[47] It is exceedingly remarkable that the greater part of the Author of “Waverley’s” prototypes were natives of this district.
[48] “19th January, 1595, the young Earl of Montrose fought a combat with Sir James Sandilands, at the salt trone of Edinburgh, thinking to have revenged the slaughter of his cousin, Mr. John Graham, who was slain with the shot of a pistol, and four of his men slain with swords.”—Birrel’s Diary, p. 34.
[49] It was reported that Montrose, while a child, swallowed a toad, by the command and direction of his mother, in order to render himself invulnerable. As Mr. Sharpe says, in his amusing work, “Law’s Memorialls,” he swallowed in after-life something worse,—the Covenant.
[50] Wood’s Peerage, vol. ii.
[51] “The Muse’s Threnodie.”
[52] Stewart’s “Sketches of the Highlands,” vol. ii.
[53] “Border Minstrelsy,” vol. iii.
[54] Wishart.
[55] A covenanted minister, present at the execution of these gentlemen, observed,—“This wark gaes bonnily on!”[A] an amiable exclamation, equivalent to the modern ça ira, so often used on similar occasions.
[A] Wishart, “Memoirs of Montrose.”