opposed all hostile measures, and at length dissuaded them from it. "My friends," said he, "your part is chiefly to defend yourselves from hazard, and not to pursue: your enemies have fled—let their flight sheath your weapons and disarm your passions. I may add, without offence, that men in your case are more formidable to see at a distance than to engage hand in hand. But since you are in a warlike and defensive posture, remain so, at least till your brethren be all dismissed. Conduct them through their enemies, and be their safeguard until they get beyond their reach; but, except in case of violence, offer injury to none." On receiving assurance that the soldiers had fled towards Cupar, the armed Covenanters quietly retired to their homes, with the exception of nine, who remained to conduct Mr. Blackader, to his sleeping quarters, at an inn situated in the parish of Portmoak. Here the three friends parted. Mr. Blackader returned to Edinburgh, Mr. Denoon, after an affectionate farewell with his young friend, set off for Morayshire, and Andrew Ayton, sore distressed at having lost his kind preceptor, once more retraced his steps to Inchdarnie. His parents soon afterwards returned from Perthshire, where they had been visiting some relations; and grieved as they were at the step their son had taken, they forbore addressing him on the subject, being convinced that he had done so from a sincere belief in its rectitude. He was, as his amiable dispositions merited, fondly beloved by them, and in return he strove by every means in his power to testify his filial love and reverence towards the authors of his being. But their domestic happiness was soon to be invaded. The names of those present at so celebrated a conventicle as that recently held at Divan could not, nor was it wished that they should, long remain a secret; and young Ayton was specially mentioned as having been foremost among the hearers on that day. Since then he had made the most strenuous efforts to bring other holy men to Fifeshire, firmly persuaded of the incalculable benefits it would confer on the people in whom he took so deep an interest; consequently he must be punished. One evening on his return from his accustomed ramble in the romantic woods of Inchdarnie, a packet was placed in his hands. He opened it; it contained one of those letters of intercommuning then so fearfully common throughout Scotland. He must therefore fly; the doors of his father’s house must henceforward be closed against him—the light of his mother’s countenance openly withdrawn from him for ever; for according to these terrible missives, not only the individuals mentioned therein, but those of their relations who showed them the least kindness, or sheltered them when oppressed, were treated with equal severity. In one letter alone, as we read in a book written on these times, "above ninety clergymen, gentlemen, and even ladies of distinction, were interdicted from the common intercourse