The serving-man having done his errand, now left the room, retiring with the same careful step and respectful manner with which he had entered, and left David once more to his own reflections.
In these, however, he was permitted but a very short indulgence. His attendant had not been gone five minutes, when the door of the apartment was again gently opened, and an elderly lady, of tall and majestic form, arrayed in a close fitting dress of black velvet, with a gold chain round her neck, from which was suspended a large diamond cross, entered the sick man's chamber. It was Lady Wisherton herself. Approaching, with stately step, but with a look of tender concern, the bed on which her patient lay—
"It rejoices me much, holy father," she said, "to learn, from our good and faithful servitor, William Binkie, that your reverence begins to feel some symptoms of amendment."
"Ou, thank ye, mem, thank ye," replied David, with no small trepidation; for the dignified and stately appearance of his visiter had sadly appalled him. "I fin' mysel a hauntle better, thanks to your leddyship's kindness—takin' ye to be Leddy Wisherton hersel', as I hae nae doot ye are."
"You are right in your conjecture, good father," replied Lady Wisherton, rather taken aback by the very peculiar style of his reverence's language, which she did not recollect ever to have met with in any other person in holy orders before. The circumstance, however, only puzzled her; it did not, in the smallest degree, excite in her any suspicion of the real facts of the case. "You are right in your conjecture, good father," she said, "I am Lady Wisherton."
"So I was jalousin, mem," said David, who, by the way, we may as well mention here, had made up his mind to endeavour to avoid exposure, by not saying or doing anything to undeceive Lady Wisherton as to his real character, and to trust to some fortunate chance of getting, undetected, out of the house.
"O father!" said Lady Wisherton, bursting out into a sudden paroxysm of pious excitation, "what is to become of our poor persecuted church? When will a judgment descend on this unholy land, for the monstrous sins by which it is now daily polluted. Oh, dreadful times!—oh, unheard of iniquity! that a priest of God—a father of our holy church—should be attacked on the public streets of this city, and put in jeopardy of his life by a mob of heretical blasphemers! When will these atrocities cease? Oh, when, when, when?"
"Deed, mem, it's no easy sayin," replied the subject of this pathetic lamentation. "They're awfu' times. Nae man leevin ever saw or heard o' the like o' them. There, doon at Leith enow, they're murderin ane anither by the dizzen every day, and no comin a bit nearer the point after a'. Heaven kens whar it's to end. In the meantime, they hae gien me a confounded lounderin; I fin' that in every bane o' my body."
"You have been sorely abused by them, indeed, father," replied Lady Wisherton. "But a day of retribution is coming. You will be avenged, terribly avenged."
"There was ae fallow, in particular, amang them, that I wad like to see gettin a guid creeshin," replied David: "that was a great big scounneril o' a blacksmith, wi' his shirt sleeves rowed up to his shouthers. He was the warst o' the lot. I got mair and heavier waps frae him than frae a' the rest put thegither."