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THE HEART OF MID-LOTHIAN

By Walter Scott

TALES OF MY LANDLORD

COLLECTED AND ARRANGED

BY JEDEDIAH CLEISHBOTHAM, SCHOOLMASTER AND PARISH CLERK OF GANDERCLEUGH. 

SECOND SERIES. 

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THE HEART OF MID-LOTHIAN. 

 Hear, Land o' Cakes and brither Scots, Frae Maidenkirk to Johnny Groat's, If there's a hole in a' your coats, I rede ye tent it; A chiel's amang you takin' notes, An' faith he'll prent it! Burns. 

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION TO THE HEART OF MID-LOTHIAN. 

SCOTT began to work on "The Heart of Mid-Lothian" almost before he hadcompleted "Rob Roy. " On Nov. 10, 1817, he writes to Archibald Constableannouncing that the negotiations for the sale of the story to Messrs. Longman have fallen through, their firm declining to relieve theBallantynes of their worthless "stock. " "So you have the staff in yourown hands, and, as you are on the spot, can manage it your own way. Depend on it that, barring unforeseen illness or death, these will be thebest volumes which have appeared. I pique myself on the first tale, whichis called 'The Heart of Mid-Lothian. '" Sir Walter had thought of adding aromance, "The Regalia, " on the Scotch royal insignia, which had beenrediscovered in the Castle of Edinburgh. This story he never wrote. Mr. Cadell was greatly pleased at ousting the Longmans--"they have themselvesto blame for the want of the Tales, and may grumble as they choose: wehave Taggy by the tail, and, if we have influence to keep the best authorof the day, we ought to do it. "--[Archibald Constable, iii. 104. ]

Though contemplated and arranged for, "The Heart of Mid-Lothian" was notactually taken in hand till shortly after Jan. 15, 1818, when Cadellwrites that the tracts and pamphlets on the affair of Porteous are to becollected for Scott. "The author was in great glee . . . He says that hefeels very strong with what he has now in hand. " But there was muchanxiety concerning Scott's health. "I do not at all like this illness ofScott's, " said James Ballantyne to Hogg. "I have eften seen him lookjaded of late, and am afraid it is serious. " "Hand your tongue, or I'llgar you measure your length on the pavement, " replied Hogg. "You fause, down-hearted loon, that ye are, you daur to speak as if Scott were on hisdeath-bed! It cannot be, it must not be! I will not suffer you to speakthat gait. " Scott himself complains to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe of"these damned spasms. The merchant Abudah's hag was a henwife to themwhen they give me a real night of it. "

"The Heart of Mid-Lothian, " in spite of the author's malady, waspublished in June 1818. As to its reception, and the criticism which itreceived, Lockhart has left nothing to be gleaned. Contrary to hiscustom, he has published, but without the writer's name, a letter fromLady Louisa Stuart, which really exhausts what criticism can find to sayabout the new novel. "I have not only read it myself, " says Lady Louisa, "but am in a house where everybody is tearing it out of each other'shands, and talking of nothing else. " She preferred it to all but"Waverley, " and congratulates him on having made "the perfectly goodcharacter the most interesting. . . . Had this very story been conductedby a common hand, Effie would have attracted all our concern andsympathy, Jeanie only cold approbation. Whereas Jeanie, without youth, beauty, genius, warns passions, or any other novel-perfection, is hereour object from beginning to end. " Lady Louisa, with her usual frankness, finds the Edinburgh lawyers tedious, in the introduction, and thinks thatMr. Saddletree "will not entertain English readers. " The conclusion"flags"; "but the chief fault I have to find relates to the reappearanceand shocking fate of the boy. I hear on all sides 'Oh, I do not likethat!' I cannot say what I would have had instead, but I do not like iteither; it is a lame, huddled conclusion. I know you so well in it, by-the-by! You grow tired yourself, want to get rid of the story, andhardly care how. " Lady Lousia adds that Sir George Staunton would neverhave hazarded himself in the streets of Edinburgh. "The end of poor MadgeWildfire is most pathetic. The meeting at Muschat's Cairn tremendous. Dumbiedikes and Rory Beau are delightful. . . . I dare swear many of yourreaders never heard of the Duke of Argyle before. " She ends: "If I hadknown nothing, and the whole world had told me the contrary, I shouldhave found you out in that one parenthesis, 'for the man was mortal, andhad been a schoolmaster. '"

Lady Louisa omits a character who was probably as essential to Scott'sscheme as any--Douce Davie Deans, the old Cameronian. He had almost beenannoyed by the criticism of his Covenanters in "Old Mortality, " "theheavy artillery out of the Christian Instructor or some such obscurefield work, " and was determined to "tickle off" another. There are signsof a war between literary Cavaliers and literary Covenanters at thistime, after the discharge of Dr. McCrie's "heavy artillery. " CharlesKirkpatrick Sharpe was presented by Surtees of Mainsforth with amanuscript of Kirkton's unprinted "History of the Church of Scotland. "This he set forth to edite, with the determination not to "let the Whigdogs have the best of it. " Every Covenanting scandal and absurdity, suchas the old story of Mess David Williamson--"Dainty Davie"--and hisremarkable prowess, and presence of mind at Cherrytrees, was raked up, and inserted in notes to Kirkton. Scott was Sharpe's ally in thisenterprise. "I had in the persons of my forbears a full share, you see, of religious persecution . . . For all my greatgrandfathers were underthe ban, and I think there were hardly two of them out of jail at once. ""I think it would be most scandalous to let the godly carry it oft thus. ""It" seems to have been the editing of Kirkton. "It is very odd thevolume of Wodrow, containing the memoir of Russell concerning the murder, is positively vanished from the library" (the Advocates' Library). "Neither book nor receipt is to be found: surely they have stolen it inthe fear of the Lord. " The truth seems to have been that Cavaliers andCovenanters were racing for the manuscripts wherein they found smoothstones of the brook to pelt their opponents withal. Soon after Scottwrites: "It was not without exertion and trouble that I this day detectedRussell's manuscript (the account of the murder of Sharpe by one of themurderers), also Kirkton and one or two others, which Mr. McCrie hadremoved from their place in the library and deposited in a snug andsecret corner. " The Covenanters had made a raid on the ammunition of theCavaliers. "I have given, " adds Sir Walter, "an infernal row on thesubject of hiding books in this manner. " Sharpe replies that the"villainous biographer of John Knox" (Dr. McCrie), "that canting rogue, "is about to edite Kirkton. Sharpe therefore advertised his own edition atonce, and edited Kirkton by forced marches as it were. Scott reviewed thebook in the Quarterly (Jan. 1818). He remarked that Sharpe "had notescaped the censure of these industrious literary gentlemen of oppositeprinciples, who have suffered a work always relied upon as one of theirchief authorities to lie dormant for a hundred and forty years. " Their"querulous outcries" (probably from the field-work of the ChristianInstructor) he disregards. Among the passions of this literary "bicker, "which Scott allowed to amuse him, was Davie Deans conceived. Scott wasnot going to be driven by querulous outcries off the Covenanting field, where he erected another trophy. This time he was more friendly to the"True Blue Presbyterians. " His Scotch patriotism was one of his mostearnest feelings, the Covenanters, at worst, were essentially Scotch, andhe introduced a new Cameronian, with all the sterling honesty, thePuritanism, the impracticable ideas of the Covenant, in contact withchanged times, and compelled to compromise. 

He possessed a curious pamphlet, Haldane's "Active Testimony of the trueblue Presbyterians" (12mo, 1749). It is a most impartial work, "containing a declaration and testimony against the late unjust invasionof Scotland by Charles, Pretended Prince of Wales, and William, PretendedDuke of Cumberland. " Everything and everybody not Covenanted, the Houseof Stuart, the House of Brunswick, the House of Hapsburg, Papists, Prelatists and Turks, are cursed up hill and down dale, by these worthysurvivors of the Auld Leaven. Everybody except the authors, Haldane andLeslie, "has broken the everlasting Covenant. " The very Confession ofWestminster is arraigned for its laxity. "The whole Civil and JudicialLaw of God, " as given to the Jews (except the ritual, polygamy, divorce, slavery, and so forth), is to be maintained in the law of Scotland. Sins are acknowledged, and since the Covenant every politicalstep--Cromwell's Protectorate, the Restoration, the Revolution, theaccession of the "Dukes of Hanover"--has been a sin. A Court of Eldersis to be established to put in execution the Law of Moses. All offendersagainst the Kirk are to be "capitally punished. " Stage plays are to besuppressed by the successors of the famous convention at Lanark, Anno1682. Toleration of all religions is "sinful, " and "contrary to the wordof God. " Charles Edward and the Duke of Cumberland are cursed. "Also wereckon it a great vice in Charles, his foolish Pity and Lenity, insparing these profane, blasphemous Redcoats, that Providence deliveredinto his hand, when, by putting them to death, this poor land might havebeen eased of the heavy burden of these vermin of Hell. " The Auld Leavenswore terribly in Scotland. The atrocious cruelties of Cumberland afterCulloden are stated with much frankness and power. The German soldiersare said to have carried off "a vast deal of Spoil and Plunder intoGermany, " and the Redcoats had Plays and Diversions (cricket, probably)on the Inch of Perth, on a Sabbath. "The Hellish, Pagan, Juggler playsare set up and frequented with more impudence and audacity than ever. "Only the Jews, "our elder Brethren, " are exempted from the curses ofHaldane and Leslie, who promise to recover for them the Holy Land. "TheMassacre in Edinburgh" in 1736, by wicked Porteous, calls for vengeanceupon the authors and abettors thereof. The army and navy are "the mostwicked and flagitious in the Universe. " In fact, the True Blue Testimonyis very active indeed, and could be delivered, thanks to hellishToleration, with perfect safety, by Leslie and Haldane. The candour oftheir eloquence assuredly proves that Davie Deans is not overdrawn;indeed, he is much less truculent than those who actually weretestifying even after his decease. 

In "The Heart of Mid-Lothian" Scott set himself to draw his own people attheir best. He had a heroine to his hand in Helen Walker, "a character sodistinguished for her undaunted love of virtue, " who, unlike JeanieDeans, "lived and died in poverty, if not want. " In 1831 he erected apillar over her grave in the old Covenanting stronghold of Irongray. Theinscription ends--

 Respect the Grave of Poverty, When combined with Love of Truth And Dear Affection. 

The sweetness, the courage, the spirit, the integrity of Jeanie Deanshave made her, of all Scott's characters, the dearest to her countrymen, and the name of Jeanie was given to many children, in pious memory of theblameless heroine. The foil to her, in the person of Effie, is not lessadmirable. Among Scott's qualities was one rare among modern authors: hehad an affectionate toleration for his characters. If we compare Effiewith Hetty in "Adam Bede, " this charming and genial quality of Scott'sbecomes especially striking. Hetty and Dinah are in very much the samesituation and condition as Effie and Jeanie Deans. But Hetty is afrivolous little animal, in whom vanity and silliness do duty forpassion: she has no heart: she is only a butterfly broken on the wheel ofthe world. Doubtless there are such women in plenty, yet we feel that hercreator persecutes her, and has a kind of spite against her. This wasimpossible to Scott. Effie has heart, sincerity, passion, loyalty, despite her flightiness, and her readiness, when her chance comes, toplay the fine lady. It was distasteful to Scott to create a character nothuman and sympathetic on one side or another. Thus his robber "of mildermood, " on Jeanie's journey to England, is comparatively a good fellow, and the scoundrel Ratcliffe is not a scoundrel utterly. "'To make a Langtale short, I canna undertake the job. It gangs against my conscience. ''Your conscience, Rat?' said Sharpitlaw, with a sneer, which the readerwill probably think very natural upon the occasion. 'Ou ay, sir, 'answered Ratcliffe, calmly, 'just my conscience; a body has a conscience, though it may be ill wunnin at it. I think mine's as weel out o' the gateas maist folk's are; and yet it's just like the noop of my elbow, itwhiles gets a bit dirl on a corner. '" Scott insists on leaving his worstpeople in possession of something likeable, just as he cannot dismisseven Captain Craigengelt without assuring us that Bucklaw made aprovision for his necessities. This is certainly a more humane way ofwriting fiction than that to which we are accustomed in an age ofhumanitarianism. Nor does Scott's art suffer from his kindliness, andEffie in prison, with a heart to be broken, is not less pathetic than theheartless Hetty, in the same condemnation. 

As to her lover, Robertson, or Sir George Staunton, he certainly vergeson the melodramatic. Perhaps we know too much about the real GeorgeRobertson, who was no heir to a title in disguise, but merely a "stablerin Bristol" accused "at the instance of Duncan Forbes, Esq. Of Culloden, his Majesty's advocate, for the crimes of Stouthrieff, Housebreaking, andRobbery. " Robertson "kept an inn in Bristo, at Edinburgh, where theNewcastle carrier commonly did put up, " and is believed to have been amarried man. It is not very clear that the novel gains much by theelevation of the Bristo innkeeper to a baronetcy, except in so far asEffie's appearance in the character of a great lady is entertaining andcharacteristic, and Jeanie's conquest of her own envy is exemplary. Thechange in social rank calls for the tragic conclusion, about which almostevery reader agrees with the criticism of Lady Louisa Stuart and herfriends. Thus the novel "filled more pages" than Mr. JedediahCleishbotham had "opined, " and hence comes a languor which does not besetthe story of "Old Mortality. " Scott's own love of adventure and ofstirring incidents at any cost is an excellent quality in a novelist, butit does, in this instance, cause him somewhat to dilute those immortalstudies of Scotch character which are the strength of his genius. The reader feels a lack of reality in the conclusion, the fatal encounterof the father and the lost son, an incident as old as the legend ofOdysseus. But this is more than atoned for by the admirable part of MadgeWildfire, flitting like a _feu follet_ up and down among the douceScotch, and the dour rioters. Madge Wildfire is no repetition of MegMerrilies, though both are unrestrained natural things, rebels againstthe settled life, musical voices out of the past, singing forgotten songsof nameless minstrels. Nowhere but in Shakspeare can we find such adistraught woman as Madge Wildfire, so near akin to nature and to themoods of "the bonny lady Moon. " Only he who created Ophelia could haveconceived or rivalled the scene where Madge accompanies the hunters ofStaunton on the moonlit hill and sings her warnings to the fugitive. 

 When the glede's in the blue cloud, The lavrock lies still; When the hound's in the green-wood, The hind keeps the hill. There's a bloodhound ranging Tinwald wood, There's harness glancing sheen; There's a maiden sits on Tinwald brae, And she sings loud between. O sleep ye sound, Sir James, she said, When ye suld rise and ride? There's twenty men, wi' bow and blade, Are seeking where ye hide. 

The madness of Madge Wildfire has its parallel in the wildness ofGoethe's Marguerite, both of them lamenting the lost child, which, toMadge's fancy, is now dead, now living in a dream. But the gloom thathangs about Muschat's Cairn, the ghastly vision of "crying up AilieMuschat, and she and I will hae a grand bouking-washing, and bleach ourclaise in the beams of the bonny Lady Moon, " have a terror beyond theGerman, and are unexcelled by Webster or by Ford. "But the moon, and thedew, and the night-wind, they are just like a caller kail-blade laid onmy brow; and whiles I think the moon just shines on purpose to pleasureme, when naebody sees her but mysell. " Scott did not deal much in thefacile pathos of the death-bed, but that of Madge Wildfire has a grace ofpoetry, and her latest song is the sweetest and wildest of his lyrics, the most appropriate in its setting. When we think of the contrasts toher--the honest, dull good-nature of Dumbiedikes; the common-sense andhumour of Mrs. Saddletree; the pragmatic pedantry of her husband;the Highland pride, courage, and absurdity of the Captain ofKnockdander--when we consider all these so various and perfectcreations, we need not wonder that Scott was "in high glee" over "TheHeart of Mid-Lothian, " "felt himself very strong, " and thought thatthese would be "the best volumes that have appeared. " The difficulty, asusual, is to understand how, in all this strength, he permitted himselfto be so careless over what is really by far the easiest part of thenovelist's task--the construction. But so it was; about "The Monastery"he said, "it was written with as much care as the rest, that is, with nocare at all. " His genius flowed free in its own unconscious abundance:where conscious deliberate workmanship was needed, "the forthrightcraftsman's hand, " there alone he was lax and irresponsible. InShakspeare's case we can often account for similar incongruities by theconstraint of the old plot which he was using; but Scott was making hisown plots, or letting them make themselves. "I never could lay down aplan, or, having laid it down, I never could adhere to it; the action ofcomposition always diluted some passages and abridged or omitted others;and personages were rendered important or insignificant, not accordingto their agency in the original conception of the plan, but according tothe success or otherwise with which I was able to bring them out. I onlytried to make that which I was actually writing diverting andinteresting, leaving the rest to fate. . . When I chain my mind to ideaswhich are purely imaginative--for argument is a different thing--itseems to me that the sun leaves the landscape, that I think away thewhole vivacity and spirit of my original conception, and that theresults are cold, tame, and spiritless. "

In fact, Sir Walter was like the Magician who can raise spirits that, once raised, dominate him. Probably this must ever be the case, when anauthor's characters are not puppets but real creations. They then have awill and a way of their own; a free-will which their creator cannotpredetermine and correct. Something like this appears to have beenScott's own theory of his lack of constructive power. No one was soassured of its absence, no one criticised it more severely than he didhimself. The Edinburgh Review about this time counselled the "Author ofWaverley" to attempt a drama, doubting only his powers of compression. Possibly work at a drama might have been of advantage to the genius ofScott. He was unskilled in selection and rejection, which the dramaespecially demands. But he detested the idea of writing for actors, whomhe regarded as ignorant, dull, and conceited. "I shall not fine and renewa lease of popularity upon the theatre. To write for low, ill-informed, and conceited actors, whom you must please, for your success isnecessarily at their mercy, I cannot away with, " he wrote to Southey. "Avowedly, I will never write for the stage; if I do, 'call me horse, '"he remarks to Terry. He wanted "neither the profit nor the shame of it. ""I do not think that the character of the audience in London is such thatone could have the least pleasure in pleasing them. " He liked helpingTerry to "Terryfy" "The Heart of Mid-Lothian, " and his other novels, buthe had no more desire than a senator of Rome would have had to see hisname become famous by the Theatre. This confirmed repulsion in one solearned in the dramatic poets is a curious trait in Scott's character. He could not accommodate his genius to the needs of the stage, and thatcrown which has most potently allured most men of genius he would havethrust away, had it been offered to him, with none of Caesar'sreluctance. At the bottom of all this lay probably the secret convictionthat his genius was his master, that it must take him where it would, onpaths where he was compelled to follow. Terse and concentrated, of setpurpose, he could not be. A notable instance of this inability occurs inthe Introductory Chapter to "The Heart of Mid-Lothian, " which hasprobably frightened away many modern readers. The Advocate and the Writerto the Signet and the poor Client are persons quite uncalled for, andtheir little adventure at Gandercleugh is unreal. Oddly enough, part oftheir conversation is absolutely in the manner of Dickens. 

"'I think, ' said I, . . . 'the metropolitan county may, in that case, besaid to have a sad heart. '

"'Right as my glove, Mr. Pattieson, ' added Mr. Hardie; 'and a closeheart, and a hard heart--Keep it up, Jack. '

"'And a wicked heart, and a poor heart, ' answered Halkit, doing his best. 

"'And yet it may be called in some sort a strong heart, and a highheart, ' rejoined the advocate. 'You see I can put you both out ofheart. '"

Fortunately we have no more of this easy writing, which makes such verymelancholy reading. 

The narrative of the Porteous mob, as given by the novelist, is not, itseems, entirely accurate. Like most artists, Sir Walter took the libertyof "composing" his picture. In his "Illustrations of the Author ofWaverley" (1825) Mr. Robert Chambers records the changes in facts made byScott. In the first place, Wilson did not attack his guard, and enableRobertson to escape, after the sermon, but as soon as the criminals tooktheir seats in the pew. When fleeing out, Robertson tripped over "theplate, " set on a stand to receive alms and oblations, whereby he hurthimself, and was seen to stagger and fall in running down the stairsleading to the Cowgate. Mr. McQueen, Minister of the New Kirk, was comingup the stairs. He conceived it to be his duty to set Robertson on hisfeet again, "and covered his retreat as much as possible from the pursuitof the guard. " Robertson ran up the Horse Wynd, out at Potter Row Port, got into the King's Park, and headed for the village of Duddingston, beside the loch on the south-east of Arthur's Seat. He fainted afterjumping a dyke, but was picked up and given some refreshment. He lay inhiding till he could escape to Holland. 

The conspiracy to hang Porteous did not, in fact, develop in a few hours, after his failure to appear on the scaffold. The Queen's pardon (or areprieve) reached Edinburgh on Thursday, Sept. 2; the Riot occurred onthe night of Sept. 7. The council had been informed that lynching wasintended, thirty-six hours before the fatal evening, but pronounced thereports to be "caddies' clatters. " Their negligence, of course, must haveincreased the indignation of the Queen. The riot, according to a very oldman, consulted by Mr. Chambers, was headed by two butchers, namedCumming, "tall, strong, and exceedingly handsome men, who dressed inwomen's clothes as a disguise. " The rope was tossed out of a window in a"small wares shop" by a woman, who received a piece of gold in exchange. This extravagance is one of the very few points which suggest that peopleof some wealth may have been concerned in the affair. Tradition, according to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, believed in noble leaders of theriot. It is certain that several witnesses of good birth and positiontestified very strongly against Porteous, at his trial. 

According to Hogg, Scott's "fame was now so firmly established that hecared not a fig for the opinion of his literary friends beforehand. " Hewas pleased, however, by the notice of "Ivanhoe, " "The Heart ofMid-Lothian, " and "The Bride of Lammermoor" in the Edinburgh Review of1820, as he showed by quoting part of its remarks. The Reviewer franklyobserved "that, when we began with one of these works, we were consciousthat we never knew how to leave off. The Porteous mob is rather heavilydescribed, and the whole part of George Robertson, or Staunton, isextravagant and displeasing. The final catastrophe is needlesslyimprobable and startling. " The critic felt that he must be critical, buthis praise of Effie and Jeanie Deans obviously comes from his heart. Jeanie's character "is superior to anything we can recollect in thehistory of invention . . . A remarkable triumph over the greatest of alldifficulties in the conduct of a fictitious narrative. " The critiqueends with "an earnest wish that the Author would try his hand in thelore of Shakspeare"; but, wiser than the woers of Penelope, Scottrefused to make that perilous adventure. ANDREW LANG. 

An essay by Mr. George Ormond, based on manuscripts in the EdinburghRecord office (Scottish Review, July, 1892), adds little to what is knownabout the Porteous Riot. It is said that Porteous was let down alive, andhanged again, more than once, that his arm was broken by a Lochaber axe, and that a torch was applied to the foot from which the shoe had fallen. A pamphlet of 1787 says that Robertson became a spy on smugglers inHolland, returned to London, procured a pardon through the ButcherCumberland, and "at last died in misery in London. " It is plain thatColonel Moyle might have rescued Porteous, but he was naturally cautiousabout entering the city gates without a written warrant from the civilauthorities. 

 TO THE BEST OF PATRONS, A PLEASED AND INDULGENT READER

 JEDEDIAH CLEISHBOTHAM WISHES HEALTH, AND INCREASE, AND CONTENTMENT. 

Courteous Reader, If ingratitude comprehendeth every vice, surely so foul a stain worst ofall beseemeth him whose life has been devoted to instructing youth invirtue and in humane letters. Therefore have I chosen, in thisprolegomenon, to unload my burden of thanks at thy feet, for the favourwith which thou last kindly entertained the Tales of my Landlord. Certes, if thou hast chuckled over their factious and festivous descriptions, orhadst thy mind filled with pleasure at the strange and pleasant turns offortune which they record, verily, I have also simpered when I beheld asecond storey with attics, that has arisen on the basis of my smalldomicile at Gandercleugh, the walls having been aforehand pronounced byDeacon Barrow to be capable of enduring such an elevation. Nor has itbeen without delectation that I have endued a new coat (snuff-brown, andwith metal buttons), having all nether garments corresponding thereto. Wedo therefore lie, in respect of each other, under a reciprocation ofbenefits, whereof those received by me being the most solid (in respectthat a new house and a new coat are better than a new tale and an oldsong), it is meet that my gratitude should be expressed with the loudervoice and more preponderating vehemence. And how should it be soexpressed?--Certainly not in words only, but in act and deed. It is withthis sole purpose, and disclaiming all intention of purchasing thatpendicle or poffle of land called the Carlinescroft, lying adjacent to mygarden, and measuring seven acres, three roods, and four perches, that Ihave committed to the eyes of those who thought well of the former tomes, these four additional volumes of the Tales of my Landlord. Not the less, if Peter Prayfort be minded to sell the said poffle, it is at his ownchoice to say so; and, peradventure, he may meet with a purchaser: unless(gentle reader) the pleasing pourtraictures of Peter Pattieson, now givenunto thee in particular, and unto the public in general, shall have losttheir favour in thine eyes, whereof I am no way distrustful. And so muchconfidence do I repose in thy continued favour, that, should thy lawfuloccasions call thee to the town of Gandercleugh, a place frequented bymost at one time or other in their lives, I will enrich thine eyes with asight of those precious manuscripts whence thou hast derived so muchdelectation, thy nose with a snuff from my mull, and thy palate with adram from my bottle of strong waters, called by the learned ofGandercleugh, the Dominie's Dribble o' Drink. 

It is there, O highly esteemed and beloved reader, thou wilt be able tobear testimony, through the medium of thine own senses, against thechildren of vanity, who have sought to identify thy friend and servantwith I know not what inditer of vain fables; who hath cumbered the worldwith his devices, but shrunken from the responsibility thereof. Truly, this hath been well termed a generation hard of faith; since what can aman do to assert his property in a printed tome, saving to put his namein the title-page thereof, with his description, or designation, as thelawyers term it, and place of abode? Of a surety I would have suchsceptics consider how they themselves would brook to have their worksascribed to others, their names and professions imputed as forgeries, andtheir very existence brought into question; even although, peradventure, it may be it is of little consequence to any but themselves, not onlywhether they are living or dead, but even whether they ever lived or no. Yet have my maligners carried their uncharitable censures still farther. 

These cavillers have not only doubted mine identity, although thusplainly proved, but they have impeached my veracity and the authenticityof my historical narratives! Verily, I can only say in answer, that Ihave been cautelous in quoting mine authorities. It is true, indeed, thatif I had hearkened with only one ear, I might have rehearsed my tale withmore acceptation from those who love to hear but half the truth. It is, it may hap, not altogether to the discredit of our kindly nation ofScotland, that we are apt to take an interest, warm, yea partial, in thedeeds and sentiments of our forefathers. He whom his adversaries describeas a perjured Prelatist, is desirous that his predecessors should be heldmoderate in their power, and just in their execution of its privileges, when truly, the unimpassioned peruser of the annals of those times shalldeem them sanguinary, violent, and tyrannical. Again, the representativesof the suffering Nonconformists desire that their ancestors, theCameronians, shall be represented not simply as honest enthusiasts, oppressed for conscience' sake, but persons of fine breeding, and valiantheroes. Truly, the historian cannot gratify these predilections. He mustneeds describe the cavaliers as proud and high-spirited, cruel, remorseless, and vindictive; the suffering party as honourably tenaciousof their opinions under persecution; their own tempers being, however, sullen, fierce, and rude; their opinions absurd and extravagant; andtheir whole course of conduct that of persons whom hellebore would betterhave suited than prosecutions unto death for high-treason. Natheless, while such and so preposterous were the opinions on either side, therewere, it cannot be doubted, men of virtue and worth on both, to entitleeither party to claim merit from its martyrs. It has been demanded of me, Jedediah Cleishbotham, by what right I am entitled to constitute myselfan impartial judge of their discrepancies of opinions, seeing (as it isstated) that I must necessarily have descended from one or other of thecontending parties, and be, of course, wedded for better or for worse, according to the reasonable practice of Scotland, to its dogmata, oropinions, and bound, as it were, by the tie matrimonial, or, to speakwithout metaphor, _ex jure sanguinis, _ to maintain them in preference toall others. 

But, nothing denying the rationality of the rule, which calls on all nowliving to rule their political and religious opinions by those of theirgreat-grandfathers, and inevitable as seems the one or the other horn ofthe dilemma betwixt which my adversaries conceive they have pinned me tothe wall, I yet spy some means of refuge, and claim a privilege to writeand speak of both parties with impartiality. For, O ye powers of logic!when the Prelatists and Presbyterians of old times went together by theears in this unlucky country, my ancestor (venerated be his memory!) wasone of the people called Quakers, and suffered severe handling fromeither side, even to the extenuation of his purse and the incarcerationof his person. 

Craving thy pardon, gentle Reader, for these few words concerning me andmine, I rest, as above expressed, thy sure and obligated friend, *

J. C. GANDERCLEUGH, this 1st of April, 1818. 

* Note A. Author's connection with Quakerism. 

INTRODUCTION TO THE HEART OF MID-LOTHIAN--(1830). 

The author has stated, in the preface to the Chronicles of the Canongate, 1827, that he received from an anonymous correspondent an account of theincident upon which the following story is founded. He is now at libertyto say, that the information was conveyed to him by a late amiable andingenious lady, whose wit and power of remarking and judging of characterstill survive in the memory of her friends. Her maiden name was MissHelen Lawson, of Girthhead, and she was wife of Thomas Goldie, Esq. OfCraigmuie, Commissary of Dumfries. 

Her communication was in these words:--

"I had taken for summer lodgings a cottage near the old Abbey ofLincluden. It had formerly been inhabited by a lady who had pleasure inembellishing cottages, which she found perhaps homely and even poorenough; mine, therefore, possessed many marks of taste and eleganceunusual in this species of habitation in Scotland, where a cottage isliterally what its name declares. 

"From my cottage door I had a partial view of the old Abbey beforementioned; some of the highest arches were seen over, and some through, the trees scattered along a lane which led down to the ruin, and thestrange fantastic shapes of almost all those old ashes accordedwonderfully well with the building they at once shaded and ornamented. 

"The Abbey itself from my door was almost on a level with the cottage;but on coming to the end of the lane, it was discovered to be situated ona high perpendicular bank, at the foot of which run the clear waters ofthe Cluden, where they hasten to join the sweeping Nith, 'Whose distant roaring swells and fa's. '

As my kitchen and parlour were not very far distant, I one day went in topurchase some chickens from a person I heard offering them for sale. Itwas a little, rather stout-looking woman, who seemed to be betweenseventy and eighty years of age; she was almost covered with a tartanplaid, and her cap had over it a black silk hood, tied under the chin, apiece of dress still much in use among elderly women of that rank of lifein Scotland; her eyes were dark, and remarkably lively and intelligent; Ientered into conversation with her, and began by asking how shemaintained herself, etc. 

"She said that in winter she footed stockings, that is, knit feet tocountry-people's stockings, which bears about the same relation tostocking-knitting that cobbling does to shoe-making, and is of courseboth less profitable and less dignified; she likewise taught a fewchildren to read, and in summer she whiles reared a few chickens. 

"I said I could venture to guess from her face she had never beenmarried. She laughed heartily at this, and said, 'I maun hae the queerestface that ever was seen, that ye could guess that. Now, do tell me, madam, how ye cam to think sae?' I told her it was from her cheerfuldisengaged countenance. She said, 'Mem, have ye na far mair reason to behappy than me, wi' a gude husband and a fine family o' bairns, and plentyo' everything? for me, I'm the puirest o' a' puir bodies, and can hardlycontrive to keep mysell alive in a' the wee bits o' ways I hae tell'tye. ' After some more conversation, during which I was more and morepleased with the old womans sensible conversation, and the _naivete_ ofher remarks, she rose to go away, when I asked her name. Her countenancesuddenly clouded, and she said gravely, rather colouring, 'My name isHelen Walker; but your husband kens weel about me. '

"In the evening I related how much I had been pleased, and inquired whatwas extraordinary in the history of the poor woman. Mr. ---- said, therewere perhaps few more remarkable people than Helen Walker. She had beenleft an orphan, with the charge of a sister considerably younger thanherself, and who was educated and maintained by her exertions. Attachedto herby so many ties, therefore, it will not be easy to conceive herfeelings, when she found that this only sister must be tried by the lawsof her country for child-murder, and upon being called as principalwitness against her. The counsel for the prisoner told Helen, that if shecould declare that her sister had made any preparations, however slight, or had given her any intimation on the subject, that such a statementwould save her sister's life, as she was the principal witness againsther. Helen said, 'It is impossible for me to swear to a falsehood; and, whatever may be the consequence, I will give my oath according to myconscience. '

"The trial came on, and the sister was found guilty and condemned; but inScotland six weeks must elapse between the sentence and the execution, and Helen Walker availed herself of it. The very day of her sister'scondemnation she got a petition drawn, stating the peculiar circumstancesof the case, and that very night set out on foot to London. 

"Without introduction or recommendation, with her simple (perhapsill-expressed) petition, drawn up by some inferior clerk of the court, she presented herself, in her tartan plaid and country attire, to thelate Duke of Argyle, who immediately procured the pardon she petitionedfor, and Helen returned with it on foot just in time to save her sister. 

"I was so strongly interested by this narrative, that I determinedimmediately to prosecute my acquaintance with Helen Walker; but as I wasto leave the country next day, I was obliged to defer it till my returnin spring, when the first walk I took was to Helen Walker's cottage. 

"She had died a short time before. My regret was extreme, and Iendeavoured to obtain some account of Helen from an old woman whoinhabited the other end of her cottage. I inquired if Helen ever spoke ofher past history--her journey to London, etc. , 'Na, ' the old woman said, 'Helen was a wily body, and whene'er ony o' the neebors asked anythingabout it, she aye turned the conversation. '

"In short, every answer I received only tended to increase my regret, andraise my opinion of Helen Walker, who could unite so much prudence withso much heroic virtue. "

This narrative was inclosed in the following letter to the author, without date or signature--

"Sir, --The occurrence just related happened to me twenty-six years ago. Helen Walker lies buried in the churchyard of Irongray, about six milesfrom Dumfries. I once proposed that a small monument should have beenerected to commemorate so remarkable a character, but I now preferleaving it to you to perpetuate her memory in a more durable manner. "

The reader is now able to judge how far the author has improved upon, orfallen short of, the pleasing and interesting sketch of high principleand steady affection displayed by Helen Walker, the prototype of thefictitious Jeanie Deans. Mrs. Goldie was unfortunately dead before theauthor had given his name to these volumes, so he lost all opportunity ofthanking that lady for her highly valuable communication. But herdaughter, Miss Goldie, obliged him with the following additionalinformation:--

"Mrs. Goldie endeavoured to collect further particulars of Helen Walker, particularly concerning her journey to London, but found this nearlyimpossible; as the natural dignity of her character, and a high sense offamily respectability, made her so indissolubly connect her sister'sdisgrace with her own exertions, that none of her neighbours durst everquestion her upon the subject. One old woman, a distant relation ofHelen's, and who is still living, says she worked an harvest with her, but that she never ventured to ask her about her sister's trial, or herjourney to London; 'Helen, ' she added, 'was a lofty body, and used a highstyle o' language. ' The same old woman says, that every year Helenreceived a cheese from her sister, who lived at Whitehaven, and that shealways sent a liberal portion of it to herself, or to her father'sfamily. This fact, though trivial in itself, strongly marks the affectionsubsisting between the two sisters, and the complete conviction on themind of the criminal that her sister had acted solely from highprinciple, not from any want of feeling, which another small butcharacteristic trait will further illustrate. A gentleman, a relation ofMrs. Goldie's, who happened to be travelling in the North of England, oncoming to a small inn, was shown into the parlour by a female servant, who, after cautiously shutting the door, said, 'Sir, I'm Nelly Walker'ssister. ' Thus practically showing that she considered her sister asbetter known by her high conduct than even herself by a different kind ofcelebrity. 

"Mrs. Goldie was extremely anxious to have a tombstone and an inscriptionupon it erected in Irongray Churchyard; and if Sir Walter Scott willcondescend to write the last, a little subscription could be easilyraised in the immediate neighbourhood, and Mrs. Goldie's wish be thusfulfilled. "

It is scarcely necessary to add that the request of Miss Goldie will bemost willingly complied with, and without the necessity of any tax on thepublic. * Nor is there much occasion to repeat how much the authorconceives himself obliged to his unknown correspondent, who thus suppliedhim with a theme affording such a pleasing view of the moral dignity ofvirtue, though unaided by birth, beauty, or talent. If the picture hassuffered in the execution, it is from the failure of the author's powersto present in detail the same simple and striking portrait exhibited inMrs. Goldie's letter. 

Abbotsford, April 1, 1830. 

* [Note B. Tombstone to Helen Walker. ]

POSTSCRIPT. 

Although it would be impossible to add much to Mrs. Goldie's picturesqueand most interesting account of Helen Walker, the prototype of theimaginary Jeanie Deans, the Editor may be pardoned for introducing two orthree anecdotes respecting that excellent person, which he has collectedfrom a volume entitled, _Sketches from Nature, _ by John M'Diarmid, agentleman who conducts an able provincial paper in the town of Dumfries. 

Helen was the daughter of a small farmer in a place called Dalwhairn, inthe parish of Irongray; where, after the death of her father, shecontinued, with the unassuming piety of a Scottish peasant, to supporther mother by her own unremitted labour and privations; a case so common, that even yet, I am proud to say, few of my countrywomen would shrinkfrom the duty. 

Helen Walker was held among her equals _pensy, _ that is, proud orconceited; but the facts brought to prove this accusation seem only toevince a strength of character superior to those around her. Thus it wasremarked, that when it thundered, she went with her work and her Bible tothe front of the cottage, alleging that the Almighty could smite in thecity as well as in the field. 

Mr. M'Diarmid mentions more particularly the misfortune of her sister, which he supposes to have taken place previous to 1736. Helen Walker, declining every proposal of saving her relation's life at the expense oftruth, borrowed a sum of money sufficient for her journey, walked thewhole distance to London barefoot, and made her way to John Duke ofArgyle. She was heard to say, that, by the Almighty strength, she hadbeen enabled to meet the Duke at the most critical moment, which, iflost, would have caused the inevitable forfeiture of her sister's life. 

Isabella, or Tibby Walker, saved from the fate which impended over her, was married by the person who had wronged her (named Waugh), and livedhappily for great part of a century, uniformly acknowledging theextraordinary affection to which she owed her preservation. 

Helen Walker died about the end of the year 1791, and her remains areinterred in the churchyard of her native parish of Irongray, in aromantic cemetery on the banks of the Cairn. That a character sodistinguished for her undaunted love of virtue, lived and died inpoverty, if not want, serves only to show us how insignificant, in thesight of Heaven, are our principal objects of ambition upon earth. 

INTRODUCTORY

 So down thy hill, romantic Ashbourn, glides The Derby dilly, carrying six insides. Frere. 

The times have changed in nothing more (we follow as we were wont themanuscript of Peter Pattieson) than in the rapid conveyance ofintelligence and communication betwixt one part of Scotland and another. It is not above twenty or thirty years, according to the evidence of manycredible witnesses now alive, since a little miserable horse-cart, performing with difficulty a journey of thirty miles _per diem, _ carriedour mails from the capital of Scotland to its extremity. Nor was Scotlandmuch more deficient in these accommodations than our rich sister had beenabout eighty years before. Fielding, in his Tom Jones, and Farquhar, in alittle farce called the Stage-Coach, have ridiculed the slowness of thesevehicles of public accommodation. According to the latter authority, thehighest bribe could only induce the coachman to promise to anticipate byhalf-an-hour the usual time of his arrival at the Bull and Mouth. 

But in both countries these ancient, slow, and sure modes of conveyanceare now alike unknown; mail-coach races against mail-coach, andhigh-flyer against high-flyer, through the most remote districts ofBritain. And in our village alone, three post-coaches, and four coacheswith men armed, and in scarlet cassocks, thunder through the streets eachday, and rival in brilliancy and noise the invention of the celebratedtyrant:--

 Demens, qui nimbos et non imitabile fulmen, AEre et cornipedum pulsu, simularat, equorum. 

Now and then, to complete the resemblance, and to correct the presumptionof the venturous charioteers, it does happen that the career of thesedashing rivals of Salmoneus meets with as undesirable and violent atermination as that of their prototype. It is on such occasions that theInsides and Outsides, to use the appropriate vehicular phrases, havereason to rue the exchange of the slow and safe motion of the ancientFly-coaches, which, compared with the chariots of Mr. Palmer, so illdeserve the name. The ancient vehicle used to settle quietly down, like aship scuttled and left to sink by the gradual influx of the waters, whilethe modern is smashed to pieces with the velocity of the same vesselhurled against breakers, or rather with the fury of a bomb bursting atthe conclusion of its career through the air. The late ingenious Mr. Pennant, whose humour it was to set his face in stern opposition to thesespeedy conveyances, had collected, I have heard, a formidable list ofsuch casualties, which, joined to the imposition of innkeepers, whosecharges the passengers had no time to dispute, the sauciness of thecoachman, and the uncontrolled and despotic authority of the tyrantcalled the guard, held forth a picture of horror, to which murder, theft, fraud, and peculation, lent all their dark colouring. But that whichgratifies the impatience of the human disposition will be practised inthe teeth of danger, and in defiance of admonition; and, in despite ofthe Cambrian antiquary, mail-coaches not only roll their thunders roundthe base of Penman-Maur and Cader-Idris, but

 Frighted Skiddaw hears afar The rattling of the unscythed car. 

And perhaps the echoes of Ben Nevis may soon be awakened by the bugle, not of a warlike chieftain, but of the guard of a mail-coach. 

It was a fine summer day, and our little school had obtained ahalf-holiday, by the intercession of a good-humoured visitor. *

* His honour Gilbert Goslinn of Gandercleugh; for I love to be precise inmatters of importance. --J. C. 

I expected by the coach a new number of an interesting periodicalpublication, and walked forward on the highway to meet it, with theimpatience which Cowper has described as actuating the resident in thecountry when longing for intelligence from the mart of news. --

 The grand debate, The popular harangue, --the tart reply, -- The logic, and the wisdom, and the wit, And the loud laugh, --I long to know them all;-- I burn to set the imprisoned wranglers free, And give them voice and utterance again. 

It was with such feelings that I eyed the approach of the new coach, lately established on our road, and known by the name of the Somerset, which, to say truth, possesses some interest for me, even when it conveysno such important information. The distant tremulous sound of its wheelswas heard just as I gained the summit of the gentle ascent, called theGoslin-brae, from which you command an extensive view down the valley ofthe river Gander. The public road, which comes up the side of thatstream, and crosses it at a bridge about a quarter of a mile from theplace where I was standing, runs partly through enclosures andplantations, and partly through open pasture land. It is a childishamusement perhaps, --but my life has been spent with children, and whyshould not my pleasures be like theirs?--childish as it is then, I mustown I have had great pleasure in watching the approach of the carriage, where the openings of the road permit it to be seen. The gay glancing ofthe equipage, its diminished and toy-like appearance at a distance, contrasted with the rapidity of its motion, its appearance anddisappearance at intervals, and the progressively increasing sounds thatannounce its nearer approach, have all to the idle and listlessspectator, who has nothing more important to attend to, something ofawakening interest. The ridicule may attach to me, which is flung uponmany an honest citizen, who watches from the window of his villa thepassage of the stage-coach; but it is a very natural source of amusementnotwithstanding, and many of those who join in the laugh are perhaps notunused to resort to it in secret. 

On the present occasion, however, fate had decreed that I should notenjoy the consummation of the amusement by seeing the coach rattle pastme as I sat on the turf, and hearing the hoarse grating voice of theguard as he skimmed forth for my grasp the expected packet, without thecarriage checking its course for an instant. I had seen the vehiclethunder down the hill that leads to the bridge with more than its usualimpetuosity, glittering all the while by flashes from a cloudy tabernacleof the dust which it had raised, and leaving a train behind it on theroad resembling a wreath of summer mist. But it did not appear on the topof the nearer bank within the usual space of three minutes, whichfrequent observation had enabled me to ascertain was the medium time forcrossing the bridge and mounting the ascent. When double that space hadelapsed, I became alarmed, and walked hastily forward. As I came in sightof the bridge, the cause of delay was too manifest, for the Somerset hadmade a summerset in good earnest, and overturned so completely, that itwas literally resting upon the ground, with the roof undermost, and thefour wheels in the air. The "exertions of the guard and coachman, " bothof whom were gratefully commemorated in the newspapers, having succeededin disentangling the horses by cutting the harness, were now proceedingto extricate the insides by a sort of summary and Caesarean process ofdelivery, forcing the hinges from one of the doors which they could notopen otherwise. In this manner were two disconsolate damsels set atliberty from the womb of the leathern conveniency. As they immediatelybegan to settle their clothes, which were a little deranged, as may bepresumed, I concluded they had received no injury, and did not venture toobtrude my services at their toilette, for which, I understand, I havesince been reflected upon by the fair sufferers. The _outsides, _ who musthave been discharged from their elevated situation by a shock resemblingthe springing of a mine, escaped, nevertheless, with the usual allowanceof scratches and bruises, excepting three, who, having been pitched intothe river Gander, were dimly seen contending with the tide like therelics of AEneas's shipwreck, --

 Rari apparent mantes in gurgite vasto. 

I applied my poor exertions where they seemed to be most needed, and withthe assistance of one or two of the company who had escaped unhurt, easily succeeded in fishing out two of the unfortunate passengers, whowere stout active young fellows; and, but for the preposterous length oftheir greatcoats, and the equally fashionable latitude and longitude oftheir Wellington trousers, would have required little assistance from anyone. The third was sickly and elderly, and might have perished but forthe efforts used to preserve him. 

When the two greatcoated gentlemen had extricated themselves from theriver, and shaken their ears like huge water-dogs, a violent altercationensued betwixt them and the coachman and guard, concerning the cause oftheir overthrow. In the course of the squabble, I observed that both mynew acquaintances belonged to the law, and that their professionalsharpness was likely to prove an overmatch for the surly and officialtone of the guardians of the vehicle. The dispute ended in the guardassuring the passengers that they should have seats in a heavy coachwhich would pass that spot in less than half-an-hour, provided it werenot full. Chance seemed to favour this arrangement, for when the expectedvehicle, arrived, there were only two places occupied in a carriage whichprofessed to carry six. The two ladies who had been disinterred out ofthe fallen vehicle were readily admitted, but positive objections werestated by those previously in possession to the admittance of the twolawyers, whose wetted garments being much of the nature of well-soakedsponges, there was every reason to believe they would refund aconsiderable part of the water they had collected, to the inconvenienceof their fellow-passengers. On the other hand, the lawyers rejected aseat on the roof, alleging that they had only taken that station forpleasure for one stage, but were entitled in all respects to free egressand regress from the interior, to which their contract positivelyreferred. After some altercation, in which something was said upon theedict _Nautae caupones stabularii, _ the coach went off, leaving thelearned gentlemen to abide by their action of damages. 

They immediately applied to me to guide them to the next village and thebest inn; and from the account I gave them of the Wallace Head, declaredthey were much better pleased to stop there than to go forward upon theterms of that impudent scoundrel the guard of the Somerset. All that theynow wanted was a lad to carry their travelling bags, who was easilyprocured from an adjoining cottage; and they prepared to walk forward, when they found there was another passenger in the same desertedsituation with themselves. This was the elderly and sickly-lookingperson, who had been precipitated into the river along with the two younglawyers. He, it seems, had been too modest to push his own plea againstthe coachman when he saw that of his betters rejected, and now remainedbehind with a look of timid anxiety, plainly intimating that he wasdeficient in those means of recommendation which are necessary passportsto the hospitality of an inn. 

I ventured to call the attention of the two dashing young blades, forsuch they seemed, to the desolate condition of their fellow-traveller. They took the hint with ready good-nature. 

"O, true, Mr. Dunover, " said one of the youngsters, "you must not remainon the pave' here; you must go and have some dinner with us--Halkit and Imust have a post-chaise to go on, at all events, and we will set you downwherever suits you best. "

The poor man, for such his dress, as well as his diffidence, bespoke him, made the sort of acknowledging bow by which says a Scotsman, "It's toomuch honour for the like of me;" and followed humbly behind his gaypatrons, all three besprinkling the dusty road as they walked along withthe moisture of their drenched garments, and exhibiting the singular andsomewhat ridiculous appearance of three persons suffering from theopposite extreme of humidity, while the summer sun was at its height, andeverything else around them had the expression of heat and drought. Theridicule did not escape the young gentlemen themselves, and they had madewhat might be received as one or two tolerable jests on the subjectbefore they had advanced far on their peregrination. 

"We cannot complain, like Cowley, " said one of them, "that Gideon'sfleece remains dry, while all around is moist; this is the reverse of themiracle. "

"We ought to be received with gratitude in this good town; we bring asupply of what they seem to need most, " said Halkit. 

"And distribute it with unparalleled generosity, " replied his companion;"performing the part of three water-carts for the benefit of their dustyroads. "

"We come before them, too, " said Halkit, "in full professionalforce--counsel and agent"--

"And client, " said the young advocate, looking behind him; and thenadded, lowering his voice, "that looks as if he had kept such dangerouscompany too long. "

It was, indeed, too true, that the humble follower of the gay young menhad the threadbare appearance of a worn-out litigant, and I could not butsmile at the conceit, though anxious to conceal my mirth from the objectof it. 

When we arrived at the Wallace Inn, the elder of the Edinburgh gentlemen, and whom I understood to be a barrister, insisted that I should remainand take part of their dinner; and their inquiries and demands speedilyput my landlord and his whole family in motion to produce the best cheerwhich the larder and cellar afforded, and proceed to cook it to the bestadvantage, a science in which our entertainers seemed to be admirablyskilled. In other respects they were lively young men, in the hey-day ofyouth and good spirits, playing the part which is common to the higherclasses of the law at Edinburgh, and which nearly resembles that of theyoung Templars in the days of Steele and Addison. An air of giddy gaietymingled with the good sense, taste, and information which theirconversation exhibited; and it seemed to be their object to unite thecharacter of men of fashion and lovers of the polite arts. A finegentleman, bred up in the thorough idleness and inanity of pursuit, whichI understand is absolutely necessary to the character in perfection, might in all probability have traced a tinge of professional pedantrywhich marked the barrister in spite of his efforts, and something ofactive bustle in his companion, and would certainly have detected morethan a fashionable mixture of information and animated interest in thelanguage of both. But to me, who had no pretensions to be so critical, mycompanions seemed to form a very happy mixture of good-breeding andliberal information, with a disposition to lively rattle, pun, and jest, amusing to a grave man, because it is what he himself can least easilycommand. 

The thin pale-faced man, whom their good-nature had brought into theirsociety, looked out of place as well as out of spirits; sate on the edgeof his seat, and kept the chair at two feet distance from the table; thusincommoding himself considerably in conveying the victuals to his mouth, as if by way of penance for partaking of them in the company of hissuperiors. A short time after dinner, declining all entreaty to partakeof the wine, which circulated freely round, he informed himself of thehour when the chaise had been ordered to attend; and saying he would bein readiness, modestly withdrew from the apartment. 

"Jack, " said the barrister to his companion, "I remember that poorfellow's face; you spoke more truly than you were aware of; he really isone of my clients, poor man. "

"Poor man!" echoed Halkit--"I suppose you mean he is your one and onlyclient?"

"That's not my fault, Jack, " replied the other, whose name I discoveredwas Hardie. "You are to give me all your business, you know; and if youhave none, the learned gentleman here knows nothing can come of nothing. "

"You seem to have brought something to nothing though, in the case ofthat honest man. He looks as if he were just about to honour with hisresidence the Heart of Mid-Lothian. "

"You are mistaken--he is just delivered from it. --Our friend here looksfor an explanation. Pray, Mr. Pattieson, have you been in Edinburgh?"

I answered in the affirmative. 

"Then you must have passed, occasionally at least, though probably not sofaithfully as I am doomed to do, through a narrow intricate passage, leading out of the north-west corner of the Parliament Square, andpassing by a high and antique building with turrets and iron grates, Making good the saying odd, 'Near the church and far from God'"--

Mr. Halkit broke in upon his learned counsel, to contribute his moiety tothe riddle--"Having at the door the sign of the Red man"--

"And being on the whole, " resumed the counsellor interrupting his friendin his turn, "a sort of place where misfortune is happily confounded withguilt, where all who are in wish to get out"--

"And where none who have the good luck to be out, wish to get in, " addedhis companion. 

"I conceive you, gentlemen, " replied I; "you mean the prison. "

"The prison, " added the young lawyer--"You have hit it--the very reverendTolbooth itself; and let me tell you, you are obliged to us fordescribing it with so much modesty and brevity; for with whateveramplifications we might have chosen to decorate the subject, you layentirely at our mercy, since the Fathers Conscript of our city havedecreed that the venerable edifice itself shall not remain in existenceto confirm or to confute its. "

"Then the Tolbooth of Edinburgh is called the Heart of Mid-Lothian?" saidI. 

"So termed and reputed, I assure you. "

"I think, " said I, with the bashful diffidence with which a man lets slipa pun in presence of his superiors, "the metropolitan county may, in thatcase, be said to have a sad heart. "

"Right as my glove, Mr. Pattieson, " added Mr. Hardie; "and a close heart, and a hard heart--Keep it up, Jack. "

"And a wicked heart, and a poor heart, " answered Halkit, doing his best. 

"And yet it may be called in some sort a strong heart, and a high heart, "rejoined the advocate. "You see I can put you both out of heart. "

"I have played all my hearts, " said the younger gentleman. 

"Then we'll have another lead, " answered his companion. --"And as to theold and condemned Tolbooth, what pity the same honour cannot be done toit as has been done to many of its inmates. Why should not the Tolboothhave its 'Last Speech, Confession, and Dying Words?' The old stones wouldbe just as conscious of the honour as many a poor devil who has dangledlike a tassel at the west end of it, while the hawkers were shouting aconfession the culprit had never heard of. "

"I am afraid, " said I, "if I might presume to give my opinion, it wouldbe a tale of unvaried sorrow and guilt. "

"Not entirely, my friend, " said Hardie; "a prison is a world withinitself, and has its own business, griefs, and joys, peculiar to itscircle. Its inmates are sometimes short-lived, but so are soldiers onservice; they are poor relatively to the world without, but there aredegrees of wealth and poverty among them, and so some are relatively richalso. They cannot stir abroad, but neither can the garrison of a besiegedfort, or the crew of a ship at sea; and they are not under a dispensationquite so desperate as either, for they may have as much food as they havemoney to buy, and are not obliged to work, whether they have food ornot. "

"But what variety of incident, " said I (not without a secret view to mypresent task), "could possibly be derived from such a work as you arepleased to talk of?"

"Infinite, " replied the young advocate. "Whatever of guilt, crime, imposture, folly, unheard-of misfortunes, and unlooked-for change offortune, can be found to chequer life, my Last Speech of the Tolboothshould illustrate with examples sufficient to gorge even the public'sall-devouring appetite for the wonderful and horrible. The inventor offictitious narratives has to rack his brains for means to diversify histale, and after all can hardly hit upon characters or incidents whichhave not been used again and again, until they are familiar to the eye ofthe reader, so that the development, _enle'vement, _ the desperate woundof which the hero never dies, the burning fever from which the heroine issure to recover, become a mere matter of course. I join with my honestfriend Crabbe, and have an unlucky propensity to hope, when hope is lost, and to rely upon the cork-jacket, which carries the heroes of romancesafe through all the billows of affliction. " He then declaimed thefollowing passage, rather with too much than too little emphasis:--

 Much have I feared, but am no more afraid, When some chaste beauty by some wretch betrayed, Is drawn away with such distracted speed, That she anticipates a dreadful deed. Not so do I--Let solid walls impound The captive fair, and dig a moat around; Let there be brazen locks and bars of steel, And keepers cruel, such as never feel; With not a single note the purse supply, And when she begs, let men and maids deny; Be windows there from which she dare not fall, And help so distant, 'tis in vain to call; Still means of freedom will some Power devise, And from the baffled ruffian snatch his prize. 

"The end of uncertainty, " he concluded, "is the death of interest; andhence it happens that no one now reads novels. "

"Hear him, ye gods!" returned his companion. "I assure you, Mr. Pattieson, you will hardly visit this learned gentleman, but you arelikely to find the new novel most in repute lying on his table, --snuglyintrenched, however, beneath Stair's Institutes, or an open volume ofMorrison's Decisions. "

"Do I deny it?" said the hopeful jurisconsult, "or wherefore should I, since it is well known these Delilahs seduce my wisers and my betters?May they not be found lurking amidst the multiplied memorials of our mostdistinguished counsel, and even peeping from under the cushion of ajudge's arm-chair? Our seniors at the bar, within the bar, and even onthe bench, read novels; and, if not belied, some of them have writtennovels into the bargain. I only say, that I read from habit and fromindolence, not from real interest; that, like ancient Pistol devouringhis leek, I read and swear till I get to the end of the narrative. Butnot so in the real records of human vagaries--not so in the State Trials, or in the Books of Adjournal, where every now and then you read new pagesof the human heart, and turns of fortune far beyond what the boldestnovelist ever attempted to produce from the coinage of his brain. "

"And for such narratives, " I asked, "you suppose the History of thePrison of Edinburgh might afford appropriate materials?"

"In a degree unusually ample, my dear sir, " said Hardie--"Fill yourglass, however, in the meanwhile. Was it not for many years the place inwhich the Scottish parliament met? Was it not James's place of refuge, when the mob, inflamed by a seditious preacher, broke, forth, on him withthe cries of 'The sword of the Lord and of Gideon--bring forth the wickedHaman?' Since that time how many hearts have throbbed within these walls, as the tolling of the neighbouring bell announced to them how fast thesands of their life were ebbing; how many must have sunk at thesound--how many were supported by stubborn pride and doggedresolution--how many by the consolations of religion? Have there notbeen some, who, looking back on the motives of their crimes, were scarceable to understand how they should have had such temptation as to seducethem from virtue; and have there not, perhaps, been others, who, sensible of their innocence, were divided between indignation at theundeserved doom which they were to undergo, consciousness that they hadnot deserved it, and racking anxiety to discover some way in which theymight yet vindicate themselves? Do you suppose any of these deep, powerful, and agitating feelings, can be recorded and perused withoutexciting a corresponding depth of deep, powerful, and agitatinginterest?--Oh! do but wait till I publish the _Causes Ce'le'bres_ ofCaledonia, and you will find no want of a novel or a tragedy for sometime to come. The true thing will triumph over the brightest inventionsof the most ardent imagination. _Magna est veritas, et praevalebit. _"

"I have understood, " said I, encouraged by the affability of my rattlingentertainer, "that less of this interest must attach to Scottishjurisprudence than to that of any other country. The general morality ofour people, their sober and prudent habits"--

"Secure them, " said the barrister, "against any great increase ofprofessional thieves and depredators, but not against wild and waywardstarts of fancy and passion, producing crimes of an extraordinarydescription, which are precisely those to the detail of which we listenwith thrilling interest. England has been much longer a highly civilisedcountry; her subjects have been very strictly amenable to lawsadministered without fear or favour, a complete division of labour hastaken place among her subjects, and the very thieves and robbers form adistinct class in society, subdivided among themselves according to thesubject of the depredations, and the mode in which they carry them on, acting upon regular habits and principles, which can be calculated andanticipated at Bow Street, Hatton Garden, or the Old Bailey. Our sisterkingdom is like a cultivated field, --the farmer expects that, in spite ofall his care, a certain number of weeds will rise with the corn, and cantell you beforehand their names and appearance. But Scotland is like oneof her own Highland glens, and the moralist who reads the records of hercriminal jurisprudence, will find as many curious anomalous facts in thehistory of mind, as the botanist will detect rare specimens among herdingles and cliffs. "

"And that's all the good you have obtained from three perusals of theCommentaries on Scottish Criminal Jurisprudence?" said his companion. "Isuppose the learned author very little thinks that the facts which hiserudition and acuteness have accumulated for the illustration of legaldoctrines, might be so arranged as to form a sort of appendix to thehalf-bound and slip-shod volumes of the circulating library. "

"I'll bet you a pint of claret, " said the elder lawyer, "that he will notfeel sore at the comparison. But as we say at the bar, 'I beg I may notbe interrupted;' I have much more to say, upon my Scottish collection of_Causes Ce'le'bres. _ You will please recollect the scope and motive givenfor the contrivance and execution of many extraordinary and daringcrimes, by the long civil dissensions of Scotland--by the hereditaryjurisdictions, which, until 1748, rested the investigation of crises injudges, ignorant, partial, or interested--by the habits of the gentry, shut up in their distant and solitary mansion-houses, nursing theirrevengeful Passions just to keep their blood from stagnating--not tomention that amiable national qualification, called the _perfervidumingenium Scotorum, _ which our lawyers join in alleging as a reason forthe severity of some of our enactments. When I come to treat of mattersso mysterious, deep, and dangerous, as these circumstances have givenrise to, the blood of each reader shall be curdled, and his epidermiscrisped into goose skin. --But, hist!--here comes the landlord, withtidings, I suppose, that the chaise is ready. "

It was no such thing--the tidings bore, that no chaise could be had thatevening, for Sir Peter Plyem had carried forward my landlord's two pairsof horses that morning to the ancient royal borough of Bubbleburgh, tolook after his interest there. But as Bubbleburgh is only one of a set offive boroughs which club their shares for a member of parliament, SirPeter's adversary had judiciously watched his departure, in order tocommence a canvass in the no less royal borough of Bitem, which, as allthe world knows, lies at the very termination of Sir Peter's avenue, andhas been held in leading-strings by him and his ancestors for timeimmemorial. Now Sir Peter was thus placed in the situation of anambitious monarch, who, after having commenced a daring inroad into hisenemy's territories, is suddenly recalled by an invasion of his ownhereditary dominions. He was obliged in consequence to return from thehalf-won borough of Bubbleburgh, to look after the half-lost borough ofBitem, and the two pairs of horses which had carried him that morning toBubbleburgh were now forcibly detained to transport him, his agent, hisvalet, his jester, and his hard-drinker, across the country to Bitem. Thecause of this detention, which to me was of as little consequence as itmay be to the reader, was important enough to my companions to reconcilethem to the delay. Like eagles, they smelled the battle afar off, ordereda magnum of claret and beds at the Wallace, and entered at full careerinto the Bubbleburgh and Bitem politics, with all the probable "Petitionsand complaints" to which they were likely to give rise. 

In the midst of an anxious, animated, and, to me, most unintelligiblediscussion, concerning provosts, bailies, deacons, sets of boroughs, leets, town-clerks, burgesses resident and non-resident, all of a suddenthe lawyer recollected himself. "Poor Dunover, we must not forget him;"and the landlord was despatched in quest of the _pauvre honteux, _ with anearnestly civil invitation to him for the rest of the evening. I couldnot help asking the young gentlemen if they knew the history of this poorman; and the counsellor applied himself to his pocket to recover thememorial or brief from which he had stated his cause. 

"He has been a candidate for our _remedium miserabile, _" said Mr. Hardie, "commonly called a _cessio bonorum. _ As there are divines who havedoubted the eternity of future punishments, so the Scotch lawyers seem tohave thought that the crime of poverty might be atoned for by somethingshort of perpetual imprisonment. After a month's confinement, you mustknow, a prisoner for debt is entitled, on a sufficient statement to ourSupreme Court, setting forth the amount of his funds, and the nature ofhis misfortunes, and surrendering all his effects to his creditors, toclaim to be discharged from prison. "

"I had heard, " I replied, "of such a humane regulation. "

"Yes, " said Halkit, "and the beauty of it is, as the foreign fellow said, you may get the _cessio, _ when the _bonorums_ are all spent--But what, are you puzzling in your pockets to seek your only memorial among oldplay-bills, letters requesting a meeting of the Faculty, rules of theSpeculative Society, * syllabus' of lectures--all the miscellaneouscontents of a young advocate's pocket, which contains everything butbriefs and bank-notes?

* [A well-known debating club in Edinburgh. ]

Can you not state a case of _cessio_ without your memorial? Why, it isdone every Saturday. The events follow each other as regularly asclock-work, and one form of condescendence might suit every one of them. "

"This is very unlike the variety of distress which this gentleman statedto fall under the consideration of your judges, " said I. 

"True, " replied Halkit; "but Hardie spoke of criminal jurisprudence, andthis business is purely civil. I could plead a _cessio_ myself withoutthe inspiring honours of a gown and three-tailed periwig--Listen. --Myclient was bred a journeyman weaver--made some little money--took afarm--(for conducting a farm, like driving a gig, comes by nature)--latesevere times--induced to sign bills with a friend, for which he receivedno value--landlord sequestrates--creditors accept a composition--pursuersets up a public-house--fails a second time--is incarcerated for a debtof ten pounds seven shillings and sixpence--his debts amount toblank--his losses to blank--his funds to blank--leaving a balance of blankin his favour. There is no opposition; your lordships will please grantcommission to take his oath. "

Hardie now renounced this ineffectual search, in which there was perhapsa little affectation, and told us the tale of poor Dunover's distresses, with a tone in which a degree of feeling, which he seemed ashamed of asunprofessional, mingled with his attempts at wit, and did him morehonour. It was one of those tales which seem to argue a sort of ill-luckor fatality attached to the hero. A well-informed, industrious, andblameless, but poor and bashful man, had in vain essayed all the usualmeans by which others acquire independence, yet had never succeededbeyond the attainment of bare subsistence. During a brief gleam of hope, rather than of actual prosperity, he had added a wife and family to hiscares, but the dawn was speedily overcast. Everything retrograded withhim towards the verge of the miry Slough of Despond, which yawns forinsolvent debtors; and after catching at each twig, and experiencing theprotracted agony of feeling them one by one elude his grasp, he actuallysunk into the miry pit whence he had been extricated by the professionalexertions of Hardie. 

"And, I suppose, now you have dragged this poor devil ashore, you willleave him half naked on the beach to provide for himself?" said Halkit. "Hark ye, "--and he whispered something in his ear, of which thepenetrating and insinuating words, "Interest with my Lord, " alone reachedmine. 

"It is _pessimi exempli, _" said Hardie, laughing, "to provide for aruined client; but I was thinking of what you mention, provided it can bemanaged--But hush! here he comes. "

The recent relation of the poor man's misfortunes had given him, I waspleased to observe, a claim to the attention and respect of the youngmen, who treated him with great civility, and gradually engaged him in aconversation, which, much to my satisfaction, again turned upon the_Causes Ce'le'bres_ of Scotland. Imboldened by the kindness with which hewas treated, Mr. Dunover began to contribute his share to the amusementof the evening. Jails, like other places, have their ancient traditions, known only to the inhabitants, and handed down from one set of themelancholy lodgers to the next who occupy their cells. Some of these, which Dunover mentioned, were interesting, and served to illustrate thenarratives of remarkable trials, which Hardie had at his finger-ends, andwhich his companion was also well skilled in. This sort of conversationpassed away the evening till the early hour when Mr. Dunover chose toretire to rest, and I also retreated to take down memorandums of what Ihad learned, in order to add another narrative to those which it had beenmy chief amusement to collect, and to write out in detail. The two youngmen ordered a broiled bone, Madeira negus, and a pack of cards, andcommenced a game at picquet. 

Next morning the travellers left Gandercleugh. I afterwards learned fromthe papers that both have been since engaged in the great political causeof Bubbleburgh and Bitem, a summary case, and entitled to particulardespatch; but which, it is thought, nevertheless, may outlast theduration of the parliament to which the contest refers. Mr. Halkit, asthe newspapers informed me, acts as agent or solicitor; and Mr. Hardieopened for Sir Peter Plyem with singular ability, and to such goodpurpose, that I understand he has since had fewer play-bills and morebriefs in his pocket. And both the young gentlemen deserve their goodfortune; for I learned from Dunover, who called on me some weeksafterwards, and communicated the intelligence with tears in his eyes, that their interest had availed to obtain him a small office for thedecent maintenance of his family; and that, after a train of constant anduninterrupted misfortune, he could trace a dawn of prosperity to hishaving the good fortune to be flung from the top of a mail-coach into theriver Gander, in company with an advocate and a writer to the Signet. Thereader will not perhaps deem himself equally obliged to the accident, since it brings upon him the following narrative, founded upon theconversation of the evening. 

THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN

CHAPTER FIRST. 

 Whoe'er's been at Paris must needs know the Gre've, The fatal retreat of the unfortunate brave, Where honour and justice most oddly contribute, To ease heroes' pains by an halter and gibbet. 

 There death breaks the shackles which force had put on, And the hangman completes what the judge but began; There the squire of the poet, and knight of the post, Find their pains no more baulked, and their hopes no more crossed. Prior. 

In former times, England had her Tyburn, to which the devoted victims ofjustice were conducted in solemn procession up what is now called OxfordStreet. In Edinburgh, a large open street, or rather oblong square, surrounded by high houses, called the Grassmarket, was used for the samemelancholy purpose. It was not ill chosen for such a scene, being ofconsiderable extent, and therefore fit to accommodate a great number ofspectators, such as are usually assembled by this melancholy spectacle. On the other hand, few of the houses which surround it were, even inearly times, inhabited by persons of fashion; so that those likely to beoffended or over deeply affected by such unpleasant exhibitions were notin the way of having their quiet disturbed by them. The houses in theGrassmarket are, generally speaking, of a mean description; yet the placeis not without some features of grandeur, being overhung by the southernside of the huge rock on which the Castle stands, and by the moss-grownbattlements and turreted walls of that ancient fortress. 

It was the custom, until within these thirty years or thereabouts, to usethis esplanade for the scene of public executions. The fatal day wasannounced to the public by the appearance of a huge black gallows-treetowards the eastern end of the Grassmarket. This ill-omened apparitionwas of great height, with a scaffold surrounding it, and a double ladderplaced against it, for the ascent of the unhappy criminal andexecutioner. As this apparatus was always arranged before dawn, it seemedas if the gallows had grown out of the earth in the course of one night, like the production of some foul demon; and I well remember the frightwith which the schoolboys, when I was one of their number, used to regardthese ominous signs of deadly preparation. On the night after theexecution the gallows again disappeared, and was conveyed in silence anddarkness to the place where it was usually deposited, which was one ofthe vaults under the Parliament House, or courts of justice. This mode ofexecution is now exchanged for one similar to that in front ofNewgate, --with what beneficial effect is uncertain. The mentalsufferings of the convict are indeed shortened. He no longer stalksbetween the attendant clergymen, dressed in his grave-clothes, through aconsiderable part of the city, looking like a moving and walking corpse, while yet an inhabitant of this world; but, as the ultimate purpose ofpunishment has in view the prevention of crimes, it may at least bedoubted, whether, in abridging the melancholy ceremony, we have not inpart diminished that appalling effect upon the spectators which is theuseful end of all such inflictions, and in consideration of which alone, unless in very particular cases, capital sentences can be altogetherjustified. 

On the 7th day of September 1736, these ominous preparations forexecution were descried in the place we have described, and at an earlyhour the space around began to be occupied by several groups, who gazedon the scaffold and gibbet with a stern and vindictive show ofsatisfaction very seldom testified by the populace, whose good nature, inmost cases, forgets the crime of the condemned person, and dwells only onhis misery. But the act of which the expected culprit had been convictedwas of a description calculated nearly and closely to awaken and irritatethe resentful feelings of the multitude. The tale is well known; yet itis necessary to recapitulate its leading circumstances, for the betterunderstanding what is to follow; and the narrative may prove long, but Itrust not uninteresting even to those who have heard its general issue. At any rate, some detail is necessary, in order to render intelligiblethe subsequent events of our narrative. 

Contraband trade, though it strikes at the root of legitimate government, by encroaching on its revenues, --though it injures the fair trader, anddebauches the mind of those engaged in it, --is not usually looked upon, either by the vulgar or by their betters, in a very heinous point ofview. On the contrary, in those countries where it prevails, thecleverest, boldest, and most intelligent of the peasantry, are uniformlyengaged in illicit transactions, and very often with the sanction of thefarmers and inferior gentry. Smuggling was almost universal in Scotlandin the reigns of George I. And II. ; for the people, unaccustomed toimposts, and regarding them as an unjust aggression upon their ancientliberties, made no scruple to elude them whenever it was possible to doso. 

The county of Fife, bounded by two firths on the south and north, and bythe sea on the east, and having a number of small seaports, was longfamed for maintaining successfully a contraband trade; and, as there weremany seafaring men residing there, who had been pirates and buccaneers intheir youth, there were not wanting a sufficient number of daring men tocarry it on. Among these, a fellow called Andrew Wilson, originally abaker in the village of Pathhead, was particularly obnoxious to therevenue officers. He was possessed of great personal strength, courage, and cunning, --was perfectly acquainted with the coast, and capable ofconducting the most desperate enterprises. On several occasions hesucceeded in baffling the pursuit and researches of the king's officers;but he became so much the object of their suspicions and watchfulattention, that at length he was totally ruined by repeated seizures. Theman became desperate. He considered himself as robbed and plundered; andtook it into his head that he had a right to make reprisals, as he couldfind opportunity. Where the heart is prepared for evil, opportunity isseldom long wanting. This Wilson learned that the Collector of theCustoms at Kirkcaldy had come to Pittenweem, in the course of hisofficial round of duty, with a considerable sum of public money in hiscustody. As the amount was greatly within the value of the goods whichhad been seized from him, Wilson felt no scruple of conscience inresolving to reimburse himself for his losses, at the expense of theCollector and the revenue. He associated with himself one Robertson, andtwo other idle young men, whom, having been concerned in the same illicittrade, he persuaded to view the transaction in the same justifiable lightin which he himself considered it. They watched the motions of theCollector; they broke forcibly into the house where he lodged, --Wilson, with two of his associates, entering the Collector's apartment, whileRobertson, the fourth, kept watch at the door with a drawn cutlass in hishand. The officer of the customs, conceiving his life in danger, escapedout of his bedroom window, and fled in his shirt, so that the plunderers, with much ease, possessed themselves of about two hundred pounds ofpublic money. The robbery was committed in a very audacious manner, forseveral persons were passing in the street at the time. But Robertson, representing the noise they heard as a dispute or fray betwixt theCollector and the people of the house, the worthy citizens of Pittenweemfelt themselves no way called on to interfere in behalf of the obnoxiousrevenue officer; so, satisfying themselves with this very superficialaccount of the matter, like the Levite in the parable, they passed on theopposite side of the way. An alarm was at length given, military werecalled in, the depredators were pursued, the booty recovered, and Wilsonand Robertson tried and condemned to death, chiefly on the evidence of anaccomplice. 

Many thought that, in consideration of the men's erroneous opinion of thenature of the action they had committed, justice might have beensatisfied with a less forfeiture than that of two lives. On the otherhand, from the audacity of the fact, a severe example was judgednecessary; and such was the opinion of the Government. When it becameapparent that the sentence of death was to be executed, files, and otherimplements necessary for their escape, were transmitted secretly to theculprits by a friend from without. By these means they sawed a bar out ofone of the prison-windows, and might have made their escape, but for theobstinacy of Wilson, who, as he was daringly resolute, was doggedlypertinacious of his opinion. His comrade, Robertson, a young and slenderman, proposed to make the experiment of passing the foremost through thegap they had made, and enlarging it from the outside, if necessary, toallow Wilson free passage. Wilson, however, insisted on making the firstexperiment, and being a robust and lusty man, he not only found itimpossible to get through betwixt the bars, but, by his struggles, hejammed himself so fast, that he was unable to draw his body back again. In these circumstances discovery became unavoidable, and sufficientprecautions were taken by the jailor to prevent any repetition of thesame attempt. Robertson uttered not a word of reflection on his companionfor the consequences of his obstinacy; but it appeared from the sequel, that Wilson's mind was deeply impressed with the recollection that, butfor him, his comrade, over whose mind he exercised considerableinfluence, would not have engaged in the criminal enterprise which hadterminated thus fatally; and that now he had become his destroyer asecond time, since, but for his obstinacy, Robertson might have effectedhis escape. Minds like Wilson's, even when exercised in evil practices, sometimes retain the power of thinking and resolving with enthusiasticgenerosity. His whole thoughts were now bent on the possibility of savingRobertson's life, without the least respect to his own. The resolutionwhich he adopted, and the manner in which he carried it into effect, werestriking and unusual. 

Adjacent to the tolbooth or city jail of Edinburgh, is one of threechurches into which the cathedral of St. Giles is now divided, called, from its vicinity, the Tolbooth Church. It was the custom that criminalsunder sentence of death were brought to this church, with a sufficientguard, to hear and join in public worship on the Sabbath beforeexecution. It was supposed that the hearts of these unfortunate persons, however hardened before against feelings of devotion, could not but beaccessible to them upon uniting their thoughts and voices, for the lasttime, along with their fellow-mortals, in addressing their Creator. Andto the rest of the congregation, it was thought it could not but beimpressive and affecting, to find their devotions mingling with those, who, sent by the doom of an earthly tribunal to appear where the wholeearth is judged, might be considered as beings trembling on the verge ofeternity. The practice, however edifying, has been discontinued, inconsequence of the incident we are about to detail. 

The clergyman, whose duty it was to officiate in the Tolbooth Church, hadconcluded an affecting discourse, part of which was particularly directedto the unfortunate men, Wilson and Robertson, who were in the pew setapart for the persons in their unhappy situation, each secured betwixttwo soldiers of the city guard. The clergyman had reminded them, that thenext congregation they must join would be that of the just, or of theunjust; that the psalms they now heard must be exchanged, in the space oftwo brief days, for eternal hallelujahs, or eternal lamentations; andthat this fearful alternative must depend upon the state to which theymight be able to bring their minds before the moment of awfulpreparation: that they should not despair on account of the suddenness ofthe summons, but rather to feel this comfort in their misery, that, though all who now lifted the voice, or bent the knee in conjunction withthem, lay under the same sentence of certain death, _they_ only had theadvantage of knowing the precise moment at which it should be executedupon them. "Therefore, " urged the good man, his voice trembling withemotion, "redeem the time, my unhappy brethren, which is yet left; andremember, that, with the grace of Him to whom space and time are but asnothing, salvation may yet be assured, even in the pittance of delaywhich the laws of your country afford you. "

Robertson was observed to weep at these words; but Wilson seemed as onewhose brain had not entirely received their meaning, or whose thoughtswere deeply impressed with some different subject;--an expression sonatural to a person in his situation, that it excited neither suspicionnor surprise. 

The benediction was pronounced as usual, and the congregation wasdismissed, many lingering to indulge their curiosity with a more fixedlook at the two criminals, who now, as well as their guards, rose up, asif to depart when the crowd should permit them. A murmur of compassionwas heard to pervade the spectators, the more general, perhaps, onaccount of the alleviating circumstances of the case; when all at once, Wilson, who, as we have already noticed, was a very strong man, seizedtwo of the soldiers, one with each hand, and calling at the same time tohis companion, "Run, Geordie, run!" threw himself on a third, andfastened his teeth on the collar of his coat. Robertson stood for asecond as if thunderstruck, and unable to avail himself of theopportunity of escape; but the cry of "Run, run!" being echoed from manyaround, whose feelings surprised them into a very natural interest in hisbehalf, he shook off the grasp of the remaining soldier, threw himselfover the pew, mixed with the dispersing congregation, none of whom feltinclined to stop a poor wretch taking his last chance for his life, gained the door of the church, and was lost to all pursuit. 

The generous intrepidity which Wilson had displayed on this occasionaugmented the feeling of compassion which attended his fate. The public, where their own prejudices are not concerned, are easily engaged on theside of disinterestedness and humanity, admired Wilson's behaviour, andrejoiced in Robertson's escape. This general feeling was so great, thatit excited a vague report that Wilson would be rescued at the place ofexecution, either by the mob or by some of his old associates, or by somesecond extraordinary and unexpected exertion of strength and courage onhis own part. The magistrates thought it their duty to provide againstthe possibility of disturbance. They ordered out, for protection of theexecution of the sentence, the greater part of their own City Guard, under the command of Captain Porteous, a man whose name became toomemorable from the melancholy circumstances of the day, and subsequentevents. It may be necessary to say a word about this person, and thecorps which he commanded. But the subject is of importance sufficient todeserve another chapter. 

CHAPTER SECOND. 

 And thou, great god of aquavitae! Wha sways the empire of this city (When fou we're sometimes capernoity), Be thou prepared, To save us frae that black banditti, The City Guard! Fergusson's _Daft Days. _

Captain John Porteous, a name memorable in the traditions of Edinburgh, as well as in the records of criminal jurisprudence, was the son of acitizen of Edinburgh, who endeavoured to breed him up to his ownmechanical trade of a tailor. The youth, however, had a wild andirreclaimable propensity to dissipation, which finally sent him to servein the corps long maintained in the service of the States of Holland, andcalled the Scotch Dutch. Here he learned military discipline; and, returning afterwards, in the course of an idle and wandering life, to hisnative city, his services were required by the magistrates of Edinburghin the disturbed year 1715, for disciplining their City Guard, in whichhe shortly afterwards received a captain's commission. It was only by hismilitary skill and an alert and resolute character as an officer ofpolice, that he merited this promotion, for he is said to have been a manof profligate habits, an unnatural son, and a brutal husband. He was, however, useful in his station, and his harsh and fierce habits renderedhim formidable to rioters or disturbers of the public peace. 

The corps in which he held his command is, or perhaps we should rathersay _was, _ a body of about one hundred and twenty soldiers divided intothree companies, and regularly armed, clothed, and embodied. They werechiefly veterans who enlisted in this cogs, having the benefit of workingat their trades when they were off duty. These men had the charge ofpreserving public order, repressing riots and street robberies, acting, in short, as an armed police, and attending on all public occasions whereconfusion or popular disturbance might be expected. *

* The Lord Provost was ex-officio commander and colonel of the corps, which might be increased to three hundred men when the times required it. No other drum but theirs was allowed to sound on the High Street betweenthe Luckenbooths and the Netherbow. 

Poor Fergusson, whose irregularities sometimes led him into unpleasantrencontres with these military conservators of public order, and whomentions them so often that he may be termed their poet laureate, * thusadmonishes his readers, warned doubtless by his own experience:--

* [Robert Fergusson, the Scottish Poet, born 1750, died 1774. ]

 "Gude folk, as ye come frae the fair, Bide yont frae this black squad: There's nae sic savages elsewhere Allowed to wear cockad. "

In fact, the soldiers of the City Guard, being, as we have said, ingeneral discharged veterans, who had strength enough remaining for thismunicipal duty, and being, moreover, for the greater part, Highlanders, were neither by birth, education, nor former habits, trained to endurewith much patience the insults of the rabble, or the provoking petulanceof truant schoolboys, and idle debauchees of all descriptions, with whomtheir occupation brought them into contact. On the contrary, the tempersof the poor old fellows were soured by the indignities with which the mobdistinguished them on many occasions, and frequently might have requiredthe soothing strains of the poet we have just quoted--

 "O soldiers! for your ain dear sakes, For Scotland's love, the Land o' Cakes, Gie not her bairns sic deadly paiks, Nor be sae rude, Wi' firelock or Lochaber-axe, As spill their bluid!"

On all occasions when a holiday licensed some riot and irregularity, askirmish with these veterans was a favourite recreation with the rabbleof Edinburgh. These pages may perhaps see the light when many have infresh recollection such onsets as we allude to. But the venerable corps, with whom the contention was held, may now be considered as totallyextinct. Of late the gradual diminution of these civic soldiers remindsone of the abatement of King Lear's hundred knights. The edicts of eachsucceeding set of magistrates have, like those of Goneril and Regan, diminished this venerable band with the similar question, "What need wefive-and-twenty?--ten?--or five?" And it is now nearly come to, "Whatneed one?" A spectre may indeed here and there still be seen, of an oldgrey-headed and grey-bearded Highlander, with war-worn features, but bentdouble by age; dressed in an old fashioned cocked-hat, bound with whitetape instead of silver lace; and in coat, waistcoat, and breeches, of amuddy-coloured red, bearing in his withered hand an ancient weapon, called a Lochaber-axe; a long pole, namely, with an axe at the extremity, and a hook at the back of the hatchet. *

* This hook was to enable the bearer of the Lochaber-axe to scale agateway, by grappling the top of the door, and swinging himself up by thestaff of his weapon. 

Such a phantom of former days still creeps, I have been informed, roundthe statue of Charles the Second, in the Parliament Square, as if theimage of a Stuart were the last refuge for any memorial of our ancientmanners; and one or two others are supposed to glide around the door ofthe guardhouse assigned to them in the Luckenbooths, when their ancientrefuge in the High Street was laid low. *

* This ancient corps is now entirely disbanded. Their last march to doduty at Hallowfair had something in it affecting. Their drums and fifeshad been wont on better days to play, on this joyous occasion, the livelytune of "Jockey to the fair;" but on his final occasion the afflictedveterans moved slowly to the dirge of

"The last time I came ower the muir. "

But the fate of manuscripts bequeathed to friends and executors is souncertain, that the narrative containing these frail memorials of the oldTown Guard of Edinburgh, who, with their grim and valiant corporal, JohnDhu (the fiercest-looking fellow I ever saw), were, in my boyhood, thealternate terror and derision of the petulant brood of the High School, may, perhaps, only come to light when all memory of the institution hasfaded away, and then serve as an illustration of Kay's caricatures, whohas preserved the features of some of their heroes. In the precedinggeneration, when there was a perpetual alarm for the plots and activityof the Jacobites, some pains were taken by the magistrates of Edinburghto keep this corps, though composed always of such materials as we havenoticed, in a more effective state than was afterwards judged necessary, when their most dangerous service was to skirmish with the rabble on theking's birthday. They were, therefore, more the objects of hatred, andless that of scorn, than they were afterwards accounted. 

To Captain John Porteous, the honour of his command and of his corpsseems to have been a matter of high interest and importance. He wasexceedingly incensed against Wilson for the affront which he construedhim to have put upon his soldiers, in the effort he made for theliberation of his companion, and expressed himself most ardently on thesubject. He was no less indignant at the report, that there was anintention to rescue Wilson himself from the gallows, and uttered manythreats and imprecations upon that subject, which were afterwardsremembered to his disadvantage. In fact, if a good deal of determinationand promptitude rendered Porteous, in one respect, fit to command guardsdesigned to suppress popular commotion, he seems, on the other, to havebeen disqualified for a charge so delicate, by a hot and surly temper, always too ready to come to blows and violence; a character void ofprinciple; and a disposition to regard the rabble, who seldom failed toregale him and his soldiers with some marks of their displeasure, asdeclared enemies, upon whom it was natural and justifiable that he shouldseek opportunities of vengeance. Being, however, the most active andtrustworthy among the captains of the City Guard, he was the person towhom the magistrates confided the command of the soldiers appointed tokeep the peace at the time of Wilson's execution. He was ordered to guardthe gallows and scaffold, with about eighty men, all the disposable forcethat could be spared for that duty. 

But the magistrates took farther precautions, which affected Porteous'spride very deeply. They requested the assistance of part of a regularinfantry regiment, not to attend upon the execution, but to remain drawnup on the principal street of the city, during the time that it wentforward, in order to intimidate the multitude, in case they should bedisposed to be unruly, with a display of force which could not beresisted without desperation. It may sound ridiculous in our ears, considering the fallen state of this ancient civic corps, that itsofficer should have felt punctiliously jealous of its honour. Yet so itwas. Captain Porteous resented, as an indignity, the introducing theWelsh Fusileers within the city, and drawing them up in the street whereno drums but his own were allowed to be sounded without the specialcommand or permission of the magistrates. As he could not show hisill-humour to his patrons the magistrates, it increased his indignationand his desire to be revenged on the unfortunate criminal Wilson, and allwho favoured him. These internal emotions of jealousy and rage wrought achange on the man's mien and bearing, visible to all who saw him on thefatal morning when Wilson was appointed to suffer. Porteous's ordinaryappearance was rather favourable. He was about the middle size, stout, and well made, having a military air, and yet rather a gentle and mildcountenance. His complexion was brown, his face somewhat fretted with thesears of the smallpox, his eyes rather languid than keen or fierce. Onthe present occasion, however, it seemed to those who saw him as if hewere agitated by some evil demon. His step was irregular, his voicehollow and broken, his countenance pale, his eyes staring and wild, hisspeech imperfect and confused, and his whole appearance so disordered, that many remarked he seemed to be _fey, _ a Scottish expression, meaningthe state of those who are driven on to their impending fate by thestrong impulse of some irresistible necessity. 

One part of his conduct was truly diabolical, if indeed it has not beenexaggerated by the general prejudice entertained against his memory. WhenWilson, the unhappy criminal, was delivered to him by the keeper of theprison, in order that he might be conducted to the place of execution, Porteous, not satisfied with the usual precautions to prevent escape, ordered him to be manacled. This might be justifiable from the characterand bodily strength of the malefactor, as well as from the apprehensionsso generally entertained of an expected rescue. But the handcuffs whichwere produced being found too small for the wrists of a man so big-bonedas Wilson, Porteous proceeded with his own hands, and by great exertionof strength, to force them till they clasped together, to the exquisitetorture of the unhappy criminal. Wilson remonstrated against suchbarbarous usage, declaring that the pain distracted his thoughts from thesubjects of meditation proper to his unhappy condition. 

"It signifies little, " replied Captain Porteous; "your pain will soon beat an end. "

"Your cruelty is great, " answered the sufferer. "You know not how soonyou yourself may have occasion to ask the mercy which you are nowrefusing to a fellow-creature. May God forgive you!"

These words, long afterwards quoted and remembered, were all that passedbetween Porteous and his prisoner; but as they took air, and became knownto the people, they greatly increased the popular compassion for Wilson, and excited a proportionate degree of indignation against Porteous;against whom, as strict, and even violent in the discharge of hisunpopular office, the common people had some real, and many imaginarycauses of complaint. 

When the painful procession was completed, and Wilson, with the escort, had arrived at the scaffold in the Grassmarket, there appeared no signsof that attempt to rescue him which had occasioned such precautions. Themultitude, in general, looked on with deeper interest than at ordinaryexecutions; and there might be seen, on the countenances of many, a sternand indignant expression, like that with which the ancient Cameroniansmight be supposed to witness the execution of their brethren, whoglorified the Covenant on the same occasion, and at the same spot. Butthere was no attempt at violence. Wilson himself seemed disposed tohasten over the space that divided time from eternity. The devotionsproper and usual on such occasions were no sooner finished than hesubmitted to his fate, and the sentence of the law was fulfilled. 

He had been suspended on the gibbet so long as to be totally deprived oflife, when at once, as if occasioned by some newly received impulse, there arose a tumult among the multitude. Many stones were thrown atPorteous and his guards; some mischief was done; and the mob continued topress forward with whoops, shrieks, howls, and exclamations. A youngfellow, with a sailor's cap slouched over his face, sprung on thescaffold, and cut the rope by which the criminal was suspended. Othersapproached to carry off the body, either to secure for it a decent grave, or to try, perhaps, some means of resuscitation. Captain Porteous waswrought, by this appearance of insurrection against his authority, into arage so headlong as made him forget, that, the sentence having been fullyexecuted, it was his duty not to engage in hostilities with the misguidedmultitude, but to draw off his men as fast as possible. He sprung fromthe scaffold, snatched a musket from one of his soldiers, commanded theparty to give fire, and, as several eye-witnesses concurred in swearing, set them the example, by discharging his piece, and shooting a man deadon the spot. Several soldiers obeyed his command or followed his example;six or seven persons were slain, and a great many were hurt and wounded. 

After this act of violence, the Captain proceeded to withdraw his mentowards their guard-house in the High Street. The mob were not so muchintimidated as incensed by what had been done. They pursued the soldierswith execrations, accompanied by volleys of stones. As they pressed onthem, the rearmost soldiers turned, and again fired with fatal aim andexecution. It is not accurately known whether Porteous commanded thissecond act of violence; but of course the odium of the whole transactionsof the fatal day attached to him, and to him alone. He arrived at theguard-house, dismissed his soldiers, and went to make his report to themagistrates concerning the unfortunate events of the day. 

Apparently by this time Captain Porteous had began to doubt the proprietyof his own conduct, and the reception he met with from the magistrateswas such as to make him still more anxious to gloss it over. He deniedthat he had given orders to fire; he denied he had fired with his ownhand; he even produced the fusee which he carried as an officer forexamination; it was found still loaded. Of three cartridges which he wasseen to put in his pouch that morning, two were still there; a whitehandkerchief was thrust into the muzzle of the piece, and re-turnedunsoiled or blackened. To the defence founded on these circumstances itwas answered, that Porteous had not used his own piece, but had been seento take one from a soldier. Among the many who had been killed andwounded by the unhappy fire, there were several of better rank; for eventhe humanity of such soldiers as fired over the heads of the mere rabblearound the scaffold, proved in some instances fatal to persons who werestationed in windows, or observed the melancholy scene from a distance. The voice of public indignation was loud and general; and, ere men'stempers had time to cool, the trial of Captain Porteous took place beforethe High Court of Justiciary. After a long and patient hearing, the juryhad the difficult duty of balancing the positive evidence of manypersons, and those of respectability, who deposed positively to theprisoner's commanding his soldiers to fire, and himself firing his piece, of which some swore that they saw the smoke and flash, and beheld a mandrop at whom it was pointed, with the negative testimony of others, who, though well stationed for seeing what had passed, neither heard Porteousgive orders to fire, nor saw him fire himself; but, on the contrary, averred that the first shot was fired by a soldier who stood close byhim. A great part of his defence was also founded on the turbulence ofthe mob, which witnesses, according to their feelings, theirpredilections, and their opportunities of observation, representeddifferently; some describing as a formidable riot, what othersrepresented as a trifling disturbance such as always used to take placeon the like occasions, when the executioner of the law, and the mencommissioned to protect him in his task, were generally exposed to someindignities. The verdict of the jury sufficiently shows how the evidencepreponderated in their minds. It declared that John Porteous fired a gunamong the people assembled at the execution; that he gave orders to hissoldiers to fire, by which many persons were killed and wounded; but, atthe same time, that the prisoner and his guard had been wounded andbeaten, by stones thrown at them by the multitude. Upon this verdict, theLords of Justiciary passed sentence of death against Captain JohnPorteous, adjudging him, in the common form, to be hanged on a gibbet atthe common place of execution, on Wednesday, 8th September 1736, and allhis movable property to be forfeited to the king's use, according to theScottish law in cases of wilful murder. *

* The signatures affixed to the death-warrant of Captain Porteous were--Andrew Fletcher of Milton, Lord Justice-Clerk. Sir James Mackenzie, Lord Royston. David Erskine, Lord Dun. Sir Walter Pringle, Lord Newhall. Sir Gilbert Elliot, Lord Minto. 

CHAPTER THIRD. 

 "The hour's come, but not the man. "*

* There is a tradition, that while a little stream was swollen into atorrent by recent showers, the discontented voice of the Water Spirit washeard to pronounce these words. At the some moment a man, urged on by hisfate, or, in Scottish language, _fey, _ arrived at a gallop, and preparedto cross the water. No remonstrance from the bystanders was of power tostop him--he plunged into the stream, and perished. 

Kelpie. 

On the day when the unhappy Porteous was expected to suffer the sentenceof the law, the place of execution, extensive as it is, was crowdedalmost to suffocation. There was not a window in all the lofty tenementsaround it, or in the steep and crooked street called the Bow, by whichthe fatal procession was to descend from the High Street, that was notabsolutely filled with spectators. The uncommon height and antiqueappearance of these houses, some of which were formerly the property ofthe Knights Templars, and the Knights of St. John, and still exhibit ontheir fronts and gables the iron cross of these orders, gave additionaleffect to a scene in itself so striking. The area of the Grassmarketresembled a huge dark lake or sea of human heads, in the centre of whicharose the fatal tree, tall, black, and ominous, from which dangled thedeadly halter. Every object takes interest from its uses andassociations, and the erect beam and empty noose, things so simple inthemselves, became, on such an occasion, objects of terror and of solemninterest. 

Amid so numerous an assembly there was scarcely a word spoken, save inwhispers. The thirst of vengeance was in some degree allayed by itssupposed certainty; and even the populace, with deeper feeling than theyare wont to entertain, suppressed all clamorous exultation, and preparedto enjoy the scene of retaliation in triumph, silent and decent, thoughstern and relentless. It seemed as if the depth of their hatred to theunfortunate criminal scorned to display itself in anything resembling themore noisy current of their ordinary feelings. Had a stranger consultedonly the evidence of his ears, he might have supposed that so vast amultitude were assembled for some purpose which affected them with thedeepest sorrow, and stilled those noises which, on all ordinaryoccasions, arise from such a concourse; but if he had gazed upon theirfaces, he would have been instantly undeceived. The compressed lip, thebent brow, the stern and flashing eye of almost everyone on whom helooked, conveyed the expression of men come to glut their sight withtriumphant revenge. It is probable that the appearance of the criminalmight have somewhat changed the temper of the populace in his favour, andthat they might in the moment of death have forgiven the man against whomtheir resentment had been so fiercely heated. It had, however, beendestined, that the mutability of their sentiments was not to be exposedto this trial. 

The usual hour for producing the criminal had been past for many minutes, yet the spectators observed no symptom of his appearance. "Would theyventure to defraud public justice?" was the question which men begananxiously to ask at each other. The first answer in every case was boldand positive, --"They dare not. " But when the point was further canvassed, other opinions were entertained, and various causes of doubt weresuggested. Porteous had been a favourite officer of the magistracy of thecity, which, being a numerous and fluctuating body, requires for itssupport a degree of energy in its functionaries, which the individualswho compose it cannot at all times alike be supposed to possess in theirown persons. It was remembered, that in the Information for Porteous (thepaper, namely, in which his case was stated to the Judges of the criminalcourt), he had been described by his counsel as the person on whom themagistrates chiefly relied in all emergencies of uncommon difficulty. Itwas argued, too, that his conduct, on the unhappy occasion of Wilson'sexecution, was capable of being attributed to an imprudent excess of zealin the execution of his duty, a motive for which those under whoseauthority he acted might be supposed to have great sympathy. And as theseconsiderations might move the magistrates to make a favourablerepresentation of Porteous's case, there were not wanting others in thehigher departments of Government, which would make such suggestionsfavourably listened to. 

The mob of Edinburgh, when thoroughly excited, had been at all times oneof the fiercest which could be found in Europe; and of late years theyhad risen repeatedly against the Government, and sometimes not withouttemporary success. They were conscious, therefore, that they were nofavourites with the rulers of the period, and that, if Captain Porteous'sviolence was not altogether regarded as good service, it might certainlybe thought, that to visit it with a capital punishment would render itboth delicate and dangerous for future officers, in the samecircumstances, to act with effect in repressing tumults. There is also anatural feeling, on the part of all members of Government, for thegeneral maintenance of authority; and it seemed not unlikely, that whatto the relatives of the sufferers appeared a wanton and unprovokedmassacre, should be otherwise viewed in the cabinet of St. James's. Itmight be there supposed, that upon the whole matter, Captain Porteous wasin the exercise of a trust delegated to him by the lawful civilauthority; that he had been assaulted by the populace, and several of hismen hurt; and that, in finally repelling force by force, his conductcould be fairly imputed to no other motive than self-defence in thedischarge of his duty. 

These considerations, of themselves very powerful, induced the spectatorsto apprehend the possibility of a reprieve; and to the various causeswhich might interest the rulers in his favour, the lower part of therabble added one which was peculiarly well adapted to theircomprehension. It was averred, in order to increase the odium againstPorteous, that while he repressed with the utmost severity the slightestexcesses of the poor, he not only overlooked the license of the youngnobles and gentry, but was very willing to lend them the countenance ofhis official authority, in execution of such loose pranks as it waschiefly his duty to have restrained. This suspicion, which was perhapsmuch exaggerated, made a deep impression on the minds of the populace;and when several of the higher rank joined in a petition, recommendingPorteous to the mercy of the Crown, it was generally supposed he owedtheir favour not to any conviction of the hardship of his case, but tothe fear of losing a convenient accomplice in their debaucheries. It isscarcely necessary to say how much this suspicion augmented the people'sdetestation of this obnoxious criminal, as well as their fear of hisescaping the sentence pronounced against him. 

While these arguments were stated and replied to, and canvassed andsupported, the hitherto silent expectation of the people became changedinto that deep and agitating murmur, which is sent forth by the oceanbefore the tempest begins to howl. The crowded populace, as if theirmotions had corresponded with the unsettled state of their minds, fluctuated to and fro without any visible cause of impulse, like theagitation of the waters, called by sailors the ground-swell. The news, which the magistrates had almost hesitated to communicate to them, wereat length announced, and spread among the spectators with a rapidity likelightning. A reprieve from the Secretary of State's office, under thehand of his Grace the Duke of Newcastle, had arrived, intimating thepleasure of Queen Caroline (regent of the kingdom during the absence ofGeorge II. On the Continent), that the execution of the sentence of deathpronounced against John Porteous, late Captain-Lieutenant of the CityGuard of Edinburgh, present prisoner in the Tolbooth of that city, berespited for six weeks from the time appointed for his execution. 

The assembled spectators of almost all degrees, whose minds had beenwound up to the pitch which we have described, uttered a groan, or rathera roar of indignation and disappointed revenge, similar to that of atiger from whom his meal has been rent by his keeper when he was justabout to devour it. This fierce exclamation seemed to forbode someimmediate explosion of popular resentment, and, in fact, such had beenexpected by the magistrates, and the necessary measures had been taken torepress it. But the shout was not repeated, nor did any sudden tumultensue, such as it appeared to announce. The populace seemed to be ashamedof having expressed their disappointment in a vain clamour, and the soundchanged, not into the silence which had preceded the arrival of thesestunning news, but into stifled mutterings, which each group maintainedamong themselves, and which were blended into one deep and hoarse murmurwhich floated above the assembly. 

Yet still, though all expectation of the execution was over, the mobremained assembled, stationary, as it were, through very resentment, gazing on the preparations for death, which had now been made in vain, and stimulating their feelings, by recalling the various claims whichWilson might have had on royal mercy, from the mistaken motives on whichhe acted, as well as from the generosity he had displayed towards hisaccomplice. "This man, " they said, --"the brave, the resolute, thegenerous, was executed to death without mercy for stealing a purse ofgold, which in some sense he might consider as a fair reprisal; while theprofligate satellite, who took advantage of a trifling tumult, inseparable from such occasions, to shed the blood of twenty of hisfellow-citizens, is deemed a fitting object for the exercise of the royalprerogative of mercy. Is this to be borne?--would our fathers have borneit? Are not we, like them, Scotsmen and burghers of Edinburgh?"

The officers of justice began now to remove the scaffold, and otherpreparations which had been made for the execution, in hopes, by doingso, to accelerate the dispersion of the multitude. The measure had thedesired effect; for no sooner had the fatal tree been unfixed from thelarge stone pedestal or socket in which it was secured, and sunk slowlydown upon the wain intended to remove it to the place where it wasusually deposited, than the populace, after giving vent to their feelingsin a second shout of rage and mortification, began slowly to disperse totheir usual abodes and occupations. 

The windows were in like manner gradually deserted, and groups of themore decent class of citizens formed themselves, as if waiting to returnhomewards when the streets should be cleared of the rabble. Contrary towhat is frequently the case, this description of persons agreed ingeneral with the sentiments of their inferiors, and considered the causeas common to all ranks. Indeed, as we have already noticed, it was by nomeans amongst the lowest class of the spectators, or those most likely tobe engaged in the riot at Wilson's execution, that the fatal fire ofPorteous's soldiers had taken effect. Several persons were killed whowere looking out at windows at the scene, who could not of course belongto the rioters, and were persons of decent rank and condition. Theburghers, therefore, resenting the loss which had fallen on their ownbody, and proud and tenacious of their rights, as the citizens ofEdinburgh have at all times been, were greatly exasperated at theunexpected respite of Captain Porteous. 

It was noticed at the time, and afterwards more particularly remembered, that, while the mob were in the act of dispersing, several individualswere seen busily passing from one place and one group of people toanother, remaining long with none, but whispering for a little time withthose who appeared to be declaiming most violently against the conduct ofGovernment. These active agents had the appearance of men from thecountry, and were generally supposed to be old friends and confederatesof Wilson, whose minds were of course highly excited against Porteous. 

If, however, it was the intention of these men to stir the multitude toany sudden act of mutiny, it seemed for the time to be fruitless. Therabble, as well as the more decent part of the assembly, dispersed, andwent home peaceably; and it was only by observing the moody discontent ontheir brows, or catching the tenor of the conversation they held witheach other, that a stranger could estimate the state of their minds. Wewill give the reader this advantage, by associating ourselves with one ofthe numerous groups who were painfully ascending the steep declivity ofthe West Bow, to return to their dwellings in the Lawnmarket. 

"An unco thing this, Mrs. Howden, " said old Peter Plumdamas to hisneighbour the rouping-wife, or saleswoman, as he offered her his arm toassist her in the toilsome ascent, "to see the grit folk at Lunnon settheir face against law and gospel, and let loose sic a reprobate asPorteous upon a peaceable town!"

"And to think o' the weary walk they hae gien us, " answered Mrs. Howden, with a groan; "and sic a comfortable window as I had gotten, too, justwithin a penny-stane-cast of the scaffold--I could hae heard every wordthe minister said--and to pay twalpennies for my stand, and a' fornaething!"

"I am judging, " said Mr. Plumdamas, "that this reprieve wadna stand gudein the auld Scots law, when the kingdom was a kingdom. "

"I dinna ken muckle about the law, " answered Mrs. Howden; "but I ken, when we had a king, and a chancellor, and parliament men o' our ain, wecould aye peeble them wi' stanes when they werena gude bairns--Butnaebody's nails can reach the length o' Lunnon. "

"Weary on Lunnon, and a' that e'er came out o't!" said Miss GrizelDamahoy, an ancient seamstress; "they hae taen away our parliament, andthey hae oppressed our trade. Our gentles will hardly allow that a Scotsneedle can sew ruffles on a sark, or lace on an owerlay. "

"Ye may say that--Miss Damahoy, and I ken o' them that hae gotten raisinsfrae Lunnon by forpits at ance, " responded Plumdamas; "and then sic anhost of idle English gaugers and excisemen as hae come down to vex andtorment us, that an honest man canna fetch sae muckle as a bit anker o'brandy frae Leith to the Lawnmarket, but he's like to be rubbit o' thevery gudes he's bought and paid for. --Weel, I winna justify Andrew Wilsonfor pitting hands on what wasna his; but if he took nae mair than hisain, there's an awfu' difference between that and the fact this manstands for. "

"If ye speak about the law, " said Mrs. Howden, "here comes Mr. Saddletree, that can settle it as weel as ony on the bench. "

The party she mentioned, a grave elderly person, with a superb periwig, dressed in a decent suit of sad-coloured clothes, came up as she spoke, and courteously gave his arm to Miss Grizel Damahoy. 

It may be necessary to mention, that Mr. Bartoline Saddletree kept anexcellent and highly-esteemed shop for harness, saddles, &c. &c. , at thesign of the Golden Nag, at the head of Bess Wynd. *

* [Maitland calls it Best's Wynd, and later writers Beth's Wynd. As thename implies, it was an open thoroughfare or alley leading from theLawnmarket, and extended in a direct line between the old Tolbooth tonear the head of the Cowgate. It was partly destroyed by fire in 1786, and was totally removed in 1809, preparatory to the building of the newlibraries of the Faculty of Advocates and writers to the Signet. ]

His genius, however (as he himself and most of his neighbours conceived), lay towards the weightier matters of the law, and he failed not to givefrequent attendance upon the pleadings and arguments of the lawyers andjudges in the neighbouring square, where, to say the truth, he wasoftener to be found than would have consisted with his own emolument; butthat his wife, an active painstaking person, could, in his absence, makean admirable shift to please the customers and scold the journeymen. Thisgood lady was in the habit of letting her husband take his way, and go onimproving his stock of legal knowledge without interruption; but, as ifin requital, she insisted upon having her own will in the domestic andcommercial departments which he abandoned to her. Now, as BartolineSaddletree had a considerable gift of words, which he mistook foreloquence, and conferred more liberally upon the society in which helived than was at all times gracious and acceptable, there went forth asaying, with which wags used sometimes to interrupt his rhetoric, that, as he had a golden nag at his door, so he had a grey mare in his shop. This reproach induced Mr. Saddletree, on all occasions, to assume rathera haughty and stately tone towards his good woman, a circumstance bywhich she seemed very little affected, unless he attempted to exerciseany real authority, when she never failed to fly into open rebellion. Butsuch extremes Bartoline seldom provoked; for, like the gentle King Jamie, he was fonder of talking of authority than really exercising it. Thisturn of mind was, on the whole, lucky for him; since his substance wasincreased without any trouble on his part, or any interruption of hisfavourite studies. 

This word in explanation has been thrown in to the reader, whileSaddletree was laying down, with great precision, the law upon Porteous'scase, by which he arrived at this conclusion, that, if Porteous had firedfive minutes sooner, before Wilson was cut down, he would have been_versans in licito;_ engaged, that is, in a lawful act, and only liableto be punished _propter excessum, _ or for lack of discretion, which mighthave mitigated the punishment to _poena ordinaria. _

"Discretion!" echoed Mrs. Howden, on whom, it may well be supposed, thefineness of this distinction was entirely thrown away, --"whan had JockPorteous either grace, discretion, or gude manners?--I mind when hisfather"

"But, Mrs. Howden, " said Saddletree--

"And I, " said Miss Damahoy, "mind when his mother"

"Miss Damahoy, " entreated the interrupted orator

"And I, " said Plumdamas, "mind when his wife"

"Mr. Plumdamas--Mrs. Howden--Miss Damahoy, " again implored theorator, --"Mind the distinction, as Counsellor Crossmyloof says--'I, 'says he, 'take a distinction. ' Now, the body of the criminal being cutdown, and the execution ended, Porteous was no longer official; the actwhich he came to protect and guard, being done and ended, he was nobetter than _cuivis ex populo. _"

"_Quivis--quivis, _ Mr. Saddletree, craving your pardon, " said (with aprolonged emphasis on the first syllable) Mr. Butler, thedeputy-schoolmaster of a parish near Edinburgh, who at that moment cameup behind them as the false Latin was uttered. 

"What signifies interrupting me, Mr. Butler?--but I am glad to see yenotwithstanding--I speak after Counsellor Crossmyloof, and he said_cuivis. _"

"If Counsellor Crossmyloof used the dative for the nominative, I wouldhave crossed his loof with a tight leathern strap, Mr. Saddletree; thereis not a boy on the booby form but should have been scourged for such asolecism in grammar. "

"I speak Latin like a lawyer, Mr. Butler, and not like a schoolmaster, "retorted Saddletree. 

"Scarce like a schoolboy, I think, " rejoined Butler. 

"It matters little, " said Bartoline; "all I mean to say is, that Porteoushas become liable to the _poena extra ordinem, _ or capitalpunishment--which is to say, in plain Scotch, the gallows--simplybecause he did not fire when he was in office, but waited till the bodywas cut down, the execution whilk he had in charge to guard implemented, and he himself exonered of the public trust imposed on him. "

"But, Mr. Saddletree, " said Plumdamas, "do ye really think JohnPorteous's case wad hae been better if he had begun firing before onystanes were flung at a'?"

"Indeed do I, neighbour Plumdamas, " replied Bartoline, confidently, "hebeing then in point of trust and in point of power, the execution beingbut inchoat, or, at least, not implemented, or finally ended; but afterWilson was cut down it was a' ower--he was clean exauctorate, and had naemair ado but to get awa wi' his guard up this West Bow as fast as ifthere had been a caption after him--And this is law, for I heard it laiddown by Lord Vincovincentem. "

"Vincovincentem?--Is he a lord of state, or a lord of seat?" inquiredMrs. Howden. *

* A nobleman was called a Lord of State. The Senators of the College * ofJustice were termed Lords of Seat, or of the Session. 

"A lord of seat--a lord of session. --I fash mysell little wi' lords o'state; they vex me wi' a wheen idle questions about their saddles, andcurpels, and holsters and horse-furniture, and what they'll cost, andwhan they'll be ready--a wheen galloping geese--my wife may serve thelike o' them. "

"And so might she, in her day, hae served the best lord in the land, foras little as ye think o' her, Mr. Saddletree, " said Mrs. Howden, somewhatindignant at the contemptuous way in which her gossip was mentioned;"when she and I were twa gilpies, we little thought to hae sitten dounwi' the like o' my auld Davie Howden, or you either, Mr. Saddletree. "

While Saddletree, who was not bright at a reply, was cudgelling hisbrains for an answer to this homethrust, Miss Damahoy broke in on him. 

"And as for the lords of state, " said Miss Damahoy, "ye suld mind theriding o' the parliament, Mr. Saddletree, in the gude auld time beforethe Union, --a year's rent o' mony a gude estate gaed for horse-graith andharnessing, forby broidered robes and foot-mantles, that wad hae stude bytheir lane wi' gold brocade, and that were muckle in my ain line. "

"Ay, and then the lusty banqueting, with sweetmeats and comfits wet anddry, and dried fruits of divers sorts, " said Plumdamas. "But Scotland wasScotland in these days. "

"I'll tell ye what it is, neighbours, " said Mrs. Howden, "I'll ne'erbelieve Scotland is Scotland ony mair, if our kindly Scots sit doun withthe affront they hae gien us this day. It's not only the blude that _is_shed, but the blude that might hae been shed, that's required at ourhands; there was my daughter's wean, little Eppie Daidle--my oe, ye ken, Miss Grizel--had played the truant frae the school, as bairns will do, yeken, Mr. Butler"

"And for which, " interjected Mr. Butler, "they should be soundly scourgedby their well-wishers. "

"And had just cruppen to the gallows' foot to see the hanging, as wasnatural for a wean; and what for mightna she hae been shot as weel as therest o' them, and where wad we a' hae been then? I wonder how QueenCarline (if her name be Carline) wad hae liked to hae had ane o' her ainbairns in sic a venture?"

"Report says, " answered Butler, "that such a circumstance would not havedistressed her majesty beyond endurance. "

"Aweel, " said Mrs. Howden, "the sum o' the matter is, that, were I a man, I wad hae amends o' Jock Porteous, be the upshot what like o't, if a' thecarles and carlines in England had sworn to the nay-say. "

"I would claw down the Tolbooth door wi' my nails, " said Miss Grizel, "but I wad be at him. "

"Ye may be very right, ladies, " said Butler, "but I would not advise youto speak so loud. "

"Speak!" exclaimed both the ladies together, "there will be naething elsespoken about frae the Weigh-house to the Water-gate, till this is eitherended or mended. "

The females now departed to their respective places of abode. Plumdamasjoined the other two gentlemen in drinking their _meridian_ (abumper-dram of brandy), as they passed the well-known low-browed shop inthe Lawnmarket, where they were wont to take that refreshment. Mr. Plumdamas then departed towards his shop, and Mr. Butler, who happened tohave some particular occasion for the rein of an old bridle (the truantsof that busy day could have anticipated its application), walked down theLawnmarket with Mr. Saddletree, each talking as he could get a wordthrust in, the one on the laws of Scotland, the other on those of syntax, and neither listening to a word which his companion uttered. 

CHAPTER FOURTH. 

 Elswhair he colde right weel lay down the law, But in his house was meek as is a daw. Davie Lindsay. 

"There has been Jock Driver the carrier here, speering about his newgraith, " said Mrs. Saddletree to her husband, as he crossed histhreshold, not with the purpose, by any means, of consulting him upon hisown affairs, but merely to intimate, by a gentle recapitulation, how muchduty she had gone through in his absence. 

"Weel, " replied Bartoline, and deigned not a word more. 

"And the laird of Girdingburst has had his running footman here, and ca'dhimsell (he's a civil pleasant young gentleman), to see when thebroidered saddle-cloth for his sorrel horse will be ready, for he wantsit agane the Kelso races. "

"Weel, aweel, " replied Bartoline, as laconically as before. 

"And his lordship, the Earl of Blazonbury, Lord Flash and Flame, is liketo be clean daft, that the harness for the six Flanders mears, wi' thecrests, coronets, housings, and mountings conform, are no sent hameaccording to promise gien. "

"Weel, weel, weel--weel, weel, gudewife, " said Saddletree, "if he gangsdaft, we'll hae him cognosced--it's a' very weel. "

"It's weel that ye think sae, Mr. Saddletree, " answered his helpmate, rather nettled at the indifference with which her report was received;"there's mony ane wad hae thought themselves affronted, if sae monycustomers had ca'd and naebody to answer them but women-folk; for a' thelads were aff, as soon as your back was turned, to see Porteous hanged, that might be counted upon; and sae, you no being at hame"

"Houts, Mrs. Saddletree, " said Bartoline, with an air of consequence, "dinna deave me wi' your nonsense; I was under the necessity of beingelsewhere--_non omnia_--as Mr. Crossmyloof said, when he was called bytwo macers at once--_non omnia possumus--pessimus--possimis_--I ken ourlaw-latin offends Mr. Butler's ears, but it means, Naebody, an it werethe Lord President himsell, can do twa turns at ance. "

"Very right, Mr. Saddletree, " answered his careful helpmate, with asarcastic smile; "and nae doubt it's a decent thing to leave your wife tolook after young gentlemen's saddles and bridles, when ye gang to see aman, that never did ye nae ill, raxing a halter. "

"Woman, " said Saddletree, assuming an elevated tone, to which the_meridian_ had somewhat contributed, "desist, --I say forbear, fromintromitting with affairs thou canst not understand. D'ye think I wasborn to sit here brogging an elshin through bend-leather, when sic men asDuncan Forbes, and that other Arniston chield there, without mucklegreater parts, if the close-head speak true, than mysell maun bepresidents and king's advocates, nae doubt, and wha but they? Whereas, were favour equally distribute, as in the days of the wight Wallace"

"I ken naething we wad hae gotten by the wight Wallace, " said Mrs. Saddletree, "unless, as I hae heard the auld folk tell, they fought inthae days wi' bend-leather guns, and then it's a chance but what, if hehad bought them, he might have forgot to pay for them. And as for thegreatness of your parts, Bartley, the folk in the close-head* maun kenmair about them than I do, if they make sic a report of them. "

* [_Close-head, _ the entrance of a blind alley. ]

"I tell ye, woman, " said Saddletree, in high dudgeon, "that ye kennaething about these matters. In Sir William Wallace's days there was naeman pinned down to sic a slavish wark as a saddler's, for they got onyleather graith that they had use for ready-made out of Holland. "

"Well, " said Butler, who was, like many of his profession, something of ahumorist and dry joker, "if that be the case, Mr. Saddletree, I think wehave changed for the better; since we make our own harness, and onlyimport our lawyers from Holland. "

"It's ower true, Mr. Butler, " answered Bartoline, with a sigh; "if I hadhad the luck--or rather, if my father had had the sense to send me toLeyden and Utrecht to learn the Substitutes and Pandex"

"You mean the Institutes--Justinian's Institutes, Mr. Saddletree?" saidButler. 

"Institutes and substitutes are synonymous words, Mr. Butler, and usedindifferently as such in deeds of tailzie, as you may see in Balfour'sPractiques, or Dallas of St. Martin's Styles. I understand these thingspretty weel, I thank God but I own I should have studied in Holland. "

"To comfort you, you might not have been farther forward than you arenow, Mr. Saddletree, " replied Mr. Butler; "for our Scottish advocates arean aristocratic race. Their brass is of the right Corinthian quality, and_Non cuivis contigit adire Corinthum_--Aha, Mr. Saddletree?"

"And aha, Mr. Butler, " rejoined Bartoline, upon whom, as may be wellsupposed, the jest was lost, and all but the sound of the words, "ye saida gliff syne it was _quivis, _ and now I heard ye say _cuivis_ with my ainears, as plain as ever I heard a word at the fore-bar. "

"Give me your patience, Mr. Saddletree, and I'll explain the discrepancyin three words, " said Butler, as pedantic in his own department, thoughwith infinitely more judgment and learning, as Bartoline was in hisself-assumed profession of the law--"Give me your patience for amoment--You'll grant that the nominative case is that by which a person orthing is nominated or designed, and which may be called the primary case, all others being formed from it by alterations of the termination in thelearned languages, and by prepositions in our modern Babylonianjargons--You'll grant me that, I suppose, Mr. Saddletree?"

"I dinna ken whether I will or no--_ad avisandum, _ ye ken--naebody shouldbe in a hurry to make admissions, either in point of law, or in point offact, " said Saddletree, looking, or endeavouring to look, as if heunderstood what was said. 

"And the dative case, " continued Butler

"I ken what a tutor dative is, " said Saddletree, "readily enough. "

"The dative case, " resumed the grammarian, "is that in which anything isgiven or assigned as properly belonging to a person or thing--You cannotdeny that, I am sure. "

"I am sure I'll no grant it, though, " said Saddletree. 

"Then, what the _deevil_ d'ye take the nominative and the dative cases tobe?" said Butler, hastily, and surprised at once out of his decency ofexpression and accuracy of pronunciation. 

"I'll tell you that at leisure, Mr. Butler, " said Saddletree, with a veryknowing look; "I'll take a day to see and answer every article of yourcondescendence, and then I'll hold you to confess or deny as accords. "

"Come, come, Mr. Saddletree, " said his wife, "we'll hae nae confessionsand condescendences here; let them deal in thae sort o' wares that arepaid for them--they suit the like o' us as all as a demipique saddlewould suit a draught ox. "

"Aha!" said Mr. Butler, "_Optat ephippia bos piger, _ nothing new underthe sun--But it was a fair hit of Mrs. Saddletree, however. "

"And it wad far better become ye, Mr. Saddletree, " continued hishelpmate, "since ye say ye hae skeel o' the law, to try if ye can doonything for Effie Deans, puir thing, that's lying up in the tolboothyonder, cauld, and hungry, and comfortless--A servant lass of ours, Mr. Butler, and as innocent a lass, to my thinking, and as usefu' in theshop--When Mr. Saddletree gangs out, --and ye're aware he's seldom at hamewhen there's ony o' the plea-houses open, --poor Effie used to help me totumble the bundles o' barkened leather up and down, and range out thegudes, and suit a' body's humours--And troth, she could aye please thecustomers wi' her answers, for she was aye civil, and a bonnier lasswasna in Auld Reekie. And when folk were hasty and unreasonable, shecould serve them better than me, that am no sae young as I hae been, Mr. Butler, and a wee bit short in the temper into the bargain. For whenthere's ower mony folks crying on me at anes, and nane but ae tongue toanswer them, folk maun speak hastily, or they'll ne'er get through theirwark--Sae I miss Effie daily. "

"_De die in diem, _" added Saddletree. 

"I think, " said Butler, after a good deal of hesitation, "I have seen thegirl in the shop--a modest-looking, fair-haired girl?"

"Ay, ay, that's just puir Effie, " said her mistress. "How she wasabandoned to hersell, or whether she was sackless o' the sinful deed, Godin Heaven knows; but if she's been guilty, she's been sair tempted, and Iwad amaist take my Bible-aith she hasna been hersell at the time. "

Butler had by this time become much agitated; he fidgeted up and down theshop, and showed the greatest agitation that a person of such strictdecorum could be supposed to give way to. "Was not this girl, " he said, "the daughter of David Deans, that had the parks at St. Leonard's taken?and has she not a sister?"

"In troth has she, --puir Jeanie Deans, ten years aulder than hersell; shewas here greeting a wee while syne about her tittie. And what could I sayto her, but that she behoved to come and speak to Mr. Saddletree when hewas at hame? It wasna that I thought Mr. Saddletree could do her or onyither body muckle good or ill, but it wad aye serve to keep the puirthing's heart up for a wee while; and let sorrow come when sorrow maun. "

"Ye're mistaen though, gudewife, " said Saddletree scornfully, "for Icould hae gien her great satisfaction; I could hae proved to her that hersister was indicted upon the statute saxteen hundred and ninety, chapterone--For the mair ready prevention of child-murder--for concealing herpregnancy, and giving no account of the child which she had borne. "

"I hope, " said Butler, --"I trust in a gracious God, that she can clearherself. "

"And sae do I, Mr. Butler, " replied Mrs. Saddletree. "I am sure I wad haeanswered for her as my ain daughter; but wae's my heart, I had beentender a' the simmer, and scarce ower the door o' my room for twal weeks. And as for Mr. Saddletree, he might be in a lying-in hospital, and ne'erfind out what the women cam there for. Sae I could see little or naethingo' her, or I wad hae had the truth o' her situation out o' her, I'sewarrant ye--But we a' think her sister maun be able to speak something toclear her. "

"The haill Parliament House, " said Saddletree, "was speaking o' naethingelse, till this job o' Porteous's put it out o' head--It's a beautifulpoint of presumptive murder, and there's been nane like it in theJusticiar Court since the case of Luckie Smith the howdie, that sufferedin the year saxteen hundred and seventy-nine. "

"But what's the matter wi' you, Mr. Butler?" said the good woman; "ye arelooking as white as a sheet; will ye tak a dram?"

"By no means, " said Butler, compelling himself to speak. "I walked infrom Dumfries yesterday, and this is a warm day. "

"Sit down, " said Mrs. Saddletree, laying hands on him kindly, "and restye--yell kill yoursell, man, at that rate. --And are we to wish you joy o'getting the scule, Mr. Butler?"

"Yes--no--I do not know, " answered the young man vaguely. But Mrs. Saddletree kept him to point, partly out of real interest, partly fromcuriosity. 

"Ye dinna ken whether ye are to get the free scule o' Dumfries or no, after hinging on and teaching it a' the simmer?"

"No, Mrs. Saddletree--I am not to have it, " replied Butler, morecollectedly. "The Laird of Black-at-the-Bane had a natural son bred tothe kirk, that the Presbytery could not be prevailed upon to license; andso"

"Ay, ye need say nae mair about it; if there was a laird that had a puirkinsman or a bastard that it wad suit, there's enough said. --And ye'ree'en come back to Liberton to wait for dead men's shoon?--and for asfrail as Mr. Whackbairn is, he may live as lang as you, that are hisassistant and successor. "

"Very like, " replied Butler, with a sigh; "I do not know if I should wishit otherwise. "

"Nae doubt, it's a very vexing thing, " continued the good lady, "to be inthat dependent station; and you that hae right and title to sae mucklebetter, I wonder how ye bear these crosses. "

"_Quos diligit castigat, _" answered Butler; "even the pagan Seneca couldsee an advantage in affliction, The Heathens had their philosophy, andthe Jews their revelation, Mrs. Saddletree, and they endured theirdistresses in their day. Christians have a better dispensation thaneither--but doubtless"

He stopped and sighed. 

"I ken what ye mean, " said Mrs. Saddletree, looking toward her husband;"there's whiles we lose patience in spite of baith book and Bible--But yeare no gaun awa, and looking sae poorly--ye'll stay and take some kalewi' us?"

Mr. Saddletree laid aside Balfour's Practiques (his favourite study, andmuch good may it do him), to join in his wife's hospitable importunity. But the teacher declined all entreaty, and took his leave upon the spot. 

"There's something in a' this, " said Mrs. Saddletree, looking after himas he walked up the street; "I wonder what makes Mr. Butler saedistressed about Effie's misfortune--there was nae acquaintance atweenthem that ever I saw or heard of; but they were neighbours when DavidDeans was on the Laird o' Dumbiedikes' land. Mr. Butler wad ken herfather, or some o' her folk. --Get up, Mr. Saddletree--ye have setyoursell down on the very brecham that wants stitching--and here's littleWillie, the prentice. --Ye little rin-there-out deil that ye are, whattakes you raking through the gutters to see folk hangit?--how wad ye likewhen it comes to be your ain chance, as I winna ensure ye, if ye dinnamend your manners?--And what are ye maundering and greeting for, as if aword were breaking your banes?--Gang in by, and be a better bairn anothertime, and tell Peggy to gie ye a bicker o' broth, for ye'll be as gleg asa gled, I'se warrant ye. --It's a fatherless bairn, Mr. Saddletree, andmotherless, whilk in some cases may be waur, and ane would take care o'him if they could--it's a Christian duty. "

"Very true, gudewife, " said Saddletree in reply, "we are _in locoparentis_ to him during his years of pupillarity, and I hae had thoughtsof applying to the Court for a commission as factor _loco tutoris, _seeing there is nae tutor nominate, and the tutor-at-law declines to act;but only I fear the expense of the procedure wad not be _in rem versam, _for I am not aware if Willie has ony effects whereof to assume theadministration. "

He concluded this sentence with a self-important cough, as one who haslaid down the law in an indisputable manner. 

"Effects!" said Mrs. Saddletree, "what effects has the puir wean?--he wasin rags when his mother died; and the blue polonie that Effie made forhim out of an auld mantle of my ain, was the first decent dress the bairnever had on. Poor Effie! can ye tell me now really, wi' a' your law, willher life be in danger, Mr. Saddletree, when they arena able to prove thatever there was a bairn ava?"

"Whoy, " said Mr. Saddletree, delighted at having for once in his lifeseen his wife's attention arrested by a topic of legal discussion--"Whoy, there are two sorts of _murdrum_ or _murdragium, _ or what you_populariter et vulgariser_ call murther. I mean there are many sorts;for there's your _murthrum per vigilias et insidias, _ and your _murthrum_under trust. "

"I am sure, " replied his moiety, "that murther by trust is the way thatthe gentry murther us merchants, and whiles make us shut the boothup--but that has naething to do wi' Effie's misfortune. "

"The case of Effie (or Euphemia) Deans, " resumed Saddletree, "is one ofthose cases of murder presumptive, that is, a murder of the law'sinferring or construction, being derived from certain _indicia_ orgrounds of suspicion. "

"So that, " said the good woman, "unless poor Effie has communicated hersituation, she'll be hanged by the neck, if the bairn was still-born, orif it be alive at this moment?"

"Assuredly, " said Saddletree, "it being a statute made by our SovereignLord and Lady, to prevent the horrid delict of bringing forth children insecret--The crime is rather a favourite of the law, this species ofmurther being one of its ain creation. "

"Then, if the law makes murders, " said Mrs. Saddletree, "the law shouldbe hanged for them; or if they wad hang a lawyer instead, the country wadfind nae faut. "

A summons to their frugal dinner interrupted the farther progress of theconversation, which was otherwise like to take a turn much lessfavourable to the science of jurisprudence and its professors, than Mr. Bartoline Saddletree, the fond admirer of both, had at its openinganticipated. 

CHAPTER FIFTH. 

 But up then raise all Edinburgh. They all rose up by thousands three. Johnnie Armstrang's _Goodnight. _

Butler, on his departure from the sign of the Golden Nag, went in questof a friend of his connected with the law, of whom he wished to makeparticular inquiries concerning the circumstances in which theunfortunate young woman mentioned in the last chapter was placed, having, as the reader has probably already conjectured, reasons much deeper thanthose dictated by mere humanity for interesting himself in her fate. Hefound the person he sought absent from home, and was equally unfortunatein one or two other calls which he made upon acquaintances whom he hopedto interest in her story. But everybody was, for the moment, stark-mad onthe subject of Porteous, and engaged busily in attacking or defending themeasures of Government in reprieving him; and the ardour of dispute hadexcited such universal thirst, that half the young lawyers and writers, together with their very clerks, the class whom Butler was looking after, had adjourned the debate to some favourite tavern. It was computed by anexperienced arithmetician, that there was as much twopenny ale consumedon the discussion as would have floated a first-rate man-of-war. 

Butler wandered about until it was dusk, resolving to take thatopportunity of visiting the unfortunate young woman, when his doing somight be least observed; for he had his own reasons for avoiding theremarks of Mrs. Saddletree, whose shop-door opened at no great distancefrom that of the jail, though on the opposite or south side of thestreet, and a little higher up. He passed, therefore, through the narrowand partly covered passage leading from the north-west end of theParliament Square. 

He stood now before the Gothic entrance of the ancient prison, which, asis well known to all men, rears its ancient front in the very middle ofthe High Street, forming, as it were, the termination to a huge pile ofbuildings called the Luckenbooths, which, for some inconceivable reason, our ancestors had jammed into the midst of the principal street of thetown, leaving for passage a narrow street on the north; and on the south, into which the prison opens, a narrow crooked lane, winding betwixt thehigh and sombre walls of the Tolbooth and the adjacent houses on the oneside, and the butresses and projections of the old Cathedral upon theother. To give some gaiety to this sombre passage (well known by the nameof the Krames), a number of little booths, or shops, after the fashion ofcobblers' stalls, are plastered, as it were, against the Gothicprojections and abutments, so that it seemed as if the traders hadoccupied with nests, bearing the same proportion to the building, everybuttress and coign of vantage, as the martlett did in Macbeth's Castle. Of later years these booths have degenerated into mere toy-shops, wherethe little loiterers chiefly interested in such wares are tempted tolinger, enchanted by the rich display of hobby-horses, babies, and Dutchtoys, arranged in artful and gay confusion; yet half-scared by the crosslooks of the withered pantaloon, or spectacled old lady, by whom thesetempting stores are watched and superintended. But, in the times we writeof, the hosiers, the glovers, the hatters, the mercers, the milliners, and all who dealt in the miscellaneous wares now termed haberdasher'sgoods, were to be found in this narrow alley. 

To return from our digression. Butler found the outer turnkey, a tallthin old man, with long silver hair, in the act of locking the outwarddoor of the jail. He addressed himself to this person, and askedadmittance to Effie Deans, confined upon accusation of child-murder. Theturnkey looked at him earnestly, and, civilly touching his hat out ofrespect to Butler's black coat and clerical appearance, replied, "It wasimpossible any one could be admitted at present. "

"You shut up earlier than usual, probably on account of CaptainPorteous's affair?" said Butler. 

The turnkey, with the true mystery of a person in office, gave two gravenods, and withdrawing from the wards a ponderous key of about two feet inlength, he proceeded to shut a strong plate of steel, which folded downabove the keyhole, and was secured by a steel spring and catch. Butlerstood still instinctively while the door was made fast, and then lookingat his watch, walked briskly up the street, muttering to himself, almostunconsciously--

 Porta adversa, ingens, solidoque adamante columnae; Vis ut nulla virum, non ipsi exscindere ferro Coelicolae valeant--Stat ferrea turris ad auras--etc. * Dryden's _Virgil, _ Book vi. 

* Wide is the fronting gate, and, raised on high, With adamantine columnsthreats the sky; Vain is the force of man, and Heaven's as vain, To crushthe pillars which the pile sustain: Sublime on these a tower of steel isreard. 

Having wasted half-an-hour more in a second fruitless attempt to find hislegal friend and adviser, he thought it time to leave the city and returnto his place of residence, in a small village about two miles and a halfto the southward of Edinburgh. The metropolis was at this time surroundedby a high wall, with battlements and flanking projections at someintervals, and the access was through gates, called in the Scottishlanguage _ports, _ which were regularly shut at night. A small fee to thekeepers would indeed procure egress and ingress at any time, through awicket left for that purpose in the large gate; but it was of someimportance, to a man so poor as Butler, to avoid even this slightpecuniary mulct; and fearing the hour of shutting the gates might benear, he made for that to which he found himself nearest, although, bydoing so, he somewhat lengthened his walk homewards. Bristo Port was thatby which his direct road lay, but the West Port, which leads out of theGrassmarket, was the nearest of the city gates to the place where hefound himself, and to that, therefore, he directed his course. He reachedthe port in ample time to pass the circuit of the walls, and entered asuburb called Portsburgh, chiefly inhabited by the lower order ofcitizens and mechanics. Here he was unexpectedly interrupted. 

He had not gone far from the gate before he heard the sound of a drum, and, to his great surprise, met a number of persons, sufficient to occupythe whole front of the street, and form a considerable mass behind, moving with great speed towards the gate he had just come from, andhaving in front of them a drum beating to arms. While he considered howhe should escape a party, assembled, as it might be presumed, for nolawful purpose, they came full on him and stopped him. 

"Are you a clergyman?" one questioned him. 

Butler replied that "he was in orders, but was not a placed minister. "

"It's Mr. Butler from Liberton, " said a voice from behind, "he'lldischarge the duty as weel as ony man. "

"You must turn back with us, sir, " said the first speaker, in a tonecivil but peremptory. 

"For what purpose, gentlemen?" said Mr. Butler. "I live at some distancefrom town--the roads are unsafe by night--you will do me a serious injuryby stopping me. "

"You shall be sent safely home--no man shall touch a hair of yourhead--but you must and shall come along with us. "

"But to what purpose or end, gentlemen?" said Butler. "I hope you will beso civil as to explain that to me. "

"You shall know that in good time. Come along--for come you must, byforce or fair means; and I warn you to look neither to the right hand northe left, and to take no notice of any man's face, but consider all thatis passing before you as a dream. "

"I would it were a dream I could awaken from, " said Butler to himself;but having no means to oppose the violence with which he was threatened, he was compelled to turn round and march in front of the rioters, two menpartly supporting and partly holding him. During this parley theinsurgents had made themselves masters of the West Port, rushing upon theWaiters (so the people were called who had the charge of the gates), andpossessing themselves of the keys. They bolted and barred the foldingdoors, and commanded the person, whose duty it usually was, to secure thewicket, of which they did not understand the fastenings. The man, terrified at an incident so totally unexpected, was unable to perform hisusual office, and gave the matter up, after several attempts. Therioters, who seemed to have come prepared for every emergency, called fortorches, by the light of which they nailed up the wicket with long nails, which, it seemed probable, they had provided on purpose. 

While this was going on, Butler could not, even if he had been willing, avoid making remarks on the individuals who seemed to lead this singularmob. The torch-light, while it fell on their forms and left him in theshade, gave him an opportunity to do so without their observing him. Several of those who seemed most active were dressed in sailors' jackets, trousers, and sea-caps; others in large loose-bodied greatcoats, andslouched hats; and there were several who, judging from their dress, should have been called women, whose rough deep voices, uncommon size, and masculine, deportment and mode of walking, forbade them being sointerpreted. They moved as if by some well-concerted plan of arrangement. They had signals by which they knew, and nicknames by which theydistinguished each other. Butler remarked, that the name of Wildfire wasused among them, to which one stout Amazon seemed to reply. 

The rioters left a small party to observe the West Port, and directed theWaiters, as they valued their lives, to remain within their lodge, andmake no attempt for that night to repossess themselves of the gate. Theythen moved with rapidity along the low street called the Cowgate, the mobof the city everywhere rising at the sound of their drum, and joiningthem. When the multitude arrived at the Cowgate Port, they secured itwith as little opposition as the former, made it fast, and left a smallparty to observe it. It was afterwards remarked, as a striking instanceof prudence and precaution, singularly combined with audacity, that theparties left to guard those gates did not remain stationary on theirposts, but flitted to and fro, keeping so near the gates as to see thatno efforts were made to open them, yet not remaining so long as to havetheir persons closely observed. The mob, at first only about one hundredstrong, now amounted to thousands, and were increasing every moment. Theydivided themselves so as to ascend with more speed the various narrowlanes which lead up from the Cowgate to the High Street; and stillbeating to arms as they went, an calling on all true Scotsmen to jointhem, they now filled the principal street of the city. 

The Netherbow Port might be called the Temple Bar of Edinburgh, as, intersecting the High Street at its termination, it divided Edinburgh, properly so called, from the suburb named the Canongate, as Temple Barseparates London from Westminster. It was of the utmost importance to therioters to possess themselves of this pass, because there was quarteredin the Canongate at that time a regiment of infantry, commanded byColonel Moyle, which might have occupied the city by advancing throughthis gate, and would possess the power of totally defeating theirpurpose. The leaders therefore hastened to the Netherbow Port, which theysecured in the same manner, and with as little trouble, as the othergates, leaving a party to watch it, strong in proportion to theimportance of the post. 

The next object of these hardy insurgents was at once to disarm the CityGuard, and to procure arms for themselves; for scarce any weapons butstaves and bludgeons had been yet seen among them. The Guard-house was along, low, ugly building (removed in 1787), which to a fancifulimagination might have suggested the idea of a long black snail crawlingup the middle of the High Street, and deforming its beautiful esplanade. This formidable insurrection had been so unexpected, that there were nomore than the ordinary sergeant's guard of the city-corps upon duty; eventhese were without any supply of powder and ball; and sensible enoughwhat had raised the storm, and which way it was rolling, could hardly besupposed very desirous to expose themselves by a valiant defence to theanimosity of so numerous and desperate a mob, to whom they were on thepresent occasion much more than usually obnoxious. 

There was a sentinel upon guard, who (that one town-guard soldier mightdo his duty on that eventful evening) presented his piece, and desiredthe foremost of the rioters to stand off. The young Amazon, whom Butlerhad observed particularly active, sprung upon the soldier, seized hismusket, and after a struggle succeeded in wrenching it from him, andthrowing him down on the causeway. One or two soldiers, who endeavouredto turn out to the support of their sentinel, were in the same mannerseized and disarmed, and the mob without difficulty possessed themselvesof the Guard-house, disarming and turning out of doors the rest of themen on duty. It was remarked, that, notwithstanding the city soldiers hadbeen the instruments of the slaughter which this riot was designed torevenge, no ill usage or even insult was offered to them. It seemed as ifthe vengeance of the people disdained to stoop at any head meaner thanthat which they considered as the source and origin of their injuries. 

On possessing themselves of the guard, the first act of the multitude wasto destroy the drums, by which they supposed an alarm might be conveyedto the garrison in the castle; for the same reason they now silencedtheir own, which was beaten by a young fellow, son to the drummer ofPortsburgh, whom they had forced upon that service. Their next businesswas to distribute among the boldest of the rioters the guns, bayonets, partisans, halberts, and battle or Lochaber axes. Until this period theprincipal rioters had preserved silence on the ultimate object of theirrising, as being that which all knew, but none expressed. Now, however, having accomplished all the preliminary parts of their design, theyraised a tremendous shout of "Porteous! Porteous! To the Tolbooth! To theTolbooth!"

[Illustration: Tolbooth, Cannongate]

They proceeded with the same prudence when the object seemed to be nearlyin their grasp, as they had done hitherto when success was more dubious. A strong party of the rioters, drawn up in front of the Luckenbooths, andfacing down the street, prevented all access from the eastward, and thewest end of the defile formed by the Luckenbooths was secured in the samemanner; so that the Tolbooth was completely surrounded, and those whoundertook the task of breaking it open effectually secured against therisk of interruption. 

The magistrates, in the meanwhile, had taken the alarm, and assembled ina tavern, with the purpose of raising some strength to subdue therioters. The deacons, or presidents of the trades, were applied to, butdeclared there was little chance of their authority being respected bythe craftsmen, where it was the object to save a man so obnoxious. Mr. Lindsay, member of parliament for the city, volunteered the perilous taskof carrying a verbal message, from the Lord Provost to Colonel Moyle, thecommander of the regiment lying in the Canongate, requesting him to forcethe Netherbow Port, and enter the city to put down the tumult. But Mr. Lindsay declined to charge himself with any written order, which, iffound on his person by an enraged mob, might have cost him his life; andthe issue, of the application was, that Colonel Moyle having no writtenrequisition from the civil authorities, and having the fate of Porteousbefore his eyes as an example of the severe construction put by a jury onthe proceedings of military men acting on their own responsibility, declined to encounter the risk to which the Provost's verbalcommunication invited him. 

More than one messenger was despatched by different ways to the Castle, to require the commanding officer to march down his troops, to fire a fewcannon-shot, or even to throw a shell among the mob, for the purpose ofclearing the streets. But so strict and watchful were the various patrolswhom the rioters had established in different parts of the streets, thatnone of the emissaries of the magistrates could reach the gate of theCastle. They were, however, turned back without either injury or insult, and with nothing more of menace than was necessary to deter them fromagain attempting to accomplish their errand. 

The same vigilance was used to prevent everybody of the higher, and thosewhich, in this case, might be deemed the more suspicious orders ofsociety, from appearing in the street, and observing the movements, ordistinguishing the persons, of the rioters. Every person in the garb of agentleman was stopped by small parties of two or three of the mob, whopartly exhorted, partly required of them, that they should return to theplace from whence they came. Many a quadrille table was spoilt thatmemorable evening; for the sedan chairs of ladies; even of the highestrank, were interrupted in their passage from one point to another, inspite of the laced footmen and blazing flambeaux. This was uniformly donewith a deference and attention to the feelings of the terrified females, which could hardly have been expected from the videttes of a mob sodesperate. Those who stopped the chair usually made the excuse, thatthere was much disturbance on the streets, and that it was absolutelynecessary for the lady's safety that the chair should turn back. Theyoffered themselves to escort the vehicles which they had thus interruptedin their progress, from the apprehension, probably, that some of thosewho had casually united themselves to the riot might disgrace theirsystematic and determined plan of vengeance, by those acts of generalinsult and license which are common on similar occasions. 

Persons are yet living who remember to have heard from the mouths ofladies thus interrupted on their journey in the manner we have described, that they were escorted to their lodgings by the young men who stoppedthem, and even handed out of their chairs, with a polite attention farbeyond what was consistent with their dress, which was apparently that ofjourneymen mechanics. *

* A near relation of the author's used to tell of having been stopped bythe rioters, and escorted home in the manner described. On reaching herown home one of her attendants, in the appearance a _baxter_, a baker'slad, handed her out of her chair, and took leave with a bow, which, inthe lady's opinion, argued breeding that could hardly be learned at theoven's mouth. 

It seemed as if the conspirators, like those who assassinated CardinalBeatoun in former days, had entertained the opinion, that the work aboutwhich they went was a judgment of Heaven, which, though unsanctioned bythe usual authorities, ought to be proceeded in with order and gravity. 

While their outposts continued thus vigilant, and suffered themselvesneither from fear nor curiosity to neglect that part of the duty assignedto them, and while the main guards to the east and west secured themagainst interruption, a select body of the rioters thundered at the doorof the jail, and demanded instant admission. No one answered, for theouter keeper had prudently made his escape with the keys at thecommencement of the riot, and was nowhere to be found. The door wasinstantly assailed with sledge-hammers, iron crows, and the coulters ofploughs, ready provided for the purpose, with which they prized, heaved, and battered for some time with little effect; for the door, besidesbeing of double oak planks, clenched, both endlong and athwart, withbroad-headed nails, was so hung and secured as to yield to no means offorcing, without the expenditure of much time. The rioters, however, appeared determined to gain admittance. Gang after gang relieved eachother at the exercise, for, of course, only a few could work at once; butgang after gang retired, exhausted with their violent exertions, withoutmaking much progress in forcing the prison door. Butler had been led upnear to this the principal scene of action; so near, indeed, that he wasalmost deafened by the unceasing clang of the heavy fore-hammers againstthe iron-bound portal of the prison. He began to entertain hopes, as thetask seemed protracted, that the populace might give it over in despair, or that some rescue might arrive to disperse them. There was a moment atwhich the latter seemed probable. 

The magistrates, having assembled their officers, and some of thecitizens who were willing to hazard themselves for the publictranquillity, now sallied forth from the tavern where they held theirsitting, and approached the point of danger. Their officers went beforethem with links and torches, with a herald to read the riot-act, ifnecessary. They easily drove before them the outposts and videttes of therioters; but when they approached the line of guard which the mob, orrather, we should say, the conspirators, had drawn across the street inthe front of the Luckenbooths, they were received with an unintermittedvolley of stones, and, on their nearer approach, the pikes, bayonets, andLochaber-axes, of which the populace had possessed themselves, werepresented against them. One of their ordinary officers, a strong resolutefellow, went forward, seized a rioter, and took from him a musket; but, being unsupported, he was instantly thrown on his back in the street, anddisarmed in his turn. The officer was too happy to be permitted to riseand run away without receiving any farther injury; which afforded anotherremarkable instance of the mode in which these men had united a sort ofmoderation towards all others, with the most inflexible inveteracyagainst the object of their resentment. The magistrates, after vainattempts to make themselves heard and obeyed, possessing no means ofenforcing their authority, were constrained to abandon the field to therioters, and retreat in all speed from the showers of missiles thatwhistled around their ears. 

The passive resistance of the Tolbooth gate promised to do more to bafflethe purpose of the mob than the active interference of the magistrates. The heavy sledge-hammers continued to din against it withoutintermission, and with a noise which, echoed from the lofty buildingsaround the spot, seemed enough to have alarmed the garrison in theCastle. It was circulated among the rioters, that the troops would marchdown to disperse them, unless they could execute their purpose withoutloss of time; or that, even without quitting the fortress, the garrisonmight obtain the same end by throwing a bomb or two upon the street. 

Urged by such motives for apprehension, they eagerly relieved each otherat the labour of assailing the Tolbooth door: yet such was its strength, that it still defied their efforts. At length, a voice was heard topronounce the words, "Try it with fire. " The rioters, with an unanimousshout, called for combustibles, and as all their wishes seemed to beinstantly supplied, they were soon in possession of two or three emptytar-barrels. A huge red glaring bonfire speedily arose close to the doorof the prison, sending up a tall column of smoke and flame against itsantique turrets and strongly-grated windows, and illuminating theferocious and wild gestures of the rioters, who surrounded the place, aswell as the pale and anxious groups of those, who, from windows in thevicinage, watched the progress of this alarming scene. The mob fed thefire with whatever they could find fit for the purpose. The flames roaredand crackled among the heaps of nourishment piled on the fire, and aterrible shout soon announced that the door had kindled, and was in theact of being destroyed. The fire was suffered to decay, but, long ere itwas quite extinguished, the most forward of the rioters rushed, in theirimpatience, one after another, over its yet smouldering remains. Thickshowers of sparkles rose high in the air, as man after man bounded overthe glowing embers, and disturbed them in their passage. It was nowobvious to Butler, and all others who were present, that the rioterswould be instantly in possession of their victim, and have it in theirpower to work their pleasure upon him, whatever that might be. *

* Note C. The Old Tolbooth. 

CHAPTER SIXTH. 

 The evil you teach us, We will execute; and it shall go hard, but we will Better the instruction. Merchant of Venice. 

The unhappy object of this remarkable disturbance had been that daydelivered from the apprehension of public execution, and his joy was thegreater, as he had some reason to question whether Government would haverun the risk of unpopularity by interfering in his favour, after he hadbeen legally convicted by the verdict of a jury, of a crime so veryobnoxious. Relieved from this doubtful state of mind, his heart was merrywithin him, and he thought, in the emphatic words of Scripture on asimilar occasion, that surely the bitterness of death was past. Some ofhis friends, however, who had watched the manner and behaviour of thecrowd when they were made acquainted with the reprieve, were of adifferent opinion. They augured, from the unusual sternness and silencewith which they bore their disappointment, that the populace nourishedsome scheme of sudden and desperate vengeance; and they advised Porteousto lose no time in petitioning the proper authorities, that he might beconveyed to the Castle under a sufficient guard, to remain there insecurity until his ultimate fate should be determined. Habituated, however, by his office, to overawe the rabble of the city, Porteous couldnot suspect them of an attempt so audacious as to storm a strong anddefensible prison; and, despising the advice by which he might have beensaved, he spent the afternoon of the eventful day in giving anentertainment to some friends who visited him in jail, several of whom, by the indulgence of the Captain of the Tolbooth, with whom he had an oldintimacy, arising from their official connection, were even permitted toremain to supper with him, though contrary to the rules of the jail. 

It was, therefore, in the hour of unalloyed mirth, when this unfortunatewretch was "full of bread, " hot with wine, and high in mistimed andill-grounded confidence, and alas! with all his sins full blown, when thefirst distant' shouts of the rioters mingled with the song of merrimentand intemperance. The hurried call of the jailor to the guests, requiringthem instantly to depart, and his yet more hasty intimation that adreadful and determined mob had possessed themselves of the city gatesand guard-house, were the first explanation of these fearful clamours. 

Porteous might, however, have eluded the fury from which the force ofauthority could not protect him, had he thought of slipping on somedisguise, and leaving the prison along with his guests. It is probablethat the jailor might have connived at his escape, or even that in thehurry of this alarming contingency, he might not have observed it. ButPorteous and his friends alike wanted presence of mind to suggest orexecute such a plan of escape. The former hastily fled from a place wheretheir own safety seemed compromised, and the latter, in a stateresembling stupefaction, awaited in his apartment the termination of theenterprise of the rioters. The cessation of the clang of the instrumentswith which they had at first attempted to force the door, gave himmomentary relief. The flattering hopes, that the military had marchedinto the city, either from the Castle or from the suburbs, and that therioters were intimidated, and dispersing, were soon destroyed by thebroad and glaring light of the flames, which, illuminating through thegrated window every corner of his apartment, plainly showed that the mob, determined on their fatal purpose, had adopted a means of forcingentrance equally desperate and certain. 

The sudden glare of light suggested to the stupified and astonishedobject of popular hatred the possibility of concealment or escape. Torush to the chimney, to ascend it at the risk of suffocation, were theonly means which seemed to have occurred to him; but his progress wasspeedily stopped by one of those iron gratings, which are, for the sakeof security, usually placed across the vents of buildings designed forimprisonment. The bars, however, which impeded his farther progress, served to support him in the situation which he had gained, and he seizedthem with the tenacious grasp of one who esteemed himself clinging to hislast hope of existence. The lurid light which had filled the apartment, lowered and died away; the sound of shouts was heard within the walls, and on the narrow and winding stair, which, eased within one of theturrets, gave access to the upper apartments of the prison. The huzza ofthe rioters was answered by a shout wild and desperate as their own, thecry, namely, of the imprisoned felons, who, expecting to be liberated inthe general confusion, welcomed the mob as their deliverers. By some ofthese the apartment of Porteous was pointed out to his enemies. Theobstacle of the lock and bolts was soon overcome, and from his hidingplace the unfortunate man heard his enemies search every corner of theapartment, with oaths and maledictions, which would but shock the readerif we recorded them, but which served to prove, could it have admitted ofdoubt, the settled purpose of soul with which they sought hisdestruction. 

A place of concealment so obvious to suspicion and scrutiny as that whichPorteous had chosen, could not long screen him from detection. He wasdragged from his lurking-place, with a violence which seemed to argue anintention to put him to death on the spot. More than one weapon wasdirected towards him, when one of the rioters, the same whose femaledisguise had been particularly noticed by Butler, interfered in anauthoritative tone. "Are ye mad?" he said, "or would ye execute an act ofjustice as if it were a crime and a cruelty? This sacrifice will losehalf its savour if we do not offer it at the very horns of the altar. Wewill have him die where a murderer should die, on the common gibbet--Wewill have him die where he spilled the blood of so many innocents!"

A loud shout of applause followed the proposal, and the cry, "To thegallows with the murderer!--to the Grassmarket with him!" echoed on allhands. 

"Let no man hurt him, " continued the speaker; "let him make his peacewith God, if he can; we will not kill both his soul and body. "

"What time did he give better folk for preparing their account?" answeredseveral voices. "Let us mete to him with the same measure he measured tothem. "

But the opinion of the spokesman better suited the temper of those headdressed, a temper rather stubborn than impetuous, sedate thoughferocious, and desirous of colouring their cruel and revengeful actionwith a show of justice and moderation. 

For an instant this man quitted the prisoner, whom he consigned to aselected guard, with instructions to permit him to give his money andproperty to whomsoever he pleased. A person confined in the jail for debtreceived this last deposit from the trembling hand of the victim, who wasat the same time permitted to make some other brief arrangements to meethis approaching fate. The felons, and all others who, wished to leave thejail, were now at full liberty to do so; not that their liberation madeany part of the settled purpose of the rioters, but it followed as almosta necessary consequence of forcing the jail doors. With wild cries ofjubilee they joined the mob, or disappeared among the narrow lanes toseek out the hidden receptacles of vice and infamy, where they wereaccustomed to lurk and conceal themselves from justice. 

Two persons, a man about fifty years old and a girl about eighteen, wereall who continued within the fatal walls, excepting two or three debtors, who probably saw no advantage in attempting their escape. The persons wehave mentioned remained in the strong room of the prison, now deserted byall others. One of their late companions in misfortune called out to theman to make his escape, in the tone of an acquaintance. "Rin for it, Ratcliffe--the road's clear. "

"It may be sae, Willie, " answered Ratcliffe, composedly, "but I have taena fancy to leave aff trade, and set up for an honest man. "

"Stay there, and be hanged, then, for a donnard auld deevil!" said theother, and ran down the prison stair. 

The person in female attire whom we have distinguished as one of the mostactive rioters, was about the same time at the ear of the young woman. "Flee, Effie, flee!" was all he had time to whisper. She turned towardshim an eye of mingled fear, affection, and upbraiding, all contendingwith a sort of stupified surprise. He again repeated, "Flee, Effie, flee!for the sake of all that's good and dear to you!" Again she gazed on him, but was unable to answer. A loud noise was now heard, and the name ofMadge Wildfire was repeatedly called from the bottom of the staircase. 

"I am coming, --I am coming, " said the person who answered to thatappellative; and then reiterating hastily, "For God's sake--for your ownsake--for my sake, flee, or they'll take your life!" he left the strongroom. 

The girl gazed after him for a moment, and then, faintly muttering, "Better tyne life, since tint is gude fame, " she sunk her head upon herhand, and remained, seemingly, unconscious as a statue of the noise andtumult which passed around her. 

That tumult was now transferred from the inside to the outside of theTolbooth. The mob had brought their destined victim forth, and were aboutto conduct him to the common place of execution, which they had fixed asthe scene of his death. The leader, whom they distinguished by the nameof Madge Wildfire, had been summoned to assist at the procession by theimpatient shouts of his confederates. 

"I will insure you five hundred pounds, " said the unhappy man, graspingWildfire's hand, --"five hundred pounds for to save my life. "

The other answered in the same undertone, and returning his grasp withone equally convulsive, "Five hundredweight of coined gold should notsave you. --Remember Wilson!"

A deep pause of a minute ensued, when Wildfire added, in a more composedtone, "Make your peace with Heaven. --Where is the clergyman?"

Butler, who in great terror and anxiety, had been detained within a fewyards of the Tolbooth door, to wait the event of the search afterPorteous, was now brought forward, and commanded to walk by theprisoner's side, and to prepare him for immediate death. His answer was asupplication that the rioters would consider what they did. "You areneither judges nor jury, " said he. "You cannot have, by the laws of Godor man, power to take away the life of a human creature, howeverdeserving he may be of death. If it is murder even in a lawful magistrateto execute an offender otherwise than in the place, time, and mannerwhich the judges' sentence prescribes, what must it be in you, who haveno warrant for interference but your own wills? In the name of Him who isall mercy, show mercy to this unhappy man, and do not dip your hands inhis blood, nor rush into the very crime which you are desirous ofavenging!"

"Cut your sermon short--you are not in your pulpit, " answered one of therioters. 

"If we hear more of your clavers, " said another, "we are like to hang youup beside him. "

"Peace--hush!" said Wildfire. "Do the good man no harm--he discharges hisconscience, and I like him the better. "

He then addressed Butler. "Now, sir, we have patiently heard you, and wejust wish you to understand, in the way of answer, that you may as wellargue to the ashlar-work and iron stanchels of the Tolbooth as think tochange our purpose--Blood must have blood. We have sworn to each other bythe deepest oaths ever were pledged, that Porteous shall die the death hedeserves so richly; therefore, speak no more to us, but prepare him fordeath as well as the briefness of his change will permit. "

They had suffered the unfortunate Porteous to put on his night-gown andslippers, as he had thrown off his coat and shoes, in order to facilitatehis attempted escape up the chimney. In this garb he was now mounted onthe hands of two of the rioters, clasped together, so as to form what iscalled in Scotland, "The King's Cushion. " Butler was placed close to hisside, and repeatedly urged to perform a duty always the most painfulwhich can be imposed on a clergyman deserving of the name, and nowrendered more so by the peculiar and horrid circumstances of thecriminal's case. Porteous at first uttered some supplications for mercy, but when he found that there was no chance that these would be attendedto, his military education, and the natural stubbornness of hisdisposition, combined to support his spirits. 

"Are you prepared for this dreadful end?" said Butler, in a falteringvoice. "O turn to Him, in whose eyes time and space have no existence, and to whom a few minutes are as a lifetime, and a lifetime as a minute. "

"I believe I know what you would say, " answered Porteous sullenly. "I wasbred a soldier; if they will murder me without time, let my sins as wellas my blood lie at their door. "

"Who was it, " said the stern voice of Wildfire, "that said to Wilson atthis very spot, when he could not pray, owing to the galling agony of hisfetters, that his pains would soon be over?--I say to you to take yourown tale home; and if you cannot profit by the good man's lessons, blamenot them that are still more merciful to you than you were to others. "

[Illustration: The Porteous Mob--95]

The procession now moved forward with a slow and determined pace. It wasenlightened by many blazing, links and torches; for the actors of thiswork were so far from affecting any secrecy on the occasion, that theyseemed even to court observation. Their principal leaders kept close tothe person of the prisoner, whose pallid yet stubborn features were seendistinctly by the torch-light, as his person was raised considerablyabove the concourse which thronged around him. Those who bore swords, muskets, and battle-axes, marched on each side, as if forming a regularguard to the procession. The windows, as they went along, were filledwith the inhabitants, whose slumbers had been broken by this unusualdisturbance. Some of the spectators muttered accents of encouragement;but in general they were so much appalled by a sight so strange andaudacious, that they looked on with a sort of stupified astonishment. Noone offered, by act or word, the slightest interruption. 

The rioters, on their part, continued to act with the same air ofdeliberate confidence and security which had marked all theirproceedings. When the object of their resentment dropped one of hisslippers, they stopped, sought for it, and replaced it upon his foot withgreat deliberation. *

* This little incident, characteristic of the extreme composure of thisextraordinary mob, was witnessed by a lady, who, disturbed like othersfrom her slumbers, had gone to the window. It was told to the Author bythe lady's daughter. 

As they descended the Bow towards the fatal spot where they designed tocomplete their purpose, it was suggested that there should be a rope keptin readiness. For this purpose the booth of a man who dealt in cordagewas forced open, a coil of rope fit for their purpose was selected toserve as a halter, and the dealer next morning found that a guinea hadbeen left on his counter in exchange; so anxious were the perpetrators ofthis daring action to show that they meditated not the slightest wrong orinfraction of law, excepting so far as Porteous was himself concerned. 

Leading, or carrying along with them, in this determined and regularmanner, the object of their vengeance, they at length reached the placeof common execution, the scene of his crime, and destined spot of hissufferings. Several of the rioters (if they should not rather bedescribed as conspirators) endeavoured to remove the stone which filledup the socket in which the end of the fatal tree was sunk when it waserected for its fatal purpose; others sought for the means ofconstructing a temporary gibbet, the place in which the gallows itselfwas deposited being reported too secure to be forced, without much lossof time. Butler endeavoured to avail himself of the delay afforded bythese circumstances, to turn the people from their desperate design. "ForGod's sake, " he exclaimed, "remember it is the image of your Creatorwhich you are about to deface in the person of this unfortunate man!Wretched as he is, and wicked as he may be, he has a share in everypromise of Scripture, and you cannot destroy him in impenitence withoutblotting his name from the Book of Life--Do not destroy soul and body;give time for preparation. "

"What time had they, " returned a stern voice, "whom he murdered on thisvery spot?--The laws both of God and man call for his death. "

"But what, my friends, " insisted Butler, with a generous disregard to hisown safety--"what hath constituted you his judges?"

"We are not his judges, " replied the same person; "he has been alreadyjudged and condemned by lawful authority. We are those whom Heaven, andour righteous anger, have stirred up to execute judgment, when a corruptGovernment would have protected a murderer. "

"I am none, " said the unfortunate Porteous; "that which you charge uponme fell out in self-defence, in the lawful exercise of my duty. "

"Away with him--away with him!" was the general cry. 

"Why do you trifle away time in making a gallows?--that dyester's pole isgood enough for the homicide. "

The unhappy man was forced to his fate with remorseless rapidity. Butler, separated from him by the press, escaped the last horrors of hisstruggles. Unnoticed by those who had hitherto detained him as aprisoner, --he fled from the fatal spot, without much caring in whatdirection his course lay. A loud shout proclaimed the stern delight withwhich the agents of this deed regarded its completion. Butler, then, atthe opening into the low street called the Cowgate, cast back a terrifiedglance, and, by the red and dusky light of the torches, he could discerna figure wavering and struggling as it hung suspended above the heads ofthe multitude, and could even observe men striking at it with theirLochaber-axes and partisans. The sight was of a nature to double hishorror, and to add wings to his flight. 

The street down which the fugitive ran opens to one of the eastern portsor gates of the city. Butler did not stop till he reached it, but foundit still shut. He waited nearly an hour, walking up and down ininexpressible perturbation of mind. At length he ventured to call out, and rouse the attention of the terrified keepers of the gate, who nowfound themselves at liberty to resume their office without interruption. Butler requested them to open the gate. They hesitated. He told them hisname and occupation. 

"He is a preacher, " said one; "I have heard him preach in Haddo's-hole. "

"A fine preaching has he been at the night, " said another "but maybeleast said is sunest mended. "

Opening then the wicket of the main gate, the keepers suffered Butler todepart, who hastened to carry his horror and fear beyond the walls ofEdinburgh. His first purpose was instantly to take the road homeward; butother fears and cares, connected with the news he had learned in thatremarkable day, induced him to linger in the neighbourhood of Edinburghuntil daybreak. More than one group of persons passed him as he waswhiling away the hours of darkness that yet remained, whom, from thestifled tones of their discourse, the unwonted hour when they travelled, and the hasty pace at which they walked, he conjectured to have beenengaged in the late fatal transaction. 

Certain it was, that the sudden and total dispersion of the rioters, whentheir vindictive purpose was accomplished, seemed not the leastremarkable feature of this singular affair. In general, whatever may bethe impelling motive by which a mob is at first raised, the attainment oftheir object has usually been only found to lead the way to fartherexcesses. But not so in the present case. They seemed completely satiatedwith the vengeance they had prosecuted with such stanch and sagaciousactivity. When they were fully satisfied that life had abandoned theirvictim, they dispersed in every direction, throwing down the weaponswhich they had only assumed to enable them to carry through theirpurpose. At daybreak there remained not the least token of the events ofthe night, excepting the corpse of Porteous, which still hung suspendedin the place where he had suffered, and the arms of various kinds whichthe rioters had taken from the city guard-house, which were foundscattered about the streets as they had thrown them from their hands whenthe purpose for which they had seized them was accomplished. 

The ordinary magistrates of the city resumed their power, not withouttrembling at the late experience of the fragility of its tenure. To marchtroops into the city, and commence a severe inquiry into the transactionsof the preceding night, were the first marks of returning energy whichthey displayed. But these events had been conducted on so secure andwell-calculated a plan of safety and secrecy, that there was little ornothing learned to throw light upon the authors or principal actors in ascheme so audacious. An express was despatched to London with thetidings, where they excited great indignation and surprise in the councilof regency, and particularly in the bosom of Queen Caroline, whoconsidered her own authority as exposed to contempt by the success ofthis singular conspiracy. Nothing was spoke of for some time save themeasure of vengeance which should be taken, not only on the actors ofthis tragedy, so soon as they should be discovered, but upon themagistrates who had suffered it to take place, and upon the city whichhad been the scene where it was exhibited. On this occasion, it is stillrecorded in popular tradition, that her Majesty, in the height of herdispleasure, told the celebrated John Duke of Argyle, that, sooner thansubmit to such an insult, she would make Scotland a hunting-field. "Inthat case, Madam, " answered that high-spirited nobleman, with a profoundbow, "I will take leave of your Majesty, and go down to my own country toget my hounds ready. "

The import of the reply had more than met the ear; and as most of theScottish nobility and gentry seemed actuated by the same national spirit, the royal displeasure was necessarily checked in mid-volley, and mildercourses were recommended and adopted, to some of which we may hereafterhave occasion to advert. *

* Note D. Memorial concerning the murder of Captain Porteous. 

CHAPTER SEVENTH

 Arthur's Seat shall be my bed, The sheets shall ne'er be pressed by me, St. Anton's well shall be my drink, Sin' my true-love's forsaken me. Old Song. 

If I were to choose a spot from which the rising or setting sun could beseen to the greatest possible advantage, it would be that wild pathwinding around the foot of the high belt of semicircular rocks, calledSalisbury Crags, and marking the verge of the steep descent which slopesdown into the glen on the south-eastern side of the city of Edinburgh. The prospect, in its general outline, commands a close-built, high-piledcity, stretching itself out beneath in a form, which, to a romanticimagination, may be supposed to represent that of a dragon; now, a noblearm of the sea, with its rocks, isles, distant shores, and boundary ofmountains; and now, a fair and fertile champaign country, varied withhill, dale, and rock, and skirted by the picturesque ridge of thePentland mountains. But as the path gently circles around the base of thecliffs, the prospect, composed as it is of these enchanting and sublimeobjects, changes at every step, and presents them blended with, ordivided from, each other, in every possible variety which can gratify theeye and the imagination. When a piece of scenery so beautiful, yet sovaried, --so exciting by its intricacy, and yet so sublime, --is lighted upby the tints of morning or of evening, and displays all that variety ofshadowy depth, exchanged with partial brilliancy, which gives charactereven to the tamest of landscapes, the effect approaches near toenchantment. This path used to be my favourite evening and morningresort, when engaged with a favourite author, or new subject of study. Itis, I am informed, now become totally impassable; a circumstance which, if true, reflects little credit on the taste of the Good Town or itsleaders. *

* A beautiful and solid pathway has, within a few years, been formedaround these romantic rocks; and the Author has the pleasure to think, that the passage in the text gave rise to the undertaking. 

 It was from this fascinating path--the scene to me of so much deliciousmusing, when life was young and promised to be happy, that I have beenunable to pass it over without an episodical description--it was, I say, from this romantic path that Butler saw the morning arise the day afterthe murder of Porteous. It was possible for him with ease to have found amuch shorter road to the house to which he was directing his course, and, in fact, that which he chose was extremely circuitous. But to compose hisown spirits, as well as to while away the time, until a proper hour forvisiting the family without surprise or disturbance, he was induced toextend his circuit by the foot of the rocks, and to linger upon his wayuntil the morning should be considerably advanced. While, now standingwith his arms across, and waiting the slow progress of the sun above thehorizon, now sitting upon one of the numerous fragments which storms haddetached from the rocks above him, he is meditating, alternately upon thehorrible catastrophe which he had witnessed, and upon the melancholy, andto him most interesting, news which he had learned at Saddletree's, wewill give the reader to understand who Butler was, and how his fate wasconnected with that of Effie Deans, the unfortunate handmaiden of thecareful Mrs. Saddletree. 

Reuben Butler was of English extraction, though born in Scotland. Hisgrandfather was a trooper in Monk's army, and one of the party ofdismounted dragoons which formed the forlorn hope at the storming ofDundee in 1651. Stephen Butler (called from his talents in reading andexpounding, Scripture Stephen, and Bible Butler) was a stanchIndependent, and received in its fullest comprehension the promise thatthe saints should inherit the earth. As hard knocks were what had chieflyfallen to his share hitherto in the division of this common property, helost not the opportunity which the storm and plunder of a commercialplace afforded him, to appropriate as large a share of the better thingsof this world as he could possibly compass. It would seem that he hadsucceeded indifferently well, for his exterior circumstances appeared, inconsequence of this event, to have been much mended. 

The troop to which he belonged was quartered at the village of Dalkeith, as forming the bodyguard of Monk, who, in the capacity of general for theCommonwealth, resided in the neighbouring castle. When, on the eve of theRestoration, the general commenced his march from Scotland, a measurepregnant with such important consequences, he new-modelled his troops, and more especially those immediately about his person, in order thatthey might consist entirely of individuals devoted to himself. On thisoccasion Scripture Stephen was weighed in the balance, and found wanting. It was supposed he felt no call to any expedition which might endangerthe reign of the military sainthood, and that he did not consider himselfas free in conscience to join with any party which might be likelyultimately to acknowledge the interest of Charles Stuart, the son of "thelast man, " as Charles I. Was familiarly and irreverently termed by themin their common discourse, as well as in their more elaboratepredications and harangues. As the time did not admit of cashiering suchdissidents, Stephen Butler was only advised in a friendly way to give uphis horse and accoutrements to one of Middleton's old troopers whopossessed an accommodating conscience of a military stamp, and whichsquared itself chiefly upon those of the colonel and paymaster. As thishint came recommended by a certain sum of arrears presently payable, Stephen had carnal wisdom enough to embrace the proposal, and with greatindifference saw his old corps depart for Coldstream, on their route forthe south, to establish the tottering Government of England on a newbasis. 

The _zone_ of the ex-trooper, to use Horace's phrase, was weighty enoughto purchase a cottage and two or three fields (still known by the name ofBeersheba), within about a Scottish mile of Dalkeith; and there didStephen establish himself with a youthful helpmate, chosen out of thesaid village, whose disposition to a comfortable settlement on this sideof the grave reconciled her to the gruff manners, serious temper, andweather-beaten features of the martial enthusiast. Stephen did not longsurvive the falling on "evil days and evil tongues, " of which Milton, inthe same predicament, so mournfully complains. At his death his consortremained an early widow, with a male child of three years old, which, inthe sobriety wherewith it demeaned itself, in the old-fashioned and evengrim cast of its features, and in its sententious mode of expressingitself, would sufficiently have vindicated the honour of the widow ofBeersheba, had any one thought proper to challenge the babe's descentfrom Bible Butler. 

Butler's principles had not descended to his family, or extendedthemselves among his neighbours. The air of Scotland was alien to thegrowth of independency, however favourable to fanaticism under othercolours. But, nevertheless, they were not forgotten; and a certainneighbouring Laird, who piqued himself upon the loyalty of his principles"in the worst of times" (though I never heard they exposed him to moreperil than that of a broken head, or a night's lodging in the main guard, when wine and cavalierism predominated in his upper storey), had found ita convenient thing to rake up all matter of accusation against thedeceased Stephen. In this enumeration his religious principles made nosmall figure, as, indeed, they must have seemed of the most exaggeratedenormity to one whose own were so small and so faintly traced, as to bewell nigh imperceptible. In these circumstances, poor widow Butler wassupplied with her full proportion of fines for nonconformity, and all theother oppressions of the time, until Beersheba was fairly wrenched out ofher hands, and became the property of the Laird who had so wantonly, asit had hitherto appeared, persecuted this poor forlorn woman. When hispurpose was fairly achieved, he showed some remorse or moderation, ofwhatever the reader may please to term it, in permitting her to occupyher husband's cottage, and cultivate, on no very heavy terms, a croft ofland adjacent. Her son, Benjamin, in the meanwhile, grew up to massestate, and, moved by that impulse which makes men seek marriage, evenwhen its end can only be the perpetuation of misery, he wedded andbrought a wife, and, eventually, a son, Reuben, to share the poverty ofBeersheba. 

The Laird of Dumbiedikes* had hitherto been moderate in his exactions, perhaps because he was ashamed to tax too highly the miserable means ofsupport which remained to the widow Butler. 

* Dumbiedikes, selected as descriptive of the taciturn character of theimaginary owner, is really the name of a house bordering on the King'sPark, so called because the late Mr. Braidwood, an instructor of the deafand dumb, resided there with his pupils. The situation of the real houseis different from that assigned to the ideal mansion. 

But when a stout active young fellow appeared as the labourer of thecroft in question, Dumbiedikes began to think so broad a pair ofshoulders might bear an additional burden. He regulated, indeed, hismanagement of his dependants (who fortunately were but few in number)much upon the principle of the carters whom he observed loading theircarts at a neighbouring coal-hill, and who never failed to clap anadditional brace of hundredweights on their burden, so soon as by anymeans they had compassed a new horse of somewhat superior strength tothat which had broken down the day before. However reasonable thispractice appeared to the Laird of Dumbiedikes, he ought to have observed, that it may be overdone, and that it infers, as a matter of course, thedestruction and loss of both horse, and cart, and loading. Even so itbefell when the additional "prestations" came to be demanded of BenjaminButler. A man of few words, and few ideas, but attached to Beersheba witha feeling like that which a vegetable entertains to the spot in which itchances to be planted, he neither remonstrated with the Laird, norendeavoured to escape from him, but, toiling night and day to accomplishthe terms of his taskmaster, fell into a burning fever and died. His wifedid not long survive him; and, as if it had been the fate of this familyto be left orphans, our Reuben Butler was, about the year 1704-5, left inthe same circumstances in which his father had been placed, and under thesame guardianship, being that of his grandmother, the widow of Monk's oldtrooper. 

The same prospect of misery hung over the head of another tenant of thishardhearted lord of the soil. This was a tough true-blue Presbyterian, called Deans, who, though most obnoxious to the Laird on account ofprinciples in church and state, contrived to maintain his ground upon theestate by regular payment of mail-duties, kain, arriage, carriage, drymulture, lock, gowpen, and knaveship, and all the various exactions nowcommuted for money, and summed up in the emphatic word rent. But theyears 1700 and 1701, long remembered in Scotland for dearth and generaldistress, subdued the stout heart of the agricultural whig. Citations bythe ground-officer, decreets of the Baron Court, sequestrations, poindings of outside and inside plenishing, flew about his ears as fastas the tory bullets whistled around those of the Covenanters at Pentland, Bothwell Brigg, or Airsmoss. Struggle as he might, and he struggledgallantly, "Douce David Deans" was routed horse and foot, and lay at themercy of his grasping landlord just at the time that Benjamin Butlerdied. The fate of each family was anticipated; but they who prophesiedtheir expulsion to beggary and ruin were disappointed by an accidentalcircumstance. 

On the very term-day when their ejection should have taken place, whenall their neighbours were prepared to pity, and not one to assist them, the minister of the parish, as well as a doctor from Edinburgh, receiveda hasty summons to attend the Laird of Dumbiedikes. Both were surprised, for his contempt for both faculties had been pretty commonly his themeover an extra bottle, that is to say, at least once every day. The leechfor the soul, and he for the body, alighted in the court of the littleold manor-house at almost the same time; and when they had gazed a momentat each other with some surprise, they in the same breath expressed theirconviction that Dumbiedikes must needs be very ill indeed, since hesummoned them both to his presence at once. Ere the servant could usherthem to his apartment, the party was augmented by a man of law, NichilNovit, writing himself procurator before the sheriff-court, for in thosedays there were no solicitors. This latter personage was first summonedto the apartment of the Laird, where, after some short space, thesoul-curer and the body-curer were invited to join him. 

Dumbiedikes had been by this time transported into the best bedroom, usedonly upon occasions of death and marriage, and called, from the former ofthese occupations, the Dead-Room. There were in this apartment, besidesthe sick person himself and Mr. Novit, the son and heir of the patient, atall gawky silly-looking boy of fourteen or fifteen, and a housekeeper, agood buxom figure of a woman, betwixt forty and fifty, who had kept thekeys and managed matters at Dumbiedikes since the lady's death. It was tothese attendants that Dumbiedikes addressed himself pretty nearly in thefollowing words; temporal and spiritual matters, the care of his healthand his affairs, being strangely jumbled in a head which was never one ofthe clearest. 

"These are sair times wi' me, gentlemen and neighbours! amaist as ill asat the aughty-nine, when I was rabbled by the collegeaners. *

* Immediately previous to the Revolution, the students at the EdinburghCollege were violent anti-catholics. They were strongly suspected ofburning the house of Prestonfield, belonging to Sir James Dick, the LordProvost; and certainly were guilty of creating considerable riots in1688-9. 

--They mistook me muckle--they ca'd me a papist, but there was never apapist bit about me, minister. --Jock, ye'll take warning--it's a debt wemaun a' pay, and there stands Nichil Novit that will tell ye I was nevergude at paying debts in my life. --Mr. Novit, ye'll no forget to draw theannual rent that's due on the yerl's band--if I pay debt to other folk, Ithink they suld pay it to me--that equals aquals. --Jock, when ye haenaething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; it will begrowing, Jock, when ye're sleeping. *

* The Author has been flattered by the assurance, that this _naive_ modeof recommending arboriculture (which was actually delivered in these verywords by a Highland laird, while on his death-bed, to his son) had somuch weight with a Scottish earl as to lead to his planting a large tractof country. 

"My father tauld me sae forty years sin', but I ne'er fand time to mindhim--Jock, ne'er drink brandy in the morning, it files the stamach sair;gin ye take a morning's draught, let it be aqua mirabilis; Jenny theremakes it weel--Doctor, my breath is growing as scant as a broken-windedpiper's, when he has played for four-and-twenty hours at a pennywedding--Jenny, pit the cod aneath my head--but it's a' needless!--MassJohn, could ye think o' rattling ower some bit short prayer, it wad dome gude maybe, and keep some queer thoughts out o' my head, Saysomething, man. "

"I cannot use a prayer like a rat-rhyme, " answered the honest clergyman;"and if you would have your soul redeemed like a prey from the fowler, Laird, you must needs show me your state of mind. "

"And shouldna ye ken that without my telling you?" answered the patient. "What have I been paying stipend and teind, parsonage and vicarage, for, ever sin' the aughty-nine, and I canna get a spell of a prayer for't, theonly time I ever asked for ane in my life?--Gang awa wi' your whiggery, if that's a' ye can do; auld Curate Kilstoup wad hae read half theprayer-book to me by this time--Awa wi' ye!--Doctor, let's see if ye cando onything better for me. "

The doctor, who had obtained some information in the meanwhile from thehousekeeper on the state of his complaints, assured him the medical artcould not prolong his life many hours. 

"Then damn Mass John and you baith!" cried the furious and intractablepatient. "Did ye come here for naething but to tell me that ye canna helpme at the pinch? Out wi' them, Jenny--out o' the house! and, Jock, mycurse, and the curse of Cromwell, go wi' ye, if ye gie them either fee orbountith, or sae muckle as a black pair o' cheverons!"*

*_Cheverons_--gloves. 

The clergyman and doctor made a speedy retreat out of the apartment, while Dumbiedikes fell into one of those transports of violent andprofane language, which had procured him the surname of Damn-me-dikes. "Bring me the brandy bottle, Jenny, ye b--, " he cried, with a voice inwhich passion contended with pain. "I can die as I have lived, withoutfashing ony o' them. But there's ae thing, " he said, sinking hisvoice--"there's ae fearful thing hings about my heart, and an anker ofbrandy winna wash it away. --The Deanses at Woodend!--I sequestrated themin the dear years, and now they are to flit, they'll starve--and thatBeersheba, and that auld trooper's wife and her oe, they'llstarve--they'll starve! --Look out, Jock; what kind o' night is't?"

"On-ding o' snaw, father, " answered Jock, after having opened the window, and looked out with great composure. 

"They'll perish in the drifts!" said the expiring sinner--"they'll perishwi' cauld!--but I'll be het eneugh, gin a' tales be true. "

This last observation was made under breath, and in a tone which made thevery attorney shudder. He tried his hand at ghostly advice, probably forthe first time in his life, and recommended as an opiate for the agonisedconscience of the Laird, reparation of the injuries he had done to thesedistressed families, which, he observed by the way, the civil law called_restitutio in integrum. _ But Mammon was struggling with Remorse forretaining his place in a bosom he had so long possessed; and he partlysucceeded, as an old tyrant proves often too strong for his insurgentrebels. 

"I canna do't, " he answered, with a voice of despair. "It would kill meto do't--how can ye bid me pay back siller, when ye ken how I want it? ordispone Beersheba, when it lies sae weel into my ain plaid-nuik? Naturemade Dumbiedikes and Beersheba to be ae man's land--She did, by Nichil, it wad kill me to part them. "

"But ye maun die whether or no, Laird, " said Mr. Novit; "and maybe ye waddie easier--it's but trying. I'll scroll the disposition in nae time. "

"Dinna speak o't, sir, " replied Dumbiedikes, "or I'll fling the stoup atyour head. --But, Jock, lad, ye see how the warld warstles wi' me on mydeathbed--be kind to the puir creatures, the Deanses and the Butlers--bekind to them, Jock. Dinna let the warld get a grip o' ye, Jock--but keepthe gear thegither! and whate'er ye do, dispone Beersheba at no rate. Letthe creatures stay at a moderate mailing, and hae bite and soup; it willmaybe be the better wi' your father whare he's gaun, lad. "

After these contradictory instructions, the Laird felt his mind so muchat ease, that he drank three bumpers of brandy continuously, and "soughedawa, " as Jenny expressed it, in an attempt to sing "Deil stick theMinister. "

His death made a revolution in favour of the distressed families. JohnDumbie, now of Dumbiedikes, in his own right, seemed to be close andselfish enough, but wanted the grasping spirit and active mind of hisfather; and his guardian happened to agree with him in opinion, that hisfather's dying recommendation should be attended to. The tenants, therefore, were not actually turned out of doors among the snow-wreaths, and were allowed wherewith to procure butter-milk and peas-bannocks, which they ate under the full force of the original malediction. Thecottage of Deans, called Woodend, was not very distant from that atBeersheba. Formerly there had been but little intercourse between thefamilies. Deans was a sturdy Scotsman, with all sort of prejudicesagainst the southern, and the spawn of the southern. Moreover, Deans was, as we have said, a stanch Presbyterian, of the most rigid and unbendingadherence to what he conceived to be the only possible straight line, ashe was wont to express himself, between right-hand heats and extremes andleft-hand defections; and, therefore, he held in high dread and horrorall Independents, and whomsoever he supposed allied to them. 

But, notwithstanding these national prejudices and religious professions, Deans and the widow Butler were placed in such a situation, as naturallyand at length created some intimacy between the families. They had shareda common danger and a mutual deliverance. They needed each other'sassistance, like a company, who, crossing a mountain stream, arecompelled to cling close together, lest the current should be toopowerful for any who are not thus supported. 

On nearer acquaintance, too, Deans abated some of his prejudices. Hefound old Mrs. Butler, though not thoroughly grounded in the extent andbearing of the real testimony against the defections of the times, had noopinions in favour of the Independent party; neither was she anEnglishwoman. Therefore, it was to be hoped, that, though she was thewidow of an enthusiastic corporal of Cromwell's dragoons, her grandsonmight be neither schismatic nor anti-national, two qualities concerningwhich Goodman Deans had as wholesome a terror as against papists andmalignants, Above all (for Douce Davie Deans had his weak side), heperceived that widow Butler looked up to him with reverence, listened tohis advice, and compounded for an occasional fling at the doctrines ofher deceased husbands to which, as we have seen, she was by no meanswarmly attached, in consideration of the valuable counsels which thePresbyterian afforded her for the management of her little farm. Theseusually concluded with "they may do otherwise in England, neighbourButler, for aught I ken;" or, "it may be different in foreign parts;" or, "they wha think differently on the great foundation of our covenantedreformation, overturning and mishguggling the government and disciplineof the kirk, and breaking down the carved work of our Zion, might be forsawing the craft wi' aits; but I say peace, peace. " And as his advice wasshrewd and sensible, though conceitedly given, it was received withgratitude, and followed with respect. 

The intercourse which took place betwixt the families at Beersheba andWoodend became strict and intimate, at a very early period, betwixtReuben Butler, with whom the reader is already in some degree acquainted, and Jeanie Deans, the only child of Douce Davie Deans by his first wife, "that singular Christian woman, " as he was wont to express himself, "whose name was savoury to all that knew her for a desirable professor, Christian Menzies in Hochmagirdle. " The manner of which intimacy, and theconsequences thereof, we now proceed to relate. 

CHAPTER EIGHTH. 

 Reuben and Rachel, though as fond as doves, Were yet discreet and cautious in their loves, Nor would attend to Cupid's wild commands, Till cool reflection bade them join their hands; When both were poor, they thought it argued ill Of hasty love to make them poorer still. Crabbe's _Parish Register. _

While widow Butler and widower Deans struggled with poverty, and the hardand sterile soil of "those parts and portions" of the lands ofDumbiedikes which it was their lot to occupy, it became graduallyapparent that Deans was to gain the strife, and his ally in the conflictwas to lose it. The former was a Man, and not much past the prime oflife--Mrs. Butler a woman, and declined into the vale of years, This, indeed, ought in time to have been balanced by the circumstance, thatReuben was growing up to assist his grandmothers labours, and that JeanieDeans, as a girl, could be only supposed to add to her father's burdens. But Douce Davie Deans know better things, and so schooled and trained theyoung minion, as he called her, that from the time she could walk, upwards, she was daily employed in some task or other, suitable to herage and capacity; a circumstance which, added to her father's dailyinstructions and lectures, tended to give her mind, even when a child, agrave, serious, firm, and reflecting cast. An uncommonly strong andhealthy temperament, free from all nervous affection and every otherirregularity, which, attacking the body in its more noble functions, sooften influences the mind, tended greatly to establish this fortitude, simplicity, and decision of character. 

On the other hand, Reuben was weak in constitution, and, though not timidin temper might be safely pronounced anxious, doubtful, and apprehensive. He partook of the temperament of his mother, who had died of aconsumption in early age. He was a pale, thin, feeble, sickly boy, andsomewhat lame, from an accident in early youth. He was, besides, thechild of a doting grandmother, whose too solicitous attention to him soontaught him a sort of diffidence in himself, with a disposition tooverrate his own importance, which is one of the very worst consequencesthat children deduce from over-indulgence. 

Still, however, the two children clung to each other's society, not morefrom habit than from taste. They herded together the handful of sheep, with the two or three cows, which their parents turned out rather to seekfood than actually to feed upon the unenclosed common of Dumbiedikes. Itwas there that the two urchins might be seen seated beneath a bloomingbush of whin, their little faces laid close together under the shadow ofthe same plaid drawn over both their heads, while the landscape aroundwas embrowned by an overshadowing cloud, big with the shower which haddriven the children to shelter. On other occasions they went together toschool, the boy receiving that encouragement and example from hiscompanion, in crossing the little brooks which intersected their path, and encountering cattle, dogs, and other perils, upon their journey, which the male sex in such cases usually consider it as their prerogativeto extend to the weaker. But when, seated on the benches of theschool-house, they began to con their lessons together, Reuben, who wasas much superior to Jeanie Deans in acuteness of intellect, as inferiorto her in firmness of constitution, and in that insensibility to fatigueand danger which depends on the conformation of the nerves, was ablefully to requite the kindness and countenance with which, in othercircumstances, she used to regard him. He was decidedly the best scholarat the little parish school; and so gentle was his temper anddisposition, that he was rather admired than envied by the little mob whooccupied the noisy mansion, although he was the declared favourite of themaster. Several girls, in particular (for in Scotland they are taughtwith the boys), longed to be kind to and comfort the sickly lad, who wasso much cleverer than his companions. The character of Reuben Butler wasso calculated as to offer scope both for their sympathy and theiradmiration, the feelings, perhaps, through which the female sex (the moredeserving part of them at least) is more easily attached. 

But Reuben, naturally reserved and distant, improved none of theseadvantages; and only became more attached to Jeanie Deans, as theenthusiastic approbation of his master assured him of fair prospects infuture life, and awakened his ambition. In the meantime, every advancethat Reuben made in learning (and, considering his opportunities, theywere uncommonly great) rendered him less capable of attending to thedomestic duties of his grandmother's farm. While studying the _ponsasinorum_ in Euclid, he suffered every _cuddie_ upon the common totrespass upon a large field of peas belonging to the Laird, and nothingbut the active exertions of Jeanie Deans, with her little dog Dustiefoot, could have saved great loss and consequent punishment. Similarmiscarriages marked his progress in his classical studies. He readVirgil's Georgics till he did not know bere from barley; and had nearlydestroyed the crofts of Beersheba while attempting to cultivate themaccording to the practice of Columella and Cato the Censor. 

These blunders occasioned grief to his grand-dame, and disconcerted thegood opinion which her neighbour, Davie Deans, had for some timeentertained of Reuben. 

"I see naething ye can make of that silly callant, neighbour Butler, "said he to the old lady, "unless ye train him to the wark o' theministry. And ne'er was there mair need of poorfu' preachers than e'ennow in these cauld Gallio days, when men's hearts are hardened like thenether mill-stone, till they come to regard none of these things. It'sevident this puir callant of yours will never be able to do an usefu'day's wark, unless it be as an ambassador from our Master; and I willmake it my business to procure a license when he is fit for the same, trusting he will be a shaft cleanly polished, and meet to be used in thebody of the kirk; and that he shall not turn again, like the sow, towallow in the mire of heretical extremes and defections, but shall havethe wings of a dove, though he hath lain among the pots. "

The poor widow gulped down the affront to her husband's principles, implied in this caution, and hastened to take Butler from the HighSchool, and encourage him in the pursuit of mathematics and divinity, theonly physics and ethics that chanced to be in fashion at the time. 

Jeanie Deans was now compelled to part from the companion of her labour, her study, and her pastime, and it was with more than childish feelingthat both children regarded the separation. But they were young, and hopewas high, and they separated like those who hope to meet again at a moreauspicious hour. While Reuben Butler was acquiring at the University ofSt. Andrews the knowledge necessary for a clergyman, and macerating hisbody with the privations which were necessary in seeking food for hismind, his grand-dame became daily less able to struggle with her littlefarm, and was at length obliged to throw it up to the new Laird ofDumbiedikes. That great personage was no absolute Jew, and did not cheather in making the bargain more than was tolerable. He even gave herpermission to tenant the house in which she had lived with her husband, as long as it should be "tenantable;" only he protested against payingfor a farthing of repairs, any benevolence which he possessed being ofthe passive, but by no means of the active mood. 

In the meanwhile, from superior shrewdness, skill, and othercircumstances, some of them purely accidental, Davie Deans gained afooting in the world, the possession of some wealth, the reputation ofmore, and a growing disposition to preserve and increase his store; forwhich, when he thought upon it seriously, he was inclined to blamehimself. From his knowledge in agriculture, as it was then practised, hebecame a sort of favourite with the Laird, who had no great pleasureeither in active sports or in society, and was wont to end his dailysaunter by calling at the cottage of Woodend. 

Being himself a man of slow ideas and confused utterance, Dumbiedikesused to sit or stand for half-an-hour with an old laced hat of hisfather's upon his head, and an empty tobacco-pipe in his mouth, with hiseyes following Jeanie Deans, or "the lassie" as he called her, throughthe course of her daily domestic labour; while her father, afterexhausting the subject of bestial, of ploughs, and of harrows, often tookan opportunity of going full-sail into controversial subjects, to whichdiscussions the dignitary listened with much seeming patience, butwithout making any reply, or, indeed, as most people thought, withoutunderstanding a single word of what the orator was saying. Deans, indeed, denied this stoutly, as an insult at once to his own talents forexpounding hidden truths, of which he was a little vain, and to theLaird's capacity of understanding them. He said, "Dumbiedikes was nane ofthese flashy gentles, wi' lace on their skirts and swords at their tails, that were rather for riding on horseback to hell than gauging barefootedto heaven. He wasna like his father--nae profane company-keeper--naeswearer--nae drinker--nae frequenter of play-house, or music-house, ordancing-house--nae Sabbath-breaker--nae imposer of aiths, or bonds, ordenier of liberty to the flock. --He clave to the warld, and the warld'sgear, a wee ower muckle, but then there was some breathing of a gale uponhis spirit, " etc. Etc. All this honest Davie said and believed. 

It is not to be supposed, that, by a father and a man of sense andobservation, the constant direction of the Laird's eyes towards Jeaniewas altogether unnoticed. This circumstance, however, made a much greaterimpression upon another member of his family, a second helpmate, to wit, whom he had chosen to take to his bosom ten years after the death of hisfirst. Some people were of opinion, that Douce Davie had been rathersurprised into this step, for, in general, he was no friend to marriagesor giving in marriage, and seemed rather to regard that state of societyas a necessary evil, --a thing lawful, and to be tolerated in theimperfect state of our nature, but which clipped the wings with which weought to soar upwards, and tethered the soul to its mansion of clay, andthe creature-comforts of wife and bairns. His own practice, however, hadin this material point varied from his principles, since, as we haveseen, he twice knitted for himself this dangerous and ensnaringentanglement. 

Rebecca, his spouse, had by no means the same horror of matrimony, and asshe made marriages in imagination for every neighbour round, she failednot to indicate a match betwixt Dumbiedikes and her step-daughter Jeanie. The goodman used regularly to frown and pshaw whenever this topic wastouched upon, but usually ended by taking his bonnet and walking out ofthe house, to conceal a certain gleam of satisfaction, which, at such asuggestion, involuntarily diffused itself over his austere features. 

The more youthful part of my readers may naturally ask, whether JeanieDeans was deserving of this mute attention of the Laird of Dumbiedikes;and the historian, with due regard to veracity, is compelled to answer, that her personal attractions were of no uncommon description. She wasshort, and rather too stoutly made for her size, had grey eyes, lightcoloured hair, a round good-humoured face, much tanned with the sun, andher only peculiar charm was an air of inexpressible serenity, which agood conscience, kind feelings, contented temper, and the regulardischarge of all her duties, spread over her features. There was nothing, it may be supposed, very appalling in the form or manners of this rusticheroine; yet, whether from sheepish bashfulness, or from want of decisionand imperfect knowledge of his own mind on the subject, the Laird ofDumbiedikes, with his old laced hat and empty tobacco-pipe, came andenjoyed the beatific vision of Jeanie Deans day after day, week afterweek, year after year, without proposing to accomplish any of theprophecies of the stepmother. 

This good lady began to grow doubly impatient on the subject, when, afterhaving been some years married, she herself presented Douce Davie withanother daughter, who was named Euphemia, by corruption, Effie. It wasthen that Rebecca began to turn impatient with the slow pace at which theLaird's wooing proceeded, judiciously arguing, that, as Lady Dumbiedikeswould have but little occasion for tocher, the principal part of hergudeman's substance would naturally descend to the child by the secondmarriage. Other step-dames have tried less laudable means for clearingthe way to the succession of their own children; but Rebecca, to do herjustice, only sought little Effie's advantage through the promotion, orwhich must have generally been accounted such, of her elder sister. Shetherefore tried every female art within the compass of her simple skill, to bring the Laird to a point; but had the mortification to perceive thather efforts, like those of an unskilful angler, only scared the trout shemeant to catch. Upon one occasion, in particular, when she joked with theLaird on the propriety of giving a mistress to the house of Dumbiedikes, he was so effectually startled, that neither laced hat, tobacco-pipe, northe intelligent proprietor of these movables, visited Woodend for afortnight. Rebecca was therefore compelled to leave the Laird to proceedat his own snail's pace, convinced, by experience, of the grave-digger'saphorism, that your dull ass will not mend his pace for beating. 

Reuben, in the meantime, pursued his studies at the university, supplyinghis wants by teaching the younger lads the knowledge he himself acquired, and thus at once gaining the means of maintaining himself at the seat oflearning, and fixing in his mind the elements of what he had alreadyobtained. In this manner, as is usual among the poorer students ofdivinity at Scottish universities, he contrived not only to maintainhimself according to his simple wants, but even to send considerableassistance to his sole remaining parent, a sacred duty, of which theScotch are seldom negligent. His progress in knowledge of a general kind, as well as in the studies proper to his profession, was veryconsiderable, but was little remarked, owing to the retired modesty ofhis disposition, which in no respect qualified him to set off hislearning to the best advantage. And thus, had Butler been a man given tomake complaints, he had his tale to tell, like others, of unjustpreferences, bad luck, and hard usage. On these subjects, however, he washabitually silent, perhaps from modesty, perhaps from a touch of pride, or perhaps from a conjunction of both. 

He obtained his license as a preacher of the gospel, with somecompliments from the Presbytery by whom it was bestowed; but this did notlead to any preferment, and he found it necessary to make the cottage atBeersheba his residence for some months, with no other income than wasafforded by the precarious occupation of teaching in one or other of theneighbouring families. After having greeted his aged grandmother, hisfirst visit was to Woodend, where he was received by Jeanie with warmcordiality, arising from recollections which had never been dismissedfrom her mind, by Rebecca with good-humoured hospitality, and by oldDeans in a mode peculiar to himself. 

Highly as Douce Davie honoured the clergy, it was not upon eachindividual of the cloth that he bestowed his approbation; and, a littlejealous, perhaps, at seeing his youthful acquaintance erected into thedignity of a teacher and preacher, he instantly attacked him upon variouspoints of controversy, in order to discover whether he might not havefallen into some of the snares, defections, and desertions of the time. Butler was not only a man of stanch Presbyterian principles, but was alsowilling to avoid giving pain to his old friend by disputing upon pointsof little importance; and therefore he might have hoped to have come likefine gold out of the furnace of Davie's interrogatories. But the resulton the mind of that strict investigator was not altogether so favourableas might have been hoped and anticipated. Old Judith Butler, who hadhobbled that evening as far as Woodend, in order to enjoy thecongratulations of her neighbours upon Reuben's return, and upon his highattainments, of which she was herself not a little proud, was somewhatmortified to find that her old friend Deans did not enter into thesubject with the warmth she expected. At first, in he seemed rathersilent than dissatisfied; and it was not till Judith had essayed thesubject more than once that it led to the following dialogue. 

"Aweel, neibor Deans, I thought ye wad hae been glad to see Reuben amangus again, poor fellow. "

"I _am_ glad, Mrs. Butler, " was the neighbour's concise answer. 

"Since he has lost his grandfather and his father (praised be Him thatgiveth and taketh!), I ken nae friend he has in the world that's been saelike a father to him as the sell o'ye, neibor Deans. "

"God is the only father of the fatherless, " said Deans, touching hisbonnet and looking upwards. "Give honour where it is due, gudewife, andnot to an unworthy instrument. "

"Aweel, that's your way o' turning it, and nae doubt ye ken best; but Ihae ken'd ye, Davie, send a forpit o' meal to Beersheba when there wasnaa bow left in the meal-ark at Woodend; ay, and I hae ken'd ye"

"Gudewife, " said Davie, interrupting her, "these are but idle tales totell me; fit for naething but to puff up our inward man wi' our ain vainacts. I stude beside blessed Alexander Peden, when I heard him call thedeath and testimony of our happy martyrs but draps of blude and scarts ofink in respect of fitting discharge of our duty; and what suld I think ofony thing the like of me can do?"

"Weel, neibor Deans, ye ken best; but I maun say that, I am sure you areglad to see my bairn again--the halt's gane now, unless he has to walkower mony miles at a stretch; and he has a wee bit colour in his cheek, that glads my auld een to see it; and he has as decent a black coat asthe minister; and"

"I am very heartily glad he is weel and thriving, " said Mr. Deans, with agravity that seemed intended to cut short the subject; but a woman who isbent upon a point is not easily pushed aside from it. 

"And, " continued Mrs. Butler, "he can wag his head in a pulpit now, neibor Deans, think but of that--my ain oe--and a'body maun sit still andlisten to him, as if he were the Paip of Rome. "

"The what?--the who?--woman!" said Deans, with a sternness far beyond hisusual gravity, as soon as these offensive words had struck upon thetympanum of his ear. 

"Eh, guide us!" said the poor woman; "I had forgot what an ill will yehad aye at the Paip, and sae had my puir gudeman, Stephen Butler. Mony anafternoon he wad sit and take up his testimony again the Paip, and againbaptizing of bairns, and the like. "

"Woman!" reiterated Deans, "either speak about what ye ken something o', or be silent; I say that independency is a foul heresy, and anabaptism adamnable and deceiving error, whilk suld be rooted out of the land wi'the fire o' the spiritual, and the sword o' the civil magistrate. "

"Weel, weel, neibor, I'll no say that ye mayna be right, " answered thesubmissive Judith. "I am sure ye are right about the sawing and themawing, the shearing and the leading, and what for suld ye no be rightabout kirkwark, too?--But concerning my oe, Reuben Butler"

"Reuben Butler, gudewife, " said David, with solemnity, "is a lad I wishheartily weel to, even as if he were mine ain son--but I doubt there willbe outs and ins in the track of his walk. I muckle fear his gifts willget the heels of his grace. He has ower muckle human wit and learning, and thinks as muckle about the form of the bicker as he does about thehealsomeness of the food--he maun broider the marriage-garment with laceand passments, or it's no gude eneugh for him. And it's like he'ssomething proud o' his human gifts and learning, whilk enables him todress up his doctrine in that fine airy dress. But, " added he, at seeingthe old woman's uneasiness at his discourse, "affliction may gie him ajagg, and let the wind out o' him, as out o' a cow that's eaten wetclover, and the lad may do weel, and be a burning and a shining light;and I trust it will be yours to see, and his to feel it, and that soon. "

Widow Butler was obliged to retire, unable to make anything more of herneighbour, whose discourse, though she did not comprehend it, filled herwith undefined apprehensions on her grandson's account, and greatlydepressed the joy with which she had welcomed him on his return. And itmust not be concealed, in justice to Mr. Deans's discernment, thatButler, in their conference, had made a greater display of his learningthan the occasion called for, or than was likely to be acceptable to theold man, who, accustomed to consider himself as a person preeminentlyentitled to dictate upon theological subjects of controversy, felt ratherhumbled and mortified when learned authorities were placed in arrayagainst him. In fact, Butler had not escaped the tinge of pedantry whichnaturally flowed from his education, and was apt, on many occasions, tomake parade of his knowledge, when there was no need of such vanity. 

Jeanie Deans, however, found no fault with this display of learning, but, on the contrary, admired it; perhaps on the same score that her sex aresaid to admire men of courage, on account of their own deficiency in thatqualification. The circumstances of their families threw the young peopleconstantly together; their old intimacy was renewed, though upon afooting better adapted to their age; and it became at length understoodbetwixt them, that their union should be deferred no longer than untilButler should obtain some steady means of support, however humble. This, however, was not a matter speedily to be accomplished. Plan after planwas formed, and plan after plan failed. The good-humoured cheek of Jeanielost the first flush of juvenile freshness; Reuben's brow assumed thegravity of manhood, yet the means of obtaining a settlement seemed remoteas ever. Fortunately for the lovers, their passion was of no ardent orenthusiastic cast; and a sense of duty on both sides induced them tobear, with patient fortitude, the protracted interval which divided themfrom each other. 

In the meanwhile, time did not roll on without effecting his usualchanges. The widow of Stephen Butler, so long the prop of the family ofBeersheba, was gathered to her fathers; and Rebecca, the careful spouseof our friend Davie Deans, wa's also summoned from her plans ofmatrimonial and domestic economy. The morning after her death, ReubenButler went to offer his mite of consolation to his old friend andbenefactor. He witnessed, on this occasion, a remarkable struggle betwixtthe force of natural affection and the religious stoicism which thesufferer thought it was incumbent upon him to maintain under each earthlydispensation, whether of weal or woe. 

On his arrival at the cottage, Jeanie, with her eyes overflowing withtears, pointed to the little orchard, "in which, " she whispered withbroken accents, "my poor father has been since his misfortune. " Somewhatalarmed at this account, Butler entered the orchard, and advanced slowlytowards his old friend, who, seated in a small rude arbour, appeared tobe sunk in the extremity of his affliction. He lifted his eyes somewhatsternly as Butler approached, as if offended at the interruption; but asthe young man hesitated whether he ought to retreat or advance, he arose, and came forward to meet him with a self-possessed, and even dignifiedair. 

"Young man, " said the sufferer, "lay it not to heart, though therighteous perish, and the merciful are removed, seeing, it may well besaid, that they are taken away from the evils to come. Woe to me were Ito shed a tear for the wife of my bosom, when I might weep rivers ofwater for this afflicted Church, cursed as it is with carnal seekers, andwith the dead of heart. "

"I am happy, " said Butler, "that you can forget your private afflictionin your regard for public duty. "

"Forget, Reuben?" said poor Deans, putting his handkerchief to hiseyes--"She's not to be forgotten on this side of time; but He that givesthe wound can send the ointment. I declare there have been times duringthis night when my meditation hae been so rapt, that I knew not of myheavy loss. It has been with me as with the worthy John Semple, calledCarspharn John, * upon a like trial--I have been this night on the banksof Ulai, plucking an apple here and there!"

* Note E. Carspharn John. 

Notwithstanding the assumed fortitude of Deans, which he conceived to bethe discharge of a great Christian duty, he had too good a heart not tosuffer deeply under this heavy loss. Woodend became altogetherdistasteful to him; and as he had obtained both substance and experienceby his management of that little farm, he resolved to employ them as adairy-farmer, or cowfeeder, as they are called in Scotland. The situationhe chose for his new settlement was at a place called Saint Leonard'sCrags, lying betwixt Edinburgh and the mountain called Arthur's Seat, andadjoining to the extensive sheep pasture still named the King's Park, from its having been formerly dedicated to the preservation of the royalgame. Here he rented a small lonely house, about half-a-mile distant fromthe nearest point of the city, but the site of which, with all theadjacent ground, is now occupied by the buildings which form thesoutheastern suburb. An extensive pasture-ground adjoining, which Deansrented from the keeper of the Royal Park, enabled him to feed hismilk-cows; and the unceasing industry and activity of Jeanie, his oldestdaughter, were exerted in making the most of their produce. 

She had now less frequent opportunities of seeing Reuben, who had beenobliged, after various disappointments, to accept the subordinatesituation of assistant in a parochial school of some eminence, at threeor four miles' distance from the city. Here he distinguished himself, andbecame acquainted with several respectable burgesses, who, on account ofhealth, or other reasons, chose that their children should commence theireducation in this little village. His prospects were thus graduallybrightening, and upon each visit which he paid at Saint Leonard's he hadan opportunity of gliding a hint to this purpose into Jeanie's ear. Thesevisits were necessarily very rare, on account of the demands which theduties of the school made upon Butler's time. Nor did he dare to makethem even altogether so frequent as these avocations would permit. Deansreceived him with civility indeed, and even with kindness; but Reuben, asis usual in such cases, imagined that he read his purpose in his eyes, and was afraid too premature an explanation on the subject would drawdown his positive disapproval. Upon the whole, therefore, he judged itprudent to call at Saint Leonard's just so frequently as old acquaintanceand neighbourhood seemed to authorise, and no oftener. There was anotherperson who was more regular in his visits. 

[Illustration: The Laird in Jeanie's Cottage--130]

When Davie Deans intimated to the Laird of Dumbiedikes his purpose of"quitting wi' the land and house at Woodend, " the Laird stared and saidnothing. He made his usual visits at the usual hour without remark, untilthe day before the term, when, observing the bustle of moving furniturealready commenced, the great east-country _awmrie_ dragged out of itsnook, and standing with its shoulder to the company, like an awkwardbooby about to leave the room, the Laird again stared mightily, and washeard to ejaculate, --"Hegh, sirs!" Even after the day of departure waspast and gone, the Laird of Dumbiedikes, at his usual hour, which wasthat at which David Deans was wont to "loose the pleugh, " presentedhimself before the closed door of the cottage at Woodend, and seemed asmuch astonished at finding it shut against his approach as if it was notexactly what he had to expect. On this occasion he was heard toejaculate, "Gude guide us!" which, by those who knew him, was consideredas a very unusual mark of emotion. From that moment forward Dumbiedikesbecame an altered man, and the regularity of his movements, hitherto soexemplary, was as totally disconcerted as those of a boy's watch when hehas broken the main-spring. Like the index of the said watch didDumbiedikes spin round the whole bounds of his little property, which maybe likened unto the dial of the timepiece, with unwonted velocity. Therewas not a cottage into which he did not enter, nor scarce a maiden onwhom he did not stare. But so it was, that although there were betterfarm-houses on the land than Woodend, and certainly much prettier girlsthan Jeanie Deans, yet it did somehow befall that the blank in theLaird's time was not so pleasantly filled up as it had been. There was noseat accommodated him so well as the "bunker" at Woodend, and no face heloved so much to gaze on as Jeanie Deans's. So, after spinning round andround his little orbit, and then remaining stationary for a week, itseems to have occurred to him that he was not pinned down to circulate ona pivot, like the hands of the watch, but possessed the power of shiftinghis central point, and extending his circle if he thought proper. Torealise which privilege of change of place, he bought a pony from aHighland drover, and with its assistance and company stepped, or ratherstumbled, as far as Saint Leonard's Crags. 

Jeanie Deans, though so much accustomed to the Laird's staring that shewas sometimes scarce conscious of his presence, had nevertheless someoccasional fears lest he should call in the organ of speech to back thoseexpressions of admiration which he bestowed on her through his eyes. Should this happen, farewell, she thought, to all chance of a union withButler. For her father, however stouthearted and independent in civil andreligious principles, was not without that respect for the laird of theland, so deeply imprinted on the Scottish tenantry of the period. Moreover, if he did not positively dislike Butler, yet his fund of carnallearning was often the object of sarcasms on David's part, which wereperhaps founded in jealousy, and which certainly indicated no partialityfor the party against whom they were launched. And lastly, the match withDumbiedikes would have presented irresistible charms to one who used tocomplain that he felt himself apt to take "ower grit an armfu' o' thewarld. " So that, upon the whole, the Laird's diurnal visits weredisagreeable to Jeanie from apprehension of future consequences, and itserved much to console her, upon removing from the spot where she wasbred and born, that she had seen the last of Dumbiedikes, his laced hat, and tobacco-pipe. The poor girl no more expected he could muster courageto follow her to Saint Leonard's Crags than that any of her apple-treesor cabbages which she had left rooted in the "yard" at Woodend, wouldspontaneously, and unaided, have undertaken the same journey. It wastherefore with much more surprise than pleasure that, on the sixth dayafter their removal to Saint Leonard's, she beheld Dumbiedikes arrive, laced hat, tobacco-pipe, and all, and, with the self-same greeting of"How's a' wi' ye, Jeanie?--Whare's the gudeman?" assume as nearly as hecould the same position in the cottage at Saint Leonard's which he had solong and so regularly occupied at Woodend. He was no sooner, however, seated, than with an unusual exertion of his powers of conversation, headded, "Jeanie--I say, Jeanie, woman"--here he extended his hand towardsher shoulder with all the fingers spread out as if to clutch it, but inso bashful and awkward a manner, that when she whisked herself beyond itsreach, the paw remained suspended in the air with the palm open, like theclaw of a heraldic griffin--"Jeanie, " continued the swain in this momentof inspiration--"I say, Jeanie, it's a braw day out-by, and the roads areno that ill for boot-hose. "

[Illustration: Jeanie--I say, Jeanie, woman--133

"The deil's in the daidling body, " muttered Jeanie between her teeth;"wha wad hae thought o' his daikering out this length?" And sheafterwards confessed that she threw a little of this ungracious sentimentinto her accent and manner; for her father being abroad, and the "body, "as she irreverently termed the landed proprietor, "looking unco gleg andcanty, she didna ken what he might be coming out wi' next. "

Her frowns, however, acted as a complete sedative, and the Laird relapsedfrom that day into his former taciturn habits, visiting the cowfeeder'scottage three or four times every week, when the weather permitted, withapparently no other purpose than to stare at Jeanie Deans, while DouceDavie poured forth his eloquence upon the controversies and testimoniesof the day. 

CHAPTER NINTH. 

 Her air, her manners, all who saw admired, Courteous, though coy, and gentle, though retired; The joy of youth and health her eyes displayed; And ease of heart her every look conveyed. Crabbe. 

The visits of the Laird thus again sunk into matters of ordinary course, from which nothing was to be expected or apprehended. If a lover couldhave gained a fair one as a snake is said to fascinate a bird, bypertinaciously gazing on her with great stupid greenish eyes, which begannow to be occasionally aided by spectacles, unquestionably Dumbiedikeswould have been the person to perform the feat. But the art offascination seems among the _artes perditae, _ and I cannot learn thatthis most pertinacious of starers produced any effect by his attentionsbeyond an occasional yawn. 

In the meanwhile, the object of his gaze was gradually attaining theverge of youth, and approaching to what is called in females the middleage, which is impolitely held to begin a few years earlier with theirmore fragile sex than with men. Many people would have been of opinion, that the Laird would have done better to have transferred his glances toan object possessed of far superior charms to Jeanie's, even whenJeanie's were in their bloom, who began now to be distinguished by allwho visited the cottage at St. Leonard's Crags. 

Effie Deans, under the tender and affectionate care of her sister, hadnow shot up into a beautiful and blooming girl. Her Grecian shaped headwas profusely rich in waving ringlets of brown hair, which, confined by ablue snood of silk, and shading a laughing Hebe countenance, seemed thepicture of health, pleasure, and contentment. Her brown russet short-gownset off a shape, which time, perhaps, might be expected to render toorobust, the frequent objection to Scottish beauty, but which, in herpresent early age, was slender and taper, with that graceful and easysweep of outline which at once indicates health and beautiful proportionof parts. 

These growing charms, in all their juvenile profusion, had no power toshake the steadfast mind, or divert the fixed gaze of the constant Lairdof Dumbiedikes. But there was scarce another eye that could behold thisliving picture of health and beauty, without pausing on it with pleasure. The traveller stopped his weary horse on the eve of entering the citywhich was the end of his journey, to gaze at the sylph-like form thattripped by him, with her milk-pail poised on her head, bearing herself soerect, and stepping so light and free under her burden, that it seemedrather an ornament than an encumbrance. The lads of the neighbouringsuburb, who held their evening rendezvous for putting the stone, castingthe hammer, playing at long bowls, and other athletic exercises, watchedthe motions of Effie Deans, and contended with each other which shouldhave the good fortune to attract her attention. Even the rigidPresbyterians of her father's persuasion, who held each indulgence of theeye and sense to be a snare at least if not a crime, were surprised intoa moment's delight while gazing on a creature so exquisite, --instantlychecked by a sigh, reproaching at once their own weakness, and mourningthat a creature so fair should share in the common and hereditary guiltand imperfection of our nature, which she deserved as much by herguileless purity of thought, speech, and action, as by her uncommonloveliness of face and person. 

Yet there were points in Effie's character which gave rise not only tostrange doubt and anxiety on the part of Douce David Deans, whose ideaswere rigid, as may easily be supposed, upon the subject of youthfulamusements, but even of serious apprehension to her more indulgentsister. The children of the Scotch of the inferior classes are usuallyspoiled by the early indulgence of their parents; how, wherefore, and towhat degree, the lively and instructive narrative of the amiable andaccomplished authoress of "Glenburnie"* has saved me and all futurescribblers the trouble of recording. 

* [The late Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton. ]

Effie had had a double share of this inconsiderate and misjudgedkindness. Even the strictness of her father's principles could notcondemn the sports of infancy and childhood; and to the good old man, hisyounger daughter, the child of his old age, seemed a child for some yearsafter she attained the years of womanhood, was still called the "bitlassie, " and "little Effie, " and was permitted to run up and downuncontrolled, unless upon the Sabbath, or at the times of family worship. Her sister, with all the love and care of a mother, could not be supposedto possess the same authoritative influence; and that which she hadhitherto exercised became gradually limited and diminished as Effie'sadvancing years entitled her, in her own conceit at least, to the rightof independence and free agency. With all the innocence and goodness ofdisposition, therefore, which we have described, the Lily of St. Leonard's possessed a little fund of self-conceit and obstinacy, and somewarmth and irritability of temper, partly natural perhaps, but certainlymuch increased by the unrestrained freedom of her childhood. Hercharacter will be best illustrated by a cottage evening scene. 

The careful father was absent in his well-stocked byre, foddering thoseuseful and patient animals on whose produce his living depended, and thesummer evening was beginning to close in, when Jeanie Deans began to bevery anxious for the appearance of her sister, and to fear that she wouldnot reach home before her father returned from the labour of the evening, when it was his custom to have "family exercise, " and when she knew thatEffie's absence would give him the most serious displeasure. Theseapprehensions hung heavier upon her mind, because, for several precedingevenings, Effie had disappeared about the same time, and her stay, atfirst so brief as scarce to be noticed, had been gradually protracted tohalf-an-hour, and an hour, and on the present occasion had considerablyexceeded even this last limit. And now, Jeanie stood at the door, withher hand before her eyes to avoid the rays of the level sun, and lookedalternately along the various tracks which led towards their dwelling, tosee if she could descry the nymph-like form of her sister. There was awall and a stile which separated the royal domain, or King's Park, as itis called, from the public road; to this pass she frequently directed herattention, when she saw two persons appear there somewhat suddenly, as ifthey had walked close by the side of the wall to screen themselves fromobservation. One of them, a man, drew back hastily; the other, a female, crossed the stile, and advanced towards her--It was Effie. She met hersister with that affected liveliness of manner, which, in her rank, andsometimes in those above it, females occasionally assume to hide surpriseor confusion; and she carolled as she came--

 "The elfin knight sate on the brae, The broom grows bonny, the broom grows fair; And by there came lilting a lady so gay, And we daurna gang down to the broom nae mair. "

"Whisht, Effie, " said her sister; "our father's coming out o' the byre. "--The damsel stinted in her song. --"Whare hae ye been sae late at e'en?"

"It's no late, lass, " answered Effie. 

"It's chappit eight on every clock o' the town, and the sun's gaun downahint the Corstorphine hills--Whare can ye hae been sae late?"

"Nae gate, " answered Effie. 

"And wha was that parted wi' you at the stile?"

"Naebody, " replied Effie once more. 

"Nae gate?--Naebody?--I wish it may be a right gate, and a right body, that keeps folk out sae late at e'en, Effie. "

"What needs ye be aye speering then at folk?" retorted Effie. "I'm sure, if ye'll ask nae questions, I'll tell ye nae lees. I never ask whatbrings the Laird of Dumbiedikes glowering here like a wull-cat (only hiseen's greener, and no sae gleg), day after day, till we are a' like togaunt our charts aft. "

"Because ye ken very weel he comes to see our father, " said Jeanie, inanswer to this pert remark. 

"And Dominie Butler--Does he come to see our father, that's sae taen wi'his Latin words?" said Effie, delighted to find that by carrying the warinto the enemy's country, she could divert the threatened attack uponherself, and with the petulance of youth she pursued her triumph over herprudent elder sister. She looked at her with a sly air, in which therewas something like irony, as she chanted, in a low but marked tone, ascrap of an old Scotch song--

 "Through the kirkyard I met wi' the Laird, The silly puir body he said me nae harm; But just ere 'twas dark, I met wi' the clerk"

Here the songstress stopped, looked full at her sister, and, observingthe tears gather in her eyes, she suddenly flung her arms round her neck, and kissed them away. Jeanie, though hurt and displeased, was unable toresist the caresses of this untaught child of nature, whose good and evilseemed to flow rather from impulse than from reflection. But as shereturned the sisterly kiss, in token of perfect reconciliation, she couldnot suppress the gentle reproof--"Effie, if ye will learn fule sangs, yemight make a kinder use of them. "

"And so I might, Jeanie, " continued the girl, clinging to her sister'sneck; "and I wish I had never learned ane o' them--and I wish we hadnever come here--and I wish my tongue had been blistered or I had vexedye. "

"Never mind that, Effie, " replied the affectionate sister; "I canna bemuckle vexed wi' ony thing ye say to me--but O, dinna vex our father!"

"I will not--I will not, " replied Effie; "and if there were as monydances the morn's night as there are merry dancers in the north firmamenton a frosty e'en, I winna budge an inch to gang near ane o' them. "

"Dance!" echoed Jeanie Deans in astonishment. "O Effie, what could takeye to a dance?"

It is very possible, that, in the communicative mood into which the Lilyof St. Leonard's was now surprised, she might have given her sister herunreserved confidence, and saved me the pain of telling a melancholytale; but at the moment the word dance was uttered, it reached the ear ofold David Deans, who had turned the corner of the house, and came uponhis daughters ere they were aware of his presence. The word _prelate, _ oreven the word _pope, _ could hardly have produced so appalling an effectupon David's ear; for, of all exercises, that of dancing, which he termeda voluntary and regular fit of distraction, he deemed most destructive ofserious thoughts, and the readiest inlet to all sorts of licentiousness;and he accounted the encouraging, and even permitting, assemblies ormeetings, whether among those of high or low degree, for this fantasticand absurd purpose, or for that of dramatic representations, as one ofthe most flagrant proofs of defection and causes of wrath. Thepronouncing of the word _dance_ by his own daughters, and at his owndoor, now drove him beyond the verge of patience. "Dance!" he exclaimed. "Dance!--dance, said ye? I daur ye, limmers that ye are, to name sic aword at my door-cheek! It's a dissolute profane pastime, practised by theIsraelites only at their base and brutal worship of the Golden Calf atBethel, and by the unhappy lass wha danced aff the head of John theBaptist, upon whilk chapter I will exercise this night for your fartherinstruction, since ye need it sae muckle, nothing doubting that she hascause to rue the day, lang or this time, that e'er she suld hae shook alimb on sic an errand. Better for her to hae been born a cripple, andcarried frae door to door, like auld Bessie Bowie, begging bawbees, thanto be a king's daughter, fiddling and flinging the gate she did. I haeoften wondered that ony ane that ever bent a knee for the right purpose, should ever daur to crook a hough to fyke and fling at piper's wind andfiddler's squealing. And I bless God (with that singular worthy, PeterWalker the packman at Bristo-Port), * that ordered my lot in my dancingdays, so that fear of my head and throat, dread of bloody rope and swiftbullet, and trenchant swords and pain of boots and thumkins, cauld andhunger, wetness and weariness, stopped the lightness of my head, and thewantonness of my feet. 

* Note F. Peter Walker. 

And now, if I hear ye, quean lassies, sae muckle as name dancing, orthink there's sic a thing in this warld as flinging to fiddler's sounds, and piper's springs, as sure as my father's spirit is with the just, yeshall be no more either charge or concern of mine! Gang in, then--gangin, then, hinnies, " he added, in a softer tone, for the tears of bothdaughters, but especially those of Effie, began to flow very fast, --"Gangin, dears, and we'll seek grace to preserve us frae all, manner ofprofane folly, whilk causeth to sin, and promoteth the kingdom ofdarkness, warring with the kingdom of light. "

The objurgation of David Deans, however well meant, was unhappily timed. It created a division of feelings in Effie's bosom, and deterred her fromher intended confidence in her sister. "She wad hand me nae better thanthe dirt below her feet, " said Effie to herself, "were I to confess I haedanced wi' him four times on the green down by, and ance at MaggieMacqueens's; and she'll maybe hing it ower my head that she'll tell myfather, and then she wad be mistress and mair. But I'll no gang backthere again. I'm resolved I'll no gang back. I'll lay in a leaf of myBible, * and that's very near as if I had made an aith, that I winna gangback. "

* This custom of making a mark by folding a leaf in the party's Bible, when a solemn resolution is formed, is still held to be, in some sense, an appeal to Heaven for his or her sincerity. 

And she kept her vow for a week, during which she was unusually cross andfretful, blemishes which had never before been observed in her temper, except during a moment of contradiction. 

There was something in all this so mysterious as considerably to alarmthe prudent and affectionate Jeanie, the more so as she judged it unkindto her sister to mention to their father grounds of anxiety which mightarise from her own imagination. Besides, her respect for the good old mandid not prevent her from being aware that he was both hot-tempered andpositive, and she sometimes suspected that he carried his dislike toyouthful amusements beyond the verge that religion and reason demanded. Jeanie had sense enough to see that a sudden and severe curb upon hersister's hitherto unrestrained freedom might be rather productive of harmthan good, and that Effie, in the headstrong wilfulness of youth, waslikely to make what might be overstrained in her father's precepts anexcuse to herself for neglecting them altogether. In the higher classes, a damsel, however giddy, is still under the dominion of etiquette, andsubject to the surveillance of mammas and chaperons; but the countrygirl, who snatches her moment of gaiety during the intervals of labour, is under no such guardianship or restraint, and her amusement becomes somuch the more hazardous. Jeanie saw all this with much distress of mind, when a circumstance occurred which appeared calculated to relieve heranxiety. 

Mrs. Saddletree, with whom our readers have already been made acquainted, chanced to be a distant relation of Douce David Deans, and as she was awoman orderly in her life and conversation, and, moreover, of goodsubstance, a sort of acquaintance was formally kept up between thefamilies. Now, this careful dame, about a year and a half before ourstory commences, chanced to need, in the line of her profession, a bettersort of servant, or rather shop-woman. "Mr. Saddletree, " she said, "wasnever in the shop when he could get his nose within the Parliament House, and it was an awkward thing for a woman-body to be standing among bundleso' barkened leather her lane, selling saddles and bridles; and she hadcast her eyes upon her far-awa cousin Effie Deans, as just the very sortof lassie she would want to keep her in countenance on such occasions. "

In this proposal there was much that pleased old David, --there was bed, board, and bountith--it was a decent situation--the lassie would be underMrs. Saddletree's eye, who had an upright walk, and lived close by theTolbooth Kirk, in which might still be heard the comforting doctrines ofone of those few ministers of the Kirk of Scotland who had not bent theknee unto Baal, according to David's expression, or become accessory tothe course of national defections, --union, toleration, patronages, and abundle of prelatical Erastian oaths which had been imposed on the churchsince the Revolution, and particularly in the reign of "the late woman"(as he called Queen Anne), the last of that unhappy race of Stuarts. Inthe good man's security concerning the soundness of the theologicaldoctrine which his daughter was to hear, he was nothing disturbed onaccount of the snares of a different kind, to which a creature sobeautiful, young, and wilful, might be exposed in the centre of apopulous and corrupted city. The fact is, that he thought with so muchhorror on all approaches to irregularities of the nature most to bedreaded in such cases, that he would as soon have suspected and guardedagainst Effie's being induced to become guilty of the crime of murder. Heonly regretted that she should live under the same roof with such aworldly-wise man as Bartoline Saddletree, whom David never suspected ofbeing an ass as he was, but considered as one really endowed with all thelegal knowledge to which he made pretension, and only liked him the worsefor possessing it. The lawyers, especially those amongst them who sate asruling elders in the General Assembly of the Kirk, had been forward inpromoting the measures of patronage, of the abjuration oath, and others, which, in the opinion of David Deans, were a breaking down of the carvedwork of the sanctuary, and an intrusion upon the liberties of the kirk. Upon the dangers of listening to the doctrines of a legalised formalist, such as Saddletree, David gave his daughter many lectures; so much so, that he had time to touch but slightly on the dangers of chambering, company-keeping, and promiscuous dancing, to which, at her time of life, most people would have thought Effie more exposed, than to the risk oftheoretical error in her religious faith. 

Jeanie parted from her sister with a mixed feeling of regret, andapprehension, and hope. She could not be so confident concerning Effie'sprudence as her father, for she had observed her more narrowly, had moresympathy with her feelings, and could better estimate the temptations towhich she was exposed. On the other hand, Mrs. Saddletree was anobserving, shrewd, notable woman, entitled to exercise over Effie thefull authority of a mistress, and likely to do so strictly, yet withkindness. Her removal to Saddletree's, it was most probable, would alsoserve to break off some idle acquaintances, which Jeanie suspected hersister to have formed in the neighbouring suburb. Upon the whole, then, she viewed her departure from Saint Leonard's with pleasure, and it wasnot until the very moment of their parting for the first time in theirlives, that she felt the full force of sisterly sorrow. While theyrepeatedly kissed each other's cheeks, and wrung each other's hands, Jeanie took that moment of affectionate sympathy, to press upon hersister the necessity of the utmost caution in her conduct while residingin Edinburgh. Effie listened, without once raising her large darkeyelashes, from which the drops fell so fast as almost to resemble afountain. At the conclusion she sobbed again, kissed her sister, promisedto recollect all the good counsel she had given her, and they parted. 

During the first weeks, Effie was all that her kinswoman expected, andeven more. But with time there came a relaxation of that early zeal whichshe manifested in Mrs. Saddletree's service. To borrow once again fromthe poet, who so correctly and beautifully describes living manners:--

 Something there was, --what, none presumed to say, -- Clouds lightly passing on a summer's day; Whispers and hints, which went from ear to ear, And mixed reports no judge on earth could clear. 

During this interval, Mrs. Saddletree was sometimes displeased by Effie'slingering when she was sent upon errands about the shop business, andsometimes by a little degree of impatience which she manifested at beingrebuked on such occasions. But she good-naturedly allowed, that the firstwas very natural to a girl to whom everything in Edinburgh was new andthe other was only the petulance of a spoiled child, when subjected tothe yoke of domestic discipline for the first time. Attention andsubmission could not be learned at once--Holyrood was not built in aday--use would make perfect. 

It seemed as if the considerate old lady had presaged truly. Ere manymonths had passed, Effie became almost wedded to her duties, though sheno longer discharged them with the laughing cheek and light step, whichhad at first attracted every customer. Her mistress sometimes observedher in tears, but they were signs of secret sorrow, which she concealedas often as she saw them attract notice. Time wore on, her cheek grewpale, and her step heavy. The cause of these changes could not haveescaped the matronly eye of Mrs. Saddletree, but she was chiefly confinedby indisposition to her bedroom for a considerable time during the latterpart of Effie's service. This interval was marked by symptoms of anguishalmost amounting to despair. The utmost efforts of the poor girl tocommand her fits of hysterical agony were, often totally unavailing, andthe mistakes which she made in the shop the while, were so numerous andso provoking that Bartoline Saddletree, who, during his wife's illness, was obliged to take closer charge of the business than consisted with hisstudy of the weightier matters of the law, lost all patience with thegirl, who, in his law Latin, and without much respect to gender, hedeclared ought to be cognosced by inquest of a jury, as _fatuus, furiosus, _ and _naturaliter idiota. _ Neighbours, also, andfellow-servants, remarked with malicious curiosity or degrading pity, thedisfigured shape, loose dress, and pale cheeks, of the once beautiful andstill interesting girl. But to no one would she grant her confidence, answering all taunts with bitter sarcasm, and all serious expostulationwith sullen denial, or with floods of tears. 

At length, when Mrs. Saddletree's recovery was likely to permit herwonted attention to the regulation of her household, Effie Deans, as ifunwilling to face an investigation made by the authority of her mistress, asked permission of Bartoline to go home for a week or two, assigningindisposition, and the wish of trying the benefit of repose and thechange of air, as the motives of her request. Sharp-eyed as a lynx (orconceiving himself to be so) in the nice sharp quillits of legaldiscussion, Bartoline was as dull at drawing inferences from theoccurrences of common life as any Dutch professor of mathematics. Hesuffered Effie to depart without much suspicion, and without any inquiry. 

It was afterwards found that a period of a week intervened betwixt herleaving her master's house and arriving at St. Leonard's. She made herappearance before her sister in a state rather resembling the spectrethan the living substance of the gay and beautiful girl, who had left herfather's cottage for the first time scarce seventeen months before. Thelingering illness of her mistress had, for the last few months, given hera plea for confining herself entirely to the dusky precincts of the shopin the Lawnmarket, and Jeanie was so much occupied, during the sameperiod, with the concerns of her father's household, that she had rarelyfound leisure for a walk in the city, and a brief and hurried visit toher sister. The young women, therefore, had scarcely seen each other forseveral months, nor had a single scandalous surmise reached the ears ofthe secluded inhabitants of the cottage at St. Leonard's. Jeanie, therefore, terrified to death at her sister's appearance, at firstoverwhelmed her with inquiries, to which the unfortunate young womanreturned for a time incoherent and rambling answers, and finally fellinto a hysterical fit. Rendered too certain of her sister's misfortune, Jeanie had now the dreadful alternative of communicating her ruin to herfather, or of endeavouring to conceal it from him. To all questionsconcerning the name or rank of her seducer, and the fate of the being towhom her fall had given birth, Effie remained as mute as the grave, towhich she seemed hastening; and indeed the least allusion to eitherseemed to drive her to distraction. Her sister, in distress and indespair, was about to repair to Mrs. Saddletree to consult herexperience, and at the same time to obtain what lights she could uponthis most unhappy affair, when she was saved that trouble by a new strokeof fate, which seemed to carry misfortune to the uttermost. 

David Deans had been alarmed at the state of health in which his daughterhad returned to her paternal residence; but Jeanie had contrived todivert him from particular and specific inquiry. It was therefore like aclap of thunder to the poor old man, when, just as the hour of noon hadbrought the visit of the Laird of Dumbiedikes as usual, other andsterner, as well as most unexpected guests, arrived at the cottage of St. Leonard's. These were the officers of justice, with a warrant ofjusticiary to search for and apprehend Euphemia, or Effie Deans, accusedof the crime of child-murder. The stunning weight of a blow so totallyunexpected bore down the old man, who had in his early youth resisted thebrow of military and civil tyranny, though backed with swords and guns, tortures and gibbets. He fell extended and senseless upon his own hearth;and the men, happy to escape from the scene of his awakening, raised, with rude humanity, the object of their warrant from her bed, and placedher in a coach, which they had brought with them. The hasty remedieswhich Jeanie had applied to bring back her father's senses were scarcebegun to operate, when the noise of the wheels in motion recalled herattention to her miserable sister. To ran shrieking after the carriagewas the first vain effort of her distraction, but she was stopped by oneor two female neighbours, assembled by the extraordinary appearance of acoach in that sequestered place, who almost forced her back to herfather's house. The deep and sympathetic affliction of these poor people, by whom the little family at St. Leonard's were held in high regard, filled the house with lamentation. Even Dumbiedikes was moved from hiswonted apathy, and, groping for his purse as he spoke, ejaculated, "Jeanie, woman!--Jeanie, woman! dinna greet--it's sad wark, but sillerwill help it;" and he drew out his purse as he spoke. 

The old man had now raised himself from the ground, and, looking abouthim as if he missed something, seemed gradually to recover the sense ofhis wretchedness. "Where, " he said, with a voice that made the roof ring, "where is the vile harlot, that has disgraced the blood of an honestman?--Where is she, that has no place among us, but has come foul withher sins, like the Evil One, among the children of God?--Where is she, Jeanie?--Bring her before me, that I may kill her with a word and alook!"

All hastened around him with their appropriate sources ofconsolation--the Laird with his purse, Jeanie with burnt feathers andstrong waters, and the women with their exhortations. "O neighbour--OMr. Deans, it's a sair trial, doubtless--but think of the Rock of Ages, neighbour--think of the promise!"

"And I do think of it, neighbours--and I bless God that I can think ofit, even in the wrack and ruin of a' that's nearest and dearest tome--But to be the father of a castaway--a profligate--a bloodyZipporah--a mere murderess!--O, how will the wicked exult in the highplaces of their wickedness!--the prelatists, and the latitudinarians, and the hand-waled murderers, whose hands are hard as horn wi' handingthe slaughter-weapons--they will push out the lip, and say that we areeven such as themselves. Sair, sair I am grieved, neighbours, for thepoor castaway--for the child of mine old age--but sairer for thestumbling-block and scandal it will be to all tender and honest souls!"

"Davie--winna siller do't?" insinuated the laird, still proffering hisgreen purse, which was full of guineas. 

"I tell ye, Dumbiedikes, " said Deans, "that if telling down my haillsubstance could hae saved her frae this black snare, I wad hae walked outwi' naething but my bonnet and my staff to beg an awmous for God's sake, and ca'd mysell an happy man--But if a dollar, or a plack, or thenineteenth part of a boddle, wad save her open guilt and open shame fraeopen punishment, that purchase wad David Deans never make!--Na, na; aneye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, life for life, blood for blood--it'sthe law of man, and it's the law of God. --Leave me, sirs--leave me--Imaun warstle wi' this trial in privacy and on my knees. "

Jeanie, now in some degree restored to the power of thought, joined inthe same request. The next day found the father and daughter still in thedepth of affliction, but the father sternly supporting his load of illthrough a proud sense of religious duty, and the daughter anxiouslysuppressing her own feelings to avoid again awakening his. Thus was itwith the afflicted family until the morning after Porteous's death, aperiod at which we are now arrived. 

CHAPTER TENTH. 

 Is all the counsel that we two have shared, The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent When we have chid the hasty-footed time For parting us--Oh!--and is all forgot? Midsummer Night's Dream. 

We have been a long while in conducting Butler to the door of the cottageat St. Leonard's; yet the space which we have occupied in the precedingnarrative does not exceed in length that which he actually spent onSalisbury Crags on the morning which succeeded the execution done uponPorteous by the rioters. For this delay he had his own motives. He wishedto collect his thoughts, strangely agitated as they were, first by themelancholy news of Effie Deans's situation, and afterwards by thefrightful scene which he had witnessed. In the situation also in which hestood with respect to Jeanie and her father, some ceremony, at least somechoice of fitting time and season, was necessary to wait upon them. Eightin the morning was then the ordinary hour for breakfast, and he resolvedthat it should arrive before he made his appearance in their cottage. 

Never did hours pass so heavily. Butler shifted his place and enlargedhis circle to while away the time, and heard the huge bell of St. Giles'stoll each successive hour in swelling tones, which were instantlyattested by those of the other steeples in succession. He had heard sevenstruck in this manner, when he began to think he might venture toapproach nearer to St. Leonard's, from which he was still a mile distant. Accordingly he descended from his lofty station as low as the bottom ofthe valley, which divides Salisbury Crags from those small rocks whichtake their name from Saint Leonard. It is, as many of my readers mayknow, a deep, wild, grassy valley, scattered with huge rocks andfragments which have descended from the cliffs and steep ascent to theeast. 

This sequestered dell, as well as other places of the open pasturage ofthe King's Park, was, about this time, often the resort of the gallantsof the time who had affairs of honour to discuss with the sword. Duelswere then very common in Scotland, for the gentry were at once idle, haughty, fierce, divided by faction, and addicted to intemperance, sothat there lacked neither provocation, nor inclination to resent it whengiven; and the sword, which was part of every gentleman's dress, was theonly weapon used for the decision of such differences. When, therefore, Butler observed a young man, skulking, apparently to avoid observation, among the scattered rocks at some distance from the footpath, he wasnaturally led to suppose that he had sought this lonely spot upon thatevil errand. He was so strongly impressed with this, that, notwithstanding his own distress of mind, he could not, according to hissense of duty as a clergyman, pass this person without speaking to him. There are times, thought he to himself, when the slightest interferencemay avert a great calamity--when a word spoken in season may do more forprevention than the eloquence of Tully could do for remedying evil--Andfor my own griefs, be they as they may, I shall feel them the lighter, ifthey divert me not from the prosecution of my duty. 

Thus thinking and feeling, he quitted the ordinary path, and advancednearer the object he had noticed. The man at first directed his coursetowards the hill, in order, as it appeared, to avoid him; but when he sawthat Butler seemed disposed to follow him, he adjusted his hat fiercely, turned round, and came forward, as if to meet and defy scrutiny. 

Butler had an opportunity of accurately studying his features as theyadvanced slowly to meet each other. The stranger seemed about twenty-fiveyears old. His dress was of a kind which could hardly be said to indicatehis rank with certainty, for it was such as young gentlemen sometimeswore while on active exercise in the morning, and which, therefore, wasimitated by those of the inferior ranks, as young clerks and tradesmen, because its cheapness rendered it attainable, while it approached morenearly to the apparel of youths of fashion than any other which themanners of the times permitted them to wear. If his air and manner couldbe trusted, however, this person seemed rather to be dressed under thanabove his rank; for his carriage was bold and somewhat supercilious, hisstep easy and free, his manner daring and unconstrained. His stature wasof the middle size, or rather above it, his limbs well-proportioned, yetnot so strong as to infer the reproach of clumsiness. His features wereuncommonly handsome, and all about him would have been interesting andprepossessing but for that indescribable expression which habitualdissipation gives to the countenance, joined with a certain audacity inlook and manner, of that kind which is often assumed as a mask forconfusion and apprehension. 

Butler and the stranger met--surveyed each other--when, as the latter, slightly touching his hat, was about to pass by him, Butler, while hereturned the salutation, observed, "A fine morning, sir--You are on thehill early. "

"I have business here, " said the young man, in a tone meant to repressfarther inquiry. 

"I do not doubt it, sir, " said Butler. "I trust you will forgive myhoping that it is of a lawful kind?"

"Sir, " said the other, with marked surprise, "I never forgiveimpertinence, nor can I conceive what title you have to hope anythingabout what no way concerns you. "

"I am a soldier, sir, " said Butler, "and have a charge to arrestevil-doers in the name of my Master. "

"A soldier!" said the young man, stepping back, and fiercely laying hishand on his sword--"A soldier, and arrest me! Did you reckon what yourlife was worth, before you took the commission upon you?"

"You mistake me, sir, " said Butler, gravely; "neither my warfare nor mywarrant are of this world. I am a preacher of the gospel, and have power, in my Master's name, to command the peace upon earth and good-willtowards men, which was proclaimed with the gospel. "

"A minister!" said the stranger, carelessly, and with an expressionapproaching to scorn. "I know the gentlemen of your cloth in Scotlandclaim a strange right of intermeddling with men's private affairs. But Ihave been abroad, and know better than to be priest-ridden. "

"Sir, if it be true that any of my cloth, or, it might be more decentlysaid, of my calling, interfere with men's private affairs, for thegratification either of idle curiosity, or for worse motives, you cannothave learned a better lesson abroad than to contemn such practices. Butin my Master's work, I am called to be busy in season and out of season;and, conscious as I am of a pure motive, it were better for me to incuryour contempt for speaking, than the correction of my own conscience forbeing silent. "

"In the name of the devil!" said the young man impatiently, "say what youhave to say, then; though whom you take me for, or what earthly concernyou have with me, a stranger to you, or with my actions and motives, ofwhich you can know nothing, I cannot conjecture for an instant. "

"You are about, " said Butler, "to violate one of your country's wisestlaws--you are about, which is much more dreadful, to violate a law, whichGod himself has implanted within our nature, and written as it were, inthe table of our hearts, to which every thrill of our nerves isresponsive. "

"And what is the law you speak of?" said the stranger, in a hollow andsomewhat disturbed accent. 

"Thou shalt do no murder, " said Butler, with a deep and solemn voice. 

The young man visibly started, and looked considerably appalled. Butlerperceived he had made a favourable impression, and resolved to follow itup. "Think, " he said, "young man, " laying his hand kindly upon thestranger's shoulder, "what an awful alternative you voluntarily choosefor yourself, to kill or be killed. Think what it is to rush uncalledinto the presence of an offended Deity, your heart fermenting with evilpassions, your hand hot from the steel you had been urging, with yourbest skill and malice, against the breast of a fellow-creature. Or, suppose yourself the scarce less wretched survivor, with the guilt ofCain, the first murderer, in your heart, with the stamp upon yourbrow--that stamp which struck all who gazed on him with unutterablehorror, and by which the murderer is made manifest to all who look uponhim. Think"

The stranger gradually withdrew himself from under the hand of hismonitor; and, pulling his hat over his brows, thus interrupted him. "Yourmeaning, sir, I dare say, is excellent, but you are throwing your adviceaway. I am not in this place with violent intentions against any one. Imay be bad enough--you priests say all men are so--but I am here for thepurpose of saving life, not of taking it away. If you wish to spend yourtime rather in doing a good action than in talking about you know notwhat, I will give you an opportunity. Do you see yonder crag to theright, over which appears the chimney of a lone house? Go thither, inquire for one Jeanie Deans, the daughter of the goodman; let her knowthat he she wots of remained here from daybreak till this hour, expectingto see her, and that he can abide no longer. Tell her, she _must_ meet meat the Hunter's Bog to-night, as the moon rises behind St. Anthony'sHill, or that she will make a desperate man of me. "

"Who or what are you, " replied Butler, exceedingly and most unpleasantlysurprised, "who charge me with such an errand?"

"I am the devil!"--answered the young man hastily. 

Butler stepped instinctively back, and commanded himself internally toHeaven; for, though a wise and strong-minded man, he was neither wisernor more strong-minded than those of his age and education, with whom, todisbelieve witchcraft or spectres, was held an undeniable proof ofatheism. 

The stranger went on without observing his emotion. "Yes! call meApollyon, Abaddon, whatever name you shall choose, as a clergymanacquainted with the upper and lower circles of spiritual denomination, tocall me by, you shall not find an appellation more odious to him thatbears it, than is mine own. "

This sentence was spoken with the bitterness of self-upbraiding, and acontortion of visage absolutely demoniacal. Butler, though a man brave byprinciple, if not by constitution, was overawed; for intensity of mentaldistress has in it a sort of sublimity which repels and overawes all men, but especially those of kind and sympathetic dispositions. The strangerturned abruptly from Butler as he spoke, but instantly returned, and, coming up to him closely and boldly, said, in a fierce, determined tone, "I have told you who and what I am--who and what are you? What is yourname?"

"Butler, " answered the person to whom this abrupt question was addressed, surprised into answering it by the sudden and fierce manner of thequerist--"Reuben Butler, a preacher of the gospel. "

At this answer, the stranger again plucked more deep over his brows thehat which he had thrown back in his former agitation. "Butler!" herepeated--"the assistant of the schoolmaster at Liberton?"

"The same, " answered Butler composedly. 

The stranger covered his face with his hand, as if on sudden reflection, and then turned away, but stopped when he had walked a few paces; andseeing Butler follow him with his eyes, called out in a stern yetsuppressed tone, just as if he had exactly calculated that his accentsshould not be heard a yard beyond the spot on which Butler stood. "Goyour way, and do mine errand. Do not look after me. I will neitherdescend through the bowels of these rocks, nor vanish in a flash of fire;and yet the eye that seeks to trace my motions shall have reason to curseit was ever shrouded by eyelid or eyelash. Begone, and look not behindyou. Tell Jeanie Deans, that when the moon rises I shall expect to meether at Nicol Muschat's Cairn, beneath Saint Anthony's Chapel. "

[Illustration: St. Anthony's Chapel--159]

As he uttered these words, he turned and took the road against the hill, with a haste that seemed as peremptory as his tone of authority. 

Dreading he knew not what of additional misery to a lot which seemedlittle capable of receiving augmentation, and desperate at the idea thatany living man should dare to send so extraordinary a request, couched interms so imperious, to the half-betrothed object of his early and onlyaffection, Butler strode hastily towards the cottage, in order toascertain how far this daring and rude gallant was actually entitled topress on Jeanie Deans a request, which no prudent, and scarce any modestyoung woman, was likely to comply with. 

Butler was by nature neither jealous nor superstitious; yet the feelingswhich lead to those moods of the mind were rooted in his heart, as aportion derived from the common stock of humanity. It was maddening tothink that a profligate gallant, such as the manner and tone of thestranger evinced him to be, should have it in his power to command forthhis future bride and plighted true love, at a place so improper, and anhour so unseasonable. Yet the tone in which the stranger spoke hadnothing of the soft half-breathed voice proper to the seducer whosolicits an assignation; it was bold, fierce, and imperative, and hadless of love in it than of menace and intimidation. 

The suggestions of superstition seemed more plausible, had Butler's mindbeen very accessible to them. Was this indeed the Roaring Lion, who goethabout seeking whom he may devour? This was a question which presseditself on Butler's mind with an earnestness that cannot be conceived bythose who live in the present day. The fiery eye, the abrupt demeanour, the occasionally harsh, yet studiously subdued tone of voice, --thefeatures, handsome, but now clouded with pride, now disturbed bysuspicion, now inflamed with passion--those dark hazel eyes which hesometimes shaded with his cap, as if he were averse to have them seenwhile they were occupied with keenly observing the motions and bearing ofothers--those eyes that were now turbid with melancholy, now gleamingwith scorn, and now sparkling with fury--was it the passions of a meremortal they expressed, or the emotions of a fiend, who seeks, and seeksin vain, to conceal his fiendish designs under the borrowed mask of manlybeauty? The whole partook of the mien, language, and port of the ruinedarchangel; and, imperfectly as we have been able to describe it, theeffect of the interview upon Butler's nerves, shaken as they were at thetime by the horrors of the preceding night, were greater than hisunderstanding warranted, or his pride cared to submit to. The very placewhere he had met this singular person was desecrated, as it were, andunhallowed, owing to many violent deaths, both in duels and by suicide, which had in former times taken place there; and the place which he hadnamed as a rendezvous at so late an hour, was held in general to beaccursed, from a frightful and cruel murder which had been therecommitted by the wretch from whom the place took its name, upon theperson of his own wife. *

* Note G. Muschat's Cairn. 

It was in such places, according to the belief of that period (when thelaws against witchcraft were still in fresh observance, and had evenlately been acted upon), that evil spirits had power to make themselvesvisible to human eyes, and to practise upon the feelings and senses ofmankind. Suspicions, founded on such circumstances, rushed on Butler'smind, unprepared as it was by any previous course of reasoning, to denythat which all of his time, country, and profession believed; but commonsense rejected these vain ideas as inconsistent, if not with possibility, at least with the general rules by which the universe is governed, --adeviation from which, as Butler well argued with himself, ought not to beadmitted as probable, upon any but the plainest and most incontrovertibleevidence. An earthly lover, however, or a young man, who, from whatevercause, had the right of exercising such summary and unceremoniousauthority over the object of his long-settled, and apparently sincerelyreturned affection, was an object scarce less appalling to his mind, thanthose which superstition suggested. 

His limbs exhausted with fatigue, his mind harassed with anxiety, andwith painful doubts and recollections, Butler dragged himself up theascent from the valley to St. Leonard's Crags, and presented himself atthe door of Deans's habitation, with feelings much akin to the miserablereflections and fears of its inhabitants. 

CHAPTER ELEVENTH. 

 Then she stretched out her lily hand, And for to do her best; "Hae back thy faith and troth, Willie, God gie thy soul good rest!" Old Ballad. 

"Come in, " answered the low and sweet-toned voice he loved best to hear, as Butler tapped at the door of the cottage. He lifted the latch, andfound himself under the roof of affliction. Jeanie was unable to trustherself with more than one glance towards her lover, whom she now metunder circumstances so agonising to her feelings, and at the same time sohumbling to her honest pride. It is well known, that much, both of whatis good and bad in the Scottish national character, arises out of theintimacy of their family connections. "To be come of honest folk, " thatis, of people who have borne a fair and unstained reputation, is anadvantage as highly prized among the lower Scotch, as the emphaticcounterpart, "to be of a good family, " is valued among their gentry. Theworth and respectability of one member of a peasant's family is alwaysaccounted by themselves and others, not only a matter of honest pride, but a guarantee for the good conduct of the whole. On the contrary, sucha melancholy stain as was now flung on one of the children of Deans, extended its disgrace to all connected with him, and Jeanie felt herselflowered at once, in her own eyes, and in those of her lover. It was invain that she repressed this feeling, as far subordinate and too selfishto be mingled with her sorrow for her sister's calamity. Natureprevailed; and while she shed tears for her sister's distress and danger, there mingled with them bitter drops of grief for her own degradation. 

As Butler entered, the old man was seated by the fire with his well-wornpocket Bible in his hands, the companion of the wanderings and dangers ofhis youth, and bequeathed to him on the scaffold by one of those, who, inthe year 1686, sealed their enthusiastic principles with their blood. Thesun sent its rays through a small window at the old man's back, and, "shining motty through the reek, " to use the expression of a bard of thattime and country, illumined the grey hairs of the old man, and the sacredpage which he studied. His features, far from handsome, and rather harshand severe, had yet from their expression of habitual gravity, andcontempt for earthly things, an expression of stoical dignity amidsttheir sternness. He boasted, in no small degree, the attributes whichSouthey ascribes to the ancient Scandinavians, whom he terms "firm toinflict, and stubborn to endure. " The whole formed a picture, of whichthe lights might have been given by Rembrandt, but the outline would haverequired the force and vigour of Michael Angelo. 

Deans lifted his eye as Butler entered, and instantly withdrew it, asfrom an object which gave him at once surprise and sudden pain. He hadassumed such high ground with this carnal-witted scholar, as he had inhis pride termed Butler, that to meet him, of all men, under feelings ofhumiliation, aggravated his misfortune, and was a consummation like thatof the dying chief in the old ballad--"Earl Percy sees my fall!"

Deans raised the Bible with his left hand, so as partly to screen hisface, and putting back his right as far as he could, held it towardsButler in that position, at the same time turning his body from, him, asif to prevent his seeing the working of his countenance. Butler claspedthe extended hand which had supported his orphan infancy, wept over it, and in vain endeavoured to say more than the words--"God comfort you--Godcomfort you!"

"He will--he doth, my friend, " said Deans, assuming firmness as hediscovered the agitation of his guest; "he doth now, and he will yet morein his own gude time. I have been ower proud of my sufferings in a gudecause, Reuben, and now I am to be tried with those whilk will turn mypride and glory into a reproach and a hissing. How muckle better I haethought mysell than them that lay saft, fed sweet, and drank deep, when Iwas in the moss-haggs and moors, wi' precious Donald Cameron, and worthyMr. Blackadder, called Guess-again; and how proud I was o' being made aspectacle to men and angels, having stood on their pillory at theCanongate afore I was fifteen years old, for the cause of a NationalCovenant! To think, Reuben, that I, wha hae been sae honoured and exaltedin my youth, nay, when I was but a hafflins callant, and that hae bornetestimony again the defections o' the times yearly, monthly, daily, hourly, minutely, striving and testifying with uplifted hand and voice, crying aloud, and sparing not, against all great national snares, as thenation-wasting and church-sinking abomination of union, toleration, andpatronage, imposed by the last woman of that unhappy race of Stuarts;also against the infringements and invasions of the just powers ofeldership, whereanent, I uttered my paper, called a 'Cry of an Howl inthe Desert, ' printed at the Bow-head, and sold by all flying stationersin town and country--and _now_"

Here he paused. It may well be supposed that Butler, though notabsolutely coinciding in all the good old man's ideas about churchgovernment, had too much consideration and humanity to interrupt him, while he reckoned up with conscious pride his sufferings, and theconstancy of his testimony. On the contrary, when he paused under theinfluence of the bitter recollections of the moment, Butler instantlythrew in his mite of encouragement. 

"You have been well known, my old and revered friend, a true and triedfollower of the Cross; one who, as Saint Jerome hath it, '_per infamiamet bonam famam grassari ad immortalitatem, _' which may be freelyrendered, 'who rusheth on to immortal life, through bad report and goodreport. ' You have been one of those to whom the tender and fearfulsouls cry during the midnight solitude--'Watchman, what of thenight?--Watchman, what of the night?'--And, assuredly, this heavydispensation, as it comes not without divine permission, so it comesnot without its special commission and use. "

"I do receive it as such, " said poor Deans, returning the grasp ofButler's hand; "and if I have not been taught to read the Scripture inany other tongue but my native Scottish" (even in his distress Butler'sLatin quotation had not escaped his notice), "I have nevertheless solearned them, that I trust to bear even this crook in my lot withsubmission. But, oh! Reuben Butler, the kirk, of whilk, though unworthy, I have yet been thought a polished shaft, and meet to be a pillar, holding, from my youth upward, the place of ruling elder--what will thelightsome and profane think of the guide that cannot keep his own familyfrom stumbling? How will they take up their song and their reproach, whenthey see that the children of professors are liable to as foulbacksliding as the offspring of Belial! But I will bear my cross with thecomfort, that whatever showed like goodness in me or mine, was but likethe light that shines frae creeping insects, on the brae-side, in a darknight--it kythes bright to the ee, because all is dark around it; butwhen the morn comes on the mountains, it is, but a puir crawlingkail-worm after a'. And sae it shows, wi' ony rag of human righteousness, or formal law-work, that we may pit round us to cover our shame. "

As he pronounced these words, the door again opened, and Mr. BartolineSaddletree entered, his three-pointed hat set far back on his head, witha silk handkerchief beneath it to keep it in that cool position, hisgold-headed cane in his hand, and his whole deportment that of a wealthyburgher, who might one day look to have a share in the magistracy, if notactually to hold the curule chair itself. 

Rochefoucault, who has torn the veil from so many foul gangrenes of thehuman heart, says, we find something not altogether unpleasant to us inthe misfortunes of our best friends. Mr. Saddletree would have been veryangry had any one told him that he felt pleasure in the disaster of poorEffie Deans, and the disgrace of her family; and yet there is greatquestion whether the gratification of playing the person of importance, inquiring, investigating, and laying down the law on the whole affair, did not offer, to say the least, full consolation for the pain which puresympathy gave him on account of his wife's kinswoman. He had now got apiece of real judicial business by the end, instead of being obliged, aswas his common case, to intrude his opinion where it was neither wishednor wanted; and felt as happy in the exchange as a boy when he gets hisfirst new watch, which actually goes when wound up, and has real handsand a true dial-plate. But besides this subject for legal disquisition, Bartoline's brains were also overloaded with the affair of Porteous, hisviolent death, and all its probable consequences to the city andcommunity. It was what the French call _l'embarras des richesses, _ theconfusion arising from too much mental wealth. He walked in with aconsciousness of double importance, full fraught with the superiority ofone who possesses more information than the company into which he enters, and who feels a right to discharge his learning on them without mercy. "Good morning, Mr. Deans, --good-morrow to you, Mr. Butler, --I was notaware that you were acquainted with Mr. Deans. "

Butler made some slight answer; his reasons may be readily imagined fornot making his connection with the family, which, in his eyes, hadsomething of tender mystery, a frequent subject of conversation withindifferent persons, such as Saddletree. 

The worthy burgher, in the plenitude of self-importance, now sate downupon a chair, wiped his brow, collected his breath, and made the firstexperiment of the resolved pith of his lungs, in a deep and dignifiedsigh, resembling a groan in sound and intonation--"Awfu' times these, neighbour Deans, awfu' times!"

"Sinfu', shamefu', heaven-daring times!" answered Deans, in a lower andmore subdued tone. 

"For my part, " continued Saddletree, swelling with importance, "whatbetween the distress of my friends, and my poor auld country, ony witthat ever I had may be said to have abandoned me, sae that I sometimesthink myself as ignorant as if I were _inter rusticos. _ Here when I arisein the morning, wi' my mind just arranged touching what's to be done inpuir Effie's misfortune, and hae gotten the haill statute at myfinger-ends, the mob maun get up and string Jock Porteous to a dyester'sbeam, and ding a' thing out of my head again. "

Deeply as he was distressed with his own domestic calamity, Deans couldnot help expressing some interest in the news. Saddletree immediatelyentered on details of the insurrection and its consequences, while Butlertook the occasion to seek some private conversation with Jeanie Deans. She gave him the opportunity he sought, by leaving the room, as if inprosecution of some part of her morning labour. Butler followed her in afew minutes, leaving Deans so closely engaged by his busy visitor, thatthere was little chance of his observing their absence. 

The scene of their interview was an outer apartment, where Jeanie wasused to busy herself in arranging the productions of her dairy. WhenButler found an opportunity of stealing after her into this place, hefound her silent, dejected, and ready to burst into tears. Instead of theactive industry with which she had been accustomed, even while in the actof speaking, to employ her hands in some useful branch of householdbusiness, she was seated listless in a corner, sinking apparently underthe weight of her own thoughts. Yet the instant he entered, she dried hereyes, and, with the simplicity and openness of her character, immediatelyentered on conversation. 

"I am glad you have come in, Mr. Butler, " said she, "for--for--for Iwished to tell ye, that all maun be ended between you and me--it's bestfor baith our sakes. "

"Ended!" said Butler, in surprise; "and for what should it be ended?--Igrant this is a heavy dispensation, but it lies neither at your door normine--it's an evil of God's sending, and it must be borne; but it cannotbreak plighted troth, Jeanie, while they that plighted their word wish tokeep it. "

"But, Reuben, " said the young woman, looking at him affectionately, "Iken weel that ye think mair of me than yourself; and, Reuben, I can onlyin requital think mair of your weal than of my ain. Ye are a man ofspotless name, bred to God's ministry, and a' men say that ye will someday rise high in the kirk, though poverty keep ye doun e'en now. Povertyis a bad back-friend, Reuben, and that ye ken ower weel; but ill-fame isa waur ane, and that is a truth ye sall never learn through my means. "

"What do you mean?" said Butler, eagerly and impatiently; "or how do youconnect your sister's guilt, if guilt there be, which, I trust in God, may yet be disproved, with our engagement?--how can that affect you orme?"

"How can you ask me that, Mr. Butler? Will this stain, d'ye think, everbe forgotten, as lang as our heads are abune the grund? Will it not stickto us, and to our bairns, and to their very bairns' bairns? To hae beenthe child of an honest man, might hae been saying something for me andmine; but to be the sister of a--O my God!"--With this exclamation herresolution failed, and she burst into a passionate fit of tears. 

The lover used every effort to induce her to compose herself, and atlength succeeded; but she only resumed her composure to express herselfwith the same positiveness as before. "No, Reuben, I'll bring disgracehame to nae man's hearth; my ain distresses I can bear, and I maun bear, but there is nae occasion for buckling them on other folk's shouthers. Iwill bear my load alone--the back is made for the burden. "

A lover is by charter wayward and suspicious; and Jeanie's readiness torenounce their engagement, under pretence of zeal for his peace of mindand respectability of character, seemed to poor Butler to form aportentous combination with the commission of the stranger he had metwith that morning. His voice faltered as he asked, "whether nothing but asense of her sister's present distress occasioned her to talk in thatmanner?"

"And what else can do sae?" she replied with simplicity. "Is it not tenlong years since we spoke together in this way?"

"Ten years!" said Butler. "It's a long time--sufficient perhaps for awoman to weary"

"To weary of her auld gown, " said Jeanie, "and to wish for a new ane ifshe likes to be brave, but not long enough to weary of a friend--The eyemay wish change, but the heart never. "

"Never!" said Reuben, --"that's a bold promise. "

"But not more bauld than true, " said Jeanie, with the same quietsimplicity which attended her manner in joy and grief in ordinaryaffairs, and in those which most interested her feelings. 

Butler paused, and looking at her fixedly--"I am charged, " he said, "witha message to you, Jeanie. "

"Indeed! From whom? Or what can ony ane have to say to me?"

"It is from a stranger, " said Butler, affecting to speak with anindifference which his voice belied--"A young man whom I met this morningin the Park. "

"Mercy!" said Jeanie, eagerly; "and what did he say?"

"That he did not see you at the hour he expected, but required you shouldmeet him alone at Muschat's Cairn this night, so soon as the moon rises. "

"Tell him, " said Jeanie, hastily, "I shall certainly come. "

"May I ask, " said Butler, his suspicions increasing at the ready alacrityof the answer, "who this man is to whom you are so willing to give themeeting at a place and hour so uncommon?"

"Folk maun do muckle they have little will to do, in this world, " repliedJeanie. 

"Granted, " said her lover; "but what compels you to this?--who is thisperson? What I saw of him was not very favourable--who, or what is he?"

"I do not know, " replied Jeanie, composedly. 

"You do not know!" said Butler, stepping impatiently through theapartment--"You purpose to meet a young man whom you do not know, atsuch a time, and in a place so lonely--you say you are compelled to dothis--and yet you say you do not know the person who exercises such aninfluence over you!--Jeanie, what am I to think of this?"

"Think only, Reuben, that I speak truth, as if I were to answer at thelast day. --I do not ken this man--I do not even ken that I ever saw him;and yet I must give him the meeting he asks--there's life and death uponit. "

"Will you not tell your father, or take him with you?" said Butler. 

"I cannot, " said Jeanie; "I have no permission. "

"Will you let _me_ go with you? I will wait in the Park till nightfall, and join you when you set out. "

"It is impossible, " said Jeanie; "there maunna be mortal creature withinhearing of our conference. "

"Have you considered well the nature of what you are going to do?--thetime--the place--an unknown and suspicious character?--Why, if he hadasked to see you in this house, your father sitting in the next room, andwithin call, at such an hour, you should have refused to see him. "

"My weird maun be fulfilled, Mr. Butler; my life and my safety are inGod's hands, but I'll not spare to risk either of them on the errand I amgaun to do. "

"Then, Jeanie, " said Butler, much displeased, "we must indeed break shortoff, and bid farewell. When there can be no confidence betwixt a man andhis plighted wife on such a momentous topic, it is a sign that she has nolonger the regard for him that makes their engagement safe and suitable. "

Jeanie looked at him and sighed. "I thought, " she said, "that I hadbrought myself to bear this parting--but--but--I did not ken that we wereto part in unkindness. But I am a woman and you are a man--it may bedifferent wi' you--if your mind is made easier by thinking sae hardly ofme, I would not ask you to think otherwise. "

"You are, " said Butler, "what you have always been--wiser, better, andless selfish in your native feelings, than I can be, with all the helpsphilosophy can give to a Christian--But why--why will you persevere in anundertaking so desperate? Why will you not let me be your assistant--yourprotector, or at least your adviser?"

"Just because I cannot, and I dare not, " answered Jeanie. --"But hark, what's that? Surely my father is no weel?"

In fact, the voices in the next room became obstreperously loud of asudden, the cause of which vociferation it is necessary to explain beforewe go farther. 

When Jeanie and Butler retired, Mr. Saddletree entered upon the businesswhich chiefly interested the family. In the commencement of theirconversation he found old Deans, who in his usual state of mind, was nogranter of propositions, so much subdued by a deep sense of hisdaughter's danger and disgrace, that he heard without replying to, orperhaps without understanding, one or two learned disquisitions on thenature of the crime imputed to her charge, and on the steps which oughtto be taken in consequence. His only answer at each pause was, "I am nomisdoubting that you wuss us weel--your wife's our far-awa cousin. "

Encouraged by these symptoms of acquiescence, Saddletree, who, as anamateur of the law, had a supreme deference for all constitutedauthorities, again recurred to his other topic of interest, the murder, namely, of Porteous, and pronounced a severe censure on the partiesconcerned. 

"These are kittle times--kittle times, Mr. Deans, when the people takethe power of life and death out of the hands of the rightful magistrateinto their ain rough grip. I am of opinion, and so I believe will Mr. Crossmyloof and the Privy Council, that this rising in effeir of war, totake away the life of a reprieved man, will prove little better thanperduellion. "

"If I hadna that on my mind whilk is ill to bear, Mr. Saddletree, " saidDeans, "I wad make bold to dispute that point wi' you. "

"How could you dispute what's plain law, man?" said Saddletree, somewhatcontemptuously; "there's no a callant that e'er carried a pock wi' aprocess in't, but will tell you that perduellion is the warst and maistvirulent kind of treason, being an open convocating of the king's liegesagainst his authority (mair especially in arms, and by touk of drum, tobaith whilk accessories my een and lugs bore witness), and muckle worsethan lese-majesty, or the concealment of a treasonable purpose--It winnabear a dispute, neighbour. "

"But it will, though, " retorted Douce Davie Deans; "I tell ye it willbear a disputer never like your cauld, legal, formal doctrines, neighbourSaddletree. I haud unco little by the Parliament House, since the awfu'downfall of the hopes of honest folk that followed the Revolution. "

"But what wad ye hae had, Mr. Deans?" said Saddletree, impatiently;"didna ye get baith liberty and conscience made fast, and settled bytailzie on you and your heirs for ever?"

"Mr. Saddletree, " retorted Deans, "I ken ye are one of those that arewise after the manner of this world, and that ye hand your part, and castin your portion, wi' the lang heads and lang gowns, and keep with thesmart witty-pated lawyers of this our land--Weary on the dark and dolefu'cast that they hae gien this unhappy kingdom, when their black hands ofdefection were clasped in the red hands of our sworn murtherers: whenthose who had numbered the towers of our Zion, and marked the bulwarks ofReformation, saw their hope turn into a snare, and their rejoicing intoweeping. "

"I canna understand this, neighbour, " answered Saddletree. "I am anhonest Presbyterian of the Kirk of Scotland, and stand by her and theGeneral Assembly, and the due administration of justice by the fifteenLords o' Session and the five Lords o' Justiciary. "

"Out upon ye, Mr. Saddletree!" exclaimed David, who, in an opportunity ofgiving his testimony on the offences and backslidings of the land, forgotfor a moment his own domestic calamity--"out upon your General Assembly, and the back of my hand to your Court o' Session!--What is the tane but awaefu' bunch o' cauldrife professors and ministers, that sate bien andwarm when the persecuted remnant were warstling wi' hunger, and cauld, and fear of death, and danger of fire and sword upon wet brae-sides, peat-haggs, and flow-mosses, and that now creep out of their holes, likebluebottle flees in a blink of sunshine, to take the pu'pits and placesof better folk--of them that witnessed, and testified, and fought, andendured pit, prison-house, and transportation beyond seas?--A bonny bikethere's o' them!--And for your Court o' Session"

"Ye may say what ye will o' the General Assembly, " said Saddletree, interrupting him, "and let them clear them that kens them; but as for theLords o' Session, forby that they are my next-door neighbours, I wouldhave ye ken, for your ain regulation, that to raise scandal anent them, whilk is termed to _murmur_ again them, is a crime _sui generis, _--_suigeneris, _ Mr. Deans--ken ye what that amounts to?"

"I ken little o' the language of Antichrist, " said Deans; "and I careless than little what carnal courts may call the speeches of honest men. And as to murmur again them, it's what a' the folk that loses theirpleas, and nine-tenths o' them that win them, will be gey sure to beguilty in. Sae I wad hae ye ken that I hand a' your gleg-tonguedadvocates, that sell their knowledge for pieces of silver--and yourworldly-wise judges, that will gie three days of hearing in presence to adebate about the peeling of an ingan, and no ae half-hour to the gospeltestimony--as legalists and formalists, countenancing by sentences, andquirks, and cunning terms of law, the late begun courses of nationaldefections--union, toleration, patronages, and Yerastian prelatic oaths. As for the soul and body-killing Court o' Justiciary"

The habit of considering his life as dedicated to bear testimony inbehalf of what he deemed the suffering and deserted cause of truereligion, had swept honest David along with it thus far; but with themention of the criminal court, the recollection of the disastrouscondition of his daughter rushed at once on his mind; he stopped short inthe midst of his triumphant declamation, pressed his hands against hisforehead, and remained silent. 

Saddletree was somewhat moved, but apparently not so much so as to inducehim to relinquish the privilege of prosing in his turn afforded him byDavid's sudden silence. "Nae doubt, neighbour, " he said, "it's a sairthing to hae to do wi' courts of law, unless it be to improve ane'sknowledge and practique, by waiting on as a hearer; and touching thisunhappy affair of Effie--ye'll hae seen the dittay, doubtless?" He draggedout of his pocket a bundle of papers, and began to turn them over. "Thisis no it--this is the information of Mungo Marsport, of that ilk, againstCaptain Lackland, for coming on his lands of Marsport with hawks, hounds, lying-dogs, nets, guns, cross-bows, hagbuts of found, or other enginesmore or less for destruction of game, sic as red-deer, fallow-deer, cappercailzies, grey-fowl, moor-fowl, paitricks, herons, and sic like;he, the said defender not being ane qualified person, in terms of thestatute sixteen hundred and twenty-ane; that is, not having aneplough-gate of land. Now, the defences proponed say, that _non constat_at this present what is a plough-gate of land, whilk uncertainty issufficient to elide the conclusions of the libel. But then the answers tothe defences (they are signed by Mr. Crossmyloof, but Mr. Younglad drewthem), they propone, that it signifies naething, _in hoc statu, _ what orhow muckle a plough-gate of land may be, in respect the defender has naelands whatsoever, less or mair. 'Sae grant a plough-gate'" (hereSaddletree read from the paper in his hand) "'to be less than thenineteenth part of a guse's grass'--(I trow Mr. Crossmyloof put inthat--I ken his style), --'of a guse's grass, what the betterwill the defender be, seeing he hasna a divot-cast of land inScotland?--_Advocatus_ for Lackland duplies, that _nihil interest depossessione, _ the pursuer must put his case under the statute'--(now, this is worth your notice, neighbour), --'and must show, _formaliter etspecialiter, _ as well as _generaliter, _ what is the qualification thatdefender Lackland does _not_ possess--let him tell me what a plough-gateof land is, and I'll tell him if I have one or no. Surely the pursuer isbound to understand his own libel, and his own statute that he foundsupon. _Titius_ pursues _Maevius_ for recovery of ane _black_ horse lentto Maevius--surely he shall have judgment; but if Titius pursue Maeviusfor ane _scarlet_ or _crimson_ horse, doubtless he shall be bound toshow that there is sic ane animal _in rerum natura. _ No man can be boundto plead to nonsense--that is to say, to a charge which cannot beexplained or understood'--(he's wrang there--the better the pleadingsthe fewer understand them), --'and so the reference unto this undefinedand unintelligible measure of land is, as if a penalty was inflicted bystatute for any man who suld hunt or hawk, or use lying-dogs, andwearing a sky-blue pair of breeches, without having--'But I am wearyingyou, Mr. Deans, --we'll pass to your ain business, --though this cue ofMarsport against Lackland has made an unco din in the Outer House. Weel, here's the dittay against puir Effie: 'Whereas it is humbly meant andshown to us, ' etc. (they are words of mere style), 'that whereas, by thelaws of this and every other well-regulated realm, the murder of anyone, more especially of an infant child, is a crime of ane high nature, and severely punishable: And whereas, without prejudice to the foresaidgenerality, it was, by ane act made in the second session of the FirstParliament of our most High and Dread Sovereigns William and Mary, especially enacted, that ane woman who shall have concealed hercondition, and shall not be able to show that she hath called for helpat the birth in case that the child shall be found dead or amissing, shall be deemed and held guilty of the murder thereof; and the saidfacts of concealment and pregnancy being found proven or confessed, shall sustain the pains of law accordingly; yet, nevertheless, you, Effie, or Euphemia Deans'"

"Read no farther!" said Deans, raising his head up; "I would rather yethrust a sword into my heart than read a word farther!"

"Weel, neighbour, " said Saddletree, "I thought it wad hae comforted ye token the best and the warst o't. But the question is, what's to be dune?"

"Nothing, " answered Deans firmly, "but to abide the dispensation that theLord sees meet to send us. Oh, if it had been His will to take the greyhead to rest before this awful visitation on my house and name! But Hiswill be done. I can say that yet, though I can say little mair. "

"But, neighbour, " said Saddletree, "ye'll retain advocates for the puirlassie? it's a thing maun needs be thought of. "

"If there was ae man of them, " answered Deans, "that held fast hisintegrity--but I ken them weel, they are a' carnal, crafty, andwarld-hunting self-seekers, Yerastians, and Arminians, every ane o'them. "

"Hout tout, neighbour, ye mauna take the warld at its word, " saidSaddletree; "the very deil is no sae ill as he's ca'd; and I ken mairthan ae advocate that may be said to hae some integrity as weel as theirneighbours; that is, after a sort o' fashion' o' their ain. "

"It is indeed but a fashion of integrity that ye will find amang them, "replied David Deans, "and a fashion of wisdom, and fashion of carnallearning--gazing, glancing-glasses they are, fit only to fling the glaiksin folk's een, wi' their pawky policy, and earthly ingine, their flightsand refinements, and periods of eloquence, frae heathen emperors andpopish canons. They canna, in that daft trash ye were reading to me, saemuckle as ca' men that are sae ill-starred as to be amang their hands, byony name o' the dispensation o' grace, but maun new baptize them by thenames of the accursed Titus, wha was made the instrument of burning theholy Temple, and other sic like heathens!"

"It's Tishius, " interrupted Saddletree, "and no Titus. Mr. Crossmyloofcares as little about Titus or the Latin as ye do. --But it's a caseof necessity--she maun hae counsel. Now, I could speak to Mr. Crossmyloof--he's weel ken'd for a round-spun Presbyterian, anda ruling elder to boot. "

"He's a rank Yerastian, " replied Deans; "one of the public andpolititious warldly-wise men that stude up to prevent ane general owningof the cause in the day of power!"

"What say ye to the auld Laird of Cuffabout?" said Saddletree; "he whilesthumps the dust out of a case gey and well. "

"He? the fause loon!" answered Deans--"he was in his bandaliers to haejoined the ungracious Highlanders in 1715, an they had ever had the luckto cross the Firth. "

"Weel, Arniston? there's a clever chield for ye!" said Bartoline, triumphantly. 

"Ay, to bring popish medals in till their very library from thatschismatic woman in the north, the Duchess of Gordon. "*

* [James Dundas younger of Arniston was tried in the year 1711 uponcharge of leasing-making, in having presented, from the Duchess ofGordon, medal of the Pretender, for the purpose, it was said, ofaffronting Queen Anne. ]

 "Weel, weel, but somebody ye maun hae--What think ye o' Kittlepunt?"

"He's an Arminian. "

"Woodsetter?"

"He's, I doubt, a Cocceian. "

"Auld Whilliewhaw?"

"He's ony thing ye like. "

"Young Naemmo?"

"He's naething at a'. "

"Ye're ill to please, neighbour, " said Saddletree: "I hae run ower thepick o' them for you, ye maun e'en choose for yoursell; but bethink yethat in the multitude of counsellors there's safety--What say ye to tryyoung Mackenyie? he has a' his uncle's Practiques at the tongue's end. "

"What, sir, wad ye speak to me, " exclaimed the sturdy Presbyterian inexcessive wrath, "about a man that has the blood of the saints at hisfingers' ends? Did na his eme [Uncle] die and gang to his place wi' thename of the Bluidy Mackenyie? and winna he be kend by that name sae langas there's a Scots tongue to speak the word? If the life of the dearbairn that's under a suffering dispensation, and Jeanie's, and my ain, and a' mankind's, depended on my asking sic a slave o' Satan to speak aword for me or them, they should a' gae doun the water thegither forDavie Deans!"

It was the exalted tone in which he spoke this last sentence that brokeup the conversation between Butler and Jeanie, and brought them both "benthe house, " to use the language of the country. Here they found the poorold man half frantic between grief and zealous ire against Saddletree'sproposed measures, his cheek inflamed, his hand clenched, and his voiceraised, while the tear in his eye, and the occasional quiver of hisaccents, showed that his utmost efforts were inadequate to shaking offthe consciousness of his misery. Butler, apprehensive of the consequencesof his agitation to an aged and feeble frame, ventured to utter to him arecommendation to patience. 

"I _am_ patient, " returned the old man sternly, --"more patient than anyone who is alive to the woeful backslidings of a miserable time can bepatient; and in so much, that I need neither sectarians, nor sons norgrandsons of sectarians, to instruct my grey hairs how to bear my cross. "

"But, sir, " continued Butler, taking no offence at the slur cast on hisgrandfather's faith, "we must use human means. When you call in aphysician, you would not, I suppose, question him on the nature of hisreligious principles!"

"Wad I _no?_" answered David--"but I wad, though; and if he didna satisfyme that he had a right sense of the right hand and left hand defectionsof the day, not a goutte of his physic should gang through my father'sson. "

It is a dangerous thing to trust to an illustration. Butler had done soand miscarried; but, like a gallant soldier when his musket misses fire, he stood his ground, and charged with the bayonet. --"This is too rigid aninterpretation of your duty, sir. The sun shines, and the rain descends, on the just and unjust, and they are placed together in life incircumstances which frequently render intercourse between themindispensable, perhaps that the evil may have an opportunity of beingconverted by the good, and perhaps, also, that the righteous might, amongother trials, be subjected to that of occasional converse with theprofane. "

"Ye're a silly callant, Reuben, " answered Deans, "with your bits ofargument. Can a man touch pitch and not be defiled? Or what think ye ofthe brave and worthy champions of the Covenant, that wadna sae muckle ashear a minister speak, be his gifts and graces as they would, that hadnawitnessed against the enormities of the day? Nae lawyer shall ever speakfor me and mine that hasna concurred in the testimony of the scattered, yet lovely remnant, which abode in the clifts of the rocks. "

So saying, and as if fatigued, both with the arguments and presence ofhis guests, the old man arose, and seeming to bid them adieu with amotion of his head and hand, went to shut himself up in his sleepingapartment. 

"It's thrawing his daughter's life awa, " said Saddletree to Butler, "tohear him speak in that daft gate. Where will he ever get a Cameronianadvocate? Or wha ever heard of a lawyer's suffering either for aereligion or another? The lassie's life is clean flung awa. "

During the latter part of this debate, Dumbiedikes had arrived at thedoor, dismounted, hung the pony's bridle on the usual hook, and sunk downon his ordinary settle. His eyes, with more than their usual animation, followed first one speaker then another, till he caught the melancholysense of the whole from Saddletree's last words. He rose from his seat, stumped slowly across the room, and, coming close up to Saddletree's ear, said in a tremulous anxious voice, "Will--will siller do naething forthem, Mr. Saddletree?"

"Umph!" said Saddletree, looking grave, --"siller will certainly do it inthe Parliament House, if ony thing _can_ do it; but where's the siller tocome frae? Mr. Deans, ye see, will do naething; and though Mrs. Saddletree's their far-awa friend, and right good weel-wisher, and isweel disposed to assist, yet she wadna like to stand to be bound _singuliin solidum_ to such an expensive wark. An ilka friend wad bear a share o'the burden, something might be dune--ilka ane to be liable for their aininput--I wadna like to see the case fa' through without being pled--itwadna be creditable, for a' that daft whig body says. "

"I'll--I will--yes" (assuming fortitude), "I will be answerable, " saidDumbiedikes, "for a score of punds sterling. "--And he was silent, staringin astonishment at finding himself capable of such unwonted resolutionand excessive generosity. 

"God Almighty bless ye, Laird!" said Jeanie, in a transport of gratitude. 

"Ye may ca' the twenty punds thretty, " said Dumbiedikes, lookingbashfully away from her, and towards Saddletree. 

"That will do bravely, " said Saddletree, rubbing his hands; and ye sallhae a' my skill and knowledge to gar the siller gang far--I'll tape itout weel--I ken how to gar the birkies tak short fees, and be glad o'them too--it's only garring them trow ye hae twa or three cases ofimportance coming on, and they'll work cheap to get custom. Let me alanefor whilly-whaing an advocate:--it's nae sin to get as muckle flue themfor our siller as we can--after a', it's but the wind o' their mouth--itcosts them naething; whereas, in my wretched occupation of a saddler, horse milliner, and harness maker, we are out unconscionable sums justfor barkened hides and leather. "

"Can I be of no use?" said Butler. "My means, alas! are only worth theblack coat I wear; but I am young--I owe much to the family--Can I donothing?"

"Ye can help to collect evidence, sir, " said Saddletree; "if we could butfind ony ane to say she had gien the least hint o' her condition, she wadbe brought aft wi' a wat finger--Mr. Crossmyloof tell'd me sae. Thecrown, says he, canna be craved to prove a positive--was't a positive ora negative they couldna be ca'd to prove?--it was the tane or the tithero' them, I am sure, and it maksna muckle matter whilk. Wherefore, sayshe, the libel maun be redargued by the panel proving her defences. And itcanna be done otherwise. "

"But the fact, sir, " argued Butler, "the fact that this poor girl hasborne a child; surely the crown lawyers must prove that?" said Butler. 

Saddletree paused a moment, while the visage of Dumbiedikes, whichtraversed, as if it had been placed on a pivot, from the one spokesman tothe other, assumed a more blithe expression. 

"Ye--ye--ye--es, " said Saddletree, after some grave hesitation;"unquestionably that is a thing to be proved, as the court will morefully declare by an interlocutor of relevancy in common form; but I fancythat job's done already, for she has confessed her guilt. "

"Confessed the murder?" exclaimed Jeanie, with a scream that made themall start. 

"No, I didna say that, " replied Bartoline. "But she confessed bearing thebabe. "

"And what became of it, then?" said Jeanie, "for not a word could I getfrom her but bitter sighs and tears. "

"She says it was taken away from her by the woman in whose house it wasborn, and who assisted her at the time. "

"And who was that woman?" said Butler. "Surely by her means the truthmight be discovered. --Who was she? I will fly to her directly. "

"I wish, " said Dumbiedikes, "I were as young and as supple as you, andhad the gift of the gab as weel. "

"Who is she?" again reiterated Butler impatiently. --"Who could that womanbe?"

"Ay, wha kens that but herself?" said Saddletree; "she deponed farther, and declined to answer that interrogatory. "

"Then to herself will I instantly go, " said Butler; "farewell, Jeanie;"then coming close up to her--"Take no _rash steps_ till you hear from me. Farewell!" and he immediately left the cottage. 

"I wad gang too, " said the landed proprietor, in an anxious, jealous, andrepining tone, "but my powny winna for the life o' me gang ony other roadthan just frae Dumbiedikes to this house-end, and sae straight backagain. "

"Yell do better for them, " said Saddletree, as they left the housetogether, "by sending me the thretty punds. "

"Thretty punds!" hesitated Dumbiedikes, who was now out of the reach ofthose eyes which had inflamed his generosity; "I only said _twenty_punds. "

"Ay; but, " said Saddletree, "that was under protestation to add and eik;and so ye craved leave to amend your libel, and made it thretty. "

"Did I? I dinna mind that I did, " answered Dumbiedikes. "But whatever Isaid I'll stand to. " Then bestriding his steed with some difficulty, headded, "Dinna ye think poor Jeanie's een wi' the tears in them glancedlike lamour beads, Mr. Saddletree?"

"I kenna muckle about women's een, Laird, " replied the insensibleBartoline; "and I care just as little. I wuss I were as weel free o'their tongues; though few wives, " he added, recollecting the necessity ofkeeping up his character for domestic rule, "are under better commandthan mine, Laird. I allow neither perduellion nor lese-majesty against mysovereign authority. "

The Laird saw nothing so important in this observation as to call for arejoinder, and when they had exchanged a mute salutation, they parted inpeace upon their different errands. 

CHAPTER TWELFTH. 

 I'll warrant that fellow from drowning, were the ship no stronger than a nut-shell. 

 The Tempest. 

Butler felt neither fatigue nor want of refreshment, although, from themode in which he had spent the night, he might well have been overcomewith either. But in the earnestness with which he hastened to theassistance of the sister of Jeanie Deans, he forgot both. 

In his first progress he walked with so rapid a pace as almost approachedto running, when he was surprised to hear behind him a call upon hisname, contending with an asthmatic cough, and half-drowned amid theresounding trot of a Highland pony. He looked behind, and saw the Lairdof Dumbiedikes making after him with what speed he might, for ithappened, fortunately for the Laird's purpose of conversing with Butler, that his own road homeward was for about two hundred yards the same withthat which led by the nearest way to the city. Butler stopped when heheard himself thus summoned, internally wishing no good to the pantingequestrian who thus retarded his journey. 

"Uh! uh! uh!" ejaculated Dumbiedikes, as he checked the hobbling pace ofthe pony by our friend Butler. "Uh! uh! it's a hard-set willyard beastthis o' mine. " He had in fact just overtaken the object of his chase atthe very point beyond which it would have been absolutely impossible forhim to have continued the pursuit, since there Butler's road parted fromthat leading to Dumbiedikes, and no means of influence or compulsionwhich the rider could possibly have used towards his Bucephalus couldhave induced the Celtic obstinacy of Rory Bean (such was the pony's name)to have diverged a yard from the path that conducted him to his ownpaddock. 

Even when he had recovered from the shortness of breath occasioned by atrot much more rapid than Rory or he were accustomed to, the high purposeof Dumbiedikes seemed to stick as it were in his throat, and impede hisutterance, so that Butler stood for nearly three minutes ere he couldutter a syllable; and when he did find voice, it was only to say, afterone or two efforts, "Uh! uh! uhm! I say, Mr. --Mr. Butler, it's a braw dayfor the har'st. "

"Fine day, indeed, " said Butler. "I wish you good morning, sir. "

"Stay--stay a bit, " rejoined Dumbiedikes; "that was no what I had gottento say. "

"Then, pray be quick, and let me have your commands, " rejoined Butler; "Icrave your pardon, but I am in haste, and _Tempus nemini_--you know theproverb. "

Dumbiedikes did not know the proverb, nor did he even take the trouble toendeavour to look as if he did, as others in his place might have done. He was concentrating all his intellects for one grand proposition, andcould not afford any detachment to defend outposts. "I say, Mr. Butler, "said he, "ken ye if Mr. Saddletree's a great lawyer?"

"I have no person's word for it but his own, " answered Butler, drily;"but undoubtedly he best understands his own qualities. "

"Umph!" replied the taciturn Dumbiedikes, in a tone which seemed to say, "Mr. Butler, I take your meaning. " "In that case, " he pursued, "I'llemploy my ain man o' business, Nichil Novit (auld Nichil's son, andamaist as gleg as his father), to agent Effie's plea. "

And having thus displayed more sagacity than Butler expected from him, hecourteously touched his gold-laced cocked hat, and by a punch on theribs, conveyed to Rory Bean, it was his rider's pleasure that he shouldforthwith proceed homewards; a hint which the quadruped obeyed with thatdegree of alacrity with which men and animals interpret and obeysuggestions that entirely correspond with their own inclinations. 

Butler resumed his pace, not without a momentary revival of that jealousywhich the honest Laird's attention to the family of Deans had atdifferent times excited in his bosom. But he was too generous long tonurse any feeling which was allied to selfishness. "He is, " said Butlerto himself, "rich in what I want; why should I feel vexed that he has theheart to dedicate some of his pelf to render them services, which I canonly form the empty wish of executing? In God's name, let us each do whatwe can. May she be but happy!--saved from the misery and disgrace thatseems impending--Let me but find the means of preventing the fearfulexperiment of this evening, and farewell to other thoughts, though myheart-strings break in parting with them!"

He redoubled his pace, and soon stood before the door of the Tolbooth, orrather before the entrance where the door had formerly been placed. Hisinterview with the mysterious stranger, the message to Jeanie, hisagitating conversation with her on the subject of breaking off theirmutual engagements, and the interesting scene with old Deans, had soentirely occupied his mind as to drown even recollection of the tragicalevent which he had witnessed the preceding evening. His attention was notrecalled to it by the groups who stood scattered on the street inconversation, which they hushed when strangers approached, or by thebustling search of the agents of the city police, supported by smallparties of the military, or by the appearance of the Guard-House, beforewhich were treble sentinels, or, finally, by the subdued and intimidatedlooks of the lower orders of society, who, conscious that they wereliable to suspicion, if they were not guilty of accession to a riotlikely to be strictly inquired into, glided about with an humble anddismayed aspect, like men whose spirits being exhausted in the revel andthe dangers of a desperate debauch over-night, are nerve-shaken, timorous, and unenterprising on the succeeding day. 

None of these symptoms of alarm and trepidation struck Butler, whose mindwas occupied with a different, and to him still more interesting subject, until he stood before the entrance to the prison, and saw it defended bya double file of grenadiers, instead of bolts and bars. Their "Stand, stand!" the blackened appearance of the doorless gateway, and the windingstaircase and apartments of the Tolbooth, now open to the public eye, recalled the whole proceedings of the eventful night. Upon his requestingto speak with Effie Deans, the same tall, thin, silver-haired turnkey, whom he had seen on the preceding evening, made his appearance, "I think, " he replied to Butler's request of admission, with trueScottish indirectness, "ye will be the same lad that was for in to seeher yestreen?"

Butler admitted he was the same person. 

"And I am thinking, " pursued the turnkey, "that ye speered at me when welocked up, and if we locked up earlier on account of Porteous?"

"Very likely I might make some such observation, " said Butler; "but thequestion now is, can I see Effie Deans?"

"I dinna ken--gang in by, and up the turnpike stair, and turn till theward on the left hand. "

The old man followed close behind him, with his keys in his hand, notforgetting even that huge one which had once opened and shut the outwardgate of his dominions, though at present it was but an idle and uselessburden. No sooner had Butler entered the room to which he was directed, than the experienced hand of the warder selected the proper key, andlocked it on the outside. At first Butler conceived this manoeuvre wasonly an effect of the man's habitual and official caution and jealousy. But when he heard the hoarse command, "Turn out the guard!" andimmediately afterwards heard the clash of a sentinel's arms, as he wasposted at the door of his apartment, he again called out to the turnkey, "My good friend, I have business of some consequence with Effie Deans, and I beg to see her as soon as possible. " No answer was returned. "If itbe against your rules to admit me, " repeated Butler, in a still loudertone, "to see the prisoner, I beg you will tell me so, and let me goabout my business. --_Fugit irrevocabile tempus!_" muttered he to himself. 

"If ye had business to do, ye suld hae dune it before ye cam here, "replied the man of keys from the outside; "yell find it's easier wunninin than wunnin out here--there's sma' likelihood o' another Porteous mobcoming to rabble us again--the law will haud her ain now, neighbour, andthat yell find to your cost. "

"What do you mean by that, sir?" retorted Butler. "You must mistake mefor some other person. My name is Reuben Butler, preacher of the gospel. "

"I ken that weel eneugh, " said the turnkey. 

"Well, then, if you know me, I have a right to know from you in return, what warrant you have for detaining me; that, I know, is the right ofevery British subject. "

"Warrant!" said the jailor, --"the warrant's awa to Libberton wi' twasheriff officers seeking ye. If ye had staid at hame, as honest menshould do, ye wad hae seen the warrant; but if ye come to be incarceratedof your ain accord, wha can help it, my jo?"

"'So I cannot see Effie Deans, then, " said Butler; "and you aredetermined not to let me out?"

"Troth will I no, neighbour, " answered the old man, doggedly; "as forEffie Deans, ye'll hae eneuch ado to mind your ain business, and let hermind hers; and for letting you out, that maun be as the magistrate willdetermine. And fare ye weel for a bit, for I maun see Deacon Sawyers puton ane or twa o' the doors that your quiet folk broke down yesternight, Mr. Butler. "

There was something in this exquisitely provoking, but there was alsosomething darkly alarming. To be imprisoned, even on a false accusation, has something in it disagreeable and menacing even to men of moreconstitutional courage than Butler had to boast; for although he had muchof that resolution which arises from a sense of duty and an honourabledesire to discharge it, yet, as his imagination was lively, and his frameof body delicate, he was far from possessing that cool insensibility todanger which is the happy portion of men of stronger health, more firmnerves, and less acute sensibility. An indistinct idea of peril, which hecould neither understand nor ward off, seemed to float before his eyes. He tried to think over the events of the preceding night, in hopes ofdiscovering some means of explaining or vindicating his conduct forappearing among the mob, since it immediately occurred to him that hisdetention must be founded on that circumstance. And it was with anxietythat he found he could not recollect to have been under the observationof any disinterested witness in the attempts that he made from time totime to expostulate with the rioters, and to prevail on them to releasehim. The distress of Deans's family, the dangerous rendezvous whichJeanie had formed, and which he could not now hope to interrupt, had alsotheir share in his unpleasant reflections. Yet, impatient as he was toreceive an _e'claircissement_ upon the cause of his confinement, and ifpossible to obtain his liberty, he was affected with a trepidation whichseemed no good omen; when, after remaining an hour in this solitaryapartment, he received a summons to attend the sitting magistrate. He wasconducted from prison strongly guarded by a party of soldiers, with aparade of precaution, that, however ill-timed and unnecessary, isgenerally displayed _after_ an event, which such precaution, if used intime, might have prevented. 

He was introduced into the Council Chamber, as the place is called wherethe magistrates hold their sittings, and which was then at a littledistance from the prison. One or two of the senators of the city werepresent, and seemed about to engage in the examination of an individualwho was brought forward to the foot of the long green-covered table roundwhich the council usually assembled. "Is that the preacher?" said one ofthe magistrates, as the city officer in attendance introduced Butler. Theman answered in the affirmative. "Let him sit down there for an instant;we will finish this man's business very briefly. "

"Shall we remove Mr. Butler?" queried the assistant. 

"It is not necessary--Let him remain where he is. "

Butler accordingly sate down on a bench at the bottom of the apartment, attended by one of his keepers. 

It was a large room, partially and imperfectly lighted; but by chance, orthe skill of the architect, who might happen to remember the advantagewhich might occasionally be derived from such an arrangement, one windowwas so placed as to throw a strong light at the foot of the table atwhich prisoners were usually posted for examination, while the upper end, where the examinants sate, was thrown into shadow. Butler's eyes wereinstantly fixed on the person whose examination was at presentproceeding, in the idea that he might recognise some one of theconspirators of the former night. But though the features of this manwere sufficiently marked and striking, he could not recollect that he hadever seen them before. 

The complexion of this person was dark, and his age somewhat advanced. Hewore his own hair, combed smooth down, and cut very short. It was jetblack, slightly curled by nature, and already mottled with grey. Theman's face expressed rather knavery than vice, and a disposition tosharpness, cunning, and roguery, more than the traces of stormy andindulged passions. His sharp quick black eyes, acute features, readysardonic smile, promptitude and effrontery, gave him altogether what iscalled among the vulgar a _knowing_ look, which generally implies atendency to knavery. At a fair or market, you could not for a moment havedoubted that he was a horse-jockey, intimate with all the tricks of histrade; yet, had you met him on a moor, you would not have apprehended anyviolence from him. His dress was also that of a horse-dealer--aclose-buttoned jockey-coat, or wrap-rascal, as it was then termed, withhuge metal buttons, coarse blue upper stockings, called boot-hose becausesupplying the place of boots, and a slouched hat. He only wanted a loadedwhip under his arm and a spur upon one heel, to complete the dress of thecharacter he seemed to represent. 

"Your name is James Ratcliffe?" said the magistrate. 

"Ay--always wi' your honour's leave. "

"That is to say, you could find me another name if I did not like thatone?"

"Twenty to pick and choose upon, always with your honour's leave, "resumed the respondent. 

"But James Ratcliffe is your present name?--what is your trade?"

"I canna just say, distinctly, that I have what ye wad ca' preceesely atrade. "

"But, " repeated the magistrate, "what are your means of living--youroccupation?"

"Hout tout--your honour, wi' your leave, kens that as weel as I do, "replied the examined. 

"No matter, I want to hear you describe it, " said the examinant. 

"Me describe!--and to your honour!--far be it from Jemmie Ratcliffe, "responded the prisoner. 

"Come, sir, no trifling--I insist on an answer. "

"Weel, sir, " replied the declarant, "I maun make a clean breast, for yesee, wi' your leave, I am looking for favour--Describe my occupation, quo' ye?--troth it will be ill to do that, in a feasible way, in a placelike this--but what is't again that the aught command says?"

"Thou shalt not steal, " answered the magistrate. 

"Are you sure o' that?" replied the accused. --"Troth, then, myoccupation, and that command, are sair at odds, for I read it, thou_shalt_ steal; and that makes an unco difference, though there's but awee bit word left out. "

"To cut the matter short, Ratcliffe, you have been a most notoriousthief, " said the examinant. 

"I believe Highlands and Lowlands ken that, sir, forby England andHolland, " replied Ratcliffe, with the greatest composure and effrontery. 

"And what d'ye think the end of your calling will be?" said themagistrate. 

"I could have gien a braw guess yesterday--but I dinna ken sae weel theday, " answered the prisoner. 

"And what would you have said would have been your end, had you beenasked the question yesterday?"

"Just the gallows, " replied Ratcliffe, with the same composure. 

"You are a daring rascal, sir, " said the magistrate; "and how dare youhope times are mended with you to-day?"

"Dear, your honour, " answered Ratcliffe, "there's muckle differencebetween lying in prison under sentence of death, and staying there ofane's ain proper accord, when it would have cost a man naething to get upand rin awa--what was to hinder me from stepping out quietly, when therabble walked awa wi' Jock Porteous yestreen?--and does your honourreally think I staid on purpose to be hanged?"

"I do not know what you may have proposed to yourself; but I know, " saidthe magistrate, "what the law proposes for you, and that is, to hang younext Wednesday eight days. "

"Na, na, your honour, " said Ratcliffe firmly, "craving your honour'spardon, I'll ne'er believe that till I see it. I have kend the law thismony a year, and mony a thrawart job I hae had wi' her first and last;but the auld jaud is no sae ill as that comes to--I aye fand her barkwaur than her bite. "

"And if you do not expect the gallows, to which you are condemned (forthe fourth time to my knowledge), may I beg the favour to know, " said themagistrate, "what it is you _do_ expect, in consideration of your nothaving taken your flight with the rest of the jail-birds, which I willadmit was a line of conduct little to have been expected?"

"I would never have thought for a moment of staying in that auld goustytoom house, " answered Ratcliffe, "but that use and wont had just gien mea fancy to the place, and I'm just expecting a bit post in't. "

"A post!" exclaimed the magistrate; "a whipping-post, I suppose, youmean?"

"Na, na, sir, I had nae thoughts o' a whuppin-post. After having beenfour times doomed to hang by the neck till I was dead, I think I am farbeyond being whuppit. "

"Then, in Heaven's name, what _did_ you expect?"

"Just the post of under-turnkey, for I understand there's a vacancy, "said the prisoner; "I wadna think of asking the lockman's* place ower hishead; it wadna suit me sae weel as ither folk, for I never could put abeast out o' the way, much less deal wi' a man. "

* Note H. Hangman, or Lockman. 

"That's something in your favour, " said the magistrate, making exactlythe inference to which Ratcliffe was desirous to lead him, though hemantled his art with an affectation of oddity. 

"But, " continued the magistrate, "how do you think you can be trustedwith a charge in the prison, when you have broken at your own hand halfthe jails in Scotland?"

"Wi' your honour's leave, " said Ratcliffe, "if I kend sae weel how to wunout mysell, it's like I wad be a' the better a hand to keep other folkin. I think they wad ken their business weel that held me in when Iwanted to be out, or wan out when I wanted to hand them in. "

The remark seemed to strike the magistrate, but he made no furtherimmediate observation, only desired Ratcliffe to be removed. 

When this daring and yet sly freebooter was out of hearing, themagistrate asked the city clerk, "what he thought of the fellow'sassurance?"

"It's no for me to say, sir, " replied the clerk; "but if James Ratcliffebe inclined to turn to good, there is not a man e'er came within theports of the burgh could be of sae muckle use to the Good Town in thethief and lock-up line of business. I'll speak to Mr. Sharpitlaw abouthim. "

Upon Ratcliffe's retreat, Butler was placed at the table for examination. The magistrate conducted his inquiry civilly, but yet in a manner whichgave him to understand that he laboured under strong suspicion. With afrankness which at once became his calling and character, Butler avowedhis involuntary presence at the murder of Porteous, and, at the requestof the magistrate, entered into a minute detail of the circumstanceswhich attended that unhappy affair. All the particulars, such as we havenarrated, were taken minutely down by the clerk from Butler's dictation. 

When the narrative was concluded, the cross-examination commenced, whichit is a painful task even for the most candid witness to undergo, since astory, especially if connected with agitating and alarming incidents, canscarce be so clearly and distinctly told, but that some ambiguity anddoubt may be thrown upon it by a string of successive and minuteinterrogatories. 

The magistrate commenced by observing, that Butler had said his objectwas to return to the village of Libberton, but that he was interrupted bythe mob at the West Port. "Is the West Port your usual way of leavingtown when you go to Libberton?" said the magistrate, with a sneer. 

"No, certainly, " answered Butler, with the haste of a man anxious tovindicate the accuracy of his evidence; "but I chanced to be nearer thatport than any other, and the hour of shutting the gates was on the pointof striking. "

"That was unlucky, " said the magistrate, drily. "Pray, being, as you say, under coercion and fear of the lawless multitude, and compelled toaccompany them through scenes disagreeable to all men of humanity, andmore especially irreconcilable to the profession of a minister, did younot attempt to struggle, resist, or escape from their violence?"

Butler replied, "that their numbers prevented him from attemptingresistance, and their vigilance from effecting his escape. "

"That was unlucky, " again repeated the magistrate, in the same dryinacquiescent tone of voice and manner. He proceeded with decency andpoliteness, but with a stiffness which argued his continued suspicion, toask many questions concerning the behaviour of the mob, the manners anddress of the ringleaders; and when he conceived that the caution ofButler, if he was deceiving him, must be lulled asleep, the magistratesuddenly and artfully returned to former parts of his declaration, andrequired a new recapitulation of the circumstances, to the minutest andmost trivial point, which attended each part of the melancholy scene. Noconfusion or contradiction, however, occurred, that could countenance thesuspicion which he seemed to have adopted against Butler. At length thetrain of his interrogatories reached Madge Wildfire, at whose name themagistrate and town-clerk exchanged significant glances. If the fate ofthe Good Town had depended on her careful magistrate's knowing thefeatures and dress of this personage, his inquiries could not have beenmore particular. But Butler could say almost nothing of this person'sfeatures, which were disguised apparently with red paint and soot, likean Indian going to battle, besides the projecting shade of a curch, orcoif, which muffled the hair of the supposed female. He declared that hethought he could not know this Madge Wildfire, if placed before him in adifferent dress, but that he believed he might recognise her voice. 

The magistrate requested him again to state by what gate he left thecity. 

"By the Cowgate Port, " replied Butler. 

"Was that the nearest road to Libberton?"

"No, " answered Butler, with embarrassment; "but it was the nearest way toextricate myself from the mob. "

The clerk and magistrate again exchanged glances. 

"Is the Cowgate Port a nearer way to Libberton from the Grassmarket thanBristo Port?"

"No, " replied Butler; "but I had to visit a friend. "

"Indeed!" said the interrogator--"You were in a hurry to tell the sightyou had witnessed, I suppose?"

"Indeed I was not, " replied Butler; "nor did I speak on the subject thewhole time I was at St. Leonard's Crags. "

"Which road did you take to St. Leonard's Crags?"

"By the foot of Salisbury Crags, " was the reply. 

"Indeed? you seem partial to circuitous routes, " again said themagistrate. "Whom did you see after you left the city?"

One by one he obtained a description of every one of the groups who hadpassed Butler, as already noticed, their number, demeanour, andappearance; and, at length, came to the circumstance of the mysteriousstranger in the King's Park. On this subject Butler would fain haveremained silent, But the magistrate had no sooner got a slight hintconcerning the incident, than he seemed bent to possess himself of themost minute particulars. 

"Look ye, Mr. Butler, " said he, "you are a young man, and bear anexcellent character; so much I will myself testify in your favour. But weare aware there has been, at times, a sort of bastard and fiery zeal insome of your order, and those, men irreproachable in other points, whichhas led them into doing and countenancing great irregularities, by whichthe peace of the country is liable to be shaken. --I will deal plainlywith you. I am not at all satisfied with this story, of your setting outagain and again to seek your dwelling by two several roads, which wereboth circuitous. And, to be frank, no one whom we have examined on thisunhappy affair could trace in your appearance any thing like your actingunder compulsion. Moreover, the waiters at the Cowgate Port observedsomething like the trepidation of guilt in your conduct, and declare thatyou were the first to command them to open the gate, in a tone ofauthority, as if still presiding over the guards and out-posts of therabble, who had besieged them the whole night. "

"God forgive them!" said Butler; "I only asked free passage for myself;they must have much misunderstood, if they did not wilfully misrepresentme. "

"Well, Mr. Butler, " resumed the magistrate, "I am inclined to judge thebest and hope the best, as I am sure I wish the best; but you must befrank with me, if you wish to secure my good opinion, and lessen the riskof inconvenience to yourself. You have allowed you saw another individualin your passage through the King's Park to Saint Leonard's Crags--I mustknow every word which passed betwixt you. "

Thus closely pressed, Butler, who had no reason for concealing whatpassed at that meeting, unless because Jeanie Deans was concerned in it, thought it best to tell the whole truth from beginning to end. 

"Do you suppose, " said the magistrate, pausing, "that the young womanwill accept an invitation so mysterious?"

"I fear she will, " replied Butler. 

"Why do you use the word _fear_ it?" said the magistrate. 

"Because I am apprehensive for her safety, in meeting at such a time andplace, one who had something of the manner of a desperado, and whosemessage was of a character so inexplicable. "

"Her safety shall be cared for, " said the magistrate. "Mr. Butler, I amconcerned I cannot immediately discharge you from confinement, but I hopeyou will not be long detained. --Remove Mr. Butler, and let him beprovided with decent accommodation in all respects. "

He was conducted back to the prison accordingly; but, in the food offeredto him, as well as in the apartment in which he was lodged, therecommendation of the magistrate was strictly attended to. 

CHAPTER THIRTEENTH. 

 Dark and eerie was the night, And lonely was the way, As Janet, wi' her green mantell, To Miles' Cross she did gae. Old Ballad. 

Leaving Butler to all the uncomfortable thoughts attached to his newsituation, among which the most predominant was his feeling that he was, by his confinement, deprived of all possibility of assisting the familyat St. Leonard's in their greatest need, we return to Jeanie Deans, whohad seen him depart, without an opportunity of farther explanation, inall that agony of mind with which the female heart bids adieu to thecomplicated sensations so well described by Coleridge, --

 Hopes, and fears that kindle hope, An undistinguishable throng; And gentle wishes long subdued-- Subdued and cherished long. 

It is not the firmest heart (and Jeanie, under her russet rokelay, hadone that would not have disgraced Cato's daughter) that can most easilybid adieu to these soft and mingled emotions. She wept for a few minutesbitterly, and without attempting to refrain from this indulgence ofpassion. But a moment's recollection induced her to check herself for agrief selfish and proper to her own affections, while her father andsister were plunged into such deep and irretrievable affliction. She drewfrom her pocket the letter which had been that morning flung into herapartment through an open window, and the contents of which were assingular as the expression was violent and energetic. "If she would savea human being from the most damning guilt, and all its desperateconsequences, --if she desired the life an honour of her sister to besaved from the bloody fangs of an unjust law, --if she desired not toforfeit peace of mind here, and happiness hereafter, " such was thefrantic style of the conjuration, "she was entreated to give a sure, secret, and solitary meeting to the writer. She alone could rescue him, "so ran the letter, "and he only could rescue her. " He was in suchcircumstances, the billet farther informed her, that an attempt to bringany witness of their conference, or even to mention to her father, or anyother person whatsoever, the letter which requested it, would inevitablyprevent its taking place, and ensure the destruction of her sister. Theletter concluded with incoherent but violent protestations, that inobeying this summons she had nothing to fear personally. 

The message delivered to her by Butler from the stranger in the Parktallied exactly with the contents of the letter, but assigned a laterhour and a different place of meeting. Apparently the writer of theletter had been compelled to let Butler so far into his confidence, forthe sake of announcing this change to Jeanie. She was more than once onthe point of producing the billet, in vindication of herself from herlover's half-hinted suspicions. But there is something in stooping tojustification which the pride of innocence does not at all timeswillingly submit to; besides that the threats contained in the letter, incase of her betraying the secret, hung heavy on her heart. It isprobable, however, that had they remained longer together, she might havetaken the resolution to submit the whole matter to Butler, and be guidedby him as to the line of conduct which she should adopt. And when, by thesudden interruption of their conference, she lost the opportunity ofdoing so, she felt as if she had been unjust to a friend, whose advicemight have been highly useful, and whose attachment deserved her full andunreserved confidence. 

To have recourse to her father upon this occasion, she considered ashighly imprudent. There was no possibility of conjecturing in what lightthe matter might strike old David, whose manner of acting and thinking inextraordinary circumstances depended upon feelings and principlespeculiar to himself, the operation of which could not be calculated uponeven by those best acquainted with him. To have requested some femalefriend to have accompanied her to the place of rendezvous, would perhapshave been the most eligible expedient; but the threats of the writer, that betraying his secret would prevent their meeting (on which hersister's safety was said to depend) from taking place at all, would havedeterred her from making such a confidence, even had she known a personin whom she thought it could with safety have been reposed. But she knewnone such. Their acquaintance with the cottagers in the vicinity had beenvery slight, and limited to trifling acts of good neighbourhood. Jeanieknew little of them, and what she knew did not greatly incline her totrust any of them. They were of the order of loquacious good-humouredgossips usually found in their situation of life; and their conversationhad at all times few charms for a young woman, to whom nature and thecircumstance of a solitary life had given a depth of thought and force ofcharacter superior to the frivolous part of her sex, whether in high orlow degree. 

Left alone and separated from all earthly counsel, she had recourse to afriend and adviser, whose ear is open to the cry of the poorest and mostafflicted of his people. She knelt, and prayed with fervent sincerity, that God would please to direct her what course to follow in her arduousand distressing situation. It was the belief of the time and sect towhich she belonged, that special answers to prayer, differing little intheir character from divine inspiration, were, as they expressed it, "borne in upon their minds" in answer to their earnest petitions in acrisis of difficulty. Without entering into an abstruse point ofdivinity, one thing is plain;--namely, that the person who lays open hisdoubts and distresses in prayer, with feeling and sincerity, mustnecessarily, in the act of doing so, purify his mind from the dross ofworldly passions and interests, and bring it into that state, when theresolutions adopted are likely to be selected rather from a sense ofduty, than from any inferior motive. Jeanie arose from her devotions, with her heart fortified to endure affliction, and encouraged to facedifficulties. 

"I will meet this unhappy man, " she said to herself--"unhappy he must be, since I doubt he has been the cause of poor Effie's misfortune--but Iwill meet him, be it for good or ill. My mind shall never cast up to me, that, for fear of what might be said or done to myself, I left thatundone that might even yet be the rescue of her. "

With a mind greatly composed since the adoption of this resolution, shewent to attend her father. The old man, firm in the principles of hisyouth, did not, in outward appearance at least, permit a thought of hitfamily distress to interfere with the stoical reserve of his countenanceand manners. He even chid his daughter for having neglected, in thedistress of the morning, some trifling domestic duties which fell underher department. 

"Why, what meaneth this, Jeanie?" said the old man--"The brownfour-year-auld's milk is not seiled yet, nor the bowies put up on thebink. If ye neglect your warldly duties in the day of affliction, whatconfidence have I that ye mind the greater matters that concernsalvation? God knows, our bowies, and our pipkins, and our draps o' milk, and our bits o' bread, are nearer and dearer to us than the bread oflife!"

Jeanie, not unpleased to hear her father's thoughts thus expandthemselves beyond the sphere of his immediate distress, obeyed him, andproceeded to put her household matters in order; while old David movedfrom place to place about his ordinary employments, scarce showing, unless by a nervous impatience at remaining long stationary, anoccasional convulsive sigh, or twinkle of the eyelid, that he waslabouring under the yoke of such bitter affliction. 

The hour of noon came on, and the father and child sat down to theirhomely repast. In his petition for a blessing on the meal, the poor oldman added to his supplication, a prayer that the bread eaten in sadnessof heart, and the bitter waters of Marah, might be made as nourishing asthose which had been poured forth from a full cup and a plentiful basketand store; and having concluded his benediction, and resumed the bonnetwhich he had laid "reverently aside, " he proceeded to exhort his daughterto eat, not by example indeed, but at least by precept. 

"The man after God's own heart, " he said, "washed and anointed himself, and did eat bread, in order to express his submission under adispensation of suffering, and it did not become a Christian man or womanso to cling to creature-comforts of wife or bairns"--(here the wordsbecame too great, as it were, for his utterance), --"as to forget the fistduty, --submission to the Divine will. "

To add force to his precept, he took a morsel on his plate, but natureproved too strong even for the powerful feelings with which heendeavoured to bridle it. Ashamed of his weakness, he started up, and ranout of the house, with haste very unlike the deliberation of his usualmovements. In less than five minutes he returned, having successfullystruggled to recover his ordinary composure of mind and countenance, andaffected to colour over his late retreat, by muttering that he thought heheard the "young staig loose in the byre. "

He did not again trust himself with the subject of his formerconversation, and his daughter was glad to see that he seemed to avoidfarther discourse on that agitating topic. The hours glided on, as onthey must and do pass, whether winged with joy or laden with affliction. The sun set beyond the dusky eminence of the Castle and the screen ofwestern hills, and the close of evening summoned David Deans and hisdaughter to the family duty of the night. It came bitterly upon Jeanie'srecollection, how often, when the hour of worship approached, she used towatch the lengthening shadows, and look out from the door of the house, to see if she could spy her sister's return homeward. Alas! this idle andthoughtless waste of time, to what evils had it not finally led? and wasshe altogether guiltless, who, noticing Effie's turn to idle and lightsociety, had not called in her father's authority to restrain her?--But Iacted for the best, she again reflected, and who could have expected sucha growth of evil, from one grain of human leaven, in a disposition sokind, and candid, and generous?

As they sate down to the "exercise, " as it is called, a chair happenedaccidentally to stand in the place which Effie usually occupied. DavidDeans saw his daughter's eyes swim in tears as they were directed towardsthis object, and pushed it aside, with a gesture of some impatience, asif desirous to destroy every memorial of earthly interest when about toaddress the Deity. The portion of Scripture was read, the psalm was sung, the prayer was made; and it was remarkable that, in discharging theseduties, the old man avoided all passages and expressions, of whichScripture affords so many, that might be considered as applicable to hisown domestic misfortune. In doing so it was perhaps his intention tospare the feelings of his daughter, as well as to maintain, in outwardshow at least, that stoical appearance of patient endurance of all theevil which earth could bring, which was in his opinion essential to thecharacter of one who rated all earthly things at their just estimate ofnothingness. When he had finished the duty of the evening, he came up tohis daughter, wished her good-night, and, having done so, continued tohold her by the hands for half-a-minute; then drawing her towards him, kissed her forehead, and ejaculated, "The God of Israel bless you, evenwith the blessings of the promise, my dear bairn!"

It was not either in the nature or habits of David Deans to seem a fondfather; nor was he often observed to experience, or at least to evince, that fulness of the heart which seeks to expand itself in tenderexpressions or caresses even to those who were dearest to him. On thecontrary, he used to censure this as a degree of weakness in several ofhis neighbours, and particularly in poor widow Butler. It followed, however, from the rarity of such emotions in this self-denied andreserved man, that his children attached to occasional marks of hisaffection and approbation a degree of high interest and solemnity; wellconsidering them as evidences of feelings which were only expressed whenthey became too intense for suppression or concealment. 

With deep emotion, therefore, did he bestow, and his daughter receive, this benediction and paternal caress. "And you, my dear father, "exclaimed Jeanie, when the door had closed upon the venerable old man, "may you have purchased and promised blessings multiplied upon you--upon_you, _ who walk in this world as though you were not of the world, andhold all that it can give or take away but as the _midges_ that thesun-blink brings out, and the evening wind sweeps away!"

She now made preparation for her night-walk. Her father slept in anotherpart of the dwelling, and, regular in all his habits, seldom or neverleft his apartment when he had betaken himself to it for the evening. Itwas therefore easy for her to leave the house unobserved, so soon as thetime approached at which she was to keep her appointment. But the stepshe was about to take had difficulties and terrors in her own eyes, though she had no reason to apprehend her father's interference. Her lifehad been spent in the quiet, uniform, and regular seclusion of theirpeaceful and monotonous household. The very hour which some damsels ofthe present day, as well of her own as of higher degree, would consideras the natural period of commencing an evening of pleasure, brought, inher opinion, awe and solemnity in it; and the resolution she had takenhad a strange, daring, and adventurous character, to which she couldhardly reconcile herself when the moment approached for putting it intoexecution. Her hands trembled as she snooded her fair hair beneath theriband, then the only ornament or cover which young unmarried women woreon their head, and as she adjusted the scarlet tartan screen or mufflermade of plaid, which the Scottish women wore, much in the fashion of theblack silk veils still a part of female dress in the Netherlands. A senseof impropriety as well as of danger pressed upon her, as she lifted thelatch of her paternal mansion to leave it on so wild an expedition, andat so late an hour, unprotected, and without the knowledge of her naturalguardian. 

When she found herself abroad and in the open fields, additional subjectsof apprehension crowded upon her. The dim cliffs and scattered rocks, interspersed with greensward, through which she had to pass to the placeof appointment, as they glimmered before her in a clear autumn night, recalled to her memory many a deed of violence, which, according totradition, had been done and suffered among them. In earlier days theyhad been the haunt of robbers and assassins, the memory of whose crimesis preserved in the various edicts which the council of the city, andeven the parliament of Scotland, had passed for dispersing their bands, and ensuring safety to the lieges, so near the precincts of the city. Thenames of these criminals, and, of their atrocities, were still rememberedin traditions of the scattered cottages and the neighbouring suburb. Inlatter times, as we have already noticed, the sequestered and brokencharacter of the ground rendered it a fit theatre for duels andrencontres among the fiery youth of the period. Two or three of theseincidents, all sanguinary, and one of them fatal in its termination, hadhappened since Deans came to live at St. Leonard's. His daughter'srecollections, therefore, were of blood and horror as she pursued thesmall scarce-tracked solitary path, every step of which conveyed het to agreater distance from help, and deeper into the ominous seclusion ofthese unhallowed precincts. 

As the moon began to peer forth on the scene with a doubtful, flitting, and solemn light, Jeanie's apprehensions took another turn, too peculiarto her rank and country to remain unnoticed. But to trace its origin willrequire another chapter. 

CHAPTER FOURTEENTH. 

 The spirit I have seen May be the devil. And the devil has power To assume a pleasing shape. Hamlet. 

Witchcraft and demonology, as we have already had occasion to remark, wereat this period believed in by almost all ranks, but more especially amongthe stricter classes of Presbyterians, whose government, when their partywere at the head of the state, had been much sullied by their eagernessto inquire into and persecute these imaginary crimes. Now, in this pointof view, also, Saint Leonard's Crags and the adjacent Chase were adreaded and ill-reputed district. Not only had witches held theirmeetings there, but even of very late years the enthusiast or impostor, mentioned in the _Pandaemonium_ of Richard Bovet, Gentleman, * had, amongthe recesses of these romantic cliffs, found his way into the hiddenretreats where the fairies revel in the bowels of the earth. 

* Note I. The Fairy Boy of Leith. 

With all these legends Jeanie Deans was too well acquainted to escapethat strong impression which they usually make on the imagination. Indeed, relations of this ghostly kind had been familiar to her from herinfancy, for they were the only relief which her father's conversationafforded from controversial argument, or the gloomy history of thestrivings and testimonies, escapes, captures, tortures, and executions ofthose martyrs of the Covenant, with whom it was his chiefest boast to sayhe had been acquainted. In the recesses of mountains, in caverns, and inmorasses, to which these persecuted enthusiasts were so ruthlesslypursued, they conceived they had often to contend with the visibleassaults of the Enemy of mankind, as in the cities, and in the cultivatedfields, they were exposed to those of the tyrannical government and theirsoldiery. Such were the terrors which made one of their gifted seersexclaim, when his companion returned to him, after having left him alonein a haunted cavern in Sorn in Galloway, "It is hard living in thisworld-incarnate devils above the earth, and devils under the earth! Satanhas been here since ye went away, but I have dismissed him by resistance;we will be no more troubled with him this night. " David Deans believedthis, and many other such ghostly encounters and victories, on the faithof the Ansars, or auxiliaries of the banished prophets. This event wasbeyond David's remembrance. But he used to tell with great awe, yet notwithout a feeling of proud superiority to his auditors, how he himselfhad been present at a field-meeting at Crochmade, when the duty of theday was interrupted by the apparition of a tall black man, who, in theact of crossing a ford to join the congregation, lost ground, and wascarried down apparently by the force of the stream. All were instantly atwork to assist him, but with so little success, that ten or twelve stoutmen, who had hold of the rope which they had cast in to his aid, wererather in danger to be dragged into the stream, and lose their own lives, than likely to save that of the supposed perishing man. "But famous JohnSemple of Carspharn, " David Deans used to say with exultation, "saw thewhaup in the rape. --'Quit the rope, ' he cried to us (for I that was but acallant had a hand o' the rape mysell), 'it is the Great Enemy! he willburn, but not drown; his design is to disturb the good wark, by raisingwonder and confusion in your minds; to put off from your spirits all thatye hae heard and felt. '--Sae we let go the rape, " said David, "and hewent adown the water screeching and bullering like a Bull of Bashan, ashe's ca'd in Scripture. "*

* Note J. Intercourse of the Covenanters with the invisible world. 

Trained in these and similar legends, it was no wonder that Jeanie beganto feel an ill-defined apprehension, not merely of the phantoms whichmight beset her way, but of the quality, nature, and purpose of the beingwho had thus appointed her a meeting, at a place and hour of horror, andat a time when her mind must be necessarily full of those tempting andensnaring thoughts of grief and despair, which were supposed to laysufferers particularly open to the temptations of the Evil One. If suchan idea had crossed even Butler's well-informed mind, it was calculatedto make a much stronger impression upon hers. Yet firmly believing thepossibility of an encounter so terrible to flesh and blood, Jeanie, witha degree of resolution of which we cannot sufficiently estimate themerit, because the incredulity of the age has rendered us strangers tothe nature and extent of her feelings, persevered in her determinationnot to omit an opportunity of doing something towards saving her sister, although, in the attempt to avail herself of it, she might be exposed todangers so dreadful to her imagination. So, like Christiana in thePilgrim's Progress, when traversing with a timid yet resolved step theterrors of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, she glided on by rock andstone, "now in glimmer and now in gloom, " as her path lay throughmoonlight or shadow, and endeavoured to overpower the suggestions offear, sometimes by fixing her mind upon the distressed condition of hersister, and the duty she lay under to afford her aid, should that be inher power; and more frequently by recurring in mental prayer to theprotection of that Being to whom night is as noon-day. 

Thus drowning at one time her fears by fixing her mind on a subject ofoverpowering interest, and arguing them down at others by referringherself to the protection of the Deity, she at length approached theplace assigned for this mysterious conference. 

It was situated in the depth of the valley behind Salisbury Crags, whichhas for a background the north-western shoulder of the mountain calledArthur's Seat, on whose descent still remain the ruins of what was once achapel, or hermitage, dedicated to St. Anthony the Eremite. A better sitefor such a building could hardly have been selected; for the chapel, situated among the rude and pathless cliffs, lies in a desert, even inthe immediate vicinity of a rich, populous, and tumultuous capital: andthe hum of the city might mingle with the orisons of the recluses, conveying as little of worldly interest as if it had been the roar of thedistant ocean. Beneath the steep ascent on which these ruins are stillvisible, was, and perhaps is still pointed out, the place where thewretch Nichol Muschat, who has been already mentioned in these pages, hadclosed a long scene of cruelty towards his unfortunate wife, by murderingher, with circumstances of uncommon barbarity. *

* See Note G. Muschat's Cairn. 

The execration in which the man's crime was held extended itself to theplace where it was perpetrated, which was marked by a small _cairn, _ orheap of stones, composed of those which each chance passenger had thrownthere in testimony of abhorrence, and on the principle, it would seem, ofthe ancient British malediction, "May you have a cairn for yourburial-place!"

[Illustration: Muschat's Cairn--221]

As our heroine approached this ominous and unhallowed spot, she pausedand looked to the moon, now rising broad in the north-west, and sheddinga more distinct light than it had afforded during her walk thither. Eyeing the planet for a moment, she then slowly and fearfully turned herhead towards the cairn, from which it was at first averted. She was atfirst disappointed. Nothing was visible beside the little pile of stones, which shone grey in the moonlight. A multitude of confused suggestionsrushed on her mind. Had her correspondent deceived her, and broken hisappointment?--was he too tardy at the appointment he had made?--or hadsome strange turn of fate prevented him from appearing as heproposed?--or, if he were an unearthly being, as her secretapprehensions suggested, was it his object merely to delude her withfalse hopes, and put her to unnecessary toil and terror, according tothe nature, as she had heard, of those wandering demons?--or did hepurpose to blast her with the sudden horrors of his presence when shehad come close to the place of rendezvous? These anxious reflections didnot prevent her approaching to the cairn with a pace that, though slow, was determined. 

When she was within two yards of the heap of stones, a figure rosesuddenly up from behind it, and Jeanie scarce forbore to scream aloud atwhat seemed the realisation of the most frightful of her anticipations. She constrained herself to silence, however, and, making a dead pause, suffered the figure to open the conversation, which he did, by asking, ina voice which agitation rendered tremulous and hollow, "Are you thesister of that ill-fated young woman?"

"I am--I am the sister of Effie Deans!" exclaimed Jeanie. "And as everyou hope God will hear you at your need, tell me, if you can tell, whatcan be done to save her!"

"I do _not_ hope God will hear me at my need, " was the singular answer. "I do not deserve--I do not expect he will. " This desperate language heuttered in a tone calmer than that with which he had at first spoken, probably because the shook of first addressing her was what he felt mostdifficult to overcome. Jeanie remained mute with horror to hear languageexpressed so utterly foreign to all which she had ever been acquaintedwith, that it sounded in her ears rather like that of a fiend than of ahuman being. The stranger pursued his address to her, without seeming tonotice her surprise. "You see before you a wretch, predestined to evilhere and hereafter. "

"For the sake of Heaven, that hears and sees us, " said Jeanie, "dinnaspeak in this desperate fashion! The gospel is sent to the chief ofsinners--to the most miserable among the miserable. "

"Then should I have my own share therein, " said the stranger, "if youcall it sinful to have been the destruction of the mother that boreme--of the friend that loved me--of the woman that trusted me--of theinnocent child that was born to me. If to have done all this is to be asinner, and survive it is to be miserable, then am I most guilty and mostmiserable indeed. "

"Then you are the wicked cause of my sister's ruin?" said Jeanie, with anatural touch of indignation expressed in her tone of voice. 

"Curse me for it, if you will, " said the stranger; "I have well deservedit at your hand. "

"It is fitter for me, " said Jeanie, "to pray to God to forgive you. "

"Do as you will, how you will, or what you will, " he replied, withvehemence; "only promise to obey my directions, and save your sister'slife. "

"I must first know, " said Jeanie, "the means you would have me use in herbehalf. "

"No!--you must first swear--solemnly swear, that you will employ themwhen I make them known to you. "

"Surely, it is needless to swear that I will do all that is lawful to aChristian to save the life of my sister?"

"I will have no reservation!" thundered the stranger; "lawful orunlawful, Christian or heathen, you shall swear to do my hest, and act bymy counsel, or--you little know whose wrath you provoke!"

"I will think on what you have said, " said Jeanie, who began to get muchalarmed at the frantic vehemence of his manner, and disputed in her ownmind, whether she spoke to a maniac, or an apostate spirit incarnate--"Iwill think on what you say, and let you ken to-morrow. "

"To-morrow!" exclaimed the man with a laugh of scorn--"And where will Ibe to-morrow?--or, where will you be to-night, unless you swear to walkby my counsel?--there was one accursed deed done at this spot before now;and there shall be another to match it, unless you yield up to myguidance body and soul. "

As he spoke, he offered a pistol at the unfortunate young woman. Sheneither fled nor fainted, but sunk on her knees, and asked him to spareher life. 

"Is that all you have to say?" said the unmoved ruffian. 

"Do not dip your hands in the blood of a defenceless creature that hastrusted to you, " said Jeanie, still on her knees. 

"Is that all you can say for your life?--Have you no promise togive?--Will you destroy your sister, and compel me to shed more blood?"

"I can promise nothing, " said Jeanie, "which is unlawful for aChristian. "

He cocked the weapon, and held it towards her. 

"May God forgive you!" she said, pressing her hands forcibly against hereyes. 

"D--n!" muttered the man; and, turning aside from her, he uncocked thepistol, and replaced it in his pocket--"I am a villain, " he said, "steeped in guilt and wretchedness, but not wicked enough to do you anyharm! I only wished to terrify you into my measures--She hears menot--she is gone!--Great God! what a wretch am I become!"

As he spoke, she recovered herself from an agony which partook of thebitterness of death; and, in a minute or two, through the strong exertionof her natural sense and courage, collected herself sufficiently tounderstand he intended her no personal injury. 

"No!" he repeated; "I would not add to the murder of your sister, and ofher child, that of any one belonging to her!--Mad, frantic, as I am, andunrestrained by either fear or mercy, given up to the possession of anevil being, and forsaken by all that is good, I would not hurt you, werethe world offered me for a bribe! But, for the sake of all that is dearto you, swear you will follow my counsel. Take this weapon, shoot methrough the head, and with your own hand revenge your sister's wrong, only follow the course--the only course, by which her life can be saved. "

"Alas! is she innocent or guilty?"

"She is guiltless--guiltless of every thing, but of having trusted avillain!--Yet, had it not been for those that were worse than I am--yes, worse than I am, though I am bad indeed--this misery had not befallen. "

"And my sister's child--does it live?" said Jeanie. 

"No; it was murdered--the new-born infant was barbarously murdered, " heuttered in a low, yet stern and sustained voice. --"but, " he addedhastily, "not by her knowledge or consent. "

"Then, why cannot the guilty be brought to justice, and the innocentfreed?"

"Torment me not with questions which can serve no purpose, " he sternlyreplied--"The deed was done by those who are far enough from pursuit, andsafe enough from discovery!--No one can save Effie but yourself. "

"Woe's me! how is it in my power?" asked Jeanie, in despondency. 

"Hearken to me!--You have sense--you can apprehend my meaning--I willtrust you. Your sister is innocent of the crime charged against her"

"Thank God for that!" said Jeanie. 

"Be still and hearken!--The person who assisted her in her illnessmurdered the child; but it was without the mother's knowledge orconsent--She is therefore guiltless, as guiltless as the unhappyinnocent, that but gasped a few minutes in this unhappy world--thebetter was its hap, to be so soon at rest. She is innocent as thatinfant, and yet she must die--it is impossible to clear her of the law!"

"Cannot the wretches be discovered, and given up to punishment?" saidJeanie. 

"Do you think you will persuade those who are hardened in guilt to die tosave another?--Is that the reed you would lean to?"

"But you said there was a remedy, " again gasped out the terrified youngwoman. 

"There is, " answered the stranger, "and it is in your own hands. The blowwhich the law aims cannot be broken by directly encountering it, but itmay be turned aside. You saw your sister during the period preceding thebirth of her child--what is so natural as that she should have mentionedher condition to you? The doing so would, as their cant goes, take thecase from under the statute, for it removes the quality of concealment. Iknow their jargon, and have had sad cause to know it; and the quality ofconcealment is essential to this statutory offence. *

* Note K. Child Murder. 

Nothing is so natural as that Effie should have mentioned her conditionto you--think--reflect--I am positive that she did. "

"Woe's me!" said Jeanie, "she never spoke to me on the subject, but gratsorely when I spoke to her about her altered looks, and the change on herspirits. "

"You asked her questions on the subject?" he said eagerly. "You _must_remember her answer was, a confession that she had been ruined by avillain--yes, lay a strong emphasis on that--a cruel false villain callit--any other name is unnecessary; and that she bore under her bosom theconsequences of his guilt and her folly; and that he had assured her hewould provide safely for her approaching illness. --Well he kept hisword!" These last words he spoke as if it were to himself, and with aviolent gesture of self-accusation, and then calmly proceeded, "You willremember all this?--That is all that is necessary to be said. "

"But I cannot remember, " answered Jeanie, with simplicity, "that whichEffie never told me. "

"Are you so dull--so very dull of apprehension?" he exclaimed, suddenlygrasping her arm, and holding it firm in his hand. "I tell you" (speakingbetween his teeth, and under his breath, but with great energy), "you_must_ remember that she told you all this, whether she ever said asyllable of it or no. You must repeat this tale, in which there is nofalsehood, except in so far as it was not told to you, before theseJustices--Justiciary--whatever they call their bloodthirsty court, andsave your sister from being murdered, and them from becoming murderers. Do not hesitate--I pledge life and salvation, that in saying what I havesaid, you will only speak the simple truth. "

"But, " replied Jeanie, whose judgment was too accurate not to see thesophistry of this argument, "I shall be man-sworn in the very thing inwhich my testimony is wanted, for it is the concealment for which poorEffie is blamed, and you would make me tell a falsehood anent it. "

"I see, " he said, "my first suspicions of you were right, and that youwill let your sister, innocent, fair, and guiltless, except in trusting avillain, die the death of a murderess, rather than bestow the breath ofyour mouth and the sound of your voice to save her. "

"I wad ware the best blood in my body to keep her skaithless, " saidJeanie, weeping in bitter agony, "but I canna change right into wrang, ormake that true which is false. "

"Foolish, hardhearted girl, " said the stranger, "are you afraid of whatthey may do to you? I tell you, even the retainers of the law, who courselife as greyhounds do hares, will rejoice at the escape of a creature soyoung--so beautiful, that they will not suspect your tale; that, if theydid suspect it, they would consider you as deserving, not only offorgiveness, but of praise for your natural affection. "

"It is not man I fear, " said Jeanie, looking upward; "the God, whose nameI must call on to witness the truth of what I say, he will know thefalsehood. "

"And he will know the motive, " said the stranger, eagerly; "he will knowthat you are doing this--not for lucre of gain, but to save the life ofthe innocent, and prevent the commission of a worse crime than that whichthe law seeks to avenge. "

"He has given us a law, " said Jeanie, "for the lamp of our path; if westray from it we err against knowledge--I may not do evil, even that goodmay come out of it. But you--you that ken all this to be true, which Imust take on your word--you that, if I understood what you said e'en now, promised her shelter and protection in her travail, why do not _you_ stepforward, and bear leal and soothfast evidence in her behalf, as ye maywith a clear conscience?"

"To whom do you talk of a clear conscience, woman?" said he, with asudden fierceness which renewed her terrors, --"to _me?_--I have not knownone for many a year. Bear witness in her behalf?--a proper witness, thateven to speak these few words to a woman of so little consequence asyourself, must choose such an hour and such a place as this. When you seeowls and bats fly abroad, like larks, in the sunshine, you may expect tosee such as I am in the assemblies of men. --Hush--listen to that. "

A voice was heard to sing one of those wild and monotonous strains socommon in Scotland, and to which the natives of that country chant theirold ballads. The sound ceased--then came nearer, and was renewed; thestranger listened attentively, still holding Jeanie by the arm (as shestood by him in motionless terror), as if to prevent her interrupting thestrain by speaking or stirring. When the sounds were renewed, the wordswere distinctly audible:

 "When the glede's in the blue cloud, The lavrock lies still; When the hound's in' the green-wood, The hind keeps the hill. "

The person who sung kept a strained and powerful voice at its highestpitch, so that it could be heard at a very considerable distance. As thesong ceased, they might hear a stifled sound, as of steps and whispers ofpersons approaching them. The song was again raised, but the tune waschanged:

 "O sleep ye sound, Sir James, she said, When ye suld rise and ride; There's twenty men, wi' bow and blade, Are seeking where ye hide. "

"I dare stay no longer, " said the stranger; "return home, or remain tillthey come up--you have nothing to fear--but do not tell you saw me--yoursister's fate is in your hands. " So saying, he turned from her, and witha swift, yet cautiously noiseless step, plunged into the darkness on theside most remote from the sounds which they heard approaching, and wassoon lost to her sight. Jeanie remained by the cairn terrified beyondexpression, and uncertain whether she ought to fly homeward with all thespeed she could exert, or wait the approach of those who were advancingtowards her. This uncertainty detained her so long, that she nowdistinctly saw two or three figures already so near to her, that aprecipitate flight would have been equally fruitless and impolitic. 

CHAPTER FIFTEENTH. 

 She speaks things in doubt, That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing, Yet the unshaped use of it doth move The hearers to collection; they aim at it, And botch the words up to fit their own thoughts. Hamlet. 

Like the digressive poet Ariosto, I find myself under the necessity ofconnecting the branches of my story, by taking up the adventures ofanother of the characters, and bringing them down to the point at whichwe have left those of Jeanie Deans. It is not, perhaps, the mostartificial way of telling a story, but it has the advantage of sparingthe necessity of resuming what a knitter (if stocking-looms have leftsuch a person in the land) might call our "dropped stitches;" a labour inwhich the author generally toils much, without getting credit for hispains. 

"I could risk a sma' wad, " said the clerk to the magistrate, "that thisrascal Ratcliffe, if he were insured of his neck's safety, could do morethan ony ten of our police-people and constables to help us to get out ofthis scrape of Porteous's. He is weel acquent wi' a' the smugglers, thieves, and banditti about Edinburgh; and, indeed, he may be called thefather of a' the misdoers in Scotland, for he has passed amang them forthese twenty years by the name of Daddie Rat. "

"A bonny sort of a scoundrel, " replied the magistrate, "to expect a placeunder the city!"

"Begging your honour's pardon, " said the city's procurator-fiscal, uponwhom the duties of superintendent of police devolved, "Mr. Fairscrieve isperfectly in the right. It is just sic as Ratcliffe that the town needsin my department; an' if sae be that he's disposed to turn his knowledgeto the city service, yell no find a better man. --Ye'll get nae saints tobe searchers for uncustomed goods, or for thieves and sic like;--and yourdecent sort of men, religious professors, and broken tradesmen, that areput into the like o' sic trust, can do nae gude ava. They are feared forthis, and they are scrupulous about that, and they arena free to tell alie, though it may be for the benefit of the city; and they dinna like tobe out at irregular hours, and in a dark cauld night, and they like aclout ower the crown far waur; and sae between the fear o' God, and thefear o' man, and the fear o' getting a sair throat, or sair banes, there's a dozen o' our city-folk, baith waiters, and officers, andconstables, that can find out naething but a wee bit skulduddery for thebenefit of the Kirk treasurer. Jock Porteous, that's stiff and stark, puir fallow, was worth a dozen o' them; for he never had ony fears, orscruples, or doubts, or conscience, about onything your honours badehim. "

"He was a gude servant o' the town, " said the Bailie, "though he was anower free-living man. But if you really think this rascal Ratcliffe coulddo us ony service in discovering these malefactors, I would insure himlife, reward, and promotion. It's an awsome thing this mischance for thecity, Mr. Fairscrieve. It will be very ill taen wi' abune stairs. QueenCaroline, God bless her! is a woman--at least I judge sae, and it's naetreason to speak my mind sae far--and ye maybe ken as weel as I do, forye hae a housekeeper, though ye arena a married man, that women arewilfu', and downa bide a slight. And it will sound ill in her ears, thatsic a confused mistake suld come to pass, and naebody sae muckle as to beput into the Tolbooth about it. "

"If ye thought that, sir, " said the procurator-fiscal, "we could easilyclap into the prison a few blackguards upon suspicion. It will have agude active look, and I hae aye plenty on my list, that wadna be a hairthe waur of a week or twa's imprisonment; and if ye thought it nostrictly just, ye could be just the easier wi' them the neist time theydid onything to deserve it; they arena the sort to be lang o' gieing yean opportunity to clear scores wi' them on that account. "

"I doubt that will hardly do in this case, Mr. Sharpitlaw, " returned thetown-clerk; "they'll run their letters, * and be adrift again, before yeken where ye are. "

* A Scottish form of procedure, answering, in some respects, to theEnglish Habeas Corpus. 

"I will speak to the Lord Provost, " said the magistrate, "aboutRatcliffe's business. Mr. Sharpitlaw, you will go with me, and receiveinstructions--something may be made too out of this story of Butler's andhis unknown gentleman--I know no business any man has to swagger about inthe King's Park, and call himself the devil, to the terror of honestfolks, who dinna care to hear mair about the devil than is said from thepulpit on the Sabbath. I cannot think the preacher himsell wad be headingthe mob, though the time has been, they hae been as forward in a bruilzieas their neighbours. "

"But these times are lang by, " said Mr. Sharpitlaw. "In my father's time, there was mair search for silenced ministers about the Bow-head and theCovenant Close, and all the tents of Kedar, as they ca'd the dwellings o'the godly in those days, than there's now for thieves and vagabonds inthe Laigh Calton and the back o' the Canongate. But that time's weel by, an it bide. And if the Bailie will get me directions and authority fromthe Provost, I'll speak wi' Daddie Rat mysell; for I'm thinking I'll makemair out o' him than ye'll do. "

Mr. Sharpitlaw, being necessarily a man of high trust, was accordinglyempowered, in the course of the day, to make such arrangements as mightseem in the emergency most advantageous for the Good Town. He went to thejail accordingly, and saw Ratcliffe in private. 

The relative positions of a police-officer and a professed thief bear adifferent complexion, according to circumstances. The most obvious simileof a hawk pouncing upon his prey is often least applicable. Sometimes theguardian of justice has the air of a cat watching a mouse, and, while hesuspends his purpose of springing upon the pilferer, takes care so tocalculate his motions that he shall not get beyond his power. Sometimes, more passive still, he uses the art of fascination ascribed to therattlesnake, and contents himself with glaring on the victim, through allhis devious flutterings; certain that his terror, confusion, and disorderof ideas, will bring him into his jaws at last. The interview betweenRatcliffe and Sharpitlaw had an aspect different from all these. They satfor five minutes silent, on opposite sides of a small table, and lookedfixedly at each other, with a sharp, knowing, and alert cast ofcountenance, not unmingled with an inclination to laugh, and resembledmore than anything else, two dogs, who, preparing for a game at romps, are seen to couch down, and remain in that posture for a little time, watching each other's movements, and waiting which shall begin the game. 

"So, Mr. Ratcliffe, " said the officer, conceiving it suited his dignityto speak first, "you give up business, I find?"

"Yes, sir, " replied Ratcliffe; "I shall be on that lay nae mair--and Ithink that will save your folk some trouble, Mr. Sharpitlaw?"

"Which Jock DaIgleish" (then finisher of the law* in the Scottishmetropolis) "wad save them as easily, " returned the procurator-fiscal. 

* [Among the flying leaves of the period, there is one called"Sutherland's Lament for the loss of his post, --with his advice, to JohnDaglees his successor. " He was whipped and banished 25th July 1722. Thereis another, called the Speech and dying words of John Dalgleish, lockman_alias_ hangman of Edinburgh, containing these lines:--

 Death, I've a Favour for to beg, That ye wad only gie a Fleg, And spare my Life; As I did to ill-hanged Megg, The Webster's Wife. "]

"Ay; if I waited in the Tolbooth here to have him fit my cravat--butthat's an idle way o' speaking, Mr. Sharpitlaw. "

"Why, I suppose you know you are under sentence of death, Mr. Ratcliffe?"replied Mr. Sharpitlaw. 

"Aye, so are a', as that worthy minister said in the Tolbooth Kirk theday Robertson wan off; but naebody kens when it will be executed. Gudefaith, he had better reason to say sae than he dreamed off, before theplay was played out that morning!"

"This Robertson, " said Sharpitlaw, in a lower and something like aconfidential tone, "d'ye ken, Rat--that is, can ye gie us ony inklingwhere he is to be heard tell o'?"

"Troth, Mr. Sharpitlaw, I'll be frank wi' ye; Robertson is rather a cutabune me--a wild deevil he was, and mony a daft prank he played; butexcept the Collector's job that Wilson led him into, and some tuilziesabout run goods wi' the gaugers and the waiters, he never did onythingthat came near our line o' business. "

"Umph! that's singular, considering the company he kept. "

"Fact, upon my honour and credit, " said Ratcliffe, gravely. "He keepitout o' our little bits of affairs, and that's mair than Wilson did; I haedune business wi' Wilson afore now. But the lad will come on in time;there's nae fear o' him; naebody will live the life he has led, but whathe'll come to sooner or later. "

"Who or what is he, Ratcliffe? you know, I suppose?" said Sharpitlaw. 

"He's better born, I judge, than he cares to let on; he's been a soldier, and he has been a play-actor, and I watna what he has been or hasna been, for as young as he is, sae that it had daffing and nonsense about it. "

"Pretty pranks he has played in his time, I suppose?"

"Ye may say that, " said Ratcliffe, with a sardonic smile; "and" (touchinghis nose) "a deevil amang the lasses. "

"Like enough, " said Sharpitlaw. "Weel, Ratcliffe, I'll no stand nifferingwi' ye; ye ken the way that favour's gotten in my office; ye maun beusefu'. "

"Certainly, sir, to the best of my power--naething for naething--I kenthe rule of the office, " said the ex-depredator. 

"Now the principal thing in hand e'en now, " said the official person, "isthe job of Porteous's; an ye can gie us a lift--why, the inner turnkey'soffice to begin wi', and the captainship in time--ye understand mymeaning?"

"Ay, troth do I, sir; a wink's as gude as a nod to a blind horse; butJock Porteous's job--Lord help ye!--I was under sentence the haill time. God! but I couldna help laughing when I heard Jock skirting for mercy inthe lads' hands. Mony a het skin ye hae gien me, neighbour, thought I, tak ye what's gaun: time about's fair play; ye'll ken now what hanging'sgude for. "

"Come, come, this is all nonsense, Rat, " said the procurator. "Ye cannacreep out at that hole, lad; you must speak to the point--you understandme--if you want favour; gif-gaf makes gude friends, ye ken. "

"But how can I speak to the point, as your honour ca's it, " saidRatcliffe, demurely, and with an air of great simplicity, "when ye ken Iwas under sentence and in the strong room a' the while the job was goingon?"

"And how can we turn ye loose on the public again, Daddie Rat, unless yedo or say something to deserve it?"

"Well, then, d--n it!" answered the criminal, "since it maun be sae, Isaw Geordie Robertson among the boys that brake the jail; I suppose thatwill do me some gude?"

"That's speaking to the purpose, indeed, " said the office-bearer; "andnow, Rat, where think ye we'll find him?"

"Deil haet o' me kens, " said Ratcliffe; "he'll no likely gang back to onyo' his auld howffs; he'll be off the country by this time. He has gudefriends some gate or other, for a' the life he's led; he's been weeleducate. "

"He'll grace the gallows the better, " said Mr. Sharpitlaw; "a desperatedog, to murder an officer of the city for doing his duty! Wha kens wha'sturn it might be next?--But you saw him plainly?"

"As plainly as I see you. "

"How was he dressed?" said Sharpitlaw. 

"I couldna weel see; something of a woman's bit mutch on his head; but yenever saw sic a ca'-throw. Ane couldna hae een to a' thing. "

"But did he speak to no one?" said Sharpitlaw. 

"They were a' speaking and gabbling through other, " said Ratcliffe, whowas obviously unwilling to carry his evidence farther than he couldpossibly help. 

"This will not do, Ratcliffe, " said the procurator; "you must speak_out--out--out, _" tapping the table emphatically, as he repeated thatimpressive monosyllable. 

"It's very hard, sir, " said the prisoner; "and but for theunder-turnkey's place"

"And the reversion of the captaincy--the captaincy of the Tolbooth, man--that is, in case of gude behaviour. "

"Ay, ay, " said Ratcliffe, "gude behaviour!--there's the deevil. And thenit's waiting for dead folk's shoon into the bargain. "

"But Robertson's head will weigh something, " said Sharpitlaw; "somethinggey and heavy, Rat; the town maun show cause--that's right andreason--and then ye'll hae freedom to enjoy your gear honestly. "

"I dinna ken, " said Ratcliffe; "it's a queer way of beginning the tradeof honesty--but deil ma care. Weel, then, I heard and saw him speak tothe wench Effie Deans, that's up there for child-murder. "

"The deil ye did? Rat, this is finding a mare's nest wi' a witness. --Andthe man that spoke to Butler in the Park, and that was to meet wi' JeanieDeans at Muschat's Cairn--whew! lay that and that together? As sure as Ilive he's been the father of the lassie's wean. "

"There hae been waur guesses than that, I'm thinking, " observedRatcliffe, turning his quid of tobacco in his cheek, and squirting outthe juice. "I heard something a while syne about his drawing up wi' abonny quean about the Pleasaunts, and that it was a' Wilson could do tokeep him frae marrying her. "

Here a city officer entered, and told Sharpitlaw that they had the womanin custody whom he had directed them to bring before him. 

"It's little matter now, " said he, "the thing is taking another turn;however, George, ye may bring her in. "

The officer retired, and introduced, upon his return, a tall, strappingwench of eighteen or twenty, dressed, fantastically, in a sort of blueriding-jacket, with tarnished lace, her hair clubbed like that of a man, a Highland bonnet, and a bunch of broken feathers, a riding-skirt (orpetticoat) of scarlet camlet, embroidered with tarnished flowers. Herfeatures were coarse and masculine, yet at a little distance, by dint ofvery bright wild-looking black eyes, an aquiline nose, and a commandingprofile, appeared rather handsome. She flourished the switch she held inher hand, dropped a courtesy as low as a lady at a birth-nightintroduction, recovered herself seemingly according to Touchstone'sdirections to Audrey, and opened the conversation without waiting tillany questions were asked. 

"God gie your honour gude-e'en, and mony o' them, bonny Mr. Sharpitlaw!--Gude-e'en to ye, Daddie Ratton--they tauld me ye werehanged, man; or did ye get out o' John Dalgleish's hands likehalf-hangit Maggie Dickson?"

"Whisht, ye daft jaud, " said Ratcliffe, "and hear what's said to ye. "

"Wi' a' my heart, Ratton. Great preferment for poor Madge to be broughtup the street wi' a grand man, wi' a coat a' passemented wi' worset-lace, to speak wi' provosts, and bailies, and town-clerks, and prokitors, atthis time o' day--and the haill town looking at me too--This is honour onearth for ance!"

"Ay, Madge, " said Mr. Sharpitlaw, in a coaxing tone; "and ye're dressedout in your braws, I see; these are not your every-days' claiths ye haveon. "

"Deil be in my fingers, then!" said Madge--"Eh, sirs!" (observing Butlercome into the apartment), "there's a minister in the Tolbooth--wha willca' it a graceless place now?--I'se warrant he's in for the gude auldcause--but it's be nae cause o' mine, " and off she went into a song--

"Hey for cavaliers, ho for cavaliers, Dub a dub, dub a dub, Have at old Beelzebub, --Oliver's squeaking for fear. "

"Did you ever see that mad woman before?" said Sharpitlaw to Butler. 

"Not to my knowledge, sir, " replied Butler. 

"I thought as much, " said the procurator-fiscal, looking towardsRatcliffe, who answered his glance with a nod of acquiescence andintelligence. --

"But that is Madge Wildfire, as she calls herself, " said the man of lawto Butler. 

"Ay, that I am, " said Madge, "and that I have been ever since I wassomething better--Heigh ho"--(and something like melancholy dwelt on herfeatures for a minute)--"But I canna mind when that was--it was langsyne, at ony rate, and I'll ne'er fash my thumb about it. --

 I glance like the wildfire through country and town; I'm seen on the causeway--I'm seen on the down; The lightning that flashes so bright and so free, Is scarcely so blithe or so bonny as me. "

"Hand your tongue, ye skirling limmer!" said the officer who had acted asmaster of the ceremonies to this extraordinary performer, and who wasrather scandalised at the freedom of her demeanour before a person of Mr. Sharpitlaw's importance--"haud your tongue, or I'se gie ye something toskirl for!"

"Let her alone, George, " said Sharpitlaw, "dinna put her out o' tune; Ihae some questions to ask her--But first, Mr. Butler, take another lookof her. "

"Do sae, minister--do sae, " cried Madge; "I am as weel worth looking atas ony book in your aught. --And I can say the single carritch, and thedouble carritch, and justification, and effectual calling, and theassembly of divines at Westminster, that is" (she added in a low tone), "I could say them ance--but it's lang syne--and ane forgets, ye ken. " Andpoor Madge heaved another deep sigh. 

"Weel, sir, " said Mr. Sharpitlaw to Butler, "what think ye now?"

"As I did before, " said Butler; "that I never saw the poor dementedcreature in my life before. "

"Then she is not the person whom you said the rioters last nightdescribed as Madge Wildfire?"

"Certainly not, " said Butler. "They may be near the same height, for theyare both tall, but I see little other resemblance. "

"Their dress, then, is not alike?" said Sharpitlaw. 

"Not in the least, " said Butler. 

"Madge, my bonny woman, " said Sharpitlaw, in the same coaxing manner, "what did ye do wi' your ilka-day's claise yesterday?"

"I dinna mind, " said Madge. 

"Where was ye yesterday at e'en, Madge?"

"I dinna mind ony thing about yesterday, " answered Madge; "ae day iseneugh for ony body to wun ower wi' at a time, and ower mucklesometimes. "

"But maybe, Madge, ye wad mind something about it, if I was to gie yethis half-crown?" said Sharpitlaw, taking out the piece of money. 

"That might gar me laugh, but it couldna gar me mind. "

"But, Madge, " continued Sharpitlaw, "were I to send you to the workhousein Leith Wynd, and gar Jock Dalgleish lay the tawse on your back"

"That wad gar me greet, " said Madge, sobbing, "but it couldna gar memind, ye ken. "

"She is ower far past reasonable folks' motives, sir, " said Ratcliffe, "to mind siller, or John Dalgleish, or the cat-and-nine-tails either; butI think I could gar her tell us something. "

"Try her, then, Ratcliffe, " said Sharpitlaw, "for I am tired of her crazypate, and be d--d to her. "

"Madge, " said Ratcliffe, "hae ye ony joes now?"

"An ony body ask ye, say ye dinna ken. --Set him to be speaking of myjoes, auld Daddie Ratton!"

"I dare say, ye hae deil ane?"

"See if I haena then, " said Madge, with the toss of the head of affrontedbeauty--"there's Rob the Ranter, and Will Fleming, and then there'sGeordie Robertson, lad--that's Gentleman Geordie--what think ye o' that?"

Ratcliffe laughed, and, winking to the procurator-fiscal, pursued theinquiry in his own way. "But, Madge, the lads only like ye when ye hae onyour braws--they wadna touch you wi' a pair o' tangs when you are in yourauld ilka-day rags. "

"Ye're a leeing auld sorrow then, " replied the fair one; "for GentleGeordie Robertson put my ilka-day's claise on his ain bonny sellyestreen, and gaed a' through the town wi' them; and gawsie and grand helookit, like ony queen in the land. "

"I dinna believe a word o't, " said Ratcliffe, with another wink to theprocurator. "Thae duds were a' o' the colour o' moonshine in the water, I'm thinking, Madge--The gown wad be a sky-blue scarlet, I'se warrantye?"

"It was nae sic thing, " said Madge, whose unretentive memory let out, inthe eagerness of contradiction, all that she would have most wished tokeep concealed, had her judgment been equal to her inclination. "It wasneither scarlet nor sky-blue, but my ain auld brown threshie-coat of ashort-gown, and my mother's auld mutch, and my red rokelay--and he giedme a croun and a kiss for the use o' them, blessing on his bonnyface--though it's been a dear ane to me. "

"And where did he change his clothes again, hinnie?" said Sharpitlaw, inhis most conciliatory manner. 

"The procurator's spoiled a', " observed Ratcliffe, drily. And it was evenso; for the question, put in so direct a shape, immediately awakenedMadge to the propriety of being reserved upon those very topics on whichRatcliffe had indirectly seduced her to become communicative. 

"What was't ye were speering at us, sir?" she resumed, with an appearanceof stolidity so speedily assumed, as showed there was a good deal ofknavery mixed with her folly. 

"I asked you, " said the procurator, "at what hour, and to what place, Robertson brought back your clothes. "

"Robertson?--Lord hand a care o' us! what Robertson?"

"Why, the fellow we were speaking of, Gentle Geordie, as you call him. "

"Geordie Gentle!" answered Madge, with well-feigned amazement--"I dinnaken naebody they ca' Geordie Gentle. "

"Come, my jo, " said Sharpitlaw, "this will not do; you must tell us whatyou did with these clothes of yours. "

Madge Wildfire made no answer, unless the question may seem connectedwith the snatch of a song with which she indulged the embarrassedinvestigator:--

 "What did ye wi' the bridal ring--bridal ring--bridal ring? What did ye wi' your wedding ring, ye little cutty quean, O? I gied it till a sodger, a sodger, a sodger, I gied it till a sodger, an auld true love o' mine, O. "

Of all the madwomen who have sung and said, since the days of Hamlet theDane, if Ophelia be the most affecting, Madge Wildfire was the mostprovoking. 

The procurator-fiscal was in despair. "I'll take some measures with thisd--d Bess of Bedlam, " said he, "that shall make her find her tongue. "

"Wi' your favour, sir, " said Ratcliffe, "better let her mind settle alittle--Ye have aye made out something. "

"True, " said the official person; "a brown short-gown, mutch, redrokelay--that agrees with your Madge Wildfire, Mr. Butler?" Butler agreedthat it did so. "Yes, there was a sufficient motive for taking this crazycreature's dress and name, while he was about such a job. "

"And I am free to say _now, _" said Ratcliffe

"When you see it has come out without you, " interrupted Sharpitlaw. 

"Just sae, sir, " reiterated Ratcliffe. "I am free to say now, since it'scome out otherwise, that these were the clothes I saw Robertson wearinglast night in the jail, when he was at the head of the rioters. "

"That's direct evidence, " said Sharpitlaw; "stick to that, Rat--I willreport favourably of you to the provost, for I have business for youto-night. It wears late; I must home and get a snack, and I'll be back inthe evening. Keep Madge with you, Ratcliffe, and try to get her into agood tune again. " So saying he left the prison. 

CHAPTER SIXTEENTH. 

 And some they whistled--and some they sang, And some did loudly say, Whenever Lord Barnard's horn it blew, "Away, Musgrave away!" Ballad of Little Musgrave. 

When the man of office returned to the Heart of Mid-Lothian, he resumedhis conference with Ratcliffe, of whose experience and assistance he nowheld himself secure. "You must speak with this wench, Rat--this EffieDeans--you must sift her a wee bit; for as sure as a tether she will kenRobertson's haunts--till her, Rat--till her without delay. "

"Craving your pardon, Mr. Sharpitlaw, " said the turnkey elect, "that'swhat I am not free to do. "

"Free to do, man? what the deil ails ye now?--I thought we had settled a'that?"

"I dinna ken, sir, " said Ratcliffe; "I hae spoken to this Effie--she'sstrange to this place and to its ways, and to a' our ways, Mr. Sharpitlaw; and she greets, the silly tawpie, and she's breaking herheart already about this wild chield; and were she the mean's o' takinghim, she wad break it outright. "

"She wunna hae time, lad, " said Sharpitlaw; "the woodie will hae it's aino' her before that--a woman's heart takes a lang time o' breaking. "

"That's according to the stuff they are made o' sir, " repliedRatcliffe--"But to make a lang tale short, I canna undertake the job. It gangs against my conscience. "

"_Your_ conscience, Rat?" said Sharpitlaw, with a sneer, which the readerwill probably think very natural upon the occasion. 

"Ou ay, sir, " answered Ratcliffe, calmly, "just my conscience; a'body hasa conscience, though it may be ill wunnin at it. I think mine's as weelout o' the gate as maist folk's are; and yet it's just like the noop ofmy elbow, it whiles gets a bit dirl on a corner. "

"Weel, Rat, " replied Sharpitlaw, "since ye are nice, I'll speak to thehussy mysell. "

Sharpitlaw, accordingly, caused himself to be introduced into the littledark apartment tenanted by the unfortunate Effie Deans. The poor girl wasseated on her little flock-bed, plunged in a deep reverie. Some foodstood on the table, of a quality better than is usually supplied toprisoners, but it was untouched. The person under whose care she was moreparticularly placed, said, "that sometimes she tasted naething from thetae end of the four-and-twenty hours to the t'other, except a drink ofwater. "

Sharpitlaw took a chair, and, commanding the turnkey to retire, he openedthe conversation, endeavouring to throw into his tone and countenance asmuch commiseration as they were capable of expressing, for the one wassharp and harsh, the other sly, acute, and selfish. 

"How's a' wi' ye, Effie?--How d'ye find yoursell, hinny?"

A deep sigh was the only answer. 

"Are the folk civil to ye, Effie?--it's my duty to inquire. "

"Very civil, sir, " said Effie, compelling herself to answer, yet hardlyknowing what she said. 

"And your victuals, " continued Sharpitlaw, in the same condolingtone, --"do you get what you like?--or is there onything you wouldparticularly fancy, as your health seems but silly?"

"It's a' very weel, sir, I thank ye, " said the poor prisoner, in a tonehow different from the sportive vivacity of those of the Lily of St. Leonard's!--"it's a' very gude--ower gude for me. "

"He must have been a great villain, Effie, who brought you to this pass, "said Sharpitlaw. 

The remark was dictated partly by a natural feeling, of which even hecould not divest himself, though accustomed to practise on the passionsof others, and keep a most heedful guard over his own, and partly by hiswish to introduce the sort of conversation which might, best serve hisimmediate purpose. Indeed, upon the present occasion, these mixed motivesof feeling and cunning harmonised together wonderfully; for, saidSharpitlaw to himself, the greater rogue Robertson is, the more will bethe merit of bringing him to justice. "He must have been a great villain, indeed, " he again reiterated; "and I wish I had the skelping o' him. "

"I may blame mysell mair than him, " said Effie; "I was bred up to kenbetter; but he, poor fellow, "--(she stopped). 

"Was a thorough blackguard a' his life, I dare say, " said Sharpitlaw. "A stranger he was in this country, and a companion of that lawlessvagabond, Wilson, I think, Effie?"

"It wad hae been dearly telling him that he had ne'er seen Wilson'sface. "

"That's very true that you are saying, Effie, " said Sharpitlaw. "Wherewas't that Robertson and you were used to howff thegither? Somegate aboutthe Laigh Calton, I am thinking. "

The simple and dispirited girl had thus far followed Mr. Sharpitlaw'slead, because he had artfully adjusted his observations to the thoughtshe was pretty certain must be passing through her own mind, so that heranswers became a kind of thinking aloud, a mood into which those who areeither constitutionally absent in mind, or are rendered so by thetemporary pressure of misfortune, may be easily led by a skilful train ofsuggestions. But the last observation of the procurator-fiscal was toomuch of the nature of a direct interrogatory, and it broke the charmaccordingly. 

"What was it that I was saying?" said Effie, starting up from herreclining posture, seating herself upright, and hastily shading herdishevelled hair back from her wasted but still beautiful countenance. She fixed her eyes boldly and keenly upon Sharpitlaw--"You are too muchof a gentleman, sir, --too much of an honest man, to take any notice ofwhat a poor creature like me says, that can hardly ca' my senses myain--God help me!"

"Advantage!--I would be of some advantage to you if I could, " saidSharpitlaw, in a soothing tone; "and I ken naething sae likely to serveye, Effie, as gripping this rascal, Robertson. "

"O dinna misca' him, sir, that never misca'd you!--Robertson?--I am sureI had naething to say against ony man o' the name, and naething will Isay. "

"But if you do not heed your own misfortune, Effie, you should mind whatdistress he has brought on your family, " said the man of law. 

"O, Heaven help me!" exclaimed poor Effie--"My poor father--my dearJeanie--O, that's sairest to bide of a'! O, sir, if you hae onykindness--if ye hae ony touch of compassion--for a' the folk I see hereare as hard as the wa'-stanes--If ye wad but bid them let my sisterJeanie in the next time she ca's! for when I hear them put her awa fraethe door, and canna climb up to that high window to see sae muckle asher gown-tail, it's like to pit me out o' my judgment. " And she lookedon him with a face of entreaty, so earnest, yet so humble, that shefairly shook the steadfast purpose of his mind. 

"You shall see your sister, " he began, "if you'll tell me, "--theninterrupting himself, he added, in a more hurried tone, --"no, d--n it, you shall see your sister whether you tell me anything or no. " So saying, he rose up and left the apartment. 

When he had rejoined Ratcliffe, he observed, "You are right, Ratton;there's no making much of that lassie. But ae thing I have cleared--thatis, that Robertson has been the father of the bairn, and so I will wagera boddle it will be he that's to meet wi' Jeanie Deans this night atMuschat's Cairn, and there we'll nail him, Rat, or my name is not GideonSharpitlaw. "

"But, " said Ratcliffe, perhaps because he was in no hurry to see anythingwhich was like to be connected with the discovery and apprehension ofRobertson, "an that were the case, Mr. Butler wad hae kend the man in theKing's Park to be the same person wi' him in Madge Wildfire's claise, that headed the mob. "

"That makes nae difference, man, " replied Sharpitlaw--"the dress, thelight, the confusion, and maybe a touch o' a blackit cork, or a slake o'paint-hout, Ratton, I have seen ye dress your ainsell, that the deevil yebelang to durstna hae made oath t'ye. "

"And that's true, too, " said Ratcliffe. 

"And besides, ye donnard carle, " continued Sharpitlaw, triumphantly, "theminister _did_ say that he thought he knew something of the features ofthe birkie that spoke to him in the Park, though he could not charge hismemory where or when he had seen them. "

"It's evident, then, your honour will be right, " said Ratcliffe. 

"Then, Rat, you and I will go with the party oursells this night, and seehim in grips or we are done wi' him. "

"I seena muckle use I can be o' to your honour, " said Ratcliffe, reluctantly. 

"Use?" answered Sharpitlaw--"You can guide the party--you ken the ground. Besides, I do not intend to quit sight o' you, my good friend, till Ihave him in hand. "

"Weel, sir, " said Ratcliffe, but in no joyful tone of acquiescence; "Yemaun hae it your ain way--but mind he's a desperate man. "

"We shall have that with us, " answered Sharpitlaw, "that will settle him, if it is necessary. "

"But, sir, " answered Ratcliffe, "I am sure I couldna undertake to guideyou to Muschat's Cairn in the night-time; I ken the place as mony does, in fair day-light, but how to find it by moonshine, amang sae mony cragsand stanes, as like to each other as the collier to the deil, is mairthan I can tell. I might as soon seek moonshine in water. "

"What's the meaning o' this, Ratcliffe?" said Sharpitlaw, while he fixedhis eye on the recusant, with a fatal and ominous expression, --"Have youforgotten that you are still under sentence of death?"

"No, sir, " said Ratcliffe, "that's a thing no easily put out o' memory;and if my presence be judged necessary, nae doubt I maun gang wi' yourhonour. But I was gaun to tell your honour of ane that has mair skeel o'the gate than me, and that's e'en Madge Wildfire. "

"The devil she has!--Do you think me as mad as she, is, to trust to herguidance on such an occasion?"

"Your honour is the best judge, " answered Ratcliffe; "but I ken I cankeep her in tune, and garr her haud the straight path--she often sleepsout, or rambles about amang thae hills the haill simmer night, the daftlimmer. "

"Weel, Ratcliffe, " replied the procurator-fiscal, "if you think she canguide us the right way--but take heed to what you are about--your lifedepends on your behaviour. "

"It's a sair judgment on a man, " said Ratcliffe, "when he has ance ganesae far wrang as I hae done, that deil a bit he can be honest, try'twhilk way he will. "

Such was the reflection of Ratcliffe, when he was left for a few minutesto himself, while the retainer of justice went to procure a properwarrant, and give the necessary directions. 

The rising moon saw the whole party free from the walls of the city, andentering upon the open ground. Arthur's Seat, like a couchant lion ofimmense size--Salisbury Crags, like a huge belt or girdle of granite, were dimly visible. Holding their path along the southern side of theCanongate, they gained the Abbey of Holyrood House, and from thence foundtheir way by step and stile into the King's Park. They were at first fourin number--an officer of justice and Sharpitlaw, who were well armed withpistols and cutlasses; Ratcliffe, who was not trusted with weapons, lest, he might, peradventure, have used them on the wrong side; and the female. But at the last stile, when they entered the Chase, they were joined byother two officers, whom Sharpitlaw, desirous to secure sufficient forcefor his purpose, and at the same time to avoid observation, had directedto wait for him at this place. Ratcliffe saw this accession of strengthwith some disquietude, for he had hitherto thought it likely thatRobertson, who was a bold, stout, and active young fellow, might havemade his escape from Sharpitlaw and the single officer, by force oragility, without his being implicated in the matter. But the presentstrength of the followers of justice was overpowering, and the only modeof saving Robertson (which the old sinner was well disposed to do, providing always he could accomplish his purpose without compromising hisown safety), must be by contriving that he should have some signal oftheir approach. It was probably with this view that Ratcliffe hadrequested the addition of Madge to the party, having considerableconfidence in her propensity to exert her lungs. Indeed, she had alreadygiven them so many specimens of her clamorous loquacity, that Sharpitlawhalf determined to send her back with one of the officers, rather thancarry forward in his company a person so extremely ill qualified to be aguide in a secret expedition. It seemed, too, as if the open air, theapproach to the hills, and the ascent of the moon, supposed to be soportentous over those whose brain is infirm, made her spirits rise in adegree tenfold more loquacious than she had hitherto exhibited. Tosilence her by fair means seemed impossible; authoritative commands andcoaxing entreaties she set alike at defiance, and threats only made hersulky and altogether intractable. 

"Is there no one of you, " said Sharpitlaw, impatiently, "that knows theway to this accursed place--this Nichol Muschat's Cairn--excepting thismad clavering idiot?"

"Deil ane o' them kens it except mysell, " exclaimed Madge; "how suldthey, the puir fule cowards! But I hae sat on the grave frae batfleeingtime till cook-crow, and had mony a fine crack wi' Muschat and AilieMuschat, that are lying sleeping below. "

"The devil take your crazy brain, " said Sharpitlaw; "will you not allowthe men to answer a question?"

The officers obtaining a moment's audience while Ratcliffe divertedMadge's attention, declared that, though they had a general knowledge ofthe spot, they could not undertake to guide the party to it by theuncertain light of the moon, with such accuracy as to insure success totheir expedition. 

"What shall we do, Ratcliffe?" said Sharpitlaw, "if he sees us before wesee him, --and that's what he is certain to do, if we go strolling about, without keeping the straight road, --we may bid gude day to the job, and Iwould rather lose one hundred pounds, baith for the credit of the police, and because the provost says somebody maun be hanged for this job o'Porteous, come o't what likes. "

"I think, " said Ratcliffe, "we maun just try Madge; and I'll see if I canget her keepit in ony better order. And at ony rate, if he suld hear herskirting her auld ends o' sangs, he's no to ken for that that there'sonybody wi' her. "

"That's true, " said Sharpitlaw; "and if he thinks her alone, he's as liketo come towards her as to rin frae her. So set forward--we hae lost owermuckle time already--see to get her to keep the right road. "

"And what sort o' house does Nichol Muschat and his wife keep now?" saidRatcliffe to the mad woman, by way of humouring her vein of folly; "theywere but thrawn folk lang syne, an a' tales be true. "

"Ou, ay, ay, ay--but a's forgotten now, " replied Madge, in theconfidential tone of a gossip giving the history of her next-doorneighbour--"Ye see, I spoke to them mysell, and tauld them byganes suldbe byganes--her throat's sair misguggled and mashackered though; shewears her corpse-sheet drawn weel up to hide it, but that canna hinderthe bluid seiping through, ye ken. I wussed her to wash it in St. Anthony's Well, and that will cleanse if onything can--But they say bluidnever bleaches out o' linen claith--Deacon Sanders's new cleansing drapswinna do't--I tried them mysell on a bit rag we hae at hame that wasmailed wi' the bluid of a bit skirting wean that was hurt some gate, butout it winna come--Weel, yell say that's queer; but I will bring it outto St. Anthony's blessed Well some braw night just like this, and I'llcry up Ailie Muschat, and she and I will hae a grand bouking-washing, andbleach our claes in the beams of the bonny Lady Moon, that's farpleasanter to me than the sun--the sun's ower het, and ken ye, cummers, my brains are het eneugh already. But the moon, and the dew, and thenight-wind, they are just like a caller kail-blade laid on my brow; andwhiles I think the moon just shines on purpose to pleasure me, whennaebody sees her but mysell. "

This raving discourse she continued with prodigious volubility, walkingon at a great pace, and dragging Ratcliffe along with her, while heendeavoured, in appearance at least, if not in reality, to induce her tomoderate her voice. 

All at once she stopped short upon the top of a little hillock, gazedupward fixedly, and said not one word for the space of five minutes. "What the devil is the matter with her now?" said Sharpitlaw toRatcliffe--"Can you not get her forward?"

"Ye maun just take a grain o' patience wi' her, sir, " said Ratcliffe. "She'll no gae a foot faster than she likes herself. "

"D--n her, " said Sharpitlaw, "I'll take care she has her time in Bedlamor Bridewell, or both, for she's both mad and mischievous. "

In the meanwhile, Madge, who had looked very pensive when she firststopped, suddenly burst into a vehement fit of laughter, then paused andsighed bitterly, --then was seized with a second fit of laughter--then, fixing her eyes on the moon, lifted up her voice and sung, --

 "Good even, good fair moon, good even to thee; I prithee, dear moon, now show to me The form and the features, the speech and degree, Of the man that true lover of mine shall be. 

But I need not ask that of the bonny Lady Moon--I ken that weel eneughmysell--_true_-love though he wasna--But naebody shall sae that I evertauld a word about the matter--But whiles I wish the bairn hadlived--Weel, God guide us, there's a heaven aboon us a', "--(here shesighed bitterly), "and a bonny moon, and sterns in it forby" (and hereshe laughed once more). 

"Are we to stand, here all night!" said Sharpitlaw, very impatiently. "Drag her forward. "

"Ay, sir, " said Ratcliffe, "if we kend whilk way to drag her, that wouldsettle it at ance. --Come, Madge, hinny, " addressing her, "we'll no be intime to see Nichol and his wife, unless ye show us the road. "

"In troth and that I will, Ratton, " said she, seizing him by the arm, andresuming her route with huge strides, considering it was a female whotook them. "And I'll tell ye, Ratton, blithe will Nichol Muschat be tosee ye, for he says he kens weel there isna sic a villain out o' hell asye are, and he wad be ravished to hae a crack wi' you--like to like yeken--it's a proverb never fails--and ye are baith a pair o' the deevil'speats I trow--hard to ken whilk deserves the hettest corner o' hisingle-side. "

Ratcliffe was conscience-struck, and could not forbear making aninvoluntary protest against this classification. "I never shed blood, " hereplied. 

"But ye hae sauld it, Ratton--ye hae sauld blood mony a time. Folk killwi' the tongue as weel as wi' the hand--wi' the word as weel as wi' thegulley!--

 It is the 'bonny butcher lad, That wears the sleeves of blue, He sells the flesh on Saturday, On Friday that he slew. "

"And what is that I ain doing now?" thought Ratcliffe. "But I'll hae naewyte of Robertson's young bluid, if I can help it;" then speaking apartto Madge, he asked her, "Whether she did not remember ony o' her auldSangs?"

"Mony a dainty ane, " said Madge; "and blithely can I sing them, forlightsome sangs make merry gate. " And she sang, --

 "When the glede's in the blue cloud, The lavrock lies still; When the hound's in the greenwood. The hind keeps the hill. "

"Silence her cursed noise, if you should throttle her, " said Sharpitlaw;"I see somebody yonder. --Keep close, my boys, and creep round theshoulder of the height. George Poinder, stay you with Ratcliffe and thamad yelling bitch; and you other two, come with me round under the shadowof the brae. "

And he crept forward with the stealthy pace of an Indian savage, wholeads his band to surprise an unsuspecting party of some hostile tribe. Ratcliffe saw them glide of, avoiding the moonlight, and keeping as muchin: the shade as possible. 

"Robertson's done up, " said he to himself; "thae young lads are aye saethoughtless. What deevil could he hae to say to Jeanie Deans, or to onywoman on earth, that he suld gang awa and get his neck raxed for her? Andthis mad quean, after cracking like a pen-gun, and skirling like apea-hen for the haill night, behoves just to hae hadden her tongue whenher clavers might have dune some gude! But it's aye the way wi' women; ifthey ever hand their tongues ava', ye may swear it's for mischief. I wishI could set her on again without this blood-sucker kenning what I amdoing. But he's as gleg as MacKeachan's elshin, * that ran through saxplies of bendleather and half-an-inch into the king's heel. "

* [_Elshin, _ a shoemaker's awl. ]

He then began to hum, but in a very low and suppressed tone, the firststanza of a favourite ballad of Wildfire's, the words of which bore somedistant analogy with the situation of Robertson, trusting that the powerof association would not fail to bring the rest to her mind:--

 "There's a bloodhound ranging Tinwald wood, There's harness glancing sheen: There's a maiden sits on Tinwald brae, And she sings loud between. "

Madge had no sooner received the catch-word, than she vindicatedRatcliffe's sagacity by setting off at score with the song:--

 "O sleep ye sound, Sir James, she said, When ye suld rise and ride? There's twenty men, wi' bow and blade, Are seeking where ye hide. "

Though Ratcliffe was at a considerable distance from the spot calledMuschat's Cairn, yet his eyes, practised like those of a cat to penetratedarkness, could mark that Robertson had caught the alarm. George Poinder, less keen of sight, or less attentive, was not aware of his flight anymore than Sharpitlaw and his assistants, whose view, though they wereconsiderably nearer to the cairn, was intercepted by the broken nature ofthe ground under which they were screening themselves. At length, however, after the interval of five or six minutes, they also perceivedthat Robertson had fled, and rushed hastily towards the place, whileSharpitlaw called out aloud, in the harshest tones of a voice whichresembled a saw-mill at work, "Chase, lads--chase--haud the brae--I seehim on the edge of the hill!" Then hollowing back to the rear-guard ofhis detachment, he issued his farther orders: "Ratcliffe, come here, anddetain the woman--George, run and kepp the stile at the Duke'sWalk--Ratcliffe, come here directly--but first knock out that madbitch's brains!"

"Ye had better rin for it, Madge, " said Ratcliffe, "for it's ill dealingwi' an angry man. "

Madge Wildfire was not so absolutely void of common sense as not tounderstand this innuendo; and while Ratcliffe, in seemingly anxious hasteof obedience, hastened to the spot where Sharpitlaw waited to deliver upJeanie Deans to his custody, she fled with all the despatch she couldexert in an opposite direction. Thus the whole party were separated, andin rapid motion of flight or pursuit, excepting Ratcliffe and Jeanie, whom, although making no attempt to escape, he held fast by the cloak, and who remained standing by Muschat's Cairn. 

CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH. 

 You have paid the heavens your function, and the prisoner the very debt of your calling. Measure for Measure. 

Jeanie Deans, --for here our story unites itself with that part of thenarrative which broke off at the end of the fourteenth chapter, --whileshe waited, in terror and amazement, the hasty advance of three or fourmen towards her, was yet more startled at their suddenly breakingasunder, and giving chase in different directions to the late object ofher terror, who became at that moment, though she could not well assign areasonable cause, rather the cause of her interest. One of the party (itwas Sharpitlaw) came straight up to her, and saying, "Your name is JeanieDeans, and you are my prisoner, " immediately added, "But if you will tellme which way he ran I will let you go. "

"I dinna ken, sir, " was all the poor girl could utter; and, indeed, it isthe phrase which rises most readily to the lips of any person in herrank, as the readiest reply to any embarrassing question. 

"But, " said Sharpitlaw, "ye _ken_ wha it was ye were speaking wi', myleddy, on the hill side, and midnight sae near; ye surely ken _that, _ mybonny woman?"

"I dinna ken, sir, " again iterated Jeanie, who really did not comprehendin her terror the nature of the questions which were so hastily put toher in this moment of surprise. 

"We will try to mend your memory by and by, hinny, " said Sharpitlaw, andshouted, as we have already told the reader, to Ratcliffe, to come up andtake charge of her, while he himself directed the chase after Robertson, which he still hoped might be successful. As Ratcliffe approached, Sharpitlaw pushed the young woman towards him with some rudeness, andbetaking himself to the more important object of his quest, began toscale crags and scramble up steep banks, with an agility of which hisprofession and his general gravity of demeanour would previously haveargued him incapable. In a few minutes there was no one within sight, andonly a distant halloo from one of the pursuers to the other, faintlyheard on the side of the hill, argued that there was any one withinhearing. Jeanie Deans was left in the clear moonlight, standing under theguard of a person of whom she knew nothing, and, what was worse, concerning whom, as the reader is well aware, she could have learnednothing that would not have increased her terror. 

When all in the distance was silent, Ratcliffe for the first timeaddressed her, and it was in that cold sarcastic indifferent tonefamiliar to habitual depravity, whose crimes are instigated by customrather than by passion. "This is a braw night for ye, dearie, " he said, attempting to pass his arm across her shoulder, "to be on the green hillwi' your jo. " Jeanie extricated herself from his grasp, but did not makeany reply. 

"I think lads and lasses, " continued the ruffian, "dinna meet atMuschat's Cairn at midnight to crack nuts, " and he again attempted totake hold of her. 

"If ye are an officer of justice, sir, " said Jeanie, again eluding hisattempt to seize her, "ye deserve to have your coat stripped from yourback. "

"Very true, hinny, " said he, succeeding forcibly in his attempt to gethold of her, "but suppose I should strip your cloak off first?"

"Ye are more a man, I am sure, than to hurt me, sir, " said Jeanie; "forGod's sake have pity on a half-distracted creature!"

"Come, come, " said Ratcliffe, "you're a good-looking wench, and shouldnot be cross-grained. I was going to be an honest man--but the devil hasthis very day flung first a lawyer, and then a woman, in my gate. I'lltell you what, Jeanie, they are out on the hill-side--if you'll be guidedby me, I'll carry you to a wee bit corner in the Pleasance, that I ken o'in an auld wife's, that a' the prokitors o' Scotland wot naething o', andwe'll send Robertson word to meet us in Yorkshire, for there is a set o'braw lads about the midland counties, that I hae dune business wi' beforenow, and sae we'll leave Mr. Sharpitlaw to whistle on his thumb. "

It was fortunate for Jeanie, in an emergency like the present, that shepossessed presence of mind and courage, so soon as the first hurry ofsurprise had enabled her to rally her recollection. She saw the risk shewas in from a ruffian, who not only was such by profession, but had thatevening been stupifying, by means of strong liquors, the internalaversion which he felt at the business on which Sharpitlaw had resolvedto employ him. 

"Dinna speak sae loud, " said she, in a low voice; "he's up yonder. "

"Who?--Robertson?" said Ratcliffe, eagerly. 

"Ay, " replied Jeanie; "up yonder;" and she pointed to the ruins of thehermitage and chapel. 

"By G--d, then, " said Ratcliffe, "I'll make my ain of him, either one wayor other--wait for me here. "

But no sooner had he set off as fast as he could run, towards the chapel, than Jeanie started in an opposite direction, over high and low, on thenearest path homeward. Her juvenile exercise as a herdswoman had put"life and mettle" in her heels, and never had she followed Dustiefoot, when the cows were in the corn, with half so much speed as she nowcleared the distance betwixt Muschat's Cairn and her father's cottage atSt. Leonard's. To lift the latch--to enter--to shut, bolt, and doublebolt the door--to draw against it a heavy article of furniture (which shecould not have moved in a moment of less energy), so as to make yetfarther provision against violence, was almost the work of a moment, yetdone with such silence as equalled the celerity. 

Her next anxiety was upon her father's account, and she drew silently tothe door of his apartment, in order to satisfy herself whether he hadbeen disturbed by her return. He was awake, --probably had slept butlittle; but the constant presence of his own sorrows, the distance of hisapartment from the outer door of the house, and the precautions whichJeanie had taken to conceal her departure and return, had prevented himfrom being sensible of either. He was engaged in his devotions, andJeanie could distinctly hear him use these words:--"And for the otherchild thou hast given me to be a comfort and stay to my old age, may herdays be long in the land, according to the promise thou hast given tothose who shall honour father and mother; may all her purchased andpromised blessings be multiplied upon her; keep her in the watches of thenight, and in the uprising of the morning, that all in this land may knowthat thou hast not utterly hid thy face from those that seek thee intruth and in sincerity. " He was silent, but probably continued hispetition in the strong fervency of mental devotion. 

His daughter retired to her apartment, comforted, that while she wasexposed to danger, her head had been covered by the prayers of the justas by an helmet, and under the strong confidence, that while she walkedworthy of the protection of Heaven, she would experience its countenance. It was in that moment that a vague idea first darted across her mind, that something might yet be achieved for her sister's safety, consciousas she now was of her innocence of the unnatural murder with which shestood charged. It came, as she described it, on her mind, like asun-blink on a stormy sea; and although it instantly vanished, yet shefelt a degree of composure which she had not experienced for many days, and could not help being strongly persuaded that, by some means or other, she would be called upon, and directed, to work out her sister'sdeliverance. She went to bed, not forgetting her usual devotions, themore fervently made on account of her late deliverance, and she sleptsoundly in spite of her agitation. 

We must return to Ratcliffe, who had started, like a greyhound from theslips when the sportsman cries halloo, as soon as Jeanie had pointed tothe ruins. Whether he meant to aid Robertson's escape, or to assist hispursuers, may be very doubtful; perhaps he did not himself know but hadresolved to be guided by circumstances. He had no opportunity, however, of doing either; for he had no sooner surmounted the steep ascent, andentered under the broken arches of the rains, than a pistol was presentedat his head, and a harsh voice commanded him, in the king's name, tosurrender himself prisoner. "Mr. Sharpitlaw!" said Ratcliffe, surprised, "is this your honour?"

"Is it only you, and be d--d to you?" answered the fiscal, still moredisappointed--"what made you leave the woman?"

"She told me she saw Robertson go into the ruins, so I made what haste Icould to cleek the callant. "

"It's all over now, " said Sharpitlaw; "we shall see no more of himto-night; but he shall hide himself in a bean-hool, if he remains onScottish ground without my finding him. Call back the people, Ratcliffe. "

Ratcliffe hollowed to the dispersed officers, who willingly obeyed thesignal; for probably there was no individual among them who would havebeen much desirous of a rencontre, hand to hand, and at a distance fromhis comrades, with such an active and desperate fellow as Robertson. 

"And where are the two women?" said Sharpitlaw. 

"Both made their heels serve them, I suspect, " replied Ratcliffe, and hehummed the end of the old song--

 "Then hey play up the rin-awa bride, For she has taen the gee. "

"One woman, " said Sharpitlaw, --for, like all rogues, he was a greatcalumniator of the fair sex, *--"one woman is enough to dark the fairestploy that was ever planned; and how could I be such an ass as to expectto carry through a job that had two in it?

* Note L. Calumniator of the Fair Sex. 

But we know how to come by them both, if they are wanted, that's one goodthing. "

Accordingly, like a defeated general, sad and sulky, he led back hisdiscomfited forces to the metropolis, and dismissed them for the night. 

The next morning early, he was under the necessity of making his reportto the sitting magistrate of the day. The gentleman who occupied thechair of office on this occasion (for the bailies, _Anglice', _ aldermen, take it by rotation) chanced to be the same by whom Butler was committed, a person very generally respected among his fellow-citizens. Something hewas of a humorist, and rather deficient in general education; but acute, patient, and upright, possessed of a fortune acquired by honest industrywhich made him perfectly independent; and, in short, very happilyqualified to support the respectability of the office, which he held. 

Mr. Middleburgh had just taken his seat, and was debating in an animatedmanner, with one of his colleagues, the doubtful chances of a game atgolf which they had played the day before, when a letter was delivered tohim, addressed "For Bailie Middleburgh; These: to be forwarded withspeed. " It contained these words:--

"Sir, --I know you to be a sensible and a considerate magistrate, and onewho, as such, will be content to worship God, though the devil bid you. Itherefore expect that, notwithstanding the signature of this letteracknowledges my share in an action, which, in a proper time and place, Iwould not fear either to avow or to justify, you will not on that accountreject what evidence I place before you. The clergyman, Butler, isinnocent of all but involuntary presence at an action which he wantedspirit to approve of, and from which he endeavoured, with his best setphrases, to dissuade us. But it was not for him that it is my hint tospeak. There is a woman in your jail, fallen under the edge of a law socruel, that it has hung by the wall like unsecured armour, for twentyyears, and is now brought down and whetted to spill the blood of the mostbeautiful and most innocent creature whom the walls of a prison evergirdled in. Her sister knows of her innocence, as she communicated to herthat she was betrayed by a villain. --O that high Heaven

 Would put in every honest hand a whip, To scourge me such a villain through the world!

"I write distractedly--But this girl--this Jeanie Deans, is a peevishpuritan, superstitious and scrupulous after the manner of her sect; and Ipray your honour, for so my phrase must go, to press upon her, that hersister's life depends upon her testimony. But though she should remainsilent, do not dare to think that the young woman is guilty--far less topermit her execution. Remember the death of Wilson was fearfully avenged;and those yet live who can compel you to drink the dregs of your poisonedchalice. --I say, remember Porteous, and say that you had good counselfrom "One of his Slayers. "

The magistrate read over this extraordinary letter twice or thrice. Atfirst he was tempted to throw it aside as the production of a madman, solittle did "the scraps from play-books, " as he termed the poeticalquotation, resemble the correspondence of a rational being. On are-perusal, however, he thought that, amid its incoherence, he coulddiscover something like a tone of awakened passion, though expressed in amanner quaint and unusual. 

"It is a cruelly severe statute, " said the magistrate to his assistant, "and I wish the girl could be taken from under the letter of it. A childmay have been born, and it may have been conveyed away while the motherwas insensible, or it may have perished for want of that relief which thepoor creature herself--helpless, terrified, distracted, despairing, andexhausted--may have been unable to afford to it. And yet it is certain, if the woman is found guilty under the statute, execution will follow. The crime has been too common, and examples are necessary. "

"But if this other wench, " said the city-clerk, "can speak to her sistercommunicating her situation, it will take the case from under thestatute. "

"Very true, " replied the Bailie; "and I will walk out one of these daysto St. Leonard's, and examine the girl myself. I know something of theirfather Deans--an old true-blue Cameronian, who would see house and familygo to wreck ere he would disgrace his testimony by a sinful complyingwith the defections of the times; and such he will probably uphold thetaking an oath before a civil magistrate. If they are to go on andflourish with their bull-headed obstinacy, the legislature must pass anact to take their affirmations, as in the case of Quakers. But surelyneither a father nor a sister will scruple in a case of this kind. As Isaid before, I will go speak with them myself, when the hurry of thisPorteous investigation is somewhat over; their pride and spirit ofcontradiction will be far less alarmed, than if they were called into acourt of justice at once. "

"And I suppose Butler is to remain incarcerated?" said the city-clerk. 

"For the present, certainly, " said the magistrate. "But I hope soon toset him at liberty upon bail. "

"Do you rest upon the testimony of that light-headed letter?" asked theclerk. 

"Not very much, " answered the Bailie; "and yet there is somethingstriking about it too--it seems the letter of a man beside himself, either from great agitation, or some great sense of guilt. "

"Yes, " said the town-clerk, "it is very like the letter of a madstrolling play-actor, who deserves to be hanged with all the rest of hisgang, as your honour justly observes. "

"I was not quite so bloodthirsty, " continued the magistrate. "But to thepoint, Butler's private character is excellent; and I am given tounderstand, by some inquiries I have been making this morning, that hedid actually arrive in town only the day before yesterday, so that it wasimpossible he could have been concerned in any previous machinations ofthese unhappy rioters, and it is not likely that he should have joinedthem on a suddenty. "

"There's no saying anent that--zeal catches fire at a slight spark asfast as a brunstane match, " observed the secretary. "I hae kend aminister wad be fair gude-day and fair gude-e'en wi' ilka man in theparochine, and hing just as quiet as a rocket on a stick, till yementioned the word abjuration-oath, or patronage, or siclike, and then, whiz, he was off, and up in the air an hundred miles beyond commonmanners, common sense, and common comprehension. "

"I do not understand, " answered the burgher-magistrate, "that the youngman Butler's zeal is of so inflammable a character. But I will makefarther investigation. What other business is there before us?"

And they proceeded to minute investigations concerning the affair ofPorteous's death, and other affairs through which this history has nooccasion to trace them. 

In the course of their business they were interrupted by an old woman ofthe lower rank, extremely haggard in look, and wretched in herappearance, who thrust herself into the council room. 

"What do you want, gudewife?--Who are you?" said Bailie Middleburgh. 

"What do I want!" replied she, in a sulky tone--"I want my bairn, or Iwant naething frae nane o' ye, for as grand's ye are. " And she went onmuttering to herself with the wayward spitefulness of age--"They maun haelordships and honours, nae doubt--set them up, the gutter-bloods! anddeil a gentleman amang them. "--Then again addressing the sittingmagistrate, "Will _your honour_ gie me back my puir crazy bairn?--_His_honour!--I hae kend the day when less wad ser'd him, the oe of a Campvereskipper. "

"Good woman, " said the magistrate to this shrewish supplicant--"tell uswhat it is you want, and do not interrupt the court. "

"That's as muckle as till say, Bark, Bawtie, and be dune wi't!--I tellye, " raising her termagant voice, "I want my bairn! is na that braidScots?"

"Who _are_ you?--who is your bairn?" demanded the magistrate. 

"Wha am I?--wha suld I be, but Meg Murdockson, and wha suld my bairn bebut Magdalen Murdockson?--Your guard soldiers, and your constables, andyour officers, ken us weel eneugh when they rive the bits o' duds aff ourbacks, and take what penny o' siller we hae, and harle us to theCorrectionhouse in Leith Wynd, and pettle us up wi' bread and water andsiclike sunkets. "

"Who is she?" said the magistrate, looking round to some of his people. 

"Other than a gude ane, sir, " said one of the city officers, shrugginghis shoulders and smiling. 

"Will ye say sae?" said the termagant, her eye gleaming with impotentfury; "an I had ye amang the Figgat-Whins, * wadna I set my ten talents inyour wuzzent face for that very word?" and she suited the word to theaction, by spreading out a set of claws resembling those of St. George'sdragon on a country sign-post. 

* [This was a name given to a tract of sand hillocks extending along thesea-shore from Leith to Portobello, and which at this time were coveredwith _whin_-bushes or furze. ]

"What does she want here?" said the impatient magistrate--"Can she nottell her business, or go away?"

"It's my bairn!--it's Magdalen Murdockson I'm wantin', " answered thebeldam, screaming at the highest pitch of her cracked and mistunedvoice--"havena I been telling ye sae this half-hour? And if ye are deaf, what needs ye sit cockit up there, and keep folk scraughin' t'ye thisgate?"

"She wants her daughter, sir, " said the same officer whose interferencehad given the hag such offence before--"her daughter, who was taken uplast night--Madge Wildfire, as they ca' her. "

"Madge Hellfire, as they ca' her!" echoed the beldam "and what businesshas a blackguard like you to ca' an honest woman's bairn out o' her ainname?"

"An _honest_ woman's bairn, Maggie?" answered the peace-officer, smilingand shaking his head with an ironical emphasis on the adjective, and acalmness calculated to provoke to madness the furious old shrew. 

"If I am no honest now, I was honest ance, " she replied; "and that's mairthan ye can say, ye born and bred thief, that never kend ither folks'gear frae your ain since the day ye was cleckit. Honest, say ye?--yepykit your mother's pouch o' twalpennies Scots when ye were five yearsauld, just as she was taking leave o' your father at the fit o' thegallows. "

"She has you there, George, " said the assistants, and there was a generallaugh; for the wit was fitted for the meridian of the place where it wasuttered. This general applause somewhat gratified the passions of the oldhag; the "grim feature" smiled and even laughed--but it was a laugh ofbitter scorn. She condescended, however, as if appeased by the success ofher sally, to explain her business more distinctly, when the magistrate, commanding silence, again desired her either to speak out her errand, orto leave the place. 

"Her bairn, " she said, "_was_ her bairn, and she came to fetch her out ofill haft and waur guiding. If she wasna sae wise as ither folk, few itherfolk had suffered as muckle as she had done; forby that she could fendthe waur for hersell within the four wa's of a jail. She could prove byfifty witnesses, and fifty to that, that her daughter had never seen JockPorteous, alive or dead, since he had gien her a laundering wi' his cane, the neger that he was! for driving a dead cat at the provost's wig on theElector of Hanover's birthday. "

Notwithstanding the wretched appearance and violent demeanour of thiswoman, the magistrate felt the justice of her argument, that her childmight be as dear to her as to a more fortunate and more amiable mother. He proceeded to investigate the circumstances which had led to MadgeMurdockson's (or Wildfire's) arrest, and as it was clearly shown that shehad not been engaged in the riot, he contented himself with directingthat an eye should be kept upon her by the police, but that for thepresent she should be allowed to return home with her mother. During theinterval of fetching Madge from the jail, the magistrate endeavoured todiscover whether her mother had been privy to the change of dress betwixtthat young woman and Robertson. But on this point he could obtain nolight. She persisted in declaring, that she had never seen Robertsonsince his remarkable escape during service-time; and that, if herdaughter had changed clothes with him, it must have been during herabsence at a hamlet about two miles out of town, called Duddingstone, where she could prove that she passed that eventful night. And, in fact, one of the town-officers, who had been searching for stolen linen at thecottage of a washer-woman in that village, gave his evidence, that he hadseen Maggie Murdockson there, whose presence had considerably increasedhis suspicion of the house in which she was a visitor, in respect that heconsidered her as a person of no good reputation. 

"I tauld ye sae, " said the hag; "see now what it is to hae a character, gude or bad!--Now, maybe, after a', I could tell ye something aboutPorteous that you council-chamber bodies never could find out, for asmuckle stir as ye mak. "

All eyes were turned towards her--all ears were alert. "Speak out!" saidthe magistrate. 

"It will be for your ain gude, " insinuated the town-clerk. 

"Dinna keep the Bailie waiting, " urged the assistants. 

She remained doggedly silent for two or three minutes, casting around amalignant and sulky glance, that seemed to enjoy the anxious suspensewith which they waited her answer. And then she broke forth at once, --"A'that I ken about him is, that he was neither soldier nor gentleman, butjust a thief and a blackguard, like maist o' yoursells, dears--What willye gie me for that news, now?--He wad hae served the gude town lang orprovost or bailie wad hae fund that out, my jo!"

While these matters were in discussion, Madge Wildfire entered, and herfirst exclamation was, "Eh! see if there isna our auld ne'er-do-weeldeevil's-buckie o' a mither--Hegh, sirs! but we are a hopeful family, tobe twa o' us in the Guard at ance--But there were better days wi' usance--were there na, mither?"

Old Maggie's eyes had glistened with something like an expression ofpleasure when she saw her daughter set at liberty. But either her naturalaffection, like that of the tigress, could not be displayed without astrain of ferocity, or there was something in the ideas which Madge'sspeech awakened, that again stirred her cross and savage temper. "Whatsignifies what we, were, ye street-raking limmer!" she exclaimed, pushingher daughter before her to the door, with no gentle degree of violence. "I'se tell thee what thou is now--thou's a crazed hellicat Bess o'Bedlam, that sall taste naething but bread and water for a fortnight, toserve ye for the plague ye hae gien me--and ower gude for ye, ye idletaupie!"

Madge, however, escaped from her mother at the door, ran back to the footof the table, dropped a very low and fantastic courtesy to the judge, andsaid, with a giggling laugh, --"Our minnie's sair mis-set, after herordinar, sir--She'll hae had some quarrel wi' her auld gudeman--that'sSatan, ye ken, sirs. " This explanatory note she gave in a lowconfidential tone, and the spectators of that credulous generation didnot hear it without an involuntary shudder. "The gudeman and her disnaaye gree weel, and then I maun pay the piper; but my back's broad eneughto bear't a'--an' if she hae nae havings, that's nae reason why wiserfolk shouldna hae some. " Here another deep courtesy, when the ungraciousvoice of her mother was heard. 

"Madge, ye limmer! If I come to fetch ye!"

"Hear till her, " said Madge. "But I'll wun out a gliff the night for a'that, to dance in the moonlight, when her and the gudeman will bewhirrying through the blue lift on a broom-shank, to see Jean Jap, thatthey hae putten intill the Kirkcaldy Tolbooth--ay, they will hae a merrysail ower Inchkeith, and ower a' the bits o' bonny waves that arepoppling and plashing against the rocks in the gowden glimmer o' themoon, ye ken. --I'm coming, mother--I'm coming, " she concluded, on hearinga scuffle at the door betwixt the beldam and the officers, who wereendeavouring to prevent her re-entrance. Madge then waved her hand wildlytowards the ceiling, and sung, at the topmost pitch of her voice, "Up in the air, On my bonny grey mare, And I see, and I see, and I see her yet;"

and with a hop, skip, and jump, sprung out of the room, as the witches ofMacbeth used, in less refined days, to seem to fly upwards from thestage. 

Some weeks intervened before Mr. Middleburgh, agreeably to his benevolentresolution, found an opportunity of taking a walk towards St. Leonard's, in order to discover whether it might be possible to obtain the evidencehinted at in the anonymous letter respecting Effie Deans. 

In fact, the anxious perquisitions made to discover the murderers ofPorteous occupied the attention of all concerned with the administrationof justice. 

In the course of these inquiries, two circumstances happened material toour story. Butler, after a close investigation of his conduct, wasdeclared innocent of accession to the death of Porteous; but, as havingbeen present during the whole transaction, was obliged to find bail notto quit his usual residence at Liberton, that he might appear as awitness when called upon. The other incident regarded the disappearanceof Madge Wildfire and her mother from Edinburgh. When they were sought, with the purpose of subjecting them to some farther interrogatories, itwas discovered by Mr. Sharpitlaw that they had eluded the observation ofthe police, and left the city so soon as dismissed from thecouncil-chamber. No efforts could trace the place of their retreat. 

In the meanwhile the excessive indignation of the Council of Regency, atthe slight put upon their authority by the murder of Porteous, haddictated measures, in which their own extreme desire of detecting theactors in that conspiracy were consulted in preference to the temper ofthe people and the character of their churchmen. An act of Parliament washastily passed, offering two hundred pounds reward to those who shouldinform against any person concerned in the deed, and the penalty ofdeath, by a very unusual and severe enactment, was denounced againstthose who should harbour the guilty. But what was chiefly accountedexceptionable, was a clause, appointing the act to be read in churches bythe officiating clergyman, on the first Sunday of every month, for acertain period, immediately before the sermon. The ministers who shouldrefuse to comply with this injunction were declared, for the firstoffence, incapable of sitting or voting in any church judicature, and forthe second, incapable of holding any ecclesiastical preferment inScotland. 

This last order united in a common cause those who might privatelyrejoice in Porteous's death, though they dared not vindicate the mannerof it, with the more scrupulous Presbyterians, who held that even thepronouncing the name of the "Lords Spiritual" in a Scottish pulpit was, _quodammodo, _ an acknowledgment of prelacy, and that the injunction ofthe legislature was an interference of the civil government with the _jusdivinum_ of Presbytery, since to the General Assembly alone, asrepresenting the invisible head of the kirk, belonged the sole andexclusive right of regulating whatever pertained to public worship. Verymany also, of different political or religious sentiments, and thereforenot much moved by these considerations, thought they saw, in so violentan act of parliament, a more vindictive spirit than became thelegislature of a great country, and something like an attempt to trampleupon the rights and independence of Scotland. The various steps adoptedfor punishing the city of Edinburgh, by taking away her charter andliberties, for what a violent and overmastering mob had done within herwalls, were resented by many, who thought a pretext was too hastily takenfor degrading the ancient metropolis of Scotland. In short, there wasmuch heart-burning, discontent, and disaffection, occasioned by theseill-considered measures. *

* The magistrates were closely interrogated before the House of Peers, concerning the particulars of the Porteous Mob, and the _patois_ in whichthese functionaries made their answers, sounded strange in the ears ofthe Southern nobles. The Duke of Newcastle having demanded to know withwhat kind of shot the guard which Porteous commanded had loaded theirmuskets, was answered, naively, "Ow, just sic as ane shoots _dukes andfools_ with. " This reply was considered as a contempt of the House ofLords, and the Provost would have suffered accordingly, but that the Dukeof Argyle explained, that the expression, properly rendered into English, meant _ducks and waterfowls. _

 Amidst these heats and dissensions, the trial of Effie Deans, after shehad been many weeks imprisoned, was at length about to be broughtforward, and Mr. Middleburgh found leisure to inquire into the evidenceconcerning her. For this purpose, he chose a fine day for his walktowards her father's house. 

The excursion into the country was somewhat distant, in the opinion of aburgess of those days, although many of the present inhabit suburbanvillas considerably beyond the spot to which we allude. Three-quarters ofan hour's walk, however, even at a pace of magisterial gravity, conductedour benevolent office-bearer to the Crags of St. Leonard's, and thehumble mansion of David Deans. 

The old man was seated on the deas, or turf-seat, at the end of hiscottage, busied in mending his cart-harness with his own hands; for inthose days any sort of labour which required a little more skill thanusual fell to the share of the goodman himself, and that even when he waswell to pass in the world. With stern and austere gravity he perseveredin his task, after having just raised his head to notice the advance ofthe stranger. It would have been impossible to have discovered, from hiscountenance and manner, the internal feelings of agony with which hecontended. Mr. Middleburgh waited an instant, expecting Deans would insome measure acknowledge his presence, and lead into conversation; but, as he seemed determined to remain silent, he was himself obliged to speakfirst. 

"My name is Middleburgh--Mr. James Middleburgh, one of the presentmagistrates of the city of Edinburgh. "

"It may be sae, " answered Deans laconically, and without interrupting hislabour. 

"You must understand, " he continued, "that the duty of a magistrate issometimes an unpleasant one. "

"It may be sae, " replied David; "I hae naething to say in the contrair;"and he was again doggedly silent. 

"You must be aware, " pursued the magistrate, "that persons in mysituation are often obliged to make painful and disagreeable inquiries ofindividuals, merely because it is their bounden duty. "

"It may be sae, " again replied Deans; "I hae naething to say anent it, either the tae way or the t'other. But I do ken there was ance in a day ajust and God-fearing magistracy in yon town o' Edinburgh, that did notbear the sword in vain, but were a terror to evil-doers, and a praise tosuch as kept the path. In the glorious days of auld worthy faithfu'Provost Dick, * when there was a true and faithfu' General Assembly of

* Note M. Sir William Dick of Braid. 

the Kirk, walking hand in hand with the real noble Scottish-heartedbarons, and with the magistrates of this and other towns, gentles, burgesses, and commons of all ranks, seeing with one eye, hearing withone ear, and upholding the ark with their united strength--And then folkmight see men deliver up their silver to the state's use, as if it hadbeen as muckle sclate stanes. My father saw them toom the sacks ofdollars out o' Provost Dick's window intill the carts that carried themto the army at Dunse Law; and if ye winna believe his testimony, there isthe window itsell still standing in the Luckenbooths--I think it's aclaith-merchant's booth the day*--at the airn stanchells, five doorsabune Gossford's Close. 

* I think so too--But if the reader be curious, he may consult Mr. Chambers's Traditions of Edinburgh. 

--But now we haena sic spirit amang us; we think mair about the warstwallydraigle in our ain byre, than about the blessing which the angel ofthe covenant gave to the Patriarch even at Peniel and Mahanaim, or thebinding obligation of our national vows; and we wad rather gie a pundScots to buy an unguent to clear out auld rannell-trees and our beds o'the English bugs as they ca' them, than we wad gie a plack to rid theland of the swarm of Arminian caterpillars, Socinian pismires, anddeistical Miss Katies, that have ascended out of the bottomless pit, toplague this perverse, insidious, and lukewarm generation. "

It happened to Davie Deans on this occasion, as it has done to many otherhabitual orators; when once he became embarked on his favourite subject, the stream of his own enthusiasm carried him forward in spite of hismental distress, while his well-exercised memory supplied him amply withall the types and tropes of rhetoric peculiar to his sect and cause. 

Mr. Middleburgh contented himself with answering--"All this may be verytrue, my friend; but, as you said just now, I have nothing to say to itat present, either one way or other. --You have two daughters, I think, Mr. Deans?"

The old man winced, as one whose smarting sore is suddenly galled; butinstantly composed himself, resumed the work which, in the heat of hisdeclamation, he had laid down, and answered with sullen resolution, "Aedaughter, sir--only _ane. _"

"I understand you, " said Mr. Middleburgh; "you have only one daughterhere at home with you--but this unfortunate girl who is a prisoner--sheis, I think, your youngest daughter?"

The Presbyterian sternly raised his eyes. "After the world, and accordingto the flesh, she _is_ my daughter; but when she became a child ofBelial, and a company-keeper, and a trader in guilt and iniquity, sheceased to be a bairn of mine. "

"Alas, Mr. Deans, " said Middleburgh, sitting down by him, andendeavouring to take his hand, which the old man proudly withdrew, "weare ourselves all sinners; and the errors of our offspring, as they oughtnot to surprise us, being the portion which they derive of a commonportion of corruption inherited through us, so they do not entitle us tocast them off because they have lost themselves. "

"Sir, " said Deans impatiently, "I ken a' that as weel as--I mean to say, "he resumed, checking the irritation he felt at being schooled--adiscipline of the mind which those most ready to bestow it on others dothemselves most reluctantly submit to receive--"I mean to say, that whatye o serve may be just and reasonable--But I hae nae freedom to enterinto my ain private affairs wi' strangers--And now, in this greatnational emergency, When there's the Porteous' Act has come doun fraeLondon, that is a deeper blow to this poor sinfu' kingdom and sufferingkirk than ony that has been heard of since the foul and fatal Test--at atime like this"

"But, goodman, " interrupted Mr. Middleburgh, "you must think of your ownhousehold first, or else you are worse even than the infidels. "

"I tell ye, Bailie Middleburgh, " retorted David Deans, "if ye be abailie, as there is little honour in being ane in these evil days--I tellye, I heard the gracious Saunders Peden--I wotna whan it was; but it wasin killing time, when the plowers were drawing alang their furrows on theback of the Kirk of Scotland--I heard him tell his hearers, gude andwaled Christians they were too, that some o' them wad greet mair for abit drowned calf or stirk than for a' the defections and oppressions ofthe day; and that they were some o' them thinking o' ae thing, some o'anither, and there was Lady Hundleslope thinking o' greeting Jock at thefireside! And the lady confessed in my hearing that a drow of anxiety hadcome ower her for her son that she had left at hame weak of a decay*--Andwhat wad he hae said of me if I had ceased to think of the gude cause fora castaway--a--It kills me to think of what she is!"

* See _Life of Peden, _ p. 14. 

"But the life of your child, goodman--think of that--if her life could besaved, " said Middleburgh. 

"Her life!" exclaimed David--"I wadna gie ane o' my grey hairs for herlife, if her gude name be gane--And yet, " said he, relenting andretracting as he spoke, "I wad make the niffer, Mr. Middleburgh--I wadgie a' these grey hairs that she has brought to shame and sorrow--I wadgie the auld head they grow on for her life, and that she might hae timeto amend and return, for what hae the wicked beyond the breath of theirnosthrils?--but I'll never see her mair--No!--that--that I am determinedin--I'll never see her mair!" His lips continued to move for a minuteafter his voice ceased to be heard, as if he were repeating the same vowinternally. 

"Well, sir, " said Mr. Middleburgh, "I speak to you as a man of sense; ifyou would save your daughter's life, you must use human means. "

"I understand what you mean; but Mr. Novit, who is the procurator anddoer of an honourable person, the Laird of Dumbiedikes, is to do whatcarnal wisdom can do for her in the circumstances. Mysell am not clear totrinquet and traffic wi' courts o' justice as they are now constituted; Ihave a tenderness and scruple in my mind anent them. "

"That is to say, " said Middleburgh, "that you are a Cameronian, and donot acknowledge the authority of our courts of judicature, or presentgovernment?"

"Sir, under your favour, " replied David, who was too proud of his ownpolemical knowledge to call himself the follower of any one, "ye take meup before I fall down. I canna see why I suld be termed a Cameronian, especially now that ye hae given the name of that famous and savourysufferer, not only until a regimental band of souldiers, [H. M. 26thFoot] whereof I am told many can now curse, swear, and use profanelanguage, as fast as ever Richard Cameron could preach or pray, but alsobecause ye have, in as far as it is in your power, rendered that martyr'sname vain and contemptible, by pipes, drums, and fifes, playing the vaincarnal spring called the Cameronian Rant, which too many professors ofreligion dance to--a practice maist unbecoming a professor to dance toany tune whatsoever, more especially promiscuously, that is, with thefemale sex. * A brutish fashion it is, whilk is the beginning of defectionwith many, as I may hae as muckle cause as maist folk to testify. "

* See Note F. Peter Walker. 

"Well, but, Mr. Deans, " replied Mr. Middleburgh, "I only meant to saythat you were a Cameronian, or MacMillanite, one of the society people, in short, who think it inconsistent to take oaths under a governmentwhere the Covenant is not ratified. "

"Sir, " replied the controversialist, who forgot even his present distressin such discussions as these, "you cannot fickle me sae easily as you doopine. I am _not_ a MacMillanite, or a Russelite, or a Hamiltonian, or aHarleyite, or a Howdenite*--I will be led by the nose by none--I take myname as a Christian from no vessel of clay. I have my own principles andpractice to answer for, and am an humble pleader for the gude auld causein a legal way. "

* All various species of the great genus Cameronian. 

"That is to say, Mr. Deans, " said Middleburgh, "that you are a _Deanite, _and have opinions peculiar to yourself. "

"It may please you to say sae, " said David Deans; "but I have maintainedmy testimony before as great folk, and in sharper times; and though Iwill neither exalt myself nor pull down others, I wish every man andwoman in this land had kept the true testimony, and the middle andstraight path, as it were, on the ridge of a hill, where wind and watershears, avoiding right-hand snares and extremes, and left-handway-slidings, as weel as Johnny Dodds of Farthing's Acre, and ae man mairthat shall be nameless. "

"I suppose, " replied the magistrate, "that is as much as to say, thatJohnny Dodds of Farthing's Acre, and David Deans of St. Leonard's, constitute the only members of the true, real, unsophisticated Kirk ofScotland?"

"God forbid that I suld make sic a vain-glorious speech, when there aresae mony professing Christians!" answered David; "but this I maun say, that all men act according to their gifts and their grace, 'sae that itis nae marvel that"

"This is all very fine, " interrupted Mr. Middleburgh; "but I have no timeto spend in hearing it. The matter in hand is this--I have directed acitation to be lodged in your daughter's hands--If she appears on the dayof trial and gives evidence, there is reason to hope she may save hersister's life--if, from any constrained scruples about the legality ofher performing the office of an affectionate sister and a good subject, by appearing in a court held under the authority of the law andgovernment, you become the means of deterring her from the discharge ofthis duty, I must say, though the truth may sound harsh in your ears, that you, who gave life to this unhappy girl, will become the means ofher losing it by a premature and violent death. "

So saying, Mr. Middleburgh turned to leave him. 

"Bide awee--bide awee, Mr. Middleburgh, " said Deans, in great perplexityand distress of mind; but the Bailie, who was probably sensible thatprotracted discussion might diminish the effect of his best and mostforcible argument, took a hasty leave, and declined entering farther intothe controversy. 

Deans sunk down upon his seat, stunned with a variety of conflictingemotions. It had been a great source of controversy among those holdinghis opinions in religious matters how far the government which succeededthe Revolution could be, without sin, acknowledged by true Presbyterians, seeing that it did not recognise the great national testimony of theSolemn League and Covenant? And latterly, those agreeing in this generaldoctrine, and assuming the sounding title of "The anti-Popish, anti-Prelatic, anti-Erastian, anti-Sectarian, true Presbyterian remnant, "were divided into many petty sects among themselves, even as to theextent of submission to the existing laws and rulers, which constitutedsuch an acknowledgment as amounted to sin. 

At a very stormy and tumultuous meeting, held in 1682, to discuss theseimportant and delicate points, the testimonies of the faithful few werefound utterly inconsistent with each other. *

* This remarkable convocation took place upon 15th June 1682, and anaccount of its confused and divisive proceedings may be found in MichaelShield's _Faithful Contendings Displayed_ (first printed at Glasgow, 1780, p. 21). It affords a singular and melancholy example how much ametaphysical and polemical spirit had crept in amongst these unhappysufferers, since amid so many real injuries which they had to sustain, they were disposed to add disagreement and disunion concerning thecharacter and extent of such as were only imaginary. 

The place where this conference took place was remarkably well adaptedfor such an assembly. It was a wild and very sequestered dell inTweeddale, surrounded by high hills, and far remote from humanhabitation. A small river, or rather a mountain torrent, called theTalla, breaks down the glen with great fury, dashing successively over anumber of small cascades, which has procured the spot the name of TallaLinns. Here the leaders among the scattered adherents to the Covenant, men who, in their banishment from human society, and in the recollectionof the seventies to which they had been exposed, had become at oncesullen in their tempers, and fantastic in their religious opinions, metwith arms in their hands, and by the side of the torrent discussed, witha turbulence which the noise of the stream could not drown, points ofcontroversy as empty and unsubstantial as its foam. 

It was the fixed judgment of most of the meeting, that all payment ofcess or tribute to the existing government was utterly unlawful, and asacrificing to idols. About other impositions and degrees of submissionthere were various opinions; and perhaps it is the best illustration ofthe spirit of those military fathers of the church to say, that while allallowed it was impious to pay the cess employed for maintaining thestanding army and militia, there was a fierce controversy on thelawfulness of paying the duties levied at ports and bridges, formaintaining roads and other necessary purposes; that there were some who, repugnant to these imposts for turnpikes and pontages, were neverthelessfree in conscience to make payment of the usual freight at publicferries, and that a person of exceeding and punctilious zeal, JamesRussel, one of the slayers of the Archbishop of St. Andrews, had givenhis testimony with great warmth even against this last faint shade ofsubjection to constituted authority. This ardent and enlightened personand his followers had also great scruples about the lawfulness ofbestowing the ordinary names upon the days of the week and the months ofthe year, which savoured in their nostrils so strongly of paganism, thatat length they arrived at the conclusion that they who owned such namesas Monday, Tuesday, January, February, and so forth, "served themselvesheirs to the same, if not greater punishment, than had been denouncedagainst the idolaters of old. "

David Deans had been present on this memorable occasion, although tooyoung to be a speaker among the polemical combatants. His brain, however, had been thoroughly heated by the noise, clamour, and metaphysicalingenuity of the discussion, and it was a controversy to which his mindhad often returned; and though he carefully disguised his vacillationfrom others, and, perhaps from himself, he had never been able to come toany precise line of decision on the subject. In fact, his natural sensehad acted as a counterpoise to his controversial zeal. He was by no meanspleased with the quiet and indifferent manner in which King William'sgovernment slurred over the errors of the times, when, far from restoringthe Presbyterian kirk to its former supremacy, they passed an act ofoblivion even to those who had been its persecutors, and bestowed on manyof them titles, favours, and employments. When, in the first GeneralAssembly which succeeded the Revolution, an overture was made for therevival of the League and Covenant, it was with horror that Douce Davidheard the proposal eluded by the men of carnal wit and policy, as hecalled them, as being inapplicable to the present times, and not fallingunder the modern model of the church. The reign of Queen Anne hadincreased his conviction, that the Revolution government was not one ofthe true Presbyterian complexion. But then, more sensible than the bigotsof his sect, he did not confound the moderation and tolerance of thesetwo reigns with the active tyranny and oppression exercised in those ofCharles II. And James II. The Presbyterian form of religion, thoughdeprived of the weight formerly attached to its sentences ofexcommunication, and compelled to tolerate the coexistence of Episcopacy, and of sects of various descriptions, was still the National Church; andthough the glory of the second temple was far inferior to that which hadflourished from 1639 till the battle of Dunbar, still it was a structurethat, wanting the strength and the terrors, retained at least the formand symmetry, of the original model. Then came the insurrection in 1715, and David Deans's horror for the revival of the Popish and prelaticalfaction reconciled him greatly to the government of King George, althoughhe grieved that that monarch might be suspected of a leaning untoErastianism. In short, moved by so many different considerations, he hadshifted his ground at different times concerning the degree of freedomwhich he felt in adopting any act of immediate acknowledgment orsubmission to the present government, which, however mild and paternal, was still uncovenanted, and now he felt himself called upon, by the mostpowerful motive conceivable, to authorise his daughter's giving testimonyin a court of justice, which all who have been since called Cameroniansaccounted a step of lamentable and direct defection. The voice of nature, however, exclaimed loud in his bosom against the dictates of fanaticism;and his imagination, fertile in the solution of polemical difficulties, devised an expedient for extricating himself from the fearful dilemma, inwhich he saw, on the one side, a falling off from principle, and, on theother, a scene from which a father's thoughts could not but turn inshuddering horror. 

"I have been constant and unchanged in my testimony, " said David Deans;"but then who has said it of me, that I have judged my neighbour overclosely, because he hath had more freedom in his walk than I have foundin mine? I never was a separatist, nor for quarrelling with tender soulsabout mint, cummin, or other the lesser tithes. My daughter Jean may havea light in this subject that is hid frae my auld een--it is laid on herconscience, and not on mine--If she hath freedom to gang before thisjudicatory, and hold up her hand for this poor castaway, surely I willnot say she steppeth over her bounds; and if not"--He paused in hismental argument, while a pang of unutterable anguish convulsed hisfeatures, yet, shaking it off, he firmly resumed the strain of hisreasoning--"And if not--God forbid that she should go into defection atbidding of mine! I wunna fret the tender conscience of one bairn--no, notto save the life of the other. "

A Roman would have devoted his daughter to death from different feelingsand motives, but not upon a more heroic principle of duty. 

CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH. 

 To man, in this his trial state, The privilege is given, When tost by tides of human fate, To anchor fast on heaven. Watts's _Hymns. _

It was with a firm step that Deans sought his daughter's apartment, determined to leave her to the light of her own conscience in the dubiouspoint of casuistry in which he supposed her to be placed. 

The little room had been the sleeping apartment of both sisters, andthere still stood there a small occasional bed which had been made forEffie's accommodation, when, complaining of illness, she had declined toshare, as in happier times, her sister's pillow. The eyes of Deans restedinvoluntarily, on entering the room, upon this little couch, with itsdark-green coarse curtains, and the ideas connected with it rose so thickupon his soul as almost to incapacitate him from opening his errand tohis daughter. Her occupation broke the ice. He found her gazing on a slipof paper, which contained a citation to her to appear as a witness uponher sister's trial in behalf of the accused. For the worthy magistrate, determined to omit no chance of doing Effie justice, and to leave hersister no apology for not giving the evidence which she was supposed topossess, had caused the ordinary citation, or _subpoena, _ of the Scottishcriminal court, to be served upon her by an officer during his conferencewith David. 

This precaution was so far favourable to Deans, that it saved him thepain of entering upon a formal explanation with his daughter; he onlysaid, with a hollow and tremulous voice, "I perceive ye are aware of thematter. "

"O father, we are cruelly sted between God's laws and man's laws--Whatshall we do?--What can we do?"

Jeanie, it must be observed, had no hesitation whatever about the mereact of appearing in a court of justice. She might have heard the pointdiscussed by her father more than once; but we have already noticed thatshe was accustomed to listen with reverence to much which she wasincapable of understanding, and that subtle arguments of casuistry foundher a patient, but unedified hearer. Upon receiving the citation, therefore, her thoughts did not turn upon the chimerical scruples whichalarmed her father's mind, but to the language which had been held to herby the stranger at Muschat's Cairn. In a word, she never doubted but shewas to be dragged forward into the court of justice, in order to placeher in the cruel position of either sacrificing her sister by telling thetruth, or committing perjury in order to save her life. And so stronglydid her thoughts run in this channel, that she applied her father'swords, "Ye are aware of the matter, " to his acquaintance with the advicethat had been so fearfully enforced upon her. She looked up with anxioussurprise, not unmingled with a cast of horror, which his next words, asshe interpreted and applied them, were not qualified to remove. 

"Daughter, " said David, "it has ever been my mind, that in things of anedoubtful and controversial nature, ilk Christian's conscience suld be hisain guide--Wherefore descend into yourself, try your ain mind withsufficiency of soul exercise, and as you sall finally find yourself clearto do in this matter--even so be it. "

"But, father, " said Jeanie, whose mind revolted at the construction whichshe naturally put upon his language, "can this-this be a doubtful orcontroversial matter?--Mind, father, the ninth command--'Thou shalt notbear false witness against thy neighbour. '"

David Deans paused; for, still applying her speech to his preconceiveddifficulties, it seemed to him as if _she, _ a woman, and a sister, wasscarce entitled to be scrupulous upon this occasion, where he, a man, exercised in the testimonies of that testifying period, had givenindirect countenance to her following what must have been the naturaldictates of her own feelings. But he kept firm his purpose, until hiseyes involuntarily rested upon the little settle-bed, and recalled theform of the child of his old age, as she sate upon it, pale, emaciated, and broken-hearted. His mind, as the picture arose before him, involuntarily conceived, and his tongue involuntarily uttered--but in atone how different from his usual dogmatical precision!--arguments forthe course of conduct likely to ensure his child's safety. 

"Daughter, " he said, "I did not say that your path was free fromstumbling--and, questionless, this act may be in the opinion of some atransgression, since he who beareth witness unlawfully, and against hisconscience, doth in some sort bear false witness against his neighbour. Yet in matters of compliance, the guilt lieth not in the compliance saemuckle, as in the mind and conscience of him that doth comply; and, therefore, although my testimony hath not been spared upon publicdefections, I haena felt freedom to separate mysell from the communion ofmany who have been clear to hear those ministers who have taken the fatalindulgence because they might get good of them, though I could not. "

When David had proceeded thus far, his conscience reproved him, that hemight be indirectly undermining the purity of his daughter's faith, andsmoothing the way for her falling off from strictness of principle. He, therefore, suddenly stopped, and changed his tone:--"Jeanie, I perceivethat our vile affections, --so I call them in respect of doing the will ofour Father, --cling too heavily to me in this hour of trying sorrow, topermit me to keep sight of my ain duty, or to airt you to yours. I willspeak nae mair anent this overtrying matter--Jeanie, if ye can, wi' Godand gude conscience, speak in favour of this puir unhappy"--(here hisvoice faltered)--"She is your sister in the flesh--worthless and castawayas she is, she is the daughter of a saint in heaven, that was a mother toyou, Jeanie, in place of your ain--but if ye arena free in conscience tospeak for her in the court of judicature, follow your conscience, Jeanie, and let God's will be done. " After this adjuration he left the apartment, and his daughter remained in a state of great distress and perplexity. 

It would have been no small addition to the sorrows of David Deans, evenin this extremity of suffering, had he known that his daughter wasapplying the casuistical arguments which he had been using, not in thesense of a permission to follow her own opinion on a dubious and disputedpoint of controversy, but rather as an encouragement to transgress one ofthose divine commandments which Christians of all sects and denominationsunite in holding most sacred. 

"Can this be?" said Jeanie, as the door closed on her father--"Can thesebe his words that I have heard, or has the Enemy taken his voice andfeatures to give weight unto the counsel which causeth to perish?--asister's life, and a father pointing out how to save it!--O God, deliverme!--this is a fearfu' temptation. "

Roaming from thought to thought, she at one time imagined her fatherunderstood the ninth commandment literally, as prohibiting false witness_against_ our neighbour, without extending the denunciation againstfalsehood uttered _in favour_ of the criminal. But her clear andunsophisticated power of discriminating between good and evil, instantlyrejected an interpretation so limited, and so unworthy of the Author ofthe law. She remained in a state of the most agitating terror anduncertainty--afraid to communicate her thoughts freely to her father, lest she should draw forth an opinion with which she could notcomply, --wrung with distress on her sister's account, rendered the moreacute by reflecting that the means of saving her were in her power, butwere such as her conscience prohibited her from using, --tossed, inshort, like a vessel in an open roadstead during a storm, and, like thatvessel, resting on one only sure cable and anchor, --faith in Providence, and a resolution to discharge her duty. 

Butler's affection and strong sense of religion would have been herprincipal support in these distressing circumstances, but he was stillunder restraint, which did not permit him to come to St. Leonard's Crags;and her distresses were of a nature, which, with her indifferent habitsof scholarship, she found it impossible to express in writing. She wastherefore compelled to trust for guidance to her own unassisted sense ofwhat was right or wrong. It was not the least of Jeanie's distresses, that, although she hoped and believed her sister to be innocent, she hadnot the means of receiving that assurance from her own mouth. 

The double-dealing of Ratcliffe in the matter of Robertson had notprevented his being rewarded, as double-dealers frequently have been, with favour and preferment. Sharpitlaw, who found in him something of akindred genius, had been intercessor in his behalf with the magistrates, and the circumstance of his having voluntarily remained in the prison, when the doors were forced by the mob, would have made it a hard measureto take the life which he had such easy means of saving. He received afull pardon; and soon afterwards, James Ratcliffe, the greatest thief andhousebreaker in Scotland, was, upon the faith, perhaps, of an ancientproverb, selected as a person to be entrusted with the custody of otherdelinquents. 

When Ratcliffe was thus placed in a confidential situation, he wasrepeatedly applied to by the sapient Saddletree and others, who took someinterest in the Deans family, to procure an interview between thesisters; but the magistrates, who were extremely anxious for theapprehension of Robertson, had given strict orders to the contrary, hoping that, by keeping them separate, they might, from the one or theother, extract some information respecting that fugitive. On this subjectJeanie had nothing to tell them. She informed Mr. Middleburgh, that sheknew nothing of Robertson, except having met him that night byappointment to give her some advice respecting her sister's concern, thepurport of which, she said, was betwixt God and her conscience. Of hismotions, purposes, or plans, past, present, or future, she knew nothing, and so had nothing to communicate. 

Effie was equally silent, though from a different cause. It was in vainthat they offered a commutation and alleviation of her punishment, andeven a free pardon, if she would confess what she knew of her lover. Sheanswered only with tears; unless, when at times driven into pettishsulkiness by the persecution of the interrogators, she made them abruptand disrespectful answers. 

At length, after her trial had been delayed for many weeks, in hopes shemight be induced to speak out on a subject infinitely more interesting tothe magistracy than her own guilt or innocence, their patience was wornout, and even Mr. Middleburgh finding no ear lent to farther intercessionin her behalf, the day was fixed for the trial to proceed. 

It was now, and not sooner, that Sharpitlaw, recollecting his promise toEffie Deans, or rather being dinned into compliance by the unceasingremonstrances of Mrs. Saddletree, who was his next-door neighbour, andwho declared it was heathen cruelty to keep the twa brokenheartedcreatures separate, issued the important mandate, permitting them to seeeach other. 

On the evening which preceded the eventful day of trial, Jeanie waspermitted to see her sister--an awful interview, and occurring at a mostdistressing crisis. This, however, formed a part of the bitter cup whichshe was doomed to drink, to atone for crimes and follies to which she hadno accession; and at twelve o'clock noon, being the time appointed foradmission to the jail, she went to meet, for the first time for severalmonths, her guilty, erring, and most miserable sister, in that abode ofguilt, error, and utter misery. 

CHAPTER NINETEENTH. 

 Sweet sister, let me live! What sin you do to save a brother's life, Nature dispenses with the deed so far, That it becomes a virtue. Measure for Measure. 

Jeanie Deans was admitted into the jail by Ratcliffe. This fellow, asvoid of shame as of honesty, as he opened the now trebly secured door, asked her, with a leer which made her shudder, "whether she rememberedhim?"

A half-pronounced and timid "No, " was her answer. 

"What! not remember moonlight, and Muschat's Cairn, and Rob and Rat?"said he, with the same sneer;--"Your memory needs redding up, my jo. "

If Jeanie's distresses had admitted of aggravation, it must have been tofind her sister under the charge of such a profligate as this man. He wasnot, indeed, without something of good to balance so much that was evilin his character and habits. In his misdemeanours he had never beenbloodthirsty or cruel; and in his present occupation, he had shownhimself, in a certain degree, accessible to touches of humanity. Butthese good qualities were unknown to Jeanie, who, remembering the sceneat Muschat's Cairn, could scarce find voice to acquaint him, that she hadan order from Bailie Middleburgh, permitting her to see her sister. 

"I ken that fa' weel, my bonny doo; mair by token, I have a specialcharge to stay in the ward with you a' the time ye are thegither. "

"Must that be sae?" asked Jeanie, with an imploring voice. 

"Hout, ay, hinny, " replied the turnkey; "and what the waur will you andyour tittie be of Jim Ratcliffe hearing what ye hae to say to ilkother?--Deil a word ye'll say that will gar him ken your kittle sexbetter than he kens them already; and another thing is, that if ye dinnaspeak o' breaking the Tolbooth, deil a word will I tell ower, either todo ye good or ill. "

Thus saying, Ratcliffe marshalled her the way to the apartment whereEffie was confined. 

Shame, fear, and grief, had contended for mastery in the poor prisoner'sbosom during the whole morning, while she had looked forward to thismeeting; but when the door opened, all gave way to a confused and strangefeeling that had a tinge of joy in it, as, throwing herself on hersister's neck, she ejaculated, "My dear Jeanie!--my dear Jeanie! it'slang since I hae seen ye. " Jeanie returned the embrace with anearnestness that partook almost of rapture, but it was only a flittingemotion, like a sunbeam unexpectedly penetrating betwixt the clouds of atempest, and obscured almost as soon as visible. The sisters walkedtogether to the side of the pallet bed, and sate down side by side, tookhold of each other's hands, and looked each other in the face, butwithout speaking a word. In this posture they remained for a minute, while the gleam of joy gradually faded from their features, and gave wayto the most intense expression, first of melancholy, and then of agony, till, throwing themselves again into each other's arms, they, to use thelanguage of Scripture, lifted up their voices, and wept bitterly. 

Even the hardhearted turnkey, who had spent his life in scenes calculatedto stifle both conscience and feeling, could not witness this scenewithout a touch of human sympathy. It was shown in a trifling action, butwhich had more delicacy in it than seemed to belong to Ratcliffe'scharacter and station. The unglazed window of the miserable chamber wasopen, and the beams of a bright sun fell right upon the bed where thesufferers were seated. With a gentleness that had something of reverencein it, Ratcliffe partly closed the shutter, and seemed thus to throw aveil over a scene so sorrowful. 

"Ye are ill, Effie, " were the first words Jeanie could utter; "ye arevery ill. "

"O, what wad I gie to be ten times waur, Jeanie!" was the reply--"whatwad I gie to be cauld dead afore the ten o'clock bell the morn! And ourfather--but I am his bairn nae langer now--O, I hae nae friend left inthe warld!--O, that I were lying dead at my mother's side, in Newbattlekirkyard!"

"Hout, lassie, " said Ratcliffe, willing to show the interest which heabsolutely felt, "dinna be sae dooms doon-hearted as a' that; there'smony a tod hunted that's no killed. Advocate Langtale has brought folkthrough waur snappers than a' this, and there's no a cleverer agent thanNichil Novit e'er drew a bill of suspension. Hanged or unhanged, they areweel aff has sic an agent and counsel; ane's sure o' fair play. Ye are abonny lass, too, an ye wad busk up your cockernony a bit; and a bonnylass will find favour wi' judge and jury, when they would strap up agrewsome carle like me for the fifteenth part of a flea's hide andtallow, d--n them. "

To this homely strain of consolation the mourners returned no answer;indeed, they were so much lost in their own sorrows as to have becomeinsensible of Ratcliffe's presence. "O Effie, " said her elder sister, "how could you conceal your situation from me? O woman, had I deservedthis at your hand?--had ye spoke but ae word--sorry we might hae been, and shamed we might hae been, but this awfu' dispensation had never comeower us. "

"And what gude wad that hae dune?" answered the prisoner. "Na, na, Jeanie, a' was ower when ance I forgot what I promised when I fauldeddown the leaf of my Bible. See, " she said, producing the sacred volume, "the book opens aye at the place o' itsell. O see, Jeanie, what a fearfu'Scripture!"

Jeanie took her sister's Bible, and found that the fatal mark was made atthis impressive text in the book of Job: "He hath stripped me of myglory, and taken the crown from my head. He hath destroyed me on everyside, and I am gone. And mine hope hath he removed like a tree. "

"Isna that ower true a doctrine?" said the prisoner "Isna my crown, myhonour, removed? And what am I but a poor, wasted, wan-thriven tree, dugup by the roots, and flung out to waste in the highway, that man andbeast may tread it under foot? I thought o' the bonny bit them that ourfather rooted out o' the yard last May, when it had a' the flush o'blossoms on it; and then it lay in the court till the beasts had trodthem a' to pieces wi' their feet. I little thought, when I was wae forthe bit silly green bush and its flowers, that I was to gang the samegate mysell. "

"O, if ye had spoken ae word, " again sobbed Jeanie, --"if I were free toswear that ye had said but ae word of how it stude wi' ye, they couldnahae touched your life this day. "

"Could they na?" said Effie, with something like awakened interest--forlife is dear even to those who feel it is a burden--"Wha tauld ye that, Jeanie?"

"It was ane that kend what he was saying weel eneugh, " replied Jeanie, who had a natural reluctance at mentioning even the name of her sister'sseducer. 

"Wha was it?--I conjure you to tell me, " said Effie, seating herselfupright. --"Wha could tak interest in sic a cast-by as I am now?--Wasit--was it _him?_"

"Hout, " said Ratcliffe, "what signifies keeping the poor lassie in aswither? I'se uphaud it's been Robertson that learned ye that doctrinewhen ye saw him at Muschat's Cairn. "

"Was it him?" said Effie, catching eagerly at his words--"was it him, Jeanie, indeed?--O, I see it was him--poor lad, and I was thinking hisheart was as hard as the nether millstane--and him in sic danger on hisain part--poor George!"

Somewhat indignant at this burst of tender feeling towards the author ofher misery, Jeanie could not help exclaiming--"O Effie, how can ye speakthat gate of sic a man as that?"

"We maun forgie our enemies, ye ken, " said poor Effie, with a timid lookand a subdued voice; for her conscience told her what a differentcharacter the feelings with which she regarded her seducer bore, comparedwith the Christian charity under which she attempted to veil it. 

"And ye hae suffered a' this for him, and ye can think of loving himstill?" said her sister, in a voice betwixt pity and blame. 

"Love him!" answered Effie--"If I hadna loved as woman seldom loves, Ihadna been within these wa's this day; and trow ye, that love sic as mineis lightly forgotten?--Na, na--ye may hew down the tree, but ye cannachange its bend--And, O Jeanie, if ye wad do good to me at this moment, tell me every word that he said, and whether he was sorry for poor Effieor no!"

"What needs I tell ye onything about it?" said Jeanie. "Ye may be sure hehad ower muckle to do to save himsell, to speak lang or muckle about onybody beside. "

[Illustration: Jeanie and Effie--304]

"That's no true, Jeanie, though a saunt had said it, " replied Effie, witha sparkle of her former lively and irritable temper. "But ye dinna ken, though I do, how far he pat his life in venture to save mine. " Andlooking at Ratcliffe, she checked herself and was silent. 

"I fancy, " said Ratcliffe, with one of his familiar sneers, "the lassiethinks that naebody has een but hersell--Didna I see when Gentle Geordiewas seeking to get other folk out of the Tolbooth forby JockPorteous?--but ye are of my mind, hinny--better sit and rue, than flitand rue--ye needna look in my face sae amazed. I ken mair things thanthat, maybe. "

"O my God! my God!" said Effie, springing up and throwing herself down onher knees before him--"D'ye ken where they hae putten my bairn?--O mybairn! my bairn! the poor sackless innocent new-born wee ane--bone of mybone, and flesh of my flesh!--O man, if ye wad e'er deserve a portion inHeaven, or a brokenhearted creature's blessing upon earth, tell me wherethey hae put my bairn--the sign of my shame, and the partner of mysuffering! tell me wha has taen't away, or what they hae dune wi't?"

"Hout tout, " said the turnkey, endeavouring to extricate himself from thefirm grasp with which she held him, "that's taking me at my word wi' awitness--Bairn, quo' she? How the deil suld I ken onything of your bairn, huzzy? Ye maun ask that of auld Meg Murdockson, if ye dinna ken owermuckle about it yoursell. "

As his answer destroyed the wild and vague hope which had suddenlygleamed upon her, the unhappy prisoner let go her hold of his coat, andfell with her face on the pavement of the apartment in a strongconvulsion fit. 

Jeanie Deans possessed, with her excellently clear understanding, theconcomitant advantage of promptitude of spirit, even in the extremity ofdistress. 

She did not suffer herself to be overcome by her own feelings ofexquisite sorrow, but instantly applied herself to her sister's relief, with the readiest remedies which circumstances afforded; and which, to doRatcliffe justice, he showed himself anxious to suggest, and alert inprocuring. He had even the delicacy to withdraw to the farthest corner ofthe room, so as to render his official attendance upon them as littleintrusive as possible, when Effie was composed enough again to resume herconference with her sister. 

The prisoner once more, in the most earnest and broken tones, conjuredJeanie to tell her the particulars of the conference with Robertson, andJeanie felt it was impossible to refuse her this gratification. 

"Do ye mind, " she said, "Effie, when ye were in the fever before we leftWoodend, and how angry your mother, that's now in a better place, was wi'me for gieing ye milk and water to drink, because ye grat for it? Ye werea bairn then, and ye are a woman now, and should ken better than ask whatcanna but hurt you--But come weal or woe, I canna refuse ye onything thatye ask me wi' the tear in your ee. "

Again Effie threw herself into her arms, and kissed her cheek andforehead, murmuring, "O, if ye kend how lang it is since I heard his namementioned?--if ye but kend how muckle good it does me but to ken onythingo' him, that's like goodness or kindness, ye wadna wonder that I wish tohear o' him!"

Jeanie sighed, and commenced her narrative of all that had passed betwixtRobertson and her, making it as brief as possible. Effie listened inbreathless anxiety, holding her sister's hand in hers, and keeping hereye fixed upon her face, as if devouring every word she uttered. Theinterjections of "Poor fellow, "--"Poor George, " which escaped inwhispers, and betwixt sighs, were the only sounds with which sheinterrupted the story. When it was finished she made a long pause. 

"And this was his advice?" were the first words she uttered. 

"Just sic as I hae tell'd ye, " replied her sister. 

"And he wanted you to say something to yon folks, that wad save my younglife?"

"He wanted, " answered Jeanie, "that I suld be man-sworn. "

"And you tauld him, " said Effie, "that ye wadna hear o' coming between meand the death that I am to die, and me no aughten year auld yet?"

"I told him, " replied Jeanie, who now trembled at the turn which hersister's reflection seemed about to take, "that I daured na swear to anuntruth. "

"And what d'ye ca' an untruth?" said Effie, again showing a touch of herformer spirit--"Ye are muckle to blame, lass, if ye think a mother would, or could, murder her ain bairn--Murder!--I wad hae laid down my life justto see a blink o' its ee!"

"I do believe, " said Jeanie, "that ye are as innocent of sic a purpose asthe new-born babe itsell. "

"I am glad ye do me that justice, " said Effie, haughtily; "ifs whiles thefaut of very good folk like you, Jeanie, that, they think a' the rest ofthe warld are as bad as the warst temptations can make them. "

"I didna deserve this frae ye, Effie, " said her sister, sobbing, andfeeling at once the injustice of the reproach, and compassion for thestate of mind which dictated it. 

"Maybe no, sister, " said Effie. "But ye are angry because I loveRobertson--How can I help loving him, that loves me better than body andsoul baith?--Here he put his life in a niffer, to break the prison to letme out; and sure am I, had it stude wi' him as it stands wi' you"--Hereshe paused and was silent. 

"O, if it stude wi' me to save ye wi' risk of my life!" said Jeanie. 

"Ay, lass, " said her sister, "that's lightly said, but no sae lightlycredited, frae ane that winna ware a word for me; and if it be a wrangword, ye'll hae time eneugh to repent o't. "

"But that word is a grievous sin, and it's a deeper offence when it's asin wilfully and presumptuously committed. "

"Weel, weel, Jeanie, " said Effie, "I mind a' about the sins o'presumption in the questions--we'll speak nae mair about this matter, andye may save your breath to say your carritch and for me, I'll soon haenae breath to waste on onybody. "

"I must needs say, " interposed Ratcliffe, "that it's d--d hard, whenthree words of your mouth would give the girl the chance to nick MollBlood, * that you make such scrupling about rapping** to them. D--n me, ifthey would take me, if I would not rap to all what d'ye callums--Hyssop'sFables, for her life--I am us'd to't, b--t me, for less matters. Why, Ihave smacked calf-skin*** fifty times in England for a keg of brandy. "

* The gallows. ** Swearing. *** Kissed the book. 

"Never speak mair o't, " said the prisoner. "It's just as weel as itis--and gude-day, sister; ye keep Mr. Ratcliffe waiting on--Ye'll comeback and see me, I reckon, before"--here she stopped and became deadlypale. 

"And are we to part in this way, " said Jeanie, "and you in sic deadlyperil? O Effie, look but up, and say what ye wad hae me to do, and Icould find in my heart amaist to say that I wad do't. "

"No, Jeanie, " replied her sister after an effort, "I am better mindednow. At my best, I was never half sae gude as ye were, and what for suldyou begin to mak yoursell waur to save me, now that I am no worth saving?God knows, that in my sober mind, I wadna wuss ony living creature to doa wrang thing to save my life. I might have fled frae this Tolbooth onthat awfu' night wi' ane wad hae carried me through the warld, andfriended me, and fended for me. But I said to them, let life gang whengude fame is gane before it. But this lang imprisonment has broken myspirit, and I am whiles sair left to mysell, and then I wad gie theIndian mines of gold and diamonds, just for life and breath--for I think, Jeanie, I have such roving fits as I used to hae in the fever; but, instead of the fiery een and wolves, and Widow Butler's bullseg, that Iused to see spieling upon my bed, I am thinking now about a high, blackgibbet, and me standing up, and such seas of faces all looking up at poorEffie Deans, and asking if it be her that George Robertson used to callthe Lily of St. Leonard's. And then they stretch out their faces, andmake mouths, and girn at me, and whichever way I look, I see a facelaughing like Meg Murdockson, when she tauld me I had seen the last of mywean. God preserve us, Jeanie, that carline has a fearsome face!"

She clapped her hands before her eyes as she uttered this exclamation, asif to secure herself against seeing the fearful object she had alludedto. 

Jeanie Deans remained with her sister for two hours, during which sheendeavoured, if possible, to extract something from her that might beserviceable in her exculpation. But she had nothing to say beyond whatshe had declared on her first examination, with the purport of which thereader will be made acquainted in proper time and place. "They wadnabelieve her, " she said, "and she had naething mair to tell them. "

At length, Ratcliffe, though reluctantly, informed the sisters that therewas a necessity that they should part. "Mr. Novit, " he said, "was to seethe prisoner, and maybe Mr. Langtale too. Langtale likes to look at abonny lass, whether in prison or out o' prison. "

Reluctantly, therefore, and slowly, after many a tear, and many anembrace, Jeanie retired from the apartment, and heard its jarring boltsturned upon the dear being from whom she was separated. Somewhatfamiliarised now even with her rude conductor, she offered him a smallpresent in money, with a request he would do what he could for hersister's accommodation. To her surprise, Ratcliffe declined the fee. "I wasna bloody when I was on the pad, " he said, "and I winna begreedy--that is, beyond what's right and reasonable--now that I am inthe lock. --Keep the siller; and for civility, your sister sall hae sicas I can bestow; but I hope you'll think better on it, and rap an oathfor her--deil a hair ill there is in it, if ye are rapping again thecrown. I kend a worthy minister, as gude a man, bating the deed theydeposed him for, as ever ye heard claver in a pu'pit, that rapped to ahogshead of pigtail tobacco, just for as muckle as filled hisspleuchan. *

* Tobacco-pouch. 

But maybe ye are keeping your ain counsel--weel, weel, there's nae harmin that. As for your sister, I'se see that she gets her meat clean andwarm, and I'll try to gar her lie down and take a sleep after dinner, fordeil a ee she'll close the night. I hae gude experience of these matters. The first night is aye the warst o't. I hae never heard o' ane thatsleepit the night afore trial, but of mony a ane that sleepit as sound asa tap the night before their necks were straughted. And it's naewonder--the warst may be tholed when it's kend--Better a finger affas aye wagging. "

CHAPTER TWENTIETH. 

 Yet though thou mayst be dragg'd in scorn To yonder ignominious tree, Thou shalt not want one faithful friend To share the cruel fates' decree. Jemmy Dawson. 

After spending the greater part of the morning in his devotions (for hisbenevolent neighbours had kindly insisted upon discharging his task ofordinary labour), David Deans entered the apartment when the breakfastmeal was prepared. His eyes were involuntarily cast down, for he wasafraid to look at Jeanie, uncertain as he was whether she might feelherself at liberty, with a good conscience, to attend the Court ofJusticiary that day, to give the evidence which he understood that shepossessed, in order to her sister's exculpation. At length, after aminute of apprehensive hesitation, he looked at her dress to discoverwhether it seemed to be in her contemplation to go abroad that morning. Her apparel was neat and plain, but such as conveyed no exact intimationof her intentions to go abroad. She had exchanged her usual garb formorning labour, for one something inferior to that with which, as herbest, she was wont to dress herself for church, or any more rare occasionof going into society. Her sense taught her, that it was respectful to bedecent in her apparel on such an occasion, while her feelings induced herto lay aside the use of the very few and simple personal ornaments, which, on other occasions, she permitted herself to wear. So that thereoccurred nothing in her external appearance which could mark out to herfather, with anything like certainty, her intentions on this occasion. 

The preparations for their humble meal were that morning made in vain. The father and daughter sat, each assuming the appearance of eating, whenthe other's eyes were turned to them, and desisting from the effort withdisgust, when the affectionate imposture seemed no longer necessary. 

At length these moments of constraint were removed. The sound of St. Giles's heavy toll announced the hour previous to the commencement of thetrial; Jeanie arose, and with a degree of composure for which she herselfcould not account, assumed her plaid, and made her other preparations fora distant walking. It was a strange contrast between the firmness of herdemeanour, and the vacillation and cruel uncertainty of purpose indicatedin all her father's motions; and one unacquainted with both couldscarcely have supposed that the former was, in her ordinary habits oflife, a docile, quiet, gentle, and even timid country maiden, while herfather, with a mind naturally proud and strong, and supported byreligious opinions of a stern, stoical, and unyielding character, had inhis time undergone and withstood the most severe hardships, and the mostimminent peril, without depression of spirit, or subjugation of hisconstancy. The secret of this difference was, that Jeanie's mind hadalready anticipated the line of conduct which she must adopt, with allits natural and necessary consequences; while her father, ignorant ofevery other circumstance, tormented himself with imagining what the onesister might say or swear, or what effect her testimony might have uponthe awful event of the trial. 

He watched his daughter, with a faltering and indecisive look, until shelooked back upon him, with a look of unutterable anguish, as she wasabout to leave the apartment. 

"My dear lassie, " said he, "I will. " His action, hastily and confusedlysearching for his worsted mittans* and staff, showed his purpose ofaccompanying her, though his tongue failed distinctly to announce it. 

* A kind of worsted gloves, used by the lower orders. 

"Father, " said Jeanie, replying rather to his action than his words, "yehad better not. "

"In the strength of my God, " answered Deans, assuming firmness, "I willgo forth. "

And, taking his daughter's arm under his, he began to walk from the doorwith a step so hasty, that she was almost unable to keep up with him. Atrifling circumstance, but which marked the perturbed state of his mind, checked his course. 

"Your bonnet, father?" said Jeanie, who observed he had come out with hisgrey hairs uncovered. He turned back with a slight blush on his cheek, being ashamed to have been detected in an omission which indicated somuch mental confusion, assumed his large blue Scottish bonnet, and with astep slower, but more composed, as if the circumstance, had obliged himto summon up his resolution, and collect his scattered ideas, againplaced his daughter's arm under his, and resumed the way to Edinburgh. 

The courts of justice were then, and are still, held in what is calledthe Parliament Close, or, according to modern phrase, Parliament Square, and occupied the buildings intended for the accommodation of the ScottishEstates. This edifice, though in an imperfect and corrupted style ofarchitecture, had then a grave, decent, and, as it were, a judicialaspect, which was at least entitled to respect from its antiquity. Forwhich venerable front, I observed, on my last occasional visit to themetropolis, that modern taste had substituted, at great apparent expense, a pile so utterly inconsistent with every monument of antiquity around, and in itself so clumsy at the same time and fantastic, that it may belikened to the decorations of Tom Errand the porter, in the _Trip to theJubilee, _ when he appears bedizened with the tawdry finery of BeauClincher. _Sed transeat cum caeteris erroribus. _

The small quadrangle, or Close, if we may presume still to give it thatappropriate, though antiquated title, which at Lichfield, Salisbury, andelsewhere, is properly applied to designate the enclosure adjacent to acathedral, already evinced tokens of the fatal scene which was that dayto be acted. The soldiers of the City Guard were on their posts, nowenduring, and now rudely repelling with the butts of their muskets, themotley crew who thrust each other forward, to catch a glance at theunfortunate object of trial, as she should pass from the adjacent prisonto the Court in which her fate was to be determined. All must haveoccasionally observed, with disgust, the apathy with which the vulgargaze on scenes of this nature, and how seldom, unless when theirsympathies are called forth by some striking and extraordinarycircumstance, the crowd evince any interest deeper than that of callous, unthinking bustle, and brutal curiosity. They laugh, jest, quarrel, andpush each other to and fro, with the same unfeeling indifference as ifthey were assembled for some holiday sport, or to see an idle procession. Occasionally, however, this demeanour, so natural to the degradedpopulace of a large town, is exchanged for a temporary touch of humanaffections; and so it chanced on the present occasion. 

When Deans and his daughter presented themselves in the Close, andendeavoured to make their way forward to the door of the Court-house, they became involved in the mob, and subject, of course, to theirinsolence. As Deans repelled with some force the rude pushes which hereceived on all sides, his figure and antiquated dress caught theattention of the rabble, who often show an intuitive sharpness inascribing the proper character from external appearance, --

 "Ye're welcome, whigs, Frae Bothwell briggs, "

sung one fellow (for the mob of Edinburgh were at that time jacobiticallydisposed, probably because that was the line of sentiment mostdiametrically opposite to existing authority). 

 "Mess David Williamson, Chosen of twenty, Ran up the pu'pit stair, And sang Killiecrankie, "

chanted a siren, whose profession might be guessed by her appearance. Atattered caidie, or errand-porter, whom David Deans had jostled in hisattempt to extricate himself from the vicinity of these scorners, exclaimed in a strong north-country tone, "Ta deil ding out herCameronian een--what gies her titles to dunch gentlemans about?"

"Make room for the ruling elder, " said yet another; "he comes to see aprecious sister glorify God in the Grassmarket!"

"Whisht; shame's in ye, sirs, " said the voice of a man very loudly, which, as quickly sinking, said in a low but distinct tone, "It's herfather and sister. "

All fell back to make way for the sufferers; and all, even the veryrudest and most profligate, were struck with shame and silence. In thespace thus abandoned to them by the mob, Deans stood, holding hisdaughter by the hand, and said to her, with a countenance strongly andsternly expressive of his internal emotion, "Ye hear with your ears, andye see with your eyes, where and to whom the backslidings and defectionsof professors are ascribed by the scoffers. Not to themselves alone, butto the kirk of which they are members, and to its blessed and invisibleHead. Then, weel may we take wi' patience our share and portion of thisoutspreading reproach. "

The man who had spoken, no other than our old friend, Dumbiedikes, whosemouth, like that of the prophet's ass, had been opened by the emergencyof the case, now joined them, and, with his usual taciturnity, escortedthem into the Court-house. No opposition was offered to their entranceeither by the guards or doorkeepers; and it is even said that one of thelatter refused a shilling of civility-money tendered him by the Laird ofDumbiedikes, who was of opinion that "siller wad make a' easy. " But thislast incident wants confirmation. 

Admitted within the precincts of the Court-house, they found the usualnumber of busy office-bearers, and idle loiterers, who attend on thesescenes by choice, or from duty. Burghers gaped and stared; young lawyerssauntered, sneered, and laughed, as in the pit of the theatre; whileothers apart sat on a bench retired, and reasoned highly, _inter apicesjuris, _ on the doctrines of constructive crime, and the true import ofthe statute. The bench was prepared for the arrival of the judges. Thejurors were in attendance. The crown-counsel, employed in looking overtheir briefs and notes of evidence, looked grave, and whispered with eachother. They occupied one side of a large table placed beneath the bench;on the other sat the advocates, whom the humanity of the Scottish law (inthis particular more liberal than that of the sister-country) not onlypermits, but enjoins, to appear and assist with their advice and skillall persons under trial. Mr. Nichil Novit was seen actively instructingthe counsel for the panel (so the prisoner is called in Scottishlaw-phraseology), busy, bustling, and important. When they entered theCourt-room, Deans asked the Laird, in a tremulous whisper, "Where will_she_ sit?"

Dumbiedikes whispered Novit, who pointed to a vacant space at the bar, fronting the judges, and was about to conduct Deans towards it. 

"No!" he said; "I cannot sit by her--I cannot own her--not as yet, at least--I will keep out of her sight, and turn mine own eyeselsewhere--better for us baith. "

Saddletree, whose repeated interference with the counsel had procured himone or two rebuffs, and a special request that he would concern himselfwith his own matters, now saw with pleasure an opportunity of playing theperson of importance. He bustled up to the poor old man, and proceeded toexhibit his consequence, by securing, through his interest with thebar-keepers and macers, a seat for Deans, in a situation where he washidden from the general eye by the projecting corner of the bench. 

"It's gude to have a friend at court, " he said, continuing his heartlessharangues to the passive auditor, who neither heard nor replied to them;"few folk but mysell could hae sorted ye out a seat like this--the Lordswill be here incontinent, and proceed _instanter_ to trial. They wunnafence the Court as they do at the Circuit--the High Court of Justiciaryis aye fenced. --But, Lord's sake, what's this o't--Jeanie, ye are a citedwitness--Macer, this lass is a witness--she maun be enclosed--she maun onnae account be at large. --Mr. Novit, suldna Jeanie Deans be enclosed?"

Novit answered in the affirmative, and offered to conduct Jeanie to theapartment, where, according to the scrupulous practice of the ScottishCourt, the witnesses remain in readiness to be called into Court to giveevidence; and separated, at the same time, from all who might influencetheir testimony, or give them information concerning that which waspassing upon the trial. 

"Is this necessary?" said Jeanie, still reluctant to quit her father'shand. 

"A matter of absolute needcessity, " said Saddletree, "wha ever heard ofwitnesses no being enclosed?"

"It is really a matter of necessity, " said the younger counsellor, retained for her sister; and Jeanie reluctantly followed the macer of theCourt to the place appointed. 

"This, Mr. Deans, " said Saddletree, "is ca'd sequestering a witness; butit's clean different (whilk maybe ye wadna fund out o' yoursell) fraesequestering ane's estate or effects, as in cases of bankruptcy. I haeaften been sequestered as a witness, for the Sheriff is in the use whilesto cry me in to witness the declarations at precognitions, and so is Mr. Sharpitlaw; but I was ne'er like to be sequestered o' land and gudes butance, and that was lang syne, afore I was married. But whisht, whisht!here's the Court coming. "

As he spoke, the five Lords of Justiciary, in their long robes ofscarlet, faced with white, and preceded by their mace-bearer, enteredwith the usual formalities, and took their places upon the bench ofjudgment. 

The audience rose to receive them; and the bustle occasioned by theirentrance was hardly composed, when a great noise and confusion of personsstruggling, and forcibly endeavouring to enter at the doors of theCourt-room, and of the galleries, announced that the prisoner was aboutto be placed at the bar. This tumult takes place when the doors, at firstonly opened to those either having right to be present, or to the betterand more qualified ranks, are at length laid open to all whose curiosityinduces them to be present on the occasion. With inflamed countenancesand dishevelled dresses, struggling with, and sometimes tumbling overeach other, in rushed the rude multitude, while a few soldiers, forming, as it were, the centre of the tide, could scarce, with all their efforts, clear a passage for the prisoner to the place which she was to occupy. Bythe authority of the Court, and the exertions of its officers, the tumultamong the spectators was at length appeased, and the unhappy girl broughtforward, and placed betwixt two sentinels with drawn bayonets, as aprisoner at the bar, where she was to abide her deliverance for good orevil, according to the issue of her trial. 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST. 

 We have strict statutes, and most biting laws-- The needful bits and curbs for headstrong steeds-- Which, for these fourteen years, we have let sleep, Like to an o'ergrown lion in a cave, That goes not out to prey. Measure for Measure. 

"Euphemia Deans, " said the presiding Judge, in an accent in which pitywas blended with dignity, "stand up and listen to the criminal indictmentnow to be preferred against you. "

The unhappy girl, who had been stupified by the confusion through whichthe guards had forced a passage, cast a bewildered look on the multitudeof faces around her, which seemed to tapestry, as it were, the walls, inone broad slope from the ceiling to the floor, with human countenances, and instinctively obeyed a command, which rung in her ears like thetrumpet of the judgment-day. 

"Put back your hair, Effie, " said one of the macers. For her beautifuland abundant tresses of long fair hair, which, according to the costumeof the country, unmarried women were not allowed to cover with any sortof cap, and which, alas! Effie dared no longer confine with the snood orriband, which implied purity of maiden-fame, now hung unbound anddishevelled over her face, and almost concealed her features. Onreceiving this hint from the attendant, the unfortunate young woman, witha hasty, trembling, and apparently mechanical compliance, shaded backfrom her face her luxuriant locks, and showed to the whole court, excepting one individual, a countenance, which, though pale andemaciated, was so lovely amid its agony, that it called forth a universalmurmur of compassion and sympathy. Apparently the expressive sound ofhuman feeling recalled the poor girl from the stupor of fear, whichpredominated at first over every other sensation, and awakened her to theno less painful sense of shame and exposure attached to her presentsituation. Her eye, which had at first glanced wildly around, was turnedon the ground; her cheek, at first so deadly pale, began gradually to beoverspread with a faint blush, which increased so fast, that, when inagony of shame she strove to conceal her face, her temples, her brow, herneck, and all that her slender fingers and small palms could not cover, became of the deepest crimson. 

All marked and were moved by these changes, excepting one. It was oldDeans, who, motionless in his seat, and concealed, as we have said, bythe corner of the bench, from seeing or being seen, did nevertheless keephis eyes firmly fixed on the ground, as if determined that, by nopossibility whatever, would he be an ocular witness of the shame of hishouse. 

"Ichabod!" he said to himself--"Ichabod! my glory is departed!"

While these reflections were passing through his mind, the indictment, which set forth in technical form the crime of which the panel stoodaccused, was read as usual, and the prisoner was asked if she was Guilty, or Not Guilty. 

"Not guilty of my poor bairn's death, " said Effie Deans, in an accentcorresponding in plaintive softness of tone to the beauty of herfeatures, and which was not heard by the audience without emotion. 

The presiding Judge next directed the counsel to plead to the relevancy;that is, to state on either part the arguments in point of law, andevidence in point of fact, against and in favour of the criminal; afterwhich it is the form of the Court to pronounce a preliminary judgment, sending the cause to the cognisance of the jury, or assize. 

The counsel for the crown briefly stated the frequency of the crime ofinfanticide, which had given rise to the special statute under which thepanel stood indicted. He mentioned the various instances, many of themmarked with circumstances of atrocity, which had at length induced theKing's Advocate, though with great reluctance, to make the experiment, whether, by strictly enforcing the Act of Parliament which had been madeto prevent such enormities, their occurrence might be prevented. "Heexpected, " he said, "to be able to establish by witnesses, as well as bythe declaration of the panel herself, that she was in the state describedby the statute. According to his information, the panel had communicatedher pregnancy to no one, nor did she allege in her own declaration thatshe had done so. This secrecy was the first requisite in support of theindictment. The same declaration admitted, that she had borne a malechild, in circumstances which gave but too much reason to believe it haddied by the hands, or at least with the knowledge or consent, of theunhappy mother. It was not, however, necessary for him to bring positiveproof that the panel was accessory to the murder, nay, nor even to prove, that the child was murdered at all. It was sufficient to support theindictment, that it could not be found. According to the stern, butnecessary severity of this statute, she who should conceal her pregnancy, who should omit to call that assistance which is most necessary on suchoccasions, was held already to have meditated the death of her offspring, as an event most likely to be the consequence of her culpable and cruelconcealment. And if, under such circumstances, she could notalternatively show by proof that the infant had died a natural death, orproduce it still in life, she must, under the construction of the law, beheld to have murdered it, and suffer death accordingly. "

The counsel for the prisoner, Mr. Fairbrother, a man of considerable famein his profession, did not pretend directly to combat the arguments ofthe King's Advocate. He began by lamenting that his senior at the bar, Mr. Langtale, had been suddenly called to the county of which he wassheriff, and that he had been applied to, on short warning, to give thepanel his assistance in this interesting case. He had had little time, hesaid, to make up for his inferiority to his learned brother by long andminute research; and he was afraid he might give a specimen of hisincapacity, by being compelled to admit the accuracy of the indictmentunder the statute. "It was enough for their Lordships, " he observed, "toknow that such was the law, and he admitted the advocate had a right tocall for the usual interlocutor of relevancy. " But he stated, "that whenhe came to establish his case by proof, he trusted to make outcircumstances which would satisfactorily elide the charge in the libel. His client's story was a short, but most melancholy one. She was bred upin the strictest tenets of religion and virtue, the daughter of a worthyand conscientious person, who, in evil times, had established a characterfor courage and religion, by becoming a sufferer for conscience' sake. "

David Deans gave a convulsive start at hearing himself thus mentioned, and then resumed the situation, in which, with his face stooped againsthis hands, and both resting against the corner of the elevated bench onwhich the Judges sate, he had hitherto listened to the procedure in thetrial. The Whig lawyers seemed to be interested; the Tories put up theirlip. 

"Whatever may be our difference of opinion, " resumed the lawyer, whosebusiness it was to carry his whole audience with him if possible, "concerning the peculiar tenets of these people" (here Deans groaneddeeply), "it is impossible to deny them the praise of sound, and evenrigid morals, or the merit of training up their children in the fear ofGod; and yet it was the daughter of such a person whom a jury wouldshortly be called upon, in the absence of evidence, and upon merepresumptions, to convict of a crime more properly belonging to a heathen, or a savage, than to a Christian and civilised country. It was true, " headmitted, "that the excellent nurture and early instruction which thepoor girl had received, had not been sufficient to preserve her fromguilt and error. She had fallen a sacrifice to an inconsiderate affectionfor a young man of prepossessing manners, as he had been informed, but ofa very dangerous and desperate character. She was seduced under promiseof marriage--a promise, which the fellow might have, perhaps, done herjustice by keeping, had he not at that time been called upon by the lawto atone for a crime, violent and desperate in itself, but which becamethe preface to another eventful history, every step of which was markedby blood and guilt, and the final termination of which had not even yetarrived. He believed that no one would hear him without surprise, when hestated that the father of this infant now amissing, and said by thelearned Advocate to have been murdered, was no other than the notoriousGeorge Robertson, the accomplice of Wilson, the hero of the memorableescape from the Tolbooth Church, and as no one knew better than hislearned friend the Advocate, the principal actor in the Porteousconspiracy"

"I am sorry to interrupt a counsel in such a case as the present, " said, the presiding Judge; "but I must remind the learned gentleman that he istravelling out of the case before us. "

The counsel bowed and resumed. "He only judged it necessary, " he said, "to mention the name and situation of Robertson, because the circumstancein which that character was placed, went a great way in accounting forthe silence on which his Majesty's counsel had laid so much weight, asaffording proof that his client proposed to allow no fair play for itslife to the helpless being whom she was about to bring into the world. She had not announced to her friends that she had been seduced from thepath of honour--and why had she not done so?--Because she expected dailyto be restored to character, by her seducer doing her that justice whichshe knew to be in his power, and believed to be in his inclination. Wasit natural--was it reasonable--was it fair, to expect that she should inthe interim, become _felo de se_ of her own character, and proclaim herfrailty to the world, when she had every reason to expect, that, byconcealing it for a season, it might be veiled for ever? Was it not, onthe contrary, pardonable, that, in such an emergency, a young woman, insuch a situation, should be found far from disposed to make a confidantof every prying gossip, who, with sharp eyes, and eager ears, pressedupon her for an explanation of suspicious circumstances, which females inthe lower--he might say which females of all ranks, are so alert innoticing, that they sometimes discover them where they do not exist? Wasit strange or was it criminal, that she should have repelled theirinquisitive impertinence with petulant denials? The sense and feeling ofall who heard him would answer directly in the negative. But although hisclient had thus remained silent towards those to whom she was not calledupon to communicate her situation, --to whom, " said the learned gentleman, "I will add, it would have been unadvised and improper in her to havedone so; yet, I trust, I shall remove this case most triumphantly fromunder the statute, and obtain the unfortunate young woman an honourabledismission from your Lordships' bar, by showing that she did, in due timeand place, and to a person most fit for such confidence, mention thecalamitous circumstances in which she found herself. This occurred afterRobertson's conviction, and when he was lying in prison in expectation ofthe fate which his comrade Wilson afterwards suffered, and from which hehimself so strangely escaped. It was then, when all hopes of having herhonour repaired by wedlock vanished from her eyes, --when an union withone in Robertson's situation, if still practicable, might, perhaps, havebeen regarded rather as an addition to her disgrace, --it was _then, _ thatI trust to be able to prove that the prisoner communicated and consultedwith her sister, a young woman several years older than herself, thedaughter of her father, if I mistake not, by a former marriage, upon theperils and distress of her unhappy situation. "

"If, indeed, you are able to instruct _that_ point, Mr. Fairbrother, "said the presiding Judge. 

"If I am indeed able to instruct that point, my Lord, " resumed Mr. Fairbrother, "I trust not only to serve my client, but to relieve yourLordships from that which I know you feel the most painful duty of yourhigh office; and to give all who now hear me the exquisite pleasure ofbeholding a creature, so young, so ingenuous, and so beautiful, as shethat is now at the bar of your Lordships' Court, dismissed from thence insafety and in honour. "

This address seemed to affect many of the audience, and was followed by aslight murmur of applause. Deans, as he heard his daughter's beauty andinnocent appearance appealed to, was involuntarily about to turn his eyestowards her; but, recollecting himself, he bent them again on the groundwith stubborn resolution. 

"Will not my learned brother, on the other side of the bar, " continuedthe advocate, after a short pause, "share in this general joy, since, Iknow, while he discharges his duty in bringing an accused person here, noone rejoices more in their being freely and honourably sent hence? Mylearned brother shakes his head doubtfully, and lays his hand on thepanel's declaration. I understand him perfectly--he would insinuate thatthe facts now stated to your Lordships are inconsistent with theconfession of Euphemia Deans herself. I need not remind your Lordships, that her present defence is no whit to be narrowed within the bounds ofher former confession; and that it is not by any account which she mayformerly have given of herself, but by what is now to be proved for oragainst her, that she must ultimately stand or fall. I am not under thenecessity of accounting for her choosing to drop out of her declarationthe circumstances of her confession to her sister. She might not be awareof its importance; she might be afraid of implicating her sister; shemight even have forgotten the circumstance entirely, in the terror anddistress of mind incidental to the arrest of so young a creature on acharge so heinous. Any of these reasons are sufficient to account for herhaving suppressed the truth in this instance, at whatever risk toherself; and I incline most to her erroneous fear of criminating hersister, because I observe she has had a similar tenderness towards herlover (however undeserved on his part), and has never once mentionedRobertson's name from beginning to end of her declaration. 

"But, my Lords, " continued Fairbrother, "I am aware the King's Advocatewill expect me to show, that the proof I offer is consistent with othercircumstances of the, case, which I do not and cannot deny. He willdemand of me how Effie Deans's confession to her sister, previous to herdelivery, is reconcilable with the mystery of the birth, --with thedisappearance, perhaps the murder (for I will not deny a possibilitywhich I cannot disprove) of the infant. My Lords, the explanation of thisis to be found in the placability, perchance, I may say, in the facilityand pliability, of the female sex. The _dulcis Amaryllidis irae, _ as yourLordships well know, are easily appeased; nor is it possible to conceivea woman so atrociously offended by the man whom she has loved, but thatshe will retain a fund of forgiveness, upon which his penitence, whetherreal or affected, may draw largely, with a certainty that his bills willbe answered. We can prove, by a letter produced in evidence, that thisvillain Robertson, from the bottom of the dungeon whence he alreadyprobably meditated the escape, which he afterwards accomplished by theassistance of his comrade, contrived to exercise authority over the mind, and to direct the motions, of this unhappy girl. It was in compliancewith his injunctions, expressed in that letter, that the panel wasprevailed upon to alter the line of conduct which her own better thoughtshad suggested; and, instead of resorting, when her time of travailapproached, to the protection of her own family, was induced to confideherself to the charge of some vile agent of this nefarious seducer, andby her conducted to one of those solitary and secret purlieus of villany, which, to the shame of our police, still are suffered to exist in thesuburbs of this city, where, with the assistance, and under the charge, of a person of her own sex, she bore a male child, under circumstanceswhich added treble bitterness to the woe denounced against our originalmother. What purpose Robertson had in all this, it is hard to tell, oreven to guess. He may have meant to marry the girl, for her father is aman of substance. But, for the termination of the story, and the conductof the woman whom he had placed about the person of Euphemia Deans, it isstill more difficult to account. The unfortunate young woman was visitedby the fever incidental to her situation. In this fever she appears tohave been deceived by the person that waited on her, and, on recoveringher senses, she found that she was childless in that abode of misery. Herinfant had been carried off, perhaps for the worst purposes, by thewretch that waited on her. It may have been murdered, for what I cantell. "

He was here interrupted by a piercing shriek, uttered by the unfortunateprisoner. She was with difficulty brought to compose herself. Her counselavailed himself of the tragical interruption, to close his pleading witheffect. 

"My Lords, " said he, "in that piteous cry you heard the eloquence ofmaternal affection, far surpassing the force of my poor words--Rachelweeping for her children! Nature herself bears testimony in favour of thetenderness and acuteness of the prisoner's parental feelings. I will notdishonour her plea by adding a word more. "

"Heard ye ever the like o' that, Laird?" said Saddletree to Dumbiedikes, when the counsel had ended his speech. "There's a chield can spin amuckle pirn out of a wee tait of tow! Deil haet he kens mair about itthan what's in the declaration, and a surmise that Jeanie Deans suld haebeen able to say something about her sister's situation, whilk surmise, Mr. Crossmyloof says, rests on sma' authority. And he's cleckit thisgreat muckle bird out o' this wee egg! He could wile the very floundersout o' the Firth. --What garr'd my father no send me to Utrecht?--Butwhisht, the Court is gaun to pronounce the interlocutor of relevancy. "

And accordingly the Judges, after a few words, recorded their judgment, which bore, that the indictment, if proved, was relevant to infer thepains of law: And that the defence, that the panel had communicated hersituation to her sister, was a relevant defence: And, finally, appointedthe said indictment and defence to be submitted to the judgment of anassize. 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND. 

 Most righteous judge! a sentence. --Come, prepare. Merchant of Venice. 

It is by no means my intention to describe minutely the forms of aScottish criminal trial, nor am I sure that I could draw up an account sointelligible and accurate as to abide the criticism of the gentlemen ofthe long robe. It is enough to say that the jury was impanelled, and thecase proceeded. The prisoner was again required to plead to the charge, and she again replied, "Not Guilty, " in the same heart-thrilling tone asbefore. 

The crown counsel then called two or three female witnesses, by whosetestimony it was established, that Effie's situation had been remarked bythem, that they had taxed her with the fact, and that her answers hadamounted to an angry and petulant denial of what they charged her with. But, as very frequently happens, the declaration of the panel or accusedparty herself was the evidence which bore hardest upon her case. 

In the event of these tales ever finding their way across the Border, itmay be proper to apprise the southern reader that it is the practice inScotland, on apprehending a suspected person, to subject him to ajudicial examination before a magistrate. He is not compelled to answerany of the questions asked of him, but may remain silent if he sees ithis interest to do so. But whatever answers he chooses to give areformally written down, and being subscribed by himself and themagistrate, are produced against the accused in case of his being broughtto trial. It is true, that these declarations are not produced as beingin themselves evidence properly so called, but only as adminicles oftestimony, tending to corroborate what is considered as legal and properevidence. Notwithstanding this nice distinction, however, introduced bylawyers to reconcile this procedure to their own general rule, that a mancannot be required to bear witness against himself, it neverthelessusually happens that these declarations become the means of condemningthe accused, as it were, out of their own mouths. The prisoner, uponthese previous examinations, has indeed the privilege of remaining silentif he pleases; but every man necessarily feels that a refusal to answernatural and pertinent interrogatories, put by judicial authority, is initself a strong proof of guilt, and will certainly lead to his beingcommitted to prison; and few can renounce the hope of obtaining libertyby giving some specious account of themselves, and showing apparentfrankness in explaining their motives and accounting for their conduct. It, therefore, seldom happens that the prisoner refuses to give ajudicial declaration, in which, nevertheless, either by letting out toomuch of the truth, or by endeavouring to substitute a fictitious story, he almost always exposes himself to suspicion and to contradictions, which weigh heavily in the minds of the jury. 

The declaration of Effie Deans was uttered on other principles, and thefollowing is a sketch of its contents, given in the judicial form, inwhich they may still be found in the Books of Adjournal. 

The declarant admitted a criminal intrigue with an individual whose nameshe desired to conceal. "Being interrogated, what her reason was forsecrecy on this point? She declared, that she had no right to blame thatperson's conduct more than she did her own, and that she was willing toconfess her own faults, but not to say anything which might criminate theabsent. Interrogated, if she confessed her situation to any one, or madeany preparation for her confinement? Declares, she did not. And beinginterrogated, why she forbore to take steps which her situation soperemptorily required? Declares, she was ashamed to tell her friends, andshe trusted the person she has mentioned would provide for her and theinfant. Interrogated if he did so? Declares, that he did not do sopersonally; but that it was not his fault, for that the declarant isconvinced he would have laid down his life sooner than the bairn or shehad come to harm. Interrogated, what prevented him from keeping hispromise? Declares, that it was impossible for him to do so, he beingunder trouble at the time, and declines farther answer to this question. Interrogated, where she was from the period she left her master, Mr. Saddletree's family, until her appearance at her father's, at St. Leonard's, the day before she was apprehended? Declares, she does notremember. And, on the interrogatory being repeated, declares, she doesnot mind muckle about it, for she was very ill. On the question beingagain repeated, she declares, she will tell the truth, if it should bethe undoing of her, so long as she is not asked to tell on other folk;and admits, that she passed that interval of time in the lodging of awoman, an acquaintance of that person who had wished her to that place tobe delivered, and that she was there delivered accordingly of a malechild. Interrogated, what was the name of that person? Declares andrefuses to answer this question. Interrogated, where she lives? Declares, she has no certainty, for that she was taken to the lodging aforesaidunder cloud of night. Interrogated, if the lodging was in the city orsuburbs? Declares and refuses to answer that question. Interrogated, whether, when she left the house of Mr. Saddletree, she went up or downthe street? Declares and refuses to answer the question. Interrogated, whether she had ever seen the woman before she was wished to her, as shetermed it, by the person whose name she refuses to answer? Declares andreplies, not to her knowledge. Interrogated, whether this woman wasintroduced to her by the said person verbally, or by word of mouth?Declares, she has no freedom to answer this question. Interrogated, ifthe child was alive when it was born? Declares, that--God help her andit!--it certainly was alive. Interrogated, if it died a natural deathafter birth? Declares, not to her knowledge. Interrogated, where it nowis? Declares, she would give her right hand to ken, but that she neverhopes to see mair than the banes of it. And being interrogated, why shesupposes it is now dead? the declarant wept bitterly and made no answer. Interrogated, if the woman, in whose lodging she was, seemed to be a fitperson to be with her in that situation? Declares, she might be fitenough for skill, but that she was an hard-hearted bad woman. Interrogated, if there was any other person in the lodging exceptingthemselves two? Declares, that she thinks there was another woman; buther head was so carried with pain of body and trouble of mind, that sheminded her very little. Interrogated, when the child was taken away fromher? Declared that she fell in a fever, and was light-headed, and whenshe came to her own mind, the woman told her the bairn was dead; and thatthe declarant answered, if it was dead it had had foul play. That, thereupon, the woman was very sair on her, and gave her much illlanguage; and that the deponent was frightened, and crawled out of thehouse when her back was turned, and went home to Saint Leonard's Crags, as well as a woman in her condition dought. *

* i. E. Was able to do. 

Interrogated, why she did not tell her story to her sister and father, and get force to search the house for her child, dead or alive? Declares, it was her purpose to do so, but she had not time. Interrogated, why shenow conceals the name of the woman, and the place of her abode? Thedeclarant remained silent for a time, and then said, that to do so couldnot repair the skaith that was done, but might be the occasion of more. Interrogated, whether she had herself, at any time, had any purpose ofputting away the child by violence? Declares, never; so might God bemerciful to her--and then again declares, never, when she was in herperfect senses; but what bad thoughts the Enemy might put into her brainwhen she was out of herself, she cannot answer. And again solemnlyinterrogated, declares, that she would have been drawn with wild horses, rather than have touched the bairn with an unmotherly hand. Interrogated, declares, that among the ill-language the woman gave her, she did saysure enough that the declarant had hurt the bairn when she was in thebrain fever; but that the declarant does not believe that she said thisfrom any other cause than to frighten her, and make her be silent. Interrogated, what else the woman said to her? Declares, that when thedeclarant cried loud for her bairn, and was like to raise the neighbours, the woman threatened her, that they that could stop the wean's skirlingwould stop hers, if she did not keep a' the founder. *

* i. E. The quieter. 

And that this threat, with the manner of the woman, made the declarantconclude, that the bairn's life was gone, and her own in danger, for thatthe woman was a desperate bad woman, as the declarant judged from thelanguage she used. Interrogated, declares, that the fever and deliriumwere brought on her by hearing bad news, suddenly told to her, butrefuses to say what the said news related to. Interrogated, why she doesnot now communicate these particulars, which might, perhaps, enable themagistrate to ascertain whether the child is living or dead; andrequested to observe, that her refusing to do so, exposes her own life, and leaves the child in bad hands; as also that her present refusal toanswer on such points is inconsistent with her alleged intention to makea clean breast to her sister? Declares, that she kens the bairn is nowdead, or, if living, there is one that will look after it; that for herown living or dying, she is in God's hands, who knows her innocence ofharming her bairn with her will or knowledge; and that she has alteredher resolution of speaking out, which she entertained when she left thewoman's lodging, on account of a matter which she has since learned. Anddeclares, in general, that she is wearied, and will answer no morequestions at this time. "

Upon a subsequent examination, Euphemia Deans adhered to the declarationshe had formerly made, with this addition, that a paper found in hertrunk being shown to her, she admitted that it contained the credentials, in consequence of which she resigned herself to the conduct of the womanat whose lodgings she was delivered of the child. Its tenor ran thus:--

"Dearest Effie, --I have gotten the means to send to you by a woman who iswell qualified to assist you in your approaching streight; she is notwhat I could wish her, but I cannot do better for you in my presentcondition. I am obliged to trust to her in this present calamity, formyself and you too. I hope for the best, though I am now in a sore pinch;yet thought is free--I think Handie Dandie and I may queer the stifler*for all that is come and gone. 

* Avoid the gallows. 

You will be angry for me writing this to my little Cameronian Lily; butif I can but live to be a comfort to you, and a father to your babie, youwill have plenty of time to scold. --Once more, let none knew yourcounsel--my life depends on this hag, d--n her--she is both deep anddangerous, but she has more wiles and wit than ever were in a beldam'shead, and has cause to be true to me. Farewell, my Lily--Do not droop onmy account--in a week I will be yours or no more my own. "

Then followed a postscript. "If they must truss me, I will repent ofnothing so much, even at the last hard pinch, as of the injury I havedone my Lily. "

Effie refused to say from whom she had received this letter, but enoughof the story was now known, to ascertain that it came from Robertson; andfrom the date, it appeared to have been written about the time whenAndrew Wilson (called for a nickname Handie Dandie) and he weremeditating their first abortive attempt to escape, which miscarried inthe manner mentioned in the beginning of this history. 

The evidence of the Crown being concluded, the counsel for the prisonerbegan to lead a proof in her defence. The first witnesses were examinedupon the girl's character. All gave her an excellent one, but none withmore feeling than worthy Mrs. Saddletree, who, with the tears on hercheeks, declared, that she could not have had a higher opinion of EffieDeans, nor a more sincere regard for her, if she had been her owndaughter. All present gave the honest woman credit for her goodness ofheart, excepting her husband, who whispered to Dumbiedikes, "That NichilNovit of yours is but a raw hand at leading evidence, I'm thinking. Whatsignified his bringing a woman here to snotter and snivel, and bathertheir Lordships? He should hae ceeted me, sir, and I should hae gien themsic a screed o' testimony, they shauldna hae touched a hair o' her head. "

"Hadna ye better get up and tryt yet?" said the Laird. "I'll mak a signto Novit. "

"Na, na, " said Saddletree, "thank ye for naething, neighbour--that wouldbe ultroneous evidence, and I ken what belangs to that; but Nichil Novitsuld hae had me ceeted _debito tempore. _" And wiping his mouth with hissilk handkerchief with great importance, he resumed the port and mannerof an edified and intelligent auditor. 

Mr. Fairbrother now premised, in a few words, "that he meant to bringforward his most important witness, upon whose evidence the cause must ina great measure depend. What his client was, they had learned from thepreceding witnesses; and so far as general character, given in the mostforcible terms, and even with tears, could interest every one in herfate, she had already gained that advantage. It was necessary, headmitted, that he should produce more positive testimony of her innocencethan what arose out of general character, and this he undertook to do bythe mouth of the person to whom she had communicated her situation--bythe mouth of her natural counsellor and guardian--her sister. --Macer, call into court, Jean, or Jeanie Deans, daughter of David Deans, cowfeeder, at Saint Leonard's Crags!"

When he uttered these words, the poor prisoner instantly started up, andstretched herself half-way over the bar, towards the side at which hersister was to enter. And when, slowly following the officer, the witnessadvanced to the foot of the table, Effie, with the whole expression ofher countenance altered, from that of confused shame and dismay, to aneager, imploring, and almost ecstatic earnestness of entreaty, withoutstretched hands, hair streaming back, eyes raised eagerly to hersister's face, and glistening through tears, exclaimed in a tone whichwent through the heart of all who heard her, --"O Jeanie, Jeanie, save me, save me!"

With a different feeling, yet equally appropriated to his proud andself-dependent character, old Deans drew himself back still farther underthe cover of the bench; so that when Jeanie, as she entered the court, cast a timid glance towards the place at which she had left him seated, his venerable figure was no longer visible. He sate down on the otherside of Dumbiedikes, wrung his hand hard, and whispered, "Ah, Laird, thisis warst of a'--if I can but win ower this part--I feel my head uncodizzy; but my Master is strong in his servant's weakness. " After amoment's mental prayer, he again started up, as if impatient ofcontinuing in any one posture, and gradually edged himself forwardtowards the place he had just quitted. 

Jeanie in the meantime had advanced to the bottom of the table, when, unable to resist the impulse of affections she suddenly extended her handto her sister. Effie was just within the distance that she could seize itwith both hers, press it to her mouth, cover it with kisses, and bathe itin tears, with the fond devotion that a Catholic would pay to a guardiansaint descended for his safety; while Jeanie, hiding her own face withher other hand, wept bitterly. The sight would have moved a heart ofstone, much more of flesh and blood. Many of the spectators shed tears, and it was some time before the presiding Judge himself could so farsubdue his emotion as to request the witness to compose herself, and theprisoner to forbear those marks of eager affection, which, howevernatural, could not be permitted at that time, and in that presence. 

The solemn oath, --"the truth to tell, and no truth to conceal, as far asshe knew or should be asked, " was then administered by the Judge "in thename of God, and as the witness should answer to God at the great day ofjudgment;" an awful adjuration, which seldom fails to make impressioneven on the most hardened characters, and to strike with fear even themost upright. Jeanie, educated in deep and devout reverence for the nameand attributes of the Deity, was, by the solemnity of a direct appeal tohis person and justice, awed, but at the same time elevated above allconsiderations, save those which she could, with a clear conscience, callHim to witness. She repeated the form in a low and reverent, but distincttone of voice, after the Judge, to whom, and not to any inferior officerof the Court, the task is assigned in Scotland of directing the witnessin that solemn appeal which is the sanction of his testimony. 

When the Judge had finished the established form, he added in a feeling, but yet a monitory tone, an advice, which the circumstances appeared tohim to call for. 

"Young woman, " these were his words, "you come before this Court incircumstances, which it would be worse than cruel not to pity and tosympathise with. Yet it is my duty to tell you, that the truth, whateverits consequences may be, the truth is what you owe to your country, andto that God whose word is truth, and whose name you have now invoked. Useyour own time in answering the questions that gentleman" (pointing to thecounsel) "shall put to you. --But remember, that what you may be temptedto say beyond what is the actual truth, you must answer both here andhereafter. "

The usual questions were then put to her:--Whether any one had instructedher what evidence she had to deliver? Whether any one had given orpromised her any good deed, hire, or reward, for her testimony? Whethershe had any malice or ill-will at his Majesty's Advocate, being the partyagainst whom she was cited as a witness? To which questions shesuccessively answered by a quiet negative. But their tenor gave greatscandal and offence to her father, who was not aware that they are put toevery witness as a matter of form. 

"Na, na, " he exclaimed, loud enough to be heard, "my bairn is no like theWidow of Tekoah--nae man has putten words into her mouth. "

One of the judges, better acquainted, perhaps, with the Books ofAdjournal than with the Book of Samuel, was disposed to make some instantinquiry after this Widow of Tekoah, who, as he construed the matter, hadbeen tampering with the evidence. But the presiding Judge, better versedin Scripture history, whispered to his learned brother the necessaryexplanation; and the pause occasioned by this mistake had the good effectof giving Jeanie Deans time to collect her spirits for the painful taskshe had to perform. 

Fairbrother, whose practice and intelligence were considerable, saw thenecessity of letting the witness compose herself. In his heart hesuspected that she came to bear false witness in her sister's cause. 

"But that is her own affair, " thought Fairbrother; "and it is my businessto see that she has plenty of time to regain composure, and to deliverher evidence, be it true, or be it false--_valeat quantum. _"

Accordingly, he commenced his interrogatories with uninterestingquestions, which admitted of instant reply. 

"You are, I think, the sister of the prisoner?"

"Yes, sir. "

"Not the full sister, however?"

"No, sir--we are by different mothers. "

"True; and you are, I think, several years older than your sister?"

"Yes, sir, " etc. 

After the advocate had conceived that, by these preliminary andunimportant questions, he had familiarised the witness with the situationin which she stood, he asked, "whether she had not remarked her sister'sstate of health to be altered, during the latter part of the term whenshe had lived with Mrs. Saddletree?"

Jeanie answered in the affirmative. 

"And she told you the cause of it, my dear, I suppose?" said Fairbrother, in an easy, and, as one may say, an inductive sort of tone. 

"I am sorry to interrupt my brother, " said the Crown Counsel, rising;"but I am in your Lordships' judgment, whether this be not a leadingquestion?"

"If this point is to be debated, " said the presiding Judge, "the witnessmust be removed. "

For the Scottish lawyers regard with a sacred and scrupulous horror everyquestion so shaped by the counsel examining, as to convey to a witnessthe least intimation of the nature of the answer which is desired fromhim. These scruples, though founded on an excellent principle, aresometimes carried to an absurd pitch of nicety, especially as it isgenerally easy for a lawyer who has his wits about him to elude theobjection. Fairbrother did so in the present case. 

"It is not necessary to waste the time of the Court, my Lord since theKing's Counsel thinks it worth while to object to the form of myquestion, I will shape it otherwise. --Pray, young woman, did you ask yoursister any question when you observed her looking unwell?--takecourage--speak out. "

"I asked her, " replied Jeanie, "what ailed her. "

"Very well--take your own time--and what was the answer she made?"continued Mr. Fairbrother. 

Jeanie was silent, and looked deadly pale. It was not that she at any oneinstant entertained an idea of the possibility of prevarication--it wasthe natural hesitation to extinguish the last spark of hope that remainedfor her sister. 

"Take courage, young woman, " said Fairbrother. --"I asked what your sistersaid ailed her when you inquired?"

"Nothing, " answered Jeanie, with a faint voice, which was yet hearddistinctly in the most distant corner of the Court-room, --such an awfuland profound silence had been preserved during the anxious interval, which had interposed betwixt the lawyer's question and the answer of thewitness. 

Fairbrother's countenance fell; but with that ready presence of mind, which is as useful in civil as in military emergencies, he immediatelyrallied. --"Nothing? True; you mean nothing at _first_--but when you askedher again, did she not tell you what ailed her?"

The question was put in a tone meant to make her comprehend theimportance of her answer, had she not been already aware of it. Theice was broken, however, and with less pause than at first, she nowreplied, --"Alack! alack! she never breathed word to me about it. "

A deep groan passed through the Court. It was echoed by one deeper andmore agonised from the unfortunate father. The hope to whichunconsciously, and in spite of himself, he had still secretly clung, hadnow dissolved, and the venerable old man fell forward senseless on thefloor of the Court-house, with his head at the foot of his terrifieddaughter. The unfortunate prisoner, with impotent passion, strove withthe guards betwixt whom she was placed. "Let me gang to my father!--I_will_ gang to him--I _will_ gang to him--he is dead--he is killed--I haekilled him!"--she repeated, in frenzied tones of grief, which those whoheard them did not speedily forget. 

Even in this moment of agony and general confusion, Jeanie did not losethat superiority, which a deep and firm mind assures to its possessorunder the most trying circumstances. 

"He is my father--he is our father, " she mildly repeated to those whoendeavoured to separate them, as she stooped, --shaded aside his greyhairs, and began assiduously to chafe his temples. 

The Judge, after repeatedly wiping his eyes, gave directions that theyshould be conducted into a neighbouring apartment, and carefullyattended. The prisoner, as her father was borne from the Court, and hersister slowly followed, pursued them with her eyes so earnestly fixed, asif they would have started from their sockets. But when they were nolonger visible, she seemed to find, in her despairing and deserted state, a courage which she had not yet exhibited. 

"The bitterness of it is now past, " she said, and then boldly, addressedthe Court. "My Lords, if it is your pleasure to gang on wi' this matter, the weariest day will hae its end at last. "

The Judge, who, much to his honour, had shared deeply in the generalsympathy, was surprised at being recalled to his duty by the prisoner. Hecollected himself, and requested to know if the panel's counsel had moreevidence to produce. Fairbrother replied, with an air of dejection, thathis proof was concluded. 

The King's Counsel addressed the jury for the crown. He said in a fewwords, that no one could be more concerned than he was for thedistressing scene which they had just witnessed. But it was the necessaryconsequence of great crimes to bring distress and ruin upon all connectedwith the perpetrators. He briefly reviewed the proof, in which he showedthat all the circumstances of the case concurred with those required bythe act under which the unfortunate prisoner was tried: That the counselfor the panel had totally failed in proving, that Euphemia Deans hadcommunicated her situation to her sister: That, respecting her previousgood character, he was sorry to observe, that it was females whopossessed the world's good report, and to whom it was justly valuable, who were most strongly tempted, by shame and fear of the world's censure, to the crime of infanticide: That the child was murdered, he professed toentertain no doubt. The vacillating and inconsistent declaration of theprisoner herself, marked as it was by numerous refusals to speak thetruth on subjects, when, according to her own story, it would have beennatural, as well as advantageous, to have been candid; even thisimperfect declaration left no doubt in his mind as to the fate of theunhappy infant. Neither could he doubt that the panel was a partner inthis guilt. Who else had an interest in a deed so inhuman? Surely neitherRobertson, nor Robertson's agent, in whose house she was delivered, had the least temptation to commit such a crime, unless upon her account, with her connivance, and for the sake of saying her reputation. But itwas not required of him, by the law, that he should bring precise proofof the murder, or of the prisoner's accession to it. It was the verypurpose of the statute to substitute a certain chain of presumptiveevidence in place of a probation, which, in such cases, it was peculiarlydifficult to obtain. The jury might peruse the statute itself, and theyhad also the libel and interlocutor of relevancy to direct them in pointof law. He put it to the conscience of the jury, that under both he wasentitled to a verdict of Guilty. 

The charge of Fairbrother was much cramped by his having failed in theproof which he expected to lead. But he fought his losing cause withcourage and constancy. He ventured to arraign the severity of the statuteunder which the young woman was tried. "In all other cases, " he said, "the first thing required of the criminal prosecutor was to proveunequivocally that the crime libelled had actually been committed, whichlawyers called proving the _corpus delicti. _ But this statute, madedoubtless with the best intentions, and under the impulse of a justhorror for the unnatural crime of infanticide, ran the risk of itselfoccasioning the worst of murders, the death of an innocent person, toatone for a supposed crime which may never have been committed by anyone. He was so far from acknowledging the alleged probability of the child'sviolent death, that he could not even allow that there was evidence ofits having ever lived. "

The King's Counsel pointed to the woman's declaration; to which thecounsel replied--"A production concocted in a moment of terror and agony, and which approached to insanity, " he said, "his learned brother wellknew was no sound evidence against the party who emitted it. It was true, that a judicial confession, in presence of the Justices themselves, wasthe strongest of all proof, insomuch that it is said in law, that '_inconfitentem nullae sunt partes judicis. _' But this was true of judicialconfession only, by which law meant that which is made in presence of thejustices, and the sworn inquest. Of extrajudicial confession, allauthorities held with the illustrious Farinaceus and Matthaeus, '_confessio extrajudicialis in se nulla est; et quod nullum est, nonpotest adminiculari. _' It was totally inept, and void of all strength andeffect from the beginning; incapable, therefore, of being bolstered up orsupported, or, according to the law phrase, adminiculated, by otherpresumptive circumstances. In the present case, therefore, letting theextrajudicial confession go, as it ought to go, for nothing, " hecontended, "the prosecutor had not made out the second quality of thestatute, that a live child had been born; and _that, _ at least, ought tobe established before presumptions were received that it had beenmurdered. If any of the assize, " he said, "should be of opinion that thiswas dealing rather narrowly with the statute, they ought to consider thatit was in its nature highly penal, and therefore entitled to nofavourable construction. "

He concluded a learned speech, with an eloquent peroration on the scenethey had just witnessed, during which Saddletree fell fast asleep. 

It was now the presiding Judge's turn to address the jury. He did sobriefly and distinctly. 

"It was for the jury, " he said, "to consider whether the prosecutor hadmade out his plea. For himself, he sincerely grieved to say, that ashadow of doubt remained not upon his mind concerning the verdict whichthe inquest had to bring in. He would not follow the prisoner's counselthrough the impeachment which he had brought against the statute of KingWilliam and Queen Mary. He and the jury were sworn to judge according tothe laws as they stood, not to criticise, or evade, or even to justifythem. In no civil case would a counsel have been permitted to plead hisclient's case in the teeth of the law; but in the hard situation in whichcounsel were often placed in the Criminal Court, as well as out of favourto all presumptions of innocence, he had not inclined to interrupt thelearned gentleman, or narrow his plea. The present law, as it now stood, had been instituted by the wisdom of their fathers, to check the alarmingprogress of a dreadful crime; when it was found too severe for itspurpose it would doubtless be altered by the wisdom of the Legislature;at present it was the law of the land, the rule of the Court, and, according to the oath which they had taken, it must be that of the jury. This unhappy girl's situation could not be doubted; that she had borne achild, and that the child had disappeared, were certain facts. Thelearned counsel had failed to show that she had communicated hersituation. All the requisites of the case required by the statute weretherefore before the jury. The learned gentleman had, indeed, desiredthem to throw out of consideration the panel's own confession, which wasthe plea usually urged, in penury of all others, by counsel in hissituation, who usually felt that the declarations of their clients borehard on them. But that the Scottish law designed that a certain weightshould be laid on these declarations, which, he admitted, were_quodammodo_ extrajudicial, was evident from the universal practice bywhich they were always produced and read, as part of the prosecutor'sprobation. In the present case, no person who had heard the witnessesdescribe the appearance of the young woman before she left Saddletree'shouse, and contrasted it with that of her state and condition at herreturn to her father's, could have any doubt that the fact of deliveryhad taken place, as set forth in her own declaration, which was, therefore, not a solitary piece of testimony, but adminiculated andsupported by the strongest circumstantial proof. 

"He did not, " he said, "state the impression upon his own mind with thepurpose of biassing theirs. He had felt no less than they had done fromthe scene of domestic misery which had been exhibited before them; and ifthey, having God and a good conscience, the sanctity of their oath, andthe regard due to the law of the country, before their eyes, could cometo a conclusion favourable to this unhappy prisoner, he should rejoice asmuch as anyone in Court; for never had he found his duty more distressingthan in discharging it that day, and glad he would be to be relieved fromthe still more painful task which would otherwise remain for him. "

The jury, having heard the Judge's address, bowed and retired, precededby a macer of Court, to the apartment destined for their deliberation. 

CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD. 

 Law, take thy victim--May she find the mercy In yon mild heaven, which this hard world denies her!

It was an hour ere the jurors returned, and as they traversed the crowdwith slow steps, as men about to discharge themselves of a heavy andpainful responsibility, the audience was hushed into profound, earnest, and awful silence. 

"Have you agreed on your chancellor, gentlemen?" was the first questionof the Judge. 

The foreman, called in Scotland the chancellor of the jury, usually theman of best rank and estimation among the assizers, stepped forward, andwith a low reverence, delivered to the Court a sealed paper, containingthe verdict, which, until of late years, that verbal returns are in someinstances permitted, was always couched in writing. The jury remainedstanding while the Judge broke the seals, and having perused the paper, handed it with an air of mournful gravity down to the clerk of Court, whoproceeded to engross in the record the yet unknown verdict, of which, however, all omened the tragical contents. A form still remained, trifling and unimportant in itself, but to which imagination adds a sortof solemnity, from the awful occasion upon which it is used. A lightedcandle was placed on the table, the original paper containing the verdictwas enclosed in a sheet of paper, and, sealed with the Judge's ownsignet, was transmitted to the Crown Office, to be preserved among otherrecords of the same kind. As all this is transacted in profound silence, the producing and extinguishing the candle seems a type of the humanspark which is shortly afterwards doomed to be quenched, and excites inthe spectators something of the same effect which in England is obtainedby the Judge assuming the fatal cap of judgment. When these preliminaryforms had been gone through, the Judge required Euphemia Deans to attendto the verdict to be read. 

After the usual words of style, the verdict set forth, that the Juryhaving made choice of John Kirk, Esq. , to be their chancellor, and ThomasMoore, merchant, to be their clerk, did, by a plurality of voices, findthe said Euphemia Deans Guilty of the crime libelled; but, inconsideration of her extreme youth, and the cruel circumstances of hercase, did earnestly entreat that the Judge would recommend her to themercy of the Crown. 

"Gentlemen, " said the Judge, "you have done your duty--and a painful oneit must have been to men of humanity like you. I will undoubtedlytransmit your recommendation to the throne. But it is my duty to tell allwho now hear me, but especially to inform that unhappy young woman, inorder that her mind may be settled accordingly, that I have not the leasthope of a pardon being granted in the present case. You know the crimehas been increasing in this land, and I know farther, that this has beenascribed to the lenity in which the laws have been exercised, and thatthere is therefore no hope whatever of obtaining a remission for thisoffence. " The jury bowed again, and, released from their painful office, dispersed themselves among the mass of bystanders. 

The Court then asked Mr. Fairbrother whether he had anything to say, whyjudgment should not follow on the verdict? The counsel had spent sometime in persuing and reperusing the verdict, counting the letters in eachjuror's name, and weighing every phrase, nay, every syllable, in thenicest scales of legal criticism. But the clerk of the jury hadunderstood his business too well. No flaw was to be found, andFairbrother mournfully intimated, that he had nothing to say in arrest ofjudgment. 

The presiding Judge then addressed the unhappy prisoner:--"EuphemiaDeans, attend to the sentence of the Court now to be pronounced againstyou. "

She rose from her seat, and with a composure far greater than could havebeen augured from her demeanour during some parts of the trial, abode theconclusion of the awful scene. So nearly does the mental portion of ourfeelings resemble those which are corporeal, that the first severe blowswhich we receive bring with them a stunning apathy, which renders usindifferent to those that follow them. Thus said Mandrin, when he wasundergoing the punishment of the wheel; and so have all felt, upon whomsuccessive inflictions have descended with continuous and reiteratedviolence. *

* [The notorious Mandrin was known as the Captain-General of French &smugglers. See a Tract on his exploits, printed 1753. ]

"Young woman, " said the Judge, "it is my painful duty to tell you, thatyour life is forfeited under a law, which, if it may seem in some degreesevere, is yet wisely so, to render those of your unhappy situation awarewhat risk they run, by concealing, out of pride or false shame, theirlapse from virtue, and making no preparation to save the lives of theunfortunate infants whom they are to bring into the world. When youconcealed your situation from your mistress, your sister, and otherworthy and compassionate persons of your own sex, in whose favour yourformer conduct had given you a fair place, you seem to me to have had inyour contemplation, at least, the death of the helpless creature, forwhose life you neglected to provide. How the child was disposedof--whether it was dealt upon by another, or by yourself--whether theextraordinary story you have told is partly false, or altogether so, isbetween God and your own conscience. I will not aggravate your distressby pressing on that topic, but I do most solemnly adjure you to employthe remaining space of your time in making your peace with God, for whichpurpose such reverend clergymen, as you yourself may name, shall haveaccess to you. Notwithstanding the humane recommendation of the jury, Icannot afford to you, in the present circumstances of the country, theslightest hope that your life will be prolonged beyond the periodassigned for the execution of your sentence. Forsaking, therefore, thethoughts of this world, let your mind be prepared by repentance for thoseof more awful moments--for death, judgment, and eternity. --Doomster, readthe sentence. "*

* Note N. Doomster, or Dempster, of Court. 

When the Doomster showed himself, a tall haggard figure, arrayed in afantastic garment of black and grey, passmented with silver lace, allfell back with a sort of instinctive horror, and made wide way for him toapproach the foot of the table. As this office was held by the commonexecutioner, men shouldered each other backward to avoid even the touchof his garment, and some were seen to brush their own clothes, which hadaccidentally become subject to such contamination. A sound went throughthe Court, produced by each person drawing in their breath hard, as mendo when they expect or witness what is frightful, and at the same timeaffecting. The caitiff villain yet seemed, amid his hardened brutality, to have some sense of his being the object of public detestation, whichmade him impatient of being in public, as birds of evil omen are anxiousto escape from daylight, and from pure air. 

Repeating after the Clerk of Court, he gabbled over the words of thesentence, which condemned Euphemia Deans to be conducted back to theTolbooth of Edinburgh, and detained there until Wednesday the day of ---;and upon that day, betwixt the hours of two and four o'clock afternoon, to be conveyed to the common place of execution, and there hanged by theneck upon a gibbet. "And this, " said the Doomster, aggravating his harshvoice, "I pronounce for _doom. _"

He vanished when he had spoken the last emphatic word, like a foul fiendafter the purpose of his visitation had been accomplished; but theimpression of horror excited by his presence and his errand, remainedupon the crowd of spectators. 

The unfortunate criminal, --for so she must now be termed, --with moresusceptibility, and more irritable feelings than her father and sister, was found, in this emergence, to possess a considerable share of theircourage. She had remained standing motionless at the bar while thesentence was pronounced, and was observed to shut her eyes when theDoomster appeared. But she was the first to break silence when that evilform had left his place. 

"God forgive ye, my Lords, " she said, "and dinna be angry wi' me forwishing it--we a' need forgiveness. --As for myself, I canna blame ye, forye act up to your lights; and if I havena killed my poor infant, ye maywitness a' that hae seen it this day, that I hae been the means ofkilling my greyheaded father--I deserve the warst frae man, and frae Godtoo--But God is mair mercifu' to us than we are to each other. "

With these words the trial concluded. The crowd rushed, bearing forwardand shouldering each other, out of the Court, in the same tumultuary modein which they had entered; and, in excitation of animal motion and animalspirits, soon forgot whatever they had felt as impressive in the scenewhich they had witnessed. The professional spectators, whom habit andtheory had rendered as callous to the distress of the scene as medicalmen are to those of a surgical operation, walked homeward in groups, discussing the general principle of the statute under which the youngwoman was condemned, the nature of the evidence, and the arguments of thecounsel, without considering even that of the Judge as exempt from theircriticism. 

The female spectators, more compassionate, were loud in exclamationagainst that part of the Judge's speech which seemed to cut off the hopeof pardon. 

"Set him up, indeed, " said Mrs. Howden, "to tell us that the poor lassiebehoved to die, when Mr. John Kirk, as civil a gentleman as is within theports of the town, took the pains to prigg for her himsell. "

"Ay, but, neighbour, " said Miss Damahoy, drawing up her thin maidenlyform to its full height of prim dignity--"I really think this unnaturalbusiness of having bastard-bairns should be putten a stop to. --There isnaa hussy now on this side of thirty that you can bring within your doors, but there will be chields--writer-lads, prentice-lads, and whatnot--coming traiking after them for their destruction, and discreditingane's honest house into the bargain--I hae nae patience wi' them. "

"Hout, neighbour, " said Mrs. Howden, "we suld live and let live--we haebeen young oursells, and we are no aye to judge the warst when lads andlasses forgather. "

"Young oursells! and judge the warst!" said Miss Damahoy. "I am no saeauld as that comes to, Mrs. Howden; and as for what ye ca' the warst, Iken neither good nor bad about the matter, I thank my stars!"

"Ye are thankfu' for sma' mercies, then, " said Mrs. Howden with a toss ofher head; "and as for you and young--I trow ye were doing for yoursell atthe last riding of the Scots Parliament, and that was in the graciousyear seven, sae ye can be nae sic chicken at ony rate. "

Plumdamas, who acted as squire of the body to the two contending dames, instantly saw the hazard of entering into such delicate points ofchronology, and being a lover of peace and good neighbourhood, lost notime in bringing back the conversation to its original subject. 

"The Judge didna tell us a' he could hae tell'd us, if he had liked, about the application for pardon, neighbours, " said he "there is aye awimple in a lawyer's clew; but it's a wee bit of a secret. "

"And what is't--what is't, neighbour Plumdamas?" said Mrs. Howden andMiss Damahoy at once, the acid fermentation of their dispute being atonce neutralised by the powerful alkali implied in the word secret. 

"Here's Mr. Saddletree can tell ye that better than me, for it was himthat tauld me, " said Plumdamas as Saddletree came up, with his wifehanging on his arm, and looking very disconsolate. 

When the question was put to Saddletree, he looked very scornful. "Theyspeak about stopping the frequency of child-murder, " said he, in acontemptuous tone; "do ye think our auld enemies of England, as Glendookaye ca's them in his printed Statute-book, care a boddle whether we didnakill ane anither, skin and birn, horse and foot, man, woman, and bairns, all and sindry, _omnes et singulos, _ as Mr. Crossmyloof says? Na, na, it's no _that_ hinders them frae pardoning the bit lassie. But here isthe pinch of the plea. The king and queen are sae ill pleased wi' thatmistak about Porteous, that deil a kindly Scot will they pardon again, either by reprieve or remission, if the haill town o' Edinburgh should bea' hanged on ae tow. "

"Deil that they were back at their German kale-yard then, as my neighbourMacCroskie ca's it, " said Mrs. Howden, "an that's the way they're gaun toguide us!"

"They say for certain, " said Miss Damahoy, "that King George flang hisperiwig in the fire when he heard o' the Porteous mob. "

"He has done that, they say, " replied Saddletree, "for less thing. "

"Aweel, " said Miss Damahoy, "he might keep mair wit in his anger--butit's a' the better for his wigmaker, I'se warrant. "

"The queen tore her biggonets for perfect anger, --ye'll hae heard o' thattoo?" said Plumdamas. "And the king, they say, kickit Sir Robert Walpolefor no keeping down the mob of Edinburgh; but I dinna believe he wadbehave sae ungenteel. "

"It's dooms truth, though, " said Saddletree; "and he was for kickin' theDuke of Argyle* too. "

* Note O. John Duke of Argyle and Greenwich. 

"Kickin' the Duke of Argyle!" exclaimed the hearers at once, in all thevarious combined keys of utter astonishment. 

"Ay, but MacCallummore's blood wadna sit down wi' that; there was risk ofAndro Ferrara coming in thirdsman. "

"The duke is a real Scotsman--a true friend to the country, " answeredSaddletree's hearers. 

"Ay, troth is he, to king and country baith, as ye sall hear, " continuedthe orator, "if ye will come in bye to our house, for it's safestspeaking of sic things _inter parietes. _"

When they entered his shop, he thrust his prentice boy out of it, and, unlocking his desk, took out, with an air of grave and complacentimportance, a dirty and crumpled piece of printed paper; he observed, "This is new corn--it's no every body could show you the like o' this. It's the duke's speech about the Porteous mob, just promulgated by thehawkers. Ye shall hear what Ian Roy Cean* says for himsell. 

* Red John the warrior, a name personal and proper in the Highlands toJohn Duke of Argyle and Greenwich, as MacCummin was that of his race ordignity. 

My correspondent bought it in the Palace-yard, that's like just under theking's nose--I think he claws up their mittans!--It came in a letterabout a foolish bill of exchange that the man wanted me to renew for him. I wish ye wad see about it, Mrs. Saddletree. "

Honest Mrs. Saddletree had hitherto been so sincerely distressed aboutthe situation of her unfortunate prote'ge'e, that she had suffered herhusband to proceed in his own way, without attending to what he wassaying. The words bills and renew had, however, an awakening sound inthem; and she snatched the letter which her husband held towards her, andwiping her eyes, and putting on her spectacles, endeavoured, as fast asthe dew which collected on her glasses would permit, to get at themeaning of the needful part of the epistle; while her husband, withpompous elevation, read an extract from the speech. 

"I am no minister, I never was a minister, and I never will be one"

"I didna ken his Grace was ever designed for the ministry, " interruptedMrs. Howden. 

"He disna mean a minister of the gospel, Mrs. Howden, but a minister ofstate, " said Saddletree, with condescending goodness, and then proceeded:"The time was when I might have been a piece of a minister, but I was toosensible of my own incapacity to engage in any state affair. And I thankGod that I had always too great a value for those few abilities whichNature has given me, to employ them in doing any drudgery, or any job ofwhat kind soever. I have, ever since I set out in the world (and Ibelieve few have set out more early), served my prince with my tongue; Ihave served him with any little interest I had, and I have served himwith my sword, and in my profession of arms. I have held employmentswhich I have lost, and were I to be to-morrow deprived of those whichstill remain to me, and which I have endeavoured honestly to deserve, Iwould still serve him to the last acre of my inheritance, and to the lastdrop of my blood"

Mrs. Saddletree here broke in upon the orator:--"Mr. Saddletree, what_is_ the meaning of a' this? Here are ye clavering about the Duke ofArgyle, and this man Martingale gaun to break on our hands, and lose usgude sixty pounds--I wonder what duke will pay that, quotha--I wish theDuke of Argyle would pay his ain accounts--He is in a thousand pundsScots on thae very books when he was last at Roystoun--I'm no saying buthe's a just nobleman, and that it's gude siller--but it wad drive anedaft to be confused wi' deukes and drakes, and thae distressed folkup-stairs, that's Jeanie Deans and her father. And then, putting the verycallant that was sewing the curpel out o' the shop, to play wi'blackguards in the close--Sit still, neighbours, it's no that I mean todisturb _you;_ but what between courts o' law and courts o' state, andupper and under parliaments, and parliament houses, here and in London, the gudeman's gane clean gyte, I think. "

The gossips understood civility, and the rule of doing as they would bedone by, too well, to tarry upon the slight invitation implied in theconclusion of this speech, and therefore made their farewells anddeparture as fast as possible, Saddletree whispering to Plundamas that hewould "meet him at MacCroskie's" (the low-browed shop in theLuckenbooths, already mentioned), "in the hour of cause, and putMacCallummore's speech in his pocket, for a' the gudewife's din. "

When Mrs. Saddletree saw the house freed of her importunate visitors, andthe little boy reclaimed from the pastimes of the wynd to the exercise ofthe awl, she went to visit her unhappy relative, David Deans, and hiselder daughter, who had found in her house the nearest place of friendlyrefuge.