When those who had been appointed to search the house came before him, and gave in their report, among other things, they said they had found as much bread new baked, and mutton newly cooked, as would be a reasonable allowance for an hundred men for at least one whole day. Clavers remarked, that in a family so few in number, this was proof positive that others were supported from that house. “But we shall disappoint the whigs of one hearty meal,” added he; and with that he ordered the meat to be brought all out and set down upon the green—bid his troopers eat as much as they could—feed their horses with the bread which they left, and either destroy the remainder of the victuals or carry them away. It was in vain that Walter told him the honest truth, that the food was provided solely for himself and his soldiers, as he knew they were to come by that road, either on that day or the one following; nay, though all the family avouched it, as they well might, he only remarked, with a look of the utmost malignity, that “he never in his life knew a whig who had not a d‑‑d lie ready on his tongue, or some kind of equivocation to save his stinking life, but that they must necessarily all be taught who they were dealing with.” He then made them all swear that they were to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and to utter the most horrid imprecations on themselves and their souls for ever, if they deviated in one single item; and beginning with old John, as before related, he examined them all separately and out of hearing of one another. The interrogations and answers are much too long to be inserted here at full length; but the only new circumstances that came to light were these two. One of the young men deponed, that, when the bodies of the soldiers were found in the Hope, their muskets were all loaded, which showed that they had not fallen in a regular skirmish; and the other boy swore, that he had lately seen eighty large thick bannocks baked in one day in his father’s house, for that he had counted them three times over as they stood cooling. This was another suspicious circumstance, and Clavers determined to search it to the bottom. He sifted the two youths backward and forward, trying to get the secret out of them by every wile in his power; and because they were unable to give him any satisfactory account who consumed all that store of bread, he caused his dragoons to take hold of the youngest and gird his head with a cord, twisting it with a horse pistol, until in some places it cut him to the skull. The eldest he hung up to the beam by the thumbs until he fainted through insufferable pain; but he could get nothing more out of them, for they had at first told him all that they knew, being quite unconscious of any evil.