Hunted and Harried

“Abated!” echoed Black, “it’s little need, in thae awfu’ times. But, man, your force has increased, if I’m no mista’en.”

“Doubtless—it is natural, after having toiled with the slaves in Barbadoes for so many years. The work was kill or cure out there. But tell me—my mother—and yours?”

“Oh, they’re baith weel and hearty, thank the Lord,” answered Black. “But what for d’ye no speer after Jean?” he added in a somewhat disappointed tone.

“Because I don’t need to. I’ve seen her already, and know that she is well.”

“Seen her!” exclaimed Andrew in surprise.

“Ay, you and Jean were seated alone at the little window in the Candlemaker Raw last night about ten o’clock, and I was standing by a tombstone in the Greyfriars Churchyard admiring you. I did not like to present myself just then, for fear of alarming the dear girl too much, and then I did not dare to come here to-day till the gloamin’. I only arrived yesterday.”

“Weel, weel! The like o’ this bates a’. Losh man! I hope it’s no a dream. Nip me, man, to mak sure. Sit doon, sit doon, an’ let’s hear a’ aboot it.”

The story was a long one. Before it was quite finished the door was gently opened, and Jean Black herself entered. She had come, as was her wont every night, to walk home with her uncle.

Black sprang up.

“Jean, my wummin,” he said, hastily putting on his blue bonnet, “there’s no light eneuch for ye to be intryduced to my freend here, but ye can hear him if ye canna see him. I’m gaun oot to see what sort o’ a night it is. He’ll tak’ care o’ ye till I come back.”

Without awaiting a reply he went out and shut the door, and the girl turned in some surprise towards the stranger.

“Jean!” he said in a low voice, holding out both hands.

Jean did not scream or faint. Her position in life, as well as her rough experiences, forbade such weakness, but it did not forbid—well, it is not our province to betray confidences! All we can say is, that when Andrew Black returned to the cellar, after a prolonged and no doubt scientific inspection of the weather, he found that the results of the interview had been quite satisfactory—eminently so!

Need we say that there were rejoicing and thankful hearts in Candlemaker Row that night? We think not. If any of the wraiths of the Covenanters were hanging about the old churchyard, and had peeped in at the well-known back window about the small hours of the morning, they would have seen our hero, clasping his mother with his right arm and Jean with his left. He was encircled by an eager group—composed of Mrs Black and Andrew, Jock Bruce, Ramblin’ Peter, and Aggie Wilson—who listened to the stirring tale of his adventures, or detailed to him the not less stirring and terrible history of the long period that had elapsed since he was torn from them, as they had believed, for ever.

Next morning Jean accompanied her lover to the workshop of her uncle, who had preceded them, as he usually went to work about daybreak.

“Are ye no feared,” asked Jean, with an anxious look in her companion’s face, “that some of your auld enemies may recognise you? You’re so big and—and—” (she thought of the word handsome, but substituted) “odd-looking.”

“There is little fear, Jean. I’ve been so long away that most of the people—the enemies at least—who knew me must have left; besides, my bronzed face and bushy beard form a sufficient disguise, I should think.”

“I’m no sure o’ that,” returned the girl, shaking her head doubtfully; “an’ it seems to me that the best thing ye can do will be to gang to the workshop every mornin’ before it’s daylight. Have ye fairly settled to tak’ to Uncle Andrew’s trade?”

“Yes. Last night he and I arranged it while you were asleep. I must work, you know, to earn my living, and there is no situation so likely to afford such effectual concealment. Bruce offered to take me on again, but the smiddy is too public, and too much frequented by soldiers. Ah, Jean! I fear that our wedding-day is a long way off yet, for, although I could easily make enough to support you in comfort if there were no difficulties to hamper me, there is not much chance of my making a fortune, as Andrew Black says, by turning parritch-sticks and peeries!”

Wallace tried to speak lightly, but could not disguise a tone of despondency.

“Your new King,” he continued, “seems as bad as the old one, if not worse. From all I hear he seems to have set his heart on bringing the country back again to Popery, and black will be the look-out if he succeeds in doing that. He has quarrelled, they say, with his bishops, and in his anger is carrying matters against them with a high hand. I fear that there is woe in store for poor Scotland yet.”

“It may be so,” returned Jean sadly. “The Lord knows what is best; but He can make the wrath of man to praise Him. Perhaps,” she added, looking up with a solemn expression on her sweet face, “perhaps, like Quentin Dick an’ Margaret Wilson, you an’ I may never wed.”

They had reached the east end of the Grassmarket as she spoke, and had turned into it before she observed that they were going wrong, but Wallace explained that he had been directed by Black to call on Ramblin’ Peter, who lived there, and procure from him some turning-tools. On the way they were so engrossed with each other that they did not at first observe the people hurrying towards the lower end of the market. Then they became aware that an execution was about to take place.

“The old story,” muttered Wallace, while an almost savage scowl settled on his face.

“Let us hurry by,” said Jean in a low tone. At the moment the unhappy man who was about to be executed raised his voice to speak, as was the custom in those times.

Jean started, paused, and turned deadly pale.

“I ken the voice,” she exclaimed.

As the tones rose in strength she turned towards the gallows and almost dragged her companion after her in her eagerness to get near.

“It’s Mr Renwick,” she said, “the dear servant o’ the Lord!”

Wallace, on seeing her anxiety, elbowed his way through the crowd somewhat forcibly, and thus made way for Jean till they stood close under the gallows. It was a woeful sight in one sense, for it was the murder of a fair and goodly as well as godly man in the prime of life; yet it was a grand sight, inasmuch as it was a noble witnessing unto death for God and truth and justice in the face of prejudice, passion, and high-handed tyranny.

The martyr had been trying to address the crowd for some time, but had been barbarously interrupted by the beating of drums. Just then a curate approached him and said, “Mr Renwick, own our King, and we will pray for you.”

“It’s that scoundrel, the Reverend George Lawless,” murmured Wallace in a deep and bitter tone.

“I am come here,” replied the martyr, “to bear my testimony against you, and all such as you are.”

“Own our King, and pray for him, whatever ye say of us,” returned the curate.

“I will discourse no more with you,” rejoined Renwick. “I am in a little to appear before Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords, who shall pour shame, contempt, and confusion on all the kings of the earth who have not ruled for Him.”

After this Renwick—as was usual with the martyrs when about to finish their course—sang, read a portion of Scripture, and prayed, in the midst of considerable interruption from the drums. He also managed to address the spectators. Among the sentences that reached the ears of Jean and Wallace were the following:—

“I am come here this day to lay down my life for adhering to the truths of Christ… I die as a Presbyterian Protestant… I own the Word of God as the rule of faith and manners… I leave my testimony against … all encroachments made on Christ’s rights, who is the Prince of the kings of the earth.”

The noise of the drums rendered his voice inaudible at this point, and the executioner, advancing, tied a napkin over his eyes. He was then ordered to go up the ladder. To a friend who stood by him he gave his last messages. Among them were the words—

“Keep your ground, and the Lord will provide you teachers and ministers; and when He comes He will make these despised truths glorious in the earth.”

His last words were— “Lord, into thy hands I commit my spirit; for thou hast redeemed me, Lord God of truth.”

Thus fell the last, as it turned out, of the martyrs of the Covenants, on the 17th of February 1688. But it did not seem to Will Wallace that the storm of twenty-eight long years had almost blown over, as he glanced at the scowling brows and compressed lips of the upturned faces around him.

“Come—come away, Jean,” he said quickly, as he felt the poor girl hang heavily on his arm, and observed the pallor of her face.

“Ay, let’s gang hame,” she said faintly.

As Will turned to go he encountered a face that was very familiar. The owner of it gazed at him inquiringly. It was that of his old comrade in arms, Glendinning. Stooping over his companion as if to address her, Wallace tried to conceal his face and pushed quickly through the crowd. Whether Glendinning had recognised him or not, he could not be sure, but from that day forward he became much more careful in his movements, went regularly to his work with Andrew Black before daylight, and did not venture to return each night till after dark. It was a weary and irksome state of things, but better—as Black sagaciously remarked—than being imprisoned on the Bass Rock or shut up in Dunnottar Castle. But the near presence of Jean Black had, no doubt, more to do with the resignation of our hero to his position than the fear of imprisonment.

As time passed, things in the political horizon looked blacker than ever. The King began to show himself more and more in his true colours—as one who had thoroughly made up his mind to rule as an absolute monarch and to reclaim the kingdom to Popery. Among other things he brought troops over from Ireland to enforce his will, some of his English troops having made it abundantly plain that they could not be counted on to obey the mandates of one who wished to arrogate to himself unlimited power, and showed an utter disregard of the rights of the people. Indeed, on all hands the King’s friends began to forsake him, and even his own children fell away from him at last.

Rumours of these things, more or less vague, had been reaching Edinburgh from time to time, causing uneasiness in the minds of some and hope in the hearts of others.

One night the usual party of friends had assembled to sup in the dwelling of Mrs Black. It was the Sabbath. Wallace and Black had remained close all day—with the exception of an hour before daylight in the morning when they had gone out for exercise. It was one of those dreary days not unknown to Auld Reekie, which are inaugurated with a persistent drizzle, continued with a “Scotch mist,” and dismissed with an even down-pour. Yet it was by no means a dismal day to our friends of Candlemaker Row. They were all more or less earnestly religious as well as intellectual, so that intercourse in reference to the things of the Kingdom of God, and reading the Word, with a free-and-easy commentary by Mrs Black and much acquiescence on the part of Mrs Wallace, and occasional disputations between Andrew and Bruce, kept them lively and well employed until supper-time.

The meal had just been concluded when heavy footfalls were heard on the stair outside, and in another moment there was a violent knocking at the door. The men sprang up, and instinctively grasped the weapons that came first to hand. Wallace seized the poker—a new and heavy one—Andrew the shovel, and Jock Bruce the tongs, while Ramblin’ Peter possessed himself of a stout rolling-pin. Placing themselves hastily in front of the women, who had drawn together and retreated to a corner, they stood on the defensive while Mrs Black demanded to know who knocked so furiously “on a Sabbath nicht.”

Instead of answering, the visitors burst the door open, and half-a-dozen of the town-guard sprang in and levelled their pikes.

“Yield yourselves!” cried their leader. “I arrest you in the King’s name!”