Cargill

“ Cargill, to any that would apprehend him either quick or dead, being 6000 merks.
They marched hard to Lanark, and put the prisoners in the Tolbooth, until the soldiers got meat and drink. They got horses brought them out in haste, and set them on their bare backs. Bonshaw, with his own hands, tied Mr Cargill's feet below the horse's belly very hard, he looked down to him and said, Why do you tie me so hard? Your wickedness is great, you will not long escape the just judgment of God ”

“ Mr. Cargill, after that, was never heard to pray for him in public. His unhappy birth and restoration day, May 29th 1660 which was enacted to be an universal Thanksgiving day, became a trial to some, and a land-sin and snare to many, and observed to this day, by castle-guns roaring, though even upon the Sabbath, at twelve of the clock; which day was Mr. Cargill's ordinary weekly sermon-day. His kirk being very throng with tears he said, Do you expect more or better preaching this day than other days? Or, is it upon account of your king? It is like that is many of your errands ”

“ What makes good the old Scots saying, "Such life, such end."
Whose desires to he further informed of the life and death of blest Mr. Cargill, may peruse the relations that are given of him by Mr. Shiels in the Hind Let Loose, and in the Cloud of Witnesses. His last testimony, and what he spake upon the scaffold, his narrowy sententious letter to several prisoners when under sentence of death, his letter to the Gibbites in the correction-house, and his letter to his parish, yet in the hands of some are to be found in the Cloud of Witnesses. ”

“ She started at these words with a faint scream; for slowly, and with a feeble hand, the curtains of the bed opposite to the side at which Cargill sat, were opened, and the figure of Clara Mowbray, her clothes and long hair drenched and dripping with rain, stood in the opening by the bedside. The dying woman sat upright, her eyes starting from their sockets, her lips quivering, her face pale, her emaciated hands grasping the bed-clothes, as if to support herself, and looking as much aghast as if her confession had called up the apparition of her betrayed friend. ”

“ He said, my Lord Rothes, forbear to threaten me; for, die what death I will, your eyes will not see it: And it is well known to some yet alive, that he died that morning that Mr Cargill, and these worthies with him, suffered in the afternoon. Shortly after this compearance of Mr. Cargill before the council, Rothes was seized with sickness and pains: And when he found the pangs of death turning sharp upon him, he cried out for some of his wife's ministers, (she being a favourer of Presbyterian ministers) for his ministers were good to live with, but not to die with. ”

“ Mischief shall hurt the violent man.
They came to Glasgow in haste, fearing a rescue of the prisoners: and while waiting at the tolbooth, till the magistrates came to receive them, one John Nisbet, the Archbishop's factor, said to Mr. Carvill in ridicule, three times over, Will you give us one word more? (alluding to an expression he used sometimes when preaching) ; to whom Mr Cargill said with regret, "Mock not, lest your lands be made strong. The day is coming, when you shall not have one word to say though you would." ”

“ Mr Cargill seems to have been born some time about the year 1610. He was eldest son of a most respected family in the parish of Rattray. After he had been some time in the schools of Aberdeen, he went to St Andrew's, where having perfeeted his course of philosophy, his father pressed upon him much to study divinity, in order for the ministry; but he thought the work was too great for his weak shoulders, and requested to command him to any other employment he pleased. But his father still continuing to urge him, he resolved to set apart a day of private fasting, to seek the Lord's mind therein. ”

“ At Bothwell, being taken by the enemy, and struck down to the ground with a sword, seeing nothing but present death for him, having received several dangerous wounds in the head, one of the soldiers asked his name; he told him it was Donald Cargill; another asked him, if he was a minister? He answered, he was; whereupon they let him go. When his wounds were examined, he feared to ask if they were mortal, desiring, in admission to God, to live, judging that the Lord had yet further work for him to accomplish. ”

“ Though Cargill's very stringent views were not generally accepted by his countrymen, both he and his friend Cameron took a great hold on the popular sympathy and regard. Personally, Cargill was an amiable, kind-heart man, very self-denying, and thoroughly devoted to his duty. Wodrow ascribes some of his extreme sentiments to the influence of others. Among the people he seems to have won admiration for the profoundness of his convictions and the fearlessness with which he acted on them, when the result to himself could not fail to be ruinous. ”

“ But, lo! in the year 1673, there was such a crop, that the Lothian barley was sold at four pounds the boll, and the pease at forty pence: and for that we got ten thousand Highlanders, five hundred English Dragoons the whole Militia of the kingdom and all the standing forces cast in upon the West of Scotland, at Bothwell-bridge: And as they said, they came to destroy, and destroy they would; and yet there was abundance for them all, and the inhabitants also.
After Mr. Cargill left the Under-bank Wood, he preached at Loudoun hill upon a week-day, the 5th of May. ”

“ An official denial would make everybody look ridiculous, and encourage the ordinary person to think that there may have been something in them. Believe me, dear Mrs. Cargill, there is nothing to be anxious about now that you are back in London again."
On the contrary, I thought, there was more cause for anxiety than ever. Cargill was back in the House and the illness game could not be played a second time. I went home that night acutely sympathetic towards the worries of the Prime Minister. Mulross would be abroad in a day or two, and Vennard and Cargill were volcanoes in eruption. ”

“ Cargill, living only for himself and his books, acquired many ludicrous habits, which exposed the secluded student to the ridicule of the world, and which tinged, though they did not altogether obscure, the natural civility of an amiable disposition, as well as the acquired habits of politeness which he had learned in the good society that frequented Lord Bidmore's mansion. ”

“ In the mean time, he had Middleton's soldiers lying at the Mutton-hole, about three miles from Edinburgh. Mr. Skeen, Archibald Stuart, Mrs. Muir, and Marion Hervey, took the way before, on foot: Mr Cargill and Mr Boig being to follow on horseback. Whenever they came to the place, the soldiers spied them; but Mrs Muir escaped and went and stopped Mr. Cargill and Mr Boig, who fled baek to Edinburgh. ”

“ About this time, some spoke to Mr Cargill of his preaching and praying short. They said. 'O Sir, it is long betwixt meals, and we are in a starving condition; all is good, sweet and wholesome, that you deliver, but why do you so straiten us?' He said, 'Ever since I bowed the knee in good earnest to pray, I never durst preach, and pray with my gift; and when my heart is not affected, and comes not up with my mouth, I always think it time to quit it. ”

“ Thus died the noble Earl of Argyle, a martyr not only to the Protestant Religion, but also bearing his last testimony against Prelacy as well as Popery. His too great compliances with the managers previous to the affair of the Test lay heavy upon him to the last; but nothing grieved him so much as the unhappy vote he gave against Mr. Cargill. ”

“ Cargill, like Douglas, was a minister: he had received a good education at Aberdeen and [Pg 79] Saint Andrews, but had soon fallen into disgrace for the disloyalty and virulence of his language. In a sermon on the anniversary of the Restoration he had declared from his pulpit that the King's name should "stink while the world stands for treachery, tyranny, and lechery." ”

“ I say, he is the man that has cast off all fear of God." The advocate stormed at this; but did not deny the truth of it, knowing that he had thus expressed himself, in same of his wicked mad fits, There is yet alive, an old reverend minister in the south of Scotland, was witness to this, and can assert the truth of it, who several times since had said, that he admired the composedness and confidence of Mr. Cargill. ”

“ It was foolish not to have a radio properly tuned when Cargill spoke. He was saying:
"—and so under the banner of complete solidarity, we will march forward, a solid phalanx against which no force can stand. Now that our own house is swept clean of vermin—rid forever of carrion like Lenster and his ilk, we can—"
Pardeau had traveled swiftly through the streets at the high speed reserved for higher servants of the New State. Lesser servants of the New State had learned caution and thus no regrettable deaths or maimings occurred; the lesser servants having grown wary and fleet of foot. ”

“ Cargill, as we believe it may chance to other men much subject to absence of mind, that, contrary to their wont, and much after the manner of a sunbeam suddenly piercing a deep mist, and illuminating one particular object in the landscape, some sudden recollection rushes upon them, and seems to compel them to act under it, as under the influence of complete certainty and conviction. ”

“ Cameron, that upon the 5th day of July 1680, they preached together at the Kiprig in Clydesdale; which twas Mr. Cameron's last Sabbath, and were to meet and preach at Craigmad in Stirlingshire the first Sabbath of August, but Mr. Cameron's blood and others ran like water on the 22d of July: Mr. Cargill preached upon the 25th in the parish of Shots, upon that text, "Know you not that there is a great man and Prince fallen in our Israel." ”

“ Accordingly, a guard under Rathillet travelled across the familiar, and now sacred, ground in the south-western district, and came up with Cameron in Avondale, near the memorable field of Drumclog. To their joy, they found Mr. Cargill with him, and on the Sabbath day a solemn service was held, in which all the ministers took part. ”

“ The search for the traveling passenger-agent of the Utah Inland promised to be sufficiently exciting. Everywhere Tom went, Cargill had just preceded him. The chase led him around and about among the railway-offices, and finally took him back to his starting-point at Cargill's headquarters in East Third Street. Here, again, he was a minute too late. The passenger-agent had just gone down to take the train for Minneapolis; and as Tom braced himself for a run, the office-boy gave him a telegram. ”

“ As a fact, it set Cargill asking himself why he should not take her through the lock. He was admitted to be a much better boatman than Stranack, and everyone knew that it required a certain amount of skill to manage a lock properly. Locks were dangerous if you played the fool. Before now people had been drowned in locks.
The rest was inevitable. He lost his head as the lower gates swung open, and broke the rule of the river by pushing out in front of a launch. The launch was already under way, and young Cargill trying to avoid it better, thrust with his boat-hook at the side of the [83] lock. ”

“ There never were two men more unlike than Andrew Cargill and John Sugden, and yet they loved each other at once.
"He is a son o' consolation, and dootless ane o' God's chosen," said Andrew to Mysie on his return.
"He is a far nobler old fellow than he thinks he is," said John to his wife when he told her of Andrew's visit.
John had advised advertising for Davie in "The Watchman;" for John really thought this organ of the Methodist creed was the greatest paper in existence, and honestly believed that if Davie was anywhere in the civilized world "The Watchman" would find him out. ”

“ M'Ward, Cargill, and others, who were of one heart and soul, seeing with one eye, thinking with one mind, and speaking with one breath, met at Glasgow to compare notes, and set a day apart for prayer together, to be more and more confirmed in their duty of giving warning of the sin and danger of the malignant courses driven on in that day by fraud and force, especially calling home their head, Charles II. Mr. ”

“ All collected from her own mouth by her surviving husband.’ It is scarcely possible to imagine a more artless or a more absolutely truthful narrative of the events of ‘the killing time,’ as it is still called, in Scotland. All the leading covenanters cross and recross the stage; for in and out of prison Helen Alexander was brought into the closest relations with them all, especially John Welsh, Donald Cargill, David Williamson, Andrew Gullon, James Renwick. ”

“ Cameron, being publicly murdered; Mr. Blackadder, and Mr Dickson, in the enemies’ hands; Messrs. Cargill, Douglas and Hepburn gone off the kingdom; the rest of the thirty Ministers who preached in the fields before Bothwell bridge, being fallen in deep silence and compliance with the enemy; in this time, while men slept, the enemy sowed his tares. ”

“ He was re-elected Superintendent of Otago in November, 1855, and held office until January, 1860.
After his retirement from the office of Superintendent, Captain Cargill lived in comparative seclusion, taking no part in public affairs, but still looking on with interest, and carefully noting the prosperity and progress around him, happy in the bosom of his family, and satisfied that his mission on earth was accomplished. He took a warm interest in the formation of Knox Church congregation, and attended its public services till within a fortnight of his death. ”