When the Doomster showed himself, a tall haggard figure, arrayed in a fantastic garment of black and grey, passmented with silver lace, all fell back with a sort of instinctive horror, and made wide way for him to approach the foot of the table. As this office was held by the common executioner, men shouldered each other backward to avoid even the touch of his garment, and some were seen to brush their own clothes, which had accidentally become subject to such contamination. A sound went through the Court, produced by each person drawing in their breath hard, as men do when they expect or witness what is frightful, and at the same time affecting. The caitiff villain yet seemed, amid his hardened brutality, to have some sense of his being the object of public detestation, which made him impatient of being in public, as birds of evil omen are anxious to escape from daylight, and from pure air.
Repeating after the Clerk of Court, he gabbled over the words of the sentence, which condemned Euphemia Deans to be conducted back to the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, and detained there until Wednesday the day of —-; and upon that day, betwixt the hours of two and four o’clock afternoon, to be conveyed to the common place of execution, and there hanged by the neck upon a gibbet. “And this,” said the Doomster, aggravating his harsh voice, “I pronounce for doom.”
He vanished when he had spoken the last emphatic word, like a foul fiend after the purpose of his visitation had been accomplished; but the impression of horror excited by his presence and his errand, remained upon the crowd of spectators.
The unfortunate criminal,—for so she must now be termed,—with more susceptibility, and more irritable feelings than her father and sister, was found, in this emergence, to possess a considerable share of their courage. She had remained standing motionless at the bar while the sentence was pronounced, and was observed to shut her eyes when the Doomster appeared. But she was the first to break silence when that evil form had left his place.
“God forgive ye, my Lords,” she said, “and dinna be angry wi’ me for wishing it—we a’ need forgiveness.—As for myself, I canna blame ye, for ye act up to your lights; and if I havena killed my poor infant, ye may witness a’ that hae seen it this day, that I hae been the means of killing my greyheaded father—I deserve the warst frae man, and frae God too—But God is mair mercifu’ to us than we are to each other.”
With these words the trial concluded. The crowd rushed, bearing forward and shouldering each other, out of the Court, in the same tumultuary mode in which they had entered; and, in excitation of animal motion and animal spirits, soon forgot whatever they had felt as impressive in the scene which they had witnessed. The professional spectators, whom habit and theory had rendered as callous to the distress of the scene as medical men are to those of a surgical operation, walked homeward in groups, discussing the general principle of the statute under which the young woman was condemned, the nature of the evidence, and the arguments of the counsel, without considering even that of the Judge as exempt from their criticism.
The female spectators, more compassionate, were loud in exclamation against that part of the Judge’s speech which seemed to cut off the hope of pardon.
“Set him up, indeed,” said Mrs. Howden, “to tell us that the poor lassie behoved to die, when Mr. John Kirk, as civil a gentleman as is within the ports of the town, took the pains to prigg for her himsell.”
“Ay, but, neighbour,” said Miss Damahoy, drawing up her thin maidenly form to its full height of prim dignity—“I really think this unnatural business of having bastard-bairns should be putten a stop to.—There isna a hussy now on this side of thirty that you can bring within your doors, but there will be chields—writer-lads, prentice-lads, and what not—coming traiking after them for their destruction, and discrediting ane’s honest house into the bargain—I hae nae patience wi’ them.”
“Hout, neighbour,” said Mrs. Howden, “we suld live and let live—we hae been young oursells, and we are no aye to judge the warst when lads and lasses forgather.”