It was half-past one o’clock, on as beautiful a 3rd of May as ever burst, in glory and in song, upon the kingdom of Fife, in the year of grace 1679, when Peggy Watson—a girl about fourteen years of age, and daughter to the above-mentioned Andrew—entered her father’s door in a dreadful state of affright. It was some time before the poor girl could be brought to utter any coherent sounds at all; at last, she said that she and Tam Cargill, a neighbour’s boy had been amusing themselves in seeking for birds’ nests on Drumcarrow Craig, when she saw a number of men on horseback gathered round the tall ash tree, at the farm of Magus. By and by, a gentleman’s servant passed them on horseback, and then a fine coach appeared, drawn by six horses. When the coach passed (she said), the men under the tree set off at full gallop after it; and she heard firing, and loud speaking, and saw the coach overtaken, and stopped, and a man dragged out of it, and shot at, and murdered—she was quite sure that he was murdered. Thereupon, Tam Cargill had run off homewards in one direction, and she in another; for she was afraid the dreadful men might look up at Drumcarrow Craig, and murder her and her companion too. This narrative caused a great sensation in the family, and Andrew was at a loss how to understand it; for, although the archbishop’s treachery and cruelty were well known in the country, yet the more immediate object of popular detestation was Mr William Carmichael, sheriff-substitute of Fife, from whose hornings, and finings, and distrainings, and quarterings of a rapacious and sensual soldiery, scarcely any one individual, unconnected with the prelatic faction, had been excepted. Nothing farther occurred till about ten o’clock at night, when all the family had been summoned around a peat-fire, on a sandstone hearth, to family prayers. There were in all ten individuals, comprehending the lad, the lass, six bairns, of whom Peggy was the oldest, with the guidman and the guidwife, worshipping and nursing the youngest bairn at the same time. The dogs, which lay scattered about at their ease and convenience, and which seemed, hitherto, to be enjoying a comfortable repose, suddenly sprang to their legs, and gave tongue vociferously. “Hide me,” ejaculated a young man, stout and square built, and of a somewhat prepossessing appearance. “O conceal me, honest Andrew Watson, for the pursuer is close at my heels!” The Bible was immediately laid aside, and the whole family gathered round the strange intruder in the utmost consternation. “Dear me!” said Andrew Watson, “and what has brought you about our hallen like an ill-doer, at this time o’ the night, and in sic a like manner. I wish ye haena been where ye sudna hae been, Mr George Balfour, my man. Are na the bonny woods o’ Gilston, o’er by there, sufficient to shelter the laird’s son in the hour o’ his difficulty and need?”