death of aunty."

I was smote upon the heart, by these few words, as it were with a
stone; for it had not come into my mind to think of inquiring how long
the eclipse of my reason had lasted, nor of what had happened among our
friends in the interim. This shock, however, had a salutary effect in
staying the haste which was still in my thoughts, and I conversed with
my son more collectedly than I could have done before it, and he told me
of many things very doleful to hear, but I was thankful to learn that
the end of my brother's widow had been in peace, and not caused by any
of those grievous unchances which darkened the latter days of so many of
the pious in that epoch of the great displeasure.

But the disappointment of finding that Death had barred her door against
us, made it needful to seek a resting-place in some public, and as it
was not prudent to carry our blades and hilts into any such place of
promiscuous resort, we went up the town, and hid them by the star-light
in a field at a dyke-side, and then returning as wayfarers, we entered a
public, and bespoke a bed for the night.

While we were sitting in that house by the kitchen fire, I bethought me
of the Bible which my son had in his hand, and told him that it would do
us good if he would read a chapter; but just as he was beginning, the
mistress said,--

"Sirs, dinna expose yoursels; for wha kens but the enemy may come in
upon you. It's an unco thing now-a-days to be seen reading the Bible in
a change-house."

So, being thus admonished, I bade my son put away the Book, and we
retired from the fireside and sat by oursels in the shadow of a corner;
and well it was for us that we did so, and a providential thing that the
worthy woman had been moved to give us the admonition; for we were not
many minutes within the mirk and obscurity into which we had removed,
when two dragoons, who had been skirring the country, like blood-hounds,
in pursuit of Mr Cargill, came in and sat themselves down by the fire.
Being sorely tired with their day's hard riding, they were wroth and
blasphemous against all the Covenanters for the trouble they gave them;
and I thought when I heard them venting their bitterness, that they
spoke as with the voice of the persecutors that were the true cause of
the grievances whereof they complained; for no doubt it was a hateful
thing to persons dressed in authority not to get their own way, yet I
could not but wonder how it never came int