back till I gat the end o’ my stick just i’ the how o’ his neck, and then I gae him a push that soon gart him plew the flow with his nose. On aboon him I gets, and the first thing I did was to fling away his bit twig of a sword—I gart it shine through the air like a fiery dragon—then I took him by the cuff o’ the neck, and lugged him back to his neighbour, wha was lying graning in the hag. ‘Now, billies,’ says I, ‘ye shall answer face to face, it wad hae been as good soon as syne; tell me directly wha ye are, and what’s your business here, or, d’ye hear me, I’ll tye ye thegither like twa tikes, and tak ye to them that will gar ye speak.’ ‘Ah! lack–a–day, lack–a–day!’ said the wounded man, ‘ye’re a rash, foolish, passionate man, whaever ye be.’ ‘Ye’re maybe no very far wrang there,’ quo’ I; ‘but for aince, I trow, I had gude reason. Ye thought to kill _me_ wi’ your bits o’ shabbles o’ swords!’ ‘In the first place then,’ said he, ‘ken that we wadna hae shed ae drap o’ your blood, nor wranged a hair o’ your head—all that we wanted was to get quit of ye, to keep ye out o’ danger an’ scaith. Ye hae made a bonny day’s wark on’t truly, we had naething in view but your ain safety—but sin’ ye will ken ye maun ken; we belang to a poor proscribed remnant, that hae fled from the face of a bloody persecution. We have left all, and lost all, for the cause of our religion, and are driven into this dismal wilderness, the only miserable retreat left us in our native land.’ ‘Od, sir! he hadna weel begun to speak till the light o’ the truth began to dawn within me like the brek o’ the day–sky, an’ I grew as red too, for the devil needna hae envied me my feelings at that time. I couldna help saying to mysel, ‘Whow, whow, Wat Laidlaw! but ye hae made a bonny job o’t this morning!—Here’s twa puir creatures, worn out wi’ famine and watching, come to seek a last refuge amang your hags and mosses, and ye maun fa’ to and be pelting and threshing on them like an incarnate devil as ye are.—Oh, wae’s me! wae’s me!’—Lord, sir, I thought my heart wad burst—There was a kind o’ yuke came into my een that I could hardly bruke; but at length the muckle tears wan out wi’ a sair faught, and down they came down ower my beard, dribble for dribble. The men saw the pliskie that I was in, and there was a kind o’ ruefu’ benevolence i’ their looks, I never saw ony thing like it.’ ‘Dinna be wae for us, honest man,’ said they; ‘we hae learned to suffer—we hae kend nought else for this mony a lang and bloody year, an’ we look for nought else for the wee while we hae to sojourn in this weary world—we hae learned to suffer patiently, and to welcome our sufferings as mercies.’ ‘Ye’ve won a gude length, man,’ quo’ I; ‘but they’re mercies that I’m never very fond o’—I wish ye had suffered under ony hand but mine, sin’ it be your lot.’