“Guid forgi’e me, Johnnie, I clean forgot the puir soul.”
Reaching the little cottage, they found its new-planted garden a trampled wilderness, its windows shattered, its newly painted door battered from its hinges, and within, a scene of cruel wreckage.
“Ah, well,” laughed Sir John fiercely, “my Lord Sayle yet lives!” And then was a light foot upon the dark stair and my Lady Herminia faced them, very pale.
“Guid be thankit ye’re here, my bonny Rose!” exclaimed Sir Hector fervently. “Hoo is yon puir Penelope?”
“Alive, sir! You were in time, I thank God. I have put her to bed and shall remain with her. I pray you bid my aunt to me hither and the maid Betty.”
“Ah, Rose,” cried Sir Hector, catching my lady’s hands and kissing them, “thou bonny, muckle-hearted lass! O Johnnie, was there e’er sic a maid as our Rose?”
“Never, Hector—there never was! For Gad’s my life, Rose is not, was not, nor ever will be——”
“Eh—eh, Johnnie?”
“The lady before us, Hector, is merely that blooming ‘toast,’ the bewitching Barrasdaile.”