The Heart of Mid-Lothian

who had taken advantage of the confusion introduced by the civil war, the general discontent of the mountaineers, and the unsettled state of police, to practise their plundering trade with more audacity. Sir George next inquired into their lives, their habits, whether the violences which they committed were not sometimes atoned for by acts of generosity, and whether they did not possess the virtues as well as the vices of savage tribes?

Butler answered, that certainly they did sometimes show sparks of generosity, of which even the worst class of malefactors are seldom utterly divested; but that their evil propensities were certain and regular principles of action, while any occasional burst of virtuous feeling was only a transient impulse not to be reckoned upon, and excited probably by some singular and unusual concatenation of circumstances. In discussing these inquiries, which Sir George pursued with an apparent eagerness that rather surprised Butler, the latter chanced to mention the name of Donacha dhu na Dunaigh, with which the reader is already acquainted. Sir George caught the sound up eagerly, and as if it conveyed particular interest to his ear. He made the most minute inquiries concerning the man whom he mentioned, the number of his gang, and even the appearance of those who belonged to it. Upon these points Butler could give little answer. The man had a name among the lower class, but his exploits were considerably exaggerated; he had always one or two fellows with him, but never aspired to the command of above three or four. In short, he knew little about him, and the small acquaintance he had had by no means inclined him to desire more.

'Nevertheless, I should like to see him some of these days.'

'That would be a dangerous meeting, Sir George, unless you mean we are to see him receive his deserts from the law, and then it were a melancholy one.'

'Use every man according to his deserts, Mr. Butler, and who shall escape whipping? But I am talking riddles to you. I will explain them more fully to you when I have spoken over the subject with Lady Staunton.—Pull away, my lads,' he added, addressing himself to the rowers; 'the clouds threaten us with a storm.'

In fact, the dead and heavy closeness of the air, the huge piles of clouds which assembled in the western horizon, and glowed like a furnace under the influence of the setting sun—that awful stillness in which nature seems to expect the thunder-burst, as a condemned soldier waits for the platoon fire which is to stretch him on the earth, all betokened a speedy storm. Large broad drops fell from time to time, and induced the gentlemen to assume the boat-cloaks; but the rain again ceased, and the oppressive heat, so unusual in Scotland in the end of May, inclined them to throw them aside. 'There is something solemn in this delay of the storm,' said Sir George; 'it seems as if it suspended its peal till it solemnised some important event in the world below.'

'Alas!' replied Butler, 'what are we that the laws of nature should correspond in their march with our ephemeral deeds or sufferings! The clouds will burst when surcharged with the electric fluid, whether a goat is falling at that instant from the cliffs of Arran, or a hero expiring on the field of battle he has won.'

'The mind delights to deem it otherwise,' said Sir George Staunton; 'and to dwell on the fate of humanity as on that which is the prime central movement of the mighty machine. We love not to think that we shall mix with the ages that have gone before us, as these broad black raindrops mingle with the waste of waters, making a trifling and momentary eddy, and are then lost for ever.'

'For ever!—we are not—we cannot be lost for ever,' said Butler, looking upward; 'death is to us change, not consummation; and the commencement of a new existence, corresponding in character to the deeds which we have done in the body.'

While they agitated these grave subjects, to which the solemnity of the approaching storm naturally led them, their voyage threatened to be more tedious than they expected, for gusts of wind, which rose and fell with sudden impetuosity, swept the bosom of the firth, and impeded the efforts of the rowers. They had now only to double a small headland, in order to get to the proper landing-place in the mouth of the little river; but in the state of the weather, and the boat being heavy, this was like to be a work of time, and in the meanwhile they must necessarily be exposed to the storm.

'Could we not land on this side of the headland,' asked Sir George, 'and so gain some shelter?'

Butler knew of no landing-place, at least none affording a convenient or even practicable passage up the rocks which surrounded the shore.

'Think again,' said Sir George Staunton; 'the storm will soon be violent.'

'Hout, ay,' said one of the boatmen, 'there's the Caird's Cove; but we dinna tell the minister about it, and I am no sure if I can steer the boat to it, the bay is sae fa' o' shoals and sunk rocks.'

'Try,' said Sir George, 'and I will give you half-a-guinea.'

The old fellow took the helm, and observed, 'That, if they could get in, there was a steep path up from the beach, and half-an-hour's walk from thence to the Manse.'

'Are you sure you know the way?' said Butler to the old man.

'I maybe kend it a wee better fifteen years syne, when Dandie Wilson was in the firth wi' his clean-ganging lugger. I mind Dandie had a wild young Englisher wi' him, that they ca'd—'

'If you chatter so much,' said Sir George Staunton, 'you will have the boat on the Grindstone—bring that white rock in a line with the steeple.'

'By G—,' said the veteran, staring, 'I think your honour kens the bay as weel as me.—Your honour's nose has been on the Grindstone ere now, I'm thinking.'

As they spoke thus, they approached the little cove, which, concealed behind crags, and defended on every point by shallows and sunken rocks, could scarce be discovered or approached, except by those intimate with the navigation. An old shattered boat was already drawn up on the beach within the cove, close beneath the trees, and with precautions for concealment.

Upon observing this vessel, Butler remarked to his companion, 'It is impossible for you to conceive, Sir George, the difficulty I have had with my poor people, in teaching them the guilt and the danger of this contraband trade—yet they have perpetually before their eyes all its dangerous consequences. I do not know anything that more effectually depraves and ruins their moral and religious principles.'

Sir George forced himself to say something in a low voice about the spirit of adventure natural to youth, and that unquestionably many would become wiser as they grew older.

'Too seldom, sir,' replied Butler. 'If they have been deeply engaged, and especially if they, have mingled in the scenes of violence and blood to which their occupation naturally leads, I have observed, that, sooner or later, they come to an evil end. Experience, as well as Scripture, teaches us, Sir George, that mischief shall hunt the violent man, and that the bloodthirsty man shall not live half his days—But take my arm to help you ashore.'

Sir George needed assistance, for he was contrasting in his altered thought the different feelings of mind and frame with which he had formerly frequented the same place. As they landed, a low growl of thunder was heard at a distance.

'That is ominous, Mr. Butler,' said Sir George.

'Intonuit laevum—it is ominous of good, then,' answered Butler, smiling.

The boatmen were ordered to make the best of their way round the headland to the ordinary landing- place; the two gentlemen, followed by their servant, sought their way by a blind and tangled path, through a close copsewood, to the Manse of Knocktarlitie, where their arrival was anxiously expected.

The sisters in vain had expected their husbands' return on the preceding day, which was that appointed by Sir George's letter. The delay of the travellers at Calder had occasioned this breach of appointment. The inhabitants of the Manse began even to doubt whether they would arrive on the present day. Lady Staunton felt this hope of delay as a brief reprieve, for she dreaded the pangs which her husband's pride must undergo at meeting with a sister-in-law, to whom the whole of his unhappy and dishonourable history was too well known. She knew, whatever force or constraint he might put upon his feelings in public, that she herself must be doomed to see them display themselves in full vehemence in secret,—consume his health, destroy his temper, and render him at once an object of dread and compassion. Again and again she cautioned Jeanie to display no tokens of recognition, but to receive him as a perfect stranger,—and again and again Jeanie renewed her promise to comply with her wishes.

Jeanie herself could not fail to bestow an anxious thought on the awkwardness of the approaching meeting; but her conscience was ungalled—and then she was cumbered with many household cares of an unusual nature, which, joined to the anxious wish once more to see Butler, after an absence of unusual length, made her extremely desirous that the travellers should arrive as soon as possible. And—why should I disguise the truth?— ever and anon a thought stole across her mind that her gala dinner had now been postponed for two days; and how few of the dishes, after every art of her simple cuisine had been exerted to dress them, could with any credit