Here are news come that the Archbishop of St. Andrews has been strangely and foully assassinated by a body of the rebel whigs, who pursued and stopped his carriage on Magus-Muir, near the town of St. Andrews, dragged him out, and despatched him with their swords and daggers."3 All stood aghast at the intelligence.

"Here are their descriptions," continued the Cornet, pulling out a proclamation," the reward of a thousand merks is on each of their heads."

"The test, the test, and the qualification!" said Bothwell to Halliday; "I know the meaning now-Zounds that we should not have stopt him! Go saddle our horses, Halliday.-Was there one of the men, Cornet, very stout and square-made, double-chested, thin in the flanks, hawk-nosed?”

"Stay, stay," said Cornet Grahame, "let me look at the paper. Haxton of Rathillet, tall, thin, black-haired."

"That is not my man," said Bothwell.

"John Balfour, called Burley, aquiline nose, redhaired, five feet eight inches in height"

"It is he-it is the very man !" said Bothwell,— "skellies fearfully with one eye ?"

"Right," continued Grahame; "rode a strong black horse taken from the primate at the time of the murder." "The very man," exclaimed Bothwell," and the very horse! he was in this room not a quarter of an hour since."

A few hasty inquiries tended still more to confirm the opinion, that the reserved and stern stranger was Balfour of Burley, the actual commander of the band of assassins, who, in the fury of misguided zeal, had murderea the primate, whom they accidentally met, as they were searching for another person against whom they bore enmity. In their excited imagination the casual rencounter had the appearance of a providential interference, and they put to death the Archbishop, with circumstances of great and cold-blooded cruelty, under the belief,

that the Lord, as they expressed it, had delivered him into their hands.5

"Horse, horse, and pursue, my lads!" exclaimed Cornet Grahame; "the murdering dog's head is worth its weight in gold."

MORTON and his companion had attained some distance from the town before either of them addressed the other. There was something, as we have observed, repulsive in the manner of the stranger, which prevented Morton from opening the conversation, and he himself seemed to have no desire to talk, until, on a sudden, he abruptly demanded, "What has your father's son to do with such profane mummeries as I find you this day engaged in ?"

"I do my duty as a subject, and pursue my harmless recreations according to my own pleasure," replied Morton, somewhat offended.

"Is it your duty, think you, or that of any Christian young man, to bear arms in their cause who have poured out the blood of God's saints in the wilderness as if it had been water? or is it a lawful recreation to waste time in shooting at a bunch of feathers, and close your evening with wine-bibbing in public-houses and markettowns, when He that is mighty is come into the land with his fan in his hand, to purge the wheat from the chaff ?”

"I suppose from your style of conversation," said Morton, "that you are one of those who have thought

I must re

proper to stand out against the government. mind you that you are unnecessarily using dangerous language in the presence of a mere stranger, and that the times do not render it safe for me to listen to it."

"Thou canst not help it, Henry Morton," said his companion; "thy master has his uses for thee, and when he calls thou must obey. Well wot I thou hast not heard the call of a true preacher, or thou hadst ere now been what thou wilt assuredly one day become."

"We are of the presbyterian persuasion, like yourself," said Morton; for his uncle's family attended the ministry of one of those numerous presbyterian clergymen, who, complying with certain regulations, were licensed to preach without interruption from the government. This indulgence as it was called, made a great schism among the Presbyterians, and those who accepted of it were severely censured by the more rigid sectaries, who refused the proffered terms. The stranger, therefore, answered with great disdain to Morton's profession of faith.

"That is but an equivocation-a poor equivocation. Ye listen on the Sabbath, to a cold, worldly, time-serving discourse, from one who forgets his high commission so much as to hold his apostleship by the favour of the courtiers and the false prelates, and ye call that hearing the word! Of all the baits with which the devil has fished for souls in these days of blood and darkness, that Black Indulgence has been the most destructive. An awful dispensation it has been, a smiting of the shepherd and a scattering of the sheep upon the mountains-an uplifting of one Christian banner against another, and a fighting of the wars of darkness with the swords of the children of light!"

"My uncle," said Morton," is of opinion, that we enjoy a reasonable freedom of conscience under the indulged clergyman, and I must necessarily be guided by his sentiments respecting the choice of a place of worship for his family."

18 VOL I.

"Your uncle," said the horseman, "is one of those to whom the least lamb in his own folds at Milnwood is dearer than the whole Christian flock. He is one that could willingly bend down to the golden-calf of Bethel, and would have fished for the dust thereof when it was ground to powder and cast upon the waters. Thy father was a man of another stamp.'

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My father," replied Morton, " was indeed a brave and gallant man. And you may have heard, sir, that he fought for that royal family in whose name I was this day carrying arms."

Ay; and had he lived to see these days, he would have cursed the hour he ever drew sword in their cause. But more of this hereafter-I promise thee full surely that thy hour will come, and then the words thou hast now heard will stick in thy bosom like barbed arrows. My road lies there.

He pointed towards a pass leading up into a wild extent of dreary and desolate hills; but as he was about to turn his horse's head into the rugged path, which led from the high-road in that direction, an old woman, wrapped in a red cloak, who was sitting by the cross-way, arose, and approaching him, said, in a mysterious tone of voice, 6. If ye be of our ain folk, gang na up the pass the night for your lives. There is a lion in the path, that is there. The curate of Brotherstane and ten soldiers hae beset the pass, to hae the lives of ony of our puir wanderers that venture that gate to join wi' Hamilton and Dingwall."

"Have the persecuted folk drawn to any head among themselves?" demanded the stranger.

"About sixty or seventy horse and foot," said the old dame; "but, ewhow! they are puirly armed, and warse fended wi' victual.".

"God will help his own," said the horseman. "Which way shall I take to join them?"

"It's a mere impossibility this night," said the woman, "the troopers keep sae strict a guard; and they say there's strange news come frae the east, that makes them rage in their cruelty mair fierce than ever-Ye maun

take shelter somegate for the night before ye get to the muirs, and keep yoursell in hiding till the grey o' the morning, and then you may find your way through the Drake Moss. When I heard the awfu' threatenings o' the oppressors, I e'en took my cloak about me, and sat down by the wayside, to warn ony of our puir scattered remnant that chanced to come this gate, before they fell into the nets of the spoilers."

"Have you a house near this ?" said the stranger ; "and can you give me hiding there ?"

"I have," said the old woman, "a hut by the wayside, it may be a mile from hence; but four men of Belial, called dragoons, are lodged therein, to spoil my household goods at their pleasure, because I will not wait upon the thowless, thriftless, fissenless ministry of that carnal man, John Half-text, the curate."

"Good night, good woman, and thanks for thy counsel," said the stranger, as he rode away.

"The blessings of the promise upon you," returned the old dame; "may He keep you that can keep you." "Amen!" said the traveller ; "for where to hide my head this night, mortal skill cannot direct me."

"I am very sorry for your distress," said Morton ; " and had I a house or place of shelter that could be called my own, I almost think I would risk the utmost rigour of the law rather than leave you in such a strait. But my uncle is so alarmed at the pains and penalties denounced by the laws against such as comfort, receive, or consort with intercommuned persons, that he has strictly forbidden all of us to hold any intercourse with them."

"It is no less than I expected," said the stranger; "nevertheless, I might be received without his knowledge;—a barn, a hay-loft, a cart-shed,-any place where I could stretch me down, would be to iny habits like a tabernacle of silver set about with planks of cedar." "I assure you," said Morton, much embarrassed, "that I have not the means of receiving you at Milnwood without my uncle's consent and knowledge; nor, if