owful."

"Are there but the magistrates?" said I, making an effort to press in
closer to the window.

"Aye, now it is at hand," said the man who was clinging to the grating
of the window. "The soldiers are marching on each side--I see the
prisoners;--their hands are tied behind, ilk loaded wi' a goad of
iron--they are bareheaded--ane--twa--three--four--five--they are five
fatherly-looking men."

"They are Cameronians," said I, somewhat released, I know not wherefore,
unless it was because he spoke of no youth being among them.

"Hush!" said he, "here is another--He is on horseback--I see the horse's
head--Oh! the sufferer is an old grey-headed minister--his head is
uncovered--he is placed with his face to the horse's tail--his hands are
tied, and his feet are fastened with a rope beneath the horse's
belly.--Hush! they are passing under the window."

At that moment a shriek of horror rose from all then looking out, and
every one recoiled from the window. In the same instant a bloody head on
a halbert was held up to us.--I looked--I saw the ghastly features, and
I would have kissed those lifeless lips; for, O! they were my son's.

CHAPTER LXXXI

I had laid that son, my only son, whom I so loved, on the altar of the
Covenant, an offering unto the Lord; but still I did hope that maybe it
would be according to the mercy of wisdom that He would provide a lamb
in the bush for the sacrifice; and when the stripling had parted from
me, I often felt as the mother feels when the milk of love is in her
bosom, and her babe no longer there. I shall not, however, here relate
how my soul was wounded at yon sight, nor ask the courteous reader to
conceive with what agony I exclaimed, "Wherefore was it, Lord, that I
was commanded to do that unfruitful thing!" for in that very moment the
cry of my failing faith was rebuked, and the mystery of the required
sacrifice was brought into wonderful effect, manifesting that it was for
no light purpose I had been so tried.

My fellow-sufferer, who hung by the bars of the prison-window, was, like
the other witnesses, so shaken by the woful spectacle, that he suddenly
jerked himself aside to avoid the sight, and by that action the weight
of his body loosened the bar, so that when the pageantry of horrors had
passed by, he felt it move in his grip, and he told us that surely
Providence had an invisible hand in the bloody scene; for, by the
loosening of that stancher, a mean was given w