of those blessed days, when there was power and efficacy, and convincing and converting of sinners, and heart-exercises, and fellowships of saints, and a plentiful flowing forth of the spices of the garden of Eden." "And this is my son Cuddie," exclaimed Mause, in her turn, "the son of his father, Judden Headrigg, wha was a douce honest man, and of me, Mause Middlemas, an unworthy professor and follower of the pure gospel, and ane o' your ain folk. Is it not written, 'Cut ye not off the tribe of the families of the Kohathites from among the Levites? Numbers, fourth and aughteenth-O! sirs! dinna be standing here prattling wi' honest folk, when ye suld be following forth your victory with which Providence has blessed ye.' This party having passed on, they were immediately beset by another, to whom it was necessary to give the same explanation. Kettledrummle, whose fear was much dissipated since the firing had ceased, again took upon him to be intercessor, and grown bold, as he felt his good word necessary for the protection of his late fellow-captives, he laid claim to no small share of the merit of the victory, appealing to Morton and Cuddie, whether the tide of battle had not turned while he prayed on the Mount of JehovahNissi, like Moses, that Israel might prevail over Amalek; but granting them, at the same time, the credit of holding up his hands when they waxed heavy, as those of the prophet were supported by Aaron and Hur. It seems probable that Kettledrummle allotted this part in the success to his companions in adversity, lest they should be tempted to disclose his carnal self-seeking and falling away, in regarding too closely his own personal safety. These strong testimonies in favour of the liberated captives quickly flew abroad, with many exaggerations, among the victorious army, The reports on the subject were various; but it was universally agreed, that young Morton of Milnwood, the son of the stout soldier of the Covenant, Silas Morton, together with the precious Gabriel Kettledrummle, and a singular devout Christian woman, whom many thought as good as himself at extracting a doctrine or a use, whether of terror or consolation, had arrived to support the good old cause, with a reinforcement of a hundred well-armed men from the Middle Ward.* * This affair, the only one in which Claverhouse was defeated, or the insurgent Cameronians successful, was fought pretty much in the manner mentioned in the text. The Royalists lost about thirty or forty men, The commander of the Presbyterian, or rather Covenanting party, was Mr. Robert Hamilton, of the honourable House of Preston, brother of Sir William Hamilton, to whose title and estate he afterwards succeeded; but, according to his biographer, Howie of Lochgoin, he never took possession of either, as he could not do so without acknowledging the right of King William (an uncovenanted monarch) to the crown. Hamilton had been bred by Bishop Burnet, while the latter lived at Glasgow; his brother, Sir Thomas, having married a sister of that historian. "He was then," says the Bishop, "a lively hopeful young man; but getting into that company, and into their notions, he became a crack-brained enthusiast." Several well-meaning persons have been much scandalized at the manner in which the victors are said to have conducted themselves towards the prisoners at Drumelog. But the principle of these poor fanatics, (I mean the high-flying, or Cameronian party,) was to obtain not merely toleration for their church, but the same supremacy which Presbytery had acquired in Scotland after the treaty of Rippon, betwixt Charles I. and his Scottish subjects, in 1610. The fact is, that they conceived themselves a chosen people, sent forth to extirpate the heathen, like the Jews of old, and under a similar charge to show no quarter. The historian of the Insurrection of Bothwell makes the fol lowing explicit avowal of the principles on which their General acted Mr. Hamilton discovered a great deal of bravery and valour, both in the conflict with, and pursuit of, the enemy; but when he and some other were pursuing the enemy, others flew too greedily upon the spoil, small as it was, instead of pursuing the Victory; and some, without Mr. Hamilton's knowledge, and directly contrary to is express command, gave five of those Bloody enemies quarter, and then let them go; this greatly grieved Mr. Hamilton when he saw some of Babel's brats spared, after that the Lord had delivered them into their hands, that they might dash them against the stones. Psalm cxxxvii. 9. In his own account of this, he reckons the sparing of these enemies, and letting them go, to be among their first steppings aside, for which he feared that the Lord would not honour them to do much more for him; and says, that he was neither for taking favours from, nor giving favours to, the Lord's enemies." See A true and imparitul Account of the persecuted Presbyterians in In the mean time, the insurgent cavalry returned from the pursuit, jaded and worn out with their unwonted efforts, and the infantry assembled on the ground which they had won, fatigued with toil and hunger. Their success, however, was a cordial to every bosom, and seemed even to serve in the stead of food and refreshment. It was, indeed, much more brilliant than they durst have ventured to anticipate; for, with no great loss on their part, they had totally routed a regiment of picked men, commanded by the first officer in Scotland, and one whose very name had long been a terror to them. Their success seemed even to have upon their spirits the effect of a sudden and violent surprise, so much had their taking up arms been a measure of desperation rather than of hope. Their meeting was also casual, and they had hastily arranged themselves under such commanders as were remarkable for zeal and courage, without much respect to any other qualities. It followed, from this state of disorganization, that the whole army appeared at once to resolve itself into a general committee for considering what steps were to be taken in consequence of their success, and no opinion could be started so wild that it had not some favourers and advocates. Some proposed they should march to Glasgow, some to Hamilton, some to Edinburgh, some to London. Some were for sending a deputation of their number to London to convert Charles II. to a sense of the error of his ways; and others, less charitable, proposed either to call a new successor to the crown, or to declare Scotland a free republic. A free parliament of the nation, and a free assembly of the Kirk, were the objects of the more sensible and moderate of the party. In the mean while, a clamour arose among the soldiers for bread and other necessaries, and while all complained of hardship and hunger, none took the necessary measures to procure supplies. In short, the camp of the covenanters, even in the very moment of success, seemed about to dissolve like a rope of sand, from want of the original principles of combination and union. Burley, who had now returned from the pursuit, found his followers in this distracted state. With the Scotland, their being in arms, and defeated at Bothwell Brigg, in 1679, by William Wilson, late Schoolmaster in the parish of Douglas. The reader who would authenticate the quotation, must not consult any other edition than that of 1697; for somehow or other the publisher of the last edition has omitted this remarkable part of the narrative. Sir Robert Hamilton himself felt neither remorse nor shame for having put to death one of the prisoners after the battle with his own hand, which appears to have been a charge against him, by some whose fanaticism was less exalted than his own. "As for that accusation they bring against me of killing that poor man (as they call him) at Drumclog, I may easily guess that my accusers can be no other but some of the house of Saul or Shimei, or some such risen again to espouse that poor gentleman (Saul) his quarrel against honest Samuel, for his offering to kill that poor man Agag, after the king's giving him quarter. But I, being to command that day, gave out the word that no quarter should be given; and returning from pursuing Claverhouse, one or two of these fellows were standing in the midst of a company of our friends, and some were debating for quarter, others against it. None could blame me to decide the controversy, and I bless the Lord for it to this day. There were five more that without my knowledge got quarter, who were brought to me after we were a mile from the place as having got quarter, which I reckoned among the first steppings aside; and seeing that spirit amongst us at that time, I then told it to some that were with me, (to my best remembrance, it was honest old John Nisbet,) that I feared the Lord would not honour us to do much more for him. I shall only say this -1 desire to bless his holy name, that since ever he helped me to set my face to his work, I never had, nor would take, a favour from enemies, either on right or left hand, and desire to give as few." The preceding passage is extracted from a long vindication of his own conduct, sent by Sir Robert Hamilton, 7th December, 1685, addressed to the anti-Popish, anti Prelatic, anti-Erastian, anti-sectarian true Presbyterian remnant of the Church of Scot land; and the substance is to be found in the work or collection, called, "Faithful Contending Displayed, collected and transcribed by John Howie." As the skirmish of Drumclog has been of late the subject of some inquiry, the reader may be curious to see Claverhouse's own account of the affair, in a letter to the Earl of Linlithgow, written immediately after the action. This gazette, as it may be called, occurs in the volume called Dundee's Letters, printed ready talent of one accustomed to encounter exigen- | solation, two of terror, two declaring the causes of cies, he proposed, that one hundred of the freshest backsliding and of wrath, and one announcing the men should be drawn out for duty-that a small num- promised and expected deliverance. The first part ber of those who had hitherto acted as leaders should of his text he applied to his own deliverance and that constitute a committee of direction until officers of his companions; and took occasion to speak a few should be regularly chosen-and that, to crown the words in praise of young Milnwood, of whom, as of a victory, Gabriel Kettledrummle should be called upon champion of the Covenant, he augured great things to improve the providential success which they had The second part he applied to the punishments which were about to fall upon the persecuting government. obtained, by a word in season addressed to the army. At times he was familiar and colloquial; now he was He reckoned very much, and not without reason, on this last expedient, as a means of engaging the atten- loud, energetic, and boisterous;-some parts of his tion of the bulk of the insurgents, while he himself, discourse might be called sublime, and others sunk and two or three of their leaders, held a private coun- below burlesque. Occasionally he vindicated with cil of war, undisturbed by the discordant opinions, or great animation the right of every freeman to worship God according to his own conscience; and presently senseless clamour, of the general body, Kettledrummle more than answered the expecta- he charged the guilt and misery of the people on the tions of Burley. Two mortal hours did he preach at awful negligence of their rulers, who had not only a breathing; and certainly no lungs, or doctrine, ex-failed to establish presbytery as the national religion, cepting his own, could have kept up, for so long a but had tolerated sectaries of various descriptions, time, the attention of men in such precarious circum- Papists, Prelatists, Erastians, assuming the name of stances. But he possessed in perfection a sort of Presbyterians, Independents, Socinians, and Quakers, rude and familiar eloquence peculiar to the preachers all of whom Kettledrummle proposed, by one sweep of that period, which, though it would have been fas-ing act, to expel from the land, and thus re-edify in tidionsly rejected by an audience which possessed its integrity the beauty of the sanctuary. He next any portion of taste, was a cake of the right leaven handled very pithily the doctrine of defensive arms for the palates of those whom he now addressed. and of resistance to Charles II., observing, that His text was from the forty-ninth chapter of Isaiah, instead of a nursing father to the Kirk, that monarch "Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken had been a nursing father to none but his own basaway, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: tards. He went at some length through the life and for I will contend with him that contendeth with conversation of that joyous prince, few parts of which, it must be owned, were qualified to stand the rough thee, and I will save thy children. handling of so uncourtly an orator, who conferred on him the hard names of Jeroboam, Omri, Ahab, Shallum, Pekah, and every other evil monarch recorded in the Chronicles, and concluded with a round application of the Scripture, "Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the KING it is provided: he hath made it deep and large; the pile thereof is fire and much wood. the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.". And I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with sweet wine: and all flesh shall know that I the Lord am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob." The discourse which he pronounced upon this subject was divided into fifteen heads, each of which was garnished with seven uses of application, two of conby Mr. Smythe of Methven, as a contribution to the Bannatyne Club. The original is in the library of the Duke of Buckingham. Claverhouse, it may be observed, spells like a chambermaid. "FOR THE EARLE OF LINLITHGOW. [COMMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF KING CHARLES II.'S FORCES IN SCOTLAND.] Glaskow, Jun. the 1, 1679. "MY LORD, Upon Saturday's night, when my Lord Rosse came into this place, I marched out, and because of the inso Kettledrummle had no sooner ended his sermon, and descended from the huge rock which had served him for a pulpit, than his post was occupied by a pastor of a very different description. The reverend Gabriel was advanced in years, somewhat corpulent, with a loud voice, a square face, and a set of stupid and unanimated features, in which the body seemed more to predominate over the spirit that was seemly ency that had been done tue nights before at Ruglen, I went in a sound divine. The youth who succeeded him in thither and inquyred for the names. So soon as I got them, exhorting this extraordinary convocation, Ephraim went our partys to sease on them, and found not only three of Macbriar by name, was hardly twenty years old; yet those rogues, but also ane intercomend minister called King. We had them at Strevan, about six in the morning yesterday, his thin features already indicated, that a constitnand resolving to convey them to this, I thought that we might tion naturally hectic, was worn out by vigils, by fasts, make a little tour to see if we could fall upon a conventicle; by the rigour of imprisonment, and the fatigue incident which we did, little to our advantage; for when we came in to a fugitive life. Young as he was, he had been sight of them, we found them drawn up in batell, upor a most adventageous ground, to which there was no coming put twice unprisoned for several months, and suffered through mosses and lakes. They wer not preaching, and had many severities, which gave him great influence with got away all there women and shildring. They consisted of four battaillons of foot, and all well armed with fusils and pitch those of his own sect. He threw his faded eyes over forks, and three squadrons of horse. We sent both partys to the multitude and over the scene of battle; and a skirmish, they of foot and we of dragoons; they run for it, and light of triumph arose in his glance, his pale yet striksent down a battaillon of foot against them; we sent three-ing features were coloured with a transient and heche score of dragoons, who made them run again shamfully; but in blush of joy. He folded his hands, raised his face to end they percaiving that we had the better of them in skirmish, they resolved a generall engadgment, and imediatly advanced heaven, and seemed lost in mental prayer and thankwith there foot, the horse folowing; they came throght the giving ere he addressed the people. When he spoke, his faint and broken voice seemed at first inadequate lotcho; the greatest body of all made up against my troupe; we keeped our fyre till they wer within ten pace of us: they recaived our fyr, and advanced to shok; the first they gave us broght to express his conceptions. But the deep silence of down the Coronet Mr. Crafford and Captain Bleith, besides that the assembly, the eagerness with which the car ge with a pitchfork they made such an openeing in my rone horse's thered every word, as the famished Israelites collected belly, that his guta hung out half an elle, and yet he carryed me the heavenly manna, had a corresponding effect upo af an my!; which so discoraged our men that they sustained not the shok, but fell into disorder. There horse took the oc- the preacher himself. His words became more dis casion of this, and purseucd us so hotly that we had no tym to tinct, his manner more earnest and energetic; it rayly. I saved the standarts, but lost on the place about aight seemed as if religious zeal was triumphing over body or ten men, besides wounded; but the dragoons lost many mor, weakness and infirmity. His natural eloquence wa They ar not com esily af on the other side, for I sawe severall of them fall befor we cam to the shok. I mad the best retraite not altogether untainted with the coarseness of b the confusion of our people would suffer, and I am now laying sect; and yet, by the influence of a good natur with my Lord Rosse. The toun of Streven drew up as we was taste, it was freed from the grosser and more lu making our retrait, and thoght of a pass to cut us off, but we took courage and fell to them, made them run, leaving a dou- crous errors of his contemporaries; and the langag sain on the place. What these rogues will dou yet I know not, of Scripture, which, in their mouths, was sometime but the contry was flocking to them from all hands. This may degraded by misapplication, gave, in Macbriar's a be counted the begining of the rebellion, in my opinion. hortation, a rich and solemn effect, like that whic "I am, my lord, is produced by the beams of the sun stream Your lordship's most humble servant, J. GRAHAME through the storied representation of saints and mat "My Lord, I am so wearied, and so sleapy, that I have wryton tyrs on the Gothic window of some ancient cathedra He painted the desolation of the church, during the This very confusedly." late period of her distresses, in the most affecting | sword of their persecutors, famished with hunger, colours. He described her, like Hagar watching the waning life of her infant amid the fountainless desert; like Judah, under her palm-tree, mourning for the devastation of her temple; like Rachel, weeping for her children and refusing comfort. But he chiefly rose into rough sublimity when addressing the men yet reeking from battle. He called on them to remember the great things which God had done for them, and to persevere in the career which their victory had opened. starving with cold, lacking fire, food, shelter, and clothing, because they serve God rather than manall are with you, pleading, watching, knocking, storming the gates of heaven in your behalf. Heaven itself shall fight for you, as the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. Then whoso will deserve immortal fame in this world, and eternal happiness in that which is to come, let them enter into God's service, and take arles at the hand of his servant,-a blessing. namely, upon him and his household, and his chil dren, to the ninth generation, even the blessing of the promise, for ever and ever! Amen." Your garments are dyed-but not with the juice of the wine-press; your swords are filled with blood," he exclaimed, "but not with the blood of goats or The eloquence of the preacher was rewarded by lambs; the dust of the desert on which ye stand is the deep hum of stern approbation which resounded made fat with gore, but not with the blood of bul- through the armed assemblage at the conclusion of locks, for the Lord hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a an exhortation, so well suited to that which they had great slaughter in the land of Idumea. These were done, and that which remained for them to do. The not the firstlings of the flock, the small cattle of wounded forgot their pain, the faint and hungry their burnt-offerings, whose bodies lie like dung on the fatigues and privations, as they listened to doctrines ploughed field of the husbandman; this is not the which elevated them alike above the wants and casavour of myrrh, of frankincense, or of sweet herbs, lamities of the world, and identified their cause with that is steaming in your nostrils; but these bloody that of the Deity. Many crowded around the preacher, trunks are the carcasses of those who held the bow as he descended from the eminence on which he and the lance, who were cruel and would show no stood, and, clasping him with hands on which the mercy, whose voice roared like the sea, who rode gore was not yet hardened, pledged their sacred vow upon horses, every man in array as if to battle-they that they would play the part of Heaven's true solare the carcasses even of the mighty men of war that diers. Exhausted by his own enthusiasm, and by the came against Jacob in the day of his deliverance, animated fervour which he had exerted in his disand the smoke is that of the devouring fires that course, the preacher could only reply in broken achave consumed them. And those wild hills that cents," God bless you, my brethren-it is HIS cause. surround you are not a sanctuary planked with cedar-Stand strongly up and play the men-the worst and plated with silver; nor are ye ministering priests that can befall us is but a brief and bloody passage to at the altar, with censers and with torches; but ye heaven." hold in your hands the sword, and the bow, and the weapons of death. And yet verily, I say unto you, that not when the ancient Temple was in its first glory was there offered sacrifice more acceptable than that which you have this day presented, giving to the slaughter the tyrant and the oppressor, with the rocks for your altars, and the sky for your vaulted sanctuary, and your own good swords for the instruments of sacrifice. Leave not, therefore, the plough in the furrow-turn not back from the path in which you have entered like the famous worthies of old, whom God raised up for the glorifying of his name and the deliverance of his afflicted people-halt not in the race you are running, lest the latter end should be worse than the beginning. Wherefore, set up a standard in the land; blow a trumpet upon the mountains; let not the shepherd tarry by his sheep-fold, or the seedsman continue in the ploughed field; but make the watch strong, sharpen the arrows, burnish the shields, name ye the captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens; call the footmen like the rushing of winds, and cause the horsemen to come up like the sound of many waters; for the passages of the destroyers are stopped, their rods are burned, and the face of their men of battle hath been turned to flight. Heaven has been with you, and has broken the bow of the mighty; then let every man's heart be as the heart of the valiant Maccabeus, every man's hand as the hand of the mighty Sampson, every man's sword as that of Gideon, which turned not back from the slaughter; for the banner of Reformation is spread abroad on the mountains in its first loveliness, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. "Well is he this day that shall barter his house for helmet, and sell his garment for a sword, and cast in his lot with the children of the Covenant, even to the fulfilling of the promise; and wo, wo unto him who, for carnal ends and self-seeking, shall withhold himself from the great work, for the curse shall abide with him, even the bitter curse of Meroz, because he came not to the help of the Lord against the mighty. Up, then, and be doing; the blood of martyrs, reeking upon scaffolds, is crying for vengeance; the bones of saints, which lie whitening in the highways, are pleading for retribution, the groans of innocent captives from desolate isles of the sea, and from the dungeons of the tyrants' high places, cry for deliverance; the prayers of persecuted Christians, sheltering themselves in dens and deserts from the VOL II 4 A Balfour, and the other leaders, had not lost the time which was employed in these spiritual exercises. Watch-fires were lighted, sentinels were posted, and arrangements were made to refresh the army with such provisions as had been hastily collected from the nearest farm-houses and villages. The present necessity thus provided for, they turned their thoughts to the future. They had dispatched parties to spread the news of their victory, and to obtain, either by force or favour, supplies of what they stood most in need of. In this they had succeeded beyond their hopes, having at one village seized a small magazine of provisions, forage, and ammunition, which had been provided for the royal forces. This success not only gave them relief at the time, but such hopes for the future, that whereas formerly some of their number had begun to slacken in their zeal, they now unanimously resolved to abide together in arms, and commit themselves and their cause to the event of war. And whatever may be thought of the extravagance or narrow-minded bigotry of many of their tenets, it is impossible to deny the praise of devoted courage to a few hundred peasants, who, without leaders, without money, without magazines, without any fixed plan of action, and almost without arms, borne out only by their innate zeal, and a detestation of the oppression of their rulers, ventured to declare open war against an established government, supported by a regular army and the whole force of three kingdoms. CHAPTER XIX. Why, then, say an old man can do somewhat. Henry IV. Part IL We must now return to the tower of Tillietudlem, which the march of the Life-Guards, on the morning of this eventful day, had left to silence and anxiety. The assurances of Lord Evandale had not succeeded in quelling the apprehensions of Edith. She knew him generous, and faithful to his word; but it seemed too plain that he suspected the object of her intercession to be a successful rival; and was it not expecting from him an effort above human nature, to suppose that he was to watch over Morton's safety and rescue him from all the dangers to which his state of imprisonment, and the suspicions which he had incurred, must repeatedly expose him? She therefore resigned herself to the most heart-rending apprehensions, without admitting, and indeed almos 53 without listening to, the multifarious grounds of con- | answered Major Bellenden. "She's not accustomed solation which Jenny Dennison brought forward, one to see one acquaintance led out to be shot, and after another, like a skilful general who charges with another marching off to actual service, with some the several divisions of his troops in regular suc- chance of not finding his way back again. She would soon be used to it, if the civil war were to break out again." cession. First, Jenny was morally positive that young Milnwood would come to no harm-then, if he did, there was consolation in the reflection, that Lord Evandale was the better and more appropriate match of the two-then, there was every chance of a battle, in which the said Lord Evandale might be killed, and there wad be nae mair fash about that job-then, if the whigs gat the better, Milnwood and Cuddie might come to the Castle, and carry off the beloved of their hearts by the strong hand. "For I forgot to tell ye, madam," continued the damsel, putting her handkerchief to her eyes, "that puir Cuddie's in the hands of the Philistines as weel as young Milnwood, and he was brought here a prisoner this morning, and I was fain to speak Tam Halliday fair, and fleech him, to let me near the puir creature; but Cuddie wasna sae thankfu' as he needed till hae been neither," she added, and at the same time changed her tone, and briskly withdrew the handkerchief from her face; so I will ne'er waste my een wi' greeting about the matter. There wad be aye enow o' young men left, if they were to hang the tae half o' them.' The other inhabitants of the Castle were also in a state of dissatisfaction and anxiety. Lady Margaret thought that Colonel Grahame, in commanding an execution at the door of her house, and refusing to grant a reprieve at her request, had fallen short of the deference due to her rank, and had even encroached on her seignorial rights. "The Colonel," she said, "ought to have remembered, brother, that the barony of Tillietudlem has the baronial privilege of pit and gallows; and therefore, if the lad was to be executed on my estate, (which I consider as an unhandsome thing, seeing it is in the possession of females, to whom such tragedies cannot be acceptable,) he ought, at common law, to have been delivered up to my bailie, and justified at his sight." "Martial law, sister," answered Major Bellenden, "supersedes every other. But I must own I think Colonel Grahame rather deficient in attention to you; and I am not over and above pre-eminently flattered by his granting to young Evandale (I suppose because he is a lord, and has interest with the privy-council) a request which he refused to so old a servant of the king as I am. But so long as the poor young fellow's life is saved, I can comfort myself with the fag-end of a ditty as old as myself." And therewithal, he hummed a stanza: And what though winter will pinch severe For a cup of sack shall fence the cold.' "I must be your guest here to-day, sister. I wish to hear the issue of this gathering on Loudon-hill, though I cannot conceive their standing a body of horse appointed like our guests this morning. Woe's me, the time has been that I would have liked ill to have sate in biggit wa's waiting for the news of a skirmish to be fought within ten miles of me! But, as the old song goes, For time will rust the brightest blade, But time and years would overthrow ?'" "We are well pleased you will stay, brother," said Lady Margaret; "I will take my old privilege to look after my household, whom this collation has thrown into some disorder, although it is uncivil to leave you alone." "O,I hate ceremony as I hate a stumbling horse," replied the Major. Besides, your person would be with me, and your mind with the cold meat and leversionary pasties.-Where is Edith ?" "Gone to her room a little evil-disposed, I am nformed, and laid down in her bed for a gliff," said her grandmother; as soon as she wakes, she shall Lake some drops.' 66 "Pooh! pooh! she's only sick of the soldiers," "God forbid, brother!" said Lady Margaret. "Ay, Heaven forbid, as you say and, in _the mean time, I'll take a hit at trick-track with Har rison." "He has ridden out, sir," said Gudyill, "to try if he can hear any tidings of the battle." "D-n the battle," said the Major; "it puts this family as much out of order as if there had never been such a thing in the country before-and yet there was such a place as Kilsythe, John." Ay, and as Tippermuir, your honour" rephed Gudyill," where I was his honour my late master's rear-rank man." And Alford, John," pursued the Major, "where I commanded the horse; and Innerlochy, where I was the Great Marquis's aid-de-camp; and Aud Earn, and Brig o' Dee." And Philiphaugh, your honour," said John. "Umph!" replied the Major; "the less, John, we say about that matter, the better." However, being once fairly embarked on the subject of Montrose's campaigns, the Major and John Gudyill carried on the war so stoutly, as for a considerable time to keep at bay the formidable enemy called Time, with whom retired veterans, during the quiet close of a bustling life, usually wage an unceasing hostility. It has been frequently remarked, that the tidings of important events fly with a celerity almost beyond the power of credibility, and that reports, correct in the general point, though inaccurate in details, precede the certain intelligence, as if carried by the birds of the air. Such rumours anticipate the reality, not unlike to the "shadows of coming events," which occupy the imagination of the Highland Seer. Harrison, in his ride, encountered some such report concerning the event of the battle, and turned his horse back to Tillietudlem in great dismay. He made it his first business to seek out the Major, and interrupted him in the midst of a prolix account of the siege and storm of Dundee, with the ejaculation, "Heaven send, Major, that we do not see a siege of Tillietudlem before we are many days older!" "How is that, Harrison?-what the devil do you mean?" exclaimed the astonished veteran. "Troth, sir, there is strong and increasing belief that Claver'se is clean broken, some say killed; that the soldiers are all dispersed, and that the rebels are hastening this way, threatening death and devastation to a that will not take the Covenant." "I will never believe that," said the Major starting on his feet-"I will never believe that the Life-Guards would retreat before rebels-and yet why need I say that," he continued, checking him self, "when I have seen such sights myself?-Scat out Pike, and one or two of the servants, for intellgence, and let all the men in the Castle and in the village that can be trusted take up arms. Th old tower may hold them play a bit, if it were but victualled and garrisoned, and it commands the pass between the high and low countries.-It's lucky I chanced to be here.-Go, muster men, Harson -You, Gudyill, look what provisions you have, or can get brought in, and be ready, if the news be confirmed, to knock down as many bullocks as you have salt for. The well never goes dry.-Ther are some old-fashioned guns on the battlements if we had but ammunition, we should do wel enough." "The soldiers left some casks of ammunition the Grange this morning, to bide their return," sa Harrison. "Hasten, then," said the Major, "and bring into the Castle, with every pike, sword, pistol, or gu that is within our reach; don't leave so much as bodkin-Lucky that I was here!-I will speak to my sister instantly." Lady Margaret Bellenden was astounded at telligence so unexpected and so alarming. It had seemed to her that the imposing force which had that morning left her walls, was sufficient to have routed all the disaffected in Scotland, if collected in a body; and now her first reflection was upon the inadequacy of their own means of resistance, to an army strong enough to have defeated Claverhouse and such select troops. Woe's me! woe's me!" said she; "what will all that we can do avail us, brother?-What will resistance do but bring sure destruction on the house, and on the bairn Edith! for, God knows, I thinkna on my ain auld life." "Come, sister," said the Major, "you must not be cast down; the place is strong, the rebels ignorant and ill-provided: my brother's house shall not be made a den of thieves and rebels while old Miles Bellenden is in it. My hand is weaker than it was, but I thank my old gray hairs that I have some knowledge of war yet. Here comes Pike with intelligence. What news, Pike? Another Philiphaugh job, eh?" Ay, ay," said Pike, composedly; "a total scattering. I thought this morning little gude would come of their newfangled gate of slinging their carabines." "Whom did you see?-Who gave you the news?" asked the Major. "O, inair than half-a-dozen dragoon fellows that are a on the spur whilk to get first to Hamilton. They'll win the race, I warrant them, win the battle wha like." "Continue your preparations, Harrison," said the alert veteran; get your ammunition in, and the cattle killed. Send down to the borough-town for what meal you can gather. We must not lose an instant.-Had not Edith and you, sister, better return to Charnwood, while we have the means of sending you there?" "No, brother," said Lady Margaret, looking very pale, but speaking with the greatest composure; since the auld house is to be held out, I will take my chance in it. I have fled' twice from it in my days, and I have aye found it desolate of its bravest and its bonniest when I returned; sae that I will e'en abide now, and end my pilgrimage in it." "It may, on the whole, be the safest course both for Edith and you," said the Major; "for the whigs will rise all the way between this and Glasgow, and make your travelling there, or your dwelling at Charnwood, very unsafe." 'So be it then," said Lady Margaret; "and, dear brother, as the nearest blood relation of my deceased husband, I deliver to you, by this symbol," (here she gave into his hand the venerable gold-headed staff of the deceased Earl of Torwood,)-"the keeping and government and seneschalship of my Tower of Tillietudlem, and the appurtenances thereof, with full power to kill, slay, and damage those who shall assail the same, as freely as I might do myself. And I trust you will so defend it, as becomes a house in which his most sacred majesty has not disdained". "Pshaw! sister," interrupted the Major, "we have no time to speak about the king and his breakfast just now." And, hastily leaving the room, he hurried, with all the alertness of a young man of twenty-five, to examine the state of his garrison, and superintend the measures which were necessary for defending the place. The Tower of Tillietudlem, having very thick walls, and very narrow windows, having also a very strong court-yard wall, with flanking turrets on the only accessible side, and rising on the other from the very verge of a precipice, was fully capable of defence against any thing but a train of heavy artillery. nets. These, the Major, with the assistance of John Gudyi!l, caused to be scaled and loaded, and pointed them so as to command the road over the brow of the opposite hill by which the rebels must advance, carsing, at the same time, two or three trees to be cut down, which would have impeded the effect of the artillery when it should be necessary to use it. With the trunks of these trees, and other materials, he directed barricades to be constructed upon the winding avenue which rose to the Tower along the highroad, taking care that each should command the other. The large gate of the court-yard he barricadoed yet more strongly, leaving only a wicket open for the convenience of passage. What he had most to apprehend, was the slenderness of his garrison; for all the efforts of the steward were unable to get more than nine men under arms, himself and Gudyill included, so much more popular was the cause of the insurgents than that of the government. Major Bellenden, and his trusty servant Pike, made the garrison eleven in number, of whom one half were old men. The round dozen might indeed have been made up, would Lady Margaret have consented that Goose Gibbie should again take up arms. But she recoiled from the proposal, when moved by Gudyill, with such abhorrent recollection of the former achievements of that luckless cavalier, that she declared she would rather the Castle were lost than that he were to be enrolled in the defence of it. With eleven men, however, himself included, Major Bellenden determined to hold out the place to the uttermost. The arrangements for defence were not made with. out the degree of fracas incidental to such occasions. Women shrieked, cattle bellowed, dogs howled, men ran to and fro, cursing and swearing without intermission, the lumbering of the old guns backwards and forwards shook the battlements, the court resounded with the hasty gallop of messengers who went and returned upon errands of importance, and the din of warlike preparation was mingled with the sound of female laments. Such a Babel of discord might have awakened the slumbers of the very dead, and, therefore, was not long ere it dispelled the abstracted reveries of Edith Bellenden. She sent out Jenny, to bring her the cause of the tumult which shook the castle to its very basis; but Jenny, once engaged in the bustling tide, found so much to ask and to hear, that she forgot the state of anxious uncertainty in which she had left her young mistress. Having no pigeon to dismiss in pursuit of information when her raven messenger had failed to return with it, Edith was compelled to venture in quest of it out of the ark of her own chamber into the deluge of confusion which overflowed the rest of the Castle. Six voices speak ing at once, informed her, in reply to her first inquiry, that Claver'se and all his men were killed, and that ten thousand whigs were marching to besiege the castle, headed by John Balfour of Burley, young Milnwood, and Cuddie Headrigg. This strange association of persons seemed to infer the falsehood of the whole story, and yet the general bustle in the Castle intimated that danger was certainly apprehended." "Where is Lady Margaret?" was Edith's second question. "In her oratory," was the reply: a cell adjoining to the chapel, in which the good old lady was wont to spend the greater part of the days destined by the rules of the Episcopal Church to devotional observances, as also the anniversaries of those on which she had lost her husband and her children, and, finally, those hours, in which a deeper and more solemn address to Heaven was called for, by national or domestic calamity. "Where, then," said Edith, much alarmed, "is Major Bellenden?" "On the battlements of the Tower madam, point ing the cannon," was the reply. Famine or escalade was what the garrison had chiefly to fear. For artillery, the top of the Tower To the battlements, therefore, she made her way, was mounted with some antiquated wall-pieces, and impeded by a thousand obstacles, and found the old small cannons, which bore the old-fashioned names gentleman in the midst of his natural military ele of culverins, sakers, demi-sakers, falcons, and falco-ment, commanding, rebuking, encouraging, instruct |