One Alexander Stewart, calling himself professor of physic,[128] travelled about the country, picking up a scanty livelihood by the exercise of his art, but also beholden in part for his subsistence to the kindness of friends. He had lived in this way twenty years, without any fixed habitation of his own, and it chanced in the summer of this year that he had to travel from the house of his brother, the minister of Rothesay, to St Johnston, ‘hoping to have had some residence there in the exercise of his calling,’ when he was seized as ‘an intelligencer and seminary priest,’ carried to Edinburgh, and imprisoned in the Tolbooth. He was under the necessity of petitioning the Estates, setting forth his innocency of all offence against kirk or state, and shewing that he had already cleared himself before the presbytery of St Johnston, ‘who could find nothing of that kind against him;’ yet he was suffered to lie ‘miserably in prison, destitute of all help.’ The Estates, having apparently ascertained that a mistake had been made in the seizure of this poor mediciner, ordered his liberation. * * * * * This was a year of extreme dearth. Wheat was at seventeen pounds Scots per boll; oats, twelve pounds; and other grains in proportion. Owing, also, to the coldness and dryness of the spring, the herbage and hay proved deficient, and cheese and butter consequently attained high prices--the former three, and the latter six pounds per stone. ‘In the beginning of June, the parliament licensed Englishmen to buy and transport oxen, kine, sheep of all sorts, likewise horses and colts; which was one of the most hurtful acts could be made to ruin Scotland, and advance the designs of the enemies thereof; bestial of all sorts being at so high a rate these four years past in this country, and flesh in the common markets scarce buyable but at very exorbitant rates; the like has not been seen in this kingdom heretofore since it was a nation.’--_Bal._ The luxuries of life were correspondingly dear at this time: the best ale, 3s. 4d. (3-1/3d. sterling); sack wine, 36s.; and French wine, 16s. per pint. * * * * * [Sidenote: AUG.] ‘About Lammas and afterwards, in many parts of this kingdom, both among bear and oats, there were seen a great number of creeping things--which was not ordinar--which remained in the head of the stalk of corn, at the root of the pickle.’--_Lam._ * * * * * ‘About Lammas ... there was a star seen by many people of Edinburgh, betwixt twelve and two hours of the day, even when the sun shined most bright; which was taken for a comet, and a forerunner of the troubles that followed.’--_C. P. H._ [Sidenote: 1649.] No such comet is noted by astronomers, the only two in the first half of the seventeenth century being in 1607 and 1618. It was probably a star of high magnitude, or planet rendered visible by some extraordinary state of the atmosphere.