"When she was coming to the place of execution," saith Robert Lindesay in his Chronicle, "thair gathered an hudge multitud of people, and especiallie of vomen, cursing her for being so unhappie as to committ such damnable deidis; to whom she turned with an ireful countenance, saying—
"'Whairfoir chyde ye me, as if I had committed an unworthie act? Give me credence and trow me, if ye had experience of eating of mens and womens flesch, ye wald think it so delitious, that ye wald never forbear it agane!'
"So without any signe of repentance," concludes the historian, "this vnhappie traitour deid in the sight of the people."
Her ashes, with those of her terrible parents, were scattered on the waters of the Tay; and a black whin-stone in the causewayed market-place long remained to indicate the spot where they perished. Hew Borthwick was the child whom the priest saved: hence it was that he shuddered to pass through the central street of Dundee. The good old prebend, who had given him his own name, reared him for the Church, in the hope that through his piety and prayers the atrocious lives of his parents might in some measure be atoned for; but Hew broke his vows, and came forth into the world, to fulfil the terrible mission for which fate seemed to destine him.
The people of Dundee and Angus knew not that he was the rescued child of the terrible Ewain Gavelrigg, the ogre of the Sidlaws: for the secret was known only to the prebends of Dunblane; and animated either by pity for the wretch himself, or a sense of shame that their holy cloister had once been desecrated by his presence, they locked the secret in their own breasts,—unfortunately, we may add, for many of the actors in our drama, and most unfortunately indeed for the whole of Scotland, as the event proved.
An hour's walk along the rough and shingly beach brought Hew Borthwick to the gates of Broughty, the strong walls of which, when occupied by a gallant garrison, twice defied the Regent Arran with eight pieces of cannon and eight thousand infantry. The barbican, with its flanking towers and strong curtain wall was then well mounted by heavy culverins of yetlan iron, to sweep the river; but the smaller guns, which faced the salt marshes on the north, and the links of Moniefieth on the east, were composed of iron rings, enclosing malleable iron bars. Like other royal castles, it was garrisoned by a company of the king's Wageours, as the people named the enlisted soldiers of those military bands by which James III., at a time when standing armies were unknown, with a foresight far in advance of his age, provided for the security of the kingdom; especially towards the frontier of England.
Thus, in addition to the troops in the five great fortresses of the Lowlands, and to five hundred soldiers maintained in Berwick until its loss and betrayal by the Duke of Albany, James, with consent of his Parliament, made the Laird of Glengilt captain of a hundred archers and lances, who kept the castles of Blackadder, Hume, and Wedderburn; the Laird of Edmeston commanded as many royal archers and lances in the castles of Cessford, Ormiston, and Edgerston; the Laird of Cranston, a hundred lances and archers, in the Border Peels of Jedburgh, Cocklaw, and Dolphinton; the Laird of Lamington had a hundred troopers under his orders in Hermitage; the Laird of Amisfield a hundred more in Castlemilk, Bellistower, and Annan. In Broughty, Kyneff had fifty archers, and fifty pikemen. All these troops, like the arquebussiers of the king's ships, were uniformly clad; the horsemen in steel jacks, and the infantry in blue surcoats, having St. Andrew's white cross upon the back and breast; under all these captains were lieutenants, who received from the exchequer, as the daily pay of their soldiers, eleven shillings and sixpence for every spear and bow. This organization was one of the many wise measures taken by this good king to ensure the safety of his southern frontier; but such a permanent force, however small, was eminently obnoxious to the feudal nobles.
The sentinels at the gate of Broughty, who knew that Borthwick, though a sorner and blackleg, was a dependent or follower of their captain, admitted him at once, and he was conducted up a bare stone staircase, through the large bleak and ill-furnished hall of the great tower, to an apartment, which was hung with arras, that had once displayed bright stripes of alternate crimson and gold, now faded to rusty green and sombre brown. A straw mat covered the stone floor; the furniture consisted of a buffet, encumbered by flasks, bowls, and drinking horns, swords, poniards, cards, chessmen, hawks' hoods, dog-whips, and a hundred other et-cetera, covered by dust; four clumsy armchairs, as many tripod stools, and an oak table, at which Sir James Shaw and Sir Patrick Gray were drinking the cheap Bordeaux wine which was then brought in by the Eastern Seas.
"Ho, ho! speak of the devil!"—said Gray, as Borthwick entered; "welcome! thou art the very man we have been wishing for," he added, kicking a stool towards him unceremoniously with his foot; "close the door and drop the arras, for we have something to talk of that others may not, must not, hear."
"The king's intended banquet to the nobles at Edinburgh?"