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 stance would restore their spirit and courage.

Kettledrummle, Poundtext, Macbriar, and other preachers, busied themselves in their ranks, and prevailed on them to raise a psalm. But the superstitious among them observed, as an ill omen, that their song of praise and triumph sunk into "a quaver of consternation," and resembled rather a penitentiary stave sung on the scaffold of a condemned criminal, than the bold strain which had resounded along the wild heath of Loudonhill, in anticipation of that day's victory. The melancholy melody, soon received a rough accompaniment, for the cannon began to fire on one side, and the musketry on both, and the bridge of Bothwell, with the banks adjadent, were involved in wreaths of smoke.