Part 29 (1/2)

She clapped her hands before her eyes as she uttered this exclamation, as if to secure herself against seeing the fearful object she had alluded to.

Jeanie Deans remained with her sister for two hours, during which she endeavoured, if possible, to extract something from her that might be serviceable in her exculpation. But she had nothing to say beyond what she had declared on her first examination, with the purport of which the reader will be made acquainted in proper time and place. ”They wadna believe her,” she said, ”and she had naething mair to tell them.”

At length, Ratcliffe, though reluctantly, informed the sisters that there was a necessity that they should part. ”Mr. Novit,” he said, ”was to see the prisoner, and maybe Mr. Langtale too. Langtale likes to look at a bonny la.s.s, whether in prison or out o' prison.”

Reluctantly, therefore, and slowly, after many a tear, and many an embrace, Jeanie retired from the apartment, and heard its jarring bolts turned upon the dear being from whom she was separated. Somewhat familiarised now even with her rude conductor, she offered him a small present in money, with a request he would do what he could for her sister's accommodation. To her surprise, Ratcliffe declined the fee.

”I wasna b.l.o.o.d.y when I was on the pad,” he said, ”and I winna be greedy--that is, beyond what's right and reasonable--now that I am in the lock.--Keep the siller; and for civility, your sister sall hae sic as I can bestow; but I hope you'll think better on it, and rap an oath for her--deil a hair ill there is in it, if ye are rapping again the crown. I kend a worthy minister, as gude a man, bating the deed they deposed him for, as ever ye heard claver in a pu'pit, that rapped to a hogshead of pigtail tobacco, just for as muckle as filled his spleuchan.*

* Tobacco-pouch.

But maybe ye are keeping your ain counsel--weel, weel, there's nae harm in that. As for your sister, I'se see that she gets her meat clean and warm, and I'll try to gar her lie down and take a sleep after dinner, for deil a ee she'll close the night. I hae gude experience of these matters.

The first night is aye the warst o't. I hae never heard o' ane that sleepit the night afore trial, but of mony a ane that sleepit as sound as a tap the night before their necks were straughted. And it's nae wonder--the warst may be tholed when it's kend--Better a finger aff as aye wagging.”

CHAPTER TWENTIETH.

Yet though thou mayst be dragg'd in scorn To yonder ignominious tree, Thou shalt not want one faithful friend To share the cruel fates' decree.

Jemmy Dawson.

After spending the greater part of the morning in his devotions (for his benevolent neighbours had kindly insisted upon discharging his task of ordinary labour), David Deans entered the apartment when the breakfast meal was prepared. His eyes were involuntarily cast down, for he was afraid to look at Jeanie, uncertain as he was whether she might feel herself at liberty, with a good conscience, to attend the Court of Justiciary that day, to give the evidence which he understood that she possessed, in order to her sister's exculpation. At length, after a minute of apprehensive hesitation, he looked at her dress to discover whether it seemed to be in her contemplation to go abroad that morning.

Her apparel was neat and plain, but such as conveyed no exact intimation of her intentions to go abroad. She had exchanged her usual garb for morning labour, for one something inferior to that with which, as her best, she was wont to dress herself for church, or any more rare occasion of going into society. Her sense taught her, that it was respectful to be decent in her apparel on such an occasion, while her feelings induced her to lay aside the use of the very few and simple personal ornaments, which, on other occasions, she permitted herself to wear. So that there occurred nothing in her external appearance which could mark out to her father, with anything like certainty, her intentions on this occasion.

The preparations for their humble meal were that morning made in vain.

The father and daughter sat, each a.s.suming the appearance of eating, when the other's eyes were turned to them, and desisting from the effort with disgust, when the affectionate imposture seemed no longer necessary.

At length these moments of constraint were removed. The sound of St.

Giles's heavy toll announced the hour previous to the commencement of the trial; Jeanie arose, and with a degree of composure for which she herself could not account, a.s.sumed her plaid, and made her other preparations for a distant walking. It was a strange contrast between the firmness of her demeanour, and the vacillation and cruel uncertainty of purpose indicated in all her father's motions; and one unacquainted with both could scarcely have supposed that the former was, in her ordinary habits of life, a docile, quiet, gentle, and even timid country maiden, while her father, with a mind naturally proud and strong, and supported by religious opinions of a stern, stoical, and unyielding character, had in his time undergone and withstood the most severe hards.h.i.+ps, and the most imminent peril, without depression of spirit, or subjugation of his constancy. The secret of this difference was, that Jeanie's mind had already antic.i.p.ated the line of conduct which she must adopt, with all its natural and necessary consequences; while her father, ignorant of every other circ.u.mstance, tormented himself with imagining what the one sister might say or swear, or what effect her testimony might have upon the awful event of the trial.

He watched his daughter, with a faltering and indecisive look, until she looked back upon him, with a look of unutterable anguish, as she was about to leave the apartment.

”My dear la.s.sie,” said he, ”I will.” His action, hastily and confusedly searching for his worsted mittans* and staff, showed his purpose of accompanying her, though his tongue failed distinctly to announce it.

* A kind of worsted gloves, used by the lower orders.

”Father,” said Jeanie, replying rather to his action than his words, ”ye had better not.”

”In the strength of my G.o.d,” answered Deans, a.s.suming firmness, ”I will go forth.”

And, taking his daughter's arm under his, he began to walk from the door with a step so hasty, that she was almost unable to keep up with him. A trifling circ.u.mstance, but which marked the perturbed state of his mind, checked his course.

”Your bonnet, father?” said Jeanie, who observed he had come out with his grey hairs uncovered. He turned back with a slight blush on his cheek, being ashamed to have been detected in an omission which indicated so much mental confusion, a.s.sumed his large blue Scottish bonnet, and with a step slower, but more composed, as if the circ.u.mstance, had obliged him to summon up his resolution, and collect his scattered ideas, again placed his daughter's arm under his, and resumed the way to Edinburgh.

The courts of justice were then, and are still, held in what is called the Parliament Close, or, according to modern phrase, Parliament Square, and occupied the buildings intended for the accommodation of the Scottish Estates. This edifice, though in an imperfect and corrupted style of architecture, had then a grave, decent, and, as it were, a judicial aspect, which was at least ent.i.tled to respect from its antiquity. For which venerable front, I observed, on my last occasional visit to the metropolis, that modern taste had subst.i.tuted, at great apparent expense, a pile so utterly inconsistent with every monument of antiquity around, and in itself so clumsy at the same time and fantastic, that it may be likened to the decorations of Tom Errand the porter, in the _Trip to the Jubilee,_ when he appears bedizened with the tawdry finery of Beau Clincher. _Sed transeat c.u.m caeteris erroribus._

The small quadrangle, or Close, if we may presume still to give it that appropriate, though antiquated t.i.tle, which at Lichfield, Salisbury, and elsewhere, is properly applied to designate the enclosure adjacent to a cathedral, already evinced tokens of the fatal scene which was that day to be acted. The soldiers of the City Guard were on their posts, now enduring, and now rudely repelling with the b.u.t.ts of their muskets, the motley crew who thrust each other forward, to catch a glance at the unfortunate object of trial, as she should pa.s.s from the adjacent prison to the Court in which her fate was to be determined. All must have occasionally observed, with disgust, the apathy with which the vulgar gaze on scenes of this nature, and how seldom, unless when their sympathies are called forth by some striking and extraordinary circ.u.mstance, the crowd evince any interest deeper than that of callous, unthinking bustle, and brutal curiosity. They laugh, jest, quarrel, and push each other to and fro, with the same unfeeling indifference as if they were a.s.sembled for some holiday sport, or to see an idle procession.