ed up our bonnets while Cameron prayed:

"Lord, spare the green, and take the ripe!" That was the whole matter of
his supplication. "We may never be in better case to die. I see the
gates of heaven cast wide open to receive us."

And I noted that all the time of our singing, David Hackstoun of
Rathillet was looking to the priming of his pistols, and drawing the
edge of his sword-blade along the back of his hand, as one that tries a
razor ere he sets it to his chin. Then the companies of the enemy halted
on the edge of the moss where the ground was yet firm. They seemed not
disinclined for a parley.

"Do you own the King's authority?" cried one among them. It was Bruce of
Earlshall, a buirdly[7] chiel and one not greatly cruel; but rather like
Monmouth, anxious to let the poor remnant have its due.

[Footnote 7: Sturdy.]

"Ay!" cried Cameron, "we own the King's authority."

"Wherefore, then, stand ye there in arms against his forces?" came the
answer back. "Yield, and ye shall have quarter and fair conduct to
Edinburgh!"

The man spake none so evilly for a persecutor, and in my heart I liked
him.

"I thank you, Captain Bruce, for your fair speech," said Cameron, "but I
wot well you mean fair passage to the Grassmarket. The King we own is
not King Charles Stuart, and it liketh us to go to our King's court
through the crash of battle, rather than through the hank of the
hangman's twine."

"This preacher is no man of straw--fight he will," I heard them say one
to the other, for they were near to us, even at the foot of the opposite
knoll.

Then our horsemen, of whom I was one, closed in order without further
word, and our foot drew out over the moss in readiness to fire. David
Hackstoun was with us on the left, and Captain Fowler on the right. But
Richard Cameron was always a little ahead of us all, with his brother
Michael with him on one side, and I, riding my Galloway nag, close upon
his right flank--which was an honourable post for one so young as I, and
served withal to keep my spirits up.

Just before he gave the word to charge, he cried out to us, pointing to
the enemy with his sword:

"Yonder is the way to the good soldier's crown!"

The day had been clouding over, the heat growing almost intolerable. It
was now about two in the afternoon. It was easy to see, had we had the
eyes to observe it, that a thunderstorm was brewing, and even as Richard
Cameron stretched out his sword over his horse's head,