The deep sleep into which I had fallen when Sarah Lochrig and my son
were admitted to see me, and during the season of which they had sat in
silence beside me till revived nature again unsealed my eyes, was so
refreshing, that after they were gone away I was enabled to consider my
condition with a composed mind, and free from the heats of passion and
anxiety wherewith I had previously been so greatly tossed. And calling
to mind all that had taken place, and the ruthless revenge with which
the cruel prelates were actuated, I saw, as it were written in a book,
that for my part and conduct I was doomed to die. I felt not, however,
the sense of guilt in my conscience; and I said to myself, that this
sore thing ought not to be, and that, as an innocent man and the head of
a family, I was obligated by all expedient ways to escape, if it were
possible, from the grasps of the tyranny. So from that time, the first
night of my imprisonment, I set myself to devise the means of working
out my deliverance; and I was not long without an encouraging glimmer of
hope.
It seemed to me, that in the piety and simplicity of Willie Sutherland,
instruments were given by which I might break through the walls of my
prison; and accordingly, when he next morning came in to see me, I
failed not to try their edge. I entered into discourse with him, and
told him of many things which I have recorded in this book, and so won
upon his confidence and the singleness of his heart, that he shed tears
of grief at the thought of so many blameless men being ordained to an
untimely end. "It has pleased God," said he, "to make me as it were a
leper and an excommunicant in this world, by the constraints of a low
estate, and without any fault of mine. But for this temporal ignominy,
He will, in His own good time, bestow an exceeding great reward;--and
though I may be called on to fulfil the work of the persecutors, it
shall yet be seen of me, that I will abide by the integrity of my faith,
and that, poor despised hangman as I am, I have a conscience that will
not brook a task of iniquity, whatsoever the laws of man may determine,
or the King's judges decree."
I was, as it were, rebuked by this proud religious declaration, and I
gently inquired how it was that he came to fall into a condition so
rejected of the world.
"Deed, sir," said he, "my tale is easy told. My parents were very poor
needful people in Strathnavar, and no able to keep me; and it happened
that, being cast on the world, I became a herd, and year by year, having
a desire to learn the Lowland tongue, I got in that way as far as
Paisley, where I fell into extreme want and was almost famished; for the
master that I served there being in debt, ran away, by which cause I
lost my penny fee, and was obligated to beg my bread. At that time many
worthy folk in the shire of Renfrew having suffered great molestation
from witchcraft, divers malignant women, suspectit of that black art,
were brought to judgment, and one of them being found guilty, was
condemned to die. But no executioner being in the town, I was engaged,
by the scriptural counsel of some honest men, who quoted to me the text,
'Suffer not a witch to live,' to fulfil the sentence of the law. After
that I bought a Question-book, having a mind to learn to read, that I
might gain some knowledge of THE WORD. Finding, however, the people of
Paisley scorn at my company, so that none would give me a lesson, I came
about five years since to Irvine, where the folk are more charitable;
and here I act the part of an executioner when there is any malefactor
to put to death. But my Bible has instructed me, that I ought not to
execute any save such as deserve to die; so that, if ye should be
condemned, as like is you will be, my conscience will ne'er allow me to
execute you, for I see you are a Christian man."
I was moved with a tender pity by the tale of the simple creature; but a
strong necessity was upon me, and it was needful that I should make use
of his honesty to help me out of prison. So I spoke still more kindly to
him, lamenting my sad estate, and that in the little time I had in all
likelihood to live, the rigour of the jailor would allow but little
intercourse with my family, wishing some compassionate Christian friend
would intercede with him in order that my wife and children, if not
permitted to bide all night, might be allowed to remain with me as long
and as late as possible.
The pious creature said that he would do for me in that respect all in
his power, and that, as Mungo Robeson was a sober man, and aye wanted
to go home early to his family, he would bide in the tolbooth to let out
my wife, though it should be till ten o'clock at night--"for," said he,
piteously, "I hae nae family to care about."
Accordingly, he so set himself, that Mungo Robeson consented to leave
the keys of the tolbooth with him; and for several nights everything was
so managed that he had no reason to suspect what my wife and I were
plotting; for he being of a modest and retiring nature, never spoke to
her when she parted from me, save when she thanked him as he let her
out; and that she did not do every night lest it should grow into a
habit of expectation with him, and cause him to remark when the civility
was omitted.
In the meantime all things being concerted between us, through the mean
of a friend a cart was got in readiness, loaded with seemingly a hogget
of tobacco and grocery wares, but the hogget was empty and loose in the
head.
This was all settled by the nineteenth of December; on the twenty-fourth
of the month the Commissioners appointed to try the Covenanters in the
prisons throughout the shire of Ayr were to open their court at Ayr, and
I was, by all who knew of me, regarded in a manner as a dead man. On the
night of the twentieth, however, shortly before ten o'clock, James
Gottera, our friend, came with the cart in at the town-head port, and in
going down the gait stopped, as had been agreed, to give his beast a
drink at the trough of the cross-well, opposite the tolbooth-stair foot.
When the clock struck ten, the time appointed, I was ready dressed in my
wife's apparel, having, in the course of the day, broken the chain of
the shackle on my arm; and the door being opened by Willie Sutherland in
the usual manner, I came out, holding a napkin to my face and weeping in
sincerity very bitterly, with the thought of what might ensue to Sarah
Lochrig, whom I left behind in my place.
In reverence to my grief the honest man said nothing, but walked by my
side till he had let me out at the outer stair-head door, where he
parted from me, carrying the keys to Mungo Robeson's house, aneath the
tolbooth, while I walked towards James Gottera's cart, and was presently
in the inside of the hogget.
With great presence of mind and a soldierly self-possession, that
venturous friend then drew the horse's head from the trough, and began
to drive it down the street to the town-end port, striving as he did so
to whistle, till he was rebuked for so doing, as I heard, by an old
woman then going home, who said to him that it was a shame to hear such
profanity in Irvine when a martyr doomed to die was lying in the
tolbooth. To the which he replied scoffingly, "that martyr was a new
name for a sworn rebel to king and country,"--words which so kindled the
worthy woman's ire, that she began to ban his prelatic ungodliness to
such a degree that a crowd collected, which made me tremble. For the
people sided with the zealous carlan, and spoke fiercely, threatening to
gar James Gottera ride the stang for his sinfulness in so traducing
persecuted Christians. What might have come to pass is hard to say, had
not Providence been pleased, in that most critical and perilous time, to
cause a foul lum in a thacket house in the Sea-gate to take fire, by
which an alarm was spread that drew off the mob, and allowed James
Gottera to pass without farther molestation out at the town-end port.