The noise of taking up my brother and Esau Wardrop to the tolbooth by the soldiers bred a great wonderment in the town, and the magistrates came into the prison to see them. Then it was that they recognised their friendly adviser among those in authority. But he signified by winking to them that they should not know him; to which they comported themselves so, that it passed as he could have wished.

"Provost," said he to the chief magistrate, who was then present with them, "though thir honest men be concerned in a fret against the King's government, they're no just iniquitous malefactors, and therefore it behoves us, for the little time they are to bide here, to deal compassionately with them. This is a damp and cauld place. I'm sure we might gi'e them the use of the council-chamber, and direk a bit spunk o' fire to be kindl't. It's, ye ken, but for this night they are to be in our aught; and their crime, ye ken, provost, was mair o' the judgment than the heart, and therefore we should think how we are a' prone to do evil."

By this sort of petitionary exhorting that worthy man carried his point, and the provost consented that the prisoners should be removed to the council-chamber, where he directed a fire to be lighted for their solace.

"Noo, honest men," said their friend the deacon, when he was taking leave of them, after seeing them in the council-room, "I hope you'll make yoursels as comfortable as men in your situation can reasonably be; and look ye," said he to my brother, "if the wind should rise, and the smoke no vent sae weel as ye could wis, which is sometimes the case in blowy weather when the door's shut, just open a wee bit jinkie o' this window," and he gave him a squeeze on the arm—"it looks into my yard. Heh! but it's weel mindet, the bar on my back-yett's in the want o' reparation—I maun see til't the morn."

There was no difficulty in reading the whumplet meaning of this couthiness anent the reeking o' the chamber; and my brother and Esau, when the door was locket on them for the night, soon found it expedient to open the window, and next morning the kind counsellor had more occasion than ever to get the bar o' his back-yett repaired; for it had yielded to the grip of the prisoners, who, long afore day, were far beyond the eye and jurisdiction of the magistrates of Paisley.

They took the straight road to Kilmarnock, intending, if possible, to hide themselves among some of my brother Jacob's wife's friends in that town. He had himself been dead some short time before; but in the course of their journey, in eschewing the high-road as much as possible, they found a good friend in a cottar who lived on the edge of the Mearns moor, and with him they were persuaded to bide till the day of that night when we met in so remarkable a manner on the sands of Ardrossan; and the cause that brought him there was one of the severest trials to which he had yet been exposed, as I shall now rehearse.

James Greig, the kind cottar who sheltered them for the better part of three weeks, was but a poor man, and two additional inmates consumed the meal which he had laid in for himself and his wife, so that he was obligated to apply twice for the loan of some from a neighbour, which caused a suspicion to arise in that neighbour's mind; and he being loose-tongued, and a talking man, let out what he thought in a public at Kilmarnock, in presence of some one connected with the soldiers then quartered in the Dean-castle. A party, in consequence, had that morning been sent out to search for them; but the thoughtless man who had done the ill was seized with a remorse of conscience for his folly, and came in time to advise them to flee; but not so much in time as to prevent them from being seen by the soldiers, who no sooner discovered them than they pursued them. What became of Esau Wardrop was never known; he was no doubt shot in his flight; but my brother was more fortunate, for he kept so far before those who in particular pursued him, that, although they kept him in view, they could not overtake him.

Running in this way for life and liberty, he came to a house on the road-side, inhabited by a lanerly woman, and the door being open he darted in, passing through to the yard behind, where he found himself in an enclosed place, out of which he saw no other means of escape but through a ditch full of water. The depth of it at the time he did not think of, but plunging in, he found himself up to the chin; at that moment he heard the soldiers at hand; so the thought struck him to remain where he was, and to go under a bramble-bush that overhung the water. By this means he was so effectually concealed, that the soldiers, losing sight of him, wreaked their anger and disappointment on the poor woman, dragging her with them to the Dean-castle, where they threw her into the dungeon, in the darkness of which she perished, as was afterwards well known through all that country-side.

After escaping from the ditch, my brother turned his course more northerly, and had closed his day of suffering on Kilbride-hill, where, drawn by his affections to seek some knowledge of his wife and daughter, he had resolved to risk himself as near as possible to Quharist that night; and coming along with the shower on his back, which blew so strong in our faces, he saw us by the glimpses of the tempestuous moonlight as we were approaching, and had denned himself on the road-side till we should pass, being fearful we might prove enemies. Some accidental lament or complaint, uttered unconsciously by me, made him, however, think he knew the voice, and moved thereby, he started up, and had just joined us when he was discovered in so awakening a manner.

Thus came my brother and I to meet after the raid of Pentland; and having heard from me all that he could reasonably hope for, regarding the most valued casket of his affections, he came along with Mr Witherspoon; and we were next morning safely ferried over into the wee Cumbrae, by James Plowter the ferryman, to whom we were both well known.

There was then only a herd's house on the island; but there could be no truer or kinder Christians than the herd and his wife. We staid with them till far in the year, hearing often, through James Plowter, of our friends; and above all the joyous news, in little more than a week after our landing, of Sarah Lochrig having been permitted to leave the tolbooth of Irvine, without further dule than a reproof from Provost Reid, that had more in it of commendation than reproach.