through the keyhole: and in this miserable condition we lay for two months.
My lord Kilsyth's friends were under great apprehensions that I would betray his lordship. But my lord did me the justice to assure them, that I would suffer the worst extremity rather than be guilty of so infamous an action; which, he said, they should find, upon any temptation that might offer. When we had been close confined in our dungeons for two months, we were brought before the council, one by one, to be examined, concerning our knowledge of my lord Kilsyth's intention to carry off the regiment. Levingston and the two Murrays, having not been privy to that design, were able to discover nothing to his lordship's prejudice; and were likewise gentlemen of too much honour, to purchase their liberty with a lie: whereupon they were remanded back to their several dungeons. It was my turn to be next examined; and I was strongly suspected; but notwithstanding my liberty was promised me if I would discover all I knew of the matter, the lord advocate at the same time also urging I must have certainly been privy to it; I positively denied any knowledge of that affair, adding, that I believed my lord Kilsyth had never entertained such a design; or, if he had, that it was altogether improbable his lordship should impart it to me, a poor stranger born in Ireland, and yet keep it a secret from gentlemen of the kingdom, in whom he might much better confide. This I still repeated, and stood to with great firmness, even after I saw the hangman, with the torturing boots[1] stand-
- ↑ This extraordinary species of torture used to be performed by putting a pair of iron boots close on the legs, and driving wedges between the leg and the boot. See Burnet, vol. I, p. 333.
