald mcpherson rejoiced in the good fortune of his neighbor, but he felt somewhat crestfallen that he had brought nothing to give, and he expressed his regret to his host. but wullie relieved him by saying, with a smile, "we canna a' gie presents, donald, but we can a' gie gude wishes, and i am sure ye gie me them, neebor." the evening passed in pleasant talk, and when these neighbors separated it was with a kindly feeling towards each other that is often wanting in the higher circles of life. honest wullie continued to prosper, though in a small way. the years glided by, bringing nothing but pleasing changes, the most pleasing of which was the birth of a son. jamie had long since left his uncle's knee to younger claimants. he was a strong, healthy lad, possessing his father's wit and sprightliness, and also uncommon beauty. his mother's eyes often rested on him with maternal fondness, if not with pride. he found plenty to do in collecting fuel, helping with the garden, and doing the work in and around the cow-shed. he attended the little parish school a few months in the year. he was fond of books, too, although there was nothing in his surroundings to foster a love of study. true, farmer lindsay once patted him on the head, and said, "if ye could stand a fair chance, jamie, ye would mak a man no to be ashamed o';" and the schoolmaster sometimes gave him the praise he merited. but the days came and went, bringing him nearer to the time when he must be put to steady employment to help to defray the expenses of the family, with which time we will open the next chapter. chapter x. jamie. jamie had now entered upon his thirteenth year, and was to commence life's labor as a shepherd-lad. farmer lindsay, knowing that it would pain the family to have the lad leave home, found a place for jamie by giving other employment to his former shepherd-boy. so belle and annie went to school without jamie, and he took his way to the field. he was faithful, as might have been expected, for honest wullie had not failed in his duty to his brother's son. he had striven, both by example and precept, to inculcate in him right principles, knowing that right doing would be their legitimate outgrowth. the summer passed pleasantly enough with jamie, for he was a favorite with all on the farm. even mrs. lindsay often called after him to add a slice of cheese to the frugal lunch he carried with him. but summer hurried by, and dull, short, foggy days succeeded the long, bright, sunny ones. one evening jamie was belated in collecting the flock. the darkness was coming on apace, and he was hurrying along where the path, slippery with the dampness, led over some steep, rough rocks; he missed his footing and fell. night, black night, settled down upon the earth, but no jamie came to the cottage. honest wullie put on his bonnet and retraced his steps to farmer lindsay's. jamie was not there. then the other farm-hands, headed by wullie and mr. lindsay himself, set out in search of the shepherd-boy and the flock. they lighted up the darkness with torches, and looked to the right hand and to the left. they found the flock huddled together not far from the steep pass, which all had thought of, but none had dared mention. vainly did they peer down the steep mountainside. vainly did honest wullie shout, "jamie! jamie, bairn!" no answer was returned. if the boy had fallen there, he had fainted, or was too badly hurt to answer. wullie signified his intention of crossing the mountain and coming around at the base; but the air became so thick with mist that the torches would not burn, and loath as the anxious searchers were to turn back, they were forced to do so, for the path was too dangerous to be attempted in the darkness. weary and heavy-hearted returned wullie to the sorrowing mother. the night was spent by these sad cottagers in prayer, and with the first streaks of morning light wullie again started out to renew his search. day broke as beautifully as if the preceding evening had not been dull and dismal. before wullie reached the pass the sun rose, scattering the mist, and bathing in mellow light moor and crag, mountain and glen. but the anxious father hastened on, not heeding the rich glory of the autumnal morning. others, too, in that vicinity had early bestirred themselves, not in search of the missing boy, but in pursuit of game. laird erskine, with his kinsman john cameron from edinburgh, were first at the foot of the mountain. what was their surprise to see a boy lying as if dead among the rocks! they hastened to him. he was not dead; he was breathing. erskine lifted him from his rough bed and laid him on the smooth grass. cameron looked at him with wondering eyes. "saw ye ever a finer lad! who is he, erskine?" "that is what i would like to ken mysel," said the other. they spoke to him; they tried to rouse him; but he only moaned, and murmured, "o mother, i dinna want to tend the sheep ony mair. i want to gang back to the scule." before they had succeeded in rousing him they saw the stalwart form of honest wullie striding towards them. so anxious was he that he forgot the usual courtesies, and did not raise his bonnet, but called out, "is he dead?" "no, he is not dead," was the cheering answer. "praise the gude lord!" came reverently from the lips of honest wullie. on reaching the boy he lifted his head in his arms, shook him gently, and called his name: "jamie! rouse up, jamie!" after much shaking and calling, jamie opened his eyes and looked wonderingly around, as if trying to identify himself and his surroundings. then gradually recovering consciousness, he recognized his father. "faither, i missed my footing and cam to the bottom. i am no sure but i fainted, for i canna remember what happened after i fell. when i was able to think i felt a pain in my back, and i was so sair that i could hardly stir. i didna dare to move in the darkness for fear i should get another fall, so i just prayed a' by mysel here, and i kenned weel ye would pray for me at hame, so i wasna afeard. but where is the flock?" "the flock is a' right. dinna fash your heid aboot the flock," said wullie, brushing away a tear. jamie tried to rise, but the first movement gave him pain. wullie lifted him tenderly. "i feel," he said, "that i could tak ye in my arms and rin wi' you to your mither, i am that glad to find you alive. it is naught but the care o' god, jamie, that saved ye frae being dashed to pieces amang the stanes." erskine and his friend lingered till jamie was on his feet again. "i am thankful it is no worse," said cameron, as he turned to go, "and i will not forget you, my lad." jamie, in addition to his bruises, took a severe cold from spending the night on the cold, damp ground. he kept his bed a few days, and two weeks passed before he was able to be about. during this time the sheep had been brought in for the winter, and there was no more herding to be done that year. while jamie was confined to the house by his injuries cameron called at the cottage. he was greatly pleased with jamie. he thought the boy had capabilities that were worth cultivating. he sounded the parents concerning their plans for their son's future, and ascertained that they indulged no higher hope than that he should be a trusty farm-hand like honest wullie. but the boy's eyes followed every movement of the stranger with a look of expectancy, and when cameron asked him if he would like to become a man of learning, jamie quickly answered in the affirmative. "he can gang to scule this winter," said wullie. "that will do for the winter," replied cameron, "and when i come next year i will see what arrangement can be made to put him into a better school." after the gentleman's departure the parents were very grave and thoughtful. they did not know whether the interest the stranger took in jamie portended good or ill. "if he is no a godly man," said wullie, "i wouldna like to hae him meddle wi' the bairn; but if he is a gude man, and will tak care to keep him frae evil communications, i would be slow to mak objections or to pit onything i' the way o' the man's wishes." but jamie was full of bright anticipations. he talked so often about what mr. cameron said, and asked so many questions concerning the probable meaning of his words, that the mother was weary of hearing it. "jamie, jamie, will ye never hae dune talking aboot that man?" she asked. "ye will drive me beside mysel. i wouldna be surprised if he had forgotten all aboot you." jamie did stop talking, but he was sad and dispirited for many days. "what is wrang wi' ye, jamie? ye needna think it is a sin to smile," his mother said, noticing his listlessness. "i dinna think i will ever smile ony mair, sin' ye think mr. cameron has forgotten me," said jamie, turning away his face to hide a starting tear. "ye are takin' it harder than i meant. i am no sure but he will be looking after you o'er soon, and i canna bear to think o' it. he will be wanting to tak you frae hame; that is the warst o' it." "weel, mither, every laddie canna bide at hame. i have read in books about folk that hae been mair useful for their knowledge, and i think knowledge maun be a grand thing to hae. i read in the sculemaster's books about men that could call the stars by name, and measure the heights o' the mountains; and i read in a history about mony great men, and i like weel to think that jamie murdoch may some day be a great man too." "it would be better to wish to be a gude man." "but, mither, can a man no be baith gude and great?" early in the spring farmer lindsay brought a letter for honest wullie. it bore the edinburgh postmark. as a letter was a rare thing at that time and place, mr. lindsay waited till wullie spelled it out. it contained a proposition from mr. cameron. he would pay wullie as much as jamie could earn, and his tuition besides, if the parish minister would undertake to instruct him preparatory to his entering a high school at edinburgh. this plan pleased them all exceedingly well, and the more so because mr. cameron said they must not hesitate to accept his offer, as he was a friend to education, and had means to spare. he further said that he had taken a great fancy to their son, and would be disappointed if they were unwilling to let him receive a liberal education. the minister readily undertook the charge, and was glad of the opportunity to eke out his small salary. jamie did not disappoint his friends. he proved an apt pupil. his parents soon became reconciled to his treading a path in life different from their own. the minister not only approved of the plan, but congratulated jamie on his prospects. little by little jamie came to receive more deference in his own family, and also in the neighborhood. donald mcpherson met him one day, and after a cordial greeting said to him, "so ye are to be the man o' the parish, are ye, jamie? we will a' hae to lift oor bonnets to you. weel, ye will hae a grand chance, for laird erskine says that whatever john cameron taks intil his heid has to gang through. he tells me cameron lost a son aboot your ain age, and that is why he taks sic an interest in laddies." autumn brought john cameron again to laird erskine's. this time he saw more of jamie, and he told his kinsman that he would be glad to adopt him as a son. but the warm-hearted, simple-minded parents would not consent to this. the time came when jamie was to go to edinburgh. mrs. murdoch took leave of her son with many tears. honest wullie had no tears, though he felt the pain of separation scarcely less than did the mother. he repeated his admonitions to virtue, and again warned him to shun every appearance of evil. "warldly wisdom is gude in its place," he said in conclusion, "but ye maunna forget to seek anither kind, for 'the wisdom that is frae aboon is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full o' mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.'" chapter xi. home life. we will now leave jamie in school and turn to the other children. belle was now as old as jamie was when he was put to work, and jeannie feared that wullie would soon speak about putting her to service. this would have seemed well enough, quite in keeping with the circumstances of the family, had it not been for jamie's good fortune, which made it appear rather out of place. so the mother and daughter knitted for mrs. lindsay and others as they had opportunity, and the mother was always sure to buy belle's clothes with the proceeds of the knitting. annie was a bright little girl ten years old. she too was busy, for none were allowed to eat idle bread in honest wullie's cottage. wullie's own son david, or davie as he was called, was also taught to save steps. but the most stir and activity was in the morning. no one was allowed to lie in bed after the sun was up. the mother called to any one who was likely to transgress this rule, "come, dinna let the sun beat you up the morn." the girls attended school quite regularly in summer, but in winter they often did not attempt to walk the long distance. then, when there were neither lessons nor out-of-door work, the balls of yarn fast disappeared and took other shapes. annie, young as she was, did most of the knitting for the family. honest wullie thought himself a happy man; and so he was. in the evening, when he put labor and care alike aside, and looked around at the industrious, cheerful inmates of his well-kept home, he often thought, "surely the lines hae fallen to me in pleasant places." every day brought its work. in the morning the poultry was to be fed and the cows must be milked, besides the work indoors. in summer the garden was to be kept free from weeds, and the berries and wild fruits were to be gathered in their season. when there was no work to be done, the children were sometimes sent out with the order to "gang and play themselves;" but very often they were told to learn a psalm first. one thing they looked forward to, whether at work or at play, and that was a letter from jamie. they had little else to break the monotonous days and the long winter evenings. true, archie lindsay came in sometimes, bringing his little sister with him; but that soon passed, and then nothing was heard but the click of the knitting-needles. many times when the children were alone they told over threadbare riddles, simple rhymes learned at school, and the marvellous tales that tradition handed down to every new generation. they had no story books. they were always glad when donald mcpherson came in for an hour, for he never failed to have some news to tell. so passed the time until the early summer, when the children began to count the days that must elapse before jamie should be at home again. all were anxious for his coming, but no one looked forward with so much longing as did the mother. chapter xii. the first vacation. "jamie will be home the day!" the happy children shouted, as the wished-for morning at last arrived. he was expected to walk from the town where the stage-coach left him; but mr. lindsay remembered the lad that was coming from edinburgh, and he made it convenient to have business in town that day. he brought jamie home earlier in the day than he was expected. mrs. murdoch was busy preparing some unusual delicacies to do honor to her returning son, and she did not notice his arrival. jamie entered the open door, and, seeing that his mother did not turn to observe who came in, he thought he would surprise her. he walked softly, and she supposed him to be one of the other children. jamie shook a warning finger at his sisters, and approaching his mother, he suddenly threw his arms about her neck and kissed her. she started, looked around, and joyfully exclaimed, "o jamie! hoo ye hae frightened me!" then she kissed and embraced him in return. "hoo are ye, my bairn? my! but ye are a'maist grawn a man! ye are as tall as your mither!" the children then came forward and gave him a happy greeting. belle, who had also changed, blushed as her brother complimented her on her improved appearance. annie placed herself in front of him, with her arms akimbo, and with face brimful of happiness asked, "what think ye o' me?" "think of you! i think you are the same sunny-faced little annie, and i doubt not you are as good at a race as ever. i will try you to-morrow. come here, davie. do you mind me?" "ay, i mind jamie," said he, climbing on his knee. "and jamie minds that you like sugarplums." "i like them oftener than i can get them." "well, let me see what i can find," said jamie, putting his hand into his pocket and giving him a handful of candies. then, tossing some to his sisters, he remarked, "you are looking very well, mother." "i feel weel, and i hae plenty to eat and plenty to do; why s'ouldna i look weel?" there was no lack of talk and no end of questions. as the afternoon advanced annie was reminded that she must go and bring the cows from the pasture. "jamie, will ye gang wi' me for the coos?" "yes, annie, i will." "noo for a race," said annie. long before they reached the pasture-lands jamie was left in the rear. annie, speeding on, came face to face with honest wullie, who was working near the path. "hoot, lassie! why are ye rinnin' in sic a fashion?" he called out. "what would jamie say if he s'ould see you gaen at sic a gate?" "it is jamie that is rinnin' wi' me," she replied, laughing. just then jamie appeared, and wullie's face relaxed. he hastened to meet him. "welcome hame, jamie! welcome hame!" he said, grasping his hand. "hoo ye hae changed! but ye look weel." "i am well. how are you, father?" "i am vera weel. thanks to the gude lord, we are a' weel." then followed mutual inquiries and answers. annie went after the cows, and jamie remained with his father, whose day's work was not quite finished. there was a happy family in honest wullie's cottage that evening. the supper was the best the cottage could afford, for what company was so grand as jamie! jamie had improved very much in appearance, in manner, and in knowledge. his conversation interested both parents and children. his accounts of the city, of its buildings, and bits of history connected with them, were highly entertaining to the family whose horizon was so limited. all listened while he was talking. the conversation was prolonged to a late hour, and the children were allowed to sit up much after their usual bedtime. in the morning all again paid homage to jamie. he was the hero of the house and of the neighborhood. the neighbors all found opportunity to call at the cottage to see the lad who had been away at school. archie lindsay frequently spent the evening there, listening with wonder to all that jamie had to tell. the children were allowed more liberty for jamie's sake, and the whole summer was a long gala day. very little time was lost, however, for the girls were taught to use their fingers and ears at the same time. even jamie had not forgotten how to work. he spent many a day in the garden, the children at his side; for to them work was pleasure, if they could only be with brother jamie. the time for the return to edinburgh came full soon for the children, and indeed for all. they had never tired of hearing the wonders of the outside world. their narrow horizon had been widened. but jamie was gone, and their lives slipped back into the old grooves. "come, lassies, buckle to noo, and mak up time. i liked weel to see ye hae pleasant times wi' jamie; but if ye are sensible lassies ye will see it wunna do to spend mair time in sic an easy way. there maun be nae lack o' the knitting-siller: ye ken weel what maun be dune wi' it." notwithstanding the mother's vigilance in preventing any approach to idleness, or even leisure, the children were well and happy. chapter xiii. belle. belle murdoch had now reached her sixteenth year. she was tall, well-formed, fair, and a picture of perfect health. no allusion to her going out to service had yet been made. but the family expenses becoming each year heavier, the proposal so much dreaded by mrs. murdoch at length came. wullie had been ailing for a month, and he felt somewhat despondent. so one evening when the children were in bed, and husband and wife were sitting by the cheerful fire, jeannie busied with mending little davie's clothes, wullie broached the subject as gently as he could. "ye are aye warking, jeannie," he said, "and i am no idle when i am weel, and still i hae muckle to do to gie my family a' the comforts that i would like to gie them. i misdoot the judgment we use in keeping belle at hame. she is a strang healthy lass noo, and i dinna see hoo i am to keep my heid aboon water unless the lassies as they get age and strength gang to service as ithers do, or find a better way to earn honest pennies." "weel, wullie, i wouldna mind the lass gaen to service but for the way it has turned oot wi' jamie. he will, nae doot, hae the sculing o' a born gentleman, and so be fitted to win his bread like ither gentlemen; and it looks no quite right to hae ane o' the same family oot at service, and that ane a lass, forbye." "i see, wifie, i see. and i hae thought o' the same thing. but right is right, and wrang is wrang; and rather than we s'ould gang beyond oor means and mak debts, we might better let her gang to a gude place." "that is o'er true," said jeannie, "and if things get muckle waur we'll hae to sacrifice oor wishes to oor necessities." a few days after this conversation farmer lindsay came to honest wullie's cottage. "mistress murdoch, i hae come to ask a favor," he began. "the gude-wife is taen ill, and we are pressed wi' the wark; will ye be sae kind as to let belle come and stop wi' us a wee while till the wife is on her feet again?" "oh, ay, she can gang, and we are glad to oblige ye. ye will find her no afraid o' wark; and she kens hoo to tak hold o' things as well as maist lassies o' her age." accordingly belle made a few hasty preparations, and went immediately to farmer lindsay's. mr. lindsay conducted her to his wife's room. "noo ye needna fash your heid aboot the wark," said he. "i hae brought ye a strang lass wi' willing hands, and a cheerfu' face that it will do your een gude to look at." "ay, lass, it does a body gude to see ye the morn, ye are sae fresh and rosy," said mrs. lindsay. "i ken naebody that i would like better than yoursel to come into the hoose and help till i am able to tak my place again. betty is a gude strang lass, but she canna do the wark o' twa, and sae we will be muckle obliged to ye if ye will stay wi' us and help her." belle proved the truth of her mother's statement concerning her. after mrs. lindsay recovered she still kept belle with her. "she minds me o' the sang-birds, she is sae blithe and cheerfu'," said mrs. lindsay to her husband. "ay, she is a winsome lass, and i would like weel to hae ye keep her. ye can keep baith lassies if ye like. ye are no strang yoursel, and there is wark eneuch for baith. but i dinna ken whether wullie means to let her gang oot to service; i asked her to come only to do us a favor." "weel, if she will stop here she will be treated mair like a daughter than a servant." "i wouldna wonder to see her a daughter some day, wifie. archie thinks there is nae lass like belle." "he is welcome to think sae. i would liefer ken wha comes into the family. i dinna want a lass frae the toun, wha wouldna ken, perhaps, whether the dairy was clean or no, and that couldna mak butter nor cheese fit to gang to the market. fine parritch and bannocks would then be made in this hoose; and wha kens whether the totties" (potatoes) "would come to the board cauld or het!" "ye are looking a lang way aheid, and coonting withoot your host," said mr. lindsay, laughing. "it would be weel to find oot first if they will let the lass stop wi' us." mrs. murdoch had noticed the friendship between her daughter and archie lindsay, and she secretly hoped it would ripen into love. now that belle was so well liked by both the farmer and his wife, she thought circumstances were shaping towards the fulfilment of her desires, and, therefore, when asked whether belle might remain at the farmhouse, she readily assented. so it was arranged that belle should remain with mrs. lindsay. honest wullie felt relieved. "when the burden is o'er heavy it is aye lightened," thought he; and he remarked to his wife, "noo that we hae but twa to provide for, it may be that we s'all be able to lay by a wee bit for a weet day." it was not long before belle began to be accompanied by archie when she came in the evening to see her parents. no opposition was manifested, and very little comment was made; their association was regarded as a thing of course. donald mcpherson, who always saw at least all that was to be seen in the neighborhood, and was not diffident in giving voice to his thoughts, ventured to rally the mother on her prospective good fortune. "i think, mistress murdoch," said donald, "that your daughter will be staying her lifetime at the farmhouse. weel, archie is a clever lad, and belle is a clever lass; i doot if they could be better mated. hoo differently it has turned oot wi' nellie mcallister!" "what is wrang wi' nellie?" "hae ye no heard aboot it? why, she has rin awa wi' that gude-for-naught langley that has been hinging aboot there sae lang." "ye dinna tell me that!" "ay, but i do tell ye; and that is nae the whole o' it. the lass has stolen a' the gear she could pit her hands on. mrs. mcallister is a'maist as daft as jamie himsel." "weel, weel, weel! that is waur than i expected," exclaimed honest wullie; "but ane never kens when trouble may come under his ain roof." "it is a sair trouble, neebor, a sair trouble; and yet they couldna expect a blessing on their ill-gotten gain." "that is vera true, vera true, donald. i am mair and mair convinced that there is but ane way to do, and that is to do right. i am puir, and i expect to stay sae, but it is a peaceful pillow i put my heid on when night comes around." "weel, i dinna think mrs. mcallister will ever ken sic a pillow under her heid. punishment comes slowly sometimes; but it comes, for a' that. i maun say i am thankfu' i got oot o' the clutches o' the de'il as soon as i did; and yet he held me lang eneuch to gar me tak shame to mysel whenever i think o' it. ay, i am angry as weel as ashamed when i think how i fuled awa my siller till katy had but ane gown till her back. it is a sin and a shame for a man to mak sic a beast o' himsel!" "that it is," said wullie, pressing his lips tightly together, and nodding more than once in an affirmative manner. "i wish ilka stoup that is filled wi' grog would snap in twain before it reached the lips o' ony ane." "weel, if that s'ould be, there is mony a tongue would lap it frae the floor but they would hae it," said donald. "hoo is that lad o' daft jamie's likely to turn oot?" asked wullie. "bad eneuch. what but a miracle would save him? he is aye standin' in the bar-room. his mither brought him there when he couldna mair than toddle; and he has aye been sippin' and lickin' at the stoups folk set doun. noo he does mair: he taks his dram like ony ither ne'er-do-weel, so i am tauld. i dinna gang there to see it, ye ken." "weel, by the look o' it, they will a' gang to ruin thegither." "i had a'maist said, 'the de'il may care,' but i wunna. i wunna wish evil on ony ane; neither will i think sae lightly o' the ills which befa' ony o' the human family." "that last is weel said. we maun not only wish nae ill to ony ane, but if we can, we maun help up the fallen and lead to firm groun' those that stand in slippery places." donald, who could not long be silent, turned to annie and asked, "hoo like ye the new sculemaister?" "i like him vera weel," said little annie, blushing to find herself addressed. "that lad o' mine thinks he is o'er strict; but i think donald doesna mind his books as he s'ould." "donald is o'er fond o' fun," said annie, smiling, for she was thinking of his many pranks and grimaces behind the teacher's back. "he is like his faither before him. i had aye mair nonsense than sense in my heid when i went to scule, and what wi' ane trick and anither my lessons cam oot slim. ane auld maister got angry wi' me, and i will tell ye hoo it cam aboot. as i said, i was up to mony pranks, and he would aye wink at them when he could wi' ony decency; but i went too far: i tried a trick on the maister himsel; i put a bee in his bonnet. i was a'maist sorry as soon as i had done it; but a wheen o' the lads thought it was fine fun, so i didna shake it oot as i had a mind to do mair than ance. as may be supposed, the bee stung the maister on the tap o' his heid. my! but was he no ravin'! when the scule was called for the afternoon he set himsel to find oot wha had pit the bee in his bonnet. i felt my face graw red, but i took wonderfully to my books. i warrant i hadna minded them sae weel for mony a day. weel, the maister eyed every lad in the sculeroom. after a bit he said, "'donald mcpherson, ye arena wont to mind your book sae weel. your conduct looks suspicious.' "noo i wasna a bold, hardened lad, sae i lookit mair and mair guilty. "'donald, ken ye hoo that bit beastie cam in my bonnet?' asked the maister. "i didna answer him. ane o' the lads spoke up: 'maister, the bee could easily get in the bonnet withoot being pit there.' "'whist! ye needna pit him up to lee aboot it. i ken by the look o' him that he has dune it, but he will fare better if i hae the truth frae his own mou'. donald, i will ask ye ance mair, did ye pit that bee in my bonnet?' "'i canna deny it, maister,' i stammered oot. "'it is weel for you that ye didna; but ye s'all feel the tips o' the taws for a' that.' "and did i no? my certie, but that taws was het! weel, i didna play ony mair tricks on the maister, i can assure you." "nor s'ould you," said wullie. "it is a' wrang. but mony laddies hae thoughtless heids." "ay hae they; but lassies hae na, hae they, annie? i hear ye stand at the heid o' your class; hoo is that?" "whiles i am there, and whiles maggie lindsay is there." "weel, it is a pleasant thing to see bairns fond o' books. but i am staying o'er lang. i will be gaen noo. gude-night to ye a'." "wifie, we hae muckle reason to be thankfu'," said wullie, after donald was gone. "surely his banner over us is love." thus did honest wullie acknowledge the goodness of god. and though his was a life of unremitting toil and care, he daily found cause to say, "praise the gude lord!" both the children now attended school, and, as has been intimated, annie made rapid progress. she was not as pretty as belle, but she was even more interesting. she resembled her father somewhat. she had the same large, dark, lustrous eyes; she was lively, witty, and fond of company. the mother, who was reminded of the father through his child, often said to herself, "i am glad that bairn is a lass." annie received many pretty presents from belle. indeed, she seldom went to see her at the farmhouse without bringing away a knot of ribbon, or some proof of sisterly affection, trifling though it was. farmer lindsay was always glad to have annie come to his house. he was unlike honest wullie, and he often joked with the child in order to draw out her powers of repartee. mrs. lindsay also enjoyed the fun. but thoughtful belle would sometimes shake her head, as if to say, "ye maunna, annie." sometimes annie took davie with her. he always returned with his pockets crammed with cream-cakes and apples. when they would hold no more, mrs. lindsay would say to the child, "tell your mither no to mak your pockets sae sma'." chapter xiv. archie and belle. more than two years passed pleasantly by, and belle was still at the farmhouse. she had indeed been treated like a daughter of the house, and archie had been more than brotherly. he never went from home to find amusement. after the day of toil he spent the evening in belle's society--in winter in the cheerful living-room, in summer they sat on a rustic seat under the trees that sheltered the house from the winter's wind and the summer's sun; or they strolled together in the gloaming, frequently extending their walk to honest wullie's cottage. many expressions of tenderness had fallen from archie's lips, and many a look of love had not escaped belle's notice; so when, one evening as they were returning from her father's house, he addressed her on the subject nearest to his heart, she was not surprised. let us not attempt to repeat their words. to those who love each other such words are too sacred to reach the ear or meet the eye of the great world; they belong exclusively to the little world of which they two are the only inhabitants. let it suffice to say that thereafter they worked with still lighter hearts, happy in the present, and with a happy future in anticipation. when belle reached her nineteenth birthday they were married. great was the joy of mrs. murdoch to see her daughter so well settled in life. she would probably never know the want of anything essential to her comfort. a busy life of honest toil was before her; but toil is what these simple people expected, what they desired. to them idleness, not labor, was a disgrace. belle returned to her mother's cottage a month before the marriage. it was a busy month. all that hands could do to put the little house in order was joyfully done. then there were new clothes to be made for all, for all must look their best on belle's wedding-day. jamie was at home. it was the time of his vacation. the time passed too quickly for all that was to be done. when the wedding-morning came, and all the happy family appeared in festive attire, mrs. murdoch herself becomingly dressed, her face beaming from the soft lace of her new cap-frill, no wonder that the heart of this once lonely, suffering woman swelled with maternal pride and with gratitude to god that so much good had fallen to her lot. here were her two children who once had been the only sharers of her nightly vigils, the son nearly educated, and about to move in a sphere far above the loftiest flights of her early thoughts, and the daughter the happy bride of a prosperous young farmer. the minister arrived, and the happy pair were united according to god's ordinance. many and cordial were the congratulations of the guests; and many compliments to the bride's beauty were whispered among the simple-hearted neighbors. even donald mcpherson remarked to his wife that he had never seen a bonnier bride. "ay," said katy, "she is bonny, and she has the grace o' a born leddy." after an hour spent in conversation the guests were seated at the table, which, for the second time, was spread with a bountiful wedding-feast. when the guests had dispersed, mrs. murdoch busied herself with restoring things somewhat to their wonted order; her thoughts were no less busy than her hands. "oor life is unco checkered, wullie," she said; "but still god has never gien us sae mony sorrows as to overwhelm us, nor sae mony joys as to turn oor heids. when we are a'maist fainting for fear o' the darkness, he sends light; and when we are o'er muckle exalted in oor feelings, he gars us through some turn o' his providence to come doun." "that is weel said, wifie. ane canna fail to see the faither's gudeness in sic management o' us. but i think we wouldna need the bit and bridle sae often if we would tak god's gifts without forgetting wha sent them. god's children a' hae their chastisements; the book says they maun hae them; but i trow the humble get far less than the proud and rebellious. i hope oor bairns will no hae to be sae muckle buffeted before they seek the rest that is provided for them aneath the sheltering wing of the almighty. annie is like rab; hae ye never noticed it?" "i hae seen it; but sin' she is a lass, i hae nae fears for her. rab had nae fauts forbye drinking, ye ken." "he was a'maist too heidstrang; but i wouldna mak mention o' it, savin' for annie's sake. she would hae her ain way too if she wasna held wi' a strang hand. but we will gie her wi' the rest o' oor dear anes to the keeping o' the gude lord. he kens best the way each maun be led." chapter xv. annie. time passed and brought the usual changes to the family of honest wullie. jamie had finished his college course with honor, and was now a teacher in one of the high schools of edinburgh. davie could no longer be called "the wee lad." he took his place beside his father, and with his youthful vigor performed as much labor as wullie with his declining strength. annie was now in the full flush of early womanhood. her dark eyes, rosy cheeks, and bewitching manner had already won the admiration of many "neebor lads," who did not fail to get a sight of her every sunday in the kirk. but she had completely captured the heart of donald mcpherson, jr. to his great annoyance she did not seem to reciprocate his affection. but knowing her to be lively and wilful, he hoped she only feigned indifference and did not mean to allow herself to be lightly won. it was at this time that a nephew of john cameron came to spend a few weeks at laird erskine's. he had been educated with jamie, and, as was quite natural, he called at the cottage to deliver a message and some presents from jamie. in one of his rambles he took occasion to call a second time. he chatted pleasantly with annie, and was pleased with her artless simplicity. when he was about to return to edinburgh he called again to say good-by. he gave his hand to annie as he took leave, and with a pleasant smile remarked, "i hope i shall see you again." poor annie! it was the first time a fine gentleman had talked with her. she could not but observe the refinement of his manner and conversation. she contrasted him with the rustic lads of the neighborhood, and they sank into insignificance. she remembered his looks and his words, and pondered them in her heart. how she wished she had been born a lady, or had been educated like her brother jamie! her sunny face lost some of its color. she moved about her work mechanically, her thoughts wandering in the cloud-land of her imagination. mrs. murdoch noticed the change in her daughter's manner. "what ails ye, lass, that ye dinna talk ony mair? are ye no weel?" she asked. "i am quite weel," said annie, "but i dinna feel like talking." donald mcpherson had been steadily gaining property ever since he stopped drinking. he now had sufficient means to stock a farm which he rented. he had also gained respectability by honest dealing with his neighbors and by a strict attendance at church. he had merited and gained the coveted name of douce donald, which was not misapplied. donald, jr., being the only child, and of steady habits, mrs. murdoch placed no obstacle in the way of an intimate friendship between him and her daughter. in fact, she considered him a very suitable person to sue for annie's hand. he was warmly received by all at the cottage; but annie never showed him any preference above the other lads of the neighborhood. her mother had long since realized that wullie was right when he intimated that she was "heidstrang." mrs. murdoch was at a loss to know how to approach her daughter, for fear of driving her in the wrong direction; therefore she wisely concluded to let the matter alone. but young mcpherson, who saw nothing in the way of settling in life, offered her his hand. she declined the offer. he was loath to accept a refusal. he pressed his suit, telling her that he had always thought of her as his future wife. "ye hae taen far too muckle for granted," she replied, "for i canna wed wi' you." donald's visits were discontinued. the mother, ascertaining the cause of his prolonged absence, remonstrated with her daughter. "annie, lass, what hae ye dune to young donald?" "i hae refused him, as was my privilege," she replied, with an independent toss of her head. "can ye no see where your interest lies? donald is a clever lad, and would gie you a gude hame; and a' would be your ain when his faither and mither are gane." "i dinna want a better hame than i have noo," retorted annie; "and it is lang waiting for dead folks' shoon." "ye will drive the lad a'maist daft wi' your stubborn ways." "little danger o' that; but i canna help it if i do. auld muckle geordie might tak it in his heid to gang daft aboot me; would i hae to marry him?" she asked, with a merry twinkle in her mischievous eyes. the mother laughed despite her efforts to the contrary, for auld muckle geordie was an old lame piper supported by charity. "noo be a canny lass," she continued, resuming the stern expression of her countenance. "auld muckle geordie has naething to do wi' donald, who isna quite twa years older than yoursel, and naething can be said against him." "i didna say onything against him. i only meant to shaw that a lass canna always wed ony ane that sets his heart on her." "ay, ony ane, to be sure! but where would ye find a better lad than donald? dinna pit your dish tapside doun when it rains parritch." "weel, mither, it will hae to rain parritch frae anither quarter before i set my dish to catch it." "annie, ye can never be tauld onything. but i hae kenned folk wha decided sae speedily that they had to repent at leisure." donald took the matter more to heart than annie had anticipated. wishing to get away from scenes that were constant reminders of his chagrin and unhappiness, he left home and took passage in a vessel bound to the west indies. annie then received cold looks from more than one pair of eyes. mr. and mrs. mcpherson regarded her as the disturber of their peace and the desolater of their home. they could see no reason why their son should be refused by annie murdoch or any other lass. even annie's mother was reserved in manner towards her. but her native wit and vivacity often served her a good turn when the subject was broached, and she generally parried their censure with a counterstroke that made her victorious. so things remained till jamie came again. jamie, though so learned and so well received in edinburgh society, did not forget his parents in their humble home. every year he spent with them at least a part of the summer, and they were none the poorer for his visit. from the time he first received a salary he had every year sent them a generous remittance; and when he visited them he did not come empty-handed. his coming was always anticipated with eager pleasure; and now when he arrived all were delighted. he took an interest in all their simple home affairs, and always inquired about the welfare of the neighbors. he liked to sit and talk with his mother. during a conversation with her he chanced to ask her how she liked young mr. cameron. annie turned away her face at the mention of his name. she felt the hot blood rush to her cheeks; but it soon receded, for jamie followed his question with the statement that cameron was soon to be married to his cousin. annie, pale and trembling, sought the door. "what ails thee, annie?" asked the anxious mother; but receiving no answer, the truth flashed on her mind. "puir lass!" said she; but annie, refusing sympathy, withdrew from her mother, and hurried out to conceal her emotion. "what ails annie?" asked jamie. "i see it a' noo," replied his mother. "i ken why she refused young donald mcpherson. the puir lass maun hae lo'ed young cameron." jamie was astonished. he questioned his mother, and learned that cameron had been at the cottage but three times. "he is a kind-hearted, noble young man. i do not wonder that my little sister admired him; but it was folly to fall in love with him. let us deal gently with the girl, and turn her thoughts in other directions." the day passed; night wrapped the earth in darkness; bird, beast, and human creatures rested in sleep, save where the solitary lamp burned dimly in the sick-room or the aching heart forbade the eyes to slumber. annie retired to her bed, but sleep came not. she had been rudely wakened from her young life's happy dream; could she ever sleep again! in vain she tried to dismiss her thoughts and find rest. finally she rose from her bed and stole softly to the window. looking out of its narrow casement, she saw in the distance the outline of a clump of silver birches; then catching the scent of the clover from the meadow and the wild rose from the hedgerow, she said mentally, "this world is too bonny for tears. and why should i grieve for one who perhaps never gave me a second thought, and whom i had no right to love? it was but a childish fancy. i am no longer a child. from this hour i am a woman. i will tear his image from my heart, and be content with the lot that god has given me." the midnight air cooled her brow and quieted her throbbing brain and aching heart. she again sought her couch, and soon fell into a peaceful slumber. the next morning she was calm, but not sad. reason had prevailed. her mother was surprised at her self-control; but she said not a word to annie upon the subject that was most in both their thoughts. neither did annie ever mention to any one her struggle and her victory. if she had supposed that any one possessed her secret, her mortification would have been as great as her grief. jamie felt sorry for his sister, but he did not dare tell her so. he only gave her his parting presents, bade her a cheerful good-by, and returned to his post. chapter xvi. reconsidered. more years passed, bringing two sweet bairns into the home of archie lindsay. still annie murdoch would neither be wooed nor wedded. whether the ever alert donald mcpherson suspected that she had changed her mind and was waiting for his son, and communicated his suspicions to the one most concerned, is not known; but at length there came a letter saying that young donald was coming home; and it was reported that he would bring a heavy purse. great was the joy of his parents, for they were growing old and longed to lay their cares on younger shoulders. soon a sun-browned man knocked at their door. katy mcpherson cast on him a long, searching glance, and exclaimed, "donald, my bairn! donald, my bairn! ye are welcome hame!" as to the father, he was very happy and very proud. he spoke the praises of his son into every listening ear. donald was glad to be at home again. he inquired about all the neighbors, and particularly after honest wullie's family. "annie is no married. i think she is waiting for you, donald," said his mother. on the evening of the third day after his return he dressed himself with great care, and announced that he was going to honest wullie's to see how the folk looked. annie had been early apprised of donald's arrival. she kept her thoughts to herself; but she was unusually particular about her personal appearance, and wore the knot of ribbon that was most becoming to her. but as the days passed and donald did not appear, she began to think he was in no haste to see her. however, at last he came. he was most cordially received by all the family, annie not excepted. donald was much improved by his residence abroad. he chatted pleasantly and interestingly of scenes and things he had observed during his absence, and all were sorry when the lateness of the hour warned him that it was time to leave. "ye hae gien us a pleasant evening, donald," said mrs. murdoch. "i hope it will no be long till ye come again." "that will be as annie says." "i will promise no to keep ony bloodhounds about," said annie, laughing. "ye will have to promise mair than that." "weel, i will promise no to keep ony doggies o' a savage nature." "mair than that," said he, shaking his head. "weel, then, i will promise to bid you a pleasant gude evening as often as ye choose to come." "that will do. on the strength of that promise i shall be right neeborly." bidding them good night, he went home with fresh hopes kindled in his bosom. the purse donald brought home with him did much towards improving the farm stock and utensils, besides furnishing the house more comfortably. after this outlay there was still left a small sum, which donald put at interest. "it would be gude for a rainy day," he said. it would seem that donald's second attempt at courtship was more successful than the first, for six months after his return he was married to annie murdoch. "that is noo as it s'ould be," said honest wullie. "it aye lookit to me that it maun come to that yet; but some folk are lang in seeing what is for their gude." douce donald, as he was now always called, to distinguish him from his son, could not quite forget his son's former trouble. he said to annie, half jestingly, "ye s'ouldna hae taen sae lang a time to mak up your mind, ye wilfu' puss." "never mind that now, faither," said donald. "ye wouldna have had sae saft an auld age without the gear that came of my disappointment." when donald and annie had been married a twelvemonth a daughter was born to them. great was the joy in the household. the grandfather was hardly less pleased than the father. he went to honest wullie's to communicate his gladness and to congratulate him. "we hae a fine granddaughter, neebor murdoch. the sight o' her will be gude for oor auld een. if the gude lord spares her till us, she will beguile the lang weary hours o' auld age." "ay, it is gude to see young faces when we are auld; but i think ye will find your hours nane too lang, neebor mcpherson. god gies to nane o' us mair time than we need." "weel, then, she s'all help me to graw young again." "ay, that will do. keep a young heart in your auld body, and ye will weary naebody." "hoo comes it that ye are sae wise, neebor murdoch?" "i dinna think mysel wise." "but ye aye gie gude advice." "weel, we hae this promise in the gude book, 'they s'all a' be taught of god.' it may be that i hae been taught o' the spirit. warldly wisdom i hae nane, or next to nane; but i ken weel that the wisdom that god gies to those that ask it will be better to haud to when passing frae this to the untried warld than a' the wisdom o' the wisest men." chapter xvii. davie. we have now seen robert murdoch's children all happily settled in life. god's promises to the fatherless had not failed. only wullie's own son davie is left at home, and the years have rolled by till he is now nearly as old as his father was when we first made his acquaintance. school never had any charms for davie. he could read and write, and he possessed some knowledge of arithmetic. beyond this he did not care to go. but he did love hard work, and the harder the better. he loved to drive the plough and put in the sickle. "he is honest wullie over again," was the unanimous verdict of the whole neighborhood. meanwhile the father's strength was failing. it often happened that when wullie was going to his work in the noonday heat farmer lindsay called to him from the cool porch where he was sitting, "come, sit ye doun and crack a while wi' me, wullie, and let younger men lead in the wark noo." davie, too, urged his father to take life more easily. "ye hae lang borne the burden and heat o' the day; sit doun noo and rest. i hae the strength and the will to provide for a' the wants o' those wha hae provided for me when i couldna do it for mysel." jamie with his annual remittance sent this message: "make yourself and mother comfortable, and do not go to your work on bad days. save your strength when you can; it will please me better if you do not work at all. you have labored enough for a lifetime. i hope to supply many of your wants myself; but you have also davie to look after you." "ay, we hae davie, and we hae mony freends and mony comforts. truly, the lord is gude to all that put their trust in him," said wullie to his wife. "ay, wullie; and yet i canna but wish that davie was mair like jamie. he wouldna hae to wark sae hard," said the mother. "leave davie to his ain choice, wifie. he canna be as jamie is. jamie likes to gang oot in the warld, and muckle can be said in his praise, for he is as gude a mon as i could wish, forbye his learning. but davie taks after his faither. he lo'es best the wild moorlands and crags, the green hillocks, the scent o' the newly-turned sod, the lowing o' the herds, the crawing o' the cocks, and the voice of the sang-birds. he is a' that is left to us noo. how could we get on withoot davie?" mrs. murdoch, too, began to feel the approach of age. the noon of her life was long past, and she had toiled unremittingly. she desired to sit down now and rest a while in the evening shade. she thought it time that davie should bring a wife to the cottage. but davie seemed never seriously to think of such a thing, notwithstanding various hints from his mother. every year she felt less able to do the work of the cottage; she was lonely also, for she liked to have some one to talk to; but since annie went away she spent most of the day in solitude. she therefore made a direct appeal to davie. "davie, i canna live always; why do ye no tak a wife to yoursel? i am sure there is room eneuch here; and there is nae lack o' gear. ye s'ould hae a wife as weel as ony other man." "i dinna see ony lass that i would care to tak to the parson wi' me. a' the gude lassies hae been taen." "there is aye gude fish in the sea!" "but i canna hae the luck to catch them." weary of waiting for davie to bring a wife, she sent to wigtown for her niece and namesake, jeannie craig, to come and live with her. whether this was a plot on the part of the mother is not known; but certain it is that david married his cousin; and the neighbors said the mother had done the courting. if this be so she did her son a very great favor, for no one could have filled the place better or made him a better wife. "she minds me of oor belle," davie said aside to his mother the first day she came to the cottage. and she was like belle in her cheerful, gentle ways. chapter xviii. a rest by the wayside. honest wullie and his wife could now spend the evening of life in quiet, peaceful comfort. their cup of happiness was full. all their children were married and lived comfortably. jamie had married in edinburgh, and he had a beautiful home, with children to gladden it. there was no happier wife than belle lindsay, and archie thought there could be no better one. archie's family lived in one part of the farmhouse. there his sweet-tempered wife still warbled tender home melodies while busy with her work, and at nightfall sang soft, sweet lullabies to the fair-haired babe. annie and donald were never sorry that they had waited for each other. several children blessed them with hope and claimed their care and labor. the marriage of davie had brought no innovation to wullie's home. his daughter-in-law stepped quietly and aptly into the place his wife had filled as mistress and manager. mrs. murdoch, unencumbered with care, could now sit by her husband at the hearthstone, or in summer on a rustic seat on the shady side of the house. her knitting was usually in her hand; so accustomed was she to this kind of work that she could almost have done it sleeping, and she would have felt lost without it. farmer lindsay also divested himself of many of the cares of life. he had no anxiety about the management of the farm; archie was as good a farmer as himself. mrs. lindsay had gradually given the care of household affairs to her daughter-in-law, and now belle had entire control. "i ken noo that archie's parritch is weel made and his bannocks weel baked; and a' the wark is weel dune and naething wasted," she said to her husband. their daughter, still unmarried, was with them to anticipate their wishes. thus this ageing pair were resting from their labors and gliding gently down the slope of life. the vine-hung porch was often the resort of farmer lindsay. he loved to sit there in the dreamy afternoons, enlivening the hours with tales of olden time. his wife often sat beside him. here a goodly view was spread out before them. to one side lay the out-buildings, the orchard, and the meadows that extended far beyond honest wullie's cottage. on the other side rose the hills covered with mountain-ash and dwarf-oaks. the birds sang in the shade-trees, and the timid hares gambolled in the hedgerow, or gazed at them with soft eyes when no danger threatened. among the hills were the pasture-lands; and the tinkle of the herd-bell was often borne to their ears by the balmy breath of the south wind. occasionally honest wullie, accompanied by his wife, slowly climbed the little rise of ground that lay between the cottage and the farmhouse. there was always a kindly welcome and inquiries after the health of each other. the bairns, too, must be called and told "no to be shy, but to gang up and speak to their grandparents." honest wullie always asked many questions about the farm-work, for he loved to hear the praises of davie. when he stayed to break bread with his daughter they all ate together, and spent a social hour at table. wullie was listened to with the greatest respect, for he always had something good and sensible to say. when they went home some of the lindsays accompanied them a part of the way, as not to have done so would have been considered discourteous. to annie's home wullie no longer attempted to walk; but donald brought her parents twice a year to pay her a visit. these visits were always enjoyable, for annie spared no pains to please her parents. "annie behaves doucely," was honest wullie's comment after returning home. jamie still came once a year to the cottage. "now that davie is married," he said to his father, "i would like to have you and mother come and spend some time with me." "i am too auld to leave hame, jamie; but if i could gang, what would i do in edinburgh? i would a'maist as soon be buried alive. na, na, jamie, i couldna do that; i couldna leave my auld hame. here i hae lived, and here let me dee. i a'maist feel i couldna lo'e god as weel where i couldna see him in his warks. na, na, jamie, leave me where i can hear the sang o' the laverock,[a] the mavis,[b] and the cushat;[c] where the burn wimples and the daisy and the heather bloom; where the darkness fa's softly and the stars blink bonnily; where the sun wunna rise far before i can see the face o' it. na, jamie, edinburgh is nae place for auld wullie murdoch." jamie knew that his father was right. "i suppose no other place would seem to you like home," he replied; "but i would like to manifest the filial regard i feel for my parents." jamie then resolved to coax davie to edinburgh. he thought it would give his brother some idea of the world around him. besides, he was a little curious to see the amazement with which his unsophisticated brother would view the wonders of the scottish capital. it was, however, a long time before he succeeded in getting him there; but several summers after he had first proposed the journey davie returned with him to edinburgh. on their way they stopped at glasgow. as davie had so little desire for sight-seeing, he was more than satisfied with his short stay in that city, and wished then to return home; but jamie persuaded him to go on to edinburgh and linlithgow. he pointed out to his brother the places of historic interest, the ancient fortresses, palaces, and ruins. none of these stirred his heart like old grayfriars' church, where, on the first of march, , the first signatures were set to the national covenant that bound scotland to resist the civil and ecclesiastical tyranny of charles i.; grayfriars' churchyard, with its memories of martyr covenanters; and the old national fortress, the castle rock. the sight of these stirs the heart of every true scotchman, for all are associated with scottish struggles for liberty. there was little else he could appreciate, although the magnificent churches impressed him with their grandeur, and recalled to his mind the description of the only one with which he was familiar, that grander temple reared by solomon. the bells, too, with their solemn, sonorous call, filled him with reverential awe. everything else wearied him. the handsome dwellings, the public buildings, the long rows of shops and markets, were tiresome to him; and the sound of the town-crier he would gladly have exchanged for the tinkle of the bell from the sheepfold. he did not feel at ease even in his brother's house. he considered everything too bonny to touch, and he failed to divest himself of the feeling of restraint until he again beheld the simple cottages, the moors and glens of ayrshire. however, after he reached home he remembered that he had seen many fine sights, and he was really glad that he had made the journey; but he was equally glad that there was no prospect of having to repeat it. in the city he had remembered his nephews and nieces, and he brought them each a present, small though it was. but for his wife he brought a "braw new gown," to which he often afterwards referred with a good deal of complacency as "the gown i brought frae edinburgh." his wife usually smiled secretly, saying to herself, "i will hae to tak gude care o' it, for it will be mony a lang day before he brings me anither frae there." footnotes: [a] lark. [b] thrush. [c] wood-pigeon. chapter xix. lengthening shadows. let us now look at our friends ten years later. we find some of them at life's sunset. but no storms of adversity have marred the serenity of the declining day of these simple people. honest wullie's years have already numbered more than fourscore. the locks that adorn his temples are no longer gray, but white. his frame is bent with labor and years. gradually he had left the heavier work to younger hands, and after a few years he had ceased to take his place among the laborers. in summer, however, he still planted and cultivated his little garden, and in winter he took care of the cows and kept the fires burning. but the time came when spade, mattock, and hoe were laid aside, and honest wullie occupied his easy-chair. this was sorely against his will, as he said, for he liked to be of use to his family; but the infirmities of age left him no choice. then it was that the beauty of his soul shone forth in a clearer light, proving that "they also serve who only stand and wait." always cheerful himself, he encouraged the despondent, mildly reproved those who were unduly elated, arrogant, or unyielding, and meted out to each the counsel most needed. he looked patriarchal among his children and grandchildren, who vied with each other in manifesting their regard for him. he loved to have his grandchildren near him, and he often smiled at their innocent amusements. his wife, several years younger than himself, was still in good health. she was most attentive to the comfort of her aged husband, who for so many years had been her stay and support. both were mindful of the many mercies that had attended them during their long life. "when i look at you, wullie, wi' sae mony comforts and sae few cares, and at a' our children sae weel provided for, i am reminded o' david of auld when he said, 'i have been young, and now am auld; yet have i not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.' ay, wullie, the blessings o' the righteous man hae been gien to you." "ay, jeannie, we hae had a lang life, and mony joys as weel as sorrows. the lord aye gies his children what is best for them. he remembereth our frame; he knoweth we are but dust, and he doesna pit upon us what we are no able to bear." in the very evening of his days he had the pleasure of seeing his benefactor, the donor of the ten-pound note, whom he not only thanked and blessed, but whose bounty he offered to repay. "no, no, honest wullie," said the good man, "i have never been the poorer for that gift, nor for any other given in like manner." and now we come to the close of the good man's earthly pilgrimage. the chair in the chimney nook is vacant, and on the bed lies the once strong and active william murdoch. the helplessness of age and exhaustion is upon him. he has no malady; he is simply passing away. the silver cord is being loosed, the golden bowl is being broken. the sun was slowly sinking. the soft summer breeze came in at the cottage window and puffed the snowy curtains at either side. order and quiet prevailed. near the bed sat the faithful wife. her knitting was not in her hands, neither was it in her lap. she sat with a sad yet composed expression on her face, thinking of the past, the present, and the future, all of which seemed now to be brought together. near the ingle sat a younger, matronly woman, hushing an infant to rest. in her we recognize annie mcpherson, the same annie, but ripened and softened by added years. from the farmhouse came tripping down the path a sprightly blooming girl, who reminded one of belle. this was alice lindsay, isabel's oldest child, come to say that her mother would be over to spend the night. she stooped and kissed her sleeping grandfather, and after asking her grandmother if there was anything she could do, she went out to her aunt jeannie, who was milking the cows. "aunt jeannie," she began, "are ye no weary? let me milk ane o' the coos." "na, alice, i am a'maist dune. gang and talk wi' your cousins yonder; they are greetin' aboot their grandfaither. i hae but noo tauld them that he must soon dee." alice went to the rear of the cottage: there on a pile of sticks sat two fine little lads, whom davie had quite naturally named wullie and jamie. they saw their cousin approaching, and tried to dry their tears on the back of their hands. she sat down between them and put her arm around jamie, while wullie dropped his head in her lap and sobbed out, "grandfaither is going to dee, alice. he is gaen awa frae us, and they will pit him in a box and nail him doun, and pit him in the groun', and he wunna win oot till the resurrection morn, mither says, and we canna mak oot when that will be. then there will be naebody to pat oor heids when we come to the ingle. grandmither aye knits, and she never pats oor heids, and says, 'puir wee lads! puir wee lads!'" [illustration: page . "grandfaither is going to dee, alice."] "my puir wee lads," said alice, "ye will hae freends left to you still. do ye no ken that grandfaither wearies to be awa wi' his faither in heaven? ye canna understand all aboot it noo, wullie, but ye will some time. grandfaither is an auld man, and he canna get the pleasure oot o' the warld that you can. he canna rin aboot the green fields here; but yonder where he is gaen he will be made young again, and then he will walk in the green fields o' the heavenly warld, and never graw auld ony more. sae dry your tears, that is a wee man; grandfaither wouldna like ye to greet sae sairly." now they heard footsteps, and, looking up, the lads saw their father coming down the home-path with quickened steps, for he was anxious to know how his father was. as he neared the door he slackened his pace and entered the cottage as noiselessly as possible. he stepped to the bedside and gazed on his father; as he turned away a heavy sigh escaped him. after alice had comforted her little cousins she hastened home, and her mother came. the twilight had deepened into night; the cottage door was closed and the candle lighted. in the room were now gathered all the children except jamie, and of him all were thinking. "i think your faither is nearer his end than we thought," said the mother. "i ken weel jamie would like to be here." "i think we should have sent for him," said belle. "i think sae myself," said davie. "annie, ye gang and write a letter till him right awa," said the mother. annie promptly obeyed, going into another room, and the conversation continued. they talked without restraint, for if their father should wake he was too deaf to understand ordinary conversation. "i fear it isna possible for jamie to come in time to see his faither alive," said belle. "i think he willna live the week oot," said davie. the mother sat with closed eyes and folded hands. "jamie was aye fond o' his faither; he was aye a gude lad," she said, thinking aloud. "ay, he was that, and his gude fortune hasna spoiled him, either," replied isabel. "it would be hard to spoil jamie, i think," said davie. "i often thought o' that when i was wi' him in edinburgh; for he introduced me to a' his grand freends. to be sure, i made my best boo; but ye ken weel i am no like jamie." "weel, ye needna be. the warld maun hae pleughmen as weel as scholars," said his wife. "ye are right there. jamie would hae dune wrang if he hadna treated davie wi' respect," said belle. "some folk might think his wife is a bit proud, but she didna shaw her pride to me. she is right fond o' jamie, i could see that, and she would treat me weel for his sake," said davie. thus in conversation pertaining to family affairs the evening passed. annie had finished her letter, and the time for prayers drew nigh. davie, on whom this duty then devolved, read and prayed; but his voice was unsteady, and all knew that his heart was too full for a lengthy prayer. they remained on their knees for many moments, each heart silently beseeching the heavenly father to give needed grace and strength. as they arose a slight movement attracted their attention towards the aged man. a single gasp, and all was over. honest wullie had yielded up his spirit to his maker. "he is awa," said the mother. "ay, he is gone," said davie. there was no violent outburst of grief. even sadness was, for the time, almost chased away by the near approach of heaven. only the solemnity that followed the passing of the death-angel pervaded the cottage. chapter xx. another sheaf gathered. the heather had bloomed but seven years on the grave of honest wullie when the children were again assembled around the bed of death: their aged mother was about to leave them. jamie had been summoned from edinburgh, and he with the others silently awaited the inevitable parting. in looking into the room where the sick mother lay one would notice few changes. the invalid lay just where her husband had lain. the same small stand stood beside the bed; over the sufferer were bending the same forms, or nearly the same, for some changes were noticeable in them. time had left traces on the once smooth brows of youth, and lines of silver had crept alike into dark or auburn hair. jamie, already past fifty, was still in his prime. his long residence in the capital had polished his manners, and he appeared the refined cultured gentleman that he was. his fine intellectual brow was furrowed by thought rather than by years. isabel and annie had passed the meridian of life, and their afternoon was crowded with duties, and sometimes shadowed by disappointments. they had reached that time when the parental heart knows scarcely more of hope than of fear; when the children, eager to begin the battle of life, rush out into the world, or, staying, are as likely to be vexed as pleased with home restraints. davie was less changed in appearance than the others. his step, never light nor swift, was neither heavier nor slower than formerly; his broad shoulders showed no inclination to stoop; no shade of disappointment rested on his face; he had merely grown seven years older. davie's wife moved quietly about, mindful of the comfort of all. her sensible face, overcast with sadness, gave evidence that she felt the approaching separation no less than the sons and daughters: for this family was one of the few in which mother-in-law and daughter-in-law lived in harmony and succeeded in pleasing each other. now this beautiful relationship and companionship was to be dissolved. jeannie had ever been most careful of the comfort of the aged woman, and now in the last sad days her hand most tenderly ministered to her wants. but the time came when no human hand could help, when life was fast ebbing, and the shadow of death darkened the household and filled every heart with solemn sadness. for several hours the dying woman had lain in a stupor, and no one expected her to speak again; but she opened her eyes, recovered consciousness, and, seeing the sorrowful faces around her, she spoke. "dinna grieve that i maun leave you. i hae stayed with you till ye can a' care for yoursels better than i can care for you: ye s'ould ask nae mair. ye are aye in the hands of god; and he will guide you safely through this warld, and bring you to me in the better warld above. i shall greet my bairns on the other shore." these were her last words. she fell asleep, and waked no more. they buried her beside her husband and returned to their homes, feeling, as never before, that one generation had passed away and that theirs was the next to follow. there is, perhaps, no relation in life the dissolution of which sunders so tender a tie as that of child and mother. memory is so stirred that long-forgotten scenes pass before our mind's eye like a broad panorama. in the foreground stand acts of disobedience and our lack of filial affection, or rather our failure to manifest it as we should have done. beside these stand the many proofs of maternal love, patience, and self-sacrifice. happy the children who can recall other and pleasanter memories of their conduct when in the presence of the dead, cold clay of her who has done and suffered so much for them! and such was the case in this family. on the evening after their mother's burial the tone of their conversation was not wholly sad and regretful. each son and daughter knew that the mother had indeed exercised much forbearance towards them all; but there came to them the assurance that they had in many ways, both in early and later years, given proofs of their love and respect. annie, whose waywardness had perhaps given more trouble than all the rest, sincerely repented her faults, and grieved that she had ever been undutiful to so kind a mother. "nane o' the children," said she, speaking to her sister, "hae gien mother the trouble that i hae gien her. alas, why doesna a bairn ken there is nae pleasure in wrang-doing!" "o annie," replied isabel, "ye needna reproach yoursel; ye werena a troublesome bairn, only a little heidstrang; and i am sure naebody could hae been mair kind or respectful than yoursel these mony years past." "i ken that," said annie, "but i canna forget that i grieved her mony times when i kenned weel eneuch i was doing wrang; that isna pleasant to remember." jamie, now professor murdoch, remained long enough to visit his sisters in their own homes. he spent the evening after the funeral under the roof that had sheltered him in his boyhood; the sisters were there also. after speaking of the dead mother, her virtues, her faith in god, and the eternal happiness with the redeemed upon which she had now entered, the conversation became more general, running in various channels. jamie had much to ask about the other families, but he took a special interest in davie's little twin daughters. they looked so much alike that he declared he could not tell which was maggie and which nannie. they had large blue eyes and curly flaxen hair. it was their father's delight to sit with one on each knee, trotting them in his clumsy fashion, singing to them the rhymes that were sung to all babies, turning his face from side to side meantime, and gazing fondly at one or the other. "well, davie, you look about as proud and pleased as a parent can be," remarked jamie. "why should i no look proud? i will leave it to yoursel, jamie; saw ye ever bonnier bit lassies?" jamie smiled good-naturedly. "i think not," he replied. "davie," interposed jeannie, "ye are aye praisin' the bairns. dinna be makin' ither folk praise them too. do ye no ken that all parents see their bairns in the same way? jamie has bairns o' his ain." "ay," replied davie, "but jamie has nae lassies in his family." "no, i have no lassies, and my sons are as tall as i am; so i quite enjoy the novelty of seeing your wee daughters." then, addressing his sisters, he continued, "i must see more of my nephews and nieces before i return. some of them i saw only at the funeral, and i hardly recognized them, so much have they grown." "dear knows," said annie, "my bairns do naething but graw. jennie is half a heid taller than i am, and robin is as tall as she is. the wee lad, my seven-year auld donald, is weel grawn for his years." "let me see--how many bairns have we among us?" asked jamie. "a'thegither," said davie, "we have fourteen: yoursel twa, belle four, annie three, and mysel five." "we dinna number very many," said isabel, "but for a' that i hae my hands full; and they will be mair than full when alice gaes awa, for she is to be married at hallowmas, and it will be a lang time before wee annie graws strang eneuch to be ony help. and what wi' sandy's notions about books and robert's notions about waterwheels and mills, i needna look for muckle help frae them." "sandy must soon come to me, sister belle," said jamie. "has the lad been talking to you about going to school?" jamie was about to reply when the door opened, and sandy, who had come to accompany his mother home, walked in. as he entered his mother looked at him half-threateningly, half-playfully, and shook her finger at him. he darted an inquiring look at his uncle, and the latter shook his head almost imperceptibly. "i understand it all," said isabel, who had been watching the two. "sandy will leave home too, perhaps close upon the heels of alice. well, it is often sae. i think sometimes, what do parents rear bairns for? they arena mair than grawn before the flittin' begins." "it is aye so," said annie; "leastways in some families. there is my robin; he takes a deal too muckle interest in information about america. i fear he will take it into his heid to gang there before mony years." davie with a startled look glanced towards his sons, who had been listening to all that had been said, as if he feared they might become infected with a desire to leave home too. but wullie, already sixteen years old, was a home-loving lad; no fear for him. jamie had always said, "i want to be a shepherd-lad, and rove amang green fields." the third son was a namesake of archie lindsay, with whom he was a great favorite, and he had said, "i will work for uncle archie when i'm a man." davie recalled all this, and his fears subsided. soon belle and sandy arose to go home. annie was to remain to break the lonely feeling of the household from which a dear one had just been carried. jamie and annie talked a little longer with davie and his wife, and then the little cottage was darkened and all within sought rest and sleep. chapter xxi. the professor visits his sisters. the next morning was bright and sunny, and at an early hour donald mcpherson came to take his wife home. jamie was to accompany her. the ride in the fresh morning air was delightful as donald's stout farm-horses plodded easily along over the two miles that lay between the homes of the brother and sister. the conversation ran mostly on farm-work, for that was donald's province; beyond that his knowledge was limited. the few neighbors that they met or passed raised their bonnets, for all had a profound respect for the man who had risen from their ranks to become a professor in a college. some of the more inquisitive detained them to ask questions. an interesting picture presented itself when they reached annie's door. douce donald, leaning on his staff, stood at the gate to welcome them. his form was bowed with many years, but his face was pleasant and his greeting cordial. behind him stood his grandson and constant companion, wee donald, or donald the third. in the door was jennie, smiling, and looking a very picture of healthy and blooming girlhood. robin left his hoe in the garden and hastened to welcome uncle jamie. only the aged katy mcpherson remained within, and she was not less pleased than the rest. everything in and about the house gave evidence of thrift. the mcphersons had long since outgrown every look of poverty. not only was there no lack of articles essential to comfort, but tokens of taste were not entirely wanting, for jennie's nimble fingers fashioned and arranged many little things, which, though costing but a trifle, beautified the home and rendered it more cheerful and attractive. after jamie had conversed some time with the others he took a seat near katy, whose hearing was "no vera gude," as she said, and entered into conversation with her. she spoke of his excellent mother and of honest wullie, and her words fell not on indifferent ears. "the warld has few men like your faither, mr. murdoch. though he is dead and gane, the gude he has dune hasna gane wi' him. ye may be a wiser man than he was, but ye canna be a better ane," said katy, speaking with earnestness. "you are right," said jamie slowly and with evident emotion. "i maun say," continued katy, "that i hae great reason to be thankful that his influence was ever felt in my family." jamie, sad from his recent loss, replied with much feeling, "i see more and more clearly, as i grow older, that the good one does lives after him. my step-father was but a simple cottager, and yet i hear him spoken of almost with reverence. goodness is better than greatness, and the memory of the just does not perish. we think of our friends, dead or living, and we find that nothing draws our affections towards them like sterling worth; wealth or beauty, wit or wisdom, cannot give permanence to our esteem for them." "ye are right, mr. murdoch. i hae had sic thoughts mysel, but i couldna hae worded them as weel as yoursel did." donald the first, or douce donald, followed by donald the third, now joined them. they had been with the lad's father and a neighbor to the stable, where the latter was negotiating for a fine young horse. douce donald could not think of letting the colt be sold without having something to say in regard to his merits. he was sure, he said, that his son would forget to tell "how strong o' limb the beastie was, how high he carried his heid, and how canny he was in the harness." the bargain had been satisfactorily concluded before he returned to the house. jamie soon perceived that the aged man had lost none of his ancient garrulity. he gave the history of several men who had played with jamie when they were lads together; he asked questions about the improvements and inventions of the day; and could not sufficiently admire the railroad and the telegraph. "the warld has grawn too wonderful for auld donald mcpherson," he said meditatively, shaking his head. "while the warld is changing men canna stand still. i'm muckle changed mysel frae the donald i once was, and i owe the gude that is in me to your faither. i could a'maist as soon forget my ain name as to forget honest wullie. i hae him as plainly before me as though he died but yesterday, and it is seven years agone. there will be mair o' us gane soon, or auld age will no hae dune its wark. god grant that when the angel o' death puts in the sickle we may a' be as ripe for the heavenly garner as your gude faither was." he sighed and remained silent a few moments; then, regaining the buoyancy of spirits that was natural to him, he led his little grandson to his uncle, saying, "what think ye o' this bairn? is he na a fine lad?" james murdoch extended his hand and drew his nephew to his side. he told him stories of his own sons when they were small. "they are in school and at their books by this time; but no doubt they have had a long tramp before the school hour came." "robert and william are very unlike in some respects," he said, addressing his conversation to annie, "but in one thing they do not differ: they love to seek out all the historical places in and around edinburgh. they know more about the old castles and fortresses than i do myself. i do not know what they will accomplish in the world, but they are bright, active lads now." the dinner hour arrived. there was no hurrying through this meal, for uncle james had much to say to all, but particularly to robin, whom he found intelligent, considering his opportunities. jennie seemed to her uncle her mother's second self. she was staid enough then; but in her black eyes the vivacity of her nature could not wholly be concealed. the dinner being over, robin harnessed a horse and took his uncle to archie lindsay's, where he was to spend the afternoon. robin chatted all the way, glad of an opportunity to satisfy his inquiring mind. the drift of his questions was towards america. "i would like to live in that country," said he. "why is that?" asked his uncle. "is not scotland a bonny country?" "scotland is well enough--leastways it is bonny enough; but i would like to live where one man is as gude as another; where one can buy land and settle as he pleases. awa wi' the landlords! mony of them are all right, but some of them are bad enough; and it often happens that an honest man maun work for a scoundrel, and maun dance to his piping whether he pipes right or wrang." "robin," said his uncle, "are you not indulging in unprofitable thoughts? scotland rears many eminent men. surely her sons have a chance to become both good and great. emulate those who have become so, and do not vex yourself with that which is beyond your control. you certainly have nothing to complain of." "no, i havena; but i see them that have. i see the poor far down, and there is nae way to help them up." "you take a one-sided view of the matter. do you suppose there are no poor in america?" "na, i dinna suppose that; but if they are puir, there is naebody to lord it over them. uncle jamie, ye mind auld sawny mckay? well, he is dead, but the auld wife lives. she is weak and seck, and she had a notion for some broth. geordie, her youngest lad, took a hare frae the wood to mak a sup for his auld mither. somebody told o' it, and a muckle ado was made aboot it, and the lad had to pay a heavy fine that was hard upon him, for he has but sma' wages. noo, i dinna say it was right in geordie--maybe it wasna--but i like him a' the better for it. he is a right gude lad, and he never would hae dune it for himsel; he tauld me sae. weel, i was that angry i said, 'geordie, let us gang to the united states of america. there ye may tak not only hares, but better game.' ye s'ould hae seen the light glint in his eye! but it went frae them in a moment. 'na, i canna; i wunna leave my mither,' said he." robin paused, expecting his uncle to approve of the indignation he had felt. but james murdoch said nothing. taking from his pocket a sovereign he put it into robin's hand. "give this to mistress mckay," said he. "i remember her well. she has patted my head many a time." by this time they had reached archie lindsay's. uncle and nephew shook hands at parting. "i hope you will soon lose your discontent, robin, and convince yourself that scotland is still a land good enough for all her sons." "no, uncle jamie, my heart is set on america; and it will not be many years before i will put the sea between me and scotland." at the home of the lindsays, no less than at donald mcpherson's, was james murdoch a welcome and honored guest. since his arrival his time and attention had been so much occupied with his mother's sufferings and death, and afterwards with the preparation for the funeral, that he had spent very little time with belle, although she lived so near. but on this afternoon he had come for a visit. isabel met him at the door and showed him into the cool, pleasant best-room. sandy and robert had been excused from performing any labor in the field that they might be with their uncle. alice laid aside her work, although so much had to be accomplished before hallowmas, and entertained her uncle in a manner so easy and womanly that he was greatly pleased with her. only little annie was missing. during occasional intervals in the conversation low tones were heard in an adjoining room. "it is wee annie," said alice, observing that her uncle listened. "she aye reads to her grandmither till she falls asleep. puir lass, i think she will find it hard to bide her time the day." presently the sound ceased, and a fair, slight child entered, softly closing the door behind her, thus indicating that the aged woman slept, and no longer needed her services. she approached her uncle and offered her hand. he took it, and stooping, kissed the gentle little one, wishing in his heart that he had just such a sweet flower to brighten and gladden his own home. as the afternoon drew near its close, belle invited her brother to go and see the aged couple in the other part of the house. mrs. lindsay was feeble, and evidently near the end of her pilgrimage. though younger than her husband, she was more infirm. mr. lindsay, now very aged, was in good health; but he was like the sere, brown leaf in autumn, ready to fall at the wind's first blast. he was glad to see james murdoch. he spoke of many things that had occurred in the distant past, and mentioned with kindest feelings the friends and acquaintances of his early manhood. he spoke of mrs. murdoch's death, and cast a significant glance towards the room where his wife lay. "she will soon be awa too," he said, "and i maun follow at no distant day. weel, that is the way in this warld; in the ither warld there will be nae mair removes. we shall meet and ken our freends there, jamie. do ye think our freends will be the first to greet us on the ither shore?" "perhaps so," said jamie, speaking guardedly. "maybe it is a queer fancy, but i hae been thinking aboot your mither: how when she came to that blest land we read of she would, perhaps, feel strange; and then she might see wullie beckoning to her; and she would gang to him, and he would lead her to the dear lord he lo'ed sae weel while on earth; and the lord himsel would put a crown on her head. you see," said he, by way of apology or explanation, "whiles my mind taks to thinking o' sic things now. the warld isna lang for me, and yet it is pleasant to my auld een. the spring is bonny, and simmer-time is bonnier still; but autumn minds me o' auld age, and hard by are the frosts o' winter and death. your faither had no fear o' death. i hae had mony a talk wi' him, and they hae dune me gude. lang may scotland hae sic men reared amang her sons o' toil, for even there they hae an influence that maun be felt." jamie went to mrs. lindsay's bedside to speak to her. "i am right glad to see ye ance mair, jamie. sit ye doun, and speak a wee to your auld freend." but jamie could say but little: the scene recalled his mother's sick-bed. mrs. lindsay understood his feelings. "ay, your mither is awa," said she, "and i am gaen soon. this life maun come to an end wi' us a'. nae doot it is weel wi' your mither; and i trust in the mercy o' god, through jesus christ, that it will be weel wi' me. it was honest wullie wha helped me to lose the fear o' death. he often spoke to the gude-man and mysel o' spiritual things." the next day, as james murdoch was speeding on towards his own home, many thoughts filled his mind, but uppermost was this one: "will my life be as fruitful in good works as my step-father's was? after all of me that is mortal has turned to dust, will any say of me as they say of him, 'he helped me on in the way to heaven'?" chapter xxii. changes. there were hurried footsteps and coming and going one rainy night at the home of the lindsays. it was not the evening of alice's marriage, for hallowmas was long past, and alice was far away. there had been a quiet wedding, for all had thought merriment out of place in a house so soon to become a house of mourning. the grandmother was feeble still, and would be so until the mortal should put on immortality; but it was the grandfather about whom all were anxious on that gloomy night. he had been seized with sudden illness, and lay speechless and unconscious. not one of the household had retired to rest. davie and jeannie were there. robert had gone for the doctor, and all were anxiously waiting for his arrival. "it is a lang way," said davie, "and the roads are heavy wi' the rain. ye maun hae patience." but it was not easy to be patient. again and again did one and another look out into the darkness and listen, but heard only the fast-falling rain. "if only sandy had been here to go," said belle. "robert is but a young lad to be out this dark night." but sandy was in edinburgh. "robert will do as weel as onybody," said davie. "i might hae gane mysel, if had kenned ye would be worried about the lad; but hae nae fears for robert; he'll come hame safe and sound." archie lindsay sat by his father's bedside. margaret, his sister, was constantly passing from one sick-room to the other. mrs. lindsay suspected that something had happened to her husband. "what is wrang wi' your faither?" she asked. margaret vainly endeavored to quiet her apprehensions. "ye needna say your faither isna muckle seck, maggie. what else would keep ye a' out o' your beds? i maun see him for mysel." finding that she could not be quieted, her two children carried her to her husband's bedside. she gazed on the face to which the light of reason would never more return. "wae is me! wae is me!" she exclaimed. "he is gaen, and gaen as his faither did before him. oh, that i, wha hae been sae long on the brink o' the grave, s'ould live to see him taen awa!" her children persuaded her to return to her own room, promising to inform her if any change should take place. the doctor came, but his remedies were of no avail. mr. lindsay passed away at dawn. margaret, true to her promise, communicated the sad intelligence to her mother as soon as she awoke. mrs. lindsay spoke not a word. she raised her eyes and stretched her hands upward; then the hands fell and the eyes closed; her heart had ceased to beat. margaret lindsay had been a most dutiful daughter. as long as her parents lived she had devoted herself to their care and comfort. now that they were gone, she became a member of her brother's family. little annie shared her aunt's room, for the child had been very lonely since alice went away. she sometimes relieved the hours of their tediousness by going to her uncle davie's to play with the twins. many an hour did she amuse both herself and them, much to the satisfaction of her aunt jeannie, whose duties were neither few nor light. annie was fond of books and study, like her brother sandy. since he had been in edinburgh he had written to his little sister, telling her how much he desired her to study, and how pleasant it was to read and gain knowledge. very proud was she when she had written a letter to him in a neat, legible hand. "alexander looks nicer than sandy," she said, looking at the address, "but i like the sound of sandy better." while alexander was in edinburgh, studying under his uncle's direction, robert lindsay was fast attaining a man's stature. he had no taste for farm-work, but he liked to handle tools, and was never tired of machinery. "he'll no make a farmer, that is plain to be seen," said his father, "and he might as well do what he likes best." but his mother, loath to spare another child from home, managed to hold the matter in check for a short time. finally he became so restless that his parents consented to let him go to glasgow, where his sister alice lived, that he might gratify his inclination in some of the many mills and machine-shops of that busy city. the house seemed lonely when he was gone; and well it might, for in no very long time five had left the home circle. so dull was it that isabel prevailed on davie to let his son jamie, who had for some time been employed on the farm, live with her altogether, so that the evenings might not seem quite so long. annie did not at first like him in robert's place, for he teased her slyly in many ways. if she laid down her knitting he would manage to tangle the yarn or draw out some of the needles. he misplaced her bookmarks, and pretended to rub out her sums. but that was only his way of noticing her, for, after all, he loved to please her, and he brought her all the queer or pretty things he found in the woods or fields. she reproved him one day when he brought her some bird's eggs. "o jamie!" she exclaimed, "how could you do sic a thing? you hae robbed a bird's nest." "nae, i didna," he replied. "the auld bird is dead. a sportsman maun hae shot her. i kenned long ago where the nest was, and the mother-bird hasna been there these mony days. nae, i wouldna rob a bird's nest even for you, annie." the twins often came to see annie as soon as they were old enough, and they were always welcome at aunt belle's. they bid fair to have the good sense of their parents, with more beauty. davie was never too busy to stop and speak to his little daughters as they passed him at his work. archie had grown to be a big boy, and was a great help to his mother. but he had a great aversion to in-door work, and he longed for the day when maggie and nannie should take his place, and he work in the fields like other lads. time soon granted the boy's wish. davie murdoch had no more bairns to trot upon his knee; and jeannie was heard to remark, "it taks mair cloth to mak gowns for baith lassies than to mak ane for mysel." chapter xxiii. robin in america. while these changes were taking place in the other families, annie mcpherson's children were not standing still. thomas macduff had long sought the hand of jennie, but she had kept him alternating between hope and fear. "he is nae better than ither folk," said she, "if he is a minister's son. if i wanted a sweetheart i could find mony a laddie as good as himsel any day in the week." "she is a chip of the old block," said donald to his wife. but finally she concluded that he was better than other laddies, and consented to become his wife. the light-hearted, fun-loving mcphersons had a merry wedding. jokes and laughter were not wanting on that day, and these were not frowned upon even by the good minister, the bridegroom's father. "the bible tells us there is a time to be merry," said he, "and what time is more fitting than a wedding-day?" thomas macduff taught a village school in a neighboring town, and thither he took his wife. robin still remained at home, but every passing year had added strength to his desire to go to america. he read of its boundless extent, its fertile soil, its sources of wealth, and the facility with which a home and competence could be acquired, and nothing would satisfy him but to go there. scotland was well enough for those who wished to live and die in the same cottage, he said; but he wanted a better chance. his parents looked with disapprobation on his plans and wishes, but he could not be turned from his purpose. "i will make a man that you will not be ashamed of," said he. "some day you will think i hae as muckle sense as ither folk." dame mckay having been laid in her last resting-place, her son was free to carry into effect his long-cherished desire to emigrate to america. he and robin would go together. he had saved enough money to pay his passage. robin also had some money; and when his father became convinced that nothing could keep him at home, he generously supplied him with as much more as he needed to pay his passage and defray his expenses until he should earn a support in the new country, or bring him back to scotland if his anticipations should not be realized. as the time for departure drew near, serious faces and sad hearts were in the home of the mcphersons. robin tried to dissipate their sadness. "ye needna wear sic lang faces," said he. "america is nae longer thought to be the end o' the earth. wha kens but i may graw rich there, and come back and mak a' the lairds lift their bonnets to me?" "oh, my puir bairn," said his mother, "mair likely ye willna ken what a hame is in that farawa land. ye will be gaen aboot frae place to place, and naebody will think o' your comfort." "hoot, mither! as for a hame, i will get ane for mysel, and a yankee wife will think of my comfort." but when the tender-hearted robin came to say adieu to father, mother, brother, and sister, it was all he could do to control his feelings. and there were his aged grandparents whom he could not expect to see again; he must say to them a last good-by. he thought it would be easier to speak his farewells hurriedly and hasten away. but they detained him to give their last words of counsel. douce donald looked very grave. taking the young man's hand, he said, "robin, i hae been young, and i am noo auld. i hae learned mony things by experience, sae hear a ward frae your grandfaither. dinna sow any wild oats; ye wunna want to reap them. dinna meddle wi' the wine-cup; it will bring ye doun below the beasties that perish. never gang at sic a gait as i hae dune in my younger days, for ye may never rin against ony honest wullie wha will help ye back to the right way. god bless thee, robin! may he keep thy foot frae falling and thine ee frae tears!" the grandmother then approached, her strong face quivering with emotion. "your grandfaither has said what was in my mind to say. i will add only one thing. pray to the great and gude father that he will guide your feet in wisdom's ways, which are ways of pleasantness, and in her paths, which are paths of peace. then shall we meet in that bonny warld, the shores o' which your grandparents are now nearing. fare ye weel." robin was quite overcome; he could hardly trust his voice to reply. he stepped quickly from the door, said a last good-by, and drove away, not venturing to look back. separation from friends is often less felt by those who go out into the world than by those who remain at home. it was so in this case. robin met geordie mckay, as had been arranged, and the two young men set out together. their minds were diverted by new scenes and bright anticipations; but it was not so at home. annie mcpherson gathered up every article that had been her son's, and laid them all away with tender touches, as if handling the relics of the dead. many a sigh escaped her motherly bosom, and the very things he had often left in her way, and on account of which she had found fault with him, were now gently lifted, and invested almost with sacredness. all missed him as well as the mother. the father was unusually busy in order to divert his mind; the grandfather took his cane and walked far beyond the out-buildings--a thing he had not done for many a day; the grandmother lay down for her accustomed nap, but soon returned unrefreshed to her chair. "i canna sleep the day," she said. when evening came and all the household gathered around the hearth, robin was their theme, and day after day the missing link of the family chain was held in remembrance and mentioned with tenderness. when, however, there came a letter stating that he had arrived safely in new york, they felt relieved and comforted. he had written that he should start immediately for the broad west, to secure a home amid its fertile lands. and when he wrote that he and geordie had each taken a homestead for almost nothing, and were living alone in a little log-cabin, and reported how easily they turned the soil, that there were no stones, that the climate was delightful, and that abundance of game could be had for the taking--those left at home began to think better of the venture. "maybe," said they, "it wasna a fulish notion after a'." robin had indeed, in good earnest, set about making a home; but the second part of his vaunt, a wife to keep it, seemed less likely to be accomplished. "lassies are but few here," said geordie. "i doot if ye find ane to suit your notion for a lang while, robin." "i wouldna want ane to come to this place just now," replied robin. "i must first get my farm in good condition, and save my siller and build a house; then i would have a better chance wi' the lassies." geordie mckay was no whit behind robin in industry and thrift. both worked early and late. in a few years they had well-cultivated farms, horses and cattle, and each a very good house. having prepared their cages, they were not long in finding birds to occupy them. a neighboring farmer who had two grown daughters soon became father-in-law to the two thrifty scotchmen. thus in the midst of abundance such as they had never seen in the old world did these two young men pass their days in cheerful labor, looking forward to the possibilities of the future, and glad that they had left a narrow world, too old to change its ways. many a time, when venison, prairie-chicken, or a rabbit steamed on their well-supplied tables, did the circumstance of the stolen hare present itself to their memory, and geordie thought of his pale, pinched mother, whose wants could not always be supplied. often did they talk of home, of bonny scotland, and the friends they left behind them. robin dearly loved his kindred across the water; and when he received tidings of the death of his grandfather, and afterwards of his grandmother, he sighed that he should have no more kindly messages from these aged relatives. he often wondered what his parents would say if they could see the great country in which he had chosen a home. in his letters he pictured his surroundings in glowing colors. these letters were eagerly read and their contents told over. they fell on the ears of one more interested than the others, and that one was davie murdoch's jamie. he knew that his parents would not care to have him feel any special interest in that subject, so he concealed his thoughts for a time, but they were like a smouldering fire in his bosom. chapter xxiv. over land and sea. four years after robert lindsay left home he returned for a visit. he was now a millwright. he had not only mastered his trade, but he had surprised his employers by his originality and inventive genius. satisfied with what he had accomplished, he thought himself entitled to a holiday. there was joy in the old farmhouse when robert arrived. after all the others had greeted him annie came forward, put her arms about his neck, and kissed him. "now that is what i call a bit partial," said her cousin james, her warm friend and her unceasing tormentor. "here i hae been gaen in and out o' this house for three years and mair, and annie has never gien me a kiss." "ye will gang in and out three years mair and i winna do it," said she, laughing, while a blush mantled her cheek at jamie's unexpected complaint. "na, annie, i willna be here three years mair, kiss or no kiss. i will be awa to robin in america." "ye are joking now," said aunt belle. "not a bit of it. there is nae need o' three strang lads hanging about one small hame. wullie does the ploughing, archie can take my place, and i can very well be spared. ye should hear, robert, how robin writes about that country." "now, dinna put it into his heid next," said mrs. lindsay. "if there is gude fortune to be had for the taking, i might as weel hae it as ither people," said robert, casting a wistful glance at the supper table. travelling had made him hungry, and a whiff from one of the steaming dishes sharpened his appetite. the mother announced supper, and all gathered at the table. robert was the hero of the evening: he talked while others listened. he told them how pleasantly alice was situated, and spoke well of her husband. "alice deserves to do weel," said the mother. "she was aye a dutiful daughter, and i mak no doubt she is a gude wife as weel." robert's holidays passed so quickly that when they were gone all wished he had but just come. "i am not done thinking about america," said he, as he was about to leave. "here i may work for ither people all the days of my life; there i might build a mill, and own it myself in the bargain. if jamie murdoch goes he will not go alone." davie murdoch soon became aware that his son was making plans to leave home and kindred and follow robin to america. he was heavy-hearted, for he knew that jamie would sooner or later accomplish what he had made up his mind to do. "it has a' come o' robin's roving notions," said he to his wife. "hoo can i let jamie gang? he is the cleverest lad i hae; and he is o'er young to gang that far." "i would be muckle grieved to part wi' him," said jeannie, "but i canna blame the lad. what would he do here but herd sheep, or haud the pleugh for ither people? while in america he could shear his ain sheep, and guide his ain pleugh on his ain land. if i was young i would gang mysel." "hoot, woman!" said davie, "dinna let the lad hear ye talk in that fashion. i am glad i hae nae sic notions. i am content to live and dee as my faither did before me. if i am as muckle respeckit as he was, i shall hae honor eneuch, and i am sure we dinna suffer for ony o' the necessaries o' life." "that is true, davie, but young people canna be content wi' auld ways. if our sons could do better for themselves than we can do for them, i wouldna haud them back." davie heaved a sigh, put on his bonnet, and went out to his accustomed toil. the subject of america was never long undiscussed in the little cottage circle. every time jamie came home he was sure to introduce it. "do ye not fare weel eneuch wi' archie lindsay?" asked his father. "ay, i fare weel eneuch," said jamie, "but i can never make a step forward. nothing but america will satisfy me. i am twa-and-twenty years of age, and i can make my way now if ever i can. wages are good there--twa or three dollars a day in harvest, robin says--and i could soon earn enough to buy a farm, and stock it too. there is but ane thing would keep me at hame, and that is if ye should say, 'ye shallna gang.' in that case i think i would grieve mair than you would to let me hae my way." "ye will leave us wi' sair hearts if ye gang, jamie," said his mother, "but i wouldna want a mither's feelings to stand in the way o' your success. if ye maun gang, ye hae my consent and my blessing," said she, wiping her eyes with her apron as she spoke. jamie caught the first shadow of consent, and resolved to go the following spring. before that time his cousin, robert lindsay, the millwright, had decided to go with him. the young emigrants wrote to robin that they were coming, and gained the necessary information in regard to the journey. with dim eyes and trembling fingers davie murdoch counted from his little hoard a sum which, added to his son's earnings, made the amount sufficient to defray the expenses of the journey. "and take this besides," said he as, parent-like, he laid five pounds more on the pile. "seckness may overtake you, my bairn." on the day appointed for the departure archie lindsay, who was to take jamie as well as his own son to a railway station, came to davie's cottage, accompanied by his wife and daughter; they had come to take leave of jamie. they had become much attached to him in the three years he had lived under their roof. there were no dry eyes in the cottage that morning. davie took his son's hand, held it some moments, shook his head sadly, then turned away; he could say nothing. the mother could scarcely do more. she spoke a few words of counsel; then her voice was choked with sobs. the sisters were in tears, and jamie's own eyes began to fill. he kissed his mother, his sisters, and his aunt belle. when he came to annie she proffered a kiss likewise. "weel, i hae gained this muckle, at ony rate, by gaen awa. a kiss frae annie is a thing to remember," said he, trying to make light of his sadness. time and railroad trains do not wait, and the two young men with mr. lindsay drove rapidly away. davie and his remaining sons went to their work--one to follow the plough, the other to tend the sheep on the hillside. in less than two weeks our travellers had landed in new york, purchased tickets for the west, and were speeding towards the setting sun as fast as steam could carry them. across the alleghanies, across rivers in comparison with which those of scotland were mere brooks, across states as large as kingdoms, through flourishing towns and busy cities, over far-reaching, level prairies, they hurried forward day and night, till they reached the father of waters, and crossed it. still westward pursuing their course a day's journey, they reached at last their destination. if the parting with home and friends was sad, the meeting with their cousin in america was very joyful. robin, with a fine pair of horses, was at the station awaiting their arrival. taking them and their trunks into his wagon, he drove away across the level prairie towards his own home. to the new-comers the country seemed a paradise. far as their sight could reach a vast expanse of living green met their delighted eyes. fields of waving grain, miles in extent, gave varied tints to the verdant landscape. herds of sleek-haired cattle grazed on the unfenced fields of luxuriant prairie-grass. all around them flowers of scarlet, purple, gold, pure white, and delicate intermediate tints dotted the green enamel, glowed in the sunlight, nodded a welcome, or bowed their graceful stems in the breeze that undulated the ocean of green. never had they conceived that earth in her primeval garb was so magnificent. beyond answering a few simple questions about the friends at home, they could talk and think of nothing but the beauties of nature spread out before them. many miles they rode across this varying and yet uniform garden; and when at length they reached the homestead a warm western welcome awaited them. "it is a braw hame ye hae," said jamie, "and i am muckle pleased wi' all i see. but how is it that ye dinna speak your ain language? hae ye grawn ashamed of your mither-tongue? naebody would ken ye were a scotchman at a'." "no, i am not ashamed of it," said robin, with a smile; "but it wears away after a while, where no one speaks that way. you will lose your scotch too, jamie; but it has done me good to hear you talk. it seems like a bit of scotland, and i like you better for it." geordie mckay was not slow to visit and welcome his fellow-countrymen. he, too, thought of his old home across the waves, and his heart warmed towards it as he heard the familiar speech of his boyhood. the new-comers went to work with a will, and at the end of three years james murdoch had a farm of his own. he had bought improved land near his cousin robin's. robert lindsay had built or helped to build two mills, and then he had gone to a fine wheat-producing region, where he was building a mill for himself. when jamie had the deed of his farm in his hands he went to spend the evening at robin's. "i have made the last payment to-day," said he. "i own a hundred and sixty acres of land, and i am a happy man." "that is more than you would ever have called your own in the old country," said robin. "you are right in that. i have succeeded even beyond my expectation; nevertheless i long for a sight of the faces i left in the far-away cottage." "and do you not think i too have such a longing?" "i suppose you have; but you have a wife and bairns. you can scarcely miss the old friends as i do." "you must take a wife too, jamie." "if i could find a lass as good and as bonny as my cousin annie, i might try to win her hand." "cousin annie--ay, she was but young when i left the old country; but i mind she was fair to look at, and a pleasant child too. i wonder how they all look there now." jamie was not very long in finding a lass who would have compared not unfavorably with his cousin annie. she was a cousin of robin's wife, and the beautiful affection cherished for each other by these two families of cousins could scarcely have been equalled by any two brothers in the land. the grass was not suffered to grow upon the path between their pleasant homes. they loved to meet and talk of their old homes across the waters--of their dead as well as of their living friends. robin could well remember his grandfather, honest wullie, but jamie could recall him only in his last days. he remembered how alice lindsay had tried to comfort his brother wullie and himself when they first knew they were to lose their grandfather. often, when thinking and talking of such things, they formed plans to go and see their relatives and the dear familiar scenes so far away. the prospect was still in the distance; but when they should become sufficiently prosperous they expected to make the journey. chapter xxv. sunday; the last day with our friends. it was sunday in the early summer, and sunday in scotland means more than it does in some countries. children go to church with their parents through summer's heat and winter's cold; and in many families the greater portion of the time after service is spent with bibles or psalm-books in hand. davie murdoch had been to church with his family. as they returned home he and his wife walked together; maggie and nannie were some distance in advance of their parents, and still farther on were wullie and archie. "i canna help feeling a bit proud o' the lassies," said davie, "they look sae fresh and weel the day. are they not as bonny and as sonsie as ony parent could wish?" "oh, ay, davie, they are that. but it is strange ye arena thinking o' what the minister said, as is your wont." "i mind weel what he said, wifie; but i hae been thinking a good deal o' late o' the time not far awa when the lassies will nae longer be ours as they hae been; when we shall walk withoot them to the kirk, and they will gang anither road, and nae mair ca' the auld cot hame. so i maun enjoy their stay wi' us while i may." "they winna gang for some months yet; dinna fash yoursel aboot that the day. ye couldna expect them to bide always wi' us. wullie will soon bring a wife hame; and it is weel that the lassies hae sic gude prospects o' hames o' their ain." "ay, it is weel; but they hae always been a bit nearer my heart than the laddies. jamie comes next; but he is awa. jamie is doing weel, by what we hear." "noo, davie, i am nae like that. of course ane feels mair tender o' lassies than o' laddies. then wi' jamie bein' awa, i hae times when i feel a bit tenderer for him too; but i couldna wish better sons than wullie and archie. and gin onything happened to them, i think ye would find oot they are as dear to your heart as ony o' your bairns." "nae doot, nae doot. it is but a notion, after a'. archie says he willna marry--leastways, while his parents live. he says he wants to be aye free to help us, s'ould there be ony need o' 't. saw ye ever mair thoughtfulness than that, jeannie?" "may the lord bless him for his dutiful regard for his auld faither and mither!" said jeannie. they had now reached the cottage. the daughters had spread the table, and as soon as all were rested a little they sat down to their frugal meal. let us look in at the open cottage-door. as davie doffs his bonnet we can see that time has not passed him by, although it has dealt him no heavy blows. the crown of his head is bald, and his locks are flecked with the frosts of age. his brow is furrowed, but not deeply. beside him sits jeannie, her silver hair peeping from beneath her cap-border. her cheerful face wears now a seriousness befitting the sabbath day. she sits as erect as in her prime, save when grace is said; then all heads are bowed. the sons sit on one side of the table and the daughters on the other. wullie is not remarkable for good looks, unless we take the adjective in its moral sense; then it certainly would apply to him, for his countenance indicates a good and upright character. archie's form and features are more pleasing than his brother's. he is naturally cheerful and talkative; but every semblance of mirth is now under proper restraint through respect for the day, and he appears as sedate as though he never cracked a joke or teased his sisters in all his life. maggie, tall and well formed, is fair, with bluish gray eyes and wavy brown hair. she is less ruddy than her sister, whose red lips and rosy cheeks would give her the advantage in regard to beauty but for the plainly perceptible national mark--high cheek-bones. otherwise there is a close resemblance between the two. "it is well there is some difference," archie had remarked, "or your sweethearts would make funny mistakes sometimes." sunday was strictly observed by the lindsays also; but only one of their children was at home on that day, or indeed on any day; that one was annie. but the others had not forgotten their early training; and, scattered as they were, and charged with the cares and responsibilities of active life, they had all been in god's house. alice, happy in her family, and satisfied with the allotments of providence, is training up her children in the fear and admonition of the lord. alexander has finished his course of study, and is following his uncle's profession in the capital. and where is jennie macduff? she too has been at the old church with her husband to hear his aged father expound the word of god. so donald mcpherson's pew was filled, although his father and mother had ceased to worship here below, and had joined the general assembly and church of the firstborn in heaven. donald the third was the staff and stay of his parents, being all that they wished him to be. professor james murdoch, with his wife, his nephew, and his two sons--one a barrister, the other a physician--worshipped in a costly edifice, very unlike the homely stone structure of his early recollections. but not less devout were his feelings, for he remembered all the way the lord had led him and his kinsfolk, and he bowed in grateful acknowledgment of his goodness. across the sea were hearts that longed for a sight of the dear old kirk and of the familiar faces which on that day had turned towards the aged man of god, rev. john macduff. robin mcpherson, robert lindsay, and james murdoch had each joined god's worshippers in the land of their adoption on that sabbath morning. in the afternoon robin and james walked out "to meditate in the field at the eventide" and contemplate the goodness of him who sends seedtime and harvest; and, meeting as if by mutual consent at the fence which separated their little domains, they talked of the day and its observance in scotland, of their far-away friends, and of a future meeting with them, perhaps in this world; but if not, they hoped to spend with them a never-ending sabbath. and here i close my story. in tracing the life of this scottish peasant i have endeavored to show that a righteous man, even in a humble sphere, exerts an influence for good which remains to bless those who come after him; and that not only is he blessed in his day and generation, but the blessing extends to children's children. effie patterson's story. by lydia l. rouse. introduction. this book has been written with a view of helping to perpetuate the memory of those zealous and courageous sons of scotland who in the seventeenth century, through the long period of fifty years, struggled for their inalienable rights and privileges--their civil and religious liberty. although every reader of history is more or less familiar with the events which transpired during this struggle, it may be well, for the sake of our younger readers, to give something of an outline of their course, as well as of the causes which led to them. the persecuted people of scotland were presbyterians, having embraced the doctrines of the great reformer john knox. but they are widely known by the name of covenanters, because on several distinct occasions they signed a solemn agreement, or covenant, to adhere to their religious principles and to defend them against all opposition. successive kings endeavored to force them to admit the royal claim to supreme authority in matters of religion and to adopt the episcopal form of church government and worship; but the scotch were faithful to their conscience and their covenant, and the attempted interference with their religion engendered bitter animosity which ripened into open hostility. the kings under whose reigns the covenanters suffered were charles i., charles ii., and james ii.; but as early as the reign of james i. the royal power was unfriendly to presbyterianism as offering too formidable a check to kingly despotism. the history of this time, as regards the treatment of the dissenting scots, is the history of a succession of tyrannies and cruelties that culminated in the reigns of charles ii. and james ii. edicts having failed to accomplish the wish of the king and his advisers, armed men were sent into scotland to enforce conformity with the sword. some battles were fought, in which the persecutors were generally victorious. the dissenting pastors were driven from the parish churches, and episcopalian ministers, or curates, many of whom were ignorant and vicious, were placed in their pulpits. but the scots had no mind to hear them, and rather than adopt doctrines and modes of worship which in any degree savored of popery, they followed their spiritual guides into the fields, and there heard the word of god expounded as they had been wont. these field-meetings, called "conventicles," were contrary to the wishes of the king, and ministration or attendance at them was prohibited by law, and declared punishable by fine, imprisonment, or exile, and even in some cases death. but the liberty-loving, conscience-obeying covenanters continued to hold them whenever opportunity offered, sometimes in remote districts, sometimes in almost inaccessible places. the covenanters suffered great loss of property through fines and taxations. robberies and barbarities almost unparalleled were perpetrated by the highland hordes that were quartered on the southwestern part of scotland for three months in the beginning of . still, however, the brave hearts of the heaven-trusting covenanters were unbroken and their spirit unsubdued. they were hunted like criminals; but they either evaded their pursuers or met death with composure and willingness, esteeming it preferable to apostasy. they have left us many striking proofs of god's sustaining grace. living in dens and caves of the earth, suffering from cold and hunger, cut off from intercourse with their families, and even with their fellow-beings, many of them became zealots, and advocated measures which the more prudent could not approve; and thus dissensions arose in their midst and increased the difficulties of their situation. we can scarcely be surprised at this state of things when we remember their privations, their solitude, and their sufferings; their ideas took color and shape from their surroundings. no wonder that some of them were extremists. the husband and father was no longer soothed by the music of the wife's soft lullaby to the infant resting on her knee, and the constant youth heard only in imagination the sweet sound of the voice he most loved. but their ears were assailed by the ungentle sound of the wintry wind as it roared in the tossing tree-tops or moaned over the dreary moors. with sad hearts they pictured their firesides as they had been in other days, and wondered if they should outlive the storm and again find rest in the peace of home. we cannot read of these worthy people, who suffered so much for conscience' sake, without feeling thankful for the religious liberty which their struggles helped to secure for us, and rejoicing that the day of religious persecution is past. and when we consider the vast number that perished rather than barter the favor of god for that of an earthly sovereign, we are filled with admiration as well as sympathy. effie patterson's story. chapter i. the home circle. long have i been called by my neighbors "auld effie," and yet i am but threescore and seven years old. but i have lived in troublous times, and am older than my years. and although the kirk of scotland has had rest these many years, auld effie's heart is still sore. my kinsfolk need not now lay down their lives for conscience' sake; but, alas! few of them were left to me when those years of bloodshed were overpast. it is for those dear friends who were cut down in the bloom of youth, in manhood's prime, and even in old age, that i often make moan. and i hold it to be a sacred duty to keep in remembrance our martyred kindred and countrymen. it is with the wish and hope that the tales i have to tell may help to keep before the minds of scotland's sons and daughters the value of their religious privileges that i have in this the evening of my days taken upon myself the task to write as best i can, with my poor wit, my own experience and the sufferings of my family and friends during those terrible years. i was born in in the county of ayr; here have i lived, and here, may it please god, i will die. my father, john patterson, was the schoolmaster in our village. my mother was one christie henderson, from dumfries. her parents came to our town when she was a grown lass; two years later she wedded my father. i was the youngest bairn born to them. three sons and a daughter besides myself completed our family. my sister's name was mary, and my brothers were named james, richard and stephen; but to us they were jamie, richie, and steenie. my father was a man of strictest integrity, firm and stern. perhaps the habit of ruling his little school made him more stern than he naturally was; at any rate, he seldom smiled, and he never indulged in frivolous conversation. our noisy play was instantly checked when our father entered the house; not so much from fear as from respect, for my father was a man to command respect. after the lapse of so many years i still think of him as the embodiment of all that is good, true, and noble. but we look at our friends with partial eyes, and i doubt not many have thought as well of their own father. my mother was truly a fit companion for him, although she thought him far superior to herself. she had a profound respect for him at all times; almost every important question concerning the management of domestic affairs she brought to him for his opinion or decision. "use your own judgment, christie," he would often say; "it will never lead you far astray." it is surprising what cheerfulness and comfort my mother diffused throughout our household. she was constantly employed; and i may say without exaggeration that, owing to her tact and taste, no family of our means made so decent an appearance in the kirk as did ours. nothing could be more serene than her own face as with her whole family she sat in the kirk listening to the word of god as it was read and expounded by our spiritual leader. i could not but steal looks at her sometimes when she thought my eyes were where hers were--on the face of the speaker. she was not what one would call bonnie, but it was a right motherly face she had. the children were early sent to school, for my father sought to impress our minds with the idea that we were in the world to be useful workers, and not idlers; and to fit us for usefulness he held education to be the chief means. when not in school we were always busy in the house or in the garden, for all the work of the family was done by its own members. our home was well out of the village; we owned a house and garden, and rented some land forbye, for we aye kept cows and sheep. my mother had been reared in the country. she made butter and cheese; she spun and wove the wool of our flocks into cloth, and made the garments for our family with her own hands until her daughters were old enough to help her. my father worked in the garden; and he early taught his sons to handle the spade and the hoe. all worked from dawn to dark; and when the evening lamp was lighted my father or one of the lads read, while my mother sewed and mary and i were busy with the family knitting. we were kept in school longer than most children were, for my father thought it a shame for any one to be ignorant, and would not be satisfied till all his children could write their mother-tongue as it should be written. ours was a well-ordered home, and a happy one, till the troubles of the times brought sorrow into almost all the homes of scotland. chapter ii. the beginning of sorrows. while i was yet young i often heard people talk about the troubles that had beset, and were likely still to befall, the kirk of scotland. as i grew older i comprehended what was meant by the troubles of the kirk, for it was my lot to live through one period of her persecution, and to see her deliverance in the lord's own good time. troubles assailed the kirk during the greater part of the long reign of james vi. of scotland and i. of england. he had no love for presbyterianism, and endeavored to establish episcopacy among us; and many a faithful minister bore imprisonment or banishment for the truth and conscience' sake. charles i. was even more self-willed than his father. he could not endure that we should have a church different from his own, or that the king's will should not rule in all things. in he ordered a new and popish service-book to be used in the scottish churches instead of the liturgy of john knox, which had been in use for many years. our people could not accept it. they humbly petitioned the king that they might be allowed to worship god in their own way; but he paid no heed to their petition, except to strive the more to force episcopacy upon us. seeing that our religious liberty was threatened, the scottish people signed a solemn agreement, called "the national covenant," pledging themselves before god to adhere to the pure doctrine of his word as confessed by the scottish kirk, and to defend it and each other against all attacks. this covenant was first signed in grayfriars kirk and kirkyard in edinburgh on february of the year . my father was in the prime of life at the time of the signing of the covenant. he did not go to edinburgh with the vast throng that came from far and near to sign it--and folk say that many of them wrote their names with their own blood--but that did not prevent him from putting his name to it, for copies of it were carried through the whole country. gentle and simple signed it, and he was not slow to set his name with those of so many of his fellow-countrymen. from this time a cloud of war began to form and gather blackness. when it appeared that the king was resolved to enforce obedience to himself by the sword, our people, convinced of their duty to obey god rather than man, made preparations to insure their liberty of conscience. my father's occupation prevented him from enrolling his name as a soldier. but he was no disinterested spectator of his country's troubles. many were the consultations held under our own roof at the time of the first uprising of the covenanters; many a "god-speed" did he bid those who went, and many a prayer did he put up for those who should stand in battle. the first army was soon disbanded, as you will remember; for king charles, seeing our forces so strong, made concessions to meet the demands of our people, though that these were made in good faith it would be difficult to believe. peace, indeed, lasted but a short time. the king, displeased with the decision of the general assembly condemning episcopacy in scotland, gathered another army; and again the covenanters took the field. this time they advanced into england, and their success prepared the way for a treaty with the king, which was concluded in . meanwhile the great conflict ending in civil war broke out between charles and the english parliament, and gave him something to do nearer home; and the spread of presbyterianism in england, together with the "solemn league and covenant" for its defence and for the protection of the liberties of the kingdoms which the english parliament and its adherents made with our scotch nobles and people in , freed our kirk from molestation during a period of several years. on the civil struggles of that period, and on the dissensions within the kirk itself, between the stricter and the laxer covenanters, which followed the lamented execution of king charles, the coronation of his son in scotland, his defeat and flight, and the establishment of cromwell in power over scotland as over england, i will not dwell. with the welcome period of civil peace between and begin my recollections. between these peaceful years my brothers jamie and richie married. jamie was a stonemason. he bought a lot in the village and built a comfortable house for himself, so that he took his bonnie bride to a home of her own. richie followed his father's profession. he and his wife lived seven miles away from us. mary was betrothed to our own parish minister, alexander ramsay by name; and in june, , a year before charles ii. was restored to his father's throne, they two were married. steenie and i were then left to each other, and well were we satisfied with each other's companionship. at the time of my sister's marriage i was a strong, well-grown lass of thirteen, and steenie was nearly two years older. oh, when i think of those early years, and remember all that steenie and others were to me, i feel that my heart has long lain low with them in the darkness of the grave. no days now are like those days; no sunshine so bright, no air so soft and balmy. even the flowers seem changed. i think of those dear friends as i sit alone in the gloaming, and my tears often fall fast, although i feel sure that theirs are dried for ever. but human nature is weak, you know, and god knows it too; this is my comfort, for he will not think that my tears are rebellious. i cannot pass over that pleasant period of our lives without again speaking in detail of our family as it then was. my father was slightly bent, though more with a scholar's stoop than under the weight of years. his locks were silvered, but his eye was bright and his judgment sound. he still taught the lads and lassies of the village, and he ruled them well. my mother showed age less than my father. i remember well how all our family looked when jamie's firstborn was first taken to the kirk. my mother appeared saintly in her peacefulness. margaret, the bairn's mother, was much affected with the solemnity of the occasion--bringing her young bairn for the first time up to the house of god. her heart was full of prayer that grace might be given her to bring him at last to the home of the blest above. margaret and my mother were much alike, and were drawn together sympathetically. richie and ellen, his bride, were also there. she wore a white dress and a knot of wild roses at her throat. she looked very sweet and innocent. sister mary had dressed with unusual care. she wore blue; it suited her well. she could see that in the wee mirror that hung in our own tidy room. besides, had not alexander ramsay told her so? and was not that enough for mary? dear mary! hers was a winsome smile, and her step was like the fall of the snowflake, as my mother well said. i can see her now with my mental vision, as by the side of alexander she walked that day from the kirk to margaret's door. poor gentle one! she was a sweet blossom tenderly nourished, only to be rudely crushed in the freshness of her bloom. in summer we sometimes spent the time between the morning and afternoon service in the kirkyard. many a time have steenie and i strayed side by side to its farthest limits deciphering the quaint epitaphs on the rough, weather-beaten stones, only recalled from our ramble by a sight of the blue bonnet of the tall bell-ringer as he passed to his duty. ay, ay, those sabbaths, how they throng in my memory! peacefully they began, peacefully they ended, the busy weeks intervening--busy, but not wearisome, for willing hands make labor light. often when our work was done steenie and i rambled far away at the sunset hour, for we loved to watch the setting from the brae on the farther side of the great hill that rises to the west of us. sometimes, in returning, we went to david mcdougal's. his was a good and happy family, and none better knew their bibles. but after our sister was married we oftener turned our steps towards the manse, the abode of peace, love, and contentment. i often think eden is most nearly restored to us in the homes of well-ordered families, where industry and unity of purpose prevail, where god is feared, and mankind regarded as a brotherhood. i would fain linger amid these pleasant scenes, but i cannot. the peaceful years sped on far too fast for what was to follow. chapter iii. the sword unsheathed. soon after charles ii. was seated on the throne troubles began to thicken around us. our kirk was early made to feel that it must either come under the yoke of a king as faithless and despotic and as determined to enforce the royal supremacy and episcopacy as his father and grandfather, or struggle for its independence, or rather, its liberty to regard and obey our lord jesus christ as the true and only head of the church. the marquis of argyle, one of the noblest supporters of our cause, was arrested, condemned, and beheaded on the th of may, . the excellent minister, james guthrie, was executed a few days later. this was the commencement of deeds so foul that even the stoutest of heart must ever sicken at their rehearsal. most of our ministers were ejected from their churches and driven from their parishes, alexander ramsay with the rest. he and mary and his father and mother took refuge at our house. curates were placed in the vacant churches, and a tax was soon imposed on all who did not go to hear them. absences were not uncommon, for we all felt as did bessie mcdougal, who said she "couldna thole sic preaching as thae curates gie us." accordingly we went to hear our own ministers in the field. the royal bloodhounds, as they have been well called, were for some time kept at bay by the payment of fines; but there came a time when nothing would satisfy them but the slaughter of the lord's chosen ones. we knew that gangs of men were scouring the country, imprisoning, and sometimes even slaying, those who would not renounce the covenant, now declared treasonable; and we knew not how soon we might fall into their hands. my father was one day returning from school, leading jamie's wee lad by the hand, when five of his countrymen, who had been bribed to do evil deeds, rode past him. suddenly they wheeled about, faced him, and eyed him sharply. "by my faith," said one of their number, "we hae lighted on rare game the day. now we hae the auld deil himsel," mistaking father for donald ramsay, who had been a bearer of the blessed tidings of the gospel for more than forty years in our kirk. it was vain for father to tell them that he was the village schoolmaster. they would not believe him. he had a learned look, and piety was stamped on every lineament of his face. the persecutors were not slow to discern between the true and the false. those who counted the cause of christ dearer than life showed in their countenances something of the holy zeal that lifted them above fear. "ye say ye are nae auld ramsay; then where is he? for it is hereabouts he bides," said the same ruffian. father was silent. "if ye canna tell where he is, we will hae to think ye are auld ramsay yoursel. ye may as weel gang to prayer, for if ye dinna gie up your obstinacy ye may soon measure your length here on the heath." wee jamie did not fully comprehend; but thinking that evil was about to befall his grandfather because he was taken for another, he called out, "auld minister ramsay bides wi' us, down at grandfather's." "do ye tell us fause, ye young whelp?" said one, and he shook the bairn roughly. "alas! jamie, you should have held your peace," said my father. "ye needna chide the bairn, for we will hunt out a' the ranting covenanters in ayrshire, that i can pledge ye," said another. "that is, if you will be allowed," said father. "haud your auld tongue!" he retorted. father had a mind to turn in another direction, and so lead the soldiers away from his own house. he stood a moment irresolute. but jamie, anxious to escape, ran forward, calling out, "are ye nae coming home, grandfather?" "follow the lad," said the leader, "and we will hae to sharpen the auld man's wits wi' the prick o' a lance, since he doesna ken the raud hame." suiting the action to the word, he wounded father's right arm. all this was told us afterwards. mother saw them in the distance, and comprehended that the king's soldiers were abroad doing deeds of violence; but she did not know that her husband was a prisoner, and that they were coming directly to our house. "what shall we do if they come here!" she exclaimed. but we could do nothing but commend ourselves to the care of the heavenly keeper. alexander was studying against the field-meeting on the sabbath; his father was straining his feeble sight to read the psalms of david, and his mother sat knitting long, warm stockings against the winter's cold. mary's deft fingers were fast plying the needle, and i was seated at the wheel, the buzzing of which mingled with the sounds that came from the reapers in a neighboring field. this scene of industrious, peaceful home-life was at once changed to one of anxiety and alarm. my own mind was distracted with gloomy apprehensions. what was about to take place i knew not; but i had every reason to fear the worst. there too was my good, gentle sister, in regard to whose health we were already anxious. and there was steenie, impetuous and bold, and most likely to anger the soldiers against himself. for myself i did not think to fear. i begged mary that she would hide herself, so that, if they invaded our home, she might escape the scene of disturbance and excitement; and we all joined in entreating the aged man of god to seek safety also. but he refused. i have never forgotten his look at that time. he rose and made a gesture that we should cease pleading with him. "wherefore should i flee?" said he. "have i not bided safely under the shadow of the almighty more than threescore and ten years? no, i will not leave this roof. with the help of god, donald ramsay will not fear to face these workers of iniquity. besides, it may be that i shall have a word given to me to speak in season to even these, the enemies of our church and covenant. in the meantime let none be fearful. oh, who of us, think you, is worthy to suffer for christ's sake? who would not, if need be, lay down his life to win a 'well done' from the master?" we all gazed at him. it seemed to me that he looked like one of the old prophets. his hoary head was raised; his eyes were bright with enthusiasm; no, it was not that: it was holy zeal, it was holy fire. his usually pale cheek glowed; his tongue was loosed; his burning words went to our souls as he continued: "oh, shall any of us this day be glorified? shall any of us for this day's work wear a martyr's crown throughout eternity? is any one among us faint-hearted? god is with us and for us; therefore lift up the hands that hang down and strengthen the feeble knees. god never sends his children to do his work without giving them strength sufficient for their needs; and offences must come. ah, when shall the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our god!" assuming the attitude of prayer, he raised his hand towards heaven, and with solemn voice he said, "let us call upon the lord in our time of trouble. "'our father who art in heaven,' in these, the words of thy holy son, we come to thee, for it was he who taught us to call thee father. and since thou art our father, and art more willing to give good gifts unto us than earthly parents are to give them to their children, help us, at this time, to feel assured that thou hast our best interests lying on thy fatherly heart. o thou who canst control the hearts of all men, thou who canst even be a wall of fire about thy children, look in compassion upon us this day. we are come into deep waters. the enemies of thine own church are even now at the thresholds of our homes. but we know well that thou art still nearer, even in the heart of every believing child of thine. and should there be any one here that fears them that can kill the body only, let such a one prove steadfast to him whose power extends to both body and soul. oh, fill us all with power from on high, so that we may, if called upon, even desire to suffer for christ's sake, that we may be glorified with him. and oh, thou holy one, who didst of thine own free will lay down thy life for the sins of the world, help us that we, thy followers, may none of us shame thee this day. so fill us with thy strength that we may be lifted far above all mortal fear. and should we have to seal our testimony with our blood, let us do it joyfully. o thou blessed one, open thine arms to receive us as we come to the vale of shadows, and let all the mist and darkness flee away, that thou mayest stand revealed to us in all thy beauty; for thou wilt be there, according to thy word. then, leaning on thee, we shall go to our heavenly inheritance; so shall we be for ever with the lord. amen." when the prayer was ended we hastened to the window. they were very near, and what was our surprise and alarm to see father and wee jamie driven before them. my courage seemed for a moment to fail me. "o steenie, what will they do with father?" i asked. "god only knows, effie," replied he. pale and dumb we waited for the end. "it is useless to contend with them," said alexander. "any act of self-defence would be deemed open rebellion. one must either take flight like a guilty wretch, or stand at his post a target for bullets, for aught he knows. but we have the promise of eternal life beyond, and that more than compensates for any ill that can befall us here." mary, who had been standing motionless with amazement, now uttered a cry of anguish as she saw her bleeding father led up the walk. alexander put his arm protectingly about her. they opened the door and entered. i sprang towards my father. "are you much hurt?" i asked. "awa wi' ye!" said a soldier. "he will hae mony a waur scratch before we are dune wi' him." notwithstanding, as no further opposition was offered, i remained near my father. he stooped and kissed my forehead. then i gave way to tears. "do not weep, my bairn," said he; "some good will come from all this seeming evil, since god allows it to be so." "little good, i am thinking. but i, for ane, hae nae mind for this kind o' work; and if ye will recant, ye can be set free," said one, less fierce than his fellows. "it would not be wise to barter the favor of god for that of an earthly king," replied my father. my mother, overcoming her fears, came forward and stood beside us. father pressed a kiss on her pale cheek, and she leaned her head on his breast. "alas! alas! the evil hour has come!" she exclaimed. "god help us!" "let the gudeman go," she said, addressing the ruffians. "what harm has he ever done to living mortal?" "we will think twice before we grant your request, gudewife. but, if i dinna mistake, i see anither that we want still mair than him," and the speaker sharply eyed donald ramsay. the aged man advanced to meet them. "whom are you seeking?" he asked with fearless dignity. "we seek auld ramsay," they replied. "i am he," he answered. "if your business is with me, let these go their way." "you are the king's prisoner," said one of the gang, as he laid hands on him. then, to our great surprise, the aged wife rose and stood beside her husband. "forty-and-five years have we bided happily together," said she. "let not death divide us. where he goes i will go." "take the auld wife awa; we dinna want her," said the leader. but she refused to leave her husband's side. "harl her awa!" said the same voice. her son advanced and entreated her. "be it so," said she. "it will be only for a wee while. fare ye weel, donald, till we meet in the kingdom of our god." "hae ye onything to settle wi' your maker, ramsay?" asked the leading voice. "if ye hae, ye maun be aboot it, for we'll mak quick wark wi' ye." "trusting in the merits of christ, i am ready. i have lived these many years in daily communion with him. but how is it with you? think of that. take heed to your ways lest ye die in your sins. you go about seeking to slay the lord's chosen. what will you say when their blood is required at your hands? let me entreat you to turn from your evil ways and seek forgiveness; for no sins are so great that the blood of christ cannot atone for them." "haud your ranting tongue!" shouted the leader. but lest the words of the man of god should unnerve his men, he turned to them and gave his orders. "ye hae listened to this fulishness long enough. gang to your wark." but not one of the men moved. "ye ken weel what ye came here for," he continued. "wha will lay low the enemy of his country and his king?" on hearing this the aged man made his defence. "why should i be accounted an enemy of the king? he who is not true to the king of kings cannot be true to an earthly king. i hold that you are not true to him yourselves, since you encourage him to foul his hands with the blood of the saints." "shoot him!" cried the leader. the order was not obeyed, and he who gave it shot him down with his own hand. "father, lay not this sin to their charge," said the dying man. alexander was at his side in a moment. "let me go to my old friend," entreated my father. "ye needna be in haste; ye will go to him soon enough," said the leader. "rejoice, o my friend, that you have been accounted worthy to suffer for christ's sake," said my father. the wounded man turned his eyes towards his wife, who had fallen into her chair. a faint smile mingled with his look of mortal agony as he whispered, "she is going too." and so it proved. the shock had been too much for her feeble constitution; and though she still breathed, she never recovered consciousness, but passed away at set of sun. so it indeed happened that donald and grisell ramsay were not divided even in death. chapter iv. the prison and the tomb. it would not be my painful task to record these and still other mournful scenes if it had been god's time to awake for us; but he who in his very chastenings "doeth great things, which we cannot comprehend," for his glory and the good of those who love him, had decreed for us a long and weary time of weeping. so it was that the ruffians, seeing that they had made sure work, took my father from our embrace, and we never saw him more. in vain we entreated that we might at least be permitted to bind his wound. "let him bleed," said the leader. "it will do him good to lose some of his rebellious covenanting blood. he will be mair gentle after the loss of it." why they did not molest alexander i cannot say, unless, being strangers, they did not know he was a minister. they looked sharply at him and steenie. "gang straight noo, my lads, for ye hae seen what ye may come to," said one, as a parting admonition. we were all too sad for speech. two of the inmates of our house lay dead in our presence; the head of the family had been taken from us, to what fate we knew not. human effort was powerless. we could only commit our griefs and anxieties to him without whose notice not even a sparrow falls. how much more would he watch over our father, his faithful servant. without doubt it is god's will that some should glorify him in the furnace of affliction; and we may not question his providences, mysterious though they be. we are to "be still and know that he is god." sometimes we are allowed to see why and how he leads us; when we cannot see we must trust. but we had to rouse ourselves to action. we had mournful duties to perform for the dead in our midst, and we did the best we could in our sad, excited state. steenie went for david and bessie mcdougal and a few other neighbors, and they performed the labor of caring for the dead. words were useless, and few were spoken. partly from habit, and partly to break the stillness, i spread the board for the evening meal. no one tasted food but wee jamie. when all had been done that could be done, we sat down, sad and silent, in the family room. david mcdougal and his wife remained with us. then, as we never finished the day without prayer, my mother took the dear familiar book and handed it to alexander. he read the seventy-ninth psalm. his voice quivered with emotion, and when he read the verse, "let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee," his utterance was choked. tears flowed for a while. i was glad he could shed them. then by a great effort he continued: "'according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die; and render unto our neighbors sevenfold into their bosoms their reproach, wherewith they have reproached thee, o lord. so we thy people and sheep of thy pasture will give thee thanks for ever: we will show forth thy praise to all generations.'" his prayer was a wail for the deliverance of the kirk and for him who was dearer to us than life. we all wept, for we sadly missed the voice that had so long borne our petitions to the throne of heavenly grace. at a late hour we retired to rest, if possible, after the excitements and calamities of the day. we had but laid ourselves down when mother was called to mary's bedside. then i remembered that when i pressed her to my heart as we parted for the night, and said, "god be with you and comfort you, my own dear sister," she replied, "he is with me, and i feel as if i should soon see him face to face." i looked at her; she was so pale, and looked so pure and heavenly, that i feared it might be even as she said. i gave her another kiss, and without trusting my voice to speak again i turned away. now her manner, look, and words came back to me, filling me with dreadful apprehensions. oh, the bitterness of that long night! it seemed as if it would never end. when it did end, the morning found alexander ramsay a father; but his bairn was motherless. thus went out the life of one who was winsome beyond compare. how can we comprehend the bitterness and greatness of alexander's bereavement! father, mother, and wife taken from him in a few short hours! he took the little one in his arms, kissed it fondly, and moaned, "oh, my bairn, thou art not long for this world; then all will be gone!" at any other time it would have been accounted a strange thing that three dead bodies should lie in one house; but then, when the persecution was on us in all its horrors, there was little wonder. such outrages, though not common as yet, were not unknown. we laid them all side by side in the kirkyard, and it seemed to me that when the grave closed over our mary the joy had all gone out of my life. the friends that were left to me might pass as quickly. i felt that i had but a slender hold upon them, and i turned away with a sad feeling of desolation which i had never before experienced. alexander regarded the infant as a very slender thread binding him to home, for it was evident it would soon leave the world it had entered at so inauspicious a time. when in a few days it ceased to breathe, the broken-hearted father said, "it is well with the child. now no ties bind me. i am free to devote myself to the lord's cause. henceforth let me be found foremost in the ranks of those who shall do and dare for the afflicted of my church and of my country." from this time alexander ramsay had no fixed abiding-place; but it was his willing service to carry consolation to the oppressed and despairing all over the country. he became the bold and fearless leader of conventicles, and the bearer of food and comforts to those who were proclaimed outlaws, and who were suffering the keenest privations and hardships for conscience' sake; for the king's agents had forbidden any, under severe penalties, to give food or shelter or succor of any kind to the hunted covenanters. these very acts of mercy rendered him an outlaw also, and a price was soon set on his head. father was confined in a miserable place only a few miles away, yet none of us were permitted to see him. mother grieved in silence; but her grief seemed wearing her life away. i prayed that she might even weep; but that she could not do. yet when brought to speak, which scarcely anything but my tears could accomplish, she would express her confidence that the right would prevail. "the kirk will yet have rest," she said. "the word of the lord will have free course, will run, and be glorified. but alas for my earthly peace! i shall never with my natural eyes behold the prosperity of zion." my brother steenie chafed like a chained lion. he sought to devise a way to liberate our father, and made several unsuccessful attempts, the only result of which was a closer confinement for the prisoner. this steenie so resented that he became the sworn foe of the oppressor. he became a marked character, and our enemies cast designing looks upon him. it was no longer safe for him to stay with us when any of the troopers were near. my other brothers were seeking to evade the persecutors by appearing to be neutral. they were seldom present at conventicles, and sometimes attended the curate's service in the parish church. jamie and richie were unlike steenie. in the first place, they had stronger ties. their wives, their children, and their homes were very dear to them. they thought, by a seeming indifference, to escape the troubles that were constantly befalling their more demonstrative neighbors. but their caution did not please us. even mother, troubled as she was, did not approve their course. once when they were both sitting at our fireside, she stepped between them, and laying a hand on the shoulder of each she thus addressed them: "o my sons, do not imperil your eternal happiness to secure safety in this life. remember the words of the master: 'whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.'" having said this, she quickly left the room. i arose and followed her. i found her seated on a low chair, her hands pressed closely to her heart. "o god! i have done it," she said as i entered. "i have counselled them. i have triumphed over the weakness of the flesh. thanks be to thy grace, o lord, now the weight of this unfulfilled duty is lifted from my heart and conscience!" chapter v. unwelcome visitors. but we were not to escape further molestation. troops were now sent through ayrshire and the adjoining counties to make diligent search for such as they should please to consider rebels; and no house could hope to be exempt from their visitations. on an evening bordering on winter we sat around our wide, warm hearth; we had already supped, and that in silence, for all knew, except my nephew, that search would soon be made in our neighborhood. we did not expect to be molested that night, but still the news had made me fearful, and i had barred the door. watch, the wee house-dog, was sleeping on the hearth. the wind was making sad music without, while now and then a gust drove the smoke from the chimney into the room. it was an evening to accord with my feelings; for i was brooding over the desolation of our spiritual state and the dangers which threatened us, particularly steenie; and a tear once fell on wee jamie's head, which rested on my lap as he sat on a stool at my feet. "will you never have done wi' greetin', aunt effie?" asked he. "you are far stouter of heart when trouble is on us than when we are clear of it." just then david mcdougal knocked and was admitted. "i am come," said he, addressing steenie, "to tell you that ye hae nae time to lose. take to your heels, man!" "i have no inclination to run," replied steenie resolutely. "i would rather fight than run any day." "hoot, man, what would you do, wi' a score o' thae sons o' belial lightin' doon in your midst! awa wi' ye, and haud back a' the fight that is in ye till ye hae a fair chance in the field." just then the wee dog pricked up his ears. we looked at one another. david nodded, as if to say, "i told you so." a moment later we distinctly heard the tramp of horses. mother waved her hand, silently bidding steenie leave us. he wrapped his plaid about him and hurriedly embraced us. "be cautious, my dear brother, and hide yourself well," said i. "god be with you!" said our mother. "the great shepherd of israel keep thee," said our neighbor. "gang to the opening in the black rock," said wee jamie, who had grown wise by our terrible experiences; "but tak tent to your feet; it maun be icy there. rin, and hae nae fears for me. i winna betray you, though they should pull ilka hair frae my head." we smiled sadly at the lad, in spite of ourselves, steenie and i, he was such an old-fashioned bairn. poor wee man! he had need of all his wits before an hour was past. steenie went out into the cold and darkness, and david went with him; steenie to go where jamie had said, and david to return home. i again barred the door. some little time had elapsed when there was a loud knock. i did not move. no act of ours was to admit them, although we knew they would soon break in upon us. a moment later force was used to burst open the door. but although it creaked, it withstood repeated assaults. then the window was broken in, and one after another the legalized ruffians leaped into our midst. "how comes it, my auld dame, and you, my bright-eyed lassie, that ye are sae dull o' hearin'? ye s'ould hae made speed to entertain the king's messengers, sin' we hae sic a modest request to mak o' your leddyships. we want naething but the deliverin' up o' your son and brother;" and with a smile of impertinence and exultation the speaker gazed at us to observe the effect of his request. "there are none in the house but ourselves, as ye may see," said my mother. "where then is stephen patterson?" "please god, he is out o' your reach." "aweel, there are ways and means to unseal tight lips, ye ken," said he, nodding significantly. "we will begin wi' the bairn. ken ye aught o' your uncle?" asked the man, who, strange as it may seem, had once called himself our friend, and, i doubt not, had more than once held jamie on his knee. now he was our worst enemy. he had volunteered to lead the way up and down braes, through hills and dales, by wimpling burns and wraith-haunted lochs, in order to tear from peaceful homes the honored and the good. such was the man who questioned jamie. i blessed the brave lad in my heart, while i trembled for the effect of his answer. "if i do, or if i dinna, it is a' the ane thing to you." "we shall see whether it is or no. when did he gang awa?" no answer was given. "when did he awa? i hae asked you. was it the nicht?" [illustration: page .] still no answer. "we will soon gar ye tell all ye know," said the man, as he took from his pocket a match. lighting it at the fire, he placed it between the poor lad's fingers, and held it there. "that will soon fetch an answer," said he. the tears coursed down poor jamie's cheeks, but he made no moan. i did not dare open my lips for fear i should anger them still more; but my mother could not see the bairn tortured and hold her peace. "leave the bairn go," she said authoritatively. "ye hae hearts harder than a millstone." "are ye in ony hurry for your ain share?" asked the ruffian. "i would liefer bear it than see the bairn bear it," was her reply. "weel, if it suits ye, we will leave the bairn and try yoursel." so saying, he seized her hand and applied the burning match. she raised her eyes, looking steadfastly upward as she repeated the following portion of god's word--the sixty-fourth psalm: "'hear my voice, o god, in my prayer: preserve my life from fear of the enemy. "'hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked, from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity, "'who whet their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words, "'that they may shoot in secret at the perfect: suddenly do they shoot at him, and fear not. "'they encourage themselves in an evil matter: they commune of laying snares privily; they say, who shall see them? "'they search out iniquities; they accomplish a diligent search: both the inward thought of every one of them, and the heart, is deep. "'but god shall shoot at them with an arrow; suddenly shall they be wounded. "'so they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves: all that see them shall flee away. "'and all men shall fear, and shall declare the work of god; for they shall wisely consider of his doing. "'the righteous shall be glad in the lord, and shall trust in him; and all the upright in heart shall glory.'" the match had burned out, but she had disclosed nothing. "perhaps the lassie has a glib tongue," said one, and he sought another match to torture me. following my mother's example, i too had recourse to the sword of the spirit. i repeated, though not as calmly as she had, these words, feeling more truly than ever their comfort: "'in thee, o lord, do i put my trust: let me never be put to confusion. "'deliver me in thy righteousness and cause me to escape: incline thine ear unto me and save me. "'be thou my strong habitation, whereunto i may continually resort: thou hast given commandment to save me, for thou art my rock and my fortress. "'deliver me, o my god, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man.'" "these cursed people all have the scriptures at their tongues' end," one of them was saying, when a sudden blast of wind shook our little cottage till all could feel it rock. the smoke was driven down the chimney, and came into the room in great puffs, and the candle went out. all was confusion. the men were seized with fear, and when the fire again sent out a ruddy glow, they hastened to find the door and escape. "the very elements fight for them," said one as they hurried away. steenie heard them gallop down the lane and out on the high road. convinced that they were gone, he returned to the house. "the lord has delivered us all," said mother. "yes," said steenie, "we are all safe; but it is only for the present. sooner or later i am sure to fall into their hands. but, as david mcdougal was saying, i would like it if we could encounter our enemies on the battlefield." jamie showed his uncle his burned hand. steenie carried it to his lips. "poor wee man!" said he, "did you indeed have to suffer for uncle steenie's sake?" "grandmother did too," said the lad. "it is a fearful state of things," said steenie, "when women and bairns are not safe at their own firesides." from that time steenie sought to evade his pursuers, and his life was generally that of a wanderer. often he narrowly escaped being taken. frequently we laid ourselves down without knowing where he was or how he fared; but whether the earth was wet with summer dew or wrapped in winter's snow, he was always the subject of our ardent prayers. how often i would have shared his night-watches if it could have been so. i carried food to him when i knew where he was; aside from this we could do nothing but pray. chapter vi. defeat at rullion green. in november, , some of our people at the south became entangled, under great provocation, in a skirmish with some of turner's soldiers; knowing that this would bring further trouble, they resolved to remain in arms. coming northward, they gathered a little strength as they advanced. on reaching ayrshire some of our acquaintances joined them, steenie, alexander, and good, honest david mcdougal with the rest. moving in a northeasterly direction, they came to lanark. here they renewed their covenant, and called to mind their grievances, at the same time publishing a declaration vindicating themselves from rebellion. though frost and snow and hunger and fatigue made dreadful inroads on their little army, they pushed on boldly till they came within a few miles of edinburgh, which, unexpectedly, they found in arms against them. knowing that they were pursued by a force larger than their own, and that to remain where they were was to sacrifice their lives to no purpose, they began a retreat, and halted at a place called rullion green, on a ridge of the pentland hills. here they were attacked by the pursuing army, which had turned out of its course to intercept them. the covenanters, stout of heart and confident of the righteousness of their cause, fought valiantly, and several times put their assailants to flight; but they were finally overpowered by superiority of numbers. many of our brave men were left dead or dying on the field, and more were taken prisoners. some of these met a cruel death afterwards, and several were put to the torture before they were hanged. steenie made his escape, and, after long and painful wanderings, travelling by night and hiding by day, he at last came to us weary and worn. yet, weary and footsore as he was, the poor lad could not venture to bide within or rest one night under his mother's roof. he remained, however, long enough to tell us that several of our friends and neighbors had sealed their covenant with their blood. "david mcdougal fell beside me early in the fray," said steenie. "with his last breath he exhorted his brethren to continue the struggle. 'fight the good fight of faith, my comrades,' said he, 'and the great leader of your cause strengthen your hearts and your hands!' with a sore heart i bent over him and asked if i could do anything for him. 'i want naething mair in this warld,' he replied. 'but gang ye back to the fray, and slacken nae whit while ye hae strength to stand. tell the folk at hame that auld davie mcdougal regretted that he had but ane life to lay down for his master. tell the gudewife that though we gang hame by different roads, we shall meet at the end of the journey.'" alexander was taken prisoner, and suffered with those who were condemned to be hanged at the cross of edinburgh. his right hand was cut off and nailed up at lanark, because there he had lifted it in making oath to the covenant. thus perished the last member of a peaceful, god-serving family. in considering their fate, one cannot but recall the words of the apostle paul: "if in this life only we have hope in christ, we are of all men most miserable." but, thank god, this is not the only life of christians; and by whatever way they may be led to that other life, they shall find that "the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory" that they shall share. chapter vii. the wanderer. a body of soldiers now ranged through our part of the country, seeking out covenanters who had taken any part in the late rising, and perpetrating all such deeds of cruelty as their evil thoughts could devise. some were tortured for aiding their friends to escape. life and property were at the mercy of these ruthless invaders. steenie was obliged to remain in hiding. sometimes, when i knew where he was, i stole out to him in the gloaming. seated on the same rock, with my hand in his, i passed an hour or more with him; but never did i do so without fearing it might be the last time. in the long summer evenings i sometimes stayed and chatted till a late hour, and, after a bit of forgetfulness, it did seem almost like old times. one of those evenings i have special cause to remember. the air was delightfully fresh, and fragrant with the scent of summer blossoms. the wield sang its song in the woods anent us; the owl hooted on the cliff; and the wee, timid hare, startled by our footsteps on the dry twigs, ran across our path. for the time we dropped all thoughts of fear. we were at the back of our own cottage, in the thicket where in our childhood we had often played. the moonlight glinted through it as of yore, and a bit to the north sang the same busy, babbling brook. oh, that was an evening long to be remembered! "one can almost forget that he is a hunted fugitive in a place and a time like this," said steenie. "yes, steenie," i answered, "would to god we were clear of the great trouble which we this evening have been able to put from our minds." while i was yet speaking the sound of horses' feet was borne to our ears on the still night air. "go home quickly, effie," said steenie, "and i'll not stop till i am hidden behind the black crags." as i entered the house i found mother sitting with wee jamie, for he was aye at our house since father was led away. mother saw something was amiss, but she questioned only by look. "the troopers," i said. "where is steenie?" "well on to a place of safety by this time." "god protect him!" she murmured. the soldiers soon surrounded our house. three of them entered and searched it. we had hurried the bairn to bed and bidden him turn his face to the wall, and on no account show that he was awake, rightly thinking they would not be likely to wake him. mother and i suffered much from their insolence, and they bore away with them whatever they chose to take, otherwise we came to no harm. after this steenie was almost lost to us for a long time. it was very seldom he could be found in the places where he was wont to be concealed, so diligent was the search for those who had fought at rullion green. sometimes we saw him at conventicles. these meetings were then held in unfrequented places, and often under the cover of darkness. precious was the divine message to our long-waiting souls, and our thoughts were uplifted by the power of the truth. but with me the feeling of exaltation would subside, leaving in my heart a weary waste, a dread uncertainty, a fearful looking forward to some unknown yet certain evil. in god was my trust; but humanity is frail, and the sickness of heart that attends blighted hopes was often mine to bear. on the few occasions when i saw my brother i observed that he grew wan and pale--that he had at times a look almost amounting to fierceness. naturally ambitious, he chafed at his inactivity, and was tormented by a throng of unfulfilled desires. although we hoped he had been born into the kingdom of grace, and was willing to follow where providence led, still the natural man struggled against the submission that was to keep him in hiding. the bonnie summer months had passed, the cool and pleasant autumn also, and winter was again upon us. not a few were pinched with hunger, for oppression had wrung from many families nearly all their means of subsistence. we often thought of steenie and prayed for him; but we knew not where he was, as the cold had driven him from all his old haunts. one wild december night we sat by our comfortable fire: without, the hoarse wind roared in strange tones and in loud blasts that were fearful even to those who were comfortably housed. i was looking at the window opposite me, and almost reproaching myself for receiving so many comforts since they were denied to steenie. just then some one knocked at the door. i felt at once that it was my wandering brother; and so it was. but oh, how changed! he had been driven by actual hunger to venture home. the man whom we had employed to carry food to him, and whom we had liberally paid, even to the abatement of our own comforts, had proved faithless. great was our surprise and joy to behold our steenie once more, and great was our sorrow to see him as he was, chilled and sick as well as hungry. i fastened the door again and drew the window-curtain, and mother and i both hastened to set food before the half-famished lad. being warmed and refreshed, he began to talk freely, for at first he was too much exhausted to say much. "this is not life," he said with bitterness, "and if i am never in some active way to serve my family and friends in the true cause, i wish that i might die. why do not our party take the field? our condition could scarcely be worse. i might as well be captured if i am to have free limbs only to lie behind rocks until they are benumbed from disuse. i shall bide here to-night; i shall sleep once more under our own roof; and if i am taken, i am taken." the morning found him far from well and in no condition again to brave the rigors of winter. i bethought me of a little nook over the cow-shed that could be made very comfortable, and that would be little likely to attract attention. we made him a bed there, and we did not spare the best in the house. we carried some books up to him, and did all we could for his comfort; then we closed the trap-door, so that there appeared to be no opening. the ladder was drawn up into the little corner he occupied, and he thus had the means to let himself down whenever he chose. having made these arrangements, we trusted that he was safe for the present. but it soon became apparent that he was in danger of being betrayed by our own wee dog, for the affectionate creature sniffed and barked about the byre the whole time to win to his master. we thought at first to tie him up; but this might be inquired into and lead to a search. some of our own neighbors we could scantly trust; and if any one had let the dog loose he would have gone straight to steenie. i soon thought out a sure way to end that difficulty, but i said nothing about my plan. when i gathered up the scraps from the table and put them into watch's tray, i cast poison on the meat; and i mind well that a tear dropped in with it all, for i was fond of the wee doggie. but he must not live to endanger steenie, although it was the poor beast's joy at his master's return that caused him to make such a din. at noon i noticed that jamie put aside a portion of his meat. "i'll no pick the banes clean the day," said he, seeing that his movements were observed, "because the doggie is sick-like, for he wunna play with me. i'll coax him a bit wi' the fresh meat." i felt sorry for the bairn, but i said nothing. after a while he came in, looking very sad. "aunt effie," said he sorrowfully, "watch wunna tak his meat. i fear he will dee." i patted his head. "poor wee laddie, it is a tender heart you have," said i. i did not know what else to say. an hour or two later he came in again, greeting outright. "wee watch is deid, aunt effie; wee watch is deid!" and he sobbed as if his heart would break. it seems a small thing to write, but to the bairn it was a great sorrow; he had lost his only companion. we had been so much occupied with our own troubles that we scarcely gave him a thought beyond seeing that he was well clothed and fed; but i can feel a pang even now for the grief of the poor bairn on account of the death of his playmate. we succeeded in keeping steenie safely through the winter, though there were times when our hearts quaked with fear. in spring-time, as the weather grew milder, he went back to his old retreats. chapter viii. victory of drumclog and defeat at bothwell bridge. i pass over in silence ten or a dozen years of continued oppression, which brought us little change save that our hearts grew ever sadder. it had been declared a treasonable act to attend a conventicle, and troops were sent through the country with orders to suppress them at the point of the sword; therefore we no longer met in small bodies. in may, , a great conventicle was appointed to be held on a moor near lanark. steenie went up in company with many others from among us. no secret was made of the meeting, and most of the men went armed. claverhouse with his dragoons was then in glasgow. he marched directly to loudoun hill, or drumclog, the place where our people had assembled for worship. he seized some who were on the way to the meeting and drove them before him. the service was scarcely commenced when the alarm was given. our people flew to arms to defend themselves, and in the battle that ensued they were the victors. elated with hope, the people flocked to our standard, and a large force was soon in the field. my two older brothers and my nephew jamie, now a grown man, thought of joining the army. they were weary of fines, robberies, and all the oppressions which they suffered. they felt that they could no longer submit to these things and lift up their heads as free-born scots should do. while they were weighing the matter tidings of our father's death reached us. he with others had been taken from the place of their imprisonment and driven like beasts before the merciless soldiers. my father, weak from age, long confinement, and insufficient nourishment, became exhausted, and lagged in the march. a brutal soldier pierced him with a spear, and he fell. his head and hands were cut off and exposed to public gaze at edinburgh. the mangled body was left without proper burial. the enemy alleged, in justification of their conduct, that he was the most obstinate of all the "ranting rebels." ah, well we understood that charge! it meant that torture, keenest torture, had been his; and he had borne it uncomplainingly, sustained by god's grace. and now when i think of the heavenly city, and of the just made perfect who dwell there, i can almost see my father amid the throng of the redeemed; i can almost hear him sing praises to god and the lamb with the tongue that never denied the faith while on earth. my brothers and nephew no longer hesitated, as may well be supposed. margaret, james' wife and the mother of jamie, no longer "wee," freely gave her consent. "alas!" she said, "war is a fearsome thing; but since it is your duty to go, go, and may god protect you both and bring you safe home." ellen could not feel the same resignation. she clung to richie till the last moment, almost upbraiding him for leaving her. he turned on her a look in which pity was blent with reproach. "ellen," he said, "i cannot forget that i am a man, and not a dog. i can no longer patiently suffer these outrages." with aching hearts they took leave of their weeping families, their own eyes filled with tears and their lips tremulous with unspoken anxieties. but they bravely endeavored to suppress their emotion, and, sustained by firmness of purpose and hopeful anticipation of righted wrongs, they tore themselves away. bessie mcdougal, who could never forget her loss at rullion green, still, with patriotic piety, encouraged her only son robert to devote himself to the cause of our kirk and country. she came with him as far as our house, for robert was to go with jamie and richie. i very well remember how she looked at that time. naturally cheerful, hale, and ruddy, she had borne up remarkably well under her afflictions. but her cheek had grown paler and her step less firm and elastic, so that she leaned a little heavily on the stout walking-stick she carried. it was at our door that she took leave of robert. collecting all her strength, she took her son's hand and bravely spoke her farewells. "robert, my son, you are my only earthly prop and stay; but i will nae grudge ye to god and his ain cause. and if my auld e'en shall behold your face nae mair in the flesh, we shall meet again where troubles are nae mair. should you fall in battle, you will but follow in the steps of him who has gane before you. gie your mither a kiss, my bairn. fare ye weel, fare ye weel!" the bereaved mother turned to retrace her steps towards her now solitary home. we called after her to come in and stop a while. "i can neither gie nor tak comfort," said she, "and i would fain grieve in my ain hame." our own hearts were sore too, as any one may judge, seeing that all our loved ones who could bear the sword were away to face danger and death. but sorer yet would they have been if we could have foreseen the disastrous defeat of our army at bothwell bridge, a defeat chargeable in no small degree to the dissensions that nearly rent our people asunder. oh, that dreadful day! even now the memory of it comes unbidden far oftener than the morning sun salutes the earth. my brother jamie, my poor, sad mother's firstborn, was left on that fatal field cold in death--jamie, the husband of the good, brave, patient margaret, and father of six bonnie bairns. oh, what a stroke was that! then when we called to mind how many fathers, sons, and brothers, of the very flower of scotland, shared a like fate, we cried out in bitterness of soul, "o lord god, to whom vengeance belongeth; o god, to whom vengeance belongeth, show thyself. lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth: render a reward to the proud. lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph?" but i have more to tell of that terrible battle. richie was one of the twelve hundred who, when all was lost, threw down their arms and cried for quarter. they were taken prisoners to edinburgh, and penned, half naked, in the same grayfriars kirkyard in which the covenant was signed in . they were herded there for five months like so many brute beasts, without shelter by day or covering by night. at the end of that time, richie and many others regained their freedom by signing a bond never again to take up arms against the king. steenie was thrice taken prisoner, and as many times made his escape. just as he was leaving the field he stumbled over the dead body of jamie. in regaining his feet his eye caught sight of the dear, familiar face, then rigid in death. regardless of consequence he threw himself down beside his lifeless brother. two soldiers rode that way in search of flying fugitives. seeing a living man among the dead, they halted. struck with the grief and affection that could lead to such a disregard of personal safety, some touch of humanity returned to their stony hearts. "what hinders us to run you through, man?" "it is all one to me," replied steenie. "my brother is dead, and our cause is lost." "let us show pity to our fellow-mortal," said one to the other, "and when death comes to us, i warrant we shall not grieve at the mercy." "rise and take to your heels," said the first speaker, "and hide yourself as soon as you can. if your escape is seen it may cost us our lives." steenie afterwards told robert mcdougal, who also escaped, that he was so thoroughly weary of life under the tyranny of the oppressor that nothing but thoughts of the grief his death would cause our mother made him avail himself of the mercy shown by the two humane soldiers. "but," added he, "what, after all, signifies an escape that must eventually end in torture or death?" he knew that for those who would not renounce the covenant life could be but a weary waiting and lurking in wild moors and caves. from this time steenie and robert were inseparable. i scarcely could see one without the other. the truth came slowly to me that robert was especially interested in me, and that steenie was glad it was so. i never could see why he was glad, since in those troublous times no tie could be so binding as to secure to us the companionship of our friends. my nephew jamie was spared to us. a serious and lingering illness had suddenly prostrated him and prevented him from joining the covenanters' army, according to his intention; and when news of his father's death and of our crushing defeat came, his mother was still watching by his bedside. as his strength slowly returned, she blessed god for the sickness that for the time had so increased her sorrow and her cares, but in which she now saw the divine hand in mercy holding her son back from death or capture on the field. and truly she needed jamie, her other bairns being much younger than he, and all lasses but the youngest. richie's return was a source of thankfulness; yet steenie would never have accepted liberty on such conditions. ellen was overjoyed; she had no regrets that he was never again to fight for liberty of conscience. but his health was never again robust; he had suffered too much from exposure in his confinement at edinburgh. margaret welcomed richie with tears. "i rejoice with you, dear ellen, at the return of your husband," she said. "mine will never come back to me. i do not even know where his body lies. but the trump of god will wake him; and we shall meet again in a better world, where are no wars nor rumors of wars, no more crushing by a tyrant's heel, no more heart-achings or heart-breakings. there the great king himself will bid his subjects be glad for evermore." chapter ix. the shepherd smitten. the state of the country was daily becoming more terrible. no one felt safe at any time. the daring exploits of steenie and robert drew upon them blessings from their friends but curses from their enemies. they were obliged again to exercise the greatest care to hide themselves from the armed bands that claverhouse sent in every direction to hunt to the death all that had escaped from bothwell bridge. we risked our lives in giving them comforts, for the persecutors, enraged that any had escaped, took measures to punish most severely those who should succor friend or stranger. some of our own acquaintances suffered death by lingering torture for no other offence. can my readers imagine the feelings of a mother, a wife, or a sister, who, knowing her loved ones were suffering, scarcely dared give them food, or even speak to them? as a rule, those who were true to the good cause were dear to each other. but some, i am grieved to say, had a "zeal that was not according to knowledge." they had suffered so much that they were nearly demented. they would not listen to reason, even when counselled by their best friends; and they did rash deeds that made things worse for us all. and now i have a sad tale to tell. i would it were the only one of its kind! few were more zealous in every good work than rev. hugh mcadam. he counted not his life dear to him, but cheerfully risked it in works of love and mercy. he sought out the wanderers, carried them food and clothing, prayed with them, and exhorted them to steadfastness in the holy cause. when we thought it safe, we gathered on a lone moor and he broke the bread of life to our famishing souls. he and his sweet daughter janet were loved by all our suffering people; yet it was the sorrowful lot of many of us to see him shot down at a conventicle, in the presence of his daughter, and while the words of christian counsel were yet on his lips. though death lurked in every corner, and similar scenes were not new to many of us, few deaths caused so universal sorrow in our neighborhood. orders to disperse were unnecessary. the men seized their arms and prepared to defend the retreating assembly; but the dragoons, few in number, galloped quickly away having done the foul deed. the little band, that had met with so much hope and confidence, returned sad and dispirited to their homes. the body of the beloved minister was borne with us from the field, and bessie mcdougal took the orphaned daughter home with her. when i reached home i found that some one had already told mother the dreadful news. she met me at the door. "alas! alas!" she exclaimed, "what is to become of the sheep when so many of the shepherds are taen awa?" "there is still the great shepherd of israel," answered i. "when the right time comes, he will gird himself with might and deliver his flock." "oh, ay, my bairn, i maunna forget that; but trouble has been my portion so long that both heart and flesh quake and quail under every new sorrow. but i am glad you can aye have sae muckle faith." dear mother! she little knew with what sickness of heart i turned to my duties. again and again the face of the dead as i had seen it in the morning came before me. his silvered locks were matted with gore, despoiling of its comeliness the face on which age had sat with so winsome a grace. but if we were so unsettled by the sad event, how must the new inmate of bessie mcdougal's home have felt? the good woman had no lack of tenderness and sympathy, and when janet's tears still flowed she did not try to check them. "greet on, hinny, greet on," she said. "let your tears spend themsels. i ken weel the heart is less heavy when the e'en o'erflow. auld bessie has had troubles o' her ain; but there has aye been comfort gien to her in them a'; and the same comforter will bring comfort to yoursel in his ain gude time. he wunna be vexed wi' ye that ye mourn. he kens a' our frames, and he kens that we are but dust and weakness." in this way did this mother in israel bring christ before the afflicted daughter, until her heart was drawn closer to him who is so gentle and so considerate of human frailties. after we had buried the slain servant of the lord in our own kirkyard, bessie mcdougal, whose home was ever a shelter to those in distress, begged the orphaned janet to bide with her. her great motherly heart warmed towards the daughter of her old and christian counsellor. indeed, many would have opened their doors to the bonnie lass who was so sorely smitten, but when bessie questioned, "will ye bide wi' me, puir stricken lamb?" janet gladly answered, "i will." somewhere on these pages it will be my pleasant duty to tell how janet repaid with filial affection the kindness of her friend. in these times i often went to see sister margaret and cheer her loneliness as much as i could. she had removed her family from their house in the village to a small cottage nearer to mother and me. while the excitement about our murdered minister was still fresh i went to spend the evening with her. jamie took the minister's death much to heart. "i have often thought to be a minister myself," said he, "but now i scarcely ken whether i am willing. i could fight on the battlefield, but it is a fearsome thing to be hunted and shot down like a wild beast." "yes, jamie," replied his mother, "it is a fearsome thing; but god grant that before you are prepared to stand up before his people the scourge will be removed from scotland." "and yet we believe that martyrs have a brighter crown in the heavenly inheritance, and a more abundant entrance into the joy and service of the king." "yes, we believe that, jamie. but there is opportunity in every life for winning an abundant entrance. ay, ay, there are many ways to glorify god and prove his sustaining grace." margaret bore up bravely in her bereavement. she had little time to yield to sorrow. to support her fatherless bairns required the utmost efforts of jamie and herself. when it was time for me to leave them for the night, she told jamie to take the good book and read the tenth psalm. jamie read, while margaret's full heart often prompted her to interrupt him with some earnest comment, as she felt the force of the truth and applied it to present circumstances. "the lord will hear in his own good time," she remarked as jamie concluded. "meanwhile we will take all our griefs and cares to him, and so far as we can we will leave them all with him." then she knelt and poured out her heart in prayer. since her husband's death she and jamie had kept burning the sacred fire on the family altar. chapter x. bridal and burial. in the chill gray of an autumnal morning janet mcadam awoke in her new home a few days after her father's burial. with the first dawning of consciousness came always the leaden weight of grief. but she had been prepared for changes the most dreadful; and with the remembrance of her loss came the comforting thought that her father had entered into his rest, though rough had been his exit from this world of trouble. in this thought she found some consolation. "no storm can reach him now in the calm haven he has entered," she murmured. she rose and dressed herself with her usual care; then, kneeling down, she asked for strength equal to her day. in an adjoining room bessie mcdougal was already busy with her morning duties. with a huge pair of tongs she drew from the bed of ashes in the fireplace the brands she had buried the night before. these she placed close to the back-log, and, laying on some bits of wood, she soon had a blaze that crackled and roared in a right comfortable, homelike way. she was hanging the kettle over the fire when janet entered the room. "how hae ye sleepit, my bairn?" she asked. "i have slept quite well, thank you. can i help you now?" "nae, dearie, nae. the kettle will nae mair than boil before i am in frae the byre. tak ye the ward of god, and seek out a portion suited to your need." bessie went out to do the work that robert would have done if he could have remained at home. she unfastened the door of the byre, went in, looked around to see that all was right, and gently patted the cow. "puir beastie, i maunna forget ye amid a' the troubles," she said, thinking aloud. she fed her with a liberal hand, then scattered grain for the fowls. these were all she had to care for now, for the soldiers had taken from her whatever they liked. having finished her work there, she returned to the house. the kettle was already boiling. she prepared the morning meal, spread the table, and the two sat down. short and simple was the prayer of thankfulness for daily bread which the good woman offered. for a while they ate in silence, for trouble aye makes us think more and speak less. bessie's voice at length broke the stillness. pointing to the head of the table, she said, "it was there david aye sat, and there," pointing to the window-sill, "he laid his bonnet. and it was on that side robert sat. alas! the ane will come nae mair, and the ither maun steal his chance if he comes. these are times to try the strongest faith;" and she wiped her tearful eyes. then observing that the other was taking very little food, she spoke more cheerfully: "janet, my bairn, ye maun do better than this at your meals, and graw stoot." she had scarcely finished speaking when robert, her son, entered, followed by steenie. great was the astonishment of bessie. she embraced her son and warmly pressed the hand of his companion. she piled high the hearth-fire and heaped the table with plenty. but she could not bring herself to ask what had brought them there. she feared it might be to say good-by before facing known danger. the hungry men made inroads on the cakes and cheese; and well they might. "oh, my bairn," sad the glad, sad mother, "when will ye daily sit at this table and pass your evenings at your ain hearthstane?" "when i am let, mother." "i must take a look at the beasts," said robert, when the meal was finished. his mother, unwilling to lose one precious moment of her son's stay, went with him to the byre. robert's anger was kindled to find that the sheep had all been driven away, and only one cow out of three was left. but he had other thoughts in his mind, and he spoke of me, of effie patterson. "it is no a time to marry, or to be gien in marriage," said his mother, "and i would leifer ye would bring nae mair care on yoursel while these times last." "what you say is o'er true, mother; but one canna always keep down his heart. it is one of the hardest features of this troubled time that a man has no power to shield and protect his own household. but for all that, i would fain call effie mine. if i am slain by the enemy, you must tell her that naught but the fear of adding to the dangers which now beset her path has kept me from declaring my love for her and asking her hand in marriage. and, mother, steenie's heart is bound up in the lass janet. he cannot hide his sympathy for her in this her time of bereavement. it is that that has brought us here the morn. he would fain tell her he sorrows for her sake. you did well to take her in; it is like you, mother; only you must not care more for her than you care for effie." "oh, my bairn, i canna promise. the dear lass wi' me has nae kin left to her; and if she twines hersel about my auld heart, i canna thrust her aside for anither. it was but the morn that my silly fancy was imagining the times again settled, and yoursel hame and weel; but never mind what i was about to say. effie is a gude, gentle soul, and helpfu' witha'; and should it be that we hae peace granted to us, ye will see that i can love effie weel, although i love anither lass as mickle." this is word for word what bessie told me more than two years afterwards; but two years afterwards was not then. no, no; and how much of sorrow was yet to be crowded into those two years is my painful task to relate. there were no more real battles after that of bothwell bridge, but only skirmishes, where a few on both sides met by accident or otherwise. i will now leave off telling what happened throughout the country, and relate what more particularly concerned myself and my friends. steenie, as you may know from what i have said, was like the apple of my eye. i liked not to think the time might come when another would have a deeper hold on his affections; and i persuaded myself that this would never be. but, like it or not, it was all the same thing in the end. when janet mcadam's father was shot, steenie's heart went over to his orphan daughter with one great bound, and his sister was never to be the same to him as before. i always thought that his love for janet was born of pity, for when the trouble came to her she stretched her hands imploringly towards heaven in helpless, hopeless agony; and that meek and mute appeal to the great and good god reached also a brave and loving human heart. but there was cause for admiration as well as pity, for hers was truly a sweet face to look upon. her eyes closed slowly, and the long, dark, silken lashes fell on her pale cheek, while the sensitive quivering of the mouth showed her great effort to bear up bravely. many times was it whispered then and there, "see the dear sweet lassie! see the dear smitten lamb!" but whatever was the first cause of steenie's love, it was deep and lasting. i did not know his feelings in regard to her till he told me himself. it was wrong, it was selfish, but i liked janet less from that very moment. i regarded her as an intruder. i turned away with a stony look on my face and a weight at my heart. i did not look at steenie, but i felt that his eyes were following me. i knew there was entreaty in them, but i would not listen to the voice within me, "you are wrong, effie." he told me he had already made known to her his love; so there was nothing for me to do but submit to unkind fate, as i in my blindness thought. i had pictured steenie always living with mother and me, with peace and plenty restored to us. i thought that together we would soothe the declining years of our aged parent; together we would read and walk, as in past days. steenie told me that i also was beloved. i gave him no reply. i did not then know that i could feel love beyond that which i cherished for my brother, and i thought he said this that i might grieve less for his companionship. i was offended, and for the first time in my life i parted from my brother with coldness. six months passed, during which we seldom met. at the end of that time steenie was married. the ceremony was performed quietly, and even secretly, at bessie mcdougal's house. i was still displeased, although i made a faint show of affection for my new sister; but it was so unreal that neither my mother nor steenie were deceived by it. janet, in her sweet trustfulness, accepted it. mother told me i was unreasonable; but i said it was steenie who was unreasonable--to marry when death stared him in the face; but certain it is that was not the cause of my opposition to the marriage. steenie was still obliged to remain in concealment most of the time. robert mcdougal and a few other brave men were with him. sometimes they came down upon a stray party of the enemy to liberate one of their captive brethren; but oftener they were stationed at a little distance to warn and guard the people as they convened to worship god. it was on a bonnie june morning in that we were thus convened and he was thus on duty. a spy communicated with the persecutors, and a troop of horse came in hot haste towards us. in less time than i can write it a bullet pierced steenie, and he fell to the ground. the soldiers passed on to the open glade in which the meeting was held; but the people were scattered in every direction. regardless of danger, we, his friends, hurried to the spot. i was among the last to reach him. as i approached i heard him ask, "where is effie?" "i am come," i said, as i knelt beside him and kissed his brow, then pale and strange in his struggle with death. he looked affectionately at me, and seemed to wish for something. i put my arm around janet, who was weeping over him, and drawing her closer to me i kissed her again and again. then he smiled a faint, glad smile, and beckoned me to come nearer. i bent my ear to catch his words, which were becoming more indistinct. he spoke of robert. "do not turn away from my old and true friend," he whispered. fainter and fainter were the words which came from the fast whitening lips, till every sound died away. a slight motion of the lips, and a scarcely perceptible heaving of the chest, and steenie's soul took flight to that bonnie land where we well believe there is no more sorrow. the agony of poor janet was very great. twice within one year had the dearest object of her earthly affections been ruthlessly slain. i looked at her, though i scarcely dared to do so. i saw that strong arms were supporting her; they were those of robert mcdougal. his face was very pale, but his voice was steady as he said, "one less with us, one more in heaven." it is hard to give up our friends, even from a peaceful death-bed, when we can realise that god's hand alone rules; but to feel that our loved ones fall a prey to the anger of their oppressors--the innocent by the hand of the guilty--is a sore trial to the most trusting christians. there are moments when the human nature within them cries out for redress, if not for vengeance. i felt as if my own heart would burst between sorrow for janet and my anguish for the loss of steenie. we were bearing our dead from the fatal spot when, strange to say, i first thought of my mother, who was in our little home miles away. poor mother, whose hair was whitened with age and her many afflictions, whose step was slow and feeble, whose grief had already been too deep for tears, how could i tell her! how could she bear this added sorrow! "god help her," i groaned. "o margaret," i said, for she was walking beside me, "how can we tell her these heavy tidings? you must tell her, for indeed i cannot." "may god give me wisdom to break it to her gently," said margaret. slowly and carefully she broke the sad news to our mother, who said not a word. her face assumed a fixed, ghastly look. i feared the news would kill her. soon her lips moved as if in prayer. then i felt relieved; for was she not laying her burden at the feet of one who can sustain us in all our troubles? we took the body of steenie to bessie mcdougal's because it was janet's home, and because we thought mother might be less affected by his death if she did not see him at first. she did not object to this arrangement; and she waited till evening before she asked to go and see him. then, with more composure than i had anticipated, she made preparations to go to her son. "i maun see my bairn now," she said. "i trow these auld limbs will not refuse to take me to him." "who shall go with you, mother?" i asked. "margaret," she replied; for margaret had remained with us through the day. i was not sorry that she was chosen, for she had great fortitude and presence of mind; and i felt that i could not endure any more heart-harrowing scenes that day. but mother controlled herself in a wonderful manner, margaret said. she spoke comforting words to janet, telling her that our compassionate lord would help her to bear her burdens and sorrows. when the question of burial came up for consideration, mother was quick to express her wish. "he maun sleep near his auld hame," she said. "none o' my dead lie where i can look on their graves." so we made him a grave in a nook of our own plot of ground; for we could scarcely feel that even a grave was sacred in the eyes of our enemies. close by the grave runs the little burn that aye sings its song of praise in summer-time. we could see the mound from our window, and for years every change about it was noted. "the grass is green on steenie's grave now; and there are bonnie wee flowers amang it," mother would say; or in winter, "the snow lies fresh on steenie's grave the morn." and after she was gone other eyes watched it. i can see it to-day from my window as i write; for i live here still, the only one left of our once happy family. but i am not alone here; and to tell who bides with me will lead me back to my story. chapter xi. the last drop in the cup of bitterness. we wanted janet with us; but bessie clung to her, and we did not insist on our wish, being loath to rob our neighbor of the comfort which janet's company afforded her. in less than half a twelvemonth after steenie's death a son was born to perpetuate his name. great was the mother's joy, and great was the joy of us all, though we rejoiced in trembling because of our persecutors. the bairn was christened stephen, as may be supposed. he was a fair, fine child. soon he laughed and crowed, quite unconscious that he had come into a world of trouble. sometimes, in my visits to janet and the bairn, i saw robert; and sometimes we were left alone together. his manner towards me was always gentle and considerate; and i felt drawn towards him, whether because of steenie's dying injunction, or from some other cause, i cannot rightly tell. one evening as he accompanied me home, he said as we parted, "effie, i wish we had lived in other times, or that we may outlive this evil time, that i may make known to you the dearest wish of my heart." he said no more; but he pressed my hand, and i heard a sigh as he turned away. i had for a long time known that he loved me, but i never appreciated till then the affection of his warm, honest heart. i have no doubt that if he had known the change in my feelings towards him he would have been encouraged to say more. but that was a long way back in the past, very long, it seems to me. but time wore on. i kept myself always busy, for that is the best way to get through trouble. besides there was need that i should be employed. i had an eye over jamie's bairns, for their mother was thronged with labors and cares. her stout heart and ready hand had enough to do to keep above want. many a garment did i make for them from those of the dead, who were now clad in purer robes. i had our own home to keep also, for mother was feeble; and, with all our other troubles, i had constantly to bear up under the pressure of poverty. we were in this situation when richie, whose health had gradually failed since his terrible captivity, took to his bed, never to rise again. this was in the spring of , and before the heather bloomed he was laid to rest. death is always sad; but we who had witnessed so many deaths by the hand of man could not but feel that in richie's case the sting had been less sharp. he had breathed his last peacefully in his bed; yet we knew that his end was brought on by the exposure in edinburgh. ellen came to us. she was now alone, her two children having died of fever a few months before their father's death. we welcomed her, for we had need to gather about us the few friends that were left us. yet we could ill afford to feed another out of our scanty means. if ellen had been like margaret, she would have found a way to earn an honest penny herself. but there have always been differences in folk, and there always will be. "the ane can do, and the ither maun be done for; and we will not be hard on ellen," said my mother. we had few of our kin left. she was company for us. at best, the days passed wearily, the evenings were dull and sad, and the nights often brought no sleep. we still lived in fear and dread, although we felt that our best had already been taken from us, and whatever could come to us now must be less than that which we had already suffered. our champions had become fewer, but they made up in bravery what they lacked in numbers. doubtless they thought they would sell their lives as dearly as possible. bessie mcdougal often trembled for her son, and i will not deny that another did the same. alas! i have to record that our worst fears were realized. he likewise was pierced by the enemy's bullet. i was now more than ever drawn towards his aged mother, for i felt that we had a common sorrow. i was near her as she stood over the cold clay of her son, and i slipped my hand in hers. she tightened her grasp, and turned and looked at me. "puir effie," said she, "your ain heart is sair, i mak nae doot." i answered with tears that i could no longer keep back. afterwards she told me all that robert had said. "i will always love you because he loved you," she said, pressing me to her heart. this is the last death of our friends that i have to record. the dreadful "killing time," as the last few and most bloody years of persecution were called, came at last to an end, and a brighter and better day dawned upon long-oppressed scotland, thanks to the good lord. chapter xii. peace. the persecution of our kirk lasted through the reigns of charles ii. and james ii., a period of twenty-eight years. but the lord gave us deliverance at last. james was driven from the throne in november, , and liberty of conscience was proclaimed by his successor, king william. it now remains for me to trace our way back to quiet industrial pursuits. this was no easy matter for us; for, setting aside the fact that sorrow had taken nearly all the heart out of us, it will be remembered that, while many of our neighbors had lost a son, a brother, or a father, we had lost nearly every male member of our family. and as for my nephew jamie, his hands were full at home. how should we win our bread? it was a serious question; and for this cause we were glad to learn that janet and her bairn were to be the sole heirs of bessie mcdougal. she had laid by a heavy purse of gold, the reward of long years of labor performed by herself and her husband. they had never a child but robert, so they could well lay by; and by canny management she had contrived to save something from taxation and the troopers. nor was she likely to use her savings in her old age, for no sooner was peace restored to the country than she again filled up her poultry-yard and bought cows, so that her butter, eggs, and fowls were sent to market as in the years before the troubles began. but with us it was very different. my father had accumulated very little, having had five bairns to clothe, feed, and educate. during the troubles we had labored constantly and practised every species of economy, but our purse was now empty. i could spin and weave, and that i did both early and late. but i do not think i could have kept even with the world if ellen had not realized how matters stood with us and gone to her own kinsfolk. this was no small relief to us, for it not only made one less to provide for, but also made it possible for us to rent a room to a worthy woman who, like ourselves, had lost all her supporters in the evil times. it was also bessie's pleasure to send us many things, among which i well remember a fine brood of chickens. i was glad of these for mother's sake. she attended to them very gladly. she loved to watch the bonnie wee things and see them grow. the care of them kept her from always thinking of the past, so that they were a benefit to us in more ways than one. but mother's usual place was by the ingle. there she sat and knitted most of the day, and sometimes far into the night. there stood the stand upon which was her bible, which she read frequently. our life was free from disturbance; we gradually became accustomed to our lot, and even began to feel some small degree of comfort. there was, as it were, a faint misty light breaking over us. we began to notice the changes in nature. morning and evening were not now as one to us. we greeted the coming of day with something of the old feeling; we were solemnized at nightfall, but no longer terrified. the sabbath was now indeed a day of rest. we were no longer wandering over moor and glen, through summer's heat and winter's cold, to win our way to some remote place in order to hear the preached word, or, when there was no preacher, to exhort and comfort one another; but we were gathered again in our own kirk, where we had all worshipped in our youth. on those peaceful sabbaths i could forget the present and think gladly of our holy dead who had entered upon the never-ending sabbath above. little by little much of the old glad life crept into the homes of our neighbors; but for myself i have known comparatively little of what the world calls happiness. i had scarcely passed childhood when my life was beclouded by the evil that pursued us until i reached middle age, at which time i was already longingly looking forward to death as a relief from life's sorrows and anxieties. yet for my mother's sake, and for the dear ones that called me "aunt effie," i have aye prayed for strength to endure. there is one sorrow that i have not told in earthly ears. i never speak of robert. i visit his grave alone. sometimes i find the birds singing joyously above it; and though their glad song jars a little on my ear, i ever bid them sing on, for their music makes his resting-place more cheerful. i planted seeds and roots of flowering-plants on the grave so as to make the place bonnier, and also that i might pluck the blossoms that grew above him and wear them near my heart; for though this regard for him came to me late in life, it was none the less real and tender. at steenie's grave it was different. mother, janet, and i often sat around it. janet needed not to hide her sorrow. she could mourn her dead in the presence of his mother and sister without reserve. i scarcely knew how i passed my time some days. my fingers drew out the threads and my foot turned the wheel, but my mind was often far away, recalling the words and deeds of our happy dead. i remembered the look and tone of each. i was again a child standing beside my sister, who patiently combed and plaited my hair; i was at father's knee with my book; i was being borne in the arms of jamie or richie; i was playing with steenie at the burn, or i was thinking of what happened long afterwards--thoughts that i cannot write. from these memories i would be roused by my mother's gentle call, "effie, the fire is low and it is nearly time for the evening meal." [illustration: page .] five years we two bided alone. often, too often, we recounted our sorrows; but we aye took them to the fountain-head of love and strength, and oftentimes we received "the oil of joy for mourning and the garment of praise for heaviness." at the end of this time came a change. our dear old friend bessie mcdougal sickened. we often went to her, but we always found her wishes anticipated by the affectionate thoughtfulness and skilful hands of janet. indeed, she almost refused to share the care of the sick with any one. not even after her own cheek grew pale with nightly watchings would she willingly give place to me. bessie would sometimes tell her to rest herself; but as soon as janet left the room the sick woman would weary for her. at length the end drew near. mother was summoned in haste to her death-bed. the dying woman commended janet to our care with as much concern and tenderness as if she were delivering an only daughter to a stranger. she forgot in her earnestness that janet and her child already belonged to us. "she has been like a daughter to me," she said. "she was the light of my puir hame; she comforted me in my last sad bereavement, although her ain great sorrow was heavy upon her. her wee slender hands have ministered to my comfort in mony ways; she has been eyes and feet to me; her faith has strengthened my faith; she is in very truth the handmaid of the lord. my deein' pillow wouldna be easy if i thought she wouldna hae freends when i am awa." "bessie dear, good neighbor bessie," said my mother, "do you no remember that janet is as dear to us as to you? do you forget that she was wife to my ain steenie, and that i have loved her long and well?" "oh, ay; it is enough; and do thou forgie what my anxious heart garred me say. noo i dee content. i shall soon be wi' david. i hae ne'er forgotten his message to me, that we s'ould meet, though we s'ould gang hame by different rauds. he meant we s'ould leave this warld in different ways. he didna mean that we s'ouldna a' walk in the straight and narrow way by faith in the son of god: na, na, david didna mean that, for there is nae ither way. if we seek to climb up some ither way, we shallna enter in. thank god, we are a' in the richt way but the bairn; and surely the god o' his faithers willna forsake the little ane left to his care." when she felt that her last moments had come, she turned her eyes on janet, saying feebly and brokenly, "fare ye weel, my puir twice-smitten lamb. dinna sorrow for me. ye hae been a comfort to me; let that thought now comfort yoursel. let the wee lad gie me a kiss." gradually her eyelids closed, and her lifeless form lay before us as if she had fallen into a peaceful slumber. janet and the bairn grieved for the good woman as it was meet they should, for she had been a good friend to them. i felt sad too; for since i had stood with her over the dead body of one who was dear to us both i had felt that she was more than a neighbor to me. janet no longer rented the place so long held by the mcdougals. she came to us; and more of joy came with her and wee steenie than i had ever thought would be our portion. the lad was growing up very like his father. i doubt not but mother and i would have spoiled him if janet had not been as wise as she was good. chapter xiii. conclusion. i have written nothing of late about margaret's children. you will remember that jamie had a wish to preach the gospel. he did not change his purpose. the providence of god helped him wonderfully. through the divine blessing on his own perseverance, and the kindness of his friends, a way was opened for the fulfilment of his wishes. and who, think you, bides now at the manse? who, indeed, but the selfsame jamie, now rev. james patterson! but i never cross the doorstone without thinking of our own gentle mary, whose home it once was. surely time has brought to us many changes. i am glad that mother lived to hear jamie preach in our own kirk; no doubt it was like balm to her poor wounded heart. margaret's youngest bairn, john, is the schoolmaster; for we aye have a schoolmaster in our family. when he made it known that he wanted his grandfather's place, many voices cried, "let him have it. let us have a scion o' the warthy john patterson, for we havena had his like since the good man's wark was stopped." the four lassies, as they grew to womanhood, were settled in homes of their own. the oldest one, christie, married a worthy farmer's son, one john mchardie. she lives in the house so long occupied by bessie mcdougal. it seems natural to me to go there, and i am glad it is christie's home. christie is just like my mother, for whom she was named. she puts every pennyworth to its best use; and she and her husband bid fair to do as well on the place as david mcdougal and his wife did. the youngest lass, maggie, married a good man with plenty of this world's gear, yet i doubt if margaret was better pleased than she was with christie's choice. john, maggie's brother, often told her that her bonnie face would get her a fortune some day. a bonnie face she had, and still has, and a good heart too, which is far better. she has never been puffed up on account of her beauty or her husband's riches; for she was well taught that true beauty is beauty of soul, and true riches the treasure laid up in heaven. it is with maggie that margaret now lives, though the other bairns are ever wanting their mother to bide a while with them; and so she often goes from one to another, loved and honored by all. in margaret's family we cannot fail to see that god has fulfilled his promise to the widow and the fatherless. true, they were not without their full share of hardships; but by god's grace they bore them submissively and bravely, and god exalted them in his own good time. i have to record but one other event--the death of my mother. it is just eleven years to-day since she passed away. it was like the falling to sleep of a wee bairn. she went with a smile on her face. i could not but wonder what made her smile. was it joy that her long pilgrimage of more than ninety years was accomplished at last? did she see some one on the other shore beckoning to her? we cannot know that she did; but we believe that the christian, when he goes hence, is often cheered by some vision of god's own granting. mother's place by the ingle is left to me. here i sit. i read the same bible, and i am waiting for the same call. god grant it may be as gentle. i do not weary to go; for i am an honored inmate of the old home. my nephew is fond of his aunt effie, and janet is a sister indeed. much good has come to me to make me forget the past, could it ever be forgotten. but i look for my purest and highest enjoyment in that world where i shall rejoin those who have passed on before. it is not meet, it would not be wise, for me to trace all the events connected with our family in the last few years. it might not be amiss to say that wilson, the man that put the match to jamie's fingers, when he lay on his death-bed sent for the same jamie to pray for the salvation of his soul. truly, god's ways are wonderful. and now i have done with my story. it has given me a melancholy pleasure to write it. i think i shall not hope too much if i hope that all who read it may learn from it that when god suffers his children to be afflicted, he aye upholds them and gives them grace sufficient for their needs. sequel: by christie somerville chapter xiv. the pen in another hand. having come in possession of effie patterson's manuscript, which the reader has just been perusing in print, i, christie somerville, her grand-niece, deem that it would not be amiss to add something thereunto. it is with profound respect that i call to remembrance my most worthy relative, who was a member of my father's family from my earliest recollections, and who died at an advanced age while i was still young. but i recollect her perfectly well, and i remember many things that she told me; for, like all aged persons, she loved to rehearse the events of her earlier years. listening to her, i learned much of the history of that sad time when the spirit of persecution desolated scotland and bereft us of so many of our kindred. i have also gathered from the conversation of my parents much of the story of her life, so that the contents of her manuscript are not entirely new to me; but they are none the less dear because of their familiarity. she lost the spirit of sadness apparent in her manuscript, and during the last years of her life she was cheerful, and always ready to encourage the desponding and assure them from her own experience that the lord would bring them out of all their troubles, according to his promise. my parents held her in great veneration; and, remembering all she had suffered--her bereavements, her toils, her loneliness, and her noble endurance--they did all that they could to make her last days pleasant to her. she beguiled the years of old age with reading, and she took a lively interest in the current events of her time. i well remember her remark when we heard that king george i. had died in his carriage while travelling in germany. "i have outlived seven sovereigns," said she. "it can scarcely be god's will that i should outlive another." and she did not. death approached her very softly, and she passed away as gently and as peacefully as she had desired. she has told her story, and i thought it might be well to take it up where she left it, and trace the dealings of god's providence with us, her kinsfolk of later generations. my father's name was stephen patterson. he was son of janet mcadam, wife of stephen patterson, the martyr, as my aunt has recorded. to my parents were born two sons, kenneth and walter; but i was the only daughter. my brothers were older than i. living as we did but two generations after our suffering kindred, it will not be accounted a strange thing that we were early filled with admiration for those who so stoutly resisted oppression. i well remember with what eagerness we gathered around aunt effie to hear from her lips stories of their seal and courage. she loved to see us manifest this interest, which assured her that we too would stand up in defence of our rights and privileges, should they ever be assailed. it is not my design, however, to dwell on anything she has written, or the time of which she wrote, but to speak of those who came after her, and endeavor to show that religion with our people was not a fitful, feeble flame, fanned and kindled only by persecution, but a steady fire, that has since lighted the rugged path of poverty and toil, as it illuminated the dungeons where our forefathers were incarcerated. in my father's family we knew little of real poverty, for industry had brought back a degree of prosperity; but we all had to labor continually in order to keep the little property that was left to our grandmother by bessie mcdougal, as you will remember. but poverty was around us, even in families whose ancestors had been wealthy and titled. we were early taught to think of those poorer than ourselves; nor were we taught by precept alone, but by example as well. i remember that, at the time when the husbandmen were to cast in the seed, many a measure of grain was given from our own store; for grandmother thought that if folk could not get wherewith to sow, they surely could not reap. it was her delight to give, and she frequently stood by and added another handful after father had given all he thought he could spare. what a grandmother she was! i cannot adequately describe her. one must have known her personally to be able to form a correct idea of her. she was remarkable for sweetness of disposition, kindness, and dignity of manner, and her earnest piety was known of all. the bible was her constant study. she believed it with the heart as well as with the head, and trusted its promises with simple childlike faith. in all her trials she relied on a present saviour, and she brought this saviour so near to us that we almost felt his presence. she had proved him in darker hours than we had ever known, and her faith was immovable. she endeavored to inspire us with her own faith and trust. "you must know, my dear bairns," she said to us one sabbath afternoon, "that the lord jesus has said, 'i will never leave thee nor forsake thee.' remember that, 'never leave thee nor forsake thee;' no, not for one wee moment. he leads us with his hand; he guides us with his eye; he calls us by name, and gives us gifts. the best gift, forbye the gift of eternal life, is that of peace. we are not promised rest in this world; but we are promised peace, and that brings us all the rest we need. we shall have rest after a while, when our work in this world is all done. the lord could give us wealth and free us from toil if it would be good for us; but he kens better. he said, 'not as the world giveth give i unto you.' he kens that hardships and trials are good for us; and as a wise father chastises his children, so we are chastised by our heavenly father, and we must aye trust that it is for our good." poor kenneth! he found it hard, even in her day, to believe that all was ordered for his good. only a few days after she had thus talked with us kenneth was seeking a stray lamb, and, leaping a wall in his haste, he did not quite clear it, but fell, and a heavy stone fell with him and broke his leg. he rolled away the stone, but he could not win his way home. he had to lie there on the grass and wait for some one to come seeking him; and there father found him two hours later. a surgeon was immediately sent for, but he was long in coming; and whether he did not rightly understand his business, or what was the cause, i cannot say, but the limb did not mend well, and the poor lad halted ever after. he took this sorely to heart, and no one could still his sad complainings but grandmother. as i think of it now i do not wonder at his murmurings--so young and full of life, to be maimed before he had reached the stature of manhood. only the grace of god can enable us to say under such trials, "thy holy will be done." if this trouble, sore as it was, had been all that was meted out to us, we still would have been able to favor the lad, and so try to make his burden lighter. but in the midst of harvest the same year father was stricken with palsy, and we thought his hour had come. he lingered helpless, and at last began slowly to recover; but he never was strong on his feet again, and never had the full use of his right arm. with these two afflictions our worldly prospects seemed sadly blighted. mother was, up to this time, but a gentle, clinging woman; but troubles brought into action her hidden power and courage, and from being consoled under light trials and difficulties she became consoler to us all. of this we had great need; for grandmother, who always sought to interpret the dark, mysterious providences of god as real blessings, was taken from us by death. father grieved sorely for grandmother, and so did we all. her strength was hardly abated, and her heart was still young. she had a kindly and a comforting word for every one who needed it, and she was sadly missed by many besides ourselves. but the change in mother helped us all, and father often said, "agnes, what should we do in all our difficulties without your strength and courage? the more we are cast down, the more you lift us up and the stronger you seem." walter, wee man, buckled to the work right earnestly. but his strength was small, and mother and i wrought in the field many a day during haying and harvest. many kinds of work were too heavy for us, and as the years went by we were obliged to pay out many pounds for help, and this expense ate sorely into the profits of the harvest. but we had butter and cheese to sell, and our sheep furnished us much of our clothing, so that our expenses were small, and, with the blessing of god, we were kept from want. kenneth did what he could, and was never idle; but we kept him in school as much as we could, that he might be able to earn his bread with his head and his fingers and not with his bodily strength. father oftentimes essayed to put in the sickle, but was as often forced to yield. but, thanks to god, naught happened to walter, and after a few years he was able to stand master of the work himself; and father and kenneth learned the lesson, often so hard to learn, that they must trust their leader, though they cannot see the way in which they are led. chapter xv. a visit to aunt margaret. before i tell you more about my father's family i will tell you about some other persons of whom aunt effie wrote. it seems to me that you will wish to know if margaret, my great-aunt, had as peaceful and as happy an old age as was predicted for her. she was, as you will remember, wife to james patterson, who fell at bothwell bridge. i shall be right glad to tell you about her, for i remember her well. she lived to be very old, and was hale and hearty up to the time of her last sickness. her look was always so cheerful that i might almost say she wore a perpetual smile. she was plump and rosy too, and was as nice and comfortable a body as you would wish to look at. a visit to aunt margaret was a source of pleasure to us all. one afternoon when father was feeling poorly and discouraged, for it seemed that all was going wrong with us, he said to mother, "well, agnes, i think i'll away to aunt margaret's; it may do me good." "that it will," replied my mother. "but you maun take christie with you, as you are no well." i was right glad to hear that, and i hastened to make myself ready. it was in the spring-time; the hillocks were fresh and green, and even the crags were flecked with spots of vegetation. sheep were cropping the tender grass on the uplands, and cattle were browsing in the underwood. birds were flitting about and singing for joy as they busied themselves with providing for their tender young. the day and the season were so delightful that we thought nothing of the distance, and were surprised to find ourselves so soon at aunt margaret's cottage. the walk did father good, and he scarcely felt fatigue. aunt margaret was right glad to see us. she had always felt a tenderness for my father, and since his affliction came upon him she had done all she could to cheer him and make his burden less heavy. "something told me you would come to-day, steenie," said she. "i said to rachel this morning, 'the day is so fine i think steenie will be here.' you did well to bring christie. i wish agnes had come too." and so she continued with her pleasant welcome and her cheerful chat, and father soon forgot his troubles. aunt margaret's son john, the schoolmaster, always lived with his mother. his wife, rachel, was a quiet body. she had no children, so that there were no playmates for me; but still i liked to go there, though to this day i can scarcely tell why. i think it was chiefly on account of the beautiful charm that invests most children, and makes them think their kinsfolk the best and loveliest people in the world. it must also have been partly on cousin john's account. he always exerted himself to amuse children; perhaps because he had none of his own he took more notice of other people's; at any rate, he was very agreeable, and could be very amusing when he felt like it. john made father laugh many times that afternoon. i suppose he was purposely funny in order to cheer my father and hearten him up a bit. his efforts had the desired effect, for father told john that an hour in his company was better than a dose of medicine. but this same cousin was grave too at times; and none took the good book in a more reverential manner than did he, and few in prayer seemed to approach so near the throne of divine grace. we stayed to break bread with our aunt that day. many a daintier supper may have been gotten on the board, but i trow none better or more wholesome. aunt margaret's cordial welcome and kind words did father good, and he left the house with a lighter heart than he had brought to it. the dear old lady accompanied us to the gate and took leave of us there. "good night to you, steenie; and good night to you, hinny; and come again soon," said she, as we left. i looked back and saw her going to the poultry-yard to see that all was right there. "old age is not to be dreaded when one can be so blessed, so cheerful, and so helpful," remarked my father. "christie, you maun make a woman like aunt margaret, and like your grandmother, whose blessed memory rests in the hearts of many people." he pressed my hand as he said this, and i remember well i thought within myself, "i will try to be like them." "well, stephen, you look quite cheered up again," said my mother, as we reached home. "aunt margaret aye cheers a body," he replied, and he continued to talk more cheerfully than he had done for a long time. mother had to remind him that he was weary with his walk and that it was time to seek rest in sleep. she bid walter bring the book to kenneth, that he might read instead of his father. "read the hundred and forty-fifth psalm," said my father. kenneth was a good reader, and the words seemed good and gracious even to me. when we had all been commended to god and pardon had been asked for all our transgressions, we sought our pillows, all of us feeling, no doubt, as did god's servant of old when he said, "i will both lay me down in peace and sleep, for thou, lord, only, makest me to dwell in safety." chapter xvi. a morning at the manse. i have a mind to take my reader next to the manse, where my cousin james lives in peace, and, i might add, plenty; for although his fifty pounds a year would be considered by some folk a mere trifle, it suffices for his wants and leaves something forbye to give to the poor. no suppliant for charity goes from his door without a few pence to gladden his heart; and if the need be great, the pence are sometimes held back and shillings take their place. to be sure, there are many in the parish who bring him gifts several times a year. we ourselves often carry our cousin james such things as we can spare. i remember in particular one lovely summer morning, when walter and i were small, my mother sent us to the manse with a little gift. walter carried a leg of mutton and i a bit of cheese and a bottle of cream. we made a merry time of it, for neither of us minded our burdens, and we laughed and chatted all the way. i doubt if the plover that was wading in the stream was happier or more care-free than were we. walter had a bonnie face, though it was a bit sun-browned; but his dark hair set it off finely. i remember he said to me, when we had almost reached the manse, "you must quiet down now, christie, for you have kept your mouth stretched frae ear to ear the hail morn." "i could say as much for yourself," i replied. whereupon he laughed again, showing two rows of fine teeth. "well," said he, "let us laugh while we may. we will have to sober down soon enough; leastways that seems to be the way it goes with poor folk. it is work, work, frae year's end to year's end." "what is that you are saying, my lad?" asked the minister, coming from behind the hedgerow and starting up the path with us. "i was but saying that poor folk maun work and aye keep at it," replied walter, the color rising to his cheeks. "and do you not like work, my wee man?" asked he, smiling. "ay, i like it well enough; but sometimes it seems a bit hard to have all work and no play. i suppose it maun be right or it wouldna be so ordered," said walter, for he had been well taught that all the arrangements of providence are wise and good. "yes, walter, it must be right; and you must not be discouraged because you have been put into the harness younger than most lads. you have the satisfaction of knowing that you are helpful, and there is a comfort in that. it is noble to labor; it is ignoble to be idle." he had now reached his own door, and we followed him in. "here is a bit of meat mother sent," said walter. "and here is a small cheese and some cream," said i. "thank you, my dears. your mother is very kind. i am fond of cousin agnes' cheese." stepping to the door of the pleasant sitting-room, he spoke to his wife: "ellen, here is company for you." she came to greet us, and asked us to go with her. but when we were within the room that to us seemed so grand we felt a little embarrassed. "if i had kenned they would bring us into this bonnie room," said walter in an undertone, "i would have put on my sunday clothes." "and i too," i said, "would have put on my print gown and a ribbon on my braids." as we finished speaking the minister and his wife returned with jeannie, their little lame daughter. jeannie was almost as old as i was, being ten, while i was eleven; but she was pale and sickly-looking. her arms and hands were very thin. i looked at my own plump, brown hands; the contrast was great. i believe jeannie's mother observed the contrast too, for she looked from jeannie to me, and i heard her sigh. i went to jeannie and talked to her. the mother's eyes rested on us all the time, as if her little daughter was too frail and too precious to be lost from view a single moment. cousin ellen was a lovely lady, just in the prime of life; but her husband was well on in years. she was his second wife and the mother of two children. alec, her son, then fifteen years old, was a pleasant lad, and my brothers were very fond of him. walter went into the garden to find him, and both soon came in. alec brought a basket of fine cherries. i ate too many of them to be genteel, i fear; but we had none at home, and it was not easy to restrain my childish appetite. the minister took us into his study. i was astonished to see so many books. i did not know at that time that one person ever possessed so many. i looked at them a long time, for even then i liked books. i remember that i thought there could be no better man than our minister, and no place bonnier than the manse. walter and i were thinking of going home when alan, the son of the first wife, drove up to the door with his wife and child. "we maun go home now," said walter; but i had caught sight of the wee one, and he could not persuade me to go. i soon managed to get the bairn in my arms, and, forgetting myself, i was talking to it as i had heard others talking to infants. when i looked up alan was laughing at me. "what an old-fashioned child you are, christie," said he. "everybody tells me so," said i, slightly displeased. "i like you all the better for your quaint ways," said he, still smiling. walter was becoming very uneasy, i could see that; so i carried the bairn to alan, for i did not feel acquainted with his wife, and we started for home. "now, my lass," said walter, when we had but gotten out of hearing of the manse, "i should not wonder if the taws would be taken down. the hail morn is gone, and not a weed pulled frae the garden, nor anything else done." i was a little uneasy, and was pondering in my mind what i should say in self-defence and still adhere to the truth, for i knew well it was my fault that we had stayed away the last hour or more. we returned less merry than we went, i can assure you. finally i remembered that the minister had said many good things to us, and asked us questions from the bible, and that we had answered very well, the minister had said so. "children, i am glad to know that you have been so well taught," he said. "although your parents have so many things to divide their attention and distract their thoughts, they have not failed to instruct you out of the book that maketh wise unto salvation." i thought if mother was too hard on me i would turn this to good account, for she aye liked to have us get religious instruction. when we had nearly reached home i began to lag behind, feeling in no hurry to hear what would be said to me. walter hastened to the garden, took up the hoe, and began to work very fast. just then mother came to the door. "so, you are come at last! what has kept you the hail morn?" "nothing in particular," i replied, quickening my steps, "only the minister's folk were so kind, and it was such a bonnie place that i liked well to stay." i looked into her face as i spoke the whole truth, but i feared so poor an excuse might cause me to be punished. to my surprise she answered without sternness, and with a perceptible touch of tenderness, "i am glad ye have had a pleasant morning, puir wee lass. i was vexed with you for staying away, for i was pressed with work; but i will no chide you; it is little enough pleasure that you have." "is anything amiss?" i asked, touched by her unusual manner. "nae, i was but thinking how muckle better chance some children have than others. it is wrong, i make nae doubt, to feel so, but whiles i canna help it. it grieves me sairly that i canna let ye gang to your cousin john's school, as ye should; but i canna spare ye." "i can read very well now, mother," said i, "and i can repeat a score of the psalms and answer many of the bible questions. walter and i did it the morn. the minister took us into his study and talked with us seriously. he asked us many questions, and we answered right well, for he said so. but walter said it was samson who slew goliath. i shook my head. 'who was it, christie?' asked the minister. 'david,' i replied. 'you are right,' said he. 'it is no wonder that walter thought samson maun hae killed the great giant,' said i, feeling sorry for walter. the minister smiled and went on with his questions. alas! i have to tell that my own time came next; for when he asked me who was taken up in a chariot of fire, i answered, 'ezekiel.' walter was even with me then, for he quickly answered, 'elijah.' i felt ashamed. but mother," said i, "did not the minister read sunday morning about ezekiel and wheels and fire?" "yes, christie," said she; "you will find that in the tenth chapter of ezekiel; but it doesna say he went up in a chariot of fire. i hope you made no more mistakes." "no more after that, and many questions he asked us," i replied. "ye hae done very well," said she, heaving a sigh of relief; "some other day ye may go again." as soon as i had done my work in the house i hurried out to weed the garden. i told walter that the taws was likely to hang idle on the peg, and that mother was o'er good. i did not know why she seemed to pity us, for she had always told us that work was good for every one; but i now know that she was sorry there was not a little more pleasure and innocent childish enjoyment in our young lives, for she well knew that the years would bring still more care and burdens still more heavy. chapter xvii. at cousin christie's. aunt effie wrote, as you will remember, that aunt margaret's daughter, christie, and her husband made their home where david and bessie mcdougal had so long lived; and she said, too, that they would be like to prosper. if they have not prospered i am no judge. john mchardie has a way of getting pennies together that few have; and he is a god-fearing and god-serving man too, and he gives liberally to the kirk. as for christie, you would not find her like for strong sense and goodness among a score of women. they have raised a large family--four lads and five lassies; and, although they were all brought up to work hard, they were the most mirthful of all the cousins. the lads whistled merrily as they drove the team to the field, and the lassies sang at the wheel. in the evening they found something to do with their hands, while they cracked innocent jokes or slyly speired at each other about the neighboring lads and lassies. they were so good-natured with it all that there was much laughing, but no ill-temper. i went there to spend the day one saturday when i was about thirteen years of age. it was unusual for me to have a day to myself; but i worked well all the morning that i might leave as little as possible for mother to do. i then made myself tidy, and took the path along the western brae, for it was more pleasant than the dusty road, and i liked to see the bonnie things that grew in the shade of the coppice. it was almost dinner-time when i arrived, and preparations were going on for that meal. over the fire hung a large kettle of barley soup; in a corner of the fireplace sat the bake-kettle, on the cover of which christie was heaping glowing embers as i entered; before the fire were oaten cakes set up to bake, for sunday must be provided for, and the family were blessed with good appetites. christie gave me hearty greeting and inquired after father and mother. just then ellen, her daughter, came in with a basket of eggs. "the black hen has a notion to set," she was saying, when she saw me, and her face broke into smiles. she was a bonnie lass, just turned fourteen. she and two lads were all that were left at home, the rest having married or gone out into the world to seek their fortune. in the middle of the afternoon it began to rain, and darkness came early, so that i was obliged to spend the night with them. a fire made the little room cheerful, and we were all as merry as we could wish. christie sat by the candle finishing the week's sewing, and her husband sat by the fire, falling asleep now and then, for he had been chilled by the rain. the evening was half spent when the door opened and sandy mchardie, the eldest son, came in. "weel, sandy, what brings ye out on sic a night?" said his mother. "ye may well say 'sic a night,' for if i hadna taen my plaid i would hae been wet to the skin." "wha is here?" asked his father, rousing from sleep. "naebody but sandy, father. i am come to hae a talk wi' you. and i maun tell you before i forget it--for i hae anither trouble on my mind--that the brown mare has a swelling on her knee, and i want you to come the morrow morn, if it is sunday, and look at it, for it would be a wark o' mercy to help the puir faithful beast." "there'll be nae need o' that, sandy. i think it maun be the same as ailed the black horse. i'll gie you a bottle o' the wash that cured him; i am never without it sin' that time." "i'll try it; but if it graws waur instead o' better i'll send you word, for i dinna want onything to happen to that beast. now for something mair. my sheep got into jock wilson's field, and it's nae wonder, for he hasna a wa' that would keep out the maist orderly sheep in a' scotland. weel, what did he do but set that savage beast o' his on them, and ane o' the ewes was sae badly torn wi' his ugly teeth that i had to kill her at ance, and anither broke her leg. now i ca' that vera unneeborly, to say the least o' it; and i am that angry i could a'maist set sic a beast on himsel, the scoundrel! there isna an honest hair on his heid, nor on his father's before him, nor yet on his grandfather's, the auld traitor, wha for filthy lucre turned foe to his countrymen, and pit thae accursed instruments o' torture to his ain neebors!" here he paused to take breath. "mother," said ellen softly, "was he no the ane wha put the match to uncle jamie's fingers?" her mother nodded in the affirmative. "there isna need to be sae muckle heated aboot it, sandy," said his father. "it is nae wonder ye are vexed, but ye ken that will do nae gude. how is your ain part o' the wa'?" "it couldna be better. that is the vexing part o' the matter. he kens weel i hae nae ither place to keep my sheep. now what is to be dune aboot it?" "just speak to the laird aboot it. jock is afeared o' him if he isna o' you; and if he doesna gang right he'll soon be shifted frae his bonnie cot and set doon by the wayside, for a' laird graham will care." "sure enough. i was that angry i couldna think sae far." "now let me say a word, sandy," said his mother. "if ye had minded the gude ward ye wouldna hae let the sun go down on your wrath; ye would hae thought yoursel about laying the matter before your uncle. ye maun be slow to wrath, as the apostle james has written." "weel, mother, i hae been slow to speak; leastways i didna gang to him as i had a mind to do. so ye see i hae heeded part o' the injunction, at ony rate." "ye hae dune weel in that, sandy. thae wilsons are as they are, and the less ye hae to do wi' them, the better." "ye are right there, mother. i wish the hail boodle o' them could be set across the north sea into another land than scotland!" "o sandy, we can bring nae gude feeling into our hearts by cherishing ill-will towards ony human creature. we maun a' hae mair patience. alas! i fear nane o' us are like the meek and gentle maister. compose yoursel noo, sandy, and get your mind better prepared for the service o' the lord's house on the morrow." "i suppose ye killed baith the ewes," said the father. "that i did. i could do nae less." "i'll tak ane o' them; the ither ye can mak use o'. on monday i'll ride over and see the laird, and i think ye'll hae nae mair trouble wi' your neebor on that score, and there'll be nae real loss after a'." "i canna quite say that," replied sandy. "they were fine ewes, o' a choice breed. i wouldna set the value o' twa ither sheep anent them as a fitting recompense." "weel, it is bad enough, sandy; but say nae mair aboot it. i'll gie ye twa bonnie lambs in their place. peace is muckle better than discord among neebors." sandy rose to go. "tak your faither's plaid," said his mother; "your ain is no dry yet." sandy opened the door. "the rain has abated," said he. "i need nae plaid at all. gude night to ye all." then recollecting himself, he paused to say, "tell stephen's lass to come over wi' her parents and visit us. i want stephen and agnes to see how we are making out on the wee place." it was late bedtime when sandy left. john mchardie took the book of all books, and with solemn voice read the thirty-fourth psalm. then he made a lengthy prayer, in which he thanked god for the blessings of the week just past, and asked that an especial blessing might attend the labors of god's servants on the morrow. after worship all retired. i was both sleepy and weary, and was soon lost in slumber. that was my first night from home. when i awoke in the morning i could not for a moment remember where i was. then all came back to me. ellen had already risen. i rose and looked out of the window. it was a bright, bonnie morn. i looked up at the blue sky, then down at the green earth; everything looked fresh, and the air was sweet. all was so still and peaceful that i thought the sabbath had a calmness of its own, and to this day i fancy that it has. i went with my cousins to the kirk, and from there i went home. i had been gone but a short time, but i was glad to be again under the home-roof. chapter xviii. graham place. the following week laird graham came to see about sandy's difficulty with his neighbor, and he brought his wife to our house. it was two or three years since they had been to see us. the laird took a great liking to kenneth, who was at that time eighteen years of age, and a fine lad he was; saving his lameness, no bonnier young man was in the whole country-side. the lad's conversation showed so much good sense that our kinsman wanted him to go and live with him, and he spoke to us about it. "i have need of some one like kenneth," said he. "i was thinking of one of christie's lads; but they are strong and can labor in the field, while kenneth should have some easier way to earn his bread. davie is but poorly, and he is worse since katie married and went away. i think his loneliness wears on him. kenneth would be a companion for him; and as he is good at figures, he could keep my accounts and look after things when i am away. i will do well by the lad, and he will have no hard work." "thank you for your kind offer," said my father. "if the lad wants to go i cannot stand in his way." kenneth was glad of so good a chance to begin his way in the world, and at once accepted the opportunity. the separation caused sadness; but we consoled ourselves with the thought that he would not be far from us. thus kenneth was provided with a good home among his own kin, and a chance to see more of the world and do better than he could in our humbler home and sphere. he could also help us more with his wages than he could with his work. we had need of his help, for father's strength failed every year, and at that time his limbs were so palsied that he could scarcely walk. he was feeble, and at times greatly suffered. we spent a great deal with doctors; but he became worse instead of better. three years after kenneth went away came a summer long to be remembered by us all. mother sickened, and for many weeks the angel of death seemed hovering over us. then we were indeed troubled. father's anxiety increased his weakness, and we thought we should lose both father and mother. i was just turned sixteen, and i did my best that mother should have no cause to worry about the work. walter and i watched anxiously for signs of returning health, but they were long in coming. everything was changing without. the summer sun was fast maturing grain and fruit; but still she, who had been wont to admire the one and pluck the other, lay on her bed of languishing. wearisome days were these to us all. i was determined not to yield to fatigue; but tired nature could not be wholly overruled by force of will. many times when, at a late hour, i sought my bed, my limbs almost refused to carry me to it. but the darkest night must be followed by the dawn; and so, too, the morn of hope dawned for us--mother recovered. then it was first noticed that i was worn and needed rest. "poor lass!" said my mother, "as soon as i get my strength you must have a play-spell." kenneth had driven over many times to see his mother; twice cousin margaret came with him. the last time she came she found mother better; and noticing that i was pale and worn, she proposed that i should go to her house and rest a week or two. "as soon as you are strong i will send kenneth for her, and you maunna refuse me, cousin agnes," she said. i scarcely knew whether i was glad or sorry to go. i was to have a new gown, and a bonnie one too; mother said it was but right. i remember that all the silver we could gather on a market was spent to make me ready. when at last the day came and i rode away with kenneth, i anticipated scarcely more pleasure than homesickness. i think i should have been frightened out of the visit altogether if i had known i was to meet there one who was destined to be my companion through life. but so it was, for there i first saw james somerville, whose name i now bear. he was a nephew of the laird, and was spending a few weeks there before he should recommence his studies--for he was studying for the ministry. he was a tall, handsome youth, with fine brown eyes. we became acquainted, of course; and i wondered that he was so well pleased with me, for i was but a bashful girl, and among so many strange people i was more shy than ever. but he had a way of talking to me that put me at my ease, and i quite forgot that he was so recently unknown to me. i met many strangers, and there were many diversions; but in them all i often found myself thinking of the fine brown eyes--far oftener than i thought of kenneth or the dear ones i had left at home. ten days passed rapidly. there was riding and driving, coming and going, and more stir than i had ever seen in all my life. my visit, that i thought might be tedious, ended too soon. two hours' ride with kenneth brought me again to our cottage. i am ashamed to write that to me it looked plain and small, and that i felt jealous of kenneth, who enjoyed all the privileges of the laird's own family. but i soon put such thoughts away, and hurried within to greet my good, kind mother who had spared me so many days. father and walter seemed dearer for my short absence. but the quiet of my life had been disturbed. it was as when one casts a rock into the calm bosom of a little lake; it sinks, but that is not all. it sets wee waves in motion, and they widen and widen in ever-increasing circles, and stop not till they reach the shore. so it is with many of the seeming unimportant events of life. chapter xix. the old home and the new. my readers will be ready to believe me when i tell them that after this i often found myself dreaming of the future, and wondering what it had in store for me. i had plenty to do, so that my hands were not idle while my fancy roamed at times unchecked. i did not feel as care-free as i had done; but life possessed a charm which i had never known before. i was no longer a child, and i put away childish things and thoughts. i determined to make the most of the few advantages which our limited circumstances would allow. i worked early and late that i might attend the school. i paid more attention to my appearance than i had been wont to do. my hair, which was heavy and often neglected, received as much care on a week-day as on sunday. it became darker and more glossy. walter often complimented me on my improvement; but i am free to say it was not for walter's sake that i was thus mindful of my looks. nor was this all. whatever i did i strove to do in the best manner. my parents seemed never to weary of commending me. life was very pleasant to me at that time. we were a little above want, and i sometimes had a few shillings to spend for some article of dress not exactly necessary, but pleasing to a young maid's fancy. my father's feebleness was the only drawback to our enjoyment--and that we had accepted as one of the allotments of providence. alas, this world is a changeful place! one tastes of joy, and then the cup of sorrow is put to his lips. when i was eighteen my father left us for the better world. that he exchanged earthly pain for eternal happiness we never doubted. his dear life, especially in his last years, was a continual demonstration of the power of divine grace. oh, it is a bonnie thing and a blessed thing, this walking with god! we may well say "the beauty of holiness," for it has a beauty all its own. the world may turn its frown upon the child of god, but he is undaunted; adversity may scatter its hoar-frosts upon him, but he still stands forth in all the freshness of perennial life; sickness may enervate the body, but the spiritual nature grows stronger as it nears the heavenly haven; friends may forsake and foes may hate, but if he is firmly planted in the kingdom of grace he remains unmoved by either. "nothing can separate us from the love of god." it is this love that strengthens and beautifies the soul which is the real life of the christian. two years passed by and brought no marked changes. at the end of that time the aged james patterson resigned his ministry. with advancing years his locks have grown whiter, his step slower, and his strength has visibly failed. he has passed the bounds of man's allotted days upon the earth, and now, tenderly cared for by his son alan, under whose roof he and his wife find a hearty welcome, he calmly awaits the call to come up higher. when our aged relative and beloved pastor laid aside his robe of office and no longer served in the lord's house, james somerville, my own betrothed, was called to fill the vacant place. in my heart there was joy, for i should not now be separated from my mother and the dear friends and scenes of my youth. one month after he was called among us i became his wife; and now for three happy years the visit to graham place has never been regretted by the mistress of the manse. the men of the moss-hags _being a history of adventure taken from the papers of william gordon of earlstoun in galloway and told over again by_ s. r. crockett new york macmillan and co. and london _all rights reserved_ copyright, , by macmillan and co. norwood press j. s. cushing & co--berwick & smith norwood mass. u.s.a. _to andrew lang poet, romancer, scholar, and friend of the goodly fellowship of the white rose i, born of the hill-folk dedicate this attempt at a true history of some who fought bravely beneath the banner of blue_ _prefatory note._ _i desire to express grateful thanks to my researchers, mr. james nicholson of kirkcudbright, who examined on my behalf all the local records bearing upon the period and upon the persons treated of in this book; and to the reverend john anderson of the edinburgh university library, who brought to light from among the earlstoun papers and from the long-lost records of the united societies, many of the materials which i have used in the writing of this story._ _i owe also much gratitude to the library committee of the university of edinburgh, for permission to use the letters which are printed in the text, and for their larger permission to publish at some future time, for purposes more strictly historical, a selection from both the sets of manuscripts named above._ _most of all, i am indebted to my friend, mr. john mcmillan of glenhead in galloway, who has not only given me in this, as in former works, the benefit of his unrivalled local knowledge, but has travelled with me many a weary foot over those moors and moss-hags, where the wanderers of another time had their abiding places. let him accept this word of thanks. he is not likely to forget our stay together in the wilds of cove macaterick. nor i our journey home._ _s. r. crockett._ _penicuik, aug. , ._ contents. i. my gossip, maisie may ii. gay garland carries double iii. gay garland comes home saddle empty iv. sandy gordon comes over the hill all alone v. the clash of words vi. the clash of swords vii. the field of bothwell brig viii. the curate of dalry ix. through death's dark vale x. the grave in the wilderness xi. the blood of the martyrs xii. we ride to edinburgh xiii. wullcat wat dares heaven and hell xiv. the thing that fell from traitor's gate xv. the bicker in the snow xvi. the grey mowdiewort xvii. over the muir amang the heather xviii. auld anton of the duchrae xix. the sweet singers of the deer-slunk xx. the home of my love xxi. the great conventicle by the dee water xxii. peden the prophet xxiii. birsay the cobbler xxiv. the sanquhar declaration xxv. the last charge at ayrsmoss xxvi. hiding with the heather-cat xxvii. the water of the well of bethlehem xxviii. the well-house of earlstoun xxix. cupboard love xxx. the bull of earlstoun's homecoming xxxi. jean's wa's xxxii. plain words upon men xxxiii. the gardener of balmaghie xxxiv. the testing of the tyke xxxv. kate of the dark brows xxxvi. the black horse comes to balmaghie xxxvii. a cavalier's wooing xxxviii. in cove macaterick xxxix. the bower of the star xl. mardrochat the spy xli. the house of the black cats xlii. the nick o' the deid wife xliii. the vengeance of "yon" xliv. a desirable general meeting xlv. the outfacing of clavers xlvi. the fight at the caldons xlvii. the galloway flail xlviii. the fight in the gut of the enterkin xlix. the death of mardrochat l. the breaking of the thieves' hole li. the sands of wigtown lii. the madness of the bull of earlstoun liii. under sentence of death liv. robbery on the king's highway lv. the red maiden lvi. the maid on the white horse followeth the author's conclusion the men of the moss-hags. chapter i. my gossip, maisie may. it was upon the fair green braes that look over the black water of dee near by where it meets the clear ken, that maisie may and i played many a morning at wanderers and king's men. i mind it as it were yesterday, for the dales and holms were pranked out with white hawthorn and broad gowans, and by our woodland hiding-places little frail wildflowers grew, nodding at us as we lay and held our breath. now maisie lennox (for that was her proper given name) was my cousin, and had been gossip of mine ever since we came to the age of five years; sandy, my elder brother, making nothing of me because i was so much younger and he ever hot upon his own desires. neither, if the truth must be told, did i wear great love upon him at any time. when we fell out, as we did often, he would pursue after me and beat me; but mostly i clodded him with pebble stones, whereat i had the advantage, being ever straight of eye and sure of aim. whereas sandy was gleyed[ ] and threw stones like a girl, for all the stoutness of his arm. [footnote : could not see straight.] but that is not to say like maisie lennox, who was anthony lennox's daughter, and could throw stones with any one. she lived at the lesser duchrae above the black water. as for me i lived at earlstoun on the hillside above the ken, which is a far step from the duchrae. but our fathers were of the one way of thinking, and being cousins by some former alliance and friends of an ancient kindliness, it so happened, as i say, that maisie lennox and i played much together. also my mother had great tenderness of heart for the bit lass that had no mother, and a father as often on the moors with the wildfowl, as at home with his one little maid. for the times were very evil. how evil and contrary they were, we that had been born since and knew nothing else, could but dimly understand. for though fear and unrest abode in our homes as constant indwellers, with the fear of the troopers and plunderers, yet because it had always been so, it seemed not very hard to us. indeed we bairns of these years played at covenanting, as it had been the game of "scots and english" on the hillside, even from the time when we first began to run alone. well do i mind that day when i pleaded and fleeched on my father to take me before him on gay garland, as he rode to the duchrae. it was a brisk may day with an air vigorous as a draught of wine, yet cool, clear, and sweet as spring water is--a pearl of a day, such as hardly seems to come in these sullen later years. so i cried out upon my father to take me. and as his manner was, he told me to inquire of my mother. but i desired rather that he should ask for me himself. so i lingered about the doors till he should ride forth upon his great black horse, that he might catch me up beside him on the cantle and cry in at the door, "mother, i am taking william," as was his kindly wont. never a man so brave and true and simple as my father. while i bided there, alexander my brother seeing me wait, called me to come with him to the hill. but because my heart was set to ride to the duchrae with my father, i had no desire to go to the rabbit hunting. so when he saw that i would not company with him, he mocked me and called me "lassie-boy!" whereupon i smote him incontinent with a round pebble between the shoulder-blades, and he pursued me to the hallan door within which was my mother, looking to the maids and the ordering of the house. from thence i mocked him, but under my breath, for fear that for ill-doing my mother would not permit me to go to the duchrae. "stable-boy!" i called him, for he loved to be ever among the lowns of the wisp and currying comb, and as my mother said, grew like them even in manners. "faugh, keep wide from me, mixen-varlet!" these were no more than our well-accustomed greetings. "wait till i catch you, little snipe, down by the water-side!" sandy cried, shaking his fist at me from the barn-end. "and that will be a good day for your skin," answered i, "for i shall make you wash your face thoroughly--ay, even behind your ears." for sandy, even when in after days he went a-courting, was noways partial to having many comings and goings with a basin of cold water. so he departed unsatisfied, because that in words i had the better of him. then came my father, and as i expected, stooping from the saddle he swung me up before him, supposing that i had already advised my mother. but indeed i had not said so, and happily he asked me nothing. "a good day and an easy mind, sweetheart," he cried up the stairs to my mother, "i ride to the duchrae for conference. william goes with me for company." and my mother came down the steps to see us ride off. for my father and she were like lad and lass after their years together, though not so as to make a show before strangers. "watch warily for the dragoons as you come to the narrows of the loch," she said, "and bide not at kenmuir. for if there be mounted muskets in all the neighbourhood, it is at the kenmuir that they will be found." and she watched us out of sight with her hand to her brows, before turning inward to the maids--a bonny woman in these years, fair as a blowing rose, was my mother. or at least, so the picture rises before me as i write. thus my father, william gordon of earlstoun, rode away through these sweet holms and winding paths south toward the duchrae. nowhere is the world to my thinking so gracious as between the green woodlands of earlstoun and the grey duchrae craigs. for the pools of the water of ken slept, now black, now silver, beneath us. they were deep set about with the feathers of the birches, and had the green firs standing bravely like men-at-arms on every rocky knoll. then the strath opened out and we saw ken flow silver-clear between the greenest and floweriest banks in the world. the black craig of dee gloomed on our right side as we rode, sulky with last year's heather. and the great kells range sank behind us, ridge behind ridge of hills whose very names make a storm of music--millyea, milldown, millfire, corscrine, and the haunted fastnesses of the meaull of garryhorn in the head end of carsphairn. not that my father saw any of this, for he minded only his riding and his prayers; but even then i was ever taken up with what i had better have let alone. however, i may be held excused if the memory rises unbidden now, before the dimmer eye of one that takes a cast back into his youth, telling the tale as best he may, choosing here and there like a dorty child, only that which liketh him best. in a little we clattered through the well-thatched roofs of new galloway and set gay garland's head to the southward along the water-side, where the levels of the loch are wont to open out upon you blue and broad and bonny. all that go that way know the place. gay garland was the name of my father's black horse that many a time and oft had carried him in safety, and was loved like another child by my mother and all of us. i have heard it said that in the praying society of which he was a grave and consistent member, my father was once called in question because he gave so light a name to his beast. "ye have wives of your own," was all the answer he made them, "i suppose they have no freits and fancies, but such as you are ready to be answerable for this day." when my mother heard of this she said, "ay, william, thy excuse was but old and lame, even that of our first father adam--'the woman thou gavest me she called my horse gay garland.'" i suppose that to-day ken flashes as clear and the heather blooms as bonny on the bennan side. but not for me, for i have laid away so many that i loved in the howe of the glen since then, and seen so many places of this scotland red with a crimson the bell heather never made. ay me for the times that were, and for all that is come and gone, whereof it shall be mine to tell! but we came at long and last to the duchrae, which is a sweet bit house, sitting on a south-looking brae-face, though not a laird's castle like the tower of earlstoun. maisie lennox met us at the loaning foot, whereat i begged that my father would put me down so that i might run barefoot with her. and i think my father was in nowise unwilling, for a twelve-year-old callant on the saddle before one is no comfort, though gay garland bore me like a feather. so maisie lennox and i fell eagerly a-talking together after our first shy chill of silence, having many things to say. but as soon as ever we reached the craigs we fell to our fantasy. it was an old game with us, like the sand houses we used to build in bairns' play. we drew lots, long stalk and short stalk, which of us should be the wanderer. maisie lennox won the lot--as she always did, for i had no good fortune at the drawing of cuts. so she went to hide in some bosky bouroch or moss-hag, while i bode still among the hazels at the woodside, accoutring myself as a trooper with sword and pistol of tree. then i rode forth crying loud commands and sending my soldiers to seek out all the hidie-holes by the water-sides, and under all the tussocks of heather on the benty brows of the black mosses. soon maisie lennox began to cry after the manner of the hunted hill-folk--peeping like the nestlings of the muir-birds, craiking like the bird of the corn, laughing like the jack-snipe--and all with so clear a note and such brisk assurance that i declare she had imposed upon tom dalyell himself. after seeking long in vain, i spied the fugitive hiding behind a peat-casting on the edge of the moss, and immediately cried on the men to shoot. so those that were men-at-arms of my command pursued after and cracked muskets, as the wanderers jooked and fled before us. yet cumbered with cavalry as i was on the soft bog land, the light-foot enemy easily escaped me. then when i saw well that catch her i could not, i sat me down on a heather bush and cried out to her that it was a silly game to play, and that we should begin something else. so she stopped and came back slowly over the heather. what i liked at all times about maisie lennox was that she never taunted back, but only took her own way when she wanted it--and she mostly did--silently and as if there were no other way in the world. for in all things she had an excellent humour of silence, which, though i knew it not then, is rarer and worthier than diamonds. also she knew, what it seems to me that a woman but rarely knows, when it is worth while making a stand to gain her will. chapter ii. gay garland carries double. so after that we played yet another game, hiding together in the hags and crawling from bent bush to rush clump with mighty caution and discernment, making believe that the troopers sought us both. for this was the favourite bairns' play everywhere in the west and south. once when we came near to the house gay garland followed us, having been turned out on the duchrae home park. he ran to me, as he ever did, for farings, and i fed him with crumblings out of my jacket pocket--"moolings" maisie lennox called them--which he ate out of my hand, a pretty thing to see in so noble a beast. then he followed us about in our hidings, begging and sorning upon us for more. this made him not a little troublesome, till we would gladly have sent him back. but gay garland was a beast not easily turned. after a while we came to the little wood of mount pleasant, where i saw some red rags fluttering on a bush. i was for going aside to see what they might be, but maisie lennox cried at me to turn back. "there are people hereabouts that are not very chancy. my father saw the marshalls go by this morning!" often and often i had heard of the tribe before, and they had a singular name for their ill-done deeds. indeed the whole land was so overrun with beggars of the strong hand, and the times so unsettled, that nothing could be done to put a stop to their spoilings. for the king and his men were too busy riding down poor folk that carried bibles and went to field-preachings, to pay attention to such as merely invaded homesteads and lifted gear. as we set breast to the brae and came to the top of the little hill, i stumbled over something white and soft lying behind a heather bush. it was a sheep--dead, and with much of it rent and carried away. the ground about was all a-lapper with blood. "a worrying dog has done this!" i said. but maisie lennox came up, and as she caught sight of the carcase her face fell. she shook her head mighty seriously. "two-footed dogs," she said. "see here!" she lifted a piece of paper on which a bloody knife had been wiped. and she showed me, very wisely, how the best parts had been cut away by some one that had skill in dismemberment. "'tis jock marshall's band," she said; "an ill lot, but they shall not get off with this!" and she went forward eagerly, keeping on the broad trail through the grass. we had not gone a hundred yards when we came upon another sheep in like case, and then by the ford of the black water we found yet another. i asked maisie lennox if we should not go home and lodge information. "they'll get ower far away," was all she said. "but you are not feared of them?" i asked, marvelling at the lassie. for even our sandy that counted himself so bold, and could lift a bullock slung in a sheet with his teeth, would have thought twice before following up jock marshall and his band for the sake of an orra sheep or two. but maisie lennox only turned to me in a curious way, in which there seemed mingled something of contempt. "feared!" she said. "what for should i be feared? the sheep are my faither's; but gang you back gin ye be feared." so for very shame i answered that i was feared none--which was a great lie, for i had given a hundred pounds (scots) to have been able to turn back with some credit. but we went along the broad trail boldly enough, and gay garland trotted loose-foot after us, sometimes stopping to crop the herbs by the way, and anon coming dancing to find us. at which i was glad, for it was at least some company besides the lassie. soon we came to a link of the path by the water-side, at a place that is called the tinklers' loup, where these sorners and limmers were mostly wont to congregate. there was blue smoke rising behind the knowe, and maisie lennox took a straight path over the heather toward it. i wondered to see the lass. she seemed indeed not to know fear. "they are my faither's ain sheep," she said, as though that were sufficient explanation. so to the top we came, and looked down. there was a whole camp beneath us. dirty low reeky tans were set here and there amid a swarm of bairns and dogs. the children were running naked as they were born, and the dogs turning themselves into hoops to bite their tails. about a couple of fires with pots a-swing over them, bubbling and steaming, little clouds of wild-looking folk were gathered. some had bones in their hands which they thrust into the fire for a minute and then took out again to gnaw at the burned portion. tattered women looked within the pots. once a man threw a knife at a boy, which struck him on the side. the boy cried out and the blood ran down, but none took any heed to his complaint or of the circumstance. for a moment maisie lennox stood still and looked at me. then she went a step or two forward, and her face was white and angered. i saw she was about to speak to them, yet for my life i could not keep her from it. "sheep stealers!" she cried; "vagabonds, ye shall hang for this! not for naught shall ye harry an honest man's sheep. i ken you, jock marshall and all your crew. the shirra shall hear of this before the morrow's morn!" the encampment stood still at gaze looking up at us, fixed like a show painted on a screen, while one might slowly count a score. then babel brake loose. with a wild rush, man, woman, child, and dog poured towards us. of mere instinct i came up abreast of maisie lennox. behind me came gay garland, and snuffed over my shoulder, scenting with some suspicion the tinklers' garrons[ ] feeding in the hollow below. [footnote : shaggy ponies.] we stood so still on the knowe-top that, i think, we must have feared them a little. we were by a gap in the bushes, and the ill-doers, seeing no more of us thought, no doubt, that there must be more behind, or two bairns had never been so bold. i think, too, that the very want of arms daunted them, for they drew back and seemed to consult together as though uncertain what to do. then a great scant-bearded unkempt man with long swinging arms, whom i took to be jock marshall, the chief tinkler and captain of their gang, pointed to them to scatter round the little knoll, no doubt with the purpose of making observations and cutting us off. "who may you be?" he cried, looking up at us. "right well you know," maisie said, very loud and clear, speaking out like a minister in the tent at a field-preaching; "i am anton lennox of the duchrae's daughter, whose sheep ye have boiling in your pots--and that after being well served with meal at the door, and louting low for thankfulness. and this is your thanks, ye robbers-behind-backs, gallow's thieves of kelton hill." on my part i thought it was not good judgment so to anger the wild crew. but maisie was not to be spoken to at such a time; so perforce i held my tongue. "but ye shall all streek a tow for this," she said; "this day's wark shall be heard tell o' yet!" by this time the word had been passed round the hill to jock the tinkler that there were but two of us, and we unarmed. at which the loon became at once very bold. "have at them! blood their throats! bring the basin!" he cried. and the words were no vain things, for that was their well-accustomed way of killing--to let their victim's blood run into a basin, so that there might be no tell-tale stains upon the grass. so from all sides they came speeling and clambering up the hill, loons yelling, dogs barking, till i thought my latest hour was come, and wished i had learned my catechism better--especially the proofs. gay garland stood by with a raised look upon him, lifting his feet a little, as though going daintily over a bridge whose strength he was not sure of, and drawing all the while the wind upward through his nostrils. then though maisie had been very bold, i can lay claim on this occasion to having been the wiser, for i caught her by the arm, taking gay garland's mane firmly with the other hand the while, lest he should startle and flee. "up with you," i cried, bending to take her foot in my hand, and she went up like a bird. in a moment i was beside her, riding bare-back, with maisie clasping my waist, as indeed we had often ridden before--though never so perilously, nor yet with such a currish retinue yowling at our tail. i wore no weapon upon me--no, not so much as a bodkin. but stuck in my leather belt i had the two crooked sticks, which i had blackened with soot for pistols at our play of troopers and wanderers. i put my heels into gay garland's sides, and he started down-hill, making the turf fly from his hoofs as he gathered way and began to feel his legs under him. the gang scattered and rounded to close us in, but when gay garland came to his stride, few there were who could overtake him. only jock marshall himself was in time to meet us face to face, a great knife in either hand. and i think he might have done us an injury too, had it not been for the nature of the ground where we met. it was just at the spring of a little hill and the good horse was gathering himself for the upstretch. i held the two curved sticks at the tinkler's head, as though they had been pistols, at which i think he was a little daunted. jock marshall stopped in his rush, uncertain whether to leap aside; and in that very moment, gay garland spread his fore-feet for the spring, throwing up his head as if to clear the way. one of his iron-shod heels took the tinkler chief fair on the chest, and the breast-bone gave inwards with a crunch like the breaking of many farles of cake-bread. he fell down on the moss like one dead, and gay garland went over the moor with the whole tribe of whooping savages after him, spurning their fallen chief with his hoof as he passed. well it was for us that the noble horse carried us with such ease and that his feet were so sure. for a stumble in a rabbit hole and our throats were as good as slit. but by the blessing of providence and also by my good guiding of gay garland's mane, we passed the ford of the black water without hurt. then was i very croose at the manner of our coming off, and minded not that the hardest blaff of downcome is ever gotten at the doorstep. we were passing by the path that goes linking along the water-side, and talking to one another very cantily, when without warning a musket barked from the woodside, and as it were a red-hot gaud of iron ran into my thigh behind my knee. the world swayed round me and the green trees ran withershins about. i had fallen among the horse's feet, but that maisie lennox caught me, meeting gay garland's swerve with the grip of her knee--for she ever rode across and acrop like a king's horseman, till it was time for her to ride side-saddle and grow mim and prudent. haply just by the turn we met my father and old anthony lennox coming running at the sound of the shot. but as for me i never saw or heard them, for they ran past, hot to find the man who had fired at me. while as for me i came up the loaning of the duchrae upon gay garland, with my head leaning back upon the young lassie's shoulder and the red blood staining her white skirt. and this was the beginning of my lameness and sometime lack of vigour--the beginning also of my life friendship with maisie lennox, who was to me from that day as my brother and my comrade, though she had been but a bairn's playmate aforetime. chapter iii. gay garland comes home saddle empty. the night of the twenty-second of june, , shall never be forgotten among us while earlstoun house stands. it was the eve of the day whereon befell the weary leaguer of bothwell when the enemy beset the brig, and the good blue banner gat fyled and reddened with other dye-stuff than the brown moss-water. i mind it well, for i had grown to be man-muckle since the day on the tinklers' loup. after a day of heat there fell a night like pitch. a soughing wind went round the house and round the house, whispering and groping, like a forlorn ghost trying to find his way within. if there was a shut eye in the great house of earlstoun that night, it was neither mine nor my mother's. we lay and thought of them that were over the hill, striving for the other king and the good cause. and our thoughts were prayers, though there was none to "take the book" in earlstoun that night, for i was never gifted that way. so we bedded without sound of singing or voice of prayer, though i think jean hamilton had done it for the asking. i lay in my naked bed and listened all the night with unshut eye. i could hear in my mother's room the boards creak as she rose every quarter hour and looked out into the rayless dark. maisie lennox of the duchrae, old anton's daughter, now a well grown lass, lay with her. and sandy's young wife, jean hamilton, with her sucking bairn, was in the little angled chamber that opens off the turret stair near by. it befell at the back of one, or mayhap betwixt that and two, that there came a sound at the nether door that affrighted us all. "rise, william! haste ye," cried my mother with great eagerness in her voice, coming to my door in the dark. "your father is at the nether door, new lichted doon from off gay garland. rise an' let him in!" and as i sat up on my elbow and hearkened, i heard as clearly as now i hear the clock strike, the knocking of my father's riding-boots on the step of the outer door. for it was ever his wont, when he came that way, to knap his toes on the edge of the step, that the room floorings might not be defiled with the black peat soil which is commonest about the earlstoun. i have heard my father tell it a thousand times in his pleasantry, how it was when my mother was a bride but newly come home and notionate, that she learned him these tricks. for otherwise his ways were not dainty, but rather careless--and it might be, even rough. so, as i listened, i heard very clear outside the house the knocking of my father's feet, and the little hoast he always gave before he tirled at the pin to be let in, when he rode home late from kirkcudbright. hearing which we were greatly rejoiced, and i hasted to draw on my knee-breeks, crying "bide a wee, faither, an' briskly i'll be wi' ye to let ye in!" for i was a little lame, halting on one foot ever since the affair of tinkler marshall, though i think not to any noticeable extent. my mother at the door of her chamber cried, "haste ye, william, or i must run mysel'!" for my father had made her promise that she would not go out of her chamber to meet him at the return, being easily touched in her breast with the night air. so i hasted and ran down as i was, with my points all untied, and set wide open the door. "faither!" i cried as i undid the bolt and pushed the leaves of the door abroad, "faither, ye are welcome hame!" and i could hear my mother listening above, for his foot over the threshold. yet he came not within, which was a wonder to me. so i went out upon the step of the nether door, but my father was not there. only the same strange chill wind went round the house, soughing and moaning blindly as before, and a smoor of white fog blew like muirburn past the door. then my hair rose upon my head and the skin of my brow pricked, because i knew that strange portents were abroad that night. "what for does your faither no come ben the hoose to me?" cried my mother impatiently from the stairhead. i could hear her clasping and unclasping her hands, for my ears are quick at taking sounds. "i think he must be gone to the stable with gay garland, to stall him beside philiphaugh," i answered, for so my father's old white horse was named, because in his young days my father had been at that place on the day when montrose and his highlandmen got their settling. this is what i said to my mother, but indeed my thought was far other. i lifted a loaded pistol that lay ever in the aumrie by the door-cheek and went off in the direction of the stable. the door was shut, but i undid the pin and went within. _my father was not there._ the horses were moving restlessly and lifting their feet uneasily as they do on ice or other kittle footing. then of a truth i knew there was something more than canny abroad about earlstoun that night, and that we should hear ill news or the morning. and when a bundle of reins slipped from the shelf and fell on my shoulder like a man's hand clapping on me unaware, i cried out like a frighted fowl and dropped almost to the ground. yet though i am delicate and not overly well grown in my body, i do not count myself a coward; even though my brother sandy's courage be not mine. "blind-eye, hard-head" was ever his sort, but i love to take my danger open-eyed and standing up--and as little of it as possible. as i went back--which i did instantly, leaving the stable door swinging open--i heard my mother's voice again. she was calling aloud and the sound of her voice was yearning and full like that of a young woman. "william!" she called, and again "william!" now though that is my name i knew full well that it was not to me, her son, that she called. for that is the voice a woman only uses to him who has been her man, and with her has drunk of the fountain of the joy of youth. once on a time i shot an eagle on the millyea, and his mate came and called him even thus, with a voice that was as soft as that of a cushie dove crooning in the tall trees in the early summer, till i could have wept for sorrow at my deed. then as i went in, i came upon my mother a step or two from the open door, groping with her arms wide in the darkness. "oh," she cried, "william, my william, the lord be thankit!" and she clasped me to her heart. but in a moment she flung me from her. "oh! it's you," she said bitterly, and went within without another word, her harshness jangling on my heart. yet i understood, for my mother was always greatly set on my father. and once when in jest we teased her to try her, telling her the story of the pious �neas, and asking her to prophesy to us which one of us she would lift, if so it was that the house of earlstoun were in a lowe. "faith," said my mother, "i wad tak' your faither on my back, gin a' the lave o' ye had to bide and burn!" so it was ever with my mother. she was my father's sweetheart to her latest hour. but when i went in i found her sitting, sheet-white and trembling on the settle. "what's ta'en ye, mither?" i said to her, putting a shawl about her. "o my man, my bonny man," she said, "there's nane to steek your e'en the nicht! an' mary gordon maun lie her leesome lane for evermair!" "hoot, mither," i said, "speak not so. my faither will come his ways hame i' the mornin' nae doot, wi' a' the lads o' the kenside clatterin' ahint him. sandy is wi' him, ye ken." "na," she said calmly enough, but as one who has other informations, "sandy is no wi' him. sandy gaed through the battle wi' his heid doon and his sword rinnin' reed. i see them a' broken--a' the pride o' the west, an' the dragoons are riding here an' there amang them, an' haggin' them doon. but your faither i canna see--i canna see my man----" "mither," i said, mostly, i think, for something to say, "mind the guid cause!" she flung her hands abroad with a fine gesture as of scorn. "what cause is guid that twines a woman frae her ain man--an' we had been thegither three-an'-thirty year!" in a little i got her to lie down, but the most simple may understand how much more sleep there was in earlstoun that night. yet though we listened with all our ears, we heard no other sound than just that blind and unkindly wind reestling and soughing about the house, groping at the doors and trying the lattices. not a footstep went across the courtyard, not the cry of a bird came over the moors, till behind the barren ridges of the east the morning broke. then when in the grey and growing light i went down and again opened the door, lo! there with his nose against the latchet hasp was gay garland, my father's war-horse. he stood and trembled in every limb. he was covered with the lair of the moss-hags, wherein he had sunk to the girths. but on his saddle leather, towards the left side, there was a broad splash of blood which had run down to the stirrup iron; and in the holster on that side, where the great pistol ought to have been, a thing yet more fearsome--a man's bloody forefinger, taken off above the second joint with a clean drawing cut. my mother came down the turret stair, fully dressed, and with her company gown upon her. yet when she saw gay garland standing there at the door with his head between his knees, she did not seem to be astonished or afraid, as she had been during the night. she came near to him and laid a hand on his neck. "puir beast," she said, "ye have had sore travel. take him to the stable for water and corn, and bid jock o' the garpel rise." the dark shades of the night were flown away, and my mother now spoke quietly and firmly as was her wont. much in times bygone had we spoken about sufferings in the house of earlstoun, and, lo! now they were come home to our own door. chapter iv. sandy gordon comes over the hill all alone. the house of earlstoun sits bonny above the water-side, and there are few fairer waters in this land than the ken water. also it looks its bonniest in the early morning when the dew is on all sides, and a stillness like the peace of god lies on the place. i do not expect the kingdom of heaven very much to surpass earlstoun on a sabbath morning in june when the bees are in the roses. and, indeed, i shall be well content with that. but there was no peace in earlstoun that morning--no, nor for many a morning to come. i was at the door watching for their coming, before ever a grouse cock stirred among the short brown heather on the side of ardoch hill. i told my mother over and over that without doubt sandy was bringing father home. "gay garland was aye a reesty beast!" i said. "doubtless he started when my faither had his foot in the stirrup, and has come hame by himsel'!" but i said nothing about the finger in the holster. "anither beast micht," said my mother, looking wistfully from the little window on the stair, from which she did not stir, "but never gay garland!" and right well i knew she spake the truth. gay garland had carried my father over long to reest with him at the hinderend. "can ye no see them?" cried my mother again, from the room where ordinarily she sat. even jean hamilton, who had been but three years a wife, was not as restless that fair morning of midsummer as my mother, for she had her babe at her breast. in which she was the happier, because when he cried, at least she had something to think about. three weeks before, in the midst of the sunny days of that noble june, my father, william gordon of airds and earlstoun, and my elder brother alexander had ridden away to fight against king charles. it took a long arm in those days to strive with the stuarts. and as i saw them ride over the brae with thirty glenkens blue bonnets at their tail, i knew that i was looking upon the beginning of the ruin of our house. yet i went and hid my face and raged, because i was not permitted to ride along with them, nor to carry the banner of blue which my mother the lady of earlstoun, and jean hamilton, sandy's wife, had broidered for them--with words that stirred the heart lettered fair upon it in threads of gold, and an andrew's cross of white laid on the bonny blue of its folds. my mother would have added an open bible on the division beneath, but my father forbade. "a sword, gin ye like, but no bible!" he said. so they rode away, and i, that was called william gordon for my father, clenched hands and wept because that i was not counted worthy to ride with them. but i was never strong, ever since maisie lennox and i rode home from the tinklers' loup; and my mother said always that she had more trouble at the rearing of me than with all her cleckin'. by which she meant, as one might say, her brood of chickens. to me my father cried out as he rode out of the yard: "abide, william, and look to your mother--and see that the beasts get their fodder, for you are the master of earlstoun till i return." "an' ye can help jean to sew her bairn-clouts!" cried my brother sandy, whom we called the bull, in that great voice of his which could cry from ardoch to lochinvar over leagues of heather. and i, who heard him with the water standing in my eyes because they were going out in their war-gear while i had to bide at home,--could have clouted him with a stone as he sat his horse, smiling and shaving the back of his hand with his andrea ferrara to try its edge. o well ken i that he was a great fighter and covenant man, and did ten times greater things than i, an ill-grown crowl, can ever lay my name to. but nevertheless, such was the hatred i felt at the time towards him, being my brother and thus flouting me. but with us, as i have said, there abode our cousin maisie lennox from the duchrae, grown now into a douce and sonsy lass, with hair that was like spun gold when the sun shone upon it. for the rest, her face rather wanted colour, not having in it--by reason of her anxiety for her father, and it may be also by the nature of her complexion--so much of red as the faces of jean hamilton and other of our country lasses. but because she was my comrade, i saw naught awanting, nor thought of red or pale, since she was indeed maisie lennox and my friend and gossip of these many years. also in some sort she had become a companion for my mother, for she had a sedate and dependable way with her, solate and wise beyond her years. "she is not like a flichty young body aboot a hoose," said my mother. but in this i differed, yet said nothing. for no one could have been to me what young maisie of the duchrae was. after sandy and my father had ridden away, and i that was left to keep the house, went about with a hanging head because i had not ridden also, maisie lennox grew more than ordinarily kind. never had a feckless lad like me, such a friend as maisie of the duchrae. it was far beyond that love which the maids chatter about, and run out to the stackyard in the gloaming to find--oft to their sorrow, poor silly hempies. yet maisie may and i greeted in the morning without observance, but rather as brothers whom night has not parted. in the day we spoke but seldom, save to ask what might be needful, as the day's darg and duty drifted us together. but at even, standing silent, we watched the light fade from the hills of the west and gather behind those of the east. and i knew that without speech her heart was trying to comfort mine, because i had not been judged worthy to ride for the covenants with her father and mine, and in especial because sandy had openly flouted me before her. this was very precious to me and kept up my manhood in mine own eyes--a service far above rubies. thus they rode away and left the house of the earlstoun as empty and unfriendly as a barn in hay harvest. from that day forward we spent as much time looking out over the moor from the house, as we did at our appointed tasks. i have already told of the happenings of the night of the twenty-second of june, and of my mother's strange behaviour--which, indeed, was very far from her wont. for she seldom showed her heart to my father, but rather faulted him and kept him at a stick's end, especially when he came heedlessly into her clean-swept rooms with his great moss-splashed riding-boots. of this time i have one thing more to tell. it was between the hours of ten and eleven of the day following this strange night, that my mother, having set all her house maidens to their tasks with her ordinary care and discretion, took down the bake-board and hung the girdle above a clear red fire of peat. sometimes she did this herself, especially when my father was from home. for she was a master baker, and my father often vowed that he would have her made the deacon of the trade in dumfries, where he had a house. he was indeed mortally fond of her girdle-cakes, and had wheaten flour ground fine at a distant mill for the purpose of making them. "mary hope," he used to say to her in his daffing way, "your scones are better than your father's law. i wonder wha learned ye to bake aboot craigieha'--tho', i grant, mony's the puir man the faither o' ye has keepit braw and het on a girdle, while he stirred him aboot wi' his tongue." this he said because my mother was a daughter of my lord hope of craigiehall, who had been president of the court of session in his time, and a very notable greatman in the state. so, as i say, this day she set to the baking early, and it went to my heart when i saw she was making the wheaten cakes raised with sour buttermilk that were my father's favourites. she had not been at it long before in came jock o' the garpel, hot-foot from the hill. "maister alexander!" he cried, panting and broken-winded with haste, "maister alexander is comin' ower the brae!" there was silence in the wide kitchen for a moment, only the sound of my mother's roller being heard, "dunt-dunting" on the dough. "is he by his lane?" asked my mother without raising her head from the bake-board. "ay," said jock o' the garpel, "a' by his lane. no a man rides ahint him." and again there was silence in the wide house of earlstoun. my mother went to the girdle to turn the wheaten cakes that were my father's favourites, and as she bent over the fire, there was a sound as if rain-drops were falling and birsling upon the hot girdle. but it was only the water running down my mother's cheeks for the love of her youth, because now her last hope was fairly gone. then in the middle of her turning she drew the girdle off the fire, not hastily, but with care and composedness. "i'll bake nae mair," she cried, "sandy has come ower the hill his lane!" and i caught my mother in my arms. chapter v. the clash of words. a doubtful dawn had grown into a chosen day when i saddled in earlstoun courtyard, to ride past the house of our kinswoman at lochinvar on a sad and heavy errand. sandy has betaken himself to his great oak on the border of the policies, where with his skill in forest craft he had built himself a platform among the solidest masses of the leaves. there he abode during the day, with a watch set on the tod hill and another on the white hill above the wood of barskeoch. only at the even, when all things were quiet, would he venture to slip down and mix with us about the fire. but he swung himself swiftly back again to his tree by a rope, if any of the dragoons were to be heard of in the neighbourhood. during all this time it comes back to me how much we grew to depend on maisie lennox. from being but "anton lennox's dochter" she came to be "meysie, lass" to my mother, and indeed almost a daughter to her. once, going to the chamber-door at night to cry ben some message to my mother, i was startled and afraid to hear the sound of sobbing within--as of one crying like a young lass or a bairn, exceedingly painful to hear. i thought that it had been maisie speaking of her sorrow, and my mother comforting her. but when i listened, though indeed that was not my custom, i perceived that it was my mother who grat and refused to be comforted. "o my william!" she cried, moaning like a child that would sob itself to sleep, "i ken, o i ken, i shall never see him mair. he's lyin' cauld and still at the dyke back that yince my airms keepit fast. o thae weary covenants, thae weary, weary covenants!" "hush thee, my dawtie, say not so!" i heard the voice of my cousin maisie--i could not help but hear it, "the lord calls us to do little for him oursels, for we are feckless women, an' what can we do? but he bids us gie him our men-folk, the desire o' our hearts. brithers hae i gie'n, twa and three, and my last is my father that lies noo amang the moss-hags, as ye ken!" but again i heard my mother's voice breaking through in a querulous anger. "what ken ye, lassie? brithers and faither, guids and gear, they arena muckle to loose. ye never lost the man for wha's sake ye left faither an' mither, only just to follow him through the warl'!" and in the darkness i could hear my mother wail, and maisie the young lass hushing and clapping her. so, shamed and shaken at heart, i stole away a-tiptoe lest any should hear me, for it was like a crime to listen to what i had heard. but i am forgetting to tell of our riding away. it was a morning so buoyant that we seemed verily up-borne by the flood of sunlight, like the small birds that glided and sang in our earlstoun woods. yet i had small time to think of the beauty of the summer tide, when our father lay unburied at a dyke back, and some one must ride and lay him reverently in the earth. sandy could not go--that was plain. he was now head of the house and name. besides the pursuit was hot upon him. so at my mother's word, i took a pair of decent serving men and wended my way over the hill. and as i went my heart was sore for my mother, who stood at the door to see us go. she had supplied with her own hands all the decent wrappings wherewith to bury my father. sandy further judged it not prudent to attempt to bring him home. he had gotten a staw of the red soldiers, he said, and wished for that time to see no more of them. but i that had seen none of them, was hot upon bringing my father to the door to lie among his kin. "the driving is like to be brisk enough without that!" said sandy. and my mother never said a word, for now sandy was the laird, and the head of the house. she even offered to give up the keys to jean hamilton, my brother's wife. but for all her peevishness jean hamilton knew her place, and put aside her hand kindly. "no, mother," she said. "these be yours so long as it pleases god to keep you in the house of earlstoun." for which i shall ever owe jean hamilton a good word and kindly thought. the names of the two men that went with me were hugh kerr and john meiklewood. they were both decent men with families of their own, and had been excused from following my father and brother on that account. now as we went up the hill a sound followed us that made us turn and listen. it was a sweet and charming noise of singing. there, at the door of earlstoun were my mother and her maidens, gathered to bid us farewell upon our sad journey. it made a solemn melody on the caller morning air, for it was the sound of the burying psalm, and they sang it sweetly. so up the deuch water we rode, the little birds making a choir about us, and young tailless thrushes of the year's nesting pulling at reluctant worms on the short dewy knowes. all this i saw and more. for the lord that made me weak of arm, at least, did not stint me as to glegness of eye. when we came to where the burn wimples down from garryhorn, we found a picket of the king's dragoons drawn across the road, who challenged us and made us to stand. their commander was one cornet inglis, a rough and roystering blade. they were in hold at garryhorn, a hill farm-town belonging to grier of lag, whence they could command all the headend of the kells. "where away so briskly?" the cornet cried, as we came riding up the road. "where away, whigs, without the leave of the king and peter inglis?" i told him civilly that i rode to carsphairn to do my needs. "and what need may you have in carsphairn, that you cannot fit in saint john's clachan of dalry as well, and a deal nearer to your hand?" i told him that i went to bury my father. "ay," he said, cocking his head quickly aslant like a questing cat that listens at a mouse-hole; "and of what quick complaint do fathers die under every green tree on the road to bothwell? who might the father of you be, if ye happen to be so wise as to ken?" "my father's name was gordon," i said, with much quietness of manner--for, circumstanced as i was, i could none other. cornet inglis laughed a loud vacant laugh when i told him my father's name, which indeed was no name to laugh at when he that owned it was alive. neither peter inglis not yet his uncle had laughed in the face of william gordon of earlstoun--ay, though they had been riding forth with a troop behind them. "gordon," quoth he, "gordon--a man canna spit in the glenkens without sploiting on a gordon--and every jack o' them a cantin' rebel!" "you lie, peter inglis--lie in your throat!" cried a voice from the hillside, quick as an echo. inglis, who had been hectoring it hand on hip, turned at the word. his black brows drew together and his hand fell slowly till it rested on his sword-hilt. he who spoke so boldly was a lad of twenty, straight as a lance shaft is straight, who rode slowly down from the garryhorn to join us on the main road where the picket was posted. it was my cousin and kinsman, wat gordon of lochinvar--a spark of mettle, who in the hour of choosing paths had stood for the king and the mother of him (who was a douglas of morton) against the sterner way of his father and forebears. the wildcat of lochinvar they called him, and the name fitted him like his laced coat. for wullcat wat of lochinvar was the gayest, brightest, most reckless blade in the world. and even in days before his father's capture and execution, he had divided the house with him. he had rallied half the retainers, and ridden to morton castle to back his uncle there when the king's interest was at its slackest, and when it looked as if the days of little davie crookback were coming back again. at wat gordon's back there rode always his man-at-arms, john scarlet, who had been a soldier in france and also in brandenburg--and who was said to be the greatest master of fence and cunning man of weapons in all broad scotland. but it was rumoured that now john scarlet had so instructed his young master that with any weapon, save perhaps the small sword the young cock could craw crouser than the old upon the same middenstead. "i said you lied, peter inglis," cried wullcat wat, turning back the lace ruffle of his silken cuff, for he was as gay and glancing in his apparel as a crested jay-piet. "are ye deaf as well as man-sworn?" inglis stood a moment silent; then he understood who his enemy was. for indeed it was no maypole dance to quarrel with wat of lochinvar with john scarlet swaggering behind him. "did you not hear? i said you lied, man--lied in your throat. have you aught to say to it, or shall i tell it to clavers at the table to-night that ye have within you no throat and no man's heart, but only the gullet of a guzzling trencherman?" "i said that the gordons of the glenkens were traitors. 'tis a kenned thing," answered inglis, at last mustering up his resolution, "but i have no quarrel with you, wat gordon, for i know your favour up at garryhorn--and its cause." "cause----" said wullcat wat, bending a little forward in his saddle and striping one long gauntlet glove lightly through the palm of the other hand, "cause--what knows peter inglis of causes? this youth is my cousin of earlstoun. i answer for him with my life. let him pass. that is enough of cause for an inglis to know, when he chances to meet men of an honester name." "he is a rebel and a traitor!" cried inglis, "and i shall hold him till i get better authority than yours for letting him go. hear ye that, wat of lochinvar!" chapter vi. the clash of swords. the two sat fronting one another on their horses. inglis was the older and more firmly set man. but wat of lochinvar was slender and lithe as a bow that has not been often bent and quivers to the straight. it was a curious sight to see them passaging with little airs and graces, like fighting cocks matched in a pit. the soldiers stood indifferently around. a pair of dragoons patrolled, turning and crossing as if on parade, within earshot of the quarrel of their officers. it was the first time i had ever seen what discipline meant. and in a moment i learned why they had broken us at bothwell and rullion green. for i have heard my brother sandy say that at any time in the covenanting host, had three drawn together and spoken like men that are hot in questioning, the whole army would have run from their posts to hear and to take part in the controversy. but all the while these dragoons kept their noses pointing in the straight of their necks, and fronted and wheeled like machines. it was, in fact, none of their business if their officers cut each others' throats. but they knew that one john graham would assuredly make it his business if they omitted their military service. "cornet inglis," said lochinvar, doffing lightly his feathered hat that had the king's colours in it, "hearken ye well. this is my cousin will of earlstoun, who took no part with his kin in the late rebellion, as i took no part with mine, but instead abode at home in peace. i require you to let him go upon his errand. i myself will be answerable for him to colonel graham of claverhouse. after that we can arrange our little matter as to favour and its causes." there was a keen leaping light in my cousin wat's blue eyes, the light that i afterwards grew to know as the delight of battle. he was waxing coldly angry. for me i grow dourly silent as i become angered. my brother sandy grows red and hot, but wullcat wat was of those more dangerous men to whom deadly anger, when it comes, at once quickens the pulses and stills the nerves. "think not i am afraid of a traitor's son, or of any of the name of lochinvar," quoth inglis, who was indeed no coward when once he had taken up a quarrel; "after all, ye are all no better than a bow-o'-meal-gordon!" it was the gage of battle. after that there was no more to be said. to call a man of our name "a-bow-o'-meal-gordon" is equal to saying that he has no right to the name he bears. for it is said that a certain lochinvar, wanting retainers to ride at his back, offered a snug holding and so many bolls of meal yearly to any lusty youth who would marry on his land, take his name, and set himself like a worthy sworder to breed well-boned loons to carry in their turns the leathern jack. at the taunt, swift as flame wat of lochinvar rode nearer to his enemy on his quick-turning well-mouthed horse, and drawing the leather gauntlet through his fingers till the fingers were striped narrow like whip lashes, he struck inglis with it upon the cheek. "my father's head," he cried, "may be on the netherbow. he had his way of thinking and died for it. i have mine and may die for it in my time. but in the meantime lochinvar's son is not to be flouted by the son of a man who cried with all parties and hunted with none." two swords flashed into the air together, the relieved scabbards jingling back against the horses' sides. the basket hilt of that of cornet inglis had the cavalry tassel swinging to it, while the crossbar and simple italian guard of wat gordon's lighter weapon seemed as if it must instantly be beaten down by the starker weapon of the dragoon. but as they wheeled their horses on guard with a touch of the bridle hand, i saw john scarlet, wat's master of fence, flash a look at his scholar's guard-sword. wat used an old-fashioned shearing-sword, an ancient blade which, with various hilt devices, many a gordon of lochinvar had carried when he ruffled it in court and hall. i caught john scarlet's look of satisfaction, and judged that he anticipated no danger to one whom he had trained, from a fighter at haphazard like cornet peter inglis. but yet the dragoon was no tyro, for he had proved himself in many a hard-stricken fray. so without a word they fell to it. and, by my faith, it made a strange picture on the grassy track which wound itself through these wilds, to see the glossy black of wat gordon's charger front the heavier weight of the king's man's grey. at the first crossing of the swords, the style of the two men was made evident. that of inglis was the simpler. he fought most like a practical soldier, with the single purpose of making his adversary feel the edge of his weapon; while wat, lighter and lither, had all the parade and pomp of the schools. lochinvar depended on a low tierce guard with a sloping point, and reined his horse near, that his enemy might be prevented from closing with him on his left, or side of disadvantage. the dragoon used the simpler hanging guard and pressed upon his adversary with plain dour weight of steel. at the first clash of the iron the horses heaved their heads, and down from the hillside above there came a faint crying as of shepherds to their flocks. but the combatants were too intent to take notice. john scarlet reined his horse at the side, his head a little low set between his shoulders, and his eyes following every thrust and parry with a glance like a rapier. for the first five minutes inglis tried all his powers of battering upon wat gordon's lighter guard, his heavy cavalry sword beating and disengaging with the fellest intent. he fought with a still and lip-biting fury. he struck to kill, hammering with strong threshing blows; wat, more like a duellist of the schools--rather, as it seemed, to show his mastery of the weapon. but nevertheless the thin supple blade of the young laird followed every beat and lunge of the heavier iron with speed and certainty. each moment it seemed as if wat must certainly be cut down. but his black obeyed the rein at the moment of danger, and his sword twisted round that of his adversary as an adder winds itself about a stick. more and more angry grew the dragoon, and a grim smile sat intent and watchful on the face of john scarlet. but he spoke never a word, and the red sentries paced placidly to and fro along the burnside of garryhorn. more and more wildly cornet inglis struck, urging his horse forward to force lochinvar's black down the hill. but featly and gracefully the lad wheeled and turned, keeping ever his hand in tierce and his blade across his body, slipping and parrying with the utmost calm and ease. "click, click!" came the noise of the clashing sword-blades, flickering so swiftly that the eye could not follow them. in time lochinvar found out his opponent's disadvantage, which was in the slower movement of his horse, but to this inglis responded like a man. he kept his beast turning about within his own length, so that come where he would wat had no advantage. yet gradually and surely the dragoon was being tired out. from attacking he fell to guarding, and at last even his parry grew lifeless and feeble. wat, on the other hand, kept his enemy's blade constantly engaged. he struck with certainty and parried with a light hammering movement that was pretty to watch, even to one who had no skill of the weapon. at last, wearied with continual check, inglis leaned too far over his horse's head in a fierce thrust. the beast slipped with the sudden weight, and the dragoon's steel cap went nearly to his charger's neck. in a moment, seeing his disadvantage, inglis attempted to recover; but wat's lighter weapon slid under his guard as he threw his sword hand involuntarily up. it pierced his shoulder, and a darker red followed the steel upon his horseman's coat, as wat withdrew his blade to be ready for the return. but of this there was no need, for inglis instantly dropped his hand to his side and another sword suddenly struck up that of wat gordon, as the dragoon's heavy weapon clattered upon the stones. chapter vii. the field of bothwell brig. "gentlemen," cried a stern, calm voice, "gentlemen, is it thus that ye amuse yourselves when ye are upon the king's service?" i turned about, and lo! it was the voice of john graham of claverhouse, high-pitched to the carrying note of command--of the man whom all the south and west knew then as the great persecutor, and all the north afterwards as the great captain who stood for his master when all the others forsook him and fled. i admit that my heart beat suddenly feeble before him, and as for my lads who were with me, i think they gave themselves up for dead men. though slender and not tall, clavers nevertheless looked noble upon the black horse which had carried him at a gallop down the burnside from garryhorn. his eyes were full of fire, his bearing of gallantry. yet methought there was something relentless about the man--something that friend might one day feel the bite of as well as foe. for this was the man who, at his master's word, was now driving scotland before him as sheep are driven into buchts on the hillside. but scotland did not easily take to praying according to act of parliament, and i minded the witty old gentlewoman's word to claverhouse himself, "knox didna win his will without clavers, an' aiblins clavers winna get his withoot knocks." it was a witty saying and a true, and many a day i lay in the moss-hags and wished that i had said it. yet i think we of the ancient province never felt so keenly the bitterness of his oppression, though mostly it was without bowels of mercy, as we did the riding and driving of robert grier of lag, of douglas of morton, of queensberry and drumlanrig, that were of ourselves--familiar at our tables, and ofttimes near kinsmen as well. what john graham did in the way of cess and exaction, and even of shooting and taking, was in some measure what we had taken our count and reckoning with. but that men who knew our outgoings and incomings, our strengths and fastnesses, who had companied with us at kirk and market, should harry us like thieves, made our hearts wondrously hot and angry within us. for years i never prayed without making it a petition that i might get a fair chance at robert grier--if it were the lord's will. and indeed it is not yet too late. but it was claverhouse that had come across us now. "you would kill more king's men!" he cried to wat gordon; "you that have come hither to do your best to undo the treason of your forebears. my lad, that is the way to get your head set on the netherbow beside your father's. are there no man-sworn whigs in the west that true men must fall to hacking one another?" he turned upon inglis as fiercely: "cornet, are you upon duty? by what right do you fall to brawling with an ally of the country? have we overly many of them in this accursed land, where there are more elephants and crocodiles in whig-ridden galloway than true men on whom the king may rely?" but inglis said never a word, being pale from the draining of his wound. i looked for him to denounce me as a rebel and a spy; but he was wholly silent, for the man after all was a man. "how began ye this brawling?" quoth claverhouse, looking from one to the other of them, minding me no more than i had been a tripping hedge-sparrow. "we had a difference, and cast up our fathers to one another," at last said inglis, half sullenly. "it were best to let fathers a-be when you ride on his majesty's outpost duty, cornet inglis. but you are wounded. fall out and have your hurt examined." "it is a flea-bite," quoth peter inglis, stoutly. "a man this!" thought i. for i loved courage. yet nevertheless, he dismounted, and john scarlet helped him off with his coat upon the short heather of the brae-face. "and whom may we have here?" cried claverhouse, as inglis went stumblingly to the hillside upon the arm of john scarlet. he turned his fine dark eyes full upon me as he spoke, and i thought that i had never seen any man look so handsome. yet, for all that, fear of the great enemy of our house and cause sat cold in my vitals. though i deny not that his surpassing beauty of person took my eye as though i had been a woman--the more perhaps because i had little enough of my own. but my kinsman wat gordon was no whit dismayed. he dusted his silken doublet front, swept his white-feathered hat in the air in reverence, and introduced me to the formidable captain as one that has good standing and knows it well: "my cousin, william gordon, younger son of the house of earlstoun!" "ah," said claverhouse, smiling upon me not so ill-pleased, "i have heard of him--the home stayer, the nest-egg. he that rode not to bothwell with 'the earl'[ ] and 'the bull.' whither rides he now thus early?" [footnote : the laird of earlstoun was often called in jest "the earl."] "he rides, colonel graham, to bury his father." i thought my cousin was too bold thus to blurt out my mission, to the chief of them that had killed him whom i went to seek, but he was wiser than i in this matter. claverhouse smiled, and looked from the one to the other of us. "you gordons have your own troubles to get your fathers buried," he said. "i suppose you will claim that this cub also is a good king's man?" "he is well affected, colonel," said lochinvar gaily; "and there are none too many likeminded with him in these parts!" "even the affectation does him monstrous credit," quoth clavers, clapping walter on the shoulder; "it is much for a gordon in this country to affect such a virtue as loyalty. i wonder," he went on, apparently to himself, "if it would be possible to transplant you gordons, that are such arrant rebels here and so loyal in the north. it were well for the land if this could be done. in the north a few dozen whigs would do small harm; here ten score king's men melled and married would settle the land and keep the king's peace." then he looked at my cousin with a certain uncommon gracious affection that sat well on him--all the more that he showed such a thing but rarely. "well, wat, for your sake let young earlstoun go bury his father in peace, an it likes him. the more whigs buried the better pleased will john graham be. if he will only bury his brother also when he is about it, he will rid the earth of a very pestilent fellow!" "there is no great harm in sandy," returned lochinvar briskly and easily. from his whole demeanour i saw that he was in good estimation with colonel graham, and was accustomed to talk familiarly with him. perhaps the reason was that claverhouse found himself much alone in galloway. when he ordered a muster of the lairds and the well affected, only grier of lag and fergusson of craigdarroch came in, and even they brought but few at their back. then again these rough-riding, hard drinkers of nithside had little in common with john graham. but lochinvar was well trained by his mother, and had been some time about the court. it was, doubtless, a relief to the high-bred soldier to speak to him after the foul oaths and scurril jests of the country cavaliers. "why," said claverhouse, "as you say, there is no great harm in sandy; but yet sandy hath a stout arm and can lay well about him when it comes to the dunts. sandy's arm is stronger than sandy's wit." all this time i had not spoken, for so with a look my cousin lochinvar had warned me to let him speak for me; but now i broke the silence. "i am obliged to you, colonel graham," i said, "for your permission to go and bury my dead." "ay," said claverhouse, with a certain courteous disdain that was natural to him, but which he dropped when he spoke to the young lochinvar, "ay, you are no doubt greatly obliged to me; but your father, though a rebel, fought us fairly and deserves clean burial. a whig is aye best buried at any rate," he continued, gathering up his reins as one that prepares to ride away. "lochinvar," he cried, in his voice of command, "take cornet inglis's post and duty, since you have disabled him. but mark me well, let there be no more tullying and brawling, or i shall send you all to bridewell. hark you, young wullcat of lochinvar, i cannot have my officers cut up when they should be hunting whigs--and" (looking at me) "preparing them for burial." i think he saw the hatred in my eyes, when he spoke thus of my father lying stiff at a dyke back, for he lifted his hat to me quaintly as he went. "a good journey to you, and a fair return, young castle keeper!" he said with a scorning of his haughty lip. yet i think that he had been greater and worthier had he denied himself that word to a lad on my errand. of our further progress what need that i tell? hour after hour i heard the horses' feet ring on the road dully, as though i had been deep under ground myself, and they trampling over me with a rush. it irked me that it was a fine day and that my men, hugh kerr and john meiklewood, would not cease to speak with me. but all things wear round, and in time we came to the place, where one had told sandy as he fled that he had seen william gordon of earlstoun lie stark and still. there indeed we found my father lying where he had fallen in the angle of a great wall, a mile or two south of the field of bothwell. he had no fewer than six wounds from musket balls upon him. as i looked i could see the story of his end written plain for the dullest to read. he had been beset by a party of dragoons in the angle of a great seven-foot march dyke in which there was no break. they summoned him to surrender. he refused, as i knew he would; and, as his manner was, he had risked all upon a single-handed charge. as we heard afterwards, he had come at the troopers with such fury that he killed three and wounded another, besides slaying the horse that lay beside him, before, with a storm of bullets, they stopped him in his charge. thus died, not unworthily, even while i was bringing in the kye in the evening at earlstoun, william gordon, a father of whom, in life and death, no son need be ashamed. and where we found him, there we buried him, wrapping him just as he was, in the shrouds my mother had sent for her well-beloved. hugh kerr was for taking his sword out of his hand to keep at home as an heirloom. but i thought no. for his hand was stiffened upon it where the blood had run down his wrist. and besides, it had been his friend while he lived and when he died, and it was hard to part him with that which had been to him as the sword of the lord and of gideon. so we buried his sword and him together, laying the little red bible, stained and spotted with his blood, open upon his breast. then we happed him up, and i, who could at that time fight but little, put up a short prayer over him--though not, of course, like a minister, or one bred to the trade. and i thought as i rode away that it was better to leave him the sword, than that sandy should get it to prate about at his general meetings. even as it was he could not let him be, but in the after days of quiet he must have him up to coffin him, and bury in the kirkyard of glassford. yet to do sandy justice, he had the grace to leave him the sword in his hand. now my father had not fallen on the battlefield itself, but rather when hastening thither, for indeed he never saw the bridge, nor had hand in the guiding of the host, whose blood robert hamilton poured out as one that pours good wine upon the ground. yet because we were so near, we risked the matter and rode over to see the narrow passage of the bridge where they had fought it so stoutly all day long. here and there lay dead men yet unburied; but the countrymen were gradually putting the poor bodies in the earth. some of them lay singly, but more in little clusters where they set their backs desperately to one another, and had it out with their pursuers that they might die fighting and not running. still the pursuit had not been unmerciful, for there were few that had fallen beyond the long avenues of the palace oaks. but when we came to the banks of the river, and looked down upon the bridge-head we saw the very grass dyed red, where the men had been shot down. and on the brae-sides where hamilton had drawn them up when he called them from the bridge-end, they had fallen in swathes like barley. but it was not a heartsome sight, and we turned our rein and rode away, weary and sad within. chapter viii. the curate of dalry. when i returned to earlstoun i found the house in sad disorder. maisie lennox i found not, for she had ridden to the duchrae to meet her father and to keep the house, which had had some unwonted immunity lately because of the friendship of the mcghies of balmaghie. for old roger mcghie was a king's man and in good favour, though he never went far from home. but only patrolled his properties, lundering such whigs as came his way with a great staff, but tenderly withal and mostly for show. his daughter kate, going the way of most women folk, was the bitterest whig and most determined hearer of the field-preachers in the parish. concerning which her father full well knew, but could neither alter nor mend, even as duke rothes himself could not change his lady's liking. yet for kate mcghie's sake the hunt waxed easier in all the headend of balmaghie. and during this lown blink, old anton came home from the hills to take the comforts of the bien and comfortable house of the duchrae, for it promised to be a bitter and unkindly season. so the earlstoun looked a little bare without maisie lennox, and i was glad that i was to be but a short time in it. for another thing, the soldiers had been before me, and by order of the council had turned the whole gear and plenishing over to find my brother alexander--which indeed seeing what he had done at bothwell, we can hardly wonder at. even the intervention of our well-affected cousin of lochinvar could not prevent this. the horses were driven away, the cattle lifted to be provender for the king's forces in the parish of carsphairn and elsewhere. and it would go hard with us--if indeed we should even be permitted to keep the place that had been ours for generations. my mother was strongly advised that, as i had not been mixed with the outbreaks, it was just scant possible that i might make something of an appeal to the privy council for the continuing of the properties, and the substituting of a fine. i was therefore to ride to edinburgh with what attendance i could muster, and with wat gordon of lochinvar to lead me as a bairn by the hand. but it was with a sad heart and without much pleasure, save in having my father's silver mounted pistols (for i counted myself no mean marksman), that john meiklewood, hughie and i rode off from the arched door of the earlstoun. my mother stood on the step and waved me off with no tear in her eye; and even poor jean hamilton, from the window whence she could see the great oak where my brother, her husband, was in hiding, caused a kerchief to show white against the grey wall of earlstoun. i think the poor feckless bit thing had a sort of kindness for me. but when there was hardly the thickness of an eggshell between her man and death, it was perhaps small wonder that she cherished some jealousy of me, riding whither i listed over the wide, pleasant moors where the bumble bees droned and the stooping wild birds cried all the livelong day. at st. john's clachan of dalry we were to meet with wildcat wat, who was waiting to ride forth with us to edinburgh upon his own ploys. we dismounted at the inn where john barbour, honest man, had put out the sign of his profession. it was a low, well-thatched change-house, sitting with its end to the road in the upper part of the village, with good offices and accommodation for man and horse about it--the same hostel indeed in which the matter of rullion green took its beginning. wat came down the street with his rapier swinging at his side, his feathered cavalier hat on his head, and he walked with a grace that became him well. i liked the lad, and sometimes it almost seemed to me that i might be his father, though indeed our years were pretty equal. for being lame and not a fighter, neither craving ladies' favours, i was the older man, for the years of them that suffer score the lines deeper on a man's brow--and on his heart also. when wat gordon mounted into the saddle with an easy spring his horse bent back its head and curveted, biting at his foot. so that i rejoiced to see the brave lad sitting like a dart, holding his reins as i hold my pen, and resting his other hand easily on his thigh. john scarlet, his man-at-arms, mounted and rode behind him; and when i saw them up, methought there was not a pair that could match them in scotland. yet i knew that with the pistolets at paces ten or twenty, i was the master of both. and perhaps it was this little scrap of consolation that made me feel so entirely glad to see my cousin look so bright and bonny. indeed had i been his lass--or one of them, for if all tales be true he had routh of such--i could not have loved better to see him shine in the company of men like the young god apollo among the immortals, as the heathens feign. at the far end of the village there came one out of a white house and saluted us. i knew him well, though i had never before seen him so near. it was peter mccaskill, the curate of the parish. but, as we of the strict covenant did not hear even the indulged ministers, it was not likely that we would see much of the curate. nevertheless i had heard many tales of his sayings and his humours, for our curate was not as most others--dull and truculent knaves many of them, according to my thinking--the scourings of the north. peter was, on the other hand, a most humoursome varlet and excellent company on a wet day. sandy and he used often to take a bottle together when they foregathered at john's in the clachan; but even the bull of earlstoun could not keep steeks or count mutchkins with peter mccaskill, the curate of dalry. on this occasion he stopped and greeted us. he had on him a black coat of formal enough cut, turned green with age and exposure to the weather. i warrant it had never been brushed since he had put it on his back, and there seemed good evidence upon it that he had slept in it for a month at least. "whaur gang ye screeving to, young sirs, so brave?" he cried. "be canny on the puir whiggies. draw your stick across their hurdies when ye come on them, an' tell them to come to the clachan o' dalry, where they will hear a better sermon than ever they gat on the muirs, or my name's no peter mccaskill." "how now, curate," began my cousin, reining in his black and sitting at ease, "are you going to take to the hill and put peden's nose out of joint?" "faith, an' it's my mither's ain son that could fettle that," said the curate. "i'm wae for the puir whiggies, that winna hear honest doctrine an' flee to the hills and hags--nesty, uncanny, cauldrife places that the very muir-fowl winna clock on. ken ye what i was tellin' them the ither day? na, ye'll no hae heard--it's little desire ye hae for either kirk or covenant, up aboot the garryhorn wi' red-wud lag and headstrong john graham. ye need as muckle to come and hear mess john pray as the blackest whig o' them a'!" "indeed, we do not trouble you much, curate," laughed my cousin; "but here is my cousin will of earlstoun," he said, waving his hand to me, "and he is nearly as good as a parson himself, and can pray by screeds." which was hardly a just thing to say, for though i could pray and read my bible too when i listed, i did not trouble him or any other with the matter. cain, indeed, had something to say for himself--for it is a hard thing to be made one's brother's keeper. there are many ways that may take me to the devil. but, i thank god, officiousness in other men's matters shall not be one of them. "he prays, does he?" quoth mccaskill, turning his shaggy eyebrows on me. "aweel, i'll pray him ony day for a glass o' john's best. peter mccaskill needs neither read sermon nor service-book. he leaves sic-like at hame, and the service ye get at his kirk is as guid and godly as gin auld sandy himsel' were stelled up in a preaching tent an' thretty wizzened plaided wives makkin' a whine in the heather aneath!" "how do you and the other peter up the way draw together?" asked my cousin. the curate snapped his fingers. "peter pearson o' carsphairn--puir craitur, he's juist fair daft wi' his ridin' an' his schemin'. he will hear a pluff o' pouther gang blaff at his oxter some fine day, that he'll be the waur o'! an' sae i hae telled him mony's the time. but margate mccaskill's son is neither a whig hunter nor yet as this daft peter pearson. he bides at hame an' minds his glebe. but for a' that i canna control the silly fowk. i was fearin' them the ither day," he went on. "i gied it oot plain frae the pulpit that gin they didna come as far as the kirkyaird at ony rate, i wad tak' no more lees on my conscience for their sakes. i hae plenty o' my ain to gar me fry. 'but,' says i, 'i'll report ye as attendin' the kirk, gin ye walk frae yae door o' the kirk to the ither withoot rinnin'. nae man can say fairer nor that.'" "an' what said ye next, curate?" asked my cousin, for his talk amused us much, and indeed there were few merry things in these sad days. "ow," said peter mccaskill, "i juist e'en said to them, 'black be your fa'. ye are a' off to the hills thegither. hardly a tyke or messan but's awa' to peden to get her whaulpies named at the holy linn! but i declare to ye a', what will happen in this parish. sorra gin i dinna inform on ye, an' then ye'll be a' eyther shot or hangit before yule!' that's what i said to them!" wat gordon laughed, and i was fain to follow suit, for it was a common complaint that the curate of dalry was half a whig himself. and, indeed, had he not been ever ready to drink a dozen of clavers's officers under the table, and clout the head of the starkest carle in his troop, it might have gone ill with him more than once. "but i hae a bit sma' request to make of ye, walter gordon o' lochinvar an' gordiestoun," said the curate. "haste ye," said wat, "for ye hae taigled us overly long already." "an' it's this," said the curate, "i hae to ride to edinburgh toon, there to tell mair lees than i am likely to be sained o' till i am a bishop an' can lee wi' a leecence. but it's the privy council's wull, an' sae i maun e'en lee. that tearin' blackguard, bob grier, has written to them that i am better affected to the whigs than to the troopers of garryhorn, and i am behoved to gang and answer for it." "haste ye, then, and ride with us," cried walter, whose horse had stood long enough. "we ride toward the nith with colonel graham, and after that to edinburgh." so in a little the curate was riding stoutly by our side. we were to travel by dumfries and lockerbie into eskdale, whither claverhouse had preceded us, obeying an urgent call from his acquaintance, sir james johnstone of westerhall, who was still more eager to do the king's will than he--though, to begin with, he had been a covenant man, and that of some mark too. but the fear of fines, and the bad example of his neighbours ever before his eyes, had brought out the hidden cruelty of the man. so now he rode at claverhouse's bridle-rein, and the pair of them held black counsel on the state of the country. but the mood of claverhouse was, at worst, only that of military severity, without heart of ruth or bowels of mercy indeed; but that of westerhall was rather of roystering and jubilant brutality, both of action and intent. so we rode and we better rode till we came to eskdale, where we found westerhall in his own country. now i could see by the behaviour of the soldiers as we went, that some of them had small good will to the kind of life they led, for many of them were of the country-side and, as it seemed, were compelled to drive and harry their own kith and kin. this they covered with a mighty affectation of ease, crying oaths and curses hither and thither tempestuously behind their leaders--save only when john graham rode near by, a thing which more than anything made them hold their peace, lest for discipline's sake he should bid them be silent, with a look that would chill their marrows. chapter ix. through death's dark vale. now this eskdale was the johnstone's own country, and one in which i was noways at home--a country of wide green holms and deep blind "hopes" or hollows among the mountains, where the cloud shadows bide and linger, and whence they come out again to scud swiftly over the hips of the hills. i had been trained to be pleasant and prudent in my conversation, and there was little to take me out of myself in the company i had perforce to keep. yet i dared not withdraw myself from their train, lest the jealousy of our band, which was latent among the more scurril of them, should break out. so i rode mostly silent, but with a pleased countenance which belied my heart. indeed, had it not been for the good liking which everywhere pursued my cousin lochinvar, i cannot tell what might have come out of the dislike for us "glenkens whiggies," which was their mildest word for us. yet my man hugh never said a word, for he was a prudent lad and slow of speech; while i, being no man of war, also looked well to my words, and let a wary tongue keep my head. as for john meiklewood, honest man, he took suddenly one morning what he termed a "sair income in his wame," and leave being scantily asked, he hied him home to his wife and weans at the mains of earlstoun. now this was the manner of our march. claverhouse sent his horse scouring up on the tops of the hills and along the higher grounds, while his foot quartered the lower districts, bringing all such as were in any way suspicious to the kirkyards to be examined. old and young, men and women alike, were taken; and often--chiefly, it is true, behind claverhouse's back--the soldiers were most cruel at the business, making my blood boil, till i thought that i must fly out and strike some of them. i wondered not any longer that my father had taken to the hill, sick to death of the black terror which charles's men caused daily to fall upon all around them, wherever in scotland men cared enough about their religion to suffer for it. how my cousin lochinvar stood it i cannot tell. indeed i think that but for the teaching of his mother, and the presence of john scarlet, who at this time was a great king's man and of much influence with wat gordon, he had been as much incensed as i. one morning in especial i mind well. it was a tuesday, and our company was under the command of this johnstone of westerha', who of all the clan, being a turncoat, was the cruellest and the worst. for the man was in his own country, and among his own kenned faces, his holders and cottiers--so that the slaughter of them was as easy as killing chickens reared by hand. and even claverhouse rather suffered, and shut his eyes to it, than took part in the hard driving. "draw your reins here," the johnstone would say, as we came to the loaning foot of some little white lime-washed house with a reeking lum. "there are some bible folk here that wad be none the worse o' a bit ca'!" so he rode up to the poor muirland housie sitting by itself all alone among the red heather. mostly the folk had marked us come, and often there was no one to be seen, but, as it might be, a bairn or two playing about the green. then he would have these poor bits of things gathered up and begin to fear them, or contrariwise to offer them fair things if only they would tell where their parents were, and who were used to come about the house. there is a place, shieldhill by name, that sits blithely on the brae-face at the entering in of annandale. the country thereabouts is not very wild, and there are many cotter houses set about the holms and dotted among the knowes. westerha' enclosed the whole with a ring of his men, and came upon them as he thought unawares, for he said the place was like a conventicle, and rife with psalm-singers. but he was a wild man when he found the men and women all fled, and only the bairns, as before, feared mostly out of their lives, sitting cowering together by the ingle, or hiding about the byres. "i'll fear them waur," said westerha', as he came to the third house and found as before only two-three weans, "or my name is no james johnstone." so what did this ill-set johnstone do, but gather them all up into a knot by a great thorn-tree that grows on the slope. this tuesday morn was clear and sunny--not bright, but with a kind of diffused light, warm and without shadows, as if the whole arch of the lift were but one sun, yet not so bright as the sun we mostly have. there were some thirty bairns by the tree, mostly of westerha's own name, save those that were jardines, grahams, and charterises, for those are the common names of that country-side. the children stood together, huddled in a cloud, too frightened to speak or even to cry aloud. and one thing i noticed, that the lassie bairns were stiller and grat not so much as the boys--all save one, who was a laddie of about ten years. he stood with his hands behind his back, and his face was very white; but he threw back his head and looked the dragoons and annandale's wild riders fair in the face as one that has conquered fear. then westerha' rode forward almost to the midst of the cloud of bairns, "gollering" and roaring at the bit things to frighten them, as was his custom with such. they were mostly from six to ten years of their age; and when i saw them thus with their feared white faces, i wished that i had been six foot of my inches, and with twenty good men of the glen at my back. but i minded that i was but a boy--"stay-at-home john," as sandy called me--and worth nothing with my hands. so i could only fret and be silent. i looked for my cousin lochinvar, but he was riding at the graham's bridle rein, and that day i saw nothing of him. but i wondered how this matter of the bairns liked him. so westerha' rode nearer to them, shouting like a shepherd crying down the wind tempestuously, when his dogs are working sourly. "hark ye," he cried, "ill bairns that ye are, ye are all to dee, and that quickly, unless ye answer me what i shall ask of you." then i saw something that i had never seen but among the sheep, and it was a most pitiful and heart-wringing thing to see, though now in the telling it seems no great matter. there is a time of the year when it is fitting that the lambs should be separated from the ewes; and it ever touches me nearly to see the flock of poor lammies when first the dogs come near to them to begin the work, and wear them in the direction in which they are to depart. all their little lives the lambs had run to their mothers at the first hint of danger. now they have no mothers to flee to, and you can see them huddle and pack in a frightened solid bunch, quivering with apprehension, all with their sweet little winsome faces turned one way. then as the dogs run nearer to start them, there comes from them a little low broken-hearted bleating, as if terror were driving the cry out of them against their wills. thus it is with the lambs on the hill, and so also it was with the bairns that clung together in a cluster on the brae-face. a party of soldiers was now drawn out before them, and the young things were bid look into the black muzzles of the muskets. they were indeed loaded only with powder, but the children were not to know that. "now," cried westerha', "tell me who comes to your houses at night, and who goes away early in the morning!" the children crept closer to one another, but none of them answered. whereupon westerha' indicated one with his finger--the lad who stood up so straightly and held his head back. "you, young cock-of-the-heather, what might be your black whig's name?" "juist the same as your honour's--james johnstone!" replied the boy, in no way abashed. methought there ran a titter of laughter among the soldiers, for westerha' was noways so well liked among the soldiers as claverhouse or even roaring grier of lag. "and what is your father's name?" continued westerha', bending just one black look upon the lad. "james johnstone!" yet again replied the boy. back in the ranks some one laughed. westerhall flung an oath over his shoulder. "who was the man who laughed? i shall teach you to laugh at the johnstone in his own country!" "it was jeems johnstone of wanphray that laughed, your honour," replied the calm voice of a troop-sergeant. then westerha' set himself without another word to the work of examination, which suited him well. "you will not answer, young rebels," he cried, "ken you what they get that will not speak when the king bids them?" "are you the king?" said the lad of ten who had called himself james johnstone. at this westerhall waxed perfectly furious, with a pale and shaking fury that i liked not to see. but indeed the whole was so distasteful to me that sometimes i could but turn my head away. "now, ill bairns," said westerha', "and you, my young rebel-namesake, hearken ye. the king's command is not to be made light of. and i tell you plainly that as you will not answer, i am resolved that you shall all be shot dead on the spot!" with that he sent men to set them out in rows, and make them kneel down with kerchiefs over their eyes. now when the soldiers came near to the huddled cluster of bairns, that same little heart-broken bleating which i have heard the lambs make, broke again from them. it made my heart bleed and the nerves tingle in my palms. and this was king charles stuart making war! it had not been his father's way. but the soldiers, though some few were smiling a little as at an excellent play, were mostly black ashamed. nevertheless they took the bairns and made them kneel, for that was the order, and without mutiny they could not better it. "sodger-man, wull ye let me tak' my wee brither by the hand and dee that way? i think he wad thole it better!" said a little maid of eight, looking up. and the soldier let go a great oath and looked at westerha' as though he could have slain him. "bonny wark," he cried, "deil burn me gin i listed for this!" but the little lass had already taken her brother by the hand. "bend doon bonny, alec my man, doon on your knees!" said she. the boy glanced up at her. he had long yellow hair like jean hamilton's little alec. "wull it be sair?" he asked. "think ye, maggie? i houp it'll no be awfu' sair!" "na, alec," his sister made answer, "it'll no be either lang or sair." but the boy of ten, whose name was james johnstone, neither bent nor knelt. "i hae dune nae wrang. i'll juist dee this way," he said; and he stood up like one that straightens himself at drill. then westerha' bid fire over the bairns' heads, which was cruel, cruel work, and only some of the soldiers did it. but even the few pieces that went off made a great noise in that lonely place. at the sound of the muskets some of the bairns fell forward on their faces as if they had been really shot. some leapt in the air, but the most part knelt quietly and composedly. the little boy alec, whose sister had his hand clasped in hers, made as if he would rise. "bide ye doon, alec," she said, very quietly, "it's no oor turn yet!" at this the heart within me gave way, and i roared out in my helpless pain a perfect "gowl" of anger and grief. "bonny whigs ye are," cried westerha', "to dee withoot even a prayer. put up a prayer this minute, for ye shall all dee, every one of you." and the boy james johnstone made answer to him: "sir, we cannot pray, for we be too young to pray." "you are not too young to rebel, nor yet to die for it!" was the brute-beast's answer. then with that the little girl held up a hand as if she were answering a dominie in a class. "an it please ye, sir," she said, "me an' alec canna pray, but we can sing 'the lord's my shepherd,' gin that wull do! my mither learned it us afore she gaed awa'." and before any one could stop her, she stood up like one that leads the singing in a kirk. "stan' up, alec, my wee mannie," she said. then all the bairns stood up. i declare it minded me of bethlehem and the night when herod's troopers rode down to look for mary's bonny bairn. then from the lips of the babes and sucklings arose the quavering strains: "the lord's my shepherd, i'll not want. he makes me down to lie in pastures green; he leadeth me the quiet waters by." as they sang i gripped out my pistols and began to sort and prime them, hardly knowing what i did. for i was resolved to make a break for it, and, at the least, to blow a hole in james johnstone of westerha' that would mar him for life before i suffered any more of it. but as they sang i saw trooper after trooper turn away his head, for, being scots bairns, they had all learned that psalm. the ranks shook. man after man fell out, and i saw the tears happing down their cheeks. but it was douglas of morton, that stark persecutor, who first broke down. "curse it, westerha'," he cried, "i canna thole this langer. i'll war nae mair wi' bairns for a' the earldom i' the north." and at last even westerha' turned his bridle rein, and rode away from off the bonny holms of shieldhill, for the victory was to the bairns. i wonder what his thoughts were, for he too had learned that psalm at the knees of his mother. and as the troopers rode loosely up hill and down brae, broken and ashamed, the sound of these bairns' singing followed after them, and soughing across the fells came the words: "yea, though i walk in death's dark vale, yet will i fear none ill: for thou art with me; and thy rod and staff me comfort still." then westerha' swore a great oath and put the spurs in his horse to get clear of the sweet singing. chapter x. the grave in the wilderness. but on the morrow i, who desired to see the ways of the compellers, learned a lesson that ended my scholarship days with them. james johnstone seemed somewhat moved by the matter of the bairns, but by the morning light he had again hardened his heart, like pharaoh, more bitterly than before. for he was now on his own land, and because his thought was that the king would hold him answerable for the behaviour and repute of his people, he became more than ordinarily severe. this he did, being a runnagate from the wholesome ways of the covenant; and, therefore, the more bitter against all who remained of that way. he drove into the yards of the farm-towns, raging like a tiger of the indies, now calling on the names of the goodman of the house, and now upon other suspected persons. and if they did not run out to him at the first cry, he would strike them on the face with the basket hilt of his shable till the blood gushed out. it was a sick and sorry thing to see, and i think his majesty's troopers were ashamed; all saving the johnstone's own following, who laughed as at rare sport. but i come now to tell what i saw with my own eyes of the famous matter of andrew herries, which was the cause of my cousin of lochinvar leaving their company and riding with me and hugh kerr all the way to edinburgh. as, indeed, you shall presently hear. and the manner of its happening was as follows. we were riding full slowly along the edge of a boggy loch in the parish of hutton, and, as usual, quartering the ground for whig refugees, of whom it was suspected that there were many lurking in the neighbourhood. we had obtained no success in our sport, and westerhall was a wild man. he ran about crying "blood and wounds!" which was a favourite oath of his, and telling what he would do to those who dared to rebel, and harbour preachers and preachers' brats on his estate. for we had heard that the lass who had bearded us on the brae-face by the school, with her little brother alec in her hand, was the daughter of roger allison, a great preacher of the hill-folk who had come to them over from holland, to draw them together into some of their ancient unity and power. westerhall, then, knew not as yet in whose house she was dwelling, but only that she had been received by one of his people. but this, if it should come to claverhouse's ears, was enough to cause him to set a fine upon the johnstone--so strict as against landlords were the laws concerning intercommuning with rebels or rebels' children on their estates. this was indeed the cause of so many of the lairds, who at first were all on the side of the covenant, turning out malignants and persecutors. and more so in the shire of dumfries than in galloway, where the muirs are broader, the king's arm not so long, and men more desperately dour to drive. all of a sudden, as we went along the edge of a morass, we came upon something that stayed us. it was, as i say, in hutton parish, a very pleasant place, where there is the crying of many muir-fowl, and the tinkle of running water everywhere. all at once a questing dragoon held up his arm, and cried aloud. it was the signal that he had found something worthy of note. we all rode thither--i, for one, praying that it might not be a poor wanderer, too wearied to run from before the face of the troopers' wide-spreading advance. however, it was but a newly-made grave in the wilderness, hastily dug, and most pitifully covered with green fresh-cut turves, in order to give it the look of the surrounding morass. it had very evidently been made during the darkness of the night, and it might have passed without notice then. but now, in the broad equal glare of the noon-tide, it lay confessed for what it was--a poor wandering hill-man's grave in the wild. "who made this?" cried westerhall. "burn me on the deil's brander, but i'll find him out!" "hoot," said clavers, who was not sharp set that day, perhaps having had enough of westerhall's dealing with the bairns yesterday, "come away, johnstone; 'tis but another of your eskdale saints. ye have no lack of them on your properties, as the king will no doubt remember. what signifies a whig johnstone the less? there's more behind every dyke, and then their chief is aye here, able and willing to pay for them!" this taunt, uttered by the insolent scorning mouth of claverhouse, made westerhall neither to hold nor bind. indeed the fear of mulet and fine rode him like the hag of dreams. "truth of god!" cried he; for he was a wild and blasphemous man, very reckless in his words; "do so to me, and more also, if i rack not their limbs, that gied the clouts to wrap him in. i'se burn the bed he lay in, bring doon the rafter and roof-tree that sheltered him--aye, though it were the bonny hoose o' st. johnstone itsel', an' lay the harbourer of the dead whig cauld i' the clay, gin it were the mither that bore me! deil reestle me gin i keep not this vow." now, the most of the men there were upon occasion bonny swearers, not taking lessons in the art from any man; but to the johnstone they were as children. for, being a runnagate covenanter, and not accustomed in his youth to swear, he had been at some pains to learn the habit with care, thinking it a necessary accomplishment and ornament to such as did the king's business, especially to a captain of horse. which, indeed, it hath ever been held, but in moderation and with discretion. westerhall had neither, being the man he was. "fetch the whig dog up!" he commanded. the men hesitated, for it was a job not at all to their stomachs, as well it might not be that hot day, with the sun fierce upon them overhead. "tut, man," said clavers, "let him lie. what more can ye do but smell him? is he not where you and i would gladly see all his clan? let the ill-favoured whig be, i say!" "i shall find out who sheltered him on my land. howk him up!" cried westerhall, more than ever set in his mad cruelty at colonel graham's words. so to the light of the merciless day they opened out the loose and shallow grave, and came on one wrapped in a new plaid, with winding sheets of pure linen underneath. these were all stained and soaked with the black brew of the moss, for the man had been buried, as was usual at the time, hastily and without a coffin. but the sleuthhound instinct of the johnstone held good. "annandale for the hunt, nithsdale for the market, and gallowa' for the fecht!" is ever a true proverb. "let me see wha's aucht the sheet?" he said. so with that, westerhall unwound the corner and held it up to the light. "isobel allison!" he exclaimed, holding the fine linen up to the light, and reading the name inwoven, as was then the custom when a bride did her providing. "the widow herries, the verra woman--ain dam's sister to the whig preacher--sant amang the hill-folk. weel ken i the kind o' her. to the hill, lads, and we will burn the randy oot, even as i said. i'll learn the hutton folk to play wi' the beard o' st. johnstone." "foul annandale thief!" said i, but stilly to myself, for who was i to stand against all of them? yet i could see that, save and except the chief's own ragged tail, there were none of the soldiers that thought this kind of work becoming. ere he mounted, westerhall took the poor, pitiful body, and with his foot despitefully tumbled it into a moss-hole. "i'll show them what it is to streek dead whigs like honest men, and row them dainty in seventeen hunder linen on my land!" cried westerhall. and indeed it seemed a strange and marvellous providence to me, that young isobel allison, when she wove in that name with many hopes and prayers, the blood of her body flushing her cheek with a maiden's shy expectation, should have been weaving in the ruin of her house and the breaking of her heart. now the cot of the widow herries was a bonny place. so i believe, but of its beauty i will not speak. for i never was back that way again--and what is more, i never mean to be. we came to the gavel end of the house. westerhall struck it with his sword. "we'll sune hae this doon!" he said to us that followed. then louder he cried, "mistress, are ye within?" as the custom of the country is. a decent woman with a white widow's cap on her head was scraping out a dish of hen's meat as we rode to the door. when she saw us on our horses about the close, the wooden bowl fell from her hands and played clash on the floor. "aye, my bonny woman," quoth westerhall, "this comes o' keeping whigs aboot your farm-toon. whatna whig rebel was it ye harboured? oot wi't, bell allison! was it the brither o' ye, that cursed spawn o' the low country? doon on your knees an' tell me, else it is your last hour on the earth." the poor woman fell on her knees and clasped her hands. "o westerha'!" she stammered, "i'll no lee till ye. it was but a puir westland man that we kenned not the name o'. we fand him i' the fields, and for very god's pity brocht him hame to our door and laid him on the bed. he never spak' 'yea' or 'nay' to us all the time he abode in our hoose-place, and so passed without a word late yestreen." "lying whig!" cried westerhall, "who was it that found him? whatna yin o' your rebel sons--chasing up hill and doon dale after your blackguard brither, was it that brocht him hame?" "i kenna wha it was that brocht him. it was a wee bit lass that fand him when she was playin' i' the moss wi' her brither." "i ken your wee bit lasses," said westerhall; "she's a bonny sprig o' that braw plant o' grace, roger allison, wha's heid shall yet look blythe on the west port o' edinburgh, wi' yin o' his cantin' thief's hands on ilka side o't." the poor woman said no word, but out from the chamber door came our little lass of yesterday and stood beside her. "wha's plaidie is this?" again quoth westerhall, holding up the plaid in which the dead man had been wrapped, like an accusation in his hand; "to the hill, boys, and lay hand on this honest woman's honest sons. king charles wull hae something to say to them, i'm thinkin'." with that he leapt from his horse, throwing the reins to the widow. "hae, haud my horse," he said, "an' gin ye stir an inch, ye'll get an ounce o' lead in you, ye auld shakin' limb o' sawtan." chapter xi. the blood of the martyrs. with that, like a loch broken loose, johnstone's tail of annandale thieves rushed within the house and dang all things here and there at their liking. some came forth carrying good house gear, some table furniture, and some the plenishing of bed and wardrobe. they turned all that they could not carry into the midst of the floor to burn at their leisure. they drove away the cattle from off the brae-face. they gathered the widow's poor head of sheep off the hill. and all the time isobel herries stood trembling for her lads and holding the chief's horse. as the men passed, one after another, they flung words at her that will not bear writing down. and i was glad that the little maid who stood by with her brother in her hand, understood not their import. when all was done, westerhall set to work and pulled down the whole house, for the rigging and walls were but of baked clay and crumbled before them. yet the poor woman wailed for them bitterly, as they had been a palace. "the bonny bit, o the bonny bit!" she cried. "where i had sic a sweet bairn-time. i was that happy wi' a' my tottlin' weans aboot my hand. but i kenned it couldna last--it was ower sweet to last." so they turned her out to the bare hillside with the bairns in her hand. it did not, to my thinking, make the case any better that her brother was a rebel. but in those days it was treason to succour the living or honour the dead--ay, even if they had lain in your bed and stirred in your side. it was forbidden on pain of death to give them so much as a bed or a meal of meat. for such was the decree of just and pious charles, king at whitehall, who alone had the right to say in what fashion the poor ignorant folk of scotland should worship the god of their fathers. we had not ridden far after leaving the house a heap of ruins, before we met claverhouse and his troop, riding slow, with a prisoner in the midst of them. "what luck!" cried he; "good sport in your ain coverts, westerha'?" he had a delicately insolent contempt for the johnstone that set well on him, though as i knew well he could be as cold and bloody as any of them when the humour drove him. yet mostly he killed like a gentleman after all, and not like a border horse thief--save only in the case of honest john brown of priesthill. but westerhall had caught sight of clavers's prisoner. he rode up to him and struck him a buffet in the face, though the lad's hands were tied before him. he was a youth of eighteen, as near as one might guess, a boy of a pleasant and ruddy countenance, such as one may chance to see on any brae-face in scotland where there are sheep feeding, with a staff in his hand and a dog at his heels. "my whiggie, i have you now," he cried. "i'll e'en learn you to row dead rebels in your plaidie, and harbour hill preachers on my land. could i get at your brothers, i declare i wadna leave a herries birkie on the lands o' westerha'. have him down, men," he cried, "and shoot him here." but clavers interposed. "no," he said, "he is now my prisoner. ride ye on to westerha'; and there, johnstone, i shall give ye a present of him to make a kirk or a mill of. it'll be you that will have to pay the harbourage cess for this day's work at ony gate!" so to westerhall johnstone rode, very gloomy and ill at ease--for the black dog was sitting heavy on him at the thought of the fine anent harbourers of rebels being found on his land. again and again he broke out on the poor youth andrew herries, threatening what he would do with him when he got him to westerhall. but the youth never so much as answered back, only cast down his head and looked on the moss before him. yet he walked carefully and without stumbling as one that takes heed to his going. now at a bonny spot where there is much green grass, it so happened that we halted. you will find the place readily if ever you pass that way. it is just on that tongue of land where the rig burn meets the esk water and close by the house of westerhall. there, where the great hill of stennies water pushes down a spur to the water-side, was our halting place. here, as soon as we alighted down, westerhall passed sentence on andrew herries, saying that he had due authority from the council as king's justicer for the parts about the esk and annan. claverhouse was noways keen for the lad's shooting, and strove to put him off. yet he was not over-earnest in the matter, for (as he often said) to john graham a dead whig was always greatly better than a living. but for all that, he waved his hand and cried aloud: "the blood of this poor man, westerha', be upon you. i am free from it." nevertheless, since westerhall had given the sentence and for example's sake it could not be departed from, claverhouse ordered a highland gentleman, the captain of a free company that was traversing the country with him, to shoot the lad and get it over. but donald dhu cocked his bonnet till the eagle's feather in it stood erect, and in high dudgeon drew off his clansmen. "hursel cam' frae the heelants to fecht men, and no to be pluff-pluffin' poother at poor lads that are no lang frae the mither's milk." this was the statement of donald dhu, and i that had no love for highlandmen, nor any cause to love them, remembering the hand they made of my father's house of earlstoun, could have cheered him where i stood. but i remembered the errand i was on, and for my mother's sake forbore. "what!" cried westerhall, glowering at him and riding up close, as if to strike him, "would you disobey the general's orders!" "donald dhu has no general but his king," cried the bold highlandman. "call up your row-footed messans, and bid them do your nain dirty work." then claverhouse, who of all things loved not to be outfaced, ordered him peremptorily to obey. "indeed, john graham, hursel will fecht ye first--you and a' your troop." then seeing that clavers was about to raise his hand in command, as though to take him unawares-- "claymores!" suddenly cried donald dhu, and behind him fifty highland brands flashed in air as the wild clansmen threw back their plaids to clear the sword-arm. "this i shall report to the privy council," said clavers very gravely, turning on him a black and angry countenance. but the brave highlander was noways affected. "hooch!" he said, giving his fingers a snap, "a fig for your preevies--donald dhu wull hae small notion o' preevy cooncils on ben muick. gin preevies come to veesit donald dhu on spey side, it's just hursel that wull be the prood man to see the preevies--aye, or you yersel' either, john graham!" thus much donald dhu, and he was a good man and died linking down the brae with his men true, behind john graham at killiecrankie in the fulness of time--which was better work than, as he said, "pluff-pluffin' poother at puir lawlan tykes." but when westerhall saw that the highland birses were up, and that he would in no wise obey orders, he ordered some of his own scoundrels to do the thing. for his black heart was set on the shooting of the lad. then i could endure no longer, but ran forward as if to save him, crying out to them that he was innocent, and but a lad at any rate, which mightily angered westerhall. "stell up the yae rebel whelp beside the other!" he said; and i believe that had we been alone with the annandale men, they would have done it. but clavers said: "let be! take away young earlstoun to the knowe-tap!" so they led me off, fairly girning with anger and impotence. for once i longed for sandy's brute strength to charge at them like a bull with the head down. "lochinvar!" i cried, as they forced me away. "to me, lochinvar!" but, alas! my cousin was off on some of his own ploys, and came not till too late. as you shall hear. then when the men were in rank to fire, westerhall bid andrew herries draw down his blue bonnet over his eyes. but he was a lad of most undaunted courage, and though he had come so meekly to the slaughter, now he spoke out boldly enough. "i wad raither dee," he said, "in the face o' a' men and the plain licht o' god. i hae dune nocht to make me shamed afore my death-bringers. though, being but young, i hae but little testimony to gie, an' nae great experience o' religion to speak aboot. the end has come ower quick on me for that!" then they asked him, as was their custom, if he had aught to say before sentence should take effect upon him. "nocht in particular," he said, "but there's a book here (and he pulled a little bible out of his breast) that you an' me will be judged by. i wish i had read mair earnestly in it an' profited better by it. but at ony rate i aye carried it to read at the herdin', and my time has been cut short." "make haste," they said, "we haena time to taigle wi' ye." "and i hae as little desire to taigle you," he said, "but i am glad that i didna grudge the puir westland man my best plaid for his last covering, though there be none to do as muckle for me." the fire rang out. the blue wreaths of smoke rose level, and there on the green sward, with his face to the sky, and his bible yet in his hand, lay the widow's son, andrew herries, very still. "so perish all the king's rebels," cried westerhall loudly, as it were, to give the black deed a colour of law. but john graham said never a word, only lifted his hat and then rode away with a countenance like the granite stone of the mountain. chapter xii. we ride to edinburgh. when my cousin lochinvar heard what had been done in the matter of the lad, andrew herries, his anger burned fiercely within him. he sought westerhall on the instant. "foul annandale thief!" he cried, "come out and try the length of thy sword on the heather. down with thee and see if thou canst stand up to a man, thou great stirk. 'tis easy putting thy wolf's spite on helpless bairns, but this sword-arm shall tickle thy midriff to an unkenned tune." but colonel graham would not let them fight. "aroint thee," he said to lochinvar, "for a young ruffler and spit-fire. well may they call thee wullcat. but you shall not decimate my troop, or i must put you in irons, for all those bright eyes which the ladies love." lochinvar turned to him. "colonel graham, did you yourself not say, 'i am guiltless of this poor man's life!' so, at least, i have been informed." claverhouse nodded grimly. it was not a weakness he often showed. "then why not let me have it out with this bairn-slayer? i had e'en garred the guard o' my sword dirl again his ribs." in another the boast had seemed like presumption, but so noble a sworder was wat gordon that he but stated a truth. and all that were present knew it for such. "westerhall will be the more grateful to me, in that case," said clavers, "but hark ye, lochinvar! there must be no more of this. ye would reduce the number of his majesty's forces effective in one way. the reverend richard cameron (with whom providence send me a good and swift meeting) in another. but in the end it comes to the same thing. now i opine, it will fit you well to hie to edinburgh with despatches. and i prithee take your noble and peaceful cousin of earlstoun with thee. gin thou canst exchange him there for his brother sandy, i shall be the more glad to see thee back." so in a little wat gordon and i (hugh kerr and john scarlet being with us) were riding with claverhouse's despatches to the privy council. northward we travelled through infinite rough and unkindly places, vexed ever with a bitter wind in our faces. as we passed many of the little cot houses on the opposite hillsides, we would see a head look suddenly out upon us. then the door fell open, and with a rush like wild things breaking from their dens, a father and a son, or such-like, would take the heather. and once, even, we saw the black coat of a preacher. but with never a halt we went on our way, sharp-set to reach edinburgh. as we went, wat gordon spoke to me of the great ones of the town, and especially of the duchess of wellwood, with whom, as it appeared, he was high in favour. but whether honestly or no, i had no means of judging. it was passing strange for me, who indeed was too young for such love, even had i been fitted by nature for it--to hear wat speak of the gallantry of the great ladies of the court, and of the amorous doings at whitehall. for i had been strictly brought up--a thing which to this day i do not regret, for it gives even ill-doing a better relish. but in these times when there are many new-fangled notions about the upbringing of children and the manner of teaching them, i ever declare i do not know any better way than that which my father used. its heads and particulars were three--the shorter catechism for the soul, good oatmeal porridge for the inward man--and for the outward, some twigs of the bonny birk, properly applied and that upon the appointed place. so that to hear of the gay french doings at the court, which by wat's telling were greatly copied in edinburgh, was to me like beholding the jigging and coupling of puggy monkeys in a cage to make sport for the vulgar. "the lord keep me from the like of that!" i cried, when he had told me of a ploy that my lady castlemaine and my pretty mistress stuart had carried through together--the point of which was that these two quipsome dames were wedded, like man and wife, and eke bedded before the court. and at this wat gordon, who had not much humour at the most of times, turned on me with a quizzical look on his face, saying, "i think you are in no great danger, cousin william." which i took not ill, for at that time i cared not a jot about the appearance of my body, nor for any lady's favour in the land. when we reached edinburgh, i went immediately to decent lodgings in the west bow, to which i had been directed by my mother; but walter, saying that the west bow was no fit lodging for a gentleman, went on to settle himself in one of the fashionable closes off the lawnmarket. as soon as we were by ourselves, my man, hugh kerr, came to me, and began to ask if i knew anything of john scarlet, the serving man that accompanied my cousin. i replied that i knew nothing of him, save that my cousin had past all endurance cried him up to me as a mighty sworder. "weel," said hugh kerr, "it may be, but it's my opeenion that he is a most mighty leer, an' a great scoundrel forbye." i asked him why, and at the first go-off he would give me no better answer than that he opined that his name was not john scarlet but john varlet, as better denoting a gentleman of his kidney. but when i pressed him, he told me that this serving man had told him that he had committed at least half-a-dozen murders--which he called slaughters and justified, that he had been at nigh half a hundred killings in the fields, yet that he could pray like mr. kid himself at a societies' meeting, and be a leader among the hill-folk when it seemed good to him. "an' the awesome thing o't a' is that the ill deil declared that he had half-a-dizzen wives, and that he could mainteen the richts o' that too. so i reasoned with him, but faith! the scoundrel had the assurance to turn my flank wi' abraham and the patriarchs. he said that he wadna cast up solomon to me, for he wasna just prepared to uphaud the lengths that solomon gaed to i' the maitter o' wives." but i told hugh to give his mind no concern about the sayings or doings of master john scarlet or varlet, for that it was all most likely lies; and if not, neither he nor i was the man's master, to whom alone he stood or fell. but for all that i could see that hughie was much dashed by his encounter with my cousin's follower, for hughie accounted himself a great hand at the scripture. we heard afterwards that john scarlet had been a sometime follower of muckle john gib, and that it was in his company that he learned notions, which is a thing exceedingly likely. but this was before anton lennox of the duchrae took john in hand and sorted him to rights, that day in the moss of the deer-slunk between lowthian and lanark. then with my cousin's interest to back me, and especially that which he made with the duchess of wellwood, i wore out the winter of the year in petitions and embassies, praying that the estates should not be taken from us, and biding all the time in my lodging in the west bow. i had james stewart, then in hiding, to make out my pleas, and right ably he drew them. it was a strong point in our favour that my father had not been killed at bothwell, but only when advancing in the direction of the combatants. and besides, i myself had bidden at home, and not ridden out with the others. as for sandy, he had not the chance of a lamb in the wolf's maw, having been on the field itself with a troop; so i stood for my own claim, meaning with all my very heart to do right by my elder brother when the time came--though, indeed, i had but small reason to love him for his treatment of me. yet for all that, i shall never say but what he was a stupid, honest lown enough. mayhap if he had been other than my brother, i had loved him better; but he tortured me as thoughtlessly when i was a weakly lad as if i had been a paddock or a fly, till the instinct of dislike infected my blood. and after that there could be no hope of liking, hardly of tolerance. this is the reason of most of the feuds among brothers the world over. for it is the fact, though there are few fathers that suspect it, that many elder brothers make the lives of the youngers a burden too heavy to be borne--which thing, together with marrying of wives, in after years certainly works bitterness. more than anything, it struck me as strange that my cousin lochinvar could make merry in the very city--where but a few months before his father had been executed and done to death. but hughie kerr told me one evening, when we were going over glenkens things, how wat's father had used him--keeping him at the strap's end. for wat was ever his mother's boy, who constantly took his part as he needed it, and made a great cavalier and king's man of him. this his father tried to prevent and drive out of him with blows, till the lad fairly hated him and his covenants. and so it was as it was. for true religion comes not by violence, but chiefly, i think, from being brought up with good men, reverencing their ways and words. chapter xiii. wullcat wat dares heaven and hell. it was about the end of february, when the days are beginning to creep out quickly from their shortest, that my aunt, the lady lochinvar, came to town. i, that asked only meat and house-room, companied not much with the braver folk who sought the society of my cousin of lochinvar. wat glanced here and there in some new bravery every day, and i saw him but seldom. however, my lady aunt came to see me when she had been but three days in town. for she was punctilious about the claims of blood and kinship, which, indeed, women mostly think much more of than do men. "a good morning, cousin," said she, "and how speeds the suit?" then i told her somewhat of the law's delays and how i had an excellent lawyer, albeit choleric and stormy in demeanour,--one of mine own name, mr. william gordon, though his pleas were drawn by james stewart, presently in hiding. what gordon said went down well with my lords of the council meeting in holyrood, for he was a great swearer and damned freely in his speech. but hugh wallace, that was the king's cash-keeper, claimed the fine because that my father was a heritor--conform to the acts of parliament made against these delinquencies and conventicles in and , appointing the fines of heritors being transgressors to come into the treasury. but sir george mackenzie said, "if this plea be not james stewart's drawing i have no skill of law. tell me, gordon, gin ye drew this yoursel' or is james stewart in scotland?" then my lady of lochinvar asked of me when i thought my matters might be brought to an end. "that i know not," said i; "it seems slow enough." "all law is slow, save that which my man and your father got," said she. i was astonished that she should mention her man, with that courage and countenance, and the story not six months old; indeed, his very head sticking on the netherbow, not a mile from us as we talked. but she saw some part of this in my face, and quickly began to say on. "you gordons never think you die honest unless you die in arms against the king. but ye stand well together, though your hand is against every other man. and that is why i, that am but a tacked-on gordon, come to help you if so be i can; though i and my boy stand for the king, and you and your rebel brother sandy for the covenants. weary fa' them--that took my man from me--for he was a good man to me, though we agreed but ill together concerning kings and politics." "speak for my brother sandy," i said, "i am no strong sufferer, and so shall get me, i fear me, no golden garments." thus i spoke in my ignorance, for the witty lown-warm air of edinburgh in spiritual things had for the time being infected me with opinions like those of the laodicians. now this was a favourite overword of my mother's, that suffering was the christian's golden garment. but to my aunt, to whom religion was mostly family tradition (or so i thought), i might as well have spoken of fried fish. "but concerning walter," she went on, as one that comes to a real subject after beating about the bush, "tell me of him. you have been here with him in this city the best part of three months." now indeed i saw plainly enough what it was that had procured me the honour of a visit so early from my lady of lochinvar. "in this city i have indeed been, my aunt," i replied, "but not with walter. for i am not lord of lochinvar, but only the poor suitor of the king's mercy. and i spent not that which i have not, nor yet can i afford further to burden the estate which may never be mine." she waved her hand as at a whig scruple, which good king's folk made light of. "but what of walter--you have seen--is it well with the lad?" she spoke eagerly and laid her hand on my arm. but after all the business was not mine, and besides, a gordon--covenant or no covenant--is no tale-piet, as my lady might well have known. "wat gordon," said i, "is the gayest and brightest young spark in town, like a damascus blade for mettle, and there are none that love not his coming, and grieve not at his going." "ay--ladies, that i ken," said my aunt. "what of my lady wellwood?" now i had a very clear opinion of my lady wellwood, though i knew her not; for indeed she would not have waved the back of her lily hand to me in the street. but she was a handsome woman, and i admired her greatly for the fairness of her countenance as she went by. besides, the business of wat and my lady wellwood was none of mine. "my lady is in truth a fine woman," i said calmly, looking up as if i were saying what must please my visitor. the lady lochinvar struck one hand on the other hastily and rose. "attend me home," she said; "i see after all that you are a man, and so must defend all men and admire all women." "the last, for your ladyship's sake, i do," i made answer. for in those days we were taught to be courteous to the elder ladies, and to make them becoming compliments, which is in danger of being a forgotten art in these pettifogging times. "what takes you to the covenant side?" asked lady lochinvar, "certes, the falkland dominie had not made that speech." "the same that took your husband, lady lochinvar," i returned, somewhat nettled. for she spake as if the many honest folk in scotland were but dirt beneath the feet of the few. but that was ever the way of her kind. "kenned ye ever a gordon that would be driven with whips of scorpions, or one that could not be drawn with the light of ladies' eyes?" she sighed, and gathered up her skirts. "ay, the last all too readily," she said, thinking, i doubt not, of walter gordon and my lady of wellwood. it was dusking when we stepped out. my aunt took my arm and desired that we should walk home, though already i had called a chair for her. so we went up the narrow, dirty street and came slowly to her lodgings. walter met us on the stair of the turnpike. he was shining in silk and velvet as was recently his constant wont. lace ruffles were at his wrists. he had a gold chain about his neck, and a jewelled rapier flashed and swung in a gold-broidered velvet sheath at his side. he seemed no little dashed by our coming in together. i quickly understood that he had thought his mother safely out of the way, and wondered how i should keep the peace between them. for by the tremble of her hand on my arm i felt that the storm was nigh the breaking. yet for all that he stopped and kissed her dutifully, standing on the step with his hat in his hand, to let her pass within. the flickering light of the cruisie lamp in the stairhead fell on him, and i thought he had the noblest figure of a youth that ever my eyes had rested upon. but his mother would not let him go. "attend me to my chamber, walter," she said. "i have that concerning which i would speak with you." so we went upward, turning and twisting up the long stairs, till we came to the door where my lady lodged. she tirled fretfully at the pin, the servant-maid opened, and we went within. the window stood wide to give a draft to the fire of wood that burned on the firegrate. i went over to close it, and, as i did so, a broad flake of snow swirled down, and lay melting on my wrist. it told me that it was to be a wild night--the last snowstorm of the year, belike. my lady came back from her own bed-chamber in a moment. she had merely laid aside her plaid, waiting not to change her gown lest her son should be gone. walter gordon stood discontentedly enough at the side of the firegrate, touching the glowing embers with his french shoe, careless of how he burnt it. "walter," said my aunt, "will you not pleasure us with your company to-night?" "i cannot, my lady," said lochinvar, without looking up; "i have made an engagement elsewhere." he spoke baldly and harshly, as one that puts a restraint on himself. his mother looked at him with her eyes like coals from which the leaping flame has just died out. for a moment she said nothing, but the soul within her flamed out of the windows of her house of clay, fiery and passionate. it had come to the close and deadly pinch with her, and it was on the dice's throw whether she would lose or keep her son. "walter gordon," she said at last, "has your mother journeyed thus far to so little purpose, that now she is here, you will not do her the honour to spend a single night in her company? since when has she become so distasteful to you?" "mother," said wat, moved in spite of himself, "you do not yourself justice when you speak so. i would spend many nights with you, for all my love and service are yours; but to-night i cannot fail to go whither i have promised without being man-sworn and tryst-breaker. and you have taught me that the gordons are neither." "wat," she said, hearing but not heeding his words, "bide you by me to-night. there be sweet maids a many that will give their lives for you. you are too young for such questing and companionry. go not to my lady wellwood to-night. o do not, my son! 'tis your mother that makes herself a beggar to you!" at the name of my lady wellwood walter gordon started from his place as though he had been stung and glanced over at me with a sudden and fiery anger. "if my cousin----" but i kept my eyes clear upon him, as full of fire mayhap as his own. and even in that moment i saw the thought pass out of his mind in the uncertain firelight. "your cousin has told me nothing, though i deny not that i asked him," said my lady curtly. "young men hang together, like adder's eggs. but wat, dear wat, will you not put off your gay apparelling and take a night at the cartes with us at home. see, the fire is bright and the lamp ready. it will be a wild night without presently!" "to-morrow, mother, to-morrow at e'en shall be the night of my waiting upon you. to-night, believe me, i cannot--though, because you ask me, with all my heart i would that i could." then his mother rose up from her seat by the fire, and went up to him. she laid her hand on his arm and looked into his eyes. "o walter, my boy, go not forth to-night"--(here i declare to god the proud woman knelt to her own son)--"see, i have put off my pride, and i pray you not to go for my sake--for your mother's sake, that never denied you anything. there is evil boding in the air." she shuddered and, in rising, threw an arm over his shoulder, as though she had been his sweetheart and were fleeching with him. for a moment i saw wat gordon waver. then he took her hand gently and drew it down from his shoulder. "mother, for you i would do all, save set a stain upon my honour. but this thing i cannot, for i have plighted my word deep and fast, and go i must to-night." "tell me," said my aunt, "is it a matter of treason to the king?" her eyes were eager, expectant. and for very pity of her i hoped that walter could give her satisfaction on the point. but it was not as i thought, for who can track a woman's heart? "god forbid," said wat gordon heartily, as one that is most mightily relieved. but his mother fell back and her hands dropped to her side. "then," she said, "it is my lady wellwood!--i had rather a thousand times it had been treason and rebellion--aye, though it had set your head on high beside your father's." "lady wellwood or another!" cried wat, "nor heaven nor hell shall gar me break my tryst this nicht!" and without another word walter gordon went down the stairs as one that runs defiantly to death, daring both god and man--and, alas! the mother also that bore him. chapter xiv. the thing that fell from traitor's gate. the lady lochinvar stood a moment still by the fire, listening, her hand raised as if to command silence. then she ran to the door like a young lass, with a light foot and her hand on her heart. the steps came fainter up the stair, and in another moment we heard the clang of the outer door. my lady turned to me. "have you your pistols by you?" she whispered in a hoarse and angry voice, clutching me by the lapels of my coat. "go, man! go, follow him! he rushes to his death. and he is all that i have. go and save him!" she that had fleeched with her son, like a dove succouring its young, laid harshly her commands upon me. "i am no fighter, aunt," i said. "what protection can i be to walter gordon, the best sworder in edinburgh town this night from holyrood to the castle?" my lady looked about her as one that sees a stealthy enemy approach. her hand trembled as she laid it on my arm. "what avails good swordsmanship, when one comes behind and one before, as in my dream i saw them do upon my walter, out of the house of my lord wellwood. they came upon him and left him lying on the snow.--ah, go, dear cousin william!" she said, breaking into a sharp cry of entreaty lest i should fail her. "it is you that can save him. but let him not see you follow, or it will make him more bitter against me. for if you cannot play with the sword, you can shoot with the pistol; so i have heard, and they tell me that no one can shoot so truly as thou. they would not let thee shoot at kirkcudbright for the siller gun though thou art a burgess, because it were no fair game. is it not true?" and so she stroked and cuitled me with flattery till i declare i purred like our gib cat. i had begun there and then to tell her of my prowess, but that she interrupted me. "he goes toward the high street. hasten up the south wynd, and you will overtake him yet ere he comes out upon the open road." she thrust two pistols into my belt, which i laid aside again, having mine own more carefully primed with me, to the firing of which my hand was more accustomed--and that to a marksman is more than half the battle. when i reached the street the wildness of the night justified my prophecy. the snow was falling athwart the town in broad wet flakes, driving flat against the face with a splash, before a gusty westerly wind that roared among the tall lums of the steep-gabled houses--a most uncomfortable night to run the risk of getting a dirk in one's ribs. i saw my cousin before me, linking on carelessly through the snow with his cloak about his ears and his black-scabbard rapier swinging at his heels. but i had to slink behind backs like a holyrood _dyvour_--a bankrupt going to the sanctuary, jooking and cowering craftily in the lee-side shadow of the houses. for though so wild a night, it was not very dark. there was a moon up there somewhere among the smother, though she could not get so much as her nose through the wrack of banked snow-cloud which was driving up from the west. yet wat could have seen me very black on the narrow strip of snow, had he ever once thought of looking over his shoulder. but wat the wullcat of lochinvar was not the one to look behind him when he strode on to keep tryst. i minded his bitter reckless words to his mother, "heaven and hell shall not make me break my tryst to-night!" now heaven was shut out by the storm and the tall close-built houses, and walter gordon had an excellent chance of standing a bout with the other place. no doubt my lady wellwood bided at the window and looked out for him to come to her through the snow. and i that had for common no thought of lass or lady, cannot say that i was without my own envying that the love of woman was not for me. or so at least i thought at that time, even as i shielded my eyes under my bonnet and drave through the snow with the pistols loose in my belt. but wat of lochinvar walked defiantly through the black storm with a saucy swing in his carriage, light and careless, which i vouch drew my heart to him as if i had been a young girl. i had given ten years of my life if just so i could have taken the eyes of women. as clear as if i had listened to the words, i could hear him saying over within himself the last sentence he had used in the controversy with his mother--"heaven and hell shall not cause me to break my tryst to-night!" alack! poor lad, little understood he the resources of either. for he had yet to pass beneath traitor's' gate. for once the narrow high street of edinburgh was clean and white--sheeted down in the clinging snow that would neither melt nor freeze, but only clung to every joint, jut, stoop, and step of the house-fronts, and clogged in lumps on the crockets of the roof. the wind wrestled and roared in great gusts overhead in the black, uncertain, tumultuous night. then a calm would come, sudden as a curtain-drop in the play-house, and in the hush you could hear the snow sliddering down off the high-pitched roofs of tile. the light of the moon also came in varying wafts and flickers, as the wind blew the clouds alternately thicker and thinner across her face. now i felt both traitor and spy as i tracked my cousin down the brae. hardly a soul was to be seen, for none loves comfort more than an edinburgh burgher. and none understands his own weather better. the snow had swept ill-doer and well-doer off the street, cleaner than ever did the city guard--who, by the way, were no doubt warming their frozen toes by the cheerful fireside in some convenient house-of-call. so meditating, for a moment i had almost forgotten whither we were going. before us, ere i was aware, loomed up the battlements and turrets of the netherbow. 'twas with a sudden stound of the heart, that i remembered what it was that ten months and more ago had been set up there. but i am sure that, sharp-set on his love matter, like a beast that hunts nose-down on a hot trail, wat gordon had no memory for the decorations of the netherbow. for he whistled as he went, and stuck his hand deeper into the breast of his coat. the moon came out as i looked, and for a moment, dark and grisly against the upper brightness, i saw that row of traitors' heads which the city folk regarded no more in their coming and going, than the stone gargoyles set in the roof-niches of st. giles. but as soon as wat went under the blackness of the arch, there came so fierce a gust that it fairly lifted me off my feet and dashed me against the wall. overhead yelled all the mocking fiends of hell, riding slack-rein to a new perdition. the snow swirled tormented, and wrapped us both in its grey smother. hands seemed to pull at me out of the darkness, lifted me up, and flung me down again on my face in the smoor of the snow. a great access of fear fell on me. as the gust overpassed, i rose, choked and gasping. overhead i could hear the mighty blast go roaring and howling away among the crags and rocks of arthur's seat. then i arose, shook the snow from my dress, glanced at the barrels and cocks of my pistols to see that they were not stopped with snow, and stepped out of the angle of the bow to look after my cousin. to my utter astonishment, he was standing within four feet of me. he held some dark thing in his hand, and stared open-mouthed at it, as one demented. without remembering that i had come out at my lady's bidding to follow wat gordon secretly, i stepped up to him till i could look over his shoulder. "walter!" i said, putting my hand on his arm. but he never minded me in the least, nor yet appeared surprised to find me there. only a black and bitter horror sat brooding on his soul. he continued to gaze, fascinated, at the dark thing in his hand. "god--god--god!" he sobbed, the horror taking him short in the throat. "will, do you see this?" such abject terror never have i heard before nor since in the utterance of any living man. "do you see this?" he said. "see what fell at my feet as i came through the arch of the bow upon mine errand! the wind brought it down." above the moon pushed her way upwards, fighting hard, breasting the cloud wrack like a labouring ship. her beams fell on the dark thing in wat gordon's hand. "great god!" he shouted again, his eyes starting from their sockets, "it is mine own father's head!" and above us the fitful, flying winds nichered and laughed like mocking fiends. it was true. i that write, saw it plain. i held it in this very hand. it was the head of sir john of lochinvar, against whom, in the last fray, his own son had donned the war-gear. grizzled, black, the snow cleaving ghastly about the empty eye-holes, the thin beard still straggling snow-clogged upon the chin--it was his own father's head that had fallen at walter gordon's feet, and which he now held in his hand. then i remembered, with a shudder of apprehension, his own words so lately spoken--"heaven and hell shall not cause me to break my tryst to-night." walter gordon stood rooted there, dazed and dumb-foundered, with the thing in his hand. his fine lace ruffles touched it as the wind blew them. i plucked at him. "come," i said, "haste you! let us bury it in the holyrood ere the moon goes down." thus he who boasted himself free of heaven and hell, had his tryst broken by the thing that fell from the ghastly gate on which the traitors' heads are set in a row. and that thing was the head of the father that begat him. chapter xv. the bicker in the snow. then, seeing walter gordon both agitated and uncertain which way to turn, i took out of his shaking hands the poor mishandled head, wrapping it in my plaid, and so led the way down the canongate towards the kirkyard of the chapel of holyroodhouse, where it seemed to me most safe to bury the thing that had fallen in such marvellous fashion at our feet that night. the place i knew well enough. i had often meditated there upon the poor estate of our house. it was half ruinous, and i looked to meet with no man within the precincts on such a night. but short, deceiving, and ostrich-blind are all our hopes, for by going that way i brought us into the greatest danger we could possibly have been in. for, as we came by the side port of holyroodhouse, and took the left wynd which leads to the kirkyard, it seemed that i heard the sound of footsteps coming after me. it was still a night of snow, but the blast of flakes was wearing thinner and the wind less gusty. the moon was wading among great white-edged wreaths as though the snows had been driven right up to heaven and were clogging the skies. it was i who led, for my cousin, wat gordon, being stopped dead in his heart's desire, like a dog quivering for the leap that suddenly gets his death-wound, now went forward as one blind, and staggered even in the plain places. also, it was well that i must guide him, for thus i was kept from thinking of the horrid burden i carried. we were at the angle of the wall, and going slowly down among the cumbering heaps of rubbish by the dyke-side, when i certainly heard, through the soughing of the wind, and the soft swirl of the snow-flakes, the quick trampling of footsteps behind us. it seemed to me that they came from the direction of the queen's bathhouse, by which, as i now minded, my lord wellwood had built his new house. i turned in my tracks, and saw half a dozen of fellows running towards us with their swords drawn; and one who seemed short of stature and ill at the running, following after them. then i pulled quickly at walter's sleeve, and said: "get you to a good posture of defence, or we are both dead men. see behind you!" at this he turned and looked, and the sight seemed wonderfully to steady him. he seemed to come to himself with a kind of joy. i heard him sigh as one that casts off a heavy back-burden. for blows were ever mightily refreshing to wat gordon's spirits, even as water of cologne is to a mim-mouthed, spoiled beauty of the court. as for me, i had no joy in blows, and little skill in them, so that my delight was small. indeed, i felt the lump rise in my throat, and my mouth dried with fear. so that i could hardly keep the tears from running, being heartily sorry for myself because i should never see bonny earlstoun and my mother again, or any one else in the pleasant south country--and all on a business that i had no concern with, being only some night-hawk trokings of wat gordon's. but even as he glanced about him, lochinvar saw where we could best engage them; for in such things he had the captain's eye, swift and inevitable. it was at the angle of the wall, in which is a wide archway that leads into the enclosure of the palace. the snow had drifted round this arch a great sweep of rounded wreaths, and glistened smoothly white in the moonbeams, but the paved gateway itself was blown clear. wat thrust me behind him, and, throwing down his cloak, cleared his sword arm with a long sobbing intake of breath, which, having a certain great content in it, was curious to hear. i stood behind him in the dark of the archway, and there i first laid down my ghastly burden in the corner, wrapping it in my cloak. i made my pistols ready, and also loosened in my belt a broad italian dagger, shaped like a leaf, wherewith i meant to stick and thrust if any should attempt to run in while i was standing on guard. between me and the light i could see walter gordon, armed in the german fashion, with his rapier in one hand and his dagger in the other. suddenly, through the hush of waiting, came running footsteps; and men's figures darkened the moonlight on the snow before the arch. "clash!" went the rapiers, and i could catch the glitter of the fire as it flew from their first onset. walter poised himself on his feet with a quick alternate balancing movement, keeping his head low between his shoulders, and his rapier point far out. he was in the dark, and those about the mouth of the arch could not well see at what they were striking, whereas he had them clear against the grey of the moonlit sky. steel had not stricken on steel three times when, swift as the flash of the lightning when it shines from east to west, i saw wat's long rapier dart out, and a man fell forward towards him, clinking on the stones with the jingle of concealed armour. yet, armour or no, our wat's rapier had found its way within. wat spurned the fellow with his foot, lest in falling he should grip to pull him down, which was a common trick of the time, and indeed sometimes resorted to without a wound. but the dark wet stain his body left on the cobble-stones as it turned, told us that he was sped surely enough. in a moment the others had come up, and the whole archway seemed full of the flicker of flashing swords. wat's long arm wavered here and there, keeping them all at bay. i could have cried the slogan for pride in him. this was the incomparable sworder indeed, and john varlet, that misbegotten rogue, had not taught him in vain. "let off!" he cried to me, never taking his eyes from his foes. "ease me a little to the right. they are over heavy for my iron on that hand." so with that, even as i was bidden, and because there was nothing else i could do, i struck with my broad italian dagger at a surly visage that came cornerwise between me and the sky, and tumbled a tall fellow out of an angle of the gateway on the top of the first, kicking like a rabbit. the rest were a little dashed by the fall of these two. still there were four of them, and one great loon determinedly set his head down, and wrapping his cloak on his arm, he rushed at my cousin, almost overbearing him for the moment. he broke within wat's guard, and the swords of the rogue's companions had been in his heart, but just then lochinvar gave them another taste of his quality. lightly leaping to the side just out of the measure of the varlet's thrust, and reaching sideways, he struck the man heavily on the shoulder with the dagger in his left hand, panting with the force of the blow, so that he fell down like the dead. at the same moment wat leaned far forward, engaging all the points of the other swords with his rapier. they gave back at the quick unexpected attack, and the points of their swords rose, as it seemed, for no more than a second. but in that pulse-beat wat's rapier shot out straight and low, and yet another clapped his hand upon his body and cried an oath, ere he too fell forward upon his dead companions. at this the little man, who had stood all the while in the background, took heart of grace and came forward, and i could see the hilt of the steel-pistol in his hand. he crouched low upon his hams, trying to get a sighting shot at us. but i had him clear in the moonbeam, like a pullet on a dyke; and just when i saw his forefinger twitch on the hammer-pull, i dropped him with a bullet fair in the shoulder, which effectually spoilt his aim, and tumbled him beside the others. then the remaining two threw down their tools and ran, whatever they were fit, in the direction of the town. whereat walter gordon with much philosophy straiked his sword on the lapel of one of the dead men's coats, bent its point to the pavement to try its soundness, and returned it to its velvet sheath. then he solemnly turned and took me by the hand. "you are a man, cousin william," he said. chapter xvi. the grey mowdiewort. but by this time i was shaking like a leaf for fear, together with the thought of what i had done in the taking of life, and the sending of my fellow-creatures to their account. also the tears came hopping down my cheek, which is ever the effect that fighting has on me. yet in spite of this weakness wat shook me again by the hand, and said only: "you are a man!" notwithstanding, i was not cheered, but continued to greet like a bairn, only quietly, though i was grateful for his words, and took them not ill. then walter gordon went forward to the dead men, and turned them over, looking at each but saying no word. lastly he went to the little stout man whom i had shot in the shoulder. as he looked in his face, from which the mask had fallen aside, he started so greatly that he almost leaped bodily in the air. "william, william," he cried, "by the king's head, we must run for it. this is not a 'horning' but a hanging job. _'tis the duke of wellwood himself._" greatly startled at the name of the great privy councillor and favourite of the king, i went and looked. the man's face had fallen clear of the velvet mask with which it had been hidden, and looked livid and grey against the snow in the moon's uncertain light. but it was indeed the duke, for i had often seen him going to the parliament in his state and dignity, but there in the snow he looked inconceivably mean, dirty and small. "it's a' by wi' the estate noo, walter," i said. "you and me maun tak' the heather like the lave." so saying, i snatched up the head wrapped in the plaid, which i had almost forgotten, and called him to come on. for we were on the outskirts of the waste ground called the king's hunting parks, and could get directly away without passing a house. but walter was determined to return and see his mother, lest otherwise the horror of the news might take her unawares. walter was ever his mother's boy, and i think his undutiful conduct that night now went hard with him, seeing how the affair had turned out. i argued with him that it was the maddest ploy thus to go back. his lodgings would certainly be searched as soon as the duke was found, and the two who had escaped should return to assist the watch. but i could not overcome his determination. he had another plan to set against mine. "there is a vault hereabout that i used to hide in as a boy. silly folks say that it is haunted. but indeed there be few that know of it. you can bide there and wait till i come." so we went thither, and found the place commodious enough indeed, but damp and unkindly. it was situate by the chapel wall, but of late years it has been much filled up with rubbish since the pulling down of the chapel royal by the mob in the riots of the revolution year. yet even at that time it was not a place i had any stomach for. i had liefer have been going decently to my bed in my lodgings in the west bow--as indeed at that moment i should, but for that daft heathercat of a cousin of mine, with whose gallantries, for my sins, i thus found myself saddled. so he went off upon his errand, leaving me alone; and i hardly looked to see him again, for i made sure that the guard would arrest him or ever he had gone a hundred yards. it was little that i could do in that sorrowful place. but i unwrapped the poor head i had brought with me, and put it with reverence in the farthest corner of the dismal den. then i retired to an angle to wait, wrapping my plaid about me for warmth; for the night had fallen colder, as it ever does after the ceasing of a storm. i had time and to spare then for thinking upon my folly, and how i had damaged the cause that i had so nearly gained by my unlucky interference in walter's vanities. it came to me that now of a certainty both earlstoun and lochinvar must pass wholly away from the gordons, and we become attainted and landless like the red gregors. and indeed kenmuir's case was not much better. so i wore the weary night away, black dismal thoughts eating like canker worms at my heart. how i repented and prayed, no man knows. for that is the young man's repentance--after he has eaten the sour fruit, to pray that he may not have the stomach-ache. yet being galloway-born, i had also in me the fear of the unseen, which folks call superstition. and it irked me more than all other fears to have to bide all the night (and i knew not how much longer) in that horrible vault. it seems little enough to some, only to abide all night in a place where there is nothing but quiet bones of dead men. but, i warrant you, it is the burgher folk, who have never lain anywhere but bien and cosy in their own beds at home that are the boldest in saying this. so the night sped slowly in that horrid tomb. i watched the white moonbeams spray over the floor and fade out, as the clouds swept clear or covered the moon's face. i listened to every sough of the wind, with a fear lest the clanking halberts of the watch should be in it. the sound of a man walking far away made me hear in fantasy the grounding of their axe-shafts as they surrounded my place of concealment. it is bad enough to have one's conscience against one, but when conscience is reinforced by a well-grounded fear of the hangman's rope, then the case grows uncouth indeed. yet in spite of all i think i slept a little. for once i waked and saw the moon, red and near the setting, shining through a great round hole in the end of the vault, and that so brightly that i seemed to see motes dancing in its light as in a hay-loft in the summer season. but that was not the worst of it. in my dream my eyes followed the direction of the broad beam, and lo! they fell directly on the poor blackened head of him that had once been john gordon of lochinvar. the suns and rains had not dealt kindly with him, and now the face looked like nothing earthly, as i saw it in the moonlight of the ugsome vault. i could have screamed aloud, for there seemed to be a frown on the brow and a writhed grin on the mouth that boded me irksome evils to come. now half a dozen times i have resolved to leave out of my tale, that which i then saw happen in my dream of the night. for what i am about to relate may not meet with belief in these times, when the power of satan is mercifully restrained; and when he can no longer cast his glamourie over whom he will, but only over those who, like witch-wives and others, yield themselves up to him as his willing subjects. but i shall tell plainly what, in the moonlight, seemed to me to befal in my dream-sleep. it appeared then to me that i was staring at the blackened head, with something rising and falling in my throat like water in a sobbing well, when the ground slowly stirred in the corner where the head lay, and even as i looked, a beast came forth--a grey beast with four legs, but blind of eye like a grey mowdiewort, which took the head between its forepaws and rocked it to and fro as a mother rocks a fretful bairn, sorrowing over it and pitying it. it was a prodigy to see the eyes looking forth from the bone-sockets of the head. then the beast left it again lying by its lone and went and digged in the corner. as the moonlight swept across, broad and slow, through the loud beating of my heart, i heard the grey mowdiewort dig the hole deeper and yet deeper. now the thing that made me fullest of terror was not the digging of the beast, but the manner of its throwing out the earth, which was not behind it as a dog does, but in front, out of the pit, as a sexton that digs a grave. then, ere the moonbeams quite left it and began to climb the wall, i seemed to see the beast roll the black thing to the edge and cover it up, drawing the earth over it silently. after that, in my fantasy, it seemed to look at me. i heard the quick patter of its feet, and with a cry of fear i started up to flee, lest the beast should come towards me--and with that i knew no more. chapter xvii. over the muir amang the heather. when i came to myself my cousin walter gordon was standing over me. he was dressed in countryman's apparel, and seemed most like a chapman, with a small pack of goods upon his back for sale in the farm-towns and cottars' houses. it was grey day. "where is the beast?" i asked, for i was greatly bewildered by my swound. "what beast? there is no beast," he replied, thinking that i dreamed. then i told him of what i had seen; but as i might have expected he took little heed, thinking that i did but dream in that uncouth place. and in the grey light he went forward with a fair white cloth in his hand wherewith to wrap his father's head for the burial. but when he came to the corner of the vault, lo! there was naught there, even as i had said. and saving that the earth seemed newly stirred, no trace of the horror i had seen, which staggered him no little. yet me it did not surprise, for i knew what i had seen. but in a little he said, "that is all folly, william--you and your beasts. ye buried it yourself in your sleep. how many times have ye walked the ramparts of earlstoun in your sark!" this indeed seemed likely, but i still maintain that i saw the mowdiewort. nevertheless, when we came to consider the matter, it was in sooth no time to think of freits or portents. it was no question of our fathers' heads. our own were in danger whether the duke of wellwood lived or died; and we behoved to look limber if we were to save them at all. it is a strange feeling that comes and stays about the roots of the neck, when one first realises that the headsman may have to do therewith or many weeks pass by. and it is a feeling that i have taken to bed with me for years at a time. wat gordon had warned my men as well as his own. so at the outside of the town toward the back of the boroughmuir, hugh kerr met us with the beasts. here we took horse and rode, having happily seen nothing of the city guard. it was judged best that my cousin and i should ride alone. this we wished, because we knew not whom to trust in the strange case in which we found ourselves. besides we could the better talk over our chances during the long night marches in the wilderness, and in our weary hidings among the heather in the daytime. so we steadily rode southward toward galloway, our own country, for there alone could we look for some ease from the long arm of the privy council. not that galloway was safe. the dragoons paraded up and down it from end to end, and searched every nook and crevice for intercommuned fugitives. but galloway is a wide, wild place where the raw edges of creation have not been rubbed down. and on one hillside in the dungeon of buchan, there are as many lurking places as robert grier of lag has sins on his soul--which is saying no light thing, the lord knows. once, as we went stealthily by night, we came upon a company of muirland men who kept their conventicle in the hollows of the hills, and when they heard us coming they scattered and ran like hares. i cried out to them that we were of their own folk. yet they answered not but only ran all the faster, for we might have been informers, and it was a common custom of such-like to claim to be of the hill-people. even dragoons did so, and had been received among them to the hurt of many. our own converse was the strangest thing. often a kind of wicked perverse delight came over me, and i took speech to mock and stir up my cousin of lochinvar, who was moody and distraught, which was very far from his wont. "cousin wat," i said to him, "'tis a strange sight to see your mother's son so soon of the strict opinions. to be converted at the instance of her grace of wellwood is no common thing. wat, i tell thee, thou shalt lead the psalm-singing at a conventicle yet!" whereat he would break out on me, calling me "crop-ear" and other names. but at this word play i had, i think, as much the mastery as he at the play of sword-blades. "rather it is you shall be the 'crop-head'--of the same sort as his late majesty!" i said. for it is a strange thing that so soon as men are at peril of their lives, if they be together, they will begin to jest about it--young men at least. to get out of the country was now our aim. it pleased wat not at all to have himself numbered among the hill-folk and be charged with religion. for me i had often a sore heart and a bad conscience, that i had made so little of all my home opportunities. my misspent sabbaths stuck in my throat, although i had no stomach for running and hiding with the intercommuned. perhaps, if i had loved my brother sandy better, it had not been so hard a matter. but that, god forgive me, i never did, though i knew that he was a good covenant man and true to his principles. yet there is no mistake but that he gave us all a distaste at his way of thinking. so we wandered by night and hid by day till we reached the hills of our own south country. at last we came to the white house of gordonstoun, which stands on the hill above the clachan of saint john. it was a lodge of my cousin's, and the keeper of it was a true man, matthew of the dub by name. from him we learned that there were soldiers both at lochinvar and earlstoun. moreover, the news had come that very day, with the riding post from edinburgh, of the wounding of the duke of wellwood, and how both of us were put to the horn and declared outlaw. i do not think that this affected us much, for almost every man in galloway, even those that trooped with graham and lag, half a dozen in all, had been time and again at the horn. one might be at the horn--that is, outlawed, for forgetting to pay a cess or tax, or for a private little tulzie that concerned nobody, or for getting one's lum on fire almost. it was told that once lauderdale himself was put to the horn in the matter of a reckoning he had been slack in paying, for seekin' johnnie was ever better at drawing in than paying out. but to think of my mother being harassed with a garrison, and to know that rough blades clattered in and out of our bien house of earlstoun, pleased me not at all. yet it was far out of my hap to help it. and i comforted me with the thought, that it had been as bad as it could be with us, even before our affray with the wellwood. so there was nothing for it, but to turn out our horses to grass at gordonstoun and take to the hills like the rest. matthew of the dub gave us to understand that he could put us into a safe hold if we would trust ourselves to him. "but it is among the hill-folk o' balmaghie!" he said, looking doubtfully at his laird. "ah, gordieston," said lochinvar, making a wry face, and speaking reproachfully, "needs must when the devil drives! but what for did you sign all the papers and take all the oaths against intercommuning, and yet all the time be having to do with rebels?" for matthew was a cunning man, and had taken all the king's oaths as they came along, holding the parritch and feather beds of gordieston on the hill worth any form of words whatsoever--which indeed could be swallowed down like an apothecary's bolus, and no more ado about it. "'deed, your honour," said matthew of the dub, slyly, "it's a wersh breakfast to streek your neck in a tow, an' i hae sma' stammach for the whig's ride to the grassmarket. but a man canna juist turn informer an' gie the gang-by to a' his auld acquaintances. wha in gallowa' wants to ride an' mell wi' clavers an' the lads on the grey horses, save siccan loons as red-wud lag, roaring baldoun, and lidderdale, the hullion o' the isle?" "i would have you remember, matthew," said my cousin, speaking in scots, "that i rode wi' them no lang syne mysel'." "ou, ay, i ken," said independent matthew, dourly, "there was my leddy to thank for that. the women fowk are a' great gomerils when they meddle wi' the affairs o' the state. but a' the glen jaloosed that ye wad come oot richt, like the daddy o' ye, when ye tired o' leading-strings, an' gang to the horn like an honest man, e'en as ye hae dune the day." chapter xviii. auld anton of the duchrae. it was a wintry-like morning in the later spring when at last we got out of hiding in the house of gordonstoun. during our stay there i had often gone to see my mother just over the hill at earlstoun, to give her what comfort i could, and in especial to advise about sandy, who was then on his travels in the low countries. that morning matthew of the dub came with us, and we took our legs to it, despising horses in our new quality of hill-folk. the wind blew bitter and snell from the east. and may--the bleakest of spring months, that ought to be the bonniest--was doing her worst to strengthen the cold, in proportion as she lengthened her unkindly days. matthew told us not whither we were going, and as for me, i had no thought or suspicion. yet the tear was in my eye as we saw the bonny woods of earlstoun lying behind us, with the grey head of the old tower setting its chin over the tree-tops and looking wistfully after us. but we marched south along the ken, by new galloway, and the seat of my lord kenmuir, where there was now a garrison with clavers himself in hold. we saw the loch far beneath us, for we had to keep high on the side of bennan. it ruffled its breast as a dove's feathers are blown awry by a sudden gusty wind. it was a cheerless day, and the gloom on our faces was of the deepest. for we were in the weird case of suffering for conscience' sake, and with no great raft either of conscience or of religion to comfort us. not that our case was uncommon. for all were not saints who hated tyranny. "wat," i said, arguing the matter, "the thing gangs in the husk o' a hazel. i wear a particular make of glove chevron. it likes me well, but i am not deadly set on it. comes the baron-bailie or my lord provost, and saith he: 'ye shall not henceforth wear that glove of thine, but one of my colour and of the fashion official!' then says i to the baron-bailie, 'to the ill thief wi' you and your pattern gauntlet!' and i take him naturally across the cheek with it, and out with my whinger----" "even so," said my cousin, who saw not whither i was leading him, "let no man drive you as to the fashion of your gloves. out with your whinger, and see what might be the colour of his blood!" "and what else are the covenant men doing?" cried i, quick to take advantage. "we were none so fond o' the kirk that i ken of--we that are of the lairds o' galloway, when we could please ourselves when and where we would go. was there one of us, say maybe your father and mine, that had not been sessioned time and again? many an ill word did we speak o' the kirk, and many a glint did we cast at the sandglass in the pulpit as the precentor gied her another turn. but after a' the kirk was oor ain mither, and what for should the king misca' or upturn her? gin she whummelt us, and peyed us soondly till we clawed where we werena yeuky, wha's business was that but oor ain? but comes king charlie, and says he, 'pit awa' your old mither, that's overly sore on you, an' tak' this braw easy step-minnie, that will never steer ye a hair or gar ye claw your hinderlands!' what wad ye say, wat? what say ye, wat? wad ye gie your mither up for the king's word?" "no," said wat, sullenly, for now he saw where he was being taken, and liked it little, "i wadna." i thought i had him, and so, logically, i had. but he was nothing but a dour, donnert soldier, and valued good logic not a docken. "hear me," he said, after a moment's silence; "this is my way of it. i am no preacher, and but poor at the practice. but i learned, no matter where, to be true to the king--and, mind you, even now i stand by charles stuart, though at the horn i be. even now i have no quarrel with him, though for the dirty sake of the duke of wellwood, he has one with me." "that's as may be," i returned; "but mind where you are going. ye will be eating the bread of them that think differently, and surely ye'll hae the sense and the mense to keep a calm sough, an' your tongue far ben within your teeth." we were passing the ford of the black water as i was speaking, and soon we came to the steading of the little duchrae in the light of the morning. it was a long, low house, well thatched, like all the houses in the neighbourhood. and it was sending up a heartsome pew of reek into the air, that told of the stir of breakfast. the tangle of the wood grew right up to the windows of the back, and immediately behind the house there was a little morass with great willow trees growing and many hiding-places about it--as well i knew, for there maisie lennox and i had often played the day by the length. now "auld anton" of the duchrae was a kenned man all over the country-side. the name of anthony lennox of duchrae was often on my father's lips, and not seldom he would ride off to the south in the high days of presbytery, to have fellowship with him whenever he was low in the spirit, and also before our stated seasons of communion. thither also i had often ridden in later years on other errands, as has already been said. never had i been able to understand, by what extraordinary favour anthony lennox had not only been able to escape so far himself, but could afford a house of refuge to others in even more perilous plight. upon the cause of this immunity there is no need at present to condescend, but certain it is that the house of the duchrae had been favoured above most, owing to an influence at that time hidden from me. for auld anton was never the man to hide his thoughts or to set a curb upon his actions. with a light hand matthew of the dub knocked at the door, which was carefully and immediately opened. a woman of a watchful and rather severe countenance presented herself there--a serving woman, but evidently one accustomed to privilege and equality, as was common in galloway at that day. "matthew welsh," she said, "what brings you so far from hame so early in the morning?" "i come wi' thae twa callants--young gordon o' earlstoun, and a young man that is near kin to him. it may be better to gie the particulars the go-by till i see you more privately. is the good man about the doors?" for answer the woman went to the window at the back and cried thrice. instantly we saw a little cloud of men disengage themselves irregularly from the bushes and come towards the door. then began a curious scene. the woman ran to various hiding-places under the eaves, behind dressers, in aumries and presses, and set a large number of bowls of porridge on the deal table. soon the house was filled with the stir of men and the voices of folk in earnest conversation. among them all i was chiefly aware of one young man of very striking appearance, whose dark hair flowed back from a broad brow, white as a lady's, and who looked like one born to command. on the faces of many of the men who entered and overflowed the little kitchen of the duchrae, was the hunted look of them that oftentimes glance this way and that for a path of escape. but on the face of this man was only a free soldierly indifference to danger, as of one who had passed through many perils and come forth scatheless. last of all the master of the house entered with the familiarity of the well-accustomed. he was alert and active, a man of great height, yet holding himself like a soldier. three counties knew him by his long grey beard and bushy eyebrows for anthony lennox, one of the most famous leaders of the original united societies. to me he was but maisie lennox's father, and indeed he had never wared many words on a boy such as i seemed to him. but now he came and took us both by the hand in token of welcome, and to me in especial he was full of warm feeling. "you are welcome, young sir," he said. "many an hour at the dyke-back have we had, your father and i, praying for our bairns and for poor scotland. alack that i left him on the way to bothwell last year and rode forward to tulzie wi' robin hamilton--and now he lies in his quiet resting grave, an' auld anton is still here fighting away among the contenders." with walter also he shook hands, and gave him the welcome that one true man gives to another. lochinvar sat silent and watchful in the strange scene. for me i seemed to be in a familiar place, for earlstoun was on every tongue. and it was not for a little that i came to know that they meant my brother sandy, who was a great man among them--greater than ever my father had been, though he had "sealed his testimony with his blood," as their phrase ran. i thought it best not to give my cousin's name, excusing myself in the meantime by vouching that his father had suffered to the death, even as mine had done, for the cause and honour of scotland's covenant. chapter xix. the sweet singers of the deer-slunk. now my father had drilled it into me that anton lennox, called the covenanter, was a good and sound-hearted man, even as he was doubtless a manifest and notable christian. but the tale concerning him that most impressed me and touched my spirit nearest, was the tale of how he served muckle john gib and his crew, after godly mr. cargill had delivered them over to satan. it was sandy, my brother, that was the eye-witness of the affair. he was ever of the extreme opinion--as my mother used often to say, "our sandy was either in the moon or the midden"--but in my judgment oftenest in the latter. yet i will never deny that he has had a great deal of experience, though i would rather want than have some of it. now at this time, sandy, perhaps by means of his wife, jean hamilton (who, like her brother robert, was just inordinate for preachings and prophesyings), was much inclined to kick over the traces, and betake himself to the wilder extremes that were much handled by our enemies for the purpose of bringing discredit on the good name of the covenants. there was one great hulking sailor of borrowstounness that was specially afflicted with these visions and maunderings. nothing but his own crazy will in all things could satisfy him. he withdrew himself into the waste with two or three men and a great company of feeble-minded women, and there renounced all authority and issued proclamations of the wildest and maddest kinds. the godly and devout mr. donald cargill (as he was called, for his real name was duncan) was much exercised about the matter. and finding himself in the neighbourhood to which these people had betaken themselves, he spared no pains, but with much and sore foot-travel he found them out, and entered into conference with them. but john gib, who could be upon occasion a most faceable and plausible person, persuaded him to abide with them for a night. which accordingly he did, but having wrestled with them in prayer and communing half the night, and making nothing of them, presently he rose and went out into the fields most unhappy. so after long wandering he came homeward, having failed in his mission. then it was that he told the matter to old anton lennox, who had come from galloway to attend the great society's meeting at howmuir. with him at the time was my brother sandy, and here it is that sandy's story was used to commence. and of all sandy's stories it was the one i liked best, because there was the least chance of his having anything about himself to tell. "i mind the day"--so he began--"a fine heartsome harvest day in mid-september. we had our crop in early that year, and anton, my father and i, had gotten awa' betimes to the societies' meeting at lesmahagow. it was in the earliest days of them--for ye maun mind that i am one o' the few surviving original members. we were a' sitting at our duty, when in there came into the farm kitchen where we abode, mr. donald cargill himself. he was leaning upon his staff, and his head was hanging down. we desisted from our worship and looked at him steadfastly, for we saw that the hand of the lord had been upon him and that for grief. so we waited for the delivery of his testimony. "'my heart is heavy,' he said at long and last, 'for the people of the wilderness are delivered over to the gainsayer, and that by reason of john gib, called muckle john, sailor in borrowstounness, and presently leading the silly folks astray.' then he told them how he had wrestled with the gibbites mightily in the spirit, and had been overthrown. whereat he was notified that the hearts of all those that hated the way would be lifted up. "he also brought a copy of the foolish sheet called the 'proclamation of the sweet singers,' which was much handed about among all the persecutors at this time, and made to bring terrible discredit on the sober and god-fearing folk of the south and west, who had nothing whatever to do with the matter. "'let me see it,' said anton lennox, holding out his hand for it. "mr. cargill gave it to him, saying sadly, 'the spirit will not always strive with them!' "'na,' said auld anton, 'but i'll e'en strive wi' them mysel'! reek me doon clickie!' "he spoke of his great herd's stave that had a shank of a yard and a half long and was as thick as my wrist. "'come you, sandy,' he cried over his shoulder as he strode out, 'and ye will get your bellyful of sweet singing this day!' "now i did not want to move for the exercise was exceeding pleasant. but my father also bade me go with auld anton, and as you know, it was not easy to say nay to my father. "it was over a moor that we took our way--silent because all the wild birds had by with their nesting, and where mr. cargill had left the company of john gib was in a very desert place where two counties met. but auld anton went stegging[ ] over the hills, till i was fair driven out of my breath. and ever as he went he drove his staff deeper and dourer into the sod. [footnote : walking rapidly with long steps.] "it was a long season before we arrived at the place, but at last we came to the top of a little brow-face, and stood looking at the strange company gathered beneath us. "there was a kind of moss-hag of dry peat, wide and deep, yet level along the bottom. down upon the black coom was a large company of women all standing close together and joining their hands. a little way apart on a mound of peat in the midst, stood a great hulk of a fellow, with a gown upon him, like a woman's smock, of white linen felled with purple at the edges. but whenever it blew aside with the wind, one saw underneath the sailor's jerkin of rough cloth with the bare tanned skin of the neck showing through. "'certes, master anton,' said i, 'but yon is a braw chiel, him wi' the broad hat and the white cock ontill the bob o't!' "and indeed a brave, braw, blythesome-like man he was, for all the trashery of his attire. he kept good order among the men and women that companied with him in the deer-slunk. there were thirty of them--twenty-six being women--many of them very respectable of family, that had been led away from their duty by the dangerous, persuading tongue of john gib. but auld anton looked very grim as he stood a moment on the knowe-top and watched them, and he took a shorter grip of the cudgel he carried in his hand. it was of black crabtree, knotted and grievous. "'john gib!' cried anton lennox from the hilltop suddenly in a loud voice: "the great sea slug of a man in the white petticoat turned slowly round, and looked at us standing on the parched brae-face with no friendly eye. "'begone--ye are the children of the devil--begone to your father!' he cried back. "'belike--john gib--belike, but bide a wee--i am coming down to have a word or two with you as to that!' replied auld anton, and his look had a smile in it, that was sour as the crab-apples which his cudgel would have borne had it bidden in the hedge-root. "'i have come,' he said slowly and tartly, 'that i might converse seriously with you, john gib, and that concerning the way that you have treated mr. donald cargill, an honoured servant of the lord!' "'poof!' cried john gib, standing up to look at us, while the women drew themselves together angrily to whisper, 'speak not to us of ministers. we deny them every one. we have had more comfort to our souls since we had done with ministers and elders, with week-days and fast-days, and bibles and sabbaths, and came our ways out here by ourselves to the deeps of the deer-slunk!' "'nay,' said old anton, 'ministers indeed are not all they might be. but without them, ye have proved yourself but a blind guide leading the blind, john gib! ye shall not long continue sound in the faith or straight in the way if ye want faithful guides! but chiefly for the fashion in which ye have used mr. cargill, am i come to wrestle with you,' cried anton. "'he is but an hireling,' shouted muckle john gib, making his white gown flutter. "'yea, yea, and amen!' cried the women that were at his back. but davie jamie, walter ker, and john young, the other three men who were with him, looked very greatly ashamed and turned away their faces--as indeed they had great need. "'stand up like men! david jamie, walter ker, and john young!' cried anton to them, 'do ye bide to take part with these silly women and this hulker from the bilboes, or will ye return with me to good doctrine and wholesome correction?' "but the three men answered not a word, looking like men surprised in a shameful thing and without their needful garments. "'cargill me no cargills!' said john gib; 'he is a traitor, a led captain and an hireling. he deserted the poor and went to another land. he came hither to us, yet neither preached to us nor prayed with us.' "john young looked about him as john gib said this, as though he would have contradicted him had he dared. but he was silent again and looked at the ground. "'nay,' said auld anton, 'that is a lie, john gib; for i know that he offered to preach to you, standing with his bible open between his hands as is his ordinary. but ye wanted him to promise to confine his preaching to you--which when he would not consent to do, ye were for thrusting him out. and he came home, wet and weary, with the cold easterly wet fog all night upon the muir, very melancholy, and with great grief for you all upon his spirit!' "then at this john gib became suddenly very furious and drew a pistol upon us. this made anton lennox laugh. "'i shall come down and wrestle with your pistols in a wee, john gib. but i have a word to say to you all first.' "he stood awhile and looked at them with contempt as if they were the meanest wretches under heaven, as indeed they were. "'you, john gib, that lay claim to being a wizard, i have little to say to you. ye have drawn away these silly folk with your blasphemous devices. your name is legion, for there are many devils within you. you are the herd of swine after the devils had entered into them. hath your master given you any word to speak before i come down to you?' "'ay,' said john gib, leaping up in the air and clapping his hands together as if he would again begin the dance, which, accompanied by a horrid yowling like that of a beaten dog, they called sweet singing. "'ay, that i have! out upon you, anton lennox, that set up for a man of god and a reprover of others. i alone am pure, and god dwells in me. i lift up my testimony against all the months of the year, for their names are heathen. i alone testify against january and february; against sunday, monday, and tuesday; against martinmas and holidays, against lammas-day, whitsun-day, candle-mas, beltan, stone crosses, saints' images, kelton hill fair and stonykirk sacrament. against yule and christmas, old wife's fables, palm sunday, carlin sunday, pasch, hallow, and hogmanay; against the cracking of nits and the singing of sangs; again all romances and story-buiks; against handsel monday, kirks, kirkyairds and ministers, and specially against cock-ups in the front o' the sabbath bonnets o' ministers' wives; against registers, lawyers and all lawbooks----' "he cried out this rigmarole at the top of his voice, speaking trippingly by rote as one that says his lesson in school and has learned it often and well. he rolled his eyes as he recited, and all the women clapped their hands and made a kind of moaning howl like a dog when it bays the moon. "'yea, yea, and amen!' they cried after him, like children singing in chorus. "'peace, devil's brats all!' cried anton lennox, like a tower above them. "and they hushed at his word, for he stood over them all, like one greater than man, till even muckle john gib seemed puny beside the old man. "'david jamie, hearken to me, you that has your hand on your bit shable.[ ] better put up your feckless iron spit. it will do you no good. you are a good scholar lost, and a decent minister spoiled. i wonder at you--a lad of some lear--companying with this hairy-throated, tarry-fisted deceiver.' [footnote : short sword.] "this david jamie was a young limber lad, who looked paler and more delicate than the others. what brought him into the company of mad men and misguided women, it is perhaps better only guessing. "he looked sufficiently ashamed now at all events. "'walter ker and john young, hearken ye to me; i have more hope of you. you are but thoughtless, ignorant, land-ward men, and the lord may be pleased to reclaim you from this dangerous and horrible delusion.' "anton lennox looked about him. there was a fire smouldering at no great distance from him. something black and square lay upon it. he took three great strides to the place. lifting the dark smouldering object up from off the fire, he cried aloud in horror, and began rubbing with his hands. it was a fine large-print bible, with more than half of it burned away. there were also several little ones upon the fire underneath. i never saw a man's anger fire up more quickly. for me, i was both amazed and afraid at the awful and unthinkable blasphemy. "'john gib,' cried anton lennox, 'stand up before the lord, and answer--who has done this?' "'i, that am the head of the sweet singers, and the lord's anointed!' said he. 'i have done it!' "'then, by the lord's great name, i will make you sing right sweetly for this!' cried anton, taking a vow. "then one of the women took up the parable. "'we heard a voice in the frost moss,' she said, 'and a light shone about us there; and john gib bade us burn our bibles, for that the psalms in metre, the chapter headings, and the table of contents were but human inventions.' "'and i did it out of despite against god!' cried john gib. "then anton lennox said not a word more, but cast away his plaid, spat upon his cudgel-palm, and called over his shoulder to me: "'come, sandy, and help me to wrestle in the spirit with these sweet singers.' "as he ran down the brae, david jamie, the student youth, came at him with a little spit-stick of a sword, and cried that if he came nearer he would run him through. "'the lord forgie ye for leein', callant,' cried anton, catching the poor thin blade on his great oak cudgel, for anton was a great player with the single-sticks, and as a lad had been the cock of the country-side. the steel, being spindle-thin, shivered into twenty pieces, and the poor lad stood gaping at the sword-hilt left in his hand, which had grown suddenly light. "'bide you there and wrestle with him, sandy!' auld anton cried again over his shoulder. "so i took my knee and tripped david up. and so sat up upon him very comfortable, till his nose was pressed into the moss, and all his members sprawled and waggled beneath me like a puddock under a stone. "then auld anton made straight for john gib himself, who stood back among his circle of women, conspicuous in his white sark and with a pistol in his hand. when he saw auld anton coming so fiercely at him across the peat-hags, he shot off his pistol, and turned to run. but his women caught hold of him by the flying white robe, thinking that he was about to soar upward out of their sight. "'let me be,' he cried, with a great sailor oath; and tearing away from them, he left half the linen cloth in their hands, and betook him to his heels. "anton lennox went after him hot foot, and there they had it, like coursing dogs, upon the level moor. it was noble sport. i laughed till david jamie was nearly choked in the moss with me rocking to and fro upon him. anton lennox was twice the age of john gib, but muckle john being a sailor man, accustomed only to the short deck, and also having his running gear out of order by his manner of life, did exceedingly pant and blow. yet for a time he managed to keep ahead of his pursuer. but there was no ultimate city of refuge for him. "anton lennox followed after him a little stiffly, with a grim determined countenance; and as he ran i saw him shorten his cudgel of crabtree in his hand. presently he came up with the muckle man of borrowstounness. the great stick whistled through the air, soughing like a willow-wand. once, twice, thrice--it rose and fell. "and the sound that ensued was like the beating of a sack of meal. "'i'll learn you to burn the bible!' cried anton, as he still followed. his arm rose and fell steadily while john gib continued to run as if the dogs were after him. the great hulk cried out with the intolerable pain of the blows. "'i'll mak' ye sweet singers a', by my faith! i'll score ilka point o' your paper screed on your back, my man--sunday, monday, tuesday, pasch, beltan, and yule!' "at the yule stroke john gib fell into a moss-hole. we could not easily see what followed then. but the grievous cudgel steadfastly rose and fell like the flail of a man that threshes corn in a barn, and a howling and roaring that was aught but sweet singing came to us over the moor. "presently anton returned, striding back to where i sat upon david jamie his back. "'rise!' he said. and that was all he said. "but he took his foot and turned the bit clerk over, pulling him out of the moss with a _cloop_ like the cork being drawn out of a brisk bottle of small ale. "'david, lad, do ye renounce john gib and all his ways?' "the limber-limbed student looked doubtful, but the sight of the cudgel and the distant sound of the sweet singing of muckle john decided him. "'ay,' he said. 'i am content to renounce them and him.' "'see ye and stick to it then!' said anton, and went after walter ker and john young, who stood together as though they had gotten a dead stroke. "'ye saw visions, did ye?' he said. 'see ye if this be a vision?' "and he gave them certain dour strokes on their bodies, for they were strong carles and could bide the like--not like the poor feckless loon of a colleger. "'did ye see a light shining in the moss late yestreen?' he asked them. "'it was but glow-worms!' said walter ker. "'it was, aiblins, wull-o'-the-wisp?' said john young. "'ay, that's mair like the thing, noo!' said auld anton, with something like a smile on his face. "so saying he drove all the women (save two or three that had scattered over the moss) before him, till we came to the place of the ordinary societies' meeting at howmuir, from which we set out. "here were assembled sundry of the husbands of the women--for the black shame of it was, that the most part of them were wives and mothers of families, of an age when the faults of youth were no longer either temptation or excuse. "to them he delivered up the women; each to her own husband, with certain advice. "'i have wrestled with the men,' he said, 'and overcome them. wrestle ye with the women, that are your own according to the flesh. and if ye think that my oaken stave is too sore, discharge your duty with a birch rod, of the thickness of your little finger--for it is the law of the realm of scotland that every husband is allowed to give his wife reasonable correction therewith. but gin ye need my staff or gin your wives prefer it, it is e'en at your service.' "so saying, he threw his plaid over his shoulder, and made for the door. "'learn them a' the sweet singin',' he said. 'john gib was grand at it. he sang like a mavis oot by there, on the moor at the deer-slunk.'" this was the matter of sandy's cheerful tale about john gib and auld anton lennox. and this cured sandy of some part of his extremes, though to my thinking at times, he had been none the worse of auld anton at his elbow to give him a lesson or two in sweet singing. i might not in that case have had to buy all over again the bonny house of earlstoun, and so had more to spend upon afton, which is now mine own desirable residence. chapter xx. the home of my love. anthony lennox presently took me by the hand, and led me over to where in the duchrae kitchen the dark young man sat, whose noble head and carriage i had remarked. "mr. cameron," he said gravely, and with respect, "this is the son of a brave man and princely contender with his master--william gordon of earlstoun, lately gone from us." and for the first time i gave my hand to richard cameron, whom men called the lion of the covenant--a great hill-preacher, who, strangely enough, like some others of the prominent disaffected to the government, had been bred of the party of prelacy. as i looked upon him i saw that he was girt with a sword, and that he had a habit of gripping the hilt when he spoke, as though at the pinch he had yet another argument which all might understand. and being a soldier's son i own that i liked him the better for it. then i remembered what (it was reported) he had said on the holms of kirkmahoe when he preached there. "i am no reed to be shaken with the wind, as charles stuart shall one day know." and it was here that i got my first waft of the new tongue which these hill-folk spake among themselves. i heard of "singular christians," and concerning the evils of paying the "cess" or king's tax--things of which i had never heard in my father's house, the necessity not having arisen before bothwell to discuss these questions. when all the men were gathered into the wide house-place, some sitting, some standing, the grave-faced woman knocked with her knuckles gently on a door which opened into an inner room. instantly maisie lennox and other two maids came out bearing refreshments, which they handed round to all that were in the house. the carriage of one of these three surprised me much, and i observed that my cousin wat did not take his eyes from her. "who may these maids be?" he whispered in my ear. "nay, but i ken not them all," i answered. "bide, and we shall hear." for, indeed, i knew only one of them, but her very well. and when they came to us in our turn, maisie lennox nodded to me as to a friend of familiar discourse, to whom nothing needs to be explained. and she that was the tallest of the maids handed wat the well-curled oaten cake on a trencher. then he rose and bowed courteously to her, whereat there was first a silence and then a wonder among the men in the house, for the manner of the reverence was strange to the stiff backs of the hill-folk. but anthony lennox stilled them, telling of the introduction he had gotten concerning walter, and that both our fathers had made a good end for the faith, so that we were presently considered wholly free of the meeting. we heard that there was to be a field conventicle near by, at which mr. cameron was to preach. this was the reason of so great a gathering, many having come out of ayrshire, and even as far as lesmahagow in the upper ward of lanark, where there are many very zealous for the truth. then they fell again to the talking, while i noted how the maids comported themselves. the eldest of them and the tallest, was a lass of mettle, with dark, bent brows. she held her head high, and seemed, by her attiring and dignity, accustomed to other places than this moorland farm-town. yet here she was, handing victual like a servitor, before a field-preaching. and this i was soon to learn was a common thing in galloway, where nearly the whole of the gentry, and still more of their wives and daughters, were on the side of the covenant. it was no uncommon thing for a king's man, when he was disturbing a conventicle--"skailing a bees' byke" as it was called--to come on his own wife's or, it might be, his daughter's palfrey, tethered in waiting to the root of some birk-tree. "keep your black-tail coats closer in by!" said duke rothes once to his lady, who notoriously harboured outed preachers, "or i shall have to do some of them a hurt! ca' your messans to your foot, else i'll hae to kennel them for ye!" there was however no such safe hiding as in some of the great houses of the strict persecutors. so in a little while, the most part of the company going out, this tall, dark-browed maid was made known to us by matthew of the dub, as mistress kate mcghie, daughter of the laird of balmaghie, within which parish we were. then maisie lennox beckoned to the third maid, and she came forward with shyness and grace. she was younger than the other two, and seemed to be a well-grown lass of thirteen or fourteen. "this," said maisie lennox, "is my cousin margaret of glen vernock." the maid whom she so named blushed, and spoke to us in the broader accent of the shire, yet pleasantly and frankly as one well reared. presently there came to us the taller maid--she who was called kate, the laird's daughter. she held out her hand to me. "ah, will of earlstoun, i have heard of you!" i answered that i hoped it was for good. "it was from maisie there that i heard it," she said, which indeed told me nothing. but kate mcghie shook her head at us, which tempted me to think her a flighty maid. however, i remembered her words often afterwards when i was in hiding. thereupon i presented my cousin wat to her, and they bowed to one another with a very courtly grace. i declare it was pretty to see them, and also most strange in a house where the hill-folk were gathered together. but for the sake of my father and brother we were never so much as questioned. presently there was one came to the door, and cried that the preaching was called and about to begin. so we took our bonnets and the maids their shawls about them, and set forth. it was a grey, unkindly day, and the clouds hung upon the heights. there are many woods of pine and oak about the duchrae; and we went through one of them to an ancient moat-hill or place of defence on a hillside, with a ditch about it of three or four yards wideness, which overlooked the narrow pack road by the water's edge. as we went kate mcghie walked by my side, and we talked together. she told me that she came against her parents' will, though not without her father's knowledge; and that it was her great love for maisie lennox, who was her friend and gossip, which had first drawn her to a belief in the faith of the hill-folk. "but there is one thing," said she, "that i cannot hold with them in. i am no rebel, and i care not to disown the authority of the king!" "yet you look not like a sufferer in silence!" i said, smiling at her. "are you a maid of the quaker folk?" at which she was fain to laugh and deny it. "but," i said, "if you are a king's woman, you will surely find yourself in a strange company to-day. yet there is one here of the same mind as yourself." then she entreated me to tell her who that might be. "oh, not i," i replied, "i have had enough of charles stuart. i could eat with ease all i like of him, or his brother either! it is my cousin of lochinvar, who has been lately put to the horn and outlawed." at the name she seemed much surprised. "it were well not to name him here," she said, "for the chief men know of his past companying with claverhouse and other malignants, and they might distrust his honesty and yours." we had other pleasant talk by the way, and she told me of all her house, of her uncle that was at kirkcudbright with captain winram and the garrison there, and of her father that had forbidden her to go to the field-meetings. "which is perhaps why i am here!" she said, glancing at me with her bold black eyes. as i went i could hear behind us the soft words and low speech of maisie lennox, who came with my cousin wat and margaret of glen vernock. what was the matter of their speech i could not discover, though i own i was eager to learn. but they seemed to agree well together, which seemed strange to me, for i was a much older acquaintance than he. now, especially when in the wilder places, we came to walk all four together, it seemed a very pleasant thing to me to go thus to the worship of god in company. and i began from that hour to think kindlier of the field-folks' way of hearing a preacher in the open country. this, as i well know, says but little for me; yet i will be plain and conceal nothing of the way by which i was led from being a careless and formal home-keeper, to cast in my lot with the remnant who abode in the fields and were persecuted. chapter xxi. the great conventicle by the dee water. _a note to the reader._ _i am warned that there are many folk who care not to hear what things were truly said and done at a conventicle of the hill-folk. i have told the tale so that such may omit the reading of these two chapters. nevertheless, if they will take a friend's word, it might be for their advantage to read the whole._ _w. g._ on our way to the conventicle we came to the place that is called the moat of the duchrae bank, and found much people already gathered there. it is a very lonely place on the edge of a beautiful and still water, called the lane of grenoch. in the midst of the water, and immediately opposite to the moat, there is an island, called the hollan isle, full of coverts and hiding-places among hazel bushes, which grow there in thick matted copses. beyond that again there are only the moors and the mountains for thirty miles. the country all about is lairy and boggy, impossible for horses to ride; while over to the eastward a little, the main road passes to kells and carsphairn, but out of sight behind the shoulder of the hill. there was a preaching-tent erected on a little eminence in the middle of the round bare top of the moat. the people sat all about, and those who arrived late clustered on the farther bank, across the ditch. i observed that every man came fully armed. for the oppressions of lauderdale in scotland, and especially the severities of john graham and robert grier in galloway, were bearing their own proper fruit. the three maids sat together, and wat gordon and i sat down near them--i as close to maisie lennox as i dared, because, for old acquaintance' sake, my liking was chiefly towards her. also, i perceived that kate mcghie was more interested to talk to me of my cousin than to hear concerning myself, a thing i never could abide in talking to a woman. but maisie kept her head bent, and her face hidden by the fold of her shawl. for she had, even at that time, what i so sadly lacked, a living interest in religion. from where i sat i could see the watchers on the craigs above the hollan isle, and those also over on the hill by the folds. so many were they, that i felt that not a muir-fowl would cry, nor a crow carry a stick to its nest, without a true man taking note of it. i heard afterwards, that over by the fords of crae they had come on a certain informer lying couched in the heather to watch what should happen. him they chased for three miles over the heather by slogarie, clodding him with divots of peat and sod, yet not so as to do the ill-set rascal overmuch harm. but a sound clouring does such-like good. then there arose the pleasant sound of singing. for mr. cameron had gone up into the preaching-tent and given out the psalm. we all stood up to sing, and as i noted my cousin standing apart, looking uncertainly about, i went over to him and brought him to my side, where one gave us a book to look upon together. as they sang, i watched to see the sentinel on the craigs turn him about to listen to us, and noted the light glance on his sword, and on the barrel of the musket on which he leaned. for these little tricks of observation were ever much to me, though the true whig folk minded them not a hair, but stuck to their singing, as indeed it was their duty to do. but even to me, the sound of the psalm was unspeakably solemn and touching out there in the open fields. it seemed, as we sang of the god who was our refuge and our strength, that as we looked on grenoch, we were indeed in a defenced city, in a prophesied place of broad rivers and streams, wherein should go no galley with oars, neither should gallant ship pass thereby. i had never before felt so near god, nor had so sweet an income of gladness upon my spirit; though i had often wondered what it all meant when i heard my father and mother speak together. there seemed, indeed, a gale of the spirit upon the meeting, and i think that from that moment i understood more of the mind of them that suffered for their faith; which, indeed, i think a man cannot do, till he himself is ready to undergo his share of the suffering. but when richard cameron began to speak, i easily forgat everything else. he had a dominating voice, the voice of a strong man crying in the wilderness. "we are here in a kenned place," he said, "and there be many witnesses about us. to-day the bitter is taken out of our cup, if it be only for a moment. yea, and a sweet cup we have of it now. we who have been much on the wild mountains, know what it is to be made glad by thy works--the works of the lord's hands. when we look up to the moon or stars, lo! the hand of the lord is in them, and we are glad. see ye the corn-rigs up ayont us there, on the duchrae hill--the hand of god is in the sweet springing of them, when the sun shines upon them after rain. and it is he who sendeth forth every pile of the grass that springs so sweetly in the meadows by the water-side." i own it was very pleasant to me to listen to him, for i had not thought there was such tenderness in the man. he went on: "we are hirsled over moss and moor, over crags and rocks, and headlong after us the devil drives. be not crabbit with us, o lord! it is true we have gotten many calls, and have not answered. we in the west and south have been like david, cockered and pampered overmuch. not even the wild highlands have sitten through so many calls as we have done here in galloway and the south. "for i bear testimony that it is not easy to bring folk to christ. i, that am a man weak as other men, bear testimony that it is not easy--not easy even to come to him for oneself!" and here i saw the people begin to yearn towards the preacher, and in the grey light i saw the tears running silently down his cheeks. and it seemed as if both the minister and also the most part of the people fell into a rapture of calm weeping, which, strangely enough, forced mr. cameron often to break off short. folks' hearts were easily touched in those days of peril. "are there none such here?" he asked. and i confess my heart went out to him and all my sins stood black and threatening before me as i listened. i vow that at the time i feared his words far more than ever i did lag and his riders--this being my first living experience of religion, and the day from which i and many another ground our hope. then ere he sufficiently commanded himself to speak again, i took a glance at the maid maisie lennox beside me, and the look on her face was that on the face of a martyr who has come through the torture and won the victory. but the little lass that was called margaret of glen vernock clung to her hand and wept as she listened. as for kate mcghie, she only looked away over the water of the hollan isle to the blue barn rigging of the orchar hill and seemed neither to see nor to hear anything. or at least, i was not the man to whom was given the art to see what were her inner thoughts. richard cameron went on. "are there any here that find a difficulty to close with christ? but before we speak to that, i think we shall pray a short word." so all the people stood up on the hillside and the sough of their uprising was like the wind among the cedar trees. and even as he prayed for the spirit to come on these poor folk, that were soon to be scattered again over the moors and hags as sheep that wanted a shepherd, the wind of the lord (for so i think it was) came breathing upon us. the grey of the clouds broke up, and for an hour the sun shone through so kindly and warm that many let their plaids fall to the ground. but the mists still clung about the mountain tops of the bennan and cairn edward. then after he had prayed not long but fervently, he went on again to speak to us of the love and sufferings of christ, for the sake of whose cause and kingdom we were that day in this wild place. much he pleaded with us to make sure of our interest, and not think that because we were here in some danger at a field preaching, therefore all was well. o but he was faithful with us that day, and there were many who felt that the gate of heaven was very near to them at the great conventicle by the water of dee. and even after many years, i that have been weak and niddering, and that have taken so many sins on my soul, since i sat there on the bank by maisie lennox, and trembled under mr. cameron's words, give god thank and service that i was present to hear the lion of the covenant roar that day upon the mountains of scotland. yet when he spoke thus to us at this part of his pleading, it was most like the voice of a tender nursing mother that would wile her wayward bairns home. but when he had done with offering to us the cross, and commending him that erewhile hung thereon, i saw him pause and look about him. he was silent for a space, his eyes gleamed with an inner fire, and the wind that had arisen drave among his black locks. i could see, as it had been, the storm gather to break. "there ayont us are the bennan and cairn edward, and the muckle craig o' dee--look over at them--i take them to witness this day that i have preached to you the whole counsel of god. there be some great professors among you this day who have no living grace--of whom i only name black macmichael and muckle john, for their sins are open and patent, going before them into judgment. there are also some here that will betray our plans to the enemy, and carry their report of this meeting to the malignants. to them i say: 'carry this word to your masters, the word of a wiser than i, "ye may blaw your bag-pipes till you burst, we will not bow down and worship your glaiks--no, not though ye gar every heid here weigh its tail, and the wind whistle through our bones as we hang on the gallows-tree."'" here he held up his hand and there was a great silence. "hush! i hear the sound of a great host--i see the gate of heaven beset. the throng of them that are to be saved through suffering, are about it. and one like unto the son of man stands there to welcome them. what though they set your heads, as they shall mine, high on the netherbow port; or cast your body on the gallows' dunghill as they will sandy's here? know ye that there waiteth for you at the door one with face more marred than that of any man--one with his garments red coming up from bozrah, one that hath trodden the winepress alone. and he shall say, as he sees you come through the swellings of jordan, 'these are they that have come out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the lamb.' 'lift up your heads, o ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, for the redeemed of the lord shall also enter in!'" so he made an end, and all the people were astonished at him, because they looked even then for the chariot which it had been foretold should come and snatch him out of mortal sight. chapter xxii. peden the prophet. (_being the concluding of the conventicle by the dee water._) yet the chariot of fire came not, for the time was not yet, though the grinding of its wheels was even then to be heard at the door. but the lord had yet a great day's darg to do in scotland with richard cameron. then after silence had endured for a time, another minister rose up to speak to us. at sight of him a murmur went about, and wonder and joy sat on every face. he was an old man, tall and gaunt. his hair, lyart and long, fell upon his shoulders. his beard descended upon his breast. "peden the prophet!" was the whisper that went about. and all bent eagerly forward to look at the famous wanderer, whom all held to have gifts of utterance and prophecy beyond those of mortal. he it was that had been a thousand times hunted like a partridge upon the mountains, a hundred times taken in the net, yet had ever escaped. he it was for the love of whom men had laid down their lives like water, only that alexander peden might go scatheless and speak his master's will. bowed he was and broken; yet when he spoke his natural strength was in no wise abated, and at his first word the fear of the lord came upon us. i looked at lochinvar, who in his time had ridden so hard on his track. he sat open-mouthed, and there was a daze of awe in his look. alexander peden had hardly spoken a sentence to us when the spirit of prophecy brake upon him, and he cried out for scotland as was his wont in those days. his voice rose and rang--not like a war-trumpet as did cameron's, but rather like the wild wind that goes about the house and about the house, and cries fearful words in at the chinks and crevices. "a bloody sword, a bloody sword for thee, o puir scotland! many a mile shall they travel in thee and see naught but waste places, nor so much as a house reeking pleasantly on the brae. many a conventicle has been wared on thee, my scotland. and welsh and semple, cameron and cargill have cried to thee. but ere long they shall all be put to silence and god shall preach to thee only with the bloody sword. have ye never witnessed for the cause and covenants? or have ye been dumb dogs that would not bark? if that be so, as sayeth godly mr. guthrie of fenwick, god will make the tongues that owned him not to fry and flutter upon the hot coals of hell. he will gar them blatter and bleeze upon the burning coals of hell! "speak, sirs, or he will gar these tongues that he hath put into your mouths to popple and play in the pow-pot of hell!" as he said these words his eyes shone upon us like to burn us through, and his action was most terrifying as he took his great oaken staff and shook it over us. and we fairly trembled beneath him like silly bairns taken in a wrong. but he went on his way as one that cries for vengeance over an open grave in which a slain man lies. "ye think that there hath been bloodshed in scotland, and so there hath--dear and precious--but i tell you that that which hath been, is but as the dropping of the morning cloud ere the sun rises in his strength, to the mid-noon thunder plump that is yet to come. "not since the black day of bothwell have i slept in a bed! i have been nazarite for the vow that was upon me. have any of you that are here seen me in new luce? not even ritchie here could have overcrowed me then, for strength and stature. i stood as a young tree by the river of waters. look upon me now--so crooked by the caves and the moss-hags that i could not go upright to the scaffold. the sword handle is fit for your hands, and the lord of battles give you long arms when you measure swords with charles stuart. but old sandy is good for nothing now but the praying. he can only bide in his hole like a toothless tyke, lame and blind; and girn his gums at the robbers that spoil his master's house. "'crook-back, crab-heart,' sayeth the proverb," peden cried, "but i think not so, for my heart is warm this day toward you that sit here, for but few of you shall win through the day of wrath that is to come in scotland." he turned towards the place where we sat together, the maids, my cousin and i. a great fear in my heart chilled me like ice. was he to denounce us as traitors? but he only said slowly these words in a soft and moving voice, as one that hath the tears close behind. "and there are some of you, young maids and weak, here present, that shall make a name in scotland, a name that shall never die!" with that he made an end and sat down. then came one, white-face and panting from the hill on the east. "the riders are upon us--flee quickly!" he cried. then, indeed, there was great confusion and deray. some rose up in act to flee. but anton lennox, who had the heart of a soldier in him and the wit of a general, commanded the men to stand to their arms, putting the women behind them. and through the confusion i could see stern-faced men moving to the front with guns and swords in their hands. these, as i learned, were the disciplined members of the praying societies, whom cameron and afterwards renwick, drew together into one military bond of defence and fellowship. for me i stood where i was, the maids only being with me; and i felt that, come what might, it was my duty to protect them. kate mcghie clasped her hands and stood as one that is gripped with fear, yet can master it. but maisie lennox, who was nearest to me, looked over to where her father stood at the corner of his company. then, because she was distressed for him and knew not what she did, she drew a half-knitted stocking out of the pocket that swung beneath her kirtle, calmly set the stitches in order, and went on knitting as is the galloway custom among the hill-folk when they wait for anything. there was a great silence--a stillness in which one heard his neighbour breathing. through it the voice of peden rose. "lord," he prayed, "it is thine enemies' day. hour and power are allowed to them. they may not be idle. but hast thou no other work for them to do in their master's service? send them after those to whom thou hast given strength to flee, for our strength's gone, and there are many weak women among us this day. twine them about the hill, o lord, and cast the lap of thy cloak over puir sandy and thir puir things, and save us this one time." so saying he went to the top of a little hill near by, from which there is a wide prospect. it is called mount pleasant. from thence he looked all round and waved his hands three times. and in a minute there befel a wonderful thing. for even as his hands beckoned, from behind the ridges of the duchrae and drumglass, arose the level tops of a great sea of mist. it came upon the land suddenly as the "haar" that in the autumn drives up the eastern valleys from the sea. like a river that rises behind a dam, it rose, till of a sudden it overflowed and came towards us over the moorland, moving with a sound like running water very far away. then peden the prophet came hastening back to us. "move not one of you out of your places!" he cried, "for the lord is about to send upon us his pillar of cloud." then the mist came, and made by little and little a very thick darkness, and peden said: "lads, the bitterest of the blast is over. we shall no more be troubled with them this day." and through the darkness i felt a hand placed in mine--whose i could not tell, but i hoped plainly that it might be maisie lennox's hand, for, as i have said, she was my gossip and my friend. at least i heard no more the click of the knitting-needles. the mist came yet thicker, and through it there shone, now and then, the flickering leme of pale lightning, that flashed about us all. then quite suddenly we heard strangely near us the jangling of the accoutrements of the troopers and the sound of voices. "curse the whig's mist, it has come on again! we canna steer for it!" cried a voice so near that the hillmen stood closer in their ranks, and my own heart leaped till i heard it beat irregularly within me. we marked the sharp _clip clip_ as the shod horses struck the stones with their feet. now and then a man would clatter over his steed's head as the poor beast bogged or stumbled. looking over between the hazel trees, i could faintly discern the steel caps of the troopers through the gloom, as they wound in single file between us and the water-side. it was but a scouting party, for in a moment we heard the trumpet blow from the main body, which had kept the road that winds down to the old ford, over the black water on the way from kirkcudbright to new galloway and kenmuir. in a little the sounds came fainter on our ears, and the swing and trample of the hoofs grew so far away that we could not hear them any more. but the great cloud of people stood for long time still, no man daring to move. it struck me as strange that in that concourse of shepherds not so much as a dog barked. in a moment i saw the reason. each herd was sitting on the grass with his dog's head in his lap, wrapped in his plaid. then came the scattering of the great meeting. such were the chances of our life at that dark time, when brother might part from brother and meet no more. and when a father might go out to look the lambs, and be found by his daughter fallen on his face on the heather by the sheep ree, with that on his breast that was not bonny to see when they turned him over. as for me i went home with maisie lennox and her friend the young lass of glen vernock, as was indeed my plain duty. we walked side by side in silence, for we had great thoughts within us of cameron and peden, and of the blue banner of the covenant that was not yet wholly put down. chapter xxiii. birsay the cobbler. so many of the wanderers abode at the duchrae that maisie lennox was much cumbered with serving; yet in her quiet sedate way she would often take a word with me in the bygoing, as if to let me feel that i was not lonely or forgotten. and it cheered me much to find that i was not despised, because i was (as yet) no great fighting man of many inches or noble make like my brother sandy. also i loved women's converse, having been much with my mother--indeed never long away from her side, till my vain adventuring forth to edinburgh in the matter of the sequestering of the estate. as for earlstoun, we heard it was to be forfaulted very soon, and given to robert grier of lag, who was a very grab-all among them. indeed no one was better than another, for even claverhouse got freuch, "in consideration," it was quaintly said, "of his good service and sufferings." his brother david likewise got another estate in the shire, and rothes and lauderdale were as "free coups" for the wealth of the fined and persecuted gentry. whenever there was a man well-to-do and of good repute, these men thought it no shame to strive to take him in a snare, or to get him caught harbouring on his estate some intercommuned persons. they rubbed hands and nudged one another in council when they heard of a rising in arms. they even cried out and shook hands for joy, because it gave them colour for more exactions, and also for keeping an army in the field, whose providing and accoutring was also very profitable for them. but at the duchrae we abode fairly secure. at night we withdrew to the barn, where behind the corn-mow a very safe and quaint hiding-place had been devised. in the barn-wall, as in most of the barns in that country-side, there were no windows of any size--in fact nothing save a number of three-cornered wickets. these were far too small to admit the body of a man; but by some exercise of ingenious contrivance in keeping with the spirit of an evil time, the bottom stone of one of these wickets had been so constructed that it turned outwards upon a hinge, which so enlarged the opening that one man at a time had no difficulty in passing through. this right cunning trap-door was in the gable-end of the barn, and conducted the fugitive behind the corn-mow in which the harvest sheaves were piled to the ceiling. here we lay many a time while the troopers raged about the house itself, stabbing every suspected crevice of the corn and hay with their blades, but leaving us quite safe behind the great pleasant-smelling mass of the mow. yet for all it was a not unquiet time with us, and i do not deny that i had much pleasant fellowship with maisie lennox. but i have now to tell what befel at the duchrae one sabbath evening, when the pursuit had waxed dull after bothwell, and before the sanquhar affair had kindled a new flame. at that time in galloway, all the tailors, shoemakers, and artificers, did their work by going from house to house according as the several families had need of them. now there was one man, who sat near us at the conventicle, whose actions that day it was impossible to mistake. when the troopers were jingling past beneath us, he flung himself on the ground, and thrust his plaid into his mouth, to prevent his crying out for fear. so pitiful did he look that, when all was past, my cousin wat went over and asked of him: "what craven manner of hill-man art thou?" for indeed the men of the broad bonnet were neither cowards nor nidderlings. but this fellow was shaking with fear like the aspen in an unequal wind. "i am but poor birsay the cobbler," the man answered, "an it please your honour, i like not to come so near thae ill loons of soldiers." "what sent you to the conventicle, then, when you fear the red-coats so greatly?" asked my cousin. the little man glanced up at my cousin with a humoursome gleam in his eyes. he was all bent together with crouching over his lap-stone, and as he walked he threw himself into all kinds of ridiculous postures. "weel," he said, "ye see it's no easy kennin' what may happen. i hae seen a conventicle scale in a hurry, and leave as mony as ten guid plaids on the grund--forbye bibles and neckerchiefs." "but surely," i said to the cobbler, "you would not steal what the poor honest folk leave behind them in their haste?" the word seemed to startle him greatly. "na, na; birsay steals nane, stealin's no canny!" he cried. "them that steals hings in a tow--an' forbye, burns in muckle hell--bleezin' up in fuffin lowes juist as the beardie auld man sandy peden said." and the cobbler illustrated the nature of the conflagration with his hand. "na, na," he cried, in the strange yammering speech of the creature, "there's nae stealin' in gatherin' thegether what ither folks hae strawed, surely. that's i' the guid buik itsel'. an' then after the bizz is bye, and the sough calmed doon, birsay can gang frae auld wife to auld wife, and say to ilka yin, 'ye wadna loss ocht lately, did ye, guid wife?' 'aye,' says she. 'i lost my bible, my plaid, or my kercher at the field preachin'!' 'ay, woman, did ye?' says i. 'they're terrible loons the sodgers for grippin' and haudin'. noo i mak' shoon for a sergeant that has mony a dizzen o' thae things.' "wi' that the auld wife begins to cock her lugs. 'maybes he has my bible!' 'i wadna wunner,' says i. 'o man, birsay,' she says, 'i hae aye been a freen' o' yours, ye micht e'en see gin he has it, an' seek it aff him? there's the texts an' heads an' particulars o' mony sermons o' guid maister welsh and precious maister guthrie in the hinner end o' the buik!' "'so,' says i, aff-hand like, 'supposin' noo, just supposin' that sergeant mulfeather has gotten your bit buik, an' that for freendship to me he was wullin' to pairt wi't, what wad the bit buik be worth to ye. ye see it's treason to hae sic a thing, and rank conspiracy to thig and barter to get it back--but what wull freends no do to obleege yin anither?'" "ay, man birsay," i said, to encourage him, for i saw that the little man loved to talk. "an' what wull the auld body do then?" "faith, she'll gie me siller to tak' to sergeant mulfeather and get back her bit buikie. an' that's just what birsay wull do wi' richt guid wull," he concluded cantily. "and hae ye ony mair to tell me, birsay?" i asked him. for his talk cheered the long and doleful day, and as for belief, there was no reason why one should believe more than seemed good of birsay's conversation. "ay, there's yan thing mair that birsay has to say to ye. you an' that braw lad wi' the e'en like a lassie's are no richt whigs, i'm jaloosin'. ye'll aiblins be o' the same way o' thinkin' as mysel'!" at this i pretended to be much disconcerted, and said: "wheest, wheest, birsay! be canny wi' your tongue! mind whaur ye are. what mean you?" "trust birsay," he returned cunningly, cocking his frowsy head like a year-old sparrow. "gin the king, honest man, never comes to mair harm than you an' me wusses him, he'll come gey weel oot o' some o' the ploys that they blame him for." "how kenned ye, birsay," i said, to humour him, "that we werna whigs?" "o, i kenned brawly by the fashion o' your shoon. thae shoon were never made for whigs, but for honest king's folk. na, na, they dinna gree well wi' the moss-broo ava--thae sort wi' the narrow nebs and single soles. only decent, sweering, regairdless folk, that wuss the king weel, tryst shoon like them!" it was clear that birsay thought us as great traitors and spies in the camp as he was himself. so he opened his heart to us. it was not a flattering distinction, but as the confidence of the little man might be an element in our own safety and that of our friends on some future occasion, i felt that we would assuredly not undeceive him. but we had to pay for the distinction, for from that moment he favoured us with a prodigious deal of his conversation, which, to tell the truth, savoured but seldom of wit and often of rank sculduddery. birsay had no sense of his personal dishonour, and would tell the most alarming story to his own discredit, without wincing in the least. he held it proof of his superior caution that he had always managed to keep his skin safe, and so there was no more to be said. "ay, ay," said birsay, "these are no canny times to be amang the wild hill-folk. yin wad need to be weel payed for it a'. there's the twa black macmichaels--they wad think nae mair o' splatterin' your harns again the dyke than o' killing a whutterick. deil a hair! an' then, on the ither hand, there's ill-contrived turncoats like westerha' that wad aye be pluff-pluffin' poother and shot at puir men as if they were muir-fowl. an' he's no parteecler eneuch ava wha he catches, an' never will listen to a word. "then, waur than a', there's the awesome nichts whan the ghaists and warlocks are aboot. i canna bide the nicht ava. god's daylicht is guid eneuch for birsay, an' as lang as the sun shines, there's nae fear o' deil or witch-wife gettin' haud o' the puir cobbler chiel! but when the gloamin' cuddles doon intil the lap o' the nicht, and the corp-cannles lowe i' the bogs, an' ye hear the deils lauchin' and chunnerin' to themselves in a' the busses at the road-sides, i declare every stound o' manhood flees awa' clean oot o' birsay's heart, an' he wad like to dee but for thocht o' the after come. an' deed, in the mirk-eerie midnicht, whether he's fearder to dee or to leeve, puir birsay disna ken!" "but, birsay," i said, "ill-doers are aye ill-dreaders. gin ye were to drap a' this thievery an' clash-carryin' wark, ye wadna be feared o' man or deil!" "weel do i ken," birsay said, "that siccan ploys are no for the like o' me; but man, ye see, like ither folk, i'm terrible fond o' the siller. an' there's nocht so comfortin', when a' thae things are yammerin' to get haud o' ye, as the thocht that ye hae a weel-filled stockin'-fit whaur nane but yersel' can get haud o't!" and the creature writhed himself in glee and slapped his thigh. "yae stockin' fu', man," he said, "an' tied wi' a string, an' the ither begun, an' as far up as the instep. o man, it's blythe to think on! "but heard ye o' the whummel i gat aff this verra duchrae kitchen laft?" said birsay. he often came over in the gloaming on a news-gathering expedition. for it was a pleasure to give him news of a kind; and my cousin, who had not a great many occupations since kate mcghie had gone back to the great house of balmaghie, took a special delight in making up stories of so ridiculous a nature that birsay, retailing them at headquarters, would without doubt soon find his credit gone. "the way o't was this," birsay continued. "as i telled ye, i gan frae hoose to hoose in the exercise o' my trade, for there's no sic a suitor i' the country-side as birsay, though he says it himsel', an' no siccan water-ticht shoon as his ever gaed on the fit o' man. weel, it was ae nicht last winter, i' the short days, birsay was to begin wark at the duchrae at sax by the clock on monday morn. an' whan it comes to coontin' hours wi' auld anton lennox o' the duchrae, ye maun begin or the clock has dune the strikin'. faith an' a' the lennoxes are the same, they'll haud the nose o' ye to the grund-stane--an' the weemen o' them are every hair as bad as the men. there's auld lucky lennox o' lennox plunton--what said ye?--aweel, i'll gang on wi' my story gin ye like, but what's a' the steer so sudden, the nicht's afore us? "as i was sayin', i had to start at auld anton's on the monday mornin', gey an' early. so i thocht i wad do my travellin' in time o' day, an' get to the duchrae afore the gloamin'. an' in that way i wad get the better o' the bogles, the deils o' the bogs, the black horse o' the hollan lane, an' a' sic uncanny cattle. "but i minded that the auld tod, anton lennox, was a terrible man for examinin' in the carritches, an' aye speer-speerin' at ye what is the reason annexed to some perfectly unreasonable command--an' that kind o' talk disna suit birsay ava. so what did i do but started ower in the afternoon, an' gat there juist aboot the time when the kye are milkit, an' a' the folk eyther at the byre or in the stable. "so i watched my chance frae the end o' the hoose, an' when no a leevin' soul was to be seen, i slippit up the stairs, speelin' on the rungs o' the ladder wi' my stockin' soles as quiet as pussy. "then whan i got to the middle o' the laft, whaur the big hole o' the lum is, wi' the reek hingin' thick afore it gangs oot at the riggin' o' the hoose, i keekit doon. an' there at the table, wi' his elbows on the wood, sat auld anton takin' his lesson oot o' the big bible--like the bauld auld whig that he is, his whinger in a leather tashe swingin' ahint him. it's a queerie thing that for a' sae often as i hae telled the curate aboot him, he has never steered him. there maun be something no very thorough aboot the curate, an' he none so great a hero wi' the pint stoup either, man! "aweel, as the forenicht slippit on, an' the lassies cam' in frae the byre, an' the lads frae the stable, it was just as i expected. they drew up their stools aboot the hearth, got oot their bibles an' warmed their taes. lord preserve me, to see them sittin' sae croose an' canty ower effectual callin' an' reason annexed, as gin they had been crackin' an' singin' in a change-hoose! they're a queer fowk thae whigs. it wad hae scunnered a soo! an' twa-three neebours cam' in by to get the benefit o' the exerceeses! faith! if clavers had chanced to come by the road, he wad hae landed a right bonny flaucht o' them, for there wasna yin o' the rive but had grippit sword at either o' the twa risin's. for a' the auld carles had been at pentland an' a' the young plants o' grace had been at bothwell--ay, an' auld anton an' twa-three mair warriors had been at them baith. an' gin there had been a third he wad hae been there too, for he's a grim auld carle, baith gash an' steeve, wi' his bible an' his brass-muntit pistols an' his effectual callin'! "then bywhiles, atween the spells o' the questions, some o' the young yins fell a-talkin', for even auld anton canna haud the tongues o' the young birkies. an' amang ither things what did the loons do but start to lay their ill-scrapit tongues on me, an' begood to misca' puir birsay for a' that was ill!" "'listeners hear nae guid o' themselves,' is an auld-farrant say, birsay," i said. "aweel," the suitor went on, "that's as may be. at ony rate, it was 'birsay this' an' 'birsay that,' till every porridge-fed speldron an' ill-gabbit mim-moo'ed hizzie had a lick at puir birsay. "but at the lang an' last the auld man catched them at it, an' he was juist the man to let them hear aboot it on the deafest side o' their heids. he was aye a don at reprovin', was auld anton. no mony o' the preachers could haud a can'le to him on the job. "is it no a gey queer thing," said birsay, breaking off his story, "that when we set to an' curse a' an' sundry, they ca' it profane sweerin', and misca' us for awesome sinners; but when they lay their tongues to their enemies an' curse them, it's ca'ed a testimony an' printed in a buik?" the thing did indeed strike me as strange, but i desired to keep birsay to his story, so i only said: "but, birsay, what did the auld man say to them when he heard them misca'in' you?" "oh, he e'en telled them that it wad fit them better to look to their ain life an' conversation. an' that it wad be tellin' them yae day, gin they had made as guid a job o' their life wark as birsay made o' his bits o' shoon--a maist sensible an' just observe! faith, the auld tog is nane sae ill an auld carle, though siccan a dour an' maisterfu' whig. he kens guid leather wark when he sees it! "so when they were a' sittin' gey an' shame-faced under this reproof--_whang_! doon on the hearthstane fell my suitor's elshin--the cankersome thing had slippit oot o' my pooch an' drappit ower the edge o' the hole in the laft aboon the fireplace. "'preserve us,' i thought to mysel', 'it's a' by wi' birsay noo. they'll be up the stair swarmin' like a bee's byke.' but when i keeked it ower, they were a' sittin' gapin' at the elshin that had stottit on to the floor. an' what wi' me steerin' an' lookin' ower the edge, _clash_ fell my braid knife, that i cut the leather wi', oot o' my pooch! "it fell on the clean stane, an' then lap to the side, nearly on to the knees o' a great fat gussie o' a loon they ca' jock wabster. an' jock was in siccan a hurry to get oot o' the road o' the thing--for he thocht it wasna canny--that he owerbalanced himsel', and, certes! ower he gaed amang the lassies, stool an' a', wi' an awesome clatter. an' a' the lassies cried oot wi' fricht an' gruppit the lad they likit best--for there's a deal o' human nature even amang the whigs, that the covenants canna fettle, nor yet effectual callin' keep in bounds, and nae doot there's reason annexed for that too! "my sang, but whan auld anton got him straucht on his chair again, whatna tongue-threshin' did he no gie the lassies, an' indeed a' the lave o' them. he caa'ed them for a'thing that was bad, an' telled them what kin' o' black ill consciences they bood hae, to be feared o' a wee bit thing that was but wood an' airn. but when they showed him the knife whaur it lay glintin' on the hearth (for nae man o' them daured to touch it), anton was a wee bit staggered himsel', an' said it was a sign sent to reprove them for speakin' aboot puir birsay on a sabbath nicht. 'it was a deil's portent,' he said, 'an' nae mortal man ever forged that steel, an' gin onybody touched it he wadna wunner but it wad burn him to the bane, comin' direc' frae sic a place as it had dootless loupit frae.' "this tickled me so terribly that i creepit a wee nearer to see the auld tod's face, as he laid it aff to them aboot the deil's elshin an' his leather knife--that had baith been bocht frae rab tamson, the hardware man in the vennel o' dumfries, an' wasna payed for yet! when what d'ye think happened? "na, ye couldna guess--weel, i creepit maybe a hair ower near the edge. the auld rotten board gied way wi' me, an' doon birsay fell amang the peats on the hearthstane, landin' on my hinderlands wi' a _brange_ that nearly brocht the hoose doon. i gaed yae skelloch as i fell, but, gracious me," said birsay, waving his hands, "that was as naething to the scraich that the fowk aboot the fire gied. they scattered like a flock o' wild deuks when a chairge o' shot splairges amang them. they thocht the ill auld boy was comed into the midst o' them, an' wi' yae consent they made for the door. jock wabster took the hill baa-haain' like a calf as he ran, and even bauld auld anton stood by the door cheek wi' his sword point atween him an' the deil whummelt on his hearthstane! "but i didna bide lang amang the reed peats, as ye may guess. i was scramblin' oot, whan the auld man gruppit me by the cuff o' the neck, an', maybes because he had been a kennin' frichtit himsel', he gied puir birsay an awesome warm pair o' lugs. he near dang me stupit. gin i had gane to the laft to escape effectual callin', he didna scruple to gie me effectual daudin', an' that without ony speerin' or as muckle's a single reason annexed!" "and what," i said, "came o' jock wabster?" "'deed as for jock," said birsay, "thereupon he got great experience o' religion and gaed to join john gib and his company on the flowe o' the deer-slunk, where maister lennox vanquished them. but he didna catch jock, for jock said gin he had beat the deil flat-fit in a race, he wasna feared for any lennox o' the squad. but jock was aye ower great wi' the weemen folk, an' sae john gib's notions just suited him." here birsay made an end of his story, for anton lennox himself came in, and of him birsay stood in great and wholesome awe. chapter xxiv. the sanquhar declaration. i think it was during the week i lay thus in the barn at the duchrae, often with richard cameron or his young brother michael at my back in the quiet of the corn mow, that first i got within me the true spirit of the covenant. then it was that i heard all the troubles and the sins of scotland redd[ ] up and made plain; for in the night watches cameron and his brother had great communings together. richard was all for being done with the authority of the king, and making but one cast for it. michael thought that the time was not ripe nor the men ready. [footnote : cleared up.] now these two youths were they who chiefly set scotland in a lowe at this time, when lauderdale had so nearly trampled out the red cinders of the fire of presbytery. it was strange to think, that he who should blow them again into a flame had once been a prelatist, and that from the wicked shire of fife. when one cast it up to him, richard cameron said: "ay, it humbles us all to remember the pit from which we were digged!" then one night in the barn we gave in very solemnly our adhesions to the disowning of charles stuart and his brother james--all save my cousin wat, who said: "i canna bide to cast off the blood of bruce. i had rather kiss the red maiden." and with that, early in the morning he left us, which was a surprising grief to me, for he and i had been brothers in peril during many months. whither he went i knew not then, but it shall be related in its proper place and all that befel him in his lonely wanderings, after he parted from me. "we must not do this thing lightly or gladly," said richard cameron to us that abode with him in the barn. "we have laid our accounts with the worst that the government may do to us. we count not our lives dear. we see plainly that naught is to be gained save by defiance, any more. the indulgence is but a dish of sowens with a muzzle thereafter, to make us for ever dumb dogs that will not bark. who shall hinder or blame, if we choose to lay down our lives in the high places of the field, that the old faith be not forgotten, neither the old covenant engagements to our lord christ for ever abrogated?" yet i think there was not one of us that was not heart-sorry to break with the house of stuart. for after all we were of scotland, and we or our fathers had stood for the scots house and the scots king against cromwell and the supplanters. at any rate, let it not be said of us that we did this thing lightly; but rather with heavy hearts, because the king had been so far left to himself as to forswear and abandon the solemn engagements which he had undertaken. so it came to pass in the mid days of the year, that one afternoon we rode away through the lonely hills by minnyhive, and turned north up the fair valley of the water of nith. here and there we gathered one to whom the word had been passed, finding them waiting for us at some green loaning foot or at the mouth of some glen. little we said when a friend joined us; for our work was sad and solemn, and to be done once and for all. we rode as it were under the shadow of the scaffold. yet i think we thought not so much of ourselves, as of the women folk that abode at home. i know that i was wae for my mother, who was now like to lose her two sons as she had aforetime lost her husband, and sometimes also i thought of the lass maisie lennox, and what she would do wanting her father. but this i put from me, for after all covenanting was man's business. and as richard cameron said: "they that are trysted to the bridegroom's work, must taigle themselves with no other marriage engagements!" at the menick foot, where that long stey pass begins, there met us ten men of the upper ward, all douce and stalwart men, armed and horsed as well as any of our men out of galloway. i was the youngest of them all there, and indeed the only one that was not a mighty man of his arms. there had been indeed some talk of leaving me at the duchrae to keep the place--which i knew to be but an excuse. but one james gray of chryston, a laird's son and a strong man, cried out, "let the lad come, for his brother sandy's sake!" a saying which nettled me, and i replied instantly: "let any man stand out against me with the pistol and small sword, and i will show him cause why i should come for mine own!" at this cameron rebuked me: "ah, william, i see well that thou hast the old adam in thee yet. but was there ever a gordon that would not go ram-stam at the boar, whatever his religion?" then i, who knew that i had spoken as a carnal man, was somewhat shamed. yet was i glad also that no man took my challenge, for indeed i had small skill of the sword. and with the shearing sword especially, my blows were as rat-tail licks to the dead strikes of richard cameron or even those of my brother sandy. but nevertheless only to say the thing, did me good like medicine. so into the town of sanquhar we rode two and two, very slow and quiet, for cameron had forbidden us to ride with a tight rein and the horses champing, as indeed i longed to do for pride and the lust of the eye. "for thus," said he, "do the king's troopers, when they enter a town, to take the eyes of the unthinking. but contrariwise, we are come to do a deed in scotland that shall not be forgotten while nith water runs, and to tie a band which shall not be broken through. we ourselves shall fall and that speedily--that know we well--but, nevertheless, that which we do this day shall one day bring the tyrant's downfall!" and so indeed it proved to be. sanquhar is ever a still place, as though there were no other day there but the sabbath only. also the inhabitants are douce and grave, and so remain to this day--buying and selling, eating and drinking, as though they were alone on god's universe. but that day as we came riding up the street, there was a head at every window and i heard the wives cry: "the hill-folk have risen and come riding into sanquhar!" and this pleased me in the heart, though i know well i should have had my mind set on other matters. at the cross we formed up, setting our horses ten on either side and richard cameron in the midst, he alone dismounted and standing on the steps of the cross. we sat still and quiet, all being bareheaded. for show i had plucked my brand out of its scabbard. but cameron sternly bade me put it back again, and gave me his horse to hold instead. which thing grieved and shamed me at the time sadly enough, though now i am both proud and glad of it. "the time for drawn steel is yet to come, william. be sure that thou art then as ready as now," he said. we sang our psalm of covenant-keeping, and the hills gave it back to us, as though the angels were echoing the singing of it softly in heaven. after that, cameron stood up very straight, and on his face, which was as the face of a lion, there was a great tenderness, albeit of the sterner sort. the townsfolk stood about, but not too near, being careful and cautious lest they should be called in question for compliance with the deed, and the strange work done by us that day; for the king's scoop-net gathered wide. also the innocent were often called to judgment, especially if they had something to lose in goods or gear, as was the case with many of the well-doing burghers of sanquhar. "this day," cried cameron, loudly and solemnly, after he had prayed, "do we come to this town of sanquhar to cast off our allegiance to charles stuart and his brother james. not hastily, neither to make ourselves to be spoken about, but with solemnity as men that enter well-knowing into the ante-chamber of death. an we desired our own lives, we should receive tests and indulgences thankfully; and go sit in our kennels, like douce tykes that are ready to run at the platter and whistle. "but for all that, we are loyal men and no rebels, though to-day we cast off charles stuart--ay, and will do our best to make an end of his rule, so that he shall no more reign over this realm. this we shall do, not by private assassination, which we abhor and abominate; but by the levying of open war. we declare ourselves loyal to any covenanted king--ay, and had charles stuart kept his engagements, plighted and sworn, there is no man here that would not right gladly have laid down his life for him. "all ye that stand by, hear this word of richard cameron! there are those behind me, who heard with their ears the oath that the king sware at perth, when before the solemn convocation he spake these words: 'i charles, king of great britain and ireland, do assure and declare by my solemn oath in the presence of almighty god, the searcher of hearts, my allowance and approbation of the national covenant and of the solemn league and covenant above written, and faithfully oblige myself to prosecute the ends thereof in my station and calling.' "the king," cried cameron, "who sware these oaths hath cast us off. we have not cast off the king! there is one waiting in the low countries whence i came, and looking towards the hills of scotland, to see if there be any faithful. shall the fortress be utterly broken down with none to build her up? are there no watchmen to tell the towers thereof--none to cry from rampart to rampart, 'what of the night?' ay, there be here in sanquhar town this day at the least twenty men that have not bowed the knee to baal. this day we come to lay down our lives, as happily as children that have spent their play-day in the fields, and being tired, would lay them down to sleep. but ere we go, because the time cannot be long, we come to give the banner of the lord once more to the winds--the banner of that other kingdom in scotland that is christ's. behold!" and with that he lifted up the banner-staff which he held in his hand, and there floated out upon the equal-blowing wind the blue banner of christ's covenant. and as the golden scroll of it took the air, there came that into the hearts of most of us, which filled them to the overflow. the tears ran down and fell upon our horses' necks. "for christ's crown and covenant," ran the legend. then we gathered ourselves closer about the battle-flag, for which we had come out to die. as one man we drew our swords, nor did cameron now gainsay us--and lifting them high up, till the sun glinted bonnily upon them, we sang our solemn banding song. i never felt my heart so high or heaven so near, not even at the great field-preaching by the water of dee, when i sat by the side of maisie lennox. even thus we sang, "god is our refuge and our strength, in straits a present aid; therefore, although the earth remove, we will not be afraid." then we rode out of sanquhar town, for once gallantly enough, having solemnly set ourselves to face the king in open field--we that were but twenty men against three kingdoms. well we knew that we should be put down, but we knew also that so long as there were a score of men in scotland, to do as we had done that day, the cause and the flag would never be wholly put down. so the douce burghers of sanquhar watched us ride away, our swords gleaming naked because we had appealed to the sword, and were prepared to perish by the sword, as the word is. also our blue banner of the covenant waved bravely over our heads, in token of our dependence on jehovah, the god of battles. and as we rode was it not i, william gordon of earlstoun, who carried the banner-staff, for richard cameron had given it into my hands. so i had not lived in vain, and sandy would never again bid me sew bairn-clouts, and bide at home among the women. i wished my father had been alive to see me. chapter xxv. the last charge at ayrsmoss. the morning of the twenty-second of july dawned solemnly clear. it promised to be a day of slumberous heat, for the haze lay long in the hollows, hesitating to disappear, and there was the brooding of thunder in the air. we that were of cameron's little company found ourselves in a wild place on the moors. most of our galloway men had betaken themselves home, and they that had come out of lanarkshire and ayr were the greater part of the scanty company. the name of the place where we sojourned was ayrsmoss. we had lain sleepless and anxious all night, with watchers posted about among the moss-hags. richard cameron spoke often to us, and told us that the matter had at last come to the narrow and bitter pass. "it is the day of the lord's anger," he said, "and it is expedient that some men should die for the people!" we told him that we were ready, and that from the beginning we had counted on nothing else. but within me i felt desperately ill-prepared: yet, for the sake of the banner i carried, i tholed and said nothing. it was about ten of the day, and because we heard not from our folk who had been posted to give warning, we sent out other two to find them. then having taken a meal of meat for the better sustaining of our bodies, we lay down to sleep for an hour on a pleasant green place, which is all surrounded by morasses, for we had gotten no rest the night before. now i think we were all fey at this time, for we laid us down on the edge of the moss in a place that is open to all. and this when we might have withdrawn ourselves deep into the bog, and so darned ourselves among the "quakking quas"--dangerous and impassable flowes, so that no dragoons in the world could have come at us. but this we did not, for the word and doom were written. it was our enemies' day. as cameron said that morning as we passed the house of william mitchell in meadowhead, and when they brought him out a basin and water to wash his hands, also a towel wherewith to dry them: "this is their last washing. my head and hands are now cleansed for the offering!" so we laid us down among a great swirling of whaups and crying of peesweeps. for the season of their nesting was hardly over, and all the moorland was astir with their plaintive notes. after a long time i awoke, dreaming that maisie lennox stood by my bedside and took my hand, saying, "the kye are in the corn!" i sat up, and, lo, there within half a mile, and beating the moor in search of us, were two companies of dragoons, of the number of about one hundred and twenty, as near as at a glance i could reckon. my heart gave a stound, and i said to myself, "this is surely thy death-day, william gordon!" and the word sounded strangely in my heart, for i had begun to think my life worth living in these latter days, and was none so keen upon the dying as were some others of our company. but on the instant i awakened cameron and his brother michael, and also david hackstoun of rathillet, that was a soldier most stern, but yet a just man according to his lights. and they sat up and saw the soldiers sweeping the moor. but, as i say, we were all fey. for even then it was within our power to have escaped the violence of the men of war. very easily could we have left our horses, and betaken us into the deepest parts of the bottomless shaking bogs, where no man could have followed us. but the thought came not to us at the time. for god had so ordered it, that scotland was best to be served that day by the death of many of his servants. there were in our company twenty-three that had horses and forty that had none. but we were all armed in some sort of fashion. now, this richard cameron had in him both the heart of a fighter and the fearlessness of a man assured of his interest. he cried out to inquire of us if we were firmly set in our minds to fight, and with one voice we answered him, "ay!" we were of one heart and one mind. our company and converse had been sweet in the darkness, and now we were set to die together in the noonday, gladly as men that have made them ready for the entering in of the bride-chamber. so in that sullen morning, with the birds crying and the mist drawing down into thunder-clouds, we rose to make our last stand. i had given up all thought of escape, and was putting in hard steeks at the praying. for the sins that were on my soul were many, and i had too recently taken to that way of thinking to have the comfort and assurance of my elders. now, the soldiers that came against us were the finest companies of airly's and strachan's dragoons--gallant lads all--newly brought to that country-side and not yet inured to the cruel riding and shooting, as other companies were. i have not a word to say against the way they fought, though as their duty was, they came against us with haste and fury. our quarrel was not with them, but with their master. they rode gallantly enough this way and that through the morasses, and came on bravely. bruce of earlshall was over them, but john crichton was their best fighter. a stark and cruel man he was, that would have hunted us all down if he could. he fought that day with his blade swinging all the time, damning and cursing between every blow. but, for all that, he was sick and sorry ere he left this field. for if ever man did, he met his match when he crossed swords with the lion of the covenant. it was rathillet who chose the place of strength for us to make our stand, and as it seemed and mostly proved, to take our deaths upon. there was little time for the word and the prayer. but, as was our custom, we sang a cheerful psalm, and lifted up our bonnets while cameron prayed: "lord, spare the green, and take the ripe!" that was the whole matter of his supplication. "we may never be in better case to die. i see the gates of heaven cast wide open to receive us." and i noted that all the time of our singing, david hackstoun of rathillet was looking to the priming of his pistols, and drawing the edge of his sword-blade along the back of his hand, as one that tries a razor ere he sets it to his chin. then the companies of the enemy halted on the edge of the moss where the ground was yet firm. they seemed not disinclined for a parley. "do you own the king's authority?" cried one among them. it was bruce of earlshall, a buirdly[ ] chiel and one not greatly cruel; but rather like monmouth, anxious to let the poor remnant have its due. [footnote : sturdy.] "ay!" cried cameron, "we own the king's authority." "wherefore, then, stand ye there in arms against his forces?" came the answer back. "yield, and ye shall have quarter and fair conduct to edinburgh!" the man spake none so evilly for a persecutor, and in my heart i liked him. "i thank you, captain bruce, for your fair speech," said cameron, "but i wot well you mean fair passage to the grassmarket. the king we own is not king charles stuart, and it liketh us to go to our king's court through the crash of battle, rather than through the hank of the hangman's twine." "this preacher is no man of straw--fight he will," i heard them say one to the other, for they were near to us, even at the foot of the opposite knoll. then our horsemen, of whom i was one, closed in order without further word, and our foot drew out over the moss in readiness to fire. david hackstoun was with us on the left, and captain fowler on the right. but richard cameron was always a little ahead of us all, with his brother michael with him on one side, and i, riding my galloway nag, close upon his right flank--which was an honourable post for one so young as i, and served withal to keep my spirits up. just before he gave the word to charge, he cried out to us, pointing to the enemy with his sword: "yonder is the way to the good soldier's crown!" the day had been clouding over, the heat growing almost intolerable. it was now about two in the afternoon. it was easy to see, had we had the eyes to observe it, that a thunderstorm was brewing, and even as richard cameron stretched out his sword over his horse's head, and cried on to us to charge in the name of the lord, the first levin-bolt shot down, glittering into the moor like a forked silver arrow. and over our head the whole firmament raired and crashed. "the captain of our salvation calls for us!" cried cameron. "who follows after, when the son of god rides forth to war!" so with that we lowered our sword-points and drave at them. i think i must have ridden with my eyes shut, down that little green knowe with the short grass underfoot. i know that, even as we rode, the thunder began to roar about us, girding us in a continuous ring of lightning-flashes. yet, at the time, i seemed to ride through a world of empty silence, even when i struck the red broil of battle. i could see cameron crying out and waving his sword before us as our horses gathered way, but i remember no more till the shock came and we found ourselves threshing headlong among them. i fired my pistols right and left, and set them in my belt again, though the habit was to throw them away. i had my sword dangling by a lingel or tag at my right wrist, for i had learned from wat gordon how to fight it upon horseback when it came to the charge. the first man that i came against was a great dragoon on a grey horse. he shouted an oath of contempt, seeing me so slender and puny. yet, for all his bulk, i had him on the wrong side, so that he could not use his sword-arm with advantage. and as i passed on my stout little nag, i got my sword well home under his armpit and tumbled him off into the mire. the stoutness of our charge took the enemy entirely by surprise. indeed, afterwards they gave us all the testimony of being brave, resolute men; and, like soldiers and gentlemen as they were, they used them that were taken very civilly. i could see cameron before me smiting and slaying, slaying and smiting, rising in his stirrup at every blow and calling on his men. it was a wild, fierce time, all too short--a happy turmoil of blows wherein i drank for the first time the heady delight of battle. all over the wild moss of ayr that great day the swords flickered like lightning-flashes, and the lightnings darted like sword-blades. oh, how many quiet times would i not give for such another glorious wager of battle! overhead all the universe roared as we fought, and i had no thought save of the need to keep my point up--thrusting, parrying, and striking as god gave me ability. right in the midst of the press there came two at me from opposite sides; and i saw very well that, if i got no help, there was no more of life for me. "richard!" i cried, and the shout must have gone to our leader's ear, though i myself could not hear it, so great was the clangour and the din. cameron had been smiting with the strength of ten immediately on my front. in a moment more he cleared his point, pierced his man, and turned. the man on my left swerved his horse out of his way, for cameron came with a surge. but the other, whom i took to be crichton, met him fair, blade to blade. the first clash of the swords was mighty. these two lowering black men met and knew each other, soon as they looked one another in the eyes. but i could see that cameron was ever the stronger and swifter, though crichton had somewhat the more skill. crichton tried to pass him a little, that he might get arm-play for his famous back-strokes, wherewith he was renowned to have cut off a man's head at a blow; but cameron measured his guard and the blow whistled harmless past his ear. then came the return. the preacher's sword streaked it out straight and level, and for a moment seemed to stand full mid-blade in the dragoon's side. the next moment we too found ourselves outside their first line. we had broken our way through, and the enemy were in confusion behind us. i saw many single combats going forward, and in especial a most noble fight between david hackstoun of rathillet and one of his own acquaintances, by name david ramsay, a gentleman of his country. as they fought i could hear hackstoun, whom nothing could daunt or disturb, asking ramsay all the news of the country-side, and how such a one did, what wife had gotten another child and whether it were a lad or a lass. which is a thing i should never have believed if any man had told me. and when i set it down here i expect not to be believed of any, save by those who have been in the thick of a civil war themselves. but all that knew david hackstoun of rathillet will believe that this thing is true of him. so he fought, clashing swords and talking at his ease, without change of countenance, till he was stricken down with three coming on him at once from behind. then, seeing our horsemen scattered, cameron cried them to him, and we galloped towards their second line that came riding unbroken towards us. now it was our misfortune that the dragoons were stark fellows and had seen service, so that they gave not back as others might have done, seeing us come on so determinedly. rather they reserved their powder till we were almost at the sword's length. then they fired, and i saw our men falling over in twos and threes. but richard cameron still rode steadily with michael and myself behind him. his horse had once been white, but now was mostly dripping red--a fearsome sight to see. i heard afterwards from old soldiers that had been in the fights of the ancient days, that no such terrifying figure had they ever seen in the wars, since noll led on the ironsides at marston moor. but cameron's case was far more desperate than had ever been that of oliver. "smite! smite!" he cried, "the sword of the lord and of gideon!" over all the field there was only the whinnying of swords as they whistled through the air, and at the edges of the fray the dropping rattle of the musketry. as we touched their second line we seemed to ride in upon a breast-high wave of flame, which might have been earlshall's flashing muskets or god's own level lightnings. i rode as best i could behind cameron, striking when i had opportunity and warding as i had need. but, though i was here in the forefront of the battle, i was in the safest place. for richard cameron ploughed a lane through their company, sending them to right and left before him as the foam is ploughed by a swift vessel. but our desperate riders were now wearing few. i looked behind us, and only two seemed to be in the saddle--james gray of chryston and michael cameron, who had both promised to ding the stoor that day out of his majesty's red-clouts. i could see chryston striking, and grunting as he struck, exactly like a man hagging hard wood with a blunt axe. so i found myself out at the side of the fight. but, just when i thought myself clear, there came a blow on my steel cap that nearly dang me out of the saddle, and i drew out further again. cameron also had won clear; but, seeing his brother michael hard beset, he turned rein and drave in among the smother again, raging like the lion he was. how his horse kept his feet on the moss i know not, for cameron seemed constantly to be standing up in his stirrups, leaning forward to give his blade more play. so he rode into the midst of them, till he was brought to a stand in what seemed a ring of foes. even there i could see his arm rise and fall, as steadily as a man that flails corn in a barn. and wherever he struck was a gap, for there a man went down. but more and more of them gathered about, threshing at him with their swords, some on horse and some on foot, like boys killing wasps at the taking of a byke. then when richard cameron saw that he could do no more, and that all the men were down that had followed him, his brother michael also dying at his feet, he swept his sword every way about him to clear a space for a moment. then he swung the brand over his head high in the air, casting it from him into the sky, till it seemed to enter into the dark cloud where the thunder brooded and the smoke of powder hung. "god of battles, receive my sinful soul!" he cried. and with that he joined his hands like a man that dives for swimming; and, unwounded, unhurt, yet fighting to the last, richard cameron sprang upon a hundred sword-points. thus died the bravest man in broad scotland, whom men called, and called well, the lion of the covenant. and, even as he passed, the heavens opened, and the whole firmament seemed but one lightning-flash, so that all stood aghast at the marvellous brightness. which occasioned the saying that god sent a chariot of fire with horses of whiteness to bring home to him the soul of richard cameron. whereof some men bear testimony that they saw; but indeed i saw nothing but a wondrous lightning-flash over the whole heaven. then, a moment after, the thunder crashed like the breaking up of the world, and there was an end. chapter xxvi. hiding with the heather-cat. as for me, when i had seen this, thinking it to be enough, i put spurs to my little galloway, and we were soon at speed over the moss-hags. my beast was well acquainted with moss running, for it had not carried me so often over the moor to lochinvar for nothing. i heard tempestuous crying, as of men that pursued, and, strangely and suddenly, behind me the roar of battle sank into silence. once i glanced back and saw many footmen running and horsemen rising and falling in their saddles. but, all being lost, i left the field of ayrsmoss behind me as fast as i might, and set my horse's head over the roughest and boggiest country, keeping toward dalmellington, for the wilderness was now to be my home. for the time i had had enough of rebellion under arms. i was not unfaithful to the cause, nor did i regret what i had done. but i judged that, for some time to come, it were better for me not to see company, for i had no pleasure in it. now, in further telling my tale i must put together all the incidents of my fleeing to the heather--for that being a thing at the time very frequently resorted to, it became at last a word in scotland that "to take to the heather was to be in the way of getting grace." now, when i sped away to the south-east from ayrsmoss, the folk i loved were all killed, and i had no hope or hold of any present resistance to the king. but my galloway sheltie, being nimble on its feet, took me bravely over the moss-hags, carrying me lightly and willingly as if i had been hare-coursing on the green holms of the ken. as i fled i kept glancing behind me and seeing the soldiers in red clothes and flashing arms still pursuing after. i saw also our foot (that had stood off when we charged, and only fired as they saw need) scattering through the moss, and the enemy riding about the borders wherever their horses could go, firing at them. yet i think that not many of them were hurt in the pursuit, for the moss at that place was very boss, and full of bottomless bogs, like that from which patrick laing drew the redoubtable persecutor captain crichton. this incident, indeed, bred in the breasts of the dragoons a wholesome fear of the soft boggish places, which made greatly in many instances for the preservation of the wanderers, and in especial favoured me in my present enterprise. in a little after, two of the four dragoons that followed me, seeing another man running like to burst through the moss, turned aside and spurred their horses after him, leaving but two to follow me. yet after this i was harder put to it than ever, for the sun was exceedingly hot above and the moss as difficult beneath. but i kept to it, thinking that, after all, by comparison i was in none such an evil case. for, though my head ached with the steel cap upon it and my horse sweated, yet it must have been much more doleful for the heavy beasts and completely accoutred dragoons toiling in the rear. so over the broken places of the moor i went faster than they, though on the level turf they would doubtless soon have ridden me down. but then, after all, they were but riding to kill one whig the more, while i to save my neck--which made a mighty difference in the earnestness of our intents on that day of swithering heat. many a time it came to me to cast myself from my beast and run to the side, trusting to find a moss-hag where i might lie hidden up to my neck among the water with my head among the rushes. i saw many good and safe places indeed, but i remembered that my sheltie would be an advertisement to the pursuers, so i held on my way. besides, donald had been a good friend to me, and was the only one of our company that had ever been on the bonny holms of earlstoun. so that i was kindly affectioned to the beast, and kept him to his work though the country was very moorish and the sun hot on my head. once i was very nearly taken. for as i went, not knowing the way, i came to a morass where in the midst there was a secure place, as it seemed to me. i put donald at it, and when i reached the knoll--lo, it was only some nine or ten yards square--the bottomless swelter of shaking bogs girding it in on the further side. donald went to the girth at the first stride on the other side, so that there was nothing for it but to dismount and pull him out. then up came the dragoons, riding heavily and cursing the sun and me. they rode round skirting the moss; for, seeing the evil case i was in, they dared not come nearer for fear of the same or worse. they kept, therefore, wide about me, crying, "come out, dog, and be shot!" which, being but poor encouragement, i was in no wise eager to obey their summons. but by holding on to the heather of the moss--by the kind providence of god, it was very long and tough--i managed to get donald out of his peril. he was a biddable enough beast, and, being a little deaf, he knew not fear. for reesting and terror among horses are mostly but over-sharpness in hearing, and an imagination that they were better without. but donald had no good hearing and no bad forebodings. so when i pulled him among the long heather, and put his head down, he lay like a scent-dog, cowered along by the side of the moss-hags. then the pair by the edge of the morass began to shoot at me, for the distance was within reach of a pistol-ball. the first bullet that came clipped so close to my left ear that it took away a lock of my hair, which, contrary to my custom, had now grown longish. all this time they ceased not for a moment to cry, "come out, dog, and be shot!" they were ill-mannered rampaging lowns with little sense, and i desired no comings and goings with them. so in no long time i tired of this, and also of lying still to be shot at. i bethought me that i might show them a better of it, and afford some sport. so very carefully i charged both my pistols, and the next time they came near, riding the bog-edge to fire at me, i took careful aim and shot at the first of them. the ball went through the calf of his leg, which caused him to light off the far-side of his horse with a great roar. "you have killed me," he cried over to me complainingly, as if he had been a good friend come to pay me a visit, to whom i had done a treachery. then he cursed me very resentfully, because forsooth (as he said) he was about to be made a sergeant in the company, and, what with lying up with his wounded leg, some other (whom he mentioned) would get the post by favour of the captain. "see what you have done!" said he, holding up his leg. but i took aim with the other pistol and sent a ball singing over his head, very close. "trip it, my bonny lad," i cried, "or there will be a hole of the same size in your thick head--which will be as good as a cornet's commission to you in the place to which it will send you!" then i charged my pistols again and ordered them away. the trooper's companion made bold to leave his horse and come towards me crawling upon the moss. but i turned my pistols so straightly upon him, that he was convinced that i must be a marksman by trade and so desisted from the attempt. all this made me proud past reasoning, and i mounted in their sight, and made a work of fastening my accoutrements and tightening donald's girths. "so good-day to you!" i cried to them, "and give my compliments to your captain and tell him from me that he hath a couple of varlets in his company very careful of their skins in this world--which is, maybe, as well--seeing that in the next they are secure of getting them well paid." now this was but the word of a silly boy, and i was sorry for taunting the men before ever i rode away. but i set it down as it happened, that all may come in its due place, nothing in this history being either altered or extenuated. so all that night i fled and the next day also, till i came into my own country of the glenkens, where near to carsphairn i left donald with a decent man that would keep him safe for my mother's sake. for the little beast was tired and done, having come so far and been ridden so hard. yet when i left him out in the grass-park, there was not so much as the mark of a spur upon him, so willingly had he come over all the leagues of heather-lands. while life lasts shall i not forget donald. my father used often to tell us what maxwell of monreith said when he lit off his grey horse at the stable-door and turned him out after riding him home from rullion green: "thou hast done thy day's work, pentland. there is a park for thee to fill thy belly in for the rest of thy days. no leg shall ever cross thy back again!" so when i came to my own in the better days, i made it my care that donald was not forgotten; and all his labour in the future, till death laid him low, was no more than a gentle exercise to keep him from over-eating himself on the meadow-lands of afton. after the great day of dule, when cameron was put down at ayrsmoss and i escaped in the manner i have told of, i made my way by the little ferry-port of cree, which is a sweet and still little town, to maryport, on the other side of the solway, and thence in another ship for the low countries. when we came within sight of the land we found that it was dismally grey, wearisome looking, and flat. the ship-men called it the hook of holland. but this was not thought right for the port of our destination, so we put to sea again, where we were too much tossed about for the comfort of my stomach. indeed, every one on board of the ship felt the inconvenience; and two exceedingly pious women informed me that it interfered with their religious duties. it was upon a thursday night, at six o'clock, that we arrived at an outlandish place called, as i think, zurichsee, where we met with much inhumanity and uncourteousness. indeed, unless a scots merchant, accustomed to adventuring to the low countries, had been of our company, it might have gone hardly with us, for the barbarous folk had some custom of ill-treating strangers who arrive upon a day of carnival. they entered our bark and began to ill-treat us even with blows and by taking from us what of money we had. but mercifully they were restrained before i had put my sword into them, which, in their own country and engaged in ungodliness, it had been no little folly to do. then also it grieved us very sore that we had five soldiers who had come from scotland with us--the very scum of the land. they called themselves captain somerville's band; but if, indeed, they were any soldiers of his majesty's, then god help their captain in his command, for such a pack of unwashed ruffians it never was my hap to see. specially did these men disquiet us upon the sabbath-day. so dreadful were their oaths and curses that we feared the boat would sink because of their iniquities. they carried themselves so exceeding wickedly--but more, as i think, that we, who desired not their company, might take note of them. for at least three of them were but sullen, loutish boys, yet the others led them on, and praised them when they imitated their blasphemies and sculduddery. at last about eight o'clock in the evening we came to rotterdam, where we quartered with a good merchant, mr. donaldson, and in the morning we went to a mr. hay's, where from that good man (whom may god preserve) we met with inexpressible kindness. thence we went to groningen, where many of the covenant already were. to be brief--that part of my life for the present not coming into the history--i spent four years there, the most of it with a young man named james renwick, a good student, and one very full of great intents which were to make scotland strong against the house of stuart. he came from minnyhive, a village on the borders of galloway and dumfries, and was a very decent lad--though apt, before he learned modesty on the moors, to take too much upon him. we were finally summoned home by a letter from the united societies, for they had made me a covenanted member of standing because of ayrsmoss, and the carrying of the banner at sanquhar. while at groningen i got a great deal of civility because of sandy, my brother, whose name took me everywhere. but i think that, in time, i also won some love and liking on my own account. and while i was away, i got many letters from maisie lennox, chiefly in the name of my mother, who was not good at writing; for her father, though a lord of session, would not have his daughters taught overly much, lest it made them vain and neglectful of those things which are a woman's work, and ought to be her pleasure so long as the world lasts. but though i went to the university, i could not bring myself to think that i had any call to the ministry. i went, therefore, for the name of it, to the study of the law, but read instead many and divers books. for the study of the law is in itself so dreary, that all other literature is but entertainment by comparison. so that, one book being easy to substitute for another, i got through a vast deal of excellent literature while i studied law at the university of groningen. so did also, even as i, all the students of law whom i knew in holland and elsewhere, for that is their custom. but when at last i was called home, i received a letter from the united societies, written in their name, from a place called panbreck, where their meeting was held. first it told me of the sadness that was on scotland, for the many headings, hangings, hidings, chasings, outcastings, and weary wanderings. then the letter called me, as the branch of a worthy family, to come over and take my part, which, indeed, i was somewhat loath to do. but with the letter there came a line from maisie lennox, which said that they were in sore trouble at the earlstoun, sometimes altogether dispossessed, and again for a time permitted to abide in safety. yet for my mother's sake she asked me to think of returning, for she thought that for me the shower was surely slacked and the on-ding overpast. so i took my way to ship-board with some desire to set my foot again on the heather, and see the hills of kells run blue against the lift of heaven, from the links of the ken to the headend of carsphairn. it was the high time of the killing when i came again to scotland, and landed at newcastle. i made for galloway on foot by the tops of the cheviots and the border hills. nor did i bide more than a night anywhere, and that only in herds' huts. till i saw, from the moors above lochinkit, the round top of the millyea, which some ill-set people call an ugly mountain, but which is to me the fairest hill that the sun shines on. so at least it appeared, now returning from the lowlands of holland, where one can make the highest hill with a spade in an afternoon. ay, for i knew that it looked on earlstoun, where my mother was--whom i greatly desired to see, as was most natural. yet it was not right that i should recklessly go near earlstoun to bring trouble on my mother without knowing how the land lay. so i came down the west side of the water of ken, by the doachs, or roaring linn, where the salmon sulk and leap. and i looked at the house from afar till my heart filled, thinking that i should never more dwell there, nor look any more from my mother's window in the quiet hour of even, when the maids were out milking the kye. even as i looked i could see the glint of scarlet cloth, and the sun sparkling on shining arms, as the sentry paced from the wall-gate to the corner of the wall and back again. once i saw him go within the well-house for a drink, and a great access of desire took me in my stomach. i remembered the coolness that was there. for the day was exceedingly hot, and i weary and weak with travel. chapter xxvii. the water of the well of bethlehem that is beside the gate. with that a kind of madness came over me and took possession of my mind and body. i cannot account for or excuse it, save that the sun had stricken me unawares and moidered my head. i remember saying over and over to myself these words, which i had often heard my father read as he took the book, "o that one would give me to drink of the water of the well of bethlehem that is beside the gate." so i rose out of the lair where i was, took off my shoes and stockings, and went down to the river-side. ken water is very low at that season, and looking over i could see the fish lying in the black pools with their noses up stream, waiting for a spate to run into the shallows of the burns. i declare that had my mind not been set on the well-house, i should have stripped there and then for a plunge after them. but in a trice i had crossed the river, wading to my middle in the clear warm pool. i think it was surely the only time that man ever waded ken to get a drink of spring water. when i reached the farther side--the nearer to my mother--i lay for a long time on the bank overcome with the water and the sun. now i was plainly to be seen from the house, and had the sentinel so much as looked my way, i could not have escaped his notice. but no one came near me or stirred me in any way. then at last, after a long time, i roused myself, and betook me through the thick woods which lie on the side towards the clachan of st. john. the wood here is composed of great oaks--the finest, as all allow, in galloway--of which that wherein my brother sandy was afterwards often concealed, is but one. underneath was a thick growth of hazel and birch. the whole makes cover of the densest, through which no trooper could ride, and no seeing eye pierce. so i was here upon well-kenned ground. every tree-stem i knew by touch of hand, and in my youth i had creeped into every hidie hole that would hold a squirrel. times without number had sandy and i played at hide-and-seek in the woods. and there, at the back of one of the great trees, was where we had fought because he had called me "puny crowl." whereat i bit him in the thumb till it bled grievously, to teach him not to call names, and also (more generally) for the health of his soul. now lying here in the earlstoun wood, all this came back to me, and it seemed that sandy and i were again playing at hiding. nearly had i cried out the seeking signal; aye, and would have done it, too, but for the little rattle of arms when the sentry turned sharp at the corner of the house, with a click of his heels and a jingle of his spurs. the house of earlstoun stands very near the water edge, with nothing about it save the green hawthorn-studded croft on the one hand, and the thick wood on the other. i lay a long while watching the house to see if i could discover any one at the windows. but not even a lounging soldier could i discern anywhere, except the single clinking loon who kept the guard. once jean hamilton, sandy's wife, came to the window; and once her little daughter, alison, shook a tablecloth over the sash--a sight which cheered me greatly, for by it i knew that there was still folk could eat a meal of meat within the towers of earlstoun. but more and more the desire for the sweet well water of the gateway tower, came to me as i lay parched with thirst, and more than the former yearning for home things. it seemed that no wine of sunny france, no golden juice of zeres could ever be one-half so sweet as the water of that earlstoun well, "that is beside the gate." aye, and i declare i would have grappled with the sentry for it, save that i had the remnants of some sense left about me, which told me that so i should not only bring destruction upon myself, but on others that were even more dear to me. presently i heard the voice of a serving lass calling from within the courtyard, and at the sound the sentry listened and waited. he looked furtively this way and that round the corners. he stood a moment in the shade of the archways and wiped his brow. then he leaned his musket against the wall and went within. i thought to myself, "it is now or never, for he is gone to the kitchen for a bite-and-sup, and will be out again in a moment, lest his captain should return and find him gone from his post." so with that i made a rush swiftly round the corner, and entered the well-house. for a moment only, as i ran fleet-foot, was i bathed in the hot sunshine, then drenched again in the damp, cool darkness of the tower. within there is an iron handle and chain, which are used to wrap up the great dipper over the windlass. there is also a little dipper which one may let down by a rope, when only a drink or a little household water is needed, and there is no servitor at hand to turn the crank. this last i let down, and in a moment after i was draining icy nectar from the cup, for which i had risked so much. yet all i could do when i got it, was only to sip a little, and let the rest run back again into the well. while like the refrain of a weary song, over and over the words ran in his mind, "o that one would give me--of the water of the well of bethlehem--that is beside the gate." then, like a far-away voice calling one out of a dream, i heard the sound of the sentry returning to his post. quite clearly i discerned him lifting his musket, shifting it from one side to the other, and so resuming his equal tramp. i heard everything, indeed, with a kind of acuteness beyond the natural. yet all the while i was strangely without sense of danger. i thought how excellent a jest it would be, to shout out suddenly when the soldier came near, to see him jump; and but for the remembrance of my mother, i protest i had done it. so there i lay on the margin of the well, just as at the first i had flung myself down, without so much as troubling thoroughly to shut the door. i am sure that from the corner where the sentry turned, he might have seen my boot-heel every time, had he but troubled to peep round the door. but he had been so often within the well-house during his time on guard, that he never once glanced my way. also he was evidently elevated by what he had gotten within the house from the serving maid, whatever that might have been. it was strange to hear his step alternately faint and loud as he came and went. he paced from the well-house to the great gate, and from thence to the corner of the tower. back again he came, to-and-fro like the pendulum of a clock. once he took the butt of his musket and gave the door, within which i lay, a sharp fling to. luckily it opened from without, so that the hasp caught as it came and i was shut within. so there i lay without power to move all that day, and no one came near me till late in the gloaming. for it was the custom at the earlstoun to draw the water for the day in the early morning, and that for the night uses when the horses were suppered at bed-time. sometimes my head seemed to swell to so great a size, that it filled the well-house and was pressed against the roof. anon, to my thinking, it grew wizzened and small, waxing and waning as i sickened and the shoots of pain ran round my brows. at last i heard feet patter slowly down the turret stair and out at the door. through the courtyard i heard them come towards me, and of a sudden something sang in my heart, though i could have given no great reason therefor. softly the door of the well-house opened, and one came in, giving a little cry at so nearly stumbling over me. but no power had i to move or speak, even though it had been clavers himself who entered. my visitor gently and lightly shut to the door, and knelt at my head. "william!" said a voice, and i seemed in my phantasy to be running about among the flowers as a child again. i opened my eyes, and lo! it was maisie of the duchrae--she that had been so kind to me. and the wonder of seeing her in my own house of earlstoun, where the garrison was abiding, was a better incitement to renewed vigour than a double tasse of the brandy of france. but there was no time for speech, so pulling me farther within, she bent and whispered: "william, i will go and bring your mother. the soldiers may not be long away!" so she rose to go out with her pail full of the water, for which she had come. yet ere she went, she laid her hand upon my brow, and murmured very low, lest the sentry should hear, "my poor lad!" only that; but it was a thing which was mightily sweet to me. nor was she long gone before she returned with my mother. they had called the sentry in to his evening meal, and supplied him with something to drink. for they had had the garrison long enough with them to learn that all soldiers are great trenchermen, and can right nobly "claw a bicker" and "toom a stoup" with any man. chapter xxviii. the well-house of earlstoun. so as soon as the soldier was snugly housed with the servant lass, the two women came to me, where i sat at the back of the door of the well-house. chiefly i wanted to hear what had brought maisie of the duchrae so far from home as the house of earlstoun. it seemed to betoken some ill befallen my good friends by the grenoch water-side. but my mother stooped down and put her arms about me. she declared that she would have me taken up to the west garret under the rigging, where, she said, none of the soldiers had ever been. but there i would in no wise go, for well i knew that so soon as she had me there, and a dozen soldiers between me and a dash for liberty, she would forthwith never rest until she had me out again. then the next idea was that i should go to the wattled platform on the oak, to which sandy resorted; but i had fallen into a violent horror of shaking and hot flushes alternating with deadly cold, so that to bide night and day in the sole covert of a tree looked like my death. at last maisie lennox, who had a fine discernment for places of concealment in the old days when we two used to play at "bogle-about-the-stacks" at the duchrae, cast an eye up at the roof of the well-house. "i declare, i think there is a chamber up there," she said, and stood a moment considering. "give me an ease up!" she said quietly to my mother. she did everything quietly. "how can there be such a place and i not know it?" said my mother. "have i not been about the tower these thirty years?" but maisie thought otherwise of the matter, and without more ado she set her little feet in the nicks of the stones, which were rough-set like the inside of a chimney. then putting her palm flat above her, she pushed an iron-ringed trap-door open, lifted herself level with it, and so disappeared from our view. we could hear her groping above us, and sometimes little stones and lime pellets fell tinkling into the well. so we remained beneath waiting for her report, and i hoped that it might not be long, for i felt that soon i must lay me down and die, so terrible was the tightness about my head. "there is a chamber here," she cried at last. "it is low in the rigging and part of the roof is broken towards the trees, but the ivy hides it and the hole cannot be seen from the house." "the very place! well done, young lass!" said my mother--much pleased, even though she had not found it herself. for she was a remarkable woman. maisie looked over the edge. "give me your hand?" she said. now there is this curious thing about this lass ever since she was in short coats, that she not only knew her own mind in every emergency, but also compelled the minds of every one else. at that moment it seemed as natural that i should obey her, and also for my mother to assist her, as if she had been a queen commanding obedience. yet she hardly ever spoke above her breath, and always rather as though she were venturing a suggestion. this is not what any one can ever learn. it is a natural gift. now there is my brother sandy. he has a commanding way with him certainly. he gets himself obeyed. but at what an expenditure of breath. you can hear him at the mains of barskeoch telling the lass to put on the porridge pot. and he cannot get his feet wet and be needing a change of stockings, without the ardoch folk over the hill hearing all about it. but i am telling of the well-house. "give me your hand," said the lass maisie down from the trap-door. it is a strange thing that i never dreamed of disobeying. so i put out my hand, and in a trice i was up beside her. my mother followed us and we looked about. it was a little room and had long been given over to the birds. i marvelled much that in our adventurous youth, sandy and i had never lighted upon it. but i knew the reason to be that we had a wholesome dread of the well, having been told a story about a little boy who tumbled into it in the act of disobedience and so was drowned. we heard also what had become of him afterwards, which discouraged us from the forbidden task of exploration. i think no one had been in the place since the joiners left it, for the shavings yet lay in the corner, among all that the birds and the wild bees had brought to it since. my mother stayed beside me while maisie went to bring me a hot drink, for the shuddering grew upon me, and i began to have fierce pains in my back and legs. my mother told me how that the main guard of the soldiers had been a week away over in the direction of minnyhive, all but a sergeant's file that were left to keep the castle. to-day all these men, except the sentry, were down drinking at the change-house in the clachan, and not till about midnight would they come roaring home. she also told me (which i much yearned to know), that the duchrae had at last been turned out, and that old anton had betaken himself to the hills. maisie, his daughter, had come to the neighbourhood with margaret wilson of glen vernock, the bright little lass from the shireside whom i had first seen during my sojourn in balmaghie. margaret wilson had friends over at the farm of bogue on the garpelside. very kind to the hill-folk they were, though in good enough repute with the government up till this present time. from there maisie lennox had come up to earlstoun, to tell my mother all that she knew of myself and my cousin wat. then, because the two women loved to talk the one to the other, at earlstoun she abode ever since, and there i found her. so in the well-house i remained day by day in safety all through my sickness. the chamber over the well was a fine place for prayer and meditation. at first i thought that each turn of the sentry would surely bring him up the trap-door with sword and musket pointed at me, and i had little comfort in my lodging. but gradually, by my falling to the praying and by the action of time and use, i minded the comings and goings of the soldiers no more than those of the doves that came in to see me at the broken part of the roof, and went out again with a wild flutter of their wings, leaving a little woolly feather or two floating behind them. and often as i lay i minded me how i had heard mr. peden say at the conventicle that "the prayers of the saints are like to a fire which at first gives off only smoke and heat, but or all be done breaketh out into a clear light and comfortable flame." these were times of great peace for us, when the soldiers and the young lairds that rode with them for the horsemanship part of it, went off on their excursions, and came not back till late at eventide, with many of the glenkens wives' chuckies swinging head down at their saddle bows. chapter xxix. cupboard love. the well-house was indeed a strait place, but my mother had gotten one of our retainers to put therein a little truckle bedstead and bedding, so that i was none so evilly bestowed. this man, whom she had perforce to trust, was not one of our ancients, but only a stranger that had recently come into the country and taken service with us. he had been a soldier and had even served in his majesty's guards. but, being a covenanter at heart, he had left the service at the peril of his life and come again to the north. his name was patrick laing, and he came of decent folk over about nithsdale. he was in high favour with the garrison because of his feats of strength; but he had to keep carefully out of the sight of tam dalzyell, grier of lag, and the old officers who remembered him in the days when he had been a sergeant with the king's colours. also he was the only man that could keep steeks with john scarlet at the sword play, and i longed rarely to see him try a bout with wat of lochinvar himself. often at night i had converse with him, when the soldiers were not returned and it was safe for him to come to see me. here i lay long prostrate with the low fever or ague that had taken me after ayrsmoss. but because i was in my own country and within cry of my mother and maisie lennox, i minded my imprisonment not so much as one might think. my mother came not often, for she was closely watched in her incomings and outgoings. but every eventide maisie lennox brought me what she could lay hands upon for my support. as i grew whole we had much merriment, when she told me of the straits she was often in to get slipping away, without betraying the object of her solicitude. the two eldest of my brother sandy's bairns were a boy of seven and a girl of eight, and in a house where the soldiers took the most and the best, there was sometimes but scant fare for the younger folk. now none of the serving folk or even of the family knew that i was in the neighbourhood, saving only my mother, maisie of the duchrae, and patrick laing. to tell more people was to risk a discovery, which meant not less than a stretched tow rope for my neck, and that speedily. of all sandy's bairns little jock was the merriest and the worst, and of him maisie had many stories to tell me, making merry when she brought me my piece in the twilight. "you are getting me a terrible name for a great eater," she said. "it was but this day at dinner time that jock cried out, 'whatna daft-like chuckie hen! it's gotten twa wings but only ae leg!' for i had hidden the other on my lap for you. that caused much merriment, for we all laughed to think of a chuckie hopping and standing upon but one leg. yet because cornet graham was there, we had all to laugh somewhat carefully, and pass the matter off with a jest." "on another occasion," said maisie, "when half a dozen eggs could not be found, little jock cried out, 'the ae-legged chuckie wull be clockin' them!' and this caused more merriment." such tales as these maisie lennox told me in the quiet of the gloaming, when i abode still in the well-house chamber, and only the drip, drip of the water at the bottom came to us. it was strange and pleasant for me to lie there and hear her kind low voice telling me humoursome tales of what had befallen during the day. jean hamilton, sandy's wife, came but once to see me, and gave me much religious advice. she was ever a great woman for experiences, being by nature one of those who insist that all shall be exactly of her pattern, a thing which i saw no hope of--nor yet greatly desired. "my life is all sin," she would say, "if it were but to peel the bark off a kail castock and eat, i sin in the doing of it!" "that would show a great want of sense, at any gate, gin ye could get better meat to eat!" i replied, for the woman's _yatter, yatter_ easily vexed me, being still weak. also, i wished greatly for her to be gone, and for maisie or my mother to come to me. and again i remember that she said (for she was a good woman, but of the troublesome kind that ofttimes do more ill than good--at least when one is tired and cannot escape them), "william, i fear you never have had the grip o' the fundamentals that sandy hath. take care that you suffer not with the saints, and yet come to your end as a man of wrath!" now this i thought to be an ill-timed saying, considering that i had ridden at ayrsmoss while sandy was braw and snug in the lowlands of holland, disputing in master brackel's chamber at leeuwarden with rob hamilton, her brother, concerning declarations and protests. "as for me," she went on, liking methinks the sound of her own voice, "that is, for my corps, i care not gin it were cast up to the heaven, and keppit upon iron graips, so that my soul had peace!" "i think that i would even be content to lie at the bottom of this well if i might have peace!" said i, for the spirit within me was jangled and easily set on edge with her corncrake crying. "william, william," she said, "i fear greatly you are yet in the bond of iniquity! i do but waste my time with you!" saying which, she let herself down on the well-edge, lifted her pails and was gone. in a little came maisie lennox with other two buckets. the sentinel, if he thought at all, must have set us down for wondrous clean folk about earlstoun during these days; but all passed off easily and no notice taken. then when maisie came, it was a joy to greet her, for she was as a friend--yes, as david to jonathan--exceeding pleasant to me. as i have often said, i am not a man to take the eyes of women, and never looked to be loved by woman other than my mother. but for all that, i liked to think about love, and to picture what manner of man he should be to whom maisie lennox would let all her heart go out. every night she came in briskly, laughing at having to pull herself up into the well-chamber, and ever with some new story of cheer to tell me. "ken ye what little jock said this day?" she asked ere her head was well above the trap-door. i told her that i knew not, but was eager to hear, for that i ever counted jock the best bairn in all the coupe. "it was at dinner," she said, taking a dish from under her apron, "and i minded that when you were with us at the duchrae, you kept a continual crying for burn-trout. these being served for a first course, i watched for a time when the servants were taken up at the chamber-end with their serving, and when the bairns were busy with their noses at their plates. "then, when none observed, i whipped the most part of the dainty platterful of fish underneath my apron and sat very still and innocent, picking at the bones on my plate. "soon little jock looked up. 'o mither, mither!' he cried, 'wull ye please to look at aunty maisie, she has eaten the hale kane o' trootses, banes, plate an' a', while we were suppin' our broth.' "at this there was great wonderment, and all the children came about, expecting to see me come to some hurt by so mighty a meal. "'tell me,' cried jock, being ever the foremost, 'how far doon the platter has gotten. are ye sure it is not sticking somewhere by the road?' "all the time i sat with the half score of burn-trout on my lap covered by my apron, and it was only by pretending i had burned myself, that i got them at last safe out of the room." with such tales she pleased me, winning my heart all the while, causing me to forget my weakness, and to think the nights not long when i lay awake listening to the piets and hoolets crying about me in the ancient woods of earlstoun. chapter xxx. the bull of earlstoun's homecoming. it was about this time that sandy came home. it may seem from some parts of this history that we agreed not over well together. but after all it was as brothers may disagree among themselves; though they are banded stoutly enough against all the world beside. i think it made us love one another more that recently we had been mostly separate; and so when sandy came home this time and took up his old lodging in the tree, it was certainly much heartsomer at the earlstoun. for among other things our mother mostly went to carry him his meals of meat, taking with her jean hamilton, sandy's wife, thus leaving only maisie lennox to bring me my portion to the well-house. but often in the gloaming sandy himself came climbing up by the ivy on the outside of the well-tower, letting his great body down through the narrow broken lattice in the tiles. and in that narrow chamber we cheered one another with talk. this i liked well enough, so long as he spoke of groningen and the low countries. but not so well when he began to deafen me with his bickerings about the united societies--how there was one, patrick laing, a man of fierce and determined nature, that could not company with other than himself; how mr. linning wrestled with the other malcontents, and especially how he himself was of so great honour and consideration among them, that they had put off even so grave a matter as a general meeting that he might have time to come from edinburgh to attend it. and in what manner, at the peril of his life, he did it. one night, while he was in the midst of his recital, the mighty voice of him sounding out upon the night brought the sentry from his corner--who listened, but could not understand whence came the sounds. presently the soldier called his comrade, and the pair of them stole to the door of the well-house, where i had lain so long in safety. sandy was in the heat of his discourse, and i sitting against the chamber wall in my knee-breeches, and with a plaid about me, listening at my ease. for long immunity had made us both careless. "at darmead, that well-kenned place, we had it," sandy was saying, his long limbs extended half-way across the floor as he lay on the bare boards, and told his story; "it was a day of glorious witnessing and contesting. no two of us thought the same thing. each had his own say-away and his own reasons, and never a minister to override us. indeed, since ritchie lay down at length on ayrsmoss to rest him, there is no minister that could. but i hear of a young man, renwick, that is now with mr. brackel of leeuwarden, that will scare some of the ill-conditioned when he comes across the water----" even as he spoke thus, and blattered with the broad of his hand on his knee, the trap-door in the floor slowly lifted up. and through the aperture came the head of a soldier--even that of the sentry of the night, with whose footfalls i had grown so familiar, that i minded them no more than the ticking of the watch in your pocket or the beating of your heart in the daytime. the man seemed even more surprised than we, and for a long moment he abode still, looking at sandy reclining on the floor. and sandy looked back at him with his jaw dropped and his mouth open. i could have laughed at another time, for they were both great red men with beards of that colour, and their faces were very near one another, like those of the yokels that grin at each other emulously out of the horse collars on the turbulent day of the clachan fair--which is on the eve of st. john, in the time of midsummer. then suddenly sandy snatched an unlighted lantern, and brought it down on the soldier's head, which went through the trap-door like jack-out-of-the-box being shut down again. "tak' the skylight for it, william," sandy cried. "i'll e'en gang doon an' see what this loon wants!" so snatching a sword that lay upon the boards by his side, sandy went down the trap after his man. i heard him fall mightily upon the two soldiers to whom had been committed the keeping of the house that night. in that narrow place he gripped them both with the first claucht of his great arms, and dadded their heads together, exhorting them all the time to repent and think on their evil ways. "wad ye, then, vermin," he cried as one and another tried to get at him with their weapons round the narrow edge of the well-curb; and i heard one after another of their tools clatter down the masonry of the well, and plump into the water at the bottom. the men were in their heavy marching gear, being ready at all times for the coming of clavers, who was a great man for discipline, and very particular that the soldiers should always be properly equipped whenever it might please him to arrive. and because he loved night marches and sudden surprises, the men took great pains with their accoutrement. "can i help ye, sandy?" i cried down through the hole. "bide ye whaur ye are, man. i can manage the hullions fine! wad ye, then? stan' up there back to back, or i'll gie ye anither daud on the kerb that may leave some o' your harns[ ] stickin' to it. noo, i'll put the rape roon ye, an' ease ye doon to a braw and caller spot!" [footnote : brains.] i looked down the trap and saw sandy roving the spare coil of well-rope round and round his two prisoners. he had their hands close to their sides, and whenever one of them opened his mouth, sandy gave his head a knock with his open hand that drave him silent again, clapping his teeth together like castanets from spain. as soon as he had this completed to his satisfaction, he lifted the bucket from the hook, and began to lower the men down the shaft, slinging them to the rope by the belly-bands of his majesty's regimental breeches. the men cried out to ask if he meant to drown them. "na, na, droon nane," said sandy. "there's but three feet o' water in the well. ye'll be fine and caller doon there a' nicht, but gin ye as muckle as gie a cry afore the morrow's sunrise--weel, ye hae heard o' sandy gordon o' the earlstoun!" and this, indeed, feared the men greatly, for he was celebrated for his strength and daring all athwart the country; and especially among soldiers and common people, who, as is well known, are never done talking about feats of strength. this being completed, he brought me down from my loft and took me into the house to bid the women folk farewell. they cried out with terror when he told them what he had done as a noble jest, and how he had bound the soldiers and put them in the well-bottom. but my mother said sadly, "it is the beginning of the end! o sandy, why could you not have been content with scaring them?" "it was our lives or theirs, mither," said sandy. "had they gotten room to put steel into me, your first-born son wad hae been at the well-bottom, wi' his heid doon an' his mooth open, and your second dangling in a hempen collar in the grass market. the eggs are all in one basket now, mither!" "haste ye away!" cried she, "lest the soldiers break lowse and come and find ye here!" "they hae somewhat better sense than to break lowse this nicht," said sandy, grimly smiling. "i'm gaun nane to tak' the heather withoot my supper." so he sat him down on the settle like a man at ease and well content. "jean, fetch the plates," he said to his wife; "it's graund to be hungry an' ken o' meat!" maisie lennox stood quietly by; but i could see that she liked not the turn of affairs, nor the reckless way that sandy had of driving all things before him. "haste ye, young lass," he said to her, and at the word she went quietly to help jean hamilton. "whither gang ye?" our mother said to us, as we made us ready to flee. "mind and be canny wi' that laddie, sandy, for he has been ill and needs care and tendance to this day." and it pleased me to see that maisie lennox looked pale and anxious when she came near me. but no word spoke she. "na, mither. i'll no tell ye whaur we gang, for ye micht be put to the question, and now ye can say ye dinna ken wi' a guid conscience." i got a word with maisie at the stair foot as she went up to bring some plaid or kerchief down, which our mother insisted i should take with me. "maisie," i said, "ye'll no forget me, will ye?" but she would give me no great present satisfaction. "there are so many gay things in my life to gar me forget a friend!" was all she said; but she looked down and pulled at her apron. "nay, but tell me, my lassie, will ye think every day o' the lad ye nursed in the well-house chamber?" "your mother is crying on me," she said; "let me go, william" (though indeed i was not touching her). i was turning away disappointed with no word more, but very suddenly she snatched my hand which had fallen to my side, pressed it a moment to her breast, and then fled upstairs like a young roe. so, laden with wrappings, sandy and i took our way over the moor, making our path through our own oakwood, which is the largest in galloway, and out by blawquhairn and gordiestoun upon the moor of bogue--a wet and marshy place, save in the height of the dry season. sandy was for going towards a hold that he had near the lonely, wind-swept loch of knockman, which lies near the top of a hill of heather and bent. but as we came to the breast of the windy brae, i felt my weakness, and a cold sweat began to drip from me. "sandy," i said to my brother, taking him by the hand lest he should go too fast for me, "i fear i shall be but a trouble to you. leave me, i pray you, at gordiestoun to take my chance, and hie you to the heather. it'll maybe no be a hanging matter wi' me at ony gate." "hear till him," said sandy, "leave him! i'll leave the laddie nane. the man doesna breathe that sanquhar and ayrsmoss are no eneuch to draw the thrapple o', were it my lord chancellor himsel'!" he bent and took me on his back. "there na, is that comfortable?" he said; and away he strode with me as though he had been a giant. "man, ye need mony a bow o' meal to your ribs," he cried, making light of the load. "ye are no heavier than a lamb in the poke-neuk o' a plaid." i think he was sorry for stirring me from the well-chamber, and the thought of his kindness made me like him better than i had manned to do for some time. and indeed my weight seemed no more to him, than that of a motherless suckling to a shepherd on the hill, when he steps homeward at the close of the day. it is a great thing to be strong. if only sandy had possessed the knack of gentleness with it, he would have been a great man. as it was, he was only the bull of earlstoun. we kept in our flight over the benty fell towards milnmark, but holding more down to the right towards the garpel burn where there are many dens and fastnesses, and where the covenant folk had often companied together. i was afraid to think what should come to my sickness, when the cold shelves of the rock by the dass of the holy linn would be my bed, instead of the comfortable blankets of the well-house. and, truth to tell, i was not thanking my brother for his heedlessness in compelling the exchange, when i felt him stumble down the steep bank of the garpel and stride across, the water dashing about his legs as he waded through--taking, as was his wont, no thought of an easy way or of keeping of himself dry, but just going on ram-stam till he had won clear. chapter xxxi. jean's wa's. then on the other side he brushed through a little wood of oak and hazel. i felt the twigs rough in my face. climbing a steep brae, sandy set me down at the end of a house with some bits of offices about it, and a pleasant homely smell of cows and pasturage. saving these, there were none of the other signs of a farm-town, but rather a brisk cleanliness and well-ordered neatness. sandy went to the door and knocked, and in a little while one answered at the southmost of the windows. then a whispered word was given and taken. the door was opened and we went into the dark house. a sweet-faced old lady who stood in the narrow passage, gowned even at that time of night with some precision, took me by the arm. she held a candle aloft in her hand. "come awa', laddie," she said. "ye shallna try the unkindly dasses o' the linn yet awhile, nor yet lie in 'duncan's pantry,' which has small store of victual in it. but ye shall bide this nicht wi' jean gordon o' the shirmers, that has still some spunk in her yet, though folk say that she died o' love thirty years syne. hoot, silly clavers, jean gordon could hae gotten a man ony time, had she been wantin' yin." we were indeed at jean gordon's famous cot by the side of the bonny garpel burn. and it was not long till she had me cosy in bed, and sandy, to whom all weathers and lodgings were alike, away to his hiding in the cleuch beneath, where some of his society men were that night holding a meeting for prayer. the cottage sat bonnily on the brink of a glen, and almost from my very window began the steep and precipitous descent. so that if the alarm were suddenly given, there was at least a chance of flinging myself out of the window and dropping into the tangled sides of the linn of garpel. the thought of the comfort in jean's cot made me the more willing to take the risk. for i knew well that if i had to venture the damps and chills of the glen without any shelter after my illness, it would fare but poorly with me. so all that night i lay and listened to the murmur of the water beneath, dashing about the great upstanding rocks in the channel. but other sound there was none, and to this sweet sequestered spot came none to seek us. here in the fastnesses of the garpel, sandy and i abode many days. and though the glen was searched, and patrol parties more than once came our way, not one of them approached near the fastness of thickets where in the daytime we were hidden. and each night, in all safety, i betook me to the cottage of jean gordon. jean's story had been a sad one, but she made little of it now, though it was well known to all the country-side. "the lord has taken away the stang of pain out of my life," she said. "i was but a lass when i came to the garpel thinking my heart broken. yince i loved a braw lad, bonny to look upon--and he loved me, or i was the more deceived. lindsay was his name. doubtless ye have heard the common tale. he slighted my love and left me without a word. waes me, but the very lift turned black when i heard it, and i cried out on the liars that said the like. but belief came slowly to me. the loch is very near to the shirmers where i dwelt, and the tower window looks down into the black deeps from among the ivy bushes on the wall. my thoughts ofttimes turned on the short and easy road to peace. but praise be to his marvellous name, i saw another way. so i biggit me this bit house on the bonny birk-grown sides o' the garpel, and e'en came my ways to bide here. "'ye'll sune get a man, for ye're bonny! never fash your thumb for lindsay!' said my kin." "'i'll get nae man,' i threepit to them. 'what one slighted shall never be given to another.' so forty year have i bidden here, and heard little but the mavis sing and the cushie complain. think weel o' yoursel', willie, lad, for ye are the first man body that has ever bidden the nicht within jean's wa's. sandy, great as he thinks himsel', can tak' the linn side for it. he is weather-seasoned like the red tod o' the hills; but ye are shilpit and silly, boy william, so ye had best bide wi' auld jean when ye can. there's few in gallowa' daur meddle wi' puir jean, for she is kin to john graham o' claverhouse himsel', and even the erne's cousin is no a canny bird to meddle wi'." so again i had fallen on my feet, as has mostly been my fortune with women. though, alas, that i should have to confess it, chiefly because of my weakness, and with the elder sort of them. here after a day or two, there came to jean gordon, my hostess of the night season, a letter from sandy's wife, jean hamilton, with sad news of them at earlstoun. it was intended for my brother, but according to the custom of these days, it was not so addressed, for the transmission of such letters was too dangerous at that time. "dear mistress" (so it ran), "your letter did yield great satisfaction to me, and now i have good words to tell you. the lord is doing great things for me. colvin and clavers (cornel) have put us out of all that we have, so that we know not where to go. "i am for the present in a cot house. oh, blessed cottage! as soon as my enemies began to roar against me, so quickly came my kind lord to me and did take my part. he made the enemies to favour me, and he gave me kindly welcome to this cottage. "well may i say that his yoke is easy and his burden light. "dear mistress jean, praise god on my behalf, and cause all that love him to praise him on my behalf. i fear that i miscarry under his kind hand. "colvin is reigning here like a prince, getting 'his honour' at every word. but he hath not been rude to me. he gave me leave to take out all that i had. what matters suffering after all! but, oh! the sad fallings away of some! i cannot give a full account of them. "i have nothing to write on but a stone by the water-side, and know not how soon the enemy may be upon me. i entreat you to send me your advice what to do. the enemy said to me that i should not get to stay in galloway gif i went not to their kirk. "they said i should not even stay in scotland, for they would pursue me to the far end of it, but i should be forced to go to their church. the persecution is great. there are many families that are going to leave their houses and go out of the land. gif you have not sent my former letter, let it not now go, but send this as quickly as you can. i fear our friends will be much concerned. i have written that alexander may not venture to come home. i entreat that you will write that to him and close mine within yours. i have not backed his. send me all your news. remember me to all friends. i desire to be reminded to them. "i rest, in haste, your loving friend and servant, "jean hamilton." now, i declare that this letter made me think better than ever before of sandy's wife, for i am not gifted with appropriate and religious reflections in the writing of letters myself. but very greatly do i admire the accomplishment. jean was in time of peace greatly closed up within herself; but in time of extrusion and suffering, her narrow heart expanded. notwithstanding the strange writing-desk of stone by the water-side, the letter was well written, but the great number of words which had been blurred and corrected as to their spelling, revealed the turmoil and anxiety of the writer. i have kept it before me as i write this history, so that i might give it exactly. thus we learned that sandy's side of the house was safe; but what of our mother and maisie lennox? "jean says nothing," said sandy, when i told him. "good news is no news!" and truly this is an easy thing for him to say, who has heard news about his own. jean gordon sent over to her sister's son at barscobe for word, but could hear nothing save that the earlstoun ladies had been put out of their house without insult or injury, and had gone away no man knew whither. so with this in the meantime we were obliged to rest as content as we might. chapter xxxii. plain words upon men. "heighty-teighty," said jean gordon, of the shirmers, coming in to me with a breakfast piece one morning as soon as she heard that i was awake. "the silly folks keep on bletherin' that i cam' awa' here to dee for love. weel, i hae leeved forty year in jean's cot o' the garpel and i'm no dead yet. i wat no! i cam' here to be oot o' the men's road. noo, there's my sister ower by at barscobe. she was muckle the better o' a man, was she no? never sure whether he wad come hame sober and weel conditioned frae kirk or market. in the fear o' her life every time that she heard the soond o' his voice roarin' in the yaird, to ken what was crossin' him, and in what fettle the wee barn-door almichty wad be pleased to come ben-the-hoose in! wadna the like o' that be a bonny exchange for the peace and quaitness o' the garpel side?" and the old lady shook the white trimmings of her cap, which was daintily and fairly goffered at the edges. "na, na," she said, "yince bitten, twice shy. i hae had eneuch o' men--nesty, saucy, ill-favoured characters. wi' half a nose on ye, ye can tell as easy gin yin o' them be in the hoose, as gin he hed been a tod!" "and am i not a man, aunty jean?" i asked, for indeed she had been very kind to me. "hoot, a laddie like you is no a man. nae beard like bristles, nae luntin' stinkin' pipes an' a skin like my lady's--that's no a man. by my silk hose and shoe strings, gin i get as muckle as the wind o' a man body atween me and the bogue road, i steek baith the inner and the outer doors to keep awa' the waff o' the brock. foul fa' them every yin!" this made me laugh, indeed; but after all it did not please me greatly to hear that i was taken for less than a man. "now there's sandy," she went on, for she ever loved to talk, "he's a great senseless sturdy o' a craitur. yet he could get a' the wives he wants, by just coming doon like a tod aff the hill, and takin' yin below his oxter. an' the puir bit bleatin' hizzie wad think she likit it. lord! some folk tak' a man as they tak' a farm, by the acre. but no me--no me. na! gin i was thinkin' o' men, the bonny ticht lad is the lad for me; the lad wi' the cockade set in his bonnet an' a leg weel shapit; neither bowed out frae the knees like haystack props, nor yet bent in like a cooper ridin' on the riggin' o' a barrel." "but what for did ye no tak' yin then?" i said, speaking through the door of the spence as she moved about the house, ordering the porridge-making and keeping an eye on the hen's meat as well. it eased my heavy thought, to hear the heartsome clip of her tongue--for all the world like a tailor's shears, brisker when it comes to the selvage. so when jean gordon got in sight of the end of her sentence, she snipped out her words with a glibness beyond any gordon that ever i heard of. for the gordons are, according to proverb, slow people with their tongues, save as they say by two and two at the canny hour of e'en. but never slow at morn or mirk was our aunt jean of wa's by the garpel burn. "it's a strange thing," she said, looking through the hall door at me, "that you an' me can crack like twa wives that hae gotten their men out o' the hearin'. my lad, i fear ye will creep into women's hearts because ye make them vexed for ye. ye hae sic innocent ways. oh, i doot na but it's the guile o' ye; but it was ever sae. "mony a mewlin', peuterin' body has great success wi' the weemen folk. they think it's a peety that he should be so innocent, an' they tak' haud o' the craitur, juist to keep off the ither designin' weeman. oh, i'm far frae denyin' that we are a pack o' silly craiturs. a'thing that wears willy-coats; no yin muckle to better anither!" "but aboot yoursel', aunty jean?" i ventured, in order to stir her to reckless speech, which was like fox-hunting to me. "wha? me? certes, no! i gat the stoor oot o' my e'en braw an' early. i took the cure-all betimes, as the lairds tak' their mornin' o' french brandy. when tam lindsay gaed aff wi' his fleein' flagarie o' a muckle-tochered crawford lass, _i_ vowed that i wad hae dune wi' men. an' so i had! "whenever a loon cam' here in his best breeks, and a hingin' look in the e'e o' the craitur that meant courtin', faith, i juist set the dowgs on the scullion. i keepit a fearsome tyke on purpose, wi' a jaw ontill him like jonah's whale. aye, aye, mony's the braw lad that has gane doon that brae, wi' auld noll ruggin' an' reevin' at the hinderlands o' him--bonny it was to see!" "did ye think, as ye watched them gang, that it was your lindsay, aunty jean?" i asked; for, indeed, her well-going talk eased my heart in the midst of so many troubles. for i declare that during these thirty years in scotland, and especially in the glenkens, folk had almost forgotten the way to laugh. "na, na, callant," so she would say to me in return, "i ne'er blamed him sair ava'. tam lindsay was never sair fashed wi' sense a' the days o' his life--at least no to hurt him, ony mair nor yersel', as yin micht say. it was the crawford woman and her weel-feathered nest that led him awa', like a bit silly cuddie wi' a carrot afore his nose. but i'll never deny the randy that she was clever; for she took the craitur's size at the first look, as neat as if she had been measurin' him for a suit o' claes. but she did what i never did, or my name had been jean lindsay this day. the lord in his mercy be thankit continually that it is as it is, and that i hae nae auld dotard, grumphin' an' snortin' at the chimley lug. she cuitled tam lindsay an' flairdied him an' spak' him fair, till the poor fathom o' pump water thocht himsel' the brawest lad in braid scotland. faith, i wadna sae bemean mysel' to get the king oot o' whitehall--wha they tell me is no that ill to get, gin yin had the chance--and in muckle the same way as tam lindsay. oh, what a set o' blind, brainless, handless, guid-for-naethings are men!" "it was with that ye began, aunty jean," i said. "aye, an' i shall end wi' it too," she answered. "i'm no theology learned, but it looks terribly like as if the rib story were gye near the truth. for the poorest o' weemen can mak' a great muckle oot o' a very little, an' the best o' men are sadly troubled wi' a sair want. i misdoot that aydam maun hae missed mair nor the rib when he waukened." my pleasant time in the cottage by the garpel came all too soon to an end. it is, indeed, a rare and heartsome place to bide in on a summer's day. there is the sound of the birds singing, the plash of the water into the pool beneath the holy linn, where the ministers held the great baptizing of bairns, when the bonny burn water dropped of its own accord on their brows as their fathers held them up. there are the leaves rubbing against one another with a pleasant soughing noise. these kept my heart stirring and content as long as i abode in the glen of the garpel. there is in particular one little hill with a flat top, from which one may spy both up and down the glen, yet be hidden under the leaves. here i often frequented to go, though sandy warned me that this would be my death. yet i liked it best of all places in the daytime, and lay there prone on my belly for many hours together, very content, chewing sorrel, clacking my heels together, and letting on that i was meditating. but, indeed, i never could look at water slipping away beneath me, without letting it bear my thoughts with it and leave me to the dreaming. and the garpel is an especially pleasant burn to watch thus running from you. i have had the same feelings in church when the sermon ran rippleless and even over my head. the only thing that annoyed me was that on the sabbath days the garpel became a great place for lovers to convene. and above all, at one angle behind jean gordon's cot, there is a bower planted with wild flowers--pleasant and retired doubtless, for them that are equipped with a lass. but as for me, i pleased myself by thinking that one day i should shape to bring maisie lennox there to see my hiding-place, for, as a little maid, she ever loved woods that rustle and waters that flow softly. so chiefly on the sabbath i kept close in my covert with a book; but whether from motives of safety or envy, it misliketh me to tell. chapter xxxiii. the gardener of balmaghie. i was wakened one morning by jean coming to the side of my bed. she was fully dressed, as if to receive company, and her tall and straight figure looked imposing enough. "rise!" she said. "rise! there's a chiel here, that wants ye to gang wi' him." "a chiel, jean gordon?" said i, in a sleepy kind of surprise. "what ken ye aboot him?" "oh, i ken he's a honest lad," she said, "an' he brings ye a message frae the gardener o' balmaghie that ye are to accompany him there for greater safety." "a likely story!" returned i, for i was none too well pleased to be wakened up out of my sleep at that time in the morning to see a regiment of balmaghie gardeners. "there is great safety in the neighbourhood of the eagle's nest!" "there is so," said jean gordon, dryly--"for sparrows. 'tis the safest place in the world for the like of them to build, for the eagle will not touch them, an' the lesser gleds dare not come near." nor do i think that this saying pleased me over well, because i thought that a gordon of earlstoun, of whatever rank, was a city set on a hill that could not be hid. then jean gordon, the hermit of the garpel glen, bade me an adieu, giving me an old-fashioned salutation as well, which savoured little of having forgotten all that she had lightlied to me. "tak' tent to yoursel'," she said. "ye are a good lad and none so feckless as ye look. there's stuff and fushion in ye, an' ye micht even tak' the e'e o' woman--gin ye wad pad your legs." and with this she went in, leaving me in a quandary whether to throw a stone at her, or run back and take her round the neck. i found the gardener of balmaghie standing with his back towards me. he walked on a little before me without speaking, as though wishing me to follow him. he was, to the back view, dressed but ordinarily, yet with some of the neatness of a proper gentleman's servant. and this was a great deal in a country where for common the men wear little that is handsome, save and except the sabbath cloak--which if it do not, like charity, cover a multitude of sins, of a truth hides a multitude of old duddy clothes. at the foot of the burn, where by the bridge it runs over some black and rugged rocks, the gardener stopped and turned round. i declare i never gat a greater or more pleasant surprise in my life, save as it may be, once--of what i have yet to tell. "wat, dear wat!" i cried, and ran to him. we clasped one another's hands, and then we stood a little off, gazing each at the other. i had not known that i was so fond of him. but nothing draws the heart like coming through trials together. at least, so it is with men. 'twixt women and men so many things draw the heart, that it is well-nigh impossible to separate one thing from the other. "how came jean gordon to say that you were the gardener at balmaghie?" i asked of him, when i was a little satisfied with looking at him. "why, because i am the gardener at balmaghie--second gardener!" answered wat, smiling in a sly way that he had when he meant to provoke and mystify me. yet a way that i liked not ill, for he never used it save when he had within him a light and merry heart. but i knew by this time how to counter his stroke, which was to hold one's peace, as if one cared nothing about the matter. for in this wat was just like a woman, or a fencer, whom it provokes more to measure a thrust and avoid, than a hundred times to parry and return. but for all i could not keep the anxiety out of my eyes as we walked along. "you do not want to hear," said he, provoking me; for because of maisie lennox and my mother, he knew that he had the better of me. "but i do, though!" that was all i could say. for indeed the matter was a mystery to me, as well it might be. wat gordon of lochinvar, sometime favourite of her grace the duchess of wellwood, now gardener to a latitudinarian and cavalier galloway laird, that had been a ferlie even on a day of miracles. wat continued to smile and smile. "well, i will tell you," he said. yet for a while did not, but only walked on smiling. at last he pursed his mouth and began to whistle. it was a bar or two of the air "kate kennedy is my darling." now at that time i own that i was not bright in the uptake about such things. for i had not till lately concerned me much with love and women's favours, but it came across me all in an instant. "oh!" i said. "ah!" said wat. and we looked at one another and nodded--wat defiantly. "kate of the black eyebrows!" i said musingly. "they are joined over her brow," i went on, "and her ear comes straight down to her neck without any rounded lobe. they are two well-considered signs!" wat gordon stopped suddenly, and cried out at me. "see here, william gordon, what mean you by that? what if her eyebrows meet under her chin and her ears hang down like band strings? what is that to you?" "happily nothing!" said i--for i was patiently paying him out, as it is ever easy to do with a spit-fire like young lochinvar. "speak plain, will," he cried, "or by the lord i will immediately run you through!" "with a spade," said i, mocking. "mind, wat, you are a laird's second gardener now." but when i perceived that he was really angry, i hastened to appease him. "joined eyebrows and lobeless ear have been held by learned folk to prefigure some temper, wat!" i said. his brow cleared on an instant. "pshaw!" he exclaimed, "i like a lass with a sparkle. no mim missie for wat gordon of lochinvar, but a lass that keeps you in doubt till the last moment, whether your best wooing will speed you to a kiss or a bodkin-prick--that's the maid for me!" "for me, i would e'en take the kiss," i said--"take it plain!" "tush, slow-coach!" he said, "your earlstoun blood always did run like so much moss water!" now i had borne the burden of the day on the moss of ayr, and felt that i need not take his scornful word. "i have been where other than women's bodkins flashed--aye, ten against a hundred, and this was the only brand that wan through," i said, putting my hand on my side. "there was small time for kisses then! ye may kiss your lass gin ye like, about the woods of balmaghie. as for me, i prefer to ride upon cameron's flank, on a day when the garments are rolled in blood." this i said dourly, for my gall was working hot within me. so far from our first friendship had the clack of foolish tongues brought us. 'deed, we were but silly boys that needed skelping, but i far the worst, for my head was by nature cooler and i knew better all the while. "and so perhaps would i have preferred it," answered he gently. "aye," said he again, "i think it is somewhat late in the day for wat gordon of lochinvar, to have to prove his courage upon his cousin william of earlstoun. so then, take it from me that but for my oath sworn to the king, it had been more pleasure to ride with you in the charge at ayrsmoss, than to be bridegroom to any maid soever in the world!" and at the name of the king, he lifted his worn old countryman's bonnet as nobly and loyally as though it had been the plumed hat, whose feather had been so proudly set that night when he defied heaven and hell to keep him from his tryst beyond the netherbow. at the word i stretched out my hand to him. "forgive me, wat," i said, and would have taken his arm, but he moved it a little away for a moment. "pray remember," he said grandly, "that though i am a jerkined man and handle the mattock in another man's kail yaird,--aye, though i be put to the horn and condemned unheard as a traitor, i am true king's man. vive le roi!" "well," replied i, "so be it, and much good may it do you. at any rate, there is no need to make such a work about it. after all, gin ye be at the horn, it's guid's truth that ye gied duke wellwood's lads some most unmerciful jags aneath the ribs!" while thus we snarled and fought between ourselves, the very strife of our tongues made the legs go faster, and we drew southward between the two lochs, ken and grenoch, crossing over the black water and leaving the duchrae behind. and this made me very wae, to mind the days that we had there, with that brave company which should meet no more on the earth together. chapter xxxiv. the testing of the tyke. at the head of the high natural wood which fringes about all the mansion house of balmaghie, we held down to the right through the copses, till we came to the green policies that ring in the great house of mcghies. as we went linking down this green pleasaunce, there met us one who came towards us with his hands behind his back, stooping a little from the shoulders down. he had on him a rich dress of dark stuff a good deal worn, being that of a fashion one or two removes from the present. but this rather, as it seemed, from habit and preference than from need--like one that deigns not to go too fine. "where away, heather jock?" he cried as we made to go by, and turned toward us. "whom have we here?" he asked, so soon as he saw me. "a cousin o' mine from the hill country, laird," said wat, with the gruff courtesy of the gardener. "hoot, hoot--another! this will never do. has he taken the test?" said the laird. "i doubt he cannot read it even," said wat, standing sheepishly before him. "that is all the better," said the tall grey man, shaking his head gently and a little reproachfully. "it is easier gotten over that way." "have not you read it, sir?" asked wat, glancing up at him curiously as he stood and swung his cane. "faith no," he answered quickly; "for if i had read it, heather jock, i might never have taken it. i could not run the risks." "my friend will e'en take the test the way that the heriot's hospital dog took it," said wat, again smiling, "with a little butter and liberty to spit it out." "how now, heather jock, thou art a great fellow! where didst thou get all the stories of the city? the whaups do not tell them about the glenkens." "why, an it please your honour, i was half a year in the town with the lady gordon, and gat the chapman's fly sheets that were hawked about the causeways," answered wat readily enough, making him an awkward bow. "tell me the story, rascal," said the tall man, whom i now knew for roger mcghie of balmaghie. "i love a story, so that it be not too often told." now i wondered to hear wat gordon of lochinvar take the word "rascal" so meekly, standing there on the road. it was, indeed, very far from being his wont. however, he began obediently enough to tell the story which roger mcghie asked of him. for a kate of the black eyebrows in the plot makes many a mighty difference to the delicateness of a man's stomach. "the story was only a bairn's ploy that i heard tell of, when i was in town with my lady," he said, "nothing worth your honour's attention, yet will i tell it from the printed sheet which for a bodle i bought." "let me be the judge of that," said the other. "well then, laird, there was in the hospital of george heriot, late jeweller to the king, a wheen loon scholar lads who had an ill-will at a mastiff tyke, that lived in a barrel in the yard and keeped the outermost gate. they suspected this dog of treason against the person of his majesty, and especially of treasonable opinions as to the succession of the duke of york. and, indeed, they had some ground for their suspicion, for the mastiff growled one day at the king's high commissioner when he passed that way, and even bit a piece out of the calf of one of the duke of york's servitors that wore his highness' livery, at the time when his grace was an indweller in holyrood house." the eye of the tall grave man changed. a look of humorous severity came into it. "be cautious how you speak of dignities!" he said to wat. "well," said wat, "at any rate, this evil-minded tyke held an office of trust, patently within the meaning of the act, and these loon lads of heriot's ordained him duly to take the test, or be turned out of his place of dignity and profit. "so they formed a summary court, and the tyke was called and interrogated in due form. the silly cur answered all their questions with silence, which was held as a sign of a guilty conscience. and this would have been registered as a direct refusal, but that one of the loons, taking it upon him to be the tyke's advocate, argued that silence commonly gave consent, and that the test had not been presented to his client in the form most plausible and agreeable to his tender stomach. "the debate lasted long, but at last it was agreed that a printed copy of the test should be made into as little bulk as possible, smoothed with butter, tallow, or whatever should be most tempting to his doggish appetite. this being done, tyke readily took it, and made a shift by rowing it up and down his mouth, to separate what was pleasant to his palate. when all seemed over and the dog appearingly well tested, the loons saw somewhat, as it were one piece after another, drop from the side of his mouth. whereupon it was argued, as in the case of my lord argyle, that this was much worse than a refusal, because it was a separating of that which was pleasant from what was irksome. and that this therefore, rightly interpreted, was no less than high treason. "but the tyke's advocate urged that his enemies had had the rowing up of the paper, and very likely they had put some crooked pin or other foreign object, unpleasant to a honest tyke's palate, within. so he asked for a fair trial before his peers for his client. "then the court being constitute and the assize set, there fell out a great debate concerning this tyke dog. some said that his chaming and chirking of the paper was very ill-done of him, that he was over malapert and took too much upon him. for his office being a lowly one, it was no business of his to do other than bolt the test at once. "but his advocate urged that he had done his best, and that if one part of the oath fell to hindering the other and fighting in his hass, it was not his fault, but the fault of them that framed such-like. also, that if it had not hindered itself in going down, he would have taken it gladly and willingly, as he had taken down many other untoothsome morsels before, to the certain knowledge of the court--such as dead cats, old hosen and shoes, and a bit of the leg of one of the masters in the hospital, who was known to be exceedingly unsavoury in his person. "but all this did not save the poor tyke, for his action in mauling and beslavering his majesty's printing and paper was held to be, at least, interpretive treason. and so he was ordered to close prison till such a time as the court should call him forth to be hanged like a dog. which was pronounced for doom." roger mcghie laughed at the tale's end with a gentle, inward laughter, and tapped wat with his cane. "thou art indeed a merry wag, and speak over well for a gardener," he said; "but i know not if john graham would not put a charge of lead into thee, if he heard thy way of talking. but go thy ways. tell me quickly what befel the poor tyke." "none so evil was his fate," said wat, "for in the midst of the great debate that the surprising verdict raised, the tyke drew on a fox's skin, laid hold of the tail of another tyke, and so passed unobserved out of the prison. at which many were glad. for, said they, he was a good tyke that would not sup kail with the pope nor yet the deil, and so had no need of his long spoon. and others said that it were a pity to hang so logical a tyke, for that he was surely no aberdeen man, ever ready to cant and recant again." roger mcghie laughed aloud and knocked his cane on the ground, for right well he understood the meaning of all these things, being versed in parties and politics, which i never was. "it is mighty merry wit," he said, "and these colleginers are blythesome blades. i wonder what john graham will say to this. but go to the bothies of the bachelor foresters, and get that which may comfort the inner parts of your cousin from the hills--who, from the hang of his head, seems not so ready of tongue as thou." for, indeed, i had been most discreetly silent. so the tall, grey-headed gentleman went away from us, tapping gently with his fine cane on the ground, and often stopping to look curiously at some knot on a tree or some chance puddock or grasshopper on the roadside. then wat told me that because of his quaint wit and great loyalty, roger mcghie of balmaghie was in high favour with the ruling party, and that none on his estates were ever molested. also that claverhouse frequented the house greatly, often riding from dumfries for a single night only to have the pleasure of his society. he never quartered his men near by the house of balmaghie, but rode over alone or with but one attendant in the forenights--perhaps to get away from roystering lidderdale of the isle, red roaring baldoon, drinking winram, and the rest of the boon companions. "the laird of claverhouse will come hither," said wat, "with a proud set face, stern and dark as lucifer's, in the evening. and in the morning ride away with so fresh a countenance and so pleasing an expression that one might think him a spirit unfallen. for, as he says, roger mcghie does his heart good like medicine." chapter xxxv. kate of the dark brows. betimes we came to a little row of white cottages deep in the wood, with only a green clearing at the door, and the trees swaying broad branches over the roof. here we washed ourselves, and wat set to shaving me and cutting my hair close, in order that if necessary i might wear a wig. then we went into the gardens, where we found the chief gardener of balmaghie, whose name was samuel irving. samuel was a grave man with a very long upper lip, which gave him a sour and discontented expression, but secretly he was a good man and a great favourer of the hill-folk. also he was very upright and well-doing in the matters of seeds and fruits and perquisites, and greatly in favour with his master, mr. roger mcghie. so we set out much refreshed, and were going by a path through the woods, when suddenly who should come upon us at a turn but kate mcghie. wat ran to her to take her hands, but she gave him the go-by with the single frugal favour of a saucy glance. "strangers first!" she said, and so came forward and greeted me. "you are welcome to balmaghie, william gordon," she said. "i would you came as guest, and not as servitor; but some day i know you shall enter by the front door." she glanced round with a questioning air. wat was standing half turned away, very haughty in his demeanour. kate mcghie looked towards him. she was in truth a comely maid--for one that is black of favour. "now you may come," she said. he seemed as if he would refuse and turn away. but she looked fixedly at him, defying him with her eyes to do it, and after a moment's battle of regards he came slowly towards us. "come nearer!" she commanded imperiously. he came up with his eyes kindling. i think that no less than kissing was in his mind, and that for a moment he thought that she might permit it. but suddenly she drew herself proudly away, and her look was disdainful and no doubt hard to be borne. "are these fit manners from a servant?" she said. "they that eat the meat and sit below the salt, must keep the distance." wat's countenance fell in a moment. i never saw one with so many ups and down in such short space. the allures and whimsies of this young she-slip made him alternately sulk and brighten like an april day. "kate!" he began to say, in the uncertain tone of a petitioner. "mistress katerine mcghie, if you please!" said she, dropping him a courtly courtesy. "have you forgotten quite?" wat said. "ah," she said, "it is you who have forgotten. you were not the gardener then. i do not allow gardeners to kiss me--unless my hand on sundays when their faces are more than ordinarily clean. would you like to have that, heather jock?" and she held out the back of her hand. the silly fellow coloured to his brow, and was for turning away with his head very much in the air. but she ran after him, and took him by the hand. then he would have caught her about with his arms, but she escaped out of them lightly as a bird. "na, na, lochinvar," she cried merrily, in the common speech. "that is as muckle as is good for you"--she looked at him with the light of attraction in her eyes--"afore folk," she added, with a glance at him that i could not fathom. nevertheless, i saw for the first time all that was between them. so with no more said, kate fled fleet-foot down the path towards the great house, which we could see standing grey and massive at the end of the avenue of beeches. "there's a lass by yon burnside that will do as muckle for you; but dinna bide to speer her leave!" she cried to me over her shoulder, a word which it was hard to understand. i asked wat, who stood staring after her in a kind of wrapt adoration, what she could mean. he gazed at me, as if he did not see what kind of animal was making the noise like talking. i am sure that for the time he knew me not from john knox. "what did she mean?" i asked him. "mean!" said he, "mean----" speaking vaguely as one in a swither. "you are heady and moidered with not getting a kiss from a lass," said i, with, i grant, some little spite. "did she ever kiss you?" cried he, looking truculently at me. "nay!" said i bluntly, for indeed the thing was not in my thought. "then you ken naught about it. you had better hold your wheesht!" he stood so long thinking, sometimes giving his thigh a little slap, like one that has suddenly remembered something pleasant which he had forgotten, that i was near coming away in disgust and leaving the fool, when i remembered that i knew not where to go. in a while he came to himself somewhat, and i told him what kate mcghie had said to me over her shoulder. "did kate say that?" he cried. "she could surely not have said all that and i not hear her." "out, you fool," i said, for so of custom i spoke to him, being my cousin and playmate. "you had other matter to think of. say it she did." he repeated the words which i told him, and i declare even the sound of them seemed to be in danger of throwing him into another rhapsody. but at last he said, suddenly, "oh, i ken what she means----" and he drew a long breath. "i suppose we had better go down to the water-side. she will not come out again, if we wait all night." and he went some way along the avenue and looked long and hard at one heavy-browed window of the old house which seemed to be winking at us. it is a strange thing how love affects different people. you never can tell beforehand how it will be. i could not have believed that the presence of a forward lass with black eyebrows could have made a moonstruck fool of wildcat wat of lochinvar. he still stood and looked at the window till my patience was ended. "come on, man," i cried. "i declare you are not heather jock, as she called you, but heather jackass!" at another time he would have knocked my head off, but now my jesting affected him no more than a sermon. and this i took to be the worst sign of all. "well, come on then," he said. "you are surely in an accursed sweat of haste to-night!" and we took our way down to the water-side, having wasted more than an hour. we had not advanced far down the pillared avenue of the beech trees, when suddenly we came in sight of maisie lennox. she was coming slowly towards us along one of the forest roads. at the same time i saw my mother, walking away from me down a path which led along the side of the dee water. she had her back to me, and was going slowly with her head down. to my shame i ran to meet maisie lennox. but first ere i reached her she said quietly to me, "have you not seen your mother?" "aye," answered i. "she has gone down the road to the water-side." "then let no greeting come before your mother's," she said, looking very ill-pleased at me as i ran forward to take her hand. so with a flea in my ear i turned me about and went off, somewhat shamed as you may believe, to find my mother. when i got back to the path on which i had seen her, i left wat far behind and ran after my mother, calling loudly to her. at the sound of my voice she turned and held up her hands. "willie, boy!" she cried. and in a moment she had me in her arms, crooning over me and making much of me. she told me also, when she had time to look well at me, that i was much better in health than when i had lain in the well-house of earlstoun. "and you came first to see your old mother. that was like my ain willie!" she said, a word which made me ashamed. so i had no answer to make, though nevertheless i took the credit of the action as much by silence as by speech. then maisie lennox came through the wood, and demeaning herself right soberly, she held out her hand. "did you not see william before?" asked my mother, looking from one to the other of us. "only at a distance, on his way to you," said maisie, speaking in her demure way. it was in the little holding of boatcroft by the side of the dee, and among the water meadows which gird the broad stream, that we found my mother, maisie lennox, and little margaret wilson snugly settled. their position here was not one to be despised. they were safe for the time being at least, upon the property of roger mcghie. every day the old man passed their loaning-end. and though he knew that by rights only a herd should live at the boatcroft, yet he made no complaint nor asked any question for conscience' sake, when he saw my mother with maisie lennox at her elbow, or little margaret of glen vernock moving about the little steading. in the evening it fell to me to make my first endeavours at waiting at table, for though women were safe enough anywhere on the estate, balmaghie was not judged to be secure for me except within the house itself. so my mother gave me a great many cautions about how i should demean myself, and how to be silent and mannerly when i handed the dishes. chapter xxxvi. the black horse comes to balmaghie. as wat and i went towards the great house in the early gloaming, we became aware of a single horseman riding toward us and gaining on us from behind. at the first sound of the trampling of his horse, wat dived at once over the turf dyke and vanished. "bide you!" he said. "he'll no ken you!" a slender-like figure in a grey cavalry cloak and a plain hat without a feather, came, slowly riding alongside of me, in an attitude of the deepest thought. i knew at a glance that it was john graham of claverhouse, whom all the land of the south knew as "the persecutor." "are you one of balmaghie's servants?" he asked. i took off my bonnet, showing as i did so my shaven poll, and answered him that i was. no other word he uttered, though he eyed me pretty closely and uncomfortably, as if he had a shrewd thought that he had seen me before elsewhere. but the shaven head and the absence of hair on my face were a complete disguise. for, indeed, though maisie lennox made little of it, the fact was that i had at the time quite a strong crop of hair upon both my chin and upper lip. claverhouse waved me behind him with the graceful and haughty gesture, which they say he constantly used even to the secretary in council, when he was hot with him in the matter of the house and lands of dudhope. meekly enough i trudged behind the great commander of horse, and looked with much curiosity and some awe both upon him and on his famous steed "boscobel," which was supposed by the more ignorant of the peasantry to be the foul fiend in his proper person. so in this manner we came to the house. the lights were just beginning to shine, for alisoun begbie, the maid of the table, was just arranging the candles. at the doorway the master of the house met his guest, having been drawn from his library by the feet of the charger clattering upon the pavement of the yard. "ah, john," he said, "this is right gracious of you, in the midst of your fighting and riding, to journey over to cheer an old hulk like me!" and he reached him a hand to the saddle, which claverhouse took without a word. but i saw a look of liking, which was almost tender, in the war-captain's eyes as i passed round by the further door into the kitchen. here i was roughly handled by the cook--who, of course, had not been informed of my personality, and who exercised upon me both the length of her tongue and the very considerable agility thereof. but alisoun begbie, who was, as i say, principal waiting-maid, rescued me and in pity took me under her protection; though with no suspicion of my quality, but only from a maidish and natural liking for a young and unmarried man. she offered very kindly to show me all my duties, and, indeed, i had been in a sorry pass that night without her help. so when it came to the hour of supper, it was with some show of grace that i was enabled to wait at table, and take my part in the management of the dishes thereupon. alisoun kept me mostly in the back of her serving pantry, and gave me only the dishes which were easy to be served, looking kindly on me with her eyes all the while and shyly touching my hand when occasion served, which i thought it not politic to refuse. for all this i was mightily thankful, because i had very small desire to draw upon me the cold blue eyes of john graham--to whom, in spite of my crop head and serving-man's attire, there might arrive a memory of the side of green garryhorn and the interrupted fight which wat of lochinvar, my cousin, had fought for my sake with cornet peter inglis. the two gentlemen sat and supped their kail, in which a pullet had been boiled, with quite remarkable relish. but it was not till the wine had been uncorked and set at their elbows, that they began to have much converse. then they sat and gossiped together very pleasantly, like men that are easing their hearts and loosening their belts over trencher and stoup, after a hard day's darg. it was john graham who spoke first. "have you heard," he said, "the excellent new jest concerning anne keith, what she did with these vaguing blasties up at methven, when the laird was absent in london?" "nay," replied roger mcghie, "that have i not. i am not in the way at balmaghie to hear other misdeeds than those of john graham and his horse boscobel, that is now filling his kyte in my stable, as his master is eke doing in hall." "well," said claverhouse, "we shall have to give anne the justiciar power and send her lord to the spence and the store chamber. she should have the jack and the riding breeks, and he the keys of the small ale casks. so it were better for his majesty's service." "but i thought him a good loyal man," said roger mcghie. "one that goes as easy as an old shoe--like yourself, roger. not so my lady. heard ye what our anne did? the conventiclers came to set up a preaching in a tent on the laird's ground, and they told it to anne. whereupon she rose, donned her lord's buff coat and slung his basket hilt at her pretty side. and so to the woodside rode she. there were with her none but methven's young brother, a lad like a fathom of pump water. yet with anne keith to captain him, he e'en drew sword and bent pistol like a brave one. i had not thought that there was so much good stuff in david." roger mcghie sipped at his wine and nodded, drawing up one eyebrow and down the other, as his habit was when he was amused--which indeed was not seldom, for he was merry within him much more often than he told any. "then who but anne was the pretty fighter," clavers went on lightly, "with a horseman's piece on her left arm, and a drawn tuck in her right hand? also was she not the fine general? for she kept the enemy's forces sindry, marching her servants to and fro, all armed to the teeth--to and fro all day between them, and threatening the tent in which was the preacher to the rabble. she cried to them that if they did not leave the parish of methven speedily, it would be a bloody day for them. and that if they did not come to the kirk decently and hear the curate, she would ware her life upon teaching them how to worship god properly, for that they were an ignorant, wicked pack! a pirlicue[ ] which pleased them but little, so that some rode off that they might not be known, and some dourly remained, but were impotent for evil. [footnote : in this case, the application of the discourse.] "i never knew that anne keith was such a spirity lass. i would all such lasses were as sound in the faith as she." this was the word of roger mcghie, uttered like a meditation. i felt sure he thought of his daughter kate. "then," continued john graham, "after that, anne took her warlike folk to the kirk. and lo! the poor curate was so wandered and feared, that he could make no suitable discourse that day, but only stood and bleated like a calf, till the lady anne said to him, 'sir, if you can neither fight nor preach, ye had better go back to the hielands and herd kye, for by the lord, i, anne keith, can fight and preach too!'" "as they do say the laird of methven right well knoweth," said roger mcghie, in the very dry and covert way in which he said many things. "ah!" said clavers, and smiled a little as if he also had his own thoughts. but he went on. "so on the very next day anne held a court in the hall, and all the old canting wives of the parish were there. she set the test to all their throats, and caused them to forswear conventicling at the peril of their lives--all but one old beldame that would in no wise give way, or be answerable for her children, who were well kenned and notour rebels. "then anne took from the hag her apron, that was a fine braw one with pockets, and said to her, 'this i shall retain till you have paid your son's fines. if ye cannot keep your other brats out of the dirt, at least i shall keep this one clean for you.'" "ha, very well said, anne!" cried roger mcghie, clapping the table. for "brat" is but the scots word for apron, and such a brisk conceity saying was like that very spirited lady, anne keith. "but with yourself, how goes it?" asked the laird of balmaghie. claverhouse turned a silver spoon over and over, and looked at the polish upon it thoughtfully. "ill, ill, i fear. i ride night and day through all the country of galloway, and it is like so much pudding in mud. that which you clear out before you, closes up behind. and at headquarters there is the duke hamilton, who desires no better than to load me to the chancellor. i have many enemies." "but surely also many friends," said balmaghie. "not many so true as thou art, roger," said claverhouse, stretching out a white hand across the table, which his friend took for a moment. "and i am plagued on the one side by the council to make the folk keep to the kirk, and on the other sore vexed with weary-winded preachers like andrew symson over on creeside, who this very day writes me to say that ever since muckle davie dunbar of baldoon hath broken his neck, he gets no congregation at all. and be sure the poor wretch wishes me to gather him one." he threw a bit of paper across the table to balmaghie. "read ye that," he said. "it is about swearing baldoon." the laird looked at it all over and then began to smile. "this is indeed like andrew symson, doddering fool body that he is--aye scribing verses, and sic-like verse. heaven forfend us!" and he began to read. upon baldoon. "he was no schismatick. he ne'er withdrew himself from the house of god. he with a few, some two or three, came constantly to pray for such as had withdrawn themselves away. nor did he come by fits. foul day or fair, i being in the kirk, was sure to see him there. had he withdrawn, 'tis like, these two or three being thus discouraged, had deserted me: so that my muse 'gainst priscian avers, he, he alone, was my parishioners!" "aye," said balmaghie, "i warrant the puir hill-folk werna muckle the better o' baldoon's supplications." then claverhouse, receiving back the paper, looked up with great alertness. "but i have chanced in that very country to fall on a nest of the fanatics." he looked cautiously about, and i had no more than time to step back into the little pantry where alisoun begbie was already washing the dishes. she put her arm about me to keep me within, and before she let me go, she kissed me. which i suffered without great concern--for, being a lass from borgue, she was not uncomely, though, like all these shore lassies, a little forritsome. chapter xxxvii. a cavalier's wooing. john graham assured himself that none of the servants were in the room, and then he said: "i have sure informations from one birsay smith, a cobbler, by which i have my hand as good as upon the throat of that arch-fanatic, anthony lennox of the duchrae, and also upon sandy gordon of earlstoun, his younger brother william, maclellan of barscobe, and some others. it will be a great taking, for there is a long price on every head of them." "think you, john," said balmaghie, shrewdly, "that you will add earlstoun and barscobe to your new lands of freuch?" "nay," said clavers, "that is past hoping. they will give them to their english colonels, oglethorpe and the like. aye, even though, at my own request, i had the promise from the council of the estates of any that i should find cause of forfeiture against, a thing which is only my due. but as by this time you may know, a plain soldier hath small chance among the wiles of the courtiers." "i question, john, if thou hadst all galloway and nidsdale to boot, thou wouldst be happy, even with the fairest maid therein, for one short week. thou wouldst be longing to have boscobel out, saddled and bridled, and be off to the whig-hunting with a 'ho-tally-ho!' for that is thy way, john!" claverhouse laughed a little stern laugh like a man that is forced to laugh at himself, yet is somedeal proud of what he hears. "it is true," he said. "there is no hunting like this hunting of men, which the king's service sees in these days. it makes it worth living to keep the crown of the moorland with one's company of dragoons, like a man hefting lambs on a sheep farm; and know that no den, no knowe, no moss, no hill has been left unsearched for the king's rebels." "and how speeds the wooing, john?" i heard balmaghie say after a little pause, and the opening of another bottle. for i thought it no shame to listen, since the lives of all that were dear to me, as well as my own, were in this man's power. and, besides, i knew very well that kate mcghie had put me in this place, that i might gain good intelligence of the intentions of the great captain of the man-hunters. clavers sat awhile silent. he looked long and scrupulously at his fine white hand and fingered the lace ruffle upon his sleeve. "it was of that mainly that i came to speak to you, roger. truth to tell, it does not prosper to my mind." "hath the fair jean proved unkind?" said roger mcghie, looking over at claverhouse, with a quiet smile in his eye. john graham leaned back in his chair with a quick amused look and threw back his clustering love locks. "no," he said; "there is, i think, little fear of that." "what then is the difficulty--her mother?" "aye," said claverhouse, "that is more like it. yet though the lady dundonald drills me and flytes me and preaches at me, i care not so much. for like the hardships of life, that will come to an end. nevertheless, i own that at times i am tempted to take the lady at my saddle-bow, and ride out from paisley to return no more." "you will not do that, john!" said balmaghie quietly, with a certain light of irony in his eye. claverhouse looked up quickly. "how so, balmaghie?" he said, and i saw through my little slant wicket the pride grow in his eye. "the forty thousand marks, john." claverhouse struck his hand on the table. "thank you----" he said coldly, and then for a moment was silent. "there is no man that dare say that to me but yourself, roger mcghie," he added. "no," said the laird of balmaghie, sipping at his canary, "and that is why you rode over to see me to-night, john--a silly old man in a dull house, instead of guzzling at kirkcudbright with winram and the burgesses and bailies thereof. you are a four-square, truth-telling man, and yet hear little of it, save at the house of balmaghie." claverhouse still said nothing, but stared at the table, from which the cloth had been removed. the elder man reached over and put his hand on the sleeve of the younger. "why, john," he said softly, "pluck up heart and do nothing hastily--as i know thou wilt not. forty thousand marks is not to be despised. it will help thee mightily with freuch and dudhope. it is worth having thy ears soundly boxed once or twice for a persecutor, by a covenanting mother-in-law." "but that is not the worst of it, roger," said claverhouse, who had gotten over his pique; "my enemies lay it against me to york and the king, that i frequent a suspected and disloyal house. they will put me down as they put down aberdeen----" at this moment i felt a hand upon my arm. it was that of kate mcghie. she drew me out of the closet where alisoun had bestowed me, intending, as she intimated, to come cosily in beside me when she had washed the dishes. but kate took me by the hand, and together we passed out into the cool night. wat met us by the outer gate. he was standing in the shadow. there was then no time for me to tell kate what i had heard claverhouse reveal to the laird of his intentions regarding anton lennox and my brother sandy. to which there was added a further great uncertainty, lest birsay had been able to add to his other informations an account of my mother's hiding-place and our own disguises. nay, even though he had not already done so, there was no saying how soon this might come about. however, as we stood conferring a moment together, there was one came running hastily from the house to the stables, carrying a lantern. then in a little, out of the stable door came clattering the war-horse of the commander of dragoons. william mccutcheon, the serving-man and chief groom of the stables, led boscobel with a certain awe, as if he might actually be leading the accuser of the brethren, haltered and accoutred. he had not been at the door a minute, when claverhouse come out and went down the steps, drawing on his riding gauntlets as he came. roger mcghie walked behind him carrying burning candles in a great silver triple candlestick. he held the light aloft in his hand while the cavalier mounted with a free, easy swing into the saddle; and, gathering the reins in his hand, turned to bid his host adieu. "be a wee canny with the next whig ye catch, for the sake of your ain bonny whiggie, jean cochrane!" cried roger mcghie of balmaghie, holding the cresset high above his head. "deil a fear!" laughed clavers, gaily waving his hand. "tis not in the power of love or any other folly to alter my loyalty." "pshaw!" said the laird; "then, john, be assured ye ken nothing about the matter." but claverhouse was already clattering across the cobble stones of the yard. we drew back into the deep shadow of the bushes and he passed us, a noble figure of a man sitting slenderly erect on his black horse boscobel, and so riding out into the night, like a prince of darkness going forth to war. * * * * * that night, down in the little holding of waterside, upon the broad meadows of the dee, we held a council. my mother was for setting out forthwith to look after her son sandy. but i gently dissuaded her, telling her that sandy was far better left to his own resources, than with her safety also to provide for. "i daresay," said she, a little shortly; "but have you thought how i am like to sleep when you are all away--when in every foot that comes by the door, i hear the messenger who comes to tell me of my sons streeked stiff in their winding sheets?" but, after all, we managed to persuade her to bide on at the boatcroft, where little margaret of glen vernock was to stay with her for company. as for the rest of us, we had information brought us by sure hands, of the hiding-places of anton lennox and the rest of the wanderers. the maids were set upon accompanying us--maisie lennox to see her father, and kate mcghie because maisie lennox was going. but after a long controversy we also prevailed on them to abide at home and wait for our return. yet it came to me afterwards that i saw a look pass between them, such as i had seen before, when it is in the heart of the women folk to play some trick upon the duller wits of mankind. it is as though they said, "after all, what gulls these men be!" so that night i slept with wat in the gardener's hut, and early in the morning we went down to the great house to bid the maids good-bye. but there we found only alisoun begbie. the nest was empty and the birds flown. only roger mcghie was walking up and down the beech avenue of the old house, deep in thought. he had his hands behind his back, and sometimes the corners of his mouth seemed to smile through his gloom with a curious pleasantry. wat and i kept well out of his sight, and i could not help wondering how much, after all, he understood of our ongoings. more than any of us thought at that time, i warrant, for it was the man's humour to know much and say little. alisoun begbie, who seemed not unwilling that we should stop and converse with her, told us that after clavers had departed, mistress kate had gone in to her father to tell him that she was going away for a space of days. "mind, ye are not to rise before your ordinary in the morning, father," she said; "i shall be gone by the dawn." "very well, kate," he replied, continuing to draw off his coat and prepare for bed; "i shall sell the boreland to pay the fine." this was all he said; and having kissed his daughter good-night, calmly and pleasantly as was his wont, he set a silken skull-cap on his crown and fell asleep. truly a remarkable man was roger mcghie of balmaghie. chapter xxxviii. in cove macaterick. wat and i took our way immediately towards those wilds where, as we had been advised, auld anton lennox was hidden. he was (so we were informed) stricken with great sickness and needed our ministrations. but in the wild country into which we were going was no provision for the up-putting of young and delicate maids, specially such as were accustomed to the luxuries of the house of balmaghie. the days, however, were fine and dry, and a fanning wind from the north blew in our faces as we went. it was near to the road-end of the duchrae, up which i had so often helped the cars (or sledges of wood with birch twigs for wheels) to drag the hay crop, that we met roderick macpherson, a highland man-servant of the laird of balmaghie, riding one pony and leading other two. we knew them at once as those which for common were ridden by kate mcghie and maisie lennox. "hey, where away, roderick?" cried wat, as soon as he set eyes on the cavalcade. the fellow looked through his lowering thatch of eyebrows and grunted, but whether with stupidity or cunning it had been hard to say. "speak!" said wat, threateningly; "you can understand well enough, when they cry from the kitchen door that it is porridge time." "the leddies was tak' a ride," macpherson answered, with a cock in his eye that angered wat, whose temper, indeed, in these days was not of the most enduring. "where did you leave them?" cried he of lochinvar. "it was on a muir, no far frae a burnside; i was fair forget where!" said roderick, with a look of the most dense stupidity. then i saw the fellow had been commanded not to tell, so i said to wat, "come on, wat. kate has ordered him not to tell us." "this is a bonny like thing," said wat, angrily, "that i canna truss him up and make him tell, only because i am riding with the hill-folk. oh, that i were a king's man of any sort for half an hour." for, indeed, it is the glory of the field-folk, who have been blamed for many extremes and wild opinions, that though tortured and tormented themselves by the king's party, they used not torture upon their enemies--as in later times even the whigs did, when after the eighty-eight it came to be their time to govern. so we permitted the highland tyke to go on his way. there is no need to go into the place and manner of our journeyings, in such a pleasant and well-kenned country as the strath of the kells. but, suffice it to say, after a time we betook ourselves to the broad of the moors, and so held directly for the fastnesses of the central hills, where the poor hunted folk kept sanctuary. we kept wide of the rough and tumbled country about the lochs of neldricken and enoch; because, to our cost and detriment, we knew that place was already much frequented by the ill-contriving gipsy people thereabouts--rascals who thought no more of taking the life of a godly person, than of killing one of the long-woolled mountain sheep which are the staple of these parts. so there was no need to run into more danger. we were in plenty already without that. after a long while we found ourselves under the front of the dungeon hill, which is the wildest and most precipitous in all that country. they say that when it thunders there, all the lightnings of heaven join together to play upon the rocks of the dungeon. and, indeed, it looks like it; for most of the rocks there are rent and shattered, as though a giant had broken them and thrown them about in his play. beneath this wild and rocky place we kept our way, till, across the rounded head of the hill of the star, we caught a glimpse of the dim country of hag and heather that lay beyond. then we held up the brae that is called the gadlach, where is the best road over the burn of palscaig, and so up into the great wide valley through which runs the eglin lane. wat and i had our precise information as to the cave in which lay the covenanter, anton lennox. so that, guiding ourselves by our marks, we held a straight course for the corner of the back hill of the star in which the hiding place was. i give no nearer direction to the famous cove macaterick for the plainest reasons, though it is there to this day, and the herds ken it well. but who knows how soon the times may grow troubleous again, and the cove reassert its ancient safety. but all that i will say is, that if you want to find cove macaterick, william howatson, the herd of the merrick, or douce, john macmillan that dwells at bongill in the howe of trool, can take you there--that is, if your legs be able to carry you, and you can prove yourself neither outlaw nor king's soldier. and this word also, i say, that in the process of your long journeying you will find out this, that though any bairn may write a history book, it takes a man to herd the merrick. so in all good time we came to the place. it is half-way up a clint of high rocks overlooking loch macaterick, and the hillside is bosky all about with bushes, both birk and self-sown mountain ash. the mouth of the cavern is quite hidden in the summer by the leaves, and in the winter by the mat of interlacing branches and ferns. above, there is a diamond-shaped rock, which ever threatens to come down and block the entrance to the cave. which indeed it is bound to do some day. wat and i put aside the tangle and crawled within the black mouth of the cavern one at a time, till we came to a wider part, for the whole place is narrow and constricted. and there, on a pallet bed, very pale and far through, we found auld anton--who, when he saw us, turned his head and raised his hand by the wrist in greeting. his lips moved, but what he said we could not tell. so i crept back and made shift to get him a draught of water from a well upon the hillside, which flowed near by the mouth of the cave. the spring water somewhat revived him, and he sat up, leaning heavily against me as he did so. nevertheless, it was some time before he could speak. wat and i looked at one another, and as we saw the condition of things in the cave, it became very evident to us that the lassies kate and maisie had either wandered from the road, or had been detained in some manner that was unknown to us. so wat, being ever for instant action, proposed that he should go off and seek the lassies, and that i should bide and do my best to succour auld anton in his extremity. to this i consented, and wat instantly took his way with his sword, his pistols, and his gaily set bonnet--walking with that carriage which had been little else than a swagger in the old days, but which now was no more than the air of well-set distinction which marks the man of ancient family and life-long training in arms. so i was left alone with the father of the lassie i loved. i have said it. there is no use of denying it any longer. indeed, the times were not such as to encourage much dallying with love's dainty misunderstandings. we were among days too dark for that. but i owned as i sat there, with her father's head on my lap, that it was for maisie lennox's sake, and not altogether for the sake of human kindness, that i was left here in the wilderness to nurse anton lennox of the duchrae. as soon as he could speak, anton began to tell me of his illness. "i fell," he said, "from my pride of strength in one hour. the spirit of the lord departed from me, and i became even as the mown grass, that to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the oven." he lay back and breathed quickly for a moment. i entreated him not to speak, but he put my words aside impatiently with his hand. "thus it was. i was fleeing with a few of the people from before the persecutors, and as we came over the hip of the meaull of garryhorn, the horsemen rode hotly behind us. then suddenly there came upon me a dwam and a turning in my head, so that i cried to them to run on and leave me to the pursuers. but to this the godly lads would in no wise consent. 'we will carry you,' they said, 'and put you in some hole in the moss and cover you with heather.' so they designed, but the enemy being very close upon us, they got me no further than a little peat brow at the lane-side down there. they laid me on a shelf where the bank came over me. then i heard our people scattering and running in different directions, in order that they might draw the enemy away from me. so i lay still and waited for them to come and take me, if so it should be the will of the lord. and over me i heard the horses of the soldiers plunging. one beast, as it gathered way for the spring over the burn, sent its hoof down through the black peat and the stead of its hoof was on my bonnet's brim. yet, according to the mercies of the lord, me it harmed not. but the soldier fell off and hurt his head in his steel cap upon the further bank, whereat he swore--which was a manifest judgment upon him, to tangle him yet deeper in the wrath of god." so here i abode in the cave with anton, and we spoke of many things, but specially of the lassie that was near to my heart and the pearl of his soul. he told me sweet simple things of her childhood that warmed me like well-matured wine. as how that there was a day when, her mother being alive, maisie came in and said, "when i am a great girl and have bairns of my own, i shall let them stay all day in the gardens where the grosarts are, and never say, 'you shall not touch!'" this anton thought to be a thing wondrously sound and orthodox, and he saw in the child's word the stumbling stone of our mother eve. chapter xxxix. the bower of the star. day by day i tended him as gently as i could, till in the cave our provisions were well-nigh spent. then, one grey morning i took my pistol to go out on the hillside to see if i could shoot aught to eat. but because of my nervousness, or other cause, i could at that time do nothing. indeed, not so much as a whaup came near me on that great, wide, dappled hill. i saw a hill fox rise and run. he was a fine beast and very red, and held his tail nobly behind him like a flag. but, hardly beset as we were, we could with difficulty have eaten fox, even had i been able to shoot him, which i was not. the day passed slowly, the night came, and it went sore to my heart that i was able to do so little for the friend of one i loved. i saw that he would have mended readily enough, if he had received the right nutriment, which, alas! it seemed far out of my power to obtain. yet in the morning, when i went to the mouth of the cave, lo! there, immediately to the right of me, on a bare place, were two great whaup eggs, broad-buttocked and splashed with black. i never was gladder to see food. it was late for the whaups to be breeding; and, indeed, they had mostly left the moorland by that time. but, nevertheless, it was manifest that providence had bidden some bird, perhaps disappointed of an earlier brood or late mated, to come and lay the eggs before our door. i bade anton take the eggs by the ancient method of sucking--which he made shift to do, and was very greatly strengthened thereby. so every morning as long as we remained there, the wild bird laid an egg in the morning, which made the covenanter's breakfast. this is but one of the daily marvels from the lord which attended our progress. for whensoever those that have been through the perilous time come together, they recount these things to one another, and each has his like tale of preservation and protection to tell. but that minds me of a strange thing. once during the little while when i companied with the compellers, it was my hap to meet with clattering john crichton, that rank persecutor. and what was my surprise to hear that all his talk ran upon certain providential dreams he had had in the night time, by which there was revealed to him the hiding place of many of the "fanatics." aye, and even the very place pointed out to him in the dream where it would be most convenient to compass their capturing. and this in due time he brought about, or said he did. but, for all that, i do not think that the company he was among set great store by his truthfulness. for after each wondrous story of adventure and second-sight they would roar with laughter, and say: "well done, crichton! out with another one!" after a day or two of this lack of food, it came suddenly to me what a dumbhead i was, to bide with an empty belly in a place where at least there must be plenty of fish near at hand. so i rose early from off my bed of heather tops, and betook me down to the river edge. it is nothing but a burn which they call the eglin lane, a long, bare water, slow and peaty, but with some trout of size in it. also from the broads of loch macaterick, there came another burn with clearer sparkling water and much sand in the pools. there were trout in both, as one might see by stealing up to the edge of the brow and looking over quickly. but owing to the drought, there was water only in the pools of eglin, and often but the smallest trickle beneath the stones. i had a beauty out in a few moments; for so eager was i that i leaped into the burn just as i was, without so much as waiting to take off any of my garments. so in the pool there was a-rushing and a-chasing till i had him out on the grass, his speckled sides glinting bonny on the heather as he tossed himself briskly from side to side. i followed the burn down to the fork of the water that flows from loch macaterick, and fished all the pools in this manner. by that time i had enough for three meals at the least; or perhaps, considering the poor state of our appetites, for more than that. i put those we should not want that day into a pretty little fish-pond, which makes a kind of backwater on one of the burns springing down from the side of the rig of the star. and this was the beginning of the fish-pond which continued to supply us with food all the time we abode there. while i was in the river bottom, it chanced that i looked up the great smooth slopes of the opposite hill, which is one of the range of kells. there is a little shaggy clump of trees on the bare side of it, and i could have sworn that among the trees i saw people stirring. i could only think that the people there were wanderers like ourselves, or else spies sent to keep an eye on this wide, wild valley between the garryhorn hill and the spear of the merrick. so i came back to the cave no little dashed in spirit, in spite of my great successes with the trout. i said nothing about what i had seen to auld anton, for he was both weak and feverish. and though certainly mending, he was not yet able to move out into the sunshine and lie among the bracken, a thing which would have done him much good on these still warm days. but i made a fire with heather and the roots of ancient trees, which in that strange wild desert stick out of the peat at every step. there i roasted the trout, of which anton lennox ate heartily. i think they had more relish to a sick man's palate than whaup eggs, even though these came to him as it were in a miraculous manner; while i had guddled the trout with my boots and breeks on. when the meal was over, i bethought me that i should make an excuse, and steal away over to the side of the meaull, to see what it might be that was stirring on that lonely brae-face. for save the scraggy scrunts of the rowan trees and birks that surround the cave, there was not a tree within sight, till the woods at the upper end of loch doon began to take the sun. i carefully charged my pistols and told anton how i proposed to go out to shoot mountain hares or other victual that i could see. he did not say a word to bid me stay, but only advised me to keep very close to the cave. because, once off the bosky face of the cliff, there was no saying what hidden eyes might spy me out. for lag, he said, was certainly lying in hold at garryhorn at that time, and claverhouse himself was on the borders of the country. concerning this last i knew better than he, and was much desirous that we could get anton well enough to move further out of the reach of his formidable foes. i started just when the heated haze of the afternoon was clearing with the first early-falling chill of even. the hills were casting shadows upon each other towards the dungeon and loch enoch, where, in the wildest and most rugged country, some of the folk of the wilderness were in hiding. as i went i heard the grey crow croak and the muckle corbie cry "glonk," somewhere over by the slock of the hooden. they had got a lamb to themselves or a dead sheep belike. but to me it sounded like the gloating of the dragoons over some captured company of the poor wandering presbyters. it seemed a strange thing for me, when i came to think of it, that i, the son of the laird of earlstoun, my mother, that had long time been the lady thereof, and my brother sandy, that was now earlstoun himself, should all be skipping and hiding like thieves, with the dragoons at our tail. now this thought came not often to us, who were born during the low estate of the scottish kirk. but when it did come, the thought was even more bitter to us, because we had no sustaining memories of her former high estate, nor remembered what god's kirk had been in scotland from the year down to the weary coming of charles stuart and the down-sitting of the drunken parliament in the black year of sixty. but for all that i thought on these things as i went. right carefully i kept the cover of every heather bush, peat hag, muckle grey granite stone, and waving clump of bracken. so that in no long space, by making a wide circuit, i came to look down upon the little clump of trees, where i had seen the figures moving, as i guddled the trout for our dinner in the reaches of the eglin lane. now, however, there seemed to be a great quietness all about the place, and the scanty trees did not so much as wave a branch in the still air of the afternoon. yet i saw, as it had been the waft of a jaypiet's wing among them, when i came over the steep rocks of the hooden's slock, and went to ford the gala lane--which like the other water was, by the action of the long dry year, sunken to no more than a chain of pools. but as i circled about and came behind the trees, there was, as i say, a great quiet. my heart went up and down like a man's hand at the flail in a barn. yet for my unquiet, there was no great apparent reason. it might be, indeed, that the enemies had laid a snare for me, and that i was already as good as setting out for the grassmarket, with the ladder and the rope before me, and the lad with the piebald coat at my tail. and this was a sore thought to me, for we gordons are not of a race that take hanging lightly. we never had more religion than we could carry for comfort. yet we always got our paiks for what little we had, on which side soever we might be. it is a strange thing that we should always have managed to come out undermost whichever party was on top, and of this i cannot tell the reason. on the other hand, the kennedies trimmed their sails to the breeze as it blew, and were ever on the wave's crest. but then they were ayrshiremen. and ayr, it is well kenned, aye beats galloway--that is, till it comes to the deadly bellyful of fighting. thus i communed with myself, ever drawing nearer to the clump of trees on the side of the meaull, and murmuring good protestant prayers, as if they had been no better than mary's beads all the time. as i came to the little gairy above the trees, i looked down, and from the verge of it i saw the strangest contrivance. it was a hut beside a tiny runlet of water--a kind of bower with the sides made of bog-oak stobs taken from the edges of the strands. the roof was daintily theeked with green rushes and withes, bound about with heather. heather also was mingled with the thatching rushes, so that from a little distance the structure seemed to be part of the heath. i lay and watched to see what curious birds had made such a bower on the star in the dark days. for such dainty carefulness was not the wont of us chiels of the covenant, and i could not think that any of the rough-riders after us would so have spent their time. an inn yard, a pint stoup, and a well-cockered doxie were more to their liking, than plaiting the bonny heather into a puppet's house upon the hillside. chapter xl. mardrochat the spy. then even as upon the hillside i watched and waited, i saw one come out and go round about the bower. it was a figure in woman's garments. i knew the form at the first sight. it was kate mcghie of the balmaghie. i had found our lost maids. so i gave a whistle that she knew with my bird call, such as every lad of the heather carried, from old sandy peden to young james renwick. at the first sound of it, she started as though she had been stung. at the second peep and whinny she came a little way on tiptoe. so i whistled with a curious turn at the end, as wat, my cousin, was wont to do. whereupon she came a little further, and i could see her eyes looking about eagerly. then i stood up and came running down the side of the gairy till she saw me. she gave a little cry and put her hands to her heart, for i think she had not expected to see me, but some other--wat of lochinvar, as i guess. but for all that she held out her hands as if she were mightily glad to see me. "ye canna send us back now!" she cried out, before even i came near to her. "ye deserve to get soundly payed for this misdemeanour," i answered. "did ye ever think of the sore hearts ye left behind ye?" "oh, my father," said kate lightly, "he would just read his book, bless king chairlie, walk the avenue, and say 'kate, kate--deil's in the lassie! the daft hizzie has tane the hill again!'" "but will not he be angry?" "angry, roger mcghie? na, na; i bade mally lintwhite make him potted-head, and gie him duck aff the pond to his supper, stuffed with mushrooms; and atween that and his claret wine he will thrive brawly." then kate mcghie seemed suddenly to remember something, and we went down the hillside among the stones. "bide ye there!" she commanded, halting me with her hand as john graham halts a squadron. and i did as i was bidden; for in those days kate had most imperious ways with her. she stole down quietly, stooped her head to raise the flap which made a curtain door for the bower, and went within. i watched with all my eyes, for i was eager to see once more maisie lennox, my dear sometime comrade and gossip. in a little she came forth, but what a leap my heart gave when i saw how pale she looked. her hand and arm were bandaged, and she leaned lightly on kate's shoulder. do you wonder that my desire went out to her greatly, and that all in a moment i sprang down the rickle of stones as if they had been a made road? "maisie, maisie, wha has done this to ye, my lassie?" i cried, or something like that (for i do not mind the words very well). and with that she fell to the greeting--the lass that never grat whatever was wrong, so that i was fair beside myself to see her. and kate mcghie pushed me forward by the shoulder, and made signs frowningly, which i could not understand. i thought she meant that i was to go away till maisie had somewhat recovered herself. very obediently i made to do so, and was for stealing away up the hill again, when kate stamped her foot and said suddenly, "if ye daur----!" so i abode where i was, till it seemed to me that maisie was about to fall, being yet weak. so i went to hold her up, and as soon as i did so, kate mcghie slipped out of sight. now, i think she did this of intention, for when she convoyed me a little down the hill, when i went in the evening, she rallied me very sorely. "man william gordon," she said; "i e'en thocht i wad hae to pit your airms aboot her, and tell ye what to say. ye maun be a queer make o' men up about the glenkens. i thank a merciful providence that we have another kind o' them about the headend o' balmaghie!" but when she left us i needed no instruction. with the best will in the world i fell to comforting maisie; and though i put not down the matter of our discourse (which concerned only ourselves), i can vouch for it that speedily we were at one. and for a long season i sat on the grey bowder stones of the gairy and made much of her in another fashion than that of a comrade. then after this our first pleasuring was by-past, she told me how that kate and she had come away to seek for her father, because of the report that had come of his danger and illness; but that an accident had befallen them upon the way, and they had failed of their errand. what the accident was she would not tell me, saying that kate mcghie would be fond enough to give me the story. then they had built this bower by the burnside, where ever since they had remained safe and unmolested. i asked how they got their provender. "o," she said, "hughie kerr brings it over the hill from the howe of the kells. we have had no want of good meal." then when we had talked and i had told her of her father and his welfare, i bethought me to urge her to bide where she was, for that night at all events, saying that perhaps in the morning she might come over to see him. for i desired, seeing that the place was no longer safe (if, indeed, the persecutors did know where anton was hid, which i believed not), to have him shifted as soon as he could bear the journey. but yet i was loath to do it, for there is no hold in all the high hill-lands so commodious as cove macaterick above the loch of that name. when kate mcghie came again to us, methought she looked more approvingly upon me than before--but indulgently, as one that passes an indifferent piece of work, which yet she herself could better have performed. as soon as she came near, i began to ask her of maisie's accident and the cause of it. "has she not told you herself? i am not going to heat cauld porridge for you twa to sup," she said, in the merry way which never deserted her. for she was ever the most spirity wench in the world, and though a laird's daughter, it pleased her often to speak in the country fashion. but when i had advertised her that maisie had not said a word about the matter, but on the contrary had referred me to herself, kate mcghie made a pretty mouth and gave a little whistle. "after all, then," she said, "we are not round the corner yet!" then she began to tell me of their journeying in the night after pherson, the serving-man, had left them. "we cam' over the heather licht foot as hares," said kate mcghie. "the stars were bonny above. a late moon was rising over the taps by balmaclellan, and the thocht that i was out on the heather hills set a canty fire in my breast. "a' gaed richt till we cam' to the new brig across the water o' dee, that was biggit a year or twa syne wi' the collections in the kirks. when we cam' to it we were liltin' blythe and careless at a sang, when oot o' the dark o' the far side there steps a muckle cankersome lookin' man in a big cloak, an' stan's richt in the midst o' the road! "'whaur gang ye sae late at nicht by this road withoot the leave o' mardrochat?' says he. "'sang,' says i. 'wha's midden's this? and wha's mardrochat that his barn-door cock craws sae croose on til't?' "for," said kate mcghie, looking at me, "as ye ken, i hadna been learned at the balmaghie to thole snash frae onybody." at which i smiled, for well i knew kate's reputation with her tongue. "'this is mardrochat's road, and by the king's command his business is to question all comers. but it's not ill-gi'en words that he wad use wi' twa sic bonny lassies!' says the loon in the cloak. "'dear sirs,' says i, 'fifty puddin's on a plate! mardrochat maun be a braw lad. is he the king's hangman? it's an honourable and well-considered office nowadays, they tell me.' "'satisfy me whar ye are gaun sae late,' says the ill-contriving chiel, 'an' maybes i'll convoy ye a bit o' the road. it shall never be said that mardrochat left twa weel-faured lassies them-lane in the howe o' the nicht!' "'heighty-teighty,' i telled the man, 'oor coo's come hame, an' her tail's ahint her! stand oot o' the road an' let decent folk to their beds!' "'there's nae beds bena the heather that gate!' said the man. and faith, there he was in the right of it. there were no beds except the wanderers' beds in the moss-hags that road for twenty lang scots miles. "and all this time we were standing on the brig close to one another. "'let us gang by,' said i again. "'na,' said the long loon that had called himself mardrochat, and wha i kenned for an ill-set informer that made his siller by carrying tales to clavers and lag, 'ye pass na this road. ye maun e'en turn and come wi' me!' "and i think he would have come forward to put his hand upon us. but i made to get past him at one side, crying to maisie to try the other. for i thought that the two of us were surely a match for any black thief of the kind to be found in the glenkens. "but as i was running by, he grippit me with one hand and drew his windlestrae of a sword wi' the other--drew it on a pair o' lassies, mind ye. then what think ye? your bit lassie there, missie mim, she flew on him like a wullcat and gripped the blade atween her fingers till she drew it oot o' his hand. then she took it across her knee and garred it play _snap_ like a rotten branch. syne ower it gaed intil the water. and that was the way she got the cut on her hand, poor thing." then i gave a great shout and clasped maisie in my arms, yet not harshly, lest she should be weak. i was glad to hear this testimony to her bravery. "that is of a better fashion," said kate, like one who has store of experience. then she went on with her story, for she had yet more to tell. "but the loon was dour for a' the want o' his sword, and we micht no' hae mastered him but that he tried to trip us and so got tripped himself. he fell so that the head o' him took the wa' and fair dang him stupid. so we e'en gied him a bit hoise an' ower he gaed intil the water----" "mercy on us," i cried, "ye didna droon the man?" "droon him," said kate, "deil a fear! yon chiel is made for the tow. he'll droon nane. the last we saw o' him, he was sitting on his hurdies in the shallows, up to his neck in the water, trying what banes war hale after his stramash. "so," continued kate, "we gaed our roads in peace, and the chiel sat still in the water, thrawin' his heid aboot and aboot like a turnspit, as lang as we could see him." even thus kate mcghie told her tale, making my lass dearer to me with every word. of mardrochat the informer, who had made bold to meddle with them, i had heard many times. he had been a covenanter of zeal and forwardness till, at a meeting of the societies, his double-faced guile had been laid bare. ever since which day in the wilds of friarminion, he had been a cunning, spying fox, upon the track of the hill-folk. but i knew how dangerous the man could be, and liked it ill enough that the maids should have crossed him so early on their pilgrimage. i doubted not that it was from him that the original information had come, which, being carried to the enemy by birsay and overheard by me in the house of balmaghie, had sent us all hiving to the mountains. chapter xli. the house of the black cats. having bidden such good-e'en to the maids as was severally due to them, i crossed the nick of the gadlach and went whistling over the moor. i took a new road over the heather, and was just at the turning of the eglin lane, when, deep in the howe of the glen, i came on the strangest kind of cot-house. it was piled together of the rough bowder stones of the country, their edges undressed and gaping, the spaces between them filled in with faggots of heather and plastered with stiff bluish clay from the burn-sides. the roof was of branches of the fir trees long buried in the moss, and was thatched with heather. there was an opening in the middle, from which a smoke arose. and i heard a sound like singing from within--a sound that made my flesh creep. i went to the door and with my knuckle knocked gently, as is our fashion in that part of the country, crying, "are ye within, good wife?" whereat the strangest unearthly voice answered back to me, as it had been some one reading in the bible and laughing at the same time--a horrid thing to hear in that still place and so near the defenceless young lassies in the bower of the star. "the waters of meribah--the waters of meribah--for they were bitter!" it cried in a kind of wail. "come ben and hae some brose!" and then the thing laughed again. i took courage to look within, but because it was dark i saw nothing. the whole interior was full of the smoor of reek, and strange things sped round and round, crossing each other and passing the door continually, like the staves and buckets of a water-mill running round. "come awa' ben," again commanded the voice. "doon, badrona! peace, grimalkin!" the command was addressed to a number of monstrous black cats, which had been speeding round the walls of the cot like mad things, to the music of the unearthly crooning song which i had heard from within. i stepped across the threshold and found a red peat fire upon the hearth and a black pot hanging over it. i looked about for the person who had addressed me. at first i could see him nowhere. but as my eyes grew accustomed to the light i saw the queerest being--the sight of whom made my heart grow cold and my hand steal to the little pocket bible, bound in two halves, that was in my inner pocket. a small square object sat huddled up at the far side of the fire. upon its head there was a turban, like those the travellers into the lands of the false prophet tell us of. but this turban was of black bull hide, and the beast's dull eyes looked out underneath with a hellish suggestion. the figure was squat like a toad, and sitting thus sunk down upon itself, it seemed to be wholly destitute of feet and legs. but a great pair of hairy arms lay out upon the hearth and sometimes clawed together the fiery red peats, as though they had just been casten and were being fitted for drying upon the moss. "come awa' ben. ye are welcome, honest stranger," again said the thing of the uncanny look, "i am nane bonny, truth to tell, but i'm nocht to my mither. it's a braw thing that ye are no' to meet wi' her the nicht. she has gane ower by to gather the black herb by the licht o' the aval moon. when the moon faas ower on her back like a sheep that canna rise, then is the time to gather the bonny wolfs bane, the deil's bit, wi' the berries by the water-side that nane kens whaur to seek, an' the mandrake that cries like a murdered bairn when ye pu' it frae the moss. see ye here, there's three dead bairns aneath that hearthstane. gin ye like i will let ye see the banes. she didna pit me there, for the deil's wife has aye a warm side to the deil's bairn. sit ye doon and bide a wee. it's braw an' heartsome to see a face at willie's shiel in the howe o' the eglin." after the first horrid surprise of coming in upon such a place, i saw that the thing after all was human--an idiot or natural as i judged, with a monstrous twisted body and strange elricht voice like the crying of the night-wind in a keyhole. but i thought it best to sit down on a seat, even as he bade me, and so i drew a creepie stool carelessly nearer to me with one hand. "na, dinna sit on that--that's a stool that naebody can sit on but my mither." and when i looked at the creepie in the red firelight, for it felt strange to my hand, lo! it was formed of three skulls set close together, and the legs of it were of men's leg bones. then it flashed to my mind that i had chanced on the house of corp-licht kate, the witch wife of the star, who for many years dwelt alone on the flowe of the eglin, with only her idiot son with her for company. "na," said the object, "nane can sit on that creepie but the minnie o' me--corp-licht kate o' the star. it's weel for me, an' it's weel for you, that my minnie's no' here the nicht. but sit ye down and tak' your rest." i arose to flee, but the monstrous figure by the red fire waved me down. and i declare that as i looked at him, he seemed to swell and glow with a kind of brightness like the moon through mist. he waved his arms abroad, and immediately about me there began the most affrighting turmoil. black forms that had been crouching in the corners came out and began to circle round us, as it appeared by some devilish cantrip, skimming round the house breast-high, without ever touching the floor or the walls. they seemed like an army of cats, black and unearthly, all flying in mid air, screeching and caterwauling as at a witch's festival. i began to wonder if the foul, human-headed, toad-like thing that squatted by the fire were indeed the black master of witches himself, to whom, for my sins, i had been delivered in the flesh before my time. but with a wave of his hand the idiot stilled the turmoil, and the flitting demons came to the ground in the shape of a dozen or so of cats, black and horrid, with arched tails and fiery eyes--as wild to look at as though they had wandered in from the moor. these retreated into the dark corners of the room, whence we could hear them purring and spitting, and see their fiery eyes set on us in a circle out of the gloom, which was dense as night everywhere, save only immediately about the fire. "i am nae deil, though ye think it, and maist folk says it," said the idiot, fixing his eyes on me. "some says the daddie o' me was the deil, and some says mardrochat. i kenna. there's no' muckle to choose between them. ye can ask my mither gin ye like. i never speered her mysel'. ye'll hae a sup o' my parritch. they are guid parritch--no' like my mither's parritch. i wad advise ye to hae nocht to do wi' my mither's parritch. heard ye ever o' the hefter o' the star?" i told him no, and sat down to see what might happen in this strange abode so near to the two places where dwelled those whom i loved best--the bower of the star and the cave of macaterick. but i loosened my sword and felt that the grip of my pistols came easy to my hand. "be na feared o' puir gash gibbie o' the star sheiling," cried the object, noticing the action; "he's as honest as he is ugly. but keep wid o' the mither o' him, gin ye wad scape the chiding of the channering worm." the natural seemed to read the fears of my heart before i knew them myself. "na, ye'll no' dee like the hefter o' the star. he was an ill loon, him; he wadna let my mither be, when he cam to heft hoggs in the mid o' the year. he spied on us as he sat on a hill-tap to watch that his sheep didna break dykes. but ken ye what my mither did? she gaed oot to him wi' a wee drap kail broth. tak' ye nane o' my mither's kail broth. they are no' canny. but the hefter, silly body, took mair o' them than he was the better o'. he took them doon in a bit hollow to be oot o' the wind, and when they fand him, he had manned it to crawl back to his watcher's hill-tap. but there the silly, feckless loon died like a trout on the bank. he didna like my mither's broth. na, they didna gree weel wi' him!" and gash gibbie went on yammering and grumbling, while i sat and gazed dumbfounded at him, and at the ugly grimalkins in the dark corners, which stared at me with shining eyes, till i wished myself well out of it all. "an' ken ye what my mither said when the next hefter cam to see after his sheep on the hill?" i shook my head. "she said, 'watna grand ploy it wad be gin this yin were to die as weel!' that was what my mither said." "and did he die?" i asked. gash gibbie moved his shoulders, and made a kind of _nichering_ laugh to himself, like a young horse whinnying for its corn. "na, he was ower cunning for my minnie, him. he wadna bide here, and when my minnie gaed to him with the guid kail broo and the braxy sooming amang it, says the second hefter, 'i'm no' that hungry the day, mistress; i'll gie the hoodie craws a drap drink o't!' "and so he did, and as fast as the craws got twa fills o' their nebs, they keeled ower on their backs, drew in their taes three times, cried _kraigh_, and tumbled heels up, as stiff as methusala! richt curious, was it na? she is a wonnerfu' woman, my mither!" the thunder clouds which had been forming all through the heat of the afternoon, began to roar far away by loch doon, and as the place and the talk did not conduce to pleasant thoughts, i rose to go. "what's your hurry?" cried gash gibbie, swinging himself round to my side of the fire, and lifting himself on his hands like a man that has no feet. "my minnie will no' be here till the mornin', and then we'll hae company belike. for she's gane to warn mardrochat to send the sodgers to the twa run-awa' lassies up at the bit bouroch on the meaull o' garryhorn." "to bring the soldiers?" i said, for the words made me suddenly afraid. "aye," said the natural, looking cunningly at me, "an' gash gibbie wad hae warned the bits o' lassies. but he's ower gruesome a tyke to be welcome guest in lady's bower. but gibbie wishes the lassies no harm. they are clever, well-busked hizzies." "i wonder if there are any more wanderers in hiding hereabouts," said i, thinking in my transparent guile to find out whether the cove macaterick were also known. "na, na, nane nearer than the caldons in the howe o' trool. there's some o' peden's folk there that my mither has put her spite on--but nane nearer." the thunder and lightning was just coming on, as i passed the ring of cats in the outer darkness of the hut, and looked out. "good night to ye, gibbie," said i, "and thank ye kindly for your crack and the warming i hae gotten before the fire!" "guid-e'en to yoursel', bonny laddie, an' a guid journey to ye. it's gaun to be a coorse nicht, and gibbie maun gang awa' ower the heather to see gin his bonny mither doesna' miss the road hame!" chapter xlii. the nick o' the deid wife. i went out, and the whole night seemed empty about me. the deep and wide basin between the hollow palms of the hills was filled with an eery leme of flame, flickering up from the ground. i took my way with as great strides as i could compass, back to the bower under the trees. the thunder rolled continuously about and about. at times it seemed to recede far away, but always sounding from different places, as though many peals were running races one with the other. then the lightning flickered, and keen little arrows sped hither and thither till the whole sky twanged like a harp. it seemed a hundred miles to the shieling on the hill. and when i came near i was astonished and greatly affrighted to hear the sound of voices, and at least one of them the voice of a man. a strange fear came over me; hardly, i think, the fear of the king's men. "i hae brocht wi' me my silver spune," said a voice that went to my heart; "i made siccar o' my silver spoon. gin i hae to gang to the heather for the covenant, at least i shall gang as a lady!" it was my mother's voice, and i ran down to her, falling into her arms, and bidding her to be quiet in the same breath. wat had just arrived with my mother and little margaret of glen vernock, who, winding herself about all our hearts, had become as her own child to my mother in the days of her loneliness. they were weary and in need of rest; but when i had told my news and the warning i had gotten from gash gibbie in the fearsome precincts of the hut of corp-licht kate, every one felt the need of at once forsaking the bower of the star and betaking ourselves to cove macaterick--which, if not so pleasant or commodious, was at least far more safe. so we loaded us with hugh kerr's meal, and the little bits of things that the lassies had gathered about them or brought with them. my mother carried only an oaken staff in her hand, and in a satchel at her girdle her beloved silver spoon (with "mary hope" on it in antique letters), which her father had given her for her own when she learned to read, and first took her place at the table above the salt. "o what wad he hae said, that was lord president of session in his time, gin he had seen his dochter mary linkin' ower the heather wi' her coats kilted in her auld age?" my mother cried out once when we hurried her. for she had ever a great notion of her lineage--though indeed the hopes are nothing to compare with the gordons for antiquity or distinction. "i think your father was 'at the horn' mair nor yince himsel', mither," said i, remembering certain daffing talk of my father's. "aye, and that is just as true," said my mother, reconciling herself to her position, "forbye it is weel kenned that the wife aye wears the cockade of her lord." and at the word i thought of my lady of lochinvar, and hearkened to wat talking low to kate mcghie. but as for me i kept my mother by my side, and left maisie lennox to herself, remembering the fifth commandment--and knowing likewise that it would please maisie best if i took care of my mother. thus we came to cove macaterick. now the cove upon the hillside is not wet and chill as almost all sea caves are, where the water stands on the floor and drips from every crevice. but it was at least fairly dry, if not warm, and had been roughly laid with bog-wood dug from the flowes, not squared at all, but only filled in with heather tops till the floor was elastic like the many-plied carpets of whitehall. there was, as i have said, an inner and an outer cave, one opening out of the other, each apartment being about sixteen feet every way, but much higher towards the roof. and so it remained till late years, when, as i hear from the herd of the shalloch, the rocks of the gairy face have settled more down upon themselves, and so have contracted the space. but the cave remains to this day on the back hill of the star over the waters of loch macaterick. and the place is still very lonely. only the whaups, the ernes, and the mountain sheep cry there, even as they did in our hiding times. we gave the inner (and higher) room to the women folk, and divided the space with a plaid hung up at the stone steps which formed a doorway. we found anton lennox much recovered, but still very weak and pale. he sat propped up on his heather bed against the side of the cave. his countenance appeared stern and warlike, even when it was too dark to see, as it mostly was, his great sword leaning against the wall by his side. i need not tell of the joy there was when maisie lennox greeted her father, and we that had been so wide scattered drew together once again. but as soon as i had told wat of the happenings at the hut of corp-licht kate, nothing would serve him but we must set out and try to intercept the witch from fulfilling her mission. for if she brought the soldiers upon us, our trail from the bower among the trees was fresh and might be followed. wat was determined at all costs to turn the witch; and, having brought her to her house, to keep a watch upon her there--at least till the rain had washed away our foot-prints down the mountain side, and confused them among the moss-hags. so leaving most unwillingly the snug and sheltered place of cove macaterick, we stepped out into the gloomy and threatening night. the wild-fire still flickered, and the thunder rolled continuously; but the rain held off. the natural had mentioned that his mother was making over the hills toward straiton, where for the time being mardrochat, the informer, dwelt, and where was quartered a troop of horse for the overawing of the country. we decided, therefore, that we should take our course in that direction, which led past peden's hut, where the wanderer had abode so often. it was an uncanny night, but in some fashion we stumbled along--now falling into moss-hags almost to the waist, and now scrambling out again, and so on without a word of complaining. wat's attire was not now such as that he had donned to visit my lady wellwood. it was but of stout hodden grey and a checked plaid like the rest. so we mounted shoulder after shoulder of heathery hillside, like vessels that labour over endless billows of the sea against a head wind. the thunder cloud which seemed to brood upon the outer circle of the hills, and arch over the country of macaterick and the star, now grumbled nearer and louder. not seldom there came a fierce, white, wimpling flash, and the encompassing mountains seemed ready to burn up in the glare. then ensued darkness blacker than ever, and the thunder shaking the world, as though it had been an ill-builded house-place with skillets and pans clattering on the wall. we had been thus walking for some while, bearing breast to the brae all the time, and leaning forward even as a horse leans to its collar. we came in time near to the height of the pass. we could not see a yard before us. but suddenly we felt the ground begin to level in front; and lo! in a moment we were in the throat of the defile, with the hills black above us on either side. suddenly there came a terrible white flash of lightning, brighter and longer continued than any we had seen. the very air seemed to grow blue-black like indigo. the thunder tore the heavens, galloping without ceasing. flash followed rending flash. immediately before us on a hillock we saw a wondrous sight. there sat gash gibbie, the mis-shaped idiot, crouched squat like a toad, at the head of a woman who lay with her arms straight at her sides, as though stretched for burial. as we stood illumined against the murky blackness of the pass, the monstrous thing caught sight of us, and waved his hands, dancing meantime (as it seemed) upon spindles of legs. how he had come so far and so swiftly on such a night i cannot tell. but without doubt, there he was on the highest rock of the pass, with the dead woman stretched at his feet, and the fitful blue gleam of the lightning playing about him. and i warrant you it was not a comely or a canny sight. "come ye here," cried the idiot lad, wavering above us as though he were dancing in the reek of the nether pit, "an' see what yon has done to my mither. i aye telled her how it wad be. it doesna do to strive wi' yon. for yon can gie ye your paiks so brave and easy. but my mither, she wad never hear reason, and so there she lies, dead streeked in the 'nick o' the deid wife.' yon has riven the life frae my mither!" we were close at his side by this time, and we saw an irksome sight, that shook our nerves more than the thunder. a woman of desperately evil countenance lay looking past us, her eyes fixed with an expression of bitter wrath and scorn upon the black heavens. her face and hands were stained of a deep crimson colour, either by the visitation of god or made to seem so by the flickering flame of wild-fire that played about us. chapter xliii. the vengeance of "yon." gash gibbie surveyed the sight with a kind of twisted satisfaction. he went hirpling about the body round and round. he squatted with crossed legs at its head. "what think ye o' that?" he asked, "that's my mither. she's near as bonny as me, think ye no? yon micht hae made her bonnier to look at, gin he was to be so ill to her." and the monster crouched still lower, and took the terrible scarlet-stained face and neck on his knees. "mither! mither!" he wailed, "i aye telled ye it wad come to this--mockin' yon disna do. a wee while, maybe, he lets ye gang on; but no for lang! yon can bide his time, and juist when ye are crawin' croose, and thinkin' on how blythe and canty ye are--blaff! like a flaught o' fire--yon comes upon ye, and where are ye?" he took a long and apparently well-satisfied look at his mother. "aye, there ye lie, an' by my faith, ye are no bonny, mither o' mine. mony is the time i telled ye what it wad be, afore yon had dune wi' ye." small wonder that it chilled our blood to hear the twisted being cry out thus upon the mother that bore him. he seemed even no little pleased that what he had foretold had come to pass. so we stood, wat and i, in silent amaze before him, as the storm continued to blare till the whole heaven above us appeared but the single mouth of a black trumpet. sometimes we seemed to be in a large place, ribbed and rafted with roaring sound, upholstered with lightning flashes of pale violet and blue. then again the next moment we were shut within a tent of velvet blackness like a pall, with only the echoes of the warring midnight rolling away back among the hills. there seemed no god of pity abroad that night to look after puir muir-wandered folk, but only mocking devils riding rough-shod on the horses of the pit. "come away hame, gibbie," said i, "ye can do her little good. i fear she's by wi' it!" "by wi' it!" quoth the natural, fleeringly. "na, only beginning wi' it. d'ye no ken, hill-man-wi'-the-hirpling-leg, that yon has gotten her. i can see her stannin' afore yon, wi' her face like red fire, a black lie in her mouth and ill-intent in her heart. for as the tree falls, so doth it lie." the imp seemed to have gotten the words at some field-preaching. "think ye i didna warn her?" he went on. "my braw chiels, ye hae gotten your warnin' this nicht! meddle na wi' yon, neither dare him to his face lest he be angry. for juist like gibbie killin' a speckly taed, yon can set his heel on ye!" he stroked the hair off the dead woman's brow with a hand like a hairy claw. "aye, an' ye were na sic an ill mither to me, though ye selled yoursel' to ye-ken-wha! whatna steer there is up there aboot the soul o' ae puir auld body. hear till it----" and he waved his hands to the four airts of heaven, and called us to hearken to the hills shaking themselves to pieces. "siccan a steer aboot a puir feckless auld woman gaun to her ain ill place! i wonder yon is no' shamed o' himsel'!" and the twisted man-thing put his hands to his brow and pressed the palms upon his eyes, as if to shut out the unceasing pulsing of the lightning and the roar of the anger of god breaking like sea upon the mountains. "sae muckle squandered for sae little--an' after a' but little pleasure in the thing! i dinna see what there is in the black man's service to mak' siccan a brag aboot. gin ye sup tasty kail wi' him in the forenicht, he aye caa's roond wi' the lawin' i' the mornin'! "losh! losh! sae muckle for sae little. i declare i will cut oot the three marks that my mither made on me, and gang doon to peden at the shalloch. i want na mair sic wark as this! na, though i was born wi' the black man's livery on me! "preserve us!" he cried. "this is as fearsome as that year there was nae meat in the hoose, and gash gibbie brocht some back, and aye brocht it, and brocht it even as it was needed. and kate o' the corp-licht, she readied it and asked nae quastions. but only tearin' belly-hunger gied us strength to eat that awesome meat. an' a' the neighbours died o' starvation at tonskeen and the star an' the bonny hill o' the buss--a' but gib an' his mither, their leevin' lanes. but yae nicht yon sent gibbie's sin to find him oot; or maybe the black thing in the hole gat lowse, because it was his hour. "and at ony rate puir gibbie gat a terrible fricht that nicht. "wad ye like to hear? aweel, puir gibbie was lying on his bed up that stair, an' what think ye there cam' to him?" he paused and looked at us with a countenance so blanched and terrible that almost we turned and ran. for the lightning played upon it till it seemed to glow with unholy light, and that not from without but from within. it was the most terrifying thing to be alone with such a monstrous living creature, and such a dead woman in the lonesome place he had called the "nick of the deid wife." what with the chattering of our teeth, the agitation of our spirits, and the flicker of the fire, the old dead witch seemed actually to rise and nod at us. "so gash gibbie, puir man, lay and listened in his naked bed, for he had gotten his fill that nicht, though a' the lave were hungry--an' that o' his ain providin'. but as he lay sleepless, he heard a step come to the door, the sneck lifted itsel', an' a foot that wasna his mither's came into the passage, _dunt-duntin'_ like a lameter hirplin' on two staves! "an' then there cam' a hard footstep on the stair, and a rattle o' fearsome-like sounds, as the thing cam' up the ladder. gibbie kenned na what it micht be. an' when the door opened an' the man wi' the wooden feet cam' in--preserve me, but he was a weary-lookin' tyke. "'whaur came ye frae?' says puir gash gibbie. "'frae the grave!' says he. he hadna muckle to say, but his e'en war like fiery gimblets in his head. "'what mak's your e'en bones sae white an' deep?' "'the grave!' says he. he hadna muckle to say, but he spak' aye mair dour and wearisome than ever. "'what mak's ye lauch sae wide at puir gibbie?' "'the grave!' says he. he hadna muckle to say, but syne he steppit nearer nearer to the bedside. "'what made that great muckle hole in your side?' "'you made it!' cried the ghaist, loupin' at gibbie's throat; an' puir gib kenned nae mair." and even as the monster shouted out the last words--the words of the spectre of his cannibal vision--gash gibbie seemed to us to dilate and lean forward to spring upon us. the wild-fire reeled about as though the very elements were drunken, and wat and i fairly turned and fled, shouting insanely with terror as we ran--leaving the silent stricken witch with the face of blood, and the misshapen elf, her hell's brood progeny, raving and shouting on the hillside--these two alone at midnight in the "nick of the deid wife." "aye, rin, rin," we heard him call after us. "rin fast, and yon will maybe no' catch ye--till it is your hour!" and truly wat and i did run in earnest, stumbling and crying out in our terror--now falling and now getting up, then falling to the running again without a single reasonable word. but as we came hot-foot over the rig of lochricaur, we seemed to run into the sheeted rain. for where we had been hitherto, only the blue dry fire had ringed us, but here we ran into a downpour as though the fountains of the deep of heaven had broken up and were falling in a white spate upon the world. we were wet, weary, and terrified, more than we had ever been in our lives, before we reached the hermitage of the cave of macaterick. there we found the women waiting for us, listening fearfully to the roar of the storm without, and hearkening in the lown blinks to auld anton lennox praying--while the lightning seemed to run into the cave, and shine on the blade of the sword he held gripped in his right hand. so we stripped our wet clothes, and lay in the outer place all the night, where there was a fire of red peats, while the women withdrew themselves into their inner sanctuary. i could see the anxiety in their eyes when we came in, for they could not but discern the ghastly terror in our faces. but without any agreement between ourselves, wat and i silently resolved that we should not acquaint any of the party with the hideous judgments of that night, to which we had been eye-witnesses. chapter xliv. a desirable general meeting. the next morning dawned colder and more chilly. the catch of the autumn of the year was in the air, and it nipped shrewdly till the sun looked over the hills in the east. this was to be the great day of the societies' general meeting, which had been summoned in the wilds of shalloch-on-minnoch.[ ] [footnote : now, because men so readily forget, i may repeat how that the united societies had grown in strength since ayrsmoss, and now needed only a head to make a stand for the cause. it was a strange way of the providence of god, that it should come about that these little meetings for prayer in remote places of the land, should grow to be so mighty a power for the pulling down of strongholds. at this time, though every appearance in arms had been put down at pentland, at bothwell, and at ayrsmoss, yet the blue banner itself had never been put down. and even now many a malignant in the south and west trembled at the great and terrible name of the "seven thousand." the proclamations of the societies, which were affixed to every kirk door and market cross in the south, caused many a persecutor and evil-wisher to quake and be silent. and the word that god was building for himself a folk on the hills of scotland reached even to the low countries, and kept the prince of orange and his counsellors watching with eager eyes those things which were done by the remnant over seas, till the appointed hour should come. heading and hanging would not last for ever, and such is the binding power of persecution that for each one cut off by prison, or the hangman's cord, ten were sworn in to do the will of the societies. till this present time most fatal dissension and division among themselves had been their undoing. but there was one coming, now a willow wand of a student of groningen in holland, who should teach the societies to be a wall of fire about their faith and their land. to their conventions came commissioners from all parts of scotland, but mainly from the southern and western shires, as well as from the merse, and out of the bounds of fife.] though the morn had dawned caller, with a white rime of frost lying on the grass and for a little space making grey the leaves of the trees, the day of the great conventicle was one of great and lowering heat. my mother was set to go--and kate mcghie also. wat must needs therefore accompany them, and i had a letter from groningen which i behoved to read. with anton lennox, stout of heart even in his sickness, abode my lass, maisie lennox--of whom (though i looked to be back on the morrow) i took leave with reluctance and with a heavy and sinking heart. for us who were used to making a herd's track across the hills, it was not a long step over the moors from macaterick to the foot of the craigfacie of shalloch, where the general meeting of the societies was to take place. but it was a harder matter for my mother. she needed help over every little brink of a peat brow, and as we passed tonskeen, where there is a herd's house in the wild, far from man and very quiet with god, i ran to get her a staff, which the shepherd's good wife gladly gave. for there was little that would be refused to a wanderer in these parts, when on his way to the societies' meeting.[ ] [footnote : so grateful and inspiring were these gatherings, that many went to their death recalling the grace and beauty of these meetings--"desirable general meetings"--they were in deed and sooth, at least as i remember them.--(w. g., afton, .)] soon we left the strange, unsmiling face of loch macaterick behind, and took our way towards the rocky clint, up which we had to climb. we went by the rocks that are called the rig of carclach, where there is a pass less steep than in other places, up to the long wild moor of the shalloch-on-minnoch. it was a weary job getting my mother up the steep face of the gairy, for she had so many nick-nacks to carry, and so many observes to make. but when we got to the broad plain top of the shalloch hill it was easier to go forward, though at first the ground was boggy, so that we took off our stockings and walked on the driest part. we left the burn of knocklach on our left--playing at keek-bogle among the heather and bent--now standing stagnant in pools, now rindling clear over slaty stones, and again disappearing altogether underground like a hunted covenanter. as soon as we came over the brow of the hill, we could see the folk gathering. it was wonderful to watch them. groups of little black dots moved across the green meadows in which the farmsteading of the shalloch-on-minnoch was set--a cheery little house, well thatched, and with a pew of blue smoke blowing from its chimney, telling of warm hearts within. over the short brown heather of the tops the groups of wanderers came, even as we were doing ourselves--past the lonely copse at the rowantree, by the hillside track from straiton, up the little runlet banks where the heather was blushing purple, they wended their ways, all setting towards one place in the hollow. there already was gathered a black cloud of folk under the rickle of stones that runs slidingly down from the steep brow of craigfacie. as we drew nearer we could see the notable session stone, a broad flat stone overhanging the little pourie burn that tinkles and lingers among the slaty rocks, now shining bone-white in the glare of the autumn sun. i never saw a fairer place, for the heights about are good for sheep, and all the other hills distant and withdrawn. it has not, indeed, the eye-taking glorious beauty of the glen of trool, but nevertheless it looked a very sabbath land of benediction and peace that day of the great societies' meeting. upon the session stone the elders were already greeting one another, mostly white-headed men with dinted and furrowed faces, bowed and broken by long sojourning among the moss-hags and the caves. when we came to the place we found the folk gathering for prayer, before the conference of the chosen delegates of the societies. the women sat on plaids that had been folded for comfort. opposite the session stone was a wide heathery amphitheatre, where, as on tiers of seats, rows of men and women could sit and listen to the preachers. the burnie's voice filled up the breaks in the speech, as it ran small and black with the drought, under the hollow of the bank. for, as is usual upon our moors, the rain and storm of the night had not reached this side of the hill. i sat down on a lichened stone and looked at the grave, well-armed men who gathered fast about the session stone, and on the delegates' side of the water. it was a fitting place for such a gathering, for only from the lonely brown hills above could the little cup of conventicle be seen, nestling in the lap of the hill. and on all the moor tops that looked every way, couching torpid and drowsed in the hot sun, were to be seen the sentinels--pacing the heather like watchmen going round and telling the towers of zion, the sun flashing on their pikes and musket barrels as they turned sharply, like men well-disciplined. the only opening was to the south-west, but even there nothing but the distant hills of colmonell looked in, blue and serene. down in the hollow there was a glint of melancholy loch moan, lying all abroad among its green wet heather and stretches of yellow bent. what struck me as most surprising in this assembly was the entire absence of anything like concealment. from every quarter, up from the green meadows of the minnoch valley, over the scaurs of the straiton hills, down past the craigs of craigfacie, over from the deep howe of carsphairn, streams of men came walking and riding. the sun glinted on their war-gear. had there been a trooper within miles, upon any of the circle of the hills, the dimples of light could not have been missed. for they caught the sun and flecked the heather--as when one looks upon a sparkling sea, with the sun rising over it and each wave carrying its own glint of light with it upon its moving crest. as i looked, the heart within me became glad with a full-grown joy. so long had we of the religion hidden like foxes and run like hares, that we had forgotten that there were so many in the like case, only needing drawing together to be the one power in the land. but the time, though at hand, was not yet. i asked of a dark long-haired man who stood near us, what was the meaning of such a gathering. he looked at me with a kind of pity, and i saw the enthusiasm flash from his eye. "the seven thousand!" he said; "ken ye not the seven thousand upon the hills of scotland, that never bowed the knee to baal?" "pardon me, friend," said i, "long hiding on the mountains has made me ignorant. but who are the seven thousand?" "have ye indeed hidden on the mountains and ken not that? did ye never hear of them that wait for the time appointed?" i told him no. "then," said he, "who may you be that kens so little?" i said that i was william gordon, younger son of the persecuted house of the gordons of earlstoun. "o, the bull's brother!" said he, shortly, and turned him about to go away. but spitfire wat was at his side, and, taking the dark man by the elbow, presently halted him and span him round so that he faced us. "and who are you that speaks so lightly of my cousin of earlstoun?" he asked. i think wat had forgotten that he was not now among his cavalier blades--who, to do them justice, are ready to put every pot-house quarrel to the arbitrament of the sword, which is after all a better way than disputation and the strife of tongues. the dark man smiled. "ye are hot, young sir," he said bitterly. "these manners better befit the guard-room of rob grier of lag than a gathering of the seven thousand. but since ye ask my name, i am poor unworthy robin hamilton, on whom the lord hath set his hand." then we knew that this dark-browed man was sir robert hamilton, who with my brother sandy had been the societies' commissioner to the low counties, and who was here at shalloch-on-minnoch to defend his action. he was also brother of jean hamilton, sandy's wife, and of a yet more sombre piety. then, though i knew well that he had been the rock on which the covenant ship split at bothwell, and a stone of stumbling in our counsels ever since, yet, because he looked so weary and broken with toils, travels, and watchings, my heart could not choose but go out to him. as he looked and said nothing, a more kindly light came into his eye as he gazed at wat. "ye will be black bess of lochinvar's son--a tacked-on covenant man. but i doubt not a kindly lad, for all ye are so brisk with your tongue and ready with your blade. i have seen the day when it would have done me a pleasure to step out with you, in days that were full of the pride of the flesh. i do not blame you. to fight first and ask wherefore after, is the gordon all over. but do not forget that this day, here on the wild side of the shalloch-on-minnoch, there are well-nigh a thousand gentlemen of as good blood as your own. homespun cloth and herds' plaidies cover many a man of ancient name this day, that never thought to find himself in arms against the king, even for the truth's sake." robert hamilton spoke with such an air of dignity and sadness, that wat lifted his hand to his blue bonnet in token that he was pacified. and with a kindly nod the stranger turned among the throng that now filled all the spacious place of meeting. chapter xlv. the outfacing of clavers. it was indeed a wonderful sight and made our hearts beat high only to look at it. upon the session stone twelve men stood with heads bared to the fierce heat of the sun. all of them were grey-headed men, saving two only, a lad of a pale and girlish face with dark sweet eyes, and towering above him, the flecked raven locks of sir robert hamilton. these twelve were the commissioners of districts, all ordained elders. at one side was a little table brought from the house of the shalloch, and a man sat at it busily writing. by a curious sword cut across his cheek, i knew him for michael shields, presently the clerk, and afterwards the historian of the united societies. behind upon the hillside was drawn up a guard of two hundred horse. and the tossing bits and jingling accoutrements made a pleasant sound to me that loved such things, which were mostly the portion of our enemies. the wide amphitheatre opposite to the session stone was occupied chiefly by the women and older men, who, as i have said, sat upon plaids spread upon the bank. behind these again, and extending far up the gently sloping side of the shalloch hill, was a noble sight, that made me gasp for gladness. company behind company were ranked the men whom robert hamilton had called the seven thousand. there were officers on their flanks, on whose drawn swords the sun glittered; and though there was no uniformity of dress, there was in every bonnet the blue favour of the covenant. their formation was so steady and their numbers so large that the whole hillside seemed covered with their regiments. looking back over the years, i think we might have risked a dunkeld before the time with such an ordered host. i heard one speaking in the french language at my elbow and looked about me. whereupon i spied two men who had been walking to and fro among the companies. "but all this will do little good for a time," said one of the speakers. "we must keep them out of the field till we are ready. they need one to draw them into the bond of obedience. they are able to fight singly, but together they cannot fight." "no matter," said the other, "they will stand us in good stead one day when the prince sails over. the seven thousand shall be our mainstay in that day, not in scotland only, but in britain." by this i guessed that these two were officers of the prince of orange sent over to see if the times were yet ripe. meanwhile the meeting proceeded to its end amid the voice of prayer and the solemn throb of psalmody. it was a great and gracious thing to hear the swell of praise that went up from that hillside, from the men who had worshipped only in the way of silence and in private, because they dared no other, for many weary months. it was about the third hour of the afternoon, and we had not begun to wax weary, when, away on the hillside, we heard the sound of cheering. we looked about us to see what might be the cause. there came one riding slowly down upon a much tired horse between the ranks of the companies--a great tall man in a foreign coat and hat, whom at the first glint my mother knew for sandy my brother. as he came nearer the roar of greeting swelled and lifted. i declare i was proud of him. even robert hamilton had gotten no such greeting. i had not thought that our sandy was so well-kenned a man. and i forgave him for flouting me. "mother," i said, "that is our sandy they are cheering!" "think ye i kenned not that! whaur has he come frae?" she said. "i wonder if jean hamilton kens." it was like my mother to think first of others; but in a little she said, "i trust i am not overproud, that my bairn is so honoured." and indeed it made us all proud that sandy was thus greatly thought of. so in a little he also took his place on the session stone, and made another young head among the grey beards. soon he was called upon to speak, and in his sounding voice he began to tell of his message from the kirks of holland, and to commend patience and faithfulness. they say that every man that stood to arms among the seven thousand heard him that day. aye, and that even the watchers upon the tops caught many blessed words and expressions, which the light winds blew them in wafts. saving richard cameron's alone, there was no such voice as sandy's heard in scotland during all his time. then robert hamilton rose and spoke, counselling that since there were so many present, they should once more and immediately fall to arms. but one of the most venerable men there present, rose. "robin, ye are but one of the council of twelve, and ye know that our decision is to wait the man and the hour. it beseems you, then, either to speak within the order of the society or to be silent." last of all the young man rose, he of the pale countenance and the clustering hair. "it is young mr. james renwick, who is going abroad to study and be ordained at groningen in the low countries," said one near to me. and indeed he was mightily changed so that i had scarce known him. the lad's voice was sweet and thrilling, persuasive beyond belief. in especial, coming after the mighty roaring of the bull of earlstoun (so they called sandy) and the rasping shriek of robin hamilton, it had a great effect upon me. there came a sough from the people as his words ran over them, like a soothing and fanning wind blowing winningly among the trees of the wood. so the day passed and the gladness of the people increased, till some of us felt that it was like the golden gates of heaven just to be there. for the passion of a multitude of folk with one heart's desire, thrilling to the one word and the one hope, had taken hold on us. the like was never seen upon the wild mountains of the south. then, as though to recall us to earth, from the green meads of the minnoch side there came one running to pass the word that the enemy was in sight. two companies of strachan's dragoons, with all claverhouse's levies, were riding from straiton as fast as their horses could carry them. whereat, without haste and with due solemnity, the great and desirable general meeting of the united societies held on the wilds of shalloch-on-minnoch was brought to an end. the women and aged men were placed behind the companies, and such as could reach home without passing the troopers' line of march were set upon their way. but when once we found ourselves without the lines of the companies, which stretched across from the black downthrow of rocks upon craigfacie to the rig of the shalloch hill, my mother would go no farther. "na," she said, "gang your ways back doon. this is the place for kate and for an auld wife like me. but it shall never be said that william gordon's wife grudged both her sons to the work of the lord!" so wat and i went our ways down to where sandy stood as chosen leader of the army of the seven thousand. he paid, indeed, but little attention to us, giving us no more than a nod, yet instantly setting us upon errands for him. "will ye fight?" said i, when i got a quiet moment of him. "alas!" he said, "there is no such good luck. had i not the direct message of the prince to abide and wait, i would even now strike a blow. as it is, we must just stand to our arms. i would to god it were otherwise!" the companies of mounted soldiers rapidly approached, to the number of perhaps three hundred. but i think they were daunted, when from a knoll below the house of the shalloch they first saw our great and imposing army. they say there were over two thousand under arms that day. "the seven thousand will surely stay john graham this day," said one at my elbow. but claverhouse was not a man easily feared. leaving his men, he rode forward alone, having but a trumpeter someway behind him. he held a white hand-kerchief in his hand, and waved it as he rode towards us upon his war-horse. i saw the trumpeter lad look about him more than once, as if he wished himself well out of it. but colonel graham rode straight at the centre of our array as if it had been his own. sandy went out to meet him. "will ye surrender and lay down your arms to the king's troops?" cried clavers as he came near. since then i have never denied the man courage, for all his cruelty. there came a gust of laughter from the nearer companies of our array when they heard his words. but sandy checked the noise with his hand. "surrender!" he said. "it is you, john graham, that may talk of surrender this day. we are no rebels. we but stand to our arms in defence of our covenant rights." "keep that whig garbage for the prayer-meeting, earlstoun!" said claverhouse. "i at least know you too well, sandy gordon. do you mind the long wood of dairsie by the eden water?" what he meant i cannot tell, but i think his words daunted sandy for a moment. for in his old unsanctified days they had been fast comrades, being of an age, and student lads together at saint andrews, where both were equally keen of the play upon the green; though ever since sandy married jean hamilton he had turned him to new courses. so having obtained no satisfaction, claverhouse rode slowly back to the dragoons. then without a word, save the shout of command, he led them forward over the moor toward us. "sain my soul and body," said wat, "is the heather cat going to charge an army in position?" and indeed, it looked like it. but as he came toward us, from the front rank where sandy stood with a broadsword bare in his hand, and his horse brisk as though it had just been led from its stall, came my brother's voice. "if ye set a horse's hoof over that burn, ye shall receive our fire. men, make ready!" right up to the burn bank rode clavers and his troop, and there halted. for a long minute he looked at us very contemptuously. then he snapped his fingers at us. "that for ye!" he cried. "ye stand the day. ye shall be scattered the morn. i ken ye brawly. among a' your testimonies there is not one which any three of ye could read over and not fall out about. this day ye are on the brae-face. the morn ye'll be at the dyke back, with an ounce or two of his majesty's excellent lead in ye. god save the king!" and with that he waved his hand, cried to his men, and rode off like the steeve and dour persecutor that he was. in the late evening we took my mother and kate back again over the hill. my mother was very weary--so weary that at the house of tonskeen we left her with the decent man and wife that abode there, with kate to bear her company. she was not used to the life on the hills, and so for that time could flee no further. it was just grey day when we took the short way down the face of the gairy, that lifts its brow over the desolate moor of macaterick. being unencumbered with women folk, wat and i now came down the nearest way, that which leads by the strange rocky hollow, steep on every side, which is named the maiden's bed. so, fleet of foot, we fled westwards. as we looked, the sun began to rise over the range of kells and the tide of light flowed in upon us, gladdening our hearts. wat was not so brisk as i, for he had left kate behind; and though young men in times of danger have perforce to think of their skins first and of their maids after, yet it makes not the foot move so light when it must step out away from the beloved. but all the same, it was a bright morning when we clambered down the steep side of the hill that looks toward macaterick. the feathery face of the rock above the levels of macaterick, and the burn that flows from it by links and shallows into loch doon, glanced bright with the morning sun upon them. and there at last was the cave-mouth hidden under the boskage of the leaves. i ran on before wat, outstripping him, albeit that for ordinary he was more supple than i--so great was my desire to see maisie lennox, and assure myself that all had gone well with her father. i had not a thought but that she would be sitting safely within, with the cave garnished with fresh leaves like a bower, and her father watching her at her knitting through his bushy eyebrows. smiling, i lifted the curtain of birch leaves. great god of heaven! the cave was wholly empty, as i slid down into it. maisie and her father had vanished! i stood as one desperately amazed. there was no life or thought or soul left in me. i stood as one stands at the threshold of his home, before whom a gulf suddenly yawns fathomless. chapter xlvi. the fight at the caldons. now that which follows is the telling of toskrie tam, who is now a gardener at afton, but who, in the old days, being bitten by the worldly delight of soldiering, had ridden with clavers and lag in the tumultuous times. tam is a long loose-jointed loon, for ever crying about rheumatism, but a truthteller (as indeed john graham taught him to be), and one that his wife has in subjection. there is the root of the old man in tam yet. for though he is an elder now, oftentimes i have come on him round a corner, using most uncovenanted language to his underlings. but he is a good gardener, and there is no service in being over gleg in the hearing with such. besides, his wife clours him soundly enough when there is need. somewhat after the following manner tam told his tale, a trifle unwillingly at first, but warming with the recollection as he proceeded. "aweel, sir william, gin ye insist. no that i like to be speakin' aboot thae days; but as ye inform me that it is a' to be written doon, i'll tell ye it word for word. weel, after the conventiclers had outfaced us at the shalloch-on-minnoch, clavers and douglas rode south to the minnoch brig that looks to loch trool. "'there's a dour pack o' whigs up that glen,' says clavers. 'think ye we will take a turn and steer them?' "'they will just be hiving hame frae the conventicle. we shall catch them as they run,' douglas made answer. "so without a word more, slack rein and go-as-you-please, we rode up glen trool. it was a bonny nicht and at a' times a bonny place, but the track was ill to keep, and we rode loose and scattering. douglas was fair foaming with the affront of the shalloch, and vowed, as he had often vowed before, that he would never more spare hilt or hair of the accursed breed. "at the caldons, a bit farmhouse set on a rig among trees at the foot of loch trool, gib macaterick and i were riding on ahead down by the water-side by the loch, when suddenly, without warning, we came on a little cloud of men all on their knees praying behind a dyke back. they were so busy with the supplications that they did not notice us. and we that looked for promotion over the head of the business, covered them with our muskets and called to them to surrender for traitors and rebels. but in a trice they were over the dyke and at us like wild-cats, gripping our horses and tumbling us off. they got gib down, but i that was suppler, managed to jook among the young oak-trees and run what i was fit back to the troop. "douglas was in command, for clavers had ridden on. he was a wild man when i told him that the rebels had taken gib macaterick. "'curse you and him both!' douglas cried. 'do i command a set of porridge-stuffed, baggy knaves that fall off their horses whenever they see a whig tyke skartin' for fleas? i'll tan gib's hide for him and yours too, my man, when we come to the post. ye shall ride the timber horse with a bit musket at your heels to learn ye how siccarly to sit your beast.' "whereat he cried to wheel, and we went twos about down the caldons road. the farm sits four square on a knowe-tap, compact with office-houses and mailings. there are the little three-cornered wickets in the walls. as we came to the foot of the brae we found gib macaterick stelled up against the dyke, with his hands bound and a paper in his teeth--a printed copy of the covenant. he was quite safe and sound. but when we loosed him, he could do nothing but curse and splutter. "'thou foul-mouthed whig,' cried douglas, 'hast thou also been taking the covenant? have him out and shoot him!' "but gib rose and made an end of the covenant, by setting his foot upon it and crushing it into the sod. then we moved forward, carelessly, thinking that the enemy would never stand against a troop, but that they would at once scatter to the hill which rises steep and black at the gavel end of the house. "however, when we came within sight of the steading, half a dozen muskets cracked, and one of our company cried out with the pain of being hit. indeed, the second volley tumbled more than one trooper from his saddle, and caused their horses to break ranks and run back, jingling accoutrements. "so colonel douglas dismounted half his men, and sent the better part of a troop, under the cornet of the same name, round to the high side of the farm to take the conventiclers in flank. which with all success they did, and came down at the charge upon the steadings, capturing half a dozen, mostly young lads, that were there with muskets in their hands. but there was one that threw himself into the lake and swam under water for it. and though our soldiers shot off a power of powder after him, we could get no satisfaction that he had been hit. we heard, however, that he was a carsphairn man and that the name of him was roger dunn. "so douglas ordered a dismounted file to lead the young lads out into a dell a quarter of a mile from the house, where the noise of the shootings would not annoy him at his refreshment. so the cornet took them out, well-pleased. for it was a job that suited him better than fighting, and there, in a little green hollow, he speedily laid the six featly in a row. "'so perish all his majesty's rebels!' said colonel douglas as he rode past, bung full of brandy and good mutton ham. "'that's as bonny a kill o' whigs as we hae gotten for mony a day. rothes will be pleased with this day's work!' said the cornet. "it was growing dark by the time that we drew up from the loch and it was ill getting a guide. no one of us had ever been in the country, and there is no wilder in all the south, as i have cause to know. but we had not got to any conclusion, when one came running with the news that he saw a light. so we spurred on as briskly as we dared, not knowing but that we might again hear the whistle of musket balls about our ears. "it was the little farm of esconquhan, and only old sandy gillespie and his wife were at home--the lads no doubt being at the conventicle, or it may be among those who had fought with us in the yard of the caldons, and now lay quiet enough down in the copsewood at the loch foot. "sandy gillespie of esconquhan was a shrewd old fox enough, and answered all douglas's questions with great apparent readiness. "'hae you a bible?' asked the colonel. "'aye,' said sandy, 'but it's gye and stoury. reek it doon, guid wife! i misdoot i dinna read it as often as i should--aiblins like yoursel', colonel.' "very biddably, the wife reached it down out of the little black hole over the mantelshelf, and the colonel laughed. "'it is indeed brave and dusty. man, i see you are no' a right whig. i doubt that bit book disna get hard wark!' "douglas's refreshment had made him more easy to deal with. "'nevertheless,' he continued, 'fettle on your blue bonnet and put us on the road to bongill, at the loch-head. for there is a great whigamore there of the name of macmillan and he will no' get aff so easy. i warrant _his_ bible is well-thumbed!' "'i canna rin wi' ye on siccan a nicht, and deed the road's no' canny. but you red-coats fear neither god nor deil!' said sandy gillespie readily. "'out on you, gangrel. gin ye canna rin ye shall ride. pu' the auld wretch up ahint ye,' said douglas, ready to be angry as soon as he was crossed, like all men in liquor. "and so we went over the hillside very carefully--such a road as beast was never set to gang on before. "'keep doon the swearin' as muckle ye can,' ordered sergeant murphy. 'lord, lord, but this is heart-breaking!' "sandy gillespie, canny man, tried to dissuade him from going to bongill that night. which only made douglas the more determined, thinking there was something or some-body that he might light on there, and so get great credit to himself. "'gin the road be as dour, crooked, and coarse as the cameronian's road to heaven, i'll gang that road this night!' said lag, who was pleased with the death of the six whigs at the caldons--though, as it might be, vexed that he had not been at the shooting himself. "we were no more than clear of the loch-side path, when douglas bade old sandy tune his pipes to help the men along the easier road with a song. "'a whig's sang or a king's-man's sang?' asked the auld tod blythely. "'hoot, a cavalier's song--what need hae we to tak' the book here!' cried douglas loudly. "'more need than inclination!' said claverhouse scornfully, who was now riding beside them. "sandy gillespie, who was an exceedingly far-seeing old worthy, pretended that he was loth to sing, whereat douglas ordered him with an oath to sing upon peril of his life. "so the old man struck up in a high piping voice, but none so ill in tune: 'our thistles flourished fresh and fair, and bonny bloomed our roses, but whigs cam' like a frost in june, and withered a' oor posies.' "as he went on the old man's voice grew louder, and in a little, half the command was cantily shouting the song, which indeed goes very well to march to. "'and there's bongill,' cried sandy, suddenly stopping and dropping off his horse, 'an' guid e'en to ye!' "and with that the old fellow slid off among the brush-wood and copse, and we saw no more of him--which perhaps was as well for him. "when we went into the little house of bongill, we found an open door both back and front. peats were blazing on the hearth. great dishes of porridge sat on a table. chairs and stools were overturned, and bibles and testaments lay everywhere. "'curse the old dog. he has sung them a' to the hill,' cried douglas. 'have him out and shoot him.' "but sandy was not to be seen. only from the hillside, a voice--the same that had sung, 'awa, whigs, awa,' gave us 'bonny davie leslie'; and then cried in mockery three times 'good-night!' "so the night being pit mirk and the hill unknown, we took up our abode at bongill till the morning. sitting in the hole of the peat stack we found a strange object, a crazy natural, shapeless and ill-looking. "but some of the men who had seen his mother, knew him for the idiot son of corp-licht kate, the informer, of the shiel of the star. douglas questioned him, for sometimes these naturals have much shrewd wit. "'how came ye to be here?' "'weel, ye see the way o't is this----' "'make a short story of it, if ye dinna want a bit o' lead through ye.' "'a blaw of tobacco wad fit gash gibbie better--grand man in the reid coatie!' said the natural, with a show of cunning. 'i cam' to the bongill i' the gloamin', an' faith the mistress would hae gien me a bed, but there was a horse in it already!' "so being able to make nothing of him, douglas let him go back to his dry peat coom. "the next morning was bright and bonny as the others had been, for the autumn of this year was most favourable to our purpose--by the blessing o' the deil as lag used to say in his cups, so that the track along the side of curleywee to loch dee was dry as a bone. when we came to the ford of the cooran, we saw a party coming down to meet us with prisoners riding in the midst. there was an old man with his feet tied together under the horse's belly. he swayed from side to side so that two troopers had to help him, one either side, to keep his seat. this they did, roughly enough. the other prisoner was a young lass with a still, sweet face, but with something commanding about it also--saving your presence, sir. she was indeed a picture and my heart was wae for her when some one cried out: "'mardrochat has done it to richts this time. he has gotten the auld tod o' the duchrae, anton lennox, and his bonny dochter at the same catch. that will be no less than a hundred reward, sterling money!' "whereat douglas cursed and said that a hundred was too much for any renegade dog such as cannon of mardrochat to handle, and that he could assuredly dock him of the half of it. "so that day we marched to new galloway, and the next to minnyhive on the road by the enterkin to edinburgh." this is the end of the toskrie tam's story as he told it to me in the garden house of afton. chapter xlvii. the galloway flail. when wat and i found the cave empty, immediately we began to search the hill for traces of the lost ones. for some time we searched in vain. but a little to the right of the entrance of the cave the whole was made plain to us. here we found the bent and heather trampled, and abundant stains of recent blood, as though one had been slain there and the body carried away. also i found a silken snood and the colour of it was blue. it was not the hue, for that is worn by most of the maids of scotland; but when i took it to me, i knew as certainly as though i had seen it there, that it had bound about the hair of maisie lennox. though when wat asked of me (who, being a lover might have known better) how i knew it for hers, i could not find words to tell him. but it is true that all the same, know it i did. so we followed down the trail, finding now a shred of cleading and again the broken bits of a tobacco pipe such as soldiers use, small and black, till in our search we had rounded the hill that looks into the valley of the cooran. here at the crossing of the burn, where it was smallest, we found anton lennox's broad blue bonnet. it was enough. soon we were scouring the hilltops as fast as our legs could move under us. we travelled southward, keeping ever a keen watch, and twice during the day we caught sight of troops of dragoons, moving slowly over the heather and picking their way among the hags, quartering the land for the sport of man-catching as they went. once they raised, as it had been a poor maukin, a young lad that ran from them. and we could see the soldiers running their horses and firing off white pluffs of powder. it was a long time ere the musket-cracks came to us, which must have sounded so near and terrible to the poor fugitive. but they hit him not, and for that time at least he wan off scot free. so presently we saw them come back, jeered at by their comrades, like dogs that have missed the quarry and slink home with their tails between their legs. but neither one of our poor captives was among them. so we held fast and snell to the eastward, passing along the skirts of the millyea, and keeping to the heights above the track which runs from the glenkens to the water of cree. it was near to the infall of the road from loch dee that we first gat sight of those we sought. it was not a large company which had them in charge, and they marched not at all orderly. so that we judged it to be either one of the annandale levies of the johnstone, or lag's dumfries troop of renegades. but as we came nearer, we marked quite clearly that they had two prisoners, tall men, one with some white thing about his head, and in the rear they had six or seven other men, mostly on foot. coming nearer we could also see a figure as of a young maid upon a horse. then i knew that the dear lass i had watched and warded so long, was surely at the mercy of the rudest of the enemy. we were thus scouring along the moor, keeping a wary eye upon the troop and their poor prisoners, when wat's foot took the edge of a moss-hag where the ground was soft. as it pressed the soil downward, we heard a sudden cry, a wild, black-a-vised man sprang up with a drawn sword in his hand, and pulling out a pistol ran at us. we were so taken aback at the assault that we could scarcely put ourselves upon the defence. but ere the man came near, he saw that we were dressed like men of the hills. he stopped and looked at us, his weapons being still pointed our way. "ye are of the people!" he said sternly. "ay," said we, for i think clavers himself had owned as much, being taken unawares and unable to get at his weapons. "i thought i saw ye at the general meeting," he said. "we were there," we replied; "we are two of the glenkens gordons." "and i am that unworthy outcast james macmichael." then we knew that this was he who, for the murder of the curate of carsphairn (a mightily foolish and ill-set man), was expelled and excommunicated by the united societies. "i will come with you for company," he said, taking his bonnet out of the moss-bank into which wat's foot had pressed it. now we wanted not his company. but because we knew not (save in the matter of peter pearson) what the manner of the man was, the time went past in which we could have told him that his room was more to us than his company. so, most ungraciously, we permitted him to come. soon, however, we saw that he knew far more of heather-craft than we. our skill in the hill-lore was to his but as the bairn's to that of the regent of a college. "the band that we see yonder is but the off-scourings of half a dozen troops," said he, "and chance riders that cannon of mardrochat has gathered. the ill loon himself is not with them. he will be lying watching about some dyke bank. ah, would that i could get my musket on him." so we hasted along the way, keeping to the hills in order to reach the clachan of st. john's town before the soldiers. we went cautiously, black macmichael leading, often running with his head as low as a dog, and showing us the advantage of every cover as he went. nor had we gone far when we had proof, if we wanted such, of the desperate character of the man in whose company by inadvertence we found ourselves. we were passing through a little cleuch on the holm of ken and making down to the water-side. already we could see the stream glancing like silver for clearness beneath us. all of an instant, we saw black macmichael fall prostrate among the rocks at the side of the cleuch. he lay motionless for a moment or two. then, without warning, he let his piece off with a bang that waked all the birds in that silent place, and went to our hearts also with a stound like pain. for though wat and i had both done men to death, it had been in battle, or face to face, when blade crosses blade and eye meets eye, and our foes had at least an equal chance with us. we had not been used to clapping at a dyke back and taking sighting shots at our foes. as soon as black macmichael had fired, he lifted up his hand, cried "victory," and ran forward eagerly, as one that fires at a mark at a wappenschaw may run to see if he has hit the target. yet wat and i went not down nor took part with him, but we held our way with sore hearts for the wickedness of this man. presently he came out and set after us. he cried "hoy" many times for us to wait for him, but we tarried not. so he took to running and, being a powerful man and clever with his feet, he soon overtook us. "what is the push?" he cried, panting. "i hit the skulker that watched for us from behind a rock. i keeled him over like a dog-fox on the hillside. see what he had upon him!" and he took from off his shoulder a very remarkable piece of ordnance which i shall presently describe. "we want neither art nor part in your bloody deeds, james macmichael," i answered him. "take yourself away, till the lord himself shall judge you!" he stood still as one astonished. "gosh," he said, "siccan a fash aboot killing an informer. i wad kill them a' like toads, for my son john that they hanged upon the dule tree of lag. i would slay them root and branch--all the griers of the wicked name. o that it had been mardrochat himself. then indeed it had been a fortunate shot. but he shall not escape the black macmichael!" the murderer, for indeed i could not hold him less, clapped his hand upon his breast and looked up to heaven in a way that made me think him crazed. "see here what i hae gotten aff him?" he cried again, like a child pleased with a toy. it was the instrument known as the galloway flail. it had a five-foot handle of stout ash, worn smooth like an axe haft with handling. then the "soople," or part of the flail that strikes the corn on the threshing floor, was made of three lengths of iron, jointed together with links of iron chain, so that in striking all this metal part would curl round an enemy and crush his bones like those of a chicken. "stand off," i said, as he came nearer with the galloway flail in his hand; "we want not to company with you, neither to share in your iniquity." "i daresay no," he said, frowning on us; "but ye will hae enough o' your ain. but i'll e'en follow on for a' that. ye may be braw an' glad o' the macmichael yet, considering the errand ye are on." nor had we gone far when his words proved true enough. we went down the cleuch, and were just coming out upon the wider strath, when a party of lag's men, for whom no doubt the dead spy had been gathering information, beset us. there were only half a dozen of them, but had macmichael not been at hand with his terrible weapon, it had certainly gone hard with us, if indeed we had not been slain or captured. with a shout they set themselves at us with sword and pistol; but since only one of them was mounted, the odds were not so great as at first they seemed. wat was ready with his blade as ever, and he had not made three passes before he had his sword through his man's shoulder. but it was otherwise with me. a hulking fellow sprang on me with a roar like a wild beast, and i gave myself up for lost. yet i engaged him as i best could, giving ground a little, yet ever keeping the upper hand of him. but as we fought, what was our astonishment to see macmichael, whose company we had rejected, whirl his iron flail above his head and attack the mounted man, whose sword cracked as though it had been made of pottery, and flew into a hundred fragments, jingling to the ground like broken glass. the next stroke fell ere the man on horseback could draw a pistol. and we could hear in the midst of our warding and striking the bones crack as the iron links of the flail settled about his body. the next moment the man on horseback pitched heavily forward and fell to the ground. macmichael turned with a yell of victory, and rushed upon the others. one stroke only he got as he passed at the dark, savage-like man who was pressing me--a stroke which snapped his sword arm like a pipe staple, so that he fell writhing. "stripe your sword through him! i'll run and do another!" cried the black macmichael. but the others did not stand to be done (small blame to them), and soon all three were running what they could over the level holms of the ken. one caught the riderless horse, running alongside till he could get a chance to spring upon the back of it, and so galloped back to the garrison at the clachan of st. john. macmichael sat down, panting as with honest endeavour. he wiped his brow with calm deliberation. "an' troth," he said, "i think ye warna the waur o' black macmichael an' rob grier's gallowa' flail." yet there was not even thankfulness in our hearts, for we found ourselves mixed yet more deeply in the fray. not that this broil sat on us like that other business of the dead spy behind the heather bush. for these men fell in fair fighting, which is the hap of any man. but we saw clearly that we should also be blamed as art and part in the killing of the spy, and the thought was bitter gall to our hearts. chapter xlviii. the fight in the gut of the enterkin. all the next two days we were gathering for the rescue of maisie and her father, finding, as we went eastward, men whose hearts were hot within them because of the oppression. but we found not place nor opportunity till the third day. it was the night of the second day that i stole down to the little village of carron bridge, which stands by the brink of a dashing, clean-running stream, where the troops were encamped. there i managed to get speech of maisie lennox. i clambered down one bank and up the other. and because the houses stood over the brawling of the stream, the soldiers on guard heard me not. i went from window to window till, by the good hap of love (and the blessing of god), i found the window of the room within which maisie lennox was confined. i cried to her through the dark, low and much afraid. "maisie may!" i called as in old days at the duchrae, when i used to carry her on my back, and she in sportiveness used to run and hide from me. she was not asleep, for i heard her say plainly, like one speaking from a bed: "it is a dream--a sweet dream!" but nevertheless i knew that she sat up and listened. "maisie may!" i said again at the window, very softly. i heard her move, and in a moment she came to the lattice, and put her hand on the sill. "oh, william!" she said, "is it indeed you and not a dream?" "it is even william gordon!" i said, sorry that i could not do more than touch her fingers through the thick bars of the guard-house. "you must go away at once," she said; "there are three soldiers sleeping no further off than the door." "we will rescue you to-morrow, maisie," i said. "and get yoursel's killed!" she said. "do not try it, for my sake." "well, for your father's!" i said. and at that she said nothing. then she told me that the young officer in command was a lad from one of the good families of the north, and that he treated them civilly. but that, having lost a prisoner on a former occasion, he might happen to lose his life if he let slip so noble a taking; which made him careful of his prisoners with a great carefulness. as well it might; for the privy council was not to be trifled with in those days. there were nine of the prisoners altogether, including the minister of a nithside conventicle that had been scattered that day. more i could not get from her. for, one of the soldiers stirring without, she prayed me so piteously to be gone, that i set off crawling down among the stones, though i was eager to hear how they had been taken at cove macaterick. but that i had to put off to another diet of hearing, as they say in the kirk. on the morrow we came upon the man that was of all men the best fitted to give us aid in the matter of rescue. this was james harkness of locharben, "james of the long gun," as he was called. he had been a soldier, and was said to be the finest marksman in scotland. often had the king's party tried to win him back again to the troop, but james kept to the hills with his noted long gun ever at his back. for many years he had as companion his brother thomas, called "tam o' the lang hosen." but he had been killed in battle, so that often like a widowed jack heron, james harkness stood at gaze on some hilltop, leaning on his gun, and this was mostly his place at conventicles or meetings of the societies. being an old soldier, it fell to him now to choose the place of the rescue and to command us in the manner of it. it was in the deep and narrow defile of the enterkin that he posted us--a most wild and fearsome place, where the hills draw very close together. one of the places is called stey gail, and is so high that the sheep grazing on it are like flies but half way up, as my plain-spoken friend mr. daniel de foe well remarked when he passed that way. on the other side there rises still higher, and almost as steep, the top of the thirlstane hill. there is one place at which the water runs down the cleft of the hills, and the place is perpendicular like a wall. it is so steep a place, as mr. foe saw it, that if a sheep die it lies not still, but falls from slope to slope, till it ends in the enterkin water. the path passes midways on the steepest and most terrifying slope. here, on the brow high above, we laid our ambush, and piled great stones to roll on the enemy if need were. it was a dark, gloomy day, with black clouds driven by the wind, and scuffs of grey showers scudding among the hilltops. presently lying couched amid the heather we saw the dragoons come marching loosely two and two, with their reins slack on their horses' necks. at the entering in of the gorge we observed them fall to single file, owing to the narrowing of the path. we could see the minister riding first of the prisoners in his black clothes. then after a soldier came anton lennox, sitting staid and sober on his horse, with a countryman to lead the beast, and to watch that, by reason of his wounds and weakness, he did not fall off. then followed maisie, riding daintily and sedately as ever. then came five or six other prisoners. each man of these was held by a rope round his neck, which a trooper had attached to the pommel of his saddle. and at this he took an occasional tug, according to his desire, as other men might take a refreshment. so these poor lads were being haled along to their fate in edinburgh. and for a certain long moment, at least, i thought with more complacence on the stark spy behind the dyke, to whose treachery they owed their fate. but the next minute i was ashamed of my thought. as i looked over i saw the whole party strung out along the steep and dangerous face of the precipice. then while they were thus painfully toiling with their horses through the dangers of the way, james of the long gun rose to his height out of the bent, and sent his powerful voice down, as it had been out of the clouds. for as i said, it was misty and gloomy that day--as indeed it is seldom otherwise there, and to see the place well you must see it in gloom and in no other way. "halt, ye sons of belial!" cried james of the long gun. i could hardly help smiling, for he said it solemnly, as though it had been his idea of a civil salutation or the enunciation of an incontestable fact. the young apple-faced officer answered, holding up his hand to stay the cavalcade behind him, and hearing some one call from the misty hill, but not catching the word. "who may you be, and what do you want?" then at the upward wave of james of the long gun's hand, twelve of us stood up with our pieces at the point. this startled young apple-face (yet i would not call him that, for he was not uncivil to maisie). for he thought of the council's word to him, for he well knew that it would be kept, and that his life would stand for the prisoners'. so when he saw twelve armed men rise from the steep side of the nether pot, and more looking over the brow of the crawstane snout, he was shaken very greatly in his nerves, being young and naturally much in fear of his neck. then another officer, whom we afterwards knew as sergeant kelt (he has wrongly been called captain, but no matter), took up the word and bade us to stand, for rebel loons. but it was long gun that cried out to him: "stand yourself, kelt. it is you that must do the standing, lest we send you to your own place at the bottom of the ravine, and with a dozen shot in you. will you deliver your prisoners?" "no, sir," cried kelt, "that we will not, though we were to be damned!" it was a soldier's answer, and i think none of us thought the worse of him for the expression he had at the close. for indeed it was a hard case for all of them. at which, quick as the echo of his oath, there rose one from the heather at our back and fired a musket at him. it was black macmichael. "damned ye shall be, and that quick! tak' that," he cried, "an' learn no' to swear!" and he fired his pistol also at the soldier. sergeant kelt threw up his arms, shot through the head. his horse also fell from rock to rock, and among a great whammel of stones, reached the bottom of the defile as soon as its master. then every man of the twelve of us had our pieces to our eyes, and each had picked his quarry, when the young officer held up his hand and desired a parley. indeed, the whole command was in great jeopardy, and so strung out like onions on a cord, that no man could either fight well himself or yet draw in to support his party. we had them completely at our mercy, there in the gut of the enterkin. at this moment their fore-goer cried back to them, from the knoll whence he had gone to scout, that there appeared another band of armed countrymen on the top of the hill to their front. they were, indeed, but some merchant travellers who, seeing the military stopping the way, stood modestly aside to let them pass. but they did us as much good as they had been a battalion of the seven thousand. at this the officer was even more afraid, though i think like a good soldier lad, more for his command than even for his own credit and life. "stand!" he cried. "a parley! what would ye have?" so james of the long gun called out to him: "we would have our minister." for so they thought of ministers in those days. but i would have cried for certain others before him, being, as it were, a man prepared and ready to go. however, i tell it as james harkness said it. "ye shall have your minister," said the officer. "and the lass," cried i, striking in, for which james did not thank me. "and the lass," the officer repeated, moving a little at hearing a new voice. "and her father and the other prisoners," i added. the officer hung a little on his words. "do you want them all? must ye have them?" "aye, all--or we will take the lives of every one of you!" "then," said the officer, "my life is forfeit to the council. another shall surrender the prisoners and not i." and with that he pulled a pistol from his holster and snapped it at his own head. nevertheless it went not off, the lock being out of order, belike, or the poor lad's hand unsteady. he was reaching down with his other hand to pull another pistol from the opposite holster, but ere he could draw it, the voice of the covenanter, anton lennox, spoke, gravely and nobly, so as to be heard by all of us. "young man, face not in your own blood an angry god! leap not thus quick to hell! abide--and i, anton lennox, vow that i will not see you wronged. i am but an old and a dying man. my wounds can hardly let me live. what is my life any more? it is even at your service. i will go with you to the council!" and at the word he looked up to the dark heaven, the sunshine wafting after the shower caught his head, and lo! there was a kind of glory about it, as of one that sees mysteries unveiled. then we cried out to him to come with us, but he denied. and maisie, his daughter, fleeched and besought him, but he would not even for her tears. "go thou, my lassie," he said, "for i am spent. when i set my sword to the hilt in the breast of mardrochat, of a surety i also gat my dead stroke. now i am no better than a dead man myself; and perhaps if i give my life for the life of this heathen man, the lord will not see the blood of the slain on my hands." it happens not often while men are yet in the struggle, that they seem to live to the height of their profession. but as anton lennox made his renunciation he was lifted, as it were, to the seventh heaven, and we common men gazed silently at him, expecting to see him vanish out of our sight. then he gave the orders as one with authority among the soldiers, even the officer not taking the words from his mouth. "loose the minister and let him step up the hill!" and they did it. and so with the other prisoners till it came to his daughter, maisie lennox. then anton, being sore wounded, bent painfully from his horse, and laid his hands on her shoulders. "my lassie," he said, "daughter of the covenant and of mine old age, do not weep or cry for me. yea, though i dwell now by the waters of ulais, whose name is sorrow, and drink of the springs of a marah that cannot be made sweet, i am the lord's man. he hath chosen me. my master gave himself for a thief. i, a sinner above most men, am willing to give myself for this persecutor that he may have time to repent." and maisie bent herself pitifully upon his hand, but she gave forth no voice or tear, and her little hands were still bound before her. "daughter of the covenant," her father said again, "thou dost well. kiss me once, ere, with all my garments red i come up from bozrah, going to the sacrifice as a bridegroom goeth to his chamber. if it please the lord, in the grassmarket, which is red already with the blood of the saints, i shall witness a good confession and win worthily off the stage. it has been my constant prayer for years." so without further word the troop filed away. and anton lennox, covenanter and brave man, sat his horse like a general that enters a conquered city, not so much as looking behind him to where, by the side of the path, maisie lennox stood, bareheaded, her hands yet bound, for none had remembered to loose them. no tear was upon her pale face, and as each rude soldier man came by her, he saluted as reverently as though she had been king charles stuart himself. and we, that were twelve men, stood at gaze on the hill above, silent and afraid. there was no word in our mouth and no prayer in our heart. we stood as though the place had been the place of a skull--the place wherein there is a garden, and in the garden a new tomb. chapter xlix. the death of mardrochat. now we knew that this affair would of a surety cause a great disturbance, and that the neighbourhood would be searched as a herd searches a hill for sheep. so with all haste we came back to galloway, and though we could not return to the cave on the star hill, we continued due west that we might see how my mother and kate mcghie were bestowed all this time, at the little house of tonskeen in the howe of the hills. maisie was wondrous quiet. she had hardly uttered a word ever since we watched her father out of sight, sitting erect like a warrior upon his horse. it was indeed not a time for complaints. women had to take sorrows as they came, as i was reminded of in an old letter which jean of the shirmers, my kind entertainer of the garpel, had once written to jean hamilton upon sandy's first taking. how i came by it i forget, if, indeed, i ever clearly knew. but at all events here it is: "you are not the first" (so the letter ran) "that hath had dear and tender husbands prisoners for christ. yea, blessed be god, not the first of the many hundreds that have lost them as to the world in scotland in our day. suppose that should happen which you cannot tell. suppose that it should come even to that, we pray you, jean hamilton, tell us in whose hands the keys of the prison are. we rather desire to believe in your free resignation of all that was yours, especially of all that you love greatly. will you dare to seek it back from him now, as if he could not guide and keep and manage, what you have committed to him? far be from you this, or the like of this. bless god that you have had a husband, if it were only to propine him with." was there ever such consolation sent in any nation to the wife of a man condemned to torture and to death? yet this and no other is the nature of our scots barnabas when he goes a-comforting. like the three that came to job of old, they ever tell you that you must take all the ill that comes to you thankfully, and at the back of it expect yet more and worse. this is indeed more than enough about jean hamilton's letter. but it appeared to me so like our nation and our cameronian folk, that i put it away in my case of despatches. i did not trouble maisie as we went with questions, knowing full well that when she felt the need of speech, she would come and tell me of her own accord. till then, i was content to be silent, though i yearned to know the truth of the taking of the cave and all her adventure. it was about the gloaming of the third day of our retreat, and we had come to the little house of the nether crae, where we were to bide. maisie lennox was within doors, and, as usual, we men folk hid behind the mow. the nether crae is a pleasant spot, but it looks down on the duchrae. and from the door one can see the green fields and broomy knowes where maisie and i had played so long. but now the soldiers had turned the steading out, the barn and byre were burned, and the stock driven away. so, unable to bear the desolation, maisie and i sat out on the fair green playing-croft that looks up to the hillside, and gazed sadly away from one another, saying nothing. it began to be dark. i waited for her. suddenly she laid her head on my shoulder and began to sob very bitterly. "my faither! o my faither!" she said, labouring with her breath. i said not a word, but only gently clapped and stroked her hand and arm. for indeed i knew not what to say and the hand was near me. "he saved me--he took me," she cried. "then he gied himsel' for another." i thought she meant for the soldier laddie, but still i said nothing, soothing her only. it was coming now. i saw that she wanted to tell me all. so i said nothing. "it was in the gloaming, as it is now," she began, "and my sweet lass, margaret wilson and i, had gone ower by to tonskeen for some victual that the kind guidwife hid every day in a hollow of the turf-dyke for us. and as we came over the hilltop we heard the baying of hounds. but we thought that it would be but the herd's dogs at a collie-shangie, tearing at one another. so we came down the hill, stepping lightly as we could with our load, when of a sudden there leapt on us three evil men. two of them took hold of me by the arms, and one gripped at margaret. "'now take us to your faither, my bonny woman, or it will be the waur for ye!' said the greatest in stature, a black-a-vised, ill-natured rascal. "but i was so astonished that i knew not what to say. the three were manifestly no soldiers--that i could see at once--but just the scourings of the dumfries stables, that had taken to the informer's trade. "then when we came near, we saw that a great number of the crew had dogs, and were drawing the rocks for my father, as though they had been drawing a badger. and my heart leapt with anger to know that he was their quarry." but the mouth of the cave was too high among the rocks for even a dog to get into at that time. indeed, there is something about it, whether the smell of the occupancy of man or not, that makes dogs not keen to enter it even now. and this was the matter of maisie's tale. i give it simply as she told it to me without "he-saids" or "she-saids." she was sitting close by my side the while, now stilling her sobs that she might tell it exactly, and anon weeping freely upon my shoulder that her heart might have ease. "when they had brought us by force to the face of rock and copse where, as you know, the cave is," maisie went on, "they asked us again and again to take them to the whigs' hiding-place. when we refused they uttered the most horrid threatenings, swearing what things should befall us. but they were not able at all to shake us, though we were but two maids and at their cruel will. and of themselves they were not able to find the mouth of the cave in that mile of tangled gairy face. "so the cruellest and fiercest of all, the stark, black-a-vised man whom they called mardrochat, the same that stopped us by the ford when first we fled from balmaghie----" "o cursed mardrochat," i cried, striking my hands together, "wait till i come to a settlement with you!" "nay," said maisie, solemnly, "all is settled and paid already with mardrochat. so they threatened till they were weary, and the night was coming on. then mardrochat turned about to his gallows thieves: "'must we go back empty-handed? let me try my way with the lassies,' he cried. 'they shall be complaisant to tell where the old fox lies, or else suffer that which shall serve us as well.' "with that he came near and put his hand upon me in the way to hurt me. notwithstanding, with all the might that was in me, i strove to keep from crying out, lest my father should hear, which was what they counted on. but as god is my witness, i could not. then, the fear being upon me and the pain of a woman, i cried out in my agony, as i had never before done in this world." "o thrice accursed mardrochat, die not till i meet thee," i cried again, beating and bruising my naked hand upon a rock in the impotence of hate. maisie went quietly and evenly on with her tale, without heeding my anger. "but when i cried the third time in my extremity, even like a lion out of the thicket came my father forth, springing upon them suddenly with his bright sword in the gloaming. never was there such striking since the world began. he struck and struck, panting and resting not, roaring in fierce anger, till they fairly fled from before the face of him. and the first he struck was mardrochat--he that then held me, and the blood spurted over me. thus it was," she went on calmly, as though she had been telling of the kye coming home at e'en, "my father clave him to the teeth, and he fell forward on that which had been his face. then plucking his sword to him again, my father swung it hither and thither like lightning, and pursued them over the moor as a flock of sheep is hunted on the hill. and he smote and slew them as he ran. my father, anthony lennox, did all that alone. but, alas! in the valley, though we knew it not, there was a troop of horse encamped about a fire, the same whom he of the long gun halted and took us from in the midst of enterkin. now my father, running and smiting blindly, tripped over a halter and fell headlong in the heart of them. thus they took anton lennox, who had never been taken before. they took us two maids also; but the dragoons being officered by gentlemen, there was no more ill-usage. now though he had killed the informers and spies, the soldiers liked my father none the less for that, despising those who were employed on such service. rather they gave my father honour and not dishonour, as one that was mighty at their own trade. and to me the babe-faced officer was both kind and courteous." after this she was silent quite a while, sitting by me on the mossy seat by the old playing-green of the nether crae, and looking up as one that dreams, to the heather on the hillside. "is it not a noble thing," she said musingly, "to have a father that will render up his life for you as if it were a little thing?" now i thought within myself that he need not have given it also for a peony-faced officer boy. but i uttered not the word aloud, lest i should be shamed. chapter l. the breaking of the thieves' hole. so on the morrow, early in the morning, we fared on into the hills; and when we came to tonskeen in the wilds, we found my mother and kate there. they were both well in health and glad to greet us, though my mother was doleful because of the news of sandy's taking, which had just been brought to her. yet all of us did our best endeavours to be cheerful, as was the custom in galloway at that time, when there was hardly a family that had not some cause of mourning and sorrow. though i do think that there was not one so deep in the mire as our unfortunate house of earlstoun. at tonskeen also we found thomas wilson, brother of our sweet little margaret. he brought us sad news of her. she had been separated from maisie and her father after the capture, and taken to wigtown instead of accompanying them toward edinburgh. the lad told us that his sister was now confined in the thieves' hole at wigtown. he told us of her sham trial, and, spite of our sore hearts, he almost made us laugh with his account of the indictment which winram and coltran--in their cups, as i presume--had laid against her. along with our margaret had been tried her little sister of thirteen named agnes. both these young things had been most barbarously treated by the noble judges of wigtown--sheriff davie graham, lag, strachan, and winram. worst of all was davie graham, for having his hands upon the fines, he desired above all to amerce gilbert wilson, the tenant of glen vernock in the parish of peninghame. gilbert was a man well to do, keeping a good stock both of nolt and sheep upon a large ground, and so the more apt to be fined. he was a quiet, thewless, pleasantly conforming man, that was willing to let his hearing of the curates keep his head. but he could not help his children, as alas! who can? for years he was harassed with having to go to wigtown every court day. he was near eaten out of house and home with having soldiers constantly quartered upon him. and all because his children had chosen to endure hardship cheerfully for the good cause, and to serve under the blue banner that has the cross upon it--at least so far as young bairns may. so from a child margaret wilson had companied with those that spoke and loved the truth. she had spent much of her time, ever since she was a lassie of ten, with my sober maisie lennox at the duchrae. and afterwards, when she grew to be of age when lassies think of the lads, margaret, for the sake of her faith and for naught else, lived on the wild mountains, in the bogs and caves of the hillsides. to me margaret wilson ever seemed the stillest of quiet maids; but, as our maisie used to say, she was terribly set in her opinions when once she had taken her stand. now at eighteen she was grown to a tall maid, with a great blowing mass of lint white hair that shone like gold with the sun on it. well might she have been spared to be some man's delight, had she not been (as she said when the lads speered her) trysted to another lot. the first party of soldiers to whom she was delivered, pitying her youth, let her go to her own home from the crossing of the water at cree. but by misadventure she travelled on to the town of wigtown--where with the little lass agnes in her hand, she was resting in a friend's house, when drunken winram, ever keen of scent for an ill-conditioned deed, got track of her being in the town. he sent soldiers to take her on the spot, together with her sister of thirteen years, and bade thrust them into the thieves' hole that was in the tolbooth of wigtown, where they put only the most notorious malefactors. all this and more thomas wilson told us--how that his sisters and an aged woman were confined there and guarded by most brutal soldiers--yea, had already been doomed to be drowned within the tide mark in a very short space of time--though the day of their death as yet he knew not. whereat our brave maisie lennox was eager to go down to wigtown and try for a rescue, if we could raise those that would help us. but we could not suffer her to go, though most ready to adventure ourselves. the good folk of tonskeen were very willing to let my mother and the maids abide with them; for since the taking of anton lennox no soldiers had been seen in the district. and the slaying of wicked mardrochat had feared the ill-set informing people greatly, so that for a long season there was no more of that. it seemed strange, yet so it was, that maisie lennox, who had seen her father pass, as it were, to his death without a tear, wept constantly for her friend and gossip, margaret of glen vernock. "they cannot condemn margaret. they will not condemn little margaret!" she said over and over, as women use. "ay, but condemned her they have!" said her brother thomas, "for they libel it against her and agnes that they were guilty of rebellion at bothwell brig and ayrsmoss----" "'tis plainly impossible," i said; "the judges cannot mean aught to their hurt. why, at bothwell, margaret was but twelve, and little agnes a paidling bairn of seven years. and as for ayrsmoss, the poor bairns were never within twenty miles of the place in their lives." but thomas wilson, a quiet, plainfaced lad, only mistrustfully shook his head. "it is even true," he said, "they mean to make them suffer if they can. but we will hae a thraw at it, to see if we canna break through the thieves' hole and draw the lassies forth." so it was set for the following night, that we should make the attempt to break the thieves' hole. the morrow, when it came, proved to be a clear day and fine overhead, which augured not well for our attempt. we would rather have had the blackest and wildest night for our venture. but we had little time, and so we set off to travel by the road the weary miles to wigtown. we hid all the afternoon in a wood at machermore, and laid our plans. it was about eleven of the clock that we went down into wigtown, with the breaking tools which thomas had gotten from his father's farm, as we passed down through peninghame. at the door of the little hostelry in the town we heard a great rioting and crying, which was, as we understood, the soldiers of winram and some of strachan's officers drinking late with the wigtown lawyers, as was their custom. a big, important-looking man went by us, swaying a little unsteadily. he made a great work with his elbows as he went, working them backward and forward at his sides as though he was oaring a boat. this, thomas wilson whispered, was provost coltran, going home to his town house, after he and david graham had had their nightcap together. very evidently the provost was carrying his full load. for in the midst of the ill-kept square of wigtown, where certain tall trees grow, he paused and looked upward among the leaves to where the crows were chattering late among their younglings. "crawin' and splartin' deils," he said, shaking one fist up at them, and holding to a tree with the other. "i'll hae ye brocht afore the toon cooncil and fined--aye, an' a' your goods and gear shall be escheat to the crown. blood me gin i dinna, or my name is no provost cowtran! david graham will be glad to hear o' this!" so saying, he staggered away homeward, there to underlie the ill tongue of his wife for coming home in such a condition--albeit not much worse than was usual with him. about the tolbooth it was very quiet, and all was still also in lag's lodging, whose windows looked down upon it. we got close to the window of the hole, and crouched to wait for the deepest darkening behind some low ill-smelling sheds, in which pigs were grunting and snoring. but even at this time of year it is very light at night, and especially in such a place as wigtown--which sits not among the hills, but as it were on a knowe under a wide arch of sky, making it little and lonely under all that vastness. thomas wilson was to gather a few trusty lads (for there were still such about the place), who should attempt to burn down the door of the hole. while wat and i with our crowbars or gellecks, our mallets and chisels, were to try our best with the window. what galled us most was the light in the west, which remained strangely lucid and even, as though the sky itself were shining clear in the midst of the night--a thing which i had never seen in my own hill lands, but often upon the flats of wigtown. our hearts were beating, i warrant, when we stole out to make our attempt. this we did at eleven by the town clock, and there was no better or more kindly darkness to be looked for. it was silent in the square of wigtown, save for the crows that provost coltran had shaken his fist at. as we stole to the window, which indeed was no more than a hole wide enough, the bars being removed, to allow a man's body to pass through, we heard the praying of the prisoners within. it was the voice of our little margaret wilson. when last i heard that voice, it was in sweet and womanly converse with maisie lennox, concerning the light matters of which women love to speak, but are immediately silent about when a man comes by--aye, even if that man be their nearest. for this is the nature of woman. at the first rasp of the chisel, there was silence within, for the prisoners knew well that only friends would try to enter in that way. we could hear the lads piling faggots at the outer door, as had been done once before with great success, when the bars were burnt through within half an hour. but, since the fire would assuredly bring the soldiers, it was put off till we had made our attempt upon the window. wat was stronger than i when it came to the forcing aside of the bars, and he it was that set his strength to mine, and with the long iron impelled out of its binding mortar the great central bar. then after we had broken the lesser one above and below with much less stress, the window lay open. it seemed a practical enough breach. it came my time to mount and enter to see if i could help the women out, an enterprise which needed much caution. wat had scaled the roof to see if there was aught there that might be advantageous. i was up and scrambling with my toes against the rough wall, half of my body within, when i heard a scuffle and a sudden cry of warning from the other side of the tower. i heard wat leap down with a shout, and i would have followed, but i received a mighty push which sent me headlong through the prison window into the thieves' hole. here i sat, very astonished and dazed, with my head having taken the wall, till the door was opened and a figure, booted and spurred, cloaked also from head to heel, came in, and with a lantern bearer behind him, stood looking at us. the two young lassies, margaret and agnes, sat in a corner clasping one another's hands, and a very old woman sat near me with her head clasped in her hands. she never looked up so long as i saw her, and seemed to have quite lost both interest and hope. i knew that the big man with the cloak was the laird of lag, for once with my father i had seen him on the street at kirkcudbright, when he spoke us fairly enough--the matter one of cattle and crops belike. "whom have we here," he said, "coming so late by the window to see the lassies? young whiggie, this is not proper wark; but who may you be?" i sat and said nothing. "stell him up," he said, "and let us see what like this breaker of maidens' chambers may be." but i stood up of my own accord, with my hand on the prison wall. then he appeared to recognise me, for he said sourly: "ye'll be an earlstoun gordon, nae doot--ye favour the breed--though there's mair of the lawyer hope nor the fechtin' gordon aboot you. i hadna thocht ye had as muckle spunk." then he ordered two soldiers to stand guard over the hole on the outside, and, setting a double guard on the tolbooth, he cried, "have young gordon forth to my quarters." which when they did, he entertained himself for several hours telling me how he would send me with the utmost care to edinburgh, and of the newly imported tortures that would be inflicted on sandy and myself. he said that sandy was to be tortured and that he had seen the precept from london with the order. "so ye'll juist be in time to try on the new 'boot.' there's a fine braw new-fangled pattern wi' spikes, and i hear that the new thumbikins are excellently persuasive. faith, they hae widened many a whig's thrapple already, and made it braw and wide in the swallow!" then, adding all the time cup to cup, he fell to cursing me and all our house, not letting even my mother alone, till i said to him: "john graham had not treated a prisoner so. nor you, robert grierson, if you thought that my kinsman kenmure was at hand to strike his sword through your body--as once he came near doing in the street of kirkcudbright in the matter of bell of whiteside!" now this (as i knew) was a saying which angered him exceedingly, and he was for having out a file of soldiers and shooting me there and then. but luckily winram came in to say that the other assailants of the tolbooth had gotten cleanly off, and that a soldier was invalided with a sword-thrust through and through his shoulder, in which very clearly i recognised wat's handicraft. chapter li. the sands of wigtown. the morning of the eleventh of may came as calm and sweet as the night had been, which had proved so disastrously clear for us. i slept little, as men may guess, thinking on the poor lassies; and sometimes also on the torture in the prison, and the death on the scaffold. for i knew that though there might be delay, there could be no such thing as pardon for one that had carried the standard at sanquhar, charged the storming fray of ayrsmoss, and sole of all in cameron's muster had gotten clear away. from early morning i could hear on the street the gathering of the folk from the country-side far and near. and then the soldiers came clattering by to their stations, laughing as they went like people going to look upon a show. "there are but two of them to be 'pitten doon,' after all," i heard one of the soldiers say. "gilbert wilson has paid a hundred pound to get off his bit lassie agnes." and that was the first intimation i had that only the elder woman, margaret lauchlison, whom i had seen in the thieves' hole with her head on her hands, and our own sweet margaret were to be drowned within the flood-mark of the blednoch. black, black day! would that i could blot it out of my memory. yet that men in after times may see what weak maids and ailing women bore with constancy in the dark years, i set down that day's doings as i saw them--but briefly, neither altering nor suppressing, because of this matter i cannot bear to write at large. it was but half an hour before the binding of the women that lag sent for me--in order that i might see the thing which was done, and, as he said, carry the word to sandy and the rest of the saints at edinburgh. and this, as i told him, with all constancy i should be very fond to do. now the blednoch is a slow stream, which ordinarily flows in the deep ditch of its channel, wimpling and twining through the sands of the bay of wigtown. the banks are but steep slopes of mud, on which if one slips he goes to the bottom with a slide. up this deep channel the sea comes twice every day, damming back the sluggish stream and brimming the banks at full tide. when lag's men took me down to the water edge, i saw the two women already tied to stakes set in the ooze of the blednoch bank. at the sight my heart swelled within me at once sick and hot. margaret lauchlison was tethered deepest down, her stake set firm in the bottom and the post rising as high as her head. nigh half way up the steep bank stood our little margaret, loosely reeved to a sunken stob, her hands clasped before her. she still wore the gown that i remember seeing upon her when she dwelt with us among the hills. but even in this pass she was cheerful, and lifting her eyes with a smile she bade me be so likewise, because that for her there was no fear and but a short pain. also she called me very sweetly "william," and asked me to commend her to maisie lennox--a thing which more than all went to my heart. for it told me by the way she said it, that maisie and she had talked together of loves and likings, as is all maidens' wont. the women were not tightly tied to the posts, but attached to them with a running rove of rope, by which they could be pulled close to the stakes, or else, at the will of the murderers, drawn up again to the bank, as one might draw a pitcher from a well. already was the salt tide water beginning to flow upwards along the blednoch channel, bearing swirls of foam upon its breast. margaret lauchlison, being an aged woman of eighty years, said no word as the tide rose above her breast, where lowest in the river bed she stood waiting. her head hung down, and it was not till the water reached her lips that she began to struggle, nor did i see her make so much as a movement. yet she was determined to die as she had lived, an honest, peaceable, christian woman of a good confession--not learned, save in the scholarship of god, but therein of high attainment and great experience. and all honour be to her, for even as she determined, so she died. then, when some of the soldiers were for fleeching with her to take the test, lag cried out (for he ever loved his devil's-broth served hot): "bide ye there! 'tis needless to speak to the old besom! let her go quick to hell!" but provost coltran, sober enough this morning, and with other things to think of than the crows, come to the bank edge. and standing where his feet were nearly on a level with our little margaret's head, he said to her: "what see ye down there, margaret wilson? what think ye? can you with constancy suffer the choking of the salt water when it comes to your turn?" now, though coltran was a rude man, and pang full of oaths, he spoke not so unfeelingly. but to him margaret replied, in a sweet voice that wafted up like the singing of a psalm, from the sweltering pit of pain: "i see naught but christ struggling there in the water in the person of one of his saints!" then the provost came nearer still, and bending down like an elder that gives counsel, said to her, "margaret, ye are young and ken no better. we will give you your life gin ye pray for the king. will ye say aloud 'god save the king'?" "i desire the salvation of all men," margaret said. "may god save him an he will!" coltran rose with a flush of triumph in his eye. he was none so bad a man, only dazed with drink and bad company. "she has said it!" he cried, and from far and near the people took up the cry "she has said it, she has said it!" and some were glad and some shook their heads for what they counted the dishonour of the submission. now, blednoch sands under wigtown town were a sight to behold that day. they were black with folk, all in scattering, changing groups. there were many clouds of folk on the sands when the lassies were "pitten doon," and in every little company there was one praying. through them patrolled the soldiers in fours, breaking up each little band of worshippers, which dissolved only to come together again as soon as they had passed. then the town officer, a cruel and ill-liked man, who never did well afterwards all his days, took his long-hafted halbert, and, standing on the verge of the bank, he set the end of it to margaret lauchlison's neck. "bide ye doon there and clep wi' the partans, margaret, my woman!" he said, holding her head under water till it hung loose and the life went from it. the elder woman thus having finished her course with joy, they unrove the nether rope and drew little margaret up to the bank, exhorting her to cry aloud "god save the king!" and also to pray for him, that she might get her liberty. for they began to be in fear, knowing that this drowning of women would make a greater stir in the world than much shooting of men. "lord, give him repentance, forgiveness, and, salvation!" she said fervently and willingly. but lag cried out in his great hoarse voice, "out upon the wretch! we want not such oaths nor prayers. winram, get the test through her teeth--or down with her again." but she steadfastly refused the wicked test, the oath of sin. as indeed we that loved scotland and the good way of religion had all learned to do. "i cannot forswear my faith. i am one of christ's children. let me go to him!" she said, being willing to depart, which she held to be far better. "back with her into the water!" cried lag. "the sooner she will win to hell! 'tis too good for a rebel like her!" but coltran said, "ye are fair to see, margaret, lass. think weel, hinny! hae ye nane that ye love?" but she answered him not a word, being like one other before her, like a lamb led to the slaughter. so they tied her again to the stake, where the water was deeper now and lappered on her breast, swirling yellow and foul in oily bubbles. her great head coverture of hair--which, had i been her lad, i should have delighted to touch and stroke--now broke from the maiden's snood, and fell into the water. there it floated, making a fair golden shining in the grimy tide, like the halo which is about the sun when he rises. also her face was as the face of an angel, being turned upward to god. then they began to drive the folk from the sands for fear of what they might see--the beauty of the dying maid, and go mad with anger at the sight. whereupon, being in extremity, she lifted her voice to sing, calm as though it had been an ordinary sabbath morning, and she leading the worship at glen vernock, as indeed she did very well. it was the twenty-fifth psalm she sang, as followeth. and when she that was a pure maid sang of her sins, it went to my heart, thinking on my own greater need. "my sins and faults of youth do thou, o lord, forget; after thy mercies think on me, and for thy goodness great." it was a sweet voice and carried far. but lest it should move the hearts of the people, lag garred beat the drum. and as the drums began to roll, i saw the first salt wave touch the bonny maiden lips which no man had kissed in the way of love. then the guards plucked me by the arm roughly and dragged me away. the drums waxed still louder. but as we went farther away, the voice of the maiden praising god out of the floods of great waters, broke through them, rising clearer, besieging the throne of god and breaking down the hearts of men. i saw the tears hopping down many a rude soldier's cheek. nevertheless, they swore incessantly, cursing lag and winram back and forth, threatening to shoot them for devils thus to kill young maids and weakly women. but once again in the pauses of the drums the words of margaret's song came clear. forget them shall i never, till i too be on my death-bed, and can remember nothing but "the lord's my shepherd," which every scot minds on his dying day. these were the words she sang: "turn unto me thy face, and to me mercy show; because that i am desolate, and am brought very low. "o do thou keep my soul, do thou deliver me; and let me never be ashamed, because i trust in thee." after the last line there was a break and a silence, and no more--and no more! but after the silence had endured a space, there arose a wailing that went from the hill of wigtown to the farthest shore of the cree--the wailing of a whole country-side for a young lass done to death in the flower of her youth, in the untouched grace and favour of her virginity. chapter lii. the madness of the bull of earlstoun. how they carried me to edinburgh i cannot stop to tell, though the manner of it was grievous enough. but in my heart all the way there remained the fear that while i was laid up in edinburgh, robert grierson, the wild beast of galloway, might come and take my mother and maisie. and do so with them even as he had done with margaret lauchlison and our little margaret of glen vernock. and this vexed me more than torments. in edinburgh they cast me into an inner den of the prison, where in the irons there were ten men already. then when my name was made known, through the darkness and the fearsome stench of the place, where no fresh air had come for years, what was my joy to hear the voice of anton lennox bidding me be of good cheer--for that our lord was a strong lord, and would see me win with credit from off the stage of life. at this i took heart of grace at the kenned voice and face, and we fell to discoursing about maisie lennox and how she did. he told me that to the honour of the king's service the soldiers had treated him kindly, and had given him the repute of being a man honourable above most. nevertheless, the warrant for his execution was daily expected from london. he told me also that my brother sandy was in blackness castle, but that it was reported again that he was soon to be examined by torture. indeed there was a talk among the guard that i was to share this with him, which made them the more careful of me, as one whom the council had an eye upon. but it was not long before this matter was brought to a probation. about three of the clock on the following day, there came officers to the tolbooth port and cried my name, to which i answered with a quaking heart--not for death, but for torture. so they took me out and delivered me to the guard, who haled me by back ways and closes to a little door let into the side of a great hulk of grey wall. along stone passages very many, all dripping with damp like a cellar, they dragged me, till beside three doors hung with red cloth they stopped. then instead of swearing and jesting as they had done before, the officers talked in whispers. presently a door swung open very silently to admit me, and i set my feet upon a soft carpet. then, also without noise, the door swung to again. i found myself alone in a cage, barriered like the cage of a wild beast. it was at one end of a vast room with black oaken ceiling, carven and panelled. before me there was a strong breastwork of oak, and an iron bar across, chin high. beside me and on either hand were ranged strange-looking engines, some of which i knew to be the "boots" for the torture of the legs, and the pilniewinks for the bruising of the thumbs. also there stood at each side of the platform a man habited in black and white and with a black mask over his face. these men stood with their arms folded, and looked across the narrow space at one another as though they had been carven statues. the rest of the great room was occupied by a table, and at the table there sat a dignified company. then i understood that i stood in the presence of the privy council of scotland, which for twenty-five years had bent the land to the king's will. at the head sat cruel queensberry, with a face louring with hate and guile--or so it seemed, seen through bars of oak and underneath gauds of iron. still more black and forbidding was the face of the "bluidy advocate," sir george mackenzie, who sat at the table-foot, and wrote incessantly in his books. i knew none other there, save the fox face of tarbet, called the timeserver. when i was brought in, they were talking over some slight matter concerning a laird who had been complaining that certain ill-set persons were carrying away sea tangle from his foreshore. and i was not pleased that they should have other thoughts in their minds, when i was before them in peril of my life. at last sir george mackenzie turned him about and said, "officer, whom have we here?" the officer of the court made answer very shortly and formally, "william gordon, son of umquhile william gordon of earlstoun in galloway, and brother of the aforementioned alexander gordon, condemned traitor from the prison of blackness, presently to be examined." "ah!" said mackenzie, picking up his pen again, "the glenkens messan! we'll wait for the muckle hound and take both the lowsy tykes thegether!" but queensberry, as was his custom at council, ran counter to the advocate in his desire, and commanded presently to interrogate me. the duke asked me first if i had been at the wounding of the duke wellwood. i answered him plainly that i had. but that it was a fair fight, and that the duke and his men had made the first onslaught. "you have proof of that at your hand, no doubt," said he, and passed on as though that had been a thing of little import--as indeed, in the light of my succeeding admissions, it was. "you were at sanquhar town on the day of the declaration?" he said, looking sharply at me, no doubt expecting a denial or equivocation. now it seemed to me that i must most certainly die, so i cared not if i did it with some credit. for the whiner got even less mercy from these men, than he that defied and outfaced them. "i was at sanquhar, and with this hand i raised the banner of blue!" i said. "note that, advocate," said tarbet, smiling foxily. "the king hath a special interest in all that took his name in vain at sanquhar." mackenzie glanced with a black, side-cocking look of interest at the hand i held up, as if to say, "i shall know that again when i see it on the netherbow!" "you were at ayrsmoss, and won clear?" was the next interrogatory. "i was one of two that broke through both lines of the troops when we came to the charge!" i said, with perhaps more of the braggart than i care now to think on. then all the council looked up, and there was a sudden stir of interest. "blood of st. crispin!" said queensberry, "but ye do not look like it. yet i suppose it must be so." "it is so," said sir george the advocate shortly, flicking a parchment with the feather of his quill pen. he had the record before him. "is there anything more that ye were in? being as good as headed already, a little more will not matter. it will be to your credit when the saints come to put up your tomb, and scribe your testimony on it." "i am no saint," said i, "though i love not charles stuart. neither, saving your honourable presences, do i love the way that this realm is guided. but if it please you to ken, i have been in all that has chanced since bothwell. i was at enterkin the day we reft the prisoners from you. i was in the ranks of the seven thousand when, at the conventicle at shalloch-on-minnoch, the hillmen made clavers and strachan draw off. i was taken at the tolbooth of wigtown trying to deliver a prisoner, whom ye had reprieved. and had there been anything else done, i should have been in it." the council leaned back in their chairs almost to a man, and smilingly looked at one another. the president spoke after a moment of silence. "ye are a brisk lad and ill to content, but your sheet is gallantly filled. so that i think ye deserve heading instead of hanging, which is certainly a great remission. i shall e'en take the liberty of shaking hands with you and wishing you a speedy passage and a sharp axe. officer, the prisoner is in your care till his warrant comes from london." and to my astonishment queensbury turned round and very ceremoniously held out his hand to me, which i took through the bars. "i shall never again deny that gordon blood is very good blood," he said. then they brought in sandy, looming up like a tower between the warders. he had a strange, dazed look about him, and his hair had grown till he peered out of the hassock, like to an owl out of an ivy bush, as the proverb says. they asked a few questions of him, to which he gave but mumbled replies. if he saw me he never showed it. but i knew him of old, and a sly tod was sandy. then sir george mackenzie rose, and turning to him, read the king's mandate, which declared that, in spite of his underlying sentence of death, he was to be tortured, to make him declare the truth in the matter of fergusson the plotter, and the treason anent the king's life. then, the black wrath of his long prisonment suddenly boiling over, sandy took hold on the great iron bar before him and bent his strength to it--which, when he was roused, was like the strength of samson. with one rive he tore it from its fastenings, roaring all the while with that terrible voice of his, which used to set the cattle wild with fear when they heard it, and which even affrighted men grown and bearded. the two men in masks sprang upon him, but he seized them one in each hand and cuffed and buffeted them against the wall, till i thought he had splattered their brains on the stones. indeed, i looked to see. but though there was blood enough, there were no brains to speak of. then very hastily some of the council rose to their feet to call the guard, but the door had been locked during the meeting, and none for a moment could open it. it was fearsome to see sandy. his form seemed to tower to the ceiling. a yellow foam, like spume of the sea, dropped from his lips. he roared at the council with open mouth, and twirled the bar over his head. with one leap he sprang over the barrier, and at this all the councillors drew their gowns about them and rushed pell-mell for the door, with sandy thundering at their heels with his iron bar. it was all wonderfully fine to see. for sandy, with more sense than might have been expected of him, being so raised, lundered them about the broadest of their gowns with the bar, till the building was filled with the cries of the mighty privy council of scotland. i declare i laughed heartily, though under sentence of death, and felt that well as i thought i had borne myself, sandy the bull had done a thousand times better. then from several doors the soldiery came rushing in, and in short space sandy, after levelling a file with his gaud of iron, was overpowered by numbers. nevertheless, he continued to struggle till they twined him helpless in coils of rope. in spite of all, it furnished work for the best part of a company to take him to the castle, whither, "for a change of air," and to relieve his madness he was remanded, by order of the council when next they met. but there was no more heard of examining sandy by torture. and it was a tale in the city for many a day how sandy gordon cleared the chamber of the privy council. so not for the first time in my life i was proud of my brother, and would have given all the sense i had, which is no little, for the thews and bones to have done likewise. chapter liii. under sentence of death. so waiting the arrival and the day of my doom, i continued to abide in the tolbooth. anton lennox, also waiting, as he said, his bridegroom day of marriage and coronation, was with me. in the night alone we had some peace and quiet. for they had turned in upon us, to our horror, that wind-filled fool, john gib--whom for his follies, anton lennox had lundered with a stick upon the flowe of the deer-slunk. with him was davie jamie the scholar, now grown well nigh as mad as himself. sometimes the jailors played with them, and said, "john, this is your sunday's meal of meat!" whereupon, so filled with moon-madness were they, that they would refuse good victual, because it had been given them upon a day with a heathen name. or, again, the more ill-set of the prisoners made their game of them--for they were not all of them that suffered for their faith, who were with us in the canongate tolbooth. but many city apprentices also that had been in brawls or had broken their indentures. and, truth to tell, we were somewhat glad of the regardless birkies. for when we were dull of heart they made sport with us, and we were numerous enough to keep them from interfering with our worship. so these wild loons would say: "prophesy to us, john gib, for we know that thou hast the devil ever at thine elbow. let us see thy face shining, as it did at the spout of auchentalloch, when ye danced naked and burned the bible." and whether it was with our expectant looking for it, or whether the man really had some devilry about him, certain it is that in the gloom of the corner, where in his quiet spells he abode, there seemed to be ofttimes a horrible face near to his own, and a little bluish light thrown upon his hair and eyes. this was seen by most in the dungeon, though, for my own part, i confess i could see nothing. then he would be taken with accesses of howling, like to a moonstruck dog or a rutting hart on the mountains of heather. and sometimes, when the fear of anton lennox was upon him, he would try to stop his roaring, thrusting his own napkin into his mouth. but for all that the devil within him would drive out the napkin and some most fearsome yells behind it, as a pellet is driven from a boy's tow gun. this he did mostly during worship--which was held thrice a day in the tolbooth, and helped to pass the time. at such seasons he became fairly possessed, and was neither to hold nor bind. so that for common they had to bring anton lennox to him with a quarter-staff, with which he threatened him. and at sight of old anton, gib, though a big strong man, would run behind the door and crouch there on his hunkers, howling grievously like a dog. he was ordered into leg-irons, but his ravings pleased the duke of york so much (because that he wanted to tar us all with the same stick) that he had them taken off. also he bade give him and david jamie as much paper and ink as ever they wanted, and to send him copies of all that they wrote, for his entertainment. but in time of worship after this, anton lennox ordered four of the strongest and biggest men to sit upon john gib, streeked out on the floor, as men sit together upon a bench in the kirk at sermon-hearing. and we were glad when we fell on this plan, for it discouraged the devil more than anything, so that he acknowledged the power of the gospel and quit his roaring. yet i think all this rough play kept up our hearts, and stayed us from thinking all the time upon that day of our bitter, final testifying, which was coming so soon. to make an end now of muckle john gib, i heard that he was sent by ship to the colonies, and that in america he gained much honour among the heathen for his converse with the devil. nor did the godly men that are there, ever discover anton lennox's weighty method of exorcism--than which i ween there is none better, for even the devil needs breath as well as another. but for all this, there was never an hour that chimed, but i would wake and remember that at the sound of a trumpet the port might any moment be opened and i be summoned forth to meet my doom. and anton lennox dealt with me there in the cannongate tolbooth for my soul's peace, and that very faithfully. for there were not wanting among the prisoners those that made no scruple to call me a sword-and-buckler covenanter, because i would not follow them in all their protests and remonstrances. but anton lennox warred with them with the weapons of speech for the both of us, and told them how that i had already witnessed a good confession and that before many witnesses. he said also that there would not be wanting one, when i had overpassed my next stage, to make confession of william gordon before the angels of heaven. which saying made them to cavil no more. chapter liv. robbery on the king's highway. now that which follows concerns not myself, but maisie lennox and others that were at this time forth of the tolbooth. yet, because the story properly comes in here, i pray the reader to suffer it gladly, for without it i cannot came to my tale's ending, as i must speedily do. how i came to know it, is no matter now, but shall without doubt afterwards appear. while anton lennox and i lay in the tolbooth, those that loved us were not idle. wat moved kate and kate moved roger mcghie of balmaghie. so that he set off to london to see the king, in order to get remission for me, and if need be to pay my fine, because there was nothing he would not do to pleasure his daughter. but though his intercession did good in delaying the warrant, yet my owning of the raising the flag at sanquhar was too much for the king, and in due course my warrant sped; of which the bruit came north with a servant of balmaghie's who rode like the wings of the wind. but indeed i was not greatly disappointed, for since my declaration to the privy council, i never expected any other end. as soon, however, as the news came to the house of balmaghie, maisie lennox betook herself to the woodside to think. there she stayed for the better part of an hour, pacing up and down more like an aged man than a young maiden. then, as my informant tells me, she came in again with a face wonderfully assured. "give me a horse and suit of lad's clothes," she said to her who kept the drapery closets and wardrobes at the house of balmaghie. "preserve us, lass, for what wad ye hae lad's claes?" said the ancient housekeeper. but without waiting to reply, maisie lennox went and got them. "the lassie's gane wud![ ] there's nae reason in her," she cried out in amazement. [footnote : mad.] but indeed it was a time when men and women were not inclined to stand upon reasons. for each being supposed to have his neck deep in the tow, he had no doubt his own good logic for whatever he proposed. so mistress crombie, housekeeper to the laird of balmaghie, without further question, fitted maisie lennox with a suit of lad's clothes, which (having taken off and again suitably attired herself) she strapped in a roll on her saddle bow and covered with a plaid. then, dressed like a maid that goes to her first place and rides a borrowed horse, she took her way eastward. now at that time, so important were the proclamations and privy council matters, that every week there rode a post who carried naught but reprieves and sentences. it had been the custom of late, ever since the numerous affrays near the border of berwick, that this messenger of life and death should ride by carlisle and moffat to edinburgh. now this young maid, contrary to the wont of women folk, had all her life said little and done much. so when maisie lennox came to the side of the little queensberry hill, having ridden all the way sedately, as a sober maiden ought, she went aside into a thicket and changed her woman's appearance to that of a smart birkie who rides to college. it was about the time when the regents call up such to the beginning of their classes. so it was a most feasible-like thing, and indeed there were a good many upon the roads. but maisie lennox kept out of their company, for these wandering students are ever inclined to be goatish, and full of impish pranks, whether as i saw them at groningen or in edinburgh town. so she (that was for the time being he) came riding into the town of moffat, just when the london state messenger was expected. there my lass entered the hostelry of the white hart, which was kept by a decent woman named catherine cranstoun. as a ruffling young gallant, she strode in, with her chest well out and one hand on the hilt of the rapier, which she held modishly thrust forward. but maisie, when she found herself within, was a little daunted to see a great pair of pistols, a sword, and other furniture of a king's rider lie upon the table. while from within a little chamber, the door of which stood ajar, she heard the sound as of one who sleeps, and snores sonorously in his sleep. "a good day to ye, mistress cranstoun," said maisie boldly, and most like a clerkish student. "will ye get me a drink of good caller water?" "that," said the good wife shrewishly, turning her eyes scorningly across her nose, "is not good asking at a change-house. i warrant we do not live and pay our winter's oats by sellin' caller water to student birkies!" "so, good madam," said our maisie again; "but if you will get me a drink from your famous medicinal spring--a good fresh quart--most gladly i will pay for it--aye, as if it had been claret wine of the best bin in your cellar." at hearing of which the landlady pricked up her ears. "i will e'en gae bring it mysel'," she said in a changed voice, for such orders came not every day. "it is for a wager," she thought. "the loons are ever after some daft ploy." as she went to the door she had a thought. "mind ye," she said, "meddle not wi' the pistols, for they belong to one on the king's service." so she set out to bring the water in a wooden cogie with a handle. as soon as she was fairly gone, maisie stole on tiptoe to the door of the room whence the snoring proceeded. she peeped circumspectly within, and there on a rough bed with the neck of his buff riding-coat thrown open, lay the king's rider, a great clean shaven fellow with a cropped head, and ear-rings in his ears. the edge of the mail bag peeped from under the pillow, and the ribbons of seals showed beneath the flaps. maisie laid her hand on her heart to still its painful beating. clearly there was no chance of drawing the bag from under the rider's head, for his hand was twisted firmly in the strap. it was with mighty grief in her heart that maisie lennox stepped back. but at sight of the pistols on the table, a thought and a hope sprang up together within her. she hasted to take them up and draw the charges, leaving only a sprinkling of powder in the pan of each. and as she rode off, she bore with her the landlady's benediction, for the good wife had never been so paid for caller spring water before. it was at the entrance to the wild place known as the devil's beef tub, near the last wood on the upward way over the hills, that maisie waited for the king's rider. there were, no doubt, many thoughts in her heart, but she did not dwell upon them--save it might be upon this one, that if the rider discovered that the charges had been drawn, it would certainly go ill with her and worse with those whom she had come out to save. what wonder then if her maid's heart flew faster even than gay garland had done when he fled before the gypsy clan. at last, after long waiting, she heard far off the clatter of a horse's feet on the road, and her courage returned to her. as the king's messenger came trotting easily down an incline, she rode as quietly out of a byway into the road and let him range alongside. with a polite toss of the reins, as was then the modish fashion, she bade him good day. "ye are a bonny birkie. hae ye ony sisters?" said the man in the lothian tongue. maisie answered him no--an only bairn and riding to the college at edinburgh. "ye'll be a braw student no doubt." she told him so-so. "i'se warrant ye!" said he, for he was jovial by nature, and warmed with mistress cranstoun's wine. so they rode on in friendly enough talk till they were nearing the wood, when maisie, knowing that the time had come, wheeled about and bade him "stand!" at the same time she pointed a pistol at his head. "deliver me your mails," she said, "or i shall take your life!" the man laughed as at a pleasant jest. "gae wa' wi' ye, birkie. nane o' your college tricks wi' me, or ye may aiblins come to a mishap. i am no' a man to tak' offence, but this somewhat passes merrymaking!" but when maisie pulled the other pistol and levelled it also at his head, the rider hesitated no longer, but pulled out his own and took aim at her heart. "your blood be on your own head, then! i never missed yet!" he cried, and pulled the trigger. but the powder only flashed in the pan. with an oath he pulled the other and did likewise with it, but quite as fruitlessly. then he leaped down and tried to grip maisie's horse by the bridle, for he was a stark carle and no coward. but her horse obeyed the guiding hand. with a swing to the left she swept out of his reach, so as to catch the bridle of the horse which carried the mails and which, fresh from the stable, was inclined to crop the herbage. then she rode away leaving the man standing amazed and speechless in the middle of the road. he started to run after his assailant, but maisie sent a bullet back, which halted him. for by chance it struck a stone among the red dust at his feet, and went through between his legs buzzing like a bumblebee. and this is indeed a thing which would have halted most folk. it was with a fearful heart that maisie lennox, in the deepest shades of the wood, ripped open the bags. almost the first paper she came upon was her father's death warrant. with trembling hand she turned over the papers to find mine also. but there were only privy council letters and documents in cypher. over and over she turned them, her heart, i doubt not, hammering loudly. but there was not another warrant anywhere. it must have been sent forward by another hand. it might even be in edinburgh already, she thought. almost she had returned the letters to the bag and left them at the tree foot, when she noted a little bulge in the thickness of the leather near the clasp. in a moment she had her knife within, and there, enclosed in a cypher letter to the president of the council, was a free pardon, signed and sealed, wanting only the name inserted. without doubt it was intended for some of the private friends of duke queensberry. but at sight of it maisie's heart gave a still greater stound, and without a moment for consideration she galloped off towards edinburgh, upon the fresh horse of his majesty's post rider. when she came to the first woods over the crown of the dreary hill road, she put off the lad's apparel and dressed again as the quiet maid upon her travels, whom none would suspect of bold robbery of his majesty's despatches upon his own highway. then as she took the road to edinburgh, consider what a turmoil and battle there was in her heart. she says that she saw not the road all the way for thinking, and i doubt it not. "my father or my lad----" she argued with herself. "which name shall i put in? it may not serve them long, but it will save them at least this day from death." and in the clatter of her horse's feet she found no answer to her question. then she told over to herself all that her father had done for her since she remembered--the afternoons when it was the sabbath on the pleasant green bank at the duchrae loaning end, the words of wise counsel spoken there, the struggle at the cave when the cruel mardrochat was sent to his account. she did not forget one. other things also she owns that she thought of. "whatever may happen to me, i must--i shall save my father!" she concluded. she was on a lonely place on the moors, with deep moss-hags and holes in the turf where men had cut peat. these were now filled with black water. she stopped, took out the warrant for her father's execution, tore it into a thousand pieces, and sunk it carefully in the deep hag. the white horse of the king's rider meanwhile stood patiently by till she mounted again--i warrant as swiftly as she used to do in the old days at the duchrae. but the tearing of the warrant would only delay and not prevent her father's death. she saw that clearly. there came to her the thought of the free pardon. to inscribe a name in the blank space meant a release from prison and the chance of escape. she resolved to write it when she came to the next change-house. but as she rode she fell to the thinking, and the question that surged to and fro in her heart, like the tide in a sea-cave, was--which name would be found written on that pardon when she rode to the tolbooth of edinburgh to deliver it into the hands of the captain of the guard. as she thought she urged her horse the faster, so that the sooner she might come to the change-house and settle the question. "he is my father," she said over and over, dwelling on all that her father had been to her. "i cannot--i will not think of others before him. it is my father's name i will write in the pardon--i must, yes i must!" and the name of another did she not mention at all, as i have been informed. at last she came to the door of the change-house, and, throwing her reins over the tieing post at the gate, she went in boldly. "bring me an inkhorn and a goose-quill!" she cried to the dame of the inn, forgetting that she had donned her maid's clothes again, and speaking in the hectoring voice of the birkie student. she threw a silver coin on the table with a princely air that suited but indifferently with the sober fashion of her maiden's dress. and among the mutchkins on the ribbed and rimmed deal table, she squared herself to write in the name upon her free pardon. she set her pen to the parchment bravely. then she stopped, took a long breath and held it, as though it were the dying breath of one well-beloved which she had in her keeping. with sudden access of resolve she began a bold initial. she changed it. then she wrote again hastily with a set face, but holding her hand over the writing, as though to shield the words from sight. which being done, she looked at what she had written with a blanched and terror-stricken countenance. no sooner was the ink dry, than bending again to the paper, she began eagerly to scrape at it with her finger-nail, as though she would even yet change her thought. but as she rubbed the parchment, which was very fine and soft, part of it curled up at the edge into a tiny roll like a shaving of bark when one cuts a white birch. instantly maisie discerned that there were two parchments instead of one. with a light and cunning hand she separated them carefully. they had been secretly attached so as to look like one. casting her eyes rapidly over the second parchment, her heart leaped within her to find that it was another pardon, the duplicate of the first, and, like it, duly signed and sealed. it was a moment's work to write in the other name upon this great discovery. then throwing, in her joy, a gold piece upon the table beside the shilling, she mounted at the stance, and rode away in the direction of the capital. "my word!" said the good wife of the change-house, gazing after her, "but that madam doesna want confidence. i doot she will be after no good!" "she doesna want siller," quoth her husband, gathering up the money, "and that's a deal more to the point in a change-house!" but maisie lennox has never told to any--not even to me, who have some right to know her secrets--that name which she first wrote when she had to choose between her father's life and her lover's. she only says, "let every maid answer in her own heart which name she would have written, being in my place, that day in the change-house!" and even so may i leave it to all the maidens that may read my history to let their hearts answer which. for they also will not tell. chapter lv. the red maiden. the great day which we had been expecting dawned, and lo! it was even as any other day. the air was shrewdly cold when i awoke very early in the morning, just as i had awaked from sleep every morning since i can remember. it was my custom to begin to say the little prayer which my mother had taught me before i was fairly awake. this i did when i was but a boy, for the economising of time; and i continued the practice when i put away most other childish things. i declare solemnly that i was past the middle of the prayer, before the thought came to me that this was the morn of the day on which i was to die. even then, by god's extreme mercy, fear did not take me utterly by the throat. i had dreamed of the day often, and shivered to think of that awaking. but now that it was here, it seemed to me like any morn in the years, when i used to awake in the little sunlit tourelle at earlstoun to the noise of the singing of birds, and turn my thoughts upon riding to the duchrae by the grenoch side to see maisie lennox--little maisie may, whom now i should see no more. so by the strengthening mercy of god i was enabled to finish my mother's prayer with some composure. and also to remember her and maisie, commending them both to the gracious care of one who is able to keep. then came the chancellor's commissioner to tell us that by the high favour of his master, we were to be headed in the early morn. and that, too, in the company of the great earl of cantyre, who, after lying long in prison, was that day, for rebellion in the highlands and the isles, condemned to lose his head. no higher favour could be granted, though it seemed not so much to me as doubtless to some, that i should lay my head beside an earl's on the block of the maiden, instead of setting my neck in a rope at the hands of the common executioner in the grassmarket. but there is no doubt that all scotland, and especially all the clan gordon, would think differently of the matter--ay, even my mother. and to wat such a death would seem almost like an accolade. they read me my warrant in my death dungeon by the light of a dim rushlight. but that of anton lennox they read not, for a reason that has already appeared, though they told us not of it at the time. yet because the messenger was expected to arrive every moment with it, anton, who shared my favour of execution, was to accompany us to the scaffold. when they ushered us forth it was yet starlight, but the day was coming over the forth. and the hum and confused noise of rustling and speech told us of the presence of a great multitude of people about us. they had indeed come from far, even from the wild highlands, for such a heading had not been known for years. our keepers gave us a good room, and an excellent breakfast was ready for us in a house contiguous to the scaffold. when we came in, the earl was at the head of the table, and the gentlemen of his name about him, anton and i standing apart by ourselves. then the dean of edinburgh, mr. annand, came and asked us to be seated. anton would not, but went to the window and stood commending himself to the god in whose presence he was so soon to appear. however, since it seemed to be expected of a gentleman to command his spirit before death, for the honour of his party and cause, i sat me down with the others, and ate more heartily than i could have expected, though the viands tasted strange, dry, and savourless. they gave us also wine to wash them down withal, which went not amiss. when they saw that it was growing lighter, they put out the candles, and we were brought down the stairs. when i came to the outside and heard the murmur of the crowd, suddenly and strangely i seemed to be breathing, not sweet morning air, but water chilled with ice. and i had to breathe many breaths for one. there seemed no sustenance in them. now cantyre, being a very great man, was allowed his chief friends to be with him. eight of them attended him in full mourning to the scaffold, chiefly montgomeries of skelmorly and campbells of skepnish and dunstaffnage--all noble and well-set men. and anton lennox and i were permitted to walk with him without any disgrace, but with our hats on our heads and in our own best attire, which the chancellor had allowed to be provided for us. at least so it was with me. for anton lennox would have none of these gauds, but was in an ordinary blue bonnet and hodden grey. but for me, though i was to die for the faith, i saw no reason why i should not die like a gentleman. as we went by the way, the people hushed themselves as we came, and many of them sank on their knees to give us a parting prayer to speed us on our far journey. the dean and other divinity men of the ruling party approached, to give us what ghostly counsel they could. but, as i expected, anton would have none of the dean or indeed of any other of them. but i was not averse to speak with him, at least as far as the natural agitation of my spirits would permit. as for prayers, i leant on none of them, except my mother's, which i had repeated that morning. but i kept saying over and over to myself the scots version of the twenty-third psalm, "the lord's my shepherd," and from it gat wondrous comfort. the dean asked me if i had my "testimony" ready written. i told him that testimonies were not for me. "what," he said, "do you not hold the covenants?" "i held a sword for them so long as i could. now, when i cannot, i can at least hold my tongue!" even with the scaffold looming out down the vennel, it pleased me to say this to him, for such is the vanity of galloway, and especially of a galloway gordon. besides, i had once played with the dean at golf upon leith links, and he had beaten me foully. not twice would he outface me, even though it were my death day. mr. annand was a very pleasant-spoken man, and i think a little grateful that i should speak complacently to him. for he was abashed that cantyre would have nothing to say to him--no, nor for that matter, anton lennox either. he asked me what affair had brought me there, which vexed me, for i had supposed the whole city ringing with my braving of the council, and the chancellor's shaking hands with me. "i have done god's will," i made him answer, "at least as i saw it, in fighting against charles stuart, for his usage of my country and my house. were i to escape, i should but do the same thing again. it is his day, and charles stuart has me on the edge of the iron. but not so long ago it was his father's turn, and so, in due time, it may be his." "god forbid!" said the dean piously, thinking no doubt, poor man, that if the king went that way, certain others might also. "god send him as honourable a death. 'twere better than lolling with madams on whitehall couches, that he should honourably step forth from the window of the banqueting hall as his father did!" i made him answer. "you are a strange whig, mr. william gordon," he said; "do you even give that testimony to them from the scaffold. it will be a change from their general tenor." i said, "you mistake me. i believe as much and as well as any of them, and i am about to die for it, but testimonies are not in my way. besides, somewhere my mother is praying for me." "i would the king could have spared you," he said. "there is need of some like you in this town of edinburgh." "when i was in edinburgh," i replied, "i had not the spirit of a pooked hen, but holding the banner at sanquhar hath wondrously brisked me." all this while i could see the lips of anton lennox moving. and i knew right well that if i had little to say at the last bitter pinch, he would deliver his soul for the two of us--ay, and for the earl, too, if he were permitted. it was just at this moment that we came in sight of the maiden, which was set high on a platform of black wood. there was much scaffolding, and also a tall ladder leading thereto. but what took and held my eye, was the evil leaden glitter of the broad knife, which would presently shear away my life. chapter lvi. the maid on the white horse. then slowly a rim about my neck grew icy cold till it ached with the pain--as when, on a hot day, one holds one's wrists over-long in a running stream. nevertheless, my southland pride and the grace of god kept me from vulgarly showing my fear. yet even the earl, who came of a family that ought by this time to have grown accustomed to losing their heads, was shaken somewhat by the sight of the maiden. and, indeed, such present and visible death will daunton the most resolute courage. therefore he caused bind the napkin upon his face, ere he approached nearer, and so was led upon the scaffold first. i went next, schooling myself to go firmly and saying only, "it will soon be over! it will soon be over!" then i would fall to my twenty-third psalm again, and specially to the verse about "death's dark vale," which did indeed strengthen me so that i feared none ill, or at least not so very much. but at such times one goes on, winning through unshamed, more by the mechanical action of one's body and the instinct of silence, than by the actual thing which men call courage. but when at last we stood upon the scaffold, and looked about us at the great concourse of people, all silent and all waiting to see us die, more than everything else i wished that they had thought to put a rail about the edge. for the platform being so high, and the time so early in morning, i walked a little as though my legs had been the legs of another and not mine own. but in time this also passed off. then they read cantyre's warrant, and asked him if he had aught to say. he had a long paper prepared, which, standing between his two friends, who held him by either arm, he gave to the dean. and very courteously he bade us who were to die with him farewell, and also those that were with him. he was a most gallant gentleman, though a highlandman. they made us stand with our backs to the maiden, and rolled the drums, while they set him in his place. but for all that i heard louder than thunder the horrible crunch as of one that shaws frosty cabbages with a blunt knife. methought i had fainted away, when i heard the answering splash, and the loud universal "ah!" which swept across the multitudes of people. yet as they turned me about, because my time had come, i saw quite clearly beneath me the populace fighting fiercely one with another beneath the scaffold, for the blood that drippled through the boards, dipping their kerchiefs and other linen fabrics in it for keepsakes. also i perceived the collapsed body, most like a sack that falls sideways; and the tall masked headsman holding up the poor dripping head. for the napkin had fallen away from the staring eyne, and i shuddered at the rasping echo of his words. "this is the head of a traitor!" he cried, as the custom is. again the people cried, "ah!"--they cried it through their clenched teeth. but it was more like a wild beast's growl than a human cry. then i was bidden speak if i had aught to say before i died. so i took off my hat, and though for a moment i stood without strength, suddenly my voice was given back to me, and that with such surprising power that i never knew that i had so great an utterance. "i die (so they recorded my words) in the faith my father taught me, and for which my father died; neither for king nor bishop will i change it. neither for love nor lands will i recreant or swear falsely. i am a gordon of earlstoun. i die for the freedom of this land. god do so to me and more also, if ever i gave my back to a foe, or my shoulder to a friend all the days of my life! that is all my testimony. god have mercy on my sinful soul, for christ's sake. amen!" "lord, that is no whig word!" cried one from the crowd--a soldier, as i think. "tis a pity he is a rebel," said another. i heard them as though they had spoken of another, and not of myself. and all the time i had been speaking, i was watching the headsman wiping his broad sliding blade with a fragment of fine old linen, daintily as one may caress a sweetheart or other beloved possession. then the dean began the praying, for because i had played with him upon the links of leith at our diversion, i could not reject his ministrations. and also, as i said, he was a pleasant, well-spoken man. but he had hardly said many words, or indeed gotten fairly into the matter of his prayer--which being an episcopalian, it took him a long time to do--when his voice seemed to be drowned in the surging murmur which rose from the people far down the spaces of the grassmarket. the sound we heard was as that of a mighty multitude crying aloud; but whether for joy or hate, i could not tell. the dean went on praying with his book open. but none, i think, minded him, or indeed could have heard him if they had. for every eye in all that mighty throng was turned to the distance, whence came the cheering of the myriad throats. the soldiers looked one to the other, and the officers drew together and conferred. they thought, doubtless, that it was the messenger of death with the other warrant of execution, that for anton lennox. yet they marvelled why in that case the people shouted. the commander bade the drums beat, for the voices of those about the scaffold-foot began to take up the shouting, and he feared a tumult. so the kettle drums brayed out their angry waspish whirr, and the great basses boomed dull and hollow over all. but in spite of all, the crying of the whole people waxed louder and louder, and the rejoicing came nearer and nearer, so that they could in no wise drown it with all their instruments of music. then, in the narrow gut of the west port i saw a white horse and a rider upon it, driving fiercely through the black press of the throng. and ever the people tossed their bonnets in the air, flecking the red sunrise with them. and the crowd fell back before the rider as the foam surges from the prow of a swift boat on solway tide. and lo! among the shouting throng i looked and saw, and knew. it was my own lass that rode and came to save me, even while the headsman was wiping the crimson from the bloody shearing knife to make it ready for me. in either hand she waved a parchment of pardon, and the people shouted: "a pardon! a pardon! god save the king!" without rein she rode, and the people opened a lane for her weary horse. very pale was her face, the sweetest that ever the sun shone on. very weary were the lids of her eyes, that were the truest and the bravest which ever god gave to woman. but when they were lifted up to look at me on the scaffold of death, i saw that through the anxiety, which drew dark rings about them, they were joyful with a great joy! and this is what my maisie lennox did for me. followeth _the conclusion of the author to the reader._ but our perils were not yet wholly over. we were in fear that at any hour the messenger might arrive, having gotten another horse, even in that lonely place where maisie left him. but having pardons in the king's hand, our foes themselves were eager to be rid of us. they knew that roger mcghie had been busy on our behalfs, so that the council showed no surprise that he had prevailed, knowing how great he was with john graham, and also with the duke of york. but they ordered us all, maisie lennox, her father, and i, forth of the kingdom upon the instant. so within an hour we went, right well content, along with the officers on board a ship at leith, that waited with anchor weighed and sails backed in the roads for the council's permit to proceed. which being obtained by the same boat that brought us, they drew away with us on board upon the instant. and it was as well, for, as our friends afterwards advised us, the plundered messenger came in during the night; and with the earliest break of morn there was a swift vessel on our track. but by that time we were well-nigh half over, with a good ship and a following wind. so that there was no vessel in scotland that could catch us. in due time we landed at rotterdam with great joy and rejoicing. now, there remains many a story that i might tell concerning our life there--how i took service in the scots regiments of the prince, how poor we were and how happy. indeed, if i be spared and keep my wits, i may write it one day. for, to my thinking, it is a good tale, and infinitely more mirthful than this of the killing time, which presently it has been my lot to tell, though sandy had no part in it, seeing that he abode until the coming of the prince in the stony castle of blackness, yet not greatly ill-done to, being tended there by his wife. also in it there should be commemorated how my mother came to us, and concerning wat and kate, and all that sped between them. also, for a greater theme, how we went back and helped renwick and cleland to raise again the seven thousand, and how we stood in the breach when the stuarts were swept away. especially i would joy to tell of the glorious leaguer of dunkeld. that were a tale to attempt, indeed, with maisie lennox at that tale's ending, even as she has been the beginning and middle and end of this. only by that time she was no more maisie lennox. _concluded in my study at afton, december , ._ _w. g._ finis. by s. r. crockett mad sir uchtred of the hills. "mr. crockett is surely the poet-laureate of galloway. the scene of his latest tale ('mad sir uchtred') is laid among the hills with which we became familiar in 'the raiders.' it is a brief tale, not a novel, and it can be read through in an hour; indeed, if one begins it, one must read it through, so compelling is the charm of it. the lady of garthland makes a gracious and pathetic figure, and the wild and terrible uchtred, the wrong done him, the vengeance which he did not take,--all these things are narrated in a style of exquisite clearness and beauty. mr. crockett need not fear comparison with any of the young scotsmen who are giving to english literature just now so much that is fresh, and wholesome, and powerful."--_boston courier._ the stickit minister, and some common men. "mr. crockett has given us a book that is full of strength and charms. humour and pathos mingle with delightful effect.... it is hard to imagine that any lover of literature could be altogether wanting in appreciation of their quaint homeliness and pleasant realism. to come across a volume like this is indeed refreshing. no wailing pessimism mars our enjoyment with its dreary disbelief in humanity; every page exhibits a robust faith in the higher possibilities of our nature, and the result is distinctly successful. amongst the gems of the collection we may indicate 'the heather lintie,' a simple sketch, instinct with quiet, penetrating pathos; whilst as a specimen of acute and kindly humour, 'a knight-errant of the streets,' with its sequel, 'the progress of cleg kelly,' would be hard to surpass.... the author has constructed stories full of grace and charm. those to whom humanity in its most primitive and least complex aspect is interesting will find real pleasure in studying mr. crockett's strong and sympathetic presentment of scottish peasant life."--_the speaker._ the raiders. being some passages in the life of john faa, lord and earl of little egypt. "... the things that befell us in those strange years when the hill outlaws collogued with the wild freetraders of the holland traffic, and fell upon us to the destruction of the life of man, the carrying away of much bestial, besides the putting of many of his majesty's lieges in fear.... "it was with may mischief that all the terrible blast of storm began (as indeed most storms among men ever do begin with a bonny lass, like that concerning helen of troy, which lasted ten years and of which men speak to this day). the tale began with may mischief, as you shall hear. i keep the old name still, though the years have gone by, and though now in any talks of the old days, and of all our ancient ploys, there are the bairns to be considered. but it is necessary that ere the memory quite die out, some of us who saw these things should write them down."--_the foreword._ [illustration: [page "wat's hand mostly on his sweetheart's shoulder"] lochinvar a novel by s. r. crockett author of "the gray man" etc. illustrated by t. de thulstrup [illustration] harper & brothers publishers new york and london by s. r. crockett. the gray man. a novel. illustrated. post vo, cloth, ornamental, $ . harper & brothers, publishers, new york and london. copyright, , by harper & brothers. _all rights reserved._ contents chapter page foreword to the tale i. from liking to love ii. why kate hated lochinvar iii. the bull, the calf, and the killer iv. the duel at the inn of brederode v. haxo the bull interferes vi. the prince of orange vii. mistress maisie lennox, diplomatist viii. the street of the butchery ix. my lord of barra x. the descent of avernus xi. the hearts of women xii. the prison of amersfort xiii. my lord of barra's vow xiv. maisie's night quest xv. a night of storm xvi. the breaking of the prison xvii. jack scarlett calls himself a fool xviii. a perilous meeting xix. the battle of the dunes xx. captain, my captain xxi. the good ship _sea unicorn_ xxii. wise jan pettigrew xxiii. wise jan waxes wiser xxiv. madcap mehitabel xxv. true love and pignuts xxvi. a boat in sight at suliscanna xxvii. the tide-race of suliscanna xxviii. john scarlett comes ashore xxix. wat's isle of refuge xxx. wat swims the water cavern xxxi. bess landsborough's catechism xxxii. the surrender of the beloved xxxiii. an ancient love affair xxxiv. captor and captive xxxv. skirting the breakers xxxvi. passage perilous xxxvii. the isle of bliss xxxviii. misfortunate colin xxxix. satan spies out paradise xl. serpent's eggs xli. love that thinketh no evil xlii. the fiery cross xliii. coll o' the cows xliv. great dundee xlv. killiekrankie xlvi. the leaguer of dunkeld xlvii. the golden heart xlviii. the master comes home xlix. the curate of dalry l. lochinvar keeps tryst li. the bride's loving-cup lii. catch them who can! liii. within the king's mercy epilogue of supererogation illustrations "wat's hand mostly on his sweetheart's shoulder" _frontispiece_ _facing p._ "'i will take my own love-token'" "scarlett thundered on the panels with the hilt of his sword" "the gentleman instantly attacked them furiously" "the man carried her easily through the surf" "a couple of pistol-shots rang out loudly" "the self-satisfaction flickered out of his face" "then the swirling tide-race took hold of her" "a gigantic highlander with a naked claymore by his side" "wat pushed off in the smaller boat" "striding forward frankly and giving a hand to each" "he fell inward among the wounded" "with his love between his arms" lochinvar foreword to the tale, telling what befell at the house of balmaghie in the year of grace , and how my lady wellwood parted two young lovers "aye," said mistress crombie, house-keeper to roger mcghie, laird of balmaghie, a considerable house in the south-lying and better-cultivated part of the wild lands of galloway--"aye, indeed, ye may well say it, alisoun begbie. it is a wondrous and most ungentle thing when the doe seeks the hart--panting and brayin' for a man, as the guid buik says. and saw ye ever sic feathers?--i declare they nearly soopit the floor. my lady wellwood, or no my lady wellwood, i trow she didna come ridin' by the hoose o' balmaghie only to ask the time o' day, upsetting besom that she is!" during this harangue alisoun begbie was clattering about among her bottles and dishes in the stone-flagged, slate-shelved still-room which constituted her pantry. a few minutes before she had cried mischievously out of the window to lang wat, the new under-gardener of balmaghie, to the effect that "siccan a guid-lookin' chiel should be seen oftener about the house--but that she, alisoun begbie, was not wanting anything to do with the likes of him. she could get plenty of lads, and it was weel-kenned that the glenkens' folk aye took up wi' their ain folk at ony rate." but as soon as the "bauchles"[a] of mistress crombie, the shrill-tempered house-keeper, were heard scuffling up the stairs, alisoun made a pretty warning face of silence at lang wat, and tossed her head to intimate that some one approached from behind; so that, without making any verbal answer, the under-gardener resumed his occupation of the moment, which was the pruning and grafting of sundry rose-bushes--the pride and care of mistress kate mcghie, the "young leddy" of the great house of balmaghie. [a] certain heelless and shapeless slippers, characteristic of the district. "na, 'deed, alisoun begbie," cried mistress crombie once more, from the cheek of the door, "believe me when i tell ye that sic a braw city madam--and a widow forbye--doesna bide about an auld disjaskit rickle o' stanes like the hoose o' the grenoch withoot haeing mair in her head than just sending warnings to clavers aboot the puir muirland folk, that keep their misguided conventicles up ayont there, and pray a' nicht in the lirks o' the hills and the black hags o' the peat-mosses." "aye, ye may say so, 'deed, mistress," agreed alisoun, keeping an eye upon the window of her pantry, through which she could see lang wat bending his back among the rose-bushes. spite of his good looks, he had proved himself a singularly flinty-hearted fellow-servitor, and ill to set to the wooing. but alisoun had still hopes of him. she had succeeded with some difficult--indeed, almost hopeless--cases in her time, and the very unresponsive nature of the young glenkens' gardener stirred her ambition to brighter and more inviting glances, as well as to gayer and ever daintier ribbons. but in spite of both loving looks and lovers' knots, lang wat neither succumbed nor yet appeared so much as conscious of her regard. truly a marvellous young man--such as had never come within the sphere of the comely handmaiden's influence before. "weel, i'se warrant my lady needna set her cap at our maister," said alisoun begbie, willing to agree with the powerful and cantankerous house-keeper: "na, roger mcghie o' balmaghie has his wits aboot him. surely it is a terrible thing when a woman so far forgets hersel' as to set her cap for a man." and pretty alisoun glanced at the silver salver she was polishing, in order to be sure that her silken snood was in its proper place, and that the braids of her hair were drawn back smoothly and daintily from her brow. being reassured on these points, she resumed the salver with renewed complaisance. lang wat was now standing meditatively outside, quite near the house, and with his face turned towards her window. he was leaning upon his spade; any moment he might look up. pretty alisoun begbie breathed upon the silver with a certain seductive pouting of her lips, rubbed the place clear, breathed again upon it, and last of all frowned alluringly at it--for the very excellent reason that one of her former admirers had incautiously told her that such frowning became her mightily. but in spite of all, lang wat remained rapt in abstractest meditation. at which alisoun begbie tossed her head and frowned again--not this time for picturesque reasons, but in good earnest. "he micht at least have kissed his hand, the silly cuif!" she said, half to herself, looking resentfully at the impervious under-gardener of balmaghie. "what!" cried mistress crombie, "kissed his hand, indeed, ye daft-speaking, licht-headed hizzie! i hope that my maister has something else to do than to gang kissin' his hand to a' the high-flyin' madams that likes to come aboot the hoose--wi' their auld guidmen hardly cauld in their coffins, and as much paint on their impudent faces as wad serve for the body o' a trail cart. kiss his hand to her, indeed! na, na, set her up; a deal less than that will serve her." a stir was heard at the top of the stairs which led up from the still-room, among the cool recesses of which this conversation had been proceeding between mistress crombie and her favorite assistant. "dear sirs, that's the maister himsel', i declare," said the house-keeper, looking cautiously up, "and dressed in his sunday breeks--mercy on us!--and his best coat wi' the new lace on the collar, and the cuffs that i laid aside for the next burial or siclike festivity. but--lord preserve us!--here on a wednesday he maun gang and put them on! the man's surely gane clean mad. he shall sup sorrow like sowens for this yet, and that will be seen." "maybe he has been kissin' mair than his ain hand," said alisoun begbie, slyly. she was still smarting from her rebuke by the house-keeper; besides which, lang wat would not look up. mistress crombie started as if she had been stung. "save us!" she cried, "do ye think so? then a' our good days aboot the hoose o' the balmaghie are numbered! oh, the bonny place, where i thocht to end my days wi' a guid maister and a kindly! oh, women, women--what hae ye no to answer for, upsettin' a' plans, stirrin' up a' ill, pu'in' doon a' guid! eh, alisoun, but what a paradise the world wad be wi' only men in it, and no a woman frae end to end o't--_forbye mysel'_--whatna gairden o' eden wad that no make!" but the eyes of alisoun begbie were fastened on a certain shaded nook among the rose-bushes, wherein a pretty enough comedy was being enacted; though, be it said, one little to the taste of the still-room maid. mistress crombie, had she been observant, might have discovered abundant cause to find fault with her maid's diligence and attention to the details of her duty during the next half-hour. but luckily for alisoun begbie, that good though suspicious lady had betaken herself indignantly up-stairs. there, with haughty head tossing in the air and a certain ominously aggrieved silence, she proceeded to meditate upon the other details of her master's attire--his sunday shoes with silver buckles, his ribbons of pale blue at the knee, and especially the grand new wig of the latest court fashion, which colonel john graham of claverhouse had brought all the way in his saddle-bag from robin rae's, the periwig-maker in the lawnmarket, the last time he rode to edinburgh to consult with the lords of the privy council. now, what alisoun begbie watched behind the rosebushes was this: she saw the under-gardener, "lang wat o' the glenkens," as he was called about the house, in close and kindly converse with mistress kate mcghie, the only daughter of the house and heiress of her father's wide estates. she had come, a tall and graceful maid attired in white, lightfoot down a shady garden-path, the sunshine and the leaves together flecking her white dress with wavering shadows, her dark, shapely head thrown a little back, her chin tilted somewhat defiantly in the air, and her broad summer hat a-swing in her left hand. fitfully she hummed a tune, but whenever she forgot the words (which was very often) the song dropped, and, without the least break of continuity, proceeded on its way as a whistle. and in either case the sounds proceeded, so thought the under-gardener, from the prettiest and most appetizing mouth in the world. indeed, as soon as mistress kate came within hearing distance of him, lang wat promptly swept his broad bonnet from his head in salute, and told her so. which, when one thinks of it, was a considerable liberty for an under-gardener to take. but the lady received the compliment not amiss, being to all appearance neither elated nor astonished. was she not kate mcghie of balmaghie, and had she not been accustomed to be told that she was beautiful as long as she could remember? consistent and continuous admiration had become familiar to her as the air she breathed, and had done her as little harm. it seemed to kate as natural that she should be assured that she was winsome as to be told that she had a good appetite. and the information affected her equally in either case. since her very tenderest years there had been but one dissentient voice in this chorus of universal love and admiration--a certain small boy from the glenkens, a laird's son, one walter gordon of lochinvar, who had come to the house of balmaghie on a visit with his father, and had enshrined his dissent in a somewhat memorable form. for, by the common bruit of the country-side, the girl had been denominated--while yet but a child with great hazel eyes that promised dangerous things, and a tossing fleece of curls--the pride of balmaghie. and the maid herself, when asked her name, was accustomed to reply frankly: "i is little kate mcghie-- what everybody loves." but this same gordon lad from the glenkens, scornful in the pride of half a dozen years of superior age, never heard the phrase without adding his own contemptuous disclaimer, "little brute, _i_ don't love her." nevertheless, the time came when the scorner recanted his renunciation. and that time was now, under the garden trees of the house of balmaghie and the jealous eyes of alisoun begbie. for "lang wat o' the glenkens," under-gardener to roger mcghie of balmaghie, was none other than walter gordon, the young laird of lochinvar, fallen into ill-odor with the king's government--both in the matter of the wounding of my lord of wellwood, and as being suspected of companying and intercommuning with the wild whigs of the hills. for the times bore hard on all such as were of doubtful loyalty, and fines and confiscations were the least those had to expect who refused to side openly with the blusterous riders and galloping compellers of the king's forces. the blaze of muskets in face of a stone wall, the ever-busy rope in the grassmarket of edinburgh (where during two brisk years of the "killing time" the hangman needed a new "tow" every month from the town council, and the pay of an additional assistant whenever "he was overthrong with the hanging of so many westland men")--these and other symptoms of troublous times sent many well-disposed and innocent folk into hiding. but it was not alone the superior advantages of balmaghie as a hiding-place which had brought wat gordon of lochinvar thither in search of shelter. it might rather be the sweeping, darksome under-curve of kate mcghie's eyelashes, and the little specks of light which swam and sparkled in the depths of her hazel eyes, like the shredded gold in that rare liqueur which john scarlett, the famous master-at-arms, had brought back with him last year from dantzig. not that wat gordon was very deeply or seriously in love. he dallied and daintied with it rather. true--he thought about love and the making of it night and day, and (for the time being) his ideal and liege lady was the young mistress of the house of balmaghie. and kate mcghie, knowing him for what he was, and being (unlike her father, but like most of the women-folk of scotland) a sympathizer with the oppressed of the covenant, showed no small kindness to the under-gardener. she was a maiden left much alone. she was at the age when love is still an insubstantial, rosy dream, yet few youths of her own quality were ever encouraged to come about her father's house. so that her pity and her admiration were the more easily engaged on behalf of the handsome and unfortunate young laird who told her at least ten times a day (when he had the chance) that he was as willing as any jacob to serve seven years, and seven to the back of that, in the hope of such a rachel. for even before he began to do more than play with true love, wat gordon had a gift of love-making which might have wiled a bird off a tree. yet, for all that, when he came to practise on kate mcghie, he wiled in vain. for the girl was buttressed and defended by a lifetime of admiration from all who came about her--by her father's adoration, the devotion of every man, woman, and child about the house of balmaghie, and, above all, by the repute of reigning beauty athwart all the country-side. so, though she might think well enough of wat gordon, that handsome exile from his heritages and lordships now in picturesque hiding as her father's under-gardener, she was (so at least she told herself) in no danger of permitting that liking to develop into any feeling more dangerous or more exacting. so these two fenced, each of them in their own way, right gallantly with lightsome love; while the love that is not lightsome, but strong as death, smiled out upon them from behind the rose-bushes, and lay in wait for one and the other. presently, while they were yet talking and alisoun begbie still carefully observant of them, the front door of the house of balmaghie opened wide, and the laird himself came down the steps looking a little dashed and shamefaced, for mistress crombie had ushered him to the door with ironic state and ceremony. "dootless your honor is on his way to pay duty to the king's commissioner at kirkcudbright," she said, with pointed sarcasm which the shy laird did not know well how to parry. "but ye hae forgotten your pearl studs in your sark, and the wee hangie-swordie o' the court that will no draw oot o' its scabbard, nor so muckle as hurt a flea." "i thank you, mistress," said roger, not daring to look at his too faithful domestic, "but i go not so far afield as to see his majesty's commissioner. 'tis but the matter of a visitor whom we must expect this forenoon. see that some collation is prepared for her." "_her!_" ejaculated mistress crombie, with an indescribable accent of surprise, not unmingled with scorn. "_her_--we are to hae the company o' a great lady, nae doot. and this the first that your humble servant and house-keeper has heard o' the matter! 'collation,' quo' he? whatna dinner do ye think can be got ready between eleven and twa o' the clock on a wednesday, wi' a' the lasses at the washin' except alisoun begbie, and nocht in the larder forbye twa pookit chuckie-hens, that came frae the boat craft less than half an hour since?" "but, surely, these will do very well," said roger mcghie, with increasing nervousness. "'tis only my lady of wellwood, who rides over from the grenoch." for in truth he had been afraid to mention the matter to mistress crombie, and so had put off till it was too late--as the manner of men is. "i forgot to acquaint you with the fact before; it--ah--it altogether escaped my memory," said he, beginning to pull his gloves on as he descended the steps. "but ye didna forget to put on your sunday claes, laird balmaghie," cried the privileged domestic after him, sarcastically; "nor did your best silken hose nor your silver buckles escape your memory! and ye minded brawly to scent your ruffles wi' cinnamon and rosemary. ye dinna forget ony o' thae things--that were important, and maitters o' life and death, as one might say. it only escaped your memory to tell your puir feckless auld house-keeper to mak' ony provision for your dainty dames and court leddies. ou aye, it maitters little for the like o' her--marion crombie, that has only served ye for forty year, and never wranged ye o' a fardin's-worth. dinna waste a thought on her, puir auld woman, though she should die in a hedge-root, so long as ye can hae a great repair o' powdered weemen and galloping frisk-me-denties to come ridin' aboot your hoose." but whatever else mistress crombie might have had to say to her master was lost in the clatter of hoofs and the stir and bustle of a new arrival. up the avenue came a bold horsewoman riding a spirited bay, reining it like a man as she stayed her course on the river gravel before the front door and sent the stones spraying from its fore-feet at the halt. the new-comer wore a plumed hat and the riding-dress of red, which, together with her warm sympathies with the "persecutors," caused my lady wellwood to be known in the country-side as "the scarlet woman." she was a handsome dame of forty, or mayhap a little more; but, save for the more pronounced arching of her haughty nose and the rounding curves of her figure, she might well have passed for ten or twelve years younger. the laird of balmaghie went eagerly forward to meet his visitor. he took gratefully enough the hand which she reached to him a little indulgently, as one might give a sweetmeat to a child to occupy its attention. for even as he murmured his welcomes the lady's eyes were certainly not upon her host, but on the erect figure of his under-gardener, who stood staring and transfixed by the rose-bush which he had been pruning. "my lady wellwood," said roger mcghie, "this is indeed an honor and a privilege." "who may this youth be?" interrupted the lady, imperiously cutting short his sober courtesies and pointing to lang wat of the glenkens. "it is but one of my gardeners; he has lately come about the house," answered roger mcghie, "a well-doing carle enough and a good worker. but hark ye, my lady, perhaps a wee overfond of whiggery and such strait-lacedness, and so it may be as well to give his name the go-by when john graham comes this way." my lady of wellwood never took her eyes off the gardener's face. "come hither and help me to dismount," she said, beckoning with her finger. wat gordon went reluctantly enough, dragging one foot after the other. he realized that the end had come to his residence among the flower-closes of balmaghie, and that he must e'en bid farewell to these walks and glades as of paradise, upon which, as upon his life, the hazel eyes of kate mcghie had lately rained such sweet influences. meanwhile the laird stood meekly by. the caprices of great court-ladies were not in his province, but, having set out to humor them, he was not to be offended by the favor shown his servitor. he had heard of such things at whitehall, and the memory rather kindled him than otherwise. he felt all the new life and energy which comes of being transported into a new world of new customs, new ideas, and even of new laxities. wat gave my lady wellwood his hand in the courtliest manner. the habit and gait of the under-gardener seemed to fall from him in a moment at the sound of that voice, low and languorous, with a thrill in it of former days which it irked him to think had still power to affect him. "you have not quite forgotten me, then, sweet lad of lochinvar?" asked the duchess of wellwood softly in his ear. for so in the days of his sometime madness she had been wont to call him. "no," answered wat, sullenly enough, as he lifted her to the ground, not knowing what else to say. "then meet me at the head of the wood on my way home," whispered the lady, as she disengaged herself from his arm, and turned with a smiling face to roger mcghie. "and this is your sweet daughter," she murmured, caressingly, to kate, who stood by with drooping eyelids, but who, nevertheless, had lost no shade of the colloquy between wat gordon and her father's guest. the lady wellwood took the girl's hand, which lay cold and unresponsive in her plump white fingers. "a pretty maid--you will be a beauty one day, my dear," she added, with the condescension of one who knows she has as yet nothing to fear from younger rivals. to this kate answered nothing. for her flatterer was a woman. had the duchess of wellwood been a man and condescended to this sort of left-handed praise, kate would have flashed her eyes and said, "i have not seldom been told that i am one already." whereupon he would have amended his sentence. as it was, kate said nothing, but only hardened her heart and wondered what the great court lady had found to whisper to the man who, during these last months, had daily been avowing himself her lover. and though kate was conscious that her heart sat secure and untouched on its virgin throne, it had, nevertheless, been not unpleasant to listen to the lad. for of a surety wat gordon told his tale wondrously well. roger mcghie conducted the lady gallantly through the garden walks towards the house. but she had not gone far when she professed herself overcome by the heat, and desired to be permitted to sit down on a rustic seat. she was faint, she said; yet, even as she said it, the keen eye of kate mcghie noted that her color remained warm and high. "a tass of water--nay, no wine," she called after the laird of balmaghie; "i thank you for your courtesy." and kate's father hastened away a little stiffly to bring it. she knew that his sunday shoes irked him. it served him right, she thought. at his age he ought to know better--but there remained the more important matter of the under-gardener. "come and sit by me, pretty one," said the lady wellwood, cooingly, to kate. the "pretty one" would infinitely rather have set herself down by the side of an adder sunning itself on a bank than shared the woodland seat with the bold horsewoman of grenoch. "ah! sly one," she said, "i warrant you knew that your under-gardener there, that handsome lad, was not the landward man he seemed." she shook her finger reproachfully at her companion as she spoke. kate blushed hotly, and then straightway fell to despising herself for doing it almost as much as she hated my lady for making her. lady wellwood watched her covertly out of the corner of her eyes. she cultivated a droop of the left eyelid on purpose. "i know that he is proscribed, and has a price set on his head," kate said, quietly, looking after wat with great indifference as he went down the avenue of trees. "and do you know why?" asked the duchess, somewhat abruptly. "no," answered kate, wondering at her tone. "it was for wounding my late husband within the precincts of holyrood," said lady wellwood. but kate mcghie's anger was now fully roused, and her answer ran trippingly off her tongue. "and was it for that service you spoke so kindly to him just now, and bade him meet you at the head of the wood as you went home?" the duchess stared a little, but her well-bred calmness was not ruffled. "even so," she said, placidly, "and for the further reason that walter gordon was on his way to see _me_ on the night when it was his ill fortune to meet with my husband instead." "i do not believe it," cried the girl, lifting her head and looking lady wellwood straight in the eyes. "ask him, then!" answered the duchess, with the calm assurance of forty answering the chit of half her years. for at first sight my lady had envied and hated the clear, blushful ivory of the girl's cheek and the natural luxuriance of her close-tangled curls. and since all the art of st. james's could not match with these, she was now getting even with kate in ways of her own. the girl did not speak. her heart only welled within her with contradiction and indignation. "or if you will not do that, sit down half an hour hence and read your book in the little arbor by the end of the avenue, and you will hear news. whether you may like it or not is another question. but, at all events, you shall not have cause to say again that a duchess of wellwood lied." kate rose and walked away without answering a word. she cared no jot for wat gordon, so she told herself. he was nothing to her, save that she desired his safety and had risked much to give him shelter. yet this duchess of wellwood--that woman of whom the gross popular tongue whispered commonly the most terrible things! had lochinvar made love to her? was he to meet her at the end of the avenue? she could not believe it. it was, indeed, no matter if he did. what did she care? go to the arbor, become an eavesdropper--not for any man alive, least of all for wat gordon! thank god, she had a tongue in her head, and was not afraid to ask wat gordon, or any living soul, whatever she desired to know. but after a little hesitation she went up-stairs to her chamber, and, denying herself the listening of the ear, she listened with her eyes instead. for she watched my lady wellwood being helped into her saddle right courteously by her father. she saw her looking down at him the while with a glance professionally tender--a glance that lingered in the memory by reason of the quiver of an eyelid and the pressure of a soft, reluctant hand. and roger mcghie bowed over her plump fingers as though he had been bidding farewell to some angelic visitant. for the first time in her life kate mcghie despised her father. and, lo! to hurt her heart yet more, and to convince her of the ultimate falsity of all men, there was wat, his tall figure overtopping the hawthorn hedge, walking briskly in the direction of the pinewood at the end of the avenue. kate went down-stairs with a set, still face. she would not cry. she did not care. she was only bitterly disappointed with the whole race of mankind, nothing more. they were all no better than so many blind fools, ready to be taken in by a plausible tongue and a rolling eye. a fine figure of a woman, and--lord, where was the best of them? but her wat--and with the duchess of wellwood; she could not believe it! why, she might be his--well, hardly that--but his mother at the very least. not that she cared; she had her work to think about; and kate mcghie went down to the little suckling lamb she had fed daily with warm milk out of a wooden spoon, and which, though now almost of the greatness of a full-grown sheep, still leaped and fawned upon her. she fetched her pail and mixed pet donald's mid-day meal. outside the garden wall the lamb was standing, bleating indignant petitions, and there katie mcghie fed him with a gradually swelling heart. as the last drops disappeared into the moist black muzzle, kate put her arms about the woolly neck and sobbed aloud. "oh, donald, donald, my lamb, you are the only friend i have! i do not love anybody else, and no one in the world loves me. but i am not sorry--i am glad, and i will not cry. it is not that i love him, donald; but, oh! he might not have done it!" that same evening wat gordon, as was his custom, came walking slowly through the garden pleasaunce. kate mcghie met him by the rose-bush he had been pruning that morning. "is it true," she asked, looking at him bravely and directly, "that you are in hiding because, when going to visit the duchess of wellwood, you encountered her husband instead?" "this much is true," answered wat, promptly, "that while passing down the canongate one snowy night, my cousin, will gordon of earlstoun, and i were beset by a band of ruffians in the pay of the duke of wellwood, and that in defending ourselves the duke himself was hurt." "and when you went out of your lodging that night, was it to walk with your cousin or to visit my lady of wellwood in her boudoir?" wat gordon took his breath hard. the manner of the question left him no escape with honor. but he could not lie. and he would offer no excuse. "i went out to visit my lady wellwood!" he said, very shortly. kate mcghie held out her hand. "i bid you good-bye," she said; "you will find your ancient friend and hostess at the grenoch. there is nothing to detain you any longer about the poor house of balmaghie." and so saying the girl turned on her heel and walked slowly through the garden garth and past the pruned rose-bushes. she crossed the grassy slope to the door and there disappeared, leaving wat gordon standing silent, shamed, and amazed. chapter i from liking to love it was graying to the edge of dark upon one of the evenings towards the end of april, in the year , when walter gordon, of lochinvar in galloway, and now for some time private in the prince of orange's douglas regiment of dragoons, strode up the stairs of his cousin will's lodging in the ancient dutch city of amersfort. the young man had come straight from duty at the palace, and his humor was not exactly gracious. but wat gordon could not long remain vexed in spirit in the presence of his cousin will's wife, maisie lennox. her still, sweet smile killed enmity, even as spring sunshine kills the bite of frost. the little, low-roofed dutch room, panelled with oak, had its windows open towards the sun-setting, and there in the glow of the west two girls were sitting. at sight of them walter gordon stopped suddenly in the doorway as he came bursting in. he had been expecting to see but one--his cousin's young wife, into whose pretty ear of patientest sympathy he might pour his fretful boyish disappointments and much-baffled aspirations. mistress maisie lennox, now for half a year will gordon of earlstoun's wife (for by her maiden name she was still used to be called, and so she signed herself, since it had not yet become the custom for a women to take among her intimates the style of her husband's surname), sat on a high-backed chair by the oriel window. she had the kind of sunny hair which it is a pleasure to look upon, and the ripples of it made crisp tendrils about her brow. her face underneath was already sweetening and gaining in reposefulness, with that look of matronhood which comes early to patient, gracious women, who would yet venture much for the man they love. and not once nor yet twice had maisie lennox dared all for those whom she loved--as has, indeed, elsewhere been told. but, all unexpected of the hasty visitor, there was yet another fair girl looking up at him there in that quaint, dusky-shadowed room. seated upon a low chair, and half leaning across the knees of mistress maisie, set wide apart on purpose, there reclined a maiden of another temper and mould. slender and supple she was as willow that sways by the water-edges, yet returning ever to slim, graceful erectness like a tempered blade of damascus; above, the finest and daintiest head in the world, profiled like apollo of the bow, with great eyes that were full of alternate darkness and tenderness, of tears and fire; a perfectly chiselled mouth, a thing which is rarer and more excellent than the utmost beauty of splendid eyes--and sweeter also; a complexion not milk and rose like that of maisie lennox, but of ivory rather, with the dusky crimson of warm blood blushing up delicately through it. such was kate mcghie, called kate of the dark lashes, the only daughter of roger mcghie of balmaghie, a well-reputed galloway gentleman in the country of scotland. as walter gordon came bursting in his impetuous fashion into his cousin's room, his sword clashing about his feet and his cavalry spurs jingling against his boot-heels, he was stopped dead by this most pleasant sight. yet all he saw was a girl with her head resting upon her own clasped hands and reclining on her friend's knee, with her elbows set wide apart behind her head--while maisie's hand played, like a daring swimmer in breaking surf, out and in among the soft crisps of hair, which were too short to be waves and too long to be curls. and this hair was of several curious colors, ranging from black in the shadows through rich brown into dusky gold where the sun's light caught it lovingly, as though he had already begun to set over the sand-dunes into the northern sea. as wat stood there, his fingers tingled to touch. it seemed somehow a squandering of human happiness that only a girl's hand should smooth that rich tangle and caress those clustering curls. walter gordon of lochinvar had flung himself into the little room in zandpoort street, ripe to pour his sorrows into the ear of maisie lennox. nor was he at all forgetful of the fact that the ear was an exceedingly pretty one. most devoutly he hoped that will, his very excellent cousin and maisie's good husband, might have been kept late at the religious exercises of the regiment of the covenant--as that portion of the scotch-dutch auxiliary force was called which had been mostly officered and recruited from among the more militant exiles and refugees of the scottish persecution. but as lochinvar came forward somewhat more slowly after his involuntary start of surprise, his eyes continued to rest on those of the younger girl, who remained thus reclined on her gossip's lap. she had not moved at his entrance, but only looked at him very quietly from under those shadowy curtains which had gained her the name of kate of the dark lashes. then in a moment wat set his hand to his breast suddenly, as if a bullet had struck him upon the field of battle. "kate!" he cried, in a quick, hoarse whisper, as though the word had been forced from him. and for a long moment the young soldier stood still and speechless, with his eyes still fixed upon the girl. "walter, mind you not my dearest friend and gossip kate, and how in old sad days in the dear far-away land we there underwent many things together?" asked maisie lennox, looking up somewhat doubtfully from her friend's face into that of walter gordon. "i did not know--i had not heard--" were all the words that the young squire of dames could find to utter. "also there were, if i remember aright," the young matron went on, with that fatal blundering which sometimes comes to the kindest and most quick-witted of women, "certain passages between you--of mutual friendship and esteem, as it might be." then, with a single swift movement, lithe and instantaneous as that of a young wild animal which has never known restraint, kate of the dark lashes rose to her feet. "walter gordon of lochinvar," she said, "is a scottish gentleman. he will never be willing to remember that which a lady chooses to forget." but lochinvar himself, readiest tongue in wit-play as well as keenest blade when the steel clashed in sterner debate, on this occasion spake never a word. for in that moment in which he had looked upon kate mcghie resting her beautiful head upon her clasped hands in her friend's lap he had fallen from the safe heights of admiration into the bottomless abysses of love. while the pair were still standing thus face to face, and before kate sat down again in a more restrained posture on the low-cushioned window-seat, will gordon strode in and set his musket in a corner. he was habited simply enough in the dark gray of the hill folks' regiment, with the cross of st. andrew done in blue and white upon his breast. his wife rose to kiss him as he entered, and then, still holding her by the hand, he turned to the tall, slim girl by the window. "why, kate, lass, how came the good winds to blow you hither from the lands of mist over the sea?" he asked. "blasts of ill winds in scotland, well i wot," said kate mcghie, smiling at him faintly and holding out her hand. "then the ill scots winds have certainly blown us good here in holland," he answered, deftly enough, in the words of the ancient scottish proverb. but the girl went on without giving heed to his kindly compliment. "the persecution waxes ever hotter and hotter on the hills of the south," she said, "and what with the new sheriffs, and the raging of the red-wud grier of lag over all our country of galloway, i saw that it could not be long before my doings and believings brought my easy-tempered father into trouble. so, as soon as i knew that, i mounted me and rode to newcastle, keeping mostly to the hills, and avoiding the highways by which the king's soldiers come and go. there, after some wearisome and dangerous waiting, i got a ship to rotterdam. and here i am to sorn upon you!" she ended with a little gesture of opening her hands and flinging them from her, which wat gordon thought very pretty to behold. "you are as welcome to our poor soldier's lodging as though it had been the palace of the stadtholder," answered william gordon--with, nevertheless, a somewhat perplexed look, as he thought of another mouth to be fed upon the scanty and uncertain pay of a private in the scottish regiments of the prince. while his cousin was speaking wat gordon had made his way round the table to the corner of the latticed window farthest from kate, where now he stood looking thoughtfully upon the broad canal and the twinkling lights which were beginning to mark out its banks. "why, wat," cried his cousin will, clapping him lovingly upon the shoulder as he went past him to hang up his blue sash on a hook by the window, "wherefore so sad-visaged, man? this whey face and dour speechlessness might befit an erewhile whig gardener of balmaghie, with his hod and mattock over his shoulder; but it sets ill with a gay rider in douglas's dragoons, and one high in favor in the prince's service." lochinvar shook off his cousin's hand a little impatiently. he wanted nothing better than just to go on watching kate mcghie's profile as it outlined itself against the broad, shining reach of water. he marvelled that he had been aforetime so blind to its beauty; but then these ancient admirations in scotland had been only lightness of heart and a young man's natural love of love-making. but walter gordon knew that this which had stricken him to the heart, as he came suddenly upon the girl pillowing her head on her palms at maisie's knee, was no mere love-making. it was love. "who were on duty to-day at headquarters?" wat asked, gruffly enough. "who but barra and his barbarians of the isles!" william gordon made answer. wat stamped his foot boyishly and impatiently. "the prince shows these dogs overmuch of his favor," he said. will gordon went to the chamber door and opened it. then he looked back at his wife. "come hither, sweetheart," he said. "it is pay-day, and i must e'en give thee my wages, ere i be tempted to spend them with fly-by-night dragoons and riotous night-rakes like our cousin here. also, i must consult thee concerning affairs of state--thy housewifery and the price of candles belike!" obediently maisie rose and followed him out of the room, gliding, as was her manner, softly through the door like water that runs down a mill-lade. kate of the dark lashes, on the contrary, moved with the flash and lightsome unexpectedness of a swallow in flight. yet now she sat still enough by the dusky window, looking out upon the twinkling lights which, as they multiplied, began to be reflected on the waters of the long, straight canal. for a while wat gordon was content silently to watch the changeful shapeliness of her head. he had never seen one set at just that angle upon so charming a neck. he wondered why this girl had so suddenly grown all wonderful to him. it was strange that hitherto he should have been so crassly blind. but now he was perfectly content only to watch and to be silent, so that it was kate who first felt the necessity for speech. "this is a strange new land," she said, thoughtfully, "and it is little wonder that to-night my heart is heavy, for i am yet a stranger in it." "kate," said wat gordon, in a low, earnest tone, leaning a little nearer to her as she sat on the window-seat, "kate, is there not, then, all the more reason to remember old friends?" "and have i not remembered?" answered the girl, swiftly, without looking at him. "i have come from my father's house straight to maisie lennox--i, a girl, and alone. she is my oldest friend." "but are there, then, no others?" said the young man, jealously. "none who have never forgotten, never slighted, never complained, never faltered in their love, save only my sweet maisie lennox," returned the girl, as she rose from her place and went towards the door, from behind which came the soft hum of voices in friendly conference. wat took two swift steps forward as if to forestall her, but she slipped past him, light as the shadow of a leaf windblown along the wall, and laid her hand on the latch. "will not you let me be your friend once again after these weary years?" he asked, eagerly. the tall girl opened the door and stood a moment with the outline of her figure cut slimly against the light which flooded the passage--in which, as it grew dark, maisie had lighted a tiny dutch lamp. "i love friends who never need to be friends _again_!" she said, in a low voice, and went out. left to himself, wat gordon clinched his hands in the swiftly darkening room. he strode back to the window pettishly, and hated the world. it was a bad world. why, for no more than a hasty word, a breath of foolish speech, a vain and empty dame of wellnigh twice his age, should he lose the friendship of this one girl in all the world? that other to whom he had spoken a light word of passing admiration he had never seen again, nor indeed wished to see. and for no more than this, forsooth, he must be flouted by her whom his very soul loved! it was a hard world, a bad world--of which the grim law was that a man must pay good money, red and white, for that which he desires with his heart and reaches out his hand to possess himself of. just then the street door resounded with the clang of impetuous knocking. his cousin will went down, and presently wat heard the noise of opening bars, and then the sough of rude, soldier-like speech filled the stairway. "wat gordon! wat gordon!" cried a voice which sounded familiar enough to him, "come down forthwith! here! i have brought you a letter from your love!" and wat swore a vow beneath his breath to stop the mouth of the rascal who knew no better than to shout a message so false and inopportune in the ears of the girl of the dusky eyelashes. nevertheless, he went quickly to the landing and looked down. a burly figure stood blocking the stairway beneath, and a ruddy face gleamed upward like a moon out of a mist, as maisie held the lamp aloft. a voice, somewhat husky with too recent good living, cried, "lochinvar, here is a letter to you from the colonel. great good may it do you, but may the last drop in the cogie of him that sent it be the sourest, for raising davie dunbar from the good company and the jolly pint-stoup, to be splattered at this time of night with the dirty suds of every greasy frow in all amersfort!" and the stout soldier dusted certain befouling drops from his military coat with a very indignant expression. "not that the company was over-choice or the wine fit to be called aught but poison. 'mony littles mak' a mickle,' says the old scots saw. but, my certes, of such a brew as yon it micht be said 'mony mickles make but little'! for an it were not for the filling up of your belly, ten pints of their amersfort twopenny ale is no more kenned on a man than so much dishwashings!" "come your ways in and sit down, sergeant," said mistress maisie, hospitably. for her hand was somewhat weary with holding the lamp aloft, while sergeant davie dunbar described the entertainment he had just left. meanwhile wat had opened his scrap of gray official letter, and appeared to stand fixed in thought upon the words which he found written therein. "what may be the import of your message, since you are grown suddenly so solemn-jawed over it, wat?" cried davie dunbar, going up to look over his shoulder, while maisie and kate mcghie stood talking quietly apart. "i am bidden go on a quest into the wild country by the seashore, a mission that in itself i should like well enough were it not that it comes to me by the hand of black murdo of barra." davie dunbar whistled thoughtfully. "when the corbie is from home, it's like to be an ill day for wee lame lammies!" he said, sententiously. wat gordon cocked his guardsman's cap at the words. he had set it on his head as he went down-stairs. "i am walter gordon, of lochinvar, and though that be for the nonce but a barren heritage, i am also a gentleman-private in the prince's scots dragoons, and i count not the earl of barra more than a buzzard-kite." "i see well that ye are but a wee innocent lammie after all," retorted sergeant dunbar; "little ye ken about the regimen of war if at the outset of a campaign ye begin by belittling your enemy. i tell you, murdo of barra has more brains under his highland bonnet than all your gay douglas dragoons, from your swearing colonel to the suckling drummer-boy--who no sooner leaves his mother's breast than he learns to mouth curses and lisp strange oaths." wat gordon shook his head with a certain unconvinced and dour determination. "i have been in wild places and my sword has brought me through, but though i own that, i like not this commission--yet feared of barra i am not." and he handed davie dunbar the paper. the sergeant read it aloud: "walter gordon, some time of lochinvar, of the prince's scottish dragoon guards, you are ordered to obtain the true numeration of each regiment in the camp and city of amersfort--their officering, the numbers of each company, and of those that cannot be passed by the muster officers, the tally of those sick with fever, and of those still recovering from it, the number of cannon on the works and where they are posted. these lists you are to transmit with your own hand to an officer appointed to receive them by his highness the prince at the inn of brederode by the northern sanddunes, who will furnish you with a receipt for them. this receipt you will preserve and return to me in token that you have fulfilled your mission. the officers of the regiments and the commanders of batteries have hereby orders to render you a correct and instant accompt. "(signed) for the stadtholder and the states-general, "barra, "_provost-marshal of the city and camp_." william gordon had come into the room while the sergeant was reading the paper, and now stood looking at walter's unusual commission. "there will be murder done when you come to our colonel," he said, "and ask him to tell you that the most part of his regiment is already in hospital, and also how many of the rest are sickening for it." but wat gordon stood up and tightened his sword-belt, hitching his sword forward so that the hilt fell easily under his hand. then he flipped the mandate carelessly upon the widened fingers of his left hand before sticking it through his belt. "it is, at least, an order," he said, grandly, "and so long as i am in the service of his highness the prince, my orders i will obey." "and pray what else would you do, callant," interjected sergeant david dunbar, "but obey your orders--so long, at least, as ye are sure that the lad who bids ye has the richt to bid ye?" chapter ii why kate hated lochinvar it was the evening of the following day before wat gordon was ready to start. it had taken him so long to obtain all the invaluable information as to the strength of the armies of the states-general and of their allies, which were collected at amersfort in order to roll back the threatened invasion of the king of france. twice during the day had he rushed into his cousin's lodging for a brief moment in order to snatch a morsel of food, but on neither occasion had he been able to catch so much as a glimpse of kate. it was now the gloaming, and the night promised to fall clear and chill. a low mist was collecting here and there behind the clumps of bushes, and crawling low along the surface of the canals. but all above was clear, and the stars were beginning to come out in familiar patterns. for the third and last time wat made an errand up to his cousin's rooms, even after his escort had arrived, and once more maisie took him gently by the hand, bidding him good-speed on his quest perilous. but even while his cousin's wife was speaking the young man's eye continued to wander restlessly. he longed rather to listen to upbraiding from another voice, and, in place of maisie's soft, willing kiss, to carry away the farewell touch of a more scornful hand. "cousin," he said at last, reluctantly and a little shyly, "i pray you say farewell for me to mistress kate, since she is not here to bid me farewell for herself. in what, think you, have i offended her?" "nay, wat," answered the gentle maisie, "concerning that you must e'en find means of judging for yourself on your return." "but listen, cousin maisie, this venture that i go upon is a quest of life or death to me, and many are the chances that i may not return at all." "i will even go speak with my gossip kate, and see whether she will come to bid you good prospering on your adventure and a safe return from it." and so saying maisie passed from the room as silently as a white swan swims athwart the mere. in a little while she returned with kate, who, beside her budding matronhood, seemed but a young lissom slip of willow-wand. "here, kate," said maisie, as she entered holding her friend by the hand, "is our cousin wat, come in on us to bid farewell. he goes a far road and on a heavy adventure. he would say good-bye to the friends who are with him in this strange land before he departs, and of these you are one, are you not, my kate?" as soon as mistress maisie loosened her hand the girl went directly to the window-seat, where she stood leaning gracefully with her cheek laid softly against the shutter. she turned a little and shivered at her friend's pointed appeal. "if walter gordon says it, it must be so," she answered, with certain quiet bitterness. lochinvar was deeply stung by her words. he came somewhat nearer to her, clasping his hands nervously before him, his face set and pale as it had never been in the presence of an enemy. "kate," he said, "i ask you again, wherein have i so grievously offended you that, on your coming to this land of exile, you should treat me like a dog--yes, worse than a wandering cur-dog. it is true that once long ago i was foolish--to blame, blackly and bitterly in the wrong, if you will. but now all humbly i ask you to forgive me ere i go, it may be to my death." the girl looked at him with a strange light in her eyes--scorn, pity, and self-will struggling together for the mastery. at last, in a hard, dry voice, she said, "there is nothing to forgive. if there had been i should have forgiven you. as it is, i have only forgotten." maisie had left the room and there was deep silence in it and about, save for the distant crying of the staid dutch children late at their plays on the canal-sides of amersfort, and the clatter of the home-returning wooden shoon on the pavemented streets. the young man drew himself up till his height towered above the girl like a watch-tower over a city wall. his eyes rested steadfastly on her the while. she had a feeling that a desperate kind of love was in the air, and that for aught she knew he might be about to clasp her fiercely in his arms. and it had, perhaps, been well for both if he had, for at that moment she raised her eyes and her heart wavered within her. he looked so tall and strong. she was sure that her head would come no higher upon his breast than the blue ribbon of his cavalry shoulder-knot. she wondered if his arms would prove as strong as they looked, if she suddenly were to find herself folded safe within them. "kate," he said, wistfully, coming nearer to her. now wat gordon ought not to have spoken. the single word in the silence of the room brought the girl back to herself. instinctively she put out her hand, as though to ward off something threatening or overpowering. the gulf yawned instantly between them, and the full flood-tide of wat gordon's opportunity ebbed away as rapidly as it had flowed. yet when a moment later the girl lifted her long, dark lashes and revealed her eyes shining shyly glorious beneath them, wat gordon gazed into their depths till his breath came quick and short through his nostrils, and a peal of bells seemed to jangle all out of tune in his heart. he stood like some shy woodland beast new taken in a trap. "well?" she said, inquiringly, yet somewhat more softly than she had yet spoken. wat clinched his fist. in that single syllable the girl seemed to lay all the burden of blame, proof, explanation of the past upon him alone, and the hopeless magnitude of the task cut him to the quick. "kate!" he cried, "i will not again ask you to forgive me; but if i do not come back, at least believe that i died more worthily than perhaps i have lived--though neither have i ever lived so as to shame you, even had you seen me at my worst. and, ere i go, give me at least a love-token that i may carry it with me till i die." kate's lips parted as though she had somewhat to answer if she would, but she kept a faintly smiling silence instead, and only looked casually about the room. a single worn glove lay on the top of a little cabinet of dark oak. she lifted it and handed it to wat. the young man eagerly seized the glove, pressed it with quick passion to his lips, and then thrust it deep into the bosom of his military coat. he would have taken the hand which gave him the gift, but a certain malicious innocence in the girl's next words suddenly dammed his gratitude at the fountain-head. "i have nothing of my own to give," she said, "for i have just newly come off the sea. but this glove of maisie's will mayhap serve as well. besides which, i heard her say yestreen that she had some time ago lost its marrow in the market-place of amersfort." [illustration: "'i will take my own love-token'"] with a fierce hand wat gordon tore the glove from his bosom and threw it impulsively out of the window into the canal. then he squared his shoulders and turned him about in order to stride haughtily and indignantly from the room. but even as he went he saw a quaintly subtle amusement shining in the girl's eyes--laughter made lovely by the possibility of indignant tears behind it, and on her perfectest lips that quick petulant pout which had seemed so adorable to him in the old days when he had laid so many ingenious snares to bring it out. wat was intensely piqued--more piqued perhaps than angry. he who had wooed great ladies, and on whom in the ante-chambers of kings kind damsels all too beautiful had smiled till princes waxed jealous, was now made a mock of by a slim she-slip compact of mischievous devices. he looked again and yet more keenly at the girl by the window. certainly it was so. mischief lurked quaintly but unmistakably under the demure, upward curl of those eyelashes. a kind of still, calm fury took him, a set desperation like that of battle. "i will take my own love-token," he cried, striding suddenly over to her. and so, almost but not quite, ere kate was aware, he had stooped and kissed her. then, in an instant, as soon indeed as he had realized his deed, all his courage went from him. his triumph of a moment became at once flat despair, and he stood before her ashamed, abject as a dog that is caught in a fault and trembles for the lash. without a word the girl pointed to the door. and such was the force of her white anger and scorn upon him that wat gordon, who was about to ride carelessly to face death as he had often done before, slunk through it cowering and speechless. maisie was coming along the little boarded passage as he passed out. "farewell, cousin," she said to him. "will you not bid me good-bye again ere you go, if only for the old sake's sake?" but wat gordon went past her as though he had not heard, trampling stupidly down the narrow stairs like a bullock in the market-place, the spring all gone out of his foot, the upstanding airy defiance fallen away from his carriage. then in a moment more there came up from the street front the sound of trampling horses and the ring of accoutrement, as three or four riders set spurs to their horses and rode clattering over the cobbles towards the city gates. maisie went quickly into the sitting-room to her friend. "what have you been doing to my wat?" she asked, grasping her tightly by the arm. "have you quarrelled with him?" kate was standing behind the shutter, looking down the street along which the four riders were rapidly vanishing. at the corner where they turned one of the horses shied and reared, bringing down its iron-shod hoofs sharply on the pavement with a little jet of sparks, and almost throwing its rider. instinctively the girl uttered a little cry, and set her hand against her side. "what said wat to you, dearest kate," asked maisie, again, altering the form of her question, "that you sent him thus speechless and dumfoundered away? he passed me at the stair-head as if he knew me not." finding kate still absorbed and silent, maisie sat down in her own chair and waited. presently, with a long sigh, the girl sank on her knees beside her, and, taking her friend's hand, set it on her head. with sympathetic and well-accustomed fingers maisie, as was her custom, softly smoothed and caressed the dark tangle of curls. she did not utter a word till she heard a quick sob catch at the bottom of kate's throat. then she spoke very low, leaning forward till she could lay her cheek against the girl's brow. "what said he? tell me, dearest, if you can; tell your gossip, maisie," she whispered. it was a voice that not many could resist when it pleaded thus--most like a dove cooing to its mate in the early summer mornings. there fell a silence for a while in the little upper room; but maisie the wise one did not again speak. she only waited. "oh, i hate him!" at last said kate mcghie, lifting her head with centred intensity of expression. maisie smiled a little, indulgently, leaning back so that her friend's dark eyes should not notice it. she smiled as one who is in the things of love at least a thousand years older, and who in her day has seen and tasted bread sweet and bread bitter. "and certainly you do well to hate him, my kate," this cunning mistress maisie said, very gently, her hand continuing to run softly through the meshes of kate's curls; "nevertheless, for all that you are glad that he kissed you." the girl lifted her head as quickly from its resting-place as though a needle had pricked her unawares. she eyed her friend with a grave, shocked surprise. "you were listening!" she said. and the censure in her tone might have been that of a general assembly of the kirk, so full of weighty rebuke was it. "no, kate," said her friend, quietly. "i was in the kitchen all the time, putting the bone in the broth for william's supper. i heard no single word of your talk. but, kate, my lassie, i am not so very ignorant concerning these things which you stand on the brink of. come, what had you been saying to him to provoke him to kiss you?" "he but asked me for a love-token to take with him to the wars--which i gave him, and how could i tell?" said the girl, a little plaintively. things had not gone as they ought, and now her own familiar friend was about to blame her for it. maisie waited a moment discreetly, hoping that kate would go on; but she appeared to consider that she had said enough. she only pillowed her head lower on her gossip's knee, and submitted contentedly to the loving hand which caressed her ringlets. "and you gave him the love-token?" queried her friend, quietly. "i told him that i had nothing of my own to give him, because my baggage had not yet arrived; and it chanced that i saw one of your old marrowless gloves lying there on the cabinet--so i gave him that. i thought," she added, plaintively, after a pause, "that it would do just as well." at which conclusion maisie laughed helplessly, rocking to and fro; then she checked herself, and began again. kate raised her head and looked at her in new surprise. "you are the strangest girl!" at last maisie said. "you have sundry passages with a gallant youth. you smile not unkindly upon him. you quarrel and are separated. after years you meet in a distant land. he asks you for a gage to carry with him to the wars, a badge fragrant of his lady and his love, and you give him--an odd glove of his cousin's wife's. truly an idea most quaint and meritorious!" "and maisie," said kate, solemnly, looking up at her with her head still on her hands, "would you believe it? he stamped his foot and threw the glove out of the window there into the canal! he ought not to have done that, ought he?" "my kate," said her friend, "do not forget that i am no longer a girl, but a woman wedded--" "six months," interrupted kate mcghie, a little mischievously. "and when i see the brave lass with whom, in another and a dearer land, i came through so many perils, in danger of letting foolish anger wrong both herself and another, you will forgive me if i have a word to say. i speak because i have come in peace to the goal of my own loving. wat loves you. i am sure of that. can you not tell me what it is that you have against him? no great matter, surely; for, though reckless and headstrong beyond most, the lad is yet honest, up-standing, true." kate mcghie was silent for a while, only leaning her head a little harder against the caressing hand. then, with her face bent down, she spoke, softly: "in scotland he loved _me_ not, but only the making of love. if so be that wat gordon will love me here in the lowlands of holland, he must do it like one that loves for death or life; not like a gay gallant that makes love to every maid in town, all for dalliance in a garden pleasaunce on a summer's day." the girl drew herself up nearer to her friend's face. maisie lennox, on her part, quietly leaned over and laid her cheek against kate's. it was damp where a cherry-great tear had rolled down it. maisie understood, but said nothing. she only pressed her gossip a little closer and waited. in a while kate's arms went gently round about her neck, and her face drew yet a little nearer to the listening ear. "once," she whispered, "i feared that i was in danger of loving him first and most--and that he but played with me. i feared it much," she went on, with a little return of the low sob, which caused her friend's arms to clasp themselves more tightly about her, "i feared that i might learn to love him too soon. so that is the reason--why--_i hate him now_!" chapter iii the bull, the calf, and the killer wat lochinvar rode out of the city of amersfort with anger humming fierce in his heart, the black horseman riding pickaback behind him. he paid little attention to the three cutthroat-looking knaves who had been provided as his escort, till the outer port of the city gates had closed behind him and the chill airs of the outlands, unwarmed by friendly civic supper-fires, met him shrilly in the teeth. he had been played with, tricked, betrayed, so he told himself. never more would he think of her--the light trifler with men's hearts. she might gang her own wilful gait for him; but there was one thing he was well assured of--never more would wat gordon trust any woman born of woman, never speak a word of love to one of the fickle breed again. on this he was resolved like steel. for him, henceforth, only the stern elation of combat, the clatter of harness, the joy of the headlong charge--point to point, eye to eye, he would meet his man, when neither would be afraid of aught, save of yielding or craving a favor. from that day forth his sword should be his love, his regiment his married wife, his cause and king his family; while his faithful charger, nuzzling against his breast, would bestow on him the only passionate caresses he would ever know, until on some stricken field it was his fate to fill a soldier's grave. almost could walter gordon have wept in his saddle to think of his wrongs, and death seemed a sweet thing to him beside the fickle favors of any woman. he bethought him of his cousin will with something of a pitying smile. "poor fool!" he said to himself; "he is married. he thinks himself happy. how much better had it been to live for glory!" but even as he battered himself into a conviction of his own rooted indifference to the things of love, he began to wonder how long his present adventure would detain him. could he be back in time on the morrow to hear the first trip of a light foot on the stairs in zaandpoort street, as _she_ came from her sleeping-room, fresh as though god had made her all anew that morning? for this is a quality of the wisdom of man, that thinking upon a maid ofttimes makes it vain--especially if the man be very brave or very wise, and the maid exceeding fair. gradually, however, the changing clatter of the dozen hoofs behind lochinvar forced itself upon his hearing, and he remembered that he was not alone. he turned to his followers, and, curbing his horse a little, waited for them to come up. they ranged themselves two on one side of him and one on the other. lochinvar eyed them with surprising disfavor. "you are surely the last scourings of the camp," he said, brusquely, for it was too little his habit to beat about the bush; "what may you have been doing with yourselves? you could not all three have been made so unhallowedly ugly as that. after all, god is a good god, and kind to the evil and to the good." the fellow on lochinvar's left was a great red-faced man with an immense scar, where (as it appeared) one side of his face had been cut away wellnigh to the cheek-bone--a wound which had healed unevenly in ridges and weals, and now remained of a deep plum-color. "what is your name?" said lochinvar to this man. "i am called haxo the bull," he answered, "and i am of the retinue of my lord of barra." "and how came you by your english?" asked lochinvar. "my mother always declared that my father was of that nation," answered the man, readily enough. "to conclude," continued wat, who was impatient of further conference with such rank knaves, "what might be your distinguished rank in the service of my lord of barra?" "i am his camp butcher," said the man, laying his hand on a long, keen knife which swung at his belt on the opposite side from his sword. "and these other two gentlemen, your honorable companions?" queried wat, indicating them over his shoulder with contemptuous thumb. the hulking fellow of the scar made a gesture with his shoulders, which said as plain as might be, "they are of age; ask themselves." but the nearer of the two did not wait to be asked. he was a hairless, flaccid-faced rogue of a pasty gray complexion, and even uglier than the plum-colored bull, with a certain intact and virgin hideousness of his own. "i, for my part, am called haxo's calf, and i am not ashamed of the name!" he said. and, thinking this an excellent jest, he showed a row of teeth like those of a hungry dog when he snatches a bone from a comrade not his equal in the fray. "and, i doubt not, a fit calf of such a sire," quoth lochinvar, looking from one to the other. "he is my apprentice, not my son--praise to the virgin and all the saints!" said haxo, looking at the calf quite as scornfully as wat himself. lochinvar now transferred his attention to the third. he wore a small round cap on the top of his head, and his narrow and meagre forehead ran back shining and polished to the nape of his neck. his lack-lustre eyes were set curiously at different angles in his head. he had thin lips, which parted nervously over black, gaping teeth, and his nose was broken as if with a blow of a hammer. "and is this gentleman also of monsieur haxo's gallant company, and in the suite of his excellency my lord of barra?" haxo nodded his head with some appreciation of wat's penetration. "he is, indeed," he said; "he is my chief slaughterman, and a prince at his business." "he is called 'the killer,'" interjected the calf, smacking his lips with unction. "it is a good name for him." wat gordon urged his horse onward with great and undisguised disgust. to be sent on a dangerous mission with three such arrant rascals told him the value that his employers set upon his life. and if he had chanced at that moment to turn him about in his saddle, the evil smile of triumph which passed simultaneously over the faces of his companions might have told him still more. the small cavalcade of four went clattering on through the dusky coolness of night, across many small wooden bridges and over multitudinous canals. it passed through villages, in which the inhabitants were already snoring behind their green blinds the unanimous antiphonal bass of the rustic just--though, as yet, it was little past nine of the clock on the great kirk tower of amersfort, and in the city streets and in the camp every one was at the height of merriment and enjoyment. wafts of balmy country scents blew across the by-ways along which they went; and through the limpid gray coolness where the young leaves of the sparse hedgerow trees brushed his face, wat could see that he was passing countless squares of parti-colored bloom. miles of hyacinth, crocus, and narcissus gardens stretched away on either hand beyond the low, carefully cut dutch hedges. haxo the bull rode first, showing them the way to the inn of brederode, silently, save that every now and then he would cry a word over his shoulder, either to one of his ill-favored retinue or to an unseen watcher at some lonely cross-road. wat followed sullenly and fiercely, without caring much about the direction in which he was being taken. his mind, however, was preternaturally busy, going carefully over all the points of his interview with kate, and very soon from the heights of justified indignation he fell to accusing himself of rude stupidity. "i fear she will never look kindly on me again," he said, aloud. "this time i have certainly offended her forever." and the thought troubled him more than all the traitorous barras and ill-conditioned bull haxos in the world. a breath of perfume blew fresh across the way from a field of dark purple bloom, and with an overpowering rush there came back to him the sweet scent of kate's hair as for a moment he had bent over her by the window. he let the reins fall on his horse's neck, and almost cried aloud in agony at the thought of losing so great a treasure. "and shall i never see her more," he said, "never watch the responsive blood spring redly to her cheek, never see the anger flash proudly in her eye, never (were it but for once) touch the sweet tangle of her hair?" wat's love-lorn melancholy might have driven him to further and yet wilder utterance had he not been conscious of a slight metallic click behind him, which certainly did not come from the hoofs of the horses. he turned sharply at the sound and caught haxo's calf with a pistol in his right hand, and the killer with his long butcher's knife bare and uplifted. haxo himself was riding unconcernedly on in front. wat quickened the pace of his horse, and rode alongside the bull. "sir butcher," he said, calmly, "do your men behind there wish to have their weapons ready in case of meeting the enemy, or do they perchance desire to flesh them in my back? it may seem a trifling matter to trouble you with, and of no great consequence, nevertheless i should somewhat like to ascertain their intentions." haxo glanced behind him. the calf and the killer were closing in upon wat. "varlets," cried haxo, in a terrible voice, "put your weapons in your belts, ride wide apart and far behind, or i will send you both quick to hell!" the men fell asunder at the words, and for a mile or two only the sound of the horses' feet pounding the hard paven road came to wat's ears. but he did not again return to that entrancing dream of kate, her beauty, and her hard-heartedness which had so nearly led to his destruction. yet, nevertheless, whatever he said or did, he remained through all that followed conscious of his love for her, and for the remainder of the night the desire of getting back to amersfort in order to see her sharpened every faculty and kept every sense on the alert. more than once during the night haxo endeavored to enter into conversation, but wat, indignant at the cowardly attempt on his life (for so he was bound to consider it), waved him peremptorily aside. "do your duty without further words," he said; "lead on directly to the inn of brederode." it was long past the gloaming, and already wearing nigh to the watershed of the night, before the perfectly flat country of marsh and polder through which they had been riding gave place to a district in which the undulations of the surface were distinctly felt beneath the horses' feet. here, also, the hard-baked, dusty roads gave place to softer and more loosely knit tracks of sand, on which the iron-shod hoofs made no sound. they were, in fact, fast approaching that broad belt of dunes which shuts off the rich, flower-covered nurseries of haarlem from the barren, heathy wastes along the borders of the northern sea. on their right they passed the dark walls of the castle of brederode, and pursued their way to the very edge of the lofty dunes, which at this point are every year encroaching upon the cultivated fields. presently they came to a long, low, white building surrounded by dark hedges, which in the coolness of the night sent out a pleasant odor of young beech leaves. the court-yard was silent, the windows black. not a ray of light was visible anywhere. walter gordon rode directly up to the door. he felt with his hand that it stood open to the wall, and that a dark passage yawned before him. instinctively he drew back a little way to decide what he should do. with an unknown house before him and a cut-throat crew behind, he judged that he would be wiser to proceed with extreme caution. "keep wide from me at your peril," he cried, threateningly, to his rascal company. the three horses backed simultaneously, and haxo, his calf and his killer, waited in an irregular semicircle, while wat took out of his pocket a tinder-box and from his holster a candle. there was not a breath of air, and when lochinvar lighted the taper the flame mounted steadily upwards, so that he had no need even to shelter it with his hand while the flame went down and then as slowly came again, as all candles do when they are first lighted. wat glanced up at the sign of the black bull's head, which was set in rude caricature over the door of the inn. his mind wandered grimly to the significance of that emblem in his own country, and to the many good men and true who had dined with the black bull's head on the table--and thereafter dined no more in this world. and to think that he, wat gordon of lochinvar, had brought the bull with him, together with the bull-calf and the killer, to keep him company to the black bull of brederode! he took the conceit as an omen, and gritted his teeth to remember what an arrant gull he had been. "i shall never see my love more," he said under his breath; "well, never mind, wat gordon, lad--if die you must, there are some now alive who will be in a similar plight ere you turn up your toes. and at all events i am glad that i kissed her." he dismounted and drew his sword. "stand still where you are," he cried to haxo. "advance an inch at your peril till i give the word." he looped his horse's rein to the iron hook at the cheek of the inn door. then he gripped his sword tighter, and said a prayer which ended somewhat unorthodoxly: "i wish i had that glove which i threw into the canal. for, after all, she gave it to me. also, her lips pout most adorably when she is angered." and this seemed strange enough information to give the deity. but without doubt its sincerity carried it further heavenward than many an empty credo. for the god who made love does not, like jove, laugh at lovers' vows. chapter iv the duel at the inn of brederode so, thinking with all his might upon the adorable pout of his lady's lips, that right loyal lover walter gordon strode, not without fear, but all the braver for mastering it, into the dark passage which stretched straight before him, gloomy as a sea cave at midnight. doors still blacker yawned on either side of him like the mouths of huge cannon. he held his candle aloft, and paused a moment at each, striving with all his might to penetrate the silence that reigned within. but the faint circle of illumination hardly passed beyond the threshold. wat, as he held his breath and listened, only heard the rats scuttle and the mice cheep in the oaken wainscoting. it was with a feeling of chill water running icily down his back that he passed each black cavern, glancing warily over his shoulder lest he should catch the downward stroke of an arm in the doorway, or see the candle-light flash on the deadly blade of the killer's butchering knife. it was nerve-shaking work. the sweat, chill as the clammy mist of the night, began to pour down wat's face, and his flesh grew prickly all over as though he had been stuck full of pins. unless something happened, he felt that in another moment he must shriek aloud. he stopped and listened. somewhere near him he felt sure he could distinguish the sound of breathing. it was not the heavy, regular to-and-fro respiration of unconscious sleep, but rather the quicker and shorter breathing of one who has recently undergone severe exertion, and whose heart still runs fast ahead. wat stood and listened. the sound came from half-way up the stairs, out of a room with a door which opened wider than the others, and which now stood, gaping black and ominous, directly before him. wat could hear the sound of feet behind him, cautiously shuffling on the flags of the doorway, and by this sign he knew that his three ruffians were there waiting for him with the weapons of their trade naked and deadly in their hands. he was trapped, taken between the brutal, dastard butchers behind him and the unknown but more terrible breathers in the dark above him. yet his very desperation brought a compensating calmness. he pressed his arm against his side, where, in an inner pocket, he carried the papers he had come to deliver. he undid the button of his cloak, and let it fall to the ground to clear his sword-arm. then, bending forward like a runner straining to obtain good pace at the start of a short race, he went up the stairs steadily and warily till he had reached the door of the room. his candle was almost blown out with the quickness of his motion. it flickered low, and then caught again, as wat stepped nimbly within, and made the point of his sword circle about him to clear himself a space against attack. then he looked around him. he found himself in a wide, low-ceilinged room, with many small windows along the side. a curtain of arras hung at one end, and a table stood in front of it--a hall of rustic assembly, as it seemed. at the far side of the table from him and between its edge and the curtain, calm as though it had been broad day, sat a tall, thin man. he had red hair and a short red beard, both liberally sprinkled with gray. his eyes were of a curious china blue, pale and cold. he was clad in a french uniform, and a pair of pistols and a drawn sword lay on the table before him. the man sat perfectly still, with his elbows on the table and his chin on the knuckles of the hands which were joined beneath his beard. his eyes were alive, however, and surveyed wat gordon from head to foot. the effect of this scrutiny upon the man in the chair was somewhat surprising. he started half-way to his feet, and so disturbed the table behind which he sat that one of the pistols rolled off and fell underneath, so that the butt appeared on the side nearest to wat. at the noise the arras behind was disturbed, and lochinvar felt that unseen eyes were watching and unseen ears listening behind its shelter. wat, on his side, was not less astonished. for at the first glance he knew the man at the table. "jack--jack scarlett?" he stammered, half holding out and half withholding his hand, as to a friend met unexpectedly in more than doubtful circumstances. the man nodded without appearing to notice the outstretched hand, and continued to look the young man over with the pale, piercing eyes of blue. "then you are the officer of the prince appointed to receive my despatches?" cried wat, when words came back to him. the man whom wat had called jack scarlett shook his head. "with another i might pretend it," he said, "but not with you, lord of lochinvar. now do i see that barra plots deeper and yet more simply than i had given his highland brains credit for. i little knew that the cavalier whom i was to meet to-night was wat gordon, mine ancient scholar and good ally." "it pleases you to speak riddles with your tongue, john," replied walter, "you that were wont to strike so strong and straight with the blade of steel. you that know me well, mine old master of the fence, i beseech to speak plainly and riddle to me no more." scarlett never took his blue eyes off lochinvar's face as he spoke. "we are here, my lord of lochinvar, in the matter of a most serious conference," he said; "therefore, do not stand there fixed and forwandered in the midst of the floor. set your candle on a sconce and be seated." wat shook his head. "there are too many perils behind me and before," he replied; "i must have light and room to guard my head ere i can sit or talk with you or any man, seeing that my life is not my own so long as my commission remains unfulfilled." scarlett knocked three times loudly on the board in front of him. in a moment the arras stirred behind, and a man-at-arms appeared. he was clad in a pale-blue uniform, unlike any that wat had seen in the army of the states-general. "bring lights," said scarlett to him in french. in a few minutes the room was fully illumined by the rays of half a dozen candles set in a pair of silver candlesticks, each of them holding three lights. then scarlett pointed wat to a chair. "surely you will do me the honor to be seated now," he said, courteously. wat replied by picking up a cross-legged stool of black oak and setting it down at the angle of the room, at the point most distant from the arras, and also from the door by which he had entered. then he sat down upon it, still holding his sword bare in his right hand, and made the point of it play with the toe of his buff leathern riding-boot, while he waited impatiently for scarlett to speak. the man at the table had never once removed his eyes from lochinvar's face. then in a quiet, steady, unhurried voice he began to speak: "you have not forgotten, my lord of lochinvar--" at the repetition of the title walter stirred his shoulders a little disdainfully. "i say again, my lord of lochinvar has not forgotten--my lord has every right to the title. it was given to his ancestors by the grandfather of his present majesty--" "his present majesty?" said walter, looking up inquiringly. "aye," replied scarlett, with some apparent heat, "his most gracious majesty james the second, king of great britain and ireland. since when did walter gordon of lochinvar need to stand considering who has the right to be styled his lawful king?" and the keen, cold eyes glinted like steel blades in the candle-light. "it was in fencing and not in loyalty that i took lessons from you, john scarlett," replied lochinvar, haughtily, looking with level brows at the red-bearded man across the table, who still leaned his chin on the tips of his fingers. "i pray you, say out your message and be done." "but this is my message," scarlett went on, "which i was commanded to deliver to the man whom i should meet here in the inn of brederode. you are the servant of king james, and his messages and commands are yours to obey." wat gordon bowed stiffly. "in so far," he said, "as they do not conflict with my orders from my superior officers in the service of the prince of orange, in whose army i am at present a humble soldier." "you are indeed a soldier in the scottish guards, which were raised in that country by permission of king james, and by him lent to his son-in-law, the stadtholder of holland. but surely the commands of your king are before all; before the mandates of parliament, before the commands of generals--aye, before even the love of wife and children." and the sonorous words brought a fire into the cold eyes of the speaker and an answering erectness into the pose of wat gordon, who had hitherto been listening listlessly but watchfully as he continued to tap the point of his riding-boot with his sword-blade. "i have yet to hear what are the commands of his majesty the king," said wat, lifting his hat at the name. scarlett tossed a sealed paper across the table, and as wat rose to take it he kept a wary eye on the two chief points of danger--the division in the arras and the door, behind which, as he well knew, were stationed those three worthy gentry of my lord barra's retinue, haxo the bull, the calf, and the killer. wat took the paper with his left hand, broke the seal, and unfolded it by shaking it open with a quick, clacking jerk. it read thus: _james ii., by the grace of god, etc._ _it is my command that john scarlett, lieutenant of the luxemburg regiment in the service of the king of france, obtain the papers relating to the numbers and dispositions of the troops of the states-general in the city and camp of amersfort, which i have reason to believe to be in the possession of my trusty servant and loving cousin, walter gordon, lord of lochinvar in galloway._ _at whitehall, this of aprile, ._ _james r._ walter bent his knee, kissed the king's message, and, rising to his feet, as courteously folded it and handed it back to lieutenant scarlett. "i am the king's subject, it is true," he said. "moreover, the king is anointed, and his word binds those to whom it is addressed. but i am also the soldier of the prince of orange and of the states-general of holland. i eat their bread; i wear their uniform; i take their pay; to them i have sworn the oath of allegiance. i am in this inn of brederode as a plain soldier, charged with orders given to me by my superior officer, and i cannot depart from these orders while i live a free man and able to carry them out." "but the king--the king--?" sternly reiterated scarlett, rising for the first time to his feet, and clapping the palm of his hand sharply on the table by way of emphasis. "the king," replied walter, in a voice deeply moved, "is indeed my king. but he has no right to command a soldier to become a traitor, nor to turn an honest man into a spy. he may command my life and my fortunes. he may command my death. but, landless, friendless, and an exile though i be, mine honor at least is mine own. i refuse to deliver the papers with which i have been intrusted, or to be a traitor to the colors under which i serve." while walter spoke scarlett stood impatiently tapping the table with the paper, which he had refolded. "the request, at any rate, is nothing more than a formality," he said. "you are here alone. your three attendant rascals are, equally with myself, in the pay of the king of france. they wait under arms at that door--" "under butchers' knives, say rather!" interrupted lochinvar, scornfully. but scarlett paid no heed to his words. "if you will deliver up the papers cheerfully, according to the mandate of your king, i have in my pocket a patent of nobility made out for the man who should put them into my hand at the inn of brederode--besides the promise of pardons and restoration of heritages for all his friends and associates at present lying outside the law in scotland and elsewhere. think well, for much more than the present hangs upon your answer. life and death for many others are in it!" wat stood still without making any answer. with his left hand he turned the dainty lace upon the cuff of his coat-sleeve carefully back. he thought vaguely of his love whom he was renouncing to go to certain death, of the friends whose pardon he was refusing. most clearly of all he bethought him of the old tower in the midst of the loch of lochinvar under the heathery fell of lone knockman. then he looked straight at the man before him. "jack scarlett," he said, "it was you who taught me how to thrust and parry. then your hand was like steel, but your heart was not also hard as the millstone. you were not used to be a man untrue, forsworn. god knows then, at least, you were no traitor. you were no spy. you were no murderer, though a soldier of fortune. you called me a friend, and i was not ashamed of the name. i do not judge you even now. you may have one conception of loyalty to the king we both acknowledge. i have another. you are in the service of one great prince, and you are (i believe it) wholly faithful to him. do me the honor to credit that i can be as faithful to my uniform, as careless of life, and as careful of honor in the service of my master as you would desire to be in yours." scarlett turned his eyes away. he felt, though he did not yet acknowledge, the extraordinary force and fervor of the appeal--delivered by wat with red-hot energy, with a hiss in the swift words of it like that which the smith's iron gives forth when it is thrust into the cooling caldron. wat turned full upon him. the two men stood eye to eye, with only the breadth of the table between them. "look you, scarlett," lochinvar said again, without waiting for his reply. "you are the finest swordsman in the world; i am but your pupil; yet here and now i will fight you to the death for the papers if you will promise to draw off your men and give me free passage from this place should i kill you or have you at my mercy. but i warn you that you will have to kill me without any mercy in order to get the documents from me." scarlett appeared to consider for a space. "there is no risk, and, after all, it makes it less like a crime," he said, under his breath. but aloud he only answered, "i will fight you for the papers here and now." walter bowed his head, well pleased. "that is spoken like my old jack!" he said. lieutenant scarlett went to the arras and threw it open with both hands. it ran with brazen rings upon a bar in the flemish manner. "clairvaux! ferrand!" he cried. and two young officers in gay uniforms immediately appeared. "gentlemen," he said, addressing them, "this is walter gordon, lord of lochinvar. he has done me the honor to propose crossing swords with me here in this room. if he should kill me or have me at his mercy he is to be allowed free passage and outgate. also he fights far from his friends, and therefore one of you will be good enough to act as his second." the younger of the two officers, he who had answered to the name of ferrand, a tall, fair-haired frenchman of the midi, at once said, "i shall consider it an honor to act as second to the sieur of lochinvar." "in the event of my death you will consider these orders imperative, and equally binding upon your honor as upon mine own," said john scarlett. the two officers bowed. "i think we should know the length of each other's swords by this time," he said, looking at wat; "there is therefore no need that our seconds should measure them." for he had noted walter's disinclination to let his weapon leave his hand. so far as his own life was concerned, wat hoped little from this combat. but he desired greatly to die an honorable death, with his face to a worthy enemy; for john scarlett had been in his time the greatest swordsman in europe, and though walter was by far his ablest pupil in scotland, yet at no time could he have stood any chance in open field against his master. so, as the swords felt one another after the salute, wat set his teeth and wondered how long it would last, and how much kate would ever know. there is little need to describe the fight at length. from the first scarlett contented himself with keeping his opponent's blade in play, feeling it, humoring it, and, as it were, coaxing it into position. and for some bouts wat fought without any of that verve and lightning versatility of fence which were his usual characteristics in action. something seemed to paralyze his powers and weigh down his sword-blade, as though the quick and living steel had turned to lead in his hand. it might be that the feeling of ancient pupilage had returned to him, for to himself he seemed rather to be taking a lesson in the finesse of defence than to be fighting against terrible odds for his life and honor. but suddenly a wonderful change came over him. a laugh was heard out in the passage, in which stood haxo the bull and his satellites--a laugh thin, acrid, unmistakable. it stung wat to the roots of his heart. for a moment he was in difficulty. the problem divided his mind even between thrust and parry. there was no man whom he knew well whose laugh rang like that. but even as he fought he remembered how once, in the palace of the stadtholder, he had seen the prince come in leaning upon the arm of a young, dark-haired man, whose meagre, hatchet face was decorated, for all ornament, with a black mustache so scanty that it seemed twisted of twenty hairs, and whose ends hung down, one on either side of his lips, like a couple of rats' tails. this, and a certain bitter, rasping laugh to which he had at once taken a dislike, were all wat remembered of that young man. but after the distinguished party had passed in to supper he learned that the prince's companion and confidant was one of his own nation, murdo mcalister, lord of barra and the small isles, and that he was one to whom the prince of orange looked for counsel in all that did not touch the ecclesiastical position of affairs of scotland. the laugh which rang out from the dark passage behind the bull, the calf, and the killer was the same which he had heard at the supper-party of the stadtholder. from that moment wat knew that in no event had he now any chance for his life. it mattered little whether or not he killed john scarlett. barra would certainly have the papers. for he knew the man well enough to know that, having taken such trouble to obtain the return of the numbers and positions for his own traitorous purposes, he would never let the bearer of them slip through his fingers. no oaths of his own or another would serve to bind murdo of the isles in that which concerned his schemes. yet even in that moment of agony wat could not help wondering why barra had taken so difficult and roundabout a way of obtaining and transmitting a paper which it would have been perfectly easy for him to have gained by means of his official position, and to have forwarded to the king of france by more ordinary channels. but, however this may be, certain it is that the laugh irritated wat gordon strangely, and at the first sound of it he sprang towards scarlett with an energy and fierceness entirely unlike the lassitude with which he had previously fought. from that moment he forced the fighting, attacking with furious vigor and astonishing rapidity, so that the great master-at-arms soon found that even he had enough to do simply to stand it out on the defensive. yet scarlett smiled, too, for he thought that this bout of youthful fury would soon wear itself down, and that then he would easily enough get in his favorite deadly thrust in quart, to which no answer had ever yet been discovered. but walter never gave him time; for again the acrid laugh came from the dark passage and set all the young man's blood tingling to put a sword deep in the traitor's throat, and then, if need be, die with his foot on his enemy's breast. he sped two thrusts one after the other so swiftly that scarlett, countering over-late for the first, had to leap back in order to measure his distance for the second. in so doing his foot slipped, and his blade, caught unexpectedly by lochinvar's, went ringing against the ceiling and fell on the floor. walter's point was at his breast the next moment. "yield!" said walter; "i hold you to your word. you are at my mercy." "i yield," said scarlett. "it was well done. never before in any land was i thus vanquished in a fair fight." chapter v haxo the bull interferes walter bowed and returned him his sword, holding it by the blade. "and now, lieutenant scarlett," he said, "i desire to ride back to amersfort, and you, i doubt not, wish as eagerly to return whence you came--by sea to flanders, as i guess. i shall be grateful, therefore, if you will draw off your company, and give an order that my horse be brought to that door which is in possession of your own men." at this moment haxo the bull stepped into the room. "not so fast by a great deal, master-fighter with windlestraws," he cried. "if it have pleased this friend of yours and traitorous officer of the king of france to make a public bargain upon the issue of a private duel, that has nothing to do with me. there are many other fights to be fought ere you leave this house with the papers safe in your pocket. listen," he continued, addressing the officers and soldiers standing in the opposite doorway behind lieutenant scarlett: "are you to lose your reward and be left without reason or remedy here in the very heart of an enemy's country--your work undone, your doom sealed? for if ye let him escape, this fellow will instantly set the prince's horsemen or his swift dutch ships upon your track. better to kill him and take his papers without delay, when rewards and promotions will assuredly be yours on your return to your master." it was easy to see that this harangue had not been the inspiration of haxo himself, for he delivered it, now trippingly and now haltingly, like a schoolboy who does not know the meaning of his lesson. but yet it was perfectly comprehensible to all in the room, and wat could see that the purport of it moved the officers and men greatly. the wide archway behind the table from which the arras had been drawn back was now thronged with faces. wat gordon stood aside whistling an air softly, like one who waits for a discussion to be concluded in which he has no interest. he had not so much as looked at haxo the bull while he was speaking. but john scarlett grew redder and redder as he listened, and so soon as the butcher was finished he started towards him so abruptly and fiercely that that worthy gat himself incontinently behind the weapons of his allies, the calf and the killer, with an alacrity which seemed quite disproportionate to his physical condition. "i am the commander here," scarlett cried, "and i am bound by my promise. i am determined to let this man go according to my word. stand back there!" but the elder of the two french officers came forward. he saluted scarlett and addressed himself directly to him. "lieutenant scarlett," he said, "i am your equal in rank though not in standing. we were sent here under your orders to obtain certain despatches of great importance to our general and to the coming campaign. we shall therefore be compelled to take this man with us, with all the papers in his possession, and to report your conduct to the commander at headquarters." his words appeared first to amuse and then to infuriate john scarlett. striking suddenly at the triple candlestick on his right, he leaped over the table, crying, "down with the lights! i am with you, wat gordon. through the door and have at them out into the open. it is your only chance." wat, whose sword was ready in his hand, struck sideways at the other group of lights and sent them crashing to the floor. most of these went out at once in their fall, but one or two continued to burn for a moment with a faint light as they lay among the trampling feet. wat threw himself at the doorway in which he had heard the laugh, and through which scarlett had preceded him a moment before. wat could hear that valiant sworder somewhere in front of him, striking good blows and swearing, "out with you, devil's brats!" at the top of his voice. so when he reached the end of the passage he found at the outer door scarlett making brisk play with four or five men, who were endeavoring to hem him into a narrow space where he should not have the liberty of his sword-arm. wat ranged himself beside his late enemy, the two long blades began to flicker fatally in the starlight, and the hurt men to cry out and stagger away. then quite unexpectedly the crowd in front broke and fled. "get on your horse, wat!" scarlett cried. "i can keep the door against these loons of mine--at least till you are well out of the way." there were two good horses, one on either side of the doorway--wat's, and that upon which haxo had ridden. wat sprang upon his own, and, with a cut of his sword, scarlett divided the halter. the horse wheeled and set off at a gallop through the sand-hills. yet he went reluctantly, for, had it not been for the safety of his papers, wat would gladly have stayed and helped john scarlett to engage the whole of the army of france, with any number of bulls and killers in addition thereto. for, as he vanished into the black night, he could hear john scarlett advising the first man who desired three feet of cold steel through his vitals to step up and be accommodated. and as he turned eastward towards amersfort, riding beneath the silent bulk of the old castle of brederode, he heard again the clash of iron and the cry of pain which he knew so well. he smiled a little grimly, and wished nothing better than that his papers had been delivered, and he again at work at his old master's elbow. presently, however, having, as it seemed to him, left all possibility of pursuit behind, wat put his horse into an easier pace, and rode on by silent and unfrequented paths towards the east, judging his direction by the stars--which had been an old study of his when it was his hap to take to the heather in the black days of the covenant in scotland. as he went he became aware of the noise of a horse galloping swiftly behind him. he drew his sword and stood on the defence, lest the sound should betoken a new danger; but presently he heard a voice calling his own name loudly: "wat gordon! i say, wat gordon!" it was the voice of jack scarlett, his late enemy and present deliverer. he rode up beside walter, very strange to look upon, clad in some suit of white or pale blanket-color that glimmered in the dusk of the night. "i gave half a dozen of the rascals that which it will be two days or they get the better of, i'se warrant," he said, chuckling to himself; "and then, thinking that mayhap i might not be welcome any longer in the army of france, i e'en came my ways after you. as i rode i cast my uniform and left my commission in the pocket of my coat. so i am but poor masterless jack scarlett once more--a free comrade looking for a regiment, and equipped with nothing but his thews and his long sword, which, god be thanked, are both his own. think ye the states-general and the yellow prince have need of such as i?" "and how now about the anointed king?" wat could not help saying. "the anointed king is safe in whitehall, and can afford to wait till jack scarlett is a little less hungry," answered the free-lance, frankly. having been thus fortunate in obtaining the only two good horses about the inn of brederode (for the frenchmen had come by sea to the little port of lis-op-zee, and the horses of the calf and the killer were but sorry jades), scarlett had ridden all the way back without a challenge, or so much as encountering any sound more threatening than the roopy chuckle of disturbed poultry on the farm-house roosts as he clattered by on his way. as the two horsemen came nearer to the city, and the east began to send up a fountain of rosy hues to mingle with the gray spaces of the early morning, wat could not help laughing at the figure his comrade presented. the master-at-arms was attired simply and spartanly in such darned and patched underclothing as he had amassed during half a dozen campaigns. these were not all of the same material nor color. they were not, indeed, at all points strictly continuous, the native hide being allowed to show itself through here and there, while only the long sword belted about the waist and the cavalry boots remained to tell of the well-seasoned man of wars and stratagems. jack scarlett was noways offended at wat's frank laughter. he even glanced down at himself with a comically rueful air. "i wish to the saints that i had met somebody else in this garb," he said; "and then i own i could have laughed myself off my horse." but, nevertheless, laugh he did, and that most heartily, like a good-humored carle, at the figure of sin he cut in the morning light; and specially he was delighted at the paralyzed astonishment of a lank, hobbledehoy gooseherd who came trolloping along a path towards a canal bridge, yawning so that his lower jaw and his head well-nigh dropped apart. for at sight of the red-bearded man in the white sacking and top-boots the wand-twirling yokel gave a yell sudden as the popping of a cork, and forthwith fled, running fleet-foot along the edge of the canal as though the devil himself had been tattering at his tail. "this guiser's mode will never do to enter the city of amersfort withal!" quoth scarlett, looking down at his own inconsequent ragamuffin swathings. and he paused to consider the problem, while wat divided himself between chuckling at his late enemy's dilemma, thinking what he would say in his coming interview with barra in the camp, and (what occupied nine out of every ten minutes) wondering how kate mcghie would receive him in the street of zaandpoort. at last the man in the white bandagings had an idea. he clapped his hand suddenly to his brow. "what a dull dotard am i to forget sandy lyall!" "i know," he continued in explanation, "a certain honest fool of a scot that hath wedded a wife of the country. he lives but a mile from here and breeds young flamands for the prince's armies, and ducks for the amersfort market. we will e'en go find him, and make him deliver of the best in his wardrobe. for he and i count kin in some seventeenth or eighteenth degree, though this is the first time i ever bethought me of claiming it." and with no more words john scarlett turned his horse briskly down a side lane, just as the sun was rising and beginning to shine ruddily brown through the morning haze. the sails of a score of windmills darted up suddenly black in the level rush of light, and every hissing goose and waddling, matronly hen had a rosy side and a gray side, together with an attenuated shadow which stretched up the dikes and away across the polders. presently scarlett and his companion, at the foot of a leafy by-lane, came to the house of the scot who had married the flemish wife for the very practical purposes described by scarlett. the madcap figure in white went forward to the door, while wat remained behind cackling helplessly with idiot laughter. scarlett thundered on the warped and sun-whitened deal of the panels with the hilt of his sword. then, receiving no response, he kicked lustily with his boots and swore roundly at the unseen occupants in a dozen camp dialects. during his harangues, sulky maledictions grumbled intermittently from the house. presently an upper window flew open, a splash of dirty water fell souse on the warrior, and still more sadly bedraggled the preposterous quixotry of his attire. the temper of the master-at-arms was now strained to the breaking-point. "sandy lyall," he cried--and to do him justice, his voice was more full of sorrow than of anger--"sandy lyall, of pittenweem, listen to me, john scarlett, gin ye dinna come doon this minute and get me a suit o' claes, warm and dry, i'll thraw your dirty fifish neck--aye, like a twist of rotten straw at a rick-thatching." but even this explicit malediction threatened to go by without effect. but at long and last there looked out of the small diamond-paned window from which the jar of water had fallen the head of a respectable enough woman, who wore a red shawl wrapped round her coarse black hair in the fashion of a nightcap. [illustration: "scarlett thundered on the panels with the hilt of his sword"] "decent woman," cried jack scarlett to her, "is your man at hame?" but the woman, feather-bed sleep yet blinking heavily in her eyes, threw up her hands and shrieked aloud at the unexpected apparition of a man thus mountebanking before her window in white and incomplete skin-tights. without articulate speech she withdrew her head and fled within. whereat scarlett fell to louder knocking than before, exclaiming all the while on the idleness, incapacity, and general uselessness of such men of fife as had married foreigneering sluts, and especially threatening what he would do to the particular body and soul of sandy lyall, sometime indweller in the ancient borough of pittenweem. "never did i see such a man. the ill-faured wife o' him settin' her head out o' a winnock-sole at five in the morning, and sandy himsel' lyin' snorkin' an' wamblin' in his naked bed like a gussy swine in a stye! lord, lord, wait till i get my hands on him! i'll learn him to keep honester men than himsel' waitin' on the loan of his sabbath gear, crawling partan o' the east neuk that he is!" "aye, john scarlett, man, but is that you, na?" drawled a quiet, sleepy voice at the window. "wha wad hae thocht on seeing you in mountebank's cleading so early in the morning? hae ye been at some play-actin' near by? ye dinna look as if you had gotten muckle for your pains. come awa ben, and i'll gar the wife rise an' get ye porridge--siclike porridge as ane can get in this guid-forsaken country, that is mair like hen-meat than decent brose for scots thrapples, to my thinkin'!" "sandy lyall!" cried scarlett, still much incensed, "hear to me! come down this instant and let me in! gi'e me a pair o' trews, a coat, and a decent cloak, and let me be gaun, for i am on an errand of great importance which takes me before the prince of orange himsel' this very morning, and it befits not a scot and a soldier to appear before his high mightiness in this costume." "i'll come doon the noo, as fast as i can don my gear and truss my points!" cried sandy lyall. "ye were aye a rude man and unceevil a' the days o' ye, john scarlett. but i canna leave ony scots lad to want for a pair o' breeks and a cloak to cover his nakedness--or what amounts to the same thing, as the monkey said when he sat down on the hot girdle and gat up again before he was fairly rested." and with these words, sandy lyall, of pittenweem, in the shire of fife, slowly descended, his feet sounding portentously on the wooden ladder. the door opened, and there was the master of the dwelling standing with outstretched hand, bidding his compatriots welcome to his house. the action would have disarmed a cossack of russia. it quenched the anger of john scarlett like magic. "aye, man, an' hoo's a' wi' ye?" he said, as it is the custom for all scots to say when they forgather with one another in any land under the sun. after turning out of one drawer and another various articles of his wife's attire, which were clearly not intended (as sandy remarked) "for breeks to a grown man like john scarlett," the master of the house at last managed to array his friend somewhat less unsuitably in a coat of dark-blue rotterdam cloth, adorned with tails, which on his thinner figure clapped readily together in a military manner; a pair of breeches of tanned leather went very well with the boots and sword-belt of buff, which were all that remained to scarlett of his fine french uniform. the master-at-arms surveyed himself with no small satisfaction. "for a fifer, ye are a man of some discernment," he said; "and your duds fit me no that ill. they maun hae been made for ye when ye were younger, and altogether a better-lookin' figure o' a man!" "aye; they were cutted oot for me when i was coortin'--no this ane," sandy lyall explained, indicating his present wife with a placid, contemptuous thumb, "but a braw, weel-tochered lass oot o' the pairish o' sant andros. but she wadna hae me because i cam' frae pittenweem. she said i smelled o' fish-creels." "and what, master lyall, might have brought you to flanders?" asked wat, who had been waiting as patiently as he might while his companion arrayed himself. he thought that this otiose burgher of pittenweem must be a strange subject for the religious enthusiasm which was mostly in these days the cause of a man's being exiled from his native country. "weel," returned sandy, with immense and impressive gravity, checking off the details upon the palm of one hand with the index-finger of the other, "ye see the way o't was this: there was a lass, and there was a man, and there was me. and the man and me, we baith wanted the lass--ye comprehend? and the lass didna want but ane o' us. and that ane wasna me. so i gied the man a clour, and he fell to the grund and didna get up. and the lass she gaed and telled. so that was the way that i left my native land for conscience' sake." wat marvelled at the simple, quiet-looking man who had so strenuously arranged matters to his satisfaction before leaving his love and the land of his birth. "aye, but that wasna the warst o' it," sandy lyall went on, "for, a' owin' to that lang-tongued limmer, i had to leave ahint me as thrivin' a cooper's business as there was in a' the heartsome toon o' pittenweem--aye, and as mony as half a score o' folk owin' me siller! but i owed ither folk a deal mair, and that was aye some consolation." chapter vi the prince of orange in a long, low, narrow room in the palace of the stadtholder in the city of amersfort, sat murdo, lord of barra and the small isles. the head of a great though isolated western clan, he had detached himself from the general sentiments of his people with regard to religion and loyalty. first his father and then he himself had taken the covenanting side in the national struggle--his father through interest and conviction, the son from interest alone. both, however, had carried with them the unquestioning loyalty of their clan, so that it became an important consideration to any claimant for the throne of britain who desired quietness in the north to have on his side the mcalisters, lords of barra and the small isles. the prince of orange had given to both father and son a welcome and a place of refuge when the storm of persecution shook even the wild highlands and the government was granting to its more zealous adherents letters of fire and sword for the extirpation of suspected clans, and especially for the encouragement of the well-affected by the plunder of rebels and psalm-singers. now, in acknowledgment of this timely succor and safe harborage, barra had, ever since his father's death, given his counsel to the prince on many matters concerning scotland. yet, though murdo mcalister had been used, he had never been fully trusted by william of orange, nor yet by those wise and farseeing men who stood closest about him. something crafty in barra's look, something sinister in his eye, kept those who knew him best from placing complete confidence in him. and there were those who made no difficulty about declaring that murdo of barra had a foot in either camp, and that, were it not for the importance of the information sent from holland to the court of james the second, my lord of barra could very well return home, and enjoy his long barren moorlands and wave-fretted heritages in unvexed peace. it was yet early morning when wat and john scarlett stood before my lord of barra in the palace room which he occupied as provost-marshal of the city and camp. they saluted him civilly, while his cold, viperish eye took in the details of their attire with a certain chill and insolent regard, which made wat quiver from head to foot with desire to kill him. to judge by the provost-marshal's reception, he might never have seen either of them before. yet lochinvar was as certain as that he lived that it was his laugh which had jarred upon him in the passage behind haxo in the inn of brederode, and which had been the means of bringing the combat to a close. yet he, too, must have ridden fast and far since the fight at the inn, if wat's vivid impression had any basis in fact. "your business with me?" inquired barra, haughtily, looking straight past them into the blank wall behind. "you know my business," said walter, abruptly. "i carried out your orders in collecting information with regard to the number of the troops, the position of the regiments, and the defences of the camp and city. this report i was ordered to deliver to an officer of the prince privately--in order, as i was informed, not to offend those dignitaries of the city and others who hated the war and wished ill-success to the prince's campaigns. i set out, therefore, last evening with three of your retainers, supplied for the purpose by you, to the inn of brederode. there i was met, not by an accredited servant of the prince, but by an officer of the french king, who endeavored first by promises and then by force to obtain the papers from me; and now i have brought back the reports safely to amersfort, to lay them before the prince in person, and, at the same time, to tax you with double-dealing and treachery." barra listened with an amused air. "and pray, whom do you expect to delude with this cock-and-bull story?" he said. "not, surely, the prince, in whose company i was till a late hour last night; and not surely myself, who never in my life either issued or heard of any such preposterous order." "i demand to see the prince, to whom i shall speak my mind," reiterated walter, still more curtly. "you shall see the inside of a prison in a few moments," returned barra, with vicious emphasis. but ere he could summon an officer the inner door opened, and there entered a dark, thin, sallow-faced man, with brilliant, hollow-set eyes, who walked with his head a little forward, as if he had gone all his life in haste. it was the prince of orange himself, dressed in his general's uniform, but without decorations or orders of any kind. barra rose at his entrance and remained standing. "pray sit down," said the prince to him, "and proceed with your conversation with these gentlemen of your country." "i was about," said barra, deferentially, "to commit to prison this soldier of the douglas dragoon regiment for a most insolent slander concerning myself, and also for collecting information as to the condition of our forces with intent to communicate it to the enemy. there is, indeed, an officer of the king of france with the man at this very moment, but in disguise." the prince turned his bright keen eyes upon wat and scarlett in turn. "and you, sir! what have you to say?" he asked, quietly. whereupon, nothing daunted, wat told his plain tale, and showed the order which he had received from sergeant davie dunbar, signed with barra's name. "i never wrote the order, and never heard of it," said barra, who stood, calmly contemptuous, at the prince's elbow. "call sergeant david dunbar!" ordered the prince. it was a few minutes before that stanch soldier arrived. in the mean time, the prince turned his attention to scarlett. "you are an officer of the king of france?" he said, with an ominous gleam in his eye as he spoke of his arch-enemy. "i had that honor," replied scarlett, "till early this morning, when it was my fortune to help this ancient friend of mine out of a difficulty into which i had led him. moreover, being a gentleman, i could not remain in such a service nor serve with subordinates who knew not the sacredness of a soldier's pledge. i am, therefore, once more a free man, and my sword is at the disposal of any honorable prince who will accept of it." "you were a celebrated master-of-arms in scotland, were you not?" asked the prince. "if your highness is good enough to say so," said scarlett, bowing. "and also in france, the first in estimation in the army of the prince of condé." "and you understand the drilling and mustering of raw levies?" asked the prince of orange, with some eagerness in his tone. "there are a dozen regiments in the french service at this moment who are exceedingly well aware of that, your highness," replied john scarlett, with a somewhat peculiar smile. "come to me this day week at the camp," said the prince, abruptly, after remaining a moment in deep thought. "sergeant david dunbar!" announced an officer of the prince's retinue. and in a moment that sturdy scot stood before the stadtholder exceedingly flustered by his sudden summons, and cudgelling his brains to think why he should be sent for so early in the day by his general. "you took an order the night before last to this gentleman's quarters?" said the prince. "from whom did you receive that order, and what speed did you make with your mission?" "i received the letter from one whom i knew as a servant of my lord of barra--one haxo, a butcher in the camp. 'make haste,' he bade me, 'this is from my lord to the scot who dwells in the street of zaandpoort, the dragoon called walter gordon of lochinvar, serving in douglas's regiment.' so i went there willingly enough, and eke with speed, the more by token that i knew wat gordon and his cousin well, as also will gordon's wife, who is a wise, sober-like lass of galloway, and can cook most excellent suppers." "that will serve, sergeant," said william of orange. "there is some mistake or double-dealing here which i shall doubtless discover in good time. come to me both together at the camp this day week at the hour of noon, and i will have further conference with you in my tent. you are at liberty to join your regiment, and take your friend with you." thereupon walter went to the prince, and, bending on his knee, presented him with the despatches which, in the inn of brederode, he had guarded with his life. the prince took them without a word of thanks or commendation, and thrust them into the breast of his coat as carelessly as though they had been so much waste paper. for the soldier-prince, who had never known fear in his life, took courage in others as a matter of course. and so my lord barra was left alone in the office of the provost-marshal, looking blackly across his table after wat and scarlett as they followed the prince from the room. chapter vii mistress maisie lennox, diplomatist when they reached the outer air, wat drew a long breath. he was still alive and still a soldier of the states-general, and now at last he had a whole week's time to think uninterruptedly of kate. but first of all he must see her. he was for starting off in the direction of zaandpoort street, but the thoughts of his companion were thirsty thoughts. "i declare," he cried, "my throat is parched like an edinburgh ash-backet on these accursed roads. let us go to a change-house and slake our thrapples with a draught of hollands and water. 'tis the poor best that the country affords." but wat had other things than hollands in his mind--the distracting ripple of kate's hair, and the way she had of holding the fingers of one hand on her side when she stood for a moment pensive. he searched in his belt for a silver thaler, and gave it to scarlett. "go drink, and meet me at the camp to-morrow," he said. then he strode away towards the street of zaandpoort, leaving his companion alternately looking at the broad unclipped silver piece in his hand, and staring after him in astonishment. "the young fool is either mad or in love," confided scarlett to the world at large; "but he has not forgotten how to draw a good blade--so he cannot be so very deeply in love as yet!" wat started out boldly and bravely enough, but so soon as he reached the lilac-bushes which were planted at the foot of the dam of zaandpoort he began to feel his shyness returning trebly upon him. he had not been afraid during the night when he stood surrounded by assassins and enemies. joyously and lightheartedly he had crossed swords with the greatest master-of-arms in europe. but now, when he was at the foot of a little wooden stairway, the thought of a simple, slim-figured girl at the top of it caused the hot blood to tingle in his cheek, and little helpless pulses to throb and sting in his palms. gladly would he have turned and fled. his hands had grown suddenly great and dirty. his military coat appeared so frayed and draggled with the night dews and the accidents of the way that he dared not venture in such a guise into the presence of the lady of his dreams. but it chanced that will gordon, his cousin, had been shaving at a small mirror which he had set against a twisted chimney-stack on the roof, both because it was a fine morning and because in the lodging in the street of zaandpoort the chambers were small. "welcome back, wat!" he cried, craning his neck over the parapet, and wiping the soap from the razor upon the high stone coping. "went your night-ride to rights?" "it went most mightily to wrongs!" cried wat, as cheerfully. "nevertheless, in spite of it you are here, safe and sound. come up, man, therefore, and tell us the tale. my little lass will doubtless have something fragrant for breakfast in a moment." whereupon he cried lustily down to maisie, his wife, who was at the pan in the kitchen: "put on a full platterful more. here is our adventurer returned with a torn coat, a piteous tale, and a right hungry stomach!" there was clearly no escape now, so wat, with his heart in his boots, strode as manfully as he could up the stair which he had been wont to climb but a day or two before with such complete and careless lack of thought. when he opened the outer door, a cheerful smell of morning cookery took him gratefully by the nostrils, for the long ride and brisk adventure had quickened his appetite. "hither, cousin mine!" cried a light and pleasant voice from the kitchen. "and welcome home again!" maisie added, as he appeared in the doorway. she had both her hands busy with eggs and flour about the cooking-pan. "i cannot shake hands with you, wat," she said, "but to spite william i will give you a nice kiss." and she came straight to him where he stood balancing himself uncertainly just within the threshold. wat hesitated for the smallest part of a second. "do it quickly, or the eggs will be spoiled," she said, standing on tiptoe with her floury hands behind her. "a kiss is worse spoiled by haste than ever an egg can be," said wat, as with the kindly pressure of her lips his words and his confidence began to come back to him. at his first entering in he had seen kate stand at the other side of the fire from maisie, but now he looked in vain for her. yet she had not left the room. only at the first word of kissing she had entrenched herself behind a great oaken settle and on the farther side of a wide dutch table, where, with her head bent upon an earthenware bowl, she began to prepare a salad with the most absolute attention and studious care. having kissed maisie most dutifully, wat went forward to offer his hand to kate. she gave hers to him quickly, and yet, as it seemed to him, reluctantly also. instinctively she kept a chair between them as she did so. "see, it is all over with oil and chopped lettuce," she said, looking plaintively at her hand, as though wat had been personally responsible for the defilement. maisie was at the farther end of the room, bending over her saucepans. wat leaned quickly across the table to kate. "are you glad i have come back?" he asked, in a low voice. "you had a fine morning for your ride," she replied, looking down at the salad and mixing the ingredients with the most scrupulous exactitude. wat straightened himself instantaneously as if on parade, and stalked with much dignity to the end of the room at which maisie was still busy. and this caused him to miss a singular look which kate cast after him, a look of mingled pity and entreaty, wholly wasted on the square shoulders and erect head, but from which, had wat caught it, he might have learned that though it may sometimes be well to appear proud with a girl, nevertheless, if you love her, not too soon and not too often. presently will gordon came bustling down to breakfast, having cleaned his accoutrements and adorned himself with such sober trappings as were permitted by the spartan taste of the covenanting regiment. will had still that noisily cheerful self-consciousness which always characterizes the very young husband doing the unaccustomed honors of his house. "sit down and be welcome, wat, lad," he cried, "and tell us all the tale of your journeying." and so at the table which maisie had covered with plain coarse dutch linen, very unlike the fine cloths which she had left behind her in scotland, the four sat down. it was a heartsome meal, and after a little while lochinvar began to tell his tale, giving himself little honor, making nothing of the danger, and dwelling much on the ridiculous aspect of haxo the bull, his ill-favored calf, and his bald-headed killer. as the tale proceeded will kept up a constant fire of interjections, such as "that was well thought on!" "bravely! my lad!" and "well done, glenkens!" but presently maisie left her seat, and came round to sit beside wat as he began to tell of entering alone at midnight into the dark house of brederode with the unknown danger before and the three traitors behind. all the time kate sat still, saying nothing and eating nothing, her lips a little open and tremulous, and her dark eyes shining with a light in them like a sunbeam in the still water of a sea cave. and when it came to the telling of the combat, and the little chance of life that he had, it so fared that wat raised his eyes to kate's, and lo! tears were running silently down her face and falling unregarded on her white gown. in a moment more she had risen and left the table, slipping like a gleam of light into the next room. maisie looked up with much astonishment as she caught the waft of the girl's gown. "why, kate!" she exclaimed, and without another word sped after her. when she reached the little room where kate slept, she found the girl standing by the window, leaning her head against the thin curtain. she kept her back to her friend, and did not turn round at her entrance. maisie carefully closed the door and went up quickly to kate. silently she put her arm about the slim and supple waist. "i--i am not crying--i am not indeed!" said kate, a little indignantly, putting her hand on her friend's wrist as if to push it away. "no--no, of course you are not," said maisie, making (to say the least of it) an affirmation the truth of which was not wholly obvious. for the girl's tears dropped steadily upon her white gown, a great one even falling warm upon maisie's hand at her waist, while all her slender body was shaken with sobs. "it was only--" kate began, and then stopped. maisie sighed as she sat down on the white bed, which, as was its occupant's custom, had been made up with military precision quite an hour before. she drew kate down beside her gently till the girl's head rested on her shoulders. "there, there, my lamb," she whispered, soothingly, when at last kate found what most she wanted--a soft and comfortably sympathetic surface to cry upon. maisie's hand passed lightly over the shapely head with its straying and enticing thatch of dark love-locks, and her voice crooned and cooed over her friend like a dove over its mate in the nest. then for a long time she continued to hush the girl in her arms, as if she had been but a little ailing child. once there came the sound of a foot heavily masculine in the passage, and a hand was laid on the latch. kate made a motion to rise and dry her face, but maisie's arms held her tight. "go away, william! go away at once!" she cried, with instant change of tone, her voice ringing out in such imperious fashion that will gordon, her husband, fled back to the sitting-room, feeling that he had just saved himself on the brink of some absolutely fatal mistake. yet all the while maisie offered her friend not a word of sympathy, only the comforting of silent understanding, the touch of loving lips and hands, and the pressure of loving arms. kate (she said to herself) would tell her what she wished at her own time. maisie had a woman's tact and did not press for an explanation of a girl's wayward moods, as even the wisest of men would have done on such an occasion. "oh, he might have been killed," at last kate's words came in a rushing whisper, as she lifted her face a little higher on maisie's shoulder. "and i had sent him away so cruelly. and when he came back i never told him that i was glad to see him, maisie. i snatched away my hand." she added the last words as if that indefensible action had only crowned a long series of enormities. "well," answered her friend, smiling very lovingly down at her, "he is not gone yet. come back and say it now. i dare say he will forgive you, if you look at him like that." but kate only sadly shook her head, a little reproachfully that such a revolutionary proposal should come from one of maisie's pretended sympathy and understanding. "how can i go back?" she said, hopelessly. "they _saw_ me crying, and they would sit and look at me all the time--like--like--" (and kate paused while she searched the universe for a comparison to express the most utter and abject stupidity) "well, just like men." yet she sighed and turned her face a little more inward towards maisie's shoulder. "no, decidedly," she said, as if after all she had been considering the question; "i cannot go back." maisie loosened her arms from about kate's neck. "then you shall not, sweeting," she said, with determination, as if a coercive army had been at hand; "lie you still there and i will get them away. trust me, they shall know no more than it is good for men to know." and she nodded her head to express the limited capacity of mankind, and the absolute necessity that there was for the wiser portion of the race to maintain them in a condition of strictly defined and diplomatic ignorance. before she went out of the bedroom maisie set by the girl's side a small bottle of the sweet-scented water of cologne, one which wat himself had brought back from his last campaign. "he carried that nearly a year in his haversack," maisie said, irrelevantly, as she set the vial within reach of kate's hand. "i will go send him to take a bath. he must have ridden both hard and fast to be back from brederode by six o'clock in the morning." "you will not tell them," whispered the girl, faintly, catching at maisie's hand as she went out, "nor let him think that i am--foolish?" "trust to me," said maisie lennox, nodding her head and smiling serenely back as she went out. in the sitting-chamber she found the two young men still at the table talking together. they stopped with badly assumed masculine ease as she entered. since will's rebuff at the chamber door they had sat conversing in perfunctory and uncomfortable sentences, their ears directed towards the door like those of a dog that hears an unkenned foot on the stair, their attention anywhere but upon the subject concerning which they were speaking. maisie began at once in the hushed and important tone of the messenger fresh from the seat of war. "kate could not sleep last night for the noise of the wooden sabots upon the street outside. she has had a headache all this morning, and i ought not to have let her listen to wat's tale of horrors--" "i trust i did not--" wat began, suddenly conscience-stricken. "no, no," said maisie, motioning him to sit down, "it was all my fault, not yours at all--i should have bethought me in time. she will be quite well after she has slept. be sure you remember to walk quietly with your great boots," she added, looking viciously at her husband. at this hint wat rose to go. in doing so he accidentally pushed his stiff wooden chair back from the table with a loud creak, and then abjectly recoiled from maisie's face of absolute horror. he sat down again disconsolately. will gordon and he cast a pathetic look at each other. their place was obviously not here. so one after the other they bent and pulled off their heavy foot-gear, while maisie watched them with uplifted finger of the most solemnizing caution. then very softly the two men stole down the stairs, carrying their boots in their hands. maisie listened till they were fairly out of the house. then she went directly to kate's door. she opened it and set her head within. there was an expression of almost heavenly peace and serenity upon her face. the consciousness of infinite well-doing dwelt upon it. "it is all right!" she said, "they will never so much as guess why. they went out like lambs--carrying their boots under their arms!" and again maisie nodded her head with smiling encouragement. and yet diplomatists are usually selected from among men. chapter viii the street of the butchery it was still quite early one crisp morning when kate mcghie set out to do her marketing. ever since the first few days after her arrival in the city of amersfort, she had been intrusted with this duty--both because she desired to do something to help her friend and gossip maisie with her household cares, and also because, being a laird's daughter, she was more learned in the accomplishments of foreign tongues than the daughter of anton lennox of the duchrae. the sun shone on her face and touched lovingly the small straying curls of her hair, as kate stood at the outer door of the lodgings in zaandpoort street. she was drawing on a pair of gloves which made a difficulty about the matter, and needed to be repeatedly coaxed with that adorable pout which wat loved. she was clad from head to foot in doublet and pleated skirt of gray scots cloth, woven both of them by that very worthy man and elder in the kirk, william edgar of rhonehouse. she wore also a flat, broad bonnet; and the ribbon of the blue snood, which, in token of maidenhood, bound her hair, was tied in a dainty love-knot behind her ear. the rebellious gloves were a pair of spanish gauntlets of untanned leather, and she was calculating what she could buy for the silver florin, which comprised all the united resources of the zaandpoort establishment for the day. she allowed the slightest sigh to escape her of regret for the easier finances of balmaghie, where neither her father nor she herself ever knew aught of the providing till the dishes were on the table, so completely did the ancient house-keeper of roger mcghie keep the matter in her own responsible but exceedingly jealous hands. "this experience of marketing will teach you many things you do not know," said maisie, the newly married wife, darkly. "it would indeed be a pretty pass if when you came to be married you did not know a leg of beef from a shoulder of mutton." yet, in spite of maisie's words, there was no great chance, in the ordering of the domestic economy of zaandpoort street, of getting first-hand information upon the subject of such expensive and formidable dainties as these. for the pay of a gentleman-private in the covenanter's regiment did not allow of extragavances, even when it was supplemented by certain small sums brought safely over from scotland by the hand and favor of more recent exiles. but kate mcghie had not come to live upon will and maisie as a dependant. she would be, she declared to her hostess, neither sorner nor idler; for she had brought with her certain moneys of her own, and her father in scotland had promised to send her more at such times as he got the chance of a douce scottish merchant coming to the low countries in search of dutch tobacco and flemish cloth. it was, therefore, with the light, free step of one who is a partner in the concern that kate took her way towards the market-place of amersfort. she carried a small white wicker-basket over her right arm, and in her left hand she held the skirt of her kirtle as she went alertly stepping over the puddles and gutters in the streets, and even overleaping the backs of sundry slumbering dogs with a quick and dainty disdain which became her well. the soldier lads hurrying by with despatches turned their heads to watch her as she passed; and the brisk merchant 'prentices, going to their counting-houses at six in the morning (as was the custom of the time and place), risked their master's reprimand to stand awhile and gaze as she tripped out of sight, careless in her maiden freedom alike of the gold braid of the officer and the broadcloth of the merchant. at last kate arrived in the wide square, into which looked down the hundred windows of the historical townhall of amersfort, one of the most famous in netherlandish history. she at once penetrated fearlessly into that babel of discord, and, disregarding the proffered attentions of the first noisy stall-keepers, she swept past them and threaded her way steadily to the favored and regular recipients of her custom, who by honest dealing and courtesy had already established their right to her confidence. pretty enough it was to see the practical intentness with which she examined the portions of meat and bundles of vegetables submitted to her judgment. how sagely and charmingly, and eke with what an air of wisdom, did she not listen to these voluble explanations, one word in ten of which she might possibly understand. then, holding up three or four slender white fingers, she would indicate the number of infinitesimal copper coins which she was willing to pay for the article. whereat the vendor would laugh, and reject the offer with a sadly resigned air, as much as to say that doubtless such a noble young lady must needs have her jest with a poor man. and when, in her turn, kate would smile sweetly and persistently, or even as a last resort pretend to go on to another stall, then presently and swiftly the bargain would be completed upon her own terms, and to the ample profit and satisfaction of the merchant. thus drawing all eyes upon her as she went by, trim and dainty from head to foot, graceful from the proud setting of her head on the swan-like neck to the turn of the slender ankle, this tall young scots maid passed, light-foot, heart-whole, and fearless, through the discursive clamor of the market-place. verily, a most pleasant sight for the eyes of men and women to behold. and amongst others, my lord of barra watched her this day, not by any means for the first time. for though he had left his bed betimes and come down to the market-place of the city, ostensibly in order to observe the mood of the turbulent and often rebellious town--in reality he had left the palace solely for the purpose of watching for the slight form and swiftly gracious carriage which pertained to the latest arrival among the exiles from his own country. nevertheless, he did not try to speak to her. murdo of barra had wisdom enough to wait till by chance or stratagem he could compass an effective entrance upon the stage of her life. on the very first day of her sojourn in amersfort he had taken the trouble to find out all that was known about her among the scottish refugees. and without any great difficulty he had discovered a man from galloway who had informed him how that this maid was not only the sole heiress to the broad acres of balmaghie, but also a true-blue daughter of the covenants, and one who had quarrelled with her father and all her kin for the sake of the banner of the bible and the sword. barra shrugged his shoulders. "for such a lip and such a waist the king himself might venture to subscribe as many covenants as there are, and yet cry out for more!" so it came to pass that, as often as kate mcghie visited the morning bustle of the thronging market-place of amersfort, so often there could be seen on the skirts of the crowd a tall, dark man in a close-fitting suit of black velvet, with ribbon-bows of the new flat shape at the knees, and the orange-colored hose and cloak of the prince's household. he seemed mainly to be watching the delivering of the customs-dues by the incoming merchants, but also to be keeping a wary eye upon the chaffering crowd in the interests of law and order, as indeed became a provost-marshal. but, in spite of all, his eye never for a moment lost sight of the slim, graceful figure, nor of the gray cap and eagle's feather which told of another country and a warmer blood than that which flowed so placidly in the veins of the honest burghers' wives who did their serenely contentious marketing at kate mcghie's elbow. it was nigh upon the stroke of seven when the girl emerged with heightened color and quickened breath at the far end of the market-place. her basket had grown heavy upon her rounds, and the long, green purse was weighty now with copper coin, instead of holding a single knob of silver at one end. straight in front of kate lay an alley which promised to conduct her by a nearer way to the shaded canal bank, from which diverged the street of zaandpoort, where already maisie would be waiting for her return with the daily stores. kate struck fearlessly into the opening. it was a narrow and steep lane which led abruptly upward from the market-place. the houses, with their beetle-browed swallow-nests' balconies, almost met overhead, while the lower stories were taken up with crowded booths containing the humblest merchandise. dirty children swarmed in the gutters. fierce, battered, scowling faces of men looked out of sullen doorways, and scarred and disfigured women showed their heads, fiercely or inquiringly, at the rag-stuffed holes which served for windows. at a curious elbow in this street of the butchery (as was its well-befitting name) kate paused, startled a little at her strange surroundings. she looked anxiously about her. the girl had never been in this part of the town before, and she began to wish that she had taken her usual circuitous route homeward by the main streets and the canal bank. but even while she looked uncertainly about, several fellows of the baser sort disengaged themselves from various low doorways and strolled towards her. instantly kate gripped the handle of her basket a little tighter, and, keeping well in the middle of the street, endeavored to pass the men by with great unconcern. the first pair, who were indeed none other than our friends of the inn of brederode, the calf and the killer, divided to let her pass. and kate, having swept between them with her head high, found herself almost in the arms of haxo the bull, who held his hands wide to intercept her, laughing the while, as though she had been a poor beast that wished to escape from his shambles. "gently, my pretty one," he said, cocking his scarred and brutal head to the side to look at her, "'tis not so often that we have such dainty, high-stepping maids come to visit us here in the street of the butchery; and when they do, it is the custom of the country that they pay toll ere they depart." and he would have laid a heavy hand on her shoulder; but kate started back so quickly and fiercely that haxo thought that she was about to draw a weapon upon him. with a well-executed feint she pretended to pass him on the right hand, then, light as a swallow, she made a dart past on his left, and, lifting her kirtle wellnigh to her knee, she ran swiftly up the street. but from a dark alley in front two other men emerged and intercepted her, while from behind haxo and his myrmidons closed in upon her, running with all their might. seeing that it was impossible for her to escape by flight, kate set down her basket at her feet and drew forth the keen little hunting-knife which she always wore in her garter. then she set her back to the nearest wall, and resolved that it should go ill with the first who dared to lay a hand upon her. "fairly and softly, beauty," cried haxo, insinuatingly, as he came up panting, "we mean you no harm, lady. but you must know that it is the custom of the street of the butchery that every stranger must pay toll to us. and for you the toll is of the sweetest, and will cost you naught but what you have plenty store of. i' faith! when did the tasting of such lips as yours do harm to any man!" and haxo's smile as he spoke became an entire infernal epic. he drew cautiously closer, and as he brought his hideous, greasy face, stamped with all pollution, nearer to hers, kate drew back her hand ready to strike at him desperately with the knife. but as she did so, the snaky hand of the killer grasped her wrist like a vise, while the calf leaned over her shoulder and with his right hand took away the weapon. kate was left completely at their mercy. "help! help!" she shouted, desperately, and the cry of pity and appeal rang vainly up and down the street. a few of the battered drabs of women leaned listlessly out of the windows, scarcely amused by the horse-play of haxo and his companions. they saw so many much more terrible things every night and day in the street of the butchery. chapter ix my lord of barra "help! help! for god's sake, help!" again cried kate. and the lamentable cry was at once a prayer to god and an appeal to man. very pitiful her voice sounded, and she thought, "oh, if wat gordon were only here, i should not have been treated so!" alas! it was the more unfortunate for both that wat at that moment stood on guard at the city entrance of the camp of amersfort. but just as haxo put his arm about her waist, a loud, clear voice higher up the street cried with authority, "hold, rascals, what would you with the lady?" "that is no business of yours!" instantly replied one of the men who had come up last. kate looked up hopefully. she saw at the corner of the street a tall, soldierly man clad in black velvet and wearing an orange cloak, evidently an officer of the prince's household. he had his sword bare in his hand, and seeing her manifest distress, he ran towards her eagerly, his shoulder-ribbons waving as he came. [illustration: "the gentleman instantly attacked them furiously"] the fellows about her shrank back and drew their short sailors' "whingers." but the gentleman instantly attacked them furiously with his long sword, for haxo and his companions had fled at the first sound of barra's voice, while the two who had arrived later were engaging kate's deliverer. their short swords, however, were no match for the officer's cavalry blade. the weapon of one presently clattered upon the pavement while his comrade ran off down an alley, holding his side as if he had been wounded. then, putting his left arm firmly about her, and holding his sword bare in the other, kate's rescuer urged her to mount quickly up the street. "they may return," he said; "they may bring others with them, my lady, in which case i might not be able to protect you, or even to serve you otherwise than by dying for you, which very gladly i would do." now kate desired much to walk by herself, finding the arm about her waist discomposing, and having also the market-basket to carry; but it seemed at the time a thing impossible to say to a man who had just saved her life--or, at the least, had preserved her from the hands of many cruel ruffians. in this manner they reached in safety the wider spaces of the upper streets, where kate gladly saw the town's officers marching hither and thither with their halberds ported and their pistols in their belts. then she disengaged herself deftly from her protector's circling arm. "i thank you, sir," she said, very gratefully, "for your so great and timely kindness to me. i shall never forget it; nor yet will my father, whose name is roger mcghie of balmaghie, in the country of scotland, ever forget your gentle courtesy to his daughter in the land of her exile." the stranger doffed his bonnet and bowed low. "i also am of your nation, fair mistress," said he. "in my own country i am called murdo, lord of barra and the small isles; but now it is mine honor alone that is great, for i also am an exile for truth's sake, and must serve a foreign master, as you see." and he touched with a certain noble humility his orange cloak and the prince's badge and motto that were upon it. kate bowed in turn, and her eyes expressed a warmer interest than she had yet shown. "my lord of barra," she said, "i have heard of you and of your distinguished services and position. i am the more grateful to one so noble for protecting a poor maid and an exile from insult." "it is my privilege and my very great good fortune," said he, again lifting his hat with more than ordinary deference. "let us walk together to your home; you lodge with your cousin of earlstoun, do you not?" "yes; but how may my lord barra know of that?" said kate, in some bewilderment. her companion smiled complacently. "though i be but an exile, yet, by the prince's special favor, i am set in charge of the good behavior of this turbulent city, wherein it is my duty to know everything. this morning it chanced that i was on a tour of inspection in the worst and most dangerous parts, when it was my hap to be able to render you a very slight service." barra called a porter and bade him carry kate's basket and walk behind them; but this that proud lass would not allow, whereupon the provost-marshal dismissed the man with a movement of his hand. and so in earnest talk the pair approached the entering in of the street of zaandpoort. it so happened that wat gordon, released from his duty in the camp, had hastened homeward as fast as he could, hoping that he might be in time to help kate with the preparation of the vegetables, and in especial with the salad; for it had become his utmost pleasure to do for her the most common and menial offices. as he arrived at the end of the street he saw kate coming towards him, apparently lost in friendly intercourse with a tall officer of the prince's household. he stood transfixed. presently she paused at the door and, looking across, she saw him. "wat!" she cried, eagerly, "come hither!" for she wished to tell him of her adventure. but facing about and standing straight as an arrow, walter gordon (being an exceedingly foolish person) saluted the officer in the orange cloak and marched past as though he had not heard. whereat kate, mightily offended at his rudeness, asked my lord of barra to do her friend mistress maisie gordon and herself the honor of entering their poor rooms. "for it is not needful that those who are of the same country and cause should stand on punctilios." so because of the pride of this stiff-necked wat, my lord of barra found footing in the street of zaandpoort; for pride ofttimes breeds more and worse things than many sins called deadlier. * * * * * before scarlett and wat issued forth from the presence of the prince on the day appointed for the interview, wat had received a commission in his own regiment, while scarlett was nominated instructor to the newly formed companies of exiles, called first buchan's and afterwards egerton's foot. in addition to all this, wat had not forgotten to represent to the prince the case of his cousin will, and had reminded him of the great services he had rendered the cause in scotland; to which william of orange had listened with seeming pleasure, but with regard to will gordon's promotion in the corps of the covenant he had made no promises. it was, nevertheless, with a proud and happy heart that wat returned to his cousin's lodgings in the street of zaandpoort. he had seen the prince and found him well disposed. even his enemy barra had been able to do nothing against him, and if their feet were already climbing the lower rungs of the ladder of fortune, he felt that in some measure it was owing to his courage and address. all that day wat's heart kept time to a new and unwonted tune. the streets had never seemed so smiling, the faces of the children never so mirthful. the commonwealth of things was manifestly in excellent repair that afternoon in the city of amersfort. lochinvar hummed a jaunty marching-stave as he strode towards the low door in zaandpoort street, while his heart beat fast to think that in a moment more he would be looking into those wondrous eyes whose kindness or cruelty had now become to him as life or death. as he went a little softly up the stairs, he heard above a noise of cheerful converse. an unknown man's voice spoke high and clear among the others. the lighter tones of women intermingled with it, pleasantly responsive. for a moment those within did not in the instancy of their discourse hear wat's summons. at last maisie opened the door, astonished that any one should knock at inner chamber-port, and as wat entered he saw, sitting in his own accustomed place, his hat on the table, his sword unslung for ease, his enemy the lord of barra. the provost-marshal was talking easily and familiarly to kate, who sat on the low window-seat leaning a little forward, with interest written clearly on every line of her face. she was nursing her knee between her clasped palms with that quaint and subtle grace which had often gone to wat's heart. her dark eyes rested, not upon his incoming, of which she appeared to be for the moment unconscious, but upon the face of the speaker. wat and barra submitted (it could not be called more) to maisie's introduction--wat with sullen blackness of countenance and the slightest inclination of his head, barra with smiling patience, as though by the very irony of circumstances it had chanced to him to be introduced to his stable-boy. kate rose and took wat's hand a moment in kindly fashion, though with eyes a little downcast, being not yet ready quite to forget his rudeness upon the street. but immediately she went back to her seat in order to listen to the conclusion of the story which barra had been relating. it concerned the loyalty of the highland clans to their chiefs, and as barra told of their sacrifices, a genuine pleasure lightened in his dark face, his eyes glittered, and a new life breathed through his whole form. for pride in the loyalty of his clan was the selfish man's one enthusiasm. maisie sat down with her sewing close to where wat stood moping and bending his brows, and, noting his brow of constraint and gloom, she set herself lovingly to cheer him. "we have had good news to-day," she said, smiling pleasantly at him--"news that william does not know yet. see!" she added, handing him a parchment from the table with heightened color, for she had been married but six months, and her william was the pivot on which the universe revolved. it was a commission as captain in the covenant regiment in favor of william gordon, called younger, of earlstoun. wat continued to look at it in amazement. it was what he had asked for from william of orange that day without obtaining an answer. "my lord of barra had it from the prince's own hand. he says that the stadtholder has long marked the address of my husband, and hath only delayed to reward it lest the short space he has been with the colors should arouse the jealousy of his comrades." a spark of fury burned up suddenly in wat's eyes. "is the paper genuine, think you?" he asked, loudly enough for all to hear. maisie looked up quickly, astonished, not so much at his words as by the fierce, abrupt manner of his speech. "genuine!" she said, in astonishment. "why, my lord barra brought it himself. it is signed by his own hand and issued in the name of the prince. why do you ask if it be genuine?" "i ask," cried lochinvar, in the same fiercely offensive tone, "because the only document which i have ever seen bearing that signature and issued in the name of the prince was a forgery, and as such was repudiated two days later by my lord of barra." the words rang clearly and unmistakably through the room. doubtless barra heard them, and kate also, for a deep flush of annoyance mounted slowly to her neck, touched with rose the ivory of her cheek, and faded out again, leaving her with more than her former paleness. but barra never stopped a moment in the full, easy current of his narration. he continued to let fall his sentences with precisely the same cool, untroubled deliberation, fingering meanwhile the prince's signet-ring, which he habitually wore on his hand. kate almost involuntarily moved a little nearer to him and fixed her eyes the more earnestly on his face, because she felt that wat's words were a deliberate insult intended for her deliverer of the preceding day. wat on his part pushed his chair noisily back from the table, and rapped nervously and defiantly with his knuckles on the board. "there is not a man in my wild western isles," barra's voice was heard going on, evenly and calmly, "who would not die for his chief, giving his life as readily as a platter of drammoch--not a poor unlearned cotter who would not send his family to the death to save the honor of the clan from the least stain, or the life of the chief from any shadow of danger. the true clansman can do anything for his chief--" "except tell the truth," burst in walter gordon, fiercely. barra paused a moment and looked calmly at the interrupter. then, turning a little more squarely to kate and his hostess, he continued his speech without betraying the least annoyance. "he will do anything for his chief which does not involve the loss of his honor and his standing in the clan." "does this your noble highland honor include treachery, spying, and butchery?" cried wat, now speaking directly to his enemy. "it includes good manners in a lady's presence, sir," said barra, calmly. "do these your clansmen of honor and courtesy wear butchers' knifes in their belts, and go by the name of haxo the bull, the calf, and the killer?" barra spread his hands abroad with a french gesture of helplessness which was natural to him, and which expressed his inability to comprehend the vagaries and fancies of a person clearly out of his mind. then, without betraying the least annoyance, he turned suavely to kate, and began to tell her of the new ambassadors from austria who, with a great retinue, had that day arrived at the court of the prince of orange. wat rose with his hand on his sword. "cousin maisie," he said, "i am not a man of politic tricks nor specious concealments. i give you fair warning that i know this man. i tell him to his face that i denounce him for a traitor, a conspirator, a murderer. i find murdo of barra a guest in this house, and i do what i can to protect those i love from so deadly an acquaintance--the very shadow of whose name is death." "protect! you forget, cousin walter," returned maisie, indignantly, standing up very white and determined--"you forget that i have a husband who is entirely able to protect me. and you forget also that this is his house, not yours. moreover, if you cannot suffer to meet my friends here as one guest meets another, it is entirely within your right to go where you will only meet with those of whom you are pleased to approve." here walter snatched suddenly at the bonnet which had been lying on the floor: but the indignant little lady of the house in zaandpoort street had not yet said all her say. "and, moreover," she said, "so long as i am mistress of a hovel, neither you nor any other shall intrude your brawls and quarrels upon those whom i choose to invite to my house." "you choose between us, then?" cried wat, holding his head high, his face as colorless as a sheet of paper. "if you desire to put it so--yes. i choose between a man of courtesy and a silly, hectoring boy. i choose, cousin mine, not to give you the right to select my guests for me." wat turned to kate. the blood had now ebbed from his lips, and left them gray. his eyes seemed in a short tale of moments to have sunk deep into his face. "and you?" he said, more calmly than before, looking at the maid of his love. the girl trembled like a leaf on an autumn gossamer; nevertheless, she answered firmly enough: "i am but a guest in this house, but so long as i abide here the friends of my hostess are my friends!" wat gordon bowed low with stateliest courtesy, first to his cousin maisie, then to kate mcghie, and lastly to his rival. "i shall have the honor of sending you a communication in the morning," he said, looking the councillor of the prince between the eyes. barra sat still on his chair, looking wat over with the same calmly amused contempt he had shown throughout. "ah," he replied, nodding his head, "perhaps it might be as well to let the--the application come in the usual way--through my chamberlain." and he was still smiling as wat gordon strode down the stairs with anger burning coldly white on his face, and all hell raging in his heart. barra turned to kate to continue his story, but her place was vacant. the girl had inexplicably vanished from the room before wat's foot had even passed the threshold. she lay now on the little white bed in her own room, her whole frame shaken with sobs, and the hot, bitter tears raining down on the pillow. then, for the first time, she knew in her own heart that she was face to face with great unreasoning love, which could neither be banished nor disowned. "oh, why," she sobbed, "was he so foolish and wicked? why did maisie grow of a sudden so hard and cruel to him? why must things turn out thus deadly wrong, when they might just as easily have gone right?" she buried her face in the pillow, and whispered her conclusion to the fine linen of its coverture upon which her tears were falling. "yet i love him--yes, i love him more than ever for it!" she said, and sank her head deeper, as if to hide her love from her own most secret sight. chapter x the descent of avernus wat staggered a little as he walked down the street of zaandpoort. he felt somewhat like a bullock that has been felled, yet which for the moment escapes with life. the air had grown suddenly thin and cold, as it had been difficult to breathe. he drew his cloak about him and shivered. "well," he raged, "that at least is ended! they have done with me--made their choice. i that stood by them in many bad, old days am cast off for a rogue and a scoundrel--because, forsooth, he is an earl and a prince's councillor. were i but come to my rights, they would not treat me thus! but, because i am only poor wat gordon of the douglas regiment, i must be grateful for any dog's treatment." as wat grew to believe his own silly windy words, he held his head a little higher. and into the poor, angry, foolish boy's heart the devil cast his baited hook. pride took hold of wat, and the thought of revenge. "but, after all, am i not walter gordon of lochinvar," he said, as he strode along, heeding none, "a gentleman at least, and now, in spite of them all, an officer also? if mine own folk and kin think nothing of me in the little lodgings of zaandpoort street, i can show them that there are places more famous, where others will make wat gordon welcome for his own sake." at that moment a shouting reveller ruffling it along the street recalled to his mind that he was in the neighborhood of the famous hostelry of the coronation, where nightly during the stay of the army at amersfort all the young bloods of the allied forces met, and where (it was reported) brightest eyes shone across the wine goblet, and daintiest feet danced upon the polished floors. the inn of the coronation was held by mine host sheffell. a score of times it had been closed by the city fathers, but, nevertheless, always with more or less carefully concealed intent of winking hard at its immediate reopening. and all this was because the burgomeister and magnates of amersfort looked upon the inn of the coronation as a safety-valve for the riotous blades of the city and camp. "for," said the former to the more sapient of his corporation when he could be private with them, "if the young kerls go not to the coronation and meet with their like--well, we are men and fathers. like is it that we may have matters on our hands that shall trouble us more deeply. worse were it if the rascals came rattling their spurs and tagging at the tails of our daughters and our wives." so the sleep of mine host sheffell, of the hostel of the coronation, was not disturbed by the fear of the city council. towards this famous (or, as it might be, infamous) house, therefore, wat turned his steps. often the men of his regiment had offered to conduct him thither, but till now wat had steadfastly refused, with the laugh which meant that he had to do with metal more attractive. for in a camp it does not do to obtain a repute for a too ostentatious virtue. but to-night wat gordon buckled his sword a little tighter, belted his silken orange sash closer about his new officer's coat, swung his cloak back in a more becoming fashion, twirled his mustache, passed his fingers lightly through his crisp, fair curls, and strode with jingle of huge cavalry spurs into the hostel of the coronation, through whose portals (safe it is to say) no more proper or desirable young man had passed that night. great sheffell himself was on the watch, and greeted the young officer with profoundest courtesy. wat vouchsafed him hardly a nod, but marched straight into a great crowded room, which hummed about him, riant with gay noise and the spangle of silver and glass. the main guest-chamber of the coronation was a long, fairly wide, white-panelled room, divided at the sides into more private compartments by curtains hung upon rows of pillars. the more favored guests sat at small tables in the alcoves, and were waited on by girls attired in scarlet blouse and short embroidered silk kirtle, whose dainty hose of orange and black twinkled underneath as they passed deftly to and fro with glass and platter. as soon as wat entered, and began to thread his way through the laughing press, he found himself greeted from this table and that, and many were the invitations showered upon him to make one of some jocund company. but wat only shook his head smilingly, and made his way steadily to the head of the room as if he had some appointment to keep there. nevertheless, he sat down listlessly enough at an unoccupied table, and a pretty maid, in a dress daintier and fresher than that of the other attendants, instantly stood beside him with her hands clasped modestly before her. "i wait my lord's commands," she said, in excellent french. without giving the matter any consideration, wat ordered a bottle of old rhenish, and sat back to contemplate the scene at his ease. officers of every regiment in the services of the states-general and of its allies were there, young attachés of the embassies, stray princelings of the allied german duchies; while scattered among these were to be seen a parti-colored crowd of ladies with flower-decked hair, lavish of shoulder, opulent of charm. presently the pretty maid brought wat his bottle of rhenish, ancient and cobwebbed. she decanted it carefully, standing close by his shoulder, so that a subtle suggestion of feminine proximity affected the young man strangely. she poured out a full measure of the scented vintage into a huge green glass on which tritons gambolled and sea-nymphs writhed. "you have, perchance, no one to drink with you?" she said, giving him a glance out of her large and lustrous eyes. "truly," replied wat, "i am alone!" and the sadness of his life seemed to culminate in a kind of mimic and desperate isolation as he spoke. "then," said the girl, "may i not drink first to your beautiful eyes, my captain, and then, if you will, to our better acquaintance?" she lifted the glass to her lips, tasted it as a bird does, and presented it to walter with the daintiest gesture. "your name?" he said, looking at her with a certain tolerant and almost passive interest. "i am called 'the little marie!'" she smiled; "i have been wellnigh a week in the hostel of the coronation, and not yet have i seen any to compare with you, my lord captain of the fair locks." with a certain childish abandon, and a freedom still more than half innocent, marie seated herself upon the arm of the great chair into which wat had thrown himself upon his entrance. her dainty foot dangled over the carven finial, almost touching the ribbons at walter's knee with its silver buckled slipper of the mode of paris. marie's hand rested lightly on the small curls at the back of his neck, till walter grew vaguely restive under the caressing fingers. yet because he was in a great and thronged room humming with company, where none took any notice of him or his companion, each being intent on playing out his own game, the uneasy feeling soon passed away. only now and again, as the rhenish sank in the bottle and the hand of the little marie took wider sweeps and paused more caressingly among his blonde hair, a thought awoke not unpleasantly in wat's bosom. "they have cast me out of their home and friendship. they have preferred a traitor. but i will let them see that there is pleasure in the world yet." and his arm went of its own accord about the waist of the little marie. * * * * * it seemed to be but a moment after (though it might have been an hour) that wat looked up. a hush had fallen suddenly upon the briskly stirring din of the hostel of the coronation. walter's eyes instantly caught those of a man attired in the uniform of the provost-marshal of the city. there was a cold smile of triumph on the face which met his. it was barra, and he touched with his arm the man who stood beside him. wat turned a little to look past the curtain which partly surrounded his table and alcove, and there, over the wide gauzy sleeves of the little marie, he encountered the grave and reproachful regard of his cousin, william gordon of earlstoun. wat started to his feet with a half-formed idea of going forward to explain something, he knew not what. but ere he had disengaged himself from the great chair, on the arm of which perched the little marie, an angry thought, born of pride and fostered by the heady antiquity of the cobwebbed rhenish, drew him back again into his place. a kind of desperate defiance chilled him into a blank and sudden calmness, which boded no good either to himself or to any who should oppose him. besides which, the circumstances were certainly difficult of explanation. "they cast me out, and then immediately they follow after to spy upon me. shall i utter a word of excuse only to be met with the sneer of unbelief? am i not an officer of dragoons? also, am i not of age, and able to choose my company as well as they? as wat gordon never was a prayer-monger, so neither will he now be a hypocrite." he glanced not uncomplaisantly at the little marie, who hummed a careless tune and swung her pretty foot against his knee, happily unconscious of his trouble. perhaps the rhenish had taken her back again to the green slopes about her native village, and to her more innocent childhood. "another bottle of wine," he cried, with a heady kind of half-boyish defiance. "but you have not yet finished this," she answered. "nor, indeed," she added, with a roguish smile, "even paid for it." wat threw a pair of gold pieces on the table. "one for the wine and one to buy you a new pair of buckled shoes, little marie," he said. "then for luck you must drink out of the one i wear," she said, and forthwith she poured a thimbleful of the wine into the shoe, which she deftly slipped from the foot which had swung by his ribbon-knot of blue-and-white. "pledge me!" she cried, daring him to a match of folly, and she held the curious beaker close to his chin. wat was conscious that his cousin stood grave and stern by the door, and that on barra's face there hovered a strangely satisfied smile. but something angry and hot within him drove him recklessly deeper and deeper. he had no pleasure in the thing. it was as apples of sodom in his mouth, exceeding bitter fruit; but at least he knew that he was cutting every tie that bound him to the street of zaandpoort--to those who had despised and rejected him. he lifted the shoe of the little marie in the air. "to the owner of the prettiest foot in the world!" he cried, and pledged her. four men who had come in after my lord of barra now sat themselves down at the table nearest to wat. the little marie, having recovered her slipper and wiped it coquettishly with the tassels of wat's sash, somewhat reluctantly went away to bring the second bottle of rhenish. during her absence lochinvar remained behind, blowing with all his might upon the dying coals of his anger, and telling himself that he had done nothing worthy of reproach, when suddenly john scarlett plumped himself down into the chair opposite him. he had been in the inn all the time, but only now he had come near walter gordon. "lochinvar," he said, "'tis a sight for sore eyes to see you here! what has happened to the covenant that you have left the prayer-meeting and come to the hostel of the coronation?" "jack," cried wat, "you know me better than that. never was walter gordon a great lover of the covenant all the days of his life." "you ran gayly enough with the hare, then, at any rate!" answered john scarlett, provokingly. "nay," replied wat, "i was hunted by the pack, it is true, but that was because of the dead stroke i gave his grace the duke of wellwood." "and the beginning of that--was it not some matter of doctrine or of the kirk?" asked scarlett, though he knew the truth well enough. the rhenish had been mounting to wat's head, and his heart had grown gay and boastful. "nay," he cried; "very far indeed from that. 'twas rather a matter of the favors of my lady the duchess." one of the men at the next table looked quickly over at wat's words, and, indeed there seemed to be but little talk among them. contrariwise, they sat silently drinking their wine, and as it had been, listening to the talk of wat gordon and his companion. presently the little marie came daintying and smiling back with the wine, deftly weaving her way among the revellers, and as she went by the neighboring table one of the men at the side on which she tried to pass made free to set his arm about her. "change about, my lass," he said; "'tis the turn of this table to have your pretty company. by my faith, they have given us a maid as plain-visaged as a gouda cheese." the little marie gave a quick cry, and wat half started to his feet and laid his hand upon his sword; but scarlett dropped a heavy palm upon his shoulder and forced him back again into his seat. in a moment the girl had adroitly twisted herself from the clutch of the man, and, in addition, had left the marks of her nails on his cheek. "take that, my rascal," she cried, "and learn that spies have no dealings with honest maids." "good spirit, i' faith!" said scarlett, nodding his head approvingly; but the little marie, coming to them with heightened color and angry eyes, did not again set herself on the arm of wat gordon's chair. instead she drew a high stool to the side of the table, midway between wat and scarlett. then she placed her arm upon the table-cloth, and leaned her chin upon the palms of her hands. "abide by us," said walter, who could not bear that so fair and light a thing should be left to the ill-guided mercies of such a mangy pack as were drinking at the next table. the second supply of rhenish, with the capable assistance of scarlett, sank apace in its tall flask, and at each glass wat's voice mounted higher and higher. he could be heard all over the room declaiming upon the merits of scottish men, offering to defend with his life the virtue and beauty of scottish maids, or in case none should be willing to call these in question, then he was equally ready to draw sword on behalf of the dignity and incorruptibility of scottish judges. the guest-room of the coronation was for a while disposed to listen with amused wonder. presently the four men at the table near wat became five. the new-comer proved to be a short-necked, red-faced, deeply-scarred man, dressed in the uniform of the provost-marshal's guards. the wine in wat's brain prevented him for the time from recognizing his ancient enemy, haxo the bull; but haxo the bull nevertheless it was. scarlett was now most anxious to get wat away in safety. there was also a gleam of almost piteous appeal in the eyes of the little marie. "my captain," she said, bending over and laying her hand on his sleeve, "it is high time for you to go to your quarters; you can come and see me again in the morning if you will." for wat was now talking louder than ever, and beating for emphasis upon the table with his hand. "and i repeat that whoever casts a slur upon the virtue and beauty of a scots maid has to settle accounts with wat gordon of lochinvar--" the men at the nearest table had also begun talking loudly, and the voice of haxo pierced the din. "i tell you the girl is safely my master's meat, and she is a dainty filly enough. her name is kate mcghie, and she is a land-owner's daughter somewhere in the barren land of scots. my lord bought her good-will quickly enough with a gay present for herself and a commission for her gossip's loutish husband--trust barra for that. he is never laggard in his affairs with women." wat gordon was on his feet in an instant. the little marie instinctively shrank aside from the white fierce face which she encountered. it looked like the countenance of some one whom she had never seen. the young man fairly spurned the table at which he had been sitting, and with a single spring he was over the next and at the breast of haxo the bull. "villain, you lie in your throat," he shouted, "and i will kill you for your lie! 'tis false as the lying tongue which i will presently tear out of your foul mouth!" the four men rose simultaneously and drew, some of them their swords and the others their daggers. wat would instantly have been stabbed among them but that the little marie, dashing forward like a hawk, threw her arms about the nearest of his foes, for a minute pinioning his hands to his side. then scarlett, with a sweep of his sword, leaped on the table in the midst of them, crying "fair play! stand back there, all of you who do not want to be spitted!" presently, finding wat's grasp relax on his throat as he reached for his weapon, haxo shook himself free and drew the hanger which, in honor of his advancement, he wore instead of his butcher's knife. wat had neither room nor yet time to draw his long sword; but with quick baresark fury he caught up by the leg the heavy oaken chair on which haxo had been sitting, and twirling it over his head like a staff, he struck the brawny butcher with the carved back of it fair on the temple, almost crushing in his cheek. the bull dropped to the floor without a groan. then there ensued a battle fierce and fell in that upper corner of the great room of the coronation. there wat stood at bay with the oaken chair in his hand, while scarlett's long sword turned every way, and even the little marie, long unaccustomed to courtesy, showed her fidelity to the salt of kindness she had tasted. she crouched low behind the fighters, almost on her knees, and waited for a chance to strike upward with the dagger she held in her hand. but the long room swarmed black with their foes. the remaining four had already been reinforced by half a dozen others, and the way to the door seemed completely blocked. then it was that scarlett raised the rallying cry, "scots to me! hither to me, blue bonnets all!" and through the press were thrust the burly shoulders of sergeant davie dunbar and two of his comrades. all might now have gone differently but for the madness working in the brain of wat of lochinvar. for the insult to his sweetheart's good name, uttered by haxo, had made him resolve to kill every man at the table who had heard the blasphemous slander. "arrest him!" the provost-marshal's men cried. "he has murdered haxo!" "die, rogues and liars all!" shouted wat, rushing at them in yet fiercer wrath. and without further parley he brought his chair down upon the shoulder of the nearest, who sank on his face stunned with the mighty blow. "good scots to the rescue!" cried scarlett, as was his custom engaging two men at a time with his point and easily keeping them in play. so in this fashion, wat leading and striking all down in his way with a kind of desperate fury, scarlett and davie dunbar, with the other two scots, pressing as closely after him as they could, the small compact band made its way steadily and slowly towards the outgate of the hostel of the coronation. "lord help us all!" cried the more terrified of their opponents; "let us get out of the way of these praying blue bonnets when they are angered." for the floor began to be sprinkled with groaning men who had dropped from the blades of the outlanders, and with stunned and maimed men stricken down by the fierce vigor of wat's barbaric onslaught. yet, in spite of all, it was a long time before the steadfast five could force their way to the street. by this time wat held his chair by its only surviving leg, and the blades of the small scots phalanx dripped blood into their own basket hilts. the street without was packed with townspeople, and even the watch could not make way to apprehend them. when the scots finally came forth into the night it might, indeed, have gone very ill with them had it not been that a patrol of frisian horse chanced to pass at that moment in front of the hostel of the coronation. to them scarlett cried out in their own country speech (with which he was somewhat acquainted), "help, there, for certain true soldiers of the prince cruelly beset by townsfolk!" now this was the very wisest word he could have spoken. for whatever private discontents they might cherish, all the soldiers of the camp were of the faction of their general when it came to choosing between the prince of orange and the turbulent and rebellious municipality of amersfort. the patrol swiftly opened out, and presently enclosed the five scots between their files. thus they were able to pass safely through the howling mob, which, however, made ugly rushes at them as they went. presently they came to the headquarters of the portion of the force domiciled in the city. wat, who for a time had been entirely sobered by the fierce excitement of battle, now again felt his head reel with the sudden, sharp chill of the night air. yet when the prisoners were confronted with the officer of the night, he at once stepped forward and, without hesitation, assumed the sole responsibility for the affair. "i fear i have slain a man--or, mayhap, more than one," he said; "but these, my friends, have had no part in the quarrel. they but assisted me to fight my way out." "your name and regiment, sir?" said the officer in charge, civilly enough. "i am walter gordon, captain in douglas's regiment of dragoons," replied walter, readily enough. "let captain gordon be taken to the military prison and there kept in the safest cell," interrupted the clear, high voice of barra. he had entered unobserved, having followed the patrol along the street. the officer of the night saluted the high councillor of the prince and present provost-marshal of the camp and city of amersfort. walter was therefore promptly delivered to the officer and file who had been sent to escort him, and in a moment he went out with them into the night. "were they souljers or civilians ye murthered, for sure?" asked the officer, as they marched along the street. he spoke the pleasant tongue of ireland in a soft, far-reaching whisper. "townsfolk," returned wat; "all except one hulking scoundrel of a provost-marshal's man!" "more power to ye," said the irishman, promptly. "give me the grip of your hand--and, by my sowl, i'll give ye a chance to run for it at the next corner." but wat declined the obliging offer of the good-hearted irishman. "i thank you with all my heart," he said. "it is kindly meant. but i prefer to stand my trial. things can't be worse with me than they are!" "faith, it's you that knows, my son," said the irishman; "but to patrick ryan's thinking a long hempen necktie, swung elegantly over a beam, might make things a deal worse for ye!" and in a minute more the iron gate of the military prison of amersfort had shut-to upon wat gordon. chapter xi the hearts of women barra and will gordon returned together to the lodgings in the street of zaandpoort. there was a sinister look of inexpressible triumph on the dark face of my lord of barra. when they reached home will gordon threw himself silently, face downward, on the oak settle; for there arose in his heart the memory of those days, not so long ago, when he and wat had slept under one plaid among the heather on the moors of scotland. and the tears stood in his eyes for the thing which he had seen that night. on their way back barra had bubbled over with laughing sneers at the downfall of his immaculate and virtuous cousin, but will gordon had paced along sad and silent by his side. ancient loyalty kept him without words, yet in his heart he condemned lochinvar most bitterly, far more intensely indeed even than barra. maisie and kate were sitting busily sewing at their delicate white seams when the two men entered. the little dutch lamp had been carefully trimmed, and the whole room radiated cosiest comfort. as was her wont, kate's place was by the window, where she sat looking at her work, keeping a somewhat cold and white face steadfastly upon the monotonous business of needle and thread. maisie sat sad and a little reminiscent of recent tears by the lamp. her eyes were moist, and she did not look at all in the direction of barra and her husband, as they entered. a sense of strain in the air paralyzed conversation after the first greetings had been interchanged. these were loud and eager on the side of barra, almost inaudible on the part of kate and maisie; and as for will gordon, he lay where he had flung himself so suddenly down upon the long oaken couch. "adventures are to the adventurous, and to-night we have adventured indeed," at last began my lord of barra, speaking directly to his hostess. "your husband, with much kindness, accompanied me on my rounds of inspection, and, among other curious discoveries, it was made entirely plain to us why our polite acquaintance lochinvar was in such a hurry to leave us." barra paused with a certain pleasure and appreciation of his own wit in his voice. but no one spoke in the room. will gordon, indeed, gave an inarticulate groan and plunged heavily over upon the settle with his face to the wall. maisie turned her back a little more upon the speaker, while kate bent lower upon her sewing, as if the dim light had suddenly made it harder for her to see the stitches. "and if you hesitate to believe the extraordinary things i have to tell you, my friend here, captain gordon of the covenanting regiment, will tell you where, in the discharge of my duty as provost-marshal of the camp, it was our business to penetrate, and in what company and in what circumstances we found your cousin of lochinvar." "we do not want to hear. it was all our fault!" said maisie, turning suddenly full upon the speaker. unconsciously to himself, barra had been using a somewhat pompous and judicial tone, as though he were pronouncing judgment upon a hardened offender. at maisie's words, the provost-marshal instantly sat erect in his chair. he was exceedingly astonished. a few hours before he had seen these two women stern almost to severity over a mere breach of good manners. he could not imagine that now they would not utterly reject and condemn such a reprobate as wat gordon had proved himself to be. he felt that he must surely have been misunderstood, so he proceeded to make his meaning clear. "but i tell you plainly, my ladies," barra continued, still more impressively, "that your husband and i found your cousin of lochinvar at the hostel of the coronation, of which you may have heard--there spending his living with harlots, flaunting their endearments in a public place, and afterwards brawling with the meanest and rudest boors of the camp." "and i do not wonder!" cried maisie lennox, emphatically, "after the way he was used in this house, which ought to have been a home to him. william gordon, i wonder how, as a christian man, you could permit your cousin to be so used!" she continued, fiercely turning upon her husband and bursting into tears. will gordon groaned inarticulately from the settle. he had not been present at the time, but he knew well that with women such a transparent subterfuge would avail him nothing. "why, maisie," he began, speaking from the depths of the pillow, "did not you yourself--" "i do not think," said barra, looking over to will, "that your wife understands that the hostel of the coronation is, of all the haunts of sin in this city of amersfort, the vilest and the worst. the man who would make his good name a byword there is certainly unfit to have the honor of admission into a circle so gracious, into society so pure as that in which i first found him. i speak as the censor of the morals of the army, and also as one who has suffered many things for conscience' sake and in order to deserve the praise of them that do well." kate looked up for the first time since will and barra had come in. as the latter finished speaking he noticed that her eyes were very dark, and yet at the same time very bright. the black of the pupil had overspread the iris so that the whole eye at a distance appeared as dark as ink, but deep within the indignant light of a tragic love burned steadily, like a lamp in the night. the girl spoke quickly and clearly, as if the words had been forced from her. "had i been so used at the only place i called 'home,' when i was a stranger in a strange land, i tell you all i should have gone straight to the hostel of the coronation--or worse, if worse might be!" she cried, indignantly. "and so also would i!" cried maisie, with still greater emphasis, sticking her needle viciously into the table and breaking it as she spoke. the settle creaked as will gordon leaped to his feet. "silly women, ye ken not what ye say!" he said, sternly. "be wise and plead rather with the man in whose hands our cousin's very life may lie, for the deeds of this black night." "his life--his life!" cried, instantly, maisie and kate together. the latter rose to her feet, letting all her white bravery of seamstressing slip unheeded to the ground. maisie, on her part, turned a pale and tear-stained face eagerly up to her husband. "yes," said barra, swiftly, eager to tell the story first, "it is true--his life; for walter gordon, being in company at the place i have mentioned with a light woman, brawled and insulted those who sat near him, offering to assert and defend her virtue at the sword's point. then when he was withstood and threatened with arrest by my officers, as their duty was, he turned fiercely upon them and upon others, the supporters of law and order, and now he lies in prison awaiting trial for _murder_!" kate caught the table with her hand at the last terrible word, which barra hissed out with concentrated fury and hatred. "is this true?" she said, in a low voice, making a great effort to regain her calmness. she turned to will gordon as she spoke. "nay," said will, "indeed i know nothing of the cause of the quarrel. but certain it is that there has been a most fierce brawl, and that in the affray certain men have been grievously wounded, if not killed." "and is our wat in prison?" demanded maisie, fiercely. "he lies in the military prison of the city awaiting his trial by court-martial!" replied the provost. maisie turned her about and caught her husband by the braid of his coat. "go you to him at once--you must! tell him it is all our fault--we have been unhappy and to blame, kate and i--ask him to forgive." and, being overwrought and strained, she put her head down on will gordon's breast and wept aloud. kate went to her and took her hand gently. and to her maisie instantly turned, setting her husband aside with a pathetic little gesture of renunciation, as something which has been proven untrustworthy. then, still leaning on kate's shoulder, she passed slowly from the room. as kate mcghie opened the door she flashed one glance, quick with measureless anger and contempt, back upon the two men who stood gazing after her. then she passed out. there was a long silence between the provost-marshal and his host after the women had disappeared. at last barra broke in upon the awkward pause with a laugh of scorn which ended with something like a sigh. "oh, women! women," he cried. "from what pits will ye not dig the clay to make you your gods!" "he had been our friend so long, and in such bitter passes and desperate ventures," said will gordon, excusingly, speaking of wat in a hushed voice almost as one would speak of the dead. barra shrugged his shoulders to intimate that the whole sex was utterly impossible of comprehension. "nevertheless, you will give our poor cousin your best word and offices to-morrow?" will gordon went on, anxiously. "i shall see the prince in person," answered barra, promptly, "and i shall make my endeavor to arrange that the prisoner shall not be tried by court-martial--so that nothing summary may take place, and no sentence be hastily or vindictively carried out." will gordon blanched at the word "summary," which in the severely disciplined army of the states-general had but one meaning. he conducted his guest to the door in silence. the moonlight was casting deep shadows in the high-gabled street of zaandpoort and glittering on the pole-axes and muskets of the provost's guard who stood without, stamping their feet impatiently and waiting the appearance of their leader. "till to-morrow, then!" said will gordon, as he parted. "till to-morrow!" replied the provost-marshal, more heartily than he had yet spoken, giving him his hand. but as he walked down the street towards the camp he smiled a smile from under the thin, drooping mustache which showed his teeth. they glittered white in the moonlight like a dog's. chapter xii the prison of amersfort the prison of the city of amersfort stood at the corner of one of its most ancient streets, and the military portion of it exposed a long scarped wall to the public, broken only by a single line of small windows triply barred with iron stanchions of the thickness of a man's wrist. these windows were only separated from the street by a low wall and a strong but wide-meshed railing of wrought iron. in the large room of the jail, where only those prisoners were kept who were detained for slight offences, or who awaited trial, the unglazed squares of the window were large enough to admit of a pole and small basket being protruded, so that it should hang within reach of the passers-by. one of the inmates was appointed to stand with this curious fishing-rod in his hand, and the plaintive wail, "remember the poor prisoners of the prince!" resounded all day along the ancient thoroughfare. but wat was too important a guest to be placed in this common room. by special direction of the provost-marshal he had a cell assigned to him in a tower only a few yards above the level of the street. his apartment had two windows, one of which being in the belly of the tower looked up and down the thoroughfare. he could see the passengers as they went to and fro, and if any had cared to stop he might even have spoken with them. wat paid little attention to the street for the first day or two which he passed in the cell. mostly he sat on the low pallet bed with his head sunk deeply in his hands. he gave himself up completely to melancholy thoughts. during the first day he had expected every hour to be brought before a military tribunal. but the fact that the day passed without incident more discomposing than the visits of the turnkey with his scanty meals informed wat that he was not to be tried by any summary method of jurisdiction, though in the angry state of the feelings of the army against the townsfolk of amersfort, and especially smouldering hatred of the provost-marshal's men, this would doubtless have been wat's best chance. but his mortal enemy did not wish to run the risk of seeing his rival set free with but some slight penalty, and, being in a position of great influence, he had his will. day by day passed in the prison, each wearier and grayer than the other. finally, wat took to his barred windows and watched the stream of traffic. as the poignancy of his regret dulled to a steady ache, he became deeply interested in the boys who sported in the gutters and sailed ships of wood and paper in every spate and thunder-shower. he watched for the rosy-cheeked maids, with their black, clattering sabots, who paused a moment to adjust their foot-gear with a swish of pleated skirts and a glimpse of dainty ankle; and then, having once stopped, stood a long time gossiping with their plain-visaged, flat-capped, broad-breeched lovers. above all, wat loved the vagrant dogs that wandered lazily about the shady corners and fought one another like yellow, whirling hoops in the dust. often he would leave his meagre meal untouched in order to watch them. one dog in particular interested him more than all the human beings in the street of the prison. he was a long, thin-bodied beast of a yellowish-gray color, of no particular ancestry, and certainly without personal charms of any kind, save as it might be those incident to phenomenal and unredeemed ugliness. to this ignoble hound wat daily devoted a large proportion of his dole of bread. it amused him to entice the beast each day nearer to the railings, and then, while other stouter and better-favored animals were for the moment at a distance, wat would deftly propel a pellet of bread to this faithful attendant. at first, the pariah of the street of the prison suspected a trap. for during an eventful life he had on several occasions been taken in with pepper balls and second-hand mustard plasters by the brisk young men of the hospitals and of the netherlands trading companies. now it chanced that while wat thus played good samaritan to a cur of the gutter, two women stood at the outer gate of the prison. it was not the first occasion they had been there, nor yet the first time they had been denied entrance. maisie and kate, with women's generosity and swift repentance, still blaming themselves deeply for their hastiness, had gone to inquire for lochinvar early on the morning after he had been put in prison. but neither by persuasions nor yet with all their little store of money could they buy even a moment's interview. the jailer's orders were too imperative. some one high in authority had given the sternest injunctions that no one was to be allowed to see the prisoner on any pretext. will had accompanied them on one occasion in his new officer's uniform, and even discovered in the chief turnkey an old comrade of groningen. but it was vain. strict obedience to his instructions was the keeper's life, as well as his bread and his honor. simply, he dared not, he said, permit any to see that particular prisoner. but, had they known it, there was a way of access to wat. as they came out of the prison gates they met barra. the provost-marshal, with a gloomy countenance, informed them that the prince took a very serious view of the affair of their cousin. however, he was in hopes that the sentence, though severe and exemplary, would not in any case be death. probably, however, it might involve a very long period of imprisonment. "the prince and his council have resolved that an example must be made. there have been, they say, far too many of these brawls in the army. it is such occurrences which breed ill-blood betwixt the soldiers and the townsfolk." "but in that case," said maisie, "why not persuade the prince to make an example of somebody else--not, surely, of our cousin wat?" barra shrugged his shoulders. "i am afraid," he said, softly, "that we cannot always arrange matters so that the penalties shall fall on shoulders whose sufferings will not hurt us. but you, dear ladies, can wholly trust me to use all my influence, so that your friend may soon find himself again at liberty." thus talking, they had turned to the right, and were now walking down the street of the prison. maisie went a little ahead with her hand on her husband's arm, thinking that perhaps if kate were left to herself she might be able to move the provost-marshal to kindlier purposes. barra lingered as much as he could, in order to separate kate and himself as widely as possible from the pair in front. they passed close to wat's window, and the prisoner watched them go by with black despair in his heart. as they reached the gloomy angle of the prison, barra indicated, with a wave of his hand, a remarkable gargoyle in the shape of a devil's head, frowning from the battlements of the gray, beetling tower. through the closed bars of his window wat noticed the gesture, as barra intended that he should. "my god!" he cried aloud, to the deaf walls, "he has brought her this way to gloat with her over my prison-house!" and he flew at the bars of his window, striking and shaking them till his hands were bruised and bleeding. "let me get out! god in heaven! let me get out--that i may kill him!" he cried, in the madness of agony. but the bars resisted his utmost endeavor. not so much as a particle of mortar stirred, and after spending all his strength in vain, wat fell back on his hard pallet utterly exhausted, and lay there for hours in a vague and dazed unconsciousness. the sullen, tranced hours verged towards evening, and wat still lay motionless. the keeper had twice been to his cell with food. but finding on the occasion of his second visit the previous supply of bread and water untouched, he had merely laid down the small loaf of black bread which was served out to the prisoners every night, and so departed. at intervals a low voice seemed to steal into wat's cell through the silence of the prison. "a friend would speak with you--a friend would speak with you." the words came up from the street beneath. at the third or fourth repetition wat rose wearily and, with a dull and hopeless heart, went to the window whence he was wont to feed the dog with pellets of bread in the morning. a girl, small and slim of body, plainly attired in a black dress, stood directly underneath. wat was about to turn back again to his couch, thinking that the summons could not have been intended for him, when the maid eagerly beckoned him to remain. "do you not remember me?" she said; "i am the little marie. i have never gone back to the hostel of the coronation. i have been very wicked. i know i have brought you here. i know that you cannot forgive me; but tell me something--anything that i may do for you?" "it is not at all your fault that i am here," replied wat gordon, "only that of my own mad folly. do not reproach yourself, nor trouble yourself, i pray you. there is nothing at all that you can do for me--" "no one you love to whom i could carry a message--a letter?" the girl looked wistfully up at him as she said this. "i would deliver it so safely, so secretly." a little before, wat would gladly, eagerly indeed, have accepted the offer, and sent her at once to the street of zaandpoort, in spite of his dismissal. but now his eyes had seen. "nay, little marie," he said, smiling sadly. "there is no one whom i love, no one who cares in the least to hear of me or of my welfare." the girl stood still, plucking at the lace on her black sleeve, and looking down. "run home now, little marie," said wat, kindly. "i am glad you have left the hostel of the coronation. do not go back there any more." the girl stood still in her place beneath the window. at last she said, without looking up, "there is one whom you do not love, who cares much that you are in prison and alone!" "and who may that be, marie--old jack scarlett, mayhap?" the girl looked up for a moment--a sudden, flashing look through blinding tears. "only bad-hearted little marie--that would die for you!" she said, brokenly. and without caring even to wipe away her tears, she walked slowly down the midst of the street of the prison, seeing no one at all, and answering none of the greetings that were showered upon her. chapter xiii my lord of barra's vow kate stood at her favorite window, looking down upon five little boys playing barley break in a solemn plantigrade dutch fashion in the dust of zaandpoort street by the canal. opposite her stood barra. he was dressed in his customary close-fitting suit of black velvet, and his slim waist was belted by the orange sash of a high councillor, while by his side swung a splendid sword in a scabbard of gold. a light cape of black velvet was about his shoulders, and its orange lining of fine silk drooped gracefully over his arm. "listen to me, dear lady," he was saying. "i am a soldier, and not a courtier. i have not glozing words to woo you with. no more than a plain man's honest words. i love you, and from that i shall never change. at present i can offer you but a share of the exile's bitter bread. but when the prince comes to his own, there shall be none in broad scotland able to count either men or money with murdo, earl of barra and of the small isles." "my lord barra," said kate, "i thank you for your exceeding courtesy. i feel your surpassing condescension. but i cannot marry you now nor yet again. if i loved you at all i should be proud and glad to take you by the hand and walk out of the door with you into the wide world--for you renouncing friends, fame, wealth, all, as if they were so many dead leaves of the autumn. but since i do not and cannot love you, believe that the proffer of great honor and rank can never alter my decision. this, indeed, i have told you before." "well do i know," answered the high councillor, "that you have spoken, concerning me, words hard and cruel to be borne. but that was before either of us understood the depth of my devotion--before you knew that i desired, as i seek for salvation, to make you scarcely less in honor than the queen herself, among those isles of the sea, where true hearts abide. the cause of our religion is great. help me to make of our scotland a land of faith and freedom. love me for the sake of the cause, kate, if not for mine own most unworthy sake." "the cause is indeed still great and precious to me. i have been honored to suffer the least things for it. nevertheless the cause is not to be served by one doing wrong, but by many doing right. you are--i believe it--an honorable man, my lord barra. you will serve your master faithfully till that good day comes when scotland shall again have freedom to worship under kirk-rigging or roof-tree, or an it liketh her under the broad span of the sky." "but you carry in your heart the image of a traitor," said barra, a little more fiercely--"a double traitor, one whom i have seen false both to his country and to you. know you that only my bare word stands between your lover and death?" "i know not whether walter gordon be dead or alive," replied kate, gently. "i say not that i love him, nor yet that he loves me. i do not know. but i say that if he does love me, in the only way i care to be loved, he would rather die a thousand deaths than that, in order to preserve his life, his true love should wed a man whom she cares not for either as lover or as husband." "then you will not love me?" said he, bending his head towards her as if to look into her soul. "i cannot, my lord barra," she made him answer; "love comes not like a careful man-servant. it runs not like a well-trained dog at the sounding of a whistle. one cannot draw back the arras of the heart and say to love, 'hither and speedily!' the wind bloweth, say the preachers, where it listeth. and so love also comes not with observation. rather, like a thunderstorm, it bears victoriously up against the wind. for just when the will is most set against love, then it takes completest possession of the heart." "could you have loved me," he asked, more calmly, "if you had known no other? if the other existed not?" "that i know not," said kate. "all my life long i have never loved man or woman where i wanted to love, or was bid to love. whether, therefore, in this case or that one could have loved serves no purpose in the asking. nor, indeed, can it be answered. for the only issue is, that of a surety i love you not. and do you, my lord, of your most gentle courtesy, take that answer as one frankly given by an honest maid, and so depart content. there are in this land and in our own country a thousand fairer, a thousand worthier than i." "kate," said barra, more intently and tenderly than he had yet spoken, "some day, and in some isle of quiet bliss where all evil and untoward things are put behind us, i will yet make you love me. for never have i thus set all my fancy on any woman before. and by the word of murdo, lord of barra, none but you will i wed, and, by the honor of my clan, no other shall have you but i!" he held out his hand. kate, desiring him to go, gave him hers a little reluctantly. he bent to it and kissed it fervently. "on this hand i swear," he said, slowly and solemnly, "that while i live it shall be given in marriage to none other, but shall be mine alone. by the graves that are green on the isle of ashes and by the honor of the thirty chieftains of barra--i swear it." kate took her hand quickly again to her. "ye have taken a vain oath, my lord," she said, "for marriage and the giving of a hand are not within the compulsion of one, but are the agreement of two. and if this hand is ever given to a man my heart shall go with it, or else kate mcghie's marriage-bed shall be her resting-grave!" * * * * * it was but two years since the little marie had carried her first basket of flowers to the streets of brussels. from an ancient farm nigh to the city she had come, bringing with her her fresh complexion, her beauty, her light, swift, confident, easily influenced spirit. then, while yet a child, she had been hunted down, petted, betrayed, and forsaken by the man who, being on a visit to brussels, had first been attracted by her childish simplicity. it chanced that in the dark days of her despair she had found her way to amersfort, and finally to the hostel of the coronation. she had been there but a bare week when wat came into her life, and his words to the girl were the first of genuine, unselfish kindness she had listened to in that abode of smiling misery and radiant despair. as a trampled flower raises its head after a gentle rain, so her scarcely dulled childish purity reawakened within her, and with it--all the more fiercely that it came too late--the love that suffereth all things and upbraideth not. marie was suddenly struck to the heart by the agony of her position. she might love, but none could give her back true love in return. her soul abode in blank distress after the fray had been quelled and walter led away to prison. without speech to any at the inn of the coronation, marie fled to the house of a decent woman of her own country, who undertook the washing and dressing of fine linen--dainty cobweb frilleries for the ladies of the city, and stiffer garmentry for the severe and sober court of the princess of orange. for love had been a plant of swift growth in the lush and ill-tended garden of the girl's heart. constantly after this both dawn and dusk found her beneath wat's window. marie contrived a little basket attached to a rope, which he let down from the window in the swell of the tower. she it was who instructed wat how to make the first cord of sufficient length and strength by ravelling a stocking and replaiting the yarn. in this fashion marie brought to wat's prison-cell such fruits as the warehouses of the nederlandish companies afforded--strange-smelling delicacies of the utmost indies, and early dainties from gardens nearer home. linen, too, fresh and clean, she brought him, and flowers--at all of which, for the consideration of a dole of gold, the jailer winked, so that wat's heart was abundantly touched by the pathetic devotion of the girl. scarce could she be induced to accept the money which wat put into her basket when he let it down again. and even then marie took the gold only that she might have the means of obtaining other delicacies for wat--such as were beyond the reach of purchase out of the meagre stipend she received from the laundress of fine linen with whom her working-days were spent. more seldom did marie come to the street of the prison in the evening after the work of the day was done. for there were many who knew her moving to and fro in these early summer twilights, so that she feared that her mission might be observed and wat moved to another cell, out of reach of the street of the prison. but one afternoon of sullen clouds and murky weather, when few people were abroad upon the streets of amersfort, marie sickened of the hot steamy atmosphere of the laundry and the chatter of the maids of the quarter, in which she was allowed to have no part. she finished her work earlier than the others--perhaps for that reason--and stole quietly away to the tower of wat's prison, where it jutted out over the cobble-stones of the pavement. wat was at his post, looking out, as usual, upon the slackening traffic and quickening pleasure-seeking of the street. he was truly glad to see the girl, and greeted her appearance with a kind smile. "i had not expected you till the morning," he said. "but i have lived on the freshness of your flowers all day. i have also had my cell washed. black peter, my jailer, was inclined to be complaisant to me this morning. it is his birthday, he says." wat smiled as he said it. for he had bestowed one of his few remaining coins upon peter; which, ever since, that worthy had been swallowing to his good health in the shape of pure hollands. indeed, at this moment there came from below the rollicking voice of jolly black peter, singing a song which ran through a catalogue of camp pleasures and soldierly delights, such as certainly could not all have been enjoyed within the grim precincts of the prison of amersfort. "you are sure that there is no friend i can take a message to?" asked the little marie, for the fiftieth time; "no beloved mistress to whom i can carry a letter?" "none," said wat, smiling sadly. "but there," he continued, pointing quickly across the street of the prison at a man hurrying out of sight, "is one whom, an it please you, you may take note of. i am not able to show you a friend. but yonder goes my heart's enemy. there at the corner--the dark man in the suit of velvet, with the orange-lined cloak and the sword hilted with gold." the little marie darted across the street in a moment, and threaded her way deftly among the boisterous traffic of the huxters' stalls. presently she came back. there was a new and dangerous excitement in her eye. "i know him," she said; "it is my lord barra, the provost-marshal. he is your enemy, you say. it is well. but he was my enemy before he was yours. sleep sound," she continued, looking up at him with an eye as clear and peaceful as a cloistered nun's. "take no thought for your enemy, but only, ere you sleep, say a prayer to your scottish god for the sinful soul of the little marie that loves you better than her life." chapter xiv maisie's night quest in the street of zaandpoort, upon a certain evening, it had grown early dark. the sullen, sultry day had broken down at the gloaming into a black and gurly night of rain, which came in fierce dashes, alternating with fickle, veering flaws and yet stranger lulls and stillnesses. anon, when the rain slackened, the hurl of the storm overhead could be heard, while up aloft every chimney in amersfort seemed to shriek aloud in a different key. maisie had gone down an hour ago and barred the outer door with a stout oaken bolt, hasping the crossbar into its place as an additional precaution. she would sit up, she said, till william returned from duty, and then she would be sure to hear him approach. on a still night she could distinguish his footsteps turning out of the wide spaces of the dam into the echoing narrows of the street of zaandpoort. she and kate sat between the newly lighted lamp and the fire of wood which maisie had insisted on making in order to keep out the gusty chills of the night. a cosier little upper-room there was not to be found in all amersfort. but there had fallen a long silence between the two. maisie, as usual, was thinking of william. it troubled her that her husband had that day gone abroad without his blue military overcoat, and she declared over and over that he would certainly come home wet from head to foot. kate's needle paused, lagged, and finally stopped altogether. her dark eyes gazed long and steadily into the fire. she saw a black and gloomy prison-cell with the wind shrieking into the glassless windows. she heard it come whistling and hooting through the bars as though they were infernal harp-strings. and she thought, at once bitterly and tenderly, of one who might be even then lying upon the floor without either cloak or covering. a sharp, hard sob broke into maisie's pleasant revery. she went quickly over to the girl, and sat down beside her. "be patient, kate," she said; "it will all come right if you bide a little. they cannot kill him, for none of the men who were wounded are dead--though for their own purposes his enemies have tried to make the prince believe so." kate lifted her head and looked piteously at maisie. "but even if he comes from prison, he will never forgive me. it was my fault--my fault," she said, and let her head fall again on maisie's shoulder. "nay," said maisie; "but i will go to him and own to him that the fault was mine--tell him that he was not gone a moment before i was sorry and ran after him to bring him back. he may be angry with me if he likes; but, at least, he shall understand that you were free from blame." but this consolation, perhaps because it was now repeated for the fiftieth time, somehow failed to bring relief to kate's troubled heart. "he will never come back, i know," she said; "for i sent him away! oh, how i wish i had not sent him away! why--why did you let me?" maisie's mouth dropped to a pathetic pout of despair. it was so much easier comforting a man, she thought, than a girl. now, if it had been william-- but at that moment a loud and continuous knocking was heard at the outer door, which had been so carefully barred against the storm. "it is my dear!" cried maisie, jumping eagerly to her feet, "and i had not heard his footstep turn into the street." and she looked reproachfully at kate, as though in this instance she had been entirely to blame. "it is the first time that i ever missed hearing that," she said, and ran quickly down the stairs. as she threw open the fastenings a noisy gust of wind rioted in, and slammed all the doors with claps like thunder. "william!" she cried, "dear lad, forgive me; i could not hear your foot for the noise of the wind, though i was listening. believe me that--" but it was the face of an unknown man which confronted her. he was clad in a blue military mantle, under which a uniform was indistinctly seen. "your pardon, madam," he said, looking down upon her, "are you not mistress gordon, the wife of captain william gordon, of the regiment of the covenant?" "i am indeed his wife," said maisie, with just pride; "what of him?" "i am bidden to say that he urgently requires your presence at the guard-house." maisie felt all the warm blood ebb from about her heart. but she only bit her lip, and set her hand hard over her breast. "he is ill--he is dead!" she panted, scarcely knowing what she said. "nay," said the man, "not ill, and not dead. but he sends you word that he needs you urgently." "you swear to me that he is not dead?" she said, seizing him fiercely by the wet cuff of his coat. for the man had laid his hand upon the edge of the wind-blown door to keep it steady as he talked, or perhaps in fear lest it should be shut in his face before his errand was accomplished. without waiting for another word besides the man's reiterated assurance, maisie fled up-stairs, and telling kate briefly that her husband needed her and had sent for her to the guard-room, she thrust a sheathed dagger into her bosom, and ran back down to the outer door. "bide a moment, and i will come with you!" cried kate, after her. "no, no," answered maisie, "stay you and keep the house. i shall not be long away. keep the water hot against william's return." so saying, she shut the outer door carefully behind her, and hurried into the night. maisie had expected that the man who had brought the message would be waiting to guide her, but he had vanished. the long street of zaandpoort was bare and dark from end to end, lit only by the lights within the storm-beaten houses where the douce burghers of amersfort were sitting at supper or warming their toes at an early and unwonted fire. then for the first time it occurred to maisie that she did not know whether her husband would be found at the guard-house of the palace, or at that by the city port, where was the main entrance to the camp. she decided to try the palace first. with throbbing heart the young wife ran along the rain-swept streets. she had thrown her husband's cloak over her arm as she came out, with the idea of making him put it on when she found him. but she was glad enough, before she had ventured a hundred paces into the dark, roaring night, to drawn it closely over her own head and wrap herself from head to foot in it. as she turned out upon the wide spaces of the dam of amersfort, into which zaandpoort street opened, she almost ran into the arms of the watch. an officer, who went first with a lantern, stopped her. "whither away so fast and so late, maiden?" he said; "an thou give not a fitting answer we must have thee to the spinning-house." "i am the wife of a scottish officer," said maisie, nothing daunted. "and he being, as i think, taken suddenly ill, has sent for me by a messenger, whom in the darkness i have missed." "your husband's name and regiment?" demanded the leader of the watch, abruptly, yet not unkindly. "he is called william gordon," she said, "and commands to-night at the guard-house. he is a captain in the scots regiment, called that of the covenant." the officer turned to his band. "what regiments are on guard to-night?" "the scots psalm-singers at the palace--van marck's frisians at the port of the camp," said a voice out of the dark. "and if it please you, i know the lady. she is a main brave one, and her husband is a good man. he carried the banner at ayrsmoss, a battle in scotland where many were slain, and after which he was the only man of the hill folk left alive." "go with her, thou, then," commanded the officer, "and bring her in safety to her husband. it is not fitting, madam, that you should be on the streets of the city at midnight and alone. good-night and good speed to you, lady. men of the city guard, forward!" and with that the watch swung briskly up the street, the light of their leader's lantern flashing this way and that across the darkling road, as it dangled in his hand or was swayed by the fitful wind. it seemed but a few minutes before maisie's companion was challenging the soldiers of the guard at the palace. "captain william gordon? yea, he bides within," said a stern-visaged sergeant, in the gusty outer port. "who might want him at this time of night?" "his wife," said the soldier of the watch, indicating maisie with his hand. the sergeant bent his brows, as if he thought within him that this was neither hour nor place for the domesticities. nevertheless, he opened an inner door, saluted upon the threshold, spoke a few words, and waited. will gordon himself came out almost instantly in full uniform. one cheek was somewhat ruddy with sitting before the great fire, which cast pleasant gleams through the doorway into the outer hall of the guard. "why, maisie!" he cried, "what do you here, lassie?" he spoke in the kindly scots of their galloway hills. maisie started back in apprehensive astonishment. "did you not send for me, william? a messenger brought me word an hour ago, or it may be less, that you needed me most urgently. i thought you had been sick, or wounded, at the least. so i spared not, but hasted hither alone, running all the way. but i came on the watch, and the officer sent this good man with me." will gordon laughed. "some one hath been playing april-fool overly late in the day. if i catch him i will swinge him tightly therefor. he might have put thee in great peril, little one." "i had a dagger, william," said maisie, determinedly, putting her hand on her breast; "and had i a mind i could speak bad words also, if any had dared to meddle with me." "well, in a trice i shall be relieved," he said. "come in by the fire. 'tis not exactly according to the general's regulations. but i will risk the prince coming on such a night--or what would be worse, mr. michael shields, who is our regimental chaplain and preceptor-general in righteousness." presently they issued forth, maisie and her husband walking close together. his arm was about her, and the one blue military cloak proved great enough for two. they walked along, talking right merrily, to the street of zaandpoort. at the foot of the stair they stopped with a gasp of astonishment. the door stood open to the wall. "it hath been blown open by the wind," said will gordon. they went up-stairs, maisie first, and her husband standing a moment to shake the drops of rain from the cloak. "kate, kate, where are you?" cried maisie, as she reached the landing-place a little out of breath, as at this time was her wont. but she recoiled from what she saw in the sitting-room. the lamp burned calmly and steadily upon its ledge. but the chairs were mostly overturned. the curtain was torn down, and flapped in the gusts through the window, which stood open towards the canal. kate's bible lay fluttering its leaves on the tiles of the fireplace. the floor was stained with the mud of many confused footmarks. a scrap of lace from kate's sleeve hung on a nail by the window. but in all the rooms of the house in the street of zaandpoort there was no sign of the girl herself. she had completely vanished. pale to the lips, and scarce knowing what they did, will gordon and his wife sat down at opposite sides of the table, and stared blankly at each other without speech or understanding. chapter xv a night of storm i will now tell the thing which happened to kate in the house in zaandpoort street that stormy night when for an hour she was left alone. when maisie went out, kate heard the outer door shut with a crash as the wind rushed in. the flames swirled up the wide chimney in the sitting-room, whereupon she rose and drew the curtain across the inner door. then she went to the wood-box and piled fresh fagots about the great back-log, which had grown red and smouldering. for a long time after she had finished she knelt looking at the cheerful blaze. she sighed deeply, as if her thoughts had not been of the same complexion. then she rose and went to the window which looked out upon the canal. it was her favorite musing-place. she leaned her brow against the half-drawn dimity curtain, and watched the rain thresh the waters till they gleamed gray-white in the sparkle of the lights along the canal bank. a vague unrest and uncertainty filled her soul. "wat, wat!" she whispered, half to herself. "what would i not give if i might speak to you to-night--only tell you that i would never be hasty or angry with you again!" and she set her hand upon her side as though she had been suddenly stricken by a pain of some grievous sort. yet not a pang of sharp agony, but only a dull, empty ache, lonely and hungry, was abiding there. "how he must hate me!" she said. "it was my fault that he went away in anger. he would never have gone to that place had we not first been cruel to him here." and in his cell, listening dully, to the tramp of the sparse passers-by coming up to his window through the tumultuous blowing of all the horns of the tempest, wat was saying to himself the same thing: "how she must hate me--thus to walk with him and let him point a scornful hand at my prison window." but in the street of zaandpoort, the lonely girl's uneasiness was fast deepening into terror. suddenly kate lifted her head. there was surely a slight noise at the outer door. she had a vague feeling that a foot was coming up the stair. she listened intently, but heard nothing save the creaking of doors within and the hurl of the tempest without. a thought came sharply to her, and her heart leaped palpably in her breast. could it possibly be that wat, released from prison, had come directly back to her? her lips parted, and a very lovely light came into her eyes, as of late was used to do when one spoke well of wat gordon. she stood gazing fixedly at the door, but the sound was not repeated. then she looked at the place where he had stood on the threshold that first night when he came bursting in upon them--the time when he saw her lie with her head low in maisie's lap. "dear wat!" she said softly, over and over to herself--"dear, dear wat!" but alas! wat gordon was lying stretched on his pallet in the round tower of the prison of amersfort; while without another maid called to him in the drenching rain, which love did not permit her to feel. he could neither hear the tender thrill in his true love's voice, nor yet respond to the pleading of her once proud heart, which love had now made gentle. he heard nothing but the roar of the wind which whirled away towards the north sea, yelling with demon laughter as it shook his window bar, and shouted mocking words over the sill. but all suddenly, as kate looked again through the window, she became aware that certain of the lights on the canal edge were being blotted out. something black seemed to rise up suddenly before the window. the girl started back, and even as she stood motionless, stricken with sudden fear, the window was forcibly opened, and a man in a long cloak, and wearing a black mask, stepped into the room. kate was too much astonished to cry out. she turned quickly towards the door with intent to flee. but before she could reach it two men entered by it, masked and equipped like the first. none of the three uttered a word of threatening or explanation; they only advanced and seized her arms. in a moment they had wrapped kate in a great cloak, slipped a soft elastic gag into her mouth, and carried her towards the window. the single wild cry which she had time to utter before her mouth was stopped was whirled away by a gust yet fiercer than any of those which all night had ramped and torn their way to the sea betwixt the irregular gables and twisted chimney-stalks of the ancient street of zaandpoort. the man who had entered first through the window now received her in his arms. he clambered down by a ladder which was set on the canal bank, and held in its position by two men. yet another man stood ready to assist, and so in a few moments kate found herself upon a horse, while the man who had come first through the window mounted behind her and kept about her waist an arm of iron strength. by this time kate was half unconscious with the terror of her position. she knew not whither she was being taken, and could make no guess at the identity of her captors. she could, indeed, hear them talking together, but in a language which she could not understand and which she had never before heard. the gag in her mouth did not greatly hurt her, but her arms were tightly fastened to her sides, and her cramped position on the saddle in front of her captor became, as the miles stretched themselves out behind them, an exquisitely painful one. with the beating of the horses' hoofs the cloak gradually dropped from her eyes, so that kate could discern dark hedge-rows and occasional trees drifting like smoke behind them as they rode. the lightning played about in front, dividing land and sky with its vivid pale-blue line. then the thunder went roaring and galloping athwart the universe, and lo! on the back of that, the black and starless canopy shut down blacker than ever. once through the folds of the cloak kate saw a field of flowers, all growing neatly together in squares, lit up by the lightning. every parallelogram stood clear as on a chess-board. but the color was wholly gone out of them, all being subdued to a ghastly pallor by the fierce brilliance of the zigzag flame. to the dazed and terrified girl hours seemed to pass, and still the horses did not stop. at last kate could feel, by the uneven falling of the hoofs and by the slower pace of the beasts, that they had reached rougher country, where the roads were less densely compacted than in the neighborhood of the traffic of a city. then, after a little, the iron of the horseshoes grated sharply on the pebbles of the sea-shore. men's voices cried harshly back and forth, lanterns flashed, snorting horses checked themselves, spraying the pebbles every way from their forefeet--and presently kate felt herself being lifted down from the saddle. so stiff was she with the constraint of her position that, but for the support of the man who helped her down, she would have fallen among the stones. the lightning still gleamed fitfully along the horizon. the wind was blowing off shore, but steadily and with a level persistence which one might lean against. the wild gustiness of the first burst of the storm had passed away, and as the pale lightning flared up along the rough edges of the sea, which appeared to rise above her like a wall, kate could momentarily see the slanting masts of a small vessel lying-to just outside the bar, her bowsprit pointing this way and that, as she heaved and labored in the swell. "you are monstrously late!" a voice exclaimed, in english, and a dark figure stood between them and the white tops of the nearer waves. kate's conductor grunted surlily, but made no audible reply. the man in whose arms she had travelled, as in bands of iron, now dismounted and began to swear at the speaker in strange, guttural, unintelligible oaths. "we are here to wait for my lord!" cried the man who had lifted kate from the saddle. he stood by her, still holding her arm securely. his voice had a curious metallic ring in it, and an odd upward intonation at the close of a sentence which remained in the memory. "indeed!" replied the voice which had first spoken; "then we, for our part, can stop neither for my lord nor any other lord in heaven or on earth. for captain smith of poole has weighed his anchor, and waits now only the boat's return to run for branksea, with the wind and the white horses at his tail. nor is he the man to play pitch-and-toss out there very long, even for his own long-boat and shipmates, with such a spanking blow astern of the _sea unicorn_." "my lord will doubtless be here directly. his horse was at the door ere we left," again answered the metallic voice with the quirk in the tail of it. "we will e'en give him other ten minutes," quoth the sailor, imperturbably. [illustration: "the man carried her easily through the surf"] and he stood with his ship's watch in his hand, swinging his lantern up and down in answer to some signal from the ship, too faint for ordinary eyes to catch across the whip and swirl of the uneasy waves. but he was spared any long time of waiting; for a man in uniform rode up, whose horse, even in the faint light, showed evident signs of fatigue. "you are to proceed on board at once with your charge. my lord has been stricken down by an assassin. he lies in the palace of amersfort, dangerously but not fatally hurt. nevertheless, you are to carry out his directions to the letter, and at the end of your journeying he or his steward will meet you, and you shall receive the reward." "that will not do for captain smith," cried the sailor, emphatically. "he must have the doubloons in hand ere a soul of you quit the coast." the man who had held kate in his arms during her night-ride turned sharply about. "quit your huxtering! i have it here!" cried he, indignantly, slapping his pocket as he spoke. "run out the boat!" shouted the man, promptly, and half a dozen sailors squattered mid-thigh in the foam and swelter of the sea. "now, on board with you this instant!" he cried, as one accustomed to command where boats and water were in question. then the man with the money took kate again in his arms and carried her easily through the surf to where the men held the leaping craft. one by one the dripping crew and passengers scrambled in, and presently, with four stout fellows bending at the long oars, the boat gathered way through the cold gray waves of the bar towards the masts of the ship which tossed and heaved in the offing. chapter xvi the breaking of the prison black peter hals stood grumbling and snarling at the door of the prison of amersfort. it was almost sundown, and the outer city ports were closed at that hour. a crowd of merrymakers had just passed on their way to sup at a dancing-tavern. they had cried tauntingly to him as they went by, and the laughing, loose-haired girls had beckoned tantalizingly with their hands. "come, thou grizzled old bunch of keys," cried one of them, in a voice that tinkled like a bell, "learn to be young again for an hour. so shalt thou cheat both father time, and eke jack ketch, thy near kinsman." "i am waxing old, indeed, when bonnibel taunts me unscathed," muttered peter hals, grimly, to himself, as he watched them out of sight; "it is true there are gray hairs in my poll. but, lord knows, i have yet in me the fire of youth. my natural strength is noneways abated. i can stand on my feet and swig down the sturdy hollands with any man--aye, even with a city councillor at a feast of the corporation. but i rust here and mildew in this god-forsaken prison. 'tis six o'clock of a morning, open the doors! seven o'clock, take about the breakfast! ten o'clock, comes a jackanapes spick-and-span officer for inspection! two o'clock, a dozen new prisoners, and no cells to put them in! six o'clock, supper and complaints! then click the bolts and rattle the keys--to bed, sleep, and begin all the pother over again on the morrow! pshaw!--a dog's life were livelier, a-scratching for fleas. they at least bite not twice on the same spot." thus black peter hals, discontentedly ruffling his gray badger's cockscomb on the steps of the prison of amersfort. as he watched, a dainty slip of a maid came up the street with a pitcher of coarse blue delft on her shoulder. in the by-going she raised her eyes to those of peter hals. it was but a single long glance, yet it sent his ideas every way in a fine scatter, and eke peter's hand to his mustache that he might feel whether it were in order. at this moment a dog ran against the girl, and the pitcher clattered to the ground, where it broke into a thousand pieces. the maid stopped, clasped her hands pitifully, and burst into tears. "it is all your fault," she cried, looking up at the keeper of the prison. peter ran down the steps and took her by the hand. "do not weep, sweet maid," he said, "i will buy thee a pitcher ten times better, and fill it with the best of white wine or the choicest oil, only do not cry your pretty eyes all red." the girl stole a shy glance at black peter. "are you of the servants of the prince?" said she, bashfully looking at the orange facing of his tunic. black peter erected himself a little and squared out his chest. it was the first time that his grim prison uniform had been so distinguished. "i am indeed the keeper of this castle of the prince," he said, with dignity. "it is a fine castle, in truth," said the maid, looking at it up and down and crossways, with blue, wide-open, most ingenuous eyes. "you come from the country, perhaps?" asked peter. for such innocence was wellnigh impossible to any maid of the city. "aye," said the girl, "i have come from la haye sainte in the flemish country of the west, where they speak french. so, therefore, i do not know your customs nor yet your speech very well. i bide with my aunt in the street but one to the right. i was sent to bring home a gallon of white wine in a new pitcher. and now it is spilled--all with looking up at you, sir officer, standing at the gate of your tower." and she sped another glance at the castle-keeper from under the dark, seductive lashes of her almond eyes. black peter stroked his mustache. it was certainly a risk, but, after all, there was no likelihood that the new provost-marshal would make that night the first of his visitations. indeed, it was by no means so certain that there had been as yet any provost appointed, after the sad accident which had happened to my lord of barra--"whom," said black peter, "may abraham take to his bosom. for he had no mercy on poor men, who could not get their sleep for his surprises and inspections. a meddlesome scots crow, all in his rusty black, ever croaking of duty and penalties, as if he were the hangman of amersfort calling a poor hussy's crimes at the cart-tail." "come thou in by, my girl," said black peter, "and in a trice, if so be you can tell me the name of the shop, i will get thee a new pitcher full of wine, better far than the first. deign to wait with me but a moment here in the castle-hall, where there is a fine fire of sea-coal and none save ourselves to sit by it." "i know not if my aunt would approve," said the maid, uncertainly. "but, after all, you are most wondrously like my brother, who is a baker of bread at la haye sainte. ah," she continued, clasping her hands, innocently, "at this time o' night he will be unharnessing herminius (that is our market-dog) and bringing in the white flour and the brown flour and the little parcel of salt." so poignant was the recollection that the maid was compelled to put her hands to her eyes and begin to sob. "weep not," said black peter, coming down and putting one hand on her shoulder, and with the other drawing gently her fingers from her face, "i will be as your brother. deign but to step within my castle, and i will send a servant for the jar of wine. you shall only bide with me a matter of ten short minutes, sufficient to tell me of the good brother and of herminius, your market-dog." the pretty country girl let her eyes slowly rise to his face, and again the bewitching innocence of the appeal sent peter's hand complacently to his beard. he stroked it as he regarded her. "this is what it is to have a way with women. it hath been like this all my life," he confided to himself, with a sigh. "then i will come with you," she said, suddenly, "and that gladly, for you are wonderfully like my brother john. his beard also is handsome and of the fine tissue. it is the very moral of yours." peter led the way up the steps. then he inquired from his new acquaintance the name of the wine-shop and the brand of the wine. he put his hand to his side and rattled a little alarm shaped like a triangle. in a trice a young beardless youth appeared, all whose body incessantly wriggled and squirmed, like a puppy's which fears the rod or desires the milk-pail. "here, restless one!" cried black peter hals, "go swiftly to the inn of the gouda cheese, and bring from thence a jar of the wine of hochheim. and, hark ye, also a couple of bottles of hollands of the best brands. here is money for thee to pay for all." he went to the door with the wriggler. "now, do you understand?" he said, in a loud tone. and then, under his breath, he added, "come not too soon back. an you so much as show your ugly face here for an hour and a half, with the buckle of a belly-band i will thrash the soul out of your miserable, whimpering body." "i would as lief stop by the fire and watch," said the object, casting a sheep's-glance at the country-maid, who stood warming her toes, one pretty foot held up to the blaze; "if, perchance, it might be mynheer peter's desire to refresh himself at the sign of the gouda cheese for an hour, as is his custom of a night." "out with thee, wastrel!" cried peter, angrily, kicking him down the steps; "and mind, come not back for an hour on the peril of your life, and the flaying off of thy skin in handbreadths." so saying, peter went back into the wide stone hall. he found his dainty new friend sweeping up the fireplace and setting the sticks for kindling in order at the back. "we always do it so in our village," she said, simply, "but the men in cities and in great castles like this have, of course, no time for such trifles." "what is your name, pretty maiden?" asked peter, standing up beside her as she knelt and swept vigorously, raising a rare dust--and, to any eyes but those of a man, doing the work most awkwardly. "i am called 'the little marie,'" said the girl, demurely, "but, of course, among those who are not my friends i am called by another name." "then i will call you 'the little marie'!" said black peter, in high delight, "and never so much as ask that other name, which is but for strangers." he went to a cupboard in the wall which was labelled in large letters "holy bibles and catechisms for the use of the prisoners." the jailer opened this most respectable and necessary receptacle, and took from it a square black bottle, short-necked and square-shouldered, a few hard biscuits such as seamen use, and two large, wide-mouthed glasses of twisted venetian glass. he came back with all these in his arms, and set them down together on the table. "now," he said, coaxingly, "sit you down, little marie, and i will bring some water from the pitcher behind the door there. a glass of fine hollands will keep out the chills of this night, for the wind is both shrewd and snell." "let me bring the water!" cried the little marie, gayly, clapping her hands ingenuously. "this is just like keeping house to john, my brother. did i tell you his beard was like yours? see, i will stroke it. even so does it fall so gracefully on brother john's breast!" and as she tripped away with the tall jug in her hand to the pail behind the door, the jailer devoutly hoped that it would be much more than an hour and a half before his deputy should return. the little marie was a long time in finding the proper water-pail, and it was not till peter was half across the floor on his way to assist her that she appeared, carrying the beaker of water in one hand and a small earthenware cup in the other. "a big, big jug for the mickle great cat, and a little wee jug for the kitten." so she chanted, to the tune of a flanders nursery rhyme. then she laughed merrily. and the amorous black peter, subdued to the soles of his boots, vowed that he had never heard anything half so prettily witty in all his life. then the little marie poured out a full tumbler of the hollands and water from the jug which she had brought for him, and also adjusted a tiny portion for herself. "milk for the kitten," she said; "taste it," and she offered to feed him with a spoonful--"nice, nice--is it not, brother john?" and brother john smiled and tasted. "now drink, great black cat!" she commanded, stamping her foot. and, nothing loath, peter drank her health--once, twice, and thrice. he would have come about the table to mix another, and, mayhap, to take the little marie by the waist. but even as he rose he began to see a flock of little maries, and he put his hand hard on the oaken settle. "i think i will sit down," he said; "drink thou to my health, little marie!" and with his eyes drooping with leaden sleep, peter watched a regiment of country girls drinking his health out of tall green glasses with twisted stems. the last words his ears caught, ere the drowsy, lisping ocean of infinite sleep swelled up and drowned everything, were, "kittens' milk, brother john--only nice sweet milk for pretty innocent kittens." and then black peter's chin sank on his breast. * * * * * so soon as the jailer's head fell and his eyes finally closed, an instantaneous change passed over the face of the little marie. the wayward mirth and provocation died out of it. a haggard, anxious expression came into her eyes. she ran forward and grasped the bundle of keys that swung at peter's girdle. she tried with all her might to pull them away, but they were locked to a strong steel band which passed about his waist. the girl stood a moment in despair. then she thrust a quick hand into all his pockets and pulled out many trifles such as men carry--love-tokens, buttons, coins, and the like, mixed with ends of string and stray scraps of tobacco. these she flung down instantly. she was at her wits' end. but suddenly she saw peeping out from under the beard which had reminded her of brother john's, a tiny bit of yellow chain. she ran her hand along it, and out of black peter's bosom there leaped a key. without the loss of a moment marie fitted it into the padlock which secured the great bunch to his waistband of steel. in another instant they were in her possession. then, opening the door on the left, which had been left unlocked, when she brought the water-pitcher, she sped down the passage in the direction of the round tower, in which she knew wat to be confined. but when she thought that she must be approaching the place, she found a number of cell-doors. marie felt that it would not do to make any mistake. once more her quick wits aided her, as they had already done that night to some purpose. "visiting rounds!" she cried, in a hoarse voice, as she had heard the guard do at the posts; "the name of the prisoner detained within?" but she had tried quite a dozen before she heard the welcome sound of wat gordon's voice, speaking from the pallet on which he had been lying thinking of kate, weary and sleepless. swiftly she tried key after key. the fourth grated in the lock and stuck. but the little marie thrust the stem of a larger key through the handle, and, setting her knee to the panel and putting all her strength into her hands, she turned the wards of the lock. the door swung to the wall of its own accord, and there lay wat on his bed. he leaped to his feet with a startled exclamation when he saw her. "marie!" he cried, "what do you here?" "hush!" she said, "i am here to save you. come!" and carefully locking the door of the cell behind them, they stole along the passage. black peter still slept in the outer hall, nodding and swaying stertorously on the settle, and there was no other sound save the breathing of the resting prisoners. without, the street was still, peter's lieutenant being busy carrying out his instructions at the excellent hostel of the cheese of gouda. marie opened the huge bolted door, closed and locked it, threw the key into the canal, and the pair glided silently and unmolested down the street. "have you anywhere to go where you will be safe?" asked marie. "nowhere," said wat. "i should indeed like to find my comrade, john scarlett, but if he be not in his lodgings, i dare not go to the camp to seek him." "come with me," said little marie. "i will hide you safe and bring your friend to you. for i also am your friend, though you think it not--and, indeed, care not even if you did believe it." "but indeed, and in god's truth, i do count you my friend," said wat; "for who but you, little marie, during all these black days, has so much as thought upon poor wat gordon?" at his kind words marie bent her head, and for the first time in her life her heart was filled with the fresh spring-water of purest pleasure. and what wonder if a little of it overflowed into her eyes? chapter xvii jack scarlett calls himself a fool wat and his companion passed along the deserted streets of amersfort, keeping carefully to those which were darkest and least frequented. for a space neither spoke. but as they were crossing a wide, deserted square, the little marie broke the silence with a startling speech. "i think by this time he will be dead," she said, simply, as though she had said that it rained. "think _who_ will be dead?" queried wat, stopping instantly and facing her. "why, your enemy!" replied the little marie, calmly; "but let us go on lest the watch should come by and stop us." "my enemy!" exclaimed walter, putting his hand to his brow like one bewildered. "aye," said marie, "the man you showed me and told me was your enemy--the dark man called barra, the provost-marshal. i, the little marie, struck him in the side with a knife as he was mounting his horse to ride away--methinks i know whither. at any rate, it was on an evil quest. he rides on no others. did i not tell you that he was my enemy before he was yours?" "struck my lord barra--with a knife, marie?" stammered wat. his slow northern blood had not dreamed of such swift vengeance. "aye," said the girl, anxiously; "did i not do right? he was mine enemy, true. he it was who first brought me hither, left me friendless in this city of satan, made me that which men think me. but had that been all his fault he might have lived. after all, that sin was mine as well as his. i struck him because he was your enemy, and because you hated him. did i not well?" "marie," said wat, very soberly, "you and i are as good as dead for this. did any see you strike?" "aye, marry, there were," she replied, carelessly; "but i was well wrapped about in a red cloak and wore the cap and ear-plates of a peasant woman of frisia. there were several that stood curiously about as i went near to hand him my petition at his own door. but what with the night, the reeling of the torches, and the instant confusion, none put out a hand to stay me as i went away. and i think he will surely be dead by this!" she spoke the words dispassionately, like one who has done an unpleasing duty and has no further concern nor stake in the matter. instinctively their feet had turned into the street of zaandpoort. wat's heart suddenly leaped within him. he had come to see the house where he had been happy for a few hours. he would look just once upon the window whence his love had often looked forth, and at that other within which her dear head would even now be lying, shedding soft dishevelled curls distractingly over the pillow--ah! the heart-sickness! to think that never should he see it thus, never now lay his own close beside it, as in wild visions of the night he had often dreamed of doing. but there shone a light from the living-room of will gordon's lodging. shadows moved restlessly across the blind. the house in zaandpoort street was still awake and stirring. wat took a sudden resolution. he would risk all, and for the last time look upon the woman he adored, even though he knew she loved him not. "hide here a moment, marie," wat said to his companion; "over there in the dark of the archway. this is the house of my cousin, a soldier from my own country of scotland. i would bid him farewell before i go." the young girl looked wistfully at him, and laid her hand quickly on her heart. "ah, it is the house of your love--i know it," she said, sadly and reproachfully; "and you have said so often that none loved you--that none cared for you." wat smiled the pale ghost of a smile, unseen in the darkness of the night. "it is true that once on a time i loved one dwelling in this house. but she loved me not--" "it is impossible," moaned marie. "i know that she must have loved you--" "no, she loved me not," answered wat; "but, as i think, she loved the man whom you--" wat stepped back into shadow, and marie clutched his cloak with a nervous hand. it was will gordon who came down the stairs. haggered, unshaven, looking straight before him with set eyes, he was not the same man who had come so cosily back from the guard-room of the palace the night before with his wife upon his arm. wat advanced a pace out of the dark of the arch. he held out his hand. "will," he said, "with you i quarrelled not. and i think that if your wife, who used to be so stanchly my friend, knew my broken heart, she, too, would forgive my hasty words, and be ready to understand evil appearances that were no more than appearances." but will gordon did not take the outstretched hand which wat held a moment in the air and then dropped sadly to his side. "tell me first," he said, "where you have hidden our kate, and what you have to do with the killing of my lord of barra? after that i will either take your hand or set my sword in your heart." "will gordon!" cried wat, starting back, "was it for this that we two kept wellwood's men at bay under the arch at holyrood? for this that we lay shoulder to shoulder on the chill moors, that in these latter days you should charge me with crimes of which i know nothing? hidden kate? why, is not kate here, behind the glass of that window? does she not sleep soundly, recking nothing of evil or the sorrow of others, upon her bed? is not her maiden heart as ever free and careless--" "wat, i believe you, lad," said will; "it was a hasty and ill-conceived thought of mine. i know you love us all overmuch to bring harm to our lassie. but, certainly, kate is lost--has been carried off--and now they are seeking her everywhere, charging her, forsooth, with the slaying of my lord barra." at the last words wat laughed a little scornful laugh. he had not yet taken in the terrible import of the news concerning kate's loss. but it seemed a foolishly monstrous thing that even in jest she should be charged with the death of barra, while not ten yards behind him, in the dark of the arched doorway, stood the little marie, with her dagger scarcely dry in her garter. then, after a moment, will's first words suddenly came back to him, as if they had been echoed from the tall buildings which stood about them. "you do not mean it--kate gone?" he said, dully, and without comprehension; "it is impossible. who so wicked in all this land as to have done the thing?" then will told him all the tale of the false message and of their home-coming. "it is barra's trick--what other?" wat said, at once; "i saw that he loved her--if such a poisonous reptile can love. but i thought not that even he could devise her wrong, else had i slain him on the spot." wat meditated a little while in silence. "did kate tell you if he had spoken aught to her of love?" "he offered her the most honorable marriage, and yet greater things when the prince should come to his own. but she would have none of him," replied will gordon. "it is enough," cried wat. "certainly this is an affair of my lord's. dead or alive, i will trace out his plots till i find his trail. it may be, after all, but a matter of haxo the bull, his calf, and his killer. give me no more than a sword and pistols, and my belt with the gold that is in your strong-box." "will you not come up with me, wat?" said will gordon. "come, cousin." "nay," said wat, "there is not time. it is but now that i have escaped from their prison. in an hour there will be the hue-and-cry, and then they will surely search your house. i must be far on the sea-road by daybreak. only furnish me with necessities, cousin mine, and let me go. my humblest service to your wife--but tell her not till after i am gone!" will gordon went back up the stairs. presently he was down again with the weapons, with enough and to spare of ammunition, a loaf of wheaten bread, a flask of wine, and the broad leathern belt with the gold-pieces, which slipped down like a weighty serpent as he laid it in wat's hands. the money had been kept sacred for just such an emergency. the cousins bade each other a kindly adieu in the fashion of other and happier times, and then will gordon returned sadly to his wife. wat stepped back to the shelter where he had left marie, but she was not to be seen. he looked every way and called softly; but the girl had vanished. "it is perhaps as well!" he said, the scot's prudence within him warring with his gratitude towards the girl who had twice risked her life for him without thought of reward. he took his way alone across the broad squares and over the canals to jack scarlett's lodgings. there was a light in the window as he approached. he knocked gently, and a gruff voice ordered him to come in, or else (as an equally satisfactory alternative) to proceed incontinently to quite other regions. wat entered, and there, seated upon the side of his bed, he found scarlett with one boot off and the other still upon his foot. his eyes were set in his head, and a kindly, idiotic smile was frozen on his face. at the sight of wat, pale as death, with his clothes frayed and disarranged with his long sojourn in prison, scarlett started up. with a vigorous wave of his hand he motioned his visitor away. "avaunt! as the clerks say. get away, briskly, or i will say the lord's prayer at thee (that's if i can remember it). come not near a living man. wat gordon in the flesh with a long sword was bad enough; but wat gordon dead, with an unshaven chin and clothed out of a rag-shop, is a thousand times worse. alas, that it should come so soon to this! i am shamed to be such a shaveling in my cups! yet of a truth i drank only seven bottles and a part of an eighth. this comes of being a poor orphan, and being compelled to drink the most evil liquor of this unfriendly country!" "scarlett," said wat, seriously, "listen to me. i am going on a long quest. will you come with me? i need a companion now as a man never needed comrade before! mine enemy has stolen my love, and i go to find her!" "away--get away!" cried scarlett. "i want not to die yet awhile. i desire time to repent--that is, when i grow old enough to repent. there is sergeant hilliard over there at the end of the passage," he went on, eagerly, as if a famous idea had struck him, "his hair is gray, if you like, and he has a most confounded gout. he will gladly accompany you. be advised, kind ghost. have the goodness to cross the stairway to hilliard. remember, i was ever thy friend in life, wat gordon!" "beshrew your tipsy, idiot soul," thundered wat, rising in a towering passion; "have you drunk so much that you know not a living man from one dead and damned? i will teach thee the difference, and that sharply." and with that he went over to the bedside, and banged scarlett's head soundly against the rafters of the garret, exclaiming at every thump and crash, "i pray you, jack scarlett, say when you are convinced that wat gordon is flesh and blood, and not an airy ghost." it did not take much of this most potent logic to persuade the ghost-seer that he had to do with wat gordon in his own proper and extremely able-bodied person. "enough!" he cried; "hold your hands, wat. could you not have said as much at first, and not stood gaping there like a week-old corpse done up in a winding-sheet?" "thou donnert ass!" cried wat. "will you come with me on my quest, or will you bide on here in amersfort among putty-souled huxters teaching shambling recruits how to stand upon their legs?" "of a truth, buchan's knaves are indeed most hopeless. yet whither can i go? i know not of a better service," said scarlett, shaking his head doubtfully. "but the adventure, man," cried wat; "think of the adventure over seas, through continents, upon far islands, all in quest of a true lass that hath been trapped by devils, and may be treated most uncivilly. it makes me mad!" "all these are most extremely well for you, wat gordon of lochinvar. you are a younger man, and these bones of mine like well to lie on a soft bed at my age. also, and chiefly, the lass is your lass, and not mine. were you to find her to-morrow, what should i get out of all the errant jackassery in the world?" "john scarlett," cried wat, nodding his head, solemnly, "thy heart is grown no better than a chunk of fat lard. there is no spirit in thee any more. go, turn over on thy side and snore, till it be time to go forth once more to drill thy rotten sheep's regiment. god kens, 'tis all you are good for now, to be bell-wether to such a shuffling, clod-hopping crew. 'keep your head up! fall not over your musket! prod up that man in the rear! i pray you do not hold your gun as if it were a dandling baby! march!' pshaw! john scarlett, is that the life for a man or for a puddle-rolling pig of the stye?" scarlett appeared to consider. he looked at the nails in the sole of his boot with an air of grave deliberation, as if they could help him to a decision. "'tis true, in truth most truly true," he said, "it is a dog's life. but, after all, there is ever the chance of war." "war? and will not i give thee wars to fill thy belly, and leave something over for stuffing to thy calves?" cried wat. "why, man, thy sword will never be in its sheath--fighting, seeking, spying, we will overpass land and sea, hiding by heather and hill, creeping down by the bonny burnside to win our speckled breakfasts out of the pools--" "tush, man," answered scarlett, pettishly, "for all you know, your kate may be shut up in the next street. and besides, as i said, after all, she is your lass, not mine." wat stepped back with a fine gesture of renunciation. "well," he said, "has it come to this? never did i think to see the day when jack scarlett--old jack scarlett of the wrist-of-steel--would turn sheep and be afraid to set his shoulder to wat gordon's, or even to cross blades with him, as he did the other night in the inn of brederode. but old jack has become no better than a gross, rotten, grease-lined crock, and--lord, lord, such a flock as he leads on parade after him!" "s'blood! i will e'en break thy head, wat, an' thou cease not thy cackle. now i will come with thee just to prove i am no sheep. no, nor craven either. but only the greatest and completest old fool that ever held a commission from a brave prince and one of the few good paymasters in europe." with this jack scarlett rose, and did upon him his cloak and all his fighting-gear with an air grave and sullen, as though he were going to his own beheading. then he searched all his drawers and pockets for money--which, in spite of the vaunted excellence of the paymaster's department, appeared to be somewhat scarce with the master-at-arms. presently he announced himself as ready. his decision took this shape: "this is the excellentest fool's-errand in the world, and i the greater fool to go with another fool upon it. lead on, wat gordon." so, grumbling and muttering, he followed wat down the stairs. "and now," said scarlett, "pray, have you so much as thought upon our need of horses?" "nay," said wat, "i have thought of naught but getting out of prison, finding a friend, and winning back my lass." "aye, marry," grunted scarlett, "thy lass! mickle hast thou thought of taking thy fool comrade away from the best pay-roll and the most complaisant landlady he has found these thirty years." chapter xviii a perilous meeting at the corner of the square, as they were turning under the shadow of the cathedral, a smallish, slender youth came running trippingly towards them. "you want horses," he said to wat; "there are three of them ready waiting over there in the dark of the trees beyond the canal yonder." "and who are you, my skip-jack manling," said scarlett, "that makes so free with your horses in this country of donkeys?" "a friend!" said the boy, sliding away from the rasp in the voice of the master-at-arms. something familiar in gait and manner struck wat through the disguise of the unfamiliar dress. "it is the little marie!" he said, gladly enough. "what do you here in this attire?" the slim figure had slipped round to wat's side and now laid a soft, small hand on his. "i have come to help you to escape. i have three horses waiting for you, and i have discovered that the password for the night is 'guelderland.'" "and the horses," queried wat, "whence came they?" "ne'er inquire too carefully so that they be good ones," quoth scarlett the campaigner. "i took the loan of them from the stables of the inn of the coronation. i know of one who will see them safe home," said marie. "is their hire paid for?" asked wat the scot. "faith, aye," said jack scarlett; "i myself have paid the fat old villain sheffell for them over and over again. let us go on. it skills not to be too nice in distinctions when one argues under the shadow of the gallows. the rascal shall have his horses back safe enough when we are done with them." they went by unfrequented ways, following their slim, alert guide down by-ways that echoed under their feet, by quiet, evil-smelling streets vocal with night-raking cats, past innumerable prowling dogs with their backs chronically arched at the shoulders, half in general defiance of their kind, and half with bending over baskets of domestic rubbish. they came after a while to the shade of the little wood beyond the great canal; and there, sure enough, tied to the green-sparred wooden box, which in dutch fashion had been put round some of the trees of rarer sort, were three horses, all busily employed trying to crop the herbage to the limit of their several tethers. "and the third?" queried scarlett, looking at them. "whose leg goes across the saddle of the third?" "i come with you," said marie, hastily and anxiously; "believe me, i can guide you to a little haven where are ships wherein you may reach your own land--or, at least, if it please you, escape safely out of this country of enemies." "and who may you be, my pretty little young man with the babe's face, and where gat you the spirit that makes you speak so brisk and bold?" marie looked at wat through the dim light as though to beseech him to answer for her. said wat, overcoming a natural touch of shyness and reluctance, "this is the friend of mine who got me out of prison, and who was kind to me beyond all thanks when i abode therein. she is only 'the little marie,' whom you remember at the hostel of the coronation. after that night she went back there no more." "she!" cried scarlett; "_she_, did he say? 'only the little marie,' quotha! well, that is a good deal for a scot of the covenant, one that for lack of other helpers will have to company with the hill-wanderers, so far as i can see, when he goes back to his own land." "aye," said wat, dryly, "but we are not back yet." "i kenned," returned scarlett, every whit as dryly, "that we were on one love-quest. but had i kenned that we were on two of them at once, the devil a foot would i have stirred out of my good lodgings, or away from the bield of that excellent and truly buxom householder, the frau axel." so far they had spoken in scots, but the little marie, listening with tremulous eagerness to the tone of their conversation, laid her hand wistfully on scarlett's arm. "fear not," she said in french, "i will never be a burden to you, nor yet troublesome. i am to stay with you only till you are clear of your difficulties. i can help you even as i helped him, for i know whither the maiden you seek has been taken. and when you are on the track of the robbers, then, so quickly as may be, the little marie will return to her own place." scarlett did not give back a single word of good or bad. as his manner was, he only grunted abruptly--yet, as it had been, not ill-pleased. "time we were in the saddle, at all events," he said; "that is, if we are to pass the posts ere the coming of the day." presently, therefore, the three found themselves riding towards the city gate. scarlett rode first to show his uniform--that of the new corps of which he was master-at-arms. he wore also the ribbon of the order he had received from the prince conspicuously displayed, if it so happened that the watch should shed the light of a lantern upon them. "halt!" duly cried the sentinel at the port of the camp. "who goes there?" "the nephew of the colonel, my lord buchan," said scarlett, "going to the camp under escort and accompanied by his tutor." "advance and give the password," said the sentry, mechanically. "guelderland!" said scarlett, as carelessly as though he had been passing posts all night and was tired of the formula. the sentry, dreaming of a maid with plates of gold at her temples, among the far-away canals of friesland, fell back and permitted the three horsemen to pass without so much as wasting a glance upon them. the gates closed behind and the white tents glimmered vaguely in front of them. they turned aside, however, from the camp, keeping cautiously along to the right as they rode, in order to skirt the wall of the city. in this way they hoped to reach the open country without being again accosted; for it was entirely within the range of possibility that the password which had served them so well inside the city might be worse than useless without the walls of amersfort. nevertheless, they passed the last of the white tents without challenge. as soon as the camp was left behind marie came to the front, and, without apology or explanation, led the way, diving into darkling roads and striking across fields by unseen bridle-paths without the least hesitation. meanwhile wat and scarlett, riding close behind her, talked over their plans. kate (they decided) was in the power of barra. she had been carried off against her will. so much they were sure of. barra, however, was clearly not with her, having been wounded at the moment of his setting out by the knife of the little marie. therefore, for the time being at least, kate was saved the greater dangers of his presence. also, his men would certainly keep her safe enough. the only question was in what direction kate had been carried off. "i can help you with that also," said the girl, to whom their quest had been explained, letting her horse drop back beside wat's, "for yester-even there came a certain well-refreshed sailor-man of my village to the street of the prison. he served, he said, in a ship called the _sea unicorn_, and she waited only the signal of my lord barra to weigh her anchor. 'goes my lord to scotland?' i asked him. 'nay,' he laughed, 'at least not directly and not alone. but he brings a fair wench for company to him, and that without asking her leave, as the lords of barra do all. captain smith is well paid for the venture, and to every man of us there is good white drink-money.' so after i heard that i was determined to set my knife deeper in my lord for the poor lass's sake, that she might never taste his tender mercies as i myself had done." "and heard you whither the ship was to sail, marie?" asked wat, listening with great attention to her tale. "nay, my captain," she replied; "of that the man knew little, save where she was to put down her anchors and wait, which was off the town of lis-op-zee, to which presently we ride. but captain smith had sworn to go first to his home at poole, whatever might be his freight. and the sailor believed that he would keep his word." "that suits jack scarlett excellently," said his companion; "for to go on a quest after runaway maids to the kingdom of the blessed louis the great is of a certainty to have my neck stretched, on account of the somewhat hasty manner in which i relinquished the service of his most christian majesty. and scotland, though mine own land, has overly many waspish sectaries and rough-riding malignants for old jack to be wholly comfortable therein." "then england and poole it shall be," said wat, confidently. "you shall see!" "but have you considered, my friend, that england is a somewhat large mark to hit in the white and bring up in poole harbor at the first offer?" said scarlett. "how shall one know that he is within a hundred miles or more of his aim?" "hearken," said wat. "'tis usually jack scarlett that is ready with plans, eager and fretful with encouragements. upon his own adventures he fairly sweats alternatives, but on this occasion of mine he does naught but grumble. there is yet time for him to turn about and betake him to his greasy sheepfold. 'guelderland' will even yet admit him in time for the morning muster of the fleecy ones." scarlett laughed good-naturedly, like one who will not take offence even when offence is meant. "i am not in love, you see," he said. "it is love that is fertile of stratagems. i am but an old, wizened apple-jack. but so was it not ever. the days have been--ah, lad, the days have been!--when jack scarlett did not ride hot-foot after another man's lass." "hear my idea," said wat, paying little heed to him. "we may hit or miss, it is true, but in any case the ship would be a small one, and most likely she would run for the nearest point of safety. yet not directly across, for all the narrow seas are patrolled by the english vessels, because deadly jealousy of the dutch still rankles deep in the heart of the king for the defeats he had of them in the days when he was lord high admiral of the fleet, and attended to his mistresses' lapdogs instead of his duty." scarlett moved uneasily. there was, he knew, in most countries such a thing as a navy, but ships and rolling jack tars little concerned a soldier, save to transport him to his campaigning ground. it was brightening to the morning as they came in sight of the high dunes of land that shut off the northern sea. behind them, with the gables of its houses already threatened by the encroaching waves of sand, nestled the little village of lis-op-zee. a few fishing-boats were drawn up into a swallow's nest of a harbor, and beyond league on league stretched the desolate dunes, through which the river lis felt its tortuous way among the sand-hollows to the wider levels of the sea. wat and scarlett, with their attendant, were about to ride directly and without challenge through the street of the village towards the harbor, when a man came staggering out of a narrow entry betwixt two of the taller houses, so suddenly that the horse of the little marie almost knocked him down. it was already the gray light of dawn, and the man, who was clad in swash-buckler array of side-breeches and broad hat, with many swords and pistols a-dangle at his belt, set his hand on his breast tragically and cried, "i thank the saints of the blessed protestant religion that i have escaped this danger. for if i had been run over by that thing upon the horse there, before the lord i should never have known what had struck me!" "get out of the way!" thundered scarlett, savagely, for he was in no mood for miscellaneous fooling; "lie down under a bush, man, and learn to take thy liquor quietly." the man turned instantly with a new swagger in his attitude and a straightening of his shoulders to a sort of tipsy attention. "and who, sir broad-stripe, made you burgomeister of the town of lis-op-zee? or may you by chance be his highness the prince in person, or his high councillor my lord barra, that you would drive good, honest gentlemen before you like cattle on the streets of this town?" "out, fellow!" shouted scarlett, furiously, drawing his sword; "leave me to settle with him," he added, over his shoulder. wat and marie rode by at the side, but the man still stood and barred scarlett's path. now jack scarlett was not exactly, as we have reason to know, a man patient to a fault. so on this occasion he spurred his horse straight at his opponent and spread him instantly abroad in the dust, sprawling flat upon his back on the highway. "help! hallo, barra's men! here is a comrade ill-beset!" cried the rascal, without, however, attempting to rise. and out of the houses on either side there came running a little cloud of men, all armed with swords and pistols hastily snatched, and with their garments in various stages of disarray. wat gave one look behind and then turned to his companion, holding his head down the while that the pursuers might not recognize him. "come on, thou fool, scarlett," he cried, "we have started barra's whole nest of wasps--there come haxo and the rest. god help us if they have seen us!" scarlett turned also. but it was too late--the mischief was done. "stop them!" came the thunderous bellow of haxo the bull. "these are the fellows who outflouted and overbore us at the inn of the coronation." so without waiting to parley, wat and scarlett, with the little marie well abreast of them, set spurs to their horses and rode as hard as they could gallop through the fringing woods of lis and the sweet and flowery may glades out upon the desolate sand-hills of noorwyk, hoping to hit upon some dell or cleft among these vast waves of sand, where they might keep themselves safe till their enemies should tire of the search and return to the city. chapter xix the battle of the dunes haxo and his forces were not in a condition to follow too closely after the three. the chance medley for which they had pined was come, and that without their seeking. the rascals had gone out to do one part of their master's will. the shipping of a lass over-seas was no doubt a pretty piece of work enough, and would be well paid for; but the slaying of wat gordon and jack scarlett, their ancient adversaries of the hostel of the coronation, was a job ten times more to the fit of their stomachs. thus it was with haxo and his immediate followers. but the fatigues of the evening and the good liquor of lis-op-zee had rendered most of the chief butcher's men somewhat loath to leave their various haunts and hiding-places. moreover, their horses were stabled here and there throughout the village, so that wat and his companions had a good start of a quarter of an hour ere haxo, furious and foaming with anger at the delay, and burning with the desire for revenge, could finally start in pursuit with his entire company. it was now a dewy morning, a morning without clouds, and the sparse, benty grass on the sand-hills was still spangled with diamond points innumerable. the sun rose over the woods through which they had passed, and its level, heatless rays beat upon the crescent over-curl of the sand-waves as on the foam of a breaker when it bends to the fall. "see you any stronghold where we may keep ourselves against these rascals, if they manage to attack us?" cried wat, from the hollow up to scarlett, who had the higher ground. "pshaw!" he returned, "what need to speak of escape? they will follow the track of the horses as easily as a road with finger-posts. find us they will. better that we should betake us to some knowe-top, where, at least, we can keep a defence. but i see not even a rickle of stones, where we might have some chance to stand it out till the nightfall." by the advice of scarlett they dismounted from their horses, and taking their weapons they left their weary beasts tethered to a blighted stump of a tree which the sands had surrounded and killed. here the animals were to some extent concealed by the nature of the ground, unless the pursuers should approach very near or ascend the summits of the highest ridges in the neighborhood. the young girl had all along betrayed no anxiety, nor showed so much as a trace of emotion or fatigue. "it was in such a country as this i dwelt in my youth," she said, quietly, "and i understand the ways of the dunes." so without question on their part she led them forward carefully and swiftly on foot, keeping ever to that part of the ridge where the benty grass had bound the sands most closely together. now they ascended so as to take the loose sandy pass between two ridges. again they descended into the cool bottoms where the sun had not yet penetrated, and where a bite of chill air still lingered in the shadows, while the dew lay thick on the coarse herbage and slaked the surface of the sand. the sun had fully risen when, still led by the girl, they issued out upon the outermost sea edge, and heard the waves crisping and chattering on a curving beach of pebble. the ruins of an ancient watch-tower crowned a neighboring hillock. doubtless it had been a redoubt or petty fortalice against the spaniards, built in the old days of the beggars. it was now almost ruinous, and at one point the wall threatened momentarily to give way. for the wind had undermined the shifting foundations, and part of the masonry seemed actually to overhang the narrow defile of sand and coarse grass through which the little party passed. "think ye that tower anywise defensible?" asked marie, pointing up at it with her finger. without answering at once, scarlett climbed up to the foot of the wall and, skirting it to the broken-down gateway, he entered. "it will make about as notable a defence as half a dozen able-bodied pioneers might throw up in an hour with their spades. but we are too like the beggars who built it to be very nice in our choosing," said scarlett, smiling grimly down upon his two companions from the decaying rampart. walter scrambled up beside him, and the little marie, lithe as a cat, was over the crumbling wall as soon as any of them. they found the place wholly empty, save that in one corner there was a rudely vaulted herdsman's shelter, wherein, by moving a door of driftwood, they could see sundry shovels and other instruments of rustic toil set in the angle of the wall. "i see not much chance of holding out here," said wat. "they can storm the wall at half a dozen points." "true," said scarlett, "most true--yet for all that, here at least we cannot be shot at from a distance as we sit helpless on the sand, like rabbits that come hotching out of a wood at even-tide to feed on the green. we are not overlooked. we have a spring of water--which is not an over-common thing on these dunes and so near the sea. i tell you the beggars knew what they were about when they planted their watch-tower down in such a spot." in this manner scarlett, the grumbler of the night, heartened his companions as soon as ever it came nigh the grips of fighting. then the men took out the shovels and the other tools, and set about putting the defences in some order, replacing the stones which had fallen down, and clearing out little embrasures, where one might lie tentily with a musket and take aim from shelter. while wat and scarlett were busy with these works of fortification, the little marie ran down into the dells again, looking wonderously feat and dainty in her boy's costume. scarlett, the old soldier, glanced more than once approvingly after her. "'tis just as well that the lady-love has not yet been found--or i should not envy you the explanation you would assuredly be called upon to make," said he, smiling over to wat as he built and strengthened his defences. instinctively wat squared himself, as though his mattock had been a sword and he saluting his general. "ye ken me little, john scarlett," he replied, "if you know not that i would not touch the lass for harm with so much as the tip of my little finger." "doubtless, doubtless," said scarlett, dryly, "yet it would astonish me mightily if even that would satisfy your mistress kate of the lashes--aye, or in troth if such extreme continence greatly pleasures the lass herself!" to this wat disdained any answer, but went on piling the sand and setting the square stones in order. presently the little marie came running very fast along the bottom of the dells, which hereabouts wimpled mazily in and out with nooks and cunning passages everywhere, so that they constituted the excellentest places in the world for playing hide-and-seek. taking both her hands, which she stretched up to him, wat pulled the girl lightly over the new defences, and when she was a little recovered from her race, she told them that the enemy could be seen scouting by twos and threes along the edge of the forest, and even venturing a little way towards them into the sandy waste of the dunes. but they had not as yet found the horses, nor begun to explore the sandy hollows where an ambush might lie hidden behind every ridge. "it is haxo the bull who leads them," she said, "for the others are none so keen on the work. but he goes among them vaunting and prating of the brave rewards which his master will give, and how the state also will pay largely for the capture of the traitor and prison-breaker." "how near by did you see him?" asked wat. "he was within twenty paces of me as i lay behind a bush of broom," she said, "and had it not been for the men who were with him, and the fear that they might have marked me down as i ran, i had given him as good as i gave his master." and with the utmost calmness the little marie unslung the dags or horse-pistols from her side, and took out the long keen dagger with which she had wounded barra as he mounted at his own door to ride after his prisoner. so, perched on this shadeless shelter they waited hour after hour, while the sun beat pitilessly down on them. the heat grew sullenly oppressive. a dizzy, glimmering haze quivered over the sand-hills, and made it difficult to see clearly more than a few hundred yards in any direction. wat and scarlett desired the girl to rest a while under the shadow of the rude hut in the corner. [illustration: "a couple of pistol-shots rang out loudly"] "but then i could not watch for the coming of your enemies, my captain," she said, as if that settled the matter. and when wat repeated his request, marie looked so unhappy that they had perforce to allow her to stand on guard equally with themselves. and indeed, as it proved, it was the little marie whose sharp eyes first saw their opponents tracking stealthily along the sandy bottoms between them and the forest. the pursuers seemed to be ten or twelve in number, and they came scouting cautiously here and there through the hollows, running briskly to the tops of the higher dunes, and looking eagerly all about them for the footprints of men or horses in the looser sand. before scarlett or wat could stop her--indeed, before either of them so much as suspected her intention, the little marie had climbed over the wall on the side farthest from the enemy but nearest to the sea. in a moment she had run deftly down among the ruts and hiding-places of the dells. with wonderful skill she threaded her way towards the approaching miscreants, without letting them catch a single glimpse of her. indeed, even from their watch-tower on the top of the dune, it was as much as wat and scarlett could do to keep her in sight through the wavering glimmer of the heated air. presently, as they lay behind their defences, each in his own rude shelter, wat and scarlett could see her crouch low in a little cuplike depression upon the height of a dune overlooking the track by which the enemy must come. the girl lay motionless, with her body flat to the ground, like a cat which makes ready for the pounce; and they could see the sun of the afternoon wink on the steel barrels of her pistols as on dewy holly leaves. soon the vanguard of haxo's little army came scouting and scenting along. the men kept signalling and crying, keeping touch with one another and making believe to search the wilderness of sand and bent with marvellous exactitude and care. the foremost of them had just passed the hillock on the top of which marie lay when "crack! crack!" a couple of pistol-shots rang out loudly on the slumberous air. one man pitched heavily forward on his face, while another and younger man spun round like a rabbit, bent himself double, clawed convulsively at the sand, and then slowly collapsed across the path. the scattered trackers here and there about the mounds and hollows stood rooted to the ground with vague alarm at the sight. some of them, indeed, put their heads down and ran up the hill of sand from which the shots had come. but when they reached the summit all they saw was the reek of burned powder lazily dispersing in the hot haze of the afternoon, while upon the dune's extremest edge were the marks of a pair of elbows in the sand, where marie had reclined as she took aim. but of their dangerous assailant they found no further trace. for immediately upon firing marie had snatched her pistols and descended into the winding lane of sand at the back of the dune. then, being perfectly acquainted with her line of communication, and mindful ever to keep upon the shady side, she glided from shelter to shelter with the silence and skill of one bred to such guerilla warfare. haxo and his party were manifestly discouraged by their misfortune, and still more by the immunity of their unseen foe. what had happened once might very well happen again. nevertheless, trusting to their numbers, they came on with still more infinite pains, haxo himself climbing a high dune and crying directions to his men how they were to advance by this pass and that dell, in which from his post of vantage he could be certain that no enemy lurked. chapter xx captain, my captain marie had made good her retreat till she halted within a few hundred yards of the little fort where wat and scarlett kept their watch. here she lay crouched behind a bush of broom which had escaped the general destruction as the shifting sand advanced, and which had made good its position by associating itself with stubborn clumps of pink and sea-holly. for these are both brave, self-helpful plants, and can bind the sand together with their own proper roots without the aid of bent-grass. behind this ambuscade marie crouched, and wat would have descended to her assistance but that scarlett forcibly withheld him. "lie still, man; can ye not bide and watch? it is as bonny as a painted picture. think you that our muckle clumsy bodies could run and hide as featly? i trow not! let the lass do her own ways. she has, indeed, a very pretty notion of war--aye, far better than many of our boasted generals, and nigh hand as good as the prince himself. for, to my thinking, there is more generalship in delaying and harassing the advance of a superior force than in defeating an equal number with trumpets, drums, and all the paraphernalia of war." so, in obedience to scarlett, and also because the girl's quick manoeuvres at once astonished and fascinated him, wat abode still where he was. but his eyes were chained to the slight form of the little marie, who lay behind the broom perfectly plain to them from their fortress eminence, but wholly hidden from the line of the enemy's advance. it seemed an unconscionable time before the pursuers came near, because on this occasion they took the utmost precautions to avoid surprise; and it was not till haxo himself had ascended the knoll within thirty feet of where the girl lay that the foremost of the approaching skirmishers came within range. but marie was either so careless of her life or so sure of the line of her retreat that she appeared to pick and choose deliberately among her enemies. the persons of many of them were doubtless well known to her, and it is possible that she had private scores to pay off while thus fighting the battles of wat and scarlett. presently one of her pistols spoke again and a third man fell wounded. haxo stood up to mark the spot from which the reek of the powder floated lazily into the air, and as he did so, marie, wheeling about on her elbows, steadied her weapon on the edge of the sand between the broom-bush and the sea-holly. it cracked, and haxo, with a cry of anger and pain, clapped his hand upon his ankle, for all the world like a boy that runs barefoot and whose toe meets a stone unexpectedly. but this time it was impossible for marie to conceal the line of her flight. she had to make a considerable detour to the right; for, in order to pick her men, she had allowed some of the enemy to pass her by, and these now bent hastily round to intercept her. the rest, following haxo's frenzied directions as he leaped and swore with the pain of his hurt, pursued with might and main, getting glimpses of her as she ran. for on this occasion marie took no care whatever to keep to the bottoms, but on the contrary chose the hardest surface and the most direct road for the shore, as though she had been fleeing to a boat which lay in waiting at the sea edge. it was soon obvious that this was the idea of the pursuers, for those on the left who had passed her place of ambush exerted themselves to reach the shingle of the beach by the narrow and deep defile in front of the wall of the fort. they paused occasionally to fire, and cheered and shouted all the time in order to encourage one another--which doubtless they were much in need of, for it must have been most discomfortable to see their comrades dropping here and there about them without so much as the pleasure of getting a shot at the assailant. then for the first time wat and scarlett perceived whither marie was leading the enemy. ever as she came nearer she raised her arm and waved them to be ready. but with what they were to be ready did not appear, unless with their pistols, to have a chance at the rascals as they passed under the wall. yet it was not a place favorable for pistol practice, because at that point the wall was broken down and fully thirty feet of it completely undermined and tottering to its fall. "the wall, the wall! push down the wall!" cried marie, as she came almost underneath it. it was scarlett who first grasped her idea. wat on his part was too much astonished at the daring and address of this girl to be capable of more than a vague, gaping wonderment. "quick, wat!" cried scarlett; "it must be the overhanging wall she means. see you not that these fellows, being ignorant of our presence, it is a thousand chances to one that for ease of road and haste to get before the lass to keep her away from the sea, they will take the path through the ravine and pass immediately underneath the wall?" "and what of that?" asked wat. "what of that? why, man, what is come of your ancient contrivance, your wise shifts, your forethought? how will you ever find your love if your wits are so moidered, before ever ye leave this dull dutch country?" "faith, and i see it not yet," cried wat, looking over at the chase more bewildered than ever. "why, she means that we are to push the wall over upon them when they come, i'll wager," said scarlett. "and so destroy our only defences; it is, indeed, a wise ploy!" cried wat, scornfully. "hush, man, and come help. we may annihilate the whole crew at a blow," said the old soldier, who had no petty scruples about ways and means; "an enemy dead is a friend the more, however he come by his end." scarlett and wat stole to the wall and peeped cautiously over. the ill-laid and mouldered stones tottered even as they leaned against them; one or two rattled into the defile as they looked down. the heads of the pursuers were just appearing at the entrance of the dell. one of them was training his piece to shoot it off at the girl, who ran lightly as at a frolic a hundred yards in front. without a suspicion of danger the assailants came posting along. "now, with all your might!" cried scarlett, when he saw the villains exactly underneath. he could plainly descry the same four men who had sat about the table in the hostel of the coronation, and some of the others also who had flocked in thither to join the fray. so without further word wat and scarlett set their thews to the wall; and between them, panting with the long chase and grimed with powder, where the touchhole had spat up in her face, the little marie threw herself on the parapet to help on the catastrophe with all her feeble strength. the wall swayed in a piece and quivered a moment on the verge ere it fell with a prodigious crash upon the straggling file of men in the deep defile below. a hoarse, confused cry was heard, running up, as the pursuers too late recognized their danger, into a shriek of agony. then a thick cloud of dust and sand arose, which prevented those in the redoubt from seeing the effect of their stratagem. presently from the gap they could see a few limping stragglers disentangle their disabled bodies from the ruins, and make haste to put as much space as possible between themselves and the unseen dangers which beset them on every side on these wide, unwholesome dunes. the little marie stood erect in the breach. she held her pistols in her hand and marked down the survivors as they ran. "let them go, marie," cried wat; "they are powerless to harm us now!" wat's heart was a little turned to pity by the wholesale destruction wrought beneath his eyes by the falling of the wall; but marie's eyes only glistened the more brightly with excitement and the light of battle. "but they are _your_ enemies, my captain!" said marie, evidently surprised at his words. then very coolly she went on loading her pistols. "stand down, marie," cried wat, "or they will surely do you an injury. i saw a man's head behind yon highest dune." "i care not so be they kill me outright. i do not want to be only wounded," answered the little marie, laughing recklessly. nevertheless, she began obediently to descend. wat's warning came too late. haxo himself, full of bitterness and foaming with the desire for vengeance, had managed to limp near enough to witness the destruction of his men in the defile. while the girl was priming her pistols, he had taken careful aim. now he fired. marie gave a low, quick cry and put her hand to her breast to feel where the wound was. then she steadied herself and attempted to go on with the preparation of her pistol. but with a little moan of pain she sank back into wat's arms, who gently laid her down in the shade of the wall. scarlett brought her water in the brim of his broad hat. he sprinkled it on her face. a brief examination showed that haxo's bullet had struck the girl an inch above the left breast. scarlett and wat looked squarely at each other. the significance of that single glance was not lost on the little marie. a bright look of manifest joy instantly overspread her face. "i am glad--very glad," she said, fighting a little with her utterance; "lift me up so that i may tell you. i am glad that i am to die. yes, i know it. i wished nothing else. i tried so hard to die to-day, my captain, fighting your enemies; for i knew that i should never see you again, that you would sail away without a thought for the little marie who wrought so hard to take you out of prison. i knew that you were going to seek one whom you love, and that i could not come with you. but now i can keep you--keep you all, till it is time for me to go away." she put an arm up about wat's neck as he bent over her and drew his head down. "only this once," she said, smiling. "even _she_ would not be angry, for she has all--i nothing. and it is right--right--oh! so right. for you could not love the little marie--wife and mother she could not be; her life had been wicked--yet her heart was not all bad. and oh! but she loved you--yes, she loved you so dear. she could not help that--nor could you, my captain. forgive marie for loving you. but, then, you should not have spoken so graciously to the poor girl to whom none ever spoke kindly or gently." wat bent over the girl. "you have, indeed, been brave and good," he said; "we truly love you for what you have done. presently we will take you to a kindly house where you shall be nursed--" "nay, my captain," she whispered, smiling up at him gladly, "it is kind--yes, most sweet to hear you speak thus. but it is better that the little marie should die out here with your arm about her, and before the sun of this happy day goes quite down. ah, if she had stayed in the fields always she might have been better, purer, perhaps--who knows? but then she had never known you, my captain. maybe it is better as it is. at least, it is good to have known one true man." she was silent a space. wat tried hard to remember a prayer. scarlett whistled a marching tune under his breath to keep from angry, rebellious weeping. the dying girl spoke again. "do not quite forget the little marie," she said; "her heart would not have been all bad--if only you had been there sooner to teach her how to be good." she smiled up at him with eyes over which a pale, filmy haze was gathering. she put her hand a little farther about his neck and so brought her face nearer to his. "did i not lead them well?" she said, eagerly and gladly; "tell me--even _she_ could not have done it better! ah! love, but this is passing sweet," she went on, more slowly and plaintively; "it is good to be held up thus, and to watch death coming to me so softly, almost sweetly. dear, just say once that what i did was well done, and that no one at all could have done it better for you." "none has ever done so much for me, none so given all for me, as you have done, little marie!" murmured wat, his tears dropping down on the pale face of the girl--who, if she had sinned greatly, had also greatly loved. "it is true, and i am glad," she said again, "even your love of loves herself could do no more than die for you!" her smile fixed itself. her eyes grew hazier, but their long, still look stayed intently and happily upon wat's face. murmuring a prayer, he bent and kissed the fair brow that was now growing cold as marble. at the touch of his lips a light, as from a paradise beyond, flamed up for a moment in the girl's eyes. her smile grew infinitely sweeter, and the rigid lines of pain about the mouth relaxed. "my captain--o my captain!" she whispered, sweetly as a little child that closes its eyes and nestles into sleep upon a loving shoulder. chapter xxi the good ship _sea unicorn_ kate mcghie was safe on board the _sea unicorn_, captain smith--a vessel english by ownership and manning, but which, for purposes which need not at this point be too closely defined, presently flew the three castles of the famous free city of hamburg, though that fact would not materially have benefited any one on board had one of the british fleet from the medway overhauled captain smith. for on board the _sea unicorn_ there was much contraband of war, clearly intended for the sustenance and equipment of the enemies of his majesty king james, both in the west of england and also more particularly in scotland. as kate was being taken up the side, she could hear above all the sea noises the voice of a man in angry monologue. captain zachariah smith, of the good town of poole, was exceedingly wrathful at the delay. but in spite of his anger the work of the deck went forward as well as it might on so small a vessel, when everything creaked and tumbled in the dancing jabble of the cross seas. for the wrath of captain smith for the most part passed off in angry words, and did not, as was usual in the merchant service of the time, very promptly materialize itself in the form of a handspike. there was considerable difficulty in getting the boat alongside on account of the swell, and kate was handed up like a piece of delicate goods. the man upon whose saddle she had been carried held her up lightly poised on his hand, and as the side of the plunging ship descended and the boat lurched upward, simultaneously half a dozen arms, rough but not untender, were outstretched to receive her. in a moment more she found herself safe on the deck of the _sea unicorn_. "ah, my lassie, come your ways," said a voice, which, simply because it was the voice of a woman, made kate almost cry out with pleasure. it was a pleasant enough voice, too, and had something in the tone of it which seemed an excellent guarantee of the good intentions of its owner. a tall, well-formed, rosily colored woman of forty or fifty stood by the mast, keeping her hand on a rope to steady herself as the vessel lunged and dipped her stem viciously into the trough of the waves. "this is an uncanny and unheartsome journey for ye, my lassie," said the woman, "but it's an auld proverb that we maun a' do as things will do wi' us." kate ran to her as soon as her feet were free on the deck and caught her by the hand. "you will help me--you will save me!" she said, looking up at the buxom woman with an agony of apprehension in her eyes. for it was a great thing after a night of terror and darkness, and after the enforced and unwelcome company of ungentle men, for the lonely girl to find a woman, and one so seemingly kindly of face and manner. "help ye, lassie! that will surely betsy landsborough do. have no fear of that. they shall never steer ye gin ye like it not. that dour man o' mine has his orders frae the chief, belike, and in the mean time ye'll hae to bide wi' us. but there shall none hurt or molest ye, while betsy, the wife of alister, can win at them wi' her ten finger-nails." "you speak like a lowland woman," said kate, ten minutes afterwards, when they found themselves in the little cabin in the stern of the ship. kate was an excellent sailor, so that the plunging of the _sea unicorn_ did not seriously affect her. by-and-by the heaving moderated as the ship turned tail to the land and sped away before a strong southeasterly wind towards the shores of england. owing to the heavy sea it had been found utterly impossible to get the long-boat on board, and captain smith had reluctantly sent it back, to be cared for in the little port of lis till his return. the cabin of the _sea unicorn_ was a narrow place, but it was dainty enough in its appointments, and the two small white berths were covered with white linen of wonderful softness. now the bitterest and most immediate of kate's anxiety was over. she knew that for the present at least she was a prisoner in the hands of kindly people, and with one of her own sex on board. so it seemed as if she could not let her companion out of her sight. "you have not yet told me why you speak like a lowland woman," kate said again to her new friend. betsy landsborough had not heard the first time, being busied with the arrangement of various articles of dress in a dark closet by the side of the cabin. "'deed aye," she answered, "and what for no? would ye hae me speak like thae muckle ill-favored sons 'o the peat-creel because for my sins are o' the highland host carried me away frae bonny colmonel in carrick in the year ' . ever since which sorrowful day i have been the wife o' alister mcalister, the tacksman of the isle suliscanna, near half-road across the atlantic." "is your husband on board?" asked kate. "aye, that he is; ye'll hae maybe seen mair o' him than ye like. for it was him that gat the chief's orders to bring ye here wi' him. he wad no hae muckle to say till ye. he is none ower gleg with the tongue at the best o' times. it was a year and a half before he understood mair o' my talk than juist 'come here!' 'gang there!' 'stand oot o' the road o' me, or else i'll ding the head aff ye!'" kate smiled a little at the friendly sounding and natural accent of the ayrshire woman, and though her path was still as dark as night before her, and she knew not whither she was being taken, a load consciously lifted from about her heart as she listened. "but can you tell me," she returned, "by whose orders and for what purpose i have been stolen cruelly away from my friends and set on this vessel, going i know not where?" "by whose orders i can tell ye, and welcome. it is by the orders o' the chief o' the mcalisters. why, lass, it is something to be proud of. the lord of barra, the chief himsel', is fell fond o' ye, and, i doubt not, has ta'en ye awa' that ye may settle doon to island ways and be ready, when he gets his new coronet, to be a brave lady of the isles." "but i will never marry my lord barra--no, nor any man but the man i love!" cried kate, indignantly. "hoot, toot, gently and daintily, my lassie; that is even what i said mysel', when yon great rawboned stot first took me wi' him, never speerin' my leave. dinna ye ken that no a lord o' barra has ever gotten a wife for five hunder years, but by the auld and honored highland fashion o' takin' her first an' coortin' her after? haith! there's mony a mislippened lass that wishes she had that way o't. for mony is the ane wha mairries for love and gets the butter and the comfits first, but in the afterings finds that right bitter in the belly which had been so sweet in the mouth." and with this sabine wisdom betsy landsborough vanished with a flourish of lifted petticoats up the ladder, which on the small _sea unicorn_ served to communicate between the cabin and the deck. the ship still sped on her course, and kate sat below thinking of her strange adventure, which yet seemed so little and so natural to the wild, lawless folk among whom she found herself. captain smith incessantly prowled the deck and looked eagerly for branksea island, and still more anxiously for the lights of one of his majesty's swift cruisers from the nore. so in the mean time we will let the _sea unicorn_ cut a furrow out of sight across the long heaving billows of the seas, while we go back to accompany wat gordon in his search for his lost love. difficult and almost hopeless as the quest seemed, wat's heart was wholly true and loyal. he never swerved from his resolve to search the world and to endure all manner of hardness till he died, rather than that he should not find his love. whereat, as often as he put the matter into words, jack scarlett swore under his breath, and more than ever regretted (he stated it on his honor as a soldier) the best paymaster and the most complaisant landlady he had known for twenty years. chapter xxii wise jan pettigrew gently, very gently, they laid in the earth the body of the little marie, and wat gordon said the prayer over her he could not remember before when she lay a-dying. it was a prayer to the lord who takes reckoning with the intents of the heart as well as with the deeds of the body. under the shelter of a great dune they laid her, digging the grave as deep as they could, using the same tools with which they had intrenched the citadel she had helped them so well to defend. they laid her on the landward side, under a huge cliff of sand, so that as the winds blew and the sand wave advanced, it might bury her deeper and ever deeper till the trumpet of the archangel should blow _reveille_ upon the morn of final judgment. "and then," said scarlett, with conviction, "i had liefer take my chance with marie, the sinner, than with barra or kersland, those precious and well-considered saints." wat gordon said not a word. but he stood a longer space than for his own safety he ought, leaning upon the long handle of his spade and looking at the fresh, moist sand which alone marked the grave of the little marie in the waste. the defeat which had befallen the forces of haxo was final enough, for among the rank and file there was not the least desire to pursue the conflict for its own sake. and, moreover, the death of so many of their companions was sufficient to intimidate the survivors. yet wat and scarlett were by no means free from danger. for one thing, both haxo and the fugitives from the party of their assailants were perfectly acquainted with their identity, and the fact of wat's being an escaped prisoner of the state was quite enough to bring upon them more legitimate though not less dangerous enemies. by following circuitous and secluded paths, wat and scarlett found their way to a wooden shed on the verges of the cultivated land. the lower floors were evidently used in the winter for cattle, but the upper parts were still half full of hay, long and coarse, cut from the polders which lay at the back of the dunes. here among the rough, fragrant, pleasant hay the two men lay down, and wat fell instantly asleep--the training of his old days in the heather returning to him, and in combination with the fatigues and anxieties of the night and morning, causing him to forget the manifold dangers of his position. scarlett, having apparently left sleep behind him with his drowsy regiment, occupied himself dourly in making up the account of the pays still due to him by the paymaster of his corps, shaking his head and grumbling as each item was added to the formidable column, not a solitary stiver of which he could ever hope to receive. it was again growing dusk when wat awoke, much refreshed by his sleep. he found scarlett leaning on his elbow and watching him with grim amusement. "i suppose," he said, "once i was a fool and fathoms deep in love as well as you. but i do not believe that ever i slept in this fashion--saying over and over, 'kate, dear kate,' all the time, in a voice like a calf bleating for a milk-pail on the other side of the gate." wat turned his head and pretended not to hear. he was in no mood to barter windy compliments with jack scarlett, who on his part loved nothing better, save only wine and a pretty woman. the grave of the girl who had died for love of him was too new under the dunes of lis; the fate of his own true-love too dark and uncertain. so soon, therefore, as it grew dusk enough, wat and scarlett betook themselves without further speech down to the little harbor, to see what might be obtained there in the way of a boat to convey them out of holland. at first they had some thought of getting a fisherman to land them at hamburg, whence it would be easy enough to take passage either to england or to scotland, as they might decide. the town of lis was small, and its harbor but a shallow basin into which at high-water half a dozen fishing-boats at most might enter. there were few people about the long, straggling, shoreward street, and there was none of the cheerful bustle and animation characteristic of a dutch town at evening. for many of the men were away serving in the armies of the states-general, and most of the others were at the fishing off the banks of texil. in the harbor itself they saw nothing to suit their purpose, and none at whom to ask a question. nor did so much as a dog bark at them. but on the shingle outside of the harbor, at a place where a ledge of rock ran up out of the sea, with the waves gently washing one side of it, there was drawn up a ship's boat of moderate dimensions, and beside it, seated on the stern with his legs dangling over the painted name, lounged a curious-looking individual, smoking a short, small-bowled pipe. he was a youth, of years numbering somewhere between eighteen and thirty--of the sleek-faced, beardless sort that does not change much for twenty years. the most boundless self-sufficiency marked his appearance and attitude. when he saw wat and scarlett approach he rose lazily, stretched his long, lank legs, turned his back on them in a marked manner, and gazed seaward from under the level palm of his hand. "i bid you good-evening," said scarlett, saluting sir stork as politely as if he had been the stadtholder of lis; "can you tell us if in this town there are any boats that may be hired to take certain passengers to rotterdam?" for they thought it well, in any bargaining, to give out that city as their port, and to change the destination after they had got to sea--by persuasion or by force of arms, if necessary. "that do i not," replied the unknown, promptly, in good english, though scarlett had spoken in dutch. "but the boat upon which you are leaning?" pursued scarlett, "is she not a vessel which a man may hire for a just price?" the lad took three draws of his pipe in a consequential way before answering. he tapped the bowl meditatively on his thigh. "this boat," he said, at length, "of which i am in charge, is the property of captain smith, of the _sea unicorn_, a distinguished english merchantman, burgess of the town of poole--and i am responsible for her safekeeping till such time as she can be conveyed to that town." "it is indeed both an onerous and an honorable task," quoth scarlett, "and one that could only be intrusted to a man of sense and probity--and i am sure from your appearance that you are both." wat gordon was getting tired of this bandying of words, and showed symptoms of breaking in. but as the youth looked seaward scarlett dug his companion in the side with his elbow, in token that he was to be silent. old jack had an idea. "captain smith was perhaps overtaken by the late storm," he said, warily, "and so compelled to leave his long-boat behind him?" "aye, and wise jan pettigrew (for so i am nominated in all poole and branksea) was left in charge of it," said the youth, with proud consequence. "an important cargo was taken out to the _sea unicorn_ in this boat, i warrant, and one that will bring a high price when captain smith comes to reckon charges with the owner of that pretty thing." "ah, wise master jan pettigrew, but you carry as pretty a wit and as shrewd a tongue in that head of yours as i have met with for many a day," said scarlett, in a tone of high admiration. "so--so," said jan pettigrew, complacently crossing his legs again on the boat and taking deeper and deeper whiffs of his refilled pipe. "aye, marry! a shrewd tongue and a biting. and whither might this treasure be going?" asked wat, with more anxiety on his face than he ought to have shown. scarlett darted an angry glance at him, and the tallowy youth, taking his pipe out of his mouth and holding it in his hand, regarded him with slowly dawning suspicion. "the matter is naturally a secret of my noble employer's," he replied, with dignity, "and of captain smith's. it has not been communicated to me with the idea of my retailing it to any chance idler on the beach who happens to come asking insolent questions." "certainly you are right, and very well said, master pettigrew," said scarlett, with admiration. "wat, my lad, that settles you, i am thinking. the gentleman has his secrets, and he means to keep them. and mightily prudent of him, too. but as to this boat," he went on, "your master cannot mean you to take her along the coast by yourself all the way to meet him in hamburg?" "my master has not gone to hamburg," cried jan pettigrew, "but first of all to his own town of poole, or at least to a place near by, which is also a secret with himself and with those who have the honor to serve him, and in whom he reposes confidence." scarlett once more glanced round reprovingly at wat. "ah, let this be a lesson to you, young sirrah," he said; "see how carefully and yet how politely this gentleman can keep his master's secrets? truly, this is a fellow to be trusted." wise jan pettigrew puffed and blew upon his pipe with such swelling importance, that finally he choked and went off into a fit of coughing which threatened to end him once for all. for he was but loosely hung together, of bilious complexion, and with a weak, hollow chest. but all the time of his coughing he was struggling to tell something which pleased him, choking at once with laughter and with the reek which had gone the wrong way when scarlett tickled his vanity with flattering words. "_oo-hoo_," he cried, chokingly, "and the cream of the joke--_oo-hoo_--is that the captain, being a widower, is sure to fall in love with the lass himself. and at poole town, when his madcap daughter comes aboard at branksea, as she ever does, i warrant it that she makes the fur to fly. would that i had been there to see! 'twill be a rare lillibullero! she'll pipe up bob's-a-dying!" wat's eyes gleamed like a flame, but scarlett darted a side-look under his brows at him, so swift and fierce that he started back and was silent. "for the love of god," the look said, "hold your fool's tongue and let me finish what i have begun." "master jan pettigrew," quoth scarlett, still more seductively, "you are a man after my own heart. fain would i go a little cruise, as it might be for pleasure, with a man of your wit and discretion. i tell thee what--captain smith cannot be back for a long season. now we two are anxious to go on a little pleasure-trip to england. there is a mast in the boat. the wind and weather are fair. we have both of us got good dutch guilders in our pouches. you, like other brave campaigners, have, i doubt not, both sore need of such and a bonny young lass of your own in poole, or elsewhere, to spend them upon. why should not we three put the boat's head towards england this fine brisk night, with the wind in our quarter, and boldly steer our way thither? would it not surprise captain smith greatly and make much for your advancement if he should see his long-boat come sailing in after him safe and sound? and how famous would master jan pettigrew be then! why, every coastwise ship-master would be eager to give him a fine vessel to command, on the strength of such a deed of seamanship!--while all the maids would go wild for his favor, and the home-staying lads would run crazy for very green envy for him." as scarlett spoke the pursing of jan pettigrew's mouth gradually slackened and the corners widened, till his countenance became in truth a finely open one--most like that of the monk-fish when he lies at the bottom of the sea with his jaws wide for sticklebacks and codlings to venture within. at the picture of his triumphant return his dull eyes glistened, and when scarlett spoke of his fortune among the maids, he slid down from the boat and slapped his thigh. "ods fegs, i'll risk it--i have more than half a mind. but"--he scratched his head and hesitated--"the provisions for such a cruise--they will cost much?" he looked cunningly at scarlett, who motioned with his hand behind him to wat. lochinvar slid an arm about his waist and undid his belt, from which he took a couple of gold pieces. these he put into scarlett's beckoning palm. "the provisions, sayest thou?" quoth scarlett, deftly jerking one of these into his pocket. "have no care for that. here is one piece of gold for you--go into the village of lis and buy whatever may be necessary for our voyage. and," he continued, "there is no need to tell a man of the understanding of jan pettigrew that, when talking to the yokels of lis, we are only going a little voyage to the banks to catch the saith and limber-cod." scarlett rubbed his finger along the side of his nose with such contagious cunning that jan also rubbed his and leered back at him in as knowing a manner. "trust wise jan," he said; "not a word shall they know from me--i am as deep in counsel as a draw-well. there is no bucket can draw aught from my mind unless my will be the rope to pull it up withal." "haste you, then," said scarlett; "speak not to the people at all, for safety's sake, but come back quickly with the provender. and in the mean time my friend and i will fill the casks and beakers with water, so that we may be ready to start as soon as you return." chapter xxiii wise jan waxes wiser jan pettigrew started with the gold piece in his hand to get the provisions in the town of lis-op-zee. so soon as he was out of sight wat gordon was in the long-boat hunting about like a terrier dog. his eye had caught the least touch of bright color among the rubbish in the stern of the boat. he was on his knees presently, holding a bit of ribbon in his fingers which in hue appeared like the stone called aquamarine, or, as one would say, blue and green at the same time. he pressed it with passion to his lips. "it is my love's!" he cried. "it is most surely hers. thrice i saw her wear it about her beautiful neck! she must have sat in this boat not so many hours since." "and what else do you suppose i have been getting out of that incredible lout, all the while you were staring at this bit of ribbon and trying to get in your silly word and spoil everything?" said scarlett, testily. for sleeplessness and his companion's impatience had certainly been trying to the temper. but wat continued to cherish his ribbon to the exclusion of all else. he had had but little to feed his affection upon, poor lad, ever since he had been clapped behind iron bars--and, indeed, not so very much before that. wat and scarlett carried the cask and beakers to a spring which they found in an old overgrown garden not far from the harbor. they made a convenient stretcher by removing part of the rough decking from the bottom of the long-boat, and carrying the vessels to and fro upon that. they had hardly returned for the last time when they descried wise jan pettigrew coming back along the shore with a whole army of helpers at his tail, carrying parcels and packages innumerable. he was in the full tide of discourse to them. "ye see, lads," he was saying, as he came up, "my father was a man from amersfort that came to england; and desiring to settle there, he had dealings with my mother, who was a farmer's daughter in the county of dorset. and in due time he married her--yes, in good sooth, he married her, and that is why i am called jan pettigrew. for my father must have me called jan. he would hear of nothing else. whereat my mother, not to be beaten, swore that some part of my name should carry with it a good old english smell. so jan pettigrew i was christened, of my mother's surname, with my father standing by and never daring so much as to say a word!" the louts of lis were chuckling and nudging each other with suppressed laughter, for it was obvious that wise jan pettigrew had been looking most unwisely upon the hollands when it gave its color aright in the cup. however, they hastened to plant their parcels and stores in the long-boat, and meantime they gazed with wide-open eyes at wat and scarlett. "these honest gentlemen," said the wise and reticent jan, "are for the fishing. oh yes, they are for the fishing"--his finger went to his nose--"you all understand, lads, the fishing. then when we come back to lis here to make a declaration to the burgomeister of the number and weight of the fine fish we have taken on the banks, why, there will be drink at the three castles for every honest fellow here!" he would have said more, but scarlett, growing suddenly tired of his clatter, tumbled him unceremoniously into the boat, and cried out to the men of lis: "here's good silver for whoever will give us a hand that the boat may be launched--silver to drink the health of the prince this very night at the inn of lis in sound, stark hollands!" the men and boys, hearing this, gave a rousing cheer, and setting their strength to the long-boat of the _sea unicorn_, they rattled it down the pebbles and out into the heave and murmur of the incoming tide. scarlett ran his hands through the pockets of jan pettigrew's clothing, and handed all the small silver which he found there--a round handful--to the tallest of the 'prentice lads. "there," he said, "drink the prince's health, and if there be any over, drink to the health of captain smith of the _sea unicorn_, and of all his crew and passengers." and at this liberal and comprehensive toast the lads on shore again cheered, as men with drink in prospect will cheer at anything. there was still a rousing breeze astern, and making jan pettigrew keep awake so that he might at least direct them in the necessary manoeuvres, wat and scarlett proceeded to erect the mast and unbend the sail with ignorant, unseamanlike hands. but after a little, under guidance, they did featly enough, so that the distance widened, and they saw with delight the shores of holland drop back and the solemn, waffing windmills stand up in a long row out of the polder. "now for england and kate!" cried wat, as though they had already found both. jan pettigrew, who had become noisier and more oracular, so soon as he found himself on the lift and heave of the sea, and the boat began to cradle buoyantly among the short waves, cried out to wat and scarlett to set the foresail. this wat attempted to do, but, though he found the small triangular sail readily enough, he could neither attach it to the bowsprit nor yet bend it properly. then jack scarlett did a thing which exceedingly astonished master jan. that wise youth was lying in the stern-sheets, with his pipe in his hand, content to issue commands, and laughing and sneering at the landsmen's awkward manner of executing them. when he had ordered them for the third time to bend the foresail, scarlett turned on him and very curtly bade him do it himself and look spry. jan, the self-satisfied one, could scarce believe his ears. he felt astounded, his pipe went out, his jaw began to fall and his mouth to open as it had done while he listened to scarlett's eloquence on the shore. but scarlett was in a different mood this time. he simply repeated his advice in a louder tone. then wise jan pettigrew grew sulky and pointedly declined, asserting that he had not come upon this particular cruise for the purpose of pulling ropes with two greenhorns to do it for him. as the words left his mouth he felt something cold touch his right temple. he turned rapidly, and the movement brought his entire cheek against the cold bell mouth of a horse-pistol. the self-satisfaction flickered out of his face. his gin-reddened cheek whitened to chalk, and he began to tremble violently in all his limbs. "get up and bend the foresail without a word more!" quoth scarlett, sternly, "and remember for the remainder of this cruise you will do very precisely as you are bid." jan, being upon compulsion really wise, instantly and without a murmur complied. in a minute the foresail was properly bent and also a little square-sail in the stern--which last had a great effect in steadying the boat in the cross winds which were now whipping the tops off the waves and driving the spray over the boat, as they sat under the shelter of the windward side. presently scarlett began to explain the situation to jan pettigrew. he told him that though he must be ready to work the boat in all matters of seamanship, yet both of the others would assist him to the best of their ability. he must, however, be willing to go where they wished and to obey their orders. in the event of their cruise being successful he was to receive ten gold pieces. and even if it were not, in the event of his proving faithful and silent, he should have five for his pains--which was a great deal more than he would have received on many voyages from captain smith of the _sea unicorn_. at first jan lay sulkily enough in the bow of the boat and pretended to pay no attention to scarlett's words. but presently he grumbled, "how can i or any man take a boat to england without so much as a compass or a chart?" "that is not my business," said scarlett; "it is surely a strange seaman that cannot keep a boat to its course for a few miles by the stars. all i know is that if you do it not i shall be compelled most reluctantly to blow your brains out, and let your carcass drop overboard to feed the fishes." [illustration: "the self-satisfaction flickered out of his face"] he pronounced this in so matter-of-fact a voice that the lad came instantly aft, and began to search carefully in the side lockers and drawers. two of these were locked and had to be opened with the blade of scarlett's dagger. wat cut away part of the wood round the wards of the lock, into which aperture jan inserted an iron spike that lay in the bottom of the boat, whereupon the locks gave sharply in both cases. in one compartment was a small compass, and in the other a sheaf of charts. * * * * * when the morning broke on the third day of their cruise a long, low island was in sight immediately in front. then a flat coast with rolling country stretched away behind, with many woods shining palely green, and looking newly washed as the morning sun sucked the night dews from the leaves. an ancient castle stood gray and stern on the left, and far to the right the tower of a noble church took the sun and gleamed like the white sail of a ship. wise jan pettigrew, who had long since composed himself to all his duties and become the devoted slave of jack scarlett (whom his eyes followed with a kind of rapt adoration), pointed with his finger. "branksea!" he cried, with pride both in voice and gesture. and indeed he had some reason for self-congratulation. for the cross channel voyage in an open boat, together with a long trip down the coast, had not often been so successfully undertaken. keeping the boat well to the left, they rounded a low spit of shingle and turned in sharply towards a tiny landing-place, from which a neat path extended up into the woods. a flag was flying among the trees and making a splash of brave color among the greenery. chapter xxiv madcap mehitabel the long-boat grated on the beach and wise jan was the first ashore. scarlett and wat disembarked in more leisurely fashion, and stretched themselves luxuriously after their long and cramped boat voyage. they were employing themselves in taking out of the stern such articles as they had stowed there, when a challenging voice rang out clear and high from the woods above. "jan pettigrew! jan pettigrew!" it cried, "what do you here with our long-boat? why are you not in the low countries, making love to the little dutch maids with faces like flat-irons?" "no, they ain't neither," cried wise jan, apparently not at all astonished, making a face in the direction of his unseen querist; "they're a sight better-looking than you be--and they comb their hair!" he looked apologetically at scarlett. "heed her not," he said, in a low voice, "'tis but crosspatch mehitabel smith, our master's daughter. he has spoilt her by sparing of the wand to beat her with when she was young, and now that she is grown--and well grown, too--she will be forever climbing trees and crying uncivil words to decent folk as they go by, and all, as she counts it, for merriment and mischief-making." "ah, jan! wise jan pettigrew," the voice went on, "jan that drank the cow's milk and gave the calf water, because it was better for its stomach--you are right early astir. and who are the brisk lads with you? i know not that my father will be pleased to see strangers on branksea. hold up your head, jan, and learn to answer a lady civilly. you have surely forgot or mislaid all the manners you ever had. shut your mouth, jan--i do advise it; and do not, i pray you, so mump with your chin and wamble with your legs!" "madcap!" cried jan, stung by the pointed allusions to his defects of person, "my legs are as straight as yours be, and serve me well, albeit i wrap them not, as women do, in clouts and petticoats. and at least if my legs are crooked and my jaw slack my eyes are straight set in my head." "and if eyes do look two ways," retorted the voice out of the unseen, "'tis only with trying to keep them on the antics of both jan pettigrew's legs at once; for your knees do so knock together like spanish castanets, and your legs so jimble-jamble in their sockets, that 'tis as good as a puppet-with-strings dancing at the fair just to watch 'em!" jan looked still more apologetically at scarlett. "i am black ashamed," he said; "but, after all, she means no harm by it. she has never had any one to teach her religion or good manners, but has run wild here on branksea among the goats and the ignorant sailormen." "i hear thee, wise jan," cried the voice again; "tell no lying tales on your betters, or i in my turn will tell the tale of how wise jan went to portsmouth--how the watch bade him go in and bathe, because that the lukewarm town's-water was good for warts. and when he had gone in, glad at heart to hear the marvel, being exceedingly warty, the watch stole his clothes, and then put him a week in bridewell for walking of the streets without them in sight of the admiral's mother-in-law!" "'tis a lie!" shouted jan, looking up from the boat, out of which he had carefully extracted all the various belongings he had brought with him; "a great and manifest lie it is! it was, as all men know, for fighting with six sailormen of the fleet that i was shut up in bridewell." "wise jan, wise jan, think upon what parson says concerning the day of judgment!" replied the voice, reproachfully. "for if thus you deny your true doings and confess them not, you will set all the little devils down below to the carrying of firewood to be ready against the day of your hanging." wise jan did not deign to reply. he resigned the unequal wordy fray, and taking a back-load of stuff on his shoulders, he led the way up the neatly gravelled path, which wound from the little wooden landing-stage into the green and arching woods. as scarlett and wat followed after and looked about them with much interest, a tall maid, clad in a blue skirt and figured blouse, and with her short tangles of hair blowing loose about her ears, dropped suddenly and lightly as a brown squirrel upon the path before them. whereat wat and scarlett stopped as sharply as if a gun had been loosed off at them; for the girl had handed herself unceremoniously down from among the leaves, and there she stood right in their path, as little disconcerted as if that were the customary method of receiving strangers upon the isle of branksea. "i bid you welcome, gentlemen," she said, bowing to them like a courteous boy of the court. indeed, her kirtle was not much longer than many a boy's sunday coat, and her hair, cropped short and very curly, had a boy's cap set carelessly upon the back of it. scarlett stared vaguely at the pleasant apparition. "the lord have mercy!" he said, as if to himself; "is this another of them? 'tis indeed high time we found that runaway love." but wat gordon, to whom courtesy to women came by nature, placed himself before the old soldier. he had his cap in his hand and bowed right gracefully. scarlett might cozen wise jan an he liked; but he, wat gordon, at least knew better how to speak to a woman than did any ancient mustache of the wars. "my lady of the isle," he said, in the manner of the time, "i thank you for your most courteous and unexpected welcome. we are two exiles from holland, escaping from prison. this good gentleman of yours has helped us to set our feet again upon the shores of britain, and in return we have aided him to restore his master's property." the girl listened with her head at the side, like a bird making up its mind whether or not to fly. when wat was half-way through with his address she yawned. "that is a long sermon and very dull," she said; "one might almost as well have been in church. come to breakfast." so, much crestfallen, wat followed meekly in the wake of scarlett, whose shoulders were shaking at the downfall of the squire of dames. at the corner of the path, just where it opened out upon a made road of beaten earth, jack scarlett turned with the obvious intention of venturing a facetious remark, but wat met him in the face with a snarl so fierce that for peace' sake he thought better of it and relapsed into covertly smiling silence. "if you crack so much as one of your rusty japes upon me, jack scarlett, i declare i'll set the point of my knife in your fat back!" he said, viciously. and for the rest of the way scarlett laughed inwardly, while wat followed, plodding along sullenly and in an exceedingly evil temper. the house to which they went was a curious one for the time and country. it was built wholly of wood, with eaves that came down five or six feet over the walls, so that they formed a continuous shelter all about the house, very pleasant in hot weather. a wooden floor, scrubbed very white and with mats of foreign grasses and straw upon it, went all around under these wide eaves. twisted shells, shining stones, and many other remarkable and outlandish curiosities were set in corners or displayed in niches. at the outer door the girl turned sharply upon them. "my name is mehitabel smith," she said, "and this is my father's house. i like your looks well enough, but i would also know your degree and your business. for branksea is for the nonce in my keeping, and that you have come with wise jan pettigrew is no recommendation--since, indeed, the creature takes up with every wastrel and run-the-country he can pick up." wat had not got over the rebuff of his first introduction, and sulkily declined to speak; but scarlett hastened to assure mistress mehitabel of the great consideration wat and he enjoyed both at home and abroad. "and for what were you in prison in holland?" she said. "was _he_ in prison?" she continued, without waiting for any answer, looking at wat. scarlett nodded. he had it on the tip of his tongue to say that it had been owing to a brawl in a tavern. but at the last moment, seeing wat's dejected countenance, he made a little significant gesture of drawing his hand across his throat. "high-treason--a hanging or heading matter!" he answered, nodding his head very gravely. the girl looked at wat with a sudden access of interest. "lord, lord, i would that i lived in holland! high-treason, and at his age!" she exclaimed. "what chances must he not have had!" without further questioning concerning antecedents and character, she led the way within. they passed through a wide hall, and down a gallery painted of a pleasant pale green, into a neat kitchen with windows that opened outward, and which had a brick-built fireplace and a wide dutch chimney at the end. brass preserving pans, shining skillets, and tin colanders made a brave show, set in a sort of diminishing perspective upon the walls. "now if ye want breakfast ye must e'en put to your hand and help me to set the fire agoing, gray badger!" she cried, suddenly, looking at scarlett. "go get water to the spring. it is but a hundred yards beyond that oak in the hollow. and you, young master high treason, catch hold of that knife and set your white, high-treasonable hands to slicing the bacon." chapter xxv true love and pignuts mehitabel smith calmly went to the inner door, and reaching down a linen smock, she slipped it on over her head and fastened it in with a belt at the waist. wat and scarlett moved meekly and obediently to their several duties, and the business of breakfast-making went gayly forward. when wat returned from the side-table with the bacon sliced, mehitabel smith had the frying-pan ready and a fire of brushwood crackling merrily beneath it. "do you not think," she said, without looking at him, being busy buttering the bottom of the pan, "that fish and bacon go well together when one is hungry? for me, i am always hungry on branksea. were you ever hungry in prison?" wat muttered something ungracious enough, which might have been taken as a reply to either question, but the girl went on without heeding his answer. she sprinkled oatmeal over half a dozen fresh fish, and presently she had them making a pleasant, birsling sound in the pan, shielding her eyes occasionally with her hand when they spattered. "you must have been very happy in prison?" she said. and for the first time she looked directly at him for an answer. wat was astonished. "happy!" he said, "why, one does not expect to be very happy in a dutch prison, or for that matter in any other. prisons are not set up to add to folks' happiness that ever i heard." "but what experiences!" she cried; "what famous 'scapes and chances of adventure! to be in prison at your age (you are little more than a lad), and that for high-treason! here on branksea one has no such advantages. only ships and seamen, pots of green paint, and hauling up and down the flag, or, at best, ninnies that think they ought to make love to you, because, forsooth, you are a girl. ah, i would rather be in prison a thousand years!" wat watched her without speaking as she moved nimbly and with a certain deft, defiant ease about the sprucely painted kitchen. "do you believe in love? i don't!" she said, unexpectedly, turning the fish out on a platter and lifting the pan from the fire to prepare it for the bacon which wat had been holding all the time in readiness for his companion. "yes, i do believe in love," said wat, soberly, as though he had been repeating the apostles' creed. he thought of the little tight curls crisping so heart-breakingly about the ears of his love, and also of the grave which had been dug so deep under the sand-hills of lis. there was no question. he believed with all his heart in love. the girl darted a swiftly inquiring glance at him. but her suspicions were allayed completely by wat's downcast and abstracted gaze. he was not thinking at all of her. she gave a sigh, half of relief and half of disappointment. "oh yes," she returned, quickly, "fathers and mothers, godfathers and godmothers, tutors and governors--that sort of love. but do you believe in love really--the love they sing about in catches, and which the lads prate of when they come awooing?" wat nodded his head still more soberly. "i believe in true love," he said. "oh, then, i pray you, tell me all about her!" cried mehitabel smith, at once laying down the fork with which she had been turning the bacon, and sitting down to look at wat with a sudden increase of interest. scarlett came in a moment after and sniffed, with his nose in the air; then he walked to the pan in which the bacon was skirling. "it seems to me that the victual is in danger of burning," he said. "i think next time it were wiser for the gray badger to fry the pan, and for those that desire to talk--ah! of high-treason--to go and fetch the water." mehitabel started up and began turning the bacon quickly. "a touch of the pan gives flavor, i have ever heard," she said, unabashed; "and if you like it not, gray badger, you can always stick to the fish." when breakfast was over, scarlett and wise jan were ordered to wash the dishes. this they proceeded to do, clattering the platters and rubbing them with their towels awkwardly, using their elbows ten times more than was necessary. scarlett worked with grim delight, and jan with many grumblings. then, having seen them set to their tasks, mistress mehitabel made wat lift a pair of wooden buckets, scrubbed very white, and accompany her to the spring. she went first along the narrow path to show him the way. she had taken off her cooking-smock, and was again in the neat kirtle of dark blue cloth, which showed her graceful young figure to advantage. when they reached the well, mehitabel appeared to be in no hurry to return. she sat down, and to all appearance lost herself in thought, leaning her chin upon her hand and looking into the water. "there was a lass here but yester-morn, no further gone," she said, "who believed in love. she gave me this, and bade me show it to the man that should come after her also believing in love." she held out a small heart of wrought gold with letters graven upon it. wat leaped forward and snatched it out of her hand. "it is hers--kate's. i have seen it a thousand times about her neck. she wore it ever upon the ribbon of blue." and he pressed the token passionately to his lips. mehitabel smith looked on with an interested but entirely dispassionate expression. "i wonder," she said, presently, "if it is as good to be in love as to sit in the tree-tops and eat pignuts?" but wat did not hear her; or, hearing, did not answer. "it is kate's--it is hers--hers. it has rested on her neck. she has sent it to me," he murmured. "she knew that i would surely compass the earth to seek her--that so long as life remained to me i should follow and seek her till i found her." "faith!" said mehitabel, "i do believe this is the right man. he has the grip of it better than any i ever listened to. if he so kiss the gift, what would he not do to the giver?" "tell me," said wat, looking eagerly and tremulously at her, "what said she when she gave you the token?--in what garb was she attired?--was her countenance sad?--were they that went with her kind?" "truly and truly this is right love, and no make-believe," said the girl, clapping her hands; "never did i credit the disease before, but ever laughed at them that came acourting with their breaking hearts and their silly, sighing ardors. but this fellow means it, every word. he has well learned his lover's hornbook. for he asks so many questions, and has them all tumbling over one another like pigs turned out of a clover pasture." wat made a little movement of impatience. "i pray you be merciful, haste and tell me--for i have come far and suffered much!" the pathetic ring in his voice moved the wayward daughter of captain smith of the _sea unicorn_. "i will tell you," she answered, more seriously, "but in my own way. it was, i think, this lass of yours that sat here in the house-place and talked with me but four-and-twenty hours agone. she looked not in ill health but pale and anxious, with dark rings about her eyes. those that were about her were kind enough, but watched her closely day and night--for that was the order of their master. but i am sure that the lowland woman who was with her would, in an evil case, prove a friend to your love." "and whither have they taken her?" asked wat, anxiously. mehitabel smith looked carefully every way before she attempted to answer. "the name of the place i cannot tell at present. it is an island, remote and lonely, in the country of the hebridean small isles; but i heard my father say that it bore somewhere near where the long island hangs his tail down into the ocean." "she has gone in your father's ship, then?" asked wat. "aye, truly," said mehitabel smith; "but your lass is to be taken off the _sea unicorn_ at some point on the voyage, and thence to her destination in a boat belonging to the islanders. i heard the head man of them so advising my father." as the girl went on with her tale, wat began to breathe a little more freely. he had feared things infinitely worse than any that had yet come to pass. he was now on the track, and, best of all, he had the token which kate had sent to him, in her wonderful confidence that he would never cease from seeking her while life lasted to him. mehitabel watched him quietly and earnestly. at last she said, a little wistfully, "i think, after all, it must be better than eating pignuts. i declare you are fonder of that lass than you are of yourself." wat laughed a lover's laugh of mellowest scorn. mehitabel went on. "and i suppose you want to be with her all the time. you dream about her hair and the color of her eyes; you will kiss that bit of gold because she wore it about her neck. that is well enough for you. but to my thinking this love is but a sort of midsummer madness. for it is better to sleep sound than to dream; any golden guinea is worth more than that tiny heart on a ribbon, and would buy infinitely more cates--while it is best of all to sit heart-free among the topmost branches of the beeches and whistle catches while the sea-wind cradles you on the bough and the leaves rustle you to sleep like a lullaby. what, i pray you, is this love of yours to that?" "that you will know one day," said wat, sagely nodding his head, "and it may not be long, for your eyes are looking for love, and in love what one looks for that one finds. hearken, i have stood one against fifty for the sake of my love. willingly and gladly i have left land, rank, friends, future; i have made them all no more than broken toys that i might win my love. i count my life itself but a little thing, scarce worth the offering, all for her sake!" "and is it because you hope to be so happy with her that you do all these things?" asked mehitabel, now perfectly sober and serious, and clearly anxious to comprehend the matter. "nay," answered wat, in a low voice, "to be happy may indeed come to us--pray god it may, and speedily. but to prove one's love as a man proves the edge of his sword, to do somewhat great for the beloved, to be something worthier, higher, better, to make your love glad and proud that she loves you, and that she possesses your love--these are greater aims than merely selfishly to be happy." mehitabel sighed as she rose. "i suppose it must be so," she said, "but it is a great and weary mystery. moreover, i have yet to see the man i would choose before a plate of early strawberries. and, anyway, pignuts, dug out of the ground and eaten on the tree-tops, are right excellent good!" chapter xxvi a boat in sight at suliscanna there was one spot on suliscanna, the island to which she had been brought, that kate especially loved. it was where the great lianacraig precipice, a thousand feet of hard rock, curiously streaked with the green of serpentine and the white of the breeding and roosting ocean birds, sank sheer into the foam-fringed emerald wash of the sea. at the eastward end of the vast wall there began a beach of pure white sand, curving round in a clean sickle-sweep for a mile and a half to the mural face of the cliffs of aoinaig, which served for its northern gateway. to this wide strand, with its frowning guardian watch-towers of tall cliff on either side, kate came every day, week in and week out, during the first months of her isolation. she took her way thither from the low, thatched hut of mistress alister mcalister, in which she dwelt in a cleanliness and comfort more reminiscent of carrick than characteristic of the neighboring houses of suliscanna. the cattle did not occupy the first apartment in the house of mistress mcalister. the floor did not, as was commonly the case, rise gradually towards the roof upon a rich deposit of "peat-coom" and general _débris_, solidified by the spent water of the household and the trampling of many feet. the house in which kate dwelt on suliscanna was paved with flags of slate, which alister and his wife had put in position, to the great scandal of the entire island--including the minister of the small isles himself, who preached most powerfully against the practice as pampering to poor human vanity, and causing foolish people to grasp at worldly state and pomp, and so neglect the glories of another and a better world. but mistress mcalister had her answer ready to that. "i am of opinion," she retorted, when the sermon was reported to her, "that alister and me will no be left strange and friendless up yonder on the streets of gold, just because we happen to prefer clean stanes to dirty peat and fish-banes here below." and for this pointed rejoinder mistress mcalister was debarred the table of communion. "i'm no carin'," she said. "there's guid and godly ministers in my ain country that has suffered mickle for godliness. what matters it if i do suffer a wee here for cleanliness? the one is sib to the other, they say. and wha kens but after all it may help one's eternal interest to bide away from sic a kirk as they have here?--no' a wiselike word nor a solemn reproof from the beginning to the end of the exercises!" this bright morning kate stood alone on the white fringe of sand. she shaded her eyes with her hand as she looked at the far blue hills of the main-land, and often she sighed heavily. for weeks she had watched for a boat to come. she had cast every bottle she could obtain on the island into the race of the tide which passed lianacraig, each with a message enclosed telling of her place of seclusion. now she could only pace the shore and wait. "he _will_ come," she said to herself, with a limitless faith. "i am sure he loves me, and that he will find me. prison bars could not contain him, nor dangers daunt him. i know he will follow and find me. god make it soon--before the other comes." her mind went back to the cold, sinister eyes of my lord of barra, and she shuddered even in the hot sunshine. "then would the danger begin," she said; "for though all these folks are kind to me, yet not even the minister nor betsy landsborough would stir a hand to save me from the chief. such a marriage is customary. it is the way of the clan. the lords of barra have ever chosen their brides in this fashion, they say. i am here alone on an island without boats. the chief has ordered it so. none are allowed to approach or land on suliscanna till the master comes to claim the captive and the slave." the girl's wonderful dark eyes had mysterious depths in them as she went over in her heart the perils and difficulties of her unknown future. "but never, while i live, will i be untrue to him whom i love. if i cannot be his, at least i shall never be another's. and if they try to force me to that which i loathe--thank god there is always a way out! gladly would i die rather than that any other should take the place that is his alone--my king, my husband!" she spoke the last words very softly, but her eyes looked wistfully out towards the far hills beyond the sea, over which she waited for him to come. then she blushed red from neck to brow at the sound of her own whisper. she even turned her about swiftly to see that none had heard, and that no bird of the air could carry the matter. but only the sea-swallows circled widely above, along the black wet skerries the gulls wailed, and the silly moping guillemots sat in rows upon the rocks of lianacraig. all were intent upon their own concerns that bright morning, and up among the tiny green crofts she saw mistress mcalister, a lowland sunbonnet on her head, flashing in and out of her door in that lively and sprightly fashion which distinguished her movements from the solid sloth characteristic of even the busiest moments of the other good-wives of suliscanna. kate paced the shore, and thought within herself the still assured thoughts of one whose mind is made up about the main issue, and who can afford quietly to consider concerning matters less important. the sea was very still this day about suliscanna. the white surf-rim round the great cliffs was hardly to be noted. the gap-toothed caves which pierce them were still. the roaring and hissing of the "bullers" were not heard. only in front of the island to landward the tides swayed and ran like a mill-race, where the ledges rose black and dripping from the deep, and the currents from the ocean swirled onward, or sucked back through the narrows in dangerous whirlpools and strange leaping hillocks of sea-water. kate stood wondering at their beauty, without the least idea that these oily swirls and boiling hummocks of smooth green water were among the most dangerous sea perils to be met with all the way from pentland to solway. suddenly her eyes lit on a dark speck far away out upon the bright plain. it might have been the head of a swimming seal, or the black razor-edge of a large skerry showing over the rush of the tide. but, as she watched, the dot grew blacker and larger. a boat was certainly approaching the island. kate stood trembling. for the issue meant life and death to her. it might be her tyrant come to claim his captive. it might be her saviour come to save. chapter xxvii the tide-race of suliscanna kate mcghie stood looking across the boiling, hillocky water of the suck of suliscanna in the direction of the boat, which moment by moment blackened and grew larger, rising steadily towards her out of the east. the day was so still, the tide so smooth as it swept inshore after passing the oily "bullers" of the roost, that she had no idea of the world of danger those in the adventurous bark had to pass before her prow could grate on the white sand of the landing-beach between the opposing headlands of aionaig and lianacraig. kate's heart beat strangely, almost painfully. it was wonderful, she thought, that men should undergo perils and cross a world's seas for a simple girl's sake. yet there was pleasure, too, in the thought; for somehow she knew that those who approached loved her and came from far seeking her good. "it is he--it is surely he!" so her soul chanted its glad triumph within her. "did i not say that he could break prison-bands and come to find me--that he would overpass unruly seas only to look on my face? has any maid in the world a lover true like mine? and he will break my prison also and take me away. and with him i am ready to go to the ends of the earth, fearlessly as though he had been my mother." poor lassie! little she knew the long, weary travel she had before her ere it could come to that. but even as she watched she became conscious of a quick stir and movement among the usually so indolent islanders behind her. hardly she dared to lift her eyes from the approaching boat, which came on with a little square sail rigged on a temporary mast as long as the wind held, and then with flashing dips of rhythmic oars whenever the breeze dropped away. the voices of the men of suliscanna crying harshly to each other among the craig-heads and cliff-edges high above her sounded to kate's ears like a louder brawling of the sea-fowl. the sound had an edge on it, shrill, keen, and bitter as the east wind in mid-january. yet there was something in it, too, of new. the girl had heard the like of it before, at the kennels of cumlodan, when the bloodhounds for the whig-tracking were waiting to be fed, and springing up with their feet on the bars. "eh, sirs me! guid help the poor souls that are in that boat; they will either gang doon bodily to feed the fish, or else be casten up in gobbets the size o' my neive upon the shore!" cried the voice of mrs. mcalister at kate's elbow. "they can never weather it, and if they do they are naught advantaged, after all. for the men of the isle are that worked upon with the fear of my lord, and his threat to clean them off the isle of suliscanna, like a count off a bairn's slate, if they let the lass escape, that they declare they will slay the poor lads so soon as ever they set foot on the land, if, indeed, they ever win as far." in her agitated preoccupation the tall woman from ayrshire had let her hair fall in a bushy mass over her back, as it was her habit to do in the evenings after supper when preparing for bed. she kept working at it nervously while she watched, twisting up its comely masses in order to fix them in their places with bone pins; and, anon, as the boat tacked shorter and shorter to avoid this hidden peril and that, pulling them out and letting it fall again in wavy coils, so overpowering had become her agitation. suddenly startled by a peculiar wavering cry from the hill, she took kate's hand and ran with her along the path which led to the rocks of lianacraig. "ye will never be for thinking," bess landsborough said to the girl as they ran, "that this is him that likes ye--the lad ye left in the tolbooth irons in holland, gotten free and come after ye?" but kate only clasped her friend's hand tighter and answered nothing. "poor lass! poor lass!" she said. "ye believe that your lad would do as muckle for you after a' that has come and gane between ye. but lads are not what they were in my young days! pray god that ye may be mistaken, for gin this be your lad come seeking ye, i fear he is as good as dead either from the sharp rocks of suliscanna or from the sharper knives of the wild mcalisters." from the southern ridge of the headland of lianacraig kate and her companion could look almost directly down upon the gambols of the treacherous suck of suliscanna. the boat lay clear to their sight upon the surface of the sea--two men in her, one sitting with the rope of the sheet in his hand, and the other at the stern with an oar to turn her off from the hidden dangers, as the seething run of the tidal currents brought her head on to some sunken reef or dangerous skerry. sometimes, ere the voyagers could tack or turn in their unsailorlike fashion, a white spurt of foam would suddenly spring up under their very bows as a swell from the atlantic lumbered lazily in, or again a backdraw of the current would swirl upward from some submarine ledge and raise a great breaking pyramid of salt-water on a spot where a moment before there had been only the smooth hiss of water moving very swiftly. the islanders, who alone realized the terrible danger of the two in the boat, lay for the most part wholly silent, some on the cliff's immediate edge, and others behind little sodded breastworks which had been erected, partly to keep the wind off, when, as now, they kept watch from their posts of observation, and partly for the drying of their winter's fuel. mistress mcalister indicated the eager gazers with her elbows. "see the heelantmen," she said; "they are a' up there! lord, what christians! the verra minister is amang them himsel'--they canna help it. the spirit is on them ever since langsyne the spaniard's ship drave in, and brocht a' that peltry of mahogany aumries and wrought cupboards, and forbye the queer fashions of knitting that the sailor folk of the crew learned them after they wan ashore. but they learn little from them that's shipwrecked on suliscanna noo. for them that's no deid corpses before they come to land get a bit clour wi' a stane that soon puts them oot o' conceit wi' a' this world o' sin and suffering." kate's face was white and drawn, but she hardly noticed the woman's fell prophecies. for all the while the two men in the boat were laboring hard, fighting tensely for life, and every eye on the island was upon them. they had reached one of the smoothest and therefore most dangerous places, when suddenly the black back of a skip-jack dolphin curved over like a mill-wheel beside the boat, and a hoarse shout went up from the islanders of suliscanna, who lay breathlessly waiting the event on the rocks of lianacraig. "it's a' by wi' the poor lads noo!" said bess mcalister, "a' but the warsle in the water and the grip o' the saut in their thrapples! the deil's ain beast is doon there watching for them." [illustration: "then the swirling tide-race took hold of her"] "god help my wat!" sobbed kate, half to herself and half to the divinity--who, as the good book says, can do wonders in the great waters. "aye, 'deed, lass, as ye say, god help him! he never had mair need. the dead-fish are louping for him and the other with him." just at this moment kate uttered a cry and clasped her hands, for the boat was heaved up from the side nearest the cliffs on the summit of a toppling pyramid of water. the mast fell over, and the whole breadth of the sail hugged the surface of the sea. then the swirling tide-race took hold of her and sucked her under. in a smooth sea, without a particle of wind, the two men went down within cry of the rocks of suliscanna, and not a hand could be stretched out to save them. only now and then something black, a wet, air-filled blob of the sail, the surge-tossed back of a man, or the angle of the boat, showed dark for a moment upon the surface of the pale water, and then was carried under, all racing northward in the grip of the angry tide current. kate mcghie had fallen on her knees. "god forgive his sins and take me soon to him!" she said. "wheest, lass! nae papist prayers in my hearin'," said mrs. mcalister in her ear. "gin that be your lad, he's dead and gane. and that's a hantle better than dying on the gully-knives of the mcalisters." at the sight of the disaster beneath them on the wrinkled face of the water, all the islanders had leaped suddenly erect behind their shelters and craggy hiding-places. each man stood with his head thrown forward in an attitude of the most intent watchfulness. and once when the stern of the boat cocked up, and a man's arm rose like the fin of a fish beside it for a moment, every son of alister expelled the long-withholden air from his lungs in a sonorous "hough!" which indicated that in his opinion all was over. instantly the islanders of suliscanna collected here and there, at likely places along the shore, into quick-gathering knots and clusters which dissolved as quickly. they discussed the disaster from every point of view. the minister was specially active, going about from group to group. "we must e'en submit," he was saying; "it is the will of god. and, after all, though both men and boat had been cast ashore, it is little likely that they would have had anything worth lifting on them. they were just poor bodies that by misadventure have been cast away in a fog, and would have no other gear about them save the clothes on their backs." but alister mcalister was of another mind. "work like this is enough to make an unbeliever out of a god-fearing man," he affirmed to his intimates, "to see what providence will permit--a good fishing-boat with a mast and sail in the charge of two landward men that did not even know where to let her go to pieces, so that christians and men of sense might get some good of her. for the fools let her sink plumb down in the suck of suliscanna, instead of driving her straight inshore against the hill of aoinaig, whence she would have come safe as weed-drift to our very feet." and there were more of alister's opinion than of the minister's, whose spiritual consolation was discounted, at any rate, by the fact that he was officially compelled to speak well of providence. but before long there was another sound on the isle of suliscanna. away on the edge of the bay, under the cliffs, a group of men was to be seen grappling some object which repeatedly slipped from their poles between two long shore-skirting reefs. it lay black and limp in the water, and again and again, breaking from their hands, it returned to the push of the tide in the narrow gut with a splash of flaccid weight. "lord, what's yon they hae gotten?" cried mistress mcalister, as soon as she had seen the figures of the men collecting about the thing, like carrion-crows gathering about a dead sheep on the hill. "thank god, my alister loon is away south'ard on the heuchs of lianacraig!" she stood on tiptoe and looked for the flash of the killing knife or the dull crash of the stone with which commonly the wreckers insured silence and safety when any came alive ashore along with wreckage of price from the great waters. the heads of the men were all bent inward, but bess landsborough saw no threatening movement of their arms nor yet any signs of a struggle. she would have drawn kate away from the scene, but the girl by her side suddenly wrenched herself free, and, plucking up her skirts in her hands, ran hot-foot for the northern shore. chapter xxviii john scarlett comes ashore kate's sojourn on the island had given her back all her girlish spring of carriage and swift grace of movement. fleet and light as a goat she sped over the short turf and threaded the sharp shark's fins of the black basaltic ridges, her eyes fixed upon the shifting groups on the shore. was her love lying there dead before her, or at least in utmost danger of his life? the men stood so close together, all looking inward and downward, that kate was among them before any one saw her come. she cleft a way through the shouldering press, and there on the wet pebbles of the beach, dragged just a few yards from the shore on which a back-draught from the smooth glides and rattling currents of the tide-race of suliscanna had cast him, lay the body of john scarlett. kate gave a sharp cry, half of disappointment and half of relief. her love it was not; but his friend it was. and if this were john scarlett, where would wat gordon be by this time--of a surety lying deep in the green heave of some far-reaching "gloop," or battered against the cruel cliffs of the "goës," into which the surges swelled and thundered, throwing themselves in bootless assault upon the perpendicular cliffs, and fretting their pure green arches into delicatest gray lace of foam and little white cataracts which came pouring back into the gloomy depths along every crevice and over every ledge. john scarlett lay with his broad chest naked and uncovered, for his coat and waistcoat had already become centres of two separate quarrels, shrill and contentious as the bickerings of sparrows over the worm which they hold by either end and threaten to rend in pieces. patterns of muskets and sword-blades were wrought upon the veteran's breast in a fashion which was then common to all men of adventuring--land travellers and seafarers alike. the old soldier's arms and breast were a mass of scars and cicatrices, both from his many public campaigns and from his innumerable excursions upon the field of private honor. "this has been a man indeed," said one of the men that stood by; "many a knife has been tried on that skin, and many, i warrant, gat deeper holes and deadlier cuts than these in the making of this pretty patchwork." "he is an enemy of the chief, that is beyond a doubt," said another; "for he is not a man of the isles, and our lord murdo forbade the coming of any else. it will be safer to stick him with a gully-knife before he comes to, lest a worst thing happen us." and it is likely that this amiable intention might have become the finding and conclusion of the meeting, but that at that moment kate pierced the throng and threw herself down on the salt, clammy pebbles at john scarlett's head. she put her hand upon his heart, but could not feel it beat. before long she was reinforced by mrs. mcalister, who arrived panting. she swept the men unceremoniously aside with her arm, and addressed them in their own tongue, in words which carried insult and railing in the very sound of them. the two women had not worked long at the chill, sea-tossed body of the master-at-arms before john scarlett opened his eyes and looked about him. "bess landsborough!" he said, without manifesting the least surprise, "what for did ye no' meet me at the kirk stile of colmonel, where i trysted wi' ye?" "john scarlett!" cried mrs. mcalister, "i declare in the name o' a' that's holy, jack scarlett, the king's dragoon--what in the world has brocht ye here, lying bare and broadcast on the cauld stanes of suliscanna?" "i cam' seekin' you, bess," said john scarlett, easing himself up on his elbow with a grimace of pain. "i heard in colmonel that ye had kilted your coats o' green satin and awa' wi' john hielandman. so i e'en cam' round this gate to see if ye had tired o' him." "and i see that, dead or alive, ye can lie as gleg as ever--certes, there never was a dragoon that was single-tongued, since satan made the first o' that evil clan oot o' the red cinders of hell!" answered mistress mcalister, vigorously. "weel, bess, it skills little," replied scarlett, rising slowly to a sitting posture. "but if ye would prevail on these honest men to withdraw a little and not glower at my nakedness, as if they had never in their lives before cast eyes on a man that has had a wash, it is greatly grateful i will be, and forgive you that little mislippen about the tryst." as john scarlett turned himself about, he pressed kate's hand sharply to intimate that he desired her to pretend complete ignorance of his person and purpose. but the fear which now had become almost a certainty, that she had seen her lover go down in the tide-race of suliscanna, dominated her heart. she was scarce conscious of the meeting of john scarlett and his ancient sweetheart, but continued to gaze steadily and with straining eyes out upon the smooth and treacherous swirls of the suck. "have ye a cloak or a plaid, bess, that i may gird myself with it, and go decently to my quarters--unless these gentlemen still desire to finish me here?" asked scarlett, calmly. whereat the wife of alister drew a plaid of rough brown wool from the shoulders of the man nearest to her and cast it about him. by this time scarlett had managed to stand upon his feet, and even to walk a few steps along the pebbles of the shore. all suliscanna was now gathered about the new-comer, and on the skirts of the crowd the minister and alister stood apart with bent brows in anxious consultation. "it is the chief's order!" said the minister. "we will have to answer for it with our lives if we do not ward him safely." "in the vaults of the tower will be the best and securest place," answered alister. then, with no more words spoken, alister mcalister stepped up to his wife, and, seizing her by the arm, said, "this is chief's business--do as i bid you, now!" and mrs. mcalister knew that the time had come for her to obey. for well as she could make the burly _dhuine wassail_ do her bidding when the business was his own or hers, bess never put her general supremacy to the test by offering resistance to her husband's will when the clan or the chief were in question. "tell the lowland man," said alister, looking his wife straight in the eyes, "that it is the order of the chief that he be warded till we hear what is to be done with him. we did not ask him to come to suliscanna, and we must see that he does not invite himself quietly away again now that he is here. he is to bide in the tower at our house-end, and ye can boil him lowland brose as muckle as ever he can sup, since ye seem to be so well acquainted with his kind of folk." when mistress mcalister had interpreted this to john scarlett, the old campaigner gave the brown plaid a twirl about his shoulders, and crying, "content--lead on!" accepted the situation with a soldier's philosophy. the ancient tower of suliscanna, in which scarlett presently found himself, was no extensive castle, but simply a half-ruinous block-house constructed for defence by some former lords of the isle. the upper part was a mere shell in which alister's wild goats were sometimes penned, when for some herdsman's purpose they had been collected in the vicinity of the huts by the expectation of the spare crystals of salt when the pans were drawn. but underneath there was a vaulted dungeon still strong and intact. this subterranean "strength" possessed a door of solid wood--a rare thing in suliscanna--brought at some remote period from the main-land; for, save drif-twood, there is no plant thicker-stemmed than the blackberry to be found on all these outermost islands of the sea. this door was secured by a ponderous lock, the bolt of which ran into the stone for nearly two feet, while the wood of which it was composed was studded with great iron nails and covered with hide like a targe. it was the sole article of value which had been left in the ancient tower when my lord's new house was built farther up the hill. the tower stood at the summit of the first ascent of the island, close beside the cottage of alister mcalister--of which, indeed, very characteristically and economically, it formed the gable-end. heather bloomed close up to the door of it, and looked into the dungeon at every narrow peep-hole, so that when scarlett set his head to one of these he found himself staring into a fairy forest of rose and green, in which the muir-fowl crouched and the grasshoppers chirred. john scarlett found that during the time he had been conferring with the representative of the lord of the small isles and his wife bess upon the pebbles of the beach, a bed of fragrant heather tops had been made for him by the clansmen in this arched and airy sleeping-place. alister went in with him, glanced comprehensively around, and nodded. "now you will be comfortable and make yourself at home," the action said. and john scarlett smiled back at his taciturn jailer. for indeed, except the stone seat which ran round the vault, and the new-laid bed of heather tops in the corner, the available accommodations of the tower of suliscanna consisted exclusively of an uneven area of hard-beaten earthen floor made visible by the light of half a dozen narrow port-holes, which looked in different directions out upon the moor and through the gable against the dark wall of bess landsborough's house. alister locked the dungeon door by turning the huge key with a spar of driftwood thrust through the head of it like the bar of a capstan. then he called to him a shaggy gillie and bade him watch the door on the peril of his head. whereupon the red-headed gael grinned obediently, pulled himself an armful of heather, and effectually double-locked the door by stretching himself across the entrance with his hand on his dirk and his sword naked by his side. chapter xxix wat's isle of refuge but there were two men in the ill-fated boat when she so heedlessly rushed into the strange and dangerous outer defences of my lord barra's warded isle of suliscanna. what had become of the other? wat gordon of lochinvar was not drowned--it is hardly necessary to say so much. for had his body been lying in some eddy of the swirling waters about the outer reef of the aoinaig narrows, this narrative of his history could not have been written. and of his life with its chequered good and bad, its fine instincts, clear intents, and halting performances, there would have been left no more than a little swarded mound in the bone-yard of dead and forgotten mariners. when their boat overset among the whirlpools and treacherous water volcanoes of the suck of suliscanna, wat gordon had been sculling at the stern. and when the water swallowed him, pulling him down as though he had been jerked through a trap-door by the arm of some invisible giant--or, more exactly, drawn slowly under by the tentacle of the dread kraken of these northern seas--he kept a tight grip on the oar with which he had been alternately steering and propelling the boat, as jack scarlett cried him his orders from the bows. wat gordon had been born in the old tower of lochinvar, in the midst of that strange, weird, far-withdrawn moorland loch, set amid its scanty pasture-meadows of sour bent-grass and its leagues of ambient heather. as a boy he had more often gone ashore by diving from his window or paddling out from the little stone terrace than by the more legitimate method of unhooking the boat from its iron lintel and pulling himself across to the main-land. but this was a different kind of swimming, for here in the tumble and tumultuous swirl of angry waters wat was no more than a plaything tossed about, to be tantalized with the blue sky and the summer sea, and then again to be pulled under and smothered in the seething hiss of the suck of suliscanna. nevertheless, wat found space to breathe occasionally, and as he was driven swiftly towards the north along the face of the great lianacraig precipices and close under them he clutched his oar tighter, holding it under his arm and leaning his chest upon it. so close to the land was he that he voyaged quite unseen by the watchers on the cliffs above, who supposed that he had gone down with the boat. but the current had seized him in its mid-strength, and after first sweeping him close inshore it was now hurrying him northward and westward of the isle, under the vast face of the mural precipice in which the cliffs of lianacraig culminated. the boat had cleared itself of its mast and sail, and wat could see that she floated, upturned indeed, but still becking and bowing safely on the humps and swirls of the fierce tidal current which swept both master and vessel along, equally derelict and at its mercy. the whole northern aspect of the isle of suliscanna is stern and forbidding. here the cliffs of lianacraig break suddenly down to the sea in one great face of rock many hundreds of feet in height. so precipitous are they that only the cragsmen or the gatherer of seabirds' eggs can scale their crests of serrated rock even from the south, or look down upon the little island of fiara, the tall southern cliffs of which correspond humbly to the mightier uprising of the precipices of lianacraig upon the larger isle. but fiara has for ages been set in the whirl of the backwater which speeds past its greater neighbor on either side, and has taken advantage of its position to thrive upon the waste of its rival. for the tide-race of the suck, which sets past suliscanna with such consuming fury, sweeps its prey, snatched in anger from the cliffs and beaches of suliscanna, and spreads it in mud and sand along the lower northern rocks of fiara. so that this latter island, instead of frowning out grimly towards the pole, extends green and pastoral on the other side of the deep strait and behind its frowning southward front of rocks. at this time fiara was wholly without inhabitant, and remained as it had come from the shaping hand of the tides and waves. and so mainly it abides to this day. the islanders of suliscanna had indeed a few sheep and goats upon it, the increase of which they used to harvest when my lord of barra's factor came once a year in his boat to take his tithes of the scanty produce of their barren fortress isle. it was, then, upon the northern shore of this islet of fiara that wat, exhausted with the stress and the rough, deadly horseplay of the waves, was cast ashore still grasping his oar. he landed upon a long spit of sand which stretched out at an obtuse angle into the scour of the race, forming a bar which was perpetually being added to by the tide and swept away again when the winds and the waters fought over it their duels to the death in the time of storm. thus wat gordon found himself destitute and without helper upon this barren isle of fiara. his companion he had seen sink beneath the waves, and he well knew that it was far out of the power of the soldier scarlett to reach the shore by swimming. also he had seen him entangled in the cordage of the sail. so wat heaved a sigh for the good comrade whom he had brought away from the solvent paymasters and the excellently complaisant landladies of amersfort, to lay his bones for his sake upon the inhospitable shores of suliscanna--and, what was worse, without advantage to the quest upon which they had ventured forth with so much recklessness. wat knew certainly that his love was upon that island of suliscanna. for months he had carefully traced her northward. with the aid of madcap mehitabel he had been able to identify the spot at which the chief's boat had taken off captain smith's passenger, and a long series of trials and failures had at last designated suliscanna as the only possible prison of his love. so soon as he was certain of this he had come straight to the spot with the reckless confidence of youth, only to see his hopes shattered upon the natural defences of the isle, before ever he had a chance to encounter the other enemies whom, he doubted not, barra had set to guard the prison of kate of the dark lashes. but even in his sad and apparently hopeless plight the knowledge that his love was near by stimulated wat's desire to make the best of his circumstances. first of all he set himself the task of exploring the islet, and of discovering if there was any way by which he could reach that other island, past which he had been carried by the current of the race, and on which he hoped to find his love. from the summit of the south-looking crags of fiara which he ascended, he could look up at a perpendicular face of vast and gloomy cliffs. lianacraig fronted him, solid and unbroken on either side as far as he could see. that lower part of it on which the surf fretted and the swell thundered was broken by caves and openings--none of them, save one, of any great size. but that one made a somewhat notable exception. it was a gateway, wide and high, squarely cut in the black front of the precipice, into which one might have driven two carriages, with all their horses and attendants, abreast, and yet have left room to spare on either side. the swell which pulsed along the narrow strait between fiara and suliscanna, regular as the beating of a strong man's heart, was lost within its wide maw, and did not as elsewhere come pouring back again in tessellated foam, white as milk curdled in a churn. the square tunnel to which this was the imposing entrance evidently penetrated far into the rock, and communicated with some larger cavity deep within. the rest of the isle, which had so unexpectedly become wat's prison-house, was cut on its northerly aspect into green flats of sparse grass, terminating in sweet sickle-sweeps of yellow sand, over which the cool, green luxury of the sea lapped with a gliding motion. and as wat looked down upon them from above he saw lights wavering and swaying over the clean-rippled floor, and could fancy that he discerned the fishes wheeling and steering among the bent rays and wandering shadows that flickered and danced like sunshine through thick leaves. so wat stood a long time still upon the topmost crest of fiara, printing its possibilities upon his heart. two hundred yards across the smooth, unvexed strait, which slept between its two mighty walls of rock, rose the giant cliffs of lianacraig, with the ocean-swell passing evenly along their base from end to end--smooth, green steeps of water, dimpled everywhere into knolls and valleys. seabirds nested up there by thousands. gillemots sat solemnly in rows like piebald bottles of black and white. cormorants stood on the lower skerries, shaking their wings for hours together as if they had been performing a religious rite. and here with his gorgeous beak, like a mummer's mask drawn over his ears for sport, waddled the puffin--the bird whose sad fate it is, according to the rhyme, to be forever incapable of amorous dalliance. for have not half a dozen generations been told in rhyme how "tammy norrie o' the bass canna kiss a bonny lass?" but as wat looked for a moment away from the white-spotted, lime-washed ledges of suliscanna to the green-fringed, sandy shores of his own island, he saw that in the water to the north which sent him off at a run. long ere he reached the beach he had recognized the boat from which john scarlett and he had been capsized, bobbing quietly up and down at the entrance of the bay. the rebound or "back-spang" of the current from some hidden reef to the northward had turned the boat aside, even as it had done wat himself with his oar, and there the treasure was almost within his reach. wat's clothing was still damp from his previous immersion, so that it was no sacrifice to slip it off him and swim out to the boat. then, laying his hand on the inverted stern, he managed easily enough to push her before him to a shelving beach of sand, where presently, by the aid of a spar of driftwood, he turned her over. to his great joy he found that the little vessel was still fairly water-tight and apparently uninjured, in spite of her rough-and-tumble steeple-chase with the white horses of the suck of suliscanna. wat opened the lockers and saw, as he had expected, that the pistols and powder were useless. but he found, too, scarlett's sword and his own trusty blade, together with a dagger, all of which he had the satisfaction of polishing there and then with fine sand held in the palm of his hand. then he swung his sword naked to his belt, and felt himself another man in an instant. the lockers also contained a pair of hams of smoked bacon, which had suffered no damage from the water, and which, so far as sustenance went, would at least serve to tide him over a week or two should he be compelled to remain so long upon the isle. nevertheless, when wat sat down to consider his position and plans, he felt that difficulties had indeed closed impenetrably upon him. yet he wasted no time in idle despondency. lochinvar was of other mettle. he believed his love to be on the island close to him--it might be in the power of his enemy himself, certainly in the hands of his emissaries. john scarlett, his trusty comrade, was equally surely lost to him. nevertheless, while his own life lasted, he could not cease from seeking his love, nor yet abandon the quest on which he had come. so, using the dagger for both knife and cooking apparatus, he cut and ate a slice of the smoked bacon. then he quenched his thirst with a long drink out of a delicious spring which sent a tiny thread of crystal trickling down the rocks towards the northern strand of fiara. chapter xxx wat swims the water cavern whereupon, refreshed and invigorated, wat proceeded to reconnoitre. he set about his inquiries with the utmost circumspection and caution, for it occurred to him that if barra's first line of defence--that of the whirls and glides of the suck of suliscanna--had proved itself so effective, it was likely that he had made other dispositions equally dangerous in the event of that line being forced. wat gordon pushed his boat into the water and clambered on board. but he soon found that, damaged and water-logged as she was, she would move but sluggishly through the water, and must prove but little under command in any seaway. it was manifestly impossible therefore for wat, with his single sculling oar, to venture out again into the tide-race which threshed and tore its way past the eastern side of the island. wat's harbor of refuge was on the northern shore, in the safest nook of the little sandy haven in which he had first brought his boat ashore. he was resolved, so soon as it should grow a little dusk, that he would endeavor to turn the angle of his small isle, and see if by any means he could find a landing-place along the western side of suliscanna. when, therefore, the sun had dipped beneath the sea-line, and the striped rose and crimson of the higher clouds faded to gray, wat slipped into his boat and pushed off. he guided her slowly, sculling along the inner side of the sandy reef which protected the northern bay of fiara. as wat sailed farther to the west he could hear the surf hammering in the caves which look towards the atlantic--a low, continuous growl of sound, mostly reverberating like the distant roaring of many wild beasts, but occasionally exploding with a louder boom as a full-bodied green roller from mid-ocean fairly caught the mouth of a cave, for a moment gagged and compressed the imprisoned air within it, and then sent it shooting upward through some _creux_ or gigantic blow-hole in a burst of foam and white water which rose high into the air. the wonder and solemnity of this ceaseless artillery at the hour of evening, and with the atlantic itself lying like a sea of glass outside, impressed the landwardborn wat greatly. for he had never before dwelt in the midst of such sea-marvels, nor yet upon the shores of such a rock-bound, wave-warded prison as this inhospitable isle of suliscanna. the heavy boat slowly gathered way under the pressure of the broad oar-blade wielded by wat's very vigorous young arms. and all went well while he kept the inner and protected side of the reef, but so soon as he had begun to clear the lofty cliffs of suliscanna, and to bethink himself of attempting to cross the belt of turbid and angry waters interposed between the quiet inner haven and the cool, green lift of the ocean waves without, the boat stuck in the sand and heeled over, first with an oozy glide, and then with a sharper "rasp," as though the knife-edge of a basalt reef were masked beneath. her head fell sharply away, and the waves coming over the bar in brown-churned foam threatened every moment to swamp her. wat felt the depth of the water with his oar, and promptly leaped overboard. his feet sank dangerously into the slushy ooze of the bank, but the boat, relieved of his weight, rose buoyantly on the swell, and wat, clasping his hands about her prow, was dragged clear, and presently, drenched and dripping for the third time that day, he found himself aboard again. clearly there was nothing further to be obtained by persevering in that direction, at least with a boat so unwieldy as that in which scarlett and he had come over from the main-land. so wat resolved to try if he could not find a smooth and safe passage by hugging the shore of fiara, thus avoiding the sweep of the tide-race, and in the end reaching the still, deep strait lying between the rocks of his isle and the huge, lowering cliffs of lianacraig, which so tantalizingly shut out from his view all that he wished to see of the spot on which, as he believed, his love waited for him. full of this thought, wat turned the prow of the boat and struck confidently along the shore, past the bay where he had first brought the derelict ashore, and on towards the projecting eastern ness of suliscanna. but here there was no projecting bar, and wat promptly found himself in the same uneasy, boiling swirl which had so disastrously ended his former voyage. nevertheless, he persevered for some distance, for indeed he saw no other way of reaching the southern isle. but suddenly, not ten yards in front of his boat, appeared the turbulent, arched back of a yet more furious tide-race. the prow of the boat was snatched around in an instant; two or three staggering blows were dealt her on the quarter as she turned tail. the oar was almost dragged from his hand, and in another moment wat found himself floating in the smooth water at the tail of the reef, not far from where he had started. he almost laughed, so suddenly and completely had the proof been afforded him that there was no outgate east or west for a heavy craft so undermanned as his was. it was with a heavy heart, therefore, that wat had perforce to give up the boat as a means of reaching the southern island. after his defeat he went ashore and sat gloomily watching the pale lilac light of the evening fade from the rocks above the narrow strait. beneath him the waters of the deep sound were still, and only beat with a pleasant, clappering sound on the rocks. a quick and desperate resolve stirred in wat's heart. he stripped himself of his upper clothes, and, leaving all but his shirt and his knee-breeches among the rocks, he bound these upon his head, fastening them with his soldier's belt under his chin. then, without pausing a moment to give his resolution time to cool, he dropped into the water and swam straight across the narrow, rock-walled strait towards the black rampart line of the cliffs of lianacraig. he was well aware that he had taken his life in his hand, for from the side of the sea these grim crags had apparently never been scaled by human foot. but wat had another idea than climbing in his mind. as he had watched the waves glide without sound or rebound into the great square arch which yawned in the midst of the rocky face, a belief had grown into certainty within him that the passage must be connected with another arm of the sea at the farther side of the cliffs. with quick, characteristic resolve he determined to discover if this supposition were correct. he found no difficulty in swimming across the narrow strait of fiara, in spite of a curious dancing undertow which now threw him almost out of the water, and anon mischievously plucked him by the feet as if to drag him bodily down to the bottom. presently, however, he found himself close underneath the loom of the cliffs, and the great black archway, driven squarely into their centre, yawned above him. by this time wat's eyes had become somewhat accustomed to the darkness, and he could make out that the line where the sea met the rocks was brilliantly phosphorescent, and that this pale green glimmer penetrated for some distance into the dark of the rock-cut passage. wat did not hesitate a moment, but whispering "_for her sake!_" he pushed, with a full breast-stroke, straight into the midst of that sullen, brooding blackness and horror of unsteady water. outside in the sound he had been conscious of the brisk, changeful grip of winds fretting the water, the swift pull of currents fitful as a woman's lighter fancies, the flash of iridescent silver foam defining and yet concealing the grim cliff edges. but inside there was nothing but the blackness of darkness, made only more apparent by a pervading greenish glimmer which, perhaps because it existed more in the eyes of the swimmer than in the actual illumination of the cavern, revealed nothing tangible, but on the contrary seemed only to render the gloom more tense and horrible. but wat had made up his mind and was not to be turned aside. he would follow this sea-pass to its end--even if that end should bring death to himself. for at all hazards he was resolved to break a way to his sweetheart, if indeed she yet lived and loved him. the silence of the cave was remarkable. wat could feel as he swam the slow, regular pulse-beat of the outer ocean-swell which passed up beneath him, and which at each undulation heaved him some way towards the roof. but he could hear no thundering break as it arched itself on the clattering pebbles or broke on the solid rock bottom as it would have done if the cavern had come soon to an end. he oared his way therefore in silence through the midst of the darkness, keeping his place in the centre of the tunnel by instinct, and perhaps also a little by the faint glimmer of phosphorescence which pursued him through the cave. the way seemed endless, but after a while, though the wall of rock continued to stand up on either hand, it grew perceptibly lighter overhead. wat chanced to look downward between his arms as he swam. a disk of light burned in the pure water beneath him. he turned on his back and glanced up, and there, at the top of an immense black cleft with perpendicular walls, lo! the stars were shining. without knowing it he had come out of the tunnelled cavern into one of the "goës" or narrow fiords which cut into the lianacraig fortress of basalt to its very foundations. the passage still kept about the same width, and the water within it heaved and sighed as before, but the rock wall seemed gradually to decrease in height as wat went on. also the direction of the "goë" changed every minute, so that wat had to steer his way carefully in order to avoid striking upon the jutting, half-submerged rocks at the corners. presently the passage ended, and wat came out again on a broader stretch of water, over which the free, light breezes of the night played chilly. he found himself quite close to the beach of suliscanna. there was a scent of peat-reek and cheerful human dwellings in the air--of cattle also, the acrid tang of goats, and, sweetest of all to a shipwrecked man, the indescribable kindly something by which man advertises his permanent residence to his fellows amid all the world of inhuman things. after the darkness of the "goë" it seemed almost lucid twilight here, and wat could see a black tower relieve itself against the sky, darker than the intense indigo padding in which the stars were set that moonless night. he stood on shore and rubbed himself briskly all over with the rough cloth of his knee-breeches before clothing himself in them. then he donned the shirt and belt which he had brought over with him on his head by way of that perilous passage through the rocky gateway of suliscanna, whose virgin defences had probably never been violated in such a manner before. being now clothed and in the dignity of his right mind, wat cautiously directed his way upward towards the bulk of a tower which he saw loom dark above him. chapter xxxi bess landsborough's catechism as he went his unshod feet sometimes rasped on the sharp edges of slaty rocks, and anon trod with a pleasantly tickling sensation on the shaggy bull's-fell of the inland heather. wat drew his breath instinctively shorter and more anxiously, not so much from any increased consciousness of danger as because he knew that at last he trod the isle whereon his love lay asleep, all unconscious of his living presence so near her. climbing steadily, he surmounted the steep slope, and came to the angle of the castle wall. here wat peered stealthily round. a fire of peat, nearly extinct, smoked sulkily in front of an arched doorway which led underneath the masonry, and stretched out with his bare feet towards it, and barring all passage into the vault, lay a gigantic highlander with a naked claymore by his side. it was alister mcalister on guard over his prisoner. wat drew back. "surely," he thought, "it cannot be in this morose dungeon that they have shut my love?" at the thought he grasped the dagger which was his sole weapon, and glanced at the prostrate form of the unconscious sentinel, with the tangled locks thrown back from the broad brow. "never yet did wat gordon slay a sleeping man," he muttered, somewhat irresolutely, and took a backward step to consider the matter. but at that instant a thick plaid was thrown over his head and he was pulled violently to the ground. limber wat twisted like an eel and struck at his assailant with his dagger. but a hand clasped his arm and a voice whispered in his ear, "down with your blade, man. i am a friend. if ye love kate mcghie, you endanger both her life and yours by the least noise." the plaid was unwound from about his head, and in the dim light wat could see that he stood beside the door of a cabin, so low as hardly to be distinguishable from the bowlders upon the moor, being as shapelessly primitive and turf-overgrown as they. beside him crouched a woman of middle age, apparently tall and well-featured. "wheest, laddie," she whispered, "hae ye the heart o' gowd that the lassie left for ye wi' that daft hempie, mehitabel smith?" wat slipped the love-token from under his shirt and let the woman touch it. it was chill and damp with the crossing of the salt strait. "aye, lad, surely ye are the true lover, and bess landsborough is no' the woman to wrang ye," said the wife of alister. "but mind ye, there are mony dangers yet to encounter. your friend that was casten oot o' your bit boatie among the bores o' the suck is safe-warded yonder in the tower, and that is my man alister that ye swithered whether to put your gully-knife intil or no." wat hastened to disclaim any such fell intent. [illustration: "a gigantic highlander with a naked claymore by his side"] "wi' laddie, was i no watchin' ye?" said the woman, "and did i no see the thocht in the verra crook o' your elbow? bess landsborough has companied ower lang wi' men o' war no' to ken when they are playin' themselves, and when the death o' the heart rins like wildfire alang the shoother blade, doon the strong airm, and oot at the place where the fingers fasten themselves round the blue steel. sma' blame till ye! but lest ye should be ower greatly tempted, i e'en threw the plaidie ower ye to gie ye time to consider better. for, after a', alister's my ain man, and a kind man to me. and forbye, stickin' a knife atween puir alister's ribs wad no hae advantaged you a hair, nor yet helped ye to your bit lass--no, nor even assisted that ill-set skelum jock scarlett to win clear oot o' his prison hole." the woman took wat by the hand. "come this side the hoose," she said; "i want a word wi' you. bess landsborough is takin' some risks the nicht, and she maun ken what mainner o' lad she is pittin' her windpipe in danger for." she drew him round the low, turf-roofed house to the end farthest from the castle. here stood a peat stack, or rather a mound of the large surface "turves" of the country, for there are no true peat-mosses upon suliscanna. alister's wife crouched upon her heels in the black shelter of the stack, and drew wat down beside her. "now," she said, "what brocht ye here this night, and where did ye come frae?" "i came seeking kate mcghie, the lass that i have followed over a thousand miles of land and sea," answered wat, promptly, "and also to discover what had become of my friend whose name you have mentioned, john scarlett, he who was with me when our boat overset near the island." "to seek your lass and your friend, says you," answered the woman, "a good answer and a fair; but whilk o' them the maist? ye are cauld and wat. ye will hae soomed frae some hidie-hole in the muckle cliffs they name lianacraig, i doot na. was it your lass or your friend that ye thocht on when ye took life in hand and cam' paddling like a pellock through the mirk? was it for the sake o' your love or your comrade that ye were gangin' to slit the hass of alister mcalister, decent red-headed son o' a cattle-thief that he is?" "for both of them," said wat, stoutly; "i am much beholden to john scarlett. he set out on this most perilous adventure over seas at a word from me, and without the smallest prospect of advantage to himself." "i doubt it not," said bess landsborough; "it was the little sense o' the cuif all the days of him, that he would ever do more for his comrade than for his lass. and that is maybe the reason annexed to bess landsborough's being here this day, a heelantman's wife on the cauld, plashy isle o' suliscanna. but, laddie, listen to me. i am no gaun to let the bonny bit young thing that i hae cherished like my ain dochter mak' the same mistake as i made langsyne. tell me, laddie, as god sees ye, what yin ye wad leave ahint ye, gin ye could tak' but yin o' them and ye kenned that death wad befall the ither?" "i would take kate mcghie, though ye hanged old jack scarlett as high as haman," quoth wat, instantly. "fairly and soothly, my man," said the woman, in his ear. "there is no need to rair it as if ye were at a field-preachin' on the wilds of friarminion. quietly, quietly; tell me, in brief, what ye wad do for your friend and what for your lass?" "for my friend i will tell you," said wat--"though i know not what gives you the right to ask--for my friend i would do all that a man may--face my friend's foes, help his well-wishers till i had not a rag to share, stand shoulder to shoulder with him, and never ask the cause of his quarrel; share the crust and divide the stoup, die and be buried in one hole with him at the last." "aye," said bess, "that is spoken like a soldier, and well spoken, too. ye mean it, lad, and ye wad do it, too. but for your lass--" "for her," said wat, lowering his voice, solemnly, "for the lass i love, is it? i will rather tell you what i have done already. for her i have gone mad. i have flung my chances by handfuls into the sea. at sight of a single scornful glint of her eye i ran headlong to destruction; at a harsh word from her i had almost thrown away life and honor both. for a kindly word i have set my head in the dust under her foot. i have cherished in my deepest heart no pride, no will, no ambition that i would not have made a stepping-stone of, that her foot might tread upon it." wat paused for breath amid the rush of his words ere he went on: "'i could not love thee, dear, so much, loved i not honor more,' somewhat thus runs the catch. but the man that made that kenned nothing of love. for i would make all the honor of men no more than a straw-wisp to feed the flames to warm the feet of my love withal. to 'die for her' is a pretty saying, and forever in the mouth of every prating fool whenever he comes anigh a woman; but i would smile under the torture of the boot and abide silently the extreme question only to preserve her heart from a single pang." "would you give her up to another if you knew that it was for her good?" "a thousand times no!" wat was beginning, furiously, when his companion put her hand over his mouth. "if ye dinna hunker doon beside me, and learn to be still, ye will e'en see her ye think so muckle o' the bride o' my lord o' barra, and that, too, on the morn of a day when ye will be learning to dance a new quick-step oot o' the tower window up on the heuch there." "i know," said wat, speaking more low, and answering as if to himself her former question, "that it is within the power of the love of woman, when it is purest and noblest, to be able to give up that which they love to another, if they judge that it is for the beloved's good. but they that think such surrender to be the essence of the highest love of men ken nothing at all about the matter. for me, i would a thousand times rather clasp my love in my arms and leap with her over the crags of lianacraig, than see her given to any other. and i would sooner set the knife into her sweet throat with mine own hand than that barra should so much as lay a finger upon her." "and your friend?" said bess landsborough. she was smiling in the dark as if she were well pleased. "jack scarlett i love," replied wat, "but not for him did i break prison, overpass the hollow seas, and lay my life like a very little thing in the palm of a maiden's hand." "it is well," said bess landsborough, with a sigh. "that is the true lilt of the only love that is worth the having. the heart beats just so when there comes into it the love that contents a woman--the love that is given to but few to find in this weariful, unfriendly, self-seeking warld." she rose to her feet and looked eastward. "in an hour and a half at the outside ye maun be on your road, lad, back to your hidie-hole. i ask ye not where that may be. but gin alister mcalister sleeps soundly ye shall speak with your friend--while i, bess landsborough, a decent married woman frae the pairish o' colmonel, keep watch and ward at the chaumer door ower the pair o' ye." she took him again by the hand, laid her finger a moment soberly on his lip, and then led him about the house to a low door, through which she entered and drew wat gordon after her, bowing his head almost to the level of his waist in the act of following his guide. wat was rejoiced to know that he was about to see jack scarlett, both because he had thought him dead in the tide-race, and also that together they might devise some plan of escape for themselves and for the delivery of kate from her durance. at an inner door his guide halted and listened long and earnestly. the chamber in which they stood was dark save for the red ashes of a turf fire in the centre. bess landsborough tapped lightly on the inner door and opened it quietly. then she took wat by the shoulder and pushed him in. "ye said your 'carritches'[b] to me, and ye said them weel, or, my faith, 'tis not here ye should have found yoursel' this nicht! gang in there, lad, and say the 'proofs' and the 'reasons annexed.'" [b] catechism. wat, greatly puzzled, stepped within. he found himself in a small room, dark save when the dying fire of peat in the outer chamber threw red glimmers into it. "jack--jack scarlett!" whispered wat, astonished that the old soldier did not greet him. "he must be very sound asleep!" he thought. chapter xxxii the surrender of the beloved but something in the air of the chamber struck to the heart--something different, subtle, unfamiliar, dazing. as his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, he saw the figure of a girl lying on a couch of heather over which was thrown a rug made of the skins of wild animals. the face was turned from him, but the girl was not asleep, for he could see that quick, helpless sobs shook her frame, and that her attitude betokened the abandonment of despair. wat gordon's heart leaped within him and then stood still, when he realized that for the first time in his life he stood within the chamber of his love. at the noise of the opening door the girl slowly turned her head, and her eyes fell on the figure of wat. the young man sank on his knees a little way from the couch. the girl continued to gaze at him without speech, and as for wat, he could find no fitting words. he strove for utterance, but his tongue was dry to the roots, and the roof of his mouth parched like leather. presently kate sat up with a world of wonder and fear on her face. she was wrapped about the shoulders in a great shawl of fleecy wool, such as a hundred years ago the shipwrecked mariners of the spanish armada had taught these northern islanders to knit. beneath it, here and there, appeared the white glimmer of fine linen cloth, such as could only come from the lint wheels of the lowlands. the girl's lips were parted, and her eyes, great and black, appeared so brilliant that the shining of them seemed to lighten all her face there in that dim place. "wat," she said, "you have come back to me! i knew you would, and i am not afraid. i knew you would come if you could and speak once to me. for you are mine in all worlds, and you gave your life for me. it is but a dream, i know--but ah, such a sweet dream!" she held out her arms towards him with such wonderful pity that wat, kneeling on the floor, could not move; and words he found none to utter, so marvellous did her speech seem to him. "it is a dream," she repeated, in a voice full of hushed awe, "i know it. and it is a very gracious god that hath sent it to me this first night of my loss. i saw my lad go down in the deep, hurrying waters--my love, my love, and now he will never know that i loved him!" "kate," whispered wat, hoarsely, and with a voice which he knew not for his own--"kate, it is indeed i--myself, in the flesh. i have come to save you. i did not die. i did not drown. it is i, wat gordon, your own lad, come to kiss your hand, to carry you safe through a world of enemies." the girl leaned forward and looked towards him wistfully and intently. she was shaken from head to foot with strange tremors. love, fear, and most delicious shame strove together within her maiden's heart. "if indeed you be walter gordon in the flesh, i thank the lord for your safety. but go, for here you are in terrible danger every moment. i have said, i know not what. i was asleep, and when i awoke i saw you, and thought that i yet dreamed a dream." wat reached over and took her hand. he bent his head to it reverently and kissed it. "sweet love," he whispered, "have no fear. in a little while i shall be away. i must go from you ere the dawn comes. but your friend and mine, your hostess of the isle, brought me to this dear and sacred place, thinking me not unworthy. she waits at the door. in a little space the light will come and the island men awake. then i must take my life in my hand and be far away before the day. but rest assured, i am at all times near enough to watch over you, my beloved." wat looked steadfastly and adoringly at kate, and lo! the tears were running silently down her face and falling on the pillow. he drew a little nearer to her. "love," he said, softly, "you have forgiven me. you forgave me long ago, did you not? i loved you over much. that was the reason. see," he whispered, pulling his gold heart from about his neck, "this is the token that you forgave me." and he bent and kissed it before putting it back again in his bosom. she raised her eyes to his. they shone upon him with a strange light that had never been kindled in them before. the light of a great love shone out of the wonderful deeps of them, beaconing the way clear into the haven of her heart. it was the maiden's look of gladness he saw there--the joy that she had kept herself for the beloved--so that now at last she can give him all. "oh, wat--dear, dear wat," she whispered, "i love you; i cannot choose but love you. i cannot be proud with you any more. i am so tired of being proud. for my heart has cried out for you to come to me this weary, weary while. i have been so long alone--without any one--without you." and she made a little virginal gesture of pain which sent wat's arms about her in a moment. he could not answer her in words. but he was wiser, for instead their lips drew together. he kept his eyes on hers as their faces closed each on the other. his head reeled with the imagined sweetness. he seemed to remember nothing but her eyes, and how they were ocean-deep and world-large. he felt that he could plunge into them as into the sea from an overhanging cliff. but just ere their lips met kate suddenly dropped her head against his breast. "wat!" she whispered, intensely, "tell me--you heard what i said when i thought you had come to me in a dream--that--that i loved you and wanted you to return to me? you will never think less of me, never love me less for my words, nor for letting you love me thus?" wat gordon laughed a low, secure, satisfied laugh deep down in his throat. he had forgotten the watchful woman at the door, the waking enemies without, the coming dawn swiftly striding towards suliscanna from the east, the long, dangerous passage of the sea-cavern, the perils innumerable that lay about them both. he loved, and he held his love all securely in his arms. she questioned of his love, and he felt that he could answer her. "my love," he whispered, "i love you so that all things--life, death, eternity--are the same to me. nothing weighs in the scale when set to balance you. i loved you, kate, when i thought you must hate me for my folly and wickedness. how shall i love you now, when your sweetest words of this night are writ in fire on my heart? but all is one--i love you, and i love you, and i love you!" the girl sighed the satisfied sigh of one who listens to that which she desires to hear and knows that she will hear, yet who for very love's sake must needs hear it again and yet again. and her arms also went tremblingly about him, and they twain that had been sundered so long, kissed their first kiss--the kiss of surrender that comes but once, and then only to the pure and worthy. the dewy warmth and fragrance of her lips, the heady rapture of the unexpected meeting so thrilled his heart and dominated his senses that broad day might well have stolen upon them and found the lovers so, "the world forgetting, by the world forgot." but the voice of bess landsborough from the doorway caused them to start suddenly apart with a shock of loss like the snapping of a limb. yet it was a kindly voice, and one full of infinite sympathy for those who, like wat and kate, were ready to count all things well lost for love. "my lad," she said, gently, "ye maun e'en be tramping. in an hour or so the sun will be keekin' ower the hills of the east, and gin ye tarry your lass will mourn a lover. there are more days than one, and nights longer than this short one of summer. trust your love to me. bess landsborough chose a strange way of love hersel', but she keeps a kindly heart for young folk, and you twa silly bairnies shall not lippen to her in vain. come your ways, lad." and wat would have gone at her word. for the hope of the future had possession of him, and, besides, his head was dazed and moidered with the first taste of love's sweetness. but the girl raised herself a little and held out her arms. "bid me good-night just this once," she said, "and tell me again that you love me." so wat took his sweetheart in his arms. there seemed no words that he could say which would express the thoughts of his heart at that moment. "i love you--god knows _how_ i love you!" was all that he found to say. and then, "god keep my little lass!" there came a strange hush in his ears, and the next moment he found himself outside, breasting the cool airs of the night as if they had been the waves of the tide-race, and listening to the voice of bess landsborough, which carried no more meaning to his ears than if it had been the crying of a seagull rookery upon the rocks of lianacraig. "come back to-night and i will meet you at the shore-side," was all that disentangled itself from the meaningless turmoil of his guide's words. for the fragrance of his love's lips was yet on his, and he was wondering how long the memory of it would stay with him. without even waiting to take off his clothes, wat pushed out into the channel of the sea-passage. he swam as easily and unconsciously as though he had been floating in some world of dreams, in which he found himself finned like a fish. and when he came to himself he was lying under the shelter of his boat in the cove of his own green islet of fiara, trying to recall the look that he had seen in his love's eyes in the gloom of bess landsborough's guest-chamber. but though he buried his head in his hands, and laid his hands on the sand to shut out the sky and the shining breakers, he could not recall the similitude of it. only he knew that it had been most wonderful, and that his eyes had never seen anything like it before. chapter xxxiii an ancient love affair when wat awoke on the island and stirred his cramped limbs, on which the sun had already dried his wet clothes, in the warm and briskly stirring airs of the summer morning, he could hardly believe in the reality of his experiences of the night. one by one he remembered the passage of the cave, the highland sentinel sleeping by his dying fire, his new and kindly protector, bess landsborough. then last of all, and suddenly overflowing all his heart with mighty love (even as a volcano, askja or vatna, pours without warning its burning streams over icy provinces), the meeting with his love in the dusky undercloud of night rushed upon his memory and filled all his soul with a swift and desperate joy. what wonder that the sweet, low voice he had heard call him "love" out of the darkness should in the broad common day scarce seem real to poor wat gordon of lochinvar? he had passed through so many things to hear it. also, ever since the death of little marie, he knew the accent of the voice that speaks not for the sake of "making love," but which unconsciously and inevitably reveals love in every syllable. wat had made love in his time, and ladies of beauty and repute not a few--my lady wellwood among the number--had made love to him. but he knew the difference now. for love which must needs be "made" bears always the stamp of manufacture. true love, on the other hand, is a city set on a hill; it cannot be hid, and this is why the love-glance of a maiden's eye so eternally confutes the philosophers, and ofttimes lays the lives of the mighty, for making or marring, in the hollow of very little hands. the day that succeeded this night adventure was a long one both for wat and kate. for the girl had been even less prepared for the astonishing event of the night than wat himself. providence, by the hand of mistress alister mcalister, had certainly worked strangely. indeed, the only person wholly unmoved was that lady herself. she bustled about the flags of her kitchen, slapping them almost contemptuously with her broad bare feet, busy as a bee with her baking and brewing, like the tidy, thrifty, "eident"[c] ayrshire good-wife that she was. not a glance at kate revealed that she had been instrumental in opening a new chapter in two lives only the night before. [c] diligent. when, midway through the forenoon, alister brought his bulky body to the door-step, his loving wife drove him off again to the gateway of the tower with an aphorism which is held of the highest repute in the parish of colmonel: "na, na, come na here for your brose--e'en get your meal o' meat where ye work your wark!" and the stoop-shouldered giant coolly retreated without a word of protest, merely helping himself as he went out to a double handful of oatmeal from his wife's bake-board, for all the world like a theftuous school-boy, who keeps the while one eye on the master. with this he took his way to the spring which trickled down by the castle wall. and there, very deliberately and philosophically, he proceeded to make himself a dish of cold "drammoch" on the smooth surface of a stone which the water had hollowed. "and mony is the hungry mouth that would be glad of it," said he, by way of grace after meat. for alister was of the excellent and approven opinion that a dinner of herbs by the dikeside is better than a banquet of whitehall with the sauce of an angry woman's tongue for seasoning thereto. but when bess landsborough brought the prisoner his farles of cake and cool buttermilk (for it was "kirning day"), she took out also a handful of crisp bannocks for her husband. these she thrust under his nose with the sufficient and comprehensive monosyllable, "hae!" and alister accepted the act as at once honorable amend and judicious apology. nor was alister behindhand in courtesy. for though the silent jailer did not utter a single word either to his wife or his prisoner, he drew his _skean dhu_ and cut a whang from the sweet-milk cheese which he kept by him. to this he added a horn of strong island spirit, which of a surety proved very much to the taste of the late master-at-arms to their several highnesses louis, king of france, and william of orange, stadtholder of the netherlands. thereafter, with consideration particularly delicate, he withdrew out of earshot and sat on a knoll before the castle, leaving his wife to talk at leisure to her ancient sweetheart. for alister mcalister was a man without jealousy. he knew that he could keep his wife, even as he kept his head in battle, with the little wee point of his knife and the broad, broad blade of his claymore. and as for ancient sweethearts, what cared he for a peck of them? bess landsborough might have had a score of lovers in the 'lowlands low'; yet had she not chosen to leave them all and follow him up the braes--aye, and over the sea straits, threading the ultimate islands till at last she had come to this barren holding of rock, scantily felted down with heather and peat, on the isle of suliscanna? but, on the other hand, scarlett was not the man to lose his time, in spite of bonds and imprisonments. "ye are as weel-faured as ever, bess. ye were aye a bonny blithesome lass a' the days o' ye!" said he, complacently, as he munched his farles of cake and took sup about of usquebaugh from the horn and buttermilk from the pail. "havers!" said mistress mcalister, "ye are an auld eneuch man to ken that ye canna blaw twice in my lug wi' the same flairdies. ye forget i hae heard ye at that job before. and it lasted--hoo lang? just e'en till your company rade awa' frae girvan to kirkcudbright, and then ye took up with maggie nicholson, the byre-lass o' bombie, the very second week that ever ye were there! and telled her, i dare say, that she was weel-faured, blithe, and a bonny woman!" "i see ye haena forgotten how to belie them that ye tried to break the hearts o', bess landsborough," said scarlett, without, however, letting his broken heart interfere with a very excellent appetite. "ye weel ken that ye sent me frae the door o' the laggan wi' my tail atween my legs like a weel-lickit messan, and twa o' your ill-set cronies lookin' on at my shaming, too." "i'm thinkin', my man john," retorted bess landsborough, "that ye had better say as little as ye can aboot that ploy. for the lasses were mirren semple o' the auld wa's and meg kennedy o' kirriemore, that had come in the afternoon to keep me company. and as we sat talking ower ae thing after anither, we spak' amang ithers o' you, my braw trooper--sergeant john scarlett, no less, that rode so gallantly with the colors in his hand. and by this and that we had it made clear that ye had been for making up to a' the three o' us at once! an' so we compared your tricks. how ye had gotten doon on your knees and telled us that ye loved us best o' a' the world. ye had kissed oor hands--at least, mine and meg kennedy's. but your favorite fashion was to take the skirts o' oor gouns and kiss the hem o' them, swearin' that ye wad raither kiss the border o' oor cloaks than the mouth o' the grandest woman in scotland. (a' the three o' us!) then ye asked for a curl cut off aboon our brows--at least, frae mine and mirren semple's. for meg kennedy never had sic a thing in her life, but had aye flat, greasy hair, sleekit like a mowdiewart[d] hingin' by the neck in a trap on a wat day. and her ye telled that ye couldna bide hair that wadna keep smooth, but was aye a'kinked and thrawn into devalls and curliewigs. oh, sic a bonny, true-speakin', decent, mensefu' callant as the three o' us made ye oot to be! so when we had ye gye-and-weel through-hands, wha should ride up to the door but my gay lad himsel', this same braw cavalier. so mirren and meg and me, we gaed oot ontil the step and telled ye what we thocht o' ye. ow aye, ye were a puir disjaskit cuif that day, sergeant john scarlett, for a' your silver spurs and your red sodjer's coat!" [d] mole. john scarlett laughed loud and long at the record of his iniquities, but his abasement, if at the time as profound as bess landsborough made it out to be, had certainly completely passed away. for he cried out: "what a grand memory ye hae for the auld times, bess! i warrant ye, ye couldna gang ower the points o' effectual calling as briskly, nor yet the kings o' judah and israel that ye learned on the sabbath forenichts by the lowe o' the colmonel peats!" "but eneuch o' havers," said bess; "ken ye that yon braw lad o' yours is safe and hearty? mair than that, he met wi' his bonny lass yestreen. baith o' them kens what love is--a thing that ye never kenned, no, nor will ken to your dying day, john scarlett." "aweel, aweel," replied scarlett, placably, "at ony rate i am desperate glad that wat's won oot o' the brash o' the mony waters safe and sound; and as for love, if i kenned nocht aboot it, at least i hae had experience o' some gye fair imitations in my time, that did well eneuch for a puir perishing mortal like me." * * * * * on the other hand, wat on his isle of fiara had been exceedingly busy all that day. he had chosen a shallow cavern on the most remote northern shore of fiara, dry and open like the entrance-hall of a house, and into it he had carried a large quantity of fresh and blooming heather, sufficient for the most luxurious couch in the world. this he arranged in a little sheltered alcove to the right of the main chamber, and pleased himself with the simple arrangements, talking to himself all the time. "by this path she can go down to the sea without being observed. into this basin i can lead the water that trickles over the rock, so that she may wash on chill or rainy mornings." he broke off with a quick, nervous laugh at his own thoughts. "i am speaking as if we were always to dwell together on this island. but the sooner we get away the better it will be for both of us." yet, somehow, the imagination of his heart played about this idea of the seclusion of two on the isle of fiara. for the escape itself wat had his plans already laid. he knew that kate was a strong swimmer--indeed, far his own superior at the art. once in the old days she had beaten him hollow when but a half-grown girl, swimming two miles on the broad spaces of loch ken without a sign of fatigue. scarlett was a more difficult problem. for the stout soldier had always held all that concerned the water in sovereign contempt, and wat could see no way of conveying him safely across to the northern island. yet it was essential for their escape that he should be taken thither, and that at the same time with kate. for the islanders might be inclined to make short work of their remaining prisoner if they found that the maid, so straitly committed to their charge, had been spirited away. so before committing himself for the second time to the strange water-gate which led to his beloved, wat had all the details of his plot arranged. he resolved to make the attempt on the first night when the new moon should be far enough advanced to throw a faint light over the water and temper the darkness of the rock passage. he could construct of driftwood a raft large enough to carry those necessaries with which bess landsborough could furnish him out of her scanty stores without attracting attention. the raft would also be at least a partial support for scarlett. wat resolved to arrange the method of escape with bess that very night, and obtain from her the cord before returning. when wat emerged from the long passage it was perfectly dark. not even a single star was to be seen. more than once had he scraped himself painfully on the concealed rocks and on the sides of the cavern; upon which he grumbled to himself as even a man in love will do, for he knew that he would feel these hurts very much more acutely on the morrow. "this will not do at all for scarlett, though kate might manage well enough by keeping close to my shoulder," he said, shaking his head, which dripped with the salt-water, for the first break across the sound to the archway had been through a pretty briskly running jabble of spray. but when wat came out on the sea-front of suliscanna he saw an unusual sight. torches thronged in single file down the pathways. they flashed and crowded about the landing-place, passing and repassing each other. a boat-load of men was just disembarking in the nearer bay; while yet another was dropping down the slack of the ebb, coming from the south of the island and striking in for the shore exactly at the proper moment, like men who knew every turn of the currents. wat could hear the clatter of many voices. swimming silently and showing no more than the dark thatch of his hair over the water, he approached nearer. he might have been a seal for all the mark he made on the water. as the torches gathered thicker about the landing-place, wat could see the flash of arms as one gentleman and another disembarked. presently a figure in black stepped ashore, and was greeted with a loud shout of welcome and acclaim by the islanders. wat's heart sank within him, for he recognized his arch-enemy, and he knew that the difficulties of his task would now be infinitely increased. for my lord of barra it was indeed, who had at last come to claim his captive. and there behind him, like a hulking lubber-fiend, strode the burly, battered figure of haxo the bull, with the calf and the killer in close attendance. chapter xxxiv captor and captive nevertheless, such a panoply is love that wat's heart did not fail him. he waited till the flare of torches and the tumult of men's voices had withdrawn up the hill over which my lord of barra took his way to the house which he occupied during his infrequent visits to the island--a rude strength of stone consisting merely of three or four chambers which had been built after the castle on the rocks below had fallen into disrepair. wat swam ashore, keeping well to the right of the landing-place, where two or three men were still busied about the boats, securing them with ropes and getting out what bits of property had been left in them. wat could not but feel a cold chill strike through his heart when he remembered that the possession of these boats by the islanders, together with their perfect knowledge of all the different states of the tide, would render his position upon the islet of fiara infinitely more dangerous. "all the more reason," quoth undaunted wat, "for us to make the attempt this very night." so, keeping as before to the short heather above the paths, he made his way silently upward towards scarlett's dungeon and the dwelling of his love. he found bess landsborough eagerly waiting for him. she dragged him sharply away from the cottages. "gang back," she whispered, shaking him almost roughly, as though he were to blame; "ken ye not that the chief has come and there will no' be a sober man on the island this nicht? even my alister, if he were to come across ye before morning, would think no more of sticking a knife in ye than of breaking the back of a foumart[e] with a muckle stane." [e] weasel. "i know that," said wat, with composure, "and that is the reason why i am going to take both kate and scarlett with me to-night." "the laddie's fair raving," said the woman; "the thing's clear impossible. it canna be dune. ye will hae to wait--some nicht when they are a' sleepin', maybe." "i'm not going back alive without kate mcghie," said wat. "i cannot leave her with the cruel ravisher, murdo of barra--" "hoot, laddie," said bess, "the chief will no' do the lassie ony harm. he's ben the hoose wi' her the noo." wat, who had been crouching behind a rock beside bess landsborough, at once sprang up and took his dagger bare in his hand. he was setting off in the direction of the hut with the intention of breaking in upon the colloquy of captive and captor, when bess sprang on him and pulled him down with all the weight of her body about his neck and exerting the utmost strength of her brawny arms. "deil's in the laddie! he gangs aff like a spunk o' pooder laid on a peat. the laird's but talkin' wi' the lass in the kitchen, wi' my man alister sittin' on the dresser, and half the rascaldom o' the low countries (well are they designate!) waiting at the door. a word or twa will do your lass little harm, unless she is o' the weak mind, and my lord can persuade her to marry him by the guile of his tongue." wat grunted contemptuously. this was the last thing he was afraid of. "i want," he said, "whatever arms ye can furnish me with, some food of any portable sort--and a rope." "save us, laddie!" said bess, holding up her hands; "ye might just as lief ask me this nicht for the earldom of barra." "i must have them," said wat, firmly, "if i have to forage for them myself." "aweel, i can but do my best," said the woman from colmonel, resignedly; "but i kenna where i shall get them." very cautiously they made their way back to the cottage of alister. "wheesht!" said bess; "lie cowered behind that stone. they are on their road away. for this nicht surely your lass will be left at peace." "and after that it will not matter," said wat, looking cautiously over the edge of the bowlder, "for either we will be safe out of this evil isle, or else she and i will be where barra and his devils can trouble us no more." when bess and wat reached the dwelling of the son of alister, they found it fallen strangely silent and dark. bess went in boldly and promptly. presently her voice was heard in high debate, and after a pause her husband, as if driven with ignominy from his own house, stumbled past wat, and began clambering like a cat up the steep rock to the castle dungeon as easily as if he had been walking on a grass meadow by a water-side. no sooner was he safe out of the way than the door of the hut opened circumspectly. "here!" said the mistress of the dwelling, in a far-reaching whisper. wat went up to the door-step. bess landsborough put out a hand, guided him through the murky intricacies of her outer room, and pushed him into that in which he had met his love the evening before. kate was sitting fully dressed on her bed with her head in her hands. she looked up with a sharp little cry as he entered. "kate," he whispered, "it is i--wat." whereat she ran to him with a sob of relief that was very sweet to hear, and nestled with her head on his broad shoulder. "oh, thank god you have come! all will now be well." wat did not feel so sure of that, but, nevertheless, he caressed the clustering curls and held his love to his bosom, murmuring little meaningless words which kate felt were better to listen to than much wisdom. presently bess landsborough brought wat a pair of pistols, a double flask of powder, and a bagful of bullets. "we must see about getting john scarlett out of his prison," she said. "i have the victuals all ready. there is a rope behind the dike at the corner that looks to the sea. but ye had better get john scarlett out first, and then ye can all three lend a hand at the carrying--save us! what's that?" bess landsborough sprang sharply out of the inner room to the door which gave upon the moor. "hide ye, wat gordon," she said; "here comes some one to visit us." kate made wat lie down between the compacted heather of her couch and the outer wall of the hut. then she threw a coverlet deftly over him. wat grasped his dagger bare in his right hand to be ready in any emergency, but his left found a way almost of its own accord through the heather, till in the darkness it rested in kate's as she sat on the edge of the bed. "my lord of barra," they heard bess landsborough say, without, "have ye forgotten aught? we thought you gone to repose yourself after your journey." "go find your husband and bring him hither, mistress!" commanded the stern voice of barra. "it's no' very like that bess will gang far frae hame to seek her man, or ony ither man; there's mair than eneuch men in bess's hoose this nicht!" said mistress mcalister, under her breath. but with apparent obedience she went out--only, however, to ensconce herself immediately behind the door. she wanted, she said to herself, to "see their twa backs oot o' the kitchen without bloodshed." barra advanced boldly to the inner door which opened into kate's chamber. he paused a moment and knocked lightly. the girl sat still and silent, but her hand gripped that of wat closer to her side with a quick, instinctive thrill, which made that very true lover clutch his dagger and curse the man that could so wring with terror his sweet maid's heart. "may i have a moment's private audience with you, mistress kate?" said barra, from the outer room. kate did not answer a word. the master of the island swung back the door and revealed his tall, slender figure, in his usual dress of simple black, standing in the doorway of the outer room. he stooped his head and entered as he did so. the girl instinctively moved a little nearer to wat and clasped his hand more firmly. a little stifled cry escaped her. wat cleared his dagger-hilt and made ready to spring upon his enemy. my lord of barra in all his checkered life had never been nearer death than he was at that moment. for wat gordon was deciding exactly where he would strike his first blow. "i did not come again hither to alarm you," said barra, "but that i might more fully vindicate myself alone with you than i could do in the presence of so many witnesses. that which i have done--your transporting from holland and your seclusion here--i have done with full warrant and justification, not hastily nor yet without due authority." "i know of no authority," said kate, at last, speaking firmly, "which could warrant the seizure of a maid who never harmed or offended you, the carrying her off gagged and bound like a felon, sailing with her to another country, and there interning her upon a lonely isle till it should please you to come for her, like a jailer to a captive." "my lady," said barra, not without a certain respect in his voice, "i am well aware that i cannot expect you to take my word, for the circumstances are not ripe for me to tell you all. but i ask you to believe that neither disrespect nor passion, nor yet any selfish jealousy, prompted me to these so strange expedients. but on the contrary, a genuine desire for your happiness, and the direct request of those most deeply interested and intimately connected with you." "and who may they be?" asked kate, looking at him contemptuously; "i know none who have the right to give you leave to carry off a young maid from her friends at dead of night, with as little ceremony or mercy as reynard does a gray goose out of the farmer's yard." "your father and your mother--are not they authority enough?" answered barra. the girl gazed at him in cold disdain. "my father," she said, "never in his life crossed my will by word or deed. it was, indeed, by his permission and with his help that i went to holland. and as for my mother, she has been dead and in her resting-grave these twenty years!" "nevertheless i had the permission and encouragement of the noble lady, your mother, in that which i have done, though i admit that of your father was a little more belated. that is what i wanted to say. you do not believe me, i am aware, and i am not able at present more particularly to unriddle the mystery. nevertheless, rest assured that a lord of barra does not lie. i bid you good-night. is it permitted to kiss your hand? well, then, with all humble duty and observance, i kiss mine to you." with that barra bowed and went out backward through the narrow door, as if he had been ushering himself out of a queen's presence-chamber. in the kitchen he passed bess landsborough, who opened on him with a voluble tale of how she had sought her husband high and low without any success, and how it was to be supposed that, like the rest, he had gone to drink his lordship's health at the muckle house over the hill. but barra went by her without a word, and the mistress of alister mcalister was left speaking to the empty air. she suddenly ceased as he disappeared in the dark, and turned for sympathy to wat and kate in the inner room. "siccan manners!" she said, indignantly; "they wadna set a colmonel brood-sow--to gae by a decent woman like that muckle dirt, and yin, too, that had just gane on an errand for him. it's true i gaed nae farther than the back o' the door, but at ony rate he kenned nae better, and cam' back wi' news for his high michty chiefship. it's fair scandalous, that's what it is! wha hae we here this shot? i declare my hoose is as thrang as a sacrament scailing, when the folk are flocking to the drinking-booths at stanykirk holy fair." the visitor on this occasion proved to be her husband alister. he was already somewhat flushed of cheek and wild of eye. he paused unsteadily in the middle of the kitchen and flung down a great key on the table. "take care of that till the morn's morn," he said. "i would maybe loss it. i am going out to drink till i be drunk." and with this simple declaration of policy he strode out as he had come. as soon as he had gone, bess threw a damp turf over the clear peat fire on the hearth of the outer kitchen, which in a trice raised a dense smoke and rendered everything within dark and gloomy. "come awa'," she said, putting her head into the room where kate, her heart beating wildly with the joy of reprieve and the presence of her beloved, was clinging to wat's arm, as he stood on the floor with his dagger still ready and bare in his hand. "haste ye and come away," she said; "there'll be time and to spare when ye get him safe to yourself, my lass, for a hale world o' cuikin' and joein'." wat and kate came out quickly and bess shut the door behind them. outside the sharp air off the atlantic chilled them like a drench of well-water on a summer's day, breathing keenly into their lungs after the close atmosphere of the hut. they made their way up the steep to the castle. across the door of the vault where john scarlett was confined lay the prostrate body of a celt, inert and stertorous. mistress mcalister stirred him with her foot, and then turned him completely over. "as i thocht," she said, "it is just misfortunate colin. it will be an ill day for him the morn. but he is aye in the way o' mischances, onyway. he canna keep clear o' them. if a stane were to slip frae a rock tap in a' the isle, it is on colin it wad light. if a rope break at the egg-harvest, 'tis colin that's at the end o' the tow. i think a pity o' him, too--for barrin' the drink and the ill luck, he's a decent soul. but it juist canna be helpit." so with that bess undid the door with the key which alister had thrown upon the table, and then carefully tucked it into the waist-belt of colin the misfortunate. "it's a peety," she said; "but after a' it is a deal mair faceable and natural that the like o' this should hae happened to colin than to ony ither man in the isle." jack scarlett lay on his bed of heather tops, wrapped in his plaid, and slept the sleep of the easy of conscience. "what's a' the tirrivee?"[f] he growled, when wat shook him. "get up and escape--what's the terrible fyke and hurry? disturbin' a man in his first sleep. surely, ye could either hae comed afore he fell ower or let him hae his sleep oot. a man's health is afore a'thing when it comes to my time o' life. and it is no havers and nonsense--far frae't! but ye hae no consideration, wat gordon--never had, ever since i kenned ye." [f] unnecessary disturbance. so, growling and grumbling as was his wont, old jack gathered his belongings together with soldierly practicality, pocketing the remains of his evening's meal, and bringing all sorts of treasures out of numberless hiding-places here and there about his dungeon. "now i am at your service," he said, as he stood erect. chapter xxxv skirting the breakers as the party filed out of the low dungeon door, each of them of necessity stepped over the prostrate body of misfortunate colin. the fates that sport with destiny had offered him up a sacrifice to the wrath of his chief, in order that luckier men might go scatheless. "it micht just as weel hae been alister, my man!" said bess; "for he will be as drunk as the lave, or maybe a kennin waur! but then alister has been a fortunate man a' his days--no' like that puir tyke there that never supped meal porridge but he choked himsel' wi' the spoon!" it was a night clear and infinite with stars when the four--kate, wat, scarlett, and bess--took up each their share of the arms and provisions, which the last-named had provided in the shelter of the dike. the air was still. there was no sound save the ceaseless soughing whisper of the mighty salt river as it rushed northward past the isle--the strange pervading sound of the suck gurgling afar like the boiling of a pot. only at intervals and from a distance came the shouting of choruses and the loud "_hooch!_" of some reveller yet in the active stages of drinking long life and prosperity to the returned chieftain. as soon as they had passed the ridge and left the village behind them, wat paused for a consultation. "'tis little use," he said, "to think of making a raft at this time of night. yet certain it is that we must be clear of the isle by the morning--that is, if one of us is to remain alive." "i for ane am gaun to bide on suliscanna!" said mistress mcalister. "there is but one way that i can think of," continued wat, not heeding her; "there are two boats at the landing-place. i saw the men unloading them when i landed to-night. now we could not take the larger of these into the tide-race, but if the tide be favorable we might seize the smaller and pilot it through the sea-cavern, by which i came hither, to my hiding-place on the isle of fiara." jack scarlett nodded silent assent as he listened to wat's suggestion. the night-air had restored all his confidence, and he felt ready for anything. so on the darksome ridge overlooking the landing-place the two women were left to consume their souls with impatience, while wat and scarlett, with their daggers in their hands, stole stealthily down to effect their desperate capture. the boats lay together on the inner side of a little stone breakwater. they were not drawn up on the beach, but secured stem and stern with ropes, and floated in the gentle undulation of the tide. wat and scarlett strained their eyes into the darkness for a sight of any watch. but spite of the stars, the night was too impenetrable for them to distinguish the presence of any human being on board. wat dropped into the water, having left his powder and shot, together with the pistols, in the care of scarlett. he swam a few strokes out to the boat and listened. in the larger he could clearly distinguish the breathing of two men. the other appeared to be entirely empty. promptly wat cut the cord which secured the stem, and let that boat fall away and swing round with her head towards the shore. then beckoning scarlett, whose figure he could discern black against the sand of the beach, wat stepped on board. scarcely was he over the side when his foot trod on the soft body of a man. wat was on him in a moment and had the fellow by the throat. but the helpless gurgle of his respiration, and the pervading smell of hollands which disentangled itself from every part of his person, convinced wat that he had nothing to fear from the crew of this boat. there remained the other and larger, which was anchored farther out in the water of the little harbor. cautiously wat lifted the small double-pronged anchor, which still held their first prize. scarlet waded in and was helped over the side. the tide swept them slowly round towards the larger vessel in which wat had heard the breathing of men. presently their boat went groaning and wheezing against the side-planks of her companion. wat promptly and silently secured his position with the five-pronged boat-anchor which he had kept beside him for the purpose. scarlett and he were on board in a moment, and wat found himself in the heat of a combat with a man who struck at him with a bar of iron as he came over the side. but the striker's companion did not move to his assistance, and with wat's hand at his throat and scarlett's knee on his breast, resistance was very brief indeed. a lantern was burning inside a small coil of ropes. this wat folded in the cloak with which the sleepy-headed watch had been covering themselves in the bottom of the boat, and let a ray of its light fall on the faces of his captives. both were known to him. they were the calf and the killer, the two inevitable scoundrels of haxo the bull's retinue. "what shall we do with these fellows?" said wat, looking up, disgustedly. "sink them with the boat," said scarlett, promptly. wat shook his head. they lay so still and they looked so helpless--even the killer, who had struck at wat, was now resting his head on the thwart in perfect unconsciousness. "we must get the drunken scoundrels ashore somehow," said wat. "we will tie them together with the rope, turn them over the side, and haul them ashore with the slack," said scarlett; "and if it chance to break, why, so much the better." without another word the master-at-arms set to work, packing the calf and the killer together as if they had been a couple of trussed chickens, exploring their pockets for plunder as he did so. "let the poor rascals' wallets alone, jack!" cried wat, indignantly. "nay, lad," quoth scarlett, with imperturbable philosophy, possessing himself as he spoke of a clasp-knife and a flagon of strong waters, "the art of forage and requisition from the enemy is of the very essence of war, as the great condé used often to say." presently scarlett paid out the spare rope to wat, who took it ashore with him. the bodies dropped without a splash into the water, and wat, aided by the current, soon brought them to land and hauled them out of the water on to the pebbles. then came scarlett with a couple of balls of tow for plugging seams, which he thrust with gusto into their mouths. "that will keep things safe," he said. "i trust neither of these good gentlemen is afflicted with a cold in his head, or else he might be liable to choke, and so find himself in warmer and drier quarters at his awaking!" but the calf and the killer lay like brothers in each other's arms, breathing gently and equably. there remained but the man on the first and smaller boat. wat climbed back to him. he had not stirred. then lochinvar let a single ray of the killer's lantern fall on his face. he whistled softly at what he saw, and beckoned scarlett. it was none other than wise jan pettigrew who lay there, overcome by the potency of the spirits supplied by the chief of suliscanna. wat now went back to the women. he found them where they had been left, and kate hurried forward. "you are not hurt, wat?" she said, anxiously, taking him by the hand, "nor scarlett?" "no," said wat; "but we must hasten to the boats. we have taken them both safely." so the two women accompanied him down to the harbor. scarlett had meanwhile been getting all the useful cargo out of the larger boat, and by this time he had it piled up promiscuously about the unconscious body of wise jan. before kate went aboard the elder woman clung to her and kissed her in the darkness. "my lassie, are ye feared?" "feared?" said kate, "why should i be afraid; am i not all his? i would not be feared to go to the world's end with him." bess landsborough sighed as if that did not greatly improve the case, but she only said: "god keep you, my lassie, and let me see you soon again. i declare ye hae grown to be the very light o' my e'en ever since i took ye first to my arms in the cabin o' the _sea unicorn_." it was the plan of wat and scarlett to take both boats as far out to sea as possible, to scuttle one there, and then to make trial of the dangerous passage of the sea-cave with the smaller and more easily handled vessel. the tide was now on the strong ebb, and there was a smart swirl of current setting through the narrow entrance of the harbor. wat cut the rope of the larger boat which alone secured her to the shore. "god in heaven bless you, good friend of ours!" said wat, stooping to kiss the rough brave woman who had so loyally helped them, "till we can all be happy together in our own country." "na," she said, "fare ye weel forever; i hae to bide by alister, my man. i shall see your faces nae mair. o, my bairn, my bairn!" and the heartsome, snell--tongued, tender woman turned away with the tears falling fast upon the bosom of her gown. wat pushed off in the smaller boat, with the larger towing behind, and, being empty, standing much higher out of the water. the current caught them. the next moment the hiss of the ebb under their counter sank to silence. the talking sound of the ripples along their sides ceased. the boats were going out with the tide, and wat had nothing to do but sit and guide them. it was wonderful how clear it was outside, even a short distance away from the loom of the land. they kept close in to the shore, and at first the ebb seemed to favor them, for they made way rapidly, drifting towards the mouth of the goë by which they must enter the water-cavern, and attempt that dangerous passage through to the isle of fiara. by keeping close in shore they found themselves in a sort of canal of deep water, at least fifty feet across, beyond which the tide and the underlying rocks strove together on the edge of the suck, throwing up short foam-crested waves as on a sand-bar. wat was now about to attempt a dangerous feat. it was manifestly impossible that they could tow the larger boat through the narrows of the goë. and yet to leave it on the beach was simply to put facilities for pursuit into the hands of men inflamed to the highest degree by the thought of revenge and the anger of their chief, as well as perfectly acquainted with every state of the tide and at home in the swirl of the multitudinous currents. [illustration: "wat pushed off in the smaller boat"] wat had resolved to destroy the larger boat on the edge of the tide-race, so that even if she did not sink at once she would be carried far past the island of suliscanna. he therefore put the skiff in which he and scarlett were rowing boldly in the direction of the broken water of the tide-race. he well knew the danger, yet for the sake of their future safety on fiara he resolved to risk it. the tide fairly thundered as it tore northward, and when they drew near to it time and again scarlett glanced apprehensively over his shoulder. a thin, misty drizzle of spray as from a water-fall began to fall on their faces. right ahead of them appeared the foam-flecked back of the suck, like a river in spate rushing out into the smooth waters of a lake. they could see the breakers ahead of them flashing palely white in the starlight, and hear the bullers crying aloud to each other along the shore. suddenly wat stopped rowing. "back water, jack!" he cried. "i am going into the big boat astern to scuttle her. hand me the mallet. i must loosen that portsmouth sea-lawyer." this was a long cross-headed plug which stopped up a hole in the boat's bottom, and which commonly was concealed from sight by the planks covering the bilge at the stern. two blows were sufficient to make the "portsmouth lawyer" quit his grip. the plug had apparently only been adjusted that day, and had indeed never been properly driven home. but wat was not content with this. he seized the axe which he found on board, and drove it vigorously through the planking of the sides, low down below the water-line, till the salt-water came bubbling up. then he hauled in the rope by which the boat was attached to the lighter skiff in which kate and scarlett sat. as the prow of the scuttled boat touched the stern of the other, wat stepped on board with the hatchet in his hand. then with a sharply trenchant "chip" he severed the tow-rope, and the doomed boat instantly fell away towards the white line of the breakers which they had so perilously skirted. chapter xxxvi passage perilous "now let us get out of this," said scarlett, who had grown palpably uneasy. "one cooling experience of the suck of suliscanna is enough for me." their smaller boat came about just in time. they could see the derelict snatched like a feather and whirled away by the rush of imperious water. the noise of the roaring of the suck became almost deafening. to seaward they still caught glimpses of their late consort, rolling this way and that amid numberless jets and hillocks of sparkling and phosphorescent water. now she ascended with a dancing motion. anon the fountains of the deep boiled and hissed and curled over her as she lumbered on to her doom. then as she gradually took in water she lurched more and more heavily, till at last they saw her stern stand black against the sky, for a moment shutting out the stars, as she filled and sank. "handsomely done! now straight for the entrance of the water-cave, and ho for the isle of fiara!" cried wat, who began with every stroke to feel himself drawing clear of the multiplied dangers of the night. yet the most difficult part of the passage was still to come. all the while kate sat silent and watchful in the stern. wat and scarlett were at the oars. scarlett used the unconscious jan for an excellent stretcher as he laid himself to his work. so strong was the north current even there that they had to pull hard for a moment or two lest they should be carried past the goë which formed the entrance to the water-cavern through which they must pass to their city of refuge. "there!" at last cried wat, indicating the dark break in the cliff-line with a certain pride, as they came almost level with the mouth of the passage, and saw vast sombre walls rising solemnly on either side of that black lane of sea-water, sown with phosphorescent sparks, which stretched before them. presently they were shut within, as it had been by the turning of a wrist. the stars went out above. the waters slept. the air was still as in a chamber. the soughing roar of the suck of suliscanna died down to a whisper and then was heard no more. "stand up, jack, and paddle for your life!" commanded wat. he had often enough crossed loch ken in this manner, after having read captain john smith's adventures in virginia with profit and pleasure. "'fore the prince!" cried scarlett, indignantly; "i had just learned one way of it, sitting with my nose to the rear-guard, which as soon as i can make shift to do without the oar taking me in the stomach--lo, i am sharply turned about and bidden begin all over again with my face to the line of advance!" "stop talking--get up and do it!" cried wat, impatiently; "grumble when we get through. this is no sham fight on the common of amersfort with the white-capped young frows sitting on benches at their knitting." obediently scarlett rose, grasped his oar short in his hands, and imitated as best he could in the darkness wat's long sweeping stroke past the side of the boat, as he stood and conned the passage from the stem. the tunnel seemed long to wat, who had formerly swum it swiftly enough with thoughts of kate singing in his head. the dark dripping walls on either side of them stretched on interminably. ever a denser dark seemed to envelop them. the gloom and weight of rocks above them shut them in. they had dived, as it seemed, into the very earth-bowels as soon as ever the boat swam noiselessly into the arched blackness of the water-cavern. "now take your oar by the middle and stand by to push off if we come too near to the rocks on either side," commanded wat, from the prow. "aye, aye, sir," cried scarlett, taking good-humoredly the sailor's tone and using words he had heard on his sea voyages. "belay the binnacle and part the ship's periwig abaft the main-mast!" he muttered the last part of the sentence below his breath, and wat, who straddled in the narrow angle of the stem, peering eagerly ahead and paddling to either side, was far too anxious to give heed. suddenly the boat bumped heavily on a hidden obstacle. scarlett went forward over a thwart and his oar fell overboard, and doubtless the latter would have floated away but for kate's ready hand, which rescued it and brought it aboard, dripping sea-water from blade to handle. "let me help," she said; "i can see very well in the dark." "agreed," answered scarlett, with infinite relief. "old jack is noways fond of butting at his enemies with a steering-oar in a rabbit-hole." so he took kate's place in the stern, while the girl stood erect and picked the words of command from wat--sometimes even venturing to advise him when with her more delicate perceptions she felt, more than saw, that they were approaching the shadowy-green phosphorescent glimmer where the water floor met the walls of the cave. no sooner had they struck than a cloud of sea-fowl flew out about them, their wings beating in their faces, and the birds themselves stunning them with deafening cries. but presently, with protesting calls and roopy whistlings, the evicted inhabitants settled back again to their roosting-places. as they went on the boat began to feel the incoming heave of the outer swell. a new freshness, too, came to them in the air which blew over the low island of fiara straight into the great archway out of which they were presently floating. so with wat and his sweetheart standing erect paddling the boat, they passed out of the rock-fast gloom into the heartsome clatter of the narrow sound of fiara. on either side of it the cliffs rose measurelessly above them, and fiara itself was a blue-black ridge before them. but wat had crossed the strait too often to have any fear, so bidding kate sit down, he settled the oars in the rowlocks to cross the stronger current to be expected there. presently, and without further difficulty, they came to the little indentations in the rock, almost like rudely cut steps, where wat had slipped into the water to swim across when first he made his venture towards suliscanna. "here we will disembark the stores," said he. and scarlett was safely put ashore to receive them as wat handed them out, while kate held the boat firmly with the boat-hook to the side of the little natural pier. then the still unconscious jan was tossed behind a bowlder to sleep off his strong waters, with as scant ceremony as if he had been a bale of goods. "now, kate," said wat when all had been landed. the girl took scarlett's hand and lightly leaped ashore. her eyes served her better in the dark than those of either of the men. but a new danger occurred to wat. "we cannot leave the boat here," he said; "it might be driven away, or, what is worse, spied from the top of the tall rocks of lianacraig. listen, scarlett. i am going to paddle it across to the cave, anchor it out there in a safe place, and swim back. i shall not be away many minutes. look to kate till i return." "better say 'kate, look to old blind jack!'" muttered scarlett. "he is good for nought in this condemnable dark but to stumble broadcast and bark his poor bones. but i'll take my regimental oath the lass sees like a marauding grimalkin at midnight." wat was half-way across the strait or thereby by the time scarlett had finished, and again the darkness of the great rock-shaft swallowed him up. being arrived within the archway, he searched about for a recess wide enough to let the boat swing at her stem and stern anchors without knocking her sides against the rock. he was some time in finding one, but at last a fortunate essay to the left of the entrance conducted him into a little landlocked dock just large enough for his purpose. here he concealed and made fast his prize before once more slipping into the water to return to the island of fiara. wat swam back with a glad and thankful heart. he had now brought both his sweetheart and his friend to the isle of safety--safety which for the time at least was complete. he had a vessel on either side of his domains, and the enemy on the larger island possessed no boat which would enable them to reach his place of shelter--that is, supposing them as ignorant as the suliscanna islanders of the wondrous rock-passage underneath lianacraig. truly he had much reason to be proud of his night's work. kate was standing ready to give him her hand as he drew himself out of the water upon the rocks. he could see her slender figure dark against the primrose flush of the morn. but he wasted no time either in love-making or salutations. they must have all their stores carried over the southern beach by daybreak, and safely housed from wind and weather in the rocky hall where wat had arranged the couch of heather tops. so without a word kate and wat loaded themselves happily and contentedly with the gifts of their late kind hostess--a bag of meal, home-cured hams, a cheese, together with stores of powder and shot for their pistols. they could see the figure of the master-at-arms stumbling on in front of them, and could hear, borne faintly back on the breeze, the sound of his steady grumbling. wat and kate smiled at each other through the dusk, and the kindred feeling and its mutual recognition cheered them. the night had been anxious enough, but now the morning was coming and they could look on each other's faces. so they plodded on as practically and placidly as if they had been coworkers of an ancient partnership, sharers of one task, yoke-fellows driving the same plough-colter through the same furrow. when they had arrived at the northern side of the island, wat showed his companions where to stow the goods in the large open hall of rock, at the sheltered end of which he had arranged kate's sleeping-chamber. the place was not indeed a cave, but only a large opening in an old sea cliff, which had been left high and dry by the gradual accumulation of the sand and mud brought down by the tide-race of the suck. the entrance was completely concealed by the birches and rowan bushes which grew up around it and projected over it at every angle, their bright green leaves and reddening berries showing pleasantly against the dark of the interior. wat immediately started off again to make one final trip, to see that nothing had been left at the southern landing-place. finding nothing, he came back much elated so thoroughly to have carried through his purposes in the space of a summer's night, and at last to have both kate and scarlett safe with him on the isle of fiara. as for wise jan, he was left to sleep in peace behind the bowlder by the landing-place till his scattered senses should return. chapter xxxvii the isle of bliss under the double shelter of the great cliffs of lianacraig and the lower but more effectual barrier of the ridge which runs across the little island of fiara in the direction of its greatest length, wat and his love abode for a season in great peace. scarlett accepted the situation with the trained alacrity of a soldier of fortune. he built camp-fires of the drift-wood of the shore, allowing the smoke to dissipate itself along the walls of the cliffs upon dark nights, and using only charred and smokeless wood on the smaller cooking-fires of the day. he also took wise jan under his sway and rigid governance, so that, very much to his own surprise, that youth found himself continually running here and there at the word of command, as unquestioningly as if he had been a recruit of a newly formed regiment under the drastic treatment of the famous master-at-arms. at first kate felt the strangeness of being left upon a lonely island with none of her own sex to speak to or give her countenance. but she was a girl of many experiences in a world which was then specially hard and cruel to lonely women. while yet a child she had seen houses invaded by rude soldiery. she had fled from conventicle with the clatter of hoofs and the call of trumpet telling of the deadly pursuit behind her. even the manner of her capture and her confinement on this distant isle told a plain tale of suffering endured and experience gained. hers had been, largely by her own choice, no sheltered life passed in the bieldy howe of common things. she had met sorrow and difficulty before, face to face, eye to eye, and was ready so to encounter them again. but to be on the island of fiara in daily contact with her lover, to gain momentarily in knowledge of her own affection, to feel the bonds which bound her to this one man continually strengthen, were some of the new experiences of these halcyon days. wat and kate walked much under the shelter of that wall of rocks which stood a hundred yards back from the sandy northern shore of the island. here they were screened from observation in every direction save towards the north, and that way the sea was clear to the pole. blue and lonely it spread before them, the waves coming glittering and balancing in from the regions of ice and mist, as sunnily and invitingly as though they had been the billows of the pacific arching themselves in thunder upon a strand of coral. here the two walked at morn and even, discussing, among other things, their loves, their former happenings, the strange ways of providence: most of all their future, which, indeed, looked dark enough at the present, but which, nevertheless, shone for them with a rosy glow of hope and youth. there are no aspirants more sure of success than the young who, strong in the permanence of mutual affection, take hands and look towards the rising sun. all happens to those who know how to wait, especially if they have the necessary time before them. if they be young, the multitude of the coming years beckons them onward, and so their hearts be true and worthy, the very stars in their courses will fight for them. the hatreds and prejudices which oppose them lose their edge; their opponents, being of those that go down the slope to the dark archway of death, pass away within and are seen no more. but the young true-lovers remain. and lo! in a moment there is nothing before them but the plain way to walk in--the sweetness of a morning still young, a morning without clouds, the sweeter for the night and the long and weary way they have come together, hand in loving hand. "kate," said wat, "tell me when you first knew that you loved me." they were walking on the sand, across which the evening shadows were beginning to lengthen over the intricate maze of ripple-marks, and when each whorled worm-casting was gathering a little pool of blue shadow on its eastern side. the girl clasped her hands behind her back and gazed abstractedly away to the sunsetting, her shapely head turned a little aside as though she were listening to the voice of her own heart and hearing its answer too keenly to dare give it vent in words. "i think," said she, at last, very slowly--"i think i began to love you on the night when i saw you first, after i had come across the seas to holland." "what!" cried lochinvar, astonished at her answer; "but then you were more hard and cruel to me than ever--would not even hear me speak, and sent me away unsatisfied and most unhappy." kate gave wat a glance which said for a sufficient answer, had he possessed the wit to read it: "i was a woman, and so afraid of my own heart--you a man, and therefore could not help revealing yours." "it was then," she answered, aloud, "that i first felt in my own breast the danger of loving you. that made me afraid--yes, much afraid." "and why were you afraid, dear love?" wat questioned, softly. "because in love a woman has to think for herself, and for him who loves her, also. she sees further on. difficulties loom larger to her. they close in upon her soul and fright her. then, also, she has to watch within, lest--lest--" here the girl stopped and gazed away pensively to the north. she did not finish her sentence. "lest what, kate?" urged wat, softly, eager for the ending of her confession, for the revelation of the maiden's heart was sweet to him. "lest her own heart betray her and open its gates to the enemy," she answered, very low. she walked on more sharply for a space. she was still thinking, and wat had the sense not to interrupt her meditation. "yet the chief matter of her thought," she went on, "the thought of the girl who is wooed and is in danger of loving, is only to keep the castle so long--and then, when she is sure that the right besieger blows the horn without the gate, she leaps up with joy to draw the bolts of the doors, to fling them wide open, to strike the flag that waves aloft. then, right glad at heart, she runs to meet her lord in the gateway, with the keys of her life in her hands." she turned herself suddenly about with a lovely expression of trust in her eyes, and impulsively held out both her own hands. "take them," she said, "my lord!" and wat gordon took the girl's hands in his, and falling on his knee he kissed them very tenderly and reverently. then he rose, and keeping her left hand still in his right, they walked along silently for a time into the sunset, their eyes wet because of the sound of their hearts crying each to each, and the shining of love glowing richer than the rose of the west on their faces. it was wat who spoke first. "love," he said, "you will never change when the days darken? you will stand firm when you hear me spoken against, when you cannot thus hearken to my voice pleading with you, when there is none to speak well of me?" "my lad, was it not then that i loved you most," she replied, very gently, "when men spoke evil things in my ears, and told me how that you were unworthy, unknightly, untrue? was it not even then that my heart cried out louder than ever, 'i will believe my king before them all--before the hearing of my friend's ears, the seeing of my mother's eyes, before the sworn word on the tongue of my father?'" "ah, love," said wat, "it is sweet, greatly sweet, to listen to the speaking of your heart." and well might he say it, for it was, indeed, a lovely thing to hear the throb of faith run rippling through her voice like the sap of the spring through the quickening forest trees. "but," he added, with quickly returning melancholy, "doubtless there are dark days before us, of which, however, we now know the worst. will my kate be sufficient for these things? we have heard what barra says--bewitched by what cantrip i know not; but certain it seems that your father hath ta'en him a new wife, and she hath so worked on his spirit that he would now deliver you to our enemy over there, on the isle from which i took you. suppose that all things went against us, kate, and that i was never more than a wanderer and an outcast; suppose your father ordered, your friends compelled, your own heart told you tales of our love's hopelessness, or others carried to you evil things of me--would you be strong enough to keep faith, kate, to hold my hand firmly as you do now, and having done all, still be able to stand?" the girl looked at her lover a little sadly while he was speaking, as if he had, indeed, a far road to travel ere he could win to the inmost secret of a girl's heart. "wat gordon," she said, "know you not that there is but one kind of love? there are not two. the love of the wanton that grasps and takes only is no love--but light-o'-love. the love that flinches back into shelter because the wind blows is not love; nor yet that which hides itself, afraid when the lift darkens or when the thunder broods and the bolt of heaven is hurled." there came a kind of awful sweetness on his love's face as she stood looking up at him which made wat gordon tremble in his turn. by his doubts he had jangled the deepest chords of a heart. he stood in the presence of things mightier than he had dreamed of. yet his fear was natural. he knew himself to be true as god is true. but then he had everything to gain--this woman who held his hand all things to lose, everything to endure. kate went on, for strong words were stirring in her heart, and the mystery of a mighty love brooded over the troubled waters of her soul like the mystery of the seven stars in god's right hand. "but one kind of love," she said, in a low, hushed voice, which wat had to incline his ear to catch. and there came also a crooning rhythm into her utterance, as if she were inspired and spake prophecies. "how says the writing? 'love suffereth long and is kind.' so at least the preachers expound it. there is no self in love. self dies and is buried as soon as soul has looked into soul through the windows of the eyes, as soon as heart has throbbed against naked heart, and life been taken into life. dead and buried is self, and over his head the true-lovers set up a gravestone, with the inscription: 'love seeketh not her own--is not easily provoked--thinketh no evil.'" "oh love," groaned wat, "if i could but believe it! but all things are so grievously against me. i can only bid you wait, and after all there may be but an exile's fate to share with you, a barren, unfruitful lordship; while there are those, great and powerful, who could set the coronet on your brow." the girl let his hand drop. she stood looking a long while to seaward. then with sudden, quick resolve, she turned and faced him. she lifted her hands and laid them on his shoulders, keeping him at the full stretch of her arms so that she might look deep down into his heart. "i am not angry with you, wat," she said, softly and slowly, "though i might be. why will you let me fight this battle alone? why must i have faith for both of us? surely in time you will understand and believe. hear me, true lad," she put her hands a little farther over his shoulders and moved an inch nearer him; "you make me say things that shame me. but what can i do? i only tell you what i would be proud to tell all the world, if it stood about us now as it shall stand on the great day of judgment. i would rather drink the drop and bite the crust by the way-side with you, wat gordon; rather be an outcast woman among the godless gypsy-folk with you--aye, without either matron's ring to clasp my finger or maiden's snood to bind my hair--than be a king's wife and sit on a throne with princesses about me for my tire-women." she had brought her face nearer to his as she spoke, white and drawn with her love and its expression. now when she had finished she held him for a moment fixed with her eyes, as it were nailing the truth she had spoken to his very soul. then swiftly changing her mood, she dropped her arms from his shoulders and moved away along the beach. wat hastened after her and walked beside her, watching her. he strove more than once to take her hand, but she kept it almost petulantly away from him. the tears were running down her cheeks silently and steadily. her underlip was quivering. the girl who had been brave for two, now shook like a leaf. they came to the corner of the inland cliff of fiara, which had gradually withdrawn itself farther and farther up the beach, as the tide-race swept more and more sand along the northern front of the inland. a rowan-tree grew out of a cleft. its trunk projected some feet horizontally before it turned upward. kate leaned against it and buried her face in her hands. wat stood close beside her, longing with all his nature to touch her, to comfort her; but something held him back. he felt within him that caressing was not her mood. "hearken, sweet love," he said, beseechingly, clasping his hands over each other in an agony of helpless desire; "i also have something to say to you." "oh, you should not have done it," she said, looking at him through her streaming tears; "you ought not to have let me say it. you should have believed without needing me to tell you. but now i have told you, i shall never be my own again; and some day you will think that i have been too fond, too sudden--" "kate," said wat, all himself again at her words, and coming masterfully forward to take her by the wrists. he knelt on one knee before her, holding her in his turn, almost paining her by the intensity of his grasp. "kate, you shall listen to me. you blame me wrongly; i have not indeed, to-day, told you of _my_ faith, of _my_ devotion, of the certainty of _my_ standing firm through all the darkness that is to come. and i will tell you why." "yes," said the girl, a little breathlessly; "tell me why." "because," said wat, looking straight at her, "you never doubted these things even once. you knew me better, aye, even when you flouted me, set me back, treated me as a child, even when others spoke to you of my lightness, told you of my sins and wrong-doings. i defy you, kate mcghie," he continued, his voice rising--"i defy you to say that there ever was a moment when you honestly doubted my love, when you ever dreamed that i could love any but you--so much as an instant when the thought that i might forget or be false to you had a lodgment in your heart. kate, i leave it to yourself to say." this is the generous uncandor which touches good women to the heart. for wat was not answering the real accusation she had brought against him--that he had not believed her, but had continued to doubt her in the face of her truest words and most speaking actions. "ah, wat," she said, surrendering at once, "forgive me. it is true. i did not ever doubt you." she smiled at him a moment through her tears. "i knew all too well that you loved me--silly lad," she said; "i saw in your eyes what you thought before you ever told me--and even now i have to prompt you to sweet speeches, dear sir snail!" at this encouragement wat would gladly have drawn her closer to him, but the girl began to walk back towards their heather-grown shelter. "yet i care not," she said. "after all, 'tis a great thing to get one's follies over in youth. and you are my folly, lad--a grievous one, it is true, but nevertheless one that now i could ill do without. nay," she went on, seeing him at this point ready to encroach, "not that to-night, wat. all is said that needs to be said. let us return." and so they walked soberly and silently to the wide-halled chamber recessed in the ancient sea-cliff. kate paused ere they entered, and held her face up with a world of sweet surrender in it for wat to kiss at his will. "dear love," she said, softly, "i beseech you do not distrust me any more. by this and by this, know that i am all your own. once you made me say it. now of mine own will i do it." she spoke the last words shyly; then swiftly, as one that takes great courage on the edge of flight: "bend down your ear, laddie," she said, and paused while one might count a score. wat listened keenly, afraid that his own heart should beat too loud for him to catch every precious word. "i love you so that i would gladly die to give you perfect happiness even for a day," she whispered. and she vanished within, without so much as bidding him good-night. chapter xxxviii misfortunate colin the completeness of the peace and content which reigned on fiara was only equalled by the fierceness of the storm of passion and hellish anger which broke over suliscanna on the day after the chief's arrival. it was already late in the forenoon when a messenger, haggard and half blind with terror and the dying out of the drink in his brain, brought to the house of the chief the news of the destruction of the boats and the flight of the prisoners. barra rose to his feet. his hand instinctively groped for a dagger, and not finding it, he struck the man to the ground with his clinched fist. during the night he had probably been the only sober man on the island. when he went out he found a pale and terror-stricken population. women peered anxiously at him from their hovels or scudded among the scattered bowlders on the hill, with children tagging wearily after them and clinging to their skirts. as he came near the landing-place a woman skirled suddenly from the back of a rock. the wild voice startled him. it was like the crying of the death-keen. "who is that?" demanded barra of his nearest henchman. "'tis the wife of the watchman, misfortunate colin," replied alister mcalister, who this morning had somehow accomplished the gravity of a judge on circuit. he had been all night in attendance outside the chief's door--so that, although he had carried out his declared intentions to the letter, he was yet wholly guiltless of the damning negligence which the lord of barra was now about to investigate and punish. presently the calf and the killer were discovered, sleeping the sleep of the greatly intoxicated. they still lay with wat's rope about them, clasped in fraternal arms, their breaths combining to make one generous steam of hollands gin. misfortunate colin lay as he had fallen, with the keys of the dungeon tucked under his belt. the chief turned him over with his foot. "nail him up to that door by the hands and feet!" he ordered, briefly, looking at the man with cold, malevolent eyes. a woman's shriek rang out, and like a mænad she came flying down the hill, loose-haired, wild-eyed, and flung herself down, grovelling bestially at barra's feet. "mercy, master of life and death!" she cried, clasping him firmly by the knees; "all misfortunes fall on my man. and this is not his fault. all the island was even as he is." "but all the island had not the charge of a prisoner," cried barra. then without further question men approached to seize the man of fated fortunes, and he would doubtless have been immediately crucified on the door which he had failed to guard but for the interference of mistress mcalister. she came fearlessly forth from her adjacent dwelling, clad in her decent white cap and apron, looking snod and wiselike as if she had been going to the kirk of colmonel on a sacrament sabbath. even as barra looked at her he was recalled to himself. to him she represented that civilization from which he had so recently come, and which looked askance on the wild vengeances that were expected and even thought proper among the clansmen of suliscanna. "my lord," she said, "there was one man lang syne that was crucified with nails for the sins of the people. be kinder to poor colin. tie him up with ropes, lest his blood be on your head, and ye win not within the mercy of the crucified." now though when abroad he made a pretence of religious fervor for political purposes, in reality barra was purely pagan and cared nothing for bess's parable. nevertheless, he acknowledged tacitly the force of an outside civilization and another code of justice, speaking to him in the person of the woman from ayrshire. "tie him up with ropes," he commanded, abruptly. and so in a trice the misfortunate colin was secured to the door of the dungeon of which he had proved himself so inefficient a guard, his arms fixed by the wrists to the corners of it, and his heavy, drunken head rolling loosely from side to side upon his breast. his wife knelt at his feet, but without daring so much as to touch him with a finger. round his neck swung the keys, the emblem of his broken trust. as for the calf and the killer, they were flung, bound as they were, into the dungeon, where upon awaking their seeming fraternal amity suddenly gave way, and they bit and butted at each other to the extent of their bonds with mutual recriminations and accusations of treachery. barra surveyed carefully every trace which had been left of the manner of the prisoners' escape. but for the present, at least, he could come to no conclusion, save that they had escaped in a boat, probably with the help of wise jan. he judged also that, thanks to this excellent navigator, the fugitives were by this time far beyond the reach of his present vengeance. nevertheless he left nothing untried. he climbed the heights of lianacraig and looked out seaward and northward. but he could see nothing upon the black ridge of the central cliffs of fiara, and nothing in the gloomy strait which separated it from the opposite rock-wall of suliscanna. all in that direction was warded by the race of the suck, ridging dangerously on either side and tailing away to the north in a jabble of confused water. * * * * * meanwhile, upon fiara wise jan ran his errands and gathered his drift-wood under the orders of the master-at-arms, while wat and kate, content to dwell together in an innocent garden of eden, a garden from which the serpent was for the moment excluded, walked hand in hand under the shelter of the long central cliff-line of the isle on which they had found shelter. the history of their love's growth was a constant marvel to them, and their chief interest and happiness now lay in unravelling the why and the wherefore of each incident in their pasts. how at such a time one thought this--how at such another they both thought the same identical thing--though one was interned in a dutch prison and the other tossing on the waters of the north sea. now that they were fully assured as to their mutual loves--for even wat had ceased to doubt, if not to marvel--they had time and to spare for the comparison of their feelings in the past, and for the most exhaustive examination of their possibilities in the future. "tell me a tale," commanded kate, as they sat together on the projecting part of the trunk of the rowan-tree set in the angle of the cliff. "which tale?" asked wat, promptly, as if there were only two in the world--as indeed there were, for them. kate sighed at the impossibility of having both at once--the wondrous tale of their past, and the yet more wondrous and aureate tale of their future. "tell me how you first loved me, and when, and why, and how much?" she said, since perforce she had to choose one. then wat, delving always further and further into the past, produced instance after instance to prove that ever since he had seen her, known her, hearkened to her voice, there had not been a moment when he had not loved her. and kate, resting the dusky tangle of her soft curls on his shoulder, sighed again and again with a nestling bliss to listen to tale so sweet. "you have forgotten about what you thought coming up the stairs in zaandpoort street," she would correct. for she knew the track of the story-teller by heart, and like a child with a favorite fairy tale, she resented omissions almost as much as she suspected the genuineness of additions. "now tell me more about seeing me lying on maisie's lap with hands clasped behind my head. and about what you thought then." and so most innocently she would put her hands in the very position it was wat's duty to describe, which naturally for some moments disturbed his ideas and interfered with the continuity of the history. but as soon as they turned homeward they became, after their manner, severely practical. "kate," said wat, as they walked together--wat's hand mostly on his sweetheart's shoulder, after the manner of school-boys that are comrades--"'tis high time we were taking thought for our escape. each day makes the coming of the ship to carry off barra and his retinue a nearer possibility." kate sighed as she looked on the long barrier of the northern breakers whitening the horizon, and then at the mellow floods of peaceful light which poured in from the west, where the seabirds were circling and diving. "and leave all this," she said, wistfully, "and you?" "nay, no need to leave me--if you will stay with me," quoth wat, cheerfully; "but to come with me to mine own land, to be my love and my queen." "and what would you do with me there?" she said, looking up at him. "would not you be an outlaw, and i no better than an encumbrance while you remain in hiding?" "i think not that the pursuit is so keen as it was before the king began to protect those of his own religion," answered wat. "i believe we should find that the worst of the shower had slacked. and then there is always the old tower in the middle of the loch. since my mother's death no one has dwelt in it. we would be sure of a shelter there." kate shook her head wistfully, like one with the same desires but better knowledge. "wat, my dear," she made him answer, "you speak by the heart, and it is my heart also, god knows; but now i must speak a word or two by the head. you and i must e'en bide a wee and wait. it is better so. i will not be a charge on you. if i am not welcome at home, why, there is always sweet grizel mcculloch at the ardwell to whom i can go. she will gladly give me a hiding-place and a bite for company's sake till the blast goes by. if all speak the truth in holland where we come from, it will not be long ere the king has filled up the measure of his folly." "in that case i might have to fight for the fool and his folly both," said wat, quietly. "aye, there it is!" cried kate; "a lass in her heart cares nought for king or prince when once she has given herself to love. but a man will hold to his own way of it, and put in peril his happiness and the happiness of another in order to have the right shade of color set upon the cushions of the throne." wat smiled at her yet more gently. "in holland," he said, "i fought for the prince and was true to him; but it is another matter here, where we are under the rule and sway of the anointed king of the ancient scottish name." "ah, well, wat," said kate, "that is not my thought of it, as well you know. but i do not love you so little, lad, that i could think the less of you for standing by your colors, even though with your own eyes ye have seen that king make of scotland little better than a hunting-field." "james stuart is my king as surely as kate mcghie is my love," said wat, mighty gravely. "i argue as little about one as the other." kate touched his arm gently. "dear love--no," she said. "do not let us dispute any more. you are you, and so you love me true. you shall fight for what king you will, only keep safe your heart and life for me--for they are all i have." they had reached the great chamber in the cliff which lay open to the north, and in which jack scarlett already had his cooking-fire of charcoal alight for the evening meal. a hundred yards from the entrance there met them a sweet and appetizing smell of fresh sea-fish broiling in the ashes. for wise jan lay most of his spare time fishing out on a jutting rock, where the swirl of the suck sent a back-spang of current careering anglewise along the northern edge of the fiara. "jack," said wat, as they came in, "i think that we should get away from the island as soon as we can." "and has it taken you all this time to come to that conclusion?" cried old jack, without looking up, plowtering discontentedly in the red embers with a burned stick. "the new moon will now give us nearly three hours' light--enough for our purpose," said wat, "and wise jan here can help us to put our old boat in readiness." "why not the new and brave one you hid in the water-passage? i suppose it is there in safety still?" said scarlett. "aye," replied wat, "but unless you want to be cast away the second time in the tumble of the suck, you will most carefully leave that boat alone; for the current races by at either end, and except for those who have spent their lives in piloting their way through the intricate passages of the reefs and know their every glide and swirl, it is impossible to reach the open sea from the sound of suliscanna." "how then?" grumbled scarlett, for these things of the sea were not in his province, and he resented the reference of any question to him. "let those that stomach cold salt-water agree about the road over it. my parish begins when there is solid earth beneath my feet." wat answered him clearly, scoring the points on his fingers as he made them. "first we have the old boat, which on my first coming hither i found floating in the northern bay and brought ashore. well, we must get jan to rig her with the mast out of the larger boat in the water-cave, and equip her with the oars out of that also. then, since the suck sweeps past us on the east, and there is a strong tide-race to the west, we must steer our way directly out from the northern shore of fiara, which is indeed the only direction in which the sea is anyway clear. we shall keep steadily on till we find the waters to the east calm and practicable, for the fretting of the tide on the shoreward skerries cannot last long out on the open sea." scarlett nodded his head. it was all right, he thought. he was ready to adventure in any direction which did not involve another wrestle with the unfriendly and unwholesome suck of suliscanna. "this very night," quoth wat, to close the discussion, "will i swim over and bring back the needful things for our departure in the boat itself. it is a pity, indeed, that we cannot take her with us." kate looked at him with wonderful changeful eyes, a lingering regard that dwelt tenderly on him. she said nothing with her tongue, but her eyes spoke for her. they were of the tenderest brown immediately about the dark pupils, then of a clear hazel, which merged into the most sweet and translucent gray, like the first dawn of a may morning. "take care of yourself for me," they said; "you are all my earthly treasure." for this is the universal language of loving women's eyes in times of danger, ever since eve clave to her husband in the night solace outside the wall of paradise, and they twain became one flesh. chapter xxxix satan spies out paradise as he had expected, wat found the boat safely anchored in its rocky haven, where the water lay dead and still as in a tank. he drew himself on board, dripping salt-water all over the inside from his lithe body and scanty clothing. he was busying himself loosening the oars and mast, which had been tied along the side, when he heard, faintly but unmistakably, the sound of a human voice speaking. at first wat, busy with his work, paid no heed. he supposed it must be scarlett talking to wise jan, and idly wondered why he spoke so loud. but in a moment he remembered that the rocks of fiara and the deep sound lay between him and his companions. yet quite clearly and continuously some one was certainly speaking, and at no great distance either. as before, the cave was not quite dark, for the moon had risen, and the boat lay close by the entrance which gave upon the sound. wat hastened to climb up on one of the rocky walls which formed the edge of the tiny haven in which the vessel floated. the water-way which constituted the floor of the cave slept black beneath, a long, almost invisible heave passing up from without, which was just the great atlantic sea breathing in its sleep. but so smooth were these undulations that hardly a swish on the projections of the walls told of their passage. outward from where wat stood the great lane of water gradually brightened to the huge square of the sea-door. inward it grew blacker and more gloomy, till the young man's eye could not trace it farther into the solemn bosom of the rock. it was out of this inner gloom that the voice was proceeding. presently the single voice became two, and wat could hear the words of one speaker, who spoke low and almost delicately, and then of another who more gruffly and briefly replied. from the darkness of the inner cavern a new sound was borne to wat's ear--the panting of men in exertion, and the little splash made by the swimmer as he changes position, or when a wavelet, running diagonally, laps against his breast. it is an unmistakable sound, and yet it is no louder than the plunge of a leaping fish that falls back again into the water. wat lay motionless on his ledge. he had lifted the moorings from the stern of the boat in the rock basin behind him, and he could hear that she had swung round and that her timbers were rasping gently against the stone pier. wat prayed that the swimmers might not hear the noise. the uneasy water pavement of the cavern swayed beneath him with measured undulations, glimmering with that pale phosphorescence which is the deceiving ghost of true illumination. yet it was light enough for wat to observe the heads of the men who swam, as they emerged into its glow out of the perfect darkness of the inner cave. there was one who led, swimming a good half-dozen strokes in advance of the others. "we cannot be far from the north gate now, surely," said a voice, which wat instantly recognized as that of barra, "if the _cailleach_ hath told the truth and her man did really find his way to the island of fiara by this passage." the man who swam in the middle of the three who followed barra only grunted in reply. wat could see the shapeless round of his head but dimly; nevertheless, he knew that it was the featureless, scarred visage of haxo the bull which glared like a death's-head above the water in the wake of his arch-enemy. and he had no doubt that on either side of him swam the calf and the killer, the other members of that noble trinity. the heads on the water grew smaller and blacker as they passed him, and the men swam on towards the outer entrance of the cave. presently they came underneath the great span of the arch. wat could see barra drag himself out of the water and clamber on a rocky point which jutted out into the sound. the three followers lifted themselves after him, and sank on the rocks in attitudes of fatigue. but barra stood erect, his slim figure so black against the dim moonlight without that he might have been wearing his court suit of sable velvet, although actually he was naked to the waist. so there on the pinnacle he stood, gazing silently on the sleeping isle of fiara, even as satan might have gazed (so wat gordon thought) on the garden--close to that first delicious paradise in which all unconscious adam wandered with his eve. long he stood thus, fixed in contemplation, revolving evilest thoughts and intents, his three attendant fiends crouched behind him in a shapeless mass upon the dark rocks, none of them daring to interrupt his musings. then quite abruptly barra descended and plunged once more into the water. lochinvar in his turn stood erect and made ready to follow him, for he feared that his enemies were about to cross the sound and attack on the instant the little company waiting his own return under the cliffs of the northern shore. but he heard barra say, "it is enough for to-night. let us return to the harbor. the _cailleach_ spoke the truth." then without further speech between them, the four men swam past him and disappeared, faint wreathings and smears of phosphorescence trailing after them out of the gloom into which they had vanished. wat drew a long breath as they were lost to sight. he knew that he had been assisting at one of the last scenes in barra's complete and minute exploration of the isle--every cave and passage, every entrance to and outgate from it. it was just such an undertaking as he might have expected from a man so resolute as barra, with a retinue as desperate as haxo the bull, his calf, and his killer. now, indeed, he was aware that there was no time to be lost in getting away from this isle of fiara, which had brought him so many happy hours. adam knew that the spoiler had looked upon his demi-paradise, and that eve herself was in danger. wat waited a while before he dared to bring out the boat and row across the sound to the place where scarlett and kate were waiting for him. he found scarlett philosophically seated with his back against a rock, but kate moved uneasily about upon the shore, clasping her hands in great anxiety. "o wat," she said, "my dear, my dear, i thought some ill chance had befallen you. wellnigh had i come to seek you, but for your command to bide with scarlett." "and it is indeed well, kate," he answered, smiling a little, "that you were thus mindful of my words." then wat told them all that he had seen and heard, till even scarlett was impressed by the imminence of their needs. so without delaying a moment the three took such burdens as they could carry, and set out to cross the ridge of fiara to the place where wise jan pettigrew waited beside their first boat with everything ready to push off. but before they left the boat which wat had brought out of the water-cavern, wat bade scarlett help him to load her with stones from the beach. with a mallet he knocked out the plug under the stern seat, and, as before, sunk her in mid-channel. then he swam ashore, and followed kate and scarlett over to the northern side of the island. the moon was just dipping below the horizon when, with kate in the stern and wise jan handling the boat to a marvel, they left the beautiful island behind them. kate drew in a long breath, and her hand rested a moment on wat's in the darkness. it was the isle of her first assurance and her dawning happiness. no place could ever be quite the same to her. there it lay, fiara, the isle of bliss, looming gray against the dark, solemn, bird-haunted front of lianacraig. should she ever see it more? there was the dear rowan-tree at the angle of the wall where they had so often sat, and there was the sweet sickle-sweep of white sand by which they had so often walked. a little farther over the dusk and sleeping sound was suliscanna, on which stood bess landsborough's house, and that smoky inner room where her love had first taken her to his heart, coming to her like a vision out of the night. but to all kate's questionings there came back no answer save the hoarse threatening growl of the suck of suliscanna arching itself angrily to the right, the gentle flap of the small sheet above, and the talking clatter of the wavelets below the stem as they glided away out into the night. behind them the surf was roaring on the rocks which, like the black fins of sharks, jutted, toothed and threatening, from the tail-end of the suck of suliscanna. there came also a chill sough of wind from the west, and with it, rising as it were from the ocean depths, the dead sea-mist, which swelled and eddied about the boat of our four travellers. presently the bright reflection of the stars on the crest of each coming wave, as wat lay in the stern and watched, dimmed itself. the twinkling rays were shorn. their diffused sparkling first dulled to a point, and then became extinguished altogether as the voyagers were enveloped in the gray uncanny smother. it was their first touch of ill-luck. since wat and scarlett had left holland on their quest, save for their shipwreck all had gone well with them. but now, on the verge of success, they were caught by the sea-mist, and in that place of dangerous currents and deadly rocks they had to submit to be carried they knew not where, nor yet into what unseen dangers of the deep. wise jan set his hand high over the side, and the sea-fog ran visibly through his fingers like water in a mill-race. evidently they were moving fast in some direction, and the current was carrying them swiftly and strongly onward without their being able to alter or amend their destination. wat went astern and sat beside kate. wise jan had taken down the sail. it was useless to them till they could see in what direction they were being carried. scarlett grumbled steadily and inarticulately amidships; but wat and kate sat with their hands locked in each other's, silent all through the night. the morn came slowly. the salt, steamy vapor rolled and swirled about them, brightening and darkening with alternate threat and promise--both, however, equally illusive. it was broad day when the lift of heaven suddenly cleared. the sun looked slantways in upon them, opening a way into the heart of the mist, like a rapier thrust by a master's wrist. the clouds dispersed before the clear shining, as though it needed but that single stab to prick the airy bladder of their pretension. the wreaths of vapor trailed themselves away, breaking into steamy garlands and flat patches with scalloped edges as they went. the blue sky stooped over on either side and hooked itself permanently on to the blue sea-floor. and lo! there they were at the south end of suliscanna, and there was the schooner _sea unicorn_ just coming out from her anchorage under full sail within two hundred yards of them. it was no use to row or to set the sail. our three were so taken with deadly apprehension that they sat quite still as the vessel approached. the captain hailed them from his station by the helm, but neither wat nor scarlett had the heart to reply. a boat was lowered, and in a few moments wat and kate were being received on board the _sea unicorn_, of poole, by captain smith, her owner and master. and there before them, as they looked across the deck from the side up which they had come, were seated three people--a man of stately presence, gray-headed and erect, a lady of doubtful years and charms not wholly departed--and barra. the old man rose and came forward towards kate with a strange expression of apology and appeal on his face. "kate, my lass!" said he. "my father!" cried the girl, taking, however, no step towards him, but keeping her hold of wat gordon's hand. but wat was staring at the lady who sat beside barra. "my lady wellwood!" he said, in utter astonishment. barra smiled his thin, acrid, unmoved smile. "you mistake, sir," he said; "not now my lady wellwood, but the fair bride of roger mcghie and the very charming mistress of his mansion of balmaghie." chapter xl serpent's eggs for a little we must leave both the narrow, sea-barriered, rock-girt bounds of suliscanna and the flat, hard-won, and yet more hardly kept fields and polders of the netherlands for the moorish pastures, the green, changeful woodlands, the flowery water-meadows of balmaghie. it is necessary at this point to take a cast back in our story and tell of the strange things which have befallen roger mcghie since we saw him at our tale's beginning, making his farewells by the stirrup-leather of my lady wellwood. it was perhaps natural that the laird of balmaghie, delicate of body, retiring of habit, a recluse from the society of roaring bears like lag and baldoon, who were his immediate neighbors, should succumb readily enough to the fascinations of my lady wellwood. it is not so obvious, on the other hand, why she found pleasure in the company of roger mcghie. it may be that the caustic kindliness, the flavor of antique chivalry, which had compelled to more than liking the unwonted heart of john graham of claverhouse, also had power to fascinate the widow of the duke of wellwood. that title had been one of the late king's making, and in the absence of heirs direct, it had lapsed immediately on the death of the king's minister and administrator in scotland, while the original impoverished earldom of wellwood had gone back to a kinsman remotely collateral. so my lady never forgot that she was not "the dowager" merely, but still, in the face of all--susannah, first and only duchess of wellwood. nevertheless, to her credit, perhaps, as a woman of discernment, she married roger mcghie, and that though far younger, richer, and gallanter men stood ready at her call. but the needy king and his new ministry had stripped her estates of most that her husband had so painfully gathered. little was left her but the barren heritages of grenoch--where, indeed, was heather enough and granite to spare, but where crops were few and scanty, and where even meadow-hay had a fashion of vanishing in the night whenever the dee water took it into its head to sweep through the narrow lane, raising the loch till it overflowed the low-lying meads nearly to the house-door of grenoch itself. then, on the other hand, the acres of balmaghie were undoubtedly broad, the finances of the laird unhurt by government exactions, and the house of balmaghie a wide and pleasant place compared with the little square block-house of the grenoch, sitting squatly like a moorhen's-nest on its verge of reedy loch. so the lady susannah became, not long after kate betook herself to holland, the mistress of balmaghie; but from some feeling of restraint or shame roger mcghie had hitherto carefully kept the matter from his daughter, whose sentiments in the matter he had good reasons to suspect. it had not seemed the least of the attractions of the house of balmaghie to my lady that at the time of her marriage it wanted the presence of the girl who till now had been its mistress. and she resolved that, once out, kate should abide so--that is, till the time came when a match politically and socially suitable could be found for the girl, and also a home not too near the well-trimmed garden pleasances of balmaghie. so when murdo mcalister, lord of barra, arrived at the dismantled fortalice of thrieve as the guest of my lord maxwell, and word was brought that the exile desired an audience with "the lady of balmaghie," the duchess listened complacently enough to the words of the lord of barra and the small isles. the courtier dwelt much on the changes which were so sure to come, the favor of the king's son-in-law, his own great position in holland, and the yet greater to be attained when his dutch master should take over the throne of britain. and we may be sure that my lord of barra spoke well. calmly he told of the dangerous position of the young maid in holland; lightly he referred to his own "rescue" of her in the street of the butchery--of which, indeed, kate had herself given an account in one of her rare letters to her father from the city of amersfort. he told how she was quartered unsuitably with private soldiers and their wives. but there he trod on dangerous ground, for in a moment the laird took up his parable against him. "lochinvar and young earlstoun may indeed be private soldiers in dutchdom," said roger mcghie, bluntly, "but do not forget that they are very good galloway gentlemen here." "then," said barra, "they had been greatly the better of remembering it in the low country. i speak with some heat, for i carry here in my side the unhealed wound dealt me in revenge by the knife of a girl of the streets whom wat gordon of lochinvar took with him in his flight." and still pale from his long illness, my lord barra in his dress of black velvet certainly appeared a most interesting figure to my lady of balmaghie, who had a natural eye for such. then, taking courage from her evident sympathy, he went on to tell how with the help of captain smith of the _sea unicorn_, a respectable magistrate of the county of dorset, he had again "rescued" kate mcghie from her perilous position; how he had aided her to escape to the home of a lowland woman of good family, the wife of one of his own vassals, on the safe and suitable island of suliscanna, to which place he asked the favor of the company, of "her grace"--he desired pardon--of the lady balmaghie and her husband. whereupon, with voluble good-will from the lady and a certain dry and silent acquiescence from roger mcghie, my lord of barra obtained his request. and so behold them sitting together when the _sea unicorn_ overhauled the tide-driven boat of our young adventurers, and the treacherous sea-mists delivered kate and her lover into the hands of the enemies of their loves. "you are very welcome on board the ship _sea unicorn_," said barra, bowing to the pair as they stood hand-in-hand on the deck. wat could not utter a word, so appalling a hopelessness pressed upon his spirit, such blank despair tore like an eagle at his heart. but the lady of balmaghie smiled upon him, even as of old her grace the duchess of wellwood had done. then she shook her head with coquettish reproach. "ah, lochinvar," she cooed, "what is this we have heard of you? you come on board the _sea unicorn_ off the isle of suliscanna with one fair maid; you left the city of amersfort with another. i fear me you have as little as ever of the grace of constancy. but after all, young men, alas! still will be young men. and indeed the age is noways a constant one!" and my lady sighed as if the fatal gifts of constancy and continence had been the ever-present blights of her own life. then, suddenly as the lightning that shines from east to west, it flashed upon wat how foolish he had been not to tell kate all the story of the little marie. he realized now how easily, nay, how inevitably, all that had happened at the prison and among the sand-dunes might be used to his hurt. so, flushing to the temples, he stood silent. kate turned to her lover. a happy light of confidence shone in her eye. "tell my lady," she said, "that in her eagerness to think well of you according to her lights, she has given ear to false rumors. tell her that it was to rescue me from the cruel treachery of my lord barra that you broke the prison bars and came over land and sea to take me out of his hands." barra smiled subtly, looking keenly at wat from under the drooping eyelids of his triangular eyes, which glittered like the points of bayonets. "it is indeed true," said wat, at last, forcing himself to speak, "that i--that i escaped out of prison and traced this maid over land and sea till i found her a captive on the island of suliscanna. it was my intention--" "to return her to her father's care, no doubt," said barra, dropping his words carefully, like poison into a bowl. "to beseech her to wed with me so soon as i should reach the main-land," said wat, bravely. a change came over the countenance of my lady wellwood at the words. though she had married roger mcghie, it was not in her nature to let any former gallant cavalier escape her snares, nor yet to permit her plans of great political alliances in the future, based upon the girl's union with barra, to be brought to naught. but again the sneering voice of barra cut the embarrassing silence. "it was, then, i doubt not, in the company of this lady, whose hand you hold, that you drugged the jailer of amersfort, broke the prison, and escaped. it was this lady who, being well acquainted with the purlieus of that temple of harlotry, the hostel of the coronation, stole three horses from sheffell, the landlord, and rode with you and your boon companion scarlett--a man false to as many services as he has sworn allegiance to--out to the sand-dunes of lis, where you and she abode till you found a passage to england. in all this you had, doubtless, the companionship and assistance of no other woman than this lady, whom with such noble and honorable condescension you now desire to marry. she it was (declare it briefly, true swain) who lied for you, stole for you, fought for you, abode with you, died for you--as the catch has it, 'all for love and nothing for reward.'" at the close of barra's speech kate turned to wat. "tell them," she said, "that there was no such woman with you." chapter xli love that thinketh no evil wat stood silent, his face turning slowly from red to ashen white. what an arrant fool he had been, not to tell her all in those sweet hours on the island of fiara--a score of little maries had mattered nothing to her then. then everything would have been plain and easy. his conscience was indeed perfectly clear. but, partly because with the willing forgetfulness of an ardent lover he had forgotten, and partly because he had shrunk from marring with the name of another those precious hours of blissful communion of which he had hitherto enjoyed so few, he had neglected to tell kate the tale. he saw his mistake now. "tell them, wat," urged kate, confidently, "tell them all." "aye, tell them all," repeated barra, grimly, between his teeth, "tell them all your late love did for you, beginning with the favors of which your cousin will and i were witnesses in the gilded room of the hostel of the coronation. begin at the bottom--with the lady's shoe and the toast you drank out of that most worthy cup!" wat still stood silent before them. kate dropped his hand perplexed, looking into his tragic face with bewildered, uncomprehending eyes. "why, wat, what is the matter, dear love--tell them everything, whatever it is. do not fear for me," whispered kate, her true, earnest eyes, full of all faith and love, bent upon him without doubt or question. "i cannot," he said, hoarsely, at last; "i ought to have told you before--it is so difficult now. but i will tell you all--there is no shame in it when all is told. no, do not take my hand till i have finished." then quite clearly and briefly wat recounted all that had happened to the little marie--not sparing himself in the matter of the inn of the coronation, where he had been found by will gordon and barra, but chiefly insisting upon the noble self-sacrifice of the girl and her death, welcome and sweet to her because of her love and repentance. but the tale was told on board the _sea unicorn_ under a double burden of difficulty. for the teller was conscious that he ought long ago to have confessed all this to his love; and then the story itself, simple and beautiful in its facts, was riddled and blasted by the bitter comments of barra, and tinctured to base issues by his blighting sneers. as wat went on kate drooped her head on her breast and clasped her hands before her. even the love-light was for the moment dimmed in her proud eyes, but only with indignant tears, that her love should so be put to shame before those whom she would have given her life to see compelled to hold him in honor. the heavy weight of unbelief against which he felt himself pleading in vain, gradually proved too much for wat gordon. he stopped abruptly and flung his hand impatiently out. "i cannot go on," he said; "my words are not credited--of what use is it?" "as you say, my lord lochinvar, of what use is it?" sneered barra. "_that_ you know best yourself. you were asked a plain question--whether the maid who accompanied you on the first part of your wondrous ulysses wanderings was the same with whom you arrived on board the _sea unicorn_. to that plain question you have only returned a very crooked answer. have you nothing else that you can say to finish the lie in a more workmanlike fashion?" "jack scarlett--scarlett, come hither!" wat cried, suddenly. and the master-at-arms, who very characteristically had gone forward to berth with the sailors, came aft as the men on deck passed the word for him. "will you tell this lady," said wat, "what you know of my acquaintance with the little marie?" whereupon, soberly and plainly, like a soldier, john scarlett told his tale. but for all the effect it had upon the listeners he might just as well have spoken it to the solan-geese diving in the bay. wat saw the unbelief settle deeper on the face of roger mcghie, and the very demon of jealousy and malice wink from under the eyelids of my lady wellwood. "i have a question to ask you, my noble captain of various services," said barra, "a question concerning this girl and your gallant companion. what did you first think when this marie joined you with the horses--in page's dress, as i have heard you say--and what when she told you that she had stabbed your friend's enemy and hers to the death?" "i thought what any other man would think," answered scarlett, brusquely. "and afterwards among the sand-dunes of lis you discovered that all this devotion arose merely from noble, pure, unselfish, platonic love?" the old soldier was more than a little perplexed by barra's phrases, which he did not fully understand. "yes," he answered at last, with a hesitation which told more against his story than all he had said before. barra was quick to seize his advantage. "you see how faithfully these comrades stick to each other--how touching is such fidelity. the intention is so excellent, even when truth looks out in spite of them through the little joins in the patchwork." "god!" cried scarlett, fiercely. "i would i had you five minutes at a rapier's end for a posturing, lying knave--a pitiful, putty-faced dog! i cannot answer your words, though i know them to be mere tongue-shuffling. but with my sword--yes, i could answer with that!" barra pointed to his side. "had your friend--your friend's friend, i should say--not had me at her dagger's end, i should have been most honored. but the lady has spoilt my attack and parry for many a day. nevertheless, i suffered in a good cause. for without that our general lover had hardly been allowed to enjoy the arcadian felicities of the sand-dunes of lis, nor yet his more recent, and i doubt not as agreeable, retirement to the caves and sea-beaches of my poor island of fiara." "you are the devil," cried scarlett, writhing in fury. "but i shall live to see you damned one day!" but barra only smiled as he turned to confer apart a while with roger mcghie and my lady. kate walked to the bulwarks and looked over. wat stood his ground on the spot on which he had told his story; but scarlett, as soon as he had finished, stalked away with as much dignity as upon short notice he could import into a pair of very untrustworthy sea-legs. when the conference was over it was roger mcghie who spoke, very quietly and gently, as was ever his ancient wont. "kate, my lass," he said, "i have never compelled you to aught all my life--rather it hath been the other way, perhaps too much. and i will not urge you now. do you still wish to forsake your father for this man, whose tale you have heard--a tale which, whatever of truth may be in it, he hath certainly hid from you as long as possible? or will you return to your own home with me, your father, and with this noble lady, to whom i give you as a daughter?" kate stood clasping her hands nervously and looking from one to the other of them. but it was to wat that she spoke. "my true-love, i do not distrust you--do not think that," she said, with her lips pale and trembling, her color coming and going. "i believe every word in spite of them all. aye, and shall always believe you. for, indeed, i cannot do otherwise and live. but oh, my lad" (here for the first time she broke into a storm of sobs), "if you had only trusted me--only told me--i should not have cared. she could not help loving you--but it was i whom you loved all the while." wat came nearer to her. she gave him her hand again. "nevertheless, for this time i must go with my father, since he bids me. but be brave, wat, dear lad," she went on; "i believe in you always. the good days will come, and good day or bad day, remember that i shall be ready for you whenever you call me to come to you!" in a moment they were in each other's arms. "i will come!" whispered wat gordon in her ear; "if i be alive, as god sees me, i will come to you when and where you need me." roger mcghie had turned his back on them. my lady's eyes glittered with malice and jealousy, but only my lord barra found a word to say. "most touching!" he sneered, "much more so indeed than facts--but perhaps hardly so convincing." * * * * * kate had gone below. the others still remained upon the deck. the _sea unicorn_ was heading directly for the main-land. barra pointed to the blue hills which were slowly changing into gray olive on the lower slopes as the ship neared the land. "we are honored," he said, "with the company of so brave a lover and one so successful. but we would not keep him from other conquests. so, since i, murdo of barra, do not use the daggers of harlots, nor yet the crumbling walls of towers, to crush those who hate me, i give you, sir, your liberty, which i hope you will use wisely, in order that you may retrieve a portion of that honor which by birth is yours. i will set your companion and yourself on shore at the nearest point of land without any conditions whatsoever." wat bowed. he did not pay much attention. he was thinking rather of kate's last words. barra went over to the captain and entered into earnest talk with him. it was the turn of the lady of balmaghie. she came over to where wat was standing by the side of the ship. "you thought me beautiful once, or at least you told me so, lochinvar," she said, laying her hand on his. "i think you as beautiful to-day as ever i thought you," answered wat, with a certain weary diplomacy. if the mammon of unrighteousness must have the care of the beloved, it might be as well to make a friend of mammon. "yet you have sought other and younger loves"--she purred her words softly at him--"you have been unfaithful to the old days when it was not less than heaven for you to kiss my hand or to carry my fan." "unfaithful!" said wat, laughing a little hard laugh; "yet your ladyship hath twice been wedded to men of your own choice, whilst i remain lonely, a wanderer, companionless." "you will ever be welcome at the house of balmaghie," she said, laying her hand on his. wat looked up eagerly. it was not an invitation he had looked for from the duchess on this side the grave. "ever most welcome," repeated my lady, looking tenderly at him. "indeed, gladly would i endeavor to comfort you if ever you come to us in sore trouble." wat turned away disappointed. he would certainly look for his consolation from another source, if ever he came within reach of the house of balmaghie. "i thank you, my lady," said wat. "at present my heart is too heavy to permit me more fully to express my gratitude." he spoke the words mechanically, without setting a meaning to them. he listened to his own lips speaking as if they had been another's, and wondered what they found to say. it was the afternoon when at last the boat was lowered to put wat and scarlett ashore. they were already stepping across the deck to the ship's side when kate appeared at the top of the ladder which led up from the cabin. she walked straight to where wat was standing and held out both her hands. "i am yours; remember, i shall ever be ready," she said, quite clearly. "and i," he said, more softly, "will come to you were it across the world. only in your hour of need send me once again the heart of gold for a sign." and he took her token from his neck, touched it with his lips, and gave it back to her. "till you need me, keep it!" he said, and so stooped and kissed her on the forehead before them all. then, without looking back, he followed scarlett down the ladder into the boat. chapter xlii the fiery cross wat and scarlett found themselves landed in a country which to all intents was one both savage and hostile. it was not indeed barra's country, but the danger was scarcely less on that account. they were strangers and sassenach. wat carried gold in his belt, more than many a highland chief had ever seen at one time in his life--gold which at perth or inverness could be exchanged for a prince's wealth of swords and daggers, pistols and fighting-gear. it was in a little land-locked bay that they were disembarked. great slaty purple mountains stretched away to the north; a range of lower hills, cut down to the roots by the narrow cleft of a pass, warded the bay to the east; while to the south the comrades looked out on a wilderness of isles and islets, reefs and spouting skerries, which foamed and whitened as the black iron teeth of the rock showed themselves, and the slow swell of the atlantic came lumbering and arching in. wat and scarlett sat down on the shore, which stretched away lonely and barren for miles on either side of them. they watched the boat return to the ship, as she lay with her sails backed, and shivering in the wind, waiting only for the crew to come on board before sailing for the south. a slight figure could be seen immediately above the bulwark on the land side. wat rose to his feet and waved his hand. the white speck signalled a reply, and kate mcghie, the maid of his love, carried the heart of gold away with her to the lands of the south, and the spaces of the sea widened every moment between the truest lovers the world held. scarlett and wat sat a long time watching the ship dwindling into a mere tower of whiteness in the distance, the seas closing bluer and bluer about her, and the whole universe growing lonely behind her, wanting the beloved. at last scarlett spoke. "lad, have ye had enough of adventures," he said, more sadly than was his wont, "or are ye as keen after them as ever? it seems that we have now put ourselves in every man's ill graces, so far as i can see. whether james or william bear the gree to us signifies not a jot; for if james, then the first king's man that comes across us holds you for the old outlawry in the matter of wounding my lord wellwood, and me for taking your side when i brought you the king's letter to brederode; and if william wear the crown, lo, for prison-breaking and manslaughter--aye, and for desertion of his army, both you and poor silly john scarlett are alien and outlaw in all the realms of the dutchman. i tell you we are doomed at either end of the stick, wat, my man." "and faith, i care not much," quoth wat, watching with wistful eyes the _sea unicorn_ vanishing with the one thing that was dear to him on earth. "care or no care," said scarlett, "it is time for us to be on our feet!" so wat, rising obediently, kissed his hand behind his companion's back to the white tower which was now sinking in the utmost south. as soon almost as the two adventurers had left the sand and shingle of the shore, they found themselves upon the short heather of certain rough, moorish foothills. no house pleasantly reeking was to be discerned--not so much as a deer nor even a wandering sheep in that wide, wild place. so wat and scarlett fared forth straight to the east, keeping mostly parallel with the shores of a fine loch, which stretched inward in the direction of the notch in the hills which they had seen from their landing-place. it was towards evening when the two friends came to the summit of a little knoll and stood looking down upon a curious scene. beneath them, scattered among the _débris_ of some prehistoric landslip, lay a small highland village--if village it could be called--of which each house or hut was built against the side of a great bowlder or rock fallen from the hill-side. the cottages were no better than rude shelters of turf and stone, roofed with blackened heather and scattered at every conceivable angle, as if they had been dredged forcibly out of the bottom of a reluctant pepper-pot and had taken root where they fell. in the centre, however, was a kind of open space--not levelled nor cleared of turf and stones, but with all its primeval rocks sticking through the scanty turf, blackened and smoothed by the rubbing they had received from the fundamental parts of innumerable generations of goats and children. in this space a dozen men in rude kilts and plaids of ancient faded tartan were collected, arguing and threatening with as much apparent fierceness as though some one of them was to be killed during the next five minutes. a small army of women hovered on the outskirts and made independent forays into the affray, catching hold of this and that other valiant discourser, and, if she got the right hold and purchase, swinging him forthwith out of the turmoil--only, however, to return to it again as soon as her grasp relaxed. there was, therefore, a centre of disturbance of which the elements were entirely male--while contemporary, and on the whole concentric, with it revolved a number of smaller cyclones, of which the elements were about equally male and female. fists were shaken here and there in all of them, and voices rose loud and shrill. but from the heart of the darker and more permanent quarrel in the centre there came at intervals the threatening gleam of steel, as this one and that other stooped and flashed the _skein dhu_, plucked out of his garter, defiantly in the face of his opponent. in the very midst wat could see a thick-set man who carried over his shoulder a couple of ash-plants rudely tied together. this contrivance was of small dimensions, and the sharpened ends were burned black and further stained with blood and what looked like red wax. the man who carried it had no other weapon--if this could be called a weapon--which appeared as harmless as a boy's sword of lath. yet as the little man thrust it towards this one and that, the strong men of the circle shrank back instantly with the greatest alarm, shaking their heads and girning their teeth, as scarlett said, "like so many wull-cats on a dike." there seemed to be no end to this bloodless but threatening quarrel, which blackened and scattered for all the world like a swarm of bees whirling abroad on a july day, when the good-wives run beneath with iron pots and clattering skellets to settle the swarm ere it has time to leave the farm-town. but suddenly out of one of the largest and most distinguished of the houses--one not much, if anything, inferior to a galloway "swine ree"--there issued a tall, dark man, who walked with an air, swinging his tartans and rattling the gold tassel on the basket hilt of his claymore. he made straight for the thickest of the quarrel, and so soon as he arrived there he knocked this disputant one way and hurled another that, like a schoolmaster unexpectedly descending upon unruly boys. and it was ludicrous to see these stalwart highlandmen sprawling on the ground, holding their ears, which had been smitten so suddenly and with such a mighty buffeting; for the fierceness on their faces when first they felt the blow faded into instant desire to get out of the way--even culminating in a kind of satisfied good-humor so soon as they set eyes on their chastiser, as though it were not less than an honor to be smitten by such a hand. in ten seconds the quarrel was no more, and the very men who had warred and debated were to be seen most valiantly retiring behind their wives' petticoats out of reach of the chilling eye-glances and hard-buckled fists of the tall, dark peacemaker. he, on his part, strode directly to where stood the little man with the blackened cross of ash-plants, and, taking this article unceremoniously out of his hand, he thrust it into those of the nearest bystander, and pointed with his hand in the direction of the knoll on which wat and scarlett had their station. as he did so it was evident that he observed their presence for the first time, and his hand dropped quickly to his side. chapter xliii coll o' the cows then, almost before wat and scarlett had time to draw their swords and stand on the defensive, they in their turn became the centre of all the noise in the village. steel flashed in plenty all about, and half a score of wild men crouched and "hunkered" round them waiting for the chance to spring. but with walter gordon and jack scarlett standing back to back, each with a long sword in one hand and a pistol in the other, it was not easy for the most alert to find an unprotected opening. meanwhile the tall, dark man, who had the manifest air of a chief, walked leisurely towards them and stood looking on at the affray. "sir!" cried wat, "call off your men, and permit us to explain our presence." but the man vouchsafed not a word in reply, only stood and looked over the heads of his men at scarlett's legs. "why, man!" he cried, at length, "ye should be for the good cause; ye have gotten the king of france's boots on!" "aye," said scarlett, instantly dropping his point; "certainly we are for the good cause. truly, also, i have the king of france's boots on, and that with good reason, for when i left france i was officer in his majesty's luxembourg regiment." which, indeed, was very true, but certain other things had happened in between. the tall man seemed pleased at his own acute observation. he called off his men with a single stern word, which sounded almost like a bidding given to a dog to lie down. "but what seek you in my country?" he asked them. now scarlett would have given something to know in what country he was, and still more to know who was the owner of it; but not knowing either, he had to do the best he could with the limited information at his disposal. "we are here," he said, laying his finger meaningly on his lip, "on the part of his majesty the king of france, for the furtherance of the good cause." and he added, under his breath, "and a precious deal would i give to know for certain what in this instance the good cause is!" for indeed it seemed not likely that louis was fomenting any rebellion against the arms of king james, who, when wat and scarlett left the harbor of lis-op-zee, ruled unquestioned at whitehall. but scarlett's diplomatic answer was accepted without reserve. "friends of the true king and officers of his christian majesty of france are ever friends of keppoch's," he cried, striding forward frankly and giving a hand to each. scarlett felt a strong desire to whistle as the chief revealed himself. "coll o' the cows!" he muttered, softly; "we are indeed in the gled's claws this day." for coll o' the cows was the wildest chief as well as the most noted cattle-lifter beyond the highland line, and though now apparently standing for "the good cause" (whatever that might be), he had all his life hitherto stood entirely for the very excellent cause of his own vested right to drive other folks' cattle and eat other folks' beef. "doubtless you will have seen my lord dundee?" said keppoch to scarlett, whom, very evidently, he considered the leading spirit of the two. wat pricked up his ears. "is colonel graham here?" he said, looking inquiringly at the chief. keppoch frowned, and for the first time looked a little suspicious. "ye must have come over the line but lately," he said, "if ye know not that my lord dundee hath broken with duke hamilton's cat convention, and is now raking the highlands for levies as a servant lass rakes the night-coals to light her morning fires." "indeed ye may say so, for we have within the hour been landed from the ship which gave us passage from france--landed upon the shore at the mouth of your fine loch there," replied scarlett, pointing westward with his hand. the brow of coll o' the cows instantly cleared. "it is true; i see by your boots ye have been in the salt-water coming ashore." for his pursuit of cattle seemed manifestly to have sharpened his faculty of observation. "we have to be careful these ill days," he said, "when one cannot tell whether a man is for the good cause or for the dutch thief that cocks his dirty orange plumes so bravely on the road 'twixt torbay and london." observing their evident interest, he went on with his information. it is good in a wild country to be the first bearer of great tidings. [illustration: "striding forward frankly and giving a hand to each"] "we have e'en just sent the fiery cross on to the country o' the camerons. some o' my lads were no that carin' aboot carrying it, for there has been a bit nimble-going feud betwixt us, and it is the camerons' turn to make the score even." "and how was the matter settled?" asked wat, with curious interest. "och!" said keppoch, "i just gied the fiery cross to duncan o' taliskier. he is no to say a very right son of ian at any rate. ye see, his mother was a woman from the north--from the country of the grants. and as for the father o' him, faith, there was nane kenned to rights wha he was--even hersel'. but for a' that, duncan o' taliskier is wonderful handy to keep about a house for jobs o' this kind." "it is indeed excellently invented," said scarlett, approvingly, "for i learned long ago that 'always sacrifice your worst troops--your allies if you can'--is an ancient and well-considered military maxim." the chief went on: "you will be wondering what keppoch does here on the edge of this country o' camerons? faith, ye may well wonder! but there's a bit plantation of mcdonald's over the hill there, and though they have taken lochiell's name they find it for the good of their healths to pay a bit cess to keppoch--just as the peetifu' burgher bodies of inverness do; for money a loon is feared o' colin--guid kens what for." wat and scarlett nodded. they were too completely ignorant of the niceties of the state of society into the midst of which they were cast to venture on any reply. "but ye shall not bide here," said keppoch; "ye are instantly to come your ways with me to keppoch, my head place, where my castle is. this bit townie here is well enough, but it is not fit for the like of gentlemen that have been in france even to set their feet within." so in a little while wat and scarlett found themselves following coll o' the cows and his ragged regiment towards "keppoch, my head place, where my castle is." first there went a dozen or so of small, black-felled, large-horned cattle, mostly young, which constantly put their heads over their shoulders and looked back towards the pastures they had left, routing and roaring most excruciatingly. then came a round dozen of keppoch's men urging them on, sometimes with the flat of the scabbard and sometimes pricking them with the naked points of their claymores. on the hills above skirmished an irregular force of small light men and half-naked lads. keppoch pointed them out to his companions. "yonder goes my flying column," he said, cunningly, "for so it is designated in the books of war. keppoch is not an ignorant man--far from it, as ye shall know ere ye win clear of him. he did not go to the schools of edinburgh for the best part of three winters for nothing. that was where he learned the english so well--frae the 'prentice lads o' the lawnmarket--fair good drinkers they are, too, and as ready wi' their nieves as the prettiest gentleman with his blade." he considered a little, as if measuring his own qualifications. "maybe ye wunda juist say that i am what ye might call a learned man, nor do i set myself up for an authority on law and doctrine, like black ewan owerby at lochiell. but at least, for every good milch cow in his byres there are ten in mine, and never a sassenach bonnet-laird comes to keppoch to claim them. so ye see, so muckle education has not been thrown away on me." at this moment three hungry-looking loons came down the side of a glen, wading waist-deep among the heather, and driving a small, shaggy highland cow before them, little bigger than a lowland sheep. "ah, good lads," he cried, "plaided men, carriers of the buckler, where gat ye that ane?" the nearest man cried something that sounded like "deil-a-mony-mae!" whereat keppoch laughed and nodded his head. the small cow joined the herd, and was soon racing up the long glen towards the north. but the incident was not ended, for before they had gone far over the heather a woman came tearing down the hill-side, and flinging herself down at keppoch's feet, she clasped him by the legs and kissed the hem of his tartan in an agony of supplication. "some blood-feud," thought wat, as he listened to the frenzied outpouring of appeal. keppoch stood awkwardly enough, listening at first frowningly, and then with some signs of yielding in his brow, the sight of which made the woman yet more earnest. after a moment's thought he looked up and cried some direction to the clansmen who followed the cattle ahead of them. the little red cow was turned and came uncertainly along the glen, sometimes roaring back to the herd and at other times casting up her head to look for her own well-noted landmarks. as soon, however, as she saw the woman, the cow ran to her like a dog and nuzzled a wet foam-flecked mouth into her mistress's bosom. the woman again clasped keppoch's hand, kissing it over and over and calling down blessings upon him. then right briskly she took the heather, skipping along the side of the hill with a light well-accustomed foot, the little red cow following her as closely as a dog, leaping runnels of water and skirting perilous screes on the way to her native pastures. "what might all this be?" asked scarlett. keppoch looked rather shamefaced, like a man expecting to do a good deed by stealth who suddenly finds it fame. "och," said he, "it was just a widow woman that had a bit coo, and some o' my lads met the coo. and the coo it cam' after them, and the widow woman she cam' after the coo; and then, puir body, she asked me if i was a christian man, and i said, 'no; i was a mcdonald.' and she said that so was she. so because she was a mcdonald, i gied the puir woman back her coo. it wasna a guid coo, ony way. but she was very gratefu'. she said she was gaun to be mairried again, and that the man--an appin stewart, greedy hound!--wadna hae her without the coo." chapter xliv great dundee at keppoch the months passed slowly enough for our two exiles. they heard no news from the south--of barra nothing, no word of kate mcghie. the country about them was in a constant ferment--gatherings here and there on behalf of king james; false reports about the doings of the hamiltonians and conventiclers in edinburgh; reports that the westland whigs were marching to exterminate the lads of the glens, in revenge for the doings of the highland host. they had sworn (so the tale ran) to take back to ayrshire and galloway the booty of the "seventy-nine," which still constituted the best part of the plenishings of most highland cottages to the north of the lands of breadalbane and mccallum more. it was hard to wait in blank ignorance; but wat knew that his best hope of coming to his own again, and so to the winning of his love, was to abide the chances of war, and by good service to the king to deserve the restoration of his fiefs and heritages. luckily for the two outlaws, no french officers came to keppoch, nor any, indeed, who knew either scarlett or wat, otherwise their lives had not been worth an hour's purchase. but as week after week went by, they became great favorites with mcdonald, and were taken on several occasions to see sir ewan cameron of lochiell--a wise, silent, benignant man, who at first said little, but contented himself with watching them silently and subtly from under his eyebrows. "i remember your father," he said, suddenly flashing a look on wat. "you remember my father?" repeated wat, eagerly; "i did not know he had ever been in the highlands." "nor was he," said lochiell; "it was in edinburgh, when his head was cocked up on the nether bow, that i mind him--and a fine, wiselike; honest-seeming head it was." the young man straightened himself fiercely, suspecting an intention to insult him. "na, na," said lochiell, smilingly; "that's where every honest man's head ought to land at the last. james graham's was there afore your father's, and mine, i doubt not, will follow one day. but they will send keppoch's black puddock-stool tied up in a poke to fricht the bairns of inverness." "ye are acquaint with my lord dundee, they tell me?" was lochiell's next question. "aye," said wat, "and well acquaint--though i know not how he would receive me now. yet many a time have i ridden blithely enough at his side when i was a lad, until i had the misfortune to be outlawed and attainted by the privy council--" "what was that for--not ony maitter o' religion and godliness, i hope? nae sic whiggery about a brisk lad like you, surely?" said keppoch. "it was for the small matter of sticking a sword into a man or two belonging to my lord duke of wellwood," interrupted scarlett, "and maybe for helping his grace himself to an ounce of lead--" "hoot!" cried keppoch, "john graham will never steer ye for ony sic cause. he is great on the drill and discipline, but as to the richtin' o' a bit private misunderstanding, that surely is every gentleman's ain business." "that was not the view the council took of the matter," said wat, smiling. "oh, they wad doubtless be o' the ither man's clan, or his connections and well-wishers in some shape--ye couldna blame them. they wad do the best they could for their side, nae doot," answered keppoch. and lochiell listened to all with a gravely smiling face, like a man well pleased. at keppoch there was one day a muster and a show of weapons, after which came sword-play and fighting with the lochaber axe, assault with targe and without targe--all of which wat and scarlett watched with infinite zest and unwearied amusement. when it was well over, and all the champions from the glens had performed before the chief and lochiell (who were then in great amity), keppoch invited wat to try a bout with him. wat professed his inexperience with the heavier blade of the claymore, but asked to be permitted to retain his own lighter and finer "andrea"--which, indeed, had scarcely ever left his side since he recovered it in the locker of the boat from which he had been cast ashore on the isle of fiara. so before long, weapon in hand, the huge black chieftain faced lochinvar, towering over him like a son of anak, his very sword casting a shadow like a weaver's beam. they saluted in form and fell-to. clash! the blades met, and almost immediately keppoch swept his sword in a full cut at wat's shoulder. the young man measured his distance, stepped aside, and the next moment his andrea pricked keppoch's side below the arm. it was a mere touch with the point, but had the blade stood a handbreadth in the giant's body, as it might have done, the sons of ian would have needed another chief. coll o' the cows was more than a little astonished; but thinking the matter some accidental chance which could not be repeated, he professed his readiness to proceed. "man," cried lochiell, who had been attentively watching the combat, "not coll o' the cows, but coll o' the corbies ye would have been if that laddie had liked. for oh, man, ye would hae been deid as dugald more, and the clan looking for a tree to hang the young man on by this time." with this most disabling thought in his mind to warn him from a too complete victory, wat once more guarded, and for a long time contented himself with keeping off the furious strokes of the chief's assault, as easily, to all appearance, as a roof turns aside the pelting of a summer shower. then, as keppoch took breath a moment, his first fury having worn itself out, wat attacked in his turn, and, puzzling his opponent, as was his wont, with the lightning swiftness of his thrust and recovery, caught his claymore deftly near the hilt, and in a moment it was flying out of his fingers. keppoch gazed after his weapon with as much surprise as if a hand had been reached out of the blue sky to snatch it from his grasp. "god!" he cried, "but ye are a most mighty sworder--ne'er a one like ye within the highland line. who was your master at the play?" wat pointed to where old jack scarlett sat smiling complacently beside lochiell. "there is my teacher," he said, "and at my best i am but a bairn with a windlestraw in my master's hands." scarlett wagged his beard at keppoch's evident consternation. "no, no," he said, "i am old and stiff. do not believe him. why, lad, ye beat me the last time i tried ye with that same trick, though indeed i myself had taught it ye at the first." "but i was vexed for the lad," he added under his breath, "and maybe i did not just try my best." of course after this nothing would serve the chiefs but that wat and scarlett must fight a long bout with the blunted point, which presently they did amid tremendous excitement. "oich! oich!" shouted the clansmen, jumping in the air and yelling at every good stroke and lightning parry. "bone o' dugald more--what heevenly fechtin'!" cried keppoch. "i declare i am like to greet--me that hasna grat since the year sixty, when ian mackintosh of auchnacarra died afore i could kill him. oh, for the like o' you twa to lead a foray intil the country of the lochiell camerons--_i mean the appin stewarts, foul fa' them!_ we wad gang in the daytime. for oh! it wad be a peety that sic bonny sword-play should be wasted in killing folk in the nicht season." and the tears actually streamed from the eye of black colin as he watched the swords clash and click, meeting each other sweetly and willingly like trysted lovers. "this is worth a' the kye frae achnasheen to glen urquhart," he cried. "ah, that was a stroke! 'tis better than ganging to a kirk!" more than once wat nearly got home. but old jack, standing a little stiffly on his legs and biting at a bit of sour-grass, always turned the point an inch aside at the critical moment. at last came the opening, and the master's return flew like lightning. wat's blade was forced upward in spite of his lowered wrist, and lo! scarlett's point stood against the third button of his coat as steadily as a master in a school points at the blackboard with his ferule. a great shout went up from the throng. the hands of both combatants were shaken. keppoch's defeat was avenged. such swordsmanship had never before been seen by any son of ian. the reputation of both master and pupil was made on the spot. lochiell and keppoch vied with each other in civilities, and the event became a daily one--but after this with a pair of foils, which the master-at-arms deftly manufactured. in many such ways the months passed, and the spring came again with delicate green kindling along the watercourses, as the birch began to cast her tresses to the winds, and the grass tufts fought hard with the conquering heather. but upon a day late in the month of may the party at keppoch was broken by a sudden definite call. three horsemen rode up to the door one blazing noontide. scarlett and keppoch were playing cards, the chief eagerly and noisily, scarlett with the dogged use-and-wont of a hundred camps. wat gordon was cleaning his arms and accoutrements in the hall; for though they two had landed with little save the swords by their sides--now, thanks to their quality as swordsmen, and also somewhat to the weight of the gold in wat's belt (which had so nearly been the death of him in the suck of suliscanna), they had been equipped with all the necessities of war. the first of the three riders who entered into the hall of keppoch was no other than my lord dundee. he looked thirty years older than when wat had seen him last riding by in the gloaming to the house of balmaghie--grayer, more wearied, sadder, too, with his face drawn and pale in spite of the sun and the wind. he greeted keppoch courteously but without great cordiality, glanced his eye once over jack scarlett, and seemed to take his quality in a moment--gravely saluting the good soldier of any rank and all ranks. then he looked about him slowly. "why, lochinvar!" he cried, astonished, "what wind hath blown you here--not recruiting for the prince of orange, i hope, nor yet trying to cut my favor with keppoch?" "nay," said wat, "but, if an outlaw and an exile may, ready as ever to fight to the death for king james." "why, well said," answered my lord dundee, smiling, "yet, if i remember rightly, i think you owed his majesty not so much favor." "in the matter of the privy council and my lord wellwood?" said wat, shrugging his shoulders. "as to that, i took my risks like another. and if i had to pay the piper--why, it was at least no one but myself who called the tune." "not my lady--my late lady wellwood, i mean?" said dundee, glancing at him with the pale ghost of mirthfulness on his face. wat shook his head. "of my own choice i took the barred road, and wherefore should i complain that i had to settle the lawing when i came to the toll-gates? but at least i am glad that you bear me no grudge, my lord," said wat, "for doubtless, after all, it was a matter of the king's justice." "grudge!" cried one of those who were with the viscount, "it had been a god's blessing if you had stood your weapon a hand-breadth out on the other side of his grace of wellwood when you were about it." whereupon, with no further word, dundee and keppoch retired to confer apart; and that night, when the viscount rode away from the house, his three followers had become four. for wat gordon rode by his side as in old days on the braes of garryhorn before any of these things befell. but jack scarlett abode still with keppoch and lochiell to help them to bring their clansmen into the field. chapter xlv killiekrankie the july morning wakened broad and fair. the swifts circled in widening sweeps about the castle of blair. wat gordon slept in the hall, wrapped in his plaid--a gift from keppoch. the mcdonald lay that night with his own men out on the lea, but many of the younger chiefs of dundee's levy, mclean of duart and donald of sleat, were also encamped round the hall. it was after four of the clock when a hand touched wat's shoulder. he looked up alert on the instant with the trained wakefulness of the soldier. his eyes met those of the lord dundee, who, without a word, strode slowly up the stairs. wat rose and followed his general, making his toilet with a single shake of the plaid over his shoulder. presently they stood together on the battlements, where dundee leaned his elbow on the highest part of the wall and looked to the east. the sun was just rising between ben-y-gloe and ben-y-vrackie. dundee stood a long time looking round him before he spoke. wat kept in the background, standing modestly by the edge of the tiles, where they went crow-stepping up to the rigging. he dared not intrude upon the thoughts or plans of his commander. at last dundee pointed with his hand, sweeping it over the sward beneath, which was black with highlanders, all squadded according to their clans. most of them still lay in their plaids, scattered broadcast as if they had been slain on the field of battle, with their claymores held in their arms as a mother holds a favorite child. but here and there a few early foragers were already busy gathering birch and dwarf oak to build the morning camp-fires, while down by the river, where the lowland cavalry were picketed, many blue columns of smoke arose. "a bonny sight!" said the general, slowly. "aye, a bonny sight! three thousand men that are men, and not a feared heart nor an unwilling blade among them. and yet," he added, a little sadly, "if i were away, all that would break and vanish like yon white cloud crawling on the shoulder of ben vrackie." he pointed to where the morning mist was trailing itself in quickly dissolving wreaths and vanishing wisps over the mountain. "aye, like the mist they came, and like the mist they will go--if i be not here the morrow's morn to lead them. lochiell is wise indeed. he would command us all with skill and fortitude. but then, how glen garry and keppoch would cock their bonnets at that! sandy mclean there might hold the clansmen and take them to edinburgh, yet sandy is not chief even of his own clan, but an apple-cheeked lad, who thinks only of taking the eyes of maidens. grown babes all of them--yet men whom i have welded into a weapon of strength to fight the king's warfare." "think you the enemy will attack us this day?" said wat, with the deference of a young soldier to an elder, whose favor, though great, may not be presumed upon. "they will come, indeed," said the general, "but it is we that shall attack. i would it had been a day or two later. for the western men are not come in, and lochiell hath not yet half his tail behind him. nevertheless, 'twill serve. mackay i mind of old--in the dutch provinces--a good drill-sergeant that fights by the book; but a brave man--yes, a very brave man." for as an unquestioned beauty is the first to acknowledge beauty in others, so john graham could readily allow courage to his opponents. yet this morning a constant melancholy seemed to overspread the beautiful countenance that had been the desire of women, the fear or adoration of men. in his converse with lochinvar not a trace remained of that haughtiness which had so often distinguished his dealings with other men, nor yet of that relentlessness which he himself had so often mistaken for the firmness of military necessity. wat's bosom swelled within him as he looked on that host of plaided men. he seemed to see scotland swept to the solway, and the king coming home in triumph to his own again. the old tower of lochinvar rose up before him. he thought proudly of building up again the broken-down walls, and for his love's sake setting the lordship of lochinvar once more among its peers. it would be passing sweet to walk with her by the hill-side and look down upon their home, with the banner once again floating at the staff, and the hum of serving-men about it. "it is indeed a most noble sight!" he cried, in rapture. dundee glanced at him, and marked the heightened color of the lad with kindly, tolerant favor. he thought he spoke of the mustered clans. "aye, glorious--truly," said he. "but build not on sand. ere ten days be past, if these lads of the mist find not plunder, clan ronald will be off to spoil clan cameron, and keppoch, the wild cat, will be at the throat of clan mackintosh. i have welded me a weapon which, tempered to the turning of a steel blade this morning, may be but a handful of sand when the wind blows off the sea by to-morrow at this time." he stood silent a while, and his face grew fixed and stern as when he gave orders in battle. "to-day i draw sword for a king that dared not draw sword for himself--for a house that has ever used its mistresses well and its soldiers ill. let us make no mistake. you and i, wat, go out this day on a great venture, and on our heads it is. we have a true soldier to fight. for you and i have seen william of orange, and in this the day of our distress we shall have no help from our friends, save these three hundred irish kerns with their bent pikes and their bows and arrows, no better than bairns that shoot crows among the corn." he shrugged his shoulders and lifted his graceful body erect. "so be it! after all, it is not my business. enough for me that i do the king's will and walk straightly among so many that go crookedly. to-night i will end it if i can, and drive the dutchman to his own place. but if not--why, then, it shall end me. i know, i know," he went on, quickly, as if walter had reminded him of something, "i have a wife and a bairn down there. i am a man as other men. i would fain see jean cochrane, clad in white, passing here and there among the walks of the garden, gathering flowers, and the youngling toddling about her feet--were it but for once, before this night i bid the war-pipes blow at the setting of the sun." he turned towards the lands of the south where he had earned much hatred and deadly fear. "it may be, as they say, that i have ridden overharshly on the king's service, and trodden on some whom i might have lifted with my hand. but, god wot, it was ever the king's service and not mine own! i ever judged it better that there should be a little timeous bloodletting than that a whole people should perish. but now i see that the king and i were not wise. for a war that stirs up folk's religion never comes to an end. and, for all the good i did, i might just as well never have set foot in galloway or the south. but enough; 'tis over now, and there remains--three thousand claymores and an empty title! well, we shall find out to-day whether kings are indeed anointed, as they say. ah, wat, the sun is high, the light broad and fair on athol braes. but ere it fades, you and i may find out many things that priest and presbyter could not unriddle to us." he made as if to descend from the castle wall, but took a second thought. "bid the bugle sound!" he ordered, quickly changing his tone. "invite the chiefs to a council. send dunfermline to me--and go yourself and get some breakfast." * * * * * it was almost at the way-going of the day. the sons of the mist crouched low among the heather and watched the saxon soldiers struggling up through the dark and narrow glen. king william's men were weary and sore driven, for they had been there under the sun's fierce assault since noon that day. so near were the clansmen to their foes that they could distinguish the uniform and accoutrement of each regiment as it straggled slowly out under the eyes of the general and formed on the little green shelf overhanging the deep cleft of the garry. wat stood with dundee upon the crest of the hill above. the general had fallen silent, but a look of eager expectancy lit his face. "i have them," he said, low, to himself; "it is coming right. we shall balance accounts with the dutchman ere it be dark." to him came keppoch, pale to the lips with rage. "this is no war, my lord-general," he said, "they are through the pass and you hold us here in check! why, with the rocks of the hill-side my single clan could have annihilated them--swept them in heaps into the black pools of the garry." my lord dundee smiled a tolerant smile, as a mother might at the ignorance of a wayward, fretful child. "bide ye, keppoch," he said, kindly, "ye shall have your fill of that work--but we must not make two mouthfuls of this orange. our advantage is great enough. we shall meet them on plain field, and, ere we be done with them, ye shall walk across the garry upon their dead bodies, bootless and in dry socks, if it please you." presently the lowland army had dribbled itself completely out of the pass and stood ranked, regiment by regiment, awaiting the onset. mackay had done all that skill and silence could do in such a desperate case, for the men of the mountains had all the choice of the ground and of the time for attack. clan by clan dundee set his men on the hill crests, solidly phalanxed, but with wide gaps between the divisions--a noble array of great names and mighty chiefs--mclean, clan ranald, clan cameron, glengarry, stewarts of athol and appin, men of the king's name from east and west. well might dundee have forgotten his melancholy mood of the morning. the sun touched the western hills, halved itself, and sank like a swiftly dying flame. the blue shadows strode eastward with a rush. the gray mist began to fill the deep glen of the garry. "ready!" cried the general. the war-pipes blared. the plaided men gave a shout that drowned the pibrochs, and the clans were ready for the charge. from beneath arose a response, a faint, wavering cry, without faith or cohesion. "ah," cried lochiell, "have at them now! that is not the cry of men who are going to conquer!" dundee raised his hand and the chiefs watched for it to fall. it fell. "claymore!" shouted lochiell, who had been standing like a pillar at the head of his clan. keppoch, wild with the joy of battle, instantly fired his gun from where he stood, and throwing his brand into the air, he caught it by the hilt as he too gave the order to charge. slowly at first, but quickening their pace as they neared the foe, the clans came down. they held their fire till they were within a hundred yards of the enemy, grimly enduring without reply three separate volleys from the disciplined ranks of the lowland army. they paused a moment and fired a wild, irregular volley. then, with the unanimous flash of drawn swords in the air, the whole wild array charged down with a yell upon the triple line of the enemy. wat rode by the side of the general; for dundee charged with the van, exposing himself in the very front of danger. half way down the slope the old colonel of horse noticed that the lowland cavalry were not following. he turned in his saddle, lifted his sword, and waved the squadrons on. "for the king! charge!" he cried, pointing with the blade to the serried line of mackay's regiments below. but at that moment there came another withering volley from the english line, threshing the hill-side like hail. a bullet struck dundee under the uplifted arm. instinctively he shifted his bridle hand, and set himself grimly to the charge again; but the quickly growing pallor of his face and the slackness of his grasp told the tale of a terrible wound. lochinvar had scarce time to dismount and receive his general in his arms before dundee fainted and his head fell on wat's shoulder. his charger galloped on, leading the regiment into action, as though he felt that his master's part had devolved on him. in an instant the assault swept past them, and wat and the wounded soldier were left as it had been alone on the field. here and there a clansman, stricken by a bullet, strove to rise and follow the onset of his clan. he would stumble a few yards, and then throw up his hands and fall headlong. but up from the river edge there came a hell of fiercely mingled sounds. at the first glance at the wound wat saw there was no hope. looking over the pale set features of the general, as he lay reclined in his arms, he could see the thin english lines fairly swept away. one or two regiments seemed to have been missed, standing idly at their arms, like forgotten wheat in a corner of an ill-reaped field; but for the rest, clansmen and red soldiers alike had passed out of sight. presently the dying commander opened his eyes. "my lord," said wat, softly, "how is it with you?" "nay, rather, how goes the day?" said dundee, with an eager look. "well for the king," answered wat. "then," replied john graham, "if it be well with him it is the less the matter for me." with that he laid his head back on wat's breast contentedly. he seemed to wander somewhat in his thoughts, speaking fast and disorderly. "maybe i was in the wrong--in the wrong. yet i did it for the king's good. but i was sore vexed for the wife and bairns. and yet the carrier suffered it very unconcernedly, and said he was glad to die--which i can well believe. maybe he, too, had done well for his king." his mind dwelt much upon far-off, unhappy things. anon he seemed to see some terrible tragedy, for he put his hand before his face as if to shut out a painful sight. "enough of that, westerha'," he said, in a grieved tone, "this serves no good end." then at the last there came a smile breaking over his face, and he lifted his hand lightly and gently like one who dandles something tender and easily broken. "'tis a fine bairn, jean," he said, pleasantly, "ye may well be proud o' the babe. i wish i could bide wi' you. they might have left me alone this ae nicht. but i must mount and ride. fare ye weel, jean, my lass--braw lass and bonny wife ye ever were to me. i must e'en bit and saddle, for i hae a far gate and a gloomy road to travel this night!" so with no more than this farewell to his wife and young bairn, the hope of the stuarts, the scourge of the covenant, the glory of the grahams, lay dead on the clean-reaped field of victory. chapter xlvi the leaguer of dunkeld the leaders of the highland army knew not for a while whether most to rejoice in the victory which the clans had won for the king, or to grieve for the terrible price which had been paid for it. the army of general mackay had indeed been swept out of existence. the succors from the distant clans were daily pouring in. scarlett had arrived with four hundred more of lochiell's claymores. ardnamurchan and morven sent stalwart levies. the way seemed clear to edinburgh, from whence there came tidings of stricken dismay among the followers of hamilton, that mighty prince, and where only the wild whigs of the west stood firm, patrolling the city and keeping ill-doers in such fear as they had not known since cromwell encamped betwixt the braes of canaan and the swamp of little egypt. but great dundee was dead, and that balanced all. for able as were many of the chiefs, and well exercised in their clan warfare, there was not one of them, save it might be lochiell, who was not jealous of every other. and colonel cannon of the irish levies, who by virtue of the king's commission held the nominal command, was a man who possessed the confidence of none. so wat gordon, going from clan to clan on the morning after the battle, found nothing but bickering and envies among the victors--how this one had obtained a greater share of the spoil than another, how glengarry was threatening to cut off lochiell for the ancient soreness betwixt them, and also because of some supposed favor of position on the day of battle. "tut, man," said lochiell to his vaporing adversary, good-naturedly clapping him on the shoulder, "if you lads of the garryside are so fighting keen, and as full of hot blood as you say, i doubt not but that a day or two will give you another opportunity of letting out a little of it against the common enemy." wat, eager as ever to put the great controversy to the arbitrament of battle, raged impotently, while major cannon wheeled and manoeuvred the irishmen through their drills, and carried on his miserable squabblings with the chiefs--whom, in spite of their mutual dislikes and clan jealousies, dundee had held in leash with such a firm yet delicate hand. oftentimes, as day after day was wasted, lochinvar felt that if only he could throw himself on the enemy, in order, if it might be to cut a way single-handed towards his love--even though he should be slain in the first hundred yards--such an end would be better than this unceasing plundering among allies and bickering between friends. nevertheless, the numbers of the highland army kept up, though the ranks were in a continual state of flux. as for scarlett, the master-at-arms was driven to distraction by the hopelessness of teaching the clansmen anything. things were daily passed over which, had dundee been above-ground, would in five minutes have brought out a firing party and ended a man's days against a stone dike. worst of all, while these precious days, when the whole force ought to have been advancing, were thus idly slipping by, the delay gave the government time to play its strongest card. the fury and enthusiasm of the clans was now for the first time to be brought face to face with an enthusiasm fiercer, because stiller, than their own--with a courage equally great, but graver, sterner, and, best of all, disciplined by years of trial and persecution. the cameronians, known throughout scotland as the "seven thousand," had garrisoned edinburgh during the fierce, troublous months of the convention. when there was no other force in the country, they had stood between the kingdom and anarchy. and now, when at last the government of william was becoming better established, twelve hundred men of the blue banner formed themselves into a regiment--all stern, determined, much-enduring veterans, who had brought from their westland homes a hatred of the highlanders sharpened by memories of the great raid, when for months the most barbarous and savage clans had been quartered on the west and south, till the poor folk of galloway and ayr were fairly eaten up, and most of their hard-won gear vanished clean away into the trackless deserts of the north. now, in the anxious days that succeeded killiekrankie, eight hundred of this cameronian regiment had been ordered to dunkeld, which was rightly supposed to be the post of danger. the other four hundred of the regiment had been sent to garrison badenoch and to keep the west quiet; so that the young covenanting commander, cleland--a youth not yet in his twenty-eighth year--had but two-thirds of his regiment with him. but such men as they were!--none like them had been seen under arms since, the ironsides of cromwell went back to their farm-steadings and forges. it was no desirable stronghold which they were set to keep. indeed, after a small experience of dunkeld the other regiments which had been sent under lord cardross to assist in driving back the enemy gladly departed for perth. the town, they said, was completely indefensible. it was commanded on all sides by heights, even as killiekrankie had been. the streets could readily be forced at a dozen points, and then every man would die miserably, like rats in a hole. "even so," said cleland, calmly, to my lord cardross, "but i was bidden to hold this town and no other, and here i and those with me will bide until we die." and, as is not the case with many a valiant commander's boast, he made his words good. it was a very considerable army which gathered about the devoted cameronians--not less than five thousand victorious clansmen--under a leader of experience, if not of well-proven parts. wat was still with lochiell, and scarlett, in deep disgust at keppoch's miscellaneous plunderings, drew his sword also with the same chief. by early morning the town was completely surrounded and the attack began. but the brave band of wild whigs of the west stuck dourly to their outposts, and for an hour or more their little handfuls defied behind the walls of town-yards and ruinous petty enclosures, all the assaults of the clansmen. at last these inconsiderable outer defences were driven in, the whole regiment was shut up in the cathedral and in an adjoining house of many unglazed windows, which was standing roofed but unfinished close at hand. here the grim men of the south, doggedly saying their prayers behind their clinched teeth, met and turned every assault, taking aim at their assailants with the utmost composure and certainty. [illustration: "he fell inward among the wounded"] clan after clan charged down upon those crumbling walls. rush after rush of plaided men melted before that deadly storm of bullets. thrice wat, in the thick of lochiell's men, dashed at the defences. thrice was he carried back by the wave of tartan which recoiled from the reeking muskets of the men of the covenant. glengarry fell wounded. the mcdonalds broke. then, in the nick of time, the mcleans dashed into the thick of the fight and had almost won the wall when young cleland, rushing across the court to meet them in person, was struck by two bullets--one through his head, the other in his side. in spite of his agony, he set his hand to his brow and staggered towards the interior of the church, crying, "have at them, lads! all is well with me!" this he said in order to conceal his wound from his men. but he fell dead or ever he reached the door. the lead for the muskets began to give out. but in a moment there were men on the roof of the new building stripping off the metal, while others beneath were melting it and thrusting the bullets, yet warm from the "cams," into their hotter barrels, or cutting the sheets of lead into rough slugs to fire at the enemy. so, relentlessly, hour by hour the struggle went on. ever, as the attacks failed, fresh clans tried their fierce courage in emulous assault, firing once, throwing away their guns, and then charging home with the claymore. but these cameronians were no levies roughly disciplined and driven in chains to the battlefield. men of the moors and the moss-hags were they--good at the prayer, better at the musket, best of all with the steady eye which directed the unshaken hand, and the quiet heart within dourly certain of victory and of the righteousness of its cause. clan by clan, the very men who had swept mackay's troops into the garry fell back shattered and dismayed from the broken defences of the hill folk. in vain the war-pipes brayed; in vain a thousand throats cried "claymore!" in vain lochiell's men drove for the fourth time desperately at the wall. from within came no noise, save the clatter of the musket-shots running the circuit of the defences, or the dull thud as a man fell over in the ranks or collapsed like a shut telescope in his place--not a groan from the wounded, as men stricken to death drew themselves desperately up to get a last shot at the enemies of christ's cause and covenant, that they might face god contentedly with their duty done and all their powder spent. left almost alone in the fierce ebb of the fourth assault, wat had gained the top of the wall when a sudden blow on the head stunned him. he fell inward among the wounded and dying men of the defenders and there lay motionless, while outside the last charge of the baffled clansmen broke on the stubborn hodden gray of the cameronian regiment, vainly as the water of the ninth wave breaks on the cliffs that look out to the atlantic. the chiefs still tried to rally their men. cannon offered to lead them again to the assault in person. but it might not be. "we can fight men," they said, as they fell back, sullenly, "but these are devils incarnate." chapter xlvii the golden heart when wat gordon opened his eyes, he looked into a face he knew right well. "faith, will, is it time to get up already?" he said, thinking his cousin and he were off together on some ploy of ancient days--for a morning's fishing on the hills above knockman, mayhap. for his cousin will it was indeed who stood before him, clad in the worn and smoke-begrimed uniform of the regiment of the covenant. "wat, wat, how came you here, lad?" cried will gordon. a gleam of his ancient wilfulness beaconed a moment in wat's eye. "why--over the wall there," he said. "i was in somewhat of a hurry and i had not time to go round by the gate and tirl at the pin." and with that something buzzed drowsily in his ears like a prisoned blue-bottle, and he fainted again. lucky it was for wat gordon that sir robert hamilton did not command the regiment, and that the dead cleland had instilled his humane principles into those under him. for the officers merely ordered their prisoner to be carried along with their own wounded to a convenient house in the town, and there to be warded till he should be well enough to be remitted to edinburgh. to this hospital will gordon came to see him often, and give him what heartening he might; but it was not till the seventh day, when wat showed some promise of early recovery, that will, with a mighty serious face, showed him a trinket in the palm of his hand. "ken ye that?" he asked. "'tis kate's token that she was to send me if she needed me. where got ye it, will?" and even as he spoke these words wat was half out of bed in his eagerness; but will took him in his arms with gentle firmness and pressed him back upon the pillow. "bide a wee," he said; "ye will do no good that way. ye are far too weak to travel, and there is a strong guard at the door. listen! i got the gold heart from kate herself, and she bade me tell you that if ye could not come to her by the tenth day of september, ye would never need to come at all." "what means that message, will? tell me truly," said wat, white to the lips, yet sitting up calmly in spite of his deadly weakness and the curious singing drone in his ears. "they have worked upon her to weariness, i think," said will, a little sadly; "worked upon her with tales of your unfaithfulness, which, to do her justice, she would scorn to believe--told her that her father's very life depends upon the marriage, because of the old friendship and succor he had from claverhouse; wearied her out, till the lass knows not which way to turn. and so she has consented to be wedded to my lord barra on the tenth of september. but, as maisie judges, our kate will die rather than marry any man she hates." wat leaped out of bed and began to dress himself. "let me go, will--let me alone! hands off! do not touch me, or i will strike you on the face. only ten days--and so far to go! but i will fight my way through. i am strong and well, i tell you--" and with that will gordon laid him back again upon the bed like a child. "wat," he said, "i am with you in this, since kate loves you and maisie bids me. (you have never asked of her welfare, but no matter.) i have gotten jack scarlett here by me in the town. we will arrange your escape and get you horses. but you must be a deal stronger than you are ere you are ready to travel, and at least you must abide here yet three days." "three days, will; 'tis plainly impossible! i should die stark raving mad of the waiting and anxiety. better let me go, will, this very night." and almost for very weariness and the sense of powerlessness in the grip of fate, wat could have wept; but a thought and a resolve steadied him. from that moment he began, as it were obediently, to talk of indifferent things; and will humored him, well pleased that it should be so. ere he departed, will said, "i will bring scarlett to your window to-night. do you speak with him for a moment and let him go." wat smilingly promised, and went on to tell of his winter adventures among the clans, as if they were all he thought about. "good-night, and a sweet sleep to you, wat, lad!" said will gordon. "in three days, i promise you, you shall ride forth, well mounted and equipped." and so, smiling once more on his cousin, he went down the stair. then wat gordon laid his head on the pillow as obediently as a child. but he only kept it there till his cousin was out of the room and he heard his footsteps die down the street. in a trice he was out of bed and trying all the fastenings of the windows of his room. he was alone in his dormitory, but on either side of him were rooms containing wounded men of the cameronians, to whom night nurses came and went, so that it behooved him to be wary. one of the windows was barred with iron outside, while the sash of the other was fixed and would not open at all. wat threw open the barred window as far as he could and shook the iron lattice. it held firm against his feeble strength, but upon a more minute examination the stanchions seemed only to be set in plaster. "that's better; but i wish jack scarlett would come!" murmured wat, as he staggered back to his bed. he kissed his hand towards the south with something of his old air of gallant recklessness. "on the tenth i shall be with you, dear love, to redeem my pledge, or else--" but before his lips could frame the alternative he had fainted on the floor. scarlett came to lochinvar's window when the night was darkest, a little before midnight. "wat," he cried, softly; "wat gordon!" wat was already at the lattice and promptly reached his hand out to his ancient comrade. "jack," he whispered, hoarsely, "for god's sake get me out of this hole! they would shut me up here for three days, till she is married to the devil barra. and she has sent me the token--the heart of gold. i have it here. you mind it was to be the fiery cross betwixt us two? she is needing me and i must go. break down the window bars, good jack, and let me out." "but your cousin says that you are not fit to travel, that you will never reach galloway unless you have some rest before you go. besides, it will take some time to purchase horses for the long journey--" "i cannot wait, jack," interrupted wat, fiercely; "i shall die here in three days if i stay. how can i wait with the greedy talons of the monster drawing nearer to my lass? see, jack, i have thirty guineas in my belt. i will leave twenty of them in any horse's stall in the stables. and, god knows! it is not the officers of the cameronian regiment who have horses worth half so much. try the bars, good jack, and let me out." scarlett endeavored to reason with him, to dissuade him from the venture for that night at least. "to-morrow, lochinvar; only one night--we shall wait but to see what to-morrow brings." "scarlett, look you here," wat said, earnestly, his face gleaming ghastly through the lattice in the steely glint of stars. "you know whether or not i am a man of my word. i have a dagger here--hid in the leather of my boot. now if you do not help me to escape to-night, 'fore the lord, jack, i will let out my soul or the morning--and my blood will be on your head." he leaned out till his agony-wet brow touched the bars. his fingers clutched and shook them in his desperation. "well," said scarlett, half to himself, "i will e'en do it, since it must be so. but it will prove a sorry job for us all. 'tis but taking the poor laddie's life in another way." so, vanishing for a tale of minutes, which seemed hours to the pale, wounded, half-frenzied figure at the window, he returned with a "geleck" or iron crow-bar, with which he promptly started work on the lime and plaster of the stanchions. it was not long before he loosened one and then another. once or twice he had to cower down in order to escape the lanterns of the patrol--for, unlike the clans, the cameronians kept excellent watch; but in half an hour his task was completed. "the lord forgie me, laddie, for this!" he said, as he helped wat out, and felt the palms of his hands burning hot, while his body was shaking with feverish cold. "now help me to get a horse!" said wat, as soon as they stood in safety under the ruined walls of the cathedral. "there are the stables of the officers' horses. come, let us go over yonder." "it's a rope's end at ony rate," said scarlett; "old jack has been at mony ploys, but he never was a horse-thief before!" "how did we get away from the city of amersfort, tell me, jack?" said wat, with a touch of his ancient humor, being pleased at getting his will. "ah, but then a woman did the stealing for love, as you do now. it is different with me, that have no love to steal for--or to die for, either," he added, sadly. wat put his hand affectionately on the shoulder of the old free-lance. "even so do you steal, old bear," he said, gently patting him; "you do it for love of me." "i declare," quoth scarlett, with relief in his voice, "i believe i do. guid kens what there is aboot ye, laddie, that makes both lassies and auld grizzle-pates run their heads into holes and their necks into tow-ropes for the love o' ye!" the stables had been left completely unguarded, for it was the officers' boast that they desired not any greater safety than their men. cleland, indeed, had once ordered all the officers' horses to be brought out and shot, just because some of the soldiers complained that the officers had a greater chance of escape than they. since that time the horses had been permitted to remain in the not too zealous care of the grooms, who fulfilled their duty by sleeping in the town at a distance from their charges. even the very stable door was unlocked, and as they opened it the horses were heard restlessly moving within. "any of keppoch's gay lads might make a haul very easily this nicht," said scarlett, as they entered. "i saw keppoch and many another pretty fighter get his bellyful over there by the walls the other day," said wat, grimly, as he proceeded coolly to make his selection by the sense of touch alone. when he had done this, scarlett and he saddled the chosen beast and led him out, having previously tied stable rags over his iron-shod feet to keep them from clanking on the pavement. making a detour, they soon gained the river, which they skirted cautiously till they were a mile from the town. then wat mounted without the assistance of his companion. "god help ye, laddie; ye will never win near your lass, i fear me. but ye can try. and that is aye the best o't in this world. that it is for us mortals to do the trying, and for god to finish ilka job to his ain liking." with which sage reflection he gave wat his sword, his pistols and ammunition, together with some bread for the journey--looking at which last, wat felt that he could as soon eat his horse's tail. "hae!" said the master-at-arms, "ye will be the better o' that or ye come to the end o' the lang wood. i have plenty more by me." wat laughed. "you cannot deceive a desperate man," he said, "nor yet lie to him. well do i know that this is every bite you have in the world." "listen, wat," said the free-lance. "i have found me a decent woman that has ta'en a liking to me, and she has ta'en me in. i'm weel provided for. tak' them, laddie, tak' them. ye will need them mair nor me." saying which scarlett started promptly on the back track to the town, crying as he went: "god speed ye, laddie; i'll never set een on ye mair!" so with a sob in his throat and a feeling as if he were riding on empty air, wat gordon turned the head of the officer's charger (by a strange and fitting chance it was his cousin will's), and set his chest to the current of the river, at the place where the tracks on the shoaling gravel and the chuckling of the shallow river over its pebbles indicated a ford. so our true hero, ill, fevered, desperate, in the stark grip with death, started on his almost impossible quest--without an idea or a plan save that he must ride into the blank midnight to save his love, or die for her. chapter xlviii the master comes home and what in all the annals of romantic adventure could be found more utterly hopeless than wat gordon's quest? he was doubly outlawed. for not only had james stuart proclaimed him outlaw, but he had been out with the enemies of the prince of orange, now king william the third of great britain and ireland. he had fought at killiekrankie and dunkeld. he had ridden through all the north country at dundee's bridle-rein. he was a fugitive from a military prison in the prince's own province of the netherlands. he possessed but ten golden guineas in the world. his ancestral tower of lochinvar was little better than a dismantled fortalice. and then as to his quest, he went to seek his love in her home, to rescue her from among her friends, and from the midst of the retainers of her father's estate, and those more numerous and reckless riders who had come with my lady the duchess from the grenoch. doubtless, also, my lord of barra would bring with him a great attendance of his friends. the chances against lochinvar's success were infinite. another man would have given up in despair, but in the mind of wat gordon there was only one thought: "she called me and i will go to her. though i am traitor and outlaw alike to the king-over-the-water and the prince at whitehall, proscribed alike by white rose and orange lily, i am yet all true to kate and to love." the desperate, unutterable details of that great mad journey can never be written down. for even wat himself, in after-days, scarce remembered how, when one horse was wearied, he managed to exchange it for another and ride on--sometimes salving his conscience by leaving to the owner one of his dwindling golden guineas; or how he was attacked by footpads and escaped, having cut down one and frightened the other into delivering over (in trust, as it were, for king james) every stiver of his ill-gotten gains--poor crazed wat meanwhile tossing his fevered head and wavering a pistol before the knave's astonished eyes as he bade him stand and deliver. "'tis a lesson to you," said wat, didactically; "ye will thank me for it one day when ye lie down to die a clean-straw death instead of dancing your last on a gallows, with the lads crying your dying speech beneath your very feet as ye dangle over the grass-market." how he won through with bare life wat never knew; nor yet with what decent householders he had negotiated exchange of horses without their consent. for long years afterwards, whenever wat was a little feverish, scraps of conversations used to return to him, and forgotten incidents flashed clear upon him, which he knew must have happened during these terrible last days ere, with the homing instinct of a wounded animal chased desperately by the hunters, he reached the little gray tower of lochinvar set lonely in the midst of its moorland loch. sometimes on the edinburgh street in after-years he stumbled unexpectedly on a face he recognized. a countryman newly come into market would set his hands on his hips and stare earnestly up at him. then wat would say to himself, "there goes a creditor of mine; i wonder if i gave him a better horse than i took, or if he wants to claim the balance now." but who in the great lord of parliament could spy out the white-faced, desperate lad--half-hero, half-highwayman--whose supple sword flashed like the waving of a willow wand, and whose cocked pistol was in his fingers at the faintest hint of opposition? it was evening of a great, solemn, serene september day when wat reached the edges of the loch, upon the little island in the midst of which stood the ancestral tower of his forebears. there was no smoke going up from its chimneys. the water slept black from the very margin, deeply stained with peat. the midges danced and balanced; the moor-birds cried; the old owl hooted from the gables; the retired stars twinkled reticently above, just as they had done in wat's youth. a strange fancy came over him. he had come home from market at dumfries. presently his father would cry down to him from his chamber what was the price of sheep on the plainstones that day, and if that behindhand rascal, andrew sim of gordieston, had paid his rent yet. his mother-- ah! but wait; he had no father! he had seen his father's head over the port of edinburgh, and something, he could not remember what, happened after that. had he not buried his mother in the green kirkyard of dalry? what, then, had he come home for? there was some one he loved in danger--some one with eyes deep as the depths of the still and gloomy waters that encircled lochinvar. ah, now he remembered--the heart, kate's heart of gold! it was safe in his bosom. ten days' grace when he left his cousin will! but had he ridden five days or fifty? sometimes it seemed but one day, and sometimes an eternity, since he rode away from jack scarlett at the ford above dunkeld. what was that noise? an enemy? wat clutched his sword instinctively. no, nothing more than his poor horse, the last incarnation of his cousin will's charger, with which he had left the stables of dunkeld. the poor beast had tried to drink of the peaty brew of the loch, but what with the fatigue and the rough riding, it had fallen forward, with its nose in the shallows, and now lay breathing out its last in rattling gasps. wat stooped and patted the flaccid neck as the spasms relaxed and it rolled to the side. "poor thing--poor thing--ye are well away. maybe there is a heaven for horses also, where the spirit of the beast may find the green eternal pastures, where the rein does not curb and the saddle leather never galls." so saying wat divested himself of his arms and upper clothing. he rolled them up, and put them with the saddle and equipment of his dead horse in the safe shelter of a moss-hag. then, with a last kiss to the gold heart, he dropped silently into the water and swam out towards the island on which the old block-house stood. five minutes later walter gordon, lord of lochinvar, white as death, dripping from head to foot as if the sea had indeed given up its dead, stood on the threshold of the house of his fathers. the master had come home. the little gray keep on its lonely islet towering above him seemed not so high as of old. it was strangely shrunken. the isle, too, had grown smaller to his travelled eye--probably was so, indeed, for the water had for many years been encroaching on the narrow insulated policies of the tower of lochinvar. there to his right was the granite "snibbing-post," to which the boat was usually tied. the pillar had, he remembered, a hole bored through the head of it with a chip knocked out of the side--for making which with a hammer he had been soundly cuffed by his father. and there was the anchored household boat itself, nodding and rocking a little under the northern castle wall, where it descended abruptly into the deeps of the loch. wat stood under the carved archway and clattered on the door with a stone picked from the water-side. for the great brass knocker which he remembered had been torn off, no doubt during the troubles which had arisen after wat himself had been attainted for the wounding of his grace the duke of wellwood. it was long indeed ere any one came to answer the summons, and meanwhile wat stood, dripping and shaking, consumed with a deadly weakness, yet conscious of a still more deadly strength. if god would only help him ever so little, he thought--grant him but one night's quiet rest, he could yet do all that which he had come so fast and so far to accomplish. at last he heard a stir in the tower above. a footstep came steadily and lightly along the stone passages. the thin gleam of a rushlight penetrated beneath the door, and shed a solid ray through the great worn key-hole. the bolts growled and screeched rustily, as if complaining at being so untimely disturbed. the door opened, and there before wat stood a sweet, placid-browed old lady in the laced cap and stomacher of the ancient days. "jean!" he cried, "jean gordon, here is your laddie come hame." he spoke just as he had done more than twenty years ago, when many a time he had fallen out with his mother, and betaken himself to the sanctuary of jean's wa's by the side of the garpel glen. for jean gordon it was, the recluse of the holy linn, his cousin will's ancient nurse and kinswoman, and to them both the kindliest and most lovely old maid in the world. "wi' laddie, laddie, what has gotten ye? ye are a' white and shakin', dripping wet, too; come ben and get a change and let me put ye to your bed." "what day of the month is this?" cried wat, eagerly, even before he had crossed the threshold. "laddie, what should auld jean gordon ken aboot times and seasons? nocht ava--ye couldna expect it. but there is a decent man in the kitchen that mayhap can tell ye--peter mccaskill, the curate o' dalry, puir body. he was sorely in fear of being rabbled by the hill folk, so he cam' his ways here, silly body. there's no' a man in the country-side wad hae laid hand on him--if he would just say his prayer withoot the book, gie his bit sermon, and stop havering aboot king jamie--at least, till he comes to his ain again." thus gossiping to keep up wat gordon's spirits, the ancient dame led the way down the passages, with a foot that was yet light upon the heather, though seventy years scarcely counted up all her mortal span. "clerk mccaskill," cried jean, "ye'll mind maister walter? rise up and welcome him! for it is in his hoose that ye are sheltered, and, indeed, his very ale that ye are drinkin' at this moment." peter mccaskill rose to his feet and held out his hand to wat. he was dressed apparently in the same ancient green surtout he had worn in the year of bothwell--a garment which seemed never to get any worse, nor yet to drop piecemeal from his shoulders with age, but to renew itself from decade to decade in a decrepit but evergreen youth. "i am rejoiced to see you in your ain castle, my lord," said the curate, ceremoniously. then, catching sight of the pale, desperate face, he exclaimed, in a different tone, "preserve us, laddie, what has ta'en ye? hae ye slain a man to his wounding--a young man to his hurt? are the dead-runners on your track?" for, indeed, wat stood like a wild thing, hard beset by the hunters, which at the last has turned to bay in its lair. but wat put aside all questionings with a wave of his hand, a movement which had something of his old, swift recklessness in it, as of the days when they named him the wildcat of lochinvar. "tell me the day of the month," he gasped, as he stood there in the midst of the floor before the fire of logs which burned on the irons of the house-place, swaying a little on his feet, and ever checking himself like a man drunken with wine. the curate took a little calendar from his pocket--a record of saints' days and services, but interspersed with the reckonings of ale-houses and the scores of cock-fightings. "'tis the eve of the eighth day of september," he said, moistening his plump thumb to turn over the leaf that he might not be mistaken in the month. "thank god, i have yet two days!" cried wat, and fell forward upon the shoulder of the curate. chapter xlix the curate of dalry peter mccaskill received the weight deftly, as though he had been accustomed all his life to be charged down upon without a moment's notice by unconscious men. "easy does it, my lord," he said; "ye will soon be better. he's been owertaken, ye see--a wee drappie does it on an empty stomach," he explained to jean gordon. "often hae i warned my folk--aye, even frae the pulpit, the very horns o' the altar, as it were--no' to tak' drink on an empty stomach!" "empty fiddlestick! lay the laddie here!" cried jean gordon; "do ye no' see that the lad is deein' on his feet? he hasna seen drink for weeks, i'll wager--no, nor christian meat either, by a' appearances." she stopped to take off his boots. the soaked remnants of the sole came away in her hand. "mercy!" she cried, "the poor lad maun hae been in sore want. tak' haud o' him soothly and tentily, peter." and so the kindly old lady, peering closely with her dim, short-sighted eyes, and the burly, red-gilled curate undressed wat gordon gently, and laid him in the bed on which his mother had died--the flanking pillars of which were hacked with the swords of the troopers from carsphairn who had come to seek him after the sentence of outlawry. "peety me!" said jean gordon, "what will we do wi' the puir laddie? i'll get him some broth gin he can tak' them." so, in a trice, wat, having come a little to himself, was sitting up and taking "guid broth o' the very best, wi' a beef-bane boiled to ribbons intil't," as jean gordon nominated the savory stew, while she sat on the bed and fed him in mouthfuls with the only silver spoon grier of lag had left in the once well-plenished house of lochinvar. wat sat fingering his gold heart and looking about him. he seemed like a man who has risen to the surface and finds himself unexpectedly in a boat after a nightmare experience of death in perilous deeps of the sea. "is there a horse about the house?" queried wat, presently, looking at jean gordon out of his hollow, purple-rimmed eyes. she thought that he still dreamed or doted. "a horse, my laddie!" she cried. "how should there be a horse aboot the house of lochinvar? the stables were never so extensive that i heard o'; and, troth, rob grier o' lag, deil's lick-pot that he is, has no' left mony aboot the estates. there's a plough-horse ower by gordiestoun, if that's what ye want." and in her heart she said, "it's a lee, guid forgie me. but onything to pacify the lad and get him asleep." "i ken the best horse in a' this country-side," said the curate, going back to his ale as if nothing had happened, "and that's muckle sandy gordon's chairger ower at the earlstoun. he's roarin' at the convention in edinburgh, i'se warrant, and he'll no' need 'drumclog.' gin ye hae a notion of the beast, i can borrow him for ye." wat started up with eager eyes. "on the morning of the tenth have the horse at the loch-side, and i shall be forever bound and obligated to ye." the curate nodded his head like one that grants the smallest and easiest favor. "it shall be done; by six o' the clock drumclog will be there, or my name is not peter mac--eh! what is't, woman?" he exclaimed, turning a little testily to jean gordon, who for the last minute had been nudging him vehemently with her elbow to be quiet. "i'll no' haud my tongue for a bletherin' auld wretch. i hae held my tongue ower often in this pairish. gin the lad wants a horse, e'en let him hae a horse. it is ane o' the best symptoms that i ken o'. i mind weel, yince, when i was a laddie like him and in love--" but the reminiscence of peter mccaskill's early love was not destined to be recorded, at least in this place, for jean gordon took the matter into her own hands and pushed the indignant curate out of the room. but even as he went he turned in the doorway and said, "bide ye still in your bed the day, laddie. ye shall find muckle sandy gordon's horse, drumclog, at the west landing on the mornin' o' the tenth." "deil a fear o' ye," muttered jean gordon; "ye'll lie doucely and quietly in your bed till jean gies ye leave to rise--tenth or no tenth!" * * * * * then sleep descended like a brown hissing cloud upon the tortured soul and weary body of wat gordon, and deep, dreamless, billowy oblivion held him till the morrow. it was ten of the clock when he awoke, with a frenzied start, demanding how long he had slept. jean gordon, in whose hands was the morning porridge-spurtle (and, as it were, the care of all the churches), tried the method of sarcasm. "weel, laddie," she said, "ye juist cam' here yestreen, and gin yesterday was the eighth, as peter telled ye, ye will maybe be able to mak' oot that this will be the ninth. and come off the dead-cauld flags this instant with your bare feet, and you in a pour of sweat. there's nae sense ava in the callant! what are ye in sic a fyke for aboot the tenth and the tenth? are the eleventh and the twelfth no' as guid days? did the same lord no' make them a'?" wat went back obediently to bed. "mind," he said, "if you are lying to me, you shall fry in hell-fire for that lie. for a man's life and soul are on your truth." "the boy's fair dementit," cried jean; "what for should auld jean gordon lee to him? tell me your trouble, laddie," she said, going nearer to him. "for i've had trouble o' my ain a' my life, and weel i ken there are few things so evil that they canna be mended--that is, if ye are minded to stroke them the richt way o' the hair." at this point peter mccaskill was heard shuffling along the passage, but jean was over quick for him. she rose and very promptly and unceremoniously shut the door in his face. "gae 'way wi' ye the noo, peter," she said, peremptorily; "tak' the fish-pole and fetch in a fry o' trouts for the breakfast. ye'll get naething else to eat gin ye dinna." "noo, laddie," she said, sitting down beside wat, with a world of sympathetic invitation in her voice, "tell me a' your heart's trouble." so, with a great sense of relief, wat told the tale to the old lady, whose own love-trouble of fifty years before had kept her maiden all her life. as he spoke, jean stroked the hand which hung over the edge of the bed. "laddie, my laddie!" were all the articulate words she said, but she soothed wat with a little, low, continuous murmur of sound as he fretted and fumed at his helplessness. "ye shall get your lass--fear ye not that," she said, when he had finished. "i hae heard o' the wedding. they say the lass does naething but bide in her chamber and greet. she has fallen away to a shadow. but be that as it may, there is a great repair o' folk to the house o' balmaghie. i saw a heap o' the queer, daftlike folk o' the north riding by, wi' feathers in their checked bonnets, and tartan trews on their hurdies--aye, trews of bonny tartan claith--ye never saw the like. but ye shall hae your lass, were it only to spite the menseless crew. peter and me will help ye to her." in what manner jean gordon was to help him wat gordon knew not--nor, for the matter of that, peter mccaskill either--save by getting him the loan of his cousin sandy's horse, and even that might be a highlandman's loan--taken without the asking. but wat said nothing, only laid him down contentedly, while jean gordon set off to provide the breakfast she had so abruptly denied to the curate. presently peter came in with his trouts, for in the loch of lochinvar the spotted beauties were infinitely less shy and infrequent than in later days they have become. "_benedictus benedicat!_" quoth peter, who knew his latin by ear, and sat him down. "that's a daft, heathen-like grace," said jean. "i shouldna wonder gin the folks did rabble ye and tear your white clouts ower your head, if ye gied them balderdash like that in the pulpit." the curate smiled a wry, discomfortable smile at the prophecy, but nevertheless he proceeded to take his breakfast with some fortitude, looking up occasionally to see that the trouts did not burn as they made a pleasant skirling noise in the pan. "there's nocht like a loch trout newly catched, in a' this bonny god's warld," he said. "i wonder how men can be haythens and ill-doers when there's sic braw loch trout in gallowa'! and burn trout are just as guid--in fact, there's some that actually prefers them!" all this day jean gordon might have been heard in solemn confabulation with the curate, while wat lay and listened to the din of their voices, sometimes uplifted in controversy, sometimes hushed in gossip, but ever coming to him pleasantly dulled and harmonized through the thick walls and long echoing passages of the house of lochinvar. it was a windy day also, and the water sang him a lullaby of his childhood, as it lapped and swished all about him, with a noise like the leafy boughs of trees brushing against the foundations of his ancient castle. "to-morrow! to-morrow! to-morrow!" said wat, over and over to himself. "to-morrow my die will be cast for life or death." chapter l lochinvar keeps tryst the morning of the tenth came--still, uncolored below, rising to grayish-blue above, rose-rimmed only along the eastern horizon. the reapers were out in the high fields about gordonstoun by daybreak, with their crooked reaping-hooks in their hands, busily grasping the handfuls of grain and cutting them through with a pleasant "risp" of sound. cocks crowed early that morning, for they knew it was going to be a day of fervent heat. it would be as well, therefore, to have the pursuit of slippery worm and rampant caterpillar over betimes in the dawning. then each chanticleer could stand in the shade and scratch himself applausively with alternate foot all the hot noontide, while his wives clucked and nestled in the dusty holes along the banks, interchanging intimate reflections upon the moral character of the giddier and more skittish young pullets of the farmyard. but long after the sun had risen wat gordon lay asleep. jean gordon had a suit of clothes lying ready brushed for him on a chair--frilled linen, lace so cobwebby and fine, that it seemed to be spun from the foam of the loch after a storm. his father's sword swung by a belt of faded scarlet leather from the oaken angle of the nearest chair-back. "i'll gie him half an hour yet," said she; "peter will no' be here wi' sandy gordon's muckle horse before that time." the minutes passed slowly. jean opened the window of the tower, and the fresh air of the moorland stole in. wat gordon lay on his pillow knitting his brows and working his hands as if in grips with some deadly problem that lacked a solution. "puir lad, puir lad, whatna kittle thing love is!" murmured the old lady; "it works us, it drives us, and it harls us. it grieves us and gars us greet. and yet, what wad life be without it and the memory o't! and 'tis jean gordon that should ken, for she has lived sixty years on the memory o' ae bonny month o' maist heavenly bliss." at last she bent over him, hearing a loud and piercing whistle from the shore of the loch. "my lamb, my lamb!" she whispered, fondly, "rise ye, for your love's sake. here are your claes. gang forth like a bridegroom rejoicing in your strength. ye shallna gang menseless this day, though ye hae to ride on another man's horse. the time will come when ye shall hae mony braw plenished stables o' your ain." obediently wat rose, and put the fine clothes on him with a kind of wonder. he was still pale and wan, and his body was wasted by suffering and recent privation. nevertheless, he felt his head clear, and there was an elastic ease in all his sinews. "to-day," he said to himself, gladly--"to-day i cast the die for love or death." the curate came for him in the boat, and jean gordon accompanied them. "i am loath to part," she said; "it was aye a kindly galloway custom to convoy the lad ye liked best, and guid kens that's wat gordon o' lochinvar." "what do three horses there?" asked wat, as they rowed the boat over to the landing-place, where a black charger and two humbler shelties were tethered close together among the dwarf moorland birches. "'tis a grand day for pleasuring," said jean, "and peter and me have made it up to ride together to the three thorns o' carlinwark by the end o' the loch. there ye will find us gin ye need us. ye will hae to ride that gate onyway, gin ye win clear o' the house o' balmaghie with life and good fortune." wat mounted his cousin's horse drumclog, a mighty black of rare paces, which, in spite of his size, on firm ground could distance any steed in the stewartry--aye, and as far as to gretna on the border-side. now when wat gordon turned to ride away, sitting erect on his black horse, there came a light of almost maiden's love into jean gordon's eye. "never was there bride couched beside bridegroom like him!" she exclaimed, proudly. "win her or lose her, it will be the height o' pride to the young lass all her life long, that on a day she had such a lover to venture all for her sake." and indeed, despite the wild eye, sunk in its rim of darkest purple, despite the hollow cheek and pale face of his wandering, well might she say it. for no such cavalier as walter gordon, lord of lochinvar and gordonstoun, that day took the eyes of ladies in all broad scotland. doubly outlawed as he was--rebel, landless, friendless, penniless--there was yet something about the lad which carried hearts before him as the wind carries dandelion spray. and many a high dame and many a much-courted maiden had left her all that day to have followed him through the world at a waft of his right hand. a coat of fine blue cloth set walter gordon well. a light cape of the same was bound over it, having a broad, rough hem of gold. his father's sword swung by his side. the sash and star of king james's order shone on his breast as the wind blew back his cloak. knee-breeches of corded leather and cavalier's riding-boots completed his attire, while a broad hat, white-feathered for loyalty and trimmed with blue and gold, was on his head. "aye, there gangs the leal heart," said jean gordon, wiping her dim eyes that she might watch him the longer; "there gangs the bonny laddie. there rides wat gordon, the only true lover--the lad that is ready to lay doon his life for his dear, lightly as a man sets on the board an empty cup after that he has drunken. wae's me that sax inches o' steel in the back, or a pistol bullet at ten paces, should have power to lay a' that beauty low in the dust!" * * * * * the holms and woodland spaces of balmaghie were indeed a sight to see that glorious morn of the tenth of september, in the year of christ, his grace, . there was scarce accommodation in the wide stables of the mansion for the horses of the guests. the very byres were crowded with them. the kye were milked on the edge of the wood to give the horses stalling-room in their places. as for mistress crombie, she was nearly driven out of her wits by the foreign cooks whom the new lady of the house had brought with her--some of them from edinburgh and some of them all the way from london itself--to do justice to the great occasion. alisoun begbie had a host of assistants. every gentleman's house in the neighborhood had supplied its quota--given willingly, too, for there was no saying how soon the time might come to solicit an equivalent, either from the social kindness of the great lady of balmaghie, or from the important political influence of the bridegroom, murdo, lord of barra and the small isles. down the moorland road, by the side of which the humblebees were droning in the heather bushes, and the blithe blackcock spreading his wings and crowing as if the spring had come again, yet another guest was riding to the wedding--and one, too, arrayed in the wedding garment. wat gordon of lochinvar flashed like a dragon-fly in gay apparel above the lily-clad pools of loch ken. but he had no invitation--no "haste-to-the-wedding"--unless, perhaps, the little heart of gold which he carried in his breast could be accounted such a summons. he rode slowly, often walking his horse long distances, like one who is not anxious to arrive over early at an important meeting-place. after he had passed the bridge of new galloway, and had ridden, to the astonishment and delight of those early astir in the ancient borough town, down the long, straggling, pig-haunted street, he dismounted and allowed his horse to walk by the loch-side, and even at intervals to crop the sweet grasses of the road-side. yet it was from no consuming admiration of the supreme beauties of that fair pathway that wat gordon lagged so long upon it that september morn. to no purpose the loch rippled its deepest blue for him. in vain the heather ran back in league on league of red and purple bloom to the uttermost horizon, that bennan frowned grimly above, and that the black craig of dee fulfilled the promise of its name in gloomy majesty against the western sky. for wat gordon kept his pale face turned anxiously on his charger. "ah, drumclog," he said, thinking aloud, "thou art a whig's horse, but if ever thou didst carry a cavalier on a desperate quest, it is surely this fair morning. speed to thy legs, nimbleness to thy feet, for thou carriest more than the life of one this day." chapter li the bride's loving-cup but just at the weary traverse across the moor of the bennan, after the shining levels of loch ken were left behind, and before the sylvan quietnesses of the lane of grenoch had been encountered, wat gordon came suddenly on a troop of cavalry that rode northward, tinkling spur and jingling bit. so long had the country folk of galloway been in the habit of fleeing at the sound, that, as the troop advanced, riding easily, heads were hastily popped out of the whitewashed cottages of mossdale, where it sits blithely on the brae. there came a rush of white-headed bairns; then a good-wife who took the heather rather more reluctantly, like a motherly hen disturbed from off her comfortable nest; and then, last of all, followed the good-man, keeping well behind the yard dike, and driving the family pig before him. for this picture, in sixteen hundred and eighty-nine, affords the exact estimate of the character and conduct of his majesty's dragoons, which the experience of thirty years had taught the moorland folk of galloway. yet, in the present pacified state of the country, these were doubtless troopers in the service of king william, and the old bad, days gone forever--that is, from the point of view of the good-man of mossdale. nevertheless, with such a pig, that worthy man considered that it was well to run no risks. but it was otherwise with wat gordon of lochinvar. he had fought at killiekrankie, and had twice been outlawed by the government of king william. "halt!" cried the officer in command to him; "whither away, riding so gayly, young sir?" "to the wedding at balmaghie," wat replied, tossing his lace kerchief, as if he had been a gallant shedding perfume over the mall under the eyes of the maids-in-waiting. "your name and possessions?" continued the officer, noways inclined to be impressed by butterfly graces. "i am gordon of gordonstoun--a kinsman of alexander gordon of earlstoun, to whose house i presume you are going," replied wat, subtly. "this is, indeed, my cousin's war-horse on which i ride, if so be any of you are acquainted with him." "aye, by my faith, that do i all too well," said one of the troopers; "the uncanny devil came nigh to taking my arm off the other morning between his teeth, when i would have shifted him out of his stall to make room for the horse of your honor." "well done, drumclog!" said wat, leaning over and patting his neck, as easily as if he had been a councillor of the king himself, instead of a rebel twice attainted and mansworn. "a good cameronian horse," smiled the officer. "i thank you, laird of gordonstoun, for your courteous answers. i would not keep you a moment from the bridal to which you go. gay footing to you! i would it were mine to lead the dance this night with the maids of balmaghie, and to drink the bride's stirrup-cup this morning." "aye," said wat, "it is indeed good to drink the loving-cup from the bride's fair hands. 'tis to taste it that i go. i have risen from a sick bed to do it." "so my eyes tell me, brave lad," said the officer. "i trust your illness has not been grievous?" "nothing but what the bright eyes of a maid have power to cure!" cried wat, looking back and waving his hand. "faith, right gallantly said," replied the officer; "with a tongue so attuned to compliment i will not detain thee a moment. 'twere a pity such speeches should be wasted on a troop of his majesty's dragoons." so with a courteous wave of his hand the young captain swept northward, followed by his clanking troopers. and as he went little did he know his own escape from death, or guess that wat gordon, fingering at his sword and pistols so daintily and featly as he sat his horse, had in his mind the exact spot where the bullet would strike if it had chanced that any in the troop knew him for a rebel. for that light grip and easy swing of the sword indicated nothing less than a desperate resolve to cut his way singly through a whole command, rather than be stopped on his way to the bridal of kate mcghie and my lord of barra. a group of retainers stood irregularly about the outer gate of balmaghie when wat rode up. they greeted him with honor, one after another sweeping the ground with their plumed hats as they swerved aside to let him pass. but the ancient gardener stood open-mouthed, as if trying to recall a memory or fix a puzzling resemblance. as lochinvar rode through the glinting dewy woodlands he saw youths and damsels parading the glades in couples--keeping, however, their faces carefully towards the house for the signal that the bride was coming. already the bridegroom had arrived with his company, and, indeed, most of them were even now in the hall drinking prosperity and posterity to the wedding. "haste you, my lord!" cried one malapert damsel to wat, as he rode past a group of chattering minxes, "or you will be too late to win your loving-cup of luck from the hands of the bride, ere she goes to don her veil." to her wat gorden bowed with his gayest air, and so passed by. the company was just coming out of the hall as he rode up. there, first of all, was my lady. behind her came roger mcghie, looking wan and frail, but carrying himself with his old dignity and gentle courtesy. and there, talking gayly to my lady, was murdo, lord of barra, now proud and elate, having come to the height of his estate and with the cup of desire at his lip. these three stopped dead when they saw the gay rider on the black horse, reining his steed at the foot of the steps of the house of balmaghie. for a space they stood speechless. but the master of the house, roger mcghie, it was who spoke first. "'tis a marvel and a pleasure to see you here, my lord lochinvar, on this our bridal day--a welcome guest, indeed, if you come in peace to the house which once gave you shelter in time of need." "or come you to visit your ancient friends, who have not wholly cast you off, lochinvar, though you have forgotten them?" added my lady, dimpling with a pleasure more than half malicious, on the broad terrace above him. but murdo of barra said no word, as he stood on the upper steps gnawing his thin mustache, and talking aside to his groomsman as though that which was happening below were but some trifling matter which concerned him not. "light down and lead the dance, my lord," said roger mcghie, courteously. "none like you, they say, can tread a measure, none so readily win a lady's favor--so runs the repute of you." "i thank you, balmaghie," answered wat, courteously; "but i came without invitation, without summons, to ask but that last favor--the loving-cup of good luck from the bride's fair hands ere i ride to meet my fate. for i must needs ride fast and far this day." "it is well and knightly asked, and shall be granted," said roger mcghie. "bid kate bring hither a loving-cup of wine for my lord of lochinvar, who bides her coming at the hall-door." black murdo of barra moved his hand impatiently. "let a bridesmaid fetch it," he said. "the bride is doubtless at her dressing and brooks not to be disturbed." "give me but the moment, and to you i leave the rest," said walter gordon, looking up at him with the light of a desperate challenge shining clear in his eye. then the maidens of the bridal standing about whispered eagerly to each other. "ah, that were a bridegroom, indeed! see him sit in the saddle like a god--fitter for our bonny kate than yon black, scowling murdo." then out through the open doorway of the hall there came a vision of delight. the young bride came forth, clad in white, daintily slender, divinely fair. not yet had she assumed her bridal veil. in simple white she moved, her hair rippling in sunlit curls to her neck, her maiden snood still for the last time binding it up. a silver beaker brimmed with the red claret wine in her hand. and as she came bearing it in, the wedding guests opened a way for her to pass, murmuring content and admiration. barra stepped forward as if to relieve her of the burden, but she passed him by as though she had not seen him. presently she stood at the side of wat gordon's charger, which looked back at her over his shoulder as though he, too, marvelled at her beauty. the true-lovers were met for the last time. "would that they need never part!" said a wise bridesmaid, leaning over and whispering to her mate. for their story was known, and all the young were very pitiful. "amen to that! look at murdo, how black and gash he glowers at them!" said her companion. wat gordon took the cup and held it high in one brown gauntlet, still keeping the hand that gave it in his other. "i pledge the bride--the bride and her own true-love!" he said, loud enough for all to hear. then he drank and leaned towards kate as though to return the cup with courteous salutation. none heard the word he whispered. none save she who loved him can ever know, for kate has not revealed it. but the word was spoken. the word was heard. a moment only the bride's eyes sought her lover's. the next his arm was about her waist, and her foot left the gravel with a spring airy as a bird's first morning flight. the reins were gathered in wat's hand, his love was safe on the saddle before him. the spurs were set in drumclog's dark flanks, the brave horse sprang forward, and before ever so much as a cry could go up from that watching assembly, wat gordon was riding straight for dee water with his love between his arms. chapter lii catch them who can! for a space that concourse of marriage guests stood frozen with surprise and wonder. then a hoarse cry arose from black murdo and his friends. with one accord they rushed for the stables; but some groom, eager to enjoy his holiday untrammelled at the wedding, had locked the doors. the key could not be found. the door must be broken down. then what a cursing, shouting, striking of scullions ensued, black murdo in the midst raging like a fiend! but all the while kate was in the arms of her love, and the brave horse went rushing on, stealing mile after mile from the confusion of their foes. they were past the water of dee, fording by the shallows of threave, before ever a man of their pursuers was mounted at balmaghie. on they rode towards the green-isleted loch of carlinwark, at whose northern end they were trysted to meet with the curate and jean gordon. soon carlinwark's dappled square of blue gleamed beneath them as they surmounted the wizard's mount and looked down upon the reeking chimneys of cottages lying snugly in the bield of the wooded hollow. never slackening their speed on the summit, they rushed on--drumclog going down hill among the rabbit-holes and thorn bushes as swiftly and surely as on level pavemented city street. and there at last, by the three thorns of a thousand trysts, stood the curate of dalry, peter mccaskill, and jean gordon by his side with a blue cloak over her arm. a little way behind them could be seen the brawny blacksmith of carlinwark, ebie callan, his sledge-hammer in one hand and the bridle-rein of a chestnut mare in the crook of his left arm. there was as yet no sight or sound of pursuit behind them when they stayed drumclog. "hurrah!" said the curate, standing before wat and kate in his white cassock and holding his service-book in his hand. "are your minds made up? there is little time to lose, 'dearly beloved, forasmuch,' and so on--walter gordon of lochinvar, do you take this woman whom you now hold by the hand (take her by the hand, man)"--so on and on he mumbled, rustling rapidly over the leaves of his book--"before these witnesses? and do you, katherine mcghie, take this man?--very well then--'whom god hath joined....' there, that is finished, and 'tis as good a job as if it had been done by the dean of edinburgh. they cannot break peter mccaskill's marrying work except with the dagger. and as to that, you must ride to save your skin, wat, my lad." "mount upon this good steed, my lady," said the blacksmith to kate; "she will carry you to dumfries like the wind off the sea. she is faster than anything this side of the border." and after she had mounted, with ebie callan's gallant assistance, jean gordon cast the blue cloak about her. "see and draw the hood decently about your head when ye come to the town-end o' dumfries," she cried. [illustration: "with his love between his arms"] "and," said the curate, "mind ye, black murdo has a double post-relay of horses prepared for his bride and himself all the road to york, where the king is. ebie has been ten days away through these outlandish parts layin' them doon. so ye can just say when ye get to the white horse in the vennel: 'the horses for my lord of barra and his lady,' and there ye are! in the town of dumfries they do not know black murdo frae black satan--nor care. and now away wi' ye! i hear them coming, but ye'll cheat them yet. there's nocht in the stables o' balmaghie that can catch you and your bonny lady if ye keep clear o' moss-holes." the pursuers were just topping the hill when the black and the chestnut were again put to their speed, and then, with a wave of the hand from kate, and shake of his chevron-glove from wat, the lovers were off on their long and perilous ride. the curate stood looking after them a moment; then, pulling his surplice over his head, he waved it frantically, like a giant kerchief, murmuring the while: "the blessing o' the almighty and peter mccaskill be on ye baith!"--which was all the benediction that closed the marriage service of wat gordon and kate mcghie. jean gordon had turned aside to wipe her eyes, and the blacksmith stood staring after them with his mouth wider open than ever. as the pair surmounted the tangled hill of whins behind the little village of causewayend, wat looked down a moment from the highest part, but without checking his horses, in order to note the positions of his pursuers. seeing this, the blacksmith became suddenly fired with enthusiasm. he lifted the mighty sledge which he had brought out in his hand and twirled it about his head. "to the black deil wi' a' that wad harm ye or mar ye, ye bonny pair!" he shouted. this was ebie callan's formula of blessing, and quite as serviceable in its way as that of the curate. but at that moment a horseman, coming at a hand gallop down the hill, broke through the thicket and rushed at speed between the three thorns almost upon peter mccaskill and the smith. his horse reared and shied at the waving surplice and the threatening hammer, whereupon the rider went over the pommel of his saddle and crashed all his length on the hard-beaten path. when he regained his footing, lo! it was black murdo of barra himself, and very naturally he rose in the fiercest of tempers. he drew his sword and would have rushed upon the curate, but that the blacksmith stepped in front with his sledge-hammer. "haud up, my man!" he exclaimed, peremptorily, as if the lord of barra had been a kicking horse he had set himself to shoe; "stand back gin ye dinna want your pow cracked like a hazel-nut. mind ye, ebie callan never missed a chap wi' the fore-hammer in his life!" at this point peter mccaskill suddenly flapped his surplice in the face of barra's horse, which flourished its heels and cantered away to meet its companions. for by this time the other pursuers were beginning to come up, and, seeing that nothing could be gained by delay, barra called to one of these, whose horse he took, and, delaying till a more convenient season any vengeance on ebie callan, once more set off in pursuit. "praise the lord, they hae gotten a grand start. there's no' yin o' the vermin will come within a mile o' oor wat on this side o' dumfries whatever," affirmed the curate. "and what's mair," added the smith, "if he gets the horses i laid doon for my lord, he will ride into carlisle with no' a mcghie or black hieland mcalister within miles o' him." "except the mcghie on the chestnut," said peter mccaskill. "and even she's a gordon noo, if ye hae as good skill in your welding trade as i hae in mine," replied ebie callan, turning away to his smithy bellows. * * * * * it cannot be told at length, in this already over-long chronicle, in what manner wat and kate rode into dumfries far ahead of their pursuers, or how they mounted on the horses prepared for barra and his countess and went out amid the cheering of the populace. nor is there room to relate how at each post they found, as ebie had foretold, horses ever fresh and fresh, innkeepers obsequious, hostlers ready to delay all pursuers for a gold piece in hand as they rode off. neither does it matter to the conclusion of the tale (which cannot long be delayed, though there would be pleasure in the prolonging of it) how they were assaulted by footpads at great salkeld; how wat's blade played like summer lightning among them to the scatterment of the rascals; how kate shot off a pistol and harmed nobody; how they rested three hours at long marten, and how wat kept watch while kate slept on the long, brown heath of the fell betwixt stainmoor and the nine standards at the entering in of yorkshire. these make a tale by themselves which ought to be told one day--but by a tale-teller unbreathed by a longer race than even that from the house of balmaghie to the court which king william was holding in the city of york. it is sufficient to say that without once being sighted by their pursuers after they topped the hill beyond carlinwark, lochinvar and kate, with thankful hearts, caught their first glimpse of the towers of york cathedral, hull down in the broad plain, like the masts of a ship at sea. chapter liii within the king's mercy as they came nearer to the city they began to pass groups of country folk, all hastening in to see the glories of the court. for the king had come so far from his capital to receive the homage of his northern province, before departing to ireland on the great campaign which was to make him unquestioned monarch of the kingdoms three. soon wat and kate reached the ancient bar which spanned the northern road by which they had ridden. "whither-away so fast?" cried the sentinel to them. "from scotland to see the king!" said wat, confidently, giving the man the salute in a manner only practised by the regiments in holland. "you are of his highness's scot regiments?" cried a much-surprised voice from the low doorway. "of the douglas dragoons," replied wat, over his shoulder. "pass--a gallant corps!" returned the officer of the guard, who had been watching, giving wat back his salute in form, but, notwithstanding, keeping his eyes fixed upon kate, whose head shone like a flower out of the blue deeps of the cape in which the rest of her beauty was shrouded. as they rode more slowly on, several distinct streams of people all setting in one direction told them without need of question in what place the king held his court. there were many strange folk to be seen about the ancient city that day. in front of the cathedral were encamped the king's laplanders, each armed with a great two-handed sword, nearly as long as the owner (for they were little men of their stature), and wearing bear-skins over their black armor. the splendid uniforms of the prince's body-guard were also to be seen here and there. but it was not till they entered the wide grassy court of the castle that the full splendor of the scene was revealed to them. again and again they were challenged, but wat's confident reply, "from scotland to see the king!" together with his knowledge of the military etiquette in the dutch army (and perhaps also in some measure the beauty of his companion), insured him a free and courteous passage on every occasion. as they rode into the court-yard of the castle the king was just coming out of a pavilion which had been erected to receive him. the gentlemen of his body-guard, in orange uniforms, and with brilliant armor upon their breasts, lined the square. the dignitaries of the province stood more uncertainly about. walter and kate rode straight up to within twenty yards of the king. then wat dismounted and took his wife by the hand. she vaulted lightly to the ground. so, hand-in-hand, the pair of runaway lovers stood before the king. william of orange was a man valiant by nature. he had no fear of assassination. and so on this occasion he put aside one or two assiduous courtiers who would have interposed between him and lochinvar. wat stood with his hat in his hand waiting for the king to put a question. but william of orange was silent. it was the custom of his house that they never spoke the first word. "have i your highness's leave to speak?" said wat, at last. william looked him all over with his eagle eye. "i have seen you before," he said; "you are the scots officer who brought me the papers concerning the forces at amersfort." wat bowed, and at once began his speech to the king. "your highness," he said, "i am not here to ask a pardon for myself, but to claim your courteous protection for this lady--who is my wife." the circle of dames and damsels who elbowed and rustled behind william at this point manifested the greatest interest. kate had let the hood of her cloak fall from her head, and now stood, with the simple white of her bridal dress, unsoiled even after her long journey, showing beneath it. "i will speak freely to your highness," said wat, "asking no boon for myself. i am walter gordon of lochinvar, in galloway. twice i am your outlaw--once according to the law of king james have i been an exile from my native land." he spoke clearly and firmly, like one who will hide nothing. the king bowed slightly, showing no more interest or animation than if he had been listening to the light gossip of the court. "because we two loved each other, i have carried off a bride from your councillor of state, my lord barra, that i might make her my wife. i escaped from your prison of amersfort in order that i might rescue my love. i fought at killiekrankie and dunkeld--fought for king james, that i might win a way to her. for myself, therefore, i ask no mercy, and i expect none. but with confidence and unbound heart i place this lady, my wife, under the protection of your highness, a prince just and clement--so that whatever happens she may not fall into the power of her enemy and mine, the lord barra, from whom and from death i have saved her this day!" "and how did you save her?" said william, looking at him level-eyed, as one man looks at another whom he knows to be also a man. "i went to the wedding to drink the bride's last loving-cup, and when the bride came to the hall-door to speak with me i looked in her eyes once. then i took her on my saddle-bow and rode away from among them all," said wat, simply. a little cheer fluttered out among the courtiers at this conclusion, and the ladies clapped their hands as at a play. the king silenced them with a wave of his hand. "and you expect--?" said william, and paused, questioningly. "i expect nothing, prince of orange," said wat, boldly. "but i resolved to come to you and tell you the worst. for i would rather have your justice than any other man's mercy--especially that of the men who rule for you in scotland." the king shrugged his shoulders. "aye," he said. "i am with you there. i wish that stiff-necked country of yours were a thousand miles off and duke hamilton the king of it." "you fought by my side at calmthout, did you not?" he said, suddenly, bending his piercing eyes on the young man. wat bowed, with a sudden access of pleasure shining on his face. "and you saved the colors at louvain," the king added. wat continued to hold his head down. william's memory was marvellous. "you also brought the papers, relative to the manning and armament of the camp, out of the inn of brederode, wresting them from the french spies at the risk of your life. and i made you an officer for it." he paused again, still smiling. never was there a brave man so nobly clement as william of orange. "if i pardon you the double treason--and the prison-breaking," he added, a little thoughtfully, "will you command again for me--not a company this time, but a regiment?" it was an offer noble, generous, worthy of the greatest prince. the courtiers and the great folks assembled gave a shout, which was not checked this time. the king still stood silent, smiling, expectant, confident of wat's answer. "my general, and your most noble highness," began lochinvar, slowly, "but lately it would have been the greatest honor of my life to command a regiment in the service of the prince of orange. but i cannot command one in the service of william, king of england." "think again," said the king, who understood him. "i have regiments over seas as well as in england." "but they might be needed here, and i could not desert my colors a second time for loyalty, as once i did for love." "what, then, do you desire?" said the king, shortly, looking manifestly disappointed. "only your highness's most noble clemency," replied wat, gravely; "the right to live quietly in mine own ancient tower, under the protection of your just and equal laws, giving my word of honor, if you will, never again to bear arms during your highness's life." "you have it, my lord lochinvar," said the king. "gallantly you have won your bride. wear her on your breast and keep her safe with the strength of your arm. i have lost me a good soldier and she has gotten her a good man." kate ran forward with a charmingly girlish gratitude, and, kneeling, kissed the king's hand. she looked about her to where lochinvar stood. there was entreaty and command in her eye. "it is the first thing i have ever asked of you as your wife!" she said, in a low voice. for a moment he resisted. then wat came forward, since his love had called him, and, bending his knee, he said, "i kiss your hand, most noble, most generous prince." "rise, my lord lochinvar," replied the king; "keep your castle and your ancient loyalty, till your lands, and abide in peace within your borders. i shall see that neither council nor councillor stir you. and as for my lord of barra, i have bidden him to confine himself to his own islands. he is no more councillor of mine. i have at last found the truth concerning the matter of the inn at brederode." so, with a wave of his hand, the king passed away. a great king he was, though even in that hour wat had named him no more than prince. then, as soon as he was gone, a swarm of courtiers surrounded wat, and the ladies took kate off to make much of her. for so great a marvel as the open carrying away of a bride on her marriage day, with her own free will and consent, had not been heard of in any land. but when all was over, my lord of barra rode in, anxious and jaded with hard spurring; but the king turned his back on him. "i know my friends at last," he said. "let me not see your face again, my lord barra. ye have my leave to abide in your isles, if ye will." but instead barra betook himself forthwith to france, where he was received into great honor as a consistent favorer of the true king. he was killed at steenkirk, as was fitting, leading a charge. for though a traitor, murdo of barra was a brave man. epilogue of supererogation being chapter fifty-fourth, and last peace and silence cinctured the ancient tower of lochinvar like the blue circle of the vault of heaven. kate and wat were walking the battlements. it was a narrow promenade, but they kept the closer together. from the gable chimneys immediately above them the blue perfumed reek of a peat fire went up straight as a monument. in the kitchen jean gordon and her tow-headed servitor, mall, were preparing the evening meal. there, at the foot of the loch, could be seen jack scarlett switching his long fishing-pole, his boat and his figure showing black against the bright lake. wat shaded his face with his hand and looked under it, for the sun shot his rays slantwise. "what is the matter with old jack?" he said; "yonder he goes, pulling as hard as he can for the shore. i see two people sitting on a heather-tussock by the landing-place." when kate had looked once swiftly, she clapped her hands. "'tis maisie and will!" she cried, merrily. "oh, i wonder if they have brought the babe?" "the babe?" said her husband, "wherefore should they bring the babe, carrying him all the way from earlstoun?" "i should never let him out of my arms," cried kate, "if i had such a boy." she stopped somewhat suddenly and changed the subject. "look," she said, pointing with her finger, "jack is showing them his fish. it is as well that he seems to have a good, taking in his basket; for, faith! there is little in the house but salted black-faced mutton." long before the boat could approach near enough to the tower to render conversation possible, kate and maisie were crying out unintelligible greetings one to the other, while with his hand on her skirts will gordon endeavored to induce his wife to sit down, lest she should overbalance herself and fall out of the boat. kate ran down the narrow turret stairs to the landing-place, whereupon wat followed hastily, lest she should throw herself bodily into the water. the boat touched the wooden fenders, and the next moment the two women were in each other's arms. the men shook hands gravely, but said nothing, after their kind. jack scarlett took up his string of fish and departed kitchenward without a word, keeping his eyes studiously on the ground. meanwhile the two women were sobbing quietly and contentedly, each on her friend's shoulder. then will gordon must needs turn and endeavor to cheer them with the eternal masculine tact. "why, lassies," he said, with loud joviality, "what can there be to cry about now, when everything has fallen out so well after all our troubles?" his wife turned to him fiercely. "you great gaby!" she cried, pointedly, "get into the house and leave us alone. can you not see we are just glad?" "yes--glad and happy!" corroborated kate. "what silly things men be!" wat and will slunk off without a word. they did not so much as smile at the manner of the gladness of women. even when they were safe in the square, oak-panelled hall, they seemed to have little to say to each other, except as to the crops on gordonstoun and concerning the planting of trees at will's new house of afton. presently the women came back, whereupon, for no obvious reason, wat and will immediately plucked up heart and became suddenly voluble. "wat," said kate, daring him to a refusal with her eyes, "i am going over to earlstoun to-morrow to see the baby." "what!" cried her husband, "why not fetch it here to-night? i will lead an expedition to bring it this very moment, and scarlett and will shall be my officers." "_it_, indeed, you--you _man_!" cried kate, contemptuously. "why, you could not be trusted with him." "we might break it," said will gordon, quietly, "or it might even cry, and then what should we do? better is it that we should all return to the earlstoun to-morrow. sandy and jean have gone to afton for a while." and so it was arranged, perhaps because of the last-mentioned fact. but kate cried out impetuously, after a silence of five minutes: "i do not believe that i can wait till to-morrow to see the lovely thing." "no, nor i either!" said maisie, grievingly. she let her eyes rest a moment reproachfully on her husband, to convey to him that it was all his fault. the two men looked at each other. their glances of mutual sympathy said each to each: "this it is to be wedded." "well," said wat, more cheerfully, like a man who knows it is vain to fight against his destiny, "let us all go there together to-night." the women sprang up and clapped their hands. "scarlett," cried kate, "ferry us across in the boat at once." "what may be the great hurry?" he said. "the trouts are frying fine." "we are going back to earlstoun," said kate, with decision in her tone. "is the auld hoose on fire, or what's a' the red-hot haste?" called scarlett, from the kitchen, where he was superintending the sprinkling of oatmeal on the trouts--a delicate operation. "man, the bairn may be greeting!" said will gordon; whereat wat gordon suddenly laughed aloud--and then just judgment seemed about to descend upon them. but their several wives looked at each other to decide which should be the executioner. "after all," said the four eyes, as they took counsel, "is it worth it?" it was enough that they were _men_--nothing could be expected of that breed when it came to a matter of the finer feelings. jean gordon came anxiously panting up the stairs. "you will be the better o' your suppers afore ye gang ony sic roads at this time of night," she said, determinedly. so in a trice the trouts were brought in, and scarlett sat down along with lochinvar and his guests, for such was the sweet and honorable custom of the tower. then in the beauty of a late and gracious gloaming, they rowed over softly to the blossoming heather of the loch-side, and took their way by two and two up the hill. the two women walked on in front in whispered sibylline converse, sometimes looking over their shoulders to insure that their husbands did not encroach too closely upon the mysteries. at the top of the hill wat and kate with one instinct stopped a moment and looked down upon the peace of their moorland home. jack scarlett was dragging a rod across the loch from the stern of the returning boat. jean gordon and mall, her maid, were setting the evening fire to "keep in" till the morning. the topmost chimney still gave forth a faint blue "pew" of peat-reek, which went straight up into the still night air and was lost among the thickening spear-points of the stars. kate took her husband's arm. "are you sorry, wat?" she said, with something like the dew of tears in her voice, "that you gave up the command of a regiment to come to this quiet place--and to me?" in the hearing of his cousin wat only smiled at her question, but privately he took possession of his wife's hand, and kept it in his all the way as they went down the hill, till they came through the earlstoun wood past the tree in which sandy had hidden so long. but at the well-house gate kate suddenly dropped wat's hand, and she and maisie darted simultaneously towards the great doorway of earlstoun. their husbands stood petrified. "there is baby crying, after all! did i not tell you?" cried kate and maisie together, looking reproachfully at each other as they ran. wat and will were left alone by the curb of the well-house of earlstoun; they clasped hands silently in the dusk of the gloaming and looked different ways. and though they did not speak, the grip of their right hands was at once a thanksgiving and a prayer. the end [illustration: map _of the_ islands _of_ suliscanna & fiara] by brander matthews outlines in local color. illustrated. post vo, cloth, ornamental, $ . aspects of fiction, and other ventures in criticism. post vo, cloth, ornamental, uncut edges and gilt top, $ . professor matthews's style has grace and fluency, he has a clear insight, and he writes with the felicity of one thoroughly conversant with literature.--_brooklyn eagle._ tales of fantasy and fact. with an illustration by a. b. frost. post vo, cloth, ornamental, $ . ample evidence of mr. matthews's skill and power is found in this volume.... a more thoroughly delightful collection of stories has not appeared this year.--_christian work_, n. y. his father's son. a novel of new york. illustrated by t. de thulstrup. post vo, cloth, ornamental, $ . vignettes of manhattan. illustrated by w. t. smedley. post vo, cloth, ornamental, $ . the story of a story, and other stories. illustrated. mo, cloth, ornamental, $ . studies of the stage. with portrait. mo, cloth, ornamental, $ . americanisms and briticisms, with other essays on other isms. with portrait. mo, cloth, ornamental, $ . the royal marine. an idyl of narragansett pier. illustrated. mo, cloth, ornamental, $ . this picture and that. a comedy. illustrated. mo, cloth, ornamental, cents. the decision of the court. a comedy. illustrated. cloth, ornamental, cents. in the vestibule limited. a story. illustrated. mo, cloth, ornamental, cents. new york and london: harper & brothers, publishers _the above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the publishers, postage prepaid, on receipt of the price._ by a. conan doyle the refugees. a tale of two continents. illustrated. post vo, cloth, ornamental, $ . a masterly work.... it is not every year, or even every decade, which produces one historical novel of such quality.--_spectator_, london. the white company. illustrated. post vo, cloth, ornamental, $ . ... dr. doyle's stirring romance, the best historical fiction he has done, and one of the best novels of its kind to-day.--_hartford courant._ micah clarke. illustrated. post vo, cloth, ornamental, $ ; also vo, paper, cents. a noticeable book, because it carries the reader out of the beaten track; it makes him now and then hold his breath with excitement; it presents a series of vivid pictures and paints two capital portraits; and it leaves upon the mind the impression of well-rounded symmetry and completeness.--r. e. prothero, in _the nineteenth century_. adventures of sherlock holmes. illustrated. post vo, cloth, ornamental, $ . memoirs of sherlock holmes. illustrated. post vo, cloth, ornamental, $ . few writers excel conan doyle in this class of literature. his style, vigorous, terse, and thoughtful, united to a nice knowledge of the human mind, makes every character a profoundly interesting psychological study.--_chicago inter-ocean._ the parasite. a story. illustrated. post vo, cloth, ornamental, $ . a strange, uncanny, weird story, ... easily the best of its class. the reader is carried away by it, and its climax is a work of literary art.--_cincinnati commercial-gazette._ the great shadow. post vo, cloth, ornamental, $ . a powerful piece of story-telling. mr. doyle has the gift of description, and he knows how to make fiction seem reality.--_independent_, n. y. new york and london: harper & brothers, publishers _the above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the publishers, postage prepaid, on receipt of the price._ transcribers' notes: punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained. ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. page : "extragavances" probably is a misprint for "extravagances". page : "eastern ness" was printed as two words. [transcribers notes: the only changes made in this text are obvious printer's errors. everything else remains unchanged. words in _italics_ and =bold= denoted thus] sir quixote of the moors =buckram series.= c. each. sir quixote of the moors. a scotch romance. by john buchan. lady bonnie's experiment. a quaint pastoral. by tighe hopkins. kafir stories. tales of adventure. by wm. chas. scully. the master-knot. and "another story." by conover duff. the time machine. the story of an invention. by h. g. wells. the prisoner of zenda. (_ st ed_.) by anthony hope. a stirring romance. the indiscretion of the duchess. by anthony hope. (_ th edition_.) tenement tales of new york. by j. w. sullivan. slum stories of london. (_neighbors of ours_.) by h. w. nevinson. the ways of yale. (_ th edition_.) sketches, mainly humorous. by h. a. beers. a suburban pastoral. (_ th edition_.) american stories. by henry a. beers. jack o'doon. (_ d edition_.) an american novel. by maria beale. quaker idyls. (_ th edition_.) by mrs. s. m. h. gardner. a man of mark. (_ th edition_.) a south american tale. by anthony hope. sport royal. (_ d edition_.) and other stories. by anthony hope. the dolly dialogues. (_ th edition_.) by anthony hope. a change of air. (_ th edition_.) by anthony hope. with portrait. john ingerfield. (_ th edition_.) a love tragedy. by jerome k. jerome. =henry holt & co., new york.= [illustration:"_he came at me with his sword in a great heat._"--p. .] sir quixote of the moors _being some account of an episode in the life of the sieur de rohaine_ by john buchan [illustration: logo] new york henry holt and company copyright, , by henry holt & co. the mershon company press, rahway, n. j. to gilbert murray whatsoever in this book is not worthless is dedicated by his friend. preface. the narrative, now for the first time presented to the world, was written by the sieur de rohaine to while away the time during the long period and painful captivity, borne with heroic resolution, which preceded his death. he chose the english tongue, in which he was extraordinarily proficient, for two reasons: first, as an exercise in the language; second, because he desired to keep the passages here recorded from the knowledge of certain of his kins-folk in france. few changes have been made in his work. now and then an english idiom has been substituted for a french; certain tortuous expressions have been emended; and in general the portions in the scots dialect have been rewritten, since the author's knowledge of this manner of speech seems scarcely to have been so great as he himself thought. contents. chapter page i. on the high moors, ii. i fare badly indoors, iii. i fare badly abroad, iv. of my coming to lindean, v. i pledge my word, vi. idle days, vii. a daughter of herodias, viii. how i set the signal, ix. i commune with myself, x. of my departure, sir quixote of the moors. chapter i. on the high moors. before me stretched a black heath, over which the mist blew in gusts, and through whose midst the road crept like an adder. great storm-marked hills flanked me on either side, and since i set out i had seen their harsh outline against a thick sky, until i longed for flat ground to rest my sight upon. the way was damp, and the soft mountain gravel sank under my horse's feet; and ever and anon my legs were splashed by the water from some pool which the rain had left. shrill mountain birds flew around, and sent their cries through the cold air. sometimes the fog would lift for a moment from the face of the land and show me a hilltop or the leaden glimmer of a loch, but nothing more--no green field or homestead; only a barren and accursed desert. neither horse nor man was in any spirit. my back ached, and i shivered in my sodden garments, while my eyes were dim from gazing on flying clouds. the poor beast stumbled often, for he had traveled far on little fodder, and a hill-road was a new thing in his experience. saladin i called him--for i had fancied that there was something turkish about his black face, with the heavy turban-like band above his forehead--in my old fortunate days when i bought him. he was a fine horse of the normandy breed, and had carried me on many a wild journey, though on none so forlorn as this. but to speak of myself. i am jean de rohaine, at your service; sieur de rohaine in the province of touraine--a gentleman, i trust, though one in a sorry plight. and how i came to be in the wild highlands of the place called galloway, in the bare kingdom of scotland, i must haste to tell. in the old days, when i had lived as became my rank in my native land, i had met a scot,--one kennedy by name,--a great man in his own country, with whom i struck up an intimate friendship. he and i were as brothers, and he swore that if i came to visit him in his own home he would see to it that i should have the best. i thanked him at the time for his bidding, but thought little more of it. now, by ill fortune, the time came when, what with gaming and pleasuring, i was a beggared man, and i bethought me of the scot's offer. i had liked the man well, and i considered how it would be no ill thing to abide in that country till i should find some means of bettering my affairs. so i took ship and came to the town of ayr, from which 'twas but a day's ride to the house of my friend. 'twas in midsummer when i landed, and the place looked not so bare as i had feared, as i rode along between green meadows to my destination. there i found quentin kennedy, somewhat grown old and more full in flesh than i remembered him in the past. he had been a tall, black-avised man when i first knew him; now he was grizzled,--whether from hard living or the harshness of northern weather i know not,--and heavier than a man of action is wont to be. he greeted me most hospitably, putting his house at my bidding, and swearing that i should abide and keep him company and go no more back to the south. so for near a month i stayed there, and such a time of riot and hilarity i scarce remember. _mon dieu_, but the feasting and the sporting would have rejoiced the hearts of my comrades of the rue margot! i had already learned much of the scots tongue at the college in paris, where every second man hails from this land, and now i was soon perfect in it, speaking it all but as well as my host. 'tis a gift i have, for i well remember how, when i consorted for some months in the low countries with an italian of milan, i picked up a fair knowledge of his speech. so now i found myself in the midst of men of spirit, and a rare life we led. the gentlemen of the place would come much about the house, and i promise you 'twas not seldom we saw the morning in as we sat at wine. there was, too, the greatest sport at coursing and hunting the deer in kennedy's lands by the water of doon. yet there was that i liked not among the fellows who came thither, nay, even in my friend himself. we have a proverb in france that the devil when he spoils a german in the making turns him into a scot, and for certain there was much boorishness among them, which to my mind sits ill on gentlemen. they would jest at one another till i thought that in a twinkling swords would be out, and lo! i soon found that 'twas but done for sport, and with no evil intent. they were clownish in their understanding, little recking of the feelings of a man of honor, but quick to grow fierce on some tittle of provocation which another would scarce notice. indeed, 'tis my belief that one of this nation is best in his youth, for kennedy, whom i well remembered as a man of courage and breeding, had grown grosser and more sottish with his years, till i was fain to ask where was my friend of the past. and now i come to that which brought on my departure and my misfortunes. 'twas one night as i returned weary from riding after a stag in the haugh by the river, that quentin cried hastily, as i entered, that now he had found something worthy of my attention. "to-morrow, jock," says he, "you will see sport. there has been some cursed commotion among the folk of the hills, and i am out the morrow to redd the marches. you shall have a troop of horse and ride with me, and, god's death, we will have a taste of better work!" i cried out that i could have asked for naught better, and, indeed, i was overjoyed that the hard drinking and idleness were at an end, and that the rigors of warfare lay before me. for i am a soldier by birth and by profession, and i love the jingle of steel and the rush of battle. so, on the morrow, i rode to the mountains with a score of dragoons behind me, glad and hopeful. _diable!_ how shall i tell my disappointment? the first day i had seen all--and more than i wished. we fought, not with men like ourselves, but with women and children and unarmed yokels, and butchered like cossacks more than christians. i grew sick of the work, and would have none of it, but led my men to the rendezvous sullenly, and hot at heart. 'twas well the night was late when we arrived, else i should have met with kennedy there and then, and god knows what might have happened. the next day, in a great fit of loathing, i followed my host again, hoping that the worst was over, and that henceforth i should have something more to my stomach. but little i knew of the men with whom i journeyed. there was a cottage there, a shepherd's house, and god! they burned it down, and the man they shot before his wife and children, speaking naught to him but foul-mouthed reproaches and jabber about some creed which was strange to me. i could not prevent it, though 'twas all that i could do to keep myself from a mad attack. i rode up to quentin kennedy. "sir," i said, "i have had great kindness at your hands, but you and i must part. i see that we are made of different stuff. i can endure war, but not massacre." he laughed at my scruples, incredulous of my purpose, until at last he saw that i was fixed in my determination. then he spoke half kindly: "this is a small matter to stand between me and thee. i am a servant of the king, and but do my duty. i little thought to have disloyalty preached from your lips; but bide with me, and i promise that you shall see no more of it." but my anger was too great, and i would have none of him. then--and now i marvel at the man's forbearance--he offered me money to recompense me for my trouble. 'twas honestly meant, and oft have i regretted my action, but to me in my fury it seemed but an added insult. "nay," said i angrily; "i take no payment from butchers. i am a gentleman, if a poor one." at this he flushed wrathfully, and i thought for an instant that he would have drawn on me; but he refrained, and i rode off alone among the moors. i knew naught of the land, and i must have taken the wrong way, for noon found me hopelessly mazed among a tangle of rocks and hills and peat-mosses. verily, quentin kennedy had taken the best revenge by suffering me to follow my own leading. in the early hours of my journey my head was in such a whirl of wrath and dismay, that i had little power to think settled thoughts. i was in a desperate confusion, half angry at my own haste, and half bitter at the coldness of a friend who would permit a stranger to ride off alone with scarce a word of regret. when i have thought the matter out in after days, i have been as perplexed as ever; yet it still seems to me, though i know not how, that i acted as any man of honor and heart would approve. still this thought was little present to me in my discomfort, as i plashed through the sodden turf. i had breakfasted at kennedy's house of dunpeel in the early morning, and since i had no provision of any sort with me, 'twas not long ere the biting of hunger began to set in. my race is a hardy stock, used to much hardships and rough fare, but in this inclement land my heart failed me wholly, and i grew sick and giddy, what with the famishing and the cold rain. for, though 'twas late august, the month of harvest and fruit-time in my own fair land, it seemed more like winter. the gusts of sharp wind came driving out of the mist and pierced me to the very marrow. so chill were they that my garments were of no avail to avert them; being, indeed, of the thinnest, and cut according to the fashion of fine cloth for summer wear at the shows and gallantries of the town. a pretty change, thought i, from the gardens of versailles and the trim streets of paris to this surly land; and sad it was to see my cloak, meant for no rougher breeze than the gentle south, tossed and scattered by a grim wind. i have marked it often, and here i proved its truth, that man's thoughts turn always to the opposites of his present state. here was i, set in the most uncharitable land on earth; and yet ever before my eyes would come brief visions of the gay country which i had forsaken. in a gap of hill i fancied that i descried a level distance with sunny vineyards and rich orchards, to which i must surely come if i but hastened. when i stooped to drink at a stream, i fancied ere i drank it that the water would taste like the bordeaux i was wont to drink at the little hostelry in the rue margot; and when the tasteless liquid once entered my mouth, the disenchantment was severe. i met one peasant, an old man bent with toil, coarse-featured, yet not without some gleams of kindness, and i could not refrain from addressing him in my native tongue. for though i could make some shape at his barbarous patois, in my present distress it came but uneasily from my lips. he stared at me stupidly, and when i repeated the question in the english, he made some unintelligible reply, and stumbled onward in his way. i watched his poor figure as he walked. such, thought i, are the _canaille_ of the land, and 'tis little wonder if their bodies be misshapen, and their minds dull, for an archangel would become a boor if he dwelt here for any space of time. but enough of such dreams, and god knows no man had ever less cause for dreaming. where was i to go, and what might my purpose be in this wilderness which men call the world? an empty belly and a wet skin do not tend to sedate thinking, so small wonder if i saw little ahead. i was making for the end of the earth, caring little in what direction, weary and sick of heart, with sharp anger at the past, and never a hope for the morrow. yet, even in my direst days, i have ever found some grain of expectation to console me. i had five crowns in my purse; little enough, but sufficient to win me a dinner and a bed at some cheap hostelry. so all through the gray afternoon i looked sharply for a house, mistaking every monstrous bowlder for a gable-end. i cheered my heart with thinking of dainties to be looked for; a dish of boiled fish, or a piece of mutton from one of the wild-faced sheep which bounded ever and anon across my path. nay, i was in no mood to be fastidious. i would e'en be content with a poor fare, provided always i could succeed in swallowing it, for my desire soon became less for the attainment of a pleasure than for the alleviation of a discomfort. for i was ravenous as a hawk, and had it in my heart more than once to dismount, and seek for the sparse hill-berries. and, indeed, this was like to have been my predicament, for the day grew late and i came no nearer a human dwelling. the valley in which i rode grew wider, about to open, as i thought, into the dale of a river. the hills, from rising steeply by the wayside, were withdrawn to the distance of maybe a mile, where they lifted their faces through the network of the mist. all the land between them, save a strip where the road lay, was filled with a black marsh, where moor birds made a most dreary wailing. it minded me of the cries of the innocents whom king herod slew, as i had seen the dead represented outside the village church of rohaine in my far-away homeland. my heart grew sore with longing. i had bartered my native country for the most dismal on earth, and all for nothing. madman that i was, were it not better to be a beggar in france than a horse-captain in any other place? i cursed my folly sorely, as each fresh blast sent a shiver through my body. nor was my horse in any better state--saladin, whom i had seen gayly decked at a procession with ribbons and pretty favors, who had carried me so often and so far, who had always fared on the best. the poor beast was in a woeful plight, with his pasterns bleeding from the rough stones and his head bent with weariness. verily, i pitied him more than myself, and if i had had a crust we should have shared it. the night came in, black as a draw-well and stormy as the day of doom. i had now no little trouble in picking out the way from among the treacherous morasses. of a sudden my horse would have a forefoot in a pool of black peat-water, from which i would scarce, by much pulling, recover him. a sharp jag of stone in the way would all but bring him to his knees. so we dragged wearifully along, scarce fearing, caring, hoping for anything in this world or another. it was, i judge, an hour after nightfall, about nine of the clock, when i fancied that some glimmer shot through the thick darkness. i could have clapped my hands for joy had i been able; but alas! these were so stiff, that clapping was as far from me as from a man with the palsy. "courage!" said i, "courage, saladin! there is yet hope for us!" the poor animal seemed to share in my expectations. he carried me quicker forward, so that soon the feeble gleam had grown to a broad light. inn or dwelling, thought i, there i stay, for i will go not a foot further for man or devil. my sword must e'en be my _fourrier_ to get me a night's lodging. then i saw the house, a low, dark place, unillumined save for that front window which shone as an invitation to travelers. in a minute i was at the threshold. there, in truth, was the sign flapping above the lintel. 'twas an inn at length, and my heart leaped out in gratitude. chapter ii. i fare badly indoors. i dropped wearily from my horse and stumbled forward to the door. 'twas close shut, but rays of light came through the chinks at the foot, and the great light in the further window lit up the ground for some yards. i knocked loudly with my sword-hilt. stillness seemed to reign within, save that from some distant room a faint sound of men's voices was brought. a most savory smell stole out to the raw air and revived my hunger with hopes of supper. again i knocked, this time rudely, and the door rattled on its hinges. this brought some signs of life from within. i could hear a foot on the stone floor of a passage, a bustling as of many folk running hither and thither, and a great barking of a sheep-dog. of a sudden the door was flung open, a warm blaze of light rushed forth, and i stood blinking before the master of the house. he was a tall, grizzled man of maybe fifty years, thin, with a stoop in his back that all hill-folk have, and a face brown with sun and wind. i judged him fifty, but he may have been younger by ten years, for in that desert men age the speedier. his dress was dirty and ragged in many places, and in one hand he carried a pistol, which he held before him as if for protection. he stared at me for a second. "wha are ye that comes dirlin' here on sic a nicht?" said he, and i give his speech as i remember it. as he uttered the words, he looked me keenly in the face, and i felt his thin, cold glance piercing to the roots of my thoughts. i liked the man ill, for, what with his lean figure and sour countenance, he was far different from the jovial, well-groomed fellows who will give you greeting at any wayside inn from calais to bordeaux. "you ask a strange question, and one little needing answer. if a man has wandered for hours in bog-holes, he will be in no mind to stand chaffering at inn doors. i seek a night's lodging for my horse and myself." "it's little we can give you, for it's a bare, sinfu' land," said he, "but such as i ha'e ye're welcome to. bide a minute, and i'll bring a licht to tak' ye to the stable." he was gone down the passage for a few seconds, and returned with a rushlight encased against the wind in a wicker covering. the storm made it flicker and flare till it sent dancing shadows over the dark walls of the house. the stable lay round by the back end, and thither poor saladin and his master stumbled over a most villainous rough ground. the place, when found, was no great thing to boast of--a cold shed, damp with rain, with blaffs of wind wheezing through it; and i was grieved to think of my horse's nightly comfort. the host snatched from a rack a truss of hay, which by its smell was old enough, and tossed it into the manger. "there ye are, and it's mair than mony a christian gets in thae weary days." then he led the way back into the house. we entered a draughty passage with a window at one end, broken in part, through which streamed the cold air. a turn brought me into a little square room, where a fire flickered and a low lamp burned on the table. 'twas so home-like and peaceful that my heart went out to it, and i thanked my fate for the comfortable lodging i had chanced on. mine host stirred the blaze and bade me strip off my wet garments. he fetched me an armful of rough homespuns, but i cared little to put them on, so i e'en sat in my shirt and waited on the drying of my coat. my mother's portrait, the one by grizot, which i have had set in gold and wear always near my heart, dangled to my lap, and i took this for an evil omen. i returned it quick to its place, the more so because i saw the landlord's lantern-jaw close at the sight, and his cold eyes twinkle. had i been wise, too, i would have stripped my rings from my fingers ere i began this ill-boding travel, for it does not behoove a gentleman to be sojourning among beggars with gold about him. "have ye come far the day?" the man asked, in his harsh voice. "ye're gey-like splashed wi' dirt, so i jalouse ye cam ower the _angels ladder_." "angel's ladder!" quoth i, "devil's ladder i call it! for a more blackguardly place i have not clapped eyes on since i first mounted horse." "_angel's ladder_ they call it," said the man, to all appearance never heeding my words, "for there, mony a year syne, an holy man of god, one ebenezer clavershaws, preached to a goodly gathering on the shining ladder seen by the patriarch jacob at bethel, which extended from earth to heaven. 'twas a rich discourse, and i have it still in my mind." "'twas more likely to have been a way to the evil one for me. had i but gone a further step many a time, i should have been giving my account ere this to my maker. but a truce to this talk. 'twas not to listen to such that i came here; let me have supper, the best you have, and a bottle of whatever wine you keep in this accursed place. burgundy is my choice." "young man," the fellow said gravely, looking at me with his unpleasing eyes, "you are one who loves the meat that perisheth rather than the unsearchable riches of god's grace. oh, be warned while yet there is time. you know not the delights of gladsome communion wi' him, which makes the moss-hags and heather-bushes more fair than the roses of sharon or the balmy plains of gilead. oh, be wise and turn, for now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation!" _sacré!_ what madman have i fallen in with, thought i, who talks in this fashion. i had heard of the wild deeds of those in our own land who call themselves huguenots, and i was not altogether without fear. but my appetite was keen, and my blood was never of the coolest. "peace with your nonsense, sirrah," i said sternly; "what man are you who come and prate before your guests, instead of fetching their supper? let me have mine at once, and no more of your scripture." as i spoke, i looked him angrily in the face, and my bearing must have had some effect upon him, for he turned suddenly and passed out. a wench appeared, a comely slip of a girl, with eyes somewhat dazed and timorous, and set the table with viands. there was a moor-fowl, well-roasted and tasty to the palate, a cut of salted beef, and for wine, a bottle of french claret of excellent quality. 'twas so much in excess of my expectation, that i straightway fell into a good humor, and the black cloud of dismay lifted in some degree from my wits. i filled my glass and looked at it against the fire-glow, and dreamed that 'twas an emblem of the after course of my life. who knew what fine things i might come to yet, though now i was solitary in a strange land? the landlord came in and took away the remnants himself. he looked at me fixedly more than once, and in his glance i read madness, greed, and hatred. i feared his look, and was glad to see him leave, for he made me feel angry and a little awed. however, thought i, 'tis not the first time i have met a churlish host, and i filled my glass again. the fire bickered cheerily, lighting up the room and comforting my cold skin. i drew my chair close and stretched out my legs to the blaze, till in a little, betwixt heat and weariness, i was pleasantly drowsy. i fell to thinking of the events of the day and the weary road i had traveled; then to an earlier time, when i first came to scotland, and my hopes were still unbroken. after all this i began to mind me of the pleasant days in france; for, though i had often fared ill enough there, all was forgotten but the good fortune; and i had soon built out of my brain a france which was liker paradise than anywhere on earth. every now and then a log would crackle or fall, and so wake me with a start, for the fire was of that sort which is common in hilly places--a great bank of peat with wood laid athwart. blue, pungent smoke came out in rings and clouds, which smelt gratefully in my nostrils after the black out-of-doors. by and by, what with thinking of the past, what with my present comfort, and what with an ever hopeful imagination, my prospects came to look less dismal. 'twas true that i was here in a most unfriendly land with little money and no skill of the country. but scotland was but a little place, after all. i must come to leith in time, where i could surely meet a french skipper who would take me over, money or no. you will ask, whoever may chance to read this narrative, why, in heaven's name, i did not turn and go back to ayr, the port from which i had come? the reason is not far to seek. the whole land behind me stank in my nostrils, for there dwelt quentin kennedy, and there lay the scene of my discomfiture and my sufferings. faugh! the smell of that wretched moor road is with me yet. so, with thinking one way and another, i came to a decision to go forward in any case, and trust to god and my own good fortune. after this i must have ceased to have any thoughts, and dropped off snugly to sleep. i wakened, at what time i know not, shivering, with a black fire before my knees. the room was black with darkness, save where through a chink in the window-shutter there came a gleam of pale moonlight. i sprang up in haste and called for a servant to show me to my sleeping room, but the next second i could have wished the word back, for i feared that no servant would be awake and at hand. to my mind there seemed something passing strange in thus leaving a guest to slumber by the fire. to my amazement, the landlord himself came to my call, bearing a light in his hand. i was reasonably surprised, for though i knew not the hour of the night, i judged from the state of the fire that it must have been far advanced. "i had fallen asleep," i said, in apology, "and now would finish what i have begun. show me my bed." "it'll be a dark nicht and a coorse, out-bye," said the man, as he led the way solemnly from the room, up a rickety stair, down a mirk passage to a chamber which, from the turnings of the house, i guessed to be facing the east. 'twas a comfortless place, and ere i could add a word i found the man leaving the room with the light. "you'll find your way to bed in the dark," quoth he, and i was left in blackness. i sat down on the edge of the bed, half-stupid with sleep, my teeth chattering with the cold, listening to the gusts of wind battering against the little window. 'faith! thought i, this is the worst entertainment i ever had, and i have made trial of many. yet i need not complain, for i have had a good fire and a royal supper, and my present dis-comfort is due in great part to my own ill habit of drowsiness. i rose to undress, for my bones were sore after the long day's riding, when, by some chance, i moved forward to the window and opened it to look on the night. 'twas wintry weather outside, though but the month of august. the face of the hills fronting me were swathed in white mist, which hung low even to the banks of the stream. there was a great muttering in the air of swollen water, for the rain had ceased, and the red waves were left to roll down the channel to the lowlands and make havoc of meadow and steading. the sky was cumbered with clouds, and no clear light of the moon came through; but since 'twas nigh the time of the full moon the night was not utterly dark. i lingered for maybe five minutes in this posture, and then i heard that which made me draw in my head and listen the more intently. a thud of horses' hoofs on the wet ground came to my ear. a second, and it was plainer, the noise of some half-dozen riders clearly approaching the inn. 'twas a lonesome place, and i judged it strange that company should come so late. i flung myself on the bed in my clothes, and could almost have fallen asleep as i was, so weary was my body. but there was that in my mind which forbade slumber, a vague uneasiness as of some ill approaching, which it behooved me to combat. again and again i tried to drive it from me as mere cowardice, but again it returned to vex me. there was nothing for it but that i should lie on my back and bide what might come. then again i heard a sound, this time from a room beneath. 'twas as if men were talking softly, and moving to and fro. my curiosity was completely aroused, and i thought it no shame to my soldierly honor to slip from my room and gather what was the purport of their talk. at such a time, and in such a place, it boded no good for me, and the evil face of the landlord was ever in my memory. the staircase creaked a little as it felt my weight, but it had been built for heavier men, and i passed it in safety. clearly the visitors were in the room where i had supped. "will we ha'e muckle wark wi' him, think ye?" i heard one man ask. "na, na," said another, whom i knew for mine host, "he's a foreigner, a man frae a fremt land, and a' folk ken they're little use. forbye, i had stock o' him mysel', and i think i could mak' his bit ribs crack thegither. he'll no' be an ill customer to deal wi'." "but will he no' be a guid hand at the swird? there's no yin o' us here muckle at that." "toots," said another, "we'll e'en get him intil a corner, where he'll no git leave to stir an airm." i had no stomach for more. with a dull sense of fear i crept back to my room, scarce heeding in my anger whether i made noise or not. good god! thought i, i have traveled by land and sea to die in a moorland alehouse by the hand of common robbers! my heart grew hot at the thought of the landlord, for i made no doubt but it was my jewels that had first set his teeth. i loosened my sword in its scabbard; and now i come to think of it,'twas a great wonder that it had not been taken away from me while i slept. i could only guess that the man had been afraid to approach me before the arrival of his confederates. i gripped my sword-hilt; ah, how often had i felt its touch under kindlier circumstances--when i slew the boar in the woods at belmont, when i made the sieur de biran crave pardon before my feet, when i----but peace with such memories! at all events, if jean de rohaine must die among ruffians, unknown and forgotten, he would finish his days like a gentleman of courage. i prayed to god that i might only have the life of the leader. but this world is sweet to all men, and as i awaited death in that dark room, it seemed especially fair to live. i was but in the prime of my age, on the near side of forty, hale in body, a master of the arts and graces. were it not passing hard that i should perish in this wise? i looked every way for a means of escape. there was but one--the little window which looked upon the ground east of the inn. 'twas just conceivable that a man might leap it and make his way to the hills, and so baffle his pursuers. two thoughts deterred me; first, that i had no horse and could not continue my journey; second, that in all likelihood there would be a watch set below. my heart sank within me, and i ceased to think. for, just at that moment, i heard a noise below as of men leaving the room. i shut my lips and waited. here, i concluded, is death coming to meet me. but the next moment the noise had stopped, and 'twas evident that the conclave was not yet closed. 'tis a strange thing, the mind of man, for i, who had looked with despair at my chances a minute agone, now, at the passing of this immediate danger, plucked up heart, clapped my hat on my head, and opened the window. the night air blew chill, but all seemed silent below. so, very carefully i hung over the ledge, gripped the sill with my hands, swung my legs into the air, and dropped. i lighted on a tussock of grass and rolled over on my side, only to recover myself in an instant and rise to my feet, and, behold, at my side, a tall man keeping sentinel on horseback. at this the last flicker of hope died in my bosom. the man never moved or spake, but only stared fixedly at me. yet there was that in his face and bearing which led me to act as i did. "if you are a man of honor," i burst out, "though you are engaged in an accursed trade, dismount and meet me in combat. your spawn will not be out for a little time, and the night is none so dark. if i must die, i would die at least in the open air, with my foe before me." my words must have found some answering chord in the man's breast, for he presently spoke, and asked me my name and errand in the countryside. i told him in a dozen words, and at my tale he shrugged his shoulders. "i am in a great mind," says he, "to let you go. i am all but sick of this butcher work, and would fling it to the winds at a word. 'tis well enough for the others, who are mongrel bred, but it ill becomes a man of birth like me, who am own cousin to the maxwells o' drurie." he fell for a very little time into a sort of musing, tugging at his beard like a man in perplexity. then he spoke out suddenly: "see you yon tuft of willows by the water? there's a space behind it where a horse and man might stand well concealed. there is your horse," and he pointed to a group of horses standing tethered by the roadside; "lead him to the place i speak of, and trust to god for the rest. i will raise a scare that you're off the other airt, and, mind, that whenever you see the tails o' us, you mount and ride for life in the way i tell you. you should win to drumlanrig by morning, where there are quieter folk. now, mind my bidding, and dae't before my good will changes." "may god do so to you in your extremity! if ever i meet you on earth i will repay you for your mercy. but a word with you. who is that man?" and i pointed to the house. the fellow laughed dryly. "it's easy seen you're no acquaint here, or you would ha'e heard o' long jock o' the hirsel. there's mony a man would face the devil wi' a regiment o' dragoons at his back, that would flee at a glint from jock's een. you're weel quit o' him. but be aff afore the folk are stirring." i needed no second bidding, but led saladin with all speed to the willows, where i made him stand knee-deep in the water within cover of the trees, while i crouched by his side. 'twas none too soon, for i was scarce in hiding when i heard a great racket in the house, and the sound of men swearing and mounting horse. there was a loud clattering of hoofs, which shortly died away, and left the world quiet, save for the broil of the stream and the loud screaming of moorbirds. chapter iii. i fare badly abroad. all this has taken a long time to set down, but there was little time in the acting. scarce half an hour had passed from my waking by the black fire till i found myself up to the waist in the stream. i made no further delay, but, as soon as the air was quiet, led saladin out as stilly as i could on the far side of the willows, clambered on his back (for i was too sore in body to mount in any other fashion), and was riding for dear life along the moor road in the contrary direction to that from which i had come on the night before. the horse had plainly been well fed, since, doubtless, the ruffians had marked him for their own plunder. he covered the ground in gallant fashion, driving up jets and splashes of rain water from the pools in the way. mile after mile was passed with no sound of pursuers; one hill gave place to another; the stream grew wider and more orderly; but still i kept up the breakneck pace, fearing to slacken rein. fifteen miles were covered, as i judged, before i saw the first light of dawn in the sky, a red streak in a gray desert; and brought my horse down to a trot, thanking god that at last i was beyond danger. i was sore in body, with clammy garments sticking to my skin, aching in back and neck, unslept, well-nigh as miserable as a man could be. but great as was my bodily discomfort, 'twas not one tittle to compare with the sickness of my heart. i had been driven to escape from a hostel by a window like a common thief; compelled to ride,--nay, there was no use in disguising it,--to flee, before a pack of ill-bred villains; i, a gentleman of france, who had ruffled it with the best of them in my fit of prosperity. again and again i questioned with myself whether i had not done better to die in that place, fighting as long as the breath was in my body. of this i am sure, at any rate, that it would have been the way more soothing to my pride. i argued the matter with myself, according to the most approved logic, but could come no nearer to the solution. for while i thought the picture of myself dying with my back to the wall the more heroical and gentleman-like, it yet went sore against me to think of myself, with all my skill of the sword and the polite arts, perishing in a desert place at the hand of common cutthroats. 'twas no fear of death, i give my word of honor; that was a weakness never found in our race. courage is a virtue i take no credit for; 'tis but a matter of upbringing. but a man loves to make some noise in the earth ere he leaves it, or at least to pass with blowings of the trumpet and some manner of show. to this day i cannot think of any way by which i could have mended my conduct. i can but set it down as a mischance of providence, which meets all men in their career, but of which no man of spirit cares to think. the sun rose clear, but had scarce shone for an hour, when, as is the way in this land, a fresh deluge of rain came on, and the dawn, which had begun in crimson, ended in a dull level of gray. i had never been used with much foul weather of this sort, so i bore it ill. 'twas about nine of the morning when i rode into the village of drumlanrig, a jumble of houses in the lee of a great wood, which runs up to meet the descending moorlands. some ragged brats, heedless of the weather, played in the street, if one may call it by so fine a name; but for the most part the houses seemed quite deserted. a woman looked incuriously at me; a man who was carrying sacks scarce raised his head to view me; the whole place was like a dwelling of the dead. i have since learned the reason, which was no other than the accursed butchery on which i had quarreled with quentin kennedy, and so fallen upon misfortune. the young and manly were all gone; some to the hills for hiding, some to the town prisons, some across the seas to work in the plantations, and some on that long journey from which no man returns. my heart boils within me to this day to think of it--but there! it is long since past, and i have little need to be groaning over it now. there was no inn in the place, but i bought bread from the folk of a little farm-steading at one end of the village street. they would scarce give it to me at first, and 'twas not till they beheld my woebegone plight that their hearts relented. doubtless they took me for one of the soldiers who had harried them and theirs, little guessing that 'twas all for their sake that i was in such evil case. i did not tarry to ask the road, for leith was too far distant for the people in that place to know it. of this much i was sure, that it lay to the northeast, so i took my way in that direction, shaping my course by the sun. there was a little patch of green fields, a clump of trees, and a quiet stream beside the village; but i had scarce ridden half a mile beyond it when once more the moor swallowed me up in its desert of moss and wet heather. i was now doubly dispirited. my short exhilaration of escape had gone, and all the pangs of wounded pride and despair seized upon me, mingled with a sort of horror of the place i had come through. whenever i saw a turn of hill which brought the _angel's ladder_ to my mind, i shivered in spite of myself, and could have found it in my heart to turn and flee. in addition, i would have you remember, i was soaked to the very skin, my eyes weary with lack of sleep, and my legs cramped with much riding. the place in the main was moorland, with steep, desolate hills on my left. on the right to the south i had glimpses of a fairer country, woods and distant fields, seen for an instant through the driving mist. in a trice france was back in my mind, for i could not see an acre of green land without coming nigh to tears. yet, and perhaps 'twas fortunate for me, such glimpses were all too rare. for the most part, the way was along succession of sloughs and mires, with here a piece of dry, heathy ground, and there an impetuous water coming down from the highlands. saladin soon fell tired, and, indeed, small wonder, since he had come many miles, and his fare had been of the scantiest. he would put his foot in a bog-hole and stumble so sharply that i would all but lose my seat. then, poor beast, he would take shame to himself, and pick his way as well as his weary legs would suffer him. 'twas an evil plight for man and steed, and i knew not which to pity the more. at noon, i came to the skirts of a long hill, whose top was hidden with fog, but which i judged to be high and lonesome. i met a man--the first i had seen since drumlanrig--and asked him my whereabouts. i learned that the hill was called queen's berry, and that in some dozen miles i would strike the high road to edinburgh. i could get not another word out of him, but must needs content myself with this crumb of knowledge. the road in front was no road, nothing but a heathery moor, with walls of broken stones seaming it like the lines of sewing in an old coat. gray broken hills came up for a minute, as a stray wind blew the mist aside, only to disappear the next instant in a ruin of cloud. from this place i mark the beginning of the most wretched journey in my memory. till now i had had some measure of bodily strength to support me. now it failed, and a cold shivering fit seized on my vitals, and more than once i was like to have fallen from my horse. a great stupidity came over my brain; i could call up no remembrance to cheer me, but must plod on in a horror of darkness. the cause was not far distant--cold, wet, and despair. i tried to swallow some of the rain-soaked bread in my pouch, but my mouth was as dry as a skin. i dismounted to drink at a stream, but the water could hardly trickle down my throat so much did it ache. 'twas as if i were on the eve of an ague, and in such a place it were like to be the end of me. had there been a house, i should have craved shelter. but one effect of my sickness was, that i soon strayed woefully from my path, such as it was, and found myself in an evil case with bogs and steep hillsides. i had much to do in keeping saladin from danger; and had i not felt the obligation to behave like a man, i should have flung the reins on his neck and let him bear himself and his master to destruction. again and again i drove the wish from my mind--"as well die in a bog-hole or break your neck over a crag as dwine away with ague in the cold heather, as you are like to do," said the tempter. but i steeled my heart, and made a great resolve to keep one thing, though i should lose all else--some shreds of my manhood. toward evening i grew so ill that i was fain, when we came to a level place, to lay my head on saladin's neck, and let him stumble forward. my head swam, and my back ached so terribly that i guessed feverishly that someone had stabbed me unawares. the weather cleared just about even, and the light of day flickered out in a watery sunset. 'twas like the close of my life, i thought, a gray ill day and a poor ending. the notion depressed me miserably. i felt a kinship with that feeble evening light, a kinship begotten of equality in weakness. however, all would soon end; my day must presently have its evening; and then, if all tales were true, and my prayers had any efficacy, i should be in a better place. but when once the night in its blackness had set in, i longed for the light again, however dismal it might be. a ghoulish song, one which i had heard long before, was ever coming to my memory: "la pluye nous a debuez et lavez, et le soleil dessechez et noirciz; pies, corbeaux----" with a sort of horror i tried to drive it from my mind. a dreadful heaviness oppressed me. fears which i am ashamed to set down thronged my brain. the way had grown easier, or i make no doubt my horse had fallen. 'twas a track we were on, i could tell by the greater freedom with which saladin stepped. god send, i prayed, that we be near to folk, and that they be kindly; this prayer i said many times to the accompaniment of the whistling of the doleful wind. every gust pained me. i was the sport of the weather, a broken puppet tossed about by circumstance. now an answer was sent to me, and that a speedy one. i came of a sudden to a clump of shrubbery beside a wall. then at a turn of the way a light shone through, as from a broad window among trees. a few steps more and i stumbled on a gate, and turned saladin's head up a pathway. the rain dripped heavily from the bushes, a branch slashed me in the face, and my weariness grew tenfold with every second. i dropped like a log before the door, scarce looking to see whether the house was great or little; and, ere i could knock or make any call, swooned away dead on the threshold. chapter iv. of my coming to lindean. when i came to myself i was lying in a pleasant room with a great flood of sunlight drifting through the window. my brain was so confused that it was many minutes ere i could guess in which part of the earth i was laid. my first thought was that i was back in france, and i rejoiced with a great gladness; but as my wits cleared the past came back by degrees, till i had it plain before me, from my setting-out to my fainting at the door. clearly i was in the house where i had arrived on the even of yesterday. i stirred, and found my weakness gone, and my health, save for some giddiness in the head, quite recovered. this was ever the way of our family, who may be in the last desperation one day and all alive and active the next. our frames are like the old grape tendrils, slim, but tough as whipcord. at my first movement someone arose from another part of the room and came forward. i looked with curiosity, and found that it was a girl, who brought me some strengthening food-stuff in a bowl. the sunlight smote her full in the face and set her hair all aglow, as if she were the madonna. i could not see her well, but, as she bent over me, she seemed tall and lithe and pretty to look upon. "how feel you?" she asked, in a strange, soft accent, speaking the pure english, but with a curious turn in her voice. "i trust you are better of your ailment." "yes, that i am," i said briskly, for i was ashamed to be lying there in good health, "and i would thank you, mademoiselle, for your courtesy to a stranger." "nay, nay," she cried, "'twas but common humanity. you were sore spent last night, both man and horse. had you traveled far? but no," she added hastily, seeing me about to plunge into a narrative; "your tale will keep. i cannot have you making yourself ill again. you had better bide still a little longer." and with a deft hand she arranged the pillows and was gone. for some time i lay in a pleasing inaction. 'twas plain i had fallen among gentlefolk, and i blessed the good fortune which had led me to the place. here i might find one to hear my tale and help me in my ill-luck. at any rate for the present i was in a good place, and when one has been living in a nightmare, the present has the major part in his thoughts. with this i fell asleep again, for i was still somewhat wearied in body. when i awoke 'twas late afternoon. the evil weather seemed to have gone, for the sun was bright and the sky clear with the mellowness of approaching even. the girl came again and asked me how i fared. "for," said she, "perhaps you wish to rise, if you are stronger. your clothes were sadly wet and torn when we got you to bed last night, so my father has bade me ask you to accept of another suit till your own may be in better order. see, i have laid them out for you, if you will put them on." and again, ere i could thank her, she was gone. i was surprised and somewhat affected by this crowning kindness, and at the sight of so much care for a stranger whose very name was unknown. i longed to meet at once with the men of the house, so i sprung up and drew the clothes toward me. they were of rough gray cloth, very strong and warm, and fitting a man a little above the ordinary height, of such stature as mine is. it did not take me many minutes to dress, and when once more i found myself arrayed in wholesome garments i felt my spirit returning, and with it came hope, and a kindlier outlook on the world. no one appeared, so i opened my chamber door and found myself at the head of a staircase, which turned steeply down almost from the threshold. a great window illumined it, and many black-framed pictures hung on the walls adown it. at the foot there was a hall, broad and low in the roof, whence some two or three doors opened. sounds of men in conversation came from one, so i judged it wise to turn there. with much curiosity i lifted the latch and entered unbidden. 'twas a little room, well furnished, and stocked to the very ceiling with books. a fire burned on the hearth, by which sat two men talking. they rose to their feet as i entered, and i marked them well. one was an elderly man of maybe sixty years, with a bend in his back as if from study. his face was narrow and kindly; blue eyes, like a northman, a thin, twitching lip, and hair well turned to silver. his companion was scarce less notable--a big, comely man, dressed half in the fashion of a soldier, yet with the air of one little versed in cities. i love to be guessing a man's station from his looks, and ere i had glanced him over, i had set him down in my mind as a country _laird_, as these folk call it. both greeted me courteously, and then, as i advanced, were silent, as if waiting for me to give some account of myself. "i have come to thank you for your kindness," said i awkwardly, "and to let you know something of myself, for 'tis ill to be harboring folk without names or dwelling." "tush!" said the younger; "'twere a barbarity to leave anyone without, so travel-worn as you. the levite in the scriptures did no worse. but how feel you now? i trust your fatigue is gone." "i thank you a thousand times for your kindness. would i knew how to repay it!" "nay, young man," said the elder, "give thanks not to us, but to the lord who led you to this place. the moors are hard bedding, and right glad i am that you fell in with us here. 'tis seldom we have a stranger with us, since my brother at drumlanrig died in the spring o' last year. but i trust you are better, and that anne has looked after you well. a maid is a blessing to sick folk, if a weariness to the hale." "you speak truly," i said, "a maid is a blessing to the sick. 'tis sweet to be well tended when you have fared hardly for days. your kindness has set me at peace with the world again. yesterday all was black before me, and now, i bethink me, i see a little ray of light." "'twas a good work," said the old man, "to give you hope and set you right with yourself, if so chance we have done it. what saith the wise man, 'he that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls'? but whence have you come? we would hear your story." so i told them the whole tale of my wanderings, from my coming to kennedy to my fainting fit at their own threshold. at the story of my quarrel they listened eagerly, and i could mark their eyes flashing, and as i spake of my sufferings in the desert i could see sympathy in their faces. when i concluded, neither spake for a little, till the elder man broke silence with: "may god bless and protect you in all your goings! well i see that you are of the upright in heart. it makes me blithe to have you in my house." the younger said nothing but rose and came to me. "m. de rohaine," he said, speaking my name badly, "give me your hand. i honor you for a gentleman and a man of feeling." "and i am glad to give it you," said i, and we clasped hands and looked into each other's eyes. then we stepped back well satisfied. for myself i love to meet a man, and in the great-limbed young fellow before me i found one to my liking. "and now i must tell you of ourselves," said the old man, "for 'tis fitting that a guest should know his entertainers. this is the manse of lindean, and i am the unworthy man, ephraim lambert, whom god hath appointed to watch over his flock in this place. sore, sore are we troubled by evil men, such as you have known; and my folk, from dwelling in decent cots, have to hide in peat-hags and the caves of the hills. the lord's hand is heavy upon this country; 'tis a time of trial, a passing through the furnace. god grant we be not found faithless! this home is still left to us, and thankful we should be for it; and i demand that you dwell with us till you have settled on your course. this man," he went on, laying his hand on the shoulder of the younger, "is master henry semple of clachlands, a fine inheritance, all ridden and rieved by these devils on earth, captain keith's dragoons. henry is of our belief, and a man of such mettle that the privy council was fain to send down a quartering of soldiers to bide in his house and devour his substance. 'twas a thing no decent man could thole, so off he comes here to keep us company till the wind blows by. if you look out of the window over by the side of yon rig of hill, ye'll get a glimmer of clachlands chimneys, reeking with the smoke of their evil preparations. ay, ay, lads, burn you your peats and fill up the fire with logs till the vent's choked, but you'll burn brawly yourselves some fine day, when your master gives you your wages." he looked out as he spoke, and into his kindly eyes came a gleam of such anger and decision as quite transfigured his face and made it seem more like that of a troop captain than a peaceful minister. and now master semple spoke up: "god send, sir, they suffer for no worse a crime than burning my peats and firewood. i should count myself a sorry fellow if i made any complaint about a little visitation, when the hand of the lord is smiting so sorely among my fellows. i could take shame to myself every time i eat good food or sleep in a decent bed, to think of better men creeping aneath the lang heather like etherts, or shivering on the cauld hill-side. there'll be no such doings in your land, m. de rohaine? i've heard tell of folk there like us, dwelling in the hills to escape the abominations of rome. but perhaps," and he hesitated, "you are not of them?" "no," said i, "i am of your enemies by upbringing; but i dearly love a brave man, where-ever i meet him. 'tis poor religion, say i, which would lead one to see no virtue in those of another belief. there is one god above all." "ay, you speak truly," said the old man; "he has made of one blood all the nations of the earth. but i yearn to see you of a better way of thinking. mayhap i may yet show you your errors?" "i thank you, but i hold by 'every man to his upbringing.' each man to the creed of his birth. 'tis a poor thing to be changing on any pretext. for, look you, god, who appointed a man his place of birth, set him his religion with it, and i hold if he but stick to it he is not far in error." i spoke warmly, but in truth i had thought all too little about such things. one who has to fight his way among men and live hardly, has, of necessity, little time for his devotions, and if he but live cleanly, his part is well done. _mon dieu!_ who will gainsay me? "i fear your logic is faulty," said master semple, "but it is mighty inhospitable to be arguing with a guest. see, here anne comes with the lamp, and supper will soon be ready." the girl came in as he spake, bearing a great lamp, which she placed on a high shelf, and set about laying the table for supper. i had noticed her little at first sight, for i was never given to staring at maids; but now, as she moved about, i found myself ever watching her. the ruddy firelight striving with the serene glow of the lamp met and flickered about her face and hair. she was somewhat brown in skin, like a country maiden; but there was no semblance of rusticity in her fair features and deep brown eyes. her hair hung over her neck as brown as the soft fur of a squirrel, and the fire filled it with fantastic shadows. she was singularly graceful in figure, moving through the room and bending over the table with a grace which 'twas pretty to contemplate. 'twas strange to note that when her face was averted one might have guessed her to be some village girl or burgher's daughter; but as soon as she had turned her imperial eyes on you she looked like a queen in a play. her face was a curious one, serious and dignified beyond her years and sex, yet with odd sparkles of gayety dancing in her eyes and the corners of her rosy mouth. master semple had set about helping her, and a pretty sight it was to see her reproving and circumventing his clumsiness. 'twas not hard to see the relation between the two. the love-light shone in his eye whenever he looked toward her; and she, for her part, seemed to thrill at his chance touch. one strange thing i noted, that, whereas in france two young folks could not have gone about the business of setting a supper-table without much laughter and frolic, all was done here as if 'twere some solemn ceremonial. to one who was still sick with the thought of the black uplands he had traversed, of the cold, driving rain and the deadly bogs, the fare in the manse was like the apple to eve in the garden. 'twas fine to be eating crisp oaten cakes, and butter fresh from the churn, to be drinking sweet, warm milk--for we lived on the plainest; and, above all, to watch kindly faces around you in place of marauders and low ruffians. the minister said a lengthy grace before and after the meal; and when the table was cleared the servants were called in to evening prayer. again the sight pleased me--the two maids with their brown country faces seated decently by the door; anne, half in shadow, sitting demurely with master semple not far off, and at the table-head the white hairs of the old man bowed over the bible. he read i know not what, for i am not so familiar with the scriptures as i should be, and, moreover, anne's grave face was a more entrancing study. then we knelt, and he prayed to god to watch over us in all our ways and bring us at last to his prepared kingdom. truly, when i arose from my knees, i felt more tempted to be devout than i have any remembrance of before. then we sat and talked of this and that, and i must tell over all my misfortunes again for mademoiselle's entertainment. she listened with open wonder, and thanked me with her marvelous eyes. then to bed with a vile-smelling lamp, in a wide, low-ceilinged sleeping room, where the sheets were odorous of bog-myrtle and fresh as snow. sleep is a goddess easy of conquest when wooed in such a fashion. chapter v. i pledge my word. of my life at lindean for the next three days i have no clear remembrance. the weather was dry and languid, as often follows a spell of rain, and the long hills which huddled around the house looked near and imminent. the place was so still that if one shouted it seemed almost a profanation. 'twas so sabbath-like that i almost came to dislike it. indeed, i doubt i should have found it irksome had there not been a brawling stream in the glen, which kept up a continuous dashing and chattering. it seemed the one link between me and that far-away world in which not long agone i had been a dweller. the life, too, was as regular as in the king's court. sharp at six i was awakened, and ere seven we were assembled for breakfast. then to prayers, and then to the occupations of the day. the minister would be at his books or down among his people on some errand of mercy. the church had been long closed, for the privy council, seeing that master lambert was opposed to them, had commanded him to be silent; and yet, mark you, so well was he loved in the place that they durst set no successor in his stead. they tried it once and a second time, but the unhappy man was so taken with fear of the people that he shook the dust of lindean off his feet, and departed in search of a more hospitable dwelling. but the minister's mouth was shut, save when covertly, and with the greatest peril to himself, he would preach at a meeting of the hill-folk in the recesses of the surrounding uplands. the library i found no bad one--i who in my day have been considered to have something of a taste in books. to be sure there was much wearisome stuff, the work of old divines, and huge commentaries on the scriptures, written in latin and plentifully interspersed with greek and hebrew. but there was good store of the classics, both prose and poetry,--_horace_, who has ever been my favorite, and _homer_, who, to my thinking, is the finest of the ancients. here, too, i found a _plato_, and i swear i read more of him in the manse than i have done since i went through him with m. clerselier, when we were students together in paris. the acquaintance which i had formed with master semple speedily ripened into a fast friendship. i found it in my heart to like this great serious man--a bumpkin if you will, but a man of courage and kindliness. we were wont to take long walks, always in some lonely part of the country, and we grew more intimate in our conversation than i should ever have dreamed of. he would call me john, and this much i suffered him, to save my name from the barbarity of his pronunciation; while in turn i fell to calling him henry, as if we had been born and bred together. i found that he loved to hear of my own land and my past life, which, now that i think of it, must have had no little interest to one dwelling in such solitudes. from him i heard of his father, of his brief term at the college of edinburgh, which he left when the strife in the country grew high, and of his sorrow and anger at the sufferings of those who withstood the mandate of the king. though i am of the true faith, i think it no shame that my sympathy was all with these rebels, for had i not seen something of their misery myself? but above all, he would speak of _la belle anne_ as one gentleman will tell another of his love, when he found that i was a willing listener. i could scarce have imagined such warmth of passion to exist in the man as he showed at the very mention of her name. "oh!" he would cry out, "i would die for her; i would gang to the world's end to pleasure her! i whiles think that i break the first commandment every day of my life, for i canna keep her a moment out of my thoughts, and i fear she's more to me than any earthly thing should be. i think of her at nicht. i see her name in every page of the book. i thought i was bad when i was over at clachlands, and had to ride five miles to see her; but now i'm tenfold worse when i'm biding aside her. god grant it be not counted to me for sin!" "amen to that," said i. 'tis a fine thing to see the love of a maid; but i hold 'tis a finer to witness the passion of a strong man. yet, withal, there was something sinister about the house and its folk which to me was the fly in the ointment. they were kindness and charity incarnate, but they were cold and gloomy to boot, lacking any grace or sprightliness in their lives. i find it hard to write this, for their goodness to me was beyond recompense; yet i must set it down, since in some measure it has to do with my story. the old man would look at me at times and sigh, nor did i think it otherwise than fitting, till i found from his words that the sighs were on account of my own spiritual darkness. i have no quarrel with any man for wishing to convert me, but to sigh at one's approach seems a doleful way of setting about it. then he would break out from his wonted quietness at times to rail at his foes, calling down the wrath of heaven to blight them. such a fit was always followed by a painful exhaustion, which left him as weak as a child, and shivering like a leaf. i bitterly cursed the state of a country which could ruin the peace of mind of a man so sweet-tempered by nature, and make him the sport of needless rage. 'twas pitiful to see him creep off to his devotions after any such outbreak, penitent and ashamed. even to his daughter he was often cruelly sharp, and would call her to account for the merest trifle. as for master henry, what shall i say of him? i grew to love him like my own brother, yet i no more understood him than the sultan of turkey. he had strange fits of gloom, begotten, i must suppose, of the harsh country and his many anxieties, in which he was more surly than a bear, speaking little, and that mainly from the scriptures. i have one case in my memory, when, had i not been in a sense his guest, i had scarce refrained from quarreling. 'twas in the afternoon of the second day, when we returned weary from one of our long wanderings. anne tripped forth into the autumn sunlight singing a catch, a simple glee of the village folk. "peace, anne," says master henry savagely; "it little becomes you to be singing in these days, unless it be a godly psalm. keep your songs for better times." "what ails you?" i ventured to say. "you praised her this very morning for singing the self-same verses." "and peace, you," he says roughly, as he entered the house; "if the lass hearkened to your accursed creed, i should have stronger words for her." my breath was fairly taken from me at this incredible rudeness. i had my hand on my sword, and had i been in my own land we should soon have settled it. as it was, i shut my lips firmly and choked down my choler. yet i cannot leave with this ill word of the man. that very night he talked with me so pleasingly, and with so friendly a purport, that i conceived he must have been scarce himself when he so insulted me. indeed, i discerned two natures in the man--one, hard, saturnine, fanatically religious; the other, genial and kindly, like that of any other gentleman of family. the former i attributed to the accident of his fortune; the second i held to be the truer, and in my thoughts of him still think of it as the only one. but i must pass to the events which befell on the even of the third day, and wrought so momentous a change in the life at lindean. 'twas just at the lighting of the lamp, when anne and the minister and myself sat talking in the little sitting room, that master henry entered with a look of great concern on his face, and beckoned the elder man out. "andrew gibb is here," said he. "and what may andrew gibb be wanting?" asked the old man, glancing up sharply. "he brings nae guid news, i fear, but he'll tell them to none but you; so hasten out, sir, to the back, for he's come far, and he's ill at the waiting." the twain were gone for some time, and in their absence i could hear high voices in the back end of the house, conversing as on some matter of deep import. anne fetched the lamp from the kitchen and trimmed it with elaborate care, lighting it and setting it in its place. then, at last, the minister returned alone. i was shocked at the sight of him as he re-entered the room. his face was ashen pale and tightly drawn about the lips. he crept to a chair and leaned his head on the table, speaking no word. then he burst out of a sudden into a storm of pleading. "o lord god," he cried, "thou hast aye been good to us, thou has kept us weel, and bielded us frae the wolves who have sought to devour us. oh, dinna leave us now. it's no' for mysel' or henry that i care. we're men, and can warstle through ills; but oh, what am i to dae wi' the bit helpless lassie? it's awfu' to have to gang oot among hills and bogs to bide, but it's ten times waur when ye dinna ken what's gaun to come to your bairn. hear me, o lord, and grant me my request. i've no' been a' that i micht have been, but oh, if i ha'e tried to serve thee at a', dinna let this danger overwhelm us!" he had scarcely finished, and was still sitting with bowed head, when master henry also entered the room. his eyes were filled with an austere frenzy, such as i had learned to look for. "ay, sir," said he, "'tis a time for us a' to be on our knees. but ha'e courage, and dinna let us spoil the guid cause by our weak mortal complaining. is't no' better to be hunkering in a moss-hole and communing with the lord than waxing fat like jeshurun in carnal corruption? call on god's name, but no' wi' sighing, but wi' exaltation, for he hath bidden us to a mighty heritage." "ye speak brave and true, henry, and i'm wi' your every word. but tell me what's to become o' my bairn? what will anne dae? i once thought there was something atween you----" he stopped abruptly and searched the face of the young man. at his words master semple had started as under a lash. "oh, my god," he cried, "i had forgotten! anne, anne, my dearie, we canna leave ye, and you to be my wife. this is a sore trial of faith, sir, and i misdoubt i canna stand it. to leave ye to the tender mercies o' a' the hell-hounds o' dragoons--oh, i canna dae't!" he clapped his hand to his forehead and walked about the room like a man distraught. and now i put in my word. "what ails you, henry? tell me, for i am sore grieved to see you in such perplexity." "ails me?" he repeated. "aye, i will tell ye what ails me"; and he drew his chair before me. "andrew gibb's come ower frae the ruthen wi' shure news that a warrant's oot against us baith, for being at the preaching on callowa' muir. 'twas an enemy did it, and now the soldiers are coming at ony moment to lay hands on us and take us off to embro'. then there'll be but a short lease of life for us; and unless we take to the hills this very nicht we may be ower late in the morning. i'm wae to tak' sae auld a man as master lambert to wet mosses, but there's nothing else to be dune. but what's to become o' anne? whae's to see to her, when the dragoons come riding and cursing about the toon? oh, it's a terrible time, john. pray to god, if ye never prayed before, to let it pass." mademoiselle had meantime spoken never a word, but had risen and gone to her father's chair and put her arms around his neck. her presence seemed to cheer the old man, for he ceased mourning and looked up, while she sat, still as a statue, with her grave, lovely face against his. but master semple's grief was pitiful to witness. he rocked himself to and fro in his chair, with his arms folded and a set, white face. every now and then he would break into a cry like a stricken animal. the elder man was the first to counsel patience. "stop, henry," says he; "it's ill-befitting christian folk to set sic an example. we've a' got our troubles, and if ours are heavier than some, it's no' for us to complain. think o' the many years o' grace we've had. there's nae doubt the lord will look after the bairn, for he's a guid shepherd for the feckless." but now of a sudden a thought seemed to strike henry, and he was on his feet in a twinkling and by my side. "john," he almost screamed in my ear, "john, i'm going to ask ye for the greatest service that ever man asked. ye'll no' say me nay?" "let me hear it," said i. "will _you_ bide wi' the lass? you're a man o' birth, and i'll swear to it, a man o' honor. i can trust you as i would trust my ain brither. oh, man, dinna deny me! it's the last hope i ha'e, for if ye refuse, we maun e'en gang to the hills and leave the puir thing alane. oh, ye canna say me nae! tell me that ye'll do my asking." i was so thunderstruck at the request that i scarce could think for some minutes. consider, was it not a strange thing to be asked to stay alone in a wild moorland house with another man's betrothed, for heaven knew how many weary days? my life and prospects were none so cheerful for me to despise anything, nor so varied that i might pick and choose; but yet 'twas dreary, if no worse, to look forward to any length of time in this desolate place. i was grateful for the house as a shelter by the way, yet i hoped to push on and get rid, as soon as might be, of this accursed land. but was i not bound by all the ties of gratitude to grant my host's request? they had found me fainting at their door, they had taken me in, and treated me to their best; i was bound in common honor to do something to requite their kindness. and let me add, though not often a man subject to any feelings of compassion, whatever natural bent i had this way having been spoiled in the wars, i nevertheless could not refrain from pitying the distress of that strong man before me. i felt tenderly toward him, more so than i had felt to anyone for many a day. all these thoughts raced through my head in the short time while master henry stood before me. the look in his eyes, the pained face of the old man, and the sight of anne, so fair and helpless, fixed my determination. "i am bound to you in gratitude," said i, "and i would seek to repay you. i will bide in the house, if so you will, and be the maid's protector. god grant i may be faithful to my trust, and may he send a speedy end to your exile?" so 'twas all finished in a few minutes, and i was fairly embarked upon the queerest enterprise of my life. for myself i sat dazed and meditative; as for the minister and master semple, one-half of the burden seemed to be lifted from their minds. i was amazed at the trusting natures of these men, who had habited all their days with honest folk till they conceived all to be as worthy as themselves. i felt, i will own, a certain shrinking from the responsibility of the task; but the rubicon had been crossed and there was no retreat. * * * * * of the rest of that night how shall i tell? there was such a bustling and pother as i had never seen in any house since the day that my brother denis left rohaine for the dutch wars. there was a running and scurrying about, a packing of food, a seeking of clothes, for the fugitives must be off before the first light. anne went about with a pale, tearful face; and 'twas a matter of no surprise, for to see a father, a man frail and fallen in years, going out to the chill moorlands in the early autumn till no man knew when, is a grievous thing for a young maid. her lover was scarce in so dire a case, for he was young and strong, and well used to the life of the hills. for him there was hope; for the old man but a shadow. my heart grew as bitter as gall at the thought of the villains who brought it about. how shall i tell of the morning, when the faint light was flushing the limits of the sky, and the first call of a heath-bird broke the silence! 'twas sad to see these twain with their bundles (the younger carrying the elder's share) creep through the heather toward the hills. they affected a cheerful resolution, assumed to comfort anne's fears and sorrow; but i could mark beneath it a settled despair. the old man prayed at the threshold, and clasped his daughter many times, kissing her and giving her his blessing. the younger, shaken with great sobs, bade a still more tender farewell, and then started off abruptly to hide his grief. anne and i, from the door, watched their figures disappear over the crest of the ridge, and then went in, sober and full of angry counsels. * * * * * the soldiers came about an hour before mid-day--a band from clachlands, disorderly ruffians, commanded by a mealy-faced captain. they were a scurrilous set, their faces bloated with debauchery and their clothes in no very decent order. as one might have expected, they were mightily incensed at finding their bird flown, and fell to cursing each other with great good-will. they poked their low-bred faces into every nook in the house and outbuildings; and when at length they had satisfied themselves that there was no hope from that quarter, they had all the folk of the dwelling out on the green and questioned them one by one. the two serving-lasses were stanch, and stoutly denied all knowledge of their master's whereabouts--which was indeed no more than the truth. one of the two, jean crichope by name, when threatened with ill-treatment if she did not speak, replied valiantly that she would twist the neck of the first scoundrelly soldier who dared to lay finger on her. this i doubt not she could have performed, for she was a very daughter of anak. as for anne and myself, we answered according to our agreement. they were very curious to know my errand there and my name and birth; and when i bade them keep their scurvy tongues from defiling a gentleman's house, they were none so well pleased. i am not a vain man, and i do not set down the thing i am going to relate as at all redounding to my credit; i merely tell it as an incident in my tale. the captain at last grew angry. he saw that the law was powerless to touch us, and that nought remained for him but to ride to the hills in pursuit of the fugitives. this he seemed to look upon as a hardship, being a man to all appearance more fond of the bottle and pasty than a hill gallop. at any rate he grew wroth, and addressed to anne a speech so full of gross rudeness that i felt it my duty to interfere. "look you here, sir," said i, "i am here, in the first place, to see that no scoundrel maltreats this lady. i would ask you, therefore, to be more civil in your talk or to get down and meet me in fair fight. these gentlemen," and i made a mocking bow to his company, "will, i am assured, see an honest encounter." the man flushed under his coarse skin. his reputation was at stake. there was no other course open but to take up my challenge. "you, you bastard frenchman," he cried, "would you dare to insult a captain of the king's dragoons? i' faith, i will teach you better manners;" and he came at me with his sword in a great heat. the soldiers crowded round like children to see a cock-fight. in an instant we crossed swords and fell to; i with the sun in my eyes and on the lower ground. the combat was not of long duration. in a trice i found that he was a mere child in my hands, a barbarian who used his sword like a quarter-staff, not even putting strength into his thrusts. "enough!" i cried; "this is mere fooling;" and with a movement which any babe in arms might have checked, twirled his blade from his hands and sent it spinning over the grass. "follow your sword, and learn two things before you come back--civility to maids and the rudiments of sword-play. bah! begone with you!" some one of his men laughed, and i think they were secretly glad at their tyrant's discomfiture. no more need be said. he picked up his weapon and rode away, vowing vengeance upon me and swearing at every trooper behind him. i cared not a straw for him, for despite his bravado i knew that the fear of death was in his cowardly heart, and that we should be troubled no more by his visitations. chapter vi. idle days. i have heard it said by wise folk in france that the autumn is of all seasons of the year the most trying to the health of a soldier; since, for one accustomed to the heat of action and the fire and fury of swift encounter, the decay of summer, the moist, rotting air, and the first chill preludes of winter are hard to stand. this may be true of our own autumn days, but in the north country 'twas otherwise. for there the weather was as sharp and clear as spring, and the only signs of the season were the red leaves and the brown desolate moors. lindean was built on the slope of the hills, with the steeps behind it, and a vista of level land to the front: so one could watch from the window the red woods of the low country, and see the stream, turgid with past rains, tearing through the meadows. the sun rose in the morning in a blaze of gold and crimson; the days were temperately warm, the afternoons bright, and the evening another procession of colors. 'twas all so beautiful that i found it hard to keep my thoughts at all on the wanderers in the hills and to think of the house as under a dark shadow. and if 'twas hard to do this, 'twas still harder to look upon anne as a mourning daughter. for the first few days she had been pale and silent, going about her household duties as was her wont, speaking rarely, and then but to call me to meals. but now the pain of the departure seemed to have gone, and though still quiet as ever, there was no melancholy in her air; but with a certain cheerful gravity she passed in and out in my sight. at first i had had many plans to console her; judge then of my delight to find them needless. she was a brave maid, i thought, and little like the common, who could see the folly of sighing, and set herself to hope and work as best she could. the days passed easily enough for me, for i could take saladin and ride through the countryside, keeping always far from clachlands; or the books in the house would stand me in good stead for entertainment. with the evenings 'twas different. when the lamp was lit, and the fire burned, 'twas hard to find some method to make the hours go by. i am not a man easily moved, as i have said; and yet i took shame to myself to think of the minister and master henry in the cold bogs, and anne and myself before a great blaze. again and again i could have kicked the logs off to ease my conscience, and was only held back by respect for the girl. but, of a surety, if she had but given me the word, i would have been content to sit in the fireless room and enjoy the approval of my heart. she played no chess; indeed, i do not believe there was a board in the house; nor was there any other sport wherewith to beguile the long evenings. reading she cared little for, and but for her embroidery work i know not what she would have set her hand to. so, as she worked with her threads i tried to enliven the time with some account of my adventures in past days, and some of the old gallant tales with which i was familiar. she heard me gladly, listening as no comrade by the tavern-board ever listened; and though, for the sake of decency, i was obliged to leave out many of the more diverting, yet i flatter myself i won her interest and made the time less dreary. i ranged over all my own experience and the memory of those tales which i had heard from others--and those who know anything of me know that that is not small. i told her of exploits in the indies and spain, in germany and the low countries, and in far muscovy, and 'twas no little pleasure to see her eager eyes dance and sparkle at a jest, or grow sad at a sorrowful episode. _ma vie!_ she had wonderful eyes--the most wonderful i have ever seen. they were gray in the morning and brown at noonday; now sparkling, but for the most part fixedly grave and serene. 'twas for such eyes, i fancy, that men have done all the temerarious deeds concerning womankind which history records. it must not be supposed that our life was a lively one, or aught approaching gayety. the talking fell mostly to my lot, for she had a great habit of silence, acquired from her lonely dwelling-place. yet i moved her more than once to talk about herself. i heard of her mother, a distant cousin of master semple's father; of her death when anne was but a child of seven; and of the solitary years since, spent in study under her father's direction, in household work, or in acts of mercy to the poor. she spoke of her father often, and always in such a way that i could judge of a great affection between them. of her lover i never heard, and, now that i think the matter over, 'twas no more than fitting. once, indeed, i stumbled upon his name by chance in the course of talk, but as she blushed and started, i vowed to fight shy of it ever after. as we knew well before, no message from the hills could be sent, since the moors were watched as closely as the gateway of a prison. this added to the unpleasantness of the position of each of us. in anne's case there was the harassing doubt about the safety of her kinsfolk, that sickening anxiety which saps the courage even of strong men. also, it rendered my duties ten times harder. for, had there been any communication between the father or the lover and the maid, i should have felt less like a st. anthony in the desert. as it was, i had to fight with a terrible sense of responsibility and unlimited power for evil, and god knows how hard that is for any christian to strive with. 'twould have been no very hard thing to shut myself in a room, or bide outside all day, and never utter a word to anne save only the most necessary; but i was touched by the girl's loneliness and sorrows, and, moreover, i conceived it to be a strange way of executing a duty, to flee from it altogether. i was there to watch over her, and i swore by the holy mother to keep the very letter of my oath. and so the days dragged by till september was all but gone. i have always loved the sky and the vicissitudes of weather, and to this hour the impression of these autumn evenings is clear fixed on my mind. strangely enough for that north country, they were not cold, but mild, with a sort of acrid mildness; a late summer, with the rigors of winter underlying, like a silken glove over a steel gauntlet. one such afternoon i remember, when anne sat busy at some needlework on the low bench by the door, and i came and joined her. she had wonderful grace of body, and 'twas a pleasure to watch every movement of her arm as she stitched. i sat silently regarding the landscape, the woods streaking the bare fields, the thin outline of hills beyond, the smoke rising from clachlands' chimneys, and above all, the sun firing the great pool in the river, and flaming among clouds in the west. something of the spirit of the place seemed to have entered into the girl, for she laid aside her needlework after a while and gazed with brimming eyes on the scene. so we sat, feasting our eyes on the picture, each thinking strange thoughts, i doubt not. by and by she spoke. "is france, that you love so well, more beautiful than this, m. de rohaine?" she asked timidly. "ay, more beautiful, but not like this; no, not like this." "and what is it like? i have never seen any place other than this." "oh, how shall i tell of it?" i cried. "tis more fair than words. we have no rough hills like these, nor torrents like the lin there; but there is a great broad stream by rohaine, as smooth as a mill-pond, where you can row in the evenings, and hear the lads and lasses singing love songs. then there are great quiet meadows, where the kine browse, where the air is so still that one can sleep at a thought. there are woods, too--ah! such woods--stretching up hill, and down dale, as green as spring can make them, with long avenues where men may ride; and, perhaps, at the heart of all, some old chateau, all hung with vines and creepers, where the peaches ripen on the walls and the fountain plashes all the summer's day. bah! i can hardly bear to think on it, 'tis so dear and home-like;" and i turned away suddenly, for i felt my voice catch in my throat. "what hills are yonder?" i asked abruptly, to hide my feelings. anne looked up. "the hills beyond the little green ridge you mean?" she says. "that will be over by eskdalemuir and the top of the ettrick water. i have heard my father speak often of them, for they say that many of the godly find shelter there." "many of the godly!" i turned round sharply, though what there was in the phrase to cause wonder i cannot see. she spoke but as she had heard the men of her house speak; yet the words fell strangely on my ears, for by a curious process of thinking i had already begun to separate the girl from the rest of the folk in the place, and look on her as something nearer in sympathy to myself. faugh? that is not the way to put it. i mean that she had listened so much to my tales that i had all but come to look upon her as a countrywoman of mine. "are you dull here, anne?" i asked, for i had come to use the familiar name, and she in turn would sometimes call me jean--and very prettily it sat on her tongue. "do you never wish to go elsewhere and see the world?" "nay," she said. "i had scarce thought about the world at all. tis a place i have little to do with, and i am content to dwell here forever, if it be god's will. but i should love to see your france, that you speak of." this seemed truly a desire for gratifying which there was little chance; so i changed the subject of our converse, and asked her if she ever sang. "ay, i have learned to sing two or three songs, old ballads of the countryside, for though my father like it little, henry takes a pleasure in hearing them. i will sing you one if you wish it." and when i bade her do so, she laid down her work, which she had taken up again, and broke into a curious plaintive melody. i cannot describe it. 'twould be as easy to describe the singing of the wind in the tree-tops. it minded me, i cannot tell how, of a mountain burn, falling into pools and rippling over little shoals of gravel. now 'twas full and strong, and now 'twas so eerie and wild that it was more like a curlew's note than any human thing. the story was about a knight who sailed to norway on some king's errand and never returned, and of his lady who waited long days at home, weeping for him who should never come back to her. i did not understand it fully, for 'twas in an old patois of the country, but i could feel its beauty. when she had finished the tears stood in my eyes, and i thought of the friends i had left, whom i might see no more. but when i looked at her, to my amazement, there was no sign of feeling in her face. "'tis a song i have sung often," she said, "but i do not like it. 'tis no better than the ringing of a bell at a funeral." "then," said i, wishing to make her cheerful, "i will sing you a gay song of my own country. the folk dance to it on the sunday nights at rohaine, when blind rené plays the fiddle." so i broke into the "may song," with its lilting refrain. anne listened intently, her face full of pleasure, and at the second verse she began to beat the tune with her foot. she, poor thing, had never danced, had never felt the ecstasy of motion; but since all mankind is alike in nature, her blood stirred at the tune. so i sang her another chanson, this time an old love ballad, and then again a war song. but by this time the darkness was growing around us, so we must needs re-enter the house; and as i followed i could hear her humming the choruses with a curious delight. "so ho, mistress anne," thought i, "you are not the little country mouse that i had thought you, but as full of spirit as a caged hawk. faith, the town would make a brave lass of you, were you but there!" from this hour i may date the beginning of the better understanding--i might almost call it friendship--between the two of us. she had been bred among moorland solitudes, and her sole companions had been solemn praying folk; yet, to my wonder, i found in her a nature loving gayety and mirth, songs and bright colors--a grace which her grave deportment did but the more set off. so she came soon to look at me with a kindly face, doing little acts of kindness every now and then in some way or other, which i took to be the return which she desired to make for my clumsy efforts to please her. chapter vii. a daughter of herodias. the days at lindean dragged past, and the last traces of summer began to disappear from the face of the hills. the bent grew browner, the trees more ragged, and the torrent below more turgid and boisterous. yet no word came from the hills, and, sooth to tell, we almost ceased to look for it. 'twas not that we had forgotten the minister and master semple in their hiding, for the thought of them was often at hand to sadden me, and anne, i must suppose, had many anxious meditations; but our life at lindean was so peaceful and removed from any hint of violence that danger did not come before our minds in terrible colors. when the rain beat at night on the window, and the wind howled round the house, then our hearts would smite us for living in comfort when our friends were suffering the furious weather. but when the glorious sun-lit morning had come, and we looked over the landscape, scarce free from the magic of dawn, then we counted it no hardship to be on the hills. and rain came so seldom during that time, and the sun so often, that the rigor of the hill-life did not appal us. this may account for the way in which the exiles slipped from our memories for the greater part of the day. for myself i say nothing--'twas but natural; but from anne i must confess that i expected a greater show of sorrow. to look at her you would say that she was burdened with an old grief, so serious was her face; but when she would talk, then you might see how little her heart was taken up with the troubles of her house and the care for her father and lover. the girl to me was a puzzle, which i gave up all attempting to solve. when i had first come to lindean, lo! she was demure and full of filial affection, and tender to her lover. now, when i expected to find her sorrowful and tearful at all times, i found her quiet indeed, but instinct with a passion for beauty and pleasure and all the joys of life. yet ever and anon she would take a fit of solemnity, and muse with her chin poised on her hand; and i doubt not that at such times she was thinking of her father and her lover in their manifold perils. one day the rain came again and made the turf plashy and sodden, and set the lin roaring in his gorge. i had beguiled the morning by showing anne the steps of dancing, and she had proved herself a ready pupil. to pleasure her i danced the sword-dance, which can only be done by those who have great dexterity of motion; and i think i may say that i acquitted myself well. the girl stood by in wonderment, looking at me with a pleasing mixture of surprise and delight. she had begun to look strangely at me of late. every now and then when i lifted my head i would find her great eyes resting on me, and at my first glance she would withdraw them. they were strange eyes--a mingling of the fawn and the tiger. as i have said, in a little time she had acquired some considerable skill, and moved as gracefully as though she had learned it from her childhood, while i whistled bars of an old dancing tune. she had a little maid who attended her,--eff she called her,--and the girl stood by to watch while anne did my bidding. then when we were all wearied of the sport, i fell to thinking of some other play, and could find none. 'twas as dull as ditch-water, till the child eff, by a good chance, spoke of fishing. she could get her father's rod and hooks, she said, for he never used them now; and i might try my luck in the lin water. there were good trout there, it seemed, and the choice time of taking them was in the autumn floods. now i have ever been something of a fisherman, for many an hour have i spent by the big fish pond at rohaine. so i got the tackle of eff's father--rude enough it was in all conscience--and in the early afternoon i set out to the sport. below the house and beyond the wood the lin foams in a deep gully, falling over horrid cascades into great churning pools, or diving beneath the narrow rocks. but above the ravine there is a sudden change. the stream flows equably through a flat moor in sedgy deeps and bright shimmering streams. thither i purposed to go, for i am no lover of the awesome black caldrons, which call to a man's mind visions of drowned bodies and pits which have no ending. on the moor with the wind blowing about one 'twas a pleasure to be, but faugh! no multitude of fish was worth an hour in that dismal chasm. i had not great success, and little wonder, for my leisurely ways were ill suited for the alert mountain fish. my time was spent in meditating on many things, but most of all on the strange case in which i found myself. for in truth my position was an odd one as ever man was in. here was i bound by my word of honor to bide in the house and protect its inmates till that indefinite time when its master might return. there was no fear of money, for the minister had come of a good stock, and had more gear than is usual with one of his class. but 'twas an evil thing to look forward to--to spend my days in a lonely manse, and wait the end of a persecution which showed no signs of ending. but the mere discomfort was nothing had it not been for two delicate scruples which came to torment me. _imprimis_, 'twas more than any man of honor could do to dwell in warmth and plenty, while his entertainers were languishing for lack of food or shivering with cold in the hags and holes of the mountains. i am a man tolerably hardened by war and travel, yet i could never abide to lie in bed on a stormy night or to eat my food of a sharp morning when i thought of the old man dying, it might be, unsheltered and forlorn. _item_, there was the matter of the girl; and i cannot tell how heavy the task had come to lie on my shoulders. i had taken the trust of one whom i thought to be a staid country lass, and lo! i had found her as full of human passion as any lady of the court. 'twas like some groom who offers to break a horse, and finds it too stiff in temper. i had striven to do my duty toward her and make her life less wearisome, and i had succeeded all too well. for i marked that in the days just past she had come to regard me with eyes too kindly by half. when i caught her unawares, and saw the curious look on her face, i could have bitten my tongue out with regret, for i saw the chasm to whose brink i had led her. i will take my oath there was no thought of guile in the maid, for she was as innocent as a child; but 'tis such who are oftentimes the very devil, since their inexperience adds an edge to their folly. thinking such thoughts, i fished up the lin water till the afternoon was all but past, and the sunset began to glimmer in the bog-pools. my mind was a whirl of emotions, and no plan or order could i conceive. but--and this one thing i have often marked, that the weather curiously affected my temper--the soft evening light brought with it a calm which eased me in the conflict. 'tis hard to wrangle in spirit when the west is a flare of crimson, and later when each blue hill stands out sharp against the yellow sky. my way led through the great pine wood above the lin gorge, thence over a short spit of heath to the hill path and the ordered shrubbery of the manse. 'twas fine to see the tree stems stand out red against the gathering darkness, while their thick ever-green heads were blazing like flambeaux. a startled owl drove past, wavering among the trunks. the air was so still that the light and color seemed all but audible, and indeed the distant rumble of the falling stream seemed the interpretation to the ears of the vision which the eyes beheld. i love such sights, and 'tis rarely enough that we see them in france, for it takes a stormy upland country to show to its full the sinking of the sun. the heath with its dead heather, when i came on it, seemed alight, as happens in march, so i have heard, when the shepherds burn the mountain grass. but in the manse garden was the choicest sight, for there the fading light seemed drawn to a point and blazing on the low bushes and coarse lawns. each window in the house glowed like a jewel, but--mark the wonder--when i gazed over the country there was no view to be seen, but only a slowly creeping darkness. 'twas an eerie sight, and beautiful beyond telling. it awed me, and yet filled me with a great desire to see it to the full. so i did not enter the house, but turned my steps round by the back to gain the higher ground, for the manse was built on a slope. i loitered past the side window, and gained the place i had chosen; but i did not bide long, for soon the show was gone, and only a chill autumn dusk left behind. so i made to enter the house, when i noticed a light as of firelight dancing in the back window. now, i had never been in that room before, so what must i do in my idle curiosity but go peeping there. the room was wide and unfurnished, with a fire blazing on the hearth. but what held me amazed were the figures on the floor. anne, with her skirts kilted, stood erect and agile as if about to dance. the girl eff sat by the fireplace, humming some light measure. the ruddy light bathed the floor and walls and made all distinct as noonday. 'twas as i had guessed. in a trice her feet began to move, and soon she was in the middle of the first dance i had taught her, while _la petite_ eff sang the tune in her clear, low voice. i have seen many dancers, great ladies and country dames, village lasses and burgher wives, gypsies and wantons, but, by my honor, i never saw one dance like anne. her body moved as if by one impulse with her feet. now she would bend like a willow, and now whirl like the leaves of the wood in an autumn gale. she was dressed, as was her wont, in sober brown, but sackcloth could not have concealed the grace of her form. the firelight danced and leaped in her hair, for her face was turned from me; and 'twas fine to see the snow of her neck islanded among the waves of brown tresses. with a sudden swift dart she turned her face to the window, and had i not been well screened by the shadows, i fear i should have been observed. but such a sight as her face i never hope to see again. the solemnity was gone, and 'twas all radiant with youth and life. her eyes shone like twin stars, the even brown of her cheeks was flushed with firelight, and her throat and bosom heaved with the excitement of the dance. then she stopped exhausted, smiled on eff, who sat like a cinder-witch all the while, and smoothed the hair from her brow. "have i done it well?" she asked. "as weel as he did it himsel'," the child answered. "eh, but you twae would make a bonny pair." i turned away abruptly and crept back to the garden path, my heart sinking within me, and a feeling of guilt in my soul. i was angry at myself for eavesdropping, angry and ashamed. but a great dread came on me as i thought of the girl, this firebrand, who had been trusted to my keeping. lackaday for the peace of mind of a man who has to see to a maid who could dance in this fashion, with her father and lover in the cold hills! and always i called to mind that i had been her teacher, and that my lessons, begun as a harmless sport to pass the time, were like to breed an overmastering passion. _mon dieu!_ i was like the man in the eastern tale who had raised a spirit which he was powerless to control. and just then, as if to point my meditations, i heard the cry of a plover from the moor behind, and a plaff of the chill night-wind blew in my face. chapter viii. how i set the signal. when i set out to write this history in the english tongue, that none of my own house might read it, i did not know the hard task that lay before me. for if i were writing it in my own language, i could tell the niceties of my feelings in a way which is impossible for me in any other. and, indeed, to make my conduct intelligible, i should forthwith fall to telling each shade of motive and impulse which came to harass my mind. but i am little skilled in this work, so i must needs recount only the landmarks of my life, or i should never reach the end. i slept ill that night, and at earliest daylight was awake and dressing. the full gravity of the case was open to me now, and you may guess that my mind was no easy one. i went down to the sitting room, where the remains of the last night's supper still lay on the table. the white morning light made all things clear and obtrusive, and i remember wishing that the lamp was lit again and the shutters closed. but in a trice all meditations were cast to the winds, for i heard the door at the back of the house flung violently open and the sound of a man's feet on the kitchen floor. i knew that i was the only one awake in the house, so with much haste i passed out of the room to ascertain who the visitor might be. in the center of the back room stood a great, swart man, shaking the rain from his clothes and hair, and waiting like one about to give some message. when he saw me he took a step forward, scanned me closely, and then waited my question. "who in the devil's name are you?" i asked angrily, for i was half amazed and half startled by his sudden advent. "in the lord's name i am andrew gibb," he responded solemnly. "and what's your errand?" i asked further. "bide a wee and you'll hear. you'll be the foreigner whae stops at the manse the noo?" "go on," i said shortly. "thae twae sants, maister lambert and maister semple, 'ill ha'e made some kind o' covenant wi' you? at ony rate, hear my news and dae your best. their hidy-hole at the heid o' the stark water's been betrayed, and unless they get warning it'll be little you'll hear mair o' them. i've aye been their freend, so i cam' here to do my pairt by them." "are you one of the hill-men?" "na, na! god forbid! i'm a douce, quiet-leevin' man, and i'd see the kirk rummle aboot their lugs ere i'd stir my shanks frae my ain fireside. but i'm behauden to the minister for the life o' my bairn, whilk is ower lang a story for ye to hear; and to help him i would rin frae maidenkirk to berwick. so i've aye made it my wark to pick up ony word o' scaith that was comin' to him, and that's why i'm here the day. ye've heard my news richt, ye're shure?" "i've heard your news. will you take any food before you leave?" "na; i maun be off to be back in time for the kye." "well, good-day to you, andrew gibb," i said, and in a minute the man was gone. now, here i must tell what i omitted to tell in a former place--that when the exiles took to the hills they bade me, if i heard any word of danger to their hiding-place, to go by a certain path, which they pointed out, to a certain place, and there overturn a little cairn of stones. this was to be a signal to them for instant movement. i knew nothing of the place of their retreat, and for this reason could swear on my oath with an easy conscience; but this scrap of enlightenment i had, a scrap of momentous import for both life and death. i turned back to the parlor in a fine confusion of mind. by some means or other the task which was now before me had come to seem singularly disagreeable. the thought of my entertainers--i am ashamed to write it--was a bitter thought. i had acquired a reasonless dislike to them. what cause had they, i asked, to be crouching in hill-caves and first getting honest gentlemen into delicate and difficult positions, and then troubling them with dangerous errands. then there was the constant vision of the maid to vex me. this was the sorest point of all. for, though i blush to own it, the sight of her was not altogether unpleasing to me; nay, to put it positively, i had come almost to feel an affection for her. she was so white and red and golden, all light and gravity, with the shape of a princess, the mien of a goddess, and, for all i knew the heart of a dancing-girl. she carried with her the air of comfort and gayety, and the very thought of her made me shrink from the dark moors and ill-boding errand as from the leprosy. there is in every man a latent will, apart altogether from that which he uses in common life, which is apt at times to assert itself when he least expects it. such was my honor, for lo! i found myself compelled by an inexorable force to set about the performance of my duty. i take no credit for it, since i was only half willing, my grosser inclination being all against it. but something bade me do it, calling me poltroon, coward, traitor, if i refused; so ere i left the kitchen i had come to a fixed decision. to my wonder, at the staircase foot i met anne, dressed, but with her hair all in disorder. i stood booted and cloaked and equipped for the journey, and at the sight of me her face filled with surprise. "where away so early, john?" says she. "where away so early, mistress anne?" said i. "ah, i slept ill, and came down to get the morning air." i noted that her eyes were dull and restless, and i do believe that the poor maid had had a sorry night of it. a sharp fear at my heart told me the cause. "anne," i said sullenly, "i am going on a hard errand, and i entreat you to keep out of harm's way till i return." "and what is your errand, pray?" she asked. "nothing less than to save the lives of your father and your lover. i have had word from a secret source of a great danger which overhangs them, and by god's help i would remove it." at my word a light, half angry and half pathetic, came to her eyes. it passed like a sungleam, and in its place was left an expression of cold distaste. "then god prosper you," she said, in a formal tone, and with a whisk of her skirts she was gone. i strode out into the open with my heart the battlefield of a myriad contending passions. i reached the hill, overturned the cairn, and set out on my homeward way, hardly giving but one thought to the purport of my errand or the two fugitives whom it was my mission to save, so filled was my mind with my own trouble. the road home was long and arduous; and more, i had to creep often like an adder lest i should be spied and traced by some chance dragoon. the weather was dull and cold, and a slight snow, the first token of winter, sprinkled the moor. the heather was wet, the long rushes dripped and shivered, and in the little trenches the peat-water lay black as ink. a smell of damp hung over all things, an odor of rotten leaves and soaked earth. the heavy mist rolled in volumes close to the ground and choked me as i bent low. every little while i stumbled into a bog, and foully bedaubed my clothes. i think that i must have strayed a little from the straight path, for i took near twice as long to return as to go. a swollen stream delayed me, for i had to traverse its bank for a mile ere i could cross. in truth, i cannot put down on paper my full loathing of the place. i had hated the moors on my first day's journey, but now i hated them with a tenfold hatred. for each whiff of sodden air, each spit of chill rain brought back to my mind all the difficulty of my present state. then i had always the vision of anne sitting at home by the fire, warm, clean, and dainty, the very counter of the foul morasses in which i labored, and where the men i had striven to rescue were thought to lie hidden. my loathing was so great that i could scarce find it in my heart to travel the weary miles to the manse, every step being taken solely on the fear of remaining behind. to make it worse, there would come to vex me old airs of france, airs of childhood and my adventurous youth, fraught for me with memories of gay nights and brave friends. i own that i could have wept to think of them and find myself all the while in this inhospitable desert. 'twould be near mid-day, i think, when i came to the manse door, glad that my journey was ended. anne let me in, and in a moment all was changed. the fire crackled in the room, and the light danced on the great volumes on the shelves. the gray winter was shut out and a tranquil summer reigned within. anne, like a lent lily, so fair was she, sat sewing by the hearth. "you are returned," she said coldly. "i am returned," i said severely, for her callousness to the danger of her father was awful to witness, though in my heart of hearts i could not have wished it otherwise. as she sat there, with her white arms moving athwart her lap, and her hair tossed over her shoulders, i could have clasped her to my heart. nay, i had almost done so, had i not gripped my chair, and sat with pale face and dazed eyes till the fit had passed. i have told you ere now how my feelings toward anne had changed from interest to something not unlike a passionate love. it had been a thing of secret growth, and i scarcely knew it till i found myself in the midst of it. i tried to smother it hourly, when my better nature was in the ascendant, and hourly i was overthrown in the contest i fought against terrible odds. 'twas not hard to see from her longing eyes and timorous conduct that to her i was the greater half of the world. i had but to call to her and she would come. and yet--god knows how i stifled that cry. at length i rose and strode out into the garden to cool my burning head. the sleet was even grateful to me, and i bared my brow till hair and skin were wet with the rain. down by the rows of birch trees i walked, past the rough ground where the pot-herbs were grown, till i came to the shady green lawn. up and down it i passed, striving hard with my honor and my love, fighting that battle which all must fight some time or other in their lives and be victorious or vanquished forever. suddenly, to my wonder, i saw a face looking at me from beneath a tuft of elderberry. i drew back, looked again, and at the second glance i recognized it. 'twas the face of master henry temple of clachlands--and the hills. 'twas liker the face of a wild goat than a man. the thin features stood out so strongly that all the rest seemed to fall back from them. the long, ragged growth of hair on lip and chin, and the dirt on his cheeks, made him unlike my friend of the past. but the memorable change was in his eyes, which glowed large and lustrous, with the whites greatly extended, and all tinged with a yellow hue. fear and privation had done their work, and before me stood their finished product. "good heavens, henry! what brings you here, and how have you fared?" he stared at me without replying, which i noted as curious. "where is anne?" he asked huskily. "she is in the house, well and unscathed. shall i call her to you?" "nay, for god's sake, nay! i am no pretty sight for a young maid. you say she is well?" "ay, very well. but how is the minister?" "alas, he is all but gone. the chill has entered his bones, and even now he may be passing. the child will soon be an orphan." "and you?" "oh, i am no worse than the others on whom the lord's hand is laid. there is a ringing in my head and a pain at my heart, but i am still hale and fit to testify to the truth. oh, man, 'twill ill befa' those in the day of judgment who eat the bread of idleness and dwell in peace in thae weary times." "come into the house; or nay, i will fetch you food and clothing." "nay, bring nought for me. i would rather live in rags and sup on a crust than be habited in purple and fare sumptuously. i ask ye but one thing: let the maid walk in the garden that i may see her. and, oh, man! i thank ye for your kindness to me and mine. i pray the lord ilka night to think on ye here." i could not trust myself to speak. "i will do as you wish," i said, and without another word set off sharply for the house. i entered the sitting room wearily, and flung myself on a chair. anne sat sewing as before. she started as i entered, and i saw the color rise to her cheeks and brow. "you are pale, my dear," i said; "the day is none so bad, and 'twould do you no ill to walk round the garden to the gate. i have just been there, and, would you believe it, the grass is still wondrous green." she rose demurely and obediently as if my word were the law of her life. "pray bring me a sprig of ivy from the gate-side," i cried after her, laughing, "to show me that you have been there." i sat and kicked my heels till her return in a miserable state of impatience. i could not have refused to let the man see his own betrothed, but god only knew what desperate act he might do. he might spring out and clasp her in his arms; she, i knew, had not a shred of affection left for him; she would be cold and resentful; he would suspect, and then--what an end there might be to it all! i longed to hear the sound of her returning footsteps. she came in soon, and sat down in her wonted chair by the fire. "there's your ivy, john," said she; "'tis raw and chilly in the garden, and i love the fireside better." "'tis well," i thought, "she has not seen master semple." now i could not suffer him to depart without meeting him again, partly out of pity for the man, partly to assure my own mind that no harm would come of it. so i feigned an errand and went out. i found him, as i guessed, still in the elder-bush, a tenfold stranger sight than before. his eyes burned uncannily. his thin cheeks seemed almost transparent with the tension of the bones, and he chewed his lips unceasingly. at the sight of me he came out and stood before me, as wild a figure as i ever hope to see--clothes in tatters, hair unkempt, and skin all foul with the dirt of the moors. his back was bowed, and his knees seemed to have lost all strength, for they tottered against one another. i prayed that his sufferings might not have turned him mad. at the first word he spake i was convinced of it. "i have seen her, i have seen her!" he cried. "she is more fair than a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from lebanon. oh, i have dreamed of her by night among the hills, and seen her face close to me and tried to catch it, but 'twas gone. oh, man, john, get down on your knees, and pray to god to make you worthy to have the charge of such a treasure. had the lord not foreordained that she should be mine, i should ne'er have lifted up my eyes to her, for who am i?" "for god's sake, man," i broke in, "tell me where you are going, and be about it quick, for you may be in instant danger." "ay," says he, "you are right. i must be gone. i have seen enough. i maun away to the deserts and caves of the rocks, and it may be lang, lang ere i come back. but my love winna forget me. na, na; the lord hath appointed unto me that i shall sit at his right hand on the last, the great day, and she shall be by my side. for oh, she is the only one of her mother; she is the choice one of her that bare her; the daughters saw her and blessed her; yea, the queens and concubines, and they praised her." and with some like gibberish from the scriptures he disappeared through the bushes, and next minute i saw him running along the moor toward the hills. these were no love-sick ravings, but the wild cries of a madman, one whose reason had gone forever. i walked back slowly to the house. it seemed almost profane to think of anne, so wholesome and sane, in the same thought as this foul idiot; and yet this man had been once as whole in mind and body as myself; he had suffered in a valiant cause; and i was bound to him by the strongest of all bonds--my plighted word. i groaned inwardly as i shut the house-door behind me and entered into the arena of my struggles. chapter ix. i commune with myself. twas late afternoon when i re-entered, and ere supper was past 'twas time to retire for the night. the tension of these hours i still look back on as something altogether dreadful. anne was quiet and gentle, unconscious of what had happened, yet with the fire of passion, i knew too well, burning in her heart. i was ill, restless, and abrupt, scarce able to speak lest i should betray my thoughts and show the war that raged in my breast. i made some excuse for retiring early, bidding her goodnight with as nonchalant an air as i could muster. the door of my bedroom i locked behind me, and i was alone in the darkened room to fight out my battles with myself. i ask you if you can conceive any gentleman and man of honor in a more hazardous case. whenever i tried to think on it, a mist came over my brain, and i could get little but unmeaning fantasies. i must either go or stay. so much was clear. if i stayed--well, 'twas the devil's own work that was cut for me. there was no sign of the violence of the persecution abating. it might be many months, nay years, before the minister and master semple might return. if they came back no more, and i had sure tidings of their death, then indeed i might marry anne. but 'twas so hazardous an uncertainty that i rejected it at once. no man could dwell with one whom he loved heart and soul so long a time on such uncertain chances and yet keep his honor. had the maid been dull and passive, or had i been sluggish in blood, then there might have been hope. but we were both quick as the summer's lightning. if they came back, was not the fate of the girl more hard than words could tell? the minister in all likelihood would already have gone the way of all the earth; and she, poor lass, would be left to the care of a madman for whom she had no spark of liking. i pictured her melancholy future. her pure body subject to the embraces of a loathsome fanatic, her delicate love of the joys of life all subdued to his harsh creed. oh, god! i swore that i could not endure it. her face, so rounded and lovely, would grow pinched and white, her eyes would lose all their luster, her hair would not cluster lovingly about her neck, her lithe grace would be gone, her footsteps would be heavy and sad. he would rave his unmeaning gibberish in her ears, would ill-treat her, it might be; in any case would be a perpetual sorrow to her heart. "oh, anne," i cried, "though i be damned for it, i will save you from this!" if i left the place at once and forever, then indeed my honor would be kept, but yet not all; for my plighted word--where would it be? i had sworn that come what may i should stand by the maid and protect her against what evil might come to the house. now i was thinking of fleeing from my post like a coward, and all because the girl's eyes were too bright for my weak resolution. when her lover returned, if he ever came, what story would she have to tell? this, without a doubt: "the man whom you left has gone, fled like a thief in the night, for what reason i know not." for though i knew well that she would divine the real cause of my action, i could not suppose that she would tell it, for thereby she would cast grave suspicion upon herself. so there would i be, a perjured traitor, a false friend in the eyes of those who had trusted me. but more, the times were violent, clachlands and its soldiery were not far off, and once they learned that the girl was unprotected no man knew what evil might follow. you may imagine how bitter this thought was to me, the thought of leaving my love in the midst of terrible dangers. nay, more; a selfish consideration weighed not a little with me. the winter had all but come; the storms of this black land i dreaded like one born and bred in the south; i knew nothing of my future course; i was poor, bare, and friendless. the manse was a haven of shelter. without it i should be even as the two exiles in the hills. the cold was hard to endure; i dearly loved warmth and comfort; the moors were as fearful to me as the deserts of muscovy. one course remained. anne had money; this much i knew. she loved me, and would obey my will in all things; of this i was certain. what hindered me to take her to france, the land of mirth and all pleasant things, and leave the north and its wild folk behind forever? with money we could travel expeditiously. once in my own land perchance i might find some way to repair my fortunes, for a fair wife is a wonderous incentive. there beneath soft skies, in the mellow sunshine, among a cheerful people, she would find the life which she loved best. what deterred me? nothing but a meaningless vow and some antiquated scruples. but i would be really keeping my word, i reasoned casuistically with myself, for i had sworn to take care of anne, and what way so good as to take her to my own land where she would be far from the reach of fanatic or dragoon? and this was my serious thought, _comprenez bien_! i set it down as a sign of the state to which i had come, that i was convinced by my own quibbling. i pictured to myself what i should do. i would find her at breakfast in the morning. "anne," i would say, "i love you dearly; may i think that you love me likewise?" i could fancy her eager, passionate reply, and then----i almost felt the breath of her kisses on my cheek and the touch of her soft arms on my neck. some impulse led me to open the casement and look forth into the windy, inscrutable night. a thin rain distilled on the earth, and the coolness was refreshing to my hot face. the garden was black, and the bushes were marked by an increased depth of darkness. but on the grass to the left i saw a long shaft of light, the reflection from some lit window of the house. i passed rapidly in thought over the various rooms there, and with a start came to an end. without a doubt 'twas anne's sleeping room. what did the lass with a light, for 'twas near midnight? i did not hesitate about the cause, and 'twas one which inflamed my love an hundredfold. she was sleepless, love-sick maybe (such is the vanity of man). maybe even now my name was the one on her lips, and my image the foremost in her mind. my finger-tips tingled, as the blood surged into them; and i am not ashamed to say that my eyes were not tearless. could i ever leave my love for some tawdry honor? _mille tonneres!_ the thing was not to be dreamed of. i blamed myself for having once admitted the thought. my decision was taken, and, as was always my way, i felt somewhat easier. i was weary, so i cast myself down upon the bed without undressing, and fell into a profound sleep. how long i slept i cannot tell, but in that brief period of unconsciousness i seemed to be living ages. i saw my past life all inverted as 'twere; for my first sight was the horror of the moors, quentin kennedy, and the quarrel and the black desolation which i had undergone. i went through it all again, vividly, acutely. then it passed, and i had my manhood in france before my eyes. and curiously enough, 'twas not alone, but confused with my childhood and youth. i was an experienced man of the world, versed in warfare and love, taverns and brawls, and yet not one whit jaded, but fresh and hopeful and boylike. 'twas a very pleasing feeling. i was master of myself. i had all my self-respect. i was a man of unblemished honor, undoubted valor. then by an odd trick of memory all kinds of associations became linked with it. the old sights and sounds of rohaine: cocks crowing in the morning; the smell of hay and almond-blossom, roses and summer lilies; the sight of green leaves, of the fish leaping in the river; the plash of the boat's oars among the water-weeds--all the sensations of childhood came back with extraordinary clarity. i heard my mother's grave, tender speech bidding us children back from play, or soothing one when he hurt himself. i could almost believe that my father's strong voice was ringing in my ear, when he would tell stories of the chase and battle, or sing ballads of long ago, or bid us go to the devil if we pleased, but go like gentlemen. 'twas a piece of sound philosophy, and often had it been before me in paris, when i shrank from nothing save where my honor as a gentleman was threatened. in that dream the old saying came on me with curious force. i felt it to be a fine motto for life, and i was exulting in my heart that 'twas mine, and that i had never stained the fair fame of my house. suddenly, with a start i seemed to wake to the consciousness that 'twas mine no more. still dreaming, i was aware that i had deceived a lover, and stolen his mistress and made her my bride. i have never felt such acute anguish as i did in that sleep when the thought came upon me. i felt nothing more of pride. all things had left me. my self-respect was gone like a ragged cloak. all the old, dear life was shut out from me by a huge barrier. comfortable, rich, loving, and beloved, i was yet in the very jaws of hell. i felt myself biting out my tongue in my despair. my brain was on fire with sheer and awful regret. i cursed the day when i had been tempted and fallen. and then, even while i dreamed, another sight came to my eyes--the face of a lady, young, noble, with eyes like the blessed mother. in my youth i had laid my life at the feet of a girl, and i was in hopes of making her my wife. but cecilia was too fair for this earth, and i scarcely dared to look upon her she seemed so saint-like. when she died in the forest of arnay, killed by a fall from her horse, 'twas i who carried her to her home, and since that day her face was never far distant from my memory. i cherished the image as my dearest possession, and oftentimes when i would have embarked upon some madness i refrained, fearing the reproof of those grave eyes. but now this was all gone. my earthy passion had driven out my old love; all memories were rapt from me save that of the sordid present. the very violence of my feeling awoke me, and i found myself sitting up in bed with a mouthful of blood. sure enough, i had gnawed my tongue till a red froth was over my lips. my heart was beating like a windmill in a high gale, and a deadly sickness of mind oppressed me. 'twas some minutes before i could think; and then--oh, joy! the relief! i had not yet taken the step irremediable. the revulsion, the sudden ecstasy drove in a trice my former resolution into thinnest air. i looked out of the window. 'twas dawn, misty and wet. thank god, i was still in the land of the living, still free to make my life. the tangible room, half lit by morning, gave me a promise of reality after the pageant of the dream. my path was clear before me, clear and straight as an arrow; and yet even now i felt a dread of my passion overcoming my resolve, and was in a great haste to have done with it all. my scruples about my course were all gone. i would be breaking my oath, 'twas true, in leaving the maid, but keeping it in the better way. the thought of the dangers to which she would be exposed stabbed me like a dart. it had almost overcome me. "but honor is more than life or love," i said, as i set my teeth with stern purpose. yet, though all my soul was steeled into resolution, there was no ray of hope in my heart--nothing but a dead, bleak outlook, a land of moors and rain, an empty purse and an aimless journey. i had come to the house a beggar scarce two months before. i must now go as i had come, not free and careless as then, but bursting shackles of triple brass. my old ragged garments, which i had discarded on the day after my arrival, lay on a chair, neatly folded by anne's deft hand. it behooved me to take no more away than that which i had brought, so i must needs clothe myself in these poor remnants of finery, thin and mud-stained, and filled with many rents. chapter x. of my departure. i passed through the kitchen out to the stable, marking as i went that the breakfast was ready laid in the sitting room. there i saddled saladin, grown sleek by fat living, and rolling his great eyes at me wonderingly. i tested the joinings, buckled the girth tight, and led him round to the front of the house, where i tethered him to a tree and entered the door. a savory smell of hot meats came from the room and a bright wood fire drove away the grayness of the morning. anne stood by the table, slicing a loaf and looking ever and anon to the entrance. her face was pale as if with sleeplessness and weeping. her hair was not so daintily arranged as was her wont. it seemed almost as if she had augured the future. a strange catch--coming as such songs do from nowhere and meaning nothing--ran constantly in my head. 'twas one of philippe desportes', that very song which the duke de guise sang just before his death. so, as i entered, i found myself humming half unwittingly: "nous verrons, bergère rosette, qui premier s'en repentira." anne looked up as if startled at my coming, and when she saw my dress glanced fearfully at my face. it must have told her some tale, for a red flush mounted to her brow and abode there. i picked up a loaf from the table. 'twas my one sacrifice to the gods of hospitality. 'twould serve, i thought, for the first stage in my journey. anne looked up at me with a kind of confused wonder. she laughed, but there was little mirth in her laughter. "why, what would you do with the loaf?" said she. "do you seek to visit the widows and fatherless in their affliction?" "nay," said i gravely. "i would but keep myself unspotted from the world." all merriment died out of her face. "and what would you do?" she stammered. "the time has come for me to leave, mistress anne. my horse is saddled at the door. i have been here long enough; ay, and too long. i thank you with all my heart for your kindness, and i would seek to repay it by ridding you of my company." i fear i spoke harshly, but 'twas to hide my emotion, which bade fair to overpower me and ruin all. "oh, and why will you go?" she cried. "farewell, anne," i said, looking at her fixedly, and i saw that she divined the reason. i turned on my heel, and went out from the room. "oh, my love," she cried passionately, "stay with me; stay, oh, stay!" her voice rang in my ear with honeyed sweetness, like that of the sirens to ulysses of old. "stay!" she cried, as i flung open the house-door. i turned me round for one last look at her whom i loved better than life. she stood at the entrance to the room, with her arms outstretched and her white bosom heaving. her eyes were filled with an utterable longing, which a man may see but once in his life--and well for him if he never sees it. her lips were parted as if to call me back once more. but no word came; her presence was more powerful than any cry. i turned to the weather. a gray sky, a driving mist, and a chill piercing blast. the contrast was almost more than my resolution. an irresistible impulse seized me to fly to her arms, to enter the bright room again with her, and sell myself, body and soul, to the lady of my heart. my foot trembled to the step backward, my arms all but felt her weight, when that blind fate which orders the ways of men intervened. against my inclination and desire, bitterly, unwilling, i strode to my horse and flung myself on his back. i dared not look behind, but struck spurs into saladin and rode out among the trees. a fierce north wind met me in the teeth, and piercing through my tatters, sent a shiver to my very heart. i cannot recall my thoughts during that ride: i seem not to have thought at all. all i know is that in about an hour there came into my mind, as from a voice, the words: "recreant! fool!" and i turned back. the end. _twenty-first edition._ (_buckram series_.) c. =the prisoner of zenda.= by anthony hope. "a glorious story, which cannot be too warmly recommended to all who love a tale that stirs the blood. perhaps not the least among its many good qualities is the fact that its chivalry is of the nineteenth, not of the sixteenth century; that it is a tale of brave men and true, and of a fair woman of to-day. the englishman who saves the king ... is as interesting a knight as was bayard.... the story holds the reader's attention from first to last."--_critic._ _fifth edition._ _mo_. _scarlet cloth._ $ . . =the honorable peter stirling= by paul leicester ford. "mr. ford is discreet and natural ... a very good novel."--_nation._ "one of the strongest and most vital characters that have appeared in our fiction."--_dial._ "commands our very sincere respect ... there is no glaring improbability about his story ... the highly dramatic crisis of the story.... the tone and manner of the book are noble.... a timely, manly, thoroughbred, and eminently suggestive book."--_atlantic monthly._ "a fine, tender love story."--_literary world._ "the book is sure to excite attention and win popularity."--_boston advertiser._ =henry holt & co., new york.= in the buckram series. mo, with frontispieces by w. b. russell. cents each. =kafir stories. by william charles scully.= "he writes of south africa with the sure knowledge, the sympathy, and almost with the vigor that mr. kipling bestows upon his hindu stories.... his strongly picturesque and eventful tale of adventure and warfare ... there is no false sentiment ... the narrative of their long march, their triumphs, their betrayal and finally their brave death is thrilling."--_n. y. times._ "an extraordinary piece of work.... south africa may be said to have her kipling in him."--_miss gilder in n. y. world._ "there is a fascination about them ... unlike any of the hundreds of volumes of short stories that have been given us during the past few years."--_boston times._ =the master-knot and "another story." by conover duff.= two tales told in letters. the first shows how "the master-knot of human fate" strangely linked two lovers in a long island house party with a quarry riot in ohio. the second is full of breezy humor and describes new york life, uptown, in the park, and at the opera. "happily imagined and neatly worked out ... a high order of work."--_new york times._ "whoever has written these stories has a delicate touch and a keen insight ... very cleverly told indeed, and the uncertainty is kept up to the last moment ... happy in its strength and delicacy. altogether a precious little book, dealing with worldly people, who can be unconventional and loyal and consistently american."--_philadelphia ledger._ =henry holt & co.,= = west d street, new york.=