I beseech you--
These tears beseech you, and these chaste hands woo you
That never yet were heaved but to things holy--
Things like yourself--You are a God above us;
Be as a God, then, full of saving mercy!
The Bloody Brother.
Encouraged as she was by the courteous manners of her noble countryman, it
was not without a feeling of something like terror that Jeanie felt herself in a
place apparently so lonely with a man of such high rank. That she should have
been permitted to wait on the Duke in his own house, and have been there
received to a private interview, was in itself an uncommon and distinguished
event in the annals of a life so simple as hers; but to find herself his travelling
companion in a journey, and then suddenly to be left alone with him in so
secluded a situation, had something in it of awful mystery. A romantic heroine
might have suspected and dreaded the power of her own charms; but Jeanie
was too wise to let such a silly thought intrude on her mind. Still, however, she
had a most eager desire to know where she now was, and to whom she was to
be presented.
She remarked that the Duke's dress, though still such as indicated rank and
fashion (for it was not the custom of men of quality at that time to dress
themselves like their own coachmen or grooms), was nevertheless plainer than
that in which she had seen him upon a former occasion, and was divested, in
particular, of all those badges of external decoration which intimated superior
consequence. In short, he was attired as plainly as any gentleman of fashion
could appear in the streets of London in a morning; and this circumstance helped
to shake an opinion which Jeanie began to entertain, that, perhaps, he intended
she should plead her cause in the presence of royalty itself. "But surely," said
she to, herself, "he wad hae putten on his braw star and garter, an he had
thought o' coming before the face of majesty--and after a', this is mair like a
gentleman's policy than a royal palace."
There was some sense in Jeanie's reasoning; yet she was not sufficiently
mistress either of the circumstances of etiquette, or the particular relations which
existed betwixt the government and the Duke of Argyle, to form an accurate
judgment. The Duke, as we have said, was at this time in open opposition to the
administration of Sir Robert Walpole, and was understood to be out of favour with
the royal family, to whom he had rendered such important services. But it was a
maxim of Queen Caroline to bear herself towards her political friends with such
caution, as if there was a possibility of their one day being her enemies, and
towards political opponents with the same degree of circumspection, as if they
might again become friendly to her measures, Since Margaret of Anjou, no
