The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete by Walter Scott (books to read in your 20s txt) 📕

Jeanie Deans possessed, with her excellently clear understanding, the concomitant advantage of promptitude of spirit, even in the extremity of distress.

She did not suffer herself to be overcome by her own feelings of exquisite sorrow, but instantly applied herself to her sister’s relief, with the readiest remedies which circumstances afforded; and which, to do Ratcliffe justice, he showed himself anxious to suggest, and alert in procuring. He had even the delicacy to withdraw to the farthest corner of the room, so as to render his official attendance upon them as little intrusive as possible, when Effie was composed enough again to resume her conference with her sister.

The prisoner once more, in the most earnest and broken tones, conjured Jeanie to tell her the particulars of the conference with Robertson, and Jeanie felt it was impossible to refuse her this gratification.

“Do ye mind,” she said, “Effie, when ye were in the fever before we left Woodend, and how angry your mother, that’s now in a better place, was wi’ me for gieing ye milk and water to drink, because ye grat for it? Ye were a bairn then, and ye are a woman now, and should ken better than ask what canna but hurt you—But come weal or woe, I canna refuse ye onything that ye ask me wi’ the tear in your ee.”

Again Effie threw herself into her arms, and kissed her cheek and forehead, murmuring, “O, if ye kend how lang it is since I heard his name mentioned?—if ye but kend how muckle good it does me but to ken onything o’ him, that’s like goodness or kindness, ye wadna wonder that I wish to hear o’ him!”

Jeanie sighed, and commenced her narrative of all that had passed betwixt Robertson and her, making it as brief as possible. Effie listened in breathless anxiety, holding her sister’s hand in hers, and keeping her eye fixed upon her face, as if devouring every word she uttered. The interjections of “Poor fellow,”—“Poor George,” which escaped in whispers, and betwixt sighs, were the only sounds with which she interrupted the story. When it was finished she made a long pause.

“And this was his advice?” were the first words she uttered.

“Just sic as I hae tell’d ye,” replied her sister.

“And he wanted you to say something to yon folks, that wad save my young life?”

“He wanted,” answered Jeanie, “that I suld be man-sworn.”

“And you tauld him,” said Effie, “that ye wadna hear o’ coming between me and the death that I am to die, and me no aughten year auld yet?”

“I told him,” replied Jeanie, who now trembled at the turn which her sister’s reflection seemed about to take, “that I daured na swear to an untruth.”

“And what d’ye ca’ an untruth?” said Effie, again showing a touch of her former spirit—“Ye are muckle to blame, lass, if ye think a mother would, or could, murder her ain bairn—Murder!—I wad hae laid down my life just to see a blink o’ its ee!”

“I do believe,” said Jeanie, “that ye are as innocent of sic a purpose as the new-born babe itsell.”

“I am glad ye do me that justice,” said Effie, haughtily; “ifs whiles the faut of very good folk like you, Jeanie, that, they think a’ the rest of the warld are as bad as the warst temptations can make them.”

“I didna deserve this frae ye, Effie,” said her sister, sobbing, and feeling at once the injustice of the reproach, and compassion for the state of mind which dictated it.

“Maybe no, sister,” said Effie. “But ye are angry because I love Robertson—How can I help loving him, that loves me better than body and soul baith?—Here he put his life in a niffer, to break the prison to let me out; and sure am I, had it stude wi’ him as it stands wi’ you”—Here she paused and was silent.

“O, if it stude wi’ me to save ye wi’ risk of my life!” said Jeanie.

“Ay, lass,” said her sister, “that’s lightly said, but no sae lightly credited, frae ane that winna ware a word for me; and if it be a wrang word, ye’ll hae time eneugh to repent o’t.”

“But that word is a grievous sin, and it’s a deeper offence when it’s a sin wilfully and presumptuously committed.”

“Weel, weel, Jeanie,” said Effie, “I mind a’ about the sins o’ presumption in the questions—we’ll speak nae mair about this matter, and ye may save your breath to say your carritch and for me, I’ll soon hae nae breath to waste on onybody.”

“I must needs say,” interposed Ratcliffe, “that it’s d—d hard, when three words of your mouth would give the girl the chance to nick Moll Blood,* that you make such scrupling about rapping** to them. D—n me, if they would take me, if I would not rap to all what d’ye callums—Hyssop’s Fables, for her life—I am us’d to’t, b—t me, for less matters. Why, I have smacked calf-skin*** fifty times in England for a keg of brandy.”

* The gallows. ** Swearing. *** Kissed the book.

“Never speak mair o’t,” said the prisoner. “It’s just as weel as it is—and gude-day, sister; ye keep Mr. Ratcliffe waiting on—Ye’ll come back and see me, I reckon, before”—here she stopped and became deadly pale.

“And are we to part in this way,” said Jeanie, “and you in sic deadly peril? O Effie, look but up, and say what ye wad hae me to do, and I could find in my heart amaist to say that I wad do’t.”

“No, Jeanie,” replied her sister after an effort, “I am better minded now. At my best, I was never half sae gude as ye were, and what for suld you begin to mak yoursell waur to save me, now that I am no worth saving? God knows, that in my sober mind, I wadna wuss ony living creature to do a wrang thing to save my life. I might have fled frae this Tolbooth on that awfu’ night wi’ ane wad hae carried me through the warld, and friended me, and fended for me. But I said to them, let life gang when gude fame is gane before it. But this lang imprisonment has broken my spirit, and I am whiles sair left to mysell, and then I wad gie the Indian mines of gold and diamonds, just for life and breath—for I think, Jeanie, I have such roving fits as I used to hae in the fever; but, instead of the fiery een and wolves, and Widow Butler’s bullseg, that I used to see spieling upon my bed, I am thinking now about a high, black gibbet, and me standing up, and such seas of faces all looking up at poor Effie Deans, and asking if it be her that George Robertson used to call the Lily of St. Leonard’s. And then they stretch out their faces, and make mouths, and girn at me, and whichever way I look, I see a face laughing like Meg Murdockson, when she tauld me I had seen the last of my wean. God preserve us, Jeanie, that carline has a fearsome face!”

She clapped her hands before her eyes as she uttered this exclamation, as if to secure herself against seeing the fearful object she had alluded to.