The little army of the Covenanters, broken and bleeding, was now scattered upon the mountains and completely disorganized.  One of these men, wandering alone, came to a cottage at midnight.  He was bleeding, hungry, weary, utterly exhausted, ready to die.  He asked for food and shelter.  The pitiful request was denied, for such kindness, if the authorities were informed, would endanger the family; and the penalty might be expulsion, imprisonment, or death.  No cup of cold water for this thirsty soul; no spark of charity to warm this shivering child of the Covenant.  Feeling the chill of death already creeping through his veins, he touchingly said, “If you find me dead in the morning, bury me on the hillside, looking toward my home beyond the valley.”  In the morning he was found dead, under an oak beside the house.  He was buried as he had requested.  A stone, with an interesting inscription, marks the grave.

After this battle the Covenanters were subjected to a period of horrors that exhaust description.  This brief warlike demonstration was by the government called “The Pentland Rising.”  The men who had placed themselves under Colonel Wallace, for the redress of their wrongs, had come from the adjacent counties.  General Dalziel was immediately sent with an army to punish the people of these districts.  Here we must draw a veil and cover the more shocking barbarities and hideous indignities; the unmentionable crimes practiced upon these Covenanters, who already had suffered beyond the limit of patience; upon the men, women, and children who were as inoffensive, as they were helpless, beneath the monstrous tyranny of King Charles and his brutal soldiers.

The story of pillage may be painted in flames; the story of revenge may be recorded in vitriol; the story of carnage may be written in blood; but the story of the horrors that befell the Covenanted families, especially the delicate and helpless members of the household, must not be told.  The manner in which fathers, husbands, and brothers stood and died on the door-step in defence of mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters may be related; but the inhumanity that followed must not be mentioned.  Purity shudders at the horror; the heart sickens at the thought; the eyes instinctively turn away.

General Dalziel quartered his army upon the Covenanters, sent troops in all directions to raid the country, disinherited those who were engaged in the “Uprising”, subjected to arrest all who were suspected, and reduced the people to extremest poverty.  The soldiers lived in the homes of the Covenanters, compelled the family to provide boarding, and proudly tyrannized over the household.  They devoured, or destroyed the crops; slaughtered, or drove off the flocks and herds; tortured, imprisoned, and shot the people according to their pleasure.  The prisons were overcrowded with old and young, men and women, the sickly and the dying.