Hunted and Harried by R. M. Ballantyne (the little red hen ebook TXT) 📕

they retired fighting for every inch of the ground. Indeed, instead of being reinforced they were ordered to retire; and at last, when all hope was gone, they reluctantly obeyed.

“Noo this bates a’!” exclaimed Black in a tone of ineffable disgust, as he ran to the end of the bridge, clubbed his musket, and laid about him with the energy of despair. Will Wallace was at his side in a moment; so was Quentin Dick. They found Balfour and Hackston already there; and for a few moments these men even turned the tide of battle, for they made an irresistible dash across the bridge, and absolutely drove the assailants from their guns, but, being unsupported, were compelled to retire. If each had been a Hercules, the gallant five would have had to succumb before such overwhelming odds. A few minutes more and the Covenanters were driven back. The King’s troops poured over the bridge and began to form on the other side.

Then it was that Graham of Claverhouse, seeing his opportunity, led his dragoons across the bridge and charged the main body of the Covenanters. Undisciplined troops could not withstand the shock of such a charge. They quickly broke and fled; and now the battle was changed to a regular rout.

“Kill! kill!” cried Claverhouse; “no quarter!”

His men needed no such encouragement. From that time forward they galloped about the moor, slaying remorselessly all whom they came across.

The gentle-spirited Monmouth, seeing that the victory was gained, gave orders to cease the carnage; but Claverhouse paid no attention to this. He was like the man-eating tigers,—having once tasted blood he could not be controlled, though Monmouth galloped about the field doing his best to check the savage soldiery.

It is said that afterwards his royal father—for he was an illegitimate son of the King—found fault with him for his leniency after Bothwell. We can well believe it; for in a letter which he had previously sent to the council Charles wrote that it was “his royal will and pleasure that they should prosecute the rebels with fire and sword, and all other extremities of war.” Speaking at another time to Monmouth about his conduct, Charles said, “If I had been present there should have been no trouble about prisoners.” To which Monmouth replied, “If that was your wish, you should not have sent me but a butcher!”

In the general flight Black, owing to his lame leg, stumbled over a bank, pitched on his head, and lay stunned. Quentin Dick, stooping to succour him, was knocked down from behind, and both were captured. Fortunately Monmouth chanced to be near them at the time and prevented their being slaughtered on the spot, like so many of their countrymen, of whom it is estimated that upwards of four hundred were slain in the pursuit that succeeded the fight—many of them being men of the neighbourhood, who had not been present on the actual field of battle at all. Among others Wallace’s uncle, David Spence, was killed. Twelve hundred, it is said, laid down their arms and surrendered at discretion.

Wallace himself, seeing that the day was lost and further resistance useless, and having been separated from his friends in the general mêlée, sought refuge in a clump of alders on the banks of the river. Another fugitive made for the same spot about the same time. He was an old man, yet vigorous, and ran well; but the soldiers who pursued soon came up and knocked him down. Having already received several dangerous wounds in the head, the old man seemed to feel that he had reached the end of his career on earth, and calmly prepared for death. But the end had not yet come. Even among the blood-stained troops of the King there were men whose hearts were not made of flint, and who, doubtless, disapproved of the cruel work in which it was their duty to take part. Instead of giving the old man the coup de grâce, one of the soldiers asked his name.

“Donald Cargill,” answered the wounded man.

“That name sounds familiar,” said the soldier. “Are not you a minister?”

“Yea, I have the honour to be one of the Lord’s servants.”

Upon hearing this the soldiers let him go, and bade him get off the field as fast as possible.

Cargill was not slow to obey, and soon reached the alders, where he fell almost fainting to the ground. Here he was discovered by Wallace, and recognised as the old man whom he had met in Andrew Black’s hidy-hole. The poor man could scarcely walk; but with the assistance of his stout young friend, who carefully dressed his wounds, he managed to escape. Wallace himself was not so fortunate. After leaving Cargill in a place of comparative safety, he had not the heart to think only of his own escape while uncertain of the fate of his friends. He was aware, indeed, of his uncle’s death, but knew nothing about Andrew Black, Quentin Dick, or Ramblin’ Peter. When, therefore, night had put an end to the fiendish work, he returned cautiously to search the field of battle; but, while endeavouring to clamber over a wall, was suddenly pounced upon by half a dozen soldiers and made prisoner.

At an earlier part of the evening he would certainly have been murdered on the spot, but by that time the royalists were probably tired of indiscriminate slaughter, for they merely bound his arms and led him to a spot where those Covenanters who had been taken prisoners were guarded.

The guarding was of the strangest and cruellest. The prisoners were made to lie flat down on the ground—many of them having been previously stripped nearly naked; and if any of them ventured to change their positions, or raise their heads to implore a draught of water, they were instantly shot.

Next day the survivors were tied together in couples and driven off the ground like a herd of cattle. Will Wallace stood awaiting his turn, and watching the first band of prisoners march off. Suddenly he observed Andrew Black coupled to Quentin Dick. They passed closed to him. As they did so their eyes met.

“Losh, man, is that you?” exclaimed Black, a gleam of joy lighting up his sombre visage. “Eh, but I am gled to see that yer still leevin’!”

“Not more glad than I to see that you’re not dead,” responded Will quickly. “Where’s Peter and Bruce?”

A stern command to keep silence and move on drowned the answer, and in another minute Wallace, with an unknown comrade-in-arms, had joined the procession.

Thus they were led—or rather driven—with every species of cruel indignity, to Edinburgh; but the jails there were already full; there was no place in which to stow such noxious animals! Had Charles the Second been there, according to his own statement, he would have had no difficulty in dealing with them; but bad as the Council was, it was not quite so brutal, it would seem, as the King.

“Put them in the Greyfriars Churchyard,” was the order—and to that celebrated spot they were marched.

Seated at her back window in Candlemaker Row, Mrs Black observed, with some surprise and curiosity, the sad procession wending its way among the tombs and round the church. The news of the fight at Bothwell Bridge had only just reached the city, and she knew nothing of the details. Mrs Wallace and Jean Black were seated beside her knitting.

“Wha’ll they be, noo?” soliloquised Mrs Black.

“Maybe prisoners taken at Bothwell Brig,” suggested Mrs Wallace.

Jean started, dropped her knitting, and said in a low, anxious voice, as she gazed earnestly at the procession, “If—if it’s them, uncle Andrew an’—an’—the others may be amang them!”

The procession was not more than a hundred yards distant—near enough for sharp, loving eyes to distinguish friends.

“I see them!” cried Jean eagerly.

Next moment she had leaped over the window, which was not much over six feet from the ground. She doubled round a tombstone, and, running towards the prisoners, got near enough to see the head of the procession pass through a large iron gate at the south-west corner of the churchyard, and to see clearly that her uncle and Quentin Dick were there—tied together. Here a soldier stopped her. As she turned to entreat permission to pass on she encountered the anxious gaze of Will Wallace as he passed. There was time for the glance of recognition, that was all. A few minutes more and the long procession had passed into what afterwards proved to be one of the most terrible prisons of which we have any record in history.

Jean Black was thrust out of the churchyard along with a crowd of others who had entered by the front gate. Filled with dismay and anxious forebodings, she returned to her temporary home in the Row.