woman and a bairn, being the age of 21 years."
She showed herself singularly brave and composed;
"in the whole way, as she went to the
place of execution, she behaved herself so cheerfully,
as if she had been going to her wedding
and not her death. When she came to the
scaffold, and was carried up upon it, she looked
up to the maiden with two longsome looks, for
she had never seen it before." Even when the
terrible moment had really come, and she stood
on the scaffold face to face with death, she
showed no change, nor did her courage falter.
She took a pin out of her mouth to pin the cloth
about her face, and laid her neck "sweetly and
graciously" in the place appointed, "moving to
and fro, till she got a rest for her neck to lay
in." And then the bright steel descended.
The nurse, and "ane hyrid servant," who were
implicated, were burnt that same day; and four
years afterwards, Robert Weir met with his fate,
and was broken alive upon the wheel.

A plentiful crop of wild oats was harvested
all through those early Scottish days; and sternly
tempered was the sickle used to cut them down.
Death was decreed to persons who had suffered
passion to outrun reason, and who loved their
neighbours' wives and daughters more zealously
than prudently. The law had a special statute
for misdemeanors, the very echoes of which
have passed away from the present generation.
"Forestalling and regrating" were among their
severely punished misdemeanors; while shooting
with hagbuts or pistolets, "umbesetting the
highway," and all other forms of violence, were
treated with extreme rigour, and the world was
sought to be purged of its fiery and undutiful
spirits with a zeal to the full as fiery. One
Robert Auchmuttie, "cherurgeane and burges
of Edinburghe," slew James Wachope in single
combat; fairly enough, but illegally. Three
weeks after he was taken, and put in "ward in
tolbuithe of Edinburghe," where his doom was
pretty certain. But the surgeon thought,
wisely enough, that while there was life there
was hope, and that he might fight for it yet; so
"in the maine tyme of his being of ward, he
hang ane clok without the window of the irone
hous, and ane wther within the window thair;
and saying that he wes seik and might not sie
the licht. He had aqua fortis continuallie
seething at the irone window, quhill at last the
irone window was siltine throw; swa spone a
morneing, he causit his prentes boy to attend
quhen the towne-gaird sould haue dessolvit; at
quhilk tyme the boy waitit on, and gaue his
maister ane tokine, that the said gaird wer gone,
be the schaw or waiff of hes hand curche
[handkerchief]. The said Robert hang out a
tow [rope] quairhon he thocht to haue comeit
doune; the said gaird spyit the waiff of the
hand curche; and swa the said Robert was
dissapointit of his intentionne and devyse. On
the 10 day, he was beheidit at the Croce upone
ane scaffolt."

In 1679, Lord Forrester of Corstorphine met
with a tragical end. He was an elderly man, of
strong Presbyterian views; a very pillar of the
Church according to John Knox, and had even
built a meeting-house where the Word could be
read and the doctrine preached in harmony with
these views. But Lord Forrester, though a
pious man, was lax in practice, specially in
one thing, whereon, indeed, men of strained
views are often notoriously loose. For is there
not compensation and the principle of the balance
in all things? A certain Mrs. Nimmo, the
niece of his first wife, and granddaughter of a
former Lord Forrester, stood in delicate relations
with him. She was a violent woman,
and "ordinarily carried a sword beneath her
petticoats," says Lord Fountainhall in his
Diary. She came of a violent stock, too; being
own cousin to a certain Mrs. Bedford, who had
murdered her husband a few years back, after
first dishonouring him. Lady Warriston was
also her ancestress. So her family history
strengthened the force of her family inheritance
of crime and passion. Lord Forrester,
though her lover, did not really love her. It
was one of those cases of chance and  opportunity
in which lies no spirit of wholesome
love. The truth came out one night when
drink had made him talkative and rash. He
called her an ill name or two, and let the world
see his mind so clearly that his companions
had no doubt as to the whole matter. Some
meddler told this passionate woman with the
sword beneath her petticoats, what the Laird
of Corstorphine had said of her, and it scarcely
needed that she should be urged to avenge
herself. She went instantly to Corstorphine, but,
finding he was at the village tavern, sent for
him, desiring him to come to her. He obeyed,
and they met in his own garden. A violent
quarrel was ended by the lady, in a paroxysm
of rage, stabbing her lover to the heart. "He
fell under a tree near the pigeon-house, both
of which still remain, and died immediately.
The lady took refuge in the garret of the castle,
but was discovered by one of her slippers,
which fell through a crevice of the floor."
She, too, was taken "red-handed," like her
ancestress, was brought into Edinburgh, and
was arraigned. She confessed, and two days
afterwards was sentenced to death. She swore
she was about to become a mother, so obtained
a two months' grace, until the judges
might determine whether her assertion was true
or not. During the time, notwithstanding the
special care which John Wan, her jailer, took of
her, "she made her escape on the twenty-ninth
of September, in men's apparel, in the gloaming."
She got as far as Fala Mills, and there
she halted. But destiny and justice were too
strong for her; she was overtaken there, and
brought back to the dreaded Tolbooth, and
that momentary burst of freedom ended in a
stronger guard and a stricter keeping. On the
twelfth of November she was carried to the Cross
at Edinburgh, there to receive the final award:
"She was all in mourning, with a large veil, and
before the laying down of her head, she laid it
off, and put on a whyte taffetie hood, and bared
her shoulders with her own hands, with