Immediately on entering the cave in which this party of Covenanters had found a temporary shelter, Will Wallace learned the reason of the large supply of provisions which he and his comrade had carried.

 

“I’ve brought this for ye frae Andrew Black,” said Quentin, taking the wallet from his shoulder and presenting it to a man in clerical costume who advanced to welcome him. “He thought ye might stand in need o’ victuals.”

 

“Ever thoughtful of his friends; I thank him heartily,” said the minister, accepting the wallet—as also that handed to him by Wallace. “Andrew is a true helper of the persecuted; and I thank the Lord who has put it into his heart to supply us at a time when our provisions are well-nigh exhausted. Our numbers have been unexpectedly increased by the arrival of some of the unfortunates recently expelled from Lanark.”

 

“From Lanark!” echoed Wallace as he glanced eagerly round on the forlorn throng. “Can you tell me, sir, if a Mr David Spence and a Mrs Wallace have arrived from that quarter?”

 

“I have not heard of them,” returned the minister, as he emptied the wallets and began to distribute their contents to those around him.—“Ah, here is milk—I’m glad our friend Black thought of that, for we have a poor dying woman here who can eat nothing solid. Here, Webster, take it to her.”

 

With a sudden sinking at the heart Wallace followed the man to whom the milk had been given. Might not this dying woman, he thought, be his own mother? True, he had just been told that no one with her name had yet sought refuge there; but, there was a bare possibility and—anxiety does not reason! As he crossed to a spot where several persons were bending over a couch of straw, a tremendous clap of thunder shook the solid walls of the cavern. This was immediately followed by a torrent of rain, the plashing of which outside suggested that all the windows of heaven had been suddenly opened. The incident was natural enough in itself, but the anxious youth took it as a bad omen, and trembled as he had never before trembled at the disturbances of nature. One glance, however, sufficed to relieve his mind. The dying woman was young. Delicate of constitution by nature, long exposure to damp air in caves, and cold beds on the ground, with bad and insufficient food, had sealed her doom. Lying there, with hollow cheeks, eyes closed and lips deathly pale, it seemed as if the spirit had already fled.

 

“Oh, my ain Lizzie!” cried a poor woman who knelt beside her.

 

“Wheesht, mither,” whispered the dying woman, slowly opening her eyes; “it is the Lord’s doing—shall not the Judge of a’ the earth do right? We’ll understand it a’ some day—for ever wi’ the Lord!”

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