Page:Jeanie Deans and the lily of St. Leonard's.pdf/4

 4 expecting with extreme impatience the day of his execution. It was a short time before this event that David Deans, an staunch presbyterian of the old school, took up his abode at St. Leonard's. He had formerly rented the small farm of Wood- end on the estate of Dumbiedikes, not far from Edinburgh. At one time however, he had been brought to the very brink of ruin, by the rapacity and extortion of his landlord, and was on the eve of being turned adrift on the world, along with his neighbour widow Butler, and her orphan grandson Reuben, when by the sud- den death of the author of their distresses, a favourable turn was given to their affairs. Deans and the widow Butler were placed in such a situation as naturally created some inti- macy between the families. They had shared a common danger and a mutual deliverance, and occasions were frequently occurring where they needed each other's assistance. This intercourse became strict and intimate, at a very early per- iod, betwixt Reuben Butler and Jeanie Deans, the only child David Deans had by his first wife. The two children clung to each other's society not more from habit than from taste. They herded together the handful of sheep, with the two or three cows which their parents turned out upon the is closed common of Dumbiedikes, and were inseparable companions in going and returning from school. Reuben was decidedly the best scholar in the little parish school, and such was the rapid advance that he made in learning, that his grandmother yielded to his wishes, and agreed that he should go to the uni- versity of St. Andrew's, and there quality him- self as a minister of the church of Scotland.