The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Volume 1 Page 15

  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 throwi
ng 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."

  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.