The Heart of Mid-Lothian - Penn State University

friend’s house, near to the prison, in which he himself
had lived since he came to town, being, indeed, no other
than that of our old friend Bartoline Saddletree, in which
Lady Staunton had served a short noviciate as a shopmaid.
This recollection rushed on her husband’s mind,
and the blush of shame which it excited overpowered
the sensation of fear which had produced his former
paleness. Good Mrs. Saddletree, however, bustled about
to receive the rich English baronet as the friend of Mr.
Butler, and requested an elderly female in a black gown
to sit still, in a way which seemed to imply a wish, that
she would clear the way for her betters. In the meanwhile,
understanding the state of the case, she ran to
get some cordial waters, sovereign, of course, in all cases
of faintishness whatsoever. During her absence, her visitor,
the female in black, made some progress out of the
room, and might have left it altogether without particular
observation, had she not stumbled at the threshold,
so near Sir George Staunton, that he, in point of
civility, raised her and assisted her to the door.
“Mrs. Porteous is turned very doited now, puir body,”
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said Mrs. Saddletree, as she returned with her bottle in
her hand— “She is no sae auld, but she got a sair backcast
wi’ the slaughter o’ her husband—Ye had some
trouble about that job, Mr. Butler.—I think, sir,” to Sir
George, “ye had better drink out the haill glass, for to
my een ye look waur than when ye came in.”
And, indeed, he grew as pale as a corpse, on recollecting
who it was that his arm had so lately supported—
the widow whom he had so large a share in making such.
“It is a prescribed job that case of Porteous now,” said
old Saddletree, who was confined to his chair by the
gout— “clean prescribed and out of date.”
“I am not clear of that, neighbour,” said Plumdamas, “for
I have heard them say twenty years should rin, and this is
but the fifty-ane—Porteous’s mob was in thretty-seven.”
“Ye’ll no teach me law, I think, neighbour—me that
has four gaun pleas, and might hae had fourteen, an it
hadna been the gudewife? I tell ye, if the foremost of
the Porteous mob were standing there where that gentleman
stands, the King’s Advocate wadna meddle wi’
him—it fa’s under the negative prescription.”