and the last link that bound me to Knockdailie is broken."

The day appointed for Alison's funeral had now come-for the last time we kneel around her coffin-our long, long, last look is taken -to those pale, cold lips, the last kiss is given the coffin lid is closed down-and that countenance, on which, even in death, it had been some consolation to look, till the grave give back its dead, is shrouded from our view for ever.

But

Ringan Craigie was the last of his race. the followers of Christ, living or dying, shal never want friends. As Alison and he had died in the same cause, they received the same burial. Far and near had the tidings of their death been carried, and from far and near did mourners come to their funeral. As the day was warm and bright, the service was performed out of doors; indeed the throng was so great, no house could have contained them. Mr. Welsh, though for prudential reasons his name was not mentioned, was called upon, according to our simple Scottish custom, to ask over the wine and bread a blessing. As he prayed, all eyes were turned towards him. They gazed on his majestic countenance with wonder and awe-they hung on his lips-their souls were moved at his words— tears were seen stealing down their weatherbeaten faces, and while he alluded to the peculiar circumstances in which we had met, pourtraying the desolations of the broken and afflicted Kirk, and of my father's broken and afflicted family, in his own powerful and pathetic manner, ere he had concluded, numbers testified the depth of their emotions by weeping and sobbing aloud. The coffins were now brought out.

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Who," said Walter, "is to carry the head of Ringan Craigie."

Several offered, for they knew that he had no kindred.

"Give that honour to me," said the wanderer; "to carry the grey head of a Scottish martyr falls, methinks, of right to a Scottish minister."

All now fell into their places, and, amidst the tears and lamentations of almost the whole assembled parish, we bore our dead to the churchyard, where, side by side, to sleep till the morning of the resurrection, these two Scottish martyrs were laid.

While most of the mourners lingered in the burial-ground, incapable of holding communion with the living, all my thoughts being centred in the dead, her name murmuring on my lips, and her image rising like a star amid the tempests of my soul, along with Mr. Welsh I returned home. Much did she who sat sorrow-stricken there need our presence, and much had we cause to bless God, who had sent one of his servants so well qualified as Mr. Welsh was to comfort us in the day of our visitation, for truly might it be said of him, that he had the tongue of the learned, and knew how to speak a word in season to the weary. What our feelings were as we sat that evening-for the last time, as it has now turned out-around our darkening hearth, may be easily conceived. I leave them, young reader, to your imagination. Over the desolations of my father's house let the shadow of oblivion fall; let them sleep in silence with her who sleeps in the silent land. If I have dwelt on them so long, or introduced them at all, it was not merely because sorrow is the common lot, and not merely because they were connected with, and flowed

from, our attachment to the public cause, but because they were connected with actions not the least memorable in Scottish history, I mean the battles of Drumclog and of Bothwell Bridge, in both of which I was honoured to appear on the side of the covenanted interest, and not I only, but multitudes more from my native Galloway, who hurried into these fields at the memory of my sister's death, and to fulfil the vows they had taken at her grave.

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CHAPTER XII.

WE LEAVE KNOCKDAILIE FOR GLASGOW.

LEAVING Knockdailie next morning, two hours before day-break, we set out, intending to reach Glasgow on Saturday, in the neighbourhood of which, at a place called Langside, Mr. Welsh had arranged with Lady Fleming of Ferns, and Mrs. Anderson, wife of the provost of Glasgow, to hold a Conventicle on Sabbath. The south-west of Scotland was at that period what it is at the present day-the scene where the persecution raged with the greatest fury. To me an unknown land, there was not a glen or mountain in the district through which we passed, with which Mr. Welsh was not intimately familiar. This indeed he might well be, for in addition to his having been minister of Irongray, the shires of Galloway, Nithsdale, and Ayr, had been the scene of his wanderings for nearly twenty years.

On my pilgrimage that week, in company with that great man of God, I still look back with pleasure-and several of the anecdotes and incidents connected with his family and personal history, which I heard from his own lips, I still remember.

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My grandfather," said he, "as you are perhaps aware, was John Welsh, of Ayr. He was born at Collieston, a small paternal estate in Nithsdale, and through life, but especially in his

youth, was a rich example of the grace and mercy of God. When a stripling, it was not enough for him frequently to run away from school, but after he had past his grammar, and was become a youth, he left his father's house, and went and joined himself to the thieves on the English border, with whom he lived for some time, conforming himself to their rude and lawless life. When his clothes were worn out, and he came to be in rags, the prodigal's misery brought him to the prodigal's resolution. He resolved to return to his father's house, but durst not adventure till he should interpose a reconciler. In his return homewards, he took Dumfries in his way, where he had an aunt, and with her he spent some days, earnestly entreating her to intercede for him with his father. While he remained with her, it so fell out that his father came on a visit to her, and after conversing a while, she asked him whether he ever heard any word of his son John? To this he replied, with great grief, O cruel woman, how can you name him to me? the first news I expect to hear of him, is that he is hanged for a thief.' She answered him- many a profligate boy has become a virtuous man'-attempting to comfort him. He insisted, however, in his sad complaint, and asked whether she knew if his lost son was yet alive?' She answered, 'Yes-and hoped he would prove a better man than he was a boy,' and with that she called him to his father. He came weeping, and kneeled, beseeching his father, for Christ's sake, to pardon his misconduct, and engaging deeply to be a new man. His father reproached and threatened the wretched prodigal, bidding him begone. Yet at length, by his tears, and his aunt's impor