The Heart of the Mid-Lothian

by Walter Scott

O

n the day when the unhappy Porteous was expected to suffer the sentence of the law, the place of execution, extensive as it is, was crowded almost to suffocation. There was not a window in all the lofty tenements around it, or in the steep and crooked street called the Bow, by which the fatal procession was to descend from the High Street, that was not absolutely filled with spectators. The uncommon height and antique appearance of these houses, some of which were formerly the property of the Knights Templars, and the Knights of St. John, and still exhibit on their fronts and gables the iron cross of these orders, gave additional effect to a scene in itself so striking. The area of the Grassmarket resembled a huge dark lake or a sea of human heads, in the centre of which arose the fatal tree, tall, black and ominous, from which dangled the deadly halter. Every object takes interest from its uses and associations, and the erect beam and empty noose, things so simple in themselves, became, on such an occasion, object of terror and solemn interest.

            Amid so numerous an assembly there was scarcely a word spoken, save in whispers. The thirst of vengeance was in some degree allayed by its supposed certainty; and even the populace, with deeper feeling than they are wont to entertain, suppressed all clamorous exultation, and pre­pared to enjoy the scene of retaliation in triumph, silent and decent, though stern and relentless. It seemed as if the depth of their hatred to the unfortunate criminal scorned to display itself in anything resembling the more noisy current of their ordinary feelings. Had a stranger consulted only the evidence of his ears, he might have supposed that so vast a multitude were assembled for some purpose which affected them with the deepest sorrow, and stilled those noises which, on all ordinary occasions, arise from such a concourse; but if he gazed upon their faces he would have been instantly undeceived. The compressed lip, the bent brow, the stern and flashing eye of almost every one on whom he looked, conveyed the expression of men come to glut their sight with triumphant revenge. It is probable that the appearance of the criminal might have somewhat changed the temper of the populace in his favour, and that they might in the moment of death have forgiven the man against whom their resentment had been so fiercely heated. It had, how­ever, been destined, that the mutability of their sentiments was not to be exposed to this trial.

Notes and exercises:

1.   Mark that the sound [dz] is rendered by the letter “g” in the following words:

gill	huge	gesture	gin	siege	damage	pigeon
gem	agenda	generous	liege	origin	dungeon	vengeance
gist	germ	agent	ginger	urge	register	allegiance
gender	legend	giblets	submerge	digest	surgeon	margarine
gentle	gypsy	age	college	region	sergeant	gillyflower
gaol	giraffe	stage	passage	religion	pageant	gymnasium
general	mange	manage	hinge	sponge	gymnastics	revenge
genius	contagion	mortgagor	contagious	manger	gym	diverge

2.   In a stressed syllable the diphthong [ei] is represented by the digraph “ai”:

maintain	rain	pain	hail	praise	strait
entertain	brain	paint	rail	maize	straight
main	plain	painter	mail	daisy	campaign
gain	stain	pail	raise	waist	refrain

3.   Explain the difference between the following synonyms: revenge, vengeance, vindictiveness, retaliation, vendetta.

4.   Give derivatives:

Verb	Noun	Adjective	Adverb
admit	...	...	...
commit	...	...	...
depress	...	...	...
suffer	...	...	...
complain	...	...	...
diagnose	...	...	...

5.   Word study:

Knight Templar      a member of an order of knights founded in 1119 to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land during the second Crusade

tenement                a large building with apartments for the use of many families at low rents

gable                      a three-cornered part of an outside wall, under sloping roofs

halter                     a rope used for hanging a person; a rope or leather strap put round a horse’s head (for leading or fastening the horse)

be wont to             to be accustomed to

6.   Translate the following expressions and use them in sentences of your own:

to seal a person’s fate, a stroke of fate, as sure as fate, to go to one’s fate, to meet one’s fate, the fatal sisters, the fatal thread, the fatal shears, the fatal hour has struck, by the irony of fate: By the irony of fate the prisoner died of a broken heart on the morning he was to have been set free.