“But,” continued Gager Tramp, “thinkest thou the daughter o’ yon hangit body isna as rank a witch as ho?”
“I kenna clearly,” returned the fellow, “but the folk are speaking o’ swimming her i’ the Eden.” And they passed on their several roads, after wishing each other good-morning.
Just as the clowns left the place, and as Mr. Archibald returned with some fair water, a crowd of boys and girls, and some of the lower rabble of more mature age, came up from the place of execution, grouping themselves with many a yell of delight around a tall female fantastically dressed, who was dancing, leaping, and bounding in the midst of them. A horrible recollection pressed on Jeanie as she looked on this unfortunate creature; and the reminiscence was mutual, for by a sudden exertion of great strength and agility, Madge Wildfire broke out of the noisy circle of tormentors who surrounded her, and clinging fast to the door of the calash, uttered, in a sound betwixt laughter and screaming, “Eh, d’ye ken, Jeanie Deans, they hae hangit our mother?” Then suddenly changing her tone to that of the most piteous entreaty, she added, “O gar them let me gang to cut her down!—let me but cut her down!—she is my mother, if she was waur than the deil, and she’ll be nae mair kenspeckle than half-hangit Maggie Dickson,* that cried saut mony a day after she had been hangit; her voice was roupit and hoarse, and her neck was a wee agee, or ye wad hae kend nae odds on her frae ony other saut-wife.”
* Note Q. Half-hanged Maggie Dickson.
Mr. Archibald, embarrassed by the madwoman’s clinging to the carriage, and detaining around them her noisy and mischievous attendants, was all this while looking out for a constable or beadle, to whom he might commit the unfortunate creature. But seeing no such person of authority, he endeavoured to loosen her hold from the carriage, that they might escape from her by driving on. This, however, could hardly be achieved without some degree of violence; Madge held fast, and renewed her frantic entreaties to be permitted to cut down her mother. “It was but a tenpenny tow lost,” she said, “and what was that to a woman’s life?” There came up, however, a parcel of savage-looking fellows, butchers and graziers chiefly, among whose cattle there had been of late a very general and fatal distemper, which their wisdom imputed to witchcraft. They laid violent hands on Madge, and tore her from the carriage, exclaiming— “What, doest stop folk o’ king’s high-way? Hast no done mischief enow already, wi’ thy murders and thy witcherings?”
“Oh, Jeanie Deans—Jeanie Deans!” exclaimed the poor maniac, “save my mother, and I will take ye to the Interpreter’s house again,—and I will teach ye a’ my bonny sangs,—and I will tell ye what came o’ the.” The rest of her entreaties were drowned in the shouts of the rabble.
“Save her, for God’s sake!—save her from those people!” exclaimed Jeanie to Archibald.
“She is mad, but quite innocent; she is mad, gentlemen,” said Archibald; “do not use her ill, take her before the Mayor.”
“Ay, ay, we’se hae care enow on her,” answered one of the fellows; “gang thou thy gate, man, and mind thine own matters.”
“He’s a Scot by his tongue,” said another; “and an he will come out o’ his whirligig there, I’se gie him his tartan plaid fu’ o’ broken banes.”