others who lay hidden in Glen Prossen, and he sought them out. Several of their comrades had been taken in the attempt to cross the Tay, and they urged him to stay with them. He remained seventeen days. They lived in the house of a man Samuel, and ate with him and his family. They had oatmeal bread and water for breakfast, for dinner oatmeal boiled with water, and at supper oatmeal on which they poured boiling water. Frequently detachments of cavalry put in an appearance, and at times they had to take to the hills. Finally they had to go, being no longer safe. His two companions would not face the Tay, and went north. Samuel guided Johnstone to the ferry. They set out at night, riding pillion, and turned the horse loose at daybreak. By the good offices of Mr Graham of Duntroon, he was enabled to cross the Firth of Tay, but it was a near thing. Mr Graham hid him in a clump of broom, and engaged a boat and boatmen for nine o'clock in the evening. As Johnstone approached the ferry the dragoons were leaving it, and he all but walked into them. They had searched the village, and neither by money nor fair words could he induce the boatmen to row him over as arranged. Failing to make anything of them, he turned his attention to the two handsome daughters of the landlady of the inn, who had whispered in his ear that he had nothing to fear in her house, in the hope that they would shame the men into compliance. That also was of no avail, and the exasperated girls declared they would go themselves, which they did, though it was a row of two miles there and two miles back. Johnstone had learned to row in Russia; he took one oar, and the girls by turns the other. They reached the other side about midnight. A distant cousin at at St Andrews was not too pleased to see him, but she gave him a letter to a tenant farmer of her own, stating that he was carrying papers to Edinburgh urgently required in a lawsuit before the courts. The farmer was to furnish a horse, and conduct him to Wemyss on the coast. "I delivered the letter," says Johnstone, " and the answer I received from this brute petrified me. Mrs Spens,' said he, may take her farm from me, and give it to whom she pleases, but she cannot make me profane the Lord's day by giving my horse to one who means to travel upon the Sabbath.'" Here he rails at those who have the name of God constantly in their mouths and hell in their hearts. He was at a loss what to do, but took the road to Wemyss. For long he could not think of any one to turn to in his extremity. Then it came to his recollection that a muchthought-of maid of his mother's had married and settled near Wemyss. Her husband Lillie, he knew, was a rigid Calvinist, but he knew also that if they did not succour him, they would as certainly not betray him.. When he knocked at Lillie's door he was in the last stage of exhaustion. He had been two days and nights without rest. He slept all that night and all the next day. They did their best for him, and Lillie, in his natural desire to get rid of so dangerous a guest, was eager to facilitate his escape, which suited Johnstone well. Mrs Lillie's mother kept a public-house in the village of Wemyss frequented by fishermen, and it seemed likely that she would be acquainted with one willing to do what they wanted. They repaired to her house under cover of darkness. She knew one, but only one, who could be trusted; and he was a violent enemy of the house of Stuart, as the others were. This man, of the name of Salmon, she said, was safe. drink a bottle of beer with them. He had observed that Salmon's was an ale-house. He kept the talk off himself, and the beer going. After an hour of it Salmon said to Lillie, "What a pity that this poor young man should have been debauched and perverted by this worthless rebel crew. He is a fine lad." Lillie said that he heartily repented of what he had done, a remark which Johnstone discreetly pretended not to hear. The good-fellowship engendered goodwill, and they left with the promise of a passage to Leith in Salmon's boat on its return from the fishing. Salmon had only a share in the boat, but he undertook to win over his partners. It was arranged that Johnstone should hide in a cavern on the shore till daylight, and as soon as he saw the fishing boats return he They went to Salmon's. It was to come down to the harwas midnight, but he was up bour and ask at Salmon's boat preparing his nets for the next if they would give him a pasday's fishing. He would not sage for money. Everything be persuaded. "No, Lillie, he went as planned, and Johnapplies to the wrong person stone was about to step into when he comes to me. I will the boat when Salmon's wife do him no harm. I am not appeared on the scene swearcapable of informing against ing and bawling" that she him; he is in perfect safety would not allow her husband in that respect. But he must to go to Leith that day. She not expect that I should ever had her suspicions of Johndo any service to him, or any stone, and expressed them, much other of the accursed race of to his alarm. Glad to get away rebels." Johnstone offered all without being followed, he went the money he possessed, about back to the cavern until he six guineas, but it made no could regain the inn unseen. impression on him. He saw It was tantalising. At that Salmon was an honest Wemyss he was within sight man, and said no more on the of his goal. Only the broad subject, but asked him to estuary of the Forth lay be 66 tween, and that wretched woman had cut off all opportunity of a crossing. But, rather remarkably, another way was opened up, and that on the evening of the day of his disappointment. He thought Lillie's mother-in-law had lost her head, or was about to betray him, when she brought a man to his room and announced him as an officer of customs. The officer soon put him at his ease. He was a Jacobite, though in the pay of King George, and had been in a similar predicament in the year 1715. He in turn brought one Cousselain, sexton to the non-jurors, who was willing to take an oar if another man could be found. Cousselain then took Johnstone to a Mr Robertson at Dubbieside, a village a mile or two farther along the coast, and Mr Robertson advised him to go to Mr Seton of Dubbieside, whose eldest son had been with the Prince's army. Johnstone did not know Mr Seton, but he had been intimate with the son, though unaware that he came from this neighbourhood. He disclosed himself to Mr Seton. His reception was of the coldest, until the son, who was concealed in the house, entered the room and explained that he had been observing him through a hole in the partition, and only that moment had penetrated his disguise. They had taken him for a spy. Johnstone's efforts to obtain a second boatman became known, and on the eighth day VOL. CCXXII.-NO. MCCCXLI. of his stay with the Setons, a fisherwoman selling fish to Miss Seton dropped a friendly warning by way of news. Fearing that the house would be searched, the son left to take refuge elsewhere, and Johnstone resolved at all hazards to attempt a crossing that night. A younger Seton, a youth of eighteen, offered to take an oar with Cousselain, and when all was quiet they set about the launching of Mr Robertson's boat. The noise they made alarmed the villagers, and a cry was raised that a rebel was escaping. They were obliged to desist, and considered themselves fortunate in not being discovered. Against all advice Johnstone decided to try again later, and Cousselain was given money to purchase the refreshment he was in need of. At the hour agreed on Cousselain returned, drunkso drunk that Johnstone stretched him out in the bottom of the boat, which, now that they were without his assistance, was launched quietly. They had to take him. Seton could not bring the boat back by himself. They rowed like galley-slaves, and were like to be swamped, the wind having risen, but Johnstone was, he says, in fear of nothing but the scaffold. An added danger was Cousselain, who, coming out of his drunken stupor, wished to get up, and several times nearly upset the boat. Only by kicking him, and threatening to throw him overboard, could they keep him down. C About six in the morning they landed within a musket-shot of the battlefield of Prestonpans, having been carried eastward by the ebbing of the tide. He had got away just in time. Cousselain was arrested, and the boat burned. Johnstone was too well known in his native city to venture into Edinburgh, but he found an asylum at Leith in the house of his old governess. Then for two months Lady Jane Douglas concealed him at Drumsheugh. While he was there, his late sergeant, the gallant Dickson, hero of Manchester, was hanged. He lay close. Every precaution was observed. None of the servants knew of his being in the house, only the gardener, who was reliable. He was not allowed to wear boots until the household retired for the night, when he went for a walk in the garden. The gardener brought him his meals. Yet the secret leaked out. Johnstone believed the authorities would not dare to search Lady Jane's house, but the risk could not be taken. A plan which had been devised for his greater safety was now put into execution. It emanated from the brain of Lady Jane, who thought that there would be less danger of discovery in London with its large population and so many strangers coming and going. On the road he was to pass as a Scots linen-draper, whose goods had been sent by sea. To sustain the character a stock of handkerchiefs was purchased and a suitable disguise. He put on a black wig, Lady Jane blackened his eyebrows, and with a portmanteau in which the handkerchiefs were packed, he set off mounted on a pony. Only one thing was overlooked. They forgot to tell him the price of the handkerchiefs, and he nearly tripped over this. On the first day he was recognised by an Edinburgh banker, a partisan of the House of Hanover, one capable of giving information, which obliged him to dissemble and deviate from the direct route. On the fourth day he had a still more startling experience. He was passing some covered waggons when he heard his name, and a voice call out, "See, see, if there is not a man on horseback who resembles our rebel captain as much as one drop of water resembles another!" The waggons were filled with soldiers wounded at Culloden, and the man had been in his company, one of those taken prisoner at Prestonpans, who elected to serve. He affected not to hear, and pressed on. An encounter with a highwayman, and the questions of an inquisitive person who overtook him, instigated, he feared, by the soldiers in the waggons, occasioned him some uneasy moments. On the evening of the seventh day he arrived in London. He put up his horse at an Inn in Greek Street as had been arranged, and called on the party who was to provide a private lodging. This person would have nothing to do with him. The landlord of the Inn, he said, being a Scotsman, was suspected by Government, and some of the had procured a passport for waiters were spies who reported the arrival of all who came from Scotland. He passed the night at the inn, anxious and sleepless, and left at an early hour. In a fix, he bethought him of friends made in London six years before. They were not forgetful. He spent his time mostly indoors, and by shunning the places where he was likely to meet his countrymen, he seems never to have been in danger, though he had two grim reminders. On the first occasion, hearing a noise in the street, he looked out, and saw twelve of his former companions in arms being taken to the place of execution. They were of the garrison left behind at Carlisle on the retreat, and he would have been one of them had he not refused to remain when told to do so by the Duke of Perth, declaring that while he was willing to shed the last drop of his blood for Prince Charles, he would never allow allow himself to be marked out as a victim for certain destruction. On the second occasion the landlord of his lodging obligingly offered to find him a place on Tower Hill, from which to see the rebel Scots peers, the Earl of Kilmarnock and Lord Balmerino, beheaded. Johnstone dallied in London, and made no effort to leave the country until Lady Jane Douglas sent him word that she was on her way to the Continent, and, in order that he might escape beyond seas, one servant more than her needs. Through blameworthy dilatoriness and indecision in starting, and coaching delays, he missed Lady Jane at the place appointed, and followed her to Harwich, where he found himself stranded on the wrong side of an arm of the sea, all passage being prohibited after sunset. A frigate was anchored there to see that the order was obeyed, and there was no evading it. His entreaties to the owner of the boats were disregarded. The captain of the frigate, who was drinking in the tavern, overhearing, came, out to question him. Any hesitation would have been fatal. He told a plausible tale, and the captain, saying that he was pleased to be of service to his mistress, took him in the frigate's boat. Scarcely had they left the shore, when he pointed to one of his midshipmen, said his name was Lockhart, and inquired of Johnstone if he knew his family in Scotland. He was a son of Lockhart of Carnwath, and Johnstone as a schoolfellow of his elder brother had frequently been in their house. He began to suspect that Lockhart had recognised him, and mentioned his name to the captain. almost got the better of him. The captain continued to ply him with questions, and when on reaching the ship he was asked aboard to drink the health of his mistress, his fears took definite shape. He saw a sinister meaning in this in His nerves |