"I have paid well for my love-errantry," said he, as he took a handkerchief, and wiped the sweat from his face. "There is not another beauty in Scotland for whom I would have toiled as I have now done. Have I given them the slip? Mayhap I may, unless I am right in that fearful conjecture, suggested by the appearance of my strange pursuers."
"Ho, there!" cried the voice of a man, rushing up on horseback. "What is this, Robert?"
"My father!" ejaculated the youth; "what has brought you from Craigton at this hour?"
"Robert! Robert!" ejaculated a voice from a bedroom window, at that moment drawn up—"why have you placed a woman in my bedroom, and locked her in?"
"Is that you, my love?" rejoined the father, in answer to the cry of his wife. "Why, here is some infernal mystery. Your mother and I arrived here to-day. We heard you were at St Boswell's, and I left her here that I might go and join you at the market. Now I have returned to witness a scene that baffles all my wits. Here is a man who has a claim upon you which your mother corroborates by her extraordinary inquiry."
The cavalcade at that moment came up—Giles in the rear, still brandishing his rung, and muttering incoherent threats against the abductor. The youth was surrounded: his father cried for information, his mother screamed from the window. Giles demanded restitution, and the voice of the abducted female was heard in shrill tones over all.
"Ha! Matty, lass, this is sad wark," cried the farmer, on recognising the voice of his wife.
"Is it possible, Robert Melville," said the father, "that you could disgrace your family and your pedigree, by carrying off the wife of this honest farmer—a woman stricken in years—and place her in the bedroom occupied by your mother?"
"It's owre true," cried Giles, with something like a suppressed laugh. "I see her face at the window. He came to Kelpiehaugh habited as an auld man, wi' a grey beard stuck on his chin, and a scratch wig on his head; and, in return for a supper and a bed, carried aff my helpmate, wi' whom I hae lived, in love and honour, for thirty years."
The scene was getting more extraordinary. The young man was sceptical of the truth of Giles' statement; but he could not disprove it by stating what he conceived to be the veritable fact—that he had run away with Mary, the young daughter of the farmer of Kelpiehaugh. He looked at the latter, then turned up his eyes to the window, where he then saw only the face of his mother. Her cries still rung in his ears; the father called for the key; Giles insisted on the truth of his statement; and the inquiries of the servants mingled with the general confusion. By an impulse he could not resist, he gave his father the key; the door was opened, and the mother, who was now dressed, came down-stairs, along with her husband, followed by the female, on whom they turned eyes in which wonder and indignation alternated their suitable expressions. The female threw back her hood.