drink-offering to redeem vengeance from the church, and the place shall
from henceforth be called Jehovah-Jireh, for the sacrifice is provided.
Up then, and bind the victim with cords to the horns of the altar!"

There was a movement among the party; and deeply did Morton regret at
that moment the incautious haste with which he had ventured into their
company. He was armed only with his sword, for he had left his pistols at
the bow of his saddle; and, as the whigs were all provided with
fire-arms, there was little or no chance of escaping from them by
resistance. The interposition, however, of Macbriar protected him for the
moment.

"Tarry yet a while, brethren--let us not use the sword rashly, lest the
load of innocent blood lie heavy on us.--Come," he said, addressing
himself to Morton, "we will reckon with thee ere we avenge the cause thou
hast betrayed.--Hast thou not," he continued, "made thy face as hard as
flint against the truth in all the assemblies of the host?"

"He has--he has," murmured the deep voices of the assistants.

"He hath ever urged peace with the malignants," said one.

"And pleaded for the dark and dismal guilt of the Indulgence," said
another.

"And would have surrendered the host into the hands of Monmouth," echoed
a third; "and was the first to desert the honest and manly Burley, while
he yet resisted at the pass. I saw him on the moor, with his horse bloody
with spurring, long ere the firing had ceased at the bridge."

"Gentlemen," said Morton, "if you mean to bear me down by clamour, and
take my life without hearing me, it is perhaps a thing in your power; but
you will sin before God and man by the commission of such a murder."

"I say, hear the youth," said Macbriar; "for Heaven knows our bowels have
yearned for him, that he might be brought to see the truth, and exert his
gifts in its defence. But he is blinded by his carnal knowledge, and has
spurned the light when it blazed before him."

Silence being obtained, Morton proceeded to assert the good faith which
he had displayed in the treaty with Monmouth, and the active part he had
borne in the subsequent action.

"I may not, gentlemen," he said, "be fully able to go the lengths you
desire, in assigning to those of my own religion the means of tyrannizing
over others; but none shall go farther in asserting our own lawful
freedom. And I must needs aver, that had others been of my mind in
counsel, or disposed to stand by my side