TRADITIONS OF THE COVENANTERS CHAPTER I. Sanquhar-Howatson-Hair-William Adams. In no part of our native land, perhaps, did the fires of persecution rage with a fiercer flame than in the south-west of Scotland. The higher district of Nithsdale, where it joins the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire, was especially, at certain periods of the oppressive reign of the second Charles, a scene of tragical interest. The locality in the midst of which the ancient burgh of Sanquhar is situated, was the theatre of many an act of persecuting violence which history has not recorded, and which tradition has but imperfectly transmitted to our times. This town, which, in covenanting times, was famous as the occasional haunt of our Scottish worthies, and especially for the Declaration which the followers of Cameron published at its cross, stands in an interesting part of the country. The scenery in its immediate vicinity wears, in some places, a magnificent aspect, and in others is unrivalled for its pastoral beauty and sweetness. The silvery streams of the Mennock and the Crawick present each a scene of grandeur which can scarcely be equalled, and which have been deemed worthy of a panoramic exhibition in the first cities of the nation. The salubrity of its climate, owing to A the purity and freshness of the air which streams down from the lofty and dry mountains by which the town is surrounded, is tested by the great age to which many of the inhabitants live, and by the absence of those epidemical diseases which prevail in other parts of the country. Nor is this burgh without its monuments of antiquity. It is itself one of the oldest towns in the south of Scotland. It is, as its name imports, of Celtic origin, but of a date too remote to be ascertained. Its castle, which, under the corroding hand of time, is fast crumbling to ruins, stands on a low embankment, which once overlooked the classic stream of the Nith before the river assumed its present bed, and was, in the days of our Scottish patriots, Wallace and Bruce, the scene of bloody conflicts; and its British encampment, so ancient that even tradition itself has forgotten it, is situated on a lovely green eminence to the north-west, commanding a full view of the beautiful basin to which Sanquhar gives the name. The old parish church, which a few years ago was demolished to make room for the handsome structure which now occupies its place, was coeval with the High Church of Glasgow, and contained some of the hallowed relics of the olden time, such as the altar of the haly bluid, to see which, and to drink of the consecrated waters of the limpid well of the far-famed Saint Bride, many a devout pilgrim came even from distant parts.* It has often been remarked, that the inhabitants of the district, for a few miles around Sanquhar, are much superior to their neighbours in point of intelligence and general propriety of conduct. This was especially noticed by Sir Walter Scott; and the circumstance may be so far attributed to those sources of information to which they have an easy access the locality being furnished with no fewer than six libraries, and one of these comprehending nearly two thousand volumes. This small town has been favoured with a sound Gospel ministry since the Revolution; and prior to that era it was equally favoured. And as it was always in those places where the Gospel was purely preached that the greatest host of witnesses for the Truth arose, consequently, those who drove the car of Persecution over the breadth and length of a bleeding land had most to do in such localities. The solitudes in the upper parts of Nithsdale were the places of refuge to those who, on account of their faithful adherence to the testimony which they held, were driven from the * Note A. bosom of their families to seek a home in the desert; and the imagination can scarcely conceive of solitudes more dreary and sterile than those which lie on the north-west borders of the parish of Sanquhar. From the top of any of the lofty heights in the vicinity of this wilderness, nothing can be discovered but rugged mountains of brown heath, and vast wastes of dark moorland, stretching onward for miles in the distance, with here and there the blue smoke curling from the chimneys of the lone huts of the shepherds. It was in the very heart of these solitudes, and in their most retired and unknown retreats, that the worthy men of another age betook themselves for shelter, braving the fierce blasts of the desert that they might escape the still fiercer storms of a relentless persecution. And many a stirring incident and perilous adventure, unknown to the historic page, are told of the witnessing remnant, before the shepherd's blazing hearth during the long winter evenings, by the inhabitants of the wilderness, many of whom are themselves descendants of the men whose memory they so warmly cherish, and the incidents of whose lives they so feelingly narrate. In traversing on a fine summer day, with an intelligent shepherd, the wilds which were once the asylum of men who deserved a better home, it is thrilling to listen to the anecdotes of varied interest which the features of the desert recall to the mind of your companion. There is the identical spot where the venerable Cargill held a conventicle; yonder the place where Cameron uttered the denunciations of divine vengeance against a Gospel-proof generation; yonder the solitary shieling in which a company of God's hidden ones were surprised and captured by a brutal soldiery; and yonder the hill where Peden the prophet was screened by a miraculous mist from the view of his blood-thirsty pursuers. In this way, almost every hill and streamlet, and moss and cottage, has its incident, and is endeared by hallowed associations. We shall narrate a few of those anecdotes relative to the persecuting period, which are still in circulation among the people of the moorlands. Many of them possess great interest, and are worthy of preservation, for the sake of the men to whom they refer. There was a worthy man of the name of Howatson, who, on account of his well-known attachment to covenanting principles, was obliged to keep himself in perpetual concealment among the more remote and unfrequented glens and mountains. His house was occasionally searched by the dragoons, sometimes by day, and at other times by night, for |