measure taken in consequence of the corporal's motion, a dragoon gallopped towards Serjeant Bothwell, who was considerably a-head of the party he commanded. On hearing the orders which he brought, Bothwell instantly rode back to the head of his party, ordered them to close their files, to mend their pace, and to move with silence and precaution, as they would soon be in presence of the enemy. CHAPTER II. Quantum in nobis, we've thought good Of treaty, and accommodation, This bloody duel without blows. BUTLER. THE increased pace of the party of horsemen soon took away from their zealous captives the breath, if not the inclination, necessary for holding for holding forth. They had now for more than a mile got free of the woodlands, whose broken glades - had, for some time, accompanied them after they had left the woods of Tillietudlem. A few birches and oaks still feathered the narrow ravines, or occupied in dwarf clusters the hollow plains of the moor. But these were gradually disappearing; and a wide and waste country lay before them, swelling into hills of dark heath, intersected by deep gullies; being the passages by which torrents forced their course in winter, and, during summer, the disproportioned channels for diminutive rivulets that winded their puny way among heaps of stones and gravel, the effects and tokens of their winter fury,-like so many spendthrifts dwindled down by the consequences of former ex-. cesses and extravagance. This desolate region seemed to extend farther than the eye could reach, without grandeur, without even the dignity of mountain wildness, yet striking, from the huge proportion which it seemed to bear to such more favoured spots of the country as were adapted to cultivation and fitted for the support of man; and thereby impressing irresistibly the mind of the spectator with a sense of the omnipotence of nature, and the comparative inefficacy of the boasted means of amelioration which man is capable of opposing to the disadvantages of climate and soil. It is a remarkable effect of such extensive wastes, that they impose an idea of solitude even upon those who travel through them in considerable numbers; so much is the imagination affected by the disproportion between the desert around and the party who are traversing it. Thus the members of a caravan of a thousand souls may feel, in the deserts of Africa or Arabia, a sense of loneliness unknown to the individual traveller, whose solitary course is through a thriving and cultivated country. It was not, therefore, without a peculiar feeling of emotion, that Morton beheld, at the distance of about half a mile, the body of cavalry to which his escort belong ed, creeping up a steep and winding path which ascended from the more level moór into the hills. Their numbers, which appeared formidable when they crowded through narrow roads, and seemed multiplied by appearing partially, and at different points, among the trees, were now apparently diminished by being exposed at once to view, and in a landscape whose ex tent bore such immense proportion to the column of horses and men, that, shewing more like a drove of black cattle than a body of soldiers, crawled slowly along the face of the hill, their force and their numbers seeming trifling and contemptible. "Surely," said Morton to himself, " a handful of resolute men may defend any defile in these mountains against such a small force as this is, providing that their bravery is equal to their enthusiasm." While he made these reflections, the rapid movement of the horsemen who guarded him soon traversed the space. which divided them from their companions; and ere the front of Claverhouse's column had gained the brow of the hill which they had been seen ascending, Bothwell, with his rear-guard and prisoners, had united himself, or nearly so, with the main body led by his commander. The extreme difficulty of the road, which was in some places steep, and in others. boggy, retarded the progress of the column,. epecially in the rear; for the passage of |