glad of a word of legal advice."
So soon as he departed, Butler flew to the Bible, the last book which
Jeanie had touched. To his extreme surprise, a paper, containing two or
three pieces of gold, dropped from the book. With a black-lead pencil,
she had marked the sixteenth and twenty-fifth verses of the
thirty-seventh Psalm,--"A little that a righteous man hath, is better
than the riches of the wicked."--"I have been young and am now old, yet
have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their
bread."
Deeply impressed with the affectionate delicacy which shrouded its own
generosity under the cover of a providential supply to his wants, he
pressed the gold to his lips with more ardour than ever the metal was
greeted with by a miser. To emulate her devout firmness and confidence
seemed now the pitch of his ambition, and his first task was to write an
account to David Deans of his daughter's resolution and journey
southward. He studied every sentiment, and even every phrase, which he
thought could reconcile the old man to her extraordinary resolution. The
effect which this epistle produced will be hereafter adverted to. Butler
committed it to the charge of an honest clown, who had frequent dealings
with Deans in the sale of his dairy produce, and who readily undertook a
journey to Edinburgh to put the letter into his own hands.*
* By dint of assiduous research I am enabled to certiorate the reader,
that the name of this person was Saunders Broadfoot, and that he dealt in
the wholesome commodity called kirn-milk (_Anglice',_ butter-milk).--
J. C.
CHAPTER FOURTH.
"My native land, good night."
Lord Byron.
In the present day, a journey from Edinburgh to London is a matter at
once safe, brief, and simple, however inexperienced or unprotected the
traveller. Numerous coaches of different rates of charge, and as many
packets, are perpetually passing and repassing betwixt the capital of
Britain and her northern sister, so that the most timid or indolent may
execute such a journey upon a few hours' notice. But it was different in
1737. So slight and infrequent was the intercourse betwixt London and
Edinburgh, that men still alive remember that upon one occasion the mail
from the former city arrived at the General Post-Office in Scotland with
only one letter in it.*
* The fact is certain. The single epistle was addressed to the prin
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