The court at Edinburgh was crowded on the trial of the state prisoners, particularly of those who had been concerned in the rescue at Enterkin. There Lauderdale sat, after an evening's debauch, with his long hair hanging uncombed about his shoulders and over his brow; with his waistcoat unbuttoned towards the bottom; his face round, swollen, red, and fiery, and his eyes swimming in every cruel and unhallowed imagining. Poor Mary Maxwell, trembling, weak, and worn out with travelling on foot, was placed at the bar, and M'Kenzie, the king's advocate, proceeded against her. Her indictment was in the usual style. She was accused of harbouring nonconformists; of intercommuning with outlaws; of conspiring and aiding in the hellish rescue at Enterkin, where murder had been committed; and in continuing, after all due warning, to hold intercourse with the king's enemies. But the proof of all this was somewhat deficient; and even in these awful times, such was the respect for public opinion, that the court durst not, in the absence of some direct evidence, pronounce sentence of death. She, as well as William M'Dougal, against whom there was still less evidence, were remitted to Dunnottar Castle--of which march and unheard-of misery we have already told the tale--and were to have been exported thence, in due time, to America; but mercy and King William intercepted the cruel sentence: and William M'Dougal and Mary Maxwell were permitted to return to their native glen in peace. The M'Dougals of Glenross are sprung from this root, and still continue a respected name in the valley. VI.--THE FATAL MISTAKE. Old Elspeth Wallace lived, at the time of which I am about to speak, in a sequestered spot in the Parish of Dalry, in the district of Carrick, Ayrshire. She was a widow woman, but not in indigent circumstances. Through the kindness of the family of Cassilis, she had a cow's grass, a small croft, a pickle barley, which, in due time, and under the usual process, was converted into small drink, or tippenny, as it was called in those days. "Wi' tippeny," says Burns, "I fear nae evil."