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unhappy body just now come into this house, I charge him to go out, and not stop my mouth. The man went off, and he insisted; but he saw him neither come in, nor go out.
27. In that bloody year 1685, he came to a house in the shire of Ayr; Captain John Matthison and other twelve of our wanderers being in the house, he said, Lads, ye must go to the fields and seek your beds, for the enemy will be here this night, and I'll go to my cave. They said, Some of us will stay with you, for you will weary alone. No, said he, I will not weary. For a sign that the enemy will be here this night, a godly eminent Christian man, whom I have often heard of, but never saw, will come and lie with me this night. All which came to pass; for the men fled, and he entered the cave, and fell asleep; and a little thereafter the said man coming to the family, asked for Mr. Peden, and desired access to the cave to lie with him When in bed, he found Mr. Peden slumbering, but in a little he awoke, and, naming the man asked how he did? The soldiers came that night, but missed their prey. The next morning, when these said men returned, he said, Lads, it was well I came to this house yesternight, otherwise ye had been among their bloody hands this day.
28. In the said year 1685, he came to Welwood, to Captain John Campbell's, he having escaped out of Canongate-Tolbooth, in the month of August 1684. Being in danger every day, he resolved to go to America, and took farewel of his friends, and went aboard of a ship. Mr. Peden said to his mother, Mistress, what is become of John? She said, He is gone to America. He said, No, no! he is not gone, send for him, for he will never see America. Accordingly it was so; a storm arose, where he was in great danger, but was preserved, and yet alive.
29. Since the publishing, of the former passages of Mr Peden's life and death, I received two letters from Sir Alexander Gordon of Earlstoun, in the year 1725 and 1726, since gone to his grave, shewing that he was not only fully satisfied, but much refreshed, with the passages, requesting me not to delay the publishing of all that I proposed; and that he longed to see them
