rp, and with that raving monster
Lauderdale among them they're likely not only to torture but to hang
him, for he is well known, and has been long and perseveringly hunted."

In his indignation the smith did not think of the effect his foreboding
might have on his friend's mother, but the sight of her pale cheeks and
quivering lips was not lost upon Wallace, whose sympathies had already
been stirred deeply not only by his regard for Black, but also by his
pity for tender-hearted Jean.

"By heaven!" he exclaimed, starting up in a sudden burst of enthusiasm,
"if you will join me, friends, I am quite ready to attempt a rescue at
once."

A sort of pleased yet half-cynical smile crossed the grave visage of
Quentin Dick as he glanced at the youth.

"Hoots, man! sit doon," he said quietly; "ye micht as weel try to rescue
a kid frae the jaws o' a lion as rescue Andry Black frae the fangs o'
Lauderdale an' his crew. But something may be dune when they're takin'
him back to the Tolbooth--if ye're a' wullin' to help. We mak' full
twunty-four feet amangst us, an' oor shoothers are braid!"

"I'm ready," said David Spence, in the quiet tone of a man who usually
acts from principle.

"An' so am I," cried Bruce, smiting the table with the fist of a man who
usually acts from impulse.

While Wallace calmed his impatient spirit, and sat down to hatch a plot
with his brother conspirators, a strange scene was enacting in the
Council Chamber, where the perjured prelates and peers were in the habit
of practising cruelty, oppression, and gross injustice under the name of
law.

They sat beside a table which was covered with books and parchments. In
front of them, seated on a chair with his arms pinioned, was Andrew
Black. His face was pale and had a careworn look, but he held his head
erect, and regarded his judges with a look of stern resolution that
seemed to exasperate them considerably. On the table lay a pair of
brass-mounted thumbscrews, and beside them the strange-looking
instrument of torture called the boot. In regard to these machines
there is a passage in the Privy Council Records which gives an idea of
the spirit of the age about which we write. It runs thus: "Whereas the
_boots_ were the ordinary way to explicate matters relating to the
Government, and there is now a new invention and engine called the
_Thumbkins_, which will be very effectual to the purpose aforesaid, the
Lords ordain that when any person shall by