Ringan Gilhaize, or, The Covenanters

As I stood on the brow of the bank in front of Rinrorie-house, a gentle breathing of the evening air turned the smoke like the travelling mist of the hills, and opening it here...

Sir John Cochrane, one of those who were with Argyle, had, by some espial of his own, a correspondence with divers of the Covenanters in the shire of Ayr; and he was so heartene...

During the season that the malady continued upon me, through the unsuspected agency of Robin Brown, a paction was entered into with certain of my neighbours, to take the lands o...

The Earl of Glencairn, having much to do with the other Lords of the Congregation, did not come to his lodging till late in the afternoon, when, as soon as he had passed into hi...

The council-room was full of people when I was taken thither, and the Lord Kelburne, who sat at the head of the table, was abetted in the proceedings by Murray, an advocate from...

All the next day, and for many days after, consternation reigned in the streets of the city, and horror sat shuddering in all her dwelling-places. Multitudes stood in amazement...

The same night it was intimated to me that I was fined in five hundred marks, and that bonds were required to be given for the payment; upon the granting of which, in considerat...

By such devices and missions, as my grandfather was engaged in for the Earl Glencairn with the Lord Boyd, a thorough understanding was concerted among the Reformed throughout th...

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 p...

My grandfather and his companion hastened on in their journey, but instead of going to Stirling they crossed the river at Alloa, and so passed by the water-side way to Edinburgh...

When my grandfather left the Greyfriars, he went to the lodging of the Lord James Stuart, whom he found well instructed of all that had taken place, which he much marvelled at,...

The next day was like a cried fair in St. Andrews. All the country from ayont Cupar, and many reformed and godly persons even from Dundee and Perth, were gathered into the city...

It's far from my hand and intent to write a history of the tribulations which ensued from the day of the uproar and first outbreaking of the wrath of the people against the imag...

Sir David Hamilton conducted my grandfather back through the garden and the sallyport to the castle, where he made him acquainted with his Grace's seneschal, by whom he was hosp...

While the cloud of troubles, whereof I have spoken in the foregoing chapter was thickening and darkening over the land, the event of the King's dreadful death came to pass; the...

It was the afternoon when my grandfather and Sir David Hamilton came in sight of St Andrews, and the day being loun and bright, the sky clear, and the sea calm, he told me that...

As my grandfather, in the grey of the morning, was waiting in the Canongate till the worship was over in the house of the Lord James Stuart, he frequently rode up and down the s...

It is a thing past all contesting, that, in the Reformation, there was a spirit of far greater carnality among the champions of the cause than among those who in later times so...

Hitherto the rising at Dalry had been as a passion and a spreading fire. The strength of the soldiers was consumed before us, and their arms became our weapons; but when we had...

The news of the fall of Argyle was as gladdening wine to the cruel spirit of James Stuart. It was treated by him as victory was of old among the conquering Romans, and he ordain...

Although my grandfather had sustained a severe bruise by his fall, he was still enabled, after he got on his legs, to superintend the demolishment of the abbey till it was compl...

From the day on which the Covenant was signed, though I was owre young to remember the change myself, I have heard it often said that a great alteration took place in the morals...

After Dominick Callender and my grandfather had conversed some time, with many interchanges of the kindly remembrances of past pleasures, the gentle friar began to bewail his sa...

Soon after Queen Mary's return from France, my grandfather, with his wife and Agnes Kilspinnie, came from Edinburgh and took up their residence on his own free mailing of Quhari...

As my grandfather came in sight of Kilwinning, and beheld the abbey with its lofty horned towers and spiky pinnacles and the sands of Cunningham between it and the sea, it seeme...

When my father returned home, my mother and all the family were grieved to see his sad and altered looks. We gathered around him, and she thought he had failed to get the legacy...

Many a time did my grandfather, in his old age, when all things he spoke were but remembrances, try to tell what passed in his bosom while he was sitting alone, under those clif...

After the battle of Langside, many of the nobles and great personages of the realm grew jealous of the good Regent Murray, and, by their own demeanour, caused him to put on towa...

Shortly after my grandfather had returned with his wife to their quiet dwelling at Quharist on the Garnock side, he began, in the course of the winter following, to suffer an oc...

Mrs Kilspinnie uttered a frightful screech, and, starting up, attempted to run out of the room, but her husband caught her by the arm, and my grandfather was empowered, by a sig...

As the time of appointment drew near, Elspa Ruet was enabled to call in her wandering and anxious thoughts, and, strengthened by her duty, the blessing of the tranquil mind was...

In the course of the night, shortly after the third watch had been set, some of those who had tarried by the way came to the camp with the tidings that Dalziel and all the royal...

It might have been thought, considering the poor hand which the prelatic curates made of it in their endeavours to preach, that they would have set themselves down content with...

It has been seen, by what I have told concerning the part my grandfather had in the great work of the Reformation, that the heads of the house of Argyle were among the foremost...

The place where we met was a deep glen, the scroggy sides whereof were as if rocks, and trees and brambles, with here and there a yellow primrose and a blue hyacinth between, ha...

Saving the innocent alarm of the drum in the mist, our march to Lanerk was without hinderance or molestation; and when we arrived there, it was agreed and set forth, on the exho...

At this time an ancient controversy between the Archbishops of St Andrews and of Glasgow, touching their respective jurisdictions, had been resuscitated with great acrimony, and...

The decent, thoughtful, elderly man, who so kindly invited me to his house, was by name called Gideon Kemp; and as we were going towards it together, he told me of divers things...

On arriving in Irvine, we went to the shop of Archibald Macrusty, a dealer in iron implements, and I bought from him two swords without hilts, which he sold, wrapt in straw-rope...

After leaving Ringlewood, the two fugitives, by divers journeyings and sore passages through moss and moor, crossed the Balloch ferry, and coming down the north side of the Clyd...

It was in the cool of the evening, on Saturday, the last day of May, when my brother came over to my house, where, with Michael, I had prepared myself to go with him to Loudon-h...

In the morning, all those who were in the house with the Earl of Murray and John Knox were early afoot, and after prayers had been said, they went out to meet the Queen at her p...

The burial of Marion Ruet was decently attended by Bailie Kilspinnie and all his family; and though he did not carry the head himself, he yet ordered their eldest son to do so,...

The testimony of the regard and respect which we showed to Mr Swinton in following him to the prison-door, was wickedly reported against us as a tumult and a riot, wearing the a...

At break of day we found ourselves on a lonely brae-side, sorely weary, hungry and faint in spirit; a few whin-bushes were on the bank, and the birds in them were beginning to c...

From the day of the desolation of his daughter, my brother seldom held any communion with me; but I observed that with Michael he had much business, and though I asked no questi...

The next day, Elspa Ruet, under the escorting of my grandfather, was minded to have gone home to Crail, but the news that John Knox was to preach on the morrow at St Andrews had...

Having thus set forth the main passages in my grandfather's life, I should now quit the public highway of history, and turn for a time into the pleasant footpath of his domestic...

It is well set forth in all the various histories of this dismal epoch, that the cry of blood had gone so vehemently up to heaven from the graves of the martyred Covenanters, th...

My grandfather having, as I have told, a compassion for the silly affection wherewith the honest man of Crail still regarded his wanton wife, told him the circumstantials of his...

One night, about a month after the ploy whereof I have spoken in the foregoing chapter, just as my father had finished the worship, and the family were composing themselves roun...

It is surely a most strange matter, that whenever I come to think and to write of the events of that period, and of my sickness at Kingswell, my thoughts relapse into infirmity,...

The deep sleep into which I had fallen when Sarah Lochrig and my son were admitted to see me, and during the season of which they had sat in silence beside me till revived natur...

"I aye thought, Johnnie, that some day ye would get a cast o' grace, and the Lord has been bountiful to you at last, in putting it in your power to be aiding in such a Samaritan...

John Knox, among all the ministers who remained at Perth after the Congregation of the Reformed had dispersed, was the only one, my grandfather has been heard to say, that expre...

After lying about the period of an hour in great perturbation, he began to grow more collected, and the din and resort of strangers in the house also subsided, by which he was e...

When they came within a mile of the town, where a small public stood that wayfaring men were wont to stop and refresh themselves at, my grandfather urged the disconsolate Marion...

When Winterton had finished his drink, which he did hastily, he proposed to my grandfather that they should take a stroll through the town; and my grandfather being eager to thr...

Being wounded, as I have rehearsed, at Drumclog, and carried to my own house, Sarah Lochrig, while she grieved with a mother's grief for the loss of our first-born and the mourn...

I was conducted into a straight and dark chamber, and the cord wherewith my hands were bound was untied, and a shackle put upon my right wrist; the flesh of my left was so galle...

"What gars you, young man," said I to the fiercest of the two dragoons, an Englisher, "what gars you in that dreadful manner hate and blaspheme honest men, who would, if they we...

Towards the afternoon I found myself among the solitudes of the Renfrewshire moors. Save at times the melancholious note of the peese-weep, neither the sound nor the voice of an...

A keen frost had succeeded the snow, and the wind blew piercingly cold; but the gloom had passed away. The starry eyes of the heavens were all wakefully bright, and the moon was...

When my grandfather had, in the manner rehearsed, disposed of those sisters of simplicity in the Kirkgate of Irvine, he returned back in the afternoon to the Earl of Glencairn a...

From the time of my evasion from the tolbooth, and during the controversy between James Gottera and the mob in the street, there was a whirlwind in my mind that made me incapabl...

Rarely has it fallen to the lot of man to be so blessed with such children as mine; but surely I was unworthy of the blessing. And yet, though maybe unworthy, Lord, thou knowest...

When my grandfather had returned to the vintner's, he found that Elspa had conferred with Lucky Kilfauns concerning the afflicting end and intent of her journey to St Andrews; a...

Before proceeding farther at this present time with the doleful tale of my own sufferings, it is required of me, as an impartial historian, to note here a very singular example...

I slept in that ruinous room in the Bishop's house till far in the morning, when, on going to the window with the intent of dropping myself into the wynd, I saw that it was orda...

Nothing particular happened till the second week of November, when a citation came from Irvine, commanding the attendance of Mr Swinton, on a suffragan of Fairfoul's, under the...

The proclamation was as a stunning blow on the forehead of the Covenanters, and for the next two Sabbaths Mr Swinton was plainly in prayer a weighed down and sorrowful-hearted m...

As soon as those of the Privy Council had, with their attendants, left the house, and proceeded to join the Duke of York in the palace, the charitable damsel came to me, and con...

Before the occurrence of the things spoken of in the foregoing chapter, the great Earl of Glencairn, my grandfather's first and constant patron, had been dead some time; but his...

When my grandfather had returned to the bailie's house after delivering his message to the Reformer, he spent an evening of douce but pleasant pastime with him and the modest El...

After my father and brothers, with our neighbours that went with them, had returned from the bloodless raid of Dunse Law, as the first expedition was called, a solemn thanksgivi...

The sixteenth day of June, in the year of our Lord 1638, was appointed for the renewal at Irvine of the Solemn League and Covenant. On the night before, my five elder brothers,...

I had laid that son, my only son, whom I so loved, on the altar of the Covenant, an offering unto the Lord; but still I did hope that maybe it would be according to the mercy of...

The triumph of the truth at St Andrews was followed by the victorious establishment, from that day thenceforward, of the Reformation in Scotland. The precautions taken by the de...

On leaving the public we went straight to the place where our blades and belts lay, and took them up, and proceeded in an easterly direction. But I soon found that I was no long...

Besides Mr Warner, many other ministers, who had taken refuge in foreign countries, were called home, and it began openly to be talked that King James would to a surety be set a...

We were graciously protected for the space of four hours, which we lay asleep under the rock. Mr Witherspoon was the first who awoke, and he sat watching beside me for some time...

It was on the Wednesday that my father came home from Edinburgh. On Friday the farmer lads and their fathers continued coming over to our house to hear the news, and all their d...

It seems that shortly after Robin Finnie had departed from the gallant cavalier, a lad, called Sandy Macgill, who was colleagued with him in the plot, came towards the captain w...

As soon as it was known abroad that Charles the Second was dead, the Covenanters who had taken refuge in Holland from the Persecution assembled to consult what ought then to be...

The true and faithful of the West, by the event recorded in the foregoing chapter, being so instructed with respect to their own power and numbers, stood in no reverence of any...

The noise of taking up my brother and Esau Wardrop to the tolbooth by the soldiers bred a great wonderment in the town, and the magistrates came into the prison to see them. The...

But although in the exploit of Mysie Gilmour, and Robin Finnie with his confederates, we had a tasting of mirth and merriment, to the effect of lessening the dread and fear in w...

Some time before the news of King Charles' execution reached us in the West, the day had been set for my marriage with Sarah Lochrig; but the fear and consternation which the ti...

The meeting, with one accord, agreed that the declaration should go forth; and certain of those who were ready writers, being provided with implements, retired apart to make cop...

"Weel, Ringan," said my brother, "we have met again in this world; it's a blessing I never looked for;" and he held out his two hands to take hold of mine, but the broken links...

The moment that the man who came to the door saw, by the glimpse of the light, that both my brother and Esau Wardrop had swords at their sides, he uttered a cry of alarm, thinki...

General Mackay halted the host on a spacious green plain which lies at the meeting of the Tummel and the Gary, and which the Highlanders call Fascali, because, as the name in th...

When Claverhouse left Stirling, he had but sixty horse. In little more than a month he was at the head of seventeen hundred men. He obtained reinforcements from Ireland. The Mac...

auguries and doleful anticipations. All care for my own safety was lost in those overwhelming reflections, in so much that when the morning air breathed upon me as I reached the...