said, "They are friends that are coming." The worship was in consequence
for a short space suspended, and I presently after saw my brother at the
head of our neighbours coming out of the cloud; whereupon I went forward
to meet him, and we shook hands sorrowfully.

"This is an unco thing, Ringan," were his first words; "but it's the
Lord's will, and HE is able to work out a great salvation."

I made no answer; but inquiring for my family, of whom it was a
cheering consolation to hear as blithe an account as could reasonably be
hoped for, I walked with him to our captains, and made him known to them
as my brother.

CHAPTER LIII

Saving the innocent alarm of the drum in the mist, our march to Lanerk
was without hinderance or molestation; and when we arrived there, it was
agreed and set forth, on the exhortation of the ministers who were with
us, that the Solemn League and Covenant should be publicly renewed; and,
to the end that no one might misreport the spirituality of our zeal and
intents, a Protestation was likewise published, wherein we declared our
adherence and allegiance to the King undiminished in all temporalities;
that we had been driven to seek redress by the sword for oppressions so
grievous, that they could be no longer endured; and that all we asked
and sought for was the re-establishment of the presbyterian liberty of
worship, and the restoration of our godly pastors to their Gospel rights
and privileges.

The morrow after was appointed for the covenanting, and to be held as a
day of fasting and humiliation for our own sins, which had provoked the
Lord to bring us into such state of peril and suffering; and it was a
sacred consolation, as Mr Semple showed in his discourse on the
occasion, that, in all our long and painful travels from Dumfries, we
had been guided from the commission of any offence, even towards those
whose hearts were not with us, and had been brought so far on our way as
blameless as a peaceable congregation going in the lown of a Sabbath
morning to worship their Maker in the house of prayer.

But neither the sobriety of our demeanour, nor the honest protestation
of our cause, had any effect on the obdurate heart of the apostate James
Sharp, who happened, by reason of the Lord Rothes going to London, to be
then in the chief chair of the privy-council at Edinburgh. He knew the
deserts of his own guilt, and he hated us, even unto death, for the woes
he had made us suffer. The s