dit and life.

"Stand!" he cried. "A parley! What would ye have?"

So James of the Long Gun called out to him:

"We would have our minister."

For so they thought of ministers in those days. But I would have cried
for certain others before him, being, as it were, a man prepared and
ready to go. However, I tell it as James Harkness said it.

"Ye shall have your minister," said the officer.

"And the lass," cried I, striking in, for which James did not thank me.

"And the lass," the officer repeated, moving a little at hearing a new
voice.

"And her father and the other prisoners," I added.

The officer hung a little on his words.

"Do you want them all? Must ye have them?"

"Aye, all--or we will take the lives of every one of you!"

"Then," said the officer, "my life is forfeit to the Council. Another
shall surrender the prisoners and not I."

And with that he pulled a pistol from his holster and snapped it at his
own head. Nevertheless it went not off, the lock being out of order,
belike, or the poor lad's hand unsteady.

He was reaching down with his other hand to pull another pistol from the
opposite holster, but ere he could draw it, the voice of the Covenanter,
Anton Lennox, spoke, gravely and nobly, so as to be heard by all of us.

"Young man, face not in your own blood an angry God! Leap not thus quick
to hell! Abide--and I, Anton Lennox, vow that I will not see you
wronged. I am but an old and a dying man. My wounds can hardly let me
live. What is my life any more? It is even at your service. I will go
with you to the Council!"

And at the word he looked up to the dark heaven, the sunshine wafting
after the shower caught his head, and lo! there was a kind of glory
about it, as of one that sees mysteries unveiled.

Then we cried out to him to come with us, but he denied. And Maisie, his
daughter, fleeched and besought him, but he would not even for her
tears.

"Go thou, my lassie," he said, "for I am spent. When I set my sword to
the hilt in the breast of Mardrochat, of a surety I also gat my dead
stroke. Now I am no better than a dead man myself; and perhaps if I give
my life for the life of this heathen man, the Lord will not see the
blood of the slain on my hands."

It happens not often while men are yet in the struggle, that they seem
to live to the height of their profession. But as Anton Lennox made his
renunciation he was lifted, as it were, to the seventh heaven, and we
common men g