Page:Most remarkable passages in the life of the honourable Colonel James Gardiner.pdf/18

 which he expressed himself in one of his last letters to me, that he had some more important reasons for wishing an opportunity of making a London journey just at that crisis, which, the reader will remember, was before the rebellion broke out.- But, as providence determined it otherwise, he acquiesced; and I am well satisfied, that could he have distinctly forseen the approaching event, so far as it concerned his own person, he would have esteemed it the happiest summons he ever received.

While he was at Scarborough, I find by a letter dated from thence, July 26, 1745, that he had been informed of the gaiety which so unseasonably prevailed at Edinburgh, where great multitudes were then spending their time in balls, assemblies, and other gay amusements, little mindful of the rod of God which was then hanging over them; on which occasion he hath this expression: “I am greatly surprised that the people of Edinburgh should be employed in such foolish diversions, when our situation is at present more melancholy than ever I saw it in my life. But there is one thing which I am very sure of, that comforts me, viz. that it shall go well with the righteous, come what will."

Quickly after his return home, the flame burst out, and his regiment was ordered to Stirling. It was in the castle there that his lady and eldest daughter enjoyed the last happy hours of his company; and I think it was about eight or ten days before his death that he departed from them there. A remarkable circumstance attended that parting, which hath been touched upon by surviving friends in more than one of their letters to me. His lady was so affected when the took her last leave of him, that she could not forbear bursting out into a flood of tears, with other marks of unusual emotion. And when he asked her the reason, she urged the apprehension she had of losing such an invaluable friend, amidst the