It was night and he fled to the quay--and found concealment in the hold of a vessel, which, on the following day, sailed for London. But it is time to return to Alice--the widowed, the all but childless mother. Day after day she prayed, she yearned, that she might obtain tidings of her children; but no tidings came. Sleep forsook her solitary pillow, and, like Rachel, she wept for her children because they were not. But a messenger of evil at length arrived, bearing intelligence that four of her sons had fallen in battle, and that the fifth, her youngest, had been made prisoner, and was sentenced to die. "My cup o' wretchedness is full," cried the bereaved mother; "have I none left--not one--not even my Alexander, my youngest, the comfort o' my age? But I must submit. It is for the best--it is a' for the best, or it wadna be. I should rejoice that I hae been chastened, and that my affliction has been for a cause that will confer liberty o' conscience on posterity, and freedom on our poor distracted country. But oh, I canna forget, my heart winna do it, that I was ance a wife--that I was a mother, and had five sons, the marrow o' whom ye wouldna hae found in a' the Merse, but now my husband is not, and my bairns are not, and I am a lone widow, wearying to be wi' them, and wi' no ane here to speak to me! Yet I ought not to murmur!--no! no! It was me that urged them to go forth and fight the good fight; but, strong as my zeal then was--oh, human nature and a wife's, a mother's feelings, are strong also!" But Alice, in the day o' her distress, found a comforter, and one that sympathised wi' her in all her sorrows, in one whom she had but small right to expect to be a freend. When she was left to mourn in solitude, wi' but few to visit her, there was one who came to condole wi' her, and who, having once visited her, was seldom absent from her side--and that was Flora Stuart, the betrothed o' her youngest son, o' whom she had spoken rashly. "Oh, bairn," said she, addressing Flora, "little, little indeed, does Alice Cockburn deserve at yer hands!--for but for me, and my puir Alexander might this day hae been in life, and held yer hand in his. But forgie me, hinny! It was in a guid cause that I hae sacrificed a' that was dear to me in this warld--only, it was a sair, sair stroke upon a mother!" Flora strove to comfort her; but it was in vain. She didna repine, neither did she murmur as those who have no hope; but her health, which had never been what doctors would call robust, was unable to stand the shock which her feelings had met wi'; and, in a few weeks after hearing o' the deaths o' her children, Alice Cockburn was gathered wi' the dead, and Flora Stuart accompanied her body mourning to the grave.