“No, Jeanie,” returned Deans, in the same grave melancholy tone. “She lives in the flesh, and is at freedom from earthly restraint, if she were as much alive in faith, and as free from the bonds of Satan.”
“The Lord protect us!” said Jeanie.—“Can the unhappy bairn hae left you for that villain?”
“It is ower truly spoken,” said Deans—“She has left her auld father, that has wept and prayed for her—She has left her sister, that travailed and toiled for her like a mother—She has left the bones of her mother, and the land of her people, and she is ower the march wi’ that son of Belial—She has made a moonlight flitting of it.” He paused, for a feeling betwixt sorrow and strong resentment choked his utterance.
“And wi’ that man?—that fearfu’ man?” said Jeanie. “And she has left us to gang aff wi’ him?—O Effie, Effie, wha could hae thought it, after sic a deliverance as you had been gifted wi’!”
“She went out from us, my bairn, because she was not of us,” replied David. “She is a withered branch will never bear fruit of grace—a scapegoat gone forth into the wilderness of the world, to carry wi’ her, as I trust, the sins of our little congregation. The peace of the warld gang wi’ her, and a better peace when she has the grace to turn to it! If she is of His elected, His ain hour will come. What would her mother have said, that famous and memorable matron, Rebecca MacNaught, whose memory is like a flower of sweet savour in Newbattle, and a pot of frankincense in Lugton? But be it sae—let her part—let her gang her gate—let her bite on her ain bridle—The Lord kens his time—She was the bairn of prayers, and may not prove an utter castaway. But never, Jeanie, never more let her name be spoken between you and me—She hath passed from us like the brook which vanisheth when the summer waxeth warm, as patient Job saith—let her pass, and be forgotten.”
There was a melancholy pause which followed these expressions. Jeanie would fain have asked more circumstances relating to her sister’s departure, but the tone of her father’s prohibition was positive. She was about to mention her interview with Staunton at his father’s rectory; but, on hastily running over the particulars in her memory, she thought that, on the whole, they were more likely to aggravate than diminish his distress of mind. She turned, therefore, the discourse from this painful subject, resolving to suspend farther inquiry until she should see Butler, from whom she expected to learn the particulars of her sister’s elopement.
But when was she to see Butler? was a question she could not forbear asking herself, especially while her father, as if eager to escape from the subject of his youngest daughter, pointed to the opposite shore of Dumbartonshire, and asking Jeanie “if it werena a pleasant abode?” declared to her his intention of removing his earthly tabernacle to that country, “in respect he was solicited by his Grace the Duke of Argyle, as one well skilled in country labour, and a’ that appertained to flocks and herds, to superintend a store-farm, whilk his Grace had taen into his ain hand for the improvement of stock.”
Jeanie’s heart sunk within her at this declaration. “She allowed it was a goodly and pleasant land, and sloped bonnily to the western sun; and she doubtedna that the pasture might be very gude, for the grass looked green, for as drouthy as the weather had been. But it was far frae hame, and she thought she wad be often thinking on the bonny spots of turf, sae fu’ of gowans and yellow king-cups, amang the Crags at St. Leonard’s.”
“Dinna speak on’t, Jeanie,” said her father; “I wish never to hear it named mair—that is, after the rouping is ower, and the bills paid. But I brought a’ the beasts owerby that I thought ye wad like best. There is Gowans, and there’s your ain brockit cow, and the wee hawkit ane, that ye ca’d—I needna tell ye how ye ca’d it—but I couldna bid them sell the petted creature, though the sight o’ it may sometimes gie us a sair heart—it’s no the poor dumb creature’s fault—And ane or twa beasts mair I hae reserved, and I caused them to be driven before the other beasts, that men might say, as when the son of Jesse returned from battle, ‘This is David’s spoil.’”
Upon more particular inquiry, Jeanie found new occasion to admire the active beneficence of her friend the Duke of Argyle. While establishing a sort of experimental farm on the skirts of his immense Highland estates, he had been somewhat at a loss to find a proper person in whom to vest the charge of it. The conversation his Grace had upon country matters with Jeanie Deans during their return from Richmond, had impressed him with a belief that the father, whose experience and success she so frequently quoted, must be exactly the sort of person whom he wanted. When the condition annexed to Effie’s pardon rendered it highly probable that David Deans would choose to change his place of residence, this idea again occurred to the Duke more strongly, and as he was an enthusiast equally in agriculture and in benevolence, he imagined he was serving the purposes of both, when he wrote to the gentleman in Edinburgh entrusted with his affairs, to inquire into the character of David Deans, cowfeeder, and so forth, at St. Leonard’s Crags; and if he found him such as he had been represented, to engage him without delay, and on the most liberal terms, to superintend his fancy-farm in Dumbartonshire.