The Heart of Mid-Lothian

by Walter Scott

  "Whisht, ye daft jaud," said Ratcliffe, "and hear what's said to ye."

  "Wi' a' my heart, Ratton. Great preferment for poor Madge to be brought up the street wi' a grand man, wi' a coat a' passemented wi' worset-lace, to speak wi' provosts, and bailies, and town-clerks, and prokitors, at this time o' day—and the haill town looking at me too—This is honour on earth for ance!"

  "Ay, Madge," said Mr. Sharpitlaw, in a coaxing tone; "and ye're dressed out in your braws, I see; these are not your every-days' claiths ye have on."

  "Deil be in my fingers, then!" said Madge—"Eh, sirs!" (observing Butler come into the apartment), "there's a minister in the Tolbooth—wha will ca' it a graceless place now?—I'se warrant he's in for the gude auld cause—but it's be nae cause o' mine," and off she went into a song—

  "Hey for cavaliers, ho for cavaliers, Dub a dub, dub a dub, Have at old Beelzebub,— Oliver's squeaking for fear."

  "Did you ever see that mad woman before?" said Sharpitlaw to Butler.

  "Not to my knowledge, sir," replied Butler.

  "I thought as much," said the procurator-fiscal, looking towards Ratcliffe, who answered his glance with a nod of acquiescence and intelligence.—

  "But that is Madge Wildfire, as she calls herself," said the man of law to Butler.

  "Ay, that I am," said Madge, "and that I have been ever since I was something better—Heigh ho"—(and something like melancholy dwelt on her features for a minute)—"But I canna mind when that was—it was lang syne, at ony rate, and I'll ne'er fash my thumb about it.—

  I glance like the wildfire through country and town;

  I'm seen on the causeway—I'm seen on the down;

  The lightning that flashes so bright and so free,

  Is scarcely so blithe or so bonny as me."

  "Hand your tongue, ye skirling limmer!" said the officer who had acted as master of the ceremonies to this extraordinary performer, and who was rather scandalised at the freedom of her demeanour before a person of Mr. Sharpitlaw's importance—"haud your tongue, or I'se gie ye something to skirl for!"

  "Let her alone, George," said Sharpitlaw, "dinna put her out o' tune; I hae some questions to ask her—But first, Mr. Butler, take another look of her."

  "Do sae, minister—do sae," cried Madge; "I am as weel worth looking at as ony book in your aught.—And I can say the single carritch, and the double carritch, and justification, and effectual calling, and the assembly of divines at Westminster, that is" (she added in a low tone), "I could say them ance—but it's lang syne—and ane forgets, ye ken." And poor Madge heaved another deep sigh.

  "Weel, sir," said Mr. Sharpitlaw to Butler, "what think ye now?"

  "As I did before," said Butler; "that I never saw the poor demented creature in my life before."

  "Then she is not the person whom you said the rioters last night described as Madge Wildfire?"

  "Certainly not," said Butler. "They may be near the same height, for they are both tall, but I see little other resemblance."

  "Their dress, then, is not alike?" said Sharpitlaw.

  "Not in the least," said Butler.

  "Madge, my bonny woman," said Sharpitlaw, in the same coaxing manner, "what did ye do wi' your ilka-day's claise yesterday?"

  "I dinna mind," said Madge.

  "Where was ye yesterday at e'en, Madge?"

  "I dinna mind ony thing about yesterday," answered Madge; "ae day is eneugh for ony body to wun ower wi' at a time, and ower muckle sometimes."

  "But maybe, Madge, ye wad mind something about it, if I was to gie ye this half-crown?" said Sharpitlaw, taking out the piece of money.

  "That might gar me laugh, but it couldna gar me mind."

  "But, Madge," continued Sharpitlaw, "were I to send you to the workhouse in Leith Wynd, and gar Jock Daigleish lay the tawse on your back—"

  "That wad gar me greet," said Madge, sobbing, "but it couldna gar me mind, ye ken."

  "She is ower far past reasonable folks' motives, sir," said Ratcliffe, "to mind siller, or John Daigleish, or the cat-and-nine-tails either; but I think I could gar her tell us something."

  "Try her, then, Ratcliffe," said Sharpitlaw, "for I am tired of her crazy pate, and be d—d to her."

  "Madge," said Ratcliffe, "hae ye ony joes now?"

  "An ony body ask ye, say ye dinna ken.—Set him to be speaking of my joes, auld Daddie Ratton!"

  "I dare say, ye hae deil ane?"

  "See if I haena then," said Madge, with the toss of the head of affronted beauty—"there's Rob the Ranter, and Will Fleming, and then there's Geordie Robertson, lad—that's Gentleman Geordie—what think ye o' that?"

  Ratcliffe laughed, and, winking to the procurator-fiscal, pursued the inquiry in his own way. "But, Madge, the lads only like ye when ye hae on your braws—they wadna touch you wi' a pair o' tangs when you are in your auld ilka-day rags."

  "Ye're a leeing auld sorrow then," replied the fair one; "for Gentle Geordie Robertson put my ilka-day's claise on his ain bonny sell yestreen, and gaed a' through the town wi' them; and gawsie and grand he lookit, like ony queen in the land."

  "I dinna believe a word o't," said Ratcliffe, with another wink to the procurator. "Thae duds were a' o' the colour o' moonshine in the water, I'm thinking, Madge—The gown wad be a sky-blue scarlet, I'se warrant ye?"

  "It was nae sic thing," said Madge, whose unretentive memory let out, in the eagerness of contradiction, all that she would have most wished to keep concealed, had her judgment been equal to her inclination. "It was neither scarlet nor sky-blue, but my ain auld brown threshie-coat of a short-gown, and my mother's auld mutch, and my red rokelay—and he gied me a croun and a kiss for the use o' them, blessing on his bonny face—though it's been a dear ane to me."

  "And where did he change his clothes again, hinnie?" said Sharpitlaw, in his most conciliatory manner.

  "The procurator's spoiled a'," observed Ratcliffe, drily. And it was even so; for the question, put in so direct a shape, immediately awakened Madge to the propriety of being reserved upon those very topics on which Ratcliffe had indirectly seduced her to become communicative.

  "What was't ye were speering at us, sir?" she resumed, with an appearance of stolidity so speedily assumed, as showed there was a good deal of knavery mixed with her folly.

  "I asked you," said the procurator, "at what hour, and to what place, Robertson brought back your clothes."

  "Robertson?—Lord hand a care o' us! what Robertson?"

  "Why, the fellow we were speaking of, Gentle Geordie, as you call him."

  "Geordie Gentle!" answered Madge, with well-feigned amazement—"I dinna ken naebody they ca' Geordie Gentle."

  "Come, my jo," said Sharpitlaw, "this will not do; you must tell us what you did with these clothes of yours."

  Madge Wildfire made no answer, unless the question may seem connected with the snatch of a song with which she indulged the embarrassed investigator:—

  "What did ye wi' the bridal ring—bridal ring—bridal ring?

  What did ye wi' your wedding ring, ye little cutty quean, O?

  I gied it till a sodger, a sodger, a sodger,

  I gied it till a sodger, an auld true love o' mine, O."

  Of all the madwomen who have sung and said, since the days of Hamlet the Dane, if Ophelia be the most affecting, Madge Wildfire was the most provoking.

  The procurator-fiscal was in despair. "I'll take some measures with this d—d Bess of Bedlam," said he, "that shall make her find her tongue."

  "Wi' your favour, sir," said Ratcliffe, "better let her mind settle a little—Ye have aye made out something."

  "True," said the official person; "a brown short-gown, mutch, red rokelay—that agrees with your Madge Wildfire, Mr. Butler?" Butler agreed that it did so. "Yes, there was a sufficient motive for taking this crazy creature's dress and name, while he was about such a job."

  "And I am free to say now," said Ratcliffe

  "When you see it has come out without you," interrupted Sharpit
law.

  "Just sae, sir," reiterated Ratcliffe. "I am free to say now, since it's come out otherwise, that these were the clothes I saw Robertson wearing last night in the jail, when he was at the head of the rioters."

  "That's direct evidence," said Sharpitlaw; "stick to that, Rat—I will report favourably of you to the provost, for I have business for you to-night. It wears late; I must home and get a snack, and I'll be back in the evening. Keep Madge with you, Ratcliffe, and try to get her into a good tune again." So saying he left the prison.

  CHAPTER SIXTEENTH.

  And some they whistled—and some they sang,

  And some did loudly say,

  Whenever Lord Barnard's horn it blew,

  "Away, Musgrave away!"

  Ballad of Little Musgrave.

  When the man of office returned to the Heart of Mid-Lothian, he resumed his conference with Ratcliffe, of whose experience and assistance he now held himself secure. "You must speak with this wench, Rat—this Effie Deans—you must sift her a wee bit; for as sure as a tether she will ken Robertson's haunts—till her, Rat—till her without delay."

  "Craving your pardon, Mr. Sharpitlaw," said the turnkey elect, "that's what I am not free to do."

  "Free to do, man? what the deil ails ye now?—I thought we had settled a' that?"

  "I dinna ken, sir," said Ratcliffe; "I hae spoken to this Effie—she's strange to this place and to its ways, and to a' our ways, Mr. Sharpitlaw; and she greets, the silly tawpie, and she's breaking her heart already about this wild chield; and were she the mean's o' taking him, she wad break it outright."

  "She wunna hae time, lad," said Sharpitlaw; "the woodie will hae it's ain o' her before that—a woman's heart takes a lang time o' breaking."

  "That's according to the stuff they are made o' sir," replied Ratcliffe—"But to make a lang tale short, I canna undertake the job. It gangs against my conscience."

  "Your conscience, Rat?" said Sharpitlaw, with a sneer, which the reader will probably think very natural upon the occasion.

  "Ou ay, sir," answered Ratcliffe, calmly, "just my conscience; a'body has a conscience, though it may be ill wunnin at it. I think mine's as weel out o' the gate as maist folk's are; and yet it's just like the noop of my elbow, it whiles gets a bit dirl on a corner."

  "Weel, Rat," replied Sharpitlaw, "since ye are nice, I'll speak to the hussy mysell."

  Sharpitlaw, accordingly, caused himself to be introduced into the little dark apartment tenanted by the unfortunate Effie Deans. The poor girl was seated on her little flock-bed, plunged in a deep reverie. Some food stood on the table, of a quality better than is usually supplied to prisoners, but it was untouched. The person under whose care she was more particularly placed, said, "that sometimes she tasted naething from the tae end of the four-and-twenty hours to the t'other, except a drink of water."

  Sharpitlaw took a chair, and, commanding the turnkey to retire, he opened the conversation, endeavouring to throw into his tone and countenance as much commiseration as they were capable of expressing, for the one was sharp and harsh, the other sly, acute, and selfish.

  "How's a' wi' ye, Effie?—How d'ye find yoursell, hinny?"

  A deep sigh was the only answer.

  "Are the folk civil to ye, Effie?—it's my duty to inquire."

  "Very civil, sir," said Effie, compelling herself to answer, yet hardly knowing what she said.

  "And your victuals," continued Sharpitlaw, in the same condoling tone,—"do you get what you like?—or is there onything you would particularly fancy, as your health seems but silly?"

  "It's a' very weel, sir, I thank ye," said the poor prisoner, in a tone how different from the sportive vivacity of those of the Lily of St. Leonard's!—"it's a' very gude—ower gude for me."

  "He must have been a great villain, Effie, who brought you to this pass," said Sharpitlaw.

  The remark was dictated partly by a natural feeling, of which even he could not divest himself, though accustomed to practise on the passions of others, and keep a most heedful guard over his own, and partly by his wish to introduce the sort of conversation which might, best serve his immediate purpose. Indeed, upon the present occasion, these mixed motives of feeling and cunning harmonised together wonderfully; for, said Sharpitlaw to himself, the greater rogue Robertson is, the more will be the merit of bringing him to justice. "He must have been a great villain, indeed," he again reiterated; "and I wish I had the skelping o' him."

  "I may blame mysell mair than him," said Effie; "I was bred up to ken better; but he, poor fellow,"—(she stopped).

  "Was a thorough blackguard a' his life, I dare say," said Sharpitlaw. "A stranger he was in this country, and a companion of that lawless vagabond, Wilson, I think, Effie?"

  "It wad hae been dearly telling him that he had ne'er seen Wilson's face."

  "That's very true that you are saying, Effie," said Sharpitlaw. "Where was't that Robertson and you were used to howff thegither? Somegate about the Laigh Calton, I am thinking."

  The simple and dispirited girl had thus far followed Mr. Sharpitlaw's lead, because he had artfully adjusted his observations to the thoughts he was pretty certain must be passing through her own mind, so that her answers became a kind of thinking aloud, a mood into which those who are either constitutionally absent in mind, or are rendered so by the temporary pressure of misfortune, may be easily led by a skilful train of suggestions. But the last observation of the procurator-fiscal was too much of the nature of a direct interrogatory, and it broke the charm accordingly.

  "What was it that I was saying?" said Effie, starting up from her reclining posture, seating herself upright, and hastily shading her dishevelled hair back from her wasted but still beautiful countenance. She fixed her eyes boldly and keenly upon Sharpitlaw—"You are too much of a gentleman, sir,—too much of an honest man, to take any notice of what a poor creature like me says, that can hardly ca' my senses my ain—God help me!"

  "Advantage!—I would be of some advantage to you if I could," said Sharpitlaw, in a soothing tone; "and I ken naething sae likely to serve ye, Effie, as gripping this rascal, Robertson."

  "O dinna misca' him, sir, that never misca'd you!—Robertson?—I am sure I had naething to say against ony man o' the name, and naething will I say."

  "But if you do not heed your own misfortune, Effie, you should mind what distress he has brought on your family," said the man of law.

  "O, Heaven help me!" exclaimed poor Effie—"My poor father—my dear Jeanie—O, that's sairest to bide of a'! O, sir, if you hae ony kindness—if ye hae ony touch of compassion—for a' the folk I see here are as hard as the wa'-stanes—If ye wad but bid them let my sister Jeanie in the next time she ca's! for when I hear them put her awa frae the door, and canna climb up to that high window to see sae muckle as her gown-tail, it's like to pit me out o' my judgment." And she looked on him with a face of entreaty, so earnest, yet so humble, that she fairly shook the steadfast purpose of his mind.

  "You shall see your sister," he began, "if you'll tell me,"—then interrupting himself, he added, in a more hurried tone,—"no, d—n it, you shall see your sister whether you tell me anything or no." So saying, he rose up and left the apartment.

  When he had rejoined Ratcliffe, he observed, "You are right, Ratton; there's no making much of that lassie. But ae thing I have cleared—that is, that Robertson has been the father of the bairn, and so I will wager a boddle it will be he that's to meet wi' Jeanie Deans this night at Muschat's Cairn, and there we'll nail him, Rat, or my name is not Gideon Sharpitlaw."

  "But," said Ratcliffe, perhaps because he was in no hurry to see anything which was like to be connected with the discovery and apprehension of Robertson, "an that were the case, Mr. Butler wad hae kend the man in the King's Park to be the same person wi' him in Madge Wildfire's claise, that headed the mob."

  "That makes nae difference, man," replied Sharpitlaw—"the dress, the light, the confusion, and maybe a touch o' a blackit cork, or a slake o' paint-ho
ut, Ratton, I have seen ye dress your ainsell, that the deevil ye belang to durstna hae made oath t'ye."

  "And that's true, too," said Ratcliffe.

  "And besides, ye donnard carle," continued Sharpitlaw, triumphantly, "the minister did say that he thought he knew something of the features of the birkie that spoke to him in the Park, though he could not charge his memory where or when he had seen them."

  "It's evident, then, your honour will be right," said Ratcliffe.

  "Then, Rat, you and I will go with the party oursells this night, and see him in grips or we are done wi' him."

  "I seena muckle use I can be o' to your honour," said Ratcliffe, reluctantly.

  "Use?" answered Sharpitlaw—"You can guide the party—you ken the ground. Besides, I do not intend to quit sight o' you, my good friend, till I have him in hand."

  "Weel, sir," said Ratcliffe, but in no joyful tone of acquiescence; "Ye maun hae it your ain way—but mind he's a desperate man."

  "We shall have that with us," answered Sharpitlaw, "that will settle him, if it is necessary."

  "But, sir," answered Ratcliffe, "I am sure I couldna undertake to guide you to Muschat's Cairn in the night-time; I ken the place as mony does, in fair day-light, but how to find it by moonshine, amang sae mony crags and stanes, as like to each other as the collier to the deil, is mair than I can tell. I might as soon seek moonshine in water."

  "What's the meaning o' this, Ratcliffe?" said Sharpitlaw, while he fixed his eye on the recusant, with a fatal and ominous expression,—"Have you forgotten that you are still under sentence of death?"

  "No, sir," said Ratcliffe, "that's a thing no easily put out o' memory; and if my presence be judged necessary, nae doubt I maun gang wi' your honour. But I was gaun to tell your honour of ane that has mair skeel o' the gate than me, and that's e'en Madge Wildfire."

  "The devil she has!—Do you think me as mad as she, is, to trust to her guidance on such an occasion?"