"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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 Ba.s.s 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 pa.s.sed, 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 a.s.sembled 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 G.o.d, 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!"
But the four men showed no disposition to yield, and the resolute expression of their faces induced their opponents to hesitate.
"I ken o" nae King in this realm," said Andrew Black in a deep stern voice, "an" we refuse to set oor necks under the heel o" a usurpin"
tyrant."
"Do your duty, men," said a man who had kept in the background, but who now stepped to the front.
"Ha! this is your doing, Glendinning," exclaimed Wallace, who recognised his old comrade. The sergeant had obviously been promoted, for he wore the costume of a commissioned officer.
"Ay, I have an auld score to settle wi" you, Wallace, an" I hope to see you an" your comrades swing in the Gra.s.smarket before lang."
"Ye"ll niver see that, my man," said Black, as he firmly grasped the shovel. "Ye ha"ena gotten us yet, an" it"s my opeenion that you an"
your freends"ll be in kingdom-come before we swing, if ye try to tak" us alive. Oot o" this hoose, ye sc.o.o.ndrels!"
So saying, Black made a spring worthy of a royal Bengal tiger, turned aside the pike of the foremost man, and brought the shovel down on his iron headpiece with such force that he was driven back into the pa.s.sage or landing, and fell prostrate. Black was so ably and promptly seconded by his stalwart comrades that the room was instantly cleared.
Glendinning, driven back by an irresistible blow from the rolling-pin, tripped over the fallen man and went headlong down the winding stairs, at the bottom of which he lay dead, with his neck broken by the fall.
But the repulse thus valiantly effected did not avail them much, for the leader of the guard had reinforcements below, which he now called up.
Before the door could be shut these swarmed into the room and drove the defenders back into their corner. The leader hesitated, however, to give the order to advance on them, partly, it may be, because he wished to induce submission and thus avoid bloodshed, and partly, no doubt, because of the terrible aspect of the four desperate men, who, knowing that the result of their capture would be almost certain death, preceded by imprisonment, and probably torture, had evidently made up their minds to fight to the death.
At that critical moment a quick step was heard upon the stair, and the next moment the Reverend Frank Selby entered the room.
"Just in time, I see," he said in a cool nonchalant manner that was habitual to him. "I think, sir," he added, turning to the leader of the guard, "that it may be as well to draw off your men and return to the guard-room."
"I"ll do that," retorted the man sharply, "when I receive orders from my superiors. Just now I"ll do my duty."
"Of course you will do what is right, my good sir," replied the Reverend Frank; "yet I venture to think you will regret neglecting my advice, which, allow me to a.s.sure you, is given in quite a friendly and disinterested spirit. I have just left the precincts of the Council Chamber, where I was told by a friend in office that the Councillors have been thrown into a wild and excusable state of alarm by the news that William, Prince of Orange, who, perhaps you may know, is James"s son-in-law and nephew, has landed in Torbay with 15,000 Dutchmen. He comes by invitation of the n.o.bles and clergy of the kingdom to take possession of the Crown which our friend James has forfeited, and James himself has fled to France--one of the few wise things of which he has ever been guilty. It is further reported that the panic-stricken Privy Council here talks of throwing open all the prison-doors in Edinburgh, after which it will voluntarily dissolve itself. If it could do so in prussic acid or some chemical solvent suited to the purpose, its exit would be hailed as all the more appropriate. Meanwhile, I am of opinion that all servants of the Council would do well to retire into as much privacy as possible, and then maintain a careful look-out for squalls."
Having delivered this oration to the gaping guard, the Reverend Frank crossed the room and went through the forbidden and dangerous performance of shaking hands heartily with the "rebels."
He was still engaged in this treasonable act, and the men of the town-guard had not yet recovered from their surprise, when hurrying footsteps were again heard on the stair, and a man of the town-guard sprang into the room, went to his chief, and whispered in his ear. The result was, that, with a countenance expressing mingled surprise and anxiety, the officer led his men from the scene, and left the long-persecuted Covenanters in peace.
"Losh, man! div "ee railly think the news can be true?" asked Andrew Black, after they had settled down and heard it all repeated.
"Indeed I do," said the Reverend Frank earnestly, "and I thank G.o.d that a glorious Revolution seems to have taken place, and hope that the long, long years of persecution are at last drawing to a close."
And Frank Selby was right. The great Revolution of 1688, which set William and Mary on the throne, also banished the tyrannical and despotic house of Stuart for ever; opened the prison gates to the Covenanters; restored to some extent the reign of justice and mercy; crushed, if it did not kill, the heads of Popery and absolute power, and sent a great wave of praise and thanksgiving over the whole land.
Prelacy was no longer forced upon Scotland. The rights and liberties of the people were secured, and the day had at last come which crowned the struggles and sufferings of half a century. As Mrs. Black remarked--
"Surely the blood o" the martyrs has not been shed in vain!"
But what of the fortunes of those whose adventures we have followed so long? Whatever they were, the record has not been written, yet we have been told by a man whose name we may not divulge, but who is an unquestionable authority on the subject, that soon after the persecution about which we have been writing had ceased, a farmer of the name of Black settled down among the "bonnie hills of Galloway," not far from the site of the famous Communion stones on Skeoch Hill, where he took to himself a wife; that another farmer, a married man named Wallace, went and built a cottage and settled there on a farm close beside Black; that a certain Ru Peter became shepherd to the farmer Black, and, with his wife, served him faithfully all the days of his life; that the families of these men were very large, the men among them being handsome and stalwart, the women modest and beautiful, and that all of them were loyal subjects and earnest, enthusiastic Covenanters. It has been also said, though we do not vouch for the accuracy of the statement, that in the Kirk-session books of the neighbouring kirk of Irongray there may be found among the baptisms such names as Andrew Wallace and Will Black, Quentin d.i.c.k Black, and Jock Bruce Wallace; also an Aggie, a Marion, and an Isabel Peter, besides several Jeans scattered among the three families.
It has likewise been reported, on reliable authority, that the original Mr. Black, whose Christian name was Andrew, was a famous teller of stories and narrator of facts regarding the persecution of the Covenanters, especially of the awful killing-time, when the powers of darkness were let loose on the land to do their worst, and when the blood of Scotland"s martyrs flowed like water.
Between 1661, when the Marquis of Argyll was beheaded, and 1668, when James Renwick suffered, there were murdered for the cause of Christ and Christian liberty about 18,000 n.o.ble men and women, some of whom were t.i.tled, but the most of whom were unknown to earthly fame. It is a marvellous record of the power of G.o.d; and well may we give all honour to the martyr band while we exclaim with the "Ayrshire Elder":--
"O for the brave true hearts of old, That bled when the banner perished!
O for the faith that was strong in death-- The faith that our fathers cherished.
"The banner might fall, but the spirit lived, And liveth for evermore; And Scotland claims as her n.o.blest names The Covenant men of yore."
THE END.