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"Ye might ask my mither, then, if she were in life," said Cuddie; "it was her explained it a' to me, for I thought the man had only been wounded. At ony rate, he spake of the casting out of the Stewarts by their very names, and the vengeance that was brewing for Claver'se and his dragoons. They ca'd the man Habakkuk Mucklewrath; his brain was a wee ajee, but he was a braw preacher for a' that."
In the old ballad on the Battle of Bothwell Bridge, Claverhouse is said to have continued the slaughter of the fugitives in revenge of this gentleman's death. "Haud up your hand," then Monmouth said; "Gie quarters to these men for me;" But bloody Claver'se swore an oath, His kinsman's death avenged should be.
"Humph!" replied Bucklaw; "so you have set yourself down to mourn over the crop-eared dogs whom honest Claver'se treated as they deserved?" "They first gave the dogs an ill name, and then hanged them," replied Ravenswood.
He consoled himself, boy-like, with the consideration that he was not yet committed; he could easily steal over unseen to Crozer's post, and he had a continuous private idea that he would very probably steal back again. His course took him so near the minister that he could hear some of his words: "What news, minister, of Claver'se? He's going round like a roaring rampaging lion....
"Hout na, sir," said Lady Elphinstoun, "the world is just to end with me as it began. When I was entering life, there was ane Knox deaving us a' wi' his clavers, and now I am ganging out, there is ane Claver'se deaving us a' wi' his knocks." Claverhouse himself alighted from a black horse, the most beautiful perhaps in Scotland.
"Not more early than welcome, I hope," replied Major Bellenden, as he saluted the widow of his deceased brother; "but I heard by a note which Edith sent to Charnwood about some of her equipage and books, that you were to have Claver'se here this morning, so I thought, like an old firelock as I am, that I should like to have a chat with this rising soldier.
"Troth, sir, there is strong and increasing belief that Claver'se is clean broken, some say killed; that the soldiers are all dispersed, and that the rebels are hastening this way, threatening death and devastation to a' that will not take the Covenant."
I went to the camp of the malignant Claver'se, as the future King of Israel sought the land of the Philistines; I arranged with him a rising; and but for the villain Evandale, the Erastians ere now had been driven from the West. I could slay him," he added, with a vindictive scowl, "were he grasping the horns of the altar!"
"The matter, my love?" answered the Major coolly, as, with spectacles on his nose, he examined the position of a gun "The matter? Why, raise her breech a thought more, John Gudyill the matter? Why, Claver'se is routed, my dear, and the whigs are coming down upon us in force, that's all the matter."
"Troth, sir, there is strong and increasing belief that Claver'se is clean broken, some say killed; that the soldiers are all dispersed, and that the rebels are hastening this way, threatening death and devastation to a' that will not take the Covenant."
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