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But, Sauners Paton, I hae ae thing to tell ye, and that's no twa; ye'll this night flit your camp; ye'll tak to the hills, as I'm a living woman, and no bide to be hang't at your ain door, and to get your right hand chappit aff, and sent to Lanerk for a show, as they say is done an doing wi' a' the Covenanters."
It happened, however, that I had occasion to pass by, and some of the town's folk who recollected me, said whisperingly to one another, but loud enough to be heard, that I was one of the persecuted; whereupon Mrs M'Coul turned round and said to me, with a constrained composure, "Can ye tell me whilk o' yon's the head and hand o' John M'Coul, that was executed for the covenanting at Lanerk?"
Against which sinful encroachments on religion and liberty, the witnessing persecuted remnant accounted themselves bound in duty to emit their testimony, which they published at Lanerk, January 12th, 1682, adhering to, and confirming their former at Sanquhar, and giving reasons at length for their disowning the unlawful authority of Charles II. Upon intelligence hereof, this declaration, with those at Rutherglen and Sanquhar, were, by order of the council, with great solemnity, burnt at the cross of Edinburgh, by the magistrates in their robes, together with the Solemn League and Covenant, which had been burnt formerly: but now they would give new demonstrations of their rage against it, in conjunction with these declarations, which they saw and acknowledged were evidently conformed to, and founded upon it.
The matter particularly referred to arose out of the following circumstances: The number of honest and pious men who were executed in different places, and who had their heads and their right hands with which they signed the Covenant at Lanerk cut off, and placed on the gates of towns and over the doors of tolbooths, had been very great.
But though my anxiety concerning my family was now sharpened as it were with the anguish of fire, I began to reason with myself on the jeopardy I might bring upon them, were I to return while the pursuit was so fierce; and in the end I came to the determination only to seek to know how it fared with them, and what had become of my brother in the battle, trusting that in due season the Lord would mitigate the ire and the cruelty that was let loose on all those who had joined in the Protestation and renewed the Covenant at Lanerk.
"Aye," said she, "the country-side has been in a consternation ever since Dalziel left Glasgow; we a' jealoused that the Lanerk Covenanters would na be able to withstand his power and the King's forces; for it was said ye had na a right captain of war among you a'. But, Mr Witherspoon, ye could ne'er be ane of the ministers that were said to meddle with the battering-rams o' battle.
Saving the innocent alarm of the drum in the mist, our march to Lanerk was without hinderance or molestation; and when we arrived there, it was agreed and set forth, on the exhortation of the ministers who were with us, that the Solemn League and Covenant should be publicly renewed; and, to the end that no one might misreport the spirituality of our zeal and intents, a Protestation was likewise published, wherein we declared our adherence and allegiance to the King undiminished in all temporalities; that we had been driven to seek redress by the sword for oppressions so grievous, that they could be no longer endured; and that all we asked and sought for was the re-establishment of the presbyterian liberty of worship, and the restoration of our godly pastors to their Gospel rights and privileges.
"That a covenanted spirit was bound at a' times and in a' situations, conditions, and circumstances, to uphold the cause." "True, true, we are a' Covenanters," replied the deacon, "and Gude forbid that I should e'er forget the vows I took when I was in a manner a bairn; but there's an unco difference between the auld covenanting and this Lanerk New-light.
The roads became sloughs, our feet were drawn heavily out of the clay, the burns and brooks raged from bank to brae, and the horses swithered at the fords, in so much, that towards the gloaming, when we were come to Bathgate, several of our broken legions were seen far behind; and when we halted for the night, scarcely more than half the number with whom we had that morning left Lanerk could be mustered, and few of those who had fallen behind came up.
And particularly with the above proviso and limitation, they declare their adherence to the Rutherglen, Sanquhar and Lanerk declarations, annis 1679, 1680, 1682; as also to the declarations published at Sanquhar, 1683, 1684, 1692, and 1695, 1703, 1707; to the informatory vindication, and cloud of witnesses; to the covenants national and solemn league, sworn at Auchensaugh, near Douglas, in the year 1712, at Crawfurd-john 1745; with the additional acknowledgments of sins, and engagements to duties at these times; to the declarations published at Sanquhar, 1718, and at Montherrick, 1740, 1741.
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