I see," he cried, "their column shake: 8. The horsemen dashed among the rout As the dark caverns of the deep CXXVII. THE BAPTISM. FROM WILSON. JOHN WILSON, for more than thirty years Professor in the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, is better known as the principal editor of Blackwood's Magazine, and its chief contributor, under the name of Christopher North. He has written numerous interesting tales, descriptive of Scotch life and manners. KIRK; Scotch for Church. KITTLE; dangerous, ticklish. 1. THE rite of baptism had not been performed for several months in the kirk of Lanark. It was now the hottest time of persecution; and the inhabitants of that parish found other places in which to worship God and celebrate the tordinances of religion. It was now the sabbath-day, and a small congregation of about a hundred souls, had met for divine service, in a place more magnificent than any temple that human hands had ever built to Deity. The congregation had not assembled to the toll of the bell, but each heart knew the hour and observed it; for there are a hundred sundials among the hills, woods, moors, and fields; and the shepherd and the peasant see the hours passing by them, in sunshine and shadow. 2. The church in which they were assembled was hewn by God's hand, out of the eternal rock. A river rolled its way through a mighty chasm of cliffs, several hundred feet high, of which the one side presented enormous masses, and the other, corresponding recesses, as if the great stone girdle had been rent by a convulsion. The channel was overspread with prodigious fragments of rocks or large loose stones, some of them smooth and bare, others containing soil and verdure in their rents and fissures, and here and there, crowned with shrubs and trees. The eye could at once command a long-stretching *vista, seemingly closed and shut up at both extremities by the coalescing cliffs. This majestic reach of river contained pools, streams, and waterfalls innumerable; and when the water was low-which was now the case, in the common drought-it was easy to walk up this scene with the calm, blue sky overhead, an utter and sublime solitude. 3. On looking up, the soul was bowed down by the feeling of that prodigious height of unscalable, and often overhanging cliff. Between the channel and the summit of the far *extended precipices, were perpetually flying rooks and wood-pigeons, and now and then a hawk, filling the profoundabyss with their wild cawing, deep murmur, or shrilly shriek, Sometimes a heron would stand erect and still, on some little stone island, or rise up like a white cloud along the black walls of the chasm, and disappear. Winged creatures alone could inhabit this region. The fox and wild cat chose more accessible haunts. Yet, here came the persecuted Christians and worshiped God, whose hand hung over their head those magnificent pillars and arches, scooped out those galleries from the solid rock, and laid at their feet the calm water, in its transparent beauty, in which they could see themselves sitting in reflected groups, with their Bibles in their hands. 4. Here, upon a semicircular ledge of rocks, over a narrow chasm of which, the tiny stream played in a murmuring water-fall, and divided the congregation into two equal parts, sat about a hundred persons, all devoutly listening to their minister, who stood before them on what might be called a small, natural pulpit of living stone. Up to it there led a short flight of steps, and over it waved the canopy of a tall, graceful birch-tree. The pulpit stood in the middle of the channel, directly facing the congregation, and separated from them by the clear, deep, sparkling pool, into which the scarce heard water poured over the blackened rock. The water, as it left the pool, separated into two streams, and flowed on each side of that altar, thus placing it in an island, whose large mossy stones were richly *embowered under the golden blossoms and green tresses of the broom. 5. At the close of divine service, a row of maidens, all clothed in purest white, came gliding off from the congregation, and crossing the murmuring stream on stepping stones, arranged themselves at the foot of the pulpit, with those who were about to be baptized. Their devout fathers, just as though they had been in their own kirk, had been sitting there during worship, and now stood up before the minister. The baptismal water, taken from that *pellucid pool, was lying, consecrated, in an appropriate *receptacle, formed by the upright stones that composed one side of the pulpit, and the holy rite proceeded. 6. Some of the younger ones in that semicircle, kept gazing down into the pool, in which the whole scene was reflected; and now and then, in spite of the grave looks and *admonishing whispers of their elders, letting fall a pebble into the water, that they might judge of its depth, from the length of time that elapsed before the clear air-bells lay sparkling on the agitated surface. The rite was over, and the religious service of the day closed by a psalm. The mighty rocks hemmed in the holy sound, and sent it in a more compact volume, clear, sweet, and strong, up to heaven. When the psalm ceased, an echo, like a spirit's voice was heard dying away, high up among the magnificent architecture of the cliffs; and once more might be noticed in the silence, the reviving voice of the water-fall. 7. Just then, a large stone fell from the top of the cliff into the pool, a loud voice was heard, and a plaid was hung over on the point of a shepherd's staff. Their wakeful sentinel had descried danger, and this was his warning. Forthwith, the congregation rose. There were paths, dangerous to *unpracticed feet, along the ledges of the rocks, leading up to several caves and places of concealment. The more active and young assisted the elder, more especially the old pastor, and the women with the infants; and many minutes had not elapsed, till not a living creature was visible in the channel of the stream, but all of them were hidden, or nearly so, in the clefts and caverns. 8. The shepherd, who had given the alarm, had lain down again instantly in his plaid on the greensward, upon the summit of these precipices. A party of soldiers was immediately upon him, and demanded what signals he had been making, and to whom; when one of them looking over the edge of the cliff, exclaimed, "Sec, see! Humphrey, we have caught the whole tabernacle of the Lord in a net, at last. There they are, praising God among the stones of the river Mouss. These are the Cartland Craigs. A noble *cathedral!" 66 Fling the lying sentinel over the cliffs. Here is a *canting *covenanter for you, deceiving honest soldiers on the very sabbath-day. Over with him, over with him; out of the gallery into the pit." But the shepherd had vanished like a shadow, and mixing with the tall, green broom and bushes, was making his unseen way toward a wood. "Satan has saved his servant; but come, my lads, follow me. way down into the bed of the stream, and the Wallace's cave. They are called, 'kittle nine stanes.' The hunt's up. We'll all be in at the death. Halloo! my boys, halloo!" I know the steps up to 9. The soldiers dashed down a less precipitous part of the wooded banks, a little below the "craigs," and hurried up the channel. But when they reached the altar where the old gray-haired minister had been seen standing, and the rocks that had been covered with people, all was silent and solitary; not a creature to be seen. "Here is a Bible, dropped by some of them," cried a soldier, and, with his foot, spun it away into the pool. "A bonnet, a bonnet," cried another; now for the pretty, *sanctified face, that rolled its demure eyes below it." But after a few jests and oaths, the soldiers stood still, eying with a kind of mysterious dread, the black and silent walls of the rocks that hemmed them in, and hearing only the small voice of the stream that sent a profounder stillness through the heart of that majestic solitude. "What if these cowardly covenanters should tumble down upon our heads pieces of rock, from their hiding places? Advance? or retreat?" 10. There was no reply; for a slight fear was upon every man. Musket or bayonet could be of little use to men obliged to clamber up rocks, along slender paths, leading they know not where. And they were aware that armed men, nowadays worshiped God; men of iron hearts, who feared not the glitter of the soldier's arms, neither barrel nor bayonet; men of long stride, firm step, and broad breast, who, on the open field, would have overthrown the marshaled line, and gone first and foremost, if a city had to be taken by storm. 11. As the soldiers were standing together irresolute, a noise came upon their ears like distant thunder, but even more appalling; and a slight current of air, as if propelled by it, passed whispering along the sweet-briers, and the broom, and the tresses of the birch-trees. It came deepening, and rolling, and roaring on; and the very Cartland Craigs shook to their foundation, as if in an earthquake. "The Lord have mercy upon us! what is this?" And down fell many of the miserable wretches on their knees, and some on their faces, upon the sharp-pointed rocks. Now, it was like the sound of many myriads of chariots rolling on their iron axles, down the strong channel of the torrent. The old, gray-haired minister issued from the mouth of Wallace's cave, and said in a loud voice, "The Lord God terrible reigneth!" 12. A water-spout had burst up among the *moor-lands, and the river, in its power, was at hand. There it came, tumbling along into that long reach of cliffs, and, in a moment, filled it with one mass of waves. Huge, agitated clouds of foam rode on the surface of a blood-red torrent. An army must have been swept off by that flood. The soldiers perished in a moment; but, high up in the cliffs, above the sweep of destruction, were the covenanters, men, women, and children, uttering prayers to God, unheard by themselves, in the raging thunder. |