and his face was as ghastly as a
ghost's in the moonlight; but, distorted as he was by his fears, I
discovered in him my neighbour, Nahum Chapelrig, and I spoke to him by
name.

"O, Ringan Gilhaize!" said he, and he took hold of me with his right
hand, while he raised his left and shook it in a fearful and frantic
manner, "I am a dead man, my hours are numbered, and the sand-glass of
my days is amaist a' run out. I had been saved from the sword, spared
from the spear, and, flying from the field, I went to a farm-house
yonder; I sought admission and shelter for a forlorn Christian man; but
the edicts of the persecutors are more obeyed here than the laws of God.
The farmer opened his casement, and speering if I had been at the raid
of the Covenanters, which, for the sake of truth and the glory of God, I
couldna deny, he shot me dead on the spot; for his bullet gaed in my
breast, and is fast in my--"

He could say no more; for in that juncture he gave as it were a gurgle
in the throat, and swirling round, fell down a bleeding corpse on the
ground where he stood, before Mr Witherspoon had time to come up.

We both looked at poor guiltless Nahum as he lay on the grass, and,
after some sorrowful communion, we lifted the body, and carrying it down
aneath the bank of the river, laid stones and turfs upon it by the
moonlight, that the unclean birds might not be able to molest his
martyred remains. We then consulted together; and having communed
concerning the manner of Nahum's death, we resolved not to trust
ourselves in the power of strangers in those parts of the country, where
the submission to the prelatic enormity had been followed with such
woful evidence of depravity of heart. So, instead of continuing our
journey to the northward, we changed our course, and, for the remainder
of the night, sought our way due west, by the skirts of the moors and
other untrodden ways.

CHAPTER LV

At break of day we found ourselves on a lonely brae-side, sorely weary,
hungry and faint in spirit; a few whin-bushes were on the bank, and the
birds in them were beginning to chirp,--we sat down and wist not what to
do.

Mr Witherspoon prayed inwardly for support and resignation of heart in
the trials he was ordained to undergo; but doure thoughts began to
gather in my bosom. I yearned for my family,--I mourned to know what had
become of my brother in the battle,--and I grudged and marvelled
wherefore it was that the royal and th