joyful expression, telling me that my brother was astir, and that a few
minutes ago he had seen him pass on his way to the mountain. "The hill
is wrapped in a cloud," added he, "and never was there such an
opportunity of executing divine justice on a guilty sinner. You may
trace him in the dew, and shall infallibly find him on the top of some
precipice; for it is only in secret that he dares show his debased head
to the sun."

"I have no arms, else assuredly I would pursue him and discomfit him,"
said I.

"Here is a small dagger," said he; "I have nothing of weaponkind about
me save that, but it is a potent one; and, should you require it, there
is nothing more ready or sure."

"Will not you accompany me?" said I. "Sure you will?"

"I will be with you, or near you," said he. "Go you on before."

I hurried away as he directed me, and imprudently asked some of
Queensberry's guards if such and such a young man passed by them going
out from the city. I was answered in the affirmative, and till then had
doubted of my friend's intelligence, it was so inconsistent with a
profligate's life to be so early astir. When I got the certain
intelligence that my brother was before me, I fell a-running, scarcely
knowing what I did; and, looking several times behind me, I perceived
nothing of my zealous and arbitrary friend. The consequence of this was
that, by the time I reached St. Anthony's well, my resolution began to
give way. It was not my courage, for, now that I had once shed blood in
the cause of the true faith, I was exceedingly bold and ardent, but,
whenever I was left to myself, I was subject to sinful doubtings. These
always hankered on one point. I doubted if the elect were infallible,
and if the Scripture promises to them were binding in all situations
and relations. I confess this, and that it was a sinful and shameful
weakness in me, but my nature was subject to it, and I could not eschew
it. I never doubted that I was one of the elect myself; for, besides
the strong inward and spiritual conviction that I possessed, I had my
kind father's assurance; and these had been revealed to him in that way
and measure that they could not be doubted.

In this desponding state, I sat myself down on a stone, and bethought
me of the rashness of my undertaking. I tried to ascertain, to my own
satisfaction, whether or not I really had been commissioned of God to
perpetrate these crimes in His behalf, for, in the eyes and by the l