“Maybe no, sister,” said Effie. “But ye are angry because I love Robertson—How can I help loving him, that loves me better than body and soul baith?—Here he put his life in a niffer, to break the prison to let me out; and sure am I, had it stude wi’ him as it stands wi’ you”—Here she paused and was silent.
“O, if it stude wi’ me to save ye wi’ risk of my life!” said Jeanie.
“Ay, lass,” said her sister, “that’s lightly said, but no sae lightly credited, frae ane that winna ware a word for me; and if it be a wrang word, ye’ll hae time eneugh to repent o’t.”
“But that word is a grievous sin, and it’s a deeper offence when it’s a sin wilfully and presumptuously committed.”
“Weel, weel, Jeanie,” said Effie, “I mind a’ about the sins o’ presumption in the questions—we’ll speak nae mair about this matter, and ye may save your breath to say your carritch and for me, I’ll soon hae nae breath to waste on onybody.”
“I must needs say,” interposed Ratcliffe, “that it’s d—d hard, when three words of your mouth would give the girl the chance to nick Moll Blood,* that you make such scrupling about rapping** to them. D—n me, if they would take me, if I would not rap to all what d’ye callums—Hyssop’s Fables, for her life—I am us’d to’t, b—t me, for less matters. Why, I have smacked calf-skin*** fifty times in England for a keg of brandy.”
* The gallows. ** Swearing. *** Kissed the book.
“Never speak mair o’t,” said the prisoner. “It’s just as weel as it is—and gude-day, sister; ye keep Mr. Ratcliffe waiting on—Ye’ll come back and see me, I reckon, before”—here she stopped and became deadly pale.
“And are we to part in this way,” said Jeanie, “and you in sic deadly peril? O Effie, look but up, and say what ye wad hae me to do, and I could find in my heart amaist to say that I wad do’t.”
“No, Jeanie,” replied her sister after an effort, “I am better minded now. At my best, I was never half sae gude as ye were, and what for suld you begin to mak yoursell waur to save me, now that I am no worth saving? God knows, that in my sober mind, I wadna wuss ony living creature to do a wrang thing to save my life. I might have fled frae this Tolbooth on that awfu’ night wi’ ane wad hae carried me through the warld, and friended me, and fended for me. But I said to them, let life gang when gude fame is gane before it. But this lang imprisonment has broken my spirit, and I am whiles sair left to mysell, and then I wad gie the Indian mines of gold and diamonds, just for life and breath—for I think, Jeanie, I have such roving fits as I used to hae in the fever; but, instead of the fiery een and wolves, and Widow Butler’s bullseg, that I used to see spieling upon my bed, I am thinking now about a high, black gibbet, and me standing up, and such seas of faces all looking up at poor Effie Deans, and asking if it be her that George Robertson used to call the Lily of St. Leonard’s. And then they stretch out their faces, and make mouths, and girn at me, and whichever way I look, I see a face laughing like Meg Murdockson, when she tauld me I had seen the last of my wean. God preserve us, Jeanie, that carline has a fearsome face!”