‘Their captain and I going together to the water-side, [he] said to me: “Sir, you have been happy in surprising us, for if our watchman had advertised us before your entry into the court, but only so long as we might have taken our arms in our hands and gone to the court, we could have killed you all before you had come near us, we being covered from you, and you in an open field to us; or if we had but gone the first to the windows, we could have beaten you out of the court, or killed you all in it.” “Good friend,” said I, “you think you had to do with children; but know that I was a soldier before you could wipe your own nose, and could have ranged my men so by the side of the house wherein you was, that you should not have seen them through the windows, and in that posture kept the door so well that none of you should have come out unkilled, and so kept you within until the country had convened against you. I confess, if you had been masters of the court, and we in open fields, you might have done what you say; but we were not such fools as to lay ourselves wide open to you, being covered from us. If any house had been near us, we could have made a sconce of it to cover ourselves; if none were near us, we could retire in order, and you could not pursue us, unlaid yourselves as open to us as we were to you, and there we should have seen who did best.” [Sidenote: 1639.] ‘In the parish of Birse, these same fellows did call away a prey of cattle, and killed some men who resisted them. Then they went to Craigyvar, and although he was esteemed the most active man in all the name of Forbes, they plundered his tenants, and carried away a prey of cattle, for all that he could do against them. And this I say, to shew that these Highlanders were active and stout fellows, and that, consequently, it was God, and not I with sixteen boys, that did put them out of the lands of that pious and devout lady, whom he did protect, and would not suffer to be oppressed. And to shew that it was he himself, and none other, he made choice of weak and unfit instruments; to wit, a poor priest, who made no profession of arms, unless charity, as at this time, or his own just defence obliged him to it, and sixteen boys, who had never been at such play before, to whom he gave on this occasion both resolution and courage, and to me better conduct than could have proceeded from my simple spirit, without his particular inspiration; to whom I render, as I should, with unfeigned submission, all the glory of that action.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: (NOV.?)]