I slept in that ruinous room in the Bishop's house till far in the morning, when, on going to the window with the intent of dropping myself into the wynd, I saw that it was ordained and required of me to remain where I then was; for the inmates of the houses forenent were all astir at their respective vocations; and at the foot of the wynd, looking straight up, was a change-house, into which there was, even at that early hour, a great resorting of bein elderly citizens for their dram and snap. Moreover, at the head of the wynd, an aged carlin, with a distaff in her arms and a whorl in her hand, sat on a doorstep tending a stand of apples and comfits; so that, to a surety, had I made any attempt to escape by the window, I must have been seen by some one, and laid hold of. I therefore retired back into the obscurity of the chamber, and sat down again on the old kist-lid, to abide the issues that were in reservation for me. I had not, however, been long there, till I heard the voices of persons entering into the next chamber behind where I was sitting, and I soon discerned by their courtesies of speech, that they were Lords of the Privy Council, who had come to walk with the Bishop to the palace, where a council was summoned in sudden haste that morning. The matter whereof they discoursed was not at first easily made out, for they were conversing on it when they entered; but I very soon gathered that it boded no good to the covenanted cause nor to the liberties of Scotland.

"What you remark, Aberdeen," said one, "is very just; man and wife are the same person; and although Queensberry has observed, that the revenue requires the penalties, and that husbands ought to pay for their wives, I look not on the question in that light; for it is not right, in my opinion, that the revenues of the crown should be in any degree dependent on fines and forfeitures. But the presbyterians are a sect whose main principle is rebellion, and it would be happy for the kingdom were the whole race rooted out; indeed I am quite of the Duke of York's opinion, that there will be little peace among us till the Lowlands are made a hunting-field, and therefore am I as earnest as Queensberry that the fines should be enforced."

"Certainly, my Lord Perth," replied Aberdeen, "it is not to be denied, that, what with their Covenants, and Solemn Leagues, and Gospel pretensions, the presbyterians are dangerous and bad subjects; and though I shall not go so far as to say, with the Duke, that the Lowlands should be laid waste, I doubt if there be a loyal subject west the castle of Edinburgh. Still the office which I have the honour to hold does not allow me to put any interpretation on the law different from the terms in which the sense is conceived."

"Then," said Perth, "if there is any doubt about the terms, the law must be altered; for, unless we can effectually crush the presbyterians, the Duke will assuredly have a rough accession. And it is better to strangle the lion in his nonage than to encounter him in his full growth."

"I fear, my Lord," replied the Earl of Aberdeen, "that the presbyterians are stronger already than we are willing to let ourselves believe. The attempt to make them accept the episcopalian establishment has now been made, without intermission, for more than twenty years, and they are even less submissive than they were at the beginning."

"Yes, I confess," said Lord Perth, "that they are most unreasonably stubborn. It is truly melancholy to see what fools many sensible men make of themselves about the forms of worship, especially about those of a religion so ungentlemanly as the presbyterian, which has no respect for the degrees of rank, neither out nor in the church."

"I'm afraid, Perth," replied Aberdeen, laughing, "that what you say is applicable both to the King and his brother; for, between ourselves, I do not think there are two persons in the realm who attach so much importance to forms as they do."

"Not the King, my Lord, not the King!" cried Perth; "Charles is too much a man of the world to trouble himself about any such trifles."

"They are surely not trifles, for they overturned his father's throne, and are shaking his own," replied Aberdeen, emphatically. "Pray, have you heard any thing of Argyle lately?"

"O yes," exclaimed Perth, merrily; "a capital story. He has got in with a rich burgomaster's frow at Amsterdam; and she has guilders anew to indemnify him for the loss of half the Highlands."

"Aye," replied Aberdeen, "I do not like that; for there has been of late a flocking of the presbyterian malcontents to Holland, and the Prince of Orange gives them a better reception than an honest man should do, standing as he does, both with respect to the crown and the Duke. This, take my word for it, Perth, is not a thing to be laughed at."

"All that, Aberdeen, only shows the necessity of exterminating these cursed presbyterians. We shall have no peace in Scotland till they are swept clean away. It is not to be endured that a King shall not rule his own kingdom as he pleases. How would Argyle, and there was no man prouder in his jurisdictions, have liked had his tenants covenanted against him as the presbyterians have so insultingly done against his Majesty's government? Let every man bring the question home to his own business and bosom and the answer will be a short one, Down with the presbyterians!"

While they were thus speaking, and I need not advert to what passed in my breast as I overheard them, Patterson the Bishop of Edinburgh came in; and with many interjections, mingled with wishes for a calm procedure, he told the Lords of our escape. He was indeed, to do him justice, a man of some repute for plausibility, and take him all in all for a prelate, he was, in truth, not void of the charities of human nature, compared with others of his sect.

"Your news," said the Lord Perth to him, "does not surprise me. The societies, as the Cameronians are called, have inserted their roots and feelers every where. Rely upon't, Bishop Patterson, that, unless we chop off the whole connexions of the conspiracy, you can hope neither for homage nor reverence in your appointments."

"I could wish," replied the Bishop, "that some experiment were made of a gentler course than has hitherto been tried. It is now a long time since force was first employed: perhaps, were his Royal Highness to slacken the severities, conformity would lose some of its terrors in the eyes of the misguided presbyterians; at all events, a more lenient policy could do no harm; and if it did no good, it would at least be free from those imputed cruelties, which are supposed to justify the long-continued resistance that has brought the royal authority into such difficulties."

At this juncture of their conversation a gentleman announced, that his master was ready to proceed with them to the palace, and they forthwith retired. Thus did I obtain a glimpse of the inner mind of the Privy Council, by which I clearly saw, that what with those members who satisfied their consciences as to iniquity, because it was made seemingly lawful by human statutes, and what with those who, like Lord Perth, considered the kingdom the King's estate, and the people his tenantry, not the subjects of laws by which he was bound as much as they; together with those others who, like the Bishop, considered mercy and justice as expedients of state policy, that there was no hope for the peace and religious liberties of the presbyterians, merely by resistance; and I, from that time, began to think it was only through the instrumentality of the Prince of Orange, then heir-presumptive to the crown, failing James Stuart, Duke of York, that my vow could be effectually brought to pass.