They were sitting around their
anxious prisoner, muttering to each other words of terrible import,
and watching the index of a clock, which was shortly to strike the
hour at which, in their apprehension, murder would become lawful,
when their intended victim heard a distant rustling like the wind
among withered leaves. It came nearer, and resembled the sound of a
brook in flood chafing within its banks; it came nearer yet, and was
plainly distinguished as the galloping of a party of horse. The
absence of her husband, and the account given by the boy of the
suspicious appearance of those with whom he had remained, had
induced Mrs--to apply to the neighbouring town for a party of
dragoons, who thus providentially arrived in time to save him from
extreme violence, if not from actual destruction.]
CHAPTER XIII.
Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!
To all the sensual world proclaim,
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.
Anonymous.
When the desperate affray had ceased, Claverhouse commanded his soldiers
to remove the dead bodies, to refresh themselves and their horses, and
prepare for passing the night at the farm-house, and for marching early
in the ensuing morning.
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