Page:History of John M'Pherson, Dick Balf, and Gilder Roy.pdf/22



22                  him, could not find him, Gilder Roy ha- ving slipped away unperceived. This turned all the laughter against the king, which made him his confiderate. Gilder Roy next proceeded to Spain, and went, upon a day of public enter- tainment, to the duke of Medina Cæli's                  house where seeing a trunk of plate ready for the servants to attend their lord with; he dressed himself in a Spanish habit like the steward of the house, and desiring the servants to sit off the trunk, carried it away. By this time thinking that all the noise was over about him in his own country, Gilder Roy resolved to go to Scotland a-                  gain, where he soon become as notori- ous a highwayman as ever was in the country before. He robbed the Earl of                  Linlithgow of a gold watch, a diamond ring, and eighty guineas. He at length became so terrible that people were a-                  fraid to travel. When he wanted mon- ey, he would go into the north and drive away the cattle, unless the inhabitants paid him contribution, which most of                  them did quarterly. One time meeting with Oliver Crom- well and two servants on the road to