us, to take my stand with him, and, regardless of Wallace, to consider
him as the chief and champion of our covenanted liberties. But why do I
dwell on these intents? Let me hasten to describe the upshot of our
enterprise.

As soon as we had formed, in the manner herein related, something like a
head and council for ourselves, we considered, before leaving Dumfries,
what ought to be done with General Turner, and ordered him to be brought
before us; for those who had suffered from his fell orders and
licentious soldiery were clamorous for his blood. But when the man was
brought in, he was so manifestly mastered by his wine, as his vice often
made him, that we thought it would be as it were to ask a man mad, or
possessed, to account for his actions, as at that time to put the
frantic drunkard on his defence; so we heeded not his obstreperous
menaces, but ordered him to be put into bed, and his papers to be
searched for and laid before us.

In this moderation there was wisdom; for, by dealing so gently by one
who had proved himself so ruthless an agent of the prelatic aggressions,
we bespoke the good opinion even of many among our adversaries; and in
the end it likewise proved a measure of justice as well as of mercy.
For, on examining his papers, it appeared, that pitiless as his
domineering had been, it was far short of the universal cruelty of his
instructions from the apostate James Sharp, and those in the council
with him, who had delivered themselves over as instruments to the
arbitrary prerogatives and tyrannous pretensions of the court. We
therefore resolved to proceed no farther against him, but to keep him as
an hostage in our hands. Many, however, among the commonalty complained
of our lenity; for they had endured in their persons, their gear and
their families, great severities; and they grudged that he was not
obligated to taste the bitterness of the cup of which he had forced them
to drink so deeply.

In the meantime all the country became alive with the news of our
exploit. The Covenanters of the shire of Ayr, headed by several of their
ejected ministers, whom they had cherished in the solitary dens and
hidings in the moors and hills, to which they had been forced to flee
from the proclamation against the field-preachings, advanced to meet us
on our march. Verily it was a sight that made the heart of man dinle at
once with gladness and sorrow to behold, as the day dawned on our
course, in crossing the wid