She found him quite seriously ill, as she had feared, but yet most unwilling to let her go on this errand alone; she must give him a husband’s right to protect her.  But she, pointing out the fact that he was scarcely able to stand, said this was no time to speak of marrying or giving in marriage, asked him if his grandfather had not done some good to the forebear of MacCallumore.  It was so, and Reuben gave her the papers to prove it, and a letter to the Duke of Argyle; and she, begging him to do what he could for her father and sister, left the room hastily.

With a strong heart, and a frame patient of fatigue, Jeannie Deans, travelling at the rate of twenty miles and more a day, traversed the southern part of Scotland, where her bare feet attracted no attention.  She had to conform to the national extravagance in England, and confessed afterwards “that besides the wastrife, it was lang or she could walk as comfortably with the shoes as without them”; but found the people very hospitable on the whole, and sometimes got a cast in a waggon.

At last London was reached, and an audience obtained with the Duke of Argyie.  His Grace’s heart warmed to the tartan when Jeannie appeared before him in the dress of a Scottish maiden of her class.  His grandfather’s letter, too, was a strong injunction to assist Stephen Butler, his friends or family, and he exerted himself to such good purpose, that he brought her into the presence of the queen to plead her cause for herself.  Her majesty smiled at Jeannie’s awestruck manner and broad Northern accent, and listened kindly, but said: 

“If the king were to pardon your sister, it would in all probability do her little good, for I suppose the people of Edinburgh would hang her out of spite.”  But Jeannie said:  “She was confident that baith town and country would rejoice to see his majesty taking compassion on a poor unfriended creature.”  The queen was not convinced of the propriety of showing any marked favour to Edinburgh so soon—­“the whole nation must be in a league to screen the murderers of Porteous”—­but Jeannie pleaded her sister’s cause with a pathos at once simple and solemn, and her majesty ended by giving her a housewife case to remind her of her interview with Queen Caroline, and promised her warm intercession with the king.

The Duke of Argyie came to Jeannie’s cousin’s, where she was staying, in a few days to say that a pardon had been dispatched to Effie Deans, on condition of her banishing herself forth of Scotland for fourteen years—­a qualification which greatly grieved the affectionate disposition of her sister.

IV.—­In After Years

When Jeannie set out from London on her homeward journey, it was not to travel on foot, but in the Duke of Argyle’s carriage, and the end of the journey was not Edinburgh, but the isle of Roseneath, in the Firth of Clyde.  When the landing-place was reached, it was in the arms of her father that Jeannie was received.