Ringan Gilhaize, or, The Covenanters. John Galt
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to defend. His father was not then within; but one of the prentice lads, seeing who it was that had come with a horse to be shod, ran to tell him; and at the sight of my grandfather, the friars suspended their controversies with the serving-men, and gathered round him with many questions. He replied, however, to them all with few words, bidding the foreman to make haste and shoe his horse, hoping that he might thereby be off and away before his father came.
But, while the man was throng with the horse's foot, both father and mother came rushing in, and his mother was weeping bitterly, and wringing her hands, chiding him as if he had sold himself to the Evil One, and beseeching him to stop and repent. His father, however, said little, but inquired how he had been, what he was doing, and where he was going; and sent the prentice lad to bring a stoup of spiced ale from a public hard by, in which he pledged him, kindly hoping he would do well for himself and he would do well for his parents. The which fatherliness touched my grandfather more to the quick than all the loud lament and reproaches of his mother; and he replied that he had entered into the service of a nobleman, and was then riding on his master's business to Glasgow; but he mentioned no name, nor did his father inquire. His mother, however, burst out into clamorous revilings, declaring her dread that it was some of the apostate heretics; and, giving vent to her passion, was as one in a frenzy, or possessed of a devil. The very friars were confounded at her distraction, and tried to soothe her and remove her forth the smiddy, which only made her more wild, so that all present compassionated my grandfather, who sat silent and made no answer, wearying till his horse was ready.
But greatly afflicted as he was by this trial, it was nothing to what ensued, when, after having mounted, and shaken his father by the hand, he galloped away to the West-port. There, on the outside, he was met by two women and an old man, parents of the lads whom he had taken with him to Edinburgh. Having heard he was at his father's smiddy, instead of going thither, they had come to that place, in order that they might speak with him more apart, and free from molestation, concerning their sons.
One of the women was a poor widow, and she had no other child, nor the hope of any other bread-winner for her old age. She, however, said nothing, but stood with the corner of her apron at her eyes, sobbing very afflictedly, while her friends, on seeing my grandfather coming out of the port, stepped forward, and the old man caught the horse by the bridle, and said gravely,—
"Ye maun stop and satisfy three sorrowful parents! What hae ye done with your twa thoughtless companions?"
My grandfather's heart was as if it would have perished in his bosom; for the company he had seen the lads with, and the talk they had held, and above all their recklessness of principle, came upon him like a withering flash of fire. He, however, replied soberly, that he had seen them both the night before, and that they were well in health and jocund in spirit.
The mother that was standing near her husband was blithe to hear this, and reminded her gudeman, how she had often said, that when they did hear tidings of their son her words would be found true, for he had ever been all his days a brisk and a valiant bairn.
But the helpless widow was not content, and she came forward drying her tears, saying, "And what is my poor fatherless do-na-gude about? I'm fearfu, fearfu to be particular; for, though he was aye kind-hearted to me, he was easily wised, and I doubt, I doubt he'll prove a blasting or a blessing, according to the hands he fa's among."
"I hope and pray," said my grandfather, "that he'll be protected from scaith, and live to be a comfort to all his friends." And, so saying, he disengaged his bridle with a gentle violence from the old man's hold, telling them he could not afford to stop, being timed to reach Glasgow that night. So he pricked the horse with his rowals, and shot away; but his heart, all the remainder of his day's journey, was as if it had been pierced with many barbed arrows, and the sad voice of the poor anxious widow rung in his ears like the sound of some doleful knell.
Saving this affair at Lithgow, nothing befell him till he came to the gates of Glasgow; by which time it was dark, and the ward and watch set, and they questioned him very sharply before giving him admission. For the Queen Regent was then sojourning in the castle, and her fears and cares were greatly quickened at that time, by rumours from all parts of the kingdom concerning the murder, as it was called, of Master Mill. On this account the French guards, which she had with her, were instructed to be jealous of all untimeous travellers, and they being joined with a ward of burghers, but using only their own tongue, caused no small molestation to every Scotsman that sought admission after the sun was set: for the burghers, not being well versed in military practices, were of themselves very propugnacious in their authority, making more ado than even the Frenchmen. It happened, however, that there was among those valiant traders and craftsmen of Glasgow one Thomas Sword, the deacon of the hammermen, and he having the command of those stationed at the gate, overheard what was passing with my grandfather, and coming out of the wardroom, inquired his name, which when he heard, and that he was son to Michael Gilhaize, the Lithgow ferrier, he advised to let him in, saying he knew his father well, and that they had worked together, when young men, in the King's armoury at Stirling; and he told him where he lived, and invited him, when his horse was stabled, to come to supper, for he was glad to see him for his father's sake.
CHAPTER XI
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 in the debates concerning the same the Glasgow people took a deep interest, for they are stouthearted and of an adventurous spirit, and cannot abide to think that they or their town should, in anything of public honour, be deemed either slack or second to the foremost in the realm, and none of all the worthy burgesses thereof thought more proudly of the superiority and renown of their city than did Deacon Sword. So it came to pass, as he was sitting at supper with my grandfather, that he enlarged and expatiated on the inordinate pretensions of the Archbishop of St Andrews, and took occasion to diverge from the prelate's political ambition to speak of the enormities of his ecclesiastical government, and particularly of that heinous and never-to-be-forgotten act, the burning of an aged man of fourscore and two years, whose very heresies, as the deacon mercifully said, ought rather to have been imputed to dotage than charged as offences.
My grandfather was well pleased to observe such vigour of principle and bravery of character in one having such sway and weight in so great a community as to be the chief captain of the crafts who were banded with the hammermen, namely, the cartwrights, the saddlers, the masons, the coopers, the mariners, and all whose work required the use of edge-tools, the hardiest and buirdliest of the trades, and he allowed himself to run in with the deacon's humour, but without letting wot either in whose service he was, or on what exploit he was bound, sowing however, from time to time, hints as to the need that seemed to be growing of putting a curb on the bold front wherewith the Archbishop of St Andrews, under the pretext of suppressing heresies, butted with the horns of oppression against all who stood within the reverence of his displeasure.
Deacon Sword had himself a leaning to the reformed doctrines, which, with his public enmity to the challenger of his own Archbishop, made him take to those hints with so great an affinity, that he vowed to God, shaking my grandfather by the hand over the table, that if some steps were not soon taken to stop such inordinate misrule, there were not wanting five hundred men in Glasgow who would start forward with weapons in their grip at the first tout of a trump to vindicate the liberties of the subject, and the wholesome administration by the temporal judges of the law against all offenders as of old. And, giving scope to his ardour, he said there was then such a spirit awakened in Glasgow that men, women and children thirsted to see justice executed on the churchmen, who were daily waxing more and more wroth and insatiable against everyone who called their doctrines or polity in question.
Thus out of the very devices which had been devised by those about the Queen Regent to intercept the free communion of the people with one another was the means brought about whereby a chosen emissary of the Congregation came to get at the emboldening knowledge of the sense of the citizens of Glasgow with regard to the great cause which at that period troubled