This vision perplexed me for many days, and when the news came that the King of France was beheaded by the hands of his people, I received, as it were, a token in confirmation of the vision that had been disclosed to me in my sleep, and I preached a discourse on the same, and against the French Revolution, that was thought one of the greatest and soundest sermons that I had ever delivered in my pulpit. On the Monday following, Mr. Cayenne, who had been some time before appointed a justice of the peace, came over from Wheatrig House to the Cross-Keys, where he sent for me and divers other respectable inhabitants of the clachan, and told us that he was to have a sad business, for a warrant was out to bring before him two democratical weaver lads, on a suspicion of high treason. Scarcely were the words uttered when they were brought in, and he began to ask them how they dared to think of dividing, with their liberty and equality of principles, his and every other man’s property in the country. The men answered him in a calm manner, and told him they sought no man’s property, but only their own natural rights; upon which he called them traitors and reformers. They denied they were traitors, but confessed they were reformers, and said they knew not how that should be imputed to them as a fault, for that the greatest men of all times had been reformers,—“Was not,” they said, “our Lord Jesus Christ a reformer?”—“And what the devil did he make of it?” cried Mr. Cayenne, bursting with passion; “Was he not crucified?” I thought, when I heard these words, that the pillars of the earth sank beneath me, and that the roof of the house was carried away in a whirlwind. The drums of my ears crackit, blue starns danced before my sight, and I was fain to leave the house and hie me home to the manse, where I sat down in my study, like a stupified creature, awaiting what would betide. Nothing, however, was found against the weaver lads; but I never from that day could look on Mr. Cayenne as a Christian, though surely he was a true government-man.