Ringan Gilhaize, or, The Covenanters

by John Galt

  CHAPTER XLIV

  Some time before the news of King Charles' execution reached us in theWest, the day had been set for my marriage with Sarah Lochrig; but thefear and consternation which the tidings bred in all minds, manydreading that the event would be followed by a total breaking up of theunion and frame of society, made us consent to defer our happiness tillwe saw what was ordained to come to pass.

  When, however, it was seen and felt that the dreadful beheading of ananointed monarch as a malefactor, had scarcely more effect upon thetides of the time than the death of a sparrow,--and that men were calledas usual to their daily tasks and toils,--and that all things movedonward in their accustomed courses,--and that laws and jurisdictions,and all the wonted pacts and processes of community between man and man,suffered neither molestation nor hindrance, godly Mr Swinton bestowedhis blessing on our marriage, and our friends their joyous countenanceat the wedding feast.

  My lot was then full of felicity, and I had no wish to wander beyond thegreen valley where we established our peaceful dwelling. It was in alown holm of the Garnock, on the lands of Quharist, a portion of whichmy father gave me in tack; and Sarah's father likewise bestowed on usseven rigs, and a cow's grass of his own mailing, for her tocher, asthe beginning of a plenishment to our young fortunes. Still, like allthe neighbours, I was deeply concerned about what was going on in thefar-off world of conflicts and negotiations; and this was not out of anidle thirst of curiosity, but from an interest mingled with sorrows andaffections; for, after the campaign in England, my three brothers,Michael, William and Alexander, never domiciled themselves at any civilcalling. Having caught the roving spirit of camps, they remained in theskirts of the array which the covenanted Lords at Edinburgh continued tomaintain; and here, poor lads! I may digress a little, to record thebrief memorials of their several unhappy fates.

  When King Charles the Second, after accepting and being sworn to abideby the Covenant, was brought home, and the crown of his ancientprogenitors placed upon his head at Scoone, by the hands of the Marquisof Argyle, in the presence of the great and the godly Covenanters, mybrothers went in the army that he took with him into England. Michaelwas slain at the battle of Worcester, by the side of Sir John Shaw ofGreenock, who carried that day the royal banner. Alexander was woundedin the same fight, and left upon the field, where he was found nextmorning by the charitable inhabitants of the city, and carried to thehouse of a loyal gentlewoman, one Mrs Deerhurst, that treated him withmuch tenderness; but after languishing in agony, as she herself wrote tomy father, he departed this life on the third day.

  Of William I have sometimes wished that I had never heard more; forafter the adversity of that day, it would seem he forgot the Covenantand his father's house. Ritchie Minigaff, an old servant of the LordEglinton's, when the Earl his master was Cromwell's prisoner in theTower of London, saw him there among the guard, and some years after theRestoration he met him again among the King's yeomen at Westminster,about the time of the beginning of the persecution. But Willy thenbegged Ritchie, with the tear in his eye, no to tell his father; nor wasever the old man's heart pierced with the anguish which the thought ofsuch backsliding would have caused, though he often wondered to us athome, with the anxiety of a parent's wonder, what could have become ofblithe light-hearted Willy. No doubt he died in the servitude of thefaithless tyrant; but the storm that fell among us, soon after Ritchiehad told me of his unfortunate condition, left us neither time noropportunity to inquire about any distant friend. But to return to my ownstory.

  From my marriage till the persecution began, I took no part in theagitations of the times. It is true, after the discovery of CharlesStuart's perfidious policy, so like his father's, in corresponding withthe Marquis of Montrose for the subjection of Scotland by the tyranny ofthe sword, at the very time he was covenanting with the commissionerssent from the Lords at Edinburgh with the offer of the throne of hisancestors, that with my father and my brother Robin, together with manyof our neighbours, I did sign the Remonstrance against making a princeof such a treacherous and unprincipled nature king. But in that we onlydelivered reasons and opinions on a matter of temporal expediency; forit was an instrument that neither contained nor implied obligation toarm; indeed our deportment bore testimony to this explanation of thespirit in which it was conceived and understood. For when the prince hadreceived the crown and accepted the Covenant, we submitted ourselves asgood subjects. Fearing God, we were content to honour in all rights andprerogatives, not contrary to Scripture, him whom, by His grace in themysteries of His wisdom, He had, for our manifold sins as a nation and apeople, been pleased to ordain and set over us for king. And verily nobetter test of our sincerity could be, than the distrust with which ourwhole country-side was respected by Oliver Cromwell, when he thought itnecessary to build that stronghold at Ayr, by which his Englishers wereenabled to hold the men of Carrick, Kyle and Cunningham in awe,--a racethat, from the days of Sir William Wallace and King Robert the Bruce,have ever been found honest in principle, brave in affection, anddauntless and doure in battle. But it is not necessary to say more onthis head; for full of griefs and grudges as were the hearts of all trueScots, with the thought of their country in southern thraldom, whileCromwell's Englishers held the upper hand amongst us, the season oftheir dominion was to me and my house as a lown and pleasant spring. Allaround me was bud, and blossom, and juvenility, and gladness, and hope.My lot was as the lot of the blessed man. I ate of the labour of myhands, I was happy, and it was well with me; my wife, as the fruitfulvine that spreads its clusters on the wall, made my lowly dwelling morebeautiful to the eye of the heart than the golden palaces of crownedkings, and our pretty bairns were like olive plants round about mytable;--but they are all gone. The flood and the flame have passed overthem;--yet be still, my heart; a little while endure in silence; for Ihave not taken up the avenging pen of history, and dipped it in theblood of martyrs, to record only my own particular woes and wrongs.