Scenes and legends of the north of Scotland : $b or, The traditional history of Cromarty — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Scenes and legends of the north of Scotland : $b or, The traditional history of Cromarty
John Stuart Mill · en
of being one of their confederates; and on refusing to take what was
termed the Oxford Oath, he was committed to Newgate, where he was kept
for six months. But from his previous experience of the prisons of
Scotland, he seems, with Goldsmith’s sailor, to have deemed Newgate a
much better sort of place than it is usually esteemed;--his apartment
was large and lightsome, and the jailers were all very kind. Resuming,
on his release, his old mode of living, he continued to preach and
study by turns, until the Revolution; when, returning to Scotland, he
was invited by the people of Culross to preside over them as their
pastor;--a fit pastor for a parish which, during the reign of Prelacy,
had suffered and resisted more than almost any other in the kingdom. In
this place he continued until his death; grateful for all the mercies
bestowed upon him, and few men could reckon them better; but peculiarly
grateful that, in a season of hot persecution, he had been enabled to
take part with God.
Nor were strong-minded men, like Fraser of Brea, the only persons who
espoused this cause in the day of trouble, and dared to suffer for
it. There is a quiet passive fortitude in the better kind of women,
which lies concealed, as it ought, under a cover of real gentleness
and seeming timidity, until called forth by some occasion which
renders it a duty to resist; and this excellent spirit was exhibited
during this period by at least one lady of Cromarty. She was a Mrs.
Gordon, the wife of the parish minister;--a lady who, at an extreme
old age, retained much of the beauty of youth--a smooth unwrinkled
forehead, shaded by a profusion of black glossy hair without the
slightest tinge of grey: and it was said of her, so exquisite was her
complexion, that, when drinking a glass of wine, her neck and throat
would assume the ruddy hue of the liquid--an imaginary circumstance,
deemed characteristic at one time, by the common people of Scotland, of
the higher order of beauties, and which is happily introduced by Allan
Cunningham into one of the most pleasing of his ballads:--
“Fu’ white white was her bonny neck,
Twist wi’ the satin twine;
But ruddie ruddie grew her hawse,
While she sipp’d the bluid-red wine.”
[Sidenote: LUGGIE.]