Romances of the old town of EdinburghLeighton, Alexander
General
Romances of the old town of Edinburgh
Leighton, Alexander
Edinburgh (Scotland) -- Fiction; Short stories, English -- Scottish authors
in her eye; and would not she, in her turn, be as firm in the box? All
which was too evident; and the consequence in the end came to be, that
Lindsay was in the course of a few days set at liberty.
And now there occurred proceedings not less strange in the house of
John Carr. Lindsay was turned off, because, though he had made a
sacrifice of himself to save the life of Effie, the sacrifice was only
that due to the justice he had offended. The dismissal was against the
protestations of Effie, who alone knew he was innocent; and she had to
bear the further grief of learning that Stormonth had left the city on
the very day whereon she was apprehended--a discovery this too much
for a frame always weak, and latterly so wasted by her confinement in
prison, and the anguish of mind consequent upon her strange position.
And so it came to pass, in a few more days, that she took to her bed,
a wan, wasted, heart-broken creature; but stung as she had been by the
conduct of the man she had offered to die to save, she felt even more
the sting of ingratitude in herself for not divulging to her mother as
much of her secret as would have saved Lindsay from dismissal; for she
was now more and more satisfied that it was the strength of his love
for her that had driven him to his great and perilous sacrifice. Nor
could her mother, as she bent over her daughter, understand why her
liberation should have been followed by so much of sorrow; nay, loving
her as she did, she even reproached her as being ungrateful to God.
“Mother,” said the girl, “I have a secret that lies like a stane upon
my heart. George Lindsay had nae mair to do with that forgery than you.”
“And who had to do with it then, Effie, dear?”
“Myself,” continued the daughter; “I filled up the cheque at the
bidding o’ Robert Stormonth, whom I had lang loved. It was he wha put
my faither’s name to it. It was to him I gave the money, to relieve him
from debt, and he has fled.”
“Effie, Effie!” cried the mother; “and we have done this thing to
George Lindsay--ta’en from him his basket and his store, yea, the bread
o’ his mouth, in recompense for trying to save your life by offering
his ain.”
“Yes, mother,” added Effie; “but we must make that wrang richt.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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