The thought of having left Sarah Lochrig within bolts and bars, a ready
victim to the tyranny which so thirsted for blood, lightened within me
as the lightnings of heaven in a storm. I threw myself on the ground,--I
grasped the earth,--I gathered myself as it were into a knot, and howled
with horror at my own selfish baseness. I sprung up and cried, "I will
save her yet!" and I would have run instanter to the town; but the
honest man who was with me laid his grip firmly upon my arm, and said
in a solemn manner,--

"This is no Christian conduct, Ringan Gilhaize; the Lord has not
forgotten to be gracious."

I glowered upon him, as he has often since told me, with a shudder, and
cried, "But I hae left Sarah Lochrig in their hands, and, like a coward,
run away to save mysel."

"Compose yoursel, Ringan, and let us reason together," was his discreet
reply. "It's vera true ye hae come away and left your wife as it were an
hostage in the prison, but the persecutors and oppressors will respek
the courageous affection of a loving wife, and Providence will put it in
their hearts to spare her."

"And if they do not, what shall I then be? and what's to become of my
babies?--Lord, Lord, thou hast tried me beyond my strength!"

And I again threw myself on the earth, and cried that it might open and
swallow me; for, thinking but of myself, I was becoming unworthy to
live.

The considerate man stood over me in compassionate silence for a season,
and allowed me to rave in my frenzy till I had exhausted myself.

"Ringan," said he at last, "ye were aye respekit as a thoughtful and
discreet character, and I'll no blame you for this sorrow; but I entreat
you to collek yersel, and think what's best to be done, for what avails
in trouble the cry of alas, alas! or the shedding of many tears? Your
wife is in prison, but for a fault that will wring compassion even frae
the brazen heart of the remorseless James Sharp, and bring back the
blood of humanity to the mansworn breast of Charles Stuart. But though
it were not so, they daurna harm a hair of her head; for there are
things, man, that the cruellest dread to do for fear o' the world, even
when they hae lost the fear o' God. I count her far safer, Ringan, frae
the rage of the persecutors, where she lies in prison aneath their bolts
and bars, than were she free in her own house; for it obligates them to
deal wi' her openly and afore mankind, whose goodwill the worst of
princes and prelat