The Heart of Mid-Lothian

'Torment me not with questions which can serve no purpose,' he sternly replied—'The deed was done by those who are far enough from pursuit, and safe enough from discovery!—No one can save Effie but yourself.'

'Woe's me! how is it in my power?' asked Jeanie, in despondency.

'Hearken to me!—You have sense—you can apprehend my meaning—I will trust you. Your sister is innocent of the crime charged against her—'

'Thank God for that!' said Jeanie.

'Be still and hearken!—The person who assisted her in her illness murdered the child; but it was without the mother's knowledge or consent—She is therefore guiltless, as guiltless as the unhappy innocent, that but gasped a few minutes in this unhappy world—the better was its hap, to be so soon at rest. She is innocent as that infant, and yet she must die—it is impossible to clear her of the law!'

'Cannot the wretches be discovered, and given up to punishment?' said Jeanie.

'Do you think you will persuade those who are hardened in guilt to die to save another?—Is that the reed you would lean to?'

'But you said there was a remedy,' again gasped out the terrified young woman.

'There is,' answered the stranger, 'and it is in your own hands. The blow which the law aims cannot be broken by directly encountering it, but it may be turned aside. You saw your sister during the period preceding the birth of her child—what is so natural as that she should have mentioned her condition to you? The doing so would, as their cant goes, take the case from under the statute, for it removes the quality of concealment. I know their jargon, and have had sad cause to know it; and the quality of concealment is essential to this statutory offence.[K]

Nothing is so natural as that Effie should have mentioned her condition to you—think—reflect—I am positive that she did.'

'Woe's me!' said Jeanie, 'she never spoke to me on the subject, but grat sorely when I spoke to her about her altered looks, and the change on her spirits.'

'You asked her questions on the subject?' he said eagerly. 'You must remember her answer was, a confession that she had been ruined by a villain—yes, lay a strong emphasis on that—a cruel false villain call it—any other name is unnecessary; and that she bore under her bosom the consequences of his guilt and her folly; and that he had assured her he would provide safely for her approaching illness.—Well he kept his word!' These last words he spoke as if it were to himself, and with a violent gesture of self-accusation, and then calmly proceeded, 'You will remember all this?—That is all that is necessary to be said.'

'But I cannot remember,' answered Jeanie, with simplicity, 'that which Effie never told me.'

'Are you so dull—so very dull of apprehension?' he exclaimed, suddenly grasping her arm, and holding it firm in his hand. 'I tell you' (speaking between his teeth, and under his breath, but with great energy), 'you must remember that she told you all this, whether she ever said a syllable of it or no. You must repeat this tale, in which there is no falsehood, except in so far as it was not told to you, before these Justices—Justiciary—whatever they call their bloodthirsty court, and save your sister from being murdered, and them from becoming murderers. Do not hesitate—I pledge life and salvation, that in saying what I have said, you will only speak the simple truth.'

'But,' replied Jeanie, whose judgment was too accurate not to see the sophistry of this argument, 'I shall be man-sworn in the very thing in which my testimony is wanted, for it is the concealment for which poor Effie is blamed, and you would make me tell a falsehood anent it.'

'I see,' he said, 'my first suspicions of you were right, and that you will let your sister, innocent, fair, and guiltless, except in trusting a villain, die the death of a murderess, rather than bestow the breath of your mouth and the sound of your voice to save her.'

'I wad ware the best blood in my body to keep her skaithless,' said Jeanie, weeping in bitter agony, 'but I canna change right into wrang, or make that true which is false.'

'Foolish, hardhearted girl,' said the stranger, 'are you afraid of what they may do to you? I tell you, even the retainers of the law, who course life as greyhounds do hares, will rejoice at the escape of a creature so young—so beautiful, that they will not suspect your tale; that, if they did suspect it, they would consider you as deserving, not only of forgiveness, but of praise for your natural affection.'

'It is not man I fear,' said Jeanie, looking upward; 'the God, whose name I must call on to witness the truth of what I say, he will know the falsehood.'

'And he will know the motive,' said the stranger, eagerly; 'he will know that you are doing this—not for lucre of gain, but to save the life of the innocent, and prevent the commission of a worse crime than that which the law seeks to avenge.'

'He has given us a law,' said Jeanie, 'for the lamp of our path; if we stray from it we err against knowledge—I may not do evil, even that good may come out of it. But you—you that ken all this to be true, which I must take on your word—you that, if I understood what you said e'en now, promised her shelter and protection in her travail, why do not you step forward, and bear leal and soothfast evidence in her behalf, as ye may with a clear conscience?'

'To whom do you talk of a clear conscience, woman?' said he, with a sudden fierceness which renewed her terrors,—'to me?—I have not known one for many a year. Bear witness in her behalf?—a proper witness, that even to speak these few words to a woman of so little consequence as yourself, must choose such an hour and such a place as this. When you see owls and bats fly abroad, like larks, in the sunshine, you may expect to see such as I am in the assemblies of men.—Hush—listen to that.'

A voice was heard to sing one of those wild and monotonous strains so common in Scotland, and to which the natives of that country chant their old ballads. The sound ceased—then came nearer, and was renewed; the stranger listened attentively, still holding Jeanie by the arm (as she stood by him in motionless terror), as if to prevent her interrupting the strain by speaking or stirring. When the sounds were renewed, the words were distinctly audible:

                 'When the glede's in the blue cloud,
                        The lavrock lies still;
                  When the hound's in' the green-wood,
                       The hind keeps the hill.'

The person who sung kept a strained and powerful voice at its highest pitch, so that it could be heard at a very considerable distance. As the song ceased, they might hear a stifled sound, as of steps and whispers of persons approaching them. The song was again raised, but the tune was changed:

                '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.'

'I dare stay no longer,' said the stranger; 'return home, or remain till they come up—you have nothing to fear—but do not tell you saw me—your sister's fate is in your hands.' So saying, he turned from her, and with a swift, yet cautiously noiseless step, plunged into the darkness on the side most remote from the sounds which they heard approaching, and was soon lost to her sight. Jeanie remained by the cairn terrified beyond expression, and uncertain whether she ought to fly homeward with all the speed she could exert, or wait the approach of those who were advancing towards her. This uncertainty detained her so long, that she now distinctly saw two or three figures already so near to her, that a precipitate flight would have been equally fruitless and impolitic.