n one day, he said, "Isabel, you have got a good
man to be your husband, but you will not enjoy him long; prize his
company, and keep linen beside you for his winding sheet, for you will
need it when you are not looking for it, and it will be a bloody one."
Brown had a presentiment, too, that his end would be a tragical one.
The end did come early. Claverhouse, who had been searching for him as
well as for several other Covenanters, suddenly surprised him one
morning, and ordered the dragoons to bring him in front of his
(Brown's) house, where stood his weeping wife and helpless children.
"Go to your prayers," shouted Claverhouse, "for immediately you shall
die." Mrs. Brown exclaimed, "This is the day I have expected;" and
Brown, while addressing a few farewell words to his beloved spouse,
said calmly, "Isabel, this is what I told you of before we were
married." Mrs. Brown was dragged from the side of her husband, who
stood resigned to his fate. "Fire!" cried Claverhouse, and instantly
the martyr fell, pierced through by half a dozen bullets.

According to Wodrow, the Scottish historian, the swans which were on
Linlithgow Loch when the English obtained the mastery in Scotland,
disappeared. On the king's return, the swans came back. Their flight
was considered to foreshadow evil to the royal family, and their
reappearance was regarded as a happy omen.

So great was the consternation caused about the middle of the
seventeenth century by prodigious apparitions, that lamentations were
heard in every dwelling. Women who were with child brought forth
prematurely. At Hereford the town-clerk's wife bore three children at
a birth, who, we are told, had all teeth, and spoke immediately after
they were born. One said, "The day is appointed that no man can shun;"
another asked, "Who will be sufficient to bury the dead?" and a third
predicted that "there will not be enough of corn to feed the hungry."
Each having thus expressed himself, expired.

In the year 1680 a great comet appeared, striking every beholder with
awe. The terror partly arose from the fact that Kepler, the
astronomer, had calculated that the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter
in Leo, which happens only once in eight hundred years, and which took
place at the time of the appearance of this comet, would have an evil
influence on the Romish Church. The consternation was increased by
mathematicians declaring that the comet was six times longer than
that which portend