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So far of Respectability; what the Covenanters used to call 'rank conformity': the deadliest gag and wet blanket that can be laid on men. And now of Profit. And this doctrine is perhaps the more redoubtable, because it harms all sorts of men; not only the heroic and self-reliant, but the obedient, cowlike squadrons.
The chief of these was the Earl of Lauderdale, who, in spite of his former close association with the Covenanters, and his pretence of rigid Presbyterianism, had solid claims to Royalist consideration. He had supported the present King during the rigorous days of his nominal reign in Scotland, had marched with him to Worcester, and had been kept a prisoner by Cromwell since 1651.
It was not until the 22nd of November that the scrutiny and verification of the signatures was completed, and the actual numbers published. They were as follows: In Ulster itself 218,206 men had registered themselves as Covenanters, and 228,991 women had signed the Declaration; in the rest of Ireland and in Great Britain 19,162 men and 5,055 women had signed.
Thus was the camp of the Covenanters divided. There were also more subtle divisions, which it is not necessary to mention here, and in both camps, of course there was an infusion, especially amongst the young men, of that powerful element love of excitement and danger for their own sake, with little if any regard to principle, which goes far in all ages to neutralise the efforts and hamper the energies of the wise.
Instead of obtaining his liberty, he was sent to the Bass, a very high rock surrounded by the sea; at this time converted into a state prison, and full of the unhappy Covenanters, He there remained in great misery, loaded with irons, till the year 1677, when it was resolved, by some new examples, to strike a fresh terror into the persecuted but still obstinate enthusiasts.
"The Legend of Montrose," describing the civil war in the sixteenth century; "Old Mortality," dealing with the rebellion of the Covenanters; and "Waverley," occupied with the Pretender's troubles in the middle of the eighteenth century, threw into bold relief widely differing periods of Scotch history.
Ye might as weel shoot at the Auld Enemy himsell." The belief of the Covenanters that their principal enemies, and Claverhouse in particular, had obtained from the Devil a charm which rendered them proof against leaden bullets, led them to pervert even the circumstances of his death.
The Covenanters had only one cannon and about 300 men with which to meet the assault; but the gun was effectively handled, and the men were staunch. On the central arch of the old bridge which was long and narrow there stood a gate. This had been closed and barricaded with beams and trees, and the parapets on the farther side had been thrown down to prevent the enemy finding shelter behind them.
A party backboneless as the Globerigina ooze, and, like that sub-Atlantic production, only held together by its own sliminess, must ever fail to realise the grit which means resistance, sacrifice, endurance; cannot grasp the outlines of the Ulster character and spirit, which resemble those which actuated the Scottish Covenanters, the Puritan army of Cromwell, or even and this illustration should be especially grateful to Gladstonians the Dutch Boers of the Transvaal.
Then came the struggle between Freedom and Slavery in the new Territory, the battle for Kansas and Nebraska, fought with fire and sword and blood, where a race of men, of whom John Brown was the immortal type, acted over again the courage, the perseverance, and the military religious ardor of the old Covenanters of Scotland, and, like them, redeemed the Ark of Liberty at the price of their own blood and blood dearer than their own.
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