Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/155

Rh bitterness; and after ten or eleven strokes in all, and given at considerable intervals, he swooned, and was carried back to prison.

Thus, no crime had been either discovered or confessed, and even according to the barbarous law of torture, it might have been thought that M'Kail should have been set at liberty, as one against whom no offence could be proved. And had he not suffered enough already to satisfy the most vindictive? But such was not the reasoning of the day, and the judges resolved to fall back upon the fact that he had joined the insurgents, and accompanied them to Ayr, Ochiltree, Lanark, and other places. It mattered not to them that he had not been present at the battle of Pentland; it was enough that he would have been there if he could, and therefore must be punished as a convicted traitor for his traitorous intentions. The day after his examination, ten of these unfortunate insurgents were tried and sentenced to execution; and only five days afterwards, other seven were ordered to prepare for trial. It was resolved that among these already foredoomed victims, M'Kail should be impanelled; but the torture he had undergone had thrown him into a fever, accompanied with such debility, that compearance was impossible, and this he represented, while he craved a few days of delay. Nothing could be more natural than his present condition after the treatment he had experienced, or more reasonable than his request; and yet his judges would not be satisfied until they had sent two physicians and two surgeons to examine the patient, and attest, "upon soul and conscience," that his case was as he had stated. Of what did these men think the bones and flesh of Covenanters to be composed, that they could endure so much, and yet recover so quickly? It would be well, we opine, if no judges were to inflict torture, until they had previously tried its effect upon themselves. In this way, William III. adventured upon a taste of the thumbscrew, and declared that under it a man might confess anything.

On the 18th of December, while still a sufferer, M'Kail was brought out to trial. Into this we do not enter more particularly, as it was a matter of daily occurrence in the justiciary proceedings of the period. The answers he gave, and the arguments by which he justified his conduct, were such as his judges cared nothing about; and while he talked of conscience and the Divine law as binding upon every community, they silenced him with the statute-book, and charged him with rebellion. The sentence, which was probably nothing else than he expected, was, that on Saturday, the 20th of December (only two days after), he should be taken to the market-cross of Edinburgh, there to be hanged on a gibbet till dead, and his goods and lands to be escheated for his Highness's use. This was summary work; and three others, who were tried along with him, were sentenced to the same doom. He was then led back to the Tolbooth, the people lamenting him as he passed by, to whom he addressed the words of consolation and comfort, as if they, and not himself, were to suffer. Among others, to some tender-hearted women, who bewailed such an untimely termination of his labours, he said, "Weep not: though I am but young, and in the budding of my hopes and labours in the ministry, I am not to be mourned; for one drop of my blood, through the grace of God, may make more hearts contrite, than many years’ sermons might have done." As the time allowed him to dissolve the affectionate ties of nature was so brief, he requested that his father might be allowed to visit him in prison, which was granted. And of how many such tender yet heroic partings, were the cells of the Tolbooth