"Secretly?"
"Y-yes, me laird!"
The viscount looked relieved of a great fear. He saw the great disturbance of his servant's face, but ascribed it to the effect of his interview with the condemned man, and sympathy for his awful position, and he inquired:
"How did Frisbie look, Cuthbert?"
"Like a ghaist; na less! pale as deeth; trembling like a leaf about to fa'! and waefully distraught in his mind!"
"Did he get an opportunity of reading my note while you were with him?"
"Oh, me laird, I maun just tell you! I hope there was na ony great secret in that same note."
The viscount started and stared wildly at the speaker, but then everything alarmed Lord Vincent now.
"What do you mean?" he asked:
"Oh, me laird! I watched my opportunity, and I gi'e him the note in secrecy, as your lairdship tauld me; and I stooped and whispered till him in his lugs to keep the note till he was his lane, and read it then. But the doitted fule, gude forgi'e me, didna seem to compreheend; but was loike ane dazed. He just lookit at me and then proceeded to open the note before my face. Whereupon the turnkey lad takit it out fra his hand, saying that the prisoner, being a condemned man, maunna receive ony faulded paper that hadna passit under the observation of the governor, because sic faulded packets might contain strychnine or other subtle poison. And sae he took possession o' your note, me laird, before the prisoner could read a word of it; and said he maun carry it to the governor whilk I suppose he did."