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

Peers, concerning the particulars of the Porteous Mob, and the patois in which these functionaries made their answers, sounded strange in the ears of the Southern nobles. The Duke of Newcastle having demanded to know with what kind of shot the guard which Porteous commanded had loaded their muskets, was answered, naively, “Ow, just sic as ane shoots dukes and fools with.” This reply was considered as a contempt of the House of Lords, and the Provost would have suffered accordingly, but that the Duke of Argyle explained, that the expression, properly rendered into English, meant ducks and waterfowls. Amidst these heats and dissensions, the trial of Effie Deans, after she had been many weeks imprisoned, was at length about to be brought forward, and Mr. Middleburgh found leisure to inquire into the evidence concerning her. For this purpose, he chose a fine day for his walk towards her father’s house.

The excursion into the country was somewhat distant, in the opinion of a burgess of those days, although many of the present inhabit suburban villas considerably beyond the spot to which we allude. Three-quarters of an hour’s walk, however, even at a pace of magisterial gravity, conducted our benevolent office-bearer to the Crags of St. Leonard’s, and the humble mansion of David Deans.

The old man was seated on the deas, or turf-seat, at the end of his cottage, busied in mending his cart-harness with his own hands; for in those days any sort of labour which required a little more skill than usual fell to the share of the goodman himself, and that even when he was well to pass in the world. With stern and austere gravity he persevered in his task, after having just raised his head to notice the advance of the stranger. It would have been impossible to have discovered, from his countenance and manner, the internal feelings of agony with which he contended. Mr. Middleburgh waited an instant, expecting Deans would in some measure acknowledge his presence, and lead into conversation; but, as he seemed determined to remain silent, he was himself obliged to speak first.

“My name is Middleburgh—Mr. James Middleburgh, one of the present magistrates of the city of Edinburgh.”

“It may be sae,” answered Deans laconically, and without interrupting his labour.

“You must understand,” he continued, “that the duty of a magistrate is sometimes an unpleasant one.”

“It may be sae,” replied David; “I hae naething to say in the contrair;” and he was again doggedly silent.

“You must be aware,” pursued the magistrate, “that persons in my situation are often obliged to make painful and disagreeable inquiries of individuals, merely because it is their bounden duty.”

“It may be sae,” again replied Deans; “I hae naething to say anent it, either the tae way or the t’other. But I do ken there was ance in a day a just and God-fearing magistracy in yon town o’ Edinburgh, that did not bear the sword in vain, but were a terror to evil-doers, and a praise to such as kept the path. In the glorious days of auld worthy faithfu’ Provost Dick,* when there was a true and faithfu’ General Assembly of

* Note M. Sir William Dick of Braid.

the Kirk, walking hand in hand with the real noble Scottish-hearted barons, and with the magistrates of this and other towns, gentles, burgesses, and commons of all ranks, seeing with one eye, hearing with one ear, and upholding the ark with their united strength—And then folk might see men deliver up their silver to the state’s use, as if it had been as muckle sclate stanes. My father saw them toom the sacks of dollars out o’ Provost Dick’s window intill the carts that carried them to the army at Dunse Law; and if ye winna believe his testimony, there is the window itsell still standing in the Luckenbooths—I think it’s a claith-merchant’s booth the day*—at the airn stanchells, five doors abune Gossford’s Close.

* I think so too—But if the reader be curious, he may consult Mr. Chambers’s Traditions of Edinburgh.

—But now we haena sic spirit amang us; we think mair about the warst wallydraigle in our ain byre, than about the blessing which the angel of the covenant gave to the Patriarch even at Peniel and Mahanaim, or the binding obligation of our national vows; and we wad rather gie a pund Scots to buy an unguent to clear out auld rannell-trees and our beds o’ the English bugs as they ca’ them, than we wad gie a plack to rid the land of the swarm of Arminian caterpillars, Socinian pismires, and deistical Miss Katies, that have ascended out of the bottomless pit, to plague this perverse, insidious, and lukewarm generation.”

It happened to Davie Deans on this occasion, as it has done to many other habitual orators; when once he became embarked on his favourite subject, the stream of his own enthusiasm carried him forward in spite of his mental distress, while his well-exercised memory supplied him amply with all the types and tropes of rhetoric peculiar to his sect and cause.

Mr. Middleburgh contented himself with answering—“All this may be very true, my friend; but, as you said just now, I have nothing to say to it at present, either one way or other.—You have two daughters, I think, Mr. Deans?”

The old man winced, as one whose smarting sore is suddenly galled; but instantly composed himself, resumed the work which, in the heat of his declamation, he had laid down, and answered with sullen resolution, “Ae daughter, sir—only ane.”

“I understand you,” said Mr. Middleburgh; “you have only one daughter here at home with you—but this unfortunate girl who is a prisoner—she is, I think, your youngest daughter?”

The Presbyterian sternly raised his eyes. “After the world, and according to the flesh, she is my daughter; but when she became a child of Belial, and a company-keeper, and a trader in guilt and iniquity, she ceased to be a bairn of mine.”

“Alas, Mr. Deans,” said Middleburgh, sitting down by him, and endeavouring to take his hand, which the old man proudly withdrew, “we are ourselves all sinners; and the errors of our offspring, as they ought not to surprise us, being the portion which they derive of a common portion of corruption inherited through us, so they do not entitle us to cast them off because they have lost themselves.”

“Sir,” said Deans impatiently, “I ken a’ that as weel as—I mean to say,” he resumed, checking the irritation he felt at being schooled—a discipline of the mind which those most ready to bestow it on others do themselves most reluctantly submit to receive—“I mean to say, that what ye o serve may be just and reasonable—But I hae nae freedom to enter into my ain private affairs wi’ strangers—And now, in this great national emergency, When there’s the Porteous’ Act has come doun frae London, that is a deeper blow to this poor sinfu’ kingdom and suffering kirk than ony that has been heard of since the foul and fatal Test—at a time like this—”

“But, goodman,” interrupted Mr. Middleburgh, “you must think of your own household first, or else you are worse even than the infidels.”

“I tell ye, Bailie Middleburgh,” retorted David Deans, “if ye be a bailie, as there is little honour in being ane in these evil days—I tell ye, I heard the gracious Saunders Peden—I wotna whan it was; but it was in killing time, when the plowers were drawing alang their furrows on the back of the Kirk of Scotland—I heard him tell his hearers, gude and waled Christians they were too, that some o’ them wad greet mair for a bit drowned calf or stirk than for a’ the defections and oppressions of the day; and that they were some o’ them