clue of silk, rolled round a bit of parchment, marked with two long
words, in Hebrew or Chaldaic characters. Accordingly, it is still
averred, that the balls only left blue marks on the prelate's neck and
breast, although the discharge was so near as to burn his clothes.]

[Footnote B: The question, whether the bishop of St Andrews' death was
murder was a shibboleth, or _experimentum crucis_, frequently put to the
apprehended conventiclers. Isabel Alison, executed at Edinburgh, 26th
January, 1681, was interrogated, before the privy council, if she
conversed with David Hackston? "I answered, I did converse with him, and
I bless the Lord that ever I saw him; for I never saw ought in him but
a godly pious youth. They asked, if the killing of the bishop of St
Andrews was a pious act? I answered, I never heard him say he killed
him; but, if God moved any, and put it upon them, to execute his
righteous judgment upon him, I have nothing to say to that. They asked
me, when saw ye John Balfour (Burly), that pious youth? I answered,
I have seen him. They asked, when? I answered, these are frivolous
questions; I am not bound to answer them." _Cloud of Witnesses_, p. 85.]

Burly was, of course, obliged to leave Fife; and, upon the 25th of the
same month, he arrived in Evandale, in Lanarkshire, along with Hackston,
and a fellow, called Dingwall, or Daniel, one of the same bloody band.
Here he joined his old friend Hamilton, already mentioned; and, as they
resolved to take up arms, they were soon at the head of such a body of
the "chased and tossed western men," as they thought equal to keep the
field. They resolved to commence their exploits upon the 29th of May,
1679, being the anniversary of the Restoration, appointed to be kept as
a holiday, by act of parliament; an institution which they esteemed a
presumptuous and unholy solemnity. Accordingly, at the head of eighty
horse, tolerably appointed, Hamilton, Burly, and Hackston, entered the