and true are words never thrown away upon me, Mr Morton. You may depend on the young man's safety.'
'Does it not revolt a mind like yours,' said Morton, 'to follow a system which is to be supported by such minute enquiries after obscure individuals?'
'You do not suppose we take the trouble?' said the General, haughtily. 'The curates, for their own sakes, willingly collect all these materials for their own regulation in each parish; they know best the black sheep of the flock. I have had your picture for three years.'
'Indeed?' replied Morton. 'Will you favour me by imparting it?'
'Willingly,' said Claverhouse; 'it can signify little, for you cannot avenge yourself on the curate, as you will probably leave Scotland for some time.'
This was spoken in an indifferent tone. Morton felt an involuntary shudder at hearing words which implied a banishment from his native land; but ere he answered, Claverhouse proceeded to read, 'Henry Morton, son of Silas Morton, Colonel of horse for the Scottish Parliament, nephew and apparent heir of Morton of Milnwood— imperfectly educated, but with spirit beyond his years—excellent at all exercises—indifferent to forms of religion, but seems to incline to the presbyterian—has high-flown and dangerous notions about liberty of thought and speech, and hovers between a latitudinarian and an enthusiast. Much admired and followed by the youth of his own age—modest, quiet, and unassuming in manner, but in his heart peculiarly bold and intractable. He is—Here follow three red crosses, Mr Morton, which signify triply dangerous. You see how important a person you are.—But what does this fellow want?'
A horseman rode up as he spoke, and gave a letter. Claverhouse glanced it over, laughed scornfully, bade him tell his master to send his prisoners to Edinburgh, for there was no answer; and, as the man turned back, said contemptuously to Morton—'Here is an ally of yours deserted from you, or rather, I should say, an ally of your good friend Burley—Hear how he sets forth—'Dear Sir,' (I wonder when we were such intimates,) 'may it please your Excellency to accept my humble congratulations on the victory'—hum—hum—'blessed his Majesty's army. I pray you to understand I have my people under arms to take and intercept all fugitives, and have already several prisoners,' and so forth. Subscribed Basil Olifant—You know the fellow by name, I suppose?'
'A relative of Lady Margaret Bellenden,' replied Morton, 'is he not?'
'Ay,' replied Grahame, 'and heir-male of her father's family, though a distant one, and moreover a suitor to the fair Edith, though discarded as an unworthy one; but, above all, a devoted admirer of the estate of Tillietudlem, and all thereunto belonging.'
'He takes an ill mode of recommending himself,' said Morton, suppressing his feelings, 'to the family at Tillietudlem, by corresponding with our unhappy party.'
'O, this precious Basil will turn cat in pan with any man!' replied Claverhouse. 'He was displeased with the government, because they would not overturn in his favour a settlement of the late Earl of Torwood, by which his lordship gave his own estate to his own daughter; he was displeased with Lady Margaret, because she avowed no desire for his alliance, and with the pretty Edith, because she did not like his tall ungainly person. So he held a close correspondence with Burley, and raised his followers with the purpose of helping him, providing always he needed no help, that is, if you had beat us yesterday. And now the rascal pretends he was all the while proposing the King's service, and, for aught I know, the council will receive his pretext for current coin, for he knows how to make friends among them—and a dozen scores of poor vagabond fanatics will be shot, or hanged, while this cunning scoundrel lies hid under the double cloak of loyalty, well-lined with the fox-fur of hypocrisy.'
With conversation on this and other matters they beguiled the way, Claverhouse all the while speaking with great frankness to Morton, and treating him rather as a friend and companion than as a prisoner; so that, however uncertain of his fate, the hours he passed in the company of this remarkable man were so much lightened by the varied play of his imagination, and the depth of his knowledge of human nature, that since the period of his becoming a prisoner of war, which relieved him at once from the cares of his doubtful and dangerous station among the insurgents, and from the consequences of their suspicious resentment, his hours flowed on less anxiously than at any time since his having commenced actor in public life. He was now, with respect to his fortune, like a rider who has flung his reins on the horse's neck, and, while he abandoned himself to circumstances, was at least relieved from the task of attempting to direct them. In this mood he journeyed on, the number of his companions being continually augmented by detached parties of horse who came in from every quarter of the country, bringing with them, for the most part, the unfortunate persons who had fallen into their power. At length they approached Edinburgh.
'Our council,' said Claverhouse, 'being resolved, I suppose, to testify by their present exultation the extent of their former terror, have decreed a kind of triumphal entry to us victors and our captives; but as I do not quite approve the taste of it, I am willing to avoid my own part in the show, and, at the same time, to save you from yours.'
So saying, he gave up the command of the forces to Allan, (now a Lieutenant-colonel,) and, turning his horse into a by-lane, rode into the city privately, accompanied by Morton and two or three servants. When Claverhouse arrived at the quarters which he usually occupied in the Canongate, he assigned to his prisoner a small apartment, with an intimation, that his parole confined him to it for the present.
After about a quarter of an hour spent in solitary musing on the strange vicissitudes of his late life, the attention of Morton was summoned to the window by a great noise in the street beneath. Trumpets, drums, and kettle-drums, contended in noise with the shouts of a numerous rabble, and apprised him that the royal cavalry were passing in the triumphal attitude which Claverhouse had mentioned. The magistrates of the city, attended by their guard of halberds, had met the victors with their welcome at the gate of the city, and now preceded them as a part of the procession. The next object was two heads borne upon pikes; and before each bloody head were carried the hands of the dismembered sufferers, which were, by the brutal mockery of those who bore them, often approached towards each other as if in the attitude of exhortation or prayer. These bloody trophies belonged to two preachers who had fallen at Bothwell Bridge. After them came a cart led by the executioner's assistant, in which were placed Macbriar, and other two prisoners, who seemed of the same profession. They were bareheaded, and strongly bound, yet looked around them with an air rather of triumph than dismay, and appeared in no respect moved either by the fate of their companions, of which the bloody evidences were carried before them, or by dread of their own approaching execution, which these preliminaries so plainly indicated.
Behind these prisoners, thus held up to public infamy and derision, came a body of horse, brandishing their broadswords, and filling the wide street with acclamations, which were answered by the tumultuous outcries and shouts of the rabble, who, in every considerable town, are too happy in being permitted to huzza for any thing whatever which calls them together. In the rear of these troopers came the main body of the prisoners, at the head of whom were some of their leaders, who were treated with every circumstance of inventive mockery and insult. Several were placed on horseback with their faces to the animal's tail; others were chained to long bars of iron, which they were obliged to support in their hands, like the galleyslaves in Spain when travelling to the port where they are to be put on shipboard. The heads of others who had fallen were borne in triumph before the survivors, some on pikes and halberds, some in sacks, bearing the names of the slaughtered persons labelled on the outside. Such were the objects who headed the ghastly procession, who seemed as effectually doomed to death as if they wore the sanbenitos of the condemned heretics in an auto-da-fe. [Note: David Hackston of Rathillet, who was wounded and made prisoner in the skirmish of Air's-Moss, in which the celebrated Cameron fell, was, on entering Edinburgh, 'by order of the Council, received by the Magistrates at the Watergate, and set on a horse's bare back with his face to the tail, and the other three laid on a goad of iron, and carried up the street, Mr Cameron's head being on a halberd before them.']
Behind them came on the nameless crowd to the number of several hundreds, some retaining under their misfortunes a sense of confidence in the cause for which they suffered captivity, and were about to give a still more bloody testimony; others seemed pale, dispirited, dejected, questioning in their own minds their prudence in espousing a cause which Providence seemed to have disowned, and looking about for some avenue through which they might escape from the consequences of their rashness. Others there were who seemed incapable of forming an opinion on the subject, or of entertaining either hope, confidence, or fear, but who, foaming with thirst and fatigue, stumbled along like over-driven oxen, lost to every thing but their present sense of wretchedness, and without having any distinct idea whether they were led to the shambles or to the pasture. These unfortunate men were guarded on each hand by troopers, and behind them came the main body of the cavalry, whose military music resounded back from the high houses on each side of the street, and mingled with their own songs of jubilee and triumph, and the wild shouts of the rabble.
