corn mow, that first I got within me the true spirit of
the Covenant. Then it was that I heard all the troubles and the sins of
Scotland redd[6] up and made plain; for in the night watches Cameron and
his brother had great communings together. Richard was all for being
done with the authority of the King, and making but one cast for it.
Michael thought that the time was not ripe nor the men ready.

[Footnote 6: Cleared up.]

Now these two youths were they who chiefly set Scotland in a lowe at
this time, when Lauderdale had so nearly trampled out the red cinders of
the fire of Presbytery. It was strange to think, that he who should blow
them again into a flame had once been a Prelatist, and that from the
wicked shire of Fife. When one cast it up to him, Richard Cameron said:

"Ay, it humbles us all to remember the pit from which we were digged!"

Then one night in the barn we gave in very solemnly our adhesions to the
disowning of Charles Stuart and his brother James--all save my cousin
Wat, who said:

"I canna bide to cast off the blood of Bruce. I had rather kiss the Red
Maiden."

And with that, early in the morning he left us, which was a surprising
grief to me, for he and I had been brothers in peril during many months.
Whither he went I knew not then, but it shall be related in its proper
place and all that befel him in his lonely wanderings, after he parted
from me.

"We must not do this thing lightly or gladly," said Richard Cameron to
us that abode with him in the barn. "We have laid our accounts with the
worst that the Government may do to us. We count not our lives dear. We
see plainly that naught is to be gained save by defiance, any more. The
Indulgence is but a dish of sowens with a muzzle thereafter, to make us
for ever dumb dogs that will not bark. Who shall hinder or blame, if we
choose to lay down our lives in the high places of the field, that the
old faith be not forgotten, neither the old Covenant engagements to our
Lord Christ for ever abrogated?"

Yet I think there was not one of us that was not heart-sorry to break
with the House of Stuart. For after all we were of Scotland, and we or
our fathers had stood for the Scots House and the Scots King against
Cromwell and the supplanters. At any rate, let it not be said of us that
we did this thing lightly; but rather with heavy hearts, because the
King had been so far left to himself as to forswear and abandon the
solemn engagements which he had