Hunted and Harried | Page 4

his relief he found that there was no wound at all, and that the man was
only stunned. After the examination, Wallace observed that the girls
had taken advantage of the fray to make their escape.
Indignation and anger having by that time evaporated, and his
judgment having become cool, Wallace began gradually to appreciate
his true position, and to feel exceedingly uncomfortable. He had
recklessly expressed opinions and confessed to actions which would of
themselves ensure his being disgraced and cast into prison, if not worse;
he had almost killed one of his own comrades, and had helped two girls
to escape who could probably have assisted in the accomplishment of
the duty on which they had been despatched. His case, he suddenly
perceived, was hopeless, and he felt that he was a lost man.
Will Wallace was quick of thought and prompt in action. Carefully
disposing the limbs of his fallen comrade, and resting his head
comfortably on a grassy bank, he cast a hurried glance around him.
On his left hand and behind him lay the rich belt of woodland that

marked the courses of the rivers Cluden and Cairn. In front stretched
the moors and hills of the ancient district of Galloway, at that time
given over to the tender mercies of Graham of Claverhouse. Beside him
stood the two patient troop-horses, gazing quietly at the prostrate man,
as if in mild surprise at his unusual stillness.
Beyond this he could not see with the physical eye; but with the mental
orb he saw a dark vista of ruined character, blighted hopes, and dismal
prospects. The vision sufficed to fix his decision. Quietly, like a
warrior's wraith, he sheathed his sword and betook himself to the covert
of the peat-morass and the heather hill.
He was not the first good man and true who had sought the same
shelter.
At the time of which we write Scotland had for many years been in a
woeful plight--with tyranny draining her life-blood, cupidity grasping
her wealth, hypocrisy and bigotry misconstruing her motives and
falsifying her character. Charles the Second filled the throne.
Unprincipled men, alike in Church and State, made use of their position
and power to gain their own ends and enslave the people. The King,
determined to root out Presbytery from Scotland, as less subservient to
his despotic aims, and forcibly to impose Prelacy on her as a
stepping-stone to Popery, had no difficulty in finding ecclesiastical and
courtly bravos to carry out his designs; and for a long series of dismal
years persecution stalked red-handed through the land.
Happily for the well-being of future generations, our covenanting
forefathers stood their ground with Christian heroism, for both civil and
religious liberty were involved in the struggle. Their so-called
fanaticism consisted in a refusal to give up the worship of God after the
manner dictated by conscience and practised by their forefathers; in
declining to attend the ministry of the ignorant, and too often vicious,
curates forced upon them; and in refusing to take the oath of allegiance
just referred to by Will Wallace.
Conventicles, as they were called--or the gathering together of
Christians in houses and barns, or on the hillsides, to worship God--

were illegally pronounced illegal by the King and Council; and
disobedience to the tyrannous law was punished with imprisonment,
torture, confiscation of property, and death. To enforce these penalties
the greater part of Scotland--especially the south and west-- was
overrun by troops, and treated as if it were a conquered country. The
people--holding that in some matters it is incumbent to "obey God
rather than man," and that they were bound "not to forsake the
assembling of themselves together"--resolved to set the intolerable law
at defiance, and went armed to the hill-meetings.
They took up arms at first, however, chiefly, if not solely, to protect
themselves from a licentious soldiery, who went about devastating the
land, not scrupling to rob and insult helpless women and children, and
to shed innocent blood. Our Scottish forefathers, believing--in common
with the lower animals and lowest savages--that it was a duty to defend
their females and little ones, naturally availed themselves of the best
means of doing so.
About this time a meeting, or conventicle, of considerable importance
was appointed to be held among the secluded hills in the
neighbourhood of Irongray; and Andrew Black, the farmer, was chosen
to select the particular spot, and make the preliminary arrangements.
Now this man Black is not easily described, for his was a curiously
compound character. To a heart saturated with the milk of human
kindness was united a will more inflexible, if possible, than that of a
Mexican mule; a frame of Herculean mould, and a spirit in which
profound gravity and reverence waged incessant warfare with a keen