Part 6

"Here they are," said the tramp; "and you're to tak care o' them. They've been my staff for mony a day, and they're the only creatures on earth I care for and like; for they never said to me, 'Get out, ye wretch,' or banned me for a witch; but were aye sae happy wi' their pickles o' barley, and maybe a knot o' sugar, when I could get at a farmer's wife's bowl."

Even hags have pathetic moods. Meg was affected; and the writer, having appreciated the virtue, whispered in the ear of his _protegée_, "Seven o'clock on Wednesday night," and left them to the remainder of the whisky. At the door he settled with the man, and, mounting his horse, which he had ordered a bottle of strong ale for, in addition to his oats, he set off at his old trot.

"Now let the Crown blood-hounds catch Meg Davidson and her mice," he said, as he pushed on.

The writer was, no doubt, bent eagerly for home, but he seldom got to his intended destination, though we have given one or two examples of an uninterrupted course, without undergoing several stoppages, either from the sudden calls of business, which lay in every direction, or the seductions of conviviality, equally ubiquitous; and on this occasion he was hailed from the window of the inn by some ten-tumbler men of Forfar, whose plan for draining the loch, by making toddy of it, had not, to their discomfort, been realized, but who made due retaliation by very clean drainings elsewhere. The moment he heard the shout he understood the meaning thereof, because he knew the house, the locality, and the men; and Meg Davidson and her mice were passed into the wallet-bag of time, till he should give these revellers their satisfaction in a boon companion who could see them under the table, and then mount his horse, with a power of retention of his seat unexampled in a county famous for revolutions of heads as well as of bodies. Dismounting from his horse, he got his dinner, a meal he had expected at Dundee; and, in spite of the distance of fourteen miles which lay before him, he despatched tumbler after tumbler without being once tempted to the imprudence of letting out his extraordinary hunt, but rather with the prudence of sending, through his compotators, to the county town the fact that a woman who perambulated the country with white mice was really the murderer of the country girl. This statement he was able to make, even at that acme of his dithyrambics, when, as usual, he got upon the head of the table to make his speech of the evening. It was now eleven, and he had swallowed eight tumblers, yet he was comparatively steady when he mounted; and, though during the fourteen miles he swung like a well-ballasted barque in a gale of wind, he made sufficient headway to be home by half-past twelve.

Next morning, as ready and able as usual for the work of the day, he was at his desk about eleven, and when engaged with one client, while others were waiting to be despatched in the way in which he alone could discharge clients, he was waited on by a gentleman connected with the Crown Office. Having been yielded a preference, the official took his seat.

"I understand you are employed for Mrs. S----?" he said. "We have thought it necessary, as disinterested protectors of the lives of the king's subjects, to apprehend this woman. I need not say that our precognitions are our guarantee; but I have heard a report which would seem to impugn our discretion, if it do not shame our judgment, insomuch that, if it be true, we have seized the wrong person. Do you know anything of this woman with the white mice, who takes upon herself the burden of a self-accusation? Of course it is for you to help us to her as the salvation of your client."

"Too evident that for a parade of candour," replied Mr. M----. "Her name is Margaret Davidson. Her white companions will identify her. Her residence is where you may chance to find her."

"Very vague, considering your interest," replied the other. "Where did you find her?"

"Ask me first, my dear sir, whether I have found her. Perhaps not. If it is my interest to search her out, it is not less your duty to catch her. A vagrant with white mice is a kenspeckle, and surely you can have no difficulty in tracing her. I need scarcely add, that when you do find her, you will substitute her for my client, and make amends for the disgrace you have brought upon an innocent woman and a respectable family."

"I won't say that," replied the other, shaking his head. "The evidence against Mrs. S---- is too heavy to admit of our believing a vagrant, influenced by the desire of, perhaps, a paid martyrdom, or the excitement of a mania."

"Then, why ask me to help you to find her?"

"For our satisfaction as public officers."

"And to my detriment as a private agent."

"Not at all."

"Yes; if I choose to make her a witness for the defence, and leave the jury to judge of _paid_ martyrdom, or her real madness. Paid martyrdom!--paid by whom?"

"Not necessarily by you."

"But you want me to help you to be able to prove the bribe out of her own mouth, don't you?"

"Of course we would examine her."

"Yes, and cook her; but you must catch her first. Really, my dear sir, a very useful recipe in cuisine; and, hark ye, you can put the mice in the pan also. But, really, I am not bound, and cannot in justice be expected to do more. I have given you her name; and when had a culprit so peculiar and striking a designation as being the proprietor of a peripatetic menagerie?"

"Ridiculous!"

"Yes, _ridiculus mus_! But are you not the labouring mountain yourself, and do you not wish me to become the midwife?"

"I perceive I can make nothing of you," at length said the gentleman. "You either don't want to save your client, or the means you trust to cannot stand the test."

"God bless my soul!" roared the writer; "must I tell you again that I have given you her name and occupation? Even a cat, with nose-instinct put awry by the colour of the white race of victims, would smell her out."

Bowing the official to the door with these words, he was presently in some other ravelled web, which he disentangled with equal success and apparent ease; but, following him in his great scheme, we find him in the afternoon posting again to the farm. He found the farmer in the same collapse of hope, sitting in the arm-chair so long pressed by his wife, with his chin upon his breast, and his eyes dim and dead. The evidence had got piece by piece to his ear, paralyzing more and more the tissues of his brain; and hope had assumed the character of an impossibility in the moral world of God's government.

"You must cheer up," said the writer. "Come, some milk and whisky. Move about; I have got good news for you, but cannot trust you."

The head of the man was raised up, and a slight beam was, as it were, struck from his eye by the jerk of a sudden impulse. His step, as he moved to gratify the agent, seemed to have acquired even a spring.

"Why are you here," he said, as he brought the indispensable jug, with something even more than the five-eighths of the spiritual element added to the two glasses, "if you cannot tell me the grounds of my hope? I could not comprehend what you meant about the woman and the white mice."

"Nor do I want you to understand it; it is enough if I do," replied Mr. M----, as he put the jug to his mouth; "but this I want you to understand, in the first place, that I want an order for fifty pounds from you."

The farmer was too happy to write an order for any amount within the limits of his last farthing, and getting pen and ink, he wrote the cheque.

"And you couldn't tell me the name of the woman with the mice; but I can tell you," he continued. "It is Margaret Davidson; and, hark ye--come near me, man--if you are called upon by any one with the appearance of a sheriff's beagle, or whatever he may be like, for the name of that woman, say it is Margaret Davidson, and that they will find her between Lerwick and Berwick. Do you comprehend?"

"Perfectly."

"And, moreover, you are to tell every living soul within ear-shot, servants or strangers, that it was that very woman who gave the dose to the lass, and that the woman herself does not deny it."

"Gude Lord! but is all this true, Mr. M----?"

"Is it true your wife did it, then, you d----d idiot?" cried the writer, using thus one of his most familiar terms, but with perfect good-nature. "Don't you in your heart--or hope, at any rate--think the Lord Advocate a liar? and has his lordship a better right to lie than I or Meg Davidson? Isn't the world a great leavened lump of lies from the Cape of Good Hope to the Cape of Wrath? And you want your wife hanged, because the nose of truth is out of joint a bit! Ay, what though it were cut off altogether, if you get your wife's back without being coloured blue by the hangman? But, I tell you, it's not a lie: the woman with the white mice says it of her own accord."

"Wonderful! the woman with the white mice!"

"The woman with the white mice!" echoed the writer.

And, getting again upon his legs, he hurried out, throwing back his injunctions upon S---- to obey his instructions. In a few minutes more he was again upon the road, leaving the clatter of his horse's hoofs to mingle with the confused thoughts of his mystified client. Arrived at the High Street, where, as used to be said of him, he could not be ten minutes without having seized some five or six persons by the breast of the coat, and put as many questions on various matters of business, just as the thought struck him on the instant, he pounced upon one, no other than the confidential clerk of the fiscal.

"I say, man," seizing and holding him in the usual way, "have you catched the woman yet?"

"What woman?" replied the clerk.

"The woman with the white mice."

"Oh," cried the young man, "we have no faith in that quarter--a mere get-up; but we're looking about for her, notwithstanding."

"Well, tell your master that Meg Davidson was last seen on the Muir of Rannoch, and that the Highlanders in that outlandish quarter, having never seen white mice before, are in a state of perfect amazement."

A bolt at some other person left the clerk probably in as great amazement as the Highlanders; but our man of the law did not stop to see the extent of it. All his avocations, however, did not prevent the coming round of that seven o'clock on Wednesday evening, which he had appointed as the hour of meeting with the woman on whom his hopes of saving his client almost altogether rested. He was at his desk at the hour, and the woman, no doubt eager for the phenomenon of the "louping ee," was as true as the time itself. The writer locked the door of his office, and drawing her as near him as possible, inquired first whether any knew she was in town.

"Deil are," she replied; "naebody cares for me ony mair than I were an auld glandered spavin, ready for the knackers."

"And you've been remembering a' ye are to say?"

Now, the woman did not answer this question immediately. She had been, for some days, busy in the repository of her memory--a crazy box of shattered spunk-wood, through the crevices of which came the lurid lights sent from another box, called the imagination, and such was the close intimacy, or rather mixture, of the revelations of these two magic centres, that they could not be distinguished from one another; but the habit of fortune-telling had so quickened the light of the one, as to make it predominate over, and almost extinguish that of the other, so that she was at a loss to get a stray glimmer of the memory, to make her ready, on the instant, for the answer.

"Remembering! Ay," she said, "there's no muckle to remember. The lass was under the burden of shame, and couldna bear it: she wanted some doctor's trash to tak that burden aff her, if it should carry her life alang wi' 't. I got the stuff, and the woman dee'd."

All which was carefully written down--but the writer had his own way of doing his work. He would have day and date, the place where the doctor's trash was bought, the price thereof, the manner of administering the same, and many other particulars, every one of which was so carefully recorded, that the whole, no doubt, looked like a veritable precognition of facts, got from the said box called the memory, as if it had been that not one tint of light, from the conterminous chamber, had mixed with the pure spirit of truth.

"Now," said he, "regaining his English, when his purpose was served, "you'll stand firm to this, in the face of judge, jury, justice, and all her angels?"

"Never ye fear."

"Then, you will go with me to a private lodging, where I wish you to remain, seen by as few as you can. You're a widow; your name is Mrs. Anderson; your husband was drowned in the Maelstrom. Get weeds, a veil, and look respectable."

"A' save the last, for that's impossible."

"Try; and, as you will need to pay for your board and lodgings, and your dress, here's the sum I promised ye; the other half when Mrs. S---- is saved."

"A' right; and did I no say my ee would loup?--but 'ae gude turn deserves anither,' as the deil said to the loon o' Culloden, when he hauled him doun, screaming, to a place ye maybe ken o', and whaur I hae nae wish to be."

"Where is Meg Davidson?" he then asked.

"Oh ay!" she replied, "that puts me in mind o' a man wha met me on the road, and asked me if I was the woman wi' the twa white mice? I tauld him she was awa east to Montrose, and sae it is."

"Not a cheep of the sale," added he.

"Na, na, nor o' ony thing else, but just Mrs. Anderson, the widow, whase man was drouned in the Maelstream."

And, having thus finished, the writer led the woman to her place of safety, there to lie _in retentis_ till the court-day.

That eventful day came round. In the meantime, the prosecution never got access to the real white mouse tramp, and whatever they got out of Meg Davidson, satisfied them that she knew nothing of the murder. Large sums were given to secure the services of Jeffrey, then in the full blaze of his power, and Cockburn, so useful in examinations. The Lord Advocate led his proof, which was no darker than our writer had ascertained it to be, when he found himself driven to his clever expedient. The proof for the defence began; and, after some other witnesses were examined, the name of the woman with the white mice was called by the macer; and here occurred a circumstance, at the time known to very few. Cockburn turned round to our country agent, who was sitting behind him, and said, in a whisper--

"M----, if the angel Gabriel were at this moment to come down and blow a trumpet, and tell me that what this woman is going to swear to is truth, I would not believe her."

Nor is there any doubt to be entertained that the woman's testimony took the court and the audience by surprise. The judges looked at each other, and the jury were perplexed. There was only one thing that produced any solicitude in our writer. He feared the Lord Advocate would lay hands upon her, as either a murderer or a perjurer, the moment she left the witness-box. At that instant was he prepared. Quietly slipping out, he got hold of the woman, led her to the outer door, through a crowd, called to the door-keeper, who stood sentry, to open for the purpose of letting in a fresh witness of great importance to the accused; and having succeeded, as he seldom failed, he got the woman outside. A cab was in readiness--no time lost--the woman was pushed in, followed by her guardian, and in a short time was safely disposed of. Meanwhile, the Crown authorities had been preparing their warrant, and the woman was only saved from their mercies by a very few minutes.

It is well known, as I have already mentioned, that Jeffrey's speech for Mrs. S---- was the greatest of all modern orations, yet it was delivered under peculiar circumstances. When he rose and began, he seemed languid and unwell. The wonted sparkle was not seen in his eye, the usually compressed lip was loose and flaccid, and his words, though all his beginnings were generally marked with a subdued tone, came with difficulty. Cockburn looked at him inquiringly, anxious and troubled. There was something wrong, and those interested in the defence augured ominously. All of a sudden the little man stopped, fixed his eye on one of the walls of the court-room, and cried out, "Shut that window." Through that opening a cold wind had been blowing-upon and chilling a body which, though firm and compact, was thin, wiry, and delicately toned to the refined requirements of the spirit that animated and moved it with a grace peculiarly his own. The chill, in consonance with well-known pathological laws, produced first depression, and then a feverish reaction, which latter was even morbidly favourable to the development of his powers. He began to revive; the blood, pulsing with more than natural activity, warmed still more at the call of his enthusiasm. He analyzed every part of the cause, tore up the characters of the prosecutor's witnesses, held up microscopic flaws, and passed them through the lens of his ingenious exaggeration, till they appeared serious in the eyes of the jury. Then how touching, if not noble, was the conduct of that strange witness for the defence--who, a wretched criminal herself, would yet, under a secret power, so far expiate her guilt by offering herself as a sacrifice for innocence! Beyond all was the pathos of his peroration, where he brought home the case to the jury, as loving husbands of loving wives, and tender fathers of beloved children. A woman sat there before them--a wife and a mother. She had undergone an ordeal not much less trying than death itself, and even then she was trembling under the agony of suspense, extended beyond mortal powers of endurance--to be terminated by the breath of their mouths, either for life and a restoration to a previously happy family, or for a death on a gallows, with all its ignominy.

That speech, which nearly cost Jeffrey his life, saved that of another. The jury found the libel not proven; Mrs. S---- was free; Jeffrey was made more famous; but no one ever heard more of the woman with the white mice.

GLEANINGS OF THE COVENANT.

THE EARLY DAYS OF A FRIEND OF THE COVENANT.

I was born in the upper district and amidst the mountains of Dumfriesshire. My father, who died ere I had attained my second birthday, had seen better times; but, having engaged in mercantile speculations, had been overreached or unfortunate, or both, and during the latter years of his life had carried a gun, kept an amazing pointer bitch (of which my mother used to discourse largely), and had ultimately married in a fit of despondency. My mother, to whom he had long been affianced, was nearly connected with the Lairds of Clauchry, of which relationship she was vain; and in all her trials, of which she had no ordinary share, she still retained somewhat of the feelings, as well as the appearance of a gentlewoman. I remember, for example, a pair of high-heeled red Morocco shoes, overhung by the ample drapery of a quilted silk gown, in which habiliments she appeared on great occasions. Soon after my father's decease, my mother found it convenient and advisable to remove from the neighbourhood of the Clauchry to a cottage, or cottier as it was called, on her brother's farm, in the upper division of the parish of Closeburn.

Few situations could be better fitted for the purpose of a quiet and sequestered retreat. The scene is now as vividly before me as it was on that day when I last saw it, and felt that, in all probability, I viewed it for the last time. A snug kailyard, surrounded by a fullgrown bushy hedge of bourtree, saugh, and thorn, lay along the border of a small mountain stream, and hard by a thatched cottage, with a peat-stack at the one end and a small byre at the other. All this was nestled as it were in the bosom of mountains, which, to the north and the east in particular, presented a defence against all winds, and an outline of bold grandeur exceedingly impressive. The south and the west were more open; consequently the mid-day and afternoon sun reposed, with delightful and unobstructed radiance, on the green border of the stream, and the flowery foliage of the brae. And when the evening was calm, and the season suitable, the blue smoke winded upwards, and the birds sang delightfully amidst hazel, and oak, and birch, with a profusion of which the eastern bank was covered. It was here that I spent my early days; and it was in this scene of mountain solitude, with no immediate associate but my mother, and for a few years of my existence my grandmother, that my "feelings and fortunes were formed and shaped out."

To be brought up amidst mountain scenery, apart and afar from the busy or polluted haunts of man; to place one's little bare foot, with its first movement, on the greensward, the brown heath, or in the pure stream; to live in the retired glen, a perceptible part of all that lives and enjoys; to feel the bracing air of freedom in every breeze; to be possessed of elbow room from ridge to summit, from bank to brae,--this is, indeed, the most delightful of all infant schools, and, above all, prepares the young and infant mind for enlarged conception and resolute daring.

"To sit on rocks; to muse o'er flood and fell; To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, And mortal foot hath ne'er or seldom been;

To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, With the wild flock that never needs a fold; Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean: This is not solitude--'tis but to hold Converse with Nature's God, and see his works unrolled."

Here, indeed, are the things that own not the dominion of man! The everlasting hills, in their outlines of rock and heath; the floods that leap in freedom, or rush in defiance from steep to steep, from gullet to pool, and from pool to plain; the very tempest that overpowers; and heaven, through which the fowls of air sail with supreme and unchallenged dominion,--all these inspire the young heart with independence and self-reliance. True it is that the child, and even the boy, reflects not at all on the advantages of his situation; and this is the very reason that his whole imagination and heart are under their influence. He that is ever arresting and analyzing the current of his thoughts, will seldom think correctly; and he who examines with a microscopic eye the sources of beauty and sublimity, will seldom feel the full force and sway of such impressions. Early and lasting friendships are the fruit of accident, rather than of calculation--of feeling, rather than of reflection; and the circumstances of scenery and habit, which modify the child, and give a bent, a bias, and a character to the after-life, pass all unestimated in regard to such tendency at the time. The bulrush is not less unconscious of the marsh which modifies its growth, or the wallflower of the decay to which it clings, and by which alone its nature and growth would be most advantageously marked and perfected, than is the mountain child of that moral as well as physical development, which such peculiar circumstances are calculated to effect. If, through all the vicissitudes and trials of my past life, I have ever retained a spirit of independence, a spirit which has not, as the sequel (which I may yet give) will evince, proved at all times advantageous to my worldly advancement--if such has been the case, I owe it, in a great measure, to the impression which the home of my youth was calculated to make.