storm-cloud, having spent its fury, at length passed over the linn. The flashes of lightning became less frequent; the peals of thunder waxed fainter and fainter, and then died away in broken murmurs in the distance. [#] Crichup Linn, _vide_ Fordyce’s Beauties at Scotland, vol. 2, page 312. Under cover of a protecting rock, William Crosbie passed, what seemed to his terror-struck imagination, an eternal night; and, as soon as the early beams of the rising sun proclaimed the presence of morning, he forsook his hard couch and made for the nearest outlet; determined rather to face Claverhouse and all his host, than be doomed again to encounter the horrors of a night spent in Crichup Linn. While threading his way through the tangled brushwood, which then almost obscured the entrance to the linn, William Crosbie was startled on observing several persons running in his direction. Apprehensive of danger, he screened his person behind some bushes, in order that he might ascertain their purpose ere discovering himself to them. On they came, panting and breathless, evidently making for the linn. On their nearer approach, William Crosbie discovered them to be friends of his own, and staunch adherents of the Covenanting party. He then came forth from his place of concealment, and addressed them by their names. "Back! back!" they cried with one voice, "he is coming! he is coming!" "Who is coming?" "Claverhouse! do you not see him yonder?" William Crosbie turned his eyes in the indicated direction, and there he beheld the dreaded persecutor, mounted on a splendid black charger, galloping furiously towards them, followed by his dragoons. "Come back with us!" said one of the new-comers, addressing William Crosbie, "we know the way to the caves; there we shall be safe." "You need not fear pursuit now!" said one of his companions, "not even the evil spirit, were he mounted on horse-back, would dare to follow us hither!" As he spoke, a crashing of the boughs behind them caused them to start and look back, when to their unutterable horror they beheld their terrible enemy dashing through amidst the trees. William Crosbie stood transfixed at the sight. He had neither power to move nor speak, while Claverhouse, with dishevelled locks and flashing eyes, rode towards him, with his sword uplifted in the air as if to hew him down. "Have you a mind to be killed that you stand there while the arch-fiend himself is within a few paces of you?" said one of the men, and seizing William Crosbie by the arm he dragged him onwards to the verge of the precipice. "Down, down!" he cried, "we will cheat him yet!" and with these words the man, still holding young Crosbie by the hand, slid down among the rocks, whither his companions had gone before. "He has lost his prey; he dare not follow us."