unholy load; but she was impelled by the strange looks of her parent;
and, like an automaton, she hurriedly snatched up the corb, and hastened
with it to the place where she found it. She was wrapped up in her
cloak, which she threw over the charge, and, after the manner of a
thief, or a worker of secret iniquity, she slouched along the loan,
trembling and stumbling at every step, till she came to the precise
spot, and there she looked several times around her, before she ventured
to deposit her burden. She thought she perceived some one behind her,
who passed into an opening in the hedge, and she felt irresolute whether
to lay down the corban at that moment, or ascertain first whether there
was really any one behind the fence; but her mind again recurring to the
contents of her burden, a feeling of horripilation crept over her, and,
gently crouching down, as if terrified to behold her own act, she
withdrew the cloak, left the charge, and fled precipitately along the
dark side of the loan. Curiosity impelled her, as she fled, to turn her
head, and she saw, with terror, some one issue from the opening in the
hedge, and proceed, as she thought, to the identical spot which she had
just left. It struck her forcibly, and she shuddered at the thought,
that the figure she saw resembled that of Wallace; and the suspicion
arose, that he had been watching about the cottage, had followed her,
and observed her motions, and would now examine the burden she had so
stealthily and mysteriously deposited by the side of the hedge. A strong
paroxysm of hysterical emotion seized her, as the full consequences of a
realisation of the conjecture were arrayed before her by the conjuring
power of her terrors. The prior unexplained suspicion under which she
yet lay rose to swell the tumult of her thoughts. She thought her God
had deserted her, and that the destiny of her miserable life was placed
under the charge of evil spirits, who gloried in her utter ruin. She
grew faint, and was scarcely able to walk; and before she again reached
the house, the choking effects of the hysterical spasm had almost
deprived her of breath. The door was open for her reception; and the
moment she entered, she fell upon the floor, panting for air, the blood
streaming from her nostrils, and shrill, broken screams, like the sounds
that issue from the victims of Cynanche, bursting from her labouring
throat.
The alarmed mother again applied restoratives to her suffering daughter,
who, in a few minutes, opened her eyes, and became sensible.
"Were you seen, Menie?" whispered the mother, anxiously, in her ear.
"Speak, love. 'Blessed is he that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope
the Lord is.' Fear not, child; tell me, were ye seen by the eyes o'
mortal?"
"God be merciful to me!" answered the girl. "If my eyes deceived me not,
George Wallace cam behind me, and saw me lay down that evidence o'
anither's shame. I am lost for ever!"
The mother was silent, and lifted up her eyes in an attitude of prayer
to Heaven. The nervous symptoms still clung to the daughter, and
shiverings and spasms succeeded each other, till she grew so weak that
she was unable to undress herself to retire to bed. The office was
performed by the kindly hands of the parent, who, still overcome by the
workings of fearful anticipations, sat down by the fire, and, fixing her
eyes on the red embers, seemed for a time lost in the meditations of a
heart that, filled with the spirit of God, felt that, as Esdras sayeth,
"life is astonishment and fear," and that we cannot comprehend the
things that are promised to the righteous in this world, nor those that
are given to the wicked to destroy the happiness of the good.
The night was passed in anxiety and fearful forebodings; and the beam of
the morning was dreaded by the daughter, as if it were the blaze of
evidence that was to bring to light some crime she had committed. She
was unable to rise; the small domestic duties of the morning were
performed by the mother, pensively, and under the burden of the prospect
of coming ill. About ten o'clock, a slight knock was heard at the door;
Euphan cried, in a weak voice, "Come in." She heard a whispering and
rustling of clothes, as if the visitors were deciding, by expostulations
and pushings, which of them should enter first. At last two neighbours,
who had been known to be active in circulation of reports against the
daughter, made their appearance. On the usual salutation, expressed, as
Euphan thought, in a strange voice, and accompanied by stranger looks--
"Is Menie ill the day?" said one of them, as she cast her eye obliquely
upon the bed. "Has she nae doctor, puir thing?"
"I haena seen her for mony weeks," said the other. "Why do ye conceal
her illness, Euphan, woman? The lassie may dee, when a helpin hand micht
save her."
"Yet I hae heard that she was seen on the road to Canonmills last nicht
in the darkenin," rejoined the first, with an oblique glance at the
other.
The words reached Menie in the bed, and the clothes shook above her.
"God be praised, my bairn is weel!" said Euphan, who understood the
import of their speech; "but, though 'affliction cometh not forth from
the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground,' yet are we all
born unto grief. We hae our ain sorrows, and never pry into those o' our
neighbours."
The conversation continued for some time, and the women departed,
leaving the inmates to the certainty that the village had got hold of
the dreaded topic of calumny against the miserable victim of prejudice.
The shock had not expended its strength upon their already racked
nerves, when the door was opened by a rude hand, and two men entered,
dressed in the garb of officers of the Sheriff Court. An involuntary
scream was uttered by Menie, as her eyes met the uniform of red facings
of the harsh-looking men. Euphan was silent; but her eyes were filled
with the eloquence of fear.
"Is your daughter at home, good woman?" said one of the men, while he
cast his eye on the bed from which the weak scream issued.
"Ay," answered the mother. "What is your pleasure wi' her or wi' me?"
"Where is she?" added the same person.
"There," answered the mother. "She is weakly this morning, and hasna yet
risen."
"No doubt--no doubt," said the man. "She cannot be weel. I understand
she has been confined to the house for six weeks, with the exception of
some night wanderings; but she must this day face the light of the sun.
We have a warrant of apprehension against her, proceeding on a charge of
child-murder. She must up and dress, sick or well, and go with us. The
body of the child lies in the sheriff's office; and it is right that the
mother should be there also."
The words, which had an ironical virulence in them, unbecoming the
station of the man, wrung a wail from the accused maiden, which, muffled
by the bedclothes she had wrapped round her head, sounded like the
waning voice of the departing spirit; and the mother, overcome by the
accumulation of ills crowned by this consummation, flung herself at the
feet of the speaker, and grasped his legs with her fleshless arm.
"God hath spoken once; but I have heard it many times that power
belongeth unto him, and not to those wha whet their tongues like swords,
and bend their bows to shoot their arrows at the innocent. My dochter is
as guiltless o' this crime as the babe she is accused o' murderin. Let
her remain, if ye hae in ye the heart that travaileth with pity, and I
will awa to them that sent ye, and satisfy them, as never suspicion was
satisfied, that Menie Dempster is nae mair capable o' committin this
crime against God and his laws, than is she wha is sanctified by the
holiest spirit that ever warmed the breast or filled with tears the een
o' the mercifu. Grant me this ae request, and it will be a' that Euphan
Dempster may ever ask o' man."
"We cannot," replied the officer; "all we can do is to retire for a
moment, till your daughter dress herself; but we cannot wait long--so,
quick--quick."
And the two men retired to the door, where their appearance had already
collected a crowd of curious inquirers. The behests of necessity
overcome the strongest feelings of mortals, and even impart to weakness
a morbid strength. The unhappy maiden rose, and put on her clothes in
the midst of the outpourings of her mother's religious inspirations; but
her sobs and suppressed wailings bore evidence to a sorrow that would
not be comforted, even by the assurances of the mercy that endureth for
ever. The men again entered; and Menie, accompanied by her mother, was
led away to the hall of the Sheriff's Court, to undergo an examination,
which, of itself, might operate as their utter ruin in this world.
They arrived at the court-room about eleven o'clock. An examination of
witnesses had already been begun. As they entered the door of the room
where they were to be placed, Menie saw passing through the lobby
several neighbours; and between two men, in the act of taking him to be
examined, she observed George Wallace, whose eyes seemed red and
inflamed, and who exhibited a strong reluctance to proceed forward,
requiring the efforts of the men to drag him before the examinator. The
whole scene seemed nothing but a dream; and the trifling circumstance
from which it originated invested it with a character strange and
unnatural. It was nearly four o'clock before Menie was called in to be
examined. When led before the judge, she looked wildly around her. A
chair was set for her, and she sat down. The usual questions as to her
name, and other matters, were put, and the more important part of the
examination proceeded. She was asked whether she had at one time been on
terms of intimacy with Michael M'Intyre, the city guardsman; whether she
had not been in his society among the trees of Inverleith, on a night
mentioned; whether she had not been courted by George Wallace of
Inverleith Mains; whether she had not been renounced by him; whether the
reason of such renouncement was not her prior intimacy with M'Intyre;
whether she had not been confined to the house for a considerable
period, and what was the reason of such confinement; whether she had not
deposited a basket containing the dead child near the hedgerow in the
loan leading to Canonmills; and whether she was not the mother of the
child. Every question was answered according to her simple ideas of
innocence and truth; but when she came to state that she found the
basket on the road, carried it home without looking at it, and then
replaced it in the situation in which she found it, and all this without
being able properly to account for so unlikely and extraordinary a
proceeding, the sheriff, prejudiced as he was against her, from her
previous admission that she had been seen in the society of M'Intyre, a
man of dissolute habits--that Wallace had not visited her for many
weeks, in consequence, as she supposed, of that circumstance--and that
she had not been in the habit of going out for a considerable
period--viewed her statement as false, and entertained the strongest
suspicions of her being guilty of the crime laid to her charge. She was
accordingly committed to prison until further evidence might be
procured, to throw more light on the mysterious transaction.
In the meantime, the circumstances of the case being of that
inexplicable kind that stirs the curiosity of a prying public, the
results of the precognition got abroad, and it was ascertained that a
considerable part of the information afforded to the sheriff had been
procured from Elspeth Grierson, the mother of Margaret Grierson, and
from one of the men who had seen Menie in the arms of the city
guardsman. The manner in which Wallace became implicated as an unwilling
witness against his betrothed, was also a curious feature in the case.
He had not been absent in the south so long as it had been represented,
but had concealed his arrival at home with a view to watch the motions
of her whom he yet loved, in spite of the suspicions he entertained
against her; and having, on that eventful evening, seen Menie hurrying
along with a basket in her hand, he had followed her, and seen her
deposit the charge in the manner already mentioned. At the very moment
when he was in the act of examining it, Elspeth Grierson came up, as if
she had been returning from Canonmills, and helped him to undo the
cloth in which the dead body of the child was wrapped; and thus was he
painfully committed as a witness of what he had seen. The authorities
soon after got intelligence of the circumstance; the child was taken to
the office, and a great number of witnesses, chiefly pointed out by
Elspeth Grierson (among the rest, George Wallace), were examined,
previous to the interrogation of the supposed culprit herself.
The unhappy situation of the girl, and the apparently conflicting
testimony of the witnesses, roused a sympathetic interest in many of her
acquaintances, who, having set on foot a system of inquiry, induced or
persuaded the fiscal to seek for the truth, rather than for an
unilateral array of inculpative testimony. It was impossible, even on
the part of the authorities, to deny the force of the facts, that Menie
had been often seen by the neighbours during their visits, though she
had kept the house in the day-time, in consequence of the shame produced
by the reports circulated against her; that she had been on a visit to
Canonmills on that evening when the child was exposed; that the rumours
against her (with the exception of the facts attending the depositing of
the corb) proceeded mainly from one source, which was a poisoned one;
and that, in place of denying, as she might have done, all knowledge of
the transaction, she had explained everything with a simplicity that was
seldom exhibited by the votaries of vice. These things made a suitable
impression, and the crown authorities were obliged to stop short in
their proceedings, from the circumstance that they could find no proof
of gravidity, and only one witness, Wallace himself--whose reluctance to
give his testimony was looked upon, when contrasted with his ascertained
inimical feelings towards her, as an affected exhibition of leniency to
cover concealed hatred--could speak to the fact of the depositation of
the child. All seemed enveloped in doubt; and, if there was a glimpse of
certainty in regard to any part of the inexplicable case, it was that,
that doubt itself would effectuate the ruin of the unfortunate prisoner,
who could never claim again the respect that is due to innocence.
For six months she was confined within the narrow cells of a jail, and
during every day of that period she was visited by her mother, whose
endeavours to support the young and breaking heart of the victim, by the
application of the balm that God has sent to the miserable, only tended
to calm the spirit as it sunk in the ruins of a decaying constitution.
She was at last liberated; but the freedom of the body only made more
manifest the effects of the blasting power of prejudice and suspicion;
and the intelligence, that was communicated to her some time afterwards,
that Wallace had married Margaret Grierson, crowned the misery that
enslaved her, and seemed to cut off all hope that she could ever again
hold up her head among the daughters of men. Time passed, and realised
that inherent condition of his power, which, as his progress continues,
brings to the miserable the sad consolation of the woes of their
enemies. The marriage of Wallace with Margaret Grierson was an unhappy
one. The collision of adverse sentiments produced in the wife an
infirmity of temper, which, in its exasperated moods, sought for relief
in intoxication; and the domestic feuds at Inverleith Mains became a
common topic of conversation among the inhabitants of Broughton. Such
are the turns of fate that acknowledge the influence of a power whose
ways we cannot comprehend; yet a still more extraordinary discovery was
to be manifested to the child of misfortune. One night Menie and her
mother were engaged in their evening exercise, heedless of the concerns
of a world from which they were excluded, when the door opened with a
loud noise, and George Wallace stood before them. His eyes were wild and
bloodshot, a fever was in his blood, and his nerves, excited by some
maniac passion, shook till his frame seemed convulsed, and the powers
of judgment and will lay prostrate before the fiend that ruled his
heart. Menie started up affrighted, and the mother laid her hand upon
the book.
"I am compelled to be here," he cried, with a choking, unnatural voice,
as he held forth his hands to the maiden; "and it is well I have come,
for the quiet air o' this house o' innocence already quells the fever o'
my heart. I have this moment left my wife; and I had a struggle to pass
the water-dam, that shone in the mune to invite me to bury mysel and my
grief in its still breast. But there is a God in heaven; and He it is
wha has brought me here, to look ance mair on her I loved and ruined,
and now can only save by my ain endless misery and shame. She lies
yonder steeped in drink; but the power o' conscience has repelled the
subtle poison, and she could speak in burnin words her crime and my
eternal shame. Margaret Grierson it was--my wife--the mother o' my
child--O God, help my words!--she has confessed, in her drunken madness,
and my heart tells me it is the confession o' God's eternal truth, that
the babe was hers--that her mother laid it by the hedgerow, a breathin
victim, to hide her daughter's dishonour--and that it died there by
suffocation. Let me speak it out, that this throbbin heart may be
stilled. But it cannot--it never can be in this world--no--no--nor in
the next."
And, groaning deeply, he threw himself on a chair, and rugged his hair
like a maniac in the highest paroxysm of his disease. The unexpected and
extraordinary statement rendered the women speechless. They looked at
him, and at each other. Mutterings of prayer escaped from the lips of
Euphan, and surprise and pity divided the empire of the heart of the
daughter, who had never thought to see misery that equalled her own.
There was no reason for the feeling of triumph, where the melancholy
relief came from the ruins of one whom they had both loved and
respected. He had been the only individual that ever influenced the
heart of the one, and the other had fondly looked forward to him as the
support and solace of her old age. Now he was a ruined, miserable man,
and had no power to make amends for the wrong he had unintentionally
committed. The calmness of the silence, and the relief that came from
the unburdening of a secret that had been wrung from him by the pangs of
conscience, brought him to a sense of the position in which he had
placed himself. He had put himself and his wife in the power of those he
had wronged, and returning reason brought with it the fears of
self-preservation.
"What hae I done?" he again exclaimed, as he took his hand from his
forehead, and looked into the face of Menie. "I hae condemned mysel and
the wife o' my bosom--my conscience and a burnin revenge hae wrought
this out o' me; but what shall be the consequence thereof? Will ye bring
her to justice, the gallows--and me to a still deeper ruin and
desolation than that which hang over this house o' innocent suffering?
Say, Menie; speak, guid mother; our doom is in your hands. What says
that blessed book on the merits o' forgiveness and the crime o'
revenge?"
Euphan Dempster fixed her eyes on him calmly.
"Sair, sair hae ye wranged me, and that puir child o' misfortune, wha
stands there unable to reply to ye, though the tears o' her grief and
her pity speak in strange language the waes o' a broken heart. But
sairer, far sairer, hae ye wranged yersel; for, though we 'have seen the
travail which God hath given to the sons and daughters o' men,' we have
been answered in the dark nights in which we cried and wept, by Him who
'maintains the cause o' the afflicted, and the right o' the poor;' but
ye are left to the wrath o' yer ain spirit, that burns in yer heart, and
even now lights up your eyes wi' a strange licht. Vainly would my
daughter and I hae read this book, if we hadna learned to forgive our
enemies. You hae naething to fear from us."
"And are thae the sentiments o' her wha was ance the life and light o'
this stricken heart!" said Wallace, as he turned mournfully to Menie,
who, pale and emaciated from her sorrow, stood before him, the ghost of
what she was. "O God! can this be my Menie? Is a' that ruin o' health
and beauty the doin o' him wha loved her as nae man ever loved woman?
Are thae your sentiments, Menie? and am I, and is my miserable wife,
safe in the keepin o' your forgiveness?"
"Ay, George," answered the maiden, as she burst into tears at the
recollection of her former love, and the sight of her unhappy lover. "I
hae been sair dealt wi'; but I forgie ye; and I forgie also your wife. I
will dree the scorn o' an ill warld; but till you and she are dead, my
lips will never mention the wrangs I hae suffered from my auld freend,
and him I could hae dee'd to serve."
"Miserable man that I am!" exclaimed the youth. "How much do your
generosity and kindness show me I have lost, and lost for ever? Whither
now shall I fly!--to the arms o' a murderer, the wife o' my bosom--or to
the wide world, to roam, a houseless man, to whom there is nae city o'
refuge on earth?"
Unable longer to bear the poignancy of his feelings, he rushed out of
the house.
For several years after the scene we have now described, Wallace was not
heard of. None but his father knew whither he had gone. His wife was
absolutely discarded from the farmhouse; and, her habits getting
gradually worse, she became a street vagrant, and renounced herself to
the dominion of the evil power that had, from an early period, ruled
her, but whose workings she had so artfully, for a time, attempted to
conceal. She paid many visits to Inverleith Mains, but was rejected by
the old farmer, who attributed to her the ruin of his son. On these
occasions, she broke forth in wild execrations; and, on her return, did
not fail to assail the widow and her daughter as the instruments of her
ruin. The old story of the child was published at the door in the words
of drunken delirium; and often mixed with stray sentences of triumph
that, to any one possessed of the secret, would have appeared a
sufficient condemnation of herself. Yet the construction was all the
other way; for Menie had never been cleared by evidence, and the
virulent expressions of the vagabond were, according to the laws which
too often regulate mundane belief, taken as inculpation; and hence the
prejudice against the innocent victim was kept up, and the lives of her
and her mother embittered to a degree that called for all the aids of
their "sacred remeid" to ameliorate sufferings that seemed destined to
have no end upon earth. But the ways of Heaven are wonderful. A
boisterous sea may wreck, but the sufferer may be carried to the shore
by a wave which, if less impetuous, might have been his grave. Wallace's
wife at last died from the effects of that dissipation that had opened
the evil heart to give forth the confession of her own shame; and, after
this relief, the husband's father paid regular visits to Menie and her
mother. He never spoke of the secret that had driven his son away, nor
of the place to which he had fled; but he showed sufficiently, by his
attentions and kindness, that he knew all. The house of the widow and
her daughter was now kept full by supplies from the farm; money, too,
was given to them in abundance, and, in so far as regarded worldly
means, the two inmates had, at no period of their lives, been so well
provided for.
Five years had now elapsed since the disappearance of Wallace. One
night, as Menie and her mother were sitting by the fire, the door was
opened, and Wallace stood before them. His manner was now very different
from what it was on that day when he rushed like a madman from the
house. He stood for a moment, looking at the couple who had suffered so
much from his wrongs; and the first words he uttered were--
"Menie Dempster, ye have been true to your promise, and ye have been
rewarded. That woman is gone to her trial, and yours is ended. Now shall
truth triumph."
Menie was unable to utter a word. Her eyes were alternately turned to
Wallace and to the fire. The mother laid her hand solemnly on the Bible,
and addressing the inspired volume--
"Thus are yer secrets brought to light--ay, even out o' darkness. They
wha trust in ye shall not fail in the end, though they should stumble
seven times, yea, seven times seven."
"If I had trusted mair to that," said Wallace, "than to the whisperins
o' my ain heart, I might never have been a miserable husband, or a
banished man. But it's no yet owre late. I am resolved. Menie, will ye
now consent to be the wife o' him wha wrought, maybe unwittingly, to
your ruin?"
Menie was yet silent.
"I will publish your innocence," rejoined he. "There is mair evidence
than my word against her wha is dead. It shall be known far and wide,
and you will be the innocent and respected wife o' George Wallace."
"I will speak for her," said the mother; "she will consent. It is asked
of her by Him wha has brought good out o' evil, and whase mercies, bein
the reward o' the patience o' trial, are as a command that shall not be
disobeyed."
Wallace drew near to Menie, and took her hand. Her face was still turned
away, but he felt the trembling pressure, that got sooner to the heart
than the sounds of the voice.
"It is enough, Menie," he whispered. "Come, the mune is again shinin
amang the trees o' Warriston."