That night the mob broke into the Tolbooth, the prison, commonly called the Heart of Midlothian, dragged the wretched Porteous from the chimney in which he had concealed himself, and carried him off to the Grassmarket, where, as the leader of the rioters, a tall man dressed in woman's clothes said he had spilled the blood of so many innocents.
"Let no man hurt him," continued the speaker. "Let him make his peace with God, if he can; we will not kill both soul and body."
A young minister named Butler, whom the rioters had met and compelled to come with them, was brought to the prisoner's side, to prepare him for instant death. With a generous disregard of his own safety, Butler besought the crowd to consider what they did. But in vain. The unhappy man was forced to his fate with remorseless rapidity, and Butler, separated from him by the press, and unnoticed by those who had hitherto kept him prisoner, escaped the last horror, and fled from the fatal spot.
His first purpose was instantly to take the road homewards, but other fears and cares, connected with news he had that day heard, induced him to linger till daybreak.
Reuben Butler was the grandson of a trooper in Monk's army, and had been brought up by a grandmother, a widow, a cotter who struggled with poverty and the hard and sterile soil on the land of the Laird of Dumbiedikes. She was helped by the advice of another tenant, David Deans, a staunch Presbyterian, and Jeannie, his little daughter, and Reuben herded together the handful of sheep and the two or three cows, and went together to the school; where Reuben, as much superior to Jeannie Deans in acuteness of intellect as inferior to her in firmness of constitution, was able to requite in full the kindness and countenance with which, in other circumstances, she used to regard him.
While Reuben Butler was acquiring at the university the knowledge necessary for a clergyman, David Deans, by shrewdness and skill, gained a footing in the world and the possession of some wealth. He had married again, and another daughter had been born to him. But now his wife was dead, and he had left his old home, and become a dairy farmer about half a mile from Edinburgh, and the unceasing industry and activity of Jeannie was exerted in making the most of the produce of their cows.