the calm voice of a troop-sergeant.

Then Westerha' set himself without another word to the work of
examination, which suited him well.

"You will not answer, young rebels," he cried, "ken you what they get
that will not speak when the King bids them?"

"Are you the King?" said the lad of ten who had called himself James
Johnstone.

At this Westerhall waxed perfectly furious, with a pale and shaking fury
that I liked not to see. But indeed the whole was so distasteful to me
that sometimes I could but turn my head away.

"Now, ill bairns," said Westerha', "and you, my young rebel-namesake,
hearken ye. The King's command is not to be made light of. And I tell
you plainly that as you will not answer, I am resolved that you shall
all be shot dead on the spot!"

With that he sent men to set them out in rows, and make them kneel down
with kerchiefs over their eyes.

Now when the soldiers came near to the huddled cluster of bairns, that
same little heart-broken bleating which I have heard the lambs make,
broke again from them. It made my heart bleed and the nerves tingle in
my palms. And this was King Charles Stuart making war! It had not been
his father's way.

But the soldiers, though some few were smiling a little as at an
excellent play, were mostly black ashamed. Nevertheless they took the
bairns and made them kneel, for that was the order, and without mutiny
they could not better it.

"Sodger-man, wull ye let me tak' my wee brither by the hand and dee that
way? I think he wad thole it better!" said a little maid of eight,
looking up.

And the soldier let go a great oath and looked at Westerha' as though he
could have slain him.

"Bonny wark," he cried, "deil burn me gin I listed for this!"

But the little lass had already taken her brother by the hand.

"Bend doon bonny, Alec my man, doon on your knees!" said she.

The boy glanced up at her. He had long yellow hair like Jean Hamilton's
little Alec.

"Wull it be sair?" he asked. "Think ye, Maggie? I houp it'll no be awfu'
sair!"

"Na, Alec," his sister made answer, "it'll no be either lang or sair."

But the boy of ten, whose name was James Johnstone, neither bent nor
knelt.

"I hae dune nae wrang. I'll juist dee this way," he said; and he stood
up like one that straightens himself at drill.

Then Westerha' bid fire over the bairns' heads, which was cruel, cruel
work, and only some of the soldiers did it. But even the few pieces that
went off ma