Evidently enjoying the delighted surprise with which we gazed on the
startling scene, our guide exclaimed, as if in answer to his own
thoughts, while he pointed with his stick to the gloomy depths
below:—"Yes! beneath the shade of these frowning rocks the persecuted
Covenanter—friendless and homeless, heart-sick and weary—could lay
himself down to rest in as much security as the sleeping child reposing
on its mother’s breast!" The old man’s colour rose as he gave utterance
to these words; his eyes flashed, and he grasped his staff with a
firmness which convinced me that he himself, had he lived in those
times, would have been a staunch supporter of the Covenanting cause. I
ventured to hint as much, upon which he replied—"Maybe, maybe! there is
no saying what either of us might have been had we lived in those wild
days; but praise be to God! they are gone—I trust never to return in
Scotland."
Re-echoing this heartfelt prayer, we pursued our way along the giddy
ledge of the precipice which stretched beneath. The farther we
advanced, the more wild and gloomy the scenery became, until at length
we paused, mutually overcome with the stern sublimity of the, formerly
believed to be, haunted linn. By means of fissures in the rocks, worn
away in some places so as to resemble huge skeletons, we beheld winding
passages and numberless cascades—the noise of whose falling waters alone
broke upon the stillness of the scene; while in the abyss beneath,
gigantic masses of hyperstein-looking rock, jutting boldly out from each
bank, seemed to form, what well might have been, the entrance to some
subterranean palace of the Genii. So perfect was the resemblance, that,
as we gazed affrighted on the towering portals and listened to the
murmurs of the water gurgling along its pebbled bed, we almost feared to
see some of its terrible inhabitants issue forth, and with denouncing
gestures, compel us to enter their unblest abode. After pointing out
for our observation the numerous caves which formerly sheltered the
adherents of the Covenant, our guide attracted our attention to a seat,
in the form of a chair, hollowed out in the solid rock, remarking, as he
did so, "You told me you thought from my appearance that I would have
been a Covenanter had I lived in their time, and well might you say so,
for my forefathers were staunch in the rightful cause; and for many a
long hour did my great-grandfather sit in that seat, when Claverhouse
and his dragoons were guarding the entrance to the linn. He was a
shoemaker in this parish, and from that circumstance alone it is still
known as the ’Sutor’s Seat.’"
"Is there any tradition handed down in connection with your
great-grandfather?" I inquired.
"Yes, ma’m, there is; and if you would care to hear it, you are welcome
to all that I can remember." So saying, the old man seated himself on a
neighbouring stone and related the story which, clothed in my own
language, is now presented to the reader under the name of the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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