bonny blue een to peck at? Bide
at hame, and, with my bairns, plough up the green fields, that the earth
may provide us with food, as a fond mother, from its bosom. But go ye to
the wars, and your destiny is written--your doom is sealed. The
blackness of lonely midnight hangs owre me as my widow's hood, and, like
Rachel, I shall be left to weep for my children, for they will not be!
Turn again, my husband, and my sons lay down your weapons of war.
Hearken unto my voice, and remember that ye never knew one of my words
fall to the ground. If ye go now, ye rush upon the swords that are
sharpened for your destruction, and ye hasten to fatten the raven and
the worm; for the winds shall sing your dirge, as your bonny yellow hair
waves to the blast, and the gloaming and the night fling a shroud owre
your uncoffined limbs. Ye go, but ye winna return. Ye will see the sun
rise, but not set--and these are hard words for a mother to say."

But her husband and her sons were men of war. They loved its tumult and
its strife, as a hound loveth the sound that calls it to the chase, or a
war-horse the echoes of the bugle; and, though they at times trembled at
her wild words, they regarded them not. Taking their route by way of
Coldstream, Greenlaw, and Soutra Hill, in order to avoid the army of
General Leslie, which then occupied the eastern part of Lammermuir, they
descended towards Dunbar, where they enrolled themselves as volunteers
in the army of Cromwell. A few days after their arrival, they joined a
skirmishing party, and, in a wild glen, near to Spot, they encountered a
similar company that had been sent out by General Leslie. In the latter
party, were Walter Cunningham and his three sons, and he, indeed, was
their commander.

It was with a look of ruthless delight that Jonathan Moor descried his
old enemy at the head of the opposite party; and he said unto his
sons--"Yonder is the murderer of your uncle--Cunningham of Simprin, with
his three young birkies brawly mounted, and riding sprucely at his back.
But, before night, the braw plumes in their beavers shall be trampled on
the earth, and the horse will be lame that carries one of them back.
Stick ye by my side, and ride ye where I ride; for it will be music to
your mother's soul to ken that her brother's death is avenged, and by
the hands of her own flesh and blood."

The two parties rode forward and met each other. The Cunninghams and the
Moors were face to face. The two fa