him, if any thing remarkable happened.

This arrangement being made, Morton and his colleague took possession,
for the night, of such quarters as the over-crowded and miserable hamlet
could afford them. They did not, however, separate for repose till they
had drawn up a memorial of the grievances of the moderate presbyterians,
which was summed up with a request of free toleration for their religion
in future, and that they should be permitted to attend gospel ordinances
as dispensed by their own clergymen, without oppression or molestation.
Their petition proceeded to require that a free parliament should be
called for settling the affairs of church and state, and for redressing
the injuries sustained by the subject; and that all those who either now
were, or had been, in arms, for obtaining these ends, should be
indemnified. Morton could not but strongly hope that these terms, which
comprehended all that was wanted, or wished for, by the moderate party
among the insurgents, might, when thus cleared of the violence of
fanaticism, find advocates even among the royalists, as claiming only the
ordinary rights of Scottish freemen.

He had the more confidence of a favourable reception, that the Duke of
Monmouth, to whom Charles had intrusted the charge of subduing this
rebellion, was a man of gentle, moderate, and accessible disposition,
well known to be favourable to the presbyterians, and invested by the
king with full powers to take measures for quieting the disturbances in
Scotland. It seemed to Morton, that all that was necessary for
influencing him in their favour was to find a fit and sufficiently
respectable channel of communication, and such seemed to be opened
through the medium of Lord Evandale. He resolved, therefore, to visit the
prisoner early in the morning, in order to sound his dispositions to
undertake the task of mediator; but an accident happened which led him to
anticipate his purpose.

CHAPTER VII.

Gie ower your house, lady, he said,--
Gie ower your house to me.
Edom of Gordon.

Morton had finished the revisal and the making out of a fair copy of the
paper on which he and Poundtext had agreed to rest as a full statement of
the grievances of their party, and the conditions on which the greater
part of the insurgents would be contented to lay down their arms; and he
was about to betake himself to repose, when th