d from my family
with many misgivings, and the bodements of further sorrows. But the
outward expression of what we all felt was the less remarkable, on
account of what so lately had before happened in my brother's house. Nor
indeed did I think at the time, that the foretaste of what was ordained
so speedily to come to a head was at all so lively in his spirit, or
that of my son, as it was in mine, till, in passing over the top of the
Gowan-brae, he looked round on the lands of Quharist, and said,--

"I care nae, Ringan, if I ne'er come back; for though we hae lang dwelt
in affection together yon'er, thae that were most precious to me are now
both aneath the sod,"--alluding to his wife who had been several years
dead,--and poor Bell, that lovely rose which the ruthless spoiler had so
trampled into the earth.

"I feel," said Michael, "as if I were going to a foreign land, there is
sic a farewell sadness upon me."

But we strove to overcome this, and walked leisurely on the high road
towards Kilmarnock, trying to discourse of indifferent things; and as
the gloaming faded, and the night began to look forth, from her
watch-tower in the heavens, with all her eyes of beautiful light, we
communed of the friends that we trusted were in glory, and marvelled if
it could be that they saw us after death, or ever revisited the persons
and the scenes that they loved in life. Rebellion or treason, or any
sense of thoughts and things that were not holy, had no portion in our
conversation: we were going to celebrate the redemption of fallen man;
and we were mourning for friends no more; our discourse was of eternal
things, and the mysteries of the stars and the lights of that world
which is above the firmament.

When we reached Kilmarnock we found that Jacob's widow had, with several
other godly women, set out towards the place of meeting, to sojourn with
a relation that night, in order that they might be the abler to gather
the manna of the word in the morning. We therefore resolved not to halt
there, but to go forward to the appointed place, and rest upon the spot.
This accordingly doing, we came to the eastern side of Loudon-hill, the
trysted place, shortly after the first scad of the dawn.

Many were there before us, both men and women and little children, and
horses intermingled, some slumbering, and some communing with one
another; and as the morning brightened, it was a hallowed sight to
behold from that rising ground the bla