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.

THE HEART OF MID-LOTHIAN. 333
The evil you teach us, we will execute; and it shall go hard but we will
better the instruction.
MERCHANT OF VENICE.
THE unhappy object of this remarkable disturbance had been that day
delivered from the apprehension of public execution, and his joy was the
greater, as he. had some reason to question whether government would have
run the risk of unpopularity by interfering in his favour, after he had been
legally convicted by the verdict of a jury, of a crime so very obnoxious.
Relieved from this doubtful state of mind, his heart was merry within him,
and he thought in the emphatic words of Scripture on a similar occasion,
that surely the bitterness of death was past. Some of his friends, however,
who had watched the manner and behaviour of the crowd when they were
made acquainted with the reprieve, were of a different opinion. They
augured, from the unusual sternness and silence with which they bore their
disappointment, that the populace nourished some scheme of sudden and
desperate vengeance; and they advised Porteous to lose no time in petitioning the proper authorities, that he might be conveyed to the Castle under a
sufficient guard, to remain there in security until his ultimate fate should
be determined. Habituated, however, by his office, to overawe the rabble
of the city, Porteous could not suspect them of an attempt so audacious as
to storm a strong and defensible prison; and, despising the advice by which
he might have been saved, he spent the afternoon of the eventful day in
giving an entertainment to some friends who visited him in jail, several of
whom by the indulgence of the Captain of the Tolbooth, with whom he had
an old intimacy, arising from their official connexion, were even permitted
to remain to supper with him, though contrary to the rules of the jail.
It was, therefore, in the hour of unalloyed mirth, when this unfortunate
wretch was "full of bread," hot with wine, and high in mistimed and illgrounded confidence, and, alas! with all his sins full blown, when the first
distant shouts of the rioters mingled with the song of merriment and intemnperance. The hurried call of the jailor to the guests, requiring them
instantly to depart, and his yet more hasty intimation that a dreadful and
determined mob had possessed themselves of the city gates and guard-house,
were the first explanation of these fearful clamours.
Porteous might, however, have eluded the fury from which the force of
authority could not protect him, had he thought of slipping on some disguise, and leaving the prison along with his guests. It is probable that the
jailor might have connived at his escape, or even that, in the hurry of this
alarming contingency, he might not have observed it. But Porteous and
his friends alike wanted presence of mind to suggest or execute su' a plan
of escape. The fonrer hastily fied from a place where their own safety
seemed compron -, and the latter, in a state resembling stupefaction,
awaited in his apartment the ttffifation of the enterprise of the rioters.
The cessation of the clang of the instruments with which they had at first
attempted to force the door, gave him momentary relief. The flattering
hopes, that the military had marched into the city, either from the Castle or
from the suburbs, and that the rioters were intimidated and dispersing, were
soon destroyed by the broad and glaring light of the flames, which, illuminating through the grated window every corner of his apartment, plainly
showed that the mob, determined on their fatal purpose, had adopted a
means of forcing entrance equally desperate and certain.
The sudden glare of light suggested to the stupefied and astonished object
of popular hatred the possibility of concealment or escape.. To rush to the