That he was
brave, generous, and possessed many good qualities only rendered him the
more dangerous; that he was enlightened and accomplished made his crime
the less excusable; that he was an enthusiast in a wrong cause only made
him the more fit to be its martyr. Above all, he had been the means of
bringing many hundreds of men into the field who, without him, would
never have broken the peace of the country.
'I repeat it,' said the Colonel,'though Heaven knows with a heart
distressed for him as an individual, that this young gentleman has
studied and fully understood the desperate game which he has played. He
threw for life or death, a coronet or a coffin; and he cannot now be
permitted, with justice to the country, to draw stakes because the dice
have gone against him.'
Such was the reasoning of those times, held even by brave and humane men
towards a vanquished enemy. Let us devoutly hope that, in this respect at
least, we shall never see the scenes or hold the sentiments that were
general in Britain Sixty Years Since.
CHAPTER XXXIX
To morrow? O that's sudden!--Spare him, spare him'--SHAKSPEARE
Edward, attended by his former servant Alick Polwarth, who had reentered
his service at Edinburgh, reached Carlisle while the commission of Oyer
and Terminer on his unfortunate associates was yet sitting.
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