Rescue.
“Ye maraudin’ villin, take that! And there’s for ye too, ye deevil!” exclaimed a low, deep voice, and then another heavy, flapping blow was struck; there was a crash, a scuffle, another blow or two, and then came the sound of a heavy fall, succeeded by another, and the crackle of breaking twigs.
“Heaven save us!” ejaculated the newcomer. “There goes half the pots off the stand, and, by all that’s good, one of them’s gone right amongst the azaleas!”
Then there was a perfect stillness, unbroken even by the night wind, which had lulled once more, when, after listening at the door for a few moments, Alexander McCray, smiling at his opportune arrival and successful exploit, closed the portal, and slipped one of the bolts. Then, taking a box of matches from his pocket, he lit one, and then applied it to a candle in a sconce over the side-table.
“Why, my puir, daft bairn!” he said, tenderly, as he drew the gag from Jane’s teeth, and cut the rope which bound her feet. “It’s cruel treatment of such a flower. I’d have been here sooner, only I had to go to the tool-shed for a weepun; and it’s lucky I did,” he said, showing the spade with which he had dealt his blows.
“Oh, McCray!” sobbed Jane, “I’m ruined for ever, and undone!”
“Not you, my wee blossom,” cried McCray, stoutly. “You know now what a villin he is, so I won’t be ragging his character, seeing that he’s done for for ever. An’ I won’t blame ye a bit, not a wee bit, my sweet lassie,” he continued, as he tenderly chafed her swollen wrists. “Ye made a mistake, and trusted a rascal, and not the first poor daft chiel that did, to her cost. But he won’t forget the spade of Alexander McCray, of Galashiels, in a hurry, my lassie; and it’s all a gude act of Providence that I—”
Sandy stopped short, for he remembered the rabbit.
“It’s all gude luck,” he continued, “that I happened to hear ye whisper out of the lattice, and then came this morning to rake out the footsteps. I’ve been watching sin’ ten, that I have, and had no chance of warning ye when I saw the rogue had two to help him. And even then, my lassie, I thought they were only to take care of him, instead of being midnight robbers. But I sune fun them oot.”
“Oh, Mr McCray, it was a blessing you came!” sobbed Jane.