if it had
been his own. Sandy went out to meet him.

"Will ye surrender and lay down your arms to the King's troops?" cried
Clavers as he came near. Since then I have never denied the man courage,
for all his cruelty.

There came a gust of laughter from the nearer companies of our array
when they heard his words. But Sandy checked the noise with his hand.

"Surrender!" he said. "It is you, John Graham, that may talk of
surrender this day. We are no rebels. We but stand to our arms in
defence of our covenant rights."

"Keep that Whig garbage for the prayer-meeting, Earlstoun!" said
Claverhouse. "I at least know you too well, Sandy Gordon. Do you mind
the long wood of Dairsie by the Eden Water?"

What he meant I cannot tell, but I think his words daunted Sandy for a
moment. For in his old unsanctified days they had been fast comrades,
being of an age, and student lads together at Saint Andrews, where both
were equally keen of the play upon the green; though ever since Sandy
married Jean Hamilton he had turned him to new courses.

So having obtained no satisfaction, Claverhouse rode slowly back to the
Dragoons. Then without a word, save the shout of command, he led them
forward over the moor toward us.

"Sain my soul and body," said Wat, "is the Heather Cat going to charge
an army in position?" And indeed, it looked like it.

But as he came toward us, from the front rank where Sandy stood with a
broadsword bare in his hand, and his horse brisk as though it had just
been led from its stall, came my brother's voice.

"If ye set a horse's hoof over that burn, ye shall receive our fire.
Men, make ready!"

Right up to the burn bank rode Clavers and his troop, and there halted.
For a long minute he looked at us very contemptuously. Then he snapped
his fingers at us.

"That for ye!" he cried. "Ye stand the day. Ye shall be scattered the
morn. I ken ye brawly. Among a' your testimonies there is not one which
any three of ye could read over and not fall out about. This day ye are
on the brae-face. The morn ye'll be at the dyke back, with an ounce or
two of his Majesty's excellent lead in ye. God save the King!"

And with that he waved his hand, cried to his men, and rode off like the
steeve and dour persecutor that he was.

In the late evening we took my mother and Kate back again over the hill.
My mother was very weary--so weary that at the house of Tonskeen we left
her with the decent man and wife that abode there