ke not
so unfeelingly. But to him Margaret replied, in a sweet voice that
wafted up like the singing of a psalm, from the sweltering pit of pain:

"I see naught but Christ struggling there in the water in the person of
one of His saints!"

Then the Provost came nearer still, and bending down like an elder that
gives counsel, said to her, "Margaret, ye are young and ken no better.
We will give you your life gin ye pray for the King. Will ye say aloud
'God save the King'?"

"I desire the salvation of all men," Margaret said. "May God save him an
He will!"

Coltran rose with a flush of triumph in his eye. He was none so bad a
man, only dazed with drink and bad company.

"She has said it!" he cried, and from far and near the people took up
the cry "She has said it, she has said it!" And some were glad and some
shook their heads for what they counted the dishonour of the submission.

Now, Blednoch sands under Wigtown town were a sight to behold that day.
They were black with folk, all in scattering, changing groups. There
were many clouds of folk on the sands when the lassies were "pitten
doon," and in every little company there was one praying. Through them
patrolled the soldiers in fours, breaking up each little band of
worshippers, which dissolved only to come together again as soon as they
had passed.

Then the town officer, a cruel and ill-liked man, who never did well
afterwards all his days, took his long-hafted halbert, and, standing on
the verge of the bank, he set the end of it to Margaret Lauchlison's
neck.

"Bide ye doon there and clep wi' the partans, Margaret, my woman!" he
said, holding her head under water till it hung loose and the life went
from it.

The elder woman thus having finished her course with joy, they unrove
the nether rope and drew little Margaret up to the bank, exhorting her
to cry aloud "God save the King!" and also to pray for him, that she
might get her liberty.

For they began to be in fear, knowing that this drowning of women would
make a greater stir in the world than much shooting of men.

"Lord, give him repentance, forgiveness, and, salvation!" she said
fervently and willingly.

But Lag cried out in his great hoarse voice, "Out upon the wretch! We
want not such oaths nor prayers. Winram, get the Test through her
teeth--or down with her again."

But she steadfastly refused the wicked Test, the oath of sin. As indeed
we that loved Scotland and the good way of religion