ators) endeavoured to remove the stone which filled
up the socket in which the end of the fatal tree was sunk when it was
erected for its fatal purpose; others sought for the means of
constructing a temporary gibbet, the place in which the gallows itself
was deposited being reported too secure to be forced, without much loss
of time. Butler endeavoured to avail himself of the delay afforded by
these circumstances, to turn the people from their desperate design. "For
God's sake," he exclaimed, "remember it is the image of your Creator
which you are about to deface in the person of this unfortunate man!
Wretched as he is, and wicked as he may be, he has a share in every
promise of Scripture, and you cannot destroy him in impenitence without
blotting his name from the Book of Life--Do not destroy soul and body;
give time for preparation."

"What time had they," returned a stern voice, "whom he murdered on this
very spot?--The laws both of God and man call for his death."

"But what, my friends," insisted Butler, with a generous disregard to his
own safety--"what hath constituted you his judges?"

"We are not his judges," replied the same person; "he has been already
judged and condemned by lawful authority. We are those whom Heaven, and
our righteous anger, have stirred up to execute judgment, when a corrupt
Government would have protected a murderer."

"I am none," said the unfortunate Porteous; "that which you charge upon
me fell out in self-defence, in the lawful exercise of my duty."

"Away with him--away with him!" was the general cry.

"Why do you trifle away time in making a gallows?--that dyester's pole is
good enough for the homicide."

The unhappy man was forced to his fate with remorseless rapidity. Butler,
separated from him by the press, escaped the last horrors of his
struggles. Unnoticed by those who had hitherto detained him as a
prisoner,--he fled from the fatal spot, without much caring in what
direction his course lay. A loud shout proclaimed the stern delight with
which the agents of this deed regarded its completion. Butler, then, at
the opening into the low street called the Cowgate, cast back a terrified
glance, and, by the red and dusky light of the torches, he could discern
a figure wavering and struggling as it hung suspended above the heads of
the multitude, and could even observe men striking at it with their
Lochaber-axes and partisans. The sight was of a nature to double his
horror, and