"He took me from a fearful pit,
And from the miry clay,
And on a rock He set my feet,
Establishing my way."
The service finished, they saw her replace the book where she had found it; and by this time the kettle was spewing from the mouth thereof a volume of steam, as if it were calling to its old mistress to relieve it from the heat of the fire; nor was she long in paying due obedience. The tea-pot was got where she seemed to know it would be found, so also the tea-canister. The quantity to be put in was a foregone conclusion, and steadily measured with the spoon. The water was poured in, and the utensil placed on the cheek of the chimney in order to the indispensable infusion. Next the cup and saucer were placed on the table, then followed the bread and butter, and the sugar and the milk; all being finished by the words to herself, "There's nae egg in the house." Having thus finished her work, she took down her plaid, adjusted it carefully, opened the door, and departed.
The effect produced by this second spectral appearance could scarcely be exaggerated, yet we suspect you will not find it of that kind which is most in harmony with human nature, except in the case of Mrs. Dodds the second, who lay, as on the former occasion, sweating and trembling. It was now different with the husband, on whom apparently had fallen some of the seeds of the word, as they were scattered by the lips of the strange visitor, and conscience had prepared the soil. The constitutional strength of character which had enabled him to perpetrate a terrible deed of evil, was ready as a power to achieve his emancipation, and work in the direction of good. So, without saying a word of all that had been acted that morning, he rose and dressed himself, and, going into the kitchen, he sat down without the fear of poison, and partook of the breakfast which had been so strangely prepared for him, nor was he satisfied till he read the chapter and psalm with which he had been so long familiar. He then returned to the bedroom, and addressing his wife—
"You now see," said he, "that Heaven has found us out. That visitor is nae ither than Mrs. Janet Dodds returned frae the grave, and sure it is that nane are permitted to leave that place o' rest except for a purpose. No, it's no for naething that Janet Dodds comes back to her auld hame. What the purpose may be, the Lord only knows; but this seems to me to be clear enough—that you and I maun pairt. You see that nae breakfast has been laid for you. I have taen mine, and nae harm has come o't; a clear sign that though we are baith great criminals, you are considered to be the warst o' the twa. It was you wha put poison into my ear and cast glamour ower my een; it was you wha egged me on, for 'the lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb, and her words are smoother than oil; but her feet take hold of hell.' That I am guilty, I know; and 'though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not go unpunished.' I will dree my doom whatever it may be, and so maun you yours; but there may be a difference, and so far as mortal can yet see, yours will be waur to bear than mine. But, however a' that may be, the time is come when you maun leave this house. 'Cast out the strange woman, and contention shall go out; yea, strife and reproach shall cease;' but 'go not forth hastily to strive, lest thou know not what to do in the end, when thy neighbour hath put thee to shame.' Keep your secret frae a' save the Lord; and may He hae mercy on your soul!"
With which words, savouring as they did of the objurgations of the black pot to the kettle, Mr. Thomas Dodds left his house, no doubt in the expectation that Mrs. Dodds secunda would move her camp, and betake herself once more to her old place of residence in the Grassmarket. Where he went that day no man ever knew, further than that he was seen in the afternoon in St. Giles's Church, where, no doubt, he did his best to make a cheap purchase of immunity to his soul and body, in consideration of a repentance brought on by pure fear, produced by a spectre; and who knows but that that was a final cause of the spectre's appearance? We have seen that it was a kindly spirit, preparing porridge and tea for him at the same time that it made his hair stand on end, and big drops of sweat settle upon his brow or roll down therefrom—a conjunction this of the tawse and the jelly-pot, whereby kind and loving parents try to redeem naughty boys. Nor let it be said that this kindly dealing with a murderer is contrary to the ways of Heaven; for, amidst a thousand other examples, did not Joshua, after the wall of Jericho lay flat at the blast of a trumpet, save that vile woman Rahab at the same time that he slew the young and the old, nay, the very infants, with the edge of the sword? All which, though we are not, by token of our sins, able to see the reason thereof, is doubtless consonant to a higher justice—altogether unlike our goddess, who is represented as blind, merely because she is supposed not to see a bribe when offered to her by a litigant. So the penitence of Mr. Thomas Dodds might be a very dear affair after all, in so much as terror is a condition of the soul which, of all we are doomed to experience, is the most difficult to bear, especially if it is a terror of divine wrath. On his return to his house in the evening, he found that Mrs. Mary had taken him at his word and decamped, but not without providing herself with as good a share of the "goods in communion" as she could, perhaps, at two or three returns, carry off. So was she like Zebulun in all save her righteousness, for she "rejoiced in her going out;" nay, she had some reason, for she had discovered that in a secret drawer of an old cabinet there was a pose of gold collected by the industrious hands of Mrs. Janet, and unknown to her husband, every piece of which she carried off in spite of all fear of the spectre, which, if a sensible one, might have been supposed to be more irritated at this heedless spoliation than at all the Jezebel had yet done, with the exception of the counselling her death in the deep hole of the North Loch. On seeing all this robbery, Mr. Dodds became more and more aware of the bad exchange he had made by killing his good spouse to enable him to take another, who had merely found more favour in his eyes by reason of her good looks; and we may augur how much deeper his feeling of regret would have been, had he known the secret pose, so frugally and prudently laid up, perhaps for his sake, at least for the sake of both, when disease or old age might overtake them, in a world where good and evil, pleasure and pain, appear to be fixed quantities, only shoved from one to another by wisdom and prudence, yet sometimes refusing to be moved even by these means.
After satisfying himself of the full extent of the robbery, which, after all, he had brought upon himself, and very richly deserved, he sat down upon a chair and began to moralize, after the manner of those late penitents who have found themselves out to be either rogues or fools—the number of whom comprehends, perhaps, all mankind. He had certainly good reason to be contrite. The angel in the house had become a spectre, and she who was no angel, either in the house or out of it, had carried off almost everything of any value he possessed. Nor did he stop at mere unspoken contrition, he bewailed in solemn tones his destiny, and then began to cast up all the perfections of good Janet, the more perfect and beautiful these seeming in proportion as he felt the fear of her reappearance, perhaps next time, in place of making his breakfast, to run away with him to the dire place of four letters. All her peculiarities were now virtues—nay, the very things which had appeared to him the most indefensible took on the aspect of angelic endowments. While her careful housewifery was all intended for his bodily health and comfort, her perseverance in adhering to the one chapter and the one psalm was due to that love of iteration which inspires those who are never weary of well-doing. And what was more extraordinary, one verse of the psalm—that which we have quoted—had special reference to the manner of her death, and her deliverance from condemnation in the world to come. No doubt the man who meditates upon his own crime or folly at the very moment when he is suffering from its sharp recalcitrations, is just about as miserable a wretch as the reformatory of the world can present; but when, to the effects upon himself, he is compelled to think of the cruelty he has exercised towards others—and those perhaps found out to be his best friends—we doubt if there are any words beyond the vocabulary of the condemned that are sufficient to express his anguish. Even this did not comprehend all the suffering of Mr. Dodds, for, was he not under doom without knowing what form it was to assume, whether the spectre (whose cookery might be a sham) would choke him, burn him, or run away with him?
Deeply steeped in this remorseful contemplation, during which the figure of his ill-used wife flitted before the eye of his fancy with scarcely less of substantial reality than she had shown in her spectral form, he found that he had lost all regard to time. The night was fast setting in, the shadows of the tall houses were falling deeper and deeper on the room, and the Sabbath stillness was a solemn contrast to the perturbations inside the chamber of his soul, where "the serpents and the cockatrices would not be charmed." Still, everything within and without was dreary, and the spoliation of his means did not tend to enliven the outer scene, or impart a charm to the owner. While in this state of depression, Tammas heard a knock at the door. It was not, as on the former occasions, what is called a tirl. It might be a neighbour, or it might be an old crony, and he stood in need of some one to raise his spirits, so he went to the door and opened it. But what was his horror when he saw enter a female figure, in all respects so like his feared visitor that he concluded in the instant that she was the same! nor could all his penitence afford him resolution enough to make a proper examination; besides, it was grey dark, and even a pair of better eyes than he could boast of, might, under the circumstances soon to appear, have been deceived. Retreating into the kitchen, he was followed by this dubious, and yet not dubious visitor, who, as he threw himself upon a chair, took a seat right opposite to him.
"Ye'll no ken me, Tammas Dodds?" said she.
Whereupon Tammas looked and looked again, and still the likeness he dreaded was so impressive, that, in place of moving his tongue, he moved, that is, he shuddered, all over.
"What—eh?" at length he stuttered; "ken ye? wha in God's name are ye?
No surely Mrs. Janet Dodds in the likeness of the flesh!"