The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Volume 2 by Walter Scott (best ereader under 100 txt) 📖

And we are free to sport and play. "The night comes on when sets the sun, And labour ends when day is done. When Autumn's gone and Winter's come, We hold our jovial harvest-home."

Jeanie advanced to the bedside when the strain was finished, and addressed Madge by her name. But it produced no symptoms of recollection. On the contrary, the patient, like one provoked by interruption, changed her posture, and called out with an impatient tone, "Nurse—nurse, turn my face to the wa', that I may never answer to that name ony mair, and never see mair of a wicked world."

The attendant on the hospital arranged her in her bed as she desired, with her face to the wall and her back to the light. So soon as she was quiet in this new position, she began again to sing in the same low and modulated strains, as if she was recovering the state of abstraction which the interruption of her visitants had disturbed. The strain, however, was different, and rather resembled the music of the Methodist hymns, though the measure of the song was similar to that of the former:

"When the fight of grace is fought— When the marriage vest is wrought— When Faith hath chased cold Doubt away, And Hope but sickens at delay— "When Charity, imprisoned here, Longs for a more expanded sphere, Doff thy robes of sin and clay; Christian, rise, and come away."

The strain was solemn and affecting, sustained as it was by the pathetic warble of a voice which had naturally been a fine one, and which weakness, if it diminished its power, had improved in softness. Archibald, though a follower of the court, and a pococurante by profession, was confused, if not affected; the dairy-maid blubbered; and Jeanie felt the tears rise spontaneously to her eyes. Even the nurse, accustomed to all modes in which the spirit can pass, seemed considerably moved.

The patient was evidently growing weaker, as was intimated by an apparent difficulty of breathing, which seized her from time to time, and by the utterance of low listless moans, intimating that nature was succumbing in the last conflict. But the spirit of melody, which must originally have so strongly possessed this unfortunate young woman, seemed, at every interval of ease, to triumph over her pain and weakness. And it was remarkable that there could always be traced in her songs something appropriate, though perhaps only obliquely or collaterally so, to her present situation. Her next seemed the fragment of some old ballad:

"Cauld is my bed, Lord Archibald, And sad my sleep of sorrow; But thine sall be as sad and cauld, My fause true-love! to-morrow. "And weep ye not, my maidens free, Though death your mistress borrow; For he for whom I die to-day Shall die for me to-morrow."

Again she changed the tune to one wilder, less monotonous, and less regular. But of the words, only a fragment or two could be collected by those who listened to this singular scene

"Proud Maisie is in the wood, Walking so early; Sweet Robin sits on the bush, Singing so rarely. "'Tell me, thou bonny bird. When shall I marry me?' 'When six braw gentlemen Kirkward shall carry ye.' "'Who makes the bridal bed, Birdie, say truly?'— 'The grey-headed sexton, That delves the grave duly. "The glow-worm o'er grave and stone Shall light thee steady; The owl from the steeple sing, 'Welcome, proud lady.'"

Her voice died away with the last notes, and she fell into a slumber, from which the experienced attendant assured them that she never would awake at all, or only in the death agony.

The nurse's prophecy proved true. The poor maniac parted with existence, without again uttering a sound of any kind. But our travellers did not witness this catastrophe. They left the hospital as soon as Jeanie had satisfied herself that no elucidation of her sister's misfortunes was to be hoped from the dying person.*

* Note R. Madge Wildfire.