[Illustration:  Andrew Hislop’s martyrdom.

Andrew Hislop was but a youth when he suffered death for Christ’s Crown and Covenant.  He was taken while crossing a field, and sentenced to die on the spot.  He bravely faced the guns that were levelled at his brow.  Many, other boys of that period were equally heroic.  Four of them, who were captured in a group, replied thus to their captors, when told that they must be shot:  “We are to die, you say?  Glorious news!  Christ is no worse than He promised.”]

“Will it hurt much, Janet?” said a little boy, as he clasped the hand of his sister.

“I dinna ken, Willie,” replied the sister tenderly, “but I’m sure it will na last lang.”

“Fire!” shouted the officer.  The terrible volley flashed from every gun.  Some of the children dropped, thinking they had been shot.  The soldiers had been told to shoot over their heads to frighten and not kill.  The officer, outmatched by the brave children, and we hope heartily ashamed of himself, led his men away.  As they rode off, the children sang: 

    “The Lord’s my shepherd; I’ll not want;
      He makes me down to lie
    In pastures green; He leadeth me
      The quiet waters by.”

Their sweet voices mingled with the dying clatter of the horses’ hoofs.

The young bridegroom and his bride were also involved in hardships that tried their souls.  The soldiers that raided the country had equal disregard for old age, youth, and infancy.  The mother, whether surrounded by a houseful of children, or clasping her first infant on her bosom, found no pity.  One morning the dragoons surrounded the house of a happy couple, John and Sarah Gibson.  They had come to seize both, whether to kill or imprison was not yet determined.  John was absent; Sarah, seeing the troopers gallop toward the house, poured a prayer over her babe, as it lay asleep in the crib, and fled in terror, hoping that sweet infancy would appeal to their hearts.  A ruffian rushed in, and grasping the babe, shouted, “The nurse is not far away.”  He made it scream, to bring the mother back.  She heard its pitiful cry; her heart was breaking, yet she was utterly powerless.  She might expose herself, but she could not help the infant.  They carried it away.  She was almost insane with grief.  The soldiers, going back from the house, met the father, but he was not identified.  They, being bewildered on the moor, compelled him to be their guide.  He saw the child, but did not recognize it as his own.  The officer, ashamed of the cruel deed, ordered the man who had carried off the babe to take it back to the house.  He galloped off and laid it again in the crib.  The mother quickly clasped it to her bosom.  That night the father returned.  Telling of his adventures, he mentioned the babe he had seen with the soldiers.  The mother, bursting into tears, arose and laying the infant in his arms said, “This is the babe you saw.”