It is probable that if her hearer had comprehended the whole of this harangue, a bullet would have been the speaker’s reward; but the first words of the old woman, when taken in connection with the desertion of the house, and his own misgivings from Helen’s late letter, assured him that his daughter had indeed attended the conventicle. The conviction fell on his heart with agonizing force. Remembering the injunctions of indiscriminate butchery he had laid on his subordinate, and well knowing that the command would be fulfilled to the very letter, he staggered back in his saddle, with a face whiter than ashes, and was fain to grasp the pommel for support, while he exclaimed in tones wrung from him by the keenest anguish— “My child!—my child!—I have murdered my child!” “What is that ye say?” screamed the old hag, leaning eagerly forward; “have ye sent out your reiving dragoons against the Lord’s anointed? and ye fear that they will slay your ain bairn. Oh! man of blood, the judgment of God has come upon ye—the judgment has come upon ye!” But to the voice of the speaker, as well as to the astonished looks of the dragoons, the father was insensible. He still remained clutching the saddle, every feature of his face working with intense agony, and his eyes glaring vacantly on the air. Those who looked on him shrunk back aghast at the horror of his aspect; which, fearful as it was, only faintly shadowed forth the torture of the soul within. The peril of his only child stupefied him for a time. Then a succession of wild images rose up to his mind. He saw his daughter flying before the ruthless dragoons—he heard her cries for mercy, and the bitter sneer of disbelief on the part of her pursuers—he beheld her lying a corpse on the bare heath, her bosom gashed with brutal wounds, and her long fair hair dabbled with blood. In that moment the memory of every one whom he had slain came up before him—the mothers who had clung to his knees, the babes who had looked innocently in his face as they died, the daughters whose aged parents he had slain before their eyes. He thought of the silvery headed patriarch whom he had shot for refusing the test, and the prophetic warning of the victim that he, even he, the proud persecutor, should curse the day he ever drew his sword against the saints, came up to his memory. He groaned in anguish. For a time none dared to intrude on his misery. One of his men, a trusty body adherent, at length ventured to speak, by asking him if they had not better ride with all haste after Lennox, in the hope that they might yet come up in time. Starting, as if a shot had struck him, the father plunged his rowels into the side of his steed, until the blood gushed forth, and wheeling his horse sharp around, looked back sternly on his followers, as he led the way at a fearful pace up the hill. Well did he know the country around, and necessary, indeed, was that knowledge, for his