eneugh
mysell--_true_-love though he wasna--But naebody shall sae that I ever
tauld a word about the matter--But whiles I wish the bairn had
lived--Weel, God guide us, there's a heaven aboon us a',"--(here she
sighed bitterly), "and a bonny moon, and sterns in it forby" (and here
she laughed once more).

"Are we to stand, here all night!" said Sharpitlaw, very impatiently.
"Drag her forward."

"Ay, sir," said Ratcliffe, "if we kend whilk way to drag her, that would
settle it at ance.--Come, Madge, hinny," addressing her, "we'll no be in
time to see Nichol and his wife, unless ye show us the road."

"In troth and that I will, Ratton," said she, seizing him by the arm, and
resuming her route with huge strides, considering it was a female who
took them. "And I'll tell ye, Ratton, blithe will Nichol Muschat be to
see ye, for he says he kens weel there isna sic a villain out o' hell as
ye are, and he wad be ravished to hae a crack wi' you--like to like ye
ken--it's a proverb never fails--and ye are baith a pair o' the deevil's
peats I trow--hard to ken whilk deserves the hettest corner o' his
ingle-side."

Ratcliffe was conscience-struck, and could not forbear making an
involuntary protest against this classification. "I never shed blood," he
replied.

"But ye hae sauld it, Ratton--ye hae sauld blood mony a time. Folk kill
wi' the tongue as weel as wi' the hand--wi' the word as weel as wi' the
gulley!--

It is the 'bonny butcher lad,
That wears the sleeves of blue,
He sells the flesh on Saturday,
On Friday that he slew."

"And what is that I ain doing now?" thought Ratcliffe. "But I'll hae nae
wyte of Robertson's young bluid, if I can help it;" then speaking apart
to Madge, he asked her, "Whether she did not remember ony o' her auld
Sangs?"

"Mony a dainty ane," said Madge; "and blithely can I sing them, for
lightsome sangs make merry gate." And she sang,--


"When the glede's in the blue cloud,
The lavrock lies still;
When the hound's in the greenwood.
The hind keeps the hill."

"Silence her cursed noise, if you should throttle her," said Sharpitlaw;
"I see somebody yonder.--Keep close, my boys, and creep round the
shoulder of the height. George Poinder, stay you with Ratcliffe and tha
mad yelling bitch; and you other two, come with me round under the shadow
of the brae."

And he crept forward with the stealthy pace of an Indian savage, who
leads his band to surprise an unsuspecting party of some hostile tribe.
Ratcliffe saw them glide of, avoiding the moonlight, and keeping as much
in: the shade as possible.

"Robertson's done up," said he to himself; "thae young lads are aye sae
thoughtless. What deevil could he hae to say to Jeanie Deans, or to ony
woman on earth, that he suld gang awa and get his neck raxed for her? And
this mad quean, after cracking like a pen-gun, and skirling like a
pea-hen for the haill night, behoves just to hae hadden her tongue when
her clavers might have dune some gude! But it's aye the way wi' women; if
they ever hand their tongues ava', ye may swear it's for mischief. I wish
I could set her on again without this blood-sucker kenning what I am
doing. But he's as gleg as MacKeachan's elshin,* that ran through sax
plies of bendleather and half-an-inch into the king's heel."

* [_Elshin,_ a shoemaker's awl.]

He then began to hum, but in a very low and suppressed tone, the first
stanza of a favourite ballad of Wildfire's, the words of which bore some
distant analogy with the situation of Robertson, trusting that the power
of association would not fail to bring the rest to her mind:--

"There's a bloodhound ranging Tinwald wood,
There's harness glancing sheen:
There's a maiden sits on Tinwald brae,
And she sings loud between."

Madge had no sooner received the catch-word, than she vindicated
Ratcliffe's sagacity by setting off at score with the song:--

"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."

Though Ratcliffe was at a considerable distance from the spot called
Muschat's Cairn, yet his eyes, practised like those of a cat to penetrate
darkness, could mark that Robertson had caught the alarm. George Poinder,
less keen of sight, or less attentive, was not aware of his flight any
more than Sharpitlaw and his assistants, whose view, though they were
considerably nearer to the cairn, was intercepted by the broken nature of
the ground under which they were screening themselves. At length,
however, after the interval of five or six minutes, they also perceived
that Robertson had fled, and rushed hastily towards the place, while
Sharpitlaw called out aloud, in the harshest tones of a voice which
resembled a saw-mill at work, "Chase, lads--chase--haud the brae--I see
him on the edge of the hill!" Then hollowing back to the rear-guard of
his detachment, he issued his farther orders: "Ratcliffe, come here, and
detain the woman--George, run and kepp the stile at the Duke's
Walk--Ratcliffe, come here directly--but first knock out that mad
bitch's brains!"

"Ye had better rin for it, Madge," said Ratcliffe, "for it's ill dealing
wi' an angry man."

Madge Wildfire was not so absolutely void of common sense as not to
understand this innuendo; and while Ratcliffe, in seemingly anxious haste
of obedience, hastened to the spot where Sharpitlaw waited to deliver up
Jeanie Deans to his custody, she fled with all the despatch she could
exert in an opposite direction. Thus the whole party were separated, and
in rapid motion of flight or pursuit, excepting Ratcliffe and Jeanie,
whom, although making no attempt to escape, he held fast by the cloak,
and who remained standing by Muschat's Cairn.




CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.


You have paid the heavens your function,
and the prisoner the very debt of your calling.
Measure for Measure.

Jeanie Deans,--for here our story unites itself with that part of the
narrative which broke off at the end of the fourteenth chapter,--while
she waited, in terror and amazement, the hasty advance of three or four
men towards her, was yet more startled at their suddenly breaking
asunder, and giving chase in different directions to the late object of
her terror, who became at that moment, though she could not well assign a
reasonable cause, rather the cause of her interest. One of the party (it
was Sharpitlaw) came straight up to her, and saying, "Your name is Jeanie
Deans, and you are my prisoner," immediately added, "But if you will tell
me which way he ran I will let you go."

"I dinna ken, sir," was all the poor girl could utter; and, indeed, it is
the phrase which rises most readily to the lips of any person in her
rank, as the readiest reply to any embarrassing question.

"But," said Sharpitlaw, "ye _ken_ wha it was ye were speaking wi', my
leddy, on the hill side, and midnight sae near; ye surely ken _that,_ my
bonny woman?"

"I dinna ken, sir," again iterated Jeanie, who really did not comprehend
in her terror the nature of the questions which were so hastily put to
her in this moment of surprise.

"We will try to mend your memory by and by, hinny," said Sharpitlaw, and
shouted, as we have already told the reader, to Ratcliffe, to come up and
take charge of her, while he himself directed the chase after Robertson,
which he still hoped might be successful. As Ratcliffe approached,
Sharpitlaw pushed the young woman towards him with some rudeness, and
betaking himself to the more important object of his quest, began to
scale crags and scramble up steep banks, with an agility of which his
profession and his general gravity of demeanour would previously have
argued him incapable. In a few minutes there was no one within sight, and
only a distant halloo from one of the pursuers to the other, faintly
heard on the side of the hill, argued that there was any one within
hearing. Jeanie Deans was left in the clear moonlight, standing under the
guard of a person of whom she knew nothing, and, what was worse,
concerning whom, as the reader is well aware, she could have learned
nothing that would not have increased her terror.

When all in the distance was silent, Ratcliffe for the first time
addressed her, and it was in that cold sarcastic indifferent tone
familiar to habitual depravity, whose crimes are instigated by custom
rather than by passion. "This is a braw night for ye, dearie," he said,
attempting to pass his arm across her shoulder, "to be on the green hill
wi' your jo." Jeanie extricated herself from his grasp, but did not make
any reply.

"I think lads and lasses," continued the ruffian, "dinna meet at
Muschat's Cairn at midnight to crack nuts," and he again attempted to
take hold of her.

"If ye are an officer of justice, sir," said Jeanie, again eluding his
attempt to seize her, "ye deserve to have your coat stripped from your
back."

"Very true, hinny," said he, succeeding forcibly in his attempt to get
hold of her, "but suppose I should strip your cloak off first?"

"Ye are more a man, I am sure, than to hurt me, sir," said Jeanie; "for
God's sake have pity on a half-distracted creature!"

"Come, come," said Ratcliffe, "you're a good-looking wench, and should
not be cross-grained. I was going to be an honest man--but the devil has
this very day flung first a lawyer, and then a woman, in my gate. I'll
tell you what, Jeanie, they are out on the hill-side--if you'll be guided
by me, I'll carry you to a wee bit corner in the Pleasance, that I ken o'
in an auld wife's, that a' the prokitors o' Scotland wot naething o', and
we'll send Robertson word to meet us in Yorkshire, for there is a set o'
braw lads about the midland counties, that I hae dune business wi' before
now, and sae we'll leave Mr. Sharpitlaw to whistle on his thumb."

It was fortunate for Jeanie, in an emergency like the present, that she
possessed presence of mind and courage, so soon as the first hurry of
surprise had enabled her to rally her recollection. She saw the risk she
was in from a ruffian, who not only was such by profession, but had that
evening been stupifying, by means of strong liquors, the internal
aversion which he felt at the business on which Sharpitlaw had resolved
to employ him.

"Dinna speak sae loud," said she, in a low voice; "he's up yonder."

"Who?--Robertson?" said Ratcliffe, eagerly.

"Ay," replied Jeanie; "up yonder;" and she pointed to the ruins of the
hermitage and chapel.

"By G--d, then," said Ratcliffe, "I'll make my ain of him, either one way
or other--wait for me here."

But no sooner had he set off as fast as he could run, towards the chapel,
than Jeanie started in an opposite direction, over high and low, on the
nearest path homeward. Her juvenile exercise as a herdswoman had put
"life and mettle" in her heels, and never had she followed Dustiefoot,
when the cows were in the corn, with half so much speed as she now
cleared the distance betwixt Muschat's Cairn and her father's cottage at
St. Leonard's. To lift the latch--to enter--to shut, bolt, and double
bolt the door--to draw against it a heavy article of furniture (which she
could not have moved in a moment of less energy), so as to make yet
farther provision against violence, was almost the work of a moment, yet
done with such silence as equalled the celerity.

Her next anxiety was upon her father's account, and she drew silently to
the door of his apartment, in order to satisfy herself whether he had
been disturbed by her return. He was awake,--probably had slept but
little; but the constant presence of his own sorrows, the distance of his
apartment from the outer door of the house, and the precautions which
Jeanie had taken to conceal her departure and return, had prevented him
from being sensible of either. He was engaged in his devotions, and
Jeanie could distinctly hear him use these words:--"And for the other
child thou hast given me to be a comfort and stay to my old age, may her
days be long in the land, according to the promise thou hast given to
those who shall honour father and mother; may all her purchased and
promised blessings be multiplied upon her; keep her in the watches of the
night, and in the uprising of the morning, that all in this land may know
that thou hast not utterly hid thy face from those that seek thee in
truth and in sincerity." He was silent, but probably continued his
petition in the strong fervency of mental devotion.

His daughter retired to her apartment, comforted, that while she was
exposed to danger, her head had been covered by the prayers of the just
as by an helmet, and under the strong confidence, that while she walked
worthy of the protection of Heaven, she would experience its countenance.
It was in that moment that a vague idea first darted across her mind,
that something might yet be achieved for her sister's safety, conscious
as she now was of her innocence of the unnatural murder with which she
stood charged. It came, as she described it, on her mind, like a
sun-blink on a stormy sea; and although it instantly vanished, yet she
felt a degree of composure which she had not experienced for many days,
and could not help being strongly persuaded that, by some means or other,
she would be called upon, and directed, to work out her sister's
deliverance. She went to bed, not forgetting her usual devotions, the
more fervently made on account of her late deliverance, and she slept
soundly in spite of her agitation.

We must return to Ratcliffe, who had started, like a greyhound from the
slips when the sportsman cries halloo, as soon as Jeanie had pointed to
the ruins. Whether he meant to aid Robertson's escape, or to assist his
pursuers, may be very doubtful; perhaps he did not himself know but had
resolved to be guided by circumstances. He had no opportunity, however,
of doing either; for he had no sooner surmounted the steep ascent, and
entered under the broken arches of the rains, than a pistol was presented
at his head, and a harsh voice commanded him, in the king's name, to
surrender himself prisoner. "Mr. Sharpitlaw!" said Ratcliffe, surprised,
"is this your honour?"

"Is it only you, and be d--d to you?" answered the fiscal, still more
disappointed--"what made you leave the woman?"

"She told me she saw Robertson go into the ruins, so I made what haste I
could to cleek the callant."

"It's all over now," said Sharpitlaw; "we shall see no more