 brought on a
succession of slow and lingering feverish attacks, which greatly impaired his
health, and at length rendered him incapable even of the sedentary duties of the
school, on which his bread depended. Fortunately, old Mr. Whackbairn, who was
the principal teacher of the little parochial establishment, was sincerely
attached to Butler. Besides that he was sensible of his merits and value as an
assistant, which had greatly raised the credit of his little school, the ancient
pedagogue, who had himself been tolerably educated, retained some taste for
classical lore, and would gladly relax, after the drudgery of the school was
over, by conning over a few pages of Horace or Juvenal with his usher. A
similarity of taste begot kindness, and accordingly he saw Butler's increasing
debility with great compassion, roused up his own energies to teaching the
school in the morning hours, insisted upon his assistant's reposing himself at
that period, and, besides, supplied him with such comforts as the patient's
situation required, and his own means were inadequate to compass.
    Such was Butler's situation, scarce able to drag himself to the place where
his daily drudgery must gain his daily bread, and racked with a thousand fearful
anticipations concerning the fate of those who were dearest to him in the world,
when the trial and condemnation of Effie Deans put the copestone upon his mental
misery.
    He had a particular account of these events from a fellow-student who
resided in the same village, and who, having been present on the melancholy
occasion, was able to place it in all its agony of horrors before his
excruciated imagination. That sleep should have visited his eyes after such a
curfew-note, was impossible. A thousand dreadful visions haunted his imagination
all night, and in the morning he was awaked from a feverish slumber, by the only
circumstance which could have added to his distress, -the visit of an intrusive
ass.
    This unwelcome visitant was no other than Bartoline Saddletree. The worthy
and sapient burgher had kept his appointment at MacCroskie's with Plumdamas and
some other neighbours, to discuss the Duke of Argyle's speech, the justice of
Effie Deans's condemnation, and the improbability of her obtaining a reprieve.
This sage conclave disputed high and drank deep, and on the next morning
Bartoline felt, as he expressed it, as if his head was like a »confused progress
of writs.«
    To bring his reflective powers to their usual serenity, Saddletree resolved
to take a morning's ride upon a certain hackney, which he, Plumdamas, and
another honest shopkeeper
