Ringan Gilhaize, or, The Covenanters

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Ringan Gilhaize, or, The Covenanters Page 37

by John Galt


  CHAPTER XXXVI

  The burial of Marion Ruet was decently attended by Bailie Kilspinnie andall his family; and though he did not carry the head himself, he yetordered their eldest son to do so, because, whatever her faults hadbeen, she was still the youth's mother. And my grandfather, with hiswife, having spent some time after with their friends at Crail, returnedhomeward by themselves, passing over to Edinburgh, that they might tasteonce more of the elixir of salvation as dispensed by John Knox, who hadbeen for some time in a complaining way, and it was by many thought thatthe end of his preaching was drawing nigh.

  It happened that the dreadful tidings of the murder of the protestantsin France, by the command of "the accursed king," reached Edinburgh inthe night before my grandfather and wife returned thither; and he usedto speak of the consternation that they found reigning in the city whenthey arrived there, as a thing very awful to think of. Every shop wasshut, and every window closed; for it was the usage in those days, whendeath was in a house, to close all the windows, so that the appearanceof the town was as if, for the obduracy of their idolatrous sovereign,the destroying angel had slain all the first-born, and that a dead bodywas then lying in every family.

  There was also a terrifying solemnity in the streets; for, though theywere as if all the people had come forth in panic and sad wonderment,many were clothed in black, and there was a funereal stillness--a dismalsense of calamity that hushed the voices of men, and friends meeting oneanother, lifted their hands, and shuddering, passed by without speaking.My grandfather saw but one, between Leith Wynd and the door of the housein the Lawnmarket, where he proposed to lodge, that wore a smile, and itwas not of pleasure, but of avarice counting its gains.

  The man was one Hans Berghen, an armourer that had feathered his nest inthe raids of the war with the Queen Regent. He was a Norman by birth,and had learnt the tempering of steel in Germany. In his youth he hadbeen in the Imperator's service, and had likewise worked in the arsenalof Venetia. Some said he was perfected in his trade by the infidel atConstantinopolis; but, however this might be, no man of that time wasmore famous among roisters and moss-troopers, for the edge and metal ofhis weapons, than that same blasphemous incomer, who thought of nothingbut the greed of gain, whether by dule to protestant or papist; so thatthe sight of his hard-favoured visage, blithened with satisfaction, wasto my grandfather, who knew him well by repute, as an omen of portentousaspect.

  For two days the city continued in that dismal state, and on the third,which was Sabbath, the churches were so filled that my grandmother,being then in a tender condition, did not venture to enter the HighKirk, where the Reformer was waited for by many thirsty and languishingsouls from an early hour in the morning, who desired to hear what hewould say concerning the dark deeds that had been done in France. Shetherefore returned to the Lawnmarket; but my grandfather worked his wayinto the heart of the crowd, where he had not long been when a murmurannounced that Master Knox was coming, and soon after he entered thekirk.

  He had now the appearance of great age and weakness, and he walked withslow and tottering steps, wearing a virl of fur round his neck, and astaff in one hand; godlie Richie Ballanden, his man, holding him up bythe oxter. And when he came to the foot of the pulpit, Richie, by thehelp of another servant that followed with the Book, lifted him up thesteps into it, where he was seemingly so exhausted that he wasobligated to rest for the space of several minutes. No man who had neverseen him before could have thought that one so frail would have hadability to have given out even the psalm; but when he began the spiritdescended upon him, and he was so kindled that at last his voice becameas awful as the thunders of wrath, and his arm was strengthened as withthe strength of a champion's. The kirk dirled to the foundations; thehearts of his hearers shook, till the earth of their sins was shakenclean from them; and he appeared in the wirlwind of inspiration, as ifhis spirit was mounting, like the prophet Elijah, in a fiery chariotimmediately to the gates of heaven.

  His discourse was of the children of Bethlehem slain by Herod, and hespoke of the dreadful sound of a bell and a trumpet heard suddenly inthe midnight hour, when all were fast bound and lying defenceless in thefetters of sleep. He described the dreadful knocking at the doors--thebursting in of men with drawn swords--how babies were harled by the armsfrom their mothers' beds and bosoms, and dashed to death upon the marblefloors. He told of parents that stood in the porches of their houses andmade themselves the doors that the slayers were obliged to hew in piecesbefore they could enter in. He pictured the women flying along thestreet, in the nakedness of the bedchamber, with their infants in theirarms, and how the ruffians of the accursed king, knowing their prey bytheir cries, ran after them, caught the mother by the hair and the bairnby the throat, and, in one act, flung the innocent to the stones andtrampled out its life. Then he paused, and said, in a soft and thankfulvoice, that in the horrors of Bethlehem there was still much mercy; forthe idolatrous dread of Herod prompted him to slay but young children,whose blameless lives were to their weeping parents an assurance oftheir acceptance into heaven.

  "What then," he cried, "are we to think of that night, and of that king,and of that people, among whom, by whom, and with whom, the commissionedmurderer twisted his grip in the fugitive old man's grey hairs, to drawback his head that the knife might the surer reach his heart? With whateyes, being already blinded with weeping, shall we turn to that citywhere the withered hands of the grandmother were deemed as weapons ofwar by the strong and black-a-vised slaughterer, whose sword was owrevehemently used for a' the feckless remnant of life it had to cut! Butdeaths like these were brief and blessed compared to otherthings--which, Heaven be praised, I have not the power to describe, andwhich, among this protestant congregation, I trust there is not one ableto imagine, or who, trying to conceive, descries but in the dark andmisty vision the pains of mangled mothers; babes, untimely andunquickened, cast on the dung-hills and into the troughs of swine; ofblack-iron hooks fastened into the mouths, and driven through the cheeksof brave men, whose arms are tied with cords behind, as they are draggedinto the rivers to drown, by those who durst not in fair battle endurethe lightning of their eyes. O, Herod!--Herod of Judea--thy name ishereafter bright, for in thy bloody business thou wast thyself nowhereto be seen. In the vouts and abysses of thy unstained palace, thou hidstthyself from the eye of history, and perhaps humanely sat covering thineears with thy hands to shut out the sound of the wail and woe aroundthee. But this Herod--let me not call him by so humane a name. No: letall the trumpets of justice sound his own to everlasting infamy--Charlesthe Ninth of France! And let his ambassador that is here aye yet, yet tothis time audaciously in this Christian land, let him tell his masterthat sentence has been pronounced against him in Scotland; that theDivine vengeance will never depart from him or his house untilrepentance has ensued, and atonement been made in their own race; thathis name will remain a blot--a blot of blood, a stain never to beeffaced--a thing to be pronounced with a curse by all posterity; andthat none proceeding from his loins shall ever enjoy his kingdom inpeace."

  The preacher, on saying these prophetic words, paused, and, with hiseyes fixed upwards, he stood some time silent, and then, clasping hishands together, exclaimed with fear and trembling upon him, "Lord, Lord,thy will be done?"

  Many thought that he had then received some great apocalypse; for it wasobserved of all men that he was never after like the man he had oncebeen, but highly and holily elevated above earthly cares andconsiderations, saving those only of his ministry, and which hehastened to close. He was as one that no longer had trust, portion, orinterest in this temporal world, which in less than two months after hebade farewell, and was translated to a better. Yes, to a better; forassuredly, if there is aught in this life that may be regarded as thesymbols of infeftment to the inheritance of Heaven, the labours andministration of John Knox were testimonies that he had verily receivedthe yird and stane of an heritage on High.

 

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