'This is an extraordinary, and not a very probable tale, young woman,' resumed Mr. Staunton. 'Here has been, according to your account, a great violence committed without any adequate motive. Are you aware of the law of this country—that if you lodge this charge, you will be bound over to prosecute this gang?'
Jeanie did not understand him, and he explained, that the English law, in addition to the inconvenience sustained by persons who have been robbed or injured, has the goodness to intrust to them the care and the expense of appearing as prosecutors.
Jeanie said, 'that her business at London was express; all she wanted was, that any gentleman would, out of Christian charity, protect her to some town where she could hire horses and a guide; and finally,' she thought, 'it would be her father's mind that she was not free to give testimony in an English court of justice, as the land was not under a direct gospel dispensation.'
Mr. Staunton stared a little, and asked if her father was a Quaker.
'God forbid, sir,' said Jeanie—'He is nae schismatic nor sectary, nor ever treated for sic black commodities as theirs, and that's weel kend o' him.'
'And what is his name, pray?' said Mr. Staunton.
'David Deans, sir, the cowfeeder at Saint Leonard's Crags, near Edinburgh.'
A deep groan from the anteroom prevented the Rector from replying, and, exclaiming, 'Good God! that unhappy boy!' he left Jeanie alone, and hastened into the outer apartment.
Some noise and bustle was heard, but no one entered the library for the best part of an hour.
CHAPTER NINTH.
During the interval while she was thus left alone, Jeanie anxiously revolved in her mind what course was best for her to pursue. She was impatient to continue her journey, yet she feared she could not safely adventure to do so while the old hag and her assistants were in the neighbourhood, without risking a repetition of their violence. She thought she could collect from the conversation which she had partly overheard, and also from the wild confessions of Madge Wildfire, that her mother had a deep and revengeful motive for obstructing her journey if possible. And from whom could she hope for assistance if not from Mr. Staunton? His whole appearance and demeanour seemed to encourage her hopes. His features were handsome, though marked with a deep cast of melancholy; his tone and language were gentle and encouraging; and, as he had served in the army for several years during his youth, his air retained that easy frankness which is peculiar to the profession of arms. He was, besides, a minister of the gospel; and, although a worshipper, according to Jeanie's notions, in the court of the Gentiles, and so benighted as to wear a surplice; although he read the Common Prayer, and wrote down every word of his sermon before delivering it; and although he was, moreover, in strength of lungs, as well as pith and marrow of doctrine, vastly inferior to Boanerges Stormheaven, Jeanie still thought he must be a very different person from Curate Kilstoup, and other prelatical divines of her father's earlier days, who used to get drunk in their canonical dress, and hound out the dragoons against the wandering Cameronians. The house seemed to be in some disturbance, but as she could not suppose she was altogether forgotten, she thought it better to remain quiet in the apartment where she had been left, till some one should take notice of her.
The first who entered was, to her no small delight, one of her own sex, a motherly-looking aged person of a housekeeper. To her Jeanie explained her situation in a few words, and begged her assistance.
The dignity of a housekeeper did not encourage too much familiarity with a person who was at the Rectory on justice-business, and whose character might seem in her eyes somewhat precarious; but she was civil, although distant.
'Her young master,' she said, 'had had a bad accident by a fall from his horse, which made him liable to fainting fits; he had been taken very ill just now, and it was impossible his Reverence could see Jeanie for some time; but that she need not fear his doing all that was just and proper in her behalf the instant he could get her business attended to.'—She concluded by offering to show Jeanie a room, where she might remain till his Reverence was at leisure.
Our heroine took the opportunity to request the means of adjusting and changing her dress.
The housekeeper, in whose estimation order and cleanliness ranked high among personal virtues, gladly complied with a request so reasonable; and the change of dress which Jeanie's bundle furnished made so important an improvement in her appearance, that the old lady hardly knew the soiled and disordered traveller, whose attire showed the violence she had sustained, in the neat, clean, quiet-looking little Scotch-woman, who now stood before her. Encouraged by such a favourable alteration in her appearance, Mrs. Dalton ventured to invite Jeanie to partake of her dinner, and was equally pleased with the decent propriety of her conduct during the meal.
'Thou canst read this book, canst thou, young woman?' said the old lady, when their meal was concluded, laying her hand upon a large Bible.
'I hope sae, madam,' said Jeanie, surprised at the question 'my father wad hae wanted mony a thing ere I had wanted
'The better sign of him, young woman. There are men here, well to pass in the world, would not want their share of a Leicester plover, and that's a bag-pudding, if fasting for three hours would make all their poor children read the Bible from end to end. Take thou the book, then, for my eyes are something dazed, and read where thou listest—it's the only book thou canst not happen wrong in.'
Jeanie was at first tempted to turn up the parable of the good Samaritan, but her conscience checked her, as if it were a use of Scripture, not for her own edification, but to work upon the mind of others for the relief of her worldly afflictions; and under this scrupulous sense of duty, she selected, in preference, a CHAPTER of the prophet Isaiah, and read it, notwithstanding her northern' accent and tone, with a devout propriety, which greatly edified Mrs. Dalton.
'Ah,' she said, 'an all Scotchwomen were sic as thou but it was our luck to get born devils of thy country, I think—every one worse than t'other. If thou knowest of any tidy lass like thysell that wanted a place, and could bring a good character, and would not go laiking about to wakes and fairs, and wore shoes and stockings all the day round—why, I'll not say but we might find room for her at the Rectory. Hast no cousin or sister, lass, that such an offer would suit?'
This was touching upon a sore point, but Jeanie was spared the pain of replying by the entrance of the same man-servant she had seen before.
'Measter wishes to see the young woman from Scotland,' was Tummas's address.
'Go to his Reverence, my dear, as fast as you can, and tell him all your story—his Reverence is a kind man,' said Mrs. Dalton. 'I will fold down the leaf, and wake you a cup of tea, with some nice muffin, against you come down, and that's what you seldom see in Scotland, girl.'
'Measter's waiting for the young woman,' said Tummas impatiently.
