CHAPTER III--THE MARCH OF THE REBELS.
'Stay, passenger, take notice what thou reads, At Edinburgh lie our bodies, here our heads; Our right hands stood at Lanark, these we want, Because with them we signed the Covenant.' _Epitaph on a Tombstone at Hamilton_.

{93} On Friday the 16th, Bailie Irvine of Dumfries came to the Council at Edinburgh, and gave information concerning this 'horrid rebellion.' In the absence of Rothes, Sharpe presided--much to the wrath of some members; and as he imagined his own safety endangered, his measures were most energetic.

Dalzell was ordered away to the West, the guards round the city were doubled, officers and soldiers were forced to take the oath of allegiance, and all lodgers were commanded to give in their names.
Sharpe, surrounded with all these guards and precautions, trembled--trembled as he trembled when the avengers of blood drew him from his chariot on Magus Muir,--for he knew how he had sold his trust, how he had betrayed his charge, and he felt that against him must their chiefest hatred be directed, against him their direst thunder-bolts be forged.

But even in his fear the apostate Presbyterian was unrelenting, unpityingly harsh; he published in his manifesto no promise of pardon, no inducement to submission.

He said, 'If you submit not you must die,' but never added, 'If you submit you may live!' {94a} Meantime the insurgents proceeded on their way.