Dark and eerie was the night,
And lonely was the way,
As Janet, wi' her green mantell,
To Miles' Cross she did gae.
Old Ballad.
Leaving Butler to all the uncomfortable thoughts attached to his new
situation, among which the most predominant was his feeling that he was,
by his confinement, deprived of all possibility of assisting the family
at St. Leonard's in their greatest need, we return to Jeanie Deans, who
had seen him depart, without an opportunity of farther explanation, in
all that agony of mind with which the female heart bids adieu to the
complicated sensations so well described by Coleridge,--
Hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng;
And gentle wishes long subdued--
Subdued and cherished long.
It is not the firmest heart (and Jeanie, under her russet rokelay, had
one that would not have disgraced Cato's daughter) that can most easily
bid adieu to these soft and mingled emotions. She wept for a few minutes
bitterly, and without attempting to refrain from this indulgence of
passion. But a moment's recollection induced her to check herself for a
grief selfish and proper to her own affections, while her father and
sister were plunged into such deep and irretrievable affliction. She drew
from her pocket the letter which had been that morning flung into her
apartment through an open window, and the contents of which were as
singular as the expression was violent and energetic. "If she would save
a human being from the most damning guilt, and all its desperate
consequences,--if she desired the life an honour of her sister to be
saved from the bloody fangs of an unjust law,--if she desired not to
forfeit peace of mind here, and happiness hereafter," such was the
frantic style of the conjuration, "she was entreated to give a sure,
secret, and solitary meeting to the writer. She alone could rescue him,"
so ran the letter, "and he only could rescue her." He was in such
circumstances, the billet farther informed her, that an attempt to bring
any witness of their conference, or even to mention to her father, or any
other person whatsoever, the letter which requested it, would inevitably
prevent its taking place, and ensure the destruction of her sister. The
letter concluded with incoherent but violent protestations, that in
obeying this summons she had nothing to fear personally.
The message delivered to her by Butler from the stranger in the Park
tallied exactly with the contents of the letter, but assigned a later
hour and a different place of meeting. Apparently the writer of the
letter had been compelled to let Butler so far into his confidence, for
the sake of announcing this change to Jeanie. She was more than once on
the point of producing the billet, in vindication of herself from her
lover's half-hinted suspicions. But there is something in stooping to
justification which the pride of innocence does not at all times
willingly submit to; besides that the threats contained in the letter, in
case of her betraying the secret, hung heavy on her heart. It is
probable, however, that had they remained longer together, she might have
taken the resolution to submit the whole matter to Butler, and be guided
by him as to the line of conduct which she should adopt. And when, by the
sudden interruption of their conference, she lost the opportunity of
doing so, she felt as if she had been unjust to a friend, whose advice
might have been highly useful, and whose attachment deserved her full and
unreserved confidence.
To have recourse to her father upon this occasion, she considered as
highly imprudent. There was no possibility of conjecturing in what light
the matter might strike old David, whose manner of acting and thinking in
extraordinary circumstances depended upon feelings and principles
peculiar to himself, the operation of which could not be calculated upon
even by those best acquainted with him. To have requested some female
friend to have accompanied her to the place of rendezvous, would perhaps
have been the most eligible expedient; but the threats of the writer,
that betraying his secret would prevent their meeting (on which her
sister's safety was said to depend) from taking place at all, would have
deterred her from making such a confidence, even had she known a person
in whom she thought it could with safety have been reposed. But she knew
none such. Their acquaintance with the cottagers in the vicinity had been
very slight, and limited to trifling acts of good neighbourhood. Jeanie
knew little of them, and what she knew did not greatly incline her to
trust any of them. They were of the order of loquacious good-humoured
gossips usually found in their situation of life; and their conversation
had at all times few charms for a young woman, to whom nature and the
circumstance of a solitary life had given a depth of thought and force of
character superior to the frivolous part of her sex, whether in high or
low degree.
Left alone and separated from all earthly counsel, she had recourse to a
friend and adviser, whose ear is open to the cry of the poorest and most
afflicted of his people. She knelt, and prayed with fervent sincerity,
that God would please to direct her what course to follow in her arduous
and distressing situation. It was the belief of the time and sect to
which she belonged, that special answers to prayer, differing little in
their character from divine inspiration, were, as they expressed it,
"borne in upon their minds" in answer to their earnest petitions in a
crisis of difficulty. Without entering into an abstruse point of
divinity, one thing is plain;--namely, that the person who lays open his
doubts and distresses in prayer, with feeling and sincerity, must
necessarily, in the act of doing so, purify his mind from the dross of
worldly passions and interests, and bring it into that state, when the
resolutions adopted are likely to be selected rather from a sense of
duty, than from any inferior motive. Jeanie arose from her devotions,
with her heart fortified to endure affliction, and encouraged to face
difficulties.
"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.