But here comes one has good right to do our errand to him, and make the recreant hear reason on both sides of his head." The person of whom this was spoken was no other than Simon Glover himself.

He had arrived at the fatal spot where the unlucky bonnet maker's body was lying, just in time to discover, to his great relief, that when it was turned with the face upwards by Bailie Craigdallie's orders, the features of the poor braggart Proudfute were recognised, when the crowd expected to behold those of their favorite champion, Henry Smith.

A laugh, or something approaching to one, went among those who remembered how hard Oliver had struggled to obtain the character of a fighting man, however foreign to his nature and disposition, and remarked now that he had met with a mode of death much better suited to his pretensions than to his temper.

But this tendency to ill timed mirth, which savoured of the rudeness of the times, was at once hushed by the voice, and cries, and exclamations of a woman who struggled through the crowd, screaming at the same time, "Oh, my husband--my husband!" Room was made for the sorrower, who was followed by two or three female friends.

Maudie Proudfute had been hitherto only noticed as a good looking, black haired woman, believed to be "dink" and disdainful to those whom she thought meaner or poorer than herself, and lady and empress over her late husband, whom she quickly caused to lower his crest when she chanced to hear him crowing out of season.