Page:Jeanie Deans and the lily of St. Leonard's.pdf/17

 17 "I am charged with a message to you, said he, from a young man whom I met this morning in the park : he said that, as you did not come at the hour he expected, you must meet him to- night at Muschat's Cairn as the moon rises. May I ask who or what this person is "-" I do not know, said Jeanie : yet I must give him the meeting he a-ks- there's life and death upon it." -"And will you not tell your father, or allow me to go with you?"_"It is impossible, she re- plied; there manna be mortal ear within hearing of our conference. Here they were interrupted by the arrival of Mr Saddletree, who had come to consult about the employment of counsel on Effie's behalf. From him they learned that on her examination she had confessed having given birth to a child, but solemnly denied any knowledge of its fate, or that she had any hand in taking away the life of the innocent being that she had brought into the world. The woman in whose house she had been confined had carried away the in- fant soon after it was born, and had not been heard of since. It was therefore the opinion of the lawyers whom Mr Saddletree had consulted that Effie would be found guilty, unless it could be proved on her trial that she had communica- ted her situation to some one previous to the birth of the infant. Little was to be expected from the clemency of Effie's judges, and every thing to be dreaded from the severity of the statute under which she would be tried. It occurred however to Butler, that if he could obtain admittance to her in the jail, he might perhaps succeed in gaining such information as would lead either to the discovery «f her seducer or of the person who had attended her during