one of these, getting upon the top of
the rock where I had sat the night before, began to preach of the mighty
things that the Lord did for the children of Israel in the valley of
Ajalon, where He not only threw down great stones from the heavens, but
enabled Joshua to command the sun and moon to stand still,--which to any
composed mind was melancholious to hear.

In sequence to these divisions and contrarieties which enchanted us to
the spot, Dalziel, considering that we were minded to give him battle,
brought on his force; and it is but due to the renown of the valour of
those present to record that, notwithstanding a fearful odds, our men,
having the vantage ground, so stoutly maintained their station that we
repulsed him thrice.

But the victory, as I have said, was not ordained for us. In the
afternoon Dalziel was reinforced by several score of mounted gentlemen
from the adjacent counties, and with their horse, about sunset, our
phalanx was shattered, our ranks broken,--and then we began to quit the
field. The number of our slain, and of those who fell into the hands of
the enemy, did not in the whole exceed two hundred men. The dead might
have been greater, but for the compassion of the gentlemen, who had
respect to the cause which had provoked us to arms, and who, instead of
doing as Dalziel's men did, without remorse or pity, cried to the
fugitives to flee, and spared many in consideration of the common
wrongs.

When I saw that our host was dashed into pieces, and the fragments
scattered over the fields, I fled with the flying, and gained, with
about some thirty other fugitives, the brow of a steep part of the
Pentland-hills, where the mounted gentlemen, even had they been
inclined, could not easily follow us. There, while we halted to rest a
little, we heard a shout now and then rise startling from the field of
battle below; but night coming on, all was soon silent, and we sat, in
the holiness of our mountain-refuge, in silent rumination till the moon,
rolling slowly from behind Arthur's Seat, looked from her window in the
clouds, as if to admonish us to flee farther from the scene of danger.

The Reverend Mr Witherspoon being among us, was the first to feel the
gracious admonition, and, rising from the ground, he said,--

"Friends, we must not tarry here, the hunters are forth, and we are the
prey they pursue. They will track us long, and the hounds are not of a
nature to lose scent, especially when they