While there he received a letter purporting to be written by his friend the laird of Kynneir, who being sick desired him to come to him.[335] It was a trick of the cardinal. Sixty armed horsemen were lying in wait behind a hill to take him prisoner. He set out unsuspecting, but when he had gone some distance, he suddenly stopped in the midst of the friends who were accompanying him and seemed absorbed in deep musing. Then he turned and went back. What mean you?’ said his friends, wondering. ‘I will go no further,’ he replied: ‘I am forbidden of God. I am assured there is treason.’ Pointing to the hill he added, ‘Let some of you go to yon place, and tell me what they find.’ These brave men reported with all speed what they saw. ‘I know,’ said he, ‘that I shall end my life in that bloodthirsty man’s hands, but it will not be of this manner.’ Shortly after, he set out for Edinburgh in spite of the entreaties of the laird of Dundee, and went to lodge at Innergowrie at the house of a Christian man named James Watson. A little after midnight two men of good credit who were in the house, William Spalding and John Watson, heard him open his door and go down stairs. They followed him secretly, and saw him go into the garden and walk for some time up and down an alley. Wishart, persuaded that he was drawing near to his end, and thinking of the horrors of martyrdom and of his own weakness, was greatly agitated and felt the need of calling upon God that he might not fail in the midst of the conflict. He was heard sighing and groaning, and just as day began to dawn, he was seen to fall on his knees and afterwards on his face. For a whole hour his two friends heard confused sounds of his prayer, interrupted now and then by his tears. At length he seemed to grow quiet and to have found rest for his soul. He rose and went quietly back to his chamber. In the morning his anxious friends began to ask him where he had been. He evaded the question. ‘Be plain with us,’ they said, ‘for we heard your groans, yea, we heard your mourning, and saw you both upon your knees and upon your face.’--‘I had rather ye had been in your beds,’ said he, ‘for I was scarce well occupied.’ And as they urged him, he spoke to them of his approaching death and of his need of God’s help. They were much saddened and wept. Wishart said to them--‘God shall send you comfort after me. This realm shall be illuminated with the light of Christ’s Evangel as clearly as ever was any realm since the days of the apostles. The house of God shall be built into it: yea, it shall not want, whatsoever the enemy imagine to the contrary, the very cape-stone’ [top-stone].[336] Meaning, adds Knox, that the house of God should there be brought to full perfection. Wishart went on--‘Neither shall this be long to; there shall not many suffer after me, till that the glory of God shall evidently appear and shall once triumph in despite of Satan. But alas! if the people shall be afterwards