“Suffering for Truth’s sake,
Is fortitude to highest victory,
And, to the faithful, death the gate of life.”
MILTON.
NEXT morning, Dalziel and Macduff entered the church; and the former instantly asked Andrew, if he had come to a resolution about what had been proposed last night.
“My duty was so plain,” said Andrew, “that it required no deliberation. I am prepared to die.”
“But you are, perhaps, not prepared for torture,” said Macduff, with a grin of fiend-like malignity, pointing to a thumbkin, which one of the spies, whom we formerly mentioned, held in his hand by the curate’s side. “That will make you speak out.” Andrew glanced an eye of scorn on the curate, looked without emotion at the instrument of torture, and remained silent.
Dalziel then asked him if he would not send someone to his father, to persuade him to deliver himself up to them, again repeating the promise of safety to his father’s life.
“Thrust your sword through my body,” said Andrew; “but think not to extract from my lips one word, by all the tortures which you can inflict, that may lead to the discovery of my father. My only fear is that he may hear of my danger, and deliver up himself.”
“Try that on your thumb, then,” said Dalziel, ordering the spy, at the same time, to apply the instrument of torture, while the dragoons, that kept guard, held the young man, to prevent resistance.
The thumbkin was an instrument of exquisite torture; and, on this occasion, it was applied without mercy. For some time Andrew bore the pain it occasioned with a firm and unchanging countenance; but, as the instrument was screwed closer and closer to his thumb, the color in his face came and went rapidly, and he writhed himself with the agonizing pain.
Dalziel, seeing it was in vain to expect any discovery, was just about to order the tormentor to desist, when Macduff prevented him, by saying, “Another twist yet! it may have more virtue in it.” The obedient spirit of wickedness turned the screw: and the thumb of the young man was heard crashing within the instrument. Nature could bear no more. The blood entirely forsook his face, and he fell down in a swoon.
Fearing that their hopes of yet eliciting something might be disappointed by the immediate death of the sufferer, they hastened to relax the instrument. And, as soon as Andrew had recovered a little, he was again asked whether he would endure the same again, or discover his father.
“You may torture me to death,” said he, in a firm and resolute tone; “but I trust in God, in the Rock of my salvation; and you cannot touch my soul. It is covered by the shield of the Almighty. You shall not wring one word from me to endanger my father. The Lord comfort him!”
Having tried the torture again with the same effect, Dalziel, by natural and habit cruel, and enraged that his cruelty had entirely failed in the purposes for which it had been exercised in this instance, ordered the young man to be immediately led forth to execution alleging Andrew’s refusal to take the test as a ground for this proceeding, although the true reason was his refusal to discover his father. Hanging, as being the most ignominious of deaths, was that appointed for Andrew: and the gibbet, on this occasion, was an old elm-tree near the manse, under which he and Mary had often frolicked in the days of their childhood. He had just been led to the foot of the tree, and the spy, who was the only one to be found who would undertake the task, was fixing the fatal rope to one of its branches, when the attention of all present was suddenly arrested by the appearance of a young woman, who, screaming wildly, rushed through the soldiers, and clasped her arms around Andrew’s neck.
This was his sister. One of the villagers, who, on the preceding night, had learned the determination of Dalziel with regard to Andrew, before day went to the cave, and informed Mr. Bruce.
“I will go and not myself into their hands.” exclaimed Mr. Bruce, as soon as he heard the tidings, “Better that I die than lose my son.” And he was hastening to leave the cave, for this purpose, when Mary laid hold of him, and besought him not to go.
“They will murder you both,” said she, weeping “and what shall become of me? Rather let me go. I will plead for my brother’s life; and surely I will move their compassion.”
“No,” said her father, “you know them not. The tiger of the desert hath more of compassion than they. I know with what violence they hate me and my family. No, no; nothing but my death will save my son. But why do I thus tarry here? Perhaps they lead him out even now to execution.”
“Go not, my father, I beseech you,” said Mary, “Do you think that your death will save Andrew? O no, my dear father: they will murder you both. I shall be left alone in the world. Be persuaded, my dearest father. Let me go. I am sure they will have pity on us.”
Mr. Bruce, considering that it was indeed likely that his delivering himself up would not procure the liberty of his son, a spirited young man, deeply imbued with principles at enmity with the existing establishments―and imagining that the tears and entreaties of Mary, which appeared to him so eloquent, might excite some compassion in the hearts of those into whose hands Andrew had fallen; and taking pity on his daughter, who, he saw, would be left in a state of distraction if he went to give himself up, looked sorrowfully upon her, and wiping a tear from his eye, said: ―
“Go, then, my daughter: But, stop: ― I may lose you, too! Who knows where their cruelty may end? But, no, no! They will have pity on your youth and your tears. Surely there is not in the form of man aught so cruel that will murder my children. God will protect you. Haste, you, my daughter. It is your brother’s life that calls you. Haste to the village; and the Lord be with you and my son.” The distressed father then knelt to wrestle at the throne of grace; while Mary flew with the speed of lightning to the village.
She arrived, as we have seen, just soon enough to have an opportunity of trying what her entreaties could do. The apparatus of death, which she noticed at her approach, and her brother standing bound between two soldiers, had so terrified her, that it was some time before she could so recover herself as to be able to speak.
“You have come,” said Andrew to her, when she had recovered a little; “you have come to afflict yourself in vain. My death is determined.”
“No, they will not kill you,” replied his sister “these men will not kill you.” And then falling on her knees before Dalziel, whom she knew, by his dress, to be of highest authority, and, with tears fast flowing down her face, more lovely in grief, thus addressed him:
“Have pity on my brother. If you knew how my father and I love him, you would not kill him. I am sure he has never hurt you. Ever since we were driven from the manse, he has lived peaceably in the moors. He has lived with me: and I never saw him do injury to anyone. Have pity, sir, on our family. You have already taken our dear mother from us, and will you now take from me an only brother, and from my father an only son? Oh, sir, have you no son, that you may know what my father will feel? Have you no brother, dear to you as mine is to me? My dear, dear brother! Oh, let him go, and I will die in his place!”
These words, when uttered by Mary, were eloquent; and Dalziel felt some movements of humanity within him.
“If your father will put himself into our hands,” said he, “we will save the life of your brother.”
“Wicked and unfeeling wretch!” exclaimed Andrew, interposing here; “wicked and inhuman wretch! wouldst thou have her save her brother’s life at the expense of her father’s? Nor would you set me at liberty, though my father were in your hands. Entreat them no more, my clear sister. Weep not for me. I suffer with joy for the glory that is before me. Leave me, dear Mary. Go; and if ever you see our father, tell him I died with joy for the liberties and religion of Scotland. Tell him not to regret that he did not deliver himself up. It would have been certain death to him, and would not have saved me. Tell him that I am prouder to lay down my life for him, and for the righteous causa in which Scotland suffers, than if I had been lifted up to the loftiest pinnacle of human distinction. Dear sister, be you comforted. I go to our mother. I go to the enjoyments of heaven. You and my father will soon follow; and there we shall again dwell together in peace, far beyond the change and turbulence of time.”
Dalziel had been, as we have already observed, rather moved by Mary’s entreaties; and still, as he saw her turning from her brother’s embrace, and again casting herself down before him in the agonies of unspeakable grief, he felt something like the kindliness of compassion hovering about his heart; and he looked to Macduff with an eye that said, “Might we not have some mercy on this girl?”
The curate with a look of horrible ferocity, and in a tone of reproach, replied― “Will you be drawn from your duty by the sniveling of girls? If you pardon rebels for their tears, you surely will be accounted a very merciful man; and the Government will certainly sustain the grounds of pardon.”
Dalziel, as if ashamed that he had shown he yet possessed some little human feeling, without waiting a moment, ordered the executioner to proceed. At this word, Mary shrieked wildly, fainted, and was immediately carried towards the village by some women who had gathered around her on her arrival.
Andrew now mounted the scaffold, which had been created beside the old elm. Here he was again asked if he would not save his life, by complying with the terms formerly offered. The young Christian, strong in the might of God, regarding his tempters with a look of indignation, remained silent. “Prepare, then, instantly to die,” said Dalziel.
Andrew kneeled down; and, having recommended his soul to the care of his God, he arose and exclaimed, “Farewell, my father,” as if he could have heard him. “Farewell, my sister. The light of the sun, the hopes of earth, farewell! And, Oh, holy Father, ere I depart, hear my cry. In thy mercy, haste to deliver the suffering people of Scotland. Now, welcome death; and welcome eternity!” When he had thus said, the executioner did as he had been ordered; and the soul of this Christian hero fled away to receive the crown of life.
What suffering was here! What did a father and a sister feel! And how might they have escaped it all? If they had deserted the cause of liberty and religion; if they had submitted tamely to those chains, which a licentious and tyrannical Government had forged for them, and which, but for their noble resistance, and that of their fellow-sufferers, might have this day been fastened around our necks, this persecuted family might have lived in peace in their manse, undisturbed and uninjured by the troubles of the times. But their souls despised the thought. They had the glory of God in their view―they had the liberty of their country at their heart―they had the welfare of us, their posterity, before their eyes―and, without a murmur, they laid down their lives in a righteous cause.
Is there no one that loves to wander about Zion, “and the flowing brooks beneath, that wash her hallowed feet,” and to sing on sacred harps the achievements of the saints? Is there no one warmed with the flame of their devotion, and touched near the heart with their patriotic sufferings, that will twine laurels to their sacred memory into the sweet numbers of immortal melody? Is the theme not soft enough for the refined ear of modern taste, or is it too sacred for the song of the bard? But why should we call for the poet’s lyre? Even now, their praises sound from harps angelic. “What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence come they?” “These are they,” respond the choirs of heaven ― “these are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in his temple: and He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”
After the execution, Dalziel and Macduff having stood for a little, glutting their eyes with the effects of their cruelty, or rather, of the Government under which they served, Macduff, sadly disappointed at the failure of this attempt to draw Mr. Bruce into his hands, said to Dalziel, “Might we not try what torture would elicit from the daughter? She might be less obstinate; or the father, moved by her sufferings, might deliver himself up to us.”
“Inhuman man,” replied Dalziel, touched with some compunctious visitings of nature, “would’st thou lay thy hand on the distracted girl? No. I will not permit it. Let us find the father as we may. But the daughter shall not be touched.”
Macduff, being thus reproved by one who was noted for his inflexible rigor towards the Covenanters, ignorant, savage, crocodile-like as he was seemed to feel a slight movement of shame; and, without resuming the subject, said to Dalziel, “Let us go and dispatch the prisoners whom the soldiers brought in this morning.”
The corpse of the martyred youth was left hanging upon the tree till evening, when some of the villagers ventured to take it down; and, having dug a grave beneath the shade of the elm, laid the remains of the son of their minister in the narrow house.