2 memoirs of Sir William Lockhart. Nov. 4. 
of a pedagogue at Lanark, who exercised his autho~ 
rity with the most despotic severity. Having com-. 
mitted some boyifh trespafs, young Lockhart, who 
had been witnefs to the humiliating indignities that 
others were obliged to undergo on similar occasions, 
could not brook the idea of submitting.to them. . In 
order to fhun this, he fled and concealed himself for 
some days among the woods, supporting himself on 
wild plants, and the occasional’ supply that some 
country people gave him. His father, informed of 
this, was highly incensed against him, raised a pofsé _ 
of people, and sent them out in quest of him,-with 
the ferocious pedagogue at their head. They sur- 
rounded the wood as in a royal Asiatic chace ; and 
being thus hemmed in on every side, he had no other 
way to escape, but by throwing himself from the top 
of a steep rock, many fathoms high, into a small. ri- 
ver below.. Regardlefs of' peril, as he ever after~ 
wards was, when it stood in the way of his designs, 
he hesitated not on this occasion, but took the leap, 
and, by a fortunate chance, a million, at least, to one, 
he escaped unhurt., No one durst follow him ; and 
he made the best of his way to Leith. There he took 
fhipping for Holland, where, unfriended and un- 
known, he supported himself by labour, without 
complaining for some time to any one. 
At the time when this_incident happened, he was | 
in the thirteeenth year of his age. He returned home 
in the year 1636; but finding his situation there far 
from agreeable, he soon went to France, and entered 
into the service; where, by the singular gallantry, i- 
trepidity, and judiciousnefs of his conduct in every en- 
‘terpris€ that was intrusted to him, he was quickly ad« 
, 
