was. I have
seen a man hung up to a beam by his thumbs because he would not give up
money which perhaps he did not possess. I have seen a woman tortured by
having lighted matches put between her fingers because she would not, or
could not, tell where a conventicle was being held. I did not, indeed,
see the last deed actually done, else would I have cut down the coward
who did it. The poor thing had fainted and the torture was over when I
came upon them. Only two days ago I was ordered out with a party who
pillaged the house of a farmer because he refused to take an oath of
allegiance, which seems to have been purposely so worded as to make
those who take it virtually bondslaves to the King, and which makes him
master of the lives, properties, and consciences of his subjects--and
all this done in the King's name and by the King's troops!"

"An' what pairt did _you_ tak' in these doin's?" asked Glendinning with
some curiosity.

"I did my best to restrain my comrades, and when they were burning the
hayricks, throwing the meal on the dunghill, and wrecking the property
of the farmer, I cut the cords with which they had bound the poor fellow
to his chair and let him go free."

"Did onybody see you do that?"

"I believe not; though I should not have cared if they had. I'm
thoroughly disgusted with the service. I know little or nothing of the
principles of these rebels--these fanatics, as you call them--but
tyranny or injustice I cannot stand, whether practised by a king or a
beggar, and I am resolved to have nothing more to do with such fiendish
work."

"Young man," said the swarthy comrade in a voice of considerable
solemnity, "ye hae obviously mista'en your callin'. If you werena new
to thae pairts, ye would ken that the things ye objec' to are quite
common. Punishin' an' harryin' the rebels and fanatics--_Covenanters_,
they ca' theirsels--has been gaun on for years ower a' the land. In my
opeenion it's weel deserved, an' naething that ye can do or say wull
prevent it, though what ye do an' say is no' unlikely to cut short yer
ain career by means o' a rope roond yer thrapple. But losh! man, I
wonder ye haena heard about thae matters afore now."

"My having spent the last few years of my life in an out-of-the-way part
of Ireland may account for that," said Wallace. "My father's recent
death obliged my mother to give up her farm and return to her native
town of Lanark, where she now lives with a brother.