"Let us fully understand one another," said Katharine. "Pray, Brown, be so good as detail the circumstances of this party as shortly as you can to my father, for, as is natural, he is still perplexed and bewildered."
"You see here before you, sir," said the little hunchbacked figure, "a wretched remnant of that long persecuted, and now nearly annihilated sect, the covenanted reformers of the west of Scotland. We were expelled from our homes, and at last hunted from our native mountains like wolves, for none of our friends durst shelter any of us on their grounds, on pain of death. Even the rest of the persecuted disowned us, and became our adversaries, because our tenets were more stern and severe than theirs; for we acted on the principle of retaliation as far as it lay in our power, holding that to be in consistency with the laws of God and man; therefore were we expelled from their society, which indeed we disdained.
"We first came to Bodsbeck, where we got shelter for a few weeks. It was there that I was first supposed by the menials, who chanced to see me, to be a Brownie, and that superstitious idea the tenant thought meet to improve for our safety; but on the approach of Lag's people he dismissed us. We then fled to Leithenhall, from whence in a few days we were again compelled to fly; and at last came to this wild, the only place in the south that soldiers had never searched, nor could search with any degree of success. After much labour we completed this cave, throwing the stuff into the torrent below, so that the most minute investigator could not distinguish the smallest difference in the linn, or face of the precipice; and here we deemed we might live for years without being discovered; and here we determined to live, till God should see fit, in his own good time, to send some relief to his persecuted church in these lands.
"But alas, the worst evil of all awaited us! We subsisted for a considerable time by bringing victuals over night from a great distance, but even the means of obtaining these failed us; so that famine, and the dampness of the air here, we being compelled to lie inactive in the bowels of the earth for days and nights together, brought on us a malignant and pestilential fever. In three days from its first symptoms appearing, one half of our number were lying unable to move, or lift an eye. What could we do? The remnant could not fly, and leave their sick and wounded brethren to perish here unseen. We were unable to carry them away with us, and if we had, we had no place to which we could have conveyed them. We durst not apply to you, for if you had taken pity on us, we knew it would cost you your life, and be the means of bereaving your family of all your well-earned wealth. In this great extremity, as a last resource, I watched an opportunity, and laid our deplorable case before that dear maid your daughter--Forgive these tears, sir; you see every eye around fills at mention of her name--She has been our guardian angel--She has, under Almighty Providence, saved the lives of the whole party before you--has supplied us with food, cordials, and medicines; with beds, and with clothing, all from her own circumscribed resources. For us she has braved every danger, and suffered every privation; the dereliction of her parents, and the obloquy of the whole country. That young man, whom you see sitting on the wicker chair there, is my only surviving son of five--he was past hope when she found him--fast posting to the last gaol--her unwearied care and attentions have restored him; he is again in a state of convalescence--O may the Eternal God reward her for what she has done to him and us!