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merry voice of the songster. The dragoons came up; it was a critical moment for Brown-life or death hung upon it. When they came close to him, however, though they slackened their pace, they did not halt, and riding slowly past, one of the party exclaimed: "That, at least, is not Alexander Brown, else he would not be singing songs on the Sabbathday." The propriety of the remark seemed to be felt by the company, and they marched on without taking further notice of him. When the troopers had passed him, and were fairly out of sight, Brown lost no time in seeking a place of immediate concealment; and this he found in a deep moss-hag in the neighbourhood. The dragoons arrived at Redshaw in search of him whom they left behind them on the moor. They examined every place without finding their object, and having ransacked the dwelling-house, they returned to Douglas. This was the last time that this good man was exposed to trouble from the enemy; for the Revolution, which took place soon after the occurrence now related, emancipated the nation at once from spiritual and civil bondage, and conferred on every man the perfect freedom of worshipping God according to the dictates of his own conscience.

Brown, when the danger was over, returned to sympathize with his kind friend at Redshaw, who, on his account, had sustained the spoiling of his goods, being reckoned a suspicious character when he harboured such men as Alexander Brown in his house. Tradition has not forgotten the fair maid of Cleuchbrae, who, shortly after this, and in more peaceful times, became the honoured wife of our worthy Covenanter, with whom she was already united both in affection and in principle. After their marriage they took up their residence at a place called Little Redshaw. They had a family, and both lived to a good old age. They died at Redshaw, and were interred in the ancient churchyard of St Bride, in Douglas.

The descendants of Alexander Brown and of Lean of Cleuchbrae are numerous, particularly in the parishes of Lesmahagow and Douglas. Two of the great-grandchildren of Alexander Brown are at present living in the town of Douglas, and are every way worthy of the honoured name of their ancestor.

CHAPTER XVII.

James Gavin of Douglas-Capture in the Ravine.

THE romantic locality of Douglasdale, in the upper ward of Lanarkshire, teems with many a tale of thrilling interest. The Water of Douglas, a dark blue stream, as its name indicates, wends its course through the delightful valley to which it gives the appellation, and falls into the majestic Clyde. The strath through which the river flows was, in times long gone by, the scene of many a bloody conflict; and there many a leal-hearted patriot bravely lost his life in the earlier struggles for Scotland's independence, against the encroachments of her southern neighbours. Few places in the southwest of Scotland, perhaps, retain more of the traditions of the "olden times" than this district. The hills, and woods, and glens, and mosses, and ancient feudal towers, have all legends of their own, relative to times either more recent or more remote. Such recitals, it is true, are not confined to Douglasdale only; they are sown either more profusely or more sparingly over the breadth and length of Caledonia.

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The ancient village of Douglas stands in the vicinity of the

princely mansion of the lord of the manor, which, from the green lawn on which it is situated, rears its towers among the sturdy trees which, centuries ago, witnessed many a deed of high and chivalrous daring on the part of the warlike ancestors of the famous house of Douglas. The village must in feudal times have taken its rise from the castle, and must have been the spot on which the retainers of the bold chieftain constructed their huts. The Church of St Bride, partly in ruins, stands on a rising ground in the centre of the more ancient part of the village, in the midst of the field of graves, and is a pile of very great antiquity.

Few names have sounded longer and louder in the ears of Scotsmen than that of Douglas. It was a name which not unfrequently made the throne of the Scottish monarchs totter beneath them. Theobold the Fleming founded, after the Saxon times, the family of Douglas. To this individual, Arnald, abbot of Kelso, granted, in the year 1147 and afterwards, the lands of Douglasdale in Lanarkshire. His firstborn son, according to the practice of the times when landowners took the name of their lands, assumed the title of Douglas; and hence has sprung that illustrious line whose name, through the descent of successive generations, has gathered so much martial renown.

In the times of the Episcopal persecution in Scotland, the parish of Douglas, like that of Sanquhar, suffered less than might have been expected. The leniency of those in power prevented, in both places, the mischief which might otherwise have ensued. The hand of Providence in this circumstance appears very obvious; for the wild localities in Douglasdale, and in the upper parts of Nithsdale, became by this means an asylum to the wanderers, who found there, at certain seasons at least, less molestation.

One circumstance, which would seem to account for the quietude of Douglas at this period, was, that the Rev. Peter Reid, minister of the parish, accepted the Indulgence; at least his name is mentioned in the list of the indulged who were cited to appear before the council in 1677-the year of the death of the venerable John Semple, the indulged minister of Carsphairn, during whose incumbency that parish also was kept in a state of similar repose. It was in the parishes of the curates chiefly that the greatest distress prevailed. These hirelings acted the part of government spies and informers, and were the cause of indescribable affliction over the whole country.

Another circumstance which tended to shield the inhabi

tants of Douglasdale in those oppressive days, was the tolerance of the house of Douglas. That family, it is said, never manifested a persecuting spirit. The Marquis of Douglas, though occasionally instigated by the council to support them in their measures, permitted every man on his lands to worship God according to his conscience; and, instead of annoying the Covenanters, he petitioned for the pardon of some, and obtained a mitigation of the punishment of others. The conduct of this nobleman must have had great weight with the smaller proprietors in his neighbourhood, who received no encouragement, from his example, to display anything like the keenness of a persecuting temper. The intolerance of an unprincipled baron, and the ferocity of an ignorant and bigoted squire, wrought more havoc in the bosom of the peaceful families of the land than tongue can tell.

It is probable that the curate who succeeded Peter Reid in Douglas, was a man of a gentle disposition, or that at least his disposition was modified by the presiding influence of the marquis. The curates were often greatly irritated at the disrespect shown them by their parishioners, and the scanty attendance on their ministry; and they sometimes broke out with great vehemence against the people. The curate of Lesmahagow, when he was one day preaching to a very thin audience, exclaimed: " Black be my fa', but they are a' aff to the hill folk thegither. Sorrow gin I dinna tell, and they'll a' be shot or hangit by Yule." In those days the curate of a parish was either silent, or lodged information, according to circumstances; for his conduct as a time-server was generally regulated by the will or example of the more powerful in his locality.

Notwithstanding the general quietude of the parish of Douglas during the stirring times of persecution, there were certain individuals even there, the prominence of whose religious character was such as to preclude the possibility of their being allowed to remain unnoticed. John Haddoway, merchant in Douglas, and James White, a writer in the same place, together with two brothers of the name of Cleland (James and William), were especially, after the battle of Bothwell Bridge, taken notice of by the council. Two years prior to this, however, we find the same persons regarded with a suspicious eye by the vigilant oppressors of the time, and actually summoned before them. Wodrow, the historian, takes notice of this circumstance in the following words: "By a letter to the Marquis of Douglas, they (the council) acquaint him that John Haddoway, his chamberlain, and

James and William Cleland, sons of Thomas Cleland, his garner keeper, having been before the council, February 1677, for being at conventicles and other disorders; and some witnesses were examined, and the process delayed, and his lordship's bond taken to produce them when called; they being now to go on in that process, desire him to exhibit them on the 27th instant, according to his bond." It appears that these persons were acquitted at this time-probably through the influence of the marquis. It is obvious, however, that matters in the parish of Douglas began to assume an aspect not at all pleasurable to the ecclesiastical superiors of the period; for the council acquainted the marquis on the same occasion, "that being informed of the vacancy of the kirk of Douglas, and that the people of that parish live disorderly, they desire that he may plant that kirk with some regular or orthodox minister, and take advice of his Grace the Archbishop of Glasgow, to whom they have recommended the planting of it, if he (the marquis) does it not readily." The disorderly living of the people of Douglas, here referred to in a letter from the council, is easily understood; it refers to their nonconformity, and their frequenting of conventicles.

There resided in Douglas, at this time also, an eminent Christian of the name of James Wilson, with whom the venerable Peden used to associate, and who sometimes accompanied him in his wanderings. Janet Cleland, too, a mother in Israel, and probably a relation of the two Clelands already mentioned, lived there, and was the individual who dared to express her sympathy with Hackston of Rathillet, when he was conveyed by the troopers a prisoner through Douglas, after the skirmish at Airs-moss. "At Douglas," says he, "Janet Cleland was kind to me, and brought a surgeon to me, who did but little to my wounds, only he staunched the blood." We are not therefore to conclude that there were few or no worthies to be found in certain localities, simply because little mention is made of them; circumstances prevented their being dragged into notice, when otherwise they would have appeared a great host.

Among the few of the natives of the sweetly secluded vale of Douglas that suffered in these trying times, was James Gavin. His name and certain circumstances connected with his history, have been retained by tradition; and it would be a matter of regret if the memorial of so worthy a man were to perish. When the moors and the glens of Scotland were the hiding-places of the scattered remnant, this lowly man, in order to maintain a good conscience, and communion with

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