ith a sparkling of gladness in the beams of the moon then
walking in the fulness of her beauty over those fields of holiness whose
perennial flowers are the everlasting stars. But though for a little
while my soul partook of the blessed tranquillity of the night, I had
not travelled far when the heaven of my thoughts was overcast. Grief
for my brother in the hands of the oppressors, and anxiety for the
treasures of my hearth, whose dangers were doubtless increased by the
part I had taken in the raid, clouded my reason with many fearful
auguries and doleful anticipations. All care for my own safety was lost
in those overwhelming reflections, in so much that when the morning air
breathed upon me as I reached the brow of Kilbride-hill, had I been then
questioned as to the manner I had come there, verily I could have given
no account, for I saw not, neither did I hear, for many miles, aught,
but only the dismal tragedies with which busy imagination rent my heart
with affliction, and flooded my eyes with the gushing streams of a
softer sorrow.

But though my journey was a continued experience of inward suffering, I
met with no cause of dread, till I was within sight of Kilwinning.
Having purposed not to go home until I should learn what had taken place
in my absence, I turned aside to the house of an acquaintance, one
William Brekenrig, a covenanted Christian, to inquire, and to rest
myself till the evening. Scarcely, however, had I entered on the path
that led to his door when a misgiving of mind fell upon me, and I halted
and looked to see if all about the mailing was in its wonted state. His
cattle were on the stubble--the smoke stood over the lumhead in the lown
of the morning--the plough lay unyoked on the croft, but it had been
lately used, and the furrows of part of a rig were newly turned. Still
there was a something that sent solemnity and coldness into my soul. I
saw nobody about the farm, which at that time of the day was strange and
unaccountable; nevertheless I hastened forward, and coming to a
park-yett, I saw my old friend leaning over it with his head towards me.
I called to him by name, but he heeded me not; I ran to him and touched
him, but he was dead.

The ground around where he had rested himself and expired was covered
with his blood; and it was plain he had not been shot long, for he was
warm, and the stream still trickled from the wound in his side.

I have no words to tell what I felt at the sight