The Heart of Mid-Lothian Page 17

  "I do receive it as such," said poor Deans, returning the grasp of Butler's hand; "and if I have not been taught to read the Scripture in any other tongue but my native Scottish" (even in his distress Butler's Latin quotation had not escaped his notice), "I have nevertheless so learned them, that I trust to bear even this crook in my lot with submission. 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 the lightsome and profane think of the guide that cannot keep his own family from stumbling? How will they take up their song and their reproach, when they see that the children of professors are liable to as foul backsliding as the offspring of Belial! But I will bear my cross with the comfort, that whatever showed like goodness in me or mine, was but like the light that shines frae creeping insects, on the brae-side, in a dark night—it kythes bright to the ee, because all is dark around it; but when the morn comes on the mountains, it is, but a puir crawling kail-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. Bartoline Saddletree entered, his three-pointed hat set far back on his head, with a silk handkerchief beneath it to keep it in that cool position, his gold-headed cane in his hand, and his whole deportment that of a wealthy burgher, who might one day look to have a share in the magistracy, if not actually to hold the curule chair itself.

  Rochefoucault, who has torn the veil from so many foul gangrenes of the human heart, says, we find something not altogether unpleasant to us in the misfortunes of our best friends. Mr. Saddletree would have been very angry had any one told him that he felt pleasure in the disaster of poor Effie Deans, and the disgrace of her family; and yet there is great question 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 pure sympathy gave him on account of his wife's kinswoman. He had now got a piece of real judicial business by the end, instead of being obliged, as was his common case, to intrude his opinion where it was neither wished nor wanted; and felt as happy in the exchange as a boy when he gets his first new watch, which actually goes when wound up, and has real hands and a true dial-plate. But besides this subject for legal disquisition, Bartoline's brains were also overloaded with the affair of Porteous, his violent death, and all its probable consequences to the city and community. It was what the French call l'embarras des richesses, the confusion arising from too much mental wealth. He walked in with a consciousness of double importance, full fraught with the superiority of one 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 not aware that you were acquainted with Mr. Deans."

  Butler made some slight answer; his reasons may be readily imagined for not making his connection with the family, which, in his eyes, had something of tender mystery, a frequent subject of conversation with indifferent persons, such as Saddletree.

  The worthy burgher, in the plenitude of self-importance, now sate down upon a chair, wiped his brow, collected his breath, and made the first experiment of the resolved pith of his lungs, in a deep and dignified sigh, resembling a groan in sound and intonation—"Awfu' times these, neighbour Deans, awfu' times!"

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

  "For my part," continued Saddletree, swelling with importance, "what between the distress of my friends, and my poor auld country, ony wit that ever I had may be said to have abandoned me, sae that I sometimes think myself as ignorant as if I were inter rusticos. Here when I arise in the morning, wi' my mind just arranged touching what's to be done in puir Effie's misfortune, and hae gotten the haill statute at my finger-ends, the mob maun get up and string Jock Porteous to a dyester's beam, and ding a' thing out of my head again."

  Deeply as he was distressed with his own domestic calamity, Deans could not help expressing some interest in the news. Saddletree immediately entered on details of the insurrection and its consequences, while Butler took the occasion to seek some private conversation with Jeanie Deans. She gave him the opportunity he sought, by leaving the room, as if in prosecution of some part of her morning labour. Butler followed her in a few minutes, leaving Deans so closely engaged by his busy visitor, that there was little chance of his observing their absence.

  The scene of their interview was an outer apartment, where Jeanie was used to busy herself in arranging the productions of her dairy. When Butler found an opportunity of stealing after her into this place, he found her silent, dejected, and ready to burst into tears. Instead of the active industry with which she had been accustomed, even while in the act of speaking, to employ her hands in some useful branch of household business, she was seated listless in a corner, sinking apparently under the weight of her own thoughts. Yet the instant he entered, she dried her eyes, and, with the simplicity and openness of her character, immediately entered on conversation.

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

  "Ended!" said Butler, in surprise; "and for what should it be ended?—I grant this is a heavy dispensation, but it lies neither at your door nor mine—it's an evil of God's sending, and it must be borne; but it cannot break plighted troth, Jeanie, while they that plighted their word wish to keep it."

  "But, Reuben," said the young woman, looking at him affectionately, "I ken weel that ye think mair of me than yourself; and, Reuben, I can only in requital think mair of your weal than of my ain. Ye are a man of spotless name, bred to God's ministry, and a' men say that ye will some day rise high in the kirk, though poverty keep ye doun e'en now. Poverty is a bad back-friend, Reuben, and that ye ken ower weel; but ill-fame is a 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 you connect 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 or me?"

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

  The lover used every effort to induce her to compose herself, and at length succeeded; but she only resumed her composure to express herself with the same positiveness as before. "No, Reuben, I'll bring disgrace hame 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. I will bear my load alone—the back is made for the burden."

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

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

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

  "To weary of her auld gown," said Jeanie, "and to wish for a new ane if she likes to be brave, but not long enough to weary of a friend—The eye may 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 quiet simplicity which attended her manner in joy and grief in ordinary affairs, and in those which most interested her feelings.

  Butler paused, and looking at her fixedly—"I am charged," he said, "with a 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 an indifference which his voice belied—"A young man whom I met this morning in 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 should meet 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 alacrity of the answer, "who this man is to whom you are so willing to give the meeting at a place and hour so uncommon?"

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

  "Granted," said her lover; "but what compels you to this?—who is this person? 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 the apartment—"You purpose to meet a young man whom you do not know, at such a time, and in a place so lonely—you say you are compelled to do this—and yet you say you do not know the person who exercises such an influence over you!—Jeanie, what am I to think of this?"

  "Think only, Reuben, that I speak truth, as if I were to answer at the last 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 upon it."

  "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 within hearing of our conference."

  "Have you considered well the nature of what you are going to do?—the time—the place—an unknown and suspicious character?—Why, if he had asked to see you in this house, your father sitting in the next room, and within 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 in God's hands, but I'll not spare to risk either of them on the errand I am gaun to do."

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

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

  "You are," said Butler, "what you have always been—wiser, better, and less selfish in your native feelings, than I can be, with all the helps philosophy can give to a Christian—But why—why will you persevere in an undertaking so desperate? Why will you not let me be your assistant—your protector, 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 a sudden, the cause of which vociferation it is necessary to explain before we go farther.

  When Jeanie and Butler retired, Mr. Saddletree entered upon the business which chiefly interested the family. In the commencement of their conversation he found old Deans, who in his usual state of mind, was no granter of propositions, so much subdued by a deep sense of his daughter's danger and disgrace, that he heard without replying to, or perhaps without understanding, one or two learned disquisitions on the nature of the crime imputed to her charge, and on the steps which ought to be taken in consequence. His only answer at each pause was, "I am no misdoubting that you wuss us weel—your wife's our far-awa cousin."

  Encouraged by these symptoms of acquiescence, Saddletree, who, as an amateur of the law, had a supreme deference for all constituted authorities, again recurred to his other topic of interest, the murder, namely, of Porteous, and pronounced a severe censure on the parties concerned.

  "These are kittle times—kittle times, Mr. Deans, when the people take the power of life and death out of the hands of the rightful magistrate into 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, to take away the life of a reprieved man, will prove little better than perduellion."

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

  "How could you dispute what's plain law, man?" said Saddletree, somewhat contemptuously; "there's no a callant that e'er carried a pock wi' a process in't, but will tell you that perduellion is the warst and maist virulent kind of treason, being an open convocating of the king's lieges against his authority (mair especially in arms, and by touk of drum, to baith whilk accessories my een and lugs bore witness), and muckle worse than lese-majesty, or the concealment of a treasonable purpose—It winna bear a dispute, neighbour."

  "But it will, though," retorted Douce Davie Deans; "I tell ye it will bear a disputer never like your cauld, legal, formal doctrines, neighbour Saddletree. 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 by tailzie on you and your heirs for ever?"

  "Mr. Saddletree," retorted Deans, "I ken ye are one of those that are wise after the manner of this world, and that ye hand your part, and cast in your portion, wi' the lang heads and lang gowns, and keep with the smart 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 of defection were clasped in the red hands of our sworn murtherers: when those who had numbered the towers of our Zion, and marked the bulwarks of Reformation, saw their hope turn into a snare, and their rejoicing into weeping."

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

  "Out upon ye, Mr. Saddletree!" exclaimed David, who, in an opportunity of giving his testimony on the offences and backslidings of the land, forgot for 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 a waefu' bunch o' cauldrife professors and ministers, that sate bien and warm 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, like bluebottle flees in a blink of sunshine, to take the pu'pits and places of better folk—of them that witnessed, and testified, and fought, and endured pit, prison-house, and transportation beyond seas?—A bonny bike there'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 the Lords o' Session, forby that they are my next-door neighbours, I would have ye ken, for your ain regulation, that to raise scandal anent them, whilk is termed to murmur again them, is a crime sui generis,—sui generis, Mr. Deans—ken ye what that amounts to?"

  "I ken little o' the l
anguage of Antichrist," said Deans; "and I care less 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 their pleas, and nine-tenths o' them that win them, will be gey sure to be guilty in. Sae I wad hae ye ken that I hand a' your gleg-tongued advocates, that sell their knowledge for pieces of silver—and your worldly-wise judges, that will gie three days of hearing in presence to a debate about the peeling of an ingan, and no ae half-hour to the gospel testimony—as legalists and formalists, countenancing by sentences, and quirks, and cunning terms of law, the late begun courses of national defections—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 in behalf of what he deemed the suffering and deserted cause of true religion, had swept honest David along with it thus far; but with the mention of the criminal court, the recollection of the disastrous condition of his daughter rushed at once on his mind; he stopped short in the midst of his triumphant declamation, pressed his hands against his forehead, and remained silent.

  Saddletree was somewhat moved, but apparently not so much so as to induce him to relinquish the privilege of prosing in his turn afforded him by David's sudden silence. "Nae doubt, neighbour," he said, "it's a sair thing to hae to do wi' courts of law, unless it be to improve ane's knowledge and practique, by waiting on as a hearer; and touching this unhappy affair of Effie—ye'll hae seen the dittay, doubtless?" He dragged out of his pocket a bundle of papers, and began to turn them over. "This is no it—this is the information of Mungo Marsport, of that ilk, against Captain Lackland, for coming on his lands of Marsport with hawks, hounds, lying-dogs, nets, guns, cross-bows, hagbuts of found, or other engines more 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 the statute sixteen hundred and twenty-ane; that is, not having ane plough-gate of land. Now, the defences proponed say, that non constat at this present what is a plough-gate of land, whilk uncertainty is sufficient to elide the conclusions of the libel. But then the answers to the defences (they are signed by Mr. Crossmyloof, but Mr. Younglad drew them), they propone, that it signifies naething, in hoc statu, what or how muckle a plough-gate of land may be, in respect the defender has nae lands whatsoever, less or mair. 'Sae grant a plough-gate'" (here Saddletree read from the paper in his hand) "'to be less than the nineteenth part of a guse's grass'—(I trow Mr. Crossmyloof put in that—I ken his style),—'of a guse's grass, what the better will the defender be, seeing he hasna a divot-cast of land in Scotland?—Advocatus for Lackland duplies, that nihil interest de possessione, the pursuer must put his case under the statute'—(now, this is worth your notice, neighbour),—'and must show, formaliter et specialiter, as well as generaliter, what is the qualification that defender Lackland does not possess—let him tell me what a plough-gate of land is, and I'll tell him if I have one or no. Surely the pursuer is bound to understand his own libel, and his own statute that he founds upon. Titius pursues Maevius for recovery of ane black horse lent to Maevius—surely he shall have judgment; but if Titius pursue Maevius for ane scarlet or crimson horse, doubtless he shall be bound to show that there is sic ane animal in rerum natura. No man can be bound to plead to nonsense—that is to say, to a charge which cannot be explained or understood'—(he's wrang there—the better the pleadings the fewer understand them),—'and so the reference unto this undefined and unintelligible measure of land is, as if a penalty was inflicted by statute for any man who suld hunt or hawk, or use lying-dogs, and wearing a sky-blue pair of breeches, without having—'But I am wearying you, Mr. Deans,—we'll pass to your ain business,—though this cue of Marsport against Lackland has made an unco din in the Outer House. Weel, here's the dittay against puir Effie: 'Whereas it is humbly meant and shown to us,' etc. (they are words of mere style), 'that whereas, by the laws of this and every other well-regulated realm, the murder of any one, more especially of an infant child, is a crime of ane high nature, and severely punishable: And whereas, without prejudice to the foresaid generality, it was, by ane act made in the second session of the First Parliament of our most High and Dread Sovereigns William and Mary, especially enacted, that ane woman who shall have concealed her condition, and shall not be able to show that she hath called for help at 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 said facts of concealment and pregnancy being found proven or confessed, shall sustain the pains of law accordingly; yet, nevertheless, you, Effie, or Euphemia Deans—'"