e Lord will provide you teachers and ministers;
and when He comes He will make these despised truths glorious in the
earth."

His last words were--"Lord, into thy hands I commit my spirit; for thou
hast redeemed me, Lord God of truth."

Thus fell the last, as it turned out, of the martyrs of the Covenants,
on the 17th of February 1688. But it did not seem to Will Wallace that
the storm of twenty-eight long years had almost blown over, as he
glanced at the scowling brows and compressed lips of the upturned faces
around him.

"Come--come away, Jean," he said quickly, as he felt the poor girl hang
heavily on his arm, and observed the pallor of her face.

"Ay, let's gang hame," she said faintly.

As Will turned to go he encountered a face that was very familiar. The
owner of it gazed at him inquiringly. It was that of his old comrade in
arms, Glendinning. Stooping over his companion as if to address her,
Wallace tried to conceal his face and pushed quickly through the crowd.
Whether Glendinning had recognised him or not, he could not be sure, but
from that day forward he became much more careful in his movements, went
regularly to his work with Andrew Black before daylight, and did not
venture to return each night till after dark. It was a weary and
irksome state of things, but better--as Black sagaciously remarked--than
being imprisoned on the Bass Rock or shut up in Dunnottar Castle. But
the near presence of Jean Black had, no doubt, more to do with the
resignation of our hero to his position than the fear of imprisonment.

As time passed, things in the political horizon looked blacker than
ever. The King began to show himself more and more in his true
colours--as one who had thoroughly made up his mind to rule as an
absolute monarch and to reclaim the kingdom to Popery. Among other
things he brought troops over from Ireland to enforce his will, some of
his English troops having made it abundantly plain that they could not
be counted on to obey the mandates of one who wished to arrogate to
himself unlimited power, and showed an utter disregard of the rights of
the people. Indeed, on all hands the King's friends began to forsake
him, and even his own children fell away from him at last.

Rumours of these things, more or less vague, had been reaching Edinburgh
from time to time, causing uneasiness in the minds of some and hope in
the hearts of others.

One night the usual party of friends had assembled to