‘Let them say I am romantic; so is every one said to be that
either admires a fine thing or does one. On my conscience, as
the world goes, ’tis hardly worth anybody’s while to do one for
the honour of it. Glory, the only pay of generous actions, is
now as ill paid as other just debts; and neither Mrs Macfarlane
for immolating her lover, nor you for constancy to your lord,
must ever hope to be compared to Lucretia or Portia.’—_Pope to
Lady Mary W. Montagu._
Pope here alludes to a tragical incident which took place in Edinburgh
on the 2nd of October 1716. The victim was a young Englishman, who had
been sent down to Scotland as a Commissioner of Customs. It appears
that Squire Cayley, or Captain Cayley, as he was alternatively called,
had become the slave of a shameful passion towards Mrs Macfarlane,
a woman of uncommon beauty, the wife of Mr John Macfarlane, Writer
to the Signet in Edinburgh. One Saturday forenoon Mrs Macfarlane was
exposed, by the treachery of Captain Cayley’s landlady, with whom she
was acquainted, to an insult of the most atrocious kind on his part, in
the house where he lodged, which seems to have been situated in a close
in the Cowgate, opposite to what were called the Back Stairs.[232]
Next Tuesday Mr Cayley waited upon Mrs Macfarlane at her own house,
and was shown into the drawing-room. According to an account given out
by his friends, he was anxious to apologise for his former rudeness.
From another account, it would appear that he had circulated reports
derogatory to the lady’s honour, which she was resolved to punish. A
third story represents him as having repeated the insult which he had
formerly offered; whereupon she went into another room, and presently
came back with a pair of pistols in her hand. On her bidding him
leave the house instantly, he said: ‘What, madam, d’ye design to act
a comedy?’ To which she answered that ‘_he would find it a tragedy if
he did not retire_.’ The infatuated man not obeying her command, she
fired one of the pistols, which, however, only wounded him slightly
in the left wrist, the bullet slanting down into the floor. The mere
instinct, probably, of self-preservation caused him to draw his sword;
but before he could use it she fired the other pistol, the shot of
which penetrated his heart. ‘This dispute,’ says a letter of the day,
‘was so close that Mr Cayley’s shirt was burnt at the sleeves with the
fire of one of the pistols, and his cravat and the breast of his shirt
with the fire of the other.’[233] Mrs Macfarlane immediately left the
room, locking the door upon the dead body, and sent a servant for her
husband, who was found at a neighbouring tavern. On his coming home
about an hour after, she took him by the sleeve, and leading him into
the room where the corpse lay, explained the circumstances which had
led to the bloody act. Mr Macfarlane said: ‘Oh, woman! what have you
done?’ But soon seeing the necessity for prompt measures, he went out
again to consult with some of his friends. ‘They all advised,’ says the
letter just quoted, ‘that he should convey his wife away privately, to
prevent her lying in jail, till a precognition should be taken of the
affair, and it should appear in its true light. Accordingly [about six
o’clock], she walked down the High Street, followed by her husband at a
little distance, and now absconds.
‘The thing continued a profound secret to all except those concerned in
the house till past ten at night, when Mr Macfarlane, having provided a
safe retreat for his wife, returned and gave orders for discovering it
to the magistrates, who went and viewed the body of the deceased, and
secured the house and maid, and all else who may become evidence of the
fact.’
Another contemporary says: ‘I saw his [Cayley’s] corpse after he
was cereclothed, and saw his blood where he lay on the floor for
twenty-four hours after he died, just as he fell; so it was a
difficulty to straight him.’
A careful investigation was made into every circumstance connected
with this fatal affair, but without demonstrating anything except the
passionate rashness or magnanimity of the fair homicide. Mr Macfarlane
was discharged upon his own affirmation that he knew nothing of the
deed till after it had taken place. A pamphlet was published by Mrs
Murray, Mr Cayley’s landlady, who seems to have kept a grocery shop
in the Cowgate, vindicating herself from the imputation which Mrs
Macfarlane’s tale had thrown upon her character; but to this there
appeared an answer, from some friend of the other party, in which the
imputation was fixed almost beyond the possibility of doubt. Mrs Murray
denied that Mrs Macfarlane had been in her house on the Saturday before
the murder; but evidence was given that she was seen issuing from
the close in which Mrs Murray resided, and, after ascending the Back
Stairs, was observed passing through the Parliament Square towards her
own house.
It will surprise every one to learn that this Scottish Lucrece was
a woman of only nineteen or twenty years of age, and some months
_enceinte_, at the time when she so boldly vindicated her honour. She
was a person of respectable connections, being a daughter of Colonel
Charles Straiton, ‘a gentleman of great honour,’ says one of the
letters already quoted, and who further appears to have been entrusted
with high negotiations by the Jacobites during the reign of Queen Anne.
By her mother, she was granddaughter to Sir Andrew Forrester.
Of the future history of Mrs Macfarlane we have but one glimpse, but
it is of a romantic nature. Margaret Swinton, who was the aunt of Sir
Walter Scott’s mother, and round whom he and his boy-brothers used
to close to listen to her tales, remembered being one Sunday left by
her parents at home in their house of Swinton in Berwickshire, while
the rest of the family attended church. Tiring of the solitude of her
little nursery, she stole quietly downstairs to the parlour, which
she entered somewhat abruptly. There, to her surprise, she beheld the
most beautiful woman she had ever seen, sitting at the breakfast-table
making tea. She believed it could be no other than one of those
enchanted queens whom she had heard of in fairy tales. The lady, after
a pause of surprise, came up to her with a sweet smile, and conversed
with her, concluding with a request that she would speak only to her
mamma of the stranger whom she had seen. Presently after, little
Margaret having turned her back for a few moments, the beautiful vision
had vanished. The whole appeared like a dream. By-and-by the family
returned, and Margaret took her mother aside that she might talk of
this wonderful apparition. Mrs Swinton applauded her for thus observing
the injunction which had been laid upon her. ‘Had you not,’ she added,
‘it might have cost that lady her life.’ Subsequent explanations made
Margaret aware that she had seen the unfortunate Mrs Macfarlane, who,
having some claim of kindred upon the Swinton family, had been received
by them, and kept in a secret room till such time as she could venture
to make her way out of the country. On Margaret looking away for a
moment, the lady had glided by a sliding panel into her Patmos behind
the wainscot, and thus unwittingly increased the child’s apprehension
of the whole being an event out of the course of nature.