Part 14

"Yes, yes," she cried, in a low voice, "they shall not touch Agnes! She shall be saved. Lead on Archie, lead on! We will follow you to the hiding place of which you spoke."

The youth was only too ready to obey; his own agitation was great. Although not himself of the same way of thinking as the Covenanters, he had the greatest reverence for their firmness and strong faith, and for Margaret he entertained feelings which, as yet, were scarcely understood by him, only it somehow seemed as though were he to lose her, life would be changed for him.

Margaret was but fourteen years of age at this time, and Archie was not twenty; but the girl had that within her and in her aspect, which made it impossible to regard her as a child. When stories were told of the virgin saints and martyrs of old, it was always Margaret's calm, sweet, young face that rose up before the eyes of the lad, and her resolution and courage in face of a threatened and fearful danger intensified this impression.

As he hurried the girls along towards the place which he knew would be a safe shelter for them and for others, and enable them to join with a party of fugitives whose arrangements were all made, he strove to change the purpose of Margaret, and to seek to win her promise to conform to the laws of the land.

But she shook her head, and the glow in her eyes made them shine like stars in the dusk.

"Nay, Archie, thou must not seek to turn me from the straight and narrow way, even though it be a thorny one to tread! I ask not of thee to follow it. If thou canst serve God and the King too, with a free heart and conscience, then thank God for it, and dwell in peace and safety! For myself I cannot. The Spirit hath shown me a more excellent way, and I needs must follow at all cost. What are the trials and troubles and sufferings of this present life when an eternity of glory lies beyond? 'To him that overcometh will I give----'"

She did not finish the sentence; her mind seemed to travel too swiftly for words. Archie looked at her; and Agnes raised her white, tear-stained face, and both felt that they were looking upon the face of an angel.

* * * * *

The King was dead! The news had reached the north; and for a brief moment the hand of the law was stayed. Persecution of Covenanters was temporarily abandoned till the mind of the new monarch should be known. There were those who shrewdly suspected that where Charles had chastised with whips, James would chastise with scorpions; but for the moment the country breathed again, and many hunted exiles and wanderers crept back to their former homes, to visit their friends and see how they fared, even if they did not mean to remain long.

Archie Scott was returning home from his work one evening, when he met an acquaintance of his, a man for whom he entertained a feeling of deep dislike and distrust, one Patrick Stuart, who seemed always remarkably well informed as to what was in the wind, and to trim his sails accordingly.

"Have ye seen them?" he asked of Archie, with a look of mystery on his sly face.

"Seen whom, man?" asked the other impatiently.

"Why, those two girls of the Wilsons, who went into hiding four years back--just escaping by the skin of their teeth! I saw the pair of them not an hour since, down there with old Margaret M'Lauchlan! I peeped in at the window, and saw them plain. A rare, fine girl Margaret has grown too--such hair--such eyes! But she needn't think that her beauty will save her, once the bloodhounds get on her track!" and an evil light sprang into the man's shifty eyes, whilst Archie felt his fingers tingling to be at his throat!

Patrick passed on, and the other looked after him; his heart was beating high with excitement and a strange foreboding. He almost followed the retreating figure, yet he knew not what to say. He had a premonition that Patrick meant ill in some way, but he had nothing on which to base his suspicions. And his heart felt suddenly hungry for Margaret. He turned his back on the vanishing figure, and strode rapidly away towards the lonely little house on the outskirts of the town where the old woman lived.

The girl met him with the same calm sweetness of aspect. She had a sister-like greeting for him; but he could scarcely stammer out the words of welcome and greeting that he had been rehearsing so eloquently all the while. There was something in her beauty, her purity of expression, her deep dreamy eyes and steadfast glance that stirred his heart to its depths, and yet left him tongue-tied before her.

She asked him if he thought their parents would receive them, and could do so without peril to themselves. Archie replied that when their flight four years ago had been discovered, the officers had forbidden the parents upon pain of death ever to shelter or hold any communication with their children again, and had, moreover, warned them that they must instantly lodge information with the authorities, should they ever discover their whereabouts.

"Poor mother!" said Margaret gently, when she heard these words. "How she must have suffered! Now I understand why we never had news from her! She was afraid of learning where we might be. Yet I would fain look upon her face again!"

"Have a care, Margaret--have a care!" cried Archie entreatingly, "the laws are yet unrepealed. There is nothing changed, and this breathing space may not last long."

"I will not run into needless peril," answered Margaret; "yet why should I so greatly fear? Is not God strong enough to protect His own, if it be His will?--but if He desire to prove our love by something endured for Him, shall we shrink back in the hour of temptation?"

When Archie came again the next evening, Margaret was not in the cottage, and Agnes's face wore a frightened look.

"Archie, I am glad thou hast come! I have been so unhappy. Patrick Stuart has been here. Tell me, is he one that we may safely trust? He spoke like one full of sympathy with us and our sufferings and wanderings; but at the last he pledged Margaret, and bid her drink to the new King's health. When she would not, there crept an evil and crafty look into his eyes. I have been so frightened since!"

Archie was frightened too, and asked where Margaret was.

"She has slipped out to take one look at mother and the old home, and, perchance, to get speech of mother too. Old Margaret was to go and whisper something to her, and perhaps--perhaps; but they would not let me go; and something seems to tell me that danger is near. Oh, I wish Margaret had not gone away! I am never frightened when I am with her; but alone I am."

Archie was frightened himself. He felt perfectly certain that Patrick had set a trap for the girls, and that already he might be on his way to warn the authorities.

"Agnes," he said, "I would you had never come back. I would that you would fly the place again. Ye are too well known here. Anywhere else would be safer. I will remain with you till Margaret gets back; I will tell her my fears. Then I would beg her to lose no time, but to fly this very night to some place of greater safety."

But, alas!--already it was too late. Soon their straining ears caught the sound of measured tramping. Agnes gave a faint cry, Archie sprang to the door, and an oath leapt to his lips.

"They have got Margaret, and the old woman too! God in heaven have mercy!--they are coming hither for thee, Agnes. Fly!--fly by yonder door into the coppice behind! I will detain them by any story I can invent. Fly ere it be too late!"

But the news of her sister's capture seemed suddenly to brace the nerves of the younger girl. She darted out of the open door and flung herself upon Margaret's neck--Margaret, who was being led along by the officers, her hands bound behind her, though upon her beautiful face there was an expression of almost ecstatic exaltation of spirit.

"Here is the third of them!" cried the men, as Agnes appeared; and, ignoring Archie's indignant reproaches of cowardice and cruelty, they bound her hands, and set her beside her sister, and drove them on towards the Gaol of Wigton, as men drive cattle into market.

"Margaret! Margaret!" cried Archie, in an agony; but she turned and gave him one of her deep spiritual glances.

"Pray for us, Archie, that our faith fail not; and remember that we are bidden not to fear those who can hurt the body alone, but only him who can destroy the soul. Fare you well!"

When next Archie saw again the fair face of Margaret Wilson, it was when, after a very harsh and cruel captivity, that had left traces upon her body, though none upon her courageous spirit, she was brought, together with Agnes and the old woman, M'Lauchlan, before the magistrates to answer to the charges laid against her and them.

They had refused attendance at church, it was alleged, had attended forbidden meetings, had been amongst the rebels at the battle of Bothwell Bridge; and the old woman had harboured fugitive Covenanters.

A faint smile played over Margaret's face as she heard some of the indictment. She had been twelve years old and Agnes eight at the time of the battle. They had been staying with relatives in the vicinity at that date; but to be accounted as rebels!

For the rest she had nothing to say. She received instruction from those who preached the pure word of God, and had followed the example of the Lord, who, when threatened in one place, had quitted it for another, and had addressed His followers in the open air or in secret assemblies, as His followers of all centuries had been forced at times to do.

But there was no mercy in the faces of the men who sat in judgment, and in whose hands were such terrible powers. The three women were pronounced guilty, and were sentenced to death. And this was the doom allotted to them: "To be tied to stakes fixed within the floodmark in the water of Blednoch, near Wigton, where the sea flows at high water, there to be drowned."

Margaret heard these words with a strange smile upon her lips, and a great light came into her eyes. She stood for a moment as one who has a vision of some unspeakable glory, vouchsafed to no eyes but her own. In the dead hush of the court all glances were bent upon her, and suddenly a storm of sobbing arose from the women present.

Margaret started from her dream, and looked round at the faces, some of which had been familiar to her from childhood. Her lips moved, as though she would have spoken; but she was hurried away to the rigors of prison; whilst the whole town was thrown into a ferment of indignation and distress, though none dared to raise a protest.

No fear was in Margaret's heart as those bright days of May sped by; and she upheld the courage of her sister by her own tenderness and strength. But the poor old woman, alone and broken in spirit, was induced to promise that if her life were spared, she would abjure the principles of the Covenant and attend the parish church in future.

When Margaret was told this, and that, if she would join in a similar promise, her submission together with the strenuous efforts being made by her father and friends, might avail to save her life, her face took a grave and almost stern expression.

"Get thee behind me, Satan!" she exclaimed; and, clasping Agnes to her breast, she cried: "My sister and I will lay down our lives for the truth; but we will never, never consent to live by and for a lie!"

"Then your blood be upon your own heads!" cried the angry officer, as he banged the door behind him.

The morning of the appointed day arrived. The sisters were calm and strong in their resolution. Suddenly the door of their prison opened. Was it the men come to lead them to the stakes in the stream? Agnes gave a little cry of joy and amaze as she saw the white, worn face of her father.

"My child! my child!" he cried, clasping her in his arms. His emotion was so great that for a moment he could not speak. It was Archie Scott, with a face as white as death, who came and stood before Margaret.

"Agnes is saved," he said hoarsely; "she is not yet sixteen. She is to be released and set in her father's charge. And the Privy Council in Edinburgh, on receiving old Margaret's submission and the memorial sent by Wigton, promised a postponement of the sentence till the King's mind could be known. But the magistrates will not listen. They will hear nothing; they will go on their own way. Thou art to die to-day, Margaret; and I know not how to bear it!"

She laid her hand upon his arm. Her face was full of joy.

"Nay, if Agnes be spared, my prayers have indeed found their answer. For myself--Archie, Archie, do not look so--I have long thought that to depart and be with Christ is far better; where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest."

There was joy and peace in the girl's face as she was led forth from her prison, and old Margaret, too, repenting her former weakness, held her head high, and spoke with courage and resolution to her friends who had assembled to see the mournful procession pass by. All Wigton had come forth to see the martyrs go to their death; and Archie Scott walked near to Margaret, and kept his eyes fixed upon her face, as though to seek to learn something of her spirit.

"Thou wilt be a brother to my sweet Agnes and comfort her," said Margaret to him once. "I trow she will be loyal and true to her faith, even though she may be forced to some outward compliance. The Lord will not judge her harshly!"

It seems sad that such noble and courageous souls as those that animated the martyrs of the Covenant should regard it as a possible offence against God to attend a service to His honour and glory, and by consecrated servants set aside for His service. Perhaps as Margaret Wilson stood in the midst of the waters, bound to her stake, watching the rise of the flood which must soon overwhelm her--perhaps something of the wider and grander aspects of the One Church--Holy and Catholic--with the Lord for her Head was vouchsafed in vision to her spirit. For, suddenly, as she saw the last struggles of the aged woman who was tied on somewhat lower ground, and knew that a few minutes more would see the end of her own young life, she first broke into words of psalm and holy writ, and then suddenly exclaimed:

"The King! the King! the poor misguided King! May God bless and pardon him and open his eyes!"

"She recants! she recants!" cried a multitude of voices from the bank--the voices of those who believed that in this prayer for the monarch Margaret was making a recantation of faith.

"Bring her out! bring her out!" shouted the crowd, in frenzy; and the magistrates, not daring to withstand this public clamour, gave orders for Margaret to be loosed and carried ashore.

"Will you retract your errors, foolish girl, and renounce the Covenant?" they asked when, astonished, but calm and steadfast as ever, she was brought to them.

"I will not!" she answered, with quiet steadfastness. "As I have lived so let me die! I have nothing to recant. I am Christ's--let me go to Him."

"Throw her into the water, for a pestilent Covenanter" cried the magistrates; and in another moment the deep swirling waters closed over the slight heroic frame of Margaret Wilson. Another Christian martyr had gone fearlessly to her death.

AGOSTINA OF ZARAGOZA

The beautiful young Countess Burita was the first to set the example of heroism and humanity.

Cowering behind their insufficient walls, and hearing the terrible roar and crash of artillery about them, seeing the French take up a firm position on the Torrero, from whence they could shell the devoted city of Zaragoza at their ease, what wonder that the Spaniards--the women and children at any rate--shrank in terror from the thought of a protracted siege, and cried aloud that nothing could save them?

But the old fighting spirit of the past was arousing and awakening in the souls of the men. The tyrannical temper of Napoleon, and his aggressive disposition of the Spanish crown to his own brother, had inflamed the ire of the Spaniards from the nobles to the peasants; and, though a long period of misgovernment had weakened the country, destroyed the vigour of the nation, and rendered the soldiers of little use in the open field, yet it had not killed the old stubborn fighting spirit within them, and when their passions were aroused, the flames had still the power to spring forth from the ashes of the past, and there were moments when all the old chivalry of former ages seemed to awake within them.

It was this spirit that animated the defenders of Zaragoza when Aragon revolted against the rule of the French, and they resolved at least to hold the ancient capital against the foe.

Hopeless the task seemed; for the defences were of the most meagre description; the only strong part of the wall being the ancient Roman portion, the high brick houses within having no shelter or means of defence from the shells and bombs that came screaming and rattling over them.

But there were heroic spirits within those frail walls, and one of the first to show an example of high-hearted bravery was the beautiful young Countess. Whilst her husband gave what aid he could to the military defenders of the city, she organised her band of women and girls for the work which was only a little less urgent.

She ordered them to get together from the houses those awnings which defended the rooms from the fierce heat of the sun, and under her skilful direction these were sewn into huge bags that were filled with sand and earth and used with great advantage to stay the effects of shot and shell continually bursting over them.

The houses actually built upon the walls were pulled down, and all the beams were employed in strengthening the defences in other parts, barricading exposed windows, and making covered ways along the streets where the townsfolk could walk in comparative safety, despite the rain of bullets dropping round them.

But these things were not done without terrible scenes in the streets, brave men falling at their posts, horrible explosions tearing up the ground and scattering destruction all around.

Small wonder was it, if at first the hearts of the women had failed them, and they had been ready to give way to a sense of despair. But quickly they rallied their courage, and the spirit of their ancestors entered into them. Although there were so few soldiers in the town--only between two and three hundred in the garrison--yet the townsmen offered their services and banded themselves together for the defence of their ancient city, and after the first panic had subsided, the women were eager to render every assistance that lay in their power, some even offering to serve in the ranks like men, if they could be taken on in that capacity.

There was, however, one way in which they could serve the men almost as well as by fighting beside them, and that was in bringing them food and water when they were mounted on the walls at their perilous posts.

This was rather a fearful task. The shells rushed screaming through the air from the height above, where the enemy's batteries were placed, and none knew where the deadly missile might explode. Bullets rained about the gallant defenders at their guns. It was like walking into the very mouth of hell, as many a woman shudderingly observed; and yet there were always volunteers for this perilous task. The noble Countess was the leader in every difficult enterprise, and she organised a devoted band who should carry on the work with order and system, avoiding needless exposure, but gallantly prosecuting the necessary and most perilous office.

Amongst the most ardent and devoted of this band of women and girls the Countess noted one very beautiful, strongly built, dark-eyed maiden, who seemed endowed with strength and courage beyond that of her compatriots.

Wherever the fire was fiercest and hottest, wherever the strife was direst and most deadly, there this girl was sure to be seen, waiting with her water-cans to make a dash towards the thirsty, smoke-begrimed soldiers, when a moment's respite allowed them to step back for the sorely needed drink. For the fierce heat of June was in the air, and the sunshine lay blinding upon the hot walls and ramparts, save where it was blotted out by the smoke wreaths from cannon and musket.

But there was one particular corner upon the old wall where the fight was often fiercely raging, and where this girl seemed oftenest to linger, and the Countess, observing her with more and more attention as the dire siege went forward, took the opportunity one day, when there was a little lull in the firing, to speak to her and ask her of herself.

"I am called Agostina," answered the girl, "and it is my father who serves yonder gun. He has the post of the greatest danger. I dare not tear myself away. Every day I fear to see him fall. Many have fallen at his side, but the blessed Mother of God and the holy saints have watched over him, and he has not as yet received so much as a scratch. Alas! if he should be taken, what will become of the little ones at home?" And over the girl's handsome, resolute face there swept an expression of pain and anguish that was sorrowful to see.

The Countess walked beside her to the spot where her father stood beside his gun, taking this moment of lull to clean it well, for often it became so hot that he was afraid it would burst. His dark, smoke-grimed face, handsome like Agostina's in spite of its black veil, brightened at her approach, and on seeing the lovely, high-born lady, he doffed his cap with the instinctive grace and courtesy that the humble Spaniard has never lost.

Agostina handed him the water-can, from which he took a deep, refreshing draught, sighing with satisfaction as he handed it back to the girl. The lady regarded the pair, and thought they looked more like husband and wife than father and daughter. He seemed not old enough for her father, though there was such a bond of affection and familiarity between them.

"Take it yonder to Ruy Gomez," said the man, pointing towards a fellow-gunner a little distance off. "He is parched with thirst, and has one of the hottest places on the wall."

Agostina moved forward towards the man--she knew the names of all the gunners in this corner of the fortifications--and the Countess remained and entered into conversation with the father.

"You have a good daughter, my brave fellow. I have watched her these many days amongst the rest. She seems to know not fear--not for herself; though she spoke but now as though she lived in daily and hourly fear for her father's life!"

"Ah, poor child, poor child! It would be a sad thing for her were I to be taken. You see there are the little ones at home; she is like a mother to them, and to her it would be like being left a widow were I to fall."

"You have other children too, then? Yet Agostina is always alone in her tasks."

"Ah, yes; the others are too little, too tender. You see it was so: I married almost as a boy, I was little more when Agostina was born, and my wife died in giving her life. She grew up my comrade and plaything. I soon ceased to regret she was not a boy. She was as brave, as hardy, as skilful at games and exercises, as free from fear, as bold to brave toil and fatigue. Ah, I should weary you, Señora, were I to try and tell you of Agostina's childhood and youth! We have been more like brother and sister, comrades, lovers, than father and daughter; and yet, with all that, no daughter was ever more dutiful and loving and obedient than my Agostina!"

The man's face had kindled into a great enthusiasm as he talked of his beautiful daughter; that she was the very apple of his eye none could doubt who heard him speak. The lady almost marvelled that he had taken to himself another wife, but in his own simple fashion he explained the matter.