ocht refraine,
Endit salbe our pilgremage,
And brocht hame to our heritage."[68]

[Sidenote: His Fearless Devotedness.]

Wishart concerned himself not only about the souls but also about the
bodies of his hearers in that sad time, fearlessly, like Luther on a
similar occasion, exposing himself to the risk of infection, that he
might minister to the diseased and the dying, and taking care that the
public funds for the relief of the destitute should be properly
administered. He forgot himself only too much, and the terrible risks to
which, as an excommunicated and outlawed man, he was exposed in so near
proximity to the cardinal, who was so eager to get him out of the way.

One day as the people were departing from the sermon, utterly
unconscious of the peril menacing their favourite preacher, Knox tells
us that a priest, bribed by the cardinal, stood waiting--with his
whinger drawn in his hand under his gown--at the foot of the steps by
which the preacher was descending from the top of the port. Wishart,
most sharp of eye and swift of judgment, at once noticed him, and, as he
came near, said, "My friend, what wald ye do?" and at the same moment
seized the hand in which he held the dagger, and took it from him. The
priest fell down at his feet and confessed the whole truth. Immediately
the rumour spread that a priest had attempted to assassinate their
favourite preacher, the sick outside burst open the gate, crying,
"Deliver the tratour to us, or ellis we will tack him by forse." But the
preacher put his arms around his would-be assassin, exclaiming,
"Whosoevir trubles him shall truble me, for he has hurte me in nothing,
bot ... hes lattin us understand what we may feare in tymes to come";
and so, says Knox, he saved the life of him that sought his.[69]

[Sidenote: His Innocence.]

Like Drs Laing, Lorimer, and Weir, I cannot persuade myself that the man
who spoke and acted thus is the same as "a Scottish man called
Wysshert," who is mentioned in a letter of the Earl of Hertford in April
1544, as privy to a conspiracy to apprehend or assassinate Cardinal
Betoun, and as employed to carry letters between the conspirators and
the English court.[70] There were other Wisharts in Scotland. Yea, as Dr
Laing has shown, another George Wishart in Dundee, who was a zealous
friend of the English alliance--not only after the conspirators got
possession of St Andrews castle, but from the earlier date when the
monasteries i