The farmer was too happy to write an order for any amount within the limits of his last farthing, and getting pen and ink, he wrote the cheque.
"And you couldn't tell me the name of the woman with the mice; but I can tell you," he continued. "It is Margaret Davidson; and, hark ye—come near me, man—if you are called upon by any one with the appearance of a sheriff's beagle, or whatever he may be like, for the name of that woman, say it is Margaret Davidson, and that they will find her between Lerwick and Berwick. Do you comprehend?"
"Perfectly."
"And, moreover, you are to tell every living soul within ear-shot, servants or strangers, that it was that very woman who gave the dose to the lass, and that the woman herself does not deny it."
"Gude Lord! but is all this true, Mr. M——?"
"Is it true your wife did it, then, you d——d idiot?" cried the writer, using thus one of his most familiar terms, but with perfect good-nature. "Don't you in your heart—or hope, at any rate—think the Lord Advocate a liar? and has his lordship a better right to lie than I or Meg Davidson? Isn't the world a great leavened lump of lies from the Cape of Good Hope to the Cape of Wrath? And you want your wife hanged, because the nose of truth is out of joint a bit! Ay, what though it were cut off altogether, if you get your wife's back without being coloured blue by the hangman? But, I tell you, it's not a lie: the woman with the white mice says it of her own accord."
"Wonderful! the woman with the white mice!"
"The woman with the white mice!" echoed the writer.
And, getting again upon his legs, he hurried out, throwing back his injunctions upon S—— to obey his instructions. In a few minutes more he was again upon the road, leaving the clatter of his horse's hoofs to mingle with the confused thoughts of his mystified client. Arrived at the High Street, where, as used to be said of him, he could not be ten minutes without having seized some five or six persons by the breast of the coat, and put as many questions on various matters of business, just as the thought struck him on the instant, he pounced upon one, no other than the confidential clerk of the fiscal.
"I say, man," seizing and holding him in the usual way, "have you catched the woman yet?"