true, gudewife,” said Saddletree in reply, “we are in loco parentis to him during his years of pupillarity, and I hae had thoughts of applying to the Court for a commission as factor loco tutoris, seeing there is nae tutor nominate, and the tutor-at-law declines to act; but only I fear the expense of the procedure wad not be in rem versam, for I am not aware if Willie has ony effects whereof to assume the administration.”
He concluded this sentence with a self-important cough, as one who has laid down the law in an indisputable manner.
“Effects!” said Mrs. Saddletree, “what effects has the puir wean?—he was in rags when his mother died; and the blue polonie that Effie made for him out of an auld mantle of my ain, was the first decent dress the bairn ever had on. Poor Effie! can ye tell me now really, wi’ a’ your law, will her life be in danger, Mr. Saddletree, when they arena able to prove that ever there was a bairn ava?”
“Whoy,” said Mr. Saddletree, delighted at having for once in his life seen his wife’s attention arrested by a topic of legal discussion—“Whoy, there are two sorts of murdrum or murdragium, or what you populariter et vulgariser call murther. I mean there are many sorts; for there’s your murthrum per vigilias et insidias, and your murthrum under trust.”
“I am sure,” replied his moiety, “that murther by trust is the way that the gentry murther us merchants, and whiles make us shut the booth up—but that has naething to do wi’ Effie’s misfortune.”
“The case of Effie (or Euphemia) Deans,” resumed Saddletree, “is one of those cases of murder presumptive, that is, a murder of the law’s inferring or construction, being derived from certain indicia or grounds of suspicion.”
“So that,” said the good woman, “unless poor Effie has communicated her situation, she’ll be hanged by the neck, if the bairn was still-born, or if it be alive at this moment?”
“Assuredly,” said Saddletree, “it being a statute made by our Sovereign Lord and Lady, to prevent the horrid delict of bringing forth children in secret—The crime is rather a favourite of the law, this species of murther being one of its ain creation.”
“Then, if the law makes murders,” said Mrs. Saddletree, “the law should be hanged for them; or if they wad hang a lawyer instead, the country wad find nae faut.”
A summons to their frugal dinner interrupted the farther progress of the conversation, which was otherwise like to take a turn much less favourable to the science of jurisprudence and its professors, than Mr. Bartoline Saddletree, the fond admirer of both, had at its opening anticipated.
CHAPTER FIFTH.
But up then raise all Edinburgh.
They all rose up by thousands three.
Johnnie Armstrang’s Goodnight.
Butler, on his departure from the sign of the Golden Nag, went in quest of a friend of his connected with the law, of whom he wished to make particular inquiries concerning the circumstances in which the unfortunate young woman mentioned in the last chapter was placed, having, as the reader has probably already conjectured, reasons much deeper than those dictated by mere humanity for interesting himself in her fate. He found the person he sought absent from home, and was equally unfortunate in one or two other calls which he made upon acquaintances whom he hoped to interest in her story. But everybody was, for the moment, stark-mad on the subject of Porteous, and engaged busily in attacking or defending the measures of Government in reprieving him; and the ardour of dispute had excited such universal thirst, that half the young lawyers and writers, together with their very clerks, the class whom Butler was looking after, had adjourned the debate to some favourite tavern. It was computed by an experienced arithmetician, that there was as much twopenny ale consumed on the discussion as would have floated a first-rate man-of-war.
Butler wandered about until it was dusk, resolving to take that opportunity of visiting the unfortunate young woman, when his doing so might be least observed; for he had his own reasons for avoiding the remarks of Mrs. Saddletree, whose shop-door opened at no great distance from that of the jail, though on the opposite or south side of the street, and a little higher up. He passed, therefore, through the narrow and partly covered passage leading from the north-west end of the Parliament Square.
He stood now before the Gothic entrance of the ancient prison, which, as is well known to all men, rears its ancient front in the very middle of the High Street, forming, as it were, the termination to a huge pile of buildings called the Luckenbooths, which, for some inconceivable reason, our ancestors had jammed into the midst of the principal street of the town, leaving for passage a narrow street on the north; and on the south, into which the prison opens, a narrow crooked lane, winding betwixt the high and sombre walls of the Tolbooth and the adjacent houses on the one side, and the butresses and projections of the old Cathedral upon the other. To give some gaiety to this sombre passage (well known by the name of the Krames), a number of little booths, or shops, after the fashion of cobblers’ stalls, are plastered, as it were, against the Gothic projections and abutments, so that it seemed as if the traders had occupied with nests, bearing the same proportion to the building, every buttress and coign of vantage, as the martlett did in Macbeth’s Castle. Of later years these booths have degenerated into mere toy-shops, where the little loiterers chiefly interested in such wares are tempted to linger, enchanted by the rich display of hobby-horses, babies, and Dutch toys, arranged in artful and gay confusion; yet half-scared by the cross looks of the withered pantaloon, or spectacled old lady, by whom these tempting stores are watched and superintended. But, in the times we write of, the hosiers, the glovers, the hatters, the mercers, the milliners, and all who dealt in the miscellaneous wares now termed haberdasher’s goods, were to be found in this narrow alley.
To return from our digression. Butler found the outer turnkey, a tall thin old man, with long silver hair, in the act of locking the outward door of the jail. He addressed himself to this person, and asked admittance to Effie Deans, confined upon accusation of child-murder. The turnkey looked at him earnestly, and, civilly touching his hat out of respect to Butler’s black coat and clerical appearance, replied, “It was impossible any one could be admitted at present.”
“You shut up earlier than usual, probably on account of Captain Porteous’s affair?” said Butler.
The turnkey, with the true mystery of a person in office, gave two grave nods, and withdrawing from the wards a ponderous key of about two feet in length, he proceeded to shut a strong plate of steel, which folded down above the keyhole, and was secured by a steel spring and catch. Butler stood still instinctively while the door was made fast, and then looking at his watch, walked briskly up the street, muttering to himself, almost unconsciously—
Porta adversa, ingens, solidoque adamante columnae;
Vis ut nulla virum, non ipsi exscindere ferro
Coelicolae valeant—Stat ferrea turris ad auras—etc.*
Dryden’s Virgil, Book vi.
* Wide is the fronting gate, and, raised on high, With adamantine columns threats the sky; Vain is the force of man, and Heaven’s as vain, To crush the pillars which the pile sustain: Sublime on these a tower of steel is reard.
Having wasted half-an-hour more in a second fruitless attempt to find his legal friend and adviser,
