He was shot and buried in the moss, where his grave is still shown; but his head and hands were conveyed by Creichton to head-quarters. So perished this enthusiast; but he bequeathed his name to a sect from which the 26th Scottish Regiment of the Line still takes its title of the Cameronians.
With a barbarity worthy of the Sepoy mutineers his head and hands were exhibited to his aged father, then a prisoner in the gloomy Tolbooth of Edinburgh, and tauntingly he was asked, if he knew to whom they had belonged.
"Oh yes," said the old man, as he wept and kissed the bloody relics; "they are my son's—my dear son's—but good is the will of the Lord!"
After this revolting incident, they were fixed to the Netherbow-porte, the eastern gate of Edinburgh.
Captains Bruce and Creichton had also brought with them from Airsmoss the Laird of Rathillet, who had received many wounds in the skirmish. He was personally questioned by Dalyell, who is said to have threatened to roast him, because his answers to certain queries were brief, sullen, and unsatisfactory. Covenanting writers add, that the general refused to permit Hackston's wounds to be dressed, and ordered him to be chained to the floor of his dungeon till he was conveyed to Edinburgh, where he was executed by prolonged tortures with a barbarity that had never been equalled, even in those days.
Among others seized by Dalyell was John Spreul, an apothecary in Glasgow, whom he brought before the Council, and accused of being concerned in the fight at Bothwell. His leg was put in the iron boot, and at each query the headsman gave the wedges five strokes with a mallet. "Dalyell," says Wodrow, "complained that he did not strike strongly enough; upon which, he (the torturer) offered himself the mallet, saying he struck with all his might." Spreul was afterwards imprisoned on the Bass Rock, where he remained for six years.
Amid the many instances of severity attributed to Dalyell, I must not omit to record one of a different kind.
The most celebrated prisoner taken at Bothwell was Captain John Paton, of Meadowhead, who served under Gustavus Adolphus, and had fought at Kilsythe against Montrose, where he had displayed remarkable bravery and skill in the use of his sword. Dalyell was present when this fine old veteran was examined before the Privy Council. On this occasion a soldier had the rudeness to taunt him with being "a rebel."
"Sir," retorted Paton, "I have done more for the King perhaps than you have done—I fought for him at Worcester."