of Heaven. But
let me proceed to rehearse the trials I was required to undergo before
the accomplishment of that high predestination.

Weary, as I have said, very cold and disconsolate, we walked hirpling
together for some time; at last we heard the rumbling of wheels before
us, and my son running forward came back and told me it was a carrier. I
hastened on, and with a great satisfaction found it was Robin Brown,
the Ayr and Kilmarnock carrier. I had known him well for many years, and
surely it was a providential thing that we met him in our distress, for
he was the brother of a godly man, on whose head, while his family were
around him, Claverhouse, with his own bloody hands, placed the glorious
diadem of martyrdom.

He had been told what had befallen me and mine, and was greatly amazed
to hear my voice, and that I was again come to myself; and he helped
both my son and me into the cart; and, as he walked by the wheel, he
told me of many things which had happened during my eclipse, and of the
dreadful executions at Edinburgh, of the prisoners taken at Airsmoss,
and how that papist James Stuart, Duke of York, the King's brother, was
placed at the head of the Scottish councils, and was then rioting in the
delights of cruelty, with the use of the torture and the thumbikins upon
prisoners suspected, or accused of being honest to their vows and their
religious profession. But my mind was unsettled, and his tale of
calamity passed over it like the east wind that blew that night so
freezingly, cruel to the sense at the time, but of which the morrow
showed no memorial.

I said nothing to Robin Brown of what my intent was, but that I was on
my way to join the Cameronians, if I knew where they might be found; and
he informed me, that after the raid of Airsmoss they had scattered
themselves into the South Country, where, as Claverhouse had the chief
command, the number of their friends was likely to be daily increased,
by the natural issue of his cruelties, and that vindictive exasperation,
which was a passion and an affection of his mind for the discomfiture he
had met with at Drumclog.

"But," said the worthy man, "I hope, Ringan Gilhaize, ye'll yet consider
the step before ye tak it. Ye're no at this time in a condition o'
health to warsle wi' hardship, and your laddie there's owre young to be
o' ony fek in the way o' war; for, ye ken, the Cameronians hae declar't
war against the King, and, being few and far apart, they'r