Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 13, 2025
Roxburgh's covenanting heroes, Wigtonshire's triumphant martyrs, Dumfriesshire and her Cameronians, with their great namesake's lion heart; Ayrshire, with her bloody memories of moor and moss-hags, of quarry and conventicle, of Laud and liberty all these had filtered through and reappeared in these silent and stalwart men.
Across the moss-hags, where the horses plunge in the ooze and the mist encircles the troopers, he is hunting his Covenanting prey, and catches the fearless face of some peasant zealot as he falls pierced with bullets.
To the right of the white road that drove forward was a wide moor of dark moss-hags, flung like a crumpled cloth on a slope that stretched as far as the eye could see to the base of black hills about which clambered white mists. To the left were green fields, set with tentative assemblies of firs, which finally, where the road dipped, drew together in a long dark wood.
The sturdy little ponies descended the slopes with the sure-footedness of cats; then sprang pluckily over the moss-hags which covered the greater part of the peninsula. Suddenly, without warning, they became entangled in a treacherous piece of bog, from which they did not struggle into safety until Marjorie's pony had lost a shoe.
A bough of silver birch came floating along, doubtless a windfall from one of those trees that stood where Thriepmuir was but the Bavelaw burn, a furtive trickle among the moss-hags, a brown rushy confusion between two moors.
But the four hundred ministers were not silenced. Who can silence tongues of fire? They were scattered, but not conquered. They took shelter where it could be found under friendly roofs, within dismal caves, under dripping moss-hags, in the open fields, and on mountain tops. They wandered over desolate moors and on lonely ridges. They suffered hunger, weariness, sickness, exposure.
There are hill-sides and moss-hags in its vicinity, still known to the peasant as the places of worship and of refuge to the Covenanters in days of peril and alarm; and some of Scotland's martyrs were immolated at the doors of their own huts, the foundation of which may still be traced, overgrown with the green turf or the heather-bell.
But mind ye, Lady Jean, it will not be always through the moss-hags chasing shepherds, ploughmen and sic-like; by and by it will be on the battle-field, when this great quarrel is settled in Scotland. May the day not be far off, and may the richt side win."
They were very angry, and enjoined the parents, under a heavy penalty, to refuse their children food and shelter; yea, all human kindness. The children pursued their way, not knowing whither they were going. The desolate moors, the dreary mountains, the damp caves, the chilly moss-hags were before them, but their resting-place this night must be determined by the setting of the sun.
Two or three whaups rose from the moss-hags and then sailed pee-weeting towards the hills, as if despatched by the moor to warn them of the coming of these strangers; and it was as if the range answered shortly, "Ay, I ken that, I ken that."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking