burgh. It is said that king Charles the Second, hearing of Williamson's behaviour in lady Cherrytree's house, wished to see the man that discovered so much vigour while his troopers were in search of him: and in a merry way, declared, that when he was in the royal oak, he could not have kissed the bonniest lass in Christendom. Some time after this, Thomas Dalziel, general of the forces in Scotland, an excellent soldier, who had been taken prisoner at the famous battle of Worcester, and sent prisoner to the tower, escaping from thence into Muscovy, was made general to the czar: and returning home, after the Restoration, was preferred, by the king, to be general of the forces in Scotland; in which post he continued till his death, which happened a little before the Revolution. This general commanded fifty of the foot-guards, with an ensign, to accompany me, and to follow my directions, in the pursuit of a notorious rebel, one Adam Stobow, a farmer in Fife, near Culross. This fellow had gone through the west, endeavouring to stir up sedition in the people, by his great skill in canting and praying. There had been several parties sent out after him, before I and my men undertook the business; but they could never discover him. We reached Culross at night, where I directed the ensign and all the men to secure three or four rebels, who were in the place, while I, with two or three of the soldiers to assist me, went to Stobow's house, about a mile and a half from Culross, by break of day, for fear some of his friends might give him notice. Before I got to the house, I observed a kiln in the way, which I ordered to be searched, because I found there a heap of straw in the passage, up to the kiln pot. There I found Stobow lurking lurking, and carried him to Culross, although his daughter offered me a hundred dollars to let him go. We returned immediately to the general at Edinburgh, with Stobow and the prisoners taken by the ensign at Culross. They continued a while in confinement, but Stobow, at his trial, found friends enough to save his life, and was only banished; yet he returned home a year after, and proved as troublesome and seditious as ever, till, at the fight at Bothwell bridge, it was thought he was killed, for he was never heard of afterward. During the time I was in the guards, about two years after the affair of mas David Williamson, at the lady Cherrytree's, I was quartered with a party at Bathgate, which is a small village, twelve miles from Edinburgh. One Sunday morning, by break of day, I and my comrade, a gallant highland gentleman, of the name of Grant, went out disguised in gray coats and bonnets, in search after some conventicle. We travelled on foot, eight or ten miles into the wild mountains, where we spied three fellows on the top of a hill, whom we conjectured to stand their as spies, to give intelligence to a conventicle, when any of the king's troopers should happen to come that way. There they stood, with long poles in there hands, till I and my friend came pretty near, and then they turned to go down the hill: when we observed this, we took a little compass, and came up with them on the other side; whereupon they stood still, leaning on their poles. Then I bounced forward upon one of them, and suddenly snatched the pole out of his hand, asked him why he carried such a pole on the Lord's day, and at the same time knocked him down with it. My comrade immediately seized on the second, and laid him flat by a gripe of his hair; but the third took to his heels, and ran down the hill. However, having left my friend to guard the two former, I overtook the last, and felled him likewise: but the place being steep, the violence with which I ran carried me a good way down the hill, before I could recover myself after the stroke I had given; and by the time I could get up again to the place where he lay, the rogue had got on his feet, and was fumbling for a side pistol, that hung at his belt, under his upper coat; which as soon as I observed, I fetched him to the ground a second time with the pole, and seized on his pistol; then leading him up to the other two, I desired my friend to examine their pockets, and see whether they carried any powder or ball; but we found none. We then led our prisoners down the hill, at the foot of which there was a bog, and on the other side a man sitting on a rock; when we advanced near him, leaving our prisoners in the keeping of my friend, I ran up toward the man, who fled down on the other side, As soon as I had reached the top of the rock, there appeared a great number of people assembled in a glen, to hear the preaching of mas John King, as I understood afterward; whose voice was so loud, that it reached the ears of those who were at the greatest distance, which could not, I think, be less than a quarter of a mile; they all standing before him, and the wind favouring the strength of his lungs. When my friend had brought the three prisoners to the top of the rock, where I waited for him, they all broke loose, and ran down to the conventicle; but my friend advancing within about forty yards of that rabble, commanded them in his majesty's name to depart to their own homes. Whereupon about forty of their number, with poles in their hands, drew out from the rest, and advanced against us two, who had the courage, or rather the temerity, to face so great a company, which could not be fewer than a thousand. As this party of theirs was preparing with their long poles to attack me and my friend, it happened very luckily, that a fine gelding, saddled and bridled, with a pillion likewise upon him, came up near us in search of better grass; I caught the horse, and immediately mounted him, which the rest of the conventiclers observing, they broke up, and followed as fast as they could, some on horseback, and the rest on foot, to prevent me from going off with the horse; but I put him to the gallop, and suffering him to choose his own way through the mountain, which was full of bogs and hags, got out of reach. My friend kept up with me as long as he could, but having run a mile through such difficult places, he was quite spent, and the conventiclers hard at his heels; whereupon he called to me for assistance, and I alighting put him upon the horse, bidding him to make the best of his way to the laird of Poddishaw's about two miles off. By this time we saw twelve covenanters on horseback, who advanced toward us by a shorter cut, and blocked up a gap, through which we were of necessity to pass. I undertook to clear the gap for my friend, and running toward the rogues, with my broad sword and pistol, soon forced them to open to the right and left: my comrade got through, and was pursued a good way; but he so laid about him, with his broad sword, that the pursuers, being unarmed, durst not seize him. In the mean time, I, who was left on foot, kept the covenanters, who followed me, at a proper proper distance; but they pelted me with clods, which I sometimes returned, till at last, after chasing me above a mile, they saw a party of troopers in red, passing by, at some distance; and then they gave over their pursuit. The troopers observing my friend galloping and pursued, imagined he was some fanatick preacher, till they came to an old woman on a hill, whom my friend had desired to deny his being gone that way; upon which they went off to their quarters, and he got safe to Poddishaw's, whither I soon after arrived. The laird of Poddishaw had been that day at church; from whence, returning with the laird of Pocammock, who lived about a mile off, they both wondered how the horse got thither: for Pocammock was the owner of the horse, and his lady had rode on it that day to the conventicle, without her husband's knowledge, having been seduced thither by some fanatick neighbours, for she had never been at their meetings before. My friend and I acquainted the two lairds of the whole adventure of that day: and after dinner, Pocammock requested to let him have the horse home, thereby to stifle any reflection his lady might bring upon him, or herself, by going to a conventicle; he likewise invited us to dine next day at his house, where the horse should again be delivered to me, as justly forfeited by the folly of his wife. We went accordingly with the laird of Poddishaw, and dined at Pocammock's where the horse was ordered to be led out into the court, in the same accoutrements as I found him the day before: but observing the lady in tears, I told her, that if she would give me her promise never to go to a conventicle conventicle again, I would bestow her the horse, and conceal what had passed; she readily |