The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

834 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
chimney, to ascend it at the risk of suffocation, were the only means which
seemed to have occurred to him; but his progress was speedily stopped by
one of those iron gratings, which are, for the sake of security, usually
placed across the vents of buildings designed for imprisonment. The bars,
however, which impeded his farther progress, served to support him in the
situation which he had gained, and he seized them with the tenacious grasp
of one who esteemed himself clinging to his last hope of existence. The
lurid light, which had filled the apartment, lowered and died away; the
sound of shouts was heard within the walls, and on the narrow and winding stair, which, cased within one of the turrets, gave access to the upper
apartments of the prison. The huzza of the rioters was answered by a
shout wild and desperate as their:wn, the cry, namely, of the imprisoned
felons, who, expecting to be liberated in the general confusion, welcomed
the mob as their deliverers. By some of these, the apartment of Porteous
was pointed out to his enemies. The obstacle of the lock and bolts was
soon overcome, and from his hiding-place the unfortunate man heard his
enemies search every corner of the apartment, with oaths and maledictions,
which would but shock the reader if we recorded them, but which serve to
prove, could it have admitted of doubt, the settled purpose of soul with
which they sought his destruction.
A place of concealment so obvious to suspicion and scrutiny as that which
Porteous had chosen, could not long screen him from detection. He was
dragged from his lurking-place, with a violence which seemed to argue an
intention to put him to death on the spot. More than one weapon was
directed towards him, when one of the rioters, the same whose female disguise had been particularly noticed by Butler, interfered in an authoritative tone. " Are ye mad?" he said, " or would ye execute an act of justice
as if it were a crime and a cruelty? This sacrifice will lose half its savour
if we do not offer it at the very horns of the altar. We will have him die
where a murderer should die, on the common gibbet -We will have him
die where he spilled the blood of so many innocents!"
A loud shout of applause followed the proposal, and the cry, " To the
gallows with the murderer!- To the Grassmarket with him!" echoed on all
hands.
"Let no man hurt him," continued the speaker; " let him make his peace
with God, if he can; we will not kill both his soul and body."
"What time did he give better folk for preparing their account?" answered several voices. "Let us mete to him with the same measure he
measured to them."
But the opinion of the spokesman better suited the temper of those he
addressed, a temper rather stubborn than impetuous, sedate though ferocious,' and desirous of colouring their cruel and revengeful action with a show
of justice and moderation.
For an instant this man quitted the prisoner, whom he consigned to a
selected guard, with instructions to permit him to give his money and property.to whomsoever he pleased. A person confined in the jail for debt
received this last deposit from the trembling hand of the victim, who was
at the same time permitted to make some other brief arrangements to meet
his approaching fate. The felons, and all others who wished to leave the
jail, were now at full liberty to do so; not that their liberation made any
part of the settled purpose of the rioters, but it followed as almost a necessary consequence of forcing the jail doors. With wild cries of jubilee they
joined the mob, or disappeared among the narrow lanes to seek out the hidden receptacles of vice and infamy, where they were accustomed to lurk
and conceal themselves from justice.
Two persons, a man about fifty years old, and a girl about eighteen, were
all who continued within the fatal walls, excepting two or three debtors,
who probably saw no advantage in attempting their escape. The persons