y way by
the coast-side into the shire of Ayr. But though my anxiety concerning
my family was now sharpened as it were with the anguish of fire, I began
to reason with myself on the jeopardy I might bring upon them, were I to
return while the pursuit was so fierce; and in the end I came to the
determination only to seek to know how it fared with them, and what had
become of my brother in the battle, trusting that in due season the Lord
would mitigate the ire and the cruelty that was let loose on all those
who had joined in the Protestation and renewed the Covenant at Lanerk.

CHAPTER LVIII

Towards the afternoon I found myself among the solitudes of the
Renfrewshire moors. Save at times the melancholious note of the
peese-weep, neither the sound nor the voice of any living thing was
heard there. Being then wearied in all my limbs, and willingly disposed
to sleep, I laid myself down on a green hollow on the banks of the
Gryffe, where the sun shone with a pleasing warmth for so late a period
of the year. I was not, however, many minutes stretched on the grass
when I heard a shrill whistle of some one nigh at hand, and presently
also the barking of a dog. From the kindly experience I had received of
Sir George Maxwell's care this occasioned at first no alarm; but on
looking up I beheld at some distance three soldiers with a dog, on the
other side of the river.

Near the spot where I lay there was a cloven rock overspread with
brambles and slae-bushes. It seemed to me as if the cleft had been
prepared on purpose by Providence for a hiding-place. I crept into it,
and forgetting Him by whom I was protected, I trembled with a base fear.
But in that very moment He at once rebuked my infirmity, and gave me a
singular assurance of His holy wardenship, by causing an adder to come
towards me from the roots of the bushes, as if to force me to flee into
the view of the pursuers. Just, however, as in my horror I was on the
point of doing so, the reptile looked at me with its glittering eyes,
and then suddenly leapt away into the brake;--at the same moment a hare
was raised by the dog, and the soldiers following it with shouts and
halloes, were soon carried, by the impetuosity of the natural incitement
which man has for the chase, far from the spot, and out of sight.

This adventure had for a time the effect of rousing me from out the
weariness with which I had been oppressed, and I rose and continued my
course westward, ov