During one of these little torture scenes, the Sheriff, having for the tenth time wasted his modicum of legal ability on the Radical weaver, took the huff, and retired, leaving Jamie in the hands of Mr. Salmond, the Fiscal. Now, there was in the general conduct of the Fiscal a singular bluntness, a want of delicacy in moral perception; and anything like higher instincts or scruples of conscience, if he was ever plagued with them, were brushed aside like so many midges. Hence, when he came to deal with the Radical prisoners, he exhibited a wonderful freedom, if no great variety of device.

'It is too bad, Campbell,' said the Fiscal; 'you have offended the Sheriff, who is in delicate health.' 'He should consult the doctor,' returned Jamie; 'I'm no responsible for his fits o' spleen.'

Come, man, be reasonable, and consult your own good in this affair.'

I ettle to do that, Mr. Salmond, alang with the good o' a few ithers besides mysel.'

men for whom you would sacrifice yourself are little

better that a parcel of villains ?'

'No, I dinna ken that; and I canna tak your word for't, Fiscal though you be.'

'Will you believe me when I say that I have got

half-a-dozen of these very prisoners who will swear that you took the oath ?'

'Believe you? No! But if they do swear, it's clear that some villain's been gaun amang them and corrupting them, and buying perjury.'

'What do you mean ?' asked the Fiscal, flushing a little.

'I canna believe onything o' the kind.'

'It is true nevertheless, and you will be hanged as sure as you are living.'

'It's for the jury to decide that, Mr. Salmondno you.'

'Man, Campbell, you are not considering your wife and family. You will ruin both them and yourself. Think what a horrible thing it will be for them if you are hanged. Now, by quietly giving the Crown your help in this affair, you will save yourself and immensely benefit your wife and child. The LordAdvocate is in Glasgow just now, and I feel certain that, if you will consent to be a witness, he will give you anything you wish, in addition to a free pardon. Come, man, be reasonable.'

'Reasonable! You are a bonnie man, Mr. Fiscal, to ask me to be reasonable, when you want me to buy a pardon by committing rank perjury, and maybe murder, by bringing some o' my freens to the gallows. Do you ca' that reasonable? It's-'

'Well, what is it?'

'Wark for a scoundrel, not for a man wi' a conscience.'

'Conscience!' sneered the baffled official. 'I have long heard what fools you Radicals are, but I never fully knew it till now. Think again, Campbell. Do you not see the gallows-tree springing up before your very eyes?'

'No, but I see waur. I see endless perdition in the perjury you wad hae me commit to please the Crown lawyers.'

'You'll be hanged as sure as fate, if you don't take care.'

'Weel, Fiscal, let it be sae. I wad rather be hanged than damned.'

'And your wife and child ?'

'There's a God abin,' answered Jamie, pointing solemnly upwards with his finger.

Fiscal Salmond looked at him for an instant with a shade of scorn in his visage, and then retired, shrugging a pair of scornful shoulders.

Jamie was taken back to his cell, but the old sinking of the heart was gone. His mind was at ease, because in his conscience a still small voice kept ever whispering, 'Well done!' 'Well done!' 'Well done!'

VOL. II.

8

CHAPTER XXXI.

EDINBURGH CASTLE.

THE prisoners were at length removed to Edinburgh, where they were locked up in the historic cells of the Castle.

It

Many a curious cavalcade has swept up the Highstreet to that grandest of Scottish fortresses. must, for instance, have been a glorious sight to see fluttering in the summer wind the purple and fine linen of royalty, attended by helmet and hauberk, and sword and spear, winding along the picturesque ridge, amid the breath of bugles and the rattle of drums.

How different was the spectacle presented by the Glasgow Radicals, ragged and shivering, as they wound up the same steep, on a cold March morning, under an escort of mingled troops and constables! A cavalcade more desolate in appearance it would be difficult to imagine. For whatever these men may have been in heart and thought, they certainly did not, in the figures of them, represent the port and majesty of freedom. Happily for the hope and comfort of mankind, the principles of moral and political truth exist independently of form and colour; and we know that the spirit of liberty and religion has

triumphed most signally, not under purple robes and palace roofs, but in rags and bondage-on the scaffold and on the cross.

Is it not possible that, under the rags and lean ribs of these sickly-looking Radicals, there lurked, in however minute a form, something of the soul of freedom, whose efforts and failures contained a faint presage of great political reforms?

Not of them all, however, can this be asked. A number, as Mr. Salmond hinted, had yielded to the blandishments of legal functionaries, and made a clean breast of their sins. Of these, the most conspicuous was Makane, whose elastic conscience and facile tongue supplied any amount of evidence. But some had not yielded to the assaults of authority. Campbell, who, as we have seen, was the most notable of this devoted band, had repelled the insidious promises, and defied the threats of the Sheriff and the Fiscal of Lanarkshire. Jamie knew very well that death was by no means the worst calamity that could befall a man.

But the Crown lawyers did not yet despair of inducing Campbell to become a Crown witness. They were getting up the case with all speed, and had secured what some of them thought was sufficient evidence to insure a conviction. The Lord - Advocate, however, was doubtful, and hesitated to proceed with the case without Jamie's evidence, which he