Finland's desertion of his post proved ultimately fatal to the defence of Holyrood, which by the efforts of Wallace, Walter Fenton, and the church-militant, Dr. Joram, was protracted until eleven at night. Then the soldiers of Finland, having been all shot down, a party of the Trained Bands, led by Captain Grahame, broke down the gate with sledge-hammers, and then the armed mob, roused to an indescribable pitch of frenzy and ferocity by the liquors they had imbibed, the resistance and slaughter, and the exhortations of the religious maniacs who led them, crowded like a hell disgorged into the outer court and inner quadrangle of the palace.
Taken thus in flank, the soldiers of Wallace were almost immediately destroyed. That brave cavalier was hewn down, his body was hacked to pieces, his entrails torn out and cast into the air. Many of his soldiers who surrendered were shot in cold blood, and all the wounded perished. Walter Fenton, gathering a few of the survivors upon his platform, still continued to fire upon the sea of madmen that swarmed around them.
Conspicuous among his followers, upon his prancing Galloway cob, towered the tall and ghastly figure of Mr. Ichabod Bummel; and, urging the work of death, he sent his powerful voice before him wherever he went.
"No quarter to the birds of Belial!—smite them both hip and thigh. On, ye chosen of Israel, who now, in the good fight of faith, shall extirpate the heathen, sent forth even as the Jews were of old."
"Pick me down yonder villain!" cried Fenton to his soldiers; and bullet after bullet whistled past the head of the preacher, but he seemed to bear a charmed life, and escaped them all.
"On, on to the good work, and prosper!" he cried. "Smite and slay! smite and slay! lest the curses that befel Saul for sparing the Amalekites fall upon ye."
Thus urged, the people hewed the soldiers limb from limb, and the bodies of the dead shared the same fate. Seeing all lost, Walter and Dr. Joram had torn the cavalier plumes from their hats, and leaped upon their horses, hoping to cut their way through the press, or escape unknown. But, alas! Joram was recognised by the terrible Ichabod, who, urging his Galloway towards him, brandished his sword, and exclaimed with stentorian lungs—
"'Tis a priest of Baal, and this night will I send him howling to his false gods! Come on, Jonadab Joram, thou wolf in sheep's clothing."
"Approach, thou d—ned, round-headed, prick-eared, covenanting, and rebellious rapscallion!" cried the Doctor in great wrath, urging his horse towards his clerical antagonist; but the crowd was great between them, and they were enabled to glare at and menace and bespatter each other with scriptural abuse and very hard names for some time before they came within sword's point; for they were both intoxicated, the one with brandy, and the other with an enthusiasm that bordered on insanity. "Come on, thou villanous whigamore," cried Joram, flourishing his long rapier; "thy glory and thee shall depart to the devil together!"
"Out upon thee, and the bloody papistical Duke whom thou servest, and hast blasphemously prayed for; but the curse that fell upon Jeroboam hath already fallen upon him—he shall die without a son, and be the last of his persecuting race, despite the brat in the warming pan."