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Updated: June 2, 2025
While these accents of welcome still rung above the crowd, who now filled the whole adjacent streets, receiving and circulating a thousand varying reports, the fathers of the city caused the body to be raised and more closely examined; when it was instantly perceived, and the truth publicly announced, that not the armourer of the Wynd, so highly and, according to the esteemed qualities of the time, so justly popular among his fellow citizens, but a man of far less general estimation, though not without his own value in society, lay murdered before them the brisk bonnet maker, Oliver Proudfute.
"I have some suspicion, my dearest friend, Henry Smith, that the villain fled for fear of you, not of me." "Do not think so," replied the armourer: "he saw two men and fled, and who can tell whether he fled for one or the other? Besides, he knows by experience your strength and activity: we all saw how you kicked and struggled when you were on the ground." "Did I?" said poor Proudfute.
She was standing near the folding-doors, seemingly much interested in what Mr Proudfute, her brother's friend, was saying to her. "There, aunt," said Lilias, eagerly, when the greetings were over, "did I not tell you that my friend Miss Elliott would eclipse all here to-night? Look at her now." "My dear," said her aunt, "she does better than that.
"And mine also was not awanting," said Oliver Proudfute, "though I do not profess to be utterly so good a swordsman as our neighbour Henry Gow. You saw me, neighbour Glover, at the beginning of the fray?" "I saw you after the end of it, neighbour," answered the glover, drily. "True true; I had forgot you were in your house while the blows were going, and could not survey who were dealing them."
The grim and loathly aspect with which the falconer had regarded Oliver Proudfute during his harangue had greatly disconcerted him, and altogether altered the character of the inquiry which, with Henry Gow to back him, he would probably have thought most fitting for the occasion.
Therefore, I, Patrick Charteris, being a belted knight and freeborn gentleman, offer myself to do battle in her just quarrel, whilst man and horse may endure, if any one of my degree shall lift my glove. How say you, Magdalen Proudfute, will you accept me for your champion?" The widow answered with difficulty: "I can desire none nobler."
"The town hold me a hot headed carle for a man of threescore; Sim Glover is the offended party; we all know that Harry Gow spoils more harness with his sword than he makes with his hammer and our neighbour Proudfute, who, take his own word, is at the beginning and end of every fray in Perth, is of course a man of action.
Sir Patrick Charteris then took measures for repairing to the King's presence, and demanding leave to proceed with inquiry into the murder of Oliver Proudfute, according to the custom of bier right, and, if necessary, by combat.
"Yet I must allay your joy," said the old glover, "though, Heaven knows, I share it. Poor Oliver Proudfute, the inoffensive fool that you and I knew so well, has been found this morning dead in the streets." "Only dead drunk, I trust?" said the smith; "nay, a candle and a dose of matrimonial advice will bring him to life again." "No, Henry no.
The sun had therefore risen for an hour above the horizon before there was any general appearance of life among the inhabitants of Perth, so that it was some time after daybreak when a citizen, going early to mass, saw the body of the luckless Oliver Proudfute lying on its face across the kennel in the manner in which he had fallen under the blow; as our readers will easily imagine, of Anthony Bonthron, the "boy of the belt" that is the executioner of the pleasure of John of Ramorny.
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