distorted, it excited the utmost abhorrence, both of the deed and
the perpetrators, among the assembled faction. They declaimed
against the act as an unnatural attempt on the character, and even
the life, of an unfortunate brother, who had been expelled from
his father's house. And, as party spirit was the order of the day, an
attempt was made to lay the burden of it to that account. In short,
the young culprit got some of the best blood of the land to enter
as his securities, and was set at liberty. But, when Wringhim
perceived the plight that he was in, he took him, as he was, and
presented him to his honourable patrons. This raised the
indignation against the young laird and his associates a thousand-
fold, which actually roused the party to temporary madness. They
were, perhaps, a little excited by the wine and spirits they had
swallowed; else a casual quarrel between two young men, at
tennis, could not have driven them to such extremes. But certain
it is that, from one at first arising to address the party on the
atrocity of the offence, both in a moral and political point of
view, on a sudden there were six on their feet, at the same time,
expatiating on it; and, in a very short time thereafter, everyone in
the room was up talking with the utmost vociferation, all on the
same subject, and all taking the same side in the debate.

In the midst of this confusion, someone or other issued from the
house, which was at the back of the Canongate, calling out: "A
plot, a plot! Treason, treason! Down with the bloody incendiaries
at the Black Bull!"

The concourse of people that were assembled in Edinburgh at that
time was prodigious; and, as they were all actuated by political
motives, they wanted only a ready-blown coal to set the mountain