"Then I am told that Lady Grange is going to London. She knows nothing of _his_ going, nor is it suspected here, nor shall be till the day before he goes off, and so she cannot pretend it is to follow him. She will certainly strive to get access to Lady Mary Wortley, Lady Mar's sister, (whom she openly blesses for her opposition to our friends,) and to all where her malice may prompt her to hope she can do hurt to us. You will remember with what lying impudence she threatened Lord Grange, and many of his friends, with accusations of high treason and other capital crimes, and spoke so loud of her accusing directly by a signed information to Lord Justice-Clerk, that it came to his ears, and she was stopped by hearing he said, that, if the mad woman came to him, he would cause his footmen turn her down stairs. What effect her lies may have, where she is not so well known, and with those who, from opposition to what Lord Grange is about, may think their interest to encourage them, one cannot certainly know; but _if proper measures be not fallen on against it, the creature may prove troublesome_; at any rate, this whole affair will require a great deal of diligence, caution, and address."[24] He talks of her as mad: and so far as passion and the thirst of vengeance make people mad, she undoubtedly was so. He speaks of her intended accusations as lies--that is, of course, a convenient expression to use towards them. But what is very clearly at the bottom of all the trepidation, and doubt, and difficulty, is, that she might be able, mad and false as she was, to get facts established which called up very ugly associations with Tyburn and the Grassmarket. A minute incident stated in the common histories of the affair, that Lady Grange planned a journey to London for the purpose of taking her accusation to the fountain-head of political power, is confirmed by this extract. It may easily be believed that, among Grange's official colleagues--some of whom had also their own secrets to keep--the lady's frantic accusations met with little encouragement. The Justice-Clerk referred to in the extract, Adam Cockburn of Ormiston, was, like Grange himself, a great professed light of the church, and what sort of interview he would have held with the furious lady, may be inferred from the character given of him by a contemporary,--"He became universally hated in Scotland, where they called him the curse of Scotland; and when ladies were at cards, playing the nine of diamonds, commonly called 'the curse of Scotland,' they called it the Justice-Clerk. He was, indeed, of a hot temper, and violent in all his measures."[25]