RINGAN GILHAIZE

 Ringan Glihazie by John Galt, 1823, Canongate, Edinburgh, 1995, paperback, 488 pages.

This 1823 historical novel about the Covenanters during the killing times is written in beautifully descriptive prose. The subject matter is not for the faint-hearted.

There was the time when Ringan Gilhaize was guided into an overcrowded prison cell of fellow Covenanters in Edinburgh.

“I entered among them, as if I had come into the dark abode of spectres, and manes, and dismal shadows. The prison was crowded overmuch, and though life was to many not worth the care of preservation, they yet esteemed it as the gift of their Maker, and as such considered it their duty to prolong for his sake. It was therefore a rule with them to stand in successive bands at the windows, in order that they might taste of the living air from without … At that moment a shriek of horror rose from all then looking out, and every one recoiled from the window. In the same instant a bloody head on a halbert was held up to us. – I looked  I saw the ghastly features and I would have kissed those lifeless lips; for, O! they were my son’s.

“I had laid that son, my only son, on the altar of the Covenant, an offering unto the Lord; but still I did hope that maybe it would be according to the mercy of wisdom that He would provide a lamb in the bush for the sacrifice; and when the stripling had parted from me, I often felt as the mother feels when the milk of love is in her bosom, and her babe no longer there.” Pgs. 390-92.

I was thankful for the eleven pages glossary at the back of the book that helped me with some of the old Scots words whose meaning I struggled with. I also appreciated the inclusion of an English translation of the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath and also the following contained in the Postscript:

“It does not seem to be, as yet, very generally understood by the critics in the South, that, independently of phraseology, there is such an idiomatic difference in the structure of the national dialects of England and Scotland, that very good Scotch might be couched in the purest of English terms, and without the employment of a single English word.

“In reviewing the Memoirs of that worshipful personage, Provost Pawkie, some objection has been made to the style, as being neither Scotch nor English, – not Scotch, because the words are English, – and not English, because the forms of speech are Scottish. What has thus been regarded as a fault by some, others acquainted with the peculiarities of the language may be led to consider as a beauty.” p. 448.