DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

Cte) Into these dens prisoners were cast wholesale, with- out trial, on their way to the torture rack or to execution, unless they were reserved for a fate equally cruel to perish from fever or to be devoured by rats. The slightest misdeed was punished by death; stealing a sheep or a loaf of bread led to the gallows, a disloyal remark to the block. The sight of death was an amusement and an excitement. It was a common pastime for a Highland chief to season his breakfast with the spectacle of the execution of his prisoners. The gibbet stood in front of his window, and he joked and laughed over his tankard of beer while the bodies swung in the air. The nation was physically invigorated by constant experience of the battlefield, but as almost every citizen was pressed into the service, the military profession absorbed the governing power, and diverted the attention of the people from agricultural and industrial pursuits. War and plunder offered more immediate prospects of gain than the slower processes of peaceful occupation, and the incitement to vanity, cruelty, and greed, fostered the worst passions and inspired an utter contempt for the value of life. It may be unfair to judge the roughness of those times by the standard of modern ideas. Science and learning were confined within the ramparts of the towns.