Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 13

by Unknown

The two parted; and Menie, seeking the nearest way to her home, hurried along, her heart beating high with unutterable emotions, and with all the pain she had felt from the evil reports of her rival drowned in the intoxicating pleasure of being the betrothed of the man she loved. The moon, which had been throwing her silver light o'er the dark foliage that overhung the Leith, and catching a look of her own face in the waters through the opening branches, was now half-concealed behind a cloud; and as the maiden passed along by the side of the stream, she required to restrain the flutter of her spirits, to enable her to thread her way by the narrow footpath. The ecstatic emotions of her novel situation, and the hurry of her progress, made her breathless, and she paused to recover herself, when she observed two individuals sitting by the side of the water. A loud laugh struck her ear; and she did not require to speculate as to the individuals from whom it came—for a voice she too well knew followed, with words of reproach that shook her to the heart. It was that of her former companion; and a glance satisfied her that she was in the society of that very individual, M'Intyre, the city guardsman, with whose name her own had been so cruelly and invidiously connected. In an instant the notorious individual was by her side.

"I've waited for ye, Menie," he began, "till the mune has waned and sunk behind the Pentlands. How hae ye been sae lang, woman, when ye ken sae weel the impatience o' a true lover, and that I maun be on the city watch on the morrow, and canna meet ye? Mak amends, and let us roam a wee amang the birken woods, whar the absence o' the mune will be nae hindrance to our loves."

And before she could reply, he had his arms round her neck, and was pulling her away among the trees. The apparition of the very individual of whom she had been conversing with Wallace, and whose name was a terror to her, with the fearful consciousness of the pollution of his embrace, took away from her all power of resistance; her knees trembled; she tried to reply to him, but could not; and a weak scream, that almost died in her throat, was the only show of ineffectual resistance she could oppose to his efforts. A few minutes enabled her to rally her powers; and she had turned to wrest herself from his arms, when she saw Wallace standing at a little distance among the trees. He had that very instant come up; and there was something in the cool, piercing look he threw at her, that repressed the inchoate scream for relief that she struggled to utter; and the hands she held out to him imploring his succour fell nerveless within the grasp of the man who held her. Upon the point of fainting, she would have sunk to the ground, had she not been upheld by the force of her tormentor; and, in turning her eyes again in the direction of Wallace, she observed he had vanished. The scream, no longer restrained, burst forth; but it came too late; for, if Wallace heard it in his retreat, he might justly attribute it to his own appearance at a time when he might suppose himself an unwelcome intruder. At that moment two men came in sight; and the city guardsman, probably afraid of being recognised, released her from his grasp, and retreated to the position he had left by the side of her who sat awaiting in laughter for his arrival.

The instant she was liberated, the frightened maiden flew with the speed of terror homewards—all her energies wound up in the mere effort to increase her irregular progress, and without the capability of feeling the true and fearful circumstances of her position. Arrived at her mother's house, she sprang forward in a state bordering on despair, and threw herself on a chair by the side of the fire, opposite to her parent, who was engaged in her usual evening exercise of searching the inspired volume for the balm of the consolation of age and poverty.

"What is this, Menie?" cried the mother, as she saw her daughter trembling under the influence of nervous terror. "Has yer enemy been at her auld wark again? and have a' yer mother's injunctions failed to get ye to rest on the sure foundation o' conscious innocence? It canna be that George Wallace has listened to the poisoned breath o' scandal and envy. Speak, child; and frae this book shall ye get the support that no son or daughter of Adam can lend to the children o' sorrow."

"Let me think, mother—let me collect mysel!" responded the girl, as she raised her hand to her head, and threw back her locks. "Whar am I? what spell is on me? Am I to be a bride on Fastern's E'en, or a disowned and heart-broken maiden? Why did he no speak to me—or why did I no speak to him? I will to him yet, and explain a', and the men will speak for me; but wha were they? Ah, they were strangers! and there's nane to warrant the words o' truth."

And rising, she made again towards the door, apparently with the confused intention of hurrying to Inverleith Mains; but her mother rose and restrained her, and she again sat down to collect her thoughts. It was some time before she could give so connected an account of the strange circumstances that had occurred within the space of a short hour, as to be understood by the mother; but, by questioning and cross-questioning, the latter came to the truth—and a truth of dangerous import she soon observed it to be. She had already, in her own person, suffered from the blighting effects of prejudice, and she trembled as she surveyed the difficulties that lay in the way of a proper explanation. The poison of a false conviction had too certainly already entered the breast of Wallace, and she knew that its workings might be made only the more inveterate, the greater the efforts resorted to for eradicating it. In all her trials, however, her refuge was the book that supported her fathers in the mountain glens, when the storm of persecution raged over a struggling land; and, enjoining her daughter to offer up with her their prayers to the throne of grace, she sought from the true fountain the means of relieving them from the danger which threatened innocence and poverty. The night passed, and the morning came, when it was resolved that they both together should repair to the residence of Wallace, and openly declare to him the truth of the perplexed appearances which had too evidently operated on his mind to their disadvantage; but a little farther consideration showed them the inexpediency of thus assuming that the conduct of Menie required explanation; and the resolution that at last prevailed was, to wait for some time to ascertain what might be the intentions and motions of Wallace, whom they expected to call at the house, according to his wont, as he passed to the city. The day passed away, but there was no appearance of him; and, on the day following, it was ascertained, from one of his father's servants, who was passing with grain to the market, that he had gone to the borders of England to bury a relation, where, it was expected, he would remain for a considerable time, to arrange the affairs of the deceased, to whom his father was nearest heir-at-law. This intelligence made it only more certain that the prejudice had taken root; because, otherwise, both duty and inclination would have forced him to pay a visit to his betrothed before his departure, however sudden or unexpected that might have been.

A month passed, and Wallace had not yet returned; but Fastern's Even was still a month distant, and every day brought the hope of a letter, at least, to explain the cause of his conduct, and point out his future proceedings, whether "for feid or favour." But no letter came; and all their inquiries ended in the intelligence that his relative's affairs were not yet wound up, and that some weeks yet would elapse before he could return. The situation, meanwhile, of the victim of prejudice was painful, and gradually becoming hopeless. Her prior sufferings from the stings of calumny were alleviated by the expectation that the generous mind of Wallace would scorn the schemes of her enemy, and her marriage would refute the aspersions, and place her beyond the reach of their poison; but now her relief was not only apparently cut off, but changed, by some adverse fate, into a proof—a confirmation of what had been alleged against her character. Every day found her a mourner; and it was only after nightfall that she could summon up resolution to go abroad on the small messages that domestic wants rendered necessary. Involved in mystery as were both mother and daughter, and pained as the latter was beyond endurance, there yet hung over them a still darker cloud of misfortune, equally mysteriously and fortuitously collected and formed, and equally cruel in its unmerited discharge on the heads of innocent victims. Misery of the deepest and most complicated kind seems often to be evolved from the most trifling causes, as if to show the proud sons of men, by a lesson that pains while it mocks them, the utter darkness of that blindness which they mistake for the light of a concealed reason. One evening, Menie had occasion to proceed to the small village of Canonmills, on a message to a friend; and, as usual, she waited till nightfall, to avoid the gaze of the neighbours, whom her fevered fancy exhibited to her (to a great extent untruly) as participators in the circulation of the calumnies under which she suffered. Wrapped up in a cloak, she hurried out, and proceeded down the narrow loan that then led to the village she intended to visit. Her step was stealthy, and her eye filled with secret shame, even among the shades of night. She reached the house, where she staid for a short time, and then set out on return, which she was inclined to accomplish as quickly and stealthily as she had done her progress forth; but she had not proceeded many paces from the village, when she observed a small wicker corban or basket lying by the side of a hedgerow that then ran along the lower part of the loan. There appeared to be no one near it; and, impelled by a natural curiosity, she proceeded forward and inspected it. There was on it, she observed, a bundle, so carefully pinned up, that, though she applied her fingers hastily to it, she could not penetrate its folds. On lifting up the strange deposit, she found that it felt heavy. She stood irresolute, and again looked around her, but saw no one. She was flurried; and her desire to get home urged her to take it up, and proceed hurriedly along the road, with the view of taking it to the house with her, to examine it leisurely, and restore it to the owner, in the event of his casting up. She obeyed the natural impulse; and, as she ran home with the unknown charge, she repeatedly cast her eyes about, to see if any one appeared to claim it; but she still saw no one; and, in the space of a few minutes, she reached the door of the house, and hurried in. She placed the burden upon the floor—telling her mother, at the same time, that she had found it on the road, and brought it home to see what it contained, as the bundle was so carefully tied up that she could not unfold it on the highway. Her mother put on her spectacles; and, bending down, proceeded, with the aid of Menie, to undo the cloth, when, to their surprise, they evolved from the many foldings of an envelope the dead body (still warm) of a new-born babe. Menie fainted at the grim spectacle, and the mother ran for hartshorn, to recover her daughter. In a little time she revived, but it was only to shudder again at the strange sight; while the sagacious mind of Euphan was busy with the divinations of a sad experience, that pointed to some new calamity to result from this new turn of their adverse fate. She saw, at once, that if she called in her envious neighbours, that had been already busy with the character of her daughter, the unlikely story of the finding and bringing home of a dead child would be scorned and laughed at, while the circumstance of the child being found in the house would be laid hold of as a handle for corroborating and confirming the already circulated calumnies, if, indeed, it might not form a subject for judicial examination and exposure, that might end in the ruin of one already too much persecuted. These cogitations led to a sudden resolution. Rolling up the body hastily in the envelope—

"Hie ye quickly, Menie," she said, "to the place whar ye fand this dangerous burden, and lay it in the precise position in which ye first saw it. The shafts o' envy are already thick round innocence, and we need not for sorrow to prick our own eyes that tears may fall. There is a knowledge that is for guid, and ane that is for evil; but 'the work of all flesh is before Him, and nothing can be hid from his eyes,' so shall this shame be made manifest in his own way. Haste, child, and obey the behest o' your mother."

The trembling girl started back at the mention of again bearing the unholy load; but she was impelled by the strange looks of her parent; and, like an automaton, she hurriedly snatched up the corb, and hastened with it to the place where she found it. She was wrapped up in her cloak, which she threw over the charge, and, after the manner of a thief, or a worker of secret iniquity, she slouched along the loan, trembling and stumbling at every step, till she came to the precise spot, and there she looked several times around her, before she ventured to deposit her burden. She thought she perceived some one behind her, who passed into an opening in the hedge, and she felt irresolute whether to lay down the corban at that moment, or ascertain first whether there was really any one behind the fence; but her mind again recurring to the contents of her burden, a feeling of horripilation crept over her, and, gently crouching down, as if terrified to behold her own act, she withdrew the cloak, left the charge, and fled precipitately along the dark side of the loan. Curiosity impelled her, as she fled, to turn her head, and she saw, with terror, some one issue from the opening in the hedge, and proceed, as she thought, to the identical spot which she had just left. It struck her forcibly, and she shuddered at the thought, that the figure she saw resembled that of Wallace; and the suspicion arose, that he had been watching about the cottage, had followed her, and observed her motions, and would now examine the burden she had so stealthily and mysteriously deposited by the side of the hedge. A strong paroxysm of hysterical emotion seized her, as the full consequences of a realisation of the conjecture were arrayed before her by the conjuring power of her terrors. The prior unexplained suspicion under which she yet lay rose to swell the tumult of her thoughts. She thought her God had deserted her, and that the destiny of her miserable life was placed under the charge of evil spirits, who gloried in her utter ruin. She grew faint, and was scarcely able to walk; and before she again reached the house, the choking effects of the hysterical spasm had almost deprived her of breath. The door was open for her reception; and the moment she entered, she fell upon the floor, panting for air, the blood streaming from her nostrils, and shrill, broken screams, like the sounds that issue from the victims of Cynanche, bursting from her labouring throat.