"This man," they said,--"the brave, the resolute, the
generous, was executed to death without mercy for stealing a purse of
gold, which in some sense he might consider as a fair reprisal; while the
profligate satellite, who took advantage of a trifling tumult,
inseparable from such occasions, to shed the blood of twenty of his
fellow-citizens, is deemed a fitting object for the exercise of the royal
prerogative of mercy. Is this to be borne?--would our fathers have borne
it? Are not we, like them, Scotsmen and burghers of Edinburgh?"
The officers of justice began now to remove the scaffold, and other
preparations which had been made for the execution, in hopes, by doing
so, to accelerate the dispersion of the multitude. The measure had the
desired effect; for no sooner had the fatal tree been unfixed from the
large stone pedestal or socket in which it was secured, and sunk slowly
down upon the wain intended to remove it to the place where it was
usually deposited, than the populace, after giving vent to their feelings
in a second shout of rage and mortification, began slowly to disperse to
their usual abodes and occupations.
The windows were in like manner gradually deserted, and groups of the
more decent class of citizens formed themselves, as if waiting to return
homewards when the streets should be cleared of the rabble.
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