No night could have
suited them better. Yes, all was favourable but God; and Him these wild
youths had offended, as disobedient sons of poor parents, who had
educated them well--as rebellious citizens among a society which would
have hailed them as ornaments--as despisers of God's temple, where grace
was held out to them and spurned.
They were now upon the low road leading parallel to the beach, and
towards the end of Inverleith Row. Nor had the devil left them with the
deserted toddy-bowl. There was still pride for S----th, and for the
others the rankling sense of inferiority in talent and of injury from
scorching irony. Nor had they proceeded two miles, till the fatal
opportunity loomed in the dark, in the form of a figure coming up from
Leith or Edinburgh.
Now, S----th;
Now, the cowardly Cartouche;
Now, the poltroon Rob Roy;
Now, the braggart Wallace!
But S----th did not need the taunts, nor, though many a patriotic cause
wanted such a youth, was he left for other work, that night of
devil-worship. The figure approached. Alas! the work so easy. S----th
was right; how easy and cowardly, where the stranger was, in the
confidence of his own heart, unprepared, unweaponed! Yet those who urged
him on leapt a dyke.
"Stand and deliver!" said S----th, with a handkerchief over his face.
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