r he too had learned that psalm at the
knees of his mother. And as the troopers rode loosely up hill and down
brae, broken and ashamed, the sound of these bairns' singing followed
after them, and soughing across the fells came the words:

"Yea, though I walk in Death's dark vale,
Yet will I fear none ill:
For Thou art with me; and Thy rod
And staff me comfort still."

Then Westerha' swore a great oath and put the spurs in his horse to get
clear of the sweet singing.

CHAPTER X.

THE GRAVE IN THE WILDERNESS.

But on the morrow I, who desired to see the ways of the Compellers,
learned a lesson that ended my scholarship days with them. James
Johnstone seemed somewhat moved by the matter of the bairns, but by the
morning light he had again hardened his heart, like Pharaoh, more
bitterly than before. For he was now on his own land, and because his
thought was that the King would hold him answerable for the behaviour
and repute of his people, he became more than ordinarily severe. This he
did, being a runnagate from the wholesome ways of the Covenant; and,
therefore, the more bitter against all who remained of that way.

He drove into the yards of the farm-towns, raging like a tiger of the
Indies, now calling on the names of the goodman of the house, and now
upon other suspected persons. And if they did not run out to him at the
first cry, he would strike them on the face with the basket hilt of his
shable till the blood gushed out. It was a sick and sorry thing to see,
and I think his Majesty's troopers were ashamed; all saving the
Johnstone's own following, who laughed as at rare sport.

But I come now to tell what I saw with my own eyes of the famous matter
of Andrew Herries, which was the cause of my cousin of Lochinvar leaving
their company and riding with me and Hugh Kerr all the way to Edinburgh.
As, indeed, you shall presently hear. And the manner of its happening
was as follows. We were riding full slowly along the edge of a boggy
loch in the parish of Hutton, and, as usual, quartering the ground for
Whig refugees, of whom it was suspected that there were many lurking in
the neighbourhood. We had obtained no success in our sport, and
Westerhall was a wild man. He ran about crying "Blood and wounds!" which
was a favourite oath of his, and telling what he would do to those who
dared to rebel, and harbour preachers and preachers' brats on his
estate. For we had heard that the lass wh