Barely three short weeks had elapsed since the victory of Drumclog, when the fatal battle of Bothwell Bridge extinguished, it seemed, almost for ever, the hopes of the Covenanting party in Scotland. A prey to treachery, and divided among themselves, the soldiers of the Covenant were slaughtered without mercy by Claverhouse and his dragoons, who burned to wipe out the stain of their defeat on the moor of Drumclog. Tidings that a great battle had been fought, and the Covenanters defeated, found their way to the sequestered home of Abel Armstrong, filling the minds of both mother and daughter with fearful apprehensions lest those they loved might be among the number of the slain. Each succeeding day beheld Lucy—trembling, yet hopeful—stationed at the door, eager to obtain the first glimpse of their well-known forms—but she looked in vain. At distant intervals a few way-worn Covenanters—fugitives from the disastrous field of Bothwell—might be seen dragging their weary steps along, but all passed on their way, unable to afford any information regarding the missing men. Then hope for ever fled from the mother’s breast, and she wept in the solitude of her dwelling for those whom she felt she should never more behold on earth. The younger portion of her children—whose tender years did not permit of their sharing in their mother’s grief—stood gazing in wondering silence on beholding her bitter sorrow; while Lucy strove to reassure her by comforting words regarding the speedy return of her father and brother, the tears running down her own pale cheeks as she thought on the probable fate of one still more loved than they. Weeks rolled on. The vernal tints of summer had given place to the more sober hues of autumn, still they came not. Then she too ceased to hope, and mourned for her absent relatives and lover as one mourneth for the dead.