THE COVENANTERS AND CHARLES STUART. 167

hurt man but when I was in hot blood, and yet, they would betray me, and hang me, like a masterless dog, at the gate of any great man that has an ill-will at me.

But the heather that I have trod upon when living, must bloom over me when I am dead. My heart would sink, and my arm would shrink and wither, like fern in the frost, were I to lose sight of my native hills. Nor has the world a scene that would console me for the loss of these rocks and cairns, wild as they are, that you see around us. And Helen, what would become of her, were I to leave her the subject of new insult and atrocity? Or how could she bear to be removed from these scenes, where the remembrance of her wrongs is aye sweetened by the recollection of her revenge? I was once so hard put at by my great enemy, that I was forced e'en to give way to the tide, and remove my people and my family from our dwellings in our native land, and to withdraw for a time, into MacCullumore's country, and Helen made a lament on our departure, so piteously sad and woful, that our hearts almost brake as we listened to her. It was like the wailing of one for the mother who bore him, and I would not have the same touch of the heart-break again; no! not for all the lands ever owned by MacGregor !

THE COVENANTERS AND CHARLES STUART. [Reply of Ringan Gilhaize, a Covenanter, to Mr. Renwick, also a Covenanter, who counselled moderation.]

From a novel entitled Ringan Gilhaize, by

JOHN GALT.

MODERATION! You, Mr. Renwick, counsel moderation; you doubt if the Scriptures warrant us to undertake revenge; you hope that our forbearance may

work to repentance among our enemies. You have hitherto been a preacher, not a sufferer; with you, resistance to Charles Stuart's government has been a thing of no more than doctrine; with us, it is a consideration of facts. You will call to mind, that in this sore controversy, the cause of debate came not from us. We were peaceable Christians enjoying the shade of the vine and fig-tree of the Gospel, planted by the care and cherished by the blood of our forefathers, protected by the laws, and gladdened in our protection by.the oaths and covenants which the King had sworn to maintain. Yet, for more than twenty years, there has been a most cruel, fraudulent, and outrageous endeavor, instituted and carried on, to deprive us of that freedom and birthright. We were asking no new thing of government, we were taking no steps to disturb government, we were in peace with all men, when government with the principles of a robber, and the cruelty of a tyrant, demanded of us to surrender those immunities of conscience which our fathers had earned and defended, to deny the Gospel as it is written in the Evangelists, and to accept the commentary of Charles Stuart, a man who had no respect to the most solemn oaths.

But, not content with attempting to wrest from us our inherited freedom of worship, Charles Stuart has pursued the courageous constancy with which we have defended the same, with more animosity than he ever did any crime. I speak not to you of your own outcast condition, perhaps you delight in the perils of martyrdom; I speak not to those around you who in their persons, their substance, and their families, have endured the torture, the poverty, the irremediable dishonor, they may be meek and hallowed men, willing to endure. But I call to mind what I am and was myself. I think of my quiet home; it is

THE COVENANTERS AND CHARLES STUART. 169

all ashes! Why need I speak of my honest brother? The waves of the ocean, commissioned by our persecutor, have triumphed over him in the cold seas of the Orkneys! And for my wife, what was she to you? Ye cannot be greatly disturbed that she is in her grave. No, ye are quiet, calm, prudent persons; it would be a most indiscreet thing of you, to stir on her account! and how unreasonable I should be, were I to speak of two fair and innocent maidens O men and Christians, brothers, fathers!-but, ye are content to bear with such wrongs, and I alone of all here, may go to the gates of the cities, and try to discover which of the martyred heads mouldering there belongs to a son, or a friend! Nor is it of any account whether the bones of those who were so dear to us, be exposed with the remains of malefactors, or laid in the sacred grave! To the dead all places are alike! to the slave, what signifies who is master!

Let us, therefore, smother all the wrongs we have endured, and kiss the proud foot of the trampler! We have our lives, we have been spared, the merciless bloodhounds have not yet reached us! Let us therefore be humble and thankful and cry to Charles Stuart, O king, live forever! In truth, friends, Mr. Renwick is quite right! This feeling of indignation against our oppressors is a most imprudent thing! If we desire to enjoy our own contempt, to deserve the derision of men, and to merit the abhorrence of Heaven, let us yield ourselves to all that Charles Stuart requires. We can do nothing better, nothing by which we can so reasonably hope for punishment here, and condemnation hereafter. But, if there is one man here, I am speaking not of shapes and forms but of feelings, if there is one here that feels as men were wont to feel, he will draw his sword,

and say with me, Judge and avenge our cause, O Lord! Woe to the house of Stuart ! oppressor!

Woe to the

THE MURDERER'S SECRET.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

AN aged man without an enemy in the world, in his own house, and in his own bed, is made the victim of butcherly murder for mere pay. A healthful old man to whom sleep was sweet, the first sound slumbers of the night held him in their soft but strong embrace. The assassin enters, through the window already prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. With noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall half lighted by the moon, he winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door of the chamber. Of this, he moves the lock by soft continued pressure till it turns on its hinges, and he enters and beholds his victim before him. The room is uncommonly open to the admission of light. The face of the innocent sleeper is turned from the murderer, and the beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, show him where to strike. The fatal blow is given, and the victim passes, without a struggle or a motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death. It is accomplished. The deed is done. He retreats, retraces his steps to the window, passes out through it as he came in, and escapes. He has done the murder. No eye has seen him. No ear has heard him. The secret is his own, and, it is safe!

Ah! Gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. Such a secret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither nook ror corner where the

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guilty can bestow it and say it is safe. Not to speak of that Eye which glances through all disguises and beholds everything as in the splendor of noon, such secrets of guilt are never safe from detection even by men. True it is, generally speaking, that "murder will out." True it is that Providence hath so ordained and doth so govern things, that those who break the great law of Heaven by shedding man's blood, seldom succeed in avoiding discovery. Especially in a case exciting so much attention as this, discovery must come, and will come, sooner or later. A thousand eyes turn at once to explore every man, every thing, every circumstance, connected with the time and place; a thousand ears catch every whisper; a thousand excited minds intensely dwell on the scene, shedding all their light, and ready to kindle the slightest circumstance into a blaze of discovery.

Meantime, the guilty soul cannot keep its own secret. It is false to itself, or, rather, it feels an irre sistible impulse of conscience to be true to itself. It labors under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant. It finds itself preyed on by a torment which it dares not acknowledge to God nor man. A vulture is devouring it, and it can ask no sympathy or assistance either from Heaven or earth. The secret which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him, and, like the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosHe thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master. It betrays his discretion, it breaks down

ure.