also founded on the turbulence of the mob, which witnesses, according to
their feelings, their predilections, and their opportunities of observation,
represented differently; some describing as a formidable riot, what others
represented as a trifling disturbance such as always used to take place on the
like occasions, when the executioner of the law, and the men commissioned to
protect him in his task, were generally exposed to some indignities. The verdict
of the jury sufficiently shows how the evidence preponderated in their minds. It
declared that John Porteous fired a gun among the people assembled at the
execution; that he gave orders to his soldiers to fire, by which many persons
were killed and wounded; but, at the same time, that the prisoner and his guard
had been wounded and beaten, by stones thrown at them by the multitude. Upon
this verdict, the Lords of Justiciary passed sentence of death against Captain
John Porteous, adjudging him, in the common form, to be hanged on a gibbet at
the common place of execution, on Wednesday, 8th September 1736, and all his
movable property to be forfeited to the king's use, according to the Scottish
law in cases of wilful murder.6
 

                                 Chapter Third

 »The hour's come, but not the man.«7
                                                                         Kelpie.
 
On the day when the unhappy Porteous was expected to suffer the sentence of the
law, the place of execution, extensive as it is, was crowded almost to
suffocation. There was not a window in all the lofty tenements around it, or in
the steep and crooked street called the Bow, by which the fatal procession was
to descend from the High Street, that was not absolutely filled with spectators.
The uncommon height and antique appearance of these houses, some of which were
formerly the property of the Knights Templars, and the Knights of St. John, and
still exhibit on their fronts and gables the iron cross of these orders, gave
additional effect to a scene in itself so striking. The area of the Grassmarket
resembled a huge dark lake or sea of human heads, in the centre of which arose
the fatal tree, tall, black, and ominous, from which dangled the deadly halter.
Every object takes interest from its uses and associations, and the erect beam
and empty noose, things so simple in themselves, became, on such an occasion,
objects of terror and of solemn interest.
    Amid so numerous an assembly there was scarcely a word spoken, save in
whispers. The thirst of vengeance was in some degree allayed by its supposed
certainty; and even the populace, with deeper feeling than