They
were, perhaps, a little excited by the wine and spirits they had
swallowed; else a casual quarrel between two young men, at
tennis, could not have driven them to such extremes. But certain
it is that, from one at first arising to address the party on the
atrocity of the offence, both in a moral and political point of
view, on a sudden there were six on their feet, at the same time,
expatiating on it; and, in a very short time thereafter, everyone in
the room was up talking with the utmost vociferation, all on the
same subject, and all taking the same side in the debate.
In the midst of this confusion, someone or other issued from the
house, which was at the back of the Canongate, calling out: "A
plot, a plot! Treason, treason! Down with the bloody incendiaries
at the Black Bull!"
The concourse of people that were assembled in Edinburgh at that
time was prodigious; and, as they were all actuated by political
motives, they wanted only a ready-blown coal to set the mountain
on fire. The evening being fine, and the streets thronged, the cry
ran from mouth to mouth through the whole city. More than that,
the mob that had of late been gathered to the door of the Black
Bull had, by degrees, dispersed; but, they being young men, and
idle vagrants, they had only spread themselves over the rest of the
street to lounge in search of further amusement: consequently, a
word was sufficient to send them back to their late rendezvous,
where they had previously witnessed something they did not
much approve of.
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