he latter could rise from his chair or defend
himself in any way.

Thereupon arose a babel of sound--a shout, the scuffle and tramp of
unsteady feet, noise of chairs pushed aside and overturned on the bare
boards, servants running to and fro. And Colonel Stewart, with clammy
brow and failing limbs, sat silent in his chair, a dying man.

Captain Ross and his brother officer secured the swords of both
men--shutting the stable door, indeed, after the steed was stolen; in
hot haste doctors were sent for; and 'mid the bustle and "strow" Eliott
stumbled from the room and down the stair, "wanting his wig," as the
landlady, whom he passed on the way, deponed. Sir Gilbert's old and
faithful servant hurried his master out of the inn, and behind a great
tombstone in the Abbey churchyard hid him till the cool night air gave
him sense to attempt escape.

In a thick wood near the head of Rulewater Sir Gilbert Eliott lay
concealed, till his friends succeeded in smuggling him aboard a small
craft off the coast of Berwickshire, and an outlaw, with a warrant out
against him, he lived an uneasy life in Holland for some years, until
influential friends with difficulty got him pardon, and enabled him
again to return to the Border.

That is the story as it is usually known. But it is fair to add that the
tale is differently told in Chambers' _Domestic Annals of Scotland_,
where it is stated that Colonel Stewart was "a huffing, hectoring
person," and that he had given "great provocation, and gentlemen
afterwards admitted that Stobbs was called upon by the laws of honour to
take notice of the offence." Evidence given at the inquiry, however,
hardly seems to favour this view. Possibly neither side was quite free
from blame; wine has other effects than to make glad the heart of man.

AULD RINGAN OLIVER

Amongst the flying, broken rabble that represented all that was left of
the Covenanting army after the disastrous business of Bothwell Bridge, a
dismounted Borderer, with one or two other stout hearts by no means
disposed even now to give up the day, continued still to strike fiercely
at Claverhouse's pursuing troopers. But their efforts to stem the tide
of disaster were utterly without avail, and the Borderer, zealously
protesting and struggling, was at length swept off the field by a wild
panic rush of the fugitives. Missing his footing on the broken ground as
the flying mob pressed on to him, the Borderer fell, and, hampered by