the party.

Everything in confusion--broken furniture, meal and grain scattered on
the floor, open chests and cupboards--told that the legalised brigands
had done their worst. Poor Mrs. Mitchell had objected to nothing that
they said or did or proposed to her. She feebly drank the health of
King and prelates when bidden to do so, and swore whatever test-oaths
they chose to apply to her till they required her to admit that the King
was lord over the kirk and the conscience. Then her spirit fired, and
with a firm voice she declared that no king but Christ should rule over
her kirk or conscience--to which she boldly added that she _had_
attended conventicles, and would do so again!

Having obtained all they wanted, the dragoons went away, leaving the old
woman among the ruins of her home, for they probably did not consider it
worth while carrying off a prisoner who would in all likelihood have
died on the road to prison.

In the midst of all the noise and confusion it had struck the old woman
as strange that they never once asked about her husband. After they had
gone, however, the arrival of two neighbours bearing his dead body
revealed the terrible reason. She uttered no cry when they laid his
corpse on the floor, but sat gazing in horror as if turned to stone.
Thus Black and his friends found her.

She could not be roused to speak, and looked, after a few minutes, like
one who had not realised the truth.

In this state she was conveyed to Black's cottage and handed over to
Jean, whom every one seemed intuitively to regard as her natural
comforter. The poor child led her into her own room, sat down beside
her on the bed, laid the aged head on her sympathetic bosom and sobbed
as if her heart was breaking. But no response came from the old woman,
save that once or twice she looked up feebly and said, "Jean, dear, what
ails ye?"

In the Council Chamber at Edinburgh, Lauderdale, learning on one
occasion that many persons both high and low had refused to take the
bond already referred to, which might well have been styled the bond of
slavery, bared his arm in fury, and, smiting the table with his fist,
swore with a terrific oath that he would "force them to take the bond."

What we have described is a specimen of the manner in which the force
was sometimes applied. The heartless despot and his clerical coadjutors
had still to learn that tyranny has not yet forged the weapon that can
separate man from his God.