The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete

“But,” said Sharpitlaw, “ye ken wha it was ye were speaking wi’, 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 wi’ 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 Muschat’s 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 God’s sake have pity on a half-distracted creature!”

“Come, come,” said Ratcliffe, “you’re 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. I’ll tell you what, Jeanie, they are out on the hill-side—if you’ll be guided by me, I’ll carry you to a wee bit corner in the Pleasance, that I ken o’ in an auld wife’s, that a’ the prokitors o’ Scotland wot naething o’, and we’ll send Robertson word to meet us in Yorkshire, for there is a set o’ braw lads about the midland counties, that I hae dune business wi’ before now, and sae we’ll 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; “he’s 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, “I’ll 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 Muschat’s Cairn and her father’s cottage at St. Leonard’s. 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 father’s 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 sister’s 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 sister’s 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 Robertson’s 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 king’s 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.”

“It’s 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,[38 - Note L. 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?

But we know how to come by them both, if they are wanted, that’s 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, Anglice’, 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 sister’s 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. Leonard’s, 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, Butler’s 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.”

“There’s 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-e’en wi’ 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 Butler’s 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 Porteous’s 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.