CHAPTER XLIII.

Lagg at Airdoch--Glen of Dunscore-M'Caig of Milton--Incident.

THE estate of Airdoch, in the parish of Dalry, in Galloway, was, in the time of the persecution, possessed by Major Robert Stewart, a staunch adherent to the cause of liberty. His son Robert was, along with three of his companions, killed by Claverhouse at the Water of Dee, in 1684. He was a youth of rare godliness, and sustained a character so unimpeachable that his very enemies applauded him; and even Claverhouse, after he had shot him, was forced to exclaim: "Stewart's soul now sings in heaven!" The death of this young gentleman left a sting in the breast of the persecutor similar to that he experienced a few months after this, when he shot, with his own hand, John Brown of Priesthill on the bent before his door. The murderers of the holy men who testified in behalf of truth during this trying period, had sometimes a difficult task to smother their convictions of the innocency of their victims, whom their wanton cruelty laid bleeding at their feet. Their character, when contrasted with the excellency of those whom they despoiled of their lives, frequently appeared even to themselves so hideous, that they could scarcely bear the sight; and so pained sometimes were they with the acute sense of their baseness, that the feeling was past endurance; but they succeeded in tearing the arrow of conviction from their hearts, and the rankling wound soon closed, and their conscience gave them little annoyancethey drowned reflection in deep carousals, and hardened one another in wickedness. The troopers, it would appear, from a conviction of their impieties, verily believed that the punishment of hell would be their inevitable portion, as their conversation plainly testified. No words were more frequently in their mouths than the "devil, hell, and damnation." When any of their number died, they had no hesitation in asserting

that they were gone down to perdition, and as little hesitation in affirming that they themselves would follow to the pit of misery in their turn. Instances from the histories of the period might be adduced in proof of these statements. The following, from " Naphtali," may here be given: “In the town of Kirkcudbright, when one Captain Fin, a horseman, died, one of his companions coming to see him, and finding him dead, came near, and rudely gripping the dead man, used this horrid expression: 'What, devil! art thou dead, man? and did not tell me before, that I might have sent a letter to hell with thee (to such a comrade of his as he named, who had lately died before), to take up my winter quarters."" Such was the style of these men in speaking of the other world, and in looking forward to their condition in a future state. They lived in entire forgetfulness of God, and spent their days in riotous blasphemy, and they had nothing before them but “a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation to devour them." These men were the fit agents of hell in doing the work of Satan, in killing the saints of God, and in making havoc of all that was good in the land.

Airdoch, like many of the smaller mansion-houses in those times, had a court-yard before it, surrounded by a high wall. A strong gate closed the entrance, which was also defended by a powerful watch-dog, which failed not to give faithful warning on the approach of strangers. On one occasion, Lagg, with a company of troopers, paid a visit to Airdoch, for the purpose of apprehending some of the obnoxious inmates. The party, in their usual rude and blustering style, broke open the gate without ceremony, and rushed uproariously into the court. The family within observed the approach of the military, and were thrown into confusion. The faithful watch-dog considered his province invaded by a company of persons who had no right to intrude themselves, and he became quite outrageous, and attacked with desperate energy whatever came in his way. Troopers, and swords, and muskets, he recked not-he was set for the defence of the dwelling, and he was determined to wage war with all indiscriminately. Lagg seemed to be both amused and angry with the animal, and he exclaimed, in his rough way: "Do you see what sort of lap-dogs these Whigs keep!" On this the dog flew at the commander, who probably was attempting to chastise him with his whip, and seizing him by his military cloak, pulled him so furiously, that he dragged him, with all his warlike accoutrements, in one fell dash on the

ground. Here the haughty Cavalier lay ingloriously under the feet of the dog, which stood over him, and would have torn his heart out of his body had not the dragoons interfered. But even they were not at first competent to the release of their valorous chieftain; for the dog pertinaciously refused to let go his victim. They durst not touch him, lest he should turn on them with equal fury-they durst not strike him with their swords, lest they should wound their master-they durst not fire, lest the shot should miss its aim, and pass through the body of him whom they wished to succour. Probably the soldiers enjoyed the sport not a little, and they had, perhaps, no objections to see a man humbled whom it was impossible they could respect; and as there is no real friendship among wicked men, they might have no serious misgiving at witnessing the discomfiture of one whose cruelty, as it extended so largely to others, could not fail in occasionally reaching themselves. How the dog was disengaged, it is not easy to say; but when Lagg rose to his feet, he mounted his horse, and left the scene of his ignominious defeat.

The treatment which Lagg received from the dog in the close of Airdoch was very different from what the honest farmer of Lochenkit received from his dog on his return from a long banishment in the time of the persecution. After his release he hastened home to visit his family, of whose circumstances, during his long absence, he was entirely ignorant. He drew near his house with a palpitating heart, and knocking at the door, his wife made her appearance. He asked if she could entertain a stranger for a night. She replied, that she was but a poor widow, whose husband had many years ago been torn from her by the rude hand of violence, and that she was not fond of receiving into her lonely dwelling persons with whom she was not acquainted. In the meantime his favourite dog, now worn out with age, scented his old master, and springing from the hearth, bounded to the door, and leapt, in his former fondling manner, on his breast and shoulders, and displayed, by every freak and gesture, his intimate acquaintance with the stranger, and the excess of his joy at the meeting. The gudewife was astonished at the circumstance, and looking at the dog and then at the man, she exclaimed: "My husband!" Providence had sent him back, after a long separation, having protected him in a thousand perils, to visit his home and to bless his household. The posterity of this worthy man, whose name was Grier, are to this day resident in the district, and by them the anecdote has been retained.

Lagg and Claverhouse were intimate friends, companions in wickedness, who delighted in debauchery and profanity, in pillaging and in bloodshed. Two characters more fitted for the work in which they were engaged could scarcely have been found. Galloway, Nithsdale, and Annandale, was the wide field over which they roamed, committing all kinds of wickedness, and perpetrating the most unrestrained acts of injustice, rapine, and cruelty. The district appointed them by the council was considered by them as their appropriate kingdom, within the limits of which they might do as they pleased, without the fear of being called to account, and without the least regard to the remonstrances of the peasantry. The names of these two men were terrible to the people, and their coming to any place was considered as a circumstance much more to be dreaded than the visitation of a pestilence; and men fled at the very report of them as from an invading army, and hid themselves in the mountain deserts and in the caves and holes of the earth. The distress of the people in certain localities is scarcely conceivable; and this distress was owing simply to the lawless ravages of these unprincipled Cavaliers, who rioted in mischief, and enriched themselves by the spoliation of their countrymen. It would be saying too little merely to affirm that the council winked at the villanies perpetrated by the troopers throughout the land, for their procedure was positively sanctioned by that infamous court. The members of the council plotted mischief in the secrecy of their chambers, or in the hours of their disgraceful carousals, and what they plotted they commissioned their emissaries to execute. Wicked as the council were, their agents were equally so; and if the leading actors in this crusade were bad men, their subordinate instruments were still worse the subalterns in the army imitated their commanders, and even outstripped them in proficiency in vice, and in all degradation of conduct and character.

The names of Lagg and Claverhouse are to this day almost as familiar in the cottages of the south of Scotland as in the times in which they lived; and this shows the dreadful notoriety as persecutors to which these men had attained. Not only were they and the rest of their order feared by the Nonconformists-they were equally dreaded by those of their own party. The farmers and little lairds, of whatever religious profession, were, in common with others, frequently subjected to their pillagings and unceremonious intrusions, whenever it served their purpose. These two companions in sin emboldened each other in their wickedness, and pro

ceeded from bad to worse, till they reached such proficiency in iniquity as to leave far behind them many of their competitors in the career of crime. No deed of ruffianism was too daring for these men, and no atrocity too revolting and fierce. Their names have been transmitted with indelible infamy to posterity. It will be long before the south of Scotland forget that such men shed profusely, and without remorse, the blood of a pious ancestry, whose only fault was "non-compliance with a wicked time."

In their ramblings through the country they brought terror and ruin to many a hearth, dragging the parents from the children, and the children from the parents. These associates in crime came one day, in their raids, to a place called the Glen of Dunscore, for the purpose of visiting a family who was suspected of harbouring the outcasts, to see what might be acquired by way of pillage; for they were mean men, and guilty of low acts of theft, infinitely beneath the dignity of gentlemen-gentlemen! that title never befitted them. It was on a fine day in harvest, and all belonging to the house were in the field, gathering the yellow treasures of autumn. The field, it would appear, in which the reapers were employed, was not in sight of the troopers, otherwise it is likely they would have visited it first, for the purpose of apprehending those whom they wished to secure, or at least to interrogate them respecting the wanderers. When they arrived at the house, no person was within but a little girl of ten or twelve years of age. Claverhouse was artful, and could easily assume a great deal of apparent gentleness of manner, and by this means he could throw unsuspecting people off their guard, and expiscate all he wished to know; but Lagg was blustering and imperious, and attempted to gain his object by frowns and threatenings. He accosted the child, and asked some questions respecting the sort of people that frequented the house, and if she ever carried food to people in the fields-to which questions no satisfactory answers were returned, further than that she carried porridge to the herdboy, when he could not leave the cows in the fields; and that as to the night lodgers she knew nothing, because she went early to bed, and slept soundly till the morning. Lagg considered this as an evasion, and began to storm at the child, and threatened to shoot her on the spot. On this she burst into tears, and cried vehemently. "You have spoiled the play entirely," said Claverhouse; "she will now say anything, be it right or wrong, to save her life." When they were gone, the girl ran to the harvest-field to tell what had hap