Here is a story from the other side. In 1681 the Earl of Argyll was committed to the Castle for declining the oath required by the Test Act. On the 12th December he was condemned to death and on the 20th he learned that his execution was imminent. Lady Sophia Lindsay of Balcarres, his daughter-in-law, comes, it was given out, to bid him a last farewell; there is a hurried change of garments in the prison, and presently Argyll emerges as lacquey bearing her long train. At the critical moment the sentinel roughly grasped him by the arm. Those Scots dames had the nerve of iron and resource without parallel. The lady pulled the train out of his hand into the mud, slashed him across the face with it till he was all smudged over, and rated him soundly for stupidity. The soldier laughed, the lady entered the coach, the fugitive jumped on the footboard behind, and so away into the darkness and liberty of a December night. Ere long he was safe in Holland, and she was just as safe in the Tolbooth, for even that age would give her no other punishment than a brief confinement. Perhaps more stoical fortitude was required in the Lady Graden’s case. She was sister-in-law to Baillie of Jerviswood. At his trial in 1684 for treason she kept up his strength from time to time with cordials, for he was struck with mortal sickness; she walked with him, as he was carried along the High Street, to the place of execution at the Cross. He pointed out to her Warriston’s window (long since removed from the totally altered close of that name), and told of the high talk he had engaged in with her father, who had himself gone that same dread way some twenty years before. She “saw him all quartered, and took away every piece and wrapped it up in some linen cloth with more than masculine courage.” So says Lauder of Fountainhall, who had been one of the Crown counsel at the trial. Even as children the women of that time were brave and devoted. Grizel Hume, daughter of Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth, when a child of twelve was sent by her father from the country to Edinburgh to take important messages to Baillie as he lay in prison. A hard task for a child of those years, but she went through it safely; perhaps it was no harder than conveying food at the dead of night to the family vault in Polwarth Churchyard where her father was concealed. When visiting the prison she became acquainted with the son and namesake of Jerviswood: they were afterwards married. The memories of the Hon. George Baillie of Jerviswood and of his wife the Lady Grizel Baillie are preserved for us in an exquisite monograph by their daughter, Lady Grizel Murray of Stanhope. The name of a distinguished statesman is often for his own age merely, but the authoress of a popular song has a surer title to fame. In one of his last years in Dumfries, Burns quoted Lady Grizel Baillie’s “And werena my heart licht I wad dee” to a young friend who noted the coldness with which the townsfolk then regarded him.