United States or Libya ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Porteous at first uttered some supplications for mercy, but when he found that there was no chance that these would be attended to, his military education, and the natural stubbornness of his disposition, combined to support his spirits. "Are you prepared for this dreadful end?" said Butler, in a faltering voice.
Saddletree," answered his helpmate, rather nettled at the indifference with which her report was received; "there's mony ane wad hae thought themselves affronted, if sae mony customers had ca'd and naebody to answer them but women-folk; for a' the lads were aff, as soon as your back was turned, to see Porteous hanged, that might be counted upon; and sae, you no being at hame" "Houts, Mrs.
Porteous conducted Wilson to the gallows, where he died very penitent, but expressing more sorrow on account of the common frailties of life, than the crime for which he suffered. His body was given to his friends, who carried it over to Pathhead in Fife, where it was interred; George Robertson having, as we have seen, rashly attended the funeral before going abroad.
John Porteous went into foreign service; he entered the corps known as the Scotch-Dutch, in the pay of the States of Holland, and plied the trade of arms. Time went on, and in its course it brought John Porteous back to Edinburgh. Here his military training served the city in good stead during the Jacobite rising of 1715. He disciplined the city guard and got his commission as its captain.
Fagots were piled outside the great gate and lighted, and the bonfire was assiduously fed until at last the great gate was consumed and the rioters rushed to their purpose over the glowing embers and through the flying sparks. They found Porteous in his apartment, deserted by his companions, dizzy with the fumes of wines, and helpless with the horror of the doom that menaced him.
Porteous defended himself vigorously, denied that he had ever given an order to fire, denied that he had ever fired his piece, proved that he had exhibited his piece to the magistrates immediately after the occurrence unused and still loaded. This defence was met by the counter-assertion that the weapon Porteous had used was not his own, but one seized from the hands of a soldier.
And even without that, the market is top-heavy. Porteous makes me weary. He and his gang have been bucking it up till we've got an abnormal price. Ninety-four for May wheat! Why, it's ridiculous. Ought to be selling way down in the eighties. The least little jolt would tip her over. Well," he said abruptly, squaring himself at Jadwin, "do we come in?
"Deil that they were back at their German kale-yard then, as my neighbour MacCroskie ca's it," said Mrs. Howden, "an that's the way they're gaun to guide us!" "They say for certain," said Miss Damahoy, "that King George flang his periwig in the fire when he heard o' the Porteous mob." "He has done that, they say," replied Saddletree, "for less thing."
But besides this subject for legal disquisition, Bartoline's brains were also overloaded with the affair of Porteous, his violent death, and all its probable consequences to the city and community. It was what the French call l'embarras des richesses, the confusion arising from too much mental wealth.
It was from this fascinating path the scene to me of so much delicious musing, when life was young and promised to be happy, that I have been unable to pass it over without an episodical description it was, I say, from this romantic path that Butler saw the morning arise the day after the murder of Porteous.
Word Of The Day