JAMES THE SECOND.

71

divinity, were stopped by an officer in the neighbourhoodof Glasgow. They were asked whether they would pray for'King James the Seventh. They refused to do so except underthe condition that he was one of the elect. A file of musketeerswas drawn out. The prisoners knelt down: they were blind-folded; and, within an hour after they had been arrested,their blood was lapped up by the dogs. *

While this was done in Clydesdale, an act not less horriblewas perpetrated in Eskdale. One of the proscribed Co-venanters, overcome by sickness, had found shelter in thehouse of a respectable widow, and had died there. Thecorpse was discovered by the Laird of Westerhall, a pettytyrant who had, in the days of the Covenant, professed in-ordinate zeal for the Presbyterian Church, who had, sincethe Restoration, purchased the favour of the government byapostasy, and who felt towards the party which he had de-serted the implacable hatred of an apostate. This man pulleddown the house of the poor woman, carried away her fur-niture, and, leaving her and her younger children to wanderin the fields, dragged her son Andrew, who was still a lad,before Claverhouse, who happened to be marching throughthat part of the country. Claverhouse was just then strangelylenient. Some thought that he had not been quite himselfsince the death of the Christian carrier, ten days before. ButWesterhall was eager to signalise his loyalty, and extorted asullen consent. The guns were loaded, and the youth wastold to pull his bonnet over his face. He refused, and stoodconfronting his murderers with the Bible in his hand. “I canlook you in the face,” he said; “I have done nothing ofwhich I need be ashamed. But how will you look in that daywhen you shall be judged by what is written in this book?”He fell dead, and was buried in the moor.**

CHAP.

iv.

1685 .

* Wodrow, III. ix. C.r * lb. Cloud of Witnesses.