, even if they had lain in your bed and stirred in
your side. It was forbidden on pain of death to give them so much as a
bed or a meal of meat. For such was the decree of just and pious
Charles, King at Whitehall, who alone had the right to say in what
fashion the poor ignorant folk of Scotland should worship the God of
their fathers.

We had not ridden far after leaving the house a heap of ruins, before we
met Claverhouse and his troop, riding slow, with a prisoner in the midst
of them.

"What luck!" cried he; "good sport in your ain coverts, Westerha'?"

He had a delicately insolent contempt for the Johnstone that set well on
him, though as I knew well he could be as cold and bloody as any of them
when the humour drove him. Yet mostly he killed like a gentleman after
all, and not like a border horse thief--save only in the case of honest
John Brown of Priesthill.

But Westerhall had caught sight of Clavers's prisoner. He rode up to him
and struck him a buffet in the face, though the lad's hands were tied
before him. He was a youth of eighteen, as near as one might guess, a
boy of a pleasant and ruddy countenance, such as one may chance to see
on any brae-face in Scotland where there are sheep feeding, with a staff
in his hand and a dog at his heels.

"My Whiggie, I have you now," he cried. "I'll e'en learn you to row dead
rebels in your plaidie, and harbour hill preachers on my land. Could I
get at your brothers, I declare I wadna leave a Herries birkie on the
lands o' Westerha'. Have him down, men," he cried, "and shoot him here."

But Clavers interposed.

"No," he said, "he is now my prisoner. Ride ye on to Westerha'; and
there, Johnstone, I shall give ye a present of him to make a kirk or a
mill of. It'll be you that will have to pay the harbourage cess for this
day's work at ony gate!"

So to Westerhall Johnstone rode, very gloomy and ill at ease--for the
black dog was sitting heavy on him at the thought of the fine anent
harbourers of rebels being found on his land. Again and again he broke
out on the poor youth Andrew Herries, threatening what he would do with
him when he got him to Westerhall. But the youth never so much as
answered back, only cast down his head and looked on the moss before
him. Yet he walked carefully and without stumbling as one that takes
heed to his going.

Now at a bonny spot where there is much green grass, it so happened that
we halted. You will find the place readily if eve