not touch them.
He ordered his Nightcap to be put on, and unloosing his Neckcloth and
the Collar of his Shirt, he kneeled down at the Block, and pulled the
Cloth which was to receive his Head close to him; but he being too near
that fatal Billet, the Executioner desired him to remove a little
further Back, which, with our assistance, was Immediately done; and his
Neck being properly placed, he told the Headsman he would say a short
Prayer, and then give the Signal by dropping his Handkerchief. In this
posture he remained about Half a Minute. Then, throwing down the
Kerchief, the Executioner, at ONE BLOW, severed his Head from his Body.
Then was a dreadful Crimson Shower of Gore all around; and many and many
a time at the Playhouse have I thought upon that Crimson Cascade on
Tower Hill, when, in the tragedy of _Macbeth_, the wicked Queen talks of
"the old man having so much blood in him."

The Corpse was put into the Coffin, and so into the Hearse, and was
carried back to the Tower. At four o'clock came an Undertaker from
Holborn Hill, very fine, with many mourning coaches full of Scots
gentlemen, and fetched away the Body, in order to be sent to Scotland,
and deposited in his own Tomb at Kirkhill. But leave not being given by
Authority as was expected, it was again brought back to the Tower, and
buried by the side of Kilmarnock and Balmerino, close to the
Communion-rails in the little church of St. Peter-on-the-Green, where so
much Royal and Noble Dust doth moulder away.

_Memorandum._--The Block on which this Nobleman suffered was but a
common Billet of Oak wood, such as Butchers use, and hollowed out for
the purpose of accommodating the neck; but it had not been stowed away
in the White Tower for a month before it was shown to the Public for
Money, and passed as the Block whereon Queen Anne Boleyn was beheaded.
So with the Axe, which was declared to be the one used in decapitating
K. C. 1st; but there's not a word of truth in the whole story. The
Block was hewn and the Axe was forged after the '45, and specially for
the doing of justice on the Rebel Lords.

Note also that Lord Lovat left it in a Codicil to his Will that all the
Pipers from Jonie Groat's house to Edinburgh were to play before his
Corpse, and have a handsome allowance in Meal and Whisky (on which this
sort of People mostly live) for so doing. Likewise that all the good old
Women of his county were to sing what they call a _Coronach_ over him.
And in