Chapter X: Introduction: To the Heart of Mid-Lothian--(1830) (9)

The rising moon saw the whole party free from the walls of the city, and entering upon the open ground. Arthurís Seat, like a couchant lion of immense size--Salisbury Crags, like a huge belt or girdle of granite, were dimly visible. Holding their path along the southern side of the Canongate, they gained the Abbey of Holyrood House, and from thence found their way by step and stile into the Kingís Park. They were at first four in number--an officer of justice and Sharpitlaw, who were well armed with pistols and cutlasses; Ratcliffe, who was not trusted with weapons, lest, he might, peradventure, have used them on the wrong side; and the female. But at the last stile, when they entered the Chase, they were joined by other two officers, whom Sharpitlaw, desirous to secure sufficient force for his purpose, and at the same time to avoid observation, had directed to wait for him at this place. Ratcliffe saw this accession of strength with some disquietude, for he had hitherto thought it likely that Robertson, who was a bold, stout, and active young fellow, might have made his escape from Sharpitlaw and the single officer, by force or agility, without his being implicated in the matter. But the present strength of the followers of justice was overpowering, and the only mode of saving Robertson (which the old sinner was well disposed to do, providing always he could accomplish his purpose without compromising his own safety), must be by contriving that he should have some signal of their approach. It was probably with this view that Ratcliffe had requested the addition of Madge to the party, having considerable confidence in her propensity to exert her lungs. Indeed, she had already given them so many specimens of her clamorous loquacity, that Sharpitlaw half determined to send her back with one of the officers, rather than carry forward in his company a person so extremely ill qualified to be a guide in a secret expedition. It seemed, too, as if the open air, the approach to the hills, and the ascent of the moon, supposed to be so portentous over those whose brain is infirm, made her spirits rise in a degree tenfold more loquacious than she had hitherto exhibited. To silence her by fair means seemed impossible; authoritative commands and coaxing entreaties she set alike at defiance, and threats only made her sulky and altogether intractable.

“Is there no one of you,” said Sharpitlaw, impatiently, “that knows the way to this accursed place--this Nichol Muschatís Cairn--excepting this mad clavering idiot?”

“Deil ane oí them kens it except mysell,” exclaimed Madge; “how suld they, the puir fule cowards! But I hae sat on the grave frae batfleeing time till cook-crow, and had mony a fine crack wií Muschat and Ailie Muschat, that are lying sleeping below.”

“The devil take your crazy brain,” said Sharpitlaw; “will you not allow the men to answer a question?”

The officers obtaining a momentís audience while Ratcliffe diverted Madgeís attention, declared that, though they had a general knowledge of the spot, they could not undertake to guide the party to it by the uncertain light of the moon, with such accuracy as to insure success to their expedition.

“What shall we do, Ratcliffe?” said Sharpitlaw, “if he sees us before we see him,--and thatís what he is certain to do, if we go strolling about, without keeping the straight road,--we may bid gude day to the job, and I would rather lose one hundred pounds, baith for the credit of the police, and because the provost says somebody maun be hanged for this job oí Porteous, come oít what likes.”

“I think,” said Ratcliffe, “we maun just try Madge; and Iíll see if I can get her keepit in ony better order. And at ony rate, if he suld hear her skirting her auld ends oí sangs, heís no to ken for that that thereís onybody wií her.”

“Thatís true,” said Sharpitlaw; “and if he thinks her alone, heís as like to come towards her as to rin frae her. So set forward--we hae lost ower muckle time already--see to get her to keep the right road.”

“And what sort oí house does Nichol Muschat and his wife keep now?” said Ratcliffe to the mad woman, by way of humouring her vein of folly; “they were but thrawn folk lang syne, an aí tales be true.”

“Ou, ay, ay, ay--but aís forgotten now,” replied Madge, in the confidential tone of a gossip giving the history of her next-door neighbour--“Ye see, I spoke to them mysell, and tauld them byganes suld be byganes--her throatís sair misguggled and mashackered though; she wears her corpse-sheet drawn weel up to hide it, but that canna hinder the bluid seiping through, ye ken. I wussed her to wash it in St. Anthonyís Well, and that will cleanse if onything can--But they say bluid never bleaches out oí linen claith--Deacon Sandersís new cleansing draps winna doít--I tried them mysell on a bit rag we hae at hame that was mailed wií the bluid of a bit skirting wean that was hurt some gate, but out it winna come--Weel, yell say thatís queer; but I will bring it out to St. Anthonyís blessed Well some braw night just like this, and Iíll cry up Ailie Muschat, and she and I will hae a grand bouking-washing, and bleach our claes in the beams of the bonny Lady Moon, thatís far pleasanter to me than the sun--the sunís ower het, and ken ye, cummers, my brains are het eneugh already. But the moon, and the dew, and the night-wind, they are just like a caller kail-blade laid on my brow; and whiles I think the moon just shines on purpose to pleasure me, when naebody sees her but mysell.”

This raving discourse she continued with prodigious volubility, walking on at a great pace, and dragging Ratcliffe along with her, while he endeavoured, in appearance at least, if not in reality, to induce her to moderate her voice.

All at once she stopped short upon the top of a little hillock, gazed upward fixedly, and said not one word for the space of five minutes. “What the devil is the matter with her now?” said Sharpitlaw to Ratcliffe--“Can you not get her forward?”

“Ye maun just take a grain oí patience wií her, sir,” said Ratcliffe. “Sheíll no gae a foot faster than she likes herself.”

“D--n her,” said Sharpitlaw, “Iíll take care she has her time in Bedlam or Bridewell, or both, for sheís both mad and mischievous.”

In the meanwhile, Madge, who had looked very pensive when she first stopped, suddenly burst into a vehement fit of laughter, then paused and sighed bitterly,--then was seized with a second fit of laughter--then, fixing her eyes on the moon, lifted up her voice and sung,--

“Good even, good fair moon, good even to thee;
I prithee, dear moon, now show to me
The form and the features, the speech and degree,
Of the man that true lover of mine shall be.

But I need not ask that of the bonny Lady Moon--I ken that weel eneugh mysell--_true_-love though he wasna--But naebody shall sae that I ever tauld a word about the matter--But whiles I wish the bairn had lived--Weel, God guide us, thereís a heaven aboon us aí,”--(here she sighed bitterly), “and a bonny moon, and sterns in it forby” (and here she laughed once more).

“Are we to stand, here all night!” said Sharpitlaw, very impatiently. “Drag her forward.”

“Ay, sir,” said Ratcliffe, “if we kend whilk way to drag her, that would settle it at ance.--Come, Madge, hinny,” addressing her, “weíll no be in time to see Nichol and his wife, unless ye show us the road.”

“In troth and that I will, Ratton,” said she, seizing him by the arm, and resuming her route with huge strides, considering it was a female who took them. “And Iíll tell ye, Ratton, blithe will Nichol Muschat be to see ye, for he says he kens weel there isna sic a villain out oí hell as ye are, and he wad be ravished to hae a crack wií you--like to like ye ken--itís a proverb never fails--and ye are baith a pair oí the deevilís peats I trow--hard to ken whilk deserves the hettest corner oí his ingle-side.”

Ratcliffe was conscience-struck, and could not forbear making an involuntary protest against this classification. “I never shed blood,” he replied.

“But ye hae sauld it, Ratton--ye hae sauld blood mony a time. Folk kill wií the tongue as weel as wií the hand--wií the word as weel as wií the gulley!--

It is the ëbonny butcher lad,
That wears the sleeves of blue,
He sells the flesh on Saturday,
On Friday that he slew.”

“And what is that I ain doing now?” thought Ratcliffe. “But Iíll hae nae wyte of Robertsonís young bluid, if I can help it;” then speaking apart to Madge, he asked her, “Whether she did not remember ony oí her auld Sangs?”

“Mony a dainty ane,” said Madge; “and blithely can I sing them, for lightsome sangs make merry gate.” And she sang,--

“When the gledeís in the blue cloud,
The lavrock lies still;
When the houndís in the greenwood.
The hind keeps the hill.”

“Silence her cursed noise, if you should throttle her,” said Sharpitlaw; “I see somebody yonder.--Keep close, my boys, and creep round the shoulder of the height. George Poinder, stay you with Ratcliffe and tha mad yelling bitch; and you other two, come with me round under the shadow of the brae.”

And he crept forward with the stealthy pace of an Indian savage, who leads his band to surprise an unsuspecting party of some hostile tribe. Ratcliffe saw them glide of, avoiding the moonlight, and keeping as much in: the shade as possible.

“Robertsonís done up,” said he to himself; “thae young lads are aye sae thoughtless. What deevil could he hae to say to Jeanie Deans, or to ony woman on earth, that he suld gang awa and get his neck raxed for her? And this mad quean, after cracking like a pen-gun, and skirling like a pea-hen for the haill night, behoves just to hae hadden her tongue when her clavers might have dune some gude! But itís aye the way wií women; if they ever hand their tongues avaí, ye may swear itís for mischief. I wish I could set her on again without this blood-sucker kenning what I am doing. But heís as gleg as MacKeachanís elshin,* that ran through sax plies of bendleather and half-an-inch into the kingís heel.”

* [_Elshin,_ a shoemakerís awl.]

He then began to hum, but in a very low and suppressed tone, the first stanza of a favourite ballad of Wildfireís, the words of which bore some distant analogy with the situation of Robertson, trusting that the power of association would not fail to bring the rest to her mind:--

“Thereís a bloodhound ranging Tinwald wood,
Thereís harness glancing sheen:
Thereís a maiden sits on Tinwald brae,
And she sings loud between.”

Madge had no sooner received the catch-word, than she vindicated Ratcliffeís sagacity by setting off at score with the song:--

“O sleep ye sound, Sir James, she said,
When ye suld rise and ride?
Thereís twenty men, wií bow and blade,
Are seeking where ye hide.”

Though Ratcliffe was at a considerable distance from the spot called Muschatís Cairn, yet his eyes, practised like those of a cat to penetrate darkness, could mark that Robertson had caught the alarm. George Poinder, less keen of sight, or less attentive, was not aware of his flight any more than Sharpitlaw and his assistants, whose view, though they were considerably nearer to the cairn, was intercepted by the broken nature of the ground under which they were screening themselves. At length, however, after the interval of five or six minutes, they also perceived that Robertson had fled, and rushed hastily towards the place, while Sharpitlaw called out aloud, in the harshest tones of a voice which resembled a saw-mill at work, “Chase, lads--chase--haud the brae--I see him on the edge of the hill!” Then hollowing back to the rear-guard of his detachment, he issued his farther orders: “Ratcliffe, come here, and detain the woman--George, run and kepp the stile at the Dukeís Walk--Ratcliffe, come here directly--but first knock out that mad bitchís brains!”

“Ye had better rin for it, Madge,” said Ratcliffe, “for itís ill dealing wií an angry man.”

Madge Wildfire was not so absolutely void of common sense as not to understand this innuendo; and while Ratcliffe, in seemingly anxious haste of obedience, hastened to the spot where Sharpitlaw waited to deliver up Jeanie Deans to his custody, she fled with all the despatch she could exert in an opposite direction. Thus the whole party were separated, and in rapid motion of flight or pursuit, excepting Ratcliffe and Jeanie, whom, although making no attempt to escape, he held fast by the cloak, and who remained standing by Muschatís Cairn.

CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.

You have paid the heavens your function,
and the prisoner the very debt of your calling.
Measure for Measure.

Jeanie Deans,--for here our story unites itself with that part of the narrative which broke off at the end of the fourteenth chapter,--while she waited, in terror and amazement, the hasty advance of three or four men towards her, was yet more startled at their suddenly breaking asunder, and giving chase in different directions to the late object of her terror, who became at that moment, though she could not well assign a reasonable cause, rather the cause of her interest. One of the party (it was Sharpitlaw) came straight up to her, and saying, “Your name is Jeanie Deans, and you are my prisoner,” immediately added, “But if you will tell me which way he ran I will let you go.”

“I dinna ken, sir,” was all the poor girl could utter; and, indeed, it is the phrase which rises most readily to the lips of any person in her rank, as the readiest reply to any embarrassing question.

“But,” said Sharpitlaw, “ye _ken_ wha it was ye were speaking wií, my leddy, on the hill side, and midnight sae near; ye surely ken _that,_ my bonny woman?”

“I dinna ken, sir,” again iterated Jeanie, who really did not comprehend in her terror the nature of the questions which were so hastily put to her in this moment of surprise.

“We will try to mend your memory by and by, hinny,” said Sharpitlaw, and shouted, as we have already told the reader, to Ratcliffe, to come up and take charge of her, while he himself directed the chase after Robertson, which he still hoped might be successful. As Ratcliffe approached, Sharpitlaw pushed the young woman towards him with some rudeness, and betaking himself to the more important object of his quest, began to scale crags and scramble up steep banks, with an agility of which his profession and his general gravity of demeanour would previously have argued him incapable. In a few minutes there was no one within sight, and only a distant halloo from one of the pursuers to the other, faintly heard on the side of the hill, argued that there was any one within hearing. Jeanie Deans was left in the clear moonlight, standing under the guard of a person of whom she knew nothing, and, what was worse, concerning whom, as the reader is well aware, she could have learned nothing that would not have increased her terror.

When all in the distance was silent, Ratcliffe for the first time addressed her, and it was in that cold sarcastic indifferent tone familiar to habitual depravity, whose crimes are instigated by custom rather than by passion. “This is a braw night for ye, dearie,” he said, attempting to pass his arm across her shoulder, “to be on the green hill wií your jo.” Jeanie extricated herself from his grasp, but did not make any reply.

“I think lads and lasses,” continued the ruffian, “dinna meet at Muschatís Cairn at midnight to crack nuts,” and he again attempted to take hold of her.

“If ye are an officer of justice, sir,” said Jeanie, again eluding his attempt to seize her, “ye deserve to have your coat stripped from your back.”

“Very true, hinny,” said he, succeeding forcibly in his attempt to get hold of her, “but suppose I should strip your cloak off first?”

“Ye are more a man, I am sure, than to hurt me, sir,” said Jeanie; “for Godís sake have pity on a half-distracted creature!”

“Come, come,” said Ratcliffe, “youíre a good-looking wench, and should not be cross-grained. I was going to be an honest man--but the devil has this very day flung first a lawyer, and then a woman, in my gate. Iíll tell you what, Jeanie, they are out on the hill-side--if youíll be guided by me, Iíll carry you to a wee bit corner in the Pleasance, that I ken oí in an auld wifeís, that aí the prokitors oí Scotland wot naething oí, and weíll send Robertson word to meet us in Yorkshire, for there is a set oí braw lads about the midland counties, that I hae dune business wií before now, and sae weíll leave Mr. Sharpitlaw to whistle on his thumb.”

It was fortunate for Jeanie, in an emergency like the present, that she possessed presence of mind and courage, so soon as the first hurry of surprise had enabled her to rally her recollection. She saw the risk she was in from a ruffian, who not only was such by profession, but had that evening been stupifying, by means of strong liquors, the internal aversion which he felt at the business on which Sharpitlaw had resolved to employ him.

“Dinna speak sae loud,” said she, in a low voice; “heís up yonder.”

“Who?--Robertson?” said Ratcliffe, eagerly.

“Ay,” replied Jeanie; “up yonder;” and she pointed to the ruins of the hermitage and chapel.

“By G--d, then,” said Ratcliffe, “Iíll make my ain of him, either one way or other--wait for me here.”

But no sooner had he set off as fast as he could run, towards the chapel, than Jeanie started in an opposite direction, over high and low, on the nearest path homeward. Her juvenile exercise as a herdswoman had put “life and mettle” in her heels, and never had she followed Dustiefoot, when the cows were in the corn, with half so much speed as she now cleared the distance betwixt Muschatís Cairn and her fatherís cottage at St. Leonardís. To lift the latch--to enter--to shut, bolt, and double bolt the door--to draw against it a heavy article of furniture (which she could not have moved in a moment of less energy), so as to make yet farther provision against violence, was almost the work of a moment, yet done with such silence as equalled the celerity.

Her next anxiety was upon her fatherís account, and she drew silently to the door of his apartment, in order to satisfy herself whether he had been disturbed by her return. He was awake,--probably had slept but little; but the constant presence of his own sorrows, the distance of his apartment from the outer door of the house, and the precautions which Jeanie had taken to conceal her departure and return, had prevented him from being sensible of either. He was engaged in his devotions, and Jeanie could distinctly hear him use these words:--“And for the other child thou hast given me to be a comfort and stay to my old age, may her days be long in the land, according to the promise thou hast given to those who shall honour father and mother; may all her purchased and promised blessings be multiplied upon her; keep her in the watches of the night, and in the uprising of the morning, that all in this land may know that thou hast not utterly hid thy face from those that seek thee in truth and in sincerity.” He was silent, but probably continued his petition in the strong fervency of mental devotion.

His daughter retired to her apartment, comforted, that while she was exposed to danger, her head had been covered by the prayers of the just as by an helmet, and under the strong confidence, that while she walked worthy of the protection of Heaven, she would experience its countenance. It was in that moment that a vague idea first darted across her mind, that something might yet be achieved for her sisterís safety, conscious as she now was of her innocence of the unnatural murder with which she stood charged. It came, as she described it, on her mind, like a sun-blink on a stormy sea; and although it instantly vanished, yet she felt a degree of composure which she had not experienced for many days, and could not help being strongly persuaded that, by some means or other, she would be called upon, and directed, to work out her sisterís deliverance. She went to bed, not forgetting her usual devotions, the more fervently made on account of her late deliverance, and she slept soundly in spite of her agitation.

We must return to Ratcliffe, who had started, like a greyhound from the slips when the sportsman cries halloo, as soon as Jeanie had pointed to the ruins. Whether he meant to aid Robertsonís escape, or to assist his pursuers, may be very doubtful; perhaps he did not himself know but had resolved to be guided by circumstances. He had no opportunity, however, of doing either; for he had no sooner surmounted the steep ascent, and entered under the broken arches of the rains, than a pistol was presented at his head, and a harsh voice commanded him, in the kingís name, to surrender himself prisoner. “Mr. Sharpitlaw!” said Ratcliffe, surprised, “is this your honour?”

“Is it only you, and be d--d to you?” answered the fiscal, still more disappointed--“what made you leave the woman?”

“She told me she saw Robertson go into the ruins, so I made what haste I could to cleek the callant.”

“Itís all over now,” said Sharpitlaw; “we shall see no more of him to-night; but he shall hide himself in a bean-hool, if he remains on Scottish ground without my finding him. Call back the people, Ratcliffe.”

Ratcliffe hollowed to the dispersed officers, who willingly obeyed the signal; for probably there was no individual among them who would have been much desirous of a rencontre, hand to hand, and at a distance from his comrades, with such an active and desperate fellow as Robertson.

“And where are the two women?” said Sharpitlaw.

“Both made their heels serve them, I suspect,” replied Ratcliffe, and he hummed the end of the old song--

“Then hey play up the rin-awa bride,
For she has taen the gee.”

“One woman,” said Sharpitlaw,--for, like all rogues, he was a great calumniator of the fair sex,*--“one woman is enough to dark the fairest ploy that was ever planned; and how could I be such an ass as to expect to carry through a job that had two in it?

* Note L. Calumniator of the Fair Sex.

But we know how to come by them both, if they are wanted, thatís one good thing.”

Accordingly, like a defeated general, sad and sulky, he led back his discomfited forces to the metropolis, and dismissed them for the night.

The next morning early, he was under the necessity of making his report to the sitting magistrate of the day. The gentleman who occupied the chair of office on this occasion (for the bailies, _Angliceí,_ aldermen, take it by rotation) chanced to be the same by whom Butler was committed, a person very generally respected among his fellow-citizens. Something he was of a humorist, and rather deficient in general education; but acute, patient, and upright, possessed of a fortune acquired by honest industry which made him perfectly independent; and, in short, very happily qualified to support the respectability of the office, which he held.

Mr. Middleburgh had just taken his seat, and was debating in an animated manner, with one of his colleagues, the doubtful chances of a game at golf which they had played the day before, when a letter was delivered to him, addressed “For Bailie Middleburgh; These: to be forwarded with speed.” It contained these words:--

“Sir,--I know you to be a sensible and a considerate magistrate, and one who, as such, will be content to worship God, though the devil bid you. I therefore expect that, notwithstanding the signature of this letter acknowledges my share in an action, which, in a proper time and place, I would not fear either to avow or to justify, you will not on that account reject what evidence I place before you. The clergyman, Butler, is innocent of all but involuntary presence at an action which he wanted spirit to approve of, and from which he endeavoured, with his best set phrases, to dissuade us. But it was not for him that it is my hint to speak. There is a woman in your jail, fallen under the edge of a law so cruel, that it has hung by the wall like unsecured armour, for twenty years, and is now brought down and whetted to spill the blood of the most beautiful and most innocent creature whom the walls of a prison ever girdled in. Her sister knows of her innocence, as she communicated to her that she was betrayed by a villain.--O that high Heaven

Would put in every honest hand a whip,
To scourge me such a villain through the world!

“I write distractedly--But this girl--this Jeanie Deans, is a peevish puritan, superstitious and scrupulous after the manner of her sect; and I pray your honour, for so my phrase must go, to press upon her, that her sisterís life depends upon her testimony. But though she should remain silent, do not dare to think that the young woman is guilty--far less to permit her execution. Remember the death of Wilson was fearfully avenged; and those yet live who can compel you to drink the dregs of your poisoned chalice.--I say, remember Porteous, and say that you had good counsel from “One of his Slayers.”

The magistrate read over this extraordinary letter twice or thrice. At first he was tempted to throw it aside as the production of a madman, so little did “the scraps from play-books,” as he termed the poetical quotation, resemble the correspondence of a rational being. On a re-perusal, however, he thought that, amid its incoherence, he could discover something like a tone of awakened passion, though expressed in a manner quaint and unusual.

“It is a cruelly severe statute,” said the magistrate to his assistant, “and I wish the girl could be taken from under the letter of it. A child may have been born, and it may have been conveyed away while the mother was insensible, or it may have perished for want of that relief which the poor creature herself--helpless, terrified, distracted, despairing, and exhausted--may have been unable to afford to it. And yet it is certain, if the woman is found guilty under the statute, execution will follow. The crime has been too common, and examples are necessary.”

“But if this other wench,” said the city-clerk, “can speak to her sister communicating her situation, it will take the case from under the statute.”

“Very true,” replied the Bailie; “and I will walk out one of these days to St. Leonardís, and examine the girl myself. I know something of their father Deans--an old true-blue Cameronian, who would see house and family go to wreck ere he would disgrace his testimony by a sinful complying with the defections of the times; and such he will probably uphold the taking an oath before a civil magistrate. If they are to go on and flourish with their bull-headed obstinacy, the legislature must pass an act to take their affirmations, as in the case of Quakers. But surely neither a father nor a sister will scruple in a case of this kind. As I said before, I will go speak with them myself, when the hurry of this Porteous investigation is somewhat over; their pride and spirit of contradiction will be far less alarmed, than if they were called into a court of justice at once.”

“And I suppose Butler is to remain incarcerated?” said the city-clerk.

“For the present, certainly,” said the magistrate. “But I hope soon to set him at liberty upon bail.”

“Do you rest upon the testimony of that light-headed letter?” asked the clerk.

“Not very much,” answered the Bailie; “and yet there is something striking about it too--it seems the letter of a man beside himself, either from great agitation, or some great sense of guilt.”

“Yes,” said the town-clerk, “it is very like the letter of a mad strolling play-actor, who deserves to be hanged with all the rest of his gang, as your honour justly observes.”

“I was not quite so bloodthirsty,” continued the magistrate. “But to the point, Butlerís private character is excellent; and I am given to understand, by some inquiries I have been making this morning, that he did actually arrive in town only the day before yesterday, so that it was impossible he could have been concerned in any previous machinations of these unhappy rioters, and it is not likely that he should have joined them on a suddenty.”

“Thereís no saying anent that--zeal catches fire at a slight spark as fast as a brunstane match,” observed the secretary. “I hae kend a minister wad be fair gude-day and fair gude-eíen wií ilka man in the parochine, and hing just as quiet as a rocket on a stick, till ye mentioned the word abjuration-oath, or patronage, or siclike, and then, whiz, he was off, and up in the air an hundred miles beyond common manners, common sense, and common comprehension.”

“I do not understand,” answered the burgher-magistrate, “that the young man Butlerís zeal is of so inflammable a character. But I will make farther investigation. What other business is there before us?”

And they proceeded to minute investigations concerning the affair of Porteousís death, and other affairs through which this history has no occasion to trace them.

In the course of their business they were interrupted by an old woman of the lower rank, extremely haggard in look, and wretched in her appearance, who thrust herself into the council room.

“What do you want, gudewife?--Who are you?” said Bailie Middleburgh.

“What do I want!” replied she, in a sulky tone--“I want my bairn, or I want naething frae nane oí ye, for as grandís ye are.” And she went on muttering to herself with the wayward spitefulness of age--“They maun hae lordships and honours, nae doubt--set them up, the gutter-bloods! and deil a gentleman amang them.”--Then again addressing the sitting magistrate, “Will _your honour_ gie me back my puir crazy bairn?--_His_ honour!--I hae kend the day when less wad seríd him, the oe of a Campvere skipper.”

“Good woman,” said the magistrate to this shrewish supplicant--“tell us what it is you want, and do not interrupt the court.”

“Thatís as muckle as till say, Bark, Bawtie, and be dune wiít!--I tell ye,” raising her termagant voice, “I want my bairn! is na that braid Scots?”

“Who _are_ you?--who is your bairn?” demanded the magistrate.

“Wha am I?--wha suld I be, but Meg Murdockson, and wha suld my bairn be but Magdalen Murdockson?--Your guard soldiers, and your constables, and your officers, ken us weel eneugh when they rive the bits oí duds aff our backs, and take what penny oí siller we hae, and harle us to the Correctionhouse in Leith Wynd, and pettle us up wií bread and water and siclike sunkets.”

“Who is she?” said the magistrate, looking round to some of his people.

“Other than a gude ane, sir,” said one of the city officers, shrugging his shoulders and smiling.

“Will ye say sae?” said the termagant, her eye gleaming with impotent fury; “an I had ye amang the Figgat-Whins,* wadna I set my ten talents in your wuzzent face for that very word?” and she suited the word to the action, by spreading out a set of claws resembling those of St. Georgeís dragon on a country sign-post.

* [This was a name given to a tract of sand hillocks extending along the sea-shore from Leith to Portobello, and which at this time were covered with _whin_-bushes or furze.]

“What does she want here?” said the impatient magistrate--“Can she not tell her business, or go away?”

“Itís my bairn!--itís Magdalen Murdockson Iím wantiní,” answered the beldam, screaming at the highest pitch of her cracked and mistuned voice--“havena I been telling ye sae this half-hour? And if ye are deaf, what needs ye sit cockit up there, and keep folk scraughiní tíye this gate?”

“She wants her daughter, sir,” said the same officer whose interference had given the hag such offence before--“her daughter, who was taken up last night--Madge Wildfire, as they caí her.”

“Madge Hellfire, as they caí her!” echoed the beldam “and what business has a blackguard like you to caí an honest womanís bairn out oí her ain name?”

“An _honest_ womanís bairn, Maggie?” answered the peace-officer, smiling and shaking his head with an ironical emphasis on the adjective, and a calmness calculated to provoke to madness the furious old shrew.

“If I am no honest now, I was honest ance,” she replied; “and thatís mair than ye can say, ye born and bred thief, that never kend ither folksí gear frae your ain since the day ye was cleckit. Honest, say ye?--ye pykit your motherís pouch oí twalpennies Scots when ye were five years auld, just as she was taking leave oí your father at the fit oí the gallows.”

“She has you there, George,” said the assistants, and there was a general laugh; for the wit was fitted for the meridian of the place where it was uttered. This general applause somewhat gratified the passions of the old hag; the “grim feature” smiled and even laughed--but it was a laugh of bitter scorn. She condescended, however, as if appeased by the success of her sally, to explain her business more distinctly, when the magistrate, commanding silence, again desired her either to speak out her errand, or to leave the place.

“Her bairn,” she said, “_was_ her bairn, and she came to fetch her out of ill haft and waur guiding. If she wasna sae wise as ither folk, few ither folk had suffered as muckle as she had done; forby that she could fend the waur for hersell within the four waís of a jail. She could prove by fifty witnesses, and fifty to that, that her daughter had never seen Jock Porteous, alive or dead, since he had gien her a laundering wií his cane, the neger that he was! for driving a dead cat at the provostís wig on the Elector of Hanoverís birthday.”

Notwithstanding the wretched appearance and violent demeanour of this woman, the magistrate felt the justice of her argument, that her child might be as dear to her as to a more fortunate and more amiable mother. He proceeded to investigate the circumstances which had led to Madge Murdocksonís (or Wildfireís) arrest, and as it was clearly shown that she had not been engaged in the riot, he contented himself with directing that an eye should be kept upon her by the police, but that for the present she should be allowed to return home with her mother. During the interval of fetching Madge from the jail, the magistrate endeavoured to discover whether her mother had been privy to the change of dress betwixt that young woman and Robertson. But on this point he could obtain no light. She persisted in declaring, that she had never seen Robertson since his remarkable escape during service-time; and that, if her daughter had changed clothes with him, it must have been during her absence at a hamlet about two miles out of town, called Duddingstone, where she could prove that she passed that eventful night. And, in fact, one of the town-officers, who had been searching for stolen linen at the cottage of a washer-woman in that village, gave his evidence, that he had seen Maggie Murdockson there, whose presence had considerably increased his suspicion of the house in which she was a visitor, in respect that he considered her as a person of no good reputation.

“I tauld ye sae,” said the hag; “see now what it is to hae a character, gude or bad!--Now, maybe, after aí, I could tell ye something about Porteous that you council-chamber bodies never could find out, for as muckle stir as ye mak.”

All eyes were turned towards her--all ears were alert. “Speak out!” said the magistrate.

“It will be for your ain gude,” insinuated the town-clerk.

“Dinna keep the Bailie waiting,” urged the assistants.

She remained doggedly silent for two or three minutes, casting around a malignant and sulky glance, that seemed to enjoy the anxious suspense with which they waited her answer. And then she broke forth at once,--“Aí that I ken about him is, that he was neither soldier nor gentleman, but just a thief and a blackguard, like maist oí yoursells, dears--What will ye gie me for that news, now?--He wad hae served the gude town lang or provost or bailie wad hae fund that out, my jo!”

While these matters were in discussion, Madge Wildfire entered, and her first exclamation was, “Eh! see if there isna our auld neíer-do-weel deevilís-buckie oí a mither--Hegh, sirs! but we are a hopeful family, to be twa oí us in the Guard at ance--But there were better days wií us ance--were there na, mither?”

Old Maggieís eyes had glistened with something like an expression of pleasure when she saw her daughter set at liberty. But either her natural affection, like that of the tigress, could not be displayed without a strain of ferocity, or there was something in the ideas which Madgeís speech awakened, that again stirred her cross and savage temper. “What signifies what we, were, ye street-raking limmer!” she exclaimed, pushing her daughter before her to the door, with no gentle degree of violence. “Iíse tell thee what thou is now--thouís a crazed hellicat Bess oí Bedlam, that sall taste naething but bread and water for a fortnight, to serve ye for the plague ye hae gien me--and ower gude for ye, ye idle taupie!”

Madge, however, escaped from her mother at the door, ran back to the foot of the table, dropped a very low and fantastic courtesy to the judge, and said, with a giggling laugh,--“Our minnieís sair mis-set, after her ordinar, sir--Sheíll hae had some quarrel wií her auld gudeman--thatís Satan, ye ken, sirs.” This explanatory note she gave in a low confidential tone, and the spectators of that credulous generation did not hear it without an involuntary shudder. “The gudeman and her disna aye gree weel, and then I maun pay the piper; but my backís broad eneugh to bearít aí--aní if she hae nae havings, thatís nae reason why wiser folk shouldna hae some.” Here another deep courtesy, when the ungracious voice of her mother was heard.

“Madge, ye limmer! If I come to fetch ye!”

“Hear till her,” said Madge. “But Iíll wun out a gliff the night for aí that, to dance in the moonlight, when her and the gudeman will be whirrying through the blue lift on a broom-shank, to see Jean Jap, that they hae putten intill the Kirkcaldy Tolbooth--ay, they will hae a merry sail ower Inchkeith, and ower aí the bits oí bonny waves that are poppling and plashing against the rocks in the gowden glimmer oí the moon, ye ken.--Iím coming, mother--Iím coming,” she concluded, on hearing a scuffle at the door betwixt the beldam and the officers, who were endeavouring to prevent her re-entrance. Madge then waved her hand wildly towards the ceiling, and sung, at the topmost pitch of her voice,

“Up in the air,
On my bonny grey mare,
And I see, and I see, and I see her yet;”

and with a hop, skip, and jump, sprung out of the room, as the witches of Macbeth used, in less refined days, to seem to fly upwards from the stage.

Some weeks intervened before Mr. Middleburgh, agreeably to his benevolent resolution, found an opportunity of taking a walk towards St. Leonardís, in order to discover whether it might be possible to obtain the evidence hinted at in the anonymous letter respecting Effie Deans.

In fact, the anxious perquisitions made to discover the murderers of Porteous occupied the attention of all concerned with the administration of justice.

In the course of these inquiries, two circumstances happened material to our story. Butler, after a close investigation of his conduct, was declared innocent of accession to the death of Porteous; but, as having been present during the whole transaction, was obliged to find bail not to quit his usual residence at Liberton, that he might appear as a witness when called upon. The other incident regarded the disappearance of Madge Wildfire and her mother from Edinburgh. When they were sought, with the purpose of subjecting them to some farther interrogatories, it was discovered by Mr. Sharpitlaw that they had eluded the observation of the police, and left the city so soon as dismissed from the council-chamber. No efforts could trace the place of their retreat.

In the meanwhile the excessive indignation of the Council of Regency, at the slight put upon their authority by the murder of Porteous, had dictated measures, in which their own extreme desire of detecting the actors in that conspiracy were consulted in preference to the temper of the people and the character of their churchmen. An act of Parliament was hastily passed, offering two hundred pounds reward to those who should inform against any person concerned in the deed, and the penalty of death, by a very unusual and severe enactment, was denounced against those who should harbour the guilty. But what was chiefly accounted exceptionable, was a clause, appointing the act to be read in churches by the officiating clergyman, on the first Sunday of every month, for a certain period, immediately before the sermon. The ministers who should refuse to comply with this injunction were declared, for the first offence, incapable of sitting or voting in any church judicature, and for the second, incapable of holding any ecclesiastical preferment in Scotland.

This last order united in a common cause those who might privately rejoice in Porteousís death, though they dared not vindicate the manner of it, with the more scrupulous Presbyterians, who held that even the pronouncing the name of the “Lords Spiritual” in a Scottish pulpit was, _quodammodo,_ an acknowledgment of prelacy, and that the injunction of the legislature was an interference of the civil government with the _jus divinum_ of Presbytery, since to the General Assembly alone, as representing the invisible head of the kirk, belonged the sole and exclusive right of regulating whatever pertained to public worship. Very many also, of different political or religious sentiments, and therefore not much moved by these considerations, thought they saw, in so violent an act of parliament, a more vindictive spirit than became the legislature of a great country, and something like an attempt to trample upon the rights and independence of Scotland. The various steps adopted for punishing the city of Edinburgh, by taking away her charter and liberties, for what a violent and overmastering mob had done within her walls, were resented by many, who thought a pretext was too hastily taken for degrading the ancient metropolis of Scotland. In short, there was much heart-burning, discontent, and disaffection, occasioned by these ill-considered measures.*

* The magistrates were closely interrogated before the House of Peers, concerning the particulars of the Porteous Mob, and the _patois_ in which these functionaries made their answers, sounded strange in the ears of the Southern nobles. The Duke of Newcastle having demanded to know with what kind of shot the guard which Porteous commanded had loaded their muskets, was answered, naively, “Ow, just sic as ane shoots _dukes and fools_ with.” This reply was considered as a contempt of the House of Lords, and the Provost would have suffered accordingly, but that the Duke of Argyle explained, that the expression, properly rendered into English, meant _ducks and waterfowls._

Amidst these heats and dissensions, the trial of Effie Deans, after she had been many weeks imprisoned, was at length about to be brought forward, and Mr. Middleburgh found leisure to inquire into the evidence concerning her. For this purpose, he chose a fine day for his walk towards her fatherís house.

The excursion into the country was somewhat distant, in the opinion of a burgess of those days, although many of the present inhabit suburban villas considerably beyond the spot to which we allude. Three-quarters of an hourís walk, however, even at a pace of magisterial gravity, conducted our benevolent office-bearer to the Crags of St. Leonardís, and the humble mansion of David Deans.

The old man was seated on the deas, or turf-seat, at the end of his cottage, busied in mending his cart-harness with his own hands; for in those days any sort of labour which required a little more skill than usual fell to the share of the goodman himself, and that even when he was well to pass in the world. With stern and austere gravity he persevered in his task, after having just raised his head to notice the advance of the stranger. It would have been impossible to have discovered, from his countenance and manner, the internal feelings of agony with which he contended. Mr. Middleburgh waited an instant, expecting Deans would in some measure acknowledge his presence, and lead into conversation; but, as he seemed determined to remain silent, he was himself obliged to speak first.

“My name is Middleburgh--Mr. James Middleburgh, one of the present magistrates of the city of Edinburgh.”

“It may be sae,” answered Deans laconically, and without interrupting his labour.

“You must understand,” he continued, “that the duty of a magistrate is sometimes an unpleasant one.”

“It may be sae,” replied David; “I hae naething to say in the contrair;” and he was again doggedly silent.

“You must be aware,” pursued the magistrate, “that persons in my situation are often obliged to make painful and disagreeable inquiries of individuals, merely because it is their bounden duty.”

“It may be sae,” again replied Deans; “I hae naething to say anent it, either the tae way or the tíother. But I do ken there was ance in a day a just and God-fearing magistracy in yon town oí Edinburgh, that did not bear the sword in vain, but were a terror to evil-doers, and a praise to such as kept the path. In the glorious days of auld worthy faithfuí Provost Dick,* when there was a true and faithfuí General Assembly of

* Note M. Sir William Dick of Braid.

the Kirk, walking hand in hand with the real noble Scottish-hearted barons, and with the magistrates of this and other towns, gentles, burgesses, and commons of all ranks, seeing with one eye, hearing with one ear, and upholding the ark with their united strength--And then folk might see men deliver up their silver to the stateís use, as if it had been as muckle sclate stanes. My father saw them toom the sacks of dollars out oí Provost Dickís window intill the carts that carried them to the army at Dunse Law; and if ye winna believe his testimony, there is the window itsell still standing in the Luckenbooths--I think itís a claith-merchantís booth the day*--at the airn stanchells, five doors abune Gossfordís Close.

* I think so too--But if the reader be curious, he may consult Mr. Chambersís Traditions of Edinburgh.

--But now we haena sic spirit amang us; we think mair about the warst wallydraigle in our ain byre, than about the blessing which the angel of the covenant gave to the Patriarch even at Peniel and Mahanaim, or the binding obligation of our national vows; and we wad rather gie a pund Scots to buy an unguent to clear out auld rannell-trees and our beds oí the English bugs as they caí them, than we wad gie a plack to rid the land of the swarm of Arminian caterpillars, Socinian pismires, and deistical Miss Katies, that have ascended out of the bottomless pit, to plague this perverse, insidious, and lukewarm generation.”

It happened to Davie Deans on this occasion, as it has done to many other habitual orators; when once he became embarked on his favourite subject, the stream of his own enthusiasm carried him forward in spite of his mental distress, while his well-exercised memory supplied him amply with all the types and tropes of rhetoric peculiar to his sect and cause.

Mr. Middleburgh contented himself with answering--“All this may be very true, my friend; but, as you said just now, I have nothing to say to it at present, either one way or other.--You have two daughters, I think, Mr. Deans?”

The old man winced, as one whose smarting sore is suddenly galled; but instantly composed himself, resumed the work which, in the heat of his declamation, he had laid down, and answered with sullen resolution, “Ae daughter, sir--only _ane._”

“I understand you,” said Mr. Middleburgh; “you have only one daughter here at home with you--but this unfortunate girl who is a prisoner--she is, I think, your youngest daughter?”

The Presbyterian sternly raised his eyes. “After the world, and according to the flesh, she _is_ my daughter; but when she became a child of Belial, and a company-keeper, and a trader in guilt and iniquity, she ceased to be a bairn of mine.”

“Alas, Mr. Deans,” said Middleburgh, sitting down by him, and endeavouring to take his hand, which the old man proudly withdrew, “we are ourselves all sinners; and the errors of our offspring, as they ought not to surprise us, being the portion which they derive of a common portion of corruption inherited through us, so they do not entitle us to cast them off because they have lost themselves.”

“Sir,” said Deans impatiently, “I ken aí that as weel as--I mean to say,” he resumed, checking the irritation he felt at being schooled--a discipline of the mind which those most ready to bestow it on others do themselves most reluctantly submit to receive--“I mean to say, that what ye o serve may be just and reasonable--But I hae nae freedom to enter into my ain private affairs wií strangers--And now, in this great national emergency, When thereís the Porteousí Act has come doun frae London, that is a deeper blow to this poor sinfuí kingdom and suffering kirk than ony that has been heard of since the foul and fatal Test--at a time like this--”

“But, goodman,” interrupted Mr. Middleburgh, “you must think of your own household first, or else you are worse even than the infidels.”

“I tell ye, Bailie Middleburgh,” retorted David Deans, “if ye be a bailie, as there is little honour in being ane in these evil days--I tell ye, I heard the gracious Saunders Peden--I wotna whan it was; but it was in killing time, when the plowers were drawing alang their furrows on the back of the Kirk of Scotland--I heard him tell his hearers, gude and waled Christians they were too, that some oí them wad greet mair for a bit drowned calf or stirk than for aí the defections and oppressions of the day; and that they were some oí them thinking oí ae thing, some oí anither, and there was Lady Hundleslope thinking oí greeting Jock at the fireside! And the lady confessed in my hearing that a drow of anxiety had come ower her for her son that she had left at hame weak of a decay*--And what wad he hae said of me if I had ceased to think of the gude cause for a castaway--a--It kills me to think of what she is!”

* See _Life of Peden,_ p. 14.

“But the life of your child, goodman--think of that--if her life could be saved,” said Middleburgh.

“Her life!” exclaimed David--“I wadna gie ane oí my grey hairs for her life, if her gude name be gane--And yet,” said he, relenting and retracting as he spoke, “I wad make the niffer, Mr. Middleburgh--I wad gie aí these grey hairs that she has brought to shame and sorrow--I wad gie the auld head they grow on for her life, and that she might hae time to amend and return, for what hae the wicked beyond the breath of their nosthrils?--but Iíll never see her mair--No!--that--that I am determined in--Iíll never see her mair!” His lips continued to move for a minute after his voice ceased to be heard, as if he were repeating the same vow internally.

“Well, sir,” said Mr. Middleburgh, “I speak to you as a man of sense; if you would save your daughterís life, you must use human means.”