The Heart of Mid-Lothian Part 41

"Weel, Jeanie, I am something herse the night, and I canna sing muckle mair; and troth, I think, I am gaun to sleep."

She drooped her head on her breast, a posture from which Jeanie, who would have given the world for an opportunity of quiet to consider the means and the probability of her escape, was very careful not to disturb her. After nodding, however, for a minute'or two, with her eyes half-closed, the unquiet and restless spirit of her malady again a.s.sailed Madge. She raised her head, and spoke, but with a lowered tone, which was again gradually overcome by drowsiness, to which the fatigue of a day's journey on horseback had probably given unwonted occasion,--"I dinna ken what makes me sae sleepy--I amaist never sleep till my bonny Lady Moon gangs till her bed--mair by token, when she's at the full, ye ken, rowing aboon us yonder in her grand silver coach--I have danced to her my lane sometimes for very joy--and whiles dead folk came and danced wi' me--the like o' Jock Porteous, or ony body I had ken'd when I was living--for ye maun ken I was ance dead mysell." Here the poor maniac sung, in a low and wild tone,

"My banes are buried in yon kirkyard Sae far ayont the sea, And it is but my blithesome ghaist That's speaking now to thee.

"But after a', Jeanie, my woman, naebody kens weel wha's living and wha's dead--or wha's gone to Fairyland--there's another question. Whiles I think my puir bairn's dead--ye ken very weel it's buried--but that signifies naething. I have had it on my knee a hundred times, and a hundred till that, since it was buried--and how could that be were it dead, ye ken?--it's merely impossible."--And here, some conviction half-overcoming the reveries of her imagination, she burst into a fit of crying and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, "Wae's me! wae's me! wae's me!" till at length she moaned and sobbed herself into a deep sleep, which was soon intimated by her breathing hard, leaving Jeanie to her own melancholy reflections and observations.

CHAPTER SIXTH.

Bind her quickly; or, by this steel, I'll tell, although I truss for company.

Fletcher.

The imperfect light which shone into the window enabled Jeanie to see that there was scarcely any chance of making her escape in that direction; for the aperture was high in the wall, and so narrow, that, could she have climbed up to it, she might well doubt whether it would have permitted her to pa.s.s her body through it. An unsuccessful attempt to escape would be sure to draw down worse treatment than she now received, and she, therefore, resolved to watch her opportunity carefully ere making such a perilous effort. For this purpose she applied herself to the ruinous clay part.i.tion, which divided the hovel in which she now was from the rest of the waste barn. It was decayed and full of cracks and c.h.i.n.ks, one of which she enlarged with her fingers, cautiously and without noise, until she could obtain a plain view of the old hag and the taller ruffian, whom they called Levitt, seated together beside the decayed fire of charcoal, and apparently engaged in close conference. She was at first terrified by the sight; for the features of the old woman had a hideous cast of hardened and inveterate malice and ill-humour, and those of the man, though naturally less unfavourable, were such as corresponded well with licentious habits, and a lawless profession.

"But I remembered," said Jeanie, "my worthy fathers tales of a winter evening, how he was confined with the blessed martyr, Mr. James Renwick, who lifted up the fallen standard of the true reformed Kirk of Scotland, after the worthy and renowned Daniel Cameron, our last blessed banner-man, had fallen among the swords of the wicked at Airsmoss, and how the very hearts of the wicked malefactors and murderers, whom they were confined withal, were melted like wax at the sound of their doctrine: and I bethought mysell, that the same help that was wi' them in their strait, wad be wi' me in mine, an I could but watch the Lord's time and opportunity for delivering my feet from their snare; and I minded the Scripture of the blessed Psalmist, whilk he insisteth on, as weel in the forty-second as in the forty-third psalm--'Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope in G.o.d, for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and my G.o.d.'"

Strengthened in a mind naturally calm, sedate, and firm, by the influence of religious confidence, this poor captive was enabled to attend to, and comprehend, a great part of an interesting conversation which pa.s.sed betwixt those into whose hands she had fallen, notwithstanding that their meaning was partly disguised by the occasional use of cant terms, of which Jeanie knew not the import, by the low tone in which they spoke, and by their mode of supplying their broken phrases by shrugs and signs, as is usual amongst those of their disorderly profession.

The man opened the conversation by saying, "Now, dame, you see I am true to my friend. I have not forgot that you _planked a chury,_* which helped me through the bars of the Castle of York, and I came to do your work without asking questions; for one good turn deserves another.

* Concealed a knife.

But now that Madge, who is as loud as Tom of Lincoln, is somewhat still, and this same Tyburn Neddie is shaking his heels after the old nag, why, you must tell me what all this is about, and what's to be done--for d--n me if I touch the girl, or let her be touched, and she with Jim Rat's pa.s.s, too."

"Thou art an honest lad, Frank," answered the old woman, "but e'en too good for thy trade; thy tender heart will get thee into trouble. I will see ye gang up Holborn Hill backward, and a' on the word of some silly loon that could never hae rapped to ye had ye drawn your knife across his weasand."

"You may be balked there, old one," answered the robber; "I have known many a pretty lad cut short in his first summer upon the road, because he was something hasty with his flats and sharps. Besides, a man would fain live out his two years with a good conscience. So, tell me what all this is about, and what's to be done for you that one can do decently?"

"Why, you must know, Frank--but first taste a snap of right Hollands."

She drew a flask from her pocket, and filled the fellow a large b.u.mper, which he p.r.o.nounced to be the right thing.--"You must know, then, Frank--wunna ye mend your hand?" again offering the flask.

"No, no,--when a woman wants mischief from you, she always begins by filling you drunk. D--n all Dutch courage. What I do I will do soberly--I'll last the longer for that too."

"Well, then, you must know," resumed the old woman, without any further attempts at propitiation, "that this girl is going to London."

Here Jeanie could only distinguish the word sister.

The robber answered in a louder tone, "Fair enough that; and what the devil is your business with it?"

"Business enough, I think. If the b--queers the noose, that silly cull will marry her."

"And who cares if he does?" said the man.

"Who cares, ye donnard Neddie! I care; and I will strangle her with my own hands, rather than she should come to Madge's preferment."

"Madge's preferment! Does your old blind eyes see no farther than that?

If he is as you say, dye think he'll ever marry a moon-calf like Madge?

Ecod, that's a good one--Marry Madge Wildfire!--Ha! ha! ha!"

"Hark ye, ye crack-rope padder, born beggar, and bred thief!" replied the hag, "suppose he never marries the wench, is that a reason he should marry another, and that other to hold my daughter's place, and she crazed, and I a beggar, and all along of him? But I know that of him will hang him--I know that of him will hang him, if he had a thousand lives--I know that of him will hang--hang--hang him!"

She grinned as she repeated and dwelt upon the fatal monosyllable, with the emphasis of a vindictive fiend.

"Then why don't you hang--hang--hang him?" said Frank, repeating her words contemptuously. "There would be more sense in that, than in wreaking yourself here upon two wenches that have done you and your daughter no ill."

"No ill?" answered the old woman--"and he to marry this jail-bird, if ever she gets her foot loose!"

"But as there is no chance of his marrying a bird of your brood, I cannot, for my soul, see what you have to do with all this," again replied the robber, shrugging his shoulders. "Where there is aught to be got, I'll go as far as my neighbours, but I hate mischief for mischiefs sake."

"And would you go nae length for revenge?" said the hag--"for revenge--the sweetest morsel to the mouth that over was cooked in h.e.l.l!"

"The devil may keep it for his own eating, then," said the robber; "for hang me if I like the sauce he dresses it with."

"Revenge!" continued the old woman; "why, it is the best reward the devil gives us for our time here and hereafter. I have wrought hard for it--I have suffered for it--and I have sinned for it--and I will have it,--or there is neither justice in heaven or in h.e.l.l!"

Levitt had by this time lighted a pipe, and was listening with great composure to the frantic and vindictive ravings of the old hag. He was too much, hardened by his course of life to be shocked with them--too indifferent, and probably too stupid, to catch any part of their animation or energy. "But, mother," he said, after a pause, "still I say, that if revenge is your wish, you should take it on the young fellow himself."

"I wish I could," she said, drawing in her breath, with the eagerness of a thirsty person while mimicking the action of drinking--"I wish I could--but no--I cannot--I cannot."

"And why not?--You would think little of peaching and hanging him for this Scotch affair.--Rat me, one might have milled the Bank of England, and less noise about it."

"I have nursed him at this withered breast," answered the old woman, folding her hands on her bosom, as if pressing an infant to it, "and, though he has proved an adder to me--though he has been the destruction of me and mine--though he has made me company for the devil, if there be a devil, and food for h.e.l.l, if there be such a place, yet I cannot take his life.--No, I cannot," she continued, with an appearance of rage against herself; "I have thought of it--I have tried it--but, Francis Levitt, I canna gang through wi't--Na, na--he was the first bairn I ever nurst--ill I had been--and man can never ken what woman feels for the bairn she has held first to her bosom!"

"To be sure," said Levitt, "we have no experience; but, mother, they say you ha'n't been so kind to other bairns, as you call them, that have come in your way.--Nay, d--n me, never lay your hand on the whittle, for I am captain and leader here, and I will have no rebellion."

The hag, whose first motion had been, upon hearing the question, to grasp the haft of a large knife, now unclosed her hand, stole it away from the weapon, and suffered it to fall by her side, while she proceeded with a sort of smile--"Bairns! ye are joking, lad--wha wad touch bairns? Madge, puir thing, had a misfortune wi' ane--and the t'other"--Here her voice sunk so much, that Jeanie, though anxiously upon the watch, could not catch a word she said, until she raised her tone at the conclusion of the sentence--"So Madge, in her daffin', threw it into the Nor'-lock, I trow."

Madge, whose slumbers, like those of most who labour under mental malady, had been short, and were easily broken, now made herself heard from her place of repose.

"Indeed, mother, that's a great lie, for I did nae sic thing."

"Hush, thou h.e.l.licat devil," said her mother--"By Heaven! the other wench will be waking too."

"That may be dangerous," said Frank; and he rose, and followed Meg Murdockson across the floor.

"Rise," said the hag to her daughter, "or I sall drive the knife between the planks into the Bedlam back of thee!"

Apparently she at the same time seconded her threat by p.r.i.c.king her with the point of a knife, for Madge, with a faint scream, changed her place, and the door opened.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Jennie in the Outlaws Hut--80]