forcibly to the imaginations and feelings of those who love to
contemplate aught that is connected with a vanished time. The cold grey
stone on which I was now gazing seemed to me a link uniting the remote
past and the present, over the mighty gulf that intervened. Nearly two
hundred years have passed away since this green turf was pressed by the
foot of one who stood foremost amongst the champions of the Covenant.
Here, as we are told—it might have been on a lovely summer’s morn, when
even to breathe the free air of heaven seemed happiness too exquisite
for sinful man to enjoy—when the blue vault of heaven formed a glorious
canopy over their pastor’s head, and all nature breathed sweet harmony
around; or it might be in the more sober season of autumn, when the
deepening russet of the surrounding moor, the falling leaf, and the
stillness of the atmosphere—so often perceptible in that season which
harbingers the coming winter—seemed more in unison with the gloom which
pervaded the Covenanters’ souls, there assembled a mighty crowd to
listen to the truths which fell from the lips of Peden. And what spot
more suited to their holy purpose! On all sides were they surrounded by
scenes famous for their connection with the stirring events of that
stormy period. Directly opposite, the mighty Grampians towered
majestically in the distance, amid whose solitudes, according to the
traditions of the times, the Covenanters, while listening to an
impassioned discourse of the zealous Wellwood, were protected from their
enemies’ bullets by a man of lofty stature, who stood in the air with
his drawn sword extended over the heads of the panic-stricken hearers of
the Word of God; while, stretching away on their right hand, the blue
range of the Pentlands, so linked with the misfortunes of the devoted
party of the Covenant, stood out in bold relief against the sky; and on
their left lay the disastrous plain of Bothwell. The whole scene was
pictured as though in a mirror before me. Here stood the dauntless
preacher of the Word, his grey hairs floating on the breeze, his eye
bright with sacred enthusiasm, and his hand, which clasped the sacred
Scriptures, raised aloft to heaven as though invoking the presence of
Him who hath promised to bless the assemblies of His servants, while the
surrounding heights were peopled by a dense mass of human beings, hushed
into breathless silence, save when aroused to passionate bursts of
sorrow, as the speaker brought home to their hearts the sufferings of
those who fought and bled in defence of the Church of Scotland. While
indulging thus in reminiscences of the past, I was somewhat startled by
the pressure of a hand on my shoulder, and, turning suddenly round, to
my no small astonishment I found myself confronted by the wearer of the
scarlet mantle, who, coming from what direction I knew not, proceeded to
inquire, while she peered up in my face with two small penetrating eyes,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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