Part 36 (2/2)
There was still another motive that pressed upon her mind with additional force as she approached the village. She had looked anxiously for Butler in the courthouse, and had expected that, certainly, in some part of that eventful day, he would have appeared to bring such countenance and support as he could give to his old friend, and the protector of his youth, even if her own claims were laid aside.
She know, indeed, that he was under a certain degree of restraint; but she still had hoped that he would have found means to emanc.i.p.ate himself from it, at least for one day. In short, the wild and wayward thoughts which Wordsworth has described as rising in an absent lover's imagination, suggested, as the only explanation of his absence, that Butler must be very ill. And so much had this wrought on her imagination, that when she approached the cottage where her lover occupied a small apartment, and which had been pointed out to her by a maiden with a milk-pail on her head, she trembled at antic.i.p.ating the answer she might receive on inquiring for him.
Her fears in this case had, indeed, only hit upon the truth. Butler, whose const.i.tution was naturally feeble, did not soon recover the fatigue of body and distress of mind which he had suffered, in consequence of the tragical events with which our narrative commenced. The painful idea that his character was breathed on by suspicion, was an aggravation to his distress.
But the most cruel addition was the absolute prohibition laid by the magistrates on his holding any communication with Deans or his family. It had unfortunately appeared likely to them, that some intercourse might be again attempted with that family by Robertson, through the medium of Butler, and this they were anxious to intercept, or prevent if possible.
The measure was not meant as a harsh or injurious severity on the part of the magistrates; but, in Butler's circ.u.mstances, it pressed cruelly hard.
He felt he must be suffering under the bad opinion of the person who was dearest to him, from an imputation of unkind desertion, the most alien to his nature.
This painful thought, pressing on a frame already injured, brought on a succession of slow and lingering feverish attacks, which greatly impaired his health, and at length rendered him incapable even of the sedentary duties of the school, on which his bread depended. Fortunately, old Mr.
Whackbairn, who was the princ.i.p.al teacher of the little parochial establishment, was sincerely attached to Butler. Besides that he was sensible of his merits and value as an a.s.sistant, which had greatly raised the credit of his little school, the ancient pedagogue, who had himself been tolerably educated, retained some taste for cla.s.sical lore, and would gladly relax, after the drudgery of the school was over, by conning over a few pages of Horace or Juvenal with his usher. A similarity of taste begot kindness, and accordingly he saw Butler's increasing debility with great compa.s.sion, roused up his own energies to teaching the school in the morning hours, insisted upon his a.s.sistant's reposing himself at that period, and, besides, supplied him with such comforts as the patient's situation required, and his own means were inadequate to compa.s.s.
Such was Butler's situation, scarce able to drag himself to the place where his daily drudgery must gain his daily bread, and racked with a thousand fearful antic.i.p.ations concerning the fate of those who were dearest to him in the world, when the trial and condemnation of Effie Deans put the copestone upon his mental misery.
He had a particular account of these events, from a fellow-student who resided in the same village, and who, having been present on the melancholy occasion, was able to place it in all its agony of horrors before his excruciated imagination. That sleep should have visited his eyes after such a curfew-note, was impossible. A thousand dreadful visions haunted his imagination all night, and in the morning he was awaked from a feverish slumber, by the only circ.u.mstance which could have added to his distress,--the visit of an intrusive a.s.s.
This unwelcome visitant was no other than Bartoline Saddletree. The worthy and sapient burgher had kept his appointment at MacCroskie's with Plumdamas and some other neighbours, to discuss the Duke of Argyle's speech, the justice of Effie Deans's condemnation, and the improbability of her obtaining a reprieve. This sage conclave disputed high and drank deep, and on the next morning Bartoline felt, as he expressed it, as if his head was like a ”confused progress of writs.”
To bring his reflective powers to their usual serenity, Saddle-tree resolved to take a morning's ride upon a certain hackney, which he, Plumdamas, and another honest shopkeeper, combined to maintain by joint subscription, for occasional jaunts for the purpose of business or exercise. As Saddletree had two children boarded with Whackbairn, and was, as we have seen, rather fond of Butler's society, he turned his palfrey's head towards Liberton, and came, as we have already said, to give the unfortunate usher that additional vexation, of which Imogene complains so feelingly, when she says,--
”I'm sprighted with a fool-- Sprighted and anger'd worse.”
If anything could have added gall to bitterness, it was the choice which Saddletree made of a subject for his prosing harangues, being the trial of Effie Deans, and the probability of her being executed. Every word fell on Butler's ear like the knell of a death-bell, or the note of a screech-owl.
Jeanie paused at the door of her lover's humble abode upon hearing the loud and pompous tones of Saddletree sounding from the inner apartment, ”Credit me, it will be sae, Mr. Butler. Brandy cannot save her. She maun gang down the Bow wi' the lad in the pioted coat* at her heels.--
* The executioner, in livery of black or dark grey and silver, likened by low wit to a magpie.
I am sorry for the la.s.sie, but the law, sir, maun hae its course--
Vivat Rex, Currat Lex,
as the poet has it, in whilk of Horace's odes I know not.”
Here Butler groaned, in utter impatience of the brutality and ignorance which Bartoline had contrived to amalgamate into one sentence. But Saddletree, like other prosers, was blessed with a happy obtuseness of perception concerning the unfavourable impression which he sometimes made on his auditors. He proceeded to deal forth his sc.r.a.ps of legal knowledge without mercy, and concluded by asking Butler, with great self-complacency, ”Was it na a pity my father didna send me to Utrecht?
Havena I missed the chance to turn out as _clarissimus_ an _ictus,_ as auld Grunwiggin himself?--Whatfor dinna ye speak, Mr. Butler? Wad I no hae been a _clarissimus ictus?_--Eh, man?”
”I really do not understand you, Mr. Saddletree,” said Butler, thus pushed hard for an answer. His faint and exhausted tone of voice was instantly drowned in the sonorous bray of Bartoline.
”No understand me, man? _Ictus_ is Latin for a lawyer, is it not?”
”Not that ever I heard of,” answered Butler in the same dejected tone.
”The deil ye didna!--See, man, I got the word but this morning out of a memorial of Mr. Crossmyloof's--see, there it is, _ictus clarissimus et perti--peritissimus_--it's a' Latin, for it's printed in the Italian types.”
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