The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Volume 2 Page 19

  CHAPTER NINETEENTH.

  No more shalt thou behold thy sister's face; Thou hast already had her last embrace. Elegy on Mrs. Anne Killigrew.

  This second surprise had been accomplished for Jeanie Deans by the rod ofthe same benevolent enchanter, whose power had transplanted her fatherfrom the Crags of St. Leonard's to the banks of the Gare Loch. The Dukeof Argyle was not a person to forget the hereditary debt of gratitude,which had been bequeathed to him by his grandfather, in favour of thegrandson of old Bible Butler. He had internally resolved to provide forReuben Butler in this kirk of Knocktarlitie, of which the incumbent hadjust departed this life. Accordingly, his agent received the necessaryinstructions for that purpose, under the qualifying condition always,that the learning and character of Mr. Butler should be found proper forthe charge. Upon inquiry, these were found as highly satisfactory as hadbeen reported in the case of David Deans himself.

  By this preferment, the Duke of Argyle more essentially benefited hisfriend and _protegee_, Jeanie, than he himself was aware of, since hecontributed to remove objections in her father's mind to the match, whichhe had no idea had been in existence.

  We have already noticed that Deans had something of a prejudice againstButler, which was, perhaps, in some degree owing to his possessing a sortof consciousness that the poor usher looked with eyes of affection uponhis eldest daughter. This, in David's eyes, was a sin of presumption,even although it should not be followed by any overt act, or actualproposal. But the lively interest which Butler had displayed in hisdistresses, since Jeanie set forth on her London expedition, and which,therefore, he ascribed to personal respect for himself individually, hadgreatly softened the feelings of irritability with which David hadsometimes regarded him. And, while he was in this good dispositiontowards Butler, another incident took place which had great influence onthe old man's mind. So soon as the shock of Effie's second elopement wasover, it was Deans's early care to collect and refund to the Laird ofDumbiedikes the money which he had lent for Effie's trial, and forJeanie's travelling expenses. The Laird, the pony, the cocked hat, andthe tabacco-pipe, had not been seen at St. Leonard's Crags for many aday; so that, in order to pay this debt, David was under the necessity ofrepairing in person to the mansion of Dumbiedikes.

  He found it in a state of unexpected bustle. There were workmen pullingdown some of the old hangings, and replacing them with others, altering,repairing, scrubbing, painting, and white-washing. There was no knowingthe old house, which had been so long the mansion of sloth and silence.The Laird himself seemed in some confusion, and his reception, thoughkind, lacked something of the reverential cordiality, with which he usedto greet David Deans. There was a change also, David did not very wellknow of what nature, about the exterior of this landed proprietor--animprovement in the shape of his garments, a spruceness in the air withwhich they were put on, that were both novelties. Even the old hat lookedsmarter; the cock had been newly pointed, the lace had been refreshed,and instead of slouching backward or forward on the Laird's head, as ithappened to be thrown on, it was adjusted with a knowing inclination overone eye.

  David Deans opened his business, and told down the cash. Dumbiedikessteadily inclined his ear to the one, and counted the other with greataccuracy, interrupting David, while he was talking of the redemption ofthe captivity of Judah, to ask him whether he did not think one or two ofthe guineas looked rather light. When he was satisfied on this point, hadpocketed his money, and had signed a receipt, he addressed David withsome little hesitation,--"Jeanie wad be writing ye something, gudeman?"

  "About the siller?" replied David--"Nae doubt, she did."

  "And did she say nae mair about me?" asked the Laird.

  "Nae mair but kind and Christian wishes--what suld she hae said?" repliedDavid, fully expecting that the Laird's long courtship (if his danglingafter Jeanie deserves so active a name) was now coming to a point. And soindeed it was, but not to that point which he wished or expected.

  "Aweel, she kens her ain mind best, gudeman. I hae made a clean house o'Jenny Balchristie, and her niece. They were a bad pack--steal'd meat andmault, and loot the carters magg the coals--I'm to be married the morn,and kirkit on Sunday."

  Whatever David felt, he was too proud and too steady-minded to show anyunpleasant surprise in his countenance and manner.

  "I wuss ye happy, sir, through Him that gies happiness--marriage is anhonourable state."

  "And I am wedding into an honourable house, David--the Laird ofLickpelf's youngest daughter--she sits next us in the kirk, and that'sthe way I came to think on't."

  There was no more to be said but again to wish the Laird joy, to taste acup of his liquor, and to walk back again to St. Leonard's, musing on themutability of human affairs and human resolutions. The expectation thatone day or other Jeanie would be Lady Dumbiedikes, had, in spite ofhimself, kept a more absolute possession of David's mind than he himselfwas aware of. At least, it had hitherto seemed a union at all timeswithin his daughter's reach, whenever she might choose to give her silentlover any degree of encouragement, and now it was vanished for ever.David returned, therefore, in no very gracious humour for so good a man.He was angry with Jeanie for not having encouraged the Laird--he wasangry with the Laird for requiring encouragement--and he was angry withhimself for being angry at all on the occasion.

  On his return he found the gentleman who managed the Duke of Argyle'saffairs was desirous of seeing him, with a view to completing thearrangement between them. Thus, after a brief repose, he was obliged toset off anew for Edinburgh, so that old May Hettly declared, "That a'this was to end with the master just walking himself aff his feet."

  When the business respecting the farm had been talked over and arranged,the professional gentleman acquainted David Deans, in answer to hisinquiries concerning the state of public worship, that it was thepleasure of the Duke to put an excellent young clergyman, called ReubenButler, into the parish, which was to be his future residence.

  "Reuben Butler!" exclaimed David--"Reuben Butler, the usher at Liberton?"

  "The very same," said the Duke's commissioner; "his Grace has heard anexcellent character of him, and has some hereditary obligations to himbesides--few ministers will be so comfortable as I am directed to makeMr. Butler."

  "Obligations?--The Duke?--Obligations to Reuben Butler--Reuben Butler aplaced minister of the Kirk of Scotland?" exclaimed David, ininterminable astonishment, for somehow he had been led by the bad successwhich Butler had hitherto met with in all his undertakings, to considerhim as one of those step-sons of Fortune, whom she treats with unceasingrigour, and ends with disinheriting altogether.

  There is, perhaps, no time at which we are disposed to think so highly ofa friend, as when we find him standing higher than we expected in theesteem of others. When assured of the reality of Butler's change ofprospects, David expressed his great satisfaction at his success in life,which, he observed, was entirely owing to himself (David). "I advised hispuir grand-mother, who was but a silly woman, to breed him up to theministry; and I prophesied that, with a blessing on his endeavours, hewould become a polished shaft in the temple. He may be something owerproud o' his carnal learning, but a gude lad, and has the root of thematter--as ministers gang now, where yell find ane better, ye'll find tenwaur, than Reuben Butler."

  He took leave of the man of business, and walked homeward, forgetting hisweariness in the various speculations to which this wonderful piece ofintelligence gave rise. Honest David had now, like other great men, to goto work to reconcile his speculative principles with existingcircumstances; and, like other great men, when they set seriously aboutthat task, he was tolerably successful.

  Ought Reuben Butler in conscience to accept of this preferment in theKirk of Scotland, subject as David at present thought that establishmentwas to the Erastian encroachments of the civil power? This was theleading question, and he considered it carefully. "The Kirk of Scotlandwas shorn of its beams, and deprived o
f its full artillery and banners ofauthority; but still it contained zealous and fructifying pastors,attentive congregations, and, with all her spots and blemishes, the likeof this Kirk was nowhere else to be seen upon earth."

  David's doubts had been too many and too critical to permit him everunequivocally to unite himself with any of the dissenters, who uponvarious accounts absolutely seceded from the national church. He hadoften joined in communion with such of the established clergy asapproached nearest to the old Presbyterian model and principles of 1640.And although there were many things to be amended in that system, yet heremembered that he, David Deans, had himself ever been an humble pleaderfor the good old cause in a legal way, but without rushing intoright-hand excesses, divisions and separations. But, as an enemy toseparation, he might join the right-hand of fellowship with a minister ofthe Kirk of Scotland in its present model. _Ergo,_ Reuben Butler mighttake possession of the parish of Knocktarlitie, without forfeiting hisfriendship or favour--Q. E. D. But, secondly, came the trying point oflay-patronage, which David Deans had ever maintained to be a coming in bythe window, and over the wall, a cheating and starving the souls of awhole parish, for the purpose of clothing the back and filling the bellyof the incumbent.

  This presentation, therefore, from the Duke of Argyle, whatever was theworth and high character of that nobleman, was a limb of the brazenimage, a portion of the evil thing, and with no kind of consistency couldDavid bend his mind to favour such a transaction. But if the parishionersthemselves joined in a general call to Reuben Butler to be their pastor,it did not seem quite so evident that the existence of this unhappypresentation was a reason for his refusing them the comforts of hisdoctrine. If the Presbytery admitted him to the kirk, in virtue rather ofthat act of patronage than of the general call of the congregation, thatmight be their error, and David allowed it was a heavy one. But if ReubenButler accepted of the cure as tendered to him by those whom he wascalled to teach, and who had expressed themselves desirous to learn,David, after considering and reconsidering the matter, came, through thegreat virtue of if, to be of opinion that he might safely so act in thatmatter.

  There remained a third stumbling-block--the oaths to Government exactedfrom the established clergymen, in which they acknowledge an Erastianking and parliament, and homologate the incorporating Union betweenEngland and Scotland, through which the latter kingdom had become partand portion of the former, wherein Prelacy, the sister of Popery, hadmade fast her throne, and elevated the horns of her mitre. These weresymptoms of defection which had often made David cry out, "My bowels--mybowels!--I am pained at the very heart!" And he remembered that a godlyBow-head matron had been carried out of the Tolbooth church in a swoon,beyond the reach of brandy and burnt feathers, merely on hearing thesefearful words, "It is enacted by the Lords _spiritual_ and temporal,"pronounced from a Scottish pulpit, in the proem to the PorteousProclamation. These oaths were, therefore, a deep compliance and direabomination--a sin and a snare, and a danger and a defection. But thisshibboleth was not always exacted. Ministers had respect to their owntender consciences, and those of their brethren; and it was not till alater period that the reins of discipline were taken up tight by theGeneral Assemblies and Presbyteries. The peacemaking particle came againto David's assistance. _If_ an incumbent was not called upon to make suchcompliances, and _if_ he got a right entry into the church withoutintrusion, and by orderly appointment, why, upon the whole, David Deanscame to be of opinion, that the said incumbent might lawfully enjoy thespirituality and temporality of the cure of souls at Knocktarlitie, withstipend, manse, glebe, and all thereunto appertaining.

  The best and most upright-minded men are so strongly influenced byexisting circumstances, that it would be somewhat cruel to inquire toonearly what weight parental affection gave to these ingenious trains ofreasoning. Let David Deans's situation be considered. He was justdeprived of one daughter, and his eldest, to whom he owed so much, wascut off, by the sudden resolution of Dumbiedikes, from the high hopewhich David had entertained, that she might one day be mistress of thatfair lordship. Just while this disappointment was bearing heavy on hisspirits, Butler comes before his imagination--no longer the half-starvedthreadbare usher, but fat and sleek and fair, the beneficed minister ofKnocktarlitie, beloved by his congregation--exemplary in hislife--powerful in his doctrine--doing the duty of the kirk as neverHighland minister did before--turning sinners as a colley dog turnssheep--a favourite of the Duke of Argyle, and drawing a stipend of eighthundred punds Scots, and four chalders of victual. Here was a match,making up in David's mind, in a tenfold degree, the disappointment inthe case of Dumbiedikes, in so far as the goodman of St. Leonard's helda powerful minister in much greater admiration than a mere landedproprietor. It did not occur to him, as an additional reason in favourof the match, that Jeanie might herself have some choice in the matter;for the idea of consulting her feelings never once entered into thehonest man's head, any more than the possibility that her inclinationmight perhaps differ from his own.

  The result of his meditations was, that he was called upon to take themanagement of the whole affair into his own hand, and give, if it shouldbe found possible without sinful compliance, or backsliding, or defectionof any kind, a worthy pastor to the kirk of Knocktarlitie. Accordingly,by the intervention of the honest dealer in butter-milk who dwelt inLiberton, David summoned to his presence Reuben Butler. Even from thisworthy messenger he was unable to conceal certain swelling emotions ofdignity, insomuch, that, when the carter had communicated his message tothe usher, he added, that "Certainly the Gudeman of St. Leonard's hadsome grand news to tell him, for he was as uplifted as a midden-cock uponpattens."

  Butler, it may readily be conceived, immediately obeyed the summons. Hewas a plain character, in which worth and good sense and simplicity werethe principal ingredients; but love, on this occasion, gave him a certaindegree of address. He had received an intimation of the favour designedhim by the Duke of Argyle, with what feelings those only can conceive whohave experienced a sudden prospect of being raised to independence andrespect from penury and toil. He resolved, however, that the old manshould retain all the consequence of being, in his own opinion, the firstto communicate the important intelligence. At the same time, he alsodetermined that in the expected conference he would permit David Deans toexpatiate at length upon the proposal, in all its bearings, withoutirritating him either by interruption or contradiction. This last was themost prudent plan he could have adopted; because, although there weremany doubts which David Deans could himself clear up to his ownsatisfaction, yet he might have been by no means disposed to accept thesolution of any other person; and to engage him in an argument would havebeen certain to confirm him at once and for ever in the opinion whichButler chanced to impugn.

  He received his friend with an appearance of important gravity, whichreal misfortune had long compelled him to lay aside, and which belongedto those days of awful authority in which he predominated over WidowButler, and dictated the mode of cultivating the crofts of Beersheba. Hemade known to Reuben, with great prolixity, the prospect of his changinghis present residence for the charge of the Duke of Argyle's stock-farmin Dumbartonshire, and enumerated the various advantages of the situationwith obvious self-congratulation; but assured the patient hearer, thatnothing had so much moved him to acceptance, as the sense that, by hisskill in bestial, he could render the most important services to hisGrace the Duke of Argyle, to whom, "in the late unhappy circumstance"(here a tear dimmed the sparkle of pride in the old man's eye), "he hadbeen sae muckle obliged."

  "To put a rude Hielandman into sic a charge," he continued, "what couldbe expected but that he suld be sic a chiefest herdsman, as wicked Doegthe Edomite? whereas, while this grey head is to the fore, not a clute o'them but sall be as weel cared for as if they were the fatted kine ofPharaoh.--And now, Reuben, lad, seeing we maun remove our tent to astrange country, ye will be casting a dolefu' look after us, and thinkingwith whom ye are to hold counsel anent your government in tha
e slipperyand backsliding times; and nae doubt remembering, that the auld man,David Deans, was made the instrument to bring you out of the mire ofschism and heresy, wherein your father's house delighted to wallow; aftenalso, nae doubt, when ye are pressed wi' ensnaring trials and tentationsand heart-plagues, you, that are like a recruit that is marching for thefirst time to the touk of drum, will miss the auld, bauld, andexperienced veteran soldier that has felt the brunt of mony a foul day,and heard the bullets whistle as aften as he has hairs left on his auldpow."

  It is very possible that Butler might internally be of opinion, that thereflection on his ancestor's peculiar tenets might have been spared, orthat he might be presumptuous enough even to think, that, at his years,and with his own lights, he might be able to hold his course without thepilotage of honest David. But he only replied, by expressing his regret,that anything should separate him from an ancient, tried, andaffectionate friend.

  "But how can it be helped, man?" said David, twisting his features into asort of smile--"How can we help it?--I trow, ye canna tell me that--Yemaun leave that to ither folk--to the Duke of Argyle and me, Reuben. It'sa gude thing to hae friends in this warld--how muckle better to hae aninterest beyond it!"

  And David, whose piety, though not always quite rational, was as sincereas it was habitual and fervent, looked reverentially upward and paused.Mr. Butler intimated the pleasure with which he would receive hisfriend's advice on a subject so important, and David resumed.

  "What think ye now, Reuben, of a kirk--a regular kirk under the presentestablishment?--Were sic offered to ye, wad ye be free to accept it, andunder whilk provisions?--I am speaking but by way of query."

  Butler replied, "That if such a prospect were held out to him, he wouldprobably first consult whether he was likely to be useful to the parishhe should be called to; and if there appeared a fair prospect of hisproving so, his friend must be aware, that in every other point of view,it would be highly advantageous for him."

  "Right, Reuben, very right, lad," answered the monitor, "your ainconscience is the first thing to be satisfied--for how sall he teachothers that has himself sae ill learned the Scriptures, as to grip forthe lucre of foul earthly preferment, sic as gear and manse, money andvictual, that which is not his in a spiritual sense--or wha makes hiskirk a stalking-horse, from behind which he may tak aim at his stipend?But I look for better things of you--and specially ye maun be minded notto act altogether on your ain judgment, for therethrough comes sairmistakes, backslidings and defections, on the left and on the right. Ifthere were sic a day of trial put to you, Reuben. you, who are a younglad, although it may be ye are gifted wi' the carnal tongues, and thosewhilk were spoken at Rome, whilk is now the seat of the scarletabomination, and by the Greeks, to whom the Gospel was as foolishness,yet nae-the-less ye may be entreated by your weel-wisher to take thecounsel of those prudent and resolved and weather-withstandingprofessors, wha hae kend what it was to lurk on banks and in mosses, inbogs and in caverns, and to risk the peril of the head rather thanrenounce the honesty of the heart."

  Butler replied, "That certainly, possessing such a friend as he hoped andtrusted he had in the goodman himself, who had seen so many changes inthe preceding century, he should be much to blame if he did not availhimself of his experience and friendly counsel."

  "Eneugh said--eneugh said, Reuben," said David Deans, with internalexultation; "and say that ye were in the predicament whereof I haespoken, of a surety I would deem it my duty to gang to the root o' thematter, and lay bare to you the ulcers and imposthumes, and the sores andthe leprosies, of this our time, crying aloud and sparing not."

  David Deans was now in his element. He commenced his examination of thedoctrines and belief of the Christian Church with the very Culdees, fromwhom he passed to John Knox,--from John Knox to the recusants in Jamesthe Sixth's time--Bruce, Black, Blair, Livingstone,--from them to thebrief, and at length triumphant period of the Presbyterian Church'ssplendour, until it was overrun by the English Independents. Thenfollowed the dismal times of prelacy, the indulgences, seven in number,with all their shades and bearings, until he arrived at the reign of KingJames the Second, in which he himself had been, in his own mind, neitheran obscure actor nor an obscure sufferer. Then was Butler doomed to hearthe most detailed and annotated edition of what he had so often heardbefore,--David Deans's confinement, namely, in the iron cage in theCanongate Tolbooth, and the cause thereof.

  We should be very unjust to our friend David Deans, if we should"pretermit"--to use his own expression--a narrative which he heldessential to his fame. A drunken trooper of the Royal Guards, FrancisGordon by name, had chased five or six of the skulking Whigs, among whomwas our friend David; and after he had compelled them to stand, and wasin the act of brawling with them, one of their number fired apocket-pistol, and shot him dead. David used to sneer and shake his headwhen any one asked him whether _he_ had been the instrument of removingthis wicked persecutor from the face of the earth. In fact the merit ofthe deed lay between him and his friend, Patrick Walker, the pedlar,whose words he was so fond of quoting. Neither of them cared directly toclaim the merit of silencing Mr. Francis Gordon of the Life-Guards, therebeing some wild cousins of his about Edinburgh, who might have been evenyet addicted to revenge, but yet neither of them chose to disown or yieldto the other the merit of this active defence of their religious rights.David said, that if he had fired a pistol then, it was what he never didafter or before. And as for Mr. Patrick Walker, he has left it uponrecord, that his great surprise was, that so small a pistol could kill sobig a man. These are the words of that venerable biographer, whose tradehad not taught him by experience, that an inch was as good as an ell."He," (Francis Gordon) "got a shot in his head out of a pocket-pistol,rather fit for diverting a boy than killing such a furious, mad, briskman, which notwithstanding killed him dead!"*

  * Note S. Death of Francis Gordon.

  Upon the extensive foundation which the history of the kirk afforded,during its short-lived triumph and long tribulation, David, with lengthof breath and of narrative, which would have astounded any one but alover of his daughter, proceeded to lay down his own rules for guidingthe conscience of his friend, as an aspirant to serve in the ministry.Upon this subject, the good man went through such a variety of nice andcasuistical problems, supposed so many extreme cases, made thedistinctions so critical and nice betwixt the right hand and the lefthand--betwixt compliance and defection--holding back and steppingaside--slipping and stumbling--snares and errors--that at length, afterhaving limited the path of truth to a mathematical line, he was broughtto the broad admission, that each man's conscience, after he had gaineda certain view of the difficult navigation which he was to encounter,would be the best guide for his pilotage. He stated the examples andarguments for and against the acceptance of a kirk on the presentrevolution model, with much more impartiality to Butler than he had beenable to place them before his own view. And he concluded, that his youngfriend ought to think upon these things, and be guided by the voice ofhis own conscience, whether he could take such an awful trust as thecharge of souls without doing injury to his own internal conviction ofwhat is right or wrong.

  When David had finished his very long harangue, which was onlyinterrupted by monosyllables, or little more, on the part of Butler, theorator himself was greatly astonished to find that the conclusion, atwhich he very naturally wished to arrive, seemed much less decisivelyattained than when he had argued the case in his own mind.

  In this particular, David's current of thinking and speaking onlyillustrated the very important and general proposition, concerning theexcellence of the publicity of debate. For, under the influence of anypartial feeling, it is certain, that most men can more easily reconcilethemselves to any favourite measure, when agitating it in their own mind,than when obliged to expose its merits to a third party, when thenecessity of seeming impartial procures for the opposite arguments a muchmore fair statement than that which he affords it in tacit meditation.Having finished wha
t he had to say, David thought himself obliged to bemore explicit in point of fact, and to explain that this was nohypothetical case, but one on which (by his own influence and that of theDuke of Argyle) Reuben Butler would soon be called to decide.

  It was even with something like apprehension that David Deans heardButler announce, in return to this communication, that he would take thatnight to consider on what he had said with such kind intentions, andreturn him an answer the next morning. The feelings of the fathermastered David on this occasion. He pressed Butler to spend the eveningwith him--He produced, most unusual at his meals, one, nay, two bottlesof aged strong ale.--He spoke of his daughter--of her merits--herhousewifery--her thrift--her affection. He led Butler so decidedly up toa declaration of his feelings towards Jeanie, that, before nightfall, itwas distinctly understood she was to be the bride of Reuben Butler; andif they thought it indelicate to abridge the period of deliberation whichReuben had stipulated, it seemed to be sufficiently understood betwixtthem, that there was a strong probability of his becoming minister ofKnocktarlitie, providing the congregation were as willing to accept ofhim, as the Duke to grant him the presentation. The matter of the oaths,they agreed, it was time enough to dispute about, whenever the shibbolethshould be tendered.

  Many arrangements were adopted that evening, which were afterwardsripened by correspondence with the Duke of Argyle's man of business, whointrusted Deans and Butler with the benevolent wish of his principal,that they should all meet with Jeanie, on her return from England, at theDuke's hunting-lodge in Roseneath.

  This retrospect, so far as the placid loves of Jeanie Deans and ReubenButler are concerned, forms a full explanation of the preceding narrativeup to their meeting on the island, as already mentioned.