For the first time the thought struck me, and that with a pang which made me leap to my feet, that she had accompanied her father, and was gone! gone, perhaps, to a nunnery in France! gone, and lost to me for ever! “Hilloa, Peg!” and I thumped the floor with the poker, “Peg, I say! as you would not have me in another fever, come here!” She came to the door: the poor old creature’s eyes were swollen and blood-shot: she made a frightened curtsy to me as I stood, the papers crumpled up in one hand, and the poker in the other.—“Peggy; oh, Peggy! where is your young mistress?”
“Save us, your honour! Ye are na weel; sall I fetch you a drap cordial?”
“Your mistress? your mistress? where is your young mistress?”
“Oh, sir, dear! take anither posset, and gang to your bed.”
“To the devil I pitch your posset! where is your young mistress? where is Madeline O’More?”
She turned to escape: I leaped forward, and caught her by the shoulder—“Since ye maun ken, then,” she screamed, “by God’s providence, she’s on the saut water wi’ the Square, her father”—I sank back upon the sofa—“wha,” she continued in a soothing strain, “has left me to take charge o’ your honour’s head till ye can gang your lane: A’ the ithers are awa, but wee Jeanie and mysell; and ye wadna, surely your honour wadna gang to frichten twa lane weemen, by dwamin’ awa that gait, and deein’ amang their hands? But save us, if there’s no auld Knowehead himsell, wi’ that bauld sorner, Aleck Lawther, on a sheltie at his heels, trottin’ doon the causey!—Jeanie, hoi, Jeanie, rin and open the yett.”
I lay back—sick—sick—sick. The old man, booted and spurred, strode in—
“I’m thinkin’, Willie, ye hae catched a cloured head?”
“If I do not catch a strait-waistcoat, sir, it will be the less matter.”