so I contented myself with denying all
knowledge of Sir James Maxwell and of
the other gentlemen. The council,
however, held that the charge was proven; one
member thereof taking it upon himself to
say that, even if it were not proven, I was
a false traitor, and ought to be hanged,
drawn, and quartered. I was told to prepare
myself for execution, to be first hanged, and
afterwards beheaded, at ten of the clock on
the morning of the next day, the twelfth of
November.

I made no reply to the sentence, and
was taken back to the Tolbooth, where I
earnestly endeavoured to prepare myself
for death. All the events of my past life
passed before my mind, and with a firm
reliance on my Redeemer, I looked Death
steadily in the face, and feared him not.
I loved my life as much as most men
do, especially those who have such
tender ties to link them to it as I had and
have, yet I can truly say that even in those
bitter moments preceding that which I
believed was to be my last I was not afraid.
When I heard the hour of ten boom from
the Tron church I was ready for my fate.
But no one came to summon me forth to
die, and, much to my distress and amazement,
not perhaps altogether unmingled
with hope, I remained until evening in
ignorance of the fact that my execution
had been postponed for a week. The week
passed over, drearily and wearily, and again
the execution of my sentence was deferred.
I sometimes thought that my persecutors
desired to make me taste the bitterness
of death, not once only, but many times;
and that their seeming mercy was but
malice and cruelty. During many miserable
months I fully expected that every
hour would be my last, though when,
even through my prison walls, there came,
in February, 1685, the tidings that the
treacherous Charles Stuart had gone to
his account, and been succeeded by his
papist brother, the Duke of York, I began
to entertain an idea that my life would be
spared. It appeared to me that the new
king would not commence his reign by
bloodshed, and that I and other prisoners
condemned to death would be set free. But
these hopes were vain, and no word of
relief or rescue came to my prison door.

Calamities worse even than death were
in store for me and my fellow-prisoners.
Tidings arrived in Edinburgh of the rising
of the Duke of Monmouth in England, and
of the landing in the West of Scotland of
the Earl of Argyll. It was early in May when
this champion of the Covenant appeared on
the shores of Lorn and Kantyre, and there
being fears that he might be well supported
by the people, and advance upon Edinburgh,
all the prisoners of the Covenant, to the
number of nearly two hundred and fifty,
of whom I was one, were marched in the
dead of night, handcuffed two by two, and
escorted by cavalry as far as Leith, where
we were all put on board of a vessel waiting
to receive us, and were landed at Burntisland,
in Fife. On arrival, we were all crowded
into a prison consisting of two small rooms of
about twenty feet square, or less, where we
remained three days, suffering intolerable
agonies for want of air and water, and for
want of space to lie down and die in, which
many of us would have been glad to do.
Many of the unhappy company were
suffocated, and died standing; being removed
by the guards on duty, they left a little
additional room for the wretched
survivors. On the fourth day, all who
remained of us—and it seemed, though I
could never exactly tell, that our numbers
were diminished by about seventy souls—
were shipped from Burntisland, still chained
two by two, to the Castle of Dunottar, on
the wild sea coast of Kincardineshire. In
this gloomy prison, that had many vaults
and dungeons, we were divided into smaller
gangs or companies, so that whatever death
we might die, we should not die for want
of space and air. I and twenty-four
others were confined in the great vault,
that had a high grated window overlooking
the sea. We were told on entering,
by the officer in command, a savage and
hairy Highlander, named M'Dougall, who
could speak but little English, that we were
all under sentence of death, and might be
executed any morning, without further
notification than a word from him. I had
within the last few months heard the like
threat so often, that I had ceased to look
upon death as a foe to be feared.

We had lain in this place about a
fortnight, when I suggested to my
companions a plan of escape. Having often
been hoisted on the shoulders of Allan
Leslie, the strongest and tallest man
among us, to the one grated window
of the dungeon, to breathe the fresh air,
I discovered about ten feet underneath it,
a narrow ledge of the rock on which the
castle was built; and I made up my mind
that if we could reach this ledge we
might, by careful walking and climbing,
both up and down, reach the sea shore. I
communicated my idea to the rest, and it
was agreed to twist such parts of our
clothing—we had no bedding—as we could