ome unthreshed corn that was lying ready on
the floor for the flail.

But we were not well down when we heard the breathings of two persons
near us. As there was no light, and Mr Witherspoon guessing by what we
had seen, and by this concealment, that they must be some of the family,
he began to pray aloud, thereby, without letting wot they were
discovered, making them to understand what sort of guests we were. At
the conclusion an old woman spoke to us, telling us dreadful things
which a gang of soldiers had committed that afternoon, and her sad story
was often interrupted by the moans of her daughter, the farmer's wife,
who had suffered from the soldiers an unspeakable wrong.

"But what has become of our men, or where the bairns hae fled, we know
not,--we were baith demented by the outrage, and hid oursel's here after
it was owre late," said that aged person, in a voice of settled grief
that was more sorrowful to hear than any lamentation could have been,
and all the sacred exhortations that Mr Witherspoon could employ
softened not the obduracy of her inward sorrowing over her daughter, the
dishonoured wife. He, however, persuaded them to return with us to the
house; for the enemy having been there, we thought it not likely he
would that night come again. As for me, during the dismal recital, I
could not speak. The eye of my spirit was fixed on the treasure I had
left at home. Every word I heard was like the sting of an adder. My
horrors and fears rose to such a pitch, that I could no longer master
them. I started up and rushed to the door, as if it had been possible to
arrest the imagined guilt of the persecutors in my own unprotected
dwelling.

Mr Witherspoon followed me, thinking I had gone by myself, and caught me
by the arm and entreated me to be composed, and to return with him into
the house. But while he was thus kindly remonstrating with me,
something took his foot, and he stumbled and fell to the ground. The
accident served to check the frenzy of my thoughts for a moment, and I
stooped down to help him up; but in the same instant he uttered a wild
howl that made me start from him; and he then added, awfully,--

"In the name of Heaven, what is this?

"What is it?" said I, filled with unutterable dread.

"Hush, hush," he replied as he rose, "lest the poor women hear us," and
he lifted in his arms the body of a child of some four or five years
old. I could endure no more; I thought the voices of my own inn