advanced towards Dumfries, where Turner lay. His blackcuffs flung down
their arms and implored our mercy. We entered Dumfries, and the
Oppressor was our prisoner.

CHAPTER LII

Hitherto the rising at Dalry had been as a passion and a spreading fire.
The strength of the soldiers was consumed before us, and their arms
became our weapons; but when we had gained possession of Dumfries, and
had set a ward over the house where we had seized Turner, I saw that we
had waded owre far into the river to think of returning, and that to go
on was safer than to come back. It was indeed manifest that we had been
triumphant rather by our haste than by the achievements of victorious
battle; and it could be hidden from no man's thought that the power and
the vengeance both of the government and the prelacy would soon be set
in array against us. I therefore bethought myself, in that peril of our
lives and cause, of two things which seemed most needful; first, Not to
falter in our enterprise until we had proved the utmost of the Lord's
pleasure in our behalf; and second, To use the means under Him which, in
all human undertakings, are required to bring whatsoever is ordained to
pass.

Whether in these things I did well or wisely, I leave to the
adjudication of the courteous reader; but I can lay my hand upon my
heart, and say aloud, yea, even to the holy skies, "I thought not of
myself nor of mine, but only of the religious rights of my
sorely-oppressed countrymen."

From the moment in which I received the blow of the soldier, up till the
hour when Turner was taken, I had been the head and leader of the
people. My sword was never out of my grip, and I marched as it were in a
path of light, so wonderful was the immediate instinct with which I was
directed to the accomplishment of that adventure, the success of which
overwhelmed the fierce and cruel Antichrists at Edinburgh with
unspeakable consternation and panic. But I lacked that knowledge of the
art of war by which men are banded into companies and ruled, however
manifold their diversities, to one end and effect, so that our numbers,
having by this time increased to a great multitude, I felt myself
utterly unable to govern them. We were as a sea of billows, that move
onward all in one way, obedient to the impulse and deep fetchings of the
tempestuous breath of the awakened winds of heaven, but which often
break into foam, and waste their force in a roar of ineffectual rage.