e great had so little respect for
the religious honesty of harmless country folk.

It was now the nine-and-twentieth day of November, but the weather for
the season was open and mild, and the morning rose around us in the
glory of her light and beauty. As the gay and goodly sun looked over the
eastern hills, we cast our eyes on all sides, and beheld the scattered
villages and the rising smoke of the farms, but saw not a dwelling we
could venture to approach, nor a roof that our fears, and the woful end
of poor Nahum Chapelrig, did not teach us to think covered a foe.

While we were sitting communing on these things, we discovered, at a
little distance on the left, an aged woman hirpling aslant the route we
intended to take. She had a porringer in the one hand, and a small kit
tied in a cloute in the other, by which we discerned that she was
probably some laborous man's wife conveying his breakfast to him in the
field.

We both rose, and going towards her, Mr Witherspoon said, "For the love
of God have compassion on two famishing Christians."

The old woman stopped, and, looking round, gazed at us for a space of
time, with a countenance of compassionate reverence.

"Hech, sirs!" she then said; "and has it come to this, that a minister
of the Gospel is obligated to beg an almous frae Janet Armstrong?" And
she set down the porringer on the ground, and began to untie the cloute
in which she carried the kit, saying, "Little did I think that sic an
homage was in store for me, or that the merciful Heavens would e'er
requite my sufferings, in this world, wi' the honour of placing it in my
power to help a persecuted servant of the living God. Mr Witherspoon, I
ken you weel; meikle sweet counselling I hae gotten frae you when ye
preached for our minister at Camrachle in the time of the great
covenanting. I was then as a lanerly widow, for my gudeman was at the
raid of Dunse-hill, and my heart was often sorrowful and sinking wi' a
sinful misdooting of Providence, for I had twa wee bairns and but a toom
garnel."

She then opened the kit, which contained a providing of victual that she
was carrying, as we had thought, to her husband, a quarrier in a
neighbouring quarry; and bidding us partake, she said,--

"This will be a blithe morning to John Armstrong, to think that out of
our basket and store we hae had, for ance in our day, the blessing of
gi'eing a pick to ane o' God's greatest corbies; and he'll no fin' his
day's dark