“I dinna ken, sir,” was all the poor girl could utter; and, indeed, it is the phrase which rises most readily to the lips of any person in her rank, as the readiest reply to any embarrassing question.
“But,” said Sharpitlaw, “ye ken wha it was ye were speaking wi’, my leddy, on the hill side, and midnight sae near; ye surely ken that, my bonny woman?”
“I dinna ken, sir,” again iterated Jeanie, who really did not comprehend in her terror the nature of the questions which were so hastily put to her in this moment of surprise.
“We will try to mend your memory by and by, hinny,” said Sharpitlaw, and shouted, as we have already told the reader, to Ratcliffe, to come up and take charge of her, while he himself directed the chase after Robertson, which he still hoped might be successful. As Ratcliffe approached, Sharpitlaw pushed the young woman towards him with some rudeness, and betaking himself to the more important object of his quest, began to scale crags and scramble up steep banks, with an agility of which his profession and his general gravity of demeanour would previously have argued him incapable. In a few minutes there was no one within sight, and only a distant halloo from one of the pursuers to the other, faintly heard on the side of the hill, argued that there was any one within hearing. Jeanie Deans was left in the clear moonlight, standing under the guard of a person of whom she knew nothing, and, what was worse, concerning whom, as the reader is well aware, she could have learned nothing that would not have increased her terror.
When all in the distance was silent, Ratcliffe for the first time addressed her, and it was in that cold sarcastic indifferent tone familiar to habitual depravity, whose crimes are instigated by custom rather than by passion. “This is a braw night for ye, dearie,” he said, attempting to pass his arm across her shoulder, “to be on the green hill wi’ your jo.” Jeanie extricated herself from his grasp, but did not make any reply.
“I think lads and lasses,” continued the ruffian, “dinna meet at Muschat’s Cairn at midnight to crack nuts,” and he again attempted to take hold of her.
“If ye are an officer of justice, sir,” said Jeanie, again eluding his attempt to seize her, “ye deserve to have your coat stripped from your back.”
“Very true, hinny,” said he, succeeding forcibly in his attempt to get hold of her, “but suppose I should strip your cloak off first?”
“Ye are more a man, I am sure, than to hurt me, sir,” said Jeanie; “for God’s sake have pity on a half-distracted creature!”
“Come, come,” said Ratcliffe, “you’re a good-looking wench, and should not be cross-grained. I was going to be an honest man—but the devil has this very day flung first a lawyer, and then a woman, in my gate. I’ll tell you what, Jeanie, they are out on the hill-side—if you’ll be guided by me, I’ll carry you to a wee bit corner in the Pleasance, that I ken o’ in an auld wife’s, that a’ the prokitors o’ Scotland wot naething o’, and we’ll send Robertson word to meet us in Yorkshire, for there is a set o’ braw lads about the midland counties, that I hae dune business wi’ before now, and sae we’ll leave Mr. Sharpitlaw to whistle on his thumb.”