The street down which the fugitive ran opens to one of the eastern ports
or gates of the city. Butler did not stop till he reached it, but found
it still shut. He waited nearly an hour, walking up and down in
inexpressible perturbation of mind. At length he ventured to call out,
and rouse the attention of the terrified keepers of the gate, who now
found themselves at liberty to resume their office without interruption.
Butler requested them to open the gate. They hesitated. He told them his
name and occupation.

"He is a preacher," said one; "I have heard him preach in Haddo's-hole."

"A fine preaching has he been at the night," said another "but maybe
least said is sunest mended."

Opening then the wicket of the main gate, the keepers suffered Butler to
depart, who hastened to carry his horror and fear beyond the walls of
Edinburgh. His first purpose was instantly to take the road homeward; but
other fears and cares, connected with the news he had learned in that
remarkable day, induced him to linger in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh
until daybreak. More than one group of persons passed him as he was
whiling away the hours of darkness that yet remained, whom, from the
stifled tones of their discourse, the unwonted hour when they travelled,
and the hasty pace at which they walked, he conjectured to have been
engaged in the late fatal transaction.

Certain it was, that the sudden and total dispersion of the rioters, when
their vindictive purpose was accomplished, seemed not the least
remarkable feature of this singular affair. In general, whatever may be
the impelling motive by which a mob is at first raised, the attainment of
their object has usually been only found to lead the way to farther
excesses. But not so in the present case. They seemed completely satiated
with the vengeance they had prosecuted with such stanch and sagacious
activity. When they were fully satisfied that life had abandoned their
victim, they dispersed in every direction, throwing down the weapons
which they had only assumed to enable them to carry through their
purpose. At daybreak there remained not the least token of the events of
the night, excepting the corpse of Porteous, which still hung suspended
in the place where he had suffered, and the arms of various kinds which
the rioters had taken from the city guard-house, which were found
scattered about the streets as they had thrown them from their hands when
the purpose for which they had seized them was accomplished.

The ordinary magistrates of the city resumed their power, not without
trembling at the late experience of the fragility of its tenure. To march
troops into the city, and commence a severe inquiry into the transactions
of the preceding night, were the first marks of returning energy which
they displayed. But these events had been conducted on so secure and
well-calculated a plan of safety and secrecy, that there was little or
nothing learned to throw light upon the authors or principal actors in a
scheme so audacious. An express was despatched to London with the
tidings, where they excited great indignation and surprise in the council
of regency, and particularly in the bosom of Queen Caroline, who
considered her own authority as exposed to contempt by the success of
this singular conspiracy. Nothing was spoke of for some time save the
measure of vengeance which should be taken, not only on the actors of
this tragedy, so soon as they should be discovered, but upon the
magistrates who had suffered it to take place, and upon the city which
had been the scene where it was exhibited. On this occasion, it is still
recorded in popular tradition, that her Majesty, in the height of her
displeasure, told the celebrated John Duke of Argyle, that, sooner than
submit to such an insult, she would make Scotland a hunting-field. "In
that case, Madam," answered that high-spirited nobleman, with a profound
bow, "I will take leave of your Majesty, and go down to my own country to
get my hounds ready."

The import of the reply had more than met the ear; and as most of the
Scottish nobility and gentry seemed actuated by the same national spirit,
the royal displeasure was necessarily checked in mid-volley, and milder
courses were recommended and adopted, to some of which we may hereafter
have occasion to advert.*

* Note D. Memorial concerning the murder of Captain Porteous.




CHAPTER SEVENTH


                    Arthur's Seat shall be my bed,
                    The sheets shall ne'er be pressed by me,
                    St. Anton's well shall be my drink,
                    Sin' my true-love's forsaken me.
                                               Old Song.

If I were to choose a spot from which the rising or setting sun could be
seen to the greatest possible advantage, it would be that wild path
winding around the foot of the high belt of semicircular rocks, called
Salisbury Crags, and marking the verge of the steep descent which slopes
down into the glen on the south-eastern side of the city of Edinburgh.
The prospect, in its general outline, commands a close-built, high-piled
city, stretching itself out beneath in a form, which, to a romantic
imagination, may be supposed to represent that of a dragon; now, a noble
arm of the sea, with its rocks, isles, distant shores, and boundary of
mountains; and now, a fair and fertile champaign country, varied with
hill, dale, and rock, and skirted by the picturesque ridge of the
Pentland mountains. But as the path gently circles around the base of the
cliffs, the prospect, composed as it is of these enchanting and sublime
objects, changes at every step, and presents them blended with, or
divided from, each other, in every possible variety which can gratify the
eye and the imagination. When a piece of scenery so beautiful, yet so
varied,--so exciting by its intricacy, and yet so sublime,--is lighted up
by the tints of morning or of evening, and displays all that variety of
shadowy depth, exchanged with partial brilliancy, which gives character
even to the tamest of landscapes, the effect approaches near to
enchantment. This path used to be my favourite evening and morning
resort, when engaged with a favourite author, or new subject of study. It
is, I am informed, now become totally impassable; a circumstance which,
if true, reflects little credit on the taste of the Good Town or its
leaders.*

* A beautiful and solid pathway has, within a few years, been formed
around these romantic rocks; and the Author has the pleasure to think,
that the passage in the text gave rise to the undertaking.

 It was from this fascinating path--the scene to me of so much delicious
musing, when life was young and promised to be happy, that I have been
unable to pass it over without an episodical description--it was, I say,
from this romantic path that Butler saw the morning arise the day after
the murder of Porteous. It was possible for him with ease to have found a
much shorter road to the house to which he was directing his course, and,
in fact, that which he chose was extremely circuitous. But to compose his
own spirits, as well as to while away the time, until a proper hour for
visiting the family without surprise or disturbance, he was induced to
extend his circuit by the foot of the rocks, and to linger upon his way
until the morning should be considerably advanced. While, now standing
with his arms across, and waiting the slow progress of the sun above the
horizon, now sitting upon one of the numerous fragments which storms had
detached from the rocks above him, he is meditating, alternately upon the
horrible catastrophe which he had witnessed, and upon the melancholy, and
to him most interesting, news which he had learned at Saddletree's, we
will give the reader to understand who Butler was, and how his fate was
connected with that of Effie Deans, the unfortunate handmaiden of the
careful Mrs. Saddletree.

Reuben Butler was of English extraction, though born in Scotland. His
grandfather was a trooper in Monk's army, and one of the party of
dismounted dragoons which formed the forlorn hope at the storming of
Dundee in 1651. Stephen Butler (called from his talents in reading and
expounding, Scripture Stephen, and Bible Butler) was a stanch
Independent, and received in its fullest comprehension the promise that
the saints should inherit the earth. As hard knocks were what had chiefly
fallen to his share hitherto in the division of this common property, he
lost not the opportunity which the storm and plunder of a commercial
place afforded him, to appropriate as large a share of the better things
of this world as he could possibly compass. It would seem that he had
succeeded indifferently well, for his exterior circumstances appeared, in
consequence of this event, to have been much mended.

The troop to which he belonged was quartered at the village of Dalkeith,
as forming the bodyguard of Monk, who, in the capacity of general for the
Commonwealth, resided in the neighbouring castle. When, on the eve of the
Restoration, the general commenced his march from Scotland, a measure
pregnant with such important consequences, he new-modelled his troops,
and more especially those immediately about his person, in order that
they might consist entirely of individuals devoted to himself. On this
occasion Scripture Stephen was weighed in the balance, and found wanting.
It was supposed he felt no call to any expedition which might endanger
the reign of the military sainthood, and that he did not consider himself
as free in conscience to join with any party which might be likely
ultimately to acknowledge the interest of Charles Stuart, the son of "the
last man," as Charles I. was familiarly and irreverently termed by them
in their common discourse, as well as in their more elaborate
predications and harangues. As the time did not admit of cashiering such
dissidents, Stephen Butler was only advised in a friendly way to give up
his horse and accoutrements to one of Middleton's old troopers who
possessed an accommodating conscience of a military stamp, and which
squared itself chiefly upon those of the colonel and paymaster. As this
hint came recommended by a certain sum of arrears presently payable,
Stephen had carnal wisdom enough to embrace the proposal, and with great
indifference saw his old corps depart for Coldstream, on their route for
the south, to establish the tottering Government of England on a new
basis.

The _zone_ of the ex-trooper, to use Horace's phrase, was weighty enough
to purchase a cottage and two or three fields (still known by the name of
Beersheba), within about a Scottish mile of Dalkeith; and there did
Stephen establish himself with a youthful helpmate, chosen out of the
said village, whose disposition to a comfortable settlement on this side
of the grave reconciled her to the gruff manners, serious temper, and
weather-beaten features of the martial enthusiast. Stephen did not long
survive the falling on "evil days and evil tongues," of which Milton, in
the same predicament, so mournfully complains. At his death his consort
remained an early widow, with a male child of three years old, which, in
the sobriety wherewith it demeaned itself, in the old-fashioned and even
grim cast of its features, and in its sententious mode of expressing
itself, would sufficiently have vindicated the honour of the widow of
Beersheba, had any one thought proper to challenge the babe's descent
from Bible Butler.

Butler's principles had not descended to his family, or extended
themselves among his neighbours. The air of Scotland was alien to the
growth of independency, however favourable to fanaticism under other
colours. But, nevertheless, they were not forgotten; and a certain
neighbouring Laird, who piqued himself upon the loyalty of his principles
"in the worst of times" (though I never heard they exposed him to more
peril than that of a broken head, or a night's lodging in the main guard,
when wine and cavalierism predominated in his upper storey), had found it
a convenient thing to rake up all matter of accusation against the
deceased Stephen. In this enumeration his religious principles made no
small figure, as, indeed, they must have seemed of the most exaggerated
enormity to one whose own were so small and so faintly traced, as to be
well nigh imperceptible. In these circumstances, poor widow Butler was
supplied with her full proportion of fines for nonconformity, and all the
other oppressions of the time, until Beersheba was fairly wrenched out of
her hands, and became the property of the Laird who had so wantonly, as
it had hitherto appeared, persecuted this poor forlorn woman. When his
purpose was fairly achieved, he showed some remorse or moderation, of
whatever the reader may please to term it, in permitting her to occupy
her husband's cottage, and cultivate, on no very heavy terms, a croft of
land adjacent. Her son, Benjamin, in the meanwhile, grew up to mass
estate, and, moved by that impulse which makes men seek marriage, even
when its end can only be the perpetuation of misery, he wedded and
brought a wife, and, eventually, a son, Reuben, to share the poverty of
Beersheba.

The Laird of Dumbiedikes* had hitherto been moderate in his exactions,
perhaps because he was ashamed to tax too highly the miserable means of
support which remained to the widow Butler.

* Dumbiedikes, selected as descriptive of the taciturn character of the
imaginary owner, is really the name of a house bordering on the King's
Park, so called because the late Mr. Braidwood, an instructor of the deaf
and dumb, resided there with his pupils. The situation of the real house
is different from that assigned to the ideal mansion.

But when a stout active young fellow appeared as the labourer of the
croft in question, Dumbiedikes began to think so broad a pair of
shoulders might bear an additional burden. He regulated, indeed, his
management of his dependants (who fortunately were but few in number)
much upon the principle of the carters whom he observed loading their
carts at a neighbouring coal-hill, and who never failed to clap an
additional brace of hundredweights on their burden, so soon as by any
means they had compassed a new horse of somewhat superior strength to
that which had broken down the day before. However reasonable this
practice appeared to the Laird of Dumbiedikes, he ought to have observed,
that it may be overdone, and that it infers, as a matter of course, the
destruction and loss of both horse, and cart, and loading. Even so it
befell when the additional "prestations" came to be demanded of Benjamin
Butler. A man of few words, and few ideas, but attached to Beersheba with
a feeling like that which a vegetable entertains to the spot in which it
chances to be planted, he neither remonstrated with the Laird, nor
endeavoured to escape from him, but, toiling night and day to accomplish
the terms of his taskmaster, fell into a burning fever and died. His wife
did not long survive him; and, as if it had been the fate of this family
to be left orphans, our Reuben Butler was, about the year 1704-5, left in
the same circumstances in which his father had been placed, and under the
same guardianship, being that of his grandmother, the widow of Monk's old
trooper.

The same prospect of misery hung over the head of another tenant of this
hardhearted lord of the soil. This was a tough true-blue Presbyterian,
called Deans, who, though most obnoxious to the Laird on account of
principles in church and state, contrived to maintain his ground upon the
estate by regular payment of mail-duties, kain, arriage, carriage, dry
multure, lock, gowpen, and knaveship, and all the various exactions now
commuted for money, and summed up in the emphatic word rent. But the
years 1700 and 1701, long remembered in Scotland for dearth and general
distress, subdued the stout heart of the agricultural whig. Citations by
the ground-officer, decreets of the Baron Court, sequestrations,
poindings of outside and inside plenishing, flew about his ears as fast
as the tory bullets whistled around those of the Covenanters at Pentland,
Bothwell Brigg, or Airsmoss. Struggle as he might, and he struggled
gallantly, "Douce David Deans" was routed horse and foot, and lay at the
mercy of his grasping landlord just at the time that Benjamin Butler
died. The fate of each family was anticipated; but they who prophesied
their expulsion to beggary and ruin were disappointed by an accidental
circumstance.

On the very term-day when their ejection should have taken place, when
all their neighbours were prepared to pity, and not one to assist them,
the minister of the parish, as well as a doctor from Edinburgh, received
a hasty summons to attend the Laird of Dumbiedikes. Both were surprised,
for his contempt for both faculties had been pretty commonly his theme
over an extra bottle, that is to say, at least once every day. The leech
for the soul, and he for the body, alighted in the court of the little
old manor-house at almost the same time; and when they had gazed a moment
at each other with some surprise, they in the same breath expressed their
conviction that Dumbiedikes must needs be very ill indeed, since he
summoned them both to his presence at once. Ere the servant could usher
them to his apartment, the party was augmented by a man of law, Nichil
Novit, writing himself procurator before the sheriff-court, for in those
days there were no solicitors. This latter personage was first summoned
to the apartment of the Laird, where, after some short space, the
soul-curer and the body-curer were invited to join him.

Dumbiedikes had been by this time transported into the best bedroom, used
only upon occasions of death and marriage, and called, from the former of
these occupations, the Dead-Room. There were in this apartment, besides
the sick person himself and Mr. Novit, the son and heir of the patient, a
tall gawky silly-looking boy of fourteen or fifteen, and a housekeeper, a
good buxom figure of a woman, betwixt forty and fifty, who had kept the
keys and managed matters at Dumbiedikes since the lady's death. It was to
these attendants that Dumbiedikes addressed himself pretty nearly in the
following words; temporal and spiritual matters, the care of his health
and his affairs, being strangely jumbled in a head which was never one of
the clearest.

"These are sair times wi' me, gentlemen and neighbours! amaist as ill as
at the aughty-nine, when I was rabbled by the collegeaners.*

* Immediately previous to the Revolution, the students at the Edinburgh
College were violent anti-catholics. They were strongly suspected of
burning the house of Prestonfield, belonging to Sir James Dick, the Lord
Provost; and certainly were guilty of creating considerable riots in
1688-9.

--They mistook me muckle--they ca'd me a papist, but there was never a
papist bit about me, minister.--Jock, ye'll take warning--it's a debt we
maun a' pay, and there stands Nichil Novit that will tell ye I was never
gude at paying debts in my life.--Mr. Novit, ye'll no forget to draw the
annual rent that's due on the yerl's band--if I pay debt to other folk, I
think they suld pay it to me--that equals aquals.--Jock, when ye hae
naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; it will be
growing, Jock, when ye're sleeping.*

* The Author has been flattered by the assurance, that this _naive_ mode
of recommending arboriculture (which was actually delivered in these very
words by a Highland laird, while on his death-bed, to his son) had so
much weight with a Scottish earl as to lead to his planting a large tract
of country.

"My father tauld me sae forty years sin', but I ne'er fand time to mind
him--Jock, ne'er drink brandy in the morning, it files the stamach sair;
gin ye take a morning's draught, let it be aqua mirabilis; Jenny there
makes it weel--Doctor, my breath is growing as scant as a broken-winded
piper's, when he has played for four-and-twenty hours at a penny
wedding--Jenny, pit the cod aneath my head--but it's a' needless!--Mass
John, could ye think o' rattling ower some bit short prayer, it wad do
me gude maybe, and keep some queer thoughts out o' my head, Say
something, man."

"I cannot use a prayer like a rat-rhyme," answered the honest clergyman;
"and if you would have your soul redeemed like a prey from the fowler,
Laird, you must needs show me your state of mind."

"And shouldna ye ken that without my telling you?" answered the patient.
"What have I been paying stipend and teind, parsonage and vicarage, for,
ever sin' the aughty-nine, and I canna get a spell of a prayer for't, the
only time I ever asked for ane in my life?--Gang awa wi' your whiggery,
if that's a' ye can do; auld Curate Kilstoup wad hae read half the
prayer-book to me by this time--Awa wi' ye!--Doctor, let's see if ye can
do onything better for me."

The doctor, who had obtained some information in the meanwhile from the
housekeeper on the state of his complaints, assured him the medical art
could not prolong his life many hours.

"Then damn Mass John and you baith!" cried the furious and intractable
patient. "Did ye come here for naething but to tell me that ye canna help
me at the pinch? Out wi' them, Jenny--out o' the house! and, Jock, my
curse, and the curse of Cromwell, go wi' ye, if ye gie them either fee or
bountith, or sae muckle as a black pair o' cheverons!"*

*_Cheverons_--gloves.

The clergyman and doctor made a speedy retreat out of the apartment,
while Dumbiedikes fell into one of those transports of violent and
profane language, which had procured him the surname of Damn-me-dikes.
"Bring me the brandy bottle, Jenny, ye b--," he cried, with a voice in
which passion contended with pain. "I can die as I have lived, without
fashing ony o' them. But there's ae thing," he said, sinking his
voice--"there's ae fearful thing hings about my heart, and an anker of
brandy winna wash it away.--The Deanses at Woodend!--I sequestrated them
in the dear years, and now they are to flit, they'll starve--and that
Beersheba, and that auld trooper's wife and her oe, they'll
starve--they'll starve! --Look out, Jock; what kind o' night is't?"

"On-ding o' snaw, father," answered Jock, after having opened the window,
and looked out with great composure.

"They'll perish in the drifts!" said the expiring sinner--"they'll perish
wi' cauld!--but I'll be het eneugh, gin a' tales be true."

This last observation was made under breath, and in a tone which made the
very attorney shudder. He tried his hand at ghostly advice, probably for
the first time in his life, and recommended as an opiate for the agonised
conscience of the Laird, reparation of the injuries he had done to these
distressed families, which, he observed by the way, the civil law called
_restitutio in integrum._ But Mammon was struggling with Remorse for
retaining his place in a bosom he had so long possessed; and he partly
succeeded, as an old tyrant proves often too strong for his insurgent
rebels.

"I canna do't," he answered, with a voice of despair. "It would kill me
to do't--how can ye bid me pay back siller, when ye ken how I want it? or
dispone Beersheba, when it lies sae weel into my ain plaid-nuik? Nature
made Dumbiedikes and Beersheba to be ae man's land--She did, by Nichil,
it wad kill me to part them."

"But ye maun die whether or no, Laird," said Mr. Novit; "and maybe ye wad
die easier--it's but trying. I'll scroll the disposition in nae time."

"Dinna speak o't, sir," replied Dumbiedikes, "or I'll fling the stoup at
your head.--But, Jock, lad, ye see how the warld warstles wi' me on my
deathbed--be kind to the puir creatures, the Deanses and the Butlers--be
kind to them, Jock. Dinna let the warld get a grip o' ye, Jock--but keep
the gear thegither! and whate'er ye do, dispone Beersheba at no rate. Let
the creatures stay at a moderate mailing, and hae bite and soup; it will
maybe be the better wi' your father whare he's gaun, lad."

After these contradictory instructions, the Laird felt his mind so much
at ease, that he drank three bumpers of brandy continuously, and "soughed
awa," as Jenny expressed it, in an attempt to sing "Deil stick the
Minister."

His death made a revolution in favour of the distressed families. John
Dumbie, now of Dumbiedikes, in his own right, seemed to be close and
selfish enough, but wanted the grasping spirit and active mind of his
father; and his guardian happened to agree with him in opinion, that his
father's dying recommendation should be attended to. The tenants,
therefore, were not actually turned out of doors among the snow-wreaths,
and were allowed wherewith to procure butter-milk and peas-bannocks,
which they ate under the full force of the original malediction. The
cottage of Deans, called Woodend, was not very distant from that at
Beersheba. Formerly there had been but little intercourse between the
families. Deans was a sturdy Scotsman, with all sort of prejudices
against the southern, and the spawn of the southern. Moreover, Deans was,
as we have said, a stanch Presbyterian, of the most rigid and unbending
adherence to what he conceived to be the only possible straight line, as
he was wont to express himself, between right-hand heats and extremes and
left-hand defections; and, therefore, he held in high dread and horror
all Independents, and whomsoever he supposed allied to them.

But, notwithstanding these national prejudices and religious professions,
Deans and the widow Butler were placed in such a situation, as naturally
and at length created some intimacy between the families. They had shared
a common danger and a mutual deliverance. They needed each other's
assistance, like a company, who, crossing a mountain stream, are
compelled to cling close together, lest the current should be too
powerful for any who are not thus supported.

On nearer acquaintance, too, Deans abated some of his prejudices. He
found old Mrs. Butler, though not thoroughly grounded in the extent and
bearing of the real testimony against the defections of the times, had no
opinions in favour of the Independent party; neither was she an
Englishwoman. Therefore, it was to be hoped, that, though she was the
widow of an enthusiastic corporal of Cromwell's dragoons, her grandson
might be neither schismatic nor anti-national, two qualities concerning
which Goodman Deans had as wholesome a terror as against papists and
malignants, Above all (for Douce Davie Deans had his weak side), he
perceived that widow Butler looked up to him with reverence, listened to
his advice, and compounded for an occasional fling at the doctrines of
her deceased husbands to which, as we have seen, she was by no means
warmly attached, in consideration of the valuable counsels which the
Presbyterian afforded her for the management of her little farm. These
usually concluded with "they may do otherwise in England, neighbour
Butler, for aught I ken;" or, "it may be different in foreign parts;" or,
"they wha think differently on the great foundation of our covenanted
reformation, overturning and mishguggling the government and discipline
of the kirk, and breaking down the carved work of our Zion, might be for
sawing the craft wi' aits; but I say peace, peace." And as his advice was
shrewd and sensible, though conceitedly given, it was received with
gratitude, and followed with respect.

The intercourse which took place betwixt the families at Beersheba and
Woodend became strict and intimate, at a very early period, betwixt
Reuben Butler, with whom the reader is already in some degree acquainted,
and Jeanie Deans, the only child of Douce Davie Deans by his first wife,
"that singular Christian woman," as he was wont to express himself,
"whose name was savoury to all that knew her for a desirable professor,
Christian Menzies in Hochmagirdle." The manner of which intimacy, and the
consequences thereof, we now proceed to relate.




CHAPTER EIGHTH.


              Reuben and Rachel, though as fond as doves,
              Were yet discreet and cautious in their loves,
              Nor would attend to Cupid's wild commands,
              Till cool reflection bade them join their hands;
              When both were poor, they thought it argued ill
                Of hasty love to make them poorer still.
                                      Crabbe's _Parish Register._

While widow Butler and widower Deans struggled with poverty, and the hard
and sterile soil of "those parts and portions" of the lands of
Dumbiedikes which it was their lot to occupy, it became gradually
apparent that Deans was to gain the strife, and his ally in the conflict
was to lose it. The former was a Man, and not much past the prime of
life--Mrs. Butler a woman, and declined into the vale of years, This,
indeed, ought in time to have been balanced by the circumstance, that
Reuben was growing up to assist his grandmothers labours, and that Jeanie
Deans, as a girl, could be only supposed to add to her father's burdens.
But Douce Davie Deans know better things, and so schooled and trained the
young minion, as he called her, that from the time she could walk,
upwards, she was daily employed in some task or other, suitable to her
age and capacity; a circumstance which, added to her father's daily
instructions and lectures, tended to give her mind, even when a child, a
grave, serious, firm, and reflecting cast. An uncommonly strong and
healthy temperament, free from all nervous affection and every other
irregularity, which, attacking the body in its more noble functions, so
often influences the mind, tended greatly to establish this fortitude,
simplicity, and decision of character.

On the other hand, Reuben was weak in constitution, and, though not timid
in temper might be safely pronounced anxious, doubtful, and apprehensive.
He partook of the temperament of his mother, who had died of a
consumption in early age. He was a pale, thin, feeble, sickly boy, and
somewhat lame, from an accident in early youth. He was, besides, the
child of a doting grandmother, whose too solicitous attention to him soon
taught him a sort of diffidence in himself, with a disposition to
overrate his own importance, which is one of the very worst consequences
that children deduce from over-indulgence.

Still, however, the two children clung to each other's society, not more
from habit than from taste. They herded together the handful of sheep,
with the two or three cows, which their parents turned out rather to seek
food than actually to feed upon the unenclosed common of Dumbiedikes. It
was there that the two urchins might be seen seated beneath a blooming
bush of whin, their little faces laid close together under the shadow of
the same plaid drawn over both their heads, while the landscape around
was embrowned by an overshadowing cloud, big with the shower which had
driven the children to shelter. On other occasions they went together to
school, the boy receiving that encouragement and example from his
companion, in crossing the little brooks which intersected their path,
and encountering cattle, dogs, and other perils, upon their journey,
which the male sex in such cases usually consider it as their prerogative
to extend to the weaker. But when, seated on the benches of the
school-house, they began to con their lessons together, Reuben, who was
as much superior to Jeanie Deans in acuteness of intellect, as inferior
to her in firmness of constitution, and in that insensibility to fatigue
and danger which depends on the conformation of the nerves, was able
fully to requite the kindness and countenance with which, in other
circumstances, she used to regard him. He was decidedly the best scholar
at the little parish school; and so gentle was his temper and
disposition, that he was rather admired than envied by the little mob who
occupied the noisy mansion, although he was the declared favourite of the
master. Several girls, in particular (for in Scotland they are taught
with the boys), longed to be kind to and comfort the sickly lad, who was
so much cleverer than his companions. The character of Reuben Butler was
so calculated as to offer scope both for their sympathy and their
admiration, the feelings, perhaps, through which the female sex (the more
deserving part of them at least) is more easily attached.

But Reuben, naturally reserved and distant, improved none of these
advantages; and only became more attached to Jeanie Deans, as the
enthusiastic approbation of his master assured him of fair prospects in
future life, and awakened his ambition. In the meantime, every advance
that Reuben made in learning (and, considering his opportunities, they
were uncommonly great) rendered him less capable of attending to the
domestic duties of his grandmother's farm. While studying the _pons
asinorum_ in Euclid, he suffered every _cuddie_ upon the common to
trespass upon a large field of peas belonging to the Laird, and nothing
but the active exertions of Jeanie Deans, with her little dog Dustiefoot,
could have saved great loss and consequent punishment. Similar
miscarriages marked his progress in his classical studies. He read
Virgil's Georgics till he did not know bere from barley; and had nearly
destroyed the crofts of Beersheba while attempting to cultivate them
according to the practice of Columella and Cato the Censor.

These blunders occasioned grief to his grand-dame, and disconcerted the
good opinion which her neighbour, Davie Deans, had for some time
entertained of Reuben.

"I see naething ye can make of that silly callant, neighbour Butler,"
said he to the old lady, "unless ye train him to the wark o' the
ministry. And ne'er was there mair need of poorfu' preachers than e'en
now in these cauld Gallio days, when men's hearts are hardened like the
nether mill-stone, till they come to regard none of these things. It's
evident this puir callant of yours will never be able to do an usefu'
day's wark, unless it be as an ambassador from our Master; and I will
make it my business to procure a license when he is fit for the same,
trusting he will be a shaft cleanly polished, and meet to be used in the
body of the kirk; and that he shall not turn again, like the sow, to
wallow in the mire of heretical extremes and defections, but shall have
the wings of a dove, though he hath lain among the pots."

The poor widow gulped down the affront to her husband's principles,
implied in this caution, and hastened to take Butler from the High
School, and encourage him in the pursuit of mathematics and divinity, the
only physics and ethics that chanced to be in fashion at the time.

Jeanie Deans was now compelled to part from the companion of her labour,
her study, and her pastime, and it was with more than childish feeling
that both children regarded the separation. But they were young, and hope
was high, and they separated like those who hope to meet again at a more
auspicious hour. While Reuben Butler was acquiring at the University of
St. Andrews the knowledge necessary for a clergyman, and macerating his
body with the privations which were necessary in seeking food for his
mind, his grand-dame became daily less able to struggle with her little
farm, and was at length obliged to throw it up to the new Laird of
Dumbiedikes. That great personage was no absolute Jew, and did not cheat
her in making the bargain more than was tolerable. He even gave her
permission to tenant the house in which she had lived with her husband,
as long as it should be "tenantable;" only he protested against paying
for a farthing of repairs, any benevolence which he possessed being of
the passive, but by no means of the active mood.

In the meanwhile, from superior shrewdness, skill, and other
circumstances, some of them purely accidental, Davie Deans gained a
footing in the world, the possession of some wealth, the reputation of
more, and a growing disposition to preserve and increase his store; for
which, when he thought upon it seriously, he was inclined to blame
himself. From his knowledge in agriculture, as it was then practised, he
became a sort of favourite with the Laird, who had no great pleasure
either in active sports or in society, and was wont to end his daily
saunter by calling at the cottage of Woodend.

Being himself a man of slow ideas and confused utterance, Dumbiedikes
used to sit or stand for half-an-hour with an old laced hat of his
father's upon his head, and an empty tobacco-pipe in his mouth, with his
eyes following Jeanie Deans, or "the lassie" as he called her, through
the course of her daily domestic labour; while her father, after
exhausting the subject of bestial, of ploughs, and of harrows, often took
an opportunity of going full-sail into controversial subjects, to which
discussions the dignitary listened with much seeming patience, but
without making any reply, or, indeed, as most people thought, without
understanding a single word of what the orator was saying. Deans, indeed,
denied this stoutly, as an insult at once to his own talents for
expounding hidden truths, of which he was a little vain, and to the
Laird's capacity of understanding them. He said, "Dumbiedikes was nane of
these flashy gentles, wi' lace on their skirts and swords at their tails,
that were rather for riding on horseback to hell than gauging barefooted
to heaven. He wasna like his father--nae profane company-keeper--nae
swearer--nae drinker--nae frequenter of play-house, or music-house, or
dancing-house--nae Sabbath-breaker--nae imposer of aiths, or bonds, or
denier of liberty to the flock.--He clave to the warld, and the warld's
gear, a wee ower muckle, but then there was some breathing of a gale upon
his spirit," etc. etc. All this honest Davie said and believed.

It is not to be supposed, that, by a father and a man of sense and
observation, the constant direction of the Laird's eyes towards Jeanie
was altogether unnoticed. This circumstance, however, made a much greater
impression upon another member of his family, a second helpmate, to wit,
whom he had chosen to take to his bosom ten years after the death of his
first. Some people were of opinion, that Douce Davie had been rather
surprised into this step, for, in general, he was no friend to marriages
or giving in marriage, and seemed rather to regard that state of society
as a necessary evil,--a thing lawful, and to be tolerated in the
imperfect state of our nature, but which clipped the wings with which we
ought to soar upwards, and tethered the soul to its mansion of clay, and
the creature-comforts of wife and bairns. His own practice, however, had
in this material point varied from his principles, since, as we have
seen, he twice knitted for himself this dangerous and ensnaring
entanglement.

Rebecca, his spouse, had by no means the same horror of matrimony, and as
she made marriages in imagination for every neighbour round, she failed
not to indicate a match betwixt Dumbiedikes and her step-daughter Jeanie.
The goodman used regularly to frown and pshaw whenever this topic was
touched upon, but usually ended by taking his bonnet and walking out of
the house, to conceal a certain gleam of satisfaction, which, at such a
suggestion, involuntarily diffused itself over his austere features.

The more youthful part of my readers may naturally ask, whether Jeanie
Deans was deserving of this mute attention of the Laird of Dumbiedikes;
and the historian, with due regard to veracity, is compelled to answer,
that her personal attractions were of no uncommon description. She was
short, and rather too stoutly made for her size, had grey eyes, light
coloured hair, a round good-humoured face, much tanned with the sun, and
her only peculiar charm was an air of inexpressible serenity, which a
good conscience, kind feelings, contented temper, and the regular
discharge of all her duties, spread over her features. There was nothing,
it may be supposed, very appalling in the form or manners of this rustic
heroine; yet, whether from sheepish bashfulness, or from want of decision
and imperfect knowledge of his own mind on the subject, the Laird of
Dumbiedikes, with his old laced hat and empty tobacco-pipe, came and
enjoyed the beatific vision of Jeanie Deans day after day, week after
week, year after year, without proposing to accomplish any of the
prophecies of the stepmother.

This good lady began to grow doubly impatient on the subject, when, after
having been some years married, she herself presented Douce Davie with
another daughter, who was named Euphemia, by corruption, Effie. It was
then that Rebecca began to turn impatient with the slow pace at which the
Laird's wooing proceeded, judiciously arguing, that, as Lady Dumbiedikes
would have but little occasion for tocher, the principal part of her
gudeman's substance would naturally descend to the child by the second
marriage. Other step-dames have tried less laudable means for clearing
the way to the succession of their own children; but Rebecca, to do her
justice, only sought little Effie's advantage through the promotion, or
which must have generally been accounted such, of her elder sister. She
therefore tried every female art within the compass of her simple skill,
to bring the Laird to a point; but had the mortification to perceive that
her efforts, like those of an unskilful angler, only scared the trout she
meant to catch. Upon one occasion, in particular, when she joked with the
Laird on the propriety of giving a mistress to the house of Dumbiedikes,
he was so effectually startled, that neither laced hat, tobacco-pipe, nor
the intelligent proprietor of these movables, visited Woodend for a
fortnight. Rebecca was therefore compelled to leave the Laird to proceed
at his own snail's pace, convinced, by experience, of the grave-digger's
aphorism, that your dull ass will not mend his pace for beating.

Reuben, in the meantime, pursued his studies at the university, supplying
his wants by teaching the younger lads the knowledge he himself acquired,
and thus at once gaining the means of maintaining himself at the seat of
learning, and fixing in his mind the elements of what he had already
obtained. In this manner, as is usual among the poorer students of
divinity at Scottish universities, he contrived not only to maintain
himself according to his simple wants, but even to send considerable
assistance to his sole remaining parent, a sacred duty, of which the
Scotch are seldom negligent. His progress in knowledge of a general kind,
as well as in the studies proper to his profession, was very
considerable, but was little remarked, owing to the retired modesty of
his disposition, which in no respect qualified him to set off his
learning to the best advantage. And thus, had Butler been a man given to
make complaints, he had his tale to tell, like others, of unjust
preferences, bad luck, and hard usage. On these subjects, however, he was
habitually silent, perhaps from modesty, perhaps from a touch of pride,
or perhaps from a conjunction of both.

He obtained his license as a preacher of the gospel, with some
compliments from the Presbytery by whom it was bestowed; but this did not
lead to any preferment, and he found it necessary to make the cottage at
Beersheba his residence for some months, with no other income than was
afforded by the precarious occupation of teaching in one or other of the
neighbouring families. After having greeted his aged grandmother, his
first visit was to Woodend, where he was received by Jeanie with warm
cordiality, arising from recollections which had never been dismissed
from her mind, by Rebecca with good-humoured hospitality, and by old
Deans in a mode peculiar to himself.

Highly as Douce Davie honoured the clergy, it was not upon each
individual of the cloth that he bestowed his approbation; and, a little
jealous, perhaps, at seeing his youthful acquaintance erected into the
dignity of a teacher and preacher, he instantly attacked him upon various
points of controversy, in order to discover whether he might not have
fallen into some of the snares, defections, and desertions of the time.
Butler was not only a man of stanch Presbyterian principles, but was also
willing to avoid giving pain to his old friend by disputing upon points
of little importance; and therefore he might have hoped to have come like
fine gold out of the furnace of Davie's interrogatories. But the result
on the mind of that strict investigator was not altogether so favourable
as might have been hoped and anticipated. Old Judith Butler, who had
hobbled that evening as far as Woodend, in order to enjoy the
congratulations of her neighbours upon Reuben's return, and upon his high
attainments, of which she was herself not a little proud, was somewhat
mortified to find that her old friend Deans did not enter into the
subject with the warmth she expected. At first, in he seemed rather
silent than dissatisfied; and it was not till Judith had essayed the
subject more than once that it led to the following dialogue.

"Aweel, neibor Deans, I thought ye wad hae been glad to see Reuben amang
us again, poor fellow."

"I _am_ glad, Mrs. Butler," was the neighbour's concise answer.

"Since he has lost his grandfather and his father (praised be Him that
giveth and taketh!), I ken nae friend he has in the world that's been sae
like a father to him as the sell o'ye, neibor Deans."

"God is the only father of the fatherless," said Deans, touching his
bonnet and looking upwards. "Give honour where it is due, gudewife, and
not to an unworthy instrument."

"Aweel, that's your way o' turning it, and nae doubt ye ken best; but I
hae ken'd ye, Davie, send a forpit o' meal to Beersheba when there wasna
a bow left in the meal-ark at Woodend; ay, and I hae ken'd ye"

"Gudewife," said Davie, interrupting her, "these are but idle tales to
tell me; fit for naething but to puff up our inward man wi' our ain vain
acts. I stude beside blessed Alexander Peden, when I heard him call the
death and testimony of our happy martyrs but draps of blude and scarts of
ink in respect of fitting discharge of our duty; and what suld I think of
ony thing the like of me can do?"

"Weel, neibor Deans, ye ken best; but I maun say that, I am sure you are
glad to see my bairn again--the halt's gane now, unless he has to walk
ower mony miles at a stretch; and he has a wee bit colour in his cheek,
that glads my auld een to see it; and he has as decent a black coat as
the minister; and"

"I am very heartily glad he is weel and thriving," said Mr. Deans, with a
gravity that seemed intended to cut short the subject; but a woman who is
bent upon a point is not easily pushed aside from it.

"And," continued Mrs. Butler, "he can wag his head in a pulpit now,
neibor Deans, think but of that--my ain oe--and a'body maun sit still and
listen to him, as if he were the Paip of Rome."

"The what?--the who?--woman!" said Deans, with a sternness far beyond his
usual gravity, as soon as these offensive words had struck upon the
tympanum of his ear.

"Eh, guide us!" said the poor woman; "I had forgot what an ill will ye
had aye at the Paip, and sae had my puir gudeman, Stephen Butler. Mony an
afternoon he wad sit and take up his testimony again the Paip, and again
baptizing of bairns, and the like."

"Woman!" reiterated Deans, "either speak about what ye ken something o',
or be silent; I say that independency is a foul heresy, and anabaptism a
damnable and deceiving error, whilk suld be rooted out of the land wi'
the fire o' the spiritual, and the sword o' the civil magistrate."

"Weel, weel, neibor, I'll no say that ye mayna be right," answered the
submissive Judith. "I am sure ye are right about the sawing and the
mawing, the shearing and the leading, and what for suld ye no be right
about kirkwark, too?--But concerning my oe, Reuben Butler"

"Reuben Butler, gudewife," said David, with solemnity, "is a lad I wish
heartily weel to, even as if he were mine ain son--but I doubt there will
be outs and ins in the track of his walk. I muckle fear his gifts will
get the heels of his grace. He has ower muckle human wit and learning,
and thinks as muckle about the form of the bicker as he does about the
healsomeness of the food--he maun broider the marriage-garment with lace
and passments, or it's no gude eneugh for him. And it's like he's
something proud o' his human gifts and learning, whilk enables him to
dress up his doctrine in that fine airy dress. But," added he, at seeing
the old woman's uneasiness at his discourse, "affliction may gie him a
jagg, and let the wind out o' him, as out o' a cow that's eaten wet
clover, and the lad may do weel, and be a burning and a shining light;
and I trust it will be yours to see, and his to feel it, and that soon."

Widow Butler was obliged to retire, unable to make anything more of her
neighbour, whose discourse, though she did not comprehend it, filled her
with undefined apprehensions on her grandson's account, and greatly
depressed the joy with which she had welcomed him on his return. And it
must not be concealed, in justice to Mr. Deans's discernment, that
Butler, in their conference, had made a greater display of his learning
than the occasion called for, or than was likely to be acceptable to the
old man, who, accustomed to consider himself as a person preeminently
entitled to dictate upon theological subjects of controversy, felt rather
humbled and mortified when learned authorities were placed in array
against him. In fact, Butler had not escaped the tinge of pedantry which
naturally flowed from his education, and was apt, on many occasions, to
make parade of his knowledge, when there was no need of such vanity.

Jeanie Deans, however, found no fault with this display of learning, but,
on the contrary, admired it; perhaps on the same score that her sex are
said to admire men of courage, on account of their own deficiency in that
qualification. The circumstances of their families threw the young people
constantly together; their old intimacy was renewed, though upon a
footing better adapted to their age; and it became at length understood
betwixt them, that their union should be deferred no longer than until
Butler should obtain some steady means of support, however humble. This,
however, was not a matter speedily to be accomplished. Plan after plan
was formed, and plan after plan failed. The good-humoured cheek of Jeanie
lost the first flush of juvenile freshness; Reuben's brow assumed the
gravity of manhood, yet the means of obtaining a settlement seemed remote
as ever. Fortunately for the lovers, their passion was of no ardent or
enthusiastic cast; and a sense of duty on both sides induced them to
bear, with patient fortitude, the protracted interval which divided them
from each other.