'I am confounded, Mrs. Boague! Who ever could have supposed it? But the evidence is so circumstantial, it is impossible to doubt. It seems providential that I should have come here to learn all this. And that he should have presumed to come to Auchlippie, philandering after Sophia! Would nothing less than my daughter do for him? The reprobate! But oh! He shall smart for it!'
'Ca' canny! mem. Has the young leddy a kindness for him, think ye? It's sair wark to bawk young luve. He's a likely chield eneugh, an' micht mak no sae ill a gudeman, noo the daffin's by. It's no aye the warst o' the men gangs wrang about the lasses. As for that limmer, Tib Tirpie, I'd bring her to shame. The cuttie stule's a' she's gude for, wi' her gumflowers an' her veils, cockin' her neb at decent folk, an' scancin' at my tuscan bonnet, that was gien me by my ain gudeman, the year he married me. But, as I was sayin', gin the young leddy had a rael kindness for him, ye're no bund to ken a' 'at gaed afore; and let byganes be byganes. It'll a' blaw ower.'
'But there's nothing. He no doubt has paid my daughter some attention, or at least has come a great deal to the house; but she is far too well-principled a young woman, to have any liking for a man who has not proposed and been accepted by her parents. In our rank of life, Mrs. Boague, things are not done exactly as they are in yours.'
'Aiblins no, mem. Ye think ower muckle o' the gear for that!' said the other, the radical once more rising within her, and the colour coming to her face. But the rattle of wheels without and a knock at the door changed the current of their thoughts, before the two had time to join in wordy battle, in which, perhaps, victory might not have chosen the gentlewoman's side.
Mrs. Sangster, with profuse thanks and salutations, climbed into the tax-cart, while the anxious mother busied herself in pulling her numerous brood from among the horse's feet. The vehicle at length was safely started on its return down the glen, without damage done to any of the children. Mrs. Boague returned indoors, bearing the most refractory of her offspring in her arms, and the last that was heard of her was the sound of maternal discipline and the wails of the culprit, echoing down the glen till it was smothered in the mist.
Arrived at the inn, Mrs. Sangster found the gentlemen ready for dinner. She grumbled at the delay, but submitted; she would, however, on no account allow the minister's repose to be disturbed, and assured Mrs. Tuppeny that with his delicate constitution, it might be as much as his life was worth, to let him get up again that afternoon.
Having dined, the party made haste to be gone, under pressure of the old lady's impatience; for of all the anxieties of that anxious day the most harassing to her now was that Roderick would come down and join them on the home-going. That would be dreadful, yet how was she to forbid him? He had come as her guest, and he had, in all probability, saved her life a few hours since on the hill. It needed advice and consideration to decide what she should do or say at their next meeting, in view of the dreadful revelations of his depravity which had been made to her.
She wanted to sleep over it, and felt, to use her own pietistic phrase, deeply thankful, when at last the inn was safely vanishing in the distance, without her having met him.
Had she but known she might have spared her fears. Roderick was really ill; too ill to observe that she neither came nor sent to enquire for him. He tossed about on the bed where he had lain down some hours before, hardly asleep and not quite awake. The heat of a fire and a feather bed, too many blankets, and Mrs. Tuppeny's toddy, had thrown him into something like a fever, yet fatigue and general oppression had stupified him past seeking relief. When the stupor lessened, a dull hot aching was in every joint, and he moved restlessly on the bed. Then the heavy eyes would close again in a kind of slumber, but the restless thoughts refused to go to sleep. An inarticulate anxiety clung to him, and he climbed up endless precipices in his dreams. Up and up he would drag himself, and anon Sophia would appear higher up still on a peak above him, and he would climb and climb to reach her. As he approached, her features would change, and, slowly taking the likeness of her mother, she would spurn him, and then with a cry he would lose his hold, and begin to fall down and down through endless depths of nothing, till at last in utter panic his limbs would move, and the spell of the nightmare broken, he would awake.
Thus between waking and sleeping, the afternoon and the weary long night wore away. The sun was shining at last upon another day, and though manifestly ill, he was able to get into a gig and be driven home to Glen Effick.