“When they heard that, they took me out to the tap of a knowe, and began to whistle like plovers—nae herd alive could hae kend but they were plovers—and or ever I wist, ilka hag, and den, and tod–hole round about, seemed to be fu’ o’ plovers, for they fell a’ to the whistling an’ answering ane another at the same time. I had often been wondering how they staid sae lang on the heights that year, for I heard them aye whewing e’en an’ morn; but little trowed I they were a’ twa–handed plovers that I heard. In half an hour they had sic a squad gathered thegither as e’e never glimed on. There ye might hae seen auld gray–bearded ministers, lairds, weavers, and poor hinds, a’ sharing the same hard fate. They were pale, ragged, and hungry, and several o’ them lame and wounded; and they had athegither sic a haggard severity i’ their demeaner. Lord forgie me, gin I wasna feared to look at them! There was ane o’ them a doctor blade, wha soon set the poor chield’s arm; and he said, that after a’ it wasna broken, but only dislockit and sair brizzed. That doctor was the gabbiest body ever I met wi’; he spake for them a’, and I whiles feared that he sclented a wee. He tried a’ that he could to make me a Cameronian, but I wadna grip; and when I was coming away to leave him, ‘Laidlaw,’ quo’ he, ‘we ken ye to be an honest, honourable man; here you see a remnant of poor, forlorn, misrepresented creatures, who have thrown themselves on your mercy; if ye betray us, it will be the worse for ye both here and hereafter; if you save and protect us, the prayers of the just win their way to Heaven, though fiends should be standing by to oppose them—Ay, there’s naething can stop _their_ journey, Laidlaw!—The winds canna blaw them aside, the clouds canna drown them, and the lights o’ Heaven canna burn them; and your name will stand at that bar where there’s nae cruel and partial judge—What you gie to us, ye gie to your Maker, and he will repay you seven fold.’ Od, the body was like to gar me play the bairn and greet even out. Weel, I canna mind the half that he said, but he endit wi’ this:—‘We have seen our friends all bound, banished, and destroyed; they have died on the field, on the scaffold, and at the stake; but the reek o’ their blood shall drive the cruel Stuarts frae the land they have disgraced, and out of it a church of truth and liberty shall spring. There is still a handfu’ remaining in Israel that have not yet bowed the knee to Baal, nor yet kissed him—That remnant has fled here to escape the cruelty of man; but a worse fate threatens us now—we are all of us perishing with famine—For these three days we have tasted nothing but the green moss, save a few wretched trouts, eels, and adders.’ ‘Ethers, man!’ quo’ I,—‘For the love o’ God take care how ye eat the ethers—ye may as weel cut your throats at aince as eat them. Na, na, lad, that’s meat that will never do.’ I said nae mair, but gae just a wave to my dog. ‘Reaver,’ quo’ I, ‘yon’s away.’—In three