The Heart of Mid-Lothian (1818) First edition
in Four Volumes
I bought the four volume first edition on 15th October 1988, but this is my first reading of what is regarded by many (e.g. Lady Louisa Stuart, Walter Savage Landor, John Buchan) as Scott's finest novel. Once one has got through the rather tiresome Jedediah Cleishbotham and Peter Pattieson section (to page 51), the reader is transported to the Edinburgh of 1736 and the events leading up to the famous Wilson hanging (his younger accomplice Robertson/Staunton having escaped through Wilson's connivance)
The 'Heart of Mid-Lothian' - the Edinburgh Tolbooth
This leads on to the storming of the infamous Tolbooth (The Heart of Mid-Lothian) by a mob stirred up by a disguised Robertson and the extraction and lynching of the Captain of the City Guard, Captain Porteous. This, essentially true story, takes up over half of the first volume. Caught up in all these events is the sad tale of a young girl, Effie Deans, imprisoned in the Tolbooth for having (apparently) murdered her newborn infant. Scott described her as a beautiful and blooming girl. Her Grecian-shaped head was profusely rich in waving ringlets of brown hair...her brown russet short-gown set off a shape, which time, perhaps, might be expected to render too robust... It is interesting that Scott uses Elizabeth Hamilton's strictures in her Glenburnie novel, with her description of Mrs MacClarty and her awful daughters, to criticise Effie's upbringing: Effie had had a double share of this inconsiderate and misjudged kindness. In her lowest moments, in the Tolbooth, we do feel for her: Isna my crown, my honour removed? And what am I but a poor wasted wan-thriven tree, dug up by the roots, and flung out to waste in the highway, that man and beast may tread it under foot? The scene in the High Court of Justiciary is powerfully moving - not only the effect on Effie but on her father and sister.
Effie Deans (Millais)
We learn that her seducer was the same Robertson, the evil henchman of the late Wilson. Scott weaves a powerful tale around Effie's family and their friends.
Doucie Davie Deans is a marvellous example of Scott's portrayal of the strict Cameronian. He aims to instruct (indoctrinate) his elder daughter's young man - Reuben Butler, whose grandfather was a trooper in General Monk's army and his father, 'Bible' Butler, a staunch independent - in the true faith and I will make it my business to procure a licence when he is fit for the same, trusting he will be a shaft cleanly polished, and meet to be used in the body of the kirk; and that he shall not turn again, like the sow, to wallow in the mire of heretical extremes and defections... He had much of Burley of Balfour (Old Mortality) in his character - there is a suggestion he fought at Bothwell Brig.
John Dumbiedikes, the local laird and mute admirer of Jeanie Deans, is another inspired Scott character. His pony, Rory Bean, deserves an accolade, too, whose hobbling pace and Celtic obstinacy would rarely diverge a yard from the path that conducted him to his own paddock. As Jeanie says of him, He's a gude creature, and a kind - it's a pity he has sae willyard a powney.
The other characters' presence add to the enthralling narrative - Daddy Ratcliffe, the 'poacher turned gamekeeper' of the Tolbooth; the Robertson/Stanfield character is a bit hit-and-miss, not wholly believable; Mrs. Janet Balchristie, buxom betwixt forty and fifty, in charge of the old house of Dumbiedikes; Mrs. Bickerton, lady of the ascendant of the Seven Stars, in the Castle-gate, York - where Jeanie lodges; Mrs. Margaret Glass, tobacconist, at the sign of the Thistle, London; and Mr. Archibald, the faithful servant of the Duke of Argyle. Scott gives us a rounded portrayal of the Duke - he was alike free from the ordinary vices of statesmen, falsehood, namely, and dissimulation, and from those warriors, inordinate and violent thirst after self-aggrandisement. His arrangement of the meeting between Jeanie and Queen Caroline ends Volume III on a high note for both Jeanie and the reader.
Lady Suffolk - Jeanie Deans
But, above all, the cement that binds the tale together is that of Jeanie Deans, whose mind had, even when a child, a grave, serious, firm, and reflecting cast...she was short, and rather too stoutly made for her size, had grey eyes, light-coloured hair, a round good-humoured face, much tanned with the sun, and her only peculiar charm was an air of inexpressible serenity, which a good conscience, kind feelings, contented temper, and the regular discharge of all her duties, spread over her features. Scott's description of her various travails - of conscience when she is asked to lie about whether her sister had told her about the child; of broken-heartedness in her subsequent meeting with Effie in the Tolbooth;
Jeanie and Effie in the Tolbooth
with Ratcliffe
of weariness during her long journey to London; of her meeting with first the Duke of Argyll and then Queen Caroline; are masterpieces. Volume III centres entirely on Jeanie's experiences London bound.
There a few negatives. Once again, I found Scott's portrayal of a lawyer irritating. Saddletree, the amateur advocate, was simply boring and repetitive and, for me at least, without humour. He says at one point, But I am wearying you Mr. Deans - well, he wearied me, too. Duncan of Knockunder is particularly 'wearysome'. Scott, too often, has to insert a character who can't speak proper English: Dirk Hatterick in Guy Mannering; Dousterswivel in The Antiquary. This time it is Duncan; I found myself skipping his speeches. Meg and Madge 'Wildfire' Murdockson seemed to be a replay of Meg Merrilees, with more evil and more madness about them. The character of Robertson/Staunton had a little of the pantomime about him and his death at the hands of his long-lost son is too unlikely. Effie's transformation from frightened occupant of the Tolbooth to High Society beauty is also far-fetched. In fact, the novel, with an extra chapter, could have easily ended in Volume III. True, Volume IV does see old David Deans and Reuben Butler (married and) settled and the awful come-uppance for Robertson. But the Roseneath episodes do back up Scott's desire to show Scottish life passing into a mellower phrase in which old unhappy things were forgotten (Buchan). There is a belief that too many Three-decker novels were padded out in the second volume; in this case, the padding appears to be more in the last volume. The chapter VI, where David Deans and, then Reuben Butler, discuss the intricacies of Scottish Presbyterianism does not sooth the 21st century mind.
John Buchan thought very highly of the novel and here are some extracts from his biography of Scott (1932): the first five-sixths of the book are almost perfect narrative. The start, after his fashion, is a little laboured...but when the action once begins there is no slackening and the public and private dramas are deftly interwoven...the other novels, even the best of them, resemble a flat and sometimes dull country, where the road occasionally climbs to the heights, but in The Heart of Midlothian the path is all on table land, in tonic air and with wonderful prospects...
I liked Scott's comment on Roman Catholicism: on stripping the dead Robertson of his clothes, it then appeared, from the crucifix, the beads, and the shirt of hair which he wore next his person, that his sense of guilt had induced him to receive the dogmata of a religion, which pretends, by the maceration of the body, to expiate the crimes of the soul. Well, it would have to work doubly hard for Robertson's .
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