"Wretch!" muttered Bummel, "well might I deny the land that produces such as thee. But there is yet a time, and in Heaven is all my trust." "Silence in court!" said the macer, imperiously thrusting the brass crown of his baton in the sufferer's mouth. "Ay, ay, denying his ain country, eh?" "Till my Lord Clermistonlee recommended a touch o' the caspie-claws, and wow, Sirs, the loon stood them brawly, but when we gied him a twinge wi' the airn buits, my certie! they did mak' him skirl! Did ye no hear him confessing, lads?" "What! what?" "Ou just onything they asked him. Treason, awfu' to hear; about a Dutch invasion and a rebellion among the Westland whigs, to whom he shewed letters from Flume o' Polwarth, Fagel the Pensioner o' Holland, Dyckvelt the Flemish spy, and a' hidden whar d'ye think?" "Deil kens; in his wame, may be." "Hoots; sewit up in the lining o' his braid bonnet." The poor fainting preacher had now the felicity of being stared at by a crowd who pitied him no more than the strong-armed torturers whose grasp sustained his supine and inert frame. "Soldier," said he to one near him, "art thou a son of the Roman antichrist?" "Na, I am Habbie, the son o' my faither, auld John Elshender, a cottar body, at the Burghmuirend." "Then, in the name of God," implored the poor man in a weak and wavering voice, "give me but a drop o' water to quench my thirst, for, oh youth, I suffer the torments of hell!" The soldier who seemed to be a good-natured young fellow, readily brought a pitcher of water, from which Bummel drank greedily and convulsively, muttering at intervals, "'Tis sweet--sweet as aqua-coelestis, whilk is thrice rectified wine. Heaven bless thee, soldier, and reward thee, for I cannot." He burst into tears. "Hath he taken the test," asked Maclutchy, "and did he acknowledge the king's authority?" "Ou onything, and so would you, Maclutchy, gif I had ye under my hand as I'll soon hae that young birkie in the corner." "'Tis false!" cried Ichabod Bummel, through his clenched teeth, "and sooner than acknowledge that bloody and papistical duke, I would kiss, yea, and believe the book of the accursed Mohamet, whilk as I shew in my '_Bombshell aimit at the taile of the great Beast_,' was written on auld spule banes, and kept by the gude wife of the impostor in a meal girnel. But fie! and out upon ye, fiends, for lo, the hour of our triumph and deliverance from tyrants and massemongers is at hand. O, why tarry the chariot wheels of our Deliverer?" "I like ane owl in desart am, That nightly----" "What!" exclaimed Maclutchy, in legal horror, "would ye dare to skirl a psalm within earshot o' the very Lords o' Council, ye desperate cheat, the woodie! Awa wi' him by the lug and horn, or he'll bring the roof about us." He was hurried off.