On arriving in Irvine, we went to the shop of Archibald Macrusty, a dealer in iron implements, and I bought from him two swords without hilts, which he sold, wrapt in straw-rope, as scythe-blades,—a method of disguise that the ironmongers were obligated to have recourse to at that time, on account of the search now and then made for weapons by the soldiers, ever from the time that Claverhouse came to disarm the people; and when I had bought the two blades we went to Bailie Girvan's shop, which was a nest of a' things, and bought two hilts, without any questions being asked; for the bailie was a discreet man, with a warm heart to the Covenant, and not selling whole swords, but only hilts and hefts, it could not be imputed to him that he was guilty of selling arms to suspected persons.

Being thus provided with two swords, we went into James Glassop's public, where, having partaken of some refreshment, we remained solemnly sitting by ourselves till towards the gloaming, when, recollecting that it would be a comfort to us in the halts of our undertaking, I sent out my son to buy a Bible, and while he was absent I fell asleep.

On awaking from my slumber I felt greatly composed and refreshed. I reflected on the events of the day, and the terrible truths that had broken in upon me, and I was not moved with the same stings of desperation that, on my coming to myself, had shot like fire through my brain; so I began to consider of the purpose whereon I was bowne, and that I had formed no plan, nor settled towards what airt I should direct my steps. But I was not the less determined to proceed, and I said to my son, who was sitting very thoughtful with the Book lying on the table before him,—

"Open the Bible, and see what the Lord instructs us to do at this time." And he opened it, and the first words he saw and read were those of the nineteenth verse of the forty-eighth chapter of the Prophet Jeremiah,—

"O inhabitant of Aroer, stand by the way and espy; ask him that fleeth, and her that escapeth, and say, What is done?"

So I rose, and bidding my son close the Book, and bring it with him, we went out, with our sword-hilts, and the blades still with the straw-rope about them in our hands, into the street together, where we had not long been when a soldier on horseback passed us in great haste; and many persons spoke to him as he rode by, inquiring what news he had brought; but he was in trouble of mind, and heeded them not till he reached the door of the house where the captain of the soldiers then in Irvine was abiding.

When he had gone into the house and delivered his message, he returned to the street, where by that time a multitude, among which we were, had assembled, and he told to the many, who inquired, as it were, with one voice,—That Mr Cargill, and a numerous party of the Cameronians, had passed that afternoon through Galston, and it was thought they meditated some disturbance on the skirts of Kilmarnock, which made the commander of the King's forces in that town send for aid to the captain of those then in Irvine.

As soon as I heard the news, I resolved to go that night to Kilmarnock, and abide with my sister-in-law, the widow of my brother Jacob, by whose instrumentality I thought we might hear where the Cameronians then were. For, although I approved not of their separation from the general presbyterian kirk of Scotland, nor was altogether content with their declaration published at Sanquhar, there was yet one clause which, to my spirit, impoverished of all hope, was as food and raiment; and that there may be no perversion concerning the same in after times, I shall here set down the words of the clause, and the words are these:—

"Although we be for government and governors such as the Word of God and our Covenant allows, yet we for ourselves, and all that will adhere to us, do, by thir presents, disown Charles Stuart, that has been reigning (or rather tyrannizing as we may say) on the throne of Britain these years bygone, as having any right or title to, or interest in, the crown of Scotland for government, he having forfeited the same several years since by his perjury and breach of Covenant both to God and His kirk;" and further, I did approve of those passages wherein it was declared, that he "should have been denuded of being king, ruler, or magistrate, or having any power to act or to be obeyed as such:" as also, "we being under the standard of our Lord Jesus Christ, Captain of Salvation, do declare a war with such a tyrant and usurper, and all the men of his practices, as enemies to our Lord."

Accordingly, on hearing that the excommunicated and suffering society of the Cameronians were so near, I resolved, on receiving the soldier's information, and on account of that recited clause of the Sanquhar declaration, to league myself with them, and to fight in their avenging battles; for, like me, they had endured irremediable wrongs, injustice, and oppressions, from the persecutors, and for that cause had, like me, abjured the doomed and papistical race of the tyrannical Stuarts. With my son, therefore, I went toward Kilmarnock, in the hope and with the intent expressed; and though the road was five long miles, and though I had not spoken more to him all day, nor for days, and weeks, and months before, than I have set down herein, we yet continued to travel in silence.

The night was bleak, and the wind easterly, but the road was dry, and my thoughts were eager; and we hastened onward, and reached the widow's door, without the interchange of a word in all the way.

"Wha do ye want?" said my son, "for naebody hae lived here since the death of aunty."

I was smote upon the heart, by these few words, as it were with a stone; for it had not come into my mind to think of inquiring how long the eclipse of my reason had lasted, nor of what had happened among our friends in the interim. This shock, however, had a salutary effect in staying the haste which was still in my thoughts, and I conversed with my son more collectedly than I could have done before it, and he told me of many things very doleful to hear, but I was thankful to learn that the end of my brother's widow had been in peace, and not caused by any of those grievous unchances which darkened the latter days of so many of the pious in that epoch of the great displeasure.

But the disappointment of finding that Death had barred her door against us, made it needful to seek a resting-place in some public, and as it was not prudent to carry our blades and hilts into any such place of promiscuous resort, we went up the town, and hid them by the star-light in a field at a dyke-side, and then returning as wayfarers, we entered a public, and bespoke a bed for the night.

While we were sitting in that house by the kitchen fire, I bethought me of the Bible which my son had in his hand, and told him that it would do us good if he would read a chapter; but just as he was beginning, the mistress said,—

"Sirs, dinna expose yoursels; for wha kens but the enemy may come in upon you. It's an unco thing now-a-days to be seen reading the Bible in a change-house."

So, being thus admonished, I bade my son put away the Book, and we retired from the fireside and sat by oursels in the shadow of a corner; and well it was for us that we did so, and a providential thing that the worthy woman had been moved to give us the admonition; for we were not many minutes within the mirk and obscurity into which we had removed, when two dragoons, who had been skirring the country, like blood-hounds, in pursuit of Mr Cargill, came in and sat themselves down by the fire. Being sorely tired with their day's hard riding, they were wroth and blasphemous against all the Covenanters for the trouble they gave them; and I thought when I heard them venting their bitterness, that they spoke as with the voice of the persecutors that were the true cause of the grievances whereof they complained; for no doubt it was a hateful thing to persons dressed in authority not to get their own way, yet I could not but wonder how it never came into the minds of such persons that if they had not trodden upon the worm it would never have turned. As for the Cameronians they were at war with the house of Stuart, and having disowned King Charles, it was a thing to be looked for, that all of his sect and side would be their consistent enemies. So I was none troubled by what the soldiers said of them, but my spirit was chafed into the quick to hear the remorselessness of their enmity against all the Covenanters and presbyterians, respecting whom they swore with the hoarseness of revenge, wishing in such a frightful manner the whole of us in the depths of perdition, that I could no longer hear them without rebuking their cruel hatred and most foul impiety.