Waverley; Or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since

by Walter Scott

  CHAPTER XXXVI

  AN INCIDENT

  The dinner-hour of Scotland Sixty Years since was two o'clock. It wastherefore about four o'clock of a delightful autumn afternoon that Mr.Gilfillan commenced his march, in hopes, although Stirling was eighteenmiles distant, he might be able, by becoming a borrower of the nightfor an hour or two, to reach it that evening. He therefore put forth hisstrength, and marched stoutly along at the head of his followers, eyeingour hero from time to time, as if he longed to enter into controversywith him. At length unable to resist the temptation, he slackened hispace till he was alongside of his prisoner's horse, and after marching afew steps in silence abreast of him, he suddenly asked,--'Can ye say whathe carle was wi' the black coat; and the mousted head, that was wi' theLaird of Cairnvreckan?'

  'A Presbyterian clergyman,' answered Waverley.

  'Presbyterian!' answered Gilfillan contemptuously: 'a wretched Erastian,or rather an obscured Prelatist,--a favourer of the black Indulgence;ane of thae dumb dogs that canna bark: they tell ower a clash o' terrorand a clatter o' comfort in their sermons, without ony sense, or savour,or life.--Ye've been fed in siccan a fauld, belike?'

  'No; I am of the Church of England,' said Waverley.

  And they're just neighbour-like,' replied the Covenanter; 'and naewonder they gree sae weel. Wha wad hae thought the goodly structureof the Kirk of Scotland, built up by our fathers in 1642, wad hae beendefaced by carnal ends and, the corruptions of the time;--aye, wha wadhae thought the carved work of the sanctuary would hae been sae soon cutdown!'

  To this lamentation, which one or two of the assistants chorussed with adeep groan, our hero thought it unnecessary to make any reply. WhereuponMr. Gilfillan, resolving that he should be a hearer at least, if not adisputant, proceeded in his Jeremiad.

  'And now is it wonderful, when, for lack of exercise anent the call tothe service of the altar and the duty of the day, ministers fall intosinful compliances with patronage, and indemnities, and oaths, andbonds, and, other corruptions,--is it wonderful, I say, that you, sir,and other sic-like unhappy persons, should labour to build up your auldBabel of iniquity, as in the bluidy persecuting saint-killing times? Itrow, gin ya werena blinded wi' the graces and favours, and services andenjoyments, and employments and inheritances, of this wicked world, Icould prove to you, by the Scripture, in what a filthy rag ye put yourtrust; and that your surplices, and your copes and vestments, are butcast-off-garments of the muckle harlot, that sitteth upon seven hills,and drinketh of the cup of abomination. But, I trow, ye are deafas adders upon that side of the head; aye, ye are deceived with herenchantments, and ye traffic with her merchandise, and ye are drunk withthe cup of her fornication!'

  How much longer this military theologist might have continued hisinvective, in which he spared nobody but the scattered remnant ofHILL-FOLK, as he called them, is absolutely uncertain. His matter wascopious, his voice powerful, and his memory strong; so that there waslittle chance of his ending his exhortation till the party had reachedStirling, had not his attention been attracted by a pedlar who hadjoined the march from a cross-road, and who sighed or groaned with greatregularity at all fitting pauses of his homily.

  'And what may ya be, friend?' said the Gifted Gilfillan.

  'A puir pedler, that's bound for Stirling, and craves the protection ofyour honour's party in these kittle times. Ah! your honour has a notablefaculty in searching and explaining the secret,--aye, the secret andobscure and incomprehensible causes of the backslidings of the land;aye, your honour touches the root o' the matter.'

  'Friend,' said Gilfillan, with a more complacent voice than he hadhitherto used, 'honour not me. I do not go out to park-dikes, and tosteadings, and to market-towns, to have herds and cottars andburghers pull off their bonnets to me as they do to Major Melville o'Cairnvreckan, and ca' me laird, or captain, or honour;--no; my sma'means, whilk are not aboon twenty thousand merk, have had the blessingof increase, but the pride of heart has not increased with them; nor doI delight to be called captain, though I have the subscribed commissionof that gospel-searching nobleman, the Earl of Glencairn, in whilk I amso designated. While I live, I am and will be called Habakkuk Gilfillan,who will stand up for the standards of doctrine agreed on by theance-famous Kirk of Scotland, before she trafficked with the accursedAchan, while he has a plack in his purse, or a drap o' bluid in hisbody.'

  'Ah,' said the pedlar, 'I have seen your land about Mauchlin--a fertilespot! your lines have fallen in pleasant places!--And siccan a breed o'cattle is not in ony laird's land in Scotland.'

  'Ye say right,--ye say right, friend,' retorted Gilfillan eagerly, forhe was not inaccessible to flattery upon this subject,--'ye say right;they are the real Lancashire, and there's no the like o' them even atthe Mains of Kilmaurs;' and he then entered into a discussion of theirexcellences, to which our readers will probably be as indifferent asour hero. After this excursion, the leader returned to his theologicaldiscussions, while the pedlar, less profound upon those mystic points,contented himself with groaning, and expressing his edification atsuitable intervals.

  'What a blessing it would be to the puir blinded popish nations amongwhom I hae sojourned, to have siccan a light to their paths! I hae beenas far as Muscovia in my sma' trading way, as a travelling merchant;and I hae been through France, and the Low Countries, and a' Poland, andmaist feck o' Germany; and oh! it would grieve your honour's soul to seethe murmuring, and the singing, and massing, that's in the kirk, and thepiping that's in the quire, and the heathenish dancing and dicing uponthe Sabbath!'

  This set Gilfillan off upon the Book of Sports and the Covenant, andthe Engagers, and the Protesters, and the Whiggamore's Raid, andthe Assembly of Divines at Westminster, and the Longer and ShorterCatechism, and the Excommunication at Torwood, and the slaughter ofArchbishop Sharp. This last topic, again, led him into the lawfulness ofdefensive arms, on which subject he uttered much more sense than couldhave been expected from some other parts of his harangue, and attractedeven Waverley's attention, who had hitherto been lost in his own sadreflections. Mr. Gilfillan then considered the lawfulness of a privateman's standing forth as the avenger of public oppression, and as he waslabouring with great earnestness the cause of Mas James Mitchell, whofired at the Archbishop of St. Andrews some years before the prelate'sassassination on Magus Muir, an incident occurred which interrupted hisharangue.

  The rays of the sun were lingering on the very verge of the horizon, asthe party ascended a hollow and somewhat steep path, which led to thesummit of a rising ground. The country was unenclosed, being part of avery extensive heath or common; but it was far from level, exhibitingin many places hollows filled with furze and broom; in others littledingles of stunted brushwood. A thicket of the latter descriptioncrowned the hill up which the party ascended. The foremost of the band,being the stoutest and most active, had pushed on, and having surmountedthe ascent, were out of ken for the present. Gilfillan, with the pedlar,and the small party who were Waverley's more immediate guard, werenear the top of the ascent, and the remainder straggled after them at aconsiderable interval.

  Such was the situation of matters, when the pedlar, missing, as he said,a little doggie which belonged to him, began to halt and whistle for theanimal. This signal, repeated more than once, gave offence to the rigourof his companion, the rather because it appeared to indicate inattentionto the treasures of theological and controversial knowledge which waspouring out for his edification. He therefore signified gruffly, that hecould not waste his time in waiting for a useless cur.

  'But if your honour wad consider the case of Tobit'--

  'Tobit!' exclaimed Gilfillan, with great heat; 'Tobit and his dog baithare altogether heathenish and apocryphal, and none but a prelatist ora papist would draw them into question. I doubt I hae been mista'en inyou, friend.'

  'Very likely,' answered the pedlar, with great composure; 'butne'ertheless, I shall take leave to whistle again upon puir Bawty,'

  This last signal was answered in an un
expected manner; for six or eightstout Highlanders, who lurked among the copse and brushwood, spranginto the hollow way, and began to lay about them with their claymores.Gilfillan, un-appalled at this undesirable apparition, cried outmanfully, 'The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!' and, drawing hisbroadsword, would probably have done as much credit to the good oldcause as any of its doughty champions at Drumclog, when, behold! thepedlar, snatching a musket from the person who was next him, bestowedthe butt of it with such emphasis on the head of his late instructor inthe Cameronian creed, that he was forthwith levelled to the ground. Inthe confusion which ensued, the horse which bore our hero was shotby one of Gilfillan's party, as he discharged his firelock at random.Waverley fell with, and indeed under, the animal, and sustained somesevere contusions. But he was almost instantly extricated from thefallen steed by two Highlanders, who, each seizing him by the arm,hurried him away from the scuffle and from the high-road. They ran withgreat speed, half supporting and half dragging our hero, who could,however, distinguish a few dropping shots fired about the spat whichhe had left. This, as he afterwards learned, proceeded from Gilfillan'sparty, who had now assembled, the stragglers in front and rear havingjoined the others. At their approach the Highlanders drew off, but notbefore they had rifled Gilfillan and two of his people, who remained onthe spot grievously wounded. A few shots were exchanged betwixt themand the Westlanders; but the latter, now without a commander, andapprehensive of a second ambush, did not make any serious effort torecover their prisoner, judging it more wise to proceed on their journeyto Stirling, carrying with them their wounded captain and comrades.