The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete

“It’s a sair judgment on a man,” said Ratcliffe, “when he has ance gane sae far wrang as I hae done, that deil a bit he can be honest, try’t whilk way he will.”

Such was the reflection of Ratcliffe, when he was left for a few minutes to himself, while the retainer of justice went to procure a proper warrant, and give the necessary directions.

The rising moon saw the whole party free from the walls of the city, and entering upon the open ground. Arthur’s 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 King’s 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 Muschat’s Cairn—excepting this mad clavering idiot?”

“Deil ane o’ 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 wi’ 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 moment’s audience while Ratcliffe diverted Madge’s 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 that’s 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 o’ Porteous, come o’t what likes.”

“I think,” said Ratcliffe, “we maun just try Madge; and I’ll see if I can get her keepit in ony better order. And at ony rate, if he suld hear her skirting her auld ends o’ sangs, he’s no to ken for that that there’s onybody wi’ her.”

“That’s true,” said Sharpitlaw; “and if he thinks her alone, he’s 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 o’ 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 a’ tales be true.”

“Ou, ay, ay, ay—but a’s 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 throat’s 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. Anthony’s Well, and that will cleanse if onything can—But they say bluid never bleaches out o’ linen claith—Deacon Sanders’s new cleansing draps winna do’t—I tried them mysell on a bit rag we hae at hame that was mailed wi’ the bluid of a bit skirting wean that was hurt some gate, but out it winna come—Weel, yell say that’s queer; but I will bring it out to St. Anthony’s blessed Well some braw night just like this, and I’ll 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, that’s far pleasanter to me than the sun—the sun’s 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 o’ patience wi’ her, sir,” said Ratcliffe. “She’ll no gae a foot faster than she likes herself.”

“D—n her,” said Sharpitlaw, “I’ll take care she has her time in Bedlam or Bridewell, or both, for she’s 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, there’s a heaven aboon us a’,”—(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, “we’ll 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 I’ll tell ye, Ratton, blithe will Nichol Muschat be to see ye, for he says he kens weel there isna sic a villain out o’ hell as ye are, and he wad be ravished to hae a crack wi’ you—like to like ye ken—it’s a proverb never fails—and ye are baith a pair o’ the deevil’s peats I trow—hard to ken whilk deserves the hettest corner o’ 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 wi’ the tongue as weel as wi’ the hand—wi’ the word as weel as wi’ the gulley!—

It is the ‘bonny 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 I’ll hae nae wyte of Robertson’s young bluid, if I can help it;” then speaking apart to Madge, he asked her, “Whether she did not remember ony o’ 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 glede’s in the blue cloud,
The lavrock lies still;
When the hound’s 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.

“Robertson’s 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 it’s aye the way wi’ women; if they ever hand their tongues ava’, ye may swear it’s for mischief. I wish I could set her on again without this blood-sucker kenning what I am doing. But he’s as gleg as MacKeachan’s elshin,[37 - [Elshin, a shoemaker’s awl.]] that ran through sax plies of bendleather and half-an-inch into the king’s heel.”

He then began to hum, but in a very low and suppressed tone, the first stanza of a favourite ballad of Wildfire’s, 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:—

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

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

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

Though Ratcliffe was at a considerable distance from the spot called Muschat’s 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 Duke’s Walk—Ratcliffe, come here directly—but first knock out that mad bitch’s brains!”

“Ye had better rin for it, Madge,” said Ratcliffe, “for it’s ill dealing wi’ 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 Muschat’s 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.