visible, through the small, and, on the outside, invisible crevices betwixt the stones. Should you be surprised in your lighted and fire apartment--should any accident or search bring a considerable weight above you, so as to break through your slightly supported roofing--you can retreat to your ante-room or dungeon, and from thence, if necessary, make your way into the adjoining linn, along the bottom of which, you may ultimately find skulking-shelter, or a pathway into a more inhabited district. Now that you have surveyed this arrangement, as it existed a hundred and fifty years ago, we may proceed to give you the narrative which is connected with it. In the year above referred to, the persecution of the saints was at its height--Clavers, in particular, went about the country with his dragoons, whom he designated (like the infamous Kirk) his _Lambs_, literally seeking to hurt and destroy in all the hill country, in particular of Dumfriesshire and Galloway. Auchincairn was a marked spot; it had often been a city of refuge to the shelterless and the famishing; but it had so frequently been searched, that every hole and corner was as well known to Clavers and his troop as to the inhabitants themselves. There was now, therefore, no longer any refuge to the faithful at Auchincairn; in fact, to come there was to meet the enemy half-way--to rush as it were into the jaws of the lion. In these circumstances, old Walter Gibson, a man upwards of seventy years of age, who, by his prayers and his attending conventicles, had rendered himself particularly obnoxious, was obliged to prolong a green old age by taking up his abode in the cave and under the cairn which has already been described. With him were associated, in his cold and comfortless retreat, the Rev. Robert Lawson, formerly minister of the parish of Closeburn; but who, rather than conform to the English prayer-book and formula, had taken to the mountain, to preach, to baptize, and even to dispense the Sacrament of the Supper, in glens, and linns, and coverts, far from the residence of man. Their retreat was known to the shepherds of the district, and indeed to the whole family of Auchincairn; but no one ever was suspected of imitating the conduct of the infamous Baxter, who had proved false, and discovered a cave in Glencairn, where four Covenanters were immediately shot, and two left hanging upon a tree. On one occasion, a little innocent girl, a grand-daughter of old Walter, was surprised whilst carrying some provisions towards the hill-retreat, by a party of Clavers' dragoons, who devoured the provisions, and used every brutal method to make the girl disclose the secret of the retreat; but she was neither to be intimidated nor cajoled, and told them plainly that she would rather die, as her granduncle had done before her, than betray her trust. They threw her into a peat-hag filled with water, and left her to sink or swim. She did _not_ swim, however, but sank never to rise again.