Lo! where he lies embalmed in gore,
His wound to Heaven cries:
The floodgates of his blood implore
For vengeance from the skies.
Uranus and Psyche.
The High Church of St. John in Perth, being that of the patron saint
of the burgh, had been selected by the magistrates as that in which
the community was likely to have most fair play for the display of the
ordeal. The churches and convents of the Dominicans, Carthusians, and
others of the regular clergy had been highly endowed by the King and
nobles, and therefore it was the universal cry of the city council
that “their ain good auld St. John,” of whose good graces they thought
themselves sure, ought to be fully confided in, and preferred to the new
patrons, for whom the Dominicans, Carthusians, Carmelites, and others
had founded newer seats around the Fair City. The disputes between the
regular and secular clergy added to the jealousy which dictated this
choice of the spot in which Heaven was to display a species of miracle,
upon a direct appeal to the divine decision in a case of doubtful guilt;
and the town clerk was as anxious that the church of St. John should be
preferred as if there had been a faction in the body of saints for and
against the interests of the beautiful town of Perth.
Many, therefore, were the petty intrigues entered into and disconcerted
for the purpose of fixing on the church. But the magistrates,
considering it as a matter touching in a close degree the honour of
the city, determined, with judicious confidence in the justice and
impartiality of their patron, to confide the issue to the influence of
St. John.
It was, therefore, after high mass had been performed with the greatest
solemnity of which circumstances rendered the ceremony capable, and
after the most repeated and fervent prayers had been offered to Heaven
by the crowded assembly, that preparations were made for appealing
to the direct judgment of Heaven on the mysterious murder of the
unfortunate bonnet maker.
The scene presented that effect of imposing solemnity which the rites
of the Catholic Church are so well qualified to produce. The eastern
window, richly and variously painted, streamed down a torrent of
chequered light upon the high altar. On the bier placed before it were
stretched the mortal remains of the murdered man, his arms folded on his
breast, and his palms joined together, with the fingers pointed upwards,
as if the senseless clay was itself appealing to Heaven for vengeance
against those who had violently divorced the immortal spirit from its
mangled tenement.
Close to the bier was placed the throne which supported Robert of
Scotland and his brother Albany. The Prince sat upon a lower stool,
beside his father--an arrangement which occasioned some observation, as,
Albany’s seat being little distinguished from that of the King, the heir
apparent, though of full age, seemed to be degraded beneath his uncle in
the sight of the assembled people of Perth. The bier was so placed as to
leave the view of the body it sustained open to the greater part of the
multitude assembled in the church.
At the head of the bier stood the Knight of Kinfauns, the challenger,
and at the foot the young Earl of Crawford, as representing the
defendant. The evidence of the Duke of Rothsay in expurgation, as it
was termed, of Sir John Ramorny, had exempted him from the necessity of
attendance as a party subjected to the ordeal; and his illness served as
a reason for his remaining at home. His household, including those who,
though immediately in waiting upon Sir John, were accounted the Prince’s
domestics, and had not yet received their dismissal, amounted to eight
or ten persons, most of them esteemed men of profligate habits, and who
might therefore be deemed capable, in the riot of a festival evening,
of committing the slaughter of the bonnet maker. They were drawn up in a
row on the left side of the church, and wore a species of white cassock,
resembling the dress of a penitentiary. All eyes being bent on them,
several of this band seemed so much disconcerted as to excite among the
spectators strong prepossessions of their guilt. The real murderer had
a countenance incapable of betraying him--a sullen, dark look, which
neither the feast nor wine cup could enliven, and which the peril of
discovery and death could not render dejected.
We have already noticed the posture of the dead body. The face was bare,
as were the breast and arms. The rest of the corpse was shrouded in a
winding sheet of the finest linen, so that, if blood should flow from
any place which was covered, it could not fail to be instantly manifest.
High mass having been performed, followed by a solemn invocation to the
Deity, that He would be pleased to protect the innocent, and make known
the guilty, Eviot, Sir John Ramorny’s page, was summoned to undergo the
ordeal. He advanced with an ill assured step. Perhaps he thought his
internal consciousness that Bonthron must have been the assassin might
be sufficient to implicate him in the murder, though he was not directly
accessory to it. He paused before the bier; and his voice faltered,
as he swore by all that was created in seven days and seven nights, by
heaven, by hell, by his part of paradise, and by the God and author
of all, that he was free and sackless of the bloody deed done upon the
corpse before which he stood, and on whose breast he made the sign of
the cross, in evidence of the appeal. No consequences ensued. The body
remained stiff as before, the curdled wounds gave no sign of blood.
The citizens looked on each other with faces of blank disappointment.
They had persuaded themselves of Eviot’s guilt, and their suspicions had
been confirmed by his irresolute manner. Their surprise at his escape
was therefore extreme. The other followers of Ramorny took heart, and
advanced to take the oath with a boldness which increased as one by
one they performed the ordeal, and were declared, by the voice of
the judges, free and innocent of every suspicion attaching to them on
account of the death of Oliver Proudfute.
But there was one individual who did not partake that increasing
confidence. The name of “Bonthron--Bonthron!” sounded three times
through the aisles of the church; but he who owned it acknowledged the
call no otherwise than by a sort of shuffling motion with his feet, as
if he had been suddenly affected with a fit of the palsy.
“Speak, dog,” whispered Eviot, “or prepare for a dog’s death!”
But the murderer’s brain was so much disturbed by the sight before him,
that the judges, beholding his deportment, doubted whether to ordain him
to be dragged before the bier or to pronounce judgment in default; and
it was not until he was asked for the last time whether he would submit
to the ordeal, that he answered, with his usual brevity:
“I will not; what do I know what juggling tricks may be practised to
take a poor man’s life? I offer the combat to any man who says I harmed
that dead body.”
And, according to usual form, he threw his glove upon the floor of the
church.
Henry Smith stepped forward, amidst the murmured applauses of his fellow
citizens, which even the august presence could not entirely suppress;
and, lifting the ruffian’s glove, which he placed in his bonnet, laid
down his own in the usual form, as a gage of battle. But Bonthron raised
it not.
“He is no match for me,” growled the savage, “nor fit to lift my glove.
I follow the Prince of Scotland, in attending on his master of horse.
This fellow is a wretched mechanic.”
Here the Prince interrupted him. “Thou follow me, caitiff! I discharge
thee from my service on the spot. Take him in hand, Smith, and beat
him as thou didst never thump anvil! The villain is both guilty and
recreant. It sickens me even to look at him; and if my royal father will
be ruled by me, he will give the parties two handsome Scottish axes, and
we will see which of them turns out the best fellow before the day is
half an hour older.”
This was readily assented to by the Earl of Crawford and Sir Patrick
Charteris, the godfathers of the parties, who, as the combatants were
men of inferior rank, agreed that they should fight in steel caps, buff
jackets, and with axes, and that as soon as they could be prepared for
the combat.
The lists were appointed in the Skinners’ Yards--a neighbouring space of
ground, occupied by the corporation from which it had the name, and
who quickly cleared a space of about thirty feet by twenty-five for
the combatants. Thither thronged the nobles, priests, and commons--all
excepting the old King, who, detesting such scenes of blood, retired
to his residence, and devolved the charge of the field upon the Earl
of Errol, Lord High Constable, to whose office it more particularly
belonged. The Duke of Albany watched the whole proceeding with a close
and wary eye. His nephew gave the scene the heedless degree of notice
which corresponded with his character.
When the combatants appeared in the lists, nothing could be more
striking than the contrast betwixt the manly, cheerful countenance of
the smith, whose sparkling bright eye seemed already beaming with the
victory he hoped for, and the sullen, downcast aspect of the brutal
Bonthron, who looked as if he were some obscene bird, driven into
sunshine out of the shelter of its darksome haunts. They made oath
severally, each to the truth of his quarrel--a ceremony which Henry
Gow performed with serene and manly confidence, Bonthron with a dogged
resolution, which induced the Duke of Rothsay to say to the High
Constable: “Didst thou ever, my dear Errol, behold such a mixture of
malignity, cruelty, and I think fear, as in that fellow’s countenance?”
“He is not comely,” said the Earl, “but a powerful knave as I have
seen.”
“I’ll gage a hogshead of wine with you, my good lord, that he loses the
day. Henry the armourer is as strong as he, and much more active; and
then look at his bold bearing! There is something in that other fellow
that is loathsome to look upon. Let them yoke presently, my dear
Constable, for I am sick of beholding him.”
The High Constable then addressed the widow, who, in her deep weeds, and
having her children still beside her, occupied a chair within the lists:
“Woman, do you willingly accept of this man, Henry the Smith, to do
battle as your champion in this cause?”
“I do--I do, most willingly,” answered Magdalen Proudfute; “and may the
blessing of God and St. John give him strength and fortune, since he
strikes for the orphan and fatherless!”
“Then I pronounce this a fenced field of battle,” said the Constable
aloud. “Let no one dare, upon peril of his life, to interrupt this
combat by word, speech, or look. Sound trumpets, and fight, combatants!”
The trumpets flourished, and the combatants, advancing from the opposite
ends of the lists, with a steady and even pace, looked at each other
attentively, well skilled in judging from the motion of the eye the
direction in which a blow was meditated. They halted opposite to, and
within reach of, each other, and in turn made more than one feint
to strike, in order to ascertain the activity and vigilance of the
opponent. At length, whether weary of these manoeuvres, or fearing lest
in a contest so conducted his unwieldy strength would be foiled by the
activity of the smith, Bonthron heaved up his axe for a downright blow,
adding the whole strength of his sturdy arms to the weight of the weapon
in its descent. The smith, however, avoided the stroke by stepping
aside; for it was too forcible to be controlled by any guard which he
could have interposed. Ere Bonthron recovered guard, Henry struck him
a sidelong blow on the steel headpiece, which prostrated him on the
ground.
“Confess, or die,” said the victor, placing his foot on the body of
the vanquished, and holding to his throat the point of the axe, which
terminated in a spike or poniard.
“I will confess,” said the villain, glaring wildly upwards on the sky.
“Let me rise.”
“Not till you have yielded,” said Harry Smith.
“I do yield,” again murmured Bonthron, and Henry proclaimed aloud that
his antagonist was defeated.
The Dukes of Rothsay and Albany, the High Constable, and the Dominican
prior now entered the lists, and, addressing Bonthron, demanded if he
acknowledged himself vanquished.
“I do,” answered the miscreant.
“And guilty of the murder of Oliver Proudfute?”
“I am; but I mistook him for another.”
“And whom didst thou intend to slay?” said the prior. “Confess, my son,
and merit thy pardon in another world for with this thou hast little
more to do.”
“I took the slain man,” answered the discomfited combatant, “for him
whose hand has struck me down, whose foot now presses me.”
“Blessed be the saints!” said the prior; “now all those who doubt the
virtue of the holy ordeal may have their eyes opened to their error. Lo,
he is trapped in the snare which he laid for the guiltless.”
“I scarce ever saw the man,” said the smith. “I never did wrong to him
or his. Ask him, an it please your reverence, why he should have thought
of slaying me treacherously.”
“It is a fitting question,” answered the prior. “Give glory where it is
due, my son, even though it is manifested by thy shame. For what reason
wouldst thou have waylaid this armourer, who says he never wronged
thee?”
“He had wronged him whom I served,” answered Bonthron, “and I meditated
the deed by his command.”
“By whose command?” asked the prior.
Bonthron was silent for an instant, then growled out: “He is too mighty
for me to name.”
“Hearken, my son,” said the churchman; “tarry but a brief hour, and the
mighty and the mean of this earth shall to thee alike be empty sounds.
The sledge is even now preparing to drag thee to the place of execution.
Therefore, son, once more I charge thee to consult thy soul’s weal by
glorifying Heaven, and speaking the truth. Was it thy master, Sir John
Ramorny, that stirred thee to so foul a deed?”
“No,” answered the prostrate villain, “it was a greater than he.” And at
the same time he pointed with his finger to the Prince.
“Wretch!” said the astonished Duke of Rothsay; “do you dare to hint that
I was your instigator?”
“You yourself, my lord,” answered the unblushing ruffian.
“Die in thy falsehood, accursed slave!” said the Prince; and, drawing
his sword, he would have pierced his calumniator, had not the Lord High
Constable interposed with word and action.
“Your Grace must forgive my discharging mine office: this caitiff must
be delivered into the hands of the executioner. He is unfit to be dealt
with by any other, much less by your Highness.”
“What! noble earl,” said Albany aloud, and with much real or affected
emotion, “would you let the dog pass alive from hence, to poison the
people’s ears with false accusations against the Prince of Scotland? I
say, cut him to mammocks upon the spot!”
“Your Highness will pardon me,” said the Earl of Errol; “I must protect
him till his doom is executed.”
“Then let him be gagged instantly,” said Albany. “And you, my royal
nephew, why stand you there fixed in astonishment? Call your resolution
up--speak to the prisoner--swear--protest by all that is sacred that you
knew not of this felon deed. See how the people look on each other and
whisper apart! My life on’t that this lie spreads faster than any Gospel
truth. Speak to them, royal kinsman, no matter what you say, so you be
constant in denial.”
“What, sir,” said Rothsay, starting from his pause of surprise and
mortification, and turning haughtily towards his uncle; “would you have
me gage my royal word against that of an abject recreant? Let those who
can believe the son of their sovereign, the descendant of Bruce, capable
of laying ambush for the life of a poor mechanic, enjoy the pleasure of
thinking the villain’s tale true.”
“That will not I for one,” said the smith, bluntly. “I never did aught
but what was in honour towards his royal Grace the Duke of Rothsay, and
never received unkindness from him in word, look, or deed; and I cannot
think he would have given aim to such base practice.”
“Was it in honour that you threw his Highness from the ladder in Curfew
Street upon Fastern’s [St. Valentine’s] Even?” said Bonthron; “or think
you the favour was received kindly or unkindly?”
This was so boldly said, and seemed so plausible, that it shook the
smith’s opinion of the Prince’s innocence.
“Alas, my lord,” said he, looking sorrowfully towards Rothsay, “could
your Highness seek an innocent fellow’s life for doing his duty by a
helpless maiden? I would rather have died in these lists than live to
hear it said of the Bruce’s heir!”
“Thou art a good fellow, Smith,” said the Prince; “but I cannot expect
thee to judge more wisely than others. Away with that convict to the
gallows, and gibbet him alive an you will, that he may speak falsehood
and spread scandal on us to the last prolonged moment of his existence!”
So saying, the Prince turned away from the lists, disdaining to notice
the gloomy looks cast towards him, as the crowd made slow and reluctant
way for him to pass, and expressing neither surprise nor displeasure at
a deep, hollow murmur, or groan, which accompanied his retreat. Only a
few of his own immediate followers attended him from the field, though
various persons of distinction had come there in his train. Even the
lower class of citizens ceased to follow the unhappy Prince, whose
former indifferent reputation had exposed him to so many charges of
impropriety and levity, and around whom there seemed now darkening
suspicions of the most atrocious nature.
He took his slow and thoughtful way to the church of the Dominicans; but
the ill news, which flies proverbially fast, had reached his father’s
place of retirement before he himself appeared. On entering the palace
and inquiring for the King, the Duke of Rothsay was surprised to be
informed that he was in deep consultation with the Duke of Albany, who,
mounting on horseback as the Prince left the lists, had reached the
convent before him. He was about to use the privilege of his rank and
birth to enter the royal apartment, when MacLouis, the commander of
the guard of Brandanes, gave him to understand, in the most respectful
terms, that he had special instructions which forbade his admittance.
“Go at least, MacLouis, and let them know that I wait their pleasure,”
said the Prince. “If my uncle desires to have the credit of shutting the
father’s apartment against the son, it will gratify him to know that I
am attending in the outer hall like a lackey.”
“May it please you,” said MacLouis, with hesitation, “if your Highness
would consent to retire just now, and to wait awhile in patience, I will
send to acquaint you when the Duke of Albany goes; and I doubt not that
his Majesty will then admit your Grace to his presence. At present, your
Highness must forgive me, it is impossible you can have access.”
“I understand you, MacLouis; but go, nevertheless, and obey my
commands.”
The officer went accordingly, and returned with a message that the King
was indisposed, and on the point of retiring to his private chamber;
but that the Duke of Albany would presently wait upon the Prince of
Scotland.
It was, however, a full half hour ere the Duke of Albany appeared--a
period of time which Rothsay spent partly in moody silence, and
partly in idle talk with MacLouis and the Brandanes, as the levity or
irritability of his temper obtained the ascendant.
At length the Duke came, and with him the lord High Constable, whose
countenance expressed much sorrow and embarrassment.
“Fair kinsman,” said the Duke of Albany, “I grieve to say that it is
my royal brother’s opinion that it will be best, for the honour of the
royal family, that your Royal Highness do restrict yourself for a time
to the seclusion of the High Constable’s lodgings, and accept of the
noble Earl here present for your principal, if not sole, companion until
the scandals which have been this day spread abroad shall be refuted or
forgotten.”
“How is this, my lord of Errol?” said the Prince in astonishment. “Is
your house to be my jail, and is your lordship to be my jailer?”
“The saints forbid, my lord,” said the Earl of Errol “but it is my
unhappy duty to obey the commands of your father, by considering your
Royal Highness for some time as being under my ward.”
“The Prince--the heir of Scotland, under the ward of the High Constable!
What reason can be given for this? is the blighting speech of
a convicted recreant of strength sufficient to tarnish my royal
escutcheon?”
“While such accusations are not refuted and denied, my kinsman,” said
the Duke of Albany, “they will contaminate that of a monarch.”
“Denied, my lord!” exclaimed the Prince; “by whom are they asserted,
save by a wretch too infamous, even by his own confession, to be
credited for a moment, though a beggar’s character, not a prince’s, were
impeached? Fetch him hither, let the rack be shown to him; you will soon
hear him retract the calumny which he dared to assert!”
“The gibbet has done its work too surely to leave Bonthron sensible
to the rack,” said the Duke of Albany. “He has been executed an hour
since.”
“And why such haste, my lord?” said the Prince; “know you it looks as if
there were practice in it to bring a stain on my name?”
“The custom is universal, the defeated combatant in the ordeal of battle
is instantly transferred from the lists to the gallows. And yet, fair
kinsman,” continued the Duke of Albany, “if you had boldly and strongly
denied the imputation, I would have judged right to keep the wretch
alive for further investigation; but as your Highness was silent, I
deemed it best to stifle the scandal in the breath of him that uttered
it.”
“St. Mary, my lord, but this is too insulting! Do you, my uncle and
kinsman, suppose me guilty of prompting such an useless and unworthy
action as that which the slave confessed?”
“It is not for me to bandy question with your Highness, otherwise I
would ask whether you also mean to deny the scarce less unworthy, though
less bloody, attack upon the house in Couvrefew Street? Be not angry
with me, kinsman; but, indeed, your sequestering yourself for some brief
space from the court, were it only during the King’s residence in this
city, where so much offence has been given, is imperiously demanded.”
Rothsay paused when he heard this exhortation, and, looking at the Duke
in a very marked manner, replied:
“Uncle, you are a good huntsman. You have pitched your toils with much
skill, but you would have been foiled, not withstanding, had not the
stag rushed among the nets of free will. God speed you, and may you have
the profit by this matter which your measures deserve. Say to my father,
I obey his arrest. My Lord High Constable, I wait only your pleasure to
attend you to your lodgings. Since I am to lie in ward, I could not have
desired a kinder or more courteous warden.”
The interview between the uncle and nephew being thus concluded, the
Prince retired with the Earl of Errol to his apartments; the citizens
whom they met in the streets passing to the further side when they
observed the Duke of Rothsay, to escape the necessity of saluting
one whom they had been taught to consider as a ferocious as well as
unprincipled libertine. The Constable’s lodgings received the owner and
his princely guest, both glad to leave the streets, yet neither feeling
easy in the situation which they occupied with regard to each other
within doors.
We must return to the lists after the combat had ceased, and when the
nobles had withdrawn. The crowds were now separated into two distinct
bodies. That which made the smallest in number was at the same time the
most distinguished for respectability, consisting of the better class
of inhabitants of Perth, who were congratulating the successful champion
and each other upon the triumphant conclusion to which they had brought
their feud with the courtiers. The magistrates were so much elated on
the occasion, that they entreated Sir Patrick Charteris’s acceptance of
a collation in the town hall. To this Henry, the hero of the day, was of
course invited, or he was rather commanded to attend. He listened to
the summons with great embarrassment, for it may be readily believed
his heart was with Catharine Glover. But the advice of his father Simon
decided him. That veteran citizen had a natural and becoming deference
for the magistracy of the Fair City; he entertained a high estimation
of all honours which flowed from such a source, and thought that his
intended son in law would do wrong not to receive them with gratitude.
“Thou must not think to absent thyself from such a solemn occasion, son
Henry,” was his advice. “Sir Patrick Charteris is to be there himself,
and I think it will be a rare occasion for thee to gain his goodwill. It
is like he may order of thee a new suit of harness; and I myself heard
worthy Bailie Craigdallie say there was a talk of furbishing up the
city’s armoury. Thou must not neglect the good trade, now that thou
takest on thee an expensive family.”
“Tush, father Glover,” answered the embarrassed victor, “I lack no
custom; and thou knowest there is Catharine, who may wonder at my
absence, and have her ear abused once more by tales of glee maidens and
I wot not what.”
“Fear not for that,” said the glover, “but go, like an obedient burgess,
where thy betters desire to have thee. I do not deny that it will cost
thee some trouble to make thy peace with Catharine about this duel; for
she thinks herself wiser in such matters than king and council, kirk
and canons, provost and bailies. But I will take up the quarrel with
her myself, and will so work for thee, that, though she may receive
thee tomorrow with somewhat of a chiding, it shall melt into tears and
smiles, like an April morning, that begins with a mild shower. Away with
thee, then, my son, and be constant to the time, tomorrow morning after
mass.”
The smith, though reluctantly, was obliged to defer to the reasoning of
his proposed father in law, and, once determined to accept the honour
destined for him by the fathers of the city, he extricated himself from
the crowd, and hastened home to put on his best apparel; in which he
presently afterwards repaired to the council house, where the ponderous
oak table seemed to bend under the massy dishes of choice Tay salmon
and delicious sea fish from Dundee, being the dainties which the fasting
season permitted, whilst neither wine, ale, nor metheglin were wanting
to wash them down. The waits, or minstrels of the burgh, played during
the repast, and in the intervals of the music one of them recited With
great emphasis a long poetical account of the battle of Blackearnside,
fought by Sir William Wallace and his redoubted captain and friend,
Thomas of Longueville, against the English general Seward--a theme
perfectly familiar to all the guests, who, nevertheless, more tolerant
than their descendants, listened as if it had all the zest of novelty.
It was complimentary to the ancestor of the Knight of Kinfauns,
doubtless, and to other Perthshire families, in passages which the
audience applauded vociferously, whilst they pledged each other in
mighty draughts to the memory of the heroes who had fought by the side
of the Champion of Scotland. The health of Henry Wynd was quaffed
with repeated shouts, and the provost announced publicly, that the
magistrates were consulting how they might best invest him with some
distinguished privilege or honorary reward, to show how highly his
fellow citizens valued his courageous exertions.
“Nay, take it not thus, an it like your worships,” said the smith, with
his usual blunt manner, “lest men say that valour must be rare in Perth
when they reward a man for fighting for the right of a forlorn widow.
I am sure there are many scores of stout burghers in the town who would
have done this day’s dargue as well or better than I. For, in good
sooth, I ought to have cracked yonder fellow’s head piece like an
earthen pipkin--ay, and would have done it, too, if it had not been
one which I myself tempered for Sir John Ramorny. But, an the Fair
City think my service of any worth, I will conceive it far more than
acquitted by any aid which you may afford from the common good to the
support of the widow Magdalen and her poor orphans.”
“That may well be done,” said Sir Patrick Charteris, “and yet leave the
Fair City rich enough to pay her debts to Henry Wynd, of which every man
of us is a better judge than him self, who is blinded with an unavailing
nicety, which men call modesty. And if the burgh be too poor for this,
the provost will bear his share. The Rover’s golden angels have not all
taken flight yet.”
The beakers were now circulated, under the name of a cup of comfort to
the widow, and anon flowed around once more to the happy memory of the
murdered Oliver, now so bravely avenged. In short, it was a feast so
jovial that all agreed nothing was wanting to render it perfect but the
presence of the bonnet maker himself, whose calamity had occasioned the
meeting, and who had usually furnished the standing jest at such festive
assemblies. Had his attendance been possible, it was drily observed by
Bailie Craigdallie, he would certainly have claimed the success of the
day, and vouched himself the avenger of his own murder.
At the sound of the vesper bell the company broke up, some of the graver
sort going to evening prayers, where, with half shut eyes and shining
countenances, they made a most orthodox and edifying portion of a Lenten
congregation; others to their own homes, to tell over the occurrences of
the fight and feast, for the information of the family circle; and some,
doubtless, to the licensed freedoms of some tavern, the door of which
Lent did not keep so close shut as the forms of the church required.
Henry returned to the wynd, warm with the good wine and the applause of
his fellow citizens, and fell asleep to dream of perfect happiness and
Catharine Glover.
We have said that, when the combat was decided, the spectators were
divided into two bodies. Of these, when the more respectable portion
attended the victor in joyous procession, much the greater number, or
what might be termed the rabble, waited upon the subdued and sentenced
Bonthron, who was travelling in a different direction, and for a very
opposite purpose. Whatever may be thought of the comparative attractions
of the house of mourning and of feasting under other circumstances,
there can be little doubt which will draw most visitors, when the
question is, whether we would witness miseries which we are not to
share, or festivities of which we are not to partake. Accordingly, the
tumbril in which the criminal was conveyed to execution was attended by
far the greater proportion of the inhabitants of Perth.
A friar was seated in the same car with the murderer, to whom he did
not hesitate to repeat, under the seal of confession, the same false
asseveration which he had made upon the place of combat, which charged
the Duke of Rothsay with being director of the ambuscade by which
the unfortunate bonnet maker had suffered. The same falsehood he
disseminated among the crowd, averring, with unblushing effrontery, to
those who were nighest to the car, that he owed his death to his having
been willing to execute the Duke of Rothsay’s pleasure. For a time
he repeated these words, sullenly and doggedly, in the manner of one
reciting a task, or a liar who endeavours by reiteration to obtain
a credit for his words which he is internally sensible they do not
deserve. But when he lifted up his eyes, and beheld in the distance the
black outline of a gallows, at least forty feet high, with its ladder
and its fatal cord, rising against the horizon, he became suddenly
silent, and the friar could observe that he trembled very much.
“Be comforted, my son,” said the good priest, “you have confessed
the truth, and received absolution. Your penitence will be accepted
according to your sincerity; and though you have been a man of bloody
hands and cruel heart, yet, by the church’s prayers, you shall be in due
time assoilzied from the penal fires of purgatory.”
These assurances were calculated rather to augment than to diminish
the terrors of the culprit, who was agitated by doubts whether the
mode suggested for his preservation from death would to a certainty be
effectual, and some suspicion whether there was really any purpose of
employing them in his favour, for he knew his master well enough to be
aware of the indifference with which he would sacrifice one who might on
some future occasion be a dangerous evidence against him.
His doom, however, was sealed, and there was no escaping from it. They
slowly approached the fatal tree, which was erected on a bank by the
river’s side, about half a mile from the walls of the city--a site
chosen that the body of the wretch, which was to remain food for the
carrion crows, might be seen from a distance in every direction.
Here the priest delivered Bonthron to the executioner, by whom he was
assisted up the ladder, and to all appearance despatched according to
the usual forms of the law. He seemed to struggle for life for a
minute, but soon after hung still and inanimate. The executioner, after
remaining upon duty for more than half an hour, as if to permit the
last spark of life to be extinguished, announced to the admirers of such
spectacles that the irons for the permanent suspension of the carcass
not having been got ready, the concluding ceremony of disembowelling the
dead body and attaching it finally to the gibbet would be deferred till
the next morning at sunrise.
Notwithstanding the early hour which he had named, Master Smotherwell
had a reasonable attendance of rabble at the place of execution, to
see the final proceedings of justice with its victim. But great was the
astonishment and resentment of these amateurs to find that the dead body
had been removed from the gibbet. They were not, however, long at a loss
to guess the cause of its disappearance. Bonthron had been the follower
of a baron whose estates lay in Fife, and was himself a native of that
province. What was more natural than that some of the Fife men, whose
boats were frequently plying on the river, should have clandestinely
removed the body of their countryman from the place of public shame? The
crowd vented their rage against Smotherwell for not completing his
job on the preceding evening; and had not he and his assistant betaken
themselves to a boat, and escaped across the Tay, they would have run
some risk of being pelted to death. The event, however, was too much in
the spirit of the times to be much wondered at. Its real cause we shall
explain in the following chapter.