The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Volume 1 Page 14

  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 to
ne, 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 soo
n 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, wh
ich 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.