Having set down the lamp on the floor, he came in a very reverential manner towards where I was sitting, with my right hand fettered to the ground, between Sarah Lochrig and Michael our son, and he said, with a remarkable and gentle simplicity of voice, in the Highland accent, that he had been requested by a righteous woman, Provost Reid's wife, to bring me a bottle of cordial wine and some little matters that I might require for bodily consolation.
"It's that godly creature, Willie Sutherland, the hangman," said my wife. "Though Providence has dealt hardly with him, poor man, in this life, every body says he has gotten arles of a servitude in glory hereafter."
When he had placed the basket at the knees of Michael, he retired to a corner of the room, and stood in the shadow, with his face turned towards the wall, saying, "I'm concern't that it's no in my power to leave you to yoursels till Mungo Robeson come back, for he has lockit me in, but I'll no hearken to what ye may say;" and there was a modesty of manner in the way that he said this, which made me think it not possible he could be of so base a vocation as the public executioner, and I whispered my opinion of him to Sarah Lochrig. It was, however, the case; and verily in the life and conduct of that simple and pious man there was a manifestation of the truth, that to him whom the Lord favours it signifieth not whatsoever his earthly condition may be.
After I had partaken with my wife and son of some refreshment which they had brought with them, and tasted of the wine that Provost Reid's lady had sent, we heard the bolts of the door drawn, and the clanking of keys, at which Willie Sutherland came forward from the corner where he had stood during the whole time, and lifting the lamp from the floor, and wetting his fore-finger with spittle as he did so, he trimmed the wick, and said, "The time's come when a' persons not prisoners must depart forth the tolbooth for the night; but, Master Gilhaize, be none discomforted thereat, your wife and your little one will come back in the morning, and your lot is a lot of pleasure; for is it not written in the book of Ecclesiastes, fourth and eighth, 'There is one alone, and there is not a second; yea, he hath neither child nor brother?' and such an one am I."
The inner door was thrown open, and Mungo Robeson, looking in, said, "I wae to molest you, but ye'll hae to come out, Mrs Gilhaize." So that night we were separated; and when Sarah Lochrig was gone, I could not but offer thanksgiving that my lines had fallen in so pleasant a place, compared with the fate of my poor brother, suffering among strangers in the doleful prison of Glasgow, under the ravenous eyes of the prelate of that city, then scarcely less hungry for the bodies of the faithful and the true, than even the apostate James Sharp himself.
CHAPTER LXII
The deep sleep into which I had fallen when Sarah Lochrig and my son were admitted to see me, and during the season of which they had sat in silence beside me till revived nature again unsealed my eyes, was so refreshing, that after they were gone away I was enabled to consider my condition with a composed mind, and free from the heats of passion and anxiety wherewith I had previously been so greatly tossed. And calling to mind all that had taken place, and the ruthless revenge with which the cruel prelates were actuated, I saw, as it were written in a book, that for my part and conduct I was doomed to die. I felt not, however, the sense of guilt in my conscience; and I said to myself, that this sore thing ought not to be, and that, as an innocent man and the head of a family, I was obligated by all expedient ways to escape, if it were possible, from the grasps of the tyranny. So from that time, the first night of my imprisonment, I set myself to devise the means of working out my deliverance; and I was not long without an encouraging glimmer of hope.
It seemed to me, that in the piety and simplicity of Willie Sutherland, instruments were given by which I might break through the walls of my prison; and accordingly, when he next morning came in to see me, I failed not to try their edge. I entered into discourse with him, and told him of many things which I have recorded in this book, and so won upon his confidence and the singleness of his heart, that he shed tears of grief at the thought of so many blameless men being ordained to an untimely end. "It has pleased God," said he, "to make me as it were a leper and an excommunicant in this world, by the constraints of a low estate, and without any fault of mine. But for this temporal ignominy, He will, in His own good time, bestow an exceeding great reward;—and though I may be called on to fulfil the work of the persecutors, it shall yet be seen of me, that I will abide by the integrity of my faith, and that, poor despised hangman as I am, I have a conscience that will not brook a task of iniquity, whatsoever the laws of man may determine, or the King's judges decree."