“Sir, if it be true that any of my cloth, or, it might be more decently said, of my calling, interfere with men’s private affairs, for the gratification either of idle curiosity, or for worse motives, you cannot have learned a better lesson abroad than to contemn such practices. But in my Master’s work, I am called to be busy in season and out of season; and, conscious as I am of a pure motive, it were better for me to incur your contempt for speaking, than the correction of my own conscience for being silent.”
“In the name of the devil!” said the young man impatiently, “say what you have to say, then; though whom you take me for, or what earthly concern you have with me, a stranger to you, or with my actions and motives, of which you can know nothing, I cannot conjecture for an instant.”
“You are about,” said Butler, “to violate one of your country’s wisest laws—you are about, which is much more dreadful, to violate a law, which God himself has implanted within our nature, and written as it were, in the table of our hearts, to which every thrill of our nerves is responsive.”
“And what is the law you speak of?” said the stranger, in a hollow and somewhat disturbed accent.
“Thou shalt do no murder,” said Butler, with a deep and solemn voice.
The young man visibly started, and looked considerably appalled. Butler perceived he had made a favourable impression, and resolved to follow it up. “Think,” he said, “young man,” laying his hand kindly upon the stranger’s shoulder, “what an awful alternative you voluntarily choose for yourself, to kill or be killed. Think what it is to rush uncalled into the presence of an offended Deity, your heart fermenting with evil passions, your hand hot from the steel you had been urging, with your best skill and malice, against the breast of a fellow-creature. Or, suppose yourself the scarce less wretched survivor, with the guilt of Cain, the first murderer, in your heart, with the stamp upon your brow—that stamp which struck all who gazed on him with unutterable horror, and by which the murderer is made manifest to all who look upon him. Think—”
The stranger gradually withdrew himself from under the hand of his monitor; and, pulling his hat over his brows, thus interrupted him. “Your meaning, sir, I dare say, is excellent, but you are throwing your advice away. I am not in this place with violent intentions against any one. I may be bad enough—you priests say all men are so—but I am here for the purpose of saving life, not of taking it away. If you wish to spend your time rather in doing a good action than in talking about you know not what, I will give you an opportunity. Do you see yonder crag to the right, over which appears the chimney of a lone house? Go thither, inquire for one Jeanie Deans, the daughter of the goodman; let her know that he she wots of remained here from daybreak till this hour, expecting to see her, and that he can abide no longer. Tell her, she must meet me at the Hunter’s Bog to-night, as the moon rises behind St. Anthony’s Hill, or that she will make a desperate man of me.”
“Who or what are you,” replied Butler, exceedingly and most unpleasantly surprised, “who charge me with such an errand?”
“I am the devil!”—answered the young man hastily.
Butler stepped instinctively back, and commanded himself internally to Heaven; for, though a wise and strong-minded man, he was neither wiser nor more strong-minded than those of his age and education, with whom, to disbelieve witchcraft or spectres, was held an undeniable proof of atheism.