house from the
time of his marriage to her aunt, Elspa Ruet. And it happened that
Captain Crawford of Jordanhill, who was then meditating his famous
exploit against the castle of Dumbarton, met my grandfather by chance in
the Trongait, and knowing some little of him, and of the great regard in
which he was held by many noblemen, for one of his birth, spoke to him
cordially, and asked him to be of his party, assigning, among other
things, as a motive, that the great adversary of the Reformation, the
Archbishop of St Andrews, had, on account of the doom and outlawry
pronounced upon him, for being accessory both to the murder of King
Henry, the Queen's protestant husband, and of the good Regent Murray,
taken refuge in that redoubtable fortress.

Some concern for the state of his wife and young family weighed with my
grandfather while he was in communion with Jordanhill; but after parting
from him, and going back to the Saracen's inn in the Gallowgait, where
Bailie Kilspinnie and his daughter were, he had an inward urging of the
spirit, moving him to be of the enterprise, on a persuasion, as I have
heard him tell himself, that without he was there something would arise
to balk the undertaking. So he was in consequence troubled in thought,
and held himself aloof from the familiar talk of his friends all the
remainder of the day, wishing that he might be able to overcome the
thirst which Captain Crawford had bred within him to join his company.

Bailie Kilspinnie seeing him in this perplexity of soul, spoke to him as
a friend, and searched to know what had taken possession of him, and my
grandfather, partly moved by his entreaty and partly by the thought of
the great palpable Antichrist of Scotland, who had done the bailie's
fireside such damage and detriment, being in a manner exposed to their
taking, told him what had been propounded by Jordanhill.

"Say you so," cried the bailie, remembering the offence done to his
family, "say you so; and that he is in a girn that wants but a manly
hand to grip him. Body and soul o' me, if the thing's within the power
of the arm of flesh he shall be taken and brought to the wuddy, if the
Lord permits justice to be done within the realm of Scotland."

The which bold and valorous breathing of the honest magistrate of Crail
kindled the smoking yearnings of my grandfather into a bright and
blazing flame, and he replied,--

"Then, sir, if you be so minded, I cannot perforce abide behind,