over the hatch door, and as the gaoler leaped after, my father knocked him down with his cudgel. While this was doing, Mr. Stuart tripped up the soldier's heels, and immediately leaped over the hatch. They both mounted, Stuart on the horse behind my father, and Irvin on the spare one, and in a few minutes came up with their companions at the gate, before the main guard could arrive, although it were kept within twenty yards of the gaol door.
I should have observed, that as soon as captain Irvin and his friend got over the hatch, my father and his comrades put a couple of broad swords into their hands, which they had concealed under their cloaks, and at the same time drawing their own, were all six determined to force their way against any who offered to obstruct them in their passage; but the dispatch was so sudden, that they got clear out of the gate, before the least opposition could be made. They were no sooner gone, than the town was alarmed, Coote, the governor, got out of his bed, and ran into the streets in his shirt, to know what the hubbub meant, and was in a great rage at the accident. The adventurers met the governor's groom, coming back with his master's horses from watering; they seized the horses, and got safe to sir Robert Stuart's, about four miles off, without losing one drop of blood in this hazardous enterprise.
This gallant person (if I may so presume to call my father) had above twenty children by his wife Anne Maxwell, of the family of the earl of Nithsdale, of whom I was the eldest; they all died young, except myself, three other boys, and two girls; who lived to be men and women. My second brother I took care to have educated at Glasgow, but he was drowned
