Hearing the door close, David first opened one eye cautiously, and then the other; then turning gently round, peered over the edge of the bed to see if the coast was clear. Discovering that it was, he threw himself again on his back, and, fixing his eyes on the roof, began thinking as hard as he could how he was to get out of his present dilemma. The sequel will tell the result of his deliberations.
On that same night, about twelve of the clock, David Wemyss' worthy spouse—who had been in great distress at his sudden disappearance, and who was fully impressed with the belief that he had fallen over the quay and had been drowned—was startled by a low tap-tapping at the back door of "The Ship." Thinking it might be some one with tidings of her lost husband, she instantly got up, lighted a candle, and, although under no little apprehension and alarm, opened the door, when, lo! who should enter but her beloved David himself. She instantly set up a scream of delight.
"Whisht, whisht, woman," said David, stealing into a back apartment as fast as he could. "This is no a business to blaw about. The calmer sough we keep the better."
"But, gude sake, David," said his wife, on rejoining him, after having secured the door, "whar hae ye been a' this time, and whar hae ye gotten that awfu-like face?"
"I hae gotten a hantle mair than that, guidwife, although ye dinna see't," replied David. "I dinna believe there's a hale bane in my entire buik. I hae had a bonny time since I left ye; aneuch to serve a man his hale life time; and yet it was a' crammed into ae four-and-twenty hours. But gie me a mouthfu o' brandy, guidwife, and I'll tell ye a' about it."
David now proceeded with his narration, giving his wife a detailed account of the series of adventures related in the foregoing pages. To these we have now to add only a reference to one or two points, which will be considered, probably, as requiring some explanation.
First, as to how our brother of St. Anthony escaped from Lady Wisherton's. This he effected by the simple process of stealing out of the house after dark. There was no other way for it, and he was fortunate enough to succeed in the somewhat hazardous attempt, by dropping himself from a window of a story in height, at the back part of the house.
Who the person was who first laid hands on mine host of "The Ship," on his first appearance in his new character, or by whom he was employed, he never certainly knew, but suspected afterwards that he was a retainer of Lord Borthwick's, who was then in Leith with the Queen Regent. Whither, however, he meant to have taken him, or who the sufferer was for whom the last duties of religion were wanted, he never learnt; nor, indeed, for obvious reasons, did he ever inquire. The whole, in short, was a subject on which David Wemyss always thought the less that was said the better; and, acting on this opinion, it was one which he carefully abstained from making matter of conversation.
All his caution, however, could not prevent some hints of his adventure from getting abroad. These hints some of the little ragged scapegraces of the Coal Hill wrought into the following rhymes, which, in dark nights, they were in the habit of shouting in at the door of "The Ship," to the great annoyance of its landlord, who might frequently be seen rushing out, stick in hand, to inflict summary punishment on the offenders:—
"Davie Wemyss gaed oot a priest,
By filthy lucre temptit;
Davie Wemyss cam hame again.
And thocht naebody kent it."