"Now, cease your fanatical jargon," interrupted the soldier, "I care not to bandy words with one pertaining to that rebellious sect I am bound to molest by every means in my power, and to despise as being utterly incapable of listening to a word of sense, even although delivered in season," (this was said by the soldier in a snivelling tone); "so leave me in peace to attend my good steed, which well merits all the attention I have to bestow." "The horse," rejoined the old man, "has more sense than its master, and faints in the bloody service to which you have doomed it; but since you despise the good counsel I would bestow, even on an enemy, I will content myself by simply inquiring from whence you come and whither you are bound?" "I do not see," was the reply, "by what right you presume to question me as regards my movements; but still I will not refuse to satisfy you on that point, so make answer that I have come from Drumlanrig, burdened with a special message from the Earl of Queensbury to Sir Robert Grierson, whom I serve, as in duty bound, having been born on his estate, and whom I am willing to follow to the death should he please so to lead me." The brows of the stranger contracted into a frown of fearful import, and, grasping his gun with frantic violence, he hissed through his clenched teeth, "You are a servant of his, are you? Then, you belong to one whom I have sworn to dispatch should he cross my path—he, the inhuman monster!" (here the soldier started to his feet, and drawing his sword, sprang towards the Covenanter, but waving him off with his hand, the stranger continued), "he, I say, has this day deprived me of my faithful and loving brother—one who had never injured him in thought, word, or deed. He lived in his secluded home—peaceful and happy in the bosom of his family. Fortune smiled upon him. He was rich, yet he was humble; he was prosperous, yet no one envied him; and why? because of his abundance he gave to them who were in want, and never said to the hungry—Depart; I have nought for thee. In midst of these religious grievances which have racked our native land, Elias Henderson displayed no symptoms of fear and dismay. Claverhouse, with his bloodhounds, overran Galloway; Johnstone of Westerraw, with his myrmidons, scoured the plains of Annandale; Grierson of Lag, the worst of them all, traversed the hilly country of Dumfriesshire; yet was he tranquil. ’I have harmed none of these men,’ was his reply, on being questioned as to the reason of his undisturbed serenity of countenance, when all around him were tortured with gloomy apprehensions; ’It is true I espouse the side of the Covenant, but what of that? is not liberty of conscience the prerogative of every British subject? then wherefore injure one for worshipping the God of his fathers in the way that seemeth him best?’ Ah, my poor Elias! little recked he of the awful fate which awaited him. This morning," here the speaker paused for a moment overcome with