The absence of these auxiliary troops, upon this crusade
for the establishment of Presbyterianism in England,
had considerably diminished the power of the Convention
of Estates in Scotland, and had given rise to those
agitations among the anti-covenanters, which we have
noticed at the beginning of this chapter.
His mother could for
him as cradle set
Her husband’s
rusty iron corselet;
Whose jangling sound
could hush her babe to rest,
That never plain’d
of his uneasy nest;
Then did he dream of
dreary wars at hand,
And woke, and fought,
and won, ere he could stand.—Hall’s
satires
It was towards the close of a summer’s evening,
during the anxious period which we have commemorated,
that a young gentleman of quality, well mounted and
armed, and accompanied by two servants, one of whom
led a sumpter horse, rode slowly up one of those steep
passes, by which the Highlands are accessible from
the Lowlands of Perthshire. [The beautiful pass of
Leny, near Callander, in Monteith, would, in some respects,
answer this description.] Their course had lain for
some time along the banks of a lake, whose deep waters
reflected the crimson beams of the western sun.
The broken path which they pursued with some difficulty,
was in some places shaded by ancient birches and oak-trees,
and in others overhung by fragments of huge rock.
Elsewhere, the hill, which formed the northern side
of this beautiful sheet of water, arose in steep,
but less precipitous acclivity, and was arrayed in
heath of the darkest purple. In the present times,
a scene so romantic would have been judged to possess
the highest charms for the traveller; but those who
journey in days of doubt and dread, pay little attention
to picturesque scenery.
The master kept, as often as the wood permitted, abreast
of one or both of his domestics, and seemed earnestly
to converse with them, probably because the distinctions
of rank are readily set aside among those who are
made to be sharers of common danger. The dispositions
of the leading men who inhabit this wild country,
and the probability of their taking part in the political
convulsions that were soon expected, were the subjects
of their conversation.
They had not advanced above half way up the lake,
and the young gentleman was pointing to his attendants
the spot where their intended road turned northwards,
and, leaving the verge of the loch, ascended a ravine
to the right hand, when they discovered a single horseman
coming down the shore, as if to meet them. The
gleam of the sunbeams upon his head-piece and corslet
showed that he was in armour, and the purpose of the
other travellers required that he should not pass unquestioned.
“We must know who he is,” said the young
gentleman, “and whither he is going.”
And putting spurs to his horse, he rode forward as
fast as the rugged state of the road would permit,
followed by his two attendants, until he reached the
point where the pass along the side of the lake was
intersected by that which descended from the ravine,
securing thus against the possibility of the stranger
eluding them, by turning into the latter road before
they came up with him.
