The repose which the
melancholy dungeon afforded them, was anything but undisturbed. The
guards made them pay for every indulgence, even that of water; and when
some of the prisoners resisted a demand so unreasonable, and insisted on
their right to have this necessary of life untaxed, their keepers emptied
the water on the prison floor, saying, "If they were obliged to bring
water for the canting whigs, they were not bound to afford them the use
of bowls or pitchers gratis."
In this prison, which is still termed the Whig's Vault, several died of
the diseases incidental to such a situation; and others broke their
limbs, and incurred fatal injury, in desperate attempts to escape from
their stern prison-house. Over the graves of these unhappy persons, their
friends, after the Revolution, erected a monument with a suitable
inscription.
This peculiar shrine of the Whig martyrs is very much honoured by their
descendants, though residing at a great distance from the land of their
captivity and death. My friend, the Rev. Mr. Walker, told me, that being
once upon a tour in the south of Scotland, probably about forty years
since, he had the bad luck to involve himself in the labyrinth of
passages and tracks which cross, in every direction, the extensive waste
called Lochar Moss, near Dumfries, out of which it is scarcely possible
for a stranger to extricate himself; and there was no small difficulty in
procuring a guide, since such people as he saw were engaged in digging
their peats--a work of paramount necessity, which will hardly brook
interruption.
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