Part 2

But often our raids had a less happy issue. As we drew near to a house, we would see a figure steal hastily from it, and we knew that we were upon the track of a villainous Covenanter. Then we would spur our horses to the gallop and give chase: and what a dance these hill-men could lead us. Some of them had the speed of hares and could leap like young deer over boulders and streams where no horse could follow. Many a sturdy nag crashed to the ground, flinging its rider who had spurred it to the impossible; and if the fugitive succeeded in reaching the vast open spaces of the moorland, many a good horse floundered in the bogs to the great danger of its master, while the fleet-footed Covenanter, who knew every inch of the ground, would leap from tussock to tussock of firm grass, and far out-distance us.

Or again, we would learn that someone--a suspect--was hiding upon the moors, and for days we would search, quartering and requartering the great stretches of heather and bog-land till we were satisfied that our quarry had eluded us--or until, as often happened, we found him. Sometimes it was an old man, stricken with years, so that he could not take to flight: sometimes it was a mere stripling--a lad of my own age--surrounded in his sleep and taken ere he could flee. The measure of justice meted to each was the same.

"Will ye tak' the Test?" If not--death, on the vacant moor, at the hands of men who were at once his accusers, his judges, and his executioners.

Sometimes when a fugitive had refused the Test, and so proclaimed himself a Covenanter, Lag would promise him his life if he would disclose the whereabouts of some others of more moment than himself. But never did I know one of them play the coward: never did I hear one betray another. Three minutes to prepare himself for death: and he would take his bonnet off and turn a fearless face up to the open sky.

And then Lag's voice--breaking in upon the holy silence of the moorland like a clap of thunder in a cloudless sky--"Musketeers! Poise your muskets! make ready: present, give fire!" and another rebel would fall dead among the heather.

The scene used to sicken me, so that I could hardly keep my seat in the saddle, and in my heart I thanked God that I was judged too unskilful as yet to be chosen as one of the firing party. That, of course, was nothing more than sentiment. These men were rebels, opposed to the King's Government, and such malignant fellows well deserved their fate. Yet there began to spring up within me some admiration for their bravery. Not one of them was afraid to die.

Sometimes, of a night, before sleep came to me, I would review the events of the day--not willingly, for the long and grisly tale of horror was one that no man would of set purpose dwell upon, but because in my soul I had begun to doubt the quality of the justice we meted out. It was a dangerous mood for one who had sworn allegiance to the King, and taken service under his standard: but I found myself beginning to wonder whether the people whom we were harrying so mercilessly and putting to death with as little compunction as though they had been reptiles instead of hard-working and thrifty folk--as their little farms and houses proved--were rebels in any real sense. I had no knowledge, as yet, of what had gone before, and I was afraid to ask any of my fellows, lest my questioning should bring doubt upon my own loyalty. But I wondered why these men, some gone far in eld and others in the morning of their days, were ready to die rather than say the few words that would give them life and liberty. Gradually the light broke through the darkness of my thoughts, and I began to understand that in their bearing there was something more than mere disloyalty to the King. They died unflinching, because they were loyal to some ideal that was more precious to them than life, and which torture and the prospect of death could not make them forswear. Were they wrong? Who was I, to judge? I knew nothing of their history, and when first I set out with Lag's Horse I cared as little. I had ridden forth to do battle against rebels. I found myself one of a band engaged in the hideous task of exercising duress upon other men's consciences. The thought was not a pleasant one, and I tried to banish it, but it would come back to me in the still watches when no sound was audible but the heavy breathing of my sleeping companions,--and no sophistry sufficed to stifle it.

Day after day we continued our march westward through Galloway, leaving behind us a track of burning homesteads, with here and there a stark figure, supine, with a bloody gash in his breast, and a weary face turned up to the eternal sky. The sky was laughing in the May sunshine: the blue hyacinths clustered like a low-lying cloud of peat-smoke in the woods by the roadside, and the larks cast the gold of their song into the sea of the air beneath them. The whole earth was full of joy and beauty; but where we passed, we left desolation, and blood and tears.

As the sun was setting we rode down the valley of the Cree, whose peat-dyed water, reddened by the glare in the sky, spoke silently of the blood-stained moors which it had traversed in its course. A river of blood: a fitting presage of the duties of the morrow that had brought us to Wigtown!

*CHAPTER III*

*BY BLEDNOCH WATER*

Sharp and clear rang out the bugle notes of the reveille, rending the morning stillness that brooded over the thatched houses of Wigtown. We tumbled out of our beds of straw in the old barn where we had bivouacked--some with a curse on their lips at such a rude awakening, and others with hearts heavy at the thought of what lay before us. To hunt hill-men among the boulders and the sheltering heather of their native mountains was one thing: for the hunted man had a fox's chance, and more than a fox's cunning: but it was altogether another thing to execute judgment on two defenceless women, and only the most hardened among us had any stomach for such devil's work. Inured to scenes of brutality as I had become, I felt ill at ease when I remembered the task that awaited us, and, in my heart, I nursed the hope that, when the bugle sounded the assembly, we should learn that the prisoners had been reprieved and that we could shake the dust of Wigtown from our feet forever.

It was a glorious morning: and I can still remember, as though it were yesterday, every little event of these early hours. I shook the straw from my coat and went out. There was little sign of life in the street except for the dragoons hurrying about their tasks. My horse, tethered where I had left him the night before, whinnied a morning greeting as I drew near. He was a creature of much understanding, and as I patted his neck and gentled him, he rubbed his nose against my tunic. I undid his halter and with a hand on his forelock led him to the watering trough. The clear water tumbled musically into the trough from a red clay pipe that led to some hidden spring; and as my nag bent his neck and dipped his muzzle delicately into the limpid coolness, I watched a minnow dart under the cover of the green weed on the trough-bottom. When I judged he had drunk enough I threw a leg over his back and cantered down the street to the barn where we had slept. There, I slipped the end of his halter through a ring in the wall, and rejoined my companions who were gathered round the door.

We had much to do; there was harness to polish, bridles and bits to clean, and weapons to see to--for Sir Robert was a man vigilant, who took a pride in the smartness of his troop.

"It's a bonnie mornin' for an ugly ploy," said Trooper Agnew, as I sat down on a bench beside him with my saddle on my knees. From his tone I could tell that his heart was as little in the day's work as mine.

"Ay, it's a bonnie morning," I replied, "too bonnie for the work we have to do. I had fain the day was over, and the work were done, if done it must be."

"Weel, ye never can tell: it may be that the women will be reprieved. I've heard tell that Gilbert Wilson has muckle siller, and is ready to pay ransom for his dochter: an' siller speaks when arguments are waste o' wind." He spat on a polishing rag, and rubbed his saddle vigorously. "They tell me he's bocht Aggie off: and if he can he'll buy off Marget tae. But there's the auld woman Lauchlison: she has neither siller nor frien's wi' siller, and I'm fearin' that unless the Royal Clemency comes into play she'll ha'e tae droon."

"But why should they drown?" said I, voicing half unconsciously the question that had so often perplexed me.

"Weel, that's a hard question," replied Agnew, as he burnished his bit, "and a question that's no for the like o' you and me to settle. A' we ha'e to dae is to carry oot the orders of our superior officers. We maunna think ower muckle for oorsel's."

I was already well acquainted with this plausible argument, and indeed I had heard Lag himself justify some of his acts by an appeal to such dogma; but I was not satisfied, and ventured to remonstrate:

"Must we," I asked, "do things against which our conscience rebels, simply because we are commanded to do so?"

Agnew hesitated for a moment before replying, passing the end of his bridle very deliberately through a buckle, and fastening it with care.

"Conscience!" he said, and laughed. "What richt has a trooper to sic' a thing? I've nane noo." He lowered his voice--and spoke quickly. "Conscience, my lad! Ye'd better no' let the sergeant hear ye speak that word, or he'll be reporting ye tae Sir Robert for a Covenanter, and ye'll get gey short shrift, I'm thinkin'. Tak' the advice o' ane that means ye nae ill, and drap yer conscience in the water o' Blednoch, and say farewell tae it forever. If ye keep it, ye'll get mair blame than praise frae it--and I'm thinkin' ye'll no' get ony promotion till ye're weel rid o't."

"Whit's this I hear aboot conscience?" said Davidson, a dragoon who was standing by the door of the barn.

"Oh, naething," said Agnew. "I was just advising Bryden here to get rid o' his."

"Maist excellent advice," said Davidson. "A puir trooper has nae richt to sic a luxury. Besides, it's a burden, and wi' a' his trappings he has eneuch to carry already." He paused for a moment--looked into the barn over his shoulder and continued: "To my way o' thinkin', naebody has ony richt to a conscience but the King. Ye see it's this way. A trooper maun obey his officers: he has nae richt o' private judgment, so he has nae work for his conscience to do. His officers maun obey them that are higher up--so they dinna need a conscience, and so it goes on, up, and up till ye reach the King, wha is the maister o' us a'. He's the only body in the realm that can afford the luxury: and even he finds it a burden."

"I'm no surprised," interjected Agnew. "A conscience like that maun be an awfu' encumbrance."

"Ay, so it is," replied Davidson. "They do say that the King finds it sic a heavy darg to look after his conscience that he appoints a man to be its keeper."

Agnew laughed. "Does he lead it about on a chain like a dog?" he asked.

"I canna tell you as to that," replied Davidson, "but it's mair than likely, for it maun be a rampageous sort o' beast whiles."

"And what if it breaks away," asked Agnew, laughing again, "and fleshes its teeth in the King's leg?"

"Man," said Davidson, "ye remind me: the very thing ye speak o' aince happened. Nae doot the keeper is there to haud back his conscience frae worrying the King, but I mind readin' that ane o' the keepers didna haud the beast in ticht eneuch, and it bit the King. It had something to dae wi' a wumman. I've forgotten the partic'lers: but I think the King was auld King Hal."

"And what happened to the keeper?" asked Agnew.

"Oh, him," replied Davidson. "The King chopped his heid off. And that, or something like it, is what will happen to you, my lad," he said, looking meaningly at me, "if Lag hears ye talk ony sic nonsense. If thae damnable Covenanters didna nurse their consciences like sickly bairns they would be a bit mair pliable, and gi'e us less work."

I would gladly have continued the conversation, but we were interrupted by the appearance of the cook, who came round the corner of the barn staggering under the weight of a huge black pot full of our morning porridge.

"Parritch, lads, wha's for parritch?" he called, setting down his load, and preparing to serve out our portions with a large wooden ladle. We filed past him each with our metal platter and a horn spoon in our hands, and received a generous ladleful. The regimental cook is always fair game for the would-be wit, and our cook came in for his share of chaff; but he was ready of tongue, and answered jibe with jibe--some of his retorts stinging like a whip-lash so that his tormentors were sore and sorry that they had challenged him.

Soon the last man was served and all of us fell to.

When our meal was over there was little time left ere the assembly sounded. As the bugle notes blared over the village, we flung ourselves into our saddles, and at the word turned our horses up the village street. The clatter of hoofs, and the jingle of creaking harness brought the folks to their doors, for the appeal of mounted men is as old as the art of war. We were conscious of admiring glances from many a lassie's eye, and some of the roysterers among us, behind the back of authority, gave back smile for smile, and threw furtive kisses to the comelier of the women-folk.

Near the Tolbooth Sir Robert awaited us, sitting his horse motionless like a man cut out of stone. A sharp word of command, and we reined our horses in, wheeling and forming a line in front of the Tolbooth door. There we waited.

By and by we heard the tramp of horses, and Colonel Winram at the head of his company rode down the other side of the street and halted opposite to us. Winram and Lag dismounted, giving their horses into the charge of their orderlies, and walked together to the Tolbooth door. They knocked loudly, and after a mighty clatter of keys and shooting of bolts the black door swung back, and they passed in. We waited long, but still there was no sign of their return. My neighbour on the right, whose horse was champing its bit and tossing its head in irritation, whispered: "They maun ha'e been reprievit."

"Thank God for that," I said, out of my heart.

But it was not to be. With a loud creak, as though it were in pain, the door swung open, and there came forth, splendid in his robes of office, Sheriff Graham. Followed him, Provost Coltran, Grier of Lag, and Colonel Winram. Behind them, each led by a gaoler, came two women. Foremost was Margaret Lauchlison, bent with age, and leaning on a stick, her thin grey hair falling over her withered cheeks. She did not raise her eyes to look at us, but I saw that her lips were moving silently, and a great pity surged up in my breast and gripped me by the throat. Some four paces behind her came Margaret Wilson, and as she passed out of the darkness of the door she raised her face to the sky and took a long breath of the clean morning air. She was straight as a willow-wand, with a colour in her cheeks like red May-blossom, and a brave look in her blue eyes. Her brown hair glinted in the sunlight, and she walked with a steady step between the ranks of horsemen like a queen going to her coronal. She looked curiously at the troopers as she passed us. I watched her coming, and, suddenly, her big child-like eyes met mine, and for very shame I hung my head.

Some twenty yards from the Tolbooth door, beside the Town Cross, the little procession halted, and the town-crier, after jangling his cracked bell, mounted the lower step at the base of the cross and read from a big parchment:

"God save the King! Whereas Margaret Lauchlison, widow of John Mulligan, wright in Drumjargon, and Margaret Wilson, daughter of Gilbert Wilson, farmer in Penninghame, were indicted on April 13th, in the year of grace 1685 before Sheriff Graham, Sir Robert Grierson of Lag, Colonel Winram, and Captain Strachan, as being guilty of the Rebellion of Bothwell Brig, Aird's Moss, twenty field Conventicles, and twenty house Conventicles, the Assize did sit, and after witnesses heard did bring them in guilty, and the judges sentenced them to be tied to palisadoes fixed in the sand, within the floodmark of the sea, and there to stand till the flood overflows them. The whilk sentence, being in accordance with the law of this Kingdom, is decreed to be carried out this day, the 11th of May in the year of grace 1685. God Save the King."

When he ceased there was silence for a space, and then Grier of Lag, his sword scraping the gravel as he moved, walked up to the older prisoner, and shouted:

"Margaret Lauchlison, will ye recant?"

She raised her head, looked him in the eyes with such a fire in hers that his gaze fell before it, and in a steady voice replied:

"Goodness and mercy ha'e followed me a' the days o' my life, and I'm no' gaun back on my Lord in the hour o' my death,"--and she bowed her head again, as though there was nothing more to be said, but her lips kept moving silently.

Lag turned from her with a shrug of the shoulders, and approached the younger prisoner. She turned her head to meet him with a winsome smile that would have softened a heart less granite hard; but to him her beauty made no appeal.

"Margaret Wilson," he said, "you have heard your sentence. Will ye recant?"

I can still hear her reply:

"Sir, I count it a high honour to suffer for Christ's truth. He alone is King and Head of His Church."

It was a brave answer, but it was not the answer that Lag required, so he turned on his heel and rejoined the Sheriff and the Provost. I did not hear what passed between them, but it was not to the advantage of the prisoners, for the next moment I saw that the gaoler was fastening the old woman's left wrist to the stirrup leather of one of the troopers who had been ordered to bring his horse up nearer the Town Cross. Many a time since I have wondered whether it was ill-luck or good fortune that made them hit on me to do such a disservice for Margaret Wilson. It may have been nothing more than blind chance, or it may have been the act of Providence--I am no theologian, and have never been able to settle these fine points--but, at a word from Lag, her gaoler brought the girl over beside me, and shackled her wrist to my stirrup leather. I dared not look at her face, but I saw her hand, shapely and brown, close round the stirrup leather as though she were in pain when the gaoler tightened the thong.

"Curse you," I growled, "there's no need to cut her hand off. She'll not escape," and I would fain have hit the brute over the head with the butt of my musket. He slackened the thong a trifle, and as he slouched off I was conscious that my prisoner looked up at me as though to thank me: but I dared not meet her eyes, and she spoke no word.

There was a rattle of drums, and we wheeled into our appointed places, and began our woeful journey to the sea. Heading our procession walked two halberdiers, their weapons glistening above their heads. Followed them the Sheriff and the Provost: and after these Winram and the troopers in two lines, between which walked the prisoners. Lag rode behind on his great black horse. It was a brave sight for the old town of Wigtown--but a sight of dule.

Down the street we went, but this time there were no glances of admiration cast upon us: nothing but silent looks of awe, touched with pity. Ahead I saw anxious mothers shepherding their children into the shelter of their doors, and when we came near them I could see that some of the children and many of the women were weeping. I dared not look Margaret Wilson in the face, but I let my eyes wander to her hair, brown and lustrous in the sunshine. My hand on the reins was moist, my lips were dry, and I cursed myself that ever I had thrown in my lot with such a horde of murderers. Agnew's words about conscience kept ringing in my ears, and I felt them sear my brain. Conscience indeed! What kind of conscience had I, that I could take part in such a devilish ploy? If I had had the courage of a rabbit I would have swung the girl up before me, set spurs to my horse, broken from the line and raced for life. But I was a coward. I had no heart for such high adventure, and many a time since, as I have lain in the dark before the cock-crowing, I have been tortured by remorse for the brave good thing I was too big a craven to attempt.

The procession wound slowly on, then wheeled to the left and descended to the river bank. I believe the Blednoch has altered its course since that day. I have never had the heart to revisit the scene, but men tell me so. Then, it flowed into the sea over a long stretch of brown sand just below the town. It was neither broad, nor yet very deep: but when the tide of Solway was at its full it flooded all the sand banks, and filled the river-mouth so that the river water was dammed back, and it became a broad stream.

Far out on the sand I saw a stake planted: and another some thirty paces nearer shore. They led the old woman, weary with her walk, to the farther stake, and tying her to it left her there. Down the channel one could see the tide coming in--its brown and foam-sprinkled front raised above the underlying water. Cruel it looked, like some questing wild beast raising its head to spy out its prey. A halberdier came and severed the thong that fastened Margaret Wilson to my stirrup leather, and led her away. My eyes followed her, and as she passed my horse's head she looked at me over her shoulder and our eyes met. I shall see those eyes until the Day of Judgment: blue as the speedwell--blue, and unafraid.

They led her to the nearer stake, and bound her there. There was a kind of mercy in their cruelty, for they thought that if the younger woman should witness the death of the elder one she might be persuaded to recant before she herself was engulfed. Quickly, as is its wont, the Solway tide rushed over the sand. Before Margaret Wilson was fastened to the stake, the water was knee-deep where Margaret Lauchlison stood: and soon it was at the maiden's feet. As the first wave touched her there was a murmur like a groan from some of the town folk who had followed us and stood behind us in little knots upon the river bank. The tide flowed on, mounting higher and higher, until old Margaret Lauchlison stood waist deep in a swirl of tawny water. She was too far out for us to hear her if she spoke, but we could see that she had raised her head and was looking fearlessly over the water. And then the younger woman did a strange thing. Out of the fold of her gown over her bosom she drew a little book, opened it and read aloud. A hush fell upon us: and our horses, soothed by the music of her voice, stopped their head-tossing and were still. She read so clearly that all of us could hear, and there was a proud note in her voice as she ended: "For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Then she kissed the open page, and returned her testament to her bosom, and in a moment burst into song:

"My sins and faults of youth Do Thou, O Lord, forget! After Thy mercy think on me, And for Thy goodness great."