The World's Greatest Books — Volume 07 — Fiction by Various
page 329 of 402 (81%)
page 329 of 402 (81%)
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Edinburgh, until a fitting time should arrive to wait upon Jeannie and
her father. Effie denied all guilt of infanticide; but she had concealed the birth of a child, and the child had disappeared, so that by the law she was judged guilty. His limbs exhausted with fatigue, Butler dragged himself up to St. Leonard's crags, and presented himself at the door of Deans' habitation, with feelings much akin to the miserable fears of its inhabitants. "Come in," answered the low, sweet-toned voice he loved best to hear, as he tapped at the door. The old man was seated by the fire with his well-worn pocket Bible in his hands, and turned his face away as Butler entered and clasped the extended hand which had supported his orphan infancy, wept over it, and in vain endeavoured to say more than "God comfort you! God comfort you!" "He will--He doth, my friend," said Deans. "He doth now, and He will yet more in His own gude time. I have been ower proud of my sufferings in a gude cause, Reuben, and now I am to be tried with those whilk will turn my pride and glory into a reproach and a hissing." Butler had too much humanity to do anything but encourage the good old man as he reckoned up with conscious pride the constancy of his testimony and his sufferings, but seized the opportunity as soon as possible of some private conversation with Jeannie. He gave her the message he had received from a stranger he had met an hour or two before, to the effect that she must meet him that night alone at Muschat's cairn at moonrise. "Tell him," said Jeannie hastily, "I will certainly come"; and to all |
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