r telling my tale I must put together all the incidents of
my fleeing to the heather--for that being a thing at the time very
frequently resorted to, it became at last a word in Scotland that "to
take to the heather was to be in the way of getting grace."

Now, when I sped away to the south-east from Ayrsmoss, the folk I loved
were all killed, and I had no hope or hold of any present resistance to
the King. But my Galloway sheltie, being nimble on its feet, took me
bravely over the moss-hags, carrying me lightly and willingly as if I
had been hare-coursing on the green holms of the Ken.

As I fled I kept glancing behind me and seeing the soldiers in red
clothes and flashing arms still pursuing after. I saw also our foot
(that had stood off when we charged, and only fired as they saw need)
scattering through the moss, and the enemy riding about the borders
wherever their horses could go, firing at them. Yet I think that not
many of them were hurt in the pursuit, for the moss at that place was
very boss, and full of bottomless bogs, like that from which Patrick
Laing drew the redoubtable persecutor Captain Crichton. This incident,
indeed, bred in the breasts of the dragoons a wholesome fear of the soft
boggish places, which made greatly in many instances for the
preservation of the wanderers, and in especial favoured me in my present
enterprise.

In a little after, two of the four dragoons that followed me, seeing
another man running like to burst through the moss, turned aside and
spurred their horses after him, leaving but two to follow me.

Yet after this I was harder put to it than ever, for the sun was
exceedingly hot above and the moss as difficult beneath. But I kept to
it, thinking that, after all, by comparison I was in none such an evil
case. For, though my head ached with the steel cap upon it and my horse
sweated, yet it must have been much more doleful for the heavy beasts
and completely accoutred dragoons toiling in the rear. So over the
broken places of the moor I went faster than they, though on the level
turf they would doubtless soon have ridden me down. But then, after all,
they were but riding to kill one Whig the more, while I to save my
neck--which made a mighty difference in the earnestness of our intents
on that day of swithering heat.

Many a time it came to me to cast myself from my beast and run to the
side, trusting to find a moss-hag where I might lie hidden up to my neck
among the water