from the spot, and they said, ‘You are crazy, it cannot be so.’ ‘It is so. Go and see.’ They went and found the two men. One of them said, ‘I am Simm, from Greenlaw.’ The murderer ran thirty miles that night, to Berwick. The whole country was quickly roused, and next day he was arrested and carried to the Jedburgh jail He was tried and condemned to die on the spot where the fearful crime was committed. Thousands came to witness the execution. I was in that crowd. At a turn of the road I was within a few feet of him, and such a haggard face I never saw. It haunted me for many a year. When on the scaffold, he in a loud voice that was heard by thousands prayed for mercy,—that he might be delivered from bloodguiltiness,—prayed for the widows whom he had made widows, and for the children whom he had made fatherless. I never heard such earnest pleading, and I never forgot it.
“The poor man had been visited by several clergymen, one of whom preached from the text, ‘It is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief.’ This made a deep impression on his mind, and he was hopefully converted. The lesson I learned from Rob Scott’s sad story never has been forgotten. I dreaded the taste, or even the touch, of the insidious poison, and long before I had even heard of a temperance society I labored to save my young friends from the use of ardent spirits. After I entered into business in New York, many of the Scottish immigrants on landing called on me, and I used to urge them to sign at once the temperance pledge, and many of them did so. Others declined, and alas! many went to the drunkard’s grave.”
