And some they whistled--and some they sang,
And some did loudly say,
Whenever Lord Barnard's horn it blew,
"Away, Musgrave away!"
Ballad of Little Musgrave.
When the man of office returned to the Heart of Mid-Lothian, he resumed
his conference with Ratcliffe, of whose experience and assistance he now
held himself secure. "You must speak with this wench, Rat--this Effie
Deans--you must sift her a wee bit; for as sure as a tether she will ken
Robertson's haunts--till her, Rat--till her without delay."
"Craving your pardon, Mr. Sharpitlaw," said the turnkey elect, "that's
what I am not free to do."
"Free to do, man? what the deil ails ye now?--I thought we had settled a'
that?"
"I dinna ken, sir," said Ratcliffe; "I hae spoken to this Effie--she's
strange to this place and to its ways, and to a' our ways, Mr.
Sharpitlaw; and she greets, the silly tawpie, and she's breaking her
heart already about this wild chield; and were she the mean's o' taking
him, she wad break it outright."
"She wunna hae time, lad," said Sharpitlaw; "the woodie will hae it's ain
o' her before that--a woman's heart takes a lang time o' breaking."
"That's according to the stuff they are made o' sir," replied
Ratcliffe--"But to make a lang tale short, I canna undertake the job.
It gangs against my conscience."
"_Your_ conscience, Rat?" said Sharpitlaw, with a sneer, which the reader
will probably think very natural upon the occasion.
"Ou ay, sir," answered Ratcliffe, calmly, "just my conscience; a'body has
a conscience, though it may be ill wunnin at it. I think mine's as weel
out o' the gate as maist folk's are; and yet it's just like the noop of
my elbow, it whiles gets a bit dirl on a corner."
"Weel, Rat," replied Sharpitlaw, "since ye are nice, I'll speak to the
hussy mysell."
Sharpitlaw, accordingly, caused himself to be introduced into the little
dark apartment tenanted by the unfortunate Effie Deans. The poor girl was
seated on her little flock-bed, plunged in a deep reverie. Some food
stood on the table, of a quality better than is usually supplied to
prisoners, but it was untouched. The person under whose care she was more
particularly placed, said, "that sometimes she tasted naething from the
tae end of the four-and-twenty hours to the t'other, except a drink of
water."
Sharpitlaw took a chair, and, commanding the turnkey to retire, he opened
the conversation, endeavouring to throw into his tone and countenance as
much commiseration as they were capable of expressing, for the one was
sharp and harsh, the other sly, acute, and selfish.
"How's a' wi' ye, Effie?--How d'ye find yoursell, hinny?"
A deep sigh was the only answer.
"Are the folk civil to ye, Effie?--it's my duty to inquire."
"Very civil, sir," said Effie, compelling herself to answer, yet hardly
knowing what she said.
"And your victuals," continued Sharpitlaw, in the same condoling
tone,--"do you get what you like?--or is there onything you would
particularly fancy, as your health seems but silly?"
"It's a' very weel, sir, I thank ye," said the poor prisoner, in a tone
how different from the sportive vivacity of those of the Lily of St.
Leonard's!--"it's a' very gude--ower gude for me."
"He must have been a great villain, Effie, who brought you to this pass,"
said Sharpitlaw.
The remark was dictated partly by a natural feeling, of which even he
could not divest himself, though accustomed to practise on the passions
of others, and keep a most heedful guard over his own, and partly by his
wish to introduce the sort of conversation which might, best serve his
immediate purpose. Indeed, upon the present occasion, these mixed motives
of feeling and cunning harmonised together wonderfully; for, said
Sharpitlaw to himself, the greater rogue Robertson is, the more will be
the merit of bringing him to justice. "He must have been a great villain,
indeed," he again reiterated; "and I wish I had the skelping o' him."
"I may blame mysell mair than him," said Effie; "I was bred up to ken
better; but he, poor fellow,"--(she stopped).
"Was a thorough blackguard a' his life, I dare say," said Sharpitlaw.
"A stranger he was in this country, and a companion of that lawless
vagabond, Wilson, I think, Effie?"
"It wad hae been dearly telling him that he had ne'er seen Wilson's
face."
"That's very true that you are saying, Effie," said Sharpitlaw. "Where
was't that Robertson and you were used to howff thegither? Somegate about
the Laigh Calton, I am thinking."
The simple and dispirited girl had thus far followed Mr. Sharpitlaw's
lead, because he had artfully adjusted his observations to the thoughts
he was pretty certain must be passing through her own mind, so that her
answers became a kind of thinking aloud, a mood into which those who are
either constitutionally absent in mind, or are rendered so by the
temporary pressure of misfortune, may be easily led by a skilful train of
suggestions. But the last observation of the procurator-fiscal was too
much of the nature of a direct interrogatory, and it broke the charm
accordingly.
"What was it that I was saying?" said Effie, starting up from her
reclining posture, seating herself upright, and hastily shading her
dishevelled hair back from her wasted but still beautiful countenance.
She fixed her eyes boldly and keenly upon Sharpitlaw--"You are too much
of a gentleman, sir,--too much of an honest man, to take any notice of
what a poor creature like me says, that can hardly ca' my senses my
ain--God help me!"
"Advantage!--I would be of some advantage to you if I could," said
Sharpitlaw, in a soothing tone; "and I ken naething sae likely to serve
ye, Effie, as gripping this rascal, Robertson."
"O dinna misca' him, sir, that never misca'd you!--Robertson?--I am sure
I had naething to say against ony man o' the name, and naething will I
say."
"But if you do not heed your own misfortune, Effie, you should mind what
distress he has brought on your family," said the man of law.
"O, Heaven help me!" exclaimed poor Effie--"My poor father--my dear
Jeanie--O, that's sairest to bide of a'! O, sir, if you hae ony
kindness--if ye hae ony touch of compassion--for a' the folk I see here
are as hard as the wa'-stanes--If ye wad but bid them let my sister
Jeanie in the next time she ca's! for when I hear them put her awa frae
the door, and canna climb up to that high window to see sae muckle as
her gown-tail, it's like to pit me out o' my judgment." And she looked
on him with a face of entreaty, so earnest, yet so humble, that she
fairly shook the steadfast purpose of his mind.
"You shall see your sister," he began, "if you'll tell me,"--then
interrupting himself, he added, in a more hurried tone,--"no, d--n it,
you shall see your sister whether you tell me anything or no." So saying,
he rose up and left the apartment.
When he had rejoined Ratcliffe, he observed, "You are right, Ratton;
there's no making much of that lassie. But ae thing I have cleared--that
is, that Robertson has been the father of the bairn, and so I will wager
a boddle it will be he that's to meet wi' Jeanie Deans this night at
Muschat's Cairn, and there we'll nail him, Rat, or my name is not Gideon
Sharpitlaw."
"But," said Ratcliffe, perhaps because he was in no hurry to see anything
which was like to be connected with the discovery and apprehension of
Robertson, "an that were the case, Mr. Butler wad hae kend the man in the
King's Park to be the same person wi' him in Madge Wildfire's claise,
that headed the mob."
"That makes nae difference, man," replied Sharpitlaw--"the dress, the
light, the confusion, and maybe a touch o' a blackit cork, or a slake o'
paint-hout, Ratton, I have seen ye dress your ainsell, that the deevil ye
belang to durstna hae made oath t'ye."
"And that's true, too," said Ratcliffe.
"And besides, ye donnard carle," continued Sharpitlaw, triumphantly, "the
minister _did_ say that he thought he knew something of the features of
the birkie that spoke to him in the Park, though he could not charge his
memory where or when he had seen them."
"It's evident, then, your honour will be right," said Ratcliffe.
"Then, Rat, you and I will go with the party oursells this night, and see
him in grips or we are done wi' him."
"I seena muckle use I can be o' to your honour," said Ratcliffe,
reluctantly.
"Use?" answered Sharpitlaw--"You can guide the party--you ken the ground.
Besides, I do not intend to quit sight o' you, my good friend, till I
have him in hand."
"Weel, sir," said Ratcliffe, but in no joyful tone of acquiescence; "Ye
maun hae it your ain way--but mind he's a desperate man."
"We shall have that with us," answered Sharpitlaw, "that will settle him,
if it is necessary."
"But, sir," answered Ratcliffe, "I am sure I couldna undertake to guide
you to Muschat's Cairn in the night-time; I ken the place as mony does,
in fair day-light, but how to find it by moonshine, amang sae mony crags
and stanes, as like to each other as the collier to the deil, is mair
than I can tell. I might as soon seek moonshine in water."
"What's the meaning o' this, Ratcliffe?" said Sharpitlaw, while he fixed
his eye on the recusant, with a fatal and ominous expression,--"Have you
forgotten that you are still under sentence of death?"
"No, sir," said Ratcliffe, "that's a thing no easily put out o' memory;
and if my presence be judged necessary, nae doubt I maun gang wi' your
honour. But I was gaun to tell your honour of ane that has mair skeel o'
the gate than me, and that's e'en Madge Wildfire."
"The devil she has!--Do you think me as mad as she, is, to trust to her
guidance on such an occasion?"
"Your honour is the best judge," answered Ratcliffe; "but I ken I can
keep her in tune, and garr her haud the straight path--she often sleeps
out, or rambles about amang thae hills the haill simmer night, the daft
limmer."
"Weel, Ratcliffe," replied the procurator-fiscal, "if you think she can
guide us the right way--but take heed to what you are about--your life
depends on your behaviour."
"It's a sair judgment on a man," said Ratcliffe, "when he has ance gane
sae far wrang as I hae done, that deil a bit he can be honest, try't
whilk way he will."
Such was the reflection of Ratcliffe, when he was left for a few minutes
to himself, while the retainer of justice went to procure a proper
warrant, and give the necessary directions.
The rising moon saw the whole party free from the walls of the city, and
entering upon the open ground. Arthur's Seat, like a couchant lion of
immense size--Salisbury Crags, like a huge belt or girdle of granite,
were dimly visible. Holding their path along the southern side of the
Canongate, they gained the Abbey of Holyrood House, and from thence found
their way by step and stile into the King's Park. They were at first four
in number--an officer of justice and Sharpitlaw, who were well armed with
pistols and cutlasses; Ratcliffe, who was not trusted with weapons, lest,
he might, peradventure, have used them on the wrong side; and the female.
But at the last stile, when they entered the Chase, they were joined by
other two officers, whom Sharpitlaw, desirous to secure sufficient force
for his purpose, and at the same time to avoid observation, had directed
to wait for him at this place. Ratcliffe saw this accession of strength
with some disquietude, for he had hitherto thought it likely that
Robertson, who was a bold, stout, and active young fellow, might have
made his escape from Sharpitlaw and the single officer, by force or
agility, without his being implicated in the matter. But the present
strength of the followers of justice was overpowering, and the only mode
of saving Robertson (which the old sinner was well disposed to do,
providing always he could accomplish his purpose without compromising his
own safety), must be by contriving that he should have some signal of
their approach. It was probably with this view that Ratcliffe had
requested the addition of Madge to the party, having considerable
confidence in her propensity to exert her lungs. Indeed, she had already
given them so many specimens of her clamorous loquacity, that Sharpitlaw
half determined to send her back with one of the officers, rather than
carry forward in his company a person so extremely ill qualified to be a
guide in a secret expedition. It seemed, too, as if the open air, the
approach to the hills, and the ascent of the moon, supposed to be so
portentous over those whose brain is infirm, made her spirits rise in a
degree tenfold more loquacious than she had hitherto exhibited. To
silence her by fair means seemed impossible; authoritative commands and
coaxing entreaties she set alike at defiance, and threats only made her
sulky and altogether intractable.
"Is there no one of you," said Sharpitlaw, impatiently, "that knows the
way to this accursed place--this Nichol Muschat's Cairn--excepting this
mad clavering idiot?"
"Deil ane o' them kens it except mysell," exclaimed Madge; "how suld
they, the puir fule cowards! But I hae sat on the grave frae batfleeing
time till cook-crow, and had mony a fine crack wi' Muschat and Ailie
Muschat, that are lying sleeping below."
"The devil take your crazy brain," said Sharpitlaw; "will you not allow
the men to answer a question?"
The officers obtaining a moment's audience while Ratcliffe diverted
Madge's attention, declared that, though they had a general knowledge of
the spot, they could not undertake to guide the party to it by the
uncertain light of the moon, with such accuracy as to insure success to
their expedition.
"What shall we do, Ratcliffe?" said Sharpitlaw, "if he sees us before we
see him,--and that's what he is certain to do, if we go strolling about,
without keeping the straight road,--we may bid gude day to the job, and I
would rather lose one hundred pounds, baith for the credit of the police,
and because the provost says somebody maun be hanged for this job o'
Porteous, come o't what likes."
"I think," said Ratcliffe, "we maun just try Madge; and I'll see if I can
get her keepit in ony better order. And at ony rate, if he suld hear her
skirting her auld ends o' sangs, he's no to ken for that that there's
onybody wi' her."
"That's true," said Sharpitlaw; "and if he thinks her alone, he's as like
to come towards her as to rin frae her. So set forward--we hae lost ower
muckle time already--see to get her to keep the right road."
"And what sort o' house does Nichol Muschat and his wife keep now?" said
Ratcliffe to the mad woman, by way of humouring her vein of folly; "they
were but thrawn folk lang syne, an a' tales be true."
"Ou, ay, ay, ay--but a's forgotten now," replied Madge, in the
confidential tone of a gossip giving the history of her next-door
neighbour--"Ye see, I spoke to them mysell, and tauld them byganes suld
be byganes--her throat's sair misguggled and mashackered though; she
wears her corpse-sheet drawn weel up to hide it, but that canna hinder
the bluid seiping through, ye ken. I wussed her to wash it in St.
Anthony's Well, and that will cleanse if onything can--But they say bluid
never bleaches out o' linen claith--Deacon Sanders's new cleansing draps
winna do't--I tried them mysell on a bit rag we hae at hame that was
mailed wi' the bluid of a bit skirting wean that was hurt some gate, but
out it winna come--Weel, yell say that's queer; but I will bring it out
to St. Anthony's blessed Well some braw night just like this, and I'll
cry up Ailie Muschat, and she and I will hae a grand bouking-washing, and
bleach our claes in the beams of the bonny Lady Moon, that's far
pleasanter to me than the sun--the sun's ower het, and ken ye, cummers,
my brains are het eneugh already. But the moon, and the dew, and the
night-wind, they are just like a caller kail-blade laid on my brow; and
whiles I think the moon just shines on purpose to pleasure me, when
naebody sees her but mysell."
This raving discourse she continued with prodigious volubility, walking
on at a great pace, and dragging Ratcliffe along with her, while he
endeavoured, in appearance at least, if not in reality, to induce her to
moderate her voice.
All at once she stopped short upon the top of a little hillock, gazed
upward fixedly, and said not one word for the space of five minutes.
"What the devil is the matter with her now?" said Sharpitlaw to
Ratcliffe--"Can you not get her forward?"
"Ye maun just take a grain o' patience wi' her, sir," said Ratcliffe.
"She'll no gae a foot faster than she likes herself."
"D--n her," said Sharpitlaw, "I'll take care she has her time in Bedlam
or Bridewell, or both, for she's both mad and mischievous."
In the meanwhile, Madge, who had looked very pensive when she first
stopped, suddenly burst into a vehement fit of laughter, then paused and
sighed bitterly,--then was seized with a second fit of laughter--then,
fixing her eyes on the moon, lifted up her voice and sung,--
"Good even, good fair moon, good even to thee;
I prithee, dear moon, now show to me
The form and the features, the speech and degree,
Of the man that true lover of mine shall be.
But I need not ask that of the bonny Lady Moon--I ken that weel eneugh
mysell--_true_-love though he wasna--But naebody shall sae that I ever
tauld a word about the matter--But whiles I wish the bairn had
lived--Weel, God guide us, there's a heaven aboon us a',"--(here she
sighed bitterly), "and a bonny moon, and sterns in it forby" (and here
she laughed once more).
"Are we to stand, here all night!" said Sharpitlaw, very impatiently.
"Drag her forward."
"Ay, sir," said Ratcliffe, "if we kend whilk way to drag her, that would
settle it at ance.--Come, Madge, hinny," addressing her, "we'll no be in
time to see Nichol and his wife, unless ye show us the road."
"In troth and that I will, Ratton," said she, seizing him by the arm, and
resuming her route with huge strides, considering it was a female who
took them. "And I'll tell ye, Ratton, blithe will Nichol Muschat be to
see ye, for he says he kens weel there isna sic a villain out o' hell as
ye are, and he wad be ravished to hae a crack wi' you--like to like ye
ken--it's a proverb never fails--and ye are baith a pair o' the deevil's
peats I trow--hard to ken whilk deserves the hettest corner o' his
ingle-side."
Ratcliffe was conscience-struck, and could not forbear making an
involuntary protest against this classification. "I never shed blood," he
replied.
"But ye hae sauld it, Ratton--ye hae sauld blood mony a time. Folk kill
wi' the tongue as weel as wi' the hand--wi' the word as weel as wi' the
gulley!--
It is the 'bonny butcher lad,
That wears the sleeves of blue,
He sells the flesh on Saturday,
On Friday that he slew."
"And what is that I ain doing now?" thought Ratcliffe. "But I'll hae nae
wyte of Robertson's young bluid, if I can help it;" then speaking apart
to Madge, he asked her, "Whether she did not remember ony o' her auld
Sangs?"
"Mony a dainty ane," said Madge; "and blithely can I sing them, for
lightsome sangs make merry gate." And she sang,--
"When the glede's in the blue cloud,
The lavrock lies still;
When the hound's in the greenwood.
The hind keeps the hill."
"Silence her cursed noise, if you should throttle her," said Sharpitlaw;
"I see somebody yonder.--Keep close, my boys, and creep round the
shoulder of the height. George Poinder, stay you with Ratcliffe and tha
mad yelling bitch; and you other two, come with me round under the shadow
of the brae."
And he crept forward with the stealthy pace of an Indian savage, who
leads his band to surprise an unsuspecting party of some hostile tribe.
Ratcliffe saw them glide of, avoiding the moonlight, and keeping as much
in: the shade as possible.
"Robertson's done up," said he to himself; "thae young lads are aye sae
thoughtless. What deevil could he hae to say to Jeanie Deans, or to ony
woman on earth, that he suld gang awa and get his neck raxed for her? And
this mad quean, after cracking like a pen-gun, and skirling like a
pea-hen for the haill night, behoves just to hae hadden her tongue when
her clavers might have dune some gude! But it's aye the way wi' women; if
they ever hand their tongues ava', ye may swear it's for mischief. I wish
I could set her on again without this blood-sucker kenning what I am
doing. But he's as gleg as MacKeachan's elshin,* that ran through sax
plies of bendleather and half-an-inch into the king's heel."
* [_Elshin,_ a shoemaker's awl.]
He then began to hum, but in a very low and suppressed tone, the first
stanza of a favourite ballad of Wildfire's, the words of which bore some
distant analogy with the situation of Robertson, trusting that the power
of association would not fail to bring the rest to her mind:--
"There's a bloodhound ranging Tinwald wood,
There's harness glancing sheen:
There's a maiden sits on Tinwald brae,
And she sings loud between."
Madge had no sooner received the catch-word, than she vindicated
Ratcliffe's sagacity by setting off at score with the song:--
"O sleep ye sound, Sir James, she said,
When ye suld rise and ride?
There's twenty men, wi' bow and blade,
Are seeking where ye hide."
Though Ratcliffe was at a considerable distance from the spot called
Muschat's Cairn, yet his eyes, practised like those of a cat to penetrate
darkness, could mark that Robertson had caught the alarm. George Poinder,
less keen of sight, or less attentive, was not aware of his flight any
more than Sharpitlaw and his assistants, whose view, though they were
considerably nearer to the cairn, was intercepted by the broken nature of
the ground under which they were screening themselves. At length,
however, after the interval of five or six minutes, they also perceived
that Robertson had fled, and rushed hastily towards the place, while
Sharpitlaw called out aloud, in the harshest tones of a voice which
resembled a saw-mill at work, "Chase, lads--chase--haud the brae--I see
him on the edge of the hill!" Then hollowing back to the rear-guard of
his detachment, he issued his farther orders: "Ratcliffe, come here, and
detain the woman--George, run and kepp the stile at the Duke's
Walk--Ratcliffe, come here directly--but first knock out that mad
bitch's brains!"
"Ye had better rin for it, Madge," said Ratcliffe, "for it's ill dealing
wi' an angry man."
Madge Wildfire was not so absolutely void of common sense as not to
understand this innuendo; and while Ratcliffe, in seemingly anxious haste
of obedience, hastened to the spot where Sharpitlaw waited to deliver up
Jeanie Deans to his custody, she fled with all the despatch she could
exert in an opposite direction. Thus the whole party were separated, and
in rapid motion of flight or pursuit, excepting Ratcliffe and Jeanie,
whom, although making no attempt to escape, he held fast by the cloak,
and who remained standing by Muschat's Cairn.