to his own fighting days; and he was rather inclined to consider the
generals as lukewarm, than to join in the general indignation at their
atrocious conduct.

"Even the sufferings of the Protestants did not seem to affect him. The
Lord's work, he said, cannot be carried on without victims. It horrified
me to hear him talk. If this was the religion of our fathers, I was fast
coming to the conclusion that it was little better than no religion at
all.

"I think my father and mother saw it in the same light, and the breach
between them and my grandfather daily widened. But I have not told you
the worst, yet. A party of cavalry rode up the other day, and were about,
as usual, to seize upon some cattle. My father was out, and my
grandfather stepped forward and asked them 'how they could lay it to
their consciences to plunder Protestants when, a mile or two away, there
were Catholics lording it over the soil--Catholics whose husbands and
sons were fighting in the ranks of the army of James Stuart?'

"I was in the house with my mother, but we heard what was said; and she
whispered to me to slip out behind, and find my father, and tell him what
was being done. I made off; but before I had gone a quarter of a mile, I
saw the soldiers riding off towards the castle, with my grandfather
riding at their head. I was not long in finding my father, who at once
called the men off from their work, and sent them off in all directions
to raise the country; and in an hour two hundred men, armed with any
weapon they could snatch up, were marching towards the castle, my father
at their head. There were Catholics and Protestants among them--the
latter had come at my father's bidding, the former of their own free
will.