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After this, in the beginning of May, the Gibbites were all taken by a troop of Dragoons at the Wool-hill-craigs, betwixt Lothian and Tweeddale, a very desart place: The enemies carried them to Edinburgh; the four men put in the Canongate-tolbooth, and the twenty-six women in the Correction-house, and some of them scourged; but, as their friends had money, they were all set at liberty. The greater part of them came to their right mind, after they had tasted of the bitter fruits of these delusions, with whom I have since had edifying conversation.
The Duke of York being in Edinburgh, he and all other enemies rejoiced at all these strange things, and gave large money to thesefour men; for which they wrote a most blasphemous paper to Yorke, copies of which are yet in the hands of some. In a little time they were all liberate. These four men, with Isabel Brown, and another woman, whose name I have forgot, went rest to the Frost Moss, betwixt Airth and Stirling, where they burnt the Holy Bibles, as they had exclaimed against the Psalms in metre, and contents of the Bible, as human inventions. Every one of the had something to say, when they threw their Bibles in the fire. John Gibb said, He did that out of despite against God. The night before that horrid action of burning the Bible, Walter Kerr and John Young prayed all night in that moss, and a light shining about them. Shortly after this Walter Kerr turned mad, and was for some time bound in Torphichen, where he was born. He came to his right mind again, and went to Clyde, a mile beneath Lanark, to the house of Robert and Elizabeth Bruce, two old solid, serious Christians, both my acquaintances, who got a hearty smack of the sweetness of the gospel, in that good day, at the Kirk of Shots, where he served two years, and deeply mourned, both night and day, for what he had done; and wrote thirty-eight steps thereof. He sometimes said, if there were Christian Magistrates in the land, he would go to them and confess all, and seek of them to execute justice upon him for burning the Bible. He told his master and mistress that he would be taken and banished, which accordingly came to ⟨pass⟩ in the year 1685. And some of our
B 3
banished
