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Scott, Walter, Sir, 1771-1832

"The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Volume 2"

,
collected and printed for Patrick Walker, Edin. 1727, 12mo, p. 59.
It may be here observed, that some of the milder class of Cameronians
made a distinction between the two sexes dancing separately, and allowed
of it as a healthy and not unlawful exercise; but when men and women
mingled in sport, it was then called _promiscuous dancing,_ and
considered as a scandalous enormity.


NOTE G.--MUSCHAT'S CAIRN.
Nichol Muschat, a debauched and profligate wretch, having conceived a
hatred against his wife, entered into a conspiracy with another brutal
libertine and gambler, named Campbell of Burnbank (repeatedly mentioned
in Pennycuick's satirical poems of the time), by which Campbell undertook
to destroy the woman's character, so as to enable Muschat, on false
pretences to obtain a divorce from her. The brutal devices to which these
worthy accomplices resorted for that purpose having failed, they
endeavoured to destroy her by administering medicine of a dangerous kind,
and in extraordinary quantities.
This purpose also failing, Nichol Muschat, or Muschet, did finally, on
the 17th October 1720, carry his wife under cloud of night to the King's
Park, adjacent to what is called the Duke's Walk, near Holyrood Palace,
and there took her life by cutting her throat almost quite through, and
inflicting other wounds.


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