So soon as I can win the offended king,
I will be known your advocate.
Cymbeline.
The Duke of Argyle led the way in silence to the small postern by which
they had been admitted into Richmond Park, so long the favourite
residence of Queen Caroline. It was opened by the same half-seen janitor,
and they found themselves beyond the precincts of the royal demesne.
Still not a word was spoken on either side. The Duke probably wished to
allow his rustic proteígeíe time to recruit her faculties, dazzled and
sunk with colloquy sublime; and betwixt what she had guessed, had heard,
and had seen, Jeanie Deansís mind was too much agitated to permit her to
ask any questions.
They found the carriage of the Duke in the place where they had left it;
and when they resumed their places, soon began to advance rapidly on
their return to town.
“I think, Jeanie,” said the Duke, breaking silence, “you have every
reason to congratulate yourself on the issue of your interview with her
Majesty.”
“And that leddy was the Queen herself?” said Jeanie; “I misdoubted it
when I saw that your honour didna put on your hat--And yet I can hardly
believe it, even when I heard her speak it herself.”
“It was certainly Queen Caroline,” replied the Duke. “Have you no
curiosity to see what is in the little pocket-book?”
“Do you think the pardon will be in it, sir?” said Jeanie, with the eager
animation of hope.
“Why, no,” replied the Duke; “that is unlikely. They seldom carry these
things about them, unless they were likely to be wanted; and, besides,
her Majesty told you it was the King, not she, who was to grant it.”
“That is true, too,” said Jeanie; “but I am so confused in my mind--But
does your honour think there is a certainty of Effieís pardon then?”
continued she, still holding in her hand the unopened pocket-book.
“Why, kings are kittle cattle to shoe behind, as we say in the north,”
replied the Duke; “but his wife knows his trim, and I have not the least
doubt that the matter is quite certain.”
“Oh, God be praised! God be praised!” ejaculated Jeanie; “and may the
gude leddy never want the heartís ease she has gien me at this moment!--
And God bless you too, my Lord!--without your help I wad neíer hae won
near her.”
The Duke let her dwell upon this subject for a considerable time,
curious, perhaps, to see how long the feelings of gratitude would
continue to supersede those of curiosity. But so feeble was the latter
feeling in Jeanieís mind, that his Grace, with whom, perhaps, it was for
the time a little stronger, was obliged once more to bring forward the
subject of the Queenís present. It was opened accordingly. In the inside
of the case was the usual assortment of silk and needles, with scissors,
tweezers, etc.; and in the pocket was a bank-bill for fifty pounds.
The Duke had no sooner informed Jeanie of the value of this last
document, for she was unaccustomed to see notes for such sums, than she
expressed her regret at the mistake which had taken place. “For the hussy
itsell,” she said, “was a very valuable thing for a keepsake,
with the Queenís name written in the inside with her ain hand
doubtless--_Caroline_--as plain as could be, and a crown drawn aboon it.”
She therefore tendered the bill to the Duke, requesting him to find some
mode of returning it to the royal owner.
“No, no, Jeanie,” said the Duke, “there is no mistake in the case. Her
Majesty knows you have been put to great expense, and she wishes to make
it up to you.”
“I am sure she is even ower gude,” said Jeanie, “and it glads me muckle
that I can pay back Dumbiedikes his siller, without distressing my
father, honest man.”
“Dumbiedikes! What, a freeholder of Mid-Lothian, is he not?” said his
Grace, whose occasional residence in that county made him acquainted with
most of the heritors, as landed persons are termed in Scotland.--“He has
a house not far from Dalkeith, wears a black wig and a laced hat?”
“Yes sir,” answered Jeanie, who had her reasons for being brief in her
answers upon this topic.
“Ah, my old friend Dumbie!” said the Duke; “I have thrice seen him fou,
and only once heard the sound of his voice--Is he a cousin of yours,
Jeanie?”
“No, sir,--my Lord.”
“Then he must be a well-wisher, I suspect?”
“Ye--yes,--my Lord, sir,” answered Jeanie, blushing, and with hesitation.
“Aha! then, if the Laird starts, I suppose my friend Butler must be in
some danger?”
“O no, sir,” answered Jeanie, much more readily, but at the same time
blushing much more deeply.
“Well, Jeanie,” said the Duke, “you are a girl may be safely trusted with
your own matters, and I shall inquire no farther about them. But as to
this same pardon, I must see to get it passed through the proper forms;
and I have a friend in office who will for auld lang syne, do me so much
favour. And then, Jeanie, as I shall have occasion to send an express
down to Scotland, who will travel with it safer and more swiftly than you
can do, I will take care to have it put into the proper channel;
meanwhile you may write to your friends by post of your good success.”
“And does your Honour think,” said Jeanie, “that will do as weel as if I
were to take my tap in my lap, and slip my ways hame again on my ain
errand?”
“Much better, certainly,” said the Duke. “You know the roads are not very
safe for a single woman to travel.”
Jeanie internally acquiesced in this observation.
“And I have a plan for you besides. One of the Duchessís attendants, and
one of mine--your acquaintance Archibald--are going down to Inverary in a
light calash, with four horses I have bought, and there is room enough in
the carriage for you to go with them as far as Glasgow, where Archibald
will find means of sending you safely to Edinburgh.--And in the way I beg
you will teach the woman as much as you can of the mystery of
cheese-making, for she is to have a charge in the dairy, and I dare swear
you are as tidy about your milk-pail as about your dress.”
“Does your Honour like cheese?” said Jeanie, with a gleam of conscious
delight as she asked the question.
“Like it?” said the Duke, whose good-nature anticipated what was to
follow,--“cakes and cheese are a dinner for an emperor, let alone a
Highlandman.”
“Because,” said Jeanie, with modest confidence, and great and evident
self-gratulation, “we have been thought so particular in making cheese,
that some folk think it as gude as the real Dunlop; and if your honourís
Grace wad but accept a stane or twa, blithe, and fain, and proud it wad
make us? But maybe ye may like the ewe-milk, that is, the Buckholmside*
cheese better; or maybe the gait-milk, as ye come frae the
Highlands--and I canna pretend just to the same skeel oí them; but my
cousin Jean, that lives at Lockermachus in Lammermuir, I could speak to
her, and--”
* The hilly pastures of Buckholm, which the Author now surveys,--“Not in
the frenzy of a dreamerís eye,”--are famed for producing the best
ewe-milk cheese in the south of Scotland.
“Quite unnecessary,” said the Duke; “the Dunlop is the very cheese of
which I am so fond, and I will take it as the greatest favour you can do
me to send one to Caroline Park. But remember, be on honour with it,
Jeanie, and make it all yourself, for I am a real good judge.”
“I am not feared,” said Jeanie, confidently, “that I may please your
Honour; for I am sure you look as if you could hardly find fault wií
onybody that did their best; and weel is it my part, I trow, to do mine.”
This discourse introduced a topic upon which the two travellers, though
so different in rank and education, found each a good deal to say. The
Duke, besides his other patriotic qualities, was a distinguished
agriculturist, and proud of his knowledge in that department. He
entertained Jeanie with his observations on the different breeds of
cattle in Scotland, and their capacity for the dairy, and received so
much information from her practical experience in return, that he
promised her a couple of Devonshire cows in reward for the lesson. In
short his mind was so transported back to his rural employments and
amusements, that he sighed when his carriage stopped opposite to the old
hackney-coach, which Archibald had kept in attendance at the place where
they had left it. While the coachman again bridled his lean cattle, which
had been indulged with a bite of musty hay, the Duke cautioned Jeanie not
to be too communicative to her landlady concerning what had passed.
“There is,” he said, “no use of speaking of matters till they are
actually settled; and you may refer the good lady to Archibald, if she
presses you hard with questions. She is his old acquaintance, and he
knows how to manage with her.”
He then took a cordial farewell of Jeanie, and told her to be ready in
the ensuing week to return to Scotland--saw her safely established in her
hackney-coach, and rolled of in his own carriage, humming a stanza of the
ballad which he is said to have composed:--
“At the sight of Dumbarton once again,
Iíll cock up my bonnet and march amain,
With my claymore hanging down to my heel,
To whang at the bannocks of barley meal.”
Perhaps one ought to be actually a Scotsman to conceive how ardently,
under all distinctions of rank and situation, they feel their mutual
connection with each other as natives of the same country. There are, I
believe, more associations common to the inhabitants of a rude and wild,
than of a well-cultivated and fertile country; their ancestors have more
seldom changed their place of residence; their mutual recollection of
remarkable objects is more accurate; the high and the low are more
interested in each otherís welfare; the feelings of kindred and
relationship are more widely extended, and in a word, the bonds of
patriotic affection, always honourable even when a little too exclusively
strained, have more influence on menís feelings and actions.
The rumbling hackney-coach, which tumbled over the (then) execrable
London pavement, at a rate very different from that which had conveyed
the ducal carriage to Richmond, at length deposited Jeanie Deans and her
attendant at the national sign of the Thistle. Mrs. Glass, who had been
in long and anxious expectation, now rushed, full of eager curiosity and
open-mouthed interrogation, upon our heroine, who was positively unable
to sustain the overwhelming cataract of her questions, which burst forth
with the sublimity of a grand gardyloo:--
“Had she seen the Duke, God bless him--the Duchess--the young ladies?--
Had she seen the King, God bless him--the Queen--the Prince of Wales--the
Princess--or any of the rest of the royal family?--Had she got her
sisterís pardon?--Was it out and out--or was it only a commutation of
punishment?--How far had she gone--where had she driven to--whom had she
seen--what had been said--what had kept her so long?”
Such were the various questions huddled upon each other by a curiosity so
eager, that it could hardly wait for its own gratification. Jeanie would
have been more than sufficiently embarrassed by this overbearing tide of
interrogations, had not Archibald, who had probably received from his
master a hint to that purpose, advanced to her rescue. “Mrs. Glass,” said
Archibald, “his Grace desired me particularly to say, that he would take
it as a great favour if you would ask the young woman no questions, as he
wishes to explain to you more distinctly than she can do how her affairs
stand, and consult you on some matters which she cannot altogether so
well explain. The Duke will call at the Thistle to-morrow or next day for
that purpose.”
“His Grace is very condescending,” said Mrs. Glass, her zeal for inquiry
slaked for the present by the dexterous administration of this sugar
plum--“his Grace is sensible that I am in a manner accountable for the
conduct of my young kinswoman, and no doubt his Grace is the best judge
how far he should intrust her or me with the management of her affairs.”
“His Grace is quite sensible of that,” answered Archibald, with national
gravity, “and will certainly trust what he has to say to the most
discreet of the two; and therefore, Mrs. Glass, his Grace relies you will
speak nothing to Mrs. Jean Deans, either of her own affairs or her
sisterís, until he sees you himself. He desired me to assure you, in the
meanwhile, that all was going on as well as your kindness could wish,
Mrs. Glass.”
“His Grace is very kind--very considerate, certainly, Mr. Archibald--his
Graceís commands shall be obeyed, and--But you have had a far drive, Mr.
Archibald, as I guess by the time of your absence, and I guess” (with an
engaging smile) “you winna be the waur oí a glass of the right Rosa
Solis.”
“I thank you, Mrs. Glass,” said the great manís great man, “but I am
under the necessity of returning to my Lord directly.” And, making his
adieus civilly to both cousins, he left the shop of the Lady of the
Thistle.
“I am glad your affairs have prospered so well, Jeanie, my love,” said
Mrs. Glass; “though, indeed, there was little fear of them so soon as the
Duke of Argyle was so condescending as to take them into hand. I will ask
you no questions about them, because his Grace, who is most considerate
and prudent in such matters, intends to tell me all that you ken
yourself, dear, and doubtless a great deal more; so that anything that
may lie heavily on your mind may be imparted to me in the meantime, as
you see it is his Graceís pleasure that I should be made acquainted with
the whole matter forthwith, and whether you or he tells it, will make no
difference in the world, ye ken. If I ken what he is going to say
beforehand, I will be much more ready to give my advice, and whether you
or he tell me about it, cannot much signify after all, my dear. So you
may just say whatever you like, only mind I ask you no questions about
it.”
Jeanie was a little embarrassed. She thought that the communication she
had to make was perhaps the only means she might have in her power to
gratify her friendly and hospitable kinswoman. But her prudence instantly
suggested that her secret interview with Queen Caroline, which seemed to
pass under a certain sort of mystery, was not a proper subject for the
gossip of a woman like Mrs. Glass, of whose heart she had a much better
opinion than of her prudence. She, therefore, answered in general, that
the Duke had had the extraordinary kindness to make very particular
inquiries into her sisterís bad affair, and that he thought he had found
the means of putting it aí straight again, but that he proposed to tell
all that he thought about the matter to Mrs. Glass herself.
This did not quite satisfy the penetrating mistress of the Thistle.
Searching as her own small rappee, she, in spite of her promise, urged
Jeanie with still farther questions. “Had she been aí that time at Argyle
House? Was the Duke with her the whole time? and had she seen the
Duchess? and had she seen the young ladies--and specially Lady Caroline
Campbell?”--To these questions Jeanie gave the general reply, that she
knew so little of the town that she could not tell exactly where she had
been; that she had not seen the Duchess to her knowledge; that she had
seen two ladies, one of whom, she understood, bore the name of Caroline;
and more, she said, she could not tell about the matter.
“It would be the Dukeís eldest daughter, Lady Caroline Campbell, there is
no doubt of that,” said Mrs. Glass; “but doubtless, I shall know more
particularly through his Grace.--And so, as the cloth is laid in the
little parlour above stairs, and it is past three oíclock, for I have
been waiting this hour for you, and I have had a snack myself; and, as
they used to say in Scotland in my time--I do not ken if the word be used
now--there is ill talking between a full body and a fasting.”