No more shalt thou behold thy sister’s face;Thou hast already had her last embrace.Elegy on Mrs. Anne Killigrew.
This second surprise had been accomplished for Jeanie Deans by the rod of the same benevolent enchanter, whose power had transplanted her father from the Crags of St. Leonard’s to the banks of the Gare Loch. The Duke of Argyle was not a person to forget the hereditary debt of gratitude, which had been bequeathed to him by his grandfather, in favour of the grandson of old Bible Butler. He had internally resolved to provide for Reuben Butler in this kirk of Knocktarlitie, of which the incumbent had just departed this life. Accordingly, his agent received the necessary instructions for that purpose, under the qualifying condition always, that the learning and character of Mr. Butler should be found proper for the charge. Upon inquiry, these were found as highly satisfactory as had been reported in the case of David Deans himself.
By this preferment, the Duke of Argyle more essentially benefited his friend andprotegee, Jeanie, than he himself was aware of, since he contributed to remove objections in her father’s mind to the match, which he had no idea had been in existence.
We have already noticed that Deans had something of a prejudice against Butler, which was, perhaps, in some degree owing to his possessing a sort of consciousness that the poor usher looked with eyes of affection upon his eldest daughter. This, in David’s eyes, was a sin of presumption, even although it should not be followed by any overt act, or actual proposal. But the lively interest which Butler had displayed in his distresses, since Jeanie set forth on her London expedition, and which, therefore, he ascribed to personal respect for himself individually, had greatly softened the feelings of irritability with which David had sometimes regarded him. And, while he was in this good disposition towards Butler, another incident took place which had great influence on the old man’s mind. So soon as the shock of Effie’s second elopement was over, it was Deans’s early care to collect and refund to the Laird of Dumbiedikes the money which he had lent for Effie’s trial, and for Jeanie’s travelling expenses. The Laird, the pony, the cocked hat, and the tabacco-pipe, had not been seen at St. Leonard’s Crags for many a day; so that, in order to pay this debt, David was under the necessity of repairing in person to the mansion of Dumbiedikes.
He found it in a state of unexpected bustle. There were workmen pulling down some of the old hangings, and replacing them with others, altering, repairing, scrubbing, painting, and white-washing. There was no knowing the old house, which had been so long the mansion of sloth and silence. The Laird himself seemed in some confusion, and his reception, though kind, lacked something of the reverential cordiality, with which he used to greet David Deans. There was a change also, David did not very well know of what nature, about the exterior of this landed proprietor—an improvement in the shape of his garments, a spruceness in the air with which they were put on, that were both novelties. Even the old hat looked smarter; the cock had been newly pointed, the lace had been refreshed, and instead of slouching backward or forward on the Laird’s head, as it happened to be thrown on, it was adjusted with a knowing inclination over one eye.
David Deans opened his business, and told down the cash. Dumbiedikes steadily inclined his ear to the one, and counted the other with great accuracy, interrupting David, while he was talking of the redemption of the captivity of Judah, to ask him whether he did not think one or two of the guineas looked rather light. When he was satisfied on this point, had pocketed his money, and had signed a receipt, he addressed David with some little hesitation,—“Jeanie wad be writing ye something, gudeman?”
“About the siller?” replied David—“Nae doubt, she did.”
“And did she say nae mair about me?” asked the Laird.
“Nae mair but kind and Christian wishes—what suld she hae said?” replied David, fully expecting that the Laird’s long courtship (if his dangling after Jeanie deserves so active a name) was now coming to a point. And so indeed it was, but not to that point which he wished or expected.
“Aweel, she kens her ain mind best, gudeman. I hae made a clean house o’ Jenny Balchristie, and her niece. They were a bad pack—steal’d meat and mault, and loot the carters magg the coals—I’m to be married the morn, and kirkit on Sunday.”
Whatever David felt, he was too proud and too steady-minded to show any unpleasant surprise in his countenance and manner.
“I wuss ye happy, sir, through Him that gies happiness—marriage is an honourable state.”
“And I am wedding into an honourable house, David—the Laird of Lickpelf’s youngest daughter—she sits next us in the kirk, and that’s the way I came to think on’t.”
There was no more to be said but again to wish the Laird joy, to taste a cup of his liquor, and to walk back again to St. Leonard’s, musing on the mutability of human affairs and human resolutions. The expectation that one day or other Jeanie would be Lady Dumbiedikes, had, in spite of himself, kept a more absolute possession of David’s mind than he himself was aware of. At least, it had hitherto seemed a union at all times within his daughter’s reach, whenever she might choose to give her silent lover any degree of encouragement, and now it was vanished for ever. David returned, therefore, in no very gracious humour for so good a man. He was angry with Jeanie for not having encouraged the Laird—he was angry with the Laird for requiring encouragement—and he was angry with himself for being angry at all on the occasion.
On his return he found the gentleman who managed the Duke of Argyle’s affairs was desirous of seeing him, with a view to completing the arrangement between them. Thus, after a brief repose, he was obliged to set off anew for Edinburgh, so that old May Hettly declared, “That a’ this was to end with the master just walking himself aff his feet.”
When the business respecting the farm had been talked over and arranged, the professional gentleman acquainted David Deans, in answer to his inquiries concerning the state of public worship, that it was the pleasure of the Duke to put an excellent young clergyman, called Reuben Butler, into the parish, which was to be his future residence.
“Reuben Butler!” exclaimed David—“Reuben Butler, the usher at Liberton?”
“The very same,” said the Duke’s commissioner; “his Grace has heard an excellent character of him, and has some hereditary obligations to him besides—few ministers will be so comfortable as I am directed to make Mr. Butler.”
“Obligations?—The Duke?—Obligations to Reuben Butler—Reuben Butler a placed minister of the Kirk of Scotland?” exclaimed David, in interminable astonishment, for somehow he had been led by the bad success which Butler had hitherto met with in all his undertakings, to consider him as one of those step-sons of Fortune, whom she treats with unceasing rigour, and ends with disinheriting altogether.
There is, perhaps, no time at which we are disposed to think so highly of a friend, as when we find him standing higher than we expected in the esteem of others. When assured of the reality of Butler’s change of prospects, David expressed his great satisfaction at his success in life, which, he observed, was entirely owing to himself (David). “I advised his puir grand-mother, who was but a silly woman, to breed him up to the ministry; and I prophesied that, with a blessing on his endeavours, he would become a polished shaft in the temple. He may be something ower proud o’ his carnal learning, but a gude lad, and has the root of the matter—as ministers gang now, where yell find ane better, ye’ll find ten waur, than Reuben Butler.”
He took leave of the man of business, and walked homeward, forgetting his weariness in the various speculations to which this wonderful piece of intelligence gave rise. Honest David had now, like other great men, to go to work to reconcile his speculative principles with existing circumstances; and, like other great men, when they set seriously about that task, he was tolerably successful.
Ought Reuben Butler in conscience to accept of this preferment in the Kirk of Scotland, subject as David at present thought that establishment was to the Erastian encroachments of the civil power? This was the leading question, and he considered it carefully. “The Kirk of Scotland was shorn of its beams, and deprived of its full artillery and banners of authority; but still it contained zealous and fructifying pastors, attentive congregations, and, with all her spots and blemishes, the like of this Kirk was nowhere else to be seen upon earth.”
David’s doubts had been too many and too critical to permit him ever unequivocally to unite himself with any of the dissenters, who upon various accounts absolutely seceded from the national church. He had often joined in communion with such of the established clergy as approached nearest to the old Presbyterian model and principles of 1640. And although there were many things to be amended in that system, yet he remembered that he, David Deans, had himself ever been an humble pleader for the good old cause in a legal way, but without rushing into right-hand excesses, divisions and separations. But, as an enemy to separation, he might join the right-hand of fellowship with a minister of the Kirk of Scotland in its present model.Ergo,Reuben Butler might take possession of the parish of Knocktarlitie, without forfeiting his friendship or favour—Q. E. D. But, secondly, came the trying point of lay-patronage, which David Deans had ever maintained to be a coming in by the window, and over the wall, a cheating and starving the souls of a whole parish, for the purpose of clothing the back and filling the belly of the incumbent.
This presentation, therefore, from the Duke of Argyle, whatever was the worth and high character of that nobleman, was a limb of the brazen image, a portion of the evil thing, and with no kind of consistency could David bend his mind to favour such a transaction. But if the parishioners themselves joined in a general call to Reuben Butler to be their pastor, it did not seem quite so evident that the existence of this unhappy presentation was a reason for his refusing them the comforts of his doctrine. If the Presbytery admitted him to the kirk, in virtue rather of that act of patronage than of the general call of the congregation, that might be their error, and David allowed it was a heavy one. But if Reuben Butler accepted of the cure as tendered to him by those whom he was called to teach, and who had expressed themselves desirous to learn, David, after considering and reconsidering the matter, came, through the great virtue of if, to be of opinion that he might safely so act in that matter.
There remained a third stumbling-block—the oaths to Government exacted from the established clergymen, in which they acknowledge an Erastian king and parliament, and homologate the incorporating Union between England and Scotland, through which the latter kingdom had become part and portion of the former, wherein Prelacy, the sister of Popery, had made fast her throne, and elevated the horns of her mitre. These were symptoms of defection which had often made David cry out, “My bowels—my bowels!—I am pained at the very heart!” And he remembered that a godly Bow-head matron had been carried out of the Tolbooth church in a swoon, beyond the reach of brandy and burnt feathers, merely on hearing these fearful words, “It is enacted by the Lordsspiritualand temporal,” pronounced from a Scottish pulpit, in the proem to the Porteous Proclamation. These oaths were, therefore, a deep compliance and dire abomination—a sin and a snare, and a danger and a defection. But this shibboleth was not always exacted. Ministers had respect to their own tender consciences, and those of their brethren; and it was not till a later period that the reins of discipline were taken up tight by the General Assemblies and Presbyteries. The peacemaking particle came again to David’s assistance.Ifan incumbent was not called upon to make such compliances, andifhe got a right entry into the church without intrusion, and by orderly appointment, why, upon the whole, David Deans came to be of opinion, that the said incumbent might lawfully enjoy the spirituality and temporality of the cure of souls at Knocktarlitie, with stipend, manse, glebe, and all thereunto appertaining.
The best and most upright-minded men are so strongly influenced by existing circumstances, that it would be somewhat cruel to inquire too nearly what weight parental affection gave to these ingenious trains of reasoning. Let David Deans’s situation be considered. He was just deprived of one daughter, and his eldest, to whom he owed so much, was cut off, by the sudden resolution of Dumbiedikes, from the high hope which David had entertained, that she might one day be mistress of that fair lordship. Just while this disappointment was bearing heavy on his spirits, Butler comes before his imagination—no longer the half-starved threadbare usher, but fat and sleek and fair, the beneficed minister of Knocktarlitie, beloved by his congregation—exemplary in his life—powerful in his doctrine—doing the duty of the kirk as never Highland minister did before—turning sinners as a colley dog turns sheep—a favourite of the Duke of Argyle, and drawing a stipend of eight hundred punds Scots, and four chalders of victual. Here was a match, making up in David’s mind, in a tenfold degree, the disappointment in the case of Dumbiedikes, in so far as the goodman of St. Leonard’s held a powerful minister in much greater admiration than a mere landed proprietor. It did not occur to him, as an additional reason in favour of the match, that Jeanie might herself have some choice in the matter; for the idea of consulting her feelings never once entered into the honest man’s head, any more than the possibility that her inclination might perhaps differ from his own.
The result of his meditations was, that he was called upon to take the management of the whole affair into his own hand, and give, if it should be found possible without sinful compliance, or backsliding, or defection of any kind, a worthy pastor to the kirk of Knocktarlitie. Accordingly, by the intervention of the honest dealer in butter-milk who dwelt in Liberton, David summoned to his presence Reuben Butler. Even from this worthy messenger he was unable to conceal certain swelling emotions of dignity, insomuch, that, when the carter had communicated his message to the usher, he added, that “Certainly the Gudeman of St. Leonard’s had some grand news to tell him, for he was as uplifted as a midden-cock upon pattens.”
Butler, it may readily be conceived, immediately obeyed the summons. He was a plain character, in which worth and good sense and simplicity were the principal ingredients; but love, on this occasion, gave him a certain degree of address. He had received an intimation of the favour designed him by the Duke of Argyle, with what feelings those only can conceive who have experienced a sudden prospect of being raised to independence and respect from penury and toil. He resolved, however, that the old man should retain all the consequence of being, in his own opinion, the first to communicate the important intelligence. At the same time, he also determined that in the expected conference he would permit David Deans to expatiate at length upon the proposal, in all its bearings, without irritating him either by interruption or contradiction. This last was the most prudent plan he could have adopted; because, although there were many doubts which David Deans could himself clear up to his own satisfaction, yet he might have been by no means disposed to accept the solution of any other person; and to engage him in an argument would have been certain to confirm him at once and for ever in the opinion which Butler chanced to impugn.
He received his friend with an appearance of important gravity, which real misfortune had long compelled him to lay aside, and which belonged to those days of awful authority in which he predominated over Widow Butler, and dictated the mode of cultivating the crofts of Beersheba. He made known to Reuben, with great prolixity, the prospect of his changing his present residence for the charge of the Duke of Argyle’s stock-farm in Dumbartonshire, and enumerated the various advantages of the situation with obvious self-congratulation; but assured the patient hearer, that nothing had so much moved him to acceptance, as the sense that, by his skill in bestial, he could render the most important services to his Grace the Duke of Argyle, to whom, “in the late unhappy circumstance” (here a tear dimmed the sparkle of pride in the old man’s eye), “he had been sae muckle obliged.”
“To put a rude Hielandman into sic a charge,” he continued, “what could be expected but that he suld be sic a chiefest herdsman, as wicked Doeg the Edomite? whereas, while this grey head is to the fore, not a clute o’ them but sall be as weel cared for as if they were the fatted kine of Pharaoh.—And now, Reuben, lad, seeing we maun remove our tent to a strange country, ye will be casting a dolefu’ look after us, and thinking with whom ye are to hold counsel anent your government in thae slippery and backsliding times; and nae doubt remembering, that the auld man, David Deans, was made the instrument to bring you out of the mire of schism and heresy, wherein your father’s house delighted to wallow; aften also, nae doubt, when ye are pressed wi’ ensnaring trials and tentations and heart-plagues, you, that are like a recruit that is marching for the first time to the touk of drum, will miss the auld, bauld, and experienced veteran soldier that has felt the brunt of mony a foul day, and heard the bullets whistle as aften as he has hairs left on his auld pow.”
It is very possible that Butler might internally be of opinion, that the reflection on his ancestor’s peculiar tenets might have been spared, or that he might be presumptuous enough even to think, that, at his years, and with his own lights, he might be able to hold his course without the pilotage of honest David. But he only replied, by expressing his regret, that anything should separate him from an ancient, tried, and affectionate friend.
“But how can it be helped, man?” said David, twisting his features into a sort of smile—“How can we help it?—I trow, ye canna tell me that—Ye maun leave that to ither folk—to the Duke of Argyle and me, Reuben. It’s a gude thing to hae friends in this warld—how muckle better to hae an interest beyond it!”
And David, whose piety, though not always quite rational, was as sincere as it was habitual and fervent, looked reverentially upward and paused. Mr. Butler intimated the pleasure with which he would receive his friend’s advice on a subject so important, and David resumed.
“What think ye now, Reuben, of a kirk—a regular kirk under the present establishment?—Were sic offered to ye, wad ye be free to accept it, and under whilk provisions?—I am speaking but by way of query.”
Butler replied, “That if such a prospect were held out to him, he would probably first consult whether he was likely to be useful to the parish he should be called to; and if there appeared a fair prospect of his proving so, his friend must be aware, that in every other point of view, it would be highly advantageous for him.”
“Right, Reuben, very right, lad,” answered the monitor, “your ain conscience is the first thing to be satisfied—for how sall he teach others that has himself sae ill learned the Scriptures, as to grip for the lucre of foul earthly preferment, sic as gear and manse, money and victual, that which is not his in a spiritual sense—or wha makes his kirk a stalking-horse, from behind which he may tak aim at his stipend? But I look for better things of you—and specially ye maun be minded not to act altogether on your ain judgment, for therethrough comes sair mistakes, backslidings and defections, on the left and on the right. If there were sic a day of trial put to you, Reuben, you, who are a young lad, although it may be ye are gifted wi’ the carnal tongues, and those whilk were spoken at Rome, whilk is now the seat of the scarlet abomination, and by the Greeks, to whom the Gospel was as foolishness, yet nae-the-less ye may be entreated by your weel-wisher to take the counsel of those prudent and resolved and weather-withstanding professors, wha hae kend what it was to lurk on banks and in mosses, in bogs and in caverns, and to risk the peril of the head rather than renounce the honesty of the heart.”
Butler replied, “That certainly, possessing such a friend as he hoped and trusted he had in the goodman himself, who had seen so many changes in the preceding century, he should be much to blame if he did not avail himself of his experience and friendly counsel.”
“Eneugh said—eneugh said, Reuben,” said David Deans, with internal exultation; “and say that ye were in the predicament whereof I hae spoken, of a surety I would deem it my duty to gang to the root o’ the matter, and lay bare to you the ulcers and imposthumes, and the sores and the leprosies, of this our time, crying aloud and sparing not.”
David Deans was now in his element. He commenced his examination of the doctrines and belief of the Christian Church with the very Culdees, from whom he passed to John Knox,—from John Knox to the recusants in James the Sixth’s time—Bruce, Black, Blair, Livingstone,—from them to the brief, and at length triumphant period of the Presbyterian Church’s splendour, until it was overrun by the English Independents. Then followed the dismal times of prelacy, the indulgences, seven in number, with all their shades and bearings, until he arrived at the reign of King James the Second, in which he himself had been, in his own mind, neither an obscure actor nor an obscure sufferer. Then was Butler doomed to hear the most detailed and annotated edition of what he had so often heard before,—David Deans’s confinement, namely, in the iron cage in the Canongate Tolbooth, and the cause thereof.
We should be very unjust to our friend David Deans, if we should “pretermit”—to use his own expression—a narrative which he held essential to his fame. A drunken trooper of the Royal Guards, Francis Gordon by name, had chased five or six of the skulking Whigs, among whom was our friend David; and after he had compelled them to stand, and was in the act of brawling with them, one of their number fired a pocket-pistol, and shot him dead. David used to sneer and shake his head when any one asked him whetherhehad been the instrument of removing this wicked persecutor from the face of the earth. In fact the merit of the deed lay between him and his friend, Patrick Walker, the pedlar, whose words he was so fond of quoting. Neither of them cared directly to claim the merit of silencing Mr. Francis Gordon of the Life-Guards, there being some wild cousins of his about Edinburgh, who might have been even yet addicted to revenge, but yet neither of them chose to disown or yield to the other the merit of this active defence of their religious rights. David said, that if he had fired a pistol then, it was what he never did after or before. And as for Mr. Patrick Walker, he has left it upon record, that his great surprise was, that so small a pistol could kill so big a man. These are the words of that venerable biographer, whose trade had not taught him by experience, that an inch was as good as an ell. “He,” (Francis Gordon) “got a shot in his head out of a pocket-pistol, rather fit for diverting a boy than killing such a furious, mad, brisk man, which notwithstanding killed him dead!”*
* Note S. Death of Francis Gordon.
Upon the extensive foundation which the history of the kirk afforded,during its short-lived triumph and long tribulation, David, with lengthof breath and of narrative, which would have astounded any one but alover of his daughter, proceeded to lay down his own rules for guidingthe conscience of his friend, as an aspirant to serve in the ministry.Upon this subject, the good man went through such a variety of nice andcasuistical problems, supposed so many extreme cases, made thedistinctions so critical and nice betwixt the right hand and the lefthand—betwixt compliance and defection—holding back and steppingaside—slipping and stumbling—snares and errors—that at length, afterhaving limited the path of truth to a mathematical line, he was broughtto the broad admission, that each man’s conscience, after he had gaineda certain view of the difficult navigation which he was to encounter,would be the best guide for his pilotage. He stated the examples andarguments for and against the acceptance of a kirk on the presentrevolution model, with much more impartiality to Butler than he had beenable to place them before his own view. And he concluded, that his youngfriend ought to think upon these things, and be guided by the voice ofhis own conscience, whether he could take such an awful trust as thecharge of souls without doing injury to his own internal conviction ofwhat is right or wrong.
When David had finished his very long harangue, which was only interrupted by monosyllables, or little more, on the part of Butler, the orator himself was greatly astonished to find that the conclusion, at which he very naturally wished to arrive, seemed much less decisively attained than when he had argued the case in his own mind.
In this particular, David’s current of thinking and speaking only illustrated the very important and general proposition, concerning the excellence of the publicity of debate. For, under the influence of any partial feeling, it is certain, that most men can more easily reconcile themselves to any favourite measure, when agitating it in their own mind, than when obliged to expose its merits to a third party, when the necessity of seeming impartial procures for the opposite arguments a much more fair statement than that which he affords it in tacit meditation. Having finished what he had to say, David thought himself obliged to be more explicit in point of fact, and to explain that this was no hypothetical case, but one on which (by his own influence and that of the Duke of Argyle) Reuben Butler would soon be called to decide.
It was even with something like apprehension that David Deans heard Butler announce, in return to this communication, that he would take that night to consider on what he had said with such kind intentions, and return him an answer the next morning. The feelings of the father mastered David on this occasion. He pressed Butler to spend the evening with him—He produced, most unusual at his meals, one, nay, two bottles of aged strong ale.—He spoke of his daughter—of her merits—her housewifery—her thrift—her affection. He led Butler so decidedly up to a declaration of his feelings towards Jeanie, that, before nightfall, it was distinctly understood she was to be the bride of Reuben Butler; and if they thought it indelicate to abridge the period of deliberation which Reuben had stipulated, it seemed to be sufficiently understood betwixt them, that there was a strong probability of his becoming minister of Knocktarlitie, providing the congregation were as willing to accept of him, as the Duke to grant him the presentation. The matter of the oaths, they agreed, it was time enough to dispute about, whenever the shibboleth should be tendered.
Many arrangements were adopted that evening, which were afterwards ripened by correspondence with the Duke of Argyle’s man of business, who intrusted Deans and Butler with the benevolent wish of his principal, that they should all meet with Jeanie, on her return from England, at the Duke’s hunting-lodge in Roseneath.
This retrospect, so far as the placid loves of Jeanie Deans and Reuben Butler are concerned, forms a full explanation of the preceding narrative up to their meeting on the island, as already mentioned.
“I come,” he said, “my love, my life,And—nature’s dearest name—my wife:Thy father’s house and friends resign,My home, my friends, my sire, are thine.”Logan.
The meeting of Jeanie and Butler, under circumstances promising to crown an affection so long delayed, was rather affecting, from its simple sincerity than from its uncommon vehemence of feeling. David Deans, whose practice was sometimes a little different from his theory, appalled them at first, by giving them the opinion of sundry of the suffering preachers and champions of his younger days, that marriage, though honourable by the laws of Scripture, was yet a state over-rashly coveted by professors, and specially by young ministers, whose desire, he said, was at whiles too inordinate for kirks, stipends, and wives, which had frequently occasioned over-ready compliance with the general defections of the times. He endeavoured to make them aware also, that hasty wedlock had been the bane of many a savoury professor—that the unbelieving wife had too often reversed the text and perverted the believing husband—that when the famous Donald Cargill, being then hiding in Lee-Wood, in Lanarkshire, it being killing-time, did, upon importunity, marry Robert Marshal of Starry Shaw, he had thus expressed himself: “What hath induced Robert to marry this woman? her ill will overcome his good—he will not keep the way long—his thriving days are done.” To the sad accomplishment of which prophecy David said he was himself a living witness, for Robert Marshal, having fallen into foul compliances with the enemy, went home, and heard the curates, declined into other steps of defection, and became lightly esteemed. Indeed, he observed, that the great upholders of the standard, Cargill, Peden, Cameron, and Renwick, had less delight in tying the bonds of matrimony than in any other piece of their ministerial work; and although they would neither dissuade the parties, nor refuse their office, they considered the being called to it as an evidence of indifference, on the part of those between whom it was solemnised, to the many grievous things of the day. Notwithstanding, however, that marriage was a snare unto many, David was of opinion (as, indeed, he had showed in his practice) that it was in itself honourable, especially if times were such that honest men could be secure against being shot, hanged, or banished, and had ane competent livelihood to maintain themselves, and those that might come after them. “And, therefore,” as he concluded something abruptly, addressing Jeanie and Butler, who, with faces as high-coloured as crimson, had been listening to his lengthened argument for and against the holy state of matrimony, “I will leave you to your ain cracks.”
As their private conversation, however interesting to themselves, might probably be very little so to the reader, so far as it respected their present feelings and future prospects, we shall pass it over, and only mention the information which Jeanie received from Butler concerning her sister’s elopement, which contained many particulars that she had been unable to extract from her father.
Jeanie learned, therefore, that, for three days after her pardon had arrived, Effie had been the inmate of her father’s house at St. Leonard’s—that the interviews betwixt David and his erring child, which had taken place before she was liberated from prison, had been touching in the extreme; but Butler could not suppress his opinion, that, when he was freed from the apprehension of losing her in a manner so horrible, her father had tightened the bands of discipline, so as, in some degree, to gall the feelings, and aggravate the irritability of a spirit naturally impatient and petulant, and now doubly so from the sense of merited disgrace.
On the third night, Effie disappeared from St. Leonard’s, leaving no intimation whatever of the route she had taken. Butler, however, set out in pursuit of her, and with much trouble traced her towards a little landing-place, formed by a small brook which enters the sea betwixt Musselburgh and Edinburgh. This place, which has been since made into a small harbour, surrounded by many villas and lodging-houses, is now termed Portobello. At this time it was surrounded by a waste common, covered with furze, and unfrequented, save by fishing-boats, and now and then a smuggling lugger. A vessel of this description had been hovering in the firth at the time of Effie’s elopement, and, as Butler ascertained, a boat had come ashore in the evening on which the fugitive had disappeared, and had carried on board a female. As the vessel made sail immediately, and landed no part of their cargo, there seemed little doubt that they were accomplices of the notorious Robertson, and that the vessel had only come into the firth to carry off his paramour.
This was made clear by a letter which Butler himself soon afterwards received by post, signed E. D., but without bearing any date of place or time. It was miserably ill written and spelt; sea-sickness having apparently aided the derangement of Effie’s very irregular orthography and mode of expression. In this epistle, however, as in all that unfortunate girl said or did, there was something to praise as well as to blame. She said in her letter, “That she could not endure that her father and her sister should go into banishment, or be partakers of her shame,—that if her burden was a heavy one, it was of her own binding, and she had the more right to bear it alone,—that in future they could not be a comfort to her, or she to them, since every look and word of her father put her in mind of her transgression, and was like to drive her mad,—that she had nearly lost her judgment during the three days she was at St. Leonard’s—her father meant weel by her, and all men, but he did not know the dreadful pain he gave her in casting up her sins. If Jeanie had been at hame, it might hae dune better—Jeanie was ane, like the angels in heaven, that rather weep for sinners, than reckon their transgressions. But she should never see Jeanie ony mair, and that was the thought that gave her the sairest heart of a’ that had come and gane yet. On her bended knees would she pray for Jeanie night and day, baith for what she had done, and what she had scorned to do, in her behalf; for what a thought would it have been to her at that moment o’ time, if that upright creature had made a fault to save her! She desired her father would give Jeanie a’ the gear—her ain (i.e.Effie’s) mother’s and a’—She had made a deed, giving up her right, and it was in Mr. Novit’s hand—Warld’s gear was henceforward the least of her care, nor was it likely to be muckle her mister—She hoped this would make it easy for her sister to settle;” and immediately after this expression, she wished Butler himself all good things, in return for his kindness to her. “For herself,” she said, “she kend her lot would be a waesome ane, but it was of her own framing, sae she desired the less pity. But, for her friends’ satisfaction, she wished them to know that she was gaun nae ill gate—that they who had done her maist wrong were now willing to do her what justice was in their power; and she would, in some warldly respects, be far better off than she deserved. But she desired her family to remain satisfied with this assurance, and give themselves no trouble in making farther inquiries after her.”
To David Deans and to Butler this letter gave very little comfort; for what was to be expected from this unfortunate girl’s uniting her fate to that of a character so notorious as Robertson, who they readily guessed was alluded to in the last sentence, excepting that she should become the partner and victim of his future crimes? Jeanie, who knew George Staunton’s character and real rank, saw her sister’s situation under a ray of better hope. She augured well of the haste he had shown to reclaim his interest in Effie, and she trusted he had made her his wife. If so, it seemed improbable that, with his expected fortune, and high connections, he should again resume the life of criminal adventure which he had led, especially since, as matters stood, his life depended upon his keeping his own secret, which could only be done by an entire change of his habits, and particularly by avoiding all those who had known the heir of Willingham under the character of the audacious, criminal, and condemned Robertson.
She thought it most likely that the couple would go abroad for a few years, and not return to England until the affair of Porteous was totally forgotten. Jeanie, therefore, saw more hopes for her sister than Butler or her father had been able to perceive; but she was not at liberty to impart the comfort which she felt in believing that she would be secure from the pressure of poverty, and in little risk of being seduced into the paths of guilt. She could not have explained this without making public what it was essentially necessary for Effie’s chance of comfort to conceal, the identity, namely, of George Staunton and George Robertson. After all, it was dreadful to think that Effie had united herself to a man condemned for felony, and liable to trial for murder, whatever might be his rank in life, and the degree of his repentance. Besides, it was melancholy to reflect, that, she herself being in possession of the whole dreadful secret, it was most probable he would, out of regard to his own feelings, and fear for his safety, never again permit her to see poor Effie. After perusing and re-perusing her sister’s valedictory letter, she gave ease to her feelings in a flood of tears, which Butler in vain endeavoured to check by every soothing attention in his power. She was obliged, however, at length to look up and wipe her eyes, for her father, thinking he had allowed the lovers time enough for conference, was now advancing towards them from the Lodge, accompanied by the Captain of Knockdunder, or, as his friends called him for brevity’s sake, Duncan Knock, a title which some youthful exploits had rendered peculiarly appropriate.
This Duncan of Knockdunder was a person of first-rate importance in the island of Roseneath,* and the continental parishes of Knocktarlitie, Kilmun, and so forth; nay, his influence extended as far as Cowal, where, however, it was obscured by that of another factor.
* [This is, more correctly speaking, a peninsula.]
The Tower of Knockdunder still occupies, with its remains, a cliff overhanging the Holy Loch. Duncan swore it had been a royal castle; if so, it was one of the smallest, the space within only forming a square of sixteen feet, and bearing therefore a ridiculous proportion to the thickness of the walls, which was ten feet at least. Such as it was, however, it had long given the title of Captain, equivalent to that of Chatellain, to the ancestors of Duncan, who were retainers of the house of Argyle, and held a hereditary jurisdiction under them, of little extent indeed, but which had great consequence in their own eyes, and was usually administered with a vigour somewhat beyond the law.
The present representative of that ancient family was a stout short man about fifty, whose pleasure it was to unite in his own person the dress of the Highlands and Lowlands, wearing on his head a black tie-wig, surmounted by a fierce cocked-hat, deeply guarded with gold lace, while the rest of his dress consisted of the plaid and philabeg. Duncan superintended a district which was partly Highland, partly Lowland, and therefore might be supposed to combine their national habits, in order to show his impartiality to Trojan or Tyrian. The incongruity, however, had a whimsical and ludicrous effect, as it made his head and body look as if belonging to different individuals; or, as some one said who had seen the executions of the insurgent prisoners in 1715, it seemed as if some Jacobite enchanter, having recalled the sufferers to life, had clapped, in his haste, an Englishman’s head on a Highlander’s body. To finish the portrait, the bearing of the gracious Duncan was brief, bluff, and consequential, and the upward turn of his short copper-coloured nose indicated that he was somewhat addicted to wrath and usquebaugh.
When this dignitary had advanced up to Butler and to Jeanie, “I take the freedom, Mr. Deans,” he said in a very consequential manner, “to salute your daughter, whilk I presume this young lass to be—I kiss every pretty girl that comes to Roseneath, in virtue of my office.” Having made this gallant speech, he took out his quid, saluted Jeanie with a hearty smack, and bade her welcome to Argyle’s country. Then addressing Butler, he said, “Ye maun gang ower and meet the carle ministers yonder the Morn, for they will want to do your job, and synd it down with usquebaugh doubtless—they seldom make dry wark in this kintra.”
“And the Laird”—said David Deans, addressing Butler in farther explanation—
“The Captain, man,” interrupted Duncan; “folk winna ken wha ye are speaking aboot, unless ye gie shentlemens their proper title.”
“The Captain, then,” said David, “assures me that the call is unanimous on the part of the parishioners—a real harmonious call, Reuben.”
“I pelieve,” said Duncan, “it was as harmonious as could pe expected, when the tae half o’ the bodies were clavering Sassenach, and the t’other skirting Gaelic, like sea-maws and clackgeese before a storm. Ane wad hae needed the gift of tongues to ken preceesely what they said—but I pelieve the best end of it was, ‘Long live MacCallummore and Knockdunder!’—And as to its being an unanimous call, I wad be glad to ken fat business the carles have to call ony thing or ony body but what the Duke and mysell likes!”
“Nevertheless,” said Mr. Butler, “if any of the parishioners have any scruples, which sometimes happen in the mind of sincere professors, I should be happy of an opportunity of trying to remove—”
“Never fash your peard about it, man,” interrupted Duncan Knock—“Leave it a’ to me.—Scruple! deil ane o’ them has been bred up to scruple onything that they’re bidden to do. And if sic a thing suld happen as ye speak o’, ye sall see the sincere professor, as ye ca’ him, towed at the stern of my boat for a few furlongs. I’ll try if the water of the Haly Loch winna wash off scruples as weel as fleas—Cot tam!”
The rest of Duncan’s threat was lost in a growling gargling sort of sound, which he made in his throat, and which menaced recusants with no gentle means of conversion. David Deans would certainly have given battle in defence of the right of the Christian congregation to be consulted in the choice of their own pastor, which, in his estimation, was one of the choicest and most inalienable of their privileges; but he had again engaged in close conversation with Jeanie, and, with more interest than he was in use to take in affairs foreign alike to his occupation and to his religious tenets, was inquiring into the particulars of her London journey. This was, perhaps, fortunate for the newformed friendship betwixt him and the Captain of Knockdunder, which rested, in David’s estimation, upon the proofs he had given of his skill in managing stock; but, in reality, upon the special charge transmitted to Duncan from the Duke and his agent, to behave with the utmost attention to Deans and his family.
“And now, sirs,” said Duncan, in a commanding tone, “I am to pray ye a’ to come in to your supper, for yonder is Mr. Archibald half famished, and a Saxon woman, that looks as if her een were fleeing out o’ her head wi’ fear and wonder, as if she had never seen a shentleman in a philabeg pefore.”
“And Reuben Butler,” said David, “will doubtless desire instantly to retire, that he may prepare his mind for the exercise of to-morrow, that his work may suit the day, and be an offering of a sweet savour in the nostrils of the reverend Presbytery!”
“Hout tout, man, it’s but little ye ken about them,” interrupted the Captain. “Teil a ane o’ them wad gie the savour of the hot venison pasty which I smell” (turning his squab nose up in the air) “a’ the way frae the Lodge, for a’ that Mr. Putler, or you either, can say to them.”
David groaned; but judging he had to do with a Gallio, as he said, did not think it worth his while to give battle. They followed the Captain to the house, and arranged themselves with great ceremony round a well-loaded supper-table. The only other circumstance of the evening worthy to be recorded is, that Butler pronounced the blessing; that Knockdunder found it too long, and David Deans censured it as too short, from which the charitable reader may conclude it was exactly the proper length.