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Strachan’s dragoons. He waves a small flag. I can discover the scarlet and blue colour of the Covenanters' flag—Ha! welcome you, John Howie of Lochgoin— But what news?—Lives our country? Lives the good old cause?—'Glorious news,' exclaimed Howie.' Scotland for ever! She is free. The tyrant James has abdicated. The Stuarts are banished by an indignant nation. Orange triumphs, Our wounds are binding up.—Huzza! Scotland, and King William and the Covenant for ever!
The Laird made no reply. He laid his steel cap on the ground and threw himself on his knees; he uttered a brief prayer, of which this was the close: 'My bleeding country, and thy wailing Kirk, and my brethren in the furnace, have come in remembrance before thee. For ever lauded be thy name., —'Hasten to the meeting at Lesmahagow. Our friends behind me, you see, have already set out,' said Howie. And he set off with enthusiastic ardour to spread the news.
,These news,' said the Laird, after a long pause while his eyes followed the curser over the plains of Aven—' These news are to me as life from the dead. I have a mind to meet my old friends at Lesmahagow. And then, when serious business is dispatched, we can take Bothwell field in our return. It will yield me at least a melancholy pleasure to visit the spot where we fought, I trust, our last battle against the enemies of our country, and of the good old cause.
Serious matters of church and state having been discussed at the public meeting, the brothers found themselves, on the fourth day, on the battle ground of Bothwell.
'On that moor,' said the Laird, after a long silence—and, without being conscious of it, he had, by a kind of instinct, natural enough to a soldier, drawn his sword, and was pointing with it—! 'On
