"It would be very strange if you did," answered Morton, with suppressed emotion. "And what I like warst o' a'," continued poor Cuddie, "is thae ranting red-coats coming amang the lasses, and taking awa our joes. I had a sair heart o' my ain when I passed the Mains down at Tillietudlem this morning about parritch-time, and saw the reek comin' out at my ain lum-head, and kend there was some ither body than my auld mither sitting by the ingle-side. But I think my heart was e'en sairer, when I saw that hellicat trooper, Tam Halliday, kissing Jenny Dennison afore my face. I wonder women can hac the impudence to do sic things; but they are a' for the red-coats. Whiles I hae thought o' being a trooper myṣell, when I thought naething else wad gae down wi' Jenny-and yet I'll no blame her ower muckle neither, for maybe it was a' for my sake that she loot Tam touzle her tap-knots that gate. "For your sake?" said Morton, unable to refrain from taking some interest in a story which seemed to bear a singular coincidence with his own. "E'en sae, Milnwood," replied Cuddie; "for the the loun fair, (d-n him, that I suld say sae!) and sae she bade me God speed, and she wanted to stap siller into my hand;-I'se warrant it was the tae half o' her fee and bountith, for the wared the ither half on pinners and pearlings to gang to see us shoot yon day at the popinjay."

down the wind-He routed like a cow in a fremd loaning. Weel, thinks I, there's nae place in this country they ca' Roman Gilead-it will be some gate in the west muirlands; and or we win there I'll see to slip awa wi' this mither o' mine, for I winna rin my neck into a tether for ony Kettledrummle in the country side-Aweel," continued Cuddie, relieving himself by detailing his misfortunes, without being scrupulous concerning the degree of attention which his companion bestowed on his narrative, "just as I was wearying for the tail of the preaching, cam word that the dragoons were upon us. Some ran, and some cried, Stand! and some cried, Down wi' the Philistines! I was at my mither to get her awa sting and ling or the red-coats cam up, but I might as weel hae tried to drive our auld fore-a-hand ox without the goad-deil a step wad she budge. Weel, after a' the cleugh we were in was strait, and the mist cam thick, and there was good hope the dragoons wad hae missed us if we could hae held our tongues; but, as if auld Kettledrummle himsell hadna made din eneugh to waken the very dead, they behoved a' to skirl up a psalm that ye wad hae heard as far as Lanrick!-puir quean gat leave to come near me wi' speaking Aweel, to mak a lang tale short, up cam my young Lord Evandale, skelping as fast as his horse could trot, and twenty red-coats at his back. Twa or three chields wad needs fight, wi' the pistol and the whinger in the tae hand, and the Bible in the tother, and they got their crouns weel cloured; but there wasna muckle skaith done, for Evandale aye cried to scatter us, but to spare life."

And did you not resist ?" said Morton, who probably felt, that, at that moment, he himself would have encountered Lord Evandale on much slighter grounds.

Na, truly," answered Cuddie, "I keepit aye before the auld woman, and cried for mercy to life and limb; but twa o' the red-coats cam up, and ane o' them was gaun to strike my mither wi' the side o' his broadsword-So I got up my kebbie at them, and said I wad gie them as gude. Weel, they turned on me, and clinked at me wi' their swords, and I garr'd my hand keep my head as weel as I could till Lord Evandale came up, and then I cried out I was a servant at Tillietudlem-ye ken yoursell he was aye judged to hae a look after the young leddy-and he bade me fling down my kent, and sae me and my mither yielded oursells prisoners. I'm thinking we wad hae been letten slip awa, but Kettledrummle was taen near us-for Andrew Wilson's naig that he was riding on had been a dragooner lang syne, and the sairer Kettledrummle spurred to win awa, the readier the dour beast ran to the dragoons when he saw them draw up.-Aweel, when my mother and him forgathered, they set till the soldiers, and I think they gae them their kale through the reek! Bastards o' the hure o' Babylon was the best words in their wame. Sae then the kiln was in a bleeze again, and they brought us a' three on wi' them, to mak us an example, as they ca't." "It is most infamous and intolerable oppression!" said Morton, half speaking to himself; "here is a poor peaceable fellow, whose only motive for joining the conventicle was a sense of filial piety, and he is chained up like a thief or murderer, and likely to die the death of one, but without the privilege of a formal trial, which our laws indulge to the worst malefactor! Even to witness such tyranny, and still more to suffer under it, is enough to make the blood of the tamest slave boil within him."

"To be sure," said Cuddier hearing, and partly understanding, what had broken from Morton, in resentment of his injuries, "it is no right to speak evil o' dignities-my auld leddy aye said that, as nae doubt she had a gude right to do, being in a place o' dignity hersell; and troth I listened to her very patiently, for she aye ordered a dram, or a sowp kale, or something to us, after she had gien us a hearing on our duties. But deil a dram, or kale, or ony thing else-no sae muckle as a cup o' 'cauld water-do thae lords at Edinburgh gie us; and yet they are heading and hanging amang us, and trailing us after thae blackguard troopers, and taking our goods and gear as if we were outlaws. I canna say I tak it kind at

their hands."

VOL. 11.

And did you take it, Cuddie ?" said Morton. "Troth did I no, Milnwood; I was sic a fule as to fling it back to her-my heart was ower grit to be behadden to her, when I had seen that loon slavering and kissing at her. But I was a great fule for my pains; it wad hae dune my mither and me some gude, and she'll ware't a' on duds and nonsense.”

There was here a deep and long pause. Cuddie was probably engaged in regretting the rejection of his mistress's bounty, and Henry Morton in considering from what motives, or upon what conditions, Miss Bellenden had succeeded in procuring the interference of Lord Evandale in his favour.

Was it not posssible, suggested his awakening hopes, that he had construed her influence over Lord Evandale hastily and unjustly? Ought he to censure her severely, if, submitting to dissimulation for his sake, she had permitted the young nobleman to entertain hopes which she had no intention to realize? Or what if she had appealed to the generosity which Lord Evandale was supposed to possess, and had engaged his honour to protect the person of a favoured rival?

Still, however, the words which he had overheard recurred ever and anon to his remembrance, with a pang which resembled the sting of an adder.

Nothing that she could refuse him!-was it possible to make a more unlimited declaration of predilection? The language of affection has not, within the limits of maidenly delicacy, a stronger expression. She is lost to me wholly, and for ever; and nothing remains for me now, but vengeance for my own wrongs, and for those which are hourly inflicted on my country.

"

Apparently, Cuddie, though with less refinement, was following out a similar train of ideas; for he suddenly asked Morton in a low whisper-"Wad there be ony ill in getting out o' thae chields' hands an ane could compass it?

"None in the world," said Morton; "and if an opportunity occurs of doing so, depend on it I for one will not let it slip."

"I'm blythe to hear ye say sae," answered Cuddic. "I'm but a puir silly fallow, but I canna think there wad be muckle ill in breaking out by strength o' hand, if ye could mak it ony thing feasible. I am the lad that will ne'er fear to lay on, if it were come to that; but our auld leddy wad hae ca'd that a resisting o' the king's authority."

"I will resist any authority on earth," said Morton, "that invades tyrannically my chartered rights as a freeman; and I am determined I will not be unjustly dragged to a jail, or perhaps a gibbet, if I can possibly make my escape from these men either by address or force.'

52

"Weel, that's just my mind too, aye supposing wel echoed the shrill counter-tenor of Mause, falling in hae a feasible opportunity o' breaking loose. But like the second part of a catch.

then ye speak o' a charter; now these are things "I tell you," continued the divine, "that your rank. that only belang to the like o' you that are a gentle-ings and your ridings your neighings and your prane man, and it mightna bear me through that am but a husbandman."

"The charter that I speak of," said Morton, "is common to the meanest Scotchman. It is that freedom from stripes and bondage which was claimed, as you may read in Scripture, by the Apostle Paul himself, and which every man who is freeborn is called upon to defend, for his own sake and that of his countrymen."

ings-your bloody, barbarous, and inhuman cruelties -your benumbing, deadening, and debauching the conscience of poor creatures by oaths, soul-damning and self-contradictory, have arisen from earth to Heaven like a foul and hideous outcry of perjury for hastening the wrath to come- -hugh! hugh ' hugh!"

And I say," cried Mause, in the same tune, and nearly at the same time,, that wi' this auld breath o' mine, and it's sair taen down wi' the asthmatics-and this rough trot"

Deil gin they would gallop," said Cuddie, "wad it but gar her haud her tongue!" "-Wi' this auld and brief breath," continued

"Hegh, sirs!" replied Cuddie, "it wad hae been lang or my Leddy Margaret, or my mither either, wad hae fund out sic a wiselike doctrine in the Bible! The tane was aye graning about giving tribute to Cæsar, and the tither is as daft wi' her whiggery. I hae been clean spoilt, just wi' listening to twa ble-Mause, will I testify against the backslidings, defeethering auld wives; but if I could get a gentleman tions, defalcations, and declinings of the land-against that wad let me tak on to be his servant, I am con- the grievances and the causes of wrath!" fident I wad be a clean contrary creature; and I hope your honour will think on what I am saying, if ye were ance fairly delivered out o' this house of bondage, and just take me to be your ain wally-deshamble."

"My valet, Cuddie?" answered Morton; "alas! that would be sorry preferment, even if we were at liberty."

"Peace, I pr'ythee-Peace, good woman," said the preacher, who had just recovered from a violent fit of coughing, and found his own anathema borne down by Mause's better wind; "peace, and take not the word out of the mouth of a servant of the altar.-I say, I uplift my voice and tell you, that before the play is played out-ay, before this very sun gaes down, ve sall learn that neither a desperate Judas, like your "Iken what ye're thinking that because I am prelate Sharpe that's gane to his place; nor a sanc landward-bred, I wad be bringing ye to disgrace tuary-breaking Holofernes, like bloody-minded Claafore folk; but ye maun ken I'm gay gleg at the up-verhouse; nor an ambitious Diotrephes, like the lad tak; there was never ony thing dune wi' hand but Evandale; nor a covetous and warld-following DeI learned gay readily, 'septing reading, writing, and mas, like him they ca' Sergeant Bothwell, that makes ciphering; but there's no the like o' me at the fit-ba', every wife's plack and her meal-ark his ain; neither and I can play wi' the broadsword as weel as Cor- your carabines, nor your pistols, nor your broadporal Inglis there. I hae broken his head or now, for swords, nor your horses, nor your saddles bridles, as massy as he's riding ahint us.—And then ye'll no surcingles, nose-bags, nor martingales, shall resist be gaun to stay in this country?"—said he, stopping the arrows that are whetted and the bow that is bent and interrupting himself. against you!"

"Probably not," replied Morton.

"Weel, I carena a boddle. Ye see I wad get my mither bestowed wi' her auld graning tittie, auntie Meg, in the Gallowgate o' Glasgow, and then I trust they wad neither burn her for a witch, or let her fail for fau't o' fude, or hang her up for an auld whig wife; for the provost, they say, is very regardfu' o' sic puir bodies. And then you and me wad gang and pouss our fortunes, like the folk i' the daft auld tales about Jock the Giant-killer and Valentine and Orson; and we wad come back to merry Scotland, as the sang says, and I wad tak to the stilts again, and turn sic furs on the bonny rigs o' Milnwood holms, that it wad be worth a pint but to look at them."

"I fear," said Morton, "there is very little chance, my good friend Cuddie, of our getting back to our old Occupation."

"That shall they never, I trow," echoed Mause; castaways are they ilk ane o' them-besoms of destruction, fit only to be flung into the fire when they have sweepit the filth out of the Temple-whips of small cords, knotted for the chastisement of those wha like their warldly gudes and gear better than the Cross or the Covenant, but when that wark's done, only meet to mak latchets to the deil's brogues."

"Fiend hae me," said Cuddie, addressing himself to Morton, "if I dinna think our mither preaches as weel as the minister!-But it's a sair pity o' his hoast, for it aye comes on just when he's at the best o't, and that lang routing he made air this morning, is sair again him too-Deil an I care if he wad roar her dumb, and then he wad hae't a' to answer for himsell-It's lucky the road's rough, and the troopers are no taking muckle tent to what they say, wi' the rattling o' the horse's feet; but an we were anes on saft grund, we'll hear news o' a' this."

"Hout, stir-hout, stir," replied Cuddie, "it's aye gude to keep up a hardy heart-as broken a ship's come to land.-But what's that I hear? never stir, if Cuddie's conjectures were but too true. The words my auld mither isna at the preaching again! I ken of the prisoners had not been much attended to while the sough o' her texts, that sound just like the wind drowned by the clang of horses' hoofs on a rough and blawing through the spence; and there's Kettle- stony road; but they now entered upon the moordrummle setting to wark, too-Lordsake, if the sod-lands, where the testimony of the two zealous capgers anes get angry, they'll murder them baith, and us for company

Their farther conversation was in fact interrupted by a blatant noise which rose behind them in which the voice of the preacher emitted, in unison with that of the old woman, tones like the grumble of a bassoon combined with the screaking of a cracked fiddle, At first, the aged pair of sufferers had been contented to condole with each other in smothered expressions of complaint and indignation; but the sense of their injuries became more pungently aggravated as they ommunicated with each other, and they became at length unable to suppress their ire.

"Wo, wo, and a threefold wo unto you, ve bloody and violent persecutors!" exclaimed the Reverend Gabriel Kettledrummle-"Wo, and threefold wo unto you, even to the breaking of seals, the blowing of trumpets, and the pouring forth of vials!"

A-ay-a black cast to a' their ill-fa'ur'd faces, and the outside o' the loof to them at the last day!

tives lacked this saving accompaniment. And, accordingly, no sooner had their steeds begun to tread heath and green sward, and Gabriel Kettledruimle had again raised his voice with, "Also I uplift my voice like that of a pelican in the wilderness”.

And I mine," had issued from Mause, "like a sparrow on the house-tops"

When "Hollo, ho!" cried the corporal from the rear; "rein up your tongues, the devil blister them, or I'll clap a martingale on them."

"I will not peace at the commands of the profane," said Gabriel.

"Nor I neither," said Mause, "for the bidding of no earthly potsherd, though it be painted as red as a brick from the Tower of Babel, and ca' itsell a corporal."

"Halliday," cried the corporal, "hast got never a gag about thee, man?-We must stop their mouths before they talk us all dead."

Ere any answer could be made, or any measure

CHAP. XV.]

OLD MORTALITY.

taken in consequence of the corporal's motion, a dragoon galloped towards Sergeant Bothwell, who was considerably a-head of the party he commanded. On hearing the orders which he brought, Bothwell instantly rode back to the head of his party, ordered them to close their files, to mend their pace, and to move with silence and precaution, as they would soon be in presence of the enemy.

CHAPTER XV.

Quantum in nobis, we've thought good
To save the expense of Christian blood,
And try if we, by mediation

Of treaty and accommodation,
Can end the quarrel, and compose
This bloody duel without blows.

BUTLER.

and in others boggy, retarded the progress of the
column, especially in the rear; for the passage, of the
main body, in many instances, poached up, the
swamps through which they passed, and rendered
them so deep, that the last of their followers were
forced to leave the beaten path, and find safer passage
where they could.

On these occasions the distresses of the Reverend
Gabriel Kettledrummle and of Mause Headrigg, were
considerably augmented, as the brutal troopers, by
whom they were guarded, compelled them, at afl
risks which such inexperienced riders were likely to
incur, to leap their horses over drains and gullies, or
to push them through morasses and swamps.

Through the help of the Lord I have luppen ower a wall," cried poor Mause, as her horse was, by her rude attendants, brought up to leap the turf enclosure of a deserted fold, in which feat her curch flew off, leaving her gray hairs uncovered.

THE increased pace of the party of horsemen soon took away from their zealous captives the breath, if "I am sunk in deep mire where there is no standing not the inclination, necessary for holding forth. They had now for more than a mile got free of the wood--I am come into deep waters where the floods overlands, whose broken glades had, for some time, ac- flow me," exclaimed Kettledrummle, as the charger companied them after they had left the woods of Til-on which he was mounted plunged up to the saddlelictudlem. A few birches and oaks still feathered he girths in a well head, as the springs are called which narrow ravines, or occupied in dwarf-clusters the supply the marshes, the sable streams beneath spouthollow plains of the moor. But these were gradually ing over the face and person of the captive preacher. These exclamations excited shouts of laughter disappearing; and a wide and waste country lay before them, swelling into bare hills of dark heath, inter- among their military attendants; but events soon sected by deep gallies; being the passages by which occurred which rendered them all sufficiently serious. The leading files of the regiment had nearly attained torrents forced their course in winter, and during summer the disproportioned channels for diminutive the brow of the steep hill we have mentioned, when rivulets that winded their puny way among heaps of two or three horsemen, speedily discovered to be a stones and gravel, the effects and tokens of their win- part of their own advanced guard, who had acted as a ter fury;-like so many spendthrifts dwindled down patrol, appeared returning at full gallop, their horses by the consequences of former excesses and extrava- much blown, and the men apparently in a disordered gance. This desolate region seemed to extend far- flight. They were followed upon the spur by five or ther than the eye could reach, without grandeur, with- six riders, well armed with sword and pistol, who out even the dignity of mountain wildness, yet halted upon the top of the hill, on observing the striking, from the huge proportion which it seemed to approach of the Life-Guards. One or two who had bear to such more favoured spots of the country as carabines dismounted, and, taking a leisurely and were adapted to cultivation, and fitted for the support deliberate aim at the foremost rank of the regiment, of man; and thereby impressing irresistibly the mind discharged their pieces, by which two troopers were of the spectator with a sense of the omnipotence of wounded, one severely. They then mounted their nature, and the comparative inefficacy of the boasted horses, and disappeared over the ridge of the hill, means of amelioration which man is capable of op- retreating with so much coolness as evidently showed, that, on the one hand, they were undismayed by the posing to the disadvantages of climate and soil. approach of so considerable a force as was moving against them, and conscious, on the other, that they were supported by numbers sufficient for their protection. This incident occasioned a halt through the whole body of cavalry; and while Claverhouse himself received the report of his advanced guard, which had been thus driven back upon the main body, Lord Evandale advanced to the top of the ridge over which the enemy's horsemen had retired, and Major Allan, Cornet Grahame, and the other offiers, employed themselves in extricating the regiment from the broken ground, and drawing them up on the side of the hill in two lines, the one to support the other.

It is a remarkable effect of such extensive wastes, that they impose an idea of solitude even upon those who travel through them in considerable numbers; so much is the imagination affected by the disproportion between the desert around and the party who are traversing it. Thus the members of a caravan of a thousand souls may feel, in the deserts of Africa or Arabia, a sense of loneliness unknown to the individual traveller, whose solitary course is through a thriving and cultivated country.

It was not, therefore, without a peculiar feeling of emotion, that Morton beheld, at the distance of about half a mile, the body of the cavalry to which his escort belonged, creeping up a steep and winding path which ascended from the more level moor into the hills. Their numbers, which appeared formidable when they crowded through narrow roads, and seemed multiplied by appearing partially, and at different points, among the trees, were now apparently diminished by being exposed at once to view, and in a landscape whose extent bore such immense proportion to the columns of horses and men, which, showing more like a drove of black cattle than a body of soldiers, crawled slowly along the face of the hill, their force and their numbers seeming trifling and contemptible. a handful of Surely," said Morton to himself, resolute men may defend any defile in these mountains against such a small force as this is, providing that their bravery is equal to their enthusiasm."

66

While he made these reflections, the rapid movement of the horsemen who guarded him, soon traversed the space which divided them from their companions; and ere the front of Claverhouse's column had gained the brow of the hill which they had been Been ascending, Bothwell with his rear-guard and prisoners, had united himself, or nearly so, with the main body led by his commander. The extreme difficulty of the road, which was in some places steep,

The word was then given to advance; and in a few minutes the first lines stood on the brow and commanded the prospect on the other side. The second line closed upon them, and also the rear-guard with the prisoners; so that Morton and his companions in captivity could, in like manner, see the form of opposition which was now offered to the farther progress of their captors.

The brow of the hill, on which the royal LifeGuards were now drawn up, sloped downwards (on the side opposite to that which they had ascended) with a gentle declivity, for more than a quarter of a mile, and presented ground, which, though unequal in some places, was not altogether unfavourable for the manoeuvres of cavalry, until near the bottom, when the slope terminated in a marshy level, traversed through its whole length by what seemed either a natural gully, or a deep artificial drain, the sides of which were broken by springs, trenches filled with water, out of which peats and turf had been dug, and here and there by some straggling thickets of alders which loved the moistness so well, that they continued to live as bushes, although too much dwarfed by the sour soil and the stagnant bog-water to ascend into trees. Beyond this ditch, or gully, the ground arose

"These fellows," said Major Allan, an old cavaler officer of experience, are three or four to one-I should not mind that much upon a fair field, but they are posted in a very formidable strength, and show no inclination to quit it. I therefore think, with deference to Cornet Grahame's opinion, that we should draw back to Tillietudlem, occupy the pass between the hills and the open country, and send for reinforcements to my Lord Ross, who is lying at As the horsemen halted their lines on the ridge of Glasgow with a regiment of infantry. In this way the hill, their trumpets and kettle-drums sounded a we should cut them off from the Strath of Clyde, and bold and warlike flourish of menace and defiance, either compel them to come out of their stronghold, that rang along the waste like the shrill summons of and give us battle on fair terms, or if they remain a destroying angel. The wanderers, in answer, here, we will attack them so soon as our infantry has united their voices, and sent forth, in solemn modu-joined us, and enable us to act with effect among lation, the two first verses of the seventy-sixth these ditches, bogs, and quagmires." Psalm, according to the metrical version of the Scottish Kirk:

แ

presented ourselves before them in line, the retreat of pet, and ride down to the edge of the morass to sumthe Life-Guards would argue gross timidity, and be mon them to lay down their arms and disperse." the general signal for insurrection throughout the "With all my soul, Colonel," answered the Cornet; west. In which case, so far from obtaining any as-"and I'll tie my cravat on a pike to serve for a white sistance from my Lord Ross, I promise you I should flag-the rascals never saw such a pennon of Flanhave great apprehensions of his being cut off before ders lace in their lives before." we can join him, or he us. A retreat would have quite the same fatal effect upon the king's cause as the loss of a battle-and as to the difference of risk or of safety it might make with respect to ourselves, that, I am sure, no gentleman thinks a moment about. There must be some gorges or passes in the morass through which we can force our way; and, were we once on firin ground, I trust there is no man in the Life-Guards who supposes our squadrons, though so weak in numbers, are unable to trample into dust twice the number of these unpractised clowns.What say you, my Lord Evandale?"

"I humbly think," said Lord Evandale, "that go the day how it will, it must be a bloody one; and that we shall lose many brave fellows, and probably be obliged to slaughter a great number of these misguided men, who, after all, are Scotchmen and subjects of King Charles as well as we are."

"Rebels! rebels! and undeserving the name either of Scotchmen or of subjects," said Claverhouse "but come, my lord, what does your opinion point at?" "To enter into a treaty with these ignorant and misled men," said the young nobleman.

"A treaty! and with rebels having arms in their hands? Never while I live," answered his commander.

'At least send a trumpet and flag of truce, summoning them to lay down their weapons and disperse," said Lord Evandale, "upon promise of a free pardon-I have always heard, that had that been done before the battle of Pentland hills, much blood might have been saved."

Well," said Claverhouse, "and who the devil do you think would carry a summons to these headstrong and desperate fanatics? They acknowledge no laws of war. Their leaders, who have been all most active in the murder of the Archbishop of St. Andrews, fight with a rope round their necks, and are likely to kill the messenger, were it but to dip their followers in loyal blood, and to make them as desperate of pardon as themselves."

"I will go myself," said Evandale, "if you will permit me. I have often risked blood to spill that of others, let me do so now in order to save human lives."

"Colonel Grahame," said Evandale, while the young officer prepared for his expedition," this young gentleman is your nephew and your apparent heir; for God's sake, permit me to go. It was my counsel, and I ought to stand the risk."

"Were he my only son," said Claverhouse, "this is no cause and no time to spare him. I hope my private affections will never interfere with my public duty. If Dick Grahame falls, the loss is chiefly mine; were your lordship to die, the King and country would be the sufferers. Come, gentlemen, each to his post. If our summons is unfavourably received, we will instantly attack; and, as the old Scottish blazon has it, God shaw the right!"

CORNET RICHARD GRAHAME descended the hill, bearing in his hand the extempore flag of truce, and making his managed horse keep time by bounds and curvets to the tune which he whistled. The trumpeter followed. Five or six horsemen, having something the appearance of officers, detached themselves from each flank of the Presbyterian army, and, meeting in the centre, approached the ditch which divided the hollow as near as the morass would permit. Towards this group, but keeping the opposite side of the swamp, Cornet Grahame directed his horse, his motions being now the conspicuous object of attention to both armies; and, without disparagement to the courage of either, it is probable there was a general wish on both sides that this embassy might save the risks and bloodshed of the impending conflict.

When he had arrived right opposite to those, who, by their advancing to receive his message, seemed totake upon themselves as the leaders of the enemy, Cornet Grahame commanded his trumpeter to sound a parley. The insurgents having no instrument of martial music wherewith, to make the appropriate reply, one of their number called out with a loud, strong voice, demanding to know why he approached their leaguer.

"You shall not go on such an errand, my lord," said Claverhouse; 'your rank and situation render your safety of too much consequence to the country "To summon you in the King's name, and in that in an age when good principles are so rare.-Here's of Colonel John Grahame of Claverhouse, specially my brother's son Dick Grahame, who fears shot or commissioned by the right honourable Privy Council steel as little as if the devil had given him armour of of Scotland," answered the Cornet, "to lay down proof against it, as the fanatics say he has given to your arms, and dismiss the followers whom ye have his uncle. He shall take a flag of truce and a trum-led into rebellion, contrary to the laws of God, of the There was actually a young cornet of the Life-Guards named King, and of the country. Grahame, and probably some relation of Claverhouse, slain in the skirmish of Drumclog. In the old ballad on the Battle of Bothwell Bridge, Claverhouse is said to have continued the slaughter of the fugitives in revenge of this gentleman's death. "Haud up your hand," then Monmouth said; "Gie quarters to these men for me;" But bloody Claver'se swore an oath,

"Return to them that sent thee," said the insurgent leader, "and tell them that we are this day in arms for a broken Covenant and a persecuted Kirk; tell them that we renounce the licentious and perjured Charles Stewart, whom you call king, even as he renounced the Covenant, after having once and again His kinsman's death avenged should be. sworn to prosecute to the utmost of his power all the ends thereof, really, constantly, and sincerely, all The body of this young man was found shockingly mangled the days of his life, having no enemies but the eneafter the battle, his eyes pulled out, and his features so much mies of the Covenant, and no friends but its friends, defaced, that it was impossible to recognise him. The Tory writers say that this was done by the Whigs; because, finding Whereas, far from keeping the oath he had called the name Grahame wrought in the young gentleman's neck God and angels to witness, his first step, after his cloth, they took the corpse for that of Claver'se himself. The incoming into these kingdoms, was the fearful grasping Whig authorities give a different account, from tradition, of the cause of Cornet Grahame's body being thus mangled. He had, at the pierogative of the Almighty, by that hideous say they, refused his own dog any food on the morning of the Act of Supremacy, together with his expulsing, withbattle, affirming, with an oath, that he should have no break-out summons, libel, or process of law, hundreds of fast but upon the flesh of the Whigs. The ravenous animal, it famous faithful preachers, thereby wringing the bread is said, flew at his master as soon as he fell, and lacerated his of life out of the mouth of hungry, poor creatures. These two stories are presented to the reader, leaving it to and forcibly cramming their throats with the lifeless, him to judge whether it is most likely that a party of perse-saltless, foisonless, lukewarm drammock of the fourcuted and insurgent fanatics should mangle a body supposed to teen false prelates, and their sycophantic, formal, carbe that of their chief enemy, in the same manner as several persons present at Drumclog had shortly before treated the person nal, scandalous creature-curates.' of Archbishop Sharpe; or that a domestic dog should, for want master, selecting his body from scores that were lying around, of a single breakfast, become so ferocious as to feed on his own equally accessible to his ravenous appetite. VOL. II 3 Z

face and throat.

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