Ringan Gilhaize, or, The Covenanters Part 4

On escaping the gate they fell in with divers persons going along the road, who, by their discourse, were returning home to Cupar, and they walked leisurely with them till they came to a cross-road, where my grandfather, giving Master Kilspinnie a nodge, turned down the one that went to the left, followed by him, and it happened to be the road to Dysart and Crail.

"This will ne'er do," said Master Kilspinnie, "they will pursue us this gait."

Upon hearing this reasonable apprehension, my grandfather stopped and conferred with himself, and received on that spot a blessed experience and foretaste of the protection wherewith, to a great age, he was all his days protected. For it was in a manner revealed to him that he should throw away the garbardine and sword which he had received in the castle, and thereby appear in his simple craftsman's garb, and that they should turn back and cross the Cupar road, and go along the other, which led to the Dundee waterside ferry. This he told to his fearful companion, and likewise, that as often as they fell in with or heard anybody coming up, the bailie should hasten on before or den himself among the brechans by the roadside, to the end that it might appear they were not two persons in company together.

But they had not long crossed the Cupar road and travelled the one leading to the ferry when they heard the whirlwind sound of hors.e.m.e.n coming after them, at which the honest man of Crail darted aside and lay flat on his grouff ayont a bramble bush, while my grandfather began to lilt as blithely as he could, "The Bonny La.s.s of Livingston," and the spring was ever after to him as a hymn of thanksgiving, but the words he then sang was an auld, ranting, G.o.dless and graceless ditty of the grooms and serving-men that sorned about his father's smiddy, and the closer that the hors.e.m.e.n came he was strengthened to sing the louder and the clearer.

"Saw ye twa fellows ganging this gait?" cried the foremost of the pursuers, pulling up.

"What like were they?" said my grandfather, in a simple manner.

"Ane of them was o' his Grace's guard," replied the man, "but the other, curse tak me gin I ken what he was like, but he's the bailie or provost of a burrough's town, and should by rights hae a big belly."

To this my grandfather answered briskly, "Nae sic twa ha'e past me, but as I was coming along whistling, thinking o' naething, twa st.u.r.dy loons, ane o' them no unlike the hempies o' the castle, ran skirring along, and I hae a thought that they took the road to Crail or Dysart."

"That was my thought, too," cried the horseman, as he turned his beast, and the rest that were with him doing the same, bidding my grandfather good-night, away they scampered back; by which a blessed deliverance was there wrought to him and his companion on that spot, in that night.

As soon as the hors.e.m.e.n had gone by, Bailie Kilspinnie came from his hiding-place, and both he and my grandfather proved that no bird-lime was on their feet till they got to the ferry-house at the waterside, where they found two boats taking pa.s.sengers on board, one for Dundee and the other for Perth. Here my grandfather's great gift of foreknowledge was again proven, for he proposed that they should bargain with the skipper of the Dundee boat to take them to that town and pay him like the other pa.s.sengers, at once, in an open manner, but that, as the night was cloudy and dark, they should go cannily aboard the boat for Perth, as it were in mistake, and feign not to discover their error till they were far up the river when they should proceed to the town, letting wot that by the return of the tide they would go in the morning by the Perth boat to Dundee, with which Master Kilspinnie was well acquainted, he having had many times, in the way of his traffic as a plaiding merchant, cause to use the same, and thereby knew it went twice a week, and that the morrow was one of the days. All this they were enabled to do with such fort.i.tude and decorum that no one aboard the Perth boat could have divined that they were not honest men in great trouble of mind at discovering they had come into the wrong boat.

But nothing showed more that Providence had a hand in all this than what ensued, for all the pa.s.sengers in the boat had been at St Andrews to hear the trial and see the martyrdom, and they were sharp and vehement not only in their condemnation of the mitred Antichrist, but grieved with a sincere sorrow that none of the n.o.bles of Scotland would stand forth in their ancient bravery to resist and overthrow a race of oppressors more grievous than the Southrons that trode on the neck of their fathers in the hero-stirring times of the Wallace wight and King Robert the Bruce. Truly, there was a spirit of unison and indignation in the company on board that boat, everyone thirsting with a holy ardour to avenge the cruelties of which the papistical priesthood were daily growing more and more crouse in the perpetration, and they made the sh.o.r.es ring with the olden song of--

"O for my ain king, quo' gude Wallace, The rightfu' king of fair Scotlan'; Between me and my sovereign dear I think I see some ill seed sawn."

It was the grey of the morning before they reached Perth, and as soon as they were put on the land the bailie took my grandfather with him to the house of one Sawners Ruthven, a blanket-weaver with whom he had dealings, a staid and discreet man, who, when he had supplied them with breakfast, exhorted them not to tarry in the town, then a place that had fallen under the suspicion of the clergy, the lordly monks of Sc.o.o.ne taking great power and authority, in despite of the magistrates, against all that fell under their evil thoughts anent heresy. And he counselled them not to proceed, as my grandfather had proposed, straight on to Edinburgh by the Queensferry, but to hasten up the country to Crieff and thence take the road to Stirling. In this there was much prudence, but Bailie Kilspinnie was in sore tribulation on account of his children, whom he had left at his home in Crail, fearing that the talons of Antichrist would lay hold of them and keep them as hostages till he was given up to suffer for what he had done, none doubting that Baal, for so he nicknamed the prelatic Hamilton, would impute to him the unpardonable sin of heresy and schism, and leave no stone unturned to bring him to the stake.

But Sawners Ruthven comforted him with the a.s.surance that his Grace would not venture to act in that manner, for it was known how Mistress Kilspinnie then lived at St Andrews as his concubine. Nevertheless, the poor man was in sore affliction, and as he and my grandfather travelled towards Crieff, many a bitter prayer did his vexed spirit pour forth in its grief that the right arm of the Lord might soon be manifested against the Roman locust that consumed the land and made its corruption naught in the nostrils of Heaven.

Thus was it manifest that there was much of the ire of a selfish revenge mixt up with the rage which was at that time kindled in so unquenchable a manner against the Beast and its wors.h.i.+ppers, for in the history of the honest man of Crail there was a great similitude to other foul and worse things which the Roman idolaters seemed to regard among their pestiferous immunities, and counted themselves free to do without dread of any earthly retribution.

CHAPTER IX

My grandfather and his companion hastened on in their journey, but instead of going to Stirling they crossed the river at Alloa, and so pa.s.sed by the water-side way to Edinburgh, where, on entering the West-port, they separated. The bailie, who was a fearful man and in constant dread and terror of being burned as a heretic for having broke in upon the dalliance of his incontinent wife and the carnal-minded primate of St Andrews, went to a cousin of his own, a dealer in serge and temming in the Lawnmarket, with whom he concealed himself for some weeks, but my grandfather proceeded straight towards the lodging of the Earl of Glencairn to recount to his lords.h.i.+p the whole pa.s.sages of what he had been concerned in, from the night that he departed from his presence.

It was by this time the mirkest of the gloaming, for they had purposely tarried on their journey that they might enter Edinburgh at dusk. The shops of the traders were shut, for in those days there was such a resort of sorners and lawless men among the trains of the n.o.bles and gentry that it was not safe for honest merchants to keep their shops open after nightfall. Nevertheless the streets were not darkened, for there were then many begging-boxes, with images of the saints, and cruisies burning afore them, in divers parts of the High Street and corners of the wynds, insomuch that it was easy, as I have heard my grandfather tell, to see and know anyone pa.s.sing in the light thereof.

And, indeed, what befel himself was proof of it, for as he was coming through St Giles' Kirkyard, which is now the Parliament Close, and through which at that time there was a style and path for pa.s.sengers, a young man, whom he had observed following him, came close up just as he reached a begging image of the Virgin Mary with its lamp that stood on a pillar at the south-east corner of the cathedral, and touching him on the left shoulder at that spot made him look round in such a manner that the light of the Virgin's lamp fell full on his face.

"Dinna be frighted," said the stranger, "I ken you, and I'm in Lord Glencairn's service; but follow me and say nothing."

My grandfather was not a little startled by this salutation; he, however, made no observe, but replied, "Go on, then."

So the stranger went forward, and, after various turnings and windings, led him down into the Cowgate and up a close on the south side thereof, and then to a dark timber stair that was so frail and creaking and narrow that his guide bade him haul himself up with the help of a rope that hung down dangling for that purpose.

When they had raised themselves to the stairhead, the stranger opened a door and they went together into a small and lonesome chamber, in the chimla-nook of which an old iron cruisie was burning with a winking and wizard light.

"I hae brought you here," said his conductor, "for secrecy, for my Lord disna want that ye should be seen about his lodging. I'm ane of three that hae been lang seeking you, and, as a token that ye're no deceived, I was bade to tell you that before parting from my lord he gi'ed you two pieces of gold out of his coffer in the chamber where he supped."

My grandfather thought this very like a proof that he had been so informed by the Earl himself, but happening to remark that he sat with his back to the light and kept his face hidden in the shadow of the darkness, Providence put it into his head to jealouse that he might nevertheless be a spy, one perhaps that had been trusted in like manner as he had himself been trusted, and who had afterwards sold himself to the perdition of the adversaries' cause; he was, accordingly, on his guard, but replied with seeming frankness that it was very true he had received two pieces of gold from the Earl at his departure.

"Then," said the young man, "by that token ye may know that I am in the private service of the Earl, who, for reasons best known to himsel', hath willed that you should tell me, that I may report the same secretly to him, what espionage you have made."

My grandfather was perplexed by this speech, but distrust having crept into his thoughts, instead of replying with a full recital of all his adventures, he briefly said that he had indeed effected nothing, for his soul was sickened by the woful martyrdom of the G.o.dly Master Mill to so great a disease that he could not endure to abide in St Andrews, and therefore he had come back.

"But you have been long on the way--how is that?--it is now many days since the burning," replied the stranger.

"You say truly," was my grandfather's answer, "for I came round by Perth, but I tarried at no place longer than was needful to repair and refresh nature."

"Perth was a wide bout gait to take frae St Andrews to come to Edinburgh. I marvel how ye went so far astray," said the young man, curiously.

"In sooth it was, but being sorely demented with the tragical end of the G.o.dly old man," replied my grandfather, "and seeing that I could do the Earl no manner of service, I wist not well what course to take, so after meickle tribulation of thought and great uncertainty of purpose I e'en resolved to come hither."

Little more pa.s.sed; the young man rose and said to my grandfather he feared the Earl would be so little content with him that he had better not go near him but seek some other master. And when they had descended the stair and were come into the street he advised him to go to the house of a certain Widow Rippet, that let dry lodgings in the Gra.s.s-market, and roost there for that night. The which my grandfather in a manner signified he would do, and so they parted.

The stranger at first walked soberly away, but he had not gone many paces when he suddenly turned into a close leading up to the High-street, and my grandfather heard the pattering of his feet running as swiftly as possible, which confirmed to him what he suspected; and so, instead of going towards the Widow Rippet's house he turned back and went straight on to St Mary's Wynd, where the Earl's lodging was, and knocking at the yett was speedily admitted and conducted instanter to my Lord's presence, whom he found alone reading many papers which lay on a table before him.

"Gilhaize," said the Earl, "how is this? why have you come back? and wherefore is it that I have heard no tidings from you?"

Whereupon my grandfather recounted to him all the circ.u.mstantials which I have rehea.r.s.ed, from the hour of his departure from Edinburgh up till the very time when he then stood in his master's presence. The Earl made no inroad on his narrative while he was telling it, but his countenance often changed and he was much moved at different pa.s.sages--sometimes with sorrow and sometimes with anger; and he laughed vehemently at the mishap which had befallen the grand adversary of the Congregation and his concubine. The adventure, however, with the unknown varlet in the street appeared to make his Lords.h.i.+p very thoughtful, and no less than thrice did he question my grandfather if he had indeed given but those barren answers which I have already recited; to all which he received the most solemn a.s.severations that no more was said. His Lords.h.i.+p then sat some time cogitating with his hands resting on his thighs, his brows bent, and his lips pursed as with sharp thought. At last he said,--

"Gilhaize, you have done better in this than I ought to have expected of one so young and unpractised. The favour you won with Sir David Hamilton was no more than I thought your looks and manners would beget. But you are not only well-favoured but well-fortuned; and had you not found yourself worthily bound to your duty I doubt not you might have prospered in the Archbishop's household. The affair with Madam Kilspinnie was a thing I reckoned not of, yet therein you have proved yourself not only a very Joseph, but so ripe in wit beyond your years that your merits deserve more commendation than I can afford to give, for I have not sufficient to bestow on the singular prudence and discernment wherewith you have parried the treacherous thrusts of that Judas Iscariot, Winterton, for so I doubt not is the traitor who waylaid you. He was once in my service and is now in the Queen Regent's. In sending off my men on errands similar to yours, I was wont to give them two pieces of gold, and this the false loon has gathered to be a custom from others as well as by his own knowledge, and he has made it the key to open the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of my servants. To know this, however, is a great discovery. But, Gilhaize, not to waste words, you have your master's confidence. Go, therefore, I pray you, with all speed to the Widow Rippet's and do as Winterton bade you and as chance may require. In the morning come again hither, for I have this night many weighty affairs, and you have shown yourself possessed of a discerning spirit, that may, in these times of peril and perjury, help the great cause of all good Scotchmen."

In saying these most acceptable words, he clapped my grandfather on the shoulder, and encouraged him to be as true-hearted as he was sharp-witted, and he could not fail to earn both treasure and trusts. So my grand-father left him, and went to the Widow Rippet's in the Gra.s.s-market; and around her kitchen fire he found some four or five discarded knaves that were bargaining with her for beds, or for leave to sleep by the hearth; and he had not been long seated among them when his heart was grieved with pain to see Winterton come in, and behind him the two simple lads of Lithgow that had left their homes with him, whom, it appeared, the varlet had seduced from the Earl of Glencairn's service and inveigled into the Earl of Seaton's, a rampant papist, by the same wiles wherewith he thought he had likewise made a conquest of my grandfather, whom they had all come together to see; for the two Lithgow lads, like reynard the fox when he had lost his tail, were eager that he too should make himself like them. He feigned, however, great weariness, and indeed his heart was heavy to see such skill of wickedness in so young a man as he saw in Winterton. So, after partaking with them of some spiced ale which Winterton brought from the Salutation tavern, opposite the gallow's-stone, he declared himself overcome with sleep, and perforce thereof obligated to go to bed. But when they were gone, and he had retired to his sorry couch, no sleep came to his eyelids, but only hot and salt tears; for he thought that he had been in a measure concerned in bringing away the two thoughtless lads from their homes, and he saw that they were not tempered to resist the temptations of the world, but would soon fall away from their religious integrity, and become lewd and G.o.dless roisters, like the wuddy worthies that paid half-price for leave to sleep on the widow's hearth.

CHAPTER X

At the first blink of the grey eye of the morning my grandfather rose, and, quitting the house of the Widow Rippet, went straight to the Earl's lodgings, and was admitted. The porter at the door told him that their master, having been up all night, had but just retired to bed; but while they were speaking, the Earl's page, who slept in the ante-chamber, called from the stairhead to inquire who it was that had come so early, and being informed thereof, he went into his master, and afterwards came again and desired my grandfather to walk up, and conducted him to his Lords.h.i.+p, whom he found on his couch, but not undressed, and who said to him on his entering, when the page had retired,--

"I am glad, Gilhaize, that you have come thus early, for I want a trusty man to go forthwith into the west country. What I wish you to do cannot be written, but you will take this ring;" and he took one from the little finger of his right hand, on the gem of which his cipher was graven, and gave it to my grandfather. "On showing it to Lord Boyd, whom you will find at the Dean Castle, near Kilmarnock, he will thereby know that you are specially trusted of me. The message whereof you are the bearer is to this effect,--That the Lords of the Congregation have, by their friends in many places, received strong exhortations to step forward and oppose the headlong fury of the churchmen; and that they have in consequence deemed it necessary to lose no time in ascertaining what the strength of the Reformed may be, and to procure declarations for mutual defence from all who are joined in professing the true religion of Christ. Should he see meet to employ you in this matter, you will obey his orders and instructions, whatsoever they may be."

The Earl then put his hand aneath his pillow and drew out a small leathern purse, which he gave to my grandfather, who, in the doing of this, observed that he had several other similar purses ready under his head. In taking it, my grandfather was proceeding to tell him what he had observed at the Widow Rippet's, but his Lords.h.i.+p interrupted him, saying,--

"Such things are of no issue now, and your present duty is in a higher road; therefore make haste, and G.o.d be with you."

With these words, his Lords.h.i.+p turned himself on his couch, and composed himself to sleep, which my grandfather, after looking on for about a minute or so, observing, came away; and having borrowed a frock and a trot-cozey for the journey from one of the grooms of the hall, he went straight to Kenneth Shelty's, a noted horse-setter in those days, who lived at the West-port, and bargained with him for the hire of a beast to Glasgow, though Glasgow was not then the nearest road to Kilmarnock; but he thought it prudent to go that way, in case any of the papistical emissaries should track his course.

There was, however, a little oversight in this, which did not come to mind till he was some miles on the road, and that was the obligation it put him under of pa.s.sing through Lithgow, where he was so well known, and where all his kith and kin lived--there being then no immediate route from Edinburgh to Glasgow but by Lithgow. And he debated with himself for a s.p.a.ce of time whether he ought to proceed, or turn back and go the other way, and his mind was sorely troubled with doubts and difficulties. At last he considered that it was never deemed wise or fortunate to turn back in any undertaking, and besides, having for the service of the Saviour left his father's house and renounced his parents, like a bird that taketh wing and knoweth the nest where it was bred no more, he knit up his ravelled thoughts into resolution, and clapping spurs to his horse, rode bravely on.

But when he beheld the towers of the palace, and the steeples of his native town, rising before him, many remembrances came rus.h.i.+ng to his heart, and all the vexations he had suffered there were lost in the sunny recollections of the morning of life, when everyone was kind, and the eyes of his parents looked on him with the brightness of delight, in so much, that his soul yearned within him, and his cheeks were wetted with fast-flowing tears. Nevertheless, he overcame this thaw of his fort.i.tude, and went forward in the strength of the Lord, determined to swerve not in his duty to the Earl of Glencairn, nor in his holier fealty to a far greater Master. But the softness that he felt in his nature made him gird himself with a firm purpose to ride through the town without stopping. Scarcely, however, had he entered the port, when his horse stumbled and lost a shoe, by which he was not only constrained to stop, but to take him to his father's smiddy, which was in sight when the mischance happened.

On going to the door, he found, as was commonly the case, a number of grooms and flunkies of the courtiers, with certain friars, holding vehement discourse concerning the tidings of the time, the burden of which was the burning of the aged Master Mill, a thing that even the monks durst not, for humanity, venture very strenuously to defend. His father was not then within; but one of the prentice lads, seeing who it was that had come with a horse to be shod, ran to tell him; and at the sight of my grandfather, the friars suspended their controversies with the serving-men, and gathered round him with many questions. He replied, however, to them all with few words, bidding the foreman to make haste and shoe his horse, hoping that he might thereby be off and away before his father came.

But, while the man was throng with the horse's foot, both father and mother came rus.h.i.+ng in, and his mother was weeping bitterly, and wringing her hands, chiding him as if he had sold himself to the Evil One, and beseeching him to stop and repent. His father, however, said little, but inquired how he had been, what he was doing, and where he was going; and sent the prentice lad to bring a stoup of spiced ale from a public hard by, in which he pledged him, kindly hoping he would do well for himself and he would do well for his parents. The which fatherliness touched my grandfather more to the quick than all the loud lament and reproaches of his mother; and he replied that he had entered into the service of a n.o.bleman, and was then riding on his master's business to Glasgow; but he mentioned no name, nor did his father inquire. His mother, however, burst out into clamorous revilings, declaring her dread that it was some of the apostate heretics; and, giving vent to her pa.s.sion, was as one in a frenzy, or possessed of a devil. The very friars were confounded at her distraction, and tried to soothe her and remove her forth the smiddy, which only made her more wild, so that all present compa.s.sionated my grandfather, who sat silent and made no answer, wearying till his horse was ready.