Chapter XIV: The Heart of Midlothian

'Dis-is-de-heart-of-Midlothian-Jeanie-Deans-walked-t'- Lunnon-t'-save-her-sister-fr'm-hangin!' This sentence, uttered rapidly in a monotone, as though it were all a single word, long-drawn-out, startled us as we were standing in Parliament Square, Edinburgh, looking up at the stately crown which forms the distinguishing mark of the old Cathedral of St. Giles. Our eyes quickly dropped, to meet the wistful, upturned face of a small urchin, very ragged and very dirty. 'What is that you say?' said I, looking down into his expectant eyes. 'Dis-is-de-heart-of-Midlothian-Jeanie-Deans-walked-to-Lunnon, sir,' was the reply, in the same quick accents, running the words all together. 'Why did she do that?' I asked, hoping to draw him out. 'To save her sister from hangin', sir,' was the ready reply. 'But who was Jeanie Deans and how did she save her sister?' To this double inquiry the boy only shook his head. 'Where did you hear that story?' Another shake. 'Did you ever hear of Sir Walter Scott?' Another slow movement of a downcast head indicated that the little lad was hopelessly out of his depth, so I gave him his penny and let him go. He had evidently learned his lesson by heart from some one whom instinct had taught that this reference to one of the most popular novels of Edinburgh's most famous citizen would be likely to prove the readiest means of interesting the casual tourist and thereby extracting an {200} honest penny. All the other objects of interest,--the fine old Cathedral, the Parliament House, the Market Cross, the grave of John Knox--were as nothing compared to the figure of a heart, outlined in the pavement, designed to mark the site of the old Tolbooth, but more strongly reminding the visitor, not of an ancient prison, but of a great novel, and impressing him with the feeling that, wherever one may go in Edinburgh, the spirit of Sir Walter Scott seems to permeate the very atmosphere.

The square in which we were standing was for centuries the civic centre of Edinburgh. The southwest corner is occupied by the House of Parliament, where the Scottish Parliaments met in a room, a hundred and twenty-two feet long and forty-nine feet wide, with an arched oaken roof. This large hall is now adorned with numerous portraits and statues of eminent judges, and its floor, when the courts are in session, is filled with a throng of advocates, their wigs and gowns suggesting something of the ceremonials of olden times. Since the union of England and Scotland under the name of Great Britain, in 1707, and the consequent dissolution of the Scottish Parliament, the building has been used by the Court of Session. In the rooms of the First Division, on the left of the lobby, Sir Walter Scott, as one of the Principal Clerks, performed his official duties for twenty-five years. His attendance averaged from four to six hours daily during the sessions of the court, which usually occupied two months in the late spring and early summer, and four in the winter. His letter of resignation, in the last year but one of his life, is one of the valued treasures of the Advocates' Library.

In the first half of the eighteenth century, the period {201} of 'The Heart of Midlothian,' Parliament Close, as it was then called, did not present the clean, open appearance of to-day. Almost the entire space between St. Giles on the east and the County Hall on the west was occupied by the Tolbooth, leaving only a narrow and partly covered passage at the northwest corner of the square. The prison projected into the middle of High Street, seeming to form 'the termination of a huge pile of buildings called the Luckenbooths,' which had been 'jammed into the midst of the principal street,' and little booths or shops were plastered against the buttresses of the old Gothic cathedral. The headquarters of the 'City Guard' were in 'a long, low, ugly building, which to a fanciful imagination might have suggested the idea of a long black snail crawling up the middle of the High Street and deforming its beautiful esplanade.' In this way, what was intended to be and is now a broad street was at that time so encumbered as to be converted into a series of narrow, crooked lanes, which were kept in anything but tidy condition. South of High Street the Cowgate was reached by descending the steep incline through various narrow lanes, and the two parallel thoroughfares were connected, a little to the east, by a crooked but famous street, called West Bow. At the foot of the latter was a wide, open space known as the Grassmarket, where the public executions took place. These were the streets through which the rioters of the Porteous Mob made their way in the exciting days of September, 1736.

The Tolbooth, considered two centuries ago to be one of the largest and most sombre buildings in the kingdom, was built by the citizens of Edinburgh in 1561, {202} originally for a Town Hall, but later devoted to the use of Parliament and the courts of justice. With the completion of the Parliament House in 1640, its original usage ceased, and from that time until its demolition in 1817, it was devoted exclusively to the imprisonment of debtors and criminals. No distinction was made between the lowest of the criminal classes and the poor persons whose only offence was the inability to pay some small debt. The latter were shut up for months in cells too loathsome for the most vicious of criminals. There were no areas for exercise nor any ways of affording the captives a breath of fresh air. The narrow windows were half-blocked to the light by massive bars of iron.

The exterior was not less horrible, for on its highest pinnacle were displayed the heads of prisoners of state who had been executed, and it was seldom lacking in such tokens. The Regent Morton, accused of the murder of Darnley; the Duke of Montrose, and later his great enemy, the Duke of Argyle, were among the most distinguished of these victims; but there were many others.

The Church of St. Giles almost touched elbows, so to speak, with the prison. The central portion was set apart for religious services under the name of the 'Old Church,' the worshippers of those days having a strong aversion to the use of the name of a saint. They seemed to have no objection to attaching to their sacred edifice the designation of the temporary abode of sinners, for the southwest quarter was called the 'Tolbooth Church,' from its proximity to the prison. On the morning of the 11th of April, 1736, according to the account of Robert Chambers, Wilson and Robertson were conducted to the Tolbooth Church, to listen to their last sermon, their {203} execution having been planned for the following Wednesday. Very much as described in the novel, except that the incident took place almost instantly after they had seated themselves in the pew, instead of after the sermon as Scott says, Wilson seized three of the guards and shouted to Robertson to run. The latter tripped up the fourth soldier and quickly escaped, aided by the sympathetic church-goers, who contrived to block up the passages so that pursuit was impossible. Three days later, Wilson was executed in the Grassmarket. The sympathy of all Edinburgh was with him, for several reasons. First, his crime was only the robbery of a revenue officer, in reprisal for the seizure of his own goods on a charge of smuggling. In those days (and even now, it may be feared) the crime of cheating the Government out of its revenues was not considered an enormous one. If a poor smuggler happened to be caught, there was no reason why he should n't 'get even' with the officers if he had a good chance. At least, so Wilson argued, and many sympathized with his view. Second, the Scots were not yet entirely reconciled to the union, and the exhibition of too much authority at London was likely to be resented. Third, Wilson had acted the part of a generous friend and courageous man in sacrificing his own chances to secure the escape of Robertson.

Some stones were thrown at the captain of the City Guard, John Porteous, and that officer, beside himself with rage, snatched a gun from a soldier and, setting the example himself, commanded his party to fire. The result was the loss of six lives and the wounding of eleven persons, many of the victims being innocent spectators {204} who were watching the affair from neighbouring windows. For this offence Porteous was tried and convicted, his execution being set for the 8th of September. Before the prisoner could be executed, a pardon reached Edinburgh, signed by Queen Caroline, acting as Regent. Robert Chambers says that it came on the 2d of September, giving the mob five days for preparation instead of a single afternoon, as described by Scott. It is a matter of history that the 'mob' acted with remarkable moderation, harming no one except their intended victim. Ladies of the upper classes, travelling in their chairs to meet evening engagements, were quietly turned back. The shopkeeper in the West Bow, whose place was broken into for a coil of rope, found himself reimbursed with a guinea. The town guard was disarmed and the city gates closed without confusion, showing that cool heads were in the lead. The jail was stormed and, as the door would not yield, it was set on fire. When this finally became effective, the fire was extinguished. All the prisoners were set free except Porteous, who was taken to the Grassmarket and hanged on a post near the scene of his own crime.

The event caused great excitement, not only in Edinburgh, but in London. The House of Lords proposed a severe punishment, including the imprisonment of the Lord Provost, but finally compromised with a fine upon the city of £2000 for the benefit of Porteous's widow, thus throwing the punishment upon those who had nothing to do with the affair and could not have prevented it.

When the discreditable old Tolbooth was finally demolished, Scott was presented with the door and its {205} frame, which are now built into the outer walls of the mansion at Abbotsford and the keys of the prison are among the treasures of his museum. In 1816, he wrote to Terry, 'I expect to get some decorations from the old Tolbooth of Edinburgh, particularly the copestones of the doorway, or lintels, as we call them, and a _niche_ or two--one very handsome, indeed! Better a niche _from_ the Tolbooth than a niche _in_ it, to which such building operations are apt to bring the projectors!'

The first part of the novel is a skilful blending of the history of the Porteous Mob, with the true story of an unfortunate girl and her noble sister, who lived in another part of Scotland. The author represents Effie Deans as having been incarcerated in the old Tolbooth and places her trial in one of the buildings of Parliament Close. The real Effie was imprisoned in the jail at Dumfries and her trial occurred in an upper room of a curious old building of that city, known as the Mid-Steeple, a structure, now over two centuries old, which stands in the middle of the High Street and gives a picturesque effect to that thoroughfare. On the south front, above a stairway which ascends across the face of the building, is a sculptured figure of St. Michael treading on a serpent, the arms of the burgh, and above this are the royal arms of Scotland, also carved in stone. The space in front is given a pleasant bit of colour by the display of flowers and vegetables, here offered for sale.

The story of Helen Walker, the original of Jeanie Deans, is well remembered in Dumfries. A stone or two may still be discovered, by those who care to search for the remnant of her little cottage, near the banks of the river Cluden. She lived to be seventy or eighty years {206} old, supporting herself by working stocking-feet and raising chickens, besides occasionally teaching a few children to read. In early life she had been left an orphan, charged with the support of a younger sister, named Isabella, or 'Tibby,' to whom she devoted herself with many evidences of genuine affection. It was a great shock to her, therefore, when she learned that the young girl had been accused of child-murder and that she herself would be called upon as the principal witness against her. Under the law, as her counsel explained, if she could testify that her sister had made the slightest preparation or had even confided to her an intimation on the subject, such a declaration would save her sister's life. The temptation to tell a plausible lie, which no one could dispute, was undeniably strong. But Helen was a woman of finer mould, and not even the purest sisterly love could induce her to violate her conscience. She swore to the truth and Isabella was condemned. As she left the court, the latter was heard to exclaim, 'Oh, Nelly! ye've been the cause of my death!'

The same moral courage which gave resolution to Helen Walker to stand for the truth, now impelled her to a remarkable exercise of the power of an indomitable will. The difficulties seemed insurmountable. There was no hope except in the royal pardon. There was no one to intercede with the King and London was many miles away. But Helen did not waste a moment. A petition was hastily drawn, setting forth the facts in the case, and on the very night of the conviction, the dauntless Scotch lassie set out on foot for London, clad in her simple country dress and tartan plaid, without letters of introduction or recommendation, with little money in her {207} purse, and scarcely a chance of success except a sublime faith in Providence and reliance upon her own stout heart.

There was one nobleman in London to whom the heart of any of his Scotch countrymen would instinctively turn in such an emergency. This was John, Duke of Argyle, who had stoutly resisted the efforts to inflict an undeserved punishment on the people of Edinburgh for their part in the Porteous affair. To him Helen Walker presented herself, after watching three days at his door, just as he was about to enter his carriage. Her unpretentious dress, her honest face, and the pathos of her story won the heart of the generous nobleman, who procured the pardon and forwarded it to Dumfries. Helen returned on foot as she had come, and had the satisfaction of witnessing the release of her sister. Isabella married the man who had wronged her and lived many years, always acknowledging in the most affectionate terms the high nobility of her sister's character.

Helen died in poverty and was buried in the picturesque churchyard of Kirkpatrick Irongray, northwest of Dumfries, where her grave might have been forgotten but for the generosity of Sir Walter and the interest of Mrs. Goldie, who told him the story. This good lady requested the novelist to write an inscription, saying that if he would do so, she would be able to raise the necessary funds for a monument. Scott, however, insisted upon supplying both the inscription and the stone. We made it our first care on the afternoon of our arrival in Dumfries to drive to the old Kirk where, in spite of the inconvenience of an unexpected shower, we {208} photographed the memorial and afterwards stood under an umbrella copying the following inscription:--

This Stone was erected
By the author of Waverley
To the memory

of

HELEN WALKER

Who died in the year of God, 1791.
This humble individual
Practised in real life
The virtues
With which fiction has invested
The imaginary character of

JEANIE DEANS

Refusing the slightest departure
From veracity
Even to save the life of a sister,
She nevertheless shewed her
Kindness and fortitude
In rescuing her
From the severity of the law,
At the Expense of personal exertions.
Which the times rendered as difficult
As the motive was laudable.

Respect the grave of poverty
When combined with love of truth
And dear affection.

One day during our stay in Edinburgh we hired a conveyance to take us to the suburban scenes of 'The Heart of Midlothian.' Our driver was recommended as 'one {209} of the best guides in Edinburgh,' and so he proved to be. In spite of orders to drive direct to the King's Park, he insisted upon going by way of High Street and the Canongate, when, every few rods it seemed, he would bring his horse to a walk, then turn in his seat until he faced us and point with his long whip to some window 'where the famous Adam Smith lived' or 'where Dugald Stewart had his rooms.' Perhaps he was only following the example of Sir Walter, of whom Lockhart said, 'No funeral hearse crept more leisurely than did his landau up the Canongate; and not a queer tottering gable but recalled to him some long-buried memory of splendour or bloodshed, which, by a few words, he set before his hearers in the reality of life.' All of this was interesting enough, or would have been, had I not wished to reach my objective point before sundown, but Jehu was like the burro I once rode in the Garden of the Gods in Colorado, which beast responded to the spur by two convulsive steps, then settled down to his previous pace, which neither coaxing nor threatening, caressing nor spurring, soft words nor sharp ones, would induce him to change for the space of more than a minute at a time. So with our 'best guide.' I finally concluded to let him have his own way, as I had been obliged to do with his obstinate relative, the burro, and so finally got through the Canongate after listening to a rehearsal of the entire catalogue of Edinburgh worthies for several centuries. When the King's Park was reached, after passing Holyrood Palace, the guide found himself 'out of bounds' and kindly permitted me to direct the further proceedings.

Here the city seems to come to a sudden end, and {210} looking toward the southwest we saw only a mass of steep cliffs backed by a rugged mountain. This was a favorite resort with Sir Walter, when a boy. In later years, the Radical Road, which winds around the edge of the Salisbury Crags in a broad pathway, was laid out at his suggestion, to give employment to idle men.

In writing 'The Heart of Midlothian,' Scott was therefore more at home than with any other of his novels. Muschat's Cairn and St. Anthony's Chapel, where Jeanie had her midnight interview with the betrayer of her sister, were familiar sights of the author's boyhood. On a dark night they would be lonely enough even now.

Near the park gate we passed some boulders known as Muschat's Cairn, but as they were carefully enclosed and surrounded by a well-kept plot of grass, they gave no suggestion of the weird and desecrated ground where evil spirits had power to make themselves visible to human eyes. The original cairn was made by passing travellers, each throwing a stone upon the spot, to express his detestation of the horrible murder committed in 1720 by Nicol Muchet or Muschat, who killed his wife under circumstances of great cruelty. In the ordinary course of improvements, the cairn was swept away, but the novel created a new interest in its story, which led to its restoration.

St. Anthony's Chapel, on the rugged hillside overlooking St. Margaret's Loch, gives more of the impression of Scott's tale. The scene on any moonlight night even now would be the same as it was on that night when Jeanie met George Robertson at the cairn and was followed by Ratcliffe and Sharpitlaw, guided by Madge Wildfire. The ruined chapel, where the jailer and the {211} lawyer succeeded only in capturing each other instead of the fugitive, is still as lonely and difficult of access as it was then, the only difference being that some of the walls have fallen. We drove as near to the base of the hill as it was possible to go. I then left the carriage and began the ascent, stopping a moment at St. Anthony's Well, where Madge Wildfire wanted to meet the ghost of the murdered Ailie Muschat to wash the blood out of her clothes 'by the beams of the bonny Lady Moon.' Arriving at the chapel after a hard climb, I was studying the composition of a picture when I was accosted by a policeman, who had toiled after me all the way up that steep incline. He informed me that I was welcome to photograph the ruins, but I must n't take any group pictures. As there was nobody in sight but the policeman and myself, and as I did not wish to make a 'group' of him, I wondered why he had taken so much trouble. Perhaps he felt the proud satisfaction of the hero, who, in the language of an admiring rustic friend, 'seen his duty and done it noble.'

The chapel of St. Anthony, of which now only a fragment remains, was once a Gothic structure, with a tower forty feet high, in which a light was kept for the guidance of mariners. A hermitage, of which scarcely a trace remains, was partly formed of one of the sheltering crags near by. The lofty site, commanding an extensive prospect of sea and sky was supposed to be favourable for pious meditations. The sight of the palace below was expected to make an impression in the minds of the monks of the 'striking contrast between the court, so frequently assaulted by an unprincipled rabble, and their own tranquil situation in which they {212} were gladly preparing for the regions of everlasting repose.' Although overlooking a populous city, the residents of the hermitage had all the 'advantages' of life in a wilderness, as secluded and peaceful as a Highland desert.

On the opposite side of the intervening valley we visited St. Leonard's Crags at the southwest edge of the King's Park. A neat cottage, with a little garden on the slope below, passes as the house of David Deans. Whether Scott had in mind this particular building is immaterial. It is in the exact locality described in the novel, and we thought it pleasant to stand on the side of the hill overlooking the same extensive sheep pasture, and the same crags and mountain beyond, that met the eyes of Jeanie Deans when she stood at the cottage door anxiously looking along the various tracks which led to their dwelling, 'to see if she could descry the nymph-like form of her sister.'

A house known as 'Dumbiedykes,' so called because in Scott's time it was used as a private school for the deaf and dumb, is not far distant. The novelist borrowed only the name, which he seems to have transferred to an old farm called Peffermill, in the vicinity of Liberton.

'Douce David Deans' is an original creation, the result of Scott's absorption of the descriptions of character in Patrick Walker's biographical accounts of the Covenanters. In acknowledging his indebtedness to this authority, Scott says, 'It is from such tracts as these, written in the sense, feeling, and spirit of the sect, and not from the sophisticated narratives of a later period, that the real character of the persecuted class is {213} to be gathered.' 'David' is just a touch of the same kind of which we have seen so much in 'Old Mortality.' His lecture to his daughters on the evil of dancing is taken from Patrick Walker's Life of Cameron:--

Dance?--dance, said ye? I daur ye, limmers that ye are, to name sic' a word at my door-cheek! It's a dissolute, profane pastime, practiced by the Israelites only at their base and brutal worship of the Golden Calf at Bethel, and by the unhappy lass who danced off the head of John the Baptist, upon whilk chapter I will exercise this night for your further instruction, since ye need it sae muckle, nothing doubting that she has cause to rue the day, lang or this time, that e'er she suld hae shook a limb on sic' an errand. Better for her to hae been born a cripple, and carried frae door to door, like auld Bessie Bowie, begging bawbees, than to be a king's daughter, fiddling and flinging the gate she did.... And now, if I hear ye, quean lassies, sae muckle as name dancing, or think there's sic' a thing in this warld as flinging to fiddle's sounds and piper's springs, as sure as my father's spirit is with the just, ye shall be no more either charge or concern of mine!

What a treat it would be to hear Douce David express an opinion of the elaborate present-day performances of 'Salome'!

Madge Wildfire, or Murdockson, was drawn from a crazy woman, called Feckless Fannie, who travelled over Scotland and England at the head of a flock of sheep. They were remarkable animals, who recognized their names as bestowed by their mistress, and responded promptly to her commands. She slept in the fields in the midst of her flock, and one very polite old ram, named Charlie, always claimed the honour of assisting her to rise. He would push the others out of the way, {214} then bend down his head, and when Madge had taken a firm grasp upon his large horns, he would raise his head and gently lift his mistress to her feet. This and numerous other stories of Feckless Fannie were furnished the novelist by his indefatigable friend, Joseph Train.

The great popularity of 'The Heart of Midlothian' may be judged from a letter of Lady Louisa Stuart, who said, 'I am in a house where everybody is tearing it out of each other's hands and talking of nothing else,' and from Lockhart's testimony, that he had never seen such 'all-engrossing enthusiasm' in Edinburgh 'on the appearance of any other literary novelty.' Andrew Lang only voices the feeling of other Scotchmen when he declares that it is 'second to none' of the Waverley Novels and that 'no number of formal histories can convey nearly so full and true a picture of Scottish life about 1730-40 as 'The Heart of Midlothian.'

Lockhart, as usual, sets forth the true secret of the author's success and does it in a single paragraph. 'Never before,' he says, 'had he seized such really noble features of the national character as were canonized in the person of his homely heroine; no art had ever devised a happier running contrast than that of her and her sister, or interwoven a portraiture of lowly manners and simple virtues, with more graceful delineations of polished life or with bolder shadows of terror, guilt, crime, remorse, madness, and all the agony of passions.'

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