XIV. JOHN GORDON OF RUSCO


'Remember these seven things.'--_Rutherford_.

There were plenty of cold Covenanters, as they were called, in
Kirkcudbright in John Gordon's day, but the laird of Rusco was not one of
them. Rusco Castle was too near Anwoth Kirk and Anwoth Manse, and its
owner had had Samuel Rutherford too long for his minister and his near
neighbour to make it possible for him to be 'ane cold covenanter quha did
not do his dewtie in everything committed to his charge thankfullie and
willinglie.' We find Gordon of Rusco giving good reasons indeed, as he
thought, why he should not be sent out of the Stewartry on the service of
the covenant, but the war committee 'expelled his resounes' and instantly
commanded his services. And from all we can gather out of the old Minute
Book, Rusco played all the noble part that Rutherford expected of him in
the making of Scotland and in the salvation of her kirk.

Like the Psalmist in the hundred and second Psalm, we take pleasure in
the stones of Rusco Castle, and we feel a favour to the very dust
thereof. Even in Rutherford's day that rugged old pile was sacred and
beautiful to the eyes of Rutherford and his people, because of what the
grace of God had wrought within its walls; and, both for that, and for
much more like that, both in Rutherford's own day and after it, we also
look with awe and with desire at the ruined old mansion-house. A hundred
years before John Gordon bade Rusco farewell for heaven, we find a friend
of John Knox's on his deathbed there, and having a departure from his
deathbed administered to him there as confident and as full of a desire
to depart as John Knox's own. 'The Last and Heavenly Speeches of John,