r when there is any malefactor
to put to death. But my Bible has instructed me, that I ought not to
execute any save such as deserve to die; so that, if ye should be
condemned, as like is you will be, my conscience will ne'er allow me to
execute you, for I see you are a Christian man."

I was moved with a tender pity by the tale of the simple creature; but a
strong necessity was upon me, and it was needful that I should make use
of his honesty to help me out of prison. So I spoke still more kindly to
him, lamenting my sad estate, and that in the little time I had in all
likelihood to live, the rigour of the jailor would allow but little
intercourse with my family, wishing some compassionate Christian friend
would intercede with him in order that my wife and children, if not
permitted to bide all night, might be allowed to remain with me as long
and as late as possible.

The pious creature said that he would do for me in that respect all in
his power, and that, as Mungo Robeson was a sober man, and aye wanted
to go home early to his family, he would bide in the tolbooth to let out
my wife, though it should be till ten o'clock at night--"for," said he,
piteously, "I hae nae family to care about."

Accordingly, he so set himself, that Mungo Robeson consented to leave
the keys of the tolbooth with him; and for several nights everything was
so managed that he had no reason to suspect what my wife and I were
plotting; for he being of a modest and retiring nature, never spoke to
her when she parted from me, save when she thanked him as he let her
out; and that she did not do every night lest it should grow into a
habit of expectation with him, and cause him to remark when the civility
was omitted.

In the meantime all things being concerted between us, through the mean
of a friend a cart was got in readiness, loaded with seemingly a hogget
of tobacco and grocery wares, but the hogget was empty and loose in the
head.

This was all settled by the nineteenth of December; on the twenty-fourth
of the month the Commissioners appointed to try the Covenanters in the
prisons throughout the shire of Ayr were to open their court at Ayr, and
I was, by all who knew of me, regarded in a manner as a dead man. On the
night of the twentieth, however, shortly before ten o'clock, James
Gottera, our friend, came with the cart in at the town-head port, and in
going down the gait stopped, as had been agreed, to give his beast a
drink at the t