The Heart of Mid-Lothian - Penn State University

pretence of zeal for his peace of mind and respectability
of character, seemed to poor Butler to form a portentous
combination with the commission of the
stranger he had met with that morning. His voice faltered
as he asked, “whether nothing but a sense of her
sister’s present distress occasioned her to talk in that
manner?”
“And what else can do sae?” she replied with simplicity.
“Is it not ten long years since we spoke together in
this way?”
“Ten years!” said Butler. “It’s a long time—sufficient
perhaps for a woman to weary.”
“To weary of her auld gown,” said Jeanie, “and to
wish for a new ane if she likes to be brave, but not long
enough to weary of a friend—The eye may wish change,
but the heart never.”
“Never!” said Reuben,—”that’s a bold promise.”
“But not more bauld than true,” said Jeanie, with the
same quiet simplicity which attended her manner in joy
and grief in ordinary affairs, and in those which most
interested her feelings.
Sir Walter Scott
159
Butler paused, and looking at her fixedly— “I am
charged,” he said, “with a message to you, Jeanie.”
“Indeed! From whom? Or what can ony ane have to
say to me?”
“It is from a stranger,” said Butler, affecting to speak
with an indifference which his voice belied— “A young
man whom I met this morning in the Park.”
“Mercy!” said Jeanie, eagerly; “and what did he say?”
“That he did not see you at the hour he expected, but
required you should meet him alone at Muschat’s Cairn
this night, so soon as the moon rises.”
“Tell him,” said Jeanie, hastily, “I shall certainly come.”
“May I ask,” said Butler, his suspicions increasing at
the ready alacrity of the answer, “who this man is to
whom you are so willing to give the meeting at a place
and hour so uncommon?”
“Folk maun do muckle they have little will to do, in
this world,” replied Jeanie.
“Granted,” said her lover; “but what compels you to
this?—who is this person? What I saw of him was not
very favourable—who, or what is he?”