16
him: 1. He should get a great fall from a horse. 2. He should fall in adultery. 3. Into theft: and for this he should leave the land. 4. Make a melancholy end abroad for murder. Which accordingly came to pass. There was one Murdoch, a mason to his trade, but then in the military service, who first put hands to his corpse. A little before his death he said, Ye shall be angry where I shall be buried at last, but I discharge you all, to lift my corpse again. At last, one morning early, he came to the door, and left his cave; his brother's wife said, Where are you going? the enemy will be here. He said, I know that. Alas! Sir, said she, what will become of you? You must go back to the cave again. He said, I have done with that, for it is discovered: but there is no matter, for, within forty eight hours, I will be beyond the reach of all the devil's temptations, and his instruments, in hell or on the earth; and they shall trouble me no more. About three hours after he entered the house, the enemy came and found him not in the cave; then they searched the barn narrowly, casting the unthreshen corn; and searched the house, stabbing the beds, but entered not into the place where he lay. Whithin 48 hours he died, Jan. 28, 1686: being past 60 years, and was buried in Laird Afflect’s isle. The enemies got notice of his death and burial, and sent a troop of dragoons, and lifted his corpse, and carried him to Cumnock gallows-foot, and buried him there (after being forty days in the grave) beside others. His friends thereafter, laid on a grave stone above him with this inscription.
