enclosed spot within a moderate distance, the leaders of the presbyterian
army had chosen for their council-house. Towards this spot Burley guided
Morton, who was surprised, as he approached it, at the multifarious
confusion of sounds which issued from its precincts. The calm and anxious
gravity which it might be supposed would have presided in councils held
on such important subjects, and at a period so critical, seemed to have
given place to discord wild, and loud uproar, which fell on the ear of
their new ally as an evil augury of their future measures. As they
approached the door, they found it open indeed, but choked up with the
bodies and heads of countrymen, who, though no members of the council,
felt no scruple in intruding themselves upon deliberations in which they
were so deeply interested. By expostulation, by threats, and even by some
degree of violence, Burley, the sternness of whose character maintained a
sort of superiority over these disorderly forces, compelled the intruders
to retire, and, introducing Morton into the cottage, secured the door
behind them against impertinent curiosity. At a less agitating moment,
the young man might have been entertained with the singular scene of
which he now found himself an auditor and a spectator.

The precincts of the gloomy and ruinous hut were enlightened partly by
some furze which blazed on the hearth, the smoke whereof, having no legal
vent, eddied around, and formed over the heads of the assembled council a
clouded canopy, as opake as their metaphysical theology, through which,
like stars through mist, were dimly seen to twinkle a few blinking
candles, or rather rushes dipped in tallow, the property of the poor
owner of the cottage, which were stuck to the walls by patches of wet
clay. This broken and dusky light showed many a countenance elated with
spiritual pride, or rendered dark by fierce enthusiasm; and some whose
anxious, wandering, and uncertain looks, showed they felt themselves
rashly embarked in a cause which they had neither courage nor conduct to