Now, sir, the Covenanters were by no means republicans in their principles: all they wanted was freedom--freedom o' mind and body; the right o' worshipping in the manner most agreeable to their conscience; and o' not being compelled to unbutton their pockets to pay for objects o' which they disapproved. They had a sort o' liking for Charlie. His faither was a Scotchman, and had been born among them; and they were anxious to like him, if he would only put it in their power to do it. They were loth to draw the sword against him; and, when they did do it, it was for conscience sake. They therefore accepted his conditions readily; for he promised fairly, and as much, if not more, than they expected to wring from him by the slaughter o' his troops, and steeping the land wi' the blood o' its inhabitants. When Charles, therefore, heard o' the readiness with which they had agreed to his proposal, in the vanity and delusion o' his spirit, he attributed it to his great power and glory as a king; and he repented that he had not offered to them more haughty and less righteous terms. But those that he had proposed to them he had no design to keep. He therefore marched forward his army, and encamped on the south bank o' the Tweed, above Berwick, at a place which historians call the Birks--which I take to be the fields lying between West Ord and Norham Castle. Here he soon gave proofs that, having come from the Thames to the Tweed, it was his resolution not to return until he had wreaked his vengeance on the people o' Scotland, whom he still regarded as rebels. When, therefore, General Leslie heard o' the king's doings, he gave orders to his army to march towards Dunse. But, before proceeding farther, I must make mention o' a Covenanting family, who are to be more particularly the objects o' my present discourse. At that time, there resided in the Castle Wynd in Dunse a singular and godly woman, one Alice Cockburn (or, as some called her, Weather-burn, that being her maiden name). She was the wife o' a devout and worthy man, one Alexander Cockburn, who was the proprietor o' a croft in the neighbourhood; and they had five sons, all men grown. Their names were John, James, Andrew, William; and the youngest, who was nineteen, was called Alexander, after his faither. I hae mentioned Alice first, not only because her name will be hereafter mentioned in this narrative, but also because, while we often speak in triumph o' what our faithers did in securing our civil and religious liberty, we forget to do justice to our mothers, who were even more enthusiastic in the great and glorious cause than our faithers were. They fired their zeal--they first lifted up a voice against tyranny--and, while our faithers fought in the field, they bound up their bleeding wounds, brought water from the brooks to cool their parched lips, and were purveyors to the army, supplying them with clothing and with food.