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Such a scene breaking into the burgher quietude the decent households which had all retired into decorous darkness for the night waking up again with lights flitting from story to story, the axes crashing against the doors of the Tolbooth, the wild procession whirling down the tortuous gloom of the West Bow was such an interruption of monotonous life as few towns in the eighteenth century could have equalled; and it is curious to remember the intense national feeling and keen patriotic understanding of how far the populace would or could endure interference, which made Duncan Forbes in his place in Parliament stand up as almost the defender of that wild outburst of lawlessness, and John of Argyle turn from the royal presence to prepare his hounds, as he said, against the Queen's threat of turning the rebellious country into a desert.
But scarcely had he departed the house when who should enter but the very soldiers from whom my brother and Esau had so marvellously escaped. The noise of taking up my brother and Esau Wardrop to the tolbooth by the soldiers bred a great wonderment in the town, and the magistrates came into the prison to see them. Then it was that they recognised their friendly adviser among those in authority.
The magistrates of Edinburgh, in order to defeat all attempts at a rescue, lodged the executioner the day previous in the Tolbooth, to prevent his being carried off; the sentinels were doubled outside the prison; the officers of the trained bands were ordered to attend the execution, likewise the city constables with their batons; the whole city-guard, having ammunition distributed to them, were marched to the place of execution with screwed bayonets, and, to make all sure, at desire of the lord provost, a battalion of the Welch Fusiliers, commanded by commissioned officers, marched up the streets of the city, and took up a position on each side of the Lawnmarket; whilst another body of that corps was placed under arms at the Canongate guard.
Garvald," she had no hand to give me. She looked up and smiled, and went on with the business, while I stood awkwardly by, the scorn of the assured gentlemen around me. By and by she spoke: "You and I seem fated to meet in odd places. First it was at Carnwath in the rain, and then at the Cauldstaneslap in a motley company. Then I think it was in the Tolbooth, Mr.
"I fancy," said Ratcliffe, with one of his familiar sneers, "the lassie thinks that naebody has een but hersell Didna I see when Gentle Geordie was seeking to get other folk out of the Tolbooth forby Jock Porteous? but ye are of my mind, hinny better sit and rue, than flit and rue ye needna look in my face sae amazed. I ken mair things than that, maybe."
"And it wad far better become ye, Mr. Saddletree," continued his helpmate, "since ye say ye hae skeel o' the law, to try if ye can do onything for Effie Deans, puir thing, that's lying up in the tolbooth yonder, cauld, and hungry, and comfortless A servant lass of ours, Mr. Butler, and as innocent a lass, to my thinking, and as usefu' in the shop When Mr.
Adjacent to the tolbooth or city jail of Edinburgh, is one of three churches into which the cathedral of St. Giles is now divided, called, from its vicinity, the Tolbooth Church. It was the custom that criminals under sentence of death were brought to this church, with a sufficient guard, to hear and join in public worship on the Sabbath before execution.
There is another, called the Speech and dying words of John Dalgleish, lockman alias hangman of Edinburgh, containing these lines: "Ay; if I waited in the Tolbooth here to have him fit my cravat but that's an idle way o' speaking, Mr. Sharpitlaw." "Why, I suppose you know you are under sentence of death, Mr. Ratcliffe?" replied Mr. Sharpitlaw.
At St. Giles's and the Tolbooth close by, which were the double centre of life in the city, there was a perpetual alternation of preachings, to which Lords and Commons would crowd together to listen to Knox's trumpet peals of fiery eloquence, always upon some appropriate text, always instinct with the most vehement energy, and consultations upon public affairs and how to promote the triumph of religion; the lords pondering and sometimes doubtful, the preacher ever uncompromising and absolute.
After casting an anxious look at the grated windows and blackened walls of the old Tolbooth, and another scarce less anxious at the hospitable lodging of Mrs. Saddletree, Jeanie turned her back on that quarter, and soon after on the city itself. She reached St. Leonard's Crags without meeting any one whom she knew, which, in the state of her mind, she considered as a great blessing.
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