FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   196   197   198  
199   200   201   202   203   204   205   206   207   208   209   210   211   212   213   214   215   216   217   218   219   220   221   222   223   >>   >|  
tations seemed to have their full and emphatic effect; for a wild halloo, which went from rank to rank on the appearance of the soldiers, intimated the resolution of the insurgents to fight to the uttermost. As the horsemen halted their lines on the ridge of the hill, their trumpets and kettle-drums sounded a bold and warlike flourish of menace and defiance, that rang along the waste like the shrill summons of a destroying angel. The wanderers, in answer, united their voices, and sent forth, in solemn modulation, the two first verses of the seventy-sixth Psalm, according to the metrical version of the Scottish Kirk: "In Judah's land God is well known, His name's in Israel great: In Salem is his tabernacle, In Zion is his seat. There arrows of the bow he brake, The shield, the sword, the war. More glorious thou than hills of prey, More excellent art far." A shout, or rather a solemn acclamation, attended the close of the stanza; and after a dead pause, the second verse was resumed by the insurgents, who applied the destruction of the Assyrians as prophetical of the issue of their own impending contest:-- "Those that were stout of heart are spoil'd, They slept their sleep outright; And none of those their hands did find, That were the men of might. When thy rebuke, O Jacob's God, Had forth against them past, Their horses and their chariots both Were in a deep sleep cast." There was another acclamation, which was followed by the most profound silence. While these solemn sounds, accented by a thousand voices, were prolonged amongst the waste hills, Claverhouse looked with great attention on the ground, and on the order of battle which the wanderers had adopted, and in which they determined to await the assault. "The churls," he said, "must have some old soldiers with them; it was no rustic that made choice of that ground." "Burley is said to be with them for certain," answered Lord Evandale, "and also Hackston of Rathillet, Paton of Meadowhead, Cleland, and some other men of military skill." "I judged as much," said Claverhouse, "from the style in which these detached horsemen leapt their horses over the ditch, as they retur
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   196   197   198  
199   200   201   202   203   204   205   206   207   208   209   210   211   212   213   214   215   216   217   218   219   220   221   222   223   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

solemn

 

ground

 

voices

 

acclamation

 
horses
 

wanderers

 

insurgents

 
soldiers
 

Claverhouse

 
horsemen

chariots

 
outright
 

rebuke

 

profound

 
Rathillet
 

Hackston

 

Meadowhead

 

Cleland

 

Evandale

 

answered


military

 

detached

 

judged

 
Burley
 

choice

 

looked

 
attention
 

battle

 

prolonged

 

sounds


accented

 

thousand

 

adopted

 

rustic

 
determined
 

assault

 
churls
 

silence

 

shrill

 
summons

destroying

 

flourish

 
menace
 

defiance

 
answer
 

united

 
metrical
 
seventy
 

verses

 
modulation