efit
of his soul and for the discovery of his foul murder. Meantime, we shall
obtain an order that Sir John Ramorny give up a list of such of his
household as were in Perth in the course of the night between Fastern's
Even and this Ash Wednesday, and become bound to present them on a
certain day and hour, to be early named, in the High Church of St. John,
there one by one to pass before the bier of our murdered fellow citizen,
and in the form prescribed to call upon God and His saints to bear
witness that he is innocent of the acting, art or part, of the murder.
And credit me, as has been indeed proved by numerous instances, that, if
the murderer shall endeavour to shroud himself by making such an appeal,
the antipathy which subsists between the dead body and the hand which
dealt the fatal blow that divorced it from the soul will awaken some
imperfect life, under the influence of which the veins of the dead man
will pour forth at the fatal wounds the blood which has been so long
stagnant in the veins. Or, to speak more certainly, it is the pleasure
of Heaven, by some hidden agency which we cannot comprehend, to leave
open this mode of discovering the wickedness of him who has defaced the
image of his Creator."

"I have heard this law talked of," said Sir Patrick, "and it was
enforced in the Bruce's time. This surely is no unfit period to seek, by
such a mystic mode of inquiry, the truth to which no ordinary means can
give us access, seeing that a general accusation of Sir John's household
would full surely be met by a general denial. Yet I must crave farther
of Sir Louis, our reverend town clerk, how we shall prevent the guilty
person from escaping in the interim?"

"The burghers will maintain a strict watch upon the wall, drawbridges
shall be raised and portcullises lowered, from sunset to sunrise, and
strong patrols maintained through the night. This guard the burghers
will willingly maintain, to secure against the escape of the murderer of
their townsman."

The rest of the counsellors acquiesced, by word, sign, and look, in this
proposal.

"Again," said the provost, "what if any one of the suspected household
refuse to submit to the ordeal of bier right?"

"He may appeal to that of combat," said the reverend city scribe, "with
an opponent of equal rank; because the accused person must have his
choice, in the appeal to the judgment of God, by what ordeal he will
be tried. But if he refuses both, he must be held