BY PROFESSOR ALDEN.
IN a lowly cottage in the parish of Hutton, in Annandale, lived a widow with her sons and daughters. God had taken away the companion of her youth, but she had thrown herself upon the divine promises, and had received grace to train up her children in the fear of the Lord. Though the sigh was often breathed over the vacant seat by the ingle-side, yet was the family a happy one. Industry and frugality kept want at a distance: the peace that passeth all understanding had its abode in their hearts: God was the Father of the fatherless.
As it was to be expected, they were firm adherents to the covenant, and devoted friends to those who upheld its banner; but as they were without influential connections, it behooved them to avoid giving needless provocation to those who swayed the scepter of power with a merciless arm.
In those perilous days, when to give shelter or comfort to the persecuted ones was a crime to be visited by the severest penalties, a stranger knocked at the door of the cottage. His pale cheek and sunken eye told of exposure and suffering. He had been hunted like a partridge upon the mountains. Sickness had come upon him, and he must lie down and die in the open fields, unless shelter and concealment be given him for the sake of the cause for which he has suffered.
Can the widow and her sons allow him to enter their abode? Will it not bring down swift destruction upon their own heads? This is well-nigh certain, for spies and informers abound on every side.
But, on the other hand, shall a follower of Christ die in the fields, while there stands a roof underneath which Christ is worshipped? What answer shall be given to Him who shall say, “Inasmuch as ye did it not to the least of these my brethren, ye did it not unto me?” What were the penalties of “reset and converse,” compared with the displeasure of God?
The wanderer was admitted and concealed. His illness increased rapidly; and though we may be sure he had kind nursing at the hand of the inmates of the cottage, yet he soon fell a victim to the disease induced by the hardships he had undergone. At a distance from his home, with no mother, or wife, or sister, to receive his last farewell, he slept the sleep of death, and had no more to fear from his foes.
Now that he had breathed his last, might not the men of blood be satisfied? May not his remains be carried to his native parish, and be laid by the side of the loved ones who had gone before him? No. Death would be the portion of those who should attempt to perform that pious act. Those who had watched over him knew that they must bury him in secret, if they would not speedily follow him to the spirit-world.
Accordingly, when the darkness and silence of midnight had fallen upon the earth, they prepared a grave in a neighboring field, in which they buried the body. They smoothed down the earth over his resting-place, in hopes that it would not be discovered.
There lived in the vicinity a man by the name of Johnstone. He had formerly been a zealot in the cause of the covenant, but had become a renegade and cruel persecutor of his former friends.
A few days after the burial, this man was seen approaching the cottage. He was followed by a party of soldiers. The widow and her children felt that their hour was come—that the cloud which had long hung over them was about to burst. Their hearts sank within them as they saw the soldiers turn aside into the field, and commence disinterring the dead. Their work was soon done. The body of the poor wanderer was exposed to the light of day. He had died without the aid of the bullet—he had been buried by sympathizing friends. These atrocious facts were plain to the renegade and his ungodly crew. He was beyond the reach of their malice—those who had given him burial were not.
The party proceeded at once to the dwelling of the widow, and charged her with having given shelter to the dying man, and her sons with having committed his body to the earth. Truth would not permit them to deny the charges, though, like their brethren, they did not feel bound to become their own accusers.
The savage Johnstone had little regard for the authority of law. His object seems to have been to signalize his attachment to the government, and at the same time to gratify his fiendish passions. He entered the cottage, and seized or destroyed every article of property it contained, and then razed the building to its foundation, thus leaving the family shelter-less and destitute. They are sent forth as wanderer’s to seek food and shelter where they may. Where they wandered—what sympathizing friends they found—what sufferings they endured, we know not. We are ignorant of the subsequent history of all the family, with the exception of the oldest son.
It would seem that he alone of the sons had attained to manhood. After the separation of the family, he was arrested by Claverhouse, and brought the same night before Johnstone, the destroyer of his home. Johnstone passed sentence of death upon him the next day, and urged his immediate execution. Strange as it may seem, Claverhouse disapproved the sentence, and would take no part in the shedding of young man’s blood. Perhaps the words of the wife of John Brown, whom he had murdered only ten days before, were still ringing in his years, “How will ye answer for this day’s work?” Certain it is, that he objected to the murder of Hislop; and when he at last yielded to the persistence of Johnstone, he said: “The blood of this poor man be upon you, I am free from it.”
Johnstone then called upon the captain of a company of foot, who attended him in his excursions through the country, to require some of his men to execute the sentence.
“I will not do it,” said the captain with an oath; “I would sooner fight Claverhouse and his dragoons than be the instrument of such atrocity.” He therefore drew off his men to a distance, that they might not be the witnesses of the murder.
Johnstone then directed three of his own attendants to do the bloody deed. They were of the like spirit with himself, and readily obeyed him. They furnished themselves with arms, and placed the young man in a position to receive his death-shot.
“Draw your bonnet over your eyes, young man,” said one who, perhaps, could not so well take aim while the eye of his victim was upon him.
“I am not afraid to look my death-bringers in the face,” said the young man, “for I have done nothing of which I am ashamed.” Then holding up the Bible, he added, “I charge ye to answer for what ye are about to do at the day when ye shall be judged by this book.” This solemn charge made no impression upon the hardened wretches. The word was given—they fired—he lay a lifeless corpse. The earth was rudely thrown over him, and there, on the spot where he fell, his remains await the resurrection morning.