If the doom of the ten catterans was duly executed--and we know nothing to the contrary--they were all, two days after, drawn backwards on a hurdle to the Cross, and there hanged, Gilderoy and John Forbes suffering on a gallows ‘ane degree higher’ than that on which their companions suffered, and further having their heads and right hands struck off for exhibition on the city ports.[70] Gilderoy, as is well known, attained a ballad fame. There is a broadside of the time, containing a lament for him by his mistress, in rude verses not altogether devoid of pathos. She says: ‘My love he was as brave a man As ever Scotland bred, Descended from a Highland clan, A catter to his trade. No woman then or womankind Had ever greater joy Than we two when we lodged alone, I and my Gilderoy.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: 1630.] There is something almost fine in the close of the piece: ‘And now he is in Edinburgh town, ’Twas long ere I came there; They hanged him upon a pin, And he wagged in the air: His relics they were more esteemed Than Hector’s were at Troy-- _I never love to see the face That gazed on Gilderoy_.’ A various version of this doleful ditty appears in _A Collection of Old Ballads_ (London, printed for J. Roberts, &c., 1724). It contains some stanzas not quite consistent with modern taste, and takes such a view of the offences of the hero as might be expected from a woman and a mistress: ‘What kind of cruelty is this, _To hang such handsome men_!’ As it breathed, however, a strain of natural feeling, it attracted the attention of Lady Wardlaw, the authoress of the fine ballad of _Hardiknute_, and by her was put into such an improved form as may be said to have rendered the name of Gilderoy classical. * * * * * [Sidenote: JULY 28.] A petition given in to the Privy Council by the parishioners of Denny, craving assistance to rebuild a bridge which had been carried away by a ‘speat’ of the Carron, stated the circumstances of the accident in terms which illustrate the power of running-water in a remarkable manner. The tempest, it was said, exceeded all that could be remembered, ‘by the violence whereof not only houses, with men, wives, and bairns, were pitifully carried away and drowned, but great craigs and rocks were rent, and huge parts of the same, of forty foot of length and above, carried with the violence of the speat, above four or five pair of butts length from the craig, within the water of Carron, to the dry land.’--_P. C. R._ * * * * * [Sidenote: AUG. 3.]