service of the covenant.  Colonel Gordon was successful, and returned to the royal camp with his converted chief.  Both followed zealously the fortunes of Montrose, until Lord Gordon fell in the battle of Alford, and Nathaniel Gordon was taken at Philiphaugh.  He was one of ten loyalists, devoted upon that occasion, by the parliament, to expiate, with their blood, the crime of fidelity to their king.  Nevertheless, the covenanted nobles would have probably been satisfied with the death of the gallant Rollock, sharer of Montrose’s dangers and glory, of Ogilvy, a youth of eighteen, whose crime was the hereditary feud betwixt his family and Argyle, and of Sir Philip Nisbet, a cavalier of the ancient stamp, had not the pulpits resounded with the cry, that God required the blood of the malignants, to expiate the sins of the people.  “What meaneth,” exclaimed the ministers, in the perverted language of scripture—­“What meaneth, then, this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen?” The appeal to the judgment of Samuel was decisive, and the shambles were instantly opened.  Nathaniel Gordon was brought first to execution.  He lamented the sins of his youth, once more (and probably with greater sincerity) requested absolution from the sentence of excommunication pronounced on account of adultery, and was beheaded 6th January 1646.

[Footnote A:  Spalding, Vol.  II. pp. 151, 154, 169, 181, 221. History of the Family of Gordon, Edin. 1727, Vol.  II. p. 299.]

[Footnote B:  He had sent him a letter, which nigh frightened him out of his wits.—­SPALDING, Vol.  II. p. 231.]

  And brave Harthill, a cavalier too.—­P. 40, v. 5.

Leith, of Harthill, was a determined loyalist, and hated the covenanters, not without reason.  His father, a haughty high-spirited baron, and chief of a clan, happened, in 1639, to sit down in the desk of provost Lesly, in the high kirk of Aberdeen He was disgracefully thrust out by the officers, and, using some threatening language to the provost, was imprisoned, like a felon, for many months, till he became furious, and nearly mad.  Having got free of the shackles, with which he was loaded, he used his liberty by coming to the tolbooth window where he uttered the most violent and horrible threats against Provost Lesly, and the other covenanting magistrates, by whom he had been so severely treated.  Under pretence of this new offence, he was sent to Edinburgh, and lay long in prison there; for, so fierce was his temper, that no one would give surety for his keeping the peace with his enemies, if set at liberty.  At length he was delivered by Montrose, when he made himself master of Edinburgh.—­SPALDING, Vol.  I. pp. 201; 266.  His house of Harthill was dismantled, and miserably pillaged by Forbes of Craigievar, who expelled his wife and children with the most relentless inhumanity.—­Ibid. Vol.  II. p. 225.  Meanwhile, young Harthill was the companion and associate of Nathaniel Gordon, whom he accompanied at plundering the fair of Elgin, and at most of Montrose’s engagements.  He retaliated severely on the covenanters, by ravaging and burning their lands. Ibid. Vol.  II. p. 301.  His fate has escaped my notice.