he
subjects of meditation proper to his unhappy condition.

"It signifies little," replied Captain Porteous; "your pain will soon be
at an end."

"Your cruelty is great," answered the sufferer. "You know not how soon
you yourself may have occasion to ask the mercy which you are now
refusing to a fellow-creature. May God forgive you!"

These words, long afterwards quoted and remembered, were all that passed
between Porteous and his prisoner; but as they took air, and became known
to the people, they greatly increased the popular compassion for Wilson,
and excited a proportionate degree of indignation against Porteous;
against whom, as strict, and even violent in the discharge of his
unpopular office, the common people had some real, and many imaginary
causes of complaint.

When the painful procession was completed, and Wilson, with the escort,
had arrived at the scaffold in the Grassmarket, there appeared no signs
of that attempt to rescue him which had occasioned such precautions. The
multitude, in general, looked on with deeper interest than at ordinary
executions; and there might be seen, on the countenances of many, a stern
and indignant expression, like that with which the ancient Cameronians
might be supposed to witness the execution of their brethren, who
glorified the Covenant on the same occasion, and at the same spot. But
there was no attempt at violence. Wilson himself seemed disposed to
hasten over the space that divided time from eternity. The devotions
proper and usual on such occasions were no sooner finished than he
submitted to his fate, and the sentence of the law was fulfilled.

He had been suspended on the gibbet so long as to be totally deprived of
life, when at once, as if occasioned by some newly received impulse,
there arose a tumult among the multitude. Many stones were thrown at
Porteous and his guards; some mischief was done; and the mob continued to
press forward with whoops, shrieks, howls, and exclamations. A young
fellow, with a sailor's cap slouched over his face, sprung on the
scaffold, and cut the rope by which the criminal was suspended. Others
approached to carry off the body, either to secure for it a decent grave,
or to try, perhaps, some means of resuscitation. Captain Porteous was
wrought, by this appearance of insurrection against his authority, into a
rage so headlong as made him forget, that, the sentence having been fully
executed, it was his duty not to engage in hostilit