Reuben and Rachel, though as fond as doves,
Were yet discreet and cautious in their loves,
Nor would attend to Cupid's wild commands,
Till cool reflection bade them join their hands;
When both were poor, they thought it argued ill
Of hasty love to make them poorer still.
Crabbe's _Parish Register._
While widow Butler and widower Deans struggled with poverty, and the hard
and sterile soil of "those parts and portions" of the lands of
Dumbiedikes which it was their lot to occupy, it became gradually
apparent that Deans was to gain the strife, and his ally in the conflict
was to lose it. The former was a Man, and not much past the prime of
life--Mrs. Butler a woman, and declined into the vale of years, This,
indeed, ought in time to have been balanced by the circumstance, that
Reuben was growing up to assist his grandmothers labours, and that Jeanie
Deans, as a girl, could be only supposed to add to her father's burdens.
But Douce Davie Deans know better things, and so schooled and trained the
young minion, as he called her, that from the time she could walk,
upwards, she was daily employed in some task or other, suitable to her
age and capacity; a circumstance which, added to her father's daily
instructions and lectures, tended to give her mind, even when a child, a
grave, serious, firm, and reflecting cast. An uncommonly strong and
healthy temperament, free from all nervous affection and every other
irregularity, which, attacking the body in its more noble functions, so
often influences the mind, tended greatly to establish this fortitude,
simplicity, and decision of character.
On the other hand, Reuben was weak in constitution, and, though not timid
in temper might be safely pronounced anxious, doubtful, and apprehensive.
He partook of the temperament of his mother, who had died of a
consumption in early age. He was a pale, thin, feeble, sickly boy, and
somewhat lame, from an accident in early youth. He was, besides, the
child of a doting grandmother, whose too solicitous attention to him soon
taught him a sort of diffidence in himself, with a disposition to
overrate his own importance, which is one of the very worst consequences
that children deduce from over-indulgence.
Still, however, the two children clung to each other's society, not more
from habit than from taste. They herded together the handful of sheep,
with the two or three cows, which their parents turned out rather to seek
food than actually to feed upon the unenclosed common of Dumbiedikes. It
was there that the two urchins might be seen seated beneath a blooming
bush of whin, their little faces laid close together under the shadow of
the same plaid drawn over both their heads, while the landscape around
was embrowned by an overshadowing cloud, big with the shower which had
driven the children to shelter. On other occasions they went together to
school, the boy receiving that encouragement and example from his
companion, in crossing the little brooks which intersected their path,
and encountering cattle, dogs, and other perils, upon their journey,
which the male sex in such cases usually consider it as their prerogative
to extend to the weaker. But when, seated on the benches of the
school-house, they began to con their lessons together, Reuben, who was
as much superior to Jeanie Deans in acuteness of intellect, as inferior
to her in firmness of constitution, and in that insensibility to fatigue
and danger which depends on the conformation of the nerves, was able
fully to requite the kindness and countenance with which, in other
circumstances, she used to regard him. He was decidedly the best scholar
at the little parish school; and so gentle was his temper and
disposition, that he was rather admired than envied by the little mob who
occupied the noisy mansion, although he was the declared favourite of the
master. Several girls, in particular (for in Scotland they are taught
with the boys), longed to be kind to and comfort the sickly lad, who was
so much cleverer than his companions. The character of Reuben Butler was
so calculated as to offer scope both for their sympathy and their
admiration, the feelings, perhaps, through which the female sex (the more
deserving part of them at least) is more easily attached.
But Reuben, naturally reserved and distant, improved none of these
advantages; and only became more attached to Jeanie Deans, as the
enthusiastic approbation of his master assured him of fair prospects in
future life, and awakened his ambition. In the meantime, every advance
that Reuben made in learning (and, considering his opportunities, they
were uncommonly great) rendered him less capable of attending to the
domestic duties of his grandmother's farm. While studying the _pons
asinorum_ in Euclid, he suffered every _cuddie_ upon the common to
trespass upon a large field of peas belonging to the Laird, and nothing
but the active exertions of Jeanie Deans, with her little dog Dustiefoot,
could have saved great loss and consequent punishment. Similar
miscarriages marked his progress in his classical studies. He read
Virgil's Georgics till he did not know bere from barley; and had nearly
destroyed the crofts of Beersheba while attempting to cultivate them
according to the practice of Columella and Cato the Censor.
These blunders occasioned grief to his grand-dame, and disconcerted the
good opinion which her neighbour, Davie Deans, had for some time
entertained of Reuben.
"I see naething ye can make of that silly callant, neighbour Butler,"
said he to the old lady, "unless ye train him to the wark o' the
ministry. And ne'er was there mair need of poorfu' preachers than e'en
now in these cauld Gallio days, when men's hearts are hardened like the
nether mill-stone, till they come to regard none of these things. It's
evident this puir callant of yours will never be able to do an usefu'
day's wark, unless it be as an ambassador from our Master; and I will
make it my business to procure a license when he is fit for the same,
trusting he will be a shaft cleanly polished, and meet to be used in the
body of the kirk; and that he shall not turn again, like the sow, to
wallow in the mire of heretical extremes and defections, but shall have
the wings of a dove, though he hath lain among the pots."
The poor widow gulped down the affront to her husband's principles,
implied in this caution, and hastened to take Butler from the High
School, and encourage him in the pursuit of mathematics and divinity, the
only physics and ethics that chanced to be in fashion at the time.
Jeanie Deans was now compelled to part from the companion of her labour,
her study, and her pastime, and it was with more than childish feeling
that both children regarded the separation. But they were young, and hope
was high, and they separated like those who hope to meet again at a more
auspicious hour. While Reuben Butler was acquiring at the University of
St. Andrews the knowledge necessary for a clergyman, and macerating his
body with the privations which were necessary in seeking food for his
mind, his grand-dame became daily less able to struggle with her little
farm, and was at length obliged to throw it up to the new Laird of
Dumbiedikes. That great personage was no absolute Jew, and did not cheat
her in making the bargain more than was tolerable. He even gave her
permission to tenant the house in which she had lived with her husband,
as long as it should be "tenantable;" only he protested against paying
for a farthing of repairs, any benevolence which he possessed being of
the passive, but by no means of the active mood.
In the meanwhile, from superior shrewdness, skill, and other
circumstances, some of them purely accidental, Davie Deans gained a
footing in the world, the possession of some wealth, the reputation of
more, and a growing disposition to preserve and increase his store; for
which, when he thought upon it seriously, he was inclined to blame
himself. From his knowledge in agriculture, as it was then practised, he
became a sort of favourite with the Laird, who had no great pleasure
either in active sports or in society, and was wont to end his daily
saunter by calling at the cottage of Woodend.
Being himself a man of slow ideas and confused utterance, Dumbiedikes
used to sit or stand for half-an-hour with an old laced hat of his
father's upon his head, and an empty tobacco-pipe in his mouth, with his
eyes following Jeanie Deans, or "the lassie" as he called her, through
the course of her daily domestic labour; while her father, after
exhausting the subject of bestial, of ploughs, and of harrows, often took
an opportunity of going full-sail into controversial subjects, to which
discussions the dignitary listened with much seeming patience, but
without making any reply, or, indeed, as most people thought, without
understanding a single word of what the orator was saying. Deans, indeed,
denied this stoutly, as an insult at once to his own talents for
expounding hidden truths, of which he was a little vain, and to the
Laird's capacity of understanding them. He said, "Dumbiedikes was nane of
these flashy gentles, wi' lace on their skirts and swords at their tails,
that were rather for riding on horseback to hell than gauging barefooted
to heaven. He wasna like his father--nae profane company-keeper--nae
swearer--nae drinker--nae frequenter of play-house, or music-house, or
dancing-house--nae Sabbath-breaker--nae imposer of aiths, or bonds, or
denier of liberty to the flock.--He clave to the warld, and the warld's
gear, a wee ower muckle, but then there was some breathing of a gale upon
his spirit," etc. etc. All this honest Davie said and believed.
It is not to be supposed, that, by a father and a man of sense and
observation, the constant direction of the Laird's eyes towards Jeanie
was altogether unnoticed. This circumstance, however, made a much greater
impression upon another member of his family, a second helpmate, to wit,
whom he had chosen to take to his bosom ten years after the death of his
first. Some people were of opinion, that Douce Davie had been rather
surprised into this step, for, in general, he was no friend to marriages
or giving in marriage, and seemed rather to regard that state of society
as a necessary evil,--a thing lawful, and to be tolerated in the
imperfect state of our nature, but which clipped the wings with which we
ought to soar upwards, and tethered the soul to its mansion of clay, and
the creature-comforts of wife and bairns. His own practice, however, had
in this material point varied from his principles, since, as we have
seen, he twice knitted for himself this dangerous and ensnaring
entanglement.
Rebecca, his spouse, had by no means the same horror of matrimony, and as
she made marriages in imagination for every neighbour round, she failed
not to indicate a match betwixt Dumbiedikes and her step-daughter Jeanie.
The goodman used regularly to frown and pshaw whenever this topic was
touched upon, but usually ended by taking his bonnet and walking out of
the house, to conceal a certain gleam of satisfaction, which, at such a
suggestion, involuntarily diffused itself over his austere features.
The more youthful part of my readers may naturally ask, whether Jeanie
Deans was deserving of this mute attention of the Laird of Dumbiedikes;
and the historian, with due regard to veracity, is compelled to answer,
that her personal attractions were of no uncommon description. She was
short, and rather too stoutly made for her size, had grey eyes, light
coloured hair, a round good-humoured face, much tanned with the sun, and
her only peculiar charm was an air of inexpressible serenity, which a
good conscience, kind feelings, contented temper, and the regular
discharge of all her duties, spread over her features. There was nothing,
it may be supposed, very appalling in the form or manners of this rustic
heroine; yet, whether from sheepish bashfulness, or from want of decision
and imperfect knowledge of his own mind on the subject, the Laird of
Dumbiedikes, with his old laced hat and empty tobacco-pipe, came and
enjoyed the beatific vision of Jeanie Deans day after day, week after
week, year after year, without proposing to accomplish any of the
prophecies of the stepmother.
This good lady began to grow doubly impatient on the subject, when, after
having been some years married, she herself presented Douce Davie with
another daughter, who was named Euphemia, by corruption, Effie. It was
then that Rebecca began to turn impatient with the slow pace at which the
Laird's wooing proceeded, judiciously arguing, that, as Lady Dumbiedikes
would have but little occasion for tocher, the principal part of her
gudeman's substance would naturally descend to the child by the second
marriage. Other step-dames have tried less laudable means for clearing
the way to the succession of their own children; but Rebecca, to do her
justice, only sought little Effie's advantage through the promotion, or
which must have generally been accounted such, of her elder sister. She
therefore tried every female art within the compass of her simple skill,
to bring the Laird to a point; but had the mortification to perceive that
her efforts, like those of an unskilful angler, only scared the trout she
meant to catch. Upon one occasion, in particular, when she joked with the
Laird on the propriety of giving a mistress to the house of Dumbiedikes,
he was so effectually startled, that neither laced hat, tobacco-pipe, nor
the intelligent proprietor of these movables, visited Woodend for a
fortnight. Rebecca was therefore compelled to leave the Laird to proceed
at his own snail's pace, convinced, by experience, of the grave-digger's
aphorism, that your dull ass will not mend his pace for beating.
Reuben, in the meantime, pursued his studies at the university, supplying
his wants by teaching the younger lads the knowledge he himself acquired,
and thus at once gaining the means of maintaining himself at the seat of
learning, and fixing in his mind the elements of what he had already
obtained. In this manner, as is usual among the poorer students of
divinity at Scottish universities, he contrived not only to maintain
himself according to his simple wants, but even to send considerable
assistance to his sole remaining parent, a sacred duty, of which the
Scotch are seldom negligent. His progress in knowledge of a general kind,
as well as in the studies proper to his profession, was very
considerable, but was little remarked, owing to the retired modesty of
his disposition, which in no respect qualified him to set off his
learning to the best advantage. And thus, had Butler been a man given to
make complaints, he had his tale to tell, like others, of unjust
preferences, bad luck, and hard usage. On these subjects, however, he was
habitually silent, perhaps from modesty, perhaps from a touch of pride,
or perhaps from a conjunction of both.
He obtained his license as a preacher of the gospel, with some
compliments from the Presbytery by whom it was bestowed; but this did not
lead to any preferment, and he found it necessary to make the cottage at
Beersheba his residence for some months, with no other income than was
afforded by the precarious occupation of teaching in one or other of the
neighbouring families. After having greeted his aged grandmother, his
first visit was to Woodend, where he was received by Jeanie with warm
cordiality, arising from recollections which had never been dismissed
from her mind, by Rebecca with good-humoured hospitality, and by old
Deans in a mode peculiar to himself.
Highly as Douce Davie honoured the clergy, it was not upon each
individual of the cloth that he bestowed his approbation; and, a little
jealous, perhaps, at seeing his youthful acquaintance erected into the
dignity of a teacher and preacher, he instantly attacked him upon various
points of controversy, in order to discover whether he might not have
fallen into some of the snares, defections, and desertions of the time.
Butler was not only a man of stanch Presbyterian principles, but was also
willing to avoid giving pain to his old friend by disputing upon points
of little importance; and therefore he might have hoped to have come like
fine gold out of the furnace of Davie's interrogatories. But the result
on the mind of that strict investigator was not altogether so favourable
as might have been hoped and anticipated. Old Judith Butler, who had
hobbled that evening as far as Woodend, in order to enjoy the
congratulations of her neighbours upon Reuben's return, and upon his high
attainments, of which she was herself not a little proud, was somewhat
mortified to find that her old friend Deans did not enter into the
subject with the warmth she expected. At first, in he seemed rather
silent than dissatisfied; and it was not till Judith had essayed the
subject more than once that it led to the following dialogue.
"Aweel, neibor Deans, I thought ye wad hae been glad to see Reuben amang
us again, poor fellow."
"I _am_ glad, Mrs. Butler," was the neighbour's concise answer.
"Since he has lost his grandfather and his father (praised be Him that
giveth and taketh!), I ken nae friend he has in the world that's been sae
like a father to him as the sell o'ye, neibor Deans."
"God is the only father of the fatherless," said Deans, touching his
bonnet and looking upwards. "Give honour where it is due, gudewife, and
not to an unworthy instrument."
"Aweel, that's your way o' turning it, and nae doubt ye ken best; but I
hae ken'd ye, Davie, send a forpit o' meal to Beersheba when there wasna
a bow left in the meal-ark at Woodend; ay, and I hae ken'd ye"
"Gudewife," said Davie, interrupting her, "these are but idle tales to
tell me; fit for naething but to puff up our inward man wi' our ain vain
acts. I stude beside blessed Alexander Peden, when I heard him call the
death and testimony of our happy martyrs but draps of blude and scarts of
ink in respect of fitting discharge of our duty; and what suld I think of
ony thing the like of me can do?"
"Weel, neibor Deans, ye ken best; but I maun say that, I am sure you are
glad to see my bairn again--the halt's gane now, unless he has to walk
ower mony miles at a stretch; and he has a wee bit colour in his cheek,
that glads my auld een to see it; and he has as decent a black coat as
the minister; and"
"I am very heartily glad he is weel and thriving," said Mr. Deans, with a
gravity that seemed intended to cut short the subject; but a woman who is
bent upon a point is not easily pushed aside from it.
"And," continued Mrs. Butler, "he can wag his head in a pulpit now,
neibor Deans, think but of that--my ain oe--and a'body maun sit still and
listen to him, as if he were the Paip of Rome."
"The what?--the who?--woman!" said Deans, with a sternness far beyond his
usual gravity, as soon as these offensive words had struck upon the
tympanum of his ear.
"Eh, guide us!" said the poor woman; "I had forgot what an ill will ye
had aye at the Paip, and sae had my puir gudeman, Stephen Butler. Mony an
afternoon he wad sit and take up his testimony again the Paip, and again
baptizing of bairns, and the like."
"Woman!" reiterated Deans, "either speak about what ye ken something o',
or be silent; I say that independency is a foul heresy, and anabaptism a
damnable and deceiving error, whilk suld be rooted out of the land wi'
the fire o' the spiritual, and the sword o' the civil magistrate."
"Weel, weel, neibor, I'll no say that ye mayna be right," answered the
submissive Judith. "I am sure ye are right about the sawing and the
mawing, the shearing and the leading, and what for suld ye no be right
about kirkwark, too?--But concerning my oe, Reuben Butler"
"Reuben Butler, gudewife," said David, with solemnity, "is a lad I wish
heartily weel to, even as if he were mine ain son--but I doubt there will
be outs and ins in the track of his walk. I muckle fear his gifts will
get the heels of his grace. He has ower muckle human wit and learning,
and thinks as muckle about the form of the bicker as he does about the
healsomeness of the food--he maun broider the marriage-garment with lace
and passments, or it's no gude eneugh for him. And it's like he's
something proud o' his human gifts and learning, whilk enables him to
dress up his doctrine in that fine airy dress. But," added he, at seeing
the old woman's uneasiness at his discourse, "affliction may gie him a
jagg, and let the wind out o' him, as out o' a cow that's eaten wet
clover, and the lad may do weel, and be a burning and a shining light;
and I trust it will be yours to see, and his to feel it, and that soon."
Widow Butler was obliged to retire, unable to make anything more of her
neighbour, whose discourse, though she did not comprehend it, filled her
with undefined apprehensions on her grandson's account, and greatly
depressed the joy with which she had welcomed him on his return. And it
must not be concealed, in justice to Mr. Deans's discernment, that
Butler, in their conference, had made a greater display of his learning
than the occasion called for, or than was likely to be acceptable to the
old man, who, accustomed to consider himself as a person preeminently
entitled to dictate upon theological subjects of controversy, felt rather
humbled and mortified when learned authorities were placed in array
against him. In fact, Butler had not escaped the tinge of pedantry which
naturally flowed from his education, and was apt, on many occasions, to
make parade of his knowledge, when there was no need of such vanity.
Jeanie Deans, however, found no fault with this display of learning, but,
on the contrary, admired it; perhaps on the same score that her sex are
said to admire men of courage, on account of their own deficiency in that
qualification. The circumstances of their families threw the young people
constantly together; their old intimacy was renewed, though upon a
footing better adapted to their age; and it became at length understood
betwixt them, that their union should be deferred no longer than until
Butler should obtain some steady means of support, however humble. This,
however, was not a matter speedily to be accomplished. Plan after plan
was formed, and plan after plan failed. The good-humoured cheek of Jeanie
lost the first flush of juvenile freshness; Reuben's brow assumed the
gravity of manhood, yet the means of obtaining a settlement seemed remote
as ever. Fortunately for the lovers, their passion was of no ardent or
enthusiastic cast; and a sense of duty on both sides induced them to
bear, with patient fortitude, the protracted interval which divided them
from each other.
In the meanwhile, time did not roll on without effecting his usual
changes. The widow of Stephen Butler, so long the prop of the family of
Beersheba, was gathered to her fathers; and Rebecca, the careful spouse
of our friend Davie Deans, wa's also summoned from her plans of
matrimonial and domestic economy. The morning after her death, Reuben
Butler went to offer his mite of consolation to his old friend and
benefactor. He witnessed, on this occasion, a remarkable struggle betwixt
the force of natural affection and the religious stoicism which the
sufferer thought it was incumbent upon him to maintain under each earthly
dispensation, whether of weal or woe.
On his arrival at the cottage, Jeanie, with her eyes overflowing with
tears, pointed to the little orchard, "in which," she whispered with
broken accents, "my poor father has been since his misfortune." Somewhat
alarmed at this account, Butler entered the orchard, and advanced slowly
towards his old friend, who, seated in a small rude arbour, appeared to
be sunk in the extremity of his affliction. He lifted his eyes somewhat
sternly as Butler approached, as if offended at the interruption; but as
the young man hesitated whether he ought to retreat or advance, he arose,
and came forward to meet him with a self-possessed, and even dignified
air.
"Young man," said the sufferer, "lay it not to heart, though the
righteous perish, and the merciful are removed, seeing, it may well be
said, that they are taken away from the evils to come. Woe to me were I
to shed a tear for the wife of my bosom, when I might weep rivers of
water for this afflicted Church, cursed as it is with carnal seekers, and
with the dead of heart."
"I am happy," said Butler, "that you can forget your private affliction
in your regard for public duty."
"Forget, Reuben?" said poor Deans, putting his handkerchief to his
eyes--"She's not to be forgotten on this side of time; but He that gives
the wound can send the ointment. I declare there have been times during
this night when my meditation hae been so rapt, that I knew not of my
heavy loss. It has been with me as with the worthy John Semple, called
Carspharn John,* upon a like trial--I have been this night on the banks
of Ulai, plucking an apple here and there!"
* Note E. Carspharn John.
Notwithstanding the assumed fortitude of Deans, which he conceived to be
the discharge of a great Christian duty, he had too good a heart not to
suffer deeply under this heavy loss. Woodend became altogether
distasteful to him; and as he had obtained both substance and experience
by his management of that little farm, he resolved to employ them as a
dairy-farmer, or cowfeeder, as they are called in Scotland. The situation
he chose for his new settlement was at a place called Saint Leonard's
Crags, lying betwixt Edinburgh and the mountain called Arthur's Seat, and
adjoining to the extensive sheep pasture still named the King's Park,
from its having been formerly dedicated to the preservation of the royal
game. Here he rented a small lonely house, about half-a-mile distant from
the nearest point of the city, but the site of which, with all the
adjacent ground, is now occupied by the buildings which form the
southeastern suburb. An extensive pasture-ground adjoining, which Deans
rented from the keeper of the Royal Park, enabled him to feed his
milk-cows; and the unceasing industry and activity of Jeanie, his oldest
daughter, were exerted in making the most of their produce.
She had now less frequent opportunities of seeing Reuben, who had been
obliged, after various disappointments, to accept the subordinate
situation of assistant in a parochial school of some eminence, at three
or four miles' distance from the city. Here he distinguished himself, and
became acquainted with several respectable burgesses, who, on account of
health, or other reasons, chose that their children should commence their
education in this little village. His prospects were thus gradually
brightening, and upon each visit which he paid at Saint Leonard's he had
an opportunity of gliding a hint to this purpose into Jeanie's ear. These
visits were necessarily very rare, on account of the demands which the
duties of the school made upon Butler's time. Nor did he dare to make
them even altogether so frequent as these avocations would permit. Deans
received him with civility indeed, and even with kindness; but Reuben, as
is usual in such cases, imagined that he read his purpose in his eyes,
and was afraid too premature an explanation on the subject would draw
down his positive disapproval. Upon the whole, therefore, he judged it
prudent to call at Saint Leonard's just so frequently as old acquaintance
and neighbourhood seemed to authorise, and no oftener. There was another
person who was more regular in his visits.
[Illustration: The Laird in Jeanie's Cottage--130]
When Davie Deans intimated to the Laird of Dumbiedikes his purpose of
"quitting wi' the land and house at Woodend," the Laird stared and said
nothing. He made his usual visits at the usual hour without remark, until
the day before the term, when, observing the bustle of moving furniture
already commenced, the great east-country _awmrie_ dragged out of its
nook, and standing with its shoulder to the company, like an awkward
booby about to leave the room, the Laird again stared mightily, and was
heard to ejaculate,--"Hegh, sirs!" Even after the day of departure was
past and gone, the Laird of Dumbiedikes, at his usual hour, which was
that at which David Deans was wont to "loose the pleugh," presented
himself before the closed door of the cottage at Woodend, and seemed as
much astonished at finding it shut against his approach as if it was not
exactly what he had to expect. On this occasion he was heard to
ejaculate, "Gude guide us!" which, by those who knew him, was considered
as a very unusual mark of emotion. From that moment forward Dumbiedikes
became an altered man, and the regularity of his movements, hitherto so
exemplary, was as totally disconcerted as those of a boy's watch when he
has broken the main-spring. Like the index of the said watch did
Dumbiedikes spin round the whole bounds of his little property, which may
be likened unto the dial of the timepiece, with unwonted velocity. There
was not a cottage into which he did not enter, nor scarce a maiden on
whom he did not stare. But so it was, that although there were better
farm-houses on the land than Woodend, and certainly much prettier girls
than Jeanie Deans, yet it did somehow befall that the blank in the
Laird's time was not so pleasantly filled up as it had been. There was no
seat accommodated him so well as the "bunker" at Woodend, and no face he
loved so much to gaze on as Jeanie Deans's. So, after spinning round and
round his little orbit, and then remaining stationary for a week, it
seems to have occurred to him that he was not pinned down to circulate on
a pivot, like the hands of the watch, but possessed the power of shifting
his central point, and extending his circle if he thought proper. To
realise which privilege of change of place, he bought a pony from a
Highland drover, and with its assistance and company stepped, or rather
stumbled, as far as Saint Leonard's Crags.
Jeanie Deans, though so much accustomed to the Laird's staring that she
was sometimes scarce conscious of his presence, had nevertheless some
occasional fears lest he should call in the organ of speech to back those
expressions of admiration which he bestowed on her through his eyes.
Should this happen, farewell, she thought, to all chance of a union with
Butler. For her father, however stouthearted and independent in civil and
religious principles, was not without that respect for the laird of the
land, so deeply imprinted on the Scottish tenantry of the period.
Moreover, if he did not positively dislike Butler, yet his fund of carnal
learning was often the object of sarcasms on David's part, which were
perhaps founded in jealousy, and which certainly indicated no partiality
for the party against whom they were launched. And lastly, the match with
Dumbiedikes would have presented irresistible charms to one who used to
complain that he felt himself apt to take "ower grit an armfu' o' the
warld." So that, upon the whole, the Laird's diurnal visits were
disagreeable to Jeanie from apprehension of future consequences, and it
served much to console her, upon removing from the spot where she was
bred and born, that she had seen the last of Dumbiedikes, his laced hat,
and tobacco-pipe. The poor girl no more expected he could muster courage
to follow her to Saint Leonard's Crags than that any of her apple-trees
or cabbages which she had left rooted in the "yard" at Woodend, would
spontaneously, and unaided, have undertaken the same journey. It was
therefore with much more surprise than pleasure that, on the sixth day
after their removal to Saint Leonard's, she beheld Dumbiedikes arrive,
laced hat, tobacco-pipe, and all, and, with the self-same greeting of
"How's a' wi' ye, Jeanie?--Whare's the gudeman?" assume as nearly as he
could the same position in the cottage at Saint Leonard's which he had so
long and so regularly occupied at Woodend. He was no sooner, however,
seated, than with an unusual exertion of his powers of conversation, he
added, "Jeanie--I say, Jeanie, woman"--here he extended his hand towards
her shoulder with all the fingers spread out as if to clutch it, but in
so bashful and awkward a manner, that when she whisked herself beyond its
reach, the paw remained suspended in the air with the palm open, like the
claw of a heraldic griffin--"Jeanie," continued the swain in this moment
of inspiration--"I say, Jeanie, it's a braw day out-by, and the roads are
no that ill for boot-hose."
[Illustration: Jeanie--I say, Jeanie, woman--133
"The deil's in the daidling body," muttered Jeanie between her teeth;
"wha wad hae thought o' his daikering out this length?" And she
afterwards confessed that she threw a little of this ungracious sentiment
into her accent and manner; for her father being abroad, and the "body,"
as she irreverently termed the landed proprietor, "looking unco gleg and
canty, she didna ken what he might be coming out wi' next."
Her frowns, however, acted as a complete sedative, and the Laird relapsed
from that day into his former taciturn habits, visiting the cowfeeder's
cottage three or four times every week, when the weather permitted, with
apparently no other purpose than to stare at Jeanie Deans, while Douce
Davie poured forth his eloquence upon the controversies and testimonies
of the day.