n and true every one; we will not be called rioters, or
idle perturbators of the king's peace. Stand you still, and make room,
for yonder comes Bailie Craigdallie, ay, and honest Simon Glover, to
whom the Fair City is so much bounden. Alas--alas! my kind townsmen, his
beautiful daughter was a bride yesternight; this morning the Fair Maid
of Perth is a widow before she has been a wife."

This new theme of sympathy increased the rage and sorrow of the crowd
the more, as many women now mingled with them, who echoed back the alarm
cry to the men.

"Ay--ay, St. Johnston's hunt is up! For the Fair Maid of Perth and
the brave Henry Gow! Up--up, every one of you, spare not for your skin
cutting! To the stables!--to the stables! When the horse is gone the man
at arms is useless--cut off the grooms and yeomen; lame, maim, and stab
the horses; kill the base squires and pages. Let these proud knights
meet us on their feet if they dare!"

"They dare not--they dare not," answered the men; "their strength is
their horses and armour; and yet the haughty and ungrateful villains
have slain a man whose skill as an armourer was never matched in Milan
or Venice. To arms!--to arms, brave burghers! St. Johnston's hunt is
up!"

Amid this clamour, the magistrates and superior class of inhabitants
with difficulty obtained room to examine the body, having with them the
town clerk to take an official protocol, or, as it is still called, a
precognition, of the condition in which it was found. To these delays
the multitude submitted, with a patience and order which strongly marked
the national character of a people whose resentment has always been
the more deeply dangerous, that they will, without relaxing their
determination of vengeance, submit with patience to all delays which are
necessary to ensure its attainment. The multitude, therefore, received
their magistrates with a loud cry, in which the thirst of revenge was
announced, together with the deferential welcome to the patrons by whose
direction they expected to obtain it in right and legal fashion.

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 t