Old Mortality, Complete by Walter Scott (my reading book .txt) 📖

once to have vanished from her recollection, and left only a painful chaos of ideas, with which was mingled a fear that she had degraded herself in the eyes of Morton by a step which might appear precipitate and unfeminine. She hung motionless and almost powerless upon the arm of her attendant, who in vain endeavoured to reassure and inspire her with courage, by whispering, “We are in now, madam, and we maun mak the best o’ our time; for, doubtless, the corporal or the sergeant will gang the rounds, and it wad be a pity to hae the poor lad Halliday punished for his civility.”

Morton, in the meantime, was timidly advancing, suspecting the truth; for what other female in the house, excepting Edith herself, was likely to take an interest in his misfortunes? and yet afraid, owing to the doubtful twilight and the muffled dress, of making some mistake which might be prejudicial to the object of his affections. Jenny, whose ready wit and forward manners well qualified her for such an office, hastened to break the ice.

“Mr Morton, Miss Edith’s very sorry for your present situation, and”—

It was needless to say more; he was at her side, almost at her feet, pressing her unresisting hands, and loading her with a profusion of thanks and gratitude which would be hardly intelligible from the mere broken words, unless we could describe the tone, the gesture, the impassioned and hurried indications of deep and tumultuous feeling, with which they were accompanied.

For two or three minutes, Edith stood as motionless as the statue of a saint which receives the adoration of a worshipper; and when she recovered herself sufficiently to withdraw her hands from Henry’s grasp, she could at first only faintly articulate, “I have taken a strange step, Mr Morton—a step,” she continued with more coherence, as her ideas arranged themselves in consequence of a strong effort, “that perhaps may expose me to censure in your eyes—But I have long permitted you to use the language of friendship—perhaps I might say more—too long to leave you when the world seems to have left you. How, or why, is this imprisonment? what can be done? can my uncle, who thinks so highly of you—can your own kinsman, Milnwood, be of no use? are there no means? and what is likely to be the event?”

“Be what it will,” answered Henry, contriving to make himself master of the hand that had escaped from him, but which was now again abandoned to his clasp, “be what it will, it is to me from this moment the most welcome incident of a weary life. To you, dearest Edith—forgive me, I should have said Miss Bellenden, but misfortune claims strange privileges—to you I have owed the few happy moments which have gilded a gloomy existence; and if I am now to lay it down, the recollection of this honour will be my happiness in the last hour of suffering.”

“But is it even thus, Mr Morton?” said Miss Bellenden. “Have you, who used to mix so little in these unhappy feuds, become so suddenly and deeply implicated, that nothing short of”—

She paused, unable to bring out the word which should have come next.

“Nothing short of my life, you would say?” replied Morton, in a calm, but melancholy tone; “I believe that will be entirely in the bosoms of my judges. My guards spoke of a possibility of exchanging the penalty for entry into foreign service. I thought I could have embraced the alternative; and yet, Miss Bellenden, since I have seen you once more, I feel that exile would be more galling than death.”

“And is it then true,” said Edith, “that you have been so desperately rash as to entertain communication with any of those cruel wretches who assassinated the primate?”

“I knew not even that such a crime had been committed,” replied Morton, “when I gave unhappily a night’s lodging and concealment to one of those rash and cruel men, the ancient friend and comrade of my father. But my ignorance will avail me little; for who, Miss Bellenden, save you, will believe it? And, what is worse, I am at least uncertain whether, even if I had known the crime, I could have brought my mind, under all the circumstances, to refuse a temporary refuge to the fugitive.”

“And by whom,” said Edith, anxiously, “or under what authority, will the investigation of your conduct take place?”

“Under that of Colonel Grahame of Claverhouse, I am given to understand,” said Morton; “one of the military commission, to whom it has pleased our king, our privy council, and our parliament, that used to be more tenacious of our liberties, to commit the sole charge of our goods and of our lives.”

“To Claverhouse?” said Edith, faintly; “merciful Heaven, you are lost ere you are tried! He wrote to my grandmother that he was to be here to-morrow morning, on his road to the head of the county, where some desperate men, animated by the presence of two or three of the actors in the primate’s murder, are said to have assembled for the purpose of making a stand against the government. His expressions made me shudder, even when I could not guess that—that—a friend”—

“Do not be too much alarmed on my account, my dearest Edith,” said Henry, as he supported her in his arms; “Claverhouse, though stern and relentless, is, by all accounts, brave, fair, and honourable. I am a soldier’s son, and will plead my cause like a soldier. He will perhaps listen more favourably to a blunt and unvarnished defence than a truckling and time-serving judge might do. And, indeed, in a time when justice is, in all its branches, so completely corrupted, I would rather lose my life by open military violence, than be conjured out of it by the hocus-pocus of some arbitrary lawyer, who lends the knowledge he has of the statutes made for our protection, to wrest them to our destruction.”

“You are lost—you are lost, if you are to plead your cause with Claverhouse!” sighed Edith; “root and branchwork is the mildest of his expressions. The unhappy primate was his intimate friend and early patron. ‘No excuse, no subterfuge,’ said his letter, ‘shall save either those connected with the deed, or such as have given them countenance and shelter, from the ample and bitter penalty of the law, until I shall have taken as many lives in vengeance of this atrocious murder, as the old man had grey hairs upon his venerable head.’ There is neither ruth nor favour to be found with him.”

Jenny Dennison, who had hitherto remained silent, now ventured, in the extremity of distress which the lovers felt, but for which they were unable to devise a remedy, to offer her own advice.

“Wi’ your leddyship’s pardon, Miss Edith, and young Mr Morton’s, we maunna waste time. Let Milnwood take my plaid and gown; I’ll slip them aff in the dark corner, if he’ll promise no to look about, and he may walk past Tam Halliday, who is half blind with his ale, and I can tell him a canny way to get out o’ the Tower, and your leddyship will gang quietly to your ain room, and I’ll row mysell in his grey cloak, and pit on his hat, and play the prisoner till the coast’s clear, and then I’ll cry in Tam Halliday, and gar him let me out.”

“Let you out?” said Morton; “they’ll make your life answer it.”

“Ne’er a bit,” replied Jenny; “Tam daurna tell he let ony body in, for his ain sake; and I’ll gar him find some other gate