“Stay—stay a bit,” rejoined Dumbiedikes; “that was no what I had gotten to say.”
“Then, pray be quick, and let me have your commands,” rejoined Butler; “I crave your pardon, but I am in haste, and Tempus nemini—you know the proverb.”
Dumbiedikes did not know the proverb, nor did he even take the trouble to endeavour to look as if he did, as others in his place might have done. He was concentrating all his intellects for one grand proposition, and could not afford any detachment to defend outposts. “I say, Mr. Butler,” said he, “ken ye if Mr. Saddletree’s a great lawyer?”
“I have no person’s word for it but his own,” answered Butler, drily; “but undoubtedly he best understands his own qualities.”
“Umph!” replied the taciturn Dumbiedikes, in a tone which seemed to say, “Mr. Butler, I take your meaning.” “In that case,” he pursued, “I’ll employ my ain man o’ business, Nichil Novit (auld Nichil’s son, and amaist as gleg as his father), to agent Effie’s plea.”
And having thus displayed more sagacity than Butler expected from him, he courteously touched his gold-laced cocked hat, and by a punch on the ribs, conveyed to Rory Bean, it was his rider’s pleasure that he should forthwith proceed homewards; a hint which the quadruped obeyed with that degree of alacrity with which men and animals interpret and obey suggestions that entirely correspond with their own inclinations.
Butler resumed his pace, not without a momentary revival of that jealousy which the honest Laird’s attention to the family of Deans had at different times excited in his bosom. But he was too generous long to nurse any feeling which was allied to selfishness. “He is,” said Butler to himself, “rich in what I want; why should I feel vexed that he has the heart to dedicate some of his pelf to render them services, which I can only form the empty wish of executing? In God’s name, let us each do what we can. May she be but happy!—saved from the misery and disgrace that seems impending—Let me but find the means of preventing the fearful experiment of this evening, and farewell to other thoughts, though my heart-strings break in parting with them!”
He redoubled his pace, and soon stood before the door of the Tolbooth, or rather before the entrance where the door had formerly been placed. His interview with the mysterious stranger, the message to Jeanie, his agitating conversation with her on the subject of breaking off their mutual engagements, and the interesting scene with old Deans, had so entirely occupied his mind as to drown even recollection of the tragical event which he had witnessed the preceding evening. His attention was not recalled to it by the groups who stood scattered on the street in conversation, which they hushed when strangers approached, or by the bustling search of the agents of the city police, supported by small parties of the military, or by the appearance of the Guard-House, before which were treble sentinels, or, finally, by the subdued and intimidated looks of the lower orders of society, who, conscious that they were liable to suspicion, if they were not guilty of accession to a riot likely to be strictly inquired into, glided about with an humble and dismayed aspect, like men whose spirits being exhausted in the revel and the dangers of a desperate debauch over-night, are nerve-shaken, timorous, and unenterprising on the succeeding day.
None of these symptoms of alarm and trepidation struck Butler, whose mind was occupied with a different, and to him still more interesting subject, until he stood before the entrance to the prison, and saw it defended by a double file of grenadiers, instead of bolts and bars. Their “Stand, stand!” the blackened appearance of the doorless gateway, and the winding staircase and apartments of the Tolbooth, now open to the public eye, recalled the whole proceedings of the eventful night. Upon his requesting to speak with Effie Deans, the same tall, thin, silver-haired turnkey, whom he had seen on the preceding evening, made his appearance,
“I think,” he replied to Butler’s request of admission, with true Scottish indirectness, “ye will be the same lad that was for in to see her yestreen?”