uard. A little before two o'clock, Porteous
came to receive Wilson, the prisoner, from the captain of the city prison.
He was in a terrible rage, first against Wilson, who had affronted his
soldiers, and next against the mob, who were charmed with Wilson's generous
action in the church, and had favoured Robertson's escape. They are always
on the side of humanity and mercy, unless they are engaged themselves.
Porteous was also infuriated because the Welch Fusiliers had been brought
to the Canongate, as if he and his guard had not been sufficient to keep
down any riot within the city. The manacles were too little for Wilson's
wrists, who was a strong, powerful man; when the hangman could not make
them meet, Porteous flew furiously to them, and squeezed the poor man, who
cried piteously during the operation, till he got them to meet, to the
exquisite torture of the miserable prisoner, who told him he could not
entertain one serious thought, so necessary to one in his condition, under
such intolerable pain. "No matter," said Porteous, "your torment will soon
be at an end." "Well," said Wilson, "you know not how soon you may be
placed in my condition; God Almighty forgive you as I do."

This cruel conduct of Porteous' still more embittered the minds of the
populace, who were sufficiently exasperated against him before, and the
report of it was soon spread over town and country.

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.

During the melancholy procession of the criminal and his guard, accompanied
by the magistrates, ministers, and others from the Old Tolbooth, which
stood in the Lawnmarket, to the scaffold, which was placed in the
Grassmarket, there was not the slightest appearance of a riot, nor after
Wilson had been suspended, until life was extinct, did the least
manifestation of disturbance occur on the part of a vast crowd of people
collected from town and country to witness the execution. The magistrates
of Edinburgh had retired from the scaffold to a house close by--concluding,
with reason, that as all was over with poor Wilson, no disturbance could
then happen, and the executioner was actually on