Home | The Buchanites | The CCI | The Village Hall | The Millenium Book | Contact Us | Links | Index Mr White and his friends thought she may have headed off towards Glasgow and went some distance that way but finding no sign of her they returned to Irvine. On the way home they were recognised by some of the straggling mob and they were grossly insulted but not attacked. They returned to the house of Mr Gibson who had so bravely attempted to save Friend Mother, where a few of the faithful were mourning her loss and marvelling at the way she had escaped her persecutors, some even suggesting she may have ascended to heaven, which would have been a glorious way of giving them the slip. All this speculation came to abrupt end when she crept in through the door bare headed, bare footed, spattered with mud, with hardly any clothes left on her body and covered with bruises and blood. It appears that on escaping the mob she made her way back to Irvine by climbing dykes and squeezing through hedges, not daring to use the road in case she came across the mob. She was in such a state they felt she needed surgical skills but decided against this in case word got out that she was back in Irvine. Mrs Gibson, therefore, who was just as enthusiastic as her husband in the Buchanite cause, undertook the duties of nurse. The very next day, however, word got out that she was back in Irvine. The Buchanites assembled at Mr White’s house which came under attack and although this was a much shorter attack it was a very effective one. The crowd, thinking Mother Buchan was in the house, attacked the doors and windows and there was concern for property and life. The Magistrates called a hasty meeting and sent for Mr Hunter their Buchanite Fiscal, telling him that the offensive woman must be removed from the town or they would not be held responsible for the consequences. A horse and cart was immediately hired and she was taken to Glasgow with Mrs Gibson attending as nursemaid. Another member, Andrew Innes, was to accompany them to Glasgow and bring word back of their safe arrival. The journey out of town was not uneventful as many of the townsfolk followed, cursing and threatening that if she ever returned they would kill her. The next morning they reached Glasgow without a penny to their name. Andrew Innes gave Mrs Buchan his watch to pawn so she would have money for small essentials. She then went to see her husband who was not happy to see her but given the state she was in could hardly refuse her. She did not leave her enemies in Irvine behind without a parting shot, predicting that the town would soon be destroyed by the outpouring of a vial of divine wrath, and urging all who would escape to join her Society. The failure of this prediction did not however discredit her standing among the members of the Society although it did increase the ridicule of the non-believers.
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