The Heart of Mid-Lothian

g story is founded. He is now at liberty to say, that the information was conveyed to him by a late amiable and ingenious lady, whose wit and power of remarking and judging of cha

ation was in

pleasure in embellishing cottages, which she found perhaps homely and even poor enough; mine, therefore, possessed many marks

over, and some through, the trees scattered along a lane which led down to the ruin, and the strange fantastic sh

end of the lane, it was discovered to be situated on a high perpendicular bank, at the foo

t roaring swe

d to be between seventy and eighty years of age; she was almost covered with a tartan plaid, and her cap had over it a black silk hood, tied under the chin, a piece of dress still much in use among

ut the same relation to stocking-knitting that cobbling does to shoe-making, and is of course both less profitab

. She said, ‘Mem, have ye na far mair reason to be happy than me, wi’ a gude husband and a fine family o’ bairns, and plenty o’ everything? for me, I’m the puirest o’ a’ puir bodies, and can hardly contrive to keep mysell alive in a’ the wee bits o’ ways I hae tell’t ye.’ After some more conversati

r exertions. Attached to herby so many ties, therefore, it will not be easy to conceive her feelings, when she found that this only sister must be tried by the laws of her country for child-murder, and upon being called as principal witness against her. The counsel for the prisoner told Helen, that if she could declare that her sister

e sentence and the execution, and Helen Walker availed herself of it. The very day of her sister’s condemnation she

clerk of the court, she presented herself, in her tartan plaid and country attire, to the late Duke of Argyle, who im

y acquaintance with Helen Walker; but as I was to leave the country next day, I was obliged t

inhabited the other end of her cottage. I inquired if Helen ever spoke of her past history — her journey to London, etc., ‘Na,’ th

se my regret, and raise my opinion of Helen Walker, who

the following letter to the aut

f Irongray, about six miles from Dumfries. I once proposed that a small monument should have been erected to commemo

splayed by Helen Walker, the prototype of the fictitious Jeanie Deans. Mrs. Goldie was unfortunately dead before the author had given his name to these volumes, so he

d to ask her about her sister’s trial, or her journey to London; ‘Helen,’ she added, ‘was a lofty body, and used a high style o’ language.’ The same old woman says, that every year Helen received a cheese from her sister, who lived at Whitehaven, and that she always sent a liberal portion of it to herself, or to her father’s family. This fact, though trivial in itself, strongly marks the affection subsisting between the two sisters, and the complete conviction on the mind of the criminal that her sister had acted so

gray Churchyard; and if Sir Walter Scott will condescend to write the last, a little subscription

ch the author conceives himself obliged to his unknown correspondent, who thus supplied him with a theme affording such a pleasing view of the moral dignity of virtue, though unaided by birth, beaut

rd, Apri

tsc

aginary Jeanie Deans, the Editor may be pardoned for introducing two or three anecdotes respecting that excellent person, which he has collect

her father, she continued, with the unassuming piety of a Scottish peasant, to support her mother by her own unremitted l

only to evince a strength of character superior to those around her. Thus it was remarked, that when it thundered, she went wit

n’s life at the expense of truth, borrowed a sum of money sufficient for her journey, walked the whole distance to London barefoot, and made her way to John Duke of Argyle. She was heard

e person who had wronged her (named Waugh), and lived happily for great part of a century

a romantic cemetery on the banks of the Cairn. That a character so distinguished for her undaunted love of virtue, lived and died in p