With these words he drew his sword from its sheath, and breaking it across his knee, threw the pieces on the ground. Then taking Mrs. Armstrong by the hand, he led her and Lucy from the spot. Claverhouse remained motionless with rage on beholding himself deprived of his revenge; while Sir Robert Grierson exclaimed with a shrug of his shoulders—"We are well rid of the fellow. He has been too long in the society of these psalm-singing rascals not to have imbibed some of their notions. Let him go. He is not fit for the society of loyal-hearted subjects like ourselves; his place is the conventicle; there he will have whining and praying enough." Unwilling to exhibit any further annoyance before his soldiers, Ciaverhouse joined in the laugh occasioned by this speech of Sir Robert’s, and after issuing a command to one of his men to follow in the direction of the dragoons and ascertain whether they had discovered any traces of the fugitive, he set out on his return to Dumfries. Favoured by the darkness which now enveloped the earth like a mantle, William Crosbie succeeded in baffling the dragoons. More than once their bullets whistled close past his ears, and their voices sounded ominously near, still he held on his way; and at length, when nearly exhausted, he gained the entrance to Crichup Linn. With a shout of triumph, which sounded in the ears of his pursuers like the yell of a demon, William Crosbie darted into its friendly shades; and, as he sped along its narrow path, he heard with unmingled pleasure the voices of the dragoons—who, unwilling to encounter the evil spirits said to infest the linn, had turned back from the pursuit—grow faint in the distance. The first act of the grateful Covenanter, on reaching a place of safety, was to fall on his knees and return thanks to God for his deliverance. This done, he proceeded, so far as the increasing darkness would permit, to examine the nature of the place he had chosen as a refuge against his enemies. For never before had he dared to venture within the haunted precincts of Crichup Linn.