1914-15.] BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 379 



the Castle. At last the full secret was entrusted to a 

 woman. Arthur, their guide, had communicated the plot 

 to his brother, a medical man, and engaged him in the 

 enterprise. But when the time for executing it drew nigh, 

 the doctor's extreme melancholy was observed by his wife, 

 who, like a second Belvidera or Portia, suffered him not to 

 rest until she extorted the secret from him, which she com- 

 municated in an anonymous letter to Sir Adam Cockburn 

 of Ormiston, then Lord Justice-Clerk, who instantly dis- 

 patched the intelligence to the Castle. The news arrived 

 so critically, that it was with difficulty the messenger 

 obtained entrance to the Castle ; and even then the Deputy - 

 Governer, disbelieving the intelligence, or secretly well 

 affected to the cause of the Pretender, contented himself 

 with directing the rounds and patrols to be made with 

 peculiar care, and retired to rest. 



" In the meantime, the Jacobite storming party had 

 rendezvoused at the churchyard of the West Kirk, and 

 proceeded to post themselves beneath the Castle wall. 

 They had a part of their rope ladders in readiness, but the 

 artificer, one Charles Forbes, a merchant in Edinburgh, 

 who ought to have been there with the remainder, which 

 had been made under his direction, was nowhere to be 

 seen. Nothing could be done during his absence ; but, 

 actuated by their impatience, the party scrambled up the 

 rock, and stationed themselves beneath the wall, at the 

 point where their accomplice kept sentry. Here they found 

 him ready to perform his stipulated part of the bargain, by 

 pulling up the ladder of ropes which was designed to give 

 them admittance. He exhorted them, however, to be 

 speedy, telling them he was to be relieved by the patrol 

 at twelve o'clock, and if the affair were not completed before 

 that hour, that he could give them no further assistance. 

 The time was fast flying, when Bahaldie, the commander 

 of the storming party, persuaded the sentinel to pull up 

 the grapnel, and make it fast to the battlements, that it 

 might appear whether or not they had length of ladder 

 sufficient to make the attempt. But it proved, as indeed 

 they had expected, more than a fathom too short. At half- 

 past eleven o'clock, the steps of the patrol, who had been 

 sent their rounds earlier than usual, owing to the message 



