The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete by Walter Scott (best new books to read .TXT) 📖

and made the first experiment of the resolved pith of his lungs, in a deep and dignified sigh, resembling a groan in sound and intonation—“Awfu’ times these, neighbour Deans, awfu’ times!”

“Sinfu’, shamefu’, heaven-daring times!” answered Deans, in a lower and more subdued tone.

“For my part,” continued Saddletree, swelling with importance, “what between the distress of my friends, and my poor auld country, ony wit that ever I had may be said to have abandoned me, sae that I sometimes think myself as ignorant as if I were inter rusticos. Here when I arise in the morning, wi’ my mind just arranged touching what’s to be done in puir Effie’s misfortune, and hae gotten the haill statute at my finger-ends, the mob maun get up and string Jock Porteous to a dyester’s beam, and ding a’ thing out of my head again.”

Deeply as he was distressed with his own domestic calamity, Deans could not help expressing some interest in the news. Saddletree immediately entered on details of the insurrection and its consequences, while Butler took the occasion to seek some private conversation with Jeanie Deans. She gave him the opportunity he sought, by leaving the room, as if in prosecution of some part of her morning labour. Butler followed her in a few minutes, leaving Deans so closely engaged by his busy visitor, that there was little chance of his observing their absence.

The scene of their interview was an outer apartment, where Jeanie was used to busy herself in arranging the productions of her dairy. When Butler found an opportunity of stealing after her into this place, he found her silent, dejected, and ready to burst into tears. Instead of the active industry with which she had been accustomed, even while in the act of speaking, to employ her hands in some useful branch of household business, she was seated listless in a corner, sinking apparently under the weight of her own thoughts. Yet the instant he entered, she dried her eyes, and, with the simplicity and openness of her character, immediately entered on conversation.

“I am glad you have come in, Mr. Butler,” said she, “for—for—for I wished to tell ye, that all maun be ended between you and me—it’s best for baith our sakes.”

“Ended!” said Butler, in surprise; “and for what should it be ended?—I grant this is a heavy dispensation, but it lies neither at your door nor mine—it’s an evil of God’s sending, and it must be borne; but it cannot break plighted troth, Jeanie, while they that plighted their word wish to keep it.”

“But, Reuben,” said the young woman, looking at him affectionately, “I ken weel that ye think mair of me than yourself; and, Reuben, I can only in requital think mair of your weal than of my ain. Ye are a man of spotless name, bred to God’s ministry, and a’ men say that ye will some day rise high in the kirk, though poverty keep ye doun e’en now. Poverty is a bad back-friend, Reuben, and that ye ken ower weel; but ill-fame is a waur ane, and that is a truth ye sall never learn through my means.”

“What do you mean?” said Butler, eagerly and impatiently; “or how do you connect your sister’s guilt, if guilt there be, which, I trust in God, may yet be disproved, with our engagement?—how can that affect you or me?”

“How can you ask me that, Mr. Butler? Will this stain, d’ye think, ever be forgotten, as lang as our heads are abune the grund? Will it not stick to us, and to our bairns, and to their very bairns’ bairns? To hae been the child of an honest man, might hae been saying something for me and mine; but to be the sister of a—O my God!”—With this exclamation her resolution failed, and she burst into a passionate fit of tears.

The lover used every effort to induce her to compose herself, and at length succeeded; but she only resumed her composure to express herself with the same positiveness as before. “No, Reuben, I’ll bring disgrace hame to nae man’s hearth; my ain distresses I can bear, and I maun bear, but there is nae occasion for buckling them on other folk’s shouthers. I will bear my load alone—the back is made for the burden.”

A lover is by charter wayward and suspicious; and Jeanie’s readiness to renounce their engagement, under pretence of zeal for his peace of mind and respectability of character, seemed to poor Butler to form a portentous combination with the commission of the stranger he had met with that morning. His voice faltered as he asked, “whether nothing but a sense of her sister’s present distress occasioned her to talk in that manner?”

“And what else can do sae?” she replied with simplicity. “Is it not ten long years since we spoke together in this way?”

“Ten years!” said Butler. “It’s a long time—sufficient perhaps for a woman to weary—”

“To weary of her auld gown,” said Jeanie, “and to wish for a new ane if she likes to be brave, but not long enough to weary of a friend—The eye may wish change, but the heart never.”

“Never!” said Reuben,—“that’s a bold promise.”

“But not more bauld than true,” said Jeanie, with the same quiet simplicity which attended her manner in joy and grief in ordinary affairs, and in those which most interested her feelings.

Butler paused, and looking at her fixedly—“I am charged,” he said, “with a message to you, Jeanie.”

“Indeed! From whom? Or what can ony ane have to say to me?”

“It is from a stranger,” said Butler, affecting to speak with an indifference which his voice belied—“A young man whom I met this morning in the Park.”

“Mercy!” said Jeanie, eagerly; “and what did he say?”

“That he did not see you at the hour he expected, but required you should meet him alone at Muschat’s Cairn this night, so soon as the moon rises.”

“Tell him,” said Jeanie, hastily, “I shall certainly come.”

“May I ask,” said Butler, his suspicions increasing at the ready alacrity of the answer, “who this man is to whom you are so willing to give the meeting at a place and hour so uncommon?”

“Folk maun do muckle they have little will to do, in this world,” replied Jeanie.

“Granted,” said her lover; “but what compels you to this?—who is this person? What I saw of him was not very favourable—who, or what is he?”

“I do not know,” replied Jeanie, composedly.

“You do not know!” said Butler, stepping impatiently through the apartment—“You purpose to meet a young man whom you do not know, at such a time, and in a place so lonely—you say you are compelled to do this—and yet you say you do not know the person who exercises such an influence over you!—Jeanie, what am I to think of this?”

“Think only, Reuben, that I speak truth, as if I were to answer at the last day.—I do not ken this man—I do not even ken that I ever saw him; and yet I must give him the meeting he asks—there’s life and death upon it.”