Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 10.djvu/355

Rh afterward learned; who all seeing me and my party advancing, hid themselves in a little island on the river, among the broom that grew upon it. Wilson had not the good fortune to escape; for, as he was trying to get out of one copse into another, I met him, and guessing by his good clothes, and by the description I had received of him before, that he was the man I looked for, I seized and brought him to my quarters; and from thence immediately conveyed him to Edinburgh, where he was hanged; but might have preserved his life, if he would have condescended only to say, "God save the king." This he utterly refused to do, and thereby lost not only his life, but likewise an estate worth twenty-nine thousand marks Scots.

For this service, the duke of Queensberry, then high commissioner of Scotland, recommended me to the king, who rewarded me with the gift of Wilson's estate; but, although the grant passed the seals, and the sheriff put me in possession, yet I could neither sell it nor let it; nobody daring, for fear of the rebels, who had escaped at Bothwell bridge, either to purchase or farm it; by which means I never got a penny by the grant; and at the Revolution the land was taken from me and restored to Wilson's heirs.

The winter following, general Dalziel, with a battalion of the earl of Linlithgow's guards, the earl of Airlie's troop of horse, and captain Stuart's troop of dragoons, quartered at Kilmarnock, in the west, fifty miles from Edinburgh. Here the general, one day, happening to look on, while I was exercising the troop of dragoons, asked me, when I had done, whether I knew any one of my men, who was skilful in praying well in the style and tone of the ers?