love and charity to you all. And thus briefly I have exonerated my conscience." Once more the ministers pressed round him, proffering the remission of his spiritual sentence if he would confess his sins against the Church and the Covenant. Once more he answered that he could not accept it on those terms, but desired their prayers. They bid him pray for himself if he would; they would make no intercession for a man who died under the ban of the Church. One of these misguided creatures did not scruple to call him a faggot of hell, which his prophetic eye could already see in flames. Montrose made no reply, but bent his head in silent prayer, covering his face with his hat and raising one hand to heaven. As the executioner then approached to tie round his neck the copies of his declaration and the memoirs of his campaigns, Montrose gave the man a few pieces of gold, saying that he was even more proud of such a collar of merit than when the King had sent him the Garter. Only when his arms were pinioned did he show any signs of displeasure; but he contented himself with asking if they had any more compliments to bestow on him, as he was anxious to lose no honour during the short time left to him on earth. He then climbed the huge ladder with a steady foot and a countenance that had assumed its wonted serenity. "May God have mercy on this afflicted kingdom," he cried with a loud voice, and then moved his arms for the signal. The hangman burst into tears as he thrust him off the step, and as the body swung slowly out into the air, a universal sob of pity broke from all that vast crowd. The inhuman sentence was carried through in all its details, and the dismembered trunk was placed in a rude shell and thrust into the common earth below the gallows on the Borough Moor. A pretty story, which there is no reason to discredit, tells how a few nights later the grave was secretly opened, and that heroic heart removed, embalmed, and carried to Lady Napier. For the strange adventures of this precious relic, how it was lost to the family, found, and lost again, there is no room here; the curious will find them fully described in the elaborate and interesting work to which these pages already owe so much.[27] * * * * *