Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 21, 1896 - Miscellanies, Volume IV

THE PENTLAND RISING
the shoulder of the hill, to prevent him from seeing
the disorders which were likely to arise. He was,
at last, on the 25th day of the month, between
Douglas and Lanark, permitted to behold their
evolutions. ' I found their horse did consist of four
hundreth and fortie, and the foot of five hundreth
and upwards. . . . The horsemen were armed for
most part with suord and pistoll, some onlie with
suord. The foot with musket, pike, sith (scythe),
forke, and suord; and some with suords great and
long.' He admired much the proficiency of their
cavalry, and marvelled how they had attained to it
in so short a time. 1
At Douglas, which they had just left on the
morning of this great wapinshaw, they were charged
— awful picture of depravity ! — with the theft of a
silver spoon and a nightgown. Could it be ex-
pected that while the whole country swarmed with
robbers of every description, such a rare opportunity
for plunder should be lost by rogues — that among
a thousand men, even though fighting for religion,
there should not be one Achan in the camp ? At
Lanark a declaration was drawn up and signed by
the chief rebels. In it occurs the following :
'The just sense whereof — the sufferings of the
country — 'made us choose, rather to betake our-
selves to the fields for self-defence, than to stay
at home, burdened daily with the calamities of
others, and tortured with the fears of our own
approaching misery.' 2
1 Turner, p. 167. 2 Wodrow, p. 29.
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