The Heart of Mid Lothian, Vol. 1., Illustrated - Sir Walter Scott
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"I will meet this unhappy man," she said to herself--"unhappy he must be,
since I doubt he has been the cause of poor Effie's misfortune--but I
will meet him, be it for good or ill. My mind shall never cast up to me,
that, for fear of what might be said or done to myself, I left that
undone that might even yet be the rescue of her."
With a mind greatly composed since the adoption of this resolution, she
went to attend her father. The old man, firm in the principles of his
youth, did not, in outward appearance at least, permit a thought of hit
family distress to interfere with the stoical reserve of his countenance
and manners. He even chid his daughter for having neglected, in the
distress of the morning, some trifling domestic duties which fell under
her department.
"Why, what meaneth this, Jeanie?" said the old man--"The brown
four-year-auld's milk is not seiled yet, nor the bowies put up on the
bink. If ye neglect your warldly duties in the day of affliction, what
confidence have I that ye mind the greater matters that concern
salvation? God knows, our bowies, and our pipkins, and our draps o' milk,
and our bits o' bread, are nearer and dearer to us than the bread of
life!"
Jeanie, not unpleased to hear her father's thoughts thus expand
themselves beyond the sphere of his immediate distress, obeyed him, and
proceeded to put her household matters in order; while old David moved
from place to place about his ordinary employments, scarce showing,
unless by a nervous impatience at remaining long stationary, an
occasional convulsive sigh, or twinkle of the eyelid, that he was
labouring under the yoke of such bitter affliction.
The hour of noon came on, and the father and child sat down to their
homely repast. In his petition for a blessing on the meal, the poor old
man added to his supplication, a prayer that the bread eaten in sadness
of heart, and the bitter waters of Marah, might be made as nourishing as
those which had been poured forth from a full cup and a plentiful basket
and store; and having concluded his benediction, and resumed the bonnet
which he had laid "reverently aside," he proceeded to exhort his daughter
to eat, not by example indeed, but at least by precept.
"The man after God's own heart," he said, "washed and anointed himself,
and did eat bread, in order to express his submission under a
dispensation of suffering, and it did not become a Christian man or woman
so to cling to creature-comforts of wife or bairns"--(here the words
became too great, as it were, for his utterance),--"as to forget the fist
duty,--submission to the Divine will."
To add force to his precept, he took a morsel on his plate, but nature
proved too strong even for the powerful feelings with which he
endeavoured to bridle it. Ashamed of his weakness, he started up, and ran
out of the house, with haste very unlike the deliberation of his usual
movements. In less than five minutes he returned, having successfully
struggled to recover his ordinary composure of mind and countenance, and
affected to colour over his late retreat, by muttering that he thought he
heard the "young staig loose in the byre."
He did not again trust himself with the subject of his former
conversation, and his daughter was glad to see that he seemed to avoid
farther discourse on that agitating topic. The hours glided on, as on
they must and do pass, whether winged with joy or laden with affliction.
The sun set beyond the dusky eminence of the Castle and the screen of
western hills, and the close of evening summoned David Deans and his
daughter to the family duty of the night. It came bitterly upon Jeanie's
recollection, how often, when the hour of worship approached, she used to
watch the lengthening shadows, and look out from the door of the house,
to see if she could spy her sister's return homeward. Alas! this idle and
thoughtless waste of time, to what evils had it not finally led? and was
she altogether guiltless, who, noticing Effie's turn to idle and light
society, had not called in her father's authority to restrain her?--But I
acted for the best, she again reflected, and who could have expected such
a growth of evil, from one grain of human leaven, in a disposition so
kind, and candid, and generous?
As they sate down to the "exercise," as it is called, a chair happened
accidentally to stand in the place which Effie usually occupied. David
Deans saw his daughter's eyes swim in tears as they were directed towards
this object, and pushed it aside, with a gesture of some impatience, as
if desirous to destroy every memorial of earthly interest when about to
address the Deity. The portion of Scripture was read, the psalm was sung,
the prayer was made; and it was remarkable that, in discharging these
duties, the old man avoided all passages and expressions, of which
Scripture affords so many, that might be considered as applicable to his
own domestic misfortune. In doing so it was perhaps his intention to
spare the feelings of his daughter, as well as to maintain, in outward
show at least, that stoical appearance of patient endurance of all the
evil which earth could bring, which was in his opinion essential to the
character of one who rated all earthly things at their just estimate of
nothingness. When he had finished the duty of the evening, he came up to
his daughter, wished her good-night, and, having done so, continued to
hold her by the hands for half-a-minute; then drawing her towards him,
kissed her forehead, and ejaculated, "The God of Israel bless you, even
with the blessings of the promise, my dear bairn!"
It was not either in the nature or habits of David Deans to seem a fond
father; nor was he often observed to experience, or at least to evince,
that fulness of the heart which seeks to expand itself in tender
expressions or caresses even to those who were dearest to him. On the
contrary, he used to censure this as a degree of weakness in several of
his neighbours, and particularly in poor widow Butler. It followed,
however, from the rarity of such emotions in this self-denied and
reserved man, that his children attached to occasional marks of his
affection and approbation a degree of high interest and solemnity; well
considering them as evidences of feelings which were only expressed when
they became too intense for suppression or concealment.
With deep emotion, therefore, did he bestow, and his daughter receive,
this benediction and paternal caress. "And you, my dear father,"
exclaimed Jeanie, when the door had closed upon the venerable old man,
"may you have purchased and promised blessings multiplied upon you--upon
_you,_ who walk in this world as though you were not of the world, and
hold all that it can give or take away but as the _midges_ that the
sun-blink brings out, and the evening wind sweeps away!"
She now made preparation for her night-walk. Her father slept in another
part of the dwelling, and, regular in all his habits, seldom or never
left his apartment when he had betaken himself to it for the evening. It
was therefore easy for her to leave the house unobserved, so soon as the
time approached at which she was to keep her appointment. But the step
she was about to take had difficulties and terrors in her own eyes,
though she had no reason to apprehend her father's interference. Her life
had been spent in the quiet, uniform, and regular seclusion of their
peaceful and monotonous household. The very hour which some damsels of
the present day, as well of her own as of higher degree, would consider
as the natural period of commencing an evening of pleasure, brought, in
her opinion, awe and solemnity in it; and the resolution she had taken
had a strange, daring, and adventurous character, to which she could
hardly reconcile herself when the moment approached for putting it into
execution. Her hands trembled as she snooded her fair hair beneath the
riband, then the only ornament or cover which young unmarried women wore
on their head, and as she adjusted the scarlet tartan screen or muffler
made of plaid, which the Scottish women wore, much in the fashion of the
black silk veils still a part of female dress in the Netherlands. A sense
of impropriety as well as of danger pressed upon her, as she lifted the
latch of her paternal mansion to leave it on so wild an expedition, and
at so late an hour, unprotected, and without the knowledge of her natural
guardian.
When she found herself abroad and in the open fields, additional subjects
of apprehension crowded upon her. The dim cliffs and scattered rocks,
interspersed with greensward, through which she had to pass to the place
of appointment, as they glimmered before her in a clear autumn night,
recalled to her memory many a deed of violence, which, according to
tradition, had been done and suffered among them. In earlier days they
had been the haunt of robbers and assassins, the memory of whose crimes
is preserved in the various edicts which the council of the city, and
even the parliament of Scotland, had passed for dispersing their bands,
and ensuring safety to the lieges, so near the precincts of the city. The
names of these criminals, and, of their atrocities, were still remembered
in traditions of the scattered cottages and the neighbouring suburb. In
latter times, as we have already noticed, the sequestered and broken
character of the ground rendered it a fit theatre for duels and
rencontres among the fiery youth of the period. Two or three of these
incidents, all sanguinary, and one of them fatal in its termination, had
happened since Deans came to live at St. Leonard's. His daughter's
recollections, therefore, were of blood and horror as she pursued the
small scarce-tracked solitary path, every step of which conveyed het to a
greater distance from help, and deeper into the ominous seclusion of
these unhallowed precincts.
As the moon began to peer forth on the scene with a doubtful, flitting,
and solemn light, Jeanie's apprehensions took another turn, too peculiar
to her rank and country to remain unnoticed. But to trace its origin will
require another chapter.
CHAPTER FOURTEENTH.
The spirit I have seen
May be the devil. And the devil has power
To assume a pleasing shape.
Hamlet.
Witchcraft and demonology, as we have already had occasion to remark, were
at this period believed in by almost all ranks, but more especially among
the stricter classes of Presbyterians, whose government, when their party
were at the head of the state, had been much sullied by their eagerness
to inquire into and persecute these imaginary crimes. Now, in this point
of view, also, Saint Leonard's Crags and the adjacent Chase were a
dreaded and ill-reputed district. Not only had witches held their
meetings there, but even of very late years the enthusiast or impostor,
mentioned in the _Pandaemonium_ of Richard Bovet, Gentleman,* had, among
the recesses of these romantic cliffs, found his way into the hidden
retreats where the fairies revel in the bowels of the earth.
* Note I. The Fairy Boy of Leith.
With all these legends Jeanie Deans was too well acquainted to escape
that strong impression which they usually make on the imagination.
Indeed, relations of this ghostly kind had been familiar to her from her
infancy, for they were the only relief which her father's conversation
afforded from controversial argument, or the gloomy history of the
strivings and testimonies, escapes, captures, tortures, and executions of
those martyrs of the Covenant, with whom it was his chiefest boast to say
he had been acquainted. In the recesses of mountains, in caverns, and in
morasses, to which these persecuted enthusiasts were so ruthlessly
pursued, they conceived they had often to contend with the visible
assaults of the Enemy of mankind, as in the cities, and in the cultivated
fields, they were exposed to those of the tyrannical government and their
soldiery. Such were the terrors which made one of their gifted seers
exclaim, when his companion returned to him, after having left him alone
in a haunted cavern in Sorn in Galloway, "It is hard living in this
world-incarnate devils above the earth, and devils under the earth! Satan
has been here since ye went away, but I have dismissed him by resistance;
we will be no more troubled with him this night." David Deans believed
this, and many other such ghostly encounters and victories, on the faith
of the Ansars, or auxiliaries of the banished prophets. This event was
beyond David's remembrance. But he used to tell with great awe, yet not
without a feeling of proud superiority to his auditors, how he himself
had been present at a field-meeting at Crochmade, when the duty of the
day was interrupted by the apparition of a tall black man, who, in the
act of crossing a ford to join the congregation, lost ground, and was
carried down apparently by the force of the stream. All were instantly at
work to assist him, but with so little success, that ten or twelve stout
men, who had hold of the rope which they had cast in to his aid, were
rather in danger to be dragged into the stream, and lose their own lives,
than likely to save that of the supposed perishing man. "But famous John
Semple of Carspharn," David Deans used to say with exultation, "saw the
whaup in the rape.--'Quit the rope,' he cried to us (for I that was but a
callant had a hand o' the rape mysell), 'it is the Great Enemy! he will
burn, but not drown; his design is to disturb the good wark, by raising
wonder and confusion in your minds; to put off from your spirits all that
ye hae heard and felt.'--Sae we let go the rape," said David, "and he
went adown the water screeching and bullering like a Bull of Bashan, as
he's ca'd in Scripture."*
* Note J. Intercourse of the Covenanters with the invisible world.
Trained in these and similar legends, it was no wonder that Jeanie began
to feel an ill-defined apprehension, not merely of the phantoms which
might beset her way, but of the quality, nature, and purpose of the being
who had thus appointed her a meeting, at a place and hour of horror, and
at a time when her mind must be necessarily full of those tempting and
ensnaring thoughts of grief and despair, which were supposed to lay
sufferers particularly open to the temptations of the Evil One. If such
an idea had crossed even Butler's well-informed mind, it was calculated
to make a much stronger impression upon hers. Yet firmly believing the
possibility of an encounter so terrible to flesh and blood, Jeanie, with
a degree of resolution of which we cannot sufficiently estimate the
merit, because the incredulity of the age has rendered us strangers to
the nature and extent of her feelings, persevered in her determination
not to omit an opportunity of doing something towards saving her sister,
although, in the attempt to avail herself of it, she might be exposed to
dangers so dreadful to her imagination. So, like Christiana in the
Pilgrim's Progress, when traversing with a timid yet resolved step the
terrors of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, she glided on by rock and
stone, "now in glimmer and now in gloom," as her path lay through
moonlight or shadow, and endeavoured to overpower the suggestions of
fear, sometimes by fixing her mind upon the distressed condition of her
sister, and the duty she lay under to afford her aid, should that be in
her power; and more frequently by recurring in mental prayer to the
protection of that Being to whom night is as noon-day.
Thus drowning at one time her fears by fixing her mind on a subject of
overpowering interest, and arguing them down at others by referring
herself to the protection of the Deity, she at length approached the
place assigned for this mysterious conference.
It was situated in the depth of the valley behind Salisbury Crags, which
has for a background the north-western shoulder of the mountain called
Arthur's Seat, on whose descent still remain the ruins of what was once a
chapel, or hermitage, dedicated to St. Anthony the Eremite. A better site
for such a building could hardly have been selected; for the chapel,
situated among the rude and pathless cliffs, lies in a desert, even in
the immediate vicinity of a rich, populous, and tumultuous capital: and
the hum of the city might mingle with the orisons of the recluses,
conveying as little of worldly interest as if it had been the roar of the
distant ocean. Beneath the steep ascent on which these ruins are still
visible, was, and perhaps is still pointed out, the place where the
wretch Nichol Muschat, who has been already mentioned in these pages, had
closed a long scene of cruelty towards his unfortunate wife, by murdering
her, with circumstances of uncommon barbarity.*
* See Note G. Muschat's Cairn.
The execration in which the man's crime was held extended itself to the
place where it was perpetrated, which was marked by a small _cairn,_ or
heap of stones, composed of those which each chance passenger had thrown
there in testimony of abhorrence, and on the principle, it would seem, of
the ancient British malediction, "May you have a cairn for your
burial-place!"
[Illustration: Muschat's Cairn--221]
As our heroine approached this ominous and unhallowed spot, she paused
and looked to the moon, now rising broad in the north-west, and shedding
a more distinct light than it had afforded during her walk thither.
Eyeing the planet for a moment, she then slowly and fearfully turned her
head towards the cairn, from which it was at first averted. She was at
first disappointed. Nothing was visible beside the little pile of stones,
which shone grey in the moonlight. A multitude of confused suggestions
rushed on her mind. Had her correspondent deceived her, and broken his
appointment?--was he too tardy at the appointment he had made?--or had
some strange turn of fate prevented him from appearing as he
proposed?--or, if he were an unearthly being, as her secret
apprehensions suggested, was it his object merely to delude her with
false hopes, and put her to unnecessary toil and terror, according to
the nature, as she had heard, of those wandering demons?--or did he
purpose to blast her with the sudden horrors of his presence when she
had come close to the place of rendezvous? These anxious reflections did
not prevent her approaching to the cairn with a pace that, though slow,
was determined.
When she was within two yards of the heap of stones, a figure rose
suddenly up from behind it, and Jeanie scarce forbore to scream aloud at
what seemed the realisation of the most frightful of her anticipations.
She constrained herself to silence, however, and, making a dead pause,
suffered the figure to open the conversation, which he did, by asking, in
a voice which agitation rendered tremulous and hollow, "Are you the
sister of that ill-fated young woman?"
"I am--I am the sister of Effie Deans!" exclaimed Jeanie. "And as ever
you hope God will hear you at your need, tell me, if you can tell, what
can be done to save her!"
"I do _not_ hope God will hear me at my need," was the singular answer.
"I do not deserve--I do not expect he will." This desperate language he
uttered in a tone calmer than that with which he had at first spoken,
probably because the shook of first addressing her was what he felt most
difficult to overcome. Jeanie remained mute with horror to hear language
expressed so utterly foreign to all which she had ever been acquainted
with, that it sounded in her ears rather like that of a fiend than of a
human being. The stranger pursued his address to her, without seeming to
notice her surprise. "You see before you a wretch, predestined to evil
here and hereafter."
"For the sake of Heaven, that hears and sees us," said Jeanie, "dinna
speak in this desperate fashion! The gospel is sent to the chief of
sinners--to the most miserable among the miserable."
"Then should I have my own share therein," said the stranger, "if you
call it sinful to have been the destruction of the mother that bore
me--of the friend that loved me--of the woman that trusted me--of the
innocent child that was born to me. If to have done all this is to be a
sinner, and survive it is to be miserable, then am I most guilty and most
miserable indeed."
"Then you are the wicked cause of my sister's ruin?" said Jeanie, with a
natural touch of indignation expressed in her tone of voice.
"Curse me for it, if you will," said the stranger; "I have well deserved
it at your hand."
"It is fitter for me," said Jeanie, "to pray to God to forgive you."
"Do as you will, how you will, or what you will," he replied, with
vehemence; "only promise to obey my directions, and save your sister's
life."
"I must first know," said Jeanie, "the means you would have me use in her
behalf."
"No!--you must first swear--solemnly swear, that you will employ them
when I make them known to you."
"Surely, it is needless to swear that I will do all that is lawful to a
Christian to save the life of my sister?"
"I will have no reservation!" thundered the stranger; "lawful or
unlawful, Christian or heathen, you shall swear to do my hest, and act by
my counsel, or--you little know whose wrath you provoke!"
"I will think on what you have said," said Jeanie, who began to get much
alarmed at the frantic vehemence of his manner, and disputed in her own
mind, whether she spoke to a maniac, or an apostate spirit incarnate--"I
will think on what you say, and let you ken to-morrow."
"To-morrow!" exclaimed the man with a laugh of scorn--"And where will I
be to-morrow?--or, where will you be to-night, unless you swear to walk
by my counsel?--there was one accursed deed done at this spot before now;
and there shall be another to match it, unless you yield up to my
guidance body and soul."
As he spoke, he offered a pistol at the unfortunate young woman. She
neither fled nor fainted, but sunk on her knees, and asked him to spare
her life.
"Is that all you have to say?" said the unmoved ruffian.
"Do not dip your hands in the blood of a defenceless creature that has
trusted to you," said Jeanie, still on her knees.
"Is that all you can say for your life?--Have you no promise to
give?--Will you destroy your sister, and compel me to shed more blood?"
"I can promise nothing," said Jeanie, "which is unlawful for a
Christian."
He cocked the weapon, and held it towards her.
"May God forgive you!" she said, pressing her hands forcibly against her
eyes.
"D--n!" muttered the man; and, turning aside from her, he uncocked the
pistol, and replaced it in his pocket--"I am a villain," he said,
"steeped in guilt and wretchedness, but not wicked enough to do you any
harm! I only wished to terrify you into my measures--She hears me
not--she is gone!--Great God! what a wretch am I become!"
As he spoke, she recovered herself from an agony which partook of the
bitterness of death; and, in a minute or two, through the strong exertion
of her natural sense and courage, collected herself sufficiently to
understand he intended her no personal injury.
"No!" he repeated; "I would not add to the murder of your sister, and of
her child, that of any one belonging to her!--Mad, frantic, as I am, and
unrestrained by either fear or mercy, given up to the possession of an
evil being, and forsaken by all that is good, I would not hurt you, were
the world offered me for a bribe! But, for the sake of all that is dear
to you, swear you will follow my counsel. Take this weapon, shoot me
through the head, and with your own hand revenge your sister's wrong,
only follow the course--the only course, by which her life can be saved."
"Alas! is she innocent or guilty?"
"She is guiltless--guiltless of every thing, but of having trusted a
villain!--Yet, had it not been for those that were worse than I am--yes,
worse than I am, though I am bad indeed--this misery had not befallen."
"And my sister's child--does it live?" said Jeanie.
"No; it was murdered--the new-born infant was barbarously murdered," he
uttered in a low, yet stern and sustained voice.--"but," he added
hastily, "not by her knowledge or consent."
"Then, why cannot the guilty be brought to justice, and the innocent
freed?"
"Torment me not with questions which can serve no purpose," he sternly
replied--"The deed was done by those who are far enough from pursuit, and
safe enough from discovery!--No one can save Effie but yourself."
"Woe's me! how is it in my power?" asked Jeanie, in despondency.
"Hearken to me!--You have sense--you can apprehend my meaning--I will
trust you. Your sister is innocent of the crime charged against her"
"Thank God for that!" said Jeanie.
"Be still and hearken!--The person who assisted her in her illness
murdered the child; but it was without the mother's knowledge or
consent--She is therefore guiltless, as guiltless as the unhappy
innocent, that but gasped a few minutes in this unhappy world--the
better was its hap, to be so soon at rest. She is innocent as that
infant, and yet she must die--it is impossible to clear her of the law!"