in
honour of this supposed saint, and to come forth from their cloisters
with banners, and with censers burning incense, shouting and singing
paternosters in praise of this their Dagon, walking in procession from
kirk to kirk, as if they were celebrating the triumph of some mighty
conqueror.

This annual abomination happening to take place shortly after the
martyrdom of that true saint and gospel preacher Mr George Wishart, and
while kirk and quire were resounding, to the great indignation of all
Christians, with lamentations for the well-earned death of the cruel
Cardinal Beaton, his ravenous persecutor, the monks and friars received
but little homage as they passed along triumphing, though the streets
were, as usual, filled with the multitude to see their fine show. They
suffered, however, no molestation nor contempt till they were passing
the Earl of Angus' house, on the outside stair of which my grandfather,
with some two or three score of other innocent children, was standing;
and even there they might, perhaps, have been suffered to go by
scaithless, but for an accident that befel the bearer of a banner, on
which was depicted a blasphemous type of the Holy Ghost in the shape and
lineaments of a cushy-doo.

It chanced that the bearer of this blazon of iniquity was a particular
fat monk, of an arrogant nature, with the crimson complexion of surfeit
and constipation, who for many causes and reasons was held in greater
aversion than all the rest, especially by the boys, that never lost an
opportunity of making him a scoff and a scorn; and it so fell out, as he
was coming proudly along, turning his Babylonish banner to pleasure the
women at the windows, to whom he kept nodding and winking as he passed,
that his foot slipped and down he fell as it were with a gludder, at
which all the thoughtless innocents on the Earl of Angus' stair set up a
loud shout of triumphant laughter, and from less to more began to hoot
and yell at the whole pageant, and to pelt some of the performers with
unsavoury missiles.

This, by those inordinate ministers of oppression, was deemed a horrible
sacrilege, and the parents of all the poor children were obligated to
give them up to punishment, of which none suffered more than did my
grandfather, who was not only persecuted with stripes till his loins
were black and blue, but cast into a dungeon in the Blackfriars' den,
where for three days and three nights he was allowed no sustenance but