บทที่ บทที่ 36 · AN INCIDENT

. AN INCIDENT

The dinner hour of Scotland Sixty Years Since was two o’clock. It was

therefore about four o’clock of a delightful autumn afternoon that Mr.

Gilfillan commenced his march, in hopes, although Stirling was eighteen

miles distant, he might be able, by becoming a borrower of the night

for an hour or two, to reach it that evening. He therefore put forth

his strength, and marched stoutly along at the head of his followers,

eyeing our hero from time to time, as if he longed to enter into

controversy with him. At length, unable to resist the temptation, he

slackened his pace till he was alongside of his prisoner’s horse, and

after marching a few steps in silence abreast of him, he suddenly

asked—“Can ye say wha the carle was wi’ the black coat and the mousted

head, that was wi’ the Laird of Cairnvreckan?”

“A Presbyterian clergyman,” answered Waverley.

“Presbyterian!” answered Gilfillan contemptuously; “a wretched

Erastian, or rather an obscure Prelatist, a favourer of the black

indulgence, ane of thae dumb dogs that canna bark; they tell ower a

clash o’ terror and a clatter o’ comfort in their sermons, without ony

sense, or savour, or life. Ye’ve been fed in siccan a fauld, belike?”

“No; I am of the Church of England,” said Waverley.

“And they’re just neighbour-like,” replied the Covenanter; “and nae

wonder they gree sae weel. Wha wad hae thought the goodly structure of

the Kirk of Scotland, built up by our fathers in 1642, wad hae been

defaced by carnal ends and the corruptions of the time;—ay, wha wad hae

thought the carved work of the sanctuary would hae been sae soon cut

down!”

To this lamentation, which one or two of the assistants chorussed with

a deep groan, our hero thought it unnecessary to make any reply.

Whereupon Mr. Gilfillan, resolving that he should be a hearer at least,

if not a disputant, proceeded in his Jeremiade.

“And now is it wonderful, when, for lack of exercise anent the call to

the service of the altar and the duty of the day, ministers fall into

sinful compliances with patronage, and indemnities, and oaths, and

bonds, and other corruptions,—is it wonderful, I say, that you, sir,

and other sic-like unhappy persons, should labour to build up your auld

Babel of iniquity, as in the bluidy persecuting saint-killing times? I

trow, gin ye werena blinded wi’ the graces and favours, and services

and enjoyments, and employments and inheritances, of this wicked world,

I could prove to you, by the Scripture, in what a filthy rag ye put

your trust; and that your surplices, and your copes and vestments, are

but cast-off garments of the muckle harlot that sitteth upon seven

hills and drinketh of the cup of abomination. But, I trow, ye are deaf

as adders upon that side of the head; ay, ye are deceived with her

enchantments, and ye traffic with her merchandise, and ye are drunk

with the cup of her fornication!”

How much longer this military theologist might have continued his

invective, in which he spared nobody but the scattered remnant of

_hill-folk_, as he called them, is absolutely uncertain. His matter was

copious, his voice powerful, and his memory strong; so that there was

little chance of his ending his exhortation till the party had reached

Stirling, had not his attention been attracted by a pedlar who had

joined the march from a cross-road, and who sighed or groaned with

great regularity at all fitting pauses of his homily.

“And what may ye be, friend?” said the Gifted Gilfillan.

“A puir pedlar, that’s bound for Stirling, and craves the protection of

your honour’s party in these kittle times. Ah, your honour has a

notable faculty in searching and explaining the secret,—ay, the secret

and obscure and incomprehensible causes of the backslidings of the

land; ay, your honour touches the root o’ the matter.”

“Friend,” said Gilfillan, with a more complacent voice than he had

hitherto used, “honour not me. I do not go out to park-dikes and to

steadings and to market-towns to have herds and cottars and burghers

pull off their bonnets to me as they do to Major Melville o’

Cairnvreckan, and ca’ me laird or captain or honour. No; my sma’ means,

whilk are not aboon twenty thousand merk, have had the blessing of

increase, but the pride of my heart has not increased with them; nor do

I delight to be called captain, though I have the subscribed commission

of that gospel-searching nobleman, the Earl of Glencairn, fa whilk I am

so designated. While I live I am and will be called Habakkuk Gilfillan,

who will stand up for the standards of doctrine agreed on by the ance

famous Kirk of Scotland, before she trafficked with the accursed Achan,

while he has a plack in his purse or a drap o’ bluid in his body.”

“Ah,” said the pedlar, “I have seen your land about Mauchlin. A fertile

spot! your lines have fallen in pleasant places! And siccan a breed o’

cattle is not in ony laird’s land in Scotland.”

“Ye say right,—ye say right, friend” retorted Gilfillan eagerly, for he

was not inaccessible to flattery upon this subject,—“ye say right; they

are the real Lancashire, and there’s no the like o’ them even at the

mains of Kilmaurs”; and he then entered into a discussion of their

excellences, to which our readers will probably be as indifferent as

our hero. After this excursion the leader returned to his theological

discussions, while the pedlar, less profound upon those mystic points,

contented himself with groaning and expressing his edification at

suitable intervals.

“What a blessing it would be to the puir blinded popish nations among

whom I hae sojourned, to have siccan a light to their paths! I hae been

as far as Muscovia in my sma’ trading way, as a travelling merchant,

and I hae been through France, and the Low Countries, and a’ Poland,

and maist feck o’ Germany, and O! it would grieve your honour’s soul to

see the murmuring and the singing and massing that’s in the kirk, and

the piping that’s in the quire, and the heathenish dancing and dicing

upon the Sabbath!”

This set Gilfillan off upon the Book of Sports and the Covenant, and

the Engagers, and the Protesters, and the Whiggamore’s Raid, and the

Assembly of Divines at Westminster, and the Longer and Shorter

Catechism, and the Excommunication at Torwood, and the slaughter of

Archbishop Sharp. This last topic, again, led him into the lawfulness

of defensive arms, on which subject he uttered much more sense than

could have been expected from some other parts of his harangue, and

attracted even Waverley’s attention, who had hitherto been lost in his

own sad reflections. Mr. Gilfillan then considered the lawfulness of a

private man’s standing forth as the avenger of public oppression, and

as he was labouring with great earnestness the cause of Mas James

Mitchell, who fired at the Archbishop of Saint Andrews some years

before the prelate’s assassination on Magus Muir, an incident occurred

which interrupted his harangue.

The rays of the sun were lingering on the very verge of the horizon as

the party ascended a hollow and somewhat steep path which led to the

summit of a rising ground. The country was uninclosed, being part of a

very extensive heath or common; but it was far from level, exhibiting

in many places hollows filled with furze and broom; in others, little

dingles of stunted brushwood. A thicket of the latter description

crowned the hill up which the party ascended. The foremost of the band,

being the stoutest and most active, had pushed on, and, having

surmounted the ascent, were out of ken for the present. Gilfillan, with

the pedlar and the small party who were Waverley’s more immediate

guard, were near the top of the ascent, and the remainder straggled

after them at a considerable interval.

Such was the situation of matters when the pedlar, missing, as he said,

a little doggie which belonged to him, began to halt and whistle for

the animal. This signal, repeated more than once, gave offence to the

rigour of his companion, the rather because it appeared to indicate

inattention to the treasures of theological and controversial knowledge

which were pouring out for his edification. He therefore signified

gruffly that he could not waste his time in waiting for an useless cur.

“But if your honour wad consider the case of Tobit—”

“Tobit!” exclaimed Gilffflan, with great heat; “Tobit and his dog baith

are altogether heathenish and apocryphal, and none but a prelatist or a

papist would draw them into question. I doubt I hae been mista’en in

you, friend.”

“Very likely,” answered the pedlar, with great composure; “but

ne’ertheless, I shall take leave to whistle again upon puir Bawty.”

This last signal was answered in an unexpected manner; for six or eight

stout Highlanders, who lurked among the copse and brushwood, sprung

into the hollow way and began to lay about them with their claymores.

Gilfillan, unappalled at this undesirable apparition, cried out

manfully, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!” and, drawing his

broadsword, would probably have done as much credit to the good old

cause as any of its doughty champions at Drumclog, when, behold! the

pedlar, snatching a musket from the person who was next him bestowed

the butt of it with such emphasis on the head of his late instructor in

the Cameronian creed that he was forthwith levelled to the ground. In

the confusion which ensued the horse which bore our hero was shot by

one of Gilfillan’s party, as he discharged his firelock at random.

Waverley fell with, and indeed under, the animal, and sustained some

severe contusions. But he was almost instantly extricated from the

fallen steed by two Highlanders, who, each seizing him by the arm,

hurried him away from the scuffle and from the highroad. They ran with

great speed, half supporting and half dragging our hero, who could,

however, distinguish a few dropping shots fired about the spot which he

had left. This, as he afterwards learned, proceeded from Gilfillan’s

party, who had now assembled, the stragglers in front and rear having

joined the others. At their approach the Highlanders drew off, but not

before they had rifled Gilfillan and two of his people, who remained on

the spot grievously wounded. A few shots were exchanged betwixt them

and the Westlanders; but the latter, now without a commander, and

apprehensive of a second ambush, did not make any serious effort to

recover their prisoner, judging it more wise to proceed on their

journey to Stirling, carrying with them their wounded captain and

comrades.