Chapter III: Part 3

"Oh, a capital thing to save life; but you know her life was not saved. She died and was buried, and has been taken up; and I suspect it was not your jalap that was found in the body. But what interest had you in being so very kind to the woman who was to bring shame on your family by bearing a child to your son?"

"I never knew she was in that way; but though I had known it, I could not have taken away her life."

"Then, who gave her the poison?"

"I do not know."

"And cannot even suspect any one?"

"No."

"Good-bye!" he said, as he started up and hurried away; muttering to himself, as the jailer undid the bolts, "Always the same!--the women are always innocent; and yet we see them stretching ropes other than clothes' ropes every now and then."

Defeated, but as little discomfited, as we might gather from his pithy soliloquy, his next step was to double up, as he termed it, the authorities, who, he knew, would never have gone the length of apprehending the woman without having got hold of evidence sufficient to justify Sir William Rae, the Lord Advocate, a considerate and prudent man, that the charge lay heavy on the prisoner. He had no right of access, at this stage, to the names of the intended witnesses; but to a man of his activity it is no difficult matter to find these out, from the natural garrulity of the people, and a kind of self-importance in being a Crown testimony. Then to find them out was next to drawing them out; for it may be safely said for our writer that there was no man, from the time of John Wilkes, who could exercise a more winning persuasion. One by one he ferreted them out, wheedled, threatened, adjured, but found himself resisted in every attempt to break them down or to turn them to him. At every stage of his inquiry he saw the case for the prisoner assuming a dark aspect--as dark, he so termed it, as the face of a hanged culprit.

"The beagles have got a track. There are more foxes in the cover than one; and shall it be said I, David M----, cannot beat out another as stimulating to the nose?"

In a quarter of an hour after having made this observation to himself, he was posting on horseback to the farm of D----, where he arrived in as short a time as he generally took on his journeys.

"I am afraid to ask you for intelligence," said the farmer, as he stood by the horse's side, and addressed the writer, who kept his seat.

"Get me two and five-eighths of a glass of whisky in a jug of milk, and I'll tell you then what I want. I have no time to dismount."

The farmer complied.

"The case looks ugly," said the writer, as he handed back the jug. "These witnesses would hang a calendared saint of a hundred miracles. Are any tramps in the habit of coming about you?"

"Too many."

"Do you know any of them?"

"Scarcely--not by name."

"Any women?--never mind the men," said the writer impatiently.

"Yes; there is one who used to come often; she sold small things."

"Is that all you know of her? Has she no mark, man? Is her nose long or short? no squint, lame leg, or pock-pits?"

"She had usually a small cage, in which she kept a couple of white mice."

"White mice!" ejaculated the writer; "never was a better mark."

"You don't know her name?"

"No; nor do I think any of my present people do."

"When was she here last?"

"About a month ago."

"Anywhere near the time of the girl's death?"

"Ay, just about that time, or maybe a week before."

"And you can give me no trace of her?"

"None whatever, except that I think I saw her take to the east, in the way to Arbroath. But I do not see how she can be of any use."

"I don't want you to see that she can be of any use," said the writer, laughing; "but I want you to hear whereabout she is."

"I will try what I can," said the farmer.

"And let me know by some messenger who can ride as fast as I can." Then adding, "Gilderoy was saved by a _brown_ mouse, which gnawed the string by which the key of the jail door of Forfar hung on a nail, whereby the key fell to the ground, and was pulled by him through an opening at the bottom. Heard you ever the story?"

"No."

"But it's true, nevertheless. What would you say if a _white_ mouse, or two of them, should save the life of your wife?"

"I would say it was wonderful," replied the farmer, with eyes a-goggled by amazement.

"And so would I," answered Mr. M----, as he put the rowels into the side of his horse and began a hard trot, which he would not slacken till he was at the Cowgate port, and not even then, for he made his way generally through the streets of the town with equal rapidity, and always the safer that he was the "fresher."

On arriving at his office he sat down, and, without apparently any premeditation, unless what he had indulged in during his trot, wrote off with his usual rapidity four letters to the following effect:--"Dear Sir,--As agent for Mrs. S----, who now lies in our jail on a charge of murder, I request you will endeavour to find some trace of a woman who goes through the country with a cage and two white mice. Grave suspicions attach to her, as the person who administered the poison, and I wish your energies to be employed in aiding me to search her out." The letters were directed to agents in Arbroath, Forfar, Kirriemuir, and Montrose, and immediately committed to a clerk to be taken to the post-office, with a good-natured laugh on the lips of the writer--and, within the teeth, the little monologue--"The wrinkled skin easily conceals a scar."

From some source or another, probably the true one may be guessed, an _uberrima fides_ began to hang round a report that a new feature had spread over the face of Mrs. S----'s case; and that, in place of her being the guilty person, the culprit was a tramp, with white mice in a cage. Nor were the authorities long in being startled by the report; but where that woman was no one could tell, and a vague report was no foundation for authoritative action. But if it was not for a Lord Advocate to seek out or hunt after white mice, that was no reason why the prisoner's agent should not condescend to so very humble an office; and, accordingly, two days after the despatch of the letters I have mentioned, the same horse that carried the writer on the former occasion, and knew so well the prick of his rowels, was ready saddled at the door of the office. The head of the agent was instantly drawn out of some other deep well of legal truth, some score of directions given to clerks, and he was off on the road to Glammis, but not before some flash had shown him what he was to do when he got there. The same rapid trot was commenced, and continued, to the great diminution of the sap of the animal, until the place he was destined for loomed before him. He now commenced inquiries upon inquiries. Every traveller was questioned, every door got a touch of his whip, until at length he got a trace, and he was again in full pursuit. I think it is Suidas who says that these pretty little animals, called white mice, are very amatory, and have a strong odour, but this must be only to their mates. I doubt if even the nostrils of a writer are equal to this perception, whatever sense they may possess in the case of pigeons with a pluckable covering. But, however this may be, it was soon observable that our pursuer had at least something in his eye. The spurs were active; and, by and by, he drew up at a small road-side change-house, into the kitchen of which he tumbled, without a premonitory question, and there, before him, sat the veritable mistress of these very white mice, spaeing the fortunes of some laughing girls, who saw the illuminated figures of their lovers in the future.[A]

"Can you read me _my_ fortune?" he said, in his own peculiar way.

"Na; I ken ye owre weel," was the quick reply, as she turned a pair of keen, grey eyes on him.

"Well, you'll speak to me at any rate," he said. "I have something to say to you."

And, going into the adjoining parlour, he called for a half-mutchkin. He needed some himself, and he knew the tramp was not an abstainer.

"Tell the woman to come ben," he said, as the man placed the whisky on the table.

"What can you want, Mr. M----, with that old, never-mend vagabond?"

"Perhaps an uncle has left her five hundred pounds," said the writer with a chuckle.

"Gude save us! the creature will go mad," said the man, as he went out, not knowing whether his guest was in humour or earnest.

But, whatever he said to the woman, there she was, presently, white mice and all, seated alongside of the writer, who could make a beggar or a baron at home with him, with equal ease, and in an equally short time.

"You're obliged to me, I think, if I can trust to a pretty long memory," he said, handing her a glass of the spirits.

"Ay; but it doesna need a lang memory to mind gi'en me this," she replied, not wishing any other reason for her obligation.

"And you've forgotten the pirn scrape?"

"The deil's in a lang memory; but I hinna," she replied, with more confidence, for by this time the whisky had disappeared in the accustomed bourne of departed spirits.

"Weel, it's a bad business that at your auld freend's at D----," said he, getting into his Scotch, for familiarity. "Hae ye heard?"

"Wha hasna heard? I kenned the lassie brawly; but I didna like her--she was never gude to a puir cratur like me."

"But they say ye ken mair than ither folk?" said he.

"Maybe I do," replied the woman, getting proud of the impeachment. "Hae we nae lugs and een, ay, and stamachs, like ither folk?"

"And could ye do naething to save this puir woman, the wife o' a gude buirdly man, wi' an open hand to your kin, and the mither o' a family?"

"I care naething about her being the wife o' a man, or the mither o' a family; but I ken what I ken."

"And sometimes what ye dinna ken, when you tell the lasses o' their lovers ye never saw."

"The deil tak their louping hearts into his hand for silly gawkies; if they werena a' red-wood about lads, they wadna heed me a whistle. But though I might try to get Mrs. S----'s head out o' the loop, I wadna like to put my ain in."

"I'll tak gude care o' that," said the writer. "I got ye out o' a scrape before."

"Weel than----"

"And weel than," echoed he.

"And better than weel than; suppose I swore I did it mysel'--and maybe I did; that's no your business--they wadna hang a puir wretch like me for her ain words, wad they, when there's nae proof I did it but my ain tongue?"

"No likely," replied he; "and then a hunder gowden guineas as a present, no as a bribe----"

"I want nae bribes--I gie value for my fortunes. If it's wind, wind is the breath o' life; a present!"

"Would make your een jump," added he, finishing his sentence.

"Jump! ay, loup! Whar are they?"

"You'll get the half when you come into the town, and the other when Mrs. S----is safe. You will ca' at my office on Wednesday; and, after that, I'll tak care o' you. In the meantime, ye maun sell your mice."

"Geordie Cameron offered me five shillings for them; I'll gie them to him."

"No," replied the writer; "no to a _man_. Ken ye nae woman-tramp-will tak them, and show them about as you do?"

"Ou ay; I'll gie them to Meg Davidson, wha's to be here the night. But whaurfor no Geordie?"

"Never ye mind that, I ken the difference; and if Meg doesna give you the five shillings, I will."

"Well, buy them yoursel'," said the woman.

"Done," said he; "there's five guineas for them, and you can gie them to Meg as a present. Now, are ye firm?"

"Firm!" she cried, as she clutched the money, and gave a shrill laugh, from a nerve that was never softened by pity or penitence. "I think nae mair on't, man--sir, I mean, for ye proved yoursel' a gentleman to me afore--than I do now in spaeing twins to your wife at her next doun-lying."

A rap on the table, from the bottom of the pewter measure, brought in the landlord.

"Fill that again," said the writer.

And the man having re-entered with the pewter measure----

"You're to give this woman board and lodging for a day or two, and I will pay you before I start."

"That will be oot o' the five hundred frae her uncle," said the man, laughing. "She's my lady noo; but what will become o' the mice?"

"There's Meg Davidson passing the window e'en noo," said the woman.

"Send her in," said the writer to the change-house keeper.

The woman going under this name was immediately introduced by the man, with a kind of mock formality; for he could not get quit of the impression that his old customer had really succeeded to the five hundred pounds--a sum, in his estimation, sufficiently large to insure respect.

"Maggy," said the writer, "tak this chair, and here's a dram. What think ye?"

"I dinna ken."

"Ye're to get the twa white mice and the cage for naething, and this dram to boot."

Meg's face cleared up like a June sun come out in a burst.

"Na," she said; "ye're joking."

"But it's upon a condition," rejoined he.

"Weel, what is't--that I'm to feed them weel, and keep them clean?"

"You'll do that too," said he, laughing, "for they're valuable creatures, and bonny; but you're to say you've had them for a year."

"For twa, if you like," replied the woman; "a puir fusionless lee that, and no worth sending a body to the deil for."

"Here they are," said the tramp; "and you're to tak care o' them. They've been my staff for mony a day, and they're the only creatures on earth I care for and like; for they never said to me, 'Get out, ye wretch,' or banned me for a witch; but were aye sae happy wi' their pickles o' barley, and maybe a knot o' sugar, when I could get at a farmer's wife's bowl."

Even hags have pathetic moods. Meg was affected; and the writer, having appreciated the virtue, whispered in the ear of his _protegee_, "Seven o'clock on Wednesday night," and left them to the remainder of the whisky. At the door he settled with the man, and, mounting his horse, which he had ordered a bottle of strong ale for, in addition to his oats, he set off at his old trot.

"Now let the Crown blood-hounds catch Meg Davidson and her mice," he said, as he pushed on.

The writer was, no doubt, bent eagerly for home, but he seldom got to his intended destination, though we have given one or two examples of an uninterrupted course, without undergoing several stoppages, either from the sudden calls of business, which lay in every direction, or the seductions of conviviality, equally ubiquitous; and on this occasion he was hailed from the window of the inn by some ten-tumbler men of Forfar, whose plan for draining the loch, by making toddy of it, had not, to their discomfort, been realized, but who made due retaliation by very clean drainings elsewhere. The moment he heard the shout he understood the meaning thereof, because he knew the house, the locality, and the men; and Meg Davidson and her mice were passed into the wallet-bag of time, till he should give these revellers their satisfaction in a boon companion who could see them under the table, and then mount his horse, with a power of retention of his seat unexampled in a county famous for revolutions of heads as well as of bodies. Dismounting from his horse, he got his dinner, a meal he had expected at Dundee; and, in spite of the distance of fourteen miles which lay before him, he despatched tumbler after tumbler without being once tempted to the imprudence of letting out his extraordinary hunt, but rather with the prudence of sending, through his compotators, to the county town the fact that a woman who perambulated the country with white mice was really the murderer of the country girl. This statement he was able to make, even at that acme of his dithyrambics, when, as usual, he got upon the head of the table to make his speech of the evening. It was now eleven, and he had swallowed eight tumblers, yet he was comparatively steady when he mounted; and, though during the fourteen miles he swung like a well-ballasted barque in a gale of wind, he made sufficient headway to be home by half-past twelve.

Next morning, as ready and able as usual for the work of the day, he was at his desk about eleven, and when engaged with one client, while others were waiting to be despatched in the way in which he alone could discharge clients, he was waited on by a gentleman connected with the Crown Office. Having been yielded a preference, the official took his seat.

"I understand you are employed for Mrs. S----?" he said. "We have thought it necessary, as disinterested protectors of the lives of the king's subjects, to apprehend this woman. I need not say that our precognitions are our guarantee; but I have heard a report which would seem to impugn our discretion, if it do not shame our judgment, insomuch that, if it be true, we have seized the wrong person. Do you know anything of this woman with the white mice, who takes upon herself the burden of a self-accusation? Of course it is for you to help us to her as the salvation of your client."

"Too evident that for a parade of candour," replied Mr. M----. "Her name is Margaret Davidson. Her white companions will identify her. Her residence is where you may chance to find her."

"Very vague, considering your interest," replied the other. "Where did you find her?"

"Ask me first, my dear sir, whether I have found her. Perhaps not. If it is my interest to search her out, it is not less your duty to catch her. A vagrant with white mice is a kenspeckle, and surely you can have no difficulty in tracing her. I need scarcely add, that when you do find her, you will substitute her for my client, and make amends for the disgrace you have brought upon an innocent woman and a respectable family."

"I won't say that," replied the other, shaking his head. "The evidence against Mrs. S---- is too heavy to admit of our believing a vagrant, influenced by the desire of, perhaps, a paid martyrdom, or the excitement of a mania."

"Then, why ask me to help you to find her?"

"For our satisfaction as public officers."

"And to my detriment as a private agent."

"Not at all."

"Yes; if I choose to make her a witness for the defence, and leave the jury to judge of _paid_ martyrdom, or her real madness. Paid martyrdom!--paid by whom?"

"Not necessarily by you."

"But you want me to help you to be able to prove the bribe out of her own mouth, don't you?"

"Of course we would examine her."

"Yes, and cook her; but you must catch her first. Really, my dear sir, a very useful recipe in cuisine; and, hark ye, you can put the mice in the pan also. But, really, I am not bound, and cannot in justice be expected to do more. I have given you her name; and when had a culprit so peculiar and striking a designation as being the proprietor of a peripatetic menagerie?"

"Ridiculous!"

"Yes, _ridiculus mus_! But are you not the labouring mountain yourself, and do you not wish me to become the midwife?"

"I perceive I can make nothing of you," at length said the gentleman. "You either don't want to save your client, or the means you trust to cannot stand the test."

"God bless my soul!" roared the writer; "must I tell you again that I have given you her name and occupation? Even a cat, with nose-instinct put awry by the colour of the white race of victims, would smell her out."

Bowing the official to the door with these words, he was presently in some other ravelled web, which he disentangled with equal success and apparent ease; but, following him in his great scheme, we find him in the afternoon posting again to the farm. He found the farmer in the same collapse of hope, sitting in the arm-chair so long pressed by his wife, with his chin upon his breast, and his eyes dim and dead. The evidence had got piece by piece to his ear, paralyzing more and more the tissues of his brain; and hope had assumed the character of an impossibility in the moral world of God's government.

"You must cheer up," said the writer. "Come, some milk and whisky. Move about; I have got good news for you, but cannot trust you."

The head of the man was raised up, and a slight beam was, as it were, struck from his eye by the jerk of a sudden impulse. His step, as he moved to gratify the agent, seemed to have acquired even a spring.

"Why are you here," he said, as he brought the indispensable jug, with something even more than the five-eighths of the spiritual element added to the two glasses, "if you cannot tell me the grounds of my hope? I could not comprehend what you meant about the woman and the white mice."

"Nor do I want you to understand it; it is enough if I do," replied Mr. M----, as he put the jug to his mouth; "but this I want you to understand, in the first place, that I want an order for fifty pounds from you."

The farmer was too happy to write an order for any amount within the limits of his last farthing, and getting pen and ink, he wrote the cheque.

"And you couldn't tell me the name of the woman with the mice; but I can tell you," he continued. "It is Margaret Davidson; and, hark ye--come near me, man--if you are called upon by any one with the appearance of a sheriff's beagle, or whatever he may be like, for the name of that woman, say it is Margaret Davidson, and that they will find her between Lerwick and Berwick. Do you comprehend?"

"Perfectly."

"And, moreover, you are to tell every living soul within ear-shot, servants or strangers, that it was that very woman who gave the dose to the lass, and that the woman herself does not deny it."

"Gude Lord! but is all this true, Mr. M----?"

"Is it true your wife did it, then, you d----d idiot?" cried the writer, using thus one of his most familiar terms, but with perfect good-nature. "Don't you in your heart--or hope, at any rate--think the Lord Advocate a liar? and has his lordship a better right to lie than I or Meg Davidson? Isn't the world a great leavened lump of lies from the Cape of Good Hope to the Cape of Wrath? And you want your wife hanged, because the nose of truth is out of joint a bit! Ay, what though it were cut off altogether, if you get your wife's back without being coloured blue by the hangman? But, I tell you, it's not a lie: the woman with the white mice says it of her own accord."

"Wonderful! the woman with the white mice!"

"The woman with the white mice!" echoed the writer.

And, getting again upon his legs, he hurried out, throwing back his injunctions upon S---- to obey his instructions. In a few minutes more he was again upon the road, leaving the clatter of his horse's hoofs to mingle with the confused thoughts of his mystified client. Arrived at the High Street, where, as used to be said of him, he could not be ten minutes without having seized some five or six persons by the breast of the coat, and put as many questions on various matters of business, just as the thought struck him on the instant, he pounced upon one, no other than the confidential clerk of the fiscal.

"I say, man," seizing and holding him in the usual way, "have you catched the woman yet?"

"What woman?" replied the clerk.

"The woman with the white mice."

"Oh," cried the young man, "we have no faith in that quarter--a mere get-up; but we're looking about for her, notwithstanding."

"Well, tell your master that Meg Davidson was last seen on the Muir of Rannoch, and that the Highlanders in that outlandish quarter, having never seen white mice before, are in a state of perfect amazement."

A bolt at some other person left the clerk probably in as great amazement as the Highlanders; but our man of the law did not stop to see the extent of it. All his avocations, however, did not prevent the coming round of that seven o'clock on Wednesday evening, which he had appointed as the hour of meeting with the woman on whom his hopes of saving his client almost altogether rested. He was at his desk at the hour, and the woman, no doubt eager for the phenomenon of the "louping ee," was as true as the time itself. The writer locked the door of his office, and drawing her as near him as possible, inquired first whether any knew she was in town.

"Deil are," she replied; "naebody cares for me ony mair than I were an auld glandered spavin, ready for the knackers."

"And you've been remembering a' ye are to say?"

Now, the woman did not answer this question immediately. She had been, for some days, busy in the repository of her memory--a crazy box of shattered spunk-wood, through the crevices of which came the lurid lights sent from another box, called the imagination, and such was the close intimacy, or rather mixture, of the revelations of these two magic centres, that they could not be distinguished from one another; but the habit of fortune-telling had so quickened the light of the one, as to make it predominate over, and almost extinguish that of the other, so that she was at a loss to get a stray glimmer of the memory, to make her ready, on the instant, for the answer.

"Remembering! Ay," she said, "there's no muckle to remember. The lass was under the burden of shame, and couldna bear it: she wanted some doctor's trash to tak that burden aff her, if it should carry her life alang wi' 't. I got the stuff, and the woman dee'd."

All which was carefully written down--but the writer had his own way of doing his work. He would have day and date, the place where the doctor's trash was bought, the price thereof, the manner of administering the same, and many other particulars, every one of which was so carefully recorded, that the whole, no doubt, looked like a veritable precognition of facts, got from the said box called the memory, as if it had been that not one tint of light, from the conterminous chamber, had mixed with the pure spirit of truth.

"Now," said he, "regaining his English, when his purpose was served, "you'll stand firm to this, in the face of judge, jury, justice, and all her angels?"

"Never ye fear."

"Then, you will go with me to a private lodging, where I wish you to remain, seen by as few as you can. You're a widow; your name is Mrs. Anderson; your husband was drowned in the Maelstrom. Get weeds, a veil, and look respectable."

"A' save the last, for that's impossible."

"Try; and, as you will need to pay for your board and lodgings, and your dress, here's the sum I promised ye; the other half when Mrs. S---- is saved."

"A' right; and did I no say my ee would loup?--but 'ae gude turn deserves anither,' as the deil said to the loon o' Culloden, when he hauled him doun, screaming, to a place ye maybe ken o', and whaur I hae nae wish to be."

"Where is Meg Davidson?" he then asked.

"Oh ay!" she replied, "that puts me in mind o' a man wha met me on the road, and asked me if I was the woman wi' the twa white mice? I tauld him she was awa east to Montrose, and sae it is."

"Not a cheep of the sale," added he.

"Na, na, nor o' ony thing else, but just Mrs. Anderson, the widow, whase man was drouned in the Maelstream."

And, having thus finished, the writer led the woman to her place of safety, there to lie _in retentis_ till the court-day.

That eventful day came round. In the meantime, the prosecution never got access to the real white mouse tramp, and whatever they got out of Meg Davidson, satisfied them that she knew nothing of the murder. Large sums were given to secure the services of Jeffrey, then in the full blaze of his power, and Cockburn, so useful in examinations. The Lord Advocate led his proof, which was no darker than our writer had ascertained it to be, when he found himself driven to his clever expedient. The proof for the defence began; and, after some other witnesses were examined, the name of the woman with the white mice was called by the macer; and here occurred a circumstance, at the time known to very few. Cockburn turned round to our country agent, who was sitting behind him, and said, in a whisper--

"M----, if the angel Gabriel were at this moment to come down and blow a trumpet, and tell me that what this woman is going to swear to is truth, I would not believe her."

Nor is there any doubt to be entertained that the woman's testimony took the court and the audience by surprise. The judges looked at each other, and the jury were perplexed. There was only one thing that produced any solicitude in our writer. He feared the Lord Advocate would lay hands upon her, as either a murderer or a perjurer, the moment she left the witness-box. At that instant was he prepared. Quietly slipping out, he got hold of the woman, led her to the outer door, through a crowd, called to the door-keeper, who stood sentry, to open for the purpose of letting in a fresh witness of great importance to the accused; and having succeeded, as he seldom failed, he got the woman outside. A cab was in readiness--no time lost--the woman was pushed in, followed by her guardian, and in a short time was safely disposed of. Meanwhile, the Crown authorities had been preparing their warrant, and the woman was only saved from their mercies by a very few minutes.

It is well known, as I have already mentioned, that Jeffrey's speech for Mrs. S---- was the greatest of all modern orations, yet it was delivered under peculiar circumstances. When he rose and began, he seemed languid and unwell. The wonted sparkle was not seen in his eye, the usually compressed lip was loose and flaccid, and his words, though all his beginnings were generally marked with a subdued tone, came with difficulty. Cockburn looked at him inquiringly, anxious and troubled. There was something wrong, and those interested in the defence augured ominously. All of a sudden the little man stopped, fixed his eye on one of the walls of the court-room, and cried out, "Shut that window." Through that opening a cold wind had been blowing-upon and chilling a body which, though firm and compact, was thin, wiry, and delicately toned to the refined requirements of the spirit that animated and moved it with a grace peculiarly his own. The chill, in consonance with well-known pathological laws, produced first depression, and then a feverish reaction, which latter was even morbidly favourable to the development of his powers. He began to revive; the blood, pulsing with more than natural activity, warmed still more at the call of his enthusiasm. He analyzed every part of the cause, tore up the characters of the prosecutor's witnesses, held up microscopic flaws, and passed them through the lens of his ingenious exaggeration, till they appeared serious in the eyes of the jury. Then how touching, if not noble, was the conduct of that strange witness for the defence--who, a wretched criminal herself, would yet, under a secret power, so far expiate her guilt by offering herself as a sacrifice for innocence! Beyond all was the pathos of his peroration, where he brought home the case to the jury, as loving husbands of loving wives, and tender fathers of beloved children. A woman sat there before them--a wife and a mother. She had undergone an ordeal not much less trying than death itself, and even then she was trembling under the agony of suspense, extended beyond mortal powers of endurance--to be terminated by the breath of their mouths, either for life and a restoration to a previously happy family, or for a death on a gallows, with all its ignominy.

That speech, which nearly cost Jeffrey his life, saved that of another. The jury found the libel not proven; Mrs. S---- was free; Jeffrey was made more famous; but no one ever heard more of the woman with the white mice.

GLEANINGS OF THE COVENANT.

THE EARLY DAYS OF A FRIEND OF THE COVENANT.

I was born in the upper district and amidst the mountains of Dumfriesshire. My father, who died ere I had attained my second birthday, had seen better times; but, having engaged in mercantile speculations, had been overreached or unfortunate, or both, and during the latter years of his life had carried a gun, kept an amazing pointer bitch (of which my mother used to discourse largely), and had ultimately married in a fit of despondency. My mother, to whom he had long been affianced, was nearly connected with the Lairds of Clauchry, of which relationship she was vain; and in all her trials, of which she had no ordinary share, she still retained somewhat of the feelings, as well as the appearance of a gentlewoman. I remember, for example, a pair of high-heeled red Morocco shoes, overhung by the ample drapery of a quilted silk gown, in which habiliments she appeared on great occasions. Soon after my father's decease, my mother found it convenient and advisable to remove from the neighbourhood of the Clauchry to a cottage, or cottier as it was called, on her brother's farm, in the upper division of the parish of Closeburn.

Few situations could be better fitted for the purpose of a quiet and sequestered retreat. The scene is now as vividly before me as it was on that day when I last saw it, and felt that, in all probability, I viewed it for the last time. A snug kailyard, surrounded by a fullgrown bushy hedge of bourtree, saugh, and thorn, lay along the border of a small mountain stream, and hard by a thatched cottage, with a peat-stack at the one end and a small byre at the other. All this was nestled as it were in the bosom of mountains, which, to the north and the east in particular, presented a defence against all winds, and an outline of bold grandeur exceedingly impressive. The south and the west were more open; consequently the mid-day and afternoon sun reposed, with delightful and unobstructed radiance, on the green border of the stream, and the flowery foliage of the brae. And when the evening was calm, and the season suitable, the blue smoke winded upwards, and the birds sang delightfully amidst hazel, and oak, and birch, with a profusion of which the eastern bank was covered. It was here that I spent my early days; and it was in this scene of mountain solitude, with no immediate associate but my mother, and for a few years of my existence my grandmother, that my "feelings and fortunes were formed and shaped out."

To be brought up amidst mountain scenery, apart and afar from the busy or polluted haunts of man; to place one's little bare foot, with its first movement, on the greensward, the brown heath, or in the pure stream; to live in the retired glen, a perceptible part of all that lives and enjoys; to feel the bracing air of freedom in every breeze; to be possessed of elbow room from ridge to summit, from bank to brae,--this is, indeed, the most delightful of all infant schools, and, above all, prepares the young and infant mind for enlarged conception and resolute daring.

"To sit on rocks; to muse o'er flood and fell;
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or seldom been;

To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean:
This is not solitude--'tis but to hold
Converse with Nature's God, and see his works unrolled."

Here, indeed, are the things that own not the dominion of man! The everlasting hills, in their outlines of rock and heath; the floods that leap in freedom, or rush in defiance from steep to steep, from gullet to pool, and from pool to plain; the very tempest that overpowers; and heaven, through which the fowls of air sail with supreme and unchallenged dominion,--all these inspire the young heart with independence and self-reliance. True it is that the child, and even the boy, reflects not at all on the advantages of his situation; and this is the very reason that his whole imagination and heart are under their influence. He that is ever arresting and analyzing the current of his thoughts, will seldom think correctly; and he who examines with a microscopic eye the sources of beauty and sublimity, will seldom feel the full force and sway of such impressions. Early and lasting friendships are the fruit of accident, rather than of calculation--of feeling, rather than of reflection; and the circumstances of scenery and habit, which modify the child, and give a bent, a bias, and a character to the after-life, pass all unestimated in regard to such tendency at the time. The bulrush is not less unconscious of the marsh which modifies its growth, or the wallflower of the decay to which it clings, and by which alone its nature and growth would be most advantageously marked and perfected, than is the mountain child of that moral as well as physical development, which such peculiar circumstances are calculated to effect. If, through all the vicissitudes and trials of my past life, I have ever retained a spirit of independence, a spirit which has not, as the sequel (which I may yet give) will evince, proved at all times advantageous to my worldly advancement--if such has been the case, I owe it, in a great measure, to the impression which the home of my youth was calculated to make.

My mother had originally received a better education than in those days was customary with individuals of her class; and, in addition to this advantage, she had long acted as housekeeper to an unmarried brother, the minister of a parish in Galloway. In this situation, she had access to a large and well-chosen library; and at leisure intervals had improved the opportunity thus presented. She was quite familiar with Young, and Pope, and Dryden, as well as with Tate's translation of Ovid's Epistles. These latter, in particular, she used to repeat to me during the winter evenings, with a tone of plaintiveness which I felt at the time, and the impression of which can never be obliterated. From these early associations and impressions I am enabled to deduce a taste for poetry, which, while it has served to beguile many an otherwise unsupportable sorrow, has largely contributed to the actual enjoyments of life. There are, indeed, moments of sadness and of joy, to which poetry can bring neither alleviation nor zest; but these, when compared with the more softening shadings, are but rare; and when the intensity of grief or of delight has yielded, or is in the act of yielding, to time or reflection, it is then, in the gloaming or the twilight, as darkness passes into light, or light into darkness, that the soothing and softening notes of poesy come over the soul like the blessed south.

In religion, or rather in politics--in as far, at least, as they are interwoven with and inseparable from the Presbyterian faith--my mother was a staunch Covenanter. Nor was it at all surprising that one whose forefathers had suffered so severely in defence of the Covenant, and in opposition to oppression, should imbibe their sentiments. Her maternal grandfather had suffered at the Gallowlee; and her grandmother, who refused to give information to Clavers respecting the retreat of her husband, had her new-born babe plucked from her breast, dashed upon the floor, and the very bed, from which, to rescue her babe, she had sprung, pierced and perforated in a thousand places by the swords of the ruffians. Whilst this tragedy was enacting within doors, and in what, in these simple times, was denominated the _chaumer_, her eldest son, a boy of about twelve years of age, was arrested, and because he would not, or in all probability could not, disclose his father's retreat, he was blindfolded, tied to a tree, and taught to expect that every ball which he heard whizzing past his ear was aimed at his head. The boy was left bound; and, upon his being released by a menial, it was discovered that his reason had fled--and for ever! He died a few years afterwards, being known in the neighbourhood by the name of the Martyred Innocent! I have often looked at the bloody stone (for such stains are well known to be like those upon Lady Macbeth's hand, indelible,) where fell, after being perforated by a brace of bullets, Daniel M'Michael, a faithful witness to the truth, whose tomb, with its primitive and expressive inscription, is still to be seen in the churchyard of Durisdeer. Grierson of Lag made a conspicuous figure in the parish of Closeburn in particular; nor did my mother neglect to point out to me the ruined tower and the waste domain around it, which bespoke, according to her creed, the curse of God upon the seed of the persecutor. His elegy--somewhat lengthy and dull--I could once repeat. I can now only recall the striking lines where the Devil is introduced as lamenting over the death of his faithful and unflinching ally:--

"What fatal news is this I hear?--
On earth who shall my standard bear?--
For Lag, who was my champion brave,
Is dead, and now laid in his grave.

"The want of him is a great grief--
He was my manager-in-chief,
Who sought my kingdom to improve;
And to my laws he had great love," etc.

* * * * *

And so on, through at least two hundred lines, composing a pamphlet, hawked about, in my younger days, in every huckster's basket, and sold in thousands to the peasantry of Dumfriesshire and Galloway, at the price of one penny. Whilst, however, the storm of evil passions raged with such fury in what was termed the western districts in particular, the poor, shelterless, and persecuted Covenanter was not altogether destitute of help or comfort. According to his own apprehension, at least, his Maker was on his side; his prayers, offered up on the mountain and in the cave, were heard and answered; and a watchful Providence often interfered, miraculously, both to punish his oppressors, and warn him against the approach of danger. In evidence of this, my mother was wont, amongst many others, to quote the following instances, respecting which she herself entertained no doubt whatever--instances which, having never before been committed to paper, have at least the recommendation of novelty in their favour.

One of the chief rendezvous of the Covenant was Auchincairn, in the eastern district of Closeburn. To this friendly, but, on that account, suspected roof, did the poor wanderer of the mist, the glen, and the mountain repair, at dead of night, to obtain what was barely necessary for the support of nature. Grierson of Lag was not ignorant of the fact, and accordingly, by a sudden movement, was often found surrounding the steading with men and horses before daybreak; yet, prompt and well arranged as his measures were, they were never successful. The objects of his search uniformly escaped before the search was made. And this singular good fortune was owing, according to my authority, to the following circumstance. On the night previous to such an unwelcome visit, a little bird, of a peculiar feather and note, such as are not to be found in this country, came, and perching upon the topmost branch of the old ash tree in the corner of the garden, poured forth its notes of friendly intimation. To these the poor skulking friend of the Covenant listened, by these he was warned, lifted his eyes and his feet to the mountain, and was safe.

The curate of Closeburn was eminently active in distressing his flock. He was one of those Aberdeen divines whom the wisdom of the Glasgow council had placed in the three hundred pulpits vacated in consequence of a drunken and absurd decree. As his church was deserted, he had had recourse to compulsory measures to enforce attendance, and had actually dragged servants and children, in carts and hurdles, to hear his spiritual and edifying addresses; whilst, on the other hand, his spies and emissaries were busied in giving information against such masters and parents as fled from his grasp, or resisted it. He had even gone so far, under the countenance and sanction of the infamous Lauderdale, as to forbid Christian burial in every case where there was no attendance on his ministry. Such was the character, and such the conduct of the man against whom the prayers of a private meeting of the friends of Presbytery were earnestly directed on the following occasion. The eldest son of the guidman of Auchincairn had paid the debt of nature, and behooved to be buried with his fathers in the churchyard of the parish. To this, from the well-known character both of curate and father, it was anticipated that resistance would be made. Against this resistance, however, measures were taken of a somewhat decided character. The body was to be borne to the churchyard by men in arms, whilst a part of the attendants were to remain at home, for the purpose of addressing their Maker in united prayer and supplication. Thus, doubly armed and prepared, the funeral advanced towards the church and manse. Meanwhile the prayer and supplication were warm, and almost expostulatory, that _His_ arm might be stretched forth in behalf of His own covenanted servants. A poor idiot, who had not been judged a proper person to join in this service, was heard to approach, and, after listening with great seeming attention to the strain of the petitions which were made, he, at length, unable to constrain himself any longer, was heard to exclaim, "Haud at him, sirs, haud at him--he's just at the pit brow!" Surprising as it may appear, and incredulous as some may be, there is sufficient evidence to prove that, just about the time when this prediction was uttered, the curate of Closeburn, whilst endeavouring to head and hurry on a party of the military, suddenly dropped down and expired.

Is it, then, matter of surprise that with my mother's milk I imbibed a strong aversion to all manner of oppression, and that, in the broadest and best sense of the word, I became "a Whig?" To the mountain, then, and the flood, I owe my spirit of independence--that shelly-coat covering against which many arrows have been directed; to my mother, and her Cameronian and political bias, I owe my detestation of oppression--in other words, my political creed--together with my poetical leanings. But to my venerated grandmother, in particular, I am indebted for my early acquaintance with the whole history and economy of the spiritual kingdoms, divided as they are into bogle, ghost, and fairy-land.

I shall probably be regarded as an enthusiast whose feelings no future evidence can reclaim from early impressions, when I express my regret that the dreams of my infancy and boyhood have fled--those dreams of dark and bright agency, which shall probably never again return, to agitate and interest--those dreams which charmed me in the midst of a spiritual world, and taught me to consider mere matter as only the visible and tangible instrument through which spirit was constantly acting--those dreams which appear as the shadow and reflection of sacred intimation, and which serve to guard the young heart, in particular, from the cold and revolting tenets of materialism. From the malevolence of him who walks and who works in darkness--who goes about like a roaring lion (but, in our climate and country, more frequently like a bull-dog, or a nondescript bogle), seeking whom he may terrify--I was taught to fly into the protecting arms of the omnipotent Jehovah; that no class of beings could break loose upon another without His high permission; that the Evil One, under whatever disguise or shape he might appear, was still restrained and over-mastered by the Source of all good and of all safety; whilst with the green-coated fairy, the laborious brownie, and the nocturnal hearth-bairn, I almost desired to live upon more intimate and friendly terms!

How poor, comparatively speaking, are the incidents, how uninteresting is the machinery, of a modern fictitious narrative!--sudden and unlooked-for reappearances of those who were thought to be dead, discoveries of substituted births, with various chances and misnomers--"antres vast, and deserts wild!" One good, tall, stalking ghost, with its compressed lips and pointed fingers, with its glazed eye and measured step, is worth them all! Oh for a real "_white lady_" under the twilight of the year seventeen hundred and forty! When the elegant Greek or warlike Roman walked abroad or dined at home, he was surrounded by all the influences of an interesting and captivating mythology--by nymphs of the oak, of the mountain, and of the spring--by the Lares and Penates of his fireside and gateway--by the genius, the Ceres and the Bacchus of his banquet. When our forefathers contended for religious and civil liberty on the mountain--when they prayed for it in the glen, and in the silent darkness of the damp and cheerless cave--they were surrounded, not by material images, but by popular conceptions. The tempter was still in the wilderness, with his suggestions and his promises; and there, too, was the good angel, to warn and to comfort, to strengthen and to cheer. The very fowls of heaven bore on their wing and in their note a message of warning or a voice of comforting; and when the sound of psalms commingled with the swelling rush of the cascade, there were often heard, as it were, the harping of angels, the commingling of heavenly with earthly melody. All this was elevating and comforting precisely in proportion to the belief by which it was supported; and it may fairly be questioned whether such men as Peden and Cameron would have maintained the struggle with so much nerve and resolution if the sun of their faith had not been surrounded by a halo--if the noonday of the gospel had not shaded away imperceptibly into the twilight of superstition. In fact, superstition, in its softer and milder modifications, seems to form a kind of barrier or fence around the "sacred territory;" and it seldom if ever fails to happen that, when the outworks are driven in, the citadel is in danger; when the good old woman has been completely disabused of her harmless fancies, she may then aspire to the faith and the religious comforts of the philosophy of Volney.