The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Volume 1

by Walter Scott

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.

  We have strict statutes, and most biting laws-- The needful bits and curbs for headstrong steeds-- Which, for these fourteen years, we have let sleep, Like to an o'ergrown lion in a cave, That goes not out to prey. Measure for Measure.

  "Euphemia Deans," said the presiding Judge, in an accent in which pitywas blended with dignity, "stand up and listen to the criminal indictmentnow to be preferred against you."

  The unhappy girl, who had been stupified by the confusion through whichthe guards had forced a passage, cast a bewildered look on the multitudeof faces around her, which seemed to tapestry, as it were, the walls, inone broad slope from the ceiling to the floor, with human countenances,and instinctively obeyed a command, which rung in her ears like thetrumpet of the judgment-day.

  "Put back your hair, Effie," said one of the macers. For her beautifuland abundant tresses of long fair hair, which, according to the costumeof the country, unmarried women were not allowed to cover with any sortof cap, and which, alas! Effie dared no longer confine with the snood orriband, which implied purity of maiden-fame, now hung unbound anddishevelled over her face, and almost concealed her features. Onreceiving this hint from the attendant, the unfortunate young woman, witha hasty, trembling, and apparently mechanical compliance, shaded backfrom her face her luxuriant locks, and showed to the whole court,excepting one individual, a countenance, which, though pale andemaciated, was so lovely amid its agony, that it called forth a universalmurmur of compassion and sympathy. Apparently the expressive sound ofhuman feeling recalled the poor girl from the stupor of fear, whichpredominated at first over every other sensation, and awakened her to theno less painful sense of shame and exposure attached to her presentsituation. Her eye, which had at first glanced wildly around, was turnedon the ground; her cheek, at first so deadly pale, began gradually to beoverspread with a faint blush, which increased so fast, that, when inagony of shame she strove to conceal her face, her temples, her brow, herneck, and all that her slender fingers and small palms could not cover,became of the deepest crimson.

  All marked and were moved by these changes, excepting one. It was oldDeans, who, motionless in his seat, and concealed, as we have said, bythe corner of the bench, from seeing or being seen, did nevertheless keephis eyes firmly fixed on the ground, as if determined that, by nopossibility whatever, would he be an ocular witness of the shame of hishouse.

  "Ichabod!" he said to himself--"Ichabod! my glory is departed!"

  While these reflections were passing through his mind, the indictment,which set forth in technical form the crime of which the panel stoodaccused, was read as usual, and the prisoner was asked if she was Guilty,or Not Guilty.

  "Not guilty of my poor bairn's death," said Effie Deans, in an accentcorresponding in plaintive softness of tone to the beauty of herfeatures, and which was not heard by the audience without emotion.

  The presiding Judge next directed the counsel to plead to the relevancy;that is, to state on either part the arguments in point of law, andevidence in point of fact, against and in favour of the criminal; afterwhich it is the form of the Court to pronounce a preliminary judgment,sending the cause to the cognisance of the jury, or assize.

  The counsel for the crown briefly stated the frequency of the crime ofinfanticide, which had given rise to the special statute under which thepanel stood indicted. He mentioned the various instances, many of themmarked with circumstances of atrocity, which had at length induced theKing's Advocate, though with great reluctance, to make the experiment,whether, by strictly enforcing the Act of Parliament which had been madeto prevent such enormities, their occurrence might be prevented. "Heexpected," he said, "to be able to establish by witnesses, as well as bythe declaration of the panel herself, that she was in the state describedby the statute. According to his information, the panel had communicatedher pregnancy to no one, nor did she allege in her own declaration thatshe had done so. This secrecy was the first requisite in support of theindictment. The same declaration admitted, that she had borne a malechild, in circumstances which gave but too much reason to believe it haddied by the hands, or at least with the knowledge or consent, of theunhappy mother. It was not, however, necessary for him to bring positiveproof that the panel was accessory to the murder, nay, nor even to prove,that the child was murdered at all. It was sufficient to support theindictment, that it could not be found. According to the stern, butnecessary severity of this statute, she who should conceal her pregnancy,who should omit to call that assistance which is most necessary on suchoccasions, was held already to have meditated the death of her offspring,as an event most likely to be the consequence of her culpable and cruelconcealment. And if, under such circumstances, she could notalternatively show by proof that the infant had died a natural death, orproduce it still in life, she must, under the construction of the law, beheld to have murdered it, and suffer death accordingly."

  The counsel for the prisoner, Mr. Fairbrother, a man of considerable famein his profession, did not pretend directly to combat the arguments ofthe King's Advocate. He began by lamenting that his senior at the bar,Mr. Langtale, had been suddenly called to the county of which he wassheriff, and that he had been applied to, on short warning, to give thepanel his assistance in this interesting case. He had had little time, hesaid, to make up for his inferiority to his learned brother by long andminute research; and he was afraid he might give a specimen of hisincapacity, by being compelled to admit the accuracy of the indictmentunder the statute. "It was enough for their Lordships," he observed, "toknow that such was the law, and he admitted the advocate had a right tocall for the usual interlocutor of relevancy." But he stated, "that whenhe came to establish his case by proof, he trusted to make outcircumstances which would satisfactorily elide the charge in the libel.His client's story was a short, but most melancholy one. She was bred upin the strictest tenets of religion and virtue, the daughter of a worthyand conscientious person, who, in evil times, had established a characterfor courage and religion, by becoming a sufferer for conscience' sake."

  David Deans gave a convulsive start at hearing himself thus mentioned,and then resumed the situation, in which, with his face stooped againsthis hands, and both resting against the corner of the elevated bench onwhich the Judges sate, he had hitherto listened to the procedure in thetrial. The Whig lawyers seemed to be interested; the Tories put up theirlip.

  "Whatever may be our difference of opinion," resumed the lawyer, whosebusiness it was to carry his whole audience with him if possible,"concerning the peculiar tenets of these people" (here Deans groaneddeeply), "it is impossible to deny them the praise of sound, and evenrigid morals, or the merit of training up their children in the fear ofGod; and yet it was the daughter of such a person whom a jury wouldshortly be called upon, in the absence of evidence, and upon merepresumptions, to convict of a crime more properly belonging to a heathen,or a savage, than to a Christian and civilised country. It was true," headmitted, "that the excellent nurture and early instruction which thepoor girl had received, had not been sufficient to preserve her fromguilt and error. She had fallen a sacrifice to an inconsiderate affectionfor a young man of prepossessing manners, as he had been informed, but ofa very dangerous and desperate character. She was seduced under promiseof marriage--a promise, which the fellow might have, perhaps, done herjustice by keeping, had he not at that time been called upon by the lawto atone for a crime, violent and desperate in itself, but which becamethe preface to another eventful history, every step of which was markedby blood and guilt, and the final termination of which had not even yetarrived. He believed that no one would hear him without surprise, when hestated that the father of this infant now amissing, and said by thelearned Advocate to have been murdered, was no other than the notoriousGeorge Robertson, the accomplice of Wilson, the hero of the memorableescape from the Tolbooth Church, and as no one knew better than hislearned
friend the Advocate, the principal actor in the Porteousconspiracy"

  "I am sorry to interrupt a counsel in such a case as the present," said,the presiding Judge; "but I must remind the learned gentleman that he istravelling out of the case before us."

  The counsel bowed and resumed. "He only judged it necessary," he said,"to mention the name and situation of Robertson, because the circumstancein which that character was placed, went a great way in accounting forthe silence on which his Majesty's counsel had laid so much weight, asaffording proof that his client proposed to allow no fair play for itslife to the helpless being whom she was about to bring into the world.She had not announced to her friends that she had been seduced from thepath of honour--and why had she not done so?--Because she expected dailyto be restored to character, by her seducer doing her that justice whichshe knew to be in his power, and believed to be in his inclination. Wasit natural--was it reasonable--was it fair, to expect that she should inthe interim, become _felo de se_ of her own character, and proclaim herfrailty to the world, when she had every reason to expect, that, byconcealing it for a season, it might be veiled for ever? Was it not, onthe contrary, pardonable, that, in such an emergency, a young woman, insuch a situation, should be found far from disposed to make a confidantof every prying gossip, who, with sharp eyes, and eager ears, pressedupon her for an explanation of suspicious circumstances, which females inthe lower--he might say which females of all ranks, are so alert innoticing, that they sometimes discover them where they do not exist? Wasit strange or was it criminal, that she should have repelled theirinquisitive impertinence with petulant denials? The sense and feeling ofall who heard him would answer directly in the negative. But although hisclient had thus remained silent towards those to whom she was not calledupon to communicate her situation,--to whom," said the learned gentleman,"I will add, it would have been unadvised and improper in her to havedone so; yet, I trust, I shall remove this case most triumphantly fromunder the statute, and obtain the unfortunate young woman an honourabledismission from your Lordships' bar, by showing that she did, in due timeand place, and to a person most fit for such confidence, mention thecalamitous circumstances in which she found herself. This occurred afterRobertson's conviction, and when he was lying in prison in expectation ofthe fate which his comrade Wilson afterwards suffered, and from which hehimself so strangely escaped. It was then, when all hopes of having herhonour repaired by wedlock vanished from her eyes,--when an union withone in Robertson's situation, if still practicable, might, perhaps, havebeen regarded rather as an addition to her disgrace,--it was _then,_ thatI trust to be able to prove that the prisoner communicated and consultedwith her sister, a young woman several years older than herself, thedaughter of her father, if I mistake not, by a former marriage, upon theperils and distress of her unhappy situation."

  "If, indeed, you are able to instruct _that_ point, Mr. Fairbrother,"said the presiding Judge.

  "If I am indeed able to instruct that point, my Lord," resumed Mr.Fairbrother, "I trust not only to serve my client, but to relieve yourLordships from that which I know you feel the most painful duty of yourhigh office; and to give all who now hear me the exquisite pleasure ofbeholding a creature, so young, so ingenuous, and so beautiful, as shethat is now at the bar of your Lordships' Court, dismissed from thence insafety and in honour."

  This address seemed to affect many of the audience, and was followed by aslight murmur of applause. Deans, as he heard his daughter's beauty andinnocent appearance appealed to, was involuntarily about to turn his eyestowards her; but, recollecting himself, he bent them again on the groundwith stubborn resolution.

  "Will not my learned brother, on the other side of the bar," continuedthe advocate, after a short pause, "share in this general joy, since, Iknow, while he discharges his duty in bringing an accused person here, noone rejoices more in their being freely and honourably sent hence? Mylearned brother shakes his head doubtfully, and lays his hand on thepanel's declaration. I understand him perfectly--he would insinuate thatthe facts now stated to your Lordships are inconsistent with theconfession of Euphemia Deans herself. I need not remind your Lordships,that her present defence is no whit to be narrowed within the bounds ofher former confession; and that it is not by any account which she mayformerly have given of herself, but by what is now to be proved for oragainst her, that she must ultimately stand or fall. I am not under thenecessity of accounting for her choosing to drop out of her declarationthe circumstances of her confession to her sister. She might not be awareof its importance; she might be afraid of implicating her sister; shemight even have forgotten the circumstance entirely, in the terror anddistress of mind incidental to the arrest of so young a creature on acharge so heinous. Any of these reasons are sufficient to account for herhaving suppressed the truth in this instance, at whatever risk toherself; and I incline most to her erroneous fear of criminating hersister, because I observe she has had a similar tenderness towards herlover (however undeserved on his part), and has never once mentionedRobertson's name from beginning to end of her declaration.

  "But, my Lords," continued Fairbrother, "I am aware the King's Advocatewill expect me to show, that the proof I offer is consistent with othercircumstances of the, case, which I do not and cannot deny. He willdemand of me how Effie Deans's confession to her sister, previous to herdelivery, is reconcilable with the mystery of the birth,--with thedisappearance, perhaps the murder (for I will not deny a possibilitywhich I cannot disprove) of the infant. My Lords, the explanation of thisis to be found in the placability, perchance, I may say, in the facilityand pliability, of the female sex. The _dulcis Amaryllidis irae,_ as yourLordships well know, are easily appeased; nor is it possible to conceivea woman so atrociously offended by the man whom she has loved, but thatshe will retain a fund of forgiveness, upon which his penitence, whetherreal or affected, may draw largely, with a certainty that his bills willbe answered. We can prove, by a letter produced in evidence, that thisvillain Robertson, from the bottom of the dungeon whence he alreadyprobably meditated the escape, which he afterwards accomplished by theassistance of his comrade, contrived to exercise authority over the mind,and to direct the motions, of this unhappy girl. It was in compliancewith his injunctions, expressed in that letter, that the panel wasprevailed upon to alter the line of conduct which her own better thoughtshad suggested; and, instead of resorting, when her time of travailapproached, to the protection of her own family, was induced to confideherself to the charge of some vile agent of this nefarious seducer, andby her conducted to one of those solitary and secret purlieus of villany,which, to the shame of our police, still are suffered to exist in thesuburbs of this city, where, with the assistance, and under the charge,of a person of her own sex, she bore a male child, under circumstanceswhich added treble bitterness to the woe denounced against our originalmother. What purpose Robertson had in all this, it is hard to tell, oreven to guess. He may have meant to marry the girl, for her father is aman of substance. But, for the termination of the story, and the conductof the woman whom he had placed about the person of Euphemia Deans, it isstill more difficult to account. The unfortunate young woman was visitedby the fever incidental to her situation. In this fever she appears tohave been deceived by the person that waited on her, and, on recoveringher senses, she found that she was childless in that abode of misery. Herinfant had been carried off, perhaps for the worst purposes, by thewretch that waited on her. It may have been murdered, for what I cantell."

  He was here interrupted by a piercing shriek, uttered by the unfortunateprisoner. She was with difficulty brought to compose herself. Her counselavailed himself of the tragical interruption, to close his pleading witheffect.

  "My Lords," said he, "in that piteous cry you heard the eloquence ofmaternal affection, far surpassing the force of my poor words--Rachelweeping for her children! Nature herself bears testimony in favour of thetenderness and acuteness of the prisoner's parental feelings. I will notdishonour her plea by adding a word more."

&n
bsp; "Heard ye ever the like o' that, Laird?" said Saddletree to Dumbiedikes,when the counsel had ended his speech. "There's a chield can spin amuckle pirn out of a wee tait of tow! Deil haet he kens mair about itthan what's in the declaration, and a surmise that Jeanie Deans suld haebeen able to say something about her sister's situation, whilk surmise,Mr. Crossmyloof says, rests on sma' authority. And he's cleckit thisgreat muckle bird out o' this wee egg! He could wile the very floundersout o' the Firth.--What garr'd my father no send me to Utrecht?--Butwhisht, the Court is gaun to pronounce the interlocutor of relevancy."

  And accordingly the Judges, after a few words, recorded their judgment,which bore, that the indictment, if proved, was relevant to infer thepains of law: And that the defence, that the panel had communicated hersituation to her sister, was a relevant defence: And, finally, appointedthe said indictment and defence to be submitted to the judgment of anassize.