e hunted down
in a' places."

"If I canna fight wi' men," replied my brave stripling, "I can help my
father; but I'm no fear't. David was but a herd laddie, maybe nae aulder
nor bigger than me, when he fell't the muckle Philistine wi' a stane."

I made no answer myself to Robin Brown's remonstrance, because my
resolution was girded as it were with a gir of brass and adamant, and,
therefore, to reason more or farther concerning aught but of the means
to achieve my purpose, was a thing I could not abide. Only I said to
him, that being weary, and not in my wonted health, I would try to
compose myself to sleep, and he would waken me when he thought fit, for
that I would not go with him to Glasgow, but shape our way towards the
South Country. So I stretched myself out, and my dear son laid himself
at my back, and the worthy man happing us with his plaid, we soon fell
asleep.

When the cart stopped at the Kingswell, where Robin was in the usage of
halting half an hour, he awoke us; and there being no strangers in the
house we alighted, and going in, warmed ourselves at the fire.

Out of a compassion for me the mistress warmed and spiced a pint of ale;
but instead of doing me any good, I had not long partaken of the same
when I experienced a great coldness and a trembling in my limbs, in so
much that I felt myself very ill, and prayed the kind woman to allow me
to lie down in a bed; which she consented to do in a most charitable
manner, causing her husband, who was a covenanted man, as I afterwards
found, to rise out of his, and give me their own.

The cold and the tremblings were but the symptoms and beginnings of a
sore malady, which soon rose to such a head that Robin Brown taiglet
more than two hours for me; but still I grew worse and worse, and could
not be removed for many days. On the fifth I was brought so nigh unto
the gates of death that my son, who never left the bed-stock, thought at
one time I had been released from my troubles. But I was reserved for
the task that the Lord had in store for me, and from that time I began
to recover; and nothing could exceed the tenderness wherewith I was
treated by those Samaritan Christians, the landlord and his wife of the
public at Kingswell. This distemper, however, left a great imbecility of
body behind it; and I wondered whether it could be of providence to
prevent me from going forward with my avenging purpose against Charles
Stuart and his counsellors.

Being one da