The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

OLD MORTALITY. 547
ammunition; and accursed be he who turneth back from the work on this
great day! i'
IHaving thus spoken, he hastily marched towards the bridge, and was
followed by about two hundred of the most gallant and zealous of his party.
There was a deep and disheartened pause when Morton and Burley departed. The commanders availed themselves of it to display their lines in
some sort of order, and exhorted those who were most exposed, to throw
themselves upon their faces to avoid the cannonade which they might presently expect. The insurgents ceased to resist or to remonstrate; but the
awe which had silenced their discords had dismayed their courage. They
suffered themselves to be formed into ranks with the docility of a flock of
sheep, but without possessing, for the time, more resolution or energy; for
they experienced a sinking of the heart, imposed by the sudden and imminent approach of the danger which they had neglected to provide against
while it was yet distant. They were, however, drawn out with some regularity; and as they still possessed the appearance of an army, their leaders
had only to hope that some favourable circumstance would restore -their
spirits and courage.
Kettledrummlle, Poundtext, Macbriar, and other preachers, busied themselves in their ranks, and prevailed on them to raise a psalm. But the
superstitious among them observed as an ill omen, that their song of praise
and triumph sunk into " a quiver of consternation," and resembled rather a
penitentiary stave sung on the scaffold of a condemned criminal, than the
bold strain which had resounded along the wild heath of Loudon-hill, in
anticipation of that day's victory. The melancholy melody soon received a
rough accompaniment; the royal soldiers shouted, the highlanders yelled,
the cannon began to fire on one side, and the musketry on both, and the
bridge of Bothwell, with the banks adjacent, were involved in wreaths of
Smoke.
As e'er ye saw the rain doun far,
Or yet the arrow from the bow,
Sae our Scots lads fell even down,
And they lay slain on every knowe.
OLD BALLAD.
E]E MIorton or Burley had reached the post to be defended, the enemy
had commenced an attack upon it with great spirit. The two regiments of
Foot-Guards, formed into a close column, rushed forward to the river; one
corps, deploying along the right bank, commenced a galling fire on the defenders of the pass, while the other pressed on to occupy the bridge. The
insurgents sustained the attack with great constancy and courage; and
while part of their number returned the fire across the river, the rest maintained a discharge of musketry upon the further end of the bridge itself, and
every avenue by which the soldiers endeavoured to approach it. The latter
suffered severely, but still gained ground, and the head of their column was
already upon the bridge, when the arrival of Morton changed the scene;
and his marksmen, commencing upon the pass a fire as well aimed as it was
sustained and regular, compelled the assailants to retire with much loss.
They were a second time brought up to the charge, and a. second time repulsed with still greater loss, as Burley had now brought his party into