which I clearly ought to do?' The words thus uttered by the bold pantheistic German philosopher remind us, who are disciples of the the ever living and present Christ, of the pressing claims of the work which He has given us to do, and the solemn responsibilities connected therewith. We are entrusted, under God, with the moral and religious culture of our own and following ages. We are God's husbandry. Though our stay in this sphere of toil is brief and uncertain, the nations yet to come will be the better or the worse for our teaching our influence. We are indi or vidually called with a heavenly calling to be priests and witnesses of the truth. We are bound by the strongest possible obligations to venture all things, to suffer all things, to do all things, for our Master. We are brought into gracious relations with Christ that He may work in us, through us, and by us, for the furtherance and accomplishment of His purposes of mercy. Nor can we delegate our duties to others or rid ourselves of our accountableness as the stewards of God. Every man must bear his own burden. Some high or humble enterprise of good Rouse to some work of pure and holy love, Shall deck thy grave with amaranthine flowers, And yield thee fruits divine in heaven's immortal bowers. HUNTED ON THE MOORS. PASSAGES FROM THE TRADITIONS OF THE COVENANTERS. CHAPTER VII.-THE 'WHIG'S VAULT' AT DUNNOTAR. CHARLES THE SECOND died in 1685. | most diabolical cruelty. One fine That year and the year preceding were among the darkest in the annals of the Covenanters. The period is commonly known as 'the killing time,' and not without reason. Many saintly men fell victims to the blood-thirstiness of Claverhouse and his troopers. Defenceless women were shot while kneeling together in prayer on the purple heather, and young children were tortured with the lad of ten was suspended by All The Whig's Vault at Dunnotar. 411 torting from him some information | soldiers intensified the sufferings of about his father, whose Covenant- the imprisoned Covenanters. All ing leanings were well known, but provisions were charged for at a who had hitherto escaped his high rate, and even water had to be pursuers. The boy was well nigh bought. Barrels of water were dead with pain and fright-but by occasionally brought, which the no single word betrayed his father. soldiers doled out till they were Another lad, a few years older, had tired, and then emptied the rea thick cord tied round his brow, mainder into the vault. The weakest and twisted with the butt end of a died, and of this number there were pistol till the cord cut a fearful many. Their bodies were dragged gash round his head. out and disposed of by the soldiers. But for wholesale cruelty perhaps nothing surpassed the treatment in the Whig's Vault at Dunnotar. This fortress was built in the reign of Edward the First by Sir William Keith, the Great Marshall of Scotland. It is situated on the top of an immense rock that projects into the sea, and has now more the appearance of a ruined city than a dismantled castle. Three months after the death of Charles the Second, that is, in May, 1685, the Council in Edinburgh were alarmed by the rumour that Argyle was approaching. Afraid least the Covenanters should join his standard, they sent all the prisoners captured in the south and west to the fortress of Dunnotar, in Kincardineshire. Without a moment's warning some hundred and seventy men were thus marched northward. The hardships of the journey were incredible. They were kept all one night on a bridge, soldiers being stationed at each end. The weather proved inclement, and many were worn down with fatigue. But a worse fate awaited them. They reached Dunnotar, and were then all thrust into a dark vault under ground, known as 'the Whig's Vault.' This miserable hole was anckle deep in mire, and had but one window, which looked toward the sea. The number thus caged together made it impossible for any one to sit down without leaning on his neighbours. There was no accommodation for sitting or lying, and the inmates were stifled for want of air. Many were faint and sickly, but on no account were the prisoners allowed to leave the vault. The barbarities of the After remaining some days in this filthy den, the governor removed about forty into another vault so narrow and low that the exchange afforded no relief. All the air and light came through a very small chink. The walls were decayed, and some little breeze came in at the bottom of the vault. Several of the men lay all their length on the floor to catch this little breath of sweet air, and in this way some, particularly Mr. Frazer, one of the ministers, caught a violent cold and dysentry. Relief came, however, from an unexpected quarter. The wife of the governor came in one day to see the prisoners in the vault, and prevailed with her husband to mitigate their sufferings. Twelve men were taken from the little vault and put into two rooms where they had abundance of air and accommodation. Notwithstanding this great kindness many hardships had yet to be endured in the Whig's Vault. As matters grew worse, several men sought to make their escape. They climbed up to the window, and, finding sufficient space to admit of their exit, fell down on the rocks which were a great distance below. The wonder is that the men were not crushed by their fall, or did not topple over into the sea that roared beneath. About twenty-five escaped in this manner before the alarm was given to the guard by some women who were washing near the rock. The outer gates were at once shut, the hue and cry raised, and all possible means used to retake the fugitives. Fifteen were apprehended, and the diseases, without the Council provide a speedy remedy; and, therefore, humbly supplicating that warrant may be granted to the effect underwritten.' The Council at once advised more lenient measures, but the governor was greatly exasperated. He drew up a defence, which he forced several prisoners to sign under pain of still harsher treatment. rest, notwithstanding the unfriendly | tably incur a plague or other fearful character of the neighbouring people toward them, got clear off. The men who were captured were inhumanly beaten and bruised, were put into the guard-house, bound and laid on their backs upon a form, a fiery match put betwixt every finger of both hands, while six soldiers in turn blew the match so as to keep in the flame. This continued for three hours without intermission. William Neven, by this treatment, lost one of the fingers of his left hand. Alexander Dalgleish died in great agony of the inflammation that set in. Others lost their fingers, the very bones of which were turned to ashes. Nor was Dalgleish the only one who died through this worst than Inquisition torture. All these barbarities were inflicted by the governor's orders. This monster in human shapeby name George Keith-deserves and is certain to get the honest execration of an indignant posterity. No government-except the Russian when many of the would permit such unheard of atrocities to be inflicted even on the most notorious felons. But for his cowardly fears no mitigation would have followed the remonstrance of the Council. Keith began to fear By some means news of these that the plague would break out. satanic practices got wind. Gentle-At length,' says Wodrow the men in Edinburgh laid the facts historian, before the Council, in which were men who possessed 'some touch of pity. A complaint was also made to the same Council by two women whose husbands were confined in the Whig's Vault. They state in their petition: 'That their husbands -with many others--who are under no sentence, have been sent prisoners to the Castle (Dunnotar); that they are in a most lamentable condition, there being one hundred and ten of them in one vault, where there is little or no daylight at all; and, contrary to all modesty, men and women promiscuously together; and forty-two more in another room in the same condition; and no person allowed to come near them with meat or drink, but such meat and drink as scarce any rational creature can live upon, and yet at extraordinary rates-being twenty pennies each pint of ale, which is not worth a plack a pint; and the peck of sandy dusty meal is offered to them at eighteen shillings per peck; and not so much as a drink of water allowed to be carried to themwhereby they are not only in a starving condition, but must inevi prisoners were dead through this harsh dealing, and many of them sick, and all of them in a very loathsome condition for want of change of clothes, the governor, for fear of an infection, separated some of them from the great vault and put them in different rooms, some of them in other vaults, without air or light, others to ruinous high chambers where the windows were all open and no fence against wind and rain; they were not so much as allowed to light a candle to look after the sick and dying in the night time. Several of their friends who came to visit them were made prisoners, and sent with them to the plantations; and when the Council ordered them back to Leith, they were flightered and bound in twos and threes with cords.' In the churchyard of Dunnotar may now be seen a tombstone erected to the memory of some of the sufferers, and bearing this inscription: 'Here lies John Scott, James Aitchison, James Russel, and William Brown, and one whose name we have not gotten; and two women also whose names we know Keel Eddie at the Peel and at the Kirk. 413 not; and two who perished coming | in Dunnotar Castle, anno 1685, for doune the rock; and one whose their adherence to the Word of God name was James Watson, the other and Scotland's Covenanted work of not known, who all died prisoners Reformation.' CHAPTER VIII.-IN WHICH KEEL EDDIE RELATES HIS ADVENTURES AT CRICHTON CASTLE, AND WHAT HE HEARD AT SANQUHAR KIRK. ONE day in the autumn of the same year (1685) just as it was growing dusk, Eddie and his donkey once more appeared before the door of the Miny. 'Whar hae ye come frae the day?' said Gilbert. As I was saying just now, I hae been to the ancient burgh o' Sanquhar. I hae lang dealt wi' the Provost, and as he wishes me well he got me introduced to the Castle. Hech, sirce! but it is an unco place yon_castle they ca' Crichton Peel. It's a gowsty old pile o' a biggin, capable o' baudin' hundreds o' folk, great and sma'; and then there is Wallace's Tower in the south corner; and there was a great iron yett, wi' its heavy portkillus, as they ca' it. It hangs frightfully aboon, wi' its great iron teeth grinin' as it were for a bite. 'Weel, as I was creeping toward the Peel wi' considerable caution, wha should I forgether wi' but Queensbury himsel'-no so frightful a lookin' man after a'. He glowered at me a blink, but I appeared naething sun-daunted. The 'I hae come frae the burgh o' Sanquhar; and I hae had an unco speel up the face o' that weary Bale Hill. It is a sair toilsome ascent, and there is always something eery in passing that wild-looking spot they call Laganawell, where, the shepherds says, unsoncy things hae been seen. They say the name means the "bluidy hollow"--but be that as it may-what a glorious view presents itself frae the top o' that lofty hill. All the upper Nithsdale lies spread before ye. I may say I never saw its beauties till this afternoon. The clear, mild beams lit up the whole scene. pure Nith winded its way through the bottom of the valley, like a silver thread, till it lost itself among the woods of Eliock. The town of Sanquhar, with its old frowning castle, lay as it were at your feet. In the east corner the majestic Lowther Hills were seen towering above all the lesser mountains and overlooking the terrible gorge of Enterkin. And there were the heights of Afton-the green Corsancone-the charming defile of Glen Aylmer-the hills of Killy and Yochan-and the dark mountains of the wild Disdeer. My spirits were raised; but yet my heart sank within me as I thought of the many martyred brethren whose mangled bodies lay on moor and mountain in all the district before me. I trembled, and I didna ken but I might mysel' the next instant be stretched lifeless on the bent. "What do you here with that miserable looking creature you are leading behind you ? "An't please yer honour," says I, “I am e'e auld Eddie Cringan the keelman; and I deal in sundry articles, such as tobacco and pipes, and the sodgers are often gude customers." When he heard me name the sodgers, he said : Ye are an honest fellow, I opine. Here, Sergeant Turner, take the old fool into the kitchen, and give him something to eat and drink." "Thank yer honour," stammered I, and passed on. 'The cuddie was tied up in an out-house, with the creels on his back; but I took care to hide the poother and shot in a friendly house in the town. 'And now I am going to tell you what happened. A company of Airly's troops is lying at the castle. I had no acquaintance with any of` them, but my ears were open. All was bustle about the Peel; and what wi' sodgers, and what wi' servants, I was amaist dung donnart a' thegither. One pushing this way, and another that, and swaggering, swearing, drinking, and fighting, the place seemed to be like pandemonium. I dined wi' the troopers, but I didna find mysel' at home among them. The entertainment was plentiful; and whiskey, and ale, and a' sorts o' liquors were in abundance. I never saw such eating and drinking. The men seemed as if they had not broken their fast for half a week, and scarcely any one was sober. Presently they all turned out on the green under the castle wa' to dance, Angus Mc Bane, one of Airly's men, being a first-rate hand at the bagpipes. Such a mingling, and a shoutin', and a caperin' as followed, I never saw. Some drew their swords, and waved them over their heads, and others threatened to run their fellows through. Bonnets were tossed high in the air, kilted lads footed it most nimbly. Some were tripping their neighbours up: others were boxing like rams and pushing like wild bulls. I crept into the shed wi' the cuddie, and pept through a hole, for the men seemed stark mad wi' strong drink. The braw folks were keekin' frae the castle windows, enjoying the scene, and one fair lady displayed her handkerchief from the balcony, when a shout arose from the crowd that was perfectly deafening. 'The hubbub increased, and all was confusion. Sodgers and servants were a' jumbled together, fightin' and brawling. At first I thought mysel' pretty secure in my little out-house; but ere long I began to dread the upshot. A roisterous party, in the frenzy of their excitement, approached my hiding place, and fighting furiously and roaring terribly came with a crash against the frail door behind which I stood. It flew to shivers, and in tumbled half a dozen of the boisterous troopers, heels over head, on the floor. As soon as they recovered themselves they espied the keelman and his cuddie, and their thoughts were at once turned to mischief and to plunder. "Come, now, old fellow," they yelled out, "unpack, and let us see what sort of wares you have in those miserable_creels and wallets of yours. You are a fair prize captured on the battle-field, and now for the spoil." 'It was useless to remonstrate. The poor cuddie was soon eased of his burden, the creels emptied,— the tobacco, pipes, snuff, eggs, all tumbled on the floor. The tobacco was quickly picked up, and the snuff; the pipes were broken, and the eggs they picked up and flung at one another. They then turned on mysel' and the cuddie. Presently the yellow yowks were running down my breast and back like water. They kicked the creels about and tossed them on to the green. The cuddie was untied and led into the very midst of the hubblement, and I, all besmeared with eggs as I was, was compelled to mount him and ride round the green. Every eye now turned on me. All ceased fighting, and burst into a loud and uncontrollable fit of laughter. They next insisted that I should perform some feats of horsemanship, on pain of being ducked in the horse pond, when suddenly a spy was seen hasting toward the castle frae the moors. He brought word that a large conventicle was being held northward among the hills. The bugle sounded. Every man girt on his armour, and mounted his horse. In an instant the castle yard was empty, and all were dashing along toward the moor after the captain. All this occurred on Saturday afternoon last. Queensbury and Airly remained in the castle, swilling themselves with wine, and Kirkwood, the witty curate of Sanquhar, was their companion. I never like ony one to speak to Kirkwood's discredit. He treats me kindly when I ca' at the manse; but no man is perfect, and the curate has |