"Yes," cried the poor fellow, starting from his seat, and striking his closed right hand sharply into his left; "yes, I ought and I will;" adding calmly to the landlord, "confound Ecclesfield, where the devil is he gone? I'll go see;" and he instantly went out. The moment he had left the kitchen the landlord rose and said to us, "Flee, flee, and quit this dangerous town!" Whereupon we rose hastily, and my son lifting the Bible, which he had laid in the darkness of the corner, we instanter left the house, and, notwithstanding the speed that was in our steps as we hurried up the street, I had a glimpse of the compassionate soldier standing at the corner of the house when we ran by. Thus, in a very extraordinary manner, was the dreadful woe that had befallen me and mine most wonderfully made a mean, through the conscience of Ecclesfield, to effectuate our escape. CHAPTER LXXVIII On leaving the public we went straight to the place where our blades and belts lay, and took them up, and proceeded in an easterly direction. But I soon found that I was no longer the man I had once been; suffering and the fever of my frenzy had impaired my strength, and the weight of four-and-fifty years was on my back; so that I began to weary for a place of rest for the night, and I looked often around to discover the star of any window; but all was dark, and the bleak easterly wind searched my very bones; even my son, whose sturdy health and youthy blood made him abler to thole the night air, complained of the nipping cold. Many a time yet, when I remember that night, do I think with wonder and reverence of our condition. An infirm, grey-haired man, with a deranged head and a broken heart, going forth amidst the winter's wind, with a little boy, not passing thirteen years of age, to pull down from his throne the guarded King of three mighty kingdoms,--and we did it,--such was the doom of avenging justice, and such the pleasure of Heaven. But let me proceed to rehearse the trials I was required to undergo before the accomplishment of that high predestination. Weary, as I have said, very cold and disconsolate, we walked hirpling together for some time; at last we heard the rumbling of wheels before us, and my son running forward came back and told me it was a carrier. I hastened on, and with a great satisfaction found it was Robin Brown, the Ayr and Kilmarnock carrier. I had known him well for many years, and surely it was a providential thing that we met him in our distress, for he was the brother of a godly man, on whose head, while his family were around him, Claverhouse, with his own bloody hands, placed the glorious diadem of martyrdom.