settled among
us on her jointure.

This Mrs Dalrymple, having been long used to the loose morals of camps
and regiments, did not keep that strict hand over poor Jeanie, and her
other serving lass, that she ought to have done, and so the poor
guileless creature fell into the snare of some of the ne'er-do-weel
gentlemen that used to play cards at night with Mrs Dalrymple. The
truths of the story were never well known, nor who was the father, for
the tragical issue barred all enquiry; but it came out that poor Jeanie
was left to herself, and, being instigated by the Enemy, after she had
been delivered, did, while the midwife's back was turned, strangle the
baby with a napkin. She was discovered in the very fact, with the bairn
black in the face in the bed beside her.

The heinousness of the crime can by no possibility be lessened; but the
beauty of the mother, her tender years, and her light-headedness, had won
many favourers; and there was a great leaning in the hearts of all the
town to compassionate her, especially when they thought of the ill
example that had been set to her in the walk and conversation of her
mother. It was not, however, within the power of the magistrates to
overlook the accusation; so we were obligated to cause a precognition to
be taken, and the search left no doubt of the wilfulness of the murder.
Jeanie was in consequence removed to the tolbooth, where she lay till the
lords were coming to Ayr, when she was sent thither to stand her trial
before them; but, from the hour she did the deed, she never spoke.

Her trial was a short procedure, and she was cast to be hanged--and not
only to be hanged, but ordered to be executed in our town, and her body
given to the doctors to make an atomy. The execution of Jeanie was what
all expected would happen; but when the news reached the town of the
other parts of the sentence, the wail was as the sough of a pestilence,
and fain would the council have got it dispensed with. But the Lord
Advocate was just wud at the crime, both because there had been no
previous concealment, so as to have been an extenuation for the shame of
the birth, and because Jeanie would neither divulge the name of the
father, nor make answer to all the interrogatories that were put to
her--standing at the bar like a dumbie, and looking round her, and at the
judges, like a demented creature, and beautiful as a Flanders' baby. It
was thought by many, that her advocate might have ma