I glance like the wildfire through country and town;I’m seen on the causeway—I’m seen on the down;The lightning that flashes so bright and so free,Is scarcely so blithe or so bonny as me.”
“Hand your tongue, ye skirling limmer!” said the officer who had acted as master of the ceremonies to this extraordinary performer, and who was rather scandalised at the freedom of her demeanour before a person of Mr. Sharpitlaw’s importance—“haud your tongue, or I’se gie ye something to skirl for!”
“Let her alone, George,” said Sharpitlaw, “dinna put her out o’ tune; I hae some questions to ask her—But first, Mr. Butler, take another look of her.”
“Do sae, minister—do sae,” cried Madge; “I am as weel worth looking at as ony book in your aught.—And I can say the single carritch, and the double carritch, and justification, and effectual calling, and the assembly of divines at Westminster, that is” (she added in a low tone), “I could say them ance—but it’s lang syne—and ane forgets, ye ken.” And poor Madge heaved another deep sigh.
“Weel, sir,” said Mr. Sharpitlaw to Butler, “what think ye now?”
“As I did before,” said Butler; “that I never saw the poor demented creature in my life before.”
“Then she is not the person whom you said the rioters last night described as Madge Wildfire?”
“Certainly not,” said Butler. “They may be near the same height, for they are both tall, but I see little other resemblance.”
“Their dress, then, is not alike?” said Sharpitlaw.
“Not in the least,” said Butler.
“Madge, my bonny woman,” said Sharpitlaw, in the same coaxing manner, “what did ye do wi’ your ilka-day’s claise yesterday?”
“I dinna mind,” said Madge.
“Where was ye yesterday at e’en, Madge?”
“I dinna mind ony thing about yesterday,” answered Madge; “ae day is eneugh for ony body to wun ower wi’ at a time, and ower muckle sometimes.”
“But maybe, Madge, ye wad mind something about it, if I was to gie ye this half-crown?” said Sharpitlaw, taking out the piece of money.
“That might gar me laugh, but it couldna gar me mind.”
“But, Madge,” continued Sharpitlaw, “were I to send you to the workhouse in Leith Wynd, and gar Jock Daigleish lay the tawse on your back—”
“That wad gar me greet,” said Madge, sobbing, “but it couldna gar me mind, ye ken.”
“She is ower far past reasonable folks’ motives, sir,” said Ratcliffe, “to mind siller, or John Daigleish, or the cat-and-nine-tails either; but I think I could gar her tell us something.”
“Try her, then, Ratcliffe,” said Sharpitlaw, “for I am tired of her crazy pate, and be d—d to her.”
“Madge,” said Ratcliffe, “hae ye ony joes now?”
“An ony body ask ye, say ye dinna ken.—Set him to be speaking of my joes, auld Daddie Ratton!”
“I dare say, ye hae deil ane?”
“See if I haena then,” said Madge, with the toss of the head of affronted beauty—“there’s Rob the Ranter, and Will Fleming, and then there’s Geordie Robertson, lad—that’s Gentleman Geordie—what think ye o’ that?”
Ratcliffe laughed, and, winking to the procurator-fiscal, pursued the inquiry in his own way. “But, Madge, the lads only like ye when ye hae on your braws—they wadna touch you wi’ a pair o’ tangs when you are in your auld ilka-day rags.”
“Ye’re a leeing auld sorrow then,” replied the fair one; “for Gentle Geordie Robertson put my ilka-day’s claise on his ain bonny sell yestreen, and gaed a’ through the town wi’ them; and gawsie and grand he lookit, like ony queen in the land.”
“I dinna believe a word o’t,” said Ratcliffe, with another wink to the procurator. “Thae duds were a’ o’ the colour o’ moonshine in the water, I’m thinking, Madge—The gown wad be a sky-blue scarlet, I’se warrant ye?”
“It was nae sic thing,” said Madge, whose unretentive memory let out, in the eagerness of contradiction, all that she would have most wished to keep concealed, had her judgment been equal to her inclination. “It was neither scarlet nor sky-blue, but my ain auld brown threshie-coat of a short-gown, and my mother’s auld mutch, and my red rokelay—and he gied me a croun and a kiss for the use o’ them, blessing on his bonny face—though it’s been a dear ane to me.”
“And where did he change his clothes again, hinnie?” said Sharpitlaw, in his most conciliatory manner.
“The procurator’s spoiled a’,” observed Ratcliffe, drily. And it was even so; for the question, put in so direct a shape, immediately awakened Madge to the propriety of being reserved upon those very topics on which Ratcliffe had indirectly seduced her to become communicative.
“What was’t ye were speering at us, sir?” she resumed, with an appearance of stolidity so speedily assumed, as showed there was a good deal of knavery mixed with her folly.
“I asked you,” said the procurator, “at what hour, and to what place, Robertson brought back your clothes.”
“Robertson?—Lord hand a care o’ us! what Robertson?”
“Why, the fellow we were speaking of, Gentle Geordie, as you call him.”
“Geordie Gentle!” answered Madge, with well-feigned amazement—“I dinna ken naebody they ca’ Geordie Gentle.”
“Come, my jo,” said Sharpitlaw, “this will not do; you must tell us what you did with these clothes of yours.”
Madge Wildfire made no answer, unless the question may seem connected with the snatch of a song with which she indulged the embarrassed investigator:—
“What did ye wi’ the bridal ring—bridal ring—bridal ring?What did ye wi’ your wedding ring, ye little cutty quean, O?I gied it till a sodger, a sodger, a sodger,I gied it till a sodger, an auld true love o’ mine, O.”
Of all the madwomen who have sung and said, since the days of Hamlet the Dane, if Ophelia be the most affecting, Madge Wildfire was the most provoking.
The procurator-fiscal was in despair. “I’ll take some measures with this d—d Bess of Bedlam,” said he, “that shall make her find her tongue.”
“Wi’ your favour, sir,” said Ratcliffe, “better let her mind settle a little—Ye have aye made out something.”
“True,” said the official person; “a brown short-gown, mutch, red rokelay—that agrees with your Madge Wildfire, Mr. Butler?” Butler agreed that it did so. “Yes, there was a sufficient motive for taking this crazy creature’s dress and name, while he was about such a job.”
“And I am free to saynow,” said Ratcliffe
“When you see it has come out without you,” interrupted Sharpitlaw.
“Just sae, sir,” reiterated Ratcliffe. “I am free to say now, since it’s come out otherwise, that these were the clothes I saw Robertson wearing last night in the jail, when he was at the head of the rioters.”
“That’s direct evidence,” said Sharpitlaw; “stick to that, Rat—I will report favourably of you to the provost, for I have business for you to-night. It wears late; I must home and get a snack, and I’ll be back in the evening. Keep Madge with you, Ratcliffe, and try to get her into a good tune again.” So saying he left the prison.
And some they whistled—and some they sang,And some did loudly say,Whenever Lord Barnard’s horn it blew,“Away, Musgrave away!”Ballad of Little Musgrave.
When the man of office returned to the Heart of Mid-Lothian, he resumed his conference with Ratcliffe, of whose experience and assistance he now held himself secure. “You must speak with this wench, Rat—this Effie Deans—you must sift her a wee bit; for as sure as a tether she will ken Robertson’s haunts—till her, Rat—till her without delay.”
“Craving your pardon, Mr. Sharpitlaw,” said the turnkey elect, “that’s what I am not free to do.”
“Free to do, man? what the deil ails ye now?—I thought we had settled a’ that?”
“I dinna ken, sir,” said Ratcliffe; “I hae spoken to this Effie—she’s strange to this place and to its ways, and to a’ our ways, Mr. Sharpitlaw; and she greets, the silly tawpie, and she’s breaking her heart already about this wild chield; and were she the mean’s o’ taking him, she wad break it outright.”
“She wunna hae time, lad,” said Sharpitlaw; “the woodie will hae it’s ain o’ her before that—a woman’s heart takes a lang time o’ breaking.”
“That’s according to the stuff they are made o’ sir,” replied Ratcliffe—“But to make a lang tale short, I canna undertake the job. It gangs against my conscience.”
“Yourconscience, Rat?” said Sharpitlaw, with a sneer, which the reader will probably think very natural upon the occasion.
“Ou ay, sir,” answered Ratcliffe, calmly, “just my conscience; a’body has a conscience, though it may be ill wunnin at it. I think mine’s as weel out o’ the gate as maist folk’s are; and yet it’s just like the noop of my elbow, it whiles gets a bit dirl on a corner.”
“Weel, Rat,” replied Sharpitlaw, “since ye are nice, I’ll speak to the hussy mysell.”
Sharpitlaw, accordingly, caused himself to be introduced into the little dark apartment tenanted by the unfortunate Effie Deans. The poor girl was seated on her little flock-bed, plunged in a deep reverie. Some food stood on the table, of a quality better than is usually supplied to prisoners, but it was untouched. The person under whose care she was more particularly placed, said, “that sometimes she tasted naething from the tae end of the four-and-twenty hours to the t’other, except a drink of water.”
Sharpitlaw took a chair, and, commanding the turnkey to retire, he opened the conversation, endeavouring to throw into his tone and countenance as much commiseration as they were capable of expressing, for the one was sharp and harsh, the other sly, acute, and selfish.
“How’s a’ wi’ ye, Effie?—How d’ye find yoursell, hinny?”
A deep sigh was the only answer.
“Are the folk civil to ye, Effie?—it’s my duty to inquire.”
“Very civil, sir,” said Effie, compelling herself to answer, yet hardly knowing what she said.
“And your victuals,” continued Sharpitlaw, in the same condoling tone,—“do you get what you like?—or is there onything you would particularly fancy, as your health seems but silly?”
“It’s a’ very weel, sir, I thank ye,” said the poor prisoner, in a tone how different from the sportive vivacity of those of the Lily of St. Leonard’s!—“it’s a’ very gude—ower gude for me.”
“He must have been a great villain, Effie, who brought you to this pass,” said Sharpitlaw.
The remark was dictated partly by a natural feeling, of which even he could not divest himself, though accustomed to practise on the passions of others, and keep a most heedful guard over his own, and partly by his wish to introduce the sort of conversation which might, best serve his immediate purpose. Indeed, upon the present occasion, these mixed motives of feeling and cunning harmonised together wonderfully; for, said Sharpitlaw to himself, the greater rogue Robertson is, the more will be the merit of bringing him to justice. “He must have been a great villain, indeed,” he again reiterated; “and I wish I had the skelping o’ him.”
“I may blame mysell mair than him,” said Effie; “I was bred up to ken better; but he, poor fellow,”—(she stopped).
“Was a thorough blackguard a’ his life, I dare say,” said Sharpitlaw. “A stranger he was in this country, and a companion of that lawless vagabond, Wilson, I think, Effie?”
“It wad hae been dearly telling him that he had ne’er seen Wilson’s face.”
“That’s very true that you are saying, Effie,” said Sharpitlaw. “Where was’t that Robertson and you were used to howff thegither? Somegate about the Laigh Calton, I am thinking.”
The simple and dispirited girl had thus far followed Mr. Sharpitlaw’s lead, because he had artfully adjusted his observations to the thoughts he was pretty certain must be passing through her own mind, so that her answers became a kind of thinking aloud, a mood into which those who are either constitutionally absent in mind, or are rendered so by the temporary pressure of misfortune, may be easily led by a skilful train of suggestions. But the last observation of the procurator-fiscal was too much of the nature of a direct interrogatory, and it broke the charm accordingly.
“What was it that I was saying?” said Effie, starting up from her reclining posture, seating herself upright, and hastily shading her dishevelled hair back from her wasted but still beautiful countenance. She fixed her eyes boldly and keenly upon Sharpitlaw—“You are too much of a gentleman, sir,—too much of an honest man, to take any notice of what a poor creature like me says, that can hardly ca’ my senses my ain—God help me!”
“Advantage!—I would be of some advantage to you if I could,” said Sharpitlaw, in a soothing tone; “and I ken naething sae likely to serve ye, Effie, as gripping this rascal, Robertson.”
“O dinna misca’ him, sir, that never misca’d you!—Robertson?—I am sure I had naething to say against ony man o’ the name, and naething will I say.”
“But if you do not heed your own misfortune, Effie, you should mind what distress he has brought on your family,” said the man of law.
“O, Heaven help me!” exclaimed poor Effie—“My poor father—my dear Jeanie—O, that’s sairest to bide of a’! O, sir, if you hae ony kindness—if ye hae ony touch of compassion—for a’ the folk I see here are as hard as the wa’-stanes—If ye wad but bid them let my sister Jeanie in the next time she ca’s! for when I hear them put her awa frae the door, and canna climb up to that high window to see sae muckle as her gown-tail, it’s like to pit me out o’ my judgment.” And she looked on him with a face of entreaty, so earnest, yet so humble, that she fairly shook the steadfast purpose of his mind.
“You shall see your sister,” he began, “if you’ll tell me,”—then interrupting himself, he added, in a more hurried tone,—“no, d—n it, you shall see your sister whether you tell me anything or no.” So saying, he rose up and left the apartment.
When he had rejoined Ratcliffe, he observed, “You are right, Ratton; there’s no making much of that lassie. But ae thing I have cleared—that is, that Robertson has been the father of the bairn, and so I will wager a boddle it will be he that’s to meet wi’ Jeanie Deans this night at Muschat’s Cairn, and there we’ll nail him, Rat, or my name is not Gideon Sharpitlaw.”
“But,” said Ratcliffe, perhaps because he was in no hurry to see anything which was like to be connected with the discovery and apprehension of Robertson, “an that were the case, Mr. Butler wad hae kend the man in the King’s Park to be the same person wi’ him in Madge Wildfire’s claise, that headed the mob.”
“That makes nae difference, man,” replied Sharpitlaw—“the dress, the light, the confusion, and maybe a touch o’ a blackit cork, or a slake o’ paint-hout, Ratton, I have seen ye dress your ainsell, that the deevil ye belang to durstna hae made oath t’ye.”
“And that’s true, too,” said Ratcliffe.
“And besides, ye donnard carle,” continued Sharpitlaw, triumphantly, “the ministerdidsay that he thought he knew something of the features of the birkie that spoke to him in the Park, though he could not charge his memory where or when he had seen them.”
“It’s evident, then, your honour will be right,” said Ratcliffe.
“Then, Rat, you and I will go with the party oursells this night, and see him in grips or we are done wi’ him.”
“I seena muckle use I can be o’ to your honour,” said Ratcliffe, reluctantly.
“Use?” answered Sharpitlaw—“You can guide the party—you ken the ground. Besides, I do not intend to quit sight o’ you, my good friend, till I have him in hand.”
“Weel, sir,” said Ratcliffe, but in no joyful tone of acquiescence; “Ye maun hae it your ain way—but mind he’s a desperate man.”
“We shall have that with us,” answered Sharpitlaw, “that will settle him, if it is necessary.”
“But, sir,” answered Ratcliffe, “I am sure I couldna undertake to guide you to Muschat’s Cairn in the night-time; I ken the place as mony does, in fair day-light, but how to find it by moonshine, amang sae mony crags and stanes, as like to each other as the collier to the deil, is mair than I can tell. I might as soon seek moonshine in water.”
“What’s the meaning o’ this, Ratcliffe?” said Sharpitlaw, while he fixed his eye on the recusant, with a fatal and ominous expression,—“Have you forgotten that you are still under sentence of death?”
“No, sir,” said Ratcliffe, “that’s a thing no easily put out o’ memory; and if my presence be judged necessary, nae doubt I maun gang wi’ your honour. But I was gaun to tell your honour of ane that has mair skeel o’ the gate than me, and that’s e’en Madge Wildfire.”
“The devil she has!—Do you think me as mad as she, is, to trust to her guidance on such an occasion?”
“Your honour is the best judge,” answered Ratcliffe; “but I ken I can keep her in tune, and garr her haud the straight path—she often sleeps out, or rambles about amang thae hills the haill simmer night, the daft limmer.”
“Weel, Ratcliffe,” replied the procurator-fiscal, “if you think she can guide us the right way—but take heed to what you are about—your life depends on your behaviour.”
“It’s a sair judgment on a man,” said Ratcliffe, “when he has ance gane sae far wrang as I hae done, that deil a bit he can be honest, try’t whilk way he will.”
Such was the reflection of Ratcliffe, when he was left for a few minutes to himself, while the retainer of justice went to procure a proper warrant, and give the necessary directions.
The rising moon saw the whole party free from the walls of the city, and entering upon the open ground. Arthur’s Seat, like a couchant lion of immense size—Salisbury Crags, like a huge belt or girdle of granite, were dimly visible. Holding their path along the southern side of the Canongate, they gained the Abbey of Holyrood House, and from thence found their way by step and stile into the King’s Park. They were at first four in number—an officer of justice and Sharpitlaw, who were well armed with pistols and cutlasses; Ratcliffe, who was not trusted with weapons, lest, he might, peradventure, have used them on the wrong side; and the female. But at the last stile, when they entered the Chase, they were joined by other two officers, whom Sharpitlaw, desirous to secure sufficient force for his purpose, and at the same time to avoid observation, had directed to wait for him at this place. Ratcliffe saw this accession of strength with some disquietude, for he had hitherto thought it likely that Robertson, who was a bold, stout, and active young fellow, might have made his escape from Sharpitlaw and the single officer, by force or agility, without his being implicated in the matter. But the present strength of the followers of justice was overpowering, and the only mode of saving Robertson (which the old sinner was well disposed to do, providing always he could accomplish his purpose without compromising his own safety), must be by contriving that he should have some signal of their approach. It was probably with this view that Ratcliffe had requested the addition of Madge to the party, having considerable confidence in her propensity to exert her lungs. Indeed, she had already given them so many specimens of her clamorous loquacity, that Sharpitlaw half determined to send her back with one of the officers, rather than carry forward in his company a person so extremely ill qualified to be a guide in a secret expedition. It seemed, too, as if the open air, the approach to the hills, and the ascent of the moon, supposed to be so portentous over those whose brain is infirm, made her spirits rise in a degree tenfold more loquacious than she had hitherto exhibited. To silence her by fair means seemed impossible; authoritative commands and coaxing entreaties she set alike at defiance, and threats only made her sulky and altogether intractable.
“Is there no one of you,” said Sharpitlaw, impatiently, “that knows the way to this accursed place—this Nichol Muschat’s Cairn—excepting this mad clavering idiot?”
“Deil ane o’ them kens it except mysell,” exclaimed Madge; “how suld they, the puir fule cowards! But I hae sat on the grave frae batfleeing time till cook-crow, and had mony a fine crack wi’ Muschat and Ailie Muschat, that are lying sleeping below.”
“The devil take your crazy brain,” said Sharpitlaw; “will you not allow the men to answer a question?”
The officers obtaining a moment’s audience while Ratcliffe diverted Madge’s attention, declared that, though they had a general knowledge of the spot, they could not undertake to guide the party to it by the uncertain light of the moon, with such accuracy as to insure success to their expedition.
“What shall we do, Ratcliffe?” said Sharpitlaw, “if he sees us before we see him,—and that’s what he is certain to do, if we go strolling about, without keeping the straight road,—we may bid gude day to the job, and I would rather lose one hundred pounds, baith for the credit of the police, and because the provost says somebody maun be hanged for this job o’ Porteous, come o’t what likes.”
“I think,” said Ratcliffe, “we maun just try Madge; and I’ll see if I can get her keepit in ony better order. And at ony rate, if he suld hear her skirting her auld ends o’ sangs, he’s no to ken for that that there’s onybody wi’ her.”
“That’s true,” said Sharpitlaw; “and if he thinks her alone, he’s as like to come towards her as to rin frae her. So set forward—we hae lost ower muckle time already—see to get her to keep the right road.”
“And what sort o’ house does Nichol Muschat and his wife keep now?” said Ratcliffe to the mad woman, by way of humouring her vein of folly; “they were but thrawn folk lang syne, an a’ tales be true.”
“Ou, ay, ay, ay—but a’s forgotten now,” replied Madge, in the confidential tone of a gossip giving the history of her next-door neighbour—“Ye see, I spoke to them mysell, and tauld them byganes suld be byganes—her throat’s sair misguggled and mashackered though; she wears her corpse-sheet drawn weel up to hide it, but that canna hinder the bluid seiping through, ye ken. I wussed her to wash it in St. Anthony’s Well, and that will cleanse if onything can—But they say bluid never bleaches out o’ linen claith—Deacon Sanders’s new cleansing draps winna do’t—I tried them mysell on a bit rag we hae at hame that was mailed wi’ the bluid of a bit skirting wean that was hurt some gate, but out it winna come—Weel, yell say that’s queer; but I will bring it out to St. Anthony’s blessed Well some braw night just like this, and I’ll cry up Ailie Muschat, and she and I will hae a grand bouking-washing, and bleach our claes in the beams of the bonny Lady Moon, that’s far pleasanter to me than the sun—the sun’s ower het, and ken ye, cummers, my brains are het eneugh already. But the moon, and the dew, and the night-wind, they are just like a caller kail-blade laid on my brow; and whiles I think the moon just shines on purpose to pleasure me, when naebody sees her but mysell.”
This raving discourse she continued with prodigious volubility, walking on at a great pace, and dragging Ratcliffe along with her, while he endeavoured, in appearance at least, if not in reality, to induce her to moderate her voice.
All at once she stopped short upon the top of a little hillock, gazed upward fixedly, and said not one word for the space of five minutes. “What the devil is the matter with her now?” said Sharpitlaw to Ratcliffe—“Can you not get her forward?”
“Ye maun just take a grain o’ patience wi’ her, sir,” said Ratcliffe. “She’ll no gae a foot faster than she likes herself.”
“D—n her,” said Sharpitlaw, “I’ll take care she has her time in Bedlam or Bridewell, or both, for she’s both mad and mischievous.”
In the meanwhile, Madge, who had looked very pensive when she first stopped, suddenly burst into a vehement fit of laughter, then paused and sighed bitterly,—then was seized with a second fit of laughter—then, fixing her eyes on the moon, lifted up her voice and sung,—
“Good even, good fair moon, good even to thee;I prithee, dear moon, now show to meThe form and the features, the speech and degree,Of the man that true lover of mine shall be.
But I need not ask that of the bonny Lady Moon—I ken that weel eneugh mysell—true-love though he wasna—But naebody shall sae that I ever tauld a word about the matter—But whiles I wish the bairn had lived—Weel, God guide us, there’s a heaven aboon us a’,”—(here she sighed bitterly), “and a bonny moon, and sterns in it forby” (and here she laughed once more).
“Are we to stand, here all night!” said Sharpitlaw, very impatiently. “Drag her forward.”
“Ay, sir,” said Ratcliffe, “if we kend whilk way to drag her, that would settle it at ance.—Come, Madge, hinny,” addressing her, “we’ll no be in time to see Nichol and his wife, unless ye show us the road.”
“In troth and that I will, Ratton,” said she, seizing him by the arm, and resuming her route with huge strides, considering it was a female who took them. “And I’ll tell ye, Ratton, blithe will Nichol Muschat be to see ye, for he says he kens weel there isna sic a villain out o’ hell as ye are, and he wad be ravished to hae a crack wi’ you—like to like ye ken—it’s a proverb never fails—and ye are baith a pair o’ the deevil’s peats I trow—hard to ken whilk deserves the hettest corner o’ his ingle-side.”
Ratcliffe was conscience-struck, and could not forbear making an involuntary protest against this classification. “I never shed blood,” he replied.
“But ye hae sauld it, Ratton—ye hae sauld blood mony a time. Folk kill wi’ the tongue as weel as wi’ the hand—wi’ the word as weel as wi’ the gulley!—
It is the ‘bonny butcher lad,That wears the sleeves of blue,He sells the flesh on Saturday,On Friday that he slew.”
“And what is that I ain doing now?” thought Ratcliffe. “But I’ll hae nae wyte of Robertson’s young bluid, if I can help it;” then speaking apart to Madge, he asked her, “Whether she did not remember ony o’ her auld Sangs?”
“Mony a dainty ane,” said Madge; “and blithely can I sing them, for lightsome sangs make merry gate.” And she sang,—
“When the glede’s in the blue cloud,The lavrock lies still;When the hound’s in the greenwood.The hind keeps the hill.”
“Silence her cursed noise, if you should throttle her,” said Sharpitlaw; “I see somebody yonder.—Keep close, my boys, and creep round the shoulder of the height. George Poinder, stay you with Ratcliffe and tha mad yelling bitch; and you other two, come with me round under the shadow of the brae.”
And he crept forward with the stealthy pace of an Indian savage, who leads his band to surprise an unsuspecting party of some hostile tribe. Ratcliffe saw them glide of, avoiding the moonlight, and keeping as much in: the shade as possible.
“Robertson’s done up,” said he to himself; “thae young lads are aye sae thoughtless. What deevil could he hae to say to Jeanie Deans, or to ony woman on earth, that he suld gang awa and get his neck raxed for her? And this mad quean, after cracking like a pen-gun, and skirling like a pea-hen for the haill night, behoves just to hae hadden her tongue when her clavers might have dune some gude! But it’s aye the way wi’ women; if they ever hand their tongues ava’, ye may swear it’s for mischief. I wish I could set her on again without this blood-sucker kenning what I am doing. But he’s as gleg as MacKeachan’s elshin,* that ran through sax plies of bendleather and half-an-inch into the king’s heel.”
* [Elshin,a shoemaker’s awl.]
He then began to hum, but in a very low and suppressed tone, the first stanza of a favourite ballad of Wildfire’s, the words of which bore some distant analogy with the situation of Robertson, trusting that the power of association would not fail to bring the rest to her mind:—
“There’s a bloodhound ranging Tinwald wood,There’s harness glancing sheen:There’s a maiden sits on Tinwald brae,And she sings loud between.”
Madge had no sooner received the catch-word, than she vindicated Ratcliffe’s sagacity by setting off at score with the song:—
“O sleep ye sound, Sir James, she said,When ye suld rise and ride?There’s twenty men, wi’ bow and blade,Are seeking where ye hide.”
Though Ratcliffe was at a considerable distance from the spot called Muschat’s Cairn, yet his eyes, practised like those of a cat to penetrate darkness, could mark that Robertson had caught the alarm. George Poinder, less keen of sight, or less attentive, was not aware of his flight any more than Sharpitlaw and his assistants, whose view, though they were considerably nearer to the cairn, was intercepted by the broken nature of the ground under which they were screening themselves. At length, however, after the interval of five or six minutes, they also perceived that Robertson had fled, and rushed hastily towards the place, while Sharpitlaw called out aloud, in the harshest tones of a voice which resembled a saw-mill at work, “Chase, lads—chase—haud the brae—I see him on the edge of the hill!” Then hollowing back to the rear-guard of his detachment, he issued his farther orders: “Ratcliffe, come here, and detain the woman—George, run and kepp the stile at the Duke’s Walk—Ratcliffe, come here directly—but first knock out that mad bitch’s brains!”
“Ye had better rin for it, Madge,” said Ratcliffe, “for it’s ill dealing wi’ an angry man.”
Madge Wildfire was not so absolutely void of common sense as not to understand this innuendo; and while Ratcliffe, in seemingly anxious haste of obedience, hastened to the spot where Sharpitlaw waited to deliver up Jeanie Deans to his custody, she fled with all the despatch she could exert in an opposite direction. Thus the whole party were separated, and in rapid motion of flight or pursuit, excepting Ratcliffe and Jeanie, whom, although making no attempt to escape, he held fast by the cloak, and who remained standing by Muschat’s Cairn.
You have paid the heavens your function,and the prisoner the very debt of your calling.Measure for Measure.
Jeanie Deans,—for here our story unites itself with that part of the narrative which broke off at the end of the fourteenth chapter,—while she waited, in terror and amazement, the hasty advance of three or four men towards her, was yet more startled at their suddenly breaking asunder, and giving chase in different directions to the late object of her terror, who became at that moment, though she could not well assign a reasonable cause, rather the cause of her interest. One of the party (it was Sharpitlaw) came straight up to her, and saying, “Your name is Jeanie Deans, and you are my prisoner,” immediately added, “But if you will tell me which way he ran I will let you go.”
“I dinna ken, sir,” was all the poor girl could utter; and, indeed, it is the phrase which rises most readily to the lips of any person in her rank, as the readiest reply to any embarrassing question.
“But,” said Sharpitlaw, “yekenwha it was ye were speaking wi’, my leddy, on the hill side, and midnight sae near; ye surely kenthat,my bonny woman?”
“I dinna ken, sir,” again iterated Jeanie, who really did not comprehend in her terror the nature of the questions which were so hastily put to her in this moment of surprise.
“We will try to mend your memory by and by, hinny,” said Sharpitlaw, and shouted, as we have already told the reader, to Ratcliffe, to come up and take charge of her, while he himself directed the chase after Robertson, which he still hoped might be successful. As Ratcliffe approached, Sharpitlaw pushed the young woman towards him with some rudeness, and betaking himself to the more important object of his quest, began to scale crags and scramble up steep banks, with an agility of which his profession and his general gravity of demeanour would previously have argued him incapable. In a few minutes there was no one within sight, and only a distant halloo from one of the pursuers to the other, faintly heard on the side of the hill, argued that there was any one within hearing. Jeanie Deans was left in the clear moonlight, standing under the guard of a person of whom she knew nothing, and, what was worse, concerning whom, as the reader is well aware, she could have learned nothing that would not have increased her terror.
When all in the distance was silent, Ratcliffe for the first time addressed her, and it was in that cold sarcastic indifferent tone familiar to habitual depravity, whose crimes are instigated by custom rather than by passion. “This is a braw night for ye, dearie,” he said, attempting to pass his arm across her shoulder, “to be on the green hill wi’ your jo.” Jeanie extricated herself from his grasp, but did not make any reply.
“I think lads and lasses,” continued the ruffian, “dinna meet at Muschat’s Cairn at midnight to crack nuts,” and he again attempted to take hold of her.
“If ye are an officer of justice, sir,” said Jeanie, again eluding his attempt to seize her, “ye deserve to have your coat stripped from your back.”
“Very true, hinny,” said he, succeeding forcibly in his attempt to get hold of her, “but suppose I should strip your cloak off first?”
“Ye are more a man, I am sure, than to hurt me, sir,” said Jeanie; “for God’s sake have pity on a half-distracted creature!”
“Come, come,” said Ratcliffe, “you’re a good-looking wench, and should not be cross-grained. I was going to be an honest man—but the devil has this very day flung first a lawyer, and then a woman, in my gate. I’ll tell you what, Jeanie, they are out on the hill-side—if you’ll be guided by me, I’ll carry you to a wee bit corner in the Pleasance, that I ken o’ in an auld wife’s, that a’ the prokitors o’ Scotland wot naething o’, and we’ll send Robertson word to meet us in Yorkshire, for there is a set o’ braw lads about the midland counties, that I hae dune business wi’ before now, and sae we’ll leave Mr. Sharpitlaw to whistle on his thumb.”
It was fortunate for Jeanie, in an emergency like the present, that she possessed presence of mind and courage, so soon as the first hurry of surprise had enabled her to rally her recollection. She saw the risk she was in from a ruffian, who not only was such by profession, but had that evening been stupifying, by means of strong liquors, the internal aversion which he felt at the business on which Sharpitlaw had resolved to employ him.
“Dinna speak sae loud,” said she, in a low voice; “he’s up yonder.”
“Who?—Robertson?” said Ratcliffe, eagerly.
“Ay,” replied Jeanie; “up yonder;” and she pointed to the ruins of the hermitage and chapel.
“By G—d, then,” said Ratcliffe, “I’ll make my ain of him, either one way or other—wait for me here.”
But no sooner had he set off as fast as he could run, towards the chapel, than Jeanie started in an opposite direction, over high and low, on the nearest path homeward. Her juvenile exercise as a herdswoman had put “life and mettle” in her heels, and never had she followed Dustiefoot, when the cows were in the corn, with half so much speed as she now cleared the distance betwixt Muschat’s Cairn and her father’s cottage at St. Leonard’s. To lift the latch—to enter—to shut, bolt, and double bolt the door—to draw against it a heavy article of furniture (which she could not have moved in a moment of less energy), so as to make yet farther provision against violence, was almost the work of a moment, yet done with such silence as equalled the celerity.
Her next anxiety was upon her father’s account, and she drew silently to the door of his apartment, in order to satisfy herself whether he had been disturbed by her return. He was awake,—probably had slept but little; but the constant presence of his own sorrows, the distance of his apartment from the outer door of the house, and the precautions which Jeanie had taken to conceal her departure and return, had prevented him from being sensible of either. He was engaged in his devotions, and Jeanie could distinctly hear him use these words:—“And for the other child thou hast given me to be a comfort and stay to my old age, may her days be long in the land, according to the promise thou hast given to those who shall honour father and mother; may all her purchased and promised blessings be multiplied upon her; keep her in the watches of the night, and in the uprising of the morning, that all in this land may know that thou hast not utterly hid thy face from those that seek thee in truth and in sincerity.” He was silent, but probably continued his petition in the strong fervency of mental devotion.
His daughter retired to her apartment, comforted, that while she was exposed to danger, her head had been covered by the prayers of the just as by an helmet, and under the strong confidence, that while she walked worthy of the protection of Heaven, she would experience its countenance. It was in that moment that a vague idea first darted across her mind, that something might yet be achieved for her sister’s safety, conscious as she now was of her innocence of the unnatural murder with which she stood charged. It came, as she described it, on her mind, like a sun-blink on a stormy sea; and although it instantly vanished, yet she felt a degree of composure which she had not experienced for many days, and could not help being strongly persuaded that, by some means or other, she would be called upon, and directed, to work out her sister’s deliverance. She went to bed, not forgetting her usual devotions, the more fervently made on account of her late deliverance, and she slept soundly in spite of her agitation.
We must return to Ratcliffe, who had started, like a greyhound from the slips when the sportsman cries halloo, as soon as Jeanie had pointed to the ruins. Whether he meant to aid Robertson’s escape, or to assist his pursuers, may be very doubtful; perhaps he did not himself know but had resolved to be guided by circumstances. He had no opportunity, however, of doing either; for he had no sooner surmounted the steep ascent, and entered under the broken arches of the rains, than a pistol was presented at his head, and a harsh voice commanded him, in the king’s name, to surrender himself prisoner. “Mr. Sharpitlaw!” said Ratcliffe, surprised, “is this your honour?”
“Is it only you, and be d—d to you?” answered the fiscal, still more disappointed—“what made you leave the woman?”
“She told me she saw Robertson go into the ruins, so I made what haste I could to cleek the callant.”
“It’s all over now,” said Sharpitlaw; “we shall see no more of him to-night; but he shall hide himself in a bean-hool, if he remains on Scottish ground without my finding him. Call back the people, Ratcliffe.”
Ratcliffe hollowed to the dispersed officers, who willingly obeyed the signal; for probably there was no individual among them who would have been much desirous of a rencontre, hand to hand, and at a distance from his comrades, with such an active and desperate fellow as Robertson.
“And where are the two women?” said Sharpitlaw.
“Both made their heels serve them, I suspect,” replied Ratcliffe, and he hummed the end of the old song—