s to be faithful to God and to each other in
asserting their civil and religious rights, which they believed could
only be secured by driving from the throne that "perfidious
covenant-breaking race, untrue both to the most high God and to the
people over whom for their sins they were set."

If the Cameronians were wrong in this opinion then must the whole nation
have been wrong, when, a few years later, it came to hold the same
opinion, and acted in accordance therewith! As well might we find fault
with Bruce and Wallace as with our covenanting patriots.

Be this as it may, Richard Cameron with his followers asserted the
principle which afterwards became law--namely, that the House of Stuart
should no longer desecrate the throne. He did not, however, live to see
his desire accomplished.

At Airsmoss--in the district of Kyle--with a band of his followers,
numbering twenty-six horse and forty foot, he was surprised by a party
of upwards of one hundred and twenty dragoons under command of Bruce of
Earlshall. The Cameronians were headed by Hackston of Rathillet, who
had been present at the murder of Sharp, though not an active
participator. Knowing that no mercy was to be expected they resolved to
fight. Before the battle Cameron, engaging in a brief prayer, used the
remarkable words: "Lord, take the ripe, but spare the green." The issue
against such odds was what might have been expected. Nearly all the
Covenanters were slain. Richard Cameron fell, fighting back to back
with his brother. Some of the foot-men escaped into the moss. Hackston
was severely wounded and taken prisoner. Cameron's head and hands were
cut off and taken to Edinburgh, where they were cruelly exhibited to his
father--a prisoner at the time. "Do ye know them?" asked the wretch who
brought them. The old man, kissing them, replied, "Ay, I know them!
They are my son's--my own dear son's! It is the Lord; good is the will
of the Lord, who cannot wrong me nor mine, but has made goodness and
mercy to follow us all our days." A wonderful speech this from one
suffering under, perhaps, the severest trial to which poor human nature
can be subjected. Well might be applied to him the words--slightly
paraphrased--"O man, great was thy faith!"

Hackston was taken to Edinburgh, which he entered on a horse with his
head bare and his face to the tail, the hangman carrying Cameron's head
on a halter before him. The indignities and cruelties which were