Part 50 (2/2)
WILLIAM AUCHMUTIE, another of this black gang, riding with the rest of his party to Couper 1679, and espying that young excellent gentleman, young Aiton of Inchdarnie riding at some distance, brake off from the rest full speed after him; and, though he was his relation, he shot two b.a.l.l.s through his body, without ever asking him one question, and so left him. And though he came again and asked forgiveness of him when dying which he readily granted with some advice, yet the justice and judgment of G.o.d seemed not to be satisfied; for in two or three years after, he died under the terrible agonies of an awakened conscience for the foresaid fact, and so launched to eternity.--_Wodrow_.
ANDREW DALZIEL, a c.o.c.ker or fowler, but a debauchee. While Mr. Cameron was preaching in a house in a stormy day near c.u.mnock, cried out, ”Sir, we neither know you nor your G.o.d.” To whom Mr. Cameron said, ”You and all who know not my G.o.d in mercy, shall know him in his judgments, which shall be sudden, and surprising upon you, &c.” Accordingly in a few days being in perfect health, he vomited his very heart's blood in the vessel wherein he had taken his breakfast plentifully, and so expired in a most frightful manner.--_Walk. remarks_.
JOHN SPIER a wicked wretch inlisted himself under major Balfour; and, amongst other pieces of his persecuting work, he apprehended Mr. Boyd (then a student) in Glasgow. A little after being ordered to stand centinel at the Stable-green Port, he must needs to be sure, get up upon the battlement of the Port, upon which he fell over, and broke his neck bone and so ended his wretched life.--_Wodrow_.
JOHN ANDERSON, indweller in Glasgow, in the year 1684, was amongst others prevailed upon to take that h.e.l.l-hatched test upon his knee. Not long after he took a running issue in his left hand and knee. And though we are not to be too peremptory in drawing conclusions of this kind, yet we may relate what this poor man's apprehensions of the causes of this disease were. The disease still increasing, he still cried out, ”This is the hand I lifted up, and this is the knee I bowed to take the test.” And in a few days after he died in great horror of conscience.--_Wodrow_.
WILLIAM MUIRHEAD vintner there, on his taking said test, rising from his knees said to the administrator, ”Now you have forced me to take the test on my knees, and I have not bowed my knee to G.o.d in my family these seven years.” And though a rude wicked man, yet his conscience got up, and next Sabbath he was suddenly seized with bodily illness, and in that condition died.--_Wodrow_.
WILLIAM SPALDIE in Glasgow, a third, who there took and subscribed the test, in a little after fell under great remorse of conscience for taking that self contradictory test. At length he sickened. Some people having come to visit him, endeavoured to comfort him; but he utterly refused every thing of this nature; and when desired to consider the extensive greatness of the mercy of G.o.d in Christ, he said, ”Speak not of mercy to me. I have appealed to G.o.d and attested him to judge me, and he will do it. I have sealed and signed my condemnation with mine own hand, &c.” And so he died in great distress.--_Wodrow_.
JOHN FRAM in Loudon parish, was once a most zealous professor and in fellows.h.i.+p with John Richmond the martyr, yet to save his life, foully apostatized not only from the cause of Christ, but also was one of these who witnessed him to death. After which he became a bankrupt, and fled to Ireland; where it was said that he (who would not hang for religion) was there hanged for stealing of horses.
JOHN PATERSON, another of the same society, who witnessed him also to death, went from one thing to another, till he took the clap or French-pox, and died at Edinburgh miserable.
JOHN LOUDON and John Connel of the same society, and who acted the same part, were reduced to beggary afterwards.--_Cloud_ &c.
PATRICK INGLES, son to Captain Ingles, with a party in May 1685, surprized ten or twelve men at a night meeting for prayer at Little Blackwood, (Kilmarnock parish) took ten prisoners, and shot James White, cut off his head with an ax, and carried it to New-milns, where one of them played with it for a foot-ball. Ingles procured a warrant to shoot the rest, had they not in the mean time been relieved by the country.
Whether it was Patrick himself or one of the dragoons I cannot say, but it is said, he who used the martyrs head thus, being got up unto the top of the garrison house there, a little after when easing him over the battlement, fell backward over the wall, and broke his neck, which ended a wicked life by a miserable ignominious death.--_Crookshanks, Appendix, A--d, R--n_.
WILLIAM SMITH in Moor-mailing, (Shots parish) with his brother when returning home from Pentland, William stepped aside to a neighbour's house when near home upon a certain errand; but not coming out soon, his brother went to see for him. But when going past the window, he had a glance of two men and a woman standing round his brother, and a spit run through his throat: this made him flee for his life. William was not to be found, and as things then went, his brother durst make no inquiry after him. Near thirty years after, sometime after the revolution, he was found in a clift of a moss, standing as if he had been put down wanting the head. His brother came upon the first notice, and not minding the situation, grasped him in his arms: upon which he crumbled all down to dust. Which remains they gathered up and buried, upon which a stone was erected with a motto, which is to be seen to this day.--But let us hear what became of these murderers. One of the men, it is said, died in great horror of conscience, and would have discovered the fact, had not his brother and sister accomplices thrust a napkin into his mouth, and so he expired. Some time after, the other brother being abroad, was got lying dead upon the way in drink as was supposed. Last of all, the woman hanged herself, and was buried in two or three laird's grounds clandestinely, but still raised by orders of the proprietors; till being wearied, the buriers threw her carcase into an old coal-pit, and so the tragical story ended.--_A--d R--n_.
The Earl of Argyle, and others, made an attempt 1685, and though their quarrel was not altogether stated according to the antient plea of the Scottish covenanters; yet they came to rescue the nations from popery, slavery and b.l.o.o.d.y persecution; but being broke, and several of his officers and men taken, the gallant col. R----d Rumbol of Rye-house fled westward, and would it is thought have extricated himself of the enemy, had not a number of cruel country men risen, and (after a gallant resistance) taken him, west from Lismahagow, in the head of Dalsyrf or Gla.s.sford parish. Nay, it is said, they were so cruel that, while defending himself against three in number, having turned his horse with his back to a stone gavel, one of them came with a corn fork and put it behind his ear, and turned off his head-piece; to whom he said, ”O cruel country man! that used me thus, when my face was to mine enemy.”
However, he was by them taken to Edinburgh, and from the bar to the scaffold, drawn up on a gibbet, then let down a little, and his heart taken out by the executioner while alive, and held out on the point of a bayonet, and then thrown into a fire; his body quartered, and placed on the public places of the nation.--But let us hear what became of these ungrateful wretches, who thus used and apprehended him who had ventured his life to deliver them from cruel bondage. Few of them died a natural death.
Mark Ker, one of the princ.i.p.al actors, and who was said to wound him after he was taken, and who it is said got his sword, was afterwards killed on a summer evening at his own door, (or run through by the same sword), by two young men who called themselves col. Rumbol's sons, and who, it is said, went off without so much as a dog's moving his tongue against them, &c.
George Mair, being abroad, when returning, wandered and fell over Craignethen craigs, got some of his limbs broke, and stuck in a thicket, and when found next day was speechless, and so died in that condition.
One ---- Wilson was killed by the fall of a loft. Another in Hamilton (commonly called the long lad of the Nethertoun) got his leg broken, which no physician could cure, and so corrupted that scarce any person for the stink could come near him, &c.
---- Weir of Birkwood fell from his horse, and was killed; and his son not many years ago, was killed by a fall down a stair in drink after a dregy.
Gavin Hamilton who got his buff coat, (out of which Rumbol's blood could by no means be washed) lived a good while after a wicked and vicious life, yet his name and memorial is become extinct, and the place of his habitation is razed out, and become a plain field.--_M. S._
But what needs more?--Examples of this kind are numerous. G.o.d has provided us with his wonderful works, both in mercy and judgment, to be _had in everlasting remembrance_,--that their ends may be answered, and that they may serve for a memorial of instruction and admonition to those _on whom the end of the world is come_.
_The Lord is by the judgments known which he himself hath wrought: The sinners hands do make the snares wherewith themselves are caught._
_N. B._ To the foregoing prodigies of wickedness, I intended to have added a number of examples of the same nature in England and elsewhere under the auspices of popery; but the Scots Worthies having swelled so far above expectation, to which this behoved to go as an Appendix as proposed, I was not only obliged to desist from my intended design in this, but even to contract or abridge my former transcript of these historical hints and omit several practical observations thereon, which might have been useful, or at least entertaining to the reader.--At the same time the reader is to observe, That all the authors are not named from whence they are collected, but only the most princ.i.p.al; nor are they to expect every circ.u.mstance in any one of these quoted in every example; for what is omitted by one author is observed by another; which rendered the knitting of such distant authors and variety of materials into such a small composition, a matter of some difficulty.
_FINIS._
FOOTNOTES
[266] For this see the conclusion of the general meeting at Blackgannoch, March 7, 1688, and last conclusion of the general meeting at Crawford John, April 21, 1697, and second conclusion of the general meeting at Carntable, Oct. 29, 1701. but what of this was done, cannot now be found.
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