by Walter Scott
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 thenarrative which broke off at the end of the fourteenth chapter,--whileshe waited, in terror and amazement, the hasty advance of three or fourmen towards her, was yet more startled at their suddenly breakingasunder, and giving chase in different directions to the late object ofher terror, who became at that moment, though she could not well assign areasonable cause, rather the cause of her interest. One of the party (itwas Sharpitlaw) came straight up to her, and saying, "Your name is JeanieDeans, and you are my prisoner," immediately added, "But if you will tellme which way he ran I will let you go."
"I dinna ken, sir," was all the poor girl could utter; and, indeed, it isthe phrase which rises most readily to the lips of any person in herrank, as the readiest reply to any embarrassing question.
"But," said Sharpitlaw, "ye _ken_ wha it was ye were speaking wi', myleddy, on the hill side, and midnight sae near; ye surely ken _that,_ mybonny woman?"
"I dinna ken, sir," again iterated Jeanie, who really did not comprehendin her terror the nature of the questions which were so hastily put toher in this moment of surprise.
"We will try to mend your memory by and by, hinny," said Sharpitlaw, andshouted, as we have already told the reader, to Ratcliffe, to come up andtake 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, andbetaking himself to the more important object of his quest, began toscale crags and scramble up steep banks, with an agility of which hisprofession and his general gravity of demeanour would previously haveargued him incapable. In a few minutes there was no one within sight, andonly a distant halloo from one of the pursuers to the other, faintlyheard on the side of the hill, argued that there was any one withinhearing. Jeanie Deans was left in the clear moonlight, standing under theguard of a person of whom she knew nothing, and, what was worse,concerning whom, as the reader is well aware, she could have learnednothing that would not have increased her terror.
When all in the distance was silent, Ratcliffe for the first timeaddressed her, and it was in that cold sarcastic indifferent tonefamiliar to habitual depravity, whose crimes are instigated by customrather 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 hillwi' your jo." Jeanie extricated herself from his grasp, but did not makeany reply.
"I think lads and lasses," continued the ruffian, "dinna meet atMuschat's Cairn at midnight to crack nuts," and he again attempted totake hold of her.
"If ye are an officer of justice, sir," said Jeanie, again eluding hisattempt to seize her, "ye deserve to have your coat stripped from yourback."
"Very true, hinny," said he, succeeding forcibly in his attempt to gethold 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; "forGod's sake have pity on a half-distracted creature!"
"Come, come," said Ratcliffe, "you're a good-looking wench, and shouldnot be cross-grained. I was going to be an honest man--but the devil hasthis very day flung first a lawyer, and then a woman, in my gate. I'lltell you what, Jeanie, they are out on the hill-side--if you'll be guidedby 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', andwe'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' beforenow, and sae we'll leave Mr. Sharpitlaw to whistle on his thumb."
It was fortunate for Jeanie, in an emergency like the present, that shepossessed presence of mind and courage, so soon as the first hurry ofsurprise had enabled her to rally her recollection. She saw the risk shewas in from a ruffian, who not only was such by profession, but had thatevening been stupifying, by means of strong liquors, the internalaversion which he felt at the business on which Sharpitlaw had resolvedto 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 thehermitage and chapel.
"By G--d, then," said Ratcliffe, "I'll make my ain of him, either one wayor 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 thenearest 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 nowcleared the distance betwixt Muschat's Cairn and her father's cottage atSt. Leonard's. To lift the latch--to enter--to shut, bolt, and doublebolt the door--to draw against it a heavy article of furniture (which shecould not have moved in a moment of less energy), so as to make yetfarther provision against violence, was almost the work of a moment, yetdone with such silence as equalled the celerity.
Her next anxiety was upon her father's account, and she drew silently tothe door of his apartment, in order to satisfy herself whether he hadbeen disturbed by her return. He was awake,--probably had slept butlittle; but the constant presence of his own sorrows, the distance of hisapartment from the outer door of the house, and the precautions whichJeanie had taken to conceal her departure and return, had prevented himfrom being sensible of either. He was engaged in his devotions, andJeanie could distinctly hear him use these words:--"And for the otherchild thou hast given me to be a comfort and stay to my old age, may herdays be long in the land, according to the promise thou hast given tothose who shall honour father and mother; may all her purchased andpromised blessings be multiplied upon her; keep her in the watches of thenight, and in the uprising of the morning, that all in this land may knowthat thou hast not utterly hid thy face from those that seek thee intruth and in sincerity." He was silent, but probably continued hispetition in the strong fervency of mental devotion.
His daughter retired to her apartment, comforted, that while she wasexposed to danger, her head had been covered by the prayers of the justas by an helmet, and under the strong confidence, that while she walkedworthy 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, consciousas she now was of her innocence of the unnatural murder with which shestood charged. It came, as she described it, on her mind, like asun-blink on a stormy sea; and although it instantly vanished, yet shefelt 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'sdeliverance. She went to bed, not forgetting her usual devotions, themore fervently made on account of her late deliverance, and she sleptsoundly in spite of her agitation.
We must return to Ratcliffe, who had started, like a greyhound from theslips when the sportsman cries halloo, as soon as Jeanie had pointed tothe ruins. Whether he meant to aid Robertson's escape, or to assist hispursuers, may be very doubtful; perhaps he did not himself know but hadresolved to be guided by circumstances. He had no opportunity, however,of doing either; for he had no sooner surmounted the steep ascent, andentered under the broken arches of the rains, than a pistol was presentedat his head, and a harsh voice commanded him, in the king's name, tosurrender 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 moredisappointed--"what made you leave the woman?"
"She told me she saw Robertson go into the ruins, so I made what haste Icould to cleek the callant."
"It's all over n
ow," said Sharpitlaw; "we shall see no more of himto-night; but he shall hide himself in a bean-hool, if he remains onScottish ground without my finding him. Call back the people, Ratcliffe."
Ratcliffe hollowed to the dispersed officers, who willingly obeyed thesignal; for probably there was no individual among them who would havebeen much desirous of a rencontre, hand to hand, and at a distance fromhis 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 hehummed 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 greatcalumniator of the fair sex,*--"one woman is enough to dark the fairestploy that was ever planned; and how could I be such an ass as to expectto 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, that's one goodthing."
Accordingly, like a defeated general, sad and sulky, he led back hisdiscomfited forces to the metropolis, and dismissed them for the night.
The next morning early, he was under the necessity of making his reportto the sitting magistrate of the day. The gentleman who occupied thechair 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 hewas of a humorist, and rather deficient in general education; but acute,patient, and upright, possessed of a fortune acquired by honest industrywhich made him perfectly independent; and, in short, very happilyqualified to support the respectability of the office, which he held.
Mr. Middleburgh had just taken his seat, and was debating in an animatedmanner, with one of his colleagues, the doubtful chances of a game atgolf which they had played the day before, when a letter was delivered tohim, addressed "For Bailie Middleburgh; These: to be forwarded withspeed." It contained these words:--
"Sir,--I know you to be a sensible and a considerate magistrate, and onewho, as such, will be content to worship God, though the devil bid you. Itherefore expect that, notwithstanding the signature of this letteracknowledges my share in an action, which, in a proper time and place, Iwould not fear either to avow or to justify, you will not on that accountreject what evidence I place before you. The clergyman, Butler, isinnocent of all but involuntary presence at an action which he wantedspirit to approve of, and from which he endeavoured, with his best setphrases, to dissuade us. But it was not for him that it is my hint tospeak. There is a woman in your jail, fallen under the edge of a law socruel, that it has hung by the wall like unsecured armour, for twentyyears, and is now brought down and whetted to spill the blood of the mostbeautiful and most innocent creature whom the walls of a prison evergirdled in. Her sister knows of her innocence, as she communicated to herthat 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 peevishpuritan, superstitious and scrupulous after the manner of her sect; and Ipray your honour, for so my phrase must go, to press upon her, that hersister's life depends upon her testimony. But though she should remainsilent, do not dare to think that the young woman is guilty--far less topermit her execution. Remember the death of Wilson was fearfully avenged;and those yet live who can compel you to drink the dregs of your poisonedchalice.--I say, remember Porteous, and say that you had good counselfrom "One of his Slayers."
The magistrate read over this extraordinary letter twice or thrice. Atfirst he was tempted to throw it aside as the production of a madman, solittle did "the scraps from play-books," as he termed the poeticalquotation, resemble the correspondence of a rational being. On are-perusal, however, he thought that, amid its incoherence, he coulddiscover something like a tone of awakened passion, though expressed in amanner 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 childmay have been born, and it may have been conveyed away while the motherwas insensible, or it may have perished for want of that relief which thepoor creature herself--helpless, terrified, distracted, despairing, andexhausted--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 sistercommunicating her situation, it will take the case from under thestatute."
"Very true," replied the Bailie; "and I will walk out one of these daysto St. Leonard's, and examine the girl myself. I know something of theirfather Deans--an old true-blue Cameronian, who would see house and familygo to wreck ere he would disgrace his testimony by a sinful complyingwith the defections of the times; and such he will probably uphold thetaking an oath before a civil magistrate. If they are to go on andflourish with their bull-headed obstinacy, the legislature must pass anact to take their affirmations, as in the case of Quakers. But surelyneither a father nor a sister will scruple in a case of this kind. As Isaid before, I will go speak with them myself, when the hurry of thisPorteous investigation is somewhat over; their pride and spirit ofcontradiction will be far less alarmed, than if they were called into acourt 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 toset him at liberty upon bail."
"Do you rest upon the testimony of that light-headed letter?" asked theclerk.
"Not very much," answered the Bailie; "and yet there is somethingstriking 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 madstrolling play-actor, who deserves to be hanged with all the rest of hisgang, as your honour justly observes."
"I was not quite so bloodthirsty," continued the magistrate. "But to thepoint, Butler's private character is excellent; and I am given tounderstand, by some inquiries I have been making this morning, that hedid actually arrive in town only the day before yesterday, so that it wasimpossible he could have been concerned in any previous machinations ofthese unhappy rioters, and it is not likely that he should have joinedthem on a suddenty."
"There's no saying anent that--zeal catches fire at a slight spark asfast as a brunstane match," observed the secretary. "I hae kend aminister wad be fair gude-day and fair gude-e'en wi' ilka man in theparochine, and hing just as quiet as a rocket on a stick, till yementioned the word abjuration-oath, or patronage, or siclike, and then,whiz, he was off, and up in the air an hundred miles beyond commonmanners, common sense, and common comprehension."
"I do not understand," answered the burgher-magistrate, "that the youngman Butler's zeal is of so inflammable a character. But I will makefarther investigation. What other business is there before us?"
And they proceeded to minute investigations concerning the affair ofPorteous's death, and other affairs through which this history has nooccasion to trace them.
In the course of their business they were interrupted by an old woman ofthe lower rank, extremely haggard in look, and wretched in herappearance, 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 Iwant naething frae nane o' ye, for as grand's ye are." And she went onmuttering to herself with the wayward spitefulness of age--"They maun haelordships and honours, nae doubt--set them up, the gutter-bloods! anddeil a gentleman amang them."--Then again address
ing the sittingmagistrate, "Will _your honour_ gie me back my puir crazy bairn?--_His_honour!--I hae kend the day when less wad ser'd him, the oe of a Campvereskipper."
"Good woman," said the magistrate to this shrewish supplicant--"tell uswhat it is you want, and do not interrupt the court."
"That's as muckle as till say, Bark, Bawtie, and be dune wi't!--I tellye," raising her termagant voice, "I want my bairn! is na that braidScots?"
"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 bebut Magdalen Murdockson?--Your guard soldiers, and your constables, andyour officers, ken us weel eneugh when they rive the bits o' duds aff ourbacks, and take what penny o' siller we hae, and harle us to theCorrectionhouse in Leith Wynd, and pettle us up wi' bread and water andsiclike 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, shrugginghis shoulders and smiling.
"Will ye say sae?" said the termagant, her eye gleaming with impotentfury; "an I had ye amang the Figgat-Whins,* wadna I set my ten talents inyour wuzzent face for that very word?" and she suited the word to theaction, by spreading out a set of claws resembling those of St. George'sdragon on a country sign-post.
* [This was a name given to a tract of sand hillocks extending along thesea-shore from Leith to Portobello, and which at this time were coveredwith _whin_-bushes or furze.]
"What does she want here?" said the impatient magistrate--"Can she nottell her business, or go away?"
"It's my bairn!--it's Magdalen Murdockson I'm wantin'," answered thebeldam, screaming at the highest pitch of her cracked and mistunedvoice--"havena I been telling ye sae this half-hour? And if ye are deaf,what needs ye sit cockit up there, and keep folk scraughin' t'ye thisgate?"
"She wants her daughter, sir," said the same officer whose interferencehad given the hag such offence before--"her daughter, who was taken uplast night--Madge Wildfire, as they ca' her."
"Madge Hellfire, as they ca' her!" echoed the beldam "and what businesshas a blackguard like you to ca' an honest woman's bairn out o' her ainname?"
"An _honest_ woman's bairn, Maggie?" answered the peace-officer, smilingand shaking his head with an ironical emphasis on the adjective, and acalmness calculated to provoke to madness the furious old shrew.
"If I am no honest now, I was honest ance," she replied; "and that's mairthan ye can say, ye born and bred thief, that never kend ither folks'gear frae your ain since the day ye was cleckit. Honest, say ye?--yepykit your mother's pouch o' twalpennies Scots when ye were five yearsauld, just as she was taking leave o' your father at the fit o' thegallows."
"She has you there, George," said the assistants, and there was a generallaugh; for the wit was fitted for the meridian of the place where it wasuttered. This general applause somewhat gratified the passions of the oldhag; the "grim feature" smiled and even laughed--but it was a laugh ofbitter scorn. She condescended, however, as if appeased by the success ofher sally, to explain her business more distinctly, when the magistrate,commanding silence, again desired her either to speak out her errand, orto leave the place.
"Her bairn," she said, "_was_ her bairn, and she came to fetch her out ofill haft and waur guiding. If she wasna sae wise as ither folk, few itherfolk had suffered as muckle as she had done; forby that she could fendthe waur for hersell within the four wa's of a jail. She could prove byfifty witnesses, and fifty to that, that her daughter had never seen JockPorteous, alive or dead, since he had gien her a laundering wi' his cane,the neger that he was! for driving a dead cat at the provost's wig on theElector of Hanover's birthday."
Notwithstanding the wretched appearance and violent demeanour of thiswoman, the magistrate felt the justice of her argument, that her childmight be as dear to her as to a more fortunate and more amiable mother.He proceeded to investigate the circumstances which had led to MadgeMurdockson's (or Wildfire's) arrest, and as it was clearly shown that shehad not been engaged in the riot, he contented himself with directingthat an eye should be kept upon her by the police, but that for thepresent she should be allowed to return home with her mother. During theinterval of fetching Madge from the jail, the magistrate endeavoured todiscover whether her mother had been privy to the change of dress betwixtthat young woman and Robertson. But on this point he could obtain nolight. She persisted in declaring, that she had never seen Robertsonsince his remarkable escape during service-time; and that, if herdaughter had changed clothes with him, it must have been during herabsence 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 thecottage of a washer-woman in that village, gave his evidence, that he hadseen Maggie Murdockson there, whose presence had considerably increasedhis suspicion of the house in which she was a visitor, in respect that heconsidered 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 a', I could tell ye something aboutPorteous that you council-chamber bodies never could find out, for asmuckle stir as ye mak."
All eyes were turned towards her--all ears were alert. "Speak out!" saidthe 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 amalignant and sulky glance, that seemed to enjoy the anxious suspensewith which they waited her answer. And then she broke forth at once,--"A'that I ken about him is, that he was neither soldier nor gentleman, butjust a thief and a blackguard, like maist o' yoursells, dears--What willye gie me for that news, now?--He wad hae served the gude town lang orprovost or bailie wad hae fund that out, my jo!"
While these matters were in discussion, Madge Wildfire entered, and herfirst exclamation was, "Eh! see if there isna our auld ne'er-do-weeldeevil's-buckie o' a mither--Hegh, sirs! but we are a hopeful family, tobe twa o' us in the Guard at ance--But there were better days wi' usance--were there na, mither?"
Old Maggie's eyes had glistened with something like an expression ofpleasure when she saw her daughter set at liberty. But either her naturalaffection, like that of the tigress, could not be displayed without astrain of ferocity, or there was something in the ideas which Madge'sspeech awakened, that again stirred her cross and savage temper. "Whatsignifies what we, were, ye street-raking limmer!" she exclaimed, pushingher daughter before her to the door, with no gentle degree of violence."I'se tell thee what thou is now--thou's a crazed hellicat Bess o'Bedlam, that sall taste naething but bread and water for a fortnight, toserve ye for the plague ye hae gien me--and ower gude for ye, ye idletaupie!"
Madge, however, escaped from her mother at the door, ran back to the footof the table, dropped a very low and fantastic courtesy to the judge, andsaid, with a giggling laugh,--"Our minnie's sair mis-set, after herordinar, sir--She'll hae had some quarrel wi' her auld gudeman--that'sSatan, ye ken, sirs." This explanatory note she gave in a lowconfidential tone, and the spectators of that credulous generation didnot hear it without an involuntary shudder. "The gudeman and her disnaaye gree weel, and then I maun pay the piper; but my back's broad eneughto bear't a'--an' if she hae nae havings, that's nae reason why wiserfolk shouldna hae some." Here another deep courtesy, when the ungraciousvoice of her mother was heard.
"Madge, ye limmer! If I come to fetch ye!"
"Hear till her," said Madge. "But I'll wun out a gliff the night for a'that, to dance in the moonlight, when her and the gudeman will bewhirrying through the blue lift on a broom-shank, to see Jean Jap, thatthey hae putten intill the Kirkcaldy Tolbooth--ay, they will hae a merrysail ower Inchkeith, and ower a' the bits o' bonny waves that arepoppling and plashing against the rocks in the gowden glimmer o' themoon, ye ken.--I'm coming, mother--I'm coming," she co
ncluded, on hearinga scuffle at the door betwixt the beldam and the officers, who wereendeavouring to prevent her re-entrance. Madge then waved her hand wildlytowards 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 ofMacbeth used, in less refined days, to seem to fly upwards from thestage.
Some weeks intervened before Mr. Middleburgh, agreeably to his benevolentresolution, found an opportunity of taking a walk towards St. Leonard's,in order to discover whether it might be possible to obtain the evidencehinted at in the anonymous letter respecting Effie Deans.
In fact, the anxious perquisitions made to discover the murderers ofPorteous occupied the attention of all concerned with the administrationof justice.
In the course of these inquiries, two circumstances happened material toour story. Butler, after a close investigation of his conduct, wasdeclared innocent of accession to the death of Porteous; but, as havingbeen present during the whole transaction, was obliged to find bail notto quit his usual residence at Liberton, that he might appear as awitness when called upon. The other incident regarded the disappearanceof Madge Wildfire and her mother from Edinburgh. When they were sought,with the purpose of subjecting them to some farther interrogatories, itwas discovered by Mr. Sharpitlaw that they had eluded the observation ofthe police, and left the city so soon as dismissed from thecouncil-chamber. No efforts could trace the place of their retreat.
In the meanwhile the excessive indignation of the Council of Regency, atthe slight put upon their authority by the murder of Porteous, haddictated measures, in which their own extreme desire of detecting theactors in that conspiracy were consulted in preference to the temper ofthe people and the character of their churchmen. An act of Parliament washastily passed, offering two hundred pounds reward to those who shouldinform against any person concerned in the deed, and the penalty ofdeath, by a very unusual and severe enactment, was denounced againstthose who should harbour the guilty. But what was chiefly accountedexceptionable, was a clause, appointing the act to be read in churches bythe officiating clergyman, on the first Sunday of every month, for acertain period, immediately before the sermon. The ministers who shouldrefuse to comply with this injunction were declared, for the firstoffence, incapable of sitting or voting in any church judicature, and forthe second, incapable of holding any ecclesiastical preferment inScotland.
This last order united in a common cause those who might privatelyrejoice in Porteous's death, though they dared not vindicate the mannerof it, with the more scrupulous Presbyterians, who held that even thepronouncing the name of the "Lords Spiritual" in a Scottish pulpit was,_quodammodo,_ an acknowledgment of prelacy, and that the injunction ofthe legislature was an interference of the civil government with the _jusdivinum_ of Presbytery, since to the General Assembly alone, asrepresenting the invisible head of the kirk, belonged the sole andexclusive right of regulating whatever pertained to public worship. Verymany also, of different political or religious sentiments, and thereforenot much moved by these considerations, thought they saw, in so violentan act of parliament, a more vindictive spirit than became thelegislature of a great country, and something like an attempt to trampleupon the rights and independence of Scotland. The various steps adoptedfor punishing the city of Edinburgh, by taking away her charter andliberties, for what a violent and overmastering mob had done within herwalls, were resented by many, who thought a pretext was too hastily takenfor degrading the ancient metropolis of Scotland. In short, there wasmuch heart-burning, discontent, and disaffection, occasioned by theseill-considered measures.*
* The magistrates were closely interrogated before the House of Peers,concerning the particulars of the Porteous Mob, and the _patois_ in whichthese functionaries made their answers, sounded strange in the ears ofthe Southern nobles. The Duke of Newcastle having demanded to know withwhat kind of shot the guard which Porteous commanded had loaded theirmuskets, was answered, naively, "Ow, just sic as ane shoots _dukes andfools_ with." This reply was considered as a contempt of the House ofLords, and the Provost would have suffered accordingly, but that the Dukeof Argyle explained, that the expression, properly rendered into English,meant _ducks and waterfowls._
Amidst these heats and dissensions, the trial of Effie Deans, after shehad been many weeks imprisoned, was at length about to be broughtforward, and Mr. Middleburgh found leisure to inquire into the evidenceconcerning her. For this purpose, he chose a fine day for his walktowards her father's house.
The excursion into the country was somewhat distant, in the opinion of aburgess of those days, although many of the present inhabit suburbanvillas considerably beyond the spot to which we allude. Three-quarters ofan hour's walk, however, even at a pace of magisterial gravity, conductedour benevolent office-bearer to the Crags of St. Leonard's, and thehumble mansion of David Deans.
The old man was seated on the deas, or turf-seat, at the end of hiscottage, busied in mending his cart-harness with his own hands; for inthose days any sort of labour which required a little more skill thanusual fell to the share of the goodman himself, and that even when he waswell to pass in the world. With stern and austere gravity he perseveredin his task, after having just raised his head to notice the advance ofthe stranger. It would have been impossible to have discovered, from hiscountenance and manner, the internal feelings of agony with which hecontended. Mr. Middleburgh waited an instant, expecting Deans would insome measure acknowledge his presence, and lead into conversation; but,as he seemed determined to remain silent, he was himself obliged to speakfirst.
"My name is Middleburgh--Mr. James Middleburgh, one of the presentmagistrates of the city of Edinburgh."
"It may be sae," answered Deans laconically, and without interrupting hislabour.
"You must understand," he continued, "that the duty of a magistrate issometimes 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 mysituation are often obliged to make painful and disagreeable inquiries ofindividuals, 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 t'other. But I do ken there was ance in a day ajust and God-fearing magistracy in yon town o' Edinburgh, that did notbear the sword in vain, but were a terror to evil-doers, and a praise tosuch as kept the path. In the glorious days of auld worthy faithfu'Provost Dick,* when there was a true and faithfu' General Assembly of
* Note M. Sir William Dick of Braid.
the Kirk, walking hand in hand with the real noble Scottish-heartedbarons, and with the magistrates of this and other towns, gentles,burgesses, and commons of all ranks, seeing with one eye, hearing withone ear, and upholding the ark with their united strength--And then folkmight see men deliver up their silver to the state's use, as if it hadbeen as muckle sclate stanes. My father saw them toom the sacks ofdollars out o' Provost Dick's window intill the carts that carried themto the army at Dunse Law; and if ye winna believe his testimony, there isthe window itsell still standing in the Luckenbooths--I think it's aclaith-merchant's booth the day*--at the airn stanchells, five doorsabune Gossford's Close.
* I think so too--But if the reader be curious, he may consult Mr.Chambers's Traditions of Edinburgh.
--But now we haena sic spirit amang us; we think mair about the warstwallydraigle in our ain byre, than about the blessing which the angel ofthe covenant gave to the Patriarch even at Peniel and Mahanaim, or thebinding obligation of our national vows; and we wad rather gie a pundScots to buy an unguent to clear out auld rannell-trees and our beds o'the English bugs as they ca' them, than we wad gie a plack to rid theland of the swarm of Arminian caterpillars, Socinian pismires, anddeisti
cal Miss Katies, that have ascended out of the bottomless pit, toplague this perverse, insidious, and lukewarm generation."
It happened to Davie Deans on this occasion, as it has done to many otherhabitual orators; when once he became embarked on his favourite subject,the stream of his own enthusiasm carried him forward in spite of hismental distress, while his well-exercised memory supplied him amply withall the types and tropes of rhetoric peculiar to his sect and cause.
Mr. Middleburgh contented himself with answering--"All this may be verytrue, my friend; but, as you said just now, I have nothing to say to itat 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; butinstantly composed himself, resumed the work which, in the heat of hisdeclamation, he had laid down, and answered with sullen resolution, "Aedaughter, sir--only _ane._"
"I understand you," said Mr. Middleburgh; "you have only one daughterhere at home with you--but this unfortunate girl who is a prisoner--sheis, I think, your youngest daughter?"
The Presbyterian sternly raised his eyes. "After the world, and accordingto the flesh, she _is_ my daughter; but when she became a child ofBelial, and a company-keeper, and a trader in guilt and iniquity, sheceased to be a bairn of mine."
"Alas, Mr. Deans," said Middleburgh, sitting down by him, andendeavouring to take his hand, which the old man proudly withdrew, "weare ourselves all sinners; and the errors of our offspring, as they oughtnot to surprise us, being the portion which they derive of a commonportion of corruption inherited through us, so they do not entitle us tocast them off because they have lost themselves."
"Sir," said Deans impatiently, "I ken a' that as weel as--I mean to say,"he resumed, checking the irritation he felt at being schooled--adiscipline of the mind which those most ready to bestow it on others dothemselves most reluctantly submit to receive--"I mean to say, that whatye o serve may be just and reasonable--But I hae nae freedom to enterinto my ain private affairs wi' strangers--And now, in this greatnational emergency, When there's the Porteous' Act has come doun fraeLondon, that is a deeper blow to this poor sinfu' kingdom and sufferingkirk than ony that has been heard of since the foul and fatal Test--at atime like this"
"But, goodman," interrupted Mr. Middleburgh, "you must think of your ownhousehold first, or else you are worse even than the infidels."
"I tell ye, Bailie Middleburgh," retorted David Deans, "if ye be abailie, as there is little honour in being ane in these evil days--I tellye, I heard the gracious Saunders Peden--I wotna whan it was; but it wasin killing time, when the plowers were drawing alang their furrows on theback of the Kirk of Scotland--I heard him tell his hearers, gude andwaled Christians they were too, that some o' them wad greet mair for abit drowned calf or stirk than for a' the defections and oppressions ofthe day; and that they were some o' them thinking o' ae thing, some o'anither, and there was Lady Hundleslope thinking o' greeting Jock at thefireside! And the lady confessed in my hearing that a drow of anxiety hadcome ower her for her son that she had left at hame weak of a decay*--Andwhat wad he hae said of me if I had ceased to think of the gude cause fora 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 besaved," said Middleburgh.
"Her life!" exclaimed David--"I wadna gie ane o' my grey hairs for herlife, if her gude name be gane--And yet," said he, relenting andretracting as he spoke, "I wad make the niffer, Mr. Middleburgh--I wadgie a' these grey hairs that she has brought to shame and sorrow--I wadgie the auld head they grow on for her life, and that she might hae timeto amend and return, for what hae the wicked beyond the breath of theirnosthrils?--but I'll never see her mair--No!--that--that I am determinedin--I'll never see her mair!" His lips continued to move for a minuteafter his voice ceased to be heard, as if he were repeating the same vowinternally.
"Well, sir," said Mr. Middleburgh, "I speak to you as a man of sense; ifyou would save your daughter's life, you must use human means."
"I understand what you mean; but Mr. Novit, who is the procurator anddoer of an honourable person, the Laird of Dumbiedikes, is to do whatcarnal wisdom can do for her in the circumstances. Mysell am not clear totrinquet and traffic wi' courts o' justice as they are now constituted; Ihave a tenderness and scruple in my mind anent them."
"That is to say," said Middleburgh, "that you are a Cameronian, and donot acknowledge the authority of our courts of judicature, or presentgovernment?"
"Sir, under your favour," replied David, who was too proud of his ownpolemical knowledge to call himself the follower of any one, "ye take meup before I fall down. I canna see why I suld be termed a Cameronian,especially now that ye hae given the name of that famous and savourysufferer, not only until a regimental band of souldiers, [H. M. 26thFoot] whereof I am told many can now curse, swear, and use profanelanguage, as fast as ever Richard Cameron could preach or pray, but alsobecause ye have, in as far as it is in your power, rendered that martyr'sname vain and contemptible, by pipes, drums, and fifes, playing the vaincarnal spring called the Cameronian Rant, which too many professors ofreligion dance to--a practice maist unbecoming a professor to dance toany tune whatsoever, more especially promiscuously, that is, with thefemale sex.* A brutish fashion it is, whilk is the beginning of defectionwith many, as I may hae as muckle cause as maist folk to testify."
* See Note F. Peter Walker.
"Well, but, Mr. Deans," replied Mr. Middleburgh, "I only meant to saythat you were a Cameronian, or MacMillanite, one of the society people,in short, who think it inconsistent to take oaths under a governmentwhere the Covenant is not ratified."
"Sir," replied the controversialist, who forgot even his present distressin such discussions as these, "you cannot fickle me sae easily as you doopine. I am _not_ a MacMillanite, or a Russelite, or a Hamiltonian, or aHarleyite, or a Howdenite*--I will be led by the nose by none--I take myname as a Christian from no vessel of clay. I have my own principles andpractice to answer for, and am an humble pleader for the gude auld causein a legal way."
* All various species of the great genus Cameronian.
"That is to say, Mr. Deans," said Middleburgh, "that you are a _Deanite,_and have opinions peculiar to yourself."
"It may please you to say sae," said David Deans; "but I have maintainedmy testimony before as great folk, and in sharper times; and though Iwill neither exalt myself nor pull down others, I wish every man andwoman in this land had kept the true testimony, and the middle andstraight path, as it were, on the ridge of a hill, where wind and watershears, avoiding right-hand snares and extremes, and left-handway-slidings, as weel as Johnny Dodds of Farthing's Acre, and ae man mairthat shall be nameless."
"I suppose," replied the magistrate, "that is as much as to say, thatJohnny Dodds of Farthing's Acre, and David Deans of St. Leonard's,constitute the only members of the true, real, unsophisticated Kirk ofScotland?"
"God forbid that I suld make sic a vain-glorious speech, when there aresae mony professing Christians!" answered David; "but this I maun say,that all men act according to their gifts and their grace, 'sae that itis nae marvel that"
"This is all very fine," interrupted Mr. Middleburgh; "but I have no timeto spend in hearing it. The matter in hand is this--I have directed acitation to be lodged in your daughter's hands--If she appears on the dayof trial and gives evidence, there is reason to hope she may save hersister's life--if, from any constrained scruples about the legality ofher performing the office of an affectionate sister and a good subject,by appearing in a court held under the authority of the law andgovernment, you become the means of deterring her from the discharge ofthis duty, I must say, though the truth may sound harsh in your ears,that you, who gave life to this unhappy girl, will become the means ofher losing it by a premature and violent death."
So saying, Mr. Middleburgh turned to leave him.
"Bide awee--bide awee, Mr. Middlebur
gh," said Deans, in great perplexityand distress of mind; but the Bailie, who was probably sensible thatprotracted discussion might diminish the effect of his best and mostforcible argument, took a hasty leave, and declined entering farther intothe controversy.
Deans sunk down upon his seat, stunned with a variety of conflictingemotions. It had been a great source of controversy among those holdinghis opinions in religious matters how far the government which succeededthe Revolution could be, without sin, acknowledged by true Presbyterians,seeing that it did not recognise the great national testimony of theSolemn League and Covenant? And latterly, those agreeing in this generaldoctrine, and assuming the sounding title of "The anti-Popish,anti-Prelatic, anti-Erastian, anti-Sectarian, true Presbyterian remnant,"were divided into many petty sects among themselves, even as to theextent of submission to the existing laws and rulers, which constitutedsuch an acknowledgment as amounted to sin.
At a very stormy and tumultuous meeting, held in 1682, to discuss theseimportant and delicate points, the testimonies of the faithful few werefound utterly inconsistent with each other.*
* This remarkable convocation took place upon 15th June 1682, and anaccount of its confused and divisive proceedings may be found in MichaelShield's _Faithful Contendings Displayed_ (first printed at Glasgow,1780, p. 21). It affords a singular and melancholy example how much ametaphysical and polemical spirit had crept in amongst these unhappysufferers, since amid so many real injuries which they had to sustain,they were disposed to add disagreement and disunion concerning thecharacter and extent of such as were only imaginary.
The place where this conference took place was remarkably well adaptedfor such an assembly. It was a wild and very sequestered dell inTweeddale, surrounded by high hills, and far remote from humanhabitation. A small river, or rather a mountain torrent, called theTalla, breaks down the glen with great fury, dashing successively over anumber of small cascades, which has procured the spot the name of TallaLinns. Here the leaders among the scattered adherents to the Covenant,men who, in their banishment from human society, and in the recollectionof the seventies to which they had been exposed, had become at oncesullen in their tempers, and fantastic in their religious opinions, metwith arms in their hands, and by the side of the torrent discussed, witha turbulence which the noise of the stream could not drown, points ofcontroversy as empty and unsubstantial as its foam.
It was the fixed judgment of most of the meeting, that all payment ofcess or tribute to the existing government was utterly unlawful, and asacrificing to idols. About other impositions and degrees of submissionthere were various opinions; and perhaps it is the best illustration ofthe spirit of those military fathers of the church to say, that while allallowed it was impious to pay the cess employed for maintaining thestanding army and militia, there was a fierce controversy on thelawfulness of paying the duties levied at ports and bridges, formaintaining roads and other necessary purposes; that there were some who,repugnant to these imposts for turnpikes and pontages, were neverthelessfree in conscience to make payment of the usual freight at publicferries, and that a person of exceeding and punctilious zeal, JamesRussel, one of the slayers of the Archbishop of St. Andrews, had givenhis testimony with great warmth even against this last faint shade ofsubjection to constituted authority. This ardent and enlightened personand his followers had also great scruples about the lawfulness ofbestowing the ordinary names upon the days of the week and the months ofthe year, which savoured in their nostrils so strongly of paganism, thatat length they arrived at the conclusion that they who owned such namesas Monday, Tuesday, January, February, and so forth, "served themselvesheirs to the same, if not greater punishment, than had been denouncedagainst the idolaters of old."
David Deans had been present on this memorable occasion, although tooyoung to be a speaker among the polemical combatants. His brain, however,had been thoroughly heated by the noise, clamour, and metaphysicalingenuity of the discussion, and it was a controversy to which his mindhad often returned; and though he carefully disguised his vacillationfrom others, and, perhaps from himself, he had never been able to come toany precise line of decision on the subject. In fact, his natural sensehad acted as a counterpoise to his controversial zeal. He was by no meanspleased with the quiet and indifferent manner in which King William'sgovernment slurred over the errors of the times, when, far from restoringthe Presbyterian kirk to its former supremacy, they passed an act ofoblivion even to those who had been its persecutors, and bestowed on manyof them titles, favours, and employments. When, in the first GeneralAssembly which succeeded the Revolution, an overture was made for therevival of the League and Covenant, it was with horror that Douce Davidheard the proposal eluded by the men of carnal wit and policy, as hecalled them, as being inapplicable to the present times, and not fallingunder the modern model of the church. The reign of Queen Anne hadincreased his conviction, that the Revolution government was not one ofthe true Presbyterian complexion. But then, more sensible than the bigotsof his sect, he did not confound the moderation and tolerance of thesetwo reigns with the active tyranny and oppression exercised in those ofCharles II. and James II. The Presbyterian form of religion, thoughdeprived of the weight formerly attached to its sentences ofexcommunication, and compelled to tolerate the coexistence of Episcopacy,and of sects of various descriptions, was still the National Church; andthough the glory of the second temple was far inferior to that which hadflourished from 1639 till the battle of Dunbar, still it was a structurethat, wanting the strength and the terrors, retained at least the formand symmetry, of the original model. Then came the insurrection in 1715,and David Deans's horror for the revival of the Popish and prelaticalfaction reconciled him greatly to the government of King George, althoughhe grieved that that monarch might be suspected of a leaning untoErastianism. In short, moved by so many different considerations, he hadshifted his ground at different times concerning the degree of freedomwhich he felt in adopting any act of immediate acknowledgment orsubmission to the present government, which, however mild and paternal,was still uncovenanted, and now he felt himself called upon, by the mostpowerful motive conceivable, to authorise his daughter's giving testimonyin a court of justice, which all who have been since called Cameroniansaccounted a step of lamentable and direct defection. The voice of nature,however, exclaimed loud in his bosom against the dictates of fanaticism;and his imagination, fertile in the solution of polemical difficulties,devised an expedient for extricating himself from the fearful dilemma, inwhich he saw, on the one side, a falling off from principle, and, on theother, a scene from which a father's thoughts could not but turn inshuddering horror.
"I have been constant and unchanged in my testimony," said David Deans;"but then who has said it of me, that I have judged my neighbour overclosely, because he hath had more freedom in his walk than I have foundin mine? I never was a separatist, nor for quarrelling with tender soulsabout mint, cummin, or other the lesser tithes. My daughter Jean may havea light in this subject that is hid frae my auld een--it is laid on herconscience, and not on mine--If she hath freedom to gang before thisjudicatory, and hold up her hand for this poor castaway, surely I willnot say she steppeth over her bounds; and if not"--He paused in hismental argument, while a pang of unutterable anguish convulsed hisfeatures, yet, shaking it off, he firmly resumed the strain of hisreasoning--"And if not--God forbid that she should go into defection atbidding of mine! I wunna fret the tender conscience of one bairn--no, notto save the life of the other."
A Roman would have devoted his daughter to death from different feelingsand motives, but not upon a more heroic principle of duty.