The Fanatic (15 page)

There were more clerics than lay folk in the congregation of the Scots kirk at Rotterdam, or so it appeared to Mitchel the first time he attended service in the cramped chapel of Saint Sebastian’s in Lombard Street. The presiding minister was John Hog, who had formerly had the charge of South Leith. He preached with a vehemence that was somehow unconvincing, which puzzled Mitchel for a while until he looked around at the stern faces in the pews, and realised that Hog was having to push himself to the limit of his capabilities to avoid the criticism of his peers. John Carstairs of Cathcart, John Nevay of Newmilns, John Livingstone of Ancrum, John Brown of Wamphray – were your chances of being banished from Scotland higher if your first name was John? – were always keen to take a turn in the pulpit. Rotterdam was a thriving ministry. If Hog ceased to come up to the mark, or when in the fullness of time he was gathered to God, the competition to succeed him would be intense.

Mitchel had been fortunate since leaving Edinburgh. The journey had been largely without alarm. The most disturbing event had come half an hour after taking his leave of Jean Weir, on the deserted road to Leith. Halfway between city and port he had paused for a moment in front of a bizarre spectacle at the Gallowlee. A cage-like iron frame suspended from a wooden beam had acquired a layer of frost and icicles, which reflected the moonlight and gave the structure the appearance of a giant lantern. Within the frame the skeleton of some long-dead criminal, also frosted and gleaming, was displayed like an old twisted wick. As Mitchel looked, an enormous gull, which had been perched in shadow at the dead man’s feet, rose out of the cage and flew off towards the sea. Startled, Mitchel turned away. He felt that he was being watched. Seized with a sudden panic, he broke into a run and regained the road. Then, thinking that if there were any
soldiers out braving the cold a man running through the night to Leith would be sure to attract their attention, he slowed himself to a walk.

The
Marcus
had been preparing for departure as Major Weir had said. Forrester had transported him safely as far south as Hull and then to Ostend through a grey, sluggish, unviolent sea. A combination of walking and begged cart rides had brought him to Rotterdam. His cousin John, who travelled widely through Germany and the Low Countries as a merchant, had been there when he arrived, and was able to find him lodgings and lend him some money. He also offered him work, supervising the despatch and delivery of goods to various destinations. It was hardly the kind of employment Mitchel now believed himself to be made for, but he was not in a position to refuse. He did ask, however, for a week or two to rest and order his thoughts.

He spent time in the company of the old minister of Greyfriars, Robert Traill, who had befriended him when he was a student at the Toun’s College. He had once recommended Mitchel to a tutor’s post in Galloway, in the house of one of those who had subsequently turned out at Pentland. At the Restoration Traill had signed a petition to Charles II which, having congratulated him on his return, went on to remind him of his obligations to uphold the Covenant. For this he was imprisoned, then ejected from the country. Some of his fellow-petitioners were also now in Holland. Traill was anxious for news of his son, also named Robert, who had been at Pentland. Mitchel was unable to offer any comfort, having heard nothing of him.

Traill was a devout but dull man of sixty-three. Mitchel was warmed by his attentions but not flattered by them. But one day Traill said something which excited his interest:

‘Robert MacWard is due in Rotterdam this week, James. I’m wondering if ye would care to meet him.’

Care to meet him! The man who had been Samuel Rutherford’s secretary, who had edited his beloved letters! It would be an honour, Mitchel said.

‘Maister MacWard bides in Utrecht these days,’ Traill went on. ‘He finds it’ – he coughed – ‘a pool less choked with the persecuted brethren than here. He’s a muckle fish and needs
mair space to swim in. Although I believe he would be back in a glisk were Mr Hog’s place to become vacant.’

‘He is reckoned a great orator,’ said Mitchel. ‘Rotterdam would be lucky tae hae him.’

‘He certainly has a very oratorious style at preaching. Somebody once told him as much, a man frae Kilmarnock if I mind richt: “God forgive ye, brother, that darkens the gospel of Christ with your oratory.” But ye shouldna be intimidated by him, James. A young man of promise such as yourself will, I’m sure, be of interest to Maister MacWard. And there will be others keen to hear frae ye, since ye have so lately been in Scotland.’

When Mitchel arrived the ministers were sitting around a long table on benches, drinking modest amounts of ale. They were pushing a small pamphlet around the table, giggling gruffly at it. He was introduced and took a seat at the end of one bench. The pamphlet was laid aside and the conversation shifted to a general discussion of the latest bad news from home. Questions were put to him, many of which he was unable to answer.

When the debate became overly theological he felt a panic coming on, but did his best to keep up. He was overawed by their combined intellectual muscle: an assemblage of the most educated, influential and respected men ever to have fled out of Scotland. Most of them were growing old. From their accents they might have arrived off the
Marcus
with him: it was easier, perhaps, to hold onto your Scots voice in Holland than, say, in England.

MacWard, who had not yet spoken directly to Mitchel, finally turned to him. ‘Maister Traill tells me ye were oot wi Colonel Wallace and the rest?’

Mitchel shook his head. ‘I wasna at Rullion Green itsel. I was sent back tae Edinburgh in the mornin, afore the fechtin started.’

‘Dootless it was urgent business that engaged ye?’ This was Mr John Nevay, the man Weir had warned him against. He was about sixty, a Christian so unbending that he opposed all forms of set prayer including even that suggested by Christ. He had made a translation of the Song of Solomon into Latin verse, which seemed to Mitchel a marvellous feat of scholarship;
and he had, during the war against Montrose all those years ago, so relentlessly urged the despatch of the captured Irishes that even the soldiers carrying out the executions objected, asking if he had not yet had his fill of blood. They had not his zeal and fortitude, and Mitchel, recalling the minister at Linlithgow, who had shown similar resolve and put him on the path of righteousness, could not help but admire him.

‘Ye are correct, sir,’ he replied. ‘I cairrit urgent messages tae the Toun.’

‘Sayin whit?’ said Nevay. ‘That the day was winnable if the Edinburgh folk could be fashed to get oot their beds? Or that it was lost and they’d be better keepin tae them?’

The sudden ferocity in his tone threw Mitchel into confusion. He had no idea what the letters had said; he had destroyed them. ‘It wasna for me tae ken,’ he mumbled. ‘I was obeyin an order. Forby, the day wasna lost till the forenicht.’

Now MacWard came back at him. ‘Ye werena
at
the fecht, and ye werena gaun
tae
the fecht, and ye kenna whit for ye were gaun
frae
the fecht, only that it was a maitter o urgency. I think we hae the measure o ye, sir.’

Mitchel reddened but said nothing.

Mr John Carstairs came to his rescue. The former minister of Cathcart and of Glasgow was said to be able to move whole congregations to tears with his prayers. Other ministers said of him that though they came close in preaching, in prayer he went quite out of their reach. Now he said to MacWard, in a gentle voice, ‘Your insinuation is unwarranted, Maister Robert. Ye canna wyte a man for no bein martyred.’

‘I only observe,’ said MacWard, ‘that it seems a great inconvenience, gien the smallness o his pairt, that he had tae come awa frae Scotland at all. But ye’ll ken better than me aboot such social niceties, eh John?’

This was a dig at Carstairs’s pretensions to be a gentleman. He prided himself on being able to hold polite conversation with lords and ladies, and could write a mannered letter when required. After the Restoration, when these same men now in exile first faced the prospect of being debarred from their pulpits, they had been gathered together one day, pretty cheerful in spite of things, and began to ask one another
what they would do to make a living once they could no longer be ministers. One said one thing, one said another, and then John Carstairs had said, very gravely and dreamily, ‘I think I could be a laird.’

‘Come noo, Robert,’ said Mr John Brown. ‘We are all of us inconvenienced. And it isna worthy o ye tae cast up ae man’s pairt in Christ against anither’s. We aw dae whit we dae.’ Brown was a close friend of MacWard. There was no doubting his reputation both as theologian and stalwart in the cause. He had recently published
An Apologeticall Relation of the Particular Sufferings of the Faithfull Ministers and Professours of the Church of Scotland
, and, among numerous other learned tracts, was working on a study of
Quakerisme The Path-Way to Paganisme.

MacWard nodded, acknowledging that he had perhaps been over-harsh.

‘Oor friend here is a stymie,’ added Carstairs, indicating Mitchel. ‘He sees but he disna see weill.’

‘I ken, John, I ken.’ MacWard gave Mitchel a smile, which vanished almost as it appeared. ‘I am testin ye, sir, no mockin ye. There are ower mony time-servin folk in Scotland, that are aye at the edge o sufferin and never at the hert o it. Of coorse we can only be where God places us, but Scotland lacks not its Jonahs in these times, that are sent to cry against the wickedness of Nineveh, and rise and flee from the Lord unto Tarshish. Why are ye come here, Maister Mitchel?’

‘Because I am declared a rebel, like yersels. Like Maister Traill here, and his son that’s no been seen since Pentland.’

‘We are all cried rebels by them that has rebelled against the Lord,’ Traill lamented.

‘And if I had been taen by Dalyell’s men,’ Mitchel went on, ‘I would hae been hingit, and I canna be hingit till I hae wrocht God’s purpose. Which, sirs, isna yet for ye or me tae ken.’

MacWard laughed. ‘He’s a wit, Maister Traill. I can see why ye thocht he would mak a guid tutor tae bairns.’

Mitchel smiled back – it seemed MacWard was severe rather than malevolent – then wondered again if he was not being made a fool of. Traill touched his sleeve to reassure him.

MacWard folded his arms across his chest and addressed Mitchel.

‘When first I came here, driven frae the wrath of Charles Stewart, I was ashamed tae call my lot a sufferin lot. Ithers had been brocht tae the slauchter, but I was spared. Why was this? Why had God rather hied me frae the storm than exposed me tae its force? Noo I realise that I was sheltered for a reason, tae sing the Lord’s song in a strange land, tae shine ceaselessly for his cause here, and no burn up in a brief and sudden blaze of glory. But you, Maister Mitchel, I do not believe you will be here long. You are still young, a footsoldier of Christ. You must return, I think, intae that darkness that is Scotland.’

Mitchel felt somewhat reassured. ‘That is ma intention,’ he said.

‘James will do great things in the Lord. I am certain of it,’ Traill added.

Mr John Livingstone was the former minister of Ancrum in Roxburghshire. Aged sixty-three, he had the longest record of nonconformity, having been deposed from his first ministry in Killinchy, County Down, away back in 1632. Like Nevay, he was against all set prayers such as the Lord’s Prayer: a man so sure of his own salvation that he had once said, ‘I am persuaded that if it were possible that I could gang tae Hell, yet Christ would come tae it tae seek me, and rake the coals o it tae get me oot.’ Now, picking up on Traill’s remark, he said:

‘Hae ye onythin in particular in mind, Maister Mitchel?’

Mitchel hesitated. He did not have a plan, only an object of hatred. ‘I hae a mind tae be a
sharp
instrument,’ he said eventually, ‘and deliver a
sharp
blow.’

There was general laughter. Livingstone lifted the pamphlet they had been looking at earlier and wagged it at Mitchel.

‘Are ye such a wit as penned these verses, sir? Anent …’ – he turned up a page and searched for a phrase – ‘that
Judas Scoto-Britannus
of whom ye spak jist noo?’

‘I dinna ken, sir,’ said Mitchel. There was more laughter. Once again he was plunged into confusion.

‘Ye dinna ken if ye wrote them?’ said Livingstone. ‘It’s jist fresh ower the sea, man, arrivin aboot the time ye did yersel. Is this no familiar tae ye?’ He read from the pamphlet.

My friends I basely did reproach,

Their cause I did betray

By lying and by flatterie

I for myself made way.

At length great Primat I was made,

I king and pastours mockt,

And of my benefactors all

The ruine I have socht.

Dae ye no recognise the target, James?’

‘Sir,’ Mitchel said, ‘I didna scrieve thae verses. But I’m sure I ken the target.’

The ministers were loving this. Carstairs, who was one down from him, leant round and dunted Mitchel appreciatively in the shoulders. ‘Let’s hae mair, John.’

Livingstone shrugged. ‘Since it’s no Maister Mitchel’s, I feel I can say athoot fear o offence, it’s sinfu bad verse, but it has its virtues. Ach weill –

Most viper like, I in the birth

My mother’s bowels rent,

And did cast out these zealous men,

Whose money I had spent.

Who from the dunghill raised me,

These stars in Christ’s right hand,

The giants on whose shoulders strong

I poor pigmee did stand.’

‘That’s no sae bad, John,’ said Nevay. ‘That has truth in it.’

‘Is that richt, John?’ said Livingstone. ‘Dae ye see yersel amang the giants and stars?’

Mitchel saw smiles and frowns flash around the assembled men. He was astonished to find such petty rivalry among the saints. Livingstone went on:

‘But hear this, this is baith false verse and true: