Old Mortality, Complete by Walter Scott (christmas read aloud .txt) 📗

time; I think you are not likely to commit treason on your own score.—Make out his free pardon, and bring forward the rogue in the chair.”

Macbriar was then moved forward to the post of examination.

“Were you at the battle of Bothwell Bridge?” was, in like manner, demanded of him.

“I was,” answered the prisoner, in a bold and resolute tone.

“Were you armed?”

“I was not—I went in my calling as a preacher of God’s word, to encourage them that drew the sword in His cause.”

“In other words, to aid and abet the rebels?” said the Duke.

“Thou hast spoken it,” replied the prisoner.

“Well, then,” continued the interrogator, “let us know if you saw John Balfour of Burley among the party?—I presume you know him?”

“I bless God that I do know him,” replied Macbriar; “he is a zealous and a sincere Christian.”

“And when and where did you last see this pious personage?” was the query which immediately followed.

“I am here to answer for myself,” said Macbriar, in the same dauntless manner, “and not to endanger others.”

“We shall know,” said Dalzell, “how to make you find your tongue.”

“If you can make him fancy himself in a conventicle,” answered Lauderdale, “he will find it without you.—Come, laddie, speak while the play is good—you’re too young to bear the burden will be laid on you else.”

“I defy you,” retorted Macbriar. “This has not been the first of my imprisonments or of my sufferings; and, young as I may be, I have lived long enough to know how to die when I am called upon.”

“Ay, but there are some things which must go before an easy death, if you continue obstinate,” said Lauderdale, and rung a small silver bell which was placed before him on the table.

A dark crimson curtain, which covered a sort of niche, or Gothic recess in the wall, rose at the signal, and displayed the public executioner, a tall, grim, and hideous man, having an oaken table before him, on which lay thumb-screws, and an iron case, called the Scottish boot, used in those tyrannical days to torture accused persons. Morton, who was unprepared for this ghastly apparition, started when the curtain arose, but Macbriar’s nerves were more firm. He gazed upon the horrible apparatus with much composure; and if a touch of nature called the blood from his cheek for a second, resolution sent it back to his brow with greater energy.

“Do you know who that man is?” said Lauderdale, in a low, stern voice, almost sinking into a whisper.

“He is, I suppose,” replied Macbriar, “the infamous executioner of your bloodthirsty commands upon the persons of God’s people. He and you are equally beneath my regard; and, I bless God, I no more fear what he can inflict than what you can command. Flesh and blood may shrink under the sufferings you can doom me to, and poor frail nature may shed tears, or send forth cries; but I trust my soul is anchored firmly on the rock of ages.”

“Do your duty,” said the Duke to the executioner.

The fellow advanced, and asked, with a harsh and discordant voice, upon which of the prisoner’s limbs he should first employ his engine.

“Let him choose for himself,” said the Duke; “I should like to oblige him in any thing that is reasonable.”

“Since you leave it to me,” said the prisoner, stretching forth his right leg, “take the best—I willingly bestow it in the cause for which I suffer.” [Note: This was the reply actually made by James Mitchell when subjected to the torture of the boot, for an attempt to assassinate Archbishop Sharpe.]

The executioner, with the help of his assistants, enclosed the leg and knee within the tight iron boot, or case, and then placing a wedge of the same metal between the knee and the edge of the machine, took a mallet in his hand, and stood waiting for farther orders. A well-dressed man, by profession a surgeon, placed himself by the other side of the prisoner’s chair, bared the prisoner’s arm, and applied his thumb to the pulse in order to regulate the torture according to the strength of the patient. When these preparations were made, the President of the Council repeated with the same stern voice the question, “When and where did you last see John Balfour of Burley?”

The prisoner, instead of replying to him, turned his eyes to heaven as if imploring Divine strength, and muttered a few words, of which the last were distinctly audible, “Thou hast said thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power!”

The Duke of Lauderdale glanced his eye around the council as if to collect their suffrages, and, judging from their mute signs, gave on his own part a nod to the executioner, whose mallet instantly descended on the wedge, and, forcing it between the knee and the iron boot, occasioned the most exquisite pain, as was evident from the flush which instantly took place on the brow and on the cheeks of the sufferer. The fellow then again raised his weapon, and stood prepared to give a second blow.

“Will you yet say,” repeated the Duke of Lauderdale, “where and when you last parted from Balfour of Burley?”

“You have my answer,” said the sufferer resolutely, and the second blow fell. The third and fourth succeeded; but at the fifth, when a larger wedge had been introduced, the prisoner set up a scream of agony.

Morton, whose blood boiled within him at witnessing such cruelty, could bear no longer, and, although unarmed and himself in great danger, was springing forward, when Claverhouse, who observed his emotion, withheld him by force, laying one hand on his arm and the other on his mouth, while he whispered, “For God’s sake, think where you are!”

This movement, fortunately for him, was observed by no other of the councillors, whose attention was engaged with the dreadful scene before them.

“He is gone,” said the surgeon—“he has fainted, my Lords, and human nature can endure no more.”

“Release him,” said the Duke; and added, turning to Dalzell, “He will make an old proverb good, for he’ll scarce ride to-day, though he has had his boots on. I suppose we must finish with him?”

“Ay, dispatch his sentence, and have done with him; we have plenty of drudgery behind.”

Strong waters and essences were busily employed to recall the senses of the unfortunate captive; and, when his first faint gasps intimated a return of sensation, the Duke pronounced sentence of death upon him, as a traitor taken in the act of open rebellion, and adjudged him to be carried from the bar to the common place of execution, and there hanged by the neck; his head and hands to be stricken off after death, and disposed of according to the pleasure of the Council, [Note: The pleasure of the Council respecting the relics of their victims was often as savage as the