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

“I cannot,” said Jeanie; “I have no permission.”

“Will you let me go with you? I will wait in the Park till nightfall, and join you when you set out.”

“It is impossible,” said Jeanie; “there maunna be mortal creature within hearing of our conference.”

“Have you considered well the nature of what you are going to do?—the time—the place—an unknown and suspicious character?—Why, if he had asked to see you in this house, your father sitting in the next room, and within call, at such an hour, you should have refused to see him.”

“My weird maun be fulfilled, Mr. Butler; my life and my safety are in God’s hands, but I’ll not spare to risk either of them on the errand I am gaun to do.”

“Then, Jeanie,” said Butler, much displeased, “we must indeed break short off, and bid farewell. When there can be no confidence betwixt a man and his plighted wife on such a momentous topic, it is a sign that she has no longer the regard for him that makes their engagement safe and suitable.”

Jeanie looked at him and sighed. “I thought,” she said, “that I had brought myself to bear this parting—but—but—I did not ken that we were to part in unkindness. But I am a woman and you are a man—it may be different wi’ you—if your mind is made easier by thinking sae hardly of me, I would not ask you to think otherwise.”

“You are,” said Butler, “what you have always been—wiser, better, and less selfish in your native feelings, than I can be, with all the helps philosophy can give to a Christian—But why—why will you persevere in an undertaking so desperate? Why will you not let me be your assistant—your protector, or at least your adviser?”

“Just because I cannot, and I dare not,” answered Jeanie.—“But hark, what’s that? Surely my father is no weel?”

In fact, the voices in the next room became obstreperously loud of a sudden, the cause of which vociferation it is necessary to explain before we go farther.

When Jeanie and Butler retired, Mr. Saddletree entered upon the business which chiefly interested the family. In the commencement of their conversation he found old Deans, who in his usual state of mind, was no granter of propositions, so much subdued by a deep sense of his daughter’s danger and disgrace, that he heard without replying to, or perhaps without understanding, one or two learned disquisitions on the nature of the crime imputed to her charge, and on the steps which ought to be taken in consequence. His only answer at each pause was, “I am no misdoubting that you wuss us weel—your wife’s our far-awa cousin.”

Encouraged by these symptoms of acquiescence, Saddletree, who, as an amateur of the law, had a supreme deference for all constituted authorities, again recurred to his other topic of interest, the murder, namely, of Porteous, and pronounced a severe censure on the parties concerned.

“These are kittle times—kittle times, Mr. Deans, when the people take the power of life and death out of the hands of the rightful magistrate into their ain rough grip. I am of opinion, and so I believe will Mr. Crossmyloof and the Privy Council, that this rising in effeir of war, to take away the life of a reprieved man, will prove little better than perduellion.”

“If I hadna that on my mind whilk is ill to bear, Mr. Saddletree,” said Deans, “I wad make bold to dispute that point wi’ you.”

“How could you dispute what’s plain law, man?” said Saddletree, somewhat contemptuously; “there’s no a callant that e’er carried a pock wi’ a process in’t, but will tell you that perduellion is the warst and maist virulent kind of treason, being an open convocating of the king’s lieges against his authority (mair especially in arms, and by touk of drum, to baith whilk accessories my een and lugs bore witness), and muckle worse than lese-majesty, or the concealment of a treasonable purpose—It winna bear a dispute, neighbour.”

“But it will, though,” retorted Douce Davie Deans; “I tell ye it will bear a disputer never like your cauld, legal, formal doctrines, neighbour Saddletree. I haud unco little by the Parliament House, since the awfu’ downfall of the hopes of honest folk that followed the Revolution.”

“But what wad ye hae had, Mr. Deans?” said Saddletree, impatiently; “didna ye get baith liberty and conscience made fast, and settled by tailzie on you and your heirs for ever?”

“Mr. Saddletree,” retorted Deans, “I ken ye are one of those that are wise after the manner of this world, and that ye hand your part, and cast in your portion, wi’ the lang heads and lang gowns, and keep with the smart witty-pated lawyers of this our land—Weary on the dark and dolefu’ cast that they hae gien this unhappy kingdom, when their black hands of defection were clasped in the red hands of our sworn murtherers: when those who had numbered the towers of our Zion, and marked the bulwarks of Reformation, saw their hope turn into a snare, and their rejoicing into weeping.”

“I canna understand this, neighbour,” answered Saddletree. “I am an honest Presbyterian of the Kirk of Scotland, and stand by her and the General Assembly, and the due administration of justice by the fifteen Lords o’ Session and the five Lords o’ Justiciary.”

“Out upon ye, Mr. Saddletree!” exclaimed David, who, in an opportunity of giving his testimony on the offences and backslidings of the land, forgot for a moment his own domestic calamity—“out upon your General Assembly, and the back of my hand to your Court o’ Session!—What is the tane but a waefu’ bunch o’ cauldrife professors and ministers, that sate bien and warm when the persecuted remnant were warstling wi’ hunger, and cauld, and fear of death, and danger of fire and sword upon wet brae-sides, peat-haggs, and flow-mosses, and that now creep out of their holes, like bluebottle flees in a blink of sunshine, to take the pu’pits and places of better folk—of them that witnessed, and testified, and fought, and endured pit, prison-house, and transportation beyond seas?—A bonny bike there’s o’ them!—And for your Court o’ Session—”

“Ye may say what ye will o’ the General Assembly,” said Saddletree, interrupting him, “and let them clear them that kens them; but as for the Lords o’ Session, forby that they are my next-door neighbours, I would have ye ken, for your ain regulation, that to raise scandal anent them, whilk is termed to murmur again them, is a crime sui generis,—sui generis, Mr. Deans—ken ye what that amounts to?”

“I ken little o’ the language of Antichrist,” said Deans; “and I care less than little what carnal courts may call the speeches of honest men. And as to murmur again them, it’s what a’ the folk that loses their pleas, and nine-tenths o’ them that win them, will be gey sure to be guilty in. Sae I wad hae ye ken that I hand a’ your gleg-tongued advocates, that sell their knowledge for pieces of silver—and your worldly-wise judges, that will gie three days of hearing in presence to a debate about the peeling of an ingan, and no ae half-hour to the gospel testimony—as legalists and formalists, countenancing by sentences, and quirks, and cunning terms of law, the late begun courses of national defections—union,