So free from danger, free from fear
They crossed the court--right glad they were.
Christabel.
Pursuing the path which Madge had chosen, Jeanie Deans observed, to her no
small delight, that marks of more cultivation appeared, and the thatched roofs of
houses, with their blue smoke arising in little columns, were seen embosomed in
a tuft of trees at some distance. The track led in that direction, and Jeanie,
therefore, resolved, while Madge continued to pursue it, that she would ask her
no questions; having had the penetration to observe, that by doing so she ran the
risk of irritating her guide, or awakening suspicions, to the impressions of which,
persons in Madge's unsettled state of mind are particularly liable.
Madge, therefore, uninterrupted, went on with the wild disjointed chat which her
rambling imagination suggested; a mood in which she was much more
communicative respecting her own history, and that of others, than when there
was any attempt made, by direct queries, or cross- examinations, to extract
information on these subjects.
"It's a queer thing," she said, "but whiles I can speak about the bit bairn and the
rest of it, just as if it had been another body's, and no my ain; and whiles I am like
to break my heart about it--Had you ever a bairn, Jeanie?"
Jeanie replied in the negative.
"Ay; but your sister had, though--and I ken what came o't too."
"In the name of heavenly mercy," said Jeanie, forgetting the line of conduct which
she had hitherto adopted, "tell me but what became of that unfortunate babe,
and"
Madge stopped, looked at her gravely and fixedly, and then broke into a great fit
of laughing--"Aha, lass,--catch me if you can--I think it's easy to gar you trow ony
thing.--How suld I ken onything o' your sister's wean? Lasses suld hae naething
to do wi' weans till they are married--and then a' the gossips and cummers come
in and feast as if it were the blithest day in the warld.--They say maidens' bairns
are weel guided. I wot that wasna true of your tittie's and mine; but these are sad
tales to tell.--I maun just sing a bit to keep up my heart--It's a sang that Gentle
George made on me lang syne, when I went with him to Lockington wake, to see
him act upon a stage, in fine clothes, with the player folk. He might hae dune
waur than married me that night as he promised--better wed over the mixen* as
over the moor, as they say in Yorkshire--
