The Fair Maid of Perth; Or, St. Valentine's Day

by Walter Scott

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  A purple land, where law secures not life.

  BYRON.

  The morning of Ash Wednesday arose pale and bleak, as usual at thisseason in Scotland, where the worst and most inclement weather oftenoccurs in the early spring months. It was a severe day of frost, and thecitizens had to sleep away the consequences of the preceding holiday'sdebauchery. The sun had therefore risen for an hour above the horizonbefore there was any general appearance of life among the inhabitantsof Perth, so that it was some time after daybreak when a citizen, goingearly to mass, saw the body of the luckless Oliver Proudfute lying onits face across the kennel in the manner in which he had fallen underthe blow; as our readers will easily imagine, of Anthony Bonthron, the"boy of the belt"--that is the executioner of the pleasure--of John ofRamorny.

  This early citizen was Allan Griffin, so termed because he was masterof the Griffin Inn; and the alarm which he raised soon brought togetherfirst straggling neighbours, and by and by a concourse of citizens. Atfirst from the circumstance of the well known buff coat and the crimsonfeather in the head piece, the noise arose that it was the stout smiththat lay there slain. This false rumour continued for some time, for thehost of the Griffin, who himself had been a magistrate, would not permitthe body to be touched or stirred till Bailie Craigdallie arrived, sothat the face was not seen..

  "This concerns the Fair City, my friends," he said, "and if it is thestout Smith of the Wynd who lies here, the man lives not in Perth whowill not risk land and life to avenge him. Look you, the villains havestruck him down behind his back, for there is not a man within tenScotch miles of Perth, gentle or simple, Highland or Lowland, thatwould have met him face to face with such evil purpose. Oh, brave men ofPerth! the flower of your manhood has been cut down, and that by a baseand treacherous hand."

  A wild cry of fury arose from the people, who were fast assembling.

  "We will take him on our shoulders," said a strong butcher, "we willcarry him to the King's presence at the Dominican convent"

  "Ay--ay," answered a blacksmith, "neither bolt nor bar shall keep usfrom the King, neither monk nor mass shall break our purpose. A betterarmourer never laid hammer on anvil!"

  "To the Dominicans--to the Dominicans!" shouted the assembled people.

  "Bethink you, burghers," said another citizen, "our king is a good kingand loves us like his children. It is the Douglas and the Duke of Albanythat will not let good King Robert hear the distresses of his people."

  "Are we to be slain in our own streets for the King's softness ofheart?" said the butcher. "The Bruce did otherwise. If the King will notkeep us, we will keep ourselves. Ring the bells backward, every bell ofthem that is made of metal. Cry, and spare not, St. Johnston's hunt isup!"

  "Ay," cried another citizen, "and let us to the holds of Albany and theDouglas, and burn them to the ground. Let the fires tell far and nearthat Perth knew how to avenge her stout Henry Gow. He has fought a scoreof times for the Fair City's right; let us show we can once to avengehis wrong. Hally ho! brave citizens, St. Johnston's hunt is up!"

  This cry, the well known rallying word amongst the inhabitants of Perth,and seldom heard but on occasions of general uproar, was echoed fromvoice to voice; and one or two neighbouring steeples, of which theenraged citizens possessed themselves, either by consent of the priestsor in spite of their opposition, began to ring out the ominous alarmnotes, in which, as the ordinary succession of the chimes was reversed,the bells were said to be rung backward.

  Still, as the crowd thickened, and the roar waxed more universal andlouder, Allan Griffin, a burly man with a deep voice, and well respectedamong high and low, kept his station as he bestrode the corpse, andcalled loudly to the multitude to keep back and wait the arrival of themagistrates.

  "We must proceed by order in this matter, my masters, we must have ourmagistrates at our head. They are duly chosen and elected in our townhall, good men and true every one; we will not be called rioters, oridle perturbators of the king's peace. Stand you still, and make room,for yonder comes Bailie Craigdallie, ay, and honest Simon Glover, towhom the Fair City is so much bounden. Alas--alas! my kind townsmen, hisbeautiful daughter was a bride yesternight; this morning the Fair Maidof Perth is a widow before she has been a wife."

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

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

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

  Amid this clamour, the magistrates and superior class of inhabitantswith difficulty obtained room to examine the body, having with them thetown clerk to take an official protocol, or, as it is still called, aprecognition, of the condition in which it was found. To these delaysthe multitude submitted, with a patience and order which strongly markedthe national character of a people whose resentment has always beenthe more deeply dangerous, that they will, without relaxing theirdetermination of vengeance, submit with patience to all delays which arenecessary to ensure its attainment. The multitude, therefore, receivedtheir magistrates with a loud cry, in which the thirst of revenge wasannounced, together with the deferential welcome to the patrons by whosedirection they expected to obtain it in right and legal fashion.

  While these accents of welcome still rung above the crowd, who nowfilled the whole adjacent streets, receiving and circulating a thousandvarying reports, the fathers of the city caused the body to be raisedand more closely examined; when it was instantly perceived, and thetruth publicly announced, that not the armourer of the Wynd, so highlyand, according to the esteemed qualities of the time, so justly popularamong his fellow citizens, but a man of far less general estimation,though not without his own value in society, lay murdered beforethem--the brisk bonnet maker, Oliver Proudfute. The resentment of thepeople had so much turned upon the general opinion that their frankand brave champion, Henry Gow, was the slaughtered person, that thecontradiction of the report served to cool the general fury, although,if poor Oliver had been recognised at first, there is little doubt thatthe cry of vengeance would have been as unanimous, though not probablyso furious, as in the case of Henry Wynd. The first circulation of theunexpected intelligence even excited a smile among the crowd, so nearare the confines of the ludicrous to those of the terrible.

  "The murderers have without doubt taken him for Henry Smith,"said Griffin, "which must have been a great comfort to him in thecircumstances."

  But the arrival of other persons on the scene soon restored its deeplytragic character.