By the Duke's command the executioner then advanced and placed before the prisoner an iron case called the Scottish boot, so constructed that it would enclose the leg and knee of the victim with a tight fit. An iron wedge and a mallet completed the equipment. This wedge, when placed between the knee and the unyielding iron frame, and struck a sharp blow with the mallet, was calculated to inflict the most excruciating pain.
Macbriar faced the implement without flinching, while the executioner asked in harsh, discordant tones which leg he should take first.
'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.'
Here Scott makes use of the actual words of James Mitchell, who suffered similar torture for his attempt on the life of Archbishop Sharp.
When Macbriar was led to his execution, he thanked the Council for his sentence and forgave them, saying:—
And why should I not?—Ye send me to a happy exchange—to the company of angels and spirits of the just, for that of frail dust and ashes.—Ye send me from darkness into day—from mortality to immortality—and in a word, from earth to heaven! If the thanks therefore, and pardon of a dying man can do you good, take them at my hand, and may your last moments be as happy as mine!
And thus, 'his countenance radiant with joy and triumph,' he was led to his execution, 'dying with the same enthusiastic firmness which his whole life had evinced.'
The book which contains this superb presentation of a thrilling epoch of Scottish history is justly termed, by Lockhart, the Marmion of the Waverley Novels.