This latter suggestion was approved, and, after holding a solemn farewell service together, they parted, not knowing whether they should look upon each other’s faces again. Mr. Cameron travelled westward to New Monkland, preaching boldly as he went, to the no little comfort of the few to whom the pure Word was yet precious. Hackstoun and David Gray, with a few others, kept together in the south; but hearing, not many days after, that a heavy price was set on Cameron’s head, and that he was being vigilantly pursued, they conferred together and decided to retire to the west and band themselves about him, so that, in the event of the enemy falling upon him, there might be some to defend him and render him deliverance out of their hands. Accordingly, a guard under Rathillet travelled across the familiar, and now sacred, ground in the south-western district, and came up with Cameron in Avondale, near the memorable field of Drumclog. To their joy, they found Mr. Cargill with him, and on the Sabbath day a solemn service was held, in which all the ministers took part. Mr. Cameron preached the sermon from the words, "Be still, and know that I am God," and as the eloquent and stirring words fell from his lips, it was noted that his countenance seemed lighted with a radiance not of earth. After the service Mr. Cargill went his way farther west, after agreeing that he should meet Cameron and the rest at Dermeid Muir on the following Sabbath day. During the next few days Cameron’s conversation was that of a man who was not long for this world, and he never ceased to exhort those with him to continue steadfast yet a while, for Scotland’s deliverance was at hand. He prophesied that the reign of bloodshed and terror would speedily be over, and that the Lord’s Zion would ere long be rebuilt upon the ruins of her past and present desolation. On the Wednesday of that week he was sojourning in the house of a godly man at Meadowhead, on the Water of Ayr, and to him and the folk with him in the house he expressed his conviction that the Lord would, in a few hours’ time, require him to seal his testimony with his blood. Hearing some report of a troop under Bruce of Earlshall making vigilant search for him and his party, Cameron and his friends agreed to retire to the wild moorland which stretched for many miles between Cumnock and Muirkirk. It was a vast and dreary wilderness, covered with heather and bracken, unrelieved by a green tree or a nodding floweret even in the midsummer time, when all Nature was rejoicing in her wealth and beauty. Towards the east end of this moor Cameron and his friends, being sore fatigued with a long march in the burning heat of the day, lay themselves down awhile to rest. In this solitude they were surprised by the enemy--a large number of soldiers under Earlshall--who came sweeping across the moor with a fury and speed which made it quite impossible for the faithful little band to escape.