The prior and the horsemen, who had set out from St. Andrews, arrived a little later at Dundee, and, alighting from their horses, began to search for Alesius. He was nowhere to be found; the vessel had already cleared the port. The prior, enraged to find that his prey had escaped him, must needs vent his wrath on some one. ‘It is you,’ said he to a citizen well known for his attachment to the Reformation, ‘it is you who furnished the canon with the means of escape.’ This man denied the charge, and then the provost or mayor, Sir James Scrymgeour of Dornlope, avowed to the prior that he would with all his heart have provided a vessel for Alesius; and, he added, ‘I would have given him the necessary funds for the purpose of rescuing him from the perils to which your cruelty exposed him.’ The Scrymgeours, whose chief was the provost of Dundee, formed a numerous and powerful family, connected with several other noble houses of the realm. They were not the only family among the aristocracy which was favorable to the Gospel; several illustrious houses had from the first welcomed the Reformation--the Kirkaldys and the Melvilles of Fifeshire, the Scrymgeours and the Erskines of Angus, the Forresters and Sandilands of Stirlingshire and the Lothians, and others besides. The prior, who had not at all looked for such a remonstrance as he had just received, went back, annoyed and furious, to St. Andrews. While the ship on which Alesius had embarked sailed towards France, the refugee felt his own weakness, and found strength in the Lord. ‘O God,’ said he, ‘thou dost put the oil of thy compassion only into the vessel of a steadfast and filial trust.[157] I must assuredly have gone down to the gates of hell unless all my hope had been in thy mercy alone.’ The ship had not long been on her way when a westerly wind, blowing violently, carried her eastward, drove her into the Sound, and made it necessary to go ashore at Malmoe, in Sweden, in order to refit her. Alesius was very lovingly welcomed there by the Scots who had settled in the town.[158] At length he reached France, traversed part of the coast of that kingdom,[159] then betook himself to Cologne, where he was favorably received by archbishop Hermann, count of Wied. CHAPTER VII. CONFESSORS OF THE GOSPEL AND MARTYRS ARE MULTIPLIED IN SCOTLAND. (END OF 1531 TO 1534.)