Bind her quickly; or, by this steel,
I'll tell, although I truss for company.
Fletcher.
The imperfect light which shone into the window enabled Jeanie to see that there
was scarcely any chance of making her escape in that direction; for the aperture
was high in the wall, and so narrow, that, could she have climbed up to it, she
might well doubt whether it would have permitted her to pass her body through it.
An unsuccessful attempt to escape would be sure to draw down worse treatment
than she now received, and she, therefore, resolved to watch her opportunity
carefully ere making such a perilous effort. For this purpose she applied herself
to the ruinous clay partition, which divided the hovel in which she now was from
the rest of the waste barn. It was decayed and full of cracks and chinks, one of
which she enlarged with her fingers, cautiously and without noise, until she could
obtain a plain view of the old hag and the taller ruffian, whom they called Levitt,
seated together beside the decayed fire of charcoal, and apparently engaged in
close conference. She was at first terrified by the sight; for the features of the old
woman had a hideous cast of hardened and inveterate malice and ill-humour,
and those of the man, though naturally less unfavourable, were such as
corresponded well with licentious habits, and a lawless profession.
"But I remembered," said Jeanie, "my worthy fathers tales of a winter evening,
how he was confined with the blessed martyr, Mr. James Renwick, who lifted up
the fallen standard of the true reformed Kirk of Scotland, after the worthy and
renowned Daniel Cameron, our last blessed banner-man, had fallen among the
swords of the wicked at Airsmoss, and how the very hearts of the wicked
malefactors and murderers, whom they were confined withal, were melted like
wax at the sound of their doctrine: and I bethought mysell, that the same help
that was wi' them in their strait, wad be wi' me in mine, an I could but watch the
Lord's time and opportunity for delivering my feet from their snare; and I minded
the Scripture of the blessed Psalmist, whilk he insisteth on, as weel in the forty-
second as in the forty-third psalm--'Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why
art thou disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, who is the
health of my countenance, and my God.'"
Strengthened in a mind naturally calm, sedate, and firm, by the influence of
religious confidence, this poor captive was enabled to attend to, and
comprehend, a great part of an interesting conversation which passed betwixt
those into whose hands she had fallen, notwithstanding that their meaning was
partly disguised by the occasional use of cant terms, of which Jeanie knew not
the import, by the low tone in which they spoke, and by their mode of supplying
