mace of the Justiciary.-So, waving this discussion, you will be pleased, young man, to tell me directly when you saw Balfour of Burley." "As I know no right you have to ask such a question," replied Morton, " I decline replying to it." "You confessed to my sergeant," said Claverhouse," that you saw and entertained him, knowing him to be an intercommuned traitor: why are you not so frank with me?" "Because," replied the prisoner, "I presume you are, from education, taught to understand the rights upon which you seem disposed to trample; and I am willing you should be aware there are yet Scotsmen who can assert the liberties of Scotland." "And these supposed rights you would vindicate with your sword, I presume?" said Colonel Grahame. "Were I armed as you are, and we were alone upon a hill-side, you should not ask me the question twice." "Make your peace, then, with Heaven, in five minutes' space.Bothwell, lead him down to the court-yard, and draw up your party." The appalling nature of this conversation, and of its result, struck the silence of horror into all but the speakers. But now those who stood round broke forth into clamour and expostulation. Old Lady Margaret, who, with all the prejudices of rank and party, had not laid aside the feelings of her sex, was loud in her intercession. "O, Colonel Grahame," she exclaimed, "spare his young blood! Leave him to the law-do not repay my hospitality by shedding men's blood on the threshold of my doors!" "Colonel Grahame," said Major Bellenden," you must answer this violence. Don't think, though I am old and feckless, that my friend's son shall be murdered before my eyes with impunity. I can find friends that shall make you answer it." "Be satisfied, Major Bellenden, I will answer it," replied Claverhouse, totally unmoved. “And you, madam, might spare me the pain of resisting this passionate intercession for a traitor, when you consider the noble blood your own house has lost by such as he is." "Colonel Grahame," answered the lady, her aged frame trembling with anxiety, "I leave vengeance to God, who calls it his own. The shedding of this young man's blood will not call back the lives that were dear to me; and how can it comfort me to think that there has maybe been another widowed mother made childless, like mysell, by a deed done at my very door-stane!" "This is stark madness," said Claverhouse-"I must do my duty to church and state. Here are a thousand villains hard by in open rebellion, and you ask me to pardon a young fanatic who is enough of himself to set a whole kingdom in a blaze! It cannot be-Remove him, Bothwell." She who was most interested in this dreadful decision, had twice strove to speak, but her voice had totally failed her- her mind refused to suggest words, and her tongue to utter them. She now sprung up, and attempted to rush forward, but her strength gave way, and she would have fallen flat upon the pavement had she not been caught by her attendant. "Help!" cried Jenny" Help, for God's sake! my young lady is dying." At this exclamation, Evandale, who, during the preceding part of the scene, had stood motionless, leaning upon his sword, now stepped forward, and said to his commanding-officer, "Colonel Grahame, before proceeding in this matter, will you speak a word with me in private?" Claverhouse looked surprised, but instantly rose and withdrew with the young nobleman into a recess, where the following brief dialogue passed between them: "I think I need not remind you, Colonel, that when our family interest was of service to you last year in that affair in the privy-council, you considered yourself as laid under some obligation to us?" "Certainly, my dear Evandale," answered Claverhouse, " I am not a man who forgets such debts; you will delight me by showing how I can evince my gratitude." "I will hold the debt cancelled," said Lord Evandale, "if you will spare this young man's life." "Evandale," replied Grahame, in great surprise, "you are mad!-absolutely mad! What interest can you have in this young spawn of an old roundhead? His father was positively the most dangerous man in all Scotland-cool, resolute, soldierly, and inflexible in his cursed principles. His son seems his very model; you cannot conceive the mischief he may do. I know mankind, Evandalewere he an insignificant, fanatical, country booby, do you think I would have refused such a trifle as his life to Lady Margaret and this family? But this is a lad of fire, zeal, and education--and these knaves want but such a leader to direct their blind enthusiastic hardiness. I mention this, not as refusing your request, but to make you fully aware of the possible consequences. I will never evade a promise, or refuse to return an obligation—if you ask his life, he shall have it." "Keep him close prisoner," answered Evandale, "but do not be surprised if I persist in requesting you will not put him to death. I have most urgent reasons for what I ask." "Be it so then," replied Grahame. "But, young man, should you wish in your future life to rise to eminence in the service of your king and country, let it be your first task to subject to the public interest, and to the discharge of your duty, your private passions, affections, and feelings. These are not times to sacrifice to the dotage of greybeards, or the tears of silly women, the measures of salutary severity which the dangers around compel us to adopt. And remember, that if I now yield this point, in compliance with your urgency, my present concession must exempt me from future solicitations of the same nature." He then stepped forward to the table, and beat his eyes keenly on Morton, as if to observe what effect the pause of awful suspense between death and life, which seemed to freeze the bystanders with horror, would produce upon the prisoner him self. Morton maintained a degree of firmness, which nothing but a mind that had nothing left upon earth to love or to hope, could have supported at such a crisis. "You see him?" said Claverhouse, in a half whisper to Lord Evandale; "he is tottering on the verge between time and eternity, a situation more appalling than the most hideous certainty; yet his is the only cheek unblenched, the only eye that is calm, the only heart that keeps its usual time, the only nerves that are not quivering. Look at him well, Evandale-If that man shall ever come to head an army of rebels, you will have much to answer for on account of this morning's work." He then said aloud, "Young man, your life is for the present safe, through the intercession of your friends-Remove him, Bothwell, and let him be properly guarded, and brought along with the other prisoners." "If my life," said Morton, stung with the idea that he owed his respite to the intercession of a favoured rival, " if my life be granted at Lord Evandale's request" "Take the prisoner away, Bothwell," said Colonel Grahame, interrupting him; "I have neither time to make nor to hear fine speeches." Bothwell forced off Morton, saying, as he conducted him into the court-yard, "Have you three lives in your pocket, besides the one in your body, my lad, that you can afford to let your tongue run away with them at this rate? Come, come, I'll take care to keep you out of the Colonel's way; for, egad, you will not be five minutes with him before the next tree or the next ditch will be the word. So, come along to your companions in bondage." Thus speaking, the sergeant, who, in his rude manner, did not altogether want sympathy for a gallant young man, hurried Morton down to the court-yard, where three other prisoners (two men and a woman), who had been taken by Lord Evandale, remained under an escort of dragoons. Meantime, Claverhouse took his leave of Lady Margaret. But it was difficult for the good lady to forgive his neglect of her intercession. "I have thought till now," she said, "that the Tower of Tillietudlem might have been a place of succour to those that are ready to perish, even if they werena sae deserving as they should have been -but I see auld fruit has little savour-our suffering and our services have been of an ancient date." "They are never to be forgotten by me, let me assure your ladyship," said Claverhouse. "Nothing but what seemed my sacred duty could make me hesitate to grant a favour requested by you and the Major. Come, my good lady, let me hear you say you have forgiven me, and, as I return to-night, I will bring a drove of two hundred whigs with me, and pardon fifty head of them for your sake." "I shall be happy to hear of your success, Colonel," said Major Bellenden; " but take an old soldier's advice, and spare blood when battle's over -and once more let me request to enter bail for young Morton." "We will settle that when I return," said Claverhouse. "Meanwhile, be assured his life shall be safe." During this conversation, Evandale looked anxiously around for Edith; but the precaution of Jenny Dennison had occasioned her mistress being transported to her own apartment. WE left Morton, along with three companions in captivity, travelling in the custody of a small body of soldiers, who formed the rear-guard of the column under the command of Claverhouse, and were immediately under the charge of Sergeant Bothwell. Their route lay towards the hills in which the insurgent presbyterians were reported to be in arms. They had not prosecuted their march a quarter of a mile ere Claverhouse and Evandale galloped past them, followed by their orderly-men, in order to take their proper places in the column which preceded them. No sooner were they past, than Bothwell halted the body which he command ed, and disencumbered Morton of his irons. - "King's blood must keep word," said the dragoon. "I promised you should be civilly treated as far as rested with me. Here, Corporal Inglis, let this gentleman ride alongside of the other young fellow who is prisoner; and you may permit them to converse together at their pleasure, under their breath, but take care they are guarded by two files with loaded carabines. If they attempt an escape, blow their brains out.-You cannot call that using you uncivilly," he continued, addressing himself to Morton; "it's the rules of war, you know. Inglis, couple up the parson and the old womanthey are fittest company for each other, d-n me; a single file may guard them well enough. If they speak a word of cant or fanatical nonsense, let them have a strapping with a shoulder-belt. There's some hope of choking a silenced parson; if he is not allowed to hold forth, his own treason will burst him." And, Having made this arrangement, Bothwell placed himself at the head of the party, and Inglis, with six dragoons, brought up the rear. The whole then set forward at a trot, with the purpose of overtaking the main body of the regiment. Morton, overwhelmed with a complication of feelings, was totally indifferent to the various arrangements made for his secure custody, and even to the relief afforded him by his release from the fetters. He experienced that blank and waste of the heart which follows the hurricane of passion, and, no longcr supported by the pride and conscious rectitude which dictated his answers to Claverhouse, he surveyed with deep dejection the glades through which he travelled, each turning of which had something to remind him of past happiness and disappointed love. The eminence which they now ascended was that from which he used first and last to behold the ancient tower when approaching or retiring from it;-and it is needless to add, that there he was wont to pause, and gaze with a lover's delight on the battlements, which, rising at a distance out of the lofty wood, indicated the dwelling of her whom he either hoped soon to meet or had recently parted from. Instinctively he turned his head back to take a last look of a scene formerly so dear to him, and no less instinctively he heaved a deep sigh. It was echoed by a loud groan from his companion in misfortune, whose eyes, moved, perchance, by similar-Aweel," continued Cuddie, relieving himself by reflections, had taken the same direction. This indication of sympathy on the part of the captive was uttered in a tone more coarse than sentimental; it was, however, the expression of a grieved spirit, and so far corresponded with the sigh of Morton. In turning their heads their eyes met, and Morton recognised the stolid countenance of Cuddie Headrigg, bearing a rueful expression, in which sorrow for his own lot was mixed with sympathy for the situation of his companion. "Hegh, sirs!" was the expression of the ci-devant ploughman of the mains of Tillietudlem-" it's an unco thing that decent folk should be harled through the country this gate, as if they were a warld's wonder." "I am sorry to see you here, Cuddie," said Morton, who, even in his own distress, did not lose feeling for that of others. "And sae am I, Mr Henry," answered Cuddie, "baith for mysell and you; but neither of our sorrows will do muckle gude, that I can see. To be sure, for me," continued the captive agriculturist, relieving his heart by talking, though he well knew it was to little purpose - -" to be sure, for my part, I hae nae right to be here ava', for I never did nor said a word against either king or curate; but my mither, puir body, couldna haud the auld tongue o' her, and we maun baith pay for 't, it's like." "Your mother is their prisoner likewise?" said Morton, hardly knowing what he said. "In troth is she, riding ahint ye there like a bride, wi' that auld carle o' a minister that they ca' Gabriel Kettledrummle-Deil that he had been in the inside of a drum or a kettle either, for my share o' him! Ye see, we were nae sooner chased out o' the doors o' Milnwood, and your uncle and the housekeeper banging them to and barring them ahint us, as if we had had the plague on our bodies, than I says to my mother, What are we to do neist for every hole and bore in the country will be steekit against us, now that ye hae affronted my auld leddy, and gar't the troopers tak up young Milnwood. Sae she says to me, Binna cast doun, but gird yoursell up to the great task o' the day, and gie your testimony like a man upon the moun o' the Covenant." "And so I suppose you went to a conventicle?" said Morton. "Ye sall hear," continued Cuddie.-" Aweel, I kendna muckle better what to do, sae I e'en gaed wi' her to an auld daft carline like hersell, and we got some water-broo and bannocks; and mony a weary grace they said, and mony a psalm they sang, or they wad let me win to, for I was amaist famished wi' vexation. Aweel, they had me up in the grey o' the morning, and I behoved to whig awa wi' them, reason or nane, to a great gathering o' their folk at the Miry-sikes; and there this chield, Gabriel Kettledrummle, was blasting awa to them on the hill-side, about lifting up their testimony, nae doubt, and ganging down to the battle of Ro man Gilead, or some sic place. Eh, Mr Henry! but the carle gae them a screed o' doctrine! Ye might hae heard him a mile 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 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 stap 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! 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 dune, 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 sodgers, 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." 66 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 Cuddie, 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 onything 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." "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 ken'd 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 hae the impudence to do sic things; but they are a' for the red-coats. Whiles I hae thought o' being a trooper mysell, 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 puir quean gat leave to come near me wi' speaking 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 she wared the ither half on pinners and pearlings to gang to see us shoot yon day at the popinjay." "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 possible, 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 Cuddie. "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 onything 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." "Weel, that's just my mind too, aye supposing we hae a feasible opportunity o' breaking loose. But then ye speak o' a charter; now these are things that only belang to the like o' you that are a gentleman, 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 free-born is called upon to defend, for his own sake and that of his countrymen." "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 blethering auld wives; but if I could get a gentleman that wad let me tak on to be his servant, I am confident 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-de-shamble." My valet, Cuddie?" answered Morton-"alas! that would be sorry preferment, even if we were at liberty." "I ken what ye're thinking-that because I am landward-bred, I wad be bringing ye to disgrace afore folk. But ye maun ken I'm gey gleg at the uptak; there was never onything dune wi' hand but I learned gey readily, 'septing reading, writing, and ciphering; but there's no the like o' me at the fitba', and I can play wi' the broadsword as weel as Corporal Inglis there. I hae broken his head or now, for as massy as he's riding ahint us.-And then ye'll no be gaun to stay in this country?"— said he, stopping and interrupting himself. "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 Giantkiller 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." "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 my auld mither isna at the preaching again! I ken the ugh o' her texts, that sound just like the wind blawing through the spence; and there's Kettledrummle setting to wark, too-Lordsake, if the sodgers 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 communicated with each other, and they became at length unable to suppress their ire. "Woe! woe! and a threefold woe unto you, ye bloody and violent persecutors!" exclaimed the Reverend Gabriel Kettledrummle-" Woe! and threefold woe unto you, even to the breaking of seals, the blowing of trumpets, and the pouring forth of vials!" 66 Ay-ay-a black cast to a' their ill-fa'ur'd faces, and the outside o' the loof to them at the last day!" echoed the shrill counter-tenor of Mause, falling in like the second part of a catch. "I tell you," continued the divine, "that your rankings and your ridings-your neighings and your prancings-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 Mause," will I testify against the backslidings, defections, defalcations, and declinings of the landagainst the grievances and the causes of wrath!" "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, ye sall learn that neither a desperate Judas, like your prelate Sharpe that's gane to his place; nor a sanctuary-breaking Holofernes, like bloody-minded Claverhouse; nor an ambitious Diotrephes, like the lad Evandale; nor a covetous and warld-following Demas, like him they ca' Sergeant Bothwell, that makes every wife's plack and her meal-ark his ain; neither your carabines, nor your pistols, nor your broadswords, nor your horses, nor your saddles, bridles, surcingles, nose-bags, nor martingales, shall resist the arrows that are whetted and the bow that is bent against you!" "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 o' the Templewhips 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 make 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 would hae't a' to answer for himsel—It's lucky the road's rough, and the troopers are no taking muckle tent to what they say, wi' the rattling o' the horses' feet; but an we were anes on saft grund, we'll hear news o' a' this." Cuddie's conjectures were but too true. The words of the prisoners had not been much attended to while drowned by the clang of horses' hoofs on a rough and stony road; but they now entered upon the moorlands, where the testimony of the two zealous captives lacked this saving accompani ment. And accordingly, no sooner had their steeds begun to tread heath and green sward, and Gabriel Kettledrummle 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 prefane," 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' itsel 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.” |